Daily Connotations

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?

May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
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September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
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February 2007
March 2007

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.
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Things We Like

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.

6.25.2004

Today's Inspirational Song

(a temperance ballad)

Cigarettes And Whisky
Words & music by Red Ingle

Chorus:
Cigarettes and whisky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigarettes and whisky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane

Once I was happy and I had a good wife
I had enough money to last me for life
I met Hamish and Muriel and we went on the spree
And they taught me to smoke and drink whisky

Cigarettes are a curse on the whole human race
A man is a monkey with one in his face
Take warning dear sister, take warning dear brother
There's a fire on one end and a fool on the other

Now I am broken, weary with age
The lines on my face make a well-written page
Write this on my headstone, write this on my grave
To whisky and women this man was a slave

Sung by Iain MacKintosh & Hamish Imlach (and also, heaven help us, Peter Sellers on the Muppet Show)

--Posted by s. on Friday, June 25, 2004.

6.19.2004

MY PEN
A Poem

My pen can beat your boom.
My pen will seal your tomb.

Your bombs will blast,
My pen will last.

Your wars will take,
My pen will make.

Your ways may kill,
My pen will will
My feelings towards your hate.

By A. (s.'s bro.)

--Posted by s. on Saturday, June 19, 2004.

6.17.2004

Aggravations:
(What the rest of the world might call "pet peeves".)

1. e-english. The name I gave for the sort of "quasi-language" used by people in chatrooms and ever increasingly in email. Apparently too much effort would be required to type the "grace" words that make the English language flow - pronouns, conjunctions, and articles are considered superfluous and therefore omitted entirely. Personally, I feel very strongly that if you don't want to take the time to write in at least intelligible fragments, if not complete sentences, you probably didn't take the time to come up with something worth my time reading it. This comes of course from an avowed perfectionist, who has even on occasion been known to write an email out longhand before sending it, but still. . .a little respect, please? It is also interesting that the people who do this the most are also the people who send 'nice little forwards' - the sort of thing with a sweet story or a dirty joke (sometimes together!). Not too surprising though - having someone else write all your email is a wonderful time saver for you! Why not try it some time?

2. The practice of correcting grammatical mistakes in spoken conversations- Usually in interrupting some poor soul in the middle of a terribly exciting story to tell him or her to use "well" instead of "good", because it's an adverb and all that and that sort of things just kind of get to you. Why not just carry a sign that says "I'm smarter than you and I know it. Now you know it too." It smacks of pretense. But everyone makes mistakes - and sometimes very interesting mistakes, too. And the slips of the lips and mind we make when talking a mile a minute (isn't that an interesting phrase?) are not borne of ignorance. It's quite possible to use 'well' instead of 'good' even when you know what an adverb is and when it is appropriately used. Written grammatical errors drive me crazy (although I know I'm guilty of committing them - particularly with pronoun/antecedent agreement), especially in places that should have been carefully proofread - in books or magazines, et cetera. But spoken errors should be logged as interesting, if they are, and then ignored.

3. Purposely mis-spelled words Krispy Kreme. Cheeze Kurlz. MovieFone. Froot Loops. Usually somehow connected with the advertising world. As though we would think, 'Oh, gee, they used a zee instead of an ess! Isn't that cute? I just have to go buy one now!' I dislike most, well, all, advertisements, but especially advertisements that assume the average IQ of their audience is roughly the same as the number of Krispy Kreme donuts in a dozen.

--Posted by s. on Thursday, June 17, 2004.

6.16.2004

Bloomsday!!!

Today, believe it or not, is 100 years exactly from the date which James Joyce chose to detail in his confusing classic Ulysses. And if that isn't exciting, I certainly don't know what is! We should have a party (and actually, I've heard Dublin is!). I personally like to think of Ulysses as a wonderful literary joke - sort of an inside joke which James Joyce and only James Joyce understands. Actually, we are indebted to Mr. Joyce for his help decreasing the unemployment rate - as there exists a certain breed of academic who would have nothing to do, no visible means of support, without Joyce's collective works to expound upon and demystify.

Thusly, I propose a toast (the ale, Dedalus, the ale!): To James Joyce and all other authors, past, present, and future, whose goal it is to confound and confuse. May they enjoy a period of long and happy immortality through their works, which hang over our collective heads like a razor-sharp sword of Damocles.

Bottoms up!

--Posted by s. on Wednesday, June 16, 2004.

6.08.2004

On a slightly more academic note

There is still a certain type of english teacher who would have us believe that television and cinema are the harbingers of the impending doom of the literate society. The dumbing-down of America has occurred not because of this glaringly obvious cange of medium through which information is distributed, however, but rather in the quality of information which is being transmitted.

That is it is not inherent in the medium of transmitting infomation on screen that the quality of information gathered by the end user is decreased. Used effectively, both the cinemay and television can be wonderful sources of information. Conversely, a poorly written book, or a book about mediocre subjects, will be neither effective or informational.

Why, then, the seemingly lower quality of information available on TV? There are many possible reasons. One is the increased ease in which a television show can be created. In the extreme simplest case, a thirty-minute video can be produced by any indiot with an extra half-hour and a cheap camcorder, in stark contrasts with the time and effort required to write and publish a book. There are letters to the editor that have been given more thought than some current tv shows. While some books have been written that shouldn't have been, most people who are dedicated enough to finish a book have something worth reading. (Unlike people who write blogs, of course, who just have too much time on their hands).

Another reason for the dumbing-down of TV is the increased acceptance of second-rate material. Let's face it - if nobody watched Survivor, we wouldn't be having Survivor II, or for that matter Fear Factor, The Apprentice, American Idol. . . the list goes on (and I haven't even scraped the bottom of the barrel yet!) When reading,one is expected to assume an active role - to think about what is being presented. We have learned to use television to give us the exact opposite opportunity: a chance to sit and be immersed in the screamingly meaningless of somewhere else. We don't have to do anything. We aren't supposed to do anything. Television shows are not known for their subtlety. It is this aspect of the screen that irks the english professors. Learning how to comprehend an episode of Friends requires about as much mental effort as, oh, maybe ordering a happy meal (would you like fries with that?) - and the mental decay that accompanies it certainly is a problem that needs addressed, but the blame can not be put solely on the shoulders of the television industry.

In order to change the current trends, however, the industry must change. If producers, directors, writers, actors, and most importantly the viewing audience decide to make watching the telly a worthwhile experience, it could be done. It would mean making a lot of changes, taking a lot of risks, putting forth a lot of effort, and probably upsetting someone.

--Posted by s. on Tuesday, June 08, 2004.

6.04.2004

A neutron walks into a bar and asks for a drink.
He downs it, then asks the bartender, "How much?"

"For you, no charge."

*groan

--Posted by s. on Friday, June 04, 2004.

6.01.2004

There was no historical basis for this utopian notion that you can just go in there, shoot some people, hold elections, and come home
-Niall Ferguson

--Posted by s. on Tuesday, June 01, 2004.