Words

There are little north of 171K words in the English language (in common use). Around 150K in Spanish. Around 135K in French. Around 200K in Russian. Those of us saying please don’t ever use THAT term are saying that about, what, 6 or so words? You can have all the other words!

Come up with a new thing to call your friend/enemy/nemesis, instead of using words with a history of harm and that are used used to divest a person of their humanity, their own personhood. Find something else. Something that isn’t old, tired, completely predictable, and horrible.

Authors invent subcultures and often a language to go with them (see A Clock Work Orange). Make up your own subculture and a language to go with it. But, do please, stop being horrible. You don’t need those 6 words. Not using them will not harm you and it will make other people’s lives better.

Aint’ No Cure For The Overcast Blahs…

Looks like I forgot to put something up for Musical Monday.

Temps have finally dropped to almost proper Winter In Wisconsin levels and there’s some snow in the forecast, but we seem to be continuing with the overcast days. On the bright side of things, the overcast makes it easy to make shots like this one where it’s solid black and solid white. There’s probably a name for this sort of thing, but I don’t know it. Anyway… I have fun with the taking and making of these.

I walk and bike by this tree in downtown Eau Claire all the time and have been trying to get a good shot of it for a while now. This is the first pic of it that I actually like.

Sunday Tramp

Normally on a warm for Wisconsin winter’s Sunday, with a bright blue sky above, I’d be out on my bicycle. But, this winter I’m pretty into taking tramps around town and while it was a warm and sunny Sunday it was also fairly humid and I just can not stay warm in cold temps with high humidity. Plus, being cold on a bike is miserable.

So, Sunday was a tramp day. Sunday’s tramp took me down the UWEC stairs, across campus and the river, around the Randall Park neighborhood, and then into downtown for an Americano for a bit of a warm up and the energy to get me back up The Hill and home.

I didn’t pack a “real” camera or do any fancy shooting while out on Sunday, but I did take a few cellphone snaps, which I’ll share below.