Shutting Up Instead of Talking

According to Hersh, “songwriting is about shutting up instead of talking.” Hersh is Kristin Hersh, a songwriter. This quote reminds me of the old one about writing being easy, just slit your wrists and bleed over the paper, something like that. Possibly less dramatic and drastic sounding, but with the same meaning. In the end … Read more

How to Have a Happy Birthday When You’re Alone

Your birthday comes around once a year—every year—whether you like it or not. Don’t be in denial; be proud! Celebrate yourself. Age really is just a number; it’s all about how you feel! Choose to feel good, and if you’re celebrating alone, make it special. It’s your day, so do what you want! Celebrating Your … Read more

Why Force Drug Compliance on Everyone?

Vaxxinated or not, you can still get covid and spread it. Why do the vaxxinated believe in forcing this drug on everyone? Only because the media and government say so. If you have had the vaxxine and you believe you are safe, less at risk, etc., why does everyone else need it, especially if they … Read more

How to Catch Ghosts at Home

How do you explore your own home when you think you might have paranormal, ghostly activity? What really works to find ghosts and protect yourself from them, before or after they have been found? Do you have a ghost in your home, or are they just routine settling sort of noises? So much of the … Read more

Imitations in Words

Watching Museum Diaries early this morning on TVO and I noticed a word they used when talking about fakes and forgeries, pastiche. It is interesting how fakes have become their own genre. Antique fakes can be as interesting and historical as the real artifacts. Also, there is still the danger of being wrong and deciding an item … Read more

ODP .sig Code

E+F+D+++++XDN+++G++Q+++++L?A+++HW-O++BC-T++IS-Krg Saved for posterity. Most of the links don’t go very far. ODP .sig Code This little code originated in a forum thread back in late 2002. We have both an encoder (provided by jtaylorj) and a decoder (provided by ciaran)! The following explanatory blurb is ripped off from the geek code. Make the appropriate … Read more

From Fred, the Missing Strange Traveler

The following is cut and pasted from an abandoned site, on Tripod. I would have reposted more newsletters, but I only found two.

Welcome, to The STRANGE TRAVELER

Hi. I’m Fred, the Robin Leach of haunted castles, alien landing fields, mystical monoliths and really cool bars. You have just stumbled into the only travel Website on the Internet that takes a “Twilight Zone” approach to vacation planning.

This is how it works: First, dim the lights.

Stare deeply into your computer screen.

Then imagine you are in the black-and-white world of early 1960s television, sitting in a AAA travel office filled with happy brochures on Disneyland, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.

Suddenly, you realize that the terse, thin-lipped agent marking up your TripTik is actually Rod Serling, host of “The Twilight Zone” and one of modern society’s first supernatural tour guides.

In your head, you hear his clipped, dramatically inflected words offering guidance in your search for vacation ideas that don’t center on theme parks, relatives or all-inclusive resorts:

“You’re traveling through another dimension – a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead. Your next stop …Alton, Illinois.”

Or Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Or Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Paris, Roswell, Loch Ness, the Nazca Plain, Stonehenge, Area 51, The Queen Mary or that spooky old house everyone whispered about in the neighborhood you grew up in.

The Strange Traveler thinks vacations should be more than sunscreen and lengthy discussions about where to eat dinner. Your travel tales should make jaws drop around the office water cooler, and widen the eyes of fellow parents on the T-ball sidelines.

You see, the world is filled with Strange Travel possibilities: destinations reputed to be haunted, cursed, charmed, visited by aliens, inhabited by monsters, worshiped by strange cults, or infested by vampires, faeries and zombies. Some of these places are the doorways to true mysteries. Others are heavily hyped tourist traps. Most have overnight accommodations, lots of local color, and at least one decent bar.

That’s where The Strange Traveler comes in.

This Website and its newsletter are your tour guides to bizarre, out-of-the-way destinations. This e-zine both guides readers to strange places they can visit, and advises them of the supernatural undercurrents flowing beneath traditional getaways.

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Content Shock

Let’s fast forward one more time to 2014 and look at the two factors that impact the economics of content marketing — the amount of content available and the amount of content consumed (supply and demand). Of course the volume of free content is exploding at a ridiculous rate. Depending on what study you read, … Read more