So Friday night I was watching on public television the debate between the two candidates for Superintendent of Public Instruction in Wisconsin (insert pathetic wretch comment here). One of the candidates is a right-wing nut, one of those people who wants to run some “liberal” institution so she can help shut it down. They were talking about her support of relaxing standards so anyone can teach (makes it less expensive that way).

Linda Cross: Under the current rules, Einstein would not be able to teach science. I think he would be an excellent teacher for our children….{belated realization}……..if he were alive today.

Melissa was the first person I didn’t already know who linked from her blog to mine. Little does she know the thrill I got when I found that a stranger had read my weblog, and liked it enough to link to it. She wrote a post this week that gets to the heart of something I’ve been mulling over for some time now.

About I Really Must Insist You Leave, she wrote: “It amazes me how some people can catch this fleeting bit of their lives and put it down so exactly on paper. And I have never met this person, and they have no idea who I am, and yet it’s as if we share something.”

I too am amazed by weblogs’ ability to connect people. When you get started reading someone’s words regularly, it’s weird and wonderful how you enter in a sort of relationship with them – when they are happy, you’re happy; when they go through bad times, you feel for them. I feel I’ve gotten to know and like people like Melissa and Mike just from their pages. My writing on this page is not very personal, but I hope people get at least some sense of my personality (or maybe not – I don’t want to scare anybody). Words are powerful things.

“No one sells software or hardware these days; instead they provide ‘technology solutions.’ A technology solution could be anything. My toaster is a technology solution to the problem of untoasted bread.”

-dissing corporate jargon in Information Anxiety 2, one of the most insightful and interesting books I’ve read in ages. Check it out.

Just have to highlight my current favorite weblog, hey man, who ate my pizza, a curmudgeon’s view of the tribulations of everyday life (and note the lowercase, another point in my book). From there, I also discovered the same author’s My Ass Itches page, which lists wacky proposed weblog names. Funny.

Some of my best friends are vegetarians.

The woman who cuts my hair told me this morning that it’s OK to call her a hairdresser or even a cosmetologist, but calling her a beautician, well, them’s fightin’ words. She tried to explain to me why, but I’m still not sure. Words mean things.

Excuse me while I use a scrub brush on my brain to forget the sight and sound of the Long-Nosed Jerricoot “singing” on the Survivor:DV clip show tonight.

(Admission: I stole that nickname from Mighty Big TV recaps)

Absurdist humor break:
Q: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Fish.

(stolen from No Soap, Radio)

So I finally broke down and added BlogVoices to words mean things – you can click on ‘talk back’ and make a comment on any post. I hesitated for a long time, since no one wants to throw the doors open to comments and then not get any. I know there are at least a few people who read this blog, so for god’s sake, make a comment every once in a while for the sake of my mental health. My battered ego thanks you.

It’s appropriate that this year, the evil that is Daylight Saving Time will be visited upon us on April Fool’s Day. Let’s just pick a time and stick with it, people.