One of my favorite musicians, Layne Staley, has died this weekend. I first heard Alice In Chains when I was 14 and loved them from the start. Regardless of how Layne died, which seems almost obvious, I still am sad. This is the nicest article I could find. Although no music has been officailly released in years from the disbanded Alice In Chains, his side band Mad Season, or sporatic solo special projects, the world is definately robbed of one of the most fascinating, thought provoking writers and voices.

A really disturbing and amusing story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
Run kitty run!

Two sentences:

Bob and I washed the car.

I washed the car with Bob.

In the tradition of Dave's blogs about weird people he encounters or observes on his way to work, I would like to share some interesting specimens also. I watched these two kids walk down the street and one slipped on a metal drain, which was wet after the rain. He called the other, whom has walked ahead of him and told him about it. Then, both of them began to slide themselves downhill on the drain repeatedly. That looked really fun and made me laugh, pretty cool in traffic, not necessarily weird. Another guy I see passes through Freehold every day dressed in Miami Dolphins, head to toe, coat and sweats and a wool hat. The same ones. Friday, I saw him wearing camoflauge, I guess he was doing his wash. My personal favorite person was this woman crossing the street in the rain. She seemed very proud of the fact that she did not have to use an umbrella. She had a polka dotted shower cap instead. Kind of like the hands free version of an umbrella, very practical.

I was vegan for five years and for the last two years, I have not been true to my healthy diet. I have decided 6 weeks ago that I would like to return to my old way of life, but as a vegetarian. Not eating meat again is an effort, but I am trying and doing well. It was pretty exciting to see Burger King's new BK Veggie burger. I tried to find what the ingredients were and most of the information said that the veggie patty is composed of mostly chemicals, devoid of nutrition. Technology, not healthy veggies. Here is an example of an article in the LA Times. Anyway, I appreciate the effort. And I have tried one, not bad. But the point of eating healthy is not eating the equivalent of Twinkies and Froot Loops for lunch, which if I was going to eat junk food, I would prefer over the BK Veggie.

There is this sign at work that gives me nightmares!! It has a man carrying a huge box and the caption says, "You wouldn't walk around blinfolded, so why carry things you can't see over." I get chills from this sign because of its hideous grammar. For those of us who are not aware, it is poor grammar to have a preposition at the end of a sentence. To be clear, the proper definition is that a preposition is to lead before a noun or pronoun. "My favorite television show is on," or "Everything he tries, he is good at," would be totally incorrect. However, in my new dictionary the "rule" that prepositions must proceed a noun or pronoun is misleading. Huh? It said that this does not apply to English because it is derived from Latin. Latin is very different from English and most rules are not fitting to English. Therefore, "That is the house I live in," is acceptable. Possibly correct. This is because when you have the noun to be "this" or "that," it could not be proceeded by a preposition. In addition, when you have a question like, "What floor do you work on?" this is considered normal and idiomatic. Whether or not this is correct, hearing a preposition at the end of a sentence is like hearing nails on the chalkboard. It sounds so ignorant. Is it necessarily ignorant? Doesn't anyone else remember teachers forcing the idea down your throats that this behavior will get serious points taken off your your hard earned grades? Furthermore, having two prepositions consecutively is a violation of the "rule" as well. "Except for" and "off of" again, are reminders of nails on the chalkboard. Perhaps the taste of orange juice after brushing your teeth. Does anyone want to clear this up?