health books

"Be careful about reading health books.
You may die of a misprint."

— Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Burger Magic Trick

how on earth? all I know about this is that it made me want to rush out and gobble up a big mac...

Gold Moonbeam Award!

The Jesus Storybook Bible has won a Gold 2007 Moonbeam Children's Book Award in the "Religion/Spiritualilty" category.

“The Moonbeam Awards are designed to honor the year's best children’s books, authors and illustrators, and to bring increased recognition to exemplary children’s books and their creators. Our ambition is to support children's book publishing and to promote childhood literacy and life-long reading.”

Does this mean me and Jago get to wear a crown now with sparkles on? And give speeches? And cry?

(nah, just kidding)

it's thrilling news and a great honor — and there's no question of Who is getting all the glory here...

UK's Greatest Wit

Oscar (Fingal O'Flahertie Wills) Wilde (that really is his whole name I didn't make it up) was just voted UK's Greatest Wit. He said awfully witty things like: "I can resist everything except temptation" and other clever stuff like that.

He beat Spike MIlligan who came in second (one of the "goons" and a brilliant comedian, who had engraved on his tombstone the epitaph, "I told you I was ill"), Stephen Fry and Jeremy Clarkson (third and fourth), Noel Coward, Sir Winston Churchill and Shakespeare.

Margaret Thatcher was the highest ranked woman coming in at 12 (she once quipped: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.")

So there you have it. Or, as we say in the UK, Bob's Your Uncle. And more on that later. For now, a great quote from the UK's Greatest Wit...

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

words that are too big

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."

— C S Lewis (1898 - 1963)

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.)