Sentential Links #255

Two hundred fifty-five! I've always liked the number 255. It goes back to when I used to noodle around with my old Commodore VIC-20, writing little programs in BASIC. The number 255 came up a lot back then, because values for the POKE statement had to be between O and 255. Anyway:

:: I’ve long been confused by the saying that people come into one’s life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. To me, it actually makes more sense to say that every single person comes into one’s life for a reason, yet some of those people hang around for a season and others for a lifetime. (Maybe I'm just cynical, but the older I get, the less I believe that anything happens for "a reason". But I do wish it was the other way around.)

:: For now I’ll just give you a catch phrase: Shakespeare is not Dr. Phil. Reading Shakespeare is not an occasion for extracting neat, packaged “lessons” about life, love, or lawyering. (The fact that he is so quotable obscures this.) If Shakespeare had meant to write an advice manual, he would have written an advice manual. He was demonstrably well acquainted with the two main models for such a manual widely available in Renaissance Europe, Machiavelli and Montaigne. (Couldn't agree more. I'd almost say the same for the Bible...someone tells me that we should all live according to the Bible, there's never a convincing answer to my follow-up question, "Which part?" New blog to me, btw.)

:: Lately, when I read other blogs, I find myself getting more and more annoyed with "guest bloggers." I'm not reading Blogger X to get the thoughts of someone else, I want Blogger X. (I agree. I rarely read a blog when it's given over to guest-bloggers, and I myself have never once deployed a guest blogger here.)

:: So, always remember, when the shit is going down, Your Own Mask First.

:: If I'm going to get my sluttysparkle outfits out and make up my face and drink blue and purple drinks and dance with my friends, I do not want to do it to music that is sad as shit or that wants to hurt me (or make me hurt myself). (I'm not one for dancing, really, but I do agree with this. I much prefer pop music that sounds happy. Which is why...(oh lord)...I kinda dig some of Lady Gaga's songs. There, I said it.)

:: It's hard to envision a more thorough case of a lack of ideas, to come up with a more damning case of creative bankruptcy. Paramount has rebooted the franchise because of all that pesky continuity...and then all they can come up with is to "re-imagine" retell the old stories?? (I commented over on Snell's post about my lack of enthusiasm for the Star Trek reboot, for much the same reason. We're not going to get new stories; we're going to get the superhero-ization of Trek, where every time a new film is announced, everyone starts clamoring to know "who the villain is".)

:: It's never too late to write what you might have been writing. (This is utterly, absolutely true. As I noted in her comments, my space opera work-in-progress is a recycled story idea from back when I was happily writing Star Wars fanfic. It's got a whole new cast now, but the story is still there. Speaking of which, I've got to do some work on that story now!)

More next week!