* SPECIAL BULLETIN *

There's been a breakout at the Word Reformatory. These guys are on the loose and should be considered poorly intellectually armed and illiterate. Exercise all caution -- lock your firewalls, stay on your own boards, don't pick up hitchhikers. Don't approach the escapees if you spot them -- they could get all defensive if you ask them to spell their names. If they show up on your site, call the Word Police. Do NOT challenge them to a debate, although holding a crucifix (and a Webster's) in front of you couldn't hurt.

incedent - This one was incarcerated for an indecent incident.

professionalls - This one went to the pokey for being all professional at recruiting for his cult, the Professional Liars Sect.

I know here verey well and I trust here -here is female - Really dangerous character awaiting trial on charges of inappropriate, criminally unstylish cross-dressing and grossing people out.

beable to spin this ander - This one was picked up on a competency warrant and really needs his meds. We have no idea what the fluck he was trying to say.

all the mispellings, it has nothig to do with age - Do not mess with this one. He's an accomplished huckster and can convince you of anything.

inadaquate - Wanted for illegal Viagra pushing.

therapudic - This guy's a notorious pimp. He also has a fixation on ancient exploding islands and could be a potential terrorist.

XX DOSE IT AGAIN - Charged with drug trafficking and suspected of being incestuously involved with a notorious international purple prose printing syndicate.

Trivia From Soggy Bottom

My city's nestled in a valley so, yeah, it looks like Soggy, Foggy Bottom today. It's been raining hard, coming down in those sheets that make it hard to see more than a few feet ahead of you, much less drive. My neighborhood is up a hill, so we don't have to worry about actual flooding. When it rains hard enough, long enough, though, the back yard floods and the basement can take on water. By sometime tomorrow, I may be bailing out the basement. Joy, joy. It's that "extremes" thing -- from bone dry to needing a canoe. You can't win. And it'll probably get worse before it gets better.

Gov. Kaine declares state of emergency --
Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine declared a state of emergency for the Commonwealth of Virginia, in preparation for Tropical Storm Ernesto.The emergency declaration helps state agencies provide resources to communities in need. According to the statement, "It makes state resources immediately available to rescue, evacuate, shelter, and provide essential commodities in affected localities if needed."

CNN anchor Kyra Phillips was covering President Bush's speech the other day when she slipped out to the ladies room -- forgetting that her mic was still live. Viewers heard heard "girl talk" from the ladies room, including an unflattering remark Phillips made about her sister-in-law. So, yeah, okay, it went out live for a few seconds before someone came to the rescue and yanked the plug. You can't unring that bell. But was it really necessary for the remarks to be rebroadcast on every network over the next few days? It was embarrassing to Phillips and her family, and so totally unnecessary. It wasn't "news." It was an accidentally overheard private moment. All the other networks could have had a private snicker at Phillips's expense and left it at that.

Oh, man, talk about ruthless, callous business tactics. Some 400 employees at the Fort Worth headquarters of Radio Shack received this e-mail Tuesday morning:

"The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

Is that cold or what?

Derrick D'Souza, a Management professor at the University of North Texas, said he had never heard of such a large number of terminated employees being notified electronically. He said it could be seen as dehumanizing to employees. Oh, gee, do you think?

D'Souza said, "If I put myself in their shoes, I'd say, 'Didn't they have a few minutes to tell me?'"

Last month, the company replaced its previous CEO who resigned after admitting to lying on his resume with former K-mart executive Julian Day. Ooooo, Blue-Light Specials at Radio Shack? Yeah, that's a step up.

One of Day's first actions was to cancel conference calls with analysts to review Radio Shack's financial results, an unusual step for public companies. Unusual? I'd say so. If I worked for Radio Shack, I think I'd be updating my resume as we speak. I'd be dumping my stock, too.

Here's today's lineup of Words Gone Wild. Take a good look, and if you recognize any of them, be sure and call the Word Crimeline. There's a $1.00 reward on each of them.

authour - Nifty little contraction of 'the author's hour.'

After monthys of training - Working with monkeys? Somebody's got their monthlies? Baby talk? Beats the hell out of me.

a hit of a clue - Evidence recovered in a horrible bludgeoning.

furgal - Term of endearment for a hirsute lady.

horizone - Short for Zone of Horror.

Hyperventilating

I'm really bored, which is never a good state of affairs for me. Boredom can lead to all kinds of trouble. Perhaps bored isn't the right choice of words. Maybe impatient is a better description. Yeah, impatient.

Normally, I have a pretty high patience threshold, but there comes a point when waiting -- too much waiting -- makes me completely berserk. When I reach the saturation point, all I can think is, "I hate waiting!"

Obviously, there are too many things I'm waiting on. One event, or two or three, is doable. When the list increases by much more, it leads to irritability and outright crankiness. Something needs to give soon with at least a few of the things I'm waiting on. Otherwise, I could lose control, maybe write another damn book. That always calms me down -- to the point of lethargy. From one extreme to the other. Yeah, I need that.

At least, it's going to rain tonight. That always ensures a good night's sleep, which is something I really do need. I don't remember the last time I went to bed before 1:00 A.M., which means I've been working on four to five hours' sleep a night. I'm perfectly good to go on five, but four just isn't enough. Oh, yeah, the rain -- looks like we're in for heavy rain from tonight all the way through Friday or Saturday. That could get dicey. At least, it's cooler, though -- by twenty degrees tomorrow. Thank God for small favors, huh?

Speaking of books, I saw the damndest piece of misinformation on an infamous reverse-vanity POD's boards today.

There was a lady on the boards questioning whether she's going to be paid royalties for the beaucoup "used books" of hers Amazon.com has sold. There was a back and forth dialogue of misinformation, with one person having the sense to direct the woman over to Writers Weekly to find the answer to her question. Then this guy comes along with the most blatant example of disinformation I've seen in a while:

"These people have given you some good advise (sic). The used books are donated in advance from the publisher as stated in our contract that they may do this. They don't receive (sic) money for them and neither do ypu (sic). As part of their agreement the said people can donate them or keep them for themselves and whomever ends up with them has a resell rights This service is provided for your benefit and gives you exposure."

What?! PrintAnything "donates" books in advance?! Puh-leeze! People, PromiseEmAnything donates NOTHING. The "used" feature of Amazon is simply a sales gimmick. There may be rare instances in which someone has a copy or two of a PatheticAsswipes book available for one reason or another. For the most part, however, when one of those "used" books is ordered, the seller puts in a request to PissOffAmerica to have it printed -- brand new -- just like any other PatentlyAwful customer. The books are POD. That means that no copies of any PunishThemAll title are printed unless they are specifically ordered. PatheticallyAvaricious does nothing for anyone's benefit but their own. And you can take that to the bank.


The Word Patrol wasn't exactly on strike today, but they weren't really on their toes, either. They did manage to reel in these language molesters.

Let me give you a little in site -- I'll bite. What's the URL to this "In" place?

discourges - The art of dissing a scourge.

catagory - A cat that's had a really bad accident.

Feburary - We think this may have something to do with a feeble, arthritic burro.

Nothing New Under the Sun

There’s an old maxim – “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" -- “The more things change, the more they stay the same” -- (attributed to Alphonse Karr), the essential truth of which never becomes outdated, never ... changes.

Let’s see. Who wore what to the – Oooooooo! – Emmys. Is the public really waiting with bated breath every morning-after to hear all about the latest tribute to excess? Does the populace at large really care who's hooked up with whom, who's getting a nasty divorce, who had whose baby? Does anyone really care whether Joan Rivers loved somebody’s extravagantly expensive gown or dissed it mercilessly? I don’t watch awards shows. Ever. I find the whole never-changing spectacle pretty disgusting. I’m not at all interested in watching a bunch of pampered and grossly overpaid divas and celluloid princes pay homage to each other. And I’m really, really glad I missed out on seeing Conan O’Brian hosting this year’s Emmys. I’ve tried to warm up to him. It ain’t gonna happen. I simply cannot stand the guy.

Hurricane Katrina passed through last year, leaving widespread devastation in her wake. This year, money rivaling the treasuries of some small countries is being spent to produce “anniversary” shows. Yes, Katrina was a horrible event. Much of the nearly obliterated Gulf Coast will never be the same. Do we really need to be reminded with slick TV documentaries, though? It's sort of akin to using disaster for entertainment. Not much new there. It’s not likely that anyone will forget Katrina, with or without TV coverage. TV productions cost money -- lots of it. If you ask me, the money would be much better spent if it were donated to rebuilding efforts.

Somebody’s submitted another “sting” manuscript to the redheaded stepchild of vanity publishing. Why? It’s already been done – and run about as far into the ground as it can go. There’s nothing novel about it. The first couple of times it was done, there were valid reasons. They produced some pretty revealing results; i.e., they proved that the skanky publisher would publish anything. Which was the whole point. The goal was accomplished. In spades. There’s no reason to do it again that I can see. Unless it was to give a small clique suffering from attention deficit just one more thing to crow about (or a good reason to throw another good old fashioned circle jerk). The fate of the world does, after all, hinge on their vaunted musings to each other. Nothing new there.

The Word Patrol bounty hunters made a few good takedowns today. Nothing new under the sun in that quarter. It wasn't a major crime spree that got busted up, but these bad boys are better off behind bars.

scurge -- Pirate slang for "is courage."

cliental -- A lower class of clientele.

outstanding balance's -- Mmm-hmm.

Make checks payable to Mr. XXX -- Yeah, that's real professional.

There are also has been some -- Let us hope that this one is a has-been.

ajoining -- How meetings are ended in the Bronx.

eventhough -- Dude. It's TWO words. I'm getting tired of seeing this.

That make since to me -- Geez. And that will do it for me today. I'm getting in out of this unholy sun under which there is nothing new.

Epiphanies and Other Esoterica

Why is it that by the time the sphere of truth hits you in the head and knocks you for a loop, resulting in instant epiphany, it's often too late to stop some disastrous course of action that's already been set in motion?

That happened to me with my erstwhile "publisher." At the time I signed the contract, I thought it was a perfectly respectable outfit. Within days of signing, however, I had already begun to see the light about what I'd gotten myself into. My hands were tied, but the fight was on to extricate myself from a bad situation. It took some time, but I eventually got out.

Then there was this situation involving several members of several Web sites. There was this one person -- friend, buddy, and confidant to many -- who suddenly pulled up stakes and joined forces with a person dreaded, loathed, avoided, even feared by many. Had it been anyone else, everybody would have shaken their heads, picked themselves up and dusted off their britches, and that would have been the end of it. But it was THAT person, and nobody was going to sit still for that. I see now, with that famous 20/20 hindsight, that none of it mattered squat in the grand scheme of things. I'd dearly love to leave it alone and be rid of the stench forever, and I would if only everyone else would follow suit. It keeps rearing its ugly head, though. Yuck.

We often have blinding epiphanies about friends, lovers, spouses, etc., after it's already too late -- like when there's a bigass butcher knife sticking out of your back. There's probably no cure for that. We do learn from experience, after all. If you never fall, you're never going to walk. If, however, one keeps on making the same mistakes, time after time, it may be time for a good friend to sit that person down and administer a forcible epiphany. It won't hurt too much, and it'll do a world of good.

Sometimes, all it takes is a simple apology to make it all go away. Sometimes, however, you'll find yourself waiting 'til the end of time for that to happen. Epiphanies can sting, bruise, and abrade but, like childbirth, it's all worth it in the end. Meanwhile, we all need to learn how to bandage our own booboos.

Sad to say, Boulder, Colorado, authorities had an epiphany today. The DNA test results on John Mark Karr, latest suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder, are back. They do not match. Consequently, he won't be charged. This news just kind of leaves you shaking your head, wondering, "What the hell was he thinking?" Did he confess because he's an attention seeker? Did he do it to grab his fifteen minutes of "fame?" Did he desperately want to return to the U.S. and didn't have the plane fare from Thailand?

The Word Patrol picked up a whole slew of writers behaving badly today. Clearly, they need tinfoil adjustments. It must be hard to live in mortal fear of UFDs (Unidentified Fearsome Dictionaries). It doesn't excuse their bad form, however. They still had to be detained.

This one was caught single-handedly by Darfinition Apprentice ROKA:

speek - I believe this is referring to the act of a mother wetting her thumb to clean a spot from a child's cheek. Spit + cheek = speek.

Good collar, ROKA.

my worse nightmare - Even worse than the worst one?

fith of five - The antithesis of the Firth of Forth.

Guidlines - Words in a script which will be spoken by Guido.

i am gamed - Holy crap! Did it hurt?

quanity - A misstep in the quantification process.

momento - A request for more of a spherical little candy with a hard exterior and chewy center.

plooped - What Pluto did when they let him out to do his business.

The Art of Procrastination

There's a fine art to procrastination. Unless you strike just the right balance, procrastination can turn rapidly into sloth.

I tend to let papers pile up on my desk -- mail, sticky notes, printouts, etc. I always intend to take a look at them and then put them where they belong. Soon. Or sometime. To my credit, I do place them into nice, neat little piles. Still, I find myself pawing feverishly through my piles when I need something and I know it's in one of those piles. The mail, I need a better system for. I lay it down with the intention of at least opening it and paying the bills and tossing the junk. Sometimes, I miss the mark and totally forget about the bills, getting the payments in just under the deadline. I need a better system.

I've just about run out of space for books, which may explain my procrastination about putting away new ones. When I clear off the table in my den, it looks so neat and shiny. I vow right then and there that I won't let the books pile up on it again. Yet, here I sit, with piles of books so high that I can barely see over them. Again, I need a system. Or else, I need to be taller.

E-mail, I'm terrible about. I'll see a message, decide it needs a reply, and save it. Then I promptly forget about it. Days later, I'll come across it and by then I've completely forgotten what I intended to say. I could use a system.

Why do I procrastinate? It may have something to do with the fact that I hate being told I "have" to do something. That includes me telling myself that I "have to." Plus, this stuff takes time and I have this weird tendency toward spending my time doing stuff I actually like.

Do I procrastinate with my writing? Oh, Lord, yes. And I don't know why. I actually like writing. But there seems to be an immutable rule: If I'm not in the mood, it ain't gonna happen. It may be the heat, it may be the fact that I'm in "waiting mode" with a queried novel, or it may be something else. I guess I'll figure it out. When I feel like it.

Sad Day for Aviation

Prayers go out today for the families of the 49 people killed in the Delta crash this morning. There was a lone survivor which, looking at footage of the crash scene, seems almost miraculous.

The plane, Comair Delta Flight 5191, a CRJ-200 regional jet, crashed at 6:07 A.M. almost immediately on takeoff from the Blue Grass Airport, Lexington, Kentucky.

The cause of the crash wasn't immediately apparent, though there's speculation that it perhaps took off from the wrong runway -- one that was approximately half the length of what the plane required.

The flight crew was identified as Captain Jeffrey Clay, First Officer James M. Polehinke, and flight attendant Kelly Heyer. The survivor is believed to be one of the crew.

The plane had 14,500 flight hours -- practically new. Comair is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines based in the Cincinnati suburb of Erlanger, Kentucky. Both Comair and Atlanta-based Delta have been operating under Bankruptcy protection since September 2005. (Just as an aside, my husband took a Comair Delta flight from here three weeks ago to Cincinnati to catch a connecting flight to San Diego, and those Delta commuter flights are what we always take to Atlanta.)

Fayette County, Kentucky, Coroner Gary Ginn said all the passengers and crew appeared to still be on the plane and the deaths were caused either by the impact or the "hot fire" on board.

The flight recorders have been found, which should provide some insight into the cause of the crash.

There hasn't been a major U.S. crash since November 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 went down in a residential neighborhood in Queens, New York, killing 265 people, including five on the ground.

Errata Sheet

H.R.H. the Queen of the World Linguistics Wrestling Federation, the Duchess of Edited Posts, the Empress of Word Acupuncture herself, has graciously consented to provide some further insight into the really weird roots of some of the Bad Words from August 24th. Her conclusions:

my screnn: Refers to an old-fashioned low-resolution CGA monitor. Remember those? Made PacMan look like high def? This is a cute play on words, combining 'screen' and 'Renaissance', implying that one's monitor is so low-tech it could date from the 1500s.

negotitions: To use one's well-developed body parts to aid business discussions. See 'Erin Brockovich' -- "They're called boobs, Ed."

sorbriquet: One of the broken pieces of charcoal at the bottom of the bag.

emotins: The Tin Woodsmen of emoticons.

Ungerground railroad: A secret but obsessively neat secret escape path. For the opposite, see Madisonsecret Passage.

And there you have it, a succinct and definitive analysis of the roots and origins of some truly Bad Words. Word! Thank you, Dream.

Saturday Mugshots

I know it's Saturday, but the Word Police had little choice but to pick up these rowdy Words Gone Bad for committing crimes against etymology. They did a bad, bad thing... There's no weekend court so they'll have to stay in jail 'til Monday morning. There was no alternative, though. Just think what might have happened if they'd been left to run loose and start drinking tonight.


negitive - This is a state of mind even worse than negativity.

theirh - A substance quite close chemically to myrrh but banned for being highly hallucinogenic.

intemediaries - These are the professionals from whom one seeks permission to approach referees.

novelity - A very brief, very bad novel which should be stuffed down the toilet and flushed three times.

publicatuib - The publisher of the above-referenced novel.

it's own - It is own? Sorry, wrong tense.

perminantly - I've seen this one before; it never improves.

titalize - This is about porn, isn't it?

saavy - The condition of being exxtra savvy.

Warped News

I love warped, oddball news. Don't you? It's sort of a reaffirmation of our own (relative) sanity, don't you think? Most of us, anyway. Here are a few of the weirdest reports to come over the wires lately.

Hanoi, Vietnam - Police seized one ton of Chinese-made sex toys, aphrodisiacs, and other sexual stimulants. The booty was stashed in a truckload of onions. Police continue their investigtion.

Ventura, CA - Oxnard police dog Beemer thought he was taking a bite out of crime when he bit into the police chief's leg.

"It hurt. The dog literally picked me off the ground. He ripped my pants and bloodied my leg up pretty good," the chief said.

Fruit Cove, FL - When St. Johns County police arrived on the scene of a dispute between a lawn service supervisor and an employee, they found the supervisor wielding a bat. The employee whose work the supervisor didn't care for had whipped out a weed trimmer with which to defend himself while another worker grabbed a hammer trying to break up the fight. The supervisor was charged with assault and battery.

Chicago, IL - A judge has decided there is enough evidence to prosecute a young Iraqui man who says an airport security guard misheard him when she thought he said that a sexual device in his backpack was actually a bomb.

He claims he actually told the guard the small, black object was a "pump" - as in a penis pump.

His attorney said her client was embarrassed to explain the object in front of his mother, so he whispered. The guard misunderstood, and thought he said "bomb." He later told reporters he does not consider a penis pump an unusual object to own.

"It's normal," he said. "Half of America they use it."

All righty, then.

Jeanette, PA - A judge has to decide whether the word "meow" is a harmless taunt or grounds for misdemeanor harassment. Jeannette police charged a 14-year-old boy for "meowing" whenever he sees his 78-year-old neighbor.

The boy's family and the neighbor don't get along because of a previous dispute over their cat.

This time, it's the attorney in the mix who has some sense. He said, "This should never have been filed. This is not something that police should be wasting their time with or wasting the court's time."

There was a bank robbery somewhere that I heard about the other day; I can't remember where. As best I can recall, the bumbling robber got his money but was so nervous that he barely made it out of the bank without wetting himself. Then, outside on the sidewalk, he was so startled to see a police car pull up that he promptly fainted.

Don't you just love dumb crooks?

On "My List" Today

- Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. These two irritate me no end. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Rush ODd on his illegal Viagra and hooked up with Ann? Surely the hot air they'd produce together would ignite and that would be the end of that. Definitely something to hope for.

- People who brazenly manipulate the slow-witted ought to be ashamed of themselves. They're not, of course; not in the least. That's even more shameful.

- The bizarre saga of John Mark Karr makes you wonder whether there's a sharp spike in the number of freaks and perverts out there or whether we simply hear about it more.

- Last week, there was the phenomenon of exploding Dell notebooks. This week, it's Apples. Once again, the culprit is Sony batteries. Bummer!

- Reality TV. Aiiieeeee! I hate it, hate it. There's nothing real about it. It generally consists of a group of people brought together to snipe, backstab, badmouth, trick, and otherwise screw each other. For money. If you ask me, even the nastiest of the chicanery is scripted. I will admit to having watched two episodes of Rockstar Supernova on a dare. I found it mildly entertaining, inasmuch as some of the performers can actually sing, but it's in no wise "reality."


The Linguistics Brigade had its work cut out for it today. These bad to the bone Words Gone Wild were caught running amok, wreaking havoc and even causing blindness in some cases before they were rounded up. The streets are a much nicer place to be with them in captivity.

made me an off I couldn't refuse - I believe this one must have tangled with the Godfather. And lost. How he could write wearing his cement shoes, I don't know.

you'r - Excuse me?!

pedaling your wares - An itinerant bicycle salesman.

my screnn - I suppose it's either a useless body part (like the appendix) or ... hell if I know.

dependant - Someone under the spell of an ant, or a reference to a product worn by someone's aunt with an incontinence problem.

doind - I'm stumped. Someone who was going to promote travel to India and then stopped abruptly?

preperations - Practice for real operations.

those of you, whom are expecting - This person is about to be forcibly returned to Middle School and forced to pay attention in English class.

negotitions - I don't know what that it is, but it sounds vaguely obscene to me.

sorbriquet - This person should lock up his keyboard, assume a pseudonym, and go into hiding for a while.

And today's pièce de résistance is this scholarly phrase, attempting (and failing spectacularly) to speak of the upper echelon of the management hierarchy:

...in the higher archery

Bad Words Rule

Bad words,
Bad words,
Whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do
When we rag on you?

And rag we will. The Word Patrol hit the streets running today and made a huge bust. So many renegades were rounded up today that they'll probably have to hold night court.


Conrats -- These are rats specially trained in Frederick, Maryland, to perpetrate cons on unsuspecting wannabe writers.

Oppurtunity -- A club promoting the unity of pretty opossums.

Emotins -- These are gatherings in which feelings run high and you're apt to hear lots of shouting, wailing, and speaking in tongues.

Intergral -- It's misspelled, but what it means is the low growling you hear within large corporations every day.

Ungerground railroad -- This is a secret cult devoted to the veneration of Felix Unger.

Their’s -- Huh?

All ready gone -- All had already dressed and left the house by the time the latecomer arrived.

Affect on -- Someone who has assumed one of his/her multiple personalities.

Strickly -- The condition in which one is left after being struck about the head with sticks too many times.

Pecentage -- We think this is something really nasty and we're not going to talk about it in public.

Publishing mongul -- This alludes specifically to one half-assed publisher in Frederick, Maryland. Come to think of it, it's pretty damned on-target.

Pluto Demoted

This is terrible! The International Astronomical Union has unilaterally stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930.

The decision by the prestigious international group sets out strict guidelines that celestial objects must meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite "cosmic club."

Thus, the number of recognized planets in the solar system has been reduced to eight: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto missed the boat on grounds that it doesn't meet the criteria for “planetship;” i.e., "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Pluto was kicked out of the running because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's. Instead of a bona fide planet, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets." This new definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun -- "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets, and other natural satellites.

NASA said the decision will not affect its New Horizons spacecraft mission which earlier this year began a 9-1/2-year journey to the now-no-longer-a-planet.

Nutso News

Oh, NOW the dumb shit lets me upload a picture. Not on the post where I wanted it. Duh.

Anyway... I couldn't let the night come to an end without having on about this.

Dateline: Chattanooga, Tennessee. A Nissan Quest carrying an adult and two 11-year-olds was exiting Interstate 24 Sunday when three shots were fired from a Dodge Caravan. At least one round hit the Nissan. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The driver of the Nissan returned to the Interstate, followed the Dodge, and called police. In fairly short order, the Dodge driver was pulled over and arrested.

The driver was -- get this -- a psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration hospital in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. His excuse to the cop who arrested him? "It was an act of road rage."

The doc was charged with aggravated assault and released Monday on $10,000 bond.

Here's my question: Is this psycho the right person to be placed in charge of the mental health of veterans with PTSD and other problems that require actual help from a professional who knows what he's doing?

Quest for Fire

Diogenes spent his days traipsing the streets of Athens with a lighted lantern, searching for an honest man. He never found one.

How well would we hold up in the light of Diogenes's lantern? Probably pretty well, for the most part. I think most people are basically honest. I'd like to think so, anyway.

There are some people who lie routinely. You know who they are; their lips are moving. They don't represent the norm, though, and thank God for that.

Paris Hilton now thinks she's a great singer. Is she lying? Nah; just deluded. The dumbest student in the science lab (or on the planet, for that matter) could tell her that.

Tom Cruise says he quit Paramount Studios. Paramount says it fired him. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes, there's a fine line between the straight truth and a lie. The truth is the truth, of course, but when you embellish it just the least little bit, doesn't it become a lie? And then there's the faction that embellishes lies with just enough truth to sell it. Those types are often found in politics. Surely, they're emitting fumes from all the lies. Why, if Diogenes were to approach them, they'd probably spontaneously combust.

I'm sorry, I'm just endlessly fascinated with the whole concept of spontaneous combustion. I already know I'm strange; you don't need to tell me that.

The Word Patrol rescued a few battered words today and rushed them straight to Word Rehab. With a little TLC, it is hoped they can be rehabilitated. If not, they'll have to be put down.

But how ever -- This phrase is so mangled it's hopeless.

Awsome -- Aw, how cute - somebody's spreading some awe.

Yall -- This clearly isn't a Southerner. We're born knowing how to spell y'all. Therefore, they must be referring to a sailing ship that they didn't know how to spell.

Beatiful -- I'm proposing this one for beatification.

Thankyou -- Either they're talking to a rapper named T-Hank or they don't know that thank you is two words.

Imput -- I'd thank this one for his input and then run.

Dose not -- Literally, "take no medicine."

Recind -- A new, highly abridged retelling of the Cinderella story.

Seperate -- I'm tired of seeing this one, so it's going on the list to be put down. Rehab obviously hasn't worked.

The Kanrei Home for Wayward Lemmings: Is Tomorrow the End?

The Kanrei Home for Wayward Lemmings: Is Tomorrow the End?

Of Dogs and Drawls

My dog loves and adores me beyond all reason. I'm the center of her universe, a virtual canine's deity. I know without a doubt that she cherishes owning me. So ... why is she trying to kill me?

I don't mind that there's always a pile of dog toys in my bed, as long as she leaves me room enough to turn over. I don't mind that my house looks like Toys-Arf-Us for Dogs. I don't mind buying her premium dog food or cutting human food into petite little bites for the Dog Princess (she'll sit and stare at big bites 'til I get them small enough). I don't even mind spending more on her haircuts than I do on mine. So ... why would she want to kill me?

More and more often, when I get out of bed all blurry-eyed and unsuspecting, either in the middle of the night or early in the morning, there's some wicked dog toy on the floor right beside my bed. Balls are the worst, and tennis balls are particularly lethal. Step on a ball and if there's nothing to grab onto, you could go down.

Today, she left her baseball on the stairs. If I hadn't had the foresight to turn the light on, I'd have been a goner. I need to have a heart-to-heart with that animal (not that she has a clue she's an animal) and find out how I've displeased her.

I hate to refer to her simply as "The Dog." Maybe that's why she has it in for me. I can't tell you her name, though. I learned the hard way that it's a huge mistake to give out personal information. It's too easy to turn it into bullets.

==========================================

From what I've seen of the fall TV lineup, it pretty well sucks. The only new show I've seen plugged that remotely interests me is 'Jericho.' That one looks pretty interesting. Everything else looks pretty ho-hum. Therefore, I hope all of my old favorites will be back in the fall. You know, I really like the storylines of 'The Closer,' but it never reached "favorite" status with me. Kyra Sedgwick's grossly exaggerated drawl (and that awful orange lipstick!) just ruins it for me. Nobody I know speaks that way. Trust me, if such sounds started coming out of any Southern woman's mouth, her girlfriends would either forcibly drag her to Speech Therapy or choke her.

The Unbearable Levity of Sin

Sin. What is it? Like the Supreme Court justices on the subject of pornography, you know it when you see it.

Lying, cheating, stealing, killing -- those are all sins. Everybody knows that, not that it stops far too many people from doing it anyway. Fudging the truth just a little, telling "white lies" to protect someone else's sensitivities -- probably not too high up on the sin scale. When someone liberally laces the truth with lies for their own ulterior motives, that's different from little white lies. It's unethical, it's immoral and, yep, the lying part of it qualifies it as sin. You see people doing it all the time, though, especially on the Internet. Some site operators do it routinely to hook new people in. The sites themselves are such a mess that you have to wonder sometimes if they're performing virtual you-know-whats to maintain their growth or whether people really are that gullible. It's just singularly mysterious to me. But what do I know? I'm not the one who's going to be ordered to say ten Hail Webster's or forty-two Our Roget's.

I do know Word Sin when I see it. These poor, misguided sinners were dredged up and hauled into confessionals all over the world today. Not that they were particularly penitent. Apparently, you have to understand the nature of sin before you can admit you've done it. It would be neccessary to appreciate that it is a sin for the perpetrators of these sinfully amusing linguistical assaults to persist in calling themselves writers. Is it a sin that they force me into the sinfully fun pursuit of lexigraphy? Oh, I hope not.

totum pole -- Literal translation: Tote. Pole. Now. Um!

I have no patients (for clueless people) -- Nor have I any patience for those who should be patients somewhere.

Goggle (search) -- This one left me goggle-eyed.

diverse arrange of topics -- Oh, the array of wrongness here!

She has loss her -- Well, I hope she founds it soon.

Just A Leeeeetle Bit Spooky

I don’t put a lot of stock in dream interpretation. I will, however, concede that dreams are probably indicative of unresolved subconscious issues swirling about in the mind of the dreamer. In other words, they're quite possibly your Id flashing you SOSs about stuff you need to take care of.

I’ve been having some strange dreams – about two of my dogs who’ve been dead for over ten years and, just the other night, about my grandmother, who passed away six years ago. In the dream, she was telling me to close a door. If I were superstitious and believed in portents and omens, I might be slightly concerned. I mean, if you’re seeing dead people…

My sister called last night and, come to find out, she’s been dreaming about our grandmother, too. We simultaneously began to hum the Twilight Zone theme song. We’re simpatico that way. Not in too many other ways, but that way.

Seriously, it does make you wonder what it all means. Or whether it means anything at all. Jung, Freud, et al., would hate me. I attach no importance at all to my birth experience, potty training, or any other long forgotten “trauma.” I think it’s just possible that there’s some viability to the Collective Unconscious theory and maybe a couple of others. Psychobabble, for the most part, I have no time for. If I subscribed to every little bit of PsychoVoodoo to come down the pike, I’d probably be out buying myself a burial plot today.

Sloths Have It Made

I've spent basically a day in the life of a sloth. Not that I'm complaining.

I slept in -- not because I stayed up too late, but just because I felt like it. So what if it's decadent? Once up, I took my time with my coffee and the Sunday paper. I didn't even bother getting dressed 'til nearly noon.

I'd like to tell you that once I got my butt in gear, I got industrious and cleaned the house, wrote a chapter -- something. But nuh-uh, didn't happen. I spent a big chunk of the day messing around online, reading, and watching some pure junk on TV. Did I enjoy myself? What do you think? Shoot, I wouldn't mind doing it again tomorrow. Alas, it's back to work tomorrow. Which means that now I have to shove it into gear and get my hair washed, nails done, yada-yada-yada.

The Word Patrol laid around on its butt today, too. Nary a rogue word got picked up. I'd stay in after dark if I were you. You just don't know what's out there on the streets.

Blogger still won't load pictures. What is up with that?!

Hissssss...

Sometimes it seems as though there are more questions than answers. (Question: What's the problem with Blogger being so sluggish today? I had a picture I wanted on this post and it will NOT upload.)

1. Who knew 'Snakes On A Plane' would be an instant hit?
Apparently, a whole bunch of bloggers did. Thanks to an incredible amount of pre-release Internet hype, the film was already a "cult classic" on opening day. The concept is amazingly simplistic -- take a cabin full of airplane passengers armed with nothing much more lethal than baby food, set a load of wriggling snakes loose among them, and watch the carnage unfold. Personally, the very idea gives me the creeps. Of course, creeping people out is the whole idea. The phrase "snakes on a plane" has already become a part of the vernacular. Pardon me, my skin is crawling.

2. Is the JonBenet Ramsey murder case solved?
As everybody who ever sees the news knows by now, a guy named John Mark Karr has "confessed" to the slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado, in December 1996. That, however, doesn't mean the case is solved; far from it. There are holes in his confession, facts that don't add up. On the other hand, he has allegedly provided details to police that only the killer (or an accomplice) would know. He is one weird individual, no question about that. But is he also simply some guy who has insinuated himself into a high-profile case for the attention it garners? Clearly, the man is a pervert with some very nasty, far from normal proclivities. Whether he is also a killer remains to be seen. DNA will be the litmus test here, I think. If it matches, there's a case. If it doesn't, there are a whole lot of questions left to be answered.

3. Is Elvis really dead?
There's a $3 million dollar bounty on him, you know. Is he and has he been dead since 1977? People love conspiracy theories and the idea of some famous person chucking it all for the simple life. Still and all, yeah, I think he's probably been quite dead lo these many years.

4. Why do convicted killers get all weepy and emotional when their guilty verdicts are read?
This puzzles me. They showed no emotion while committing their heinous crimes. They could have been wiping mud off their shoes with more concern than they expressed for their victims.

On New Years Day of this year, a family was brutally murdered in their Richmond, Virginia, home. Killed were 49-year-old Bryan Harvey (guitarist and singer for notable rock group House of Freaks), his wife Kathryn, 39, and their daughters, Stella, 9, and Ruby, 4. All were bound with duct tape in the basement of their home, stabbed, had their throats cut (non-fatally), were hit fatally in the head with a hammer, and then burned when the house was set on fire in an attempt to cover up the crime. This was but one event in a bloody crime spree which included the murders of another entire family. Arrested were Ricky Jovan Gray, 29, and one of his relatives. Gray was tried this week. After thirty minutes' deliberation, the jury returned yesterday with a guilty verdict. That's what I call swift justice. And that's when Gray broke down, crying and sniveling and making excuses for his inhuman behavior. Yeah, yeah. Everybody's got baggage, everybody's got problems, everybody's suffered one kind of abuse or another. The thing is, they don't grow up to go on murder binges. I'm sure Gray is sorry -- sorry he got caught.

5. Does some ol' gal really have some subpoenaed ISP records?
This is a question I'd like to know the answer to. I'm talking about the person mentioned in the infamous "sex-mails." She was highly incensed about the whole thing, and (no matter how much I personally dislike her on a number of different fronts) rightly so. At one point, she released information to the effect that she'd retained a lawyer to subpoena ISP records in an effort to find out who was sending the e-mails. Time passed, and then she announced -- quite some time ago now -- that she had the records and would share the information "soon." Since then, not a peep about it. One can't help but think that the information either wasn't what she was hoping for (i.e., that I was the culprit) or that she's so embarrassed about the identity of the person(s) she'll never admit it. If you ask me, apologies are in order from several people involved in all this hyperbole. It'll never happen, though; not in this lifetime.

Just a couple of Bad Words captured today. They weren't particularly dangerous (just bumbling crooks) but at least they're off the streets.

where-as -- This from my favorite word mangler who just loves to turn one word into two.

St. Petersburg Rushia -- Wow! Apparently, there's a new country on the globe. Who knew?!

whose going to be next -- Not I, and who's going to argue with me?

Bored Wars

I get sooooo tired of watching various message boards falling all over themselves trying to outdo other boards. They seem sometimes almost like ignoble little duchies, virtual feudal principalities with firmly entrenched monarchies. They can be fiercely territorial, even war-like, fraught with power plays and raging egos armed to the teeth with sharpened tongues and fortified keyboards. Their battle cries almost seem to be, "Only we have the truth!" "Listen to us and nobody else!" "It's our way or no way!" "We are the way, the truth, and the salvation!" Puh-leeze. Are they running message boards or ... cults? Sometimes, it's hard to tell. Reading them all is something to do when you're bored, I guess, but it gets hard to read the same old redundancies day after day. Some of these boards grow exponentially every day simply by (presumably) word of mouth. Others will do everything but stand on their heads naked trying to attract attention.

I run a message board. Growth is good and always welcome, but it's not the be-all and end-all. It's great when new members join, especially when they have a lot of wit and wisdom to contribute. I don't sink into a decline and get the vapors over lack of trackable growth, though. I'm sure some people find us boring (truth is, we bore ourselves sometimes) but as long as the membership is happy and keeping a lively dialogue going, everything's copacetic. I don't trawl the Web desperately trying to generate interest and rope in new members. I don't join every board in the known universe for the sole purpose of looking for new converts -- and a fresh place to plug my goods. I don't brag and crow and make insupportable claims. I'm not in the salvation business, either.

I have members who found the board in the usual ways people find message boards that appeal to them. They joined because they ... wanted to. They post what and when they feel like it, whether it's to announce some good news, comment on a topic of interest, note with raised brows some idiocy somewhere or another, or just have some silly fun. It's not a "family." There's this one particular publisher which runs a message board where all the happy-happy members (their authors only; no public input allowed) allude to themselves as "family."

I don't know about them, but my family is comprised of persons to whom I'm related by either blood or marriage. A message board community is, in fact, an Internet community. Inasmuch as most members don't actually "know" each other, have never met and probably never will, it can hardly be defined as a family in the truest sense of the word. Lord knows, sometimes board members bicker and fight but, at the end of the day, nobody's going to send everybody to their rooms and announce "Lights out." My members are not my children. It's not up to me to tell them what to say, how to say it, or that they can't say it.

Okay, rant over. And now on to regale you with today's lineup of Words Gone Bad, and they are bad -- the smelly, peeling zombies of the literary world. I see dead words.


Affordable council -- You don't have to go into debt to be able to bribe this local government.

Anotherwards -- Another one fighting off evil, in other words.

Disgussed -- The act of disrobing after you've been somewhere all gussied up.

Touchie -- What feelie people like to do.

Ledgend -- The end of the road for the wrestler known as The Ledge.

Distint -- Disparaging someone's choice of hair color; i.e., dissing the tint.

Played a small roll -- Pretending to roll down a short hill.

Lot's -- Wife?

Diint -- Making a reallly hard effort.

Probubly -- This is starting to piss me off. It's not a typo but so thoroughly consistent that it's clear the "writer" thinks this is the correct spelling.

Corrispond -- Small body of water in the town of Corris.

Compititive -- The spirit of a dedicated pit crew.

Fluffy Pink Thoughts

I shopped this afternoon after work. The necessities notwithstanding, I got Sandra Brown's new book, "Ricochet." That'll make a nice weekend read. I also got a new CD -- Chris Isaak. Good Lord, what a voice he has. Absolute heaven. I bought a new white blouse (I have a good excuse -- Fall is coming) and a new pair of jeans. Pink. My old pink jeans don't fit any more; too big. Long story short, I meant to lose five pounds last summer. It got completely out of whack and I ended up losing over twenty. I've only put seven back on. End result: a whole new wardrobe.

I have a wedding to attend next month. The ceremony itself will be outdoors, on the water in coastal North Carolina. I bought a dress to wear, then decided maybe it wasn't quite right and bought another one. They're both pink. Guess what color my shoes will be?

I love pink. If I ever get my own cult, I'm going to make everybody wear pink robes and mail me my money in pink envelopes.

There wasn't a whole lot of time today to hit the streets and hunt down Words Gone Wild, but I did manage to pick these ruffians up.


Receieve - I think this could be a misspelling by a chef directing the scullery maid to put something back through the sieve.

Roryalty - A cult devoted to the late Rory Calhoun; probably not pink.

My firned - No idea WTF that is. Somebody with a fir tree named Ned? Your guess is as good as mine.

Dislexic - A dysfunctional word for dysfunctional people with aversions to dictionaries.

Recoupe - Going back for seconds of a cool, frosty, fruit garnished dessert.

Greatful - Heard from a guest after dinner -- "Great! I'm full!"

My yatch - His ... what?! No, I have to put my foot down. We are not going there.

In the Immortal Words of Nancy Kerrigan, Whyyyyyyyy?

Can anyone tell me why some days my sidebar stuff is at the top of the page and other days it's at the bottom? Why does it move around? Is the blog possessed? Do I need to call in an exorcist?

And how come I can't for the life of me get video or audio clips to embed? Other people seem to do it effortlessly. I wish somebody would let me in on the secret. Until I can master the secret, I guess I'll just have to be content with a Plain Jane blog. Woe is me.

Guilt, Grace, and a Helluva Coups de Grace

I don’t waste a lot of time laboring under the burden of unnecessary, unearned guilt. Some people not only take on a mantle of vicarious guilt they haven’t earned, but seem to thrive on it. Martyr complex or something? I never did get that.

I’m pretty laid back and studiously avoid deliberately hurting people. It happens, of course. It’s usually a case of either unintentionally causing hurt feelings or direct retaliation for pain deliberately inflicted by someone; i.e., if somebody shoots at me, there’s no way in hell I’m not shooting back. I’m as capable as anyone else of letting loose with a diatribe when necessary. Some people, however, actually do appear to get off on spreading as much deliberate hurt and ill will as possible. They do it just because … they can. I never did get that, either.

I do things – some things -- just because I can. Who doesn’t? It never involves willfully causing unprovoked hurt, though. If I inadvertently hurt someone, and I know it, I feel terrible (and yes, guilty) about it and I’m going to apologize -- just because it’s the decent thing to do. The people who live to maul and hurt just because they can, I don’t get.

There is such a thing as guilt by association. It’s unfair, of course, but it exists. And honestly, who among us doesn’t subscribe to it on some level? We are, in fact, judged by the company we keep. It’s always been that way, probably always will be. It’s human nature, I think.

I suppose our infamous Word Criminals commit their literary crimes for one of two reasons: (1) They don’t know any better (though there’s a canon of law which holds that “Ignorance [of the law] is no excuse") or (2) Because they can. And no, I’m afraid they feel no guilt about it. In fact, they’d probably be hard-pressed to even define or spell guilt.

Intollerance - We think this may be a deviant strain of Deliverance, particularly prevalent in mountainous swamp areas.

It never seems to amaze me - Oh, God -- me, too. I seem to be unable to get amazed, no matter what. I should cease even trying.

Quiet reading it - Yeah, I like quiet when I'm reading, and some quiet time after I quit reading it as well.

Defaintly - DeLady saw the deWords gone deWild and she deFainted.

Experiance - An experiment involving ants gone horrifyingly awry.

Writting - What a writter does, of course.

First name bases - Well, duh -- it does help to know somebody's name before making it to first base.

And for the pièce de résistance, I give you:

We could not of did it without you.

I'm personally administering the coups de grâce and sticking the lethal injection to that one.

Cruising the News

Well, this will give the conspiracy buffs something to talk about. Remember all the controversy about whether the moon mission was a hoax?

It seems that the government has misplaced a plethora of stuff from that mission, including the original recording of the famous first moon landing. Neil Armstrong's original "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" statement is also MIA.

Spokespersons say they've been looking for the missing materials -- some 700 boxes full -- for over a year. Nada.

Excuse me? 700 missing boxes? I've worked for the government. If so much as one file had been lost for any length of time, there would have been hell to pay.

It's said that copies of some of the missing material exist, but that they are of much lower quality than the originals. Per the spokesperson, because NASA's recording equipment was not compatible with the TV technology extant at that time, it was necessary to play the original transmissions on a monitor and then reshoot them with a TV camera; hence, the shots and footage we've all seen on TV over the years.

Yep, that ought to get the hoax talk going again.

Also in the news: exploding Dell computers.

4.1 million Sony batteries have been recalled by Dell Computer. Dell says the batteries were installed in notebook computers shipped between April 1, 2004, and July 18, 2006.

Apparently, a short-circuit could cause the battery to overheat, resulting in a fire risk. I did see a shot on the news of one Dell on fire -- in Japan, I believe it was.

I have an old Dell Latitude notebook. And when I say old, I mean that thing is ancient. It's still plodding along, though, doing whatever I ask of it. I use it mainly to "experiment;" i.e., if I'm trying some new operation, it won't matter too much if I accidentally croak the Dell doing it. My main notebook is a Toshiba Satellite; I wouldn't dare experiment with that cream-puff. I like it too much.

I bought a Dell Inspiron a couple of years ago. It worked fine for about two weeks and then the devil possessed it. After untold hours of time wasted on the phone with Tech Support people who spoke no to little English, I finally got a techie in Tennessee who quickly deduced that the computer was a dead duck, and Dell agreed to replace it. The new laptop arrives, and I eagerly rip open the carton and plug that baby in. Nothing. I fiddle and I tweak and I shake, rattle, and roll, cussing the whole time. Nothing makes a difference. The power switch simply will not turn that sucker on. So, it's back to the phone, praying to reach somebody with a little English. One person keeps asking brilliant questions like "Is your monitor connected?" It's a NOTEBOOK. "Is your keyboard plugged in?" It's a NOTEBOOK. "Unplug your monitor and keyboard from the CPU and then reconnect." It's a %#$& NOTEBOOK! While waiting for a return label on that one, I ran out to Best Buy and bought a Compaq, meaning that I now had three laptop purchases on my credit card. That's correct -- Dell had me pay for my "replacement" computer, refusing to issue a credit for the first one 'til they actually had it back in their hands. Same with the second one. Will I ever buy another Dell? Anything is possible.

Also in the news, a brief spree of Word Crime. The suspects were quickly subdued, taken downtown, booked and arraigned, and denied bail.

appoligize - You guessed it. This refers to government sanitizing of the Apollo mission. (Some government employees don't spell very well, either.)

assertations - Really moronic dissertations.

loiving - A word meaning, essentially, "I'm leaving -- and loving it!"

There work - This is a simple case of omission of a "be." What they meant was, "There be work (here)."

harassmet - Person with a thick accent describing watching a woman fall -- "Her ass met (the pavement.)"

puggy bank - Piggy banks are passé. Doggie banks are the new trend; this model is the Pug.

thier - This one's just a rogue word. Nobody knows what it means.

Strangers in a Strange Land

If you've read and grokked Robert A. Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," you grok satire and irony. The novel didn't become the 1960s counterculture bible for nothing, you know.

The main character, Valentine Michael Smith, you will recall, was the offspring of crew members of the first manned expedition to Mars, orphaned and raised by Martians. In his early 20s, Valentine was returned to Earth by another mission sent to Mars. Trouble was, Valentine had inherited the rights to an extremely valuable space drive invented by his mother as well as title to most of the Martian real estate. And, you guessed it -- the government -- World government -- wants his assets. Government agents hold him hostage while they try to figure out how to relieve him of everything he owns before he's sprung by attorney and general bon vivant Jubal Harshaw.

The more Valentine observes of "Earth ways" and feels constrained to rebel against them, the more charismatic he becomes, ultimately elevated to the status of virtual religious icon by an adoring public. This is, of course, another thorn in the government's side, relegating him to the status of a menace to be "managed."

These days, we plain old Earthlings have to contend with the threat of eminent domain, dodge the threat of search and seizure if we look askance at the wrong person, and be very careful about saying anything religious in public on an everyday basis. We make nice and engage in Sesame Street dialogue to avoid being labeled Politically Incorrect -- the kiss of death in modern-day America.

Tell the public "It's For The Children," and they'll give money, donate time and assets, make personal sacrifices, embrace censorship and, yes, willingly relinquish civil liberties, no questions asked. It's all for the greater good, right? This is especially troubling today when we, under the threat of terrorism, willingly exchange liberties for safety. Certainly, safety is a grave concern and an issue that must be addressed, but if we give up more and more of our inherent freedoms to achieve it, we do ourselves a disservice.

More and more of our activities are licensed and taxed and otherwise regulated, and you dare not complain too loudly lest you be visited by the IRS -- or worse.

By sheer happenstance, you could find yourself escorted out of your home by federal agents in the middle of the night. By the time you've had a secret trial in a secret court by a secret judge, your home might well be forfeited to the government and you'll never see it again.

Books like "Stranger in a Strange Land" are written for a reason -- to make people think; specifically, to prod them into thinking about the gradual erosion of rights and civil liberties and what the consequences can be. By the time the public wakes up and realizes what it's ceded away, there might be few rights left. And by then, it will be too late to raise up a hue and cry.

Are we in danger of becoming strangers in our own land?

I have only one Word Gone Bad today. It's so bad that it must stand trial alone, so bad that I couldn't decide whether it needed a paddy wagon or an ambulance. It's just ... So. Bad.

"To all intensive purposes..."
(As in, to all intensive purposes, the work was considered finished.)

Finis.

...just wastin' time

I waste a hell of a lot of time. You hear all the time the phrase, "Time flies." Or, "Where does the time go?" I say it a lot. Part of the reason may be that, strictly speaking, I do waste a lot of time. In my view, however, the word "waste" is subjective.

Reading novels could be said to be a waste of time. Perhaps, but I don't think so. Time spent doing something enjoyable, something one both loves and learns from, is never wasted.

Writing novels isn't a waste of time, either. Unless, of course, they ultimately end up in your catch-all drawer, catching dust.

Some people would consider taking a "Me Day" to pamper oneself -- whether that entails going shopping, visiting with friends, taking a long drive, etc. -- wasted time. If it's what you need at the time, and if it recharges your batteries, there's no waste.

I spend some time wondering what other people, people I used to know before they lost their minds and went to the Dark Side, are doing. That's a waste of time. There's no earthly reason to care what they're up to. On a scale of 1 to 10, they're zeros.

I waste no time at all running around looking for magical products to make me look younger. I am the age that I am. I have good genes, though, and I don't look so bad. Yet.

Chasing down Words Gone Bad is probably a waste of time but, hell, it's fun. A girl's gotta have some fun. Sure, it's a waste of time, because there's always going to be Word Crime. It'll never be eradicated. Nonetheless, here are the bad words from today's police blotter.

covenent -- Witches' new Web site, coven.net

commercail -- I think this may be Old English for something. I don't know what.

udder disbelief -- The crowd's reaction when the Queen of the Cows brayed instead of mooed.

Boreders -- It started out as a bookstore but quickly bored people and was closed.

proccess -- A truly nasty abscess discovered by a proctologist.

crutial -- Half a crouton.

prominate -- The process of decorating the high school gymnasium for the prom.

Breathing and Other Small Pleasures

Wow, what a cool Saturday this has been. And I mean that literally -- overcast, low 70s, low humidity. My windows are open for the first time in I don't know how long and I've spent the day reveling in cool -- not refrigerated -- fresh air. I spent the morning going over (and red-lining) my manuscript, the one I know I'm going to get a green light on sooner or later. I want it to be the absolute best it can be; nothing else will do. The afternoon I spent laid up with a cold Dr Pepper and a small cache of junk food, reading a thriller, just enjoying the cool, fragrant breeze wafting through the windows.

It's almost too bad that there are so many hot-air pockets stashed hither and yon in cyberspace. I say "almost" because it's so superfluous and superficial that it's barely noteworthy. The usual suspects continue to beat their breasts, toot their own horns, pretend to know more than they do, and just generally bray their usual self-important nonsense. Not that it really matters. In the long-run, who cares? People in the know, the ones not wearing blinders, know what's what. If all the silly preening and posturing makes them feel better, well, then, bless their hearts (and their pointed little heads).

It seemed almost a shame to make the Word Patrol work on such a gorgeous day, but work they did. It's a good thing, too, because they were successful in ridding the streets of these misdemeanor malapropisms. We can all sleep more safely in our beds tonight. Praise the Lord and pass out the dictionaries.


psychodelic -- A mental patient who's decided to turn on, tune in, and drop out.

cemetaries -- People who linger too long in graveyards.

they were mislead -- This might possibly be an archaic term referring to really slow-walking (lead in their shoes) settlers being led to Mississippi.

persue -- Instructions given by Sue.

surprized -- When one is rewarded with an extra prize.

quiet a few -- Gagging just those few people in the crowd that the security guards can catch.

The Friday Night Fights

What happens when Little Bunny FooFoo crosses paths with Broadzilla? Poor bunny's going to get stomped, that's what. I happen to like bunnies, so perhaps I should change his name to Little Stupid Woozy Wombat before proceeding. Yeah, that's better.

I used to know Wombat. At least, I thought I did. Wombat apparently had a complete psychotic break from reality, stabbed me and all the rest of his friends in the back, and went off to court Broadzilla's good graces (not that she has any graces). Freaked everybody out, I assure you, since Wombat used to badmouth Broadzilla at every opportunity. So, okay, that's ancient history. Everybody's minding their own business, keeping an eye on the Gruesome Twosome, fervently hoping to see one of them draw blood from the other eventually, but otherwise paying them little mind.

And then today Wonky Woozy Wombat decided for some unknown reason to e-mail me. I'm sure the invitation to join up with him and Broadzilla was pure snark -- which is, of course, precisely what he got back.

Broadzilla wanted Wombat on the team for one reason, and one reason only: Wombat had information Broadzilla wanted to exploit for her own self-aggrandizement. Once the information is exhausted and nobody gives a shit any more, Broadzilla will smash Wombat into the dust and throw him out like yesterday's kitty litter -- like everyone else she crosses paths with. Ha! Can't happen too soon to suit me. Stupid, sorry Wombat should have known better.

Moral to Woozy Wombats everywhere: Never fuck with somebody smarter than you. You can't win, you won't win, and everybody you screwed is waiting patiently for you with cyber-swords and pitchforks.

La mort aux wombats en arrière-poignardants deux-faits face!

Complete and Utter Blither Tonight

I don't really have anything specific to blog about tonight. It's been one of those sensory overload days, you know what I mean?

I woke up this morning to the news of a horrendous terrorism plot foiled in Great Britain. We need the cavalry, I think -- and not in Iraq. Surely the forces of the Free World can do something about kicking the butts of a bunch of wild-eyed extremist terrorists back to the Stone Age. This crap needs to stop. I like to fly, but there's no way in hell I'd get on a plane these days. The security checks would drive me insane and I'd probably get arrested and sent to one of those new secret prisons when my last nerve snapped and I yelled at somebody for getting entirely too personal. Ugh.

At work, I got into it with a deadbeat client and ended up telling him off. The good news is, my boss cheered me on on that one.

Thursday afternoons, I do errands. I was starving to death en route to one of my destinations and stopped to grab a hotdog. I think they gave me a helldog instead. I was about ready to hurl by the time I got to my next destination. Thank God, coming home and eating some ice cream fixed that.

There's no rest for the weary, though. I had a partial for my new book to get out this evening, and everything about the package had to be absolutely perfect. I really, really want this agent. If what I ultimately sent fails to impress her, I'm putting a bag over my head and joining the Salvation Army.

NOW I could relax, except ... I can't. I still have entirely too much to do. I need a personal assistant -- and a maid and a cook and a doggie nanny. I simply don't have enough hands.

I can't, of course, let y'all go to bed tonight without your daily dose of those wily, cunning Words Gone Wild. I picked up a few doozies today.


worst than -- Maybe, but warts are worse.

brick and morter -- If morte means dead, this must refer to getting hit and killed with bricks. The "and" is superfluous, however; the person simply gets brick mortered.

brillient -- It was a brilliant deduction, but ... wrong amundo.

positiong -- I'm guessing this is some weird position you won't find in the Kama Sutra.

relation ship -- This must be a boat docked off an island prison, used for conjugal visits.

extention -- Ex meaning from, this may mean removing oneself from a tent -- "From the tent."

thought I had my dark secrets hide good -- Guess again!

Yanky -- What you do to the necky of somebody who makey you mad.

Honor Role -- Honorary role, no spoken lines, in a B-grade film.

Same oh, same oh -- Eee-i, Eee-i, O.

intellegent -- A well dressed, courtly CIA agent.

Stop the Presses!

Kanrei, kindly caretaker of wayward lemmings everywhere, blogged yesterday about the news -- or lack thereof. With that in mind, I just howled out loud this morning when I opened up the paper and saw a letter to the editor complaining about "no good news." Seriously! This guy was taking the newspaper to task over printing too much negative news and not enough positive news. Newsflash: news happens as it happens. It is what it is.

A serious daily newspaper can't forgo reporting Andrea Yates's retrial or Ben Fawley's guilty plea, or the bombing in Lebanon or the latest casualties in Iraq, or the arrest of a serial killer or the local cops using excessive force during an arrest. Sure, it might depress some people, but it happened. It's the newspaper's responsibility to report it.

How silly would it be to suppress news and replace it with pictures of kittens and stories about good deeds and heartwarming reunions? Not that those things aren't good to see. They are. This, however, is the real world -- you have to take the good with the bad. You can't rewrite history and you cannot stage manage the news. Good Lord, aren't things already Big Brotherish enough?

Give me a break!

I'd like a break from Words Gone Wild, too, but that ain't gonna happen. It's too rampant. And the freedom of my press demands that it be reported. It's bad news but, at the same time, funny as hell. Doesn't that sort of render it good news?

Raido show -- This radio show apparently got raided and shut down.

accidently and publically -- These two misspellings bug the crap out of me. Why can't folks mind their As and Ls?

looked at pretty throughly -- They were high and looking at something through that dark glass, I suspect.

all ready been -- Shorthand for "All ready?" "Hell, yeah, we've BEEN ready. Let's roll."

I would have ran -- As an editor, I would run from you, honey.

Should Publishers Be Held Accountable for Libel?

People are going to write libelous manuscripts. When you take into account the naive, the first-time authors, the uninformed, and the outright illiterates who sometimes send off their manuscripts to POD/vanity publishers, the likelihood of something libelous getting into print increases. Does the publisher bear any responsibility? I believe they do. When dealing with "green" authors' work, which is probably the bulk of the material submitted to these kinds of presses, I think the publisher has an obligation to vet the manuscript thoroughly, exercise due diligence to demand the requisite releases when indicated, and otherwise make every effort to ensure that neither the author nor the publisher is going to subsequently get hit with a libel suit. If they fail to do so, then I firmly believe the publisher should be held jointly liable.

This has been posted all over the Internet, in innumerable forums, so I truly hope I'm not infringing upon anyone's copyright by repeating it here. It has to do with Author House's loss of a libel action filed against it.

AuthorHouse Ordered to Pay Up

by Claire Kirch

The Kansas district judge presiding over the defamation lawsuit brought by romance writer Rebecca Brandewyne against AuthorHouse ordered Friday that the POD subsidy publisher pay Brandewyne $200,000 in punitive damages. Brandewyne’s co-plaintiffs in the suit, her parents, also were awarded punitive damages of $20,000 each. This past May, a Wichita jury found AuthorHouse guilty of publishing a book, Paperback Poison, in November 2003 by Brandewyne’s ex-husband that libeled her. The jury awarded Brandewyne $230,000 in actual damages (PW Daily, May 16).

In his 14-page decision, Judge Jeff Goering asserted that AuthorHouse “acted towards the plaintiffs with wanton conduct,” in publishing Paperback Poison, despite the fact that Gary Brock, the book’s author, had informedAuthorHouse during contract negotiations that iUniverse had rejected the manuscript on the grounds of possible libelous content.

The judge acknowledged that, based on its business model of dealing in volume, AuthorHouse “cannot read every book cover to cover,” and that the company, to a certain extent, is entitled to hold authors responsible for the content of their work. But, Goering noted, “The misconduct in this case is AuthorHouse’s failure to act when it had information that would have placed a prudent publisher on notice that the content of Brock’s book was harmful to the plaintiffs.”

Bryan Smith, AuthorHouse president, said he was disappointment in Goering’s decision, stating that he does not believe that AuthorHouse’s actions “justified the verdict or the damages awarded.” AuthorHouse canceled the book a month after publication.

In determining the damage award, Goering rejected AuthorHouse’s argument that any award be capped by the company’s gross income in 2002, the year AuthorHouse was formed. While not revealing AuthorHouse’s sales, Goering noted that the company’s 2002 gross income was 3.5% of its gross income in 2004 and 2.8% of its gross income in 2005. AuthorHouse has 30 days to decide whether to appeal the award.

You might also be interested in seeing what my idol, Miss Snark, has to say about the Author House matter.

http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2006/05/oh-yes-yes-yes.html


The Author House decision brings to mind a similar action currently pending against PublishAmerica. There's a lawsuit pending in the Circuit Court for the City of Baltimore (Maryland), filed back in 2004 against a PublishAmerica author and PublishAmerica. It hasn't yet been tried; the last time I checked the court site, I believe an October trial date was scheduled. As well as I can determine, it's a libel action with multiple plaintiffs.

Court System: Circuit Court of Baltimore City
Civil System Title: Clyde E. Bennett Sr., et al. vs. Jacqueline M. Schumacher
Case Number: 24C04008613
Case Status:Open/Active
Case Type: Other Tort
Filing Date: 11/29/2004

For a glimpse of the book at the center of this case, see:
http://www.authorsden.com/whitetrashtales

Rounded Up for Word Rehab

With such a big roster of Words Gone Wild corralled today, I would have been remiss to deprive you of these Most Wanteds.


I sware -- All I can come up with on this one is swaying the mind of a recalcitrant lady.

Authomated -- A supervised breeding program for authors. OR, a cult full of writing automatons.

Numberous -- A bunch of scabrous pirate numbers.

Alligation -- A peace delegation comprised of alligators, currently deployed to the Middle East.

Optomist -- A misty medication applied to the eyes by an optometrist.

Possitive -- A captive possum.

Parrable -- A pair of terrible rabble-rousers.

One's self -- Refers to the duality of the nature of oneself.

Gimme, Gimme

I think my generation is probably responsible for coining the word "Yuppie." We started out with good intentions, I think, a lot of us having slid into adulthood from the Woodstock Generation with a whimper instead of a bang. Like many things that were a good idea at the time, Yuppiedom lost much of its original intent over time, giving way to the Me Generation and the concept of More, More, More.

Remember Cyndi Lauper's 1984 song, "Money Changes Everything?"

Ah, but everybody's only
Looking out for themselves
And you say, well, who can you trust
I'll tell you its just
Nobody else's money...
...Money changes everything

Those few words from Lauper's lyrics say a lot.

Which brings me to the topic which has raised my ire today -- Money Camp. For kids. Yep, parents are sending their children to camp to learn all the secrets of investing, stocks and bonds and everything in between, building portfolios, trading, leverage, interest rates, prime rate, passive income, etc.

Kids attending the camps are given "paychecks" and learn how to utilize their earnings to their best advantage. Okay, so there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that. Any time we can juggle our income so that after the outgo there's a little something left, that's a good thing. Education in responsible money management is commendable.

But I have a real problem when a kid comes away from Money Camp making remarks like, "...use other people's time, money and energy for your own benefit." That just sounds wrong to me, on a number of levels.

Can we all spell G-R-E-E-D? I'm sorry, but that kind of philosophy seems to me to be rubbing the patina off one of the last vestiges of childhood innocence. When I was a kid, out of school for the summer with time on my hands and few boundaries as long as I minded my manners, I was damn happy to have pocket change to buy a Coke and a candy bar. Teaching children how to grab more "stuff" for themselves by whatever means are expedient saddens me immeasurably. Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy. But maybe not.

They'd Rather Blather

It's been a busy day. It's amazing how many things need to be done when you want to be doing something else. Most everything got taken care of, though.

The ugly specter of PublishAmerica was front and center for a while today. There was a radio debate between a pro-PA person and an anti-PA person. Nobody went out in a blaze of glory, but a few points were made which should be self-explanatory to anyone with their eyes open wide enough to be cognizant of them. I'm afraid the PA proponent, while a seemingly polite and well mannered person, came across as sophomoric and naive. He may be hyped up on the PA Kool-Aid right now but, depending on how much time, effort, and money he's spent promoting his PA book, I predict he'll be changing his tune when he gets a look at his first royalty check. Bottom line: heed the parting words of your opponent -- PA is a scam.

There's another "debate" going on as well, in another venue. Why it's being touted as a "debate" is baffling. It's no more than two (attention-deprived) people, both ex-PA authors, making comments to each other. How can two allegedly anti-PA people debate each other, anyway? Why would they? Isn't a debate by definition between two opposing parties?

Not to change the subject, because most of these come from -- Guess where? -- but Words Gone Bad went on a bit of a rampage today. The most brazen of them were safely rounded up, but don't let your guard down. There are plenty more where these came from.

Colonal -- I don't know, but I think that's a military person with a penchant for getting colonics before invading and colonizing new places.

Accursed me of -- Somebody who's been hexed and accused at the same time.

Denegrate -- I think that's some sort of degenerate, but I'm not sure.

Discription -- A blurb written solely to diss someone.

Deciept -- The obverse of a receipt.

Plageruists -- This one's a bit of a stumper, but I think it may be an underground group of plague proponents.

Preturbed -- Whatever one does in preparation for turbing.



08/07/2006
Update: My good and erudite friend, Dream, has ridden to the rescue with a more definitive darfinition of the word "denegrate" which was arrested yesterday. She says:

From the Latin prefix de + neg[ative] + rate: to zero out a negative rating, as in: I reported her post as spam, but then I changed my mind and gave her some brownie points to make it up.

Please note, this is not as good as taking back the negative rating, and is not as good as not giving a negative rating in the first place. It's sort of like the story illustrating the value of enriched bread: You find a wallet with $100 in it, take out the money, put $5 back in, and return it to its owner. You've enriched that wallet the same way bread companies enrich white bread, by taking out all the nutrition and then putting a little back in. With me so far? Okay, denegrate is an enriched rating -- not as good as one you haven't done anything bad to (that would be the wallet with $100 or whole wheat bread); just better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Glad to have totally confused everyone (hey, I never claimed to be even a PA-published author!),
Dream, World Linguistics Wresting Federation Word Nutritionist and CPA (Certified Prose Accountant)

Why? Why Not?

Everything happens for a reason. Doesn't it? There is a sometimes subtle, sometimes overt correlation between events -- cause and effect. There is a gestalt to it all. I've always believed that, ever since I've been old enough to appreciate the difference between instilled dogma and actual thinking.

Some things happen for which no discernible reason can be seen. Perhaps the point is that it's not meant to be readily seen. If it makes you think, causes you wonderment, forces you to learn something from it in the long-run, its point was made.

It's the people who sail blithely through life experiencing one mishap after another but never taking any lesson from it who worry me. They believe it's bad luck, coincidence, a hex, maybe just an evil moon. Sometimes you think they're just lost causes -- hopeless. Yet, if you think about it, that in itself is an experience to be absorbed and learned from. Isn't it?

Out of the News

There's been a lot of heavy stuff in the news the past couple of days. First and foremost is the Middle East situation. There's no letup in the Israel-Lebanon conflict. The entire Middle East is a powder keg if you ask me; very scary stuff.

Mel Gibson's drunken rant left a lot of heads shaking and tongues wagging. That's one of those things that just leaves you wondering, "What was he thinking?" Perhaps the problem is that he wasn't thinking. Then again, they do say that in vino veritas, and it ain't pretty.

Two suspects were arrested in one of Phoenix, Arizona's, dual serial killing cases today. If they're the right suspects, I'm sure there's a lot of relief in the Phoenix area tonight. Now, they need to round up the other guy, who's just as lethal.

And then we have poor Barney, the Doberman in the doghouse (or would that be the Heartbreak Hotel?) for a spree through a teddy bear display in Somerset, England. Barney mutilated, slobbered on, disemboweled, and committed general mayhem on most of the valuable teddy bears on exhibit. Barney, Barney -- you ain't nothin' but a hound dog. Perhaps his greatest sin was the dismemberment of Mabel, Elvis Presley's own teddy bear. By the time Barney was run to ground, there was apparently little left of the bears but scattered stuffing, rolling glass eyes, and a hodge-podge of severed limbs. Barney was the guard dog at the museum. I daresay it's safe to say this doggie's guard-dogging days are over. Barney was a bad boy, but I can't help but smile when I see the total hang-dog look on his face. Poor puppy knows he's been a bad boy.

A few Words Gone Wild have been rounded up recently. The charges run the usual gamut -- everything from felonious impersonation of writing to forgery and uttering of bogus words.

Cleared a lot of hurtles -- I suspect this alludes to injured turtles, but I'm not certain.

Invite her hear -- Here, here!

Sponsered by -- Sponges deliberately dried out and allowed to wither by this person. I don't know what happens to them after that. I'm afraid to ask.

Tradional -- I think this is one of those obscure terms tossed about by people who actually get Geometry.

Risky Business? Not!

I'm luxuriating in Day-2 of my "vacation." No, I'm not at the beach, not in the mountains, not even on a mega shopping expedition. I'm at home, but ... the spouse is not. That's vacation time for me.

I'm not hitting the bars, throwing wild parties, or dancing around the house in my skivvies -- though I could if I wanted to. That's what makes it a vacation. Actually, I did something completely out of character and totally weird yesterday after work. I ... cleaned. Yeah, me. I did. The whole idea of a clean, shining, fresh smelling house, with nobody around to slop it up for a whole week, was irresistible. So, yeah, I cleaned. And then I ate ice cream for dinner. Why not? There was nobody around telling me, "You need to eat more than that." I "need?" I'll decide what I need, thank you very much.

And after my unorthodox dinner, I laid around on the sofa reading, just enjoying the blissful quietude of my house. There's usually an extra TV blaring at warp volume, phones ringing, lots of banging and clanging, a wound-up guy talking too loud (and too much), etc. This blessed quiet is music to my ears. I can take a nap if I want to without somebody waking me up to ask (holding up a bundle of obvious trash) "Is this trash?" Sheesh. I can make as much noise as I want late at night without having to worry about waking anyone up. And so on and so on.

I'm "free" 'til Monday night. I had planned a week-long "Girls Night Out" with a friend, but family matters intervened and that got canceled. But that's okay; this is good. This is outstanding. This evening, the mundane stuff one has to do and can't put off notwithstanding, I've updated my Web sites, written a book proposal, and read half of the new James Lee Burke that I started over (a normal) dinner. And what am I going to do tomorrow? I just may watch movies all day long with the dog and eat a Whopper for dinner, or maybe something altogether else. There's no plan, aside from savoring the solitude. That's the beauty of it.

Techies

I got this in one of those ubiquitous e-mails that make the rounds for laughs. And it served its purpose -- it made me laugh. It also made me very glad that I don't work in Tech Support. I imagine that Tech Support people deal with scenarios like this one -- and worse -- every day. I don't know how they keep their cool.

The timing on this was great. The heat has turned my brain to mush, so much so that I wasn't going to write anything today. I'll just pass this along and skate on that. I'm giving the Word Molesters a free pass today, too. Whatever they screwed up, I'm sure it was because their brains were fried.

Enjoy.
===================================================================

Tech Support: I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.
Customer: OK.
Tech Support: Did you get a pop-up menu?
Customer: No.
Tech Support: OK. Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?
Customer: No.
Tech Support: OK, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?
Customer: Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'.
Tech Support: OK. In the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?
Customer: Wow. How can you see my screen from there?
===================================================================
Caller: I deleted a file from my PC last week and I have just realised that I need it. If I turn my system clock back two weeks will I have my file back again?".
===================================================================
This is a true story from the Word Perfect Helpline, which was transcribed from a recording monitoring the customer care department. Needless to say the Help Desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the Word Perfect organization for "Termination without Cause". Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee. (Now we know why they record these conversations!)
Operator: Computer Assistance; may I help you?
Caller: Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect.
Operator: What sort of trouble?
Caller: Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away. Operator:Went away?
Caller: They disappeared.
Operator: Hmm So what does your screen look like now?
Caller: Nothing.
Operator: Nothing?
Caller: It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type.
Operator: Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?
Caller: How do I tell?
Operator: Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?
Caller: What's a sea-prompt?
Operator: Never mind, can you move your cursor around the screen?
Caller: There isn't any cursor. I told you, it won't accept anything I type.
Operator: Does your monitor have a power indicator?
Caller: What's a monitor?
Operator: It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?
Caller: I don't know.
Operator: Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?
Caller: Yes, I think so.
Operator: Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall.
Caller: Yes, it is.
Operator: When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?
Caller: No.
Operator: Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.
Caller: Okay, here it is.
Operator: Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer.
Caller: I can't reach.
Operator: Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?
Caller: No.
Operator: Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?
Caller: Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because it's dark.
Operator: Dark?
Caller: Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.
Operator: Well, turn on the office light then.
Caller: I can't.
Operator: No? Why not?
Caller: Because there's a power failure.
Operator: A power... A power failure? Aha, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?
Caller: Well, yes, I keep them in the closet.
Operator: Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.
Caller: Really? Is it that bad?
Operator: Yes, I'm afraid it is.
Caller: Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?
Operator: Tell them you're too f*%ing stupid to own a computer!!!!!