Pot calling the kettle a cooking utensil

I never intended this site to be one that would be filled with posts that lambast and roast famous people. I thought that would debase the material to the same level as a tabloid. Then I re-thought the issue and realised that I never intended for much journalistic integrity in the first place. I do promise, for now, that I will not fill the blog with posts about idiot celebrities. Take for instance how I've left that odd man Michael Jackson and his myriad issues alone.

Well, there's another odd, little man in Hollywood too and he deserves some negative attention. His name is: Tom Cruise.

So anyway, this smiling poster child of the Scientology movement has gotten into some negative press lately with a few recent interviews. I don't think I'll ever forget the comment: ". . . put your manners back in . . ." Classy stuff, that.

Well, in a recent interview he apparently called psychiatry a "pseudo-science." Apparently the medical study of the brain and its functions is not something real to this man. Yet that's not my biggest gripe. It's the comment itself, and his own beliefs, that made me laugh to myself. Cruise would have you believe that while psychiatry is fake, Scientology is a real solution to mental problems.

Uh huh. I see.

I'll let you come to your own conclusions on this one. To read an article about the interview, click on this link.

I have my own opinions

Your call has been placed in a que

A friend of mine, knowing my love of asinine articles and ridiculous stories heavily laced with irony, sent me this article. Apparently even those in need will have to wait for the next available representative.

Medical Marvels!

Do you remember playing with the "Mr. Potato Head" toy? Perhaps you even recall the joy and fascination with this brown, blobule shaped doll in that you could tack on and remove a variety of facial appendages and features. So, in that light of thinking, here's something to consider:

-Imagine how much fun it would be if you could take off and put back on various sticky-out bits of your face, perhaps swap your ears for dog ears one day or change a nose for one like a koala. The combinations are endless, as you see.

Well it seems that medicine has caught up with this possibility . . . sort of. No, I'm not talking about Michael Jackson, either. Apparently a woman in the U.K., after having plastic surgery, discovered that she could do something (sort of) similar to that of good old "Mr. Potato Head."

Check out the news article here

Now that just sounds odd

English is an odd, hybrid language; think of it as the mutt of the Germanic root languages. We categorise it as a Germanic tongue but it also has tons of influence from Romance languages such as Latin and French as well as Greek. This all might explain why the language is so difficult to master; just because you can speak it coherently doesn't mean that all of the nuiances of the language have been learned. I'm not claiming to have done this by any leap of the imagination. But anyway . . . This mutt-like aspect of the language might also explain why we have some very odd words. I've got a few, in particular, that are monosyllabic and sound rather odd when said alone and/or many times in succession.
Take for instance these two: then, than
Yes, o.k. so they seem normal enough now. Try saying them by themselves several times over. It starts sounding odd . . .
Here's another: got
That word, when said alone and many times over starts to sound quite disgusting. Imagine something sort of like a mix between a clot and a glop.

If you skim through the dictionary you'll run across polysyllabic words that are rather funky in their own right. Here's one a friend of mine found:

defenestration: the act of placing or throwing, in a forceful manner, something through or out a window

That's one of those "can you believe there's a word for that" kind of things. The word doesn't work very well as a threat either: "Shut up or I'll defenestrate you!"
Hmm . . . odd sounding as well . . . sort of like a mix between defecate and castrate . . . oh, don't worry I won't go into any detail about that one.

Today in History 14th of June

Here's another nifty factoid . . . something to satisfy my keen hunger for useless trivia:

-14th June 1983: NASA has a crowning moment of glory as the un-manned survelance spacecraft Pioneer 10 leaves the solar system. This is the first man-made object to leave the local neighborhood, so to speak. Before it pulled a runner on us Pioneer 10 sent back some excellent photos of Jupiter, among other things.

English is dead, long live English

As some of you might know, I originally trained as a teacher . . . a highschool English teacher to be exact. I never thought of myself as a grammar police type of person; that is until now. Before I go into my rant I would like to placate a particular argument that may be used against this aforementioned rant. All languages do, indeed, evolve and mutate (for want of a better word) into newer forms as new linguistic elements are introduced from new population groups. I accept that as a given. I do not accept what I call "language-laziness" or "I-can't-be-bothered" syndrome. This apathy is rather contagious and has become increasingly prevalent with each passing year. My main sticking point for today is the use of the grammarl and syntax structure known in colloquial terms as "apostrophe es" or ___ 's ____ .
So now, do you remember what you were told way back in grammar school about this particular structure? It has one main function:
to show ownership
This funky little doo-dad is tacked on at the end of a noun, noun phrase, or other noun-like structure to show that the particular noun has ownership of the following subject. For instance:
This is John's bicycle.
The __'s__ lets us know that John is in ownership of the bicycle.
But, as with all things in English, there is an exception to the rule. If this thingy is tacked onto a third-person noun or nearly anything else other than a first or second person noun then it changes its meaning to: hey, I represent something that's been dropped off and in this case it happens to be an "i" as in the word "is."
Case in point: it's -> it is (not ownership!)
Case #2 in point: there's -> there is (definitely not ownership, just imagine the word "there" owning something)

So, with that boring stuff in mind lets get to an example seen in an advertisement:
(names of proper nouns have been changed to keep from embarrassing such tender sensibilities)

"Coffee Company's new line of tasty drinks are now on your grocer's shelves! Try new coffees, mocha's and cappucino's . . .!"

Uh huh, see the problem? There's a plethora of __'s___ in the advert. and most of them are used properly. But, oh dear reader, what the hell does the mocha and cappucino have possession of? Do these drinks suddenly possess the drinker as soon as they are consumed?

I think not.

A denizen of this strange world of ours

I'm a big fan of the paranormal, supernatural and all things related. I'm also a big fan of Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia with heaps of articles on nearly everything. Take this for example . . . while I was reading an article on a supernatural creature sighting of the "Mothman" I ran across an interesting article on a person/creature called "Spring Heeled Jack." Not being British I had never heard of this, uh, thing before. Like scores of people before me I have become rather interested in the story and the myth. If you would like to read the article on "Spring Heeled Jack" the link is here.

If you run across anything that is of a similar sort to the article, on some paranormal or supernatural event or creature, feel free to e-mail it to me.