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Well, there's still time for the new guy to come up with a better plan but he better hurry and it better be good.
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So I just realized how ridiculous it is that I still use the same night shirt I've had since 1994. Its my sister's YW Decktennis sports shirt--i know, I know, but its much too difficult to explain. Anyway, I'm finally deciding it's on its last leg... can you imagine nearly 20 years of nonstop use?
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I've got a pair of underwear that's nothing but the elastic...I use it as a sweatband...you know guys never throw out underwear no matter how big the holes get. (Yes I got the idea from somebody's comedy routine.)
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Disintegration is generally the last step when it comes to underwear. Just open the window and let it float away. (I can't remember if that was a Ray Ramano or a Tim Allen joke.)
For me the moment it becomes uncomfortable is when it dies. (Well I do wait till I get home.)
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In cleaning out my closet recently---part of the repiping job I've mentioned here and there, now, thank God, finished-except-for-paying-the-bill---I wound up throwing out well over a hundred old pocket-tee work shirts and nearly that many ripped-up jeans. (And underwear.) And there's still some more in there.
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That's a link to a story about an atomic bomb nearly exploding over North Carolina in 1961 when a B-52 broke up in mid-air.
It's been much-made-of, as these things go...but the thing is, I'm pretty sure I read something about the incident somewhere already. I might possibly be confusing it with some other incident---I recall one where two bombs crashed in the sea (near Greece, I think), and they found one, but not the other. But I don't know for sure.
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Here is Divine intervention, on a micro-scale, for which I am grateful. I mow my yard on a riding mower, making a circuit around the yard except for one place behind my wood racks. I also wear hearing protection and listen to podcasts, etc. Halfway around the circuit I turned the blades off to navigate a tight spot under a large shrub. When I resumed, I forgot to turn them back on. As I was backing over the grass behind the wood racks two baby bunnies popped up from ground I had just covered and took off. One popped up as from a hidden trap door of old clippings, C. Thomas Howell a la Red Dawn "Wolverines!" style. How different the afternoon could've been but for my absent-mindedness. I love baby bunnies! And I am not ashamed! :-) Divine intervention is alive and well.
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Seems like I have seen two stories about that recently. Or about two very similar events. The first story was a week or even two weeks + ago. Than this one you link to came out.
So maybe someone scooped Fox.
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It was all over the media that week...somebody's book, I guess, blew the story wide open, and the media fixated on that as the most sensational item in it. Evidently the story goes back to an article in The Guardian (UK)...
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I've had another bout with something signing me out of everything I'd signed in on through this computer, here included...mildly annoying.
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I wonder if something is clearing your "cookies" on your computer, Robert. I believe the Hatrack software uses "cookies" to keep track of people who are signed in here.
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Halloween is coming as most of you know. I thought about writing out this discourse (or would it be a monologue?) last year but never got to it. This year I have been thinking about it for a month now. Tonight decided to do it--instead of writing.
Costumes--
One of my--well I guess you could say bucket list items even though I don't usually use that term--is to go to a upper level costume party. Not one with a lot of gross costumes and drunks.
I don't recall ever going to one, mayhaps when I was way younger, knee high to a grasshopper, and I think it would be neat. I would go as a Roman Centurion or in something like Aragon's outfit in the LOTR movies. Not a cheap version of either, but something that was half way or more real. Of course in the Centurion outfit I would have to show off my legs, but I could probably live with that.
When I was way younger, for a couple of years, I wanted to do Halloween dressed as Captain America but the costumes of him they sold were not true outfits. They had his picture on the front of the shirt part, don't think there was even a head mask even though I'm not sure about that now. This year I could go as Cap. Thanks to the movie they now sell full outfits. I assume that includes for adults. The shield is probably cheap and again I would like something half way real.
In the past I thought about going as one of my favorite book heroes. One Dray Prescot. The MC of a series of books--around 30. He was probably inspired by John Carter of Mars. Same type of adventures.
Anyway though if I did I would show off a lot more than my lower legs. The best--for his fans the most well known--costume would include a scarlet breechcloth. Scarlet not red. On top of that would be two swords-probably a rapier and a short sword or cutless, plus a two handed sword stabbed to my back. On Kregen-the world he has his adventures on--one sword isn't enough and you never know which type would come in handy. Also included would be a bow with blue fletched arrows and a brace of throwing knives criss crossed on my chest. Don't think I have the wide shoulders or the trim stomach needed for that outfit though. Not to mention my legs would be a bit white.
But I enjoy seeing many of the costumes around Halloween--not all some are too cheap and a few too gross.
Oh, I can't think of many costumes I did wear as a child--probably a cowboy one when I was really young-but what I think was my last Halloween, I went as a Flower child. Had a cheap wig, and some type of loose shirt. I picked a bunch of flowers and gave one to each door I knocked on.
Probably around age six or seven I did have a cowboy outfit with chaps, hat and two sixguns. My school had a western day every year, plus the town I grew up in had a western parade every year. I always wore that outfit when I could so I probably wore it on halloween.
So that's it finally.
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quote:Originally posted by LDWriter2: ...In the past I thought about going as one of my favorite book heroes. One Dray Prescot. The MC of a series of books--around 30. He was probably inspired by John Carter of Mars. Same type of adventures...
"Llhal and lahal!" Fascinating, Louis, though I doubt anyone (well, anyone except perhaps yours truly) would know who you are.
But to clarify a bit, the "Dray Prescot" a.k.a. "Scorpio/Antares" a.k.a. "Kregen" series initially authored by the pseudonymous Alan Burt Akers and, later, by Dray Prescot himself per the byline were an initial staple of Donald Wolheim's DAW paperback imprint. The true author was the late Kenneth Bulmer, an extremely prolific and less recognized author of over 160 books who wrote many of them under numerous pennames. His passing in 2005 was a loss.
His saga of Dray Prescot under the suns of Scorpio out-Burroughs Burroughs. Heroic adventure fiction upon an alien world filled (and I mean filled) with wonderfully exotic landscapes, cultures and peoples, loyal friends and lovers, and seemingly overwhelming conflicts.
DAW published 37 books in the series before Mr. Wollheim left the helm and the company shook out its stable of authors, but the series continued to feed a Scorpio/Antares/Dray Precott avid German readership until Mr. Bulmer's passing. He wrote a total of 52 completed books in the series (and a 11 page fragment for book 53) between 1972 and 1997 (That is over two novels per year while also writing other works)!
Attempts have been made to publish the German edition books in English--and a few were sold as newly illustrated .pdf files by the late-lamented Savanti Press. more recently by Mushroom Books has reissued all the prior volumes published in English as eBooks and Bladud Press has published soft cover and hardcover print editions. They have also translated and published 8 of the remaining 15 German language books as well. Yet, to my OCD frustration, they have not brought them all into the English language for publication as yet. Every other year I write the publisher and he promises me they plan to do so but, after the first flood of translations, there has been nothing new for a while.
For those interested, I offer the following links to, and websites about, these novels of classic other-world planetary adventure:
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Did Kenneth Bulmer own up to writing them? For some reason---probably the length of it---I always thought "Alan Burt Akers" also-known-as "Dray Prescott" were house names and multiple writers. (But that only proves the depth of my misinformation.)
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Yeah, you're right about not many people knowing who I was if I managed to dress like that.
I didn't want to take the time to explain Bulmer's names. But The last two books, maybe three, in the English series were written under his real name. I have them.
I knew about his Germain fans but I didn't know he wrote that many more in Germain. I used to hang around two Dray sites online-in fact one of my few fan fic stories is on one of those sites-but I don't recall anyone mentioning that. Back then there was an effort to publish more but Bulmer's widow had control of the his copyrights and evidently she didn't want to be bothered with doing anything with them. If I recall correctly she didn't like him. I know one person on one of the two sites tried. In fact that person was working publishing a couple of anthologies written by fans--I don't recall ever hearing if he actually did.
In fact I still haven't read the last book in English, I have the last three as E-books. Some of the first E-books I believe. The very last one was given to me by someone on one of those sites.
Oh oh--I had totally forgotten that last book and now I most probably can't read it.
Whew--I can. I just checked it out--I have carefully copied it from computer to computer to computer since I received it. BTW that is number 39, I have 38 somewhere but I think it's on a floppy disk. And I still have all of the paper ones I bought. One of those series I wouldn't mind rereading. And The last paper book had a great cover-- better than the previous ones. I think it was more along the lines of the Germain covers.
I will say one thing about his writing so many. Most were shorter than average for a book. I say most because every now and then Bulmer would do a book from the POV of one of Dray's friends. When he did that book would be longer than average for a book.
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However, this is a series I, too, plan to re-read someday. I don't believe I read the last half-dozen (I'd wait for a full "Cycle" of novels and read them as a set). I recall liking some better than others--and disliked when he once took in-story liberty to dis John Norman's Gor books, however deserving, for this unfortunately was inescapable author intrusion dispelling the magic of the story (how's that for three "dis"'s >smile<). However, the world-building in this series I recall very fondly as superb. I hope this proves as true on re-reading.
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Must have been too blind to see the red line under it. Or for some reason it got skipped.
But to change the topic this discussion of Prescott reminded me of something. I said I wrote a fan fic story set on Kregen. That reminded me of some others I wrote: Highlander, two Star Wars, and A Honer Harrington tale. I had forgotten about them but now I know where some missing stories had gotten to.
I knew when I started to write stories I was pretty much like Dr. Bob, Looong stories with only a few short ones. But when I look over the first twenty stories I have listed most were not that long.
Some of my longer ones were fan fic. The Highlander one is over 15,000 words, one Star Wars one is very close to 9,500 words. The Kregen tale is a bit under 8,000 which is still on the short side but not really short. My second story listed on my non fan stories is 8,000 words. The Seventh one is over 11,000. Number 15 is over 15,000 words. Still seems like I am missing a couple of my longer stories though.
Back then I entered the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds contest a few times and the first and I think second stories I wrote for that contest had to be cut down a few hundred words. So maybe they were the ones I am thinking of.
Of course the first one typed out, which I can't excess anymore, was at least headed for way over 10,000 words even though I never finished it. I say at least because I can't recall for sure how many words I had but it would have ended up being a novella for sure. I still remember a bunch of it so I am thinking of starting it again.
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Spellchecking won't register anything if the misspelling is that of another world. This is why proofreading is so important.
*****
I don't think any of my fanfics were more than, oh, twelve thousand words at most, and most were much shorter. But it seemed right after that I was struck with some sort of literary elephantitis---my stories abruptly stretched into the twenty-thousand word length and beyond. That seems a little long for stories that, for great stretches, only have two characters on stage. I've brutally cut some down in revision, but even then they seem on the long side.
*****
I'd say something here about a printer problem I had this afternoon, but it isn't German to the conversation.
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Might as well say today...last night I tried my usual printing job---I print out several comics and (eventually) tape them into spiral notebooks---I've got a hundred-a-month cartridge habit.
Anyway, just before that, I had my internet account (AOL) freeze up; I wound up turning my computer off to get out of it. Something must have lingered because my printer wouldn't print.
I worked through that for a while, turning the computer off, printing test pages, turning the printer off---then I found the printer wasn't turning off and I unplugged it---and finding the right plug was an ordeal, too. I wound up deleting files to be printed, wound up with one that wouldn't delete right away (but eventually did after more turnings on and off).
Anyway, it's working now...good thing 'cause I have to write and print up something this morning. And what I don't know about comptuers would fit in a manual.
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I am amazed. I thought I was the only person on earth who still remembered the Kregen series. I could never find more than seven or eight in my local library or book stores when they were being published, either. But they were better than Burroughs in my opinion.
Did Prescott ever get around to horsewhipping that father-in-law of his? The king who ordered him beaten when he showed up at the palace?
quote:Originally posted by rcmann: I am amazed. I thought I was the only person on earth who still remembered the Kregen series. I could never find more than seven or eight in my local library or book stores when they were being published, either. But they were better than Burroughs in my opinion.
Did Prescott ever get around to horsewhipping that father-in-law of his? The king who ordered him beaten when he showed up at the palace?
The King was killed somewhere along the line and Dray became Emperor even though he didn't spend very much time ruling, he was always out having fun in other parts of Kregen.
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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate---we can not consecrate---we can not hallow---this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to thate unfinished work which they who fought here have thus so far nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us---that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion---that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain---that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom---and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.
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Dr Who is Fifty evidently. Google has a game you can play, it took me over sixty minutes to go through it even though I think that was double what it was.
Even Yahoo does a little TARDIS GIF on their Yahoo! symbol.
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Been meaning to ask this for three months at least.
What's an instagram?
I first heard of in at my Church. They mentioned that they not only have e- bulletins but twitter and instagram. I thought that sounded like an old fashion name and wondered if it was from the beginning of the internet or before. And the church was a bit behind the times. But a week or so later a radio talk show host mentioned it. Oh, so it's new--fairly new anyway. Since then it seems to be everywhere.
As one who is proud to say I don't do much social media things I've never heard exactly what it does. You can send pics with it evidently but is it mainly for that or is another form of twitter? Or???
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I had another "literary dream" last night in which I dreamed a story setup. This one is about a young, can-do mayor with an unusual problem on his hands.
AIDE: We've got to do something about that poltergeist in the municipal sewage treatment plant.
MAYOR: Well, I've got a cousin in the fire department we could call.
AIDE: What can he do?
MAYOR: Well, for one thing he can sing. Soul music, believe it or not. Some people call him "the Irish Barry White."
AIDE: So what's his name?
MAYOR: Barry White.
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January 3rd, 2014, and I'm claiming the first sighting of the year of the cross-dressing Statue of Liberty. One of 'em was out there this morning.
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quote:Originally posted by Robert Nowall: January 3rd, 2014, and I'm claiming the first sighting of the year of the cross-dressing Statue of Liberty. One of 'em was out there this morning.
posted
Maybe the weather kept 'em indoors elsewhere...here in this part of Florida, it was a sunny sixties or so.
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Well, yesterday I went out to shovel snow, and took a doubletake when the outside thermometer read '99F'. Then I realized I'd missed the decimal point: '9.9F'. We don't see many statue of liberties running around until after the March thaws.
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They could be out here. We are about the only place in the country that isn't experiencing a cold storm. Just like last year and the year before. We need it too.
Maybe next week they will be out.
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Had another story dream last night. I swear I don't (consciously) make these up:
A young wife, sad because she can't have a baby, comforts herself by filling her home with houseplants, which she likes to talk to. But in due time she does become pregnant. Then one day, after she brings home her new baby she's watering her plants, and her dwarf orange tree says to her, "Do you love me as much as you love your meat baby?"
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