Urine Luck!

Some Forgotten English should stay forgotten...
Also called "lant," urine was used until the 19th century for domestic and industrial purposes, including a cleansing agent and hair wash known as "chamber lye," which was stored in an ornamental lye-pot.

And now, in a harsh segue from that delightful image:

My bride is off to her first "meet-up" with a stay at home mom's group. She's pretty excited, and I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes. They seem to get together weekly, and it would be great if both Andrea and Maeryn found a peer group. Even though that means taking the bus to work...

Mind you, if we get our wheels spinning on this "one tonne challenge" thing, then I might be taking the bus or riding my bike to work a little more frequently anyway - which might do wonders for my athletic physique.

Are any of my refined readers taking up the blindly optimistic, severely underfunded one tonne challenge? How? I'd like to take some notes as to how I can reduce my ecological footprint. Mind you, I live in a privince where my reduction is a whistle in the dark against the huge consumption of our primary industry drivers... Ah, well - you do what you can.

Sneak Review

So, with Coliseum striking my editor as less than sexy, he suggested I try out Ric's Grill downtown. Woohoo! I told him that I would have to wait until my Vue cheque comes in - that place is PRICEY - but would love to. So I had to scramble for someplace else to review this week, along with the wine tasting experience and a feature piece on foreign doctors driving cabs. I got Fife 'n Dekel approved, drove out there to find it closed, and ended up at "The Dish & Runaway Spoon" with its secret garden in back. Wow.

That place was terrific, and I think I'm going to try my "Choose Your Own Adventure" treatment on it - my editor was a little nervous about the layout guy killing him for it, but I'll float it and see how it goes. Worst case scenario, I have to rewrite it. (And how bad is that?)

Just waiting for this cold medication to kick in... I'll let you know.

Your Forgotten English of the day: chollers
"Lumps of fat beneath the chin; double chins." Ew.

The Ill Literati Speaks

In a magnificent combination of effluence and influence, the Ill Literati is feeling a little under the weather. While it's not really my nature to complain all the time (my coworker's opinion notwithstanding), I'm getting pretty damn tired of being sick all the time.

Isn't Seasonal Affective Disorder supposed to happen in the Fall?

Mind you, despite all the bonus sunshine outdoors, I am still cooped up behind the plexiglass half-wall of my Veal Fattening Pen. (Ta da - a literary reference for my Douglas Coupland fans.) Would it be so terrible to swap some of the accountants out of an office and allow the creative types an office, a door and a window? Imagine the surge of productivity a writer and a graphic designer could enjoy with a little quiet and privacy!

Ah, well - dreamin'. We're told that things will change in the new building. A building that the IT guy gleefully tells me has been "on the horizon" for the five years he has worked here. Meanwhile, the admin staff has to start looking at time-sharing desks simply to find space for everyone who works here.

Yark! Still no reply on the "Choose Your Own Adventure" restaurant review. Maybe he's ignoring me, hoping I'll go away. More likely, he's absolutely swamped and giving me enough rope to hang myself. Either way, we'll see what he says!

Your Forgotten English for the day: thunderstone
The imaginary product of thunder, formed by the erroneous fancy that the destruction caused by lightning had an accompanying solid body. Similar to a thunderbolt: Pliny identified them as "Brontia," a species of gem, while others considered them the fossils known as "belemites."

Some day, some day I will sleep!

So I had a killer idea: a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-type restaurant review. I'll pitch it to my editor to see what he thinks. I think the idea came when I saw a bunch of book cover parodies online at SomethingAwful.com - these things are hilarious!

Today's Forgotten English is the slightly lame "darks," used by smugglers in the early 1800's to refer to nights of the new moon. On these nights, livestock thieves, highwaymen and burglars were especially active - as compared to werewolves under the full moon. At either end of the moon's spectrum, you find predators!

Some day I will sleep - I promise. Yesterday was a CSI repeat that we hadn't seen, which fit my coworker's husband's template perfectly: he asks, "So, what sexual peccadillo do you think they'll explore tonight?" Chubby Chasers, Furries, Transexuals - looks like the ol' CSI crew is running out of cool crimes to investigate and new ways to solve them with the hordes of competitors out there...

Might be worth leaving while you're still remembered for making decent shows, Gillyboy. Shaking up the team with office politics was a lame-duck effort to extend the franchise when the real draws were the crimes and the pseudoscience, not the personalities. (Though Las Vegas has the hottest men, like CSI: Miami has the hottest women.) Let Miami and New York suffocate on their own effluence. Mind you, that hasn't caused the demise of CSI: New York yet.

OK - I'll tone it down a bit

Yerk. The subtitle of this weeks Piccolino Bistro review is "In case you missed it before, Vue’s Christopher Thrall really, really loves his wife." Do you think my editor is trying to tell me to tone it down a bit? I thought I had a great hook on this one - a take-out meal as a surprise for her. I may have gone a little over the top, though. Time to start finding some different hooks besides talking about Andrea and I!

It was almost enough for me to work myself into a "panshard!" (Your Forgotten English of the day, meaning a passion or rage.)

All righty - time for me to throw myself into a workflow organization system that we three Marketing departmenters agreed to in our first Tuesday morning meeting. I have to remind myself to be careful of what I suggest - even if it's for the benefit of the department, it seems to infer that I have the time to effect my suggestions. I don't. Honest.

At least we'll know what the next year looks like, which scares the crap out of me. I have about three pages of scribbled projects to incorporate into a year's calendar. Wish me luck!

Zzzz

Would talking about how tired I am go beyond the regular self-indulgence of a blog? Why do I obsess so much about it? If you're reading this (and my heart goes out to you, it truly does), then you are endlessly fascinated with my introspection. Instead, how about we focus on you?

So, what brings you by? How did you happen across my little corner of the 'Net? Are you a graphomaniac yourself, or the digital equivalent of a peeping tom? Are you stalking me? Could you stalk me, in the non-violent kind of way?

Where did you grow up? Are you married? Do you know how they get the soft, flowing caramel inside the Caramilk bar? Do you remember that commercial, where businessmen are bidding millions of dollars on learning the Caramilk Secret, and one bids "Anything!" Suddenly, from out of the darkness, Satan leans forward, and asks in a deep, forboding voice: "Anything?" I loved that commercial.

Your Forgotten English of the day: stool of repentance
"A kind of pillory in a church, erected for the punishment of those who have transgressed in the article of chastity." Basically, a fornicator sat on the stool during the service. Afterwards, he/she would have to stand on the stool and endure the minister's rebuke.

Remember when public censure was the worst kind of punishment? Neither do I. Bring on the fornication!

How many Signs in an Apocalypse?

OK - the Pope dies, my best friend's apartment building is consumed in flames and a flood strikes my cubicle. If anyone sees a plague of locusts, I'm out of here.

Your Forgotten English of the Day: earthgrine
Earthquake; from Anglo-Saxon "grynd," an abyss.

I went down to the wire on this documentary piece for Vue. Illness slowed my wheels, but I think it turned out pretty well - the story was compelling, talking to both the aboriginal community and the police force during the fallout of the Saskatoon freezing deaths in 2000. A well done piece, and the filmmaker was an engaging interview. She's 31.

I'm 31.

Should I be doing more? Does writing for the local alt-weekly compare to shooting your own film, distributed by the NFB?

You know, I rather think it does. And it's just a start.

Forgot the Forgotten English

There you go - my first day after promising to post Forgotten English, and I forget.

mulberry mania
The craze during the 1830's for planting mulberry trees in expectation of making profits in the silk industry.

Try to work that into casual conversation. Although it does open up entire realms of pretentious discourse hitherto unavailable: "Why, the dot-com bust reminds me of the mulberry mania of the 1830's, old chap." La plus ca change...

Full Recovery?

I hope I'm not sick any more. This weekend sucked: after tending to my daughter during her two-week illness and my wife for her three-week downtime, I finally shut down for two days. Two days! I had a Dish review to write for Vue, plus a "surprise assignment" from my editor to watch a documentary and speak to its director. Instead, I laid on the couch and watched terrible television.

Why would TBS run movies where they have to remove the actual "humour" content because they consider it offensive? It's baffling, really.

The review went well, though. I constructed a magnificent soiree of romance for Andrea and I, with a dinner from Piccolino Bistro as the main course. I'm hoping to catch the Tuscan Grill with a former room-mate and her boyfriend this week. I tell you - there is no better gig in the world than a food reviewer. I go out every week, my dinner and non-alcoholic drinks are paid for, and the check covers Andrea's meal. Free night out every week? Yes, please!

But it's a horrible, terrible inconvenience and nobody should even think of trying to horn in on my territory - got me? You'll find a chef's head in your bed.

Bleh. I'm even more incoherent than usual. Maybe I'm still sick. Ah, well. So long as I'm propped up in front of my computer at work, I still get paid... Probably.

I lied.

OK, so in a frenzy of activity before our Director came in, my lovely coworker Tamara and I went through her office and taped down anything mobile. We set up a large office plant in her chair and printed out a picture of her smiling face to attach to it.

Got a good laugh - and so far, she hasn't even found the taped-together pens, the telephone handset taped to the base and a strategicially placed piece of tape over her mouse.

PS: In a side note, a piece of tape, while effective for rollerball mice, does not cripple an optical mouse.

Fapril Dool's Ay?

This used to be my favourite day of the year. My very first prank was dying a 2L carton of milk green (which subsequently had to be thrown out). Classic high school pranks included carefully lining the Physics teacher's desk drawer with plastic and filling it to the brim with coffee, and creating an intricate web of string in Biology class all lunch hour, guiding all the students through it to their desks and awaiting the teacher in quiet anticipation.

It pisses me off that I'm too tired to prepare anything clever, either at home or at work. My hapless victims are spared from my devious mind for another year! And another... and another... probably until my daughter's in high school. Ah, well.

Instead, for your reading enjoyment, I will start a tradition. I bought myself a "Forgotten English" desk calendar this year, and I will regale my legions of fans with either a new word or a forgotten celebration every day that I remember.

Today:
"Into the 20th century, it was common to make fools of apprentices by sending them on imaginary errands. Examples included sending naval recruits to retrieve the key to the "starboard watch" or to "Davy Jones' locker". Their counterparts in the army were sent to bring back a "firing line" or a "bucket of recoil". You printers were sent to look for "italic periods," a "paper-stretcher" or bottles of striped ink. Veteran tailors suddenyl needed a dozen button-holes, and an electrician would complain that his wires were too long and send his apprentice for "short circuits". Even bankers would send an office boy out for white carbon paper, naughts for the adding machine or an "interest table".