Scattered Thoughts on Intelligence

In a dark, secret corner of the internet, Tammy has dug herself in deep by choosing to rate her siblings in order of intelligence. Naturally she rates herself first on the list. I will not be so brazen, but I will rate my ~~children~~ cats in order of intelligence: Toto, Meatball, Simon, Nemo.

I believe one of Toto’s problems (and lordy does she have problems) is that she’s too damn smart. Ever since she was a kitten, she’s shown signs of extraordinary cat intellect. At one time she would eagerly play fetch. I had never seen a cat do this, though I’d read about it. It was great fun. Once or twice she was able to open the bathroom door while shut inside. She’s always had an uncanny ability to guess our intentions, and to convey her own.

Nemo’s at the opposite end of the spectrum. He’s a dopey, cross-eyed freak, but he’s a sweetie. He’s so dumb that the birds and the squirrels mock him. I once watched three squirrels torment him around the base of the walnut tree.

I think it’s dangerous to start rating how smart you think people are. We each think in different ways. There are different sorts of intelligence. I’m smart about some things, but woefully ignorant of others. I believe that my brothers and I are of roughly equal intelligence, but I doubt we’d test out as such. We each have different strengths. One of mine happens to be standardized tests. But Tony’s better at dealing with people, and Jeff’s better and dealing with space and numbers.

I have a tendency to think of others as brilliant who are capable of performing feats of which I am incapable. For example, when I first met her, I thought that Pam was the smartest person in the world. When I met Joel, I thought he was. Both are smart, but I came to realize that what I really admired was their ability to think and act in realms that were foreign to me.

I used to love to get together with Andrew and Dana. (Sadly those days seem to be gone.) Each of us is pretty bright, but each of us is borderline autistic in our his way. This leads to some entertaining discussions and arguments as we’re each convinced of our rectitude, unwilling to yield to another’s viewpoint. (Dana, in particular, is set in her ways. In our more than fifteen years of friendship, I’ve never seen her alter a viewpoint.) We each recognize that the three of us are pretty smart. It’s just that each of us thinks that he’s a little smarter than the other two.

Ultimately intelligence is overrated. Which would you rather be: dumb and happy, or smart and miserable?

Subscriber Counts for All My Sites

I use — and love — a service called FeedBurner to manage the RSS feeds for my sites. FeedBurner allows me to control how my feeds are displayed, to insert ads in feeds, and to track how many subscribers I have. They offer a “chicklet” which displays how many readers a particular site has. I was opposed to this at first (I can’t remember why), but now I find it rather useful, and actually consider it a form of promotional advertising: “Look! GRS has 5000 subscribers — why don’t you subscribe, too?”

I thought it would be fun to link to the FeedBurner chicklet for my various sites. Since the numbers change daily (as subscribership rises and falls), I’ve noted the current counts in parentheses (as of 01 Feb 2007) . I’ve also jotted a few notes about each site. (By the way, you can subscribe to any of these sites by clicking on the appropriate chicklet.)

Get Rich Slowly (6784 readers) — Yes, GRS really is read by over 6000 daily subscribers right now. (And 600 people subscribe via e-mail.) I try not to think about it. It’s a little scary. GRS readership has hovered above 6500 for the past few days, but I expect it to drop to around 5000 before long. (The method FeedBurner uses to measure subscribers seems finicky, and is greatly influenced by “pick-ups” from large sites.)

foldedspace.org (330 readers) — Who are all you people? For a personal blog, this site enjoys a moderate readership. I attribute it to the wide variety of topics I discuss. But maybe people just like my cat pictures.

Money Hacks (93 readers) — The new GRS companion site already has about 100 subscribers. I just went public with the site on February 1st, though I haven’t made any sort of official “grand opening” announcement. I’m just test-driving it for now.

Four Color Comics (31 readers) — The Four Color Comics subscribers are wonderful, long-suffering folk. I’ve maybe posted ten entries there in the past six months. I do plan to post here more often, though, and to remodel the look, which I hate.

Animal Intelligence (23 readers) — This number is actually in the mid-30s on days that I post an entry. This brings up another point: the FeedBurner numbers rise and fall depending on how much is posted to a site, so I don’t think they truly reflect the number of “subscribers”, but possibly the number of feedreaders that ping a site in a day. Geeky talk, I know, but it’s stuff I think about.

Bibliophilic (11 readers) — My new book site actually has some readers already! This is going to be an odd one to gauge. Bibliophilic is going to be rather schizophrenic, home to all my various book reviews (comic book, personal finance, and otherwise), as well as thoughts on book news. The target reader is basically me, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a pretty narrow audience.

Vintage Pop (3 readers) — Who are the people subscribing to Vintage Pop? It’s not even a real weblog yet! I currently use it as a workspace to post guest entries for other sites, entries for which I need the author to approve my edits. Three subscribers? Why?

Believe it or not, I’m done adding weblogs to my little internet empire. This is about all that I can handle. Now I’d like to shepherd the ones I have and see if I can’t get them to grow.

A Salty Snack

We had dinner with our friends Chris and Cari on Saturday night. Michael and Laura joined us. And, of course, the kids were there: Kaden, Ethan, Emma, and Sophia.

Kaden is nearly seven, and has begun to exhibit strong personality traits. He was born on Leap Day, and so I always kid him about his age. “You’re still only one,” I say. “You’ll be two soon.” The other night he frowned a little and told me, “That’s not really funny anymore.” Touché! He likes his tropical fish, and he loves his Legos. I think he’s a great kid. (The other three kids are great, too, but this entry is about K.C.)

While at dinner Kaden commented that he liked salt. Kris told him how I have a habit of eating salt when I’m very, very hungry. We’ll be sitting in a restaurant waiting for our food, and I’ll tide myself over with a touch of salt from the shaker. Kris thinks it’s strange, and I suppose she’s right.

Anyhow, K.C. was effusive in his praise of salt, so I took a page from Craig‘s book. I’ve created a salt sampler for him from the various flavors in my library, and I’ll mail it to him later today.

The flavors I sent him include:

Top row: sea salt, real sea salt (very salty), sea smoke salt, garlic salt.
Bottom row: herbed salt (from Italy — very good), seasoned salt, Caribbean salt (from Connecticut), hickory smoked salt (I use this all the time).

The herbed salt came from Amy Jo (who has recently resurrected From a Corner Table). Craig and Amy Jo appreciate my love of salt, and encourage it with salty gifts from time-to-time. And now I’m passing these gifts on to the next generation of salt-lovers.

This Day Would Have Been Enough

It’s been a strange “twilight zone” kind of week for me. On Wednesday I was interviewed by The New York Times. Yesterday I had my cataclysmic radio interview. And tonight I went roller skating for the first time in years.

I actually felt the Times interview went very well. My first newspaper interview regarding Get Rich Slowly was with the Wall Street Journal last June. The reporter was nice, but I was very wary. I didn’t trust his motives for some reason. I was always second-guessing him, and not very forthcoming. I wasn’t a good interview subject, and I realized that after the piece was published. (By the way, if anyone has a way of getting me a physical copy of the 24 June 2006 issue of the Wall Street Journal, I would be much obliged.)

In September I was interviewed for a podcast. I was much more relaxed for that interview, largely because I took the time to listen to all of the other interviews in the series. I knew what to expect. Plus, it wasn’t really live. The host and I both made some gaffes, but he just edited them out. No sweat.

So on Wednesday I spoke with Damon Darlin, who was writing a piece about how bloggers are taking up the mantle of consumer advocates. He profiled Ben Popken of The Consumerist and Gina Trapani of Lifehacker. These are bloggers I respect and sites I admire. I feel honored to be included in their company. I aspire for Get Rich Slowly to be a peer to their sites.

Yesterday, of course, I had my disastrous radio interview. I’ve already written about that.

Today I felt off-kilter from the start. I wrote a short article — suggested by Nick — about how it’s strange that people are so willing to expose themselves to advertising during the Super Bowl. It’s one of those pieces that never quite seems to gel, and yet I published it anyhow. Response has been mostly negative, and it was bumming me out until Kris told me how much she admired it. All the negative comments in the world don’t mean a whit so long as Kris likes it.

Then tonight we went roller-skating to celebrate Nikki’s ~~30th~~ 27th birthday. I haven’t been skating since Kris was still teaching at Canby. And I’ve always been awkward at it. This time was no different. I was flailing my arms and biting my lip and doing my best not to fall. I was a hazard. But I kept at it. I skated for two hours solid in the middle of a thick crowd at Oaks Park. (I was shocked by how many people were there. It was amazing.) I only fell twice (and one of the falls occurred while trying to avoid a near-collision in front of me). I developed two huge blisters on my right foot. But I kept at it. I just kept skating. By the end of the night I was skating much better.

But what’s most amazing is that for two hours I was completely in another world. Sweat was pouring down my forehead, pouring down my back. I was breathing hard, but in a good way, like after a long hike. My legs were sore. I was parched. But I didn’t care. For two hours I was transported, completely forgetting about blogs or e-mail or bad radio interviews or anything else. I was just caught up in the moment. It was bliss.

When we returned home, I had a message telling me that the New York Times article was out. The three paragraphs that profile me read as follows:

Frugality is a frequent theme among these sites, like GetRichSlowly.com. John David Roth, a 37-year-old office manager at a Portland, Ore., box manufacturer, was an avid reader of financial self-help books when he started a blog to summarize them. “You can find a lot of information on how to get rich quick,” he said, “but I know what it is like to be broke. For years, I struggled with debt.”

His site, which receives about 300,000 page views a month and makes him about $1,500 a month from advertising, reminds people of the simple things in life. For instance, he tells them to borrow books from the library, instead of buying new ones.

He just started another site, MoneyHacks.org, with more common-sense advice as well as links to other sites that save a person money, like priceprotectr.com, which tracks price drops.

Can you spot the huge error there? No it’s not using my full name instead of “J.D.” (I mentioned in our conversation that I preferred J.D.) Nor is it describing my job as “office manager”. (I did say something to the effect that I ran the office, so that’s kosher.) No, it’s much worse: the URL for Get Rich Slowly is listed as .COM instead of .ORG.

sigh

Actually, though, I don’t mind so much. I enjoyed the conversation I had with Damon Darlin the other day. He answered some of my questions, and even provided a recommendation for a book on animal intelligence. When I voiced my desire to write a book, he mentioned Gina Trapani’s recent posts about her experience publishing the Lifehacker book. (I’d already read these — and even exchanged e-mail with Gina about them — but it was kind of Damon to point them out.) Sure it would be nice to have the correct URL in the paper (and, especially, on the Times web site), but it’s not the end of the world.

Plus, I just got to spend two hours roller-skating. And that makes everything right.

[The title of this post comes from the “blurb” for dienu.com, one of my new favorite blogs. I can’t explain why exactly, but every time I visit the site I’m inspired. Part of it is the list of 101 things the author would like to do in 1001 days. But a lot of it is that saying: “This day would have been enough.” That is a motto worth living by.]

Suicide Bomb

I had a mortifying experience yesterday. I was a guest for a live interview on a radio station in Seattle — I crashed and burned. I was an embarrassment. Fortunately, the hosts made a graceful exit and let me off the hook.

I like to think that I’m generally a fairly confident guy. I write well. I can carry on an intelligent conversation. I’m a trained salesman. I acted on stage in high school. In college I could deliver (and enjoy) speeches of all sorts. I can even hold my own when interviewed for the newspaper or for a podcast. But when it comes to speaking on live radio, I’m a nervous wreck.

Yesterday morning a host at KOMO radio in Seattle e-mailed to ask if they could interview me about the nation’s negative savings rate and about what people can do to save for retirement. I knew that this was treading dangerous ground, but I agreed to participate. (Over the past year I’ve been trying to “just say yes”. Basically I try not to shy away from situations that normally I’d avoid.)

As the interview approached I felt nauseated. I remembered two other times I’d been interviewed on live radio (about completely different topics, and long, long ago), and how those interviews also went poorly. I remembered how when Kris asked me to say a few words at a dinner party once, I mumbled and fumbled and stumbled over myself. “But I’m good at this,” I told myself, trying to psych myself up. “I was one class short of a minor in speech communication.”

It didn’t matter. The moment came. The station phoned me. The hosts were gentle. They asked leading questions. They did their best to help me. But my brain froze and I couldn’t remember even basic concepts, concepts I deal with every day. Retirement? Savings? HA! All I could say is, “People should start saving now.”

After my minute or two on the air, I was shaking all over. A year or two ago, this would have been enough to drive me into a deep, blue funk. The new, improved J.D., however, couldn’t help but find the whole situation amusing in a sad, pathetic sort of way. I immediately fired off an e-mail apology to the hosts. One of them replied:

Those little freezes happen all the time! Don’t worry. I’m just glad we got your website out to our listeners. I expect you’ll be getting more interview opportunities and we’ll certainly keep you in the mind for the future. Main thing is not to focus on it…and make a bigger deal out of it than it is. Don’t draw attention to the freeze….People normally listen with just half an ear…and as long as you try to keep going they won’t notice even if you aren’t saying what you want to say. You could try to have a couple talking points written down that you can go to…But relax and enjoy. Think of it as a one-on-one with a friend.

I thought that was a gracious reply. I also posted a question at Ask Metafilter: How do I learn to speak well in radio interviews? The tips there are very good. I’ll make note of them.

In times past, I would have felt defeated by this. Now, though, I see it as a learning experience, a chance to improve for next time.

And there will be a next time…

Cannonballs and Splinters

After reading even a little nautical fiction one is impressed by the brutish qualities of life aboard ship. This is especially true during the battles at sea, during which heavy lead balls were flung across the water, hurtling into air, into ship, into rigging, and into men. One of the most memorable passages in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series occurs during just such an engagement. Captain Aubrey is on deck, giving orders, and he turns to speak to one of his men, only to find that the man’s head has just been taken off by a cannonball. Not pretty.

But one gets the impression from these tales that even more deadly than cannonballs was the shrapnel they created. These “splinters” of wood (it seems odd to call a large hunk of jagged wood a splinter, yet such is the case) were reportedly a common source of injuries.

Apparently the show Mythbusters recently attempted to answer the question, “What hurt more people, cannonballs or the splinters they made?” From what I can gather, they weren’t able to produce satisfactory splinters, which led the hosts to conclude the splinters weren’t as dangerous as many people think. (This paragraph is all based on third-hand accounts, but I think I have the gist of things correct.)

This led to a fascinating AskMetafilter question regarding cannonballs, splinters, and the Mythbuster methodology. (The thread features a response from one of the show’s hosts, Adam Savage.)

All of this is prologue, however. What this entry is really about is showing Dave and Joel and Andrew (and all my other pirate buddies) the keen Fighting Sail Exhibit page. It’s awesome, particularly for the video of cannons being fired into a reconstructed mid-section. I’ve mirrored the video here in case the original page goes away. Watch and enjoy!

[I wouldn’t have found this without Matt pointing it out]

Rating the Bond Films: The Moore Era

Last month I watched all of the Sean Connery-era Bond films and shared my thoughts. This month I watched all of the Roger Moore-era Bond films. On the whole, they’re not as good.

Live and Let Die (1973) – Roger Moore [6.8 on IMDb]- C+ from me
Bond does blaxploitation. Name a black stereotype and you’ll find it here! Roger Moore does a good job, injecting some personality into a Bond that Connery had been making more-and-more bland. But Moore is, in many ways, a debonaire priss. He runs like a girl. When he’s trapped on a small island surrounded by crocodiles, you know his escape won’t involve dirtying his white suit. (Connery would have stripped to the waist and wrassled his way out.) For some reason, I have a fondness for the film’s extended boat chase, which features the comic antics of Sherrif J.W. Pepper and his friends. (“What are you? Some kind of doomsday machine, boy?”) As with many Bonds, there’s stuff here that doesn’t make sense. Bombing poppy fields? Do tell. A magnetic superwatch that discriminates, attracting only the metallic object Bond wants at the particular moment! After the amateurish ‘clawed man’ bends Bond’s gun, Kris said: “The special effects are awful — it’s like they’re not even trying.”

The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) – Roger Moore [6.6] – C
The Man With the Golden Gun has a reputation as one of the worst Bond films. It’s certainly not good, but it’s not as bad as some of those that have come before. The real problem is that it’s just not very entertaining. It’s dull and nonsensical. But it’s not outright bad. The James Bond franchise at this stage has lost its way. It used to be about a British spy. Now it’s about a glamorous playboy with a gun, a sort of suave Batman. There aren’t as many melee scenes with Moore as Bond. That’s a good thing. He’s utterly unconvincing in fight scenes. Christopher Lee is a fine actor, but I don’t like him as the villain here. And I’ve never been a fan of Hervé Villechaize (Tatu from Fantasy Island — here the villain’s henchman). Fortunately the ending doesn’t contain a mass fight. Unfortunately, it contains a lame exploding lair.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) – Roger Moore [7.1] – B-
This film has some great elements, though there’s plenty of blemishes, as well. It’s one of those Bond films with a great soundtrack (along with Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). The story is neat: Bond and Agent XXX, a female Russian spy, team up to stop nuclear annihilation. Only, XXX wants to kill Bond to avenge her lover’s death. I think Karl Stromberg (as played by Curd Jürgens) is one of the strongest Bond villains — the actor isn’t really a strong presence, but the character is fascinating. And I’ve always loved his underwater fortress. (This was the first Bond film I ever saw. I was eight years old. Dad took me to see it.) This is the first Bond film to look polished. The production values are top-notch (for the era). The cinematography is never stunning, but often interesting. One of the weak spots is the film’s blatant sexism. Barbara Bach, who plays XXX, doesn’t do a good job, but then she’s not given much to do. And when she does do things, Bond mocks her. “Women drivers.” Yikes. Notable for the first appearance of Jaws, a lousy henchman and a sign of the depths to which the series had sunk.

Moonraker (1979) – Roger Moore [6.1] – D+
Let’s capitalize on the sci-fi craze! This film features an exciting opening teaser with Bond plummeting through the air without a parachute. (This teaser is undone by the mysterious re-appearance of Jaws, and his stupid crash into a circus tent.) The theme song (and the title sequence) are actually rather lovely. (The song is from Shirley Bassey, who also did the themes for Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever.) Lois Chiles plays Bond-girl Holly Goodhead, but she does so poorly. Her delivery is unnatural — a wooden plank would do a better job. This film starts fine, but the quality drops once the scene shifts to Venice. The pacing is poor, the acting is poor, etc. It’s baffling that somebody (or more than one) believed Jaws was worth bringing back for a second trip. The product placement in this film comes fast and furious. There are at least a half dozen musical tributes to other works (not all of them films). The film degenerates into a collection of set pieces. This is Moore’s worst outing yet. The film isn’t a complete loss — elements of the story are interesting — but the quality of the components are piss-poor. The climax is one of those mass battles I hate so much, but it’s the worst ever: mass battle in space! So dumb.

For Your Eyes Only (1981) – Roger Moore [6.8] – B+
The opening sequence, which refers back to earlier Bond films, is really rather lame. “This is awful,” said Kris. “How can you watch this?” I suspect this one sequence is the source of much of the Austin Powers Dr. Evil schtick. After the teaser, things improve. The title song is lovely. The beginning of the film is odd by Bond standards: I can’t put my finger on exactly what is different, but the pacing and the style are more normal than usual, as if the film were just a normal Hollywood drama. This is going to seem like odd praise, but the editing in this film is quite good, and under difficult conditions. Seriously. I also like the fact that there aren’t many gratuitous explosions. Melina is a rare strong Bond woman. I like strong Bond women. (As opposed to say Bibi, a minor character here, who is painful to watch.) For Your Eyes Only suffers from a flaw that many Bond films had by this time: there seem to be an unending series of fight scenes strung together by tenuous threads. The bad guys often seem to know where Bond is (or will be) by some mysterious psychic ability. It’s bizarre. And not fun. Still, this is far less cartoonish than most of the Bond films leading up to it. The ending is particularly good.

Octopussy (1983) – Roger Moore [6.5] – C
This film is not nearly as bad as its reputation. It’s an average Bond film. There are some great scenes (I like the fight on the train). The worst aspect is the acting, which is atrocious in parts. There are also some woeful improbabilities, but then that’s par for the course. The opening teaser is bad by any standard. The story seems to be a patchwork, which makes sense since this was constructed not from an Ian Fleming novel but a series of short stories. This movie isn’t nearly as good as For Your Eyes Only, but it’s no worse than most of the Roger Moore films. Kris’ evaluation of the climactic battle: “This makes no sense. Why is there a trapeze in the castle? This whole thing is so juvenile. I don’t understand why you’re watching these all.”

A View to a Kill (1985) – Roger Moore [6.0] – C
This is Roger Moore’s worst outing as Bond, and that’s saying something. Throughout his tenure he brings but one quality to the role: he’s suave. In every other regard, he’s completely lacking. He possesses no athleticism; Roger Moore fisticuffs are laughably lame. He has no charm. He has no screen presence. And here, at last, he’s beginning to show his age. Moore was 57 when this was filmed, but he moves like a man many years older. It’s too bad. The core story and script here are good for a change — this is a return to Bond as secret agent instead of Bond as superhero. With a competent director and some good acting, this might have made a decent Bond picture. But the directing is plodding and ham-fisted. Christopher Walken is awful as the villain here — his line readings are made apparently at random. What is he trying to portray? A mid-eighties actor high on cocaine? A nice title sequence (with accompanying Duran Duran hit song). We see very little of the normal Bond supporting cast. They frame the story, but the bulk of it is Bond on his own.

Keeping score
On average, the Connery-era Bond films received a rating of 7.1 from users of the Internet Movie Database. They received a GPA of 2.47 from me. On average, the Moore-era Bond films received a rating of 6.6 from users of the Internet Movie Database. They received a GPA of 2.09 from me. There you have it: scientific proof that Connery was a better Bond than Moore.

A note on directors
In the world of James Bond, the director plays a huge role in determining the quality of the film. Terence Young directed three of the first four Connery films. He was absent for Goldfinger, which was the weakest of the four. Goldfinger was directed by by Guy Hamiltion, who also directed Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, and The Man With the Golden Gun. All four of Hamilton’s films share similar flaws, and they’re not nearly as good as those directed by Young. But he’s not as bad as Lewis Gilbert, who brought us the duds You Only Live Twice and Moonraker (as well as The Spy Who Loved Me). The end of the Roger Moore era going forward features direction from John Glen, who shows some promise if he can only shake his need for the nonsensical.

Next month: the Pierce Brosnan era, which is virgin territory for me.

Minor Miracles

Do you hear that?

Across the back yard, past the neighbor’s house? That rumbling sound? It’s a lawnmower! A lawnmower! It would never occur to you that one could mow his lawn in January, and yet it’s true. The weather has been sunny and dry for the past several days. The grass is long (because you never got the end-of-year mow in that you wanted), and giving it a trim sounds like an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Time to hang up your blogging cap and put on your yardwork cap instead…

Speaking of minor miracles: when I came home today, all the cats but Nemo crowded around for attention. I sat in the parlor to write. Simon jumped on the bench in the bay window. Toto hopped onto the arm of my chair. Meatball climbed onto my lap. They sat together and purred peacefully — Toto didn’t hiss once.

It was a fine weekend in which we got to be social, but we also got a lot done. I’m pleased when my Sundays set up the week for productivity.

I hit a wall today, though.

I’ve finally been importing the seven hours of video I took during our 2004 cruise to Alaska. Now that my hard drive is nearly full (video takes a lot of space), I’ve begun to edit the footage. Here’s the first part:

I’m compressing each hour to ten minutes (or preferably less). I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m having fun. The real problem is that it takes time, and lots of it. I spent all day today editing parts two, three, and five. I didn’t get any box-work done. I didn’t get any blogging done. I only edited video. This is not good. Now I’m no longer ahead in my work. If I do this any more, I’ll actually be behind.

I can tell you this: I want to take a video camera on our European vacation this summer!

Cat vs. Kid: The Showdown

In light of my recent controversial complaints about children, and the subsequent video I shared of my cats, this short piece perfectly encapsulates the foldedspace pecking order:

Jeff’s reponse upon seeing this was, “Poor kid,” to which I replied, “Poor kid nothing. He got what he deserved.” (And what about those parents? They deserve to be keelhauled.)

Ah, there’s more where that came from. How about an angry sheep:

Or a less angry (but still violent) sheep:

For Nicole, here’s a brave, brave bunny:

And, finally, for Lynn — an animal “bred for its skills in magic“:

Have I mentioned that I love YouTube?

Six-Word Story

PB passed on a fun little meme: write a story in six words. It will probably come as no surprise that I’ve fretted over this for more than a week. I want my six-word story to be beautiful and perfect. Unfortunately, this is all I could come up with:

It rained Friday. She went anyway.

I found this exercise fascinating, actually. When given such a severe limitation (“only six words!”), it’s impossible to provide standard story-telling staples, such as “a beginning, a middle, and an end”. (There are exceptions, I suppose, such as the famous, “I came. I saw. I conquered.” Note that in Latin, that phrase actually comprises just three words!)

Articles present another problem. “A” and “the” are wasted words in a situation like this. This makes stories like “the cat chased after the dog” — there are two wasted words there!

As near as I can tell, Caterina started this meme several months ago citing the oft-quoted six-word Hemingway story:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

I don’t normally forward memes, but this time I’ll make an exception to tag Matt, Frykitty, Nicole, Michael, and Rich.