Book ‘Em shipments brighten Pennsylvania inmates’ lives – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Book ‘Em shipments brighten Pennsylvania inmates’ lives – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Prisons aren’t just a place of incarceration and punishment. They are meant for rehabilitation as well. So, why shouldn’t inmates be able to receive books.

God bless the volunteers of Book ‘Em, an organization that provides books through the mail to Pennsylvania’s inmates.

Prisoners are low on society’s sympathy list, but their letters reveal the shared humanity of all people who love to read.

“After seven years in prison, I hardly ever get mail anymore,” wrote Jim from a prison that was not identified in his letter. “Then, out of the blue, I not only get mail but it’s books! In addition to that, they are great books. Well, there’s just no words to thank you. Keep up the compassionate and noble work.”

via Book ‘Em shipments brighten Pennsylvania inmates’ lives – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

How Metafilter Brought a Deceased Father’s Jokes Back to Life

How Metafilter Brought a Deceased Father’s Jokes Back to Life

What a wonderful story. I love how the community quickly banded together to help this grieving son.

Reading the article, my writer’s brain went crazy. First of all, the fact that the Dad had a text file with the name jokes.txt and it contained only the punchlines. Why? What did he have planned for this?

Then there is the last line of the article: “your dad inadvertently arranging for your friends to tell you jokes all day long on the day he dies”. What if the file contained something other than jokes? What would that story be?

Two weeks ago Daniel Drucker went to Metafilter with a request.

“My father passed away this morning,” he wrote. “I’m going through his file, and I came across JOKES.TXT … which contains only the punchlines.” Could the Metafilter hivemind work backward and supply the missing the jokes?

via How Metafilter Brought a Deceased Father’s Jokes Back to Life – Rebecca J. Rosen – The Atlantic.

Writing Spaces

Writing Spaces

EBWhite

A photo of writer E. B. White’s writing space, via Terri Windling’s lovely blog. Care to see more wonderful writer’s spaces? Head on over to F.C. Malby’s blog post on writing spaces.

But let’s go back to the photograph. I could absolutely bang out a novel on a typewriter in a salty old boat house. Just wake up from a quiet night’s sleep, boil up a cup of tea, and set to work. No distractions. No INTERNET.

I could do this. Editing that novel using only a typewriter, now that is another adventure entirely.

How NOT To Wake Up In The Morning

How NOT To Wake Up In The Morning

About two weeks ago, I had a really rough time at my ice hockey game. It was 6:30 on a Saturday morning, and I was tired, and we were coming off a two week hiatus due to Penn State Spring Break (we have a lot of students in the league and therefore wouldn’t have much players while they are gone). Anyway, those are my excuses. It felt like I was wearing two left skates that game. I fell numerous times for no reason, which doesn’t happen to me anymore. I also took a pretty good check near the front of the net, which resulted in a penalty for the other team. By the end of the night, my back was wrecked.

And it was sore for the next week or so, sore in a way it never has been before. It was pretty rough, to be honest.

Last week, I was sick most of the week and so was my son (4 years old). We did a lot of laying around. That sucked, but it gave my back some time to heal. In fact, I would say by yesterday it was back to normal. And then this morning happened.

So, my son hasn’t been sleeping well because his nose is all stuffy and he can’t kick his fever. So every hour or so he’ll meander over to our room and ask for me. Always me. There’s no real reason why he wants me, I mean our daughter always asks for he mum. It’s just what they do. He asks for me, I place him in his bed, and once it seems he’s asleep, I go back to my room. So, the past few nights I’ve been waking every hour, just as I’m about to fall asleep. I might as well have a newborn.

This is how things went last night until around 5:30 AM, at which point I put the kid in the bed with us and then once I knew he was asleep I snuck to his room, hoping for what would in all honesty be a power nap. In the other room, my alarm was set for 6:45 AM so I could wake for work.

That hour of sleep was glorious. I settled into a nice, deep rest. I couldn’t tell you what I dreamt of, but I do know I was in a deep enough sleep to hit REM.

Then the alarm went off.

What happened next would make a great slapstick comedy scene in a Tim Allen movie. Exhausted, schlubby old Dad, rapidly flips over to switch off the alarm, only to send himself airborne, face-first to the floor. Dad lands on his face/left hand and tweaks his just-healed sore back. This will be HILARIOUS in the movie version. The real-life version isn’t as funny, although I appreciated the blog post material.

So yeah, sore and tired today. It could be worse, though. In the Tim Allen version, I’m sure the poor toolman would’ve landed on a toy on the floor and injured his wang.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Art

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Art

So, there is a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon on Nickelodeon. I checked it out a few nights ago with my kids, curious to see how well it is done. I’m happy to report it is done quite well, and in fact I don’t see any drop off from the cartoon from the 1990s.

Better than that, my daughter (6 years old) was so into it, that she has already created fan art, which I provide below.

tmntEmma

UPDATE

Here is the same pic, now with color!

tmntEmmaColor