&c., &c., &c.

First, some housekeeping items.

I know the Razor hasn't been particularly funny lately and I'm sorry. However, you can only make fun of your friends and family so many times before that becomes sort of worn out. Further, we've hit a dry spell with political sex-scandals, and I can't make them have sex with each other... (On second thought, attempts to coerce this might actually be entertaining. What kind of mood music would entice you to sleep with Al Gore or Congressman Mark Souder? )

Back in early summer when the Razor was really hitting its stride, there were millions of things to satire and lampoon almost everyday. Lately, not so much. I fear, the Razor has become almost (mis)educational. Oh well...

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And complaints about the lengths of these posts? Hit the mark.

I’m sometimes unsure how much knowledge to assume, here on the Razor. My inclination is to assume a great deal, but then I relent and include massive amounts of back story. So perhaps my attempt at clarity adds unnecessarily to the length of Razor posts.

(As an aside, are you surprised to learn that I do not know how to spell necessarily? I've attempted to spell it with all sorts of combinations of c's, s's, and l's without yet hitting on the right combination. Spell check fixes it every time. So I have a goal.)

Further, from time to time I go back in the Razor catalog and read some of the old posts. Occasionally I'm embarrassed by something that I wrote, and it's usually because I'm not happy with the depth with which I explained something. (Slicers are NOT encouraged to make comments or send me e-mails regarding this particular topic.)

Also, I fear there is a "frame of reference" problem. I read 50 times more words per day than the average person. So the posts don't seem that long to me. It's this intake that allows me to construct these beasts. In spite of this massive amount of reading, I still think my knowledge of most subjects is about 1 mile wide and 1 inch deep. Just this past weekend I was challenged to debate the difference(s) between a silkworm and Caterpillar. To save face, I declined. The next challenger who makes this mistake will be assaulted with information about Bombyx mori (or Bombyx mandarina, depending on location) with such force they'll surely regret it. (4 paragraphs explaining why these posts are so long!)

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Am I going to write a book?
Yes. The pre-writing phase is basically complete. I hope to start with the actual writing soon. So you should see it sometime around 2020. In the interim, Slicers are encouraged to print out all of my Razor posts and put them in a 3 ring binder.

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Some language? One of the confounding things about English is how you can really screw up a sentence by using the wrong variation of their/they're/there, but at the same time make up an entirely new word that has all of the clarity of a word 100's of years its senior. Examples? The Mayor of Chicago misspoke “insinnuendo”, which is not a word, but its meaning is perfectly clear. How about a Palinism? “Refudiate”. Again, not a word but clear as a bell. Neat.

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Finally, my Mom noticed this article (or one like it) which tells us that the Cuban government will be laying off 500,000 workers over the next 6 months. Her thought? Employ them to train dophins. Those Slicers not immediately recognizing the reference are re-encouraged to click here and here. Also, several lazy Slicers have asked me to update them when the next installment of this series comes out. Not yet, lambs.

Beam me up.