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Ding-a-Ling

Posted by Tim at 20:48 on 2007/09/06
Sep 062007

In what has been a mostly exhausting and frustrating week, this made me laugh.

In an only tangentially related item [which seem to be the ones I come up with most often] here’s a bit of trivia that I find both humorous and appalling. The great Chuck Berry had only one song reach number one on the pop charts — My Ding-a-Ling.

Oh yeah, this is completely unrelated except that it made me laugh too. A couple female students were complaining about another student in one of their classes. A colleague told them to keep their comments positive when discussing classmates. And they said in almost perfect unison, “I like her hair!”

Twit Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Posted by Tim at 21:50 on 2007/09/05
Sep 052007

I don’t remember where I ran across TwitterLit. [But I was rummaging around in the folder where I save things I think I might post about and I realized I don't remember where I got most of them....]

Each morning and afternoon TwitterLit posts the first line of a book. Just the first line. Okay, they also provide a handy dandy link to the book on Amazon[dot]com through the affiliate program. (That means they get money if you buy it. To their credit, they disclose that fact prominently on their home page.) You can subscribe to the posts through email, RSS, or Twitter. You can even put a widget on your blog or web page.

Here are a few recent posts:

I am a sick man.

The day broke gray and dull.

It was a dumb thing to do but it wasn’t that dumb.

I know I’m not doing well.

[Hmmm, those could be about me... no, wait. I am nowhere near interesting enough to have a book, much less four books, about me. You know it's true.] You can visit TwitterLit to find the links to the answers [because I'm mean like that]. Clearly, this is a game for book junkies, literature geeks, and English teachers [forgive my redundancy]. But it looks like they do a good job of choosing first lines that “are interesting in some way. They’re gripping or well-written or funny, or they come from a surprising source.” And by “surprising source” they don’t mean Amazon….

Oh, Yes I Did!

Posted by Tim at 22:19 on 2007/09/04
Sep 042007

Most people that know me or work with me (the latter not necessarily fully inclusive of the former — or should that be the other way around?) will tell you that I am very patient and usually polite. Usually. There are a couple notable exceptions.

Some days “The System” sucks the life right out of me. Some days frustration leads to utter despair… or anger. Like the song says, “Some days are diamonds. Some days are stones.” Last Friday was a stone.

I got an email from a coworker that came out of left field and had the potential to make my job a lot harder. And I started writing a reply, got two paragraphs into it and then typed, “You know what, I need to stop typing now because I’m really pissed off.” Now at that point I normally would realize that I was in no state to be putting things into print, delete the whole thing , and take a walk looking for a cat to kick or something to throw. But no. I sent it. Not just to the individual. To a group.

I’d like to say that it made me feel lots better. I’d like to say that the coworker expressed concern over my agitation. I’d like to say things that could get me into lots more trouble if they got out from here…. But instead I had a pounding headache by the time I left work. Instead any responses by the coworker were not directed to me. Instead I stayed pissed off most of the weekend. Instead I apologized today and made a compromise that I really didn’t want to make (nor think that I should have to make). Today is better than Friday, but it ain’t exactly sparkly. Still, there’s a smile on my face [painted] and a song in my heart [Some days are diamonds. Some days are stones. Sometimes the hard times won't leave me alone. Sometimes a cold wind blows a chill in my bones. Some days are diamonds. Some days are stones.]

You know what, I need to stop typing now….

[P.S. I know this sounds all doom and gloom, but I'm really pretty much over it now. Otherwise I never would have posted it here.]

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