Recently in Seen and Heard Category

I occasionally ask myself why the hell I chose to live in the city. Especially on those days when I have to make five consecutive trips to the BMV because they do a particularly poor job of telling me what I have to do to get my drivers license and license plate. But on today's trip home on the brown line where, as we crossed Halsted street, we were challenged by two people wearing jack-o-lantern masks on the top of a parking garage, I was reminded why I love it here. For quite some time I have appreciated the idea of guerilla theater, and its ability to remind us that the world is less predictable than we might like to assume. This moment came as a delightful surprise and served as a counterpoint to my evening commute. I can't remember the last time I was rolling down 315 in Columbus and was delighted by something so unexpected.

I overheard a snippet of conversation between three young men in the shared lunchroom here at work. The bit that caught my attention went thus:

Guy 1: "Is it, like, an anniversary of Karina or something?"

Guy 2: "Katrina was a setup."

Guy 3: "Oh yea, they totally saw it coming and did nothing."

Guy 2: "Like they couldn't stop it, its just water dude!"

It brought to mind an old Monty Python bit:

"ABSORB WATER TODAY WITH SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL WATER ABSORB-A-TEX STRINGETTES! AWAY WITH FLOODS! AWAY WITH THE DULL DRUDGERY OF WORKADAY TIDAL WAVES! USE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL FLOOD PREVENTERS!" -- Adrian Wapcaplet, Mousebat Follicle Goosecreature Ampersand Spong Wapcaplet Looseliver Vendetta and Prang, LLC.

Kid: "Daddy, why does he say 'Wacka Wacka?'"

Daddy: "To tell you it was funny."

Kid: "But if it's funny don't you just know?"

I hate to find any pleasure in the violent death of a fellow human being, however it was hard to suppress a chortle this morning when a local news commentator described a man who had been "stabbed to death several times."

It's been a while since i did a stint in Horticulture, but this caught my attention. Finding new plant species is common, and new genera while less common are not that unusual. However the discovery of a whole new plant family, especially one that seems only to grow in those locations currently or formerly occupied by humans, is a pretty big deal.

See this article from the Journal "Ethnobotany Research & Applications" for details.

For when "astronomical", "colossal", "enormous", "gigantic", "herculean", "immense", "mammoth", "massive", "monstrous", "monumental", "titanic", "tremendous", and "vast" won't quite cut it, and you want to sound like a boob.

Merriam-Webster has blessed "GINORMOUS." Be sure to use it in your school writing projects, kids.

A month ago my father gave me his Winchester 94. After watching an episode of Mythbusters where they put old west myths to the test (a silver dollar proved impenetrable to common period handguns) I felt the urge to finally take it for a test-drive. I called Jeremy and off we went to the New Albany Shooting Range.

Friday night Monica and I watched the Clippers play the Durham Bulls (COL 8 12 2, DUR 9 11 0). After giving the correct answer to a question, a contestant selected from the crowd was presented with an "Awesome baseball cap" prominently featuring the logo of a local boat merchant. I was left worrying about the state of the American strategic adjective supply. If we have become so wasteful that we will use one of our most powerful positive adjectives to describe swag I fear our children will inherit a world where the only option left open for disambiguation is the use of foreign adjectives, likely imported from countries that don't share our values.

This morning I was witness to paradox made clothing, a 40 something woman wearing a camouflage shirt covered in sequins. I am assuming that this was so that she stands out in the degree to which she blends into the background. Further evidence that the urban camo trend has officially vaulted the Selachimorph.

Future Business Leader of America 1: "Where he was born?"

FBLA2: "With that accent I don't think he was born anywhere. Maybe his mom didn't taught him how to speak right"

A snippet of a conversation between a Bohunk and his breasty companion.

"Yea, well you know, that was back when I only had a few credit cards"

Thank you and goodnight.

Guy 1: "I fell asleep at work once and slept through the end of my shift. Do you know what the consequence was?"

Guy 2 stares expectantly.

Guy 1: "The boss approved overtime because he had to explain why I was still on the site"

Riotous laughter.

The End; and God bless the American Working Man.