It's Our Blogoversary...

... and here we are, entering our tenth year of disseminating drivel to an uninterested world.  Our first posts:

So far: 6,379 posts, 726,193 page views (according to Blogger), and 45,951 comments; a lot of those comments are mine in response to what other folks had to say.  That said, I never thought I'd keep it up this long.  Srsly.  I'm at the point now where I only hope I can make this thing last a full ten years.

In other news... I don't believe what ol' Ben said about "early to bed," mainly coz I'm neither healthy (well, sorta), nor wealthy, nor wise.  But I AM up early, yet again.

OK, That's It... You're Outta Here

I cancelled my subscription to SiteMeter today.  Why?  This:

Zero visits and zero page views today?  I think not.  SiteMeter went belly up sometime early yesterday morning and still isn't back on line.  According to SM I only had seven visits yesterday (which knocked my traffic figures into a cocked hat) and I KNOW that's BS.  Enough is enough; Blogger stats will work well enough for me in future.

Guest Post

Promoted from comments to the main page... Our Man Virgil Xenophon.

HOW I GOT TO SEE FOOTBALL GAMES IN TIGER STADIUM FOR FREE 1971-1972

When I left the Air Force and landed at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, 90 miles from Baton Rouge, I wondered how I was going to get to see my beloved Tigers play during football season as all games weren't televised like they are now and, as I was no longer a student, and season tickets sold out annually, even scalped tickets were hard to come by. SOooo...like any good ex-military guy, I devised a plan.

It so happens that those years were the years when the student culture was changing and in flux (not to mention the national one). Whereas in the early '60s all male students and adults wore a suit & tie to Tiger games and women their best dress, the culture was changing to casual wear. The only people who wore suits were news/sports reporters and LSU Admin officials. So I devised a plan to blend in in order to sneak into the press box.

First, I dressed in a suit, with a set of binoculars hanging around my neck and carried a clip-board to fake the sports-writer bit. Then I would head to the check-in point where the sports reporters got their credentials. In those days Tiger stadium was a one-story oval seating 68,000 before they added the upper deck slabs and the southern end-zone curved 2nd deck. It was a far simpler time. Usually two guys sat at a folding card table just outside the perimeter gate with a couple of shoe-boxes full of 3X5 cards used to verify reporters, and the double gates were hugely wide (to allow for trucks, etc.).

What I would do is hang back until I saw a gaggle of around 10 or more reporters gathered around the officials and otherwise occupying their attention. I would sidle up to the back of the crowd as if to get my Press Pass, then slide to the side when attention was diverted and walk right by thru the gates and on up to the elevator door to the Press Box as if I belonged and up I would go. Once there where I sat depended. If the games were against teams that were not traditional opponents and from far away so that there was little fan interest (like, say, Wisconsin) there would be few out-of-town reporters and so I could sit right at the reporters desk row and watch the entire game from the 50 yard line! Of course when trad opponents like Ole Miss, Alabama or Auburn came calling the Press Box would be packed with legit reporters. What then? Well, PLAN B was to take the back stairs/fire-escape from the Press Box down the elevator tower to the point where it opened as a one-way door out onto the top rung of the stadium seats beneath the Press Box. All seats usually being occupied, I usually then sat on the top step underneath the Press Box on the 50 yard line. Again, a great vantage point even if the seating was a bit "hard." LOL I did this for every home game for two years!

Special Note: On the night of the Ole-Miss-LSU "one second" game I arrived a little early.  Sooo, it being early there was still room in the Press Box proper, so I thought I'd take in a bit of pre-game warm-ups, ceremonies, etc., before heading down-stairs and out into the stadium. Unfortunately, I had had too much to drink at the fraternity house before hand, so passed out face down. A security guard eventually tapped me on the shoulder and said "Nice try, son," and escorted me down and out of the stadium. Not to be deterred, however, I planned a "re-attack" in the best Air Force tradition by repeating my performance (what are the odds?) a second time only heading directly for the stadium exit door before anyone could detect me and thus I was there to watch a very thrilling and historic last-second come-back win for my Bayou Bengals!

Virgil has been threatening for well over a year to become something like a co-blogger here at EIP. I took the liberty of promoting his comment from "All's Well" and calling it a "guest post" to encourage him to deliver more stories like this.  Further encouragement from you Gentle Readers would be appreciated.

(I did a couple o' minor edits and added the photo.)

If You Thought I Wasn't Gonna Post Today...

... you'd be right. 

Caught My Eye

So, there I was... going through the overnight mail, a piece-part o' same bein' a missive from Amazon concerning new music releases.  Which is where I saw this:

Doncha miss album cover art?  I mean real, big-ass vinyl albums, not CD jewel boxes.

That's the cover art from a new Pink Floyd album due to be released in November.  Here's an excerpt from the Amazon editorial review:

In 2014 David Gilmour and Nick Mason re-entered the studio and, starting with unreleased keyboard performances by Richard Wright, who sadly died in 2008, added further instrumentation to the tracks, as well as creating new material. The result is The Endless River, including 60% of recordings other than the 1993 sessions, but based upon them. The title is a further link, '... the endless river...' being part of the closing phrases of High Hopes, the final song of the previous Pink Floyd album. 

Interesting, but I'm not sure I'll lay down 31 Yankee Dollars for the 2014 Floyd.  But I MIGHT.

In other news... what's Sunday without an EIP re-run?  I was curious about how many times I've mentioned Pink Floyd here at EIP and it turns out that I've posted quite a bit about them.  Not too surprising, eh?  Here's one such mention, which is pretty much a throw-away when it comes to Pink Floyd:

Friday, December 01, 2006

Hey! It's December!

I watched a re-run of Frontline’s Secret History of Credit Cards on PBS last evening, and absorbed some distressing facts on how Americans use credit cards, and much more distressingly, how banks exploit credit consumers. “Exploit” is a pretty loaded word, but it fits. I would say that, as a capitalist, I’m somewhat conflicted about this exploitation, but I’m not. The principal of Caveat Emptor should apply here, in other words, an intelligent individual would avoid the exploiters and do business with banks that are on the up and up. But they’re all in the consumer exploitation business. When it comes to credit cards, the contract language banks provide you is so opaque and so lengthy and so fraught with legalese that no one, and I mean NO one, short of a contract law attorney, can understand the damned things. And nearly no one reads ‘em, either. According to Frontline, anyway, and I tend to believe the assertion because, well, I’ve never read mine.

Some “fun facts:”

145 million Americans carry credit cards

55 million pay off their balance in full every month

90 million Americans carry a balance. These folks are known as “revolvers.”

35 million of the revolvers make only the minimum payment every month.

The average balance…average…is $8,000.00. Per card.

And worst of all, there is nearly NO limit on the interest banks can charge on credit card accounts. You may thank the Supreme Court’s Marquette Bank decision, which effectively eliminated usury laws, for that. (Details here.)

What allowed Wriston to make good on his threat to leave New York was a little-noticed December 1978 Supreme Court ruling. The Marquette Bank opinion permitted national banks to export interest rates on consumer loans from the state where credit decisions were made to borrowers nationwide.

So by early 1980, with New York refusing to go along, Citibank set out on a search for new place to base its credit card division. The pickings were slim. Usury laws were still on the books in the vast majority of the states. And federal banking rules required that before banks could set up operations outside their home state, a formal invitation had to be issued by the legislature of the state they wanted to enter. Local bankers had prevented any state legislature from ever extending such an invitation.

[…]

In an effort to stimulate the local economy, South Dakota was in the midst of eliminating its usury laws. Mr. Wriston told Mr. Janklow that if South Dakota would quickly pass a bill inviting Citibank into the state, he would bring 400 jobs. To preempt concerns from local banks about new competition, Citibank also promised to open only "a limited" bank. "We'll put the facility in an inconvenient place for customers and we'll pay different interest rates," Mr. Wriston recalled telling Mr. Janklow. "All we want to do is use it to issue cards.''

I learned my own personal credit card lesson back in the early ‘70s, before the Marquette decision. I’ll not point fingers or anything, but I cut up three or four cards at that point in time and paid off the balances, slowly but surely. It took me over five years to pay the bastards off, and that was at extremely modest interest rates, compared to today. I’ve not paid a penny in interest since. Well, not entirely true. I’ve paid interest once or twice. But it’s REALLY a rare occurrence. I know one thing, though. I’m awfully damned glad I’m not in the same credit card debt situation today as I was back in ’72.

I know another thing, too. The banks need to clean up their act when it comes to credit cards. It’s way past time. If they refuse, then it’s time for the government to step in. As I said in the beginning, as a good capitalist I should be conflicted on this issue. But I’m not. Wrong is wrong. Period.

This is The Weather Channel…and this is The Weather Channel On Drugs… So, I’m standing in the kitchen around 2030 hrs last evening, finishing up the dishes and just generally cleaning up. I have the Tee Vee tuned to the WX Channel, “Your Local on the 8s” comes on, and my head just whipped around. Nothing to see but the familiar blue screen with WX data, but what’s this? Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days?” Yes, it most certainly is! I’ll be damned…

You may have heard the song before, even if you’re not a Pink Floyd fan. For instance:

"One of These Days" is the song playing over the end credits of the Sopranos episode "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh".

"One of These Days" is featured in "The Lives of the Stars" episode of Carl Sagan's television documentary Cosmos.

And now The WX Channel. On drugs. A one time good deal, perhaps, or a momentary lapse of reason? Because the next and subsequent “Local on the 8s” had the usual innocuous, unidentifiable, guitar soft jazz background muzak music. I like Floyd better.

Speaking of weather…The storm that cut its teeth over the High Plains night before last through yesterday morning is kicking butt and taking names as it moves east and north. We only got a burst of bone-chilling cold and a dusting of snow, but the intersection of that cold front and moisture from the Gulf has dropped anywhere from eight to ten inches of snow on northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas. The St. Louis area was suffering from a pretty good ice storm, with the usual mass power outages ice storms bring. And it ain’t done yet. Not by a long shot. Look out, East Coast…here she comes!

It definitely could have been worse here on the High Plains.

When Terror Strikes… My propane tank went to “empty” overnight, as I strongly suspected it would. After all, our high yesterday was only 35 degrees and the low last night was in the mid-teens. In other words, maximum furnace run-time. The interior gauge LEDs indicate empty, but there’s probably a gallon or so left in the tank. So, at 0800 this morning I make the call to the propane company in order to get in at the front of today’s queue. The nice lady on the other end of the phone sez: “OK, I’ll tell Albert to stop by, but it’ll probably be late this afternoon or early tomorrow morning. He had to go to Roswell this morning to get the truck inspected.”

Aieee!

After I told her I was “on empty” she assured me Albert would be by this afternoon. Good thing we’re warming up today. My brand new little ceramic heater should be able to hold the heating front until the heavy artillery arrives.

Speaking of ceramic heaters... I bought a new one yesterday, the fourth such in six years time. The danged things seem to get less and less efficient as time goes on, until they reach the point where you generate more heat by passing gas than the heater does running on full-stroke. In other words, they wear out. Faster than I think is acceptable, but that’s just me. I switched brands this time, moving from a Holmes heater to one made by Honeywell. In China, of course. Don’t get me started on that subject.

Today’s Pic: The interior of one of our local watering holes: The bar in The Roosevelt Restaurant. This bar is a great example of those old mahogany bars one found throughout the US in the 19^th century. This particular example was found in an old abandoned bar near Roswell, disassembled and trucked to Portales, where it was lovingly and beautifully restored. The Roosevelt is the one place in P-town where you can get a good single-malt or small-batch (read: boutique) bourbon. January, 2003.

Ah, Former Happy Days, part IV or V... which is to say when we were still in El Casa Móvil De Pennington and when we were generating blog posts that actually had some content.  The Roosevelt is also a memory at this point in time but that magnificent bar still exists in the Italian restaurant that took The Roosevelt's place.  We're happy about that, dontcha know.

One of My Next Reads

I heard a fascinating piece on NPR's "Here and Now" earlier today*, which was this:

And here's the entire piece, as found at the link:



I'm an amateur language geek, especially when it comes to English, which is arguably the richest language in the modern world.   And why am I on about this here at EIP?  I think this book would be of interest to anyone who keeps a blog and is interested in perfecting... or perhaps improving... their writing.  I'm definitely in the "improving" camp.

The "Here and Now" conversation piqued my interest enough for me to chase that link to Amazon and download the book to my Kindle.  Here are some reviews of the book from Amazon:

Praise for The Sense of Style

“Forget Strunk and White’s rules—cognitive science is a surer basis for clear and cogent writing, according to this iconoclastic guide from bestselling Harvard psycholinguist Pinker... Every writer can profit from—and every writer can enjoy—Pinker’s analysis of the ways in which skillfully chosen words engage the mind.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Yet another how-to book on writing? Indeed, but this is one of the best to come along in many years, a model of intelligent signposting and syntactical comportment…Pinker's vade mecum is a worthy addition to any writer’s library.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“In this witty and practical book on the art of writing, Pinker applies insights from the sciences of language and mind to the crafting of clear, elegant prose: #requiredreading.”
—Publishers Weekly, PW pick Fall 2014 Announcements

“Who better than a best-selling linguist and cognitive scientist to craft a style guide showing us how to use language more effectively?”
—Library Journal

“[A] dense, fascinating analysis of the many ways communication can be stymied by word choice, placement, stress, and the like. [Pinker’s] explanations run rich and deep, complemented by lists, cartoons, charts on diagramming sentences, and more.”
—Booklist

“This book is a graceful and clear smackdown to the notion that English is going to the proverbial dogs. Pinker has written the Strunk & White for a new century while continuing to discourage baseless notions such as that the old slogan should have been ‘Winston tastes good AS a cigarette should.’”
—John McWhorter, author of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue and The Power of Babel

“Great stuff! Only Steven Pinker could have written this marvelous book, and thank heaven he has. ‘Good writing can flip the way the world is perceived,’ he writes, and The Sense of Style will flip the way you think about good writing. Pinker’s curiosity and delight illuminate every page, and when he says style can make the world a better place, we believe him.”
 —Patricia T. O’Conner, author of Woe Is I and, with Stewart Kellerman, Origins of the Specious

I'll let you know what I think of the book after I'm done.  If I remember...

* I would have posted this around 1330 hrs today if my inter-tubes hadn't crashed and burned due to a cable cut.  We're back up as of 1745 hrs.

Ooops

Occasional Commenter Virgil just now admonished us in comments to a post below, thusly:

WHAT!!!??? No Bastille Day celebration? And for a guy who has lived in France?

Shame on you, Buck! (or was your experience in France the reason you're skipping this day? :) ) 

Mea culpa.  This is doubly embarrassing coz I'd thought about this day several days ago, thinkin' "Well, we gotta put sumthin' up about Bastille Day."  And then we woke up this morning with... ahem... a clean slate.

So... better late than never.

There ya go, les enfants de la patrie, go ahead and raise l'étendard sanglant.

Another One o' Those Days...

... which would be the sort o' day where we say "I got nuthin'."  Shoebox can't even come to my rescue today, mainly coz I'd look pretty gay (not that there's anything wrong with THAT) if I posted this.  I thought, ever so briefly, about posting yet another Hillary 'toon but decided not to do so coz I don't want to be part of the problem... said problem bein' Hillary Overload.  I'm already sick of the woman.

I was awakened at oh-dark-thirty this morning by the crash of thunder and lightning... and it was LOUD... as a T-storm moved through the area.  That was at 0518 hrs (I looked at my phone).  I'm tempted to say this sorta thing would really piss me off if I was still working but I can't really say that, mainly coz I would have been on BART at 0518 hrs heading into The City when I was at my last gig.  There's also the fact that once my eyes pop open, for whatever reason, I can't close them again.  I did just that this morning, however, and stayed abed until 1030 hrs.  That's pretty rare.

Related:  It's been raining off and on all morning, which is another rarity but a blessed one.  The temps are in the low 60s which is also a rarity for this time o' year.  We'll take both conditions and LOVE 'em.

In other news... My coffee consumption has been cut by more than half since I bought that Keurig machine.  These days I'll drink two cups... three, at the most... and be done with it.  I used to brew a 10-cup pot BK (that would be "Before Keurig") and drink the whole damned thing.  Not any longer, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing... it just is.  

But there's one bad thing about that machine... this:

That's the portion of my pantry where I store the coffee and you'll note there are four one-pound bags of coffee lurking in there.  I restocked the coffee supply about two days before the old pot went belly-up and now there's all this coffee I don't use.  Don't tell me to buy one of o' those do-it-yourself refillable K-cups, coz that's what that lil red thing is in front of the yellow bag on the right.  I've used that thing exactly twice, mainly coz it's a right royal PITA to fill, especially for that second cup.

I know, I know... First World Problems.  We haz 'em.

It's Always Sumthin'

Today it's this:

Yesterday, too.  Feedly is my RSS blog-reader... so when it's down so am I, as far as my daily reads are concerned.  There's always the old-fashioned way, of course, which means I have to cycle through my blog roll.

First-world problems.  We haz 'em.

My De Facto Co-Blogger Has Practical Advice for the Day

I'm that far (visualize thumb and forefinger in close proximity) from putting Mia on the masthead.  Srsly.

Why Your Dog(s) Is (Are) Always So Happy to See You

Alternative title: "Shoebox saves my blogging bacon yet again."  Mebbe I should give 'em equal billing on the masthead.

The Sunday Re-Run

This was a fun post... to do, but not necessarily to read.  From almost six years ago:

Thursday, May 22, 2008

MeMe

I was tagged by Lin to do this here meme the day I went for my slicing/dicing. Now that I'm up to speed (sorta), I'm checking the box.

In Lin's words: “Soo ... the idea is to answer these questions with only a photo or other graphic, NO words allowed. Here goes then (but I reserve the right to complete and childish asininity).”

Me, too.

1. What is your current relationship status?

2. What is your current mood?

3. What is your favorite band/singer?

and

4. What is your favorite movie?

5. What kind of pets do you have?

6. Where do you live?

7. Where do you work?

8. Who do you look like?

9. What do you drive?

10. What did you do on Saturday?

11. What did you do on Sunday?

12. What is your favorite network TV Show?

13. Describe Yourself.

14. What is your favorite candy?

I'm supposed to tag some folks, coz that's the way these things work. Consider yourself tagged, if ya wanna be. There's a lot of image googling involved. But Hey! That's fun, innit?

Blog-Bud Lin no longer blogs, but her archives are alive and well (and her posts are ALL great reads).  As for YrHmblScrb?  Not much has changed in my world during the last six years, other than the fact I don't live in El Casa Móvil De Pennington any longer, gave up riding mo'sickles, and replaced The Green Hornet with something a lil big bigger and a lot more comfortable.  Wait.  I suppose that IS a lot o' change, innit?

A Day Without Posting Is Like...

... a mini-vacation!

But wait, there's this:



Three Game Sevens, all on the same night.  The remote is gonna get one helluva workout this evening and we'll be in hockey overload by the end of the night.  There's nothing quite like a Game Seven in the playoffs, even in Round One.  While it's true I no longer have a dog in this fight I'll still root for the Rangers, Avs, and Sharks tonight.  Or mebbe I'll root for the Flyers, coz a Battle of Pennsylvania would make for an interesting Round Two.  Rooting for the Flyers is REALLY hard for me to do as I hate have an active dislike for that team.

And now it's back into vacation mode.  Beer me!

Poles

No, not the kind that live in Krakow.  This sort:

It seems rather priggish of me to just give you yet another Shoebox post, so here's a lil sumthin' I did about poles in the near-wayback:

Friday, August 17, 2007

Care to Dance?

So. I sorta quit paying attention to McNeil/Lehrer The News Hour last night about 20 minutes or so before it actually ended. I got wrapped up reading something or other, and by the time I looked up Jim Lehrer’s smiling face was gone and this had begun:

Live From Lincoln Center Mozart Dances
Mostly Mozart Festival
Mark Morris Dance Group

It was the music that caught my ear, and I looked up. The Mark Morris Dance Group is pretty good, if you like that sort of thing. Understand, Gentle Reader, I could stick what little I know about “dance” in my eye and it wouldn’t hurt a bit. I’ve never been to a dance recital. This is the first recital I’ve seen on TeeVee, to the best of my recollection. So, it’s with a grain of salt you’d be taking when I say this was Modern Dance. I know it wasn’t ballet—no tutus. And it wasn’t folk dancing—no ethnic stuff. And I’ve come to the end of my dance-description rope, right here. Right now.

I stayed with the program…but only for the music (Mozart is my absolute favorite composer). I’m not much into watching half-naked men dancing around a stage— especially when they’re dancing with each other rather than with the women. And there was a lot of that, seemingly every other time I looked up from my reading.

And as for the women-only segments of the program? They were just OK, these segments. The women were beautiful and very well put together (in that athletic, dancer sort of way), the costumes were interesting, and the dancing complemented the accompanying music. There was a critical element missing, however, that ultimately impaired my enjoyment of the performance…

No poles.

There's more to that post (i.e., short treatises on depression and the war on [some] drugs), given that I was in the habit of putting up omnibus-sorta posts in the near-wayback when it seemed I had a lot more to say than I do now.  I often wonder why that is; it's very tempting to blame Bush.

I Got Nuthin'

It's true.  I've read all the overnight mail, made the blog rounds and checked memeorandum for potential blog-fodder.  Nuthin'.

Wait.  There's this:

That will have to do for the moment.  Mebbe I'll see something worthwhile when I journey out to Cannon Airplane Patch this afternoon.

A (Very) Minor Milestone

We hit 6,000 today.

Six thousand posts in eight and a half years o' blogging.  Who'd a thunk it?

The Sunday Re-Run: Ever the Pedant, Part II

The title is in reference to the post immediately below, where I take issue with Verizon taking liberties with the language.  Which, of course, brought to mind this old chestnut from my blogging way-back.  This is the third time I've put this post up, the second being back in 2009.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Lessons in Writing Humility

(OK… I was saving this post for tomorrow. But My Bud Dan’s comment to the post immediately below cut me to the quick. He’s right. I’ve been phoning it in of late. So here’s something that contains a lil bit more “substance.” Not a lot, mind you…just some.)

Apropos of not much…but, by way of introduction, this: I’m often struck by the quality of writing I encounter in my wanderings around these here inter-tubes. Or, more better, the absolute dismal state of most of the writing I encounter. Present company excepted, of course. All y’all write well, for the most part. There are exceptions…and all I can offer is: “if the shoe fits…” But in most cases it won’t fit. Mainly coz I have little or no tolerance for poor writing, there being some exceptions. I’ll leave it at that… criticizing others is not what we’re on about in this post.

The Second Mrs. Pennington and I, the both of us being professional writers (of a sort) and more to the point… she being an English teacher (of a sort)… used to have this on-going argument discussion as to whether good writing can be taught, or not. My position has changed back and forth over the years and still isn’t firmed up to this very day. On the one hand, the mechanics of writing most certainly can be taught… which is to say grammar, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, and the like. Anyone with half a brain can go out and buy a copy of Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style,” study it intently, absorb all the lessons therein, and call himself a writer. And a lot of people do just that. On the Other Hand… good grammar and punctuation doesn’t begin to make what we know as “good” writing. It’s a start, but only a start.

Once upon a time I considered myself a “good” writer. I’d taken several undergrad courses in English and composition, I had a fairly extensive writing background acquired as an additional-duty Public Affairs Officer (NCO, actually, but the title was “PAO”), and was recognized by various and sundry Air Force supervisors and such as a “go-to” guy when it came to putting words on paper. So, it came to pass (in my post-USAF career) I was assigned to a proposal writing team sometime in 1986 or thereabouts. And here for your illumination, Gentle Reader, is my very first effort in this space, as returned “for corrections” by my proposal editor:

(click for larger, if you have the inclination)

Bloody. Literally dripping with blood, in the form of the dread red editor’s pen, and this is but four of 14 pages, all similarly deeply scarred and dripping red. Including all 14 pages in this post would be overkill, not to mention boring beyond belief. My draft was returned with a post-it attached that said “Good Work!” (the post-it has gone missing after all these years). I scanned my draft, bloody as it was, and immediately went to my proposal manager/editor and said words to the effect of “You think this is Good?”… to which she replied “Yeah. I didn’t tell you to re-write it, did I?” Well, OK, then.

So... I returned to my desk, made the corrections and re-submitted my draft, which was accepted without further edits. Things got progressively better for me (and my editor) as time went on. At the end of the six-month pursuit cycle I came out a much better writer than when I went in. My first proposal was a learning experience of the first order.

I became very, very close to my editor… a woman by the name of Mary who later went on to become an EDS corporate VP, and I had the delightful opportunity to work with her on a couple of other proposals while she was still doing that particular gig. I learned nearly everything I know about writing today from that woman… lessons that are much too detailed to repeat here but had a lot… nay, everything… to do with word-choice, economy of language, what to leave in your writing, and… much more importantly… what to take out. Another thing Mary emphasized is one needs to recognize good writing before one can even begin to emulate it. In other words: good writers are voracious readers. Mary was also of the opinion that the best writers read a wide variety of “stuff…” fiction, non-fiction, op-eds, soup cans, cereal boxes, and (she emphasized) poetry. Mary maintained poets are all about economy of language, which, to her way of thinking, is the very essence of communication.

Mary was a wise woman indeed. My only regret is I failed to keep in touch with her. So... take what you will from this, and leave the rest. Such as it is.

Committed to The Inter-tubes by Buck on 4/25/2008 07:19:00 PM 17 Astute Observations

So... one point I didn't make in the post above is any tendency towards flowery, "poetic" language I may have had in the past was bred out of me during my brief career as a technical writer.  We're mostly about "short and to the point" these days, and that serves me well.  And you, Gentle Reader?  Mebbe not so much.

So there's that.  And then there's this:

"The term, then, is obviously a relative one: my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education and someone else’s ignorance."—H. W. Fowler, Modern English Usage

Heh.

Next To Nuthin'

That would be us when it comes to posting today, mainly coz we're in one of our "Meh" moods.  We've read the overnight mail, reviewed the blog-feed, perused a limited amount of news-fodder, and nothing clicks.  But Hey!  There's always plane pr0n, right?

Bagram Nights

Air Frame: A Halvorsen loader pulls away from a C-130J Super Hercules at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Feb. 11, 2014. The airfield is the busiest single runway in the Defense Department. (Air Force photo by Capt. Brian Wagner)

OK.  You can say it, I don't mind: that's a piss-poor example of plane pr0n.  But it IS a cool photo whose subject just happens to be an airplane.  

I might have more later if or when my mood improves.

What Drives Traffic and a Mystery

You'll note the "All time" box in the upper right corner is checked, so this means the five posts highlighted are the all-time page view champs here at EIP.  I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Number One has so many apparent page views.  That 54,779 number is clearly bogus but that particular post is number one no matter if the criterion is all time, month, week, yadda, yadda.  I just don't get it.  So much for the mystery.  But what drives real traffic?

Well, just for drill, the all-time Top Four posts at EIP, counting up, are:

a drawing of a boiler system,  
a photo of a transrectal prostate biopsy procedure
photos of D-Day
and... drum roll, please... this is Numero Uno:

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Again?

Yes, again.  Note the wind chill: six below.  But I take comfort in the fact that at least a few people are having a good time somewhere on the planet at this moment... perhaps in the south of France, on some Greek island in the Med, or down in Rio.  Like this:

Puritanism is sometimes defined as "the pervasive feeling that someone, somewhere is having a good time" and hedonism is the exact opposite.  You prolly know which camp beach I'm in on, Gentle Reader.

The message?  Titties get traffic.  LOTS of traffic.  The other message?  EIP is primarily a blog for googlers.  (sigh)