“Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.”
Shakespeare’s Scottish Play [I.iii.149-50]
The Sun enters the Tropical Zodiac Sign of Gemini — it’s Twin Time!
- Sidebar: note of no real importance: all the moons of Uranus are named for Shakespeare’s characters.
Gemini: I was clicking around on the web. Avoiding work, probably. I hit an ad for a site that promised to tell me the five most common mistakes that websites make.
I clicked through, and it turned into one of those ads for a subscriber-based service, for a single low fee, and the rest of it is merely advertising.
The five most common mistakes? As long as I’ve been making websites, weblogs, horoscopes, digital images and graphics? I think I’ve found those five mistakes and I figure I’ve invented a few more mistakes that some people have never seen before. Nor, after I made the mistake once, do I think I’ll ever make the same mistake again. The joy lies in the doing, not the getting.
What are the most five common mistakes that a web page makes? I think it has to do with graphics that load too slow, crap that loads instantly (like video or sound files, communication (e-mail, address, phone, Twitter, FaceBook), ability to scale the site (across various operating environments), and too many clicks to get to content.
I might have it wrong, but that was a short guide and the information was supposed to be free. I think one of the mistakes was moving graphics, but anymore, that’s kind of moot point. Really doesn’t matter as bandwidth is cheap.
As I’ve suggested, I’ve made a lot more mistakes. Guidelines are nice, but it’s your birthday. What mistakes have you made, now that we’re rolling into a new Gemini year, what issues don’t you want to repeat. Here’s how you do that: don’t. Since that was too short? Don’t repeat the same mistakes. There’s a list, about five, you were thinking about it last week? Don’t repeat those mistakes.
- Books in print: astrofish.net/book
The instructional video/workshop:
Cancer: Guilty pleasure. I can explain, I was looking at online video of Mexican wrestlers. Luchadores. Mighty, majestic, accomplished, sleek, flying through the air, acrobatics that seem to defy the very laws of physics, and so much more. The masks, the glamor, the pageantry, the elegance of the choreography. To some it might not appear all that elegant, but to me?
It’s a guilty pleasure. I can call it “research” since it’s a highly effective manner of learning a third language, or fourth, depends on how you count. Might have am undesirable side-effect though, my pronunciation might make me sound like an announcer with that kind of tone and timing. I’m unsure of how I’d do, for real.
For me, this is merely a guilty pleasure. About ten minutes of that heavy-accented voice telling the story of one masked wrestler pummeling then getting pummeled by another masked wrestler. All good fun. Ten minutes. Three minutes to search through the stock, two minutes on one video that wasn’t very good and then, about four minutes on the last video. I couldn’t stand the part where the masks get ripped away. Ten minutes of harmless — to me — guilty pleasures. Then I’ll roll my Rs all the rest of the day, but who cares? Guilty pleasures. After the mayhem? Take five. Times two, so take a total of ten minutes for guilty pleasures.
It’s official, you can do it.
Leo: I’m not an artist. I don’t have that creative “thing” that most artists have. As close as I’ll get to being an artist? I lived in Austin, and, I was weird.
I am still strange, just not as many people notice these days. I do notice some things, and this was art on a girl’s arm. Young lady. It was a rocking chair, then in Gothic script, underneath the image, “Rock!”
I guess that conveys the image as good as a picture of the tattoo. I would hope that there’s much more to the message, like being in a rocking chair, or being able to rock out when she’s older, or something. Maybe work in a grandparent reference.
This week? Mars? Saturn/Uranus opposition? Like the tat said, “Rock,” or maybe, “rock!”
Virgo: I was pointing and clicking on websites, trying to find some allegory that worked. Something that appropriately conveyed what’s happening in Virgo-land. Land of the Virgo.
One of those. It was a “Men’s Magazine,” and it had, in tiny letters, next to its title, the word “beta.” I thought I would appropriate that. Not the actual form and display, but something similar. Since, after all, on the web, everything is in a constant state of flux and change.
What was last week’s cool new site is now so last week.
Any color in the spectrum, including black, is the new black. It’s a fad a moment. A meme will sweep through, a viral video will catch on, and then, just as quickly, be extinguished by the next moment’s latest and greatest. So it’s all “beta,” in my mind.
Saturn is back down through the last couple of degrees of Virgo. I’d think about that “beta” sticker. Just like, saying, “It’s not etched in stone,” because, really? With Saturn? Even if it’s just the last few degrees? It usually points to a time of change. Don’t get too wedded to a situation, chances are, it’s going to change. It’s still in “beta” form. Like most websites, but never mind that now.
Libra: One girl — OK, OK, call her a “woman” — one girl I dated? She had this mistaken idea that some day, in the not too distant future, we’d be sitting on the veranda of a big house, sipping martinis. Me, probably with one that was shaken, and maybe dirty, or with a tiny onion, or dry, or whatever. Her with a Gimlet or Giblet, I’m not sure. Which is part of the problem.
While I’d like to daintily perch on the veranda of a nice house in the suburbs, and recline in splendor, ease and grace that becomes a man of my stature? Doubt I’ll ever be able to afford a house in the suburbs, and if I could? I’d probably buy a fishing boat or another trailer house to park next a body of water, be that the Gulf Coast or lake.
See how this goes? Two sets of dreams and the only common element is that they both involved me. As Libra, you’ve got some dreams. I can only hope those dreams involve me, or someone like me, but I also hope that you can temper those dreams with a little rational thought.
Scorpio: The right of the Catholic Church to the missions of San Antonio, was passed January 13, 1841, the Republic of Texas passed an act that the San Antonio Missions and other specified missions, and the land surrounding them — not to exceed 15 acres — were the property of the present chief pastor of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, in the Republic of Texas for now and forever.
I was doing a little historical research, and that answered the immediate question about the conveyance of title back then. What was even more fun, to me, was that it was a deed between the Republic of Texas and the Holy Roman Church. Gemini just started. Careful, Gemini is an air sign and Gemini is a mutable sign. As a Scorpio, you are neither. Doesn’t make you a bad person, it’s just that, next a hyper Gemini, you seem so staid and conservative.
I was using my historical research about the titles of lands and deeds to emphasize a point in Scorpio. Careful about what documents you sign. Careful about what you assume is a “permanent and forever” deal. Once that Sun enters Gemini? Bets are off on how long the deal you just negotiated, no guarantee how long it lasts.
Sagittarius: Last week, I suggested it was like February 13. Not the February that comes in the middle of my winter, I meant in a way, like the day before Valentine’s Day.
There’s the big marketing push and then the retail rush. In part this is errant lovers looking for respite, and, in part, it’s hopeful suitors, looking to catch a break. If you paid attention, and paid me, you’ll notice that last week’s missive has hit home, and now is the time reap rewards for your efforts.
If you’re late, then it’s really too late. There was a little shove from the planets, kind of like, standing there, in line, say at a movie or concert, and the pretty woman in front of you backs into yourself. Or cute guy, whatever it is that you’re interested in. The other person takes a step back, and casually rubs you. Rubs you in a good way.
Capricorn: Got a gift card, one of those plastic, credit-card-looking things, to a big sporting goods store. Don’t know whether I should buy fishing gear or ammunition. Decisions, decisions. Bullets or new fishing lures? Bullets would just get left behind in a target — I hope.
I mean, I hope I hit the target, wouldn’t want to use ammunition for anything but target practice, right? Lures, the way the fishing’s been lately? Just get left behind in the lake, too. Rocky bottom, tree stumps, leave plenty of the plastic and hooks behind, too. Both are hopeful activities.
Let’s play a game in Capricorn, bullets or fishing lures? Which would you buy? Why? There is one Capricorn I know, he’d buy, without thinking about it, bullets. The end is near, and he wants to go out fighting. Me? I’m not a Capricorn, and if I thought the end was really near, I’d want to go out with a fishing pole in my hand. Makes that decision even more pointed, now doesn’t it? Go down firing? Or fishing?
Aquarius: The inscription over the doorway to Mission Concepción de la Purisima de Acuna de la Hasana: “A SU PATRONA, U PRINCESSA/CON ESTAS ARMAS, ATIENTE/ESSTA MISSION, Y DEFTENDE/EL PUNTO DE SU PUREZA” (This mission honors its patroness and princess and defends with these arms the doctrine of her purity.) The mission itself has a long history, originating in as an East Texas outpost to guard against the French with Spanish-Catholic education, geo-political and para-military presence wrapped into one package.
In 1731, due to decreasing government funding, the mission was moved to its present location, near the confluence of the San Pedro Creek and the San Antonio River. The chapel itself, about all that is still standing, is a simple cathedral with twin Moorish domes, facing almost due west. Still holy ground, or consecrated turf, or whatever they call it.
I was thinking about that, while sitting in the chapel. Warm spring afternoon. Hot, in a cool way. Not yet to summer “roast” settings. 300 years of history, 250 years in the same place. How rooted are you, as an Aquarius, how rooted are you to one spot? To one ideal? That church’s actual, physical structure, it’s been here longer than we’ve been a country. How wedded are you, as your Aquarius self, to that one ideal?
Pisces: I’ve worked with a number of editors, over the years. Some good, some bad. There was one, he had a Virgo Moon, and he was a particularly good one for me. Although, I’m sure your Pisces self will agree, that a Virgo Moon can drive you crazy with the attention to details.
Anyway, one of the first, perhaps most important, items I learned from that one editor? Length. Prior to working with him, I was tailoring my copy, the words in my horoscopes, to fit a certain length. I was writing for page display. Column inches. The message I got was to let the material dictate the length, the content itself will have its own length Don’t edit for space.
That editor pointed out that he could always shrink the type or column or whatever, to make it all fit. That was the lesson.
As Jupiter does his thing, and as the planets continue to roll around on their preordained pattern? Don’t edit your material to fit a certain space. Let the material itself dictate how long it wants to be. Don’t start with a canvas and say, “It’s got to fit on this one 8 X 10 canvas.” That won’t work for the mural you’re working on. And don’t paint yourself in corner by mixing metaphors.
Aries: The term “watch dog” first appears — in literature, first time — in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. As the Moon goes from halfway full to almost all the way full? Time to get with the program. Plan, you did have a plan, didn’t you?
There’s also that term, the ‘watch dog,’ and I’d wonder how that plays out. Is there a watch dog you should worry about? Especially as the Moon gets fuller and fuller? Or is there a situation wherein your Aries self should be a little more cautious?
Either way, I was thinking about the term, and its antecedents. Plus its source. Anyway, the deal is, the code phrase for the next seven days? “Watch dog.” Either be on the look out, or be on the look out.
Taurus: A decade ago, that was last week, looking back over your shoulder. Important consideration. There was a significant occurrence, about a decade back.
Ten is such a weird number, doesn’t really show up in nature, we have ten toes, but only eight fingers, OEM. Two thumbs. Seven days to a week, 12 months in year, 13 moon cycles in a year, and I can make a list a mile long, which, again, isn’t a “ten” thing. This, however, is a ten years ago moment. That’s why I’m digging in here about that issue, whatever it was, ten years ago.
As the Sun’s passage through your slice of the sky comes to an end? Birthday’s come and are gone?
Time to think about something from a decade ago. It’s an important consideration as this plots another ten years ahead. That action, a decade ago? That’s like a rudder on a small boat, has a lot to do with your Taurus direction, now. Like that boat’s rudder? Bigger impact than thought.
