Underground Press

I was (I’m fairly sure) quite young when I first heard the words, “Underground Press” or “Underground Newspaper” — or things of that ilk. I was intrigued, because it sounded so darned mysterious and forbidden. Now, the internet shines a stark spotlight into the dark crevices of E-V-E-R-YTHING these days, so: so much for all those by-gones.

Anyway, I’ve had an account at Lulu.com for many years (who hasn’t) and a good while back, I purchased an obscure little book entitled, “Six Word Stories”….. which is exactly what it claims to be. I mention that, because ‘Underground’-everything is now so widely available via online sources.

I was flipping through the book this evening, and this little one hit me: “Give us freedom! Freedom. What next?” It made me chuckle quite a bit. The author was L.D. Crowie…… appears to’ve self-published a lot in the realm of puzzles…..particularly on Amazon.com

That’s all for now……..

Number 18

An old photo of the front entrance for Dogan Middle School (located in Tyler, Texas). The local school board voted in Summer 2022 to demolish the building (hadn’t functioned as a working campus for quite some time). I think it opened in Fall 1962 and was designated as a Middle school a bit later….functioned as such through approximately 2016 or so. This photo was taken somewhere around Summer 2011.

It started here…….

So, this is really just a little housekeeping thing for me. Photo #1: Disc golf sign at Lindsey Park in Tyler from February 2014.

Just doing a little re-cap to make sure I have things in order. This one was uploaded at Wikimedia Commons. More to follow soon!

Number 17

A VERY large chair, located at the East Texas Arboretum in Longview, Texas

A super cool place to visit, by the way…..

Number 16

I’ve been a lot of places in Texas, but until recently, had never driven through the town of Dew. Here is a photo of the First United Methodist Church there.

Number 15

Front entrance of the Regal Cinema in Houston, Texas. Taken July 2022 on our way home from the 2nd Annual Houston Horror Film Festival.

Harlequin novels……for dudes

I don’t really know what their larger status is, but……………remember the old Harlequin romance novels….? They were hot in the 80’s! I was watching a YouTube video recently……and this guy was saying some stuff about them…..and women’s propensity to believe their own romantic lives are supposed to be like those absurd stories…..not saying I agree with everything, but at least the guy was articulate and entertaining.

Point is……..he got me to thinking. Laying ‘romance’ aside for the moment……..men have their version of fantasies and ballyhoo. We can believe a lot of kooky stuff about money/achievement/career advancement……we really can. Mind you, this completely applies to me! A great deal of my stuff was built on a bedrock of naive childishness……consequently, in my very early adulthood, I held many fanciful ideas about what I would achieve academically, and then financially. LONG before he was elected, I would say that I’d envisioned myself becoming an amalgation of Dr. Phil McGraw and Donald Trump. Guess what? That didn’t happen! But: other stuff did! …and much of it was GREAT!

On the smallness of one’s life

This has been on my mind for a while. There are times when I feel as though my life is so very small. I’ve often been confused by the word “melancholy”…not entirely knowing what it meant or how to apply it. It is (by modern standards, I suppose) an old word for “depressed” or “sad”. But, at times, I think it could mean “listless”, like floating and seemingly without direction. I feel like that at times these days. Yes, we’re are barely inches out of the COVID nightmare (and, with the new variant, we aren’t even exactly “out” of it just yet); even amidst that, my life often just feels so darned trivial. However: the truth is that really, nearly everyone’s life seems small to themselves. I mean, right now, there is some highly educated scientist telling himself what a “nobody” he is within his professional world. Amidst, all that, there are thousands of people who view that guy as “smart and important”. There is a 43 year-old musician, angry that her “big break” has not yet landed, but most of her family envy her artistic skills. I (sadly) told myself that I was a “loser” much more often than I ever should have — I don’t do that anymore.

Really, lots of people make very “small” contributions to “big” things: aviation, medicine, business, education etc. That is, generally speaking, how the world operates. Industry is CONSTANTLY trying to make itself more orderly and systematic; that is what industry does. A human life isn’t small. It is, however, short. That is worth remembering.

The Internet Archive — My Exploration

So………after a bit of thought and introspection……..I’ve decided to write (and probably self-publish) a book. I’ve been enamored with The Internet Archive for quite some time. At this juncture, I don’t intend for my book to be some exhaustive encyclopedia covering the topic…….just a guide depicting my journey in examining the larger thing. After a very short search, there appear to be a few minor guides discussing the project……but I wan’t mine to be a deep dive. We will see how that goes!

Games!

Doom splash screen

So……I’ve been up to all-manner-of-Shenanigans recently in terms of the game, Doom! One of those things is: Doing a full playthrough of ‘Ultimate Doom’ using the GZDoom source port.