Thought That Came Unbidden

Normally I’m not one to make fun of a food recall, but this dandy little item from Reuters is enough to make anyone chuckle.

I guess these would be out for all those vegetarians I know. Thanks to Sal for sending this along

So last year when I did NaNoWriMo I thought it would be fun to serialize the novel in progress. And then people made me paranoid about “first publication rights.” So I password protected the blog that included (most) of the book.

This year I decided to skip the angst and just not put the book up at all, showing, when it’s finished, only to select individuals. I deleted the blog from last year…or so I thought <dunh, dunh, dunh!>

I was cleaning up my bookmarks today as I waited for something to print and just for fun I tried the link to last year’s novel blog. It worked! I was astonished. MT had assured me that the blog and all its directories had been deleted. Not so, Joe.

After a bit of work on the server, last year’s book is safe and sound. And let that be a lesson to me…always check up after the software program!

Portable electronics have brought the living room into public space…all the way into public space apparently. As related to me by The Girlfriend…

Last night on the subway she was coming home late from class when an average looking black man in his early 20s got on the train with one of those portable DVD players open and playing a movie. It wasn’t until he sat down next to her that TGF realized yes, he was watching porn. The head bobbing up and down was a dead giveaway, as were the copious acres of naked flesh.

Mind you, TGF is a white woman in her early-40s.

So, two questions: 1) what possessed him, and 2) could she have asked him to turn it off without creating a racial incident? Even if she writes to Miss Manners there’s no way she’ll get an answer; it’s too much of a prank situation though I don’t doubt it happened.

* Miss Manners is the pen name of etiqutte guru Judith Martin

I went to a lucheon today to celebrate a significant anniversary for a program I used to work for at a professional association. During lunch I overheard Former Boss #1 telling Former Boss #2 how she was dealing with her son being a teenager. Included in this litany of things that she’s dictating to him that he can’t do as he starts to go to dances and get involved in mixed-sex social events (don’t you just love single-sex education?) is the admonishment that he shouldn’t be drinking, smoking, or shooting up.

Now, wouldn’t you think that by 15 years old, if you were in any sort of position to be dictating behavior to your child, he’d have a pretty good idea that shooting up is a bad thing?

Just a thought from the perpetually childless.

Sent to me by a friend, this appears, after a bit of research, to have nothing to do with The Washington Post despite being dubbed “The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational.”

The premise is that contestants were tasked with taking any word from the dictionary, altering it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supplying a new definition.

This list, circulating as “this year’s winners,” includes some words that should probably be in the language no matter what the origin of this list. None of them will pass spell check, not that it matters. (And before you ask, my spelling is so crappy that I can not vouch that each of these words meets contest’s criteria.)

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
10. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
11. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
12. Glibido: All talk and no action.
13. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
14. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

And the pick of the lot

17. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole