The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for April 2006

How to Deal With Writer’s Block

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Here are a couple of tricks that I use to deal with writer’s block.

1) Surf the net and post interesting stories. The trouble with this one is that I enjoy doing this anyhow. Or maybe that is a good thing, maybe that helps to make you think that the well never runs dry.

2) Respond to email scams and post transcripts of conversations. Again, the issue with this one is that I do this anyhow.

3) Produce a short roundup of links to posts that other bloggers have written. Hmm… I see value in this. It is not really a trick at all. Part of the reason I blog is for the dialogue and this is part of the interactivity of blogging.

4) Write stream of consciousness posts that ramble on about this and that. Ok, many of my posts ramble on. I suppose that there is no real difference.

5) Make fun of cleveland and other small midwestern towns.

6) Regurgitate old posts. Now the truth is that I have run some posts over and over again because I thought that they deserved more attention, not just because I couldn’t think of anything new to write.

Ok, you got me. I don’t really ever encounter any sort of blockage. I get stuck and have trouble being as concise and as eloquent as I would like to be, but for the most part the well never runs dry.

This ends post number 7,876.

Signed,

Mr. Prolific.

Just Some Random Thoughts

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It was drizzling outside. The sky was overcast and through the tinted windows of the bus it appeared to be a little later in the day than it was. As we cruised through Jerusalem I was lost in thoughts of the past and the present.

I was listening to The Cranberries sing Zombie.

“Another head hangs lowly,
Child is slowly taken.
And the violence caused such silence,
Who are we mistaken?

But you see, it’s not me, it’s not my family.
In your head, in your head they are fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns.
In your head, in your head, they are crying… “

In a strange coincidence as Dolores O’Riordan sang the second verse there was a very loud thump. It startled me and I jumped. I looked outside the window and saw a bunch of kids throwing rocks at the bus. That was the source of the noise.

One of their rocks had hit the bus. Had it been an open air bus I might have been more disturbed by the rock. It certainly sounded like it had hit the wall I was leaning against, but maybe it hadn’t. Maybe it had collided further down, I am not really sure. All that I know was that as soon as I heard her warble on about tanks and bombs there was a very loud noise.

It has been a while since I last thought about that. Tonights flashback was a result of the shuffle function on my iTunes. The song that followed Zombie was Heroes by David Bowie. Here is a snapshot of some others.

The Man’s Too Strong– Dire Straits
I Will Find You (From “The Last of the Mohicans”)- Clannad
Need You Tonight– Inxs
Dragostea Din Tei– Ozone
The Unknown Soldier– The Doors
If You Were Mine 1970– Ray Charles
She’s Got A Way [live]- Billy Joel
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting– Elton John
Harry’s Game – Clannad
Homeward Bound– Simon & Garfunkel
Miss Gradenko– The Police

And now for random thoughts about the songs above. That Dire Straights album was one of the first CDs I ever purchased. Sounded great then and now. I picked up Graceland by Paul Simon at the same time.

That song from Clannad is a promise to someone special. You know that I will always find you. Distance great or far has no meaning. I am tuned to your wavelength.

Need You Tonight- Sorry ‘R’ rated material is currently being censored. That really aggravates you doesn’t it. Hee hee.

Dragostea- My son loves that song. We have a goofy dance that we do to it.

The Unknown Soldier- Not my favorite Doors song by a long shot, but good college memories associated with it.

Ray Charles- That song was a personal anthem for a short period of time in my life. Thanks for making life a little more pleasant.

She’s Got a Way- Not my favorite Billy Joel song, reminds me of too many Bat Mitzvahs.

Elton- That song gives me a bad case of lead foot. I just enjoy driving to it.

Harry’s Game- Not sure why but this song always makes me think that at some point in time I am going to live in Ireland. I do have Irish relatives. Maybe it is time I increase the Jewish population there.

Homeward Bound- This song instantly evokes thoughts of camp and Israel.

Miss Gradenko- A smoky club in Tel Aviv and a girl from the East coast. Not to mention a few high school parties.

Friends of my parents think that my nephew looks like me. I am not so sure about that. It is a little early to say who he looks like, but he could do worse. 😉

My sister and BIL are trying to adjust to the shock of being first time parents. The BIL needs a bit of an attitude adjustment. I think that this is much harder than he expected it to be. The boy needs to grow up faster than he wants to.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of standing for a flight holds no interest whatsoever to me.

That is it for now, sleep beckons.

Standing Room Only- The Crowded Skies

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Flying is way too crowded. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of being herded like cattle.

“The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?

A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only “seats.”

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.”

What a lovely idea. One more selection for your consumption.

“Perhaps the most extraordinary example of a new jet that could accommodate features unheard of previously is the Airbus A380. There is so much available room on the superjumbo that Virgin Atlantic Airways is even considering placing a beauty salon in its premium-class section. (No final decision has been made, according to the company.) The first A380 is scheduled to be delivered later this year.

With a typical configuration, the A380 will accommodate about 500 passengers. But with standing-room-only seats, the same plane could conceivably fit in 853 passengers, the maximum it would be permitted to carry.

“To call it a seat would be misleading,” said Volker Mellert, a physics professor at Oldenburg University in Germany, who has done research on airline seat comfort and has seen the design. If such a configuration were ever installed on an aircraft, he said, it would only be used on short-haul flights like an island-hopping route in Japan.

While an Airbus spokeswoman, Mary Anne Greczyn, played down the idea that Airbus was trying to sell an aircraft that accommodated 853 passengers, the company would not specifically comment on the upright-seating proposal.

There is no legal barrier to installing standing-room seats on an American airliner. The Federal Aviation Administration does not mandate that a passenger be in a sitting position for takeoffs and landings; only that the passenger be secured. Seating must comply only with the agency’s rules on the width of aisles and the ability to evacuate quickly in an emergency.”