A PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE

I'm going to open with a bit of site news.  For those of you who are unaware this little site, much like the awesomeness that was Better Off Ted, is a bit of a secret to most of the world. Or at least it was.  I know this will come as a bit of a disappointment to the few of you who came here on your own for nothing more than the sarcastic nectar flowing from my fingers (Disclaimer: This site is run by a professional, if you're leaking sarcasm nectar or maintain sarcasm for more than four hours you should consult your physician as it could result in long-term damage to personal relationships and wallets.), but blog traffic has increased several hundred fold in recent weeks. While I wish I could credit this to a sudden rise in the IQ of people with internet access, or at least good taste, I'm afraid the truth is it's all thanks to Lindsey Vonn.  You see, in my story about Ms. Vonn, I happened to link to several pictures of her in various states of swim preparedness.  These links apparently pop up in Google searches I don't know how many of you are reading this now, but whichever of you are, please, trust me on this; I'm better than porn, well, unless it's good porn.

In other news the network administrator at my office has seen fit to block Gmail's chat feature.  Now, those of you who have committed my blog entries to memory (it's all about the mnemonic devices people) are well aware that my favorite Newtonian Rule (what like you don't have one?) is the Third Law of Motion; To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. At this point I'm sure you're wondering why I chose the law of reciprocal actions when everyone knows all the money and women are in the second law. I'll tell you why, because the third law explains the fundamental concepts in interpersonal relationships, You paid me a compliment, I remember you fondly.  You buy me a birthday present, I buy you one, You launch a nuclear warhead at my country, I launch one at yours. It's what keeps us safe and sane.  Accordingly, the actions of my network administrator require a proportional response on my part.  I imagine they expected that the result of their action would be more work on my part, but they failed to understand Newton, you see, the rule is equal and opposite.  Opposite.  Well, vengeance shall be mine.  Let physics reign!

Interesting trivia fact for the day: Pumpernickel means 'Devil's flatulence' in German. Which is odd, because you wouldn't think the devil would have trouble with digestion.

WOULD THAT THEY WERE

Have you ever found yourself halfway through a thought - a well reasoned, eloquently phrased gem of a bon mot - only to find yourself suddenly stunted in your narrative progress by the vagaries and caprice of grammatical chance?  If you are at all like me, you are very lucky.  You are also likely to have similarly suffered.  I speak today of words that are not words.

I pride myself on being a man of logic (unless of course logic isn't on my side, in which case I consider myself a man of passion, unless that isn't on my side either, in which case I consider myself a man of action, to wit: agree with me or I'll act upon your face) and if a logical progression leads me down a road, I expect language to follow along with me.  Sometimes, however, English decides that it isn't flexible, like a GPS that won't give you an alternate route (You know what, maybe I don't want to take the Belt Parkway, did you think of that smarty pants? Huh? Maybe I had a bad experience with it and would feel safer taking the BQE.  I'll bet youe little micro-chip didn't think of that did it TomTom. And really, why should I take advice from the only thing with a dumber name than BillyBob anyway. At least BillyBob's two different words, you just sound like your toaster parents were stutterers, or really indecisive.  We'll call him, Tom... Tom, yes definitely Tom, Tom it is.).  Anyway, my point is,  perhaps you find yourself telling a good story, and like any good storyteller, you want to make use of a rhetorical device or two, for example floating opposites. So you start your snide comment about your date the other night and you know you're going to nail the [gender neutral] for being a talkative bore so you start with "Well, [gender neutral] was overly chatty, but..." and just as your about to lower the boom, you realize that while English gave you "overly" it didn't see fit to bless you with it's antonym "underly". And so, instead of you being the sarcastic genius skewering your date, you're the kebab.

So yeah, that sucks.