The new home of "The Frank Report."

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  Andrew Sullivan, of andrewsullivan.com fame recently put together a survey of his readership, of which I am a devoted reader. What struck me most was that most of his readers had a) at least a graduate degree and b) made $51-75,000 per year. I'm not having a problem keeping up with the high fallutin' level of discussion that goes on there. So I have to ask myself (and you): what am I doing wrong?
posted at 11:53 PM

  Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist living in NYC, (don't worry I had never heard of her before either) has written what I consider to be the definitive post 9/11 op/ed bar none. She has come out with a book, but since she isn't translated into English as frequently as she is French, we may not see it for quite some time. In the meantime, here is the link to her essay. The book is called "Rage and Pride." If you like the essay, consider keeping an eye out for it 1-2 years from now when the translation is complete.
posted at 11:49 PM

  I promise.
A blog devoted entirely to quizzes and surveys
posted at 9:49 PM

 

Which of the Disney Princesses are you?

posted at 9:48 PM

  This will be meaningless to all but a select few...

Take the World of Darkness Quiz
by David J Rust

...but it says a.l.o.t. about me.
This quiz thing seems to be very popular with bloggers/diarists. I wonder how long before I (or you) come to see it as the tedious, vain fad it really is.


posted at 4:53 PM

  I managed to reduce the amount of space between the header and the post. (If you're reading my blog for the first time, I'm sure you're response is a shrug of the shoulders and unverbalized "ok.") Now, my quest is to remove the two space indentation from the first line of the first paragraph of each new post. As the header says, it's like herding cats.

Curiously, it's mild enough that I'm sitting here with the window open and the breeze keeps wafting in the scent of tobacco. Not burnt tobacco, but fresh tobacco. The neighboring houses are all non-smokers, nobody is outside. I'm hoping that it's not a case of small ferns growing in the gutters again. At times it's like the forest primevil up there on the roof.
posted at 11:36 AM

  Comments sections seem to be in place and holding. Now if only I could reduce the amount of space between the post header and the post itself....... (:::sound of Frank rummaging through his tool box as he pops the hood on the engine of the computer and begins rummaging around:::)
posted at 11:24 AM

  In the future, I will wear cybernetic goggles and gloves. Everything will be icon driven. Code will be looked on in 2024 the way we currently look back on Pong. In the meantime.....
posted at 11:12 AM

  While ya'll are waiting for HTML programming skill to descend from the Heavens, carried by the Holy Spirit, and annointed on my brain with holy oil, check out the links on the left. It's a year's worth of ephemera that I've collected and makes an interesting starting point (and diversion) while I play catch up with actual writing...
(PS - Have you noticed that I use "..." alot?)
posted at 4:43 PM

 
It seems that I can load the result of quizzes if they're in code format, but the process of loading actual graphics continues to elude me. Research continues....
posted at 3:35 PM

  ...of other bloggers, I'm going to add some links to my page of sites I stumbled across today that strike me as noteworthy. (Whether they seem noteworthy to you is a whole 'nuther story. For the light and creamy folks we have this; and for those who prefer dark and rich we have this. Enjoy.
posted at 3:26 PM

  When I finish uploading a comments section, feel free to hit me upside the head for comma abuse. Failing that, drop me an e-mail. (Tina C., this is destiny calling. You're moment has arrived.)
posted at 2:22 PM

  For those of you who are just tuning in, (only a select few have seen the earlier drafts of this site,) there used to be a big, annoying Internet-style banner ad at the top of my site. Cost to remove it? $12!!!! I'll craft and post my anti-advertising rant at a later time. But ladies and gentlemen, I assure you. In the future, we will have to pay - big bucks - to live our lives free of advertising....with seperate fees for the Internet, movies, TV, radio, while pumping gas, telemarketers, etc. etc. etc. Only the rich and very poor will be able to afford an uniterrupted train of thought.

In many blogs it has become customary to put a "tip jar" on the left hand side to beg funds from readers for the "onerous" expense of maintaining a blog. Not my style. If you love me, and want to reward me, cook me dinner and ship it FedEx. Or coupons. Coupons to Red Lobster and other high prole dining establishments. If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, then my stomach is Chicago O'Hare airport, with flights, trains, cars and passengers arriving daily from all over the world.
posted at 2:21 PM

  I plan to permanently burn out my retinas this weekend experimenting with a) posting images ("You kanna defy the laws of physics!" - M. Scott) and b) organizing my entries into new and intriguing formats. Stay tuned. More to come.
posted at 11:42 AM

  (Points for use of the word "redux" in a post) The good news is that the link works. The bad news is that the names Frank, Francis, Franklin and Frankie are on the decline - not being handed out quite so generously to young Irish-A and Italian-A boys. I find this, as you can imagine, deeply distressing - bordering on a national (small "n") crisis. Therefore, as a favor to me, since I plan on having no smelly, expensive children of my own - I call upon each of you - my friends of marriable and child-bearing years to preserve the national treasure that IS the name "Frank" (...Francis, Franklin, Frankie, Francois, Francesco, etc.) by having more boys and naming them FRANK! Do it for me. Do it for the future. Your children will thank you.
posted at 11:40 AM

  This is the point where I experiment with creating links within my blog entries. Bear with me while I perfect the process.

Ever wonder about the origins of the name "Frank" or "Francis"? (G*d knows I have!) Or ever wondered about the etymology of your own name? (Award me points here if I've used etymology correctly in a sentence. Bonus points for spelling.) If so, click HERE. ---- Remember this "link" stuff is still in the testing stage.
posted at 11:32 AM

  You'd think by now that someone somewhere out there in nerddom would come up with a quick and easy way of building, laying out and updating webpages. If such a thing is available, I sure haven't found it. Even Blogger (which I'm using now) touts itself as a quick and easy on-line diary tool, yet it's locked me into 3 days of titanic struggle with its inner guts and workings (otherwise known as "code.")

I don't care about code. If I want to speak and work in a foreign language, I would have stuck with French or Economics all the way through college. Or taken up Spanish...so I could get food at Wendy's. Computer code? I can do without. Nerd arrogance be damned. I want it all to work with the wave of a mouse and few pull down menu's. If that means that Joe Nerd and Jane Nerd get to become thick glasses-wearing multi-millionaires in dank little cubes across America at my expense, so be it.

Helpful suggestions, not that any of *you* my loyal readers are nerd-coders, are welcome. My gut tells me that in the next big land war; battlefield instructions will be given in variations of javascript that will befuddle our enemies. Coming soon to a multiplex near you. Gah!
posted at 10:54 AM

  Trip photos are now set-up as a permanent link. Plan on adding more just as soon as I can find a cheesy way to get people to put my photos on the net for free. Construction on the site continues. When-oh-when will this Internet crap be properly automated? Playing around with HTML tags and blogger code. Puh-leeze. As if my bloodstream needed another nerd injection....
posted at 3:01 PM

  If you've misplaced the address, 6 of my trip photos can be found at http://photos.yahoo.com/highprole.2002
Will discover how to set this up as an automatic link.
posted at 12:33 PM

  A "blog," for those of you not in the know, is the new term for a "web log" or on-line diary. So when you see me use the term "blog" or "blogging," I'm not talking about forms of esoteric Norwegian clog dancing, I'm talking about my latest expression of vanity....my second favorite deadly sin.
posted at 11:53 AM

  This is a test post; a "toe dip" for the Frank Report into the waters of 21st century publishing.
posted at 10:56 AM