My friend and Webmaster Jack informed me tonight that he plans to migrate Simple Tricks to a new server sometime this week, so if you try to access the site in the next few days and can’t find it, that’s why. Rest assured that you won’t be deprived of my sparkling prose for long…

So are we all sick of talking about Star Wars yet? I’m not, myself — I have a whole list of possible SW-themed entries that I wanted to write before Opening Day and didn’t get around to — but I can see how the topic may be getting a little old for my three loyal readers. Therefore I’m going to move on to other subjects, for your sakes. Because that’s the kind of guy I am. I care. Well, and also because I worry that I’m driving everyone away with my monomaniacal fanboyism.

Anyhow, I’m going to let Star Wars rest for a bit (although I may still work up some of those ideas I mentioned and post them from time to time). I’ll be back later today with my first post-Sith, non-Star Warsy entry. Also, I’m thinking about making a few changes to the site. Nothing major, just a couple of things to freshen the place up, so be watching for those in the next few days/weeks. I may even add some items to my long-neglected photo gallery…

It just hit me: today is the first anniversary of my initial foray into online writing. Hard to believe so much time has passed so quickly, and even harder to believe that I was initially worried about finding enough subject matter to make this blog worth the effort. If anything, I have far more things that I want to write about than time to write, but I suppose that’s a standard complaint from writers and people who just plain talk too much, like me.

In case you’re the sort who’s interested in statistics, I’ve made 179 posts in the last twelve months — 180 counting this one — and have received 408 comments, including my own replies to other people’s remarks and discounting spam comments. I wish I had some way of determining the total word count of all that blather, but, unfortunately, the Movable Type software doesn’t track that statistic. (I suppose I could copy and paste it all into MS Word, which is capable of counting words, but that seems like more effort than it’s probably worth…)

Simple Tricks and Nonsense hasn’t exactly gone the way I imagined it would — I’ve done far more linking to other material and far fewer Top Ten lists than I originally planned on — but it’s been fun for me, and hopefully for everyone who’s been reading. I joke about having only three loyal readers, but I know that I actually have a few more than that, and I thank each and every one of you for your interest in my egocentric ramblings.

One final observation: I never did get around to writing that entry about my all-time favorite movies. Maybe sometime this year…

I’ve been fighting a low-grade bush war against comment spam for months and I’m finally at the end of my rope. (If you don’t know, comment spam is basically the same thing as email spam, except it infests the comment threads on innocent blogs such as Simple Tricks and Nonsense.) At first it was just a trickle of Cialis ads, between one and three a day. Annoying, but nothing that couldn’t be cleaned up easily. Lately, however, I’ve been besieged by gambling-related spam, and this stuff is much more aggressive that any I’ve seen before. Last night, I spent an hour deleting a single day’s worth of comments left by “online poker,” “clay poker chips,” “monogrammed poker chips,” and, the worst, most prolific offender of them all, “texas holdem.” Enough already!

I briefly considered disabling ALL commenting on this site in order to stop these bastards, but I believe the nuclear option is always your last option, and besides, one of the biggest pleasures I get from running this blog is the feedback from my three loyal readers. So, here’s the compromise deal I came up with:

I’ve already closed the comment threads on those entries that seem to be “attractive nuisances.” (Oddly enough, the filthy little Cylons that generate these foul deposits seem drawn to any entry that mentions Abu Ghraib or Spider-Man. I’d like to know what twisted machine logic equates those two subjects with poker.) Also, since the spam seems to appear mostly with older entries, I further intend to close the comments on all the entries from last year when I get the time to do it. And finally, in the future, I plan to close all open comment threads at the end of each month, so don’t delay in leaving your thoughts while the entries are fresh.

I hate to do this because people do occasionally remark on older entries, but like I said, I just don’t have the time or patience to keep playing this game. It’s ridiculous that I have to look for ways not to play it; one of these days, I’m going to do an entry on how unchecked marketing is draining the vitality from our culture. In the meantime, I’m hoping my plan will curb a lot of the spam activity. If you have a thought you’d like to express on an entry that’s already been closed, please feel free to email me.

Due to some back-end fun with the server, which no doubt required my buddy Jack to do much skulking about in darkened hallways after normal working hours, my last two entries didn’t immediately appear when they were saved to the site. This is a good thing for you, my three loyal readers, because now you’ve got lots of reading matter to distract you from your jobs on a fine Friday morning. Have fun, and I’ll hopefully be back a little later with a few thoughts on the first Kerry-Bush debate…

I noticed this morning that one of the photos in the previous entry was really tiny. I’ve fixed the problem, so you can now tell what you’re looking at…

I noticed this afternoon that several people have left comments over the last couple of days. Nothing too odd about that, except that I didn’t receive the usual e-mail notification that there are new comments. In other words, Simple Tricks is not telling me when I’ve had visitors, and I don’t know why. I’m looking for the cause of the problem. In the meantime, don’t get your feelings hurt if you leave a comment that I don’t promptly acknowledge…

Due to my relatively clumsy HTML coding skills and inattention to fine details, the previous entry went public with a couple of errors, one of which no doubt left my readers wondering just what the hell photographs of the CBS Studios lot had to do with drunken friends. I’ve tracked down the bug and restored the missing block of text, which describes about a fun little game my friend Cheno told me about. If you are so inclined, go back and skim the entry for the link.

Also, as long as I was in a tinkering mood anyway, I’ve added a long overdue copyright notice and my e-mail address to the site. I have a couple of other things I’d like to do as well, but I’m not sure if this is the day to do them…

Read the title of this post in the appropriate Monty Python-esque voice, then behold this news: Simple Tricks and Nonsense has just endured its first legitimate spamming incident. For some reason, my review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind attracted the attention of a penis-enlarging snake-oil salesman. Interesting…

The offending comments (which consisted of a dozen or so links to various unsavory websites) were easily deleted, but I really hope this doesn’t become a common occurence.