Best In Show

Hello World,

And so here we are, right on the very brink of the last day of March, and staring down both barrels of April, and unlike February, no hope of an extra day tacked on at the end to stave off the inevitable. For once I can honestly say that March came in like a lamb and went out like a lamb, in stark contrast to the proverb of yore and decades of tradition, and there were certainly no complaints on the weather front around here, that's for sure. The ice cream truck was out every day at the hospital, and if there had only been such a thing as the Flip-Flop Truck, it would have done a land-office business in this neck of the woods, believe me. Every warm sunny day brought more dandelions popping out all over, and we even have some very early tulips open in the backyard, many weeks before they should be putting on their colorful finery. It's easy to shake our heads and bemoan the inconsistency of non-standard weather, but it's very hard to complain when it's been so wonderfully temperate all winter, however irregular that might be. Why, at this rate, we'll all be beating our snow shovels into ploughshares, like it says in the Bible, or even better, into beach chairs - and like the old spiritual says, " ... Ain't gonna study snow no more, ain't gonna study snow no more, I ain't gonna study snow no more." Hallelujah, brother!

Speaking of things that turn out differently than you expect, they've been having some rocky times in the Best Bets section of the TV listings in our local newspaper, or perhaps it's just the horoscope computer working overtime behind the scenes. Here's a review of the NBC show "Whitney," asking this musical question -

====================
Whitney and Lily begin wedding plans,
but different opinions cause a riff
====================

How delightfully melodic! It makes me wonder if this was an actual riff played on a musical instrument, or just an imaginary riff acted out on air guitar instead. In any case, it's that same old song all over again, because we all know that the spell-checker can't help substitute "rift" for "riff" for anyone who apparently doesn't know the difference. Also stumping the spell-checker is this blurb for HBO's "Enlightened" -

====================
Amy learns about a mother who is facing
the threat deportation back to Mexico
====================

One supposes they meant to insert the word "of" between the combination of "threat deportation," which certainly doesn't mean anything by itself, I can tell you that. This really wouldn't have even needed the help of modern technology, if only anyone had gone back to re-read it before printing, alas - which I realize is such a quaint anachronism nowadays that people don't even know what you're talking about if you suggest it anymore. Speaking of leaving out words, that's the only explanation I can come up with for this tortured synopsis from the NBC show "Harry's Law" -

====================
Harry must defend former prosecutor
Josh Peyton, who is accused of aiding
a kidnapping after negotiating her safe
return behind the FBI's back
====================

If you go back and read that again, but follow "kidnapping" with the word "victim," it suddenly seems to make a lot more sense, because otherwise, that's just the horoscope computer running amok with a series of actual words that have been assembled in such a way as to mean nothing at all. Next up in its entirety from the CBS show "Hawaii Five-0" is the germ of an interesting idea -

====================
The Five-0 team's investigation into the
suspicious plane crash and death of a
customs agent
====================

Unfortunately, it stops right there, and has no verbs or clauses to give this opening salvo any purpose, in spite of having a wealth of details that go absolutely nowhere. Also missing their daily dose of Grammar Pills is this description from the CBS show "Criminal Minds" -

====================
Rossi struggles with an agonizing
decision regard his ex-wife
====================

Oh how the mighty have fallen, from those halcyon days of yore, when the merest snip of a copy boy would have corrected this, without even troubling the editors to wield their mighty red pencils over it, for heaven's sake. Meanwhile, this next slip-up from BRAVO's "Mad Fashion" passes the linguistics test with flying colors, but fails the pop culture pop quiz in a big way -

====================
Chris creates a Barbie-inspired look
for the upcoming launch of Mettel's
new "So Style Barbie"
====================

Normally, I would consider a brand name to be arcane enough to let slide, but heck, after more than a half century of runaway success, you'd think that toy giant Mattel would be sufficiently well known to just about anybody - not just for doll icon Barbie, but also Hot Wheels, American Girl, Matchbox, and the entire Fisher-Price line of baby paraphernalia. (Why, even the AOL spell-checker recognizes it as a word, while it choked on "ploughshares," so that tells you something right there.) Failing a different test is the History Channel's "Top Shot" -

=====================
The prize is within reach for the four finalists,
and after another challenge leaves two marksmen,
they are pushed to the limit
=====================

I'll admit that I don't watch this program, but it seems to me that if you have four competitors, and a challenge leaves only two remaining, then those two are your finalists, and not the four that you started with. You could have four finalists if they compete together (as in a race) with only one winner among them, but if you winnow the four down to two, then there's no way that the four can be considered anything but semi-finalists, and that's, well, final. Also not making any sense is this last entry from the CBS show "Unforgettable," which suffers from an all-too-common problem -

======================
When Al's ex-partner is gunned down
and the investigation reveals that he may
have been a dirty cop, and Carrie must
figure out how to support him
======================

Once again, if they had just left off "When" at the beginning, and left everything else as is, it would have been fine. But this way starts out as a clause, in search of a sturdy sentence to latch onto, and instead finds itself high and dry, clutching at straws when the entire phrase just falls off the table with nothing to anchor the rest of the thought. Actually, the poor dangling Carrie might have been all the support needed, if the extraneous "and" had been properly removed, solving two problems at once, and providing the vital structure so sorely lacking otherwise. Well, it was certainly salad days for the horoscope computer and illiterates in the TV listings lately, that's for sure, and I don't mind saying, no end in sight. Of course, I'd just love to stay here and blather, but I just found Barbie beating her Hot Wheels into ploughshares, and unfortunately, it caused a riff, so I'd better go grab my air guitar and blow it out.

Elle