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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of May 28, 2015

Petrarch was an influential 14th-century Italian poet whose main work was Song Book. It's a collection of 366 poems, most of which are dedicated to Laura, the woman he loved. For 40 years he churned out testaments of longing and appreciation for her, despite the fact that he and she never spent time together. She was married to another man, and was wrapped up in raising her eleven children. Should we judge Petrarch harshly for choosing a muse who was so unavailable? I don't. Muse-choosing is a mysterious and sacred process that transcends logic. I'm bringing the subject to your attention because you're entering a new phase in your relationship with muses. It's either time to choose a new one (or two?) or else adjust your bonds with your current muses.

My morale has been very low lately, and I have to apologize to the human race that I've been very poor company to keep.  I'm mulling over re-configuring Chillin' Out for a possible Kindle Store, and other news in my life has me trying to figure out the usual depression and demoralization from outright self-loathing and anger.  I don't know what would make me feel better.

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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of April 9, 2015

The English term "engine" refers primarily to a machine that transforms energy into mechanical power. But its roots are in the Old French word engin, which meant skill or wit, and in the Latin word ingenium, defined as "inborn talent." I'd like to borrow the original meanings to devise your horoscope this week. According to my reading of the astrological omens, your "engine" is unusually strong right now, which means that your cultivated skills and innate talents are functioning at peak levels. I suggest you make intensive use of them to produce maximum amounts of energy and gather more of the clout you'd love to wield.

I do want to start writing again.  I just hope I have some good opportunities.

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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of January 22, 2015


Italian composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) didn't like to work hard, and yet he was also prolific. In fact, his desire to avoid strenuous exertion was an important factor in his abundant output. He got things done fast. His most famous opera, The Barber of Seville, took him just 13 days to finish. Another trick he relied on to reduce his workload was plagiarizing himself. He sometimes recycled passages from his earlier works for use in new compositions. Feeling good was another key element in his approach to discipline. If given a choice, he would tap into his creative energy while lounging in bed or hanging out with his buddies. In the coming weeks, Sagittarius, I recommend you consider strategies like his.

"Looney Tunes", huh?  Maybe I ought to find some cartoons to watch.

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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of November 6, 2014

P. G. Wodehouse wrote more than 90 books, as well as numerous plays, musical comedies, and film scripts. When he died at age 93, he was working on another novel. He did not suffer from writer's block. And yet his process was far from effortless. He rarely churned out perfection on his first attempt. "I have never written a novel," he testified, "without doing 40,000 words or more and finding they were all wrong and going back and starting again." The way I see your immediate future, Sagittarius, is that you will be creating your own version of those 40,000 wrong words. And that's OK. It's not a problem. You can't get to the really good stuff without slogging through this practice run.

I didn't even think about NaNoWriMo this time around.  But my problem is that my long spans of quietude aren't long enough for actual work.  They come to crashing halts when the furnace fires up.

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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of February 20, 2013

The Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Eighth Symphony in a mere two months during the summer of 1943. He worked on it in an old henhouse on a former chicken farm. The location helped relax him, allowing him to work with extra intensity. I wish you could find a retreat like that for yourself sometime soon, Sagittarius. I think you would benefit from going off by yourself to a sanctuary and having some nice long talks with your ancestors, the spirits of nature, and your deepest self. If that's not practical right now, what would be the next best thing you could do?

Some would say that Rather Manor is a good place to start if you want a creative retreat.  But I have found over the years that we tend to bring in a lot of our own noise without realizing it.  So I don't know what the answer is here.

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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of October 24, 2013

"If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark." That helpful advice appears in Norwegian Wood, a novel by Haruki Murakami. Now I'm passing it on to you, just in time for your cruise through the deepest, darkest phase of your cycle. When you first arrive, you may feel blind and dumb. Your surroundings might seem impenetrable and your next move unfathomable. But don't worry. Refrain from drawing any conclusions whatsoever. Cultivate an empty mind and an innocent heart. Sooner or later, you will be able to gather the clues you need to take wise action.


"...We're gonna make our own lightning!"--Neil Diamond
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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of May 30, 2013

"I'd rather not sing than sing quiet," said the vivacious chanteuse Janis Joplin. Her attitude reminds me a little of Salvador Dali's. He said, "It is never difficult to paint. It is either easy or impossible." I suspect you Sagittarians may soon be in either-or states like those. You will want to give everything you've got, or else nothing at all. You will either be in the zone, flowing along in a smooth and natural groove, or else totally stuck. Luckily, I suspect that giving it all and being in the zone will predominate.


Really, if your amps don't have sufficient juice there isn't any point in cranking them to Eleven.
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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of March 21, 2013

On the one hand, menopausal women are no longer able to bear children. On the other hand, they often overflow with fresh possibilities and creative ideas. More time is available to them because their children have moved out of the house or don't require as much care. They can begin new careers, focus on their own development, and devote more attention to their personal needs. So in one way their fertility dries up; in another way it may awaken and expand. I suspect that whether or not you are menopausal, you are on the cusp of a comparable shift in your fecundity: one door closing, another door swinging open.


I certainly hope another door is swinging open. I had a dream overnight in which I needed something from my room...and new managers had taken over the building in which I lived and gave me a rough time about letting me into my room or letting me at my own belongings. The people you think are in charge of your life pretty soon won't be--and the next regime won't fall over itself to help you.
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I've decided to re-serial post Chillin' Out on DeviantArt, and set it to some of the Creative Commons permissions.

Maybe this will goad me into finishing it.

Recycling

Aug. 18th, 2012 12:22 am
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My sister visited overday, and we gave her more of Mum's stuff and I helped replace the windshield wipers on her car.

I'm playing around with the paper model files again. I wonder about the hobby possibilities of poster printer hardware. Who can I ask about that?
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I bought more Race Day packs today and it closed up much of my collection's gaps. At least the ones in the "old" set, anyway. The "new" set packs are cheaper and two of the drivers I still want are commons so I'm pretty much assured that I'll get them eventually if I keep buying packs. I'm already hitting the Law of Diminishing Returns, tho'; three of the eight cards I got today were duplicates, so if the averages keep going as seen, I'll have a load of them if I buy too many packs.

I don't so much want to complete the set as to have the overwhelming majority of the available drivers, but with a minimum of duplicates.

Meanwhile, I have to buy new ink for my printer as we need to have a lot of documents copied and run off in the near future. My unit takes two different sizes of ink cartridges (black and tri-color each), and while our favorite office supply store markets their own cartridges that are cheaper than the original manufacturers', they don't have the larger black one in their stocks. But they might have two-for-one packs of the smaller black ones.

The art of this bargain is to decide which combination of cartridges is more economic for our uses. Which means I won't just have to bring product numbers and a coupon...I'll need my calculator.
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For the last while I've been attempting to port CRIMSON SKIES planes into AXIS AND ALLIES: AIR FORCE MINIATURES rules for no good reason.
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Come on now,
Who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha, bless your soul
You really think you're in control?
--Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy"
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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of March 1, 2012

There are times in your life when you do a lot of exploring in the outer world, and other times when your pioneering probes are directed primarily inward. In my astrological opinion, you're currently more suited for the latter kind of research. If you agree with me, here's one tack you might want to take: Take an inventory of all your inner voices, noticing both the content of what they say and the tone with which they say it. Some of them may be chatty and others shy; some blaring and others seductive; some nagging and needy and others calm and insightful. Welcome all the voices in your head into the spotlight of your alert attention. Ask them to step forward and reveal their agendas.


This sounds like the proverbial task of herding cats. In theory, the characters in the stories that I tell myself when I go to sleep, and sometimes construct into written fiction--those are my inner voices. And in theory, I have whole planets of microsouls there. How can I count them all? Should I even try, if it looks like the effort would never end and drive me mad?
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A while ago here I voiced my desires to make a race car-based horror movie. Paul liked my initial premise, but thought it too expensive to pull off, and wanted to do something else, which I still may participate in if I get all the resources together.

Meanwhile, I'd come to the thought--on the racetrack smaller cars can easily, more safely, and less expensively handle the action. As some of the "track" will have to be rendered as miniature sets, that means that stunts and crashes can be done using miniatures, thus removing risk to players and stand-ins.

So I'm now thinking about using Legends and Baby Grand cars as the structural basis for the machines in the story/movie. There would be mockup cars for acting around that wouldn't have to be operational. Perhaps a truck-with-cockpit rig like as used in the Fast And The Furious movies for the actors to ride in and pretend to drive.

And since the Legends and Baby Grand cars use fiberglass bodies as designed, new bodies just for the movie can be designed and fabricated for these. Which means some room for artistic creativity.

I need more info. *Pokes around the Internet and ruminates...*
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Sagittarius Horoscope for week of May 26, 2011

In her irreverent platinum-selling song "Monster," Sagittarian rapper Nicki Minaj offers up a poetic sequence never before heard in the history of the planet: "Pull up in the monster . . . with a bad b-tch that came from Sri Lanka / yeah I'm in that Tonka, color of Willy Wonka." I hope that you will soon come up with an equally revolutionary innovation in your own chosen field, Sagittarius. All the cosmic forces will be conspiring in the coming weeks to help you to do the equivalent of rhyming "Tonka" and "Sri Lanka" with "Willy Wonka." Please cooperate!


The cosmic forces have some work cut out for them, I see.
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It depends on what they do as solo artists or in other bands. I know that doesn't seem to make sense, but it does make sense. You have to remember that I knew the Beatles first as individual artists, and that a great number of bands self-destructed "on my watch" (Fleetwood Mac, the Police, the Doobie Brothers, Led Zepplin and so on). Music is a personal artform, and if the group effort reaches you, then it's probably because someone in the band is doing something that is speaking to you--and they'll continue to speak to you so long as they create and you listen.
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A long time ago, when I traded in my unused copy of Battletech: 2nd Edition box set for the then-current Battletech Compendium, I'd taken the unpunched counter sheets to the photocopier on the campus du jour where I went to school. Still have those degraded copies, so I scanned them in last night and started to re-color them using my graphics programs. I'll probably go through all the set before I'm through. My hope is to somehow come upon a color scheme in which I can paint my multitude of miniatures.

Of course, my first thought was to use the heraldric colors of my family coat-of-arms, but those are black and gold, and the result would be like the mascot for NFL On FOX. Not particularly appealing, that.

So I'll post these graphics as I achieve them and see what kind of reaction I get.
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James Murphy On NPR's Fresh Air Today. No, I had no idea who he is before...tho' I had in fact heard a few of his songs.

He says some things (not in the text on the page now) that I find very applicable to my Uncool Kid project.

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Stephen R Bierce

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