Journal Entries
All News Is Local, But Just Where Is Here, Exactly?
Posted Mar 23, 2011
Our local public radio station's news director gave notice, and I shall be helping to fill in starting Monday.
I'm torn between doing the Snoopy happy dance and running away screaming.
All of you are welcome to listen to me stammer my way through Mendocino County local news by streaming http://bit.ly/ei9127
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Latest reply: Mar 23, 2011
Bullfinch This! The h2g2 Generation Gaps
Posted Mar 22, 2011
On h2g2, as with any other group, cliques develop. It's human nature I suppose.
In h2g2 there aren't just cliques, there are generation gaps, marked not by years but traumatic events. The first was probably Rupert, a hand-off so amazingly clumsy as to have left the community without connectivity.
The institutionalized chasm between the Guides testifies to traumatic events caused by bureaucratic decisions designed to squeeze creativity into a corporate mold. Pity the poor Editor who had to relay Corporate's bad news! "I'm sorry, but Corporate asked me to tell you ..." Some community members drifted away to find creative freedom elsewhere.
The h2g2 community suffered a series of humiliations as wikipedia, facebook, and blogging became popular elsewhere online. h2g2ers watched helplessly as their numbers dwindled.
Everything was good once, say the oldest ones, some of whom are young enough to be my children. The BBC let us down, say the next generation.
And well after the damage had been done and the dust settled, I came the other way through cyberspace. Making me one of the younger ones, despite my actual age.
Folks, I know I wasn't here back in the good old days. I'm here now, and I'm writing as fast as I can. When I say the overuse of lingo makes h2g2 look like another silly fan site, please don't take it as an insult. When I say we ought to use the word editor to mean an editor, please don't pretend it is only because I don't know what a curator is and am too dense to learn.
I try to remember we are all on the same side.
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Latest reply: Mar 22, 2011
Happy Nerd's Journal: Outnumbered by Cats
Posted Mar 16, 2011
My most recent blog post:
http://jannaostoya.blogspot.com/2011/03/gus-cat-with-no-pants.html
Chez Nerd's cat population (3) now exceeds its human population (2). How will this change in the lap to cat ratio affect inter- and intra-species relationships?
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Latest reply: Mar 16, 2011
Writing and Other Big, Fun, Scary Adventures In The Year 2011
Posted Jan 7, 2011
Last month, 
printed my adventures as a National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org ) participant (A78131919).
Some subset of the NaNoWriMo online community participates in the Year of Big, Fun, Scary Adventures. NaNoWriMo participants post a list of intimidating adventures they wish to undertake here (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/forum/192 ) then spend the next year tackling that list.
Participants are supposed to return to the NaNoWriMo site throughout the year to give updates on their progress. I think it may be easier to keep most of my updates here in my journal.
1) Learn how to edit videos and post them to my youtube channel. (http://www.youtube.com )
2) Learn enough web page design to keep commitments I've made.
3) Get my sax chops back.
4) Finish my NaNovel.
5) Rewrite my NaNovel.
6) Get a satisfying, well-paying job.
7) Organize office, including class notes from last online class and tax records.
8) Learn the trombone.
9) Finish or discard incomplete projects.
10) NaNoWriMo 2011.
11) Have one crazy road trip adventure.
12) Update, redesign, or pull the plug on my web page.
This list doesn't include all the wonderful things Mr. Nerd and I have already planned, such as celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary, attending the Boonville Beer Festival (http://www.avbc.com/events/beerfest ) or taking another fun ride on the Skunk Train. (http://www.skunktrain.com )
My list also doesn't include the usual stop smoking and lose weight type self-improvement things. In the first place I don't smoke. In the second I already have 12 things, and I'm afraid that discussions of healthy living might make this journal dry reading. However I leave it up to you. If you want me to add it, I will be brutally honest and even give numeric details. How's that for scary?
On the first Big Scary Fun target, it took me pretty much the whole year to date to get to the point where I could transfer footage from the camcorder to the computer, edit it together, and upload the results.
I edited together some clips of kitties I comb at the shelter. The resulting videos don't look too bad on Facebook, but they look horrible on Youtube. I just looked up some instructions on video formatting and resolution, but I have yet to fix the videos.
HN
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Latest reply: Jan 7, 2011
Happy New Year from Happy Nerd
Posted Jan 1, 2011
Dear Friends, Lurkers, and other assorted Hootoovians,
I wish you and yours a very happy Twenty-Eleven!
It has been awhile since I wrote anything in this journal. I don't feel like summing up the events of the last year or making a Best-of/Worst-of 2010 list.
Since a series of bad head/chest colds has been making many other winter activities impossible, I've been focused on writing instead. As a result I currently have three entries in PR (A78788074, A78783349, and A28880445) and one selected for the EG (A76117115). There are a few hootoovians who can write that much before breakfast, but for me, this represents a huge outpouring of the written word. However, it doesn't represent all I've tapped out in the last several weeks.
2010 was also my first year as a National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org) participant. During November, I banged out some 42,000 words of pure drivel. A recap of my NaNoWriMo adventures (A78131919) appeared in .
Interestingly, none of what I have written recently appears on paper. There's no final, no draft, not so much as an index card. Everything from original notes to submission to PR has been electronic. This is enormously different from the way I was taught to write, more productive, and more enjoyable.
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Latest reply: Jan 1, 2011
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