Patrick Stewart Going to Mars

On August 4, NASA launched a Delta II Rocket carrying the Phoenix Mars Lander at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base. In less than 90 minutes, the spacecraft had left Earth’s orbit headed for the Red Planet. It will take about 10 months for the Phoenix to get there.

The Planetary Society provided part of the mission payload. A mini-DVD on the spacecraft contains personal greetings form space visionaries, plus 80 stories and articles by leading writers and scientists. A collection of Mars artwork and classic radio shows narrated by Patrick Stewart is also included.

Phoenix will land on the northern plains of Mars looking for evidence of past life.

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I came across a web site that generates pictures like the one's below. Go there and amuse yourself like I did.

NYT Online, Writer's Block, Randomness

The New York Times will no longer charge readers for online access to its Op-Ed columnists and other content, says The New York Post. As a Times reader, I'm glad to know it. I've never paid for the service and always thought the Times would come around and offer free content online.

Times executives - including publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. - made the decision to end the subscription-only TimesSelect service but have yet to make an official announcement. Apparently an internal debate has been waging for months over ending the service. The timing of when TimesSelect will shut down hinges on resolving software issues associated with making the switch to a free service, sources say.

The Times took the controversial approach in 2005 by charging for access to well-known writers, including Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and Thomas L. Friedman. Other online publications were abandoning subscriptions and relying on advertising. I'm not sure I like the intrusive advertising any better, but at least I can shut banner ads off or weed my way through the junk to find my news for the day.

Some of the paper's columnists have been complaining that the service limited their Web readership. Leave it to a bunch of columnists to state the obvious.

In July, The Post reported that insiders were lobbying to shut down the service. After two years, however, the move to do away with TimesSelect may have more to do with growth than grumbling inside the paper. The number of Web-only subscribers who pay $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year fell to just over 221,000 in June, down from more than 224,000 in April.

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Forcing the brain to be creative on demand never seems to work. It's like the brain is free to think of things when left alone. Writer's block is often the result of coercion: we hold a gun to our brain's head until something profound comes forth.

I often find it difficult to generate creative ideas or thoughts when I'm writing. What will I write about today? When you sit down to write for a few hours, your brain often will say, "Not so fast...I'm busy right now...get back to me later."

But a writer must write.

In a recent blog post, Bob Farley admits disappointment that ideas to be written come to him at times when he's not writing. Farley says, "I'm one of those who goes through the day and in places where I have no possibility of writing down or remembering what I'm thinking, I think about things that need written. Wonderful imaginary conversations between characters take place while I'm walking through the aisles at the grocery, waiting for the dogs to poop, or editing business stories for work...if those ideas and thoughts come to me almost regularly at those times, why can I not train them to come when I want them to?"

All writers face the problem. It's nothing new. The ideas, thoughts, imaginations, characters, voices, conversations, wonderful moments of life that need to be reflected upon are often forgotten with our next breath. We get a glimpse of something profound or thought-provoking and say to ourselves, "That's a great idea for a story." But then the thought vanishes into the netherworld.

So the writer has a problem. How do we schedule daily writing sessions when the ideas and thoughts we write about occur randomly, without warning or context, in the imagination of our day? Our brains are not on any schedule; creative thoughts are independent contractors.

How would a chef create a menu for his restaurant guests if the food arrived randomly, or not at all? How would a used car dealer make a living if he had no cars on the lot?

One thing I can do is take notes. I need to be aware when ideas come along that inspire the writer in me, and find some way to write them down before I lose them.

"Finger" of the Week: August 6

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wins our Finger of the Week award for August 6. He lost his temper with two American news photographers covering his vacation Sunday, August 5, jumping onto their boat and scolding them loudly in French.

The confrontation came Sunday afternoon as Sarkozy and companions were headed for open water in a boat on Lake Winnipesaukee when he spotted Associated Press photographer Jim Cole and freelancer Vince DeWitt aboard Cole's boat, which was outside a buoy barrier monitored by the New Hampshire Marine Patrol.

"He was happy and smiling and he waved at the security people as he was coming out," Cole said of the president. "And then he noticed us taking pictures and his happy demeanor diminished immediately."

I am 58% Addicted to Coffee

Evidently I'm 58% addicted to coffee...whatever that means. Click above and take the quiz yourself.

The Price of Coffee

I'm sitting here in Starbucks wondering why they just went up on their prices. What's up with that? I now have to pay $1.73 for a cup of coffee, an increase of a nickel. Do they think money grows on trees? (Well, I guess money does grow on trees in a way, since money is made from reprocessed cotton denim fabric...but that's another story.)

I'm cheap. I admit it. I usually buy a cup of coffee for $1 from the local gas station and pour into my Starbucks cup so I can sit in here and look respectible. I don't want them to think I'm just in here for the internet access. However, on occasion, when I want to splurge, I'll actually buy their coffee. But now, I'm not so sure.

The manager tells me it's because the cost of growing and processing coffee has gone up, and the cost of milk and other things continue to go up, too. "We haven't raised prices in quite some time," he says with a straight face.

I wanted to tell him to use the extra money on a mop so they could clean up the men's room, but I decided to walk back to my table and drink the ice tea I bought across the street at the Taco Casa for 65 cents. Do you think I'm going to pay $2.11 for a glass of tea in a Starbucks cup?

The Thackerville Truck Stop

The Thackerville Truck Stop is like one of those places everyone has visited while traveling, a gas station and restaurant hybrid with a parking lot the size of a football field. Welcome to America's oasis for the truck driver.

A gas station on steroids. That's the best way to describe these places. The Thackerville Truck Stop is located near the Winstar Casino, just across the Red River in southern Oklahoma. You can throw a beer can into Texas from the parking lot. The interstate highway system provides the TTS with plenty of business, and gamblers who have lost their house payment in the Winstar poker room need a place to buy an aspirin. A gaming station is even located on the far side of the property--kind of a casino-light--a white shack facility offering slot machines. I guess they figure the Winstar's hundreds of slots aren't enough to keep the senior citizens on the tour bus happy. Why not offer them a slot while their driver pumps gas?

I became familiar with the Thackerville Truck Stop because I needed a shower. What better place to practice healthy hygiene than a truck stop? I knew they had a shower. A truck stop must have a shower. Truck drivers need to clean themselves.

As I entered the bath area looking for the shower, one trucker was washing his grease-stained arms in the sink.

"I just cleaned out that old air filter. What a mess!" He was probably about to turn 60-years-old and I was thankful he was just washing his arms.

Whoever designs these facilities must have a sense of humor. The cafe area always has canary-yellow table tops. The display area containing the snack racks is never easy to navigate. At the Thackerville Truck Stop the display racks and cases are set up like a rat's maze, blocking the way as you attempt to find the restrooms. Some New York marketing wizard who designs America's truck stops has decided to forget the maxim that a straight line is the shortest route from point A to point B. "Let's see if we can force people to stumble over the powdered donuts on the way to the bathroom so we can increase our market share."

I'm thinking to myself, "If I go right, I must run past the soft drinks and beer, but then have to turn upstream past the Honey Bun rack. I then must hang a sharp left by the chips until I reach the back wall. By nightfall I need to find the bathroom."

Man verses Wild, an episode on the Discovery Channel, featuring a southern Oklahoma truck stop.

I have fond memories of truck stops. Growing up in Texas you know about such places. When traveling with the family, we always found a reason to stop and visit. Sure, we needed gas. But we also enjoyed looking at the truck stop gift offerings. Need a hat with a truck on it? How about a t-shirt with the phrase "Will swap wife for beer."? I also remember the truck stop having an enormous selection of clever gadgets for your car or truck. Although I have never used fuzzy felted dice, and don't know why you would hang them from your rear view mirror, they have them. Want to place your coffee cup on the head rest of your passenger-side car seat? No problem. You might also want to hide your car key in one of those magnetic black box gizmos, just in case you lose the car keys while playing the slot machines.