fontomentals

Posted on Friday, 2002 October 04 by Anton

Most people seem to read the Web in schoolmarmish Times Roman. I read it in friendlier Lucida Sans. I wonder what effect font has – when the reader chooses it – on the perception of tone in writing.

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you don’t know where it’s been

Posted on Friday, 2002 October 04 by Anton

For a moment I thought the sign at the garage said SNOG CHECK.

I trust you can follow my train of thought from there.

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is all marketing local?

Posted on Friday, 2002 October 04 by Anton

Lately I can’t pick up a bottle of stain-remover without thinking of its advertising slogan: “. . gets out what America gets into.” And I try to imagine nationalistic advertising for mass consumer products in other countries. “At last, a nonprescription analgesic worthy of Ecuador!”

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bestial noises

Posted on Friday, 2002 October 04 by Anton

A while ago I used the phrase “. . . Senator Feinstein would screech . . .”. It now occurs to me that if the senior Big Gummint Democratic Senator from California were a he I’d probably have used the word “howl”.

I guess the Gender Sensitivity-in-Language Police don’t read me regularly.

Posted in language, politics | Leave a comment

really, darling, I haven’t a thing to drive

Posted on Thursday, 2002 October 03 by Anton

Eventually it hit me that what I’m looking for, car-wise, is what I bought twenty years ago — except that this time I’d prefer that it not be a lemon. I really liked the Citation’s shape: a roomy midsize sedan with a big rear hatch. (And six cylinders.) Modernize that and . . hm. Is the correlation of my taste with the national taste negative or merely zero?

Posted in me!me!me! | Leave a comment

aren’t they cute

Posted on Thursday, 2002 October 03 by Anton

In Dave Langford’s latest Ansible:

FANTASY DEFINITIONS MASTERCLASS. Years ago John Clute, John Grant, and their Encyclopedia of Fantasy team wrestled with tough problems of defining fantasy and telling good from bad. If only they’d had the help of Tom Snyder, whose www.movieguide.org review of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away makes everything crystal clear while explaining how Miyazaki got it all wrong:

In a proper fantasy, the heroine might encounter messengers or representatives, allegorical or otherwise, from God or Jesus Christ, or even God Himself and/or one or more members of the Holy Trinity. The heroine certainly should not learn things from encountering pagan, animistic spirits, unless she’s there to completely defeat them and/or worship or honor the One True God of the Bible. This is the difference between good fantasy and bad fantasy.

Posted in cinema, religion | Leave a comment

every planet has quarries

Posted on Wednesday, 2002 October 02 by Anton

If I ever visit England again, I must look up some of these Doctor Who locations, particularly Aldbourne alias Devil’s End.

Posted in cinema | Leave a comment