Is the beer as poor as the grammar?  Beer commercial.  ”Me and Buster are hanging off a cliff and you can only save one of us,” says the girl.  C’mon, you’ve seen it.  Does it annoy you yet?

Me and Buster?  Hey, here’s a simple test, advertising executive in charge of writing the script for your commercial:  Drop the second name and see if it works:  Me are hanging off a cliff…  Hmm.  Seems a little more obvious now.  I am hanging off a cliff.  Oh, right.  ”Buster and I are hanging off a cliff and you can only save one of us.”

The answer is, I save Buster because the Bulldog isn’t mangling the English language.

Knuckleheads.

Resilience is an excellent word. An elegant word. It has punch. I read in newspapers and magazines the word ‘resiliency’ when resilience is what they mean. Drives me nuts.

Yesterday, I read an article by Joe Cowley in the Chicago Sun Times about the Chicago White Sox.  I like his stuff, and find him to be a solid, professional writer.  In the second paragraph, Mr. Cowley wrote “between he and closer Bobby Jenks.”  I couldn’t help myself.  I posted:

Joe: Really?  Between he and closer Bobby Jenks?  Prepositional phrase.  Between Bobby Jenks and him. 

Today, I looked up the article, and the sentence had been changed so that the phrase now read:  Between him and closer Bobby Jenks. 

I have made one small difference in this indifferent world.  Thank you, Joe, for noticing and fixing that. 

I am quickly becoming a crackpot, but at least this time it was for grammar. 

For any of you interested in a terrific perspective on our known universe, today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day gives you a small trip to the outer edges of our knowledge.  Go visit. 

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

If you’re doing this on a day OTHER than January 20, 2010, you might have to go back in the archive, which is easily done at the bottom of the page. 

I have been trying to write a post concerning the continuous batting rule in little league.  I can’t seem to write it without getting pissed off.  So I am abandoning it for the night, and saying, even though we won on the issue, I feel lousy about it. 

My sons love to play.  That’s all there is.  And they get to play with our regular league, which makes me happy.  The rest of it is a waste of time and a lot of nonsense. 

Although you couldn’t tell from the home page of SWEETSMOKE, I did, in fact, put up the new UK cover the last couple of days.  To see it, you’ll need to jump to the BLOG page.  Oh, go ahead.  Do it now. 

Coming July 2010 in the UK, a new edition of SWEETSMOKE. 

As reported today, Jan 10, 2010, in the Wichita Eagle

Watermark best- sellers

1. “Get Over Yourself; God’s Here!” by Kate Moorehead

2. “Sunflower Sampler” by the Junior League of Wichita

3. “Wichita Art Museum: 75 Years of American Art” by Novelene Ross and Stephen Gleissner

4. “Stitches” by David Small

5. “Sweetsmoke” by David Fuller

6. “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout

7. “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual” by Michael Pollan

8. “Women of Great Taste” by the Junior League of Wichita

9. “Half Broke Horses” by Jeannette Walls

10. “Shades of Grey” by Jasper Fforde

Source: Watermark Books & Cafe

Holy cow it’s baseball season again.  We just had our tryouts, as they are redrafting the entire league and everyone gets to try out again.  Hey, it’s only 72 degrees out there today.  I’m not ready! 

It took a few days.  Two days to work on the outline.  Another day to begin to lay down words, finding them slack and rushed… and then the following day you begin to work them, mold them, trust them and the section takes shape and you’re in motion, working, writing, pages beginning to add up.  As you always knew they would, but those moments of uncertainty just seem to be unavoidable.  You know better, but you live through them anyway. 

Nice to have found a rhythm.