Back from the Hiatus (I Wrote a Novel)
By bukkhead | December 1, 2009
I know it’s become the biggest blogging cliché, to blog that one has not blogged in a while, but I don’t care, because I haven’t, and I want to again, so this is as good a start as any. It’s been more than a month, and my excuse is the NaNoWriMo. That stands for National Novel Writing Month, an effort by writers all over the world to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Blogging, Fiction | 2 Comments »
NEXT!
By bukkhead | October 15, 2009
I’m so desperate to get back into the habit of writing that I went old-skool today. Here are 15 “facts” that I wrote. If, for some unholy reason, you want to read over 1000 more, go take a look at: Utterly Amazing Trivia. And may God have mercy on your soul (and mine too).
Armadillos are classified on the Borgl-Mimmich scale according to how often they reject pieces of cheese before finally eating one. The Case-Lynchy Armadillo farm in East Westin Texas once bred an armadillo rated at over 22.13 BMs! Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Blogging, Comedy, Fiction, Internet, Life | No Comments »
Random Zuihitsu
By bukkhead | October 5, 2009
This is going to be a random zuihitsu style post.
I was asked by a houseguest today if we have fast internet. My answer: we’re supposed to. That’s not a good answer. So I installed some updates. I tested it at speakeasy, and then on Facebook playing Bejeweled Blitz. Screaming.
This weekend, we went to the Outlets way north of town. I got some new khakis at The Gap, and I impulse-purchased a pair of boxer briefs with ghosts on them, as well as a man bag. I now carry a man bag.
Content of my man-bag yesterday when we attened our niece’s 3rd birthday party at Planet Jump: notebook, novel, pen, Sunday crossword, deck of cards, various colored dice, GPS, digital camera, cell phone, keys.
Man bag? It’s a purse.
Saw a pretty good movie last night, Saint Ralph, about a boy who thinks that if he can perform a miracle by winning the 1954 Boston Marathon, it will wake his mother from a coma. Tell me this, why do I care at all to ask why they decided to set the film in Canada (except for the Boston part)?
Yeah, “random Zuihitsu” is redundant.
My damn mac mini broke. I know we don’t use the term “broke” for complicated electronics anymore, but that’s how I’m calling it. I took it in, and in the meantime, I can’t update my runs logged from the Nike+ app on my iPods. So, my desktop screen saver, an avatar that reflects my running progress, is showing me playing with a paddle ball, lamenting my lack of running. I’ve logged 30 miles since the mac mini broke, you little bastard.
Saturday night I got stupid drunk. Stupid drunk is when you’re too stupid to stop. One beer, one glass of Michter’s, three manhattans. I should not have had the third manhattan. I probably should not have had the second, truth be told.
My spell checker allows lower case-m “manhattans” in the plural, but in the singular, insists that I capitalize.
I ran 10 miles this morning. I couldn’t find the key pocket in my new shorts (got them at the outlets yesterday). Then I discovered I had the wrong shoes on (got dressed in the dark). But then when I changed shoes I found the key pocket. The run went fine after that.
I didn’t watch the game yesterday, but from what I read, the Seahawks played like a practice team against the Colts. I didn’t watch but one quarter of Saturday’s game, but the Huskies got beat up by the Notre Dame thugs. Last night, the Mariner’s won their season finale. Didn’t watch that one either. That’s it for sports; here’s Tom with the weather.
Topics: Blogging, Life, Movies, Zuihitsu | 1 Comment »
Foundherentism
By bukkhead | August 31, 2009
You have before you a blank crossword puzzle, and, alas, no access to the clues. Now, someone has constructed this puzzle, to be sure, so there is a “right” way to fill it in. You decide to make a go of it, despite your lack of clues, and lo, after much trial and error, you manage to fill in every square. You end up with a grid filled in only by words that exist, or common abbreviations that many people would recognize.
And then, you find the clues! And of course, none of the words you put in there match the clues at all. For example, at 1 across, you put in FOOD and the clue in the original was “Shepherd.” Now what?
Well, you’re still bored, so you decide to write a story. And anyone who reads the story would be immersed in a context where the word “shepherd” means FOOD. (Maybe it’s a story about space aliens who eat farmers.) You go on to fill the story with more context such that all of the words you placed in the grid make sense with the original clues.
So, is the “right” way to fill in the crossword still the right way? Your way works too. Certainly, a person would have to have read your book first, but, look at the original: the clue for 19 across is “Langston Hughes poem.” The original had ITOO as the answer— ostensibly, a person trying to solve the puzzle would have to have heard of Langston Hughes and be familiar with his poetry. In your version, the answer is “ALPO,” since, in your story, Langston Hughes was a computer that wrote dog-food commercials, and the primitive people in your book didn’t have any form of poetry other than TV ads.
What’s the difference between Langston Hughes the “real” person, who most of the world has never met, and Langston Hughes the computer, who everyone who’s read your book knows about?
(I have no idea. I got the “idea” for even thinking about this from the Wikipedia article on Epistemology, specifically where it mentions Susan Haack’s “foundherentism.” I haven’t read the foundherentism article yet.)
You could go step further. Say, instead of working hard to fill in the grid with words that fit, you just put in random letters. And then you write that story, and you coin words that fit with the clues. Or you set up a context where it is understood that certain words and phrases yield a string of letters as a reaction. In your book, a “shepherd” is a Man, who Works Outside with Animals, so MWOA is the “correct” answer. A Langston Hughes poem is a Computer Written Dogfood Advertisement, so CWDA is the “right” answer.
The point is, you build a context to make anything “true.” I guess that’s going to suffice for a blog entry this month.
Topics: Blogging, Life, Movies, Uncategorized | No Comments »
That’s So Missing the Point
By bukkhead | August 18, 2009
The Penny Arcade guys brought my attention to a campaign to get folks to stop using “mean” words. (Quotes mine.) Because I’m a wimp, I’m not going to type, here, the words they want you to stop using. I don’t think anyone ever finds my infrequent blog via Google, but I’d hate to mislead folks here looking for something else.
Go to their link. You’ll see exactly what’s going on. But too bad it won’t work. In fact, it’s going to backfire horribly. They’re going to turn the G word into the N word. I mean, I can respect the effort. And it’s horrible that teens are persecuted and abused by their peers. But you know what, they’re going to be persecuted and abused anyway. They need to address the sorts of social situations where this abuse is even possible. Won’t they don’t need to do is get a bunch of people to recognize and institutionalize the words used in this abuse.
It all comes down to “popularity,” according to studies I can’t be bothered to look up right now. If the popular kids smoke, other kids will try smoking. If the popular kids have sex, everyone wants to try it (everyone wants to try it anyway—it’s just a matter of how hard they try to hide it). And if the popular kids use “mean” words to hurt people, everyone else will too. Yep, even those who are getting hurt.
The campaign is also misguided in that it’s trying to humiliate perpetrators of being mean—which is hypocritical at best. And, as I said, won’t be effective in the least. Take a look at the downloadable posters.
I say start addressing self-respect issues. You’re not going to get everyone to stop using the bad words, so why not work on not giving a damn about the bad words. (Maybe that’s what those posters are for—to reassure the abused that people who use those words are losers. Alas, the message there would be “losers too,” which does nothing for self-esteem, or “the real losers,” which tries to maintain the class system that exists in pretty much every high school I’ve ever heard of).
Anyway, I have not blogged in a while, so this is what I came up with.
Topics: Blogging, Internet | No Comments »
Running
By bukkhead | June 29, 2009
The First Annual Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon was last Saturday, and I was lucky enough to participate. I had originally signed up to run the full marathon, but Achilles tendonitis put a hink in my training, so I downgraded to the half. It was still a lot of fun, and one of the best-organized events I’ve ever seen—not too shabby, considering there were 25,000 participants. Add in spectators, volunteers, and everyone else, and you can imagine what a huge task it would be to keep it all together. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Sports | No Comments »
We Went to Portland
By bukkhead | June 8, 2009
This will be a good-old-fashioned diary/journal type blog entry, so skip it if you like. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Travel | No Comments »
The Voynich Coincidence
By bukkhead | June 5, 2009
I went to Barnes & Noble today to get something for my wife. I browsed, of course, because I’m a nerd, and nerds loves books. I’ll go ahead and flip that—people who loved books are nerds. There, I’ve drawn a thick black line dividing the people of the world into two groups. Live with it.
On the new fiction shelf I saw a book called The Book of God and Physics: A Novel of the Voynich Mystery by Enrique Joven. The Voynich Manuscript is a hand-written tome from a bunch of hundreds of years ago that appears to be written in an as-yet-to-be-broken code. The Joven novel is about a Jesuit priest who gets caught up in fight over a new key that has been discovered. Ostensibly, it’s religion versus science. Da Vinci Code. The Name of the Rose. You get the idea. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Books | 1 Comment »
I Got Fat—What did YOU Do This Weekend?
By bukkhead | May 26, 2009
Friday came in and I went to Weight Watchers because my weight-in day is Friday, even though usually I go on Saturdays with my wife. But I had a long bike ride planned for Saturday, so I went ion Friday, and lo, I had lost some weight. Hooray! And so it was with no guilt that, in anticipation of that long bike ride, I carbo-loaded big time on Friday night. Romio’s pizza, in Greenwood, where I sat and ate a salad, a big-ass bowl of beef ravioli, and a large-ass hunk of bread. Delicious. The first time I’ve eaten to the point of discomfort in 4 weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Dining, Life | No Comments »
A Question for My Indian Family…
By bukkhead | May 22, 2009
…especially the ones who live or lived there. Can you explain this picture to me? I know who the people are. And I’m told it has something to do with voting…
Thanks!
Jason Kumar
Topics: Dining, Uncategorized | No Comments »