Month: October 2012

  • A DO-IT-YOURSELF ENTRY

    You all know what a fan I am of bad writing, and you must be too, else why would you come in here so often, hmmm?  Along those lines, every year I post some “winners” from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (“where WWW means Wretched Writers Welcome”).  As most of you know, this is a contest where bad writing is rewarded, and people write badly on purpose, whereas I do it unintentionally, as witness this very sentence. 

    I didn’t think this year’s winners were all that great (it’s possible all the bad writing has already been written, but somehow I doubt it), but if you’re interested you can find them here.  I tried copying over the ones I liked, but some reason it won’t let me do it.  You’re on your own.  You had nothing better to do today anyway.

    More info about the origins of the contest can be found here.

  • We’ve been following the storm coverage closely because we have family and friends in Pennsylvania.  News about what’s happening in PA has been sparse, at least when I’ve been watching, but I gather from Facebook entries that it hasn’t been devastating there.  Most of the coverage is about New Jersey and New York City.  Amidst all the coverage of the disaster on the Jersey shore, I did have to smile a bit when I read this last night from CBS Philadelphia:  “Wind gusts over 60 mph in the city, over 70 mph down the shore.”

    Down the shore.  When I was growing up in Philadelphia, that’s what we always called it – going down the shore.  Never going to the shore, always going down the shore.  (Am I right, Marsha?)  I don’t miss Philadelphia at all – it’s such a different city than it was in the ’40s and ’50s - but when I hear that accent and hear something like “down the shore,” it sounds like home to me.

  • The latest issue of Senior Independence News, published by (surprisingly) our county Council on Aging, has a list of comparisons between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy.  No doubt you’ve seen such lists over the years.  Since 1963 there has been an attempt to make Kennedy into a Lincoln, but that’s not the point of this screed.  What is the point, you might well ask.  This is:  Some of the comparisons are interesting and serious, some are not.  I won’t burden you with the whole list, but I did laugh out loud at the last one.

    “A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland. A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.”

  • “Next week’s quiz will cover only the material on the board.”

  • AIN’T THIS THE TRUTH

    Thanks to Anne I. for this

     

  • DON’T TAKE THE WORLD SERIOUS

    The World Series starts tonight, and the pride of Michigan, the Detroit Tigers, are in it.  I don’t watch any regular season games, but I start to get interested in the post-season.  I’ve watched all of the post-season games and will watch the series.  This is what Michiganders are hoping to see:

    With apologies to all you Californians.  Or maybe not.

  • ‘TIS A PUZZLEMENT

    I wonder why it’s a sin for a Republican to be rich, but Democrats can be as wealthy as Midas and no one cares.  The Kennedys had gazillions.  John Kerry is married to gazillions.  The Clintons have made gazillions since he left office.  FDR was rich and yet was thought to be very sympathetic to the poor. 

    Romney gave away his inheritance and made all his money by working.  He gave $4 million to charity last year. (Joe Biden gave an average of $369 a year to charity over the last decade.) 

    Isn’t this a double standard? 

  • A TON OF NON SEQUITURS

    Last night I was watching “Love It or List It” on HGTV.  The realtor was pushing the virtues of a house he wanted a couple to buy, and said, “It has tons of storage space.”  I’ve heard that many times from realtors and it always makes me wonder what, precisely, is a ton of storage space?  Does it mean the space will hold a ton of lead or perhaps a ton of feathers?  Later on in the show he mentioned that a room has “tons of light.”  That puzzles me even more.  How much light constitutes a ton?  I know air weighs something, but does light?  Then I turned to “Pawn Stars” and the pawn shop owner, in talking about an item brought in, said, “There are a ton of collectors who would be interested in this.”  (Yeah, I know – he should have said “there IS” but please stay focused here.)  So then I started wondering how many collectors in a ton.  It could be ten 200-pounders or twenty 100-pounders.  Or it could be a mixed bag of collectors adding up to a ton.

    Then, as the daughter/wife/mother/grandmother of engineers, I had to wonder if that ton refers to a long ton, a short ton, or a metric ton.

    Ah, the curse of having a literal mind!

  • I REALLY DO MISS BLOGS

    I just checked the blogs of several people who used to blog regularly, and only one of six is still posting anything, and her not often.  I really do miss reading the blogs of ”real-life” friends and “Internet” friends.  They tended to be long on detail and news and brought me up to date on what was happening with them and their families.  Now everyone does Facebook, and the entries often raise more questions than they answer.  “I’m depressed,” they’ll say.  Why?  What’s happened?  “Went shopping.”  For what?  What did you buy?  “It’s raining.”  So what?  What did you do on this rainy day?  “I’m bored.”  Get over it.  No one should ever be bored. 

    I really do miss blogs.