weak nights

Conclusive Evidence

Don't ask me why but I clicked over to this website that tells you what your IP address is, and then finds your location using Google maps. Normally there is approximately zero reason for me to be interested in this sort of information, but when you sit in front a computer for a living and also throughout most of your free time, things like this might suddenly become interesting.

So here are the results when I clicked on it:

That map is right! I do indeed live in Los Angeles. But let's zoom in to see how accurate this is.

Okay, I don't live that close to Culver City, but I'm still intrigued. Let's zoom in some more.

Customer Alert!

Sickened?

Target is too busy selling its millions of beautiful goofy products to bother making it known when one of them is going to retard your child. They put a print-out in the back corner of the customer service room, clap the dust off their hands and call it a day.

Man, when Santa sics his elves on a project like toys for tots, I'm pretty sure he checks the lists of components twice and makes sure lead paint isn't on there.  But I'm pretty sure Santa didn't make these toys. And I'm pretty sure CHINA did.

Is that what you had in mind when you got your baby those Happy Giddy Gardening tools? Retardation? 

Here's how I remember it

The Wonka Memo

LEGAL MEMORANDUM
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

TO: Squire, Squire, Hackham, and Dudley 

FROM: Tobias Squire Esq. Re: Wonka Prize 

Attn Partners,

Imagine my surprise upon returning from vacation only to discover news of client’s brainstorm in, oh let me think, EVERY NEWS OUTLET EVER CREATED. I did leave explicit instructions on how I could be reached while at Brighton; I can only assume that, yet again, Mr. Wonka et al did not see fit to draft his proposal by legal before going to the public and we must now once more pick up the pieces.

THESE CANDIED YAMS TASTE JUST LIKE CINNAMON ROLLS!

11-year-old Weak Nights Correspondent Mitch Michelson reports on his family's Thanksgiving.

No joke, these might be the best yams I've ever had in my whole entire LIFE! But how did we get here? You're sitting there saying "Mitch... Hey Mitch! MITCH!? How come you get to eat such AMAZING candied yams!"

Let me tell you, friends.

Mom and dad were asleep when I ran into their room this morning at 6:30. I jumped on their bed to remind them that it's THANKSGIVING! We've gotta GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GOGOGO GOOOOOOOOOO to Aunt Jane's house to celebrate! Dad had a boner and
shoved me out of the bed pretty hard. Mom says that the scars on my arms, legs, torso and neck are dad's way of saying that he loves me.

Some Multiple Choice Answers

Multiple Choice Answers Starting with Letters G-I

I’m very lucky, I love my work. My job is to write and produce scavenger hunts for private parties, frequently companies seeking team-building events. To learn more about this awesomenessitude, please visit www.thegogame.com. 

The game is played on wireless web-enabled cell phones that direct players from location to location and ask questions (we call them “missions”) about details we find or conceal in the game zone. Players answer either with multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank responses (I’m not adequately expressing how rad the whole enterprise is, but I’m just focussing on one particular aspect of what I do, so bear with me). I scout the game zone, write the questions with my own zesty style, and, in the case of multiple-choice answers, write 4 wrong choices for each right one. 

My computer has a long memory for fields you fill in-- or did, at least, until a recent unfortunate clear re-install. When I start to type in a multiple-choice answer field that will later turn up on a players’ phone, I see all the other answers I’ve ever entered in that field that begin with that same letter, not as many since before the re-install, but still a fair amount. Here are some of the multiple choice answers that start with G,  H, and I. The questions I’ve long since forgotten, but bear in mind that about 1 in 5 of these is correct.

Real Life Gaming

As some of you know, I work for the fabulous Go Game, a real-life gaming outfit, and this past August I decided to check out some of our competition, Urban Dare. I'm not too afraid of giving them a plug (though I'll make their logo small just to make plain where my allegiances lie) because I discovered we're really not competing for the same market. I decided to give them a try when they were in town on Aug 25th, and here is an archive of my game experience, in which I will give away some of their trade secrets. Yahoo!

 

Girls' Bill of Rights

So I came across this the other day:>/p>

Now I think it's fair to assume that if the girls of Alameda County have incorporated, and are now demanding their own Bill of Rights, it stands to reason they have therefore relinquished all claim to the regular Bill of Rights that comes with the Constitution, and I'm not sure that's such a good bargain.

I mean, look at the rights they traded away: freedom of assembly, freedom from search and seizure, right to a fair trial. All of it, gone! And in exchange for what? The right to "prepare for interesting work"? I'm no Constitutional scholar, but the way I read this wording it is NOT the same as the right to actually GET interesting work. Anybody who's seen "Star Trek" will tell you that preparing for things (jumping to light speed, for instance) is just a stalling technique, and a poor substitute (at best) for actually doing it.

The right to bear arms is out the window in the Girls' Bill of Rights, and I understand that because 1) the girls of Alameda County are too young to own a gun and 2) if they really want one, they could borrow their dads', but can they also borrow their dads' second amendment? I'm thinking no. While we're on the subject, I don't own a gun-- if I'm not using my second amendment rights, shouldn't I get a bigger tax refund from the government since I'm not taking full advantage of its services? I've never been to a national park either, so that should be another 60 cents or so. If I did go, though, I'd go to the Grand Titons cause I think those are boobs.

But at the same time the Girls' Bill of Rights deprives Girls Inc. of some of the Constitution's Top 10 most popular rights, it also extends to them rights that I don't think Alameda County can deliver. I'm talking specifically about the right to be safe in the world. Really? I'm not at all sure that's a right. The suggestion is I can walk through the streets of Falujah (well not actually me) or stick my head in a lion's mouth in Bagumbo Africa and be all, "Nothing can possibly go wrong now, I'm an Alameda County girl! Inc! And I have the right to be safe in the world!"? Somebody report back to me on how that goes.

The Fiery Baptism of The Universe

The man smiles and even raises his legs in jest, while being humped by a dolphin.  The rest of the people laugh in surprise.  The man pumps his hand a little as the dolphin thrusts.  The dolphin is eventually warded off, and the man is a good sport about the whole incident, even clapping his hands himself.  This video disturbs me because of what it says about double standards in bea...

HALF A DOZEN WORDS I USED TO NOT KNOW

Whoa, I can't believe I haven't done one of these since September! It's amazing how having major facial reconstructive surgery slows a fellow down. Well as some of you remember, when I read, I tend to write down words I do not recognize, or words that I can only understand in a reading context but could not myself define or use in a sentence. Later I look up the definitions of the words, and any other interesting details. Here are a few.

revenant - The OED lists two entirely separate definitions for this word, one from Old French, the other from French. The one still in usage is, "one who returns from the dead, a ghost." As in "Revenant Jerk." But the other definition, now obsolete, is, "that which is pleasing." What I want to know is, before that word was obsolete, was there a period of time where somebody out there found ghosts pleasing? Who???

redoubt - To dread, fear, stand in awe or apprehension of, esp. a person or nation. Two things to know about fear: one, the word "pogonophobia" means fear of beards. Second, "harpagophobia" is fear of thieves. Can't make this stuff up. Final note on this word-- the dictionary indicates that it is almost always used in the past participle ("the redoubted thief terrorized the harpagophobic"), and there's something uplifting in that, isn't there? A bit of lexicographic optimism.

apparatchik - Picked this one up while reading the New Yorker article about Kasaparov running for president in Russia. Sure, they get the chess genius for a president. Jealous. The dictionary tells me that that apparat was a party machine of the Communist Party in Russia, so an apparatchik is a Communist agent or spy. Not suggesting that Kasaparov is a spy, it was just a word that appeared in the article. Furthermore, by extension, an apparatchik can be a member of a political party in any country who is responsible for execution of policy, but hold up: the apparat was a party machine? I want to be an apparat! Like this guy.

imperium - Command, absolute power, supreme or imperial power. From the Latin: figures. Would have been a better title for "Absolute Power."

senescence - The process or condition of growing old. If I'm not the only person who didn't know this word, and I bet I'm not, it could come in extremely helpful for calling in sick. "Sorry I can't make it to the office today, I'm getting treatment for my congenital senescence."

azimuth - This is a beautiful word, but I still think I only sort of understand it. It's the arc of the heavens, extending from the zenith (highest point) to the horizon, which it cuts through at right angles-- the quadrant, in other words, of a great circle of the sphere passing through the highest and lowest points. I don't have a very good spacial imagination, so if someone wants to help me out that'd be great. I'll tell you this, I love that it's a word with a Z in it whose definition relies on two other words with Zs (horizon and zenith). That's pretty special. It is also a horizontal (another Z word!) angle or direction, or point of the compass. I think words related to compasses are very romantic-- they make me think of the sea and such. Even the fact that the compass on a map is called a compass rose. That's lovely!

Hey, this was a good one! Except for imperium, but it's not my fault that's a boring word. Forward to your word-nerd friends.