My friend Rob sent me a cool graphic of my new slogan, so I now am redesigning the site. Note to self: I am a word person, not a graphic person. That, and the only graphics program I have access to at the moment is Microsoft Paint. Pathetic. So the redesigned site probably won't look all that much different from the current site, but what can you do.

Oh, also, I'm looking into tranfering over to the new URL. I hope to do it in such a way that it's seemless. We'll see. Mary, you transfered from Blogspot to your own URL, right? How'd you do that, and keep your archives and such?

I'm glad I've had time to poke around with my site, as today was otherwise quite frustrating. Word of warning: Going to Ikea on a weekend afternoon during their big sale means you will be inundated with people. Don't go if you're feeling misanthropic to begin with.

Have said that, i did get some cool stuff -- more picture frames, for my Australia pics, doormates, some Christmas ornaments... .nothing exciting, but it made sense at the time. Oh, and a bunch of clip-on lampshades for the tenants inthe basement, who are now living with serious industrial lighting. Hopefully this will help.

This just in from Dawn: And as for the patron saint of geese... one word for ya' doll....Fabio.

One word for you Dawn .... Brilliant.

Dawn sent out a link to a listing of Catholic patron saints. Wow, there are a lot of them, for all sorts of random things. For example:

Arms dealers What? Aren't they, yaknow, kinda evil?

Both blood banks and blood donors Because the "Be nice to me! I gave blood!" sticker you get just isn't enough.

Boy scouts But do they protect atheist boy scouts? And hey, why not the girl scouts?

Opposition to communism Either this is an extremely effective saint, or it's a saint that will soon be retired. I didn't notice a saint for opposition to rampant, soul-sucking capitalism. Bummer.

Death, a happy death, and sudden death Three separate patron saints. I don't know if the patron saint of death is supposed to be available for death workers -- executioners, hit men, etc. -- or is someone you're supposed to pray to to avoid said death workers.

Doubters Strangely, Joseph is the patron saint of this. Surely it should be Thomas. Or did he doubt to much to be canonized?

Editors I note that editors have two separate patron saints. One doubtless follows the AP Stylebook, the other the Chicago Manual of Style.

Geese Now I’m a little confused. There are saints to ward off dog bites and snakebites, and saints to protect livestock. Is the patron saint of geese supposed to protect you from geese, or protect your geese for you? They need to be more specific.

Hemorrhoid sufferers "This patron saint brought to you by Preparation H." I mean, why not a patron saint of ringworm, or lice, then?

Juvenile delinquents Again, is this saint supposed to protect juvies, protect you from juvies, or convert juvies? That's one busy saint.

Jumping Um, what?

Mongolia, Inner and Mongolia, Outer The Mongolians get two separate saints. Odd.

Neighborhood watch After I got robbed four times, my friend Sean suggested I go to one of the local bodegas and get the prayer candles that are supposed to ward against break-ins or torture thieves or something (I live in a heavily Hispanic area). I guess this is the candle I'd look for, as there is no patron saint of beartraps or convenient untraceable accidents.

Philatelists Because you never know what sort of spiritual peril you may run into in your quest for that rare 32-cent inverted eagle stamp.

Public Relations I can only suppose this saint is supposed to protect you FROM PR, because I can't really believe there would be a Saint of Spin.

Security forces, Andorran They get their own patron saint. Seriously.

Shorthand writers The mind reels.

Tourism, Spanish The weird thing is that the patron saint of Spanish tourism is Francis Xavier. You'd think it would be Santiago -- Saint James -- as the pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostela pretty much invented tourism -- well, ok invented European pilgrimages, which, one could argue, is the precursor of tourism. I'm just saying.

Various nationalities of nurses, soldiers, engineers, etc. get their own patron saints, as well. I can see why, say, French and Spanish soldiers wouldn't necessarily want to be praying to the same saint -- would the prayers cancel each other out? Would the saint make you stop fighting, like your mom used to? -- but engineers? How much conflict do Spanish and Italian engineers get into?

Liz sent an indignant note to the group asking why there was no patron saint of movie producers. I'd argue that that's another one of those gray areas -- do you pray to the saint to protect you as a movie producer, or to protect you from movie producers?

But I'm thinking there are a number of patron saints we need now. Patron Saint of Repetitive Stress Injuries, or Ergonomics. Patron Saint of Broadband Connectivity. Patron Saint of Crappy Radio Stations (obviously one to protect you from bad radio.)

What else?

From Newton, after I had answered his question about the ethan computer virus in about 2.5 seconds: She's fast, she's good, she lives in da 'hood. This may be my new slogan

In fact, it now is. Cheers, Newton.

Responses to the writing question: Newton, as always, was ever-so-helpful.

The best motivation towards written communication is a paranoid suspicion that nobody ever listens to a word you say. Try smoking dope.

Um, thanks, I think. I'm already pretty sure I'm shouting into the void most days, so I don't know if dope would necessarily help. Thanks for thinking of me?

Jane had more practical tips:

I write to make money. That's it. Once every few years I write something for pleasure, but somewhere years ago I stopped writing for fun and started writing because that's how I get paid. Actually, in my current job I hardly write at all, so unless it's a freelance gig, I pretty much don't write anymore. Sometimes this bothers me. The last thing I wrote that wasn't an actual assignment was a travel article on my trip to Greenland. I never got around to pitching it to editors, but I did use it as a clip when a travel magazine contacted me to write the fear of flying thing. Voila, here is my travel writing clip. So, it comes in handy.

I write, which implies that I take writing assignments from editors, because it involves receiving checks with two or three zeroes at the end, and those do wonders for my retirement fund and my house down-payment fund. Every time I cringed at the thought of spending another sunny weekend doing tedious editing, I pictured a cozy little bungalow with Sarah gardening in the back yard and Tim the greyhound snoozing by the fire.

OK, so far, so good. I get the money motivation. Then comes the tough part:

I hate to say it, but breaking into this is going to require selling yourself, and that's going to require self esteem, or at least the ability to fake it.

Well, fuck.Because that's the bit I seem to have trouble with. Who neesd more of the same stuff? See, here's the deal: I'm perfectly capable of writing stuff on demand. I'm good at it, even. I know it's wanted. And because I know it's already got a life of its own, I don't really care about it. That's not to say I don't give a crap about the writing -- I want what I write to be good, and I take pride in it. I can string words together like nobody's business. Where I get stuck is in pitching something that no one has asked for. There's a certain effrontry, ballsiness, to say "Listen to me. I know what' I'm talking about. I'm interesting -- or at least my take on the world is." This is something I admire a lot about Andy -- he definitely knows his own worth, he knows he's talented and he's not afraid to let other people know it. (Don't get cocky, Andy -- you're still a punk-ass kid, you still need an editor, and I'll still kick your ass some day just on general principle.)

So how does this mesh with having a blog? For some reason, it doesn't count. I figure it's only read by people who arlready know me, if by anyone at all, and that makes it ok. I have no idea what my traffic is like (although I have gotten some mail from The BarCodeKing, so I know someone I don't know personally is reading this -- freaky) and I'm probably ok with that. Or not. Hell, I don't know. I'm not making sense.

I'm afraid this has devolved into snivelling. I do apologize.

Sigh. Writing is hard. I'm trying to complete some articles on Australia that I hope to sell, and I suck at this. Not at completed writing, apparently -- Wendy says the articles are salable -- but at the act of writing. The actual sitting-of-butt-on-the-chair-and-typing bit of writing. The getting it done part. Arghh.

So we were talking about what to do to get yourself over the hump, to convince yourself that you should actually be writing this down, etc. etc, and Wendy said "I pick up a book..." and I immediately started think "Well that wouldn't work for me, I'd never get back to writing." But she meant a specific book. One that sucks. One that is a testament to what can get published in the genre. She basically figures she can do a hell of a lot better than this misbegotten person, so why not?

My problem is more along the lines of feeling like I have nothing original to contribute. Who needs another article on tours in Sydney? Who needs my take on anything? Why bother?

Yes, this probably points to soming more deep-seated than just writer's block. Joy.

Well, as one of my New Year's resolutions is to write daily, I'll have to see what i can do about this.

So what to you do to get over the hump? How do you make yourself write? Suggestions welcomed, and Ireserve the right to post anything I find interesting.