17 September 2005

away

we interrupt this program for a announcement from our sponsor:

we have been house (and pet) sitting since last Thursday, and will be for a week (until next Thursday) and unfortunately i have limited access to the internet, so if i owe you an email i promise to reply Thursday or shortly after.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

13 September 2005

hookt on phonicks workt for me

it's about that time, again kids:
a third installment of

justin.barrett's simple rules of English

calendar --
the word is not spelled any of the following ways:
calander
calandar
calender
callander
it's not that hard. c-a-l-e-n-d-a-r. also, a collander is a strainer used to drain water from spaghetti or potatoes or other boiled foods.

cemetery --
the word is not spelled c-e-m-e-t-a-r-y. there are no a's in a cemetery.

alter/altar --
alter means to change something. an altar is a bench that is used to pray over.

personal/personnel --
personnel are people of a company. personal is how a person away from their job lives.

exorcise/exercise --
if you mean a workout, then use the word exercise. if you mean to remove a demon from someone's soul, then exorcise is right.
one question i have is why neither of these words follows the typical American English convention of ending -ise and -yse words in -ize and -yze (realize, analyze, capitalize, organize, etc.). weird.

eminent/imminent/immanent --
if you mean something is pressing and just about to happen, it is imminent. if you are talking about someone being famous or prominent, then you are describing someone who is eminent. immanent is very rare and means inherent or present throughout the universe. if you don't know the difference between these three words, then you are most likely not meaning immanent.
by the way, it's "eminent domain" not "imminent domain".

elicit/illicit --
illicit means illegal (illicit drugs). elicit is always a verb and means to draw forth a confession or comment.

skittish --
the correct spelling of this word is s-k-i-t-t-i-s-h. it is not:
skiddish
skidish
skitish
the difficulty some people have with spelling this one baffles me.

embarrass --
this one is ironic. people continually embarrass themselves by spelling this word wrong. it is not spelled in any of the following ways:
embaras
embarass
embarras
embarress
there are two r's and two s's. don't embarrass yourself and remember how spell this one.

complement/compliment --
this one can be difficult, though you should be able to get it with a little thought. if you mean a nicety said to another, you are talking about a compliment. if you mean something that pairs well with something else, you are talking about a complement.

alright. that's the end of this installment. hope you enjoyed it. let me know if you have any other spelling or grammar errors that you consistently see, which annoy you. there are hundreds out there, no doubt.

alive and well

we made it back from Las Vegas in one piece. it’s a six-hour drive from Salt Lake City, which isn’t too bad unless you’ve slept a sum total of five hours in the two days you were down there (like we did) and drank much more during the waking hours than you should have (ditto) and drove home by instinct alone (again, ditto). anyway, we made it back alive and well.
i’d like to say it’s good to be back, but it’s not. at all.

our friend’s wedding was beautiful. he rented out a cute, little chapel in the Bellagio and the bride looked stunning. and, our friend cleaned up nicely. he’s a lucky guy. the wedding was short and sweet and not one of those long, drawn-out affairs where everyone wants to fall asleep and ends up wishing the newly-married couple a lifetime of hell and horror.
the reception was held at the MGM Grand, in a suite on the 21st floor with a balcony overlooking the Strip. it was stunning. an acoustic guitarist strummed soft songs on the balcony, the alcohol flowed freely and the food was top-notch.
and, we were sufficiently inebriated: our emotions well lubed, our stress and worries melted and pooled at the bottom of our psyche, good friends nearby to bullshit with. it was a perfect evening. my wife even mentioned to me that she wished that night would never end (and she didn’t even say that on our wedding night). granted, this probably had more to do with the fact that we were in Vegas, not working, and enjoying a fabulous celebration. back when we got married we had less stress in our lives, weren’t in Vegas and the celebration was less fabulous.

we gambled a little bit while we were there, of course. (we gamboled a little, too, but we were drunk and that’s another story for a later time.) a few slots here and there, some video poker, but we did the best playing live poker at the Aladdin. we played 1-3 limit Hold ‘Em the first night we got there. the wife and i bought in for $40 each and walked away with $130 total ($50 profit; she won $19 and i $31) after playing for over four hours (until five in the morning). nothing world-killing, but still pretty good considering two of the friends who accompanied us on the trip played as well and lost their buy-ins; and people all over the room were busting out. it was a good time, all around. we didn’t get a chance to play again on this trip, though we desperately wanted to. oh well.
so far, we’ve never had a losing session at a poker table in a casino. hopefully, we can keep that streak going for when we return to Vegas (which we are planning to do sometime early next year).

now, it’s all about trying to get our circadian rhythms back to some semblance of normalcy. so far, no dice. i need sleep.