Bruin Fisher

Do you be just gettin' on with it, yer daft bugger!(Bruin's attempt at writing dialect - not sure which dialect, but dialect!)

6,000 words already?? How? I'm struggling here, at 2,500 and my target for the end of today is 5,000, not 10,000!Great to know you're doing it, Ele. I wish I could meet up with other Nano'ers but I'm a bit isolated here. Say hello to everyone for me?BruinP.S. My Nano ID is Sinbad, by the way!

Thanks, mate. And all the best to you, too. I'm jealous already and we haven't started yet - you've got a plan. A plan! How'd I get one of those? Sainsbury's? I want one!Bruin

I'm selling tickets - any takers?

Couldn't agree more. It's a lovely story. Gentle, romantic, sweet. Just the way I like them. Bruin, a happy bear

Anyone recognise themselves??? Novelist cleans entire house Bruin

I might be, too. What tale? DLMD.... Down Low with Mike and Dave? Derek Loves My D***? Does Lucy Mind Dogs? Oh, the clue's that the author's name is Simon something. Elementary, my dear Watson: just look on the AD front page at the list of in progress novels and we find: Don't Let Me Down by Simon Jimenez Bruin

This is one occasion when tea is darker than coffee... Bruin

I don't need a dictionary, I've got a Camy! Thanks mate! W00t!

... which reminds me - what does w00t mean?? Camy is fluent in yoof-speak but I am hardly past the tourist phrase-book stage. I've recently heard a suggested derivation - it means Want One Of Those! If that's right, it's clearly only useable by those who use Microsoft operating systems. Mac devotees naturally have to say iW00t.

It's consistent. I did it again and got the same result.

Hey, that's radical! My comment above, number 10 in this thread, came out black on dark grey like all the previous third party comments here. But I proof read it after posting it and decided to make a minor change, so I clicked 'edit' at the bottom of the post and then 'quick edit' which gave me an editing cursor. And after making my change and clicking the 'complete Edit' button, my comment showed up with white text! However I clicked my browser's 'refresh' button and then it showed up with black text again. Boo.

This problem may be related to a problem I've experienced in the forums. When you reply to a thread by quoting a previous post, the text entry box appears complete with the text of the post you're quoting enclosed in 'quote' labels. The box has a white background and the text normally appears black. However if I quote one of of Cole's posts, the text of his post is invisible until I highlight it. It's always been like this, and I think it's because he colours his posts a sort of creamy yellow colour. I'm the opposite of an expert (an inpert?) but if HTML works anything like a lot of offline software, you can designate text to be a particular colour, or you can leave it defaulted to 'automatic', which seems to equate to white text if the background is dark and black text if the background is light. So most forum posts, with 'automatic' text colour, show white against the AD dark background, but then when you quote them and are working in the text entry box they show black against the white box background. No problem. Cole's on the other hand disappear because his text is not 'automatic', it's been specified to be a nearly white colour. And it's invisible against a white background.Now I wonder if that's close to what's happening in the blog area? Maybe our blog skin is defining the text of comments to be black, rather than 'automatic'? That would, I think, explain the phenomenon we're experiencing.

... and so would I. I thought it was a very promising start to what could become a fascinating story. So what about it, Des? You've got nothing else to do - we all know you live in a Greek temple, waited on hand and foot by bronzed attendants who peel and pip your grapes for you before feeding them to you! Maybe Cole and I should start a pressure group. Ooh, I can feel the pressure building up already!

Do I recognise a fellow nerd? How geeky is it to know that Nevil Shute's real name was Nevil Norway, Shute being his middle name? And that his day job was helping to design Britain's airships, the R100 and R101? And that he wrote a book about his experience and the failure of the project, under his real name? I reckon as chairman and secretary, that I should use my privileges to award James honorary membership to the 'Gay Geeks Anonymous' society. The next meeting is to be held at the Hare and Hounds Tuesday evening. Bring your own anorak. Bruin

I reacted rather differently than Brandon. Yes, the story lulls you into a false sense of security, presenting the action from one point of view and then without warning yanking you away and you see the next bit from a completely different point of view, and yes, that is momentarily disconcerting, even disorientating. But I enjoyed that. Like a fairground ride, it made me smile. Almost any video programme, whether film or television, uses the same technique these days. One camera angle cuts to a different camera angle repeatedly, every few seconds throughout the programme. Why? Because it keeps the viewer's interest, because using more than one point of view enables the programme maker to give the viewer more information than could be delivered from a single point of view. And we all accept it without demur (although some old codgers like me think it's occasionally overdone) and are used to it. Perhaps we're not so used to the same technique used on paper. But it is used for the same reasons - it gives the author the ability to present more information than he can from a single point of view. And so it becomes a larger than life experience, because life is experienced through one pair of eyes, one point of view. We're all different, I'm glad to say. Brandon and I like different styles of writing, I guess. I expect there are lots of other tastes we have in common, though. Maybe one day we could explore what they are? That might be fun! Bruin

Your entry is white text on a nearly-black background, the comments from RJ and Maddy are black text on a nearly-black background (I can't read them unless I highlight them) and then your comments are black text on a white background.I'm using Firefox 3.0.3 and I've tried it on a CRT screen and on an LCD.

Some Orang-Utangs are more advanced than others, then?

I apologise, Cole. I would have posted the Guardian article, I really would. But you see I can't read. My Feudal overlord doesn't consider that reading is a necessary skill for a swineherd so I never got to learn. For anyone who's interested, the Guardian is a well-respected national paper here in the UK which still attempts to tackle issues of serious concern in the face of the overwhelming tide of the hounding of celebrities which passes for news in the lesser papers. It is occasionally mocked for its perceived poor proof-reading. It used to be affectionately known as 'The Grauniad'.

Thanks for the recommendation, I found it, I tried it, I like it! (21st century update on Julius Caesar landing in Britain: "Veni, Vidi, Vici"!) Bruin

A great story by a master storyteller. Spine-chilling and heart-warming in turns, it plays havoc with the temperature of the chest cavity! Thank you Cole, a lovely tale. Bruin

EleCivil. A man I thought I admired, looked up to even. Aspired to emulate in my writing. And then the bottom fell out of my world, it all came crashing down around my ears. The structure of my universe collapsed and I am left with a pile of rubble. The man actually likes non-dairy creamer. I can hardly bring myself to think it. Doesn't life suck?

What do i need a Wiktionary for, I've got a Colin! Hail to thee, blythe spirit, fount of all wisdom! How did you know that? Wiki is still stumped. And it's not as though you've been alive since such a term was last in common parlance...! Thanks mate - I've learned something. Bruin

Slave Driver. Okay: "You don't have any idea how great you look, do you? Here, I'll take a picture and show you!" B

I have given this one serious and protracted thought and I think I have the solution. How about this? I think it's suitable for the nude beach or the locker room equally. "I'm from BAER technochemicals. Here's my card. [Hand over a neatly inkjet-printed business card] We're field testing our new product, aerosol clothing. Would you mind being part of the trial? There is no risk to you and you get to keep the finished articles." You now take a series of photos with a camera with a suitably long lens, which I suggest you have painted orange so it looks like a prop from Star Trek. After each picture you make tut-tut noises and fiddle with it, and keep going until you have all the pictures you need. Then, shaking your head, you announce it's back to the drawing board because obviously the weft grommet has jammed again, and you walk off issuing profuse apologies that the device has failed, and veiled threats aimed at the techies who've goofed again. Bruin