Merry Old English

Pyramus gives us a handy guide to ye olde-style Englishe. (I probably just used "ye" wrong, BTW. And of course, there's a superfluous "e" at the end of English, but as you know, I just loves putting extra e's at the end of words!)

I Stare at My Future

This humor piece is probably a lot more humorous for actual professors, but I still got a chuckle out of it. I can just imagine what my professors' meetings are like! And, since I'm probably going to become an English professor at some time in the future, it's nice to know I have so much hilarity to look forward to!

Irish Jews

The concept of Gaelicized Jews really appeals to me for some reason. I'd love to hear a little old man with a brogue spout Yiddish. It's probably like music.

Porn and Language

Those of you who come here at least semi-regularly will have noticed by now that this blog is comprised of almost equal parts gay porn and books/language. Well, it seems I'm not the only person in this world who puts the two together in blog form!

Jacob Slater, the porn star/English lit teacher I posted about on Sunday, has a blog of his own. His blog manifesto? "In this blog, I will attempt to share my views, interests, concerns, and insights in this most seedy of businesses while I comment on language, linguistics - yes, they're different - and style." I think I may be in love!

Anderson, Anderson, Anderson!

I haven't become crazily obsessed with Anderson Cooper, I swear! I know I've already devoted two posts to him in the past fortnight or so, but this simply cannot go unlinked! Bet there's more than just one "angry inch" going on in there. Wish I'd been invited to that party...

While the Cat's Away... The Mice Do Absolutely Nothing

My parents are on vacation in North Carolina this week, leaving my older sister and I on our own. We should be throwing wild orgies and smashing the place up, but neither of us drink, do drugs, or party. Instead she's cleaning (she's a neat freak) and I'm incredibly bored and stressed out and writing final papers. The closest I've come to naughtiness is listening to gay porn on the computer at full volume. We're sooooooooooo lame!

My parents obviously did something right in raising us, but being a little less good would sure be a whole hell of a lot more fun!

Financial Aid

Jacob Slater teaches English lit in Southern California. To pay for his doctorate, he's doing porn. Hot! If only some of my professors were gay porn stars! I might not learn much (being too distracted to pay attention in class), but I'd certainly have perfect attendance!

And he doesn't look a day over 430!

Thanks to the Maud Newton Blog, I've learned that today (April 23rd) is old Billy Shakespeare's 441st birthday. Of the several links provided to mark the occasion, this site is my favorite. There are actually quite a few sites with Shakespearean insults, but that's the nicest I've come across.

I must admit, I'm not a die-hard Shakespearean. I totally appreciate his genius, but just have never really gotten in to him like a lot of other people do. My favorite of his plays, though, is Titus Andronicus, solely due to the way my Shakespeare I professor taught it. You ain't seen nothing until you've seen one Dr. Nathan Carb do an impression of a tongueless, handless Lavinia! I also like Much Ado About Nothing, because Benedick and Beatrice are the best couple ever, and Merchant of Venice, because of the complexity and ambiguity of Shylock. As a logophile, I also appreciate Shakespeare as a wordsmith. He singlehandedly created hundreds (if not thousands) of the words we use every day.

Kudos and huzzah to the ultimate Dead White Guy! Happie Birthdaye, Barde! (Nothing says "Shakespearean" like random e's at the end of words!)

A Kindred Blogging Spirit

I just discovered Faggoty-Ass Faggot and love it to pieces. Brian (the eponymous Faggot) is a great writer with some very interesting stories and observations. It also a very well-designed site, graphically. Definitely worth bookmarking.

For Any Female or Straight Male Readers...

...I give to you a history of the vagina. Personally, I think the garishly pink cover's a bit much, but that's just me.

Copyeditors, Fonts, and Oprah

As I head out into the Great American Workforce in the next few weeks, my probable future profession finally gets some respect.

I'm a font whore, so this site is like porn to me. Yummy...

(Via Bookninja)

Oh. My. Gawd. As if modern American culture wasn't in enough trouble, Oprah has become the model for college education. I weep, people, truly weep.

(Via Maud Newton Blog)

I Am An Internet Junkie

Due to some redecorating in our family room, I didn't have the Internet for most of this week and I was really jonesin', man! I just didn't know what to do with myself without the Internet to entertain me. Is there a support group, do you think? Maybe there's a Yahoo! group or something... *LOL*

Happy Birthday!

He doesn't know me from Adam, but I'd like to wish a happy 22nd birthday to Toby Halliwell of Vividblurry. His blog was one of the main inspirations for me to start the legendary "Bourgeois Nerd" you now read. (Either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your opinion of this here blog.)

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Toby!

Pope

Well, y'all, we (or at least Roman Catholics who care) have a new pope. Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (aka the Inquisition with a slightly less scary name), is now Pope Benedict XVI.

I had a feeling it'd be the German guy. Can't say that I'm all that pleased. He's another conservative type who'd rather millions die of AIDS than wear condoms. See Towleroad for more info on his anti-homosexual views and to marvel at his uncanny resemblance to Emperor Palpatine.

On a positive note, at least he didn't choose some combination of "John," "Paul," or "Pius." It was time for a little change in the papal name game. And a pope with the nicknames "God's Rottweiler" and "the Panzer Cardinal" (though I guess it's "the Panzer Pope," now, which is even better because it's alliterative) is kinda funny.

I just can't help myself!

Isn't this little guy just the cutest little thing?!?!? I need a dog; I really miss my pugs...

(Via Towleroad)

Book Lore

Porn, piracy, and printing: some trivia about early book publishing.

(From Bookninja)

What's your dialect?

Here's my profile:

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

35% Yankee

10% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Looks like I'm just a damn Yankee! What are you?

The Great American ASStime

We in the Delaware Valley have been having incredibly wonderful weather this week. Crystal-clear skies, bright sunshine, and relatively warm temperatures have been routine. On Thursday, the weather lulled me into actually watching a sporting event! Shocking.

I'm not a sports fan by any stretch of the imagination. I have a particular dis-affinity to baseball: a duller sport is never to be found. But my school actually has a really good baseball program, so I thought I check it out. With the nice weather and all, it just seemed the American thing to do, somehow. So I basked in some warm sunshine and watched a few innings. It was as dull as ever, but the asses on those guys don't quit! Those tight hose-things they wear as pants don't leave anything to the imagination. And this one fellow had the hugest package going on! It was almost obscene! I loved it!

Well, my school won by like 5 to 2 and I got to look at butts and bulges. What could be more American?

Anderson Redux

This confirms I wasn't the only one watching Conan last night. This confirms how gay, gay, gay, GAY he is. I love it to be validated in my totally unoriginal opinions!

Unoriginal

I just watched Anderson Cooper on Conan O'Brien. He's a pretty, pretty man. He's also very, very gay. I know that neither observation is at all original (thus the post title), but they bear repeating.

A Sentence You Never Expected To See Written

"Essentially Japanese porn offers up the sexual equivalent of schadenfreude, encouraging you to ejaculate all over the misfortune of the actresses."

File Under "Really?" (& Two Other Miscellaneous Links)

My Irish ancestors were a little fruitier than I had imagined.

When I embark on my career in publishing, I'm glad I won't have to mess with erratum slips. The computer really is a marvelous invention!

Some of the "poets" at my school could do with a bit of this kind of training.

(Via Bookninja)

Anti-Sex

Gays are a complex bunch. Though we're defined by it, we're not all about sex. Most of us lead quite pedestrian, bourgeois lives. And that's something that needs to be shown to the world: we're really quite normal, even dull.

Still, I don't like the tone of this Paul Colichman guy. He's trying to build a regular cable channel, so of course he's not going to stick hardcore porn on or anything, but he's just so condescending about it. If gays are normal, so is porn. Who buys most gay porn? Who has lots of this "anonymous sex" he seems to think is so abhorrent? "Mainstream gays," that's who. We shouldn't be ashamed of it (as long as it's safe and consensual). Straights buy lots more porn than we do (because there are lots more of them). And just look at Cinemax at around midnight: [softcore] porn all over the place. No matter how "mainstream" we are, gay or straight, we're still all horny buggers.

But, of course, this is America (and, at the moment, a very conservative America), so sex and porn are DIRTY and "Please, will someone think of the children!" (even as Daddy hides his copy of Anal Sluts # 22 under the bed) and all that crap. I just find it sad that gays are going with that flow. We need to help our society get over our sexual hang-ups, not reinforce and adopt them.

Tobycast

Toby of Vividblurry has gotten in on the podcast craze. Listen to it; he and his friends are really funny. And, of course, he has a hot voice. Of course. Bitch.

Anyway, for all those just dying to hear my dulcet tones eminate from the aether, I won't be joining this whole podcast thing any time soon. As with any craze, I'll wait until two years after it peaked to join in (that's what happened with blogging). It's just ye goode olde keyboarde and texte for me!

They're coming to take me away!

I just learned I'm in breech of the most serious offense in the Homosexual Criminal Code: I'm guilty of being "skinny fat." That, combined with my inability to dance and underdeveloped fashion sense, is enough to get me life in the Gayol!

Men's Fashions of the 60s and 70s

It's become somewhat cliche to look at the fashions of the 60s and 70s as quaintly bad. But Dr. Thorpe and Zack show us just how truly, truly hideous they were. It'll send shivers down your spine! You'll also howl with laughter at the commentary.

Are YOU gay???

Because, it seems, there's a better-than-average chance you are, if you're reading this blog! According to a survey, gays are more likely to read blogs. Does this mean I can get a date or something from writing this? Somehow, I think not. *sigh*

Anyway, I don't know what this all means or why it might be true. I guess we're just more with it than the straights, or something. Anyone have any theories?

Oh, and to my insecurely heterosexual readers: don't worry, it's just one survey that may or may not be methodologically/statistically sound. Your straightness is not jeopardized by blog-reading. If I were you, I'd be much more worried about that drunken circle jerk in the frat house. *LOL*

(Story found on Towleroad)

Yes, more links about books!

Via Bookslut, some commentary about gays in books.

Courtesy of the angsty Mad Max, a fellow bibliomaniac. I haven't started stealing (...yet) to get books, but I do empathize with the urge. I also know I'd chicken-out and feel all guilty about it in the end. I'd probably drive to the police station and turn myself in! The police would probably just laugh, though.

A Fellow Geek!

Via Beatrice, an interesting interview with sci-fi/fantasy author China Mieville. I love how he's so unapologetic about and comfortable with his geekdom. And he totally gets it, too. "What geeks have, geeks in any field, be it a field like science fiction or a field like tropical fish, is that they are moved to do what they do because of a love and passion for the field above all else."

I have to confess, however, that, though I am a big sci-fi/fantasy fan and have heard his books are good, I've never read Mieville. I'm also ashamed to admit that I always thought he was a she! I mean, "China" and all... Now, however I stand chastened and rebuked.

“Weblogestan”?

"'Weblogestan' is an Iranian online slang term for the realm of Persian-language blogs." Scott Mc Lemee of Inside Higher Ed thinks "the time has definitely come for [Weblogestan, or "Veblogestan," which Mr. McLemee says is a better transliteration from Farsi] to be adapted, and adopted, into Anglophone usage." No offense to our Iranian brethren and sistren, but, though I am usually very welcoming to neologisms and foreign borrowings, this one doesn't tickle my fancy. It just doesn't trip off the English-speaking tongue like, say, "blogosphere."

Brain Gender

This is really cool: from the BBC, a Sex I.D. test. "Most scientists agree that men and women are of equal intelligence, but some believe that they may have differing mental strengths and weaknesses, on average. The reasons for these differences, if they exist, are not known, though there are a number of theories. One of the aims of the Sex ID test is to test some of these theories." This experiment is, therefore, part of an effort "to further investigate existing theories about brain sex differences and to make new discoveries." I took it and it seems I have a very gender-balanced brain. It takes a couple of minutes to complete, but it's fun.

Opening Day

It's Opening Day for baseball. I'm not particularly excited. Sports isn't really my thing to begin with and baseball is particuarly boring. Frankly, the only baseball footage I want to watch is from the lockerroom. Still, a lot of people like it and Opening Day is even something of a holiday for some (parents take kids of out of school, people take off from work, etc. to go to the game). So, Happy Opening Day, everyone!