The Vent and Rant Thread

[wodin]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Do you know for a fact it's a medicinal effect.

Strokes can leave a similar effect - including mini-strokes (Transient Ischemic Attack). Following a minor stroke, I was left with a problem with a specific group of words - aggravate, arrogate, exaggerate, aggregate etc. I know the word I want - e.g 'arrogate', but I will say, write or type another word - e.g. 'exaggerate' or 'gravitate'. A couple of neurologists have told me it's not an uncommon residual effect of strokes.

BR

My mother used to do that with her kid's names. She'd start with the oldest (me) and count down to the youngest, or she'd run the reverse course and start with the youngest and finally get to me. My only sister died in infancy from a birth defect, so at least she didn't have to cross gender lines.

I used to think my name was Wodin, Ted, David; or David, Ted, Wodin. Ted was lucky, he was always second to be named.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Hitch

T...
(I just triple-checked that to make sure I didn't mean proscription...this is killng me!)
...Hitch

I'd have though(sic) it was prediction.

[Rumpelteazer]

Going into the third week of will-I-get-a-cold-or-not?

It's getting annoying. There are days that I feel fine, days that I feel under the weather, morning or evenings that feel like the cold has taken hold.

I almost wish I would get a cold and get it over with.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by trichobezoar

i feel for you, Hitch. i took Prozac several years ago and it affected my short-term memory, my ability to think clearly, my ability to speak... i quit cold turkey one day after reading Potatoes Not Prozac. the effects were horrifying. i loved words, as well, back then.

it's taken years to get to where i'm at now. i try to stay as positive as possible now; when i'm in pain (psychologically or physically), i say loudly, "Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." i say it throughout the day and it helps me feel a little better; my attitude improves a bit. 'hope that helps.

i apologize for being rude way back when (about a year ago). i was in a lot of psychological pain and i couldn't see clearly--what you were trying to say--until i reread my posts. for a time, i was an emotional pain body and very inconsiderate; i apologize for my hurtful words.

i wish you the best.

Trich:

I promise you, already forgotten and forgiven. ;-)

Hitch

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Trich:

I promise you, already forgotten and forgiven. ;-)

Hitch

In my experience, if something is forgotten (happens to me frequently) forgiveness becomes redundant.

[Hitch]

I do feel that I should add that my docs joke with me that lots of things might kill me, but a stroke isn't one of them--I have quite low blood pressure.

(Mr. Hitch might have muttered something rude like, I'm just a carrier of HBP...)

FWIW.

Hitch

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by cromag

I was sitting in the living room, minding my own business, when I heard an odd sound. Apparently, the storm window in our rear storm door decided it had enough and spontaneously destroyed itself. The glass was shattered, but the pane was intact ... until I opened the inside door and all the pieces collapsed onto the floor like thousands of glass jigsaw puzzle pieces.

So, I've been sweeping, indoors and out. I'm taking a break right now, but I'll go back over it with a shop-vac to make sure I've gotten all the little pieces.

Nothing hit it -- I suspect that 40 to 50 years of stress just finally got to be too much.

We had that happen in the middle of the night a few years ago.

BANG!

Alarm starts going off, we wake up in a panic. Police were called, K9 taken through our back yard. Etc.

In the end it turned out that the glass just gave up. The exterior pane of our slider just blew up with enough energy to knock the magnetic alarm sensor completely off the door. We found it on the floor inside the house. There were no rocks or any signs that someone had been in the yard even the particularly sensitive motion lights were off still.

[Hemmi]

In my family, there's just me and my brother. Despite having one child of each gender, Mom still confuses our names and always has. I blame her since she named us and both of our names start with the same letter.

[Uncle Robin]

Not exactly a vent, and mild as rants go, but it was disappointing that a thread I started simply to express my satisfaction with Calibre 4 was hijacked by criticisms of it. Criticisms which had already been aired in several other threads. Worse yet was the utterly specious excuse that posting said criticisms in a "praise" thread was necessary because future readers might not otherwise know of the issues involved. Apparently ONE thread containing only praise and thanks might somehow magically render invisible the dozen or more threads started by those unhappy with various aspects of the new version. Who knew my words had such fearsome power?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Clearly, shoot yourself to put yourself out of your own misery. (Really, we know it's always autocorrect at fault. )

Human autocorrect tends to come in proofreading.

You're trying to to proof your own work. It has typos, but your mind knows what it's supposed to say, and what you see is the correct version, not what's on the page. (This bites software developers reviewing code, too. Your code won't compile, you are tearing out your hair trying to figure out why, and an associate looks for 30 seconds and says "You left out a statement terminator, here..." )

Spell checkers and the like help but do not eliminate the problem, especially in edge cases. Late SF/F writer John Brunner told a story about a book of his. It was in the days when manuscripts were still submitted as hard copy. He had usages in the book that were deliberate, and he knew a copy editor would try to "correct". So he printed the submission draft in proper form with wide margins and double spacing, and went through it and carefully circled all of the instances and wrote STET! in the margin before sending it off.

He got the galley proofs to review and sure enough, every instance had been "corrected". We were left concluding that a professional copy editor at the publisher didn't know what STET meant.
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Human autocorrect tends to come in proofreading.

You're trying to to proof your own work. It has typos, but your mind knows what it's supposed to say, and what you see is the correct version, not what's on the page. (This bites software developers reviewing code, too. Your code won't compile, you are tearing out your hair trying to figure out why, and an associate looks for 30 seconds and says "You left out a statement terminator, here..." )

Spell checkers and the like help but do not eliminate the problem, especially in edge cases. Late SF/F writer John Brunner told a story about a book of his. It was in the days when manuscripts were still submitted as hard copy. He had usages in the book that were deliberate, and he knew a copy editor would try to "correct". So he printed the submission draft in proper form with wide margins and double spacing, and went through it and carefully circled all of the instances and wrote STET! in the margin before sending it off.

He got the galley proofs to review and sure enough, every instance had been "corrected". We were left concluding that a professional copy editor at the publisher didn't know what STET meant.
______
Dennis

I've seen something similar. Nothing like getting "stet!" back, and realizing that whoever was viewing it, at the other end, had NO IDEA what you were talking about. Boggling.

(sigh).

Hitch

[Dazrin]

I may have posted this before but for proofreading (especially my own stuff) it is still my go-to:

Charlie’s Rule of Technical Reading

It doesn’t say what you think it says, nor what you remember it to have said, nor what you were told that it says, and certainly not what you want it to say, and if by chance you are its author, it doesn’t say what you intended it to say. Then what does it say? It says what it says. So if you want to know what it says, stop trying to remember what it says, and don’t ask anyone else. Go back and read it, and pay attention as though you were reading it for the first time.

[DiapDealer]

Yes. May I see your pumpkin-spice-intolerant menu, please?

[Hemmi]

Save me! Idiot coworker got engaged over the weekend. Of course, we're all expected to know this. I think I'm the only person not on Facebook. I must also be the only person that doesn't care too. I don't want to hear all the details although now I'm forced to since she has one volume. Loud.

Worst part? There's no date set yet. Yet I've already heard more than I care to about rings and dresses and whatever the heck else goes into all of this. All I can think of is how she's always talking about how in debt she is and this whole thing isn't going to help that at all.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Hemmi

Save me! Idiot coworker got engaged over the weekend. Of course, we're all expected to know this. I think I'm the only person not on Facebook. I must also be the only person that doesn't care too. I don't want to hear all the details although now I'm forced to since she has one volume. Loud.

Worst part? There's no date set yet. Yet I've already heard more than I care to about rings and dresses and whatever the heck else goes into all of this. All I can think of is how she's always talking about how in debt she is and this whole thing isn't going to help that at all.

Is she talking about the guy at all? Or only the dress & party? If she only wants the celebration, I worry how long the marriage will last. Sigh.

Sorry you have to listen to all this, ad nauseum.