A Stray to Botaram updates on Tuesday and Thursday.

Transcript

Title: No Number
(As the Entities argue, Chax looks on, at first in fear, then disbelief, then puzzlement.)
Knifelike Voice: Precedence? That Oistrem make comrades of treacherous Strasmin? What Names record this?
Flamelike Voice: Searching... There are... No number is returned.
Knifelike Voice: So there are none? Then end its Namespike now!
Flamelike Voice: It is not... none. No number is returned. Termination unhelpful.
Knifelike Voice: On what grounds is Precedence asserted, then?
Flamelike Voice: Precedence is inferred.
4457

One thought on “No Number”

  1. Fan of Most Everything

    Oh. It’s not a zero, it’s no result whatsoever. Even the guiding voices don’t have full access. This goes very deep indeed.

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No Number
Posted on October 31, 2025 by JJA

Too Much Power…

Posted on November 8, 2012 by JJA
As of this writing, I am back online in a warm and well-illuminated house. I’d like to thank our neighbors, Laura and Alexis, for sharing the use of their generator during the first few days, and our friends, Betsy and Stefan Burr, for opening their house to us, sharing dinner with us, and lending us their generator in our time of need.

However, it seems that while wrestling with setting up the heavy generator, I dealt my back a blow from which it has yet to recover. I am therefore bedridden for now, and so am postponing the next entry of Botaram to the coming Monday.

Until!

Sandstorm

Posted on October 29, 2012 by JJA
I am at least provisionally in the path of the East Coast hurricane, and have just gotten the hatches reasonably battened. I will be working on Botaram tonight and tomorrow as power and laptop battery permit. Provided that cell coverage remains, I should have the next entry up by tomorrow evening. Until!

What’s going on…

Posted on August 22, 2012 by JJA
Still not dead, but now having some health concerns in addition to other worries. This isn’t shaping up to be a good year…

Nevertheless, I am assigning a firm date for Botaram’s return; I expect to be back in the saddle on Monday, September the third. I trust that I will not be proven wrong.

To those who are still checking in, I thank you for bearing with me.


More Tomfoolery

Posted on August 13, 2012 by JJA
More limericks, for the nonce:

A Strasmin who sought Botaram
Said “I fear that my plan is a sham.
When I stammer, or yammer,
It hammers my grammar—
A glamour flim-flammer I am.”


An Oistrem was heard to complain
That her brain was too plain to contain
The pain and the strain
Of her deigning to feign
An arcane campaign of disdain.

“I’d abstain from all ledgerdemain,
For I’m fain this domain to explain.
But again, it pertains
To disdainful refrains
Which remain too insane to restrain.

“I’ll explain ere I get a migrane,
For this chain or chicane is my bane.
And my gain, in the main,
Lies in what I maintain:
That my brain, split in twain, is insane.”


…inuviabentidguvor-
jiokundialunedikor-
pevasoziurandi-
asmalidrukanti-
bisgarwisalalunizor…



Still Alive…

Posted on July 31, 2012 by JJA
Dealing with personal issues, some of which are good. My brain keeps finding ways to work on things that are not Botaram, so perhaps I needed another break.

This is no excuse for shirking my duties, so here are some Botaram limericks while I work this out:


A Strasmin once said, “My intent
Is at odds with what I think you meant.
What you do with your rod
Makes you smile and nod,
But the bent of my rod is to frent.”

There once was an Oistrem named Guaz-
marenchubiavhufarataz-
hulemdiorivu-
stamcapuhitiwu-
suntalahinumashabaz…

(second draft)

There once was an Oistrem tagged “Guit,”
Who said “Now that I’ve gotten to it,
I strongly intuit
This gooey conduit
Will not suffer me to pass through it.

“It was simple from far off to view it,
But if I press on, I shall rue it,
Though I hew it, the goo, it
Renews just as true. It
Is prudent, I think, to say
‘This path brings me no closer to my objective and I shall reconnoiter to find one that might bear better fruit.'”



Until!

Progress and Sonnet

Posted on July 26, 2012 by JJA
This block is taking longer to resolve than I hoped. Here’s a sonnet in the meantime:

In soaring through the world, from rest to rest,
Emergent to recumbent, dust would claim
The briefest spark, the right to take a name
And drink of life while life shall lend a breast—
But when what we imbibe does not digest,
And turns not into pleasure, nor to fame,
But curdles, lying heavy, who would claim
There’s aught to favor in that draught distressed?

Now from the cream let’s separate the jest,
Dyspeptic humor none should stomach, lest
We take it to the heart and cast our blame,
Unheeded, on the teat. Were time repressed,
We’d still endure this sharpest sort of test,
To either lose our ground, or find the flame.


Botaram vita est.