Monthly Archives: July 2010

Jul 29 2010

Directors who don’t care

I used to think I was the only one who watched films and then smacked my forehead while saying "hey, that's not even CLOSE to being right – why don't they ever ASK somebody"!  It turns out that I'm not the only one.  Ok, so Neil deGrasse Tyson is an uber-geek, but still, I feel I'm in good company. Besides, he's a pretty funny guy. Here are his comments on film:

http://www.wimp.com/sciencefiction/

The most annoying part about this for me is when directors make simple mistakes.  I'm willing to gloss over (usually without even a comment to those around me) errors which are really specialized and would only be recognized by a small select group.  However, I find it hard to sit still when the employment of a grade-school level advisor would have markedly improved the accuracy of the film.

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Jul 23 2010

Gift is not a verb

Really, it's not, even though some weenie dictionaries have now added it as such to pacify people who insist on "verbifying" it. (sorry)

You give someone a gift.  You don't "gift them".

You receive a gift.  You weren't "gifted" (but perhaps if you insist that you are, then you are gifted in a different way… Ahem)

A present is given to somebody for an occasion.  It's not "gifted".

Now some may claim that the english language is a moving, evolving thing.  If we're going that way, then I propose:

"chairing" – a new term meaning to be seated in a chair

"caring" – driving somewhere in a car (yes, this may cause confusion with showing care, but the language is evolving – get over it)

"webbing"  – surfing the world wide web

"inaning" – wasting your time reading my dumb posts

Jul 20 2010

Quotes I saw and liked

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Give him a fishing lesson and he'll sit in a boat drinking beer every weekend. – Alex Blackwell

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. – William A. Ward

Jul 12 2010

Barefoot Bandit Captured

The “barefoot bandit” was finally captured after 2 years of thumbing his nose at authorities.

http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2010/100712bandit.html

This is a 19 year old kid who escaped from a halfway house, and went on a burglarizing, stealing rampage for 2 years. It’s amazing he was able to elude police for all that time. Also, he seemed to really enjoy the notoriety as he’d leave clues (like chalk drawn footprints on the floor) when he broke in to some place. The guy is obviously pretty disturbed, and seemed almost like he wanted to be caught.

The thing that is most disturbing to me is that he has a “cult following” on Facebook, numbering in the thousands. These Mensa candidates post things like “Free the bandit”, and so forth. Um… Why? The guy is a criminal. If anybody else did any one of his crimes, we’d all say “sure, lock him up” without hesitation. How is this guy any different? It’s incredible to me that a fairly large segment of our society is willing to root for this loser, and propose that he should be allowed to do the things he does without penalty. There’s apparently a lot of brain-damage going around.

Jul 8 2010

The latest in sanitizer marketing madness

Here’s the latest in the sanitizer marketing series: Lysol’s “no touch” soap dispenser.

Yay! Another product nobody needs! Now they claim that soap dispensers have germs all over the pump handle. Oh nooooo! Now we’ve got to sanitize the sanitizer products! Whatever will we do – life on this planet is doomed for sure. As PT Barnum once said, and is sadly so true: “There’s a sucker born every minute”