Category Archives: Friday Notes
Often, the hardest part of Friday Notes (and, in fact, most) posts is writing the lede. Very soon after I began back in 2011, I settled on a three-part opening structure consisting of (as my template puts it): Intro… More… Punchline… followed by the page break that divides the lede from the body of the post.
That page break comes into play when WordPress lists a bunch of posts as well as in the notification emails (except in the double-damned WordPress Reader, which corrupts everything in the name of sameness). And while I’m on the topic of WordPress, I’m getting really fed up with it.
But that’s a post for another day. For now, I’ve got Notes…
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16 Comments | tags: Bentley, food, galaxy, Invincible, Spider Robinson, stupid people, stupidity | posted in Friday Notes
The last two weeks have been (by my lazy easy-going retirement standards) unusually productive. Two big and long-standing items off my TODO list — a huge relief. As a good friend said, getting stuff done feels so good you have to wonder why we let things go so long.
For me, a lot of it is sheer laziness. Often, something needs to break through to Urgent Level before I’ll get around to dealing with it. (I’d rather read and doing stuff cuts into my reading time.) There is also the subliminal fear things won’t go well, or will be a pain or, as has often been the case, a disappointment.
But regardless, time for another edition of Friday Notes.
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7 Comments | tags: awe, Enterprise Car Rental, Ford Fusion, plumbing, science and spirituality, trees | posted in Friday Notes
The weather has been so weirdly warm this month that I never got around to a Friday Notes for February, so I’m extending the month. Call it a leap year “plus one”. Truth is, I’m at long last finally starting to reach the bottom of my pile. A lot of what’s left is trivial, silly, or outdated, and I may end up doing a thorough spring cleaning on them.
The ultimate goal is for the Notes to be about contemporaneous things rather than from old notes that have been fermenting in the pile.
But for a bit longer, it’ll be a combination of both, so off we go.
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13 Comments | tags: global warming, language, Lee Smolin, linguistics, Schadenfreude, square, temperature, Weltschmerz | posted in Friday Notes
The first Friday Notes of 2024. (The title nicely caps the 2024, 2023, 2024, 2023 series from the titles of the previous four posts.) We’re well past the glut of holidays, and it’s back to business. There is also the fresh-start sense of the new year. I’m already thinking about all the stuff I want to throw away this coming Spring Cleaning.
My various piles of notes grow smaller and smaller! In some cases, because I deleted notes that seemed to have aged beyond their lifetime. But these Notes posts have been instrumental. In some areas, I’m actually scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But I still have notes, so here we go again…
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2 Comments | tags: Amazon Prime, commercials, die spammers, liars, politically correct, YouTube | posted in Friday Notes
Tonight, to celebrate the long-awaited Solstice, I’ll crack open the first of the three bottles of champagne I plan to drink before the end of the year. The Eves of Christmas and New Year’s account for the other two.
Of the three, the Solstice is the more important to me, the most looked forward to. The end of the calendar year is an arbitrary marker, and Christmas is a whole other tin of Lumbricina. Solstice, however, is a baggage-free party. (An ancient one at that.)
Speaking of parties, here is the last Friday Notes of 2023.
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13 Comments | tags: Ana Popović, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Lord of the Rings, Samantha Fish, Solstice, superheroes, Westworld (TV series), Winter Solstice | posted in Friday Notes
The implied image in my last post — of a sea creature returning to the surface — turned out to be more apt than intended. I descended again to finish my project and my burn-out. Spent a few days on the couch reading to recuperate (the library was nagging me about people waiting for books I borrowed and wasn’t reading).
So, let’s try this resurfacing thing again. I have more than books to catch up on. And two posts that should have come before this, but here we are on the penultimate Friday in November.
I have plans next weekend, so it’s Friday Notes now or never (in November).
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9 Comments | tags: 960 months, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Microsoft Windows, POV-Ray, Python, rational numbers, real numbers, Vulcans, words | posted in Friday Notes
Friday Notes are fun and fairly easy. (None of the science or technological rabbit holes I love so much — my underground lair?) But I can’t seem to break the habit of posting articles explaining stuff. I guess that’s part of who I am.
As I’ve mentioned, lots of preachers and teachers in my family tree. Number of authors, too, so I suppose there’s no escaping it. And I do put considerable value on the experience of trying to explain something. It really does push you into knowing it better.
But today is Friday (thank God), and I have notes…
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8 Comments | tags: Amazon Music, Amazon Prime, Hulu, internet, interweb, irrational numbers, Netflix, offended, punctuation | posted in Friday Notes, Music, Writing
It occurred to me that, to some extent, I’d like my most of my blog posts to be like these Friday Notes posts: extemporaneous ramblings and the setting free of any notes recently captured. And some old stories (and maybe a few pictures).
It’s not that I want to stop ‘splaining stuff, my inner teacher is strong. (Is it man-splaining if you’re a teacher?) It’s been one of my things since grade school. Spead knowledge!
But the rambling sure is easy. And fun!
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5 Comments | tags: autumnal equinox, dragons, equinox, lava, wasps | posted in Friday Notes
Another (very) late edition and in the same week [see previous post]. In this case, it’s because I hadn’t planned a Friday Notes post for today, but I’ve gotten so indolent lately that I’m falling out of the habit of blogging. (Or, the eternal question, have I perhaps gotten weary of it?)
But, as polite people say, “Stuff happens.” And because it does, I have enough perishable notes that I may have to put out two Notes editions this month.
Assuming I can get back in the blogging habit.
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2 Comments | tags: blogging, Stephen R. Donaldson, weather | posted in Friday Notes
We’re about to enter a new phase of Friday Notes. I’ve cleared most of the primary pile of notes for blog posts. What remains are notes that still might lead to posts if I find the motivation. There is also a thick sheaf of much older more ambitious notes, most of which are probably past their Use-By date by now.
The destiny of that thick sheaf remains to be seen, but I recently dug out an even older set of notes. Two old spiral-bound half-sized notebooks… from the late 1970s and early 1980s! One contains thoughts and ideas, the other fragments of song lyrics.
I haven’t looked at this stuff in years. Going through it, I decided to record some of the more interesting in blog posts before I toss those notebooks.
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11 Comments | tags: imagination, language, Letterkenny (TV series), NCIS, Peter Gabriel, stories | posted in Friday Notes
Logos con carne 