Fantasist's Scroll

Not sure how long these have even been broken.

Honestly, I’m a little shocked that no one told me some of my conlang scripts were broken, but they have been.  I think it happened when my web host sold their business to someone else and they changed servers, but I’m honestly not sure how long that these haven’t worked.  Usually, when something goes wrong with them, people are all over it, so now I wonder how many people still use them!
Well, in any case, they’re all fixed and working again, so enjoy them!

No, that title’s not a mistake, it’s an homage.
Today is the birthday of novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Though he was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on this day in 1899 Nabokov and his family had to flee Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. He sailed to America with his family in 1940, arriving in New York City poor and almost completely unknown. He struggled to support his family with a series of jobs teaching at New England colleges. Then, in the summer of 1951, he and his wife drove to Colorado in their Oldsmobile station wagon and he began to work on his most infamous novel, Lolita.

The novel was hugely controversial, but the controversy helped the novel become a big best-seller. Nabokov was finally able to quit teaching and move with his wife to a hotel in Switzerland.

Okay, so my idea of fun may be changing a bit.

I’ve noticed a theme in my cancer caregivers’ rhetoric lately: clean. Get clean, stay clean, avoid things that aren’t clean. Wash your hands, gargle with their special solution to keep the mouth sores away, don’t eat raw foods that might have bacteria on them. This over-riding theme of cleanliness may have had some small effect on my choice of interesting links.

First, with all the house cleaning, there was this tool to minimize, if not eliminate, dust from doing wall-board work. Now, that might not seem like a big thing, but, trust me, all that dust is an irritant for months to come after the work is done! I know, having stuck my leg through a ceiling while running cable and doing the repair work myself.
Next, is a link to a toothbrush sanitizer, which has always been a thing for me. Well, not toothbrush sanitizing, per se, but generally good oral hygine. I’m always worried about things stuck in my teeth and bad breath and making sure my gums don’t bleed. That’s gotten very important to me these days! Bleeding is bad when my red and white counts are down so low!
And, this automatic soap dispenser caught my eye, since I’m washing my hands so much. Before I even saw it, I was thinking about how the most likely point of contact for bacteria was at the soap dispenser. An automatic soap dispenser would cure that and this shiny, chrome one would look nice on my bathroom counter!
Finally, while not a cleanliness link, this web-enabled pill box struck me as just the thing for someone having to track a bunch of medications. Their service, which isn’t quite available yet, helps a patient keep track of all the various medications and times and frequencies they have to take. And, at $60 a month, trust me, this would have been a Godsend this past week. I have so many pills to take that a little extra help keeping them straight would have been a big help!

So, there you are, that’s what sounds “fun” to a cancer patient with a lot on his mind! Kind of boring, but at least it’s something to think about over the weekend. Enjoy your Friday!  (And, yes, this was also posted on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.)

Today is the birthday of Alfred M. Butts, the man who invented the game Scrabble.

Butts was born on this day in 1899, in Poughkeepsie, New York. He trademarked the game in 1949, but his game didn’t sell very well. Only a few thousand copies of the game were sold, until 1950s when the president of Macy’s played the game on vacation and got hooked. He ordered more for his store, and Scrabble became a great success.
Scrabble has been a favorite of many writers, including the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who had a special Russian version made for himself and his wife.

Okay, so you might have noticed that I missed my Friday Fun Link.

There’s a good reason for that.  Mainly, it’s because I’ve got cancer and I’m in MD Anderson getting chemotherapy.  So, as lightly as I’ve been maintaining this site, it’s going to be even more lightly maintained until I’m on the mend.  I will, however, keep my other site and blog, Diary of a Network Geek, up to date.  So, if you want to keep current with my cancer situation, that’d be the place to do it.