Writing

Courtesy of (i.e.,l Hat Tip) Marginal Revolution, some rules for writing well.

The bit about rewriting is key for serious styling - any of my poetry (when I still wrote poetry) went through at least half a dozen rewrites, sometimes 2 or 3 times that.

For blogging, of course, my standards are a bit lower. Sorry, but there is a different between writing for the moment and writing for the (I should be so lucky) ages.

Stupid criminal tricks....

The oddest part about this story of the burglar who logged into his Facebook account from his victim's computer and left himself logged on is that there is some controversy about whether the victim violated the burglar's privacy by checking his own computer.

Customer Service....

I think even the girls who worked for ADT have not gotten this strange a call.

Anyway, strange calls from customers is a great concept for a blog.

Quote of the day

The difference between you and me is you drink tea and eat tofu. I drink whiskey and make people eat their teeth.
- Overheard

Acronyms Sometimes Suck

OK, there are plenty more....I guess the Wisconsin Tourism Federation, for example, decided to change their name.

HT the perfectly innocuous initialism MR.

Explaining the dating scene

At least that's the way I remember it....

(as always, click on the comic to go to the source)

The other side of the story....

Sometimes things just look SO BAD you figure there has to be another side.

Let's see - that cop who was caught on video beating up a special needs student for violating dress code, arrested for raping a woman at knife point, shooting his ex-wife's husband 24 times in front of their children....

Ah, yes, that shooting was ruled self-defense. I would have thought 12 times should have been enough, but I wasn't there.

Poor nurses....

Long hours, often strenuous work - and now, what really should be one of the PERQS of the job is apparently illegal.

Who knew? Does that mean those videos I used to watch are inaccurate somehow?

By the way, that dude had one unusual sense of timing!

That wild man Prawo Jazdy...

...or rather, the Garda (Irish police force) was honored with an Ig Noble award for literature for the speeding tickets they made out in that name.

Prawo Jazdy is Polish for "Driver's License", and lest we make too much fun of the cops, I would have done the same thing. We can't all know Polish. A picture of a Polish drivers license is available at my HT Language Log.

The origins of ass bombing....

Scott Adams is the only one so far with a theory that makes sense.

The details of the relevant incident are here.

Down the drain....

Looks like the investment we made as taxpayers in Chrysler is a bust.

Not that we had much choice in the matter, as long as we were voting Democrat or Republican, anyway - both sides seemed quite willing to have the end happen on the other guy's watch, and happy to spend our money in the process.

Really gives me sympathy for people who'd rather just start a country from scratch.

Quote of the day

"No murdering customers in the store. The back alley exists for a reason."
- Questionable Content

In the old days, girls would just ask if you had a light.....

Who the hell carries around a Samson phone charger?

Spooky smooches

I DO love this comic series, and since Halloween approaches...(click the image to get to the page that has the whole shebang)

Literature lovers.....

As the properly acephalous Language Logs points out, you expect coordinated phrases to COORDINATE.

Happiness is just an illusion?

Or is an illusion happiness?

This cool effect pointed out by the Bad Astronomer.

Arts and Farts

Well....another scholarly analysis of things rarely treated in a scholarly manner.

Quote of the day

Just when you get old enough to know how important it is to read those nutritional labels, your eyes can't read them anymore.
- Bob Lounsberry (maybe not the exact words, heard it on the radio)

Quote of the day

"Hot as a synonym for sexy is less common from people who've been on fire."
- Oglaf

Does anybody care about the Nobel Prize for Literature

Apparently, they do - as shown by the betting line pointed out by MR.

Apparently, Amos Oz is the top contender, currently. Maybe I should read something of his, just in case!

(Although many worthy authors are honored, others are completely ignored. 'There is the view that the Nobel literature prize often goes to someone whose political stance is found to be sympathetic at a given moment,' said Alan Jenkins, deputy editor of the Times Literary Supplement. )