Speaking of Gramatical Bandwagons that I’m on, I feel like english grammar is missing two important pronouns:

1) Third person, singular, gender-neutral
My vote here is definitely for ‘they’ (e.g. “If you try to tell someone that rollercosters are nauseous…they will not understand you”). Unlike the neologisms that have been proposed, this usage is both common today, and has been used for centuries; it’s even in Shakespeare and the King James. Further arguments, such as this, for they(singular) are all over the web. The only problem with ithe usage is that it can’t really be used to refer to a specific person with an unknown gender (e.g. Pat is a person, but I can’t tell if they are a man or a woman).

2) Second person, plural
I used to hate it when people said ‘ya’ll’, so I said ‘you guys’ because I thought is sounded less southern/hickish. Then I decided to accept my thrownness as a southerner and have started to occasionally use ‘ya’ll’. Every time I do, though, I am mildly embarassed. Occasionally I feel compelled to explain the fact that I am using it conciously because “english really does need a second person, plural pronoun.” This, of course, makes me come accross as an idiot.

The point of all this is that I’m on the they(singular) bandwagon and, if there is a ya’ll bandwagon I’m not sure if I want to be on it or not. What do you think?

P.S. At this rate we’re going to need to add a grammar category.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.By Lynne Truss. (New York: Gotham Books, 2004. Pp. 209.)

As I strode up a steep trail branching off from the Lakeshore Path I came up behind a car with the title of this blog emblazoned in shoe polish upon its back window. Now, I’m hoping this was a recent high school graduate, and not the product of the school from which I currently hold a degree, but I must admit that it could be either. Do little grammatical mistakes like this drive you guys a bit nuts? I mean, strictly speaking “Senior’s Rule!” can only mean two things: either a recent rule was enacted, named after a particular senior or someone nicknamed “Senior” (the driver of the car being particularly keen on this new rule) OR the driver is particularly fond of the word “senior”, so much so that he thinks senior’s rule! Now, I know what you’re thinking (if you’ve made it this far): I’m a jackass. Well, yes, but as I’ve recently found out by reading the above book, there are a lot of us jackasses out there (the author prefers to call us sticklers), though not nearly enough to stem the tide of poor punctuation brought on by emails, text messages, and lawyers.

I should mention, before going any further, that I’m no better than most people when it comes to proper punctuation. If you’ve read any of my previous blogs (thank you) you’ll notice misplaced commas and a never-ending stream of dashes where parentheses, periods, semicolons, or colons would do just fine. The dash is a strange bird - I can’t seem to remember using it before grad school, but ever since it’s been an integral part of my emails, blogs, notes, and even academic papers. Which is fine: there’s nothing wrong with dashes. But, as Truss points out, their proliferation is slowly edging out other forms of punctuation that carry with them subtle differences of meaning. More on this in a bit.
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I’ve been finding some cool/usefull free programs lately, and I thought I’d share the love. most of these are windows programs….. so if you are a mac person then I suppose Apple has already pre-engineered the perfect software experience for you, so you should be fine.

Text Editor/Word processor: Copy Writer
This is a really great program. loads as fast as windows wordpad, but with a cleaner interface. It opens and saves txt, rtf, and doc formats. It has an improved search/replace function and shows line numbers (which is really nice if you are editing source code). It also supports add on modules, the most useful of which is a spell checker. I’m using it as my default text editor plus I like it for small word processing when I don’t want to wait for MS Word, Open Office, etc to load.

PDF Creator PDFill Writer
This Utility installs as a “printer subsystem” so you can open/edit your document in anything that can print. Then you just select the pdf writter from your list of printers…. very handy.
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Today, Grokster was decided as many had predicted. The Court purported to leave the Sony-Betamax Rule in tact, while adding an inducement exception.

But I don’t think the decision is as Earth-shattering as the EFF might suggest (check out the funny animation on their homepage). First, it’s important to know what Grokster did not say. Grokster did not hold that individual file-sharers, the users of peer-to-peer softwares, can be held liable for copyright infringement. (As Newshounds mistakenly understands it.) That is already well-settled by the Napster litigation. Grokster held, for the first time, that the distributors of the second generation (post-Napster) peer-to-peer softwares can be held liable for the infringment of their users based on a theory of inducement.
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In today’s Supreme Court decision in Grokster, Justice Souter, writing for a unanimous Court, gave a shout out to Modest Mouse?!?. Explaining that peer-to-peer file-sharing software is primarily used to traffick copyrighted works, Souter said:

While there is doubtless some demand for free Shakespeare, the evidence shows that substantive volume is a function of free access to copyrighted work. Users seeking Top 40 songs, for example, or the latest release by Modest Mouse, are certain to be far more numerous than those seeking a free Decameron, and Grokster and StreamCast translated that demand into dollars.

(p. 13 of the PDF file) Of course, the opinion was probably written not by Souter himself, but by one of his younger, presumably hipper law clerks who made sure to distinguish Modest Mouse from crap found normally in Top 40 music.

Since my undergrad years, I’ve graduated from forties to Shiner to microbrews. Secretly, I think I’ve just been wanting to return to my roots. Black Boss Porter, brewed by Boss Browar Witnica, is helping me do just that.

Critics of globalization often talk of how developed countries exploit their Southern neighbors for cheap labor and resources, only to benefit their own citizens, leaving developed countries in increasingly dire situations. Yeah, but I can also get 17 ouces of strong, black beer - brewed in Poland, exported to Connecticut, shipped to my local Woodman’s - for $1.50.

Why it’s awesome:
1. it’s Polish
2. 2 of these will totally get you drunk
3. the label is so punk rock
4. it reminds me of justice

Why it’s like a forty:
1. it’s cheap
2. it looks good in a paper bag, especially if you’re drinking it in a parking lot
3. 2 of these will totally get you drunk

Why it’s better than a forty:
1. you can drink the whole thing (actually two or three) without needing to poor out any for your homies
2. you can bring it to parties - people will think it’s an expensive import beer (and when they’re not looking, you can set their kitchen on fire)
3. just kidding, nothing’s better than a forty

If they sell Black Boss Porter in your state or country (and it’s $1.50) I recommend drinking a lot of it to take the edge off and to chase away the demons in your head for at least a little while.

BWB or Joel, buy this please. Directional sound projection… works like a laser/flashlight but transmits audio frequencies. Learn more about hypersonic technology.

Sigur Ros is putting the finishing touches on their album, which we should have by this fall. Looks like they’re visiting most of us:

09-09 Philadelphia, PA - Tower Theatre
09-15 Boston, MA - Opera House
09-20 Ann Arbor, MI - The Michigan Theatre
09-21 Chicago, IL - Chicago Theatre
09-23 Madison, WI - Orpheum Theatre
09-27 Vancouver, British Columbia - Orpheum
09-28 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre

The folks over at engadget gave a shout are givin’ props to Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and John McCain (R-AZ) who are sponsering a bill that will prevent big TelCos from stopping free/cheap city-wide wi-fi networks. It is sad that we should need legislation to allow cities to provide this sort of thing, but it is good that something is being done. If I could get city-wide internet access I might start spending time outside again!

anyway, here’s the article from wi-fiplanet: McCain Bill Would Help Municipal Wi-Fi

I have a much longer piece on punctuation forthcoming (I’m just waiting for that perfect title pun to present itself), but I thought I’d test the waters a bit. How do you guys feel about the Oxford comma? You know, that comma before the “and” in lists of three or more items. Of course, we all know by now that they’re fairly optional, though both sides’ partisans would deny it. Some stylists take the middle way, requiring it in some sentences while eschewing it in others:
Oxford comma good: He woke up, walked to the bathroom, showered, and shaved.
Oxford comma bad: He likes apples, bananas, and pears.
(The difference being that in the former sentence the comma serves to ensure a list of 4 activities, rather than three - “showered and shaved” possibly being confused for a combined final activity)

Others (mostly Brits and American journalists) would have you leave out what they would call a grammatically unnecessary, extraneous mark in all cases. I find myself firmly in the camp of those who require it in all lists, and pause, quite vexed, upon sentences that leave it out, be they simple lists of fruits or otherwise.

Here’re all the pictures I took on my Greece trip, lest any of any of you didn’t do a URL moonwalk on my previously posted picture.

P.S. Sir Joel, you told me this before but I forgot — How do you compress pictures that are too large to under 120 KB? I have a lot of 1 MB + pictures that I’d like to post directly to JTTM, but I can’t. Thanks.

Back in the dark early days of JttM, when we were all still finding ourselves as bloggers and carving out our own little niches within the system (Mohsen the Professional Blogger, ZMurder the Embarrasses Himself While Drunk Blogger, BWB the Occasional, Never Capitalizing, Oddly Punctuating Commenter, Evin the Start Your Own Splinter-blog Bastard, etc.) I posted a little something hinting at how much time I spent reading Amazon.com reviews (I’ve since nearly terminated this practice) and explicitly recommending this guy as representative of the pleasures that such a practice holds for those willing to embark on it.

I recently returned to Chris Tyrell’s Amazon.com reviews page, finding there a smorgasbord of hilarity complete with BRAND NEW REVIEWS. My four favorites from his new batch are at your fingertips………….
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“Me having a beautiful wife and great family and friends around me, all the money I’ve got, all the things that I’ve got, a Ferrari that I just ripped the top off of and turned into a convertible, the rings I got, the two mansions on the water, a master’s in criminal justice, I’m a cop, plus I look good. So me shooting 40 percent at the foul line is just God’s way of saying that nobody’s perfect. If I shot 90 percent from the line, it just wouldn’t be right.” –Esquire July 2005

P.S. I’ll post something more substantive later. Probably dealing with the recent media ownership decision and my life at the FCC.

Greetings from across the Ocean-wide:

I just thought I’d pass out a piece of that sweet eye candy I know you’ve all been cravin’ — pictoral evidence of my doings in the land of our forefathers — Greek-land. The picture is of a Greek hotel chain tycoon named Dmitri Pappanpappappas (or something like that). Anyway, he seems to be lacking a lot of self-esteem in his photograph portrait and this made me feel really sorry for him. The photo shows how I would console him if I were to really meet him on the street one day and look into his scared and timid eyes. My posturing is meant to announce “Hey man, I’m there for you. I cherish you. We’re all on this ship of life together. You dig?”

I’m having a blast over here — fun, sun, and girls galore. Actually, what I look forward to most now that my trip is over is reading-time. I’ve been putting off a lot of fiction-reading the last few years b/c I’ve so eggheadishly pursued academic matters. But now — now all my academic matters are over. I don’t have any friends over here for the time being as well, so I’ve got this insane amount of free time. I’m in a cafe in the Piraeus right now, which the port town of Athens. I’m listening to Prince’s Purple Rain (for the first time — can you believe it?) and now I see what all the hype is about — it tears at your heartstrings. Tonight, I take a ship to Rhodes, where I’ll be chillin’ for three nights. I’m very excited because I think my hotel has satellite, which means mine eyes will be upon the Spurs-Pistons Game 6. I’m thinking Spurs will probably win this series. After they were up 2-0, I told everybody here that I put their chances of winning a championship at 98%. My friends couldn’t believe such a high number (they were around 85%), but I really think that taking 4 out of 5 from the Spurs is too much for the Pistons (the Spurs are too experienced, too solid (and have too much Big Shot Rob on their team) — yes, I realize they gave up a 2-0 lead against the Lakers last year).

I’ll explore Rhodos for a couple of days and then skip over to Marmaris in Turkey. I’ll probably stay there another few days and then I’ll go to the small town I’ll stay in the next few months. I think it’s spelled Seregerme. It’ll be weird because my dad and bro-bro may not show up until July 4-5, so I’ll be all by myself (with my dad’s underling/helper as my “guide”) for maybe over a week. I have a Berlitz Turkish phrase book and I’ve been working a little everyday with it. I also have four books that I’m going to tear into with the rabidity of a homeless, yet well-educated, street-dog —

1) The Selected Works of Samuel Johnson. Yeah, that’s the guy who compiled the first English dictionary in the mid-1700s. He was a lot of things, one of which was a column-writing moral critic, which is pretty anachronistic. I quotes Latin authors before each of his pieces, which is awesome, and his prose is complicated, verbose, and profound. His writing bespeaks of a mind that has dealt with much Latin translation.

2) Stephen King’s Different Seasons. Of the four short stories in this compilation, three became movies — Shawhank Redemption, Stand by Me (The Body), and Apt Pupil. I’ve never read King before, but now I know why he’s the king. He makes horror so interesting because he butresses gory episodes with a ceaseless pobing into the psyche. Reading horror is so different for me, and I am drawn to the exotic. I’m normally attuned to the light, whimsical side of things, yet this man — he turns over the creek-side rocks and doesn’t flinch at what crawls out. I was especially impressed with “The Body,” which is one of the most beautifully written, and achingly authentic, stories I’ve ever read — it’s as if King was writing this semi-autobiographical narrative with not his hands, but his heart.

3) The Great Gatsby. I read it in high school and feel it’s time for another go around. I’ve yet to read a book again that I had to read in high school and I feel I should do more of this.

4) The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. My friend, David Mane, raved about this book to me many years ago but I never finished it. I’m takin’ no prisoners this time around though. This one, The Brothers Karamazov, and Moby Dick are three epics I intend to tackle in the next couple of years.

pictoral evidence

Last night, I was fortunate enough to see the Spoon concert at the Showbox in downtown Seattle– fortunate because the show was sold out, but my friend had a spare ticket. All I had to do was show up. It was the best show in my admittedly limited show watchin’ experience.
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Ever since Evin splintered off to start a rival blog to chronicle his trip to Eastern Europe, I haven’t heard much from him. But I checked his blog the other day to find that he’s enjoying his trip and updating infrequently.

Ironically, more than the food or the culture, his favorite part thus far has been the Cretians mangled English!?! This is kind of funny because why would you go to a non-English-speaking country to make fun of their English? I would post this question on his blog, but to post comments there requires that I create an account with Blogger.com. “This blog does not allow anonymous comments.” As I don’t already have an account and refuse to create one, I’ll just continue to post my comments here.

With less than one day of planning… I’m off to see San Fran and about half of I-5. Hopefully I can talk Sean into a few stops along the way - Oregon coast, Redwoods, Crater Lake, a winery, …. I’m stopping in Eugene, OR for two days to play ultimate at Summer Solstice.

Christopher Nolan is used to directing movies with strong plots carrying low-budgets, like Momento and Insomnia. Christian Bale acts for the challenge, which is why he regularly turns down blockbuster rolls in favor of playing characters with a psychological twist like Patrick Batemen in American Psycho. Still, when Warner Brothers threw $180 million at Nolan to direct Bale and a long list of stars in Batman 5 I was worried that the Hollywood Bug that ruinned Batman 3 and 4 would bite a third time. But NO, Nolan uses his creative license and batboots to squash the batshit out of the Bug. His goals were to make the story and characters, including Batman, believable. So, Nolan shows us Bruce Wayne’s motivations and pyschological development, allowing Batemen room to strut his stuff. We watch: a young Bruce admire his family and then feel guilty for their death; a young-adult Bruce questioning right and wrong living on the streets in Asia and then learning from ninjas how to instill fear in those that feed on the fearfuL; and a adult Bruce facing his fear of bats and his parents’ murderer. Then there’s still well over an hour to develop Batman into a badass who saves Gotham city from wide-spread drug-induced madness. Great stuff! Oh yeah, and Katie Holmes is hot and the batmobile is sweet.

That’s right, I’m championing Richard Linklater’s uber-romantic film about love and missed chances. Some friends have warned me that studying film in-depth in film studies classes will take away from my enjoyment of the medium. Perhaps understanding how film auteurs provoke emotional responses in their audiences will make me more-or-less immune to their strategies. I have to admit, during the second films of my Hong Kong cinema 4-hour screenings, I do find myself checking my watch more frequently, hoping the end is near. Nonetheless, I am heartened that every so often a movie comes along that renews my faith in filmmaking as either an artistic or communicative (or both) endeavor. Recently, such films have included Don’t Look Now, The Player, Kill Bill, Vol. 1, and admittedly low-brow features such as Anchorman, Napoleon Dynamite, and the wonderful Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Earlier this week, I viewed Before Sunset, adding another to my growing yet unorganized Best Films list.
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On the hottest day the state of Washington has had in the month of May in over 100 years… Sasquatch 2005!

Best moment of the day: While The Arcade Fire waited for the sound crew to set up Regina’s keyboard, the crowd broke several minutes of silence when one man’s shouting led to about 10,000 people singing Wake Up.

The excitement surrounding The Arcade Fire was unreal: crowd size jumped from about 5,000 to maximum capacity (20,000) in the 30 minutes leading up to their show. What was even more impressive was that all the other main-stage musicians were watching from behind the band. Wilco, The Pixies, Modest Mouse, Ray LaMontagne, … they all wanted to see The Arcade Fire, and most of them were dancing and singing along.

Modest Mouse, who played for 2 hours (3 times as long as The Arcade Fire), was my favorite. They played a perfect set-list, including a 15 minute version of Doin’ the Cockroach. Although, LaMontagne’s voice sent the most chills down my back.

I went with 2 cousins, both 14. This was their first time to see big-name bands live, which was pretty cool. They each bought two t-shirts and a poster.