The early fish catches the....

Song for this post: "River of Deceit" ~ Mad Season

Hey, remember that post I wrote about grammar and the proper use of an Oxford comma?  Well, this is my favorite image of the day:

I'm kind of swamped with deadlines right now and mentally preoccupied by the fact that  MY SISSY IS COMING TO VISIT TOMORROW. As a result, I lack the brain capacity to be very interesting.

So, instead, here's a bunch of shit I heard, read, or saw this week:

RIP Ray Bradbury. You were The Shit.

Song for this post: "Something Wicked This Way Comes" ~ Light for Fire

I have a personal goal to own 10,000 hardback books by the time I die. I've had that goal for a while. I know. Everyone should feel bad for my future husband and hope to God we don't move often. I love books. I love stories. I prefer a good book to my Kindle. Someday, when I publish, I want to have a special edition of my books printed on cut pages.

I've always loved to read. Very little television was played in my father's house when we were little. He said often that, if there was one thing he wanted for his girls it was that they all KNOW how to THINK. That's a powerful statement. So we read a lot. He reads a lot. If the television was on in that house when we were little, it was usually Star Trek. This created a life long love of two things for all of his daughters: Science Fiction...and Jean Luc Picard.

One of the first "real" books I remember reading as a child is Something Wicked This Way Comes.  It continues to be one of my very favorite books and one I pick back up on occasion and read again and again. Ray Bradbury was a genius.

So today is a sad day. A great literary mind has passed.  Ray Bradbury didn't just tell amazing stories, like so my other favorite writers, he told us about life, politics, love, and human compassion through his stories in a way that ingrained those ideals in your heart forever. He made you think about the world around you, really think and form your own conclusions instead of just lazily believing what you're told.

Thank you, Ray Bradbury. For helping my dad get what he wanted.

"I suppose one night hundreds of thousands of years ago in a cave by a night fire when one of those shaggy men wakened to gaze over the banked coals at his woman, his children, and thought of their being cold, dead, gone forever. Then he must have wept. And he put out his hand in the night to the woman who must die some day and to the children who must follow her. And for a little bit next morning, he treated them somewhat better, for he saw that they, like himself, had the seed of night in them."

...Ray Bradbury ~ Something Wicked This Way Comes

Punctuation pisses me off.!,:;'"?

Song for this post: "Say It Ain't So" ~ Weezer

Okay so here's the deal: It's not like I'm some grammar-obsessed language Nazi. I'm not. In fact, I get pretty liberal with a lot of punctuation and slang terms because I think tone of voice is absolutely superior to traditional language rules.

But some things just make me giggle (and piss me off).

Last night on the ferry ride home I had to go to the bathroom. I noticed while in there that, on the inside of the stall door, there was this sign:

My friend, the bear.

Song for this post: "Possum Kingdom" ~ Toadies

I have a friend I've known, quite literally, since daycare.  We fell out of each other's lives for many, many years but, as expected, these days we're still just as up in each other's head as two people could be. The result is some pretty epic word exchanges (see left sidebar of this blog for example A).

Example B:

Nick: I think the first year there, I HAVE to live on/near Cap Hill. If I'm gonna be WFH, I need to be closer to social activities and avenues lest I become a crazy bearded hermit that has a habit of gutting coeds. 

Me: Just the little blonde coeds...keep it true to form. 

Nick: I'd prefer a redhead, honestly, but only if she's under 5'6'' 

Me: You don't gut redheads, Nick. That's a rule. You shackle them in your basement and dollify them. You know better than that.

...because that's not creepy.

What the heck is string theory?

Song for this post: "Science is Real" ~ They Might Be Giants 

I should have been a middle school science teacher:

The topic of string theory came up today in a thread on my sister's facebook. Not shocking. My sisters and I have a bad habit of getting super scientific and super philosophical way too early in the morning. Anyway, a few people who saw it asked me in messages what the heck string theory is.  So, here ya go.  I'm gonna break it down for ya'll:

Excuse me. I mustache you a question:

Song for this post: "Douchebag" ~ Patent Pending 

Feeling very debonnaire."

Every day I get "words of the day" delivered to my email inbox from two sources: Merriam-Webster, and Urban Dictionary. I think it's important to be well rounded. Also, I like words. "Say words, Elle!"


Today's Urban Dictionary word: