W3 Graphical Word

            You don’t need Adobe Photoshop (and its hefty pricetag) to make good looking graphics. You can use GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) which is comparable to Photoshop, but the sheer number of features and tools can be intimidating (as can Photoshop’s). However, most of us have all the horsepower we need to manipulate our graphics in MS Word. Read more on

M3 Apollo's Bedpost

            Apollo’s competitive nature extends to the bedroom as he attempts to follow Zeus’s womanizing ways. He’s not married (thankfully), but he does try to chase several goddesses and mortals. The emphasis is on try; he’s successful more than not, but he’s still far below Zeus’s scorecard, and Apollo is one who would want to keep a scorecard.

F3 Not the Usual Clients

            Kate rattled off the names of her companions to me, but my mind was mostly on their condition. More than one sported broken bones and large bruises. One guy, in a suit, showed off burned and bubbling skin underneath where the suit had burned away. My stomach did a backflip with a twist when I looked at that skin.

            “You’re not my usual clients,” I tried to lighten the mood.

It didn’t work.

W3 Kompozing

            Editors come in free and wildly expensive. Because we are authors on a budget, we’ll opt for a free editor called Kompozer, available at their website http://www.kompozer.net for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

M3 Apollo's Nature

            Artemis’s baby brother Apollo has his own particular issues when it comes to Zeus. Whereas Artemis is trying to slam on the brakes to forever remain Zeus’s little girl, Apollo is trying to step up. He wants to be just like dear old dad. He does this by being a Jack-Of-All-Trades. Whereas most gods have one or two areas in which they are the absolute master, Apollo spreads out with a variety of different domains in his godly portfolio.

F3 Bad Weather

            The sky drizzled out my window, the afternoon sun hidden by thick, grey clouds. It was a typical summer day in Belport. Business had been slow, so I gave Jessie and Jen the afternoon off. Not for the first time, I thought about closing the office for the day. No one needed my services on a day like today.

            Well, more on today than on a bright, sunny day.

            My phone rang, the cell instead of the office. I expected Nikki, but it wasn’t her ring tone.

            “Kate?” I answered.

            “Hi, Matt.” Her voice sounded strained.

            “Hi.”

            Way to go, Matt. A plus for wit, there.

Chicken Little

            No, this isn’t a folktale post. This is me freaking out because “The semester is coming! The semester is coming!” I put off preparation for the semester because I wanted (needed) to focus on other projects, which I don’t regret at all. But now I need to get everything wrapped up and good to go for teaching. Hopefully, the ideas I have had here and there over the summer will help ease the teaching burden.

            Here’s hoping that I don’t get crushed by a piece of the falling semester.

M3 Artemis's Modesty

            Modesty is an interesting concept, usually associated with very conservative societies, which the Greeks certainly were not. They admired the human body and embraced sexuality, as we ‘ve seen with their creation myths. Yet here we have Artemis who has turned her back on sexuality to embrace modesty. Does this make her prim and proper? Hardly. She spends her time in the wilds, hunting. She would most certainly be called a tom-boy by older generations.

F3 Licking Wounds

            “Okay, I’m in charge by virtue that, one, I ordered the pizza, and two, that I can still stand,” Wally declared to the conference room.

            “Order more pizza and I agree,” someone said.

            “Seconded,” came from several people, including Natalie and me.

            “Already done,” Wally said, wincing and grabbing for his side, but he stopped shy of the blistered skin.

W3 Tag, You're It

            HTML relies on a system of tags to instruct it on what to do. Tags are letters/words/code inside of less than and greater than signs < > that the language will recognize as instructions. Tags tell computers when to begin to do something and when to end, much like capital letters begin a sentence and a period ends one (always have an opening and closing tag). An opening tag will only have the signs and the code, like this: <i>. Closing tags include a slash / just inside the less than sign, like this: </i>.

. You can also use more than one tag at a time, but tags must nest inside one another like matroshka dolls.

Word Processor	HTML Tags
I’m disgusted by the jar of pickled pigs’ feet.	I’m disgusted by the jar of pickled <i>pigs’ feet.</i>
I’m disgusted by the jar of pickled pigs’ feet.	I’m disgusted by the jar of pickled <b><i>pigs’ feet.</i></b>

            For the most part, don’t worry too much about this. Most blogging sites have their own editors, and will check to see if you have the HTML tags, but you don’t need to interact with the HTML side much. You can just use the text editor. Better still, we can use a WYSIWYG editor to create our HTML. We’ll get to that in a couple of weeks.

M3 Actaeon's Punishment

            Artemis, as we have already discussed, has a bit of childishness to her nature. Okay, more than a bit. She literally sat on Zeus’s lap like a little girl asking for gifts from Santa, and Zeus was all too happy to indulge his (spoiled) little girl. The next story really isn’t that surprising, given that childishness, her insistence on remaining a virgin, and her decree that all who serve her must likewise remain chaste.

F3 Safe Harbor

            We didn’t ride lightning in; that was too conspicuous. We glided in while cloudstepping under the cover of night. Fortunately, there were no crowds, so we didn’t have to worry much about being spotted.

            Natalie and I landed, the jolt sending fresh pain through my thigh and hip, and it felt like my stitches popped again. I reached a hand over the wound, and felt at them. Two stitches had come free, but the rest held, and I didn’t start bleeding again.

Becoming the Antagonist

            I’ve been thinking a lot about the bad guys, recently. Rather, I’ve been thinking about emerging trends in fiction and movies, and I’m a little disturbed. Villains are dastardly, I get that. But we’re seeing a new trend with the heroes in that they are adopting the same methods as the villains.

            In looking at the original fairy tale of Snow White, I was horrified when I read that Snow White locked her wicked stepmother into red-hot iron shoes and forced her to dance until she died. However, at the Comicon panel, the panelists were quite gleeful that the stepmother got what was coming to her.

M3 Artemis's Chastity

            So, here we are again, tackling the question, why does Artemis need Zeus to ensure her continued virginity?

            Before we address the question directly, we need to examine the nature of gods and their ages. They do not follow human standards. After all, Athena emerged fully-grown and armored (we mustn’t forget the armor!) out of Zeus’s skull. Artemis, immediately after being born, helped her mother move to Delos and acted as a midwife. Clearly, physically, she is not an infant. Even when asking Zeus for these favors as a three year-old child, there’s the sense that child is not referencing her physicality. I have been around a lot of kids, and I can say with some authority that a toddler is not much help as a midwife, and would be no help in helping a pregnant mother move around.