I'm a little happier with the voicing of my latest column, but still not immensely so. Especially at the end I lose my ability to sound as if I am saying things naturally rather than reading them. Of course, it doesn't help that I actually am ill at the moment, suffering asthma like when I was a teenager and not really able to speak in full sentences. Also, I had grown sick of reading the column by the time I finally got a completed version. In my first take I had a coughing fit, second take I got distracted by my neighbour's speaking baby talk to his grandchild, third take the phone rang, fourth take the doorbell rang. It ended up taking 45 minutes to record this. I need to get some software that would allow me to edit voice tracks rather than having to get them right in one take.One...
My latest column is out and as has become the custom I've decided to read it to you. In listening back to it, though, I sound a bit odd. I sound angry. I am trying to annunciate, but it's not working. The traces of my Texas accent cause me to mumble and slur words (listen to me slaughter the word "generally" at the end of the recording), so I was trying to make everything clear. In so doing, I've made everything slightly bitter, as well.Obviously, my career as a professional voice artist won't be getting under way any time soon.One benefit to the audio version, though, is that I chose to read it as I wrote it. The published version is missing a sentence because my editor was concerned it would offend. That sentence is: "(I am) enjoying the fact that they show naked breasts on primetime...
Once again I give you the audio version of my latest column. this idea of reading the column aloud would be far better if I weren't doing it. In a perfect world, I would resurrect Orson Welles and he would provide the voice. I had also thought about having my dad read it. He and I have slightly similar voices but he has better annunciation. It would be amusing to give him a column and provide no direction, allowing him to decide what words should be emphasized and what pauses belong where. One of the weird things about writing is that the voice is not all that clear. I've been to book readings in which I sat there listening to the author voice his own work, thinking: "Dude, you are getting it all wrong."Although, I don't suppose there's a great deal of variation in the interpretation of a...
In a fit of whimsy (a) this week I decided to record myself reading my latest column. I realise that this is a sort of poncey thing to do, so I have come up with a few lame attempts at justifying myself:1) I always wanted to be one of those "snarky commentary" guys you hear on NPR. But since I am not from New York or Jewish, the odds of my getting that gig are minimal.2) Due to Congressional incompetence blind people aren't getting a chance to listen to as many audiobooks. It breaks my heart that there would be a blind person out there who might miss out on my column, so I've taken the initiative to provide the service on my own. I have no idea how blind people are supposed to navigate themselves to my blog, though...3) There is no #3.Anyway, here it is: (a) Fit of Whimsy is a good name...
As featured on Click2Houston.com:This time of year is difficult for a man; there's nothing good on television.What I mean by that, of course, is that there isn't much to watch in the way of sports. For many men, sports is the only thing worth watching.The football season is months away, baseball is at its tedious early-season stage, most people's knowledge of hockey begins and ends with the film "Miracle," and the only ones paying attention to soccer are us Anti-American Europhiles who are hell-bent on having the U.N. take over your town."What about basketball?" I hear you say. "It's playoffs, baby!"Exactly. There's nothing good on television. I question the legitimacy of a sport when the players haven't figured out how to dress properly.As a side note, due to my lack of interest, I had...
I have fallen out of habit of directing to my columns, but I am still writing them. Here's my latest one, which I am sort of pleased with simply because of the imagery, e.g., "dairy-treat-bearing land shark."To that end, I'm pretty sure that Bomb Pops to the Malevolent is a good name for a...
My latest column is out. It contains an edit that makes no sense to me. In talking about my university experience it says: "Consequently, I am struggling. Despite my ability to start a sentence with la-dee-da words like 'consequently,' I feel I'm just not good enough to be here."But "consequently" is not the word I had there. Originally I had "hitherto.""Hitherto" means "up to this point," whereas "consequently" means "as a result of;" so the meaning of the sentence is changed and it makes me seem like a person who thinks "consequently" is an obscure word. Ah, well. I'm not...
My latest column is out. If you read my blogging of the Super Bowl, the themes will be familiar but they are better fleshed out. My favourite part is the observation that: "rugby... is what football used to be before being taken over by figure skaters. American football is so laden with rules and technicality that is at times more performance than sport. Yes, I realize you need to be fit to run really fast and catch a ball, but is it a real test of mental and physical capacity when you're allowed to stop every 15 seconds and do the...
My latest column is out. Actually, it's been out since Tuesday, but I wanted to give more time on top to the story of my being attacked by a crazy woman. That's life, innit? You start to think things are getting too dull, and then someone comes at you with an axe and Samurai sword.I've only just noticed that the link I put in the column isn't working properly, so here's the link again. I'm not sure it's worth it for me to ask someone to fix in the story -- I get the feeling sometimes there aren't a whole lot of people reading that column. Not a whole lot beyond those of you who already read this blog, at least.To that extent, I've been carrying on an internal debate about whether I want to put the fiddle on the roof in terms of my column. "Rhoi'r ffidl yn y to" is a Welsh metaphor that...
If you haven't had enough Christmas spirit, my latest column is...
My latest column is out. And contains a sentiment that I will save for when I'm famous and asked to speak at high school graduations: Older people are not superior, they've simply had more time to formulate arguments that they...
My latest column is out, complete with family-friendly edit. My editor (who loves the Longhorns, by the way) felt that I would be less likely to receive grumpy e-mails if he changed, "I was singularly focused on getting her to take off her shirt," to, "... singularly focused on getting her alone."It defeats the point of the joke, which was to finish off a navel-gazing statement about my sub-conscious with a crass reference to sex, but almost certainly Adam is right. American news consumers are desperate to be offended and a reference to my fondness for certain parts of the female anatomy would give them too easy a target.Amusingly, I had already self-censored an entire paragraph. It is said that when Custer got his ass handed to him at Little Bighorn, some of his men went into such an...
My latest column is out Actually, it's been out since Tuesday, but I haven't really had time to get at the computer until today. I am busy reading Welsh-language novels. There appears to be an unwritten rule that in every single fucking Welsh-language novel the English must be nefarious, arrogant and ignorant/spiteful of the Welsh language. I'm a bit disappointed in this week's column because I wasn't able to come up with a way to directly reference the Triple...
My latest column is out. My favourite part is when I refer to myself as a "wistful girl's blouse." Also, I claim in this column that I am not being forced to sign statements of allegiance to Len Goodman. You'll note, however, that I conveniently left out the fact that I so totally would. Len Goodman should be...
My latest column is out. My dad's favourite line is: "I love me some Powerade."Unfortunately that line is a lie. They gave us Lucozade, but I felt it would slow the pace of the column to reference Lucozade and then have to explain that is a sports drink that is apparently for people who like to eat candy while running. Cripes that stuff is sweet. I also didn't mention my time in the column, which was around 1:54. That's a few seconds more than I ran in Fargo a few years ago, but I'm not particularly bothered because I had been suffering a pretty bad cold in the week before. At the starting line I was still coughing like someone's granddad.The run itself was enjoyable, winding from City Centre down to the Bay and then up into Bute Park. In my column, I make a bit more of Butetown than was...
My latest column is out and it's a pretty easy guess that I was going to write about my sisters-in-law. My favourite line this week is: "Westerners are bulls in a china shop where all the china has a little picture of a matador on...
My latest column is out. My favourite line is: "Personally, I haven't trusted those nefarious soft-servistas since they renamed 'Mr. Misty' as 'Misty...
I have slightly mixed feelings about my latest column, which is out today. I'm happy with it -- especially lines like, "...they throw themselves at it like Britney Spears to a bucket full of crazy," -- but what I'm saying isn't true, you see. I don't really miss TV news at...
My latest column is out. Actually, it's been out since Tuesday, but I wasn't near a computer to post it. Random line from the column: "In Britain it is more acceptable to kick an old lady in the shins than design straight roads that are easy to...
My latest column is out. It walks a little close to patriotism, but I think it works OK. Yes, I did learn about the story from "Coast." Neil Oliver is my hero.I'm trying to guess which angry e-mail I'll get first: someone upset at my jab at Texas public education, or someone from the Navy upset at my believing the...
My latest column is out and features the line: "Darling, your love is like the fine men and women of the United States armed forces."Something else that happened on 12 June 1999: GW Bush officially announced he would run for president. It's a factoid that my mother-in-law, a hardcore Republican, can take solace in -- at least the day wasn't a total...
Exams are Ivan "I must break you" Drago at the moment. It's yet to be determined whether I am Rocky or Apollo Creed. In the meantime, here's a bit more insight into what's going on in my head at the moment: My latest column is...
Remember when I used to write columns? Yeah, it's been a while. But here's my latest. I can't say I'm particularly happy with this new thing of highlighting target words for advertising purposes. It smacks of that attitude that restaurants have when they charge for water. But I don't actually work for the fine company that hosts my columns, so I don't really have ground to stand on. They give me an audience that would normally be completely impossible for a writer of my standing. So, if they want to put target-word advertising in my columns, they've got every right to do so, I suppose.And aren't I the pot calling the kettle black, with my Google advertising over there on the right? Just as the Google advertising covers the cost of my self-important domain name (It's netted a whopping...
My latest column is out. My editor occasionally drops stuff to make the column comprehendible to people not reading my blog (I have a bad habit of narrowcasting), so a reference to My Chemical Romance and text-speak were dropped, as was use of the phrase "de rigueur," as in: "(Members Only jackets) have become the de rigueur jacket of German exchange students."There are few things funnier to me than making fun of Germans.* *Even though I have a German lecturer who is actually pretty...
In all the fun of having a TV programme about me (you can now catch it online, and it will run again with English subtitles at 21:15 on Saturday), a major European event went unnoticed on this blog. Fortunately, I have made up for this by writing about it in my latest...
My latest column is out. With references to 1800s British government policy, vinyl records and the Polyphonic Spree, it goes without saying that I've completely missed the teenager demographic with this one. And I am just waiting for someone to send me a nasty e-mail for having insulted the Texas public education...
My latest column is out. In it, I effectively award a blog-mention point to Anthony. That means he and Dan are now...
My latest column is out and it contains some of my all-time favourite lines, including: "Crikey, immigrants are a bit frightening, aren't they?" and "Imagine a TV show that takes Flo from 1970s sitcom 'Alice,' NFL referee Ed Hochuli, some bloke who dated Carrie Underwood in high school and a handful of other people you've never heard of and pits them against one another in competitive bass...
My latest column is out, chock full of interesting facts about the town my parents' hometown.Another fun fact: There are 535 people per square kilometre in Lake Jackson, Texas. There are 2,263 people per square kilometre in Cardiff (of course, London blows both cities out of the water with...
My latest column is out, to give you something to read as you stuff another leftover mince pie down your...
