File this story under “Duh.”

The European Chess Union, in what surely is a calculated response to this stunning turn of events, isn’t taking any chances: they’ve placed restrictions on cleavage.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Lowercase or capital letter after a colon? Depends. When it’s used within a sentence, the first word following the colon is lowercased unless it’s a proper name.

There are two kinds of people: those who generalize and those who don’t.

When a colon introduces two or more sentences, however—or when it introduces speech in dialogue—the first word following it is capitalized.

CK was faced with an impossible choice: Should he complete his evening ensemble with the charcoal jacket in hand-finished merino wool? Or should he throw caution to the wind and wear the grey pinstripe with Jacquard stitching?

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

An alert reader sent in this item today:

We breathlessly await confirmation of its authenticity.

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We’re a little late to this story. Apparently, the AeroShot has been on college campuses (where else?) since January. And while the idea of inhalable caffeine should give pause to anyone concerned about the state of today’s misdirected youth, I’m frankly more alarmed that one of the AeroShot’s creators is reported to have described the device as “an appealing alternative to sugar-laden energy drinks.”

Um…dude. Have you heard of coffee?

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What do fact-checkers and anesthesiologists have in common? It’s not a joke. David Zweig explains.

In a rather long (11,000 words!) and rambling review of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, Evgeny Morozov links Apple’s design ethos with the Bauhaus, ponders the late Jobs’s many paradoxes—I’d prefer to call them glaring inconsistencies—and, without much effort, shoots down the rather ridiculous notion of Jobs as some sort of Zen philosopher.

And over at the New York Review of Books blog, Tim parks wonders when writing became a career choice—with the promise of “a lifetime of literary festivals, shortlists and prizes, readings, seminars, honorary degrees, lectures, and, of course, writing….”

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The good news: the New York Times is sharing its photography archive via a Tumblr page called “The Lively Morgue.”

The bad news: even if they post 10 new images every weekday, it’ll take ’em till the year 3935 to get the entire print collection online.

Faster, please.

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There’s only one thing wrong with this story: the words “against all reason.” Based on the voting numbers so far, it’s patently obvious that the wisdom of the Slovaks knows no bounds.

One thing’s for sure: Chuck Norris will cross that bridge before he gets to it.

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