Another Opinion

Thomas Jefferson: "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."

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Daffy Traffic

For those of you daffy enough to wonder about it, this is the address of the site I've been playing with to see what's what in Beta. You can't tell that much, I guess, though I'm sure you can plainly see how far afield and in the dumpster it is. Far from my preferences! I started with an exact copy of the TRS template, then "customized" it a little. I'm still discovering things by hit or miss! I put an intro and one post and one comment on it. My main goal was to at least get it to where the various text is readable to an old guy like me. It may look terrible to those of you out there, so take a look if you like.

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Smoke

Until such time as they force me to "customize" TRS, I won't do it. Maybe I'll go forward with MFBQ in Beta, though the how-to posts there will still not be about Beta! This is all as clear as mud. Or smoke.

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Save The Life Of My Child!

I'm confused. Though I've "gone" to Beta, I think I'm stuck in some halfway nether world. In order to "customize", you seem to have to "upgrade" your template to one of Blogger's boring current ones. If I do that, I'll lose all the hundreds of hours I spent in customizing this blog! I started out with a much older blog template, but it's no longer normal, since I've made many changes and Blogger has also made changes in the template styles it provides.

I hope I'm missing something, but it appears to me that I have to throw away a great deal of past effort before one can begin to utilize all the new Beta features. This will require even more effort if one is to end up with a template that even looks interesting, much less looks like my old template.

Maybe it's possible to do some things that I haven't understood or found yet. I hope so. I made this change because I was bored and because it was ultimately unavoidable. The change was coming within a couple of months and would at some point have been forced on us. Maybe I'll have to give up this old style of extreme decorations in the end. I'm not eager to do so, however.

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Pushed The Button!

Wow. I pushed the Beta button about 3 minutes ago and it translated all my blogs in quick time! I have fallen into the next world, for good or bad. I haven't had time to figure out what might be askew, but it looks like nothing is wrong at the moment! Everything looks normal. I'm astonished. It probably won't do simple stuff like tie my shoelaces, though.

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Voodoo Intuitions

True evil always discerns what you care for —
more quickly than love, it knows what you dare for.

True love is impulsive, implosive, impendent;
intuitive and perplexing and repentant —
yet never more knowing or caring
(never more reckless or careless)
than evil's discerning eye.

What judgment can be made?
In what book is the judgment made?
We see the light pass clearly through the glass,
yet still the pages fade.
See how the pages turn?

The words appear and disappear
and reappear in smoke —
but what does the message mean
when the final word's a joke?

True chaos always knows its master;
time is reframed by time
and sex is infested with sex —
now as your heart beats faster,
everything simple grows slowly complex.

Through the long dormant season
everyone’s sullen and silent:
the right, and the wrong, and the dead;
men who must only listen
care nothing for what is said.

See what the words have wreaked? Our souls
are not passions to be carelessly piqued,
nor iron in the fire to be easily wrought;
we are intemperate, yes, yet steel,
no matter what pleasures we've sought.

[Oh see that girl with the red dress on,
She know how to shake it, just for me!]

Love comes by surprise, by unreason,
by unfeasible touch in a hot, dry season —
so cool, cool to the touch,
the touch of unpressable flesh pressed,
the rise of unraisable hope risen.

True love is impulsive, implosive, impendent;
intuitive and perplexing and repentant —
yet never more knowing or caring
(always more knowing and caring)
than evil's discerning eye.

rcs.
6th draft: 04/22/05

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Above poem is recycled (reprinted), but I don't care; do you? If so, skedaddle, no one's holding you here!

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Be Sure

James Russell Lowell: "Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people."

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Roy Rogers Wouldn't Have Liked It Here

What? Are there no complaints or remarks that I changed the Description below the blog title? I can't believe it. I thought you rapacious guys and shapely lasses monitored my every move and mood! Is it possible that you had something better to do? I hope you weren't having sex with your cat.

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Appropriate To The Moment

Alexandre Dumas: "Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest."

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Purpose

Quentin Crisp: "The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us."

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