Stamping Out Quotation Mark Abuse

My good friend and former roommate Josh sent me this article on correct and (most importantly) INCORRECT use of quotation marks. Most of my friends, family, and colleagues have heard me go off on my rants about the sloppy, lazy, irritating, and fundamentally wrong ways people (ab)use quotation marks. That includes, of course, the dreaded air quotes. This trend is my biggest grammatical pet peeve, which is saying a lot. The author of this article links to a couple of amusing blogs devoted to exposing the horror.

The burning hatred for this phenomenon was sparked by my 10th grade history teacher yelling at our class for writing about the "American Dream" in our papers. I think he even threatened to dock us points for using quotation marks in that manner. By the time I got to college and declared my English major, I dare say I equaled his passion.

In tribute, this one's for you, Tom Pearce.

NOTE: I tried to be funny by using quotation marks around the header for this post, but my fingers wouldn't let me do it. It's just that wrong.

25 Things

The latest Facebook craze (or maybe chain letter is the apt description) is posting a note with 25 random things about yourself. It's narcissistic, I admit, but it also makes for some humorous and sometimes shocking reading when the friends you tag in the note complete a list for themselves. Below are some statements I liked/laughed at/was surprised by from assorted friends' notes and my own. Well, I suppose I didn't exactly surprise myself with my own factoid that's on this list...but you get the point.

The Oxford comma is the bane of my existence. Don't use it! Make it go away!

When I was eight years old, I rode my bike down a hill and directly into a lake, by accident. I have no idea why I didn't stop. I walked my bike home, crying, soaking wet and smelling like fish. Good thing the lake was close to home.

The second marathon I ran was 26.5 miles long. There was a fire early in the morning on the day of the race, and the event's organizers had to re-route the course at the last minute. The race ended up being longer than it should have been. I was slightly annoyed when I found that out. 26.2 miles is long enough, thank you very much!

When I was 14 or so, I had 278 pictures- of all sizes- of Rick Springfield covering my bedroom walls.

I speak Swedish. And a lot of good it does me. 9 million Swedes in the world and 8 million of them speak English better than I do.

My sister caught my car on fire. I caught a college roommate’s car on fire. Both were accidents. But they’re both decent stories.

When I was a little over a year old, I drank kerosene and had to go to the ER.

I can twirl a toothpick vertically in my mouth. I don’t advocate you trying this, you can get hurt.

Obama: He Completes Us

I posted this Daily Show clip on Facebook back when it came out last August, just after Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination. Given the crazy fanfare of last week's inaugural festivities, I thought it deserved another viewing. Remember back in August when we thought perhaps Obamania had calmed down now that he had finally beaten Hillary? What sweet little naiive children we were. This send-up applied to last week just as much as it did to last fall, if not more so.

All jokes aside, it's the most exciting time of all NOW. It's the CIIIIIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIIFE.

Be sure you watch to the end. The last shot's the best.

Liberal Trends

Below is an excerpt from a Chronicle of Higher Education article on the increasingly liberal views of college freshmen. Here's the link to the article, though you have to have a subscription to view it. The increase in percent of students who support same sex marriage and higher taxes for the wealthy makes me excited about this generation of college students and what they will do for this country as they grow older and take on leadership roles. Not that I'm on a crusade to make all college students liberal (calm down, David Horowitz), but I am excited to see the shift in thinking on what I consider vital social issues! Now if we could get that percent who support decreased military spending back up again...

The data comes from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, an entity I very much respect and would like to work for someday.

This year, 31 percent of freshmen identified themselves as liberal, the highest level since 1973, while 23 percent called themselves conservatives. The percentage who described their political views as middle-of-the-road hit an all-time low of 43 percent.

The survey also revealed students’ views of several hot-button issues. For instance, 66 percent of freshmen said they supported marriage rights for same-sex couples, while 60.4 percent said they believed wealthy Americans should pay more taxes than they do now. An increasing proportion (41.3 percent) said they support the legalization of marijuana, while a decreasing proportion (28 percent) favored increases in military spending, down from a high of 45 percent in 2002.

Greatest Condiment Ever

Wow. There are really no words. Well, just one word: baconnaise.

This showed up on my facebook ads...I'm not really sure what that says about the content of my profile. I'm fairly certain there aren't any references to condiments. Maybe the interwebs somehow knew that I bought Mark these bacon flavored toothpicks when I was in Austin last week.

Idol's Best

To celebrate the return of American Idol, here's a list of the top 16 best performances of all time according to Entertainment Weekly (including video clips, sweet). As a loyal viewer since the Kelly Clarkson days, I think this is a pretty good list. I'd argue that Carrie Underwood's cover of "Alone" should be higher on the list, and I would have chosen "Eleanor Rigby" for David Cook instead of "Billie Jean." David Archuleta singing "Imagine" still gives me chills. I was hoping to see Tamyra Gray on there, as she is one of my faves, but she was so long ago in Season One that I can't even name one of her great performances (though I do remember clearly that she butchered the already lame "New Attitude" and got the boot for it).

Worse than a Snuggie?

I didn't think anything could possibly be more ridiculous than a Snuggie, but these Jumpin Jammerz may qualify. The patterns and the drop-seat option push them over the line and into first place. A good laugh for a Tuesday. I'm sure all the adults modeling the outfits on the Web site have officially killed their already dying careers in fashion.

Thanks to Lauren's blog for alerting me to this um, phenomenon. Lauren, did you seriously order one?? HAHAHA.

IDK my BFF Jill?

Wow. I knew this generation of high schoolers and college students were text-message obsessed, but this girl should probably be in the Guinness book: 14, 528 texts in a month. On a chatty month, I will use 150 of my 450 allotted messages, but I usually don't even break 100. I don't know if I should feel really really lame or really really cool because of that.

Thanks to Suber for this article.

Man Vs Food

I'm conviced that The Travel Channel does food shows better than Food Network. Be ashamed, Food Network, be very ashamed. Oh, and get rid of that Guy Fieri guy and his 8th grade boy hairdo...I'd watch "Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives" much more often if you got a new host.

On Wednesday nights at 10:00, following the drool including "Food Paradise" that I blogged about a while back, is a new show called "Man Vs. Food." The host, Adam Richman, is an energetic and funny everyman who has an impressive apetite. He comes off as slightly too eager verging on annoying in the commercials for the show, but when you watch the show he's hard not to like. Each show he visits a different city to try three restaurants, the third of which always has a daunting eating challenge. Richman is batting better than .500 on challenge completion by now, or at least from the shows that I've seen. Part of what makes the show so entertaining are the funny restaurant patrons who team with him or compete against him on the challenges to varying degrees of success. The most amusing part is when they inevitably start to get the meat sweats.

"The Word" on Statute of Limitations

During the height of the election season, I thought "The Daily Show" was much funnier and sharper than "The Colbert Report." I think Colbert's making a comeback now, however, with gems like this edition of his segment "The Word." The link is to the entire show, but that segment runs from about 6:40 to 11:04. Deadpan as usual, Colbert brings to light some ridiculous and unjust uses of the statute of limitations laws surrounding discrimination cases (his character, of course, supports the Supreme Court's idiotic reasoning in the cases). Here's hoping for some changes in those laws once Obama takes office...

Amazing Family Portraits

Awe-inspiring family and individual portraits from the last few decades, complete with witty captions, courtesy of Olan Mills, Sears, and so on. Note: by "family" I do not mean these pictures are of MY family, thank goodness. My siblings and I definitely have taken many dozen Olan Mills photos between us, but lucky for us my parents opted out of the cheesy fake backgrounds (and the mullets). I do believe we have one of our whole family wearing matching denim shirts, though...egad.

Good find, John.

Toad the Wet Sprocket Revisited

Thanks to Pandora internet radio, which gets me through the week at work, I have rediscovered how much I like Toad the Wet Sprocket. They keep coming up on a station I created based around R.E.M.'s music, and I like every song I hear. Lots of flashbacks to listening to 99X (and feeling really cool about it) on the way to school when I was younger. "Good Intentions" is probably my fave, though I also like "All I Want" and "Walk On the Ocean." The video for "Good Intentions" that I linked to is kind of fun...I think I like it so much because it reminds me of Peter Gabriel's video for "Sledgehammer" but is considerably less epileptic. Not nearly as good though, because of course you can't beat the dancing plucked chickens in the latter.

Ahhhh, memories.

Puerto Riiiiiiiico!

Due to paying back school loans and the generally humble salary of an entry level student affairs professional, I have not been on a vacation since my wonderful trip to France back in 2006 (minus a short jaunt to Myrtle Beach). Buuuuuuut...I am finally escaping in March to Puerto Rico with the Kate!!! I have never been to the Caribbean and I cannot WAIT to get there. Pictured is the island of Vieques where we plan to spend most of our week. Start the countdown!!

Doggonnit, 2009...

From Scott Adams' (creator of Dilbert) blog: a decidedly unpleasant way to wake up on New Year's morning. Yet another reason NOT to let dogs sleep in the bed...gotta preserve that final frontier.

Prudie in Review

For the "Dear Prudence" fans out there, here's a year end review of her advice columns that were the most applauded and most protested. Gotta love the thoughtful male responses on rationalism versus emotional intelligence (near the top of the page).

Twilight (Finally)

I have been resisting the urge to begin reading the Twilight series because a) I had heard they are gratingly anti-feminist with all the damsel-in-distress-needing-male-protection themes and b) I suspected I would adore them nonetheless and not want to do anything but devour (ha) all four books in a row. Hypotheses "a" proved fairly correct, but hypothesis "b" ultimately is triumphing. I read the first one in two days then decided to read something else in between to kind of tease (torture) myself, and now I'm halfway through New Moon. Yes, the books are teenager-y in their melodrama, pretty anti-feminist, blah blah...they are also entirely absorbing and entertaining. Stephenie Meyer can write a damn good cliffhanger chapter ending; she also captures the intense moods of a teenage girl with pretty perfect accuracy. I heard an acquaintance gush that this series is better than Harry Potter, but I won't go nearly that far. The Twilight books are equally addictive and suspenseful, but they don't have nearly the same heart or epic scope. Then again, I'm only halfway into book two...