Sorry for the light posting of late. It’s been a busy week, compounded by the fact my afternoon downtime (yes, a nap — sue me) has been impossible, due to Project Floor. Do you have any idea how the sound of a nail gun travels? Today is Sanding Day, although there may be some staining, as well. Just had a stain-approval meeting. Alan attended, along with his Super Stain Vision. There were two to choose from, and I couldn’t see a dime’s worth of difference between them, but Alan could. He always can. I delegate all paint colors and now, stain shading, to his superior eye.
At this point, my eyes burning like Drano-scrubbed orbs, they could paint the thing green and I wouldn’t care. (Too much.) I stay up until after 1 a.m. and rise before 7. I need my damn nap back.
What do I do until 1 a.m.? I read the world’s English-speaking press for a corporate client, and let’s leave it at that. However, in the months I’ve been doing this job, I’ve fallen hard for the British press. I wonder if they’re having the same problems with declining readership that we are. Hard to imagine — they’re as lively a read as I’ve ever seen stateside, and they’re like that pretty much every day.
At least they know the proper attitude to take toward Madonna: She insulted George Bush, simulated sex and suspended herself from a giant mirrored crucifix, head adorned with a designer crown of thorns (provided by Cotter Church Supplies, LA) in an all-out attempt to get someone, anyone out there, riled.
Before one can go further, mention must be made of her body – the most amazing feat of engineering since the Golden Gate Bridge.
When she unveiled it, you couldn’t take your eyes off it – not as a thing of beauty but as an object of sheer, sinewy significance. Even the bouncers looked scared.
Apparently, in this show, Madonna puts her leg behind her head. Shocking!
Sweet jayzus, the sanders just started up. (Whimper.)
Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 11:42 am
“One hoped, for decency’s sake, that her trousers were made of sturdy stuff.”
She is an embarrassment to herself and needs to get out of the public eye once and for all. Why doesn’t she spend her money on some acting classes or something? Her heydey is long over. Give it up, Madge.
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nancy said on May 24, 2006 at 12:03 pm
She really has reached the point where it seems her primary worry is that someone, somewhere in the world, isn’t paying attention to her.
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Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 12:52 pm
I remember when I first saw her on this new thing called MTV, years ago. At that moment I knew, this was the beginning of the end for good music.
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alex said on May 24, 2006 at 1:41 pm
I’ll ‘fess up to having been suckered into attending a Madonna concert a couple of years ago. I was playing host to out-of-towners who were coming to Chicago primarily to see her, incidentally to see me.) The only shock value in that show was the ticket price.
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Mindy said on May 24, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Madonna has always been a puzzle to me because she’s simply a crashing bore and has never been anything else. And I can’t see how even a teenybopper could ever be drawn to her or any of her pop tunes. How nice that the truth is becoming widely known.
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Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 2:38 pm
I just read that “Beloved” was voted best American novel of the last 25 years. You gotta be kidding me. Anyone else read that book here?
I thought it was OK, but Faulkner and Hemingway it was not.
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nancy said on May 24, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Faulker and Hemingway haven’t published anything since 1981, either. Doesn’t time fly?
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Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Faulker and Hemingway haven’t published anything since 1981, either. Doesn’t time fly?
Yeah, thanks, smartass. I’m not saying they should have won, I’m saying that Morrsion sucks in comparison to them and I think they were the last standard bearers of what should be considered great American novelists.
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Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Aww Danny I think she’s just pulling your chain. But I still laughed at you calling Nance a smartass.
Could you please help ME and tell me how you make a word bold in your entries? For the life of me I can’t figure out how.
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nancy said on May 24, 2006 at 3:02 pm
All HTML commands are encased in what I was raised to call “carrots” — the pointing arrows you get with shift/comma and shift/period.
To make bold, < b > — without the spaces — before your bold passage. To go back to normal type, < / b >, again without the spaces. (If I didn’t put the spaces in, your browser would read it as a real tag and go ahead and bold the text.
Remember the final tag, the one with the slash! Otherwise everything after your opening one, including all the comments after it, will be in boldface.
Danny, I hear what you’re saying about “Beloved,” but you can’t really have a literary survey saying, “We’d like to name a best novel of the last 25 years, but everything sucks in comparison to Hemingway and Faulker, so we won’t.”
Haven’t read it, m’self. Of the named nominees, I’d have chosen something by DeLillo or Roth. Phillip Roth is my hero these days. Mr. Not Dead Yet.
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Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Dorothy, bold, italics and other text attributes are handled by putting the appropriate codes before and after the text enclosed in the open and closed carets. For instance:
is the closed caret
b is the code for start bold
/b is the code to stop bold
i and /i for italics
These are all html tags. Kinda like formatting codes in the old WordPerfect.
Here is an example where I put double quations in so that the codes are not obscured:
“” text you want in bold “”
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Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Dorothy, follow Nancy’s advice, my post did not come out correctly and I typed carets instead of carrots. 🙂
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Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Nance, I’ll have to check out Roth. Thanks.
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Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Thanks to both of you for this. I’ll try it and see if I can do it!
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Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 3:30 pm
WHEEEE!! It worked!
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nancy said on May 24, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Now you’re reading to branch out into italics and bold italics, and my personal favorite, the
snarkmaster’s choice,the strikethrough.172 chars
Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 3:57 pm
I admit – I’ve had strikethrough envy for some time now. The secret mystery is solved!
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Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Damn. It’s still a mystery becuase I tried to do it using “st” as the command, but it didn’t work. Crap. I tried to strikethrough the word secret in the above entry.
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Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 4:15 pm
I just love AskJeeves Google.
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nancy said on May 24, 2006 at 4:16 pm
The command for strikethrough is “strike.” No quotes, in the carrots and with the usual slash to bring it back to normal.
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Dorothy said on May 24, 2006 at 4:18 pm
I used the wrong source at Google. Let me try again.
I
usuallyalways make a fool out of myself when I try something without researching it first.167 chars
Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Hey, wasn’t there a thread a few weeks bakc about cosmetic surgery disasters. Well, lookie at the new Faye Dunaway (go to Drudge). What a shame that a beautiful woman like that would do that to herself. I sure hope Catherine Deneuve doesn’t get any stupid ideas.
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brian stouder said on May 24, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Yesterday I learned about guys employed to pull aside horse erections comparable to baseball bats at the penultimate moment in the breeding process –
and today I learn how to do the sexy “strike through” trick.
nn.c is just an intellectually nourishing oasis
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Pam said on May 24, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Why oh Why did you not install a pre-finished hardwood floor? My dining room was done in a day with no sanding and no staining. Couldn’t find one to match?
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nancy said on May 24, 2006 at 5:38 pm
The guy sold Alan on the other option’s increased durability and looks. He said the pre-finished boards wouldn’t go together with the same tight seam, etc. And the price difference was sort of negligible.
Tomorrow is Hell Day, though: Polyurethane, two coats. And then we’re done.
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Danny said on May 24, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Nance, pray tell why you did not just open up the summer home a few months early? You would have had the peace to work on your memoirs, Alan to wile away the hours hunting quail and Kate to hone her skills for 2012 olympic US equestrian team.
Actually, I do envy you. I think you will love the results on the floor.
We ended up going for one of the engineered surfaces, not pergo, but another one. Quite happy with it for our place and for the reasons we did so.
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ashley said on May 24, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Nance didn’t pick Elmore? Blasphemy.
Although, I’m at the point where I’ll just pick Hiaasen or Christopher Moore, and let the critics tell me how it’s not serious literature.
Let’s see them write about a sea monster porking a tanker truck.
Oh, and I have an html cheat sheet, if anybody needs one.
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Jeff said on May 24, 2006 at 11:16 pm
If you’re thinking about reading some Roth, and just want to stick your toe in, my i suggest “The Ghost Writer”? Not too long, strong narrative strand. “Goodbye, Columbus” stands up well, IMO, but Roth himself apparently disagrees, and who am i to correct him? But “Cols” is the title story in a collection of such (all good, i still maintain), and so reduces the commitment required.
“Beloved” did not work so well for me, but your mileage may vary. I’m still trying to recover from Wendell Berry’s “Hannah Coulter,” and Tamar Yellin’s “The Genizah at the House of Shepher” is the most interesting novel i’ve read in 2006 so far.
If you’re lookin’ fer readin’ . . .
pax, jeff
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Dorothy said on May 25, 2006 at 9:17 am
Open the windows and put on the exhaust fans for Polyurethane day. When Mike finishes the furniture he does that’s the last step and it is my least favorite. It’ll be worth it in the long run, though.
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John said on May 25, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Since you are busy reading the world’s English speaking press for $$$ can I suggest either the Jamaica Gleaner (www.jamaicagleaner.com) or the Jamaica observer (www.jamaicaobserver.com). Kingston is the largest english speaking city in the Carribean.
They both have quirky features and use patois in AP style news stories. Sentences like, “mi fi shey dwan kill myo” The gleaner is especially historic as it was owned once by a couple of brothers named Dallas who went on to found some city in Texas. I think it might have been Austin (jk).
The observer is more timely and hungry for business and they have the merit of having published some of my recipes, where the N-S hired some club oriented bee-bop girl with no food history for the food & features beat. But damm she can cover Pierres. And we all know what traditional N-S readers really want is better club scene coverage.
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