“Dear John”
The hardest letter to write.
I had to throw together a sample column and cover letter. The hardest part? The cover letter. Sample column? I work on horoscopes and charts all week long, that’s easy. The cover letter? I’ve written two in the last week, and those are the hardest. The funniest part of that one? The editor’s first name really is “John.”
I was going to make a funny comment about starting a letter out “Dear John,” but like one scope for this week mentions, “Kramer? Like on TV?” Ha-ha. Very funny. Nothing to see here, move along.
I wrote and erased, wrote some more, erased some more, moved the text around, and that was the most difficult letter I’ve had to bang out. Couldn’t just whip out a quick note. Don’t know the guy, the publisher, what I’m up against, the only veiled hint was “some competition.”
Give it a shot. Best I can do.
Weird Wednesday
So how does it happen?
“You ain’t gonna catch a thing, them fish ain’t bitin’ now,” one of my neighbors said
“I’ve got a bunch of voices in my head, and they’re all screaming at you.”
There was an interesting discussion on Slashdot about being e-mail being blocked by AOL. Doesn’t affect me any longer because I’m not running any mailing lists as of now.
When I ran both a joke list and first the monthly then the weekly list, I had problems with Hotmail. Occasionally, I had problems, in the early days, with AOL not accepting an astrology report, especially the big ones. AOL blocked me, too, but it doesn’t matter, not to me.
Which is one reason I no longer run any mailing lists. At the time, both lists were truly “opt in” because a confirmation was required. Which caused no amount of problems, but I wasn’t about to open up a list to just anyone to plug in random e-mail addresses, “Hey, I thought you’d like these horoscopes, so I signed you up….” That’s irresponsible behavior.
But there’s an administrative problem associated with a real e-mail list like that. Too much trouble for too little yield.
Miscellaneous ramblings about business on a website. “Capturing e-mail addresses is the most important tool.” But what do you do with them?
I had an invitation to dine in the fair city as the guest of a client, and it led to a funny situation. First, a little history, at least, oral history of Austin. At one time, South Congress wasn’t the upscale and trendy little neighborhood. Street walkers – so I’ve been told – worked the avenue. So Wednesday night, client calls, they’re done, ready to eat, I suggest a place, and they’re on their way, so I’m on my way. I clipped a bit of rosemary as has become my custom lately, stuck in my pocket, alerted Bubba that I might be late getting back, and took off into the sunset. Really, it was too cloudy to see any sunset.
I stopped at Jo’s and grabbed an afternoon espresso, walking up the hill to the restaurant and marveling at the foam on the top of the espresso, the way the oily brew roiled around on my tongue, the invigorating rush of a tiny dose of caffeine. Really good brew, masterfully put together. Good coffee is labor intensive.
I stuck my head in the restaurant. Too early. I loitered outside. I rolled on up the street, poked my head in Magnolia. In case there was some confusion. No party waiting on me. Up a little further, stopped at TG&R. Bought a lottery ticket. Strolled back down Congress, stopped again, no party waiting on me, walked down to the Continental Club, then turned and walked back to the restaurant.
I called several times, no answer on the cell. I was worried about the address. Directions like, “The place that used to be Shaggy’s? You know, next to the boot store?” might not be the best for someone from out-of-town.
I was beginning to feel like a streetwalker, cruising up and down the street, waiting, loitering and such. I clipped another bit of rosemary from the bush in front of San Jose, an Austin Air Freshener, a spring of herb that’s suitable for hanging from a rearview.
So there I was trolling up and down Congress Avenue. Great.
I finally decided to just sit in the restaurant and wait there. Walk in, get a booth, and the next table over asks if I’m going to sit alone or join them. They’d been there the whole time.
It’s going to be busy, but…
I have a digression, a little look at the future. Should be called, “Whither goest thou?”
I was thinking about this, late one night, in a relaxed, somewhat soporific state, possibly induced by TexMex, or maybe a more pedestrian chicken-fried steak. The link that begat this idea. Where’s the web headed, what direction?
I do all the web-spinning these days, around here. Such as it is. I’m still managing a couple of sites for clients, too. I make an effort to stay abreast of latest developments; I invested three-four days in SXSW Interactive, just an attempt to stay on top of latest gadgets and gizmos.
One of the workshops, I thought it was pretty puffy at the time, was all about “non-traditional navigation” as in non-traditional navigation for a website. There were a couple of sites, probably in this list of links. Back that with another presentation about how non-tradition symbols don’t work. Huh.
I’m sure, at one time or another, I’d be interested in a cool looking animated site that served no real purpose other than to amuse and entertain. I can’t even begin to suggest how tired I am of the “left column navigation list-of-links” look.
The flip side, the other hand, to toss in a cliché or two, is that certain sites with just buttons that don’t do anything, or fail to give a clue as to the button’s purpose? Those are pretty lame. I have an excuse, here on my site, this web journal is hidden, I mean tucked away right and proper under the name of “xenon” and currently, there’s a “Marfa Mystery Lights” roadside marker. Which has nothing to do with the journal.
But that’s it. Everything else is pretty plain. The Marfa Lights button is personal and so’s this journal.
What’s going to happen with the web, as we know it now? Two paths: flash and html. HTML is like a typesetting code. No, really. I worked on an old system at a newspaper, and the typesetting codes, typed in by the reporter (nominally me) were pretty much identical to current HTML tags. Same thing, almost. It’s not a stretch to jump from one system to another. None of this whimpy “user friendly interface,” no sir, we did it the hard way.
Current browser software renders HTML pretty well. Okay, mostly, when there isn’t a lot of flashy graphics. I’ve gradually moved most of the big stuff over to Cascading Style Sheets, CSS for short, because it greatly reduces the load on the server, and the browser can adjust the fonts and colors, and (add your own rants & raves). It’s just easier, in the long run. Still, the older material is hammered together in HTML. Will stay that way, too, as I’m not reworking the whole damn site.
The site is NOT configured for the micro version of anything. Probably not visible on a phone. Kind of hard to read a 200-word horoscope on a screen that’s about one square inch. I have to assume that most browser windows are at least 600 by 800 pixels, with a 72 dpi resolution.
But what’s going to happen with the web, as I was trying to get more information about the publishers I’m courting right now? There’s going to be a gradual split. One avenue is flash. Or some other animated, decorative, high-bandwidth show. The other will be the older, more arcane and less functional but very forgiving HTML.
As of last year, I was high-bandwidth, wireless, road-warrioring ready. I can soak up all that animation on my screen. However, the sites I use for news and views? Most of them are like my site: old school. In the future?
Two avenues. One is flashy, and the other kind of staid and conservative.
I toyed with Flash a couple of years ago. Never “got my head around it,” and I quit working with it. Too much effort for animations. But then, there’s my background, I think in words, not moving pictures.
I was reminded of this, the other evening, conversing with a family friend.
“You done that ‘palm reading’ thing for the web yet?”
No, but it was a simple idea, an outline of palm print, a little bar that scrolls green light over it and “read” a palm held up to the monitor. Actually, a pretty simple animation.
Then you type in your name, a birthday and out comes a little text that’s really based on your birthday. Or, like some sites, it could just spit out some rather random text.
It would be a software toy, good for a few laughs. Not anything I’m going to attempt, although I think I still have a half-assembled flash file with a some of the components working.
I wonder how many people would place their palms on the screen of their computer, expecting a real answer?