Yes, but I TYPE like Jack Kerouac.

I read an Associated Press article by Jake Coyle on the Washington Post's website about the popularity of a site called I Write Like which allows people to paste in a few paragraphs of text, compare it to a database of works by about 50 authors, and then tell them which author's style the software thinks they resemble.

Coyle writes that when others tried it out, I Write Like thought one of Mel Gibson's obscenity-laced phone tirades directed at his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva positively Margaret Atwoodian, while Margaret's writings turned out to be Steven Kingian, a distinction shared by Herman Melville.

I uploaded a few examples of my own (that's not) writing (that's typing) and got a different result every time. I write like Stephen King; I write like Charles Dickens; I write like James Joyce; I write like Kurt Vonnegut. It's good company, even if I turn out not to write anything like my homegirl Peggy Atwood. I'm relieved that none of my writing samples came back - as other people's have - with the alarming words, "You write like Dan Brown."

It could have been worse: "You write like the guy in your legal department who drafted the boilerplate Master Software Development Agreement With Intellectual Property Rights."

What you might find in a dyslexic nephrologist's office.

Ten Most Infuriating Provisions Of The New Health Care Bill.

10: In addition to free health care, Kenyans entitled to weekly massages.
9: Canadian-style hospitalization rules mandate Labatt Blue I.V. drip for all patients.
8: Tea-Party-related injuries not covered.
7: People of colour not required to sit in back of ER waiting areas.
6: Carrying of concealed firearms by anesthetized patients forbidden.
5: Before being euthanized, elderly patients to be used as test subjects for live organ transplants.
4: Mandatory recycling of bandages and sharing of casts.
3: As cost-saving measure, hospital gowns to be 3 inches shorter.
2: Surgical masks to feature advertising.
1: Poor people will have access to basic medical care.

One of these things is not like the other.

"Well, you like that Ricky Gervais fella in the British version of The Office, and you were always talking about how funny he was in Extras, too, so naturally we thought you'd like this movie that didn't have Ricky Gervais in it and was about that airplane crash in the Andes where the survivors had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive."




(Full-size (484x398) image here.)

Idle Thought Occasioned By A Single Line On "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart."

Jon Stewart quoted that old saw, "Nature abhors a vacuum." He repeated the word for emphasis: "ABHORS."

Then it occurred to me that the Universe, i.e., all of Nature, is mostly vacuum. Another old cliché debunked.

You're welcome.