FROM THE DEPT. OF PEOPLE WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER
If I try to turn my boyfriend's name into a verb, and the only person who picks up on that verb is my ex-boyfriend, does it still make a sound?

Annnnd... there goes my respect for Chip Arndt.

MARK TWAIN HAD SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS...
Heh. From the Gay City News web site:

Obituaries
A Life Lived Long and Well

Poor Bertram Schaffner. That's sad.

But not as sad as the fact that the article says only that Schaffner is turning 94 years old. While that is quite old, it's still not quite dead.

Gay City News regrets the error, and promises to try to rein in the ageism in the future.

ACTUALLY, THE WORD IS 'FARBED'
Way to go, Reichen. Make it all about your circle.

You know, I was sympathetic to Lance Bass -- in the 'I don't care how and when you got there, and good for you' sense -- but my feelings may be subject to change... especially if Lance and Reichen are going to start to think they invented homosexuality.

Because everyone knows that The Gay American invented it. Dumbasses.

TOWLEROAD COMMENTS MAKE MY HEAD HURT
Thought of the day week month: 96% of the people who comment at Towleroad need to put away the keyboard and get a hobby.

Discuss.

UNANSWERED PRAYERS
Sad. Touching. Poignant.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Some of the letters are comical (a man asking God to let him win the lottery, twice), others are heartbreaking (a distraught teen asking forgiveness for an abortion, an unwed mother pleading with God to make the baby's father marry her)... The letters -- about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister -- ended up dumped in the ocean, most of them unopened...

"There are hundreds of lives here, a lot of struggle, washed up on the beach," said Bill Lacovara, a Ventnor insurance adjuster who was fishing last month with his son when he spotted a flowered plastic shopping bag and waded out to retrieve it.

Oh wait. Never mind.

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But he hopes to change that soon: He is putting the collection up for sale on eBay.

I don't know about you, but I'm bidding on the abortion letter. It's the American Way.

WHY JOHN KERRY MUST GO
No, not because he blew the 2004 presidential election.

No, not because he has the singular ability to turn a mangled joke into a major national controversy threatening his party's chances to capture both houses of Congress.

No, not because of that hair.

John Kerry must be thrown out of the United States Senate and possibly deported because he hires people who say things like this:

"The methodology behind this scorecard is cuckoo for cocoa puffs," Kerry spokesman David Wade said.

I know what that means as an advertising tagline, but it really doesn't work as a synonym for 'ridiculous', 'crazy', or, well, plain old 'cuckoo'.

So, David Wade, please stop saying that. Unless you mean that the methodology behind the scorecard is craving something crunchy, chewy, and chocolately, in which case you can say it, but that would be one fucked up methodology.

And in any event, everyone knows that the methodology behind the scorecard is magically delicious. Dumbass.

OOF!

• Banksy, everyone's favorite guerilla artist, breaks a personal record by raking in £50,400. The image? A Kate Moss-as-Marilyn Monrow portrait. Um, okay... [BBC News]

I think everyone knows that should be 'Mary Lynn Munrow.'

Queerty regrets the error. And reminds you to vote for qwality bloggening!!

TRAGEDY STRIKES ADVOCATE WRITER
My heart aches for red-headed writer Michael A. Knipp:

If I knew then what I know now—that standing out is actually a blessing—I would have embraced my uniqueness when I had the chance... Embracing age 25 this year, however, is a different story. That prospect hurts worse than any playground insult I’ve ever endured.

Poor thing. Too To endure red hair and extreme elderliness all in one lifetime! It's almost too much to bear!

Folks, this is the sort of tragedy they write operas about. I weep... I weep... but at least it's nice to know that The Advocate found space for this column. Otherwise they might have been forced to, oh, review a book or something.



[Post edited to change 'too' to 'to', since Chrisafer is such a perfectionist. Of course, the original misspelling was done on purpose, but still...]

I FEEL THEIR PAIN
True story: back in the late '80s/early '90s, I worked for a Member of the New York State Assembly, and one of my responsibilities was to write the quarterly newsletter. The newsletters often included constituent surveys, and one question we intended to ask in this particular survey was:

* Do you support a ban on smoking in public places?

Keep that question in mind when you read this linked article. And then just imagine my embarrassment when that newletter hit 40,000 mailboxes across that Assembly district.

THE MYSTERIES OF RHYMING SOMETHING WITH 'PITTSBURGH'
I must be totally stupid this afternoon -- no comment needed from the likes of you, thank you very much -- but I have have had my brain flipping through the mental pages of a rhyming dictionary for a while and I can't figure this out:

Sienna Miller apologized Friday for disparaging Pittsburgh in a magazine interview, saying her remarks were taken out of context and that she found the city and residents gracious...
The 24-year-old British actress, in town shooting the screen adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," called the city a profane name that rhymes [with] Pittsburgh.

So... uh... what profane name rhymes with 'Pittsburgh.' A little help?


UPDATE: Never mind. The word is 'Shitsburgh.' Eh... not really worth my effort. And if that's what passes for clever in the world of Sienna, no wonder Jude fucked the nanny.

YOU CAN BE A POST COPY-EDITOR!
All you have to do is tell me what is wrong with this headline!

SLAY BUST ENDS
30-YEAR WEIGHT

And before you start thinking that's a play on words, it isn't.


PS: If they correct the on-line version, I'll scan the dead-tree version.


PPS: I know I've been acting like a school marm lately, but -- at the risk of being branded a hypocrite -- WTF? Has the heat made everybody so sloppy that I don't have to look twice for these things to jump out?


PPPS: One more point of clarification -- I don't get bent out of shape when the average blog or personal page makes a mistake. But if you are a news source or make statements that your site was "born out of a gaping void in online publishing" or the like, you should hold yourself to a higher standard. In the words of Miranda Priestly, that's all.


PPPPS: Uh... nothing. I just wanted to type PPPPS.

TYPE FIRST, THINK LATER
From Queerty:

• The NFL opened its rookie training symposium with an openly gay speaker (a NFL vice president, no less) at its diversity training seminar. In the program's 10-year history, this is a first. [Out Sports]

Uh... no. If you actually read the article, you won't find anything that even hints that the NFL vice president is gay. As a matter of fact, he's married and has six children. I'm sure Queerty regrets the error.

And from, uh, Queerty:

...while the LGR's site Schwarzenegger's record on GLBT issues as "extraordinary,"...

A few corrections are in order:

1. The acronym for Log Cabin Republicans would be LCR, not LGR. I'm sure Queerty regrets the error.

2. The word is 'cite,' not 'site.' I'm sure Queerty regrets the error.

3. If they must pluralize LCR -- I'm not sure why, since it is an acronym for a plural to begin with -- they should lose the apostrophe. LCRs, not LCR's. I know that some style guides disagree with me, but they are wrong. Still, that's enough give them a free pass on the apostrophe... not, however, on compound pluralization.

Ah, hell, the kids at Queerty can always find work at 365gay.com, so they'll be all right.

TOM CRUISE GETS PERSONAL?
Okay, we don't actually know if it's him or not, but -- over at Boing Boing -- there's speculation that the definitely non-homosexual male half of TomKat has taken issue with a Fark link.

Small penis's? I definitely need that wife-beater.

UPDATE: And speaking of Fark, how drunk was this Farker when he or she sent in this item? Dare I speculate that the Farker in question works for 365gay.com? (Cheap shot taken because that's what I do.)

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: The misspelling of Cheney (as 'Chaney') has been corrected, but the comments live on, as does the misspelling of 'victim.' Once again, I intend to take credit for this, whether I deserve it or not.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT
Big deal. I've done this. (via Fark)