Some Quick Thoughts

Drink. Drank. Drunk.

When I started at my current job, there was a girl who worked with me who obviously had turned 21 shortly before I joined.  Every day, those of us gathered around the smoking station at break would hear about just how silly she had gotten the night before.  What other age do we get to do this?  Not that I did it.  Or you did it.  Or anyone should do it.  But when else do we get to overindulge and be so proud?

At 18, we don’t say, “I smoked myself stupid last night on Marlboros and Virginia Slims” or “I voted the shit outta me last night!  Whoo!”  At 65, we don’t say, “I retired myself so raw this weekend, it’s sick.”  Only at 21.  Only with alcohol.

Your Punctuation Is Bad, And You Should Feel Bad

As I was shopping with the wife last weekend, I kept seeing copies of And Another Thing…, Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer’s attempt to continue the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.  Upon the third store I was in with it on sale, I figured it was a sign I should pick it up.  Wow.  What a godawful mess.  I love the first Hitchhiker novel, of course, with the rest going in a steady decline, but this… I didn’t expect much.  As long as it was better than So Long…, then I would’ve been happy.

Is it?  Don’t know.  The story may be fabulous.  The punctuation in it and the needlessly resoundingly repeatedly dreadful use of adverbs in it made me stop after ten minutes.  I got through a prologue and the first few pages of Chapter One before I had to close it.  When my wife saw me put it back on our shelf after the short reading period, I told her, “Burning it would be a waste of a match.”

If the Artemis series is that terrible, then I weep for the children influenced by its writings.