No [See]

Elizabeth Rose broke the "see" button on the laptop. I have no [see]. That la[see]k is a serious dis[see]ouragement to email-writing and blogging. But not enough of one to prompt me to buy a new laptop. Not even [see]lose.

That's the main reason I haven't posted in three months. For instan[see]e, I really want to blog about signing Mom up for [See]lear, the Wi-Max internet provider. But how {see]an I write about that without persistent use of the broken letter?

So my thoughts turn to the blog-able phone: as before I was obsessed with getting a portable gaming-thing (DS) and later an Xbox, now my obsession has fo[see]used on smartphones (namely, the G1, iPhone, and Pre).

Already you [see]an see how irritating it is to work without the [see] key. So I'll stop.

Damn You, DFW!

Wednesday morning over cereal I was staring at my bookcase and thinking, "Can't wait for David Foster Wallace's next novel." The last one was Infinite Jest, the best novel of the 21st century that was published in the 20th century. I love that book unconditionally. It is mind-blowing. Reading it makes you smarter and better. But it's been a pretty long time since Infinite Jest (13 years now), and his other novel, The Broom of the System, is not so good. I've contented myself with his essays (awesome) and short stories (very good, occasionally extraordinary). His is a voice that makes an intense direct connection to me and people like me.

Or I should say, "His was a voice...," because David Foster Wallace killed himself yesterday. He was 46.

So Nerdy It's Painful

I'm something of a nerd myself: former D&D player (complete with subscription to Dragon magazine!); video game connoisseur; blogger. But this bumper sticker/t-shirt/dice-bag-embroidery, is so cringe-inducing I want to track down whoever foisted it on the world and smack them upside the head with my +2 baseball bat.

I saw it today on an otherwise normal-looking Honda Civic and had to wonder for the 100th time who would a) pay money for this nerdy, unfunny aphorism; and, b) adhere it to their car to proclaim their complete misunderstanding of the concept of humor.

Let's analyze this phrase. "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons" -- sound enough advice, I suppose. Dragons are massive, fire-breathing monsters. Their lairs are boneyards, strewn with the picked-clean remains of those who have meddled. Most people in a world with dragons would not need to be advised not to meddle, any more than you or I need to be told not to meddle in the affairs of grizzly bears, or chainsaw-wielding serial killers.

"For you are crunchy" -- are humans crunchy? I mean, we have bones and all... but crunchy? Would you describe a pig as crunchy? A hippo? I guess one could argue that dragons are big enough to eat humans whole, in which case we'd be crunchy in the same way that a game hen is.

"And taste good with ketchup" -- this is what seals the awful deal. A dragon with a bottle of Heinz 57 on top of its treasure pile? For God's sake, dragons are cool! Ancient, wise, fierce, gold-hoarding, nearly-unstoppable killing machines that breathe fire and fly! But a dragon crunching on a knight or hobbit after drenching it in tomato ketchup is stupid and uncool and the inclusion of that image makes this the worst bumper sticker in human history.

Every time I think about it, I want to switch sides and become a bully.

Neologisms a la Mark

When Mark was here in Portland last year I exposed him to Aaron's and my Band Name Project. Over the course of a few years Aaron and I had come up with 700 band names. Mark started generating band names and then couldn't stop. One night of sleeplessness led to hundreds of names -- from great to not great. I'll try to dig up some examples, as I still have his notes somewhere.

Recently he got a forwarded email (not from me!) about a new word contest and his dynamo started spinning so fast it was throwing sparks and issuing smoke. With the following results (and more to come, no doubt):

1) Conflatulations (conflats, for short): saying
"nice one" or "good one" after someone breaks
wind.
2) Cereabral: having fruit loops for brains.
3) Constheorasy : a conspiracy theory.
4) Somerfaulting : making mistakes over and over agin.
5) Nutrilicious: both nutricious and delicious.
6) Sinistair: dangerous stairs.
7) Superfiscal: a minor money mistake.
8) Superspicious: suspicious for no real reason.
9) Regurgitaste: tasting like vomit. The taste of vomit.
The taste when you throw up a little in your mouth
while belching.
10) Terrorfied: scared of terror.
11) Hearesay: unsubstantiated testimony contrary to
church doctrine.
12) Hip-Slop: the fashion of Hip-Hop.
13) Vomic: a comic or comedian so bad they make you
nauseous.
14) Diaryhea: uncontrollable or non-stop journal
writing.
15) Dignifried: wasted (as on drugs or alcohol) and proud
of it.
16) Pursepiration: the immediate uncontrollable panic
reaction of one who thinks they have lost their purse
or wallet.
17) Asstorrhoid: a very large hemorrhoid.
18) Peniscuos: men who are unable to "keep it in their
pants".
19) Bladderuption: when you just CAN'T hold it any more.
20) Legalify: not quite the same as legalize.Claiming or
acting as if something illegal is legal. EXAMPLE:The
President can legalify anything using truthiness.

Blogcheating

As I get deeper into this cyberlife, I'm finding myself torn between online communities. Example: I wrote a review tonight of David Mamet's execrable Things Change on NetFlix, mainly because some new friends had joined my NetFlix community (shout out to Alder and Anson!) and I wanted my presence to be known. But then I thought: "I should post this review on my blog!" But it was too late. I had submitted it to NetFlix, which may not post it for two business days. Apparently, someone actually reads the things. The point being, is it somehow cheating if I copy my review from NetFlix and post it here as new content (which is precisely what I did with the Rescue Dawn review, below)?

Words

Words of today: ogive, ogee, inculpate, abnegate, abrogate, arrogate, and transhumance.

Abnegate, abrogate, and arrogate, obviously, are pretty easily confused words. And because they have more common synonyms, they're even easier to neglect, and therefore confuse, and possibly misuse. Ogive I was looking up because of Keegan's A History of Warfare (he uses "ogival" to describe the shape of the compound bow with which the horse people of the steppes conquered the known world over and over), and ran into ogee as a synonym.

I like collecting words, but if one doesn't use them regularly, they are tough to commit to memory. And if one uses abnegate and inculpate in a sentence instead of renounce and incriminate, one is likely to get a confused stare or a punch in the head.