Saturday, May 29, 2010

Sam "The Magic Man" Billingsley Photo Collection

From frequent contributor Sam Billingsley, here are 4 photos of Carolina Circle Mall from the 1980s.

A Christmas ice show at the mall's Ice Chalet, circa 1980/1981.












Sam performing one of his first of many magic shows at the mall, outside The Melting Pot, across from Ivey’s, in 1984.










Sam's daughter Jennifer skating at the mall's Ice Chalet, circa 1987.











Sam’s daughter Jennifer standing beside a wooden version of her father, circa 1987.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Comment Moderation Now Enforced

Due to unfortunate circumstances, I have now enabled comment moderation at Carolina Circle City.

For the entire 4 1/2 years of this blog’s existence, I have used word verification to prevent spam. It worked perfectly up until recently. It seems spambots have finally found a way around the word verification, resulting in spam in the comments. I’ve deleted about 5 spam comments the past few days.

Keep in mind that this is no body’s fault. It’s the fault of a machine. I don’t like the comment moderation either, but I have no other choice but to use it to prevent spam.

Comment moderation basically means that when you post a comment, it will not appear on the blog until I read it and approve it. I have it set to send me email notifications, so the time between the time you write the comment and the time I approve it shouldn't be too long. I've rarely had problems with human-created comments, but the spambots are just ridiculous.