Pixstrips in Blog Articles

My convenient-recipe blog articles show series of progressive pictures at the top, from start to finish of each recipe. Each recipe pixstrip (the assembled image) contains eight images except for one that has nine. Clicking a pixstrip opens a new window with an enlargement. Nice of Blogspot to have that easy-access feature.

This article describes the process—staging the shots, processing the individual pictures, assembling them into a pixstrip, and uploading it into the article. The settings I use (outlined with red rectangles) appear in the image above. (I omitted the in-progress and completed images, as those stages should be obvious.)

The first time I made the decision to include pictures was for the spinach-cheese taco recipe. During preparation, I took pictures as follows:

1. plate
2. tortilla added
3. cheese added
4. spinach added
5. contents microwaved
6. more cheese added
7. contents microwaved
8. taco folded, with fork above it

My other convenient recipes I put pixstrips in are "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch" and "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter". The first cooky recipe is for Valentine Day cookies, which results in red cookies. The second one is for Easter-theme cookies. Both recipes use the basic ingredients of a box of cake mix, one-third cup of oil, and two eggs. I recently retrofitted "A Convenient Quiche" with a pixstrip. I took about a dozen pictures, winnowed the collection down to nine shots, then created the strip.

Principles for Pictures

• Take more pictures than you'll need—preferably in the order of the actions. If you think you might use any shots, take them. Better to have the pictures and not need any than need any and not have them.
• Find a decent-sized staging area that has minimal clutter or visual distractions. Most of my areas have been a countertop where I don't need to move many items more than once or twice. (I'm not a professional photographer; just using gut feelings.)

Gathering the Recipe Items

1. Gather all the ingredients.
2. Gather as many utensils as you can remember. Basic ones are bowls, spoons, spatulas, pans, and utensils to blend with. Secondary ones are cooling rack(s), oven mitts, egg timer as necessary. (I use the term "utensils" very loosely.)

Taking Pictures During the Recipe Process

1. Stage ingredients and utensils for big-picture effect if it makes sense. Take a few pictures from different angles if unsure of how the items look together.
2. Take pictures in the logical order of action. If possible, take the pictures from the same angle and distance. (Note: I stand on a stepladder about a foot away and shoot my pictures using my camera's highest resolution and quality.)

Storing and Processing the Pictures—Camera Off-loaded Set, Processing/Processed Set

1. Offload the pictures into a folder; keep these originals in one place.
2. Copy the original pictures into a different folder for modifying them. Typical modifications will include cropping and lightening as necessary, then saving them. (I save as .png to avoid losing picture quality.) Occasionally, cropped enlargements help.

I create a folder called "images". I create two subfolders—one I call "fromcam" for the pictures I off-load from my camera, the other I call "inprocess&finished".

Generating the Final Image (the Pixstrip)

1. Resize and save each image to save filesize space. I resize to about 15%, or about 150 x 150 pixels.
2. Enlarge the first image's canvass wide enough to accommodate the other images in order.
3. Copy/paste the images as desired, then save the pixstrip, using a reasonable name.

Note: An alternative is to resize and save each image first (skipping the first step), follow the second and third steps, resize the entire strip, and save the reduced pixstrip under a different name.

Uploading the Pixstrip

1. After logging into the blog account, select or create a blog article.
2. Use the blog image-upload command to upload the pixstrip.
3. View the image at the top of this article for the settings I use in Blogspot. YMMV for your own blog site.

Tooling A Round

I have run across several tools I use often, sometimes in spurts. Some are online calculators; some are downloadable tools to be installed on the computer. The page titles are self-explanatory. Most instructions at the sites are intuitive. Note that I cite timeanddate.com a LOT.

---

"The World Clock ­ Time Zones"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

I used this online resource often to determine the times for co-workers in other time zones, particularly those located overseas. Timing was important when communicating or passing documents back and forth.

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"Calculate distance between two locations"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html

Select "From location", "To location", then "Calculate distance".

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"See other locations near a city"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distances.html?n=24 (Austin)

Select a city, then click the button "See cities close to location".

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"Calendar for year 2010 (United States)" (default settings, customizable)
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/

Here's my shameless plug for my article about creating monthly calendars:
http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/01/create-monthly-calendars-for-year.html

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"CSS Font and Text Style Wizard"
http://www.somacon.com/p334.php

Click buttons, then see the results and code.

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"Free File Converter
Convert your files into different formats."
http://www.freefileconvert.com/

Click the Convert File tab to get to the interface as follows:

1. Obtain the existing file (Browse)
2. Select the format you want (dropdown list box).
3. Click Convert.
4. Click the download button to save or open the converted file.

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"Cool Ruler 1.5: Free Download"
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Cool-Ruler-Download-40393.html

This tool's features include variable length, capabilities of launching multiple instances, rotating them for 90° positions, and marking tics at onscreen image widths. This is and excellent aid when working with mechanical images or other images where visual scaling is desirable.

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"PrintFolder 1.2" (at URL below)
http://no-nonsense-software.com/download.html

This tool makes it possible to rightclick a folder and generate an onscreen list of your folder's files and other information, suitable for copy/paste onto email.

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"EditPlus 3.12" (text editor, HTML editor, PHP editor and Java editor for Windows)
http://download.cnet.com/EditPlus/3000-2352_4-10018241.html

I had used this tool for html coding for about year or so before I acquired Dreamweaver.

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"Irfanview ...one of the most popular viewers worldwide!"
http://www.irfanview.com/

I had used Irfanview initially for its thumbnail features. My graphics tool of choice has been PaintShopPro; however, I will probably soon explore more recent Irfanview's features that have caught my eye, such as playing movies, playing sounds, and creating slideshows.

Wanted Unholed Lotta Bagel

The first time I'd become aware of bagels was about the early 90s. Oh, I'd encountered "bagels and lox" in books occasionally, but never gave them much thought. Seems when I read about them and saw pictures, they mystified me. They looked like doughnuts. Sometime shortly thereafter, I bought one. I ate it as though it were a doughnut. Hmmm. Kinda plain, not sweet. (Hadn't thought about the lox; thought cream cheese sounded icky.)

Over the years, I'd eat them in spurts. Sometimes a co-worker would bring in a box of them, accompanied with little containers of specialty cream cheeses. I really liked the salmon-flavored ones, also the jalapeno ones. Now I've finally settled into eating them mostly toasted, with a layer of butter.

I sometimes wondered about bagel denseness contrasted with store bread. Whenever I occasionally bought bagels at bagel stores, the stores tended not to list caloric information. Maybe I was too much into the out-of-sight-out-of-mind mode to bother looking up nutritional information.

In any case, bagels have become another bread aisle staple, in the same area as loaf bread, buns, and English muffins, with something called sandwich rounds starting to make appearances. Not long after I started to add bagels to the weekly shopping list, I looked at the nutrition table. Wow! 300 calories! That's about the same amount of calories as four slices of bread! Now, my days of eating one whole bagel (or more) at a time are gone, hopefully not to return.

The other day as I started the butter smear on my toasted half bagel, it crystalized in my brain that the hole in the middle makes the smearing inconvenient. I then thought about other times I'd thought about bagels and their holes. Bagel shops sell sandwiches on bagels. Occasionally, I'd bought bagels that had almost no hole. (I attributed the condition to the bagel dough preparer using a small ring to cut the dough instead of using a big one.) Most times, holes seemed to be about an inch in diameter.

I had thought using a bagel absent a hole at all would make a better sandwich than using a bagel where you need to be artful with the spreader; otherwise, condiments fall through. Also, if you're going to eat bites that have bread for each bite, it seems odd to run into breadless bites. The spreading care is even more crucial if buttering or creamcheesing a toasted bagel.

Why do bagels have holes? According to answerbag.com, the serious answer is that the holes allow thorough cooking of the bagels. "History of the Bagel: The Hole Story" has some history of the bagel in addition to details about the hole. Googling keywords "bagels no holes" yields numerous results. Closely related to why holes is how to make them. I ran across three ways to make them, none of which involve use of a cooky cutter device as I originally thought might be the case.

From baking911.com—

Hole in the Middle Method: From a ball shape, moisten your finger with water and poke your index finger through the center to form the hole. Moisten your finger with water, if necessary to smooth and to reshape the sides. Pull gently to enlarge hole.

The Hole Around the Finger Method: Flatten the ball of dough slightly into a disk shape, folding the bottom edge under and smoothing it until it looks like a doughnut shape. Make a hole in the center of the circle from the bottom up and twirl around your index finger to widen the hole. Reshape the round into a doughnut shape.

The Tube Around the Palm of the Hand Method: To form the bagels, take each piece of dough and roll it into a ball. Flatten the ball, then fold it in half, sealing the edges with your fingertips. Then fold again to form a tight cylinder. Roll the dough into a tube about 9 inches long. Wrap this piece around the palm of your hand, overlapping the dough about 2 inches. Pinch the ends together to form a ring. I like this way because it is quite fast.

Besides explicit information about shaping bagel dough to make the holes, Baking911.com has lots of detailed background and techniques throughout the stages of bagel making—even a q/a section. A passage that had caught my eye was "Boil on each side, about 3 minutes or less at a time, turning with a slotted spoon or skimmer. When done, the bagel will be puffy and the center will be nearly closed." Soooo, it's possible commercial bagels might have larger holes than necessary (or for my taste, anyway. ).

Well, after having poked around some sites to find out why bagels have holes and also reading the methodologies, maybe I'll settle for the normalcy of most bagels having approximately 3/4" diameter holes. OTOH, it seems possible that homemade ones might yield almost-closed-hole results.

I have listed some promising recipes that use breadmaking machines. My criteria for recipes tend to be calls for few items and ease of the process. (Look in my blog index for any title that has "convenient" in it, then visit articles. The fewer the ingredients, the better, I say.)

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/1180/Breadmaker-Bagels129588.shtml
Lists 6 ingredients. Features a calculator for adjusting recipe ingredient amounts to numbers of servings.

http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Basic-Bagel-For-the-Bread-Machine-55609
Lists 5 ingredients for the bagels, 2 additional for egg wash substitute for Pam-type spray. Also includes recipes for bagel sticks and chips.

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=5812.0
Lists 5 ingredients, accompanied by numerous comments.

Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa

This is my technical communicator parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s monster hit “Bad Romance”. Her Youtube video is approaching 200,000,000 views. For related videos and lyrics, do Google searches. Note: Lyrics accuracy varies among sites. Lyricsmode.com, which I used for most of my research and initial lyrics, had the best accuracy contrasted with other lyrics sites.

Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa

Uh oh uh oh oh oh no no no no no no,
Your doc seems pretty poor.

Uh oh uh oh oh oh no no no no no no,
Your doc seems pretty poor.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Unmatched tenses are plenty to see,
Subjects and verbs don’t often agree,
Well you should see,
You skipped some concepts that are key.

Your lists aren’t swell; items aren’t parallel,
Paragraphs too long, too many lines just read wrong,
Re-duce, re-duce,
Re-reduce redundancy,
(Re-reduce redundancy.)

(spoken)
You know you wrote bad,
It's only your first draft,
Take another pass; improve that trash.

You need to improve that piece of poo,
And upload some better content,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh.)

Please tighten the prose so it won't look so hosed,
And so it won't make me retch.

Uh oh uh oh oh no no no no no not this,
Don't ship the piece as is.

Nah nah, no no, it's not good work,
Improve it, and don't write it worse.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Edit, edit punctuation,
Periods, commas, exclamations,
Word, word, use thesaurus,
Choose the words most glorious.

Move, move, move some clauses,
If they bring about good pauses,
Shorten up some sentences,
If they make for better senses.

Fix misplaced mods,
Fix comma probs,
Fix split infinitivin’s,
Fix letter cap nits.

Fixez punctuation,
Fixez double negation,
Fixez tout formatting,
Do style guide adhering,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh),
Do style guide adhering,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh),
Do style guide adhering,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh),
Do style guide adhering,
(Doing a bad-prose ranting),
Do style guide adhering.

You need to improve that piece of poo,
And upload some better content,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh.)

Please tighten the prose so it won't look so hosed,
And so it won't make me retch.

Uh oh uh oh oh no no no no no not this,
Don't ship the piece as is.

Nah nah, no no, it's not good work,
Improve it, and don't write it worse.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Rich Man Poor Man

YouTube playlist for this article,
playlist compilation article

Rich man. Poor man. Beggar man. Thief. Doctor. Lawyer. Indian chief. From my recollection, these occupations/titles were designators in a child's poem for buttons that would foretell the clothing-wearer's fate. (Never mind that people don't wear only one article of clothing for life.) Scrapbook.com and phrases.org.uk have some overlapping background information.

The scrapbook.com reference mentions the poem as a chant, that the landing button is the occupation of the future spouse. As another use for the chant is to find the "it" person in a game. ("Tag, you're it" comes to mind.) The methodology of determination reminded me a lot of "one potato, two potato", the countoffs starting the same way.

All players put their fisted hands together in a circle and one person starts the chant by tapping each fist in succession. When "Indian Chief" is said, the person whose fist is tapped puts that fist behind their back. Then the chant starts again with the chanter starting with someone else in the cirle [sic]. As soon as one person has both hands out of the circle they are "It".

At mamalisa.com, the game-instructions for one-potato-two-potato countoff indicate the similarity to scrapbook.com's button countoff.

All of the kids put our their two fists. One kid goes around tapping the other kids' fists with his fist. The one whose fist he ends the rhyme on is out (that kid puts that fist behind his back). Then go around again and again until only one fist is left. The one that is left at the end of all the rounds is "It".

In phrases.org.uk, pits from fruit on game players' plates—rather than their clothing buttons—determine the "it" person. In an indication of ingrained tradition, the occupation/title applies to males only; if the game players are female, "it" is the occupation/title of their future husband. In another difference from scrapbook.com, phrases.org.uk lists occupations as tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.

For more variations of countoff chants and occupations, visit Wikipedia's tinker-tailor page.

Rich man poor man—that phrase is so well-known, I sense many people could mentally finish reciting the rest of the best-known parts of the poem. It's so well-known, an Emmy-award winning mini-series titled Rich Man Poor Man broadcast in 1976 , thereby providing a feedback loop for familiarity between the mini-series and the poem.

I've thought about songs that tie in with the poem, not initially knowing about tinker, tailor, soldier and sailor. I offer the following for viewing (as much as possible) and listening entertainment:

Rich Man
If I were a Rich Man, [musical video clip, uncredited artist]

Poor Man
Poor Side of Town, Johnny Rivers
Rag Doll, Four Seasons

Beggar Man
Ain't Too Proud to Beg, Temptations
Beggin', Four Seasons
Baby Please Don't Go, Them/Van Morrison

Thief
Steal Away, Robbie Dupree

Doctor
Good Lovin', Olympics
Doctor Doctor, Robert Palmer

Lawyer
Lawyers in Love, Jackson Browne

Indian Chief
Cherokee Nation, Paul Revere and the Raiders
Spirit in the Sky, Norman Greenbaum

Soldier
Universal Soldier, Buffy St. Marie

Sailor
Sailing, Christopher Cross
Sail Away, Enya

Tinker
If I were a Carpenter, Bobby Darin

One song that contains nearly all the occupations of the poem is the Yardbirds' "Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor". Occupations listed in the lyrics are as follows:

tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, baker, fine shoe-maker, wise man, madman, taxman

I am unable to find a song that refers to "tailor" as an occupation; however, the Searchers' "Needles and Pins" might be as close I find for a thematic fit because of the implements. Sew, in closing, I hope I will have provided enough entertainment, enlightenment, and a-muse-meant in this article to suit visitors.

52-week Year As 13 Months

Instead of the current calendar that has the inconsistent spread over 28, 29, 30, and 31 days—depending on leap year, leap century, or regular year numbers, it'd be dandy to divvy up the 52 weeks differently. How about 13 months of four weeks each, with the leftover one or two days as bonus day(s) for the 13th month of the year? A year has 365 days in a normal year. Using 13 as the divisor, the quotient winds up as 28 (four exact weeks), with one day left over—two if 366-day year. (Par-TAY! Par-TAY!)

With twelve of the thirteen months having exactly 28 days, all the months could start on the normal first day of the week. As everything would be multiples of seven, there could be huge reduction in confusion over non-synchronization between current calendar day numbering and weekly day numbering. Payroll, scheduling, and programming could be greatly simplified, imo. There'd be fewer calendars to have to buy year to year. (An example of 13-month year advocacy site is 13moon.com.)

Just think! No more "September hath 30 days, ...". In my case, I could never get past the September rule comfortably. A newer ditty completely destroyed any possibility of my memorizing it. And it expresses my sentiment: "Thirty days hath September. The rest I don't remember."

Awhile back, I had learned a handy physical helper until repetition facilitated the memorization. With the hand in a fist, I used the finger-knuckle method to note the 31-day months. The path starts with the index-finger knuckle (January), advances to the pinky-knuckle (double tap to accommodate July and August), and returns to the middle-finger knuckle (December), as shown in the illustration. Tap a few times till you get used to the knuckles representing 31-day months. (The valleys represent the not-30-day months.)

Anyway, as the world is unlikely to change the calendar any time soon, the poem, knuckles, and various paper/online calendars can continue to be the mainstay of day/date consultations. In case you're curious how we got to the messy distribution of days and months, wisegeek has explanations.

Excerpt of interest, when the calendar had only 10 months—

The calendar had only ten months, and the number of days in a month were as follows: 31 days in Martius, 30 days in Aprilis, 31 days in Maius, 30 days in Iunius, 31 days in Quintilis, 30 days in Sextilis, 30 days in September, 31 days in October, 30 days in November, and 30 days in December.

Note that the first syllables for 7th (Sept), 8th (Oct), 9th (Nov), and 10th (Dec) months are Latin terms for the ordinal positions. Now, we associate the positions of September as the ninth month, October as the tenth month, November as the eleventh month, and December as the twelfth month. More detailed explanation about these months and the others are at 13moon.com's "WHAT'S IN A NAME?" page.

While I'm on the subject of calendars, the names of the days of the week have long histories and also associations across regions in Europe. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday retain much of their phonetic and name ties to Norse gods. Encyclopedia Mythica's "Origin of the names of the days" has explanations and also other-language information.

If you need to create your own calendar, my other calendar article will help, but only if you don't try to create a 13-month one.

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter

This article is a sibling recipe to my Valentine cooky recipe. This simple recipe requires only 4 ingredients:

• 1 box vanilla or otherwise light-color cake mix
• 1/3 cup of oil
• 2 eggs
• various-color sugars

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• bowl
• measuring cup
• measuring spoon(s)
• small rubber spatula
• small cooky cutters to create indentations
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the cake mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
3. In a bowl or large cup, mix the oils and eggs.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Complete the process as follows according to the cooky size and number you want (larger/fewer—40 vs. smaller/more—50).

Flat-tablespoon Method (Shown in pic strip at article title.)
Yields about 40 cookies.
1. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough.
2. Flat-scrape the excess with a rubber spatula.
3. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
4. Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
5. Sprinkle color sugars over the dough disks.
6. Press cooky cutter shapes all the way through the dough disks.
7. Bake for about 10 minutes.

Domed-teaspoon Method
Yields about 50 cookies.
1. Use a round teaspoon to scoop the dough so it looks more than rounded and less than heaping (about a 2-teaspoon measure).
2. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
3. Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
4. Sprinkle color sugars over the dough disks.
5. Press cooky cutter shapes all the way through the dough disks.
6. Bake for about 8 minutes.


6. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Note: Using a cooky shooter is also suitable for dispensing the dough. If using a shooter, sift the powder before mixing in the wet ingredients, in case there are soy "pebbles" that can clog up the pattern disk(s).

The cookies are soft right out of the oven; the edges become slightly crunchy after a few minutes.

Pronunciations Heck with Hermione and Homage

As my occupation (technical writing) is more involved with the written rather than spoken word, I often trip over pronunciations of words that I read rather than speak, particularly non-English names. But even with a name common in England consciousness, one gives me problems in particular—Hermione—for the following reasons.

• The name starts with an "h", a letter that seems to have no logical rules for it getting pronounced or not.
• Syllable accentuation is not obvious.
• The "i" is not obvious for whether it's long or short.
• The second "e" because of the word-end placement seems like it should be silent.
• Possible pronunciations seem to include "HER-mee-own", "HER-mee-one", "her-MY-own-ee" (Bingo!), etc.

Unless I've seen a Harry Potter movie recently—maybe a year since, I forget how Hermione is supposed to be pronounced. Reasonable video resources, besides Harry Potter movies, now include YouTube videos where Emma Watson talks about her character.

Another "h" word (term) that gives me pause is "homage". M-W.com's pronunciation guide shows "\ ä-mij, hä-\ ". There are two speaker icons. When clicked, they sound like "hawm ij" and "awm ij", respectively, to me. Dictionary.com's pronunciation guide shows "[hom-ij, om-]", although there's only one speaker icon. When clicked, I hear what sounds like "hawm ij". I can't help but also consider pronouncing "homage" as "home age" or "ohm age" or "home ij" or "ohm ij".

My feeling is that "h" words come with the unusual pronunciation difficulties particularly for non-native English speakers. Does the "h" get pronounced or not? Seems only experience helps in knowing. Honor? Hour? Hope? History? My efforts to find online pronunciation help regarding "Hermione" and "homage"—my "h" pet words for this article—has yielded a few reasonable resources.

Online Dictionaries

• Merriam-Webster.com: Found "homage", but choked on Hermione.
• Dictionary.com: Found both "homage" as well as "Hermione".
• Howjasay.com: Found both "homage" as well as "Hermione". (Here, "Hermione" sounds like "her MY nee".)

Other Resources

• AT&T Labs Natural Voices® Text-to-Speech Demo: Allows selection of several voices and provides a text box to type or paste up to 300 characters.
• Encyclopedia Mythica's pronunciation guide: Shows alphabetized mythological names with their phonetic pronunciation guide and regional bases.
• Inogolo.com: Found "Hermione", but couldn't find my other "h" word "homage".

Per inogolo's "About" page, inogolo.com is "website devoted to the English pronunciation of the names of people, places, and various things". The result for Hermione provides a link for speech ("Audio Pronunciation"), displays pronunciation ("Phonetic Pronunciation") as "hur-MY-o-nee", and shows the name/word origin.

A topic at WordReference.com Language Forums yielded a commenter's link to AT&T for pronunciations. At the AT&T site, you can select different voices from a drop-down list box, then type or paste text into the text box. You then click SPEAK to hear the text. The American English speakers pronounce Hermione as "her MY oh nee", whereas the British speakers pronounce "HER me on". Other language-speakers have yet other pronunciations. Incidentally, the WordReference forum page shows a paid-ad link for free text-to-speech reader.

Even if I mastered and could continue to remember pronunciations for "Hermione" and "homage", I could never be an news announcer for foreign news. I would have an awful time correctly pronouncing names of heads of states for former Eastern-bloc countries and several Mediterranean-area countries. I'm fine with most British-based and Spanish names, except for Hermione (British by Potter <g>).

Technical Communications Means

YouTube playlist for this article,
playlist compilation article

Telephone and mail correspondence—mostly referenced in songs, movies, and a few TV shows are the technical communications means I'm talking about. At the time of those media release, they reflected the prevailing technology for non-f2f interactions. Back then, letters did not reach recipients within seconds, older phone calls person-to-person required manual dialing on a rotary dial (woe if numbers were 8s, 9s, or zeros and your dialing finger slipped), and there was no Caller ID nor answering machine. Cheap mass mailing? Fuggedaboutit!

Especially regarding songs that mention phones, references to phone call costs (dime, 40 cents more, …) and dialing contrast sharply to current call charges and keypad or memory-number inputs. One carryover from dialing days seems a bit amusing to me: the feature called "redial". And how about "speed dial"? Another anachronism: "operator", an occupation that has gradually faded from phone call prominence but for which there are several songs that feature that term.

I've grouped some lists and links as follows:

• Songs that Feature Letters
• Songs that Feature Phones
• Movies that Feature Phones and Letters
• TV Shows that Feature Phones

Songs that Feature Letters

"Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" (written 1935), Billy Williams (recorded 1957).
Lyrics excerpt—

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you

"Love Letters in the Sand" (1957), Pat Boone.
Lyrics excerpt—

On a day like today
We passed the time away
Writing love letters in the sand

"Please, Mr. Postman" (1961), Marvelettes.
Lyrics excerpt—

please mr.postman
deliver the letter
the sooner the better

"Return to the Sender" (1962), Elvis Presley.
Lyrics excerpt—

So then I dropped it in the mailbox
And sent it special D.

"Sealed With a Kiss" (1962), Brian Hyland.
Lyrics excerpt—

I'll send you all my love
Everyday in a letter
Sealed with a kiss

"PS I Love You" (1962), Beatles.
Lyrics excerpt—

As I write this letter,
Send my love to you,

"All My Loving" (1964), Beatles.
Lyrics excerpt—

And then while I'm away,
I'll write home ev'ry day,
And I'll send all my lovin'to you.

"The Letter" (1967), Boxtops.
Lyrics excerpt—

my baby just a-wrote me a letter.

"Take a Letter Maria" (1969), R B GREAVES. (See the guy dictating into a tape recorder, starting about :29.)
Lyrics excerpt—

So take a letter Maria, address it to my wife
Send a copy to my lawyer

Songs that Feature Phones

"Beachwood 45789" (1962), Marvelettes. (Note that both "Beechwood" and "Beachwood" appear in search results. An image of the record label shows the correct name to be Beechwood. Oh, sunnybeeches!)
Lyrics excerpt—

Beechwood 4-5789
You can call me up and
Have a date any old time

"634-5789" (1970), Picket Wilson.
Lyrics excerpt—

All you gotta do is pick up your telephone and dial now…

"867 5309/Jenny" (1982), Tommy Tutone.
Lyrics excerpt—

Jenny, Jenny who can I turn to? (8-6-7-5-3-0-9)
For the price of a dime I can always turn to you.

"Call Me" (1965), Chris Montez.
Lyrics excerpt—

Call me, don't be afraid, you can call me

"Call Me" (1999), Blondie. (Note someone writing "636-1636" on someone's forehead at 1:18.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Call me on the line

"Reunited" (1979), Peaches and Herb.
Lyrics excerpt—

I wished I could climb right through the telephone line

"Memphis" (1959), Chuck Berry.
Lyrics excerpt—

Long distance information, give me Memphis Tennessee
Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me
She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
'Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall

"Wichita Lineman" (1968), Glen Campbell.
Lyrics excerpt—

And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

"Back in the USSR" (1968), Beatles. (Paul performs in Kiev in 2008.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Honey disconnect the phone

"Rings" (1974), Lobo.
Lyrics excerpts—

Ring ring telephone rings
…
Ring ring door bell ring
…
Ring ring golden ring
…
And let the wedding bell ring

"Ring Ring" (1973), ABBA. (See Agnetha and Anni-Frid use their index fingers to simulate dialing a telephone, about 2:34.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Ring, ring, why don't you give me a call
Ring, ring, the happiest sound of them all
Ring, ring, I stare at the phone on the wall

Related: YouTube audio mix using ABBA's "Ring Ring" and Blondie's "Hanging on the Telephone"
"Happy Together" (1967), Turtles.
Lyrics excerpt—

If I should call you up, invest a dime

"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" (1978), Rod Stewart.
Lyrics excerpt—

Give me a dime so I can phone my mother

"Sylvia's Mother" (1992), Dr. Hook. (Note there's a phone booth in the background.)
Lyrics excerpts—

Sylvia's mother says "Sylvia's busy"
"Too busy to come to the phone"
…
And the operator says "40 cents more for the next 3 minutes"
…
And Sylvia's mother says "thank you for callin'"
"And, sir, won't you call back again?"

"Amish Paradise" (1996), Weird Al Yankovic.
Lyrics excerpts—

We haven't even paid the phone bill in 300 years
…
There's no phone, no lights, no motorcar

"Telephone" (2009), Lady Gaga.
Lyrics excerpt—

Call all you want, but theres no one home,
And you're not gonna reach my telephone.

A small subcategory—Operators

"Operator" (1972), Jim Croce.
Lyrics excerpts—

Operator, could you help me place this call,
'Cause I can't read the number that you just gave me,
…
You can keep the dime.

"Operator" (1975), Manhattan Transfer. (Note the bent arm and fist by the ear to simulate holding an operator's set.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Operator
Information
Please give me Jesus on the line

"Smooth Operator" (1984), Sade. (OK, so it's not about a phone operator.)
Lyrics excerpt—

He's a smooth operator,
smooth operator,
smooth operator,
smooth operator.

Movies that Feature Phones and Letters

Enemy of the State (1998), Will Smith.
Will's character gets tracked via cellphone usage, before current common GPS outfitting into phones.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), Keanu Reeves.
The phone booth serves as a good vehicle, as it could transport several people at any one time.

Superman (various releases and stars).
Superman typically switched out in a phone booth. One movie did reflect the downsizing of phone booths to a payphone surround, with Clark looking perplexed, needing to find an alternate changing room.

Matrix (1999), Keanu Reeves.
Characters travel through payphones lines. At the time the movie was in theaters, payphones were still common. Try to find a payphone these days.

My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Julia Roberts.
This movie has both phones and letters. Julia's character drives a wagon while talking on a humongous cellphone, indicating an agedness in technology. In a different scene, she keeps a draft email, but inadvertently, the email goes out, resulting in stressful circumstances.

Vanity Fair (2004), Reese Witherspoon.
Correspondence letters are prominent in this story.

TV Shows that Feature Phones

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, featuring Lily Tomlin as Ernestine, the phone operator—one of many characters Lily developed. (Note she is at a switchboard, and at a later point, dialing the phone.)

Keeping up Appearances.
The main character Hyacinth often converses using a phone—YouTube instance, starting about 2:16. One clip shows Hyacinth dissed and thwarted in her attempts to use a phone.

"Night Call", a Twilight Zone episode.
A woman receives mysterious phone calls, but is regretful when they stop. They had been from her deceased fiancé, and he finally hung up on her.

As my compilation turns out, my focus is more on phones—letters seeming to loom not quite as large—in songs, movies, and TV shows. In any case, I hope visiting links brought entertainment, enlightenment, and a-muse-ment nevertheless. Note: Other resources (besides linked YouTube videos and lyrics sites) include Google and Wikipedia—mainly for release-year information—and IMDB for movie references.

My Blog Article Methodology Inception2finish

My article is intended for beginning bloggers, would-be bloggers, and sporadic bloggers. I have been blogging since September 2009, inspired by TheWriteJob clublet to explore my inner creative writing. After awhile, I noticed a pattern emerging on how I generate a blog article. Recently, I made a presentation to the clublet regarding my process as follows:

principles I advocate regarding blogging, how I choose my topic, my output scheduling, supporting info (or not), stream of consciousness, content organization, editing methodology, publishing, and publicizing

Principles:
I have heard bloggers present the first two principles as bases for writing; I subscribe to them as well. I present the third principle as a nudge.

• Write about something you know about.
• Write about something you're passionate about.
• Think of writing as pumping iron to achieve or improve written output. It's analogous to an exercise program—you don't attain the conditioning by just watching an exercise video.

Stages (and Publicizing):
For me, there are three stage locations for inception to publishing. Other bloggers might use only two or even just one:

Stage 1: Initial drafts
I start with a working space in my emailer application. I always have it open, and I can save the drafts instantly without needing to commit to a filename or directory structure.

Stage 2: HTML file
I copy my emailer content over to my HTML editor, code the draft, review for mechanical edits, and tweak as necessary to prepare the article for the blog site.

Stage 3: Blogsite post(s)
I copy the final draft onto the blog site and preview it. If I tweak it, I tweak the HTML file also. As part of the third stage, after I publish to the blog, I create a truncated version in TheWriteJob community blog.

Post-article publicizing
I announce the new article.

How I Choose My Topic
Influences are timeliness, inspiration, something in my accordion file folder, or a combination. Inspirations have included a song, a holiday, a recipe, an event, a crossword puzzle, a conversation, … Related: If I think of something, I scribble it, then file it into the folder, for which I have taped a scribbled index inside the flap.

My Output Scheduling
I make it a point to post three times a month. (One month I put up four posts.) Three posts divide pretty neatly into monthly divisions of first 10 days, second 10 days, and whatever is left of the month. For me, self-scheduling is a good motivator.

Supporting Info (Or Not)
A good amount of my assertions and information comes from Google search results. If I have a series of results for an article, I tend to mention main sites. A benefit to citing URLs is ease of finding similar sources for future articles.

Stage 1: Initial Drafts
I create a workspace in my emailer program.

Stream of Consciousness
I key in topic content in a stream of consciousness using my emailer program. I have it open more than any other application, and can save drafts without commitment to filenames. When keying in stream of consciousness, if poking around URLs, I log them near their related content in case I list them in the actual article.

Content Organization
The stream of consciousness can overlap with content organization.

1. During organization, I generate an opening paragraph or story lead-in. Example thoughts include the following: How the topic come about, a conversation, a song, a news article, something I witnessed, something I've been thinking about for awhile, etc.
2. I organize the content for flow. I arrange, rearrange, reword, rework, move snippets to the bottom in case I use them or decide to discard them.
3. I create a closing paragraph, which can come near the end of the organization process. (My shortest closing paragraph had only one word, which is in my article about the Spinach-Cheese Taco.)
4. I create a label list to insert into the blog label field.

Stage 2: HTML file
I create a webpage for the blog article in an HTML editor. I serialize it, along with its folder. (I create a folder that starts with the number of the article I'm getting ready to post, which is where I house the html page.)

Editing Methodology (Mostly Technical)
Content organization can overlap with editing methodology.

1. After I copy the contents over to my HTML editor, I fine-tune the article. (I have never been able to totally just copy over without tweaking later.)
2. I tag the content (paragraphs, lists, …), tweak the URLs as applicable. I occasionally view the article using the design view or browser view for formatting, punctuation, looks, and correct site destinations.
3. I review for passive vs. active voice. (Active is more engaging.)
4. I check for subject/verb agreement for number (singular vs. plural) and tense.
5. Especially for lists, I check for parallel structure—noun, verb, phrase, etc.
6. I check punctuation.
7. I spell check.

In this article's case with numerous subtopic titles, I also checked and revised for title-case capitalizations.

Stage 3: Blogsite Post(s)
I publish to my blog site, then publish a truncated version to the community blog site.

1. I log in to my blog site.
2. I select for new post, then I copy the formatted article to the wysiwyg view. (I also fill in a new-title field, which becomes the article title and gets associated with the post's URL.)
3. I paste labels to the blog label field.
4. I preview, then publish when the article looks right.
5. I put a truncated article in the community blog as well as my own blog. (This is an anomaly that applies only to me; however, adopt if feasible.)
1. After I have published my full article to my blog, I note the URL. In my html editor, I then save my full article as [samearticlename]-truncated.
2. I find a strategic place in a paragraph to select and truncate.
3. I open a previous-article truncated file and copy boilerplate reference info onto my new truncated article.
4. I replace the old URL with the new article's URL and save it.
5. After I navigate to http://thewritejob.blogspot.com/ and select the option to post a new article, I paste the truncated article and labels, then publish it.

Post-article Publicizing
I announce the new article in various social media and email lists.

**Topic Ideas**
The following section lists potential topics for blog articles.

• Suggestions for inspiration topics:
• What was the best thing that has happened to you this week?
• What thoughts occurred to you Thursday 2/18 about the plane crash?
• What was something memorable for you in January?
• What was at least one Olympic event or news that captured your TV time?
• What was something new you did or learned in 2009?
• For bloggers, when did you publish your most recent article? (This is not really a topic, just a nudge.)

• Suggestions for passion topics:
• food—cooking, eating, eating out
• family—immediate, extended, relationships
• recreation—sports, shopping
• other topics

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch

Make the cookies with a basic recipe using cake mix, eggs, and oil. I timed this article for making red, heart-shaped cookies for Valentine's Day. (Combining Red Velvet and strawberry flavors results in a nice red color—not too dark, and not pink.) The resultant chocolaty and strawberry flavors are a bonus. This simple recipe requires 4 ingredients:

• 1/2 box Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix (Only Duncan Hines makes this flavor.)
• 1/2 box strawberry cake mix
• 1/3 cup of oil (For a slightly nutty flavor, replace 1 tablespoon oil with sesame oil.)
• 2 eggs

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• couple of bowls
• bowl(s)—one for mixing dry ingredients, one for mixing wet ingredients (unless you use a large cup for the wet ingredients)
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Heart-shaped vs. Round cookies

• If making round cookies, a measuring spoon and spatula also required.
• If making heart-shaped cookies, a cooky shooter with heart-shape disk highly advised.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift or otherwise dry-mix the cake mix powders together thoroughly into a medium-large mixing bowl.
3. In another bowl or large cup, mix the oils and eggs.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Dispense cooky dough as follows according to the shape you want.

Cooky shooter dispense method
For heart-shape cookies, my method is using a cookie press, which resembles a caulking gun, to push out the dough. (The disk resembles a "Y".) I use 1 and 1/2 trigger squeezes for each suitable-looking cooky. (I myself don't care for the cooky-cutter method, as the dough rollout is not all that fun.)

Round cooky dispense method
For round cookies, my method is as follows:
1. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough.
2. Flat-scrape the excess with a rubber spatula.
3. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
4. Additional option: Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
6. Bake each batch about 10 minutes.
7. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

The cookies are soft right out of the oven, but become slightly crunchy after a few minutes. The yield can be as high as 4 and 1/2 dozen.

Body Parts Express

Earlier this week, I heard Huey Lewis' "Hip to be Square"—a song I hadn't heard on the radio for a long time. It struck me this time about "hip" as a body part. I find it odd to think of a body part having a positive connotation as "hip" seems to have. Sure, in the context of the song, hip is a desirable attribute. Soooo, I decided to hop on the hip (no hip-hop or hippity-hoppity) train and mentally wander from cowcatcher to caboose and back and forth to collect tidbits and tidbytes for this article.

I started to think about other hip uses and also other body parts. Anyway, I mentally segued to a "hip" song released in the 60s—"Hippy Hippy Shake", associated with the Beatles and also the Swinging Blue Jeans. Around that same time, "Mohair Sam" (Charlie Rich)—notable for its title and some of the lyrics—mentions "hippie" in hipness terms. At the time of the song's popularity, "hippie" had not yet connoted counterculture long hair.

Well - who is the hippie that's happenin' all over our town?
Tearin' up chicks with the message that he lays down
Who is the coolest guy, what is, what am?
That's fast-talkin' - slow walkin' - good-lookin' Mohair Sam.

Chugging along on the hip route, my stream of consciousness began yielding the following hip terms in addition to hippie: Hippy Dippy Weatherman (George Carlin character), hippo, hippopotamus, Hippocrates, hippocratic oath, Hippolyte/Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mother), hippocampus, hypnotism, hypocrisy, hypocrite, rose hips, Hutto Hippos, …

Thinking of other body parts, there are numerous associations with expressions and songs. Parts that come to mind are neck, arm, toe, back, nose, cheeks, ear, lips, eye, finger. (Be forewarned: I do drop an occasional homophone.)

Neck
To stick a neck out, to neck, bottleneck, breakneck (speed), nekkid. (OK, so that's an almost-homophone I'm sneaking in. )

Arm
Something costing an arm and a leg, strongarm, stiffarm, call to arms, army, armada, armor, Armor All, armadillo.

Toe
The House episode this week included a portrayal of a soldier who shot off his toe in an attempt to get around his stop-loss order. This incident made me think of Catfish Hunter's having shot off a toe. What a pitcher he was while with the A's! When he pitched his perfect game, there had been a headline "Catfish Hunter Hurls Perfect Game". That sports headline HAD to have been really confusing for anyone who didn't know who Catfish was or what a catfish hunter was or why he would throw (out or away) a perfect game!

Anyway, back to toeing the line about toes. BTW, the term refers to using a toe to draw a line in the sand, a do-not-cross boundary, sometimes mistakenly written as "towing the line" because of the homophonic nature of "toe" vs. "tow". "Towing the line" seems more applicable to motorboat drivers pulling water skiers than drawing lines in sand. OK, I'm moving back to talking about toes—toetap, toehold, toenail (wood), stand toe to toe, not the same as meet face to face, see eye to eye, have a tête-à-tête, dance cheek to cheek, …

Back
Have someone's back, have your back to the wall, throw out a back, backbreaking (work), back someone, back up (physical movement, records duplication), look backward, back down, back off, comeback, "Get Back" (Beatles),"Back in the USSR" (Beatles), Come Back Little Sheba (movie), backstab, Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap star), Baccarat (casino card game), baccalaureate (bachelor's degree or sermon to bachelor's degree graduates), Chewbacca (hairy one in Star Wars), Burt Bacharach (song writer), "Come Back When You Grow Up" (Johnny Tillotson), "Baby Come Back" (Players), "I Want You Back" (Rolling Stones, Jackson 5). Whew! Several songs have to do with backs! OK, I also sneaked in back homophone words and syllables. Also threw in some backs that aren't the body part. :-)

Nose
Keep your nose to the grindstone, have a nose for news, nosegay (small bunch of flowers), cut off nose to spite face, put your nose out of joint.

Cheeks
Dance cheek to cheek, be cheeky, nice cheeks (reference to the body parts that resemble cheeks but aren't), cheek by jowl.

Ear
Have the ear to the ground, earful, lend me your ears (quite a visual for those unfamiliar with Mark Anthony's opening speech at Julius Caesar's funeral), [H]ear ye [h]ear ye here come de judge (Flip Wilson), walls have ears.

Lips
Lipstick, "Lipstick on Your Collar" (Connie Francis), Loose lips sink ships, lip lock, lip service.

Eye
Eyeball, eyesore, "Eye of the Tiger" (Survivor), "I Only Have Eyes For You" (Platters), "Spanish Eyes" (Al Martino), "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes), "My Eyes Adored You" (Frankie Valli), "I'll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time" (Wayne Newton). OK, I'll skip most other homophones, as "eye" provides lots of bull's eyes for associations, such as all sorts of other songs, ay caramba, aye aye captain, iPhone, iPod, Iraq, ICU, I See You (expression and song from Avatar), I Spy (TV show).

Finger
To finger (point out), fingerling (small young fish), give someone the finger, Fingerhut (mail-order company), Butterfinger (candy), butter fingers (oops!), lady fingers (cookies). Related: Thumb, as in "Under My Thumb" (Rolling Stones).

In the interest of keeping the article suitable for family consumption, I decided to refrain from naming additional body parts. In case you're curious to see what terms I omitted, the Hair soundtrack has a song about body parts ("I Got Life"). Honorable mention—"What's New Pussycat?" (Tom Jones). References used for this article: Google searches, YouTube searches, www.m-w.com, various lyrics sites resulting from google song-title lyrics searches, and chitchats with others.

A Convenient Spinach-Cheese Taco

In November, I had written about a convenient quiche that required only five ingredients. The convenient food item this time around is a spinach-cheese taco that requires only three items—really convenient and inexpensive for road warriors, vacationers, other travelers, relocatees, and folks at home. The only items required are a plate (paper or microwave-safe), a taco-sized tortilla, shredded cheese, fresh spinach leaves, and access to a microwave oven.

If you want to skip straight to the recipe, go ahead. For those who want to read how I got to this topic, continue reading. At a recent networking event, I was talking to someone (BT) when we got to talking about making bread. He said he makes his own—kneading AND baking. (Wow—especially coz we're talkin' about a GUY!) I thought it interesting that we segued to the bread-making process. (I do bread machine bread myself.)

We talked about the fluid temperature and how to achieve it. We talked about the kneading (push, fold, rotate partway, etc. vs. machine's paddle action), the dough rise, the punchdown, the second rise. We talked about dough-rise easiness but didn't conclude much. My bread machine is squarish, requiring a bit of vertical rise against gravity. With hand-processing, the dough can spread out to bigger areas more easily (oblong, flattened round), requiring less vertical resistance, I think.

During the bread discussion, BT then suggested I view a youtube video "George Egg Hotel Survival" . The description includes "how to cook tortellini and how to bake muffins, all in a hotel room using just what he find there". Regarding the bread discussion, the snippet of interest for me (kneading) occurs around the 48-second mark. We then talked about the spinach and tortellini entree. I personally didn't care for the looks of the results, but the dish appealed to BT.

George Egg claimed his meal would have run £22, but he spent only £4. I told BT about my convenient recipe that calls for spinach, cheese, and taco-sized tortilla, which can include an egg if so desired. BT started expressing hunger, as in "I'm getting hungry". Our conversation led me to thinking that the topic would make a good blog article. Here goes.

Spinach-Cheese Taco Recipe

Ingredients: Taco-sized tortilla, shredded cheese, spinach leaves.

Other items required: Plate (microwave-safe or paper), microwave oven, fork to fold taco as necessary and also use as a utensil to eat finished item with.

Procedure:

1. Place tortilla onto plate.
2. Sprinkle about an ounce of cheese onto the tortilla.
3. Layer spinach leaves onto the cheese.
4. Place plate into the microwave oven and heat on high for about a minute, rotating halfway through if there's no rotator. (The leaves will shrink down some.) Add cooked egg if desired. (Recipe follows.)
5. Sprinkle more cheese onto the heated plate of ingredients.
6. Microwave the plate about another minute, rotating as necessary. (If the last layer of cheese hasn't melted to your satisfaction, fold the taco halfway, then microwave an additional 20 seconds or so.)
7. Eat it!

Spinach-Cheese Taco with Egg

If you want to add an egg to the meal, follow the steps below:

1. Obtain another plate, container for stirring the egg, oil spray, additional cheese.
2. Spray the oil onto the plate.
3. Crack open the egg, pour it into the container and mix it.
4. Pour the egg onto the oiled plate.
5. Place plate into the microwave oven and heat on high for about a minute, rotating halfway through if there's no rotator until suitable doneness.
6. Flip the cooked egg onto the spinach-cheese taco AFTER shrinking down the spinach in Step 4 of the upper recipe.
7. Add more cheese (yes! more cheese!!!!!).
8. Microwave the entire plate of items for melted-cheese doneness, rotating as necessary. (If the last layer of cheese hasn't melted to your satisfaction, fold the taco halfway, then microwave an additional 20 seconds or so.)

Burp.

Create Monthly Calendars for the Year

Did you get a 2010 calendar recently? Get one for a Christmas gift? Buy one for yourself? Bank give you one? Some other business give you one? Calendars used to be assumed freebies, which seemed to be in short supply this season. The other day, I asked a bank teller about calendars. She pointed out a small stack of pocketbook-sized ones. Well, it’s adequate for viewing month to month, but the cells measure only 1.2" wide by 1" high.

I decided to visit an online calendar utility for viewing and creating custom calendars. I wound up creating and printing out all 12 months for the year in landscape orientation, double-side printing them onto six sheets. This type of calendar is good for scribbling short notes on a month-to-month basis. I myself like the days-of-week column arrangement to reinforce weekly occurrences.

For making the calendar, I used a Firefox browser with PaintShopPro7 (PSP) graphics editor, and selected options at http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar. (The default view shows a 3-row by 4-column setup for an entire year, tweakable for preferences.) I experimented with the browser screen sizes for graphics capture, then previewed and tweaked the page setup in PSP for printing maximum cell sizes.

If you want to make your own monthly calendar, start at http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar and click Advanced customization. At the new screen, the critical selections are as follows:

• Calendar period=1 month
• Format=[your preference]
• Add space for notes=[some vertical spacing per cell]
• Main template=[your preference]

When done with selections, click Show calendar. For the rest of the procedure to set up and print the first month, YMMV. To prepare the browser to capture screens, I set my browser for maximum size; i.e., clicked the Maximize button (restored to full screen). To obtain more vertical viewing space, I turned off the navigation and status bars (browser view menu), and pulled down the task windowshade to close it.

To set my graphics editor to capture screens, I opened PSP and set it to use a cursor for dragging and defining a capture window.

An alternative to setting the browser for maximum and setting the graphics editor for windowing the area: Resize the browser so only the calendar appears, then set the graphics editor for Object capture. This setting enables capturing only the object inside the window.

To prepare the application to print, I set up page settings to Landscape and Fit to page. I then tweaked settings by unchecking Fit to page, and accepting the new default margins.

I created the rest of the months for the year by doing the following:

1. Scrolled the browser upward until I saw the links for previous/next month.
2. Clicked the next month.
3. Scrolled the browser downward until I got the full view of the month.
4. Captured and printed the months as I did for January.

Yup, I'm set up for the rest of the year now.

Sew What

I occasionally sew, although much less than I used to. (I mostly repair items or shorten overly long t-shirts for myself.) I assess if it's worthwhile to pull out the sewing machine and set up the spool and bobbin. If the job's too small, or if I feel I might risk mangling the fabric by using the sewing machine, I'll hand-stitch the item. Often, when I sew or think about sewing, I think about the term for someone or something who/that sews. I wonder why a person is not a thought of as a "sewer", but a "seamstress" or "tailor".

Sew-related—why has a sewing machine not evolved to become referred to as a sewer, as a washing machine has become referred to as a washer? For that matter, a machine that dries clothes used to be called a clothes dryer but is now commonly called a dryer. Maybe the topic of that particular machine never comes up except in the context of clothes, so using the single term "dryer" is enough.

The noun "sewer" has three main entries in the Merriam Webster online dictionary. What an unfortunate case of one word being spelled the same way, but meaning three different things, with the definition partially dependent on pronunciation!

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French asseour, literally, seater, from Anglo-French asseer to seat ­ more at assize
Date: 14th century
: a medieval household officer often of high rank in charge of serving the dishes at table and sometimes of seating and tasting

Date: 14th century
: one that sews

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from assewer, essiver to drain, from Vulgar Latin *exaquare, from Latin ex- + aqua water ­ more at island
Date: 15th century
: an artificial usually subterranean conduit to carry off sewage and sometimes surface water (as from rainfall)

In the written form, "sewer" requires context. I'm thinking that "sewer" has a built-in unpleasant connotation (sewage), effectively rendering the other definitions nearly irrelevant for acceptance. In the spoken form, both the pronunciations for sew and sewer (someone or something who/that sews) seem they should be spelled "soh" and "soher". The etymology goes way back, so (not sew fast) probably we will be stuck with sew much unpleasantness. (BTW, "sow" has its own set of definition, pronunciation, and part-of-speech issues, which I'll forego.)

"Seamstress" and "tailor" seem to be two main words associated with people who sew that don't conjure sniggers (silent or vocal) that "sewer" seems to. It seems there's a gender implicitness in using "seamstress" or "tailor" for someone who sews. A seamstress sews, although the root indicates the seam is the object of attention. The suffix is the feminine form—a girl or woman. Why isn't a male who sews commonly called a "seamster"? For that matter, "seamster" seems to be a term for someone who, uh, seams. "Tailor" is used for someone who creates, but also customizes clothes, and might actually sew. It seems that "tailor" implies a male occupation.

Returning to talking about "seam", a seam is only one specific part of an item that gets sewn. Anyway, I've never encountered "seam" used as a verb as I have seen "stitch" used. I never hear anyone referred to as a "stitcher", yet it seems "stitch" is a perfectly good word that fits the sewing topic. A "stitch" is a general term for a unit of the activity "sewing". To stitch is to sew—perfect infinitive, imho—even spells like it's pronounced. A stitcher can be someone who sews (no gender assignment) and sews any part or all of an item that has stitches—seam, collar, facing, interfacing, sleeve, cuff, armhole, yoke, lining, hem, skirt, pants, suit, ….

Sew what? Sew what you think you might want. In August, I had run across a recent article about sewing getting popular again ("Sewing surges in popularity"), which you can sink your teeth into. A notable excerpt is the following:

At Sew Crafty, students start with clutch purses ­ for male students "man bags" ­ and gradually move on to pajama pants and aprons. Despite the rules on the studio's wall, students are encouraged to let their imagination guide the stitches.

Maybe after reading the article, you'll be inspired to sink (or stick) pins and needles into a sewing project.

Holiday Gadgets to Inspire or Not

Over the years during the holiday season, I have smiled bemusedly at gadgets hawked on TV as prospective gifts. Thoughts that popped up in my mind have usually been one or more of the following:

• Really? A saucepan would work, and most people already have one.
• Gee, another appliance to take up shelf, cupboard, or drawer space.
• Does that gadget really work?
• [price, usually ending in .99] sure seems like a lot for what that thing is supposed to do.

Gadgets in the past that trigger one or more of my above thoughts include the hot dog cooker, hamburger cooker, butter melter, toaster-sized deep fryer, and rotisserie. I admit I succumbed to having bought a deep fryer and a rotisserie (different times). The deep fryer is long gone, it never seeming to have delivered goods as expected. An additional concern was what to do with the excess oil. I donated it so long ago, I don't remember much about the oil or device anymore. As for the rotisserie, it had great promise, especially for roasting turkeys under 10 pounds. The key is "10 pounds". Almost NEVER have I found such a peewee turkey in a store.

My most recent turkey experience with the rotisserie was maybe two years ago, when I trimmed some turkey body parts to make it weigh under 10 pounds. The cooking process was underwhelming. The turkey was eventually too big around to gracefully fit in the rotisserie cavity, circumference-wise. After some time of the turkey rotating and roasting, the meat contracted lengthwise but its girth expanded, which exposed the imbalance of my insertion of the spit into the turkey. (Spit—funny name for the turkey immobilizer, as spit also means to eject [something] from the mouth—also, the action's output.) The meat began bumping and thumping the window door until the cooking time finished (whirr, thud, thump, whirr, thud thump, ...).

My roast method now includes placing the turkey on a turkey lifter that's inside a 16-inch diameter cake pan, parking a meat thermometer in it, than roasting according to recommended time and temperature for its weight. (I admit, I also own a pair of poultry lifters , which I have used occasionally but forgot to last month.)

Two electric versions of products I saw advertisements for recently were an electric cookie gun and electric wine bottle opener. They are real products, but they make me think of the gag gift Spencer's used to sell—the electric fork. Anyway, I can't see myself foregoing elbow grease to get electric versions of a cookie gun or wine bottle opener.

Anyway, as I was in my local drugstore waiting for my photo order for outgoing greeting cards, I used the half-hour wait time to browse a merchandise area for gadgets. I felt I hit some sort of jackpot. Not only were these items amusing to me, but they neatly fit into the 99¢-effect pricing, which I blogged about in November.

I am omitting urls for the products I have listed below, as readers, if they want to acquire additional details, should research to satisfy their own satisfactions, including finding product reviews and price comparisons. For many of the products, the premises and/or prices leave me speechless and commentless.

Point 'n Paint
(wholesale distributor, IDEA Village; $19.99)
The package states "No tape" and "Paint entire room in less than an hour". (Please, no heckling about the text case.)

Save a Blade Automatic Razor Sharpener
(distributor, Exceptional Products Inc.; $19.99)
The package says "up to 200 shaves from a single blade".

Emjoi Tweeze (distributor, Tristar Products, Inc., $19.99)
This item comes with 2 AA batteries. The packaging states "Easily removes facial hair except eyebrows".

Touch N Brush Hands-Free Toothpaste Dispenser
(distributor, Allstar Products Group, Inc.; $19.99)
No electricity. No batteries.

Set of 12 Bottle Tops Turn Your Drink Can Into A Bottle
(Tele Brands, $9.99)
Packaging states "Snap top onto standard cans" and "Keeps Carbonation Longer".

One Touch Hands Free Can Opener
(distributor, Harvest Direct; $19.99)
You place the unit on top of a can, after ensuring that you have inserted 2 AA batteries ("sold separately"), then press the button. The opener walks around in a circle. Actually, I used to own an electrical can opener, which had long ago departed for the great scrap heap in the sky. Can't say I miss it. Besides making do with a hand-crank opener occasionally, I see that many cans these days have pull tabs, further reducing the need for using an opener.

Emson Egg Genie
(distributor, Emson; $19.99)
With this appliance, you can cook up to 7 eggs at one time. Eh, I always thought a saucepan was versatile enough.

The hamburger cooker of yore seems to have evolved into two newer types to reflect a more recent selling of hamburgers—the "slider". The gadgets I ran across were the Big City Slider Station and the Chicago Slider. (I think previous name attempts have been "mini-burger" and Burger King's "Burger Buddies". )

Chicago Slider
(distributor, East West Distributing; $19.99)
This gadget makes four square burgers and uses electricity. Scoop meat into the cavities, close the clamshell lid, cook.

Big City Slider Station
(distributor, Harvest Direct; $19.99)
This gadget makes five round burgers and uses a stove top. Scoop meat into the cavities, press down with its mating part, cook.

As I have all the equipment I think I need now, I'm short of cabinet space for new gadgets, I'm skeptical of them working, and I prefer to spend the money on other items, I hope Santa isn't inspired to bring me any of the items I recently spotted and listed. Maybe I'll ask for things not available in stores or online. Can't tell; otherwise, wishes might not come true. Happy Holidays!

Color N R Lives

Colors make their ways into many facets of our lives. They have strong associations with moods and emotions. They also appear frequently in names, particularly surnames. When they're associated with specific nouns, they often conjure up images.

Color first names don't seem common. Blanca, Blanche, and Bianca are all variations of foreign words for white (feminine). Notable names include actress Blanca Guerra, fictional character Blanche DuBois, and actress Bianca Jagger, Mick's ex-wife. Other color first names include Gray, as in Gray Davis, former California governor, and some Reds, as in Red Skelton, Red Adair (oil-well firefighter whose given first name is Paul), and Redd Foxx. (OK, so Redd has two d's.) Color surnames are a lot more common—Black, White, Gray, Green (and Greene), Brown, Blue, Gold, Golden come to mind.

Moods and emotions have numerous color associations—Blue Monday, blues music, having the blues, purple with rage, red-faced (rage, embarrassment), green (envy), yellow (cowardice), ashen (shock), white (fear, shock), gray day (somber day), black day (depressing day), Black Friday (3 definitions), black heart (negativity)

Green is versatile for associations besides mood or emotion (envy). It also has associations for the following characteristics: green around the gills (nauseated), green (inexperienced), greenhorn (noun form). Related to characteristics, we often differentiate figures and teams by colors of clothing or uniforms. Depending on whom you're favoring, color can become a positive or negative visual stimulus. An archetype for clothing color association is hat color—white vs. black. In the case of white and black hats, they even have iconic positive and negative connotations.

Moving on to color and "people", color-associated characters or personas evoke images, such as the following examples: Blue Meanies, Jolly Green Giant, Yella Fella, White Knight, Black Knight, Blue Santa, Brown Santa, Bluebeard, Blackbeard, blueblood, Blackhawk (helicopter).

At this point, I am segueing to "colorful" comic book characters. For those who want to reach back to their inner child, comicvine offers great revisits to favorite names in addition to the colorful ones I've listed as follows: Blackhawk, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Green Goblin, Silver Surfer.

In a similar vein about comic book characters, there are several who do not have "green" in their names, but appear green-themed—Loki (Thor's brother), Cobra, the Incredible Hulk, J'onn J'onzz (Martian Manhunter), Brainiac, and Brainiac 5.

A pastel color with associations—some of them characters—is pink: the singer Pink, Pink Lady drink, Pink Lady apple, Pinky (of Pinky and the Brain) , being in the pink, pinky (finger), pinking shears, pinko, and pink elephant .

BTW, a pink elephant is not related to a white elephant.

The economic association with colors contrasts with the electronic association:

• Economic—black (positive numbers, good), red (negative numbers, bad)
• Electronics (car batteries)—black (ground), red (positive voltage)

Related to electronics and color is the resistor color code—BBROYGBVGW (black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, gray, white), for which acronymnfinder lists several mnemonics.

Silver, and especially gold, are metals (noun) and colors (adjective) that connote value, desirability, and other positive characteristics:

• Silver screen, silver spoon (born with a silver spoon, IOW, a great orator)
• Heart of gold, pot of gold, golden parachute, golden rule, golden years, streets paved with gold

Economics and politics are closely associated. Green is tied to both economics (greenbacks) and politics (environmentalism as a movement, reuse, recycling, etc.). Red, blue, and purple connote political leanings if shown on a map of the US, especially around election times.

Orange u glad to read about color associations here?