If only my last name started with any letter that comes after Q! In Indiana, those with last names beginning with the letters R through Z have their vehicle registration date on or after August 31st. P-Q have a registration date of August 15th. I will be moving to Chicago at the end of August. I just paid my Indiana registration, and will be forced to pay again in Illinois within 30 days of my move. This is just more proof that the BMV is evil.
I’ve never been fond of them, except when employed by Douglas Adams.
I don’t have any particular reason for my distaste, I just find them generally annoying. But here’s a good argument for avoiding them (if you didn’t already clue in to the danger after all of that Gulag nonsense): if you use a simile or metaphor, some idiot out there is going to take you literally. Case in point — this is what Hoagie had to say yesterday after someone made the mistake of using a simile to describe materials found on Tempel 1:
Now, examine carefully Chick Woodward’s extremely tantalizing statement: “[the] silicates … might even be similar to the beach sand here in Hawaii ….”
Why choose THAT particular comparison … unless you meant it?
“Beach sand” is a highly specific, very weathered end product of a long history of planetary sedimentary processes … which can take place only on highly evolved, Earth-like (or, Mars-like) planets (with lots of flowing, liquid water)! To make that specific comparison, as a scientist, one can only think that Woodward was directly hinting at the “exploded planet hypothesis” itself … but without naming it as such–
This is where I bash my head into a brick wall. Repeatedly. (Actually, it got a good chuckle out of me. That and a whole lot of head shaking.)
P.S. If there’s anyone out there that abuses italics more than I do, it’s this guy. And please, Richard… quit it with the scare quotes. If there’s one thing I hate more than similes or metaphors, it’s the incorrect use of quotation marks.
Aspartame tastes like crap, I tells ya. I just drank a mixed drink containing vodka, and juice sweetened with pure ickiness. Tasted like Satan. It wasn’t the vodka’s fault. But I’m still tasting the aspartame. Ugh. It makes me shudder. I hear that a lot of people actually prefer diet soda. Why? Why why why why why!? I kind of want to vomit.
Associated Press:
In a slap at President Bush, lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.
The House voted 238-187 despite a veto threat from Bush to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.
United Press International:
The House voted Wednesday to let die a Patriot Act provision that allows the FBI and Justice Department to look at library records.
The vote to let the provision expire at the end of the year was 238-187, reversing last year’s decision.
Reuters:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday defied President Bush by approving a measure making it harder for federal agents to secretly gather information on people’s library reading habits and bookstore purchases.
The House voted 238-187 to scale back the government’s powers to conduct secret investigations that were authorized by the Patriot Act, a post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law.
Mutated versions of these three source stories are floating around the web. Reuters has its shit straight. I quoted the AP version in my post below, and it’s somewhat misleading at best. But UPI is just completely wrong… I find it all very amusing. Three different stories saying three different things… This is why I trust the media so much…
Daily Record – Italian PM’s ‘fat’ in soap
A bar of soap made from fat pumped from Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi after he had lipo-suction is up for sale for £10,000.
More than a little bit Fight Club-esque.
Why does a cooking show have a band?
I’m assuming it’s to cover for the fact that he’s making FUCKING DRIED PASTA.
With garlic (audience: YAY!!!!!!!) and cognac (OOOOOOOooooooo!!!!) and after the commercial ANOTHER NOTCH (enthusiastic fatty-clapping).
The hi-larious jokes he’s making are obviously to cover for the fact that if it were any other cooking show, he’d have 12 other parts of the meal to be working on, while on his show he is standing around waiting for a pot to boil (or, um… simmer down, ain’t that clever).
Death.