still not over this site

!!!!!!111

I'm so excited right now. Josh posted recently about the kitchen fiasco that I mentioned before that, aside from being maddening, is pretty hilarious. And I'm so glad he did, because his friend directed his (and my, as a faithful Josh-reader) attention to www.passiveaggressivenotes.com.


I mean, seriously. That is good stuff. You can even browse their entries by categories like "CAPS LOCK," "spelling and grammar police," and "exclamation-point happy!" What could be funnier?


I love it.

yikes

http://www.anti-war.us/gallery/gallery8.php

Although really, "would'nt" should be "wouldn't." I'm just saying...

Book Review: Olaf Reads by Joan Lexau, illustrated by Harvey Weiss

In this book, Joan Lexau tells three different Olaf stories, none of which makes any sense at all. None of them has a plot. Each ends unexpectedly and strangely. I think the moral of the story is supposed to be that goofy antics inevitably follow the inability to read properly. Illiteracy = silly. I love it. A favorite excerpt? I'd have trouble deciding between:

"Olaf," said his mother, "will you mail a letter for me?"
"What will you give me?" Olaf asked.
"Nothing," said his mother. "You should do it because it I ask."
"O.K.," said Olaf.
"I will give you a cookie when you get back," said his mother.
"For mailing the letter?" Olaf said.
"No! Because I want you to have a cookie," said his mother.

and

"Who pulled the fire bell?" asked a policeman.
"Pull?" said Olaf.
"Did you do it?" said the policeman.
"But it said Pull," said Olaf. "Are you going to put me in jail?"
"No, but I will scold you," said the policeman. "It is good to read. But you must think, too. Read and think."
"Yes," said Olaf.
A fireman said, "You must not pull something that says Pull if you don't know what it is."

What? For Olaf, I'd say adults are probably confusing. One thing that the book has going for it is cool illustration. Even if Olaf can't seem to read the signs around him well enough to avoid making an ass of himself, at least the way he sees the text around him is whimsical and fun!

(not) home, (not) sweet (not) home

We came back to the dorms after spending the holiday away to find these notes taped to our doors.


There are about seventy-five people staying in this dorm; all of us keep our groceries in one fridge, all of us use the same stove, oven, microwave, counter-top, dishes. And we keep pissing the higher-ups off by not leaving the kitchen clean, so they're locking it for a few days to teach us a lesson. I mean, it is annoying when people don't clean up after themselves. That said, the signage that has been posted over this whole kitchen ordeal is mucho passive-aggressive. I wish I had taken photos of the signs that came before this one. One featured a picture of Mr. T. and read something along the lines of "I pity the fool who does not clean up his or her dishes!" Anyway, by Tuesday afternoon, the dorm-powers-that-be decided that they had had enough of our slovenly ways. We came home from work to find Mr. T. gone. A smiley-face on a new sign exclaiming, "Well, you've done it!" seemed to take pleasure in the pain that we will inevitably feel at our exclusion from la cocina. In quite cliche fashion, the text on the sign ended with, "Have a nice day!"

What gets me about the sign above is the grammatical structure of the last sentence. "These belong to your neighbors and were removed without permission!" Really, it should probably read, "These belong to your neighbors and you removed them without permission!" Make that passive tense active, you know? Be direct about it. To be fair, passive tense is not technically wrong, but the sign's creator may have expressed a stronger message if s/he had more clearly identified the subject of that passive verb. Something like, "These belong to your neighbors and were removed without permission [by you inconsiderate assholes]!"