move

i am moving this shebang over to tumblr. since i'm not really an e-journaler, that site's set-up fits my needs more. so come on over. i promise to update more. i also promise to provide less boring crap about my personal life and more hilarious linkage/photoage/videoage/whatnot.

cut them out

Subways signs changed to forbid cast members of Full House

vio boingboing

a lubricated song-and-dance

this indian music video about the importance of using condoms is maybe the best sex education tool i have ever seen. while the lyrics are great, my favorite part is the condom freestyle dance between verses.

the speech that never was

William Safire, who now does the On Language column for the NY Times, wrote a speech for President Nixon in 1969 in the event that something happened during the Apollo 11 mission to strand the astronauts on the moon.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

(courtesy of kottke.org)

wsj: slang usage sucks

Watch your language

A markets column contained a passage in early editions quoting the CEO of a home builder predicting that 2007 was “going to suck, all 12 months of the calendar year.”

Between editions, the language was mercifully cleaned up. Dictionaries call the verb suck used this way either slang or vulgar slang. We shouldn’t stoop to such usage just because almost everyone else does. If it is uttered in a direct quote by somebody major, the president or the pope, say, that’s another matter. If the source is an ordinary CEO, we might consider including it, but only if a page editor or deputy managing editor approves.

(courtesy of the wall street journal's style and substance)

this dog is awesome

flyer for an awesome dog (courtesy of boingboing)

so begins the links barrage

i realized that i sent a lot of web sites to my friends on slow days at work, and it would be a lot more efficient to post them here. so gird your loins and hide the silver, because you are about to get a lot of really cool links, courtesy of moi.

first up, a blog of comic book panels featuring crotch punches. (courtesy of boingboing)

let's get serious for a moment, shall we?

I'm participating in AIDS Walk Atlanta, a yearly 5k fundraising walkathon that raises funds for AIDS organizations in the metro Atlanta area. These programs provide essential care to men and women in our area who are living with HIV/AIDS. Beneficiaries of the 5k are listed here. The walk takes place Sunday, Oct. 21, and I'm on Creative Loafing's team.

Small donations can do a lot of good, especially if we're all willing to give a little.

Even if you don't make a donation in my name, any money you can throw at this 5K is tax-deductible and will earn you massive good karma points.

my donation site is here.

some things

1. my car was towed on sunday night from an empty parking lot in a strip mall where none of the businesses were open. also, my debit card has gone missing, so i canceled it the day before. two things about towing companies: they are run by people who daily accrue a massive karmic debt, and they only take cash. you can see why, then, my whitehot rage has only just now started to subside.

2. i went to the gym today, and realized that i always park right by the door so i don't have to walk as far. seems a little counterintuitive, but i'll probably keep right on doing it.

3. i went to see nickel creek on friday, and during the concert the guy playing upright bass busted out his clogging skills. my friend emily turned to me and said "wow, i didn't see that clogging coming." does anyone see clogging coming? ever?

don't speak

earlier this week i made my first foray into oral surgery. i underwent a procedure called gum grafting, which entails cutting gum tissue from the roof of my mouth and stitching it to the gum below my front bottom teeth. (i had an overzealous orthodonist, and long story short, i have receding gums, so this was a totally necessary surgery).

the end result will be delightful, but for the moment my mouth is a war zone. i have stitches on the bottom half my mouth, and i have a clear plastic retainer that i have to wear for the next few days to protect the wounds on the roof of my mouth. this means i can't eat solid food (boo)or talk (double boo!). i dearly love both of those things, so you can imagine the hardship. also, my face is swollen and i think i kind of look like rumer willis. so for the next two weeks, if i seem irritable, it's probably because i am.

but in better news, i got a new job! one that i'm really excited about! one that in no way involves working for a rag run by a classist old white bigot! in two weeks, ill be a page designer for creative loafing, inc., and i couldnt be more pumped. i don't think i've ever worked for a publication for whom i'm also the target audience, so i think i can bring a lot to the position.

i'm sort of nervous, too, because i'm going to be working with actual designers instead of copy editors who paginate on the side, but i'm thrilled to be working alongside people who know a thing or two about design. i always learn best by observation, so this is a perfect opportunity for me to learn more and eventually take over the world.

this new employment development, paired with the ton of freelance i've been doing lately, has kept me pretty busy, but that's when i'm happiest anyhow. i'm also trying to take some improv classes in the next month or so, which means i'll probably stay busy. good thing i'm into all that.

a text message conversation

adam (my friend who lives in nyc): i just passed joanna gleason on the street

me: i just drove past a hardees

adam: doesn't compare

me: f you, frisco burgers are awesome

adam: dude (she was) the bakers wife

me: dude chicken nuggets shaped like stars

adam: omg they do that now

today, in jay mccarroll

as a pretty intense fan of project runway, i found this new york magazine article really interesting. i love jay! why oh why does success still elude him? give the man a talk show. i'd watch.

most terrifying web ad ever?

also

i watch a lot of 'scrubs,' because it's on when i get home from work and because donald faison and john c. mcginley are hilarious. by the time the show is over, i'm usually checking e-mail or something in my room, so i end up listening to the first few minutes of 'becker' before i remember that 'becker' sucks harder than a prostitute comprised of black holes and turn off the television.

now for something kinda different.

one of the comic strips we run at work, funky winkerbean, is AWFUL. when it tried to be funny, it fails. when it tries to (incredibly heavyhandedly) talk about The Issues Facing Teens Today, it fails. yet we run it, because old white men apparently looooove their crappy comics. but almost once a day one of the hip kids on the copy desk makes a crack about how awful the strip is. for a while, to have someone annoy you about something stupid was to be 'funky winkerbeaned.'

anywho, tonight i realized that 'becker' is the funky winkerbean of syndicated sitcoms.

things you can do when you live alone

it's only week 3 or so of the living by myself experiment, but right now i give the whole experience two thumbs up, way up. some of the perks are pretty obvious. (when i wash dishes, they stay clean!) others emerge after short bursts of contemplation. i don't remember which method of discovery contributed to the pantslessness that i am currently enjoying, but oh boy is it nice.

i'm easing into it slowly -- watching tv without pants, washing dishes without pants -- but i want to go bigger. making eggplant parmesan without pants. making appointments via telephone without pants. wearing pants without pants (DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MIND?!?)

i like fonts.

as you've probably gathered, i'm a bit of a font nerd. i think part of it stems from my early designing days. i wasn't really good enough to design intricate, complex layouts like some people i know, so the tiny building blocks of design were front and center for me. i could grasp typography. i could explain why the italic ampersand in garamond looks so damn cool.

my friend mack recently sent me a poll on slate.com of writers responding to this question: what is your favorite font, and why.

surprisingly (to me, at least), a lot of people went with courier. the rationale is that they use it every day in manuscripts. a couple went with staples like times new roman and palatino, and one courageous soul named hoefler text as the best font of all the fonts.

i recently queried the brain trust on which fonts they liked most. here's what the people who actually replied had to say:

Katie Tanner (friend, former co-worker): I've been using Tahoma a lot as a sans serif. I liked Gill Sans and Hoefler Text. Specifically, I love the swirly font Jose uses for mini review bylines in Paste: Hoefler Text-Swash italic.

Katie Davis (friend, former co-worker and pirate): didot italic. (i know, shocker.) i like its architecture, and its subtle serifs. and it made an omelet for me one time. with cheese and bell peppers. and bacon. and class.

Becky Snowden (friend, former co-worker, animal whisperer): Selfish and Porcelain but now it's EVERYWHERE... well porcelain is. It really depends on what it's for. LOVE cochin. Dang there's a font I'm really loving but it's on my comp at work...

Marilyn Cole (friend, computer science goddess): I really like plain ol' monospace these days. I'm always in terminal mode, with white text on black screen, and you need one of those for
coding. I do remember being a kid and seeing things like Courier and
thinking, why would anyone pick such an overtly ugly font?

Monospace is sweet, though. I also like Computer Modern, which is the
LaTeX font that Knuth (a computer science god) designed with vector
math.

And back when I was less dorky (?) I liked Garamond best for serif, and
Verdana best without.

Thorough enough analysis for your taste? I could go on.

Brandon Reynolds (friend, former roommate, owner of a fatass cat): Brandon:arial

me: mmk

why?

1:47 AM Brandon: i think it has many uses

it looks good at any size

me: that's what she said!

hioooo

as for me, i'm a fan of the futura family and bodoni lately, if only because those are two of the nicer fonts available to me at work.

least favorite font? comic sans, a hundred times comic sans. make the madness stop.

what are your favorite fonts? (and karen, i bet i can guess your's.)

mama has hit the big time

a blog about cheese linked to an article full of fake 2006 new year's predictions that my friend katie and i made way back in the day for my old newspaper. (i realize that was a very convoluted sentence, and i'm sorry, but i'm so EXCITED.)

everyone wants a shot of paris

how the mighty have fallen.

on shaving in small spaces

the shower in my new place is tiny, like dorm-bathroom tiny. it is WEE. there's no tub, and the shower itself is so small that i barely have room to rotate, much less shave my legs.

as i contorted myself tonight, i noticed myelf employing various yoga poses in an awkward attempt to make myself all smooth and pretty-like. there's this one move where you stand on one leg and put your other foot by your knee -- i have no idea what it's called, and in the end result you look like an epileptic crane, so i'll call it the epileptic crane -- and that's pretty much the only way the back of my knee is touching razor. other showertime-yoga favorites are the trapped bear and the bleeding swan.

it's uncanny

mural, originally uploaded by brookage.

side-by-side comparison of butthead and andrew jackson as seen on a mural in our office