My personal life has undergone a seismic shift as of last night. Since this is a blog and not Dear Diary I’ll say no more, but if an artist must suffer for his art and I keep writing or doodling or throwing pots or engaging in some sort of creative endeavor, I will soon be producing work that’ll look touched by genius.
Just sayin’.
Let’s start with a haiku.
I did a bad thing
The consequences are due
I am a dumb guy
The genius part may build slowly over time…
One day I’ll write up a full review of my Series 2 Apple Watch (which I am generally pretty happy with) but something that has always bugged me is that Siri is only available when you have an internet connection, even for things that should easily work without a connection like “Hey Siri, start a 5-minute timer” or “Hey Siri, shuffle my music.”
Siri also has a tough time parsing certain (seemingly random) things. I will never get Siri to play The Alan Parsons Project’s album Pyramid because Siri is incapable of understanding the word “pyramid”:
“Hey Siri, play the album Pyramid.”
I’m sorry, I can’t find the album Pure Mind
“Hey Siri, play the album Pyramid.” (Being very careful to pronounce the word clearly and concisely.)
I’m sorry, I can’t find the album Pier Mind
“Hey Siri, play the third Alan Parsons Project album.”
begins playing random track from The Turn of a Friendly Card, the fourth APP album
Best of all, even when I issue a command (usually related to playing music, like the aforementioned “Hey Siri, shuffle my music”) the watch will insist something went wrong with Siri…shortly after executing the command correctly:
I mean, as long as it works I don’t mind, but it’s a bit unsettling.
At least I’m totally set if I ever get an album called Pier Mind.
If I wear my over-ear headphones and then rub a finger on my upper-lip stubble (it’s not quite grand enough to really call a mustache) the sound is strangely reminiscent of sawing wood.
This has been my random thought of the day.
Also, I dreamed the other night that a taxi driver or bus driver said dividing something up fairly would be “fifty, fifty, fifty” and I frantically tried to find some way to permanently record this wisdom for all time. In reality I have an app called Drafts that I can summon on my Apple Watch and with a tap of the mic icon, I tell it what I want to record and it’s done. It’s simple yet always strikes me as such a spiffy, hi-tech way to record random thoughts and ideas.
In the dream I couldn’t get the app to work. I’m not sure why. The watch probably adopted spontaneous non-Euclidean geometry that made it impossible to operate.
This has been my second random thought of the day. About random thoughts.
I’ve done it again.
I started out in early June staying close to one-post-per-day on this here blog, then it went off the rails and on this last day of the month I found myself eight posts short of my desired goal.
It’s been difficult, but I’ve avoided making eight posts of animated cat gifs today. I’ve only made one.
This is post #29 so I have one more to go after this.
Have a random thought:
What is it that makes so many people unaware of the space around them when they are out in public? I don’t really know, but I lean toward thinking it’s something unique to large urban areas. As more of the world fits into that category it’s probably going to get that much worse.
And that’s not even counting the smartphone zombies.
It bugs me that so many people don’t pay attention. It seems lazy and selfish. But what can I do, other than to complain in vain? I suppose I could wear a giant mechanical suit and just fling people out of my way. That seems a bit harsh, though. And expensive.
No, complaining it is.
March started out kind of sucky, with more of the seemingly endless snow piling up. It shouldn’t snow in March except maybe at the polar ice caps. March also ended kind of sucky, with the discovery of a lump down around my private parts. Even if it turns out to be something harmless (benign, to use the official parlance) it’s still going to require a little chop-chop to remove. At least with the snow, you only have to wait it out before it finally goes away.
In between the start and end of the month, work was extremely busy, but I helped successfully push out a major new initiative, so that was good.
I began to run again outside. I’m still not running regularly, but I’ve at least started. This is goodish.
The weight loss thing–well, I did have two donuts this month. *hangs head in shame* It could have been a lot worse, though.
The weekly write-ins have been a real boon to my writing. But I’m still not writing much outside of them–yet.
And finally, back to the weather: despite a whole lotta rain, temperatures are finally and reliably back in the double digits again. Yay.
I give March 2017 a rating of 6/10. Some bad stuff, but slightly outweighed by the good.
Now I must concentrate on resisting all the Easter candy out there on sale.
I have been tired and kind of out of steam this week creatively, though I’ve managed a few trifling bits.
This post is essentially padding the monthly total of the blog because I have nothing to say but here are words to fill the void.
Also, since I haven’t written one in a while, a haiku:
The days of blah come
Inspiration eludes me
Fudge sticks and crackers
Now I’m hungry.
From Merriam-Webster, the definition of sarcasm:
a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
a) a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual
b) the use or language of sarcasm
When I was younger I employed sarcasm so regularly it was entitled to full benefits and vacation pay. Thinking it over, I haven’t really reduced my usage of sarcasm, I just have fewer opportunities to wield it. For example, I’m wise enough to know that sarcasm is often not the best tactic in the workplace (co-workers do not seem to share this trepidation based on the regular barbs that go a-flying).
Looking at that first definition, though? Designed to cut or give pain? Ouch. Literally. When I employ sarcasm, it’s certainly meant for effect, chiefly to skewer the target of said sarcasm. In that sense, it can be said to be intended to cut. Give pain? Not so much. I’m not a sadist, not even a linguistic one. When I use words as weapons I’m more like a mug swinging a club I can only manage to lift, rather than a skilled fencer darting to and fro, stabbing at will.
The second definition, though, that’s entirely me. When I prick a finger and draw blood I’m fairly certain a little sarcasm leaks out. I don’t always target individuals, though, preferring to broaden my targets to entire institutions or groups.
What brought on this bit of self-reflection was a perusal of some of the posts on this blog, specifically my writing prompts (the ones I create, not the ones I tackle) and how they are uniformly sarcastic. Why is that? Am I secretly afraid of producing mediocre prompts and so write ones that aren’t intended to be taken seriously? Is it a reaction to so many writing prompt collections being silly while trying to be serious? More the latter, I think.
Coming up with a few decent prompts is pretty easy. Coming up with a dozen? Trickier. Coming up with hundreds, especially hundreds that aren’t spewed out by an automated process? It is difficult, so bless those brave souls that try, even as I mock their efforts. I don’t mean to be cruel and fully open myself to similar mockery with the hundreds of nonsensical posts I’ve written here.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I blame my head cold and the obligation to write. I’d rather be sleeping and don’t look forward to staggering into work tomorrow, still feeling unwell and having to battle stuffed-up sinuses, caustic co-workers, and other stuff, all of which could be solved through the simple expediency of winning the lottery.
Time for bed and NyQuil-fueled dreams. The best dreams.
I briefly fell asleep on the couch tonight. The last time this happened is a time I cannot recall, so probably about a hundred years ago.
The relentless pace of work is definitely having an effect. I am jealous of those who have good-paying jobs and yet still somehow have a bunch of time to surf the web while at work. I can’t even get through lunch without people coming up to me, let alone casually peruse the endless treasures that the internet presents. And by endless treasures I mean amusing cat images.
This reminds me, I need to find a good hiding place once NaNoWriMo starts. Distraction is the #1 killer of potential stories, at least where I’m concerned. It’s one of the reasons I actually prefer the smaller screen of a laptop to a comfy 24 or 27″ display. Those large displays make web-surfing pleasurable and enticing. A laptop display merely makes it serviceable. I’m also more inclined to make my writing program run full screen and pretend the internet doesn’t exist on a laptop. It’s win-win, except for actually having to buy the laptop.
All of this assumes I’ll have the energy to write come November, of course. We’ll find out in a mere 27 days!
The last time I had 34 or more posts in a month was way back in October 2009 when I wrote 38 posts. I’m still not sure how I managed that. Temporary insanity, perhaps. Maybe this current spate of activity is a sign that I’ll be firing on all cylinders for National Novel Writing Month, coming some 31 days from now. Looking over my posts since the start of the month, my novel will be less a story and more a series of image macros about someone who runs regularly. I’ll call it The Jogger. No, too plain. That Jogging Guy. Hmm. That probably wouldn’t work, either. To really cash in it should be something like The Girl Who Jogged or The Girl Who Wore Running Shoes or The Girl [something something to go with the other billion novels that have appeared recently that have titles starting with “The Girl.” Thanks, Stieg Larsson who isn’t even alive].
Anyway, one of the things I’ve noticed is I can no longer stay up late on the weekend like in olden times because my body is so used to getting up early that all of my fun/party genes turn out the lights by 11 p.m. This is to say that while I am typing this I am also starting to nod off, so I’ll probably go to bed soon. But at least on the weekend I can sleep in. Except I feel guilty now when I do that, then regret it after I wake up because I have less time to do other things, both productive and otherwise, and also I won’t get the 12 hours of standing activity on my Apple Watch and somehow that has become important to me. On the plus side, it has reduced the chances of varicose veins or gout or something. Whatever it is that happens when you don’t stand enough, like our hunter/gatherer ancestors used to (I mean that they stood a lot, not the opposite. I’m pretty sure they spent almost every day hunting bears or maybe just one especially wily bear who always eluded their spears and traps. They’d call him Ol’ Scoot because he’d always scoot off before they could catch him. You couldn’t just sit around when Ol’ Scoot taunted you like that. Plus maybe you haven’t developed enough brain power yet to stop gathering poison berries to nosh on, so you really need some of that good bear meat or the stories around the cave fire are going to be all, “Remember when we had more than three of us to tell stories about that stupid Ol’ Scoot to? No, I’m good on the berries, thanks.”)
Some miscellaneous thoughts on the past month: