All about me

I have a book recommendation for all you true "make no apologies for it" geeks and nerds out there. It's "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog," which has been out a few years but which I just discovered. It's about -- are you ready? are you ready? -- diagramming sentences, which those of you of, um, a certain age might remember actually doing in school.

It's not just the rich and famous who are saddling their kids with dumb names:

Apple, Suri and Shiloh may be household names because their parents are stars, but a new study of millions of babies finds it's not just celebrities who seek out distinctive names for their kids.

Regular folks do, too, driving down the percentages of those who pick popular names.

Every office I've ever been in has had a refrigerator, and, sooner or later, they are neglected for so long that just putting your lunch next to the toxic stuff in them would be inviting food poisoning. But none of them has ever gotten this bad:

An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill.

Reason magazine has been predicting the end of the postal service so long that even another 2-cent increase for stamps can't get it that excited these days:

As Associate Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward said in a post two years ago, "Reason has been predicting the imminent demise of the post office since at least the '80s, so I suppose we'd better not get too cocky just yet."

As a "valued Pontiac and General Motors customer," I got a letter from GMC asssuring me that the company is "very sensitive to" my "concerns and needs." As GM "reinvents itself" for me and "future customers," I am thanked for my business and promised that the company will "work hard" to keep me in the GM family, "providing some of the finest quality vehicles in the world."

I would like to reply.

Huh.

"Any time someone with influenza coughs, sneezes, or even talks loudly, they actually expel the virus in their breath,” said Diana Bowden, Infection Control Preventionist with Regional Hospital. “That's why social distancing is important, because you need to keep your distance so you don't inhale the droplets that are coming out in their breath."

Trekkies decry the new "Star Trek" movie as "fun, watchable." Where are the heavy handed messages? Where is the stiff acting? There isn't even a single scene of people sitting around a table endlessly discussing Klingon politics. And, most disappointing of all, the story line made sense. "Fans felt like the series belonged to them, and now the studio has turned it into something people will actually enjou." I love The Onion.

Ah, man. My car's gonna be an orphan:

The Terre Haute Tribune-Star has dropped its appeal of a $1.5 million jury award to Clay County sheriff's deputy Jeff Maynard, who contended that two stories about alleged misconduct defamed him. Nobody at the newspaper is talking, so the natural speculation is that a settlement might have been reached among the interested parties for something less than the awarded amount, which was the largest libel award against a news media defendant in Indiana's history.

Hallelujah! I have nothing to worry about now, since Sen. John Kerry has my back:

Senator John F. Kerry will hold hearings in Washington next week on the financial problems facing the newspaper industry, as dwindling advertising dollars push many US papers to the brink of closure.

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