Clever turns of phrase, special splashes of wit, provocative insight — all in a sentence or two.
“And for your Christmas shopping convenience, I do not have a Ferrari FF that I can drive 200 miles per hour over to the Target. That seems such a shame because you never know when you might have a Target emergency.”
She has more on how the 3.6% Social Security increase for 2012 may not be enough to cover her Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalogue needs.
“An Ohio County Sheriff’s Department is hunting wolves, lions and bears after they escaped an ‘animal preserve,’ which we all know is code for a magical board game called Jumanji.”
“Most of y’all know who Pamela Geller is. For those who don’t, she’s three broomsticks ahead of Cruella De Vil.”
Click and see what Hyatt did. And remember that next time you need a hotel. (Spoiler alert: Happy ending.)
“There weren’t many people the author hated back then — thirty, maybe forty-five at most— …”
David Sedaris, “Memory Laps,” The New Yorker
“Weren’t they supposed to create collections, not just separate dresses?”
6-year-old Alex as he watched Project Runway with his mom, who wonders if he isn’t watching too much TV.
“Unfortunately, as iCloud is [Apple’s] fourth online service iteration, trying to upgrade can be confusing at best, slam-your-head-against-a-wall-in-frustration at worst.”
“No Republican candidate can go 30 seconds without suggesting that we’d all be much better off if we just handed the major functions of the national government over to the states or ‘back to the states,’ if you’re a Republican candidate who’s proud to line up with the losing side at both the Constitutional Convention and at Appomattox Court House. Over the last couple of days, we’ve seen the national Republican primary schedule torn into pieces and thrown into the air because various secretaries-of-state from the little duchies of Rubeland are fighting over who gets to be first like a bunch of spinsters fighting over the only widower capable of driving them to the Old Country Buffet for lunch.”
Pierce, who else?
This too is from Juanita’s, first posted here seven years ago today.
“Okay, so you’re going to tell me that professional baseball is no longer pure — that players make too much money, owners rip off the fans, and there’s drug use. Yeah, well, the same is true for Congress, but I still vote.”
Bless her heart, [Anita Perry] only has one nerve left and Rick’s obviously getting all over it.
So, in the passive-aggressive way that some Texas women have honed to an art form, she goes out and says stuff like him needing to improve his debating and that he’ll be “better prepared next time,” making him seem like a first grader who failed a spelling test. She might as well open her purse and show everybody that his winkie is in there.
Click the link, she’s LOL funny. That’s not even the best line.
“If someone with Jon Huntsman’s pedigree accepts, even in theory, the notion that too-big-to-fail is too-big-to-exist, all that pounding on the drums may be worth it. Of course, had he said it on-stage during the actual debate, somebody would have eaten his face.”
“Perhaps the only certainty is that Arizona wants a coach with a more stoic, less demonstrative manner – the anti-Stoops, in short.”
Pre-Snap Read in surveying the likely prospects.
“I asked seven anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians if they would rather have been a typical Indian or a typical European in 1491. None was delighted by the question, because it required judging the past by the standards of today—a fallacy disparaged as ‘presentism’ by social scientists. But every one chose to be an Indian.”
“But one aspect of politics interests me very much and I really double super would love to have this and that is: Secret Service. It won’t spoil anything for me to tell you that at one point Clooney (who stars, directs, and screenplay writes, he’s like the missing, better-looking, Coen brother) is meeting someone in a restaurant. The place is shut down, with guys outside looking ominous and also inside looking ominous and it’s just awesome. I want to go get hummus at Costco in two huge black Suburbans and have each sample area cordoned off by serious guys in suits and headsets so that I roll up to the cracker and crab dip or Caution! Hot! chicken nuggets unmolested. That would be the best.”
“My problem is not that Mitt Romney is a Mormon who wants to be commander-in-chief. My problem is that Mitt Romney is a chronic dumbass on military matters who wants to be commander-in-chief.”
“So much attention was paid to the question of the relevance of the Angel Moroni to the Republican base over the weekend, it may have escaped notice that Romney has hired a coterie of foreign-policy advisers that look like he’s scheduled a Bush Administration Old-Timer’s Game for January of 2013 … “
Is there a more unmitigated horse’s ass in American public life than George Effing Will?
Is there a more breathtaking coupling of tinhorn erudition and pig-ignorant arrogance? Is there anyone who is a more perfect combination of tea-cosy courage, sherry-sipping macho, and lace-hanky contempt for everyone who isn’t himself? Is there another human being on this planet who more richly deserves to be hung from a coat rack by his undershorts? Is there a dumber looking bow-tie? Breathes there a man with a soul so dead? These are our questions.
“Tiny, identical, clothing designers the Olsen Twins will sell you a backpack for, not kidding, 39 thousand dollars. This makes the twins the most adorable example of everything that’s wrong with the world ever!”
. . .
“Those hippies that are protesting Wall Street are spreading to other towns where it turns out there are also rich people. Again, the rich people do not appear to be overly, or even remotely, concerned. They’re out shopping for backpacks.”
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
“The top 1 percent of households took a bigger share of overall income in 2007 than they did at any time since 1928.”
“It was like the child who convinces himself there will be a pony waiting for him under the Christmas tree even though no one promised one or even suggested such a gift existed.”
Nick Bilton, Bits Blog – NYTimes.com
And then after explaining how much is new in the 4S —
“So as people start asking me if I’m disappointed, I have to remind them there still was a shiny new firetruck under the tree there Tuesday morning.”
FYI I intend to get one to replace my 16-month-old iPhone 4.
I follow Mary Elizabeth Williams on Twitter because I have liked her writing. For example:
Mary Elizabeth’s law: There are two kinds of food — those that can be improved with bacon, and those that can be improved with chocolate.
Mary Elizabeth’s paradox: And yet, bacon and chocolate do not mix.
Mary Elizabeth’s addendum: But butter goes with everything.
Like most people, I’m deeply cynical. Like most people, I’m also secretly optimistic.
And then I’ve learned she has been diagnosed with melanoma. It’s sad of course, but she is amusing telling about it.
She’s writing a book. She tweeted this a few minutes ago.
“@embeedub: Today’s working title of the book is “This Sucks & I Don’t Feel Like Doing It Any More But I’ll Butch Up Anyway, Motherfuckers.””
First posted two years ago today.
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.”
John Dickerson – Slate Magazine
Dickerson’s article is about list-making. He notes: “Digging through the boxes in my garage, cursing the disorganization, I came across an old planner from 1995. ‘Clean garage,’ it said on June 6.”
“The Girl Scouts are using less palm oil in their cookies. However, they are using the same amount of whatever magic ingredient makes you eat an entire sleeve of Thin Mints in one setting.”
… is at the end of Joe Posnanski’s piece on last night. But you must read it all first.
“I’ve written this before: I never argue with people who say baseball is boring, because baseball is boring. And then, suddenly, it isn’t. And that’s what makes it great.
“In other words: Then, suddenly, Evan Longoria steps to the plate.”
I’m still pumped 12 hours later.
“[Michelle Bachmann] is deeply concerned, you see, with the possibility that Hezbollah will establish missile bases in Cuba, perhaps for the purpose of launching long-range intercontinental ballistic syringes full of the HPV vaccine at America’s middle schools.”