Search Results: writing

• 25 Mar 2008: The Five Emotions of Thesis-Writing

  
  Aimless: · 13 comments

  ...  there are also five emotions that one can experience while writing up a thesis: Despair, frustration, irritability, relief and robot. ...  several scientific jurisdictions to write the review I am writing without discussing a really trendy form of crystallized methane ice for ...

• 2 Apr 2013: Dandelion Mead

  
  Food: Asteraceae, brewing, dandelions, Food, honey, mead, metheglin, natural dyes, Onagraceae · 3 comments

  ...  be a monster if I ever finish it but the research and writing are both super slow going. Must is now 74 degrees, time to ...

• 17 Feb 2009: Teaching Engineers to Blog?

  
  Meta: · 6 comments

  ...  about something and want a soapbox, and/or they just like writing as a hobby, but it's the community aspects that become addictive. ...

• 27 Jan 2009: Academic Citation

  
  Aimless: · 1 comment

  ...  Are Stress-Related. So far, the part of scientific paper-writing I hate the most - I mean, apart from all the wailing and gnashing of ...

• 26 Jan 2009: Does the World Really Need Another Blog Anthology?

  
  Meta: · 16 comments

  ...  blogging and submit those great pieces to magazines). But writing - even science writing - is not driven by rational impulse. Until Open Lab is out of my hands, ...

• 20 Jan 2009: What Does it Mean to “Learn Science”?

  
  Meta, Science, Teaching: edutainment, unfinished drafts · 2 comments

  ...  books about science, enough so that I'm hip-deep in re-writing one...). But we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that this will ...

• 13 Jan 2009: Have We Really Reached “Peak Water”?

  
  Aimless: · 12 comments

  ...  or defects. Draft date: November 19, 2008 I stopped writing this post because I convinced myself that I was probably maybe sorta ...

• 31 Dec 2008: Geological Predictions for 2009

  
  Aimless: · 13 comments

  ...  combat. The U.S. news media can't help but snigger while writing headlines about "guerilla gorillas", but quickly turn their attentions ...

• 11 Dec 2008: An Open Letter to the Science Blogosphere

  
  Meta: · 10 comments

  ...  that draws you in to a story, that limns the scope of your writing while providing the so what. It belongs at the beginning and you are ...  and Natalie Angier books instead, my expectations for writing have been reset. I also tell you this because I have just finished ...

• 6 Nov 2008: Why Proposition 8 Hurts So Much

  
  Politics: · 3 comments

  ...  to preserve those civil rights. All those other states writing laws and ratifying constitutional amendments to redefine marriage as ...

• 4 Nov 2008: Evelyn Julia Brumm, Rest in Peace

  
  Aimless: · 8 comments

  ...  to vote, so can all y'alls (at least, assuming I finish writing this before the polls close). I'm registered as a permanent absentee ...

• 1 Oct 2008: In Which I Want Your Money: Donors Choose Challenge 2008

  
  Aimless: · 3 comments

  ...  give your lunch money to support public schools. I'll be writing much more in the coming month about the individual projects you should ...

• 29 Sep 2008: New Accretionary Wedge!

  
  Links: · no comments

  This month's geoblog carnival is on Geologeeeee.... innnn... SPAAAAAAACE!!1! - you simply must click through to see the cover. If you need more geoblog goodness, Lutz at geoberg.de is working on a complete list of the entire geoblogosphere! See it in Engl ...

• 28 Jun 2008: Delicious Internet Noms

  
  Links: · 1 comment

  ...  It's a very different sort of metabolic rate than the writing stuff, where like you can find out in the course of an hour if this ...  where it's this very holding your breath process. The writing stuff just has much faster reinforcement rates, and so it's real ...

• 27 Jun 2008: Richard Nixon Tamed the Mole People! A Timeline of Global Seismic Energy Release

  
  Science: · 14 comments

  ...  on climate change - places him among the crackpot screed-writing elite. That makes it worth discussing a few of his more beguiling ...

• 18 Jun 2008: Advice for a Mathphobe?

  
  Aimless: · 25 comments

  ...  getting a second degree. My first one is a BFA in screenwriting, so naturally I want to compliment that with a BS in geology in order ...

• 19 May 2008: I’d Like to Thank the Academy

  
  Aimless: acknowledgments, gratitude, thanks, writing · 5 comments

  ...  catching up on laundry, assembling alternate resumes and writing my acknowledgments. I imagine committees sitting on drafts as adopting ...

• 5 May 2008: Tag Clouds for my Papers

  
  Aimless: · 7 comments

  ...  with the first two might explain why I haven't finished writing up my thesis yet. I'm stuck on the part where I have to describe how ...

• 29 Apr 2008: Confessions of a Grad School Dropout Graduate

  
  Aimless: · 25 comments

  ...  of this boring stuff if I get to blog when it dings. I'm writing a Master's thesis; I wasn't originally expecting that. While I am fully ...

• 22 Apr 2008: The Personal is Political, Earth Day Edition

  
  Politics: earth day, environmentalism, feminism · 10 comments

  ...  individual behavior. Which is why I think Carol Hanisch, writing about the women's liberation movement in the late 60s, also gets at the ...

• 20 Feb 2008: Delicious Internet Noms

  
  Links: · 4 comments

  ...  Which is an excellent theme and I am looking forward to writing my entry, but freakin' C&C Music Factory cassette showing up during ...

• 4 Feb 2008: Why I Don’t Use the BPR3 Icon

  
  Meta: · 14 comments

  ...  easy way to share things that I find exciting, it makes my writing better, and it helps keep my ginormous slavering beast of an ego fed in ...

• 31 Jan 2008: Hello World

  
  Meta: introduction · 31 comments

  ...  Clearly, all the fun has already been sucked out of my writing, leaving behind a shambling blog-golem made up of nothing but dry facts ...

• 27 Jan 2008: Meme Time

  
  Personal, Whimsy: memes, monkeys, national pie day, pie, writing · 5 comments

  ...  the fold: I've been tagged! This meme is about writing. Also, it only requires you to list three things, which I think is ...  should be in a meme. Otherwise it's almost as much work as writing something original. Here are the rules: List 3 writing tips Tag ...

• 18 Dec 2007: Grading Codes I Want to Give

  
  Teaching: funny, grading, students say the darndest things · 1 comment

  ...  cry. If you do not take your next paper to the campus writing center before turning it in you are at serious risk of dictionaries ...

• 17 Dec 2007: Aaand, the rest of AGU

  
  Science: american geophysical union, underwear · 7 comments

  ...  carbon footprint; it felt good to troll a little bit by writing "I blame society", and turned out to be a great conversation-starter. I ...

• 28 Nov 2007: It’s “That Time” of the Science

  
  Science: goals, the scientific lifestyle, writing · 6 comments

  ...  didn't formally sign up for International Dissertation Writing Month, but I did set myself a couple of goals for November. I'm not ...  through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, ...

• 12 Nov 2007: Attn: Geoblogosphere

  
  Links, Meta: blog carnivals · 2 comments

  ...  to dig back in your archives for some good "hard rock" writing? I'd do it for you, but, uh, I have dinner plans. Here's the submission ...

• 8 Nov 2007: Can You Read Me?

  
  Meta: blogtinkery, datamining, flesch-kincaid, readability, reading level, writing · 2 comments

  ...  want to know is whether blogging has really helped my writing or not. I found a WordPress plugin called Word Statistics, and made ...  data are a little less clear: You can see that my writing has gotten slightly harder to understand over the past six years. I ...

• 1 Nov 2007: We’re Good Enough, We’re Smart Enough, and Gosh Darn It, We’re the November Scientiae!

  
  Links, Politics, Science: blog carnivals, feminism, gender, impostor syndrome, scientiae, sexism, zombies · 15 comments

  ...  BRAAAAAAINS!! Er, wait - even though I am technically writing this on Halloween, it won't appear until November 1. So I don't want to ...

• 23 Sep 2007: I Need Idiotproofing

  
  Personal, Science: grad school, software · 3 comments

  ...  there's no one forcing you to go back and document it by writing a script... So tell me: What happens when you discover a mistake ...

• 30 Aug 2007: Notes From the Books Precariously Stacked on My Bedside Table

  
  Human Fuzzies, Politics, Science: feminism, feminisms, history, psychology, racism, rape, sexism, trashy novels, white studies · 3 comments

  ...  rag glow about them - there's quite a bit of mediocre writing, a strained attempt to relate the Los Angeles riots of 1992 to ...

• 29 Jul 2007: Understanding Everyday Symbolism

  
  Politics: hate crimes, racism · 6 comments

  ...  expressing their distaste for: Dan Brown's schlocky writing style An ethnic group commonly associated with The Da Vinci Code... ...  such ethnic group, so it's probably Dan Brown's schlocky writing style If someone throws a copy of the Quran into the same toilet, ...

• 13 Jun 2007: Leaking From the Pipeline (Again)

  
  Personal, Politics, Science: academia, grad school, life as a leak, Phi Delta Qoppa · 14 comments

  ...  passionate about other career options, mainly science writing and outreach. I will tell prospective future employers very upbeat ...

• 3 Apr 2007: How Much NSF Grant Money Can One Bad Apple Control?

  
  Politics, Science: blog carnivals, peer review, scientiae, sexism · 5 comments

  ...  was thinking about her gender the entire time he was writing the rest of the review and was too distracted by wondering about ...

• 27 Mar 2007: Look What the Discovery Channel Thinks of Female Engineers

  
  Politics, Science: feminism, media, sexism, women in engineering · 22 comments

  ...  forties, edgy, adventurous, and an innovator." I'll be writing them a letter as soon as I can get beyond "Oh, for fuck's sake, what ...

• 11 Sep 2006: TA Training for Berzerkelers

  
  Teaching: blog carnivals, grad school, teacher training · 6 comments

  ...  third cure for blogger's block: find a structured writing prompt! Dr. Crazy's reflections on what she wishes she'd learned about ...

• 12 Aug 2006: How To Grab Google’s Attention

  
  Meta: search requests · 10 comments

  ...  but I certainly haven't gone around stuffing my titles and writing with carefully chosen keywords. Most of what I write is useless to the ...

• 15 Jul 2006: Call for Interviewees: Women in STEMM

  
  Politics, Science: women in science · 29 comments

  ...  in non-research careers, such as science/technical writing, K-12 and community college teaching, scientific sales, science policy, ...

• 7 Jun 2006: A Brief Discussion of Other People’s Politics

  
  Politics: climate change, plumbers, rhetorical tactics · 5 comments

  ...  I can usually hold my own (though I'm still much better at writing than talking) but I can't engage in brief politlcal discussion worth ...

• 11 May 2006: Wine is for Men*

  
  Human Fuzzies, Politics: lazy journalism, wine · 2 comments

  ...  Men Act Suave, Women Coo Appreciatively - but when you're writing for a deadline, you conjure your folksy lead from whatever cultural ...

• 16 Apr 2006: Hello world!

  
  Meta: anonymity, Internet branding, pseudonymity · 12 comments

  ...  veil of pseudonymity. Ditch the pseudonym; start writing under my own name. This is actually my favorite choice, but I'm worried ...  seriously pursue my fantasy career of freelance science writing Internet-people will cower in awe at the scientific credibility of a ...

• : About

  
  : · 1 comment

  ...  or a philosophical commitment, and most of what I've been writing lately is aimed at fellow hobbyists. I've had this blog for more ...

• 29 Mar 2006: Nerds for the Cause of Justice I: Proof of Concept

  
  Meta: blogtinkery, ideas for plugins, rhetorical tactics · no comments

  ...  posts on my site, easy (or maybe not so easy, yet, but writing a plugin to make it easy wouldn't be that hard). As an experiment, ...  out?</i> Beyond the theme/purpose of the blog, good writing is what usually attracts and holds my attention. The message is ...

• 24 Feb 2006: Friday Rock Blogging: I’d Rather Be Camping

  
  Science: moraines, rock blogging, Sierra Nevada · no comments

  ...  filing binge today. Which means I'm set for a thinking and writing binge tomorrow, but I'd really rather be camping. Here's a picture ...

• 22 Dec 2005: New Plugin: Recently Spammed

  
  Meta: comment spam, plugins, WordPress · 3 comments

  ...  up the documentation took twice as long as actually writing the plugin itself. So, I bring you Recently Spammed, the WordPress ...

• 19 Oct 2005: My Favorite Cop-Out

  
  Links: depression, museums · 6 comments

  ...  I have other things to be doing than writing limericks about this year's ballot initiatives. Here is a linky-post ...

• 3 Aug 2005: Travelogue! Days 0-3

  
  Personal: photoblog · 5 comments

  ...  with me plus the latest Harry Potter, I tend to buy travel writing in airport bookshops. I've been reading rather a lot of it lately, ...

• 19 Jul 2005: I Hate Life Hacks

  
  Personal: 3x5 index cards, i hate everything, Internet overload · 3 comments

  ...  applications! How to print on 3x5 index cards - because writing stuff down in a custom-designed box is better than writing it down on a blank card. For some reason. How to stress yourself out ...

• 29 Jun 2005: Guestblogger number the two

  
  Aimless: guest posts · no comments

  ...  knowledge of rocks is very limited, so I will probably be writing totally meaningless stuff about them. Have fun, yami! Hope you ...

• 18 May 2005: Autodatamining

  
  Meta: data mining, Weighted Words, WordPress · 5 comments

  ...  of reading level vs. time. I expect it to show that my writing has improved, for some convenient definition of "improved" which I will ...

• 2 May 2005: Feedtinkery

  
  Meta: blogtinkery, RSS, WordPress · 5 comments

  ...  a code snippet below the fold, and I'm also writing a more general article on feed customization. Here's what I changed ...

• 25 Apr 2005: Feminisms

  
  Politics: feminism, feminisms, ideological boundary police · 7 comments

  ...  I can still maintain focus for thinking and research and writing. In all other ways, it sucked. One of the things I wanted to write ...  of feminism eventually start to sound like Paul writing to the Corinthians: Feminism is patient and kind. Feminism is not ...

• 21 Apr 2005: Brain Asplode

  
  Links: Caltech, compost, grad school, sexism · 4 comments

  ...  like an amœba. PZ Myers (and some French scientists writing in Nature) on public outreach in the sciences. Does Friday Rock ...

• 18 Apr 2005: For Millennia, Google Has Spoken

  
  Human Fuzzies, Whimsy: essay contests, googlefu · 3 comments

  ...  Jesus said, "I am the Son of God in the Old Testament writings". The Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged ...

• 4 Apr 2005: Special to Fellow WordPress Blogtinkers

  
  Meta: Announcements, blogtinkery · 11 comments

  ...  do to this blog on my Codex user page. Tonight, that means writing a bit about how to rename wp-comments-post.php (it's really not that ...

• 17 Feb 2005: Initiative

  
  Politics: dating, feminism, gender, rape · 3 comments

  ...  But the question isn't "do I or do I not want to start writing Mrs. Yami Bookstoreman in girly hearts on my notebooks?" - it's "Given ...

• 15 Feb 2005: How to Ward Off Rapists

  
  Politics, Whimsy: rape, satire · 8 comments

  ...  womanly thighs". For that special personal touch, try writing with a calligraphy pen and decorating the card with feminine flowers ...

• 18 Jan 2005: Courtesy and Capitalization

  
  Human Fuzzies: grammar, writing · 19 comments

  ...  is part of the social convention for writing English. Like the alphabet, it isn't something that the writing system makes available for manipulation by individual users. Ah, uh, ...

• 14 Jan 2005: Magical Cow Pr0n!

  
  Links, Politics: earworms, feminism, pornography, sex · 2 comments

  ...  own. And that's all the insight I've got. Lynn has been writing a series of meditations on the nature of human sexuality at Noli ...

• 2 Dec 2004: Thanksgiving Food Review

  
  Food, Personal: cranberry sauce, pie, recipes, thanksgiving · 4 comments

  ...  snowflake. Since it is now three days after I started writing the post, it obviously hasn't worked out as planned, and is short. But ...

• 17 Sep 2004: Rhetorical Gatekeeping, Gender, Etc.

  
  Meta, Politics: blogular wanking, feminism, gender, rhetorical tactics · 2 comments

  ...  it's an exercise in healthy community bonding as well. Writing in crazy moon language idiolect, euphemistically described as "quirky" ...

• 30 Aug 2004: Note to People on Political Volunteer Phone Lists

  
  Politics: i hate everything, impeach Bush, US party politics · no comments

  ...  that isn't the geology of a remote tropical paradise, writing the Next Great American Weblog, or eating a bowl of Crispix. But even ...

• 5 Aug 2004: SUVs illegal in Pasadena

  
  Politics: environmentalism, Pasadena, SUVs · 1 comment

  ...  so writing my city councillors on this one: 3-ton SUVs are illegal in my ...

• 21 Jul 2004: Fortune Cookies and Essay Prompts: the Expansion of the “In Bed” Heuristic

  
  Human Fuzzies: · 1 comment

  ...  to admissions committees, depends on my analytical writing abilities as demonstrated by two briefly jotted essays. One of these ...

• 25 Jun 2004: Note to the California Legislature: Please Kill More Kitties

  
  Politics: · no comments

  ...  proposed repeal of the Hayden Act, and I am writing to express my qualified support for his proposal. I believe some ...

• 13 May 2004: Life of the Mind

  
  Politics: cultural criticism, intellectual elitism, intellectuals, unpaid work · 12 comments

  ...  in the humanities. Lilith asks: I mean, here we are writing our blogs, all of us from so many different places, backgrounds, ...

• 23 Dec 2003: Christmas Poll

  
  Aimless: · no comments

  ...  == 'POST') { */ /* but not before parsing your vote and writing out the new scorefile*/ /* $results[$vote] = $results[$vote] + 1; $fp = ...

• 9 Nov 2003: What I’m Reading

  
  Human Fuzzies: · no comments

  Shirky: The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview - a vivid vituperation of something I would have been vituperating for years, if I hadn't been ignoring it entirely. On the other hand, it's probably better to just ignore the vituperating, too, as Compu ...

• 24 Jun 2003: Am I an Ex-Academic?

  
  Personal: · 3 comments

  ...  something I can blame too!" In any case, I'd best stop writing soon, because the last three points I've considered and discarded were ...

• 4 Jun 2003: Exploded Your Mom’s Cambrian Energy Drinks

  
  Personal, Science: · 4 comments

  ...  am one large, sessile energy drink filter feeder, and I am writing about how the evolution of plankton poo changed the oceanic ecosystem ...

• 12 Mar 2003: Maxi Pad-Abouts

  
  Links, Personal: craftiness, menstruation · 1 comment

  Having to write a nasty, boring paper on the life cycle of Hawaiian volcanoes (which would be interesting if I were allowed more tangents about mantle plumes...) makes me feel all crafty for some reason. If I don't wind up with a clever lamp shade from a C ...

• 21 Jan 2003: Hmm

  
  Meta: · 3 comments

  ...  is yami? Yami is not writing! Yami has disappeared!!! PEEK-A-BOO! I had something brilliantly ...

• 30 Sep 2002: Tree Punching

  
  Personal, Teaching: academia, course scheduling · 3 comments

  ...  it out on my poor stuffed penguin. Intro to Science Writing - editors who apparently failed seventh grade science correct your ...

• 2 Sep 2002: Sapirior Speech

  
  Human Fuzzies: · 4 comments

  ...  without the verb "to be". Using E-Prime makes for good writing, but the discipline has attracted more than its fair share of ...

• 23 Aug 2002: Listen Up

  
  Politics: · no comments

  ...  bonding and a good show of wit, but that kind of serious writing is a trap. Read Ann Coulter, express outrage. Hear Bush's decision to ...

• 25 Jun 2002: Important News

  
  Aimless: · 2 comments

  ...  a warning to the rest of annoyingbirdkind... My paper is writing itself as I post this. No, really, I can hear the seismograms ...

• 12 May 2002: Someone Saves Me

  
  Meta: · no comments

  ...  writing captions for more than a dozen photoblog entries was apparently all the writing I had in me today. Fortunately, there are comments that need smart-ass ...

• 17 Apr 2002: surface learning

  
  Teaching: · 8 comments

  ...  fumbling with some old notes they can barely remember writing, and when everybody's thoroughly confused they go home. The current ...  if it's an easy fix, like doing more examples or writing slashes through Z's so they don't look like 2's. I will not think ...

• 7 Apr 2002: Review Time!

  
  Human Fuzzies: reviews of stuff, writing · 5 comments

  ...  out to buy sparkling platform dance shoes. Part II - Writing From an entry dated March 31: I noticed in my last few posts I ...  aside, our subject Tricia does not suffer from poor writing. Nor does she suffer from a boring life, at least not by blog standards ...

• 10 Mar 2002: Much Ado About

  
  Meta: · no comments

  ...  to work to improve the relationship, rather than merely writing it off as a lost cause. Parental figures - biological, legal, or ...

• 28 Feb 2002: god dammit

  
  Meta: · no comments

  ...  based on one of firda's templates, though I wound up rewriting all of the code) and I'm gettin' kinda antsy about having a place to ...

• 22 Feb 2002: new brand of peanut gallery

  
  Personal: · no comments

  ...  rush of turning some emotion into coherent thought, writing becomes a bit like picking a scab, it's perversely satisfying and also ...

• 21 Feb 2002: snide wastes of time

  
  Links: · 3 comments

  ...  - telling, not showing. pastel - whoa. tiny purple writing on a cyan background. intense - "Five thousand word philosophical ...

• 26 Jan 2002: Friday Five Four

  
  Whimsy: · no comments

  ...  For some reason, this week I felt like joining in, and writing something that my eyes will automatically skip over when I look at my ...

• 24 Jan 2002: Waste of My Time

  
  Whimsy: · no comments

  ...  but he's pretty funny. I'm sad that this merely a page of writing and not a blog with regular updates. soluble x crumhorn = 661,000 x ...

• 11 Jan 2002: Flamingo Lips

  
  Personal: blue sky, cult movement, embouchure, paying attention, peach, trumpet-playing, writing style · no comments

  ...  is a property of one's personality and mental state and writing style, things which are only vaguely influenced by geography. Now, I'm ...

• 2 Jan 2002: chugga chugga

  
  Meta: trains · no comments

  ...  married, or a 10-year-old kid who wants to know what I'm writing and if I'll lend out my gameboy. Those are always fun. I'm'a go ...

• 14 Dec 2001: filthy bloggish slime

  
  Meta: · no comments

  ...  am. Addendum: how many people are sitting out there, writing blogs in some obscure language that almost nobody can read? After ...  the audience available to an English writer vs. someone writing in, say, Basque, I'm curious. I'll take Danish as the dividing line ...

• 4 Dec 2001: when my head hits the rift pillow

  
  Personal: procrastinating, the scientific lifestyle · no comments

  ...  paper writing binge. I'm going to hate myself in the morning, of course, but for now ...

• 19 Oct 2001: trains

  
  Personal: · no comments

  ...  are crappz. Travelling alone, I've been compulsively writing stuff down and saving it to blog as some kind of substitute ...

• 25 Sep 2001: nonsense words

  
  Aimless: · no comments

  ...  notice problems which I have already corrected in my own writing. --- [ungh... falling asleep...can't write satire... unnnngg... ...

• 9 Sep 2001: verbal thinker

  
  Personal: · no comments

  ...  method one likes. I had a point in mind when I started writing this. Really, I did. But I can't for the life of me remember what it ...

• 7 Sep 2001: smoke-clogged lung

  
  Personal: cbcbc, drinking, life · 1 comment

  ...  have been accused not only of being shadowy, but of writing in a highly personal manner while revealing very few of the ordinary ...

• 2 Sep 2001: redesign in progress

  
  Meta: · no comments

  ...  few (well, all right, most) of the lab computers I've been writing at display my very own hastily crafted bloggo stylesheet in at best a ...

• 31 Aug 2001: recovered conversation

  
  Personal: · no comments

  ...  least, how I blather on. Not to mention his idiosyncratic writing style... *funblort* Of course, this has also led me to the ...

• 30 Aug 2001: Roskilde

  
  Personal: · no comments

  ...  and kings named Frederick. Which is why I want the writing on my memorial stone, if I get one, to be worn away by lichens and ...

• 22 Aug 2001: One True Blog

  
  Personal: · 2 comments

  ...  sort of comrade-in-arms. Or at least, another American writing a blog from Copenhagen, if that means anything at all in terms of ...

• 28 Jul 2001: an audience at last!

  
  Meta, Personal: · no comments

  ...  - or at least an intended audience - but I don't. I'm not writing this purely for myself - I've got a perfectly good notebook I can use ...

• 23 Jul 2001: fake personal ads

  
  Aimless: · 6 comments

  Writing fake personal ads (on free services, natch) has been an occasional hobby ...  well as a long poem about "spunky ferret love juice." When writing the latest one, I phrased it so any mildly clever 80 year old man named ...  to become his pen-pal sex slave if he'd only improve his writing. He hasn't written back. I'm terribly hurt. *stifles a sob on a black ...