Luckily for us, my son found "The Zombie Survival Guide" at Border's books last week. Of course he loaned it to his friends before his mother got to read it.
Being a vegetarian myself I wonder, "Are there vegetarian zombies, and if so what do they eat? Cauliflower?"
I had no clue how to do these puzzles until about 10 years ago when they used them at the Junior high where I taught. (I learned how to do them in self defense, I can't have students knowing more than I do.) Our test scores improved. I'm not sure this was one of the reasons, but I suspect it had something to do with it.
Mike was the reason I came to this community in the first place. Anyone he loved must be a good person.
Almost everything he loved was interesting to me.
The only nice thing about reading “Making Light†over talking to Mike in person was that I had more time to figure out what he was talking about. He was so quick that often his references sailed right over my head. Of course (unlike some other folks) he would always gladly explain his references, without one hint of exasperation.
It still seems unreal that he’s gone.
I know it has it's flaws, but I've been impressed with most of the things I've looked up on Wikipedia.
I suppose my son's (high school) teachers are right when they tell them not to use that site for their research, but for a few topics I know it's the best site around. I personally encourage my students (at the alternative school) to use it, with caveats of course! What every person must learn is that NO source is 100% reliable and that we must always have some filters in place to help us separate truth from fiction. I still know many folks who think if something is in print (hardcopy) it must be true.
As for the lunatics on the site... They are just a lot more visible. I think you can gain a lot by reading the background information. How many other sites allow you a glimse of where they found their "truth".
AS IF I don't have enough Internet time wasters.
I went to your "Particles" last night and was so happy to find the true explanation for Bushisms. The fact that he and his are from another timeline explains so much. Of course I’ve often wondered if I’m not the timeline wanderer since so often I find things in my life different than I remember. Of course nothing is so different that it convinces me that I’m crazy or that I’m truly universe-shifting.
Sexual surrogates for dogs had my son and me in stitches last night. (ROTFL)
Thanks for all the wonderfully clever albeit time wasting links!
True hamster story...
I used to love hamsters, but last spring my daughter brought two hamsters home from high school. Unbeknownst to us they had hamster scabies (mites) and my daughter contracted them. She then slept in our bed and gave them to us. For weeks we were at a loss for what was making us itch, but finally we caught a couple of the critters (smaller than the head of a pin) and identified them, first as human scabies then as hamster mites. The traditional 14-hour pyrethrum treatment didn't work so we had to take heartworm medicine. What an ordeal...not to mention the expense. And we had to resort to euthanasia on the hamsters. So the moral is no more hamsters in my house for a while, or make sure you look a gift hamster in the mouth.
Glue is for scrapbooking, tape is for packages, that's my belief and I'm sticking to it. (Stickers work for both of course.)
I just wrapped about a third of my packages tonight. I never wrap the big ones for the household/family, I just hide them until "Santa" comes. (me--always) Is there anyway I can find someone else to do that job? And then when do I get a gift? Actually my family is getting better about getting me something. I mean I love the job, but there have been Christmases that I wondered if I was loved.
I really like gift bags and alternative wrapping because I feel that they are so much less wasteful. I had a great-aunt who always wrapped our gifts in the Sunday funnies. I did it for a few years, but now I read most of my funnies online.
Oh, and we got a gift basket of nuts from my sister-in-law from Cherry Valley Farms, an on-line store. It was such a rip off ($9 worth of goodies for $39) and to add insult to injury the Easter grass they packed it in stunk to high heaven. I tore out the grass, threw it away and put the usable parts on the porch to air out.
Older: OMG, he threw you out of the store! I'm shocked, appalled and wondering; how many years ago was this?
(Prejudice is everywhere.) Why I called myself handicapped the other day and was corrected and chastised. I'm apparently disabled, or not even that, I'm differently-abled. I know political correctness has been a topic on this forum many times, but I recently learned that handicapped refers to a time when the crippled would hold out their caps begging… So take care when & where you use that word.
And I like the blind modification for money. It would be useful for all. I could pull out the correct amount of money without folks seeing how much money is actually in my purse.
I went to the Ohio Valley Filk Fest in 2005 with Elise and we got to enjoy the most delightful woman signing with all the filk performers. (I wish I could remember her name.) It was like watching a dance. I love the sign for "stars".
In high school I went to a school that integrated deaf students into some hearing classes and therefore I had a couple of friends who were deaf. We did a lot of finger signing across the room. The Home Econ. teacher was clueless but the P.E. teacher got right into it. I never learned but a couple of words but I still enjoy watching it. Maybe I'll have a deaf friend one day and find a reason to pick it back up. My niece is taking ASL in college and has several deaf friends and she will surely appreciate this link.
#20 Xopher When I die, I want my femurs and humeruses (humeri?) made into flutes and given to my friends. I'm pretty sure I can't get that done.
Yes, that would be melodic, but it is my understanding there are all sorts of rules and they vary from state to state.
I always wanted my organs that can be donated to be taken out (skin is largely needed I've heard) and then let medical students learn from me with dissection. THEN take all my bones and make a skeleton and put it in a junior high classroom so I can continue teaching even in death. (Or I can haunt the descendents of all the kids who bothered me when I was teaching.) A nice plan I thought, but I was told that this was not possible due to U.S. laws, shuckey-darn.
My driver’s license is signed. (Mike asked me if I had when last I saw him and I was proud to show him that it was so.) I can’t donate blood but I nag others to do so. I’m considering volunteering for the Red Cross as soon as I get out of some of my other commitments. They can use all sorts of volunteers I hear.
Diane that was wonderful! I was ROTFLOL. (This was rather embarrassing as I am sneeking a peek at this at work.) No doubt Mike will bring something new to the Muses' job description and add to their repertoire and repartee.
To: Dan Blum and others who have discussed compilations…
I think it would take a committee to do this because he was such a multi-faceted person. He also did some writings under pseudonyms that only his editors (or his banker) might know. I read juveniles a lot (being a teacher and because I’m lazy and they are quick reads) and I asked him if he’d done any others besides the Michael J. Dodge one. He said he had, but wouldn’t tell me what they were. I gathered he wasn’t proud of them and it was one of those things he did for money. (I asked him if that was the case and I got no answer. I can be tactless (rude) like that, and he can be enigmatic like that.)
So… Who knows-- maybe he was just afraid I’d go and blab it to the world?
I did try to do some detective (Internet) work to figure it out, but I finally gave up, there are just too many juvenile fiction writers out there to find him among the swarm.
I think it is wild how Wikipedia has been updated so much on him. I’d thought of giving some facts to different Internet sites in earlier years, but I figured if he wanted them to know, he’d tell them. He valued his privacy.
And totally off topic…
Mike called me Gracie (Allen) once and I thought I should be insulted, until one day when I read her biography, then I was thrilled. Seriously I think he gave me more credit than I deserved, though at one time I was very good at playing innocent (dumb) straight woman to his comedy.
Thanks for the Elise, you deserve praises galore, and lots and lots of hugs! You took broken parts and made them whole. You gave me back someone I'd lost. The old cliché that there is a good woman behind every good man was never as true as it was with you and Mike. In his Mikeness way he told me how much he cared for you and it is a truth that the whole world could see.
To Earl Cooley III-- many of us have earned the Wrath Of Mike. I’ve done lots of stupid things. Of course he earned my wrath once or twice too… but that’s another story. You must forgive yourself. In my opinion he would probably tell you that it would be your place to forgive yourself and not for him to forgive you. We all have things we regret when someone is gone; it’s just part of the grieving process.
I want to thank Theresa and Patrick for being there for all of us. I have appreciated the language, folly, knitting, and the community that is here. If I’m missing fandom or I want to connect with that part of me, I come here and read. Even though Mike is no longer here, I will still come here when I’m feeling that need. I’ve made connections here that I would not have otherwise. It’s also interesting seeing people on here that I know I should know but don’t remember their names. I wish I could see their faces, because I’m much better with those.
With appreciation,
Geneva Rose (Spencer Saxman) Fry
What David Goldfarb said rings so true. I think Mike wrote about people living with impossible situations because that is what he did. It wasn’t that he didn’t solve problems but he knew that some problems cannot be solved. Mike’s command of the language was daunting for me at 18. I remember him standing over me as I read his first published story. (I hate when people stand over me even now, which is ironic as I am a teacher.) He was both seeking approval and insuring that I understood what he had written. I started crying at the end of the story and that upset him. (He was very sensitive.) To me that meant he wrote a wonderful story, but it was disturbing to me because I was saddened that he didn’t believe in an afterlife. Now I am honored that he asked me to read his work and that he cared what I had to say about it. When I was young I didn’t appreciate what a great thing that was.
I said that he was always helpful in an earlier post, but I have two examples to illustrate my point. At my wedding to Don, Mike was the best man. He stayed up long into the night helping my mother make all the food, especially the Swedish meatballs. My mom remembers them laughing late in the night, forming meatballs. He could have slept, but instead he helped. And then a few years ago when I went up to Minneapolis to visit Mike and Elise I remember him helping a disabled person get a seat on the bus.
Paula Lieberman said that “The same person is a different person to different people.” I’ve met a more than a few people who didn’t like Mike. I personally thought they were crazy. But then I think they just didn’t “get” him. I fell in love with him the minute I met him and have loved him ever since. He’s on my list of lifelong friends. It’s not a very long list and even though I rarely saw him, I’m mourning his loss. I agree with those who have said they know him from his books. That has always been a wonderful thing about Mike. I could read John M. Ford and be with him any time I wanted. And the most wonderful thing is that even though I can’t call him, I can still pick up his books and he lives on. He made his own afterlife.
I must own up or confess
I came not to trespass
I only read this blogging site
Wishing to read a word or two from Mike
His genius overwhelmed the scale
His gallantry was always beyond the pale
He was my Lancelot, a true SF knight
Bestowing me with his knowledge of zeit
He was cruel and he was kind
He understood and yet he was blind
To my faults and my fancy
My affections were but ennui
And when I grew older still
He was but wisdom and goodwill
And friends we again became
Everything was just the same.
And now that he is gone and I am in tears
Regretting so much the intervening years
All the time with him I could have spent
What a sorry excuse, but a genuine lament
Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin
To: Janet Brennan Croft
It might not have done you any good to ask him anyway. I did and the answers were sometimes so enigmatic that I still didn’t know what he meant.
But to his credit he was always ready to explain and always ready to help. The best thing about Mike is that he was always ready to lend a hand, always ready to come to someone's aid in any way he could.
My father died last night. I was OK with it. He was ready to die and so I came to work. I was OK. Then I checked my e-mail and got the message from Elise. I'm glad it was from her and that I didn’t see it somewhere else first. But now I'm stuck at work and feeling very upset. I was going to go to see Mike this summer but one of my other friends convinced me to go and see her instead. I thought about calling him last night but then I got the call to go to my father's deathbed. I have an appointment to see my UU minister this afternoon about church business, but I'm afraid she's going to be counseling me instead.
I know he was loved my many people. He will be sorely missed. I wonder what will happen with the book he was working on. He let me read part of it, and he was going to send me an update. I think about all the things we all leave undone. There just is never enough time.
leftist fundies
Are those like hard core UU vegans who live in nonair-conditioned houses and ride their bicycles everywhere?
Anyway
The only reason I'm commenting here is to say Happy Birthday to Mike Ford (because I forgot to send him a card, and I know he reads all of this blog.) So Happy Birthday Mike!
20-50% of the women who develop gestational diabetes will go on to develop Type II diabetes in later life
I'm relieved to hear your statistic is lower than I believed. I read/heard somewhere that you had a 90% chance to develop type 2 if you had gestational diabetes. I really enjoyed reading this comment even though I feel pretty versed on the subject. I especially liked the line "don’t use a Red Hot Fireball cinnamon candy". LOL!
Xeger said "I'm not diabetic, but I am hypoglycemic - and the effects of a glass of orange juice with a few tablespoons of sugar in it are amazing." and another person mentioned that their hypoglycemia makes them manic. I have been hypoglycemic since I was 12 and I'm 48 now. I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall. My younger brother developed Type 1 diabetes at age 25. To complicate matters I am obese, have hypertension, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and some peculiar allergies. I suspect that our family may have some weird inherited auto-immune thing going on, but no doctor is going to figure this out so we have to live with our symptoms. The main problem I have in controlling my health is that sugar is to me as alcohol is to an alcoholic. I have a very difficult time staying away from it and I greatly abuse it hence the obesity which doesn’t help the other problems one bit.
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