ea

The Houses Where The Dead Lived

Touring the homes of all the dead who have ever lived Even the ones long gone burned buried torn down vanished Wandering halls Opening rooms Crossing borders to see all the places the dead have been Trying to learn what it means to remain present after the body has gone It is not something  I have thought […]




ea

Where The Great Work Begins

We were all bone-tired before this exaltation of humility came upon us. We may have looked more madcap, more animated from a distance, but if you’d looked into  our eyes, you would have seen years of restless sleep and no true relaxation, regardless of what  yoga magazines told us we’d gained. Scoff as you want. Had […]




ea

I swear Australia is just filled with real life pokemon

I swear Australia is just filled with real life pokemon



View Comic!








ea

baby’s got blue eyes (+ a giveaway)

“We begin in infancy by establishing correspondence of eyes with eyes.” ~ Robert Frost     FRAGMENTARY BLUE by Robert Frost Why make so much of fragmentary blue In here and there a bird, or butterfly, Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue? Since earth is earth, … Continue reading baby’s got blue eyes (+ a giveaway)




ea

[spicy guest post] Pippa Park’s Favorite Korean Stew by Erin Yun

So pleased to welcome NYC author Erin Yun to the blog today. Her debut middle grade novel, Pippa Park Raises Her Game (Fabled Films Press, 2020), is a contemporary reimagining of the Dickens’s classic Great Expectations.     Life is full of great expectations for Korean American Pippa Park. It seems like everyone, from her … Continue reading [spicy guest post] Pippa Park’s Favorite Korean Stew by Erin Yun




ea

Rubbish in the sea and in the streets

Pieta Creek i March
One can wonder why a country like Malta, depending totally on its tourists, does not care more for the impression it gives its visitors.

Pieta Creek in February
The creeks, for instance, in S:t Julians, Sliema, Msida and Pieta are very often full of floating rubbish that could be taken out of the water easily; the rubbish gathers very often in the end of the creek and could be taken out of the water with landing nets. When going with Captain Morgan’s underwater safari you can see where the garbage ends up, something I several times have heard tourists complain about.
Pieta Creek in February
The system for collecting garbage, put out on the pavements, about every other day is very old fashioned and unhygienic. Very often people seem not to be aware of when to put out garbage in accordance with the timetable every household has received from the government; that is why one often can see plastic bags full of garbage standing on the pavement for almost 24 hours. There are high fines if you put out garbage on unauthorized time, but I have never heard of anybody that has been forced to pay such fines. Very few countries in EU have a system like this. The normal way to handle garbage is to use closed bins. Surprisingly, I have never seen rats eating from the garbage.
It seems like people think it is ok to throw papers, plastic bottles and a lot of leftover from quick lunches and many more things everywhere. Sometimes people even hide them under the few bushes although there are trash cans almost everywhere. The government has done what it can do to stop this but it is up to all of us to ensure we get cleaner streets, because, as it is now, it is disgusting.




ea

Making buildings higher and thus destroy their appearance

Terrible building on Tower Ro
Terrible example on Tower Road
Beautiful building on Tower Road
Villa Aurora on Tower Road
As a foreigner I sometimes wonder how it is possible that some buildings in, for instance, Sliema have had floors built-on in a completely different style than the existing house. On Tower Road there are several terrible examples. Before one start such development one must get permission from the authorities, I suppose that the authority in such case is MEPA. Either there are no rules in what way you can change a building’s appearance or, someone, apart from the owner and the developer, have had some odd interest in granting permission despite the rules. One can only hope that this destruction of buildings does not in the future affect Villa Aurora or the other lovely buildings on Tower Road that not yet have been in the hands of irresponsible developers and, if there are rules, civil servants with a private agenda. However, there are good examples of buildings where the developer has tried to build the extra floors in a style that are more consistent with the older part of the building




ea

What should we protect, living people or dead?


Once more, one can read the most fantastic true stories in The Times. AlphaIn today's edition of The Times one is told that a group of M`garr residents are complaining about a proposed extension to a fireworks factory because of the damage an explosion would do. Fair enough, of course one should worry about what damage an explosion would do. But what is it the group worries about? The living people in the neighborhood? No, this is Christian Malta; the worries are not concerning the living people but the dead. This despite the fact that several people are statistically expected to die this year because of fireworks explosions. The Observer is well aware of the fact that many Maltese regard the eternal life as the real life, but is this group not going too far? A named couple says that an explosion could disturb the graves of loved ones. The Observer is well aware that continuing this article would probably be considered blasphemy. Presumably this is a criminal offense in Maltese law so The Observer rests his case.











ea

Free National Theatre: FRANKENSTEIN (Cumberbatch Version)

A new play by Nick Dear, based on the novel by Mary Shelley. Watch Danny Boyle’s monster hit Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature is streaming for free from 7pm UK time on Thursday 30 April. Available on demand until […]




ea

Classifying Books: Some Early Lessons Learned

.


Flushed with the feeling of success that comes from having cleaned my office to such a degree that the rugs are now visible, I thought today that I would take on the problem of excess books. Surely there are some I don't actually need. So I chose a shelf at near-random (it was one of those actually accessible without moving the boxes of books stacked before it to another location), and started going through both rows (the shelves are double-stacked, of course) to see what they contained.

Only to discover that the shelf was stocked with books placed there at seeming random. Mr. Evelyn's diary lies cheek-to-jowl with Gertrude Stein's Picasso. Jeff Danziger's Teed Tales abuts, appropriately enough, a history of Vermont. There is a collection of stories by T. Corgahesson Boyle, Zora Neale Hurston's autobiography, a novel by Sean Stewart, and a collection of essays by Ursula K. Le Guin. These last two, by the way, are misfiled since I have a science fiction section arranged almost alphabetically by author and a designated place for stacks of SF criticism and related essays. Which is where Gwyneth Jones' Joanna Russ should be as well.

Here's T. H. White's wonderful collection of mythical animals from medieval bestiaries, The Book of Beasts. The Return of Fursey! Mosses from an Old Manse. Flann O'Brien's The Best of Myles reappears from hiding; after I've obsessively reread it a few times,  I'll have to hide it somewhere else among my books, if I'm ever to read anything else. Oh, but there's also John McPhee's The Pine Barrens, which some of us persist in thinking his best book. Though it has competition. And here is a battered but charming old hardcover of Charles Fort's The Book of the Damned. I have a biography of Fort around here somewhere, though I doubt I'll find it today. Some few of these I haven't read--Fishing from Earliest Times is one example, though I'm sure I'll get to it soon. But I've read every story in The Corrector of Destinies, Melville Davidson Post's extremely odd collection of detective fiction (sort of), and I'll have to blog about it here someday.

There are thirty shelves of books on one wall of my office and my first attack upon the one provided me with nothing to cull,  And I've put aside a short stack of books to read or reacquaint myself with. Not have I done much to organize it--but wait! Here, just one shelf below is Damon Knight's Charles Fort. Up it goes, alongside The Book of the Damned, so nobody could say the last hour was wasted. Though it came close.

Nor was I able to impose a theme upon the shelf, other than Books I Am Delighted to Possess. But maybe that's enough.

In any case, it will have to do.


Above: For technical reasons, I'm having difficulty uploading a picture of the wall of books in my office. So here's a pic of part of the wall of books in my bedroom. 

*




ea

Citywide Blackout: Steampunk Dragons

.


I've been podcast! Or at least my words have, podded up into an electronic bundle and cast out into the Noosphere. Over on Citywide Blackout, I discuss The Iron Dragon's Mother, worldbuilding, and the novel I wrote with Gardner Dozois--City Under the Stars.

It is impossible to exaggerate the influence Gardner had on my life. Over the course of a single evening, he and Jack Dann taught me how to write.  He and I and Jack, in various combinations, wrote stories together and routinely sold them to publications like Playboy, Penthouse, and (this always amused Gardner hugely) High Times. Gardner and his wife, Susan Casper, were good friends to me and to Marianne for over forty years.

But then Susan died and, a little later, Gardner did too, leaving our last collaboration unfinished. But he'd told me how it would end and so I finished it so all the world could discover that he'd finished on a high note. I wanted one last novel, to stand as a monument to him.

You can hear the entire story by clicking here.


*




ea

Introducing: Another Glass Box, a new weekly architecture feature

Keesmaat’s Next Venture, Shitty Architecture Men, Mod Squad, Presto Problemo, Bench Press, and more in this debut edition.

Another Glass Box is a weekly roundup of urban design news in Toronto (and occasionally beyond), in bite-size pieces. It’s curated by Dan Seljak, who’s done marketing and communications work for architecture and construction companies for the last seven years—and who still loves this city enough to line up for brunch.  Content warning: some of the […]

The post Introducing: Another Glass Box, a new weekly architecture feature appeared first on Torontoist.




ea

Mixed feelings around hockey about holding NHL draft early

Mixed feelings around hockey about holding NHL draft early




ea

Early Saxon Reference 2

 I took these beautiful images from a Dark ages Facebook page for reference latter on with painting. Thank you Jack Sarge for posting them.







ea

Researching Bonnie Blue Flag rules

A while back I bought a copy of ‘Bonnie Blue Flag’ from Cavalier books and I have to say I really liked what I saw. The rules seem to give me everything I was looking for in a ACW rule set, I decided then even though I must have 15 plus ACW rule sets, this was going to be the one for me. I became a Kevin Calder fanboy over night and quickly snapped up his other Sudan rule set too. I constantly patrol Cavalier books looking out for any other variants of the rule set that may of been released. Although, the rules are so adaptable that you could use them for a multitude of other eras.

The only down side though is that because they are a small rule set by Cavalier Books there doesn’t seem to be much support for them. This lead me to do my own research to clean details, however small, from the internet to help outline some of the rules in the book. A big break through came when I found Kevins blog ‘The Iron Brigade’. This was full of nice pictures of his games which gave loads of extra details into the system. I have created this post on here so I can dump any relevant information to save me trolling around in the future. Other like minded souls had made the same connection and had gone to the Facebook site to ask questions, these were not answered though. So here I have gathered images from various games Kevin has done and each one is a wealth of extra information and details for the rule set.



A Crazed stalker raids the internet for more information.
 It’s interesting to see here the use of skirmishers. They are kept on the table and placed around the parent unit at all times, unless destroyed. This wasn’t made very clear in the rule book, I thought you just took them off once they rejoined their regiment.

 It’s also good to see the mini dice in play. I think pictures like this would of been a better choice rather than the stock Cavalier book ACW illustrations in the rule book. It would of really helped define things. Also, Cavalier Books released another set of ACW rules and included the same illustrations... a bit poor I thought.
 This is interesting, dismounted cavalry on 40mm round bases. This shows their looser structure on the field. This is a nice touch and gave me some good ideas about basing units of sharpshooters. Everybody knows the green clad Berdan’s sharpshooters, but by basing up a Confederate unit of marksman in this way would really help define them from the other units.

 A photo taken from a Napoleonic battle hosted by Kevin, it again shows that with a few minor weapon range tweaks, these rules can be used for most horse and musket periods. I also noticed in one of these games that skirmishers could be based two to a base rather than singly. This is quite helpful to me as single figures are quite hard to store and keep safe. Two figures on a 40mm base are a lot more stable and also give the chance of a diorama.
Also interesting that this small unit of sharpshooters only has one skirmisher rather than three to reflect its small size. I will tag this post and keep adding to it, if and when I find out anything new. These rules are great and well worth a look.

Below is a great picture showing the game in process. Note that some skirmishers have been based as units of ‘comrades in arms’, multiple figures in groups of skirmishers, loading and firing to maintain a constant fire. This is an idea I will play with for sure.



  • Bonnie Blue Flag

ea

Crazy-seeming research, now and then, turns up something true and beautiful

Crazy-seeming research, every now and then, leads to something really, really wonder-filled. In this case, the discovery of something long-predicted (by Einstein) but seemingly impossible to perceive: gravity waves. (HT Maggie Lettvin)




ea

Christmas, New Year’s, Life

life’s stats and photo journal pages have been updated. Not too much interesting this time around… life has been crazy, but not due to trips, at least. It was a really weird Christmas, weather-wise. Mostly because it was super warm … Continue reading




ea

French (near) homonyms – "calembours pourris"

[h/t Stephan Hurtubise]  




ea

"This laptop is loaded to bear"

Ewan Spence, "Apple Leak Reveals Radical New MacBook Pro", Forbes 5/4/2020: Apple may finally be getting round to updating the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Intel's tenth generation processors. The good news is that the MacOS powered laptop going to get a bucketload of extra power.[…] This laptop is loaded to bear in terms of memory […]




ea

European slaves in the year 1000

Valerie Hansen has a new book just out: THE YEAR 1000: When Explorers Connected the World — and Globalization Began.  New York:  Scribner, 2020. A NYT review of Hansen's landmark volume is copied below, but let's first look at some interesting language notes concerning the background of the word for "slave" (Chapter 4 is on […]



  • Etymology
  • Language and business
  • Language and history
  • Language and travel

ea

Great Party Ideas – How to Fight the Clouds

You guys must give a lot of parties because you all have really good ideas!  I can hardly wait to see what Spec and Skeeter choose to do for the celebration party! Tra and Skeeter and I hung out on Friday with some of you.  It was so great to see everyone. I was expecting Spec would show up […]




ea

The Third Stooge Already Plummeted

Guy 1: Cleaning gutters with a leaf blower. Guy 2: Holding him up with JUMPER CABLES.





ea

Internet Addiction Drives Creative Solutions

Power outage? Grab a length of steel automotive brakeline tubing, the straw from a box of Yoo-Hoo, D-cell batteries to make a 6V. Also may require generous amounts of duct tape, electrical tape, bell wire, and boredom.




ea

Sally Forth: Happy Easter Flashback!




ea

Sally Forth Sunday: Did Ted Already Know? (No.)

Note: Written and illustrated months before, well, everything happened.




ea

Tombstone Wanted Dead Or Alive

I've seen a few tribute videos to this classic western (One of the best as far as I'm concerned) done to Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive. For this one I did a twist




ea

Doomsday Meat Sandwich

What do you get when you mix The Road Warrior, Escape From New York, plus a handful of other related movies.......you get Doomsday. The cannibal scenes in this movie inspired me to do a fan tribute video to Gwar's Meat Sandwich




ea

Why you should create an rss feed for your website

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary; it's an XML based content format for distributing things like news, headlines, content, etc. These are popular because instead of relying on them to bookmark your site and return later, their RSS reader keeps your site fresh by showing them your latest posts as a simple headline. So every time that you add content such as a blog post or article they get to see the update, plus a direct link to that post.




ea

10 Reasons Why You Want To Write A List Post

When it comes to adding content to your site one effective method is to write a list post. Why should you write a list post? Because a list post provides an easy to read format that allows your vistors to quickly scan content in an easy to follow format. And while well written original content with useful information will always be better at keeping your readers coming back, writing list posts will get them in the door. Here’s some of the reasons why you should write a list post.




ea

20 Ways You Can Increase Your Website Traffic

When it comes to ways you can increase traffic to your website there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to get more traffic. Depending on your website, the content or products you’re trying to get viewed, and the amount of time you can invest each day on your site, not all of those hundreds or ways are going to be as effective. You also want to avoid anything that could be considered “Black Hat SEO” as these types of tricks to increase your traffic may work in the short term, but get your website kicked out of search engine rankings.




ea

How To Prepare For An Earthquake Part 1

Unless you live under a rock you know well enough about the devastation that recently happened in Japan and just how fast a devastating earthquake can tear things apart. If you live in an area prone to earthquakes your emergency preparedness plan must encompass earthquake survival. So how do you prepare for an earthquake? In this first of 2 posts on earthquake survival I’ll show you what you can do to better prepare your home.




ea

How To Prepare For An Earthquake Part 2

In my last post I listed some ways you can prepare your home for an earthquake. In this post I’ll show you some things you can do to prepare yourself and family for one. How you prepare for an earthquake will vary depending on where you live, how much space you have, how big your family is, and last but not least what your budget is.




ea

Leaving Comments - How To Get Noticed

One of the ways to get people to notice your site is to comment on other blogs and websites. The benefits of leaving good comments are that you not only get to add your two cents about a topic, you can also gain valuable links pointing to your site. Sounds easy right, and for the most part it is, but when selecting blogs or websites to comment on you need to consider some things. First try to find sites related to your niche, while you can comment on any site you want you stand a better chance of getting traffic from that site if it’s a related site. You also want these sites if possible to be on the number one page of Google for keywords you’re trying to rank for




ea

Crap Comments - How You Can Hurt Your Site By Leaving Bad Comments

Leaving comments on blogs and websites. It doesn’t matter if the site is a “do follow” or not, building links through comments can help get the word out about your site. Comments are also a good indicator if you’re doing something right and can give you great feedback. Of course in a perfect world every comment would be a good one, the reality is that at some point your going to get bad comments or comment vomit if you will. Self centered crap that’s there to only advertise their site, bash yours, and all other types of garbage that adds nothing of value.




ea

10 Reasons Why Your Website Sucks

Do people hate your website? This is a question you should ask yourself if your finding your site isn’t performing the way you would like it to. If your finding that people aren’t visiting your site for very long or aren’t coming back at all here are 10 things you should look at that could be killing your website traffic. This isn’t to bash your site or trash talk or brag about how much better my site is over yours (there are things I have to fix) this is just to point out some things that could be hurting how it performs.




ea

Black Death Movie Review

If you haven’t heard of this movie, don’t worry you’re not the only one, I only recently found out about it after going to Blockbuster and seeing it there a couple days ago.




ea

What To Wear When The SHTF

When it comes to bug out bags everyone who knows anything on the subject talks about the gear you need to have. And while having the right knife or backpack is essential, one element that’s often overlooked is what clothes to pack in a bug out bag. Here is a list of things to consider for your emergency survival clothing.




ea

How To Increase Your Alexa Rank

Alexa site rank like Google’s page rank is a measure to determine how popular a particular website or blog is. And while Alexa isn’t an accurate representation since it’s only limited to those who use their toolbar it can still be an important factor when it comes to generating traffic, getting others to link to you, and advertising on your site. If you’re not familiar with how Alexa page ranking works it essentially works like this..................




ea

Top 10 Searched Topics Online (blog post)

One of the biggest challenges when starting a new blog or website is deciding what the topic of your site is going to be about. You also want to take into consideration what people are looking for online. If you’re stuck on an idea for your site here are the 10 most popular topics that are searched for online besides porn of course and the rough percentage of traffic each one gets.




ea

11 Places To Get Content Ideas For Your Website

It’s no secret that having great content on your site is the corner stone to getting visitors and keeping them interested. But what happens when you can’t come up with any ideas? It can be frustrating trying to come up with something you hope your visitors will like on a regular schedule if your mind is blank. Fortunate there are lots of places to find content ideas for your website. Here is a list of 11 places to look for website content ideas..................