January 14th, 2010
Originally I planned to release First and Last and Always in time for the new year. I’ve been working on it, on and off, for about two years now, and I’m more than a little tired of having it on my plate for this long. At the moment it is pretty close to finished, but work is sapping a lot of my time and energy, and the home stretch is more difficult than I really care to admit.
Right now my goal is “by Valentine’s Day, even if I don’t sleep the whole weekend.” We’ll see how that goes.
In the meantime, I have been meaning to keep this site more active. I shouldn’t expect you to come back to the same page for six weeks running, and I feel badly about that. On the other hand, when I started this site, I made a very simple promise to you:
- No filler.
We will not post unless we have things to say. 1000 Gears should be interesting even if you have no idea who we actually are.
Primarily I was concerned with “What kind of X are you?” quiz-memes and similar minutiae that is only actually interesting to the person taking the test. It’s very easy to slip into a routine of posting for the sake of posting, and I like that even less than silence. So, stuck between these two urges, I have a question for you, as my readers. If I were to post, once a week, sharing a small handful of interesting bits I’ve discovered online, would you consider that to be “content” or “filler”?
October 15th, 2009
Doctors looking at the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey have discovered that millions of children are not getting enough sunshine. This is terrible! Sunshine is important to health, happiness, naptime, and all living things (except maybe chemotrophs, who don’t know what they’re missing). The article says that even fifteen or twenty minutes of sunshine a day is enough for health, so even in places like Seattle there should be plenty to go around.
We cannot even blame the economy, because sunshine is free!
This is a very large problem, in need of great consideration. I think it is too big for one small catboy to fix.
Still, that does not mean I cannot try, especially not if I can get some help from all of you. As an exercise in public health, I would like everyone to join me in a little bit of solar appreciation. The next time a day of sunshine comes to your area, please make for yourself a nice lunch. Of course this should be a lunch of healthy, nutritious food, but I think it is best to avoid “diet” food, because I would like this also to be an exercise in public happiness, and “diet” food is usually not very tasty.
Then, take this lunch outside, find a nice place to sit, and eat it. Bring your friends! Bring children if you have them, or just set a good example. Make sure that anyone you bring has made a lunch, too, or bring enough to share.
That is all, really. Take a small step in the right direction.
Always,
~Catboy
( The art is by Jandruff! )
September 20th, 2009
It is the last fiery gasp of summer 2009, and it is too hot to move. I am a child of the desert, of the dry Bakersfield heat, and ninety-five degrees is almost comfortable, but humidity makes me sweat; it makes me sticky; it makes me miserable. I throw my shirt across the room and sprawl in bed, over the covers. The fan beside my bed sweeps its meager breeze up my chest, across my face, and I close my eyes.
February 27th, 2009
Over at ErosBlog, Faustus has started a discussion about the way porn – Internet porn in particular – can influence children’s lives and development. I doubt there are any really easy answers. Children mature at vastly different rates, in vastly different ways. They encounter different kinds of porn and respond to different pressures.
Some of the commenters are taking the opportunity to share their experiences growing up, and the ways porn affected their lives (good and bad alike). I’d like to share my take on it, and I’d like to hear yours as well.
November 27th, 2008
As we sit down to eat today, on this great American day of feasting, I would like to take a moment to remember those who are hard-pressed to join us. Almost every week brings another round of corporate bankruptcies, and even the survivors are shedding jobs. Nearly three million jobs have disappeared in the past year, and more are sure to follow. Food banks are stretching to their limits, even though they do incredible things with their donated funds.
When the things we want are out of reach, we give thanks for the things we need.
Some people are struggling to have even that.
