Posted inHome life Writing/Weblogs

Big news in our 2025 Christmas letter: we’re alive!

Every year about this time, out of the depths of my unconscious rises, unbidden, a theme for our Christmas Letter, a.k.a. Holiday Greetings. This year it was being alive -- which used to be one of the purposes of sending Christmas cards in the not-so-ancient days before the internet and social media made it easy to tell who of your friends and acquaintances was still alive. I also talk about other things. Such as the bidet we got for the bathroom I use most frequently. Laurel, my wife, thought it seemed weird to mention something about my bathroom habits in…
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Posted inMiscellany Writing/Weblogs

“Sketched Out” is a great pictorial take on AI and art in the New York Times magazine

How is AI going to affect art? This important question is addressed creatively, thoughtfully, and, yes, artistically, by Christoph Niemann in a special recent issue of the New York Times Magazine, Learning to Live with AI. My wife subscribes to the Sunday New York Times, so I was able to see Niemann’s piece — a combination of sketches and words — in the print edition. Since I’m a subscriber to the digital New York Times, here’s a gift link to “Sketched Out” that should work for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. To whet your appetite for reading/viewing the piece, I’ll share…
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Posted inHome life Writing/Weblogs

Our 2024 Christmas letter is partly about saber-toothed tigers

Another year, another Christmas Letter. Or as we call it, our Holiday Greetings. Per usual, I wrote it. The key to doing that this time was an image that popped into my mind of animals going extinct. Which pretty much sums up how I look upon Christmas letters: a dying breed. Nonetheless, I'm still alive. And I enjoy writing the Holiday Greetings. Plus, because I've written a Christmas letter since 1995, as documented in my regularly updated Collected Christmas Letters post, I didn't feel like breaking that string this year. Here's the 2024 letter, in PDF and JPEG formats.Download 2024…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

I’ll accept the praise of my writing, even though it’s a bit over-the-top

I have to be honest. As much as I aspire to humility, in truth I really enjoy being praised. That was evident to me today when I read a comment on my Church of the Churchless blog by a regular reader of my posts, who calls himself Appreciative Reader. An apt name, since in the comment he praised my writing on the blog in a fashion that would have embarrassed me if I wasn't so much in agreement with this Noel Coward quote. I've shared the comment below. It means a lot to me, so I wanted to make it…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

“On the ground” is way over-used in the news

I'm writing this blog post on the ground here in my house in rural south Salem, Oregon. Does me saying "on the ground" add anything to that sentence?  No. Leaving it out takes nothing away that needs saying. "I'm writing this blog post here in my house in rural south Salem, Oregon" is completely accurate all by itself. I've noticed that on the ground is being used much more frequently in news shows. And mostly for no reason.  "We turn now to David Fleming reporting on the ground from Afghanistan" would only make sense if Fleming sometimes broadcast his segment while…
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Posted inHome life Writing/Weblogs

Blog blast from the 2005 Statesman Journal past

Tonight Laurel, my wife, found a clipping from the August 12, 2005 Statesman Journal. Wow, there I was in the "Got Blogs?" story by Angela Yeager, looking 16 years younger than I do now. Naturally my first thought was, I've got to write a blog post about how blogs were looked upon back in 2005.  Yeager did an excellent job at capturing the excitement of the Dawn of Blogging. Below you can read her entire story, which I was pleased to capture with my halfway decent touch typing skill. My second thought was, I wonder if Google still looks kindly…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

My Facebook ad isn’t spam. Stop calling me a spammer.

Oh, the horror, the shock, the outrageous nature of what my first Facebook ad has unleashed upon some Facebook users who have called me nasty names because their news feed included... I'd never paid for a Facebook ad, or boost, for one of my books until last Saturday. That was when I decided to fashion a Brian Hines, Author Facebook page. Once the page was live, I made posts for three of my books that featured links to the Amazon listing. Then I forked out $100 to Facebook to boost the post for Break Free of Dogma, with the intended…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

I’m loving JournoPortfolio. It’s a writer’s dream.

I'm a long-time writer. Yesterday I easily fashioned a JournoPortfolio site to showcase a selection of my blog posts, the three books I've authored, and a few of the videos and photo essays that I've created.  Below is a screenshot of the top of the home page. Click on "Behold!" to, not surprisingly, behold my JournoPortfolio masterpiece. Behold! JournoPortfolio is a unique Internet animal. It's sort of a cross-fertilization between a blog and a web site. I've been blogging since 2003, and I've used several web site builders, so I understand how difficult it is to find the right balance…
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Posted inSalem Writing/Weblogs

Geronimo Tagatac’s wild wonderful whimsical visions of Salem

A local man with a great name fashions some marvelous creative writing on his Facebook page. I love these vignettes by Geronimo Tagatac, a really interesting guy. This is the Salem I want to live in.  And the great thing is, I already am. It just takes eyes like Tagatac's to see it. Here's his most recent "Salem." offerings. Geronimo Tagatac Salem. A woman made of wet leaves rustles into the espresso house, turning and flashing orange, yellow, red, lemon, and pale green. She carries the smell of tropical rain and visions of soundless animal silhouettes sliding through damp spaces…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

My unfriendly advice for blog comment spammers

Hey, spammer dudes and dudettes, wherever you may be, which pretty obviously isn't in this country given the fractured English you use... I am not at all thrilled when you try to leave comments on my blog posts in order, I assume, to get a better search engine ranking when your spammy URL is included with the comment. But if you're going to pretend to be leaving a cogent observation about one of my posts, I really wish you'd put some effort into it. How about at least taking a quick glance at what I wrote, and attempt to say…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Writing/Weblogs

Reality is respected on this here blog

Reality is a wonderful thing. Actually, the only thing. Show me something that isn't real, and I'll say "You've shown me nothing." And that's what some commenters on this blog want to do: pretend they've got a fact in their hand when all they possess is an empty palm of subjectivity.  Which, I'll admit, is something real. But reality comes in two main varieties, communal/objective and individual/subjective. Both are wonderful, admirable, essential, inescapable. It's when an attempt is made to pass off one as the other that I, as moderator of this blog, rule "No way!" Global warming and Obama's…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Cranky old man gripes about social networking

Growing old sucks. As a 63 year old, I can tell you that the best thing about becoming Social Security eligible is getting monthly money from the government, paid for by the hard labor of people still working. Thank you, daughter! Otherwise, I'm still trying to figure out what's so great about the "Golden Years." Yes, I get a 10% senior discount at LifeSource Natural Foods here in Salem. That's one thing. Just about the only other obvious benefit of my geezer'ness is feeling freer to be a cranky old man, something that comes pretty naturally to me. So I…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

I give TypePad a low approval score

Today I saw that TypePad, my blogging service, is asking its bloggers to give them some feedback. "Tell us how likely you are to recommend TypePad." I jumped right on that request. I was disappointed to see that comments on the feedback post were disabled, which doesn't convey the message that TypePad is genuinely open to discussion about how their blogging platform can be improved. But after giving TypePad a "2" out of "10" on the recommend question (meaning, I'd be unlikely to recommend TypePad) I felt better after utilizing an open-ended comment box to tell TypePad what I've been…
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Posted inWeb/Tech Writing/Weblogs

Ommwriter is a cool Zen’ish word processor for blogging

Does this post of mine seem more Zen-like than usual? It should. I'm composing it on Ommwriter, a minimalist word processor that I came across today via one of the blogs I follow which keep track of what's happening in the oh-so-cool world of Apple.I was intrigued by the mention of a text editor which starts you off with a utterly blank screen. A few clickable options appear to the right when you stop typing and move your pointer outside of the (resizable) writing box.You've got a few font options, a few type size options, some choices about what sort…
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Posted inBooks Writing/Weblogs

Self-publishing loses its stigma. So…write a book!

Ah, the times they are a'changin, just like Bob Dylan said they would. What was shameful not so long ago has come out into the open, standing tall and proud. And I'm not talking about homosexuality. Rather, self-publishing. My print on demand (POD) loving soul was thrilled to read in a recent issue of Newsweek, " Who Needs a Publisher?" Until recently, reviewers and booksellers looked down on self-published authors the way Anna Wintour scorns Dress Barn. Now new writers and established authors alike are increasingly taking publishing into their own hands, and the publishing establishment is paying attention. According…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

I win my own 2009 blog post awards!

This is why I love to blog. Winning awards is so much fun! Sure, I've awarded them to myself, but isn't this what blogging is all about, self-absorption?Appropriately, I'll answer my own question. Yes, Brian, you're right. As always.So after browsing through my 2009 blog creations, I declare the following winners. I've included excerpts from my prose to justify, if only to me, why these posts are champions.Best Human-Related Question"A rose cleavage tattoo: to stare or not to stare?"Given a choice between being helped by a busty young thing with a rose tattoo showing in her cleavage, and -- gosh,…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Why I transferred domain names from GoDaddy to Dotster

This morning I noticed a Twitter Tweet from Blue Oregon's uber-progressive, Kari Chisholm, which said in part:GoDaddy CEO is GOP activist. Try Dotster.com, local (Vancouver WA)For many years I've used GoDaddy for domain name registration and web site hosting. I've been satisfied with the service, but the GoDaddy style has bothered me. So Kari's suggestion pushed me to transfer four domain names to Dotster today. Before describing how that went, here's what rubs me the wrong way about GoDaddy.(1) Over commercialization. Take a look at the home pages of GoDaddy and Dotster. Over the top sales promotions versus clean and…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

What oral sex teaches about blogging

For some (obvious) reason this Twitter tweet by "rawprincess" caught my eye: 14 things oral sex taught me about blogging http://762ot.th8.usPretty true. Check them out.I liked an addition suggested by a commenter on this post. A lot of blogs and web sites, not to mention talk radio, sure take this advice.25. Keep the windows down and make them scream really loud so that the neighbors know what you’re up to.
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Twitter — my path to enlightenment

Some people consider my new found Twittering to be a useless waste of time. By "some people" I mainly mean my wife. She hasn't realized yet, as I have, that Twitter is much more than an easy means for me to cast 140 characters or less of what I'm doing into cyberspace on a whim. Clearly, it is my path to enlightenment.I say this after having pursued daily meditation, vegetarianism, and other spiritual practices for some forty years (longer, if one considers that being almost continually stoned on pot or psychedelics in college is a spiritual practice).Now, of course, I…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Oh, my god, I’m twittering!

The devil must have made me do it. Or, the Grand Lord of Why Not? Because a mere three days ago I had blogified about how Twitter didn't interest me. And now I have a Twitter page. An Emerson quote comes to mind:A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.What turned the corner on tweeting for me was a moment when, in the course of pondering the pros and cons of opening a Twitter account, and thinking "this craze is useless," I realized: Yes! That's the point! Uselessness!Such was one of the themes in my "The Tao of Paris…
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