Marilyn Armstrong

GEORGE AND T’ DRAGON – Reblog from Sue Vincent

If you thought you knew the story of George and his dragon, try this new version 😀 From Sue Vincent over the pond.

Sharing a favourite from the archives…what really happened when George met the dragon…. a poem from Laughter Lines: Life from the Tail End…

“Nah, sithee,” said Granny, “Just set thee dahn ‘ere,
An’ I’ll tell thee a tale old and true,
Of ‘ow good Saint George slew a dragon one day
An’ all dressed in a metal suit too.

It were like this…” she said as she warmed to her tale
With her listeners huddled around,
“The beast ‘ad moved in and set up ‘is abode
In a cave on the best ‘unting ground.

The king weren’t too pleased, it ‘ad etten his ‘oss
And the best of the royal deer too.
‘To be fair,’ said the mage, his opinion asked,
‘What else would you expect it to do?’

‘I’ve heard they like maidens,’ his Majesty said,
‘Give it one, then we’ll be in the clear.’
‘A maiden, my liege?’…

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OUT OF THE MIST YOUR VOICE IS CALLING – THE PLATTERS – Marilyn Armstrong

FOWC with Fandango — Mist

So many words remind me of songs … and this is a big one!

WHAT NOT TO DO WHILE RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS – Marilyn Armstrong

Why is my computer freezing and sending me blue screens? I guess I should run some system diagnostics. I ran them recently and I was assured everything is hunky dory.

If it’s so hunky and dory, why does it keep freezing?

FREEZE!

No, Marilyn! You cannot run diagnostics while surfing. Bad Marilyn.

MORE FREEZING!

No. You must not check email. Okay, check it, but don’t send anything. Shoot. Frozen again.

PUZZLEMENT

Why is it prompting me to update the drivers I just updated? Should I do it again? Nah. Waste of time.

BAFFLED CONFUSION

Why is Dell installing the software again? This is the fifth time. It’s installed. Geez. It’s just doing this to aggravate me.

HEADACHE, POUND, POUND, THUD

I need lunch. Afraid to leave the computer. Who knows what mischief it might get into?

STOMACH GURGLING

Bathroom, I don’t care what’s going on. I gotta go NOW. Computer? Sit! Stay! Don’t do anything while I’m gone.

FREEZE!

I guess no matter how boring it is, I should NOT play Bridge while running diagnostics.

ANOTHER FREEZE!

I suppose this means running diagnostics is not a perfect opportunity to thoroughly clean the keyboard.

HUH?

My system is fine. Absolutely nothing wrong. So what’s with all those Blue Screens of Death referencing my video card? Let’s stress test the video card.

ZZZ

This is more boring than watching paint dry. Are we there yet?

RESULTS!

Everything is freaking fine. I’ll tell myself that the next time it locks up. Thanks for nothing. Another afternoon I can never get back.

EPILOGUE

It turns out that the fancy sound I use is part of the video card. This is the “fancy” sound most people only use when they are playing video games. I use it all the time because the sound is so much better than the standard sound. But, that means I really am using my video card for the sound I’m playing — while I’m photo-processing.

So if I’m listening to an audiobook while trying to process photographs using both Photoshop and Topaz filters, everything runs fine unless there’s a particularly big draw on the memory. Then, it just locks up the computer. Sometimes it brings up the blue screen, indicating a video card problem. It isn’t video or at least, it isn’t only the video.

It’s the combination of video and audio together.

The answer? I could choose to not use the fancy audio sound which runs on the big graphics card. Except, I don’t like the other sound.

Better yet, I can play the book on my Kindle and process photographs on the computer. The audio doesn’t use much memory, but Photoshop with Topaz uses a ton of it. And I’ve got 16 gigs of memory on this computer. It was a lot worse on the old computer which had a mere 12 gigs.

A SUNNY SUNDAY BY THE RIVER – Marilyn Armstrong

On a sunny weekend along the Blackstone River in North Smithfield, Rhode Island, we took out our cameras and took pictures.

Garry posted some of his photographs a couple of days ago. I decided to see if I could make mine look a bit different. I’m playing with the impressionist filters, trying to get a painted feeling, yet still retain as much of the photograph’s details as I can. It’s an interesting balance and I don’t know if I’ve quite gotten what I’m looking for yet, but I’m working on it.

GRATIS (PLUS SHIPPING AND HANDLING) – Marilyn Armstrong

FOWC with Fandango — Gratis

I love late night local television advertisements. Garry and I sometimes sing along with the text. It’s remarkably similar from one ad to the next, regardless of what is being sold.

“It’s free! Gratis! All you have to pay is shipping and handling!” The price for which is usually more than the item is worth. For a while, this was the thing on auction sites. The price? One cent. Shipping and handling were a mere $19.95.

“And if you buy one now, you can get a second one free. Plus shipping and handling.”

I get the shipping, which is a lot less than they are charging … but what’s the handling thing? Picking the item up and sticking it in a box? Adding a label? Collecting the money?

Maybe you are being charged “extra” because they have to drive to the bank with your money?

“And even better: But NOW and you can have three — that’s right! — THREE of these amazing (knives, shampoos, weight loss products, tire pressure gauges, ad nauseum) for the same low, low price of nothing except the minor cost of shipping and handling!”

They never tell you the price of the shipping and handling. With good reason! Is this how people buy those weird gifts you get at Christmas? In those bright boxes that say “As shown on TV”?

My first professional writing job that wasn’t for radio was writing these advertisements. They appear in print, too. You’ve seen them. They are full-page ads in cheesy magazines. They used to show up in the back of comic books. They pay about $800 for each ad. If you do them often, you can create a boilerplate for them and churn out a dozen a week.

Ah, I bet now I’ve got your attention!

A MUSICAL AND PHOTOGRAPHIC FATHER’S DAY TRIBUTE – Leslie Martel & Marilyn Armstrong

Music by Leslie Martel, SWO8 and photos by Marilyn Armstrong

When Leslie proposed this project to me, I wasn’t exactly sure how it would work out, but it came out fine!

Today is Father’s Day. The song “Tribute to Clarence” by swo8 Blues Jazz from the album Osaka Time in iTunes, was written for Leslie’s father, Clarence. They had an organ at home — at one point, even a pipe organ (I’m so envious — I love the sound of those pipes).

Leslie’s father built a special room to house the pipes. When he played that organ the house rocked! Clarence had two loves in life: music and his dogs. It was at the “dogs” that I came in because I have pictures of dogs, probably because we have two dogs now and have had as many as five. If we took in all the dogs offered to us, we’d have probably been able to register as a shelter, but we were up to capacity.

A fine piece of original jazz! The dog is Leslie’s “grand-dog.” The man playing the organ is indeed the aforementioned Clarence, Leslie’s dad.

Enjoy!!

URBAN LIFE – A PHOTO A WEEK CHALLENGE – Marilyn Armstrong

A Photo a Week Challenge: Urban

So the subject of the exercise is “urban.” I thought I’d start off with a picture of where we currently live. We didn’t always live in the country. In fact, until 19 years ago we lived in Boston. Before that, I lived in the city of Jerusalem and was raised in New York, in the borough of Queens.

With some years in Hempstead, which is a semi-urban suburb of New York, until we moved out here, we were always city folks. it has taken a bit of getting used to!