Good word

"(Public relations is shown in this picture to be an even more dreadful doom than alcoholism, with the added disadvantage that one doesn't practice it simply because one is sick.)"

-- Brendan Gill, on The Days of Wine and Roses

Good word

"[Robert Penn] Warren, a large man who was an inspired mimic, did an imitation of FDR canoodling with his little dog Fala which made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt no matter how many times I saw it."

-- Susan Cheever

No comment

Let us mourn a Back With Interest loss. Haloscan, the company whose comments service I used, has dropped out of sight. So eight years' worth of comments are gone. As they say in cyberspace, easy come, easy go.

Here's to eight more years of commenting!

Good word

"Another day, another drama."

Britney Spears, "Piece of Me"
(Compsers: Klas Frans Ahlund, Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg)

Consumer report

When we are at the supermarket together, I let Chef Ereck handle the decisions. Meanwhile, I wander around and use my crappy cell phone camera to photograph sights that amuse me. Recent examples:

Any'tizers. You thought chicken fries were best served just before the main course. But you thought wrong. They're best served any'time. Try rousing yourself from sleep some night for a batch of Any'tizers. You won't be sorry.


Pizza-Burger. Who doesn't love pizza? And who doesn't love burgers? And who doesn't love a cheese center? Two things gratify me about this creation: 1) It's a product of St. Francis, Wis. By my count it traveled only 84 food miles! Attention locavores. 2) Reduced fat.


Deeply snarky subhed on the front page of The Sunday Times. "She once said to me that she should never have married into a German family."

Good word

"In 1993, when Bill Clinton tried to do the right thing by allowing gays and lesbians in the military to be themselves, a predecessor of Mullen’s, Colin Powell, directed the embarrassingly public and retrograde rebellion by the generals against it, leading a conga line of heavy brass over to the White House to tell the president not to exercise his authority as commander in chief and order an end to one of the last vestiges of discrimination in the armed forces. Powell helped shape the gutless compromise that those who protect our country must live by a code of honor even while they’re legally bound to be less than honest."

-- Maureen Dowd

Everything's gone in life; nothing is left

Existence was tough in the old West, as was romance.