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Cap'n Flynn (deviantART)
Cap'n Flynn's Salty Sea Chest

The Unveiled Clepsydra

The Voyage to Ruin
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Aliens in This World
Apologize and Don't Be Sorry!
Cacciaguida
Catholic Ragemonkey
De Fidei Oboedientia
Doubleshot Thoughts
E-Pression (Zorak)
Flos Carmeli
For Keats' Sake!
Happy Catholic
John C. Wright's Journal
Old Oligarch's Painted Stoa
Pontifications
Scuffulans hirsutus
Shrine of the Holy Whapping
Summa Mamas, The
Troglodyte, The
The Stacks
Basia me, Catholica Sum
Conviviality
Corner, The
Fiat Lux!
I Am the Lizard Queen!
The Kawaii Menace
James Lileks
Wasted Words
Weirdsville, USA
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8-Bit Theater
Get Fuzzy
Sluggy Freelance
xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language
One Guy's Opinion
Dark Echo
Reference Materials
Catholic Culture: Liturgical Year
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Invisible Children
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Anglican Use Society
Book of Divine Worship
Pastoral Provision
Saint Mary The Virgin Catholic Church
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Chambers' Book of Days
King's American Dispensatory
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The Writer's Den
Jim Butcher
Bruce Campbell
Susanna Clarke
Harlan Ellison
Stephen King
Lit Gothic
The Studio
flyin-eyeball.com
Jeff Matsuda
Furiae
Moby Dick, the Movie
The Conservatory
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Eisley
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06 May 2003
Lightness

Expect things to be a bit light here on the blog now that I'm working again. Things in the new department look good, and I am likely to be kept quite busy. And so online activity will not be happening. Alas....

I intend to try to post at least a few times a week in the evenings, but with the final edit proceeding on the novel, I don't really expect to have much time. I shall, however, endeavour to put up at least one sizable political or cultural post on the weekends. We'll see how that goes. With two weddings coming up, things are going to be tight this month.

Still, it's good to be employed again. People were much happified to have me back in their midst, and I gotta say, it was good to be back there. There are certainly worse places I could be.
Jelly Pinched Wolf   8:00 PM
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05 May 2003
Jobful again

By an odd turn of events, I shall be starting a new temp assignment tomorrow with the same company I recently left. I guess it helps to make a good impression on the people you work for. The department next to my previous one has a spot, and requested me for it. So, I've gotten a brief hiatus, and now get to try my hand at something a bit different. Can't scoff at that.

To all those out there who had Kathy and I in your prayers, we thank you.
Jelly Pinched Wolf   3:59 PM
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02 May 2003
Day Three of the Great Novel Edit

Finished up going through the novel with Word's spelling and grammar tool last night. Now, I've always known that Word really honks in that department, but I had yet to realise the extent to which it honks. Goodness! Of course, I guess until you've run through a 708-page work, it's hard to guess just how terrible Microsoft's programming is. Don't get me wrong--I'm grateful for what it does do well. My typing is not the best, and the ability of the program to capture the accidental lack of two spaces (or the occasional additional spaces) between sentences is truly a life-saver. I've also a tendency to hyphenate compound words what don't need hyphenating, and it is a help with that as well. Yet, that doesn't absolve Word in any way. When a grammar tool freaks out over a sentence for the simple reason that it is a "Long Sentence," you know you've got problems. The English-speaking world does not its language to get simpler, nor its sentences shorter. Yes, I recognise that there are times a nice simple phrase is in order (I also prefer the punchiness of fragments in my writing when the need is there)--as my wife would say: "Economy of phrasing!" But to flag a sentence merely because it's long? People could do with encountering more sentences that they have to read several times before they can ferret out the meaning. They could do with having to pause to look up a word at least once a page (preferable once every few paragraphs). But then, we live in the era of text messages which are about as comprehensible to me as binary (though, I must say, binary has a certain elegant charm to it).

I'm no programmer. Perhaps this is the best they can do, given the admittedly funky rules of English and the tendency for individuals to break said rules according to their own styles. But Microsoft has made some pretty amazing programs, I'd say (though I suspect their programmers aren't allowed to create anything that isn't at least mildy frustrating to the user). You'd think they could do a little better with their grammar checker.

Okay, rant over. On to the future. I've got a bit more to do in the way of formatting--must make the text look terribly ugly by changing all my italics and bolds into underlines and squiggly underlines, which I have been assured is the way publishers want the manuscript to look. It really rakes on my aesthetic sense, though. I understand why it's gotta be that way, but man, I really find it unpleasant to look at. Oh, well--personal qualm. No matter. After that, I shall begin to read, and hope that I find little to fix as far as the language goes and no plot holes. Mostly, though, it'll be really nice to revisit the beginning of this story. Haven't been there in a while.
Jelly Pinched Wolf   9:46 AM
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