Can You Hear Me Now?

While it won’t seem any different to anyone reading this, I dictated this entire journal entry rather than typing it using the speech recognition software in Windows Vista. As a casual fan of the original Battlestar Galactica series, where Commander Adama spoke into that thin boom mike and watched his words scroll across the CRT screen, I have to say it rocks pretty hard.

Was it faster than typing it by hand? Not even close. And it’s made about a million mistakes. But I’m willing to work with it and see what it can do, if only because it’s one of the many tantalizing promises made to us by science fiction and fantasy that it seems like we can finally fulfill to some degree.

Here’s to yesterday’s future!

xkcd: “Useless”

From the utterly wonderful xkcd.com:

Practical Magik

The Empress is taking the second half of her Wiccan written exam tonight.

Now where’d I put that black cat in the glass bottle?…

Ahhh, So THAT’s the Problem

“…In the light of these observations on the interaction of the body and mind, we can now consider in fuller detail the reasons why Zen masters have always stressed an erect back and the classic lotus posture.  It is well known that a bent back deprives the mind of its tension so that it is quickly invaded by random thoughts and images, but that a straight back by strengthening concentration lessens the incidence of wandering thoughts and thus hastens samadhi.  Conversely, when the mind becomes free of ideas the back tends to straighten itself without conscious effort.

Through a sagging spine and the consequent multiplication of thoughts, harmonious breathing often becomes superseded by quickened or jerky breathing, depending on the nature of the thoughts.  This soon reflects itself in nervous and muscular tensions.  In these lectures Yasutani-roshi also points out how a slouching back saps the mind’s vigor and clarity, inducing dullness and boredom.”

—The Three Pillars of Zen, Philip Kapleau

As someone with a 100+ degree spinal kyphosis, I believe I speak not only for myself but for similarly challenged people everywhere when I say:  “Swell.”

So what am I supposed to do?

Anniversary

Things I’ve Learned From the Internet

No matter what it is that I pursue, someone out there somewhere is pursuing it far more seriously than I ever will.

Aargh!

Martha Quinn turned 50 today!

Happy Mothers’ Day

Opal: “So what’s goin’ on?”

Ace: “Nothin’.  I’m havin’ a really great day.”

Opal: “Uh-oh.  Why?  What happened?”

Ace: “No.  Really.  I’m…   having a really great day.”

Opal: “Oh.”

The Perils of Impatience

Put a bottle of Chardonnay in the freezer, and forgot about it for so long that it froze solid and blew the cork through the foil.

I lose Gourmet Points for that on so many levels.

Meta, round 2

Gravatar images for commenting are in place.   Upgraded the site to WordPress 2.7.1, to no avail, as this theme was designed for WordPress 2.0, when there was nary a shadow of such things;  had to go in and tweak the .php code by hand.  Thanks to Yoko, who rode shotgun via Skype to help me with the manual install and provided useful suggestions for going about the tweaking.

I gotta confess, my approach to this is still pretty much alchemy as opposed to science.  I barely have a grasp of .html coding, much less .php.   How’s it look?

Meta

Have altered the commenting structure to match that of Spilt Wine & Sticky Rice, so that it is possible to comment without actually having to register at the site and log in.  (If you choose to register and log in, of course, all of that still works just dandy.)

Still wrestling with this whole Gravatars thing.  Need more coffee.

Triple-Header

Yesterday was my friend Hazmat‘s birthday, which I only ever remember because it also happens to be Jack’s birthday.  Which means that today is Opsimath‘s birthday.  I think…  Because I know they’re only one day apart, and I can never remember whether Opsimath’s is before or after Hazmat’s.  Usually I guess after, but say Happy Birthday before, so that I’m either right on the money or early.  (Not this year.)

Cheers all around!

Long After Never

For some reason that poem made me think of this one, which I wrote myself long ago, in the Time of Legends, as a gift for someone whose friendship and company I enjoyed for a few short years.

—

If thy green eyes should dim from hurt, what then my pain?

If dusken hues imbued within thy cheek should fail

As Autumn’s majesty in sullen Winter’s rain

Thy golden hope-flowers lost to this unseasonable gale

How were’t?

This God-kissed clay, these vernal forms, shall fade at last

And leave us soon enough to rest with quiet hearts and memories of evenings warm

And summer clouds and honeyed vales like blossoms pressed in pages

Evermore beyond the chastening storm

But not this way

If Malice masks as Age’s ken, let Patience serve to keep a Spring within my arms

And Love to save its colours, paint them back again

Restore without the gardens of thine inner charms

Mayhaps among the rows I’ll find a peace, and then

I’ll rest at last.