I Say "Writer" - You Say [blank]

Word association time!

When I say "writer" who is the first person who pops into your head?

What if I said "artist?"

What if I said "author?"

I don't think I can do it -- I've thought about it for too long.

I was going to make a post that I could re-use whenever I got "writer's block." I figured I'd make it a bit clever by having no words, just a picture of writers and then a picture of a block.



But when I tried to think of a picture (or two) that would represent "writers" I got stuck. What writers could I select that would immediately be recognized?

I thought these three might be iconic enough to be recognized:



But that got me thinking about the question that started today's entry: When you think "writer" who do you think of? And when you think of that person, do you think of their image? Because when I think about most of the books I read, I doubt I could tell you what the author looks like.

Anyway if you see a post from me that looks like this:




now you'll know what it means.

Anticipation!

Anticipation can be a huge distraction. When I know something is going to happen, and that "something" is really good or really bad, or even just a major change, I find myself thinking about it frequently.

I've talked about that aspect of Christmas, for example. I love the anticipation associated with Advent. The end of a school year used to be the same -- it was hard to concentrate on school as summer vacation approached. And, in a manner that's both the same and the opposite, the anticipated arrival of a new school year often made it hard to enjoy the final few days of summer vacation as fully as I'd have liked.

But those are periodic, recurring events, where the anticipation is almost scheduled -- it is habitual.

Today, I have several things I'm anticipating which are unknowns. In some respects, they are secrets which will be revealed. Yet, they are also uncertain events, which may not come to pass at all. The flavor of uncertain anticipation is different from the flavor of the habitual. And, I find, it's distracting in a different way. Oh, I still enjoy it, but I also tend to think "what if it doesn't happen?"

I find I'm blessed these days: the anticipation I feel in my personal life is all about good things, or potential good things.

And so, for now, anticipation is fun! But still distracting!

_____________________________________

On a related note, here's a quote I like about anticipation. Note that Mr. Rogers is talking about the habitual anticipation I mentioned above:

I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.
Fred Rogers

Do I really want to know?

If lasers can burn hot enough to cauterize vessels and keep nose hairs from growing back, why aren't there hand-held laser weapons?

Why did people think hovering cars would be a good thing to have in the future?

How does a guy buy 100 pounds of explosive over the internet, and why would he think it's a good idea to use it to blow up a truck box?

Without socialized medicine, it takes six months to get an appointment with some specialists; how bad would it be with Universal Health Care?

It used to be that 99% of all writing was drivel. Now that blogging exists, is the volume of good writing increasing, or is the percentage of writing that is drivel increasing? And how would we know?

How can there be any sin in sincere? Where is the good in goodbye?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck...?

OK, now I'm just getting silly.

Random Bits

Quote for the day:

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Hmmm. So, would I rather be a great talent, or a great genius? If no one can see your target, you probably look delusional. So, does it matter how you look? What if you never reach your target?

Link for the day:

Sarah sent me this one, to a musical light display. It is fantastic. You have to listen to it, too.

Python Update of the Day:

Entering today, I've seen episodes 1-6. Episode 6 has "The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker" which has probably the first televised nudity I ever saw. Oh, and "Crunchy Frog." I bet there is a website that lists all the sketches, by episode. Let's find out. One, Two, Three. One is imdb.com and doesn't list all the sketches. Two is Wikipedia (of course) and it lists the sketches and even has a link as if it's going to take you to a bio of Johann Gambolputty, but it doesn't. Three is a fan site, and even lets you download scripts! And it has the greatest name in German Baroque music, in its entirety, in the script!

Snippet of the Day:

Feeling a bit turquoise (which was somewhat like lackadaisical, with a dash on ennui and a pinch of "who the hell cares") he stepped out into traffic without waiting for the light to change. The oncoming bus swerved, hitting a little Toyota, but missing him entirely. Taking this as a sign, he completed the crossing, tripping slightly on the curb. He entered the Olde English and swore to himself never to set foot in McTaggert's Pub again.

Metrics for a good week

Monday morning, I had six (5) ibuprofen tablets at my desk.

At the end of the week, if I still have six (5), then it's been a good week.

Tuesday, at lunch, I still have six (5) so things are going well.

But Thursday hasn't happened yet.




Another sign of a good week is being able to count. I'm not doing so well on that front.

;-)

For the love of numbers

If I'm ever going to address this topic, today is a good day to do it. It's 7-8-9 day.

I like numbers. Sure, lots of people like to notice when their car odometer reaches 20000. But do they look forward to 20002? Or 21012? Or 23581.3? I like noticing patterns in numbers.

Examples:

• There are two towns on the highway between Rochester and my hometown or Decorah, IA that have the same population total (Town A's population = Town B's population.) That's cool. And that population total is palindromic -- it reads the same forward as back. That's even cooler.
  
• My friend John and I used to go to lunch at 11:23:58. Why? Because of the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 (the sum of two adjacent numbers gives you the next number in the sequence.)
• I had a special (surprise) celebration for Sherry when I had known her for exactly as many days in my life as I had lived before I knew her.
• And, so, since I know that the European way of indicating dates is YEar/MOnth/DAy, and since that makes the most sense to me for purposes of sorting things, I'm aware that today is 07/08/09. Which is cool. Of course, since I live in the good ol' USofA, I can also think it's cool again in just under two years. (699 days hence, if you care.)
• My earliest recollection of loving numbers and patterns in them was when I was entering 7th grade and I figured out that the digits of any number which has digits which sum to a number divisible by nine is always divisible by nine. The digits of 54, add to 9, (5+4=9) so 54 is 9*(some integer, in this case 6). And, since the digits of 13545261 add to 27, and 27 is divisible by 9, I know without checking that 13545261 is also divisible by 9.

Sure, I'm no Rainman. And I usually don't bring up my fascination around mixed company. But among other numerophiles, I get a kick out of sharing trivia like this.

Part of what makes numbers cool for me is number theory, which is one of those great mathematics branches that seems to have no use other than in making up puzzles, but is in fact quite cool and useful. I remember enjoying it quite a bit back in college.

So, if you are a lover of numbers, read this link which has a cool number trick at the top of the article. If you want to understand how it works, I'm afraid you'll need some number theory.

If it's Monday, I must be Magneto

I've heard about MyHeritage.com a couple of times over the past few months. Seems they have some face "recognition" tool that takes a picture of your face and then finds famous people who look (sorta) like you. I had to try it. So, I used the picture of myself I have for my blog, and got this personalized page. I hope it works.

So, you see, the "top match" was Ian McKellen, who played Magneto in the X-Men movies, and of course, Gandalf in the best movie series of all time. (So why claim I'm Magneto? Why not Gandalf? No beard? No, silly. Alliteration!)

And, if that's not good enough, I look like Jeff Bridges and Matthew Fox, too!

Of course, looking like Chiang Kai-Shek is a little weird, but if I have some of the undeniable beauty of Carrie Fisher, who can complain?