Testing Out Something

I know I was done posting at IPF², but it has a page rank of four at Google, and it’s indexed by the Googlebot a lot more frequently than my new blog and IPF³. Because of this, I am going to test out making some links to IPF³ to see if these pages are indexed quickly as well as to help the page rank of IPF³. Below are just a bunch of links to IPF³. If you’re a visitor to this site, please know that it is no longer in official use. Please navigate to Idiosyncratic Reflectional Field³.

A Really Intriguing Book by Jules Verne

A Sad Tale of How Narkuls Came to Be

A Beautiful Poem by My Good and Very Honored Friend

Don’t Listen to the Jerk Inside of You

A Post About Beautiful Wordology

A Poem About Tomorrow

An I-Am-Legend-Esque Story of Epic Proportions (Involving, of Course, the End of the World)

IPF² Has Moved

There comes a time in every idiosyncratic protectional field’s life when it must evolve into something greater, and thus it has been done with IPF². All original posts (some of which were a part of the original IPF back in the Blogspot days) have been migrated to The New H, which is currently undergoing the final amendments to being finished. The IPF tradition will continue in my personal posts at The New H as well as in many posts by an entire crew of authors at Idiosyncratic Protectional Field³, which is currently still under construction but should be finished sometime around the first week of September, 2009.

I have things to do. I’ve put this off far too long. I regret to announce this is the end. I’m leaving, now. I wish you all a very fond farewell. Goodbye.

[crowd gasps as I vanish]

See http://ipfcubed.com and http://thenewh.wordpress.com.

Want: Steampunk Keyboard

I was writing in my story today, and I started thinking about steampunk. My story is sort of situated in a steampunk atmosphere and would appeal to the steampunk (though I believe and hope it would appeal to many other types of people, also). I was looking at steampunk pocke twatches earlier today because I want to get a good, sturdy pocket watch to last me throughout my mission and for the rest of my days, if possible.

Hold it! What is steampunk? Probably one of the most exciting interests you’ve ever seen. I’m just a wannabe steampunk, to be honest, but I love to at least imagine my little 19th century world in my stories. Find out what steampunk is here. I think that steampunk is a bit of a strange word for it, so I prefer Re-Victorian or Retro-Victorian. Ah, well.

In my online travels in search for a beautiful watch, I found many steampunk pocket watches that were actually quite amazing and not very expensive. I also found goggles, clocks, lamps, and typewriters– and then I found it (or them, really). The most beautiful keyboards I have ever seen:

Makes you want to buy one, doesn’t it? Too bad these keyboards run around $1200-$1500 apiece. However, there are instructions to build your own, so I just may do that in a few years (unless I’m astonishingly rich, which, as we all know, I will be; I’ll just buy one anyway in that case). These keyboards and much, much more can be found at www.datamancer.net.

Oh. My. Heavens. I wish I was cool like this gentleman:

The Steampunk Lappy-- with wind-up gears and everything.

And last but not least– the true coup de grace– “The Computational Engine” case mod (yes, that’s a computer with a typewriter as a keyboard; and that little circle thing in the base? You got it– it’s a CD drive):

The Culminative Prayer

Send us to rest in trav’ling we’ve not found

Send angels to watch over us after

In a blue light of peace; the light of stars

Let dreams be what life could in life to come

Dreams of rich night sky when shrouds removèd be

And sight is eternal; sight beyond stars

Dreams of the infinite cathedral where

The sky rains down in pools of pure warm gold

Whisper to us the music of pure peace

Found after trav’ling blackened fear and grief

In crystal halls glowing where light’s endless

Jordan School District Stinks

Anyone who has to deal with the District is thinking it. I’m just saying it. Ever since I became an employee (a mere and lowly sweeper) several years ago, I’ve been more and more informed on what a crappy district this is. It’s obviously been going downhill for years; now it’s just coming to a head.

You or someone you know may work for Jordan School District. I can’t say that I’m sorry for anything I’m about to say. I know several people personally who work for Jordan School District. I’m not labeling every employee of the district incoherent. I will label the superintendent and part of the school board as not only incoherent but also prideful, greedy, and downright stupid. Barry Newbold and your nitwit cronies: you’re idiots. Idiots. Just how did you get instated as the supreme administrator over the security of the future of West Jordan– of part of the State of Utah– of part of the entire nation? Just how did half of you board members get voted in to literally help decide the fate of the knowledge, intelligence, happiness, and futures of the tens of thousands of children who comprise the Jordan School District? Do you even realize that we have entrusted you their twelve-year (thirteen including kindergarten) daily lives of these tens of thousands of impressionable and knowledge-needing students with the faith and confidence that you would decide correctly and wisely what to do with what is given to you? Or have you forgotten that you were a child once? Have you all been blinded by personal agendas and the pride that leads to the destruction of nations? What’s a quarter of a million dollars’ paycheck every year when the future becomes too dismal and unstable to even use it? Remember, you fools, that your job is to administer education, not to make enough money to pay off half- and multi-million dollar homes; not to have nights on the town on multiple business trips that are more grandeur than business; not to, on a whim of pride and vain ambition, direct the futures of our children, the livelihoods of our underappreciated educators, and the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands who pay the taxes that run our collapsing educational institution.

You can’t make this stuff up.

A person I know went to a public meeting yesterday concerning how the district was going to fund itself (the said meeting didn’t end until 1:30 in the morning, by the way). The current proposal is to raise property taxes by 40%. This isn’t just another annoying raise of taxes. There are many citizens, if this proposal goes through, whose taxes will be raised by multiple thousands of dollars and who will not be able to pay said taxes, resulting in the ejection of them and their families out of their homes. These aren’t the ones who live in half- and multi-million dollar homes; those who can’t afford those homes have already lost them or are well on their way to getting what’s coming to them. These are people who are retired, who have paid-off homes and make enough to get by now, or who are only making enough money to live with the bare necessities and pay for their homes. The person I know who went to this meeting knows of dozens of children who attend our public schools who are literally homeless. I suppose that they don’t have to worry about losing homes they don’t have due to taxes they can’t pay. They live in cars or run-down shacks or dumpy trailer parks that cities try to shun and hide from the public eye.

The economy is tough. Education is taking an especially big hit, and especially in Utah. Education seems to be ignored by those who should be funding it more; it’s quite sad, really. The Canyons district splitting off from the Jordan District didn’t help matters, either. The people on the East Side (who now comprise the Canyons District) had many less students in the system than the West Side (many older couples and empty-nesters over there in the East– many wealthy ones, too), and so they were fed up with paying for the District’s public education and having more of their money go to the West Side than the East Side simply because, for this current generation, there are more children in the vastly expanding West Side. I’ve heard of some snobs from the East Side saying that they don’t want to pay for the West Side’s little “monsters” and that if we’re going to “keep on popping out children,” we should pay for them ourselves; some have also said that people should stop having “large families of more than two kids” and that people with large families and financial struggles shouldn’t get tax cuts because they’re the ones who are making everyone else pay more. The fact of the matter isn’t that the West Side has a rodent problem and that people with less or no children shouldn’t have to help pay for overall education in the area. The fact is that these are children and they deserve proper education; everyone should be happy to help pay reasonable taxes in order to fund the future, especially if they’re wealthy and can more easily than others afford it. At any rate, the East Side’s whining and eventual split from the West Side’s district didn’t help the Jordan School District one bit, and even the East Side is having problems with their new, unexperienced task force, and they will find that when these older people start kicking the bucket and young and growing families start moving in that they won’t be able to fund themselves. The West Side by that time may have switched shoes because we’ll be huge and raking in quite a lot of cash, I believe, and many of the households will be wealthier empty-nesters. Where will the East Side be then? Where the West Side once was. This whole split has simply upset a delicate balance, and I don’t think that the education system in these two districts will stop feeling the effects for decades, if not beyond a century (assuming that they still exist by then).

Back to the Jordan School District– who ought to be taking the blows like men and leading the district the best they can despite these seemingly unsurmountable odds. The District has frozen and/or reduced the salaries of the teachers and eliminated retirement even for veteran teachers who have taught for multiple decades. On the other hand, they haven’t reduced the pay stubs of the superintendent (who makes nearly a quarter of a million dollars per year) and around (so I read) 150 people who make over one hundred thousand dollars per year. There are also around 100-150 people (perhaps they are the same group) whose jobs with the District are no longer needed due to the split and the reduction in students and teachers that now belong to Canyons; they refuse to let these people, who are raking in checks of $100,000 per year or more (probably near $200K), go even if they were to find these people new and well-paying jobs. These people are skilled enough to find new good jobs even if they have to accept lower pay than before. Letting go teachers, janitors, and others who, the most of them, don’t make more than $40,000 per year, isn’t going to help matters as much.

As a side note about money issues, I’d also like to address the wasteful spending that goes on in the District. I used to work as a sweeper when I was younger, so I know how long schools leave their lights on, wasting electricity. I would stay after hours at my high school often until six to eight o’clock in the evening when I was only one of few people still there aside from the janitors, and yet lights were all on full blast. Some technology teachers keep computers running 24/7. Most of the hall lights usually don’t need to be on, and computers running when nobody is there is really quite stupid unless they’re servers or are rendering a project that takes longer than a school day. If the District made an initiative to turn off a large fraction of hall lights after regular school hours (unless there is something publicly big going on such as a concert or an official game when they would be needed), made sure that teachers turned off all of their classroom lights and computers upon leaving, and worked hard to make sure that anything that consumes power unnecessarily would be removed, I’m certain that the District as a whole could save itself several million dollars every year at the least.

Also, at the school where I used to work, I remember perhaps half of our custodial task force during summers would, when the head janitor went on vacation, sit around for one, two, three hours, and sometimes the entire work day talking and playing Halo, and then they would write down at the end of the day that they had worked the full hours; that was several hundred dollars stolen every day. Even during the school year, the head janitor often left after school before everyone was done working. I knew of at least two of the sweepers who, after he left (which was usually only an hour into the working schedule for us sweepers), would write down working three hours and then leave. This didn’t only happen at my school; I have talked to several current and former sweepers from around the district, and it seems prevalent in much of the teenage custodial fleet. This probably amounts to several tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of stolen money from the District every year.

Besides these stupid money problems that seem so obvious to the public is that the superintendent and half of the school board refuse to listen to the public. They called the meeting because they were required to by law, not because they were going to listen to all of the good ideas that were brought up to avoid the tax increase. They already have their minds made up and are going to vote for this ridiculous 40% tax raise that will truly lose many people their homes and just send more students into poverty, causing them to have no interest in education because they are preoccupied with surviving.

After a bit of Google Research, I found a good blog called Utah’s Arch. The author also went to the district meeting, and he says it all pretty well in his latest post; he probably has a much better understanding of the situation than I do as he’s a home owner, married, and he probably has/had children.

Anyway, I’m a bit fuming about this entire thing. I only just graduated several months ago from West Jordan High School; I’m glad to be free of the District. I’ve run afoul of some of their policies several times through my years at WJHS, but I enjoyed every bit of it– **censored by order of the queen so as to protect myself from impossible, laughable, and imaginary arrest**, and more. Anything to gum up the district that has been royally fouling up my education the past decade. Ah. Joy.

By the way, I’m not prejudice against the East Side. I only find it very rude of the snobbish ones of the East Side who are wealthier than much of the West Side who complain about the West Side and who have caused additional trouble for everyone.

I have a proposal, Sir Newbold. I propose that you are forcefully ejected from your useless throne, Jordan School District is successfully, happily, and finally dissolved, and we all work together as a West Side community to build up a new district from the remains. This is just wishful thinking as that would definitely cost a chocolate chip load of money that doesn’t exist.

If the District keeps up the way it’s been heading for at least the past five years, I foresee the collapse of our education system. It’s not only a sad thing for the students who are and will be getting sub-par education, but it’s also sad for the thousands of teachers who slave away getting paid a tenth of what they deserve. More and more good teachers are taking their skills to higher-paying jobs, and we’ll be left with rabble teachers to raise up rabble students who will become a rabble population, and then where will Utah be? It’s not any one person’s fault, though we can certainly attribute a lot of blame to how bad the superintendent, his minions, and the board of education is running the District. I’m no expert, but I believe that Utah could definitely be giving more money towards public education as they are supposed to. We’d need a new administration who actually cares and knows what to do with this money, but destruction wouldn’t be eminent if we had enough money to run things better and if we didn’t have selfish nitwits running the scheme.

Moroni’s Blog

I was just reading the last chapter in Mormon this morning, and it read just like a blog from 1600 years ago. It reminded me of some of the blog posts that I’ve written, so I’m going to post it below. This is after all of the armies of the Nephites have been slaughtered (I counted– there were over 230,000 men in those armies), and even the rest of the people of the Nephites– the women and children– have, for the most part, been killed. If the army was nearly a quarter of a million men strong, then I’m willing to bet that the entire population was at least half a million Nephites, but probably more along the lines of at least one to two million. Think about our population today. If every eligible man was to be drafted into the army in the United States, we’d have an army of about 70,000,000 men. (To estimate this data, I took the US population census estimation of 2008 and added together all of the males from the ages of fifteen to fifty-four.) An army that large with every possible eligible man is less than one third of our now well-over 300,000,000 mark. Using the same estimation tactics, I estimate the Nephite population to at least be over one million people strong. This, of course, is just a speculation, and it’s probably very incorrect. In any case, it’s sad to hear of the genocide of an entire nation except when you’re playing Risk. They ought to make a Book of Mormon Risk game. That would be intense.

Anyway, to what Moroni had to say in the last chapter of Mormon, including verse numbers and linked footnotes courtesy of LDS.org:

1 And now, I speak also concerning those who do not believe in Christ.

2 Behold, will ye believe in the day of your visitation—behold, when the Lord shall come, yea, even that ^agreat day when the ^bearth shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements shall ^cmelt with fervent heat, yea, in that great day when ye shall be brought to stand before the Lamb of God—then will ye say that there is no God?

3 Then will ye longer deny the Christ, or can ye behold the Lamb of God? Do ye suppose that ye shall dwell with him under a ^aconsciousness of your guilt? Do ye suppose that ye could be happy to dwell with that holy Being, when your souls are racked with a consciousness of guilt that ye have ever abused his laws?

4 Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your ^afilthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the ^bdamned souls in ^chell.

5 For behold, when ye shall be brought to see your ^anakedness before God, and also the glory of God, and the ^bholiness of Jesus Christ, it will kindle a flame of unquenchable fire upon you.

6 O then ye ^aunbelieving, ^bturn ye unto the Lord; cry mightily unto the Father in the name of Jesus, that perhaps ye may be found spotless, ^cpure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the ^dLamb, at that great and last day.

7 And again I speak unto you who ^adeny the revelations of God, and say that they are done away, that there are no revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor speaking with tongues, and the ^binterpretation of tongues;

8 Behold I say unto you, he that denieth these things knoweth not the ^agospel of Christ; yea, he has not read the scriptures; if so, he does not ^bunderstand them.

9 For do we not read that God is the ^asame ^byesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no ^cvariableness neither shadow of changing?

10 And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles.

11 But behold, I will show unto you a God of ^amiracles, even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and it is that same ^bGod who created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.

12 Behold, he created Adam, and by ^aAdam came the ^bfall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son; and because of Jesus Christ came the ^credemption of man.

13 And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ, they are brought back into the ^apresence of the Lord; yea, this is wherein all men are redeemed, because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the ^bresurrection, which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless ^csleep, from which sleep all men shall be awakened by the power of God when the trump shall sound; and they shall come forth, both small and great, and all shall stand before his bar, being redeemed and loosed from this eternal ^dband of death, which death is a temporal death.

14 And then cometh the ^ajudgment of the Holy One upon them; and then cometh the time that he that is ^bfilthy shall be filthy still; and he that is righteous shall be righteous still; he that is happy shall be happy still; and he that is unhappy shall be unhappy still.

15 And now, O all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a god who can do ^ano miracles, I would ask of you, have all these things passed, of which I have spoken? Has the end come yet? Behold I say unto you, Nay; and God has not ceased to be a God of miracles.

16 Behold, are not the things that God hath wrought marvelous in our eyes? Yea, and who can comprehend the marvelous ^aworks of God?

17 Who shall say that it was not a miracle that by his ^aword the heaven and the earth should be; and by the power of his word man was ^bcreated of the ^cdust of the earth; and by the power of his word have miracles been wrought?

18 And who shall say that Jesus Christ did not do many mighty ^amiracles? And there were many ^bmighty miracles wrought by the hands of the apostles.

19 And if there were ^amiracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he ^bchangeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.

20 And the reason why he ceaseth to do ^amiracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should ^btrust.

21 Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, ^awhatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this ^bpromise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.

22 For behold, thus said Jesus Christ, the Son of God, unto his disciples who should tarry, yea, and also to ^aall his disciples, in the hearing of the multitude: Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;

23 And he that ^abelieveth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be ^bdamned;

24 And ^athese signs shall follow them that believe—in my name shall they cast out ^bdevils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay ^chands on the sick and they shall recover;

25 And whosoever shall believe in my name, doubting nothing, unto him will I ^aconfirm all my words, even unto the ends of the earth.

26 And now, behold, who can stand ^aagainst the works of the Lord? ^bWho can deny his sayings? Who will rise up against the almighty power of the Lord? Who will despise the works of the Lord? Who will despise the children of Christ? Behold, all ye who are ^cdespisers of the works of the Lord, for ye shall wonder and perish.

27 O then despise not, and wonder not, but hearken unto the words of the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus for what things soever ye shall stand in need. ^aDoubt not, but be believing, and begin as in times of old, and ^bcome unto the Lord with all your ^cheart, and ^dwork out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him.

28 Be ^awise in the days of your ^bprobation; strip yourselves of all uncleanness; ask not, that ye may consume it on your ^clusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and ^dliving God.

29 See that ye are not baptized ^aunworthily; see that ye partake not of the sacrament of Christ ^bunworthily; but see that ye do all things in ^cworthiness, and do it in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God; and if ye do this, and endure to the end, ye will in nowise be cast out.

30 Behold, I speak unto you as though I ^aspake from the dead; for I know that ye shall have my words.

31 Condemn me not because of mine ^aimperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.

32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the ^areformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.

33 And if our plates had been ^asufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no ^bimperfection in our record.

34 But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared ^ameans for the interpretation thereof.

35 And these things are written that we may rid our garments of the blood of our ^abrethren, who have dwindled in unbelief.

36 And behold, these things which we have ^adesired concerning our brethren, yea, even their restoration to the knowledge of Christ, are according to the prayers of all the saints who have dwelt in the land.

37 And may the Lord Jesus Christ grant that their prayers may be answered according to their faith; and may God the Father remember the covenant which he hath made with the house of Israel; and may he bless them forever, through faith on the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

West Jordanian Adventures, Train Engines, Sugar Factories, Archeological Digs, and Vicious Battles of the Spirit

Julie and I went on an adventure yesterday, and what an adventure it turned out to be! Bilbo’s words ring true in this sense:

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.

Julie and I were merly planning to take a nice few hours under a shady tree in the West Jordan city park (AKA Veterans’ Memorial Park) and write in my story a while. This we did, sitting under a lovely old tree across the street from the West Jordan Library in a little grove where relatively few people wander. I took out my netbook, Julie snuggled in the grass, and we commenced. Aside from a little boy who was fluent in Spanish mock-barking at Julie, we sit for some time, undisturbed and happy.

Suddenly, as if a call from the heavens, we heard it. A train engine’s horn blowing. I turned to Julie, she to me, and we knew then what me must do. I slapped my netbook closed, stuffed it in my backpack, and Julie and I began running as quickly as our legs would take us towards the West Jordan Sugar Factory. We ran across the entire diagonal length of the park, behind the Gene Fullmer Grossness Center, and into the rodeo stadium parking lot as the gate was unlocked and it was quicker to cut through there (the fence separating the back of the Sugar Factory and the stadium parking lot has a section cut out of it).

Near the fence between the Sugar Factory and the parking lot, we saw piles of dirt and several small backhoes scattered about. Not having much time, we skirted past these strange apparitions, into the Sugar Factory grounds, and out the back gate that leads to the City Hall complex as well as an unfenced section of railroad track. The horn had stopped sounding, and we still didn’t see any train. Hoping beyond hope that a train was still coming, we walked all the way down nearly to Redwood Road. Still nothing. A kind, smoking construction worker said hello as he filled his truck with water from a fire hydrant while we meandered about this dirt road connecting the Sugar Factory and City Hall complexes with a depressed aura about us. Julie got a drink from the dripping fire hydrant tube after the unhealthy construction worker drove off to spray water on some dirt, and then we moped our way back to the Sugar Factory.

Once there, we walked past a backhoe taking chunks of asphault from the edge of the factory parking lot, past a sleeping construction worker in one of the dump trucks, and then into the back of the factory. We shouted into one of the holes in the back of the silos and listened to the reverberations (one of our favorite reasons to go to the Sugar Factory), played with a yellow golf ball we found, analyzed the short shadows of the silos at that time of day, investigated a garage door behind which sleeps the West Jordan Monster, and then went back out of the cut fence to the rodeo parking lot.

Upon going past the fence, we remembered the abandoned backhoes and piles of dirt, so we went closer this time to investigate. We found behind the piles of dirt about a hundred foot long ditch that had been dug, and inside were the remains of some old cement foundations for some ancient warehouse built for, I assume, the Sugar Factory back nearly a hundred years ago. We were so very intrigued by this that we trudged up and down the foundations and even into the ditch where the foundation was more than just a wall of sorts. There was a large cement block with a trap door in the top, and the door was missing. Inside of this cavity was a collapsing bunch of wood with a lot of dirt piled inside, so I’m not entirely sure just what it was. There were massive cables and rebars sticking out of the crumbling cement, and there were also some iron pipes and strange iron constructions sticking out of the foundations. In the piles of dirt, we found many broken and whole bricks, pieces of wood, and more curious iron pipes and works. One of the bricks we found had an incscription on it, so I took it home with me to add to my museological collection:

The only letter that seems to fit the broken off one is “D,” making the acronym “DFC.” I’ve done a little bit of research and have concluded that, from what I could find, the only probable connection to DFC is the DFC Ceramics company. DFC has been around for around one hundred and eighty years, and they seem to make ceramics for a wide variety of purposes– casting, melting, molding, baking. I wonder if they had something to do with the making of this brick. Architects always seem to mark their buildings in some way (West Jordan High School has a brick near the main entrance with the architect’s symbol inscribed in it), so I think that this brick is more likely the architect’s mark saying “I built this building. If you find that its remains in almost 100 years in an archeological dig, please give me credit and make me feel special even though I’m dead.” (Researching more, it appears that the Sugar Factory was built by F.M. Dyers & Company… if you rearrange the first letters of F, Dyers, and Company, you get DFC. Hm. Shrug.)

After exploring this most exhilarating archeological dig and then finding and exploring another one further north, Julie made it known unto me that she was very hot and thirsty, so I took her to the nearest puddle and let her have a long drink. We thereafter made a deal that we would go to our shady tree in the park and rest until she felt well enough to go home. After shaking to bind the contract, we commenced towards our tree.

Upon reaching the little shady grove, we were appalled to find two nearly middle-aged adults publicly displaying types of affection that we didn’t want to see. We were about to leave this abhorrent scene when Angel Moroni descended from the heavens and told us that we needed to be valiant and not let the fair city of West Jordan be overrun by hormonic demons such as these. After giving Julie a blessing for courage, Moroni ascended again and left us to the battle before us. Bracing our spirits, Julie and I sat under a nearby tree and made as many loud noises as we could without looking at the pair. Soon after this barrage of noise, our battle tactics proved successful! The two nearly middle-aged lovers stood up and walked off in a huff to their separate cars (if that doesn’t have “affair” written all over it, then I don’t know what does) and proceeded to drive away.

Our victory secured and West Jordan safe from the rabble once more, Julie and I went home. She slept for hours on the kitchen floor.

THE END

**Captain Moroni never descended and spoke to us; that is fiction. However, we did feel a heightening of courage that I attribute to my ancestors from Denmark and England and Julie’s ancestors from sheep farms in England rooting for us on the other side.

Non-Commital Commitments, IPF³ Launch Pad & Swag Store… Launch

To fulfill the first section of the title:

I said I wanted to write one post for every day in July so as to be a true NaBloPoMo person, but, as my loyal readers (if any) will be able to tell the passers-by, I have not been faithful in this particular quest. I concentrated on more important things and more important writings. Ah, well. Perhaps in a month or two I will make another attempt. In the meantime, I’ve some major goals to accomplish, and the time that they need to be completed is drawing nigh.

To fulfill the second section of the title:

If I didn’t advertise for IPF³ on my own blog, I’d be a hypocritical blasphemer with a sprinkle of heresy on the top. Sort of like what the politicians’ characteristics generally are. In this case, I must proclaim that Idiosyncratic Protectional Field³’s Swag Store has officially launched as has a temporary home at the IPF³ Launch Pad.

Yes, folks. That’s http://ipfcubedpad.wordpress.com.

The IPF³ website is still in the works. This is not the home of IPF³. It will be at its own .com address.

Yawn.

Hung on a Comma

I’ve been reading in Eats, Shoots & Leaves lately, brushing up on my punctuative skills, learning a lot of history of how punctuation came to be, and laughing hysterically so much so that Julie Dog has stared at me in a concerned sort of way several times. While reading this delicious book, I have found that I follow all of the undisputable rules but that I have developed my own sort of style, especially with commas, which is not incorrect despite not being accepted by much of the literate population. I seem to lean more towards the 19th century way of adding commas, which I find more elegant, neat, and understandable than the 21st century way of using the least amount of commas as possible. As it is, it’s an author’s prerogative to use debatable commas or not.

There are, however, a few rules that simply need to be followed, and I cannot stress them more. Some are more bendable than others, but then there are exceptions, exceptions to exceptions, exceptions to the squared exception, and so on. The below are the two rules that, when people seem to strive to not follow them, send my brain into a tumultuous quiver similar to that of Jello pudding or custard:

• The Joining Comma. Two sentences simply cannot be spliced together by a mere comma (or worse– nothing at all; that’s like going to market without your outerwear on). Cringe with me: “The larder smells of duff, it’s time to clean it out.” Never should two sentences be combined in this way. Some may argue that authors who are famous can do whatever they want. I argue that should never happen except in poetry and Devil-worshiping scriptures (and I think we can agree that such scripture oughtn’t to exist, and neither should much of the poetry that exists). Sentences, if preferred to be joined, must be joined by a comma and the appropriate coordinating conjunction (and, but, yet, or, nor, so): “The larder smells of duff, so it’s time to clean it out.” Sentences that have related ideas may be joined by a semicolon: “The larder smells of duff; it’s time to clean it out.” Lastly, of course, sentences may be separated by periods: “The larder smells of duff. It’s time to clean it out.”
• Stupid Commas. There is no other description for these commas. They have no logical or even rationally irrational place, nor do they make sense to even pause for breath; they are painfully tossed into sentences in the hopes that they might land in appropriate places. Observe: “Mister McFlurry didn’t have, any chocolate chips.” “Alphus Rumblefloor, slipped on the menagerie floor and, broke his spectator’s nose, by accident.” “Delius Lumbridge had, a cheerful countenance, without anything to to be glad about.” These are very cringe-worthy sentences (indeed– it pained me to conceptualize them); there ought not to be any commas in them at all, though you could admittedly argue the comma after “nose” and “countencance.” I’d still not put commas even in those places. A word (or several words, as they rightfully are) of the wise: be smart. Don’t be stupid. Use commas as if you weren’t a dumb beast.

There are also ways to not use apostophes. The worst apostrophic grammatical sins are below:

• The Stupid Plural. When one adds an apostrophe on the end of a word to make it plural, it’s plainly stupid. Observe: “The decorative table’s were pretty.” The decorative table’s what? One of the most common atrocities found in multimedia stores is thus: “DVD’s, CD’s, VIDEO’s, and BOOK’s.” Ugh. Sickening. Apostrophes before S’s are always used for making a word possessive except for one way. The only time it works for a plural is when you’re speaking of a plural amount of words or letters. Observe: “Watch your P’s and Q’s!” “There are no and’s, but’s, or or’s in that sentence, you superfluous git.” Also, apostrophes after pluralized abbreviations, years, and acronyms need not be used: “DVDs and CDs are on sale now. We’ve got all of your favorite artists from the 70s, 80s, and 90s!”
• The Stupid Possessive (the Lack of an Apostrophe). The other worst sin is when people seem to forget that an apostrophe is required to make a word possessive. Observe the horridity: “Brother Johns cereal is going mildewy.” “That is my sisters M80.” “Vernes book is quite an interesting read.” This is simple: if it’s owned by someone or something (such as “the table’s decorations”), an apostrophe belongs before the S.
• Its/It’s (and Thats/That’s, Your/You’re, Whose/Who’s and Other Contractions). The most common of these is the confusion of “its” and “it’s.” Observe an entire slew of cringe-worthy dialogue: “Its time for it’s birthday.” “Who’s birthday?” “It’s!” “Thats my child that your talking about!” “We dont know whether its a boy or a girl yet!” “For you’re information, its a boy. Your a nuisance. Its time for you and you’re fascist family to leave my home.” Icky, icky, icky. The rule of thumb here is to remember whether you mean “it is” (or “that is,” “you are,” “who is,” and etcetera) or simply “its” (“thats,” “your,” “whose,” etcetera). It’s easy to remember if you want to say “it is.” If you’re talking about an it, and it owns something, then it’s “its” and so on. Savvy? Also, please don’t leave out contractory apostrophes. “Dont give me that look. I think its time. Yes, youre leaving now. Get out; youre a squirrelly slew of stifling vomitous masses. I wont abdicate. Were not getting anywhere with this.” Yuck. Use common sense.

There are, of course, a plethora of other types of follies that ought to be avoided and rules that ought to be followed, but to not follow these listed rules is to tempt me to murder. The breakage of others may annoy me, but the above outlined rules are the clergy of punctuation and should never be trifled with!

In closing, I’d like to mention that most people offer the word “hanged” when someone has been “hanged” to death on the scaffold or by way of suicide (“He was hanged” and “He hanged himself”), but, despite being scholarly accepted, this is horrid abuse of the English language! I vie for people to say “hung.” Hung has the ability to slip off of the tongue without choking oneself. “He was hung.” “He hung himself.”

This also applies to “drowned.” Much of the world wishes to say, “You’re probably going to drown’d.” This is disgusting. It ought to be, “You’re probably going to be drowned,” or “You’re probably going to drown.” Also: “He was drowned.” “Drowned” is a past-tense verb and should never be forced into submissive present-tense by any means, British or otherwise.

Please. Use words that don’t make one cringe. Someone might throw up on you. That gives a whole new meaning to “vomitous mass.”

IPF³ Idea: Public Domain Publications

I was listening to There Will Be Rest with Julie today, and it suddenly occurred to me that we should publish on IPF³ works whose copyrights have expired (or ones that never had copyrights in the first place). This means that, in addition to entirely new and unique content, we will also periodically publish short stories, poems, essays, and other written works (as well as art and photography, though these won’t be quite as common). I can already think of at least three authors of whom I will be able to retrieve hundreds of public domain works for. We’ll give full credit to these authors, of course, but we’ll be able to have a sort of mixture of the old in with the new.

I wish the system administrator would get on top of things. I am really itching to build the website. Ideas floating around in heads too long can begin to make dents.

Everybody Deserves a Sam

While I’m on such a spiritual high after writing about my non-imaginary friends, I thought I might share a thought that was brought about by a dream I had this morning.

Before waking up this morning, I was immersed in a dream that encompassed West Jordan Middle School, the carnal world, and Sean Austin (who I called “Sam” despite being the actual actor in the movie versus the character in The Lord of the Rings). In the dream, Sean and I were the best of friends and had been for years. Though he was not Samwise Gamgee, I called him Sam, and he had the same qualities and traits as Samwise Gamgee, so he might as well have been Sam. He was soft-voiced, good-natured, kind, respectful, humble, but very brave and noble. There was some sort of to-do at West Jordan Middle School during the late hours of the night, and he and I were just leaving. Music and bright lights shone through the windows and open doors, but we didn’t want to be there because the group of people there was a very rude and dirty-minded group, and they ridiculed us for not participating. I got into the driver’s seat of my car, and Sam (or Sean) got into the passenger’s seat, and we thereafter drove away. I began to talk to him about his acting career, and he told me things he learned from acting as Sam and how it had enriched his life. He even quoted a few memorable lines from the movies in the exact accent of Samwise Gamgee. After this, Sean (or Sam) became troubled, and I asked him what was the matter. He told me that some of his friends were of that carnal-minded group that we had just escaped from, and he was very distressed about it because there was nothing he could do for them if they remained as such. He also spoke to me of how highly he thought of me and that he’s glad I wasn’t a part of that group. I’m not sure what brought this about, but we eventually were in tears of happiness, and I embraced him and told him my thanks for having such a dear, noble, kind, loving, and understanding friend. The dream ended about here.

This brought to mind the fact that everyone deserves a friend like Samwise Gamgee. Everyone deserves a friend who will always be there for him or her to listen, to help, to support, to counsel, to comfort, to listen, and to be with. Everybody deserves a Sam. I also thought to myself that I wished I could be like Sam.

Then, suddenly but quietly, the thought came into my mind that everyone does have a Sam if they’ll only let Him.

“Imaginary” Friends

The other day, I read a bit of text that was not written by a friend but was posted by a friend. Despite our many similarities (the tendency to speak of splatteration and world domination, the avid use of sarcasm, the similar interest in fictional literature, the vast use of imagination, the intellectual wielding of the English language, and the humblest of all attitudes, among other things), his beliefs differ greatly from mine in the religious area. He is still a very respected friend– more than many people whom I know personally. I want this to be clear before I dissemble part of his post.

In what he posted, there was a quote. I will quote it below:

There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings.

I had to re-read this because I wasn’t sure if I read it right the first time. When I realized that it was saying what I had thought it said, I nearly fell out of my old swivel chair. Now, there is a law in nature that applies to many things, especially in multiplicative stances: two negatives make a positive. This, however, does not apply to truth: two falsehoods do not make a truth, and the above quote is no exception… to the exception.  The “imaginary beings” in the quote were obviously meant to be God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and, by extension, angels, prophets, and disciples written about in the Holy Bible, and the entire Nephite and Lamanite populations in the Book of Mormon. There is undoubtable physical evidence that Jesus existed as the bible says, but the quote means to say that He was not the Son of God nor the Savior of our souls and the world.

Firstly, addressing these so-called “imaginary beings:” If my Heavenly Father and my dear brother, Jesus Christ, were imaginary, I would have known this a very long time ago and made sure to tell people about it; I work in the imagination every day, and I’ve not seen them there in all of my years here on this earth. They sometimes use the control panel of the imagination if I let them use it, but they do not dwell in imaginary places. I know this.

Secondly, addressing the falsehood that “there is not sufficient love and goodness in the world:” Love is boundless– boundless– especially when it comes from Jesus and God. Their love for the human race, as stupid as we are, is incomprehensible in magnitude and beyond the minds of men in encompassment. Even when we purposely go against Their commandments and teachings and we come under condemnation, They still love us as much as they did before we let ourselves act foolishly. The power of human love is more powerful than we may think it is. True, pure, unconditional love is impossible to destroy. (To quote Princess Bride, “…you cannot break [love], not with a thousand swords.”) True, pure, unconditional love drives men and women to do the most noble of acts that no other power or influence brings mankind to do. It was true, pure, and unconditional love that drove the Lord to perform the most noble act in history’s entirety, that being the Atonement in both sacrificial parts (to save us from sin and torment and to save us from death). Love is an echoic device in that giving it away rebounds it back; it is echoic, yes, except that, opposite from the echo heard in a canyon or a wide field between buildings, or in similitude of the reverberation of sound in a cathedral, love, when given in its pure form, does not diminish in quantity until it cannot be sensed: love, when given in its pure form, reverberates louder still. Heavenly Father is not imaginary, neither are His Son nor His Spirit, nor is the love that I feel from Them and the comfort through the Holy Ghost. I see God’s hand in all things. One need only look for it with hope.

I have and still do give my love to imaginary beings, however– Eedie and Roobix chiefest amongst these. Because of these imaginary beings, I know I am a better and happier person, and I am more capable of loving than I would have been without them. Even if the quote in question is put in the context of true imaginary beings, it is still false. Philosophers are sometimes blinded by their own blessing and ability to create new ideas– a blessing, I might add, that not only comes from God, but that, I believe, is more similar to the very nature and being of God than almost any other blessing. The blessing to create imaginary worlds and imaginary people and entire lifelines and the blessing to produce, from seemingly “nothing,” new ideas, trains of thought, and philosophies, all is a shadow of and testifies of God’s matchless power to create real things. We mimic Heavenly Father sometimes without even thinking about it; it is our spirits that long to become like him one day. This is something that the conscious and subconscious levels of neurological power can only bury and pretend don’t exist.

It is with full boldness of heart and mind that I profess and testify irrefutably that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are real beings, that Their love fills the world– no, the universe– with hope and charity and peace and rest, that there is more love and goodness in this world than can be used up (our problem is that many of us don’t use it or exercise it enough or at all). I feel and know these things beyond doubt, and I cannot and will not deny them for anything. Heavenly Father is my God, Jesus Christ is my Savior, the Holy Ghost is a Comforter, and all of Them are my friends. I write these truths and mean them with my whole heart, and I pray that Heavenly Father and His Son may, through the Spirit, touch the hearts of those who will not see, comfort those who are troubled, lift up those who are weak, confirm to those who doubt, and bring to light those who are in the darkness, if not through my words, through the words of another.

I seal these words in the name of our Savior, my dear friend, my Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen!

Whew! That felt glorious!

The Notice In Bolded Red Type; a Bit of IPF³ Trivia

My faithful fifteen or twenty regulars (if that) will notice a nasty and glaring mistake of red type on the sidebar to the right where a peaceful frog once resode. (Those of you Fascistbook readers ought to click on the link above the comments saying “View Original Post.” I have a bad feeling that people who read this feed on Fascistbook actually think I waste my time writing long posts in that horrid interface.) That’s not only for my small group of regulars but is also for the steady trickle of people who stumble upon IPF² every day from web searches and from my profile on OSNews. I’m trying to push IPF³ in every way possible, and if I can get some of this steady trickle of random people from around the world to be interested in IPF³, that’s all the better.

As it is, you ought to share the video and the links with literally everyone you know, and then you ought to tell all of those people to share it with everyone they know, and so on until the community for IPF³ becomes massive.

I’ve got $50 in ad credits on Fascistbook for an IPF³ ad, and with fourteen clicks today, there are three more fans. $50 will buy us about 125-140 clicks, and if the 14:3 trend continues, that’ll only get IPF³ about 30 more fans at the most. I estimate that IPF³ also has a devoted following of perhaps 10-30 other people who don’t use Facsistbook or Twitter who will read IPF³ at least periodically after it is launched. A community 90 may seem relatively large, but on the Internet that’s horrifically small. I hope for an initial crowd of 1,000 readers; that will hold and grow exponentially while I’m on my mission, and it will be able to provide IPF³ with at least a small amount of ad revenue to pay for more advertisements on Fascistbook (the best place to find the exact target audience I’m looking for– there are about four million of them who fall under a group of categories) and Google (targeted audiences not so easy to find with AdSense, but then again ads are displayed depending on what the user is searching).

It would also be nice to establish an IPF³ Swag Store, selling t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, fountain pens, stickers, and other whatnots, earning more revenue as well as letting readers pay us for us to advertise on their goods. I love how that works.

Exercise Your Faith, You Dog!

(Or, as the British would say, “excercise.” That does look better. Sigh. Seeing as how there are a wide variety of British spellings that I still do not have an understanding of, I shall not use British spellings so as to not mix both the American and the British and look foolish. What is more is that I prefer to have my document, even in editing, as clean as possible, meaning no attack of the squiggly red lines.)

Julie Dog is absolutely terrified of fireworks, thunder, and marshmallows (she still eats marshmallows, though). There isn’t often a day that goes by in which she doesn’t suddenly have her tail between her legs as far as caninely possible and that she doesn’t try in vain to break the leash to which she is bound and escape to run wildly nowhere in particular. I’ve tried to teach the poor pooch that there’s nothing to fear from a bit of loud noise, but she fervently disagrees. I believe that she imagines creatures in the similitude of the infected humans from I Am Legend making the noise, sharpening their gore-encrusted claws and other scything tools in preparation for her splatteration.

This brings to mind the Veggie Tales episode in which Junior Asparagus is terrified of monsters living in his room (when they don’t even exist, naturally).

If Julie would merely be still and and exercise  a little bit of faith, her fear would be minimal and soon disappear. I know animals adhere to the voice of God if they hear it– they’re more obedient that us foolish humans are– but I don’t suppose Julie thinks about spiritual things much, does she? She is, after all, only a dog who is a lesser sort of a spirit and is innocent with less knowledge and less ability to contain knowledge. She is a creation of God whereas humans are held to a much higher standard because we are literally the offspring of Heavenly Father and have potential to be like Him one day.

Whatever the case may be, I wish Julie would simply listen and believe me when I say nothing will harm her. She won’t listen to me; perhaps if Heavenly Father commanded her to stop being so silly? Certainly then she would listen.

Forgiving Oneself

A person constantly hears a myriad of people, especially in our culture, saying that sometimes the only person condemning him or her and holding that person responsible for past acts is the very person him or herself. I think this is more prevalent than most people take it to be. Everyone has done things in his or her life that he or she regrets. There sometimes comes a point in the repentance process in which everyone wronged is at peace with the wrongdoer except for the wrongdoer in question; how can the wrongdoer feel forgiven and at peace until he or she forgives himself? Just how does said naughty person commence to self-forgive? Perhaps it’s easier than one would expect. Perhaps one simply needs to look oneself squarely (or roundly, or even decagonally if preferred) in the eye, lift oneself to his or her fullest stature, smile in a distant way like the sea behind a mist on a brisk morning, say, “You’re all right by me. Everything’s clear, mate. You’re a good fellow. No need to feel bad anymore,” and simply let go of the memories and the feelings to walk out into the warm light and declare to the world that one is free.

All the Theories of Science

It did my heart well to read a scientist’s discussion take the following course, even if he is an imaginary scientist:

‘And why not?’ asked my uncle, in an extremely sarcastic voice.

‘Because all the theories of science prove that a feat of that sort is impossible.’

‘Oh, so all the theories prove that, do they? What wicked theories they are! And what a nuisance they are going to be!’

–Professor Lindenbrock to his nephew, Axel, in Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Theories are little more than glorified whims of the imagination craftily put together to sound more than fiction; a scientific theory is in the similitude of a historical fiction book in which the publisher missed printing the notice that the book and its characters were completely farce. I suppose science and creativity have more in common than I once thought.

In related news, Jules Verne is one of the funniest authors of whom I have ever read, and his books still maintain the serious and intellectual nature of which classic books are known for. I read the condensed and illustrated version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth several times in elementary school, but that version is utterly dull when standing in comparison with the original (albeit an original translation).

Professor Lindenbrock says some other beautiful words that I will quote below:

…what is more, science is eminently perfectible, and each new theory is soon disproved by a newer one.

Isn’t it About Time?

I hate television, but this commercial is probably my most favorite out of the entire history of the abominable device. Of course, I’m not sure that this ever aired on television seeing as how I haven’t watched more than thirty seconds of it as a passerby for the better part of the last seven or eight years. I intend to be a good and imaginative father as shown below.

I love this church. Anyone who says it’s not true with a straight face after partaking of it is daft.

The Death and Burial of R.D. Blackmore

R.D. Blackmore, frog, died in late 2008 under a hope chest in Mama’s room. His decayed and dry husk was found among dust bunnies and other creatures under the hope chest in about March, 2009, and an autopsy showed that he died from lack of food and moisture. The poor frog sat atop Jordan Spencer’s 19-inch CRT monitor for some weeks until he was taken to the treehouse and buried behind Tim the bird (died 2004). R.D. Blackmore left his home in late August, 2008, and was reported missing several days later when he did not return. He lost his way and crawled under the hope chest to die. His memory and his legacy, however, live on in all of us.

R.D.’s favorite food was the yellowish-green sort of spider often found infesting homes in West Jordan around August to November. He sometimes would eat three a day if they could be caught by his benevolent owner. He enjoyed hopping, crawling, and swimming, and he loved the outdoors so very much that his home was decorated with rocks, plants, mud, sand, and water. R.D. was named after the famous author of Lorna Doone and other books and devoted botanist, Richard Doddridge Blackmore. R.D. is survived by his mother, 226 brothers, and 302 sisters.

The photos below are not for the faint of heart. If you are prone to loss of consciousness, nausea, or vomiting at the sight of husks of once-alive people, please do not read any further.

Elitist Attitude

I have a justifiably elitist attitude about my Madrigals:

We were the best, we are the best, and we will remain for eternity the best group of Madrigals West Jordan High School (and any other high school, for that matter) has ever witnessed.

Period.

Fievel Goes West: Masterpiece

Fievel Goes West has been one of my most favorite movies since I was four. Even through all of these years, I still love the little mouse’s imagination, determination, and set of adventures. I watched it tonight for the first time in years and found myself laughing hysterically at almost every turn– especially at Tiger, Fievel’s cat friend. That cat is hilarious. Wylie Burp reminds me eerily of my Julie Dog, and their collective triumph over Cat R. Waul and his band of spindly cactus cats simply brings a joyous feeling to my soul that is remeniscient of Moroni’s numerous defeats over the Lamanites. This is a beautiful film that ought to be a part of every family’s arsenal. Your children will turn out right if they watch this film. Look at me! (That’s meant to be funny. I’m meant to not be normal, so that’s supposed to sound funny.)

Author’s Pride

I believe that authors by nature have a certain vanity about themselves, and to be a likable human being, the author must first get over himself and his talent, if applicable. I find this vain pride in myself, and it even reveals itself exponentially beyond the surface that I often sense, and I am surprised to find that exponential increase, and it is formiddable to conquer. However, conquer it we as authors must so as to perform and become our very best. We are not our best until we don’t think we are, and when one rises to that plane of thought, the best will constantly be improved.

This vanity comes in different ways, but I believe that the most common amongst these is the personal pride that the author has in him or herself and his or her thoughts and opinions: he or she believes that he or she is the cream of the crop, the icing on the cake, beyond others in intelligence and/or in talent, believing that he or she has something to offer the world and that the world ought to read what he or she says and love him or her because of this great enlightenment he or she has brought and been so gracious to offer mankind so as to bring them out from bondage. A vain author thinks of him or herself as a savior and a prophet– one whose ideas, style of writing, and intelligence far outweigh others.

I sometimes am my favorite author. I sometimes read past writings just for the joy of it. Is this vain? I think it can be, but an author needs to value his or her writing and thinking to some extent so as to actually be an author and have the drive to write. Too many people go to work every day who do not value what it is they are paid for. Money is only a passing fancy; valuing your work is much more… valuable. When I do not have the drive to write for OSNews, it is much harder and tedious to pump out articles.

So where is the fine, fine line between vanity and a healthy pride in one’s work? I suppose that’s for each author to decide and determine. Some authors are obviously stuck on themselves while others may struggle internally with pride. I believe we all struggle with it– authors and peasants alike (I’m joking about peasants). Determining if one is too prideful or not is a very heinous business, and it often takes a great deal of time to do so; the main contributing factor to this whole mess of not being able to see vanity in oneself is that the very vanity one is trying to find blocks one from finding it. The horror.

In the end, I believe we’ll all as authors struggle to keep a healthy balance for our entire existences. I suppose here’s a hint that I’ve learned from my personal and so very humble experience (which said experience has been much better and much more result-yielding than yours) to be able to detect vanity and to destroy it: if you’re thinking of yourself or thinking what others will think about you, there’s probably something there. How to destroy it? STOP. Think of others. Think of your work and how you may be able to make it better– not better than others’ work, mind you– better than what it was before.

Just some thoughts for the void. Good night, dear void.

Wasting Time on Middle School Children

Today I was criticized by two middle-school people about my punctuative use of a dash. A stinking dash after saying “P.S.” to amend my sentence. For example: “I really like your coat buttons today, Peter. PS– I think Sister Smiltonmel’s coat buttons are rather nice, too.” Though not acceptable in many types of writing, it is perfectly understandable and accpetable to use such language in conversation. I was doing just that. The first middle-school person had a much better understanding of the English language and was able to accept my rebuttal of her somewhat rude (actually, it was more thoughtless– I’ve done the same thing without meaning to be rude) comment. We actually had a good conversation about punctuation afterward and became Fascistbook friends. However, the second middle-school child was not only poor in capitalization and the punctuation he (or was it a she? The name could go either way) was criticizing rudely and overvehemently, but he (or she) was also only being rude simply for the sake of arguing and building up a nonexistent ego. I understand that middle-school children often are inexperienced in arguing in a good way and accepting the blatant truth, especially from their elders, but I simply cannot believe the low standards teen-agers are falling to, not only morally, but intelligently as well.

The conversation in its entirety (names excluded)(I’m not asking for support. Rather, I am simply sharing an experience and an example of common teen-ager wisdom, and comparing a good example of the age-group to a bad example):

Person 1: OOOOOHHH!! It’s the guy!

Me: Indeed. I am THE guy. PS– if you’re not a fan of IPF³, you ought to be. Cool people are.

Person 1: Your punctuation isn’t very good. Oh, well. I don’t know you. Wait, you’re the almost-missionary, right?

Me (my first and really last truly rude comment): Um… I have no idea where you get “your punctuation isn’t very good” because it’s spot-on. I’ve checked. I would appreciate it if you adhered to not correct people when you really don’t know what you’re correcting. If you have something that isn’t imaginary to offer, feel free to be as rude as necessary. I’ll take rudeness when it’s truth, but I will overthrow it if it has no place– even educationally.

Me: However, thank you for following my advice and joining. I do hope you enjoy it.

Person 1: Sorry, well, I’ve never seen “P.S.” followed by a dash.

Person 1: I don’t like being disliked by people I’ve never met. I should simply stop correcting peoples’ grammar, because I know it’s annoying. I’m working on it.

Me: The dash is a sign of pause different from a comma. Though not used by all linguists, I happen to utilize it constantly. Forgive me for my outburst upon you; now I see where your comment came from. For future reference, though, a dash is for a sort of a pause or dividing a part of a sentence that differers from using a comma or parenthesis.

Person 1: I see. It’s fine, I don’t mind at all. What I said wasn’t all that nice, either.

Me: I used to correct people’s punctuation a lot, too, as well as grammar. I learned not to do it unless it was a close friend who can take it. Don’t worry, though. I respect a fellow person who respects the English language. It’s good to recognize such things.

Person 1: You say “people’s,” I say “peoples’.” Is there a correct way to do that? I know “men’s” as opposed to “mens’” is correct, but does it follow the same rule?

Me (missing the apostrophe, thus misunderstanding the entire query): Well, “peoples” is multiple people yet doesn’t show possession of “punctuation.” Without the apostrophe, it only means multiple objects such as “persons” or “cats.” The apostrophe shows possession. “People’s punctuation” meaning “punctuation of multiple persons.”

Person 1: I meant with the apostraphe after the S, not before. I did put an apostraphe, just not in the place you did.

Me: Oh, wait. I see. I didn’t see the apostrophe at the END of “peoples’.” Sorry.

You know, I’m not entirely sure which would be correct. Let me think. With the apostrophe at the end, you’re using the word “peoples” and adding possession to it. I’m using the word “people” and adding possession to it. I think both actually can be considered correct, though “peoples” I think is generally used for entire countries and cultures and such. I think both can be considered correct, though.

Person 1: Thank you. I thought so, too. I can’t talk to other people about my grammar, so thank you for helping. May I add you [as a friend]?

Me: Haha. I love grammar and punctuation, not to mention English as a whole. It was good to talk to you. One of the IPF³ authors is actually a former English teacher, and his skills in this wonderful language of ours far excels mine by, if it was measurable, miles. You’ll probably be able to talk grammar and punctuation with him when the site launches.

Person 1: Ooh, awesome. I do the same thing in Spanish. Do you know how many errors there are on UTA Bus signs? It’s not even funny. It’s like they used an online translator, or something.

Me: Ha. I do that sort of thing constantly on websites and advertisements. It’s sad how many companies issue communications with blatantly incorrect English usage; they’re not even debatable or hard-to-catch mistakes.

Oh, and you may.

Me: I do feel bad about my outburst still. I work for an online news website, and I perpetually receive comments and mail of people who are honestly Devil’s advocates. They look for everything and anything to be rude about, and your comment really was nothing in meanness compared to theirs. I’ve been able to keep cool with that bombardment of negative comments; I don’t know why I wasn’t able to control myself with yours. Again, please forgive.

Person 1: I saw a billboard that tried to pluralize with an apostrophe. *SHUDDER*

Thanks. Anyway, I do forgive you. I realized what I said before kind of evened us out, so you didn’t even have to ask. It’s really no big deal.

Even though Person 1 has to work on her introductory people skills, she is more knowledgeable about the English language than most her age, and she is also able to see things objectively and be kind about them. On the other hand, Person 2 was a very negative representation of his (or her) age group:

Person 2: Except she was right, when you say P.S. it does not need any form of pausing mark. It is like saying Dear, Sam. granted i do not have perfect punctuation but at least I don’t insist i do when i don’t.

Me: Except that you mean P.S. at the end of a letter or a note. In such a case, you would be correct. However, I was using P.S. in the context of amending my statement. This is a practice common among many people. If I were to say it aloud, I would add a pause after “P.S.,” thus granting my use of a dash after it in writing thoroughly and beautifully acceptable. The use of a dash after P.S. in the context of amending a statement is irrefutably correct.

**sigh** I may not know punctuation perfectly (nor do I claim to), but I do know when it’s correct and/or acceptable after a thorough examination, especially on so simple a matter.

Honestly. This is splitting hairs. For heaven’s sakes. A person could go either way– dash or no– and it would be thoroughly acceptable. English isn’t quite so strict a language as some people seem to think it, and especially in creative works.

Person 2: You are obviously an idiot considering that you have not recognized that P.S. is short for post script.This means thhat if you are using it to “amend a sentence” it is still a post script therefore either you are a completly obnoxious ****** [Though not known commonly, this word is actually a Scottish swear word, and I'll not have it posted on my blog. The kid probably has no idea what it means.] or your punctuation was wrong. Take your pick.

Me: **sigh**

You obviously don’t understand. Rather, I imagine you refuse to understand because you are offended by what I have said. That’s natural, but please look past whatever blockage you’ve put up and calm down.

I’ve known since before I could write coherently that P.S. stood and stands for “post script.”

Using it to amend a sentence is a common practice among many Americans, and it probably is amongst many other English dialects. As I told you, English is not so strict a language as some seem to think it to be.

The use of “P.S.” is taking the idea of amending a message and applying it to a mere sentence or conversation. It’s actually quite a clever way to speak. Please. For the sake of your own image, stop being so very rude. I’m simply defending my position, which is completely correct.

Please. Stop this. You’re only making yourself look foolish– and I don’t say that to throw terrifically lame comebacks at you. I say it for your own good.

Person 2: If you are as knowledgable as you claim to be then you would have realized that the “commen” way of using P.S. is never the less in the same context which it was intended to be used, and any other usage would be slang and by definition incorect.

oh and by the way i have spent most of my life learning about both english and debate so i do feel very sure in my opinion that the superior manner in which you speak is just a way to make yourself seem highly intelligent when in fact it is often just a cover up for average skill.

Me: Haha. Sorry. You’re in middle school, aren’t you? Or just barely out of it?

Well, I’ve been through middle school and used to be as rude as you’re being, so I understand how it is. I’ll not respond to you any longer as I see this is going nowhere, and my responses will only fuel more heated hate-posts from you. I hope some of your more sensible friends (I know they’re there– I know at least one of them personally) can show you a better way to treat others.

At any rate, I hope you may regain your composure soon. It’s a nasty business, being angry and harboring hate as you seem to be doing. Whatever it is, hate or not, something’s amiss. I hope it gets better. I wish you every happiness in life. I really do; it’s not fun to feel negative to such a degree. I know I did for several years, as it were.

Farewell, dear [Person 2].

Person 2: oh i am not mad i just really like to debate things and i think you are wrong sorry i was raised to state my opinions rather then just keep quiet and go eith the flow, oh and by the way i am just out of middle school.

Well, there you have it. One middle-school child with at least some apparent form of respect and maturity and another with near to zero maturity and a knack for arguing things he (or she) obviously (by the looks of his or her English usage) knows very, very little about. It’s funny. Kids under the age of about ten or eleven seem to generally have more maturity in some areas than this child of fourteen or fifteen does. Ah, well. Can you blame him/her? He/she was only released from the depths of middle school (not to discount all middle-schoolers– generally, though, we have a tendency to be immature to a surprising nature during that age. It’s a troublesome time).

I figured that since it was so late after finishing the conversation, I might as well take the time to post it and stay up late… yet again. Sigh.

By the way (another phrase similar to my “P.S.!”), when I use the term “middle-school” children, I use it to describe the person’s maturity level. It’s possible to be quite mature in middle school. Sadly, though, the common notion is to act immature, and some of these traits are still often found in children in their senior year of high school! Alas.

Writing on Demand

Sometimes I simply cannot write on demand. Try as I might, the writing juices are dried up, perhaps. Perhaps I’m being too immersed in this Idiosyncratic Protectional Field³ business? I usually didn’t appreciate being forced to write pieces for teachers at school, particularly if I didn’t like a particular teacher much. Essays were of the Devil. Also, keeping up this goal of writing one post on my blog for every day of the month is proving to show some posts of lesser quality. I don’t think I shall continue; quality is valued over quantity in most cases, and especially in writing. I think that perhaps sleeping has something to do with it. I am exhausted most of the day long, and it’s hard to keep my thoughts coherent. I’ve started a Macintosh Plus (I loved that machine) review for OSNews, but I’ve gotten stuck in the “history” section.

…

I also get distracted easily and forget what I was doing, as shown by that series of periods above.

If I’m ever to become someone (used in terms of someone of high success), I’m going to need to not be exhausted all day and every day. I also need to be able to write on demand better. I’ve been able to do it 75% of the time for OSNews, but today is not one of those days falling under the positive percentage.

IPF³ Forthcoming

See the video. Be inspired. Be excited. IPF³: Coming soon.

The Car Analogy

It seems that everyone compares everything to cars so as to make insightful analogies, but I heard today the first one that I actually liked. It brought a smile to my otherwise horrid-looking face and got me thinking.

Tangently speaking, “this got me thinking” is a phrase that only tells other about how much the person saying it doesn’t think. For example, I’ve been thinking a lot lately and generally fill up my free time with some sort of thinking whether it is attached to actions or not. By saying “this got me thinking,” I am lying becaus I already was thinking. It really ought to be “this got me thinking about something that I hadn’t thought about before or wasn’t thinking about lately.” Anyway. Back to the point.

A youth of about 16.5 years of age today gave a talk using a car analogy. Roads are life, cars are people, and the drivers are our spirits. Some cars are sportscars, some are 15-seater vans, and still others are your scratch ‘n’ dent specials. All of them are different and have different qualities and weaknesses. All cars need fuel and upkeep, but the driver needs to stay alert and awake or else he or she may crash or take wrong turns– the driver needs to be nourished, too. The driver also needs to look at the road signs (listen to the prophets) and make sure he or she is taking one of the roads that will lead him or her aright. Many drivers and cars are equipped with a GPS (the Holy Ghost), and those who don’t have one can still get one if they go out and get one. However, there are many drivers who think that they know better and that they don’t need the GPS, so they don’t listen to it and eventually just turn it off. We’re all drivers and cars, and we need to pay attention to the signs, listen to and follow what the GPS directs, nourish our cars, and nourish our drivers, or else we may end up on one-way roads leading to places we find we wish we never went to, broken roads, or where there are no roads at all, stalling and even completely halting our progress towards our final destination.

Kudos to Haden for one of the best analogies I’ve heard.