Dog Ear – Page 51 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 28, 2022

Feedback (DOG EAR)

‘m not a big fan of feedback. Feedback lead to the first iteration of this site (Joomla) having to be abandoned (because of weaknesses over time in the app used to allowed it). Now that I’m on WordPress, I’ve disabled it (but I’m still getting it – not sure how they are getting in on one book review). Let’s face it; all content providers see their feedback area as being a coffee shop with polite conversations about the raised topics. And instead, they become roadhouses of belligerence and idiocy. I don’t even engage in these sorts of discussions on Facebook […]

August 4, 2022

Intruder Alert (DOG EAR)

eird little thing happened recently. Years ago this site was developed under Joomla. It was fine for a while but then I added feedback, so users could converse on my wise postings. That turned out to be a terrible idea. Most people would chat on FaceBook (where I place the link to the blogs). And worse, I started getting bot postings, where I’d be flooded with 30+ postings a day. And these weren’t real posts – they were limp responses about “I love your blog” or “I’m following you now” (no mention of the subject at all, of course) as […]

August 11, 2022

Pretty Pictures (DOG EAR)

here was a time when I easily posted these pieces to Facebook. I’d simply copy the link and the picture-letter (in this case, the “T” to the left) would pop into the link, nice and professional. People could tell this was one of my pieces by that distinctive monk-work. Then Facebook started to fuss with me. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn’t. When it didn’t, it would use the site’s general front-page graphic (which says “Manuscript” but, because of compression, would read “Anus”). Can you get more negative-media than that? Oh, I could click and coax and repost, and […]

August 18, 2022

Retraction on AnyImage (DOG EAR)

ell, this is embarrassing. Last week I gushed about AnyImage, which was software you could use to embed your website with an image neatly into Facebook (which has become a Metapain). Sure, it worked great the first few times I used it. Liked it enough that I used it to post a DOG EAR piece promoting it. However, the day I went to post up that praise, the site asked for me to register (because I’d used it two or three times and they wanted me to sign up). Look, I prefer it free and clear, but if I need […]

August 25, 2022

Recommendation (DOG EAR)

have a peach of a physical therapist. In the weeks following my surgery, she’d been the one outlining my exercise program, making me stretch and flex and hurt and get better. A lot of my recovery, I owe to her. She’s from Brazil and we’ve chatted about life there, life here, all that. One cool down following a rough session, we got to talking about books (I always bring a new one every week for the waiting room). Anyway, she told me she loved a Brazilian author named Paulo Coelho, who I’ve never heard of. She told me she’s read […]

September 1, 2022

The Freaks (DOG EAR)

his is a little secret I’m mentioned a couple of times on this site; I’ve been funning around writing erotica elsewhere for years. While you are all looking at me funny and squirming, I’ll also mentioned that I was quite good. On the base I post on, I’ve got over a thousand watchers and a half-million views. People think I’m pretty good at it. Beside the free stuff there, I also was contacted a few years back by a publisher and created three collections for them (for which I was paid (but not a lot – it’s a tough racket)). […]

September 8, 2022

Bakuman (DOG EAR)

atched onto a new series (on Hulu) that I’m loving – Bakuman. It is an anime (cartoon) adaptation of a manga (comic) (for you squares). And for the writers out there, it’s worth a watch. In the story, young Moritaka Mashiro, a male high school student, gets involved with Akito Takagi (ditto) who wants to be a manga writer. The problem is, he can’t draw. But he’s looked over Moritaka’s shoulder and watched him drawing (mainly moony sketches of the girl from the front row, Miho Azuki). Through long arguments. Akito convinces Moritaka to join him in this quest, to […]

September 15, 2022

The World the Internet Unmade (DOG EAR)

es, the world is certainly different since the internet came along. I can remember seeing it for the first time when I worked in a small software shop and someone demoed it. I was so stunned that, using a Netscape browser, you could click about the world and see so many webpages about cats. That night, after a dinner out, I brought my wife into the office so that we could see the paintings of the Louvre. Of course, back then, it was a slow scan for each one, nearly as long as they took to originally paint. But yes, […]

September 22, 2022

Taciturn (DOG EAR)

here are two ways you can be introduced to a character, the real-world way or the accepted western literary way. So say you are in a western bar. In walks a cowboy. In the real-world way, he will likely sit down next to you and start to chat (since bars are social gathering places and if you wanted to drink alone in your sulk, you’d buy a bottle and sit with your horse in the stable). Anyway, this hypothetical cowboy would chat with you, perhaps telling you where he was born, and what ranches he worked on. Possibly if he’d […]

October 27, 2022

Zen (DOG EAR)

he wife and I are attending a Zen workshop held at Joybird Books, a small local bookstore. I used to read about Zen forty years ago and make efforts to meditate. I don’t know if it helped, but maybe it rounded out my bookish intelligence. Did Zen open up my worldview, or did my opening worldview include Zen? Can’t tell you. So after three classes, I’m struggling with meditation, trying to quiet my churning brain. It’s actually quite hard to sit still for twenty-five minutes and clear my thoughts. But on a walk today, I got to thinking (always am). […]