15 May 2007
15 May 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff Hess
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
Why You Never Question A Drunk
A woman was shopping at her local supermarket where she selected A half-gallon of 2% milk, a carton of eggs, A quart of orange juice, A head of romaine lettuce, A 2 lb. bag of coffee, And 1 lb. package of bacon.
As she was unloading her items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind her watched as she placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up her purchases, the drunk calmly stated, “You must be single.”
The woman was a bit startled by this proclamation, but she was intrigued by the derelict’s intuition, since she was indeed single. She looked at her six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about her selections that could have tipped off the drunk to her marital status.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she said: “Well, you know what, you’re absolutely right. But how on earth did you know that?”
The drunk replied, “‘Cause you’re ugly.”
15 May 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff Hess
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
A sequence is a series of scenes – generally two to five – that culminates with greater impact than any previous scene.
14 May 2007
A NEW WAY TO READ…
1532 by Jeff Hess
As a dyslexic who reads in chunks, the findings of Walker Reading Technologies makes really good sense to me. We already know that bullet points are easier to read than running text. Is it possible we stumbled upon this in the ’70s without realizing what we’d found? Could it be that USAToday led the way without knowing it?
From Venture Beat:
Scientific research conducted by Walker Reading Technologies, a small Minnesota startup that has been studying our ability to read for the last ten years, has concluded that the natural field of focus for our eyes is circular, so our eyes view the printed page as if we”re peering through a straw.
And a very bad-behaving straw at that, because not only do our eyes feed our brain the words we”re reading, they”re also uploading characters and words from the two sentences above and below the line we”re reading.
Every time we read block text, we”re forcing our brain to a wage a constant subconscious battle with itself to filter and discard the superfluous inputs. This mental tug of war slows reading speed and diminishes comprehension.
According to the research, visual-syntactic text formatting transforms block-shaped text into cascading patterns that help readers identify grammatical structure. The new method integrates converging evidence from educational, visual, and cognitive research, and is made feasible through computer-executed algorithms and electronic displays.
Which do you find easier to read? This:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Or this:
This could be the first real leap in text since the invention of Italics.
14 May 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff Hess
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is How to Become a Creative Genius.
14 May 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff Hess
Eric Coulson: This post treads on sacred ground. I am well aware of that. It has been some time in the making and has been subject to editing and review by several people, including Soldiers that were there that night. It should be obvious, but I will make it explicit. The family of this Soldier has been notified. I believe, from their comments to the news media, they…
14 May 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff HessI could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
These are entries to a Washington Post competition asking for a two-line rhyme with the most romantic first line, but the least romantic second line:
My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you screwed up my life.
I see your face when I am dreaming.
That’s why I always wake up screaming.
Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not.
Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss,
But I only slept with you ’cause I was pissed.
I thought that I could love no other —
that is until I met your brother.
Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s empty and so is your head.
I want to feel your sweet embrace ;
But don’t take that paper bag off your face.
I love your smile, your face, and your eyes —
Damn, I’m good at telling lies!
My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?
My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe “Go to hell.”
What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.
14 May 2007
DO YOU…?
0743 by Jeff Hessuntil we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care
From Sweetness by Stephen Dunn.
14 May 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff HessMy name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
A beat is an exchange of behavior in action/reaction. Beat by Beat these changing behaviors shape the turning of a scene.
13 May 2007
MAKING FIREFOX ZOOM…
1543 by Jeff Hess
Did you know that the firefox default was dialup (who the feck is on dialup these days)? Me neither. I’ve added the whole article to my blogpile for later this week but I just couldn’t wait to spread the word on making my favorite browser even better. And all you ubergeeks who figured this out months ago, so sue me.
Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them):
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30. This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.
Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
What all this does is allow Firefox to multitask when downloading items onto a page rather than queuing them up and processing them one at a time.
Cool.
13 May 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff HessI’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity.
13 May 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff HessCAPT Doug Traversa: Shortly before we left Afghanistan, we had another of our justly famous conversations about universal truths, and this time Mike and Drew got to participate also. Poor Hamid, his brain hurts enough when I talk to him; imagine the migraine he must have had after talking to the three of us. I don”t remember how we got on…
13 May 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff HessI could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
13 May 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff HessMy name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
Generally the test of whether a series of activities constitutes a true scene is this: could it have been written “in one,” in a unity of time and place?
12 May 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff HessI’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Surviving a Month Without Internet.
12 May 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff HessI could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
You saw a couple in an intimate pose, right? Interestingly, research has shown that young children cannot identify the intimate couple because they do not have prior memory associated with such a scenario.
What they will see, however, is the nine dolphins in the picture!
So, I guess we’ve already proven you’re not a young innocent child. If it’s hard for you to find the dolphins within six seconds, your mind is indeed corrupted and you probably need help,
Look at the space between her right arm and her head, the tail is on her neck, follow it up. look at her left hip, follow the shaded part down, it’s another one, and on his shoulder. See them now?
12 May 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff HessMy name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
If exposition – to convey information about character, world or history to an eavesdropping audience – is a scene”s sole justification, a disciplined writer will trash it and weave its information into the film elsewhere.
11 May 2007
11 May 2007
HOLOCAUST AND MIKVAH…
2007 by Jeff Hess
Fire and water are vital to Judaism, the first in the holocaust, the fire offering in which the gift is completely given to the flames, and the second in the mikvah, the ritual bath from which the Christian tradition of baptism arose. Today I read what I can only describe as the most beautiful expression of these two rituals.
I could not bury the mountain for it would still be present in my life, only hidden. And its affect would seep through my life. I could not toss that mountain over a cliff, for I would be tempted to retrieve it. No, the mountain could not be allowed to exist.
I tossed the lighter into the mountain of garbage, and as if I had soaked the mountain in kerosene, it was consumed in a great and explosive flame which raced to claim ever item to be found in the pile. I watched the mountain burn. How did I live with this for so long?
[Snip]
I laid on the bank of the pond for hours, blessed, enveloped by peace, filled with God and spirit. When I stood, something glistened from the waters of the pond where the burning paper boat had sank. I was drawn to it. I needed to see what it was.
I jumped into the pond and swam its depths until I was able to grasp the glistening object. I propelled through the water to the surface. When I emerged onto the shore I was clean. My open wounds which seemed to never heal -forever dripping blood- were completely scarred over. I opened my hand to observe what I had discovered, and from the ashes of the paper boat wreckage I found a brilliant black opal.
It was in that moment when I understood that it was all worth it. That it was all for a purpose. I still have a long road ahead, but this was a mountain which had to be scaled. This was a cleansing which was desperately needed in my life. God presenting me for Himself, that I may intimately know Him, and walk with Him in Sacred Relationship.
wow.
11 May 2007
MY COMMENTS…
1655 by Jeff Hess
Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.
1631 March & April
1625 M. Div
1021 Carole Cohen gets it
0956 Punitive Postal Rates
0522 Wal-Mart Sales Decline
