Friday, November 29, 2002



Censorship and/or the ethics of delinking:
Do you expect to always have only positive feedback in your comments? Are you upset when someone disagrees with you, or questions your argument? Is blogging about patting those "just like us" on the back, and blocking those who aren't? Is tolerance analogous to stupidity?

What the hell is this? The Tuesday Too on Friday?
No, just some questions to mull over. Here are two links (1, 2) mired in a "discussion" to rev up your engines. Thanks for pointing these links out Chad.

"In the spider-web of facts, many a truth is strangled."
--Paul Eldridge

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Thursday, November 28, 2002



New Painting
No that's not real plywood!What's real? My attemp at tromple-l'oeil. Looks like the shells need a little more work. Click on the image for larger view.
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Tuesday, November 26, 2002



Tuesday Too
Tuesday Too1.) What's the longest time you've gone without posting an entry in your blog/journal? What was or is the reason behind your dry spell?
It appears to be this week, where one Tuesday Too follows another. Ironically it's the one year anniversary of this blog; when I began writing here, I was going to post at least once a day. Well, this is post 210, and that means I'm a wee bit behind. But, what about the one week dry spell, as in how come? My mother would say, "there's just too much going on at the depot."

2.) Are you "going over the river and through the woods" for thanksgiving, or is the gang coming to your place? Perhaps you have something to be particularly thankful for this year. What is it?
I'm "going over the river and through the woods." I'll be preparing thanksgiving dinner with my mother; I'm thankful that she and my dad are still here, and quite capable of running their own lives. Referring back to question one: I've been trotting back and forth to Annapolis this week, because my father had a knee replacement. Ouch.


3.) All those bumper stickers that say, "I'd rather be...", what does yours say?
Now that question reminds me that Eden had some stickers on her site. Where are they Eden? I couldn't find them this morning. Mine would say, "I'd rather be fooling around," which leaves me open to just about anything.

Post your URL in the comment.

"Today, if you are not confused, you are just not thinking clearly."
--U. Peter

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Tuesday, November 19, 2002



Tuesday Too
Tuesday Too1.) Chad has been writing/talking about alternative forms of government. What's your take on a "new government?"

2.) The last Harry Potter film ignited a "whirlwind of controversy." What's your opinion; is Harry Potter dangerous to children?

3.) What do you think of this ("What would Jesus drive?")?

Post your URL in the comment.

"The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."
--Mark Twain
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Saturday, November 16, 2002



Posting 101
What in the world is going on? I'm reluctant to speculate on the state of affairs, mine that is. Oil, black gold, water and oil don't mix. You can paint oil over acrylic, but not acrylic over oil. That's why oil spills are so awful; no amount of water will clean them up. If you put oil on a potato, it will be slick, and slick was what Mr. Potatoehead was.

Slick like hair tonic?
Hair tonic? I wonder if hair tonic still exists?

Of course it does. Are you an alien or what?
No put I probably need a persona lift.

I've heard of lifts for shoes and faces, but not for personas.
Well, I'm thinking of changing my screen saver, although this may not be necessary since my blog has disappeared.

Disappeared?
Vanished as in gone, as in can't be found... aha yes, it's back now cause you can see it.
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Thursday, November 14, 2002



Defining Feeling
Is that a question, or a topic?
It's a state of mind. Perhaps it's rather more like a mind wrapper. A bit like the wallpaper on your computer screen; changing the wallpaper does not change the system itself in any way.

Oh come on; feelings are more than wallpaper.
Do you like the idea of gift wrapping paper better? Furthermore, I said like wallpaper; not that they are wallpaper. It's a reference. Maybe we could make another analogy using screen savers.

I don't think so; my feelings have nothing to do with screen savers.
But the face/mask/persona we present to the world is really quite a bit like a screen saver. The screen saver masks the "sleeping" computer in the same way our persona covers our "real selves". Real selves which have feelings. Sometimes we retreat from ourselves; perhaps from fear, or fatigue, or insert whatever here, and up comes the face we show to the world.

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Wednesday, November 13, 2002



The Luddite Kitty Strikes Again
Is he really agent 789?But you said, Elliott no longer had computer access.
Unsupervised access, (see prior post) is what I said.

So what happened?
Abbott (the other luddite in the household, who does not hear well) was reading his newspaper in the computer room, while I was painting in the room across the hall. I heard, "beep, beep, beep... what's that noise." I dropped my fully loaded with alizarin crimson bush, and madly dashed into the computer room, but not quite in the nick of time.

Not quite?
Elliott, in the ensuing moment before my arrival upon the scene, had managed to rip two functions keys (7 and 8) and the number 9 key from the keyboard.

Maybe Elliott's trying to tell you he can count.
Or, maybe Abbott needs a new hearing aid battery? While the madcap kitty may have been trying to communicate, I was not pleased, and no I did not punish the wild boy. However, new rules as regards the computer room have been established. One of which is: Abbott must keep the door closed, and Elliott out of the room, unless his only interest is in supervising Elliott, no matter what the headline says.

Did you put humpty dumpty back together again?
Yes. However, one must assume the size of a thimble and have tiny fingers to grasp the tiny springs and set them in their respective prongs. Even a paper clip is too big to use as a tool. This is no job for Mr. Potatoehead.

Were you mad at Abbott?
Only briefly. Now I call him agent 006, and Elliott is master spy 789.

"On the road to Mandalay
Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the bay."
--Rudyard Kipling

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Tuesday, November 12, 2002



Tuesday Too
Tuesday Too
Where have you been?
All I can say, is when I got up this morning I had to go here to find out what time it was, and my Gary Larson calendar was 4 days behind.

1.) Is there something you find fascinating/interesting that you'd like to share (oh so 70's)?
Science section in the New York Times this morning: A New View of Our Universe: Only One of Many Also, FYI on November 18 there is the Leonid meteor shower visible around 5 AM Eastern time in the US.

2.) What's your latest accomplishment/achievement? I know, I know you got up this morning, but what else?
Wire brushed a rusty tin garage roof. If I ever see a wire brush again, it will be too soon. On the personal front I finished 3 more paintings in the last two weeks and started a 4th

3.) What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now?
hmm... I'm all grown up, and debt free. I spend 5 hours a day painting, and I make a comfortable living selling my paintings. I live near a large body of water, but not far from an urban area. I have found the fountain of youth.

Post your URL in the comment.

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."
--Stephen Hawking
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Tuesday, November 05, 2002



Tuesday Too
Tuesday Too1.) When was the last time you really had fun? What were you doing? Are you someone who can have fun alone?

2.) Are you going to vote today, and do you know the major differences between the candidates? Does the balance in the senate and the house figure into your choice?

3.) Is there something extraordinary going on that you've failed to notice?

Post your URL in the comment.

"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you."
--Aldous Huxley

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Friday, November 01, 2002



"Ordinary Life"
I'm thinking about something Doris Lessing wrote in The Memoirs of a Survivor:

"We can get used to anything at all; this is [a] commonplace, of course, but perhaps you have to live through such a time to see how horribly true it is. There is nothing that people won't try to accommodate into 'ordinary life...'"

Insert your circumstance, time and place here.

"...This is the sort of thing we accepted as normal. Yet for all of us there were moments when the game we were all agreeing to play simply could not stand up to events: we would be gripped by feelings of unreality, like nausea. Perhaps this feeling, that the ground was dissolving under our feet, was the real enemy... or we believed it to be so. Perhaps our tacit agreement that nothing much-or at least nothing irrecoverable-was happening was because for us the enemy was Reality, was to allow ourselves to know what was happening. Perhaps our pretences, everyone's pretences, which in the moments when we felt naked, defenceless, seemed like playacting and absurd, should be regarded as admirable? Or perhaps they were necessary, like the games of children who can make playacting a way of keeping reality a long way from their weaknesses?..."

What circumstance, or circumstances did you insert?
One might say "my personal insertion" is trivial considering the world events we constantly (admirably?) playact around/through; however...

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