Moving blog

No, this is not about touching your heart or making your seethe with emotion. The Slo-Man has finally decided to relocate his blog to make administration easier.

Know all men and women then; those who read, those who skim and those who ignore; that these musings will soon be available at a new address.

So while, dear reader, you wait for this blog, which most find confusing, (what is he talking about?) and / or hard to read (is he able to use less words and shorter sentences? - the correct answer is "no") to move to it's new home ponder on this:

as blogs reach full maturity, are publishing houses keeping up? Are they remodelling their businesses to keep pace with the declining trend in paper based books? Marketing blogs and other online content is not quite the same as marketing a book.

The Slo-Man had an unfinished, or more accurately, un-started, article positing that all occupations eventually face obsolescence and fade away. Maybe he will work on that and make that the first post on the blog's new home.

Till then - find something else to read or ignore.

about the state of affairs

‘Twas a rainy day and Monday and the Slo-man realized that it would lead eventually to Sunday morning, coming down and joining together with the band. Sadly there are really seven days in the week not eight for all that he wants to say. The Slo-Man has much time to reflect these days and enforced long drives with the LLBF in recent days have given him much food for thought.

For example, did Jimmy remain a quitter? And is Joey still married to the same woman? Does Mary still haunt the wind? How many grandchildren would Peggy Sue have? How long and how tall was Sally, really? Is the lady still sure? Are Billy Joe and Bobby Sue still on the lam? Speaking of Bobby, has she found the home she was looking for? And has Annie take a load off, yet? How weird were the scenes inside the gold mine and did Amphetamine Annie have something to do with that happening?

What about Sir? He must be retired on his teacher’s pension by now, surely? Is the queen still getting high on Moet and Chandon? How about Angie – did she find someone nice and settle down? Would Melissa and Jessica have looked each other up and would they be meeting regularly now? Are Ramona’s eyes still watery? Is Tommy playing a PS3 now by intuition? Did he ever manage to get a case for his Gibson and an even tanned look on his face?

What is Pam wearing now that polythene is so passé? Surely, Pressed Rat’s red jumper must be quite the worse for wear and the Warthog’s striped tie must be splotchy by now.

Boris, we know, came to a sticky end, the Crazy Diamond shines on forever, Andy has moved to the moon, but what news do we have of Lily and the Jack of Hearts? Was that Panama Red jumping like a Willy’s in four-wheel drive into the two suns in the sunset? Is Pearl still a woman left lonely and is the LA woman still riding with cops in cars on the street with the topless bars?

Wouldn’t scarlet begonias lining a yellow brick road be a wonderful sight? Would it be an upwardly mobile freeway or would it lead to the Silver Tongued Devil? Would it be better to lay down, lay down on the cold steel rail? Do we stand on the eve of destruction? Surely there must be some kind of way out of here – where are Abraham, Martin and John? Would they have been useful or would the idiot wind have blown the answers away? Should we care more about the tanks that roll down the dry and dusty road or the fact that it cannot be much fun for those beneath the rising sun with the purple berries no longer safe even as the silver people on the shoreline work tirelessly? We can call up volunteers, but will the White Rabbit, sitting in his white room with black curtains, be able to call up a new morning?

Is this the end, my friend, of laughter and soft lies? The blue bus with the 99 balloons attached to the roof awaits, but where is the driver taking us?

The Slo-Man acknowledges his debt to a fearless legion of poets, dreamers who once were young in a planet gone crazy. In a world that mirrors that era of nuclear fears and civil wars that threaten to spiral into a global conflict, comes the word - “Friday”.

If ever guitars needed to gently weep, the time is now.

For those looking for a challenge or those who would rather spend time on trivial pursuits instead of that urgent task there are 57 references to Pop/Rock songs in the passage above – to gain full marks readers must list band and song in the correct order. If you choose to provide album names as well, you will just be showing off. 

Answers will be posted a week from now.

The Obsolescence of phrases and the "t-Shirt bra"

The English language evolves continuously, words change their meanings almost from generation to generation. “Sick” used to mean unwell, ill, under the weather. For anyone over the age of 20 it still does. Somewhere, somehow, subtly sentences sustained a serious setback in their construction.

Parsing, clause analyses and the parts of speech are no longer taught as grammar and spelling have taken a backseat to the immediacy and intimacy of the internet. Parsing as a term alone remains as a term understood now by some computer programmers, a term that was replaced by software developer and software engineers. A modern generation of young students would, the Slo-Man expects, be hard-pressed to explain the difference between a gerund and a present participle and who, in a support of “free expression”, never have been enjoined to not split the infinitive.

These are examples of changed meanings or lost meanings, but the Slo-man is concerned here about terms that are no longer generally applicable or commonly usable, phrases that are obsolete because the situations or conditions they describe are no longer extant.

All this was brought to the attention of the Slo-Man by the LLBF, who was visiting after a recent trip to the shopping mall, in itself a concept less than 100 years old. On a cool late summer day in his adoptive city, reminiscent of the advent of the festival season of his far away foster city, waves of nostalgia washed over the LLBF. On such a day as this, the LLBF was wont to remark gently “Ahh, my dear, a nipple in the air, eh?”.

And that brought the Slo-Man memories of an age past and left him lamenting the lapsing of lace lingerie and yet another phrase.

where do streets get their names?

He can see no Deer on Deer Run or any vista on Vista Drive. And when is it a Street as opposed to a Drive or an Avenue?

And why do streets change their names on opposing sides of the cross street?

What manner of person serves on such a committee? Is there competition to serve on such committees? Are there people clamouring for the privilege?

Don't you get the Slo-Man wrong; he only wanna know....

Why it's been so long

and can think of many reasons. A lot has happened in the past few months, most of it harrowing or upsetting.

Now, however, the Slo-Man is determined to spend more time with his computer and blog. For the Slo-Man loves to write ( and read, but that's another blog.... ).

When did June become so fraught?

June 2007 and now June 2008 has been fraught with health issues. It used to be a month to look forward to - the advent of summer, the grass the Slo-Man has been trying to grow (have tried everything but Rogaine), days out playing golf or the other game.....

Why can't we find a slick wireless config tool??

Well why??

Windows XP and Linux - neither is blameless. They leave you feeling like something magical happened when the system finally recognises the router.........

Amazing, that with all the advances this is still such a hit or miss affair.

Dress Shoes

Why are dress shoes called dress shoes? Should they be called dress-up shoes instead?

This after a fire-drill that had me walking down 17 floors..