Introduction
Hello, good evening and welcome to random corner. Now before we go any further, I’m not sure if I’m keeping that title. It’s not that it’s vague, more that it bores me and if it bores me then you’ll be bored. We all know what two boreds make, don’t we. Two short planks and they’re notoriously known for being thick, so I need to dispel that right now.
N.B. These normally go at the end, don’t they ? What’s the difference between a ‘N.B’ and a ‘P.S’ anyway ? The ‘Nota Bene’ is that I’ve changed the title, well more of an embellishment. I like it now. McBride’s Random Ruminations Corner sounds much better.
Topical, tropical, whimsical, random, fandom and lots more of the word association football type thingies. Have you ever tried that ? Word association ? I’m sure they used to use it some psychological tests. Maybe that’s where I remember it from. Some of the past is still a bit hazy. You have a word and then you have to say the next word that comes into your head, like rapid though.
Brazil, nuts, crazy, love, hate, tattoo, bagpipes, sandbags, saddle, horse, paper, four…OK, we’ll stop there, Freud would be
having a field day with all that. Sometimes we cannot fathom what the brain comes up with and it’s best not to try too hard to figure it out. Still, moving on.
Let me tell you what the plan is and then maybe I’ll be struck hard by some inspiration and a title will pop into my head and order will have been restored. (Obviously order has now been restored)
A while back I was looking for a topic to write a post about. I was on another site, sort of like a forum, so I asked if anyone had any suggestions. The carrot for them, was that I would write a post about whatever they chose and publish it that night. Putting in a time frame can help add some fire under your seat.
Out of all the subject matter that makes up our global community, they chose archery. So, there it was. Archery. OK, I’d set myself the challenge, now I had put my money where my mouth was. No set time, just had to do it that evening. It’s a bit like that radio show ‘Just a minute’ where you have to speak about a subject for a minute, without repetition, hesitation or deviation. Well, obviously I’m allowed to repeat, hesitate and deviate. Also, I have more than a minute. Hmm, not much like it at all really. Apart the subject being chosen at random and the participants have no idea what it’s going to be. Almost the same then.
Why ?
There’s the million dollar question. Why put myself through the mire ? Well it’s a challenge and I like challenges. That’s not the whole story though. When I write about nothing or just try to write with no end in mind, I struggle.
I liken it to trying to tickle yourself. It doesn’t work, your body cancels it out because it knows what’s coming. Whereas if you say ‘Hey McBride, write me an article about apple sauce’, now I’ve got something to work with. I can research and find some interesting, if not bizarre, snippets of information. It gives me something to bounce off, a stimulus. Make sense ? Probably not but that’s alright. We’ll see how it goes. I have to say, I’m a touch excited, which probably makes me a bit sad, c’est la vie.
How ?
Now, in the true sense of random and all that is total unpredictable, I had to come up with a way of choosing the topics. If I was trying to find a destination randomly, I could blindfold myself, spin round a few times and the stick a pin in a map. Sorted. That’s not going to work here, unless I wanted to write a travel blog. Not a bad idea but not one that has any relevance. My technique will be far more sophisticated.
First I will be using an online encyclopaedia, not Wikipedia, something a little more traditional, if I can find one. I haven’t looked yet but I’m sure it can’t be that hard. Failing that, I will buy and download one, that’s how committed I am. I have got a copy of Encyclopaedia Britannica, that came with a computer I bought back in 1999. If there’s ‘trouble at mill’ I’ll have that
as a back up. It’s compatible with Windows 98 and it’s predecessors, I’d have to run it on a ‘Virtual PC’ which, luckily, I have. Again, sad but true.
N.B once more. I have had to buy an encyclopedia. It’s a CD-ROM from the dark ages but it will have to do. There it is, just to the right. OK, Carry on.
Here’s the plan. First, find out how many pages are within the book of wisdom. Then, use a random number generator to pick a number between one and the total number of pages. That will give the page that contains the subject matter. Then I’ll spin for another number and this will be for making the final selection. I’ll just count each entry on the page until I reach the chose number. Simples, no ?
Aim ?
Once I’ve done all of that I will have a word. Then the fun will begin. Well, I’ll be having fun writing, you’ll have to judge yourself, if it’s fun to read. I’m sure there will be a mixture. It may prove difficult to raise a smile when you’re reading about Igneous rocks. I wonder if geologists have a book full of rock jokes. That would be cool. Whenever someone joins a profession, they are given a specialist joke book, just for them.
Enough already, you get the idea, I’m sure. By the time you read this there may well be a number of titles for you to flick through and see if anything piques your interest. If not, then I’m sure it won’t be long. Fingers crossed.
Sycamore McBride.
With said
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