tuesday morning 2012

here I sit awaiting therapy, the day is cold but sunny, am in the middle of overhauling my house. going to end up rebuilding my entertainment PC and moving my business stuff over to the old server that I converted to be my edit machine, I may actually get more editing done now. by dividing what I do with computers into 4 PCs, 1 for writing, 1 for business/editing, 1 for publishing/travel and 1 for entertain,emt. I may get more done. At least I will get around more. it's funny how you end up with more furniture than you needed and wonder where yo had put all of it.
lots to do today including going in to work in Knoxville

You're a Good man Josh Davis

Went to see the soon to be famous Joshua Logan Davis in "you're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." It was very entertaining. It is not a strong musical like Les Miz ro Sweeney Todd but it is lighthearted and entertaining. Really a collaboration of vignettes combined under one soon to be blown away umbrella. Mr. Davis' performance was strong and he was by far one of the easiest characters to understand both in speech and song.
Lately, I have been turning over several thoughts on the "Economy of Movement." A combat style that originated with the idealism of Bushido. The idea behind the economy of movement, is that no movement of the body is wasted, no flashy dance moves, no excessive force required. Imagine if you will Akira Kurosawa's master-less Samurai, the Ronin known as Sanjuro who seems lazy but is in fact exacting in his movement. When he fights- he only strikes when the kills is certain and he only kills when that is exactly what he wants. He wastes no time on fencing, or sword bashing and posing..
When he moves in battle it is only to strike and kill or strike and wound as the need arises. It is beautiful in its precision and terrible in its delivery. The Samurai exemplified this economy of movement. So did the ninja, the ideal becomes real by the simplest expression taking action.

about to see charlie brown the musical

Josh Davis a co conspirator is starring as Schroedor in you"re a good man Charlie Brown. this will be the fifth play i have come to see Josh in since he began his acting career other than what he did at VVA. His being in Beauty & the Beast a few years back inspired me to start rewriting my own B&B book. So I am grateful enough to drive for hours to see whatever he does next

Sunday Morning

spend a heck of a lot of time on getting a major blog upgrade last night. got all the blogs linked tho. this morning I am at work and blogging. I have restarted on Beauty and the Beast and am planning to squeeze in some time on typing it and the queen prophecy.
got to go and do sound

saturday activities

wow, what a day, lots and lots of work, changed a light fixture, moved and dresser from my mother's house to mine 2 flights of stairs. moved a book shelf back, moved a book shelf from my house out to the eBay storage shed, swapped wheels and a KB drawer on 2 desks, moved 1 desk to mom's deck, sorted out some more of the EBAy shed, fixed a dolly's wheels (mostly) sorted tools, mounted a TV antenna on my mom's house. reprogrammed the HDTV channels, moved all of my Ebay records in hard copy by box to store in the back of a closet in my mother's house 12 years worth of sales records over half of my eBay feedback's worth. disassembled my xbox 360 setup in prep for my major changes to my house/studio. straightened out one hell of a FUBAR on eBay with a sale. relisted the Wii, Blu-ray player and one of the Servers. Bought tickets for megabus to DC for Dad's Birthday. went to work out at the rush for 2 hours, went to the dump, went to food city for groceries but not in that order.
 let's see, changed out incadescents for LEDs, moved radiant heater from my house back to Mom's cooked dinner- chicken vienna-mmm good. took second shower, talked to my dad, and tyed two chapters on Ray's Tomato Garden Journal (to be released soon).

I don't know what is worse

I seriously don't know what is worse, managing posts, mirroring blogs, or keeping one blog separate from another. I keep finding that i am posting stuff in the wrong blog.

USB lightning failure

I am gradually losing the functionality of my main system due to somehow getting a such through a USB port- I think a hub. First it stop recognizing devices and then has gone into imminent failure locking up the computer- no mouse/keyboard to do anything about it. Unfortunate for me since this is the system I do all my business and gaming on. Even as I type this on my netbook I can see the fatal flaw in it. Obviously I need to separate the two systems. Still it is really weird, Now I will have to have a long discussion with Microsoft about migrating my OS to a new motherboard.
It is sunny and for the first time in my memory, main pc has not filled me with total dread.

blogging and writing and hearing aids and taxes

Today is the unavoidable day as they say. No not the one where I get married, committed and die but the other one where I scramble around like a monkey in a tree and then go file taxes. This morning was pretty misty and not inspiring but it did clear up and the hearing thing was some 60 miles one way there (120 miles give or take round trip). This afternoon has been mostly devoted to more book compilation and editing that borders on sheer madness as the scope of all that I have to deal with.
I only hope the tax filing (50 mile round trip) will be painless and and reasonable. Blogging today has become necessary as my readership has doubled since I went over to technica and registered the blog site with them. Now all i need is content and more content.

tuesday february sunlight

Spent the morning typing and editing a book about a man I have known almost all the days of my life. Wondering what I would be like if I lived until I was at least 98. Typing about true love and what you know about another human being is different than writing fiction about what you think another human being is like. One is more familiar while the other is more personal, intimate and complex. Working against a deadline like life expectancy is always hard, you want to get it done in time but at the same time you want it to be good.

That's were I am at today. how about you?

sunday morning

sunday morning, the usual line up, get up early, grab some hot english tea, oatmeal and Hershey's SD morsels, and then its off to work.. Get dropped off after getting my early sermon on how unproductive my life could be.
then its time to test the mics, adjusst the sound board, untangle the headsets, grab the life section from the sunday paper, then stick it in my box, catch some pickles and crankshaft before the first bell rings and its time to work as others worship

the hardest thing about blogging is

the hardest thing about blogging is blogging. and then listening to advice about blogging especially from non-bloggers. It is easier to go to Facebook and make snarky comments or watch you tube instead. I swore I would write something everyday, even got an iphone app and no such caboose. I would rather be playing Wow or scraping grease out of the wind organ than sit down here and write this morning.
The hardest thing about writing is having something to write about that doesn't sound contrived. I don't have a beautiful spirit or much coffee or even the care for coffee. It's like football, I tried it and it tasted awful so I quit watching and drinking it.
here are some quotes for the day:

      "No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation."
                                         Fran Lebowitz
       "Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

    "Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with."

if you take notice of such stuff anyway. I would like my cat who only speaks when he wants the egg, lettuce, cheese or meat I am about to it, or squeak mews at me when I see him in the morning. The dog is more talkative though.
So true about experience, I guess I should have tons of good judgement, judging from all the experience I have had due to bad judgement save for women. I have had almost no experience with women and thus have no judgement there.

As to value, ask Myers-Briggs they are experts at assigning values to people they have never met.

Sunday morn

Blog this from the cell, with onscreen keyboard and wow that is so slow...

sunday morning fog

here I am on a given Sunday, having survived the fog on the drive into Knoxville. My question today is can I love a stranger on the street like Jesus loved me, a stranger myself?

Love your neighbor as you would have God love you.
Harder to say that read, harder to do than anything else, unless you can love the stranger without judging them first.

about the art of the college paper

as to finishing a paper- that why you outline it, so you know your conclusion before you write the paper, In fact if you want to master this process write your paper like this. write your argument. then rewrite it as your conclusion and then the introduction. Now you have the front and read wall of your paper, the rest is fill or in logical terms proof that your argument is valid. the best way to do this is to look to the greeks. what I mean use greek argument structure. The greeks used 3,5 or 6 (but seldom more than 6) points to prove an argument. this is of course the cornerstone to logic and philosophy and drama as it were. Less than 3 is not enough and will get shot down, more than six is wordy and will get shot down. In a short paper, limit each proof to 1 paragraph with a fact or quote to support it (footnote/cite). In a longer paper use 3 paragraphs tops for proof and 1 to 2 quotes/facts. Remember that almost all college papers are set on this same basic structure (and thus philosophy and logic as well) Statement (argument) proof, restatement. Once you are doen then rewrite your conclusion allowing that you may want to rephrase your conclusions.
does this work? It did for me and I have a Master's degree to prove it. Also if you master it and learn to put notes in the margins of your textbooks, In class essays and paper tests are much easier to accomplish. If you get the main points then you can write about anything. So in short write the conclusion first (since it is in fact the point of writing the paper in the first place

Green Lantern DVD review

Just watched the Green lantern movie and has to say that it plays better than the comic did. It would also have to be said that it is about the most visually beautiful movie since Ang Li's Hulk movie. The cinematographer should get an Oscar for the lighting effects alone. The movie would have been hard for anyone non-comic related, but on the other hand having read the comics I tended to read more into the movie having read the comic book. A good question, however, since I had spoken with several non-comic book people (ie most everyone I know these days); I knew that most people who had seen the movie could follow it. A sad truth that surrounds this movie is its theme of overcoming fear, it was timely since this country and much of the world is consumed by fear. Since it was "just" a comic book movie the bulk of the world ignored it as anything poignant or meaningful preferring instead to locate a hidden truth in The Hangover, Part 2.
The acting was spot on despite having a somewhat limited script but I was pleased with every actors performance even the two that were left with CG to carry it.
Ryan Reynolds remains one of my all time fav actors since he proves again that he can take a limited role and make a lot out of it. Kudos to you sir.