Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.
- Herman Melville
A very interesting essay on being poor is here. Called oddly enough, “Being Poor” and written by John Scalzi. It resonates with me, growing up what most people would consider poor - but what I still considered comfortable.
Mmm…Spammy goodness.
For a long time we didn’t get any spam comments on our blog. Recently we’ve been elevated (hmm, that doesn’t sound right) to the ranks of blog spammage.
Which must mean that there are at least one or two clickthroughs per day, and that we have some random search terms showing up on google or another search engine.
Anyway - I just got the warm fuzzy toasty feeling of destroying 129 spam messages that have accrued over the last few days. I also had one sneak through my spam filter and ask to be moderated. However, I doubted that “Xanex Viagra ChEAp Drugs111″ was a real user, and so sent them on to Akismet Spam Hell.
Hence the reason comments here are moderated.
I’m supposed to put up a picture of Ivy soon. In a Ninja costume. I’m going to do it too, because well, that’s just how I roll.
And Sami is going to make me a special dinner of spam with cloves and honey or something - this is a real food. It seems fitting to eat Spam soon, so close to all our annoying spam messages.
Cheers.
A comment about parents gaming with their children I saw on slashdot and liked.
“Well, I am not primarily my kids’ FRIEND…
I am their parent.
We don’t have to share interests, although it is nice. However my main priority when it comes to my kids is gaming in the real world.
One time I caught my son chasing his sister with a whiffle ball bat — it’s not heavy enough to really hurt somebody, but it certainly can sting like the dickens.
“Here, give me that,” I said. “We’re going to play a game. You are going to take this bat and tap me on the shin. But the rules of the game say I can tap you back on the shin just as hard.”
So, my son takes the bat and gives me a tiny little tap. I take the bat and give him a tiny tap. Then he gives me a slightly harder tap which I return. Then he gives me a look that plainly says he doesn’t believe I’m serious, then gives me a painful whack in the shin. I take the bat and promptly give him an equally painful whack in the shin. He then gives me light tap which I return.
This goes on for a while, and my son is literally whooping with laughter, when my wife walks in to see what’s going on. She snatches the bat out of my son’s hands. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she yells.
“I’m teaching our son about the Golden Rule,” I reply. “Also, that it hurts to be whacked with a bat.”
One other time, I walked into the room and caught my daughter calling my son a “shithead”, for which I remonstrated with her.
“Do you want me to apologize?” she asked.
“Of course I want you to apologize,” I replied,” although I realize I can’t keep you from insulting each other.”
“You mean its OK to insult each other?” she asked.
“Of course it’s not OK,” I replied. “I simply recognize I can’t stop you from doing it. I insist, however, that we don’t use potty language in this house.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I replied, “let’s play a little game. Try insulting me without using potty language.”
“Er,’You are a stinky idiot.’”
“No, playground language isn’t acceptable either,” I said. “How about, ‘You are a fetid addle-pate.’”
We went back and forth a few times, and were just getting into the swing of things when my wife came into the room. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she cried.
“I am teaching our daughter not to use vulgar language,” I replied. “I am also working on her vocabulary.”
Sometimes I wonder if women understand child-rearing at all.”
So we went to my 19 week ultrasound yesterday. My whole plan for this was they were going to tell us that they were wrong and I am much further along then they thought. I believed this was what should happen because my stomach is Massive! I look like I am at least 6 to 8 months pregnant. No clothing fits, My maternity shirts from when I was pregnant with Ivy are starting to get too small, and my stomach is already getting in the way (the stove is much closer to me then I originally thought while cooking.)
Well my plan did not work out! I am right on time, 20 weeks and 3 days along as of yesterday. The due date remains March 27th. The baby looks Great (yes I said Baby, there are not 2 in there Erin). We got to see all sorts of awesome pictures, it has 10 fingers, and 2 whole legs, a developing brain, and a beating heart. The Ultrasound technician gave us a great view of between the legs, even though he is not allowed to tell us what the baby is he can let us look, and the verdict….. I think I saw something, Jeff’s sure he didn’t. So we are having a boy Or a girl, Surprise!
So to sum up, there is a baby in there, it is right on time, it is developing well, and my stomach is just going to grow to be the size of a TV table (which is convenient at times.)
Sam
Here is another one. This one was a challenge as well, and the challenge was to tell a humorous holiday story using only dialogue. I wanted to play around with accents, and this is what I came up with. Let me know what you think.
****
Christmas Ink {Kermitgorf Challenge}
“So, he just like, got it for me, y’know?”
“Really? He just got it for you?”
“Yeah, y’know. I’d been telling him I wanted one for a bit, droppin hints and stuff y’know.”
“Like – just … got it for you?”
“Yeah. How many times I hafta tell ya y’know. He dinnit say anyfing, just got it for me.”
“Wow. I wish my chappie was like that. I bin droppin hints for weeks about that wee locket at Hampsteads – he jus’ always tells me we aint got much free loot.”
“Yeah. Pretty nice right? I dinnit even have to drop many hints. Just nicked ‘is wallet and went and got it.”
“Nicked ‘is wallet? I thought you jus’ said he got it for you?”
“Yeah, that what I said? I guess he did right? Maybe he dinnit know he was, but he did it. And ‘sides, he’ll like it right?”
“Sure he’ll like it. I mean, what kind of chappie wouldn’t want ‘is tramp wearin somfing like that?”
“They spelled Chris’mas right dinnit they?”
“Yep. Good tattooers those chaps. But I thought ‘is name was Curt, not Burt?”
****
This story (like all ficlets) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License. What does this mean?
For those of you who don’t want to click my RSS to view my ficlets I’m liking so much, I thought I’d repost a few of them here. This one was I think the first I wrote for a challenge - a story that had requirements that needed to be met. In this case it had to contain certain words, which I bolded. Let me know what you think.
****
By Jeff Closs / SupRspi
As always I came upon the scene in medias res. The train had derailed and tumbled down an embankment, crushing a house.
And it’s occupant, or I wouldn’t be here.
I flashed my ID to the cop at the taped off perimeter.
“So, wierd as it looks?” I asked.
“You aren’t going to believe it sir. They say they need a TOD on the clown, think he’s been dead since before the accident.”
“Clown?”
“Yessir. Clown. You better just go on inside.”
As I entered I knew why they were curious. The accident was only a couple hours old, and already the stench of death permeated the place, clinging to the flowered wallpaper like tar.
I entered what was the living room. The train’s cowcatcher had scooped up a sofa and an old gramophone, it’s horn bent and mangled.
The victim was indeed a clown, with a hooped costume barely concealing his avoirdupois and adorned with a fancifully large daisy boutonniere.
“Well” I said to the officer in charge, “obviously it was murder.”
“So, you see zee gunshot wound, yes?”
****
This story (like all ficlets) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License. What does this mean?
Ficlets continues to entertain me. I’ve got about 8 written, and most of them seem to be getting good reviews. It’s challenging to write a contained piece of fiction in only 1024 characters - but when you finish a story and see that little “ficlet nirvana” instead of a count of how many characters over or under you are - it’s cool.
I’ve only managed it on two of them - the others are all under a bit.
Challenges are cool. If you see stories of mine on the RSS feed on the right that have {suchandsuch challenge} in them, it means that I am writing within someone else’s proscribed rules. Usually it includes using certain words (which I usually bold) but it can be anything. These are the most interesting because they force you to write outside your comfort zone.
I’m off back to ficlets now - look for my stories, and feel free to comment and write your own. In case you don’t want to wander over and read my stories there, I’m going to post a couple of them here over the next few days - ones I especially like for whatever reason.
::Currently Listening to: The Cure - Lullaby::
A while ago I was turned on to ficlets by John Scalzi, an author and blogger I admire.
I just recently went there again to read a story posted by Wil Wheaton. (yeah, that Star Trek guy I like, who is an hawesome author) Wil’s story was basically amazing - the kind of thing I wish I could come up with. It was also inspirational, because I resurrected my ficlets username and wrote a few ficlets.
I wrote a disasterbation piece about someone in my line of work being taken hostage by an angry gun toting customer. I wrote a very vague piece about the world ending, and someone counting down the minutes. This one has inspired a few people to write sequels and prequels - one of the neatest aspects of ficlets.
Actually, I’ll let Wil sum it up, as he already did so well here.
“What does “collaborative short fiction” mean in this case? Simple: You, as a writer, post a very short (not more than 1,024 characters [Jeff's note: If you get 1024 characters exactly it marks your ficlet as "ficlet nirvana"]) piece of fiction or a fiction fragment on the Ficlets site. People come to Ficlets to read what you’ve written, and to comment on your piece. If they want to, they can also write a “sequel” to your story or story fragment, carrying the story forward from where you left it. Or, alternately, they can write a “prequel,” explaining how you got to where you are in the story. All sorts of people can write all sorts of sequels and prequels — and of course, other people can write sequels and prequels to those. What you end up with is a story with multiple authors and multiple branchings — lots of possibilities and surprises.”
I am amazed at how a story I wrote can inspire 6 other people to write short stories based on it, and how I can surf between the prequels and sequels, and end up reading alternative “dimensions” on my story. It’s hard to describe, but say someone writes two prequels to my story. Someone else comes along and writes one sequel, and someone writes a sequel to that. In the hierarchy it is in the same point as my story, but is different.
Just for fun I tossed the RSS feed of my stories into the sidebar - you can go click on them and read them. If you sign up you can post comments on them, continue them, prequel them, or just write your own.
If you do sign up, send me your username so I can add you to my watchlist.
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My stories @ ficlets.
