Saturday, November 26, 2011

Taking a cruise

I'm in Miami right now and tomorrow I will be embarking on a fabulous cruise vacation for a week.  I know I don't update very often, and not posting for a week isn't a big deal here, but hey, whatever.  I just wanted to make you all jealous.  I'm (going to be) on a BOAT.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfISlGLNU

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Word of the day: Snain

I drove through some snain on my way home from work today.  Here's the definition from urbandictionary.com:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snain





Friday, November 11, 2011

EUTAM: Needs

This is an EUTAM that isn't so much an incorrect usage of English, just one that specifically gets on my nerves.

It's the use of the word "needs" as a noun, viz, "For all your albino elephant juggling needs."

I don't know why this particular usage bugs me, but it does. I don't even have a better way to say what this sentence intends to convey. The thing advertised serves all of your albino elephant juggling needs. It is the thing you need to have when you're juggling a lot of albino elephants.

I mean, I suppose you could say, "This thing is what you need when you're juggling albino elephants," but it doesn't quite convey the same sense, does it?

I don't know. Needs. I don't like it. Anyone have anything else like that - a EUTAM that isn't wrong, and you don't have a better way of saying it, but it just bugs you?

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The benefits of regular writing

http://lifehacker.com/5855019/how-to-harness-the-mental-and-emotional-benefits-of-regular-writing

Today is the start of National Novel Writing Month, which I did two years ago and managed to hammer out the first draft of the novel I still haven't finished yet. I'm not doing NANO this year, because there's a huge chunk taken out of my November by a CRUISE TO THE CARIBBEAN (YEEEE!!!!) and I really do need to finish Shooter Vanished (and maybe the other two novels moldering on my hard drive) before I start a new project. Anyway, the above article has some good points about the mental benefits of writing regularly.