Thanks, dirty_sanchez

 

This lovely little rhyme is from a book called "Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book," published in London in 1744.

I had a feeling that the third line, "barley butt," meant something more than just an odd grain-related insult. So I did some googling. Then I put on some PPE and clicked on the Urban Dictionary link and found this:

Thanks be to dirty_sanchez for confirming my hunch there was someting more going around.

Buck Rogers, Jim Rockford, and that Infernal Roller Disco Music

Listening to the pilot episode of "The Rockford Files" this morning as I work. He goes into a disco and suddenly it's the music from the Buck Rogers roller-disco scene.

But he's only in the disco for about five seconds. This pilot is poorly edited, even if it features some snappy music.

And while I know someone thought this was really neat, watching this scene was cringe-inducing then, and it's cringe-inducing now.

I Am *NOT* Selling Any Cars, I Promise

April 23, an item:

Twice today a very excited yet hard to understand woman from Pennsylvania has called to inquire about the PT Cruiser I have for sale.

I don't have one to sell or give away.

I don't know what's worse: Knowing she's dialed the wrong number twice, knowing she'll probably call again, or that she's looking to buy a PT Cruiser.

Whow knows what's going on? I chalked it up to a misdial, or at least a phone number written down incorrectly.

Then yesterday/today:

I got another call yesterday - this time from Oregon - from another difficult-to-understand woman confused why I denied all knowledge of the car I have for sale.

Whether or not she, too, was in search of a PT Cruiser is unknown.

Someone else from Oregon just called. I had Google screen the call.

And called again. I talked with her a bit this time. She told me "Red Line Auto Sales" on Highway 99 gave her my number.

There is such a business, in Vancouver, Washington . . .

Once, I could chalk it up as a fluke and/or mistake. But with this many calls, I have to wonder: Why are they getting my phone number?

A commonality: Those who have called have thick what I'd call Asian accents, and all are women. I think someone is jerking their chain in possibly a racist manner. Or not. Who knows?

But maybe *this* is why they want PT Cruisers, or at least why the first lady wanted one.

Dreng Has No PT Cruiser

Twice today a very excited yet hard to understand woman from Pennsylvania has called to inquire about the PT Cruiser I have for sale.

I don't have one to sell or give away.

I don't know what's worse: Knowing she's dialed the wrong number twice, knowing she'll probably call again, or that she's looking to buy a PT Cruiser.

Profit$ in Prote$ting

"That Sounds Commie"

Thanks Odd Todd. That last line killed me.

Signs Point to Yes . . .

Miranda Rights and You -- Odd Todd

All I can say is:

No es bueno!

What's Next? The Eye-Roll Mark?

So Sarcasm Inc., apparently a company of some sort in Michigan, has invented a sarcasm punctuation mark. Take a gander, or a goose if you so choose:

For the amazingly low, low price of $1.99, this company will send you a bit of software that will allow you to reproduce this punctuation mark through that lovely CRTL+greater than key combination. It's not clear whether the little restricted trademark symbol will also be replicated.

This led me to wondering: When was the last punctuation mark-related breakthrough? What was the last bit of punctuation to be invented? Emoticons, probably, but I'm not going to count them because they're merely strings of existing punctuation marks. So, do we go with the colon? The semicolon? Which came first, the whole colon or the half? The "@" symbol? Can't be. That's been used for more than a century at least. Let's see what the Internet has to say.

Wikipedia tells us of the "question comma" and the "exclamation comma," patented in 1992. They provide no pictorials. I think it was a prank. Then there is the "double comma" designed by Russian Artemy Lebedev. He apparently thought the double comma would indicate more of a pause than does the current, fashionalbe, and stylish semi-colon. Leave it up to the Russians to try to develop a new punctuation mark to take over the job of an old one.

So maybe Sarcasm Inc. is on to something here. Or maybe not. After all, while the folks at MIT developed the Smoot as a new unit of measure, it hasn't caught on anywhere else outside of Cambridge. So maybe the sarcasm mark -- which looks like an unmentionable object circling in a flushed toilet -- will catch on, but for $1.99, you won't find one here. I, for one, believe punctuation should be free. Or at least phonetic, as Victor Borge demonstrates:

Odd thing is, however, they may have a point. I've learned from experience both in ordinary online forums and in more formal online forums, including class forums, that sometimes a sarcastic remark can't be read that way by others -- and that can cause trouble, from hurt feelings to a good old-fashioned flame war. Some have taken to posting things like "/sarcasm/" when they're being sarcastic, so Sarcasm Inc. is simply looking for a shorthand way to do that. If it catches on, their new punctuation mark could be a hit. but I'm not sure selling it for $1.99 will get it into the mainstream. It's interesting to see, however, how the spoken word is used far more often than the written word in such instances -- and it shows how unable some are to pick up on sarcasm if it's written, in the absence of aural and visual cues. Frank Smith, I think, would love this.

Through the Looking Glass

Went through the looking glass today, in search of, all things, the bathroom.

I wrote about our odd little building situation earlier this year. At the time, i wimped out and did not go through into the other building. Oh, I did a few days later, but it was just a few cursory steps into the unknown before a few years of government indoctrination kicked in and i got that eerie feeling that maybe I shouldn't be where I was. Not that i't secret over there, it's just been off-limits for so long.

So today there are maintenance workers repairing the vestibule that is our ordinary link to the outside world. They've got, in other words, our exit blocked off. So I had to go into the other building. Walking into it was weird. Then finding the bathroom was even weirder, because the bathroom is in the portion of the building still owned by the other contractor, so I felt like there was going to be a Donald Sutherland pod-person screeching moment when someone from "the other side" noticed an alien intruder in their midst. Or at least in their bathroom. Thankfully, one of our engineers was in the bathroom when I went in, so I figured if I heard the shreiking, I could at least try to outrun him.

Ghostbusters, circa 1950

So, what if 1984's Ghostbusters had been filmed in the 1950s? Someone mashed together clips from The Absent-Minded Professor, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Ghost Breakers, and a few other classic films to imagine this little cinematic trailer gem:



It's hard to see Fred MacMurray in Harold Ramis' role, but the Flubber MacMurray has kind of that professorial seriousness about him that Ramis brings to the role of Egon Spangler. I can see him trying to figure out some kind of mathematical formula on, well, in the '50s it would have had to be a slide rule, only to have Bob Hope's Pete Venkman slap it out of his hands. And who better to play the role of Ray "Get Her" Stantz in the 1950s than Dean Martin? Well, Jerry Lewis, whom I assume the mashers of this clip bring in for the role of Lewis Tully. Oh well, They couldn't get everything right.