Michael Gates's Blog, page 67
August 1, 2013
July 29, 2013
Word of the Day
What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....
rannygazoo [ran-ee-ga-ZOO] (noun)
A joke or prank.
"Bob couldn't think of a proper rannygazoo, but then, in an idle moment it came to him: he would serve Tom a peanut butter and tuna fish sandwich."
An idle moment. It seems people either don't have enough of those these days, or they have far too many. And when you have too much time on your hands, well, you may start planning a few too many rannygazoos.
rannygazoo [ran-ee-ga-ZOO] (noun)
A joke or prank.
"Bob couldn't think of a proper rannygazoo, but then, in an idle moment it came to him: he would serve Tom a peanut butter and tuna fish sandwich."
An idle moment. It seems people either don't have enough of those these days, or they have far too many. And when you have too much time on your hands, well, you may start planning a few too many rannygazoos.
What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....rannyga...
What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....
rannygazoo [ran-ee-ga-ZOO] (noun)
A joke or prank.
"Bob couldn't think of a proper rannygazoo, but then, in an idle moment it came to him: he would serve Tom a peanut butter and tuna fish sandwich."
An idle moment. It seems people either don't have enough of those these days, or they have far too many. And when you have too much time on your hands, well, you may start planning a few too many rannygazoos.
rannygazoo [ran-ee-ga-ZOO] (noun)
A joke or prank.
"Bob couldn't think of a proper rannygazoo, but then, in an idle moment it came to him: he would serve Tom a peanut butter and tuna fish sandwich."
An idle moment. It seems people either don't have enough of those these days, or they have far too many. And when you have too much time on your hands, well, you may start planning a few too many rannygazoos.
July 25, 2013
Much Ado about NOTHING
I'm not sure why, at this point, people still want to go to Mars. The environment there makes Antarctica seem like the Garden of Eden. In all the pictures the rovers send back, there isn't a single plant visible, not even the tiniest cactus. The atmosphere contains very little methane, which would be present in significant quantities if life was present, even if underground. (So forget about sand worms.)
Despite looking deceptively like parts of Arizona, it's not a place where anyone could walk around without a spacesuit. Whatever running water was present disappeared billions of years ago, along with most of the atmosphere. So, it's a dead world -- even if we do discover a bacterium or two there someday. It would be incredibly dangerous for humans to travel there, something that would require months with current technology. If anything went wrong, there would be no chance of rescue -- which was true of the moon landings too, but the moon is only three days away by rocket ship, so there was much less time for something to break.
Just keep sending robots, I say, until we discover something like a warp drive or anti-gravity propulsion, and can get there and back in a few hours. Then we can collect all the precious Martian rocks we want.
Despite looking deceptively like parts of Arizona, it's not a place where anyone could walk around without a spacesuit. Whatever running water was present disappeared billions of years ago, along with most of the atmosphere. So, it's a dead world -- even if we do discover a bacterium or two there someday. It would be incredibly dangerous for humans to travel there, something that would require months with current technology. If anything went wrong, there would be no chance of rescue -- which was true of the moon landings too, but the moon is only three days away by rocket ship, so there was much less time for something to break.
Just keep sending robots, I say, until we discover something like a warp drive or anti-gravity propulsion, and can get there and back in a few hours. Then we can collect all the precious Martian rocks we want.
July 23, 2013
Random Sequence
"Because why?" I murmured.
"I don't know why, exactly," he said. "It's... a weird place, a weird box. They ran away, and I followed them."
"Uh-huh." I didn't know what else I could say, other than to ask what brought this yarn on. He didn't take kindly to those kinds of questions, though.
"I've been thinking a lot about that box lately," he said, "and doing research."
"What do you think it was?" I asked, in what I hoped sounded like an interested tone. "A box of what?"
"Well, that's something I've been thinking about for many years," he said. "And I think I may have figured out the answer. What do you know about local history?"
--from "The Iron Box" (by me), originally published in 3 AM Magazine
"I don't know why, exactly," he said. "It's... a weird place, a weird box. They ran away, and I followed them."
"Uh-huh." I didn't know what else I could say, other than to ask what brought this yarn on. He didn't take kindly to those kinds of questions, though.
"I've been thinking a lot about that box lately," he said, "and doing research."
"What do you think it was?" I asked, in what I hoped sounded like an interested tone. "A box of what?"
"Well, that's something I've been thinking about for many years," he said. "And I think I may have figured out the answer. What do you know about local history?"
--from "The Iron Box" (by me), originally published in 3 AM Magazine
July 22, 2013
Word of the Day: arsiversie
What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....
arsiversie [arsy-versy](adjective)
Meaning: upside down?
"...he was a botcher, cheese-eater, and trimmer of man's flesh embalmed, which in the arsiversie swagfall tumble was not found true."
--François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (1567)
I think this word means "upside down." It's hard to find a definition for it.... I've always enjoyed looking at the topsy-turvy sky and world you can see on the surface of a calm lake. One dropped pebble and the universe is destroyed in a burst of concentric circles. It gives you a new perspective on things. Maybe I should spend more time arsiversie.
arsiversie [arsy-versy](adjective)
Meaning: upside down?
"...he was a botcher, cheese-eater, and trimmer of man's flesh embalmed, which in the arsiversie swagfall tumble was not found true."
--François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (1567)
I think this word means "upside down." It's hard to find a definition for it.... I've always enjoyed looking at the topsy-turvy sky and world you can see on the surface of a calm lake. One dropped pebble and the universe is destroyed in a burst of concentric circles. It gives you a new perspective on things. Maybe I should spend more time arsiversie.
July 21, 2013
Search Party
Here are some recent search queries that brought seekers to this temple of scribomania.
shack for sale
Looking for a little old place where we can get toether? Here's one I photographed, and it is for sale. Click the pic for a closer look. And don't forget my commission.
rob's amazing poem generator
I think I linked to it once, but it appears that the amazing poem generator is no more, alas. As compensation, here's one of my "bad haiku" pieces. (Believe me, it's better than anything Rob's geneator produced.)
Dear little puppy
Alone in the soft sunlight
Smashed to smithereens
smotp walking on glass
SMOTP is an author, apparently a purveyor of erotica, aka Essemoh Teepee. Not sure what the name signifies. Something nasty? Sado-Masochistic Oxymorons and Terrible Pain? And I don't recall writing anything about walking on glass. That does sound painful.
writing a book hippie?
Yes, it seems I'm always writing my book, even after it's published. Stay tuned for further details.
shack for sale
Looking for a little old place where we can get toether? Here's one I photographed, and it is for sale. Click the pic for a closer look. And don't forget my commission.
rob's amazing poem generator
I think I linked to it once, but it appears that the amazing poem generator is no more, alas. As compensation, here's one of my "bad haiku" pieces. (Believe me, it's better than anything Rob's geneator produced.)
Dear little puppy
Alone in the soft sunlight
Smashed to smithereens
smotp walking on glass
SMOTP is an author, apparently a purveyor of erotica, aka Essemoh Teepee. Not sure what the name signifies. Something nasty? Sado-Masochistic Oxymorons and Terrible Pain? And I don't recall writing anything about walking on glass. That does sound painful.
writing a book hippie?
Yes, it seems I'm always writing my book, even after it's published. Stay tuned for further details.
July 17, 2013
Quote of the Day
I like this page of quotations by writers about writing. As you might expect, they're quite pithy.
"Know something, sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them." --Allan Gurganus
"Know something, sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them." --Allan Gurganus
July 16, 2013
Random Sequence
"No," she said. "I haven't seen him in a long time. He -- just took off one day. Disappeared. Good riddance." She giggled again. "He was a bad man, and I wasn't so nice either. People didn't want us around, so we came up here. This is our mountain. I thought he'd be better to me up here on Mount Olympus, that we'd live like nature gods or something. I was Aphrodite, but he was still Mars. Or Hades? Anyway, I became this. And he got real mad at me and then disappeared. 'Course part of him disappeared a long time before that. He only had one arm, ya know. Always bothered him -- the imperfection."
--from "The Iron Box" (by me), published in 3AM Magazine
--from "The Iron Box" (by me), published in 3AM Magazine
July 15, 2013
Word of the Day: mumpsimus
What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....
mumpsimus [MUMP-suh-muss](noun)
Someone who adheres to old ways that are obviously wrong
"The best of the joke is, that Johnston, who seems here to have deserted for a moment the old mumpsimus, contradicts himself in the very next page, and having laughed at 'broken' metaphors in one breath, attempts, in the next, to 'reduce' one, after a manner of surgery almost as awful as that of Warburton himself."
--T. D., "On the use of Metaphors" in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine (1825)
Hmm. Who might we apply this word to? I'm thinking of a certain mumpsimus from a certain political party. Maybe you are, too, even if it isn't the same party. That's politics.
mumpsimus [MUMP-suh-muss](noun)
Someone who adheres to old ways that are obviously wrong
"The best of the joke is, that Johnston, who seems here to have deserted for a moment the old mumpsimus, contradicts himself in the very next page, and having laughed at 'broken' metaphors in one breath, attempts, in the next, to 'reduce' one, after a manner of surgery almost as awful as that of Warburton himself."
--T. D., "On the use of Metaphors" in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine (1825)
Hmm. Who might we apply this word to? I'm thinking of a certain mumpsimus from a certain political party. Maybe you are, too, even if it isn't the same party. That's politics.
