Garrulus Grommeler

503: SERVICE UNAVAILABLE Garrulus Grommeler is offline today, because the U.S. Senate is considering legislation called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and would put us in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement. This would unmake the Web, just as proposed in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I don't want that world. If you don't want it either, visit AmericanCensorship.org for instructions on contacting your Senator. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more information on this and other issues central to your freedom online. Thanks, Garrulus Grommeler

Well, I'm writing again. Started with a scene that popped into mind and am just making things up as I go along. No idea whatsoever what this tale is about, or where it's going, or if I'll even bother to finish it, or if it'll even capture my imagination in such a way as to hurl me along in its current. So far, however, I'm interested. In any event, I wanted to write something, to lube and prime the old imagination and beat the rust off my storytelling gears. At the very least, I rather like the suspicious mood and disquietude of the opening. It provides for a good hook, I think, which is needed in the opening paragraphs of any tale. For no reason whatsoever, I decided to go with Portuguese names for my characters. It'll be interesting to see what sort of trouble Ezequiel, Ovídio, Teófilo, and Zita find themselves in as the tale progresses.

Just giving RSS Graffiti a test, to see what happens. By the time you've read this on Facebook 15 minutes have passed. How do you like that? You're reading old news. :P Don't you feel special?

I spend far too much time at Facebook these days. Time I started blogging again. (Hmm. Now, if I can figure out how to set things up so that I can transmit my blog posts to Facebook, that would be a good thing.) Well, I've figured out — kinda — how to add the widget that will let me send a blog post to Facebook, now if I can just get my highly customised blogskin to recognise and show it. < pause > There! Figured it out. Hehehe. Now I can write a blog post, then post it to Facebook. With the same widget, I can send tweets via Twitter, too, if I ever decide to tweet, that is. (But that's assuming that I have tweeple to whom I can tweet, eh? :P ) This blog needs some serious straightening up! I haz work to do!

I like to write. I’ve always made this patently clear. I also like writers who write well, but what does “writing well” mean, actually? I recently left a comment at a writer’s blog in which, among other things, I mentioned why I don’t care for John Grisham’s writing. My comment was summarily deleted. Why? The context of my comment was this: one professional writer (not the owner of the blog to which I’m referring) noted that it’s common for readers, in online reviews of books, to criticize editors for writers’ work. This writer wrote a blog post addressing that point, saying that writers, not editors, are responsible for what appears in print. What follows is my comment in reply to that statement:  I’ll readily admit that I’ve done that before (but only in terms of what are obvious snafus and not because the book “sucks”), but it was also your blog entry, [name deleted], that later disabused me of that idea. I’ll even admit that one guy I like to pick on most (regardless of how we...

Well, this has been a most interesting experience, and as with the old Chinese curse my use of "interesting" doesn't mean "interesting good." Since I'd shared briefly in my writing blog about some medical concerns, I thought that now the whole ordeal is over, I'd share what happened. I'd been experiencing some pain in the area where the bladder is located, as well as feeling the frequent need to urinate, which was the cause of my concern in my previous post. My doctor ordered a urinary culture to determine if there was a bacterial infection, and also prescribed Levaquin, an antibiotic, as a precautionary measure. Fair enough. When I picked up the medication (which wasn't at all cheap, especially for someone who's unemployed — $155 for 20 tabs), I went through the literature included with it, and there was a damned long list of side effects, many of which I found scary, especially when it starts with the phrase: "can cause side effects t...

So, I'm reading a news article about the ship in the Mediterranean that was struck by those waves and then I turn my attention to the comments that follow. The first comment I see reads: And that folks is why this girl will never go on a cruise.... I guess it's impossible for any car, bus, train, or airplane which this woman graces with her presence to have an accident, even a freak accident. Immediately following is another brilliant comment: i like how they said they had 1,350 people on board, and they sent all 1,350 people back home. 2 people dies so should be 1,348 Why would the cruise line keep the dead? The bereaved aren't allowed to take their loved ones home to bury them? So far as I know, commercial cruise lines don't bury the dead at sea. And then, of course, there was this magnificently enlightening observation: i feel that they should have been aware of the weather, and had told everyone not to be out there, sounds like they just didnt care, as long as they...