Beam Me Up, Scotty
Hello World,
Well, here we are, way past the middle of August, and hurtling headlong toward September at such a dizzying pace that it would make anyone of the "back-to-school" generation pale with apprehension at its approach. In many ways, it seems like I just got back from vacation, and you really have to wonder where the time goes, that's for sure. For the boys of summer, the pennant races are starting to heat up in earnest, while for the teams that are already out of contention, I'm sure it seems like the season can't end soon enough. In the NFL, the training camps are underway, and they've even started playing pre-season games, which can only be viewed with relief by desperate legions of football-deprived fans around the world. Even the NBA and NHL are making off-season deals to shore up their rosters, because the start of their seasons will be here before we know it, and that's not just a lot of Gatorade, believe me.
One of my coworkers has been out on Disability, and as much as I would love to share with you all the gory details, I'm afraid that HIPAA regulations would make that impossible, so I could tell you, as the saying goes, but then I'd have to kill you. In any case, after about a week or so, it occurred to me that no one was checking on the spider plant in the empty office, and making sure it was getting all the sun and water that it needed in its owner's absence. So I let myself in to check on it and open the blinds, and I gave it some water while I was at it. Then it dawned on me that when my coworker is in his office, he listens to WFAN sports radio all day long, and so I couldn't help but think that the poor plant was not only starved for nutrients and company, but also news from the wide world of sports that had been suddenly ripped from its everyday existence. So now I feel that I should go in there each day and give it the sports updates in person, so it doesn't feel so completely cut off from the rest of society during this unforeseen period of temporary job abandonment. I can't say for sure that it makes any difference to the plant, although it did seem to perk up when I told it about Terrell Owens signing with the Cincinnati Bengals, so I suppose that we can't ignore the possibility that the plant is in a fantasy football league. In fact, it would go a long way toward explaining why there always seems to be a Daily News next to our bookkeeper's philodendron.
In other sports news, the local newspaper ran a big story about the Little League Senior Softball World Series, and included a picture of one of the players with this caption:
[[ Haverstraw pitcher Vittoria Adams beems with confidence
on the mound and is always smiling off of it ... ]]
Of course, it's all too easy to decry the lack of standards nowadays, and heaven knows it's true, not to mention, the deplorable incompetence and/or lack of any real editorial oversight in the current print media, and that goes across the board with no exceptions. But frankly, in a case like this, I have to wonder that the captioning program doesn't have a spell-check feature to prevent these sorts of routine errors, after all, it's not like they used another actual word like "beans" instead of "beams," which the spell checker would not be able to detect on its own. Since "beems" isn't even a word, at least on this planet that I know of, it should have been a simple thing to catch and correct, way before it hit the newsstands, and made all of us alert readers and purists wonder what they were smoking that day at the caption desk. Of course, they might be in the fantasy caption league, and this might have been their bye week.
I was going to work as usual last week, and stopped at a traffic light, letting my mind wander as it so often does and paying attention to nothing in particular. Suddenly coming around the corner from the other street was the most adorable thing, it was a shocking pink stretch Mini Cooper limousine, probably for a wedding or some other special occasion, and it turned right in front of me. It was so cute you couldn't stand it, and I had to laugh at the idea of taking a little tiny car and stretching it out to make a limo out of it. The fact that it was Barbie pink made it even more precious, and I can certainly see where it would be a perfect conveyance for any little princess and her court on their way to romance and adventure. On the other hand, if I was trying to deflect attention of the law enforcement community away from a Mafia kingpin's funeral, I'm thinking this would also be about the best way to do that. I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as the fantasy funeral league, but if they start one, I've got dibs on the pink stretch Mini Cooper limousine.
Speaking of small and funny things, last month the newspaper ran a front page story about the Jacob Burns Film Center's "Minds in Motion" project, where 4th-grade students from the PEARLS Hawthorne Elementary School in Yonkers created their own animated short films. The 39 one-minute films had their premieres at the organization's auditorium in Pleasantville, for which they rolled out the red carpet for the students and their families, and in fact, the paper had a picture of one of the youngsters arriving in a party dress and large sunglasses, just like any celebrity. This was my favorite part:
=============================
The red carpet was flanked by
parental paparazzi who were out in
force, some clutching programs, all
beaming at their kids' achievements.
When one girl took her stroll, a dad
yelled, "Who are you wearing?"
=============================
I admit that I am easily amused, but I thought that was hilarious, and especially witty for the suburban father of a 4th grader, no less. I don't see any way to improve upon that, and I'm thinking if my fantasy film team needs a joke writer, I'm going to keep that guy in mind.
While we're on the subject of coming up with good ideas, I was outside feeding the birds last weekend when who should show up, and certainly no surprise to anyone, but the neighbor's cat Cinna-mooch, who apparently was not whisked off to stardom in Hollywood after insinuating herself into the commercial shoot across the street. She saw that I had a bag in my hand, and naturally supposing it to be something for her to eat, she jumped up to investigate. I told her that it was bird seed, and nothing that she would be interested in, and suddenly I could see all the little wheels turning around in her mind, and everyone knows that my eyesight is not all that sharp. She was thinking that if she ate bird seed, she would smell like a bird feeder, and the birds would walk right into her mouth, instead of having to chase them all through the bushes like she usually does. I said she was welcome to nibble on the furry varmints that chewed holes in my camping supplies instead, but she pointed out with irrefutable logic that they would taste like nylon tents and orange plastic flip-flops, thanks not. I told her that if I wanted a joke writer, I'd call the father of the 4th grader in Yonkers. She said she would love to stay and debate the point with me, but she and the spider plant had to get together and go over their rosters for the fantasy football league, and the philodendron had already beaten them to Terrell Owens.
Elle
Well, here we are, way past the middle of August, and hurtling headlong toward September at such a dizzying pace that it would make anyone of the "back-to-school" generation pale with apprehension at its approach. In many ways, it seems like I just got back from vacation, and you really have to wonder where the time goes, that's for sure. For the boys of summer, the pennant races are starting to heat up in earnest, while for the teams that are already out of contention, I'm sure it seems like the season can't end soon enough. In the NFL, the training camps are underway, and they've even started playing pre-season games, which can only be viewed with relief by desperate legions of football-deprived fans around the world. Even the NBA and NHL are making off-season deals to shore up their rosters, because the start of their seasons will be here before we know it, and that's not just a lot of Gatorade, believe me.
One of my coworkers has been out on Disability, and as much as I would love to share with you all the gory details, I'm afraid that HIPAA regulations would make that impossible, so I could tell you, as the saying goes, but then I'd have to kill you. In any case, after about a week or so, it occurred to me that no one was checking on the spider plant in the empty office, and making sure it was getting all the sun and water that it needed in its owner's absence. So I let myself in to check on it and open the blinds, and I gave it some water while I was at it. Then it dawned on me that when my coworker is in his office, he listens to WFAN sports radio all day long, and so I couldn't help but think that the poor plant was not only starved for nutrients and company, but also news from the wide world of sports that had been suddenly ripped from its everyday existence. So now I feel that I should go in there each day and give it the sports updates in person, so it doesn't feel so completely cut off from the rest of society during this unforeseen period of temporary job abandonment. I can't say for sure that it makes any difference to the plant, although it did seem to perk up when I told it about Terrell Owens signing with the Cincinnati Bengals, so I suppose that we can't ignore the possibility that the plant is in a fantasy football league. In fact, it would go a long way toward explaining why there always seems to be a Daily News next to our bookkeeper's philodendron.
In other sports news, the local newspaper ran a big story about the Little League Senior Softball World Series, and included a picture of one of the players with this caption:
[[ Haverstraw pitcher Vittoria Adams beems with confidence
on the mound and is always smiling off of it ... ]]
Of course, it's all too easy to decry the lack of standards nowadays, and heaven knows it's true, not to mention, the deplorable incompetence and/or lack of any real editorial oversight in the current print media, and that goes across the board with no exceptions. But frankly, in a case like this, I have to wonder that the captioning program doesn't have a spell-check feature to prevent these sorts of routine errors, after all, it's not like they used another actual word like "beans" instead of "beams," which the spell checker would not be able to detect on its own. Since "beems" isn't even a word, at least on this planet that I know of, it should have been a simple thing to catch and correct, way before it hit the newsstands, and made all of us alert readers and purists wonder what they were smoking that day at the caption desk. Of course, they might be in the fantasy caption league, and this might have been their bye week.
I was going to work as usual last week, and stopped at a traffic light, letting my mind wander as it so often does and paying attention to nothing in particular. Suddenly coming around the corner from the other street was the most adorable thing, it was a shocking pink stretch Mini Cooper limousine, probably for a wedding or some other special occasion, and it turned right in front of me. It was so cute you couldn't stand it, and I had to laugh at the idea of taking a little tiny car and stretching it out to make a limo out of it. The fact that it was Barbie pink made it even more precious, and I can certainly see where it would be a perfect conveyance for any little princess and her court on their way to romance and adventure. On the other hand, if I was trying to deflect attention of the law enforcement community away from a Mafia kingpin's funeral, I'm thinking this would also be about the best way to do that. I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as the fantasy funeral league, but if they start one, I've got dibs on the pink stretch Mini Cooper limousine.
Speaking of small and funny things, last month the newspaper ran a front page story about the Jacob Burns Film Center's "Minds in Motion" project, where 4th-grade students from the PEARLS Hawthorne Elementary School in Yonkers created their own animated short films. The 39 one-minute films had their premieres at the organization's auditorium in Pleasantville, for which they rolled out the red carpet for the students and their families, and in fact, the paper had a picture of one of the youngsters arriving in a party dress and large sunglasses, just like any celebrity. This was my favorite part:
=============================
The red carpet was flanked by
parental paparazzi who were out in
force, some clutching programs, all
beaming at their kids' achievements.
When one girl took her stroll, a dad
yelled, "Who are you wearing?"
=============================
I admit that I am easily amused, but I thought that was hilarious, and especially witty for the suburban father of a 4th grader, no less. I don't see any way to improve upon that, and I'm thinking if my fantasy film team needs a joke writer, I'm going to keep that guy in mind.
While we're on the subject of coming up with good ideas, I was outside feeding the birds last weekend when who should show up, and certainly no surprise to anyone, but the neighbor's cat Cinna-mooch, who apparently was not whisked off to stardom in Hollywood after insinuating herself into the commercial shoot across the street. She saw that I had a bag in my hand, and naturally supposing it to be something for her to eat, she jumped up to investigate. I told her that it was bird seed, and nothing that she would be interested in, and suddenly I could see all the little wheels turning around in her mind, and everyone knows that my eyesight is not all that sharp. She was thinking that if she ate bird seed, she would smell like a bird feeder, and the birds would walk right into her mouth, instead of having to chase them all through the bushes like she usually does. I said she was welcome to nibble on the furry varmints that chewed holes in my camping supplies instead, but she pointed out with irrefutable logic that they would taste like nylon tents and orange plastic flip-flops, thanks not. I told her that if I wanted a joke writer, I'd call the father of the 4th grader in Yonkers. She said she would love to stay and debate the point with me, but she and the spider plant had to get together and go over their rosters for the fantasy football league, and the philodendron had already beaten them to Terrell Owens.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 9:25 PM
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