nothing good. nothing fresh. i promise. since January 2001

CRAIGSLIST ROCKS

today was my first foray into the depths of craigslist posting. previously i have only peeked at what others penned. today i stepped up and jotted my own opinion. it was the asian-ladies-who-must-be-first-on-the-bus phenomenon that got me posting, and immediately i received ten replies from people ranging from 'i'm a 6 foot tall 200 lb guy and i'm scared of them,' to 'you are a racist.' the utter glee of commanding responses without having shown my face, as you can hide behind an anonymous email address on the list, is exhilarating. next i moved on to a more pressing issue, whether or not to leave my cat home alone with plenty of food and water while i'm off in mexico for 5 days. over the night i got several replies to this question, which convinced me NOT to leave him alone and friendless. one lady even offered to come by to feed and water him, as long as i lived in her part of town. anonymous emails are glimpses into people's brains that i never dreamed possible. now i admit to my growing addiction to posting, just for that glimpse into a stranger that as an anti-sociate i deprive myself of normally.
posted by Say It Loud at 11:54 PM

SOMEONE ELSE NOTICED THE CHINESE WOMEN

in a previous posting, i ranted about hating the scurrying chinese women who will stop at nothing to be first on a bus. Someone else posted a note on craigslist about it. "Muni trains are not the last helicopter out of Saigon"... hilarious.
posted by Say It Loud at 4:05 PM

GOT vs. GOTTEN

David Crystal, on the gotten/got distinction in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (p.311):

"Gotten is probably the most distinctive of all the American English/British English grammatical differences, but British people who try to use it often get it wrong. It is not simply an alternative for have got. Gotten is used in such contexts as
They've gotten a new boat. (= obtain)
They've gotten interested. (= become)
He's gotten off the chair. (= moved)
But it is not used in the sense of possession (= have).
AmE does not allow
*I've gotten the answer or
*I've gotten plenty.
but uses I've got as in informal BrE. The availability of gotten does however mean that AmE can make such distinctions as the following:
They've got to leave (they must leave) vs
They've gotten to leave (they've managed to leave)."

(thanks English Grammar FAQ!)
posted by Say It Loud at 6:56 PM

THAT vs. WHICH

The relative pronoun that is restrictive, which means it tells you a necessary piece of information about its antecedent: for example, "The color that is used most often is purple." Here the that phrase answers an important question: which of the many colors
are we talking about? And the answer is the one that is used most often.

Which is non-restrictive: it does not limit the word it refers to. An example is "Darlene's restaurant, which had an outbreak of food poisoning, was the scene of the anniversary dinner." Here that is unnecessary: the which does not tell us which of Darlene's chain of restaurants we're considering; it simply provides an extra piece of information about the plan we're already discussing. "Darlene's restaurant" tells us all we really need to know to identify it.

It boils down to this: if you can tell which thing is being discussed without the which or that clause, use which; if you can't, use that.

There are two rules of thumb you can keep in mind. First, if the phrase needs a comma, you probably mean which. Since "Darlene's restaurant" calls for a comma, we would not say "Darlene's restaurant, that had an outbreak of food poisoning."

Another way to keep them straight is to imagine by the way following every which: "Darlene's restaurant, which (by the way) had an outbreak of food poisoning. . . ." The which adds a useful, but not grammatically necessary, piece of information. On the other hand, we wouldn't say "The color which (by the way) is used most often is purple," because the color on its own isn't enough information -- which color?

from Jack Lynch's Guide to Grammar
(i changed the words in his examples, his were boring)

posted by Say It Loud at 6:45 PM

GREAT IDEA FOR A STORY

there's a guy in his late 20s, travelling around the country, stopping off for weeks at a time in certain locations. he has 2 types of days, driving days and non-driving days. on his driving days he gets up early and drives for 12, 15 hours. most of his time is non-driving days in which he drinks until dawn and sleeps until late afternoon, only to get up to watch Seinfeld reruns which make him laugh out loud. Basic M.O. is to stay inside on sunny days but move from town to town watching teevee. In towns where he has friends, they hang out with him and break up the monotony of his daily pattern. In one instance, he arrived at a friend's house and left from a stranger's ten days later.
posted by Say It Loud at 6:36 PM

BOOKS

finished Curious Case of Sidd Finch last night. Bizarre, but Plimpton TWICE mentions the guy who attached helium balloons to his lawn chair to float over Long Beach back in the 80s. The last mention was on the last page. Last week on metafilter I saw the link to the NYTimes article from back in the 80s when it happened. I was reading along and when i got to that part i was like what the fuck this is oddly familiar.

Now i'm looking for reading suggestions. anyone?
posted by Say It Loud at 5:05 PM

GLORIOUS SUNSHINE

today, faced with impossibly sunny and warm weather, i wandered down to the giants' stadium in time to catch some of the dismal 2nd inning during which RussOrtiz gave up 6 runs. that sad fact did little to hamper my pleasure at the adventure of lunching amidst foul balls crashing into the bay and watching the thousands cheer and fidget and wander the stands while they soaked up warm rays of sunshine. oh california how i love thee.
posted by Say It Loud at 2:27 PM

SAVING $

now that my rent is upwards of 1k per month, I have taken to drastic measures of saving moolah. for one, i've given up driving to work ($5 parking - $1 busride = $4 savings). also, i'm trying to be good about bringing lunches, limiting myself to one lunch out per week, and even then not ordering the usual beer/margarita that tastes so good on a friday afternoon. today i had plans to eat at the hotel utah with some work friends, but i weaseled out due to financial stress. i can't do lunch today AND lunch on friday with jared and everyone. so i chose jared's lunch, because i'm gonna need all the drinks i can order to handle her antics. but i do feel bad about neglecting my friends... if only eating at the utah were less than $10 a lunch... sigh. i've come down with post-dotcomboom syndrome.
posted by Say It Loud at 10:44 AM

ELECTRIC AVENUE

i saw the craziest electric one-seater car in the parking lot of the Presidio golf course last Monday. I want one. $14,500 isn't too bad, but only one person can ride it at a time... Does it appeal to my inner sociophobe or what?
posted by Say It Loud at 12:35 PM

DAWN OF JUNE

thoughts: california smells like jasmine. i love the non stop blue skies and sunny days. i love the slightly chilled temperatures that accompany such days. i love the aberrant temperatures that sometimes reach into the 100s. i love the fog that rolls in from the ocean and the fog horn sounding in the bay at night. and nothing beats the fresh sushi sliding down my throat coated in wasabi.

i do not like the elderly chinese people who scurry and duck under your arms to be first on the bus. i do not like the constant reminder of homelessness and the inability to be charitable to those denizens of the street because my own rent is sky-high. i do not like paying over $2 for a gallon of gas and wondering when the next blackout will hit.
posted by Say It Loud at 10:50 AM