A petite rant on usage

I worked for a financial newspaper that shall remain nameless (Voldemortgage News? Hrm...) and it had the worst culture of institutionalized bullying I have ever had to endure. Which made me a ruthless editor because editing became survival.

The scars of this experience are my intolerance for misused words. I'd be annoyed by them anyway, I assure you, but not to this PTSD degree. And while I could dismiss my vehement reactions on unresolved anger at a chief sub who was a righteous prick and needed a kick in the balls, it still doesn't change the fact that words are misused all the damn time by people and publications that should know better, and as a result they are dumbing down our entire society and heralding the End of Times.

Here are a few examples:

Over. Dear every newspaper editor or broadcast journalist ever, please stop saying "over" when you mean "about". "Over" implies space and direction. Full disclosure: I used "over" in a headline when I was working on the Daily Telegraph business desk but that was because "about" wouldn't fit and the next word was "oil" so it rolled nicely. But you know what? Print is dying, the internet has unlimited space and the Daily Mail is going to use all of it for a five-deck SEO-generating headline so there's no excuse for saying "over" when you mean "about".

And just in case you don't mean "about", you probably mean "more than". Because if it's an amount of something, it's "more than". And while we're talking about amounts...

Significant. You mean "substantial". Because it's an amount, right? You're talking about an amount. You're talking about how much more you're paying in insurance every month or how many more students are not going to go to university if there are no jobs. Amounts are "substantial". If you say "significant" you're implying something is special. And you know what? It isn't.

Fantastical. You know who the worst sinner of this is? SFX magazine. Every goddamn "reboot" of a "franchise" is "fantastical", according to its "showrunner". NO. If it's a fantasy you're describing, then the adjective is "fantastic". Yes I am aware that it is a superlative. It's funny how some words can function in different word classes, isn't it? Like "fuck" and "smurf". Stop taking a perfectly cromulent adjective and trying to turn it into another adjective. I don't care if Shakespeare used it. You're not Shakespeare. You're not even Stephen Moffat. Unless you are. But if you are, please don't say "fantastical" because you're Stephen Goddamn Moffat and you are BETTER THAN THAT.


Vast majority. It's either a majority or it isn't. Fuck off with this "vast" nonsense.

Whilst/amongst. In grad school my grammar professor argued (in my words, not his) that anyone who said "whilst" or "amongst" was a pretentious dickhead and in practice I've found this to be largely true.

Fab dot com

Let me start by apologizing, to you and your bank account.  Because you're going to go to Fab.com and be powerless to resist their daily collections of art, fashion, jewelry, furniture, and home goods.  It's an electronic orgasm of what Eddie would lovingly call gorgeous, tasteful, little stylish little gorgeous things.

YOU'RE GOING TO BUY ALL OF THE THINGS.  

Like this, for example.  

Space Jam by Chase Kunz.  Currently hanging in my bathroom

Items tend to arrive when they arrive, but if you don't mind waiting, it's a minor thing.  It's like Christmas!  One day something you forgot you ordered just magically shows up at your door.  So far I've only had one real hiccup with an order when I received the wrong item.  The customer service reps I dealt with via email were very communicative and downright earnest in their desire to make right the mistake.  When they weren't able to replace the item, I got a full refund plus a $10 shopping credit.  Earnest like a fox.  A stylish gorgeous little fox. 

The Inspiration Grid

For a daily dose of arresting images, visit The Inspiration Grid.  This curated gallery presents new works in art and design from creators around the world.  It's easy to immerse yourself in these beautiful, amusing, and provocative pieces.

Some of my favorites come from the photography gallery:

Interiors of classical instruments, created by Mona Sibai and Björn Ewers for an advertising campaign to promote the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.   Photographer: Mierswa KluskaIf

Lips: Creative Photography by Nikos Vasilakis

The War Against Christmas, high speed photos of exploding Christmas ornaments by Alan Sailer

The Inspiration Grid

Bully for you, Mittens

I guess the news cycle has washed away all traces of the Mitt Romney Is A Bully story that commandeered headlines for about 10 minutes in May. Many people argued that Romney being a bully in high school isn't that big a deal because he should be judged on what he does now.
I disagree. (And not because there isn't anything to judge him on now, because there is. Lots.)

When I was in sixth grade, I was bullied repeatedly to the point that I started skipping school for weeks at a time. Because I was bullied, I bullied others I perceived to be weaker than me when I got the chance to, because that's how I thought things went and how I thought I had to survive. (That's how it works; it's a cycle. You might notice this now in how Romney treats the middle and lower classes in regards to tax and healthcare.) This reaction-bullying resulted in the worst thing I think I have ever said to another human being.

His name was Chris and he was having a more difficult time adjusting to middle school than I was. I'd heard from someone that he wanted to commit suicide. So after school one day when we were the only two students left at the bike rack, I said: "Hey, is it true you wanted to kill yourself?"
He said "yeah". Defensively. Like, you wanna-make-something-of-it.
So I said: "What are you waiting for?"
And he snorted in a "yeah, good one" manner and rode off.
He disappeared before the year was out.

I have regretted this for years and never told anyone this story. Ever.
But I remember it. I carry it with me and I would apologize to Chris if I even knew how to find him, if he was even still alive.

In 1965, Mitt Romney bullied a classmate who had the audacity to style his hair. His "long" hair that draped over one eye. In 1965. Okay, the Beatles happened already, Mitt. Even at Cranbook. But that didn't stop him from corralling his gang of Crabbes and Goyles to physically restrain John Laubner and cut his hair off.

Are there worse things? Yes. Like telling a student to go kill himself, maybe. But I was 11. Mitt was 18. I was a disturbed child and Mitt was a grown man ready to take up his place in the 1%. And while I remember my horrible act, Mitt apparently does not. Oh, his classmates remember it, feel bad about it, and even made an attempt to atone for it before Laubner died. But Mitt, in a startlingly heroic move worthy of any American President, does more than just deny it ever happened, he rubbishes the entire issue by saying he doesn't remember it.

For some reason, electing a President has become a popularity contest instead of the job interview it actually is. Voters, if you elect this bullying dickwad asshole President of the United States of America, you have just made the villain of every John Hughes film ever Prom King. And that is not how we want to be known in the global community. It really isn't.

TARDIS and Browncoat Jerseys - Last Day to Order

It's hard to think about hockey when it's 4,000 degrees outside, and inside you haven't moved from the couch since Friday.  Also, you can suddenly speak with great authority about the nuances of a full twisting layout Tsukahara.  But!  Today is the last day to order one of these cunning jerseys from designer Dave Delisle.

You can customize the number.  9 is my Doctor

To me this is a form of cosplay, as many people opt to put a character’s name on their back. In my opinion this is sort of a fandom, where every design I post is usually for something I really love. I don’t see these as products but large personal billboards for things we like, be itGame of Thrones or Voltron or Zelda or what have you. I hope large companies see these as fan expressions, not infringing. 

I don’t have big aspirations of turning this into a mega-business, I rather like the small scale we are currently at. I do hope geeky hockey jerseys become more commonplace eventually. 

If anyone had jerseys like these available I wouldn’t be going through all this effort. Maybe Reebok will take notice.

Check out Dave's site for more great designs.  Fandom jerseys from Dave's Geeky Hockey.  Tip o'the hat to Bruce!

Large Hadron Quilts

I'd like to imagine that when the scientists and engineers at CERN go to sleep at night, they tuck themselves up under one of these:

Inner Eye February 2010 Size: 120 cm square. Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Inner Eye February 2010
Size: 120 cm square.
Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Teacher and artist Kate Findlay was inspired by the recurring circle-in-square motif of the Large Hadron Collider and spent four years translating those forms into fabric.

Findlay used traditional patchwork for her three earliest pieces, “Breakthrough,” “Inner Eye,” and “Does the Dark Matter?” Because of the way fabric moves, this technique makes creating circles a fiendish feat. After six to eight weeks of sewing, and down to the final piece, she says, “My heart was absolutely in my mouth.” Until she finished, she had no idea whether everything would line up and lie flat.

Quilts by Kate Findlay via Symmetry magazine - February 2012.  Tip o'the hat to Bethanew.

Astonishing, Awesome, Beautiful, Seductive

And the ship's not bad either.

Each year at San Diego Comic Con there's a Starship Smackdown panel held to determine which spaceship is best.  Prior to watching this video, if asked, I would have naturally thrown my vote to the Millenium Falcon.

But Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes a very persuasive argument for the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701.

 

What matters is not what they look like now, but what they looked like to others at the time that they prevailed.  There is only one spaceship [in the bracket] that's earlier than [USS Enterprise] and that's the flying saucer from The Day The Earth Stood Still ... So, what matters here is what did that spaceship [points to USS Enterprise] look like at the time it came out?  Compared with anything that had been imagined before.  And when you consider that, that is the most astonishing, awesome, beautiful, seductive machine that has ever graced the screen. 

And everything else is derivative.

In other news, when the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA undertakes an album intended to convey the grandeur, energy, and chaos of the universe itself, who does he turn to?

Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal

Watch out, guys.  We've got an actual badass over here.

Starship Smackdown via

GZA on 'Dark Matter' album: WSJ

Sasquatch!

My husband has taken to watching Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot. It's ridiculous. Despite never having found the remains of a Sasquatch, the droppings of a Sasquatch, or actually – irrefutably – caught one on camera, this dedicated team goes all Blair Witch in the Pacific Northwest with their Sasquatch "calls" and proof that bigfoots "whistle", "can't understand words", and "sleep on hemlock" in the open forest.
As this show really only prompts more questions than it answers, we've taken to googling and wiki-ing Sasquatch for random fun facts. Here's the one my husband found:
"'Sasquatch' is a slang term for 'hairy vagina'."
I'm not sure how much I can express the rage I felt when I heard that. Because, seriously? The vagina is an internal organ. What you're talking about is the labia. There is no such thing as a 'hairy vagina'. (While we're at it, there's also no vagina dentata.) Second? The labia is supposed to be hairy. Just like armpits, upper lips, bellies, legs, arms, and ears. Just like dudes are hairy.
You don't need to be a doctor to know this but if you are a heterosexual male with any hope of having consensual sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex the least you can do is learn what things are called and where they are. Damn, y'all.

Also, yay for Those Pesky Dames, who take to YouTube to rant about body hair and other feminist topics. I was introduced to them on Cherry Healey's latest series, How to Get a Life, which is a hell of a lot more interesting than Finding Bigfoot.

Higgs Boson Explained

I find that most everything in life can be explained by how-to videos. I'm looking at you Higgs Boson.

Start with this video which compares Higgsy to a tray of sugar. Raw muscavado sugar it looks like, because this guy is from the Guardian and the British are like that about their sugar.

Then move on to this more in-depth look from PHD comics. This one's gonna take a bit longer, so you might want to smoke a clove cigarette while you're watching to take the edge off.

And don't let this new fangangled addition fool you.  Higgsy isn't the last particle to complete the standard model.  We are still looking for gravitons, people. 

You're welcome.

Rosemary Rain

So I was flipping through the online pages of I Love Cat Party again, because of its hypnotic sweetness and mooncalf sexiness is just so soothing.

They've turned me on to Rosemary Rain, an etsy store of (literally) cheeky watercolors and digital art. The theme here seems to be maryjane and nude babes in a soft, sweet, I love Californian sort of way. Bizarre? Check. Adorable? Check.

I mean come on. Naked. Lady. Riding. Dinosaur.

I just want to purchase of collection of them, frame them and stick them up in my guest bathroom. It would be, I don't know, a really good time.

Sailor Moon Returns in Summer 2013

Sailor Moon is getting a new anime series in summer 2013 according to the anime news network.

There is only one way to express my excitement, which is by a squee. So I will do so so now.

(Squeeeeeee!)

Kodansha editor Fumio Osano has only confirmed that the new project will be a serial not a film and it will be produced by Toei animation, which also animated the original series, for worldwide distributed. Mashable speculates that this new serial may be a reboot geared to both younger and older fans. And the Mary Sue hopes they won't remake Haruka and Michiru’s relationship when the series hits the States.

I only only hope that Naoko Takeuchi will read my letter re-translating Moonlight Desnetsu into American English before Momoiro Clover Z re-records it for the new series. (sigh).

To tide us over until more releases hit the interwebs, check out Corey Lewis'recent fan art Sailor Bat (via reyyy.com) and Ann Marcellino's Sailor Avengers (via How to Carve Roast Unicorn).

PS Did you know CandyBuffet has a twitterfeed? Even more sciencey unicorn magic can be imbibed here.

Texts From Jane Eyre

Mallory Ortberg wrote Texts from Jane for the Hairpin.

A snippet:

JANE I BOUGHT YOU A DRESS MADE OF TEN THOUSAND PEARLS AS A BRIDAL PRESENT where on earth would I wear that YOU COULD WEAR IT ON THE MOON that seems impractical how would i even breathe on the moon? I WOULD BREATHE FOR YOU MY JANE

Read it because it is funny. Read it because, I could read a whole blog just about texts from characters in classic novels. Really, I could read the whole of Jane Eyre re-wtritten as texts. Are you listening Mallory Ortberg?

Like it? Try Texts from Scarlett O'Hara.

Side-by-Side Comparison of Humanity’s Notable Spaceships

Molecular astrophysicist "Invader Xan" has created an infographic, "Model spaceships", comparing the sizes of various space-faring vessels at Supernova Condensate.

Why? I'm not sure where you got lost when I said, "spaceships".

And you know what? S/he/It's blog has great stargazing tidbits like, "How to diffract a Cadbury’s creme egg…?" and including killer images of the Venus-Sun transit. You are not aware of my penchant with Venus-Sun porn? Then you are not following my Twiterfeed. Xan has also included bonus material (above) comparing fictional and non-fictional craft. [via Discover Magazine]

Geek glam

Captain America by Jangasara

Self taught artist Jangsara is about to make cosplay or just getting dolled up for a Friday night a metric ass tonne more awesome.   She makes being a nerd impossibly glam with her takes on Star Wars, The Avengers, and The Hunger Games.

I am left without words.  Just gasps and squeaks and now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy ALL OF THE THINGS at Sephora.

Makeup your Jangsara via

Jennifer Landa

Actress and Orange County native Jennifer Landa used to Princess Jasmine at Disneyland. Who knew she'd turn out to be such a prodigy video blogger and Star Wars superfan?

Make her YouTube channel a viewing prioity. Her message runs from the absurd (Ewok hunter!) to the inspired (Star Wars Blue Ray Rap) to the educationally enlightening (How to Speak Huttese). 

The Official Star Wars blog has an interview with her about her crushin' Death Star cosplay dress (Nice tie interceptor head piece).

And don't forget to check out her blog where her not so inner geek is on full display.

Yub nub.