Saturday, May 30, 2009

Another Foot Down

Whee!  And in just one day, after spending the morning writing up that long "design document" post.  Compared to my usual speeds that's pretty good!

Friday, May 29, 2009

Revamp Update & Checklist

On the surface this may appear to be an effort to keep breathless fans up to the minute on the progress of The Devil's Virtue.  Secretly, though, this is just a note to myself, posted in public with the vague hope that it will provide pressure to finish this project in a timely manner.

Joyful Noise

Andrew Wheeler over at The Post-Game Show delivers a terrifically snappy and pointed rejoinder to a recent geographically perplexing act of legislature.  Take that, the state of California!

More Wordstuff

Compliment, with an i, is the word you want when you mean positive commentary, flattery or praise: He complimented her hat, they received many compliments on the show.  In actual usage, the word sometimes takes the metaphorical meaning of improving or reflecting well on (the gold fringe tastefully compliments the red velvet), but strictly it refers to words specifically, actual spoken or written praise, and some readers may still hold this standard strongly enough to make such usage seem jarring or humorous.

Complement, with an e, means something that completes something else, makes a set with it, fills in a missing place or reinforces:  socks and shoes are natural complements to each other, as are hammer and nails, washer and dryer, or even beans and rice.  Very often, complement implies an option, something that could be left out but which enhances or transforms the experience if included; the orange sauce perfectly complements the duck, Mr. Thompson found massive drug use a perfect complement to the Vegas experience.

There are some cases in which either word might be appropriate; a dress could conceivably both compliment and complement someone's figure.  In this instance, though, you'd be better off with a less ambiguous word such as flatter or enhance.

What never works is the belt complimented the shoes, unless you mean the belt can speak, or has gold-foil lettering on it spelling "Hey, check out the hot shoes!"

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Ziggy Goes a Little Too Far Sometimes

I mean, bad enough the guy goes around without pants...

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Picking out Drapes




Continuing the big push to renovate the Devil's Virtue, working on the graphics now. Here's a preview of the new look -- be warned these are big huge images.

Monday, May 25, 2009

What's Going On?

Which is surely what everyone is clamoring to know.  The new wallpaper here is part of a big revamp project for my website (The Devil's Virtue), which is currently laboring under some pretty terrible graphics that I dunno, I guess I thought were a good idea at the time.  The new look will be much more attractive and interesting, as well as being hosted on a friend's server instead of being a fill-in-the-blanks Google page.

Once the new look is done, there's a ton of content waiting in the wings, needing to be polished and posted.  So the next month or so ought to be a pretty big one over at The Devil's Virtue.

Oh, and my head is fine.  Just got a little scar now, and a bunch of business piled up that didn't get taken care of while I was languishing on Vicodin.

Friday, May 22, 2009

This is Becoming a Habit

Hey, you want to render a bomb harmless?  You want to DEFUSE it.  DE-, remove, render ineffective; FUSE, the trigger mechanism.  D E F U S E.

To DIFFUSE something, on the other hand, is to cause it to become scattered, less dense, widely separated, even to the exent of disappearing into its surrounding medium; as for example, ink diffusing into water, or morning fog diffused in a breeze.

The easiest way to diffuse a bomb would be not to bother defusing it.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I say this from my perspective as the greatest wizard of my generation, of course.

Okay, I picked up Promethea vol. 3 by Alan Moore, and this is my review: This series has the highest quality-to-pretentiousness ratio I've ever seen, but good GRIEF that's a pretty high total volume of pretention.  I'm calling it about (Illuminatus!) x 2.5 on the pretentiometer.

"Behold, cretins, I will teach you magic in a comic book!"

Just barely justified by the fact that he does do a pretty good job with the Intro to Magic 101.
Moore actually feels more like he's making fun of his audience than Crowley did. That's some sort of literary achievement by itself.

Here's a line: "It makes you wonder if we have emotions, or if emotions have us."

Brilliant, but SO snotty.

I don't know why I'm writing an essay on this, but I'll blame it on Vicodin.

The Bil Keane Memorial Collection

of Moribund Figures of Speech Used Today Only by Advertisers and Humorists with Small Imaginations

Our collection's specimens have been carefully gathered from television, newspaper ads and small theme restaurant menus, polished and restored by our resident linguistic cleaning experts to remove tarnish and superfluous "quotation marks".

Sunday, May 10, 2009

GAHHHH

A SUIT a SUIT is clothing you WEAR A SUIT no matter how fancy it is, a suite-with-an-e A SUITE IS A SET OF ROOMS, A SEQUENCE OF MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS or possibly even A SET OF RELATED SOFTWARE but it is NOT SOMETHING YOU WEAR.

Maybe this entry is a bit more outraged than is really justified but I dealt myself a pretty serious head injury last night and now I am in pain all along my spine AND I have indigestion and WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE DO YOU NOT HAVE BACKSPACE KEYS

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

I'm not THAT old

The April 29th, 2009 "Weekly Haul" entry at Every Day Is Like Wednesday gets a special award for the first correct use of to pore over that I've seen on the internet in years.

To pore, as a verb -- almost always used in the form "to pore over" -- means to examine or read carefully.  It's a phrase most often used for books or other printed matter.  One goes to the library and pores over ancient tomes, or sits at home poring over the newspaper.

To pour means to apply something liquid or possibly powder, something that flows at any rate, onto or into something.  It typically implies that the the substance being poured is in a container and being applied at a controlled and deliberate rate, as opposed to spilling or splashing, but it also carries the implication that a large amount is being used, as in the colloquial "the director really pours on the angst".

To pour over a book will probably ruin it.