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Not Exactly A Designer Drug

I heard about this “new” drug on a radio show the other day, but it sounded too disgusting to be true. Then a co-worker grew up in Zambia and was telling me that it is pretty common there among young people. Now from The Smoking Gun

It’s an inhalant called “Jenkem,” and causes hallucinations and a “euphoric high.” Of course, as the bulletin notes, Jenkem users dislike its sewagey taste, which can last for days. That’s because Jenkem’s active ingredients are urine and fecal matter, hence its street names like “Butthash” and “Fruit from Crack Pipe.”

Even though I have to giggle at the word “butthash”…ICK! Yet another reason drugs should be decriminalized. At least it keep a few people from inhaling human waste by choice.

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Nashville Increasing Licensing Fees For Strippers

From The Tennessean:

Even though the board has discussed increasing the dancing permit and club licensing fees to $500, it probably won’t be able to charge that much.

Metro attorney Doug Sloan said the board is prohibited from charging more money than it needs to regulate the industry, and the board is waiting for a tally on those actual costs

If they factor in the cost of enforcement of the tax they should be able to justify it. Just like the cross-border cigarette enforcement, Metro Nashville will no doubt have to send revenue officials into strip clubs in all neighboring counties to make sure that the dancers are not actually Davidson county residents.

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Fudge Round or Star Crunch?

Little Debbie Snack CakesLast week’s poll was a real nailbiter. We had a three way tie, but I think the Ron Paul supporters were stuffing the ballot box. Or maybe they’re the only ones who care enough to vote?

I asked my readers to choose between a bowl of Crispix, a peanut butter banana sandwich, Vienna sausages with crackers, or any single Little Debbie snack cake for their last meal.

Vienna sausage was the big loser, but only by one vote. I guess I’m not too surprised that it was so close. First of all, the voting was completely anonymous, so there was no risk of being singled out as someone who is actually willing to put Vienna sausages in your mouth. Another possible reason that the sausages got any votes at all is based on the same rationale that prompted me to choose the Little Debbies…

This is my last meal! Trans fat and phosphates be damned! I’m going out with a bang!

Don’t get me wrong–I’m a huge fan of both cereal and peanut butter and ______ sandwiches, but for $.35, it’s tough to beat a Fudge Round.

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Tonight We Have a Fine ’07 Sprite

Soda WineI saw this on the soda dispenser at a BK yesterday and absolutely had to take a photo of it. Is this for real? This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. They are actually offering suggestions on which soda you should drink with which meal! I’d love to meet the person who actually uses this as a reference when choosing a drink.

Note to BK–you’ve already sold the drink. It doesn’t matter which one they choose. You aren’t going to make any extra money, and your suggestions aren’t going to add any enjoyment to anyone’s meal.

I love it when people do idiotic stuff like this.

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I Were Wondering the Same Thing

I came across this Mother Tongue Annoyances post by way of Kat Coble at Music City Bloggers. I’m taking a big risk linking to this blog, fearing that Tim W. may visit here and rip a new grammar hole in me.

Ach! This usage of was grates me so intensely because in my opinion it makes the speaker sound so powerfully ignorant. Not necessarily “low-range IQ” ignorant, but “blissfully unaware of the standard rules of English grammar” ignorant. We must recall that the adjective ignorant derives etymologically from the Latin ignorantia (“Not aware”).

This is one RSS feed to which I’m sure I’ll be subscribed for a while. I haven’t had a chance to dig through the archives to see if he’s already written an article on “people who try to look smart but really show how ignorant they are when they use ‘I’ instead of ‘me’ as the subject of a verb”. You’ve seen and heard it many times I’m sure…

“Tim gave a grammar lesson to Chris and I.”

Hopefully, he’s already addressed conjucating “be” as well.

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Cliff and Claire Huxtable Would Be Proud

In last week’s poll I asked readers to choose which Cosby kid they think they are most like. 33% chose Theo. 25% chose Rudy, and another 25% chose Denise. Sondra and Vanessa got 8% each.

I’m sure Theo won the poll mostly because he was the only male choice. He doesn’t really have much else to make you want to be like him. I mean, he wasn’t very smart, he was P-whipped by Justine, and his best friend’s name was Boner. Wait, that was Mike Seaver from Growing Pains. Anyway, I’m not surprised Theo won.

Sondra and Vanessa? I don’t get why anyone would vote for them. Lame-o McFlame-o. Vanessa was super whiny, and Sondra, while very smart, was married to that putz Elvin.

I can see why Denise did well. She’s a free spirit, and I’m down with that. She’s also the prettiest of the four girls, and was responsible for the whole family getting to meet Stevie Wonder. Definitely fun to hang out with, but still not my choice.

I chose Rudy. Cute and funny. What more could you ask for?

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Language Evolution — Who Be Studying It?

Harvard’s Erez Lieberman, Jean-Baptiste Michel are applying mathematical analysis to changes in the English language to make predictions on how the language will evolve and what changes we can expect.

Lieberman and Michel’s group computed the “half-lives” of the surviving irregular verbs to predict how long they will take to regularize. The most common ones, such as “be” and “think,” have such long half-lives (38,800 years and 14,400 years, respectively) that they will effectively never become regular. Irregular verbs with lower frequencies of use — such as “shrive” and “smite,” with half-lives of 300 and 700 years, respectively — are much more likely to succumb to regularization.

Lieberman, Michel, and their co-authors project that the next word to regularize will likely be “wed.”

If you’re like me you will find this interesting because it mixes language, math, pattern recognition, data mining all together to come up with some pretty cool results. No one? Oh well.

I’m pretty disappointed by this study’s prediction that “to be” will be one of the last verbs to be regularized in the English language because of its high rate of use. Not that I really want it to be regularlized, but I’m pretty sick of hearing it misconjucated. Count the number of times you hear (or even worse, read) a sentence like this today…

“There’s many ways to waste time at work.”

Wrong. There are many ways to waste time at work, or there’s one way to waste time at work.

It’s suprising how many trained professional writers in newspapers and magazines have trouble conjucating for singular and plural subjects.

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Never Ask Me About My Business

Sonny CorleoneIn my last poll, I asked people to choose which Corleone they’d most likely be–Michael, Connie, Sonny, or Fredo.

The answers were pretty surprising to me for several reasons. First of all, someone actually chose Fredo. I had a suspicion that my friend Rooster may stop by this blog, but I didn’t think he actually read it. I figured he just looked at the pictures. Thanks for stopping by!

Secondly, there are several women who read this blog, but no one chose Connie. Not one. Hmmm.

Most surprising was that almost everyone chose Michael. Hmmm…draw your own conclusions about these people.

As much as I wish I were like Michael, I had to be honest with myself and choose Sonny.

This week’s poll should be a little easier to answer.

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America’s Next Top Televangelist

Why doesn’t this reality show exist?

It would be perfect for CBS Sunday nights, right after 60 Minutes. Of course, you’d have to wait until football season is over.

Let the competitors give both prepared and spontaneous sermons on a variety of subjects. Instead of competing for dollars, they could compete for souls.

Seriously, why wouldn’t this work?

I’ve got dibs on the idea. (as far as I know)