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Green World? Or Just Mondegreen?

December 15, 2009 in General, Humor, Internet, Music by faltarego | 2 comments

I've been thinking a lot about mondegreens lately. It happens every few months or so. I get a few of them stuck in my head, and then I go off to Google to search for more.

Don't know what a mondegreen is? Well, friend, let me fill you in:

A mondegreen is a lyric or phrase that has been misheard. Misheard lyrics are the most prevalent examples, but I often derive great pleasure from realizing that I misheard something that someone said. It usually only takes a fraction of a second for my brain to correct the error, but in that fraction of a second… tremendous potential for hilarity. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hmmm… Now, That Strikes a Chord…

December 7, 2009 in Internet, Movies, Music, TV by faltarego | No comments

I've recently begun playing my guitar again. I can't play for long periods of time yet, because my chording hand is still rebuilding the calluses on its fingertips, but it feels good to get back to it. It's actually quite relaxing to strum or pick away at a familiar song or just noodle around with fingerings and rhythms.

While I'm no virtuoso, I can play a few songs reasonably well and entertain myself for a while. I have a few music books and pieces of sheet music, but I also find chords for popular songs on the internet. There's a wealth of resources out there for budding guitarists, and I've delved into quite a few of them.

Every once in a while, I'll be trying out a chord pattern or sequence, and it will remind me of something I've heard before. The other day, a couple of chords I played brought to mind the song "'39" by Queen. It's a great song with a lot of acoustic guitar in it, so of course I immediately set out to find the chords for it.

And find them I did. Read the rest of this entry »

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Catching the Wave (Google Wave, that is…)

November 25, 2009 in Blogging, Internet, Software, Technology, Writing by faltarego | 2 comments

(Don't skim. Read the whole post. There's a surprise later.)

Just over a month ago, my friend Asheyna sent me an invite to the preview of Google Wave. Since then, I've been going to the site nearly every day, playing with features, catching up on some of the public waves I'm following, and generally just checking things out.

First off, Google Wave is cool.

No doubt about it. It's like a discussion groups forum with document editing and formatting features and bit of instant messaging.

But it's much more than that. Read the rest of this entry »

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Badges? Yes, We Need… er… Badges…

November 23, 2009 in Blogging, Internet, Writing by faltarego | 1 comment

Just to show you how non-bloggy I've been the last month or so, and how fully immersed in NaNoWriMo, let me confess to you right here and right now that it's been so bad that I completely forgot to even mention the writing contest that I won earlier this month.

Well, this brief post is to remedy that. Read the rest of this entry »

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NaNoWriMo Day 1 – The Honeymoon Begins

November 1, 2009 in Blogging, Internet, Software, Writing by faltarego | 2 comments

Well, the games have begun. I've written my first chunk of NaNoWriMo text. I've set myself a goal of 2,000 words per day (which is higher than the suggested amount), and have managed to achieve slightly more than that on Day One. So… so far so good. I'm using the Write or Die website I mentioned in my last post, and I'm probably going to purchase the desktop version before the month is over. I know it will get me through the process.

I'm actually using Write or Die right now, and because I haven't seen or heard the "consequences" of pausing since my first experiment with the site, I decided to pause for a bit after I typed the first sentence of this post. Well, after the gradually intensifying red background, there came from my speakers such a horrible sound that there was no way I was going to listen to it for more than two seconds.

Yes, folks, Write or Die works. Read the rest of this entry »

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National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

October 21, 2009 in Internet, Software, Writing by faltarego | 1 comment

Well, I've gone and done it. I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo as it's affectionately known). I'm going to spend the month of November immersed in words. The object is to write over 1600 words a day in order to amass a thirty-day total of 50,000 words, the equivalent of a short novel.

I did something like this three years ago, when I purchased a book entitled No Plot? No Problem!, written by Chris Baty, the originator of NaNoWriMo. The book goes into great detail about how the thirty-day novel works and gives some excellent advice and suggestions. So, although I haven't "officially" done NaNoWriMo before now, I did write an "unofficial" thirty-day novel in the middle of the summer.

The damn thing still isn't finished, though. I wrote the requisite number of words, but I didn't finish the story. And there it sits. I've read through it a number of times in the past three years, and I really like most of it, but I haven't added anything new to it. I know where it's going, and I know some of the scenes I want to write, but I haven't written them yet.

This is typical of  me. I write a bunch of stuff, and then I let it sit unfinished for eons. Read the rest of this entry »

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Write or Die!

October 2, 2009 in Blogging, Internet, Writing by faltarego | 1 comment

I'm using another new, free writing tool to compose this entry. It's called Write or Die, and it's not a product that you download and install on your computer. It's a writing tool on a website. You just go to the site, tell it how many words you intend to write, how much time you're giving yourself to write them, and how strict the site should be as you type away.

But let me back up a bit, here. This is not a writing tool for the faint of heart. This is a tool for people who seriously want to get some wordage down. It's a nagging tool. It's the closest thing you'll find to a schoolmarm with granny-glasses standing behind you and whacking you with a pointer if you pause too long in your writing.

I'm using this site for the first time today (okay, it's actually the second time, but the first time, a couple of days ago, was a bust, because I was seriously interrupted and had to abort the whole process), so I don't yet know all the ins and outs, but this is basically what happens: Once you've entered your proposed word-count and the time you're allowing yourself (and optionally setting the level of strictness you want brought down upon you), you click the big "Write" button, and off you go! You're taken to a page with nothing on it but a big text-entry field with a countdown timer and a word count at the bottom. Read the rest of this entry »

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