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  Daily Connotations  

Entropy Happens.
Join the madness.

You don't have to push the boundaries when you set the standards.

Connotation. 1. a. The configuration of suggestive or associative implications consitiuting the general sense of an abstract espression beyond its literal, explicit sense. b. A secondary meaning suggested by a word in addition to its literal meaning. 3. Logic The total of the attributes constituting the meaning of a term.

Observations, opinions, and ideas, all brought to you by Daily Connotations Company. Who Else?

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Disclaimer: Any opinions contained on this page are those of, well, we don't really know who. Any offense taken to anything present should be directed to Sven, who will file and ignore your comments. Praise or compliments can be directed to either Dr. N, Dr. What, or Dr. Olga. All plagarized material has been tested and deemed satisfactory according to the esteemed code of Lehrer, version 2.3.
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO VIEWERS:
The Entire Physical Universe, Including This Blog, May One Day Collapse Back into an Infinitesimally Small Space. Should Another Universe Subsequently Re-emerge, the Existence of This Blog in That Universe Cannot Be Guaranteed.



Team Members

Sven Bjorn Borg
Sven has been with d-con since its humble beginnings, and is responsible for punctuating, finances, guarding the office from rabid dogs and loud noises, and acting as mediator amongst the other members. Dr. Borge is well-known as the world's foremost (and perhaps only) underwater-basket-weaving expert. Sven has recently published no less than 3 books, Klingon Grammar and Vocabulary for humans, Life among the Grapes, and Escher, Bach, Gödel: A gigantic elastic bungalow. In it's copious spare time, the Sven enjoys playing the harpsichord and diagramming sentences. Sven is Chief of Staff and Director of Intelligence in the UPICN,LLC.


Dr. Bob William "The Orange" Lavoisier
a.k.a. Dr. Henry Parsons
Dr. N, as we like to call him, is officially the initiator of the Daily Connotations Company, and also holds important Offices in the VVIIPP society of America and The Department of Redundancy Department, which is a place where he holds an important office in the department of redundancy. Henry also spent a good deal of his life studying the behavior of Walruses (Walri?) in the wild, inspired by a long-running correspondence with Mr. J. Lennon, who, in fact, convinced "The Orange" that he was, in fact, a walrus. Dr. Parsons' curriculum vitae is rounded out by his extensive family history (including a brother, Alan), and double Ph.D. honors in Botany and the Study of Scandinavian Languages. Recently, Dr. Henry Parsons was elected president of the UPICN,LLC



The Doctor
a.k.a. Dr. What??
Dr. What joins us now as a member of d-Con in very good standing. It is important that the doctor not be confused with his slightly-more-popular brother, Doctor Who, who has carved a niche for himself in the field of time travel. Dr. What never developed the talent for time travel, and has the ability to visit only two distinct temporal locations: The beheading of John the Baptist and that one time when Stanley met Livingstone (or was it Livingstone met Stanley?) Consequently, he spends much of his time knitting (the scarves, natch) on the planet Gallifrey whilst (and at the same time) contemplating Nietzschean philosophies and memorizing much of Immanuel Kant's work, both in the original German.


Dr. Phelealabean
Dr. Phelealabean also uses the alias Dr. Olga Olathe Parsons-Uhlmer. Dr. Parsons-Uhlmer is a sister to Henry and Alan. She has a dual honorary doctorate in Arabian Literature and Language. She also has teaching experience at the University of Rekjavik which was held in a small grass-covered hut. She iswidowed after an incident involving her husband and abandonment which she is not allowed to discuss pending criminal charges. Now that she is alone, she enjoys spending summers with her brother, Henry, in his summer home, The Parsonon.


Accolades

There's a reason this section is at the bottom of the column. Um, I think someone called us 'interesting' once, maybe. That's about it.

copyright 2003-2006.
steal what you want.

4.30.2004


 

In praise of the music of Sesame Steet

C is for cookie. . .I don't want to live on the moon. . .Sunny Day! Everything's A-OK

Face it: Most people under the age of 35 watched Sesame Street as kids. And a surprisingly large number of people continue to watch it even after the age of 12. And why not? The early episodes especially are crammed with cultural allusions, guest stars, and humor obviously aimed far over the heads of toddlers.

But the ultimate reason people watch and remember Sesame Street more fondly than any other kids show (with the notable exception of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood) is the amazing musicianship evident in the show's songs. Sesame Street Songs are lyrically well-crafted and musically fun - easy enough to appeal to young children but with complex enough accompaniment that adults can stand hearing it more than once. (Need I mention the Barney song here?)

Some studies have shown that our brains are able to identify, recognize, and sort sounds far before our other senses are fully developed. Music provides ORGANIZED sound - sort of a training ground (Or, in the case of Sesame Street, a playground) for young minds just learning how to categorize sounds.

Far before you ever ran into nasty things in Music Theory (capitalized to indicate a sort of professional stuffiness often associated with German Classical Composers): Rests and quasiquavers, diminished sixths and augmented fourths, Phrygian & Ionian modes, . . .etc., your brain learned basic concepts - without the verbal connections (If you happen to be one of those Right Brain/Left Brain people, place this activity in the right brain). You can detect high and low, loud and soft, short and long - and not just separately, but together; and you learn which combination of tone and pitch and volume means Dad's voice and which combination of tone and pitch and volume means Mom's voice and what sounds are like when they are coming from happy people or mad people. Somehow, even people who frantically claim that their ears aren't musically trained can interpret the sounds by the emotional response they generate.

And what has this all to do with Sesame street?

Not much, I guess. Just sort of an odd connection between early childhood exposure to music and mental development.

I certainly don't want to leave off this essay about Sesame street music without giving proper credit to the people behind the music, all of them, but most specifically Jim Henson, who had a wild dream and a frog for a friend and somehow made it all work out.

And now, for a rousing rendition. . .

Rubber duckie, you're the one. . .!

oops! Sorry


--Posted by s. on Friday, April 30, 2004.


4.23.2004


 

Today's most oddly ironic headline:

Jackson asks media to leave him alone


--Posted by s. on Friday, April 23, 2004.


4.22.2004


 

Greetings Bloggers,

Before I begin let me first say that my absence is and has been unexcusable. I have been rather preoccupied with the flurry of speech activities happening in the world of Leon University (my new teaching appointment as of last week) and trying to adjust to the new lifestyle of having a job again.

Below are some observations I have made that I thought you might be interested in:

Only in America................
1) do drugstores make make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people (or however UNhealthy they might be) can buy cigarettes at the front.

2) do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a DIETcoke.

3) do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters. Hippocrits!

4) do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

5) do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering (and believe me it's not JUST ATM machines!)

6) do we bend so far out of our way to not offend people that we begin offending ourselves.

And more............
1) Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery".
2) Why is abbreviated such a long word?
3) Why do doctors call their work a practice?
4) If we have a Wal-Mart why don't we have a Flor, Ceiling, and Door Mart?
5) Where is the Burger Queen?
6) Why is the man (oops.....pc'ers would say..."person") who invests your money called a broker?
7) If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
8) Why is a high school prom such a big deal when the amount of money being spent on it and its activities would be enough to feed, clothe, and shelter a small African village?

Sincerely (with a total lack of sincerity),
--Dr. Henry Parsons
Assistant Professor, Speech & Communications
Director, Speechers of Leon University
Certified Speech Judge/Coach
President, VVIIPPAA
Past President, Procrastinators Society of America..."Procrastinate later!"





--Posted by Kelly D. Norris on Thursday, April 22, 2004.


 

Today is the ten year anniversary of the death of president Richard Milhous Nixon.

React appropriately.


--Posted by s. on Thursday, April 22, 2004.


4.21.2004


 

Why is it I always have my supper in the red dish, and my drinking water in the yellow dish? One of these days, I think I'll have my drinking water in the red dish, and my supper in the yellow dish. Life's too short not to live it up a little!

How much are you driven by what you have already done? It is usually easiest for us to continue in the path in which we've already, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is the "right" thing to do. The existance of a "right way" is questionable in itself. Obviously, you and I don't/can't/shouldn't always do the exact same thing - that would be both boring and silly!

But perhaps your "right" and my "right" are somehow connected. Imagine life as a large, hand woven Persian rug. If the blue threads and the red threads did the exact same thing, it wouldn't look right. It might not even stay together as a rug! But each thread has a specific function that it must fill - that is "right" for it, and only by the different threads doing their own "right" things will the rug stay together.



--Posted by s. on Wednesday, April 21, 2004.


4.20.2004


 

Acquisitions and Observations:

1. I have The Annotated Alice!!!
Lewis Carroll/Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is a (or are two) fascinating person(s). While he spent most of his time a dusty academic don, teaching mathematics and logic, his alter-ego had a vivid imagination (thought by some to be drug-induced), an amazing sense of wordplay, and a fondness for little girls.
The Annotated Alice is Martin Gardner's treatment & exposition of the book, in which explanations of the Victorian jokes, the original texts of the poems parodied, and other interesting tidbits about the book and Carroll's life are placed parallel to the text of both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Martin Gardner merits a paragraph of his own, because he is widely known in the field of "popular mathematics" (is that an oxymoron). He did such a wonderful job writing (composing?) the "Mathematical Games" in Scientific American that his position could be filled only by Douglas Hofstadter (of Gödel, Escher, Bach fame.)
2. A well-deserved link to Wikipedia has been added to our links section.


--Posted by s. on Tuesday, April 20, 2004.


4.09.2004


 

Political Sort-of Things (and Dictionaries)
Five years ago, terrorists were out of the sight and the mind of the American public. Many of us actually thought "What a terrible accident" when we heard about the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center. Today people cry "Al Qaeda" when their bus gets a flat tire.

Condoleezza Rice (whose first name appears to have one too many letters) did appear in front of the 9-11 commission, but she didn't actually say anything that she hasn't said before. (I'm reminded of a scene in a book - I believe it's in nineteeneightyfour, I know it's some kind of subversive dystopian literature - where they analyze the contents of a letter and find that everything within contradicts with something else in it and therefore cancels everything out and the end result is a blank page)

I got three books for thirty cents (and the forty-five minutes of my time I spent sifting through Harlequin romance novels) at Second mile:

1. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which will sit on my bookshelf by, of course, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I do actually like the Russian style of literature, although unfortunately it depends a great deal on the translator, as my Russian skills are terribly weak, especially considering I've a tutor in the family. But Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and the like are quite psychological and complex. Not something to carry around for light reading, but perfect if you've the time (which I do!) to sit and read for hours on end.
2. Anguished English, a collection of bloopers, typographical errors, and social gaffes by Richard Lederer. It will sit between The Miracle of Language and Crazy English, both by R.L.
3. is a Portuguese dictionary (my Portuguese skills are totally nonexistent. I just like dictionaries) which brings my total collection of foreign language dictionaries to 11, 12 if you count sign language, 13 if you count a 13 page acrobat file I downloaded off the internet with Elvish words and basic syntax. I believe 8 different languages are represented (German, French, Hebrew, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Russian, Portuguese). It will sit on the esteemed "Language Shelf", if it will fit.

Speaking of dictionaries, allow me to recommend Flip Dictionary by Barbara Ann Kipfer, the wonderful reference book that we've all been waiting for in which you look up the definition to find the word and A Browser's Dictionary by John Ciardi (who also has a translation of Dante's Inferno with false terza rima), which besides being quite prescriptive (filthy English professor!) in its approach offers a humorous look at familiar (and some vague) words and phrases and how they came to mean what they mean.

On the other hand A Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate has very little reading quality, although it does smack of academia and pretense sitting on your shelf.

{p.s. I apologize deeply for the prickly parentheses.}


--Posted by s. on Friday, April 09, 2004.


4.06.2004


 

Gewebe
Picture yourself in a boat, on a river
Propel, propel, propel your craft, softly down liquid solution
{let me take you down}
with tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Ecstatically,
{'cause I'm going to}
Somebody calls you
Ecstatically,
you answer quite
Ecstatically,
Slowly the girl with kaleidoscope
Ecstatically,
{Strawberry fields}
Eyes
Existence is but a delusion
{Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about}

Strawberry fields together
Strawberry fields forever.

(Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.)


--Posted by s. on Tuesday, April 06, 2004.


4.01.2004


 

A short rant about prescription drug ads:

I firmly believe that Drug Companies should not be allowed to buy air time to promote their pills.

Reasons:

1. Excessive advertising raises the cost of pills for people who really need them.

2. We pay our doctors to determine what’s wrong with us. That’s their job! They’ve been to medical school. We shouldn’t have to ask them, they should already know.

3. The whole situation leads to self-diagnosing. Most of us haven’t been to med school, most of us never will. But somehow a 30 second Nexium spot convinces us with absolute certainty that we are facing a dire future with GERD if we don’t quickly do something about it.

4. Doctors get kickbacks for selling more drugs. (It sounds heartless, I know.) While most will not let this issue cloud their judgement to the extent that they will prescribe an unnecessary drug because some one asks about it, there are probably some who would.

5. Prescription drug ads such as those for Cialis or Viagra could be deemed inappropriate - or at least intimidating - for prime-time television by parents with children or others.

6. Many drug ads do not even tell you what they are intended to treat. This is stupid

7. Appropriate attention is not given to possible side effects, et cetera.

Well, it turned into sort of a longish rant, no?


--Posted by s. on Thursday, April 01, 2004.

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