Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Superman
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clark-kent-beats-michael-phelps-old-swimming-record_us_5b60d025e4b0de86f49bc7a4?dvm
Triple H Best
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2788124-ranking-triple-hs-7-greatest-matches-of-all-time-on-his-birthday
Monday, July 30, 2018
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Parenting
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/americans-would-do-anything-to-make-their-kids-smarter-except-edit-their-genes_us_5b596568e4b0b15aba951b32
Friday, July 27, 2018
Status
It's 7:49. I just started episode 3 of the 6th season of Orange is the New Black.
I finished the series on Sunday, July 29, 2018, prior to 8 AM. It was a good season and there are plenty of cliffhangers with the characters to make me eager to see Season 7, which I'm guessing will be released in July 2019 - it'd be awesome it came out sooner though!!
I finished the series on Sunday, July 29, 2018, prior to 8 AM. It was a good season and there are plenty of cliffhangers with the characters to make me eager to see Season 7, which I'm guessing will be released in July 2019 - it'd be awesome it came out sooner though!!
no one cares that you guessed what was coming, sparky
Based upon the review from Stuckman above and even this one - Mission Impossible fallout review - I think I am going to try to see this movie on Tuesday, August 21, which is the next opportunity I have to see a movie for $5 at the Coral Ridge Mall. This Tuesday, I will be out of town, the following Tuesday is our 25th wedding anniversary, and the following Tuesday is Megan's birthday, which pushes the next time I can go on a Tuesday to 8/21. I hope the movie is still at the theaters and I also hope that another movie that I want to see more than this one doesn't come out. I don't have the 'upcoming films' schedule memorized so I don't know.
Compared to WWE, it's so ... quiet...
In this video, I'm really surprised how quiet it is.
Here is some pro wrestling news:
Here is some pro wrestling news:
That Was a Great Show
I am enamored by the way Rob Trujillo & James Hetfield make each fan feel good.
Love the HiHat on this Track
From the new Halestorm release comes this tune. I learned about its existence because of this review: https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/halestorm-vicious-album-reviewed. I adore the hi-hat work on this tune, though I'm not jazzed by the lyrics.
Tribute
I received this email:
After I watched the video below:
I wrote this back to Conn:
I just released this music video/tribute to my grandfather who died 11/28/2016 and I wanted to share it with you. Thanks for your time, hope you enjoy it🙏
--
IG: @ConnRaney
www.facebook.com/connraney
Twitter: @ConnRaney
After I watched the video below:
I wrote this back to Conn:
I did enjoy it. I was very close to my grandma, who passed away on Apr 23, 2006. I understand what your lyrics are talking about - it feels like Grandma is with me during the things I do every day, both in visible & invisible wa[ys]. Visibly, I am reminded of her every day at work. On my desk, I have an ash tray that I used to play with & spin when I would visit her house – it’s where my keys go each day when I come to my cubicle. Even though my grandfather passed away when I was in kindergarten and I don’t really remember him before he became too sick to get out of bed, I have something of his to remind me each day as well. His last name was “Simons” but I have a gold pen holder in the shape of a railroad spike that he got from his employer – he worked for various railroads in the Midwest region – and on the railroad spike it says “Leo Simmons” – which I think is ironic because it’s a typo & my day job is working as a technical writer – so I’m all about finding & correcting typos. I lost my mother on Dec 29, 2014. I have a page on my blog about both my grandma & my mom on which I wrote my tribute to my mom: https://prhmusic.blogspot.com/p/mom.html
As far as your actual video, it’s kind of funny – I paused Metallica’s “Breadfan” to listen to your video. I wanted you to know that I have been where you are in your grieving process. Sometimes I watch videos from bands and artists and it doesn’t take any effort to dismiss what I heard and move on. After I watched your video, I wrote this email to you and I spent ~15 minutes trying to get the words right, which makes me think of your video where you’re trying to write and the words seem inadequate so you start over – I was like that as I wrote you this email.
I will remember you & your grandfather in my daily prayers.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Ferentz assistant pay to top $5M
I don't claim to understand the economics of college football, but HOLY COW! $685,000 being paid to an assistant coach!?! I guess I'm in the wrong industry (technology) if I had ever wanted to earn $685,000 a year!
A $560,000 hike in assistant coach pay means the Hawkeye athletics department will spend more than $5 million on football staff - before bonuses - in the upcoming season, reports the Des Moines Register. A 7.9 percent staff-wide pay increase plus an additional $200,000-per year running back coach account for the spending, according to information obtained by USA Today through an open records request. Strength and conditioning coach Pat Doyle and defensive coordinator Phil Parker, both entering their 20th year in the program, are top-earning assistants at $725,000 each, while offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz snagged the biggest raise, $60,000, to bring him up to $685,000. Even before his $50,000 raise, Mr. Doyle was already the nation's top earner for his position, reports USA Today. Other high-paid strength-coaches include Tennessee's Craig Fitzgerald at $625,000 and Alabama's Scott Cochran at $585,000.
Slander v Libel
http://www.metalsucks.net/2018/07/26/pestilence-shows-cancelled-thanks-to-metalsucks-and-their-followers/ is about this band:
Sorry about that.
The word "pestilence" gave me the opportunity to spout a rule about the world per James Jonah Jameson (one of my favorite characters in the Spider-Man universe):
Plus, I love the word "pestilence" - especially when sung by James Hetfield during "The Four Horsemen":
From https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/metallica/thefourhorsemen.html
Sorry about that.
The word "pestilence" gave me the opportunity to spout a rule about the world per James Jonah Jameson (one of my favorite characters in the Spider-Man universe):
Plus, I love the word "pestilence" - especially when sung by James Hetfield during "The Four Horsemen":
By the last breath of the fourth winds blow
Better raise your ears
The sound of hooves knock at your door
Lock up your wife and children now
It's time to wield the blade
For now you have got some company
The Horsemen are drawing nearer
On leather steeds they ride
They've come to take your life
On through the dead of night
With the Four Horsemen ride
Or choose your fate and die
You have been dying since the day you were born
You know it has all been planned
The quartet of deliverance rides
A sinner once a sinner twice
No need for confessions now
Cause now you have got the fight of your life
The Horsemen are drawing nearer
On leather steeds they ride
They've come to take your life
On through the dead of night
With the Four Horsemen ride
Or choose your fate and die
Time
Has taken its toll on you
The lines that crack your face
Famine
Your body it has torn through
Withered in every place
Pestilence
For what you have had to endure
And what you have put others through
Death
Deliverance for you for sure
Now there is nothing you can do
So gather round young warriors now
And saddle up your steeds
Killing scores with demon swords
Now is the death of doers of wrong
Swing the judgement hammer down
Safely inside armor blood guts and sweat
The Horsemen are drawing nearer
On leather steeds they ride
They've come to take your life
On through the dead of night
With the Four Horsemen ride
Or choose your fate and die
From https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/metallica/thefourhorsemen.html
Escaping Included in 73
I was listening to an Uncle Rico rehearsal recording and came across when we were working on this tune. I think it's a fun tune for an Ideal Band.
For an upcoming jam session, here's a list of 73 tunes I threw out as a starting point to figure out what we know.
For an upcoming jam session, here's a list of 73 tunes I threw out as a starting point to figure out what we know.
- 500 Miles
- American Girl
- Bad Case of Loving You
- Basket Case
- Big River
- Blister in the Sun
- Blitzkreig Bop
- Breakup Song
- Brown Eyed Girl
- Brown Sugar
- Cheap Shades
- Last Train to Clarksville
- Dancing Queen
- Dead Flowers
- Escape (The Pina Colata Song)
- Fight For Your Right
- I Just Want to Make Love to You
- Folsom Prison Blues
- For What It's Worth
- Get Off My Cloud
- Gimme Three Steps
- Hey Jealousy
- Hey Joe
- Hot Stuff
- I Melt With You
- I Ran
- I Saw Her Standing There
- I Shot the Sheriff
- I Think You Know What I Mean
- I Wanna Be Sedated
- I Will Survive
- It's the End of the World
- I've Been Everywhere
- Jenny / 867-5309
- Jet Airliner
- Johnny B Goode
- Just Like Heaven
- Key to the Highway
- Lola
- Lonely Boy
- Love Her Madly
- Margaritaville
- Mary Had a Little Lamb
- Mississippi Queen
- Oh Boy
- Paranoid
- Pump It Up
- Ring of Fire
- Roadhouse Blues
- Rock & Roll All Night
- Rock and Roll All Nite
- Rockin' in the Free World
- Rock'n Me
- Rocky Mountain Way
- Royals
- Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting
- Seven Nation Army
- Should I Stay or Should I Go
- Squeeze Box
- Stand By Me
- Stepping Stone
- Stuck in the Middle
- Sunshine of your Love
- Sweet Caroline
- Sweet Child O Mine
- Sweet Jane
- This Beat Goes On / Switchin' To Glide
- What I Like About You
- When the Sun Goes Down
- Willie and the Hand Jive
- Wonderful Tonight
- You May Be Right
- Your Mama Can't Dance
Thoughts About Indexing
Updated with more thoughts about automating index creation.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Baker
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 8:49 AM
To: 'Jonathan Baker'; dick@rlhamilton.net
Cc: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: Looking for classes in indexing
Index automation can only take you so far. For the book I referred to earlier, we experimented with index automation. The book is about structured writing, so naturally we used structured writing techniques. This included the annotation of subjects mentioned in the text, and of the subjects covered in chapters and sections. This is essentially what an index does -- it points you to the places were different subjects are treated in a document. So it follows that we should be able to derive an index from these annotations.
This is already a much more controlled process than using software to scan an unstructured text for keywords, which is all that automated indexing software can do, short of an AI revolution that has not arrived yet. The subject annotations that we used noted the type of the subject and rectified the terminology (for example: {XML}(markup-language "Extensible Markup Language")). This gave us a significant degree of terminology control and allowed us to detect a lot of inconsistency in the book (as Richard mentioned earlier). It also allowed us to automatically create entries for the major types of subject matter discussed in the book:
markup languages
XML, 56, 68, 72
HTML, 345, 403
Markdown, 3, 76, 432
The result was a not bad index, but certainly not as good as Richard wanted. In particular, it did not let us do things like this:
constraints, 27, 228, 367–390
auditing, 431
cost of reuse, 153
data entry, 315
detecting duplication using, 414–415
extensibility and, 334
factoring out, 29, 42, 308
managing reuse, 134
media-domain, 29
personalization, 167
rhetorical, 246
semantic, 312–315
structural, 312–315
types of schema, 389
uniqueness, 174
These types of entries put terms in their narrative context. This requires a human reading of the surrounding text. It can't be done effectively from subject-domain semantic markup and it certainly can't be done reliably (yet) by indexing apps working on unstructured text.
Why is this important? Search engines have two big advantages over indexes (other than their enormous advantage in scope, which I mentioned earlier). First, indexes work on individual terms, while search engines can work with phrases and sentences. You can type an entire question into a search engine and it will use the whole sentence to discern what you are interested in. In other words, you can put your search terms in their narrative context up front by searching on the right phrase.
Second, they have a ranking algorithm that does a remarkably good job (most of the time) at selecting the most relevant entry and putting it at the top of the list. Indexes, by contrast, list pages in numerical order. If you want to get really fancy, you can bold page numbers for the main entries for a subject, but that is not in any way specific to the user's individual query. Search engines not only rank the subject matter statically, they rank it for the known interests of the individual user.
These entries that put terms into their narrative context help indexes partially make up for these deficiencies vis a vis search engines. They can only be created by hand, and Richard felt it was important to do this for the book, particularly in cases where a subject is mentioned many times. An undifferentiated list of 30 page references presents a rather daunting task to the reader. The context setting entries can help them narrow down what they are looking for.
We did not throw out the automated generation of the index altogether, however. Rather, we added markup that allowed us to supplement the generated entries with human created entries (100% of which were created by Richard, who is way better at this sort of thing than I am). As a result of this hybrid approach, we were able to reduce the indexing effort significantly, while still incorporating valuable index features than can only be created by hand.
I'm planning to blog about this and other aspects of the development process for the book sometime soonish.
Mark
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Baker
> Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 7:22 AM
> To: dick@rlhamilton.net
> Cc: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
> Subject: Re: Looking for classes in indexing
>
> I’m not into religious wars, so I won’t go there. However, in following this
> conversation , it occurred to me that there may be some tools out there to
> automate the indexing process. I didn’t do a search, but did stumble upon a
> tool called TExtract (texyz.com). I haven’t used it, but may the next time I
> need to do an index.
>
> Also, one of the best books about indexing was written by Ruth Canedy
> Cross. Unfortunately, Indexing Books is out of print and only sometimes
> available on Amazon.
>
> Jon
>
> Sent from my iPad
Original Post below:
This is from a thread about indexing on the Techwr-L list which I am including here because I am weak at indexing and the links in Monique's email look like some sites I should investigate.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l [Monique Semp]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 2:20 PM
To: Lin Sims
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Looking for classes in indexing
Really old, but I have printout of an article from the October 2012 STC Intercom magazine that I found quite useful: The Top 10 Indexing Errors Made by Technical Writers, by Lorne Griffith. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to find online. (And if it is, you can ping me and I'd be happy to scan it and send the PDF.)
And I second Lin's comments around the idea that digital search does not take the place of a good, human-produced index. For example, if the text says, "remove", but I search for "delete", I'll never find it. But in a manually-produced index, I'd expect to see an entry for "delete" that says, "see remove".
I was a member of ASI for many years even though, like Lin, the only things I indexed were tech docs that I wrote. But I thought of doing more (until I found how low the pay was for how much work it would take to write a really excellent, vs. mediocre, index), and I liked the erudite discussions among the REAL indexers.
It is unfortunate that ASI seems to require membership to take their courses. Maybe a personal note to them to ask for an exception might work? I did look at their webinars page, and those seem generally available to non-members, although the topics are mostly pretty narrowly focused to a given tool or a given indexing focus. See [1] https://www.asindexing.org/category/webinars.
The Portland chapter of ASI lists a bunch of non-ASI indexing courses: [2] http://pnwasi.org/wp/?page_id=141. Perhaps other chapters (don't recall where you are, so not sure if there's an active chapter near you) have similar lists of resources.
And here's a nice list of resources, including email discussion lists, but a lot of it is geared to people wanting to have their own indexing business. But of course, the email discussion lists would be useful for
all indexers. See [3]http://www.backwordsindexing.com/Novice/NoviceNotes.html.
And my last list on this listicles reply: [4]https://indexstudents.wordpress.com/education/ - lots of training and all sorts of resources.
(Yes, I like the subject of indexing!)
References
This post from Mark Baker was worth capturing as I like his writing style.
From: techwr-l [mbaker@analecta.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 6:20 PM
To: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: Looking for classes in indexing
I'm old too, but let's face it, indexes are the paper substitute for a search engine. Anything an index can do, a decent search engine can do better (yes, including synonyms). More to the point, even the old are so habituated to search now that the only way they are going to stumble into your index is if it shows up in a search results.
Unless, of course, they actually are reading on paper, because then the index is the poor man's search engine, and in that case it better be good, because it has a lot to live up to.
And if there are those out there that still want to claim that indexes are better than search engines, here is the clincher: An index only works when you have a the right book in your hand. Which means you have to find the book before you can use the index. But a search engine searches everything. The reader does not have to locate the book first. Indeed, they probably never know which "book" their results came from. They live in a world of pages, not books, and they find pages using search. Every Page is Page One.
If I was looking for a course to take in this day an age, I would take SEO before I took indexing. Unless, of course, I was actually preparing a book for publication on paper. (Which, as it happens, I am: Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process, real soon now from XML press. I think it has a pretty good index, most of which is Richard Hamilton's doing.)
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Baker
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 8:49 AM
To: 'Jonathan Baker'; dick@rlhamilton.net
Cc: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: Looking for classes in indexing
Index automation can only take you so far. For the book I referred to earlier, we experimented with index automation. The book is about structured writing, so naturally we used structured writing techniques. This included the annotation of subjects mentioned in the text, and of the subjects covered in chapters and sections. This is essentially what an index does -- it points you to the places were different subjects are treated in a document. So it follows that we should be able to derive an index from these annotations.
This is already a much more controlled process than using software to scan an unstructured text for keywords, which is all that automated indexing software can do, short of an AI revolution that has not arrived yet. The subject annotations that we used noted the type of the subject and rectified the terminology (for example: {XML}(markup-language "Extensible Markup Language")). This gave us a significant degree of terminology control and allowed us to detect a lot of inconsistency in the book (as Richard mentioned earlier). It also allowed us to automatically create entries for the major types of subject matter discussed in the book:
markup languages
XML, 56, 68, 72
HTML, 345, 403
Markdown, 3, 76, 432
The result was a not bad index, but certainly not as good as Richard wanted. In particular, it did not let us do things like this:
constraints, 27, 228, 367–390
auditing, 431
cost of reuse, 153
data entry, 315
detecting duplication using, 414–415
extensibility and, 334
factoring out, 29, 42, 308
managing reuse, 134
media-domain, 29
personalization, 167
rhetorical, 246
semantic, 312–315
structural, 312–315
types of schema, 389
uniqueness, 174
These types of entries put terms in their narrative context. This requires a human reading of the surrounding text. It can't be done effectively from subject-domain semantic markup and it certainly can't be done reliably (yet) by indexing apps working on unstructured text.
Why is this important? Search engines have two big advantages over indexes (other than their enormous advantage in scope, which I mentioned earlier). First, indexes work on individual terms, while search engines can work with phrases and sentences. You can type an entire question into a search engine and it will use the whole sentence to discern what you are interested in. In other words, you can put your search terms in their narrative context up front by searching on the right phrase.
Second, they have a ranking algorithm that does a remarkably good job (most of the time) at selecting the most relevant entry and putting it at the top of the list. Indexes, by contrast, list pages in numerical order. If you want to get really fancy, you can bold page numbers for the main entries for a subject, but that is not in any way specific to the user's individual query. Search engines not only rank the subject matter statically, they rank it for the known interests of the individual user.
These entries that put terms into their narrative context help indexes partially make up for these deficiencies vis a vis search engines. They can only be created by hand, and Richard felt it was important to do this for the book, particularly in cases where a subject is mentioned many times. An undifferentiated list of 30 page references presents a rather daunting task to the reader. The context setting entries can help them narrow down what they are looking for.
We did not throw out the automated generation of the index altogether, however. Rather, we added markup that allowed us to supplement the generated entries with human created entries (100% of which were created by Richard, who is way better at this sort of thing than I am). As a result of this hybrid approach, we were able to reduce the indexing effort significantly, while still incorporating valuable index features than can only be created by hand.
I'm planning to blog about this and other aspects of the development process for the book sometime soonish.
Mark
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Baker
> Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 7:22 AM
> To: dick@rlhamilton.net
> Cc: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
> Subject: Re: Looking for classes in indexing
>
> I’m not into religious wars, so I won’t go there. However, in following this
> conversation , it occurred to me that there may be some tools out there to
> automate the indexing process. I didn’t do a search, but did stumble upon a
> tool called TExtract (texyz.com). I haven’t used it, but may the next time I
> need to do an index.
>
> Also, one of the best books about indexing was written by Ruth Canedy
> Cross. Unfortunately, Indexing Books is out of print and only sometimes
> available on Amazon.
>
> Jon
>
> Sent from my iPad
Original Post below:
This is from a thread about indexing on the Techwr-L list which I am including here because I am weak at indexing and the links in Monique's email look like some sites I should investigate.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l [Monique Semp]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 2:20 PM
To: Lin Sims
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Looking for classes in indexing
Really old, but I have printout of an article from the October 2012 STC Intercom magazine that I found quite useful: The Top 10 Indexing Errors Made by Technical Writers, by Lorne Griffith. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to find online. (And if it is, you can ping me and I'd be happy to scan it and send the PDF.)
And I second Lin's comments around the idea that digital search does not take the place of a good, human-produced index. For example, if the text says, "remove", but I search for "delete", I'll never find it. But in a manually-produced index, I'd expect to see an entry for "delete" that says, "see remove".
I was a member of ASI for many years even though, like Lin, the only things I indexed were tech docs that I wrote. But I thought of doing more (until I found how low the pay was for how much work it would take to write a really excellent, vs. mediocre, index), and I liked the erudite discussions among the REAL indexers.
It is unfortunate that ASI seems to require membership to take their courses. Maybe a personal note to them to ask for an exception might work? I did look at their webinars page, and those seem generally available to non-members, although the topics are mostly pretty narrowly focused to a given tool or a given indexing focus. See [1] https://www.asindexing.org/category/webinars.
The Portland chapter of ASI lists a bunch of non-ASI indexing courses: [2] http://pnwasi.org/wp/?page_id=141. Perhaps other chapters (don't recall where you are, so not sure if there's an active chapter near you) have similar lists of resources.
And here's a nice list of resources, including email discussion lists, but a lot of it is geared to people wanting to have their own indexing business. But of course, the email discussion lists would be useful for
all indexers. See [3]http://www.backwordsindexing.com/Novice/NoviceNotes.html.
And my last list on this listicles reply: [4]https://indexstudents.wordpress.com/education/ - lots of training and all sorts of resources.
(Yes, I like the subject of indexing!)
References
- https://www.asindexing.org/category/webinars
- http://pnwasi.org/wp/?page_id=141
- http://www.backwordsindexing.com/Novice/NoviceNotes.html
- https://indexstudents.wordpress.com/education
This post from Mark Baker was worth capturing as I like his writing style.
From: techwr-l [mbaker@analecta.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 6:20 PM
To: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: Looking for classes in indexing
I'm old too, but let's face it, indexes are the paper substitute for a search engine. Anything an index can do, a decent search engine can do better (yes, including synonyms). More to the point, even the old are so habituated to search now that the only way they are going to stumble into your index is if it shows up in a search results.
Unless, of course, they actually are reading on paper, because then the index is the poor man's search engine, and in that case it better be good, because it has a lot to live up to.
And if there are those out there that still want to claim that indexes are better than search engines, here is the clincher: An index only works when you have a the right book in your hand. Which means you have to find the book before you can use the index. But a search engine searches everything. The reader does not have to locate the book first. Indeed, they probably never know which "book" their results came from. They live in a world of pages, not books, and they find pages using search. Every Page is Page One.
If I was looking for a course to take in this day an age, I would take SEO before I took indexing. Unless, of course, I was actually preparing a book for publication on paper. (Which, as it happens, I am: Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process, real soon now from XML press. I think it has a pretty good index, most of which is Richard Hamilton's doing.)
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Raw was Last Night
The videos below came to my attention via this article - WWE Raw Results: Roman Reigns' Redemption and Top Takeaways:
Terrible Advice
From this article - https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/wjkd8x/i-went-to-one-of-europes-biggest-festivals-and-only-saw-cover-bands - comes advice I disagree with vehemently:
If you break your own rules - which I would define as your "Code of Conduct" routinely - you do not have rules & you have no foundation upon which to return when the chaos in life becomes overwhelming.
Luckily I broke my own rules so I could check out a few bands I actually wanted to see. Because f-ck the rules—especially the ones you make for yourself.
If you break your own rules - which I would define as your "Code of Conduct" routinely - you do not have rules & you have no foundation upon which to return when the chaos in life becomes overwhelming.
Soon. Very Soon.
Started this process before I left work yesterday and when I came in today, I saw this:
Following up on the above - now that the scan is complete - the files in the screenshot below were "problem" files - I couldn't move them out of the directory they were in so I'm glad this process both is done and fixed those files by deleting them.
Following up on the above - now that the scan is complete - the files in the screenshot below were "problem" files - I couldn't move them out of the directory they were in so I'm glad this process both is done and fixed those files by deleting them.
Sure, this is Political, but it's also About Writing
Stay Off Your Phones
Stay off your cell phones at ball games. Seriously. If all parties involved in the following had done so, then there wouldn't have been this post.
First, this story came out - https://www.cubshq.com/amp/update/WATCH-Young-Cubs-fan-gets-Baez-signed-ball-after-fan-steals-his-25175 - about how a guy gave a ball to his wife instead of a kid. Later, there was a signed baseball delivered to the kid. Second, this story came out - https://deadspin.com/sounds-like-everyone-should-lay-off-that-cubs-fan-who-1827798042 - as it turns out that the guy had previously given the kid a baseball that came their way. There were people sitting near the kid and the man who "stole" the ball from the kid who went on social media and defended the man.
In other news, this is the view from the seats Karen, Jean, and the kids sat in during Sunday's game - a victory! - and last night's game - a 7 - 1 loss! - in Wrigley Field:
On second thought, stay on your cell phones at ball games - it gave me a subject about which to babble about instead of a Metallica video or a political video or a link to an article related to writing.
First, this story came out - https://www.cubshq.com/amp/update/WATCH-Young-Cubs-fan-gets-Baez-signed-ball-after-fan-steals-his-25175 - about how a guy gave a ball to his wife instead of a kid. Later, there was a signed baseball delivered to the kid. Second, this story came out - https://deadspin.com/sounds-like-everyone-should-lay-off-that-cubs-fan-who-1827798042 - as it turns out that the guy had previously given the kid a baseball that came their way. There were people sitting near the kid and the man who "stole" the ball from the kid who went on social media and defended the man.
In other news, this is the view from the seats Karen, Jean, and the kids sat in during Sunday's game - a victory! - and last night's game - a 7 - 1 loss! - in Wrigley Field:
On second thought, stay on your cell phones at ball games - it gave me a subject about which to babble about instead of a Metallica video or a political video or a link to an article related to writing.
Monday, July 23, 2018
Ozark
I heard my co-worker talking about Ozark on Netflix so I started to watch it. I am up to episode 7 and I really don't know what is going to happen. The link below has a spoiler as it says ___ is not around but I have not seen ____ become "not around" yet. That's a warning to heed.
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-demand/2018-07-20/ozark-season-2-release-date-netflix-cast-plot/
Sunday, July 22, 2018
This
University of Iowa student reported missing after going for jog, officials say
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/22/university-iowa-student-reported-missing-after-going-for-jog-officials-say.html
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Friday, July 20, 2018
Misplaced Trust
http://www.kcrg.com/content/news/I9-Investigation-finds-former-Univ-of-Iowa-employee-misused-nearly-60000-488652941.html
When My Family Leaves...
This weekend, Karen, Megan, Alex, and my favorite Mother-in-Law are heading to Wrigley Field in Chicago to see the Cubs. I am not going as I chose to not go. I'm not the hugest baseball fan so missing a Cubs game is okay with me. Anyways, I was thinking about what I could do with myself on Sunday, since I'll be home alone. I flirted with the idea of arranging a jam session - either a Lou's Classic Ride reunion or with James & Matthew & the guy I made contact with through Craigslist, but those ideas have been discarded. Now I'm thinking about how to watch 4 movies at the Collins Road Theater.
 |
| Of the above films, I've seen Avengers: Infinity War (x2!), Book Club (x1), and Solo: A Star Wars Story (x1). |
- Solo 12:50 - 03:25 for $5
- AIW 03:40 - 06:39 for $5
- DP2 06:40 - 08:59 for $6
- Adr 09:15 - 11:11 for $6
A Little BTTF Action
On 7/19/2018, I attempted to enter time for tomorrow, 7/20/2018, and when I did, I saw this error message, which makes me think there's a little "Back to the Future" action going on.
This is the Wrong Picture
Sorry youtube.com, but you're wrong when you show Ashton Kutcher next to Jon Cryer was not in Season 2 of Two and a Half Men.
This was such a great show in the pre-Kutcher days...
This was such a great show in the pre-Kutcher days...
Season 9 Teaser for the Trailer that Will Be Included in this Post After it's Released!
I love the tribute to M*A*S*H in this sign:
Thursday, July 19, 2018
99 Times
From https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/not-movin-out-billy-joel-reaches-milestone-at-msg:
And I thought rehearsing the same setlist over and over (and over!) was repetitious - playing "Piano Man" 99 times would drive me nuts!! That said, I would gladly pay $222.42 to see Billy Joel in NYC.
But if you’re looking to catch him in concert, you have to dish out the dough. The average ticket price to see Joel is $222.42, according to Ticket Club data. So far, Joel’s lengthy run has accumulated $222 million in ticket sales. And you don’t have to worry that he isn’t going to play his iconic song, “Piano Man”. Joel has played his signature song 99 times.
And I thought rehearsing the same setlist over and over (and over!) was repetitious - playing "Piano Man" 99 times would drive me nuts!! That said, I would gladly pay $222.42 to see Billy Joel in NYC.
Circle the Date - December 15, 2018!
I'm betting I will be in Des Moines, IA, on Saturday, December 15, 2018. I think I read that this will be the last time for the Hy-Vee Classic so it's unlikely this game will happen again.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Fascinating Answer
Lou Carlozo, Longtime journalist. Music producer. Political junkie.
Jackie, this is an excellent question. Here’s my answer:
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Family > Band
What a courageous move by guitarist Brian Patton in EYEHATEGOD as he released a "Statement Regarding Decision To Leave Band" which is as follows:Fresh of a three-week European headlining tour, EYEHATEGOD will return to North American stages this week for the second leg of their tour supporting Black Label Society and Corrosion Of Conformity. Scheduled to begin on July 18th, the journey will wind its way through more than two dozen cities and includes a handful of headlining shows as well as an appearance at this year's edition of Heavy Montreal and Psycho Las Vegas.
The band will be playing as a four-piece. Longtime guitarist Brian Patton, who's been missing in action on the last few EYEHATEGOD tours, recently issued a statement regarding his decision to leave the band.
"Touring and being away from my family started to get harder after my daughter was born. Then soon after the arrival of my son, I left for a six-week tour. While I was away, both kids had some serious health scares. Being away from my family while that happened, along with an increasingly busy tour schedule, I decided the best thing for me was to step down. To concrete this decision, after a visit with my wife's parents earlier this year, it became clear that my in-laws' health was rapidly fading and they needed our help. So my family and I have moved to Greensboro, North Carolina to care for them full time.
Trust me when I say that this has been one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. After being in this band for twenty-five years -- over half of my life -- to say that I will miss it is a huge understatement. I already miss it. Ultimately, I want to be at home with my family. But more importantly, I am truly needed at home. I love my brothers in EYEHATEGOD, of course, and wish them nothing but the best. Thank you to everyone who has supported me and the music I have played throughout the years. I hope to see you all soon. I plan on playing again in some form or fashion. But for now, my family comes first."
Wouldn't Be Caught Alive at this Show
Cannibal Corpse, Hate Eternal, and Harm's Way are playing at Wooly's in Des Moines, IA, on a Sunday night in November. There's no way I will ever be caught alive at that show! I hate Cannibal Corpse, the embedded Hate Eternal tune below sucks, and while Harm's Way seemed a little bit better than the other two, they play first and would likely only get a 30 minute set. No thank you!
As I Was Watching WWE Raw
I really could be a WWE Creative Writer because I could write more interesting story lines than what I saw last night. As I watched WWE Raw last night and saw the opening segment - nicely summarized in this article - https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2786388-wwe-raw-results-winners-grades-reaction-and-highlights-from-july-16 - I knew what was to come. From that article is this summary of the opening segment, but I made each wrestler a list item in an ordered list to make it easier to read:
I saw those 6 wrestlers, each claiming to be better than the other 5. I knew, before he said it, that Kurt Angle was going to assign those 6 wrestlers to a bracket of matches with the ultimate winner facing Brock Lesnar @ SummerSlam in August. I didn't predict triple threat matches, but that is what Angle announced: 2 triple threat matches with the winners fighting next week to earn the match with Brock Lesnar @ SummerSlam.
I knew, at that moment, when Angle put Bobby Lashley & Roman Reigns in separate matches, Lashley would win his match & Reigns would win his match and that they would face each other next week.
I would have wrote the matches differently.
Instead of the Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor vs. Drew McIntyre match,
I would have put Reigns v. Lashley in a singles match, with Reigns winning.
I would have put Drew McIntyre v. Finn Balor in a singles match, with McIntyre winning.
I would have put Elias v. Rollins in a singles match, with Rollins winning.
Then, for next week, I would have put those three winners in a triple threat match. Reigns v. Rollins v. McIntyre in a triple threat match, with Rollins "accidentally" causing Reigns to be pinned by McIntyre. By doing so, you have an opponent for Reigns at SummerSlam in Rollins and you have fresh meat going up against McIntryre, which has never been done before. Then, for the weeks leading up to SummerSlam, on July 30th, I would put McIntryre in a victorious singles match against Reigns. On August 6th, I would put McIntyre in a victorious singles match against Rollins. On August 13th, the final Raw prior to SummerSlam, I would put McIntyre in a victorious singles match against Finn Balor.
In effect, McIntyre would be in a Braun Strowman role of 'rolling' over the wrestlers he had to wrestle to get to where he is alone with each victory building the crowd's engagement.
If the plan is for Lesnar to lose the Universal Championship at SummerSlam, I can fully envision passing the torch to McIntyre. I wouldn't care if both Lesnar & McIntyre are both heels. I would completely capitalize upon the WWE Universe booing last night when Lesnar was not on Raw. By default, McIntyre would become a temporary fan favorite in the weeks leading up to SummerSlam. Even if you allow Lesnar to defeat McIntyre at SummerSlam, I would have Strowman cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase and pin Lesnar. That would allow Lesnar to walk out of WWE - if he's going to in fact leave WWE for UFC - as a Beast that was slayed by a Monster (Strowman), all the while building up McIntyre as the one to take down Strowman at the next PPV.
I think doing all of that would require a full-scale "all in" bet on McIntyre. I like McIntyre's character, especially when he talked about why he returned to WWE, which was to effect change. It all meshes into the same narrative (storyline) of being new blood and 'shaking things up.' Instead of the heavily booed Reigns being shoved down our throats as much as John Cena was, it actually would be proof that the future is unwritten.
As the current setup goes, with the Reigns v. Lashley winner fighting Lesnar at SummerSlam, my problem is that Reigns has done that dance before with Lesnar. Riegns didn't win over the crowd. He was consistently booed. I am not convinced that Lashley can carry a feud with Lesnar as he is unconvincing on the mic. His promos during his feud with Sami Zayn were terrible. As currently booked, if Lashley is to really defeat Lesnar at SummerSlam, Lashley should then be paired with Paul Heyman, who could be shown as being a businessman and doing what's "best for business." You could even throw a sub-plot of Heyman being told to work with Lashley by Stephanie McMahon or Triple H, depending upon if either are wanting to be on-screen in the future.
Once again, being a WWE Creative Writer would be an awesome job, but because I know it requires a lot of travel, I do not envision myself applying for it in my future.
- Bobby Lashley interrupted the proceedings and said he accomplished his first goal of beating Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules and now wants to accomplish part two by beating Lesnar at SummerSlam.
- Drew McIntyre interrupted and said phase one of his return was ensuring the Intercontinental Championship remained around the waist of Dolph Ziggler and now he wants to accomplish phase two: win the Universal Championship.
- Seth Rollins interrupted and came face-to-face with McIntyre before announcing his candidacy for a match with Lesnar.
- Elias was out next, as the stream of Superstars continued. He touted his debut album as the reason he should face Lesnar at SummerSlam.
- Finn Balor, who used his status as the first universal champion to cement his claim as a legitimate contender.
- Roman Reigns interrupted, the last man to enter the squared circle, drawing a huge chorus of boos.
I saw those 6 wrestlers, each claiming to be better than the other 5. I knew, before he said it, that Kurt Angle was going to assign those 6 wrestlers to a bracket of matches with the ultimate winner facing Brock Lesnar @ SummerSlam in August. I didn't predict triple threat matches, but that is what Angle announced: 2 triple threat matches with the winners fighting next week to earn the match with Brock Lesnar @ SummerSlam.
I knew, at that moment, when Angle put Bobby Lashley & Roman Reigns in separate matches, Lashley would win his match & Reigns would win his match and that they would face each other next week.
- I knew that Drew McIntyre wouldn't win, even though I would have wrote that, as a WWE Creative Writer.
- I knew that despite being a crowd favorite, Seth Rollins wouldn't win, especially since he wasn't in the same triple threat match as Roman Reigns (WWE likely doesn't want to end The Shield reunion until after Dean Ambrose returns from injury).
- I knew that despite being a crowd favorite, Elias wouldn't win.
- I knew that despite being the first Universal Champion, Finn Balor wouldn't win.
I would have wrote the matches differently.
Instead of the Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor vs. Drew McIntyre match,
I would have put Reigns v. Lashley in a singles match, with Reigns winning.
I would have put Drew McIntyre v. Finn Balor in a singles match, with McIntyre winning.
I would have put Elias v. Rollins in a singles match, with Rollins winning.
Then, for next week, I would have put those three winners in a triple threat match. Reigns v. Rollins v. McIntyre in a triple threat match, with Rollins "accidentally" causing Reigns to be pinned by McIntyre. By doing so, you have an opponent for Reigns at SummerSlam in Rollins and you have fresh meat going up against McIntryre, which has never been done before. Then, for the weeks leading up to SummerSlam, on July 30th, I would put McIntryre in a victorious singles match against Reigns. On August 6th, I would put McIntyre in a victorious singles match against Rollins. On August 13th, the final Raw prior to SummerSlam, I would put McIntyre in a victorious singles match against Finn Balor.
In effect, McIntyre would be in a Braun Strowman role of 'rolling' over the wrestlers he had to wrestle to get to where he is alone with each victory building the crowd's engagement.
If the plan is for Lesnar to lose the Universal Championship at SummerSlam, I can fully envision passing the torch to McIntyre. I wouldn't care if both Lesnar & McIntyre are both heels. I would completely capitalize upon the WWE Universe booing last night when Lesnar was not on Raw. By default, McIntyre would become a temporary fan favorite in the weeks leading up to SummerSlam. Even if you allow Lesnar to defeat McIntyre at SummerSlam, I would have Strowman cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase and pin Lesnar. That would allow Lesnar to walk out of WWE - if he's going to in fact leave WWE for UFC - as a Beast that was slayed by a Monster (Strowman), all the while building up McIntyre as the one to take down Strowman at the next PPV.
I think doing all of that would require a full-scale "all in" bet on McIntyre. I like McIntyre's character, especially when he talked about why he returned to WWE, which was to effect change. It all meshes into the same narrative (storyline) of being new blood and 'shaking things up.' Instead of the heavily booed Reigns being shoved down our throats as much as John Cena was, it actually would be proof that the future is unwritten.
As the current setup goes, with the Reigns v. Lashley winner fighting Lesnar at SummerSlam, my problem is that Reigns has done that dance before with Lesnar. Riegns didn't win over the crowd. He was consistently booed. I am not convinced that Lashley can carry a feud with Lesnar as he is unconvincing on the mic. His promos during his feud with Sami Zayn were terrible. As currently booked, if Lashley is to really defeat Lesnar at SummerSlam, Lashley should then be paired with Paul Heyman, who could be shown as being a businessman and doing what's "best for business." You could even throw a sub-plot of Heyman being told to work with Lashley by Stephanie McMahon or Triple H, depending upon if either are wanting to be on-screen in the future.
Once again, being a WWE Creative Writer would be an awesome job, but because I know it requires a lot of travel, I do not envision myself applying for it in my future.
26 CDs - 6 for $5?
I hate math, but I know that if I have 26 CDs with a "deal" of 6 for $5 ... it doesn't make sense. If you said you had 30 CDs and they were 6 for $5, then I'd know it makes sense. Divide 26 by 6 and you get 3.5, which is dumb. Sell 24 at 6 for $5 and that makes sense. These are all Christian musicians and you know, I know my CD collection is not strong in the Christian music genre. It's tempting...
Like, seriously?
So, the 'bargain' comes out to $20 for 24 CDs.
CD's (as is): $1 each/ 6 for $51. About a Mile: About a Mile2. Aiden: Our Gangs Dark Oath3. Ashes Remain: What I've Become4. Cloverton: Patterns5. Colton Dixon: A Messenger6. Day of Fire: Cut & Move7. Day of Fire: Day of Fire8. Family Force 5: Business Up Front, Party in the Back Diamond Edition9. Family Force 5: The Third10. Family Force 5: Time Stand Still11. For King & Country: Crave12. Hillsong Kids Live Worship: Follow You13. Kiros: A Single Strand14. Kutless: Hearts of the Innocent15. Kutless: It Is Well, A Worship Album by Kutless16. Kutless: So This is Christmas17. Love and Death: Between Here & Lost18. Matty Mullins: Matty Mullins19. Memphis May Fire: Unconditional20. Sanctus Real: Pieces off a Real Heart21. Since October: This is My Heart22. Syndroms of Fire: I'm Alive23. Thousand Foot Krutch: The Best Of24. tobyMac: Portable Sounds25. tobyMac: Tonight26. War of Ages: Return to Life
Like, seriously?
1. About a Mile: About a Mile2. Aiden: Our Gangs Dark Oath3. Ashes Remain: What I've Become4. Cloverton: Patterns5. Colton Dixon: A Messenger6. Day of Fire: Cut & Move1. Day of Fire: Day of Fire2. Family Force 5: Business Up Front, Party in the Back Diamond Edition3. Family Force 5: The Third4. Family Force 5: Time Stand Still5. For King & Country: Crave6. Hillsong Kids Live Worship: Follow You1. Kiros: A Single Strand2. Kutless: Hearts of the Innocent3. Kutless: It Is Well, A Worship Album by Kutless4. Kutless: So This is Christmas5. Love and Death: Between Here & Lost6. Matty Mullins: Matty Mullins1. Memphis May Fire: Unconditional2. Sanctus Real: Pieces off a Real Heart3. Since October: This is My Heart4. Syndroms of Fire: I'm Alive5. Thousand Foot Krutch: The Best Of6. tobyMac: Portable Sounds1. tobyMac: Tonight2. War of Ages: Return to Life
So, the 'bargain' comes out to $20 for 24 CDs.
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