before I do this, I wanna ask if anyone has heard of the new punctuation mark. a combo of '!' and '?' that means an excited kind of question. I saw an article about it awhile back saying the powers that be wanted to add it to the english language.

course, the powers that be seem to be stubborn. take for example the mexican's rule for the question mark. they put it in front of the question, which I think is just a wonderful idea. how many times have you read a sentence and had to reread it when you got to the '?' at the end? okay, maybe not that many times, but there were and are instances where its happened.

so back to the '?!' combo. personally, I think its a wonderful idea. I try not to use an exclamation point at all (Ive seen it overused so much, Im sure you have too) when Im writing (change "when Im writing" to past-tense during pre-post looksee) but I can totally see how that symbol would make a difference.

say for example, a character asks, "Are you crazy?" shit, with an exclamation point added, it would be pretty much exact.

and why is it called a 'point?' its a damn stick on a ball; the letter I with missing pixels; a trumpet (okay, thats stretching it...)

but that aint why I fired-up (pun, you'll see in a second) the pooter.

I had a strange fire today, just wouldnt get hot enough to kick-on the thermostat--which, on my woodburner, is located on the back of the unit. Ive used wood for four years now and consider myself somewhat smart. I know better than to stuff a slow fire cuz it'll catch and then Ill have fire shooting up the chimney (predator movies come to mind), and even today, I did not "stuff" the chamber. still, it wouldnt go and wouldnt go and wouldnt go. the last thing I did was add maybe three sheets of newspaper. and BINGO I had fire blowing the pipes apart. seriously, the vent pipe blew open at the seam. the rumbling sound was scary as hell; all that fire ripping up the chimney, and Im scared (precautionaryly scared) of a chimney fire. so I opened the door and squirted water in it. maybe not too good an idea, but I had to act fast--had to get the fire slowed down. it took a few minutes that felt like hours, but it slowed down to a normal output.

so Im all safe and cold now. smoke blew through the house while I had the furnace door open, which is what happens when one opens a door, silly, and I had to vent the upstairs...its 18 degrees outside and I had the doors open and a fan in the window.

oh well, thats how it is when you live in the eastern part of the country and cold weather comes yearly whether you likes it or not. and honestly, there is nothing so warm as a wood fire. it would make snuggling-up in front of the TV so fantastic, but Im in a snuggleless position as of now, and I dont watch TV [cept for maybe 2 or 3 DVDs monthly]--but even doing a crostic at the kitchen table or reading about John Corey's misadventures is better with wood.

propane heat compared to wood heat is like a spent match compared to a...ummmm...a lit match. sheesh, what a comparison. and you wonder why I dont write much anymore.

heres something to kill some time. its an end-of-year odd news wrap-up, if ya dig that sorta thing:


odd news

I had to write/post this to settle my nerves...Im all better now, so back to what I was doing. thanks for listening...

somebody was playing around on the html page again, martha...they got the damn message rolling across the screen like they're outta their damn minds or something.