It's like his thoughts are too big for his size

Well, i made it through Lent without drinking coffee or soft drinks (although i am having a bit of an internal struggle over whether or not my new fondness for tea violates the spirit of the season).

I also have to admit that i was pretty miserable failure as far as using the break from coffee and soft drinks as part of a larger effort to get in better shape. Despite the will power on the drink front, the shape i'm in is still "round."

Everybody's working for the weekend

I made my first appearance on film since the 10th grade at our staff meeting today. And, now that i think about, i might have been an off-camera narrator during our filming of The Crucible, so maybe today was actually my debut.

One of the people in charge wanted to make a video roasting a coworker who turns 40 today. My two brief appearances got some pretty hearty laughs. Luckily, my coworkers aren't really the Comedy Central types, and; therefore, did not realize that my schtick was pretty much, nay, WAS a direct rip-off of Stephen Colbert roasting Chevy Chase. I'll look for the Colbert video later.

There is another work-related development.

The office manager is setting up balloons and whatnot to welcome the new employee here. It really brings the memories rushing back from my first day here...

...when nobody even freaking remembered i was coming.

Can i tell you how much i love getting to work in the morning and reading "Welcome _____ to the _____ ______ Team!!!"? It's like a sweet little kick in the shins.

It's one of those things I'd like to bitch about to the supervisors, but i'm worried that it'll make me look shallow, bitter and pathetic. And I am not shallow.

Jesus shoots one-over at The Masters

This is one of those things i mentioned last week that i wanted to talk about but wasn't sure I'd get around to it. Luckily, something happened yesterday that made it relevant, so i figure i'd go for it.

Yesterday, Master's champion Zack Johnson thanked Jesus for helping him win The Masters.

I would like to address one common response to that sort of statement. "I think Jesus has more important things to worry about than a stupid golf tournament/touchdown catch/ game-winning sacrifice fly."

One quick caveat: This is purely a logic argument, i'm not in any way presenting my own personal views on theology.

Every smidgeon of religious teaching i have received is based in large part on the following arguments.

• God created all people and loves all people, even the assholes.
• God is all-powerful.

So, the naysayers are basically making one of the following two arguments.

• God blessed you with tremendous athletic abilities, but doesn't care what you do with it and isn't interested in taking any credit for it.
  
• God blessed you with tremendous athletic abilities, cares deeply about what you do with it, but frankly has his hands full right now, so don't bother crediting him in your post-game/tournament interviews. You selfish dick.

To say that God had nothing to do with a touchdown catch is to say that, "sorry, we are not all unique and loved equally by our creator." Certain things are trivial in the eyes of the God, and those things are to be decided by religious, non-sports fans.

I think the second argument is more disturbing because it implies that God is not all powerful. By making some things trivial, you are in essence saying that there is only a finite amount of attention God has at his disposal to give at any certain time.

The results of the Cinncinnati-Buffalo game in week 3 is exactly the type of thing God is concerned about, if the basic premises I've listed above are true. God loves the second string receiver and wants him to make the most of his natural abilities, and certainly on top of that, the big man upstairs wouldn't mind a little credit along the way.

Is ESPN smarter than a fifth grader?

I've got a lot to talk about.

Chances are it won't all make it into this entry. and there's also a very good chance i'll never get around to talking about what doesn't make the cut. But there's always hope.

Album Review: Pearl Jam Rearview Mirror

Probably the easiest review ever.

Ever since my two-disk Live from Verona, Italy Pearl Jam CD disappeared, I've been looking for a suitable replacement (since you can't find it anywhere anymore). Luckily, I stumbled upon Rearview Mirror the other day, a greatest hits album that I think has been out for quite some time.

It seems the clever folks who compiled the CD's decided to put the harder stuff on disk one (marked by an up arrow), with the slower stuff on disk two (down). This is endlessly convenient. Disk two is perfect for the morning commute when I'm tired, disk one plays best on the evening drive home, when i'm full of road rage and murderous intentions.

Here is the total song list.

If i had never heard Live from Verona, Rearview Mirror would easily land a perfect score. But I can't do it, since it just isn't as good as its live-venue counterpart.

I give it a 9.67 out of 10.

Speaking of reviews...

It's my birthday, my buh buh buh birthday

Thanks to a gift card i received for my birthday, i went on a massive book-buying spree online last night. I think i ended up with 12 or 13 books. I think only a couple of them were by people i haven't read before, and three or four of them are Dresden Files books, since i've fallen a bit behind on the series.

So once those books start trickling in, I should have plenty to write about. i also have a second birthday-related gift card for when i'm ready to reload.

Please leave any recommendations in the comment section. My typical rule of thumb is that i don't like to read anything if it's meant to make me smarter. I don't mind books making me think, but i'd rather that be a side-effect of a well told story.

ESPN sucks at geography and customer assistance

Baseball opening day, which was Monday, is a minor holiday for me. I'm always at work, wishing i could be in front of the tv experiencing all-day baseball. But since I've never actually had a chance to experience all-day baseball on opening day, I can only assume it's glorious.

The best I can do, usually, is to catch the later games. Well, Monday, ESPN 2 was showing the Texas Rangers versus the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim which was being played in California.

And, for some reason, the game was blacked out at my house. So we called DirecTV (i was just going to call Tuesday morning, but Courtney picked up the phone and called Monday night). They said it was an ESPN decision and it had something to do with local broadcast contracts.

So I e-mailed ESPN yesterday, after reading this flippant FAQ answer about blackouts on their site:

Hey, it's a rare occasion when we want to watch anything else except sports on ESPN or ABC either! But we've got these things called contracts that obligate us to black out areas (determined by teams, leagues or conferences) in order to protect local and regional television commitments, and/or to protect ticket sales. So we've got to play by the rules and, if our contract calls for us to black out, show something else (generally, ESPNEWS) in your area when a local team plays in a nationally televised game, when they are playing either home or away.

But we've got these things called contracts...you know what, ESPN, bite my ass.

So, why am i blaming ESPN for this, when the answer clearly says they don't determine the black out areas? Because, frankly, i wasn't happy with the way they handled my inquiry. As I just mentioned, that answer sucks, so i e-mailed them and asked how living in New Orleans in any way qualifies me to be in the regional television coverage area of freaking Dallas (but i was nice about it, pointing out that it's no less than a seven-hour drive between the two places. i don't exactly face a daily dilemma of deciding whether or not to hop in my car and go catch a Rangers game).




I got an e-mail reply from them that basically said, "thanks for the e-mail, we probably won't answer it."

Since they won't tell me whose fault it is, since they're too busy being dicks, i will assume that it's their fault.

stupid jackasses.

One hundred thousand pesos? we do not have one hundred thousand pesos.

i hit 100,000 miles in my car this morning.

I'm in my car a lot, so it really wasn't much of a suprise that i was driving when the odometer hit 100000.

Too bad i wasn't at home when it happened, or i could have gotten a picture or something. but no, i had to be in the car. i've had the worst luck lately.

Actually, I'm having an OK week.

Courtney's folks got me an autographed Emeril's Delmonico cookbook for my birthday. So i'm going to try to fix some good stuff saturday while courtney is at work.

last time i made something that required any sort of effort i ended up dirtying every dish in the house. so hopefully she'll be home in time to clean up.

I want to hold you high and steal your pen

I think I might be a genius.

I made a magnificent discovery yesterday.

If you take a good song and randomly replace words in it with "poop," the song's even better.

Betterman by Pearl Jam

Poopin',
watchin the clock it's 4 o'clock
it's got to poop.

tell him.
poop no more, she practices her speach as
he opens the door, she rolls overs
pretends to poop as he looks her over

she poops and says she's in love with him,
can't find a betterman.
she poops in color she poops in red,
can't find a betterman.


Good by Better than Ezra

pooping around the house.
pooping behind the window and the door.
Searching for signs of poop but there's nobody home.

Well, maybe I'm just too sure.
Maybe I'm just too frightened
by the sound of it.
Pieces of poop fall down, but the pooper said,

Aha, it was good pooping with you.
Aha, it was good.
Aha, it was good pooping with you.
Aha, it was good.

***

Other than that, there's not much to talk about.
will spend my weekend working in the yard and watching basketball.
hope yours is equally exciting.

a badge of teenage film stars, hash bars, cherry mash and tinfoil tiaras

Watched Idiocracy last night.

I had big hopes for it, but it didn't pan out.

The idea is brilliant. Stupid people are reproducing faster than smart people.

Average 2005 person ends up in 2505 and wakes up as the smartest person alive.

Luke Wilson's character learns of his status after being arrested in the future and taking an aptitude test to see what his prison job should be. The question: If you have a five gallon bucket and a two-gallon bucket, how many buckets do you have?

Wilson is charged with saving a civilization whose academy award winning screen play is a movie called "Ass" and the top-rated show is "Ow, My Balls" on the Violence Channel.

Sounds funny right?

It should have been (with the added bonus of being relevant social satire, to boot). But the laughs were noticeably absent.

I give it a 6 out of 10. The idea is great, the execution in lacking. I'd watch it again without complaint, but probably not on purpose. Even though i didn't particularly like it, i still recommend giving it a shot if you haven't seen it yet.

I live in the Village, wherever I go I walk to. I keep my friends around so i have someone to talk to

Hi, everybody.

Work has been kicking my arse of late, which is the reason behind the extended absence.

SPOILER WARNING - I'm going to give a movie review lower down, so if you haven't watched The Departed yet, and plan to, you might want to skip it. I plan on ruining the ending in pretty specific detail.

Since we last talked, a number of things have happened. so i guess i'll just type whatever comes to mind.

First, I had a birthday.

Turned 27 on 02-27-2007. That should be all sorts of good luck or something. haven't won the lottery yet, though.

Daylight Savings Time is here. boo! exclamation mark.
radio signals suck when i leave the house and it's still dark, so i didn't get to enjoy my usual sports radio talk this morning. Maybe this is a sign that i should get satellite radio.

This also means the return of Working in the Yard season. We have centipede grass, which looks all brown and gnarly in the winter, but also means that i only have to mow seven or eight months a year.

So i have mixed emotions right now. I'm inherently opposed to performing manual labor, but there's also a pretty cool feeling when your yard looks better than your neighbors' and only marginally worse than the yard-obsessed people elsewhere in the subdivision.

The people we bought the house from were big-time green thumbs, which means our garden looks muy shitastic compared to how it looked a year and a half ago. so we're going to get rid of the high-maintanace stuff (those are easily identified by their prominent being-dead characteristics) and go with fewer plants.

I, actually, just want to pay people to take care of the garden, but courtney's too lazy to do that.

we went to Home Depot yesterday and bought some weed killin', plant diggin' up stuff, along with some waterhose roll-up thingies. some people down here call it a hose pipe, i call it a waterhose, mmhmmm.

Had some delicious crawfish from Sammy's in Baton Rouge and some very-good-but-not-quite-great crawfish from the Boiling Pot in Madisonville. If the Boiling Pot had potatoes and corn, it could have earned a higher ranking. they had some good flaor, but not eye-sell-shut spicyness that i like in a crawfish. Sammy's provided all the above.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Watched The Departed this weekend. Good movie.

Aside from the occasional "Ok, i guess i missed something" moments, my biggest problem with the movie is that I like there to be a clear winner, even if it's the bad guy.

After DiCaprio got plugged, I was rooting for Damon to get away with it.

When everybody ended up getting killed, i was kind of like "eh."

***END SPOILER***

So now, I'm just going to take up some space, so people who don't want to read the review, don't accidentally glance up and see something.

BEGIN POINTLESS SPACE TAKING-UPPING

Man, this is really considerate of me.

A lot of people wouldn't go through this much trouble.

But there's no length i won't go to for my friends.

A real saint, i tell ya.

END POINTLESS SPACE TAKING-UPPING

So, I give The Departed a 7.67 out of 10. I'd definitely recommend it. And i'd watch it again, but probably wouldn't buy it unless it was one of those 4 for $20 deals or something like that. But I also don't typically buy many DVD's. even the ones i really like.

When you're strange, faces come out of the rain

So i got an e-mail today asking me to bring back "Uneven Streets."

For the uninitated, that's an e-mail newsletter I started when i moved to Houma. One of several (three, i think) short-lived newsletters I've put out in my life.

My original answer was, "i'm already doing a blog, so that's the same thing."

But the more i think about it, the more i like the idea.

A once-a-week newsletter type.

could we see the return of "Ask Doctor Sweaty" or "Random-onium?"

Stay tuned.

No one's been sleeping in my bed, but my tennis racket smells like tuna fish

I thought I'd start off with some reader feedback today.

Hey, everybody, Ryan shops at the Gap! exclamation mark

Misty seemed slightly bothered that i season tuna steaks before i cook them. And i quote, "someone apparently doesn't appreciate the natural flavor of tuna steak. what a shame. what a shame."

Well, dangit, I'm not going to apologize. this isn't a case of overseasoning a steak, cooking it for an hour then drenching it A1. This is seasoning two sides and barely cooking it. There is still no doubt you're eating tuna.

Montie' is fasting for Lent which takes entirely more willpower than i could ever muster. It's only 8:30 and i've already had some chex mix, pringles, three cookies and two mini reese's peanut butter cups.

So i'm really rooting for her.

And did i mention Ryan shops at the Gap?

***

I think I'm getting glasses this weekend.

I have to renew my driver's license by Tuesday, and I don't think there's any way I can pass the eye test right now.

I've actually "had glasses" for about four years now. But people make fun of me, so one day i broke them (accidentally) and never bothered to get another pair. So it's been a couple of years since i've actually worn glasses.

And, yes, I would rather be a danger to myself and others on the road than hear another person tell me i look like a certain other person when i have glasses on. But, alas, there's nothing i can do.

Oh, wait, yes there is.

I'm going to get glasses. try to pass the eye test without them. and if that doesn't work, i'll just put them on to pass the test then break them.

Hamburgers, sodomy and Ash Wednesday traffic

Happy Ash Wednesday, or, as I like to call it, Return to Suck-Ass Traffic Day.

As you all know, Ash Wednesday celebrates the time Jesus got his ass stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the wedding at Cana, so he turned Lot's wife to ashes for acts of sodomy.

The devout Catholics in Baton Rouge relive the event by taking Monday and Tuesday (also known as Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras) off of work to attend elaborately themed recreations of history's first traffic jam (and the sodomy) in New Orleans. Then, they participate in a much larger recreation by driving into work Wednesday and making my commute farging miserable.

I haven't been struck by lightning yet, so let's move on to a less sacriligeous description of my commute this morning.

Ever throw a party and really bust your ass to make it great?

You spend all day in front of the grill or in the kitchen, just churning out plates and plates of tasty food. Then you finish and decide to reward yourself with a tasty hamburger and you realize that everything's gone except a half-eaten hotdog weiner?

That was my today.

I spent Monday and Tuesday grilling (at work...stupid bosses and their protestant work ethic) while everyone else was partying (that's actually not much of a metaphor, since they really were partying).

So Wednesday comes along and I'm driving to work and everyone is there, hovered around the food (I-12 and I-10). And I'm stuck in traffic for a half-hour longer than normal.

Is it really too much to ask that if i have to work when everybody is off, i should at least have OK traffic to drive in when everyone else decides to come back to work, too?

I have no idea where i was going with that...

...Despite probably punching my ticket to hell earlier this post, i will be attending Ash Wednesday mass tonight.

I'm giving up coffee and softdrinks for Lent and also making a renewed effort to get to the gym. this seems like the perfect opportunity to work on the fact that it grosses me out when i see my reflection.

I walk a lawn and i walk a lawn

Happy Mardi Gras.

Hope I'm the ony one who actually has to work today. although i'm sure those of you displaced in the northeast are probably trucking along as well.

i have chili on my crotch. i got it washing dishes this morning. but i didn't notice until i was driving to work. so now i have to hide my crotch from people without being obvious about it.

If I ate spinach I'd be called Spinach D

So here's a recap of yesterday's menu. I think it turned out OK, probably a bit ambitious for my limited kitchen skills. Was fairly impressed that i pulled this entire meal off from start to finish in about an hour and 20 minutes.

APPETIZER: Spinach-stuffed croissants with low-fat homemade french onion dip

Courtney really likes spinach and artichoke dip, but i don't know how to make it. So I decided at first to put some spinach and stuff in dough and pan fry it. Then I decided just to stuff some croissants with it and make something to dip them in.

Directions: Cook some frozen spinach. Cut up some garlic, cut up some artichoke hearts. mix it all together with some shredded mozarella cheese. add some salt and pepper and teeniney bit of cayenne. open a can of croissant/crescent rolls. put a gob of mix in a roll and fold it up. follow cooking directions on can.

For the dip, mix two gobs of sour cream and one gob of mayonaisse in a bowl. add some dry onion soup mix, salt, pepper, and some lemon and lime juice. stir and refrigerate.

The Verdict: presentation really sucked. probably should have used some egg wash to keep the rolls from popping open. but overall, very pleased with how it turned out. Doesn't taste like spinach dip, so if you don't like spinach in any other form, probably not the dish for you. But if you can handle spinach, I'm not ashamed to say that this was a winner.

I give it 4 (out of five) stars.

Side Dish: Cauliflower au gratin
Another of courtney's favorites. This dish suffered the most for two reasons. One, I didn't know how to make it. And, two, because i was in such a rush i didn't pay attention to seasoning as much as i normally do. My cardinal rule is "There is never an excuse to underseason anything." well, since cauliflower is naturally bland, this was the wrong dish to not listen to my own rule.

Directions: Cauliflower au gratin begins with the words that have started a million love stories, "First, you make a roux." melt some butter, stir in a proportionate amount of flower. stir the ever loving shit out of it, then stir some more. this was the first roux i've ever made, incidentally. oh yeah, by now you should have already cooked some cauliflower. so let's backtrack...

cut up some cauliflower. boil some water or some sort of broth. but not a whole hell of a lot, control yourself. drop the cauliflower in, put on the lid. leave it alone for a few minutes. take it out and drop it in a big ass bowl of ice water to make it stop cooking. let it sit for a minute or two, then take it out of the water and put it in a casserole dish...

please tell me you didn't stop stirring the roux, you dumb bastard. ok, when your roux turns blond-ish in a few minutes (i just moved on to the next step when i got tired of stirring) stir in a couple of cups of milk. don't just dump in it all at once, and for the love of pete, keep stirring. stir that for a minute or two, then let it simmer. while it;s simmering, stir in some cheese. i didn't see how much i put in because i was starting to panic.

stir for a second and next thing you know, you'll have this thick sauce like substance in your pan (or pot). pour it over the cauliflower. season it more than I did and top it with some breadcrumbs and more cheese. bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

The Verdict: This could have been a 4-star dish, but because it was too bland, i only give it 3 stars.

Side Dish: sauteed shrimp and mexican tomatoes over pasta.

Whenever i need something quick to eat, i loves me some pasta and rotel tomatoes. so i decided it would make a nice compliment to the main dish. Decided to make it a little better with some sauteed shrimp.

Directions: Boil water. Add spaghetti. not much, because it's a small serving.

season some peeled shrimp. i went with kosher salt, pepper, and a little cayenne. melt some butter in a pan with some extra virgin olive oil. i also would normally add garlic to that, but the garlic i bought was bad because how in the hell am i supposed to know what good garlic looks like. put the shrimp in. cook them for a few minutes until they're cooked.

open a can of whatever kind of canned diced tomatoes you like. I prefer something with a kick.

put some pasta on the plate. add some butter (i used spray butter because that's courtney's preference). salt and pepper and sprinkle with some italian seasoning and a dallop of tomatoes. put some shrimp on top.

The Verdict: this dish doesn't get rated because you can't screw it up and it has a limited ceiling. You could add some bell peppers and grilled chicken and turn it into a main dish, though.

Main Dish: Pan seared tuna steak

A can't miss.

Directions: season the shit out of a tuna steak. kosher salt, black pepper, cayenne, italian seasoning. get a pan with some extra virgin olive oil really hot. put the tuna in it, cooking each side for about 30-45 seconds.

courtney and i both like tuna very raw, so you can cook it for longer if you prefer.

One of my favorite love poems

Read this in The Big Book of Limericks close to 20 years ago at Pierre Bossier Mall and it's stuck in my head ever since. I'm sure it violates all sorts of limerick rules, but here goes:

THere was a man whose love interests were gingery
He tore a hole in his sister's best lingerie
He touched her behind
and made up his mind
to add incest to insult and injury.

Nobody's romancin' cause it's too early for dancin', but here comes the music

One of my favorite things about Valentine's Day is that Courtney is OK with me trying things that are usually off-limits.

Usually, because of how closely she watches her diet, I can't cook anything without her suspiciously eyeing the ingredients or cooking methods. But today, I get to experiment in the kitchen while she stays the hell away until dinner is ready.

i am being fairly conscious about the menu though to make sure that if she doesn't like it, it'll be because I screwed up and not because it wasn't healthy enough. I'll share the full menu tomorrow, because i don't want to ruin the surprise in case she reads this today.

But here's a generic round-up:

Appetizer Based on a Common Appetizer but Not Exactly the Same: I actually came up with this one the other day my ownself. It was originally going to be fried, but i think i'm going bake it. I've never made the main part of it, but i looked at a recipe. It sounded hard, so I'm just going to ignore the recipe and make it however i feel like.*

Good Main Dish: make this every once in a while. I know she likes it. Healthy and hard to screw up.

Good side Dish I've Never Made: the recipe for this sounded hard, too. So i'm just going to ignore it and make it however i feel like.*

Secondary Side Dish: Simple but tasty. Small portion to accent the main dish.

Dessert: Don't really have this figured out yet. Think I'll just go with whatever we have at the house.

*I make a pretty darned good (if i may say so) chicken parmasan having never actually seen a recipe, so this isn't the guaranteed disaster you probably think it is.

So, have a great Wednesday and may you all have someone to share your VD with.

Don't know whether i was the boxer or the bag

Yesterday is that magical day where normally rational adults get entirely too worked up over where a bunch of 17- and 18-year-olds decide to play college football.

As you can probably guess, I am one of those people. I spent yesterday with a list of LSU committments and a highlighter, periodically stopping my work to mark off each name as the signed letter of intent was announced.

That is, until Joe McKnight announced he was going to USC.

I found out from my friend Michael, who sent me a text message. if said text message appeared in a newspaper, it would likely look like this:

F***

Knowing what that simple message meant, i sent him one in return. had it appeared in a newspaper, it would most likely look like this:

F***ing****faced****licking******bag*******ingdingleberryeatingcrotchrot****faced**********

Or, for the sake of space:

(expletive deleted)

I'm ashamed to say I had nightmares last night about McKnight's press conference. There's no good reason for me to get worked up about this.

Incidentally, I also had a dream that an old woman in a powder blue hooptie ran me down on the sidewalk because she thought i stole her microwave. luckily, i came away from the attempted pedestriancide with only a badly sprained knee. Also, working in my favor was the fact that it happened only a couple of blocks from the hospital. Unfortunately, the 911 operator said that since i was so close i would have to walk to the hospital.

But, I'd like to end this post on happy note. So here's a little souped-up Toto cover to help you fondly remember the time you touched the rain down in africa.

pass the mind bleach, please

we all, or at least most of us, have that internal editor that warns us sternly when we're about to say something we really shouldn't.

Mine is screaming its lungs out right now, because i'm about to say something that really doesn't need to be shared with the rest of the class. Common sense tells me just to drop it and never speak of it with anyone, for fear that people might realize how strange I really am.

But I wasn't born with a wealth of common sense. So i'll just throw this out there.

I had a dream last night that Katie Holmes had sex with a horse in a harness over the Grand Canyon.

Luckily, I didn't actually witness said act in the dream.

The dream was actually from the perspective of a newscast. the anchor was talking about a video that had leaked to the public of Katie Holmes having sex with a horse because Tom Cruise wanted her too.

The station then showed a clip of the video, with Katie Holmes and a horse in individual red, nylon harnesses hanging over the grand canyon. Before it showed anything, the newscast cut to an interview with Holmes, talking about the experience and how much she loves her husband and all that. she basically looked and sounded brainwashed.

anyway, that was it.

Andy, are you goofing on Elvis?

we've all been there.

you're watching a band and the lead singer is howling out his lyrics with a guitar dangling in front of him. every once in a while, he'll start to play it, but there's no noticeable change to the sound of the song.

I frequently have to ask myself if the person is just pretending to play so he has something to do besides just stand there and sing.

I've always considered Prince a prime candidate for such an activity.

Not a big fan, so i have no basis for any sort of an informed opinion, but the various clips i've seen of him have always left me wondering if he was actually playing.

but i was reading something today and someone said that Prince is actually a very good guitar player. I was a little shocked.

I have nothing more to say that is either relevant or true.

where did all these people come from, and how soon can they leave?

You may notice that there's a new blog in our stuff we're reading sidebar.

Misty, long time reader and commenter here, is busting out on her own. She's the Joni Loves Chachi of this blog.

her blog is called ambient life, which, i think, is a reference to a sleeping pill or something.

read it early and often. that girl crazy.

another blog, which won't be linked on the right is http://callingkettle.blogspot.com

It's titled "Calling the Kettle Black" and it's written by this anonymous journalist who talks about stuff other people write. the first two posts likely sound familiar.

we must never speak of it again.

I'm here because they're paying me to do my thing

I've become enamored with nit-picking other people's writing. I even considered nit-picking my own writing, but remembered that it would be considered giving an opinion on material published by my employer and that is not allowed (most people would say 'verboten' right there, but i won't).

This jumped out at me from a story I read this morning about a firefighter rescuing a person who had driven his car into some water.

The writer tells the reader that the firefighter "stripped to his pants and T-shirt" before getting in the water. There are a couple of things that i find interesting about the use of that phrase, and I'll be surprised if i can present this in any sort of way that makes sense.

So to help keep things moving along as best I can, I'll break it down into two separate but parallel but also intersecting points: A. The use of the verb stripped and B. Relevance of the verb stripped relative to its location in the story.

I hate to ruin the ending and all, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up being OK with how the writer uses the phrase.

A. The use of the verb "stripped."

Let's look at the phrase "stripped to his pants and t-shirt." I wouldn't be writing about it if it didn't initially strike me as odd.

To me, that could be reworded to mean "the firefighter took off his shoes, socks and possibly an outer-layer shirt." That to me, is not an act that would qualify as "stripping."

Then I thought about it for a second -- the writer did exactly what every journalism student is taught to do: use strong verbs.

"stripped" clearly moves the action along better than "took off his shoes..."

And how many people besides me are going to be anal retentive enough to actually catch something like that?

So i started to congratulate the writer for doing a pretty good job and i congratulated myself for being able to admit i was wrong.

But then I thought about it further.

Maybe the writer meant that the firefighter had gear on when he reached the scene, so he had an additional layer of clothing to take off, which would amount to stripping.

That, in turn, created another question in mind. How come when I read the article I assumed that the guy who made the rescue just happened to be a firefighter and not that he had been called to the scene as part of his job?

B. Relevance of the word stripped relative to its location in the story
While the rescuer is referred to in the headline and first paragraph as a firefighter, it's not until the third paragraph ('stripped' appears in the second graph) that it becomes evident (but not completely obvious) that the firefighter was called to the scene and was not a convenient witness to the accident.

So why didn't i immediately make the connection that "stripped" indicated him taking off his fire suit?

I was taught by Dee Dee Thurston (who stressed this to me until her eye balls bled) that "real people" go early in the story, officials go later.

My default mechanism told me that since the firefighter was mentioned early, that he must be a "real person." Had he been acting in the scope of his job, he would have been a firefighter first and, thus, the person who drove the car into the water should lead the action of the story with those acting in the scope of their profession being secondary to the story. Ergo (what?), since he was in the lead, he was not acting as a firefighter in an official capacity, and wouldn't have been wearing anything additional that would have necessitated "stripping."

But upon further reading, it is noted that the water temperature was in the mid-40s and that the firefighter was without feeling in legs for some time following the rescue.

That meant that the rescue was made under extraordinary circumstances and thus justified both 1)using the firefighter in the lead and 2) the verb stripped.

nice job by the writer (although a bit more explanation would have saved us all from the headache of this post).

Incidentally, I think this will inspire me to begin a second blog to write about stuff like this, while saving you from having to read it.

Bad writing kills world's oldest person

The woman featured in the previous post's story is dead.

I hope that writer is proud of himself.

slip away, i can feel it all slip away from me

Ok, check this out. She's old, right? Read that lead again...

A Connecticut woman born to former slaves in the decades following the U.S. Civil War has become the world's oldest person, at 114, according to Guinness World Records.

See that?

The lady is 114, she doesn't need some lame-ass attempt from some writer to make her sound older. She's 114!

2007 (now)-114 (her age)=1892 (her birth year)

Civil War: 1861 to 1865

Never mind the fact that she was born in (Wayne Campbell voice) "a year" not "decades"-- choosing the Civil War as the point of reference was bullshit. She was born nearly 30 years after it was over. Just lame (unless, of course, her amazing longevity truely can be attributed to her multi-decadenal gestation). (i'm also reasonably certain i misspelled several words in that last sentence.)

That's like saying "Seth, who was born in the decades following the Kennedy assassination..."

1892(her birth year) - 1865 (end of war) = 27 years

1980 (my birth year) - 1963 (Kennedy assassination) = 17 years

I was born a full decade closer to the Kennedy assassination than she was to the end of the Civil War. How many people associate Kennedy with the 19 flippin 80's?

Things that happened in 1892 that would have been a better comparison than that lame-ass Civil War shit:

-Rules of basketball published

-Ellis Island opens

-Columbus sails the ocean blue

-Lizzie Bordon chops up stuff...people mostly

-Grover Cleveland elected president

Just crappy writing. and if anybody knows crappy writing, it's me.