Some of the best responses to yesterday’s grammar question came by e-mail. Emma, for instance: “Masturbating himself?” That just sounds riduculous. I’ve always prefered “manually manipulated.” When I worked at the tanning salon, I had to tell my boss that an elderly male customer had “digitally manipulated his anus” in the tanning bed. I didn’t know what else to say.
God gives all writers the material for their novel. We just have to be wise enough to notice it. I, for instance, was gifted with 20 years at a steadily declining small newspaper. Emma, on the other hand, had her stint at the tanning salon, where she witnessed enough disgusting human depravity for a trilogy, at least. Customers peeing in the wastebaskets, smearing the beds with bodily fluids and now, apparently, digitally manipulating their bummies — evidently there’s something about the combination of UV light and private rooms that makes people bonkers. Maybe it’s the little glasses. I’m tempted to ask Emma how she knew that about the digital manipulation, but I just had breakfast.
The moral of the story: Tanning is really bad for your skin. Among other things.
Of course, if you wanted to write a roman a clef about a rotten business, you really can’t beat TV news these days. Two companies play a game of pass-the-license, and the upshot is, a city loses another newsroom. Granted, TV newsrooms in Fort Wayne aren’t exemplars of the form. It still sucks.
Time to consider a serious career change. Maybe I can work for GM. I hear they give discounts on cars.
Another thanks to Eric for pointing out the error message generator. Hours of time-wasting fun. Here’s mine; it’s an inside joke:
Colleen said on March 9, 2005 at 11:37 am
Yeah, I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around how eliminating 33’s newsroom is going to “better serve” viewers, as the press release would have one believe.
I caught Linda Jackson’s 11 pm newscast….bless her heart, it appeared she struggled for a moment or two when reading the story about all the terminations.
It reminded me of when I lived in western Kansas, and the “local station” did a five minute cut in of fires and arrests before joining up with the station in Wichita for the real news.
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alex said on March 9, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Eeewww. Sounds like you could pick up far worse things than melanomas in a tanning bed.
And double eeewww on the news about the news. On the bright side, Miss Reynolds will have one-third fewer hairdos to “quidnunc” about.
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harry near indy said on March 9, 2005 at 4:01 pm
good old anglo-saxon language for manual manipulation of another person’s genitals:
hand job.
or more recently, handy.
i prefer both of them to the latinate terms.
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alex said on March 9, 2005 at 4:23 pm
Harry, we’re off-subject on this here thread, and to go even further afield I just thought I’d mention that I hear tell Europeans call blowjobs “American sex.” Any truth to it, anyone?
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alex said on March 9, 2005 at 4:44 pm
Oh, and by the way�be sure and tell Emma�don’t they “digitally manipulate” anuses all the time on the show “Cops”? And for that matter weenies and snatches and boobies too?
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brian stouder said on March 9, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Nance’s old newspaper had the better article on the fouled up ch-33 thing –
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/11091654.htm
The odd thing, to me, is that Granite SOLD ch-21 – the ratings-leader money-maker, and BOUGHT ch-33 – the ratings goat…
and now owns a station with almost no staff. Whatever contract they have w/21’s new owners presumeably has an end-date, so what happens then?
Presumeably at that point they can drop any pretense of having a local news operation, and just run syndicated shows and network programming….unless the FCC requires them to do something ‘community oriented’ in return for their use of the public airwaves?
I’d say that Channel 15 (the surviving major competitor in town) is the real winner here, except that is probably tempting fate.
To use a slightly off-kilter analogy, Thomas Jefferson was wrong about idealizing yeoman farmers and the agrarian lifestyle – but the essence of it is close enough to the truth. Home-grown media ownership is a Good Thing, and absentee ownership of local media outlets is probably best in small doses (if at all)
I’m all for Intrusive Big Guhvment regulation on things like who gets to utilize the public airwaves
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alex said on March 9, 2005 at 8:15 pm
As well you should be, Brian. The concentration of media ownership in fewer hands means exactly what we liberals have been saying it means, although most of our words have been lost in the din of demagogues yelling “liberal media, liberal media” on all da man’s channels.
What strikes me as odd about 21Alive�the number-one station�is that it airs so much god-awful paid programming all day long. It’s a cash cow, all right. It’s a frigging whore with its legs in the air.
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