Thrift Store Undies

From Yahoo! News:

Pedophilia leads to the utter decimation of our pristine, Oceanic ecosystem. So, cut it out you sick bastards!

Posted by ETL at 6:42 PM | 0 comments  

Labels: Real Life trumps Made up Life

In my small, rural, hometown (about 45 minutes from Columbus), there are a whopping 3 Chinese restaurants. None of them have any distinguishable differences aside from the ages of their wait staff. However, they do have some strikingly peculiar similarities. As if to perpetuate some cultural stereotype, all the eateries have the following

1.) Kenny G's greatest hits on the Muzak player (usually, the track is stuck on Moon River)
2.) Television turned to some Asian soap opera. Complete with Wide-Eyed Samurai love-interest
3.) Large Koi in little tank

My personal favorite of the 3 is a place called "Grand Buffet," located within Wal-Mart's 3 mile "radius of indignity." The owner of said establishment is a jovial fellow who reminds me of a young Pat Morita. He regularly chats up anyone with whom I eat, and some of his classic lines include

Mr. Miyagi: you like Chinese food?
Us: Yeah, Egg Rolls, WonTon.. all the good stuff. You guys need sushi though
Miyagi: Well, I like American food. Want to know what my favorite American restaurant is?
Us: Uh, sure?!
Miyagi: Hooters. . Sometimes, I no eat there at all
===

Miyagi: is that your baby
Random Lady: Why yes
Miyagi: very precious, very precious. How old?
Lady: 6 weeks
Miyagi: very cute, very nice. Is it a boy or a girl?
===

What cemented the place as my favorite low-class dining establishment was the following receipt I received on a low-key Monday:



ok,
a) if that waitress's name was Cindy.. my name is Mao.
b) Sonuvabitch, I missed mother's day AGAIN.

ah well, Gung Hei Fat Choi everyone

Posted by ETL at 5:47 PM | 1 comments  

Labels: Fat Kids and Culinary Arts, Real Life trumps Made up Life

" Words are all we have, really"
R.I.P George Carlin 1937 - 2008

*EDIT*: June 25th, 2008

Originally, I had a insightful diatribe from Carlin himself about the difference between "coincidence" and "irony." However, in talking to one of my supervisors yesterday, I came to the realization that many people didn't really get the genius that was George Carlin. Take for example this interaction:

Me: George Carlin died yesterday, that's really sad for the comedic world
Uber Conservative Supervisor: Yeah

U.C.Super: He was really vulgar wasn't he
Me: Well... yeah...but he was a lot of other things too.

indeed, Carlin could claim a panoply of titles: He was a rebel, he was a grammarian, he was the invisible task force helping to minimize bullshit in America. Must we be reminded of his arrest in July of 1972 after the groundbreaking "7 words'" routine. It was his brash sense of humor that allowed him to be the inaugural guest on SNL (October 11th, 1975), and it was his determination and paradigm that "there are no bad words" which eventually led the FCC to break down and allow for THREE of his SEVEN "bad" words to be uttered on air.

So, sure, Carlin very rarely went a gig without saying fuck or piss or shit. But those are just words, and the fact that you have the ability to put an idea behind those words and decided for yourself that those words are improper would do nothing to George Carlin but make him smile in his grave, sated with the fact that he has done his job and passed his legacy to another generation.

Posted by ETL at 1:53 PM | 0 comments  

Labels: If only I had health insurance

When I first got the internet back in 1998, the first IM client I installed was the oft-misunderstood ICQ (yes, a clever play on "I-seek-you"). With it's playful "uh-Oh" , it garnered the attention of many of my friends, and we would chat away the hours about Nelly songs and how leggings would never come back into style.

My favorite thing about ICQ, however, was a little thing called Invisible. Users could manually add people to their invisible list and these people would be able to see you regardless of status. Those individuals not on your invisible list would have to wait for you to IM them before they could start a conversation.

Fast forward about 2 years, and the vast majority of people at my university were using AOL IM. Despite the fact that it sucks a big cock, I gave into peer pressure and downloaded it onto my Gateway Astro. Fastforward an entire decade, and NO ONE has thought to adopt the invisible list... perhaps the greatest idea to ever hit online, "social" interaction EVER.

Not Trillian (whose interface and GUI also suck giant cock)
Not Digsby (though they have every other f**king option known to man)
Not Gmail (whose default chat logging capabilities tend to get yours truly in trouble)
And certainly not AOL (oooh, look, you can play games and video chat and be bombarded with ads!!)

Which leads to 3 options:
1.) You can block those annoying fuckers, and face the wrath once they realize you have done so
2.) You can hit the pseudo-hindi eye in the top right corner and go Anti-Social, allowing NO ONE to email you.
3.) Or, you can take the Facbook route and give users NO options whatsoever when they chat... allowing pretty much any of the 1,031 strangers whom you have BEGGED to be your friends to shanghaIM* you with reckless abandon.

this being said, here's a link for those of you still stuck with the shittiness that is AOL to mssg me.**

*ShanghaIM - to message someone while they are IMing another person, this causing Person A to type to YOU what they meant to type to Person B. Hilarity ensues... and by hilarity, I simply mean SOMEONE is going to get pissed off at someone else when all is said and done.

** make sure AOL IM is running when you click the link

Posted by ETL at 10:12 PM | 2 comments  

Labels: Video Games FTW

Posted by ETL at 2:57 PM | 0 comments  

Labels: I have an opinion about everything, your marketing Dept sucks

It just so happens that the newest hire at work (henceforth referred to as Meghan) is a Creative Writing major; and, while her physical appearance seems to be quite androgynous, she is able to hold a converation about more than the Ideal Gas Law or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (which is Quite refreshing for an English major stuck in the mundane world of not-for-profit-science).

While Meghan was shadowing me today, she mentioned something that floored me: Professors in the vast majority of her classes are instructing their students NOT to use adverbs. It is their belief that the use of adverbs can be completely eradicated if a writer simply knows enough adjectives. Being a covert lexophile, I quickly tried to muster up a sentence where an adverb was imperative (without relying on those evil, EVIL adverbial clauses). Having much more training on this, Meghan was able to stifle all challenges (all 3 of them) I was able to throw at her.

But really, after I had time to stop and think about this. My ability--or inability even--to come up with a legitimate case for adverbs doesn't really diminish our NEED for them. Having a wide array of these very PARTS of speech is what makes language, in my not so humble opinion, so enjoyable. I hold the same opinion about expletives. Where's the logic in saying "you're so intelligent, why do you need to use curse words?" Well, because curse words EXIST! And besides, despite the fact that "traverse to the nether regions of Hades you fornicator with a maternal penchant" sounds cool, it's far more succint and effective to simply say "Go to hell, motherfucker." See, not only do I have a command of BOTH sets of words, but I've had fun with them in the meantime. As George Carlin so elegantly put it, "words are all we have really."

So those of you out there who enjoy writing, please continue to use adverbs as prolifically as you please. For that matter, use gerunds, clitics, objective corellatives, and any other literary device that makes your heart content. Too many people today are followers, and we needn't have their ranks start writing.

Posted by ETL at 8:08 PM | 1 comments  

Labels: I have an opinion about everything, I'm a cunning linguist