An overabundance of typos

I've been seeing them everywhere. In one of the books I'm reading (Clive Barker's Books of Blood), in my neighborhood's weekly paper, and in restaurant menus. In TV commercials and on business web sites. They taunt me with their wrongness. I can overlook a typo or three in a blog or an email--heck, I've been known to commit those venial sins myself from time to time. But blatant spelling and grammar errors in a book that's in its third printing? Even spell check, imperfect as it may be, would catch some of the worst errors. What happened to the editorial process? Do people just not care anymore?

Um . . .

Where did this week go? I blinked my eyes, and it went from Tuesday morning to Friday afternoon. Hmm. Did anybody else's week fly by?

Save my library!

Ohio's Governor, Ted Strickland, wants to eliminate more than $200 million from the Public Library Fund over the next two years. These funding cuts would drastically reduce services and access at a time when Ohio's public libraries are experiencing unprecedented increases in usage of services like Internet access, children's summer reading programs and more. The Governor's proposal cuts library funding by 50% beginning July 1st, meaning the time for action is NOW!

If you want to help save Ohio's libraries, please contact our legislators. The Columbus Metropolitan Library has made it easy to do so at http://columbuslibrary.org/. If you want to take a more direct route, call Governor Strickland's office at 614-466-3555.

Vowel anarchy

I ran across this tidbit in this weekend's Yahoo news . . . hopefully next on the chopping block is adding "u" to words like "favor" and "color."

Fruition

After several months of starts and stops, edits, revisions and redirections, one of my clients just re-launched their updated Web site today. I think it's a great site--not only because I wrote a lot of the copy, but also because it truly reflects the kind of organization they are. If you get a spare moment, swing by and take a look!

Sirens and steaks

My onsite work load has dwindled a bit this month, so I took an afternoon off last week. The hubby and I (have I mentioned he quit his job a month ago? Well, he did. But that's another story.) went to the gym, happy to beat the after-work crowd.

We came home to find two fire trucks in front of our house--after a brief freak-out, we realized the firefighters were at our neighbor's house, so we crossed the street to make sure everybody was okay (they were--no fire, just a blown-out pilot light that was misinterpreted as a gas leak).

Walking back to our house, we intercepted the UPS delivery guy, who was also on his way to our place. In his hands was a Styrofoam container addressed to little ol' me. The shipping label indicated it was from Pfaelzer Brothers (an online gourmet food store), and that it had been sent by my agency client. Inside the box were four filet mignons, accompanied by a note that read "Here's to a great summer."

Here's to a great summer indeed--for all of us!

Nucular

Last week, my client and I had a recent discussion about usage of "hone" versus "home" when referring to zeroing in on something. He thought "home" was correct, whereas I was strongly in the "hone" camp. We looked up both words, and as of Friday, he seemed willing to concede that "hone" was correct for our context. Apparently, though, the issue still nagged at him, because I received an email from him this morning chock full of alternate definitions, usage guidelines and commentary from various sources--all arguing for the use of "home" instead of "hone."

Yet it was not the definitions, guidelines and commentary that swayed me--it was the sentence with which he began the email: "'Hone in' has evolved as a common mispronunciation of 'home in'--akin to saying ‘nucular’ instead of 'nuclear.'"

Consider me converted.

Hi ho, hi ho

It's a gray and rainy day here in central Ohio, and all I really wanted to do was stay in bed this morning. But, I don't get paid if I sleep the day away, so I hauled myself out of my cocoon, put on my game face, and got to work.

I am still plagued by the Land of the Lost theme. Six days and counting. Oy vey.

Land of the Lost (lost lost lost lost)

Thanks to a Land of the Lost marathon on Chiller this weekend, I've had the theme song playing a nearly constant loop in my head.



As annoying as it has been, it got me thinking of how TV themes have changed over the decades . . . through the 70s, shows like LotL (and Gilligan's Island, The Patty Duke Show, The Brady Bunch . . .) told you just what you could expect from the show. The 80s were rife with instrumental introductions (Dynasty, Dallas, Doogie Howser, MD., Magnum PI . . .). The 90s introduced pop-inspired openers (Friends, Boy Meets World . . .). Then came the "anything goes" 00s. You never know what you're going to get, and you generally can't guess from the theme song what the heck you are in for.

If there are any theme writers out there, I would like to suggest a return to simpler times. For example, I'd love to hear a theme song for the CSI franchise that tells you what the series are about. If I had more time on my hands, I'd write them myself.

Um, thanks?

Finally, an organization has realized that I'm one of the country's most accomplished professional women . . . I was tempted to send back the reply card because they claim there's no fee and I'd like to see what "membership" actually entails. Then I remembered a post of Lori's from April and thought better of it. It may or may not be the same group, but I have a feeling it's equally shady. So, National Association of Professional Women, thanks . . . but no thanks.

June ramblings

It's a beautiful day in central Ohio. The birds are singy, the flowers are plucky . . . and my hubby is making me breakfast!

The only thing casting a pall over the day is the fact that I need to call a few auto body places and get some estimates. My neighbor backed into my car the other morning, leaving a dent and a scratch on the rear passenger-side wheel well. Guess he hadn't had his morning coffee before he got behind the wheel! Fortunately for me he said he would pay to have it repaired--but I still have to make the arrangements.

The 200

This is my 200th post. That may not seem monumental to any of you who have had blogs for more than a year or for those of you who post daily (or multiple times throughout the day!) . . . and frankly it's not really that big of a deal to me either, but it's a nice round number so I'm gonna celebrate it.

Huzzah! 200 posts! Okay, I feel much better now.

Things seem to be slowing down with my agency client (no looming deadlines = no need for me to be there eight hours a day), which leaves me free to explore some other opportunities. The creative staffing firm emailed me last week with a possible project, so I plan to follow up with them. I think I'll also try to hit some networking events and maybe do some marketing around the neighborhood. I also plan to enjoy the downtime while I can get it!