TG captions, MC captions, and an extensive TG blogroll. Plus, whatever else captures my attention.
Saturday, December 26, 2020
Friday, December 25, 2020
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Saturday, December 5, 2020
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Saturday, November 7, 2020
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Saturday, October 24, 2020
Saturday, October 17, 2020
Monday, October 12, 2020
Saturday, October 3, 2020
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
RBG and Responses to My Post In Memoriam
On September 19, 2020, shortly after I learned of her passing, I posted an in memoriam to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, someone who I have thought very highly of for a very long time.
I want to step aside from the usual fare of this blog to examine some of the responses that I received to my post, both here and on Tumblr. First, let's look at a thread posted here on Blogger:
A few quick points...
First, if Trump gets more picks for SCOTUS, don't be surprised if posts of the sort that I make and you read become a thing of the past. If SCOTUS moves further to the right, I fear we'll see government censorship, pressure on platforms to censor, or outright reversals on protections for LBGTQ Americans. Remember that Republicans fought tooth and nail to keep laws banning homosexuality. If they feel emboldened and think they can get away with it, I wouldn't be surprised to see new laws targeting gays and, especially, transgender Americans.
Second, if you don't think RBG and her lifetime of working to expand equality to all citizens, especially women, makes her a hero ... then fuck off.Cops are heroes, military personnel are heroes, the person who dives in to traffic to save a person is a hero, doctors are heroes. Lawyers are garbage scum.
I agree that copes are heroes. So are those or volunteer to put their lives at risk in the military. And so are those ordinary people who take great risk to help others. On that we can agree. But "Lawyers are garbage scum"? Really? First, how do you know that I'm not a lawyer? Second, just think about some of the things that RBG did as a lawyer. She litigated cases to the Supreme Court to ensure that women had rights equal to those of men. She litigated cases to prevent forced sterilization of women. Had she not done those things, women would still be even more second-class citizens than they are and forced sterilizations (just to cite one example) might still be going on. Sure, some lawyers are scum. So are some cops, soldiers, and everyday people. But lawyers like RBG who spent a career trying to make the world a better place are absolutely hereos.
I think a lot of people should be forcibly sterilized regardless of gender. Legislating from the bench should be unconstitutional, anyone who supports that is just as bad as the vile judges who do it. If you are a lawyer, hope you enjoy the heat and pitchforks.
I started to write a response discussing "legislating from the bench". And I thought about a response to hoping that if I'm a lawyer I "enjoy the heat and pitchforks". The hate that you feel is palpable. In any event, I kept coming back to your first sentence. People should be forcibly sterilized? OK. I guess that makes you a Nazi. Please go away and don't come back.
If you want me to go away and not come back you are going to have to force that to happen.
Then, on Tumblr, I received the following:
Not missed
@icasualcollectionkryptonite Not missed? Go away.
So here is my question: What compels someone to post comments like these? I accept and understand that not everybody shares my political views. That's fine. Further, I understand that the point of this blog is not politics and that I'm "stepping out of character" to post something even remotely political. I get that. But when one person posts a heartfelt thought, in this case nothing more than a photo, the years of her life, and the Jewish memorial thought of "may her memory be a blessing," what compels others to express the sort of thoughts shown above from Unknown and icasualcollectionkryptonite?
Look, I could go on a lot longer. I could talk about why RBG meant a lot to me. I could talk about how communities like ours benefit from voices like hers. But I suspect that I'm mostly preaching to the proverbial choir. But these negative comments that I've received... Yes, they bothered me. They bothered me on a personal level. And so I felt the need to vent and share. OK. I'll wrap this up. But let me know what you think, whether about RBG, about my feelings, or about the comments that I've posted above.
Saturday, September 26, 2020
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Saturday, September 5, 2020
Saturday, August 29, 2020
Saturday, August 22, 2020
Saturday, August 15, 2020
Sunday, August 2, 2020
Friday, July 24, 2020
Health Update
The good news is that I’m out of bed. The bad news is that I’m still really, really uncomfortable and the worst sort of discomfort usually comes when I sit at my desk for more than about 10 minutes. So I’m going to just keeping taking things day-by-day.
And to those who’ve sent me well-wishes, thank you. I appreciate it.
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Brief Time Out
Saturday, July 11, 2020
Saturday, July 4, 2020
Saturday, June 27, 2020
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Future Farmers and Teen Witches
Friday, June 12, 2020
Writing Progress (June 12, 2020)
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Friday, May 29, 2020
Writing Progress (May 29, 2020)
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Friday, May 22, 2020
Writing Progress (May 22, 2020)
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Friday, May 15, 2020
Writing Progress (May 15, 2020)
I solved last week's problem by breaking the troubling chapter into two parts and using that first part to deal with some of the issues that were giving me trouble later on. I think I like the way the story is flowing now, but I guess we'll just have to see when I get a bit further. I have two sections coming up that I know will be difficult to write.
I've decided to give myself a break when I'm not feeling in the mood to write. My output isn't great if I'm trying to force myself. But when I am in the mood and the words are flowing, I'm finding that this sort of writing is ... oh, I don't know. A release? Cathartic? Anyway, when I'm in the mood, I'm really enjoying the effort to tell the tale.
New captions? Um... My queue has plenty right now.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Saturday, May 9, 2020
Friday, May 8, 2020
Writing Progress (May 8, 2020)
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Friday, May 1, 2020
Writing Progress (May 1, 2020)
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Friday, April 24, 2020
Writing Progress (April 24, 2020)
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Friday, April 17, 2020
Writing Progress (April 17, 2020)
This week comes with bad news and good news. The bad news is that I only managed about 2,000 words on Raspberry's story. It's not that I've burned out or lost focus; I just had other things going on...
Like captions. Lots and lots of captions. I mean a lot of captions? How many new captions did you write I hear you yelling. How many?
Drum roll please...
In the last week, in addition to correcting typos and cleaning up about 20 older, as-yet unpublished captions, this week I wrote ... are you sitting down?
This week I wrote 145 new captions. Yes I did. Seriously.
Which of course presents a bit of a dilemma. I've been posting one new caption each week (usually Friday night or Saturday night). If I keep to that schedule, I've got enough captions in my queue for three years! And while I like the idea of a full queue, especially so that if I hit a dry spell, my blog won't go quiet, I'm also really anxious for my readers to read my new captions (several in particular). So I'm thinking about posting new captions more frequently. Not sure yet about that. Time will tell.
Oh, and as for what the protagonist of my story will be named, I think I'm going to stick with Raspberry Monaco (but her friends may call her Razz; I liked that suggestion). For those who asked, I viewed "Monaco" as being similar to names like "Dakota," "Montana," "Malibu," "Aspen," etc. And to the anonymous reader who suggested the name "Toledo" ... just, no.
In the meantime, keep safe and stay healthy.
Friday, April 10, 2020
Could We Really Get a Mindy Z Short Story (update 1)
As a special bonus for my readers, I'll offer you a chance to give me your opinion on something. I've given my character a name (a name that she chooses in the story) for a particular reason that fits the character and the story. But I'm still not sure that I like the name and I've been contemplating a change. At present, the character's name is "Raspberry Monaco" (Raspberry because raspberries were her favorite flavor and Monaco because it sounds exotic and reminds her of something that she and her father used to like doing together). While I really like "Raspberry," I can't help but feel that the name is bit clunky or too much of a mouthful (and I don't think I like it being shortened to "Rasp" or "Berry"). So I'm toying with the idea of changing her name to "Monaco Berry".
Voting is now open (though I reserve the right to ignore all of your votes; hey it's my story!).
As for captions, I've managed to fix a bunch of typos in captions that were in my output folder but I've been too busy working on my
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Friday, March 27, 2020
Could We Really Get a Mindy Z Short Story?
Until now...
While I've been working from home, I've found myself with a bit of free time here and there between working on this and working on that. And in that free time (and some of the free time I can find late at night, too), I've started working on something that is going by the working title "Mistaken Punishment" or, alternatively, "Raspberry". The idea was inspired by a story on Fictionmania a week or three ago (I'm not going to tell you which one, just yet, but I will if I eventually publish my story). That story really wasn't the type that I tend to read, but something about it caught my attention and gave me an idea to work with that would let me play around with some of the themes and ideas I that I like to explore.
Anyway, the story is far from done, but so far I'm on Chapter 4 and it's nearly 13,000 words long! I was initially thinking that this was a 10-15,000 word story, but I'm still in the very early stages of the story I plan to tell.
Right now, I'm thinking about working through the next chapter or two and then maybe posting an initial draft for comments. If this thing gets longer and longer I will contemplate trying to put into an ebook format and sell it via Amazon or Smashwords or something. I've never really thought about trying to monetize any of the things I do here, but this might give me the impetus to do so.
We'll see. Stay tuned.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Tumblr Blog Terminated?
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Don't Mess With Flight Attendants Who Are Witches
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Thanks for the Kind Words
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Cuntry Girl
After I finished this caption, I came across another image from the series. Don't be surprised if there is eventually a part 2 to Cuntry Girl.
Time for Trump to appoint his 3rd SCOTUS Justice.