Tell you why I don't like Monday

Hello Fyreballers,

It is a slow and sickly Monday for yours truly. I went to bed last night with a bit of a sore throat and woke with one of those coughs that makes people look at you in abject horror saying, "Are you sick?!" In the interest of providing too much information, I also seem to have something going awry with my right eye. The past couple of days when I get up it is all crusty and today it is pretty red. It doesn't hurt or itch or anything, just oozy.

I'm pretty sure I've got either Smallpox or Ebola. It was lovely knowing you.

So this particular Fyreblog will be rather short and not too sweet. I'm thinking I've even started to get a fever. A fact which putting in this blog is going to cause my mother to call, but don't mom. I'm fine. I assure you top men are looking into it. I'm drinking plenty of fluids, i took a tylenol, and I'm getting rest. I will be back in fighting form in a few hours I'm sure.

In the meanwhile, you lovely, loving fyreballers can help me get better by remembering to fyre your favorite fyreballs to Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, etc... We want more people to see us and check us out! As ever, if you have any opinions, problems, advice - we welcome it with open arms (well, in my sickly case, I won't without one of those suits they wore in Outbreak).

xxoo
~kath=)

Work from home Friday!

Howdy, Fyreballers!

So, with many members of Fyreball off to parts around the globe we decided to declare today a work from home Friday! That means I've been working from the comfort of my uncomfortable (but oh-so-affordable) futon today! It was a good thing, too, because Seattle got something of a blizzard today. Which made me sort of think "WTF?!?! It is MARCH 28! Stop with the winter already!" Minnie is currently FURIOUS with Mama Nature. I'm also thinking I might need to rethink plans for a pool party for my birthday in June. It might not be warm enough by then!


Lucky for Senator Mike and Canada French Michel it was a WFHF, because the commute today would've been murder. We're all still working, though. In fact, Senator Mike would like to ask for your feedback on the new design! Check out his fyreball here! We want your honest opinions and feedback. These things fuel the machine that powers Fyreball - for you!

Tonight's Fyrefight looks like it is going to be fairly epic. Right now almost 40 of you have signed up to play! We'll break up into several groups -- remember to share some of your favorite screens and films, too! That way we can all see the games we didn't play in.

I'm only a few thousand XP away from 40 now. I'm gonna have to end up on one of those stupid chocobos, though. That bums me out, so I am thinking I'm gonna go rep grind in Undercity for a skelepony. It'll be a pain, but man... I got sick of chocobos in FFVII. I'm not going back, yo!

xxoo
~kath=

Thursday again! YES!

Aloha, Fyreballerz!

So, I know I'm not the only fan of Lost out there that got up this morning and had a brief moment of excitement thinking, "Yes! It is Thursday! Tonight, I get to watch Lost!" and then realized that sadly, no. We are all denied more island adventures until April 24. Nearly an entire month. I need a new constant.

In the meanwhile, I guess I'll be wandering Azeroth - I've decided I want to roll a Warlock (I want a Deathsteed!) but where? Shattered Halls or Deathwing? Hmmm? Or perhaps I'll play Halo 3 or drive through Paradise City... thank goodness video games are there when television fails me. If they weren't I might actually have to go outside. PERISH THE THOUGHT.

In other news, the Facebook App is looking cooler everyday! I'm getting pretty psyched to show you guys some of it. If you're a Facebook user be sure to sign up as a Fyreball Fan. Then I might be able to show you some cool stuff early... who knows?!

In other other news, many thanks to those who submitted some tutorial vids! These are radical! Keep them coming! Sanshyuum's list tutorial was so much better than mine that I made his the official one! Check it out! I'd still be keen to see more! Get creative with them , gang! Show me how nutty you can be.

In other other other news, I guess a mistake was made in yesterday's blog. We reported that the Friday Fyrefight in Halo 3 would be at 9:00 p.m. PST. That was wrong. It will be at 10:00 p.m. PST. I am deeply sorry for this error and by way of apology...here is an awesome photo of Minnie with Tomb Raider Lara Croft!

xxoo
~kath=)

Another wet wednesday

Oh Hai, Fyreballers!

You know they told me before I moved here that it is cold and it rains a lot. That same thing can be said of San Francisco (where I lived before this) and even Detroit (where I lived before that), but now I know those places don't really get rain. Seattle? Yeah. This place gets rain in spades, cats, and dogs. This was another rainy day today so I didn't even leave for lunch!

Last night, many dedicated Fyreballers met online for another Halo 3 Fyrefight. Many thanks to GuzzieStyle for helping to lead the troops into battle ... with each other. You can check out the screens and tales of their antics here. Going forward, we're moving the Halo 3 Fyrefights to Friday night at 9:00 p.m. (PST). Qbix has a sign-up for anyone who'd like to join us!

I'm still updating the tutorial videos. I find that I really hate the sound of my voice and sometimes technologies hates me. Despite my many complaints and excuses I should be able to suck it up and get it done by tomorrow. However, I'd love to see how you'd guys do it, too. Now that you've been on Fyreball a while you know how all of it works! Take a look here where I 'splain what I'm lookin' for. There are t-shirts coming and I'll be looking for reasons to send them to people soon! HINT HINT!

xxoo
~kath=)

You can't help respecting anyone who can spell TUESDAY

Ahoy again, me hearties!

Today is a cold and blustery day at the Fyreball Global Campus North™! My feet are freezing! I've been trying to put together the new tutorial videos while helping Brainy Brian with some of the new Fyreball Facebook app stuff. It is coming right along! Those of you who dig on the Facebook scene will probably really enjoy it. Even those folks that don't will be able to hopefully enjoy an influx of new rad Fyreball users from Facebook!

Speaking of spreading the gospel (was I talking about that? Well, now I am), one huge way that you can do tons to help Fyreball and YOU is by sharing fyreballs that you think are awesome. In addition to sending it on to your friends and anyone with an email address - you can also send fyreballs to Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit. Getting some awesome fyreballs attention on those sites in particular would do wonders for everyone, don't you think? We've made it super easy for you to do, too.

When you come across a Fyreball you're really loving just click the appropriate icon just above the world map!


It is a great day for Halo 3 fans everywhere! Bungie released the Heroic Map Pack for free today! All of you hold-outs can go spend that money you saved on another pizza and 40oz of Old English!

Speaking of Halo! Last week, we had the first of hopefully many Official Fyreball Fyrefights in Halo 3. Tonight, we're going again! Last week, we played at 10:00 p.m. PST. That was mighty late for some of us old fuddy duddies (/me points thumb at herself). We're bumping gametime up to 9 p.m. PST. Sorry to those lovely folks in parts of the world where that's ungodly early. Maybe we need to set up two Fyrefights? I'm also going to see if I can talk the rest of the team into bringing in their X360s to work, so maybe we could do an afternoon Fyrefight some time. If you thought I was bad - just wait until you see the rest of the team. Some of them are awful! It's great!


In other video game related awesome news - World of Warcraft just birthed a huge baby of a patch with Patch 2.4. This patch unleashes THE FURY OF THE SUNWELL. If you hear anything nerdier today I'm wondering if you don't need to get back to work on your costume for Anthrocon. That said, I'm going to try to drop in to Azeroth at some point tonight, too.

xxoo
~kath=)

Ch..ch...ch...Chihuahua! Wait, I mean CHANGES!

Hello, Fyreballers!

We did it! We pushed! We've got all our happy new shiny stuff out there now and the reviews have been mixed, but I think the overall feeling is a positive one. Your feedback has already led us to make some smaller changes.

Just for your viewing pleasure - most of the changes made with this push:

• Inserted default location during sign up.
• Unregistered users can now see the listing of fyreballs sent to Public.
  
• You can now attach your Fyreball account to Twitter, del.icio.us, Flickr, and Xbox Live Gamertags.
  
• When attaching a social network's profile to your account, you get a link to your page on that network in your profile.
• Created 2nd level navigation for settings sidebar.
• Code cleanup for unregistered user viewing public fyreballs listing page.
• RSS feed for all the fyreballs sent to you.
• Design updates a-go-go!
  
• Re-architect parsing code for maximum performance, flexibility, and additional win.
  
• Fix current known bugs in the parser.
• Paginate comments.

Can you guess which ones we took a cue directly from you on? I bet you can! One big cool new thing are the RSS feeds. If you haven't already checked it out -- you should. They make keeping track of your fyreballing even easier.

We also made a small addition to the types of fyreball you can create. Some folks wanted to create a fyreball that they could link to blogs and so forth, but didn't want that fyreball to be sent to the public feed on Fyreball.com. So, we created a classification called 'default'. What that does is make that fyreball public (so you can feel free to send it to digg, reddit, etc...), but it won't go to the public listing for any random person to see. It is one step in the process to make it easier to sort and classify Fyreballs.


Some folks were reporting that Fyreball seemed a bit slower now, but part of that problem is that we changed the naming conventions to add the additional type of Fyreball. When you were visiting Fyreball before the push all the pics, etc were cached and after the push a lot of that had to get reloaded again. Until that stuff gets re-cached - you might notice a tiny bit of creeping. Just quit picking at it or you'll make it worse. We're hopeful that goes away in a day or so!

We're finishing fixing a few bumps here and there (including the thumbnail issues), but if you notice something you think is amiss, don't you hesitate to hit that report a problem/bug link at the bottom of that page.

xxoo
~kath

SATURDAY night!

Here we all are on Saturday! You might not have seen us around fyreball.com proper much today, because we've been climbing like monkeys all over the new stuff, testing it out, checking for cracks, breaks, bumps, etc. We want to make sure it is safe to share with all of you, because we love you and we don't want to see anyone get hurt. We're playing with fyre here, after all. We only want people to burn in good ways.

tricksy, false bugs that sneakDespite all of our rigorous testing, there are bound to be wicked, through and you discover come Monday. When you do just remember to click the report a bug link at the bottom of every page and top men will be dispatched immediately.

In other news - we've got ourselves a real live IRC channel and it is the cat's meow! Read all about it here. We'd love to see you stop by there and say hello!

i'm heading out to the Washington Cask Beer Festival tonight. If you don't already have tickets, I guess it is too late! Oh, sad times. However, I have my tickets safe in hand! HA!

xxoo
~kath=)

This Friday is more like Thursday

So, it is Friday and usually that means it is time to drink ourselves into mirthful oblivion, however, this week we've got things to do! We've got to get the new stuff ready to rock for Monday!


So, with our eyes on the prize we continue the grinding effort to push through Saturday. Sure, it could be worse, we could have to work 20 hour days, chained to an oar, while a blubbery task master screams at us and answers even the slightest moan of discomfort with a crack of his whip. That would be worse than this sure, but somehow that thought doesn't bring me comfort so much as makes me want to watch Ben Hur again.

However, I cannot, because I have to not drink (as much as I normally would) tonight and be ready to come in to the office tomorrow to help test and polish the new updates to Fyreball.

In other news around Fyreball - some adventurous Fyreballers have decided we should create a Fyreguild in World of Warcraft. We're currently debating where we should do this - any suggestions are welcome! I just would like to stay Horde and PvP (I'm more flexible on the PvP than Horde - I really rather NOT be Ally). I've got characters started all over the place, so I don't mind winding up one of them again, or rolling one more. I would say everyone should join me on Burning Legion, but I'm already in a guild there :P Plus, I welcome the excuse to level another one of my characters!

If you're looking for ways you can be helping Fyreball out -- be sure to remember to keep inviting your friends. Remember, too, that hotmail hateses us, so if you or your friends use Hotmail be sure to add fyreball.com to the safe senders list!

xxoo
~kath=)

Thursday is the day before Friday!

Hello, Fiends and Friends!

We're grinding to a slow stop on the choo-choo train of crunch today. We're getting sorta nervous about being able to make our weekend goal, but we've all also committed to working all weekend, too. Hopefully, all of you will reap the benefits come Monday!

We're also starting to see many new faces around Fyreball - don't forget to be friendly and helpful! Make friends! Or else! Even if you're not a fan of WoW or don't want a Figure Print -- think of your friends who do! Tell them about it and have them tell their friends. The more folks we can get here, the better! Don't stop sending your feedback and suggestions, either. We always listen and they help more than you know!

One of the sites that picked up on the Figure Prints Giveaway was Curse.com. They put up a nice lil news story about it today! I have to admit I'd never been to that site, but it is seems pretty slick! Plus they've got sort of a rad fire theme thing going... I dig that, you know.

So tonight, I'll be logging into WoW. Then I'll probably pause my questing and level my fishing skill (my undead boar, Stinkles, loves to eat fishes) while I watch the best show ever, Lost.

In other news - there is a cool little application I've been using called Digsby. The nice thing about it is that it will also keep tabs on your social networking sites - Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. I'm liking it a lot (*however, Hockey Brett has had some trouble with it). They just went into public beta and I'd be happy to send you an invite if you'd like to check it out.

Last, certainly NOT least, Happy National Sweater Day! This would have been Mister Rogers' 80th Birthday. Although I didn't have enough warning to really prepare to celebrate, lucky for me I wear a cardigan almost everyday. It is like my uniform.

xxoo
~kath=)

Welcome WoW Fans!

Greetings to Fyreballers olde and new,

Over the next couple of days we're hoping to perhaps get a few new faces around these parts. To incentivize awesome, savvy folks to check out Fyreball and tell us what they think of it - we're giving away a Figure Print customizable World of Warcraft figurine. They are super awesome and super hard to get. We'll take care of the hard-to-get part if you are the lovely, well-mannered beta tester we know you can be!

It is pretty simple, really:

• Sign-up for the Fyreball.com beta
• Check out how to make fyreballs
• Invite your friends
  
• Make some friends
• Enjoy the show
• Play moar WoW
• ???
• PROFIT (e.g. Win a Figure Print)

If you sign-up and don't get your confirmation email right away - don't forget to check your junk mail. As ever, if you have any questions at all - don't hesitate to ping me or ask one of my super-ultra-mega mods. Also, to all you veteran Fyreballers out there - be kind and helpful...or else! I'm still watching you!

In other news: Fyreball has its own official IRC channel (thanks to KP @ HBO!) You can click here to join (with a super cool java do-thingy-whatzit) or here are the deets to join in the olde fashioned way:

irc.bungie.org
port 6667
#fyreball

Last night, a few of us got to play the first of (hopefully) many Fyrefight Halo 3 games. Sadly, my router decided to hate me so I was only able to totally show off how much I suck at Halo for 3 games. However, good times were had by all and memories can be found here. I hope to do it again next Tuesday! Then the rest of Team Fyreball will hopefully be rested after this very difficult push.

xxoo
~kath=)

Can I has recon?

Good Tuesday to you, my loverly Fyreballers!

I hope everything is going just beautifully for you on this very bright and loud day after St. Patrick's Day. I know they are for me!

So, some of you may have noticed I have not mentioned something in particular for a while. That something is the coveted Recon armor. Bungie was ever so generous with us and granted us the ability to suggest one particularly awesome member of our beta to become the recipient of that oft craved, strangely valued helmet and armor suit known as "Recon".

Many of you know you are forbidden to ask for the Recon or about it. That's not my rule, but one that I think everyone quickly learned the wisdom of. Fyreball has been growing with the help of you all and we've been amazed by how much you've given us. I promise that the time to give back is coming for someone.

Not today, but soon. Like Santa -- we're still watching and making lists of those who are good and those who are not so good and those who have the best intentions, but just don't get it, and edot. We are always paying attention. I won't post the name of the winner when it is time to give the armor to the happy fyreballer, but I will be sure to tell you when it has been given away. We're still watching, because we haven't seen the exact right person, yet. We'll know them when we see them, though, and then they'll know. Then I'll tell you that the recon is gone.

Until then, you can just keep up the awesomeness. We've got our own IRC channel, to go along with the embedded chat stuff we talked about yesterday. I'm also checking out this cool new thing from our new friends Seeqpod called Holla Walla. Take a peek and tell me what you think!

If you love WoW or if you have friends that love WoW you're going to want to tune into Fyreball tomorrow. We're starting another rad giveaway that anyone who spends a goodly deal of time in Azeroth is going to want to get in on.

Also, if you've got time tonight (at about 10:00pm PST) and feel like playing some Halo 3 - we're all getting together to play! It was going to be a competition, but most of the team is on crunch. Everyone who can will be there, though! We hope to make it a regular thing on Tuesdays!

xxoo
~kath

Fyreball Beta Blog: Happy St. Patrick's Day, Fyreballers!

Fyreball Beta Blog: Happy St. Patrick's Day, Fyreballers!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Fyreballers!

Ah, St. Patty's! Green beer, parades, more green beer, leprechauns, a shot of whisky, rainbows, another green beer, those plastic green shamrocks, green beer, and corned beef. That's what this holiday means to me -- how about you?

It was a very busy weekend at Fyreball! I saw so much good stuff coming from you guys. one of the super cool things some space genius stumbled on is that there are a few embeddable chat clients (Xat, Meebo) out there that can work with Fyreball! So, for anyone who has been wanting a private message system - while we craft one -- you might want to try that out! It is pretty cool, too! Xat has a super customizable interface and allows for big group chats. Meebo is really cute and lets people leave messages just for you, too! Pretty rad! Check them out in this Fyreball!



**
In other news, I didn't get to play enough WoW this weekend. You know what I did get to check out, though, is this Figure Prints website. Have you seen these? They look hella cool, if you ask me. Has anyone gotten one of these? They sure are hard to get! Wouldn't it be great to win such a thing?

So, I've got to ask your opinion on something here, gang. We're changing the name of 'Staff Picks', because that name is lame. I've got a couple of ideas and I want to hear which one you like most - I also would like to hear your ideas if you have them. I'll let you know up front that "Hot Balls" was already vetoed. Sorry.

Current suggestions:

• Hot List
• Hot
• Burning
• Blazing
• In Fuego
• On Fyre
• Great Balls of Fyre

Your suggestions are welcome, as ever!

Anyway, my low is getting a little beer, so I need to fix that. I hope you're all having a lovely St. Patties!

xxoo
~kath=)

Freakin' Friday, ya'll!

Oh, Glory Glory! Tis' Friday!

I just had this awesome moment, because I'd been running through my day thinking it was Thursday and then someone reminded me that it is Friday and I danced a little dance of joy! Hurray! What a treat! That is one of those perks of being sorta stupid sometimes, occasionally the simplest things bring me happiness.

It has been one long week of longness for Team Fyreball. We're crankin' pretty hard on our next push, the Facebook app, and some other secret plans. You'll notice that now when you send a Fyreball to your Facebook profile - it shows up in the newsfeed! Don't believe me? Go check it out! Try hitting that tiny blue F under the Public: share it! box on a public fyreball you dig.

We're also doing our best to work out our troubles with Hotmail. In the meantime, if you've invited any friends that use Hotmail - make sure they've gotten the invite. If they haven't - it could be in their junk mail. Then have a talk with them about the other superior choices in email out there ... such as anything or perhaps a monkey riding a dog.

In the meanwhile, keep up the awesome fyreballing! I love getting all this good stuff from the intertubes. This weekend I'm looking forward to watching that John Adams mini-series on HBO. What will you guys be up to?

xxoo
~kath

Hurray! It's survey time!

Oh, my most beloved 'ballerz!

It is a wonderful afternoon here in Seattle! I've been working hard all week on this survey. I did my best to try to keep it shorter, but there is lots we'd like to know about you guys! If you have any problems with it -- shoot me an email right away so I can fix it. I'm not a survey Jedi master, yet.

Click Here to take the kick-butt Fyreball and You Survey of Face Rocking 2008!

We've been takin' what they are givin' because we are workin' for a livin' all the live-long day. We're making some rad strides on the site. Senator Mike showed us some beautiful design tweaks for Fyreball today - perhaps when we get the list a bit more narrowed down I can sneak a few peeks over here to the Fyreblog!

Last but not least - SPAM. We all hate it and sometimes in our neverending fight to destroy it there are innocents that get hurt.

I know a great many of you are inviting your friends to Fyreball - the problem is that the invite emails are sometimes getting snatched up by eager spamfilters. Especially, it seems with Hotmail and MSN.

You can help us out a great deal by checking in with any hotmail friends to see if they got their invite. If they haven't have them check their junk mail for your lovely invite - and even better please mark any messages you get as not spam.

If you'd like to add us to your safe sender list here is how:

1. Click here to go to the safe sender page on hotmail
2. Copy and paste fyreball.com into the dialog box.
3. Click - Add to list

Thanks, team! Together we're making Fyreball more ossum everyday!

xxoo
~kath

Wicked Wednesday!

Happy Mid-Week, Fyreballerz!

I'm seeing tons of good stuff out there and loving it! You're doing a fantastic job of keeping us all from doing our jobs! That is only part of the reason why we're having to slightly push out the St. Patrick's Day Push. Instead of March 17, we're now going to be revealing Fyreball's hot new look on March 24 - exactly one week later. Part of the reason is that we're all perfectionists - and what we're going to do we want to do properly the first time. The other reason is that it occured to all of us at once that doing a major site anything on a day where we're also planning a Keg Stand Marathon™ is probably not a good idea. That's right, team! Little by little...we are growing up!

Speaking of marathons! Forrest Brian G has made some huge strides in the super top secret Fyreball Facebook Application! Oh, CRAP. That is supposed to be super top secret. Well, sadly, the backspace key on this thing is busted, so I guess that cat is out of the freezer! He's gotten so far along on it we're going to have to start testing it out. That's where you guys can come in and help! Those of you that have a facebook profile now and would be willing to be guinea pigs for us please let me know. Go ahead and join the Fyreball Fans group on Facebook and post a note there letting me know you'd be keen to test it out. I swear it requires an absolute minimum of pain and/or danger. You might even end up with something special...like new friends! Oh, fine, we'll probably be able to send you a bit of Fyre-schwag, too.

xxoo
~kath

Two for Tuesday!

Greetings, Fyreballers!

It was another slower day here at Fyreball's Global Campus North™. However, down at Fyreball's Global Campus South™ things are really cookin'! We're still on track to have some rad new things to show you around St. Patrick's Day. We're currently taking a hard look at a few different things that may or may not move that date a tiny bit. I will, of course, keep you informed. These changes are a result of your input and feedback. It has been pretty amazing to see how well you've all taken to Fyreball!

Like I said in yesterday's post one of the things I really enjoy is seeing games that pop up organically. One of the sort of games in Fyreball was created before most of us (including me) were here. My favorite of those is the Fyrefight. Basically, someone posts one video/image/blog/game/whatever on a particular (usually very particular...as in strange, odd, anomalous) and then the following posts have to follow the theme. There isn't really a loser here -- although posting off topic is generally frowned upon -- everyone wins because you basically harvest the internet for everything entertaining about that particular topic. Check out this latest Fyrefight involving Japanese Game Shows.

What I'd love to see is more stuff like this! I've already seen a few, but I know all of you space brains out there have more up your astro-sleeves. Send me links to any you think of, or post your ideas for some. If you've got any ideas on how we can make existing ones more fun -- share those, too!

So, coming up in another couple of weeks we're going to have a big, new giveaway. I'm not supposed to even be telling you this, but I'm terrible with secrets. It is bigger than the t-shirt thing and involves another triple-A game. I can't tell you more than that. Pete will probably kill me for saying this much. If there is no blog post tomorrow -- remember that I loved you all.

On a TOTALLY TOTALLY UNRELATED NOTE do any of you guys play World of Warcraft? I do and I dig it. I'm gradually grinding my way up to a mount. I'm a casual player - so I'm not playing 30 hours a week or anything. I also suffered from Altiholism for a bit so I've got several characters between the levels of 20-30. If anyone plays, let me know -- I'm usually on Burning Legion, but like I said... I got alts everywhere.

xxoo
~kath

A Case of the Mondays

Howdy, Gang!

Today started slow and ended gently. I woke the day in the company of a killer migraine. They are no fun and so I got in late. Senator Mike and La Loi are both down in Portland and Hockey Brett is somewhere in the wilderness with his brother hunting for things to kill and/or catch and release. Pete, Jeremiah, and I are all that's left holding down FBGCN™


That doesn't mean that stuff isn't still happening, though! Down at Fyreball Global Campus South™ in beautiful Portland they've been hard at work getting ready for the St Patrick's Day Push. I don't totally understand all of that manner of space magics and shenanagans, but it makes Fyreball end up being more awesome. Of course, they are powered by your feedback - so keep it coming!

One of the things I've really enjoyed is seeing how you guys find new ways to use fyreball. TKD Sketch has begun posting his own reviews of games, like Lost Odyssey. It is a pretty cool way of getting your stuff out there.

There have also been a series of different games and such I've seen develop. Like The 1UP Game and the Corrupt a Wish game. These are some of my favorite things to see, because they are ways of using Fyreball that we couldn't come up with without you! Keep it up! I love it!

Of course, you're all probably wondering who won the Fyreball T-shirt contest...well... the winners need to all be contacted. Rest assured if you won, I'll email you in the morning. If you don't mind my giving your name I will, if you'd rather keep it secret that's cool, too. I hope you guys understand! We want to respect folks privacy if they want it!

I was going to have a survey ready for you, too, but we're still working on making it as short as possible. Which would you guys prefer? One longer survey or a couple of shorter surveys that I can dole out over the week? Which is less lame in your opinion?

Also, to those who called my wee level 40 hunter weak - PFFT! Everyone starts somewhere! I'm keepin' at it! I'll get to 70...someday...probably right in time for them to raise the level cap with the expansion. :P

If you're one of the elite fyreballers who love to get the word out want to reward you for your efforts! Send me links to wherever you post

http://www.fyreball.com/beta

and perhaps you'll get something rad!

Tune in tomorrow when I should have news of a new tiny contest and a survey!

xxoo
~kath

High Five Friday!

I love Friday! Don't you? This week really flew by and I think it was because we had such lovely company on Fyreball. Thank you! Many of you invited your friends and it shows. We've now closed the t-shirt contest, but that doesn't mean you should stop inviting your friends - in fact we're so happy with how well we've managed to handle everyone visiting so far that we want to bring on even more people!

How can you help us with that? Well, here is a nifty link that will take people to where they can request an invite. This way if you're on a forum with cool folks, or have a blog, or are somewhere where you know great people (like you) usually hang out you can offer this link so they can come check us out, too!

http://www.fyreball.com/beta

On Monday I'll contact the t-shirt contest winners to let them know they won. I'll also have a new wee contest and maybe a happy, handy dandy little survey for you guys! Who doesn't love a survey!? They are like tests, only more lame! *sigh* Sure, we all know surveys are usually a pain, but I'm going to do my best to make it short, fun, and easy. I appreciate all the suggestion fyreballs I've seen, too! The survey gives us an easy way to get some real concrete data -- it even lets us make cool charts and graphs which people in suits that make important decisions always feel better about seeing.

In the meantime, have a great weekend! Keep fyreballin'! Even if I don't blog over the weekend I'll still be out there enjoying everything folks send me and sharing the stuff I find, too. I'll also be trying to get my lil hunter all the way to 40 and perhaps playing a bit of that Halo 3 game.

xxoo
~kath

There is good to be found...

Have you noticed that there is a great deal of douchbaggery on the internets? However, there is lots of good things, too. I'm happy when you wonderful fyreballers help me to find some of the golden bits of sunshine and good in the vicious, inky murk of my daily web wanderings.
There were a couple of great and worthwhile causes I saw fyreballs for out there including:

• Play Halo 3, Help Beenie get a new kidney!
• Adopt a Greyhound
• Best Flash Game

Okay...so the last one is more fun than anything, but regardless...worthwhile!

We also had a visitor today! Where in the Hell is Matt? He's at Fyreball Global Campus North™! We got into a really cool discussion about how he uses Fyreball. He has a very elite friends list. It is small and he's very careful with it. He doesn't create a ton of fyreballs, but he passes any that he likes on to several people. He carefully protects his friends and doesn't invite a ton of crap in.

He's on the extreme side of our user spectrum on the selective end. The other end is the prolific user end. That's someone who creates a ton of fyreballs and has a ton of friends. Maybe they don't even know who half of their friends are -- they create anything and everything and send it out to everyone. The challenge we face in our design is making sure that all the tools and resources we provide for you will be useful and excellent regardless of where you fall in our rainbow of users.


That's really tough! It is also why your feedback is so vital - the more we hear from you guys the more we understand all the different ways that you like to use Fyreball and the ways that you want to use Fyreball.

xxoo
~kath

No one will hump us on this day!

Another day at Fyreball Global Campus North™ is quickly drawing to a close. Soon, the pit boss will pull the tail of the bird that sings the end of day whistle. Then we'll all shuffle home to our personal lives.

Today, we met with Senator Mike about some of the visual changes that you'll get to see in the next push (tentatively scheduled for St. Patrick's Day - on account of needing luck). They are hot-hot-hot I tell you! We're listening to all of your suggestions and know that we've already changed the priority on a few updates because of them. I want to tell you more, but we need a bit more time to make sure before I get everyone all excited about it!

Perhaps one of the biggest things you guys are requesting is the ability to edit Fyreballs. We want this, too, but it takes quite a bit more doing than you'd think it would. The space brains in charge tell me it is a very complicated matter and when we do it we want to be sure we do it right the first time! So, it won't be part of the St. Patrick's Day update, but rest assured top men are working on it and when I have an idea of when you might see it I'll be sure to share it with you! In the meantime, the preview button is your friend!

Tomorrow is a special day here at Fyreball Global Campus North™ ! We're having a very special visitor -- Matt Harding! That's right we know Where the Hell is Matt Matt! He's going to be at FGCN! He's an olde friend of Fyreball and is one of the original 'ballerz. He's also the star of one of the most popular early Fyreballs! Taking a look at that older fyreball you can start to get a sense of how far we've already come. That's all because of YOU and your participation and feedback. Thank you!


In the meantime, keep up the excellent-nesses. I've seen tons of amazing fyreballs and met lots of incredible people already. The best thing you can do for us is to keep it up! Invite anyone you think might also enjoy it! The more the merrier!

xxoo
~kath

You can has T-shirt?

Greetings, Fyreballers!

Another beautiful day on Fyreball is drawing to a close. We've been all cranking and working on a couple few things that we're getting ready to show you on St. Patrick's Day. Changes are coming in small, gradual stages. We are listening and responding to all of your amazing feedback as fast as we can. We so appreciate all of your understanding while we're growing. We keep uncovering small things that we need to change/fix/improve and we can't do it without you. So thank you!

I've signed up a few new folks as admins around Fyreball. You've probably already seen Deacon roaming around, but soon you'll get to see acmoxon, too! He's my newest recruit and admin. If you have questions, he's a great one to ask, too.

Today, Senator Mike (our resident brilliant designer) whipped up this kick-ass design suitable for slapping on a t-shirt! Isn't it radical?



Wouldn't you like one? Well, you can win one! To enter to win all you need to do is invite at least 10 people that sign-up to Fyreball before Friday, March 7. Everyone who does will be entered into a hat and a select number will be picked to win. If you have any more questions about this particular contest feel free to ask. Eventually, we might be offering these for sale. Top men are determining this in high-level meetings even now.

xxoo
~kath

These berries taste like...burning...

So, for some reason Hotmail (MSN's webmail client) really seems to hate Fyreball. Someone out there told someone that we asked Yahoo! Mail to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance (not true!) and then during homeroom Google overheard us talking to Facebook about the app we're making for it and well... long story short... Hotmail is currently not speaking to us. Seriously, I guess many emails from a fyreball.com addresses are automatically being marked as spam or - worse - being bounced away. You can help get those emails by marking them as safe when you get them. If you've invited someone who has a hotmail email address and they haven't showed up you may want to have them check their spam folder for your invite. If you'd like to add us to your safe sender list here is how:

1. Click here [http://mail.live.com/mail/options.aspx?subsection=6] to go to the safe sender page on hotmail
2. Copy and paste fyreball.com into the dialog box.
3. Click - Add to list

Top men are currently in negotiations with other top men to sort all of this out.

It has been a busy weekend for Fyreball! We're so excited to see how excited everyone is to explore the site! We've seen a ton of really cool Fyreballs, too! Keep them coming, everyone! Most of you don't need the friendly-I-shouldn't-have-to-tell-you-common-sense guidelines I'm about to list. However, some of you do:

• Really think about it before you fyre it. Ask yourself - Why am I fyring this? What is interesting about this?
  
• If you're fyring it to public - do a quick scan of the public fyreballs to see if someone else already fyred something similar. If they have, go ahead and say something about it in their fyreball. Also, think about adding that person as a friend. You're clearly interested in the same sort of thing.
• That said - if someone doesn't accept your friend or group request - leave it alone. Please, take the hint and don't ask them again.
  
• If you're fyring several things about a certain topic - keep it all in one fyreball! It makes it easier for everyone to have the related content together.
• Make a group or list of friends you know are into the same things and use friend-to-friend fyreballs to keep the conversation relevant. Even better - invite your friends who aren't here, yet!
  
• Finally, c'mon, guys. If you wouldn't say something to someone's face - you probably shouldn't say it to them on the internets.

Like I said - the vast majority of folks have been pretty darn amazing. All of Team Fyreball has been so happy with everything you've been creating. We're doing our best to keep up with all of the new fyreballs, too! You'll see us out and about, but if you need our attention right away for any reason don't hesitate to click the feedback link at the bottom of every fyreball page (or here). We really are listening to every bit of feedback we've gotten so far and you're making us stronger, faster, and better.

Be sure to check out the staff picks for some of our favorite fyreballs that we've noticed (or created ourselves for your enjoyment) and we like.

xxoo
~kath