i m N s h o

Just a brief thought here… I am constantly fascinated by the subject headings in spam emails. Since most of my email programs now provide filters and all the spam ends up in one place, all I've got to do is occasionally browse through to make sure there isn't something there that does belong in my inbox and then hit delete. But while I'm browsing, I do, of course, end up reading a lot of spam subjects. For a while there, they all seemed to be using some kind of random word generator, one that would capture your first name, or the first few letters of your name, and then throw your name (or one that started with those first few letters) into the subject along with a random grouping of words. Yeah, like "combat tunafish Larry superstar beefcake" is going to make me want to open your email. Lately, most of the spam I see is just a string of characters that are either from foreign alphabets or scientific or mathematical symbols, or just plain gibberish. Whe...

A friend of ours (let's call her Jane, for simplicity's sake) does stand-up here in LA and occasionally invites us to catch her at one of the local clubs. Last night she invited us to one of those shows, what she calls "a bringer"… the club provides the space and lets the comics come in and do their bits—they just have to provide their own audience. I assume there's some minimum number requirement or something, but it may just be that, if the comics don't bring anyone, there won't be an audience. It's a very casual set-up and it provides the comics a chance to test out their new material since it's a "friendly" audience and, aside from the 2-drink minimum, it's not costing anything to go. Last night had a small crowd (not that it's a big room) and there couldn't have been more than a couple of dozen people. Jane's husband said that there's no telling from night to night how big the room's going to be… sometime...

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. — Winston Churchill (With thanks to Quentin for bringing this one to my attention!)

I love this word! Schadenfreude "Pleasure derived from others' misfortunes." It appeals to my cynical nature, I guess. (from, once again, Wordsmith.Org 's A.Word.A.Day email list. Always fun and interesting.) And, while I'm on the subject of the AWAD email, some recent quotes I liked… The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us. — Paul Valery , poet and philosopher (1871-1945) I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. — Susan B Anthony , reformer and suffragist (1820-1906) In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take. — Adlai Stevenson , statesman (1900-1965)

Farscape was, as far as I'm concerned, one of the best SF series on TV in a long time. Smart, really funny, great characters, a fascinating storyline… it was one of the few shows I'd go out of my way to watch every week. Of course, since it was on the Sci-Fi Channel , figuring out when to watch it was often problematic. (I was never entirely sure whether they ran the episodes in order, nor when a season REALLY started and really ended. It seemed like they started each season sometime in March then, about 4 episodes from the end of the season they'd go into repeats, then show those last 4 episodes in November or something, then back to repeats. It was a confusing schedule to say the least). One of the things I like best about the series is the lead character, John Crichton. He's smart, resourceful, funny, blah-blah-blah—all the standard characteristics of a lead SF character—but, by sometime in the third season, they gave him an edge that I'm just not used to se...

You know, I'm a big fan of NASA. I honestly think that space exploration is a great thing and we need to do more of it in the future. So it's really depressing when something like this goes so horribly wrong… NASA Genesis Mission Info "The Genesis sample return capsule entered Earth's atmosphere at 9:52:47 a.m. MDT… However, the Genesis capsule, as a result of its parachute not deploying, impacted the ground at a speed of 311 kilometers per hour (193 mph)." The big question, of course, is whether or not the samples Genesis collected survived the impact. Considering this quote: "The shell had been breached about three inches and I could see the science canister inside and that also appeared to have a small breach", it sounds doubtful. (Of course, the mean-spirited cynic in me is screaming to point out that, if I REALLY believed in space exploration, then maybe being a NASA fan is my mistake, but hey, I'm not feeling that cynical or mean-s...

I consider myself a writer. (One of these days, maybe I'll finish one of the many stories, scripts, book ideas and screenplays sitting on my computer and in my head and get published/produced and I can dump the qualifying "consider", but for now, I'm kinda stuck with it.) One of the things I've embraced, as a writer, is the concept of drafts & rewrites. NOTHING I write is done on the first pass. I always have to do at least one or two revisions on anything I write… hell, that's probably the reason I hate writing notes in birthday cards (note to self, try drafting those notes first!). One of the good things about this, though, is it frees up my writing on that first pass… I'm less inclined to edit myself and just let things get on the page, knowing I'll come back later to clean it up and get rid of the junk. For the longest time, I actually wrote my longer blogs in a separate doc (where I could do my spell check and review what I wrote before po...