Tag: Writing

Dictionary Edits

Daily writing prompt
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
View all responses

I don’t have the mental focus to answer this question today. I’ll try, I am just completely out of sorts this morning and I don’t know how to fix myself. Ugh… but I must try so…

One word to remove from the dictionary, as it were. Is maga a word? I don’t need to remove the word, I just need to remove the fascist philosophy, if that’s even what it is rather than just open hate and racism and sexism and general fascism out and proud for all of the world to see.

One word… crud. I can’t think of anything. There are phrases that come to mind. “It is what it is” was used by nazi trump to justify thousands of Covid deaths and therefore has been removed from my usage completely forever. Fuck that fascist fucking fuck.

People misuse the word “myself” all the time and it makes me want to punch them in the eyes. I can’t say I want to remove the word entirely though because some people actually use it correctly.

I would say the word “nucular” needs to be eradicated from existence, but it is not a word. It’s an idiotic stupid mispronunciation of an actual word, nuclear. Pronouncing nuclear as nucular is an IQ test. If you do it, you fucking fail.

I am swearing a lot in this post. Clearly that means the word fuck is not my choice to eliminate. Embrace it.

I really don’t have an answer to this one. Let’s just go with mosquito because maybe if we all stop acknowledging them they’ll just fuck off and leave us alone. Yeah, that’s what I’m going with. Fuck it.

I Think You Are Reading It

Daily writing prompt
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?
View all responses

It’s been a weird morning. I feel like I am massively off of my regular schedule, but I am getting caught up now. I’ll probably write more about it later, because I am a chronic over-sharer, as you may have noticed.

Anyway, if there was a biography about me, what would the title be? I foresee such a thing having one of two possible titles. The first would be something like, “Inside the Red Head’s Head.” Another possible name could be, “robertjames1971.blog.”

Wait a second! Something with titles like that already exists! Who would have thunk it? There is something similar to an autobiography already and you are literally reading it right now! I mean… this is more of a journal than an autobiography. Maybe if you squint a little you could call it a memoir. Probably not. Whatever, it’s a slice of my life at this point in time and I think that counts. Even if it is a carefully curated slice of life containing only the crap that I am willing to share with the greater universe. That still counts… I think… maybe… maybe not, but it’s good enough to answer this question today, don’t you think?

Google AI, generate an image of a Jedi Knight writing his or her autobiography.

His pen looks like a lightsaber! HA!

So what do you all think… is it time to cut the crap with the AI generated images of Jedi Knights doing something loosely related to the current daily writing prompt? I might be ready to stop, but I also might be ready to not stop. I am undecided.

Fear

Bloganuary writing prompt
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
View all responses

I have to admit that I am struggling to find an answer to this one. I have a couple of thoughts, but nothing I would ever share publicly. The difficulty is the second question. There are a lot of things I am scared to do, but none of them are things that I would ever consider actually doing, you know what I mean?

There is one thing that comes to mind that fits the spirit of this daily prompt. One thing that I am scared to do that I will do if the circumstances require it… or at least I would consider doing it in the right situation. What is it? Move out of the United States.

In 2016 the prospect of a nazi winning the US presidency led to a lot of discussion about possibly emigrating to a new country. Jen and I discussed it a little and agreed we could not leave our family behind even if we did find ourselves in a fascist dictatorship. We talked in general terms about where we could go. Some place where English is the first language and (hopefully) had a warm climate. In the end we didn’t leave even though the nazi did win the white house. 

Unfortunately for American Democracy and for civilization, that same nazi is running for president again. His rhetoric was bad in 2016 but it is already so much worse now. He is openly talking about dictatorship and half of the registered voters in the United States are still supporting him. He may be in jail by the time the election rolls around (he should be in jail now, but he will never see the inside of a cell because that’s how corruption works, right?) but he’s still going to win the republican nomination and he still could win the general election in November. 

If he wins again, do we consider leaving the United States again? Maybe. I think we will at the very least need to revisit the discussion. The topic is a little terrifying in terms of figuring out where to go, figuring out how to get there, figuring out the legal issues, and not to mention the implications for the US itself. It’s pretty scary, all right. Would I do it? No, I don’t think so, but I would have to think about it. We’ll see what happens. 

Would we move to Canada? That would be easiest but it’s cold there. England? Scotland? Ireland? Australia? I think Scotland would be the favorite for us, though it’s cold there too, isn’t it? If it were just me it would probably be Ireland, but for my family as a whole it would be Scotland. I doubt it will ever come to that, and the prospect is very scary to me, but if it does… I guess we’ll see.

(Non) Daily Haiku for You #139

Today’s haiku for you is undead……

Zombies are hungry,
But feeding them is stressful.
Does my brain taste good?

So I watched an episode of The Walking Dead last night. Season two episode seven, titled Pretty Much Dead Already. That is the episode that changed my opinion on the show from “I think I like this show” to “holy shit I can never miss an episode of this show ever.” To say it’s a good episode is a massive understatement. If you were to say it was one of the best hours of television ever aired then I probably would not 100% agree with you, but I would understand where you are coming from.

I wrote the above haiku during my lunch break today. Watch a great zombie episode on Monday night, write a zombie haiku on Tuesday afternoon. Makes sense, right?

I then thought it would be funny to ask the wordpress.com AI Assistant to “write a haiku about zombies.” Allow me to share the results the AI came up with:

Hungry Zombies Haiku

Zombies are hungry,
But feeding them is stressful.
Does my brain taste good?

Yes, kids. You are reading that correctly. It gave me the same haiku that I just wrote! What the hell, bro? I hadn’t even published it yet! The AI Assistant literally read the document I was working in and stole my haiku! What the fuck?

Okay… I am going to ask for another one. This time I will ask it to “write a different haiku about zombies.” Here’s the result:

Zombies in the night,
Moaning for flesh and delight.
Fear their endless plight.

Oh nice, it rhymes this time. Think it did that as an apology? Neither do I. What a jerk! What an artificially intelligent ass wipe!

I wonder… did the AI Assistant somehow misinterpret my initial request for a haiku as a request to format my current post? Something like that? It added the title. I centered the text myself after the fact. I wonder if it thought I wanted input on the text I had already written. I’m not sure. I did specifically ask for a haiku, but I did not ask for a new haiku. Who knows. The AI is a jerk either way. A plagiarizing, haiku stealing thief of a jerk.

If the second AI haiku was not stolen from me… where did the AI Assistant steal it from? I’m sure it just went to google and spit out the first zombie themed haiku it found.

Complain

Bloganuary writing prompt
What do you complain about the most?
View all responses

I complain about a lot of things. I will give you a list and you will see that the things I complain about the most all boil down to pretty much one thing.

  • Fascists and fascism
  • Nazis and nazi-ism
  • Maga
  • Trump and trump supporters and trump sympathizers and trump collaberators
  • Americans whose words and actions are anti-american and anti-democracy
  • Insurectionists
  • Treasonists
  • Anyone who helped or supported or sympathized with the attempt to overthrow the democratically elected president on January 6, 2021
  • Anti-science
  • Anti-vax
  • Anti-evolution
  • Climate change deniers
  • Misogynists and/or incels
  • Bigots
  • Qanon
  • People who abuse children
  • People who abuse their spouses

You see the trend there? That’s the serious list. That’s the real response to the question. Now I’ll give another, shorter (I hope) list that’s more sarcastic and more in the spirit of kidding around and lowering whatever tension I just built up with my real list.

  • People who drive too slow in the fast lane on the highway
  • Winter weather
  • Traffic jams
  • Morning commutes
  • Evening commutes
  • Country music
  • Television commercials, especially the ones that pimp drugs with awful side effects
  • Did I mention snow?
  • Websites that autoplay video, especially when the audio is not muted
  • The New York Yankees or the Montreal Canadians

There… that’s a good lighten-the-mood kinda list… though I should probably delete it and let the serious list stand on it’s own. I feel a bit like a coward leaving the second list, but what can you do, right?

Fantasizing About the Lottery

Bloganuary writing prompt
What would you do if you won the lottery?
View all responses

We have all played this game, right? I mean all of us who live somewhere that holds money in high esteem, of course. 

You hit a big lottery, what do you do with the winnings? Before my wife found her calling as a software engineering genius she was an accountant. My father was an accountant too. My brother is a CPA. Why are these things important? Because all of us would work together to come up with a plan for dealing with the money that would not involve blowing it all in the first few years the way a lot of big lottery winners do. 

Here are a few things we would do……

  • Pay off any outstanding loans including student loans, cars, and the mortgage
  • Upgrades to the house and the cars and the general living situation
  • Figure out a way to use the money to generate an income, either through an endowment or a trust or something that will let us live as well as we can off of just interest. 
  • Make sure my step kids are set financially including a home and some sort of endowment or trust fund so that they are in a position where they won’t have to worry about money ever again
  • Make contributions to our extended family. Our parents and my brother and sister would get a chunk of the winnings to do with as they pleased, but the reasoning on our end would be for mortgages and college funds and healthcare and such. It’s doubtful we could set any of them up for life, but we can help as much as we can
  • Make similar contributions to a few close friends. Again, mortgage and college funds being the hope, but it will be their money to do with as they please. The trick would be figuring out how many friends we can help. It probably won’t be many, but we will do what we can
  • Research the hell out of charitable foundations and establish relationships with organizations working toward some of the things that are important to us. Diabetes research, cancer research, dementia research. Things like that. Find organizations that are doing good work and not screwing over their donors or their targets and donate as much as we can to them
  • Buy a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

That’s the gist of it. I’m sure if we did hit a honkin’ big lottery we would make significant changes to the plan based on the amounts in question and the general situation as it stands in the moment, but this feels like a good plan to start with at least.

My Effin’ Life

Bloganuary writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
View all responses

I used to read constantly. I’ve worn reading glasses since I was a kid. A few years ago my eye glass prescription needs changed and I had to switch to progressives. That made sitting down and reading a book more difficult. It’s more stressful on my eyes and they get tired very fast. 

At the time I was commuting to work over and hour each way four days a week. I had a very active Audible account and I was listening to piles upon piles of audio books. When the pandemic hit I inactivated the account. I don’t do well with audio books when I am not a captive, driving audience. That means there have been very few books read (in any manner) since early 2020.

I am going to need to have a new eye test one of these days. There’s a part of me that wants to get a set of reading glasses again to go along with the mid-distance computer glasses I have and the progressives I wear when I am not sitting at my computer. That’s a lot of money for specs though so probably not.

There is one book that I started reading a little after xmas though. I’m only on chapter three and have only been reading a few pages at a time. It’s a memoir. It’s Geddy Lee’s My Effin’ Life. I am very driven to get through it but it’s hard to find the time or the energy. I will read it. I have to. It’s a moral imperative. 

Family Traditions

Bloganuary writing prompt
Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.
View all responses

Nope. I don’t think I want to. 

Well… okay… I’ll give a couple of holiday season things that I know I’ve written about before, just for the spirit of the thing. I’m having a weird morning and I’m not in a sharing mood so I’ll stick to public-ish info, m’kay?

Both of these little traditions come from my beloved wife Jen’s family, long before I came into the picture. The first happens at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Just after the clock strikes 12:00am to start the new year, one of us opens up one of the doors to the house to let the old year out and someone else opens another door to let the new year in. Cool, huh? I like that one. It’s little and silly but it’s us.

The other tradition I’ll mention is the xmas eve party. When I first started dating Jen her family had an annual xmas eve party at her mother’s house. When we bought our house in 2010 the party moved from there to here. Everything was fine and on schedule until Covid messed it up. Once things calmed down we got sort of back on track. With the kids living in Vermont right now we moved it back to Jen’s mother’s. This year it also moved to the day after xmas due to some busy holiday schedules. It still happened though and it was just as fun as always.

There you have it. Two little family traditions that are not little at all. They are both wonderful. I write this all the time, but I am so grateful and happy that Jen and the kids and the extended family have welcomed me and allowed me to be one of them. It’s one of the things in life that makes me happier than I could ever describe. 

Random Thursday Thoughts

The first random thought on this fine Thursday afternoon is that it actually is Thursday and not Friday or Saturday. I mentioned in a post a couple of days ago that my inner calendar/clock is a mess this week and I am not quite sure why, but I was convinced all day Tuesday that it was Thursday, and then I was also convinced all day Wednesday that it was Thursday. Now that it actually is Thursday I can’t decide if my brain is convinced that it is Friday or Saturday, which doesn’t make sense because I don’t work on Saturdays but I’ve been working all day today and still at times I’ve felt like it was Saturday.

My brain is broken. Here’s a cat to make it feel better…

Most work days fine me playing podcasts through the Apple HomePod that’s next to my desk in the new office space in my step son’s room. The last couple of days have been different. I’ve been listening to music. Today has been a playlist made up of all of Peter Gabriel’s original, non-soundtrack, non-cover/tribute records both as a solo artist and with Genesis. I made this playlist a few days ago with the idea being I would shuffle it. Today I started from the first track of his first solo record and let it run. The transition from his second record to his third is utterly stunning. The first two records are good. Not great, but good. The third… it’s weirder, it’s a totally different sound/approach/feel, and it is so infinitely better than what he did in the few years before it that it made my head spin a little. I just started album number five… So… I think it’s safe to say it is the masterpiece of his solo career and again the improvement is dazzling. 

Here’s a cat to help you appreciate Peter Gabriel the freakin’ legend…

It is January 25th today. It is 50 degrees outside. I actually went outside without a jacket on this morning. Granted, my shoes sank into the mud field that once was my yard, but other than that it was nice. This time of year the air can actually be painful if you go outside for a couple of quick minutes and are not bundled up. Today did not hurt at all.

Okay, that will do for random thoughts as my lunch break ends. I have some paperwork to finish up today and then I am making hamburgers for dinner. My wife made that request last night and I am more than happy to oblige. 

Happy Thursday afternoon, everyone… assuming it actually is Thursday. Who knows, right?

Fun Things

Bloganuary writing prompt
List five things you do for fun.
View all responses

Five things I do for fun… I can do that, I think…

  • Spend time with my family. Jen, Bellana, and Harry. My wife and my two step kids. Anything any of us do together is more fun than I know how to describe. Even if we are just sitting around doing nothing, I love every second of it. I don’t think this needs any more detail. I love them and I love being with them.
  • Music. Playing it, listening to it, writing it, recording it, sharing it with other people, going to concerts, performing in concert. All of it. I love it. I always have. Guitar, saxophone, once for a year or so trumpet. It has more or less defined me since I was about 10 years old. Maybe even younger. 
  • Photography. I don’t call myself a photographer. I call myself an amateur hack who takes lots of pictures. Digital, film, iPhone, you name it. Even video, sometimes. I like going out and taking pictures. I like being home taking pictures. I like taking pictures.
  • Travel. Road trips, longer plane trips. Anything and anywhere. Going to different places and seeing new things is so much fun. Me, Jen, the kids if they are available. Let’s just hop in the car and go somewhere. 
  • One more… You can do this, Robert… Lately it’s been binge watching TV. We can throw watching movies into this too. Lately I have been diving head first into science fiction TV. What’s the deal, AppleTV? They just keep dropping excellent sci-fi on us and I am here for it. We can include watching sports here too. Hockey and baseball are the games for me. Harry and I went to a hockey game in person a few weeks ago and it’s reminded me how much I enjoy being in the room where a game happens. I used to have season tickets for minor league hockey and baseball teams and I used to go to NHL and MLB games multiple times a year. I forgot how much I missed it. 

Okay, there you go. Five things that I do for fun. Sweet.