The more I think about this, I suspect that your index page is simply too long and bulky, way too many index templates in MT trying to rebuild - causing your site to time out before your index page could load.

Kill some of the template rebuilds, strip down your sidebar and all the stuff running on it, and I suspect your old index template will run fine again. I could be wrong, but .... well, I've said for months that your site takes forever to load, so putting the pieces together leads me to this.

Posted by Christine at November 13, 2004 10:07 PM

Oh thats not fun. I wish i could help more but i dont really know the inner workings of MT but you might wanna check a few things.

Iv seen an errorlike this before on cgi scrips becasue of inproper line breaks in the script (dos style stuff like if the file was opened in windows with word or something when you resave it is f's it all up) Was the file uploaded in ASCII mode when you uploaded it? Also are the permissions set ok. Might wanna do a quick chmod 755 of the file.

Posted by Xerxes at November 14, 2004 03:17 AM

I started having this problem too! I am running MT 2.661. I was unable to post and receive comments, but the other site that uses my mt install wasn't having a single problem. My rebuilds stopped when I got to the index rebuilds. I ended up going through all of my index templates and rebuilding each individually. I found that it was my blogtimes plugin in that was causing problems. Once I removed the plugin, my site is rebuilding fine. I notice that you use Blogtimes as well, maybe you should look into that...

-S

Posted by Steph at November 14, 2004 10:28 PM

I've passed my name along to you a few times for this, but nothing ever came of it. Maybe this time I'll manage to get in on the action! :)

Posted by Trinity at November 13, 2004 08:51 PM

Hi , hook me up would you please? I could definitely use the money with christmas coming so fast.
Thanks a ton for doing this!

Posted by kat at November 14, 2004 09:50 AM

let me in on the action :)

Posted by girlwonder at November 14, 2004 07:47 PM

Well, since my readership is started to climb, perhaps I should do this also. Please send along info.

THANKS!
Love your blog!

Posted by vern at November 15, 2004 02:14 AM

I'd love to get in on the action. Could you hook me up?

Thanks

Posted by Dana at November 15, 2004 10:18 AM

Hey, hook me up too, will ya? Extra money is always nice, and useful.

Posted by Brian at November 28, 2004 09:23 AM

Sure, sign me up, please.

Posted by Lisa at November 28, 2004 01:03 PM

Hmmm..

Posting a scan of your sig was not a good idea... you may want to pull that one down as it could come back to haunt you :(

Sorry... I am a paranoid security person who sees Identity Theft all too often :(

Posted by John P. Hoke at November 11, 2004 06:57 AM

Regarding the last comment, now you only need to post a photo of your birth certificate and recent bank statement and I'm away!

Posted by bigblue at November 11, 2004 03:14 PM

1. Your Favorite Bra 2. Picture of yourself since your Beautiful. 3. Your feet.
Nice other pics by the way!

Posted by Terry at November 12, 2004 10:02 AM

w00t!

Posted by Mike at November 12, 2004 07:05 PM

aw. after seeing your sig (and now, the comments), you should probably take that picture down. damned ID theft.

mmmmm cleavage.

Posted by mikey at November 15, 2004 11:02 AM

Alas, it was not to be. While Wolves of the Calla was still pretty much classic Dark Tower, you could tell by Song of Susannah that the path to the Tower had been lost. This is not to say that they aren't fine books - they are; I particularly enjoyed Wolves of the Calla. But looking at the Dark Tower series as a whole, they don't hold up to the previous books. I believe the difference in the change of tone of the series is King's insertion of himself into the story line as a character, and one that is more important than even Roland himself.

Which brings us to final book in the series, The Dark Tower. For the first four hundred pages or so, despite my misgivings over King becoming a character in his own novels, I still felt that the book was fairly true to the Path of the Beam, if you will. However, after the battle at Algul Siento, where Eddie is shot and killed, breaking the band of gunslingers ka-tet irrevocably, that was no longer true for me.

This is not to say that I didn't expect any of the gunslingers to die; I did, though honestly I thought it would be Roland that did not make it to the Tower's top. What I disliked and thought was untrue to the series was the way that the group disintegrated with that death. At that, the novel quit being about the people that I have loved and worried about became characters in a story.

To me, ever since The Drawing of the Three, this series has been about the people - Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy. By destroying the bonds between them so that I barely recognized who they were anymore. The scene between Susannah and Roland where she elects to leave him and try her luck in the alternate New York is an example. In that scene Oy barely remembers Jake, his best friend, and I just don't buy it. Despite the emotion between Susannah and Roland and the despair that was felt, it all just fell flat for me. Never should their ka-tet have been broken so easily. Logically, I understand that this breaking apart had to happen so that the ending could play out as it did. In my heart, however, I just can't accept it. Thoughout these novels, one of the underlying themes was the way that Roland was able to feel again and learn redemption, especially with Jake. The changes in him have been profound and I don't believe he would let his ka-tet fall apart like that, even if he had to fight Gan himself.

Circling back to King's own role in the story, I did not like it. When the idea of King as a part of the story was introduced at the end of Wolves I remember being apprehensive and thinking that this would either be a brilliant or a horrible move for the book. It's hard for me to really put it into words, but the whole thing came off as a cheat, a way to get out of having to come up with any real story. I'm sure that lots of you will disagree, but that was all that was going through my head the more that I read of The Dark Tower.

In a way, I can relate it to the deus ex machina that was used at Dandelo's house. The first time I came across the term (literally meaning machine of the gods, it's an "unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot" - definition from Dictionary.com) was in one of King's books, perhaps Misery, though I'm not entirely sure. In Misery Paul Sheldon was faced with the difficult task of bringing back to life a dead character, but in a way that was fair; in other words, her death just couldn't have been a dream or some other nonsense. Paul Sheldon was able to pull it off without a deus ex machina; Stephen King was not. I think that right there is telling enough of how the series degenerated.

However, the biggest give away that the novel is not up to par, is King's imploration not to read the coda - where the ending is - and the author's note. In the coda we find out that Roland has been completing his quest for the Dark Tower countless times over. Every time he reaches the top of the Tower, only to begin again in the desert where The Gunslinger began. This revelation made me feel cheated.

I've been reading these books for about half of my life. To have no true ending (though one may argue that since Roland picked up the horn of Arthur Eld that maybe the next iteration will be the final one) is disappointing beyond words. The only redeeming quality is that maybe in the future a final Dark Tower book may be written or that at least I can create an ending that I find more fitting in my own imagination.

I've always looked forward to reading the Author's Note that are usually included at the end of King's novels. In these notes I've always felt that King is, while maybe not my friend, friendly and both respects and appreciates me. In the final paragraph, though, when King says that he doesn't want anyone to drop in on him to discuss the ending and that, "(m)y books are my way of knowing you. Let them be your way of knowing me, as well," I almost feel insulted. Never before has he had to warn readers away from him and a note like this isn't going to change some crazy, determined reader from visiting him and the rest of us already know not to. It's almost an admission that he knows he did not end the series rightly, fairly, and this is his way of avoiding taking responsibility.

I'm afraid that this long-winded post has not been able to truly express how I feel and there are other parts that I didn't even get to (For example, why was the battle at Jericho Hill never explained? We found out nothing more about Cuthbert, Alain, and the others past Wizard & Glass. I also believe that Randall Flagg - a truly evil, sly figure - wouldn't have died as easily as he did at Mordred hands). This series has been such a big part of my life (there were years where not a day went by that I did not think of Roland and his ka-tet and what the future held for them) that maybe no ending would have been able to satisfy me, but deep in my heart, I know that to be untrue. I needed this last novel to give me more closure than it has. Maybe in my dreams Roland will reach the Tower and be able to halt his quest and hopefully, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy will be there as well.

Completed on October 11, 2004.

Ok, now you've made me need to post some of my thoughts on the ending. While I thought along the lines of King about the ending (It's not a good ending, but the right one), there were some points that really bothered me, like the ease that the ka-tet was broken. Crap, I'll need to post something when I have more time tonight.

Posted by amber at November 9, 2004 08:08 AM

I agree that King failed to deliver at the end of "The Dark Tower." In "The Gunlsinger" King hints at something huge during the conversation between Flagg and Roland. One of the most exiting things about the series was the sheer size of the concept King was hinting at. The idea of the universe being tiny and insignificant in the grand scheme of things shows the enormity of what King hinted at unvieling. Clearly he never knew how the ending would pan out, but he could have done better. In my opinion he couldnt answer the questions he asked in the the first book of the series and this is the result. I love the series and enjoyed all of the books immensley, but felt utterly cheated at the end, because nothing happens. The tower itself is a symbol of resolution, closure, and whilst I didnt expect much closure, I hoped for at least some. A hint at the concept that must have been dancing on the fringes of Kings mind when he thought up the idea of the tower, but in the end nothing. Another great book, but alas, another that fails to live up to the hours of suspense that came before it.

Posted by Dan at April 12, 2006 02:35 PM

I loved the Chekov one.

Posted by M E-L at November 12, 2004 03:51 PM

Actually, that's been a rule for a very long time and the penalties for getting caught range from having those earnings removed or getting removed from the program yourself.

Posted by kat at November 8, 2004 07:17 AM

And, in exchange, feel free to shop through mine!

Posted by KB at November 8, 2004 10:38 AM

Yeah, I buy through another bloggers and she buys through mine. We've had that deal for about a year and half now.

Posted by kat at November 8, 2004 02:00 PM

Yeah, every once in a while, it gives me my credit, but its not supposed to. Like it gave me commision on a few of my christmas gifts last year, even though I paid for them.

I'll have to remember to use your link this time so at least somebody gets credit :)

Posted by kristine at November 8, 2004 10:39 PM