Daily Ambivalence - saying "God Bless You" when someone sneezes

It seems strange that someone needs to be blessed just because they have allergies.

For that reason, I suspect Spring is probably God's least favorite time of the year. Someone sneezes. Someone says "God Bless You." And here comes God because someone asked for him and it's just a stupid allergy.

Sometimes I wonder if praying to God too much is a little like kids calling 9-1-1 and jamming up the line. Someone else calls because they have a severed head but gets put on hold.

I guess people are just trying to be polite but they should really think about what they are doing.

This next April when you say "God Bless You" to the guy sitting next to you on the bus, you better hope there isn't a story in the paper the next day about meteor showers in London knocking down Big Ben. Totally your fault.

Saying "God Bless You" when someone sneezes . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - you smell like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

If you have ever used that to insult a person then I question your insulting ability.

Insults work best when you say that someone is a bad thing and most people like the smell of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

That's why so often you hear poop or fart slurs when it comes to insults. Very few people want to be a poop or a fart.

You see?

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that something this obvious needed to be addressed. But there you go.

You smell like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - major awards

Leg lamps aside, a major award is typically presented to an individual when he or she accomplishes something noteworthy.

Only, I don't think we as a society are all that good at establishing the boundaries around actual "noteworthy" acts.

Take saving a busload of children from an oncoming train.

Now saving a busload of children is great. I'm not denigrating bus saving. I'm just pushing the idea that saving a busload of children might not be noteworthy. At least not major award noteworthy.

Stop reading this and pick up the newspaper lying there next to you. There on B2. Busload of children saved. Happens all the time. It didn't even make the front page.

Noteworthy should be one-of-a-kind territory.

Just give it to me in a glass

Like the person who invented the Mexican sauce called mole. Do you think he or she got a major award for that? We don't even know who it was! The inventor of mole!

I rest my case.


Major awards . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - proliferation of different fonts

Dude, I'm not going to use
Broadway for the first edition
of the Gutenberg Bible

From the genesis of printing presses, people with the urge to be different started creating fonts, (i.e., new and more exciting ways to draw lines). I have a friend who loves fonts and has firm opinions (mark that, firm) about font choice. This friend loves names like Verdana and Garamond, Euphemia and Gungsuh, Gotham and New Baskerville.

I suppose it could be argued that different fonts are helpful for birthday cards and the like. Jokes about being mostly dead because you're 40 might look better in Fangsong than Times New Roman.

I'm not sure that's a keen enough argument to account for drop-down boxes in Word that have 10,000 options. Please give me one good reason why Tempas Sans ITC should even exist.

That's why, although I do acknowledge there could be a downside to this, I'm arguing for the establishment of an Emperor of the World.

If there was an Emperor of the World he or she could limit the allowable fonts to a number somewhere south of 2. Which would be great.

My font friend would complain for a while, but then the Emperor of the World would say something like "Off with his head!" and that would be it.

I'd buy a sympathy card for his family. The problem is, it would look just like the card about premature balding and turning 30. It's the thought that counts though, not the font.

Proliferation of different fonts . . . eh.