August 15, 2004

• I hate to take the jack-booted grammar-Nazi stance, but "a gorilla skull halfway bugged" is not a sentence. That said, I now know how to get rid of the body.
• Whoa! Hippopotamus amphibius And only $899! I think I'll stick with the mink at $3. Great link!
• A gorilla skull halfway bugged. /tring to prove both moneyjane and Skrik wrong. Hey Kids! Do you have a question about skulls, bones or the animals they come from? Ask the Skull Master, education@skullsunlimited.com Dear sir, if I ever have children, you are never allowed to come near them, understood? Nobody called "The Skull Master" will be permitted to communicate in any way with my precious babies. I will get a court order if I have to. I don't want to come home one day and find little Jimmy half bugged.
• My brother used to do this for the Museum of Natural History at the University of Michigan. The "bug room" was, by far, the worst smelling room I've ever been in; I'm not sure if it was something the bugs released, or the bacteria likely involved, but it was awful. That said, he had really cool things like a large snake that the bugs had turned into a gorgeous skeleton. I can't believe I just wrote "gorgeous skeleton." But it was, really. Okay, keep me away from your kids, too.
• flagdecal, can your brother do me a favour?
• "Monkeyfilter: A gorilla skull halfway bugged (.)" Somebody had to...
• Bugs, eh? Back in my day we boiled the skulls, then picked the leftover flesh off with tweezers. Slackers.
• A Gorilla skull halfway bugged *is* indeed a sentence.
• A checked it out, and, alas, it is not a sentence as it lacks a verb. However, these kinds of fragments are often used in journalistic writing, usually for emphasis; "John knew instinctively something was terribly wrong; the headless ape in the foyer; the revolting stench; and the parking lot jammed with the teeny-tiny cars only dermestid beetles ever drove told him exactly what he'd see when he opened the door to the Lavender Ballroom. A gorilla skull halfway bugged."
• From the OED ... Sentence A series of words in connected speech or writing, forming the grammatically complete expression of a single thought; in popular use often such a portion of a composition or utterance as extends from one full stop to another. The usage may be popular, but the example above appears to be legitimately described as a sentence.
• Flashboy, you just reminded me of the movie Eat The Rich, in which the employess of an absurdly upscale restaurant become enthusiastic anarchists involved in a class war on their snotty clientele. They start cooking their patrons and serving them to the next group through the door -- the whole Soylent Green in the Capitalist world concept is rather funny. Now I see why the The Skull Master wants kids to come and explore -- to obtain more skulls to sell to the next lot of budding naturalists.
• Popular use, Wolof? Popular use? Jesus! Next, you'll be telling us that Stephen King writes literature. That Vin Diesel is an actor. *shakes head, smokes pipe*
• I can tell you that what OED2 thinks of as admissible demotic is still pretty starchy by current standards.
• Vin Diesel, starring as Stephen King in "The Skull Master". Also starring Madonna as a colorfully wise, yet cranky old man from deep in the Maine woods, Elijah Woods as a treefrog, and John Malkovich as a rice cooker with a taste for human flesh.
• *walks in, having borrowing Alnedra's hammer, disguised as Kathy Bates*
• *screws participles up ass with shame as only result*
• Wolof, I hope you signed on the sign-out sheet when you took that hammer. Thass all I'm saying....
• "What's that in the bottom of the rice cooker? What? No man, look harder...stick your head right in there..."
• Oh, and Wolof, I forgot to clean the hammer before I returned it. Just in case you were wondering what that stain was.