Blogocentric Formulations (Book)

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I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.

Blogocentric Formulations

Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).

Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:

"The Soundtrackers Group"

"Blogging Circle of Friends "

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"

"JAFBG"

"Take up Your Cross"

Thanks for stopping by!

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Aiva Raine

Nov 6, 2024 at 4:49pm
In response to "October Watch List"

Grin. I loved Psych! I rewatched White Collar approx a month ago. Having issues finding good new shows so I've resorted to rewatching my favorites from old.

Currently rewatching Castle, Supernatural, and Buffy/Angel.

Enjoyed The Great and Lady Jane Grey, sad they both got cancelled. The "I made a teddy bear" episode on The Great was so funny hubby and I had to rewatch that scene 4 times before we could finally stop laughing hysterically at it.

Thanks for your recaps of shows- it's given me some new items to add to our lists.

Jeff

Nov 6, 2024 at 3:20am
In response to "October Watch List"

Aiva Raine

- I've actually watched all three! PERSON OF INTEREST was a really good show, but WHITE COLLAR and BURN NOTICE (along with another great USA Network show called PSYCH) are some of my favorite television shows of all time. I actually just started rewatching WHITE COLLAR a few weeks ago!

Aiva Raine

Nov 5, 2024 at 3:08pm
In response to "October Watch List"

Wasn't aware that there was a movie for "What we do in the shadows"- thought it was just a TV show on Hulu. Thanks for sharing that tidbit- will find the movie and add it to our watch list. The TV show is quite humorous.

I also enjoyed the Lincoln Lawyer- need to watch the newest season.

Have you ever checked out Person of Interest, White Collar, or Burn Notice? If so, did you enjoy them?

1 Like

Aiva Raine

Aug 3, 2024 at 11:10pm
In response to "Man on the Moon"

Just missed seeing the moon landing by a few years and as one of those "old people", I will admit to being depressed at our lack of space progress. Sure, we've got great new telescopes that are letting us see wonderful things way out in space, but we still haven't even put a man back on the moon again after all this time. Putting someone on Mars looked promising for a while, until Elon Musk went all nutso and can't stop mucking up everything. Yeah, he's got reusable rockets, but we aren't really progressing much beyond that.

I truly hope I can live long enough to see humans do some real space exploration. Because even though I didn't see the original moon landing in person- watching it on TV after the fact still was pretty freaking cool. Although watching the Challenger blow up from our desks at school sucked. Here's hoping we get to bring the astronauts stuck in space home soon. Maybe NASA can work with someone besides Boeing for that!

Aiva Raine

Aug 3, 2024 at 11:01pm
In response to "July 2024 Watch List"

Only seen the Fall Guy and Deadpool & Wolverine. Both fell a bit flat for me. I think because the first Deadpool was just so awesome. This last one felt a bit Disneyfied. Yes, I know- tons of gore and the occasional sex joke, but it just, meh. There wasn't any real "bite" to it.

The first one had a real plot. It made you belly laugh hard. And you cared a bit about the characters. This last one, I didn't really care at all. About anyone. I laughed, but most were the "oh wow- that's so over the top it's funny" laughs, not "that's freaking hysterical and I'm still gonna be laughing about that on the way home".

Fall guy- it was more cheesy than funny or entertaining. It wasn't that memorable at all. So not memorable that I'm trying to remember anything I hated or liked about it and well, I can't. I do remember at the end going, well, not sure that was worth the 2 or so hours it took to watch.

There really hasn't been a movie lately that's wowed me. Everything seems to be trying to follow the whole Marvel action movie formula and they just don't do it for me. There's only so many explosions, fart jokes, and over the top gore scenes all done special effecty that you can do before you've completely lost me. I quit watching Marvel or Superhero movies a while ago, but went to Deadpool because- it was Deadpool and my son asked me to go for a Mom/Son outing.

I've tried watching many of the newer shows that get all the hype and they fall flat. I've gone back to watching reruns of shows I actually enjoyed- like Leverage, or White Collar. I'm on rewatch # 3 of Supernatural, rewatch 2 of Vampire Diaries, got about half-way through rewatch 2 of Originals before I gave up.

I did enjoy "The Great" and was bummed they killed it after 3 seasons. That was funny!

I loved the Bridgerton series, but this last season left me a bit unimpressed.

I'm currently rewatching Warehouse 13 with hubby who has never seen it. We watched Eureka before then. Somehow- all these older shows are much better than 99% of the newer shows and I honestly want to know why.

Why do most of the newer shows suck? Lazy writing? AI writing? What's the story? I'm really curious?

Kåre เลียม Enga

Aug 3, 2024 at 4:46pm
In response to "July 2024 Watch List"

I don't go out or have a television. I would watch more on-line but the internet has been wonky recently.

Two Thai BLs:

"1000 Year Old Vampire"

So... uneven. Some of the premise makes sense in a supernatural way. A vampire can't die even though he's bored of living. He's old... very old... and keeps meeting the same human/alien again and again. That 'love story' has some merit. The final scene is moving.

12 episodes could've been condensed to 4 or 6 (so... 160 - 240 minutes total; even a 90 minute western movie would've been better). I could take the final words "Wave goodbye, Master Yoh" and rewrite it as a prequel, having it placed in 1940 (not necessarily in Bangkok), ending in 2000... with it being 'reborn' in 2020. I like the idea, not just how it's done.

"Love Sea"

Good acting, great chemistry, edgy at times. It tackles sex-for-pay, family abuse/neglect, criminality, and the age old "what happens when we fall in love". I love a romance when there are layers of other genres and when it takes me to a time and/or place. Episode 2 is steamy and geo-restricted but it's fitting to get past the 'sex' because that's not the story.

Both main actors are top-shelf and work well together. The niece Meena is adorable. The father is chilling (evil wrapped up in normality). It hasn't finished yet. There are 10 episodes. #9 airs August 4th.

"1000YO" gets about a 6.5 rating at MyDramaList ... and that's about right imho for PG silliness. "Love Sea" is rated 8.0 and that's a tad low. The story may be a bit too 'real' for some audiences as it's 18+ and serious.

These are the opening episodes to save time looking for them! IMHO, it's getting harder to find some things on-line.

1000YO: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8sq35e
LoveSea: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9037r4

[Visit the entry for more...]

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jul 29, 2024 at 12:01am
In response to "Hiding behind humor"

"I was just joking" can trigger my traumas and make me distrust someone. I want to respond, "I'm not laughing" ... without an apology or smile. It's too akin to bullying.

1 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jul 28, 2024 at 11:55pm
In response to "Man on the Moon"

The original Star Trek was 1966-1969. And let's not forget the Jetsons. Both forecast new technologies... as people looked to the future.

The future seems more dystopian now. And since the Moon has little commercial value, money has gone elsewhere. NASA has a $25 billion budget; Pentagon ... $825 billion.

When there's a military base on the Moon... or when it's found to be made of gold instead of cheese... then it will become a priority.

Sumojo

Jul 16, 2024 at 2:16am
In response to "Memorable Places"

Hi, Jeff, I’m reviewing this interesting blog post as next in line for I Write in 24.

I’ll comment on each of your memorable places in turn.

Flathead Lake (Polson, Montana
I could feel the connection you had to this place, but also to the memories of your grandparents. I couldn’t quite envisage the boathouse though. To me a boathouse is a shelter for a boat! But obviously it wasn’t just that.
I could also feel the sadness when you returned there, even if it was just on line. It’s distressing really to see the new owners had messed with a place you held so dear.

Zuma Beach (Malibu, California)
Now here you showed your true romanticism. What a beautiful plan you devised to recreate the table setting of your wedding day. Your wife would have been so happy.

Gare du Nord (Paris, France).
I understand that feeling when you become the foreigner when you first land in a country whose language is not yours. I felt it when we were in Vietnam, even the street signs weren’t in English and finding one’s way around was daunting.
I believe though that the French people are willing to speak English if one makes at least an attempt at French.

Edmund D. Edelman Children's Courthouse (Los Angeles, California).

A different feeling and experience here. I was a little taken aback when I saw a courthouse as a place you had strong memories about until I read the rest of the post. Yes, a location can leave a person traumatised. Your experiences at that particular courthouse are mixed. The applications and endless paperwork involved in the process which allowed you to adopt your precious children would certainly have left you with mixed feelings of that location.

The Walt Disney Studios Lot (Burbank, California)

Now this location isn’t one where many people can put as their workplace. You certainly have an interesting job.I would have loved to hear more about your experiences in the movie business.

Overall I throughly enjoyed the blog post. Thank you so much for sharing.
Sue.

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Wordsmitty ✍️

Jul 15, 2024 at 12:12am
In response to "Memorable Places"

A nice time capsule of your life as well. Thanks for sharing.

1 Like

September 29, 2022 at 12:17am

#1038304

Changing Course

Prompt ▼

If you had the opportunity to turn back time what would you change about the course of your life and why?

I generally don't have regrets about the course of my life because it's very possible that the things in my life I have now that I love wouldn't exist if I had done things differently. If I said I would go back and get out of or pursue a different relationship, I wouldn't have our kids, or the great experiences I've had with my wife. If I said I would go back and avoid a particular mistake, I wouldn't have the wisdom I gained from going through that particular trial. So with the caveat that I'm not really sure I'd turn back time at all, if I had to, I would probably change one or all of the following things:

1. Unhealthy Habits

I spent a lot of years not exercising and eating like calories didn't count. And I've spent a lot of years overweight and out of shape as a result. If I could change the course of my life so that I could have spent the past 10-20 years making better choices in order to feel better physically (and not have to go through the current struggle to lose the extra weight!), that'd be pretty nice.

2. More Risks At Work

I was admittedly very timid with my career choices. My parents really pressured me to prioritize being able to support myself and I took a lot of jobs (and turned down quite a few) because of the financial component. I sometimes wonder if I'd be in a different and better place professionally if I took risks like stepping off the corporate track and steady paycheck in order to get a job in a writers room, or if I'd said yes to opportunities that might have required me to travel more, or step outside my comfort zone. My career has been largely comfortable, but I often wonder how it would have been different if I had taken more risks instead.

3. Writing

If I ended up going back in time, I would have taken my writing more seriously. At the time, I always believed I was too tired or too busy to write and now in retrospect I recognize that it was instead closer to laziness and fear of failure. Had I the ability to do it all over again, I would love to be able to teach myself that lesson earlier on, so I didn't have to spend so many years being so afraid of living up to my potential as a writer that I ended up not really writing very much at all.

4. Live Somewhere Else For A While

Being born and having lived my entire life in California, I wish I would have taken the opportunity to live somewhere else for a while. Maybe a semester abroad, or a gap year, or more mission trips, or just more leisure travel in general. I've been fortunate enough to have taken some amazing vacations in different spots around the world, but I do always wonder what it would be like to have lived for a season in a place completely different from California. Maybe somewhere on the East Coast or an international city somewhere.

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September 11, 2022 at 7:14pm

#1037624

Something I Learned Recently

"Take up Your Cross" | Prompt ▼

Write about something you learned recently and how you can apply it to your life.

At my weekly Bible study (which is reading through the entire Bible in a year), we finally reached the New Testament and just finished the Book of Matthew. The conversation this morning brought up a couple of things I hadn't considered before, the most interesting among them - at least for me - being a conversation about the questions Jesus was asked and answered. By many accounts, the other characters in the Bible asked Jesus 183 questions. Jesus only definitively answered three of them, and asked 307 questions of others, often by answering their question with a question or two. I hadn't really thought about that before.

One of the things I've always struggled with as a Christian is my fellow Christians who treat the Bible as prescriptive rather than descriptive . So many Christians look to specific passages of the Bible to tell them how to act, or to make an argument in support of what they already believe. But looking at the stories of Jesus as told in the Bible, it's remarkable how often he didn't have an explicit and direct answer for someone's question.

What that's taught me is that the Bible isn't a how-to instruction book as much as it is a book that's meant to be studied, learned from, and applied to our own lives and contexts. In terms of my own life, it means that I need to spend less time reading the Bible looking for answers and more time reading the Bible to figure out what the right questions to ask are.

1 Like • Comment

September 9, 2022 at 11:53pm

#1037564

August Watch List

Explainer ▼

Movies

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Extinct
Lightyear
Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show
Uncharted
The Wish Dragon

Television

Schitt's Creek (Season 1)
Selling the OC (Season 1)
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
Stranger Things (Season 2)
Stranger Things (Season 3)

After watching an early cut of BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER, I'm really excited about it. I think audiences are really going to respond to the story, which had to be completely reworked after the passing of Chadwick Boseman. But my favorite thing I watched on the movie side last month was the SHOWRUNNERS documentary about what it's like to be the head writer/producer on a television show. It's basically my dream job, and the documentary featured interviews with several prominent showrunners about what their job is like.

I'm finally getting caught up on STRANGER THINGS on the television side, which I'm really enjoying. I didn't think Season 3 was as good as Season 2, but I'm really excited for the most recently fourth season. SELLING THE OC is pretty dull because the personalities aren't nearly as interesting as the original SELLING SUNSET show, but I enjoy seeing the real estate being sold closer to my neck of the woods.

TOP PICK: Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show

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