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Hello World,


Happy March! Of course, it may appear to the untrained observer, that not much happens in the beginning of March, but that is simply not the case. I have my Uncle Tommy to thank for alerting me to the felicitous occasion of St. Urho's Day, which seems to be a commemoration of the invention of pesticides in Finland, although I admit that I'm a little bit fuzzy on that part. Anyway, it has all the earmarks of a very happy day, and my uncle was not only the first person to send me a greeting card for the occasion, but remains the only person to do so up to this point, or in fact, at any point in my life previously. So he definitely wins the award for that, and while I can't guarantee that it would be a very big award, it would certainly be heartfelt and sincere. And all of you Finlandians out there who understand the significance of this feast day, please feel free to jump right in with your comments, so that we can all share the wealth of your knowledge. In fact, this would probably be a good time to dig into the old mailbag, and let some of our compatriots in cyberspace take a shot at sitting in my seat for a spell, so let's get right to it.
You may be wondering what's new in the wonderful world of junk email, and if so, you're in luck, because we have this intriguing description of what I would consider a novel innovation in the field, from one of our alert readers --
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SpamSenders
I find myself for some reason plagued by SPAM.
But the names of the senders who want to sell me everything from Viagra to
software to pornography are often amusing: Ballroom P. Jitney Hothead V. Mound Incorruptibles G. Collusion Notch B. Reunion Redeemer P. Paige Gherkin H. OutfittingElection M. Especial Plurality U. Students
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Well, ya gotta love that Ballroom P. Jitney! On another topic, it was gratifying to find that I was not alone in my rogue furniture experiences, when a different alert reader offered his own version of The Recliner Story --
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And speaking of the dog. (Toby- our misfit Lhasa Apso)
(and another recliner story), He uses the recliner as his
personal throne- when no one else is sitting in it, and
sometimes when someone is. It's not unusual to find
him spread out on top of the recliner's back.
Sometimes I swear he's a cat. Anyway- In moving the
recliner, we found no fewer than 5 mummified carrots,
assorted dog chewies, kibbles & bits, a pair of
reading glasses and a remote control that's been
missing for nigh onto a year.
The moral of the story is: Don't look to closely into your
re-cycled recliner- you just might find the previous owner.
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Well, that's certainly a cautionary tale that I'm sure we can all relate to. Lastly, a colleague who works at a community hospital in West Virginia sent me the following, after I had complained about the terrible picture on my new ID badge --
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When it comes to ID's, the DMV gets to me.
My daughter went to get her WV ID. She
had to produce all kinds of stuff proving
she was who she proclaimed to be.
The next week she went to take her
driving test and they of course asked for ID.
She shows her certified birth certificate and the
very picture ID that she had gotten from them
the week before, and they said that the picture ID
was not acceptable! Can you believe that!
They will take her certified birth certificate,
voter's registration or rent receipt, all of which
do not have a picture of her on it, but will not
take the one THEY gave her with a picture!
Now that's NUTS!
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I'm thinking that she meant to cheer me up, but somehow I don't find that story of governmental ineptitude in action, all that comforting. But, as I keep reminding myself, it's still better than being on Jury Duty! And thanks to all of our readers and writers for their welcome and unusual additions to what Bill always refers to as my weekly contribution to Internet clutter.
Speaking of Bill, he has a new book called "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" (thanks, Deb!) that bills itself as a reference book for a "zero tolerance" approach to punctuation. This is no place for any laissez-faire, whack-a-doo, let-it-all-hang-out sort of carrying-on, this is a collection of serious rules for serious grammarians that will brook no insubordination. It offers "don't-make-me-come-down-there!" guidelines for all common, and commonly misused, punctuation marks, such as commas, periods and semi-colons, as well as their more exotic brethren scattered about the keyboard. The hyphen rates special attention, and with good reason. Nowadays, anyone who uses a spell-checker, or reads a newspaper, knows that use of the hyphen is universally discouraged in almost all situations, no matter the resulting confusion. The author bemoans the lack of hyphens that give us such incomprehensible disasters as "rearm," "coopt" and "deiced." Lately, I found one to top even those (literal) horrors. It was the headline in a story about retro musical genres that were being discovered by a new generation, where interest in these styles was being, as they described it, "reignited." I defy anyone to read that correctly the first time around. "A hyphen! A hyphen! My kingdom for a hyphen!"