Good and Bad Texting Slang

On the Metro PCS website, there is a little reference card document of common texting abbreviations. The thing is, most of them are kinda strange and uncommon. Like instead of BFF, they list BF4E. And they have BBL and BBS (be back later/soon) but not BRB (be right back).
There were a few I hadn't heard before that I like: IUSS (if you say so), IYKWIM (if you know what I mean), and HAND (have a nice day).
Do you have any cool abbrev. that come in handy a lot?

thinking about....Alvin & the Chipmunks

So to get the Chipmunks' voices, they just speed up a normal voice, right? But not just anyone's voice, right? I want to hear Alvin at normal speed. If you slow down the Chipmunks (the right amount), will they sound like regular people? Just curious....

The Classic He/She Dog Question

You know when you come across a dog and you can't readily tell whether it's a he or a she? What do you do when you want to say something to the owner about...it? Do you call the dog "it"? "He," "she," "your dog?" Or do you bend down and get a good look first? I suppose you could be direct and say "How old is--is it a he or she?" Or you could say nothing at all. I usually go for this technique: it's a combination of mumbling/slurring your words, and a little accent: "I'm a Cockney Brit. 'ow old is 'e?" What do YOU do?

The odd field of TV meteorology

On one hand, they are scientists and probably have at least a bachelor’s degree. But on the other, the important qualities of a weather man/woman are things like attractiveness and sense of humor.
They take the weather so seriously (see future post about Weather Wars), but everything they say could be wrong. A weather prediction that winds up being off is more than useless, it could ruin your day (or your suede jacket!). Why allow guessing in a news program? Maybe the reporters should start informing us of an impending crime wave or which Golden Girl is most likely to kick the bucket next?
While they’re no-nonsense about persisting with their scientific guesswork, they present it with every absurd bell and wacky whistle they can come up with. They sing, they make pun after pun, they offer trivia, create flamboyant, personalized graphics, share tales of housebreaking their pets, show off their awkward high school photos…. I hope they get paid well for playing the fool for the whole community.
I imagine every weatherman falls into one of two categories. Either they hate every minute because they have to act goofy despite really wanting to be an anchorman or taking weather very seriously. Or they love every minute! Either way, you gotta pity these people!
If weather is so uninteresting and unimportant that they have to jazz it up so much to keep people from turning the channel, why do they spend so much time and energy on it? Or do people really like all the wacky hijinks, and the weather man was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got stuck with the added Fool duties? As much as I don’t care to watch the weather report (it’s Vegas—the weather does not change!), I often find myself grinning, mesmerized by the local Weather Fool. My boyfriend and I tease each other about our attractions to the local weather woman and weather man. Apparently we’re not the only ones—a recent Sonic commercial features the wife of the Sonic couple daydreaming about her sundae and the local meteorologist…. And you remember when Kelly Bundy got a job as the local news program’s Weather Bunny on Married…With Children….
Another post coming about Weather Wars and Doppler Radar madness!

The W., H.W., Gibson and Stone Conspiracy

A couple weeks ago, Conspiracy Theory was on TV, and I watched most of it. There was a line Mel Gibson said that struck me as interesting, he said something like “Oliver Stone is in cahoots with George Bush.” The weird part is that when the movie was over, I went to sleep, and the very next day was the first time I saw the preview for Stone's new Movie "W." (which was the first I had heard of the movie). Weird.
As to what Mel’s character could have been referring to…
I think he meant the older Bush (the movie was from ’97), who was the head of the CIA in 1976, and in JFK Oliver Stone makes it sound like the CIA was behind JFK’s assassination. (Also, there is some evidence that links Bush to the CIA at the time of the murder and that that was covered-up.)
But how does that put them on the same side?
Well, I guess one result of the public's reaction to Stone’s movie about Kennedy was the JFK Act that Bush signed in ’92 shortly before leaving office. The Act basically created a committee that released all the assassination-related documents to the public (well, they started releasing them and will be done in 2017!). I read somewhere a viewpoint that this Act was kinda just a big show, to look good. Because really all the documents should be available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act of 1966. And documents released by either Act are subject to redaction (blacking out). And some documents are exceptions to the Act, and some have already been destroyed.
So in a way Stone helped Bush and the government look less like conspirators trying to hide something, without them having to really do anything different. The public is pacified by this meaningless Act. Thanks Oliver.
So I think that’s what was meant in Conspiracy Theory. I wonder if that’s a common theory or if they just made it up for the movie to make Mel Gibson sound like a nutcase. I read that the scenes where Mel is talking about his conspiracy theories to passengers in his cab are mostly ad-libbed. He seems like he would have some theories (Jews are responsible for all the wars, right?), so maybe the line is one of his. Note that Mel and Oliver have never worked together. Or, the line could have come from the writer Brian Helgeland, who worked on The Bourne Supremacy (and wrote A Knight’s Tale). The director, Richard Donner, has directed 6 Mel Gibson movies (and The Goonies) and a common theme in his movies is the main character believing something despite others’ doubts.
Anyway, I’m just speculating…but I’m curious: Who wrote that line? What did they mean? And does it have any meaning in relation to the new movie?

Is it a crime to be annoying?

In browsing through the NRS (Nevada Revised Statutes—the laws of this land), I happened to notice a few funny sounding offenses. They of course have meanings that aren’t really funny at all, but the way they’re phrased….
“Defrauding an Innkeeper”
“Intimidating Wit”
“Involuntary Servitude”
“Death by Furnishing”
“Annoying Minor with Prior”

Good Cop/Emotional Cop Syndrome (Stockholm and Beyond)

I’ve heard about the Stockholm Syndrome. And apparently there is a Lima Syndrome which is basically the reverse. So hostages can identify and sympathize with the hostage-takers, and vice versa. I started thinking about the police and situations where they probably do the same with criminals. The cop who negotiates with the hostage-taker usually tries to make the taker feel like the cop is trying to help him. Do they ever do such a good job they convince themselves?
What about undercover cops? There's no way that after months of pretending to be on the criminal's side, they all just turn their backs on their "friends" and turn off any feelings completely.
Is there a name for all these situations?
And what about a perp with a good reason? A victim who feels forced to take criminal action, like John Q just trying to get a transplant for his dying son when his insurance won’t cover it? A cop's got to uphold the law, but there must be times it feels so wrong.
Cold Case does a good job of questioning the righteousness of the police’s actions. It’s clearly good of them to bring murderers to justice. But what if the “doer” has gone decades without committing any other crimes, has become a positive member of society, and is a senior citizen? What if the circumstances surrounding the murder were such that few of us would be able to easily say we would have done differently? When the detectives reluctantly lead those young/old murderers away, it’s a real ambivalent moment.
Police probably deal with conflicting feelings a lot. On TV, it's common to see police officers being sent to talk to a psychiatrist after they kill someone. Boss always wants to be sure his officers are dealing with their guilt and feelings of mortality. And they sure hate to do it! But rarely do these shows explore the mixed emotions involved in these unnamed syndromes. On TV the police seem too proud and tough to admit they have any sympathy for the criminals. I guess that's how they are able to do their job. On TV it’s rare for cops to break any serious laws, but I know the real world has plenty of officers doing drugs and beating their wives at home and then arresting people for the same thing at work. The corrupt cops doing that on TV are “bad guy” characters whose feelings and motives are superficial or nonexistent.
Criminal Minds often explores the emotional effects the “unsubs” have on the profilers. In one episode Reid saw himself in a young criminal. In the end Hotchner says to him, “I know it's painful when the person you're identifying with is the bad guy.” Reid says “What does that make me?” “Good at the job.” I agree.
Sometimes these shows (especially Criminal Minds and Without A Trace) are kind of corny the way they use the emotions of the characters. Each member of the team has a certain demographic that gets to them. You know anytime there’s a young girl, fighting to make it with little or no family or financial support, whether she’s a victim or suspect, it’s going to be an emotional episode for Samantha Spade. Are people that predictable in real life?