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[skyring]

My LiveJournal Sitcom
Taking Care Of Skyring's son (TBS, 10:30): Skyring (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and ravensroads (Andy Kaufman) raise salamanders. Then, jfroebe (Billy Bob Thornton) draws a picture on violet_crumble (James Spader)'s forehead. Nearby, greedyreader (Dolph Lundgren) hits a laptop with siesta (Kurt Russell)'s comb. Afterwards, whytraven3:bookcrossing (Richard Dean Anderson) gets mad at news (Jared Leto) and decides to join the Peace Corps. Also, dawni (Viggo Mortensen) buys portable CD players instead of sweatshirts, ruining lj_maintenance (Jerry Seinfeld)'s day. TV-MA.
What's Your LiveJournal Sitcom? (by rfreebern)

Heheheheh!

Yesterday was spent getting a new edition of BXing Thru M-E up. This involved ditiching the existing first chapter, writing a new one, making a few adjustments here and there and adding in a new photograph. That was using Word. Then I had to install a new demo copy of Acrobat on the server, as my workstation one had expired long ago. That wouldn't convert the graphics from a Word file, so I had to load Office 2003 onto the server. That worked, but then I had to figure out how to embed ArialMT into the PDF because Lulu won't print a PDF that doesn't have all its fonts embedded. Fixed that, and then discovered that although the page size in Word was 6"x9", the PDF was A4 size, which Lulu can't print. So I had to figure out how to change that as well. Then I had to modify the cover. The back cover was easy enough, but still difficult - and my demo copy of Paintshop Pro only has a few days left - but moving my screen name up a bit on the front cover was beyond me, as I'd have to copy in that Bookcrossing sign all over again, and that was more effort than I want to do over again. I might have a workaround. We'll see.

This latest version isn't free any longer. It's been six weeks of free, and I figure that from now on Lulu is entitled to a few cents. And me.

Have to get into the shameless self-promotion trip now. If about three thousand people buy a copy over the next month or so, I'll be able to afford the London thing in September. I don't think I'll hold my breath on that - more realistic is to combine it with Fort Worth next April when I may have saved up enough from selling books. never know, but - a good word of mouth campaign might take off. Might troll Lord of the Rings groups.

On London, I've been reading an excellent book. Do Not Pass Go by Tim Moore. Bookcrossing Through London has definite potential - I don't need to be as well-researched as Tim, but I reckon I can have any number of ridiculous adventures just by turning up and trying to find my way around. Moore's is a funny book, albeit filled with wonderful poo jokes, beginning with his parted buttocks response to that hoary old song "Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner" to another Londoner's remark in 1878 following a boating accident in the sewage-filled Thames, "They weren't so much swimming as going through the motions.". I'm not a great fan of toilet humour, but when it's combined with superb puns, well, that's a different thing entirely.

Bill McCarthy has started keeping a blog, which is well worth reading. Bill is a Visual Basic MVP who has a great sense of humour. He's one of the greatest minds in the world on the subject of VB - knows it inside-out - but he lives somewhere way out in the Victorian rural backblocks. A heard of cows knocked down his phone line last week, and he had to battle with the phone company, who wanted to double his bill.

On that note, I've been very slack on the programming front. I'm working on things like pilot fatigue, wounds, skill, experience and so on, trying to model how effective a pilot is going to be at various stages of the battle. Doing a lot of thinking but not much coding. need to keep it going, otherwise I'll stall.