Remembering My Trip to Ireland

After my long meme post where I showed you several shots of Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, I got out all my St. Patrick's Day cards and got them ready to mail. Of course I started thinking about the trip - so now you get a peek at my thoughts.

Those are my travelling companions. Daughter, SO and son. We're at the home airport waiting for the first leg of the trip which took us to Chicago where we spent the night and the next day. My brother lived there at the time. The reason they're all laughing is that just as I got in position to take this picture my daughter burped. That's a cola she's holding and the carbonation decided to escape. My daughter doesn't produce a quiet lady-like burp. Nope, it's a belch that registers on the Richter. The Homeland Security team went on alert when they heard it. In Washington, D.C.

We flew from Chicago to Dublin and landed in the morning on July 3rd. For some reason I don't have pictures of the hotel (the Westin at College Green, right next to Trinity College) or the Guinness Brewery tour which were the two things we saw first after getting out of the airport. I do have some pictures I took during the coach tour of Dublin on July 4th. Our fabulous guide, Niven, had decorated the coach with little American flags and red, white and blue streamers. For our coach tour Niven had a guide named Christie aboard - Christie was a whitehaired Irish gentleman much to the dismay of the young men on the trip (and maybe some of the older ones but they knew better than to let on with their wives/SO's sitting right next to them).

We drove up and down O'Connell street and saw a number of statues - including the infamous spire known by a number of rowdy names (scroll about halfway down the page to read some of the nicknames).

This statue is not of someone shaking his fist. It's Father Theobald Mathew a 19th century temperence movement leader. Apparently temperance and Irish aren't mutally exclusive terms, although I bet you could win some bar bets with the facts and figures. (Google is your friend) Folks routinely try to perch a can of Guinness in his hand which is missing its fingers from all the attempts (perhaps this is a Dublin Urban Myth, makes a good story anyway, so I'll perpetuate it).

We also drove past a number of Georgian townhomes with the brightly painted doors that you may have seen in picture books or posters about Ireland. Christie told us a story about how the colored doors came to be - to help drunken gentlemen tell their front door from the neighbor's late at night.

Our coach tour eventually took us to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Both the SO and I have a great number of pictures of the inside - I'll only post a few. First thing we saw was a carved stone found in the early 1900's covering an ancient well that was said to have been in constant use from before the time of St. Patrick through the 16th century. Folk believe that it may be a well that St. Patrick used to baptise his converts. There are two crosses carved on the stone - one is quite primative looking, the other a more detailed Celtic cross.

The Cathedral has a number of antiquities - including many items belonging to Jonathan Swift who was Dean of the Cathedral in the first half of the 1700's. That's a bust of Swift. They have his death mask as well.




The last picture of the Cathedral I'll share here is one the SO took. He captioned it "best collection dish EVAH" and put in about 4 Euros contribution. It's a Guinness keg.

When we finished there the next stop was Kilmainham Gaol, which I've already written much about. After that we went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells. We were not allowed to photograph there. The display of the book is under glass and that's the only thing separating you from the book - you can lean over the waist high table and get your nose just above the glass and you're only inches from the incredible illuminated text of the Gospels. Breathtaking.

The tour guide, our guide and the coach dropped us off at Trinity and took the rest of the day off for themselves. The SO and my daughter and I wandered around the area - saw St. Stephen's Green and did some shopping. My SO and I have matching modernized Claddagh rings from the trip.


Then we went to the hotel for a nap. That night we were going out to the Abbey Tavern for dinner and we needed to rest up. I'll post about that another time.

Thanks for coming along on this little journey.

Dawno, Ireland, St. Patrick's Day

Tah Dah!

The new bed.


dawno, sleep

Jill Tagged Me!

Jill posted this meme and her answers over on Writes Like She Talks. First, go read hers - it's good!

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18 and find line 4

The History of Kilmainham Gaol. Bought it in Ireland last summer after taking a tour with the family. When we went to Ireland, I was very ignorant of much of the history of my ancestral home. Our guide at the gaol made sure we got a thorough education there about the treatment of the leaders of the Irish rebellion against England. He was really cute too. Before I go to page 18, let’s take a look at some of the pictures I took. And here's a good little blog post I found about the Gaol if you want to read more.

This is my son and daughter in one of the cells. (Yes, I was worried the whole time we were in Ireland, that his pants would fall off.) These cells, meant for one prisoner, we learned, were often home to five prisoners (maybe more?) during the peak years of overcrowding caused by the Famine.



Next is the cell where they did hangings. It was one of the first places we saw on the tour. My sister was so distressed by the Gaol she turned around and waited for us outside.



This is taken from inside a large open area in the center of the prison - I believe it's the east wing.


Same room – opposite side. The stunning thing is that the architecture is somewhat attractive. The prison was built to the specifications of prison reformers in the late 1700's. The east wing is a newer construction from the 1860's and it seems that there was at least a cosmetic effort made in this area. Can't say as much for the actual cells where most prisoners were kept.


This next cell has been preserved by donations – Grace Plunkett, nee Gifford, stayed here, she was a young artist who in 1916 had married, Joseph Plunkett an "insurgent" and one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, in the prison chapel just hours before he was executed, was jailed in this cell during the 1923 Irish Civil War. She left this Madonna and Child painting.












Sorry that the size of these pictures are all over the place. I may take the time to clean that up and edit but it's too challenging for right now.

OK, to finally answer the prompt from the meme, on page 18, line 4 it says: “The prisons board began to look at ways of saving money by closing some prisons. Kilmainham was one of them.”

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can, what do you find?

A LED book light clipped to the top of a penholder cup/gizmo with little drawers in it to hold small office stuff like paperclips. The light doesn't work very well. It's a great idea, all flexible and with an LED the battery lasts a long time and the light doesn't get hot. It would be niceer if it actually illuminated the page in the dark, however.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Stargate SG1 season finale. Things look grim. The Ori ships are pounding the crap out of the good guy’s (and not so good guy’s) fleet.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is.
12:30 pm

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
12:44 pm – guess I need to wind my internal clock…

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Cat meowing, dryer drying, SO prepping a load of wash – detergent, spin the dial, close the lid – now I hear the washer filling up. Now he’s gone into the bathroom – uh, I won’t tell you what I hear. Here's the cat at his place of honor at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Well, to be honest he grabbed the SO's chair the minute it was vacant. Ignore the timestamp on the photo - it was taken last November.









7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
This morning. I took John Grisham's The Broker and a cigarette out to the back porch and sat and read while I smoked it - the cigarette, not the book. Speaking of the book, I'm enjoying it a lot. It's very much all about Italy with a bit of a thriller plot thrown in for variety. Lots of language lessons and descriptions and history. The story about the protagonist is quite secondary so far. Even so, it is very engaging and I keep turning the pages because I know something interesting is going to happen. Outside today is very cold but sunny. The clouds haven’t come back yet so maybe we’ll get a break in the rain today.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Jill’s post tagging me to do this. She called me the patron saint of memes. :-)

9. What are you wearing?
I have a heather brown turtleneck under a light brown Express sweatshirt that’s easily 25 years old and in great condition. They made this thing to last. My sister gave it to me and she’d had it for years herself before I got it. The outside is heavily embroidered in a kind of coat of arms with flowers and a shield in the middle. Above it in purple embroidery is "Provence" and under the shield is the year "1981" which might be the year Express went into business. Who knows? I like the sweatshirt and wear it a lot. Oh, and comfy old Levi's and some slippers that were my moms but she had never gotten to wear them - they were still in the original unopened package when we were packing up some of her things to give away to charity last year.

10. Did you dream last night?
I don’t remember any specifics of the dreams but I always dream.

11. When did you last laugh?
About two minutes ago. The cat and the SO were being cute - they're napping on the sofa now.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Not much - actually only one thing. A KQED (local public radio with NPR, etc) “Stars of KQED Radio” calendar where each month is a different baby picture of one of the announcers from KQED. This month is Kathryn Baron and she was a cutie. That’s it. Well, except for a few cobwebs up at the ceiling that I really should dust.

13. Seen anything weird lately?
I see weird everyday, all the time. I work at a high tech company. Folks love to put weird stuff in and around their cubes. Mostly it’s techie in-jokes and strange figurines of creatures invented for online gaming. Often it’s the actual techies. This is one of the top hit links when you Google "cube farm" - it's quite like what we have around my place of work.

14. What do you think of this quiz?
I’m having fun with it. I think I may use it for an AW Monday Meme – but not this week, I already have a good one recommended by someone from AW.

15. What is the last film you saw?
In a theatre: Narnia; on cable:(forgive me,) Dodgeball. It was the SO’s fault.

16. If you turned into a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
Nice homes for all my children and one for me & the SO that had a big library and a big room for him to have a pool table. He'd have a nice office for his computer and I'd have mine in the library with floor to ceiling wall to wall bookcases. Maybe with a pool and a jacuzzi. Oh, and new cars for all of us, then I'd buy a bookstore and lots of science fiction and fantasy inventory - more variety than I can find in the local Borders, B&N, etc. Then I’d invest the rest and live off the interest comfortably instead of squandering it on all the cool stuff I’d be tempted to squander it on.

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know.
Depending on who the “me” in tell me is, that could be anything or very little. Hmm. My eyes are hazel – almost green. Depending on what I wear they look browner or greener. Also, I played piccolo in the High School Marching Band. And I submitted a poem to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction when I was 17 and got a nice hand written note on the form rejection slip from somebody – I doubt it was Ed Ferman, but that would have been cool - that said it was a fine poem but not suited to their current needs. I had read poetry there in the past so I thought maybe they'd like mine - the optimism of youth. It was my first attempt at professional publication. Then I got all busy with college and life and family and didn't try again. Till now - over 30 years later.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt and politics, what would you do?
Nothing. I am a firm believer in the Prime Directive. If we meddle thinking we know better we end up with more problems. So I wouldn't change anything about the world, but I wish people would help more when they're asked to help. And just help with what they're asked to, not try and attach some moral or political strings to it.

19. Do you like to Dance?
Yes. Last time I danced, however, I did something to my hip that pained me for months and months and still have some aches there two years later. I won’t be “Twisting Like I Did Last Summer”, again.

20. George Bush.
It is a terrible shame that the Democrats couldn’t have found someone I could have voted for.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Shelby

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what would you call him?
He is a boy, and I named him Matthew – I’d do it again.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Yep. In order: Australia, Ireland, the UK. I’m a rabid Anglophile. I’d love to visit all sorts of other places but I’d want to live in those.

24. What would you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
"The loved ones who went before you, they’re are all here waiting for you so they can get the party going."

25. 4 people who must also do this theme in their journal.
Strictly voluntary. I’ll be posting it in a couple weeks as the AW Monday Meme – so you might want to wait.


Dawno, Ireland, Dublin, meme, The Prime Directive, blogs, blogging

After 16 Years, Is It Really Time for a New Bed?

Yep. I have been sleeping on the same mattress set for 16 years. I think that's probably 6 or 8 years too long - even for a good mattress, which this was. In an effort to take whatever measures might help with a number of bodily aches and chronic daily mental fatigue that means I'm seriously unproductive for several hours in the morning (one reason I don't usually blog in the morning), I've decided to buy a new mattress set and maybe some bedroom furniture.

Of course, that also means that I'll need to buy spiffy new sheets and stuff. Probably some new pillows, too. Now, neither sheets nor pillows currently on the bed are as old as the mattress, mind you. Those things I do buy replacements for every couple years. I'm thinking I'd like to buy the sheet sets to go with some kind of decor...but right now the bedroom has no decor. It has few random occasional tables in lieu of real bedside tables and piles of stuff that don't fit anywhere else in the house. I have living room and dining room decor, so the stuff that doesn't go with, goes in the bedroom.

I prefer a simple modern - kind of "urban" look. I saw a picture online of a platform bed with extensions on the side that served as bedside tables and the headboard had nooks that you could put stuff in. Problem was it was too inexpensive, so I doubt if it looks good close up, it's probably made of cheap veneers over compostion wood, and comes in a flat box labeled "easy assembly" with lots of pieces and parts and instructions that were badly translated from Serbo-Croatian into Italian and then English with a buggy bootleg copy of BabelFish.

I want solid real wood furniture. I've had pieces of inexpensive furniture where the faux wood grain laminate started peeling when the humidity got over 20%. Assembled it myself, too. Have the scars to prove it. When you don't have a hammer a shoe can work - and it can smash your thumb as well as a hammer would. I'm always proud when there are some bits left over - it's much better than being short one crucial bolt or "fastener part, use hex key provided."

Anyway, back to reality. I've asked the SO along to test out the bed as well - I'm not going to make this decision on my own - he has to sleep on half of it, well 3/4ths of it, too. I'm fairly certain that we'll both find the same firmness level comfortable. We're compatable sleepers - that is, if I'm not breaking the local sound pollution ordinances with my snoring and he's not pushing me off the bed with his unconscious migrations, or trying to steal my pillows. Get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, lay back down and "wham" the head goes right thru where those pillows used to be and slams into the bed. The whiplash effects make it a bit tough to get back to sleep, even after I've pried the pillows out from the death grip in which they are clutched. In the morning he feigns complete lack of knowledge that this has occured and infers that I'm having "weird dreams, again." My weird dreams are not about stolen pillows. Ask me about the pastel bunnies some day. They were in graduated colors and sizes (like the Cat in the Hat little cats A-Z). But I digress again.

The other thing compatible about us, is that we're both "cocoon" sleepers. I have two pillows and 4 blankets because I'm always cold. He has 2 blankets and 6 pillows - and I have no idea why he needs 6. He surrounds himself with pillows and I roll up in blankets. I often wonder if we're unusual in that or if there are lots of folk who share a bed and do the same thing. Feel free to mention it in the comments if you're like that. :-)

Sleeping in a hotel bed is always stressful because we're stuck with one set of bedding. I'm going to be cold and he's going to want all my pillows. And they're always teensy flat pillows, too. If we drive, we bring our own pillows with - but most times when the two of us travel together lately, we've flown. We have a queen sized bed at home, so, when we're in a hotel, it's nice to sleep in a king sized one. But, if you get a room with two doubles, then you have extra blankets and pillows that you don't have to bug the front desk for.

Unless you're at Embassy Suites - they already have that stuff in the room because the sofa in the living room is a pull out. I like Embassy Suites for the free breakfast, too. I don't like Embassy Suites when it's full of kids running around all hours of the night. Since the plan of the hotel is inward facing rooms around an open central atrium area, the noise outside, regardless of whether it's on your floor or five above it, echoes terribly. What the heck are these kids' parents doing letting them run wild? I'm thinking they've locked themselves behind the door into the bedroom half of the suite, put in their earplugs and are hopeful the kids will just sit quietly on the sofabed and watch tv until the little darlings fall asleep. Right. I *do* live in fluffy bunny universe and I'm not that naive.

The other thing the SO and I can't sleep without is the fan. The SO needs something to mask distant outdoor noises that only he can hear - I claim it's small, stealthy creatures making noises their predators can't hear but the SO insists he can, he tells me to stop being so snarky. Perhaps there's some truth to the idea that I'm jealous because I'm going deaf. Anyway, I like the fan noise just fine and now I'm addicted to it. I even have a little desk fan I pack with me when I go on business trips.

I've probably bored you to tears. If not let me know and I'll send you an email all about the time we went out shopping for the living room couch. Talk about excitement.

Dawno, mattress, Significant Other, Togetherness, decor, hotels

A Picture Share!

I warned you if I figured out how to use mobile blogging you'd regret it. This is a huge tub of sunflower seeds I saw that reminded me of Mac.

Whatcha Think About the New Banner?

My dear friend Cookie has created that faboo new banner above. Hooray for Cookie! Now I just have to get her interested in AW *wink*

Cookie and I used to be active on a forum that Wil Wheaton had attached to his blog, the WWdN (WilWheatondotNet) Soapbox. The WWdN Soapbox is defunct now but some of us munkehs still keep in touch.

Speaking of WWdN, I took a peek at what he's got posted and saw that he'd made some comments about the Oscars show. Yay! someone who disliked the montages as much as I did! It's nice to have one's opinion supported, isn't it :-)

I fucking hated it that they kept cutting winners short when they tried to give speeches, so they could do yet another stupid montage about how great movies are. Yeah, we know movies are great. If we didn't think movies were great, we wouldn't be watching. Most of these people get this chance once in their lives; give them the respect they've earned and more than 40 seconds to enjoy and share it, jerks. (That's a different group of jerks than the jerks I was referring to in my first paragraph. You know who you are . . . jerks.)

Thanks to a prowl over at Technorati, I saw that my little Oscars meme has been picked up on a Live Journal blog as well as Jen.nifer's. Thanks nemo_gravis and Jennifer!

Oh, I wrote to the folks to whom I submitted a little 'how to' article a month back - they said I'd know if they were going to accept my article by the end of this month. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Remember me kvetching about my memory? LiveScience.com - Key to Strong Memory in Old Age: Just Believe Now if I could only remember to believe in my memory...

Just got this in an email today:

International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. It is an occasion for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women.

In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March. Two years later, in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. In adopting its resolution, the General Assembly recognized the role of women in peace efforts and development and urged an end to discrimination and an increase of support for women's full and equal participation.

www.un.org/events/women/iwd/2006/

The unfortunate thing is that the news I read is about how the U.N. doesn't seem to be doing much beyond lipservice to the cause - and the whole thing wasn't all that newsworthy - just a few articles came up in my search. Regardless, for all the women who stop by, and all the men who stand beside us, and all the heroic feminists past, thank you.

Oh, I just added a new thingamabob to the sidebar. Check out the International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board site, it's a hoot.

Dawno, Wil Wheaton, memory loss, International Women's Day, feminist, International Earth Destruction Advisory Board

Yeah, It's a Meme - Forgive Me Mac!

Sorry, I know I shouldn't post this - but I kinda like it. It's my own creation, too.

The Oscars Meme! (this week's AW Monday Meme)

1. Which award was the biggest surprise to you?
2. Which award was exactly what you expected?
3. Which nominee do you feel got the award for some reason other than being the best in their category? Explain.
4. What scared you the most about Dolly Parton?
5. On a scale of one to ten, rate Jon Stewart's hosting.
6. Who would you like to see host next year's awards? Why?
7. Did the film montages seem like a ridiculous self-congratulatory waste of time to you? Why or why not? (gee, my feelings aren't obvious here, are they?)
8. Favorite gown?
9. Express your opinion of whether or not writers of western novels who write award winning screenplays should get to wear jeans to the ceremony.
10. Tom Hanks - what's with the long hair?
11. Who's hotter, George Clooney or Heath Ledger?
12. How come we love Aussie/Kiwi/Brit/Welsh/Irish/Scots actors so much?
13. Reese - blonde or brunette?,

dawno, Humor writing, AWMondayMemes, Oscars, memes

Wherein Dawno Wants to Climb the Evolutionary Ladder

Thank you to those of you who commented in the last post - I did drop in a short reply in comments if you want to check.

I'm really tired of being a wriggly worm or a crunchy crustacean on the TTLB index. At one point I think I'd climbed up to slimy molluscs but I've sunk low again. Some of you folk that are linking to me just need to sign up so I can move up the evolutionary ladder and that's that.

What I'm even more annoyed about isn't my lack of an internal skeleton or sophisticated central nervous system, it's that all the A list blogs on TTLB and elsewhere are so damn serious and political. You'd think what the goverment was up to is the most important thing in life, if all you read were those blogs.

I like a nice rant about politics now and again, but frankly shouldn't there be some variety? Yes, TTLB's #5 is BoingBoing and that has variety - but it throws in a bit of political stuff as well, so it's not PURE, ah say, PURE entertainment. The whole top ten is punditry, Insta and otherwise. *sigh* I don't watch the Today Show, so I was entertained to learn that Katie Couric has a pair of 'smart glasses', but that was buried at the end of a post about that teacher who got recorded 'ranting' about Bush. I DON'T CARE! MAKE ME LAUGH, DAMNIT!

(By the way, I'm not linking to, or mentioning, the blog in which the 'smart glasses' statement is found. You can check out TTLB's #1 blog and you'll find the reference there. I ain't linking to blogs I can't recommend one reads and don't read myself.)

All this political talk is serious and seriousness is stressful - and stress causes heart disease, stroke and premature signs of aging like frownie wrinkles. I want to prevent frownie wrinkles and promote healthy laughing.

I say, let's promote more websites with cats and Roombas and cats dressed up like Roombas and vice versa! Hell, I want to dress up like a Roomba now.

I wonder if there is a social group for people who like to dress up like Roombas, like there is for people who like to dress up in animal costumes. Alternatively, maybe there's a support group for people who want to dress up like Roombas - one with a 12 step program. "Hi, I'm Dawno and I dress up like a Roomba Sage on weekends." "Hi Dawno!!"

I mean, didn't we all have a blast over the Weight Watchers Cards? Wasn't that better than reading blogs about who's going to control the ports of entry? I say let 'em all in and feed them from those cards - they'll head back from whence they came pretty dang quick if they're fed Marcy's "Enchilada" made with real Diet Velveeta on Rye Toast. Now, there's something - it was made with toast, so why didn't they call it a "Toastada" - that would have been clever as well as inedible.

What's the funniest book you've read? I think I need to go out and buy me some laughs.


dawno,TTLB, Long Tail, mackerel, Humor writing

Reviewing and Compassion

It seems to me that the major newspaper and magazine book reviewers check their compassion at the door - they might be excited about a book, and that comes out in the review, but what they're not is concerned about the author's feelings.

I'm a very compassionate person. I hate the idea of hurting anyone. But in the case of a recent review I wrote, I had to force myself not think of the author at all, or I wouldn't have been able to write the review. I know that if my review had been written by someone else about a book I had written, I'd be upset. I don't know if I'd be able to see beyond criticism and understand that what I was reading was advice I needed. If it sounds like I'm trying to convince myself of something here, well, yeah, kinda. I really want to give this reviewing thing a try. I've been reading reviews and thinking about what a good one says. I love to read and I love to write, so it seems like a good match. I have a lot to learn - and I'm going to do some additional studying - but meanwhile I want to keep writing reviews.

Let me explain a bit further. This is a POD published book I reviewed for the POD People blog that a fellow AW member has started. I think this is a good concept - I know there are little gems of books out there in POD land and I'd like to think I'll get the opportunity to read some of them.

The book I read was a modern political thriller. The book's idea was good and the writer seemed to have a strong background in the subject. But as a thriller it wasn't thrilling - many of the characters were just too 'evil' and opportunities to make the protagonist much more engaging and sympathetic were missed. The conspiracy part of the plot stretched my credulity too far. Lastly, I haven't read a thriller that I can recall that didn't end with some kind of vindication for the protagonist - which I think this one could have done, but didn't. So I was disappointed to have invested in the lead character when the book ended as it did. Now, that's personal so I didn't put it in the review. Should I have?

I read the entire book out of obligation to the committment I'd made to read and review it. If I'd bought it at a bookstore, I wouldn't have been able to finish it - and it would be one of the rare few books that I could ever say that about.

Now I'm not sure I'm that good of a reviewer or that what I wrote was any good either. I would like to know and improve. Please feel free to read the review I wrote and drop me an email - be as critical as needed - like I said above, please check your compassion at the door - it will make me a better writer and help me help others. Rest assured, I'll feel better in the long run about my work if I think it has some redeeming value to the writer - so you can too if your criticism helps me.

dawno, POD People, reviews, book reviews, criticism

McCain in 2008?

McCain in 2008? | Salon.com YES!!

This is a Salon Premium article - so I'm not sure if you can get a free day pass to read it - if not, read what other bloggers are saying about the article and get the gist there.

Dawno, Salon, McCain, Election 2008, Technorati

It's the Blogossary

Yes, I'm going "blog this" crazy today. I'll probably get over it...eventually. I'm reading a great William Safire article and it mentions this site: Blogossary. Another cool link for a Saturday stroll in the blogosphere, a term coined according to Safire - and I'm betting he did his research:

at 12:54 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2002, as the blogosphere, when William Quick posted the coinage on his blog, Daily Pundit

.

Dawno, William Safire, blogossary

A YouTube Video Clip - Skating Cowboys

Fan yourselves ladies! YouTube - Skating Cowboys

Found via Making Light Particles.

Dawno, You Tube, MakingLight

You Won't See This in a Crochet Pattern Magazine

OK. It's another one. Some folks like to knit sweaters. Some folk like to knit science fiction B movies...Giant Squid vs. GI tract. Knit one, perl one - cue Irving Allen!

Dawno, knitting

Tomato Nation Shares a Roomba Story

Quickie post for now - just had to share this link from Tomato Nation. It has it all - cats, drama, humor - and a Roomba!

Dawno, Roomba, blog this

Listening to the Mackerel in My Mind

I titled yesterday's post something about people not *getting* Dawno and then the mackerel in my mind had me meander around talking about everything but. So tonite I talk about that a bit. I'd talk more but frankly I can't remember for the life of me what I was thinking about last night. (See this post for more about my creeping senility)

Yes, I'm odd. I don't deny it or try to be something I'm not. Truly, what you see here and on AW is me. There are some things about my work and my family that I don't post...that's just because of the whole needing a paycheck thing and respect for other's privacy. The rest is pure Dawno.

At work I keep trying to get people to recognize the wonderful collaboration potentials of things like a project blog or wiki. They look at me as if I had grown a third eye. Excuse me, but do we work for a tech company? Sheesh. Then there's my sense of humor. Apparently very few of the people I work with read much fiction or genre literature. Do they just read stuff from O'Reilly? (and no, I don't mean that windbag Bill O'Reilly) It's frustrating. I suppose if I learned to tell jokes in C++ I'd be a big hit. And sarcasm? Apparently many IT folks are extremely literal minded. I have to waggle my eyebrows or make sure my tone is sufficiently sardonic.

Thank goodness two of my good buddies here understand me. One is British and was weaned on dry, dark humor. The other seems to doubt that there's much intelligent life on planet Earth... He's great for venting with when I'm fed up with people.

In other news, Making Light has posted about Roombas! Specifically about costumes for same. Hee hee. They apparently don't read my blog over there - that's ok. I know (and you do, too) that I got there first. :-) Oh, here's a nifty little movie about a day in the life of a Roomba. There's this one too. I promise my Rudy will never do that.

Yanno what's really scary (that's if you didn't find the monkey Roomba bad enough)? Clicking on the "next blog" button up there on the right. Gee, is there a lot of weirdness around here! I hit 3 blogs that are nonsense and apparently are set up to garner hits for keywords relating to gambling online. There were a number of, um, mature content sites. And some that just made no sense. Mostly because they were in foriegn languages...Strange stuff out there.

My daughter sent me a text earlier - she's got a job working mornings at her college in the cafeteria. I can't picture her in a hairnet. And she hated doing dishes. I'm proud of her for working though. Her father and I are happy to support her while she's in school, but she wants to do some of it herself. What a great kid.

Have a good weekend!

dawno, MakingLight, Roomba, blog-spam, emptynest

Gallimaufry Mackerelly

I really wanted to update more often this week. I'm exhausted, though. I'm at the launch of a new project and I'm the project manager, so I'm putting in a lot of extra hours. I've gotten a chance to start working with a great team - including a couple new folks I've not worked with before. I'm energized by that during the day. It's just when I get home that my brain turns to fluffy mackerel pudding.

So, just some brief updates: the cat has a cold. At least we hope it's only a cold. Pumpkin slipped off this mortal coil back in the fall after exhibiting many of the same symptoms and then just getting worse and worse. *sigh*

Anyone planning to go to the 64th World Science Fiction Convention in LA? I'll be there! I had a chance to go to the one held up here in San Jose a few years back and blew it. I'm not going to let another opportunity get away from me. I've paid my registration to the convention folk and reserved my room at the hotel. Whoopee!!

The SO is going down to Central Calif. this weekend to play in a billiards tournament. I won't mention the town but he's less than thrilled about the locale. If he gets to go on to the finals, however, those are in Las Vegas. I hope I can get time off to go. If it's before June, probably out of the question - after that it's more likely.

Now that Comedy Central is playing regular clips of highlights from Jon Stewart's Daily Show their site hits are through the roof. Used to be folks might wander by once a month or so - now they come by three or four times a week because there's a new clip every day from the previous night's show. Clever stuff.

I've spoken about the Friday night Geekathon before - well finally Monk is back, as well as Numbers. I read that this summer The 4400, The Dead Zone and Rescue Me are coming back as well. Yay! Maybe I watch too much tv? Well, all my dear Canadian friends ought to be happy - aren't a lot of these shows filmed up there?

Hope all is well with you and yours! Only two weeks 'til St. Patrick's day!

dawno, 64th World Science Fiction Convention, Fluffy Mackerel Pudding, Jon Stewart

Mackerelease yourself. Embrace mackereality.

I'm going mention the sad news first and end my post on a lighter note. This weekend has seen the passing of Don Knotts, Darren McGavin and Octavia Butler. Octavia was 58. It is reported that she fell - perhaps suffering a stroke - and later died in hospital. There is a brief article about her in the Wikipedia. So far there are no other articles about her passing that I could find outside of a mention on Making Light in PNH's Particles (sidebar), comments in Open Thread 60, and sff.net. She was an African-American woman who was the first science fiction writer ever to win the MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant'. (ref. Wikipedia)

***

I have the Google desktop toolbar on my computer - see, it's right over there

Oh, I forget, you can't see what my laptop screen looks like from there. hmmm.

It looks like this:

The toolbar shows me a number of little bits if information according to my preferences. I have my email headers, news, maps, weather and web clips amongst other things.

Today one of the web clips it brought up for me was based on the Technorati "Meme" tag. A blogger had tagged "Which Heinlein Book Character Should You Have Been" quiz from Quizilla and posted it on her blog So I wander over to the quiz and take it. I think I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood because I got this:


You belong in I Will Fear No Evil. Your body is your prison, and you would trade everything you have, even your sex, for a new lease on life.
Which Heinlein Book Should You Have Been A Character In? brought to you by Quizilla

These quizzes are even less "memes" than the question/answer stuff I post on the Monday Meme thread (there will be a new one tomorrow!). Apparently, anything you can post on a blog, and perhaps convince other people to do, gets to be called a meme. *shrug* These quizzes can be fun and anyone can make one up, they're not so hard - I should know, I've done some for my LiveJournal buddies. (a lot of my LJ is locked 'friends only' so if you tried to look at other posts you'd need an LJ account and to be 'friended,' sorry.)

***

The PublishAmerica "debate" may be over. The PA author is saying she won't be around next week and called for a summary of James Macdonald's position. He is succinct.

***

I promised to end on a lighter note. If you haven't visited this link via MacAllister's blog yet, you need to go visit it soon. I will reiterate what Mac said - put down your beverage. Our buddy emeraldcite gives it this review:

"...made me laugh so hard I had to walk away from the computer to catch my breath."

Don't forget to visit the 'extras' links on the site as well. The title of this post comes from here. Because I come from a long line of Irish Mackerel Snappers, I just can't stop giggling.


Dawno, Octavia Butler, meme, Robert Heinlein, PublishAmerica, PublishAmerica Debate, James D. Macdonald, Fluffy Mackerel Pudding

A Lazy Saturday Following Dawno Around The Internet

If you're in the Cincinatti, Ohio area April 21 -23, our fellow blogger and an all around wonderful person, Ray Wong, will be doing a reading, signing, and workshop at the Mad Anthony Writers Conference and Book Festival.

***

Two blog posts I've recently read that I hope you'll check out today (if you haven't already got them on your list of must read blogs, please think about adding them) are Mac's Stones in the Field and Jill's Writes Like She Talks.

The posts I've linked to are about a sensitive and contraversial topic (Jill gets to it at the end of her post) - but these bloggers, and the commenters on their blogs, are rational, thoughtful and compelling writers with opinions I think we all need to read and then think carefully about, especially if you are like me - believing nothing is black and white, and one must be well and broadly informed, before committing to a position.

***

On a lighter note, my "green bean casserole twin" Anne has a blog now. Please drop by and say "hi, welcome to blogging!" and encourage her to tell lots of stories about her parrots!

***

Do you have trouble remembering where you commented? Are you interested in seeing if anyone responded? I've been testing coComment out here on my blog (it's way down in the sidebar if you want to look). It's out of beta now and fully open to the public. Take a look. If you have your blogger comments set up as a pop up box coCommenters can't track comments they make on your blog - they're working on it, but for now, if you don't see my comment on your blog in my coComment box below, it's because your comments are composed in a popup box or I was posting from my computer at work which doesn't have the extension downloaded OR I just plain forgot. Thing about memory aides - you need to remember to use them...I still haven't found my sunglasses.

***

I've got a bunch of new AW blogs to add to my blogroll - I really promise to get to them soon.

***

James D. Macdonald, author, author advocate and purveyor of wonderful advice about writing, is having a debate about Publish America on a forum set up specifically for that purpose by a PublishAmerica author, who will get no further publicity from me on my blog, so you'll just have to go there to find out more. Anyway, the two issues being debated are:

Resolved: Publish America is a vanity press.

Resolved: PublishAmerica engages in unfair trade practices including false and misleading advertising.

While the PA author spends a lot of time wandering down dead end roads and blind alleys, Macdonald sticks to the facts and has presented a pretty damning case supporting the resolutions. I hope you'll keep an eye on it.

I'd also like to see the debate forum start showing up in the front search pages of any PublishAmerica searches. Oh, other key words you might want to link the debate forum URL to? book publisher, free publishing, Publish America (that's with a space and without).

The saddest thing (so far and IMO) on that forum is the way the PA author has tried to sully the wonderful Stories of Strength book and the printer, Lulu.com. It doesn't advance her case and can only serve to show that this pro-PA author is spiteful and childish.

***

Speaking of Publish America, Ed Horrell, a lovely Southern gentleman who has a radio program focusing on customer service, has a podcast of two conversations he had with people at the Publish America office. It won't be up forever, so listen while you can!

By the way, did you click on the site I linked to his name above? Isn't it beautiful? I would hope to have such an attractive site if I were ever to need a public face on the web. Kudos to your web designer, Ed.

***

Hmm. Is this post to long to talk about a book I'm reading? Nah. So I read Making Light with much regularity. In the comments somewhere a couple of books were recommended. One of them was a collection of George Alec Effinger stories titled Live From Planet Earth. Each story has a fabulous introduction by a science fiction author who knew George. The stories themself are simply the best - he was quirky, funny and a damn good writer. Here's why I mention this book - it's published by Golden Gryphon Press in a limited edition of 2000 copies. It came out in 2005. I have copy # 39. I want to weep that this book hasn't sold many, many more copies.

Please, if you love short speculative fiction, or know someone who does, buy this book - it's worth every penny (and then some) of the Amazon discounted price you'll pay.

***

Another book is the Lulu reprint version of James Macdonald's The Confessions of Peter Crossman stories. He put them together for a class he is/was teaching and linked to the book in his AW sig for awhile. I was curious so I ordered it - $6.99 plus shipping, what a deal.

I loved those stories - if you got talked into reading DaVinci Code and were disappointed because you thought there was a germ of an interesting concept buried under all that bad writing and improbable plotting - read the Confessions and see how it should have been done.

***

Grandkitties are back with my son and his girlfriend. My SO suggested we mock up a copy of their apartment management letter head and post a note on their door saying there would be another inspection so they'd bring the kittens back. I can't tell you how tempting it is...

Here's one last picture of Jello - she has good taste in books.



Dawno, Absolute Write, Publish America, Raymond Wong, The Pacific Between,
PublishAmerica, PublishAmerica Debate, George Alec Effinger, James D. Macdonald, Ed Norrell, Talk About Service, Grandkitties

Brought to You By Popular Demand

Pictures of the Grandkitties!














That's Jello (well her mom named her "Kiki" but we re-named her in the venerable tradition of two syllable food names that all our cats have had.) Jello is a bit high-strung. She has mellowed out a bit here and now enjoys sitting on my computer cart looking out the back window, trying to post on AW by walking all over the keys when I'm online, hissing at Yoghurt (our remaining ol' furball) and playing with the sash on my robe. She's about 14 weeks old.















And that's Pudding (The Boy named him Byaku - I'm sure I'm not spelling it right). Pudding is very laid back and affectionate. He's a long-hair and looks like he'd weigh more but when you pick him up he's light as air. Pudding likes hiding in the back of the closet, perching on windowsills and sitting behind me in my desk chair, occasionally patting my back.

Oh, my blogiversary (see the AW Monday Meme Thread) is August 21, 2005. Happens to also be my mom's birthday. Don't neglect to post your blogiversary and tag it!


AWMondayMemes, Dawno,Grandkitties, blogiversary

Roots of Dawno's Sense of Humor

I've been thinking a lot lately about humor. A couple folk have encouraged me to try my hand at longer humorous bits than the occasional bons mots I'll drop on AW and posts I do here.

Doing that comes fairly easy because my sense of humor naturally switches on in response to things people say or stuff that's going on in my everyday life - it's how I react to nearly everything in life.

Even tragedy in my own life gets a dose of humor - sitting out on display in the office of the funeral home where my immediate family were arranging my mother's cremation, were several sculptures, memorial urns and chests one could select to hold the deceased's ashes. Some of them just struck us all (my siblings and father, alike) as absurd and we did make a number of remarks that, if you had been evesdropping and were even just a bit straightlaced, you might have found rather inappropriate.

But really, the golfer one did look like a guy surfing or wading with a golf club in hand. It was only the fact there was a golf club that gave any hint this was some kind of a final resting place for the ashes of a serious duffer. Imagine this sitting on an upper shelf, across the room from where you're sitting, and that you're looking at a side view - see what I mean? I think I initially wondered if he was standing on an orca or something, clubbing it with his 9 iron. And lest you think my father was disappointed in his offspring, as I recall, he was the one who started it. Later we sat around the dining room table, my sibs and Dad and I, with some bottles of wine and we talked about Mom and our lives with her. We cried, yes, but we also laughed.

Well. Moving on. There are other sources than my daily life or my past, that I can go to - politics and current events are staples of humor, although I think Jon Stewart really has that wrapped up - did any of you watch his show the Monday after Cheney's hunting accident? That was priceless.

Before I forget, let me say that this whole post was inspired by Liam on AW who posted: "Next issue- Hedge hog is neither a hedge, nor a hog. Discuss." Read on, you'll see why.

As I said earlier, I come from a funny family - my brother kept us in stitches with his impersonations and accents. Dad loved to tell shaggy dog stories. I fondly remember Dad bringing home a reel to reel tape deck, this was probably in 1969 or 1970, and checking out all the Cosby albums from the base library and taping them. We would sit in the living room and listen to them as a family and all laugh until our sides ached and our faces were soaked with tears. He also taped some radio comedy shows that he and Mom used to listen to when they were young, if I am recollecting correctly, which we also loved.

Then, when I was a teen, my friends and I listened to a radio show called Dr. Demento. He played parody songs and comedy bits. (Weird Al got a big break on his show. ) We'd sit around in the living room of which ever parents would put up with us that week, and drink Coke, eat chips, and howl with laughter.

My two best friends, John B. and John C. had a number of the skits and songs from the show memorized. They also had Tom Lehrer and Firesign Theatre albums - again with a number of the songs and skits known by heart.

I don't remember all the lyrics anymore but occasionally a stray line will pop into my head, like from Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and I can practically hear us all singing along to a parody song from the late 50's as we sprawled on the floor near the stereo, back in the mid 70's. I hope there are still kids in this new millenium who do the same. Some of the old stuff is hard to comprehend unless you understand the social and political context, but Poisoning Pigeons? Classic.

I also became acquainted with Monty Python around the same time. And one of our favorite skits (and not just among my friends, my parents thought it was hysterical as well) was The Piranha Brothers and Spiny Norman the hedgehog that Dinsdale Piranha feared (who could be anywhere between 12 feet and 800 yards long, depending on Dinsdale's state of mind). As an aside, I've never met a real hedgehog, but when the topic came up today, I went to Google to find out more about hedgehogs and came upon this site. Talk about cute critters. (told you Liam's post meant something - thinking about hedgehogs got this whole train of thought rolling)

Now some of my favorite reading comes from books by Terry Pratchett and Janet Evanovich. My news page on Yahoo has "Oddly Enough" news and that's one of the first places I read. The Onion and FARK are also favorites.

So, that's my story. There is a lot more that helped shape the way I think about things and respond to life, but I'll end here for tonight. Feel free to comment about things that influenced your sense of humor. I'd love to know.


Dawno, Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, Spiny Norman, hedgehog, humor, humor writing

A Dawno and the Grand-Kittens Update

The grandkittens won't come out of the bathroom. I was looking forward to playing with them tonight, too. Oh well. We can hope by the end of the weekend they'll overcome their skittishness and come out to play. We've closed up the bathroom for the night so they can sleep undisturbed by our cat, Yoghurt, who is not at all happy with the visitors. He's been sulking upstairs all evening.

I have a whole lot of stuff I want to do on the blog - update my bookshelf and add more AbsoluteWrite (AW) blogger links - if you're one of the AW bloggers whose link I don't have yet, it's coming, I promise.

Speaking of AW bloggers, I'm gonna post a new AW Monday Meme over on AW on - you guessed it, Monday, and do my answer to it here - it will be a short and sweet one and I promise (Mac) that I'll put more content in the post and not just the meme.

And speaking of AW, I've been made a 'supermod' over on the AW forum. I'll be helping out with duties like moving posts and threads that are in the wrong places, stuff like that. I'm very happy to be able to contribute more to a place that has come to mean so much to me.

I found a bottle of nailpolish remover in my desk this morning so my nails are bare again. I'll give it another try with stronger glasses and in the sunlight (if there is any - we're having a bit of weather here) tomorrow. Thank you, ProsperitySue, for the book recommendation - I'll be looking for it.

Meanwhile I still await news on the article I submitted - you'll be amongst the first to hear the news, one way or the other. Next month the contest I entered will list its winner and the honorable mentions - I don't really expect to be on the list, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the winners wrote so I can compare and keep on polishing my work.

I'm also going to try and do more reviewing. I'll say more about that if I get stuff accepted. It was a lot of fun to do the review of Ray Wong's book The Pacific Between. He even quoted a bit and called me a "literary critic" Took days to wipe that smile off my face.

I will be posting a review of a book in the near future that will be harsh and negative. I've finished reading Prevent Cancer Today and searching each page for the sources from which each page was apparently plagiarized. I say apparently because I wasn't present when the 'author' actually composed his book - all I can do is give evidence that the words in his book can also be found word for word alike on free websites - some from places like the American Cancer Society.

Why pay for his book when you can read the same information for free? He could have actually done some good by compiling an annotated index of cancer sites instead of trying to pass the stuff off as his own work. I would love to know the real story behind it all. I have a number of theories about it fermenting in my vivid imagination. The truth is probably a sad story filled with low self-esteem and not nearly as interesting as what I can concoct. I have to keep reminding myself not to pity the 'author' - what he did is simply completely wrong and should be unconscionable to anyone who wants to be thought of as an author. And, as I'm constantly telling my son, decisions have consequences. The young author of this book will have to face the consequences of his decision to put this work out on the market as his own.

And with that I say goodnight. Well past time for me to be asleep. Have a great weekend, all!

A Lazy Thursday Night

My son and his girlfriend are over for a visit. They brought pot stickers and laundry. His girlfriend is cute and very sweet. I know that my Christmas gifts and the recent Valentine's roses were her idea. They're in the living room watching "Sniper" and having a belching contest right now. I think my son may be a bad influence.

Not much exciting going on in my life. The only thing I can think of that's new and different is that I decided to polish my nails tonight. I was never able to grow my nails when I was younger and although I have long thin fingers the nailbeds at the end are quite small so on my hands short nails are kind of unattractive. When I was an account rep I did a lot of hand shaking and pointing at things in meetings with potential clients so I was self conscious about my nails. For awhile I had the acrylic ones but eventually I just got tired of the upkeep and expense and gave it up.

Over time I've gotten to the point where I can get them pretty long from late winter thru early fall (they get brittle and break more easily in the colder months - probably due to the low humidity of forced air heating) and keep them that way for several weeks before I have a tragic break on a car door, or while doing some form of housework, and have to snip them all off. To forstall the day when that happens, I try to keep them polished when they get long.

Unfortunately, I messed up the right hand a bit tonight; so, I went looking for the nail polish remover to fix things. I guess I haven't done my nails in quite a while, because I wasn't sure where the remover was. I looked all over. I now believe that I either ran out and didn't replace it or my daughter took the bottle with her when she moved. *sigh* I have a nice polished left hand and a smudgy right one. Grr.

For some reason I got up and left the above ramblings last night and didn't post it. So you get to hear what happened this morning. I get up and wander downstairs. There is still some laundry un-done but the kids are not here. I come back to my office and see that the bathroom door is closed. I go it. There are the grand-kitties. My son had asked if he could bring them over while his apt. maintenance was there fixing their patio door drapes. They didn't bring them with them when they came by with the laundry, so I expected them this evening. What they forgot to bring along was their litter box. I took a large brownie pan, filled it with litter and voila. It will be a bit more expensive to replace than a plastic litter pan, but what the heck. I don't get to play with kittens that often.

One of the kittens was fascinated with the whole morning hair rolling routine. Sniffed the hair gel, the curlers (ooh! hot!) pawed the clips that hold the curlers in one's hair. The other lolled on the top of the kittie condo we have stashed in the bathroom from their last visit her when they were really small. They're more 'teen' kittens now - recently neutered and spayed as well - thank goodness.

I may have to post pictures later :-)

Some Pictures of Rudy the Roomba and One of Me and My Daughter

Don't ask questions, just enjoy.
This is Rudy, he's napping right now.














This is the label that either my SO or my son put on Rudy - a egregious falsehood indeed.














Here am I in my "happy place" because my daughter is with me and we're having fun. She took it for me on my camera phone so I could have a new picture when I opened it up. The previous one was of her making a weird and wacky face. I like the new one better.

Survival of the Stubbornest

Today is Darwin Day. I would not have known this if I hadn't seen in my Google sidebar web clips a "meme" tagged post listed on Technorati, from a blog called A China Tea Pot, which has a great Bertram Russel quote in the title box...but, as usual, I digress. My blog should really be called Dawno's Digressions...but I like NVNC ID VIDES since it's from Pratchett...dang, there I go again.

I was reminded, as I thought about the impact of Darwin's theory of evolution, of so many things we've all lately discussed - the ID hearing in Pennsylvania, misguided religious zeal, religious intolerance, politics and world events, fear and how fearfulness spreads, the true definition of meme and the vox bloguli usage of the term for quizzes and games we hope to spread like memes. The perceptive and thought provoking posts, the humor, the real life struggles, the writers who are hoping to be published, the writers who are reading tough reviews...all this and more from our little quadrant of the blogiverse.

I began to ponder the whole 'survival of the fittest' as it relates to us and our blogging. While there are hugely popular sites like Boing Boing, Daily Kos, Post Secret*, etc., we are out here on "the long tail" (a concept I was unfamiliar with until I read about it on Snarkoholic, thanks, Tish). But do numbers of readers = fitness to survive? I'm not entirely sure. In the universe of blogs I think there might be something to be said of survival of the stubborn. People who will keep blogging, and keep commenting on blogs, regardless of their stats, because it's a connection with like minds - dozens more connections than we might be able to make in the Real World.

*why am I not linking these sites? Heck, they get all the traffic they need without me and it's highly unlikely they'll return the favor...besides, I don't even want Daily Kos & co. to know I exist, dang radical pinkos *wink*

Well, 'nuff of that. Let's see...I have lots of work to do on my 'bookshelf' with all the recent reading I've done. If you don't mind buying hardbacks or going to the library and getting on the waiting list, Stephen King has a new book out Cell. I really enjoyed it. Did you love It because of the way the kids loved each other? This book's got that same flavor. It's post-apocalyptic-technology-gone-bad-will-the-human-race-survive and eerie supernatural horror, similar to The Stand as well. "The thing that stands out the most for me is how he moves this book along so briskly - it just goes. Amazon has a little video clip interview on the page, too. Nifty!

I finished reading a Publish America book about cancer that came to my attention over at Absolute Write - the "author" had posted several plagairized reviews on his page - meaning he'd copied parts of reviews from other cancer books and posted them as 'reader reviews' using a number of psuedonyms. Eventually the reviews deteriorated into increasingly puerile blathering about how people who were against his book were criminal, etc. I have no idea what his review page looks like right now - but shortly I will put up my own.

For, you see, I've matched up nearly every word in his book to material freely available on the internet. After some hours of Googling I have found word for word plagiarism of sites ranging from respected medical sites such as the American Cancer Association, and Cornell University's Weill Medical College site to a pet health site discussing cancer in dogs to less authoratative sites such as Healthenlightenment.com and Naturalsolutions Radio, to finally a Creation Science page lifted in it's entirety for Chapter 11 of the book.

It's astonishing that anyone would think they can get away with using someone's copyrighted material for profit, and even more astonishing that the 'publisher' didn't reject this illegal manuscript immediately. Of course, it's what many folks I know have come to expect from Publish America - after all, they don't appear to read the ms submitted to them before accepting them, illustrated most notably by Atlanta Nights.

The saddest thing to me, is that the broad tarred brush of PublishAmerica is wielded across all of their authors, many of whom toiled mightily to produce their books. Good or bad, those authors poured out their words and now Publish America has them for seven years - for seven years these works are under the cloud of a publisher who would put a book like Pavel Tsupruk's Prevent Cancer Today in print.

I'll be sending copies of the pages of the book along with the website links these pages plagiarize to whomever I can find listed as the owner of the material and my hope is that they go after PublishAmerica with a vengance.

dawno, Darwin, The Long Tail, social media, Stephen King, Cancer Prevention, Cancer Cure Scams, health scams, PublishAmerica, plagiarism, Content theft, meme, Atlanta Nights

Has Anyone Seen My Sunglasses?

Time to talk about memory. I'm 48 (49 in July). To my kids I'm sure that's ancient. Amongst my colleages at work I'm in the oldest 10th percentile. I work in high tech, a youthful field - our company is only 20 years old, for example. But I worry that I'm certainly old enough to be getting a bit what they call "senile" For example, I wasn't sure if our company was 20 or 25 years old, so I had to go check the embroidery on the back of the comemmorative vest they gave out. And I struggled to bring the word "comemmorative" to mind - going thru a bunch of words starting with 'com' until it popped up.

But 48 isn't really terribly old. So why is my memory really starting to suck big time? The SO is constantly telling me "you told me that" (an anecdote about work or something) or "why didn't you tell me that earlier" (you don't remember that I'm going to be at a team dinner tonight?). He's exasperated about the former and irritated about the latter. I struggle to communicate effectively at work. I can't keep all the stuff straight without consulting my notes and my writing is going to the dogs, too, so my notes aren't always great memory aides, either.

When do you start worrying that memory flaws are more than just 'one of those things you have to cope with as you get older' I'm already seeing an internist and a cardiologist, do I need a neurologist, too? Perhaps.

There is one really nice 'upside' - when I go back to my old favorite books to re-read them, they're familiar but I don't recall enough specifics to be bored with re-reading them! (Yes, I *am* a modern day Pollyanna)

Back to the title of this post - where the hell are my sunglasses? The dang rain has finally stopped and I'm getting blinded on the commute!

Dawno, memory, memory loss,

The Internet is a Weird Place

PSA: If you're unfamiliar with any of the links I provide in this post and you click them anyway, don't yell at me if you end up with a song stuck in your head that makes you homicidal or see a picture that either sends you into a saccharine induced fugue state repeating "awwwww how cute!" endlessly, or makes you want to scoop your eyes out with a spork. You've been warned!

Today I'm reading Making Light and I finish the comments on the recent post. After that I usually go and look over at the left hand sidebar where there are TNH's Particles and PNH's Sidelights - links to things they think are interesting. In Particles I see "Cows with Guns" and decide, what the heck and click.

This site has a song and animated cartoon. The song is about -- you guessed it, Cows with Guns. It's a rather catchy tune, unfortunately. You'll have it running through your head - at least the chorus - for some time. If you subjected yourself to this link, do any of you recognize the tune from a movie or something? It sounds vaguely familiar but I can't place it.

Anyway, the cows are drawn with udders - makes sense, cows have udders. The problem is that lyrics of the song refer to one of these uddered cows as "he" and "him" That strained my credibility a bit - which, if you read my last post, is kinda hard to strain. I'm kinda disappointed. This from a woman who accepts that nobody on any of the 7 (I think there were 7) Starships Enterprise ever seems to need to pee.

After viewing the cow video, and wishing there was a way to floss the song out of my brain as one would a nagging popcorn kernal from between one's teeth, I start to think about all the weird song sites I've been subjected to over the past couple of years.

There was Badger, Badger and the follow up song Banana Phone which is a speeded up version of a Raffi childrens' song set to the Badger animation (with a few new characters thrown in). My son subjected me to Badger Badger and alleged 'friends' on a forum introduced me to the insanity that is Banana Phone.

Then, thanks again to my son, I'm introduced to the very weird and somewhat disturbing "numa numa dance" I haven't quite forgiven him for that one. Listening to it is as bad as looking at Tron Guy, to whom I was cruelly subjected by my Significant Other.

(Hey, I warned you about these links - you click 'em, it's your curiosity getting the better of you!)

OK, I'm sorry. How about I make up for it by sharing some of my favorite "awwww" sites? Have you seen the pictures of the bunny with the food balanced on his head? Lest you wonder about the bunny, like, is it alive or is it stuffed, you can read the Wikipedia entry and decide for yourself.

Are you fond of cute cat and kitten pictures? If not, move along please.

Next (more about cats, I'm afraid - if you're a dog lover you'll just have to find your own cutesie links and post 'em on your blog) is Museum of Non Primate Art. This site is a beautifully crafted gag. There's a couple of tie in books as well. My favorite thing is that this gag site contains a page about 'spotting fakes' - with a quiz!

OK, enough of my silliness, I know what you all are *really* thinking about - today's Superbowl. I know that some of my dear friends are very disappointed and others will be tossing confetti at the Steelers victory parade tomorrow. Congrats or condolences as appropriate. I didn't see all the Superbowl ads (nor the halftime show nor most of the game). Thank goodness AOL has them all - and I never thought I'd be thanking goodness for AOL, ever. Some of these really are laugh out loud funny. The fourth quarter MacGyver Master Card ad is, as they say, priceless.

By the way, I finshed the last book in the series by Robert Sawyer that I mentioned in my previous post. Wow. Good stuff. Dense, deep, disturbing. I'm now reading Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Book. I'm just a couple stories in but loving it.

I won't be posting the AW Monday Meme here tomorrow - if you want to do the meme, please go to Absolute Write Water Cooler Blogging sub-forum and grab it!


Dawno,Cows With Guns, internet oddities, Banana Phone, Badger Badger Badger Badger, Cats that paint, Superbowl Ads

Dawno's Brain is Full of SF Today

A fire breaks out and someone is burned. As the victim is loaded into the ambulance the paramedics are sending information about the patient to the burn center. The burn unit begins to prepare. A tech goes over to a keyboard and enters a sequence of commands. A printer starts up. By the time the patient arrives the printer has printed out enough skin for the doctors to use in the grafts this patient will need to replace burned skin.

Science Fiction? Today it is, but according to Brian Derby at the University of Manchester in England clinical trials are about 5 years away for this technology. Derby heads the Ink-Jet Printing of Human Cells Project at the University.

Another intriguing use of the technology could be a 'food printer' If the technology provides organic 'print outs' why not bacon or balogna or cheese? You just keep the cartridges cold in your fridge till you want that hoagie. I really like Technovelgy.com

So what are the things you thought you'd never see in your lifetime? I didn't think I'd see home robots (I have a Roomba and that qualifies). I didn't think I'd see food replicators - looks like those just might arrive before I croak. I think the flying cars and personal jet packs are probably not going to happen. I'd really like to see us give up our dependance on hydrocarbon fuels for transportation. That might happen. Oh, and I really want psychic doors, but I'm thinking that's probably not going to happen.

What's a psychic door, you ask? (Of course you wondered, admit it.) On Star Trek someone heads for the door. If they're really going out, it opens. But if there's going to be a dramatic "turn and make a pointed comment before you leave" moment, the freakin' door KNOWS it and doesn't open.

OK. I know that there are two sweaty guys crouched behind the set pulling a rope and they do it on cue. But since I've suspended my disbelief for an hour my mind is telling me that the dang door is psychic. It knows IN ADVANCE what the person is thinking and doesn't open till they're really ready to leave. (did you know that Coleridge came up with that suspension of disbelief thing? I probably learned that in my Romantic Lit class in college - my favorite professor taught it, too - but I'd long forgotten.)

So, imagine it - you go out the door to your car and when you get to the car you realize your keys are still on the coffee table. The psychic door has not locked, because it knows you're coming back for your keys! Or, it knows you're upset at your son and don't want him coming in to 'borrow' more laundry detergent. It won't let him in!! Burglers can't pick your locks, the door knows what they're up to. Maybe they have a way to call the cops, too. Or a psychic connection with the doors at the police station...hmmm. Possibilities abound.

If all the weirdness of this interests you, you're probably also like me in that you think about ways that the weird plot conflicts or discontinuities might be resolved. That kind of fanwanking is fun as well. I found myself fascinated and sent on quite a web journey as a result of reading that Wikipedia entry. I mean Krypto-revisionism?

Speaking of reading, I'm reading my way thru a Stephen Baxter series Coalescent, Exultant and Transcendent. Good stuff. The Coalescent book is especially thought provoking - humans as hive creatures and how it happened. As he did in Evolution, (a story that I re-read often and disturbs me every time) Baxter creates a compelling story around a scientific conjecture and uses long spans of time to develop the concept. It all seems so freakin' likely!

Baxter appears to be a proponant of the genesis of life thru 'complexifying' - that it is the nature of things in this universe to become more complex and with successful information feedback become intelligent as well. Not that I really *get* it, but I understand it enough to buy the concept as I'm reading. It's another willing suspension of disbelief to allow myself to agree that quantum foam is intelligent and determined the actual way our universe would unfold and evolve. I won't be trying to pass along that particular belief but while I'm reading his books it makes for a fascinating story.

This post is dedicated to Mac, by the way. Thank you for caring.

What? Another Knitting Post?

Yep. I recommend for your viewing, uh, pleasure (?) Beutiful (sic) art made with knitting. There's a whole thread devoted to it at Absolute Write Water Cooler if you want to comment there (but of course I'd rather you comment here!)

I would also like to talk about my Roomba. (it's related - you'll see) Yes, Rudy the Roomba was out and about again. We'd actually not used him in quite some time. When I came home last night the SO had him running around the living room. Our cat, Yogurt, is not afraid of Rudy but he's not too clever around Rudy, either. He kept laying down on the carpet and Rudy would bump into him. *sigh*

Later on the SO sent me a link to a website where you can see (and buy) COSTUMES for your Roomba. (He has forbidden me to even think about dressing Rudy up)


Between the knitter, with what seems to be homicidal tendancies towards toys, and the Roomba clothiers, I think we may be nearing the Last Days. Surely these are signs of the Apocalypse.

PS: you can also go to a site where someone has hooked up a web cam to their Roomba. And I thought the kitty litter cam was the weirdest thing ever. Where do I learn this stuff? From a blog-like website about Roombas, of course.


Roomba, Dawno, Cat Cam,
knitted art,
Absolute Write