I used to be a Windows user. Put more specifically: I was a Microsoft OS user for 30 years. I got my first IBM PC in 1984, going from MS DOS to Windows in 1987 or ’88, and stuck with it all the way to Windows 7. I didn’t want to touch Windows 8 with a 10-ft pole, so I kept with Windows 7 as long as I could. Continue reading
Set Up a Media Streaming System
Years ago I built a damned impressive collection of VHS video tapes… and then I junked the whole thing to move to DVDs. (When I think of the money I’ve sunk into this obsession, it is frankly a bit embarrassing!) By the time that BluRay came out, my collection had grown to over 500 movies and a bunch of TV shows. But luckily, by then I’d been bitten by the media-streaming bug. I mean, why get off the couch to fetch a disc to watch a film, when you could just pick up your remote control and have your film streamed to you?
Positivity
Try to find the positive: it’s usually lurking around somewhere if you look. Sometimes you have to grab it by the lapels or the scruff of the neck to bring it round, but you can always find it.
Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing
I love the writings of Elmore Leonard. Not familiar with his work? Did you like the TV show Justified? How about the films Jackie Brown, Bandits, or Get Shorty? All are based on the work of Elmore Leonard.
He published an extremely short book, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, which I can distill down to just this simple list (but buy the book — it’s delightful!)
Sarcastiquotes
I find it interesting that using real quotation marks in writing does not adequately convey what air quotes mean when speaking.
Buffy Art
Call this a vanity-post. Back in the first edition of my book, The Gentleviewer’s Obsessive Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I had original collage art at the beginning of each chapter to represent some key motifs of the season. When I went to the second edition of the book, I tool the artwork out because printing a full-color book was too expensive.
Why I love the ACA
Whenever someone talks about wanting to disband the ACA (which some call ObamaCare), it sets my teeth on edge.
Like many other Americans, if it wasn’t for the ACA, I am literally uninsurable unless I go through my own corporation because of pre-existingconditions. Getting insured this way unfairly increases my costs, and frankly this isn’t an option for many other potentially uninsurable Americans out there. The ACA means that I do not have to jump through that hoop.
Philosophy Matters
I think it is important that people carve out head space in their mental lives to ponder questions of existence and meaning. It’s what gives us depth and puts us in touch with a reserve of somethingness/nothingness that can be very powerful. Some people use religion to tap into that energy, some people are the victims of religion as they are shielded from the ability to tap into it, and some people just stay the hell away from the religious stuff to venture out on their own.