Monthly Archives: March 2008

Me and Food are Filing for Divorce

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I am tired of food. Does that happen as you get older? I did a search on Google, hoping for insight, and I couldn’t find any information on this. Not finding something on Google is highly disturbing to me. You can ALWAYS find ANYTHING on Google. I assume I’m using the wrong key words. But it does make sense that after 40-plus years alive, you’ve probably tried most everything at least once. But I feel I’ve tried everything, along with its variations, a hundred times. I do eat as healthy as possible, and even when I stray from that, I’m … Continue reading →

Voice: First & Third Person

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One of the most difficult things to master for me (and many other writers) is VOICE. This challenge trudges through the morass of other subjects like past tense vs. present tense, or past perfect tense, flashbacks, omniscience. . . Which Person? In fiction, the overwhelming majority of books are written in Third-Person. There are cogent reasons for this. One pertinent reason is that when you use First-Person, you are restricted to only what your main character is privy too. So if you need some clandestine goings-on, this wouldn’t serve you. In First-Person, your main character has to be present all … Continue reading →

No More Hall-Decking for You Guys

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Jeremiah 10:2-4: “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” (KJV). Okay, that’s it for all you Christmas tree-hugging Christians. If you believe in what the Bible tells you, there will be no … Continue reading →

Cause for ConCERN?

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Have you heard about our potential annihilation? France is building a “doomsday machine” according to Internet Whistle-blowers. For an overview of these fears, refer to Misunderstood Universe website. CERN, or European Center for Nuclear Research (which makes no sense, unless the name was Center, European, of Research, Nuclear…but whatever) is the home of the most powerful particle accelerator…with the ability to create (though minuscule) black holes. The fearful public say that a created black hole could gravitate to center of the earth, and swallow us up in a matter of years. There are always questionable sources for information. Two, perhaps … Continue reading →

I Heard You the First Time

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…Repetition as enemy to style and cadence. Even great writers make mistakes. I can usually tell when it’s an editing oversight, or the fault of the author. An editor’s oversight seems a simultaneous contradiction, in that it can mean “overlook”, but also “seeing-over,” as in monitoring–same word, two opposite meanings. Accordingly, when I use the word “mistake” in this context, it doesn’t necessarily imply the condition of being WRONG. I use the word, “mistake” loosely. What I’m really talking about are stylistic errors. But telling someone how to have a writing style, is like telling someone how to have clothing … Continue reading →

Style Editing: Word Choice & Attribution

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What is meant by a writer’s “style”? I’m not referring to MLA or Harvard or APA style; nor am I referring to terms such as “expository,” “Journalistic,” or “academic.” In the context of book authors, I’m talking about a writer’s unique voice; the way a writer strings words and phrases together on a page; the method by which a writer can engender fear or sympathy or suspense in a reader. These things can be as much about setting, atmosphere, and characters, as they can be about sentence construction and word usage. I’ll focus on word choice and attributions in this … Continue reading →

Blog Semantics

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Is a blog a blog or a post? Of course it was first called a weblog , then people truncated it by calling it a blog. A blog was where the page was that you posted, but it also seemed to refer to the actual post. But if you said, “I just posted a blog, go read it.”– that would seem to indicate that you created a blog site every time you posted…even though most people know that’s not what you meant. You meant you posted a post. Or blogged a post. But you don’t say, “go visit my posts”, … Continue reading →

The Attack of the Wal-Martian

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So I went to Wal-Mart to get a re-recordable DVD or two, and some regular ones. As I made my way to the front, a rather elderly Wal-Martian, with Spandex pants pulled up high over her pot belly, stood staring at me, awaiting my need for her check-out prowess. I paused, saying, “I’m ready if you are.” She frowned. I noticed her eyebrows seemed unnaturally bushy. “Are you open?” I indicated her empty line, which she was posted at, like all good Wal-Martians, who wish to snag you and encourage you to pay for your selected items before leaving the … Continue reading →

Flatheads Rejoice

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After about the 3rd century B.C., no one really thought the earth was flat. that idea became popular with the publication of The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus by Washington Irving. There is, however, a Flat Earth Society, which sprang from interpretations of biblical passages by one Samuel Rowbotham, who took part in public debates with the scientists during much of the 19th Century. The debacle was reminiscent of the flack Charles Darwin endured for his Origin of Species. While Rowbotham’s legacy dwindled into obscurity in the mid-20th century, Darwin’s legacy, as we all know, lives on with the … Continue reading →

I Don’t Keep Hoardly Anything

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….Looking at the Hoard Mentality Every so often, when I’m doing Spring cleaning, or having guests over I want to impress, I look around and think: Hark! I might be mental. I think I’m a hoarder. I’m reorganizing and cleaning, and everywhere I have things that need a place to go, and then I ask myself, why do I have so many things? I know it is my lack mentality. I did without, and was always broke my whole life, and so now it’s a habit to hang onto things just in case. Every time I had let go of … Continue reading →

Medical Professionals Were NOT Stunned

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The sexually ambiguous humans among us are here to stay. Regarding the Oregon man, Thomas Beatie, who claims to be pregnant… I suspected when I heard the headline that he either had a sex change or was a hermaphrodite AKA intersexed. Indeed, the man used to be a woman. And he retained some of his female reproductive organs. He’s married to a woman. But my first burning question was, who is the father? Did his wife also have a sex change–was she formerly a man, who retained some of HER male reproductive organs? So i had to go glance at … Continue reading →

Beware the Drooping Cerebellum

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..a cautionary tale. Maybe.One of my ex girlfriends has this weird and rare condition where her cerebellum is drooping down too far and impinging on the brain stem. For real. It’s called Chiari. Now for a long time, even before this diagnosis, I discovered that I didn’t want to talk to her anymore because every conversation consisted of her condescending to me at every turn. Gone was that delightful, brilliant young woman who so fascinated me with her thoughts on things…she had become sort of…well, an arrogant prick. (sorry). For more insight on this, see Phone a Friend. I put … Continue reading →

Brain Dump: Mortality & Meaning

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Okay, I know this is going to be less a blog, and more a journal entry, but whatever. Consider it the first in a series of brain dumps. <<–Look, i even made a graphic for it…. Onward…. I usually try to see the bright side of things, and when I can’t do that, I try to see the funny side. Anyone who reads this blog knows that. And often the dark side can be funny, if you know how to manipulate the data. But this morning, I think my brain is in some other gear….PARK, maybe. It hits me like … Continue reading →