For me, there is no difference between how I write a stand-alone story or a long series of stories set in a single universe. That’s because in one sense, I never see any story as a stand-alone, even if I never write any sequels, prequels, or stories otherwise set in the same universe…
So, for instance, when I wrote and scheduled the post called, “I don’t mean to be a jerk, part 1,” I had the opening sentences of a related part 2 post sitting in the draft queue. Continue reading Bad at herding myself
That’s one reason I spent a rather large part of my late 30s buying CDs of old albums from previous decades. I really did want to own a legitimate copy, send a few royalties toward the musicians whose work I had loved so much. That’s also one reason, since going digital, that I regularly scroll through online music stores looking for re-releases of albums recorded 30 or more years ago.
One consequence of those can’t-afford-music years is that I often didn’t know or remember the titles of a lot of songs I listened to. I had a bad habit of not writing down the track names when I made a copy of a tape. My favorite tracks on a particular album I would know the titles, but several of the other songs I would wind up thinking of as “that song right after X” or I might pick a phrase that was repeated that might sound like a title.
And then, of course, there are the misheard lyrics… Continue reading Reverend Tutsia
It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:
Senate candidate has been ‘jailed repeatedly’.
An Honorable Last Wish For A Dying Marine. 58 years after being kicked out for being gay, dying Marine receives his honorable discharge.
NOM’s Slide Into Oblivion And Other Political Predictions For 2014.
Time-like loops and indeterminate particles: Cloning quantum information from the past.
And if that wasn’t enough physics for you: Life is a Braid in Spacetime: How to see yourself in a world where only math is real.
What I Learned From the Liberal Arts. I must say, I and one of my English professors at SPU had even less kind things to say about literary criticism.
The iPad Is A Solved Design Problem. Yep!
Marco Rubio Accidentally Made A Good Argument For Gay Marriage. I was going to make a broken-clock reference, but he isn’t even aware of what he said, so…
Why are we talking about a Traffic Jam from September:
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The Simpson have some anime whimsey:
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The ASAPScience guys answer the question, “Can being cold make you sick?”
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This is a cool (and a bit scary) optical illusion:
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It was always worst right after we moved. My father’s job in the oil fields resulted in me attending ten different elementary schools in four different states. And at each new school it was never long before some of the kids (and occasionally some of the teachers) were teasing, harassing, or outright bullying me for being a sissy, pussy, or fag. Most of the times those words were hurled around in the lower grades, no one was literally accusing me of homosexuality. All they meant was I didn’t act like a “normal” boy.
In middle school it was a bit different. For one thing, everyone’s hormones were going crazy. In elementary school most of the normal boys had thought girls were icky (and one of the ways I kept being abnormal was I always got along better with the girls than most of the boys), but suddenly those same boys were trying to find a girlfriend. And the insults changed. Now “pussy” was the nicest thing any of the other boys or male teachers called me.
It’s not that they ever caught me in flagrante delicto. Well, except one bully. Though “caught” isn’t the right word. But I’ll get back to him…
So for a second I wondered if my aunt had gotten malware on her phone or something. I sent back a message asking if she needed both our email addresses or just mine, along with a comment about our weather and asking how hers was. My intent was to make sure that she had meant to send me that message before I did anything else. When she answered she said never mind, she had found the information.
Continue reading I don’t mean to be a jerk, part 1
I know when my husband’s job changed to combine both running around in a cold warehouse and interacting with random members of the public a lot that the number of colds he started catching went way up. But I think the workplace I moved to in 2008 contributes, as well. At my previous employer, most of us had our own offices. My current employer has a more typical arrangement of a small number of employees with offices, and the rest of us in a sea of cubicles. Even though most cold viruses are passed by hand-to-hand contact (and indirect hand-to-hand contact), some increased exposure happens with people more densely packed in.
Based on some anecdotal evidence of how what seems to be the same cold passed through their family, this one’s incubation time would make my most likely point of catching it at the Seahawks game I attended last weekend.
Regardless… Continue reading I hate head colds
So I understand why some people are tired of it all by Boxing Day.
It feels like people are more impatient to end it than they used to be, and a friend had an interesting theory about that… Continue reading The eleventh day
It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:
What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter.
The Great 2013 Sunday Show Race.
Everything You Urgently Need To Know About Donald Duck’s Car (the article and illustrations are awesome!)
South Carolina Democrats back bill calling for mandatory daily prayers in public schools.
IN 2013, FAILING THE BECHDEL TEST WAS BAD FOR YOUR MOVIE’S BOTTOM LINE.
Comment: How God Hates Fags and its friends like Linda Harvey further gay rights.
How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood (Metadata is king!)
And a sneak peek at the next Spider-man movie:
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I’ve already posted about some goals I’m setting myself, so I’ve already probably outraged or disappointed a few. I could do a really verbose and intricate summation of my 2013, but I really don’t think even I would enjoy that. But all this talk about not doing things just because other people are does have me thinking…
Font Folly 