A is for autofill

I have a neat idea and if it catches on, it may become a full-blown online blog meme or, at least, a decent way to spend ten minutes.

With the proliferation of browsers that use autofill to help complete URLs in the address field – such as Firefox and Safari and probably more – often we have to type only a few letters to get the browser to acknowledge where we want to go. It occurred to me that the autofills suggested by each single letter could provide a sense of one’s being.

Here are mine with comments in brackets:

A: agw.bombs-away.net/
B: baseballprospectus.com/
C: complicationsensue.blogspot.com/
D: dilbertblog.typepad.com/
E: ebay.com/
F: facebook.com/
G: gmail.com/
H: habsinsideout.com/
I: ikariam.org/ (an online game)
J: jcc.ca/ (surprising – a computer store)
K: kenlevine.blogspot.com/
L: latimes.com/
M: my3.statcounter.com/
N: nhl.com/ (I was sure this was going to be one of my class Web sites at nyveen.surfzen.com)
O: onlinepools.com/
P: pbs.org/cringely/
Q: queryletters.blogspot.com/
R: rotoworld.com/
S: s6.ikariam.org/ (a game server; see the entry for I)
T: the-legion-of-decency.blogspot.com/
U: uninflectedimages.blogspot.com/
V: valpatken.com/ (a Japanese site that no longer exists; I forget what it was)
W: weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/
X: xevious.stanford.edu/ho/ (I forget what that was, too)
Y: youtube.com/
Z: zaf.baseball.sportsline.com/

Gosh, that’s dull.

Never mind.

Eleven pages and all’s well

My first week of dedicated work on the treatment to script phase produced 11 pages, which is less than I’d have liked. I think they’re mostly good pages, though. I’m not revising as I go, but extruding the thing in one long… – er, I’ll stop that metaphor now. There are some rough spots and I think it drags because of an extra few scenes, but I can fix that after I finish this draft.

One reason it is going slowly is that I have a book of my hero’s personal letters that I like to consult for flavour. What he wrote is not dialogue, obviously, but the letters do let me access the adyts of his mind at any particular moment of his life.

When I wrote earlier that I start teaching today, I was wrong. I start next week, but I still have another full afternoon/evening schedule to get through. Mondays and Wednesdays are T-ball (we’re 2-0 and look to be far and away the best team in our league). Tonight, Elvi and I have the first meeting for Child Two’s bat mitzvah at the synagogue we’re joining. Only I will attend because Elvi is throwing a dinner party at our place for her choir tonight.

Early Friday morning, Elvi leaves to spend eight days at some sort of blacksmithing conference in Pittsburgh. Next week may rattle me. I already have conflicts Sunday and Monday evenings, but my father, who is in town, can help me out, thank goodness. And our carpool partners are very understanding and will happily cover for me when I am in class.

Bonus evidence I am a great man:

Elvi fell in the toilet yesterday because I left the seat up. She was so used to my excellent toilet skills that this lapse caught her by surprise. I never leave the seat up – well, almost never. Hey, I said I was a great man, not a perfect one.

Life v. work

I am cracking down on writing this biopic, but it’s tough with this week’s interruptions.

Sunday night, I took Child One to her bass lesson.

Monday I got quite a bit done until 3:00 when I had to leave to do carpool. Tuesday was another decent work day, again until afternoon carpool. Once I get home from carpool, I have all three (more or less) kids in the house and I do homework with them or they’re on a computer making beeping noises. I can’t accomplish anything when they’re here. I have to wait for them to sleep.

Wednesday morning was cut short by an interview. I was the subject, not the director as the wife and I met with the rabbi of a synagogue we’re joining. One thing I can’t do is work for an hour – I need long stretches to be productive – so by the time I got home, Wednesday was shot. Thursday I got some more done, until carpool. Today, I attended an school assembly in which Child Two performed, then went shopping for a Nintendo DS Lite and some games for Children Two and Three. I didn’t get much done.

I’m sitting at the end of an alleged five-day workweek with about seven pages written, and six good ones. That’s not too bad when you consider how many hours I actually have to work and the research-heavy nature of this story.

I have T-ball to (assistant) coach Monday and Wednesday evenings. Child Three is playing summer hockey Friday evenings. I’m playing hockey Wednesday evenings (yes, a little conflict there) and Friday nights. And somewhere in the remaining space we’ll slot a weekly T-ball practice.

Next week, I start teaching my summer course….