Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

11/23/2012

Rules for Writing

Filed under: Advice from your Uncle Jim,Fiction,Fun,NaNoWriMo,Red Herrings,Things to Read — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 4:51 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Gibbous

The first rule is to WRITE!

No, seriously, in honor of NaNoWriMo, I thought I’d link to things about writing and inspiration this month and, even though, I’m no great fan of rules, especially about writing, some people are.  So, with that in mind, I thought I’d share the Guardian’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction.
They asked several authors, some of whom I am more familiar than others, and got each of them to list their “10 Rules for Writing”.  Some are funny, and some are a little too truthful, but one of them may help you break out of writer’s block, or just whatever writing rut you may have worked yourself into this month.
My favorite of the bunch, outside of all ten of Leonard Elmore’s rules, is “The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.”  That comes from Anne Enright, who I confess I have not heard of before, but who is entire correct.
So, get back to writing, okay?

Well, get back to writing after you click the link and read the other rules they have there.


Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself."
   --Abraham Maslow

6/26/2009

Flying Palace

Filed under: Art,Fun,Life Goals,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 5:27 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Crescent

Remember those fancy custom campers from last week?  Small time.  What I really need is an airplane fit for a James Bond villian.

Over at the Guardian, they’re running an article about the “flying palace” that a Saudi prince bought for a cool £300 million.  That’d be something like $500 to $600 million dollars.  The only thing its missing is a shark tank!
Of course, I would need a pretty impressive crew for this.  And an endless supply of oil money.  Hmm, maybe those high-end RVs aren’t such a bad deal after all…

9/23/2006

Not A Good Start

Filed under: Bavarian Death Cake of Love,Deep Thoughts,Life, the Universe, and Everything,Personal — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Sheep which is mid-afternoon or 3:03 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Crescent

So, I’ve got a lunch date tomorrow…

I’ve been on Match.com for a while now, but I haven’t really persued anything since LK and I dialed back into “friend mode”. I just haven’t been all that interested. And, money has been a little tight. Well, at least before I knew that check from my lawyer was on the way. Oh, sure, there’ve been the odd profile or picture that makes me think, “Hmm, yeah, I wouldn’t mind getting to know her a whole lot better.” Or, even, “Gee, I wonder what name she’d slip and call me in a moment of passion? Todd? Scott? Barry?”
Anyway, this girl from Match “Winked” at me, so I sent a short e-mail back. E-mail went back and forth for about a week and we’ve spent the last week working out a date this weekend. It took about three or four e-mails before I could tell for sure that she wasn’t actually reading my entire e-mail to her. Not the best start. I mean, the e-mails were only five or six sentences long, so it doesn’t seem like a huge challenge to actually, you know, read the whole thing. Especially when I wasn’t wasting words and asking simple questions like, “The Guardian doesn’t open until next week, is there another movie you’d like to see? Oh, and any thing I should avoid in particular when choosing a lunch spot?”

I don’t know, maybe the fact that she only answered the second of those two questions was a clue that she didn’t really want to do a movie at all, but why not just say so?
Here’s how it went. First, I suggested an afternoon movie. Her response was that it was “a little hard to get to know someone” in a movie. Okay, valid point. I had intended to suggest getting a bite to eat after the movie, assuming everything went well. So, I said as much and suggested that we just go ahead and plan on it. She agreed and we started talking movies. Then, in the middle of one of those exchanges, she writes that she would rather get lunch before the movie, to make sure we get along before we sit through a movie together. Again, perfectly valid point of view. Except, if we went to see the movie first, we’d have at least that much to talk about afterward. Then, she doesn’t like any of the movies playing but is stuck on this one movie, The Defender, which we’ve already established doesn’t open until next week. Ultimately, I mentioned that three times in three different e-mails before we got around to considering a different movie. And, then she hits me with “so you’re set on an early movie?” And, you know, I wasn’t, really, but she agreed with me all week long that this was what we were going to do until Friday night when it became an issue.

After walking away from the computer long enough to find the humor in the entire situation, I sent her back ” Hey, since the movie thing is getting to be a challenge this weekend, why don’t we just meet for lunch tomorrow? Have a favorite place?” Which got me what I should have either asked for or offered ten half-read e-mails previously: a phone number. Naturally, when I called, I got voice-mail.
But, we finally connected and are meeting for lunch, at noon, Sunday. But, you know, I somehow doubt this is going to get very far. I mean, so far, she can’t be bothered to read an entire five sentence e-mail or just come out with what she wants to do when I ask her. Neither bode well. And, before I take any critisizm for not taking a firmer lead, I did, but she obviously didn’t want to do what I was suggesting. In spite of popular opinion to the contrary, I’m a pretty flexible guy and what we did really wasn’t that hugely important to me. If all she wanted to do was meet for lunch, that would have been fine. Instead, we danced around for a week, accomplishing little other than making me frustrated and quite doubtful. Still, I’ll go through with it because; a) I might be surprised and really enjoy her company and b) the only way to get out and meet people is to, well, get out and meet people. I’ll let you all know how it turns out.

And, I bet my faithful readers thought I was going to recap my last therapy appointment from Thursday night. Ha! Maybe some other time!

9/27/2005

Rogue Dolphin Soldiers?

Filed under: Deep Thoughts,Dog and Pony Shows,News and Current Events — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Rooster which is in the early evening or 6:44 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waning Crescent

This seems like a problem…
Over two years ago, on my other blog, I noted a little news article about dolphins geared-up and trained for combat. Well, it seems that not only do they exist, but they may have been released into the Gulf of Mexico, by accident, due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina. At least, according to this news article at the Guardian, that’s quite likely. The US government will neither confirm, nor deny, the veracity of this story, but sources close to the military indicate that as many as 36 bottle-nose dolphins that have been trained by the Navy to attack terrorists compromising ocean vessels may be loose in the Gulf. These sources say that divers and surfers may be in actual danger from these swimming mammals who have been armed with some kind of “poison dart gun”. The concern, according to the article, is that these dolphins “have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises” and could attack innocent bystanders who fit the profile.
The good news is that the “poison” darts are designed to put their target to sleep for later interrogation, but a lone swimmer or diver could find themselves in trouble. And, again, the Navy will not confirm or deny this story. It could be nothing, but…
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water!


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