Really Good Quotes

Bawana!
[Thanks Sied]

A missionary visited a small village in a remote jungle and began preaching the gospel. “Jesus saves!” exclaimed the missionary.

“Bawana!” shouted the natives.

“Ye must be baptized!” exclaimed the missionary.

“Bawana!” shouted the natives.

“Donate tithes and offerings!” exclaimed the missionary.

“Bawana!” shouted the natives.

Having had such a successful time, the missionary inquired of the chief as to how he could go to the next village, to share the gospel with them too.

The chief replied, “You go down road one thousand paces, you turn right, climb over wall made of rocks, go across plain. Many bulls in plain. Bulls harmless, but be careful not step in the bawana.”

Goal For The New Year

Kirsten hurt her back.  Hopefully she’ll be back soon.  Here’s an archive article.

Email Kirsten

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?"
~ Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland ~

I sometimes think that in order to write a successful childrens’ book or TV show, you have to be high on crack. I mean, think about it. Bob the Builder talks to machines that have faces and talk back. Dr. Seuss goes on about wockets and wigzigs and narpets under the carpet and cats wearing inexplicably large hats. The poor man in Blues Clues is trapped in a psychodelic world of fake dogs and talking furniture. And don’t even get me started on Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. I have always been a fan of those two stories, but there’s no way Lewis Carroll was in a normal state when he wrote them. For your mind to come up with stuff like Jabberwockies and floating cats’ heads, there’s got to be a lot going on. Sober people in a normal state of mind don’t just suddenly think, "Hey, I’m gonna write about a girl that falls down a rabbit hole and holds a baby that suddenly turns into a pig and runs away".

Alice in Wonderland is so weird that it has had an extremely odd disease named after it. The disease - Alice In Wonderland Syndrome - is a condition where perceptions are altered. The altered perceptions are mostly visual - in other words, the sufferer does not see the world as it actually is. The eyes themselves are structurally fine, and they do their part. But what is seen by the eyes somehow gets lost in translation, so the unfortunate person cannot accurately process what he or she has seen. Something in the wiring of the brain is wrong.

Typically, the victim starts getting confusing images as to what they look like. Suddenly their arms or legs look bigger or smaller. Their bodies look out of proportion. They may suddenly believe that they have grown abnormally long necks or big heads. For them, looking in a mirror might be akin to the rest of us looking in those whacky mirrors at funfairs that make you look all distorted. Objects and places in the victim’s world start to look all wrong too. A corridor might seem like it’s miles long; the St. Bernard next door might start to look like it’s the size of a hamster, and the family car could suddenly appear to be as big as one of those lorries that always cause accidents on major highways during rush hour.

While the misperceptions are usually visual in nature, other senses can be affected as well. A hardwood floor might feel soft and spongy; a radio playing softly could sound as loud as a rock concert; smells and tastes can be exaggerated or missing. Time perception can be affected as well, with time seeming to move disproportionately slowly or quickly.

As frightening as this condition sounds, it is actually more common than one might think. Thankfully, it is usually temporary. It can result from injuries, tumours or surgery to the brain, use of psychoactive drugs, and migraines. It is also associated with the initial stages of some illnesses. It is difficult to diagnose, and the disease is generally confirmed only when all possible physical causes of the symptoms have been ruled out. Treatment depends on the underlying cause. Sometimes the victim just has to wait it out and hope it goes away.

This is certainly not a condition I would want to be lumped with. It would make life very weird. Imagine having Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and then reading the book it’s named after. That could really mess a person up.

Kaleidoscopically yours,
Kirsten

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Miscellaneous Tips

Sausage patties rolled in flour before frying won’t crack open during cooking.

Re: Electronic Book Readers

Hello from London. I have followed RGQ for over 10 years but never commented. I’m not sure of the exact date but it was one of my first subscriptions through Yahoo when I lived in Missouri around ‘97-98. Thanks for letting me add my 2 cents.

Aside from selling the hardware, both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, offer the software for their products free for the iPhone and iPod touch(and probably other smart phones). I have installed both as well as Stanza and eReader to expand the free books available. I made these changes in August and have since bought a dozen or so books mostly through Amazon and downloaded a bunch of free ones. There are many free subscriptions to newspapers and magazines and a growing number of paid subscriptions coming up soon.

I am big on less is more. My one pocket sized gadget gives me all the functionality of a phone, Mp3 player, digital camera, Internet surfer, radio, email reader, TV, GPS and, last but not least, a book and newspaper reader. The only thing I haven’t been able to replace which used to accompany all those other things in my backpack is an umbrella.

The convenience of this can not be overstated. Any time I have a down minute I can do any number of things easily and effortlessly, I don’t even have to open a backpack and fish around for the gadget, it slips into a pants or jacket pocket without even causing a bulge. Sitting at a traffic light becomes much less infuriating, waiting for someone who is always late, or, for my fellow man types, during the bathroom visit. Any time becomes time to do pretty much what ever you want.

So having said all that…I am not a candidate for a Kindle because I don’t want more baggage. But I do very much like and use the reader.

The iPhone is not perfect, but with contrast, color of background, and text color and size it can be adjusted to personal taste. Pages turn with a finger swipe or tap. Moving around in books is easy by inputing page number, chapter or by searching. The software always remembers where you were last reading. The downside for the iPhone is the screen size, but it has never been an issue for me.

Thanks for providing a great venue. Cheers. LondonDan
[Thanks for the input Dan.  I hope we don’t have to wait another 10 years for a comment!]



Ah, the Kindle! My friend who is an author has two of them, the original and the DX. He loves them. The man writes all of his books on computer. He prints them out for me because I am his editor and I need paper copies to scribble on when editing, but he makes all his corrections on Kindle. He also uses the voice function of the DX to do one last read-through before publishing and has been amazed that it catches errors that both of us miss. It is a marvelous little thing and I want one — a lot! I have a rented storage unit full of boxes of books. Imagine how much rent money I could save if I had all my books on Kindle!

I should also let you know that my author friend has created something called Operation eBooks for service men and women who have Kindles and other readers like it. It provides free downloads of books for Kindle owners overseas and in service. It began in October when a serviceman who is a Kindle owner contacted my friend with problems getting downloads of my friend’s books. My friend provided the serviceman with free downloads of all 13 of his books and contacted some other authors who merrily jumped on the bandwagon. There are now more than 300 authors participating and multiple service folk recieving books, including those on a submarine. I think this is remarkable and laudable.

I had a problem sending this to you with the link provided at the end of the article. This is not the first time either. I copies and pasted your address into my gmail this time, so I hope you actually get this. - Peg
[Got it Peg.  Anyone else having problems with the links?]



I am not interested in the Kindle. Although I have read books online on my laptop, I really prefer to hold a book. There is just something about opening a new (as in I haven’t read it yet) book. The feel of the pages, the smell of the ink and paper, browsing for hours through library sales and second hand book stores, B and K. The only reason I can see to own a Kindle is environmentally it may make sense, but I will miss books. - Laura in Minneapolis



Though I love my computer and using the internet for everything else, nothing beats curling up with a good book–made from dead trees–I don’t think anything will ever replace the feeling you get when you open a book to start on a new adventure. Bonnie



I am seriously considering buying an e-reader, so I’ve been watching reviews of the different ones out there. Right now there are too many cons against the service on the Kindle to make one of those interesting. I have hopes for Sony’s reader or possibly the one from B. Dalton. My biggest gripe so far is the fact that many of them aren’t compatible with the free stuff you get on Gutenberg’s website or another one that I use which comes as pdf’s. I like the stuff I have from there and would like to have it in a more accessible format so as not to tie up our one computer when I want to read one of the books. Amazon also has a bad history of taking things back you’ve downloaded or even wiping out things in your downloads. Personally, once I pay for an e-book it’s mine as much as a physical book would be. Does our guru Tim have an e-pinion on this? - Ruth in WA



I’d consider getting an e-book reader if it was just getting too tedious reading them on a laptop. However, considering the pile of paper books awaiting my attention, I’ve not even begun to stockpile e-books. What I want is audiobooks, so I can do some of my routine chores without boredom. - Bob of the North



Re: Sleep

Alas sleep, no matter what time I go to bed, late or early, I wake up about 5:30 am. I may go back to sleep but … I usually get sleepy about 10 pm. I seem to sleep the deepest between 2 - 4 am. I always dream and remember most of my dreams. I can usually go to sleep in about five minutes or less. I have two dogs in bed with me, one under the covers on my right (an Irish Setter) another on my left who bodies up (a large collie). I slept hard and sound. The sleep of the innocent. Sometimes I will play music from a classical radio station in the background. Every now and then, my White Lab will join in and sleep at my feet. All in all, it is a very peaceful room in the basement of my home. My feather mattress is perfect and all is well in the world with my king sized bed (it needs to be larger). - BJ in Guthrie



Much of the time I too enjoy the early morning hours. However, there are times when I cannot sleep, and it is at those times, that I see a side of life that only those who have trouble sleeping see. I then enjoy the very quiet of it all, and I at those times of no sleep spend time on line, or in my in box. Either way, early morning rising, or late night staying up; I enjoy getting about 7 to 8 hours a night. Some of that sleeping time is done on the couch in front of the TV, but much of it is also done in the bed. Just depends on what type of night I’m having. - the Tazz!



I "need" about eight–but I only get about four hours at a time. Between an expensive bad mattress that we can’t afford to replace and some creaky arthritic bones that don’t work too well that’s all I can stand to spend in bed! Plus the fact that I’m a serious night person and I just don’t function well until about three o’clock in the afternoon!

I tend to go to bed as late as I can get away with, between two and four in the morning, get up and eat at six when the hubby was going to work and go back to bed for some more sleep for a few hours. Now that he’s laid off that isn’t working so well. He thinks he can keep the same schedule that I’ve spent years refining and it’s just messed his days up!! I’m going to have to break him of this soon. I definitely have to set the alarm to get up, thought it’s usually about fifteen or so minutes before the alarm goes off, so my day starts off so well! - Ruth in WA



I wish I could get more sleep. Unfortunately, my body clock seems to be set for little "naps". I go to bed around 10:00 p.m. and get up between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. I lay down in the afternoon between 3 and 5–sometimes I can nap and sometimes I just lay there and rest. I don’t usually feel tired or run down, but I do wish I were getting more sleep everyday. - Bonnie



Re: Quotes

"A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty."

You said this was Rudyard Kipling, but I think it was Sonia Sotomayor. - Bruce in Colorado Springs
[I did a Google search and it appears that most attribute this quote to Kipling.  When I added Sotomayor’s name to the search I got one hit, but I couldn’t find the quote on the page.  Maybe Sotomayor was quoting Kipling.]



"THE BUDGET SHOULD BE BALANCED, THE TREASURY SHOULD BE REFILLED, PUBLIC DEBT SHOULD BE REDUCED, THE ARROGANCE OF OFFICIALDOM SHOULD BE TEMPERED AND CONTROLLED, AND THE ASSISTANCE TO FOREIGN LANDS SHOULD BE CURTAILED LEST ROME BECOME BANKRUPT. PEOPLE MUST AGAIN LEARN TO WORK, INSTEAD OF LIVING ON PUBLIC ASSISTANCE". — CICERO, 55 BC
Bonnie