Dia's Webpages v4.0

In sequential previous incarnations, the website grew from just a tiny little thing, hosted as a free subdomain in Bravepages (mistressdia.bravepages.com), to a regular site with many pages, its own domain name and substantial content. I have been very proud of it and very sad when I couldn't add content regularly. It wasn't the format, it wasn't for the lack of material (gosh I wish I could stop being interested in so many things!). No, it was the perpetual fight against the clock. The clock is usually the winner, trust me. Many other things: health issues, sidelines, work, work sidelines. Go figure. I am not as impenetrable as I wish I was. This is basically a blog so lets put a date to this: May 1st. It's actually more like the 2nd by now, but May 1st has a better visual to it. First day of the last month of spring, 2008. Almost three years since the last update to the previous version.

Credits:

The table layout and web graphics design are ©2008 Dia.
Created using Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop by Adobe.
Main website package with domain name and Guestbook are hosted by Bravenet since 2002.
Weblog powered by Blogdrive.
Electronic mail addresses WILL BE cloaked using Javascript.

The images that make up the banner were found in a Youtube video by GoTHFuL (I know, inspiration hits you from left and right these days!) featuring goth images as a background for the lovely music of Dark Princess' song "Join me in life". I don't know where he got them from, but all credit goes to the ones that took them and participated in them.

Other images: Some are linked back to official sites where you can find info on how to purchase or just enjoy the items they represent in their natural habitat. The rest are avatars and gifs I found online throughtout many years and I find them funny and appropriate for the point across. If any are familiar and you want to be credited, please contact me and I will do so.

You can contact me by sending email, soon to be linked and obfuscated (not that I don't trust the spammers). For a quick hello you can use my blog's "comments" function or the tag board. Don't forget to stop by my Guestbook.

Re: Dia

Dia came alive online in 2001 but her physical counterpart, me, has been around for quite longer. Born at the end of year 1970, at a suburb of Athens, Greece, of Greek, Spanish and Celtic heritage, I have been lucky to have received a global education in Science, Math and Literature, the latter in both Greek and English.

My science was, is and always will be, Biology, especially Cellular and Molecular. My interests, scientifically, lie in cancer research, understanding the way the host tissue reacts and crosstalks with the malignant cells. Physics was my next-to-best passion and still lingers around in the form of occasional bursts of interest in nuclear, astronomy and optics.

A traveler, by nature and nurture, I have been in a number of places in Europe, Africa and America while Asia still eludes me. Photography, a taste acquired early in my life, has been a memorable companion throughout these journeys. For no specific reasons I lacked a scanner for a very long time, condition I corrected the winter of 2005, buying a nice Cannon 4200F. First thing scanned? A napkin with a doodle on that a Greek friend gave to me and my best other half, for our anniversary. Old photos are still waiting to be scanned.

The turn of the century, and millennia, found me in the New World. Specifically at the East Coast, where I currently reside. In February of the year 2000, crossing an intersection on Cottman ave and something else-street, right after the I-95 ramp, in PA, I saw a billboard announcing the upcoming release of a sci-fi movie called Pitch Black. Unknown actors to me but, a catchy phrase ("You are not afraid of the dark, are you?"), a well put trailer and the promise of otherworldly creatures, drove me to the cinema and to the realm of intense fandom.

I wasn't a total newbie as fans go. Before "Riddick" there was "Mulder" and before him "Indy", and forever the "Terminator", but I never got caught up so much. The internet, the great facilitator, wasn't so big back then and before the middle of the 90's, not at all. In 2001, breaking my final inhibitions, I signed up with an ezboard community called "The Unofficial Vin Diesel Fan Club". Although the internet is infamous of being a place for negativity, stalking and bad spam, in between the weeds I met and found dear friends, trustworthy people with whom I maintain real life contact through telephone and mail apart of web browsers. The original UVDFC ezboard moved to another server a bit after it changed administration. I am no longer an active member, partly because I was never really an avid Vin fan. I followed his carreer up to 2004, and still do somewhat, but deep inside I only Riddick. And as for the other part, I loved it when my friends were there. Then after a point, we all moved along.

While still at the UVDFC, the Kick Ass Girls were born. It was a cold winters' night....No, wait. It was summer...never mind.

Being present at the birth of the vibrant, wild group of the KAGs and inspired by the adventures created and the energy they emitted, I put together the first KAG site to host and hold their fiction. Very simply done with minimum resources, mainly notepad and then later Netscape composer, was the teaching lab for my next endeavors. In 2006, I bought a package from Bravenet to host KAGville with its own domain name. In 2007 I discontinued the old site (dia.bravepages.com) and put the new one up which remains under construction, with three layouts changed since 2004 but not uploaded.

Web graphics design and web layouts go hand in hand. Self-taught html, a bit of javascript and css, and with relatively big experience in Dreamweaver, I have since made four versions (counting this one) of my personal site as Dia, five versions of my personal site as my real life identity (sorry can't say..hehe), a professional site for a friend, the second version of the KAG site (in process) and a related creature that will spawn as a subdomain. I have also been an advisor to others.

Ezboards were a pleasure to skin, providing their servers worked. In 2006 Ezboard begun the Yuku flip and slowly transferred sites over. Our own KAGville was slid over very recently, just after Christmas 2007 and with great success. We only lost some punctuation marks and couple of posts peekaboo'd. Another forum I maintain, Imperium, that started as a part of KAGville and still has the designation in its URL, also was transferred without harm. Yuku is more user friendly than its predecessor and has all the new cool applications.

I like adding graphics, tweaking the settings and every once in a while, just change the living daylights out of them. I also enjoy moderating, especially when I hold places dear. I used to moderate 4 of the forums at the UVDFC board, couple more at another fave, the Poetry Cafe board and one at Ink Slingers but due to time constraints I had to step down. These sites are now either closed, in hiatus or transferred.

One thing you have to understand about KAGville and UVDFC is that they are (were) not ordinary. Yeah, of course the latter was a fan club and the former is ...unique, but they are (were) home to some of the finest authors out there. Published or unpublished, their keyboards take fire when they put keystrokes to words. Providing the best on hands education for aspiring writers, two of my online buddies created the magnificent Ink Slingers, Inc. an elegant, resourceful writers' hub that spelled home to many literary talents. One of the creators, A.J. Caywood is a published sci-fi romance writer and the other, Elizabeth Lind, an amazing storyteller. I am sure new talent has since appeared and flourished in my old niche but I am not following up.

Among the things I was not taught to believe growing up, was that I had some writing talent in me. I remember my composition teachers always telling me how laconic I was. And they were right. Truth is, I don't beat around the bush. Still, since I remember myself I have always been day-dreaming and role-playing, alone at first, later with friends and now online. I have a few projects finished and several in progress. I blame time restrains (yes, again) because the inspiration is always there. Some of these stories are complete up here (I am pointing to my head right now) since puberty. They burn to get out. Luckily, few short stories managed to etch their way through and I will post them on this website. I like writing about almost anything as long it has a romantic center, juicy angst and a plot. I find certain historic, supernatural and sci-fi themes inspirational and many of my stories are fanfictions.

Hard to find the film, or TV series, or book for that matter, that will stimulate, satisfy and fulfill my expectations to the ultimate extend. Sometimes is the script, or the direction or the acting, or everything together that end up disappointing me, see Underworld, Alien Resurrection and the Matrix 2 and 3. (Although in retrospect, Underworld wasn't so bad.) So, when I do watch a captivating specimen, I am thrilled. In 2000 was Pitch Black, four years later the wise-cracking, cocky and overall amazing Hellboy. Two hours after I got home from the cinema, I sat in front of the desktop, and for the next 6 hours (editing, visiting the kitchen and stretching included) I wrote a short erotica fan fic inspired by the main characters. Then, I went to sleep satisfied...or well, at least, spent.

I converted a part of Imperium to a shrine for Hellboy and some fans came along and really webbed a nice niche for it. We have some great writers there as well and I invite any visitors that like the big red demon with a heart of gold to click the link and read the fanfics.

Obsessions come and go, but a few stick around. Appleseed (Briareos/Deunan/Tereus), Ghost in the Shell (Motoko/Batou), Transformers (Optimus), Hellboy and Pitch Black (Riddick) are a few among them. In this website you will find a section exclusively dedicated to them and for some even special pages.

I do hope that you will enjoy this place. There is a lot of me put into it, from the technical aspects to content. For more everyday me, don't forget to check my blog or KAGville.

Dia—the Webmistress