This is a quick reminder that the voting for the SDS Challenge Pride Stories is underway.

If you are new to the SDS Challenge, a little background.

Three writers will each write one story a month, going down the list of deadly sins. The stories can be anywhere from 666 words to 6,666 words in length, although those numbers are not set in stone (and Perry has blown them out of the water and into orbit). If ambitious, the writers will provide accompanying graphics. These stories will not be anonymous because some writers may want to use the same characters for each story and write a series — or book — encompassing all seven sins. Finally, interpretation of the titular sin is up to the writer. Meaning, each ‘sin’ can take multiple forms.

Disclaimer: The writing challenge has no restrictions, and the stories will likely span a wide gamut of genres. Most of the stories fall in the PG-rating range, with a few perhaps pushing into the soft R-rating. Some readers might find a few of the stories disturbing because of the topics, language, and/or plot points, and if so, stop reading and move on.

If you want to read the Seven Deadly Sins submissions for the Sin of Pride, and then vote, your gateway is THIS POST <<link. There, you’ll find links to each of the three stories and a poll for you to vote after you finish them (if you be so moved).

I’m offering more stylized painterly and framed versions of old photos, including some that previously appeared on this blog. As usual, you can find the full-size version on SmugMug HERE<<link. 

Those are remnants of Bluebeard Shrub flowers partially buried by one of the many Colorado blizzards we lived through. Not so much Melisa, but I miss the big snow dumpings, mostly because I didn’t have to go anywhere, and they offered lots of photo opportunities.

By the way, a few days ago, I converted a post into a podcast. It’s a new ‘feature’ in WordPress; you get the option when you publish a post, but once you create an account, you can do that for any already-published posts.

Here’s what surprised me… the narration was spot-on. Meaning, whatever text-to-speech module was used, it was a good one. You can listen for yourself (HERE).

What I mean by “the narration was spot-on” is that the cadence, inflection, and flow of the translation to speech was 99% as I would have read it.

For them who have not tried many of the automatic text-to-speech apps out there, what you usually get — and what I’m used to — is a more ‘mechanical’ and/or monotone voice lacking in the natural flow of the spoken word.

This translation to speech only made a few mistakes that I caught; one was the consistent pronunciation of “read” as if it was in the present tense even though from the context it was obviously past-tense (one of the annoyances with English is that for some words, the pronunciation changes based on how they’re used).

But, again, what impressed me was both how natural it sounded but more so how it ‘interpreted’ my written words, placing emphasis and inflection in all the right places. I plan to try it for one of my fiction pieces to see how it does.

Anyway, here is an artsified photo of one of our’ high teas’. We haven’t done one of those in a long while, but then we got rid of almost all the accoutrements of high teas.

Yes, them be some of my famous (at my house) french toasts. We no longer have many high teas, but we still make french toast.

Next up, a couple of videos. I happened to be in Herrin a few days ago and shot two videos of a fountain.

The first is in slow-motion. I left the soundtrack as opposed to replacing it with music.

The next is shorter because of the limit of shooting in ultra-slow-motion. Also, no sound is recorded in that mode, so I added a soundtrack.

I wanted something festive in contrast to the ultra-slow-motion … how did I do?

Anyway, if at all interested in reading three tales about Pride, you now know where to find them (and where to vote for the one you like best or hate least) . . . you be got about two weeks left.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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