A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch

AHOT (Austin Heart of Texas) Event

AHOT, an organization for printed circuit board design professionals, recently held its annual Vendor Day. It was well-attended—maybe 100ish. Renowned speaker Tom Hausherr, EDA Library Product Manager at Mentor Graphics Corporation, delivered 4 different presentations. The event had 16 sponsors this year, up from 12 last year. You can download the announcement pdf with hyperlinks to the sponsors and speaker if you are on LinkedIn.

Cooky Musings

I decided to take in cookies as I did last year. I'd been wanting to try out a boxed peanut butter cookie mix. Both Krusteaz and Betty Crocker put out a peanut butter cookie mix. Each brand's box contents weigh 17.5 ounces and call for 1 egg, 1 T water, and 3 T oil. The standard yield is 36 2-inch diameter cookies. (I myself wound up with 44.)

I like PB cookies okay, but think of them as somewhat boring. I decided to turbocharge the peanut flavor. I started out mixing the batter according to the box instructions, then added peanuts and Wilton Peanut Butter Flavor Candy Melts—for sale at bakery supply stores and craft shops. Other than dose up the flavor with chopping up and mixing in the two additives, I didn't modify the box recipe.

After I removed a baked batch out of the oven, I was surprised that the chopped candies seemed to have disappeared. I anticipated they would be like chocolate chips or chocolate chunks and be visible. I'm not that knowledgeable about the Wilton candies, but it's possible that they might have a lower melting temperature than chocolate chips and just melted into the cookies during baking. In any case, I received rave reviews for the hefty peanut flavor.

It did take me awhile to settle on a name, although I kicked around other titles, such as "Xtra P-nutty PB Cookies", PB and Pnutty Madness Cookies", "P-nut Trio Cookies", "Triple P-nut cookies", and "P-nut Trilogy". Ed E, a Vendor Day attendee and enthusiastic praiser of my cookies, was the one who suggested "P-nut Trilogy".

Ingredients

To keep the recipe looking uncomplicated, I've listed a somewhat compressed list of ingredients. People experienced enough with cooky baking will have no problems whipping up a batch. Novices might need to peruse the list a little more closely.

• 1 pkg peanut butter cooky mix, ingredients stirred together per instructions (usually requiring combining of water, egg, oil)
• 4 oz. peanuts, coarsely chopped
• 4 oz peanut butter flavored candies, coarsely chopped (e.g., Wilton brand)

Equipment

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

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Pour the cooky mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
3. In a cup, combine the egg, water, and oil.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Stir in the chopped peanuts.
6. Stir in the chopped candies.
7. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough, then level it.
8. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. (This dough was very dense. After a few dollops, I put on vinyl gloves to shape and dispense the dollops individually.)
9. Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
10. Bake for about 8 minutes.
11. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch [Valentine]
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

Fish Fries Telephone

I intend for the title to evoke huhs for its lack of commas. Blogspot bases URL assignments on article titles and places hyphens as term separators. I’d lose the commas in the URL anyway, and my omission of them gives me an opportunity to lightly inject a writing point. Use commas to separate series of items in written text—in sentences and phrases, bulleted lists, email address fields (Microsoft Outlook being a notable exception for use of semicolon separators instead), and numerous keyword fields.

I initially wanted to write about fast food, which isn’t always fast, by the way. I then thought about several fooderies where the workers seem to toss salt on the fries by the cupful. (Assaulting fries! No pinches here!) I also thought about one particular fried fish chain restaurant in the area that has, um, gone underwater at three different locations within the last few years. I eventually mentally meandered to Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s “Telephone” song, for which several video versions and parodies have been viewable on YouTube for the last few months.

We now reach my parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”. To keep this article reasonably wholesome, I have omitted hyperlinks. (I have dropped some un-breadcrumbs so readers can locate videos and lyrics of “Telephone” and parodies.)

Hello. Hello. I would like to place my order,
Gimme bundled special with a double fishburger,
Make my soda cola and my side curly fries,
Here’s my money. Don’t drop it. I’m handing two fives.
Here are two fives.
Here are two fives.
Here’s my money. Don’t drop it. I’m handing two fives.

Oky dokey, don’t get prickly and defensive,
I didn’t think you’d go rantin’ and have a snit,
Mellow out now. I’m gonna hail your manager,
Yoohoo, manager. Wouldja come over here?
Wouldja come over here?
Wouldja come over here?
Youhoo, manager. Wouldja come over here?

Stop salting, stop salting. You are ruining my fries,
They’re way too salty though I’ve had just one bite,
Why do you gotta throw on way too much salt?
If my blood pressure climbs, it’ll be all your fault.

Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Too much sodium.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Can’t eat ‘em.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
More tator taste, please.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Beggin’ on my knees.

This part’s way too fast, run-on syllables,
Gonna write a couple of bloddy duhs,
Gaga and par’dists sing their stuff so fast,
I’m so amazed and say to them “Congrats!”

Might be able to eke just one more rhyme,
Think I’m starting to hurt and lose my mind,
Getting close to finishing this section,
I’ll never memorize this confe-ection.

Confe-ection, confe-ection.

To gaga more, please visit “Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa”, my abbreviated parody of “Bad Romance”.

Vocabs of Steel

Crunch up those vocabs! This article provides suggestions for those who want to solidify and expand their word power. Make use of dictionaries (definitions, etymology, synonyms), thesauruses, Google lookups, crossword puzzles (printable, online), and other types of word puzzles. A huge influence in building word power is curiosity about words, at least, enough curiosity to look up definitions when encountering new words. In numerous cases, text surrounding new words can also indicate meaning.

Speaking for myself, I believe a lot of my vocabulary building came from reading superhero comic books and running across new words when I was in early grade school. In these kinds of comic books, the protagonist would have dual identities—usually a disguised or costumed character (superhero) and an everyman/everywoman persona (alter ego) that allowed him or her to slip away to emerge as the superself. Common storylines included the main character's social and work interactions with lesser mortals while disguised as someone ordinary, but battling enemies while costumed. Hmmm, my idea of an archetype would be the Man of Steel himself, Superman!

I think vocabulary building benefits by reading comic books tends to fade upon readers reaching the early teens. As it's been years since I had any steady diet of comics, I don't know what level of vocabulary appears these days in spoken/thought balloons and panel-narration phrases.

In the more recent past, I had taken a humanities class that was immensely helpful for building vocabulary: The Greek and Latin Element in English. The required textbook was English Words from Latin and Greek Elements, by Donald M. Ayers and the accompanying workbook. The gist of the course was to recognize syllables pertaining to their basic Greek and Latin origins and their definitions.

A major basic resource to build vocabulary is the dictionary. Two of my favorites are Merriam-Webster Online and Dictionary.com. More major ways to satisfy word curiosity include looking at a word's etymology and synonym(s) in a dictionary. Besides viewing synonym(s) at the dictionary's entry, looking up the word in a thesaurus provides even more information. In Google, prefacing the term with "define: " narrows the results.

Additional ways to expand vocabulary are reading well-written articles, blogs, and op-eds. As a side-effect, well-written pieces provide good examples to emulate mechanics such as proper spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and style. A lesser effective means (to me) of expanding vocabulary is reading online comments, particularly at sites that often invite flame wars or result in them. Many such posts are rife with bad mechanics and incoherency, to say the least.

More to and About m-w.com and dictionary.com

Merriam-Webster Online is accessible using a URL as short as m-w.com. Note various other features of the website. At the FREE Daily Features tab, clicking Daily Crossword (Today's Puzzle) serves up links to puzzles—Universal Daily Crossword, L.A. Times Daily Crossword, and Jumble Crossword (a version of Jumbles that also has vertical terms). The downside to the puzzles are waiting out the commercials. The LA Times puzzle has parameters you can set. A nice feature is instant feedback in immediately showing your typed letter in red if it's incorrect.

Dictionary.com is accessible using a URL as short as dictionary.com. This site has a link to Universal Daily Crossword as does m-w.com, but without a commercial. While at dictionary.com, I ran across an eye-catcher question : "What word has the most definitions?"

"Set" has 464 definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. "Run" runs a distant second, with 396. Rounding out the top ten are "go" with 368, "take" with 343, "stand" with 334, "get" with 289, "turn" with 288, "put" with 268, "fall" with 264, and "strike" with 250.

More about Puzzles

Awhile back, I wrote an article about crosswords. At that time, online puzzles had not entered my mind. In researching material for this article, I encountered online puzzles, initially seeing them as links in a couple of online dictionary sites. One online crossword puzzle site that provides small ones is at http://www.boatloadpuzzles.com/playcrossword. In case you hadn't guessed, the site owners would like you to buy the full-blown application.

A few weeks ago, I had run across a printable-puzzles site. I was unsuccessful seeking it out to cite it here. In trying to actually find places that didn't just go to other links that cited links, I resorted to and was partially successful in doing google image searches for "printable crossword puzzles for free". A reasonable replacement is Want More Crosswords?. Mouse over a puzzle thumbnail, click it to open it in a small-size window, right-click and select View Image to open the puzzle, then print it. (Recommended: Preview it and adjust scale before printing it.)

If wordsearch puzzles is more your type, find a cache at Livewire Puzzles' FREE Printable Word Search Puzzles.

Differentiations among Similar Items and Terms

I have listed some sets of words that present common definition and usage problems, accompanied by enlightening links. No doubt you can think of many other candidate sets; differentiating such terms can help boost vocabulary. One advantage of having my own blog is that I can and do publish content where I can access pet topics without needing to fire up my computer. Anyway, I have provided candidates for comparing and contrasting terms, including compare and contrast.

compare, contrast

compose, comprise
Best excerpt—
If you are confused, just say, "The rock is made up of three minerals," or "Three minerals make up the rock."

conglomerate, conglomeration
My conclusion for difference:
conglomerate: a thing composed of heterogeneous elements; mass
conglomeration: a mass of miscellaneous things

envy, jealousy

farther, further

infer, imply

indifferent, ambivalent, apathetic
Very short explanations as below:
indifferent—no feeling one way or the other
ambivalent—pulled in different directions
apathetic—don't know, don't care

assure, ensure, insure

loan, lend

The following sets pertain to animals.

butterfly, moth
Butterfly/moth differences, including a table with six physical and behavioral differences

yellow jacket, wasp, hornet, etc.

frog, toad

tortoise, turtle

rabbit, jackrabbit, hare

A special category of similar items and terms are homophones, which I discuss in my blog article. Ones that pop into mind frequently are the following sets:

to, too, two
your, you're
there, their

There are various ways to strengthen your word power; get your vocabs of steel! Reinforce, improve, and adopt methods for yourself.

Ailing Fridge and DIY Door-open Alert Unit

This article is about addressing a refrigerator that wasn't optimally turning on and off and a gadget that sounds off to help prevent at least one possible reason. Three possible common causes for a sickly refrigerator are a malfunctioning compressor, dirty coils, ice inside the freezer walls, or a combination. The refrigerator part of this article discusses assessing for and resolving for ice inside the walls—defrosting the entire unit and cleaning it during the process. The gadget part (DIY door-open alert unit) of this article discusses the project.

Ailing Fridge

I've occasionally taken out an armful of items, then forgotten to fully close the door. One problem has been the compressor overworking, causing icing up inside the freezer walls, resulting in appliance underperformance. Recent symptoms indicating all was not well included the following:

• The fridge seemed to be running all the time instead of in on/off cycles.
• Eggs toward the back of the fridge froze or partially froze.
• Water pitchers occasionally wound up with shallow icy layers.
• Fresh spinach leaves froze about the upper three leaf layers.

Tweaking refrigerator settings didn't seem to always resolve the problems. The longer-term process for resolution was to defrost the refrigerator/freezer, which included emptying it out and leaving the doors open for a couple of days, ensuring any possible ice in the walls would melt and the water drip away. The main sections of the process are total defrost preparation, defrosting, and cleaning.

Preparation for Total Defrost of the Refrigerator

1. Over time, consume all freezer items.
2. Over time, consume fridge items that needed refrigeration. If not consuming them all,
1. Give them away.
2. Throw them away.
3. Obtain dry ice to store the items in an ice chest for up to 48 hours.
4. Ask someone a favor of storing the items.

Defrosting of the Refrigerator and Freezer

1. Turn off all controls.
2. If you have an icemaker, turn off the water supply to it.
3. Unplug the refrigerator.
4. Completely empty out the refrigerator.
5. Empty out the refrigerator's drip pan.
6. Leave the refrigerator's doors open.
7. If possible, place buckets or pans underneath the open doors to catch possible melting-ice drips.
8. Monitor for drips for a day or two. Could be messy.

Tasks to do During Defrost Wait-Time

1. Remove shelves, crispers, and other removables and wash them. (I washed mine in the bathtub using soapy dishwater.)
2. Wipe the refrigerator interior surfaces with a solution of 2 tablespoons baking soda and 1 quart water. If your own manual specifies otherwise, follow that manual's instructions. Rinse with clean-water rinsed/wrung cloth. This stage might take several passes to wipe down all the surfaces.

DIY Door-open Alert Unit

The fridge door-open alert unit is useful to remind people to close the refrigerator door. After several seconds of the refrigerator door being open and the photocell being exposed to light, beeper emits a continuous whine. When the door closes, the sound decreases until the capacitor has been fully discharged. The device also serves as a good reminder to reduce time putting away cold groceries and also minimize dawdling in front of an open fridge.

The information and schematic for the Refrigerator Door Alarm is at http://www.techlib.com/electronics/kitchen.html. Note that the author suggests a 10uF capacitor across the battery, but doesn't show it on the schematic. (We omitted that capacitor also.) As this project is intended for a DIYer who does not require hand-holding and can fill in blanks, I have not included step-by-step information to create it.

If you are a hardware DIYer, you can obtain the parts fairly easily and breadboard and test the guts one day. Another day, you can wire and solder the discrete parts onto a project board, power the unit up, and have it operational. If you want to fancy it up, you can put the project into a metal project box, then set it in a small plastic tub to keep it off refrigerator shelves.

The parts came from hobby part drawers, Radio Shack (photocell from 5-pack 276-1657, buzzer 273-0059/273-059, 1/2 board 276-148), and Fry's Electronics (2 NTE123AP equivalents to 2N4401 transistor substitutes for the NPN Darlington transistor—seemingly not a commonly stocked part, zener diode NTE5009A). Overall packaging notes are as follows:

• Already having a Bud Industries CU3000A aluminum project box on hand that measures 2.75" x 2.12" x 1.62"
• Placing standoff-function hardware at the box's base to allow horizontal placement of a 9-volt battery (power source) beneath the assembled board—standoffs or spacers also suitable (Used 6-32 machine screws, nuts.)
• Placing the buzzer outside the box for sound carrying (Used 2-56 machine screws, nuts.)
• Drilling a hole on the box's side opposite the buzzer for light to reach the photocell

Note: In our case, we used a project box. When doing the final assembly, screwing the lid on required time that exceeded the time allowed before the alarm went off—an annoyance until the unit went inside the fridge and the noise fully abated.

Visit a lighter side of a refrigerator alert unit, which does not include a time delay before sounding off.

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

My convenient cooky recipe this time is my third one using cake mix. The other two have Valentine's Day and Easter themes. The German Chocochip Bites evoke German chocolate cake taste with predominance of chocolate, coconut, and pecans. The recipe yields about 55 soft and chewy cookies.

• 1 box chocolate or devil's food cake mix
• 1 can coconut pecan frosting
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 6 oz. chocolate chips
• 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
• bowl
• measuring cup
• measuring spoon(s)
• small rubber spatula
• 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, combine the melted butter, eggs, and frosting.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough so it looks more than rounded and less than heaping (about a 4-teaspoon measure).
7. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
8. Bake for about 13 minutes.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

If you want to make smaller cookies but more of them, level off the tablespoons of dough instead of rounding them. Bake for about 10 minutes instead of 13.

Note: My German Chocochip Bites cooky is an adaptation of a foodista recipe for Coconut Pecan Cookies, which calls for 4 ingredients: yellow cake mix, coconut pecan frosting mix, melted butter, and eggs.

Greater Less Fewer More Thans--More or Less

As a technical writer and grammarian, I run across all sorts of grammatical anomalies. The type I've posted about today pertains to apparently comparative terms "greater than", "less than", and "fewer than". Also belonging to the topic is "more than", more or less.

A particular mathisfun page typifies sites that show mathematical terms and symbols "greater than" (">") and "less than" ("<"). To me, these terms are not exactly antonymous. To me, "great" implies more a subjective word than "more". Thus, if I were advocating appropriate terms, I would say "more" or "less". "Greatness", the noun related to the adjective forms of "great", connotes positiveness, something subjective, maybe emotional. "More than" seems more suitable to indicate comparative quantity than "greater than". With this train of thought, it would seem the antonymous term to "greater than" could be "awfuller than".

This brings me to the point about "less" vs. "fewer". I believe the default term in mathematics courses—"less than"—has overshadowed the correct usage of "fewer than" in non-mathematical-course situations. The problem in the context of grammar is applying "less than" to integer quantities. Put another way, if something can be counted as an integer, the reference term should be "fewer than", not "less than". The prominent example is the sign at express lanes in a grocery store. When first established, the expression tended to be "[n] or less items". Over the years, I had noticed some stores replacing "less" with "fewer".

These days, I glance only to see the number for restrictions. Weird Al, a song parodist who coincidentally has a bachelor's degree in architecture, is strong in both left-brainedness and right-brainedness. His grammar lesson YouTube video strikes a blow for grammatical correctness where he modifies a sign that says "15 ITEMS OR LESS". He attaches "FEWER" on top of "LESS".

The other day, I encountered a YouTube video that highlights my snit about "less than"—even more so than usual. At 1:19, the following lyrics appear: "Point being, in short, less annoyances and more awesomeness." Wow. Anyway, I think I understand why mathematicians retain "less than", as the number specified can be a non-integer. As a grammarian, I'd prefer mathematicians and similar-discipline professionals be more cognizant of the difference between "less than" and "fewer than".

As my article has "more or less" in the title, I should mention it in the article itself, though the segueing might be somewhat odd. An example of using the phrase "more or less" could be with regard to purchasing an article of clothing that was suitable for style, color, fabric, and price. I can't say my selection jumped out as a must-have item. The price was so-so but not great. It was a decent buy, more or less. :-)

A Convenient Veggie Lentil Soup

My veggie lentil soup is about as convenient as can be—three or four ingredients, depending on whether the fluid is all water or part water and part soup stock/reconstituted bouillon. Make no bones about it. Well, you can if you want. You can also further increase work time by buying, washing, peeling, and cutting up fresh vegetables. I title each of my recipe articles as "A Convenient" something or another because I emphasize convenience, mostly in minimizing the number of different ingredients. The table below lists the four options; the pixstrip above provides visual aids.

Ingredient/Recipe-size Options

Ingredients	Full		Half
Image in pixstrip	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Dry veggie soup, 0.9 oz packet	2	1	1	1
Lentils, 16-oz. bag	1	1	1/2	1/2
Water	8C	4C	4C	2 1/2 C
Soup stock/reconstituted bouillon	—	4C	—	1 1/2 C
Minimum number of servings	8	8	4	4

Instructions:

1. Pick the recipe option you want to try.
2. Set out the equipment you'll need. (The pixstrip images show the equipment you should have.)
3. Rinse the lentils as instructed on the package.
4. Put the ingredients into a large pot.
5. Heat the ingredients until they come to a rolling boil.
6. Turn the heat down to simmer.
7. Go do something else for about a half hour or so.
8. When you return,
   • Check a lentil or two for the tenderness you want. Add more simmer time if necessary.
   • Taste for seasoning preference. Add more seasoning as you want.
   • If the soup's thicker than you want, add more fluid.

Note: I understated the amount of seasoning needed. It's easier to add more flavoring later than adjust for overseasoning.

November 16, 2015 (update)
If you want to use fresh veggies instead of veggie soup mix, visit "Sliced-Veggie Lentil Soup".

SurveyMonkeying-A-Round

This year, I used SurveyMonkey for the first time. Some people in my professional writing organization (STC, Society for Technical Communication) had ushered in its usage a few years ago for the annual salary survey for the area. The version we subscribe to is Unlimited. (The free version allows only 10 questions and up to 100 responses.) The pricing page shows a page of features for Free, Pro, and Unlimited. Except for the billing commitment, there appears to be scant difference between Pro and Unlimited.

In February, I finally dived into using the tool when my request (plea?) for a volunteer to conduct the survey yielded a few polite declines. I logged into our SurveyMonkey's account to see what was there. Fortunately, I did receive a guideline document; otherwise I would have been totally lost. In any case, SurveyMonkey's online help was extremely helpful. I felt the tool itself was extremely well-designed and user friendly—a lot of intuitiveness built in for the intermediate tool user. There were ways to clone surveys, copy questions, move questions, select answer options, …. There are expansive explanations of all the features.

At SurveyMonkey's Design Survey section, I navigated a prototype survey and explored response types. I checked out behaviors for multiple choice (check-all-that-apply), single-selection of multiple options ("radio button", dropdown listbox), and open-end answers ("other", fill-in). There were options for presenting possible responses horizontally, vertically, and grid configuration. The advantage for an x-by-y matrix is saving vertical space.

Another response setup that saved vertical space was using the dropdown listbox for single-selection of multiple options, if there were at least four response possibilities. If fewer than four, there was virtually no vertical space savings. For few-answer-option questions, I felt it was more user friendly that all possible answers were visible at the same time.

Why did I concern myself with vertical space? I wanted to present a survey that appeared to be shorter than if all answer possibilities made it visually long. I sensed an overly long survey might fatigue the participants and maybe decrease the chances they would take or complete the survey. Putting some response possibilities in grids and some others in dropdown listboxes required less vertical space for the entire survey than listing line-by-line selections.

After setting up the survey in March, I sent a dry-run version to the board using the Collect Responses feature, then did a cursory analysis using Analyze Results. After minor tweaking, I set up the survey for the public and launched it in early April, sending out several emails over about three weeks requesting participation from technical communicators.

After I finished collecting the data, having set a shut-off date in SurveyMonkey, I moved to the data analysis stage. At the Analyze Results section, I re-acquainted myself with graph types and appropriate uses. The graphs I used were pie, column, and line. Later, when I presented the results, I concluded that in some instances, bar graphs would have better conveyed information than column graphs. But there needs to be judicious use and consistency for bars rather than columns—the biggest reason being if the column charts showed vertically rotated text.

SurveyMonkey's graphing options were actually fun. At the Create Chart option, the following choices were available:

• Chart shape/type
• Number of answer choices to show
• Sort by answer quantity
• Show or hide a chart title, the default text being the question itself
• Labels for response number, percent, both, or none
• Location of the labels, inside or outside the graphic

Clicking Download Chart created the chart. Right-clicking the selection to create the chart in a new window was effective. If I wanted to vary my selections, it was easy to return to the Create Chart option and try something else. On the other hand, I found that SurveyMonkey's graphing capability lacking with regard to answers to open-ended questions. To make suitable graphs for those responses, I used Excel formulas.

In May, I presented the salary results to the STC Austin chapter meeting. My presentation showed a hybrid of a few updated parts from the previous year's presentation, but mostly graphs of each question's responses for this year. I handed out hardcopies of the report that reflected mainly a subset of responses—those pertaining to salaried, full-time technical communicators.

During the week after my presentation, I created a supplement document that went into detail about the questions that required "other" responses and fill-ins. I also wrote about survey design changes from the previous year and specific areas for possible future handling of some questions. All three survey documents—report, presentation, supplement—are available at http://www.stcaustin.org/employment-mainmenu-30/13-salaries/2-salary-survey-results-available.

Conducting this year's salary survey was eye-opening for methodology, learning SurveyMonkey, writeups, and coming up ways for improving the 2011 version. I have listed some survey resources below:

• Chart Types and their Uses
  http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/diagram_guidelines/charts_bk.html
• Use charts and graphs in your presentation
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA101085021033.aspx
• Bar, column, line, climatic and proportional graphs
  http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-16_u-188_t-632_c-2347/bar-column-line-climatic-and-proportional-graphs/nsw/bar-column-line-climatic-and-proportional-graphs/geography-skills/tables-graphs-and-diagrams
• AP* Statistics Tutorial: Bar Charts and Histograms
  http://stattrek.com/AP-Statistics-1/Histogram.aspx
• Column Charthttp://www.anychart.com/products/anychart/docs/users-guide/Column-chart.html

Excel formulas I used are as follows:

=MIN([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- lowest value

=Quartile([cellposition1]:[cellposition2], 1) <- 1st quartile, aka 25th percentile

=AVERAGE([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- mean

=MEDIAN([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- median, midpoint, aka 50th percentile, also calculable using 2nd quartile

=Quartile([cellposition1]:[cellposition2], 3) <- 3rd quartile, aka 75th percentile

=MAX([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- highest value

=COUNT([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- quantity of responses

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.

---

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

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

---

"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".

---

"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

---

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

Click buttons, then see the results and code.

---

"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.

---

"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.

---

"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.

---

"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.

---

"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.