Towse: views from the hill

January 10, 2007

Hang onto those hats.

Filed under: SJTblog — Tags: — Towse @ 10:46 pm

As I mentioned a wee bit ago, there’s a fine line between conscientious and compulsive, between wanting all your blocks set up in a straight line and not being able to function unless your blocks are set straight.

That being said, those of you hooked up to the RSS feed will notice that I’m fiddling with old posts — oh, not posts that go back to forever, just ones that go a little bit back, say to when I swopped over to the !Beta Blogger or a maybe an itsy bit further.

See, when I swopped over to the !Beta, I picked up tag functionality.

I’ve been taking a look at the tags I’ve created and used (and the spots where I probably should’ve used tags if I want to be consistent and you know how us compul^H^H^H^Hnscientious people are) and …

Rather than comment on each and every post I fiddle with to say that I’m playing around with the tags, assume that that’s what’s different unless I specifically say so.

‘Kay?

Muy muchas gracias.

Update: Done. No, really. I didn’t make all the changes that I could’ve, but I made enough that I feel better about the labels. Wish I knew enough about the Blogger internals that I could’ve changed “url” to “URL” without having to find all the “url” labels, delete them, then create a “URL” label and add that label back to all the posts that needed it. Seems if you have a “tHisTagIsSTUPID” tag, you can’t have a “THisTAgisSTUPID” tag. Blogger just won’t let you. There must be some easy way to change your mind and decide all your “city” tags need to be “urban” instead. I’ll keep poking around.

Update 2:You can edit all the posts with a given label [note to self: need to remember that Blogger calls tags "labels" because they have a different feature that they call "tags"]. You still need to delete label “a” from all posts so-labeled and then add label “b” to all the posts.

If S.F. were really Baghdad by the bay

Filed under: San Francisco — Towse @ 9:27 pm

If S.F. were really Baghdad by the bay by Jaime O’Neill
Sunday, December 10, 2006

More than 3,700 Iraqi citizens died in that country’s violence during October, perhaps three-quarters of them in Baghdad, a city of 6 million people. If an American city the size of San Francisco were to suffer a proportionate level of violence, it would mean about 10 or 11 dead people each day, bleeding to death on Market Street, or calling for help as they wait for an ambulance that never shows up at some blast-blackened Starbucks on Van Ness Avenue.

But that, of course, is only the dead. Many more are injured, rushed to San Francisco General …

continued …

January 9, 2007

[WR] Ten Rules for Suspense Fiction

Filed under: writing — Towse @ 2:00 am

Ten Rules for Suspense Fiction
Brian Garfield

[Editor's note: In 1994, John Grisham revealed to NEWSWEEK that he credited the following article by Brian Garfield with giving him the tools to create his ground-breaking thriller, THE FIRM , as well as subsequent books. Garfield himself is a noted bestselling novelist, as well as a screenwriter, producer, and nonfiction writer. He won the Edgar Award for HOPSCOTCH, which was made into the prize-winning movie of the same name, starring Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson. For more of this renowned author's credits, please see his bio at the end of this article.]

The English call them thrillers, and in our clumsier way we call them novels of suspense.

They contain elements of mystery, romance and adventure, but they don’t fall into restrictive categories. And they’re not circumscribed by artificial systems of rules like those that govern the whodunit or the gothic romance.

The field is wide enough to include Alistair MacLean, Allen Drury, Helen Maclnnes, Robert Crichton, Graham Greene, and Donald E. Westlake. (Now there’s a parlay.) The market is not limited by the stigmata of genre labels, and therefore the potential for success of a novel in this field is unrestricted: DAY OF THE JACKAL, for instance, was a first novel.

The game’s object: To perch the reader on edge — to keep him flipping pages to find out what’s going to happen next.

The game’s rules are harder to define; they are few, and these are elastic. The seasoned professional learns the rules mainly in order to know how to break them to good effect.

But such as they are, the rules can be defined as follows.

continues …

The Great Thirst

Filed under: California,San Francisco — Towse @ 1:30 am

Yesterday’s Chronicle Sunday magazine (07 Jan 2007) had a great fictionalized look at what may happen in California’s future:

The Great Thirst: Looking ahead to a post-global warming life in California, 60 years hence by Glen Martin

The following extrapolation presents a worst-case scenario of California’s water situation in the coming decades, but not necessarily an unlikely one. It is based on a variety of sources, including interviews and conversations over the past several years with scientists and government agency staffers, such as those associated with the University of California, the California Department of Water Resources and the Bay Institute. (The observations of Jeffrey Mount of UC Davis and John Harte of UC Berkeley were particularly enlightening.)

The story starts thusly:

It is a sign of the flexibility of the human spirit that a certain nostalgia has begun to pervade our memories of the Great Thirst. With it immured safely 30 years in the past, we can afford such revisionism. Today, in 2062, we delight in recalling the heroic incidents it kindled, the ingenious responses to catastrophe, the shared privations. Now that we have squeezed through the bottleneck with our institutions more or less intact, we can savor the simple and glorious fact that we endured.

…continues

Don‘s little dam is mentioned.

I wish the story was only catastrophic wild-making woo woo, but some of the scenarios mentioned are far too possible. Worst case scenario, maybe. But worst case scenarios sometimes come true.

Update: [OK, yeah. I'm fiddling with Google labels ...]

January 8, 2007

[OBIT] Momofuku Ando

Filed under: people — Tags: — Towse @ 5:59 am

Chron obit today for Momofuku Ando

Who?

Ando, age 96, who died of a heartattack Friday, invented Ramen, the first instant noodle.

I have some Ramen in the bin in the kitchen for those days when I have time for nothing else or can’t think of anything else or am feeling too drear and nothing sounds good, which sometimes amounts to the same thing and sometimes doesn’t.

RIP Momofuku Ando. What a brill idea you had, and carried through. American college students thank you.

Ando gave a speech at the company’s New Year ceremony and enjoyed Chicken Ramen for lunch with Nissin employees on Thursday before falling ill, Japan’s largest daily Yomiuri reported. [from the SFChron obit]

January 7, 2007

Epiphany

Filed under: misc — Towse @ 7:40 am

Epiphany. Tomorrow, the tree comes down.

Today, we slept in, shipped a huge box to Boston, visited me mum and went to a party at the Duke of Edinburgh (a pub where my stepdaughter once tended bar) to hang out with people we worked with twenty years ago when we worked at a company that no longer exists. The crowd was bigger than last year’s, but there were still plenty of no-shows. I saw people I was pleased no end to see, whom I hadn’t seen in far too long, and I saw people whom I’d seen New Year’s Eve. (I was pleased to see them too.)

A good time was had by all who attended. The Founding Father showed up to schmooze with former employees and to order a round of drinks for everyone. I ate greasy calamari and onion rings and drank Murphy’s stout, and wished I’d just stuck to the Murphy’s.

Now, I tuck in. Tomorrow, the tree.

January 6, 2007

But, wait! Does Throckey know about this? I think he might object!

Filed under: misc — Towse @ 7:50 am

Milady the Most Honourable Sal the Sardonic of Throcking by Hampton

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Most Noble and Honourable the Sardonic of Throcking by Hampton
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Allz I said was that my name was Sal and I was a grrrl, for petra’s sake. …

Thanks, um, Your Most Serene Highness Lord Don the Recumbent of Chalmondley St Peasoup

[ low bow ]

[WR] Annual Erma Bombeck Writing Competition. No fee. Deadline: 18 Feb 2007

Filed under: contest,writing-market — Towse @ 4:10 am

Competition Guidelines

* Personal essay that is previously unpublished*, or has only been published since January 1, 2006 (*Essays that have previously appeared on Web sites are considered published.)
* 450 words or fewer (as determined by Microsoft Word word count tool)
* Two categories for entry:
     o Humor
     o Human Interest
* One Dayton, Ohio-area winner and one National/International winner will be awarded in each category
* Judges will also select several essays for “Honorable Mention”
* Limit one entry (total, not per category) per person
* No entry fee
* No age restrictions (all ages are judged together)
* Entries and/or any accompanying materials will not be returned
* All submissions are final – corrections to and replacements for submitted essays will not be allowed
* Washington-Centerville Public Library reserves the non-exclusive right to publish the winning entries
* Entries must be submitted online, using the official online entry form
* Entries must be submitted by 11:59 PM, EST, February 18, 2007

Samples of the winning entries past are on the site.
NO HARD COPY ENTRIES.
International entries accepted.

First place prizes: $100 and fame! and glory!

Have at it!

[URL] Wooster Collective

Filed under: art,culture,URL — Tags: — Towse @ 2:28 am

The Wooster Collective is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world.

You know: not just graffiti, street art, projected art, found art the world over.

Stuff like

Yow.

Mozilla Firefox Cheatsheet

Filed under: app,URL — Towse @ 1:58 am

Mozilla Firefox Cheatsheet from lesliefranke.com

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