Television a bad influence

As my wife and I struggled to move a large sofa around a tight corner and down the basement stairs, our young son observed from a safe vantage point. When we discovered the sofa could not possibly fit through the opening, he blithely suggested we take out the living room wall to make room for the sofa and replace it later, either with a new wall or with supporting columns.

We were horrified. The logical solution - to learn to love the sofa in its original location - had not occurred to him. Clearly, television was to blame. I put my fatherly foot down immediately: "No more Home and Garden Television or Do-It-Yourself Network for you, boy! Now go to your room and play mindless, violent video games!"

Who do they think they're kidding?

IBM has an advertising campaign in which people dressed in nearly identical conservative business attire lip-sync (in unison) the words "cause I'm not like everybody else" while thousands of identical computer-generated flowers float across the screen.

Yep. Uh huh. Right.

What's in a word?

This BBC News story about an Australian tourism ad illustrates a difference in how English is spoken in different countries.

In England, the word "bloody" is offensive but the word “hell” is normal. In the US, the word "hell" is slightly offensive but the word "bloody" is not used.

Damn! How can we know what to say?

Giving up lint for Lent

I'm giving up lint for Lent. I won't wash my clothes again until Easter.