WHAT?!?
What the devil am I doing talking about free porn on this very non-adult blog? Simple, talking about free porn is the fastest way to get hits. Sad, but true. In fact, John Dvorak has written an article about this called <a target="_blank" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1752122,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K00… Porn Magic For You</a>.
I used to think that the Internet had improved with age, that we'd finally gotten past all the free porn, or "pron" if you're one of the hip, out-of-work webdesigners from the 90's, and had moved on to something more meaningful. I guess I was wrong. If you read the article, you'll see that what holds true from the earlier days of the Internet still, sadly, holds true today. People are looking for free porn on the Internet. Now, the hits I generally get via searches on Google, and company, aren't filled with porn terms, movies, or "performers", so I'm not really expecting a lot of traffic boost, but, well, it can't hurt. Can it? You know, I'm already starting to feel a bit slimy with all that.
Damn, how else can I boost ratings on this site? For pity's sake, I know hundreds of people hit this site on a daily and weekly basis, but I have only one sad, lonely <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.fantasist.net/scroll/">Blogline…; subscriber. Just one. Did I mention that <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.fantasist.net/scroll/">Blogline…; is a free service? And they have nice, FREE tools that let you keep up with your favorite blogs? (Aw, c'mon, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.fantasist.net/scroll/">subscribe to the Fantasist's Scroll with Bloglines</a>!) Oh, I suppose I could always just produce more content here. Yeah, that might work, too. But, well, I'd rather go with the sure thing. So, for those of you who are websurfers that got here looking for free porn, I apologize. I was just using you to drive my stats up. I hope you don't hate me too much.
(And, yes, I talked about this on my other blog, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/index.php">the Diary of a Network Geek</a>. So sue me!)
Freakish, strange and disturbing.
Perfect for a Fantasist Friday Fun link! In this case, it's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.customcreaturetaxidermy.com/intro/intro.html">Custom Creatures</a>, a site dedicated to "creative" taxidermy. Freakish, two-headed goats and jackelopes and things stranger still. They're all there. Strange tortured beasts that are sure to disturb your sensibilities. At least, they upset mine, even though I found the exhibit oddly compelling.
Aw, cut me some slack, it's Friday! Go check it out.
I know, you're thinking, who?
Well, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wordfocus.com/wordactcremation.html">Robert W. Service</a> is the poet who wrote "The Cremation of Sam Mcgee". Still in the dark? That's okay. I don't think that Mr. Service is too well known anymore. I know him because of my father. Apparently, when my father was growing up one of the things that kids in school did was memorize and recite poetry. It was a competition along the lines of a spelling bee, from what he described. In any case, the poem that he memorized was, of course, "The Cremation of Sam Mcgee". It's a gruesome little tale about a man keeping his promise to a dying friend. A promise to cremate his remains in the frozen Yukon, in Winter, during the Gold Rush. Here's a sample:
<blockquote>There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.</blockquote>
You can see how that might grab a young man's attention, eh? Especially, when his father introduces him to it. Well, if you click on <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wordfocus.com/wordactcremation.html">the link,</a> you can read the rest for yourself. I think it's worth it.
I got a request to share my sourcecode yesterday.
First off, I generally don't do that because a lot of my stuff is derived from work found elsewhere anyway. Also, my code is crappy looking! I mean, I'm not a real programmer, so sometimes I do strange, circuitous things to make my code work and I'd be embrassed to let that out into the world.
Secondly, I don't want to support that ugly code when it gets out into the world. Half the time, I can't remember what I've done in the first place, much less why. And, frankly, I don't have time to properly maintain my own website, so I certainly don't have time to properly support someone else's coding efforts.
Thirdly, all my stuff is coded specifically for the web. More precisely, for this website. So, certian "look-and-feel" things are done to force a match here. Also, some of my code contains things that I'd rather not make too publicly available. After all, it is what makes my site unique.
I tried to send this person a note with all that in it, but it bounced back. So, even if I'd wanted to send him my source, I couldn't! For those of you who really, really want to make your own PERL-based language scripts, do what I did, go to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pound/">Chris Pound's Name Generator page</a> and start with his code. That's really all I've done is mangle his code for the web.
So just start with that and play around with PERL. And, of course, go read a couple of PERL books. (One good one, after you've gotten your feet wet, is <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596003137/fantasistnet">the PERL Cookbook</a>, but any of the O'Reilly books are great.)
Good luck!
Okay, this is a little scary.
You know that old urban legend about the guy being murdered or killed with an icicle? Well, now someone has created a mold that you can use to make an ice push-dagger. No, I am not kidding. Is it the ultimate murder weapon? Use it once and then let it melt away. No fuss, no muss, no evidence. Hmm, somehow I think a TV detective could figure it out and get a conviction... Still, the idea has a lot of <em>fictional</em> possibilities. Well, check out <a target="_blank" href="http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/weapons/objects-of-violence-are-… of Violence</a> and decide for yourself.
Yes, it's a little morbid for a Friday Fun Link, but, dammit, it <em>is</em> fun in a sick twisted way. So, go click on the link! (Please note that I do not advocate killing anyone, outside of a just war, and this post has been presented for informational and educational purposes only!)
Not my usual fare.
I finished <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet&path=tg… Death and Dying</a> by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross last night. It is NOT my usual fare, nor am I dying. But, with the divorce, a part of my life is dying so my father suggested that I might find some benefit from reading it. And, since my father was involved with some of the base research for the book, I gave it a go. It was, at times, quite hard to read. Not because it was a bad book by any means, but because I'm just too keyed up to read much non-fiction. In fact, it was helpful and would be very helpful to someone dealing with an actual death. It details, among other things, the five stages of death and dying, or grief, namely; denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. They're not always followed in strict order and the tend to overlap quite a bit, but sooner or later, we all go through those five stages. (Personally, I'm in the anger stage, but I'm trying to get past that now.)
So, all in all, not a bad book, but not a good choice for me right now, either.
You can see more of what I've been up to while making myself read this book at my other blog: <a href="http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/index.php">Diary of a Network Geek</a>.
This is a very cool website.
<a target="_blank" href="http://mountainkings.blogspot.com/">In the Hall of Mountain Kings</a>, that is. It's an inside look at a sumo stable and the life of the sumotori who live there. It's written in a very comfortable style and is a great way to look at sumo, not to mention Japanese culture in general.
I haven't watched sumo in a very long time, but there should be a basho coming up soon. Maybe I can catch it on ESPN2. If not, I'll just have to read <a target="_blank" href="http://mountainkings.blogspot.com/">In the Hall of Mountain Kings</a> and dream of watching sumo in person.
Ah, well, it's Friday and I did a bunch of work last night, so, humor me and click on the link and check it out.
Hey, I made my decision!
Clearly, we've gone with WordPress. But, also, I decided to combine the two blogs into one. Frankly, my fiction blog was rather sparse anyway, so I figured there wasn't any harm in combining them into one.
Okay, so I'm at a bit of a cross-roads...
I have a couple of choices here. I want to move to Word Press for my blogging system, because I like it better than MovableType. And, no, not just because of the MT pricing structure, either. I like the interface and how easy it is to code up plugins for WP. The only problem is WP only supports one blog per installation. In other words, I'd have to install WP twice to host two blogs. Not a big deal, I guess, but I have this blog and a fiction blog and an idea for another blog. Of course, the fiction blog has languished somewhat, so I suppose I could just roll it into this one. I mean, I only have three or four stories and a couple of haiku. Then, I could install WP a second time for my third blog experiment, which is logical in a way...
Well, I'm not sure what I want to do, but I want to do something and soon.
Well, not quite that bad...
Still, having read a plethora of fiction set in a variety of time periods, I can tell you, one of the biggest mistakes modern writers make is using modern language in historical settings. Or, worse, completely misusing historical language. This seems to be an especially large problem for new or amatuer writers of fantasy or historicals set in the pre-1900's. Luckily, C. J. Cherryh has an answer for those poor unfortunate souls: <a href="http://www.cherryh.com/www/antique1.htm">Pre- and Post-1900's Language</a>. It's far from complete, which she admits herself, but it's certainly better than nothing and it is a great place to start.
Also, anyone looking at creating their own world, with its own linguistic twists on English, would do well to look through this file. It's a great look at ways that English usage has changed, especially in terms of slang and common usage.