(no subject)

The intern didn’t even email me his outline, just said “thanks” when I emailed him the first MSJ plus tabbed exhibits, and the draft MSJ he was supposed to help create.

I was asked to review a proposed issuance today for potential litigation issues, and I started with:
"I started to comment on grammar - but a) that was not solicited, b) we have many qualified writers on staff, c) [BOSS] generally did not, which I took as a sign, and d) in my view, there were a lot of grammatical and structural problems (i.e. use active voice, cut out 75% of the prepositional phrases, make it simple and easy to understand, and use correct comma phrase structure). I suggest we solicit staff to give the item a grammatical and style/readability review, but I will not give that feedback outside this group. If there was a way to communicate that a product this rough grammatically is more time consuming to review due to the distraction factor, it might be helpful.

The shortest way of addressing the grammar/style problems would be to nudge the authoring group to suggest they switch the entire document to active voice.
Also, http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/5466/correct-position-of-only would make this clearer. Even when technically correct, the convoluted sentence structure makes this very hard to read - and therefore subject to misinterpretation and litigation."

I haven't looked to see if in criticizing their grammEr I made any mistakes myself (nor this post). I just don't care that much - the bar is so low...lulz kthxbi

(nudge...to suggest?)

Flannel dreams

I like the smell of wood, dirt, and cement at the end of the block where they are building a new park. Today I went to pick up a chair from a warehouse (fail, dumb not-story) and liked the smell there. I talked to some guys there who seemed...comfortable. I had one of those flashes where I wondered if life must be easier when you're simply paid to build something. Imagine fucking that - not being paid for how you do or do not get along with people, where you get to hold and express your views, not having to maintain a professional image, or juggle your reactions for the varying audiences and their associated political factions. Just build shit or tear it down, paid by the hour. On the way home I heard an angry song I liked - and found out it was by good 'ol Korn. Yeah, korn. I was rocking to it.

When I did my habitat trip we drank every night - turns out you can drink a lot more if you do physical labor. Point in a direction and tell me what to do - makes me happy.

On facebook someone put up a link to a page of "jugalos," including a few girl jugalos with clown faces drawn on their exposed breasts. Now I've laughed at bad makeup since the first crow movie (remember my post about gothc clubbing? Like baby seals?) but I decided to look up the term jugalos. Turns out they're insane clown posse fans - no shock, but the band members allege they were poor as kids and took a certain pride in not showing shame at their status. Their jugalo fans take on the same airs, besides the makeup and knife fetish, they scorn and scoff signs of wealth from dress to ... well diction. While it's easy to scoff something you never had, others have and...well what's wrong with that? I mean there is a point where it is lame to not try, be it academically or in other forms of development, but why not just blow off the trimmings of success - reject the goals that others strive for?

Well because to do that you don't need to yell and put on face-paint, in fact that is really substituting one thing for another - only makeup and trash talk is easier to don, and a real nerd - not a style project - is still mocked relentlessly

Of course I realized nothing is stopping me. I could quit my job today, I could study construction - even in my down time - and become a tradesperson if I actually wanted to. I could wait tables again. Nothing is stopping me. So is the grass greener? Really? Or do you like the idea like a lottery ticket, a mental distraction which you don't pursue with substance?