December 2008
43 posts
I do not recall
I just received a most preposterous email, followed by an email recall message. People still use those? Somehow it makes the preposterous email so much more pathetic - like, rather than write a personal follow-up message that might actually mitigate the preposterousness, do you really think that an autotext that might as well say, ‘Oops! Just kidding!’ will persuade me to forget the...
Ross: When do you leave for Gambia?
Jean: THE Gambia.
Ross: Of course. You wouldn't go to just any Gambia.
“It is with regret that we inform you that the Baltimore Opera Company has filed...”
– Baltimore Opera Company
I just went to investigate getting my parents some opera tickets for Christmas and look what I found! Terrible.
Media Monkey: Silent right: Sunday Telegraph... →
Oh, shall we all throw up our hands in pretend surprise?
noraleah:
“The University of Chicago is joining a nationwide trend of allowing male and female students to live not just on the same dorm floor, but in the same dorm room.
The school sent a letter out to parents last week informing them of the decision. The school says it was a student-led initiative that isn’t aimed at romantic couples. However, the school says couples won’t be banned from...
“Every “Little Book of Calm” includes them, along with kittens and flowers.”
– Angels in the modern world | Messengers in the modern world | The Economist
Chappy Chanukah
Holiday marked by eating deep-fried foods in the name of celebrating freedom = excellent.
We get increasingly frustrated without water
Bex: I am going to rip them a new one.
Jude: I don't even know what that means, but it doesn't sound very fucking nice!
The year in review: 'How should we rate 2008? (2)'... →
Excellent book-writing tip #10: GET A REAL JOB
Hey! Remember my excellent book-writing tips? I bet you thought they were done, but nooooo, because now I am working on the revisions. It is a tiring, slightly onerous task, and so I am slumped on my couch, dividing my time between working on the book and thinking that I really should do is look for a real job because this book thing is actually really really hard (unless, I suspect, you’re...
The maintenance guys are here
Maintaining stuff in our rapidly-disintegrating flat. I suspect that I should be offering them a cup of tea, but I can’t, because they have failed to maintain the water. Who’s sorry now?!?!
Answer: still me. I have a cold and I want a shower and, and, and, WHINGE.
“Ultimately, for all of the hue and cry over the lawless attitudes of the Beat...”
– NAKED SOULS | SUSO
I wrote this!
“Some cool news recently— Scott Esposito over at Conversational Reading...”
– Maitresse: found in translation
If I were the translator, I would throw in some extra punctuation just to be contrary. So I guess that it is good that I speak French like a none-too-bright three-year-old from Quebec.
My visit to the passport office, by Jean
OK, I have had some complaints that I am not writing enough, which are possibly valid, but in my defence my relative silence is because I am not doing anything fit for public consumption. That sounds really exciting, doesn’t it, but it actually means that I am sitting at home on the couch writing and revising. Oh JOY.
But this afternoon I did escape for a few hours to go to the passport...
“I was kind of half cringing the whole time, I didn’t know whether to sit down...”
– My friend’s new love interest capped off a date by playing the piano. (via somethingchanged)
Hilarious! I had huge fun writing in the book about this sort of incident: how the degree to which you find someone’s eccentricities either adorable or horrifying is often the best bellwether of...
I wrote some book reviews...
Roar of the Butterflies by Reginald Hill
What Happened? by Hugh Pym and Nick Kochan
Favourite Heroes and Holy People edited by Deborah Cassidi
Today I learned an important life lesson, which I...
While budgeting for your BIG BAG OF SUPER CHEAP AWESOME Christmas trip to The Gambia, it is important to take into account the fact that if it is your first visit to West Africa, the necessary vaccinations and malaria tablets will cost only slightly less than the flight.
“It’s raw, it’s spare, it has a strong punk aesthetic, and it is the kind of...”
– THE BRUTAL ARTS | SUSO
By me.
Telegraph: Men 'lie about books they have read to... →
That’s why I require those who profess to fancy both Don DeLillo and me to write 2,000-word essays before I believe it. Obviously.
On the mend...
My friend Brie, an unwilling but plucky expert on food poisoning, emailed me these helpful hints this morning which I feel I must share with the world.
“As you may remember, my international illness experience has been vast - and many times of the food-induced variety. I thought I’d send you a few of my ‘favourite things’ to help along the way when experiencing digestion...
“Thrift is of course the latest middle-class indulgence; where once we spent on...”
– Alex Renton: Humbug to a thrifty Christmas
I asked the same question at work (where we write about the financial crisis every day) yesterday. In Australia, at least, the real threat is unemployment, which is created in part when people stop buying stuff.
I know some people who’ve lost their jobs...
Watch(via sasharappaport) Epic Trek Across London Takes Photo Every 8 Steps
This is the coolest.
“I love underwhelming theme parks. Slick, showy ones with hi-tech rollercoasters...”
– Charlie Brooker on the closure of the Lapland New Forest Christmas theme park | Comment is free | The Guardian
Personally, I will never forget the happy day out the Edelfamily had at the Sellafied Nuclear Power Plant Vistors’ Centre.
Sometimes I think, wouldn’t it be nice to take a sick day? When I could just lounge in bed and read books and watch television and not feel any guilt for skiving? Somehow I always forget that the sickness part of a sick day renders it not fun at all. Oh. My. Actual. I feel like death. All I can do is lie still and occasionally sip water and write plaintive things on the Internet. I...
Melon Galia - En Moin d’une Seconde
You...
BBC NEWS | Americas | Canada halts parliament amid... →
This is tremendously exciting!
I am on the train to Edinburgh this morning. I’m exhausted, because I had to get up at half five to catch it. But I am not grumpy, as half-five starts often make me: trains are definitely my favourite form of transport because of the quiet, and the solitude, and the soothing movement. I find it is very good for getting lots of work done. If there was a way for me to just ride the train back...
“Thus, you get the common trope of “I am ever so sorry to say that after...”
– The fine art of literary rejection letters | Books | guardian.co.uk
Something is rotten in Niskayuna
In the autumn of our senior year of high school, my friend Pennie and I briefly had the job of maintaining the road sign outside the local firehouse. It was like one of those church signs that you stick plastic letters on, except the messages were about home safety rather than about letting the Lord into your heart or whatever. Pennie’s father was a dedicated volunteer firefighter and thus...