Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, . . . Eighteen?!?

As many of you know, I also have a literary blog, The T. H. Weingarten Miscellany.  Almost from the start, I would post weekly installments of a book I had been thinking about for a long time.  In fact, I may have been near the age of the protagonist when I came up with the idea, if not younger.  Every few installments would make up a chapter.  Each one was basically a rough draft.  Originally, I thought I would revise them on the go, but that has yet to be the case.  For the last month or so, I haven't been posting new installments to the book.  Many weeks, I would have no installments.  Other times, I have posted my assignments from my graduate school fiction workshop class.  Technically, I had been writing the next chapter, seventeen; I just didn't post any installments.  Here's the thing.  One night, many years ago, I had this weird dream.  I was in a movie theater, which I never do in real life.  It was so hot and the movie was so dull, that I fell asleep.  Yes, I dreamed I was sleeping.  When I woke up, in the dream, I noticed that the audience was acting strangely.  Although the movie was fairly tame, the audience was treating it as 'adult.'  And the men and women were acting in a way many people would while watching such 'adult' material.  I was so disgusted, I stood up and said something that included the phrase 'getting your jollies off.'  I knew I had to include it in the book.  A major part of the plot would involve the main character's father having made movies, especially at home.  This dream would be perfect in establishing that fact.  It also meant I had to remove a scene where the main character would go on a date with a woman he just meets when getting to New York.  It wasn't working, especially after I gave him a younger brother to take care of. I just had to change one thing about the dream.  Instead of being a completely tame movie, I made it slightly risqué instead.  In doing so, I needed to include some sophomoric language, well-known to anyone who had ever been a teenage boy.  I was afraid to post the installments because of the language.  I hadn't even used the real words, just the first letter followed by an underscore the same length as the rest of the real word.  So instead of including the real chapter seventeen on the blog, Just posted a short synopsis of the movie's plot and the audience's reactions to it, including those of the main character.  Even that seemed somewhat mature, at least more mature than what I feel most others would think I write.  Still, it sets up many further plot points, as well as the climax.    Of course, the final product will include the full chapter.  I am just conflicted about showing it now.  I want people to see it, but maybe not just yet.  It is so graphic in what happens.  Not fully so, but more PG-13 than R, if barely.

And Here I Thought I Was a Pepper, Too

In the post few months, the major soft drink makers have com out with a bevy of new flavors.  First was Coke.  It came out with a blueberry-açai flavored version of Diet Coke.  I usually don't drink Coke, but since I love blueberries, I tried it.  Didn't really like it, and I am not sure if it was the flavoring or the Coke part.  (They also came out with a strawberry-guava flavor as well, but I didn't want to try that one.). Coke quickly followed that up with an orange-vanilla variety across all of their regular lines.  This time, I almost liked it.  I was always somewhat partial to that flavor combination, but I didn't like it enough to have it again.  Next, while walking through the store one day, I found berry flavored Pepsi, along with lime and mango varieties.  What sets Pepsi off from the new Coke products is the inclusion of actual fruit juice into the mix.  Unlike the Coke experiments, I actually got a case of the Pepsi berry, only because of the inclusion of blueberry juice.  Well, it does have a berry flavor, raspberry.  It is especially prominent when I take my first sips, but the blueberry comes out more as you drink it.  I am not sure if I would get another case.  I first heard about both the Coke and Pepsi drinks though the news.  This past weekend, while shopping, I though I saw a bottle of Dr. Pepper with a purple/dark bluish label in a dispenser.  I didn't get a close look at it, for I was running behind schedule, so I didn't check to see what was going on.  I thought it might have just been a special promotion or a trick of the colored light upon it.  Yet, something still irked me.  I checked online as soon as I got home.  The official Dr. Pepper site didn't list anything, but I did find something when I did a search.  It turns out that there is a special limited-edition flavor tied to the new Spider-Man movie.  It is called dark berry.  It is a mix of blackberry, black cherry, and black currant flavors.  I love the first two, but I am not sure I have ever tried the third.  (It is supposedly a favorite in Europe.) I have yet to find any more of it, but I can't wait to try it.  I would never have ever thought to search for it, if it wasn't for that unusual label.  I don't even think that is that actual label they will be using.  Strange enough, the movie has a tie in with Doritos, which is part of the large Pepsi corporation, so I don't see why they chose Dr. Pepper as a tie-in for a new drink.  This is the first new flavor from Dr. Pepper since the limited edition vanilla float from a few years ago.  I tried it a few times the summer it was out.  I would even mix it with some cans of regular cherry Dr. Pepper to get a hint of my all-time favorite cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper back.  Still being made, but not sold locally.  The easiest way for me to get that flavor is to go to a Dairy Queen and mix it straight from their soda dispenser.  It's not the same, but it's close.  I'm somewhat apprehensive about this new flavor.  I know I will get it, but I'm not sure how I will like it, especially with these other new flavors about.  Now, all I have to do is find it again.  Be the Pepper!

The Pencil Is Iconic with the Sword

Well, since the semester ended, I have had time to do a few things, like work on my icon for this blog.  I have made a second model icon to try out for this page.  If it doesn't show up at the start, it will appear below as well.  For comparison's sake, I have also included my previous attempt at an icon.  I used the Pages drawing tool to get a sharp angle at the bottom.  I also redesigned the so it would look more like a broadsword.  Pay particular attention to the gleam in the sapphire in the hilt.  I found how to get more points on the star, so it would look more authentic.  I kept the background as white, partially because I forgot how to change it.  Besides, I think this looks a little better this way.

 One thing I did forget to do was add a border around the second icon.  In hindsight, I really should have done that.  Until the words wrap around the image, no one can tell just where the icon ends.  The main problem with this attempt is the "T" in the sword.  It is way too thin.  It should be a little thicker, maybe one size more.  I really like how the sword also mimics a pencil now.  Totally non-intentional, honest.  I just hope that Facebook starts picking up at least one of these images a the design for the link.  For some reason, it has started to pick up an image back from February as the link image.  Unfortunately, it is a rather dorky one of me wearing my newest pair of jeans.  The sort of brown ones that I got on sale for $10.  You got to admit, when you find a pair of Levi's for that cost, and they fit with almost no need for altering, you have to buy them.  Even if they are not in the best of colors.  Still, I have a wide range of shirts that I can wear with them, in both long- and short-sleeves.  I literally have shirts in every color. I'm kind of a clothes hog when it comes to shirts.  And socks.  But that is another topic.  If this new icon doesn't work, I will probably have to break down and get an art app.  So, if anyone out there has any suggestions, send them to me.

I Second That Semester

Yesterday, I turned in my last assignment for grad school, which I hope will finish my work for this semester.  I'll explain shortly.  I only took two classes this time around.  I should have taken three, but I just barely made it through last semester taking three.  Although, each one was a literary criticism course.  This time, neither course was literary.  The first was syntax, the science of language.  The majority of my time was spent making diagrams of fairly simple sentences.  These were not the type of diagrams we once did in grade and high school.  Or college if you took a linguistics class.  No, these were much more thorough and complicated.  Every word took at least two lines and multiple descriptors just to get done.  While the actual reading for class was a manageable half hour or so a week, it would take an hour just to get the diagramming done for one of the harder sentences once every detail was introduced.  By contrast, it took me about six hours minimum for each of my classes' reading material last semester per week, plus another hour or two to do the lessons related to that material.  Things would have been easier if I could have written the diagrams down on paper so I could turn them in, but I couldn't because it was an online class.  That would have cut my work time by half.  As it was, I had to figure out how to use the simple graphic features of my MacBook's word processing program, Pages, without any training or manual to help me out.  It was a very sharp learning curve, especially when I started to use the more complicated details in my diagrams.  Things could have been made easier if I had found the freehand drawing tool before I was finishing up on my final paper.  Seriously, it would have made things so much easier if I had found it sooner.  It might help me out with my icon, once I get back around to it.  My other class was a fiction writers' workshop.  I had to read a chapter from a book, then take a one hour open book test over what I had read.  That should have been one a week, but there was a month long gap where there weren't any chapters.  I also had to submit two short works of non-genre fiction, then respond to the stories of everyone else in class.  That amounted to fourteen other stories I wound up reading.  So many of them were depressing, and even violent at times.  By comparison, my stories were rather simple and connected.  In fact, they were the start of a second book I had been thinking about.  Look at my literary blog, The T. H. Weingarten Miscellany, for those.  The strange thing is that I don't think I had to turn in any revised works.  I just took everyone else's ideas and work with them on my own schedule, and possibly never do anything else with the stories again.  I will, but not for this class.  As least I don't think so, and I have yet to find anywhere on the site where I could do that anyway.  So, the semester is over.  I won't know for a while when, or where, I will take more classes.  I am on a conditional status that might not allow me to take any more courses until it gets resolved.  Also, there are two summer courses, Modern Drama and a Poetry Workshop, that I could take if I get the chance. As to fall, I might have some different plans.  More on that later.

I Think Icon, I Think Icon

What you see above is an early draft of what I hope will become the icon for his blog.  Let me tell you about it.  When I first started this blog, I didn't own a computer.  I had to use the computers at public libraries for all my blogging purposes.  I was therefore limited in my time online.  My original blogs were limited by the twenty or so minutes that I could spare after work or on special trips, while still dealing with other online duties.  This is one of the main reasons why many of the features of this blog have not been fully used, such as ads.  Even after I finally got a computer last year, I still had trouble setting up some features.  For instance, I need to verify my blog via a text message or phone call.  Since I still don't have smart phone (I'm working on it) and I can't always use the weak wi-fi at work to use my work number, the one I use for most of my computer needs, this has been hard.  Another problem has been in creating my blog's icon.  My Mac does not come with an art app installed.  No Macs do anymore.  I have yet to find a free one with good reviews and the type of features I might need.  Still, for this early version, the graphics portion of Pages, Apple's word processing app, worked just fine.  Note how I incorporated my initials into the downward facing sword, which also vaguely looks like a pen or pencil.  I would have already put it into my blog, except for one problem.  It doesn't fit.  Although I have a square frame around the pic and I used an apparently square aperture to take the screenshot of the logo, Blogger doesn't think the pic is square enough.  In fact, it is approximately a pixel or so off from a perfect square, just enough to make it unacceptable.  I probably won't be able to do any better until I get used to the recently added Screenshot app, or I get a graphics app that can get a perfectly square image of a size that Blogger finds acceptable.  The final logo might have the sword piercing something, as well as being more swordlike, pointier you know.  Anyway, tell me what you think of this early draft.  While I admit it was just a few minutes of messing around, it shows off just what I want to do.