How to Clean a Microwave

This is actually a post about cleaning a microwave. Given my shortness of time today, thought I'd share a tip I learned from my SIL (those of you w/ more domestic sophistication than me probably already know this). So, here's a nice, quick way to clean one's microwave:

1. Fill measuring cup w/ 2 cups water.
2. Insert into microwave.
3. Heat for 5 minutes (times may vary based on MW strength)
4. Clean surfaces w/ towel
5. (optional) - use hot water from measuring cup to aid wipe down.

Okay, not rocket science, but the steam from cleaning water loosens up the hardened gunk on MW surfaces rather nicely. This trick is probably obvious to many, but it was a wondrous revelation to me :).

Thanks

Thank you to all my online buddies for all your support, insight, and humanity. Happy Thanksgiving to all the Yanks, and I'm sending some cyber tryptophan to everyone else.

What Does Your Icon/Avatar Say About You?

So, some of us out there have very nice pics of ourselves. These people are obviously narcissists :). Then you've got the elusive (or perhaps it's allusive), mysterious wallflowers whose icons might hide a Phantom of the Opera. I'm obviously a dog lover (or perhaps a dog hater based on my pooch's plaintive pout)... I went w/ my personal pic for a few weeks a few months ago, but I quickly realized that the dog suited me (even if I may not him). Of course, I'm not really interested in me or you other narcissists (yes, I admit it, I'm vain, too :) -- well, I am interested in your opinions, but you've taken out some of the mystery, that's for sure, unless you've gone all Face/Off on me (side note, I actually had a surgery where they peeled my face forward -- lovely pics, believe you me) -- I'm really curious about the Miras, Inks, and AMs of the world. Who are the people behind the masks? Then again, maybe those pics of Laura, Steph, Stephanie, Matt, Renee, et al are nothing but fabrications intended to lure others into a false sense of security.

So, are you a blogosphere hero or villain? I'm a vigilante -- above the law, of course :)

In Honor of Twilight

Jet-lagged and sleepy, still had to honor the opening of New Moon. In case you haven't seen this, enjoy :)

Author Analysis - Stephen King

'They' say that to be a good writer, one needs to read A LOT. I disagree with this. To be a good writer, IMO, one needs to understand what makes other writers good (and bad). So, we just can't read a lot, we need to think a lot (and, yes, I place more value on the latter than the former). What is the point of reading (w.r.t. to writing) if we don't analyze a book's/author's strengths and weaknesses to buttress our own?

So, I'm gonna start by analyzing the king of horror. I'm listening to his BOT (book on tape) Cell, and the great thing about Mr. King's writing is that it's fairly straightforward, which makes it easier to dissect. In very broad strokes, here's my shortlist:

Pros:
Imagery. Imagery. Imagery.
Pacing (though I've heard this has fallen off in some of his recent fare, I've found his pacing great in Cell and in most of his older works).
Dialogue (punchy, funny, pointed)
Plot/Tension (sometimes he goes a bit WTF on plotting, but he usually starts off w/ an everyday/everyone situation that goes all facocked -- i.e., half the tension comes from playing on our innate fears)

Cons:
Character Repetition (I know he can't help himself, but his characters -- particularly his MCs -- tend to think in similar manners w/ similar thought progressions. It's stylistically recognizable, which is good, but it lacks authenticity, which is bad).
Dialogue (yes, both good and bad. His dialogue sometimes is way too forced -- he has characters saying things that they'd never ever say based on their personalities/circumstances/etc.)
Believability (I'm not talking about believability of plot -- obviously there needs to be suspended disbelief to an extent. This goes back to character -- he's got people doing/saying/thinking things that don't make sense given the situation).

What would you add to/remove from the list?

RUFKM!?

Did you hear? Our president disgraced himself. How? Um, by being polite and respectful of another's culture while visiting the country of said culture. Republicans (full disclosure: if I lean one way, it's a bit right of center) took this opportunity to bash PO for groveling/pandering/insert general bad term to another country. When did showing courtesy become a sign of weakness? If we're talking about presidential weakness in Japan, perhaps those fat-ass elephants (i.e., ****tards) should use those vaunted memories of theirs to recall the elder Bush's meltdown.

Moral Calculus (i.e., Death Math)

Whenever you get on a plane (particularly one of those rickety little puddle jumpers), do you ever look at the other passengers and start wondering whether they tip the balance toward Heaven, or, if you're like me, convince yourself that it's leaning heavily the other way?

PS -- though I don't like being seated near the babies, I'm glad for their presence. They bring the mean age down and thus reduce the chances that Fate will spot us and say, 'yeah, those suckers have lived long enough.'

PSS -- Here's a random video -- "Big" on the stairs... cool, but how quickly would this get annoying when you're just trying to slog into work on a Monday morning?

Boys Don't Cry (not unless they want their asses kicked in the schoolyard)

And if your girls cry too much, they become caricatures, stereotypes, or annoying (and, yes, I know that's not parallel structure, but I don't care ;p).  This is definitely something I struggle with in my writing - using tears as an emotional failsafe, when, all too often, it's an emotional cop-out (when, usually, it should be an emotional whip).

Anecdote about crying: the wife's reading through one of my stories and comes upon the line: 'She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears leaked out anyway' or something along those lines... my wife, brilliant that she is, said,  "Change the sentence to 'She wept.' She's not a pipe." For the first and only time that I can recall, I actually laughed while editing.

Finding The Dark Silver Lining

War, what is it good for?.......














Overpopulation.

What you got?

Embrace Your Inner Whore

So, after going to dinner last night and being served by a lightly-clothed cat, and seeing all the scantily-clad ladies strutting the streets that weren't prostitutes, regardless of the chill in the air, I realized (once again) that there are lots of repressed people out there.

And, yeah, I'm probably one of them (though I won't dress like a floozy or a serial killer. Ever. I repress my need to shed my repression). That's the great thing about art, right? It's an outlet for repression. However, if you're gonna open that vein and bleed, you've gotta be willing to let it flow. Because without that emotional veracity - the inner whore in most of us - our audience of 1 or a million ain't gonna connect nearly as well.

Sure, we may not like those ladies of the night or what they represent, but they're usually a lot more interesting to examine (after some thought prompted by Renee's comment, I think examine is the incorrect word here -- perhaps I should have stuck w/ 'look at' :) than the thousands of plain-Janes who surround us on a daily basis.