Dog Ear – Page 44 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

December 31, 2020

Best of 2020 (DOG EAR)

rankly, it’s been a rotten year. Covid. Politics. Domestic stupidity. Really, these are the times that try mens’ souls (if they even have them – and given the mask-dodgers, I’m not so sure). As far as reading over my first full year or retirement, there were only a handful of books that really shook me (and another one just missed the cut because I just finished it today and it won’t post until next Sunday). As it stood out, I actually read only five books that really hit home (there were some other good ones but not as good as […]

January 7, 2021

Losing it (DOG EAR)

esides writing, I love coding games. Always a challenge. As far as versioning (making sure you have a backup copy), I always make sure that before I start coding for the evening, I save a copy with an incrementing number on it. So, we have “game1” “game2” “game 3” and so on. During Christmas weekend I had a lot of free time so I threw myself into my game. Wrote for six hours and managed to get a number of clever and interesting game paths done. Since the game saves on every compile, and it’s all saving to that same […]

January 14, 2021

Character Progression (DOG EAR)

’m happily working on a game, Solar Trader 2, which I’ll post in my links as it gets to a more playable state. But why the heck am I talking about that… in a literature post? The original Solar Trader was an Excel game, a massive attempt to bring near-future space ship maneuvering into a game format. It worked okay but never found any following – it had a very steep learning curve that pretty much killed it for most people. It’s been a couple of years and I really like the idea of its Expanse-like setting. During this time, […]

January 21, 2021

So I’m a Dick (DOG EAR)

’m an avid thrice-a-week cyclist and my primary path out of the city is the Cady Way trail. There is one Ichabod spot, a place where the route punches through a stand of woods on a long curve (southwest of Baldwin Park). At night, it’s downright spooky. But this was bright daylight and I was returning home, four miles short of my thirty mile round trip. Looking up, I saw a curious sight – two people in white with conical hats. Given the turn and my blistering 17mph speed and the long curve, I didn’t have a whole lot of […]

January 28, 2021

The Nature of Stories (DOG EAR)

’m a writer. And I’m also a model railroader. Yes, I play with trains. Actually, in my case, model railroading is every bit as story-filled as writing. For example, we are currently finishing up a Dairy Queen restaurant on part of our sectional layout. There was discussion on how to make it stand out, to be more than just a model of a road-side business. So the result was to put a whole bunch of motorcycles out front, parked in a row. And around the corner, before the outside “Men’s” room door, a line of a dozen desperate bikers, all […]

February 4, 2021

The Real World (DOG EAR)

ecades ago, a friend of mine worked at TRW. At the time they had a pretty pompous ad – something like “TRW – what does it stand for?” My friend laughed at this and said “Three Random Words”. But he also noted that, right out of college, it meant “The Real World”. The Real World. No more drinking every night. No more philosophic debates late into the wee hours. No more D&D. No more showing up for class only if you wanted to. The Real World was a small cubicle. Be-in-by times. Crummy coffee. Deadlines you didn’t agree to. Unfair, […]

February 11, 2021

Lost and Found (mostly lost) (DOG EAR)

was good friends with an executive at a former company. My service for him was sterling as he rose through the ranks. But then I made the mistake of loaning him The Great Race (that wonderful movie with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon). And that was the last I saw of it. It’s always a pain to corner someone, to trap them, to offer them a great movie they never knew about which you wish to share, to have them in your power and place it in their hands, only to have them turn the tables and lose it. Part […]

February 25, 2021

The fall of the house of Mozilla (DOG EAR)

’ve long been a fan of the Mozilla products, particularly FireFox (as a browser) and Thunderbird (for my email). They’ve served me well. Until recently. I’ve been having problems with Thunderbird. Occasionally email accounts (I’ve got three) would drop out for a week or so. Like stray dogs, they would eventually wander home. But recently one of my important accounts has failed and stayed failed for several months. This meant I had to browser into the AT&T site to get mail – not too bad except when you have a newsletter due out and people are submitting to two different […]

March 4, 2021

Values (DOG EAR)

ince this is a blog about communication and media (and writing), I’ll relate an interesting conversation I heard today. I’d just given my 31st gallon of blood and was treating myself to chicken fingers at Applebee’s. Sat out on the patio a short distance from a young guy and girl who (from the overheard sounds of their conversation) were trying to get to know each other (Working relationship? First date?). They were a bit mismatched – he was a young guy just looking for the next thing he would buy, relating all sorts of stories about other people. And she […]

March 11, 2021

Targeted Saves (DOG EAR)

do a lot of things on my computer. I write short stories. I’m working on two games. I work on some train files. I publish a newsletter. And nothing sucks more than when I’m working on a game and then have to put out the Journal Box newsletter. When I do this then every default save option needs to shift from wherever it was to whatever it is. This might make sense to Micro$oft but not to anyone who uses computers a lot. Think about it. The newsletter is a combination of txt files, word docs, PDFs if submitters are […]