Sentential Links #50

Woo-hoo! Halfway to the century-mark for Sentential Links! Here we go:

:: The phone doesn’t ring in our house. Sure, folks call us. But the phone doesn’t ring. Ayup. Seven or so years ago, I turned off the ringer, and I haven’t looked back. (Amen, sister! We use an online answering machine thingie, and just leave the computer’s dial-up connection on all the time. I never answer the phone unless I note that they’re someone I really want to talk to at that moment. I’ve never understood the “Answer every call” thing that some folks have, as if life has to be placed on hold at the very second someone decides to call us.)

:: For the very first time, a photographer has managed to
capture on film the bubble in which President Bush lives. (This gentleman does nothing but write snarky captions to photos. If you’re on the political left, they’re often funny. He e-mailed me the link to his blog some time back, and I, ever the model of politeness, proceded to lose the link. Oops….)

:: What is the root word in the word “antidisestablishmentarianism”? (On a whim, I plugged “antidisestablishmentarianism”, that wonderful word which for some reason exists only to excite us with its sheer length, into Google’s Blog Search and this is the first post I found that was interesting in a way other than “Heh heh, that’s a long friggin’ word!” way. Looks like an interesting blog, but man, is that color combo hard on the eyes.)

:: Now I’ve got one more bottle to go and I’m scared. What if I actually start to like the stuff? (From the “Everything can be turned into a Simpsons Reference” file, I’m reminded of when Homer crossbred tobacco and tomatoes, coming up with “tomaccos” that were addictive and tasted like shit.)

:: My life has always been a little left-of-center. (Tell me about it….oh, and check out Incurable‘s new permalinks and URL!)

:: Jennifer Love Hewitt shows off her new hairstyle; it’s called the ‘is this a wig? No, it’s the suburban mom/i have a ginormous head’ cut.

:: And if she was the one to endure both the gestational and birthing phases of our two boys, it was left to me to ensure there would be no more than those two boys. So then, needs must there be some tamperin’ with my own boys.

:: A lot of people want classical concerts — both on stage and in the audience — to be livelier. (I think it’s the “museum” aspect of classical music performance: when touring an art gallery, one silently looks at a painting or sculpture and solemnly studies it, saying nothing or as little as possible. Ditto the classical concert. Emotional involvement isn’t to be shown. It’s a shame.)

:: Hold on a minute: They’re saying a whopping percentage of (at least technically literate) Brits now believe the pseudo-biblical “revelations” in “The Da Vinci Code” are true? I suppose it’s no wonder millions of people in the modern world claim they believe in the bible, “Intelligent Design” and astrology — even when they admit they know virtually nothing about them. In so many ways, we still live in the Dark Ages. Just let me say that if you are so credulous that a novel (fiction!) or Hollywood movie can upend your comprehension of one of the most dominant religious traditions in the world, then you are possessed of all the faith (and reason) you deserve.

:: It occurred to me this morning that I have spent the past year consuming one self-help or spiritual book after another in a frenzied, prolonged binge intended, I suppose, to induce enlightenment.

:: The suspenders on bib overalls over t-shirts on pretty girls can be cute and flirtatious. (Over nothing at all, they are Omigod.) (I just blogrolled PrairieMary in the last week or so, and here she is, uttering words truer than which have never been spoken!)

:: Is there a Louisiana-based novelist who is the equivalent of, say, Florida’s Carl Hiaasen? Let’s hope so, because the undoing of Democratic Representative William Jefferson – nailed by the Feds in a bribery investigation – has the soul of a Hiaasen book: petty greed, graft, official malfeasance, all dusted with unintended humor and a generous sprinkling of incompetence. This is the stuff of paperback fiction.

All for this week. Enjoy!