My Life

AFRAID of WHAT I WANT
Ah, the terrors of true love! I’ve been in love before, and I’ve also had those relationships that I thought were “love,” but turned out to be stinking hell-holes of downward-spiraling jealousy and insecurity. I’d rather have the former, but fear of the latter has recently kept me alone. Then, there is the third type of relationship I’ve had: it starts out as a brilliant infatuation, but quickly leads to disappointment one side or both sides, when we discover the boring parts of each other. I admire those of you in this world who have found what appears to be a lasting love, and I’m happy for you. What I’m looking for is someone who finds even the boring parts of my life interesting, and someone whose quirks will mesh nicely with mine. Also, it will help if you’re rich.

FICTIONAL UPDATE
The (fictional) story I’m currently working on is about the end of the world (I don’t even have a working title yet), and a few believable people who live through it. It’s a variant of a novel I began just after high school (in the early 1990s!), but never finished for a variety of reasons. This time, though, I plan to have it done by the end of summer. I’ve already written 100 pages of manuscript, in just a few weeks, in between work, sporting events, and tracking down the crimes, wrecks and fires of our community. I won’t reveal too many details right now, but anyone who wants to help, CAN. What I need right now are more interesting character names and characters themselves. The main folks are pretty much set, but there are a lot of people in this story, and my usual method of getting random names from old phone books is running dry.

(A Short New Poem)

SEPARATED
By: Wil C. Fry, May 23, 2005

I sold my soul to the remote control
But nothing digital can fill the hole
In my heart that was made for you

You had bright eyes and full of surprise
Ever-changing smile that never dies
Even when nothing in life is true

I love it when pretty girls cuss
I wish that “you and I” could be “us”
Though we’re unalike in all we do

But you’re over there, playing with your hair
Both of us afraid to lose what we could share
Ignorant to the world that will be new

SOME INTERESTING/HELPFUL LINKS (all free)

FeedReader
“FeedReader” is a program that gathers “RSS” newsfeeds, for those of you interested in reading all the news you can handle. Many news sites have RSS syndication that can easily be loaded into FeedReader, so you can get all the world and local news you want, without endlessly browsing the internet for it. It’s easy to use, easy to customize, and you’ll soon have information overload.

AbiWord
“AbiWord” is a free word processor that simulates Microsoft’s Word as well as Corel’s WordPerfect, and can read/save documents in either format. I got tired of getting documents in one format or the other that one program wouldn’t read. AbiWord is FREE, easy to setup/use, and reads all the major document formats except .pdf.

Mozilla
Not long after Internet Explorer came out, I got tired of it and its limitations. Mozilla is a FREE browser/email client that is fully “skinable” and has all the features an internet user could want. If you just want a browser OR an email client, Mozilla has Thunderbird (email) and Firefox (internet) programs that separate the two. I use Mozilla Suite, which has both together, along with a webpage-designing “Composer.”

ScreenHunter
Need a “screenshot” program? This is a good one, and it’s free and easy to use. It will take a digital picture of all the pixels on your screen, and save it either as a .jpg or .bmp file, whichever you choose. It’s an easy way to take a snapshot of part of a webpage or anything else visible on your monitor, to look at later or share with friends.

FreeRAM XP Pro
Is your computer’s RAM too low? Gets used up too fast? Try FreeRAM, which is, as the name implies, FREE. And it works on all the OSs I’ve tried (98, 98SE, ME, XP, etc.) It can either sit in the system tray and run automatically, or you can only use it when you want to. I have 512MB of RAM, but sometimes I need it cleaned. This program does the trick.

Village Photos image hosting
Need to host a few small photos so you can link to them in your blog? This is one free site that will host a limited number of pics, with easy links. All the photos I post on my blog are hosted by Village Photos.

(EDIT: Just a few months later, I discovered Flickr, which even in 2005 was by far the best photo-hosting / photo-sharing site on the internet.)

IMDB.com
Ever wondered who played that role in that one movie? The Internet Movie Database has all the answers. Search for a movie or actor by name, and each movie/actor’s page has links to all the other actors from that movie, or all the other movies of that actor. Plus, there are short descriptions of each movie, short bios on each actor, and pictures on top of that.

Seminole County, Okla.
This site is hosted by the publisher of The Seminole Producer (our local newspaper), and has hundreds of links to “all things Seminole County.” If you want to know about the cozy place I live (schools, cities, businesses, general info, genealogy, etc.), this is the place to go. If every small community had a site like this, the Internet would be a better place.

Wake up Wal-Mart
Ever wonder if Wal-Mart is taking over the world? Can they be stopped? This site’s founders seem to be awfully afraid of the retail giant, and are trying to do something about it. If it sounds interesting to you, click on the above link.

COMMENTARY
Like my friend Mark, I’ve been noticing the increasing rudeness on the internet. What happened to civility? Is our “global community” now so close-knit that we feel we don’t have to be polite anymore? Used to, people would say, “No thanks.” Now, we say “F–k off.” No, I don’t believe there are bad words, but it’s the tone that counts. At some point, we’ve lost the concern for other people’s feelings and the courtesy of a few kind words. Sure, it takes a little effort to be kind, but isn’t it worth it in the end? Thinking purely with selfish motives, I’ve found it’s better to be nice to people. Not for THEIR sake, but for MY sake. Like the old saying says, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Translated into modern language, this means that if you’re nice/courteous/friendly/thoughtful to people, they’ll be more inclined to return the favor.

And that’s all for now.