54 posts tagged “humor”

You know I love reviewing books. But I have to say that in the past few months, I am newly re-astonished at the crapola that gets published.

Yeah, I know, I've said it before.

Self-published books are one thing. Most of them don't go through an editor. STILL if you're going to pay to have your book published & you're going to put it out there in front of Buddha and everyone with your name on the cover, one would think you'd want it to be the best that it could be. SO that same "one" would also think that you'd run it through a spell checker. Maybe turn on the grammar checker (neither of which is always right, but they'll make you look at possible problems). And here's a radical idea: let someone who reads a lot who ISN'T in your family (in your cubicle, in your bed, in love with you) read it. OR take a writing class and submit it as a final project. OR join a writing group with people who aren't (and don't want to be) your best friend. OR pay someone to read it and critique it. I was my only editor on my book (though half of them were published in magazines, the paper, or on-line). Most of the stories went through several outside readers. All of the stories went through many, many re-writes. There were probably still errors and things I could have done better...but I own those mistakes.

Then there are the self-published books that DO go through an editor (paid by the author)...some of them are still crapola. I finished one a while back and I seriously considered contacting the author and telling them to sue their "publisher" or at least demand a refund.

I do NOT think self-published books are necessarily bad (obviously, since I wrote one myself), but a lot of them are. The sad thing is they don't have to be. I actually have a fondness for 'em. They are the underdogs. Those authors are (sometimes) the writers who have worked the hardest at their craft. (Really do YOU think James Patetrson pays a lot of attention to what flows out of his word processor? Oh, that's right he always works with a co-author!)

Then there are the books published by commercial publishers. I excuse them for publishing crap when it has a celebrity name on it (here too a caveat: all celebrity books are not poo. Jamie Lee Curtis is fantabulous! Julie (Andrews) Edwards can be.) Publishing houses have to make a buck, ya know! But, why are so many of the books I read (to review and for "fun") just plain drek? Books that have been through editors who get paid more than I do to read, critique, and punch up these works...and yet these works have errors aplent. Errors in grammar (and I do not usually read looking for those). Errors in style. Errors in narrative craft...sigh. Errors that are easily fixed...sigh again.

I finished a book a short while ago (author to remain nameless) by a supposed "fresh new voice" & the book had point of view problems. (Note to budding authors: if your book is narrated in the first person, your narrator can't know exactly what another character is thinking or feeling or what motivates their friends...unless your first person narrator is psychic--just use a little phrase like "I could tell he was feeling..." or "I bet he was remembering that time when he was five..." instead of "I looked at George. He felt sad." or "Sitting by Sam while he remebered that time when he was five...").

I should start an editing business. Of course, I'd have to charge on a sliding scale--the more painful the book is to read, the more I'd charge :-) Kidding! Well, about the sliding scale at least...maybe when I retire (ha ha, it is to laugh) I'll go in to business...or maybe I'll mid-life-crisis-job-change myself on up to NYC and present myself at a publishing house with ARCs marked up, and say: "You coulda done better. Now hire my ass!"

Oh, Yeah...Buy my book!

Seeking the Link

Tim Capehart

It's better than what I've been reading!  :-)   <--evil grin

The story below is clipped from NYT, but Trent read me the story from this week's "The Week" (our news magazine of choice). Turns out I'm not fat in Japan! Woo hoo!

I have a 33 inch waist...So, yes I'm on the cusp, but were I in Japan I would officially NOT be fat.

What a relief!

From New York Times: "Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry.

"Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.

"But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.

"Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

"Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months."

In Defense of the Bush Doctrine (Contemporary Issues in the Mid)

Robert G. Kaufman

Rejected subtitles include:

"Hey! At Least He Didn't Get Us All Killed!"

"He Made Millard Filmore Look Good!"

"He Proved the Majority DOESN'T Rule"

"Sending Healthcare and Edication back to the 1950's"

"Could Be Worse, Could Be Raining Bombs!"

"Serving the Rich, One Billionaire at a Time"

"Failing Where Reagan Failed, All Over Again"

"Proof Big Oil Can Run the Country...Into the Ground"

"Only 3/4 of the World Hates us Now"

And the #1 Rejected subtitle for this important tome:

"Like YOU Could Do Any Better!"

There are plenty of areas in the country that have legitimate weather concerns; Dayton is not currently one of them. Nor was it last evening when we were trying to watch the Tony Awards...

So the broadcast starts...and just after the opening comedy routine Rich Wirdzek (WHIO) cut in to tell us there were severe thuderstorm watches about 120 miles north and west of us. He repeated the information three or four times just in case we missed it. Then we went back to the show in time to see the first award winner finish their thank you.

A short time later Rich was back. The watches had become warnings. And they included WIND! Oh, my! He read us the screen just in case we weren't literate. He let us know each small town the storm would pass over...in case we couldn't read the map. He told us which counties were under warnings and which under watches in case we were so color-blind that we couldn't tell which were which on the little warnings map that stayed in the corner of the screen all night.

The third time he broke in we knew we were in for an evening with Rich Wirdzek...and we relaxed into it. Trent said it added an extra level of suspense to the Tony broadcast. When they announced the nominees, we never knew if we would see who won! When someone started singing, we never knew if we'd see the whole performance.

When "Grease" performed, we hoped he'd break in, but no such luck.

The storm did arrive. Fifteen minutes of wind followed by fifteen minutes of rain. Then it was over.

Rich broke in AFTER the storm passed us to let the people in the counties east of us know it was on the way. He also said there were pictures of storm damage. Branches down. Patio furniture blown over.

HORROR! (I actually screamed like a little girl when he announced the patio furniture horror).

Trent and I hopped up and ran to see if OUR patio furniture had been blown over. We were going to photograph it and send it to WHIO. Unfortunately, our plastic furniture was still standing. Trent knocked it over & I went for the camera...but that seemed dishonest.

I told Trent we needed to get Rich Wirdzek's cell phone number, so that in the future when he's blowing (pun intended) some tiny weather event all out of proportion we can call him and say, "Shut it, Wirdzek!" We never even lost the sattilite feed through the whole weather event.

(In his defense, east of us some power lines DID go down...but that was the extent of the weather related damage--except for that guy's patio furniture...how did he survive it?)

But at least they gave us a laugh...

My e-mailed complaint got a response from one Lori Flores who offered us each $75 vouchers on our next flight.

I politely told her that was as good as salt in the wound in view of what we had spent on the tickets & the fact that we still have yet to recover.

Their response is akin to someone saying, "Yes, I poked you in the eye. Here's a discount on your next poke in the eye!"

Honestly, I thought that was the end of US Airways response. I joined www.airlinecomplaints.org and posted my letter there. (Got a response almost immediately telling me our experience was not singular). I thought about other options...just to get the word out.

A few hours later US Airways replied to my reply. This time Denise Cannon-Bush (obviously more important since she's hyphenated) told me that the company had procedures in place and the vouchers were all they could or would do for us. Here are a few paragraphs (unaltered save color) of her short reply:

Dear Mr. Capehart:
 
We are in receipt of your request for additional compensation. We apologize our original attempt at resolving this issue was not to your satisfaction.
 
In order all of our passengers are treated equally, our Executive Management has designated compensation guidelines to which this department must adhere. With these guidelines in mind, our Customer Relations management team has reviewed both our original request and your additional request. After careful evaluation, we were unable to discover any additional concerns causing us to reconsider our original compensation.

The highlighting is my work, but the text is pure US Airways.

I responded that her grammar was as poor as her customer service. (This made Trent laugh & that was a welcome sound given our ordeal). And I reminded her that while a happy customer might only tell one person about their experience, an unhappy customer will tell everyone.

I have gone on to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and airconsumer.ost.dot.gov (the department of transportation). Next is a letter to the head of customer relations at US Airways just to let her know what has occurred and who I have contacted.

It might not be EVERYONE, but it's a start. 

Well, I know you never thought this day would come, but I have to give props to the Shrub. He has found a way to decrease the illegal immigrant population. Yep, the number of illegals crossing the border has decreased by 18%!

Because...the economy sucks so much, they're staying home! Yeah Bush!

Gas prices and lack of jobs in America are closing the gaps in our border! Wow...a the man is a genius!

Took this last year & forgot...urm, no I don't use my phone a lot...don't we sing purty?

What have I done!

Checking out the equality score card to find out if GLBT citizens in my state are second class citizens, I got a shock (not a huge one...but still...)

I have taken you, my Trentie, from a state with a 4.0 score (out of six) to one of the three worst states in the union with a score of 0.5 Ohio is in the company of only Idaho & Mississippi...we're behind Alabama fer Buddha's sake!

How does your state fare?

http://www.equalitygiving.org/States-of-Equality-and-Gay-Rights-Scorecard

(Oh, and it doesn't matter if you pick the state I actually took him from: Massachusettes or the state of his birth: Maine...both have that 4.0 score).

Sigh...

I need a laugh...here:

Thanks to Heather who had this on her Vox & it made me larf so hard...since we live it every morning...minus the bat, though I do have recurring headaches lately, hmmm.

Well, have I got a story for you. There's no love lost between us and our neighbors on the one side (we like the other side fine)...the ones of which I speak I have complained about here before; they have the beagle who never shuts up. Endeavoring to be the good Buddhist, I smile and wave at them when I see them...but that may be a little more difficult from now on.

Sunday morning it was raining. I was in our kitchen making a lentil salad to take to my sister's for our Mother's day dinner. Our kitchen is large. Here's a picture:

Kitchen windows

Those windows look out over about five feet of yard...then a low wooden fence...then about five feet of their yard. I was working at the counter there by the sink. As I said it was raining out, so the light was on in the kitchen.

I saw the neighbor's 12-ish year old son walk by with his jackey over his head...I didn't think anything of it. They usually go to church. (Or I should say they usually dress up on Sunday mornings, I'm assuming the destination)

I often wonder what they think of us sometimes dancing in the kitchen...smooching over the sink...I know they can see in and they know we are a couple...So a few moments later, I look up from veggie chopping and the kid is back. He has his hand at his belt buckle. I think, "Oh no, is he going to scratch himself?"

Nope. He whipped it out and peed. Right there. Between the houses. Not only in full view of our lighted windows at 10 a.m. but with nothing but about forty feet of clear yard between him and the road...I fled.

I yelled, "Oh my god!"

Trent who was doing laundry in the basement said, "What?"

I repeated, "Oh my god! You will never believe waht I just saw."

"One of the neighbors naked?"

I kid you not, he actually said that. But he was just thinking of the most outrageous thing he could...and I had to tell him he was pretty much right on target.

Maybe that's why we have a patch of dead grass in the back...

Trent and I were talking the other day about how funny it is that when a movie maker wants to make a character from middle America or from some place totally innocuous, they usually make them from Ohio. "Heathers" takes place in Ohio...Sometimes the movie makers even choose Dayton--did you know "Rocky Horror Picture Show" is set in "Denton" a Dayton clone?

Well, I agree Ohio is pretty much the milk in the icebox of the country.

Why here, we have so much trouble making up names for our towns, we pull them from other states and countries. We've got a Springfield (like everyone else). We've got a London, a Williamsburgh, a Dover, a Concord...but sometimes we like to put our own Ohio-spin on it...exert our individuality and creativity by pronouncing it differently...

Growing up I knew about Bellfountaine (Bell-fountin) and Versailles (Ver-Sales) and Lima (Lyma)...but just recently Trent came across Houston...not pronounced like the venerable town in Texass...but "House-tun"

And my favorite...just heard it today: Russia...in O-HY-O we pronunciate that "Roo-Sea-Ah"