Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I'm pretty darn proud of myself right now, having successfully navigated my way through two separate (what's wrong with my brain? I just attempted to spell that "ceperate"...and it took a couple seconds before I realized it. Too much caffeine, and onto the story...) Capital One call centers, to cancel the CreditInform and Payment Protection plans on my card. It cost me $15 on a card I barely use anyways. So if anyone wants to steal my identity, now's your chance.
I also purchased a couple of new things for the wall from Art.com (in frames and everything! No "John Belushi with the College shirt" for this guy.). I guess they don't want people just stealing their pictures and using it as wallpaper or something, so I can't just put the picture on the page, but take a look:

Edinburgh Taxi
and
Edinburgh Close

So that's pretty cool. Next on my list is this one (yes, I'm a huge nerd), and maybe this one.

Speaking of being a huge dork, I just finished reading a book written about the history and usage of the word "um"....um, more or less. And speaking of literary elitism, French author Michel Thaler (a pseudonym) has written a 233 page novel entirely without verbs. Le Train de Nulle Part manages this feat by (in my opinion at least), having a ridiculous story line (basically, a man rides a train, which might be like saying Lord of the Flies is about an island, but my French is no bueno, so who knows) and making the main character sound mildly retarded, or at the very least, having a severe case of aphasia. Seriously:

"Fool's luck! A vacant seat, almost, in that train. A provisional stop, why not? So, my new address in this nowhere train: car 12, 3rd compartment, forward. Once again, why not?" - Sourced from Wikipedia

For two-hundred-and-thirty-three pages. Ugh. If that wasn't bad enough (also from Wikipedia):

In the preface of the novel, Thaler called the verb an "invader, dictator, usurper of our literature". Considering the novel an act towards literature comparable with the artistic impact of Dadaism and surrealism, Thaler surmised, "The verb is like a weed in a field of flowers. You have to get rid of it to allow the flowers to grow and flourish. Take away the verbs and the language speaks for itself." Thaler went so far as to organize a well-attended, tongue-in-cheek funeral for the verb, at Sorbonne in Paris.

Reminds me of the infamous e-less Gadsby.
I'm about to be sick, so it's time to wrap this up and get back to work.

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