Earth, Shoes and Fire

So yeah, I messed up on Sunday's post thinking it was Earth Day. I hope none of you readers celebrated Earth Day due to my mistake. How do people celebrate Earth Day anyway? Do they get out their globe, play some Rare Earth, maybe some Earth Wind and Fire, and dance around in their Earth Shoes? (Yes, younger readers, Earth Shoes were a thing and Rare Earth was a Detroit based rock band.)  

But yeah, I was sure that someone told me it was Earth Day Sunday. Maybe they were saying “birthday” and I missed the B. That’s probably it. Now I’ve gotta figure out whose birthday I forgot. This is never ending…   

Speaking of planets, who would win a fight between Pluto Nash and Bruno Mars?

 

Down to Earth

Today is Leonard Nimoy’s birthday. He’s the actor who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek. They cruised around space in The Enterprise (apparently it was a rental). I didn’t watch much of the series but I think they actually flew into other galaxies. Someday I’ll go back and watch it. Right now I’ve got this blog to run...

A good number of people I know refer to Mr. Spock as Dr. Spock. But they were 2 different guys. Dr. Spock of course was the baby doctor who wrote the famous book on child rearing. In hindsight, it would have been cool for someone on the show to have a baby and have Mr. Spock turn into Dr. Spock. Am I asking too much here?

Today is also Earth Day. Only in America could Leonard Nimoy’s birthday fall on “Earth” Day. Only in America. That dude had nothing to do with earth. He was everywhere but earth…

Edit - I erred. Somebody told me it was Earth Day today and I believed them. Who goes around lying about Earth Day? People are sick...

Palindrome Week!!

Hey, it’s palindrome week. I didn’t realize it. I was reminded of its occurrence by my young staffer. She’s offsite now but still contributes valuable material to this blog. So yeah, today’s date is 3/23/23. Backwards, it’s 3/23/23. If you don’t believe me, go get that little mirror out of your bathroom and hold it up to this post. Take your time, ‘cause palindrome week goes most of next week. I suggest you celebrate palindrome week by taking a ride in a kayak this weekend. Then take a ride in a race car. And take a peep with you (they are available during Lent). And make sure you call your mom.

My young staffer insists 2/2/22 is a palindrome. I suggested that it might not be since some would call that 2/02/22. But I’m going to defer to her. She knows the palindrome rules forward and backwards and I'm gonna go with her assessment. 

 

 

Looooong Password

Our computer password requirement at work is changing. Historically, the password has been required to be a minimum of 8 digits and it needs to include a number. Going forward it will need to be a minimum of 15 digits including a number and symbol. What’s next? Requiring emoji’s within the password? Different fonts within the password? C’mon…

I suppose I could use a short poem. Maybe a haiku. 

I’ve seen greeting card poems at The Dollar Store with less than 15 letters…

 

White Sox

I love spring training. A true rite of spring, right? I was driving recently and pulled up behind a car that had a Chicago White Sox bumper sticker. That was unique, I thought, ‘cause this ain’t Chicago, and nobody outside of the south side of Chicago likes the White Sox. They are Chicago’s “other” team. It being springtime and all, I was listening to the baseball channel, and they were interviewing someone about the White Sox’s chances this year. What a coincidence, I thought. So I pulled up next to the guy with the bumper sticker at a red light, rolled down my window and told him they were talking about the White Sox on channel 89.

I’d love to tell you that this had a happy ending and that he smiled and thanked me or that he caught up with me at the next red light and thanked me. But no. Nothing. No reaction. Maybe he thought I was talking about my laundry. I don’t know.

Folks, if you’re gonna go through the efforts of putting a sticker on your car, you gotta be ready for this type of thing. If I see this guy again, I might just pull up next to him and tell him the White Sox are gonna stink this year…

 

Overkill

We as a society have worked hard over the years to rid ourselves of the non-word "irregardless" with its obnoxious double negative prefix. And we’ve done a pretty good job I think. You don’t hear it as much anymore, thank goodness.  So perhaps it’s time for another life improving purge of our everyday verbiage. I’m talking about “overexaggerate”. Yeah. Do we really need the “over” here? Isn’t exaggerate itself enough? Are we piling on here with another obnoxious double negative? Is this phrase “over” the top?  Does the use of “over” make it sound like exaggerating by itself is OK?

 Is there a line between exaggerating and overexaggerating, and if so, where is that line? Should there be a next level called “extraoverexaggerating”?

Spellcheck says "overexaggerate" is not even a word. But Merriam Webster says it is a word. If those two can’t agree, maybe we’re not gonna settle this here, kind readers. But we’re obviously onto something huge, I think. And I don’t think I’m exaggerating. Maybe, in fact, I'm "underexaggerating" its importance.