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« October 2010
Back to Home Page
August 2010 »
(via "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson)
Categories: Craig Ferguson
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Granddaughter Leanna, photobombed by a horse at the Highland Games earlier this month.
Categories: Animals, KGB Family
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- Remember to never split an infinitive.
- The passive voice should never be used.
- Do not put statements in the negative form.
- Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
- Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
- If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
- A writer must not shift your point of view.
- And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
- Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
- Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
- If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.
- Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
- Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
- If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
- Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
- Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
- Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
- Always pick on the correct idiom.
- The adverb always follows the verb.
- Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague; seek viable alternatives.
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Atheists Don't Have No Songs
(The Atheist Hymnal)
Christians have their hymns and pages,
Hava Nagila's for the Jews,
Baptists
have the rock of ages,
Atheists just sing the blues.
Romantics play Claire de Lune,
Born agains sing "He is risen,"
But
no one ever wrote a tune,
For godless existentialism.
For Atheists there's no good news.
They'll never sing a song of faith.
In
their songs they have a rule:
The "he" is always lower case.
The
"he" is always lower case.
Some folks sing a Bach cantata,
Lutherans get Christmas trees,
Atheist
songs add up to nada,
But they do have Sundays free.
Pentecostals sing to heaven,
Coptics have the Book of Scrolls,
Numerologists
can count to seven,
Atheists have rock and roll.
For Atheists there's no good news.
They'll never sing a song of faith.
In
their songs they have a rule:
the "he" is always lower case.
The
"he" is always lower case.
Atheists don't have no songs.
Christians have their hymns and pages,
Hava Nagila's for the Jews,
Baptists
have the rock of ages,
Atheists just sing the blues.
Catholics dress up for Mass,
And listen to Gregorian chants.
Atheists
just take a pass,
Watch football in their underpants.
Watch
football in their underpants.
Atheists don't have no songs.
Categories: Music, Snrk, Video, YouTube
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We are not going to be any different than what we've been.
-Rep.
John Boehner (R-Ohio)
Categories: Daily Show, Hypocrisy, Jon Stewart, Video
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From that polka-playin' ABC World News Now veteran, Barry Mitchell.
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I just hope people remember this is someone (Sarah Palin) who served half a term as the governor of a state
with no people. I think the bar for running for President has to be a little higher than just having a
Facebook page.
-Bill Maher
Categories: Quotes of the day
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Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.
Categories: Quotes of the day
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Gordon Jump (April 1, 1932 – September 22, 2003), best remembered as station manager Arthur Carlson ("The Big Guy") in the classic sitcom WKRP in Cincinnatti:
"As God is my witness... I thought turkeys could fly."
Categories: Classic, Video, YouTube
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She also said Hollywood needs to re-evaluate what they're doing, because
movies these days are all filled with gay sex and extramarital affairs.
I'm like, "Have fun in Congress, then..."
-Craig
Ferguson on U.S. Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell
Categories: Craig Ferguson, Quotes of the day
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Forgot to post this last week...
I had a lot of work to complete while I was traveling, so instead of eating out I called Dominos for delivery to my room.
I ordered online. Dominos' website has an order tracker that displays what's going on with your food: preparation, cooking, out for delivery, etc.
While it was nice to know "Bob is reviewing your order," what caught my attention was the report that Jesus had put my pizza in the oven.
I really wanted Jesus to deliver the pizza to my room, but it was not to be. The Dominos guy who knocked on the door said Jesus' had a suspended license.
Nonetheless, I ordered online the next two nights as well.
They say miracles can happen.
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The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death- however mutable man may be able to make them- our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
Categories: Questions for the Ages, Quotes of the day
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"I've covered politics for a long, long time, but this is the first time
witchcraft has ever come into it."
-Bob Schieffer, host of
CBS' "Face the Nation", on Christine O'Donnell's candidacy for the
U.S. Senate.
Article VI, paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution states, "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
The "no religious test" clause of the Constitution is pretty clear; it's the only time the word "ever" appears in the document. Which means, as strange as it may seem, that O'Donnell's "dabbling" should not be an issue in her campaign.
As far has her being an unqualified Looney Tune who appears to live in a demented reality of her own creation... well, have at it.
And thanks, Delaware Republicans, for giving the Democrats the senate seat in November.
Categories: Church and State, KGB Opinion, U.S. Constitution, YouTube
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Christine O'Donnell hates masturbation, which is ironic because she owes her nomination
to a bunch of jackoffs.
-Bill Maher
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What is hydrogen? It's a substance which, if you leave enough of it
sitting around long enough, completely unsupervised, becomes life
that eventually evolves into something complicated enough to ask the
question "What is hydrogen?"
-posting by "Hacksoncode"
on reddit.com
Categories: Quotes of the day
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Obama loves war and rich people and he never goes to church. If that doesn't prove
he's a Christian I don't know what does.
-Bill Maher
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One of the great things about The Daily Show is that it allows its guests to elaborate without time limits, then posts the full segments on its website.
Here's Bill Clinton's latest appearance on the program, where he discusses the current economic situation, health care, the state of politics in the country, and his suggestions for restoring jobs.
Categories: Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Video
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A big thank you to veteran KGB Report reader and contributor Rafal Sulejman for the enhancements to the KGB Quotation Database Search feature. I picked up the original code a number of years ago from a free script repository, and never got around to properly updating it when we switched software from Blogger to Thingamablog. Fortunately, Rafal is an expert in perl, cascading style sheets and other html matters, took pity on the badly kludged version I put up last week, and passed along a far superior cgi file.
It's still just a basic string search with no boolean operations or fancy features like soundex, but, unlike my previous script, this one actually works.
Heading back to Pittsburgh, where today's forecasted high temperature is 10 degrees lower than Tampa's low this morning. Woohoo! Casa de Fuzzy awaits...
Categories: KGB Blog News
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On September 16, 2000, my daughter Sara was married. As I told Brian, her groom, "giving away the bride is just a figure of speech. She'll always be my little girl."
Categories: KGB Family
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No sausage patties at the Holiday Inn Express breakfast bar this morning. Instead, creamed chipped beef.
Creamed chipped beef!?
It's going to be a long day...
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It's already 72° here in Tampa, and either the humidity is 90% or my cell phone is almost fully charged. (Note to self: check data locations on new Droid screen layout.)
Challenging work. Sometimes I have to stop, take a deep breath, and ask myself, "What would MacGyver do in a situation like this?"
The hotel vending machines are reasonably priced, but have an interesting customer gouging approach. My first purchase in any of their machines never dispenses; it gets stuck in the chute. The devices appear to be bolted to the floor so I can't shake them. Rather than waste time calling maintenance, I buy a second one of whatever I previously purchased, and both then fall successfully from the twirly-thingie.
Local television news is stupid everywhere. Saw a segment on how to deal with the high temperature and humidity. In Tampa. In September.
Time for breakfast and the free scrambled eggs and sausage patties. As Tom Lehrer sang, "To think of all the marvelous ways they're using plastics nowadays..."
Categories: Tom Lehrer
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I haven't had to do much business traveling lately, so yesterday was my first time through airport security since the TSA installed those backscatter x-ray body scanners.
For someone of my size and physical configuration, removing my belt and raising my arms above my head is not a trivial consideration, and poses an ethical dilemma: do I wish to be a security risk or a flasher?
At least there's some consolation in knowing I ruined the lunch of some nebby scanner operator.
(I sat three rows from the back on the Southwest flight from Pittsburgh to Tampa. I like to think of it as first class for dyslexics.)
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Column, that is.
Since abandoning Blogger and switching to new software, I've been trying to get the right sidebar working the way I want. It's close enough now to unleash it on an unsuspecting readership.
The KGB Quote-A-Matic block now contains a link to the old quote search utility, which, if I must say so myself, is pretty neat. It's not particularly powerful, in that it just searches for a word or character string. But enter Carlin, for example, and you'll get all of the over 100 George Carlin quotes in the database. The search page still has the "classic" KGB Report format, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
"Pages of interest" contains most of the links from the classic site's front page. Everything else down to the archives section hasn't changed.
Archives now contains links to the classic KGB Report pages I haven't yet converted to the new format. They'll be upgraded as time permits.
Finally, there's a "share" button beneath each entry, should you want to harrass friends with KGB content via Facebook, e-mail, or 285 other equally annoying methods.
It's amazing what you can accomplish while waiting for the clothes dryer to finish its cycle.
I'm off to Tampa, where I'll be at a customer site until Friday. I hope the new stuff will keep you busy in the event there's no time to do a daily post. For, as James Caan said, " 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' is a lot of crap. Absence makes them think you're dead."
-The Management
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I'm not afraid to think the unthinkable, I just can't figure out a way
to do it.
-The
Covert Comic
Categories: Covert Comic, Quotes of the day
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Earle Wittpenn died last year on my birthday. I've tried to write about him a dozen times since then.
I've failed miserably.
The problem is that I can't talk about Earle without talking about myself. What should be a tribute to the man who rescued me from potential oblivion and gave my life drive and direction, ends up sounding like self-aggrandizing drivel.
I had graduated from high school at 16 as class salutatorian and was scheduled to enter Duquesne University's journalism school in the fall. It was an exciting time. I had something most of my contemporaries appeared to lack- an actual career goal- and a clear path to achieve it.
It was not to be.
My parents' personal demons made another of their cyclical visits. I found myself with no way to pay for college and no job prospects. My paternal grandparents, who always took me in when my mother and father found themselves incapable or unwilling to shoulder their parental responsibilities, again provided shelter and encouragement.
The mother of my high school english teacher, Mrs. H., was incensed when she heard a family member of mine say "He'll never amount to anything without college." She coerced one of her relatives to give me a job as a veterinary assistant.
On the day of what should have been my first semester in journalism school, I was restraining dogs and cats and checking stool speciments for worm eggs. I actually enjoyed the work and learned a great deal. It kept me busy, provided a minimum wage income, and, as Mrs. H. noted, "it'll keep you floating until your ship comes by again."
During one of our conversations, Mrs. H. said she had seen a classified ad in the Daily Messenger for a reporter/photographer. I dismissed it out of hand. "I'm not qualified for that," I told her. "You should apply anyway," she said. "They'll probably say no. They might say yes. It's worth asking."
My interview was with Ralph, the city editor, and I could tell he was less than impressed by my meager resume. My journalism background consisted of being editor of the high school newspaper and having three articles published in Model Rocketry magazine.
I'd also written a weekly high school news column for the Messenger during my senior year, for which I received ten cents per column inch and $2 per photo. I showed the check stubs to Ralph. "Technically, I've already written for the Messenger," I said, "so I do have daily newspaper experience."
I swear I heard crickets in the ten seconds of silence that followed.
Ralph was exceedingly friendly, thanked me for coming, and promised he'd get back to me. Even at 17, I was perceptive enough to know that my immediate future would still involve furry mammals and centrifuged feces.
On the way down the Messenger's seemingly endless flight of steps I bumped into the paper's editor, Earle Wittpenn. "Mr. Barkes!" he said, "How the hell are you? How's Duquesne?" I was stunned he remembered my name, let alone my college choice.
Earle had taken me to lunch at the H&H Restaurant on Eighth Avenue in Homestead shortly before my graduation. He thanked me for writing the high school news column. He said he was impressed that I was the only high school contributor who had never missed a deadline, and that I had always submitted at least two usable photos every week.
He was also amused that I managed to include the high school honor roll in my column, which was submitted two days before the paper received the official list from the district. "How'd you manage that?" he asked. "I have contacts," I replied, in my best pre-Woodward and Bernstein conspiratorial tone.
He laughed, and said he didn't mind paying me ten cents an inch for a list of names he could get for free a few days later. "We scooped The Daily News", he chuckled. "That's worth two bucks."
As Earle paid the check, I boldly asked if there were any part-time openings at the paper. He put his hand on my shoulder, shook my hand, and told me that at 16, I was a bit too young. "See me in a year," he said.
Anyway, I told Earle about my situation and that I had just put in my application with Ralph. "How old are you?" Earle asked. "Seventeen," I replied, somewhat timidly.
"Well, I started when I was 17 and it worked out ok," he laughed. "Give Ralph a call and let him know when you can come in."
The rest, as they say, is history.
One very important lesson Earle taught me was recognizing one's limitations. "There's always someone better than you," he said. "Someone who comes up with the right words for a situation. If you can't do better yourself, then use what that person wrote, but be sure to give them the credit."
At the memorial service, Earle's nephew, Matt Phillips, ended his transcendent eulogy with the lyrics from "For Good", a song written by Stephen Schwartz for the musical Wicked. His words are far better than any I could cobble together:
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing
something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most
to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't
know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because
I knew you.
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So
let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned
from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now
whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By
being my friend.
As usual, Earle was right.
Categories: Earle V. Wittpenn, KGB Family, KGB Opinion
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You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
-Winston Churchill
Categories: Quotes of the day
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As Debbie Speer points out on the ABC World News Now discussion group, "The New York Post's infamous 'Headless Body In Topless Bar' may have some serious competition with 'Butts Arrested In Boob Murder Case.' Just sayin'"
Categories: Headline of the day, WTF?
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Granddaughter Leanna heads off to second grade. Her bestest friend, Bella, doesn't want to hear about it.
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family
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Very often when one door closes, another does open. A trapdoor, leading directly to that lonely place at the bottom.
-Al Franken
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Michele Bachmann claims 1.6 million at Beck rally. That’s about right
if you count the voices in her head.
-lizzwinstead, via Twitter
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"'Hurricane Earl Headed for New Jersey.' Isn't this about the time Pat Robertson says God sent it there to punish them
for 'Jersey Shore'?"
-Elayne Boosler
Categories: Elayne Boosler, Quotes of the day
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Merchants have no country.
-Thomas Jefferson
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