The Random But Timestamped Blurtings of P. Bristow Esquire.

Stuff I haven't had time to read yet...

2008-05-14T07:19:58Z

Putting this here so I can find it all again on my day(s) off... For reading *AFTER* I've done some paperwork, or parcel collection, or umpteen other things that still need doing.

FICS:
The rest of the Herald and Knight series:
http://www.whofic.com/series.php?seriesid=1114

Churchontime:
http://community.livejournal.com/churchontime/7893.html

TomDoc 'n' Sarah:
http://members.aol.com/anderpearl/storiestop.htm

Some Ten & Reinette stuff:
http://community.livejournal.com/fireplace_man/14784.html

The rest of Rich's 10 Docs comic:
http://www.shipsinker.com/wordpress/2008/04/01/the-10-doctors-page-86the-end/

Jack & SJ:
http://mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com/293674.html

FACTS:
About forgetting stuff:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak?currentPage=all

About being a prize chump:
http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/214607.html

One in the eye for sharkdom:
http://www.sciam.com/video.cfm?id=ADEF8420CA0D11D59FA15D32C8A10AFE

And the details and backup info on this one, which is about - *SNOOOOOORE*....
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-can-you-catch-up-on-sleep&sc=rss

And now... Your irregular weekly dose of OMGSQUEEEEETHATSOKYOOT!!!!

2008-05-11T23:04:10Z

Four kittens "stalking" a coke box: http://www.gigglesugar.com/1595098

G'night all.

The countdown has begun.

2008-05-11T09:05:59Z

That's the countdown as in...

6...
2...
9...
5...
1...
4...
1...
3 !!!

Yep, in exactly one week's time it will be TUPA day! =:o}

That's the Transatlantic Unified Pi Approximation Day, for those who get out too much. It's the halfpoint between the British (22/7) and U.S. (3.14) versions of Pi Approximation Day. Get your surprisingly accurate^* celebrations ready now! =:o}

^*( ( 22/7 + 3.14 ) / 2 = 3.1414285714285714285714285714286(ish) )

This evening's viewing, and some ponderings on the Doctor [Spoilers for NuWho, S4, Ep6]

2008-05-11T01:50:25Z

Viewing of DW was delayed, as a result of John Barrowman being so excruciating to watch on the preceding game show (the guy managed to make every single utterance - including the "exciting" announcement of the round titles - sound like a third rate am-dram actor reading from an autocue. This may in part have been because he was, in fact, reading from an autocue...) that I flipped over to Five, and got hooked on the Danny DeVito film they were showing. I stuck with that to the end, stayed on through Five News ("WHAT?!? On top of food, shelter, and every other basic necessity, the dying multitudes also get denied their *vote*?!?", and on to the NCIS double bill (reruns of Season 3). Two great episodes, I thought.

The DW ep. has now fully torrented, however (I've given up on the BBC's annoyingly flaky and uncontrollable "watch again" viewer), and so...

As I suspected, the meaning of "my daughter" was *not* "Susan's mum", nor even "the Doctor's daughter from long ago who's always been around and who somehow survived the Time War and stayed hidden, and we've just never met/heard of her before". I was a bit startled, though, to have her origin not only explained, but actually *played out in full* before the opening credits even rolled! =:o> And so, the focus of the ep. was not "where does this mysterious daughter come from?" (which as plots go would have been a bit run-of-the-mill, frankly), but rather, "Now that she's here... what would the Doctor's daughter be *like*?". And of course, this is complicated by the fact that she's been pre-programmed to be something the Doctor would never want her to be: A soldier.

Halfway through the ep.: "Ooh, she's *fun*! Can we keep her?" =:o>

Near the end of the ep.: "You *BASTARDS*!!" =>:o{

End of the ep.: "Yayyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!" [BIG HAPPY BOUNCY SQUEEFUL BOUNCE-BOUNCE TYPE BOUNCY THING]

(P.S. You're still bastards, though.)

Some obvious thematic follow-through from the preceding Sontaran two-parter: The Doctor was seen there to be not just disapproving (as of old) but actually quite *hostile* to soldiery. Here, it's pointed out why: He became (in some sense or other) a soldier himself, in the fateful Time War, and bitterly regrets it.

Another thematic follow-through that I wasn't so happy with: Declaring himself as the foundation stone for a new society.

The 10th Doctor spent his first two years angsting about the temptations of godhood. He was "born" as a consequence of taking the Vortex (temporarily) into himself from Rose. On recovering from his regeneration, his first conscious hour is full of frantic self-enquiry: "what kind of man am I?" - and he seems to find an answer: "No second chances. I'm that kind of a man." And he seems grimly resigned to it.

Then we see the worried look he gets when Novice Hame talks of "the Lonely God"...

In "The Family of Blood", we see him enact a terrible judgement upon the eponymous Family. (Although note: We only hear a version as told by one of the Family members. Reliable narrator? You decide.)

In Utopia, he finally explains to Jack what Rose did that led to Jack's immortality, and observes: "If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god. A *vengeful* god." And this, of course, is what he fears has in fact happened to him, at least a bit. Or could be happening to him, inch by inch...

And so in the S3 finale, after suffering the year that never happened, we seem him hell-bent (!) on being, if he has to be any kind of god at all, a *different* kind of god: A merciful one.

But there's a problem. However noble his intention, the Doctor is still a deeply flawed individual. And while he may have largely come to terms with his part in the War, and the destruction of Gallifrey, he's still somewhat damaged by it.

Now, a flawed god can be OK, if he's part of a rich pantheon: Lots of differently-imperfect gods, all their flaws pulling against each other to achieve some balance. But when the only god in town is someone like the Doctor? Someone who of late has let self-obsession blind himself to the nuances of every relationship he's in, never mind those taking place around him? Olympus, we have a problem.

"Let the foundation of your society be a man who never would". Sounds OK... except that they will inevitably remember other things about this man too, and doubtless try to emulate those. And they'll all remember or interpret those things differently, or prioritise them differently, or just be unaware of the unconscious ways they have filtered what he said through what they are pre-programmed or post-educated to hear and believe... And sure as eggs is eggs, a few generations down the line (nearly a whole day, then?) there will be people putting other people to the sword because "He just meant we should never use a *gun*, you silly heretic!"

He doesn't want to be a vengeful god... But he's already succumbed more than once to the temptation of vengeance. He doesn't want to be the lonely god... But he clings to his identity as "last of the Time Lords", refusing to consider - despite having been proved wrong once already - that others may be out there, hidden from him in cloaks of humanity or shields of other kinds. He doesn't want to be a god at all... but when situations crop up where being a god seems to provide a solution, he steps into the role all too easily.

The Ood told him that "your song will be ending soon". Could it be a reference to that "same old song" he sings: "I'm the last of my kind, boo-hoo"?

I hope so. =:o} Partly 'cos I'm tired of hearing it; Partly 'cos any sane fan wants to hear that Romana survived... but mostly because when he finally realises he's wrong about that, he *might* realise he's wrong about being being damned to godhood, too.

Nicely done.

2008-05-10T00:31:52Z

A rather fine Ian/Barbara fanvid (on YouTube).

Blood sacrifices

2008-05-08T11:58:28Z

Lawrence Miles has some insights on on blood sacrifices, futurology, our perceptions of what is "present" vs what is "history"... and the vexations of a time travel show that outlives its own predictions:

"Traditionally, there's always been a skulking, unspoken connection between Doctor Who and Celebrity Death. ..."

My favourite observation:
"Had [C.S.] Lewis lived just another twenty-four hours, then he would have been able to watch the first episode and say to himself: 'Haaaaang on a minute…'"

=:o}

"'Twas gravity, 'twas gravity..."*

2008-04-30T17:23:46Z

^*(With a bow to my erstwhile partner in chrythm and chryme, Dan Bennett)

First, there was this...

But then zeroth, there was the even cooler this! =:o>

Roundup of interesting stuff

2008-04-28T21:33:35Z

Fic recs

From the world(s) of Sarah Jane Smith:

One based on the SJAs (Season one, natch): The Girlfriends' Code

One based on Old Who (Harry) and the SJS audios (Spoilers for the whole of season 2): Always. (Ah... If only Ian Marter could come back to us. =:o{ )

[EDIT: From the DVD commentary of "The Sontaran Experiment"(?):
Tom: Isn't it extraordinary to think that Ian Marter no longer exists!
Lis: Oh, don't... [LONG PAUSE] ]

In a similar vein, but for my money this one gets a little too "wish fulfillmenty" about halfway through. YMMV. Dream a Little Dream.

Knocking it into a cocked hat, frankly, is The Herald and Knight series. Bridges the gap between the SJS audios (from Big Finish) and DW:"School Reunion" / The SJAs rather nicely. (Although a certain exchange near the end of "School Reunion" takes on new implications...)

Or for the more time-starved or visually inclined: Hubba hubba! =:o>

From elsewhere:

The Eight Man Austin (Warning: It's *long*, and presented as a downloadable Word (or similar) document, and I've barely started it yet, but it's smallship1 writing about him[ALT]self and his brother Nyronds, so how can it go wrong? (Other than spectacularly, as all the best Nyrondic plans are obliged to, somewhere along the way... =:o} )

And on a totally different tack:
Nina Hartley on Zen, feminism and sex (whether for work or for pleasure).

[EDIT: And an "Awwwwww...." moment from Real Life^TM: http://shadesong.livejournal.com/3569068.html ]

Windows boot-up text mode

2008-04-28T07:40:19Z

SO... Not many Windows users will be aware of this, unless the've ever felt the need to do a boot-time defrag or CHKDSK or whatever, but when you first power up your PC, and Windows (be it 2000, XP or even presumably Vista) is showing that dreary start-up screen with the progress bar, it's actually hiding from you an awful lot of interesting and potentially useful stuff that could have been displayed instead. There's a way you can tell Windows to stop hiding ~~its light under a bushel~~ all that crap under the carpet, so that next time you boot up you get a good old-fashioned VGA text box, with 25 rows of text in columns of 80 characters, and you can see what's going on.

And text will crawl slowly up this screen, one line at a time, until something appears that peaks your interest that you *really* want to take a closer look at... wherupon a sudden flurry of output (probably exactly 25 lines of it, knowing my luck) will push the interesting lines of text off the top of the screen before you can even reach for your monocle. Damn!

Since it's a very basic VGA text mode display - the one thing that all graphics cards the world over are mandatorily able to display without problems - there's no way to scroll back and see what you missed.

But... there are other VGA text modes that would help: Modes with more characters on a line (so that lines don't wrap so early or so often), or with more lines: a choice of 43 or 50, in fact. Either would do me.

Now, back in the good old days of the Win9x series, telling Windows to use one of these alternative text mdes during boot-up was a doddle, 'cos the boot up process was actually a DOS session, and DOS has had the MODE command for choosing these things ever since it crawled out of its inventer's brain. But now we're in the modern, more secure world of NT-based Windows, the boot process is a new animal with very little of the power of DOS. Specifically, it seems, no MODE command, or equivalent. I've hunted the internet for such a thing all weekend: No joy.

Of course, there are many many web pages that tell you how to change the text mode during bootup for a Linux installation. Because of course Linux was created by the same people who have to use it and debug it on their own machines and who aren't straight-jacketed by a corporate mantra of "We're leaving DOS behind!", so they didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Anyone know how to make this happen for a Windows installation? I'd even consider using a Linux-oidal boot-loader that does the job before handingover to Windows, if I could be confident (a) it would work and (b) it wouldn'r render Windows un-maintainable. (I've had that happen before.)

Solutions applicable to either Win 2k or Win XP, and preferably both, would be very welcome. Ta. =:o}

Still a bit stunned by this.

2008-04-28T00:09:18Z

Judging by the fact that the only mention of it on my flist comes from overseas, so are other people. Or perhaps everybody overlooked it? (I haven't seen anything on teletext or the TV news, for example...?)

Last stop, Mournington Crescent...? =:o{

An Independent bio.

Happy journeys, dear friend.

2008-04-21T22:01:39Z

The long and intermittent battle to find a new home for my 2nd ever car - She Who Refuses To Be Named - is over at last! A tightly run race between three contenders resulted in her passing into the care of a very competent farmer and his aid, who brought a cattle truck (or somesuch) to carry her away safely (and legally, given that she's not currently taxed). She is promised to the farmer's son, who is learning to drive and needs something to make all his first mistakes in.

I made all my first mistakes in Auntie Bess, of course, whom some of you may recall meeting, and others will have heard express herself in song (borrowing my voice, natch). Amazingly, she forgave me every single one of them, and we had several happy (and sappy) years together. She Who Refuses To Be Named went through less "active" abuse, and consequently survived life with me somewhat longer... but I shamefully neglected her over the last year, as she languished with a broken window and missing steering wheel, 2 miles away. It's good she's found someone with whom she can exercise a last burst of her characteristic exuberance, before she goes to that great motorway in the sky.

Most importantly: M & A now have a useful patch of empty space adjacent to their main driveway, which greatly facilitates the currently necessary to-ing and fro-ing of the wifely and paternal cars. And thus, a valued friendship also has a last chance to blossom.

She Who Refuses To Be Named also steadfastly refused to sing to me. And rightly so: Just 'cos one car sings to you doesn't mean they all have to. She had her own style, which was as unsentimental as Auntie Bess was incurably soppy. (Perhaps something of my Dad rubbed off on her, when they were together. Or perhaps she just learned how to be his bulwark against the tide of unseemly emotion... Or perhaps she only ever sang to him, and if that's true, then its not my place to know.)

She never expressed any interest in my emotional state: She was the veritable Cat of cars, and I was merely her chauffeur, and occasional playmate/sparring partner. She was into Refusing^TM in a big way, and she always did it with aplomb. Especially that planned final trip to my storage space in Milton Keynes. =:o? But she was always great fun to be with.

[TAKES A DEEP BREATH]

Happy journeys, She. May your new young chauffeur give you all the respect, and all the challenge, you deserve. [SALUTE]

Abby Sciuto belongs aboard the TARDIS!

2008-04-20T23:32:14Z

The prequel:
http://azarsuerte.livejournal.com/399294.html

The tea party:
http://azar.ink-and-quill.com/ficncis.php?smiles

Sleep now. Doctors in the morning... Then *Car Stuff*! =:o}

And in case you were wondering...

2008-04-19T18:48:00Z

...about that comment about the Ood Sphere being close to the Sense Sphere, well... avarill's got it covered.

Awwww......

2008-04-19T03:49:46Z

It's impossible to feel stressed with a kitty kiss. =:o}

In other good news from the last couple of days:

1. My colleagues have pretty much unanimously declared me King of Windows. =:o} (And that has nothing to do with Microsoft.)

2. I haz a payday! I haz fud! =:o} (N.B. must be careful with the fud. Chipshop fud is nice-now-but-hungry-for-three-days-afterwards fud. Bottled fud is only calories and then "wheeeee!!!" and then hangovers, and is not proper fud.)

OK, I triez sleep again. Is it can be nap time nao?

[LOOKS AT PIKCHUR] OK, I iz a dog. I still talks like a cat.

So here's how it goes.

2008-04-18T18:34:59Z

You look up the people who claim to provide a given service.

You list the ones that are in the right area, serve the right catchment area, seem to have the right qualifications or general business nouse.

You pick the best looking one off the list; You look up their contact details, and you follow the procedure their web page or other advert gives you for logging your request for service.

And then you wait.

You get no email confirmation of them having received your request.

You get no telephone call back.

You get no message left on your 'phone while your telephone has been switched off 'cos you were at work, where you're not supposed to take personal calls while on duty.

After a day or two, you leave a follow-up call on their answerphone. (These guys never seem to answer their 'phones. At least, not as any time when you're in a position to actually call them. Why they bother listing an office 'phone number when they're clearly one-man outfit and the job they do means they're never in the office is beyond me. But then, if you call their mobile number (if they list one), you either don't get an answer either, or you get a brief confused discussion 'cos they're in the middle of a job and they'll "get back to you as soon as I've checked on the computer when we've next got a lorry in your area".)

And another day goes by, and still you hear nothing.

And so, at the next opportunity you try another website, another number, another service... And the cycle begins again.

Yes, this is still about the sodding car.

Latest non-responding company: Mitchell Vehicle Dismantling Ltd., in Bishop's Cleeve. I say this not to name and shame them (in my experience they're no worse than the rest), but just so that anyone in any doubt can look them up and confirm that yes, this is a real company, I am not making this up, and yes by any reasonable interpretation their website does in fact offer the service I have requested. I filled in their web form and submitted a request on Wednesday evening, and I have heard ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from them. It is now of course FRiday evening which means the earliest I'll belikely to hear anything is MOnday, which is my only weekday off work next week, which is therefore the only day next week when it would be feasible to arrange collection of the car... and the following week, neither of my days off is a week day, and arranging extra time off at short notice is, um, problematical, to say the least.

So I'm going to try this appeal again:

Would anyone - you, your friends, your family, you neighbours budgerigar's boyfriends great aunt Selma - like a FREE CAR? Perfectly serviceable, good little runner, great fuel economy, just needs a couple of bits of vandalism fixed and oh, a new steering wheel fitted 'cos some bastard nicked the old one. These are very small expenses for anyone who might be in the market for AN ENTIRE WORKING CAR. Alas they are also expenses beyond my reach because I bring home 700 quid every 28 days, the landlord takes 380, the arrears on my council tax is currently 220 per month, and what with other fixed bills for the next few months my total living allowance is about tuppence ha'penny a week. And I should be spending my "spare" time and energy trying to do something about *that*, and instead I keep getting my head stuck in a loop fretting about *this*, because apparently in this totally fucked-up "must have everything brand new and perfectly working" economy you have to spend a significant chunk of money just to *GIVE* away AN ENTIRE PERFECTLY SERVICEABLE FUCKING CAR!

It needs to move NOW because it is making Mike and Ali's life even more miserable than it currently would be anyway, what with all the cancer and hospital trips and everything. I'm pretty much resigned to our friendship being irretrievably and permanently dead over this thing, but that doesn't mean I want the mess to go on ANY LONGER THAN NECESSARY.

I am seriously considering (for the umpteenth time) just finding some good strong rope, threading the thing up one evening and manually towing the bugger out to some place where someone might do the decent thing and just NICK or DESTROY THE ENTIRE BLOODY THING... Except that the steering's probably locked so that I can't tow it any further than blocking the road outside Mike and Ali's place anyway. Is there anyone with something like a wheeled jack, that could be fixed under the front just to get the steering wheels off the road out of the way?

Or anyone with ANY *practical*, "workable* ideas what to do?

Kyoooooooooooooooooooot! =:o}

2008-04-15T22:53:40Z

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/04/ladies-and-gent.html

In other news:

1. Sinuses almost completely de-clogged. Back to work tomorrow. Hopefully my right ear will stop aching by then... (Wax issue, hitherto masked by the sinus cloggage. But it's great to have full hearing again! =:o} )

2. Got to the bank today, and was surprised to find 2 quid still in the account! So I withdrew 1.60UKP. *Hopefully* two things will happen tomorrow: A paypal payment goes in, just in time for a DD to go out. Wish me luck...

Anyway, I spent said 1.60 UKP on a small box of teabags (I'd already used my last one three times!), two pints of milk, and... a pack of crumpets! My diet this week has been lacking in treaty-type things as well as in quick'n'easy carbs, and 12 crumpets for 50p qualifies as both - not to mention bloomin' good value! =:o} I've already devoured half the pack, giving me that nicely full feeling for the first time in days. The rest are for break-time snacks at work.

Essential skills for shop assistants, No 32 in a series of 2863104362427: Clairvoyancy

2008-04-14T16:27:01Z

So... I slept about 4 hours last night. Couldn't settle down; felt cold even though the room's at 22degC; head would clear for a bit and then start feeling like it wanted to explode again. So, up I get, since tossing and turning doesn't lead to relaxation whereas sitting upright helps to clear the head a bit, and noodling on the computer to distract myself helps the frustration drain away enough to try again...

Eventually got to sleep by getting fully clothed, taking an extra dose of Ibuprofen (it was after midnight, so it's a new 24 hour period, right?), and sipping weak tea while waiting for comfort level to raise to the basic minimum. That was after 3am.

I got up this morning, very slowly and shakily dragged myself through the regular routine... And eventually found I couldn't balance well enough to get my uniform trousers on. At this point (by which time I should have already been at work, actually) I called in sick. Was helpfully informed that (a) today was supposed to be my day off anyway (Damn. I wonder when this week's rota actually went up? I don't remember seeing it Thursday, and I suspect I was never in the office long enough to look for it on Friday. Oh well, at least I'm not losing a *paid* day.); and (b) if I thought today was a work day, then I should have called them at least an hour earlier.

Here's the snag with that one: even on the healthiest days, I'm hardly ever *awake* an entire hour before I'm due at work (which is basically 8:40 for an 8:45 start), let alone far enough into the process of getting up, eating etc. to be able to judge whether I'm ever going to make it through to the end! Ask me at 8am on any given morning (by which time I *am* awake and, in some sense of the word, moving) whether I feel healthy enough to go to work, the answer is *always* "no", with a probable rider of "and get out of the way of the flippin' kettle, dammit, I need tea!". Even on the days where I've already had to drag myself to the busstop in time for a 7:25 bus to Stroud, which then hasn't turned up. Or perhaps especially then.

(To be fair, it has now been agreed that henceforth when I'm covering Stroud, catching the 8:25 bus will suffice, even though it means getting there fifteen minutes after the shop's due to open.)

But on the good news front, since today was a scheduled day off, I haven't lost a day's pay. This time.

Anyhoo, I was asked to call before close of business today to let them know if I'm likely to be in tomorrow, so they can arrange cover if not. Which is an entirely reasonable request, as far as it goes, though see above re. the difficulty of fulfilling it.

So I set an alarm for 4pm, and went back to bed. Actually woke up soon after 2pm, had some lunch, and have been sitting since then noodling on the PC, trying to judge how much better I feel and estimate how much sleep I'm likely to get tonight.

Called J. at 4:30pm and let him know: It's best to assume I won't be there tomorrow. =:o{

Damn, damn, damn...

Watching you, watching Who

2008-04-13T15:08:06Z

avarill's Old Skool Who Tour coincidentally reaches a very topical point (for those who saw last night's new DW ep), with her review of "The Aztecs".

Several folks on the flist have said they were very impressed with last night's ep.

Me? I'm with neohippie in wanting to track down a decent download, so I can watch it again with better concentration. Last night I'd only just got in from a run through very cold weather, after getting off a very slow bus (that went past some very lovely countryside!) from the town of Stroud, where I'd spent a very strange day working in a very large, very cold shop, while suffering a very thick and dizzy head and very intermittent hearing. (And feeling very hungry, but that's par for the course this week.)

All in all, the day was very... Very.

From what I heard and saw, the episode was rather Very too. Yes, indeed, one might even say that it had a touch of Verity about it.

Which brings us back to avarill. Go read. I'll be over here, seeing what the microwave just went "ping" about. I *do* hope it's food...

YUSSS! I HAZ A NEOLOGIZM! =:o>

2008-04-13T12:13:48Z

I am happy to announce that a quick Google check reveals no previous usages of the terms "boshwurgle", "boshwurgling", "boshwurgled" or "boshwurglitude".

Comma, Feel The Noize... and some useful neologisms.

2008-04-13T11:45:40Z

I just wrote a slightly unwieldy sentence in a comment to another journal:

Becoming materially dependent on, or indebted to, people or institutions that only know how to do “hammer nagging” rather than “push nagging”, is something I recommend avoiding if possible.

(Just to pre-empt the inevitable side discussion: "Hammer nagging" is where people tell you off for not getting things done, thereby making you feel so guilty and inadequate that you don't get anything *else* done for the rest of the day. "Push nagging" is where they gently but firmly push you in the direction of doing what you need to do.)

From time to time, people whinge about the overuse of commas. I use quite a lot of commas myself, but it's not that often that anyone directly accuses me of overusing them. Is that because they think I use them correctly, or because they just don't want to get into a fight about it? I dunno.

But I used three commas in the above quoted sentence, quite instinctively, and then it occurred to me to wonder whether all three of them should really be there.

The first two commas are what's called "parenthetical commas". They fulfil the same role as brackets (aka parentheses), delimiting a phrase which is parenthetical to the main sentence. That means the phrase could be left out of the sentence completely, and the rest of the sentence would still work gramatically, *and* would still mean the same thing. (You can imagine how that second condition might be violated if the phrase had the word "not" in a crucial position, for example).

So we could re-write my sentence as follows, and it would still make sense:

Becoming materially dependent on (or indebted to) people or institutions that only know how to do “hammer nagging” rather than “push nagging”, is something I recommend avoiding if possible.

However, while this is *gramatically* equivalent to the first version, it doesn't carry the same nuances to the reader. (At least, not to *this* reader! =:o} ) To me, the use of brackets implies that the parenthesized portion is less important than the rest. In this case, though, it's intended to be *equally* important to the bit *before* the brackets: I'm setting out two possible relationships to the "people or institutions" that are equally to be avoided. So I use commas, not brackets, to separate them. (And that sentence you just read had another use of parenthetical commas, BTW =:o} )

You *could* rewrite the first part of my sentence without those first two commas, or any punctuation at all, and it would still make sense. And some would say you should, but given that the sentence as a whole is so long, I think they help to break up a long string of words into manageable bite-sized pieces. Putting those commas in those places says "if you need to catch your breath and get your bearings before venturing further into this long and potentially treacherous sentence, then here's a safe place to do it."

[DEEP BREATH] ANYHOO, that's all fairly trivial stuff. What *really* got me thinking was the third comma. This one:

,

Oh, hang on, that doesn't help much does it? Let me show it in context:

Becoming materially dependent on, or indebted to, people or institutions that only know how to do “hammer nagging” rather than “push nagging”, is something I recommend avoiding if possible.

*This* comma has a really important job to do.. And yet still some people would insist that it doesn't need to be there. It's not a parenthetical comma, and it's not separating items in a list, so what's it doing?

Well, once again, it's helping the reader to get their bearings, and this time they *really* do need to, because everything in the sentence so far is *all one thing*. And now the sentence is going to start talking about other things.

Huh?

Yes. All one thing. We can give it a name if you like. Hang on, I'll just bash some syllables together to make a new word... Let's try "bosh", that's got a nice silly ring to it. And, um.. "wurg". That's a syllable that doesn't crop up too much in English, so there's a reasonable chance we're creating a genuinely new word here rather than treading on someone else's neologistic toes.

Now, the ending, the ending... Ends of English words are important, 'cos they usually tell you what type of word they are (like whether it's a verb or a noun, and if it's a verb then whether the subject is singular or plural, and so on). Now, this is a noun, and it's actually the name of s state that people can gets themselves into. So it should have a "the state of" kind of ending. We could use "-ity" (as in "insanity"), or "-ishness" (as in fannishness)... But I'm going to use "-itude", because it sounds Californian and silly.

So here's our new word: BOSHWURGLITUDE.

And here's its definition:
The state of being materially dependent on, or indebted to, people or institutions that only know how to do “hammer nagging” rather than “push nagging”.

And thus we may concisely describe my current personal and financial predicament: I am deeply in the state of *multiple* boshwurglitude.

Ah, but wait a minute... In the original quoted sentence, I didn't actually use this concept in the noun form, did I? I talked about *becoming* "materially dependent... (etc.)"

So, like all state nouns, we need a corresponding adjective: BOSHWURGLED.

And my original sentence now becomes the much shorter and pithier: "Becoming boshwurgled is something I recommend avoiding if possible."

Isn't that neat? Only nine words! I'm so proud of myself. =:o} If only I could have written my ludicrously long sentence that way in the first place... But alas, if I'd done that, everyone would have said "what the hell is "boshwurgled" when it's at home?", wouldn't they? I would be guilty of having committed wanton jargonism!

To avoid that, I would have had to define boshwurglitude *before* I used it, and that would have interrupted the flow of the discussion in which the whole concept of boshwurglitude was first mentioned. So what I did was, I avoided the need for a new word altogether, and simply used the definition of what we're now calling boshwurglitude (well, I am, I dunno about the rest of you) right there in the original sentence. Thus:

Becoming materially dependent on, or indebted to, people or institutions that only know how to do “hammer nagging” rather than “push nagging”, is something I recommend avoiding if possible.

Programmers call this "in-line expansion". Mathematicians call it "variable substitution". It's a jolly useful trick... But it does create some awfully long sentences. Or lines of code. Or equations.

But here's the thing: Those long sentences still make perfect sentence to the reader, thanks to the awesome power of the comma. It's like the little wooden cabin by the side of the road at the top of the hill, with the faded tatty map of the local area on a wooden board, and sign post next to it pointing back the way you came, and a rather smelly but *oh so desperately needed* urinal inside. It allows you to stop, get your bearings, say "gosh, have we really hiked all this way already? We must be mad!", and figure out the quickest route back down the hill to home.

The problem is *not* people using too many commas. With sentences as long as mine, what with their embedded definitions of concepts I don't usually bother giving names to 'cos I don't expect to have to talk about them again any time soon, they're essential. The problem is when people use commas *badly*. When they build the rest-stop in the crook, of a bend in the road right, in the middle of a dip in the terrain so that, you can't see where the hell you are and sheer panic at possibly being lost drives you on up the hill for another mile even, though you're *deperate* to pee.

(See what I did there? =:o} )

The *other* problem, of course, is that I'm still in that state of multiple boshwurglitude. But at least now I now what to call it. =:o} And that's going to be *incredibly* handy...

New items for my To Do list:

- Identify strategies for progressive reduction of boshwurglitude.
- Identify situations/decisions/actions that may lead to increasing boshwurglitude, and think about how to avoid them.
- Action strategies for reducing boshwurglitude
- - (Expand this to separate bullet points once said strategies have been identified).

The culprit is revealed!

2008-04-08T21:38:54Z

So apparently, I've got a herd of *these* living up my nose:

RHINOVIRUS (Magnified view):

No wonder I was feeling ill! =8o}

Been getting steadily better this afternoon and evening: headache gone and temp back to normal, albeit still with the drippy hooter. I've therefore committed myself to going back to work tomorrow, on the grounds taht I should be past the infectious stage and able to get on with stuff, although I might need to rest my voice (i.e. avoid being on the till too much). Now I'm getting tired, though, I can feel the little b*****s are still up there, waiting to have another go, so I'm heading to bed. Right now. As soon as I finish typing this and click "post".

You just watch me. I'm doing that... right now. For reals. Honest. No more delays, no more procrastination, and no more "sorting out the magazine pile" (aka reading each and every mag on there). No sirree... This is me, heading to bed like a good little boy, right now.

[LONG PAUSE, FINGER HOVERING OVER THE MOUSE BUTTON]

Um... Can I just get a cup of tea first? [HOPEFUL LITTLE SMILE]

In other news...

2008-04-08T10:57:42Z

Well, it seems I made the right call after all. You know that dodgy moment when you first wake up the morning after realising you're ill, and think, "hey, I actually feel OK. Maybe I should go to work after all"...?

And then you try to stand up, and the whole world lurches sideways, and the little man with the big mallet inside your head says "Ha-ha! Fooled you!" *WALLOP, WALLOP, WALLOP*.

And as get three steps away from the duvet, your skin temperature starts to drop, and your immune system says "Possible thermal crisis! Safe eviction opportunity! Repel all borders!" *SNEEZE, SNEEZE, SNEEZE*.

And you groan. And the groan is nearly an octave deeper than your usual first groan of the morning, with that extra little sexy edge to it that comes only from a throat that *immediately hurts like hell*.

Yeah. =:o\

So, in between sipping the alternating cups of tea and beakers of raspberry smoothie, here's a couple of *excellent* fics I've been reading:

SJA: Living History

Torchwood: Pocket Watch Boy. (Quite long this one, four chapters.)

The upside of being stuck at home....

2008-04-08T10:30:06Z

...is finally getting around to doing silly stuff like this:

=:o}

Alas, it doesn't iconise very well - Text is too small. Best I could manage is this:

This might be useful to some of you.

2008-04-07T20:33:10Z

How to migrate from LJ to WP: http://community.livejournal.com/lj2wordpress/17523.html

I've looked at Wordpress, and it doesn't have quite what I'm looking for as my next home... But YMMV.

Ill

2008-04-07T17:48:47Z

T'riffic. Just had to 'phone my boss and let him know I probably won't be fit to work tomorrow. The sore throat, which I'd hoped was just a matter of having swallowed something scratchy while in a hurry, has accumulated friends in the form of a temperature, occasional dizzyness, runny nose and sneezing fits. Oh, and of course that particular *kind* of ache you get in your muscles when it's not just the usual posture-related problems, but an actual infection.

And we were going to be minimally staffed tomorrow as it was. And I've had a day's sick leave already this month, and of course the first three days of any illness go unpaid...

Buggrit, buggrit, buggrit. =:o{