Scott Bush

You’re sport­ing a killer hat. Wear­ing the best pants you own. Perfectly-matched belt. Ditto for the shoes. Every­thing, from your stylin’ shades to you ban­gin’ watch, is just right to com­plete your look. Then you go out and hit the town… most peo­ple admire you but some stare and chuckle. What’s wrong, you won­der? Then, with a shock, you real­ize: you’re not wear­ing a shirt.

That’s what it’s like when web devel­op­ers, who have nearly uni­ver­sal con­trol over the user expe­ri­ence, don’t bother to style their body tag. The body tag, as the pri­mary con­tainer for a your con­tent, is equiv­a­lent to the painter’s can­vas or the writer’s page.

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Why, yes… I *did* mean “drown”

Mis­ery, they say, loves com­pany. Well, so do lex­i­con­i­cal abom­i­na­tions like “acrost,” so I must do my part to expunge the non-word “drownd” from our col­lec­tive vocab­u­lary. Unlike “acrost,” which never sounds cor­rect, “drownd” sounds like “drowned,” the past tense of drown. Maybe that’s why so many peo­ple say and spell this one wrong?

Here are four exam­ple sen­tences. One of these four is cor­rect; the oth­ers are not:

1. “Babies can drownd in just a few inches of water.”
2. “My friend almost drowned in the pool yesterday.”
3. “Drownd­ing would be such an awful way to die!”
4. “With­out that life­guard, I could have drownded!”

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6 August 2009

Scott Bush
Ken­more, WA

Re: No more phone books, please

To whom it may concern:

I’m writ­ing today to offer a gen­er­ous thank you for the years of faith­ful ser­vice you’ve pro­vided by deliv­er­ing to my home—unbidden—thick piles of bound, yel­low paper. Though appre­ci­ated, I politely request that you stop. Please… stop already.

Each sea­son, upon find­ing a fresh stack of these “yel­low pages,” each lov­ingly stuffed into its own plas­tic bag, I would feel grat­i­tude for the sur­prise gift, think­ing of their nearly inex­haustible util­ity. Some of the many uses to which I’ve put your books include:

• Rais­ing the height of my com­puter mon­i­tors, both at home and at my work­place; I’ve even done so for co-workers!
• Wrap­ping them in duct tape to keep them rigid and using them for punch­ing prac­tice, a use I learned from the sen­seis at my local dojo.
• Burn­ing them, a hand­ful of pages at a time, on camp­ing trips, which saves me from find­ing or buy­ing kin­dling. If only my home fire­place didn’t burn gas… think of how many more of your gifts I could use!
• Impress­ing young ladies at par­ties (before I was mar­ried, of course) by demon­strat­ing my for­mi­da­ble power of strength and grip by tear­ing the thick books in two. (Between me and you, though, doing this is more about tech­nique than strength. Shhhh.…)
• Pil­ing them in my car’s trunk dur­ing a snow­fall to pro­vide the addi­tional weight needed for heav­ier, safer driving.
• Wedg­ing one between the garage door and its jamb to pre­vent it from clos­ing while I walk to the dump­ster to deposit the trash. This trick saves me from hav­ing to bring my keys down with me, which is quite handy when I’m in my boxers.
• Apply­ing the afore­men­tioned tear­ing tech­nique to gen­er­ate a con­sid­er­able amount of excel­lent mulch for our garden.

I could go on, but I feel I’ve con­veyed the util­ity of your fine prod­uct. Inci­den­tally, I’ve been told by my grand­par­ents that these cheerfully-colored books pro­vide yet another ser­vice: list­ing the phone num­bers and addresses of local busi­nesses and even indi­vid­u­als! Oh, how I do enjoy my grand­par­ents’ sense of humor… once they told me that stamps cost 23 cents and that the TV stopped broad­cast­ing at 2 a.m. I informed them that no, peo­ple don’t look in at sheets of dead trees for that infor­ma­tion… they use the Inter­net (I even said “the Inter­net” instead of “teh intar­webs,” which is what peo­ple call it these days, so they would know what I meant). They assured me the book had phone num­bers, addresses, and adver­tise­ments inside… and they were right! I checked and there it all was; guess I never both­ered to look before. Teaches me to respect my elders!

Any­way, I wanted to inform you that I def­i­nitely have enough of the “yel­low pages” and to please stop send­ing them. If I need more, I’ll be sure to call and ask. Your num­ber is on the Internet.

Respect­fully,

Scott Bush

PS — I’ve seen your TV com­mer­cials, too. I applaud your deci­sion to cast a real per­son cast as your mas­cot instead of anthro­po­mor­phiz­ing a phone book with a pair of eyes like those ridicu­lous Geico commercials.