Dec 31 2009
And Now, An Incredibly Long and Detailed Assessment of My Own Last Decade, With Footnotes and Annotations Where Desirable, and Such Digressions As Will Elucidate the Subject in a Manner Amusing to All, Not Sparing Heart-Tugging Anecdotes When Appropriate, Phrased in the Vernacular of Our Times
Oh, well, you know. It was okay, I guess.
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I especially like the part where there was stuff. And things.
I guess the blog name was already taken.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
Gnarly, dude!
I think a cat photo would have summed it up.
Could have used more Reaganonmics. Otherwise, tops!
I’m glad you remembered the Keep It Simple Stupid rule there at the end.
My heart was not tugged. For heart-tugging I need you to at least name-check Athena.
So – dude – just what my teanager says after a particularly eventful day. When she really has a good time, she says it was “fine”. This is not necessarily a comment on maturity of the author I am sure….;-)
Weren’t there also Eight-by-Ten, Color Glossy Photos with Circles and Arrows and a Paragraph on the Back Telling What Each One Was? No, I guess that was something else.
Funny, you don’t sound super-sure about that!
Dammit, where’re the footnotes? I want my footnotes!
::sigh::
Guess I’ll have to go read some David Foster Wallace to get my fix.
Extremely amusing and heart-tugging. Well done.
jp @12: But aren’t the footnotes what we are all writing right now?
Post needs “Hello Ghlaghghee” slippers.
Seriously, “Hello Ghlaghghee” slippers available via CafePress and you may never need to work again.
I’m vaguely disturbed by the idea of wearing my cat on my feet.
In the vernacular of the times wouldn’t that be “Meh”?
Scalzi’s just this guy, you know?
Tim @14: Huh. Blog comments as interactive footnotes. Interesting.*
* – This footnote** is for demonstration purposes only.
** – This footnote is completely worthless, and has some serious self-esteem issues.
IME, some cats *like* wrapping themselves around feet. In any case, I was thinking more along the line of using Hello Glaghghee’s image, not substance.
As for never having to work again, I think Chang-not-Chang would run out of money eventually.
Okay? Okay?!
I think you¹ can do better than “okay”!
________
¹ Originally pronounced “we”, attr. to Dr. Frank N. Furter.
Alright? Alright, not ‘okay’. Good? Is that better than Alright?
So we call it good. God separated the Light from the Darkness and called it GOOD. Good is surely a good word.
Good is good enough for God, so Good is surely alright, okay?
And alright is good, okay?
Of course Okay is alright, good enough, too.
Okay?
Alright?
Good!
ALL RIGHT. “Alright” is an abomination and everyone who uses it WILL BE FED INTO THE FIRES OF SATAN’S BOWELS. Thank you, that is all.
“Alright” is a perfectly cromulent word invented by God specifically to torment John Scalzi, thereby punishing him for his manifold sins and wickedness.
A fairly light punishment, if you ask me. Don’t worry John, just accept it and everything will be alright.
My year wasn’t very awesome but next year should be better because I’ll have The God Engines in hand and that makes life that much more bearable.
LOL
You are awesome.
@ Scalzi, #27
I’m glad I’m not the only person with that neurosis. I see ‘alright’ all the time from professional writers who make much more than I do.
Of course, I’m really more interested in how John Scalvi’s year was…but this’ll do for the moment.
Mine sucked.
alright, John, fine, but the net net of it, at the end of the decade was that, irregardless of how others view it, the Naughties were, you know, not bad. capische?
Note to self: Kill RWINR. Make it look like the Templars did it.
Templars are not to be trusted.
Martin@21: “IME, some cats *like* wrapping themselves around feet.”
You do realize that’s an assassination attempt, right? As is the step-backward-with-the-roast-turkey-away-from-the-oven-onto-the-tail-of-the-cat-who-screams-and-startles-you-into-falling-headfirst-into-the-oven-while-the-gas-is-still-on “accident.” After that happened three times I began to see a pattern.
If you want a nice summation of this year in the vernacular of our times, here’s what you use:
“Meh.”
Now, I don’t like that word. But as a summation of this crummy decade, it suffices.
Lets consigned this crummy word to this crummy decade, and then cast both from our minds FOREVER. This seems likely to work, right?
Very retro-18th-century, the long title and short comment!
@scalzi…
You’re sending Temps after me? Come on, at least put a fulltime assassin on it. Geez…
Whatever, John, WHateVer. As if, right?
Whenever I accidentally use “alright” or abuse “your/you’re”, I blame the internet. When I read edited text all the time, I was more consistent.
RWINTR@40: no, he’s not sending the Templars after you. He’s going to kill you himself, and frame the Templars.
Got it?
Aight.
Gee, how emo of you, John!
There are a lot of mis-spelling v. malapropisms conversations going on today – here’s a cartoon on it for you to enjoy:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling
Thank you for the giggles this year, folks + John. Especially John who has kindly instigated and hosted this entertainment!
Note: you don’t need Templars if you have cats. Hmn, perhaps the cats have their own super secret society of assassins?
Guys, guys!
It’s ay-iggit-blah.
What, no one else watched Greg the Bunny?
Yeah, right, whatever. Alright. I’m sorry, I was giggling through this whole thing. Your title: this is why you’re the author and we are your minions.
@10 I knew that Alice’s Restaurant would make an appearance.
@44 John has Kodi who trumps cats any day IMHO.
The way I look at it is that we all got out of 2009 alive (at least, I hope we all did) which is an achievement in itself. Here’s to getting out of 2010 alive!
Alrighty then. Though I still hate blaming Temps. No one appreciates them and the full-time people take all the credit.
Seriously. Quoted in full.
Do you have to be a professional author in order to distill ten years of experiences into a mere two sentences? For God’s sake, I can’t even distill two sentence fragments into two sentences!
Cool.
“Okay” sounds like a reasonable assessment of your decade to me, especially considering that you made a stellar entry into sci-fi-dom only in the last half of it.
Assessing the decade as a whole (minus your contribution) I’d have to opine: “freakin’ disaster.”
“All right” is not correct as a description of the year. That in fact is the point. (SEE comment #51.) Hence “all right” is not alright! If it is not alright, then it is not okay, not good to the properly desired state of goodness. All right implies that every thing was correct, as it should be. Alright is a morose teenager’s response to “How did the math final go, dear?” when the question is put to him by his dim-but-loving mother.
Alright has that same sort of subtext, “It’s anything BUT all right, and it never will be, and can I throw myself under a bus as soon as possible?” Alright is an acknowledgment of your interest, but a polite way of saying IT SUCKED. Alright?
I rest my case.
Aight.