LiveJournal Major Notes: March header, Charitable vgift, Squirrels in love
We're finishing up a few odds and ends before our next major release. Our mighty Ops guys continue to slay spambots and balance load times on a highwire without a safety net (which is kind of tough dressed in full ninja gear). Down on solid ground, we're celebrating this week's virtual birthday party with a warm toast to pants. If you can rearrange the letters of your favorite city, state, and/or country (feel free to combine these elements) to spell one of Frank's favorite treats (e.g., pants, wire, paper, etc.), he'll send you over a can of whipped cream to top it all off (provided you return the empty can for his midnight snack)! And, with that, let the word scrambling commence!
Stuff you should know:
- We're still working on the delayed/missing notifications issue. Sorry, we're frustrated too. We'll keep you posted.
- Last week, we became aware that a recently-implemented script was overwriting affiliate referral fees for some of our users. Once we confirmed this, our Ops team quickly removed the script. Please be aware that, while we may beta-test other affiliate scripts down the line, we will take greater measures to ensure that no existing user-referral arrangements are impacted in any way.
- While we plan to stick to a weekly news schedule, if we have a release in between regular newsletters, we'll post here to keep you informed. You can also check lj_releases for current release information.
If you have a paid or permanent account, you can send five free Squirrels in love vgifts through Monday, March 15th at 4pm, PST! You'll see both the free and the $0.99 squirrels displayed until they've scurried off to their new homes. Please send only one vgift at a time. In other words, you'll need to complete check-out and start a new order for each vgift you send. If you're not receiving vgifts (from friends and/or Frank), you may have disabled them. To enable vgifts, visit Edit profile (under Profile), scroll down to the bottom of the page, and select 'Do not disable' from the drop-down menu. Have fun!
Help is on the way!
We're pleased to announce the winner of our first charitable vgift poll, Doctors without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières, which provides critical medical care to under-served populations around the world. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of the proceeds we raise from the sale of this vgift (we'll cover credit card fees). We invite you to start recommending nonprofits for our next fundraising drive at ljnewscontests. We'll take suggestions through the month and post a poll in the news during the first week of April to let you choose the recipient. We thank you, again, for your passion and generosity.
We've crowned a header
Congratulations to ohterlus for submitting the winning header, which will go live next week and keep us leafy through mid-April! You can submit designs for our next header contest at ljnewscontests now until March 31st. We'll post a poll in the news to let you decide which header will sit at the top of LiveJournal from mid-April to mid-May. All artistic interpretations are welcome. The winner will get a $25 LiveJournal gift certificate. All other contributors will receive $5 gift certificates. Our heartfelt appreciation for sharing your talent and creativity!
For this week's winning photo and more adventures with Frank & Meme, we'll catch you under the cut!
Featured photo
Congrats to foxsong, who won our fourteenth LJ_photophile poll. Click here to vote for next week's photo of the week!
Frank confronts the big cheese!
Frank gave serious thought to your expert advice and concluded that his passion for pants was, in all probability, a perfectly healthy desire. But given that he wasn't sure why he wasn't sure, he decided he might benefit from counseling. So when Meme demanded that he seek help, Frank replied: "Yes, I will go see Dr. Fox today!" Meme eased into a playful grin. "I'm so happy you're doing this for us!" Frank averted her gaze, catching a glimpse of Dr. Nan smirking at her purple-painted claws. He squeezed Meme's hoof: "I love you, but I’m actually doing this for me. I hope you understand." A somber chill passed through Meme's warm chocolate eyes. "Oh, sure, that's even better!" She bahhed with forced cheer, ambling away. "I'll see you next week for your follow-up exam," Dr. Nan winked, causing Frank to stumble over his cast out the door.
It was a quick drive over, but it felt much longer, a dense silence replacing the couple's usual banter during their favorite radio show, Wait Wait, Don't Smell Me. In a few minutes, they pulled up to a squat gray building. "So, you'll pick me up in an hour, ... umm, won’t you?" Meme broke into a good-natured smile. "Of course I'll be here! No matter what, I still love you."
Suite 101 was open, so Frank let himself in. The room was a cross between a dentist's office and Austin Power's den, dark leatherette sofas drowning in a sea of neon throw pillows; posters of irridescent waterfalls covering all but one wall, the latter lined in gold-framed degrees scripted in unfamiliar languages. Upon spotting Dr. Fox in her ebony armchair, Frank startled. "Vhy are you zo zurprized? Vhat, you azzumed I vould be ... a man?"
That was not it at all. Still, Frank wasn't exactly sure what to say to the grandmotherly penguin gawking back at him. "I just thought you would be ... well, a fox!" The doctor jotted something down on a pad and nodded. "I zee. Go on." That's when Frank smelled something brutally familiar. He sniffed deeply, his throat growing hoarse. Finally, he eyed the culprit wrapper in the doctor's trash bin: 'grilled vegetable and goat cheese on pumpernickel.' "You know," Frank rasped in a low tremor, "my mother worked on a dairy farm." The doctor scribbled feverishly, rolling a wing through the air encouragingly. "Ach, your mozher, now vee are getting somevhere." … But Frank could not bring himself to continue without getting your input. He would like your perspective on whether Dr. Fox's choice of sandwich is acceptable. Tell him about your own favorite midday meal, and he'll send you a portrait of Dr. Fox to hang upon your wall.
Thanks, again, for sharing your time with us. We'll see you next week!