Thursday This n That

Yeah, it's early (even post time change) and I'm writing this now rather than having set it up beforehand.  So, here I am, after only a few sips of coffee and one cigarette.  Be warned.

:eyeroll: :facepalm: :headdesk:  I just saw a post to one of the book marketing groups on FB.  It went along the lines of 'can someone help me find a publisher or an agent or both or is there a difference?'  I felt bad for her and I thought about commenting that she needed to spend way more time researching the industry before thinking about agents or publishing, but I know how that would go.  I'd say something and I'd be the bitch.  I don't need that kind of crap in my life.  Educate thyself.

Actually that last bit is good advice no matter what you're doing.  The internet holds a wealth of information.  Sure, a lot of it is crap, but there are a lot of good places to educate yourself, too.  Hell, Hubs taught himself how to plumb this house and then did it.  Now, he was already pretty handy, but you can do stuff like that, too.  And a lot of it is free.  Just set your buns down and put in the time to learn what you want to know but don't.

Don't get me started on COVID-19.  We'd be here all day.  Suffice it to say, I had an interesting conversation with a stock dude at Wallyworld yesterday.  He got yelled at by someone for being out of hand sanitizer.  As soon as he puts it on the shelves, it's gone.  It's not his fault - it's the fault of panicky, misinformed people.  And when I got over to the TP shelves, they were nearly empty.  I managed to get a 6-roll pack - cuz, like, I needed TP - but it wasn't my brand.  Bottled water, on the other hand, had full shelves.  Now that I think about it, the cold medicine shelves were full, too.  I didn't think to look at the Kleenex stock.  It's getting ludicrous out there, folks.  Everyone needs to chill out.  And educate themselves from somewhere other than the main-stream media and Twitter.

Speaking of which, I posted about the TP thing on Facebook.  My niece in Virginia replied that her store was also out of cleaning supplies, and she wondered whether people were just now thinking about cleaning their homes.  Personally, as a matter of course, I have enough cleaning supplies already in my house on any given day to clean for weeks.  When I get low on anything, I buy a backup.  I ended up buying enough groceries for a couple weeks - not because of COVID-19, but because I don't want to have to deal with the Wallyworld again any time soon.

Anyway, enough about that.  They've finally started mowing the cow pastures again.  I hope they'll be putting cows back in there.  They removed the cows after that horrible dry summer a couple years ago.  I miss seeing cows on my walks.  The local hawks are jazzed about the mowing.  They've been really circling those mowed fields.  The shorter grasses have to make hunting easier, so I don't blame them.

It's nearly Spring and Randy Roadrunner his singing his sad-puppy song of love again.  Yes, the roadrunner has a mating call that sounds like a puppy crying.  There's now a roadrunner hanging out at my bank.  I call him Rudy.  Not sure if that one is actually male, though.  I haven't learned how to differentiate genders on roadrunners yet. 

The way to tell the difference between a male pileated woodpecker and a female one is by the facial stripe.  Males have red in black and females are all black.  I know you guys really had a burning need to know that one. 

And one cup of coffee and three cigarettes later, that's it for me.  I'll be here all week, folks, and don't forget to tip your waitress.

Psychology Stuff

I was reading an article this morning about The Milgram Experiment.  If you're not familiar with the name - and I wasn't - it's the psychological experiment wherein the subject is asked to shock his supposed fellow subject if said subject gets the answers to a series of questions wrong.  With increasing shocks for each wrong answer.  Up to what is supposed to be a hazardous level of electric shock.  100% of subjects shocked their fellow man up to the second highest setting.  Like 67% went all the way to the top. 

I'd first heard about this experiment probably in HS Psychology class, and if not then, any of my college level courses.  (I was a Psych major for 3 semesters.)

Psychology stuff interests the hell out of me.  Always has.  Studying it, not applying it - which was why I changed majors my Sophomore year.  The thought of actually applying psychology in a doctor/patient setting began to give me the willies.  I did change from Clinical Psych as a major to Behavioral Psych first, but even that step down didn't thrill me.  I ended up moving to Speech/Communications and shifting Psych to a minor (because who wants to lose all those credits?)

I ended up taking the big Psych 101, then Child Psych, Behavioral Psych, the Psychology of Sexual Behavior, and one called 'Causes and Control of Aggression'.  All very interesting stuff.  Well, CCA was interesting but I had a shit for a prof, so it wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.  Still, I learned stuff. 

And looking back over the past 15 years of writing... Gah, it's been 15 years since I started what would become my first finished novel... a lot of what I learned in those courses has been helpful.  I mean, with my memory problems, I wouldn't be able to pass a test on any of the information I learned back 1988-1992 - like I didn't remember it was called 'The Milgram Experiment' and it was done by Stanley Milgram back in the '60s - but it's all still in there. 

Everything in there can be used to enrich the writing.  Art, Philosophy, Mythology.  It ain't just the English courses that are important.  In fact, my English 101 was pretty much a pat on the head course and did me no damn good.  English 201 kicked my ass and made me a better writer, but it wasn't the most important course to my eventual writing career.  The most important courses were probably the Psych ones. 

Learning about what makes the human mind tick.  Interesting stuff.

What about you?  Ever take a Psych class?  What do you think were the most important subjects for you?