Editorial Desk
Hello World,
Happy Labor Day weekend! Monday is a holiday for many people, and that will be the time for the working stiffs to rest from their labors, although nowadays with all the stores open early and late with sales, it seems that only some of the working stiffs actually get the holiday off. If you're one of the lucky few, I hope that you will enjoy a nice long weekend full of rest and relaxation that would do justice to the spirit of the late and lamented Samuel L. Gompers, and long may he wave. Normally in these parts, it's right after the Labor Day weekend that schools re-open and welcome students back from their summer vacations, and that is still the case in most districts. In a few other places, they're taking the rest of next week off as well, and waiting to start school up the following week after that. And in another handful of areas, the unfortunate students are already back in classes now, as the schools opened up earlier this week, before Labor Day even got here, which I think is a kind of a dirty trick, and a dastardly way to end a perfect summer vacation, without even a holiday to take the sting out of it. I'm betting that none of those would be the Samuel L. Gompers High School, that's for sure.
While we're on the subject of back-to-school, I couldn't help but notice in a recent newspaper, there was a full-page ad from our friends at the Zachys Wine Gazette, where they were featuring what they referred to as their ZACHYS BACK-TO-SCHOOL SPECIALS WITH THE $120 CASE SALE AND SOME SENSATIONAL TASTINGS! I have to say that I never considered wine to be a back-to-school essential up to now, but it certainly beats pencil cases and notebooks, by golly. And here I'm thinking that back-to-school has certainly changed over the years since the dinosaurs and I left off roaming the vast unformed land masses, and took our slates and charcoal back to the henge to learn all about dirt and fire. Ah, those were the days indeed. History was my best subject, although we called it Current Events then.
Speaking of news, of course, it's much too easy to pick on the local newspaper, heaven knows, where there are no standards nowadays, if in fact there ever were, and so reading it becomes an exercise in absurdity that alternates between pain, pity, amazement, hilarity and outright horror, sometimes all in the same paragraph. In fact, I wasn't even going to complain about this miscue in the Sports section, except that there were two of them right on top of each other, and it just got to be too much, even for a person trying their best to practice forbearance. The first one said:
====================
The football camp stops continue
on the Varsity Insider blog
====================
I admit that I had to read that several times over to even begin to get in the same ballpark with what they were talking about. The football camp? The camp stops? The stops continue? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, as the young geek-sters say nowadays. How can stops continue? And if the stops continue, doesn't that mean that they have stopped being stops, and have instead turned into continuations, or something? A series of stops that continue is just too much of an oxymoron for my poor addled brain cells (both of them) anymore, I'm afraid. Then the one right under that was about the pennant race in the American League East, and asked the musical question:
==========================
How do the Yankees stack up down the stretch?
==========================
Well, after the "stops continue" in the first one, this thing with the "stack up down" was just too much to take, and I simply had to throw in the proverbial towel and say enough is too much already. Oh, for those halcyon days of yore, when the wise old Editoriosaurs roamed the vast unformed land masses with their trusty red pencils, before they were all wiped out after the giant asteroid impact, so that nowadays, you can't pick up a newspaper without wanting to weep, not to mention, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that follows newsprint like a bad smell. Up down, indeed.
Now to be fair, it's not just the newspaper that is prone to these sorts of usage mishaps, not by any means. I recently noticed in the office supply catalog that the hospital uses (and please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at http://www.preferredbusinessforms.com/ and see for yourself) they had an entire section devoted to assorted modular products that you could assemble together in different ways to create office cubicles, reception areas, training centers, conference rooms and more. Well, anyway, at least I think that's what they were offering, because what they actually called this whole category was PANEL SYSTEMS AND DESKING SOLUTIONS. Inasmuch as "desking" isn't a word on any planet that I know of, and in fact, wouldn't mean anything in this language even if it was a word, I'm not exactly sure what they were trying to convey, but I do know that making up a word that doesn't exist, would in no way encourage me to spend hundreds of dollars on the thing, whatever it is, and that's not just a lot of chairing and bookcasing, believe me.
That reminds me of our friends at Glidden paint, and I recently saw one of their commercials on television, only to discover that their slogan is apparently, "Glidden Gets You Going." I admit that I have no idea what that means, or what concept they're trying to get across to me with that phrase, at least in terms of paint. I can see the point of U-Haul rental trucks having a slogan like that, or even as Bill suggested, Fleet enemas, you should pardon the pun. I could even understand if they came up with something like, "Glidden Gets You Started," in the sense that painting first might be the beginning of a larger transformation in a home renovation project, or perhaps, "Glidden Gets You There," in the sense of accomplishing your redecorating goals. But this "Glidden Gets You Going" idea simply doesn't suggest anything to me at all, of which paint could possibly be the answer, and in fact, about the last thing I would want from my paint would be for it to be going anywhere, heaven knows. Around here, we blame things like that on what we refer to as the "Horoscope Computer," where it uses actual English words, but arranges them together in a random order that means absolutely nothing. In fact, I'm surprised that it didn't come up with "Glidden Gets You Desking" instead.
Also having paint that's going somewhere, I know I'm not the only person in the world with a computer keyboard that the letters have worn off, so you can't read them anymore, and typing becomes even more of an adventure than usual. This seems to be less of a problem with the black keyboards that have white letters, although it might just be because those are newer, and haven't had as much use. But I find that on the old tan keyboards with the gray letters, it doesn't take long at all for the gray to become so faint and faded that unless you remember the keys from memory, you'd be hard-pressed to tell what is supposed to be where, so that even proficient typists find it more of a hit-or-miss proposition than it should be. It had gotten so bad on one of my computers that Santa took pity on me, and brought me some Glowing Keyboard Stickers from our friends at Funky Rico, who promise that their fluorescent keyboard stickers will renew worn out keyboards and reduce eye fatigue, especially in dim and semi-dark environments. I was glad to get them, and quickly applied them to what used to be the E - S - D - C - I - L - M - N keys, but which now were all blank instead. At the time, I was disappointed that the package only included one set of letters, so that I couldn't also use them on my other old keyboard, where basically the exact same letters had also worn off and were completely blank. But I was prepared to be content that at least one of my keyboards was once again legible, and had a full complement of keys that were actually identified, and could be read for the letters that they represented for a change. Unfortunately, it didn't take long - in fact, it was only July, so that's just a little bit more than six months after Christmas - before I noticed that, yes, the letters on the replacement stickers had also flaked off. so there was a solid white dot where the S and M should have been, with the C, D and N not far behind. So I guess that's an idea that needs to go back to the drawing board, or perhaps "ba_k to th_ _raw__g boar_" would be more like it, since the solution to the blank letters certainly didn't stand the test of time in any substantial way. Speaking of time, I wish I could stay here and blather, but I just read my horoscope, and it said that it said that this was a perfect day for me to go out desking.
Elle
Happy Labor Day weekend! Monday is a holiday for many people, and that will be the time for the working stiffs to rest from their labors, although nowadays with all the stores open early and late with sales, it seems that only some of the working stiffs actually get the holiday off. If you're one of the lucky few, I hope that you will enjoy a nice long weekend full of rest and relaxation that would do justice to the spirit of the late and lamented Samuel L. Gompers, and long may he wave. Normally in these parts, it's right after the Labor Day weekend that schools re-open and welcome students back from their summer vacations, and that is still the case in most districts. In a few other places, they're taking the rest of next week off as well, and waiting to start school up the following week after that. And in another handful of areas, the unfortunate students are already back in classes now, as the schools opened up earlier this week, before Labor Day even got here, which I think is a kind of a dirty trick, and a dastardly way to end a perfect summer vacation, without even a holiday to take the sting out of it. I'm betting that none of those would be the Samuel L. Gompers High School, that's for sure.
While we're on the subject of back-to-school, I couldn't help but notice in a recent newspaper, there was a full-page ad from our friends at the Zachys Wine Gazette, where they were featuring what they referred to as their ZACHYS BACK-TO-SCHOOL SPECIALS WITH THE $120 CASE SALE AND SOME SENSATIONAL TASTINGS! I have to say that I never considered wine to be a back-to-school essential up to now, but it certainly beats pencil cases and notebooks, by golly. And here I'm thinking that back-to-school has certainly changed over the years since the dinosaurs and I left off roaming the vast unformed land masses, and took our slates and charcoal back to the henge to learn all about dirt and fire. Ah, those were the days indeed. History was my best subject, although we called it Current Events then.
Speaking of news, of course, it's much too easy to pick on the local newspaper, heaven knows, where there are no standards nowadays, if in fact there ever were, and so reading it becomes an exercise in absurdity that alternates between pain, pity, amazement, hilarity and outright horror, sometimes all in the same paragraph. In fact, I wasn't even going to complain about this miscue in the Sports section, except that there were two of them right on top of each other, and it just got to be too much, even for a person trying their best to practice forbearance. The first one said:
====================
The football camp stops continue
on the Varsity Insider blog
====================
I admit that I had to read that several times over to even begin to get in the same ballpark with what they were talking about. The football camp? The camp stops? The stops continue? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, as the young geek-sters say nowadays. How can stops continue? And if the stops continue, doesn't that mean that they have stopped being stops, and have instead turned into continuations, or something? A series of stops that continue is just too much of an oxymoron for my poor addled brain cells (both of them) anymore, I'm afraid. Then the one right under that was about the pennant race in the American League East, and asked the musical question:
==========================
How do the Yankees stack up down the stretch?
==========================
Well, after the "stops continue" in the first one, this thing with the "stack up down" was just too much to take, and I simply had to throw in the proverbial towel and say enough is too much already. Oh, for those halcyon days of yore, when the wise old Editoriosaurs roamed the vast unformed land masses with their trusty red pencils, before they were all wiped out after the giant asteroid impact, so that nowadays, you can't pick up a newspaper without wanting to weep, not to mention, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that follows newsprint like a bad smell. Up down, indeed.
Now to be fair, it's not just the newspaper that is prone to these sorts of usage mishaps, not by any means. I recently noticed in the office supply catalog that the hospital uses (and please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at http://www.preferredbusinessforms.com/ and see for yourself) they had an entire section devoted to assorted modular products that you could assemble together in different ways to create office cubicles, reception areas, training centers, conference rooms and more. Well, anyway, at least I think that's what they were offering, because what they actually called this whole category was PANEL SYSTEMS AND DESKING SOLUTIONS. Inasmuch as "desking" isn't a word on any planet that I know of, and in fact, wouldn't mean anything in this language even if it was a word, I'm not exactly sure what they were trying to convey, but I do know that making up a word that doesn't exist, would in no way encourage me to spend hundreds of dollars on the thing, whatever it is, and that's not just a lot of chairing and bookcasing, believe me.
That reminds me of our friends at Glidden paint, and I recently saw one of their commercials on television, only to discover that their slogan is apparently, "Glidden Gets You Going." I admit that I have no idea what that means, or what concept they're trying to get across to me with that phrase, at least in terms of paint. I can see the point of U-Haul rental trucks having a slogan like that, or even as Bill suggested, Fleet enemas, you should pardon the pun. I could even understand if they came up with something like, "Glidden Gets You Started," in the sense that painting first might be the beginning of a larger transformation in a home renovation project, or perhaps, "Glidden Gets You There," in the sense of accomplishing your redecorating goals. But this "Glidden Gets You Going" idea simply doesn't suggest anything to me at all, of which paint could possibly be the answer, and in fact, about the last thing I would want from my paint would be for it to be going anywhere, heaven knows. Around here, we blame things like that on what we refer to as the "Horoscope Computer," where it uses actual English words, but arranges them together in a random order that means absolutely nothing. In fact, I'm surprised that it didn't come up with "Glidden Gets You Desking" instead.
Also having paint that's going somewhere, I know I'm not the only person in the world with a computer keyboard that the letters have worn off, so you can't read them anymore, and typing becomes even more of an adventure than usual. This seems to be less of a problem with the black keyboards that have white letters, although it might just be because those are newer, and haven't had as much use. But I find that on the old tan keyboards with the gray letters, it doesn't take long at all for the gray to become so faint and faded that unless you remember the keys from memory, you'd be hard-pressed to tell what is supposed to be where, so that even proficient typists find it more of a hit-or-miss proposition than it should be. It had gotten so bad on one of my computers that Santa took pity on me, and brought me some Glowing Keyboard Stickers from our friends at Funky Rico, who promise that their fluorescent keyboard stickers will renew worn out keyboards and reduce eye fatigue, especially in dim and semi-dark environments. I was glad to get them, and quickly applied them to what used to be the E - S - D - C - I - L - M - N keys, but which now were all blank instead. At the time, I was disappointed that the package only included one set of letters, so that I couldn't also use them on my other old keyboard, where basically the exact same letters had also worn off and were completely blank. But I was prepared to be content that at least one of my keyboards was once again legible, and had a full complement of keys that were actually identified, and could be read for the letters that they represented for a change. Unfortunately, it didn't take long - in fact, it was only July, so that's just a little bit more than six months after Christmas - before I noticed that, yes, the letters on the replacement stickers had also flaked off. so there was a solid white dot where the S and M should have been, with the C, D and N not far behind. So I guess that's an idea that needs to go back to the drawing board, or perhaps "ba_k to th_ _raw__g boar_" would be more like it, since the solution to the blank letters certainly didn't stand the test of time in any substantial way. Speaking of time, I wish I could stay here and blather, but I just read my horoscope, and it said that it said that this was a perfect day for me to go out desking.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:48 PM
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