March 2010
1 post
“Apple maggot quarantine area
Do not transport
Homegrown fruit!”
– Traditional Washington State Sing-Along Song The Dashboard: Apple Weather
September 2009
1 post
August 2009
2 posts
“I guess I could just put this in an email to you, but let’s live like kings and...”
– sarahb
“you can’t make people shut up. they will find a way to say what they want...”
– Justin Hall, “CommDecAct,” 22 February 1996; quoted in Scott Rosenberg, “Putting Everything Out There,” Say Everything (via Fireland)
July 2009
5 posts
Amn't
distorte:
I’ve been thinking a fair bit about this word contraction since Mills’ discussion. Based on the comments it seems that Ireland is the only country in which it’s used.
That and whatever country my six-year-old lives in. It makes perfect sense to me so I see no need to correct it. “Y’all” is part of the vernacular here, covering a gap in the English language as spoken...
Radiohead, “You and Whose Army?”
...
distorte:
Reblogging a 10-month old post because it’s getting me through this morning single-handedly.
(So much great stuff that just slips into the morass. Try this cool link I’ve personalised just for you.)
That’s a nice link. Mine only goes to 827 but the spirit of the gesture is greatly appreciated.
June 2009
8 posts
Have we talked yet
(Prelude: there’s a whole fascinating conversation that I’m picking up on only one tiny little part of here, so click on that handy “kfan” hyperlink that’s coming up if you want to plug in to that. Wait for it. Here it comes:)
kfan:
Archives are at best an afterthought. Very little is considered to be of value the next day, the next week. We throw words down the...
Songs That Reference Another Song by the Same...
kfan:
The Police: Oh My God (Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic)
As well as about 13 Sting songs. Yes, I realize that this means I’m admitting to being familiar with Sting’s solo output and that it probably would’ve been better if we all just acted like most of that didn’t happen.
The other thing that comes to mind right off the bat is Freedy Johnston: Evie’s...
“You’d think a place called Mechanicsburg would be filled with skilled...”
– The Dashboard: Road Trip
32 Reasons to Hire a Great Writer
32reasons:
My friend and former coworker Laura is an amazing writer and is looking for a job in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.[…] I wonder if together, you and I can use social networking to find her a great job before I get through my list of reasons to hire her.
Visit http://32reasons.tumblr.com to learn more about this.
May 2009
17 posts
“A person isn’t just action. A character is also a boy sitting in a snowfield in...”
– Matt Briggs @ Fictionaut (via tawny grammar)
Up News in a Downturn
Me: […] that's just my two cents
Me: which seem to have been hit hard by inflation in the last week or so
Me: based on how much value they seem to have
Her: Your opinions have gone UP in value.
Her: That's why they're not accessible to the masses anymore.
Follow Friday
delgrosso:
So, who are the three Twitter people who aren’t currently following you, but who you wish were?
I don’t know their exact names but they are, in order of preference:
1. Somebody who I could turn around and hug whenever I needed one. Maybe somebody slightly doughy?
2. Somebody who carries substantial amounts of firearms, a sociopathic streak, and a willngness to take on my...
In the Car with the Two-Year Old
Her:
Me: What'd you say?
Her: I told myself something.
Me: What'd you tell yourself?
Her: I'm wonderful.
Me: I'm glad you realize that!
Her: I'm wonderful.
Me: Yes, you are.
Her, testily: I was telling *myself* something!
4 tags
“I looked at Mother Nature and realized how does Mother Nature—a complex...”
– Nassim Taleb, on NPR’s Planet Money podcast, April 29 I surely am not qualified to measure the biological or economic accuracy of this statement but I love the idea of looking to nature for advice about complex systems. When I studied literature in school, the value of bringing history into...
“Dash: I’m a dolphin.
Me: Really? What’s your dolphin name?
...”
– London, PG: A Conversation with Dash, Just Before Bed
“The nation’s leading corporations have learned that they cannot reduce...”
– Carl Spielvogel, “Cuts During Recession Scored,” New York Times, October 16, 1958
Mother's Day Gift Guide
Me: Mother's Day is this weekend. Do you want to get a present for mom?
Two-year old: Yes! I want to get her something!
Me: What do you want to get her?
2yo: Um.... Um.... I don't know.
Me: Well, what do you think she might like?
2yo: Blue's Clues?
Me: Yes, and what else?
2yo: Bunnies!
2yo: Carrots!
April 2009
15 posts
Survivor
Her: Did you watch last night?!
Me: Of course!
Her: Coach is acting so crazy!
Me: I know! But in his defense, how much of Jerry Van Dyke's stupidity is the man supposed to take?
Her:
Me: I mean, he gave the *entire* Breakers team food poisoning!
“Dave [Letterman] makes a lot more than I do. Way more. And I’m number one. But...”
– Jay Leno, quoted in Michael Hainey, “The Hardest Working Square in Show Business,” GQ Cool, so if your employer underbids your services for a client and that sets you up for years of underpayment, you’re not screwing yourselves—you’re pulling a Leno.
2 tags
—White Rabbits, “Percussion Gun,”...
2 tags
Steve Himmer, "I Grow Potatoes" (in Amoskeag 2009) →
Just because I haven’t participated since September and no one else has since January doesn’t mean it’s not Feedback Friday.
I’ve read more than a little “nature writing” (mostly first-person, nonfiction accounts of experiences in nature) in my time, but ecologically influenced fiction is a bit harder to come by. (Himmer points out that fiction and poetry get...
“I didn’t want to spend my two weeks off on tour, even though I love Humboldt...”
– Neko Case, interviewed by the A.V. Club One time I spent three hours digging out a parking space on Chicago’s North Side. Left to run an errand—during which time it was still snowing—and came back to find that someone had brushed off the extra .0125” of snow and then staked their claim...
1 tag
Whispers
Dennis popped his head into Crystal’s office. “Hooliganz?”
“That’s the one at North and Elm, right?”
“Yup. I’m heading out now—see you there.”
Crystal wrapped up the e-mail she was working on. She’d been looking forward to a bitching session with Dennis for a couple of weeks. They’d had to postpone a few times, but that just...
In Fairness to the Queen
Prince Philip bet her £300,000 that she wouldn’t hug Michelle Obama.
She might never have seen a tall black woman in person before. She probably thinks that’s the way you’re supposed to treat a visitor from Ganymede.
She was simply greeting a fellow traveler on the Road of the Overanalyzed for Their Fashion Choices When That Is Not Repeat Not at All What They Really Care...
Correction
Salad Ahoy!:
The Dallas Morning News […] monthly subscription price was now $28.50—raised from $19.95 (and nearly 100 percent higher than the rate five years ago). Most readers probably missed the rate change since it didn’t look like any rate change letter that had come in the last five years[….] I thought it was an interesting take on the struggle of newspapers: they might have to raise...
"it’s a meme, but a good one." @ The Living Room →
3 tags
—Meredith Louise Miller, “Dad’s...
Watchkfan:
Red Faction Guerilla Presents: The Ostrich Hammer, via Kotaku
Okay, so I know next to nothing about contemporary video games, having owned precisely 0 game consoles in between the Intellivision (Shark! Shark! baby!) and the Wii. So the April Fool–ness of this video is wasted on me.
But the forced incorporation of completely irrelevant input into the creative process? That is all too...
March 2009
8 posts
House of Love, "Beatles and the Stones" →
Saw Metric’s acoustic take on “Gimme Sympathy” (via kfan; great!) and wanted to revisit an earlier tune. (No endorsement of the visual half of the House of Love video is implied or should be inferred.)