I posted this to Facebook a few minutes ago. Almost instantly it was pulled off the site as spam. The bot claims I'm being misleading, etc.

More than anything else... This may explain how my Mother's posts don't appear when she's sure she sent them to me. Thanks for protecting me from my 80 year old Mother, Facebook.

I think this is a clear sign that its time for me to stop using Facebook. My Mother just isn't that dangerous any more. I didn't think long dead silent movie stars were either.

A site asks you to allow ads on their site, to make an exception with your ad blocker. Ok, I do. Usually because I like the site and use it often.

What is the very first ad you see? An ad for an ad blocker! Of course!

Is it some form of sarcasm?

After using the site, with ads, you quickly remember why you turned on your ad blocker. The ads take over the content. I either give up using the site, find an alternative, or some other workaround. Or turn the ad blocker back on so I can use the site.

I think people who ask you to make an exception and turn off your ad blocker never go into their own site and look at it with their own ad blocker turned off. It would be a shock for them to see how much the ads take over their site. Like trying to enjoy a garden taken over by massive invading weeds. Not the odd wildflower but aggressive weeds with thorns and prickles.

If you have a site and ask people to accept ads make sure you fully know what you are asking. You could be driving people away from your site, permanently.

An application to write about 2 topics for another website. (I never heard from them but when I looked more the site seemed to be shutting down).

ASCII Art

The Forgotten Art Made for the Internet When it was Still New Does ASCII Art Belong, Forgotten, in the Internet Archives? The Internet Art Almost No One Knows About The Art of Making Pictures When You Can't Draw a Straight Line

I still make ASCII art. I've seen it called a few things: keyboard art, type-based illustrations and text art. I think it is the most often stolen, and yet unknown, art form on the Internet. But, that's not what I really want to write about. ASCII art is technically challenging, like putting together a puzzle. It can be pretty, it can even be coloured so it isn't just black and white. Images can be tiny or large, depending on the size of your viewing screen and the patience of the artist. I began making ASCII art because I thought it was amazing and I found a way to draw long after I had given up ever creating images myself. Making an image I feel proud of boosts me up and other days, when I'm down, making something small and simple at least helps me feel I accomplished something creative with the day. I know ASCII art is outdated. Once MS started bringing images into email and game developers discovered pixels, text art began a decline into musty archives. I still love it. Misplaced, ridiculous loyalty possibly, but I still make ASCII art. Not a great focus for a story, but the real story is the art and I'm not short of good images to showcase with a post on Messy Nessy.

https://asciiartist.com/ http://asciiartist.com/ldbasciiart/ - Private link which I don't share on the site. All the ldb art is created by myself so I can use whatever works to illustrate the post. I take screen shots of the art in MS Notepad with the font set to bold. That seems to work best/ easiest.

Rural (Urban) Exploration

Finding Lost Ontario with a Digital Camera and the Wrong Shoes Exploring Abandoned Places While Not Really Believing in Ghosts Exploring Lost Ontario While Saving the Odd Garden Flower Exploring Abandoned Farmhouses in Ontario Photographing Old Ontario Farmhouses

I am 56 and still photographing old, derelict farmhouses here in Ontario. I didn't think that was unusual until younger people told me they were surprised I was so old. (They said it much kinder than that). I guess I am a relic, photographing other relics. But, I love the old buildings, places and the odd bits of this and that I find along the way. Abandoned and forgotten gardens with surviving plants among the wildflowers. A green Pyrex bowl which I found buried in the dirt as I walked through a field after photographing a farm house which was a wreck then and is now demolished. I don't like to call them wrecks. It seems an unkind word. Modern ruins is a little more gentile. I seldom enter the old places. Partly because that crosses some polite Canadian line of courtesy and respect to the house itself. Partly, because I'm middle age and not too skinny. Exploring old places is a bit risky. I can talk my way out of questions from people, it helps being an older woman then. Plus, I really do love the old places and listening to the stories people will tell once they decide I'm no threat. Being caught is not a problem for me. Bigger issues have been animals like birds, bees, and frogs underfoot. Unknown ground when walking around long grass and deep snow can trip you up, literally. Anyway, this is the story I would like to write. Mostly about exploring as an older woman and the places I have found. Photos and imagery are no problem, I have been exploring with a digital camera since 2006.

https://ontarioexploration.com - Not a great link to see the images right now. I have just bought software to add watermarks to my images and I've changed my site from WordPress . A lot was lost along the way. I have all the photos on my hard drive, just not yet on the site again.

This blog continued on... Divorce Darling. October, 6, 2017 - Update - Decided to close Divorce Darling and move the content here. I don't know if this will be an active site. I'm not that interested in writing the topic as it ends up being about others more than writing for myself. 

Unfortunately, I can't find anything to migrate posts and images (content) from WordPress into Blogger. There is a site which everyone passes around but it does not seem to work. Instead it opens spam links when you try to use it. If you click a second time to upload your file, it then spits out a "converted" file. But, this converted file is going nowhere when I try to import it into Blogger. So, after hours of giving it a chance to work, I am ruling it a spam trap. 

In the end, you can only import your CMS into the same CMS again. Conversions seldom work between CMS's. b2evolution I did have some success with but I just let my domain go so there isn't a domain to host it on now. The adult site never made a cent to support keeping the domain for it. 

I'm no longer sure when I originally wrote this. It may have been around 2010. I did leave for years and then came back in 2016, I think. But, the whole thing was dumped by AOL (Verizon/AOL) and became Curlie. You can visit the directory, still being updated by volunteers, at the new site. Curlie.org

It stopped being fun or interesting. Tired of getting email from sploggers who think I should list their great site full of ads. Tired of attitude from editors who don't seem to care about the sites they edit just being right or better than anyone else. I salute the old Dmoz and the people I knew then. It's not here any more and now neither am I.

I joined the Open Directory Project in November of 1998 so November of 2007 seems like a good time to leave. Sort of rounding out the date. I really enjoyed the first few years. The years after that were kind of like dealing with a bitchy old relative you just seem stuck with for some reason. I couldn't quite give up being an editor. I loved finding new sites, new ideas and new things to try and learn about on my own. But, the pettiness and back biting was always there. I felt I was always being judged and nit picked at. I had not felt appreciated or welcome even for a long time.

So now I'm gone. Maybe I will amass my own mini directory for the rural exploration sites. Not sure I want to take on another project though. I don't need to. I have the Flickr group and that is enough. It's really all I wanted, a local bunch to share photos and locations and maybe get together for coffee. So, it's all good.

A good time to leave when the categories I cared about most have pretty much fallen into dust or splog. Writers Resources is mainly splog, not much of real quality there any more. ASCII Art is covered in dust bunnies. It gets me sadder each time I have to delete an old listing gone by the wayside. Urban exploration is growing but I was told by another editor that I don't know what I'm doing there. She deleted a bunch of subcategories and listings I had done. That rankled me.

Anyway, the end of the Dmoz era has cometh upon me. I won't miss it. I won't look back. I sure won't miss the old shedragon moniker either! I outlived that several years ago. :)