Great Pleasures ...

... Include shaving with a sharp, hot razor.

And sniffing correction fluid. But I digress.

Free Advice

Returning from his sojourn to parts abroad, the College Answer Guy returns to answer a couple of questions. Isn't that nice of him?

Dear College Answer Guy: Could you write my essay about The Merchant of Venice? I haven’t had time to read the actual play.
~ Overwhelmed by class work

Dear Over: The College Answer Guy is delighted to take up your queries. He hasn’t read The Merchant of Venice either, but that’s not a problem. The College Answer Guy has produced “A-quality” essays about literary works he didn’t even know the titles of.

What follows is a hasty attempt to write your essay. Note that you could flesh out The College Answer Guy’s skeletal outline to considerable effect in many places. Here goes:

“The Merchant of Venice is a delightful comedy by William Faulkner. It is the tale of an old man and a young boy at sea. While they ride their speedboat named Ishmael, they encounter a giant whale named Marlin Brando. Marlin wants people to capture him and put him into captivity because his mother married his uncle after his father was abducted by aliens that communicated to people through mashed potatoes.

“In the end, everything turns out okay because Michael Jackson adopts them all and writes a beautiful song about their adventures. He called it: ‘I Love Obese, Rancid Fish.’

“Faulkner’s work is full of marvelous lines that people have quoted for centuries. Therefore, I don’t have to remind you of any of them except the best known one: ‘Alas poor Duncan, he was a damn spot!’ The line is redolent of many important themes of the play, such as poor people, Dunkin Donuts, and hydroelectric power dams.

“Dunkin Donuts are tasty, nutritious, and full of the Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices. I urge you to try some original or extra crispy literature today by William Faulkner, or his son Edgar Allen Shakespeare. It’s good readin’.”

On second thought, The College Answer Guy doesn’t think you should use this essay. He’s going to keep it for himself. He might be able to get a teaching position at a prestigious university with it!

Dear College Answer Guy: There are so many dictionaries available today. I went to the bookstore and felt hugely overwhelmed by the choices there. After looking at dozens of volumes, I had no idea which dictionary to buy. Any advice?~ Max in Alabama

Dear Max: First off, get a friggin’ grip.

No one is going to invade your house to examine your dictionaries. Visitors and friends will not make harsh personal judgments about you because you have a Webster’s New World rather than an American Heritage. Okay, a few visitors and friends might make harsh judgments about you because of that, but they’re dorks.

The College Answer Guy thinks you should buy one dictionary—preferably one with many words, definitions you can understand and pictures of scantily clad lexicographers on the cover. If you don’t know what a lexicographer is, you really do need the dictionary. Get it quick!

What's Happening?

I'm off from work for four days -- yet the life seems busier than ever. After working on the whole blogging concept since November, it seems as though people are finally reading.

Of course, the reading is going on at my auxiliary blogs, which you can sample through the links to the right. This long-running account of my trials and turmoils doesn't interest folks.

Darn them! Darn them all to heck!

This doesn't count anyone who's actually reading right now, of course. You are the best, finest, and most hygienic folk the world has ever known.

Passing By

Johnny Cash died early this morning.

"We are here to drink beer. We are here to
kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and
live our lives so well that death will tremble
to take us."

-- Charles Bukowski

Meet the Neighbors

When I walk the dog, I keep to myself. I bring a book or the newspaper or my thoughts. I concentrate on one of those items and try to keep Tundra from racing off and disemboweling woodland creatures.

The s.o., on the other hand, has an inexhaustible appetite for merry adventures, which he shares when he returns with the walked dog.

"Tundra was so excited," he says. "She got to meet Princess Muffin, who is owned by Ebenezer, who lives in a building down the way. Ebenezer is studying dentistry! Then I took the dog to the other side of the complex, and she ran across Conan the Lab, who is owned by this cool guy named Vaclav. And he said --"

And so on.

While I'm glad Max gets to have such a good time, it makes me feel like a recluse. At least I will always have my blog entries. They will always talk to me. They will always be my friends. Ah. That's better.

What I'm Playing...

Blast Corps, a devilishly addictive little game that came out for the Nintendo 64 in 1997 from a developer called Rareware.

What's it about? Who cares. It involves a lot of driving around and blowing stuff up. Thus, it's cool.

Rumsfeld Poetry

Inspired by the cute little book available everywhere, here's my stab at turning some of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's words into verse. It's from a New York Times story published today.

Debate and Discussion

I. Opening Words

There should be
A debate and discussion
On these things.
We can live with that.
We can live with a healthy debate
As long as it is as elevated as possible,
And as civil as possible.

II. But --

To the extent that terrorists
Are given reason to believe
He might,
Or, if he is not going to,
That the opponents might prevail
In some way,
And they take heart in that,
And that leads to more money going into these activities,
Or that leads to more recruits,
Or that leads to more encouragement,
Or that leads to more staying power,

Obviously that does make our task more difficult.

Urrrggg

As you can tell by the alluring title to this entry, I'm in tip-top shape. Ha ha!

I don't know why I keep these ridiculously late hours -- I had assumed I would take up a more normal sleep schedule once I moved to the new apartment and everything calmed down. But nooo. I worked late tonight, and thus didn't get home until 1:20 a.m. or so. After time with the s.o., time walking around outside with the dog, listening to music and fiddling with my blogs, I see it's 4-flippin-30.

Times are busy at the Tampa Bay area newspaper, and that's likely to keep me preoccupied for days to come. But perhaps I'll start posting really outrageous things that spur thousands to flock to my site and call me an idiot.

What bliss that would be.

Love Me, Hate Me

Rant/Rave/Reassure, despite its ostensible purpose to document my colorful life and times, is really all about the love. And that love is the love I feel for you -- my tens of readers.

Thus, I've added a whole new level on which to experience the glory that is Rant/Rave/Reassure. A comments feature. Click on the words Rant/Rave under each and every post. Weigh in. Space out. Tell the world what a slobbering goon I am. The possibilities are limitless.

I added this to my copy editing blog as well. So if you're more -- how shall I say it -- of the grammatical persuasion, you can comment on my slobbering gooniness over there.

At My Work Desk

Two pictures of the dog are pinned to my desk there. They're both adorable. In one, Tudra stares at the camera with a smile. One ear stands straight up; the other flops down. A toy dinosaur and part of a rawhide bone are at her feet.

In the other, she peeks out from underneath the couch with a devilish expression on her face.

The positive aspects of these pictures: They don't demand to be taken out and walked.

Pay No Attention to the Previous Post

It was obviously written by an imposter. Investigations are ongoing.

Tough Times

At the old homestead. Granny's rheumatism gives her fits, and pappy's taken to drinkin' whisky afore noon. I don't know what Cletus and I will do. Go join the carnival as geeks, I 'spect. I do some purty singing' as well -- you should lissen to my version of "Pie In The Sky Until I Fry (Some Bacon)."

I Can't Believe I Just Saw This

I've been leaving the television on to provide background noise for the dog. The theory is she therefore won't spin into a barking frenzy when she hears a tiny noise outside. Not sure how well it's working, honestly.

Anyway.

I just watched a TV commercial in which a park ranger gave the Old Faithful geyser a laxative. That seems really, really wrong.

New Blog

I took the plunge and started Copy Massage, my take on the world of copy editing. It's still quite new, so be gentle. I hope to have some serious content up there in the next few weeks. I don't expect to work on it with the frequency of Verse A Day or even this blog. I look at it more as a reference and repository for my grumblings on subjects perhaps too esoteric to deal with here.

So what's ahead for Rant/Rave/Reassure? More of the same, really. I want to make this blog increasingly personal, without falling into the trap of dullness and self-indulgence (too late! chant the onlookers). I'll probably write more about video games, movies, music, and the like. My other two blogs are pretty narrow in content. This is where everything else -- that is, my life -- goes.

How Random Can We Be?

Time to post a random file from my vast and cluttered "My Documents" folder. This happens to be a news/features story I wrote as a classroom assignment several years ago. That's right. Names have been blacked out to protect those poor souls I interviewed all that time ago.

----------

From classroom to concert hall to shooting range, left-handed students at the University of Kansas face a variety of annoyances and challenges. A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that accidental death rates are much higher among the left-handed population. While not rushing to buy life-insurance policies, left-handed students admit to frustration at a mainly right-handed world.

“The whole academic setting is geared towards right-handedness,” said Matthew J., a senior. “Folders, notebooks, and desks are all irritating.” J.’s main complaint, however, is with computer mice. “In the last few years they’ve started making the mouse contoured for right-handers. “Your hand starts cramping up after about half an hour at the computer, and you have to stop using it.”

J., a cellist with the university symphony, has always played his instrument right-handed. “Musical instruments are pretty much mandatory,” he said. “If you want to find a teacher you have to play the standard way.”

Nathan F., sophomore, was also a cellist in middle school and high school. He feels left-handedness benefited him. Said F., “You start out using your left hand for fingering on a cello, which is an advantage.”

F. currently plays the trumpet in the university concert band and the basketball pep band. “You finger with your right hand on the trumpet. You’re slightly less dexterous at the beginning. But you get so used to doing it with your right fingers it becomes natural.”

Fellow trumpet player Brian H., a freshman, agrees with F. He also discovered an unexpected benefit. “I found I could switch hands on the valves of the trumpet if I needed to,” H. said.

H., who hunts pheasant and quail in the winter months, is most annoyed by shotguns. “The guns are built for right-handed people,” he said. “The gun shucks the shell at your arm instead of out on the ground. Left-handed shotguns are made, but they’re very hard to find.”

The New England Journal of Medicine report studied death certificates from two counties in Southern California. On average, the study showed left-handers died at age 66. Right-handers died at age 75. Left-handers were six times more likely to die in accidents than right-handers.

F. does not see this information as a problem. “We’re doing our part to keep the population under control,” he said. “What are the right-handers doing?”

Welcome Back ...

To Andrew Sullivan, who has taken up his blog again after a monthlong break. Andrew is my favorite right-wing gay iconoclast (and let's face it, there are so many of those), so give him a read.

Welcome to September!

Of course, it's still in the 90s in Tampa Bay. (Sweat.)

In other words, summer isn't over. It's getting its second wind.