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| Tangents [message #44814] |
Mon, 12 September 2011 19:55  |
 b_twin_1
Messages: 2597
Registered: September 2008
Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Just a few tangents to follow...
I've got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel ~ Blackadder
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| Re: Tangents [message #44815 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Mon, 12 September 2011 20:02  |
b_twin_1
Messages: 2597
Registered: September 2008
Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Today may have set a new record on the footnotes. LOL
*hands over chocolate and friendly emails*
I've got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel ~ Blackadder
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| Re: Tangents [message #44819 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Mon, 12 September 2011 20:40 |
libby.gorman
Messages: 70
Registered: June 2009
Location: Durham, NC |
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Haven't been around in awhile, but I do at least scan the blog most nights, and I took the time to READ today's all the way through. I love your blog and hearing about a bunch of different interesting hobbies that I don't have time to try right now but will keep in mind for when I need something to take up. So I just had to pop in to say so--thank you!
Libby
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| Re: Tangents [message #44828 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2011 00:37 |
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One reason I like audiobooks is because you cannot easily skim over the descriptive passages to find out "what happens next." This is a bad habit of mine, especially on the first read of a book. So I'll be aware of all kinds of details in the reading aloud, that I might miss while speeding along silently.
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| Re: Tangents [message #44832 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2011 02:03 |
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Diane in MN
Messages: 2733
Registered: October 2008
Location: Twin Cities, MN, USA |
Senior Member |
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But there’s a new variant of this, which is the people who think nothing happens in PEGASUS.
So do you suppose they have actually, like, read PEGASUS?
And the self-absorbed . . . sigh. Well, yes, but do you know how hard it is to write a daily blog?
It's probably pretty easy to write a daily blog that's just babble. Writing a generally humorous personal essay every day, which is what you do, is hard. I suspect that many people don't know what a personal essay is, so they don't have a clue. (Hint: the relevant adjective is "personal".) I'm old too. God knows what they read in English classes these days. 
Yes, I remember wearing white gloves and a hat when you got dressed up too.
Yup. Too bad hats mostly disappeared. I like hats.
"The point of books is to have way too many but to always feel you never have enough . . . " Louise Erdrich
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| Re: Tangents [message #44833 is a reply to message #44832 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2011 04:40 |
reading_fox
Messages: 22
Registered: September 2011
Location: Manchester ish |
Junior Member |
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Hello all,
first time poster here - be gentle please!
I just this minute received an email from someone who says that PEGASUS is the best book she ever read. ::Beams:: *
I joined up with the intention of saying something close to the same thing .... until I reached the last page. And went ARGH! Want More Now! not next year - now! Which was the prompt to actually join and find out how progress is going with PegII
I’m the best material I’ve got,
A few posts ago - when I was navigating the prove I'm a real person signing up details, which now seems far too many words bak to actually post on the correct thread - You mentioned the possibility of a post on the *issues* involving buying ebooks. This I would like to see, as it has been the cause of many of my own rants online.
I like footnotes. But haven't added any this time.
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| Re: Tangents [message #44839 is a reply to message #44837 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2011 10:28 |
harpergray
Messages: 87
Registered: March 2011
Location: Sweden |
Member |
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| blondviolinist wrote on Tue, 13 September 2011 14:13 |
| abigailmm wrote on Tue, 13 September 2011 00:37 |
One reason I like audiobooks is because you cannot easily skim over the descriptive passages to find out "what happens next." This is a bad habit of mine, especially on the first read of a book. So I'll be aware of all kinds of details in the reading aloud, that I might miss while speeding along silently.
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oh, that's interesting. My experience is the opposite. (Perhaps because I'm always listening to books while doing something else: cooking, cleaning, driving, knitting.) If I listen to an audiobook, I often end up not hearing sections because I was thinking of something else. I even choose my audiobooks with this in mind. "Can I zone out from time to time in this book and still understand the story?"
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I've always liked audiobooks for background noise exactly for the reason blondviolonist gave; so that I can have something to zone in and out of at my leisure without the added distraction of people on a screen. From time to time they've been really helpful for getting me through a book that I could never read. THE GOLDEN COMPASS was, for whatever reason, such a book, and I never finished it until I listened to it on casette.
These days I use them mostly as language-learning aids, though. If I take a book whose story you know and listen to the audio book, I've found that I can follow the language much better than if it were a book whose story I hadn't known beforehand. Harry Potter is a favourite for this one, since it's so well known that I'm almost guaranteed to at least find HP& THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE in whatever language I'm after.
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| Re: Tangents [message #44847 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2011 16:16 |
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AJLR
Messages: 2566
Registered: September 2008
Location: England, UK |
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I’m so old. Yes, I remember wearing white gloves and a hat when you got dressed up too.
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Yes, I can remember the 'white cotton gloves in the summer, leather gloves in the winter' days. A pain to look after they were, too. And when I went into the airforce as an 18-year old cadet, many decades ago now, a hat and gloves were on the list of clothing items we had to take with us. My grandmother was very reassured, seeing them on the list. It confirmed in her mind that I was going somewhere reasonably civilised.
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You are obliged to be passionately interested in method ringing however. You saw that in the fine print when you joined the forum, didn’t you?
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You are a very contagious/infectious ringing virus.
"Never let a computer know you're in a hurry."
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| Re: Tangents [message #44853 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2011 23:22 |
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blondviolinist
Messages: 1071
Registered: October 2008
Location: Midwestern United States |
Senior Member |
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the post-blog variant on the evergreen question of the character, personality and shortcomings of authors
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I know I'm a day late commenting on this, but I'm still a bit speechless. The blog *is* titled "Days in the Life," and people expect you to write about something else? If I spent my days going around to every blog on the internet that didn't suit my personal taste, and emailing each of the "offending" bloggers... well, I'd have to waste several lifetimes to accomplish that. Life's too short.
Also, I don't understand the assumption that because an author happened to write a book you really like, therefore the author shares *all* your values and *all* your lifestyle choices. I'm completely dumbfounded by that. Are we really so blind as to think that only people who are exactly like us can have anything worthwhile to share with us?
As for "self-absorbed," I think most bloggers fall into that category, myself included.  (Also, maybe people don't understand just how much time a writer spends alone. I know I spend hours alone, practicing and studying, so much of my life happens in my own head. It's pretty easy to sound self-absorbed if you're spending that much time by yourself.)
(Edited to add the correct amount of pink.)
[Updated on: Tue, 13 September 2011 23:23]
"Purity of heart is to will one thing." Kirkegaard
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| Re: Tangents [message #44854 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Wed, 14 September 2011 00:33 |
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danceswithpahis
Messages: 380
Registered: October 2008 |
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There’s a flap going on over here at present about raising retirement age because the population bulge of oldies is going to break social services some day soon. What I am not seeing, although I admit I’m not following the debate very closely, is some discussion of the practical constraints on the elderly end of your work force. Your average builder is not going to be up to carrying hods when he (or she) is seventy, whatever the government says. Nor is your average nursery-school teacher going to be up to chasing three-year-olds all day when she (or he) is seventy—whatever the government says. What are we going to train these people to do instead? And when are we going to do it? If your occupation is listed as ‘nursery school teacher’ or ‘builder’ will you get a postcard through your door on your fiftieth birthday telling you to report to the nearest retraining centre? You also get less trainable as you get older. And you need more downtime: will the over-65s be allowed longer lunch breaks and shorter days? Or are we trying to pretend that old age and death are something that only happen if you’re careless?
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This is one of the big issues in the US regarding Social Security. There are some people, most of them in places like Congress and well-paid sedentary desk jobs, arguing that people are living longer and healthier lives and so the full retirement age can be moved up. As you point out, however, this is tricky. For someone in a sedentary desk job, it's possible that one might be able to continue working later. Someone living the dream at work or doing that one thing he or she is most passionate about may be the same way. On the other hand, someone who spends all day in backbreaking labor -- construction, factory jobs, nursing, the list goes one -- will probably reach a point where it is no longer possible to keep going (as you pointed out). Another point is that many people are NOT working their dream jobs, but rather are working in a position they hate in order to support themselves and their families; delaying the time when they can retire for a number of years is unkind and unwise.
"Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!"
-- Lilo ("Lilo and Stitch")
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| Re: Tangents [message #44855 is a reply to message #44832 ] |
Wed, 14 September 2011 03:37 |
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3rdragon
Messages: 34
Registered: October 2010
Location: USA |
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And the self-absorbed . . . sigh. Well, yes, but do you know how hard it is to write a daily blog?
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It's probably pretty easy to write a daily blog that's just babble. Writing a generally humorous personal essay every day, which is what you do, is hard. I suspect that many people don't know what a personal essay is, so they don't have a clue. (Hint: the relevant adjective is "personal".) I'm old too. God knows what they read in English classes these days.
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I'll point out, for what it's worth, that I just moved to rural Zambia and I don't manage to get more than two blog posts a week, most of the time. Speaking of, I really ought to sit down and write the second one this week, which I've had content for for the past three days.
And I read personal essays in high school. That was less than ten years ago.
On the audiobook front, I have two distinct categories of audiobook: fast-paced audiobooks for car rides, which will keep me interested for several hours at a stretch (often adventures, spy stories or murder mysteries), and slower ones that it's okay if I miss bits of while doing household chores (frequently classics or rambley nonfiction vignettes).
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| Re: Tangents [message #44864 is a reply to message #44855 ] |
Wed, 14 September 2011 13:23 |
gonetotervs
Messages: 17
Registered: October 2008
Location: Kabul Afghanistan |
Junior Member |
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With regard to raising the retirement age, why does it have to be an all-or-nothing debate? My dad retired at least 4 times and kept rejoining the workforce -- I'm getting close to that age myself and can see quitting my current job, but I'm to young to sit around and twiddle my thumbs all the time (and I decline to raise granchildren <g>.) So what about retiring people part-time? Maybe stagger it so we worked 30 hours then 20 then 15 and were stilled considered "in the workforce" depending on age. I think studies also show that people do better when they are engaged with others in some way, shape or form. I'd certainly very much like to continue working with some control over my hours and less of the 50 hours a week in the office business.
One of the funniest books I read in the past few years is a compilation of John Scalzi's blog posts, a book with the title "your hate mail will be graded." I think he had some of Robin's experiences and replied in kind. It was perfect reading for when I went to the hospital and wasn't sure how much energy and ability to concentrate I'd have post-op. Most of the pieces are short; many are funny, and basically it I enjoyed it a lot. But it appears that other writers also have experince with blog readers who are looking to provoke reactions.
Jeanine
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| Re: Tangents [message #44865 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Wed, 14 September 2011 15:34 |
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L.R.K.
Messages: 1081
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sweden |
Senior Member |
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But the question also arises: "After a certain age - who will hire you?" These kinds of arguments always seem to assume that "If you want a job, you'll find one." - and conversely "If you don't have a job, it's because you don't really want one." If someone is re-schooled from one - that involves backbreaking labour of one sort or another - to another job, who will want to hire them at that age? And this also assumes, of course, that the person involved in the backbreaking job in question actually did it out of choice, rather than necessity, and so why would suitable alternatives suddenly crop up forr them later in life, that were not available before? Needless to say, perhaps, but I'm very much in agreement with what danceswithpahis said.
Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.
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| Re: Tangents [message #44871 is a reply to message #44814 ] |
Wed, 14 September 2011 20:09 |
Piankatank
Messages: 35
Registered: October 2008
Location: Virginia, USA |
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Nor is your average nursery-school teacher going to be up to chasing three-year-olds all day when she (or he) is seventy—whatever the government says.
Or are we trying to pretend that old age and death are something that only happen if you’re careless?
Oh I so agree! We all hope for long healthy lives but it doesn't always work that way. I want to be physically and mentally able to keep working until I reach 67 (12 more years), but I don't know if I'll be able to do it. I currently teach 13-14 year old students so there isn't much actual chasing involved but the mental energy required exhausts me by the end of every day. If my mental and physical energy give out and I am no longer effective as a teacher, what am I supposed to do?
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| Re: Tangents [message #44875 is a reply to message #44864 ] |
Thu, 15 September 2011 02:19 |
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danceswithpahis
Messages: 380
Registered: October 2008 |
Senior Member |
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| gonetotervs wrote on Wed, 14 September 2011 13:23 |
With regard to raising the retirement age, why does it have to be an all-or-nothing debate? My dad retired at least 4 times and kept rejoining the workforce -- I'm getting close to that age myself and can see quitting my current job, but I'm to young to sit around and twiddle my thumbs all the time (and I decline to raise granchildren <g>.) So what about retiring people part-time? Maybe stagger it so we worked 30 hours then 20 then 15 and were stilled considered "in the workforce" depending on age. I think studies also show that people do better when they are engaged with others in some way, shape or form. I'd certainly very much like to continue working with some control over my hours and less of the 50 hours a week in the office business.
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The issue I was referring to is Social Security. When you apply for Social Security benefits before you reach your full retirement age, you take a permanent benefit reduction. If it's only a couple of months beforehand, it's not that big of a deal. At age 62, however, it can be hundreds of dollars a month less depending on your benefit amount, and that's with the age 66 full retirement age for current retirees. If the age gets raised to 70, as some people are suggesting, this potentially means a much more drastic reduction for those who start collecting benefits early, putting many in a much more difficult position financially. And as L.R.K. hinted at, it's hard (especially in today's economy) for someone in their 60's to find a job. People don't want to hire you, it's hard to get a position that will pay decently, and if your pension is being cut it makes it much harder to support yourself.
"Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!"
-- Lilo ("Lilo and Stitch")
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| Re: Tangents [message #44878 is a reply to message #44875 ] |
Thu, 15 September 2011 13:01 |
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Robyn Sue
Messages: 112
Registered: November 2010
Location: Texas |
Senior Member |
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| danceswithpahis wrote on Thu, 15 September 2011 01:19 |
it's hard (especially in today's economy) for someone in their 60's to find a job.
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It's also hard for young people, like me, to find a job that fits their degree. The job that I have is still with the company* that hired me when I was seventeen, but I was PRN during the summer. Now, I'm still PRN but on contract and am doing a different job**. The thing is, is that my "job" is not related to my degree. And since I have no real work experience with proofreading or editing, no one will even think of hiring me.
To me it seems that people who are in the middle, the people who have their degree and have connections to that related field, are the ones who will be hired over those who worked hard for their degree and don't have connections and those that have years of experience in that field. Basically, if have a piece of paper that says you graduate college and have connections, you'll have a job. If you're young and educated or if you're "old" and experienced, you won't find a job that pays you right.
*It's the same small business that my dad works for.
**Before it was prep for scanning and now it's mailing-room assistant.
Am I crazy if listen to the voices in my little world? :D
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