The word is 'love', people!

Yeah yeah yeah. So I haven't written anything. So what ? You gonna make me ? Huh ? You think you're all that ?

Oh. You really ARE all that ?

Crap.

I'd better write something then. ( Don't hit me )

Okay - I guess mostly the reason I've been quiet is that I ( somewhat foolishly ) reinstalled "Heroes of Might and Magic 3" on my computer. If you've never played this game, you are both cursed and blessed. Cursed - because it's one hell of a good game. Blessed - because you're probably using your time in persuit of art, or truth, or a REALLY good grilled chesse sandwhich, or something OTHER than sitting in front of a computer screen going "I REALLY have to upgrade my army's archers ! Where can I find another lumber mill ? Where the hell did those dragons come from ? OOooh - My hero learned the 'chain lighting' spell - yay !".

I've got it more under control than my "Diablo 2" addiction ( that was bad - I can really never play that game again, as much as I loved it ... ), so that's gotta be worth something.

Viva and I also were in the Cook Islands for a week ( more on that later ), so that made updating difficult.

Anyway - I want to talk about langauge, funnily enough. In fact - the heart symbol. Having fuitlessly searched through all THREE freaking sets of 'win-dings" in Word ( does anyone ACTUALLY ever use these goddamn things ??? ) and not found ONE heart symbol, I am forced ot resort to this - *heart*. So - whenever you see that - imagine the heart symbol. Okay ? Okay.

You DO know that that wee heart symbol actually stands for the word 'love' - right ? It really does. So - when you see the title of a film like "I ♥ Huckabees" ( yeah - I know, I found one on the net just now. I shoulda looked there first ... ) - It actually MEANS "I love Huckabees". "We LOVE Katamari!" "I LOVE New York". No one EVER says "I heart New York!". Y'know why ? It makes no freaking sense ! That's why !
It's BAD English ! I mean - you don't ever say "That shirt costs dollar sign three hundred ! There's no way I'm shelling out that much asterix hash-symbol ampersand at-symbol pi leo-sign money for that !", do you ?

Well - not when you're sober anyway.

That might sound like a pretty harmless think to get annoyed about - but I am still nominally an English teacher, and I still want to jam a working chainsaw in the ribcage of any student to uses the word 'alot' in an essay.

I think I knew I was in trouble when my pal Hix, when we were talking about some actress ( it might have been Uma Thurman ), said "I heart her!". You never want to think about impaling your good friends with rusty gardening tools. It's a bad place.

So - just make sure you English speak good !