Exceive

A couple of weeks ago, I had a booth at Western Days - a western-themed event at the fairgrounds. I was taking old-time photos - people would dress up in a selection of costumes from Kim’s Costumes, stand in front of a backdrop for a few shots, and then buy a print.

Over the course of the weekend, I heard some complaints that were interesting mostly because of who was complaining.

The Snake-Oil Salesman
There was a snake-oil salesman near me. Sold a salve that is supposed to cure any kind of pain. Warned me, repeatedly, that the guy in the booth next to him is a hustler, a sleaze, pushing a disreputable product. Sadly, the snake-oil salesman was right - even by snake-oil salesmen standards, a guy selling real estate timeshares via a free Carribean vacation giveaway is a sleaze.

The Assistant District Attorney
Kim’s Costumes provided the costume that a model wore for a magazine article about prostitution in 19th Century Milwaukee. So we had a copy of the magazine - it was the cover story - on the table. A couple was getting ready for a picture. Since the men’s costumes are simpler, the man was standing around waiting for his wife. Looked at the magazine article, and mentioned that there was a certain elegance back then that has been lost. Said that he’s an Assistant DA, and the prostitutes he has to prosecute are mostly drug addicts, and their services are entirely lacking in style. So here is this man of the law, complaining about the lack of style and elegance among modern whores. His wife, at this moment, was dressing up as a whore. She did it with style and elegance.

The picture turned out very well.

This is a rule I’ve learned as a tech writer. And it applies almost everywhere except in puzzles.

Think about the conclusion that you want the other person to reach, and state it directly. Don’t give them the information and make them draw the obvious conclusion. Sounds obvious, but so often people expect the listener to make a tiny jump of logic. And the listener often doesn’t do it.

Wrong: “Pressing the red button stops the machine.”
Right: “Press the red button to stop the machine.”
Even better: “To stop the machine, press the red button.”

I’ve written things both ways and when I used the wrong version, taken tech support calls along the lines of “how do I stop the machine?” Yes, there are people who don’t make the jump. No, they aren’t stupid, not all of them. They have other things on their minds. They have a job to do, and reading the manual isn’t the job. If I were writing a novel or an essay, I might include a thought-provoking item, a kind of puzzle, in order to bring the reader to a deeper understanding or just amuse the reader. In a manual, if I make my reader think I have screwed up. Writing without expecting the reader to think is harder than it sounds. Much harder.

Wrong: “I’d like the salt, please.”
Right: “Please pass the salt.”

In the first one, I’m informing you of my state of mind - desire for salt - and expecting you to make the tiny logical jump - I want you to pass the salt. In the second, I’m not expecting you to think. This example is no big deal - except that I’ve seen families get into fights that could have been prevented just that easily.

There are bigger examples. During the 2004 Presidential campaign, reversing tax cuts was a big issue for the Democrats. They expected the voters to understand that tax cuts for one group must be made up by tax increases on another, cuts in spending, or deficits. So the tax cuts are bad. Wrong. Tax cuts feel good. Tax cuts ARE good - the consequences may not be worth it but the cut itself is good. A tax cut is always a good thing. The tax cuts under discussion are part of a disasterous fiscal policy, and there is no way to include huge tax cuts in a responsible budget at this time. If I go home tonight and find a Ferrari in my driveway, a gift from my wife, the Ferrari is a fabulous wonderful thing - but I will not be happy, because of the financial consequences. Do I hate the Ferrari? Hell no. I hate the payments, the insurance, the maintainance. Love the car. What the Democrats were really against wasn’t the tax cuts, but the consequences of the tax cuts. They expected voters to think and make the tiny logical jump. They said they were against the tax cuts - are you against tax cuts? Do you like taxes? You think about it and you understand it’s a little more complicated than that, but some percentage isn’t going to think about it. Some percentage of the voters was entirely in agreement with the Democratic position and voted against them because the Democrats expected them to think and they didn’t. The exact same policy, described in terms of debt, of middle-class tax hikes (yep, those are in the works, in the form of reduced and eliminated deductions) of cut programs, might have made a difference.

Last night, I went to my daughter’s apartment for dinner.

Not a big dinner or anything, just a bowl of soup (chicken, from scratch, a little on the bland side but really pretty good) while picking up my grandson. But it was the first time one of my kids invited me to a dinner at their place. She has her own place now, enough of a place to have people over for dinner.

OK, not a major event in the history of the world, but it feels important to me.

Artists who call themselves weird or deviant or anything like that tend to be very conventional and create far too many dragons, unicorns, and manga-influenced vampires.

Still, this site has some well-done pieces on it. I like this serpent.

deviantART: Noc’lore Maquette by ~mirroreyesserval

I haven’t had cable since my Mother-in-law moved out a couple of years ago.

Three months ago, we bought a nice big TV. It doesn’t get the local stations at all with the coathanger antenna we used on the old TV. I tried the rabbit-ears from my bedroom (Mrs. 404 likes to watch reruns while she goes to sleep, I had to return them to the bedroom) so I know a decent set of rabbit-ears, which costs about $10, will make it work. And eventualy we will probably get a set, but it’s been 3 months and we just haven’t bothered yet. We use it for VHS/DVD and video games.

On Friday, the electric company decided to be picky about the finances and cease to provide me with their wares. God, it is ever pleasant. If there were a good alternative for the fridge, the washers, and the pilot light in the furnace, I’d seriously consider not getting reconnected. Mrs. 404 and the little 404s do not agree. We go back on-grid today.

The land-line phone has been gone for a few months now, and I don’t miss it.
The cell phone is plenty of connection.

I do have a cable modem. That is very nice. Not nice enough to warrant electricity in the house, but since the electricity is there anyway I’ll take it.

(I wrote this in reply to a Hullabaloo post about not watching cable news.)

The type of palm tree from the original Palm Sunday has been out of the picture for almost 2000 years.

Some seeds were found in Herod’s palace. One has sprouted.

Seed of extinct date palm sprouts after 2,000 years

Make a pot of noodles - preferably the flat ones, but whatever. Make it slightly al-dente, because it will be cooking more later. Drain it.

Add a can of tuna.

Add a can of Cream of Mushroom soup. Campbells is OK, but store brand or generic is more authentic.

Stir. Add some milk if it is too dry. Add another can of CoMS if it isn’t gloppy enough. Add a little more milk, because the noodles will absorb it.

Add a can of peas. Stir more. I often use frozen because I like frozen vegtables better than canned, but that’s not in keeping with the spirit of the thing.

Put it in a baking pan, one where the stuff ends up being 1-2 inches deep.

Take a bag of potato chips. Make a small hole for the air to escape, and squish the bag. Dump them over the other stuff.

Bake it. I bake it at 375 F, which is the temperature I always use if I don’t know the right one. I’ve been making stuff out of Sculpy lately and my ouvre has been even darker than my vision, so I picked up an oven thermometer (from the grocery store, where they cost about 1/4 what the same thing costs with a Sculpy brand label) and found my oven runs about 50 degrees hot. So my 375 degrees is probably 425 on your oven. Bake it until the chips are toasty looking, about 20 laps of a NASCAR race or most of a quarter of a Packers game if there aren’t a lot of time outs.

Why, yes, I actually did learn this one while living in my Mother-in-law’s tornado magnet. It has all the trailer cuisine elements: noodles, cream of mushroom soup, canned peas, tuna. And the potato chips send it right over the top.

Every beautiful property has the same address? I guess they do now!

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