Author: Douglas

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Day 74: One Good Paragraph

I’ve been struggling with an offline way to write these posts. I am not satisfied with the for offline blogging tools like Qumana, LiveWriter, or ecto. I can’t exactly define why not. Mostly they feel barely a step above the built-in tool so why bother. I’ve practiced with Google Docs, but it didn’t seem to translate the title properly–or I messed it up.

On top of all that, I use multiple input computers so even if I could settle on a single offline tool I’d have to install it on all three comps and then I would have my posts all over the place still. I suspect I’ll have to look at the WP export output to see what it looks like. I don’t want to risk losing all this effort. For now the offline tool that gets the most use is DarkRoom. It can be a bit flakey considering its nothing more than a textpad clone with cool-factor. No offense.

I am going back through my “Blog This” posts from Flickr. I started to get concerned that I wasn’t fully understanding the contradictory “Blog This” and “All Rights Reserved” tags on some pictures I was seeing. When I see the ARR tag without the BT button I only link back. But when the BT button had not been disabled I assumed that was a choice made by the photographer. Turns out it’s not; they have to explicitly toggle both separately. I am going back and requesting permission where needed.

Pictures every once in a while will spice up the textual overload of this blog, but I am not able to get all the pictures I need for inspiration by myself. I am working on some subtle art for the background and I may punch up a few gentle colors in the right places. As easy as it’s supposed to be, I find the whole CSS thing to be difficult to navigate. Not difficult to figure out–well, not entirely–but difficult to navigate someone else’s stuff. I know there are tools out there, but I haven’t had the time or volume to learn how to use those to make it easier on me.

I did get the tags to display at the bottom of each post here. Now I just need to get back to getting back to updating those first forty posts with the proper tags or that big REGULAR over on the sidebar is going to be more and more out of place. I’ve given some consideration to dumping that tag altogether but haven’t gotten around to fully thinking that over.

Need a short paragraph to break up the medium sized run I got going here. This ought to do.

Speaking of paragraphs, I believe I need to better consider how I am breaking up that level of thought in my writing. For now I am getting away with simple chunking of thoughts. I need to better compose at the paragraph level. Lead with a good sentence support with the following ones. That’s a great new feature. Along with whatever creative inspiration hits me, I will include a succinct paragraph that very closely conforms to the prescribed paradigm. Let’s try one now…

The cat down climbed the tree. The great big tabby hung like it had been thrown there and stuck. The orange splatter of legs and arms and tail pointed nervously back to the pained face. The cat seemed to be pausing to ask itself why it had done this again. It continued to scrabble down the high trunk of the pine below the lowest limb, half backward and half sideways. It slipped another body length, turned inexpertly, and plummeted to the ground within a shower of bark. As best it could it landed well and recovered its dignity.

Word count: 625

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Day 73: Cryptozoology Infomercials

Aside from a switched on TV being a reason for me to stop and watch, I get totally reeled in by get rich real estate infomercials and cryptozoology programs.  Of course on Halloween there were plenty of those.  The one I watched highlighted the Northeastern North American Lake Champlain and it’s “Champ”.

Pretty much a rip off of Loch Ness.

In recent years I’ve noticed a trend for these programs to amplify the pseudo-science with considerations of an ecological angle often combined with a more hard science approach.  The hard science result is both the climax and the let down of the show.  But I’m liking the inclusion nonetheless.  Asking questions about the required behaviors of an unknown animal, it’s affect on the ecosystem, how it breeds, or if the ecosystem could ever support it appeal to me.  I like the angle for it’s similarities to discovering black holes.  Let decide it IS there and then find it from the dent it makes.

Sadly, they never go full throttle with this technique.  This show got close in one brief interview with a local biologist, but didn’t follow through.  She started describing the community size requirements to avoid inbreeding.  Her numbers were in the 50s and the 500s.  They cut her off before she could go on about the dent that would make in the food web–not to mention the likelihood of not being able to locate them.  Another self-described (cause who else would assign this moniker?) cryptozoologist talked about several cryptos that had been ‘discovered’: mountain gorillas, ceolocanths, okapi, and something else.  Now that gives a nice historical sciencey feel to the whole thing, but its a distracting load of crap since once those animals were discovered they remained discovered.  It was like it was hard to find them again, so it can’t have been too hard to have found them in the first place.  I don’t see that being the case with bigfoot, nessie, and that Mexican goat-bat thing.

Anyhow, for some reason this whole topic gives me the willies.  I expect to lie in bed for a bit just wondering.  Eesh.

Word count: 350

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Day 72: Your Flit Specs Revisted

From yesterday…

With most things you’re laid back and comfortable: you pick your old leather jacket over the chipped-out flexx, you eat apple pie before sushi, and you listen to Stream never xKreem. Your gear and your ride are different chapter, a different verse. Let’s start with your ride: a factory Bainbridge Hoverworks model 9600 Azure with custom iCe by South Bay’s own Greedy Petey.

Looks can kill and this Gorgon bitch drops them out of the skies like stone. Sure she draws attention–no you don’t want it–but you deal. Looks like these might clear the runway, but they don’t get you from here to there and that’s what counts.

Enter the 9600 HPM twin-turbine longitudinal lifter from Top & Dancer. These depatic overdumping fans suck in 50 cubic meters of air per second and redirect it to three main ducts (1 fore; 2 aft) and scores of other micro and nano trim-ducts surrounding your ride. The intake is so powerful at full throttle it blurs visibility in a halo-like arc over the flit’s elevators –small birds are suffocated and crushed prior to being cut and pasted by the depleted Promethium edged blades.

Cruising speed is officially CFD (”call for details”). But most open air riders carry an oxygen mask; no true rider has long hair. You’re bald, sexy bald.

It’s fun to write like this. Took me a long time to hack out the fake details, but I like the result. Digging second person too. I know most folk’s assumption is that it’s pushy to read. Maybe it is. To write however, it feels more like a pep talk you give yourself in the mirror before the big game. It sounds like a coach taking.

The following fits before the “Looks might clear the runway…” line:

Don’t let the Medusa reference throw you, other riders may drop, but it ain’t because she’s ugly. It’s respect and awe. Mostly awe since they don’t see many Bains out here in the stix. Like finding an uncorked 21 year old single-malt in strip-mall mini-mirrorbar. Heads turn, breaths hold, times stop. What they see looks like a hammerhead shark fucked an eagle…no, a hummingbird…no, an eagle. Underneath, Petey’s iCe is some light shade of blue they ain’t thought up a name for yet, but it’s between “If Blood Were Blue Not Red” and “Death by Glacier”. On top, the premium solex skin is a complimentary but darker hue–how Petey pulls that off is why Petey’s greedy.

The following slots in at the end of the blockquote:

At take off and landing the 9600 HPM lifter roars like a lion, but non-stop. It makes even you want to cover your ears like a little girl. You don’t though, you have black flesh-toned ear plugs for that. Even with the looks and the speed and the patented Vise-HoverTM, your favorite part is just as you transition to cruising altitude. The leonine roar fades into a feline purr.

Here you are pausing before the kill. Ah’Taconschientee hangs there like shit from a bird that ate mirrors. Are you savoring the moment or dreading it.

Word count: 262