Hate Word #31 "Timesing"

It is hard for me to come up with a term that I hate more than "timesing." I say "term" because "timesing" is not even a word, yet somehow it has seeped its way into the world of mathematics. It all began with the misuse of "times" instead of "multiply." For instance, instead of saying "You need to take x and multiply it by y," the majority of people say "You need to take x and times it by y." I hear this more often than not and it really makes my skin crawl. I almost got up and left, then, when my chemistry TA last year said "What we are doing is taking the pressure and timesing it by the temperature." I almost got up and left the room, half out of protest, half out of nausea.

Hate word #17

(My apologies for the lack of updates. (97.5% of my writing time has been dedicated to writing articles and columns for Northern Illinois University's paper. You can read them, if you really want to, by going to www.northernstar.info and searching for Scott Potter.)

Hate word #17: Parlor
This is a hate word classic in some circles. Parlor. "I think I'll retire to the parlor for some tea," Mildred said after returning home. If Mildred said that around me, Mildred would be retiring to the grave for some... uh... death? Yeah, take that Mildred! ...Parlor -shudders-

I Missed An Important Anniversary

Last Monday, I had my four wisdom teeth extracted. I don't remember much of Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday due to the steady flow of Vicodin pumping through my veins. It was probably good that I was sedated last Tuesday or else I would have not been able to help myself from screaming over the agony that now goes in hand with May 19th. It was the ten year anniversary of my childhood ending. It was the ten year anniversary of the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Now, faithful reader, you must fully realize the role that Star Wars had played in my life. It was an obsession at the very least. I knew every word of every movie (something that comes with watching VHS tapes until they wear out, forcing {no pun intended} me to own no less than three copies of the trilogy at that time). I knew every character who popped on screen for more than half a second, and most of those who were on screen for less. My locker made the school paper because every square inch (literally) was covered in something Star Wars. Action figures. Comic books. Magazines. Trading cards. Video games. It was unhealthy, but ridiculously awesome.

It goes without say that come May 19th, 1999, my fifteen year old self was ready to have my mind blown by the all powerful Lucas. After somehow sitting through school all day, I headed over to my best friend's house. I went to the theater in jeans, a green sweatshirt, and a rocking Boba Fett helmet. My best friend (a guy) went as Princess Leia, wig and all. We both had telescoping plastic lightsabers, too, because lighsabers are AWESOME. As we sat in front of the large screen waiting for the LucasFilm Ltd logo to appear on the screen, shimmering in all of its glory, we had no idea that our childhood was about to end in deafening THX surround sound.

I really hope I don't need to tell you why this movie sucks. Crappy CGI. Jar Jar. Darth Maul. Darth Vader as a sweet little kid. Pod racing. Jar Jar. Mitochlorians (which sounds more like an STD than anything). Crappy star ships. Retarded robots. Jar Jar. George Lucas had successfully shot a cinematic proton torpedo into his fans' exhaust ports (hmm, sounded better in my head) and destroyed all that they held dear in an explosion larger than the Death Star. But I was in denial. I mean, they spun around when they had lightsaber battles. And there was R2D2. And did you hear Darth Vader breathe at the end of the credits? OH MAAAAN! I knew it had to be awesome somehow. By the end of the movie's run at the cheap seats in the mall, I had twenty seven stubs in my wallet. Twenty. Seven.

I had been duped. And thus the seeds of bitterness that have since blossomed into the flowers of cynicism were planted that day. The day that my childhood was killed by the very man who helped bring it to life.

A Fiveteen Word Sentence

The other day while strolling through my friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart [sorry consumer activists], I was incredibly alarmed. No, it wasn't the big bargain rollbacks, the human/banshee crossbreed children running freely through the aisles, nor the new Dora the Statutory Explorer dolls. It was the butchering of the English language. Now, I am not some stuck up Niles Crane-esque figure who cringes when the phrase "me and my buddies" is spoken. And I am certainly not picking on people who are learning the language, or people who are speaking their culture's dialect. None of that would be fair, and I would be the world's largest hypocrite for getting upset over that. But this... This was something entirely different. A woman saying "Him didn't pick up the phone", a man saying something is "fiveteen two seven" for $15.27. This is how adults are speaking in public now? What is probably even more frightening is that they were with their children. Those kids are screwed.

I was pretty upset by all of this and it was on my mind all night. I couldn't sleep after Letterman, and since Jimmy Fallon is in Conan's spot, I started to flip around the channels. After much clicking, I come across an old mind numbing love-to-hate favorite: MTV's Next. If you are not familiar with this show, five contestants follow a guy/girl they want to go on a blind date with on a big bus, they come out one at a time, and when the dater he gets bored [or, in a classic episode, when a girl pees her pants] they yell "Next!" and send them back to the bus. Then this girl recites a mocking poem summarizing what just happened four seconds ago while they walk back. While the date is going on, the four waiting/nexted contestants sit in the bus and read conversations off of cue cards. During this episode, one of the girls on the bus says "Do you want to hear a story? Once I found a photo on my boyfriend's phone of a hoohoo that wasn't mine" and it cut back to the date. Wait... Wait... That is what you call a story? There is no beginning, middle, and end. That was a statement. That was a fiveteen word sentence. That is not a story, my "hoohoo" finding friend.

Maybe this is what is happening to us, though. This horrible experiment where we start off with The Bachelor where some nonfamous rich guy has to weed out these girls and propose on the season finale. Then we replace the nonfamous rich guy and now a bisexual internet porn star is the object of affection/infection. This is such a success, they start putting in washed up rapper and rock stars. Then we put them on a bus. Then, after the success of Mork And Mindy, they start making spinoffs. Except instead of Robin Williams in rainbow suspenders, we get illiterate carriers of diseases I watched film strips about in fifth grade. What small shred of dignity reality may have once had is long gone, if it was ever there at all. Where we once had talented actors delivering lines written by college graduates, we now have girls throwing up on Bret Michaels' shoes. On the bright side, we can always count on quality material for The Soup.

Blog Again, Blog Again, Jiggity Jig

I'm giving ERFW yet another reboot. I didn't like where it was going, and I stopped posting a long time ago because of it. So that is that.

While I was going through this blog and resetting it, I realized that I am slowly transmogrifying into one of "those old people" who get pissed off at the internet. I absolutely loathe blogs/My Spaces/whathaveyous where the html is hacked the hell out of and looks like total crap. You know what I mean; a tiling black background image of some constellation, neon green comic sans text, and spinning skull-on-fire .gifs on either side of the page's title (appropriately made in cutting edge 3-D Word Art!). At the same time, though, I hate these generic preloaded layouts you can choose from. My mad programming skills left me years ago, and even if they hadn't, my last programming class was in 2003. That knowledge is as good as punch cards today. So unless someone out there wants to make me an awesome layout, we are all stuck looking at this fashionably generic green layout.

Some of you may read this as a blatant attempt to get some free programming service from somebody. That is probably because it is.

Hate Words Explained

When I was eight, I was being cynical at a seventh grade level. Now that I am twenty-five, I estimate my cynicism to rival that of an eighty year old. Hopefully the world will be ready for me by the time I am that old...

Since I was in junior high, I noticed that some words in the English language just rubbed me the wrong way. When I met my wife's family while we were dating, I discovered that I was not alone. Her family refers to these words as "hate words", and the title is very fitting. The list of these words is ever expanding, and to compile them all into a single volume in one sitting would be impossible (due both to the vast number of them as well as the vomiting that would inevitably occur after prolonged exposure- kind of like a heat stroke of sorts). Some of these words may look pretty in print, but I assure you, saying them out loud will turn each syllable into a nail being dragged against the chalkboard that is your tympanic membrane.

Parlor- A hate word classic. Beauty parlor, massage parlor, parlor game- these terms should all be banned. Sometimes it takes a while before you get why a hate word is a hate word. Say it a few times. Stretch it out. You'll get it.

Doily- Not only is this a hate word, but it might be classified as a "hate object" if there were such a thing. A definite two-fer.

Two-fer- The combination and relettering of the term "two for", already short for "two for one". As you can see, sometimes the best way to discover a hate word is to say it and then be extremely disappointed in yourself.

Snack (v.)- "I think I'll have a snack." Perfectly acceptable. "I think I'll snack on something". Absolutely not. Most nouns that can double as verbs also fall into this category.

Mauve- Not only is this word awkward to listen to in a sentence, it is awkward to say. Maaauuuve. I feel dirty just mouthing the word. Stop trying to sound superior to those of us who prefer "purple" or "violet", you pretentious jerk- you're just making everyone around you uncomfortable.

There is plenty of more to be discussed later. This is all I can handle after a chem lab final.