Made some updates to the Leather Substitutes Resource Guide today, mostly updating web sites and clearing out dead links.

Zelda's Inferno writing exercise from July 1st: think of meaningful memory, describe it through each of the five senses - but don't name the senses

stone hard under my back
comfortably unyielding, cool mountain
holds us up to the sky like mother lifting child closer to father
held solidly

earthy musky remnant of the mushroom tea lingers in my mouth
slowly being cleared away by the clean night mountain air that moves in through my nose, out through my mouth

the same air that carries hint of the campfire behind us and of the river and of the stone on which we lie

the same air that brings me the laughter and shouts and talk of friends not separate from myself, as we sit on the side of this mountain and let the sky fill our eyes

flashing lights of rocks on fire
as they hit the air

(one lights up the sky like the full moon for a second, we all ask "did you see that?", checking consensus reality against individual hallucination)

Despite the high rhetoric of world-redeemers, saving the world is a one-person-at-a-time deal. And I remember a Zen poem: "Whenever the burden of saving all sentient beings becomes too great, I vow with all beings the breath in the grace of the morning star, and remember that they are saving me."

I was saved by two night clerks a a hotel in Jersey City. I had just returned from Japan and just had my girlfriend break up with me, was wondering if it had been worth it to come back, if there was anything on this continent worth staying for. That Saturday I went up to NYC for the annual black belt clinic; called around to find a hotel room, found one at place I'd stayed before, the Radison near the Journal Square PATH train stop. Caught the train after the welcome party, walked over to the hotel.

Two young ladies behind the counter, black girls, kind of rolly-polly (of course, for the first week or two after I got back from Japan, everybody in this country looked rolly-polly). And they were beautiful Americans, cheerfully giving directions to one guy on how to find a good local bar, joking with me about my name and "Swiss as in cheese or as in bank accounts?" In just a few minutes they redeemed America for me, made it worth coming back.

We're in the middle of upgrading our version of Drupal, the software that runs the site. It's a good thing but it will make a mess for a while. Sumimasen.

Sick and tired of picking up litter dumped on my lawn by The Examiner's carriers, I fired this off. I'm sending hardcopy in the mail tomorrow. Yes, I do intend to follow up and bill them if they keep dumping papers, and if they don't pay, I'll consider turning it over to a collection agency.

Feel free to copy the idea and make similar arrangements with these littering bastards.

Tom Swiss
2119 Arlonne Drive
Baltimore, MD 21228
410-455-5325
Fax: 443-927-9320
tms@infamous.net

Michael Barnum, Vice President, Circulation
Baltimore Newspaper Publishing Company, LLC
400 E. Pratt St.
Baltimore, MD 21202
mbarnum@baltimoreexaminer.com

Jun 27, 2007

Dear Mr. Barnum,

Since repeated telephone calls to the circulation office of The Examiner have failed to stop your carriers from littering my lawn and driveway with newspapers, I can only assume that you have great difficulty in disposing of your excess papers.

Rather than pressing criminal charges for littering against your company, I propose a profitable and ecologically helpful solution: I am willing to provide you with a recycling service for excess papers. My rate is $90 per pound of papers, one pound minimum for any day you choose to use my service.

Any copies of The Examiner left at or in front of my house (2119 Arlonne Drive, Catonsville MD, 21228) after July 4, 2007, will be taken as acceptance by Baltimore Newspaper Publishing Company, LLC, of these terms and as a request for the service described above. Bills for the service will be sent to you at this address.

If you choose not to make use of this service, then you merely need to stop littering my lawn and driveway with newspapers.

Very truly yours,

Tom Swiss

Back in 2000, I put a profile up on developers.net, which at the time was largely a job board. Job leads were all I wanted out of them (and as I recall, didn't get any useful ones).

Somewhere along the line, they became a "resource" site, and started sending me weekly sales pitches for their sponsors' various products. It wasn't really spam, I suppose, but it was annoying. Only a bit though, so I tolerated it.

Until today. When I went to unsub, they wanted to collect more data from me to complete my profile, before letting me unsubscribe from their mailing list.

Um, no. When I'm telling you to stop bothering me, I'm not about to give you more information about myself so you can market to me better.

Somebody hand me the clue-by-four. Bam! Bam! Bam!

So now there's an entry in their database telling them I'm from Zimbabwe and work for a company called "Bite Me". I hope the marketing drones have fun with that.

"Don't give your right name, no, no, no." -- Fats Waller

From youtube, an old Muppets song...judge for yourself. Res Ipsa Loquitor.

The debate on Echinacea and colds goes back and forth. This new meta-analysis published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases found significant reductions in the incidence and duration of the common cold from the use of Echinacea.

Here's something to wrap your head around: imagine wispy clouds of metal drifting across the sky of a star three times the size of the sun.

As previously mentioned, I'll be presenting workshops at the Starwood Festival again this year. Now, I know which ones:

Sparking a Creative Inferno

Zelda's Inferno is a weekly Baltimore poetry workshop that has been meeting and writing since 2000. We have only one rule: if you have words on the page at the end of the exercise, you win! Longtime Zelda's coordinator Tom Swiss will lead participants through writing exercises that might show you new ways to spark the fires of creativity. For poets, bards, and writers of all types and abilities.

Self-defense as a Spiritual Practice

You are a manifestation of the divine, a child of the God and Goddess. That makes you a being worth defending; yet our culture's confused attitudes about violence, plus the self-esteem issues faced by many people in the Pagan community, often obscure the fact that self-defense is also defense of the divine principle within all of us. In this workshop we will try to cut through the fog and discuss attitudes and skills to preserve not just your body but your divine nature. Targeted for those without previous martial arts or self-defense training; but experienced students are also welcome. We will practice verbal and non-verbal communication skills for dealing with conflict, and a few simple self-defense techniques.