It’s extremely simple: don’t. Establish a zero-tolerance policy for the accursed Comic Sans font and its cross-platform counterpart, Comic Sans MS. This font is the typographic equivalent of IE6, by which I mean if you’re still using it, you’re part of the problem. Help us all get to where we should have been long ago: a world sans Comic Sans. Here’s a subtly annotated glimpse.
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Last week Page Six stoked a rumor that Howard Stern is a possible candidate to replace the departing Simon Cowell on next season’s American Idol. Today the shock jock addressed the reports on his satellite radio show, admitting the job wouldn’t be out of the question. “There’s not a better job on the planet than judging a fucking karaoke contest,” Stern said.
…Idol producers are rumored to be considering offering Stern a contract that mirrors his five-year, $500 million deal with Sirius XM, but considering Paula Abdul and Idol split ways over a few million and Cowell will only make a reported $50 million per season to executive produce and judge on The X Factor, that figure seems a little excessive.
…“If I do say so myself, I can’t imagine anyone else but me replacing [Cowell],” Stern said. “I mean, how else are they going to make that show work? Who knows how to broadcast and who knows how to be interesting? And who’s not afraid to speak their mind?”
ME.
Howard Stern? Please. For one thing, the guy has a face for radio. Read the rest of this entry »
Just now I answered the main phone line at work. It was a young woman with an Asian accent asking for one of our managers. From her flat, speaking-by-rote inflection and her mispronunciation of the manager’s name, it was obvious that she was soliciting something. Very ordinary stuff – I screen at least a few sales calls for this gentleman every workday.
“He’s not in at the moment,” I replied truthfully, although if he had been here I would have said the same thing. “Could I take your information and have him return the call?”
“Yes, please,” she answered. “My name is Jingle, that’s spelled J-I-N-G-L-E.”
I have this friend from work who used to sit on the same floor as I do, although we technically work for different companies. Recently his company got separate office space a few miles across town, so every couple of days I bundle up the mail for him that still arrives at our building and forward it along. Pictured at left is an item I sent to him today, including the post-it note I couldn’t resist attaching. The first comment on my note is self-explanatory; the second… suffice it to say they got the name of the company slightly wrong.
Barney the guard dog went berserk at a teddy bear exhibition in England and ripped the stuffing out of Elvis Presley’s beloved bear Mabel, exhibitors said on Thursday.
Wookey Hole Caves, a popular holiday destination in Somerset, southern England, was drawing children with its display of 1,000 precious teddy bears. The collection was so valuable that the insurance company insisted the exhibitors guard it with dogs.
[The museum's General Manager said the dog] “started with Mabel… almost severing her head, and then went mad. It took about 20 minutes to bring him out.”
Dozens of other bears were shredded too. Mabel is the property of a local aristocrat, who says he paid 40,000 pounds ($75,000) at auction for the bear.
As for Barney, “he’s going to be retired to a farm where he can chase chickens,” the manager said. “We’ve told the security company we don’t want anything nasty to happen to Barney, but we don’t want him back.”
But wait, there’s more. Cheek and Bluster has managed to finagle an exclusive interview with Barney the doberman. He spoke to me earlier today by telephone from his new home at an undisclosed location in rural Britain:
“The bear was looking at me funny,” Barney explained. “They pretty much all were. What was I supposed to do?”
Barney the newly-retired security guard
(Photo: Flickr/geordiekid)
The former guard dog explained that there is long-standing animosity in the canine world for stuffed animals. “Ask any dog,” he declared. “They don’t actually DO anything, they just sit there. And yet kids want to cuddle up to them! Why? What have they fetched, eh? Who have they scared away from the front gate?”
The reddish doberman stated that Mabel, the teddy bear formerly owned by Elvis Presley, had specifically provoked him.
“She said, ‘Hey mutt, you think you’re special? You know everyone’s coming here and paying to see us and not you skinny kennel-dwellers, don’t you?’ I mean, I’m a professional, but there are some things that can’t be tolerated, you know?”
Even without trash-talking, the lure of pouncing upon a teddy bear is virtually irresistible, according to Barney, 4. “They stare at you with those beady eyes, and you just want to throttle them. They’ve got those plastic noses, and that stuffing… I’m telling you, there’s nothing like getting your jaws on one, whipping it around and watching the stuffing fly. It’s cathartic.” He paused for a moment to control the drooling reflex.
“Retirement is all right, I suppose,” said Barney, whose future plans include fundraising for his own neutering-reversal surgery. “Chickens aren’t much of a challenge. How far can they really wander off to, you know? I don’t get to eat them when I catch them, either, so it’s all a bit dull. Still, there are always plenty of new sniffs to be had, and the sheepdogs are a friendly enough lot. We have a laugh, chase lorries down the lane, that sort of thing.”
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