Myself

(Poem by Edgar Albert Guest)

I have to live with myself and so
I want to be fit for myself to know.
I want to be able as days go by,
always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
and hate myself for the things I have done .
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
a lot of secrets about myself
and fool myself as I come and go
into thinking no one else will ever know
the kind of person I really am,
I don't want to dress up myself in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect
I want to deserve all men's respect;
but here in the struggle for fame and wealth
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to look at myself and know that
I am bluster and bluff and empty show .
I never can hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself and so,
whatever happens I want to be
self respecting and conscience free.

Escalation

Whenever I'm looking for something, I always cause a big mess trying to find it.

It started as a simple search but ended up like this.
(it actually doesn't look too bad in the photos)

I still haven't found what I was looking for.

Chair, Do Not Move

A haiku based on the story I'm writing:

The guard's knee explodes,
Blood splashes the prison walls,
Webber wipes his glasses.

National Novel Writing Month

November is 'National Novel Writing Month' (Which Nation? I know not.)

The idea is to write a novel within November with minimal planning. The project focuses more on word-count and speed than actual story - it's quantity over quality. This might be the wrong approach (I normally try and plan most of my stories beforehand) but it's also very freeing, very exploratory.

I'm way behind schedule but I'm still really enjoying it. I'm going to try and finish as much of it as I can in November and get it completely done before the New Year.

Anyway here's my page: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/459593

And here's an extract:

The sand was a mix of past, present and future swirling around the man as he walked away from the diner. His head turned down, to protect his face from the sand, from the memories. He nursed his shoulder, which he had injured breaking out through the bathroom window, with his free hand and walked with jerked robotic movement in his legs.
In the storm surrounding him, he caught glimpses, fragments of time, dead memories that would not stay forgotten. He saw himself of yesterday, virginal and witless – a youth who had yet to make mistakes but was destined to make nothing else.
Webber, that had been his name or at least part of it; the sole part of it which remained … at times. Memory and imagination had merged to the point that he didn’t know what to be sure of anymore, what was real and what was dream.
As curious as he was, he dared not investigate it further. He had a past of which he was aware, memories he could not shake – an identity which he wanted only to protect or to destroy. Beyond that there was more but he chose not to remember. He could never betray himself, if even he did not know the truth.
And yet, he was Webber.

The wind cut into his face like shark-fins flying through the air. His thin body was battered and torn. Without the overcoat, he was fragile and alone.
He stopped walking and tried to peer past the ether to the world around him. He cupped the oversized spectacles, which now served as protective goggles, and strained his eyes to focus beyond the sand in the air around him.
He could see the diner behind him, but of course that was not an option. In front of him, there was something else. He could make out the vague shapes of mountains or cliffs. It was not ideal, but there could potentially be shelter. He blindly marched onward toward the invisible square shapes.

The past persisted, forcing its way into the ‘now’. Through the large lenses, he could see flames, a village set alight by sandy tendrils of fire … and a face – a face he could not remember and somehow would never forget.

Freeware Software I use at work (because I haven't updated my blog in a while)

I work at a computer, so in theory everytime I'm at a computer, I could be working.

Nail it!

Keeps windows or programs 'Always on Top' even when they're deselected. It's handy for when you have notes in a notepad that you need to see, while working on something else.
I use this alot when I'm writing.


Notepad2

This is just an alternative to notepad. It's probably more useful to you if you're a programmer and use alot of code. It's still really nice, though. It's alot neater than the standard notepad and has a couple of advancements.
I resisted this one for a while. It felt kind of wrong, like 'Robocop 2' or something (the robot not the movie).


Launchy

It's a keystroke Launcher. There's alot of these and this one isn't too special. Still, I always miss it when I'm on a computer that doesn't have it.


Rename Master

For Mass Renaming Files. Really useful for renaming a large number of files, removing unwanted characters or adding information. I use it when I'm autogenerating links in my Iceberg, where I need the filenames to be in a specific format.

When Life Gives you Problemons ...

I have no idea why but this is the funniest thing I've ever written:

It was supposed to be a joke - something stupid - but the more I think about it, the funnier I find it (I am pretty sleep-deprived though).

The joke itself is pretty hard to find. I got the idea at work. I had to type the word 'Problem' about 100 times today. About half the time, I typed it wrong as 'Probelm'. I thought the worst joke I could make out of that would be something about an unhappy elm tree. (He looks pretty angry, actually).
That's not even the joke anymore though, I don't know what is.

This is pretty much the kind of stuff I was planning for ... What Song? (jokes, only I could possibly find amusing). Most of the other ones have too much Joke logic in them, but this is the funniest of them all (probably only to me) and it makes almost no sense as a cartoon or even just a joke. It's not deliberately 'anti-humour', it's just a non-joke.

We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.

The first intelligent robots will be connected directly to the internet.
They will have the carbon-footprint of China.
They will make recommendations on Amazon.com .... all of them shit.











(Apologies to the Brothers, Byrne)