Friday, August 31, 2007
No hurry!
Here is a story which a missionary lately told his congregation.
Some evil spirits were consulting together as to the best way to lead men astray.
One said, 'Let us go and tell them there is no God.'
Another said, 'Let us tell them there is no Heaven.'
But the third said, 'Let us go and tell them there is no hurry!'
'No hurry' often leads to more harm than many deliberate wrong acts.
Duplicity?
TWO WAYS OF READING A SENTENCE.
People in high stations of life often receive from authors presents of their works, and are expected to say something flattering about them in return. They do not like to hurt the author's feelings if the book is worthless, and so Benjamin Disraeli, when Prime Minister, used to answer those who approached him in this way: 'I have received your book, and shall lose no time in reading it.' This sentence, as you can see, is capable of being read in two ways, but the sender of the book was, of course, intended to understand the more flattering reading. It was a kind of deception, and was not very honest, but it was done out of kindness.
A musical composer found another way of answering the many applicants for his opinion: 'I have received your music,' he would write, 'and much like it.'
S. Clarendon
People in high stations of life often receive from authors presents of their works, and are expected to say something flattering about them in return. They do not like to hurt the author's feelings if the book is worthless, and so Benjamin Disraeli, when Prime Minister, used to answer those who approached him in this way: 'I have received your book, and shall lose no time in reading it.' This sentence, as you can see, is capable of being read in two ways, but the sender of the book was, of course, intended to understand the more flattering reading. It was a kind of deception, and was not very honest, but it was done out of kindness.
A musical composer found another way of answering the many applicants for his opinion: 'I have received your music,' he would write, 'and much like it.'
S. Clarendon
How to . . . Picnic
from P&G Everyday Solution: Baby and Family
http://www.pg.com/en_US/products/care_pages/articles/feature_article.jhtml;jsessionid=RNWFBNRRVVE4DQFIAJ1HKYWAVABHO3MK?contentXML=/en_US/Feature_Article/200707_featurearticlebf_picninc_made_easy.xml&channelCode=bf
PICNICS MADE EASY
Eating outside is one of summer's greatest pleasures. Try these tips for planning the ideal picnic for two — or 20 — without stressing over the details.
The Perfect Pair
Find a babysitter and take two hours to reconnect with your husband.
Location: Think quiet and romantic. Whether it's the backyard or a secluded corner of the local park, you want a peaceful spot where you can focus on each other.
Menu: The real point is the company, so keep the food simple — yet elegant — with a few high-quality items. Think ripe strawberries or grapes, crusty French bread, fine cheese, dark chocolate and a bottle of wine. Want something more substantial? Buy pre-made pasta salads or gourmet sandwiches at the local deli.
Packing: Use a personal-size cooler to keep the fruit and perishables cold. Cut up the cheese and bread before you leave and pack these delicate items in hard plastic containers so they won't get crushed. Don't forget these other essentials: a large blanket, corkscrew, napkins, plates, glasses, silverware, sunscreen, insect repellant and water. Throw in a plastic tablecloth to stick under your blanket in case the ground is wet.
Extras: Make the experience a little more special with cloth napkins and real wine glasses. Wrap each glass in a napkin and carefully place them in a hard plastic container. Tuck a romantic note in your significant other's glass for a memorable touch.
Crowd ControlGather family, friends, neighbors or the Little League team for fun in the sun.
Location: Once you pass five or six guests, it's a good idea to make a reservation. Find a centrally located park and look into picnic areas with shelter houses — lifesavers in case it rains. These are usually no or low cost and many come with a simple grill in addition to all those picnic tables. Look for a spot near a playground to help keep the kids entertained.
Menu: Divide and conquer. For large groups, potluck is the easiest way to go. Assign one or two people to each of these categories: main dishes, side dishes, appetizers, beverages, snacks and desserts. Compare notes to make sure there's not too much overlap. Then let each person decide whether to cook or pick something up at the market. Remind everyone to keep perishables cold until it's time to eat.
Packing: Instead of food, ask people traveling the farthest to bring paper plates, napkins, plastic silverware, tablecloths and plastic cups. Put yourself in charge of cleanup supplies, including trash bags and several rolls of paper towels, such as Bounty®. Plus, throw a few extra snacks in your bag — maybe a few cans of Pringles® Snack Stacks® — for good measure. Other must-haves: condiments, insect repellant, sunblock, a first-aid kit, water, a flashlight, serving spoons and grilling supplies.
Extras: Whether it's a dusty croquet set or a neon Frisbee®, grab some sports equipment from the basement or garage. A deck of cards and portable radio can also keep the fun going long after the hot dogs are gone. If you plan to continue the gathering after dark, bring along a camping lantern or candles.
http://www.pg.com/en_US/products/care_pages/articles/feature_article.jhtml;jsessionid=RNWFBNRRVVE4DQFIAJ1HKYWAVABHO3MK?contentXML=/en_US/Feature_Article/200707_featurearticlebf_picninc_made_easy.xml&channelCode=bf
PICNICS MADE EASY
Eating outside is one of summer's greatest pleasures. Try these tips for planning the ideal picnic for two — or 20 — without stressing over the details.
The Perfect Pair
Find a babysitter and take two hours to reconnect with your husband.
Location: Think quiet and romantic. Whether it's the backyard or a secluded corner of the local park, you want a peaceful spot where you can focus on each other.
Menu: The real point is the company, so keep the food simple — yet elegant — with a few high-quality items. Think ripe strawberries or grapes, crusty French bread, fine cheese, dark chocolate and a bottle of wine. Want something more substantial? Buy pre-made pasta salads or gourmet sandwiches at the local deli.
Packing: Use a personal-size cooler to keep the fruit and perishables cold. Cut up the cheese and bread before you leave and pack these delicate items in hard plastic containers so they won't get crushed. Don't forget these other essentials: a large blanket, corkscrew, napkins, plates, glasses, silverware, sunscreen, insect repellant and water. Throw in a plastic tablecloth to stick under your blanket in case the ground is wet.
Extras: Make the experience a little more special with cloth napkins and real wine glasses. Wrap each glass in a napkin and carefully place them in a hard plastic container. Tuck a romantic note in your significant other's glass for a memorable touch.
Crowd ControlGather family, friends, neighbors or the Little League team for fun in the sun.
Location: Once you pass five or six guests, it's a good idea to make a reservation. Find a centrally located park and look into picnic areas with shelter houses — lifesavers in case it rains. These are usually no or low cost and many come with a simple grill in addition to all those picnic tables. Look for a spot near a playground to help keep the kids entertained.
Menu: Divide and conquer. For large groups, potluck is the easiest way to go. Assign one or two people to each of these categories: main dishes, side dishes, appetizers, beverages, snacks and desserts. Compare notes to make sure there's not too much overlap. Then let each person decide whether to cook or pick something up at the market. Remind everyone to keep perishables cold until it's time to eat.
Packing: Instead of food, ask people traveling the farthest to bring paper plates, napkins, plastic silverware, tablecloths and plastic cups. Put yourself in charge of cleanup supplies, including trash bags and several rolls of paper towels, such as Bounty®. Plus, throw a few extra snacks in your bag — maybe a few cans of Pringles® Snack Stacks® — for good measure. Other must-haves: condiments, insect repellant, sunblock, a first-aid kit, water, a flashlight, serving spoons and grilling supplies.
Extras: Whether it's a dusty croquet set or a neon Frisbee®, grab some sports equipment from the basement or garage. A deck of cards and portable radio can also keep the fun going long after the hot dogs are gone. If you plan to continue the gathering after dark, bring along a camping lantern or candles.
I think this is from Charles Stanley
July 3, 2007 – The Results of Yielding to Culture – 1 Corinthians 3:1-3
Believers fit into one of two general categories. First, there are committed followers of Jesus Christ. These believers are focused on pleasing God and growing in their faith. The other type of Christian isn’t concerned with spiritual matters. Instead, they remain focused on worldly things. Such people are heavily influenced by their culture and often compromise their convictions.
When a believer loosens his grip on God’s Word, he begins the decline into his earthly desires. Perhaps he disobeys a command or refuses to believe a certain truth. Or he may simply stop reading Scripture. Sooner or later, something in the culture grabs his attention. This fixation slowly influences him and consumes his time and resources. His “new love” gradually wins his affection away from the Lord.
After a while, other aspects of culture that once appeared undesirable begin to look appealing. The believer may dabble in such things at first and eventually indulge with abandon. Eventually, his witness is ruined because neither his conduct nor his character are consistent with a follower of Jesus. The culture’s influence has rendered him useless for the kingdom of God.
Have you yielded to the world’s mindset? You don’t need to waste your life in pursuit of things that can’t bring lasting peace. Repent and return to the God who saved you. Peace and fulfillment are the reward of those whose sole focus is to please the Lord.
Every day we’re influenced by our culture. Society’s prevailing philosophies and attitudes are everywhere??? on radio and TV, in books and magazines, and even in conversations at the workplace and corner coffee shop. It’s difficult for believers to avoid the pressure to be and think like everyone else. But the Bible calls us to live in our culture without becoming part of it.
In his letter to Titus, Paul explained how we’re to accomplish this. Titus 1:9 says those who won’t participate in the sins of the culture must hold “fast the faithful word.” To survive the pull of our present culture, we must cling to God’s Word and apply His principles. The Bible is the revelation of God. He tells us what He thinks, how He acts, and what He expects of us. Reading and obeying the Bible ensures that believers will live righteously, identify error, and avoid sin.
The Bible can’t do any of these things if we never open it. Obeying God’s Word is a practical matter. We’re to read Scripture carefully and meditate upon it daily. In other words, we must think about the meaning of passages and apply their lessons to our daily life. To apply scriptural truths, we must not only believe the Word wholeheartedly but also obey it consistently. When we take practical steps to keep Scripture as the anchor of our belief system, we will not be swayed by culture.
Believers fit into one of two general categories. First, there are committed followers of Jesus Christ. These believers are focused on pleasing God and growing in their faith. The other type of Christian isn’t concerned with spiritual matters. Instead, they remain focused on worldly things. Such people are heavily influenced by their culture and often compromise their convictions.
When a believer loosens his grip on God’s Word, he begins the decline into his earthly desires. Perhaps he disobeys a command or refuses to believe a certain truth. Or he may simply stop reading Scripture. Sooner or later, something in the culture grabs his attention. This fixation slowly influences him and consumes his time and resources. His “new love” gradually wins his affection away from the Lord.
After a while, other aspects of culture that once appeared undesirable begin to look appealing. The believer may dabble in such things at first and eventually indulge with abandon. Eventually, his witness is ruined because neither his conduct nor his character are consistent with a follower of Jesus. The culture’s influence has rendered him useless for the kingdom of God.
Have you yielded to the world’s mindset? You don’t need to waste your life in pursuit of things that can’t bring lasting peace. Repent and return to the God who saved you. Peace and fulfillment are the reward of those whose sole focus is to please the Lord.
Every day we’re influenced by our culture. Society’s prevailing philosophies and attitudes are everywhere??? on radio and TV, in books and magazines, and even in conversations at the workplace and corner coffee shop. It’s difficult for believers to avoid the pressure to be and think like everyone else. But the Bible calls us to live in our culture without becoming part of it.
In his letter to Titus, Paul explained how we’re to accomplish this. Titus 1:9 says those who won’t participate in the sins of the culture must hold “fast the faithful word.” To survive the pull of our present culture, we must cling to God’s Word and apply His principles. The Bible is the revelation of God. He tells us what He thinks, how He acts, and what He expects of us. Reading and obeying the Bible ensures that believers will live righteously, identify error, and avoid sin.
The Bible can’t do any of these things if we never open it. Obeying God’s Word is a practical matter. We’re to read Scripture carefully and meditate upon it daily. In other words, we must think about the meaning of passages and apply their lessons to our daily life. To apply scriptural truths, we must not only believe the Word wholeheartedly but also obey it consistently. When we take practical steps to keep Scripture as the anchor of our belief system, we will not be swayed by culture.
Abuse
DEAR ABBY:
A dear friend is being married this summer to a man who is abusive. She is in denial about his extreme, sometimes violent, jealous and controlling behavior. Recently, he threw coffee in her face while she was driving and caused an accident. He blamed it all on her, and she accepted the blame.
He punches holes in the walls when they fight. Once he even broke a bone in his hand. He constantly accuses her of cheating, and when they're together, he watches her like a hawk and she won't leave his side.
She asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I am not comfortable with it because I would not be able to celebrate the occasion. Her fiance knows how I feel. He doesn't like me, and the feeling is mutual.
What should I tell her? In the past I told her that marrying him would be a big mistake, and she got very angry. Your advice would be appreciated. -- DEPRESSED IN BOULDER, COLO.
DEAR DEPRESSED: Your friend appears to be in for a rocky future. She's so desperate for a husband -- any husband -- that she's willing to settle for a control freak who didn't hesitate to put her life at risk.
Under the circumstances, you should not participate in the wedding. But do tell her that if this doesn't work out as she is hoping, you will help her form an escape plan, because the likelihood is that she is going to need one.
P.S. I don't blame you for being depressed. If she was my friend, I'd be depressed, too. However, until she's ready to face reality, there is nothing you can do.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
A dear friend is being married this summer to a man who is abusive. She is in denial about his extreme, sometimes violent, jealous and controlling behavior. Recently, he threw coffee in her face while she was driving and caused an accident. He blamed it all on her, and she accepted the blame.
He punches holes in the walls when they fight. Once he even broke a bone in his hand. He constantly accuses her of cheating, and when they're together, he watches her like a hawk and she won't leave his side.
She asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I am not comfortable with it because I would not be able to celebrate the occasion. Her fiance knows how I feel. He doesn't like me, and the feeling is mutual.
What should I tell her? In the past I told her that marrying him would be a big mistake, and she got very angry. Your advice would be appreciated. -- DEPRESSED IN BOULDER, COLO.
DEAR DEPRESSED: Your friend appears to be in for a rocky future. She's so desperate for a husband -- any husband -- that she's willing to settle for a control freak who didn't hesitate to put her life at risk.
Under the circumstances, you should not participate in the wedding. But do tell her that if this doesn't work out as she is hoping, you will help her form an escape plan, because the likelihood is that she is going to need one.
P.S. I don't blame you for being depressed. If she was my friend, I'd be depressed, too. However, until she's ready to face reality, there is nothing you can do.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
Melting Pot?
The US prides itself of being open to ethnic diversity. However, US citizens have not always held to that ideal. While some people have been welcomed to the U.S., others have remained in the outskirts of U.S. cultural core and fabric. Furthermore, the reality is that with time U.S. borders have been getting narrower and often a spirit of hostility and racism toward the sojourners in the U.S. refugees, immigrants, and visitors--has grown to the point of rejection and discrimination.
What is a "no budget film"?
No Budget Film
A no budget film is an extremely cheaply produced film made with very little, or no money. Young directors starting out in filmmaking commonly use this method because there are few other options available to them at that point. All the actors and technicians are employed without remuneration. The film is largely non-profit. Usually the director works alone on such films, or uses a very minimum "crew" of volunteers to assist him/her on such projects where no money or financing is available, not including the cost of film.
Many experimental films have been made in this no budget manner. In 1960, Ron Rice released "The Flower Thief", starring Taylor Mead, to great acclaim. The film was produced for less than $1000.00 using black and white 16mm 50' film cartridges left over from aerial gunnery equipment used during World War II. In the early 1960s, filmmaker Jack Smith used discarded color reversal film stock to film his no budget film classic, featuring Mario Montez, called "Flaming Creatures." Some directors' early works, such as John Waters' 1964 black and white film with Mary Vivian Pearce, "Hag in a Black Leather Jacket", which cost $30.00 to make, are no budget films. Craig Baldwin's "Flick Skin" is entirely made from discarded film, or 'found footage' as it is known as, retrieved from a projectionist's booth. The No Wave Cinema movement of the late 1970s, represented by filmmakers such as Vivienne Dick, produced many notable no budget films shot on Super 8 such as "Beauty Becomes The Beast" starring Lydia Lunch, as did the Cinema of Transgression in the 1980s. Most of the films featured in Miranda July's film anthologies "Joanie4Jackie", which were first released in 1996 and are still ongoing, are made with no budget. In 1993, Sarah Jacobson made her first film "I Was a Teenage Serial Killer" with, she says, "one camera, one tape recorder, one mic and, like, four lights"
Filming for no budget films are often done on location without permission, which is referred to as 'Guerrilla filmmaking', using sites such as the home of the filmmaker or their friends, in the backyard or local neighbourhood. No budget films have often been made in the past using Super 8 mm film or video. Recent films have also been made using digital film cameras and edited using home computer editing programmes. The cost of a no budget film is generally that of the film, and the film processing, itself.
No budget films have frequently been screened at Super 8 film festivals which are held around the world, such as the Flicker Film Festival in Los Angeles in the U.S., and Splice This in Toronto, in Canada. In the UK, Exploding Cinema is a group devoted to no budget and experimental film who hold regular screenings. Many No Wave directors screened their films at clubs and bars. Others set up DIY screenings. Some no budget films are transferred to video and DVD and can be obtained at alternative outlets or by mail. In the 2000s, some no budget directors began to show their films on the internet, either on their own websites or sites devoted to such films.It is rare that a no budget film manages to receive recognition; only a handful have achieved any level of acclaim, but it is possible. They sometimes arise from subcultures existing outside of the mainstream and so also become important documents of the various movements and scenes that they originated from. While generally ignored by the commercial film sector, they have, on occasion, garnered much recognition in the world of alternative culture and arts.
A no budget film is an extremely cheaply produced film made with very little, or no money. Young directors starting out in filmmaking commonly use this method because there are few other options available to them at that point. All the actors and technicians are employed without remuneration. The film is largely non-profit. Usually the director works alone on such films, or uses a very minimum "crew" of volunteers to assist him/her on such projects where no money or financing is available, not including the cost of film.
Many experimental films have been made in this no budget manner. In 1960, Ron Rice released "The Flower Thief", starring Taylor Mead, to great acclaim. The film was produced for less than $1000.00 using black and white 16mm 50' film cartridges left over from aerial gunnery equipment used during World War II. In the early 1960s, filmmaker Jack Smith used discarded color reversal film stock to film his no budget film classic, featuring Mario Montez, called "Flaming Creatures." Some directors' early works, such as John Waters' 1964 black and white film with Mary Vivian Pearce, "Hag in a Black Leather Jacket", which cost $30.00 to make, are no budget films. Craig Baldwin's "Flick Skin" is entirely made from discarded film, or 'found footage' as it is known as, retrieved from a projectionist's booth. The No Wave Cinema movement of the late 1970s, represented by filmmakers such as Vivienne Dick, produced many notable no budget films shot on Super 8 such as "Beauty Becomes The Beast" starring Lydia Lunch, as did the Cinema of Transgression in the 1980s. Most of the films featured in Miranda July's film anthologies "Joanie4Jackie", which were first released in 1996 and are still ongoing, are made with no budget. In 1993, Sarah Jacobson made her first film "I Was a Teenage Serial Killer" with, she says, "one camera, one tape recorder, one mic and, like, four lights"
Filming for no budget films are often done on location without permission, which is referred to as 'Guerrilla filmmaking', using sites such as the home of the filmmaker or their friends, in the backyard or local neighbourhood. No budget films have often been made in the past using Super 8 mm film or video. Recent films have also been made using digital film cameras and edited using home computer editing programmes. The cost of a no budget film is generally that of the film, and the film processing, itself.
No budget films have frequently been screened at Super 8 film festivals which are held around the world, such as the Flicker Film Festival in Los Angeles in the U.S., and Splice This in Toronto, in Canada. In the UK, Exploding Cinema is a group devoted to no budget and experimental film who hold regular screenings. Many No Wave directors screened their films at clubs and bars. Others set up DIY screenings. Some no budget films are transferred to video and DVD and can be obtained at alternative outlets or by mail. In the 2000s, some no budget directors began to show their films on the internet, either on their own websites or sites devoted to such films.It is rare that a no budget film manages to receive recognition; only a handful have achieved any level of acclaim, but it is possible. They sometimes arise from subcultures existing outside of the mainstream and so also become important documents of the various movements and scenes that they originated from. While generally ignored by the commercial film sector, they have, on occasion, garnered much recognition in the world of alternative culture and arts.
Quotable Quotes
From the website of Romance writer Victoria Alt
The best piece of advice I can give you is to just get your butt in the chair and write.
"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." - Groucho Marx
Dave Barry - - The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.
Dave Barry - - What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth ? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.
Dave Barry - - Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.
Victor Borge US (Danish-born) comedian & pianist (1909 - 2000)
Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
Victor Borge - - The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.
Ray Bradbury - advice to writers- You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.
Ray Bradbury - - We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451, 1953- We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?
The best piece of advice I can give you is to just get your butt in the chair and write.
"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." - Groucho Marx
Dave Barry - - The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.
Dave Barry - - What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth ? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.
Dave Barry - - Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.
Victor Borge US (Danish-born) comedian & pianist (1909 - 2000)
Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
Victor Borge - - The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.
Ray Bradbury - advice to writers- You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.
Ray Bradbury - - We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451, 1953- We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?
This is a new twist on an old con game:
Royal House Chambers
Solicitors & Advocates
Block 2, Flat 5, Rue du Boulevard,
PB 491,Lome-Togo,
Alternative Email/ barr_frank20@yahoo.com,
Dear DuPre ,
I am Barrister Frank Akitiome, a legal practitioner, I am the personal attorney to Mr. J. C.DuPre , a national Of your country, who used to work with Shell Development Company in Lome Togo. He used to be my client my client.
On the 11th of June 2001, my client, his wife and their only daughter were involved in a car accident along Nouvissi express Road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives.
Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy here to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.
After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.I have contacted you to assist in repartrating the fund valued at US$10.5 million left behind by my client before it gets confisicated or declared unserviceable by the Finance Firm where this huge amount were deposited.
The said Finance Company has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have his account confisicated within the next twenty one official working days.
Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the relatives for over 2years now, I seek the consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased since you have the same last names, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you.
Therefore, on receipt of your positive response, we shall then discuss the sharing ratio and modalities for transfer.I have all necessary information and legal documents needed to back you up for claim.
All I require from you is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under legitimate arrangement that will protect you breach of the law. you can reach me on my direct number 00228 913 78 75 you can also send to me your s to enable me reach you from any i wait for your prompt response.
Best Regards,
Barrister Frank Akitiome .
Lome-Togo
Solicitors & Advocates
Block 2, Flat 5, Rue du Boulevard,
PB 491,Lome-Togo,
Alternative Email/ barr_frank20@yahoo.com,
Dear DuPre ,
I am Barrister Frank Akitiome, a legal practitioner, I am the personal attorney to Mr. J. C.DuPre , a national Of your country, who used to work with Shell Development Company in Lome Togo. He used to be my client my client.
On the 11th of June 2001, my client, his wife and their only daughter were involved in a car accident along Nouvissi express Road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives.
Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy here to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.
After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.I have contacted you to assist in repartrating the fund valued at US$10.5 million left behind by my client before it gets confisicated or declared unserviceable by the Finance Firm where this huge amount were deposited.
The said Finance Company has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have his account confisicated within the next twenty one official working days.
Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the relatives for over 2years now, I seek the consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased since you have the same last names, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you.
Therefore, on receipt of your positive response, we shall then discuss the sharing ratio and modalities for transfer.I have all necessary information and legal documents needed to back you up for claim.
All I require from you is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under legitimate arrangement that will protect you breach of the law. you can reach me on my direct number 00228 913 78 75 you can also send to me your s to enable me reach you from any i wait for your prompt response.
Best Regards,
Barrister Frank Akitiome .
Lome-Togo
An interesting poem
The Arisen Christ
A Parable
Once upon a time in a land not so far away
there lived a handsome prince
known and loved far and wide for his beauty of SPIRIT
One day, while riding in the forest
on his beautiful white horse
the prince scratched his head on a low hanging branch
of the tree he was riding under
and fell instantly asleep
He remained sleeping for centuries
All the earth mourned
the loss of their beautiful prince
and gave up all hope of his ever AWAKENING again
One day, a beautiful and very wise and powerful
and loving
woman came riding up on her beautiful white horse
She was a Mother, you see, and
knew all things
She rode over to where the beautiful prince
lay sleeping in his tomb, his casket
She got off her horse and kneeling down
placed a kiss on the forehead of the sleeping prince
Her tears, for her heart wept
at seeing all that he had missed
from being asleep so very long,
her tears of compassion fell upon his forehead
and into his heart
He awakened!
He slowly sat up in his casket
and was filled with JOY
at all the beauty around him
Then he saw the beautiful woman, his mother
He sprang from his tomb
and knelt at her feet weeping
She smiled, looking into his eyes
and took him by the hand, saying
"Arise, my prince, my Son
walk freely upon this earth!
You are free to express
you are free to create
and most of all, you are free to
LOVE!"
More words (for a lawyer)
Information about Testimony for a Lawyer
Rhetoric (appeals to emotion rather than reason)
Fallacy, fallacious
Explicate
Preposterour
Premise
Exhaustive
Presumption
Ambiguity
Contradiction
Cognitive
Efficacy
Allegations
Repudiated
Presumptive
Ontological
Pretentious
Grotesque
Snobbery
Blatant
Rinny
Oafish
Contradistinction
Antecede
Incredulity
Antiquity
Ineffable
Skeptism
Veracity
Ipso facto
Epistemology
Arguent
Intransigence
Concordant
Reifying
Reification
Elucidations
Misanthrope
Repudiated
Elucidated
Nefarious
Ad hoc
Saliency
Odious
Slippery slope
unscrupulous
Rhetoric (appeals to emotion rather than reason)
Fallacy, fallacious
Explicate
Preposterour
Premise
Exhaustive
Presumption
Ambiguity
Contradiction
Cognitive
Efficacy
Allegations
Repudiated
Presumptive
Ontological
Pretentious
Grotesque
Snobbery
Blatant
Rinny
Oafish
Contradistinction
Antecede
Incredulity
Antiquity
Ineffable
Skeptism
Veracity
Ipso facto
Epistemology
Arguent
Intransigence
Concordant
Reifying
Reification
Elucidations
Misanthrope
Repudiated
Elucidated
Nefarious
Ad hoc
Saliency
Odious
Slippery slope
unscrupulous
Writing Notes
MOVIE RATINGS
= Poor= Fair= Good= Excellent
G = General audiencesPG = Parental GuidancePG-13 = Not recommended for preteensR = Restricted audience
An English professor wrote the words, "Woman without her man is nothing," on the blackboard and directed the students to punctuate it correctly.
The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is nothing."
The women wrote: "Woman! Without her, man is nothing."
Ht test: write a 100-word essay never using the same word twice, that makes sense and sounds like a normal paragraph.
EXAMPLE
5 Assignment: extraordinary. Write one hundred
10 words, never using duplicates. Impossible?
15 Hardly. Nevertheless, it’s a feat
20 requiring ingenuity, resourcefulness, inventiveness, yes,
25 perhaps even more than average
30 intelligence. Sensible people would seldom
35 attempt such shenanigans, yet I
40 am intrigued, curious to discover
45 whether duplications of expressions can
50 be avoided. Halfway through, doubt
55 sets in as to successful
60 goal realization. Perplexed, befuddled thoughts
65 churn out, pen frequently pausing.
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
There are moments in everyone’s life when . . .
A door is opened
A challenge is issued
A door is closed
The path unexpectedly changes direction
You must step out of your comfort zone
You step out of the rut you’re in
Your destiny seems altered
Rules of call to action from Paul Revere’s ride:
Revere was known to be a credible communicator
his alarm was focused on a specific event
it was designed to spur citizens to act
it called for a concrete set of actions in response
Begin with the end in mind.
The path to success is to take massive, determined action.
Action is the real measure of intelligence.
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Intelligence is the ability to make finer distinctions.
Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keep pulsating desire which transcends everything.
Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success.
Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.
Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot.
Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to read, but more importantly, what’s your plan to read?
You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?
Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
Now is the only time there is. Make your now wow, your minutes miracles, and your days pay. Your life will have been magnificently lived and invested, and then you die you will have made a difference.
Every liability is just an asset in hiding.
The majority of people meet with failure because they lack the persistence to create new plans to take the place of failed plans.
You don’t become enormously successful without encountering some really interesting problems.
Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.
All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
Typical formula: mentor agent and new agent protecting a scientist with a secret formula. Bad guys want secret formula and try to steal it. New agent thwarts attack. Bad guys kidnap scientist and/or family. Hold for ransom. Agency tells agents not to meet the bad guy’s demands. Rogue agent disobeys and goes off alone to rescue them. Mentor agent joins at last minute. Rescue successful.
Wizard of Oz
Note the number of different anger styles portrayed at the beginning of the movie by each different person
1. Dorothy angry at Mrs. Gulch for threatening Toto and angry at aunt, because aunt was busy
2. Auntie Em angry at Dorothy for interrupting her when she was busy
3. Mrs. Gulch angry at Dorothy and Toto
4. Uncle Henry angry because Dorothy didn't listen
5. Hulk angry because he hurt his finger and blames it on co-worker
6. Coworker upset because being confused and blames him back
7. Zeke won't listen
8. Auntie Em angry because not working
9. Hired men angry because Auntie Em threatened them with their jobs
10. Dorothy is angry because the men made fun or her for being scared
11. Dorothy is angry because Auntie Em won't listen
12. Dorothy is angry and refuses to give Toto to Mrs. Gulch who is in turn angry because she won't hand over
the dog
13. Dorothy is angry because Mrs. Gulch got sheriff's order
14. Mrs. Gulch is angry because Dorothy calls her a wicked old witch. Auntie Em is angry because she is a
Christian and can't say what she's thought for the past 23 years of Elvira Gulch.
Responses to Anger - name-calling, running away, crying, blaming, shaming and making fun, deception, bargaining, stuffing, ignoring, violence, snitching, bragging, using power as a threat, punishment, locking up the dog, intimidation.
landmarks – street names, temperature, aromas, sights, noises, interesting facts
google your character names
research books to find:
What’s What by David Fisher & Reginald Bragonein Jr.
The Ultimate Visual Dictionary by DK Publishing
The Crime Writer’s Reference Guide by Martin Roth
What Happened When by Gorton Carruth
Writer’s Digest Howdunit Series
Amateur detectives, armed and dangerous, body trauma, cause of death, deadly doses, making crime pay, missing person, murder one, private eyes, scene of the crime
Scene of the Crime by Anne Wingate
The Criminal Mind by Katherine Ramsland
Scene of the crime
Crime scene – as protag. Finds it
Crime – as it happens (by antag.)
Motive – antag’s driving force. Why did s/he commit the crime?
Actions – that lead up to it
Mistakes – made that enable protag. To solve it.
Villain’s background – who is/was s/he?
Family, profession, hobbies, interests, social status
Character’s normal life prior to the crime
Phobias, weaknesses
Protag (hero) will develop a psychological profile and begin to think like antag.
Why’d s/he commit crime? What’s to gain?
Draw from antag. Background or an event affecting his/her life e.g. pattern of abuse or psychological disability – violent crimes
e.g. homeless or poor man steals for survival or to live life more comfortably.
e.g.woman catches husband in an affair (unfaithful) and is hurt enough to plan his and/or his lover’s
demise
MO – modus operandi (check when term was lst used)
Modus operandi (often used in the abbreviated form MO) is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation." The plural is modi operandi ("modes of operation"). It is used in police work to describe a criminal's characteristic patterns and style of work.
The term is also commonly used in English in a non-criminal sense to describe someone's habits or manner of working, the method of operating or functioning.
A criminal's MO may also be used in offender profiling, where it can also be used to find clues to the perpetrator's psychology.
The method of operation or MO is sometimes confused with a criminal's "signature". While a criminal's MO may change over time, his or her signature will usually stay the same.
In the 19th century, forensic pathologists began using pictures and words to show how various conditions appear in the cadaver, and to teach students and colleagues new methods of analysis. Line drawings, half-tone photography, and chromolithography, which could render coloration, texture, and subtle shading, became increasingly common as improvements in print technology made detailed illustrations cheaper to produce.
The method the antag. Uses to murder etc./commit the crime.
Commit crimes regularly = a repetitive pattern, esp. in violent crimes. (Perhaps even unbeknownst to the antag.) e.g. always leaves something at the scene (a rose, a note). Crime Scene organized a certain way. Place similar or same. Targets only women, or men, etc. Ethnic background. A thief who only steals a certain thing or a certain business type.
MO makes the crimes unique to your antag. And conveys something about him/her.
Envision the crime as it happens and already know how your hero solves it. Start story eith with crime or after when detectives investigate. Know what clues will be found and what supporting characters witnessed the crime.
Investigator(s) develop initial list of potential suspects: people with a motive, e.g. a grudge against victim or suspects previously convicted of a similar crime (MO).
This list is important – add twists and cast doubts to increase suspense.
It helps to know what the ending is before you start. As a matter of fact, in mysteries or crime scene investigations, it is helpful to work at your story backwards. Write your solution first, then pepper the clues throughout the story.
You must get the reader to willingly suspend his disbelief.
A cold room or too hot?
A large part of what passes for writing in business, school, and government is writing to impress rather than to communicate. Bureaucratic vagueness and making things pompous serve to hide what you don’t know. Deliberate obscurity and using big words impress the boss or teacher with how much you know.
The Noble Failure is the artiste who struggles endlessly and produces a work so dense, sophisticated and brilliant that no one can understand it. Critics and public alike shun it. The artiste knows it is brilliant. They are all fools. In actuality, the artiste has cranked out a mass of technically inadequate, self indulgent incoherent drivel, and then hides behind the Noble Failure myth rather than accepting the failure of his or her own work. Writing crap makes you look stupid. Being a misunderstood artiste makes you look cool.
In passive voice, nothing is ever anyone’s fault. People do not do things. Things happen to people. (Passive) The food was eaten. (active) Tom ate the food.
Banalities were exchanged = passive voice
Active voice – they exchanged banalities.
Allow your character to act or react AFTER everyone reading the book (or seeing the movie) already would have. Develop a rage in the audience. Get them to the point where they say, “You’ve got to do something about this.” If you show violence, show also the consequences of your actions. You must believe the audience would have acted or reacted sooner than your lead character. Get them frustrated and angry because your lead just sits there and takes it. Then he acts or reacts, and when he does, it is lethal and justified!
= Poor= Fair= Good= Excellent
G = General audiencesPG = Parental GuidancePG-13 = Not recommended for preteensR = Restricted audience
An English professor wrote the words, "Woman without her man is nothing," on the blackboard and directed the students to punctuate it correctly.
The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is nothing."
The women wrote: "Woman! Without her, man is nothing."
Ht test: write a 100-word essay never using the same word twice, that makes sense and sounds like a normal paragraph.
EXAMPLE
5 Assignment: extraordinary. Write one hundred
10 words, never using duplicates. Impossible?
15 Hardly. Nevertheless, it’s a feat
20 requiring ingenuity, resourcefulness, inventiveness, yes,
25 perhaps even more than average
30 intelligence. Sensible people would seldom
35 attempt such shenanigans, yet I
40 am intrigued, curious to discover
45 whether duplications of expressions can
50 be avoided. Halfway through, doubt
55 sets in as to successful
60 goal realization. Perplexed, befuddled thoughts
65 churn out, pen frequently pausing.
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
There are moments in everyone’s life when . . .
A door is opened
A challenge is issued
A door is closed
The path unexpectedly changes direction
You must step out of your comfort zone
You step out of the rut you’re in
Your destiny seems altered
Rules of call to action from Paul Revere’s ride:
Revere was known to be a credible communicator
his alarm was focused on a specific event
it was designed to spur citizens to act
it called for a concrete set of actions in response
Begin with the end in mind.
The path to success is to take massive, determined action.
Action is the real measure of intelligence.
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Intelligence is the ability to make finer distinctions.
Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keep pulsating desire which transcends everything.
Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success.
Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.
Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot.
Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to read, but more importantly, what’s your plan to read?
You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?
Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
Now is the only time there is. Make your now wow, your minutes miracles, and your days pay. Your life will have been magnificently lived and invested, and then you die you will have made a difference.
Every liability is just an asset in hiding.
The majority of people meet with failure because they lack the persistence to create new plans to take the place of failed plans.
You don’t become enormously successful without encountering some really interesting problems.
Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.
All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
Typical formula: mentor agent and new agent protecting a scientist with a secret formula. Bad guys want secret formula and try to steal it. New agent thwarts attack. Bad guys kidnap scientist and/or family. Hold for ransom. Agency tells agents not to meet the bad guy’s demands. Rogue agent disobeys and goes off alone to rescue them. Mentor agent joins at last minute. Rescue successful.
Wizard of Oz
Note the number of different anger styles portrayed at the beginning of the movie by each different person
1. Dorothy angry at Mrs. Gulch for threatening Toto and angry at aunt, because aunt was busy
2. Auntie Em angry at Dorothy for interrupting her when she was busy
3. Mrs. Gulch angry at Dorothy and Toto
4. Uncle Henry angry because Dorothy didn't listen
5. Hulk angry because he hurt his finger and blames it on co-worker
6. Coworker upset because being confused and blames him back
7. Zeke won't listen
8. Auntie Em angry because not working
9. Hired men angry because Auntie Em threatened them with their jobs
10. Dorothy is angry because the men made fun or her for being scared
11. Dorothy is angry because Auntie Em won't listen
12. Dorothy is angry and refuses to give Toto to Mrs. Gulch who is in turn angry because she won't hand over
the dog
13. Dorothy is angry because Mrs. Gulch got sheriff's order
14. Mrs. Gulch is angry because Dorothy calls her a wicked old witch. Auntie Em is angry because she is a
Christian and can't say what she's thought for the past 23 years of Elvira Gulch.
Responses to Anger - name-calling, running away, crying, blaming, shaming and making fun, deception, bargaining, stuffing, ignoring, violence, snitching, bragging, using power as a threat, punishment, locking up the dog, intimidation.
landmarks – street names, temperature, aromas, sights, noises, interesting facts
google your character names
research books to find:
What’s What by David Fisher & Reginald Bragonein Jr.
The Ultimate Visual Dictionary by DK Publishing
The Crime Writer’s Reference Guide by Martin Roth
What Happened When by Gorton Carruth
Writer’s Digest Howdunit Series
Amateur detectives, armed and dangerous, body trauma, cause of death, deadly doses, making crime pay, missing person, murder one, private eyes, scene of the crime
Scene of the Crime by Anne Wingate
The Criminal Mind by Katherine Ramsland
Scene of the crime
Crime scene – as protag. Finds it
Crime – as it happens (by antag.)
Motive – antag’s driving force. Why did s/he commit the crime?
Actions – that lead up to it
Mistakes – made that enable protag. To solve it.
Villain’s background – who is/was s/he?
Family, profession, hobbies, interests, social status
Character’s normal life prior to the crime
Phobias, weaknesses
Protag (hero) will develop a psychological profile and begin to think like antag.
Why’d s/he commit crime? What’s to gain?
Draw from antag. Background or an event affecting his/her life e.g. pattern of abuse or psychological disability – violent crimes
e.g. homeless or poor man steals for survival or to live life more comfortably.
e.g.woman catches husband in an affair (unfaithful) and is hurt enough to plan his and/or his lover’s
demise
MO – modus operandi (check when term was lst used)
Modus operandi (often used in the abbreviated form MO) is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation." The plural is modi operandi ("modes of operation"). It is used in police work to describe a criminal's characteristic patterns and style of work.
The term is also commonly used in English in a non-criminal sense to describe someone's habits or manner of working, the method of operating or functioning.
A criminal's MO may also be used in offender profiling, where it can also be used to find clues to the perpetrator's psychology.
The method of operation or MO is sometimes confused with a criminal's "signature". While a criminal's MO may change over time, his or her signature will usually stay the same.
In the 19th century, forensic pathologists began using pictures and words to show how various conditions appear in the cadaver, and to teach students and colleagues new methods of analysis. Line drawings, half-tone photography, and chromolithography, which could render coloration, texture, and subtle shading, became increasingly common as improvements in print technology made detailed illustrations cheaper to produce.
The method the antag. Uses to murder etc./commit the crime.
Commit crimes regularly = a repetitive pattern, esp. in violent crimes. (Perhaps even unbeknownst to the antag.) e.g. always leaves something at the scene (a rose, a note). Crime Scene organized a certain way. Place similar or same. Targets only women, or men, etc. Ethnic background. A thief who only steals a certain thing or a certain business type.
MO makes the crimes unique to your antag. And conveys something about him/her.
Envision the crime as it happens and already know how your hero solves it. Start story eith with crime or after when detectives investigate. Know what clues will be found and what supporting characters witnessed the crime.
Investigator(s) develop initial list of potential suspects: people with a motive, e.g. a grudge against victim or suspects previously convicted of a similar crime (MO).
This list is important – add twists and cast doubts to increase suspense.
It helps to know what the ending is before you start. As a matter of fact, in mysteries or crime scene investigations, it is helpful to work at your story backwards. Write your solution first, then pepper the clues throughout the story.
You must get the reader to willingly suspend his disbelief.
A cold room or too hot?
A large part of what passes for writing in business, school, and government is writing to impress rather than to communicate. Bureaucratic vagueness and making things pompous serve to hide what you don’t know. Deliberate obscurity and using big words impress the boss or teacher with how much you know.
The Noble Failure is the artiste who struggles endlessly and produces a work so dense, sophisticated and brilliant that no one can understand it. Critics and public alike shun it. The artiste knows it is brilliant. They are all fools. In actuality, the artiste has cranked out a mass of technically inadequate, self indulgent incoherent drivel, and then hides behind the Noble Failure myth rather than accepting the failure of his or her own work. Writing crap makes you look stupid. Being a misunderstood artiste makes you look cool.
In passive voice, nothing is ever anyone’s fault. People do not do things. Things happen to people. (Passive) The food was eaten. (active) Tom ate the food.
Banalities were exchanged = passive voice
Active voice – they exchanged banalities.
Allow your character to act or react AFTER everyone reading the book (or seeing the movie) already would have. Develop a rage in the audience. Get them to the point where they say, “You’ve got to do something about this.” If you show violence, show also the consequences of your actions. You must believe the audience would have acted or reacted sooner than your lead character. Get them frustrated and angry because your lead just sits there and takes it. Then he acts or reacts, and when he does, it is lethal and justified!
Words to google images
1869 Black Friday panic on Wall Street
19th century
2001 Patriot Act
2002 Border Security Act
2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
3-d
A dark-haired beauty
A dashing man
A nosegay
A time steeped in dignity and refinement
Abandoned
Absconded
Abysmal
Abyss
Academy Awards
Actress
Act
Actor
Acuity
Acumen
Adolph Korn, kidnapped by Comanche
Adroit
Advice on love and courting
Affinity
Aficionado
agile
Albert Bierstadt
Alienation
Allan Pinkerton
All-star cast
Altruistic
An extensive repertoire
Anger
Animusic.com
Annoyances
Anticlimactic
Antiquated
antique
Antiquity
Antler handle, knife, cane, whatever?
Anxiety
Arcane aspects
Art deco
art nouveau Victorian era
Arts and crafts movement
assault
Assuage
Assures the confidentiality of your literary preferences
Astound
attacker
Attenuation
attitude
Ax murderer
B movie actor
Babble
Bad attitude
bad guys
Balance of power
bandit
Barnboard
battery
Battle tactics
beach readings
Begotten
Beguiling
behavior
Behind-the-scenes
beliefs
Bellwether
Bemused
benchmark
Bitterness
Blackmarket
Bling
Blogs
Boarding house
Borealist
Boris Vallejo
Box-office draw
Breach
Breathtaking
bridge building
Brocade
Brothel
Cabinet maker
Calligraphic art and elegant penmanship
Cameo
Camp classic
Capsule review
Career decline
Carnauba wax
Cartouche
Casanova
Cast member
Cavern
Center stage
Charmed
Charming
Cherished
Cherished
Child of love or love child
Chintz
Chromium
CIA studies
Cinema
Circle of life
Clerk’s bell
Climbing bear
Cocksure
collaborate with the enemy
Confidante
Connections
Connections by James burke
conscription
Corbis
Corbis
Co-star
Counterfeit
Cowbell
cowboy
cowgirl
Crackpot
craigslist
criminal
Criminal mastermind
Crimson and scarlet
Crossfire
Crossroads
crucial
Cryptology
Culprit
culturally diverse
Curious advice and unusual manners, morals, and medicines
Cutting edge
Dainty
Dance hall girls
Dangles
Dazzling
Deadman (in carpentry)
debuted
Deception
Decipher fine print
Defensiveness
Demure
Depression
Derelict
Devious
dilemma
Diminutive
Director
Discerning
Discontent
Disparate
Dispensationalism
Docudrama
Dollhouse
Donner Party (Dinner Party)
Dr. Price’s
Drawing
Dressmaker
drop dead
Dubious
early crime
early medicine
Early vintage
ebay
Edison’s inventions
Edward Curtis
Edward Sheriff Curtis
Edwardian
Edwardian style
Egregious
Eloquent
Email
Embellished
Embroidered velvet cushion
Embroidery
emerging
Emote
Emotion
Empire design
Ensemble cast
Entertainer
Entertainer
Entertainment media
Entrenched
Entrepreneur – part owner in restaurant(s)
Enunciate
Eponymous
Erudite
Ethics
Euphemism
Evil genius
Evocative
Excoriated
Excoriating
Exegesis
Explorer
Famous deathbed remarks
FBI studies
Feature film
Feature film
feelings
Feminine
Fiasco
Film noir
Film star
Filmmaker
Finery
Flaccid
Flirtatious
Folk toys
Folklore
Footage
Foreign film
Forlorn
Formal soiree and gala
Former wives
Fractal
Frederic Remington
free range
Freshly recalled dreams
Frontier
Gainsborough oil portraits
gallows dance
garrulous
gaslight
George Catlin
Glamorous
gold rush
good guys
google apps
google earth maps
Google free downloads – ajax tools for image design
Google Horatio Alger
Google it
Google’s image search
Gothic architecture
Graciously
Grateful
Gray market
Grovel
Guilty
gullible
Gutsy
Harold Lloyd 3-D
Heartthrob
Heavy-handed
Heirloom
Hematite
Hide in plain sight
Hitchhiker
Hollywood
homestead
Hot flashes
How to draw
How to play popular piano
How to use psp 8/9
Howdunit, book of poisons
Hypnosis
Hypocrisy
Illegal sources
imposter
incoherent
Indispensable
Infatuation with
ingenious
Ingratitude
Innermost reflections
innovation
Innuendo
insider
Inspirations and intentions
Inspire a sign
Instantiation
Insufficient data
Intense
Interview
Intimacy
intruder
Investments
Iridescence
Irondog?
Itch not
Jade
Jay Gould, robber baron
Jealousy
Jesse Stone
Joseph Campbell
Joseph Smith and Brigham Young
journey
Jupiterimages
Kludgy
Languish
Languor
Laptop
Lathered
Lavished
Legatee
Legend
Legendary
Leisurely
limelight
Limoges
little known facts about the rat
live journal account
Long branch
Longhorn
Loyalty
Lucid
Luxuriating
Mail
Makeover
Malaise
Mary Seacole
Masculine
Master of the genre
Mathew Brady
Maverick
Maypole
Medicinal smells
Mélange
Memorable actor
Memory
mentos and diet coke
Mercurial
Merlot
Meteoric career
Miasma
Hottentot Venus 1810, Saartjie Baartman
miniscule
Mission style
mission-critical applications
mnemonics
model agency
Moniker
Motif
Movie buff
Movie role
Moviemaking
Movies
Musical
Mysterious
Narration
Nefarious purposes
Nikola Tesla
notorious
Obfuscate
Obfuscation incident
Obligations
Oblique
Obsession
Obsession
Obstacle
Oddity
Off-screen
ogle
Old west
Old wives’ tales
On the rise
On-screen
Opalescent
open range
opinionated
Opulent
Oriental rugs/carpet
Ornate
orphan trains 1854 – 1929 and Charles Loring Brace
Oscar-nominated
Ostracize
Outflanked
Outmaneuvered
Outsmarted
Paladin
Palatial
Passion
passionate argument
Pathway
Patina
Pay bills over internet
Performance
Performance anxiety
Performer
Pioneer
Pirogue
Pistol
Pitfall
Pivotal role
Playwright
Pragmatic vs. idealism
Prayer beads
Predestinated
Prescient
Primping
Producer
Production company
Promo material
Promotional
Pseudopigrapha
Quaint
Quarreling lovers
Radiation
Radio
Rag rugs
Rail dining car
range war
ranger
Rapid fire
raucous
Recalcitrant
Records
red Ferrari
Red light district
Refuge
Relicate
Remedies
repertoire
Resentment
residuum
Revolver
Rewriting
Rio Nuevo
Rising star
Riya – website photos – can find similar people who look like others or yourself
Rocking horse
Rococo
rogue
romance stories
Romantically peaceful
rowdy
Russ Meyer
ruthless
Safekeeping
Salmagundi
Saltbox house
Scapegoat
Scavenger
Scenario
Scene
screen cap(ture)
Screen test
Screening
Screenplay
Screenwriter
Script
Seamstress
second life
Second sight
Semantics
settler
Shaman
Shekhina, by Leonard Nimoy
Shoot
Shooting
Shootout
Shorts
Shrewd
Silversmith
Skeleton in the wall
Sleazebag
Sleeper
Sleuth
Smug
Sociopath
sojourn
sophisticated
Spellbound
Spencerian script
Spirit
episode
Spock search service
Square-jawed
stamina
Stardom
Stare
Starlet
Stock photos Getty
Stolen
Storyline
Stove polish
Studio
studio
subtle
Sumptuous
Superstitious
Supple, buttery soft kidskin gloves
Surreptitiously
Swamped
take-no-prisoners approach
Talent
Tawdry
Television
Tenderly
The battle of the crater
The feminine bond
The making of . . .
The payoff
The production line
The voice of authority
Thespian
Thomas Moran
threat
Timeless
Tivit
Toile
Topography
Total immersion
Touchiness
Trace evidence
Transitional
Tribute
trigger
Trompe l’oeil
trust no one
Tulle
Ula knife
Union cavalry
Unpretentious
unselfconscious
Valentino
Verbiage
Verdigris
Victorian
Victorian architecture
Victorian beauty
Victorian gingerbread
Vigilant
Vignette
Voice mail
Voile
Voyeurism
wants a bigger slice of the pie
Water wars
Western
Wild west
Wireless
witty
Woodcrest
Wool rugs
Writing a novel
Yahoo’s Flickr
Yhwh or Yahweh
Zimbra
19th century
2001 Patriot Act
2002 Border Security Act
2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
3-d
A dark-haired beauty
A dashing man
A nosegay
A time steeped in dignity and refinement
Abandoned
Absconded
Abysmal
Abyss
Academy Awards
Actress
Act
Actor
Acuity
Acumen
Adolph Korn, kidnapped by Comanche
Adroit
Advice on love and courting
Affinity
Aficionado
agile
Albert Bierstadt
Alienation
Allan Pinkerton
All-star cast
Altruistic
An extensive repertoire
Anger
Animusic.com
Annoyances
Anticlimactic
Antiquated
antique
Antiquity
Antler handle, knife, cane, whatever?
Anxiety
Arcane aspects
Art deco
art nouveau Victorian era
Arts and crafts movement
assault
Assuage
Assures the confidentiality of your literary preferences
Astound
attacker
Attenuation
attitude
Ax murderer
B movie actor
Babble
Bad attitude
bad guys
Balance of power
bandit
Barnboard
battery
Battle tactics
beach readings
Begotten
Beguiling
behavior
Behind-the-scenes
beliefs
Bellwether
Bemused
benchmark
Bitterness
Blackmarket
Bling
Blogs
Boarding house
Borealist
Boris Vallejo
Box-office draw
Breach
Breathtaking
bridge building
Brocade
Brothel
Cabinet maker
Calligraphic art and elegant penmanship
Cameo
Camp classic
Capsule review
Career decline
Carnauba wax
Cartouche
Casanova
Cast member
Cavern
Center stage
Charmed
Charming
Cherished
Cherished
Child of love or love child
Chintz
Chromium
CIA studies
Cinema
Circle of life
Clerk’s bell
Climbing bear
Cocksure
collaborate with the enemy
Confidante
Connections
Connections by James burke
conscription
Corbis
Corbis
Co-star
Counterfeit
Cowbell
cowboy
cowgirl
Crackpot
craigslist
criminal
Criminal mastermind
Crimson and scarlet
Crossfire
Crossroads
crucial
Cryptology
Culprit
culturally diverse
Curious advice and unusual manners, morals, and medicines
Cutting edge
Dainty
Dance hall girls
Dangles
Dazzling
Deadman (in carpentry)
debuted
Deception
Decipher fine print
Defensiveness
Demure
Depression
Derelict
Devious
dilemma
Diminutive
Director
Discerning
Discontent
Disparate
Dispensationalism
Docudrama
Dollhouse
Donner Party (Dinner Party)
Dr. Price’s
Drawing
Dressmaker
drop dead
Dubious
early crime
early medicine
Early vintage
ebay
Edison’s inventions
Edward Curtis
Edward Sheriff Curtis
Edwardian
Edwardian style
Egregious
Eloquent
Embellished
Embroidered velvet cushion
Embroidery
emerging
Emote
Emotion
Empire design
Ensemble cast
Entertainer
Entertainer
Entertainment media
Entrenched
Entrepreneur – part owner in restaurant(s)
Enunciate
Eponymous
Erudite
Ethics
Euphemism
Evil genius
Evocative
Excoriated
Excoriating
Exegesis
Explorer
Famous deathbed remarks
FBI studies
Feature film
Feature film
feelings
Feminine
Fiasco
Film noir
Film star
Filmmaker
Finery
Flaccid
Flirtatious
Folk toys
Folklore
Footage
Foreign film
Forlorn
Formal soiree and gala
Former wives
Fractal
Frederic Remington
free range
Freshly recalled dreams
Frontier
Gainsborough oil portraits
gallows dance
garrulous
gaslight
George Catlin
Glamorous
gold rush
good guys
google apps
google earth maps
Google free downloads – ajax tools for image design
Google Horatio Alger
Google it
Google’s image search
Gothic architecture
Graciously
Grateful
Gray market
Grovel
Guilty
gullible
Gutsy
Harold Lloyd 3-D
Heartthrob
Heavy-handed
Heirloom
Hematite
Hide in plain sight
Hitchhiker
Hollywood
homestead
Hot flashes
How to draw
How to play popular piano
How to use psp 8/9
Howdunit, book of poisons
Hypnosis
Hypocrisy
Illegal sources
imposter
incoherent
Indispensable
Infatuation with
ingenious
Ingratitude
Innermost reflections
innovation
Innuendo
insider
Inspirations and intentions
Inspire a sign
Instantiation
Insufficient data
Intense
Interview
Intimacy
intruder
Investments
Iridescence
Irondog?
Itch not
Jade
Jay Gould, robber baron
Jealousy
Jesse Stone
Joseph Campbell
Joseph Smith and Brigham Young
journey
Jupiterimages
Kludgy
Languish
Languor
Laptop
Lathered
Lavished
Legatee
Legend
Legendary
Leisurely
limelight
Limoges
little known facts about the rat
live journal account
Long branch
Longhorn
Loyalty
Lucid
Luxuriating
Makeover
Malaise
Mary Seacole
Masculine
Master of the genre
Mathew Brady
Maverick
Maypole
Medicinal smells
Mélange
Memorable actor
Memory
mentos and diet coke
Mercurial
Merlot
Meteoric career
Miasma
Hottentot Venus 1810, Saartjie Baartman
miniscule
Mission style
mission-critical applications
mnemonics
model agency
Moniker
Motif
Movie buff
Movie role
Moviemaking
Movies
Musical
Mysterious
Narration
Nefarious purposes
Nikola Tesla
notorious
Obfuscate
Obfuscation incident
Obligations
Oblique
Obsession
Obsession
Obstacle
Oddity
Off-screen
ogle
Old west
Old wives’ tales
On the rise
On-screen
Opalescent
open range
opinionated
Opulent
Oriental rugs/carpet
Ornate
orphan trains 1854 – 1929 and Charles Loring Brace
Oscar-nominated
Ostracize
Outflanked
Outmaneuvered
Outsmarted
Paladin
Palatial
Passion
passionate argument
Pathway
Patina
Pay bills over internet
Performance
Performance anxiety
Performer
Pioneer
Pirogue
Pistol
Pitfall
Pivotal role
Playwright
Pragmatic vs. idealism
Prayer beads
Predestinated
Prescient
Primping
Producer
Production company
Promo material
Promotional
Pseudopigrapha
Quaint
Quarreling lovers
Radiation
Radio
Rag rugs
Rail dining car
range war
ranger
Rapid fire
raucous
Recalcitrant
Records
red Ferrari
Red light district
Refuge
Relicate
Remedies
repertoire
Resentment
residuum
Revolver
Rewriting
Rio Nuevo
Rising star
Riya – website photos – can find similar people who look like others or yourself
Rocking horse
Rococo
rogue
romance stories
Romantically peaceful
rowdy
Russ Meyer
ruthless
Safekeeping
Salmagundi
Saltbox house
Scapegoat
Scavenger
Scenario
Scene
screen cap(ture)
Screen test
Screening
Screenplay
Screenwriter
Script
Seamstress
second life
Second sight
Semantics
settler
Shaman
Shekhina, by Leonard Nimoy
Shoot
Shooting
Shootout
Shorts
Shrewd
Silversmith
Skeleton in the wall
Sleazebag
Sleeper
Sleuth
Smug
Sociopath
sojourn
sophisticated
Spellbound
Spencerian script
Spirit
episode
Spock search service
Square-jawed
stamina
Stardom
Stare
Starlet
Stock photos Getty
Stolen
Storyline
Stove polish
Studio
studio
subtle
Sumptuous
Superstitious
Supple, buttery soft kidskin gloves
Surreptitiously
Swamped
take-no-prisoners approach
Talent
Tawdry
Television
Tenderly
The battle of the crater
The feminine bond
The making of . . .
The payoff
The production line
The voice of authority
Thespian
Thomas Moran
threat
Timeless
Tivit
Toile
Topography
Total immersion
Touchiness
Trace evidence
Transitional
Tribute
trigger
Trompe l’oeil
trust no one
Tulle
Ula knife
Union cavalry
Unpretentious
unselfconscious
Valentino
Verbiage
Verdigris
Victorian
Victorian architecture
Victorian beauty
Victorian gingerbread
Vigilant
Vignette
Voice mail
Voile
Voyeurism
wants a bigger slice of the pie
Water wars
Western
Wild west
Wireless
witty
Woodcrest
Wool rugs
Writing a novel
Yahoo’s Flickr
Yhwh or Yahweh
Zimbra
Bemoaning that there are no "real men" in movies any longer
There are no real men in movies any more
With manly actors like Robert Mitchum replaced by wet, chinless representations of masculinity, how am I supposed to cast my new noir film?
By Richard Jobson
May 14, 2007 5:00 PM
I'm looking to cast a movie with men, but can't help wondering: whatever happened to the new Robert Mitchum? Where is he? Has anyone seen a modern day version of James Coburn, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin or William Holden on the big screen in recent years? No, you haven't and you're not about to.
Forget it, they don't exist. They're extinct, beaten into submission by the wet, limp, chinless world of modern cinema. Mitchum, a hobo during the Great Depression, a circus boxer, beach bum and ex-con, walked on to the screen and brought with it a fresh injection of masculinity. He was shamelessly a man - cool, slippery, physical and sexual. He walked and talked like the world was his enemy and his next cigarette was his last act before he did something bad, something very bad. This was a real man who could start a fight in an empty room and suck the vapour from the bottom of a whisky glass. He could look an audience in the eye and melt them into submission - sex for women, power for men. This was a male icon who floated on to the screen with his bent nose, greased hair and blue-collar irreverence, raised an eyebrow, pulled a gun, slipped a knife and told you that trouble had just arrived in town. Out of the Past, The Night of the Hunter and Cape Fear capped a restless, itinerant career that was never short of controversy. He was a punk who spat in the face of Hollywood's establishment and paid the price, but at least he never faked it. He was a man.
In my new movie project, The New Town Killers, two private bankers hunt kids from Edinburgh housing estates at night for kicks. This is nihilistic noir dealing with something important to me - social invisibility, a world society has consciously turned its back on. The bankers are men, they like being men, they like the ingredients of power, the religion of money, their reputation and physical beauty. They're vain, confident, successful and, scariest of all, intelligent. I'm looking to cast two men in those roles: I want Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. I want Mitchum and Marvin. What I don't want is wimpy, feline British actors who have spent too much time reading the wrong books, working in the theatre, listening to Radio 4 and treating the Guardian as a daily life lesson. "Where are the men?" I ask my casting person and the phone goes quiet as she thinks it through. The names eventually come at me: dumb, mockney dimwits who haven't got a clue. No thanks. My men will not pout. This is a non-pouting movie.
I feel I am doomed. "This is a project that lies somewhere between Rope and American Psycho with a smattering of Funny Games," I tell an actor as we sit and drink mint fucking tea. "Those films were violent," he says. "Violence is bad." Of course violence is bad, that's the point. This is a dark double act and a desperate attempt to make something visceral and masculine in a culture that doesn't understand or want to understand what that means.
"The greatest enemy of man is man," said Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy. Profound, true and never more accurate than now. It depresses me that the death of the male man has come about in cinematic terms because of a proliferation of muscle movies in the 1980s and early 1990s. They were silly, brute, male films that were perfect reflections of the cheap narcissism of that period. Our response has been to study men on film through a derisory set of rules. British films essentially bypass action and look for drama through language. This is no place for a man: have you forgotten men don't talk? Men react and project, men are a complex layer of confusion and conflict, they're constantly at war, their soundtrack is a stormy feedback loop from morning to night. I lament the passing of my mythic man and look at my script and the various options left open to me and think maybe I'll change the setting and shoot it in the far east, maybe Hong Kong or Tokyo, where cinematic men have yet to be
With manly actors like Robert Mitchum replaced by wet, chinless representations of masculinity, how am I supposed to cast my new noir film?
By Richard Jobson
May 14, 2007 5:00 PM
I'm looking to cast a movie with men, but can't help wondering: whatever happened to the new Robert Mitchum? Where is he? Has anyone seen a modern day version of James Coburn, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin or William Holden on the big screen in recent years? No, you haven't and you're not about to.
Forget it, they don't exist. They're extinct, beaten into submission by the wet, limp, chinless world of modern cinema. Mitchum, a hobo during the Great Depression, a circus boxer, beach bum and ex-con, walked on to the screen and brought with it a fresh injection of masculinity. He was shamelessly a man - cool, slippery, physical and sexual. He walked and talked like the world was his enemy and his next cigarette was his last act before he did something bad, something very bad. This was a real man who could start a fight in an empty room and suck the vapour from the bottom of a whisky glass. He could look an audience in the eye and melt them into submission - sex for women, power for men. This was a male icon who floated on to the screen with his bent nose, greased hair and blue-collar irreverence, raised an eyebrow, pulled a gun, slipped a knife and told you that trouble had just arrived in town. Out of the Past, The Night of the Hunter and Cape Fear capped a restless, itinerant career that was never short of controversy. He was a punk who spat in the face of Hollywood's establishment and paid the price, but at least he never faked it. He was a man.
In my new movie project, The New Town Killers, two private bankers hunt kids from Edinburgh housing estates at night for kicks. This is nihilistic noir dealing with something important to me - social invisibility, a world society has consciously turned its back on. The bankers are men, they like being men, they like the ingredients of power, the religion of money, their reputation and physical beauty. They're vain, confident, successful and, scariest of all, intelligent. I'm looking to cast two men in those roles: I want Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. I want Mitchum and Marvin. What I don't want is wimpy, feline British actors who have spent too much time reading the wrong books, working in the theatre, listening to Radio 4 and treating the Guardian as a daily life lesson. "Where are the men?" I ask my casting person and the phone goes quiet as she thinks it through. The names eventually come at me: dumb, mockney dimwits who haven't got a clue. No thanks. My men will not pout. This is a non-pouting movie.
I feel I am doomed. "This is a project that lies somewhere between Rope and American Psycho with a smattering of Funny Games," I tell an actor as we sit and drink mint fucking tea. "Those films were violent," he says. "Violence is bad." Of course violence is bad, that's the point. This is a dark double act and a desperate attempt to make something visceral and masculine in a culture that doesn't understand or want to understand what that means.
"The greatest enemy of man is man," said Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy. Profound, true and never more accurate than now. It depresses me that the death of the male man has come about in cinematic terms because of a proliferation of muscle movies in the 1980s and early 1990s. They were silly, brute, male films that were perfect reflections of the cheap narcissism of that period. Our response has been to study men on film through a derisory set of rules. British films essentially bypass action and look for drama through language. This is no place for a man: have you forgotten men don't talk? Men react and project, men are a complex layer of confusion and conflict, they're constantly at war, their soundtrack is a stormy feedback loop from morning to night. I lament the passing of my mythic man and look at my script and the various options left open to me and think maybe I'll change the setting and shoot it in the far east, maybe Hong Kong or Tokyo, where cinematic men have yet to be
The question is how, not why
Are we alone?
Since God is the creator of all things, shouldn't the larger question be: How did God create the universe and why?
The why is answered in Scripture: so that He could love us and have fellowship with us and that we would glorify Him.
So that leaves the "how".
I wonder if our finite, earthly minds will ever answer this one.
Since God is the creator of all things, shouldn't the larger question be: How did God create the universe and why?
The why is answered in Scripture: so that He could love us and have fellowship with us and that we would glorify Him.
So that leaves the "how".
I wonder if our finite, earthly minds will ever answer this one.
Bad Career Advice
"You are too old to go back to school."
"They don't care about what you look like. They’re only interested in what you can do."
"Don't toot your own horn."
"Don't worry about it. Nobody ever checks references."
"What have you got to worry about? They won't hold that against you. That was twenty years ago!"
"This place would shut down without you."
“Not telling the whole truth isn’t the same as lying.”
"They don't care about what you look like. They’re only interested in what you can do."
"Don't toot your own horn."
"Don't worry about it. Nobody ever checks references."
"What have you got to worry about? They won't hold that against you. That was twenty years ago!"
"This place would shut down without you."
“Not telling the whole truth isn’t the same as lying.”
Is your problem the solution to your problem?
I credit Michael Wade for these intriguing thoughts:
Are you failing to resolve a problem because the problem also serves as a solution?
Most of us are familiar with solutions that become problems - the infamous cure that is worse than the disease - but we may be less aware of times when the problem is the solution.Some examples:The person who micromanages (a problem) in order to prevent mistakes (a solution).
The person who overeats (a problem) in order to avoid romantic entanglements (a solution).
The person who attacks the motives of others (a problem) in order to deflect attention from his own motives (a solution).
The person who makes rash decisions (a problem) in order to hide her analytical weaknesses (a solution).
The person who pesters the staff with worthless assignments (a problem) in order to create the impression that things are getting done (a solution).
The person who repeatedly fumbles promotion interviews (a problem) out of fear that more responsibility will bring impossible challenges (a solution).
If a problem is persistent, it makes sense to consider what is gained by the existence of the problem. Many problems are not unmitigated negatives; they also carry benefits. The benefits may be the real reason why the problem seemingly defies solution.
In the back of the mind, the problem may be a solution.
posted by Michael Wade @ 5:29 AM 0 comments links to this
Are you failing to resolve a problem because the problem also serves as a solution?
Most of us are familiar with solutions that become problems - the infamous cure that is worse than the disease - but we may be less aware of times when the problem is the solution.Some examples:The person who micromanages (a problem) in order to prevent mistakes (a solution).
The person who overeats (a problem) in order to avoid romantic entanglements (a solution).
The person who attacks the motives of others (a problem) in order to deflect attention from his own motives (a solution).
The person who makes rash decisions (a problem) in order to hide her analytical weaknesses (a solution).
The person who pesters the staff with worthless assignments (a problem) in order to create the impression that things are getting done (a solution).
The person who repeatedly fumbles promotion interviews (a problem) out of fear that more responsibility will bring impossible challenges (a solution).
If a problem is persistent, it makes sense to consider what is gained by the existence of the problem. Many problems are not unmitigated negatives; they also carry benefits. The benefits may be the real reason why the problem seemingly defies solution.
In the back of the mind, the problem may be a solution.
posted by Michael Wade @ 5:29 AM 0 comments links to this
Random Selections
Random thoughts from someone else
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Here is some funny stuff I found:
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, "Well, that's not going to happen."
Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to.
According to a recent survey, men say the first thing they notice about a woman is their eyes, and women say the first thing they notice about men is they're a bunch of liars.
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
Have you noticed that a slight tax increase costs you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
You read about all these terrorists--most of them came here legally, but they hung around on these expired visas, some for as long as 10-15 years. Now, compare that to Blockbuster: you're two days late with a video and those people are all over you. Let's put Blockbuster in charge of immigration.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Here is some funny stuff I found:
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, "Well, that's not going to happen."
Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to.
According to a recent survey, men say the first thing they notice about a woman is their eyes, and women say the first thing they notice about men is they're a bunch of liars.
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
Have you noticed that a slight tax increase costs you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
You read about all these terrorists--most of them came here legally, but they hung around on these expired visas, some for as long as 10-15 years. Now, compare that to Blockbuster: you're two days late with a video and those people are all over you. Let's put Blockbuster in charge of immigration.
Last Words of Famous Authors by Lyle Larsen
Mr. Larson has collected a remarkable selection of deathbed quotations.
Last Words of Famous Authors
Lyle Larsen
http://homepage.smc.edu/larsen_lyle/default.htm
Walt Whitman observed that a person's last words are not samples of the best, involving vitality at its full, and perfect control, but "they are valuable beyond measure to confirm and endorse the varied train, facts, theories and faith of the whole preceding life."
Plato could get off a good thing when he had to. He confirmed and endorsed his preceding life by remarking before he died, "I thank the guiding providence and fortune of my life: first that I was born a man and a Greek, not a barbarian nor a brute; and next, that I happened to live in the age of Socrates."
The grammarian Dominique Bouhours showed the tenor of his life in his concluding remarks. He said, "I am about to--or I am going to--die. Either expression is used."
Goethe's last words seem well-suited to close the life of an old "sturm und drang" romantic. He thundered, "More light!"
Lord Byron's last words, on the other hand, seem at first rather gentle for a man whose life had been so turbulent. But then Byron had a gentle side to his nature. Dying of a fever in Greece, where he had gone to champion Greek independence, he said simply, "Now I shall go to sleep."
Lady Mary Wortley Montague's appetite for life was reflected in her final words. Perhaps the most learned woman of her day, and one of the most elegant letter writers of 18th century England, she said, "It has all been most interesting."
Emily Dickinson, who found poetry in the most common occurrences, said just before dying, "Let us go in; the fog is rising."
Thomas Carlyle, the irascible Scottish historian, remarked, "So this is Death--well--"
Henrik Ibsen, who could be plenty cantankerous when he wanted to be, made his last remark to a nurse who said he seemed to be improving: "On the contrary!"
George Bernard Shaw, the plain-spoken playwright who lived to be 94, said to his nurse before dying, "Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die."
Henry David Thoreau's last words may not have been his best, but they summed up much that was important in his life. He said, "Moose. Indian."
Prior to that, Thoreau was asked if he had made his peace with God. He replied, "I didn't know we had quarreled."
Edgar Allan Poe died at age 40 in a hospital room in Baltimore. He had been found several days earlier wandering the streets in a state of delirium. Brought to the hospital, he alternated between periods of calm and episodes of violence when nurses were forced to hold him down in bed. After one of these violent outbursts, he fell back exhausted, lay quiet for a short time, said, "Lord help my poor soul," and expired.
Dylan Thomas had a passion for drink, women, and poetry (not necessarily in that order). The Welsh poet died on a characteristic note, saying, "I've had 18 straight whiskies . . . I think that's the record."
In the year 1900, Oscar Wilde, perhaps the world's greatest wit, remarked on his deathbed, "Either this wallpaper goes or I do."
Wilde also said, "I am dying as I have lived, beyond my means." These were not his final words--only his final witticisms--for he grew unable to speak several days prior to his death, an event that scholars will observe next year on its centenary.
Some authors have been surprised by death, or have mistimed its arrival, and so were not fully prepared with those final words that Whitman said confirmed and endorsed their preceding lives.
The English writer Saki, pen name of H. H. Munro, was killed suddenly in the First World War by a sniper's bullet just after saying, "Put that bloody cigarette out."
Thomas Macaulay was unprepared. The last thing anyone heard him say was, "I shall retire early; I am very tired."
Washington Irving said just before he died, "Well, I must arrange my pillows for another weary night! When will this end?" Sooner than he expected apparently.
Mark Twain once wrote that a man of eminence should not delay preparing his final utterance. He should write his last words down on a slip of paper and get the advice of his friends on them. He should never leave such an important matter to the last minute and trust to inspiration "to enable him to say something smart with his latest gasp and launch him into eternity with grandeur. No--a man is apt to be too much fagged and exhausted, both in body and mind, at such a time, to be reliable."
"There is hardly a case on record," Twain continued, "where a man came to his last moment unprepared and said a good thing--hardly a case where a man trusted to that last moment and did not make a solemn botch of it and go out of the world feeling absurd."
Mark Twain, by the way, uttered his last words on April 21, 1910. They were addressed to his daughter Clara, who stood by his bed. "Good-by," he said to her, taking her hand. He added faintly, "If we meet . . ." He looked at her a short time longer, then sank into a doze, and died several hours later.
http://homepage.smc.edu/larsen_lyle/default.htm
Last Words of Famous Authors
Lyle Larsen
http://homepage.smc.edu/larsen_lyle/default.htm
Walt Whitman observed that a person's last words are not samples of the best, involving vitality at its full, and perfect control, but "they are valuable beyond measure to confirm and endorse the varied train, facts, theories and faith of the whole preceding life."
Plato could get off a good thing when he had to. He confirmed and endorsed his preceding life by remarking before he died, "I thank the guiding providence and fortune of my life: first that I was born a man and a Greek, not a barbarian nor a brute; and next, that I happened to live in the age of Socrates."
The grammarian Dominique Bouhours showed the tenor of his life in his concluding remarks. He said, "I am about to--or I am going to--die. Either expression is used."
Goethe's last words seem well-suited to close the life of an old "sturm und drang" romantic. He thundered, "More light!"
Lord Byron's last words, on the other hand, seem at first rather gentle for a man whose life had been so turbulent. But then Byron had a gentle side to his nature. Dying of a fever in Greece, where he had gone to champion Greek independence, he said simply, "Now I shall go to sleep."
Lady Mary Wortley Montague's appetite for life was reflected in her final words. Perhaps the most learned woman of her day, and one of the most elegant letter writers of 18th century England, she said, "It has all been most interesting."
Emily Dickinson, who found poetry in the most common occurrences, said just before dying, "Let us go in; the fog is rising."
Thomas Carlyle, the irascible Scottish historian, remarked, "So this is Death--well--"
Henrik Ibsen, who could be plenty cantankerous when he wanted to be, made his last remark to a nurse who said he seemed to be improving: "On the contrary!"
George Bernard Shaw, the plain-spoken playwright who lived to be 94, said to his nurse before dying, "Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die."
Henry David Thoreau's last words may not have been his best, but they summed up much that was important in his life. He said, "Moose. Indian."
Prior to that, Thoreau was asked if he had made his peace with God. He replied, "I didn't know we had quarreled."
Edgar Allan Poe died at age 40 in a hospital room in Baltimore. He had been found several days earlier wandering the streets in a state of delirium. Brought to the hospital, he alternated between periods of calm and episodes of violence when nurses were forced to hold him down in bed. After one of these violent outbursts, he fell back exhausted, lay quiet for a short time, said, "Lord help my poor soul," and expired.
Dylan Thomas had a passion for drink, women, and poetry (not necessarily in that order). The Welsh poet died on a characteristic note, saying, "I've had 18 straight whiskies . . . I think that's the record."
In the year 1900, Oscar Wilde, perhaps the world's greatest wit, remarked on his deathbed, "Either this wallpaper goes or I do."
Wilde also said, "I am dying as I have lived, beyond my means." These were not his final words--only his final witticisms--for he grew unable to speak several days prior to his death, an event that scholars will observe next year on its centenary.
Some authors have been surprised by death, or have mistimed its arrival, and so were not fully prepared with those final words that Whitman said confirmed and endorsed their preceding lives.
The English writer Saki, pen name of H. H. Munro, was killed suddenly in the First World War by a sniper's bullet just after saying, "Put that bloody cigarette out."
Thomas Macaulay was unprepared. The last thing anyone heard him say was, "I shall retire early; I am very tired."
Washington Irving said just before he died, "Well, I must arrange my pillows for another weary night! When will this end?" Sooner than he expected apparently.
Mark Twain once wrote that a man of eminence should not delay preparing his final utterance. He should write his last words down on a slip of paper and get the advice of his friends on them. He should never leave such an important matter to the last minute and trust to inspiration "to enable him to say something smart with his latest gasp and launch him into eternity with grandeur. No--a man is apt to be too much fagged and exhausted, both in body and mind, at such a time, to be reliable."
"There is hardly a case on record," Twain continued, "where a man came to his last moment unprepared and said a good thing--hardly a case where a man trusted to that last moment and did not make a solemn botch of it and go out of the world feeling absurd."
Mark Twain, by the way, uttered his last words on April 21, 1910. They were addressed to his daughter Clara, who stood by his bed. "Good-by," he said to her, taking her hand. He added faintly, "If we meet . . ." He looked at her a short time longer, then sank into a doze, and died several hours later.
http://homepage.smc.edu/larsen_lyle/default.htm
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Some Quotes from (Probably) Famous People
Storytelling is no different from gossip -- we want to know what happens. The joke or story, and the way it's told, are important . . . but we want to know what happens. And the payoff should be unexpected and satisfying. And, more importantly for the writer, one should know that punch line as one is writing.
The Western genre often employs a sense of mythic dimension.
fourth wall: The imaginary wall between the stage and the audience.
Star Wars Help Desk That Death Star didn't just run itself, ya know!
The first and most important thing of all, at least for writers today, is to strip language clean, to lay it bare down to the bone.
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.
Easy writing makes hard reading.
Ernest Hemingway
A perfectly healthy sentence is extremely rare.
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to think.
Henry David Thoreau
Every paragraph should be so clear and unambiguous, that the dullest fellow in the world may not be able to mistake it, nor obliged to read it twice in order to understand it.
Lord Chesterfield
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Rules may obviate faults, but can never confer beauties.
The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.
A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it.
Next to the crime of writing contrary to what a man thinks is that of writing without thinking.
Samuel Johnson
Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency . . . to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies.
William Faulkner
Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of a writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.
Lawrence Clark Powell
Only a person with a Best Seller mind can write Best Sellers.
Aldous Huxley
In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is.
Geoffrey Cottrell
Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
Gene Fowler
He who writes for fools finds an enormous audience.
The business of the novelist is not to chronicle great events but to make small ones interesting.
Schopenhauer
Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear.
Joubert
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire
Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it. Then you do it for a few friends. Finally you do it for money.
Molière
If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.
Don Marquis
How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?
E. M. Forster
There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
H. L. Mencken
Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.
Oscar Wilde
"If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative." - Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951
The present is the time that is perceived directly, not as a recollection (the past) or a speculation (the future).
“What we perceive as present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation.” — Alfred North Whitehead
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.-Albert Einstein
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.- Douglas Adams
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. -- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose. -- Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)
We express faith in all kinds of situations every single day. We believe we’ll get to work safely, or we’d never get in the car. We believe our love will last a lifetime, or we’d never get married. We believe our favorite chair will support our weight, or we’d never sit down. – Charles Stanley
Apraxia is the loss or impairment of the ability to execute complex coordinated movements. Inability to carryout purposeful movements in the absence of paralysis or paresis.
As meat is to the body, such is reading to the soul. To be at leisure without books is another Hell, & to be buried alive.
Robert Burton
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
Samuel Butler
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Bagehot
A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.
There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them.
Lichtenberg
A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Mark Twain
It takes the publishing industry so long to produce books it's no wonder so many are posthumous.
Teressa Skelton
They who are to be judges must also be performers.
Aristotle
There be some men are born only to suck out the poison of books.
Ben Jonson
Critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.
Sir Francis Bacon
A true critic hath one quality in common with a harlot, never to change his title or his nature.
Jonathan Swift
The world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.
Henry Fielding
I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices one so.
Sydney Smith
As soon
Seek roses in December--ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics.
Lord Byron
Critics! Appalled I ventured on the name.
Those cutthroat bandits in the paths of fame.
Robert Burns
For critics I care the five hundred thousandth part of the tythe of a half-farthing.
Charles Lamb
A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.
Gustave Flaubert
The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.
Mark Twain
Nature fits all her children with something to do.
He who would write and can't write, can surely review.
James Russell Lowell
A critic is a man created to praise greater men than himself, but he is never able to fine them.
Richard Le Gallienne
A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.
George Bernard Shaw
Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books involves constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feelings whatever.
George Orwell
One battle doesn't make a campaign, but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole war.
Ernest Hemingway
Time is the only critic without ambition.
John Steinbeck
"Eventually, everything connects."—Charles Eames
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky, and want, more than all the world, your return.- Mary Jean Irion
Dwight Eisenhower noted, "Plans aren't important. Planning is."
It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?- Henry David Thoreau
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.- John Wooden
When you have a number of disagreeable duties to perform always do the most disagreeable first.- Josiah Quincy
I've got all the money I'll ever need if I die by four o'clock.- Henny Youngman
Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.- Will Rogers
The Western genre often employs a sense of mythic dimension.
fourth wall: The imaginary wall between the stage and the audience.
Star Wars Help Desk That Death Star didn't just run itself, ya know!
The first and most important thing of all, at least for writers today, is to strip language clean, to lay it bare down to the bone.
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.
Easy writing makes hard reading.
Ernest Hemingway
A perfectly healthy sentence is extremely rare.
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to think.
Henry David Thoreau
Every paragraph should be so clear and unambiguous, that the dullest fellow in the world may not be able to mistake it, nor obliged to read it twice in order to understand it.
Lord Chesterfield
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Rules may obviate faults, but can never confer beauties.
The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.
A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it.
Next to the crime of writing contrary to what a man thinks is that of writing without thinking.
Samuel Johnson
Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency . . . to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies.
William Faulkner
Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of a writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.
Lawrence Clark Powell
Only a person with a Best Seller mind can write Best Sellers.
Aldous Huxley
In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is.
Geoffrey Cottrell
Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
Gene Fowler
He who writes for fools finds an enormous audience.
The business of the novelist is not to chronicle great events but to make small ones interesting.
Schopenhauer
Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear.
Joubert
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire
Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it. Then you do it for a few friends. Finally you do it for money.
Molière
If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.
Don Marquis
How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?
E. M. Forster
There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
H. L. Mencken
Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.
Oscar Wilde
"If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative." - Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951
The present is the time that is perceived directly, not as a recollection (the past) or a speculation (the future).
“What we perceive as present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation.” — Alfred North Whitehead
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.-Albert Einstein
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.- Douglas Adams
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. -- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose. -- Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)
We express faith in all kinds of situations every single day. We believe we’ll get to work safely, or we’d never get in the car. We believe our love will last a lifetime, or we’d never get married. We believe our favorite chair will support our weight, or we’d never sit down. – Charles Stanley
Apraxia is the loss or impairment of the ability to execute complex coordinated movements. Inability to carryout purposeful movements in the absence of paralysis or paresis.
As meat is to the body, such is reading to the soul. To be at leisure without books is another Hell, & to be buried alive.
Robert Burton
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
Samuel Butler
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Bagehot
A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.
There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them.
Lichtenberg
A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Mark Twain
It takes the publishing industry so long to produce books it's no wonder so many are posthumous.
Teressa Skelton
They who are to be judges must also be performers.
Aristotle
There be some men are born only to suck out the poison of books.
Ben Jonson
Critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.
Sir Francis Bacon
A true critic hath one quality in common with a harlot, never to change his title or his nature.
Jonathan Swift
The world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.
Henry Fielding
I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices one so.
Sydney Smith
As soon
Seek roses in December--ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics.
Lord Byron
Critics! Appalled I ventured on the name.
Those cutthroat bandits in the paths of fame.
Robert Burns
For critics I care the five hundred thousandth part of the tythe of a half-farthing.
Charles Lamb
A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.
Gustave Flaubert
The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.
Mark Twain
Nature fits all her children with something to do.
He who would write and can't write, can surely review.
James Russell Lowell
A critic is a man created to praise greater men than himself, but he is never able to fine them.
Richard Le Gallienne
A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.
George Bernard Shaw
Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books involves constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feelings whatever.
George Orwell
One battle doesn't make a campaign, but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole war.
Ernest Hemingway
Time is the only critic without ambition.
John Steinbeck
"Eventually, everything connects."—Charles Eames
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky, and want, more than all the world, your return.- Mary Jean Irion
Dwight Eisenhower noted, "Plans aren't important. Planning is."
It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?- Henry David Thoreau
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.- John Wooden
When you have a number of disagreeable duties to perform always do the most disagreeable first.- Josiah Quincy
I've got all the money I'll ever need if I die by four o'clock.- Henny Youngman
Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.- Will Rogers
Surely this site is "tongue in cheek" ? ? ?
This was so interesting when I accidentally stumbled upon it that I thought I would share it with you. I am not an advocate of suicide for solving your problems and do not recommend suicide. If you have suicidal thoughts, please confide in someone immediately -- such as a parent, sister, brother, teacher, coach, medical doctor or mental health professional. Please seek help from a professional.
Elements of an Effective Suicide
http://www.attractivecorpse.com/index.shtml
If life no longer has sweetness for you and you would like your final breath to be breathed in an air of beauty and purpose, Attractive Corpse can help.
A well-considered suicide is not a sloppy, repellent affair, but a piece of performance art, a tribute to what was and what could have been. The elements of an Attractive Corpse signature suicide include:
An appropriate location. The right place for a suicide is private, calm, and of meaning to the intended. There should be no significant chance of premature discovery and no need to rush.
A well-thought-out, hand-written suicide note, suitable for publication.
No trace of malice or vengeance. Make your suicide about you, not about those who brought you to this place. Don't leave this world with angry words on your lips.
A method that requires no unnecessary effort or pain, fits the personality of the suicide, and does not endanger others. It should not create a more difficult cleanup than necessary. Those angry suicides who wish to use shotguns or dramatically throw themselves in front of buses should look elsewhere.
Optimal opportunity for a poetic and heart-wrenching discovery.
An attractive corpse. This means appropriate dress for the occasion, no significant disfigurement, and an eye-pleasing final position. Lighting and setting should also be arranged to optimize the tableau.
A complete professional-quality photographic record, after the fact.
Services
Attractive Corpse offers the following services to its client:
Method consultation
Fashion and makeup (if appropriate) consultation
Location scouting
Location preparation (including music, lighting, etc., if desired)
Suicide note editing and workshopping
Scheduling assistance
Complete dress rehearsal
Post discovery photography
Referrals are available to financial planners, psychological services, and religious representatives.
We do not offer or give referrals for legal services (including will preparation) and clients are completely responsible for the legal ramifications of their actions. No Attractive Corpse personnel may be present at the time of the suicide. We will not participate in any suicide that is arranged to look like a homicide, and are not interested in aiding insincere, attention-getting attempts. All client contact is confidential until after the suicide is complete.
Note that all services must be prepaid.
Specials
The Attractive Corpse standard pricing schedule is provided after a potential client submits their initial paperwork. Potential clients may be interested to know that we also offer discounts under certain specific conditions.
20% Discount for Double Suicides
Couples who wish to join Romeo and Juliet as martyrs of love may share Attractive Corpse services at a significant savings.
15% Advance Planning Discount
If you decide to end your life during our busy holiday season (the week before Thanksgiving through January 1), you will receive a discount if you reserve your desired date at least three weeks in advance.
Low Income Assistance
If your annual household income is less than 200% of the poverty level, you may be eligible for special pricing.
Elements of an Effective Suicide
http://www.attractivecorpse.com/index.shtml
If life no longer has sweetness for you and you would like your final breath to be breathed in an air of beauty and purpose, Attractive Corpse can help.
A well-considered suicide is not a sloppy, repellent affair, but a piece of performance art, a tribute to what was and what could have been. The elements of an Attractive Corpse signature suicide include:
An appropriate location. The right place for a suicide is private, calm, and of meaning to the intended. There should be no significant chance of premature discovery and no need to rush.
A well-thought-out, hand-written suicide note, suitable for publication.
No trace of malice or vengeance. Make your suicide about you, not about those who brought you to this place. Don't leave this world with angry words on your lips.
A method that requires no unnecessary effort or pain, fits the personality of the suicide, and does not endanger others. It should not create a more difficult cleanup than necessary. Those angry suicides who wish to use shotguns or dramatically throw themselves in front of buses should look elsewhere.
Optimal opportunity for a poetic and heart-wrenching discovery.
An attractive corpse. This means appropriate dress for the occasion, no significant disfigurement, and an eye-pleasing final position. Lighting and setting should also be arranged to optimize the tableau.
A complete professional-quality photographic record, after the fact.
Services
Attractive Corpse offers the following services to its client:
Method consultation
Fashion and makeup (if appropriate) consultation
Location scouting
Location preparation (including music, lighting, etc., if desired)
Suicide note editing and workshopping
Scheduling assistance
Complete dress rehearsal
Post discovery photography
Referrals are available to financial planners, psychological services, and religious representatives.
We do not offer or give referrals for legal services (including will preparation) and clients are completely responsible for the legal ramifications of their actions. No Attractive Corpse personnel may be present at the time of the suicide. We will not participate in any suicide that is arranged to look like a homicide, and are not interested in aiding insincere, attention-getting attempts. All client contact is confidential until after the suicide is complete.
Note that all services must be prepaid.
Specials
The Attractive Corpse standard pricing schedule is provided after a potential client submits their initial paperwork. Potential clients may be interested to know that we also offer discounts under certain specific conditions.
20% Discount for Double Suicides
Couples who wish to join Romeo and Juliet as martyrs of love may share Attractive Corpse services at a significant savings.
15% Advance Planning Discount
If you decide to end your life during our busy holiday season (the week before Thanksgiving through January 1), you will receive a discount if you reserve your desired date at least three weeks in advance.
Low Income Assistance
If your annual household income is less than 200% of the poverty level, you may be eligible for special pricing.
A Question You Need to Answer
You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for the bus:
1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
2. An old friend who once saved your life.
3. The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.
Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car?
Think before you continue reading...
This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.
You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first;
Or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back.
However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again.
NOW READ THIS:
The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer.
He simply answered:
"I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams."
Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations.
1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
2. An old friend who once saved your life.
3. The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.
Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car?
Think before you continue reading...
This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.
You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first;
Or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back.
However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again.
NOW READ THIS:
The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer.
He simply answered:
"I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams."
Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations.
Eye Color
green- creative
blue- strong
brown- active
hazel- energetic
gray- quiet
Don’t you just hate it . . .
When you keep catching someone's eye accidentally in a room full of people, even though you're probably looking at the others just as much. You become paranoid that this other person thinks you're staring at them or even fancy them. The effect is even worse when you HAVE been looking at them disproportionately, but only because you find them incredibly ugly or freakish in some way. Or the worst of both possibilities combined, when they're almost attractive, and probably think they are, but there's something subtly wrong with their face, which you've been trying to identify.
blue- strong
brown- active
hazel- energetic
gray- quiet
Don’t you just hate it . . .
When you keep catching someone's eye accidentally in a room full of people, even though you're probably looking at the others just as much. You become paranoid that this other person thinks you're staring at them or even fancy them. The effect is even worse when you HAVE been looking at them disproportionately, but only because you find them incredibly ugly or freakish in some way. Or the worst of both possibilities combined, when they're almost attractive, and probably think they are, but there's something subtly wrong with their face, which you've been trying to identify.
An old man came courting me
An old man came courting me, hey ding-doorum down
An old man came courting me, me being young
An old man came courting me, said he would marry me
Maids when you're young never wed an old man
Because he's got no faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
He's got no faloorum, faliddle aye ay
He's got no faloorum, he's lost his ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
When we went to church, hey ding-doorum down
When we went to church, me being young
When we went to church, he left me in the lurch
Maids when you're young never wed an old man
Because he's got no faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
He's got no faloorum, faliddle aye ay
He's got no faloorum, he's lost his ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
When we went to bed, hey ding-doorum down
When we went to bed, me being young
When we went to bed, he lay like he was dead
Maids when you're young never wed an old man
Because he's got no faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
He's got no faloorum, faliddle aye ay
He's got no faloorum, he's lost his ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
When he went to sleep, hey ding-doorum down
When he went to sleep, me being young
When he went to sleep, out of bed I did creep
Into the arms of a handsome young man
And I found his faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
I found his faloorum, faliddle aye ay
I found his faloorum, he's got my ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
An old man came courting me, me being young
An old man came courting me, said he would marry me
Maids when you're young never wed an old man
Because he's got no faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
He's got no faloorum, faliddle aye ay
He's got no faloorum, he's lost his ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
When we went to church, hey ding-doorum down
When we went to church, me being young
When we went to church, he left me in the lurch
Maids when you're young never wed an old man
Because he's got no faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
He's got no faloorum, faliddle aye ay
He's got no faloorum, he's lost his ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
When we went to bed, hey ding-doorum down
When we went to bed, me being young
When we went to bed, he lay like he was dead
Maids when you're young never wed an old man
Because he's got no faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
He's got no faloorum, faliddle aye ay
He's got no faloorum, he's lost his ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
When he went to sleep, hey ding-doorum down
When he went to sleep, me being young
When he went to sleep, out of bed I did creep
Into the arms of a handsome young man
And I found his faloorum, faliddle aye oorum
I found his faloorum, faliddle aye ay
I found his faloorum, he's got my ding-doorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man
angst
Angst -- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Angst is a Dutch, German, and Scandinavian word for fear or anxiety. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of emotional strife.
A different but related meaning is attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). Kierkegaard used the word angst (Danish, meaning "dread") to describe a profound and deep-seated spiritual condition of insecurity and despair in the free human being. Where the animal is a slave to its God-given instincts but always confident in its own actions, Kierkegaard believed that the freedom given to mankind leaves the human in a constant fear of failing its responsibilities to God. Kierkegaard's concept of angst is considered to be an important stepping stone for 20th-century existentialism.
While Kierkegaard's feeling of angst is fear of actual responsibility to God, in modern use, angst is broadened to include general frustration associated with the conflict between actual responsibilities to self, one's principles, and others (possibly including God). Still, the angst in alternative music may be more accessible to most audiences than existentialism. The term "angst" is now widely used with a negative and derisive connotation that mocks the expression of a common adolescent experience of malaise; in this sense it has become one of the most debased words in the current vocabulary.
Angst in subculture stereotyping
Sometimes, the term is used derisively to refer to members of the "goth" or "emo" subcultures who may seem to be in competition with each other as to who can give the most "tragic" account of his or her circumstances. These sorts of perceptions can produce a backlash in the general public, who accuse the members of the subculture of exaggerating the normal frustrations of life to ridiculous extremes in an attempt to elicit pity and make excuses for their situation. Thus, the description of such a person as "angst-ridden" may involve a note of sarcasm. Similar negative characterizations have been made of other subcultures, such as the "Beat Generation", the grunge rock movement, and various literary and artistic movements.
The term is also sometimes used to negatively stereotype the very wealthy and well-to-do, with the implication being that angst (and occasionally ennui) are the only problems that they face as they mull over things that only concern themselves. For example: "Of course, my money solves the problems that you face daily, and I don't have to subject myself to the backbreaking labor that you do every day, but you mustn't think I live a life of ease. I suffer from such terrible angst!"
A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression.
A troubled or anxious state of mind: anxiety, anxiousness, care, concern, disquiet, disquietude, distress, nervousness, solicitude, unease, uneasiness, worry. See feelings.
Angst is a Dutch, German, and Scandinavian word for fear or anxiety. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of emotional strife.
A different but related meaning is attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). Kierkegaard used the word angst (Danish, meaning "dread") to describe a profound and deep-seated spiritual condition of insecurity and despair in the free human being. Where the animal is a slave to its God-given instincts but always confident in its own actions, Kierkegaard believed that the freedom given to mankind leaves the human in a constant fear of failing its responsibilities to God. Kierkegaard's concept of angst is considered to be an important stepping stone for 20th-century existentialism.
While Kierkegaard's feeling of angst is fear of actual responsibility to God, in modern use, angst is broadened to include general frustration associated with the conflict between actual responsibilities to self, one's principles, and others (possibly including God). Still, the angst in alternative music may be more accessible to most audiences than existentialism. The term "angst" is now widely used with a negative and derisive connotation that mocks the expression of a common adolescent experience of malaise; in this sense it has become one of the most debased words in the current vocabulary.
Angst in subculture stereotyping
Sometimes, the term is used derisively to refer to members of the "goth" or "emo" subcultures who may seem to be in competition with each other as to who can give the most "tragic" account of his or her circumstances. These sorts of perceptions can produce a backlash in the general public, who accuse the members of the subculture of exaggerating the normal frustrations of life to ridiculous extremes in an attempt to elicit pity and make excuses for their situation. Thus, the description of such a person as "angst-ridden" may involve a note of sarcasm. Similar negative characterizations have been made of other subcultures, such as the "Beat Generation", the grunge rock movement, and various literary and artistic movements.
The term is also sometimes used to negatively stereotype the very wealthy and well-to-do, with the implication being that angst (and occasionally ennui) are the only problems that they face as they mull over things that only concern themselves. For example: "Of course, my money solves the problems that you face daily, and I don't have to subject myself to the backbreaking labor that you do every day, but you mustn't think I live a life of ease. I suffer from such terrible angst!"
A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression.
A troubled or anxious state of mind: anxiety, anxiousness, care, concern, disquiet, disquietude, distress, nervousness, solicitude, unease, uneasiness, worry. See feelings.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
I'm Still Here In Real Life
"I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time." - Herbert Bayard Swope
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)