Back to index of "this and that in my life" pages by Donald Sauter.

Dedicated to the proposition that every thought that's ever been thunk may be of use or interest to someone . . .

THEE: The P element marks a block of text as a paragraph -- the tag P 
marks the beginning of the paragraph, while the tag /P marks the end of a
paragraph. The end tag, however, is optional, as a paragraph is
automatically ended when you start another paragraph, or when you start a
heading, blockquote, list, table or form.

In general, a browser will add appropriate spacings and indents to indicate
the paragraph. Note that the Netscape Navigator often adds extra vertical
spacing after a paragraph if you end the paragraph with a /P end tag.
This is a "bug" with Netscape, but can be used as a "feature" if you want
to more finely control line spacings between a paragraph and a following
element such as a table or a horizontal rule.

HTML 3 proposed that paragraph elements take the attributes ALIGN, to
control the alignment of text, and ID to act as a location marker for the
paragraph. More specifically:

    ID = "name_token" (not widely supported) 
        Mark the paragraph for a possible reference via a URL. [NOTE:
        HTML 3 ID will replace the NAME attribute, currently used to
        reference hypertext link targets]. This is currently only
        supported by the Emacs-w3 browser. The value assigned to ID
        is a name token. 


ME: Don't know how much longer I can keep my Web address from you - the 
rest of the world has found out.  And I'm not ready, darn it.


ME: Lying on the beach of Massachusettes Bay on Saturday, I had an 
epiphany.  Sure, I remember Jeff Shaffer!  The curveball was 
using his nickname - I feel sure we called him Jeffrey. I think 
Jeff was the smartest kid in the school.  I'm glad to see he didn't 
go stupid like me.  

P.S. Saw Plymouth Rock, too.

P.P.S.  Shakespeare was really that Edgar Vere guy, or something.  The
conservative/libertarian/constitution-thumping columnist Joe Sobran 
wrote some articles that convinced me completely.  


ME: Saw signs for Providence and Narraganset in R.I., but no Rocky Point.
I wonder if they've changed the name.


THEE: Your browser is Lynx?  Unfortunately, the vast majority of people use
Netscape or Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which don't understand ID=. 
(The latest versions, coming out about now, may understand ID=.)  Two
things web authors have to worry about:

    (1) The capabilities of their audience's browsers.
    (2) The speed of their audience's connections to the web
        (generally a not-too-speedy phone line).

Both limit what a web author seeking a wide audience can do.  I'll stop
pontificating!

About the HR tag, I assume you mean embedding it in the [A NAME=] ... [/A]. 
When you click on a link to the [A NAME=], the horizontal line will appear
at the top of the browser window, adding an extra cue that you're at the
beginning of a section.  I find it aesthetically appealing; others may not
or don't care.


ME: P.S.  Phooey on the Library of Congress electronic card catalog!  It 
doesn't begin to give a hint of the treasures there.


ME: I called mazes MATHEMATICS because they're sort of geometric and 
figured the world could grasp that, but I agree with you - first 
and foremost, they're good for the soul!


ME: I sympathize with the spelling problems.  It's funny you should mention 
occurrence.  That and occasion (as opposed to ocassion, occassion, etc.)
have ruined my life.  I even saw occurence wrong in a Twilight Zone 
magazine story.  This subject came up at Scrabble just last Wednesday.  
My claim is that I could live without a spellchecker if I just had 
a list of -ent, -ant, -ence and -ance words in reach.  [I now disavow that 
wild claim!  For instance, doubling consonants is also a crap shoot.]  

By the way, do you get your head smacked if you call a URL an "address"?

About ID=, I figured if I'm using an old, dumb yet revered browser, 
everybody can do everything I can plus more.  Moreover, ID= makes 
such perfect sense.  It zeros in on a *point* in your document - 
not a phrase or a word or a character, even, just a point.  That's 
what you want.  Criminy, why would you need a special tag - never 
mind a *pair* - for that?  Which brings up the subject, why this 
fixation in HTML on pairs?  What's wrong with "some HTML tags need 
a closer, some don't"?  Why is the starting point always, "HTML tags 
always come in pairs! (except for some that don't have to.)"

Anyhow, bring that up to the HTML 4.0 committee.  For now, you're 
saying I have to change 

  [P ID="pts"]

to 

  [P][A NAME="pts"][/A]...[/P]

Nuts. There goes my 2 megs.


THEE: Thought you'd be interested to know that Frederick Noad wrote to me.  He
dedicated an entire paragraph to you.  He writes:

"Donald Sauter reminds me that I have been less than kind about operatic
transcriptions.  I suppose I became a bit jaded after looking through too
many of them that were far from the level of Giuliani or Tarrega's
contributions.  And of course Sor's variations on the Mozart Magic Flute
theme is among his finest works.  At the time it was obviously nice to be
able to buy sheet music that you could play at home as a reminder, even if
the arrangement was somewhat limited by the capabilities of the guitar.
Anyway I appreciated the compliment about the works that I did include."


ME: By the way, do you have a batch of September newsletters left?  
I was thinking that a good use for them would be as handouts 
for participants of the GFA festival guitar society roundtable.  
The survey should be particularly interesting; plus it's another 
of our good, solid, standard-setting newsletters.  


THEE: Thanks for the Billy Tipton/anarchy links.  They provide further 
proof that everything's out there.  [Nowhere near true 10 years later, even.]  

        I just did a search on "unarchy."  I came up with a page in German
called Lunarchy.


THEE: Hey guys!

  Well, I guess it was a good experience to get up in front of those few 
poeple--showed us where we are weak, or is it just that having an audience, 
no matter how small, makes us more nervous?  My friend says I/we focus too 
much on the little mistakes, overlooking the fact of the musical 
presentation.


THEE: I noticed on your tape one of the songs is titled Rocky Point. Is it the
Rocky Point around here? Our Rocky Point was a 100 year old amusement
park/chowder house/banquet hall. Now its a flea market. It's still quite
a landmark arond here but I doubt you'd find it on a map. It is located
in the Warwick Neck section of Warwick, RI. 


THEE: Remember, as George Harrison once said - and as I have repeatedly
reminded you - you've got time to rectify all the things that you
should.


THEE:  Speaking of $50, Hself was getting ready to throw away a 
bottle of Twister fruit juice (or "fruit drink") last night and happened to 
glance at the inside of the bottle cap.  "$50 winner" it said.  We 
just won $50!  That's never happened to us before.


ME: Remember Paul McCartney's song Penina?  Take a look for Penina in 
the Bible.  

What did the Beatles mean by "I've got arms *that long* to hold you"?  


ME: I've seen *lots* of annoyingly centered text out there on the
web.  I figured my left-justified text was rebellious.  


THEE: Ask me sometime about the free-web-pages site I recently found
that has a 6MB limit.


ME: Is that enough for a wav file of the missing beat in Daytripper?  
Anyhow, I'm only up to 9% of my Geocities 2MB.  


ME: Also notice that nobody has ever agreed with anything I've ever said. 
(Go ahead - disagree with that!)


THEE: I consider myself the most non-political person I know. 


ME: Correction - 2nd most.  That's why I do my thing trying to 
expunge politics from our lives completely.  All we need is justice, 
and that should come from peoples' consciences.  


THEE: What is the story on Ringo's eyebrow???


ME: Now, see... You wouldn't have to ask if we had an all-inclusive 
Beatles database!  

From "A Day To Remember" by Irene Snidall (Beatles Book Monthly 14, Sep64):

  I was invited by a local reporter, Sue, to accompany her... to the first 
  house show at Sheffield City Hall (25May63) and then during the interval 
  between houses we were to meet the Beatles...

  I stayed and chatted with each in turn: sat on the sofa with Ringo while 
  he tried hard to convince me that the small patch of hair above his ear 
  really was going grey ("My eyebrow is too, but it's not noticed 'cos it's 
  blacked-out with pencil for on-stage.")...


THEE: They will be the only two babies I have.  If I hear 
"aren't you gonna try for a girl?" one more time I will scream!!  
If Hself was born a monkey I wouldn't have had another!!!

That's so neat about Rocky Point. I'll have to send you a picture. It's
quite a scenic place, right on the water. Still serve great clam cakes
and chowda. Even have some semi big names play in the theatre on the
grounds (Frampton and the like) The amusement park closed only 2 years
ago. I was looking forward to taking the kids in the future, I guess not
huh? 


THEE: Beatles Trivial Pursuit?  Are you speaking of the Conan O'Brien
appearance when Conan foolishly said that some Beatle fans even know
Ringo's children's birthdays and Ringo said he knew them, too?  That's
what pops into my head.  

Did you happen to read a "Beatlefan" review of a cheap John Lennon 
interview CD that was taken from one of his guest DJ spots?  I think the 
review said that the records he played were included.  If that's correct, that
means that "Some Other Guy" is on CD, even if it's only John's well-played copy!  
I have a new quest!

We watched an excellent "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" last night.  The
movie was "The Devil Doll," a British flick made in 1963 or 1964.  We
expected a treasure trove of Beatle rarities.  Well, it started out
strong but only wound up yielding 31 seconds' worth.  


ME: Does Matchbox derive from Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues"?
This ties in vaguely with the Conan business.

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Abbreviations: Hself = generic name, male or female (Himself, Herself).

Parents, if you're considering tutoring or supplemental education for your child, you may be interested in my observations on Kumon.