Month: August 2006
Dictionary.com Redesign
Dictionary.com has launched its redesign, done by Happy Cog. It’s not very drastic and seems to offer no new dictionary content.
Need to Change Nigeria’s Name
“All the woes, crises, skirmishes and problems bedeviling this great country since pre-independent period, could be traceable to the fact that Nigeria was named by a woman. Woman, your name is ‘Woe to man.’ These woes include political violence, religious conflicts, social upheavals, educational crises and economic strangulation, among others.”
For Harry Anderson, the New Orleans Magic Is Gone
“Then, in May, there was a repeat of an attack that had occurred more than a year before, when a stranger had approached Mr. Anderson, slammed his face into the side of a building and cursed him, saying, ‘You killed the Matador.’ That was the name of the bar he had replaced with Oswald’s.”
Tim Bracy: the Gentleman Sportswriter
Tim Bracy’s first sports column is up at L Magazine. He has a writing style that’s happily overwrought—it has that tingling anticipatory feeling of being one yacht race short of gentility and being too early in the afternoon for a whiskey before the fire. The column has the same name as his weblog, The Power…
Not Black but black
James Campbell, writing on behalf of the Houston Chronicle, has an excellent explanation of why that newspaper describes some Americans as “black” and not “Black.”
The outrage! The taps at your favorite tap dance show are pre-recorded
“It’s not quite unplugged (he has tiny microphones taped to his feet), but unlike most Irish shows, there are no pre-recorded taps. Every rapid-fire volley of sound coming from those magical feet is live.”
Scottish politics bring out the writerly instinct
I know about as much about Scottish politics as I do birds in Borneo, but I’ve read two interesting articles about the the legal victory of Tommy Sheridan, a Socialist politician, over the yellow rag News of the World. The writing at both links seems to credit Sheridan’s wife, Gail, with the victory. Andrew Hagan…
Love Ewe
My friend Al has launched a site for inflatable sheep. I sense a great disturbance in the Force.
Bags in trees
My new favorite blog: Bags in Trees. I found it because it links to my entry for witches’ knickers.
NWTF
So everybody knows about the woman who was told she couldn’t have a license plate with the letters “NWTF” on it. I read in many places that this is because that stands for “Now What the Fuck.” I dispute that NWTF is any kind of established initialism or acronym meaning “Now What the Fuck.” In…