lyrics to that song not written

they're called "idioms" for the most part, aside from the one you suspect was invented and is used by your friend alone.

Expressions that interest me

If I knew more about literature, or social-anything, I would probably already know what to call these phrases that follow, or know where to find them in a more inclusive text.  But I don't.  So I'll amuse myself by recording them here.

---

"I know, right?"

I'm not exactly sure what this is even supposed to mean.  It's a statement, followed by a question that nobody except the asker would be capable of answering!  I'm sure it's been around in an incidental form for as long as English has been around, but in the last year or two it seems to have exploded.  I have people texting it to me, and even hear it in movies.

"[Name] Mc[Name, same or similar to previous]."

e.g.: "Stinky McStinkerson" or "Stupid McUglyface"

I still contend that *I* made this up.  I've been using it for years, and had never heard anyone else use it until relatively recently.  If my pre-college journal hadn't been eaten up in a server crash disaster, I would probably have proof.

"He [verb, present tense] [verb, past participal]."

e.g.: "He needs beaten-down" or "They need whupped!"

I am pretty sure that this simply comes down to the removal of the words "to be" from any statement with an auxiliary verb.  (Though I do recall noting a few uses where that general rule didn't fit quite right.)

This construction was something I'd absolutely never heard before moving to Ohio for college.  In my dorm suite, it was frequently invoked in terms of punishment, but I've heard it use more generically by others, as well.  Returning to the West, after college, I heard it much less, but still did occasionally hear someone bust it out in the middle of otherwise grammatically correct statements.

"Hell yeah, Godsmack."

Ok, I can only attribute this one to my friend, Chris.  I have no idea where it came from, and have no intention of asking him.  It sounds too manufactured to be original.  All I know is any situation that merits vehement agreement, he'll respond with that phrase.

A review of Google Chrome reviews, or, my rant to Scott

Yesterday, the beta of the Google Chrome web browser was released to the general public.  A few days before that, the "comic book" that Google made to describe its many technical details in a friendly way was accidentally leaked.  I lustily read the entirety of the comic the morning that the beta was due to be released, occasionally gushing about random points to my brother over IM.  I knew it was going to be something important.

So much so, that I emailed my old buddy Scott about it, telling him to get ready for the next Big Google Thing.

Then this morning, three things happened.

1.) I read a "review" of Chrome that was linked from CNN's front page

2.) I angrily shouted aloud to myself about its rampant lies

3.) I received a forwarded email from Scott that he'd received from a coworker, linking to the aforementioned angering CNN "review".  (I hesitate/refuse to give it unquoted creedance.  That would be like calling it a "review" when an 8-year-old decries Algebra to be faulty and unnecessary because he doesn't even understand basic arithematic.)

So then a fourth thing happened.  I spent a half hour ranting to Scott via email.  Here that email is:

---------------------------------------------------

Scott!!!
(And, I hope consequently, [Scott's coworker]...)

I read that review also.  So allow me to rant! ;-D

It's funny you should pass this along to me, because I was so infuriated at about a half dozen things that CNN ignoramus said, that I desperately searched for a "comment" or "reply" link to read him the riot act -- but of course there was none, so I AM going to email him directly and be even more scathing.


First, get your tech news from a REAL tech website!!!!
From Slashdot (aka, "News for Nerds")...
   http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/09/03/1343226.shtml
...there are three good reviews linked:

http://www.monacome.com/2008/08/download-google-chrome-browser-review.html
http://www.geekywood.com/2008/09/google-chrome-review-why-i-love-and-hate-google-chrome.html
http://www.yourgenuineidea.com/2008/09/03/google-chrome-first-impressions/

Here is a significant quote from the first link:

Stephen Shankland [of CNET News] ... confirms Google's claim that Chrome is "many times faster" than its rivals at running JavaScript... He arrived at this conclusion by personally testing the new browser against Internet Explorer, IE 8 beta 2, Firefox 3.0.1 and Safari 3.1.2.  Indeed, that's the consensus among reviewers, readers and the many comments I've read so far about this browser, with some even exclaiming that Chrome is killing both IE 7 and Firefox 3 on their system in boot up, close out, page rendering, and Javascript.

Like CNET, the above reviews use ACTUAL benchmarking measurements, not just vague feelings derived from a flawed control setup -- and probably most importantly -- were done by people with half a brain AND computer knowledge.

My oh my, what could I mean by that slanderous statement?  Well, that brings us to...

 

Second, let's consider the qualifications of this meathead reviewer!

Let's pull out some things that Mr. CNN says, and you decide for yourself if he sounds likeanyone you'd want to be taking computer advice from.  (Or, if it sounds more like, say, your mom assuring everyone the computer is too old and slow because "the internet's not working" when she's using a very weak wifi signal.)

Retarded statement #1:

When playing a YouTube video, Firefox 3 took up 95 percent of the CPU time on a three-year old laptop running Windows XP.

While playing a YouTube video!??!?!?  Ok...  I considered quoting ONLY this, because you really need nothing else to prove this guy does not know what he is talking about.  Does that sound like it could POSSIBLY be right to you, Scott my friend?  I suspect the moron is actually looking at the "CPU Idle" percentage, and not firefox's.  He could be that dumb, judging from his article.  If FF is indeed using that much CPU, then he's definitely got some other crazy shit happening on his computer

P.S.: on MY 3-year-old laptop running windows XP and Firefox3, I have well over 100 tabs open and Firefox is taking all of 6% of my CPU.

Retarded statement #2:

Merely having a YouTube page open on your screen will suck power from your computer's central processing unit, or CPU. This is outrageous behavior for a browser.

I am not even going to credit this with a real response.

Ok, maybe a little.

Having ANYTHING open will "suck power" from the CPU.  It's not a magic box where once pixels are in place, they're held there by fucking gravity or something!!!  What does he THINK will happen??!  Close the goddamned window if you don't want that CPU load, which, again, shouldn't be NOWHERE near the load his infected computer might be declaring.

Retarded statement #3:

Frequently, Firefox would slow down all the other applications on my computer, then seize up completely.

OK, again... Scott, my friend... as a fellow FF user, how often does this happen to YOU???  Either thing.  Firefox affects other applications on his computer!?!?  Unless you ARE pegging your processor, that's just patently untrue.  That's the whole point of XP/NT's multithreaded processing!!

And seizing up completely is something that happens to him frequently!?!?  What!?  What is this yokel doing!?  Firefox has crashed on me so infrequently that I can only remember once in recent memory!  I doubt as if you are much different.  This guy clearly has no place reviewing anything computer related.  

Also, I wrote this email in Gmail in Chrome, and it WAS noticeably faster!  Also, when Chrome did crash on me (and I should probably quote it like "crash") it put up the nice screen (attached) and I just hit reload and was back where I was.  Beautiful!!

Anyway, pass that back along :-D

Jason

Jonas Bros

Today I went trailing the shadows of the Jonas brothers in their hometown of Wyckoff, NJ. The town seemed very christian, WASPy. Even though I was in New Jersey, I almost felt weird about it. I was going door to door. Most people weren't home. Reminds me of the days I used to peddle wrapping paper or something for school around town. Or the time when for one day I worked on the grassroots level of John Kerry's campaign. I was in some crazy town, Dover New Jersey? One that I had never heard of, knocking on doors and trying to beg for donations to Kerry's campaign. It was grueling and humiliating work and very hot weater. They weren't going to pay me a lot -- thats what it was, I was looking for a worthwhile summer job. Didn't find it there. Anyway, the Jonas brothers. They're 16, 18 and 20. Barely out of high school and these kids are world famous. Also, they are virgins. Those two things seem incredibly incongruous. Their father was a pastor and these adorable dipshits wear chastity rings. How could these guys be heart throbs, set the blooming loins of semi-pubescent girls around the entire world afire and still be virgins? So worldy, so experienced, well-known and rich. But these princes have sworn off pussy. Perhaps that's what elevates them. Maybe thats what actually MAKES them princely. That they've been able to be desirable, irresistibly so, and yet be dispassionate and not need to act on their own desires. Especially ones so vulgar as sexual needs. They are whole and the rest of the world needs them. Perhaps these guys are one of the best metaphors for celebrities as christ figuers we have ever had.

ennui

Almost everything seems empty to me, and not worthwhile.


I don’t have the motivation to do anything I used to enjoy. I want to do them – because before they used to bring me peace and pride and purpose – but I can’t get myself there.


I wonder often if I’ll ever return to a productive state, fully engaged in people and the world around me. Now I’m only skimming the surface, complacently assuming the meaning or depth of things I have no intention of really investigating.


As much as I want to have powerful experiences, most of the things I do are bereft. Or I am jaded. Or something. I WANT to be moved. I WANT to be excited, passionate again. But nothing has power for me. Sexual experiences are meaningless and unmoving. My work is boring despite it being “exciting.” Books do not seem worth reading. Basically the only thing that moves me one way or the other are the pangs of rejection.

over two months, when the hell is someone going to post something?

i cheated. i went tanning today to enhance the beauty and compete with jason. my butt is totally burnt. daddy!

Creationism, the new State Religion

I sent the following as part of an email today. It appears as though I flipped out, though I really did not mean to. We'll see if she ever talks to me again. But I really did feel I said something that needed to be said.

So I must ask one real question. (And I must apologize in advance. As I write this parenthetical, I've already written all that follows, and did NOT intend it as a rant! It certainly does look like it came out that way, but I really did just get on a roll and are very curious what someone as intelligent as you would say on the issue...)
You are a science girl! Indoctrinated to the world of the scientific method, and tiered lessons. AND are for lack of a better quantization, agnostic. But you believe that creationism should be taught in public schools?

Now, a secondary school's world-religions or sociology class is one thing, but to dedicate the valuable time of younger children to the beliefs of solely one sect? And where does one draw the line at teaching religion in schools? By almost sheer coincidence, all factions of Christianity are kosher (ha!) with creationism... but why not continue teaching the beliefs of, say, Pentecostal protestants? Are they irrelevant because they are greatly outnumbered by Baptists or Lutherans?

What would the Catholics say/do if they learned their children were being instructed in the ways of an entirely different denomination? Should fair and equal time be given to all divisions of all denominations? If fairness is the issue, should not Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism also be represented, as the vast majority of the world's population doesn't even subscribe to Christianity?

I am sure the Jewish friends that I have would have been yanked from public schooling by their pious parents if their tender minds were being taught christian creationism as science. I'm certain that that is exactly why the founding fathers sought to separate church and state.

Wow, ok...
A little serious for a first email, but as I'm pretty certain you could tell me what exp(pi*i) is off the top of your head, I'm sure you can handle it!

Sorry again for the rant!
Jason

Teach a man to...

I keep thinking to mention this. Several weeks ago I was talking to my mom on the phone and I guess she'd had dinner with my brother and his girlfriend and they were talking about me. Particularly how fastidious I can be. And miserly. Brian said "His time means nothing to him!" which everyone, I think, feted with a "funny but true".

But, really, nothing could be farther from the truth! See proof below:

• Eq. 1: time = money
• Eq. 2: total time/cost = sum(of all used time or money)
• Definition: Investment -- "Property or another possession acquired for future financial return or benefit."
• Therefore if I spend a lot of time learning to do something fucking awesome'ly, I have acquired an investment of knowledge which will likely result in reducing the overall total time I put into something. I now have more of my valuable time.
  

It IS true that frequently I do not know WHEN an investment might produce returns, but no one could deny that they often do. Hooray for bizarre skills!

Family Guy quote

[ Peter points into thin air ]
[ Mel Gibson runs off Mt. Rushmore ]
Lois: He just walked right off the cliff!
Peter: Of course he did, Christians don't believe in gravity!

Ha, yes, gravity is "just a theory" too.
(No, really. Due to incomplete information on causibility, it's not a "law".)

TV pics

AH-HA!!! The horizontal connector (??) to the yoke wasn't even attached!
Crappy solder job :-p.

I am taking a break

...from doing my work-work to spend some valuable time procrastinating. I like to do this just in case I become too productive, or sometimes even just when I am on the cusp of becoming productive. That way, I fall farther and farther behind and add another heaping spoonful of anxiety to my collection. Cleverly, I then no longer oversleep! ...because I simply cannot sleep due to my mind's unequaled ability to worry about the consequences of not being productive.


I was cleaning my sunglasses with my shirt as I sat at a red light earlier today, and bemoaned the prominence of a number of gouges in the lenses. A few of the most prominent mars were of origin that readily sprang to mind. Several weeks ago I was working on the underside of my truck when I bumped my head into, and then rubbed against, one of the moorings for the sidepanel. My head was just fine, but the right lens of my glasses proudly displayed my lack of preparation for the job.

So as I sat at the light, I was just kicking myself wondering why I had not removed them. For a brief moment I considered the fact that had the glasses not been there, it would have been my eye displaying out-and-out stupidity instead of just poor preperation... but as I envisioned exactly the situation I'd been in, I concluded that due to their in-set placement, my eyes really wouldn't have been in danger. In fact, our human eyes are really fantastically located to make sure we don't accidentally blind ourselves with any objects larger than a finger. (Knock-on-wood, my zero-for-hundreds racquetball-sans-goggles eye-injury tally can attest to that.)

Then two thoughts surfaced to immediately compliment eachother...

1. Thank you, evolution, for not putting my eyes on antennae or something
2. Severely injuring an eye would really suck for mating purposes

Mind you, I meant contemporary mating purposes when I thought that. As in, I imagine a serious eye injury could leave you looking not so aesthetically pleasing to the ladies. But! It then occurred to me that surely those two thoughts are probably quite closely related.

Aesthetics... as I would define it without any knowledge of the real definition, is a quality judgement based purely on visual inspection. I imagine somewhere in man's evolution, more than a few guys/primates had their eyes screwed up due to sheer bad luck AND accessibility of the ocular cavity to that bad luck. And after that? More than a few ladies/lady-primates steered clear of those poor injured souls. Surely, our even-then advanced brains were able to suggest varying probabilities of successful hunts/fights/etc between 2-eyed and less-than-2-eyed folks. Those ladies then relegated those guys to the procreation D.L..

And thus, I claim our human desire for pleasing aesthetics was an evolutionary key! Humans who "didn't look right" would get aesthetically red-flagged with good reason. Is it any surprise that the eyes are so frequently quoted as being one of the most striking features of persons we find attractive?! Our "insensitive" tendencies to find out-of-average individuals ugly, while unfortunate for some, is not something that's been manufactured by Cosmo or Soloflex.

Why can't I focus on WORK!??! AAARRGGHH!

A couple things!

Whoa, I didn't realize there was this much action here as of late. I must check back more often!

Firstly, a news story (on CNN) this morning made me think of a nice Gedankenexperiment to help demonstrate why one person's faith-vs-science is another person's outrage/commonsense/etc.

But I will get back to that later, because that's a much longer post, and I just discovered something I'm much more interested in writing about right now -- my George W. Bush Federal Deficit Enhancement Dividend check (excuse me, "economic stimulus check") is being electronically transferred today, four days early!! Though I don't know why I should be surprised that this cabinet would hemorrhage money out of its coffers before any scheduled decree. (Proof here: http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/24/pf/taxes/Stimulus_checks/index.htm?postversion=2008042512)

That is all. I'm going to go pay some bills now. Whew.

PO-et-TRy

face. hop. shushi shoe. matthew perry is not hot. akon did not get shot. LIAR! bird returns from winter break, i had a spicy steak. mouse. pad. frame doughnut bagel bialy. creamcheese, for which I freeze. curl. rock. i rewear socks. coffee morning.

bleach

I think they added "multiple washes" because after a garment has been washed many times, the fibers are weaker and the dyes are less vibrant, so the same caustic chemicals could potentially do more harm to an older item than a brandy ass arrogant unstoppable new shirt.

A healthy dose of bleach on an old bedsheet could do it in!


Someone doesn't do a lot of laundry...hmmmm

goals

So tonight, in the long and meandering conversation that is Jason and Amanda's relationship, I learned that I have no goals. And not only do I have no goals, but I have no wants. Wants besides "being really great" and "accomplished" and "beauteous." I'm not even sure if I want to have goals. Part of me romanticizes the unknown world of opportunity, the road ahead, the unmet people and the unrealized talents that float amorphously in my vision of the future. And part of me is sure that if I don't get my ass moving on something "significant" than I'll just have wasted my life, feel impoverished of soul and mind and be miserable and die as one of the hapless trillions whose only legacy to mankind are the original atoms they borrowed for their short existence.

Tonight I got myself all purdied up -- yes in a pretty silk dress with black high heels and diamond jewelry. And a side-swept curly, 1940's inspired hairdo. It was the screening party of Helen Hunt's directorial debut, a small budge indie Then She Found Me, starring Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth and many more. I didn't see the movie, I only get to go to the parties. They were all there, except Colin, the only one I'd actually wanted to see. Sarah Jessica Parker was there as well. And swarms of other famous faces. I didn't talk to to many people. My sister and I ogled and judged as we ate our world famous sushi at the world famous Nobu 57. It wasn't an occasion for interviews, only for views.

I managed break the ice with this one guy, a former screenwriter for Mad About You and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, who was very nice and smart and I ended up lying to him about where I work. Not because I was outright trying to impress him, but a spy like me must be choosy about revealing herself. But the trouble with lying about what you do, even if the intentions are only to conceal one's shady intentions, is that it always calls attention to what you are not. Calls attention to the disparity between who you are and who you want to be.

I am generally pretty proud of working at In Touch. It's a huge publication: my writing gets read by a minimum of 1.5 million people a week. It's incredibly fun and glamorous and it's trained me well for more than just a career in journalism--opening my eyes to a lot of social dynamics i was retarded about for most of my life. So it's not so much that I'm ashamed, but after the initial satisfaction of impressing someone, I find myself having to defend gossip journalism and my own integrity, and inevitably say "well, obviously I don't want to do this for the rest of my life!"

But for godssssakkesss, what the FUCK do I want to do???!!!

Here are some options: painting, acting, screen writing, more journalism: serious news journalism, investigative reporting? women's magazines? MEN's magazines? Go back to grad school for errr English? Journalism? Art? Film? Public policy? Travel the world? Go to medial school? Be a fashion designer. be a teacher? A college professor? Rock star? Poet? Pornographer?

"I'm every woman. It's all in meeeeeee!"

But if I'm "everything" than I'm not really "anything." Just a dilettante

My new business card should say:

Amanda Mikes

Dilettante

Makes insightful remarks about things she really dosen't know about.
Paints, writes and cooks really well.

Okay this entry is getting postmodern.

{{end}}

How my brain works

As I was sitting on the can the other day, the closest reading material was the back of a bottle of bleach on the counter. I noticed a piece of text under the "Why Use Clorox Splash-less bleach?" section:

Fiber Safe
As safe on fibers as detergent alone after multiple washes.

Now, what is the point of adding "after multiple washes"???

So alls I can do while sitting there for the rest of my... appointment... is try and think of ONE good reason they would include that. Note I said GOOD reason.

This is how my brain works. Or what it spends its time doing, to be specific. To me, adding that extra bit is something of a mea-culpa. All they are doing is adding a condition to a strong statement, implying that they could not (legally?) simply say it's as safe as detergent alone.

My brain's premier explanations include:
-- this bleach is NOT just as safe as detergent on fibers (possibly because a "first dose" of bleach may do much more damage than subsequent doses, and only by referencing the subsequent doses' effects could they say it's no more damaging than detergent)
-- some common-sense-free committee decided that "after multiple washes" made the statement seem stronger because multiple washes is MORE than just one.
-- something else, but I already forgot. Sigh. Such is my brain.

If I were Amanda...

I would stop dissing Jason on IM and strike up some amusing conversation! I would also tell him my favorite comedy TV shows / movies, and proceed to quote several of my favorite quotes...

Words I like

acumen
anachronism
apocryphal
apoplectic
archaic
astute
bade
bastion
befuddled
blasphemous
bode
cavalier
chronic
coalesce
coda
comeuppance
comprehensive
comprise
concoction
constitute
contemporary
continuity
copacetic (how DO you spell that!?)
corollary
deliberate
deluge
delusion
demonize
depict
deprecated
destitute
diatribe
dignified
distinguished
encompass
exhaustive
expression
feign
feted
flummoxed
garrulous
gregarious
harangue
heretical
ignite
inclination
indecent
indiscriminately
inherent
innate
insidious
insolvent
intrinsic
katharsis
laden
macabre
magnanimous
malaise
manifest
missive
onerous
onus
parity
pedagogical
pique
polytomy
privy
profane
proselytize
reconciled
relic
sacrilegious ... NOT "sacreligious"! How bizarre is that?
salient
sanctimonious
spurious
stigma
tantamount
throttled
ubiquitous
unencumbered
unilaterally
unsubstantiated
vetted
willful

The most poetic justice ever

I have this ex-girlfriend named Vera from about 2 years ago. She started off kinda weird to start, but ended up on the completely "crazy" side of the spectrum... and I use the term literally, as she was in psychotherapy. Finally, (as I would find out a while later) when an ex-boyfriend of hers started flirting with her again to restart their relationship, she very cruelly and remorselessly ended ours.

Just before our breakup, I had a new roommate named Meg move in. Ironically, Meg told me how little she liked Vera from the start. Well, Meg ended up being the eponymous roommate-from-hell, as well as a nauseating flavor of crazy that made Vera look downright normal! In addition to punching me in the face, twice, she would be "unable" to pay rent for months-on-end (never even made deposit, actually). When finally I kicked her out, she still owed rent money, and actually stole some of my stuff on her way out. THEN, she had the gall to call the police to accompany her to demand the mailbox key and check for her mail... only to discover to her immense chagrin that I'd been truthful telling her that she'd received none.

Well about 6 weeks after that fun day, my landlady Jill dropped by to explain that, of all people, Meg and Vera (?!) had called her up and explained to her that they would love to rent our house... out from under us... should Jill be interested in kicking us out. Fortunately, Jill was well aware of Meg's dereliction, and had been quite leery of her in general since Meg suddenly adopted a 100lb, 1-year-old, blood-hound without informing anyone.

Shortly after that, we all found out that the two actually had moved in together in another house. I wished them both bad-riddance, assuming they could only make each other as miserable as they'd made me, and forgot about them until today.

If ever there was a question of the existence of Karma....

.

...Ha, ha, HA!

---

Update (3/9/2008 5:45pm):
Crap!! Returning home from the dog park, today, I discovered that Meg's new abode is but 3 blocks away from mine!!! If she happens to drive down my street, and notice my truck... NOOOOooOOOO!! I don't want slashed tires!

"blog" ... A.K.A. ... nothing

Ok, first off I have to reiterate my love for Dubya, and his confidently discombobulated approach to public speaking communication in general. He just makes it too easy to hate him by giving out, hand over fist, example after example of being wholly unaware of anything that is actually going on in that America place.

From: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/28/bush/index.html

When asked what advice he would give to the average person facing the prospect of gas prices hitting $4 per gallon, Bush stopped the reporter and said, "What did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gas?"

"That's interesting. I hadn't heard that," he said at the Thursday news conference.

Wow. You'd think he'd have more squinty eyes when photographed in public, due to the amount of time his rear must fully envelope his head, in private. I only get 1¾ channels on my TV, one newspaper per week, and glance at the front page of CNN everyday just to kill time... and gas/food prices are all that I have been hearing about. ...And talking about, as I am quite miserly with the little hard-earned moolah the school pays.


Anyway, time to start my main (and yeeaaars long-standing) rant.

"Blogs."

What IS this word? Near as I can figure, some established editorialist who can't let go of his youth must have spent too much time hanging around with the caliber of grade-school idiots who turn in term papers sprinkled with "ur", "h8r", "omg!" , and other witticisms. He thought he would crown his midlife crisis by coining a term that was neither necessary, nor a logical abbreviation.

"Web log."

Was there really anything wrong with "wog"? Seems like that is the American Way of abbreviating those two words. I know "spork" , for example, sounds better and makes more sense than "pork". But that is neither here nor there! The point is that there is no reason to have a term of this type at all!

Web = having to do with web pages
Log = record of some sequential information

Seems to me that you're just describing a web page that is kept updated. And in fact, that is exactly what it is! (If you're not keeping a page updated, then you no longer have interest in the project, or your info is out-of-date and no longer of interest as anything other than historical record.)

If you want to be a stickler about it, and take the meaning of "log" to be "journal", then what you have, dear friend, is a JOURNAL. It's not something new and special because it's on the computer!! Criminy, Doogie Howser was keeping a journal on his computer long before "internet" became a household word. "News" doesn't become "telenews" because it's on TV. It doesn't become "internews" (or, cringe, "ternews") because it's on the internet. It's just NEWS. That's ALL it is.

Or maybe we should call CNN a blog and get it all over with? How is CNN different? It updates regularly with the current news, and also keeps available all of its previous news updates just in case you are wondering what Castro had been up to before he quit. Let's call it "Nnlog".

Fortunately, I am not the only one vexed by this sudden introduction of useless doublespeak. When I googled "the term blog", I found a great quote by another ranter...

From: http://www.edbatista.com/2005/05/blogs_are_obsol.html

Can we all agree that the term "blog" is now meaningless and should be retired? We have a perfectly good word we can use in its place: website. Just what does "blog" signify anymore that's different from most well-managed websites? Frequently updated content? Nope.

Ahh, yes, yes.

I guess we could start calling ALL web pages "blogs" and just get rid of the term "web page", so we at least remove some redundancy. Note the world's first web page, http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html which, evidentially, was a BLOG dedicated to the development of this new project "the web".

Just because no one these days takes 5 minutes to ask/research how to upload their own MS Word-created drivel onto an FTP server, it doesn't mean that getting their drivel onto a web page via an automated website makes it something other than drivel. Rosa rosa rosa est est.

So, in conclusion: if you un-ironically use the term "blog" and dignify its existence by perpetuating its usage, I imagine you will soon begin to (if you don't already) sprinkle your writing with all sorts of new 1-letter words that are not "I". I h8 u 2, u la z bastards.

burn

As a journalist i feel it necessary to document all incidents,.
as thisday has the marks of an outstanding day in h istory...the fire alarm at bauer publishing was set off, sending the 256 employees out the door , cowering from the cold and the freezing rain. Englewood Cliffs fire department took 18 minutes to arrive. When we were finally let back it the lgihts went back on.

February 13, 2008.

and of course, it begins with darkness

I am actually sitting in pitch blackness at my desk here at In Touch Weekly, located on the city upon a palisade in New Jersey. Wintry problems caused power outages, but f but fortunately us dedicated and ultra serious journalists, our computers are on the generator and so we get to stay while the rest of the company goes home!!!!

Clearly this is not how I'd run shit if I were the editor in chief. Sheesh.

Still, traffic lights are out around townso it's considerably sasafer inside where the only wrecks are trainwrecks like like britney spears.

Genesis

It begins...