Today I Learned The Difference Between Plain Old Lettuce And A Psychedelic Drug

Choosing the proper lettuce, with all the varietals available today, can be chancy. In a recent post (which I’ve since corrected) I typed that my dog won’t eat raw mescalin, which, apparently, is a very good thing. Mesclun is that fancy multi-leafed lettuce you get at the grocery market; mescalin (or mescaline) is from a psychotropic plant. Phew! I am grateful the good folks at PETA or the U.S. Government did not catch that mistake. What would my Mom say?

Everything Old Is New Again: A Telegraph Primer On Texting, Tweeting, Messaging

5 Tips Guaranteed To Improve Your Text Messages

These invaluable yet simple-to-implement tips are culled from How to Write Telegrams Properly, a small booklet composed by Nelson E. Ross in 1928 about over-the-wire (or online, get it?) communication, which has been in popular use since 1835. For today’s modern application the word “telegram” has been replaced by “text.”

1. Employ Less Words
   Naturally, there is a right way and a wrong way of wording texts. The right way is economical, the wrong way, wasteful. If the text is packed full of unnecessary words, words which might be omitted without impairing the sense of the message, the sender has been guilty of economic waste. A man high in American business life has been quoted as remarking that elimination of the word “please” from all texts would save the American public millions of dollars annually.
2. Use The Proper Address
   Clear, complete addresses are desirable not only from the point of view of the sender, but also from that of the company, since difficulties of delivery are thus reduced to a minimum. There are occasional evidences both of burdensome prolixity and of baffling inadequacy. Here is a good rule: Include in the address of your message all matter that is necessary, but only such matter as is required and no more to enable the company to identify and locate the addressee. If you have occasion, for example, to text the President of the United States, a message addressed to: The President, White House, Washington, D. C. will reach the Chief Executive if filed at any text office in the world. To write it: His, Excellency, The President of the United States, The White House, Washington, D. C. is to be needlessly verbose.
3. Don’t Allow Unnecessary Words To Creep In
   To paraphrase, “Brevity is the soul of texting.” Except perhaps in the case of a long Night Letter, the practice of adding such words as “Dear Madam” or “Dear Sir” at the beginning of the message is obsolete. These words are charged for, and so accustomed is the public to text brevity, that their use often produces amusement rather than the expression of formality which the sender desired.
4. Eliminate Small Words
   At a slight sacrifice to smoothness, but with a saving in tolls which often more than compensates, small words may be eliminated from your text without impairing the sense. Let us take an ordinary, every-day message: We received your very fine letter and your text this morning stop on the morning after you left us there were so many things to be done that all we could do was to pack up and get a taxi in time for the train we are leaving now. This would do quite well for a letter, but for text purposes it can be greatly simplified: Received your very fine letter and Text this morning so many things to be done morning after you left all we could do was pack and get taxi for train are leaving now.
5. Use The Telephone
   “Every telephone is a text office,” has become a slogan of the text companies. This means that you can call the company from any telephone and dictate your text. If you are a regular subscriber to the telephone service, the cost of the text is almost everywhere added to your monthly telephone bill.

Get the awesome complete list of original tips here: How to Write Telegrams Properly.

Every Tuesday is Retro Tuesday over at Crazy Suburban Mom. Please don’t judge her ’til you’ve gone a mile in her minivan.

Man Sues Bank Of America For 1784 Billion, Trillion Dollars

“These are the kind of numbers you deal with only on a cosmic scale... (it might make sense if) Bank of America has branches on every planet in the cosmos.”

— Sylvain Cappell
New York University’s Silver Professor
at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Although it seems like a story made up by The Onion, the tale is true. (More info here.) Dalton Chiscolm is suing the largest U.S. bank, Bank of America, demanding “1784 billion, trillion dollars,” plus an additional $200,164,000.

One billion, trillion is a 1 followed by 22 zeros. That’s larger than a sextillion, or 1 plus 21 zeros. That’s also larger than the world’s estimated 2008 gross domestic product: $60 trillion. A trillion has 12 zeros.

May this lawsuit result in better customer service for us all, in every solar system.

100 Foods My Dog Won't Eat... Wait, Make That 10... No, 3.

1. White rice


2. Brown rice


3. Raw mesclun lettuce (unless there’s cat/dog competition nearby)

Above: Godzilla, the “What’s that you got in your hand there?” Manchester terrier. Her former name was Kibi Shita, so if you’re wondering what became of your dog, she’s here and she’s runnin’ the joint.

P.S. Today I Learned The Difference Between Plain Old Lettuce And A Psychedelic Drug

Q: Who Was C.S. Lewis's Favorite Bad Writer?

A: Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939), Victorian scribbler and the most awful writer in the English language. (Also reputed to admire her works were Mark Twain and Aldous Huxley.) Lewis’s literary group, which included J.R.R. Tolkien, held competitions to see who could read her work aloud the longest, with a straight face.

According to Nick Page, author of In Search of the World’s Worst Writers, her second novel Delina Delaney “begins with possibly the most baffling opening sentence in any literature”:

“Have you ever visited that portion of Erin’s plot that offers its sympathetic soil for the minute survey and scrutinous examination of those in political power, whose decision has wisely been the means before now of converting the stern and prejudiced, and reaching the hand of slight aid to share its strength in augmenting its agricultural richness?”

Amanda McKittrick Ros specialized in romance novels, with plenty of trembling bosoms, longing looks, and lots and lots of alliteration. Here’s an infamous exclamation from her first book, Irene Iddesleigh, published by her husband as a wedding anniversary gift:

“Speak! Irene! Wife! Woman! Do not sit in silence and allow the blood that now boils in my veins to ooze through cavities of unrestrained passion and trickle down to drench me with its crimson hue!”

And then there’s her poetry:

“Dear Lord the day of eggs is here”

As Smithsonian magazine put it, “Amanda McKittrick Ros predicted she would achieve lasting fame as a novelist. Unfortunately, she did.”

Ah, Amanda, you’re so bad you’re good.



More info about Amanda McKittrick Ros on this Wikipedia page.

Brrring! Brrring! Hello? It Is Robo-Call. [video]

Remember this one from Saturday Night Live, where Seth Meyers interviews Will Forte as Robocall? Oh, ’twas nutty during campaign election time.

Loss And Love, A Cartoon Redo

I re-colored a previous cartoon, The Afterlife, and also corrected a wonky eyeball. Although I enjoy a bright color palette I’m thinking my cartoon style may work better with gentler color. Here’s the result. Thoughts? Opinions? Insults? Do share.

Sideswiped

(Click it to biggerify.)

Have you ever had your pet mistaken for something totally weird? Besides my Manchester terrier being mistaken for a beagle, once my cat was mistaken for a dog. Also, a human baby.

Listening Impaired

A Riff Raffi cartoonoid from Alex Raffi. His blog’s at www.riffraffi.com.

Won't You Try My Jam?

“Won’t you try my jam?”


“Urp.”


“Won’t you try my jam?”“


“Eeuhhhhhh.”


“Won’t you try my jam?”


“Blorb.”



Click image below to biggerify.
Poor Dorie Greenspan, jam and stomach ache maker.

Water Retention Theory

Caroline exits the bathroom, walking quickly. David used the toilet just previously and waits for her. “Sorry,” he says, “I don’t flush the toilet every time I go.”

“Oh, is that a water conservation thing, reducing the number of times the toilet flushes and saving gallons and gallons of water every time?”

“No, it’s sentimental.”

And You Think Your Job Interview Went Badly

“When I was starting out as a comedian, I went to see an agent one time. He said, ‘We’ll call you if we need anything.’ As he was talking to me, I looked over at his trash can and saw my picture torn in half there.”

— Jay Leno in Parade magazine

How Is Small & Big Exactly Like Twitter?

   

We were both born in August of 2006, that's how. Astrologically, we're Leos. Growl! Also, we both have seven or more fans and/or followers. Here's a posting from our very first day: On The Job Joke, An Honest For-True Story. Such youth and innocence. That was before we moved on to bigger fish, like spoons and flies, and before the awards.

Ah, birthdays. Remember Small & Big's second birthday in 2008? Hah ha! What a blast. The artisans are still crafting replacement furnishings for the manse. I have since moved on to larger accommodations, but the memories are dear. Especially the hangover one. So, be sure to follow me at plfrederick on Twitter; and Tweeters, when you're on Twitter, but not Twotter or Twutter, come visit Twitter's twin, Small & Big. You can even bookmark smallandbig.blogspot.com, but hurry, while they still make bookmarks. And books.