He writes like he talks

I try to write the same way I talk. Primarily this is because I want the blog to be a conversation between you and me. A one-way conversation where you never get to interrupt me. Even so, if you were to read it out loud in some approximation of my voice, you should be able to say to yourself, yes, Bart wrote this.

Writing the same way you talk doesn't always work out, however. Two funny examples:

1. I was working with an old guy from Louisiana. But the way he pronounced it, he was from Loozy-anna. You'd think you were talking to Justin Wilson, only he wasn't giving you food. One day during a meeting, we were brainstorming and he was writing down what we were discussing. "What's da nex step?" he would ask. At this point, I told him the next step was to obtain approval from management. He literally wrote "Optain approval," because that's how he said it. He was writing the same way he talked. I still crack the hell up thinking about that. "Lemme optain some dinnuh on mah way home," I tell Mrs. Bart before she tells me to lay off the accent already.

2. Just this evening, whilst eating at Chipotle, I got to admire one of the perils of learning English as a second language. It doesn't make a lot of sense when you look at it, but imagine a typical Chipotle employee reading it out loud, and you'll get the idea.

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Hodgman has a point (or, what if Anakin and Padme got it on in Ep I)

If you haven't heard John Hodgman's (now 6-year-old) essay on his compulsive desire to re-write 'The Phantom Menace', I'd highly suggest it. Click here, then click on Full Episode, let the episode load, and forward to 46:40. And enjoy.

One of many dandy points that Hodgman makes is that Anakin's age in Episode I (8 or 9) makes it super-creepy that (1) Qui-Gon takes him from his mother, and (2) Padme has feelings for young Ani. Well, I thought of Hodgman's essay when I read the story about the rather well-developed 15-year-old in Britain getting knocked up by a 13-year-old who looks younger than Anakin. Post w/ picture here.

If young Natalie Portman had gotten it on with much younger Jake Lloyd after the victory celebration on Naboo, it would have been just as creepy as this real-life case, only somewhat more aesthetically pleasing. 'Cause, you know. Natalie Portman. Well, maybe... no, still wrong.

More Aceman

I feel a little better after hearing the last episode of the Adam Carolla Show. Sad, but at least Ace is serious about becoming a podcasting mogul. He will be recording the first episode tonight, and I will download before I head out to work in the morning. New = exciting. However, new also = shorter - instead of 2+ hours of Carolla per day, I will be lucky to get an hour while he's getting his new show figured out.

In the meantime, since I enjoy The Sound of Young America, I decided to subscribe to a sister podcast, Jordan Jesse Go! It's good times, although it's also weekly, so I may be hitting the Audiobooks extra hard to make up the extra drive time.

Surely things will get better. Time heals all wounds. Etc.

Not the Aceman!

It's an iPhone dispatch, so please forgive my brevity. (Editor's note - I have since edited for carriage clarity.)

I'm severely bummed out - tomorrow is the last Adam Carolla Show. Apparently the CBS mother station in LA is converting to Top 40.

Ace is reportedly going to do an ongoing podcast, but until I hear details I'm going to be an unhappy camper.

Huh, this is practically a Twitter!

What I did this weekend

Oh, it was an exciting weekend at Casa del Bart, let me tell you.

First, I decided I was finally going to get around to watching a cult classic - Twin Peaks. How had I missed a cult classic? I guess I was too young for cults at the time. If you have also missed it, let me save you some time. Don't bother.

It was like watching two shows. One was a kind of quirky detective show set in a small town (but with an FBI agent inexplicably involved). That part was OK, if you can get past the 80's haircuts, fashion, and synthesized music.

The part that wasn't OK was the part that was like a bad teen drama. Bad, like badly written, and terribly acted. There was so much melodrama and overacting that I was distracted. Maybe that crap flew in 1990, but my drama palate is a little more developed than that.

And don't get me started with the goddamn backward talking dancing hell-midget.

After watching the pilot episode and the first 3 (or was it 4?) episodes of the first season, I figured I was done with the show. Ah well. I got to see a very young Lara Flynn Boyle.

What else did I do for entertainment? We actually broke out the Scrabble board. I'm not that good (I credit lack of regular practice), and Mrs. Bart trounced me every time. If you're interested, take a look.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

A blow-by-blow would be a little tedious, but let's just say I'm very proud of "whore".

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The real deal about Daschle

The mainstream media would have you believe that Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination because of tax issues. Not so; it is because his glasses are ridiculous.

Do you think Mrs. Daschle OK'd these glasses when Tommy brought 'em home from the optometrist? Most eyeglass places have a generous return policy; he must have laid down the glasses-fashion law from the outset: "It's the new Tom Daschle, bitch. I'm up out the Senate and doing my thug thizzle. Lay off the glasses."

When I watched the pre-election 'Frontline' documentaries about the McCain and Obama campaigns, I thought it was creepy enough that Daschle had taken Obama under his wing in a kind of kingmaker role. It was like Daschle is the creepy, semi-paedophilic manager of a boy band, looking for cute 16 year-old lads whose faces he could sell. (Except he was starting out with the blank canvas of the Obama US Senate career and trying to paint the perfect Presidential candidate.) But add to that baseline level of creepiness the inherent "eww" factor of those red glasses, and I knew all was not well in Daschle-land.

If those same glasses were in black, or brown, I might give him a pass. They would scream "a-hole leftist pseudo-intellectual jerkoff douche nozzle", but I would still give him a pass. A solid 30% of my wardrobe screams at least one of those words, so who am I to judge? However, make those glasses red, and suddenly he's the community college sociology professor who's strongly suggesting that the cute but slow 18 year-old coed with a limp comes by his place the next evening for a casual get-together since office hours are so formal and stuffy.

So in short, yes, we're well shot of Tom Daschle and his freakish eyewear.

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Good news re: Obama

For those worried about the direction that Pres. Obama will be taking the country, I have good news:

He is not a Sith, as evidenced below.

Although now that I think about it, it is possible that he is a Sith, and that he is merely rebelling against his master in classic Sith fashion.

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