The Man With All The Toys

Just did my first of what will be many readings of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. Each year, subversive thoughts find their way into my brain as I'm reading this poem. Here are three:

When I read "...threw up the sash" I picture the fellow retching and pulling a beauty queen sash out of his mouth. (actually, it's more often a merit badge sash. Former Boy Scout.)

When I read "...his face it was broad" I want to read it like Jimmy Cagney. It makes no sense, but there it is.

When I read "...filled all the stockings and then turned with a jerk..." I picture Santa standing at the chimney, but suddenly there's Steve Martin beside him, arrow through head, yelling "The new phone book is here!"

Anyone else have crazy images flash though their brain whilst trying to read something not meant to be crazy? Another example of this might be something a friend told me 20 years ago that has made it hard to keep a straight face in church over the years.
He told me that instead of "Lead On, O King Eternal" he sang "Lead On, O Kinky Turtle." So sophomoric, yet there I am, Sunday morning, visions of turtles dancing in my head. Tsk.

I'd much rather have sugar plums in my head. Or even Steve Martin.

Draggin' The Line

Read this headline:

Spoof paper proceeds to buy shoes for needy kids



I think since headlines tend to put verbs early, I read it proceeds.
Then got to the end... then had to go back to the beginning. The spoof paper is buying shoes? Oh. proceeds.
How about you? Anyone else get the same reading?
Is this confusion reason enough for the head to be rewritten, or should people figure it out?

the story

The Wages of This Sin: Two Bucks

In Michigan, smokers pay $2.00 a pack in taxes for the privilege of standing out back in the rain. This tax hike passed over a year ago, mere weeks after it was soundly trounced as bad government. The story of its failure is here:

Estate, 'sin' tax bills fail in House

Now, a mere 19 months later, I've rewritten the headline.

Sin Tax Error

We'll just have to file that away for the next one.

.......

Why do I do this? Just as I'm about to hit Publish, I think Hey. I wonder if anyone else could ever have come up with this bit of wit? Let's check! Google says 386 other web pages already came up with my headline. Dangit! I could've left well enough alone, deluded in the thought that my stream of consciousness had lapped over some unturned punnish pebble, but nope. I checked. I am officially, again, wholely unoriginal.

Dangit.

[update: "stream of consciousness" +"punnish pebble" gets zero hits. I am at turns pleased and unamazed.]

......

Can't seem to Publish yet. One more thought, as I was trying to pun my way through the post title:

A regional meeting of church leaders where they cast a controversial vote (gay clergy, for example) could have a snarky headline in a partisan paper that reads:

Putting the 'Sin' in Synod

[checks Google. Ha! Zero!]

Full disclosure: this may have subconsciously been inspired by the tagline in Bridget's blog.

......

(One man's take on why sin taxes don't work can be found here)

Come On!

More billboard reflections.
This one is an derivation of what I call Frag Tags: Fragmented taglines in a headline that work awfully hard to make their product seem hipper than it usually is. One example is the billboard that I still see daily advertising "Quality. Hometown. Care." Wal-Mart advertises "Good. Works."

I submit that these gimmicks rarely add anything more to the content. Well, periods, I suppose.
One I saw recently that I liked was:

Serious. Fun.

That works for me. Another one I saw somewhere was:

Logical. Phallus-y.

I didn't really get that one, but it works.

Any-hoo. back to "Wellcome." I assume it's to be read as a Frag Tag:

Well. Come.

It's for a health plan of some sort (the pic above's an artist's rendering, BTW... I'm still not stopping by woods on a snowy highway to snap pics), and they want me to know that if I use their plan, I'll be well. And I should come.

OK. For me, it doesn't add any more meaning than "quality care" does. Actually, it's more confusing. It sounds like something you'd say to a dog who doesn't get that you have a treat for him: Well? Come!

But what it does do is put a commonly misspelled word on a highway billboard in 4,000 point Times New Roman. "Wellcome" hasn't reached "Comming" proportions (still #1 five years running), but this 'board may make it a contender.
Yes, the misspelling is intentional... part of the charm of the ad, I suppose. That doesn't mean that many won't see it and subconsciously file away the new "Two Ls in 'Wellcome'" rule.

I believe in the First Amendment right to say or print what you wish. But I think there should be a fine for folks who contribute to American-youth-spelling-test-failure. Maybe for every intentional misspelling they create, they have to hand-grade 4,000 standardized English tests.

You say: comming from you, that's rich. You've got a typo in, like, every post.
I say: yeah. but at leaast it's not in 4,000 point type. And no one reads this blog, so your point is mute.

Unique New York. Red Leather, Yellow Leather.

I got this warning message when installing software today. There is no Photoshop trickery involved.



Update: I updated the Updater, and Adobe's up-to-date.

Vanity of Vanities; All is Vanity

Hey, Mr. '05 Mustang Driver. You blew by me so dang fast I could barely make out your vanity plate:

MRLDCTY

Now, as humbly as possible, I'd like to say that I'm pretty darn good at figuring out vanity plates. I'm usually the first one in a group to shout it out. Now, now, no comments about the social life of a person who takes pride in being the best vanity-plate-figure-outer. Stay on topic, Vanity Plate Man. This is about you, not me. Your plate left me STR8UP stumped.
IMHO, vanity plates are MENT2B understood. An inside joke plate is a waste of money. Vanity plates are all about others' recognition of your wit and good humour:

A1ANA2? A-1? Like the steak sauce? Who's Ana? Oh, A one and a two! He's a conductor! Ha ha! Good show!
(A1ANA2, famously, was Lawrence Welk's vanity plate)

So, back to you.
MRLDCTY.
Mr. Lead City? This is my best shot. But I can't figure this out. It's a Michigan plate... We're not a big lead producer, as far as I know. Judging by the speed at which you passed me, you have a Lead Foot, but are speeders referred to as being from "Lead City"? Not that I know of.
Is your name Merle? You didn't look like a Merle. Not to pigeonhole you or anything. Besides, I still don't make anything of it. Merle D. City?
Meryl? A Meryl Streep fan, perhaps? And your plate references the state of being that comes about on the eve of a new Streep movie... Meryldicity?

No, Cool Car Guy, I can't get it. Therefore, I dub thine plate whack.
The truth hurts, my man. Pick yourself up, get to the DMV, and take a Vanity Plate Mulligan. My suggestion:

CHZYPL8

Logical. Phallus-y.

Mere months after Pimp Dose, we've got another vandal in the school.
His tag:

penis

It's written in red sharpie on lockers, in the stairwell, on railings.
This may be the work of a group. There's a chance they're a new gang, marking their territory with graffiti. While it's easier to read than typical gang tags, it's just as confusing. There is no punctauation to help us.

Is this a triumphant announcement of his/their manhood? (Penis!)
Is it shock at a recent discovery? (Penis?!)

Or is it, as I'm hoping, the start of a campaign?
Much like the billboards that post a series of teasers before the entire ad appears, I think "penis" will soon have a "The" in front of it:

The
penis

A few days later, the rest of the text will follow:

The
penis
mightier than
the sword.

Clever, penis-man. Very clever, indeed.

Oh, Ya. You Betcha.

This billboard greets me on the way to work every day. Actually, this is my Photoshopped rendering of it, since I'm not wont to stop on the freeway and take a picture. What interests me is the deliberation in the art department of where to place that two-foot high apostrophe:

...no, "ya" isn't a word. it's an abbreviation of "you."
Yeah, but what letter are you replacing with the apostrophe?
What are you talking about?! The apostrophe is there to show people that we know we're using nonstandard English!
What, is that from Strunk & White: The Lost Elements? You're making up usage!
Dude, just put in the apostrophe.
Fine. Where does it go?
Just put it where it makes sense...

Maybe because we put one in "y'all", they thought we needed one here. Of course, then we'd have:

ORANGE Y'A GLAD TO SEE US?

Which just looks silly.
If Ya, sans punctuation, is good enough for Outkast, it should be good enough for Adams Outdoor Advertising.

Darkness Falls

Ah, The Darkness.
The boys who gave us lyrics like:

Snowflakes melt in hell
That it would end
Don't let the bells end
Christmas time
Just let me leave please

are back with a new single.

It's called:

One Way Ticket To Hell... And Back

The thing about The Darkness is this: you're never quite sure if it's a joke. I think that's why I find them so appealing.

Either way, this song rocks. Even if I hadn't heard it, I'd love it from the title alone: a one-way round trip, baby.
It makes absolutely no sense.
And therein lies the beauty. Even deciphering the lyrics about highs and lows of cocaine abuse really sheds no more light.

And that's OK.

'Cuz they rock.

[outro]
...One way ticket to hell and back(yeah)
Bought a one way ticket to hell and back(ooh yeah)
One way ticket to hell and back,
Bought a one way ticket to hell (oooh yeaah)

One way ticket to hell and back(woo!)
Bought a one way ticket to hell and back
One way ticket to hell and back,
Bought a one way ticket to hell...

Three Words I Use When I Want To Sound Smarter Than I Am

Irrespective
Hierarchy (pronouncing it hear-arky)
Ephemeral

What are yours?

Friskies Business

Here's a partial transcript from a commercial that plays on my radio at times:

...This is [radio personality]. You've heard me talk about my cats and how much they love Purina, as well as myself...

Whoa. The first time I heard it, I was sure I'd heard incorrectly. This could not be what it said. The next time, I wrote it down, in awe.

To me, the most literal reading of her message is:

I'm [radio personality]. You've heard me tell you how much my cats love [Purina cat food and] me.

Now, she doesn't say "love me". She says "...how much they love Purina, as well as myself." Which sounds like a fairly common misuse of a reflexive pronoun. So we would assume she meant "how much they love Purina, as well as me."

But, this isn't what she means, is it? She means to tell us that both she and her cats love Purina. Something like:

This is [radio personality]. You've heard me talk about how much my cats and I love Purina.

Now, this does bring to mind a radio host sitting down at the breakfast table with her coffee and a bowl of dry cat food. And, maybe that's why it isn't worded this way... someone thought it sounded weird. We need a rewrite from the ground up.

The problem, here, again, is this:

Aren't there people who proof these things? Even after it's aired, doesn't someone hear it and go "Uh, guys? Yeah, [radio personality]'s on the radio saying her cats love her. It just sounds weird. And she's using reflexive pronouns instead of standard personal pronouns. Can we get a rewrite?"

And the answer, again, comes back.

No. No, there aren't.

Sigh.

Something Wicked Segue Comes*

The news this morning had a story about a family that moved back into its flooded home in New Orleans to find it had been invaded by water moccasins. Every time they opened a door or moved a piece of furniture, a snake slithered out to greet them.

After this piece, the anchor threw to the weatherman with this:


"...Luckily, nothing like that weatherwise is going to bug us today..."


Yes, luckily there are no poisonous snakes in the weather today. And luckily, today we will not have to return to a destroyed home after over a month away. Boy, it sure would suck to be them! Haha! Luckily, it's going to be nearly 70 today!

Do we really need a segue? In TV Anchorman School, it must be drilled into young recruits, because this is only a small example of something that happens every day. In local news, especially, but the Bigs do it, too. I would like the weather, thank you, but I'm not terribly concerned that it somehow ties to the previous story.

Just tell me that it's time for the weather.

Thanks.

*A stretch, yes. The other, less stretchy title was Where There's A Will, There's A Segue.

The Remains Of The Day

When does a body become a remain?

Today, I have heard various reports, some talking about Rosa Parks' body, others about her remains.

AP:
"The Senate approved a resolution Thursday allowing her remains to lie in honor in the Rotunda..."

MSNBC:
"When they learned Friday night that Parks’ body would lie in honor in the Capitol, Cunningham’s wife said, “We have to go.”"

Many skip the distinction, saying simply that she will "lie in honor."

Is there a distinction? To me, remains suggests ashes, or something more gruesome. I must be off here, though, since it seems a fairly common way to refer to the body of one who has passed.

Hoping someone else will do the research, I wonder if it has to do with bodies that are not immediately buried, but are on view for a period.

Finally, as I got into this post I realized it might seem inappropriate. I do not mean to diminish the legacy of a civil rights pioneer by quibbling semantics. This is simply a straight question of usage that had never occurred to me before today.

Jokes I Remember From Junior High (3 of 4)

Traffic has dropped by half since I began the Jr. High series. Coincidence?

In other news, four people searching for "the infamous el guapo" have found me recently.

Now, to it:

Q: What do olive loaf and Sarah Jesica Parker have in common?
A: One's a Square Peg, while the other's a Square Pig.

You will be shocked to learn that this is one I penned myself.
Even in 7th grade, this was not seen as quality material.

As I reflect upon this piece, I wonder if it could have been reworked for greater effect:

Q: Did you hear about the new show with Porky, Babe*, and Wilbur as dorky kids trying to make it into the high school in-crowd?

A: It's called "Square Pigs".

Yeah, that's a lot better.
"WABAC machine, set for 1982. We've got to find my 7th grade self and get him this joke. It could change his entire future..."


*Of course, Babe didn't exist in 1982. Hmm.. Miss Piggy seems obvious, but I don't like the use of "pig" in the set-up, since it's the punchline. "Kermit's girlfriend", maybe. Any-hoo.

Jokes I Remember From Junior High (2 of 7)

For this one, I took a one-line joke and turned it into a fairly epic tale. Please remember this is 7th grade. The language is '80s-tinged, and the puns are awful. My humor is much more sophisticated now.


* * * * * * *

The Potato family was a happy one. Mother and Father Potato lived with their three daughters. The children grew, and before they knew it, the eldest was off to see the world. One evening, the family was sitting about watching TV (M*A*S*H, natch) when the phone rang. It was their daughter.
"Mom! Dad! I'm getting married!"
"Ore-Ida!" said her father, who'd been hoping she'd marry soon. "Who is he?"
"Oh, dad, you'll love him. He's a doctor."
Well, dad was indeed excited to have such prestige brought to his family. There was a huge wedding and celebration.
A year passed, and the middle child left home for Art School (Julienne) . Soon, a call came. The family stopped watching their movie (The Eyes of Laura Mars) to listen in.
"Mom! I'm getting married! He's a District Attorney! And, he's a real spud muffin!"
"Totally tuberlar!" exclaimed mom.
There was a large wedding and a wonderful party.
Finally, the third daughter left to follow her dream. Her parents could only hope it wouldn't be half-baked. They worried that their small fry might not make a wise decision.
Then, the call came, right in the middle of CHiPs.
"Mom! Dad! I'm marrying Dan Rather!"
Oh, they were not happy.
Mom was boiling. Dad turned red potato. There was no large wedding. They were ashamed.
Because their first two daughters had married so well, and the third had married a commentater.

* * * * * * *

I haven't told this joke in years. It could use updating. The first that comes to mind is that the 3rd girl could marry "Tim Russet". Other ideas?

Jokes I Remember From Junior High (1 of 7)

A priest, a rabbi, and a preacher walk into a bar.

"Ow," they say.

Oh, And This One...

OK, just one more unbelievable-but-apparently-real T-shirt:

HAPPY LARGE TRANSLATION WILL OCCUR!

There's a pizza place in my town that has an arcade. All of the games, as far as I can tell, come straight from Japan. Most of the text is symbols (Kanji?), but some is in English. Like the marksmanship game where you shoot a mug and it explodes:

THE CUP WILL SPLATTER! TEST YOU SKILL!

Or the street luge game that promises:

AMAZING ACTION DOWN THE HILL! TRY YOUR RIDE!

These are good for a chuckle, similar to the crazy popularity of ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

That would be the end of it... but today I was searching for the latest Elmo toy (hey, give me a break), clicked I'm Feeling Lucky, and this came up, courtesy Engrish.com:


"Engrish", I find, has quite a following. It is the term used to describe poor Japanese to English translations. I remember looking at a puzzle game in line at the gas station, with the directions telling the owner to FIRST ONLY DECOMPOSE THE CUBE, and saying to myself: huh.

Well, the folks at Engrish.com and a boatload of other sites have collected many of these crazy things for you. Some are beyond belief. "They must be Photoshopped!" you cry. "Crap my hands?!" The webmaster says no, they're all legit. Like:


My first thought was that the term "Engrish" was just too inappropriate, and that I couldn't ever bring myself to use it. I still may not out loud... but it sure is all over the place, and seems to be the accepted term. That doesn't make it OK, I realize. I am still amazed at how something so niche can have such a following on the internet.

Which makes me again wonder: If there's so much Engrish stuff in cyberspace, why can't we get more ARK II information out there?

Bowies Don't Cry (experiments in obtuse imagery)

Like some cat from Japan....

You Can't Have Egg, Bacon, Spam and Sausage Without the Spam!

Mash-up words are fun. Like Spice + Ham = Spiced Ham = Spam.

Pastabilities.
Spambot.
Charpool.
Or, heaven forbid, Betsimpsier.

I'm sure there's a word for words like that... anyone know it?

Anyhow, this is my post about spam. And how I've got to make it stop, so I'm making comment-posters type a crazy, curvy nonsense word that looks like it's written on the melting walls in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I've put this off, because it's a small hassle to people trying to dash off a quick reply. You just want to post a thought, and the computer says: "Type "Cthulhu" into this box to make sure you're not a spammer." Or "Clhuuh", I'm not sure. I usually get them wrong on the first attempt. So they give me "Brylwor"* to try again. Actually, can I get another shot at "Cthulhu"? I think I can get it this time. Now, it's "umlaut". Now "Ageageray"*. Now "Thirttlye"* I give up. The world will never know my rakish wit. I have been marginalized by the Spambot Guardian. Post I Shall No More.

So, I apologize for instituting such measures. But I get these posts, and I don't even know where in my blog they're posting in order to delete them. My email says I have a new post (yay!) and it's someone who thinks my blog is awesome (sweet!) and they'll be back for sure (woo-hoo!) and, by the by, they have a great blog about erectile dysfunction (...). What it doesn't say is which post out of a year's worth it's gone to. Sigh.

So, there it is. Sorry. Good luck.

*These names are taken from here. Try generating "consonant-heavy" names. Fun!**

**"Fun" being relative, of course.