Latest Posts

No Times Three

Gratuitous Chick Pics

Here’s a pic of some ancient (49-year-old) model prancing barefoot through the streets of London, clutching a bottle of wine.  (One of those “candid” i.e. posed paparazzi events.)

I have to admit that she’s not too bad for an older broad — apparently she was a model, or still is (see more pics at the link).  However, that’s not what I want to talk about here, but the “barefoot in the streets of London” thing.

1)  Considering the chances of spearing or slashing one’s foot on a discarded beer bottle in the Brit capital, I wouldn’t prance barefoot through the streets of London for a bet.

2)  Given that London’s streets are cleaned about as often as are the streets of Johannesburg, the chances of catching some flesh-eating disease from said injury are higher than the average rock musician in the 1970s.

2)  Even assuming that our streets are cleaner than London’s (which they are), if one were to try doing the same thing here in Plano, there is a distinct chance of the blazing-hot surface searing one’s foot in a manner similar to this:

(pic from Knuckledragger’s place)

It makes me wince just to think of it.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

Day 3 without New Wife:

Ah well… time to lighten the mood.

Ditto:

…and ditto:

All right, enough of that filth.  Let’s get wholesome:

…sorta.

And finally, for cartoon fans, here’s Wilmaaaaaa:

Speaking of redheads, here’s the right kind of Karen, Miss Gillan:

Now get to work.  And remember:

That’s More Like It

Travels

Instead of cheap tickets to poxy New York and -Jersey, I got this offer:

I will admit that I’ve never been to Greece — no special reason, it just never came up in any of my travel dreams.  I’m not really big on visiting ancient buildings and old ruins, because my experience in Western Europe has been largely negative:  hucksters trying to separate the stupid American from his dollars in various ways — e.g. Rome’s Colosseum, which pretty much put me off this kind of thing for life.

And sunbathing in the Greek Isles?  Forget that shit — not just in Greece, but anywhere.

However, this I could get into:

Athens, Greece – November 6, 2015: Scenes from Plaka, also called “Neighbourhood of the Gods”, the old district of Athens at the foot of the Acropolis with labyrinthine streets and neoclassical architecture.
March 31st, 2019, Greece Athens. Greek restaurant taverna at Plaka area, blackboard with daily menu, empty tables and chairs, sunny day

…and I just LOVE Greek food:

…and I even drink retsina, the Greek wine that tastes like Pine-Sol, but which complements Greek food really well.  (My Dad, a seasoned traveler, always recommended drinking what the locals drink, advice which has served me well just about everywhere.  But I draw the line at ouzo.)

I think the only problem I have going to Greece is that I can’t speak a word of it — literally — and of course, as they have that strange alphabet, I can’t read it either.  I’m not afraid of venturing into the complete unknown — at least they have a Western culture (I know I know, they started it all blah blah blah) — but I hate being a total foreigner, if you get my drift, which is not the case in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and even Italy or Spain.

But I can’t help thinking that I’m missing something by never having been there.  (New Wife has done it, and speaks glowingly of both Athens and the islands, so there’s that.)

All thoughts, experiences and suggestions are of course welcome in Comments.

Aaaargh Speedbumps

Grammar Nazism

I’ve got three gripes today.  The first is from Gun Digest, who seem to have succumbed to the “let SpelChek do the editing”, with this gem:

At the bear minimum, it’s novel.

…and no, it wasn’t a pun, because the gun under discussion was a .22 Mag rifle.  B-A-R-E.  And in the same article, by the way, we find for a bonus:

Also, it’s receiver is drilled an tapped.

I-T-S nofuckinghyphenapostrophe, and if you’re going to get all folksy and elide the conjunction, it would read “…drilled an’ tapped” (perhaps move the offending hyphen from “it’s” and just put it after the an?).  Otherwise, despite SpelChek giving it the okay, it is spelled A-N-D.

Next up is the Daily Mail, (a.k.a. Illiteracy Central) and it’s a classic case of turning a noun into a verb (a.k.a. “verbing”):

“Summited”?  Seriously?

There are actually two quibbles about this silliness.  FIrstly, “summit” has been egregiously and unnecessarily turned into a verb.  Secondly, even if you’re going to “verb” this noun, at least recognize that as spelled, it would be pronounced “sum-my-ted” — to shorten the letter “i” requires a double consonant afterwards, e.g. “submitted”, “admitted”, etc.

Right.  After pouring myself a second breakfast gin, I promptly spat it all over the keyboard when an old foe reared its horrible head.  This came from Steve Kruiser at PJMedia (who really should know better):

“I’m not concussed, I’m not hallucinating, I just tend to look at most things differently than other people.”

One more time:  it’s “differently FROM other people”, FFS.  “From” is what’s known as tadaa!  a differentiator — e.g. one house differs FROM another in that it has a green roof, not a red one.  (Try saying the previous sentence using “than” instead of “from”, and see how ridiculous it sounds.  Welcome to my world.)

The word “than” is comparative — taller than, longer than, sillier than, etc.

I know it can be confusing.  Here’s another example to help show the concept:

“Michael Phelps differs from Danny DeVito in that he’s much taller than the diminutive actor.”

Note how using the phrase “differs from” makes it a far more elegant expression than (see what I did there?) “Michael Phelps is different from Danny DeVito…”

It’s really quite simple, like most grammar rules.  Which is why when they’re broken, I want to reach for the 1911 and ventilate the screen.  Or the writer.