Ron's Info-Closet Annex
The online extension of Ron's Info-Closet.
Book links are usually to my Powell's affiliate program; game links are usually to Funagain Games, and benefit the Games to the Rescue Project.
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Ron Hale-Evans
rwhe@ludism.org
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ShorDurPerSav: "Weird Al" Yankovic
I'm having a bad week. It's not a bad work week per se, but I have all day to myself at work to stew. Fortunately, I've had the music of "Weird Al" Yankovic to succour me in my desolation. How can I listen to "One Of Those Days" from 1991's Polka Party! ("and a big steamroller ran over my mom, and I cut myself shaving, and they're dropping the bomb") without feeling better?
In fact, Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, wrote a paper (cache) on the use of self-satirical songs in psychotherapy. His songs have titles like "I Am Just A Fucking Baby!" and "Glory, Glory Hallelujah, People Love Ya Till They Screw Ya". They're not as funny as Weird Al's, but Ellis offers some good how-tos. I need to poke more fun at me; I'll be doing this soon.
And then there's Katie Lee with her Songs of Couch and Consultation, mentioned elsewhere on this blog. My favourite of hers is "The Will To Fail", which is also available in one of the Incredibly Strange Music collections.
But Weird Al's music right now is like finding a two-litre bottle of cold, sweet water in the middle of an asphalt parking lot that stretches for miles around. He is the W.A.Y., the truth, and the life at this farpotchket moment in my life.
Entered 22:54 [/personal/shordurpersavs] permalink
Donald Norman, Le ShorDurPerSav du Mois
Donald Norman wrote a book called The Design of Everyday Things, a.k.a. The Psychology of Everyday Things, a.k.a. POET. I brought POET home tonight and showed it to Marty, announcing, "This will be your new god!" Marty is a technical editor by trade and user interface design critic by avocation, and recently described herself as a "professional stickler".
Of course, she's already started finding things wrong with the book.
Entered 23:11 [/personal/shordurpersavs] permalink
ShorDurPerSav: Paul "Sakar" Roberts
Paul Roberts: not only does he use and promote free software, not only does he use the free software Blosxom for his blog (the same software I do), not only is his blog, Endless Words (formerly Egg Blog) half in Esperanto, but he has written a free plugin for Blosxom that enables use of superscripted Esperanto characters in blog text.
Unto us (well, me) a Short Duration Personal Saviour is born. Thanks for the software, Paul.
Watch for Esperanto entries to appear in the Annex soon.
Entered 02:17 [/personal/shordurpersavs] permalink
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My latest Short Duration Personal Saviour is my friend Lion Kimbro. This blog owes its very existence to the excellent example set by Lion's own blog, Lion's Den. I've adopted many of the techniques in my current journalling/organisation scheme from his free online book How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think. I've also started reading some of Lion's favourite novels, Momo and The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, an author I disdained before because of the mess of a movie made of the latter book. I'm even coming around to his ideas on the way wikis should be linked and organised, something I never thought I'd do. Ave, Leo! ("Hail, Lion!" I believe I got that right. My Latin is rusty, but the vocative is pretty simple.) For previous ShorDurPerSavs and more on the ShorDurPerSav concept, see Ron's ShorDurPerSavs. From now on, however, I'll be blogging them. |
Entered 11:32 [/personal/shordurpersavs] permalink
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