As soothsayers and Nostradamus wannabes attempt to divine Apple’s product schedule for everything (except the iPhone), let’s pick on the company again for a design that is both ugly and awkward.
This is the Apple iPhone 6/6s Smart Battery Case:
Image courtesy Apple
Or as I call it, “Is that a deck of cards in your case or are you just glad to see me?”
Why it’s ugly: it looks like the case has a large rectangular growth attached to it. I suspect very few would describe this appearance as visually appealing.
Why it’s awkward: Pick up your smartphone right now (if you don’t have one, use your vivid imagination instead) and hold it as you normally would. If you’re like most people, you’ll be gripping at least three fingers along the bottom side edge of the phone. Note in the photo that this would put your fingers right on top of the bulge where the battery pack meets the regular part of the case. Awkward.
This is a surprisingly ugly product from Apple, which usually gets at least the aesthetics right.
Compare this to the Anker Ultra Slim Extended Battery Case for the iPhone 6/6s:
Sure, the phone is a bit longer as a result but the design actually keeps in mind that people don’t want a lumpy, misshapen phone. It also costs about $80 less than Apple’s battery case while offering 75-90% of the equivalent battery extension.
The part in bold is the generated text, the rest is my thrilling conclusion to the story.
She could smell gas even before she opened the door. That was the last time she’d let Frank borrow six cans of beans.
More:
After five years, he just happened to be walking down her street? She figured he would want something, he had a desperate and needy look in his eyes. She was right–he wanted beans and plenty of them.
Still more:
He had the urge to clear the ground, to look out and see nothing. He grabbed his magic world-erasing brush and with a few swipes back and forth was gazing upon a serene black void. After awhile he got bored of this but had left his magic world-creating pen at home and so was stuck with the black void for a very long time.
And finally:
More and more people were refusing to obey the laws of the land. Soon every last can of beans had been stolen.
The good news is that unlike February, where I gained 2.2 pounds over the course of the (short) month, in March (a longer month) I only gained 0.6 pounds.
The bad news is I still gained weight, which is not a good way to lose weight.
Here are the stats:
March 1: 166.4 pounds
March 31: 167 pounds
And February’s by comparison:
February 1: 163.6 pounds
February 28: 165.8 pounds
The worst news is that in a little less than two months I’ve gone from 163.6 to 167 pounds, an increase of 3.4 pounds. Ugh.
It looks better (?) if you compare from January 1:
January 1: 165.9 pounds
March 31: 167 pounds
The difference there is a “mere” 1.1 pounds.
In any case, I need to get off my butt and start running more, doing my walks at lunch and purging the household of all snacks except for water and celery sticks, which is just green water in solid form.
Joe Hill prefaces The Fireman with a list of people who inspired him and cheerfully admits to stealing the title from Ray Bradbury and “all the rest” from his father. It’s true in a couple of ways–the story of a global pandemic that causes people to spontaneously combust has homages aplenty to King’s own end-of-the-world novel The Stand, as well as references and call-outs to The Dark Tower series. And it’s also true in that, like King, Hill tells a ripping good yarn, with vividly-drawn heroes and appropriately evil bad guys.
The story focuses on a band of infected that learn to control the “dragonscale” spores inside their bodies through group singing, something that not only prevents them from literally going up in flames but also leaves them feeling pleasantly buzzed in a communal sort of way. This turns out to have its downsides as the story plays out.
Harper Willowes, having escaped from her revealed-to-be-monstrous husband, joins the other infected in a summer camp where they lay low, wary of being found by “incinerator” gangs devoted to killing the infected. She meets the titular Fireman, a British ex-pat named John Rookwood who can not only keep the dragonscale under control but can use the fire it creates willfully.
Made pregnant by her estranged husband just days before she flees from him, Harper draws closer to the Fireman while growing increasingly concerned about the pod people-like behavior of the other infected in the camp.
As you might guess, things go sideways through intentions both good and evil, with plenty of fireworks (literal and otherwise) and mayhem resulting. Hill also demonstrates that he is not above using a well-placed fire pun. All the better to burn the reader’s expectations (ho ho).
The Fireman is a messy, bloody romp. The bad guys will have you hissing while the heroes are flawed but believable and sympathetic. The many call-outs to The Stand and The Dark Tower are fun to spot. Hill tosses curve balls from time to time to keep things interesting and doesn’t cheat much with coincidences, letting the characters largely push the story forward (there is one instance near the end where the sudden arrival of a character felt all too convenient, but Hill at least deals with it quickly and moves on).
This is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys post-apocalypse stories or just quality horror written in vintage King style. Hill may steal from his father but he has his own voice and with each consistently excellent novel, proves himself a valuable addition to modern horror writers.
You know the best part about getting older? No, neither do I.
But until I can be cryogenically frozen and thawed out a thousand years later when people live to be 2,000 years old, I must contend with the fact that now, in my early 50s, things will break now and then.
In this case, man things.
A month or so ago I noticed a sensation in my groin. It wasn’t the pleasant kind brought on by lascivious thoughts, it was more of a persistent and annoying pressure. It felt like I had to pee all the time, whether I had to or not. It even felt like I had to poop a lot, which I didn’t. I tried to put this phantom pressure out of mind but in the end, it was too persistent and so I went to my doctor.
He scheduled blood and urine tests, with a tentative prognosis of prostatitis, (infected prostate, which I’ve had a few times before but not recently). He warned that the blood test would test for prostate cancer and often came back with false positives, so I wasn’t to freak out. At least not right away.
I delayed on getting the tests done because I am a man and men are like that. I finally did and almost immediately after I began experiencing new symptoms, namely a pressure or cramping in my lower abdomen as if whatever it was had started to spread. This alarmed me. After a shower, I fondled my crotch in a non-lascivious way and found the left testicle had a neighbor and it wasn’t the right testicle. It was a hard lump of something or other. I was pretty sure my crotch (or any crotch) is not meant to have a hard lump of something or other in it and was even further alarmed.
My follow-up appointment with my doctor (to discuss the test results) wasn’t until April 6 because he was on vacation. I didn’t want to wait nearly two more weeks while the unwelcome lump of something or other cuddled up to my left testicle, so I called the doctor’s office and they scheduled me to see another doctor today at another one of their clinics. He would have the test results.
The good news is the test results came out negative. The doctor said a prostate infection seemed unlikely. He speculated that I might have an overactive bladder. I nodded in my head because I’ve often thought my bladder is about ten times smaller than average based on how often I need to pee (I even tested for diabetes a few times because of the frequency). He recommended that I avoid beverages in the evening and see if it made a difference. As I write this it is 10:19 p.m. and I have a glass filled with diet soda next to me.
I had pizza tonight. It made me thirsty!
And I’m a man. Men are kind of dumb about these things (I’ll do better tomorrow, I promise.)
I then mentioned the lump of something or other and the doctor told me to drop my drawers so he could cop a feel. He used somewhat more professional language.
He confirmed the obvious–I had what seemed to a cyst where a cyst should not be. Well, a cyst really shouldn’t be, period. He said he was going to schedule an ultrasound and they would let me know when and where.
Medical sonography (ultrasonography) is an ultrasound-based diagnostic medical imaging technique used to visualize muscles, tendons, and many internal organs, to capture their size, structure and any pathological lesions with real time tomographic images.
Pathological lesions. Hooray!
Anyway, I’m not really alarmed since being alarmed will not actually change anything. I actually feel better than I did yesterday because the initial test results are clean and the unwelcome lump of something or other is getting probed.
What I’m trying not to think about is the inevitable plan to remove it. It’s tempting to enter “how are cysts removed” into a Google search but I’d like to sleep tonight (trips to the loo to pee notwithstanding).
Anyway, this concludes more of getting old. It’s always an adventure, like a dark ride that gets stuck partway through, probably next to one of the speakers blasting awful looping music.
It’s raining so much you think it might be a good idea to build an ark in case the world floods. Write a shopping list for the supplies you will need, including all of the pairs of animals. Remember, unicorns are not real, so don’t include them.
With trees starting to bud and bloom again, write a story about happy trees. Except these trees are happiest when eating small dogs and children, like those scary apple trees in The Wizard of Oz.
Write a poem that includes the following things that rhyme with spring: ring, ding, sling, fling, ping, Emperor Ming
Spring is a time of renewal. Write a short story about two countries renewing their bitter, pointless war. Make it a romantic comedy.
Spring is also a time when the land again becomes covered with the lush green of vegetation. Write a story about a giant green blob that scours the land clean, leaving nothing but the desiccated bones of all humanity. Also make this a romantic comedy.
Somehow I missed writing about last week’s writing group. There were only four of us but it was a good group and I was productive again, finishing off the new chapter I have inserted after Chapter 2, cleverly called Chapter 2b for now.
This week I cleaned up some stuff near the end of the chapter to better align my intention for the chapter with the actual words. Having done that I next worked on some organization of the novel in two ways. The first was in Ulysses, where I moved the story into a manuscript folder underneath the main folder, then added a Notes folder also separate from the story. I find this easier than using Ulysses built-in notes function, at least on the MacBook Pro where screen real estate is more limited and you can’t have a bunch of windows open without reducing everything to “must have the eyesight of a 20-year-old.”
Having done this I next worked on hashing out some ideas on how to fix inconsistencies early in the story because even though I know it’s better to just forge ahead now and fix this stuff later, I’m the kind of person who hates the idea of leaving large-ish sections of the story in a state I think of as “wrong” and if I don’t go back to fix them now, they will serve as constant distraction.
Also, there is the possibility that in fixing these I may come up with other zany ideas that might work.
As for the group itself, there were six in total, though only four had confirmed, including several people I hadn’t seen before. I was early as usual but the previous group had cleared out, so I set up in my usual spot and began clacking away almost immediately.
The men’s washroom was out of order so I had to use the women’s. It’s pretty much the same, except it had a shelf holding a dangerous-looking (because it had the word DANGER on it) yellow plastic box labeled “BD Sharps Container.” It had a line on it that said not to fill it past that point. I could tell by the shapes pressed against the translucent casing that these sharp objects were needles. It looked to be nearly full.
One thought was “ew” over how many people apparently shoot up in these washrooms. The second was more about what a weird place to keep a box full of needles. Shouldn’t they be stored in the back out of reach of customers? Maybe customers are expected to safely dispose of their needles in the box, as civilized junkies would do. I don’t judge, I just ask questions.
Anyway, the writing session was a success once again. I am going to try to get more into a regular writing habit during the week but for some reason, it’s been even more difficult than usual this month, as the number of blog posts attests. Between having a billion things to do at work, health concerns, starting up with running again and other stuff, I have a lot on my mind and it’s been tricky to clear out the head space to just sit down and write.
I have no idea why the Kindle edition identifies this book as Writing a Novel with Ulysses III as there is no version 3 of the program (it’s at version 2.7 as of March 2017 and the book is based on version 2.6. The differences between these versions have no impact on the advice offered). That aside, David Hewson’s book–more of a booklet, really–is a fine guide on covering the basics and some of the specifics in using Ulysses to write a novel. As a bonus, he also includes a chapter on how to use the program to write a screenplay or radio script, too.
Ulysses bills itself as a “pleasant, focused writing experience.” It’s a minimalist writing program, using plain text with markdown to provide a very clean writing environment. As with similar programs like WriteMonkey, it is meant to be a distraction-free way to write, where almost all formatting is handled separately from the actual writing, through an export process done after the project is complete.
Ulysses is not a complicated program. In use, it is rather the opposite and intentionally so. It wants to get out of the way so you can just write. The value in this book is in how Hewson concisely covers its features while offering enough specific tips to further smooth the experience without having to search forums or other resources for information. The combination of his writing experience and familiarity with the software work well to provide advice that is of immediate usefulness.
He peppers the book with general writing advice while also encouraging writers to use their own approach if their methods don’t match his own. You may organize your manuscript, research material, and other notes differently, but Hewson’s suggestions in regards to Ulysses remain useful.
Overall, this is a quick, useful read for anyone interested in fiction writing and has chosen Ulysses for the task. It has helped me to better organize and tweak my writing projects.
Run 483 Average pace: 5:40/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.04 km
Time: 28:35
Weather: Overcast, some drizzle
Temp: 9ºC
Wind: moderate
BPM: 162
Stride: n/a
Weight: 167.2 pounds
Total distance to date: 3805 km
Devices/apps: Apple Watch, iPhone
Yes, it may seem crazy but here it is the same week and I’m posting another outdoor run. Woo.
Today I went to have blood taken for some testing and did what one would naturally do after losing some blood–I went for a run.
(I did eat a banana first.)
I headed out mid-afternoon under gray and threatening skies–they threat never materialized beyond some very light and sporadic drizzle) and even though it was warmer than Saturday at 9ºC, I wore a long-sleeved shirt because the wind was promising to gust again.
It turned out the wind was not a factor at all and I never felt cold. Perhaps because of this, I was faster, beating my sloth-like previous pace of 5:54/km by coming in at a less-slothful 5:40/km. This is still well off my usual 5K pace and I’m feeling tired right now, but I know in time my form will return. I can already tell the legs won’t be as stiff, so hooray for that.
The trail was in respectable shape and I saw no other runners. There were a few people walking their dogs, including several letting their precious scamps run off-leash. I especially liked the guy with two larger dogs letting his dogs squeeze under the fence to frolic around the “Restoration area – no dogs or people” sign. One of the dogs made a desultory attempt to follow as I went by and as I was near the end of the run, I’d likely face the dogs again as I double-back at the end to reach 5K.
Instead, I decided to keep going and hope I could hit the required distance in Lower Hume Park. I did, though with literally no room to spare. I dinged 5K just steps short of the tree that’s fallen across the trail at the bottom of the stairs. But at least I didn’t have to deal with those dogs and their dumb owner again.
My next run is tentatively set for Thursday after work–my first post-work run of the year. It looks to be mild but soggy. I can live with that.
Run 482 Average pace: 5:54/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 5.06 km
Time: 30:04
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temp: 6-7ºC
Wind: high, with gusts up to 13 km/h (probably higher, it was reporting 13km/h when I got home and the wind had eased up a bit)
BPM: 162
Stride: n/a
Weight: 166.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 3800 km
Devices/apps: Apple Watch, iPhone
For the first time in three weeks, I returned to Burnaby Lake, the snow at long last completely gone. It was around 7ºC heading out–not exactly balmy, but with the sky clearing and the sun poking out, I figured I could safely switch from my long-sleeved running shirt to a short-sleeved one.
This proved to be an interesting decision.
Every other jogger I encountered was bundled up like it was winter (it is, officially for two more days). Some wore gloves or long pants, others wore jackets. I was the only one dressed as if for summer, wearing only a t-shirt and shorts.
The one thing I hadn’t anticipated was the wind. Sometimes it can be breezy. Today was not one of those days. The wind was ripping. The flag at the Hume Park Home Learners School (a name that seems like an oxymoron, really) was pointing straight out and rippling so hard you could hear the fabric snapping.
This made the 7ºC–which dropped by a degree by the time I started the run–feel more like something much, much colder.
As I entered Burnaby Lake Park the inevitable happened and the wind whisked the cap off my head. I retrieved it and screwed it down tight. It didn’t come off again and for this I was glad because my buzzed head would have been frigid without.
I ended up frigid, anyway, just not my head. For a few moments I marveled over the impending signs of spring: the fragrant aromas in the woods, the trees starting to bud, even the skunk cabbage starting to sprout in the numerous stands of water along the trail. This marveling went away as my arms and hands turned to icicles. They were so cold that in that first five minutes I considered calling off the run altogether.
Instead, I kept going, hoping the thin warmth of the sun would provide at least a psychological boost, and that the activity would warm me up enough to ensure this wouldn’t remain Mr. Freeze Goes Jogging.
It sort of worked.
After the first km (a sluggish pace of 5:33/km) I did warm up a little but it remained uncomfortable until around the 3 km mark, where it finally became tolerable. My second km was a staggeringly slow 6:20/km as I simultaneously passed the initial burst of speed and began feeling the full effect of the icy wind.
The wind did not relent for the entire 5 km. It didn’t even really start subsiding (a little) until the walk back. It was not fun. I blow a raspberry at you, wind, though I’ll know to check wind conditions before the next run.
The trail was dotted with puddles from yesterday’s monsoon-like rain, with many areas of mud, more mud and also mud. I finished a bit muddy, though I skirted all of the puddles. Despite never really feeling warm, I opted to walk home instead of taking the shortcut to the Production Way SkyTrain station. It just seemed like too much of a bother to go up there and wait for possibly multiple trains before getting on one. Plus I was already cold so it didn’t seem to matter much by that point.
I could feel the effects of the exercise even as I walked home, the rare treat of being sore not the day after but the hour after. I expect it to be worse tomorrow, but in time my legs will get back their sexy running form.
Despite the chill wind, it was still good to get back on the trail. But, uh, no wind next time would be spiffy.
