Classic Copypasta Crap: Baby Shoes

Here's the whole thing.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

StudioC is my favorite Mormon thing.

As much as I've whined about BUUUURNNNNS and several Star Wars authors, this is my literal least favorite story ever written.

It starts off by not being a very good story. Oh no, the shoes are never worn. Obviously the baby dramatically died before it could wear them. There's a zero percent chance the parents just got too many, didn't like them, or the baby outgrew them.

But the real reason I don't like it is because of all the classes I've had to sit through by people convinced this is literally the greatest story ever written, because the shorter the better, and no one's figure out how to write a 5 word story yet.

For sale: Diapers, never used.

Look, I did it. Still implies a dead baby, and kind of funny. Much better.

Sale: Diapers, never used.

You don't actually need that For. It still looks like a classified add.

No.

The kind of people who love this story are the kind that like to remind you that, "No is a complete sentence."

Also, it wasn't written by Hemingway. 

RIP Tom Lehrer

There's been quite a few celebrity deaths this week, but none quite so relevant to this blog as Tom Lehrer. I've been thinking about doing some music on this blog for a bit, so this seems like a fitting first go. Lehrer's catalog isn't terribly long (he only really did music on and off for about ten years, between teaching and other writing ) so I'm just gonna grab some of the ones I like (none are particularly obscure, I might have to fix that) and do a little blurb for each.

New Math:

Catchy, like most Lehrer songs. It really only works if you have a visual though.

Be Prepared

I had a barber who could sing this from memory. Weirdly, he was not in a barbershop quartet. I don't think Lehrer would mind me linking a cover. (More on that later)

Masochism Tango

Better than "Tango: Maureen" and might as well get one of Tom actually performing in here.

Vatican Rag

I think Tom would approve of a group called Hot Cross Nuns

Smut

The song most likely to actually get talked about on this blog. Maybe someday...

The Elements

Probably his most famous. And who doesn't love a good Major General parody?

Oedipus Rex

I use this one in my classes.

You'll be missed, Tom.

"My Attic" by Nessmuk

 Besides his camping books, Nessmuk also has a book of poetry titled Forest Runes, which is a pretty good camping poetry book name. I don't know that I'll read the whole thing, but here's the first poem:

MY ATTIC

I HAVE an attic—not city made,

 Nor far removed from the fresh green earth,

Strewn with the tools of a manly trade,

 And guns, and fiddles, and books of worth.

A narrow window looks toward the town,

 Where, shown by waves of the summer breeze,

Are checkered glimpses of white and brown,

 Peeping thro’ maple and linden trees.

A little brook that murmurs and flows,

 A little garden of well tilled land,

And trees, not standing in stiff, straight rows,

 All planted and pruned by the owner’s hand,

Lovingly tended, thriftily grown,

 With many a quaint, odd crook and trend

I know their names as I know my own,

 And every tree is a personal friend. 

At the first faint glimmer on rock and tree

 I rise, with the earliest blue-birds’ trill.

’Tis a freak of mine; and I like to see

 The sunshine break on Losinger Hill;

For I like him best in his morning face,

 Untired with the daily race he runs;

And I’m sometimes sad when he yields his place

 To the winds of night and the lesser suns.

I ply the thread and the brightened awl

 To the runes that the woodland thrushes sing;

And the plash of a tiny waterfall

 Keeps merry time to the lapstone’s ring.

And little I reck, as I shape the sole,

 Of scanty clothing or empty purse,

I sing the ballad of old King Cole,
 
Or wear my leisure on simple verse. 

The man of millions shall pass away,

 His wealth divided, himself forgot,

But better one leaf of deathless bay

 Than all the riches that rust and rot.

And at rare, odd times, in the better moods,

 Some rustic verses to me are born,

That may live, perchance, in their native woods

 As long as the crows that pull the corn.

You now what, that's pretty good. I'm looking forward to the rest of it. (I don't expect to blog every individual poem.)

"On The Nature of Man" by Polybus? Or Hippocrates? Maybe? ~400 BC

 "On The Nature of Man"

Bonus: 

I think I played this game for like four minutes.

Summary: "The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile; these make up the nature of his body, and through these he feels pain or enjoys health."

Commentary: I think this is the first reading I've done from a Loeb text. I've done facing translation a bunch of times, mostly in school, but the Loebs are pretty popular in classics circles. I gave blood today, so I again went looking for something related to giving blood to read. 

I like how he starts by saying that people are not just made of fire or air or whatever. It's interesting to see a now debunked theory debunking an earlier theory. 

The four humors are:

Blood: Self explanatory

Phlegm: Same

Yellow bile: Bile, vomit, etc.

Black bile: Assorted fluids with blood mixed in, cancer discharge? No real consensus here.

Black bile:

Interestingly, there were apparently people who thought people were made ONLY of one of the four humors, because they would get hurt or take a poison, lose a bunch of one, and then die. You mean to tell me they thought some guy who puked to death and didn't bleed had no blood? Wouldn't you notice it after they were dead if you checked the body?

Hippocrates logic sort of makes sense. People have runny noses in winter, so they have lots of phlegm. Blood is hot, so it's more of a summer thing. He even kind of gets some reasonable thoughts on the cause of disease. If one person is ill, it might be caused by something they've done, and they should change their lives. But if everyone is ill it probably spreads through the air. That's close enough for 400 BC. Less sensibly, he talks about how babies are hotter than adults, but that doesn't appear to be true, and seems like something he could. 

Of Teacups and Teapots

 Kind of rambly entry today. Chugging my way through Kephart's book, but not blogging it. I did come across a fun little bit today that I want to share.

In his charming book The Forest, Stewart Edward White has spoken of that amusing foible, common to us all, which compels even an experienced woodsman to lug along some pet trifle that he does not need, but which he would be miserable without. The more absurd this trinket is, the more he loves it. [...]

If you have some such thing that you know you can't sleep well without, stow it religiously in your kit. It is your "medicine," your amulet against the spooks and bogies of the woods. It will dispel the koosy-oonek. (If you don't know what that means, ask an Eskimo. He may tell you that it means sorcery, witchcraft—and so, no doubt, it does to the children of nature; but to us children of guile it is the spell of that imp who hides our pipes, steals our last match, and brings rain on the just when they want to go fishing.)

No two men have the same "medicine." Mine is a porcelain teacup, minus the handle. It cost me much trouble to find one that would fit snugly inside the metal cup in which I brew my tea. Many's the time it has all but slipped from my fingers and dropped upon a rock; many's the gibe I have suffered for its dear sake. But I do love it. Hot indeed must be the sun, tangled the trail and weary the miles, before I for- sake thee, O my frail, cool-lipped, but ardent teacup!

 I've always liked the idea of having some kind of little trinket you carried with you. A lucky charm or whatever. Never really found one that clicked with me. I think the closest for me would be a Swiss Army Knife, but I actually use that all the time, so not the same idea.

That got me kind of thinking about Russell's teapot, but I couldn't remember the name of it, so I searched for "Teacup God" and found this story.

Short version, a talking teapot talks about all the ways it was tortured to go from clay to a teacup. It doesn't really align with the Bible verse it's supposed to go with Jeremiah 18, which is about fixing mistakes, but whatever.

I switched to "Space Teapot" and got Russel's Teapot:

I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.

I personally think the second sentence form of the "teapot argument" is the most interesting. Not only do we have no more or less evidence of (Christian) God than we do of the teapot, but we have no more or less for God than we do Thor, Aphrodite, or Shiva. "Where did the universe come from?" is a big, scary, unknowable question. If somehow I found out tomorrow that it was created by some kind of intelligent, powerful being, I think I'd go, "Huh." A lot of people think that, and it doesn't feel that ridiculous. (You then have to get into the question of who/what made "god" but that's its own issue) On the other hand, finding out that one specific religion (and even one specific sect, denomination, etc.) I'd be pretty flabbergasted.

 

Doomier Doom: Episode 2: The Shores of Hell

 The Shores of Hell is the first half of "Retail Doom" the two episodes you got by mailing a check in for some floppies back in 1994. Supposedly, a lot of people didn't realize this, and thought they were done at the end of Knee Deep in The Dead. This seems hard to believe since it had like 3 different ORDER INFO screens, and told you in the end of episode text, but what do I know, I was like 4 at the time.

I think Shores is a strong contender for the best official DooM level pack. It takes place on Deimos (one of Mar's moons) which has been transported "above" Hell. Thus, we get a cool "techno-hell" style that, to me, will always be the iconic Doom setting. 

Considering how much is in the Episode 1 demo, it's even more impressive how much new stuff is in here.

1. New gun: Plasma Rifle. Basically just a more damaging chain gun that uses different ammo.

2. New monsters: Cacodemon. Fills the "mid tier" role in Doom. Weaker than the bosses, but tougher than the zombies and imps. It can fly, and appears to have been almost directly copied from an old D&D book cover.

Lost Souls: The other flying monster. Basically annoying flaming demonic ping pong balls.

Cyberdemon: The Barons of Hell from last episode are now semi-common enemies (often flagged by giant carvings of their heads in a nice atmospheric touch), so we get their big brother. While not the final boss of the whole game, the Cyberdemon is really the definitive DooM boss. Takes a ton of hits to drop, and give it back with a rocket launcher.

A cool preview on the textures, with the missing body parts mirrored

Shoot it 'till it dies!

New powerup: Invincibility. Pretty self explanatory.

First "gimmick" secret level: "Fortress of Mystery" which is supposed to be based around monster infighting. Maybe if you pistol start it. (More on both of those later).

First crushing ceiling!

First crate maze! Back in ye olde 90s, it was common for FPS levels to basically be mazes with monsters sprinkled in (for what its worth, I think Doom does a good job of sprinkling these in, while also including some more dynamic level styles). E2M2 "Containment Area" is the first "crate maze" a level designed to look like a warehouse using repeated crate blocks to create a "realistic" and complex level within the confines of the engine.

Crate mazes would eventually become a cliche of level design. Entire websites even ran features mocking it.

At the time, it's fairly original. And it is a good level (it has non-crate parts too, which help). It even won a tournament to be named the best official Doom level back in 2015.

So, yeah. Lots of cool new stuff, and an all around solid set of levels. Two quick comments on some Doom design quirks before I close out:

1. "Pistol Start" By default, if you load a level without coming right from another (like you used to do from the command line in the old days) you start with no weapons but your fist, a pistol, and 50 bullets. It's still generally considered good etiquette for levels to be completable from a pistol start, even 30 years later.

This can lead to an issue in designing whole episodes however. A level with "just enough" guns/ammo might be too easy if you come in with all your gear from previous levels. This is particularly noticable in two levels in this episode. "Tower of Babel", the finale, has you facing down the Cyberdemon with no pickups besides a rocket launcher, mirroring its own loadout. If you come in from the rest of the episode, you'll probably have a plasma rifle (there's one in every map) and quite a bit of ammo. The plasma rifle is great for clearing out the Lost Souls that serve as filler, and arguably more useful against the boss itself than the rocket launcher, making the level much easier and a significantly different experience.

It's even more noticeable in this episode's secret level, "Fortress of Mystery." In theory, you're supposed to lure a pack of Cacodemons and a group of Barons into a fight, with only a modest store of ammo scattered around the level. In practice, it's much easier to just gun them down individually with the guns you brought from earlier in the episode.

2. Monster Infighting: DooM monsters aren't very smart. Their AI can basically be boiled down to: Notice player> walk in their general direction (with minor randomization to help them get around obstables)> Randomly attack in their general direction>Repeat.

If another monster is in the way, they'll often attack anyway (or one might wander into the path of a slow moving fireball). If this happens, the monster that gets hit might turn and attack the other monster. It's a fun little design quirk that isn't exploited a ton in the base game (entire levels will eventually revolve around it), but still cool. Just one of those little things Doom does to be fun that you don't see in modern games as much.

Next week INFERNO! 

Kephart Corn Dodgers

 Another popular camping writer (one self admittedly influenced by Nessmuk) was Horace Kephart. He published a couple camping books, one of which included a recipe for something called "corn dodgers" which I'd never had before.

Plain Corn Bread.—Pone or johnny-cake is easily and quickly made, more wholesome than baking-powder bread, more appetizing than unleavened wheat bread and it “sticks to the ribs.” To be eaten hot, and, like all hot breads, should be broken with the hands, never cut. Bread left over should be freshened by moistening and reheating.

The amount of water to be used depends upon whether the meal is freshly ground (moist) or old (dry), and yellow meal requires one-half more water than white.

1 quart meal,

1 teaspoonful salt,

1 pint warm (but not scalding) water (1| pints for yellow meal).

Stir together until light. Bake to a nice brown all around, preferably in Dutch oven. Test with sliver. Done in about forty-five minutes, but improved by letting stand fifteen minutes longer, away from fire, to sweat in oven. Eat with bacon gravy.

If you have no oven, plank the bread on hot slab before a high fire, having previously formed slight under crust by laying on hot ashes; or, make ash cake by forming into balls as big as hen’s eggs, roll in dry flour, lay in hot ashes and cover completely with them. Time for ash cake, fifteen to twenty minutes.

Corn Dodgers.—Salt some white corn meal to taste. Mix with cold water to stiff dough, and form into cylindrical dodgers four or five inches long and one and a half inches diameter, by rolling between the hands. Have frying-pan very hot, grease it a little, and put dodgers on as you roll them out. As soon as they have browned, put them in oven and bake thoroughly to a crisp brown.

They're basically like a small thick johnny cake or a simplified hushpuppy.

My wife asked for a little jazzier recipe for a pot luck, and I also made some with this recipe (based on another one by Kephart):

Ingredients:

1 cup cornmeal (I prefer yellow, but white works)

0.5 cup flour (All Purpose is fine, Whole Wheat comes out very dense)

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp honey (can substitute molasses or sugar)

1 tsp salt

1 cup hot water 

1 egg 

~ 1 stick butter for the pan/glaze

Directions:

Butter a heavy skillet or baking dish and place in oven

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Heat 1 cup water

Combine dry ingredients, honey, and egg in a bowl

Pour in water and stir vigorously

Remove skillet/dish from oven

Take small handfuls of dough, work into balls, and place in skillet/dish

Brush with butter

Bake for ~15 minutes