Thursday, April 30, 2009

Try not to run amok

SWINE FLU NEWS. Daffodil J. Altan over at the OC Weekly reports (here)—or maybe just opines—that those surgical masks that everybody’s dying for are useless.

My sister Annie told me that she was at Home Depot yesterday and some lady was literally running through the building crying that she could find no surgical masks! “There’s a pandemic!” she yelped, said sis. Annie claimed to be standing right there where they keep those mask that workers wear when they’re, like, blowin’ leaves around and disturbing the peace. For some reason Annie didn’t clue the lady in about that.

So, anyway, Daffodil reports that
After essentially quarantining a CSULB student who has received a "probable positive test" (um, is it or isn't it?) for piggy flu, health officials on the Long Beach campus handed out surgical face masks to students on campus who have "been paranoid," according to a Press Telegram report.

That’s pretty funny, I guess. But don’t be surprised if, one day soon, you open your door and see a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If people can vote for George W. Bush twice, they can run amok looking for useless leaf-blower masks.


FIRE. Did you notice the fire at the IVC library a few days ago? Yeah, right there at the “grand entrance hall,” about twenty-five feet up and to the right, a light bulb in one of those ritzy Art Deco fixtures caught fire. I’m told that the first sign of trouble was a smell of melting or burning plastic. Sensing trouble, students started running out of the building—just like Kevin McCarthy in, well, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Then that light bulb caught fire. Flames, smoke, screaming.

I guess they (whoever “they” were) took care of it tout de suite. (Sorry, I meant “lickety-split.” What was I thinkin’?) All you can see now is some black soot up and around the fixture.

A friend said, “Hey, what if this happened on the weekend?” I said, “Yeah. The contractor must’ve bought some cheap econo-bulbs from China.”

“Yeah,” he said. We grunted unpleasantly.


ZODIAC. Did you hear about that OC woman who, yesterday, held a press conference—up in San Francisco—to declare that her father was the Zodiac Killer? It’s probably BS, but you can read all about it here.

DAVIES. The OC Reg’s Science Dude (Paul Davies) reports that
Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist widely known for helping explain the origins of the universe and for his eloquence in discussing the nature of science and religion to the public, will give the undergraduate commencement address at Chapman University in Orange on May 23.

SWINE 2. Inside Higher Ed reports this morning on cases of swine flu at college campuses, including a suspected case at San Diego State University.

Have a nice day. Try not to run amok.

9 comments:

mad as hell said...

One horrible (but not really surprising) outcome of the swine flu reports is that Egypt is planning to slaughter its *entire pig population*, even though no traces of the virus have been found there in pigs, at last report--and even though the pigs are the main means of disposing of garbage in some places.

The paranoid and hysterical at Home Depot and college campuses have a lot of company. Once again, as so often, innocent animals will pay a steep price.

It's enough to make you wanna run amok.

Anonymous said...

Chunk, I believe the French for "immediately" or "right away" is "toute suite," although I may be a little rusty.

Anonymous said...

Actually, "tout suite" is a common error. The correct phrase is indeed Roy's "tout de suite," meaning immediately in French. Don't readers of this blog own dictionaries?

Anonymous said...

Huh! How about that. Just a case of rustiness and faulty memory. But you needn't be mean about it, 10:13.

Anonymous said...

p.s. Sorry, Roy--nothing more annoying than a correction that is WRONG, tout court.

Tout le monde should indeed consult their dictionaries more often.

;)

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed the "correction." For a while there, I was persuaded that I had invented the "de." A case can be made for the correctness of tout suite as a slightly anglicized (or de-frenchified) term. "De-frenchified." I like that. I shall use it often. -R

Bohrstein said...

Roy, ya gotta present an example sentence when you create a new word.

E.g.
Post 9-11 someone de-frenchified my french fries, thus I enjoyed a nice basket of "freedom fries."

Anonymous said...

Like what has been done to pommes frites, croissants, et le quiche in this country - de-frenchified.
ES

Anonymous said...

Oops. I didn't read thuroughly enough. She doesn't pain anywhere else? IMO she should. I guess from what you said the street art is still there too. Hopefully it will be there for a long time.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...