"Gives her fame which never dies" much ado about nothing: v, iii

One of these things is not like the other. Can you pick up on it?

From CNN.com's front page.

- Key Virginia race going to the wire
- Democrat projected winner in Ohio governor's race
- Hot button issues in ballot measures | Video
- FBI probes claims of deceptive election phone calls
- Corruption named top issue in exit polls | Video
- The Ticker: Campaign says fliers weren't 'dirty trick'
- Governor's goof delays his vote | Video
- Man accused of smashing voting machine
- Britney Spears files for divorce
- CNN Wire: Latest updates on world's top stories

Because this is Election Day, these are the ONLY headlines appearing on the front page today. And Britney made it up there. Way to go, girl! No other entertainment star is up there today, but you found a way!

"fortune's cat" all's well that ends well: v, ii

So I'm catching up on my world news a little, reading some of Ye Olde BBC Worlde Newes, which I do from time to time to see how those in other parts of the world view us, and I stumbled upong this: US Hypoallergenic Cats Go on Sale. A snippet:

US biotech firm Allerca says it has managed to selectively breed [the world's first specially-bred hypoallergenic cats ] by reducing a certain type of protein that triggers allergic reactions.

The cats will not cause the red eyes, sneezing and even asthma that some cat allergy sufferers experience, except in the most acute cases.

Despite costing $3,950 (£2,104), there is already a waiting list to get one.

So, let me get this straight. They can't make a saran wrap that actually sticks to any kind of container's lip or that doesn't unwind from its cardboard tube without unravelling unevenly and ripping, but they can selectively breed a cat that won't make someone's allergies flare up? So, they're saying that they can't, say, oh, I don't know ... find a cure for cancer (just brainstorming here), but they can make specially formulated cats?

I'm not the only one who finds this to be an astonishing misuse of funds, right?

And please, tell me I'm not the only one to be astounded that there is an actual waiting list of people ready to pay more than the in-state admission costs for some state schools for one of these cats?

Not to mention the whole can of worms this opens up. Just think: in as little as 15 years from now, they could have "selectively bred" a whole army of super cats, cats whose genes predispose them to attacking humans, pillaging PetCos, and ultimately conquering humans and subjecting us to an all Yarn-Based entertainment industry. The Horror! I mean, I'm a cat person and all, but, people -- where does the madness end?!

"i will resist such entertainment" the tempest: i, ii

I try not to be too high and mighty about this, but I've given up television. We don't have one at our house, and I rarely watch it anywhere else. Yes, I will watch it if it's on at someone else's house or if I'm housesitting or something. But my life no longer revolves around shows. At first it was a little strange, but I've gotten to the point now where I rarely miss it. Once in a while I'm bummed if I'm missing a Pats game, but I have class all day Sundays anyway now, so at this point I really don't miss it. All in all, getting rid of tv has freed me up not just in the sense that I'm not sitting in front of the tube, tied to a schedule there, but also in the sense that I have a lot more brainpower to devote to other things now (such, in my case, as they are).

I found this article disconcerting: TV for the Time-Pressed. Basically it's "if you only watch one show per night, these are the ones to hit." Again, I don't want to come off like I'm on a high horse, even though I know it probably will, but it just seems sad to me, the idea that even if you're time-pressed, one might feel as though at least a show must be watched. I mean, if you're short on time, wouldn't watching tv be a good thing to discard from the schedule? You could instead take a little "me-time," to think, or read, or just be, without stuff being fed into your brain. Maybe my attitude about this is similar to a phenomenon some former smokers have mentioned to me, where, after they quit smoking and were out of the first couple weeks, they got to a point where watching anyone else smoking made them mad. Anyway, I'm not trying to convert anyone, not really ... but I will say that I feel my mind working much more clearly now than it did when I was at my peak of tv-watching hours.

On another note, here's a little interchange I witnessed yesterday. I was boarding a bus from my school's campus that was heading downtown. There was a large group of undergrads all around me, waiting for their buses as well. As I was boarding, a young woman leaned up the stairs behind me and addressed the crotchety old angry bus driver:

Woman: (somewhat confrontationally) Does this go down to the Hospitality Campus?
Driver: (short-temperedly) What does the sign up there say? Huh?
Woman: (scornfully) Pssh! I don't know, I guess I can't read.
Driver: (with equal contempt) You're real smart, guess that's why you got to college.
Woman: (back turned, leaving) Pssshh!

and ... scene

"i see a woman may be made a fool" the taming of the shrew; iii, ii

This is great; from MSNBC.com:

Call it Paris in Blunderland.

Richard Branson threw a lavish Mad Hatter-themed 21st birthday party for his son Sam at his Oxfordshire estate on Saturday, and invited Paris Hilton to attend.

The partying heiress agreed and wanted a starring role in the party dressed as Alice, according to reports.

When Branson found out, he ordered the 60 waitresses who would be serving at the party to also dress as Alice, according to the London Daily Mail, which says he pushed the prank further by pretending to mistake Paris for a waitress and ordering a drink from her.

The bash was attended by the U.K.’s A-list, with such guests as Princes William and Harry, Kate Moss, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. “It was one hell of a party,” a source told the Mirror. “Paris found herself looking more like Tweedledum as she was surrounded by dozens of other Alices.”

But perhaps the prank’s on Branson. Hilton’s rep tells The Scoop that “to the best of my knowledge” the heiress wasn’t even at the party.

I sincerely doubt Paris Hilton has even read Alice in Wonderland, so that to me makes her desire to be the star of the show dressed as Alice that much funnier. Seriously, who is Paris Hilton that she thinks she ought to be the star of this party, being thrown for someone else's birthday? I love the fact that Branson, rather than simply saying, hey, that's not appropriate, took the wind out of her sails in such a big way.

As for the last paragraph in the piece? I simply choose to ignore it, for my own guilty gratification. Hmph.

"a bountiful answer that fits all questions" all's well that ends well: ii; ii

I'm fascinated today by the idea of internet quizzes. I saw one today on someone's myspace page that was "which zodiac fairy are you?" and I couldn't resist, so I went ahead and took it. The questions were "1. When does your birthday fall (most important)" and gave a list of the normal divisions of months associated with the zodiac we know. "2. What is your favorite planet or formation??" (the two question marks are as they appeared in the quiz) and "3. What is your favorite color?", giving a list of absurd colors, none of which really fit the bill for me. So I answered as well as I could and was given a zodiac fairy that doesn't match up with my actual sign and didn't really match up with my character traits either. I reanswered several times and finally came up with a list of traits that fit me, which also happened to be my zodiac sign as well. Huh. Of course, the questions were not answered correctly for me at that point, but I got the result that seemed right, so I guess it all worked out in the end. Maybe I was learning something about the way I answered the questions in the first place!

So it got me wondering about these internet quizzes. Am I missing something about myself? Maybe there are sides of me that I don't see clearly, sides that only a quiz written by someone ten years my junior with some basic knowledge of the internet can reveal to me! So I started poking around to see what I could learn about myself.

My Geek Profile states that my highest Geek Level is in Music, followed by Movies, with smaller Geek Level showings in the areas of Academics, Fashion, and being a Gamer, and I have no Geek Levels in the areas of General Geekiness and SciFi. Not too much new there, although I would have thought a lifetime of watching Star Trek and TNG would have gotten me something for SciFi. Shows how much I know.

Could I pass 8th Grade History? Well, yes, I could, which makes sense, because I did. Although I am embarrassed to admit I missed a question (they don't tell you which one though!)

What kind of coffee am I? According to this quiz, I am iced coffee. "At your best, you are: hyper, modern, and athletic. At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty. You drink coffee when: you're out with friends. Your caffeine addiction level: medium." Hmmm. This is interesting. I never knew I was cheap and angsty. Heck, I didn't even really know there was such a word, but this internet quiz has proven otherwise. "Hyper, modern, athletic;" I kind of sound like a hybrid car, don't I? It's also good that this quiz told me when I drink coffee, because I hadn't noticed.

What's my Hidden Talent? Now this one sounded promising, and it delivered! All I had to do was click on the picture that appealed to me most, and presto! it told me what my hidden talent is!! "Your natural talent is interpersonal relations and dealing with people. You communicate well and are able to bring disparate groups together. Your calming presence helps everything go more smoothly. People crave your praise and complements." Now I know! Maybe I should try to get a position at the UN or something! Thanks, internet quiz!

Finally, in starting up this new blog, I thought I should find out What Kind of Blogger I am. And - readers beware - apparently I am a "Snarky Blogger," which means that I've "got a razor sharp wit that bloggers are secretly scared of. And that's why they read [my] posts as often as they can!" So things are off to a good start for me! I'll try not to disappoint, Dear Reader.

"but what care i for words?" as you like it: iii; v

I say I'm a recovering English major in my profile, but it's not entirely accurate. More correct would be to say that I'm an English major who's found her calling not to be in reading and writing English, but who still harbors a crush on it as a hobby. I get a kick out of the written word; it's pretty astonishing to think how language has developed and evolved and devolved. I try to be observant of language patterns in our changing culture, and so I read a lot of different, and in some cases, crappy, literature and media. Along the way, I often pick up amusing anecdotes that have not so much to do with language, but more about how absurd life can be.

Like this.

If, like our president, you're not what we call a "reader", here's the Reader's Digest: A British biographer named A.N. Wilson wrote a biography of the British poet John Betjeman, who had, apparently, stated late in his life that he wished he had had more sex. He was married and it was assumed his sex life was dull. Well, the biographer received a letter that supposedly revealed an extramarital affair between Betjeman and another writer; it was apparently a love letter from him, and Wilson printed the letter in the biography saying there had been this affair. Ok, here's the thing: it was a hoax. The letter was a fake, and not only that, but encoded in one section of the letter, using the first letter of each word, was the sentence "A.N. Wilson is a shit." Nice!!!! But ok, here's the other thing: the letter came from an unknown correspondent using a French return address, but the letter was postmarked in London.

Now, I'm not a fancy-schmancy biographer or anything, so maybe I'm overthinking things, but it seems to me that before actually publishing a letter received from an unknown person in a book about someone else, one might take care to research the contents of that letter, and perhaps check other sources to corroborate, or, at the very least, cast some degree of authenticity on the whole matter.

What's worst about the whole thing, for this dumb-ass biographer, is that it seems that he was informed of the hoax by the Sunday London Times, who pointed out the nasty encoded message to him, and he was left lamely saying "I should have smelled a rat." Smelled a rat? No, good sir, it is not that you should have smelled a rat, it is that you should have simply done your job.

* * *

Well, I am trying to finish up a book about Shakespeare, so I'll close for now. Shakespeare: now there's a guy who liked to play with words. If he didn't find a word he liked for what he was trying to express, he just made one up! And a lot of them stuck! To name a few: impartial, jaded, gloomy, premeditated, frugal, and zany. I find that to be ... well .... transtounding.