Random Thought Thread

Hah! I have a random Facebook page that I'm not plugging here, in no small part because I don't know what I'm trying to do with it. But anyway, last week someone from Egypt found it based on god knows what kind of keyword search and became something like the seventh person to "like" the page.

This week, Facebook is constantly spamming me with "REACH MORE PEOPLE IN EGYPT FOR JUST 90 EGP!!!!" type ads.

I may be missing my target market here....

 

Excellent!

 

I saw that the video was six minutes long. Too busy; didn't watch.

 

Don't worry, be happy!

 

@Cave Troll Nice.

 

I found a great story in a comment on Imgur(mostly a meme site). The post was a cute dog gif. The dog went up to another dog excitedly while doing this little tippy-toe dance. The commenter told that their five year old daughter thought the breed of dog in the post was called a "bitch on fries".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bichon_Frise

 

Or a Pom Iranian

 

That reminds me of a joke. There's a dad and his daughter who go to a zoo. It's not very popular and they don't know why. But when they get there they discover the only exhibit is a dog. It was a shit-zoo.

 

I'm contemplating putting up a 8-9 year old excerpt in the workshop and asking people to tear it apart—see if what I see as its major flaws are what others see as its biggest flaws, and perhaps finally be emotionally distant enough not to fall apart at genuine critiques

Not soon 'cause I'm having some sort of body image breakdown where I'm on vacation & I want nothing more to hide in the hotel room, bundle under the covers, and never see the light of day or be seen ever again

It might be helpful to see the problems with my old works to avoid/correct them in my current project

Still not sure I'm brave enough, though

 

I have a kinda long short, that is 13yrs old and might be
a cringe fest. (To be fair I was 17 and had a one track mind.)
But none the less every time I look at it, I laugh and think:
Man I was dumb.
Still worth a good laugh.

 

I think I've made a mistake...

Snarking at the writers of standardized tests probably wasn't the best idea. I don't necessarily regret it, though. The essay-writing portion of the test barely counts for anything, so it shouldn't affect much.

A little background: The essay I had to analyze was awful. It constantly contradicted whatever evidence it put out to support its claim, defended at least four different viewpoints while contradicting them at the same time, and it didn't even have a central idea. The title of the thing ("Why _____ isn't a laughing matter") was supposed to be the main idea, I guess, but it only mentioned it in the very last sentence ("So now you should realize that _____ isn't a laughing matter") and didn't even reference it once in the essay itself.

I was supposed to analyze how the concluding sentence connected to the text.

So I just wrote down a bunch of intellectual-sounding fluff for the main part.

My concluding paragraph, though. [shakes head] I think I said something along the lines of "This sounds like it was written by a bored sophomore with an average vocabulary, a MacBook Pro, and a basic understanding of semicolons." And my last line was "So now you should realize that substandard essays aren't a laughing matter."

Whoops. >_> Damn you, impulsive passive-aggressiveness.

 

Well I mean the markers didn't write it. And they didn't endorse it. So they don't neccessarily have reason to care it you diss it.

 

Don't worry about it

I was always sarcastic & snarky during essays

And I always get As on tests & got 4s & 5s on AP exams

I don't know; maybe the fact that you can satirize the prompt shows a keen critical analytical insight—or maybe the graders are just so over bland essay after essay that they find relief in the brief respite of a sassy, snarky answer

I wouldn't worry too much about it

 

It hasn't stopped raining since Easter.

Like, literally. Be it a lite mist or a heavy downpour, in some way, shape, or form, it's been raining non-stop.

 

As a uni teacher, I'd go with this, and probably give you a good grade. Marking essays is so incredibly boring that anything short of death threats is a welcome change.

edit: typo

 

Well since I spent the rest of my first amazon gift card on Fet stuff,
I had to get another one for hopefully more books. Though the temptation
is there to keep adding to my oddball collection of items.
But I should find a few more books first.

 

game

That g is secretly underlined.

egg

And those two are secretly not.

 

I think there's a difference between an excellent writer and a great storyteller

And while I (as a reader) usually lean towards the former, sometimes the latter is actually far more enjoyable

 

How would you define and compare those two terms in this sense?

 

Well, first, I don't mean to say an author can't be both simultaneously (or even niether). I think the best writers are in fact both

The former I would say has flawless punctuation, interesting prose, decent if not perfect application of any & all literary techniques, tight control of plot, and just an overall excellence in their ability to write

The latter might have none of that, or else despite some rather obvious flaws in syntax; messy use of mixed metaphors; various plot holes; or whatever other writing errors, it still conveys some story & the vividness of this story somehow dismisses all that

This is not particularly a book I'm fond of, but I'd say Stephanie Meyer is a fairly poor writer but a pretty good story teller in Twilight (it starts going downhill from the second book, but I can at least support the first book somewhat)

I read it in the first wave of the hype, before the abysmal films and when girls were still just secretly passing it on to each other with a little bit of embarressment but a hope at comraderie bonded through a shared guilty pleasure in teen vampire romance.

And I'll openly admit: it was okay. Particularly as it wasn't all teen angst & supernaturally charged infatuation/lust; there were well timed reprieves of snarky banter & heavy sarcasm that went a long way in making any surrounding incidents of the aforementioned palatable—unlike the films, which were just this awkward creepy intensity nonstop. And I had to watch all the films, 'cause I had a Twi-mom who just ate that franchise up. The first book kind of had this Untamed Heart & Buffy the Vampire Slayer sort of cross over vibe and it was just a story that girls (and apparently guys, because I have two straight male friends who apparently loved it ?) got behind and adored, imperfections & all

So while I don't think Meyers is a great writer by a long shot, there was decent storytelling which I think most of the fans were actually drawn to and is the only thing that made everything else forgivable to them in the end.

A more decent written example is Harry Potter. Does have its flaws, plot holes or contradictions or whatever, but overall it doesn't suffer from the poor craftsmanship of Meyer's writing. However, I wouldn't say that Rowling is an exquisuite writer either. There are several magician/wizard books I greatly prefer in quality & style & so many other criteria. Like I think Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeous series is simply impeccable all across the board. Prefer it in almost every way, and wouldn't hesitate to call it superior to HP series.

And yet . . .

There is just some sort of charm or allure to Harry Potter that I can't resist. Like I'd never think to purchase merchandise related to any other books (I'm not really into memorabilia or collectibles) but I get silly over being sorted into whatever house & which houses my friends theoretically would be in. I want to know what my wand would be made of, it's length, it's core, and how it speaks to an inner me. I enjoy watching parodying/playfully mocking Potter Puppet Pals and can get swept up in all the immature silliness the fictional Harry Potter universe.

I don't know. There's just something about her storytelling and the story that at the end of the day trumps my better judgment and is just a heck of a lot more fun to let myself get caught up in.

Again, granted, there are masterpieces that have both excellence in execution of writing & control of the plot and have whatever unique quality that embodies compelling "storytelling" and those are what should be aimed for & emulated

(Also, there are just overall crappy books that don't have good storytelling OR decent writing)

But at the end of the day for me, entertaining storytelling can beat out superior writing despite my brain trying to convince me that can't possibly be the case

 

That's what I thought. Writng quality versus story quality are too different things.

 

Today I tried yerba mate for the first time.

Well, what I mean is, I bought a can of something fizzy that said "yerba mate" on it, but what it really contained was yerba-mate-as-processed-by-the-American-food-industrial-complex. So all it tasted like was the raspberry/blackberry flavoring they put in it.

So what I mean is, I still haven't tried yerba mate, but I am so caffeinated right now that it's alright anyway.