Okay, I admit it; sometimes my grammar isn’t perfect. Oh sorry, did I forget to ask you to sit down before I dropped my bombshell? That’ll heal, don’t worry.
But seriously, I get tired of trying to write right all the time. It takes, like, brain cells and stuff to make sure I edit the hell out of every single solitary sentence I compose. And so while I do try to do my best here on my blog, I don’t always make sure my comments, my emails and (oh God) my texts are the essence of grammatical excellence. In fact when I’m in a hurry, I’ve actually been known to write things like “u” instead of “you” when tapping out a message on my phone. Don’t all gasp at once!
Is it lack of professionalism? Is it laziness? Or is it a bid to preserve the ever-decreasing amount of grey matter I possess due to the many things I have to deal with in any given moment?
What’s your excuse?
This grammatically questionable post has been brought to you in conjunction with Mr. Mark’s Roadshow
Me: I’ll start at the beginning, shall I? Here we go. In April, or maybe even March, I came in with my laptop because the battery was shutting the machine off at 70% power. You took it and you “fixed” it, but the battery was still fucked. So your manager promised me a new battery. Last week–yes, 7 or 8 months later–I finally got my new battery. I’d like to know if you can put it in for me. …oh wait! I can answer that question for you. NO! You can’t put my new battery in because you ordered the wrong one!
Geek Squad Mike: I have no idea which idiot ordered the wrong battery for you: here’s a new laptop, free of charge!
How it actually went:
Geek Squad Mike: How can I help you?
Me: I got the wrong battery.
Geek Squad Mike: What’s your phone number, I’ll look that up for you.
Ten minutes later:
Geek Squad Mike: (who has been joined by Geek Squad Dillon) We can order the new battery for you. I’ll leave you with Dillon: he knows more than I do. He’s the computer genius.
Me: Yes, he’s the computer genius who ordered the wrong battery for me last time.
For some reason, Geek Squad Dillon didn’t think that was funny.
True story.
This true story has been brought to you in conjunction with Mr. Mark:
Thursday is the hardest day to blog for me lately. I have a major paper delivery to do on Thursdays – one free one for every house on my route, with fliers. They’re heavy, bulky, and 124 houses add up to a lot of front steps. Then I come home and nine times out of ten I have absolutely nothing to talk about because, believe it or not, delivering tomes that weigh as much as an entire collection of encyclopedias to each and every house on the block is usually uneventful. Unless you want to hear about how many cats I petted (5), or how many squirrels crossed my path, (35 1/2… don’t ask), then you’re not going to get much of anything out of me on a Thursday.
Is there a day of the week that’s more difficult, or less inspiring than all the others for you? Why do you think that is? I wanna know.
The above blather has been brought to you by Mr. Mark:
I saw these tracks in the snow this morning; they seemed odd.
I studied them for a while before I came to a definite conclusion as to what they meant. Obviously they were made by a disgruntled squirrel, dragging his wagon behind him.
And then I saw the note.
I’d say that pretty much confirms it. This snow is for the birds.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
5. Which would you rather be: a sandwich or a set of false teeth?
6. Which Disney character are you most like?
7. Which colour is the best colour in the world to paint a kitchen?
8. Which sound is the most annoying ever?
9. Which is better: digital or analogue?
10. Which musician would you bring back from the dead, if you could?
As always, a point for every good answer, and a bonus point for your “which” question to me. Funniest answer (decided by me) may be posted as my One-Liner Wednesday. Go!
My manuscript is literally bigger than The Stand! I have proof!
But seriously, wouldn’t you love to be able to say that about your body of work and actually mean it in more than a literal sense? Even if I’m that good, which I suspect that possibly I’m not, (ahem) there’s no chance in hell, or even Castle Rock that I can catch up to the great SK. I didn’t start early enough. In fact, by my calculations I’d have to live to be a hundred and twenty five and seven-eighths years old to write as many books as Stephen King has and will. And honestly, I can’t see myself writing much past my 120th birthday anyway.
Conclusion: I’m destined to spend the rest of my existence wheezing on his literary dust. And enjoying the Castle Rock out of his books.
We have a winner! On Sunday, at the end of my Nano Poblano – Day 9: 10 Random Whos post, I stated that the funniest answer would be featured today for One-Liner Wednesday. Here is the lovely and talented SuzJones’ answer:
5. Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who? Why Grissom of course!
If you don’t know Sue, you should definitely check out her blog. 🙂
Sue’s answer brought back a lot of fond memories. I watched the original CSI religiously back when Grissom was still around. He had some of the best one-liners on TV at the time, so I went to IMDB to look up a good one. However, it seemed all the funniest ones needed the context that they were put in in the show. As I was going through them all I came across one that I remember well; it stuck with me as the mother of two special-needs kids:
Gil Grissom: [to Billy Rattison about how he called Randy Traschel, the man with Down Syndrome that he murdered, a ‘retard’] By the way, the definition of the word retard is to hinder or to hold someone back. I think your life is about to become retarded.
Thanks so much, Sue, for reminding me of the fantastic one-liners that came off CSI!
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
3. Who do they put all those warnings on labels for – you know, the ones that are just common sense?
4. Who was that masked man?
5. Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?
6. Who goes moo when they see a cow?
7. Who was the first person to ask which came first, the chicken or the egg?
8. Who likes lima beans? I mean, seriously…
9. Who makes my day brighter? You do! Who makes yours?
10. Who has woken you up more in your life than anyone else?
1 Point for every question you answer – 10 points for one “who” question back at me. The winner of the funniest answer (decided by me) gets their answer posted on One-Liner Wednesday. Go!
Expressions. We all have them. We all use them. There are so many we all know–he’s pushing up daisies, or busy as a bee, for instance–but how about the ones you grew up with? You know, the ones that come out of your mouth with a satisfied grin because you’ve just uttered the most perfect thing at the perfect moment EVER, yet you get a strange look because the person you’re talking to has never heard them before. So then you have to explain that what you just blurted out was something your mother, father, grandparent, or old Uncle Fred always said when blah blah blah and by the time you’ve finished going through the entire history of your fabulous phrase, its lustre has worn down to the brilliance of a twenty-year-old tractor tire.
You’ve been there before, right? So tell me, what are some of your favourite expressions that no one has ever heard before, and where did they come from?
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