Verb is the Word

I'm dusting this off to vent. I've seen the apostrophe mangled all to hell, and now I'm watching as people refuse to understand the concept of verb tense. It's another one of those painfully simple things, but people are even more painfully simple so they just don't bother. It goes like this: he is, they are. Verb tense! More and more, I see this: Sony are apologizing for being bad marketers. No! No no no no no no! Sony is a company. Singular. I don't care if they employ a million people. One entity = singular verb. The crew are working hard to earn vacation days. NO! There is one crew. Again, I don't care if there are a bajillion people in the crew. Single crew = singular verb. It sucks getting old and watching the language die because of laziness. I'm glad I'll be dead before we're back to grunting at cave paintings.

You Blew It, Terra Nova

A show set 85 million years in the past. Dinosaur time. You know what I'd do if I had a show set in the dinosaur-riddled past? I'd show some damn dinosaurs! Holy friggin' crap, how hard is that to figure out? Instead, the show with more children on it than Sesame Street now adds two more little lisping nitwits to the show. Great. Makes sense, though, as I think those kids are the same ones who wrote the script. I've seen more plot twists on a book of matches than in this show. I'm done with it, but should anyone associated with the show happen to stumble drunkenly across this blog I offer the following advice: watch Primeval, and take notes. They show dinosaurs (or some other prehistoric or future critter) multiple times each episode! With no children! It got its seasons expanded because of rabid fans, plus it's getting a spinoff. The only thing spin-worthy about Terra Nova is the water that's swirling around with it in the bowl.

I Hope It's A Coincidence

I'm performing a test to see what food(s) make my gout feel worse. Since meat is a culprit, I'm doing the unthinkable: spending a week meat-free. Yes, really. No, my account hasn't been hacked. We bought Boca burgers, and I made a dish with those and rice, peppers, mushrooms, onions, and some whole grain wrap things. I had that for a couple days, and today we went out to a restaurant with a menu chock-full of meaty goodness and I ordered a black bean burger with a salad. (Really, my account hasn't been hacked. Get off the floor.)

Today is the first day in a couple weeks that I have had no pain in either my toe or knee. I really, really hope it's a coincidence. Next week I'll eat beef and see what happens. Turkey the following week. Not terribly exciting, I know, but necessary.

Oh yeah... Deb is not partaking of this experiment, and I wouldn't expect her to. She still gets to eat normal food. Lucky.

You Gouta Be Kidding

I've adjusted my diet in order to combat high cholesterol. Just a part of being 40+, I guess. Little did I know that in so doing, I was eating a bunch of things that trigger a gout attack. I had also cut out things that helped stave off an attack. Neat. I guess I'm down to three choices: eat for my cholesterol and deal with the pain and occasional limping, eat for my gout and maybe have a heart attack sooner rather than later, or switch to a vegetarian diet and kill myself inside of a week. Oh yeah... through the magic of the intertubes, I learned that cherries have some sort of mystical voodoo property that helps to reduce swelling from gout and other types of arthritis. That's great, because cherries are delicious! (I keep saying that in an attempt to keep from vomiting as I force them down.) Cherries are like most other vegetables and fruits to me, in that they evoke the same mental image whenever I eat them. It's an image I'll share with you now for your dining and dancing pleasure. Picture a decent-sized beetle. The size of your thumbnail or so. Now imagine the sounds and the sensations that flood your senses when you step on that beetle. The squishy crunch, the goo oozing from the shattered carapace. Now take that packet of sensations and put them in your mouth. Now go eat a salad, or as I like to call it, a bowl full of beetles. Sure, it's a delicacy to some. Some freaks.

So, yeah, vegetarianism isn't really in the cards for me. Beetletarianism, absolutely. Crunchy and delicious.

Survivor Pawn Housewife Bachelor Idol Factor

“You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.”
- from Network (1976)

Running Gag Store

My brother has gotten into the whole making designs on T-shirts for fun and profit thing. His store, RunningGag, is all about running, biking, swimming, marathons, duathlons, triathlons, and all that kind of fitness and athletic stuff.

What?

The Mrs. and I got our hearing tested today. One of the nifty things about Tucson is the overabundance of medical places that enjoy teasing the populace with free stuff. Despite the joyful whistling/ringing of tinnitus that's significantly less enjoyable than holiday chimes pealing away in my head 24/7, the ear lady said I have excellent hearing. (That's what I heard, anyway.) Deb has slight hearing loss, but that's only when I ask her to make me chocolate chip cookies. Doesn't impact her too much, and it helps keep me on my diet. Grumpy, sure, but that happens with or without cookies.