Snap.
Have you ever been bearing down for a big crap so hard the vertebrae in your lower back pop?
Change of plans!
I’m now going to be writing over at Dusty Bits.
Nice garage but..
If they could just get all that junk out of there.
Icelanders are NOT terrorists
Icelanders are not terrorists. Here is a picture of one of the non-terrorists.
Literary Rules
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat)
Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
Be more or less specific.
Remarks in brackets (however relevant) are (usually) (but not always) unnecessary.
Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
No sentence fragments.
Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
One should NEVER generalize.
Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
Don’t use no double negatives.
Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be ignored.
Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
Kill all exclamation points!!!
Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
Puns are for children, not groan readers.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
swiped from misscellania.com
It has plants!
Okay so I got a little ahead of myself. I loaded up the aquarium with water, plopped in some plants and some starter fish. They all seem quite happy! I have more plants coming this Friday and hopefully the bacterial bloom will clear in another week or so and the water will clear up. It makes sitting at my desk so much more pleasant 
Photo is from a web cam, not great quality.
Okay it’s a little big.
I haven’t had a fish tank in well over a decade. I’m amazed at all of the new fun toys one can buy from aquariums to zebra fish. As part of reorganizing our office I decided to jump back into the freshwater fish tank fun. I’ve had several different sizes of takes over the years, and discovered long ago that larger tanks rae actually easier to care for once you set them up.
In reading about setting up a ‘modern’ fish tank I’m surprised to learn out about fishless tank cycling. The general idea is to add straight ammonia (with no surfactants!) to an empty fish tank that is setup and running as if it had fish. Monitor the ammonia levels over a period of time until nitrites are produced, and eventually nitrates are produced. The idea being to produce a good colony of bacteria capable of consuming the ammonia and nitrites to produce less harmful nitrates. Occasional water changes helps to remove the nitrates. The whole process takes at least a month unfortutnately, but no fish will die during the process (which seems to be the normal course for new tanks I’ve had in the past.)
So here is the beauty. Still empty and sitting in the garage awaiting a few more pieces.
Paris Hilton responds to McCain ad. p0wned
Lantana ~ The Crazy Plant
I’ve commented on this before, but thought I’d post a new photo of the plant I ignore. These lantana were planted last year. We’d originally tried to grow a garden in the spot but it faces south and the fence is on the east side. It basically becomes an oven in summer. I do not water the lantana either. I have no idea how it does so well. They are over 6′ tall now and at least as wide.
