LUNG?

It isn't likely anyone cares, but I thought I might briefly describe why this thing you're reading is called "Lung."

Once upon a time I was learning FrameMaker, which is desktop publishing software. As an exercise I created a multi-column newsletter and named it Lung – a silly, whimsical, entirely meaningless name.

But the name rolled around backbrain as I started fiddling with this blog. At first, I added "blue" to make it Blue Lung, which I thought sounded interesting.

Then I Googled "blue lung" to see if that phrase might be in use somewhere. Sure enough, "blue lung," according to the Urban Dictionary, is a condition affecting users of something called Adderall. This, apparently, is a delicious flavor of methamphetamine.

So I reverted back to plain old "Lung."

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Anal-retentive postscript: I did indeed learn FrameMaker, and got pretty good at it. I always preferred it to Word. It is superior in every way and I used it for years.

Then I bought a new computer, and  my version of Frame wouldn't run on it. No backwards compatibility. A new version of Frame was far beyond my budget.

I had written virtually all my stuff in Frame, and faced the nightmarish prospect of converting hundreds of critical files to Word, that slightly more affordable lingua franca of the computer world. Which I did.

Microsoft Word. Bill Gates' cash cow. I'm stuck with it. I've learned it, and I've learned to live with it. I've even grown accustomed to it. I know it inside out. But I don't like it.