Kiite.

Found on Craigslist

posted by Mark @ 3:44 AM Comments: 1

Reedin' Ritin' and such things

People are basically stupid - and I fear for the future of our world. I have noticed something coming up lately in my online travels and really it's worrying. People cannot spell. Before anyone gets up on their hind legs to take me to task, let me say a few things.

I am not talking about the following:

• typos of the 'speed' variety, such as not capitalizing 'i'
  
• internet-speak 'how r u' for 'how are you'
  
• apostrophe issues. Let's be honest here most of us can't get 'its' & 'it's' right anyway.

I am actually talking about people who clearly do not grasp basic spelling or grammar. You can tell because they're writing phonetically, they're adding letters (as opposed to removing them to spell like they're really writing a prince song) or they're just using a plain wrong word altogether.

I've seen people write "poar" for "poor" "encumbent" for "incumbent" (in a fucking job posting for a large consulting firm) "right" for "write" (seriously this is a word you'd have learned in grade 3 for cryin' out loud!). I guess some of them could be ESL types, I suppose. But not all of them. I'm not expecting people to write with the wit and grace of Dorothy fucking Parker. But really, in a JOB AD you can't spell correctly.(oh and why do they even say 'the incumbent' in a friggin' job ad? The word means the person who already has the job not the person who will get it.)

I don't know why I am bothering to rant here. I guess I have a 'thing' about spelling. I'm crap at certain aspects of it myself. As I'm sure Bert will point out I pretty much can't spell 'believe' (or is it 'beleive'?) And I'm fairly fast and loose with the apostrophes (much to my shame). But really "POAR" are you fucking serious!?!??!?

I think the problems stems from two things. The first is that our education system from about 1970 onwards has been shit. Some toked up hippy got his PhD in Education and decided to remove all that silly 'rote' work and instead we got to 'feel' language or some such thing. Now we have generations of adults who look retarded when they write. And the second problem is with the fact that we love to have reasons for things that don't make us culpable in the matter, don't actually recognize that we might be at the cause of whatever ails us.

"Doctor, I think little Jimmy is dyslexic!."
"No, Mrs. Sullivan, he's just a bit stupid, and he doesn't do his homework. I'm quite sure if you actually forced him to read a book once in a while and didn't let him sit endlessly in front of his PS2, he'd be fine."
"No, really, perhaps it's Attention Deficit Disorder!"
"Um, no wrong again there Mrs. Sullivan, the only deficit of attention here is the deficit in the attention you're paying to your son. He's 6 - and the inability to concentrate for long periods of time on any one thing is the actual definition of 6-years-old.

But you'll never hear that in a doctor's office will you? Of course there are kids with dyslexia and ADD, but not all of them. There are adults with learning disabilities, I know, but not all of them, not as many as there seem to be.

And even if I was wrong, there actually is no excuse, because the definition of someone who can spell is that he or she needs to be able to see a red squiggly underline on their screen. Because EVERY FUCKING PROGRAM HAS SPELLCHECK!!

posted by Mark @ 12:00 AM Comments: 3

meep meep

I used to own a 1979 Austin Mini 1000. This is what it looked like. I didn't do this kind of thing, but I wish i had.

posted by Mark @ 4:26 AM Comments: 2

The Chrysler Building

This is a video for "I saw the light" by The The.

posted by Mark @ 3:44 AM Comments: 1

New York Slide Show

Hey there everyone, I have managed to create a slide show of the pics we took in NYC. I have not figured out how to embed that in this page, so for now please click here for access to it. (Shigeki if you feel like giving me a tutorial on how to embed swf into my Blogger generated blog I'd be happy to get that help.)

posted by Mark @ 1:04 AM Comments: 4

on the look-out

hey y'all, we're back from NYC and a bit tired. I'll have pics up online in a few days, in the meantime, if you live in Toronto, grab a copy of Eye this week (or next) for the "sex is casual" thing which is being run (albeit in shortened form) for their "love & Sex" issue.

posted by Mark @ 8:58 AM Comments: 2

NYC is Cold (but I hear Toronto is worse)

We spent a great full day wandering around the city today. From Times Square to Ground Zero. And we took some pictures. I'll be sure to post them probably tomorrow or Wed when I am back in the city.

I'm disappointed I didn't see any famous people today. Oh, and they lie, the city does sleep.

posted by Mark @ 9:20 AM Comments: 0

paved with celebrities

I've had one of those "the streets are paved with gold" moments. On friday night I went to meet my pal for drinks. We agreed to meet at Times Square (near my hotel) and so i was standing in fron of the Swatch store at 45th & 7th and I met Norman Jewison. At first i only saw him, but I'm shameless, and so I said hi, and we chatted. He was wearing a baseball cap that had the logo of the Candian Film Centre on it. I told him that the reason I figured it was him, was that it would just be weird if a guy that looked so much like Norman Jewison was wearing that cap. It was him.http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Then I met my pal Ralph and we went to a cool bar called Five Points. And while we were there Sam Sheppard (not the guy looking for the one armed man) sat beside us. Mr. Jessica Lange was cool, handsome and had a pint and some paté.

I love New York

posted by Mark @ 2:51 PM Comments: 1

NYC

No pics yet, we just arrived and we're about to head out for a pint and some food :) We're in NYC until Tuesday. I'll try to take some fun pics.

We're here.

posted by Mark @ 4:32 AM Comments: 2