S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 112

Laws of Physics? Need Not Apply

I read this college admissions essay for the first time over the weekend, and since 1) the web site hosting it is shutting down soon and 2) it is without a doubt the finest example of hyperbole humor I've ever read, I'm reposting it here:

This is an actual essay written by a college applicant. The author,
Hugh Gallagher, now attends NYU.

3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO
KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING
QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR
ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A
PERSON?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami.
Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

(Essay found over on Turtlenck and Chains)

Recycle X 5: Sticky Notes Caddy

My third cardboard recycling project helped me solve another ongoing problem: finding sticky note pads. I own dozens in different sizes and shapes, and yet when I need actually one I find they've all migrated elsewhere (generally with the help of whoever last used it.)

To keep the sticky note pads I use most often in one spot in the office (and to make them harder for the family to filch) I used my cardboard to create a sticky notes caddy, as follows:



First I worked out how many notes I could fit on each side of the cardboard by arranging them until everything fit the space.



I then marked the cardboard with a marker by making a line at the top of each note pad for placement and as a cutting guide.



For the note pads that had strong, bendable backings I used a box cutter to cut a slit just below the placement line for that pad. When you do this, remember to be careful with the cutter or cutting utensil you use (most of them are insanely sharp), and work on a surface like a cutting mat, a piece of scrap wood, a bundle of newspapers or whatever you have that won't be ruined by the cutting process.



For the note pads that had flimsy backings I applied some strips of double-sided tape and stuck them to the carboard.



The first time I tried this I put the note pads on both sides inside the cardboard piece to make it more like a book, but that turned out to be a bit bulky and hard to keep closed. I thought about refolding the carboard, but decided to put half the note pads on the outside and half on the inside, and that worked better for me.

No Cost Ten

Ten Things You Can Have for Free

Freeware caution:always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

Bits is a minimalist diary application that comes with a stylish yet very efficient design. Bits is able to store both text and images. Bits enables the user to add tags to each entry in order to find them faster at a later time. The Bits entries can be easily synced to other devices via iCloud. Bits also offers you the possibility to share your entries by using the Tumblr or Wordpress services" (OS: Mac OS X 10.7.3 or later )

CintaNotes is a "simple program for basic notes keeping that provides a convenient way to quickly store pieces of information that are collected from other documents or websites. All you have to do is select the text to be stored and then press the CTRL+F12 hotkey on your keyboard to create a note. CintaNotes captures the text and uses the application title as the note´s title. Alternatively, you can copy/paste the text into the application and append it to the list of previous notes. You can optionally assign keyword tags that can be used to locate and identify notes at a later time. An instant search feature quickly locates keywords within notes as you type them. Other features include merging of notes and support for automatic capturing of Internet links from IE" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7)

Take a virtual tour of almost any location on the planet world with Google Earth (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

According to the designer of iListen, "If you suffer from RSI, can t type or spell, don t want to type, have dyslexia, can talk faster than you can type or can't type 140 words per minute - iListen is the solution you have been waiting for! Talk anywhere into hundreds of applications - virtually anywhere you would normally type! iListen offers fast dictation plus full command and control, freeing you from the keyboard and mouse. Does not include headset/microphone" (OS: Mac OS X 10.1.5 or later)

Mendeley is a "free, award-winning, academic reference manager and web application for managing and sharing research papers, creating bibliographies, discovering new research trends and collaborating online" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

Photopad is a "free digital photo editor for Windows or Mac OS X."

Also from the designers of Photopad, Photostage Slideshow allows you to "create dynamic slideshows from your photos quickly & easily" (OS: designer notes "Works on Windows 7, XP, Vista and 8; Works on 64 bit Windows; Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later; Android version runs on 2.3.3 or higher)

SmoothDraw is an "easy natural painting and digital free-hand drawing software that can produce high quality pictures. Support many kinds of brushes (pen, pencil, dry media, airbrush, bristle brush, image hose, etc.), retouch tools, layers, image adjustment, and many effects... Works great with tablets and Tablet PC" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7)

TeamTalk is an "internet based voice conferencing application that allows you to talk with your friends and colleagues using the internet as audio carrier" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7 [32-Bit/64-Bit])

Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable is "the handy Virtual Magnifying Glass utility packaged in PortableApps.com Format so you can easily use a screen magnifier on any PC you use. Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable is a full-featured screen magnifying glass that allows you to zoom in on an area of the screen for better readability. It´s also handy for design work. With a variable zoom (1-20x), configurable size, hot-key support (CTRL-ALT-e) and lots of other great features, it´s a great addition to any portable arsenal. It´s also been localized into Portuguese, Spanish, French and Dutch" (OS:Win 9x/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7)

Comments Catchup Day

See you in comments.

Smart Edit Giveaway

Darren Devitt, designer of Smart Edit software, is giving away this most excellent novel editing program to ten people via random draw. If you'd like a chance to be one of them, enter the giveaway here.

I wrote up this review on Smart Edit back in January when it went from freeware to pro, and I stand by my endorsement -- this is one of the best editing programs out there for writers.

Fox Girl

Four hours of amazing artwork compressed into four minutes, courtesy of the artist Alaires, aka my kid (with background music, for those of you at work):

Handy Advice

Over at Writer Unboxed author Barbara O'Neal (aka Barbara Samuel) has an excellent piece here about writing truths and how we arrive at them. There's also a line to site with photos of authors' hands with such advice actually written on them.

If I could tattoo one writing truth on my hand, it would be the last line of my old Courage post, and would look like this:



What truth would you write on your hand? Let us know in comments.

Rescue Antho

Dragon's Roost Press has an open call for their upcoming, as yet untitled Dark Speculative Fiction Anthology to benefit canine rescue: "Humans, like dogs, are essentially pack animals. The idea of being alone can be terrifying, liberating, both, or fall somewhere in between the two. The idea of being abandoned, left alone on purpose... We are looking for Dark Speculative Fiction which explores the themes of abandonment, loneliness, isolation, and solitude. We are most familiar with the horror genre, science fiction and fantasy are also welcome, provided there is some element of fear involved. While the tone may be dark, humor is also welcome. If you can make us laugh while breaking our hearts you have a great shot at getting in." Length: "We are looking for original fiction up to 6,000 words." Payment: "At this time payment is one cent per word plus one contributor’s copy and one digital version in the format of the author’s choosing. We will be running a crowd sourcing campaign with the goal of increasing payment to a professional rate. For the mean time, please keep in mind that this is a charity anthology to raise money for canine rescue." Query on reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: January 1st, 2014 or when filled.

Recycle X 5: Bookmark Keeper

I have a collection of several hundred paper bookmarks, and the one thing that plagues me is how often they get misplaced (and that's my fault for leaving them in books, dropping them on a stack of papers, etc.) Over time most of my bookmarks also become dinged, bent or crumpled because I didn't store them in a protective fashion. It's even worse when I make some bookmarks, put them in a safe place and then promptly forget where that safe place is.

My next recycled cardboard project, a bookmark keeper, solves all those problems and requires only basic supplies. It's also easy enough for anyone to do. Here's what you'll need:



A piece of 10" X 14" cardboard folded or preforated in the middle (two 5" X 7" pieces also work)
Decorative papers to cover the cardboard on both sides
Glue stick
Scissors
Three binder clips (four if you're using two separate pieces of cardboard)

To begin, Cover one side of your cardboard piece(s) with your glue stick:



Place the decorative paper you want on the outside to the glued side of the carboard piece(s); if you're using one piece fold in half to create a spine crease:



Cut out a square notch in the paper at all corners. If you're using one piece of folded cardboard, also make a vertical cut in the flaps at each end of the fold:



Apply glue stick to the inside of your flaps, then fold them over onto the inside of your carboard:



Glue two more pieces of decorative papers to cover the inside of the carboard and the edges of your flaps:



Let everything dry flat, then place your bookmarks inside:



Close your keeper and use the binder clips to secure the open sides:



Related links:

Recycle X 5: Note Pads

Interioraholic has some of the most fascinating project designs made from recycled cardboard here.

His Lordship Ten

Ten Reasons Why You Should Preorder His Lordship Possessed by Lynn Viehl

A love scene with champagne and strawberries. In a brothel. Under threat of imminent death. Come on, you know you want to see me write my way out of this one.

Dredmore finally gets what's coming to him, and it's not a winning Powerball ticket.

If they ever make a movie out of it, I promise to prevent them from casting Charlie Hunnam as Dredmore (although he might work as Doyle, if he shaved off the weird beard, yes?)

Lady Diana learns who has been messing with her and why.

No cliffhanger ending. Promise.

Nolan Walsh's plot is completely revealed, and it's a lot bigger than you probably thought.

Perfect, zero-calorie way to take a break from your Halloween prep.

There is no part 3. I know, a couple of reviewers told you there would be, but happily they got it wrong. The book goes like this: Part 1 -- Her Ladyship's Curse in August, Part 2 -- His Lordship Possessed in October, and that's it. The print edition bindup of Part 1 & Part 2 -- Disenchanted & Co. will be released in January, and book two, The Clockwork Wolf, in February. I hope you're taking notes, too, because there will be a pop quiz on this later.

Will give you a couple of hours during which you probably won't be worrying over Syria, Obamacare, or what the heck to make for dinner.

You'll find out exactly who Harry is this time, and it's not Houdini.

Links to places you can preorder: