Here are a couple of verbal habits that bug me.
1) When people say "yeah, no." People seem to say it on podcasts a lot. It hasn't come up in real life. It's a filler phrase, like "um" or "you know." It just sounds dumb. If you haven't heard it, it goes something like this: "Yeah, no, I totally tivo NCIS every week."
2) The way FOX News always speaks in the present tense, even when talking about things in the past. It's supposed to sound like "you are there!" and "breaking news!" but it just sounds dumb and dishonest. Maybe just dumb. To me it sounds dishonest because I hate the news media and I always think they're lying and not doing real journalism b/c they just read press releases and ask only stupid questions. Here's an example: "Today, the President signing a bill gilding all hamsters under five pounds." The President isn't signing a bill. He signed it earlier in the day. Stupid. Oh, they often leave out the verb to be, too.
Okay, something positive. I finally finished that Metamorpho Showcase, and it was fun. I also finished Motya, which was pretty cool, and made me want to learn more about the Phonecians. They sailed to Britain from the Mediteranean way back in the BCs! They did this regularly, to get tin, which they brought back to the Mediteranean to be made into bronze stuff. It's wild. People in ancient times were doing a lot more than we think. They lived in multi-storey houses and could mass produce boats by making the pieces in one place, and assembling them elsewhere. I shit you not. The pieces were marked to show you which went where and everything. Eat that, Henry Ford. But, they also sacrificed their first born children. So the admiration only goes so far.
Current reading: The Rise of Silas Lapham, by William Dean Howells (1885). It's good, but I'm not far enough into it to say much.
Also, The Jugurthine War, by Sallust.
Currently listening to: The Sound of Young America. I've been listening to Pandora.com at work. That is a great site. My Rock Mix rocks mega hard.
I should be asleep.
This picture is in this week's movie evite. It's by Paul Pope, an awesome comic artist.
