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  • I Have Met The Enemy…

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    …And it is US.

    No, not the United States, although I do find some of the folks I’ve run into around the country to be a little suspect. And not the magazine either… Well… I haven’t read it, so maybe, I dunno.

    But anyway, in this particular case I am talking about the letters U and S. Yep, a vowel and a consonant, go figure. Now, unless I missed my guess I’m sure you are wondering just exactly how the letters U and S could be the enemy. Well, they aren’t really, but it gave me catchy title.

    Okay, okay… Calm down… There REALLY is a point to the U and S thing.

    You see, I recently discovered that I am listed under the heading of “Famous Alumni” on the website for the district where I attended high school. I’m still a bit perplexed as to how this happened, or why the hell I am on said list, but hey, all good. Who am I to say… Well… It is ME we’re talking about here, so I guess I should have some say. So… Maybe I should be on the list of INfamous alumni… But, all this doesn’t really clear up the U and S thing, now does it?

    So here’s the deal… Upon discovering this fact, quite by accident actually, I tweeted about it:

    Just discovered that I am listed on my former shool’s district website as a “Famous Alumni”… http://ping.fm/m02wm O_o

    Shortly after doing so I noticed an egregious error, but it was too late. Folks had already begun to comment upon the update on my FB page, and there wasn’t much I could do other than comment myself, pointing out that I had made an error and needed counseling. Especially since I was supposedly among the famous graduates all because I write books…

    In case you aren’t noticing the error, it is the word alumni. I used it improperly. You see, alumnI is the plural version. The singular (masculine) version being alumnUS.

    Srsly.

    I know… Kind of counter intuitive, don’tcha think? I mean what with US being plural and I being singular you would… Well… Who am I to argue with the OED?

    Oh… And the singular feminine? AlumnA.

    Not even gonna go there… Nope… Not gonna do it.

    More to come…

    Murv

    PS. Over on Facebook we’ve been commenting back and forth about the fact that in the original tweet school is spelled “shool” – I probably should have addressed that as well, as it would have actually made this post funnier. But, I’m ill right now so you have to give me a break. 😉

    Suffice it to say, on Twitter, nobody mentioned the “shool” typo, but I sure did hear about the whole “alumni vs alumnus” issue. 😉

     

  • Is This The End?

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    With a title like that to start this off I can imagine you might be thinking, “Oh no, not another End Of Days blog. Has Sellars bought into the whole end of the world prophecy nonsense all because of a earthquake?”

    Come on… You know me better than that.

    However, could we be talking about the end of something else? Because of the changes in tech, newspapers are folding everywhere, and I don’t mean just so they can be laid upon a table. Columnists are penning their farewell letters for page 7D – or 2A, 6F, ad nauseum – as they retire, or go in search of different outlets for their creativity. In some cases though I have to wonder if it is more that they have just run out of things to say.

    I’ve been blogging, twice weekly, here on Brainpan Leakage for several years now. It began sporadically, often times just being announcements about where I would be on book tours or something of that sort. Then it grew into a public debriefing about the places I’d been on said travels. Before long it turned into a regular “column,” so to speak. A venting of my woes, a story from my past, a story from my future – those were always the hardest to write. And yes, an occasional blip about where I would be, where I had been, or special sale on books about which I had been made aware.

    But now, sitting here this morning, I have to wonder… Is this the end? Blogging takes work. It takes energy. It takes time. Over the years I cannot say that I have been able to measure any appreciable gain in book sales because of my blogging, so what does it get me? I haven’t received any awards (the kind with cash prizes attached, I mean). No movie deals… No television deals… Not even a bag of Cheezy Poofs or Snacky Cakes…

    Moreover, sex certainly has not been any better because of it (of course, that’s a whole ‘nother blog, and by that, I don’t mean blog entry, I mean whole ‘nother blog and it would definitely be NSFW, but I digress…)

    So with all of that in mind, why go on? Perhaps it is time time to plug the leak and skulk back off into the sunset… Maybe, just maybe, I’ve said all I’ve had to say. Perhaps there’s nothing left in my noggin’ that is funny, poignant, or even blog worthy.

    Or… I suppose it could just be that I have a really wicked sinus headache this morning…

    More to come…

    Murv