horribly bossy and depressing fortune cookies

Have you ever?

Made by Wonton Food in Queens (who apparently were just trying to be "more contemporary") these gloom cookies have been spreading their poison far and wide, showing up in restaurants all over the country.

Couldn't they think of something nicer to say to you, before you eat them?

I like your hair. nice shoes. something. anything.

Reminds me of the joke about the complementary peanuts. They're the peanuts that say to you stuff like, "I like your sweater" or "you look pretty tonight" or "you are such a cool person". Maybe these naughty cookies could learn a thing or two from peanuts.

Read more about these disturbing misfortune cookies here

hyphenators, hyphens, and the O.E.D.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary , the 2-volume (not the Longer-Shorter 20-volume version) just got shorter (which must make it The Shorter-Shorter Oxford English Dictionary). It lost 16,000 hyphens. The editor says people aren't using hyphens because "they're not really sure what they're for."

Some have stayed (like well-being), others have been given the boot (like ice cream).

Shakespeare was the biggest hyphenator ever. But that's mostly because he just kept making up words as he went along. And joined lots of them together. (Even his name—Shak-speare—was sometimes hyphenated, apparently.)

Donne did it too. He "loved compounds like 'death-bed' and 'passing-bell' where the hyphen carries almost metaphorical weight, a reminder of what Eliot called his singular talent for yoking unlike ideas," says Charles McGrath in The New York Times.

read more of this alarming news about hyphens here .

Meanwhile, I'm going to do what I can.
First, I'm going to start trying to get as many hyphens as possible into my name
sal-ly lloyd-jo-nes
you might want to try it, too

and then I'm going to become a member of The Royal Society for the Protection of Endangered-Hyphens (the RSPEH)
which you might also want to consider

watching dinosaurs LIVE

JUST BACK from extinction, the New York Times reports that Dinosaurs, after 65 million years, are now appearing (for a limited engagement) in New Jersey. Here's one brave little guy who went to see them stomping around.

Much more scarier than Barney. (And I find Barney pretty scary.)

Read more here. (It's a tour—so you, too, may be able to catch them live.)