The Joys of Home Ownership

I should have known that our heater/boiler would choose the coldest weather in three years to attempt suicide. And it would be an "advanced, high efficiency" Hydropulse unit that almost no one knows how to fix. And the one service technician in this area who knows how would be so pissed off at me that he won't come and fix it--supposedly because I wasn't home when he came the last time, though he came two hours after he said he would. So it's cosy up to the space heater while I search for another company that can cope with the thing. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on . . . .

More Poetry Outtakes

Charlie

A previous incarnation lurks on the stairway.
Charlie
Touches you gently
For the first time in ages.
And you don't seem to mind much
As long as it's dark.

A cruel dog destroys the thirsty student

Writer's block? Try The Automatic Sentence Generator.

Quote of the Day

"Sometimes a single recollected moment lights up the sky of memory and brings it all back. The mind's eye fills with broken sunlight and soiled rain. Pieces of time assemble, counting off, strung along the pulse, in breaths in heartbeats. It's all burned in; the dream's inseparable from the dreamer."

--by Robert Stone, From the "Introduction" to Bruce Weigl's Song of Napalm

Rules for Writing

I've learned a few things as a writer (a list from Usenet):

1... Avoid alliteration. Always.
2... Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3... Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4... Employ the vernacular.
5... Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6... Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7... It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8... Contractions aren't necessary
9... Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10.. One should never generalize.
11.. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12.. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
13.. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary;
it's highly superfluous.
14.. Profanity sucks.
15.. Be more or less specific.
16.. Understatement is always best.
17.. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18.. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19.. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20.. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21.. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22.. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23.. Who needs rhetorical questions?

Another thing I've learned: rules were made to be broken (if you have a good enough reason).

Quote of the Day

My cousin just died. He was only 19. He got stung by a bee, the natural enemy of a tightrope walker.
--Dan Rather

Hollyweird's Small World

No doubt you've heard of "six degrees of separation," the notion that any person in the world can be linked to any other through a chain of--at most--six acquaintances. Hollywood is a much smaller domain, of course. According to The Oracle of Bacon, almost any actor who has appeared in a feature film can be linked to any other via only two or three connections--one of which is Kevin Bacon. Don't believe me? Go to the site and type in the name of the most obscure film actor you can think of.

Conspiracy or coincidence?

There's something strange about the prevalence of the number 37 throughout history.

Quote of the Day

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction . . . . The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
--Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963

Walking uphill

In the 1970s, I had a pair of "earth shoes." Remember them? They were shoes with negative heels that were supposedly better for your feet and posture. If I recall correctly, they were comfortable--but took some getting used to and were weird looking. (Though they weren't nearly as far-out as some 70s fashions.) Take a look at The (Unofficial) Earth Shoe Page if you want to know more. Apparently, you can still find them for sale if you look hard enough.

Mind your ABCs

Omniglot - a guide to written language showcases alphabets from languages around the world--some of which are stunningly beautiful. I've been doing a lot of handwriting in my journal lately, and I wish my chicken scratches looked half as good (and legible) as the letters, hieroglyphs, kanji and runes displayed on this site. You can download free fonts, too.

Nice work if you can get it

Here's the story of Leif Ueland, a self-described "sensitive male" with feminist leanings, who was hired to write a book called Accidental Playboy--all about a six-month bus trip he took while documenting Playboy's search for the "Playmate of the Millennium." (He ended up sleeping with two of the contenders.)

A Feminist's Arduous Task