I'm a grammar god! (or goddess...)

Well, we all suspected that to be the case, and now I have the HTML code inserted into my blog to prove it! Thank you, Quizilla! And BaalObsidian, who appears to be the quiz's author. And I suppose my brother, who directed me to the quiz.

Anyway, there's a link right under my neato Monty Python picture, which is in in my sidebar, and the text proclaiming me to be a Grammar God (really, I think the author should have called it "Grammar Deity." We live in a PC world, after all). Check it out, underlings!

Oh my! A flame!

Right, so maybe it's not all that major a flame, but take a look at Howard's comment.

It appears, fanbase of three (because heaven knows Howard's not going to become a part of it!), that I am not broadminded because I read Harry Potter, and I am also a "phony." I am not quite sure what Harold's definition of "broadminded" is, but it appears to have something to do with having a wide vocabulary. And since I read Harry Potter, ergo, I can't have a wide vocabulary, and, ergo redux, my employing "words [I think] everyone [doesn't] know" is "phony."

Gasp! Alert the media! This is a danger that must be avoided at all costs, fanbase! Children's futures as verbal pundits are at stake; they will be left to flounder with dictionaries and thesauri, hoping to happen upon a word that uses more than three syllables and yet meets their needs, all because they read Harry Potter. And the adults! Won't somebody please think of the adults!

In any case, it seems to me that broadmindedness would involve investigating a vast array of topics, or, as in this case, reading material. Of course I have no idea what Howard's reading preferences are, but his comment implies that he is of the camp that Harry Potter is lesser literature, or that it isn't literature at all, and so he won't "waste his time" reading it since it isn't in the scope of the literati. I won't get into an argument about that, because frankly I have better things to do with my time. I read Harry Potter. I read Jane Austen. I enjoy them both. There's nothing else to it.

And nor did I ever make the claim that I believe the words I use aren't ones everybody knows. I use what fits. If I chose words simply on the basis that "Hey! Only the erudite will know this one, hee hee hee," that would make me a phony. That would be artificial. And it would be a form of egotism I hope I never indulge in. Just to let you know, Howard, should you even deign to view my blog ever again, I like the masses. I've found they're the real people.

Anyway, my first flame! *Sniff. Maybe I ought to print it out and hang it on my wall.

**Edit: I just thought of something else. If Howard "knows a phony when he hears one," and I am a phony, shouldn't he have known I was a phony before he discovered I read Harry Potter?

Psst! Hey! Look to your left! (And scroll down a bit)

Hey fanbase! (Yeah, all three of you...)

If you look to the left of this post, you'll notice a few new items on my sidebar. I now have a list of links, the book I'm reading now, the books I read recently, and books you should read. I suppose at some point I could also attempt to link the titles to amazon.com for your buying pleasure, but I didn't feel like doing that just now. Keep an eye on the blog, though; I plan on meddling with the colors and stuff to make it extra purdy. You'll also notice that I now have a counter at the bottom of my web page, and also that it's pretty low right now--the majority of the clicks having come from myself as I previewed my blog to see if my edits to the HTML were working--so visit often and tell your friends so I don't feel pathetic and sad at having created a blog that nobody cares about. (Insert the sound of weeping here.)

Go on, now. Back to your own lives. I have nothing further to say.

On Allergies and Allergens

It's that semiannual time of the year again. The time when my eyes become itchy and watery, my throat becomes scratchy, I sneeze every five minutes, and I get jacked up on Benadryl.

Yes, it's one of my allergy seasons, and worse than the fall because I know that even once spring is over, plants will continue to grow during the summer, send out their pollen and whatnot, and give me occasional attacks even in the supposed "off season." In the fall, I can at least remind myself that every thing will die soon and free me from my suffering.

But alas, the full ordeal is before me, the horror of which makes me, in an ultimately futile effort to distract myself from my misery, personify the local flora and fantasize about the personifications. Example:

The dandelion pokes its stem through the soil, bud rising tentatively above the greening grass. It waves a bit, though there is no breeze, and gives the sense that it is sniffing the air.

Ah ha! it says to its fellow dandelions, who remain but seedlings beneath the ground. I've found one! A sensitive! Boy, can we wreak havoc on her screwed-up immune system. Emerge! Emerge!

Confident now, it opens its yellow head and laughs maniacally while its brethren poke up beside it. Soon, says the first dandelion, now the Dandelion King, we shall be many, and the human will suffer immensely. It waves its leaves. Alert also the crabgrass and cottonwood trees. If we form an alliance with them, her suffering will know no bounds! Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Yes, my liege, says the second largest dandelion, and sends a telepathic message--because the evil plants are telepathic, you know--to the crabgrass and cottonwood trees, whose laughter joins the Dandelion King's.

Meanwhile, I sneeze and a shiver runs down my spine, but I don't know why.

Then there's the alternate fantasy of the personification of my immune system:

Everything's chugging along nicely; the innards of my body are happy as can be and even hum "Whistle While You Work." I inhale, bringing in a cottonwood tree allergen.

Hey, what's that? asks Immune System Component 1. To make it easier, we'll call it Ted.

Immune System Component 2 (henceforth to be known as Cheryl), glances at the allergen. Oh, that. That's just a bit of cottonwood stuff. It's been here before. It won't do anything. Don't worry about it. Cheryl goes on its way.

Ted tries to go back to humming "Whistle While You Work," but can't. Ted eyes the cottonwood allergen.

I don't like you, Ted says suddenly. You're evil! You're here to attack us! Well, we'll get before you can do anything. Mucus membranes, to arms! Lungs, sneeze that puppy out!

Ted, what's going on? asks Bailey, aka Immune System Component 242.

It's that thingy over there, says Ted. It's attacking us.

Bailey, who is, it must be said, very stupid but very powerful, takes Ted's word for it and calls for the entire immune system to leave off "Whistle While You Work" in favor of trumpet blasts and shouts of "Charge!"

All over a harmless little bit of cottonwood.

Sigh. My body is a battleground, and I hate spring.

minishowcase of blogs more popular than mine will ever be

Right, first up is this blog.

Reasons why my blog will likely never be as popular as it is:

• Being a lowly editorial assistant (and temp to boot) at a small educational publishing company in Longmont, Colorado, is much lower on the totem pole of peonhood than being a lowly intern at Comedy Central in New York City.
• People like pictures. The above blog includes pictures, some animated. I do not know how to make pictures, let alone animated ones. I do not even own a digital camera. I am a technofreak, and technofreaks do not have popular blogs.
  

Reason to, despite all, retain hope that one day my blog may be as popular as it is:

• Internships don't last forever, and nor do editorial assistantships, but my blog is not centered around the fact that I'm a lowly intern at a small educational publishing company, which means I can blog on even after I leave. Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Okay. Let's move on to the next blog.

Reasons why my blog will likely never be as popular as it is:

• I can't act (as I discovered in the spring of 2003 when I took a course in beginning acting, thinking, "Hey! Maybe this would help with the dialogue in my writing" only to have any happy thoughts of this possibility driven far into the ether but the blindingly obvious conclusion that I can't act). Because I can't act, I will never have a film career that could serve as the launchpad for a popular blog.
• I'm not David Duchovny.
  

Reason to, despite all, retain hope that one day my blog may be as popular as it is:

• None, unless I can bank on growing male parts and morphing into David Duchovny. Which I'd really rather not do, as this would result in cries of "Look, it's the she-male who shares the same facial features as David Duchovny! But I've heard s/he can't act!" Yes indeed, that is something I'd rather not experience, even at the cost of having an unpopular blog.
  

I may continue the showcase later. Or I may not. Bets on the outcome allowed, if I get a share of the pool.

Cows as Superheroes

In the "Spotlight" section of today's Rocky Mountain News (paper version), there is, for the readers' edification, a little sidebar that lists Dutch and Swedish superheroes in the Marvel and DC universes. (Note that this sidebar appears on the page facing the article on show cats. Quality reporting every day!) I took note of the Cowmen (Koemannen) because they brought to mind Kellogg's Üder, the Hermaphroditic Cow.

I first learned of Üder in the fall of 2001, when I participated in my alma mater's study abroad program in Oxford. There, my Oxford roommate and I became quite fond of Kellogg's milk and cereal bars. Üder appeared on the back of every box of them in Ye Merrie Olde Englande. He stood, bipedal, wearing his dashing protective goggles and sporting his infamous udder gun.

Udder gun?

How could this be, thought my Oxford roommate and I. Üder was male--always referred to with masculine pronouns. How could he have an udder? Could this, wondered my Oxford roommate and I, be the result of a patriarchal culture that will not allow any superheroes, including those with fully functional mammary glands, to be female? No, no, we concluded. Kellogg must have deliberately made Üder a hermaphrodite in a surprising show of acceptance of one of society’s most downtrodden pariahs.

Sadly, it now appears that Üder's Web site is now for sale. One can still see a tiny picture of him, however. Could it be that Üder is fading into the abyss of Cereal Promoters Past?

I fear it is so, my friends, I fear it is so. But maybe not all hope is lost. Perhaps Üder can hook up with the Cowmen and stage some sort of confrontation in the style of WWF Smackdown. Let the better cow win. And truly, wouldn't cows be the way to go about promoting the WWF? I can think of no better spokesanimal.

Inaugural entry

Well, here it is--my inaugural entry. First impressions: seems like a blog ought to be more difficult to set up. It's a little distressing that in under ten minutes, anyone with an Internet connection can begin spouting their thoughts for the world's perusal. The world that has Internet connections as well, that is, and the world that is willing to sort through all the other blogs--all the other Web sites, really--just to find this one. Or the world that somehow manages, despite itself, to end up here anyway. So in truth, it's a very small world indeed.

Still. Mustn't let the power go to my head.