Somebody over at Testy Copy Editors asked what people thought of capitalizing “spring break.” My favorite response: Bu-Gal is being asked to treat spring break as if it’s fuckin’ Ramadan. I empower her to hurl a dictionary in protest. Blanp…
Author: tom
Garage sale survivor stories
Jeff of Side Salad had a garage sale over the weekend. His take on loss-leader marketing: She came flying up in her compact car, got out and, with laser directness, went right for this frame with four $1 bills in…
Wasn’t every boy’s life like this?
Mondo Winkie on viola lessons: As the afternoon sun crept in through the giant windows, I would rockingly transform from a 9-year-old trying to figure out “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into Gene Simmons, jumping around the living room jamming…
Bail, bond, etc.
See Nicole’s refresher.
Now here’s some welcome news
Reuters is hiring reporters in India to cover American companies. Can moving the copy desk offshore be far behind?
Bit of a new look
Scott Shepler, the artist who crafted my page banner art, filled in some colors and made a few nips and tucks here and there. He sent me a new version this morning. You know you’re not really getting art unless…
Why They Hate Us Part 973
So the other day I’m at the workout room doing my Stairmaster thing and the TV’s got CNN or some other channel on, and they keep playing the surveillance camera footage of the 11-year-old girl being abducted. Now her body’s…
Banned for Life update
It’s been ages since I updated the Banned for Life list, but I got a good one this morning that inspired me to post further updates here: This one makes her puke: I didn’t see “choked to death on his…
Coming clean on open records
Doug Clifton writes about the Plain Dealer’s battles to keep records open and meetings open. Doug’s an editor-in-chief so he isn’t really allowed to speak in the plain language the rest of us enjoy in vast wastes of the blogosphere.…
True tales from Bill Clinton’s court jester
Clinton had a humorist on staff, who wrote of his experiences in this Washington Monthly article. I took for granted that the endgame of these ritual humor dinners was to ingratiate oneself to the audience–in this case, the press–and that…