Hi there. I'm one of those people who's been around for a while and not posted much. The reason I haven't posted much is that I know I'm not very good at Flash, and that my stuff doesn't really have a place here. I've put up a couple sound boards, because those are pretty difficult to mess up, but everything else; not here. So that's me.

Now, I know you're excited to share what you're doing with the world. I know that you're eager to get it out there and get feedback from the community on it. Believe me, I get that. And I know that as long as you dedicate yourself to the craft, you're going to get better and better, one day perhaps even eclipsing the best this site has to offer now.

However, I also know that you're not there yet. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with being new to Flash, because after all, we all were at one point. You'll be great eventually, but right now... not so much.

The most important thing to do in order to get better is to practice. Do as much work in Flash as you can, and over time your drawings will be better, your animations will be smoother, and your code will be cleaner. A close second to that is getting feedback; that's where the rest of us come in.

You see, there are two places on this site where you can upload your work for feedback. The first is the Portal, where most of you are already putting your stuff. As much as I know you're tempted to, you probably don't want to upload anything there just yet. The reason for that is that we tend to be rather harsh judges when it comes to test animations, and so if you upload something that says "My first flash" or "Test" it is likely to die quickly and violently. When you're just starting out, the Portal is not the place for you.

The other place you can upload is your dumping grounds. This is a place where you can upload your Flash file and have people in the Flash forum download it so they can give you advice, pointers, and help. If you are just starting out, this is where you want to put your stuff.

Basically, your dumping grounds are for works in progress, tests, and things you know are unfinished and/or bad. The Portal is for polished works that you are proud of. So please, be objective with your Flash in deciding where to put it. Just from looking around at the average content on this site, you know whether your work is up to snuff, so upload it to the appropriate place, for your own benefit from not having it blammed, and for ours for not having to blam it. Believe me, it will work out better for all involved, especially you.

Cheers and good luck

It kills me when obvious shovelware makes it through the portal. And blatant resubmissions too, while I'm at it. People need to pay some fucking attention when they vote. Most shovelware is good, you have to look deeper when judging!

You know what? Make me a Flash mod. I made Lt. General in B/P last night, and by next week I'll be in the top 300; I'm already top 130 in active B/P'ers. I see almost every flash that goes up, let me use that power for something good.

I'm in the process of writing the last chapter of a horror novel right now. I've known who was going to live and who was going to die for ages now, and even knowing that, I just wrote a death scene that was so sad I had to hold back my tears as I wrote it. Weird feeling. Now I have to take a break.

So there are a couple submissions this afternoon that open up continuous print prompts. With a bit of dickering around I've found a really easy way to close it down without having to close your browser. I've done this myself on the first one, so I know it works in Windows running Firefox; if the operating system you're running has a comparable program, and if your browser works the same way, hopefully it will work for you too.

If it happens, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to open up Task Manager and go to the Processes tab. Somewhere in the list will be plugin-container.exe; this is where your flash files run. End all instances of it until the print prompt goes away, then go and refresh any pages that were running something in Flash.

That's it; you have escaped the print-script. Hope this helps.

Seen this around?

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DONT READ THIS. YOU WILL BE KISSED ON THE NEAREST POSSIBLE FRIDAY BY THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE.TOMMOROW WILL BE THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE. NOW YOU'VE STARTED READING THIS. DON'T STOP. THIS IS SO FREAKY.1. say your name ten times.2. say your mom's name five times.3. say your crushes three times.4. paste this to four other games.If you do this, your crush will kiss you on the nearest Friday.But if you read this and do not paste this, then you will have very bad luck.SEND THIS TO 4 GAMES IN 143 MINUTES. WHEN YOU'RE DONE PRESS F6 AND YOUR CRUSH'S NAME WILL APPEAR IN BIG LETTERS ON THE SCREEN. THIS IS SO FREAKY BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY WORKS
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Fuck. You. Everyone. Get the fuck off my website with this bullshit. I want to punch you in the throat. Die in a fucking fire.

I'm tired of new artists who upload a game or movie and announce "This is my first Flash, be kind" or something similar, as if it being your first flash is supposed to make us more lenient in our judgment. I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: We are not here to make you feel good.

If you're uploading your very first ever Flash, what the hell is wrong with you? You know it sucks. You know that we'll think it sucks. So why would you want our first exposure to your work to be something that everyone on the planet already knows is a piece of shit?

If anything, we should be harder on you for being stupid enough to upload your first attempt. Announcing it to us is not a signal to us for leniency, it is a signal to us that you're an idiot and need to be treated harshly for it.

If you are not proud of it, you should not be uploading it. Don't try to get us to take pity on your crappy Flash because it's your first one; understand that because your Flash is crappy we are going to make damn well sure we tell you it's crappy.

Unless you're one of the very few people in this world who happen to spit out a masterpiece their first time around, keep your first 10 Flashes to yourself. And if your submission gets blammed, don't bitch and moan about it, just accept that it was garbage and be better the next time around.

We are here to make you feel bad about yourself so that you can learn that you suck and get better the next time. And we are very good at our job. Now stop whining and get back to work.

Here's the latest from How To Not Suck. It's about how George Lucas' most recent claim - Greedo always shot first, you just didn't notice - shows that he doesn't have any respect for you as a Star Wars fan, and what you can do about that.

Hold on to your dicks, everyone, there's no reason to panic. It's fresh, it's new, and it's going to take some getting used to. Initial impressions for changes as dramatic as this are almost always artificially more negative than they deserve to be, so use it for a few days and then decide whether you like it.

In the meantime... titty sprinkles.

I am now gainfully unemployed. This is by choice, and I am happy about it.

So too should you be. SO TOO SHOULD YOU BE!

I've been building myself some liveblog software, and I've been using it to liveblog its own development. I'll be using it for all my small projects, I just think I should finish making it before moving on to the other things I'll use it for.

So for anyone who's interested in such things, here's the link. There's also an RSS feed there, so if you watch that then you'll know when I'm doing stuff.

And that's pretty much what I've been up to lately. My life is very exciting.