End of Day Two: 4,111
End of Day Three: 6,211
Tomorrow's goal: 8,300
Ripping right along! On the other hand I'm already starting
to deplete my supply of coy self-references, meta-comments,
and so forth.
I should try to insert some more plot.
(There's always aliens!)
On the other other hand, the whole idea of the WriMo is to
experience complete narrative freedom, so I should also
remember that I can do whatever I want.
So the legitimate reason to stick in some more plot
and cut down on the coy navel gazing is that the coy
navel gazing is starting to annoy me, and plot might
be fun.
(Probably not aliens, though.)
Not much more tonight (I'm writing a novel, after
all).
Kennedy Cox has moved out of the Raptor home, and Sally's
daughter Eleanor decided to go live with him for awhile
(they're currently residing at the Bus Stop, but I'll probably
find a house for them eventually), leaving Sally Raptor all
by herself, just like when I first started playing,
working seriously on her next ten lovers (much
easier without a daughter around jealously guarding
her Dad's nonexistent claims on Sally).
I've been reading a bit about this Alito dude.
I distrust him because The Shrub chose him, of course, but
I'm also really annoyed by the facile and simplistic attacks
that some elements of the Left have been making on him.
In the short run I can see why portraying him as an
unqualified right-wing nutcase might seem politically
virtuous, even though it's not true, but I hafta think
that in the long run truth does the best.
Lots of interesting cases to read scattered around
the Net.
Here's
his famous
dissent in Casey that the left has been making much of.
I find myself agreeing with most of the letter of
this
commentary; he really was just applying precendents set
by Justice O'Connor.
People (like me) who are sad that O'Connor is leaving can't
blame him too much for that.
He does spend a slightly disturbing amount of time on a calculation
to the effect that not very many people would be
burdened by the statute in question; it seems wrong to base
a determination of "undue burden" on the number of people
burdened, rather than on the degree to which each of those people
(however few or numerous) is burdened.
But he also writes "Needless to say, the plight of any women,
no matter how few, who may suffer physical abuse or other
harm as a result of this provision is a matter of grave
concern."
But he notes that the statute has escape clauses that
limit that harm.
So it seems rather deceitful of the left to put on ads
like the one I heard on the radio on the way home, where
a woman talks about being required to get her estranged
husband's permission to have an abortion back in the '60's;
this statute requires only notification, not permission, and
only if the woman believes that the husband is really the
father of the child, doesn't pose a threat of bodily harm,
and some other stuff.
I can certainly believe that the law in question might be
a bad idea; but I have to agree with the people who are
pointing out that it really isn't the job of the courts
to strike down all the bad laws.
They're only allowed to strike down the unconstitutional
ones.
For the ones that are merely bad, we have to do the
hard work of getting them repealed in the usual way;
we can't look to the courts to do it for us.
(It'd be a dangerous habit to get into!)
Here's a
page listing various Alito decisions, with very useful pointers
to the actual texts.
And again there seem to be distortions.
If you read the text of the decision that the page
glosses as "ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES",
for instance, it turns out that the case hinged on exactly the
question of whether or not the searches really were authorized.
It came down to a question of which box you looked at on the
search warrant form; Alito concluded that both the officers who
applied for the warrant and the judge that granted it intended it to
apply to everyone in the house, and it was just a paperwork error
that resulted in the main box on the form not saying that.
Hardly a ringing endorsement of unauthorized strip searches
in general.
It seems likely to me that Alito is a smart guy and a skilled
lawyer, with a good respect for precedent and the general
structure of the Constitutional system.
(As far as I can tell he's not even an "originalist" in
the Scalia sense; he's called that sometimes, but I
didn't find any actual evidence of it anywhere.)
The problems with him, like the problems with Scalia, are
likely to be subtler than can be expressed in a ten-second
sound bite (which is why I'm somewhat sympathetic to the
not entirely accurate attack ads; if the only true argument
is a subtle one, there's not time to give it).
He may interpret precedent selectively in some cases, as
Scalia interprets "original intent" selectively, and the
selectiveness may sometimes run in directions I don't like.
But he's certainly not a pure ideologue who just always
rules on political grounds; or at least
we read here:
More recently, Alito joined the 3rd Circuit majority in a
2000 opinion that struck down New Jersey's ban on late-term
abortions as unconstitutional. Alito cited a 5-4 Supreme
Court decision that O'Connor authored earlier that year
requiring that these laws provide an exception for the
health as well as the life of the woman. The New Jersey
statute failed to provide such an exception.
So it's by no means impossible that I would regret having Alito
on the court because of subtleties in his interpretation of
precedent, and perhaps because of the new precedents that
he might (or might not) set.
But that's quite different than what The Usual Suspects
are currently saying about him.
And that annoys me.
(I suppose it's somewhat smug
and Ivory Tower of me to hold out for Truth in the face
of political effectiveness, but heck someone's got
to do it.)
Sheesh, I said I wasn't going to write much, didn't I?
Good night!
End of Day One: 2,037
Today's goal: 4,100
Yeah, no problem at all!
Turns out it takes me almost exactly one hour to
write two thousand words.
Or at least it did last night, when I had a few weeks'
worth of ideas saved up, narf narf.
We'll see if it gets harder.
(I didn't use up all the ideas last night by any means,
but I ended the day with fewer pending ideas than I
started it with.)
The novel-in-progress is here.
So. I am sitting here on my terrace, looking out down the
hill, over a million (or a thousand, or a couple of hundred)
rooftops, down toward the water. I'm on the third story of
a four-story whitewashed house, tall and narrow and standing
in a rank of other four, or five, or three story tall narrow
whitewashed houses on a narrow street somewhere in the middle
of the old town. The terrace is narrow, the railing is
metal, and my chair is an old wood and wicker thing that
creaks when I sit down in it, and is no more nor less
comfortable than you would expect. The air smells of the
sea, and if I raise my eyes up from all those rooftops
there is the sea itself, stretching out forever and
glinting theatrically in the sun.
(There is so much to tell you that I'm sure I'll quite wear
you out with this letter. Enjoy it while you can; as the
routine settles in and I've written all of the easy words
you will be forced to live on the scraps of what I had for
lunch, and whether or not it rained, and how slowly my book
is coming!)
Extremely self-indulgent! (Moreso than the last three,
even.) A young (probably) man (probably) in some lovely
foreign city, on his own, theoretically writing a book,
hanging about on terraces and smelling the sea.
Well heck, if you can't escape into your own novel,
why bother? *8)
And it's epistolary, so if I get bored I can always write a
letter from someone else entirely to someone else entirely,
about something else entirely, and then link them together
somehow later in the month.
Or not!
Fish-controlled tractor
vehicle in the shape of a cross. Caterpillar moves in the same direction
of a fish swim.
See also the
rest of the product line.
Link from
j-walk.
Discovered on flickr:
you can design your
own valid U. S. Postage!
Unless this is an unusually elaborate hoax.
So not only did I write my 2,000 words yesterday, I also
got Marisa Zoom her lifetime want and got her son Hermes off
to college (and her husband Ransom finished a novel of his own!),
and I got significant work done at work.
All energized and stuff!
(I noticed this the other month, and may even have logged
it before: I was in some all-day meeting and struggling to
stay awake (much less pay attention), and I finally broke
down and started up Alpha Centauri, and found to my surprise
that I was able to pay more attention to the meeting
when I was building colony pods and discovering gravships at
the same time.
Quite odd.
We really need to make psychology into a harder science.
Under what circumstances do what kinds of tasks aid in,
rather than hindering, the carrying out of what kinds of
tasks? We should know that! It should be taught in
middle school!)
Still haven't answered that porn screed; it may have to
wait for December...
Awhile back I asked
"What do you know?", and it turns out that you know
various things:
?
hubbard
comics
bassoon
Shy One
Mouth organ
actuvex
activex
Or at least you knew various things five and a half years ago.
(We do get sort of behind in our reader input, don't we?)
Pity that "actuvex" was just a typo for "activex"
(as it pretty much always
is); it has a nice ring to it.
"For everything else, there's ActuVex."
One of these things is not like the others:
Re: Rhonda Baylis Really Works Very Good
Re: Szymon Mclain Boost up your life
Re: Berjouhi Jeffries Do you know what?
Re: Damaris Coppock Good for you
Re: Esmaralda Rothwell Good proposal
Re: Felicie Popovich Hi Again
RE: bellhop see viscera must
Re: Claribel Moffett Know what?
Get the most pleasure out of the Magnetic Dildos!
Re: Oluwaseun Warnke got to know
Re: Not say or picket
A count go blew
Re: A organise so imprint
An go to malapropism internationalism
Good old Felicie Popovich. "Pop", we used to call her.
She always wore a beret.
Terms of Use Page o' the Day (has this one appeared on the
usual lists yet, or do I get discovery credit?):
Hyperlinks:
Unless you have a written agreement in effect with the NetCentric which
states otherwise, you may only provide a hypertext link to this web site
on another web site, provided that (a) the link must be a text-only link
clearly marked "NetCentric home page"; (b) the link must "point" to the
URL http://www.net-centric.com and not to other pages within the NetCentric
web site...
Extra credit for the shame-quotes about "point".
Candice is now done with college,
and living with Taylor in
a very nice, if rather bare, house.
Sims 2 playing (and perhaps weblog posting) may be sparse
this month, as I'm apparently
writing a novel.
Although I haven't actually started yet.
(How long does it take me to write two thousand words, I wonder?)
Ooh, do let's start the clock though, if only for nostalgia purposes!
Currently: 0
Today's goal: 2,000
No problem, there are still fourteen hours left in the day, and even
if I spend say half of them working and two sleeping and two on eating
and other overhead, that's still three hours to write.
I'm sure I can write two thousand words in three hours!
No problem.
Oh look, it's this 'weblog' thing that I used to have!
How droll!
Gorgeous Autumn day here.
After lying around on the big bed eating bagels in the
morning (after an extra hour of Fall Backward sleep),
I went down to the lake and met some of the other Guys,
and the four of us pulled in the float (or the
floating dock, or whatever it's properly called),
and helped Mike pull in his boat, and decided not to
try to right and pull in Manny's boat that flipped over
in that storm the other week today, but wait until
Manny's back in town.
And it was clear and sunny and crisp and
autumn-colored the whole time, with the air
offhandedly wrapping us in sweetness and
beauty for absolutely no additional charge,
no strings attached.
And then I went to the grocery and now I'm sitting
here writing in my weblog and working on my annual
"how invaluable I am to the company and what a good
investment my salary is" document, and M and the little
boy are carving punkins in the back room, and the litte
daughter is working on some homework that somehow piled
up (while wearing her adorable Hallowe'en costume),
and it's slowly getting darker outside.
All of which is very nice.
Shula Corry informs Bittor Helberg that
"Abimbola Larabee you could need it".
But, far outdoing that,
Augustus Austin's message that
"This is incredible" proves accurate, because it
contains this:
be nosebag but piss not ultimatum but art , baseman and bernice ,
archibald see alia on supposition , chicagoan see longish it ethan
it's man be britten be resign may haphazard it's pilgrimage may
craftsmen on bloomington a weigh a batt on fasten Or maybe not
Or if we may add our own humble suggestions on spacing:
be nosebag but piss
not ultimatum but art , baseman and bernice ,
archibald see alia on supposition ,
chicagoan see longish it ethan
it's man
be britten
be resign
may haphazard it's pilgrimage
may craftsmen on bloomington
a weigh
a batt on fasten
Or maybe not
(I'm not sure that's actually an improvement.)
But anyway pretty good stuff, eh?
I like the first two lines the best, and the very end.
Not ultimatum but art, baseman, and Bernice.
Speaking of which it's nearly November again.
Yow!
I've reactivated my
NanoWriMo
account, and I have some vague ideas about how to make
the novel this year different and interesting and doable.
On the other hand I expect it to be a Really Busy November!
Do I dare jump in there again?
Probably.
MyKad!
The Song!
I'm glad to see that three people have successfully logged
into the website here; that's the spirit!
Someday I'll actually have to do something with that.
Or not.
Noticed on
Daze,
it appears that Lawrence v. Texas is, as hoped, contributing
to the spread of sanity in the world.
Yay, sanity!
Go read geegaw:
With work the hours vanish like smoke.
It's nice to eat dinner at home, nice that
it's autumn again, nice to have a snail,
nice to be married.
Amen to that.
Re: Of say a inseminate
To read at palpate rosewood
Re: I borrow so torrid
Re: To spell he bibliography
Be comb of usurer no
on drive so trapdoor
For have go pedlar chauvinism
Go listen the tenon
As ask in synopsis sadhu
Re: Or fit at toad handpick
He cancel an escalope religious
Just a few little teeeeny Simsian things today:
the
Danvers twins socializing (hm, do I not have a local copy of
that one?),
Taylor
Almassizadeh's college years, and
No Age Discrimination
(in which I employ my second cheat to help Marisa Bendett Zoom
achieve her heart's desire).
And that's it for now.
I wonder if there's still time to make an apple pie?
I've never made an apple pie.
