Monday, December 23, 2019

I just saw a picture of Dak Prescott for the first time. I don't know what he thought he looked like but my first thought was , Wow, he looks nothing like I thought he would.

Friday, December 20, 2019

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Wednesday's Digressions



  • A waitress at my breakfast place tried to steal my change recently. It was so obvious and so clumsy- even the dishwasher backed me up on it by saying to her, Nope- he gave you 13 bucks. For dramatic effect he rolled his eyes and shook his head. He might as well have said, Chick, you are so busted. Weird effect of generally not expecting too much of people is when they do disappoint me- it sometimes seems to hit me hard. I hope it was worth it for her.
  • Cops are everywhere and everything is illegal these days.
  • Although it did not happen up there I almost always misspell these as theses.
  • My Asian place is in trouble so they raised their ( already kinda high for what they offer) prices which causes people to stop going which makes them get deeper in trouble...
  • Zac has taken an interest in writing.
  • Huge shout out to the universe for the coincidental breakdown in my FlexPay account, my son's dental insurance being randomly canceled (which we found out at an appointment) and my being unable to log in to my retirement system and everything else that's happened recently to let me know-  leaving this toxic dump is the correct decision.
  • Update to the breakfast place issue. I recently went back in there a few times. Most of the regulars are gone or hardly ever there. One or two of them actually come in and drink coffee- that they brought in from home and don't order any food. I do not know what is going on there but I am oddly glad to know it isn't me.
  • PS: Again, I don't think it is just me as that place even has a weird vibe. It feels weirdly tense.
  • I think it is cool President Obama made the American bison the nations first national mammal.

Thursday, December 5, 2019

worst prose

While the sentence isn’t really an example of bad writing, it has come to be the poster phrase for an annual contest sponsored by San Jose State University’s English Department. The contest is to write the most deliberately awful prose. Past winners include this sentence by Jim Guigli of Carmichael, California:

“Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.”