Lonely Clone

novel idea

2009-01-23T07:23:00.000-08:00

Title: something like PS 3553 .L79338 P5

idea: the title is the theoretical Library of Congress call number for the author, who has long dreamed of being published and at least mildly famous, despite being neither talented nor prolific, nor even having written much beyond this document, which consists of reviews of his unwritten books, biographical sketches purportedly by actual journalists, and extensive, often fawning interviews with the author. Etcetera.

FIL #2 (index card, circa 2004)

2009-01-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

Found In Library:

FOSOP #1 (gold, circa 2006)

2009-01-09T09:23:00.000-08:00

introducing a new category: things written by myself and later found on scraps of paper...

"Well, then, maybe I could put mirrors on my shoes and step on your face
--then you could really see yourself the way I see you."

Theme Restaurant idea (only semi-offensive)

2009-01-06T09:34:00.000-08:00

(an idea recorded in Livejournal on July 21, 2005 & rediscovered while saving those entries pending Livejournal's probable imminent collapse*)

Restaurant:

Da Una Bomb

all the waiters dress in dark glasses, mustaches, sweatshirts with the hoods pulled up;

food is brought to the table in paper parcels

etcetera

*thanks to John Glover for the heads up

a new addition to the list of great names

2008-12-29T15:49:00.001-08:00

Conkesta Gryzmala
(spotted this evening on Judge Mathis)

and some of the classics:

Glady Smoot
Queen Melvin
(encountered while file clerking at the near-criminal "Career Training Center" in rva)

Baxter Dunaway
(author of The Law of Distressed Real Estate)

Dequency Batts
(alleged murderer)

may i just say...?

2008-12-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

Assholes!

ASSHOLES!

ASSHOLES!

Big Don Gately's own personal daddy eliminates own map

2008-09-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

"Somebody overhead asked somebody else if they were ready, and somebody commented on the size of Gately's head and gripped Gately's head, and then he felt an upward movement deep inside that was so personal and horrible he woke up."

....

"And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out."

story idea u71

2008-09-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

humanity encounters aliens--real aliens, advanced civilization, the whole deal--and quickly tires of them, takes them for granted, etc. the way they have the many fascinating forms of terrestrial life.

e.g., this thing is totally strange, but when its image floats across the screen, we give it the old "yeah yeah"

we are perhaps fatally addicted to novelty

Unexpected Rewards

2008-09-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

In 1978, I was firmly in the grip of the Star Wars craze and disallowed by my parents to eat sugary cereals.

Unfortunately, prizes only came in the boxes for sugary cereals. Cheerios, while tasty, rarely came in a box emblazoned with an offer of cheap plastic goodies inside.

Imagine my delight one winter morning, when a little plastic envelope fell out into my bowl amidst the little Os of oaty goodness. A free Star Wars kite. Free. No saving up box tops, no Shipping & Handling. Free. Fill out this slip with your address. Mail it in. Wait.

Four to Six weeks later, sure enough:

[many thanks to Gus at toysrgus.com for the image]

The Annual Index Boys

2008-08-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

starring

Cal Endar as Juldec
&
Tim Etable as Janjun

heedlessly

2008-08-21T09:19:00.001-07:00

I discarded today the box to which you had affixed this note.

Sorry.

Yet I shall not discard your thanks.

Google Censors Richmond

2008-08-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=900+e+byrd+st&sll=37.558459,-77.464085&sspn=0.050826,0.077248&layer=c&ie=UTF8&z=17&iwloc=addr&cbll=37.536693,-77.440598

Street view is not available for a section of 6th, 7th, and Bragg streets in downtown richmond between Canal and the traffic circle at the east end of Tredegar.

I believe there's costruction there, and that section of seventh is blocked to through traffic.
The camera car didn't have access to that section. He could have come east on Byrd and covered the orphan block of South 6th and Bragg street, but perhaps this was an oversight.

OR

Something's going on down there. Something they don't want you to see.

The Assistant Manager

2008-08-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

Back before Bruce Springsteen was the "boss," he recorded Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., with lyrics whose plentitude alone was greater than any 3 records he released after 1975.
From "For You":

Your life was one long emergency

Obscure TV Movie that has haunted me

2008-07-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

had to use actual books to track this one down...take that, internet!
-------------
from Marill, Alvin. Movies Made for Television. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2005.

Daddy, I Don't Like It Like This (CBS, 7/12/1978, 120 mins.).
The unfulfilled dreams of his parents and the tensions created at home cause life to become a nightmare for a youngster who seeks release in a withdrawal to his own world. Gruff actor Burt Young (an Oscar nominee for "Rocky") wrote the story with a starring role for himself, and Adell Aldrich, the daughter of director Robert Aldrich, made her TV directing debut here. Look for future Hollywood star Melanie Griffith in a tiny role.
-------------

This was likely my introduction to surrealism, and was particularly memorable for ending with the tragic death of the main character. He runs out of the house and is hit by a car. Bummer for the Summer. Anybody got a copy of this, considering it was only shown once in the days before VCRs?

Art I Fact

2008-07-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

circa 1998

Goodwill: $1

2008-06-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

Tom Hanks = Peer Augustinski

Side 1 A

Side 1 B

Side 1 C

Side 1 D

Side 1 E

Side 1 F

Side 1 G

Side 1 H

Side 1 I

Side 2 A

Side 2 B

Side 2 C

Side 2 D

Side 2 E

Side 2 F

Side 2 G

Side 2 H

Side 2 I

SOPHATO: Stuff Other People Have Already Thought Of

2008-04-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

An unintended consequence of the primacy of the rule of Law seems to be an overreliance on legality as a substitute for morality. "We didn't do anything illegal," is the defense of antisocial perpetrators as diverse as Wall Street usurers and activists who uncivilly harass citizens in the name of Animal Rights.

PZL: Join the Everybody Get Out and Push Committee

2008-04-11T06:11:00.001-07:00

Okay, so here's the latest Harper's Puzzle, "A (K)night at the Opera"...already I'm guessing Parsifal or Siegfried, right? We shall see. I've solved the clues (discussion below) and filled in the grid, but now we have to

"trace further instructions by visiting each square once and only once
in a succession of knight's moves. These instructions will lead
you to the identity of the character in question."

A. Please check off article found in Paris (6) = TICKLE
Pretty good luck led me to this answer fairly quickly in that I guessed the answer right off. I'm often reminding others that despite the tricky word games, cryptic puzzles still work like regular crosswords: you just have to find a synonym for the clue. In this case the definition was pretty obviously "Please," since I can't imagine how that would be involved in the word game. "Article found in Paris" was simple since "french article" or "the french" are often used in the puzzles to represent "LE". So, what's a synonym for "please" that's six letters ending in LE? For whatever reason, the first thing that came to mind was "tickle". And to "tick" is to "check off," as on a list. Done.

H. I'm touring in Camelot--P.S., it's spirit lives on (9) = ECTOPLASM
Probably an anagram...not just the "touring" bit, but also the awkward "Camelot--P.S." give it away quickly. To editorialize a bit, I don't completely agree with this habit of Maltby's to write the clue as if the word were talking to you, even though it has a precedent in English riddles. Regardless, "I'm touring in" means "mix up the letters CAMELOTPS to get something that means spirit/ghost. I played with this one for a while...campostel, postalmec...but didn't get it until other clues gave me the first 4 letters. Answer: Ectoplasm. A weak clue.

J. Name makes appearance in verse. Effect: breaking out bubbly (12)
You want to solve the long clues early if you can, since they give you more letters for checking. This one turned out to be a piece of cake. What stands out & gives it away? The word "breaking"...anagram city. "Name" almost always indicates the letter N, so the clue is easily analyzed thus: The letter N plus the letters from "verse" and "effect" are rearranged to spell a synonym for "bubbly". The answer's not champagne, but it's close. Here, I'll let you figure it out by rearranging the letters slightly, but not completely: EFFVERSENECT.

F. Height over circumference right in the back boat (10) = HOVERCRAFT
Since I had good luck with the 12-letter clue, I next tried another long one. "Height" = H and "circumference" = C, but how should they go together? Obviously, they can't be consecutive. Hmm. Perhaps "over" is meant literally...that would give me "hoverc"...oh, duh..."hovercraft". It's a very basic charade: H+over+C+R+aft = "boat". Yay!

I. About to make music on series opener in Friends (5) = CHUMS
Five letters? Must be easy. That "series opener" means S. So, perhaps it's the letter S in a word that means "friends". Does "psals" mean "about to make music"? No. Um. Oh, wait..."About" could be either RE or C (as in circa). Five letter word that means "friends": either RE__S or C___S. Chums? Aha! "hum"="to make music".

G. Greasepaint can be obscured by spectacles (11)
Definitely an anagram. "Greasepaint" after all is eleven letters. "Spectacles" (the definition) probably does not indicate eyeglasses, but rather wild displays or shows of some sort. After a little anagrammic scribbling, I've got it! Speareating! Hm. Firstly, that's not plural and secondly I've never heard of speareating (though I imagine it puts the sword-swallowers to shame). I had to come back to this one with checked letters. With the G in third position, I finally saw the more sensible answer: PAGEANTRIES. Speareating was better, though considerably less correct.

M. Booth's primary character: mostly unpolished bad actor with a great carriage (8)
This one gave me a wonderful Aha moment. Eight letter word, clearly starting with B, that means either "great carriage" or "actor with great carriage". At one point, I suspected there would be a word, possibly from the theater, with the letters BBADACTO (B+ most of "bad actor" unpolished/anagrammed), but there wasn't--and besides that wouldn't really work. Then I supposed that "bad actor" was simply ham (it often is in these things) which gave me a word B____HAM with four letters inside that spelled most of a word meaning unpolished. "Raw"? No, that's only three letters. "Rough"? Take off the H (because of the "mostly") and put it in there for bROUGham...Yes! I know a Brougham de Ville is an old car (thankyou Tom Waits), so I'll bet a BROUGHAM is an old english carriage.

OK, so now things are getting tougher. I spend some time rereading clues and scratching my head until all of a sudden I remember that I have checked letters to help me fill things in. Duh!

B. Will present no need for her to be in there, say (7)
Nasty little clue, full of deceptions. That "say" at the end would lead one to think it was a sounds alike clue, but no. Fortunately, I didn't really have to puzzle it out, since checked letters gave me almost the whole word: _ESTATE.
Pay close attention: "Will present" is the definition, referring to a bequeather's documentary status at death. The rest is the game...like so: "no need for her to be in there" means we should take the letters HER out of the word THERE, leaving TE and "say" is a synonym for STATE. Thus: TESTATE. Nasty. Good thing I had all those letters.

C. Dance for a deck mixer? (7)
A tricky litttle double-definition this one, with a pun thrown in (indicated by the question mark).
I might eventually have thought of it, but fortunately I had a lot of the letters making short work: S__FFLE. See it?
A shuffle is a dance (though not one I would have thought of quickly) and a SHUFFLE also results in a mixed deck.
Yeah, I know...stupid.

L. Inauguration of hockey rink: fur coats able to be contracted (10) = SHRINKABLE
I had assumed that the last four letters of this one were ABLE or IBLE (assuming, pretty safely that "able to be contracted" or "to be contracted" was the definition--I doubt there's a word for "inauguration of hockey rink"). That's why I had the L for "shuffle" above. But still I had trouble cracking this one because of the trick played where you feel like it must start with H. It didn't help that the actual existence of the answer is questionable. Anyway, with a couple checked letters I saw what it must be--a container clue where "fur"(= sable), "coats" (goes around) "inauguration of hockey" (=H) and "rink" (=rink). Thus ShrinkABLE= "able to be contracted". Bleh.

K. Offer of returns: zero--head off talent scout (10) = TENDERFOOT
I can't really even say that I solved this one. Here are the checked letters I had:
TENDERFO_T. But to explain it, it's a basic in-order charade, broken into these pieces:
"Offer" = tender
"of returns" = fo
"zero" = o
"head off talent" = t

D. Old World figure makes big success close, reportedly (7) = HITTITE
Ditto this one, as I had checked letters for HI_TITE.
"big success" = hit + "close reportedly" means sound-alike for "tight".

E. England's initial trailer on releasing its very first Oscar-winning movie (7)
I have some serious issues with the syntax of this clue and its structure. Clearly, "Oscar-winning movie" is the definition, but the rest is told in reverse and "trailer on" is either incomplete or in the wrong verb tense. "England's initial" is, duh, the letter E, but this should say either "trails on" or "is a trailer on," in my opinion. In any event, the E comes last, after anagramming ("releasing"--also weak) ITS as TSI, with "very" (=TOO) "first". To paraphrase this cruel mess:
put an E after ITS anagrammed, with TOO first. At least the Oscar-winning film is one of the more deserving of that ever-dubious honor: TOOTSIE.

N. Find ring on broken faucet and stare down (7) = OUTFACE
Hey, I had the mechanics of this clue worked out right off...very basic anagram with an added letter--I bet even you novices can spot this one, right? You just put on O on the letters from FAUCET to get a synonym for "stare down". But perhaps you'd have the same problem I had...there's no such frigging word as "outface". I mean, yeah, it's in the dictionary, but...but...

So now the real trouble begins. This whacked out word (remember: knight's moves) search is much trouble...

G	M	S	F	I	O	C	F
I	T	N	O	C	I	D	B
U	F	L	S	T	E	E	U
H	V	T	R	H	E	E	A
A	P	E	E	R	O	S	T
R	T	E	O	A	T	R	H
L	N	E	F	M	W	A	H
T	O	O	S	K	C	T	E

so far i've found these (potential phrases):

reading from the bottom up

of the fifth letter

take each successive

Update, that evening....got it:

G				I
		N				D
	F				E
			R				A
				R	O

				M

Reading from...

	M				O
			O				B
U				T
		T				E
	P
							H

						T

...the bottom up...

			F				F
	T				I
						E
H				H
							T
			O		T
L						A
		O		K

...look at the fifth...



		L

		E	E
R	T			A
		E	F			H
T	O				C

...letter of each...

						C
I				C
			S				U
	V				E
A						S
		E				R
	N				W
			S				E

...successive answer.

all together now:
"reading from the bottom up look at the fifth letter of each successive answer"

which results, sure enough, in "Wagner's Parsifal"
(pertinent letters bolded in answers above.

whee!

SGHP: A pretty good meeting

2008-04-08T11:05:00.001-07:00

I still write RRDM (Research & Reference Department Meeting) at the top of my "notes" even though we became RIS (Research & Instructional Services) over a year ago.

SGHP: Shtickbot

2008-03-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Misfortune

2008-03-26T05:42:00.000-07:00

Probably the worst fortune I've ever gotten from a cookie:

"You could prosper in the field of medical research."

I mean, who couldn't?

This prognostication was likely meant for the rhesus monkey whose egg rolls I snaked.

SGHP: Department Meeting: Mar 20, 2008

2008-03-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

A reminder of what makes America great

2008-02-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

Elvis is pancontextual.

dreams

2008-02-09T05:40:00.000-08:00

the Porters

sitcom about supernatural family...the Uncle-in-Law is the Headless Horseman, the main character is annoying fairy princess who carries around a ferret, the...was it the dad?...is a humorless man in a hat (not a fedora...what do they call those? like Bob Newhart I think...) who is, get this, a hypochondriac doctor vampire.

but as the opening segment began, I was telling my companions that it was the opening to a show I used to love (but that failed on network) about basically a hallucinating teenage boy...he looks not unlike Skippy from Family Ties and sees and talks to all sorts of magical creatures, not unlike the situation in Calvin and Hobbes except that he's older and his parents winkingly imply that maybe it's not all so imaginary after all.

This title sequence is an empty familly room in a medium-sized home with critters popping out of nowhere or slithering, crawling, etc. from drawer to drawer or from between the couch cushions. Notable (since in my dream I was very excited to "recall" it is a creature not unlike a cross between a badger and a pleiosaur that lunges from a floor-level cupboard and into the carpet as if the carpet were water.

So much more that's fading already, but it was nice to see even a little bit of these shows "again".

Oh, and earlier this ad slogan:

Infinity. Since never.

SGHP: "You stall 'em while I..."

2008-02-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

The self-accusatory pessimist in me is all ready to tell you how I'm remiss in my blogging duties having made this pile of refuse no higher in three days, but the propagandistically-capitalized Optimist in suddenly-crowded me preemptively declares that we're just way ahead on our procrastinating.

Not wanting to stifle such an encouraging trend, I've decided to ineffectively mask my slackness by making this the Most Super Graphics-Heavy Post To Date (again with the capitals...really grasping here!) by including for your viewing pleasure (which is sure to be subconsiderable) the doodles from my single page of notes taken during a departmental meeting this past September. They're nothing special*, and are qualified for inclusion in this barely exciting inaugural SGHP only by virtue of being the images most recently scanned and shopped. I promise (for all that's worth) to make the next GHP more S.

*made you look! no quippy footnote today, you trendwatchers you.

Rarebit Rarebit

2008-02-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

Congratulations (or Nitro Coagulants for the anagrammatically inclined)!

After what must have been an exhaustive search, you've clicked all the way back to the first ever
FRIDAY MISCELLANY (or FM--not to be confused with AM (Antipodal Missionary*))

Stuff you maybe didn't know bellow below blow low ow o:

A mountain lion, a puma, a cougar, a panther and a catamount walk into a bar. After they order, the bartender, a zoology student by day, brings only one drink to their table. Before anyone can complain, he patiently explains that they are all the same animal.

Black panthers are just panthers that are black, not some special secret subspecies deal, though, naturally, they are much cooler than the other panthers.

Panthro of Thundercats was also Cliff Huxtable's father.

Lately, you've been asking yourself "How are polar bears and clouds alike?" Well, I've been eavesdropping on your thoughts as usual and from the twilit, slimy depths of my well of knowledge I've dredged the unexpectedly surprising answer, which is not, as you had begun to suspect, "They are white," nor "They are fluffy sometimes," nor "They are best viewed at a distance," and in fact only some of those things are true. Clouds, you see, are transparent and only appear to be white because sunlight inside the cloud reflects in all sorts of zany zig-zaggy directions, resulting in a sort of visual white noise, get it? Now an opaque white color is maximally reflective, you follow? But in your basic subzero icecap type environment, a warm blooded critter such as, say, a polar bear needs to be absorbing as much heat-generating starshine as possible for your basic survival type needs. A reflective coat on this brilliantly adapted and majestic creature, whose astonishing speed and suppleness belie its notable humongousness, would kill it. A transparent coat would make more sense, no? And a coat made of transparent fibers that actually trapped sunlight like a greenhouse, warming the surface of the skin while simultaneously providing shaggy insulation would just be effing brilliant, right?
Well, guess what.

Prey for next Friday. I promise.

Oh wait...the title. I am given to understand that to get good luck on the 1st of the month, you get up and you say "Rabbit Rabbit" and to extend your magical good fortune, on the morning of the 2nd you say "Tibbar Tibbar." Don't you?
I do.

*for those who still don't know what an AM is: he's basically a deconverter, a man sent by a church or other OID (Organization Insistent on Doctrine) to convince undesirable members to leave the fold; Typically they are encouraged to convert to a rival sect as a way of transferring the liability they represent.

Roux

2008-01-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

I figure you start a blog and whether you're spouting off in impotent anger or inviting the world to join you in contemplating your navel or volunteering inexpert underinformed commentary on things which have little to do with your tiny invisible life, you come to regret those early posts that disharmonize with the voice you eventually find, master, train and exploit.

So, in light of inevitable regret, the quality and content of this first post, including any concerns about whether it's in line with some later emergent theme, itself no product of forethought on my part (though an impish tendency toward pointlessly obtuse and unjustifiably rickety sentence architectures is, unbidden, suggesting itself), hardly matter.

Please note that the titles of both blog and post notwithstanding, this is (so far) neither a blog about food (buying, cooking, dining, evaluating, farming, processing, selling, upchucking) nor about Science Fiction* (Frankenstein, the fantasies of Jules Verne, the thinly veiled social criticisms of H.G. Wells, the overvalued corpus of the "great" pre- and post-war pulp writers, Star Trek, 2001, Logan's Run, Star Wars, Dune, Cyberpunk, et al.), though I reserve the right to discuss these topics since they are inescapable facets of our daily lives. This is, on the other hand, a blog about genetics, or at least genes as are all blogs, all utterances, all volitional actions, all thoughts, all friscalations.

I have every reason (well several at least--habitual hyperbole undermines its case) to suspect that complaint will be a common feature of this blog, and I am thus prepared to consider an inaugural objection, some craw-sticking peeve that seems constantly to remind me what shambling overdeveloped apes my fellows are, something observed widely and often enough to fill me with frequent flights of self-pity, refreshing the sting of what must be my solitary persecution at the hands (or flippers) of an unanswerable agent of supernatural vengeance.
Against what behavior so common as to guarantee futility shall I rail in this waning hour (of the day, of my life, of faded and stained civilization)? Ah, here's something, a bane among thousands: the disappearing adverb.
Please, people...on proverbial knee proverbially bended I beseech...
Don't say "real" when you mean "really". You sound just like the useless hick bag you probably are. Your acquaintance was hurt "really badly," not "real bad". Whatever It is that so pleases you, it's "really good," not "real good". In fact, it's often "really well," as in "These paper clips clip paper really well." and "My, but that rude young man barks his unwelcome grammar corrections at strangers really well. Someone must be proud of him."

*with one exception: as soon as I have read Voltaire's Micromégas, i will detail my reactions here. Also, it seems likely that I will at some point bring up the work or person of William S. Burroughs, whom some have accused of producing a certain amount of Science Fiction--a charge dismissed by his obvious contempt for both science and hopefulness. Ditto Kurt Vonnegut, though I suppose one must confess his making more room (an unheated shed, but room nonetheless) for something like hope.

G	M	S	F	I	O	C	F
I	T	N	O	C	I	D	B
U	F	L	S	T	E	E	U
H	V	T	R	H	E	E	A
A	P	E	E	R	O	S	T
R	T	E	O	A	T	R	H
L	N	E	F	M	W	A	H
T	O	O	S	K	C	T	E

G	M	S	F	I	O	C	F
I	T	N	O	C	I	D	B
U	F	L	S	T	E	E	U
H	V	T	R	H	E	E	A
A	P	E	E	R	O	S	T
R	T	E	O	A	T	R	H
L	N	E	F	M	W	A	H
T	O	O	S	K	C	T	E

G	M	S	F	I	O	C	F
I	T	N	O	C	I	D	B
U	F	L	S	T	E	E	U
H	V	T	R	H	E	E	A
A	P	E	E	R	O	S	T
R	T	E	O	A	T	R	H
L	N	E	F	M	W	A	H
T	O	O	S	K	C	T	E