Category: Uncategorized

I am back in Michigan, but I’m zonked. Posting may be light this weekend as I’m way behind on the writing thing.

It’s good to be home, though.

Who knew it was so easy?

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I almost forgot. A serendipitous trip to B&N netted a book I’m sure both J– and I will live to regret buying, No Plot, No Problem. As a writer (went to school, got degree), it goes against every instinct, class, experience, and method I can think of. Basically, you have 31 days to write 50,000 words. Other than that, there’s not much too it. The book goes into caging your Inner Editor, some motivational tricks, and the esprit de corps you’ll need to accomplish such a ridiculous goal; beyond that, it’s a fairly easy technique.

The hard part is that I’ve committed to doing it, not just to J–, but to myself. At around 1600 words a day, it’s something I would never set as a goal for myself precisely because it goes against everything I know about writing.

But, as I thought about it, I remembered trying to write like other authors (comon you writers, where’s you Hemmingway hack?). Doing something like this is a jump start to getting the fingers nimble and the juices flowing. My writers block has grown a beard and taken up paint-watching, so anything I can do to coax him out is a good thing. It won’t be publishable, here or otherwise, but it might be constructive.

Updates to be posted

Hopefully not IDing myself too much, but I’m off to Portland for the week. First time to that state (guess which), so it should be fun. I may blog from there if anything warrents it.

Until then, make sure you check out the other side of YKWP.

I know everyone picks on MT for comment spam. They tend to get the Microsoft treatment about their products. They are the no.1 standalone blogging software, it’s only logical they would be targeted by spammers.

That said, however, it still irks me to no end that they haven’t implemented some real tools to fight the spam. MT-Blacklist is awesome, but only until a breach is found. Then it takes the only developer a long time to patch it. Worse for Six Apart, they have old installations out there that have upgrade instructions scary enough that even I thought twice about doing it.

(Sorry, quick aside here, but their installation instructions fail to tell you to upload the Javascript library. Yeah, things don’t work too well when that’s missing

Anyway, why do I post a beef about Six Apart on a MT-powered blog? Because I’m expecting to get a letter like Ken Camp did anytime from my host. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened with more hosts.

My installation is currently in the clear in the situation above. But I fully expect comment spam to be back. For all the chest thumping and high-fiving the development circle-jerkers had when the nofollow hack came out, there will be a way around it. Spammers always find a way (the bastards).

And every day that letters like the above go out, more people will do what Ken did; switch. WordPress has a new version out with some pretty impressive features. I have too much invested in the conversion back to MT, so I’m not quite ready to make the jump. But the option is tempting, and I know from experience the switch to WordPress is almost too simple.

Get it together, Six Apart. You’re not Apple; fanaticism only goes so far.

Communications is not for everyone. I know that’s not the most profound statement you’ve read today, but it is one of those things that needs to be said more often than it is. Communicating is difficult, challenging in a way that many people cannot grasp. It’s not language, it’s not grammar, it’s not even verbalizing important thoughts. It’s about being able to listen, to hear and understand (at the same time) what someone is trying to express and then, and this is the important part, take that expression and transmit it to more people. You as the communicator take that thought, the one someone felt was important enough to communicate to you, and expand on it, spread it around, make it known to more people.

That, in a nutshell, is what the function of a communicator really is. Notice I didn’t say their job. It’s not their job. The communicators job could be any of a vast number of things. Communication may not even appear in their job responsibilities, on their CV, or come up in a performance review. But it could be an essential ingredient nonetheless.

How do you know when someone’s job has communication as a vital component? When they aren’t able to communicate. In my brief career, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the most gifted communicators I can think of, people I’ve learned from and wish I could continue to learn from. I’ve also had the unfortunate experience of working with a sampling of the worlds most pitiful communicators. These are people who not only have a career centered around communications, they are so unable to perform that function, it boggles the mind that they draw pay every week.

And I have to sit back, remove myself from the frustration of the situation, and wonder: how does someone unable to communicate, someone unable to listen and project the message, continue? I don’t know the answer, and it frustrates me. I have a handful of standard reasons for maintaining one’s career in the absence of talent, but nothing concrete. I can’t imagine those I trust in my work—because, what else is work but trust of those you consider more knowledgeable than you—I can’t imagine them withholding a shortcoming from me. How can I improve if they don’t tell me?

But it must be this way for many communicators. They must muddle through the message they’ve been trusted with because they don’t know any better. They’ve never been given the guidance they need because their work, their product, is not viewed by anyone with perspective. They are, for all intents and purposes, casting their voice into the echo chamber. It pains me, as a communicator, to see this continue and, as a professional, it pains me to be reminded of the stifling politics and drudgery around me. I am blessed with a team that is not only motivated, but overly capable—a potent combination, to say the least.

If only it were that way in many more places.

In our steady tidal shift towards oblivion, death, and destruction (Cthulhu can’t be far away now), there were bound to be a few moments when even the most enthusiastic of us riding the wave would smack our heads and say “Oh comon”. Today is one of those days. The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (that’s New Jersey), has decided to raise it’s objections to a candy. Yes, a candy. Why, you might ask.

Does the candy maker support a large badger crushing operation? No, oddly. Do all profits of the candy sales sponsor baby-seal-clubbing expeditions? No, although I like your way of thinking. No, the taboo this candy dares to market is… roadkill. Yep, the candy is shaped like roadkill, complete with tire tread marks. Now, how this is supposed to harm animals, I’m a little fuzzy on. Maybe Billy and Jane But-We’re-Only-Eight will jack mom and dad’s Expedition and go on a wild night of gummi-roadkill-animal-induced Vehicular Whack-A-Squirrel. I don’t know, but the NJSPCA is threatening *gasp* a boycott. Yeah, good luck with that.

I’m pretty sure that, were I giving money to the NJSPCA, I’d rather they spend it elsewhere. You know, like helping the critters already in their possession.

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Find out all you want to know about gourmet salts. I’ll take one Maine Smoked Salt.

I need a bigger spice rack.

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Works with a lot of common consumer routers. And the price is right.

WallWatcher

This seems like a lot or detail work to do on the web, but maybe I’m just lazy. Make your own font (as in draw it), and then download it as a True Type font to use. Cool idea; little iffy on the execution.

If you’re really into fonts, you can have your handwriting made into a font, too.

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