Literary Lint...
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Friday, January 10, 2003 at 10:57 AM [GMT-6]

"If there's a hole in your story or your fence, whatever you'd rather didn't get out–will." Texas Bix Bender

Today's post is sort of the literary equivalent of running one of those masking tape lint rollers over a fleece vest that's been through the washer a few times too many. It doesn't improve the fleece all that much, but it's something you just have to do now and then, if for no other reason than to make room for more lint.

• I just experienced a wonderful online first. This message flashed on my screen as I waited for a page from the Wall Street Journal to load: "The operation timed out while trying to contact ad.doubleclick.net." My joy at not having to view the annoying ads was somewhat tempered by having to click "OK" to close the multiple message windows that popped up in their place. [Make a note, kiddies: that's called "irony." Impress your English teacher.]
  
  
• Speaking of online ads, I did just see one that made me laugh. It's a crudely-drawn "South Park"-style animation of the bulbous orange Cingular iconman jumpstarting a prone and brown pine tree with defibrillator paddles. The tree jumps upright, turns green and Christmas lights appear, along with the message, "we're not quite through celebrating the holidays" or something to that effect. Very clever. I thought about showing my appreciation by clicking on the ad, but quickly came to my senses.
  
  
• Speaking of Cingular, doesn't that bulbous orange iconman remind you of jacks? You know, the offline, non-joystickable game played with a choking-hazardous bouncing ball and weapons-grade metallic objects designed to hide in dark hallways, awaiting bare feet on midnight bathroom runs? Does anyone still play jacks? (Somebody please stop me; I'm starting to sound like Gary Ott...)
  
  
• Speaking of games, did you see the quote from ex-Texas Rangers catcher Pudge Rodriguez, who is finding free agency to be tough sledding (if I may be permitted to mix my sports). He whines, "I don't know what's happening. They don't want to give anybody over three years and they don't want to pay anybody over $10 million...I'm not asking for a lot, just fair money. I can't believe this is happening. Nobody calls." You know, up to this point, I was always a big Pudge fan. He played hurt, he played tough, and there's no question his body will carry permanent damage from his chosen profession. But, Pudge, listen up...nobody cares that you can't get more than 10 extra-large per annum. Live with it.
  
  
• Speaking of nobody caring, I think I now know how the rest of the country feels whenever they hear the Dallas Cowboys referred to as "America's Team" (which, thankfully, occurs less and less frequently). I am speaking, of course, about the upcoming "TV Event" on the self-proclaimed Superstation: the story of John Kennedy, Jr. - "America's Prince." OK, I get the reference to Camelot and the Kennedy "dynasty" and all that, but isn't this just a tad hyperbolic, even for The Superstation?
  
  
• Speaking of hyperbole, I derived immense enjoyment out of today's edition of James Lileks' "Bleat," as he recounted the accidental whacking of his dog, Jasper, upside the head with a baseball bat. Jasper didn't yelp, he says; he just blinked his eyes a few times like he was rebooting his brain, and then went on like nothing happened. I sent the link to my wife at her office and she wrote back that if we ever did something like that to our dog, she'd crawl under the bed and never appear again; rebooting wasn't an option with her. She's just too weirded out by reality. I couldn't help but think...yeah, we've got a DOS dog in a GUI world.
  
  
• And, mercifully – finally - speaking of running out of segues... I had to invent a word today. I hope no one else has done it already, as I'd really like to claim a piece of history for my own. I needed a term to describe a word that slips past your spell-checker because it's spelled correctly, it's just the wrong word. It's not a homonym (necessarily), it's not a synonym...it's...it's...what is it? See, I have this friend - an absolute prodigy at misspelling - who recently got one of those computer spell-checkers that sits on top of your operating system and beeps at misspellings, regardless of the software in which they appear. In the right hands, it can be an instrument of great power and goodness. In her hands, unfortunately, it has led to a new problem - the one I just described. Now I have to run her emails through a new set of filters, trying to find what correctly spelled but oh-so-wrong word took the place of the, well, correct word.
  
  So, anyway, you can see my problem...you just can't describe it. Until now. I hereby officially christen such words "chameleonyms©." Get it? See, they masquerade themselves as real words, but they aren't...well, they are, but, you know, they're wrong. Like a chameleon. Sort of. Pretty clever, huh? I've also decided, in my beneficent way, to release into the public domain a shorter version of this new word, "chamenym" and an even shorter variation, "camonym" (after "camouflage"). So enjoy using the new word. Don't worry about sending your royalty payment; I've got a friend of a friend of a friend who's programming a special bot to crawl the internet seeking usage of my new term, and initiating a PayPal draft every time it appears. Who knows...I may one day hire Pudge to play jacks with my short-circuited dog.

Have a good weekend, folks. Try to play outside a while, would you? And try not to dream dreams of ricin...