All day yesterday, instead of writing, I typed in search for the perfect distraction-free word processor. Yes, I’m aware of the irony. If I’d just spent those hours pumping out words in Word I’d have a thousand good ones or more. Thus you can see what a weak grip my writing projects hold on my focus and why everything on my screen–my clock, my menus, my quick launch icons–must be blacked out!

I’d been devoted since August to JDarkRoom, “a simple full-screen text editor,” installing it on both my XP desktop and my linux netbook. Storage was the glaring imperfection in this solution. I first tried keeping my files online, emailing them to myself or uploading them to box.net. What a pain that was. And I never I could keep track of which hard drive held the most recent revision. So I picked up an 8GB thumb drive at Costco, which held all five of my stories with enough space left over for the collection to grow. Too bad it sported history’s most distracting LED. And what if I lost the little thing? I kept thinking: I wish Google Docs would just come out with a way to dim the lights on its full screen mode.

Turns out it’s been possible since the July update. Here’s the hack:

1. Open a blank Google document
2. Click View > Fixed-width page view
3. Click Edit > Edit CSS
4. Paste the following code:
   

   .pageview body {
   background-color: #000;
   border: 0;
   }
   html.pageview {
   background-color: #000 !important;
   }
   .editor div.writely-toc {
   background-color: #000;
   border: 1px solid #000;
   }
   body {
   font-family: Garamond !important;
   font-size: 12pt !important;
   color: #c0c0c0;
   }
   h1 {
   text-transform: uppercase;
   font-family: Garamond;
   font-size: 24pt;
   color: #c0c0c0;
   }
   h2 {
   font-family: Garamond;
   font-size: 18pt;
   color: #c0c0c0;
   }
   h3 {
   font-family: Garamond;
   font-size: 14pt;
   color: #c0c0c0;
   }

5. Click OK
6. Click View > Full-screen mode (Ctrl+Shift+F)
7. Press F11 to enter your browser’s full screen mode

Cool or what? Just keep a blank copy of the document as a template and do a “File > Save as new copy” whenever you start a new project. Install Google Gears to work on your documents while offline. And if Garamond gray on black isn’t your thing, you can always go back to “Edit > Edit CSS” to change the default styles. Or just use the dropdown menus.

I would also suggest the FullerScreen Firefox Add-on, and a Firefox theme with a dark scrollbar to remove even more distractions from the screen. I tried and tried to eliminate that dang bright line on the left edge, but I think I have to leave that one up to Google. Fortunately, the Full Flat Absolute Black theme masks it well:

I should give credit to S. W. Shinn, who came up with a similar, but resolution-dependent hack, and Pete Rugh, who took a ten minute break from Guitar Hero to save me hours. Thanks to them I have all I need to be productive again. Starting tomorrow.

-Nat Foster

I sometimes dream of a secret swimming pool, magical and unchlorinated, dug somewhere in the slot canyon labyrinths of southern Utah. According to legend, only you know the way. Last night Renee and I and hundreds of other lepers seeking the pool’s healing properties waited at the trailhead for you, our guide, to show up. But did you know that you can be a heartless prick sometimes? Well, in my dreams you can be. You and your two dirthead pals (you know the ones) pushed your way through the crowd and into the all day shade of the narrows, your squawk of a laugh echoing off the redrock walls as you vanished. The few of us lepers who still wanted healed after such an impolite entrance rushed in behind you, but now we had our doubts, which we voiced in noisier and whinier tones each time you tried to ditch us in some dusty deadend mothtrap. Some of us fell behind, but despite your best efforts, Renee and I, as robust as lepers come, managed to catch up each time you darted down some new, darker passage. Then we heard thunder, and I’d read about flash floods before. The second the first raindrop stung my arm, the water level rose from zero feet to fifty and drained just as fast, leaving Renee and me clinging half way up the slickened wall. I reached over to place her feet in better holds because I didn’t want her falling and hurting the baby. We waited five minutes or so for the next flash flood to lower us safely to the mud, but by then you were gone and so was your trail. We decided we’d wander in search of the pool on our own. We were sick of your attitude anyway.

And we found it, just around the next bend in fact, behind a wrought iron fence. Don’t ask me how, but the gate was locked from the inside. We rattled the bars until some dreadlocked hippie dude, tanning on a poolside lounger, woke up and, while the lifeguard on duty looked elsewhere, snuck over and let us in, welcoming us in a whisper. We stripped down to our suits, padded across the baking concrete, and jumped in. Renee dove without splash; I cannonballed. The water felt not warm, not cold, but wet only. They kept it at 98.6 degrees exactly. My wife and I surfaced smiling at each other, confident that we were healed.

My good friends were all around–Matt, Jesse, Eric, Blake, Pete, John Robert, etc.–splashing and dunking each other. And I suppose Renee’s old friends were among the extras at the party as well. I never really met them. But you, John Malkovich, were noticeably absent, swept away by the flash flood, or perhaps just plain uninvited. I do apologize, but in the end it was my dream.

Through the havoc I spotted Josh Farrer treading water beneath the diving board. I knew he’d be around. I always find him in places like this. I wanted badly to swim over and say hey, but now was not convenient. See, he was flanked on either side by the twins Brynn and Hailey (spelling?), and as easy as everyone claimed it was, I never could tell those two apart with any accuracy.

Briefly your disciple,

Nat Foster

You inspired a slight, but grotesque worry in our household when Renee discovered you suspended behind our cache of flattened moving boxes, no mommy on guard. It’s likely she was the wolf I caught hunting across our carpet. If I remember right I pinched her softly inside kleenex and released her over the lawn. You, however, I would not treat with the same tenderness. I wheeled the roaring vacuum across the concrete and put the hose to your web, strands twisting together as they dragged you down with them. As I slurped the husks of crickets and ladybugs off the floor, the gunk lodged itself just before it reached the tank, clearly visible through the plastic.

Now, a month later, the possibility that you have hatched haunts the machine so severely that neither of us has dared check. We just assume. We fight over who should put baggies over their hands and scoop you out. We make bargains:

“I’ll vacuum the whole apartment if you just do it.”

“No way.”

“Vacuuming plus dishes then.”

“It’s your turn for dishes anyway.”

“Fine, the vacuuming, the dishes, and the bathroom. Final offer.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Each day we track in more grass clippings, fall leaves, and mud, dried and molded in the tread of our shoes. Dog hair clings to the sofa set. Crumbs of a stepped-on apple jack sink deeper into the rug.

Nothing gets done.

Please accept this official apology for sucking you up and dooming you inside.

Sincerely yours,

Nat Foster

One is all you need. I promise.

Same message goes for polygamists, owners of multiple calculator wristwatches, and Jimmy Page:

One is all you need.

To everyone remaining:

I need your help getting this important message out. Who else can you think of that needs to hear it?

Thanks,

Nat Foster

I have worked CSS magic and added a column for links way, way down at the foot of the page. If you’d like a strip of that prime real estate, leave a comment and I’ll hook you up.

Just don’t peek at the source. It’s ug.

-Nat

P.S. How does one indent in Wordpress’s Theme Editor anyway? Tab is useless.

I just finished reading your latest journal entry, “Critic” is a four-letter word, in which you dedicate not just the first paragraph, but the first two (plus the epigraph!) to compiling the Internet’s most exhaustive collection of anti-critic sentiments:

A critic at a performance is like a eunuch at a harem. He sees it done nightly, but is unable to perform it himself.
–Brendan Behan

A lot of people don’t know what “critic” means. They think it means, “a person who criticizes.” They don’t like people who do that. It seems an impotent profession. Critics are nasty, jealous, jaded and bitter. They think it’s all about them. They’re know-it-alls. They want to appear superior to everyone else. They’re impossible to please. They don’t understand the tastes of ordinary people. They love to tear down other people’s hard work. Those who can do it, do it. Those who can’t do it, criticize. What gives them the right to have an opinion? We’d be better off without them.

Criticism is a destructive activity. If I like something and the critics didn’t, they can’t see what’s right there before their eyes because they’re in love with some theory. They don’t have feelings; they have systems. They think they know better than creators. They praise what they would have done, instead of what an artist has done. They use foreign words to show off. They’re terrified of being exposed as the empty poseurs they are. They are leeches on the skin of art.

You then launch your defense of critics using a quotation from Anton Ego, the archetypal pompous critic in Ratatouille:

As I read I’m thinking is this guy applying for a position as his enemies’ hero? Leeches on the skin of art? Dang, I’ll have to remember that one the next time some hack disses my favorite band, book, movie, or sports team. (Do book critics even write negative reviews?) But–you crafty writer you–once you’ve finished loading the rifles of your firing squad, you tie each of the barrels in a knot by pointing out three important roles of the critic:

1. to write, as Anton puts it, “in the discovery and defense of the new.” You cite the first films by Scorsese, Leigh and Nava as examples of the new. You write, “A critic can defend it, publicize it, encourage it. Those are worth doing.”
2. To encourage readers to spend their money and time on better things. “We are all allotted an unknown but finite number of hours of consciousness. Maybe a critic can help you spend them more meaningfully.”
3. To teach critical thinking by example. “Too many simply absorb,” you write. A critic can teach audiences of art how to explain their reactions to it, how to have opinions and back them up.

Role #1 is a gimme. Who wouldn’t appreciate a critic for championing innovative, worthy art? As for #2, Renee and I would be twenty dollars richer and forty net IQ points smarter had we listened to you about National Treasure: Book of Secrets. so I’ll grant you that one as well, but #3, while perhaps the most crucial role of the critic, also presents a danger. You publish reviews with the risk that moviegoers will use your criticism–not evidence from the art itself–to explain why they didn’t like it. I’ve encountered that tendency in myself. When Renee and I exit the theater with opposite reactions to a movie, after arguing the whole drive home, I’ll go straight to my computer, log on to rottentomatoes, and shout something juvenile like: “Hah! 64% of critics and 79% of Top Critics agree with me!” But she’ll stick to her initial opinion, and the professional reviews do nothing to sway her confidence in it. She’s a natural critic. The rest of us, while we need the guidance, can’t go relying on your ideas. Or worse: passing them off as our own.

Sincerely,

Nat Foster

I found you guys back in 2002 on Audiogalaxy, a music sharing site whose death you probably mourn harder than any of us. Will wrote my favorite reviews there, and hey, check it out, they still got the old page up! I clicked on the free mp3 links at the bottom of the page, liked them enough to pirate the rest of Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone You See, and then burned a disc that would outlast even OK Computer’s record first stay in my car stereo. Those three clicks ended up changing my life.

You released Down the River of Golden Dreams in September of ‘03. I was living in DC that fall, interning for the Senate (I don’t know why) and lovesick (as always) over some giggly girl back in Utah. You hadn’t grown big enough yet for even half an inch on the record store shelves, at least not in Georgetown, so I ordered it online. I remember the weeks after it arrived wrapped in cardboard, I would jog up the Metro escalator at Foggy Bottom and walk home through the GWU campus at a speedier pace just so I could listen again to “Seas Too Far to Reach” or “The War Criminal Rises and Speaks” or whichever of your tunes I had stuck in my head all day.

March 6, 2004… my friends and I caught you opening for John Vanderslice at Kilby Court, a tiny club with walls of concrete and corrugated aluminum, christmas lights strung, and a trash can fire blazing in the courtyard. While we waited for you to come on, a beautful girl with sparkly eye makeup and long hair artificially curled, wearing a fleece blanket for a jacket, turned to my friends and I and asked us for the time. I watched her all during your set, and after when Pete said to me, “Either you go talk to her, or I will,” I defied my usual way of acting toward a girl I liked, and went. We leaned against the plywood sound booth and, no offense to John Vanderslice, listened to each other instead of the music.

From the stage you asked if anyone in the crowd had a few open couches for the band to crash on. Pete’s parents were out of town, so we offered up his house forty-five minutes south, which happened to be the direction you were headed and had garage space for your tour van. I wonder if you remember the night you spent talking music with three weird Mormon kids, passing around a Hefty bag of popcorn they rescued from a theater dumpster. The night, for me, was huge. I got to hang out with my favorite band, and I had Renee’s number in my notebook.

I married her in December.

What if I was never a fan of yours? How much worse off would I be? I suppose everyone in love asks these terrifying what ifs.

I graduated alongside her a year later, bummed around the UK, got into grad school. Black Sheep Boy came out sometime in there, and we agreed it was your best stuff so far. Was it me or was it also your darkest? I can’t say. Probably my life had just gotten brighter.

This past Tuesday I stopped by Borders and picked up your new album, The Stand Ins. They had four or five copies on the shelving cart. Like last year’s The Stage Names, it’s got a lot on it about a “mid-level band” struggling to make it. Sounds like it sometimes gets rough. You have my thanks for working at it, touring so hard, and releasing a great album year after year.

I sound like one of those annoying fans bragging that he liked the band before they were big, I know, but I’m pleased with your success, and I hope you find even more with this new album. You deserve it all.

Your fan,

Nat Foster

Lost Coastlines

Stop guilt-tripping me for neglecting you. I’ve been slammed. Start of the semester and all that. You know you’re always on my mind, baby.

(And don’t worry, I’m aware this one little post doesn’t count as quality attention.)

We’ll do something fun together this weekend, I promise.

Your dedicated author,

Nat Foster

Since the Salt Lake County Sports Office blew their whole budget on that skyscraper of a championship trophy, it’s up to us congratulate ourselves on our perfect losing season.

0-7, baby!

And no forfeits.

(Thanks, jonafun 2 of flickr)

The Answer is…

Pete, with your superb fundamentals, you nearly spoiled the perfection of our record. That game winner from the corner was seriously in and out.

Charles, thank you for sinking that half-court shot with one second left in our second game. After losing by 40 our first game, that shot saved us from another blowout, bumping us up to a respectable twelve-point loss.

Matt, even the refs cheered for your behind-the-back-off-the-elbow fastbreak pass.

Blake, you became quite the little Dennis Rodman by the end. I have a confession. That time you went up for a rebound and tipped the ball into our own hoop, I got a piece of it as well.

Spencer, I don’t know you. I was in Hawaii the only time you actually showed up. You stole my jersey, though. I was duct-taping the number 17 onto a black t-shirt for the rest of the season.

Steve, I think we can safely bet that thanks to you The Nasty Midnighters were the only team in the recreational division with an olympian on the roster. I felt guilty cashing your check. Wish you could have played more games.

Chris, at 6′ 4″, 145 pounds, you get extra props for being the only guy on the team to consistently set screens and take charges. That tailbone still broken?

Dane, you were a pest on the perimeter, and you probably outrebounded me playing center. Too bad BYU made you shave that beard and chop off those greasy curls. It’s a church school. Have they really not read the story of Samson?

Alan, you sported the team’s highest-contrast farmer’s tan, you ditched us once to study directX programming, but that soft touch on your J made you truly nasty.

Tanner, our secret weapon, our ringer, our last hope for a change in the win column, we brought you on to intimidate the enemy team and the enemy referees, to do battle on the low block. You did your job. We let you down.

Thank you all for enduring a season of city league ball, and thank you all (except Blake, Dane, and Tanner) for paying forty bucks to do it. I mean it. We took those seven losses like champs.

Cheers,

Nat Foster

I drove through eleven states this past weekend, and compared to the other ten you rank very near the top in terms of pastoral beauty. You provide some really picturesque stretches, really. However, are you aware of the wart you have growing on your turnpike?

An unincorporated town by the name of Breezewood, PA:

And, if you can believe it, Breezewood looks even more malignant from the southeast, but to document that angle I would have had to leave the security of the vehicle.

As a concerned passerby, I recommend you have a specialist take a look at this growth immediately.

Sincerely,

Nat Foster