Stuff

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Useful words to know in the new millennium:  Zoonosis: a disease communicable from animals to humans under natural conditions (You may ask: "But what are the limits of 'natural' conditions? Are Guangzhou butcher shops natural?"). Internal exile: The resistence of disaffection in contemporary Iran. Young persons who just want to get away, who have separated themselves from the hardline Sharia government by taking refuge and escaping into such things as hard drugs or foreign movies and watching satellite TV, pursuing a very personal, private life away from the edicts of the government and what it is trying to do in the society. Some even emulate a foreign accent without ever having travelled outside their country. People who are in their own country foreigners.(Source: NPR Morning Edition, "My Name is Iran: Part 2", 03Feb04, my paraphrase) Offshore (verb, transitive): To offshore a job is to take a [generally high-skill, well-paying...] job and transfer it to a lower-labor cost country. Often, the American citizen whose job was thus taken away from him, is unable to find a new job anywhere near as good (See Quote #178, for details). Rendition: "[T]o transfer captives to countries that use harsh interrogation methods outlawed in the United States."(Source: Morton Sklar, executive director, World Organization for Human Rights USA, quoted in: Dana Priest, "Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War", The Washington Post, 27Dec04, p.A01; one blog called rendition: "outsourcing torture") Dark fiber: Unused fiber optic cable (Ed. note: Not to be confused with dark matter, Darth Vader, etc.). "The 'Long War' is the name Washington is using to rebrand the new world conflict, this time against terrorism.... It sounds eerily like the Cold War - and that is no mistake." (James Westhead, "Planning the US 'Long War' on terror", BBC online, 10Apr06) Some new words for some carry-overs (aka: hangovers...) from the last millennium: K-Martha Stewart (George W Bush should have put Martha in charge of Iraq reconstruction instead of Paul Bremer!). Mad Thatcher Disease (aka: bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), mad cow disease). kidNapster (I, BMcC, did not patronize Napster; I do not commit Internet crimes...). "Free fall" capitalism. (...Also, Please! Check out my aphorisms!)

Real automobile bumper stickers: "I HATE YOU AS MUCH AS YOU HATE ME" (back of Volkswagen Beetle, downtown Washington D.C., ca. 1977). "KILL YOUR TELEVISION" (White Plains NY, 2002?). "I LOVE ASPHALT" (tradesperson's pickup truck, Westchester Cty. NY, Oct 2003). [Decale on rear window of a not new Jeep Cherokee, Armonk NY, 28Mar04:] "South Vietnam University [/] School of Warfare". Real vanity license plates: DERRIERE (immaculate chocolate Porsche -- as it zipped past me up a long, s-curve on Taconic Parkway, ca. 1981). WUTEVR (white BMW X5 SUV, near Armonk, NY, 26Jun02). VERSUS (white middle-aging Honda Accord sedan, headed for Armonk, NY, 16Sep02; a lawyer?). OEDIPUS (car in psychiatrist's office parking lot, Mt. Kisco, NY, 30Nov04). A biblical chapter-and-verse reference (I forget exactly, but something like): 1THES5 21. See also:  Hubcap mentalité....   Car that looks like Totoro.... Remember pillarless coupes (aka "hardtops")? More automomemorabilia.... 1.699   REGULAR  1.789   PLUS  1.759   PREMIUM  Gas station fuel grade price sign -- one example of something I see fairly frequently these days in North White Plains NY (this instance: 18Jun03). Normally, one expects each grade to be less expensive than the next higher grade. Also, I seem to remember diesel used to be less than petrol, but now it's sometimes (often?) more. ~ By November 2004, it looked like gas would never again be less than $2 per gallon and that it was on its way ever higher....   Station: #1 18Jun03 #2 18Jun03 #1 10Jul03 #2 03Sep03 #1 11Sep03 #2 26Nov03 #2 19Nov04 Anomoly: Pl>Pr Pl=Pr R>Pl Pl=Pr R>Pl D>Pr D>Pr Regular Plus Premium Diesel 169.9 178.9 175.9 169.9 172.9 172.9 167.9 166.9 178.9 197.9 207.9 207.9 196.9 195.9 193.9 208.9 169.9 176.9 181.9 188.9 215.9 227.9 236.9 249.9 (Nov 03) I actually bought regular on a day when plus was a penny less. Yet again, dumb me! Station: #2[fn.99] 19-31Dec04 #2 07Apr05 #2) 05- 13Feb06 #2 13Apr06 #2[fn.116] 19Apr06 Anomoly: D>Pr; R<$2 R>>; D>>   R>> R>$3 Regular Plus Premium Diesel 189.9 199.9 209.9 249.9 228.9 235.9 243.9 269.9 257.9 268.9 279.9 299.9 286.9 299.9 309.9 309.9 301.9 314.9 324.9 329.9   January 5, 2009, I got Regular gas for $1.759 at station #2. I seem to recall that Regular went well over $4.00 per gallon during the summer of 2008, and that some stations (e.g., #2) started charging 10 cents more per gallon if purchased with a credit card (as opposed to a debit card or cash).... Do you want to spend at least US$305,000 on a new car? If yes, then the Three-pointed Star will metamorphose into a Maybach for you. A sine qua non for a really fine automobile: A really fine automobile would neither look bad nor suffer any corrosion from minor collisions (dinks and dents and scrapes and so forth...), so the owner would have no urgency to get the damage repaired. [Does a Maybach do any better than a Toyota Corolla in this regard?] A sports car with automatic transmission is like a mechanical watch with automatic winding ("self-winding") -- why bother? A tachometer in a car with automatic transmission is like a power reserve ("Up/Down") indicator in a self-winding watch -- tantalizing.

Proposed advertising slogans: "Budweiser, the king of beer cans" ~ "When better Buicks are built, Buick will build them" ~ "Your potential, our compassion" (Microsoft[fn.82]) "It's a Wonder they let us call it bread!" (Wonder Bread) The medium is the moneymaker. E=MB2 Enervation = Manpower × the Speed of Business squared Apocryphal popular songs: "We all live in a decommissioned Soviet nuclear submarine" (The Beatles). "We Shall Undergo" (Civil Rights movement song). "O, give me a home where the beefalo roam" (Cowboy song). "Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd! Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack; I don't care if I never get back. So let's root, root, root for the home team! If they don't win then they'll lose..." (Unknown). "Somewhere, under the rainbow [or else: Maybe here...]..." (Harold Arlen and EY Harburg). "Allah said there'll be days like this" (The Shirelles). "Who Let Us Dogs Out" (Baha Men; "rap" genre). "Happy hubcaps to you, until we meet again. Happy hubcaps to you, keep smilin' until then...." (Dale Evans + Roy Rogers). "And we're climbing a stairmaster to heaven" (Led Zeppelin). "The hills are alive, with the sound of Muzak..." (Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II). Christian hymns: "Leading from the rear, leading from the rear.... We shall come re-joy-cing, leading from the rear." Popular movies: "Harry Potter and the Chamber Pot." "The Toyota Matrix." Art films: "Clueless", starring Jean-Paul Demimonde and Jean At Sea, directed by Jean-Luc Godot. "Breathless", starring George W Bush (who frequently sounds like he's out of breath due to being excited about the importance of what he is about to reveal whenever he says anything...). Proverbs: "A rolling stone gathers no depleted uranium." Adages: "A stitch in time is something astronomers are looking for in deep space." Sports events: Teletubbies play the PGA tour. Sports: Extreme commuting.[fn.117] Classic TV shows: "You Waste Your Life". "The Velveeta Television Theater". Real persons with apposite names: [Dr.] Stephen W. Director [is] dean of the engineering school at the University of Michigan (NYT on the Web, 21May03, "Computing's Lost Allure"). Chris Moneymaker won The World Series of Poker (US$2.5 million) May 2003; he had never played in a tournament before (Peter Wayner, "The New Card Shark", NYT on the Web, 09Jul03). Max Boot wrote a review of Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea, in the 23Nov03 NYT Book Review. Steven Aftergood is Director of the Project on Government Secrecy. Julia B. Fee: Real Estate broker. Real[ly] offensive popular song lyrics: "We know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand...." (Oklahoma! --Rodgers and Hammerstein "musical") Are we: serfs? Real companies: Shock Electric (Danbury, CT). Real churches: Saint James The Less (Episcopal; Scarsdale NY). Surprising New York Times news article headlines: "Anti-Terror Drugs Get Test Shortcut" (31May02). "World Becomes Huge Player in N.B.A." (31May02). "Miracle Downs Shock 71 - 58" (11Aug02, AP). "Jordan's Strained Ties to Wizards May Be Cut"; "Russian Retro: Party Car Reborn" (04May03). "911 Failure Delayed Treatment as Deadly Heart Attack Struck" (31Mar04; EMS not WTC). "Turkey Is Basic, but Immigrants Add Their Homeland Touches" (25Nov04). New York Times on the Web typo (Benjamin Weiser, "A Judge's Struggle to Avoid Imposing a Penalty He Hated", 13Jan04). Note: typo did not appear in the print edition, which had the correct text: "cause célèbre" [See another NYT on the Web celebrity typo: Click here. Here is an NYT non-celebrity typo (Richard Bernstein, "A Continent Watching Anxiously Over the Melting Pot", 15Dec04, p.A4): "...in the late 1950's and 60's, Mr. de Winter said, just at the time when the Dutch were undergoing the 60's revolution, elebrating sexual liberation...."] W$J opinion how aged gain from Bush 2000 win? "Gore-Free PC Games Can Help While Away Those Senior Moments" (11Sep03, p.B1). Yoga Journal feature article: "Life Without Sex: It Can Lead to Greater Vitality. But Are You Ready?" (Nov02). Magazines I grew up on: Better Homes and Gardens. Popular Science. Road and Track. The American Legion Magazine. [Lots of wholesome comic books -- I forget the titles.[fn.75]] TV shows I grew up on: The Edge of Night. The Secret Storm. As the World Turns. Mickey Mouse Club. The Kate Smith Hour. The Guiding Light. Queen for a Day. American Bandstand. The Howdy Doody Show. Captain Kangaroo. Art Linkletter. I love Lucy. Dragnet. Sky King. Superman[fn.76]. Words I find offensive: "Killer app" (I want to live). Similarly: "To die for."[fn.123] ~ "Sexy" (when referring to anything that has nothing to do with erotic gratification, e.g., the latest fanciest cell phone model). 2nd tier Words I find offensive: "Snarky" (used by self-important bullying persons to projectively label other persons as being what they themselves are but are in denial about being). ~ "Scrum": A daily micro-management meeting in which each employee in a [computer programming] group reports what they did the previous day, what they plan to do the coming day, what problems they are having if any... and all members of the group have to attend the whole thing. Word is taken from the British sport Rugby. Words I just find annoying: "Scootch"(sp?) (meaning: a small amount, as in: "Could you move over just a scootch?")

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