The joke is that I didn’t post anything on April Fools Day, I guess.

I got poisoned, though! Well, not really, but on Thursday I ate one of these little yogurt parfaits that the Superstore sells and the blueberries tasted a bit off, but because I wanted to get to the oatmeal beneath them, I just kept right on eatin’. After I woke up later Thursday I had a terrible taste in my mouth and a bit of general queasiness and such. I figure I probably shouldn’t have eaten those blueberries. Blueberries are delicious when they are fresh, but not worth it when they aren’t. Fact. I’m still in love with the parfaits, though. I’ll stick with the strawberry for now.

So, I bought a book a few weeks back (Trouble With Lichen, by John Whyndam) and was like sixty or more pages into it when I realized that thirty pages were missing. In a row. And it isn’t a clean tear, either. There is enough of the pages left in that I can make out whole words in some instances. That is the sort of thing that I should have caught before I bought it, but I guess it does explain why I got it for a dollar and it was marked “as is”. Ah, well.

Haiku!

Can’t stop the bum rush.
Don’t even bother to try.
You just can’t stop it.

So, for as long as I can remember, the newspaper that employs me would make its cover page black and white on Good Friday. You know, like they are mourning Jesus’s death an’ all ’at. This year they did not. This proves the newspaper is now Satanist. Proves it.

There’s apparently a Japanese restaurant opening up the street from me. They’ve a sign on their window saying they want “part time employers”. If I wasn’t so sure that that was a typo, I’d really have to consider trying for that.

Okay, anyway. I found this article in the paper two days ago and attempted to rip it out to talk about it here. Except it would appear that what I ripped out was the article directly beneath the one I wanted. I guess “Even in White House, Obama girls do chores.” Not really what I was looking to talk about, (and not really newsworthy if I were asked…) but good for them, I guess. It’ll build character. Last thing we want it a couple of little kids with atropheid chores-doing skills. There’s enough of those around already.

Actually, I did get the last paragraph of the article I wanted, and that’s the most important part. The peice was about a decision by educators to stop using the phrase “I before E except after C” because there are just way too many exceptions. Most of the people in the article as I recall were down with it, but here is the last paragraph as written on this scrap of paper: “But supporters say the ditty has value because it is one of the few language rules that most people remember.”

To sum up, educators say, “we’re not going to use that because it is wrong.” These “supporters” whoever they may be say, “It may be wrong, but people remember it.” What the chunks, supporters? Are you idiots? As an idiot myself I can say that that little ditty was definitely remembered by me and it Messed Me Up. While the examples in this post are done on purpose, I do have a genuine problem remembering the I’s and E’s of plenty of words and I say we get rid of that misleading phrase and prevent another generation of children from hesitating over words the way I do.

It’s like effin’ Pluto again. People just don’t like things they know to change because then they don’t feel like they know things, I guess…

From a look around the Internet and even in newspapers it would appear that Archie has chosen Veronica over Betty. Now, that is not the choice I would have made in his shoes, but no matter what the Internet says I doubt that this choice will truly be ending the long running triangle that has sustained that particular franchise forever. As much as I like to see Status Quo oriented corporate-owned things take risks rather than grow stagnant, I don’t think Archie is really going to do it. But still, Betty is like… Way Better. It’s almost a choice between good and evil and Betty is good. I mean c’mon, it’s the Veronicas of the world holding us back. Archie is an idiot. Of course, following the newspaper strip I’ve barely see Betty around for months but Veronica is always there. Archie is an idiot…

Haiku!

Cavemen from beyond.
They have seen the Milky Way.
And Now They Are Back!

During the time I was without computer and then without web site I had to put aside my plans to offer up some comments on the new Star Trek movie, so here’s the digest version.

I liked the movie. Of the new cast, Kirk is my least favorite. He’s alright, but he’s just not quite there. The new McCoy is almost eerily like the old McCoy and was thus awesome. Chekov was like an adorable little child. I like seeing aliens that look a little bit more alien, though they’re generally just standing around in crowd scenes. The plot was not all that smart. People spoke about Red Matter like I was supposed to have any idea what that was. And the villain didn’t engage me all that much. I bet the sequel will be able to weave a better tale. In this there were some coincidences to get the cast together that were a little bit distracting. A sequel won’ have that need to get them together, so it can pick up with awesome right away. Still, this was a fun movie.

I’ve complained about linear time being too fast for my liking and I’ve complained about not having anything interesting to write about. Those are my standard things I blame not writing here more on. Today I’m gonna blame something else: I was abducted by aliens. It isn’t necessarily true, but it’s good to have some variety in my excuses.

There were a couple questionnaires in the newspaper today. One for how depressed you are, one for how stressed out you are. According to the stress one, I’m living a good life. According to the depression one, I should be seeking medical help. Sounds about like I suspected.

Haiku!

Aboard the spaceship.
All the aliens were sad.
They had no robots.

The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. That’s what I’m listening to right now. Good song. One of my favorites probably. I remember I looked it up on the Wikipedia once and it said it was supposed to be about the way the nation felt after JFK was shot, but it doesn’t sound right to me. If I were to pick my meaning, I would say it sounds more like a warning against people letting their interactions become hollow and meaningless.

But all of that and I still get the words mixed up in my head and replace them with “‘Your exploits have been sad and boring. They tell a tale that’s worth ignoring. When you’re alone, the words of your story will echo down the resthome hall” from the Simpsons. Ah the Simpsons. Good stuff.

So, one of the local newspapers recently went very suddenly out of business. The only problem is that it wasn’t the one I work for. I feel like the wrong one was slain. Not only was the tabloid format of that other paper easier to read, but I have seen plenty of reasons to dislike the character of the company that I work for that I truly would take joy in their downfall. And the worst part is that I just bet that the upper management of my company are telling themselves that they put the other paper out of business in spite of the fact that they seem to be running a company based on embezzling, pettiness, nepotism and ignorance. At least I can take some comfort in the fact that I’ve been telling people how the newspaper industry is obsolete for some time now.

And so, last night we had to run over five thousand more papers than before. That’s just what I wanted More customers. The fact that this will all temporarily boost my company really makes me hate it that much more.

Plus people lost their jobs, so I guess they have it worse than me.