Questionable business models

Just went through 350 circles of hell (Dante was an optimist) to renew the subscription on my Norton anti-virus for the laptop. Why would some people who _want_ my money make the process of spending it so difficult?

Just for starters, when you click on the "renew" popup that the local program generates, the next screen asks you for a key code. Which you can only get by going to their website and buying the subscription, a separate operation not reachable within the "renew" process....

Rain last night, sun now, steam soon. I don't _want_ to mow the lawn and scrape paint.

Fanfic

This topic keeps popping up like an internet ad, newsgroups and journals and such, so I thought I'd use it as space-filler here and see if I can stir up trouble.

I put a lot of time and effort into my characters and worlds. I'd like to get the maximum pay out of that time and effort. I don't know whether fanfic adds to or subtracts from the bottom line. But the concept makes me queasy.

Okay, this is where the men in the white coats ask me to come along quietly. That time and effort thing -- after I've lived with characters for a year, two or three or more in the case of connected books, those characters become _people_ to me. Real people with real personalities and histories, living real lives somewhere out there in another universe. I've written stuff that got cut out of the published edition, and as far as my backbrain is concerned, it still happened.

I'm often nasty to my characters. After all, torturing characters is part of an author's job, part of playing God. But somehow, having some _stranger_ playing God with my characters, my victims, making them do and say stuff out of character, STUFF THAT NEVER HAPPENED, turns me off in a big way. It feels like a violation of the character's integrity.

Not gonna call it "rape" because of PC considerations, but it _feels_ similar in kind if not in degree.

On the gripping hand, having one of my stories mean that much to a reader, be that real, there's no denying it would be a boost to the ego. Just don't let such perversions loose in the world and we'll get along.