The 18th Bestofme Symphony is up at WOLves. Trudy's got it done up right and ready for your Monday reading pleasure.

Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note and I'll get you on the schedule.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, how about a little linky love? Not for me, for Trudy!

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

Posted by: Jim at 02:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Snagged from Michele the Grammar Goddess)

Posted by: Jim at 08:57 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I only got Grammar Master. Even the picture of Miyagi-so-samma wasn't enough to perk my shame. :-)

Posted by: tommy at April 05, 2004 12:38 PM (v0EoW)

2 Check the pics again (I would've emailed you, but my time on the pc is up!)

Posted by: Helen at April 05, 2004 04:41 PM (rvz4o)

3 I had to change the picture. Quizilla's wouldn't show and there was no way I was gonna upload that ghastly face to my server. I decided to go with a different sort of face.

Posted by: notGeorge at April 05, 2004 05:04 PM (JCxVY)

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The Letter of the Day was is "M".

"M" is for Meticulous. Simon is a meticulous blogger.

Posted by: Jim at 05:27 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It's time to get those submission in for the Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at WOLves.

As a special bonus for this week and this week only, every author featured in the April 5 Bestofme Symphony will get a Snooze Point. That means that at a minimum they'll get a spot on the Snooze Point Leader board for the rest of the calendar year. They may also cure cancer and end third world hunger but those last two have requirements in addition to being on the Snooze Point Leader board.

The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!

The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.

Posted by: Jim at 11:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Congratulations to Kevin and the Missus. Mostly the Missus since she did all the work.

Posted by: Jim at 07:56 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The Letter of the Day is was "L".

"L" is for Ludicrous. The government wastes a ludicrous amount of money.

"L" is for Lesbian. Lesbian T-shirts are now allowed in New York City schools.

"L" is for Licentious. Some reporters' work is absolutely licentious.

Posted by: Jim at 01:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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UPDATE: March results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

I've mentioned previously how I protected myself from a lot of the harassment that smaller kids typically get heaped on them. Basically, I just went ape when somebody did something (a noogie or charlie horse or whatever) and attracted a whole lot of attention while making the bully feel like a moron. It worked well. What it didn't protect against was people who actually wanted to beat me up. That happened twice - once each in two different schools.

The first time was when I was a hormone addled new teen. On the walk home from school I got jumped and beat on fairly well. My mother raised a holy shit fit but that didn't do anything except embarrass me further. A few weeks later in the middle of the lunchroom with a full gaggle of spectators (and supervising adults who could break up a fight pretty quickly) I unloaded on the kid. A tray to the face followed by me jumping on him over the table and some spectactularly poorly executed punching took him by complete surprise. I said that he had called my mother a whore and that was why I beat on him. We were both suspended for a day. I didn't get into any other fights for two years.

The other time was as a sophomore in high school. I pissed off a jock and got a sucker punch in the gut that left me gasping for breath and with tears coming out of my eyes. Later the same day I took a full bookbag and swung it like I was doing a hammer throw and connected with the back of his head. He was sent loopy and couldn't stand up. I went up to him and asked if we were cool now and he said yes. Nobody ever tried to hurt me physically (with mean intent) for the rest of my high school days.

Current Standings:

Four Correct
jim
MojoMark
Sue

Three Correct
Helen

Two Correct
Brian Jones
Mike the Marine
mitzi
Rob
Simon

One Correct
Jeremy
Lovely Wife
Mutinousdoug
Susie
Tiffani
Tommy

Zero Correct
Everybody else more...

Posted by: Jim at 12:45 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Quite a few of the blogs I read regularly have questioned why there is no grand hue and cry from the muslim community against the actions of al-Quaeda, Hammas, and other hardline fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups. I mself was curious about it and asked one of my muslim coworkers. She said that the average muslim is as horrified as everybody else at what these people do in the name of their religion but the majority of Islamic organizations are not run by average muslims. She compared it to the Catholic priest/pedophile thing. Catholic churches and organizations tied to the Catholic church were not the voices heard screaming about these abuses. That is simply because they take their lead from Rome. In a similar fashion the Islamic mosques and organizations here are tied very closely with sources in the Middle East. Many are directly dependent upon funding from those sources or were started by those sources or simply take their cues from those sources.

I countered that you heard plenty of Catholics quoted with their opinions on pedophile priests. She counter-countered that the same happens when moderate muslims are quoted. The problem is that they generally aren't approached and the ones that try to get heard just aren't. Single voices aren't heard and the organizations that could be heard aren't talking.

The answer seems pretty clear-cut to me. Get those single voices grouped up so they can tell the groups that are supposed to be speaking for them what they want them to say. To that end I've started up a petition to help. Muslims Against Terrorism is pretty simple. It defines terrorism, rejects it, rejects people who support it and rejects fundamentalist proponents of it. It asks that Islamic groups do likewise.

Please do me a favor (maybe do all of us a favor) and spread the word. Either link to this post or link to the petition itself at http://www.petitiononline.com/islxterr/petition.html and let people know it's out there.

Posted by: Jim at 11:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It's time for some more cheesy word association with the Cheddar X. These don't lend themselves to our spot the wrong answer Snooze Points side game so there isn't one this week. I'll make it up to you though - I'll dedicate a moment of my morning to thinking about you. Yes, you and only you. Boop boop de doo.

This is a double association game where we take a word and give the first word we think of and then do it again taking our answer as the new word to be associated with. Sound confusing? Well, this is just one of the many reasons why psychiatrists are allowed to dispense narcotics.

Posted by: Jim at 08:32 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Three tortoises, Mick, Andy and Roy, decide to go on a picnic. Mick packs the picnic basket with beer and sandwiches. The trouble is that the picnic site is ten miles away So, it takes them ten days to get there.

When they get there Mick unpacks the food and beer. "Ok Roy give me the bottle opener." "I didn't bring it" says Roy, "I thought you packed it." Mick gets worried, He turns to Andy, "Did you bring the bottle opener?" Naturally Andy didn't bring it.

So they're stuck ten miles from home without a bottle opener. Mick and Andy beg Roy to go back for it. But he refuses as he says they will eat all the sandwiches. After two hours, and after they have sworn on their tortoise lives that they will not eat the sandwiches, he finally agrees.

So Roy sets off down the road at a steady pace. 20 days pass and he still isn't back and Mick and Andy are starving, but a promise is a promise. Another 5 days and he still isn't back, but a promise is a promise. Another 5 days pass and finally they can't take it any longer so they take out a sandwich each and just as they are about to eat it, Roy pops up from behind a rock and shouts,

"I KNEW IT'......I'M NOT FUCKING GOING!"

Posted by: Jim at 08:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Many people have a problem with April Fools Day. For the most part it's because they see April Fools pranks as juvenile, cruel and stupid. Boy are they right (for the most part). The problem with most April Fool jokes is that they just aren't funny. The object is not to "get" somebody, it is to craft a unique and unexpected situation that the victim reacts to and ultimately appreciates. There are no points for playing a joke on somebody who either doesn't get it or doesn't appreciate it. That's just being inane or cruel, depending on what you do.

A proper prank takes planning and build-up. It should wash over the victim in distinct stages:

1. Victim encounters prank and suffers a moment of total confusion. The changes to their environment do not match what is expected and they have to pull out of autopilot and react with intentional reason.


2. Victim undergoes brief but severe disorientation. Realization that the expected environment is not there has reached the reasoning centers. Perhaps the victim looks around - is he in the right location? Did he make a wrong turn or somehow enter the wrong office?


3. The victim gets a spike of anger, fear, loss, humiliation or other negative emotion. As he realizes that the environment truly is altered and no simple mistake on his part can explain it away he'll suffer one or more negative emotions. Which emotion is suffered depends on what the specific prank was and how his personality reacts to the changed environment. Knowledge of the victim is very important in order to evoke acceptable negative emotions. People react to things differently and you need to have a good idea of how the victim will react. If a negative emotion is too strong or misplaced or simply not one the victim can handle then the humor has turned into cruelty at this point.


4. The victim feels immense relief as he realizes that the changed environment was the result of external intentional influence (a prank) and that his original environment has truly not been compromised in a harmful fashion. Coming from the negative feeling in the last step this can be an actual euphoric sensation. This is where many pranks fail miserably. If there is no reference for the victim to catch to realize he's been pranked he's stuck in the negative emotion above. If that lasts for any serious length of time there will be no emotional recovery when the prank is revealed.


5. The victim enjoys the humorous aspect of the prank played upon him. This stage works much better when the prankers are there to share it with the victim. Smiles and guffaws are passed around with "Man, you really got me" and "Oh, you should have seen the look on your face!", etceteras. If the joke doesn't bring the victim to this stage then it wasn't a joke.

Posted by: Jim at 10:17 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Since they insist on continuing to put up fantastically lousy sayings on the welcome board I've made Bad Sayings an actual post category. With such regular fodder for my acidic wit I'd be a fool to let such an opportunity pass by. Today's tragedy is:

Excuses are the nails to build a house of failure.

My first thought after reading this as I came in this morning (okay, my second thought - right after "what the fuck?") was "what do they use for the boards to build a house of failure?" This was followed quickly by "if the house of failure is a functional house then is it really a failure at all?"

I like that second question (okay, third if you count the "what the fuck?" as a question). I mean, if it keeps the rain off then how can you call it a failure? And if it doesn't keep the rain off you can fix it really fast just by making up a couple of excuses. Leaky roof? "I was caught in traffic." Bang, bang, bang, all fixed. Door falling off? "The vendor never called back." Bang, bang, bang, door is rehung.

If they wanted to use a good saying to denigrate excuses they should have used the old tried and true one:

Excuses are like assholes. Everybody's got one and they usually stink.

(Half credit to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 08:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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More Flash fun from Sugarcube. Can you catch the worm? Enjoy!

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 08:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Posted by: Jim at 06:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Happy April Fools day. I don't know about you but, I would feel really foolish to wear that costume arround the mall.

Posted by: Stephanie, Daniels_Mommy at April 01, 2004 08:28 AM (zqAaT)

2 We put up the Christmas decorations at work this morning... hln

Posted by: hln at April 01, 2004 08:54 AM (CWwGn)

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The Letter of the Day is "K".

"K" is for Knavery (but the "K" is silent there).

"K" is also for Konvincing (but I don't think we get credit for that one since it doesn't really start with a "K").

Posted by: Jim at 05:44 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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