Category: blogs

Sometimes, you just get a little down…

The damn home computer has been giving me fits the last three weeks. Initially, I thought it was a faulty Internet connection on the part of Time Warner. I talked to THREE servicepeople, then a fourth actually came to my house. This seemed to fix the problem, briefly, but then it start up again. Finally, with help, I discovered:
1) I have an Internet connection – I can play Internet backgammon – but I can’t get to any URLs. I was thinking about reinstalling one of those old AOL discs, except that
2) I’m apparently dangerously low on memory
So, I’d done some blogging – actually a lot a couple weeks ago Saturday – at the library, and wrote all the posts you read so far that week. And I did write a couple things at home in Word for this week. But I find it harder not to go fact checking or finding a picture or adding a link. So, it’s made me frustrated.

My very good friend Mark came up from the Mid Hudson (an hour or so south of here) to try to fix the beast, but it became so problematic that he had to take it home with him. So I couldn’t even write stuff in Word at home for a few days this past week.

Since I tend to work ahead, it wasn’t TOO problematic for the pieces already posted, but it MAY be in the next couple weeks, because my inventory of emergency posts are kaput. Ironic because..well, you’ll see.

And, oh, yeah, I also lost my wallet. Trips to the DMV, the library and the bank, calls to the credit card companies, blah, blah. (And it gets more brain-dead than that, but never mind.)

…and then I get a couple lovely e-mails:

From an old friend, to her friend, with a copy to me:

Many adore Roger and his understated but hilarious way. I love his curiosity on oh just about any topic and his librarian-like thoroughness when he riffs on it. Have you been reading his blog? Top ten. Met him probably about 15 years ago now…

And from someone I did a workshop on “Guerrilla Marketing for Librarians” a couple weeks ago:

Hi, Roger! I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to share your expertise and ideas with us yesterday at the meeting. I enjoyed meeting you and really found your presentation to be motivating and inspiring! I am sure others felt the same. Thanks for speaking to the group — your energy and enthusiasm, mixed with your business know-how, made for a wonderful presentation.

I post these, not to be an egomaniac. (I may be an egomaniac, but that’s not why I’m posting them.) I’m posting them to remind myself, when I’m a little blue, that it’s OK, I’m OK.

For it was the great ADD who told me, when I started blogging, “”You can’t please everyone; you got to please yourself.” No, wait, that was the late Rick Nelson. Well, ADD said SOMETHING like that at the time.

And, not that anybody asked, but I was considering moving the bloggy to the Times Union page. I think I decided not to on Easter morning. So now that Mark has returned my computer and it’s working again (thanks, effendi!) I can actually work on updating my weblinks, which I’ll try to do a little bit every day.
***
Oh, Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, died. I remember my first non-G-rated film, The Night They Raided Minsky’s, which was rated M, the forerunner of PG. (I have the soundtrack on vinyl -“Take 10 terrific girls, but only 9 costumes.” The movie ratings, which Valenti helped instigate, were imperfect, everyone knows (much kinder about violence, too fussy about the hint of sex, to my mind), but they’re still somewhat useful.
ROG

ROG

1st and 16th Amendments QUESTIONS


1. There’s been a lot of discussion about the rules of engagement on blogs and whether removing inappropriate comments is censorship. Initially, I think, the rules of engagement should be common decency, and if someone puts something inappropriate on the comments on this blog – and I alone get to decide what that is – then I will. But then , I came across a ning called Stop Cyberbullying, and I recognize cyberbullying can be disruptive in the victims’ lives. So I thought, maybe there SHOULD be some sort of rules of engagement. It may be like the speed limit, where many/most people drive over it, but maybe it’ll keep some people from doing 70 in a 35 m.p.h. zone.
So, do we need rules of engagement in cyberspace? What would it look like? And who gets to enforce them?

2. Paying taxes this weekend. Again. I suppose we could take fewer deductions, but then the government would have my money longer. I’m not always thrilled with the use. I can support a national defense, but not so much lucrative contracts to the Betchtels of the work that take the money and do shoddy or no work. I’m glad my taxes pay for schools, libraries (well, yeah), feeding the poor, clothing the hungry. Not so keen on the government executing people in my name.
So, if one could pick and choose: what taxes would you gladly pay, and which ones make you pause?
(Picture from Narconews.com.)
**
And while I’m in the question mode, a couple speculative modes about TV:
1. If Fred D. Thompson actually runs for President, will the networks that carry his various Law & Order shows have to broadcast only those episodes in which he does not appear? Otherwise, won’t his political opponents make a claim for equal time?

2. On last week’s Boston Legal, a very pregnant Denise (Julie Bowen) accepted a wedding proposal from the father of the child, Brad (Mark Valley). But in the preview for the next episode, Shirley (Candice Bergen) seems to suggest that Julie should not marry Brad. Is she saying that this single professional woman go it alone with her baby, a la Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen)?
ROG

ROG

Obviously

Obviously,
the thing

that’s most significant

about this month’s blogging

is my use of visual representations.

They don’t always come out as well as I’d like, but I’ll keep at it.

Another thing is that since I opened up the response mechanism to non-bloggers, I’ve gotten more comments, for which I thank you. Please keep it up.
I’ve also gotten these blog spam things that say something like:
“Really like your site. For your insurance needs, click here.”
I’ve started deleting them as I find them, but they don’t bother me as much as they probably should. It’s like those Viagra e-mails I get (I must REALLY be impotent!)
that I zap.

Finally, as of mid-day on August 26, I have put up a counter on the site, but don’t plan to look at it for fear that I might become a blog statistics junkie. Well, maaybe I’ll look, but only once a week. Or once a day. Perhaps thrice daily…

Ciao.

ROG

Bloggerama

I’ve been blogging three months. Given the fact that some folks have been blogging three years or longer, it ain’t no big deal to anyone but me. But it has been a real learning experience:

1) Can I be disciplined enough to post something, however slight, every day? So far, the answer, surprisingly (to me) is yes.

2) Will this allow me to “get in touch” with buried stuff, exhibiting existential angst in the public marketplace? Well, yes and no. I’ve certainly learned stuff about me (and you have, too.) But I DO have an edit button most of the time. So whatever salacious stuff you’ve seen, know that there’s even worse stuff in my head that you haven’t seen (and may never see – or you will, someday, maybe.)

3) Will anyone actually read this thing? Well, apparently, yes. To gauge that further, I’ve changed the settings so that any strange person can reply to my messages, rather than any strange person registered with Blogger. I reserve the right to alter that again, of course.

4) Will I get sucked up into this blogisphere, checking out other sites? Well, some.
The only site I visit every day without fail (unless he posts after my bedtime) is Mr. Hembeck’s. He suckered me into this, after all. Besides, occasionally I can get a mention in his column
(July 23, plus some JEOPARDY! plugs).

Often, after I have posted, I hit the Next Blog button in upper right of my page. Sometimes, I find sweet pieces like this one. I almost ALWAYS find a plug for Texas Hold ‘Em. Want a Spanish-language review of the movie Sin City? How about a political rant of a total stranger? And how the heck can I possible hit the same blog twice, given the number of new entrants into the arena?

At Mr. Hembeck’s suggestion, I’ve been regularly going to News from Me by Mark Evanier, a very newsworthy source. And he rants about the same political stuff that irks me, only he does it better. Also, I read one of my favorite comic writer’s blog, one Steve Gerber.

I’ve been checking out the folks involved with Chris Brown’s Mixed Bag CD exchange (May 23), and some of them are quite entertaining. But I have to make special mention of Greg Burgas, who has two daughters, at least two blogs (one about his aforementioned two daughters), and inexplicably but happily, too much time on his hands.

In re: the Mixed CD folks, one of the goals for the month will be to start to review those tunes, probably two discs at a time, once this week, then twice a week until they’re done. I’d say Wednesdays and Saturdays except that I’ve already foreseen some exceptions to that rule.

Oh, and if there are issues you know that I know about that I haven’t written about, please let me know. I may decide that now’s not the time, but I will keep it “under advisement,” as they say.

ROG

RM3

More Random Meanderings (or Random Mutterings or Ruminating Madness or Roger’s Minutae):

This is my blogger code: B1 d- t- k+ s– u– f+ i o x- e- l c–
For a translation, go here.
***
Someone showed me what you can do with a Windows keyboard. (Besides throw it out the window.) When you press the Windows key (between Ctrl and Alt) and M, it minimizes all the windows you may have opened! Maybe you knew that already, but it’s come in handy for me when I have eight windows open and I can’t see what I’m doing anymore.
***
I set up another blog to put articles I think are interesting, but that aren’t mine. Here’s the first post about oil running out, with commentary by my acerbic bud, Daniel W. Van Riper. When the U.S. first went into Iraq, there was a widespread fear that oil may have been a motive. Reading this reminded me of that discussion.
***
When I take Lydia for a walk in her carriage, and dog walkers approach, they almost always say that the dog “is friendly” or “doesn’t bite”. Please allow me the privilege of being a little bit wary anyway.
***
My friend Claudia writes: “Guess no more what the film of the summer is. LADIES IN LAVENDER with Dame Judith Dench and Maggie Smith was a visual feast of beautiful England, enchanting story, complete with the mastery of Joshua Bell. We just adored every moment of English country side, the crashing ocean, melding personal stories. In other words it is delicious and enjoy every moment of it.” I haven’t seen it, but she generally has very good taste.
***
John Rodat has a Myth America columm about Buddhist monks and moving that I related to heavily, and you collector types may as well. If it ain’t there anymore, it’s here.
***
I was on the bus home a couple weeks ago when I see a guy get on. He was very striking young man, very fair skin, head shaved, oddly shaped glasses. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read in white letters, “Day of Silence.” I might have thought nothing more about this, except that he had pulled out a cell phone almost immediately after he had gotten on the bus. So, my eyes HAD to follow him to the back of the bus, where he sat, silently, playing some sort of electronic game.
***
This is one of those a/v pieces that is funny and scary in equal measure. It appears that the Opus Sunday strip a couple weeks ago was inspired by this concept.
***
I shaved my beard on July 4. People seeing me the next couple days often commented, “Oh, you look so much younger!” as though that would prompt me to shave more often. Not a chance. Razor is brutal tool to use on face. I did it once because I was hot. However, even when I’m done shaving, I have a 5 o’clock shadow of Nixonian proportions, and impenetrable stubble on the jaw line. Besides, I’m contrarian enough to wonder why it’s so hot to look “younger”. There’s a mindset, epitomized by those inane Clyde Frazier/Keith Hernandez Just for Men hair coloring ads, that gray is bad. Gray is good; “gray matter” represents the brain, after all.

ROG
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