Phonetic Alphabet

A friend of mine challenged me to learn the Phonetic Alphabet. You know the one--it's what soldiers are busy saying in all the old war movies: "Roger Home Base, this is Echo One. Our location is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Awaiting instructions. Over." I was initially unconvinced of its value to a civilian in the 21st century except as an engagingly eccentric interest/ability; of which some would say that I perhaps already have an overflowing cupful.

Yet, I was recently doing that thing where some business has established a convenient voice recognition system to aide you in your inquiry, but, woefully, it only speaks a sub-dialect of Russian, so when it inquires, "What movie would you like to see?" and you respond, "Zombieland" it says, "You have selected 'Maid in Manhattan;' is this correct?" Except I was actually using United's phone booking system and the automated woman and I were facing some early relationship jitters as she consistently misheard my boarding code, which was something intuitive like XGFCHLMT. After the third failed attempt she says, "We appear to be having difficulty understanding each other." I reflexively brace myself for the "It's not you it's me" speech, but then she says, "Let's try something else. Say the name of something that begins with each letter. For example 'Alice' for 'A' or 'Bob' for 'B.' Please repeat your boarding code this way now." Too late I realize the utility of the Phonetic Alphabet, which would have gotten me quickly to my flight departure information and made me look impossibly cool at the same time. Instead, I made up wild silent letter and other fantastical associations for my own amusement--"X as in Xylophone, G as in Gila Monster, F as in Fenestrate." She was less than amused. I gave up on our burgeoning love (hey, a sense of humor matters) and pressed "O" for a live human being.

Don't get caught out this way. Immediately, as I now have, memorize the following alliterative alphabetic mantra:

ALPHA
BRAVO
CHARLIE
DELTA
ECHO
FOXTROT
GOLF
HOTEL
INDIA
JULIET
KILO
LIMA
MIKE
NOVEMBER
OSCAR
PAPA
QUEBEC
ROMEO
SIERRA
TANGO
UNIFORM
VICTOR
WHISKEY
X-RAY
YANKEE
ZULU

PS - Have you noticed that Joss Whedon is using the Phonetic Alphabet to name the "actives" in his underwhelming new tee-vee show, "Dollhouse"? Oh, and "I am Trying to Break Your Heart" by Wilco is Golf Oscar Oscar Delta; now playing on iTunes.

5-4-Fri: Horrifying Things

Tomorrow is Halloween, so this week you get a list of five woefully ghoulish, terrible, horrifying things:

1. Blue Jeans Shorts. There is never, repeat after me, never any excuse for wearing blue jeans shorts. Hemming them only adds several centuries in purgatory. One exception: short cutoffs on hot girls in the 1980s; if this does not apply to you gender-wise or temporally then don't even think about it.

2. Tramp Stamp. As Chris Rock noted, any girl working the pole is a living symbol of parental failure. Don't extend the discussion to include shaming your parents with a lower back billboard. What one might refer to as the buttal philtrum should be bare--not covered with a butterfly that will just metamorphose into a bat as you age.

3. Barbed Wire Tattoo. For guys with no sense of shame, there is the barbed wire tattoo around the biceps. Dudes, see supra. Don't do it. You don't look like a super hero. You don't look like a football player. You don't look cool. You look like a dork. You look like someone who doesn't realize that your tattoo will be an ironic Abu Ghraib-like fence around your arm waddle when you're 70. Also, ladies, if Pam can't pull this one off, neither can you.

4. Mullet. This hairstyle has been much ridiculed elsewhere, so I'll leave it at simply shivering with repulsion and warning you off it; but beware its modern iterations. WHAT are the producers of the otherwise charming "Castle" thinking by giving the easy-on-the-eyes Stana Katic a girl mullet this season?!

5. The White Hemp Choker with Sea Shell Accents. Ever meet some tool who has been to a surfing lesson once on Spring Break and now obsessively wears brown leather flip flops and board shorts topped by a white rope surf choker? Me, too. Sporting these brotastic necklaces is a fashion nightmare for the turtle-shell-ribbed belly-baring boy toys of Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs and it ain't gonna work any better for you. Please--and I am begging America here--please stop it.

PS - I am not a close follower of Billy Ray Cyrus' career, but I think it is possible that he has been a combo-platter offender on all fronts here. And he's busy plowing new ground. I stumbled across the Disney juggernaut "Hannah Montana" on cable television the other day and daymn if Billy didn't show up playing Miley's fake-life dad and sporting blond highlights, a soul patch, a spin art Bonnaroo tee, some kind of dominatrix-like leather watch band the width of a WWE trophy belt. Maybe I'll go as him for Halloween this year. Spooky! (Sorry, Bill, but you put it out there.) Oh, and "Misirlou" by Dick Dale and the Del Tones is scary good; now playing on iTunes.

Crisis of Credit

Annnnnnd, we're back. Thank you caller. We were talking about the messed up US economy and how such a thing happens and who is to blame. Well, as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Oh, and also the enemy is the sickening and woefully insatiable gluttony of Wall Street...Pogo forgot to mention that part.

To date, the best explanation of what the heck is going on with the Great Recession that I have seen is "Crisis of Credit Visualized"--an animated primer on how the American economy went belly up based on credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, sub-prime mortgages, credit crunches, and other highly jargonable phrases uttered on NPR that you might not have fully grasped when they first smooched your ear with their authoritative yet somehow incomprehensible syllabic combinations.

Enjoy. (For a while I had this thing parked on my Bookmarks toolbar; that's how good it is.)

PS - I am loving the idea that Greenspan seems to be saying, "Uh, about that whole self-regulation thing, I might, uh, have been wrong." Well, maybe the economy can rise like a phoenix from the ashes of boneheaded, unregulated greed. Oh, and "1901" by Phoenix is on fire; now playing on iTunes.

My Twitter Resume

@ iclipse My Twitter Resume

RT @mom Congrats on graduating
RT @mom Now get a job
RT @dad RT @mom Now get a job
whois jobsforenglishmajors
RT @mom nudge iclipse
get pewhealthprofessionsprogram
RT @dukeu Welcome to the team
#pewtrusts Got a job baybee! But I am just a freelance Consultant, tho
RT @dukeu Want a full time gig?
#pewtrusts Hey, I got promoted to Communications Associate. Hello benefits!
leave pewhealthprofessionsprogram
get pewcharitabletrusts
RT @dukeu Best of luck in Philly
RT @pewtrusts Welcome to the team
#pewtrusts New job as Executive Asst at Pew HQ. Yea!
RT @pmahottie Whatchadoin? Look, peeps, I gotsa girl.
#pewtrusts Job sucks doode
RT @pmahottie Its not you its me. Aww man I got dumped
RT @pewtrusts Best of luck somewhere else. Anywhere else
#pewtrusts PCT fail! Heading to DC...
leave pewtrusts
get instituteforeducationalleadership
RT @iel Welcome to the team
#nhec Super fun new gig y'all; I am a Sr Program Associate
#nhec Can't believe its been 5 years
#nhec RT @iel Funding Fail. Woefully, I gotta get a new job
RT @grayciegrace Hey, we have a spot open at Nat Geo
leave instituteforeducationalleadership
get nationalgeographiceducationfoundation
RT @iel Best of luck at National Geographic
RT @natgeo Welcome to the team
#nattyg I am a Program Officer
#nattyg Hey Jane Goodall is in the elevator
#nattyg RT @natgeo Nice work-Enjoy the raise. Hey, I am Director of Strategic Programs now
#nattyg RT @natgeo Okay you have been verrry patient so heres a raise again. Woo hoo! I am full on Director of Grantmaking
RT @natgeo In lieu of a raise how about a title change?
Like what
RT @natgeo Like Associate Executive Director
Any hope on the cash?
RT @natgeo Shut it
#nattyg Hey, everboddie, I made Associate Executive Director

@iclipse References avail on request

PS - Wow, it's true, you can condense your life into 140 words or less! But I am still not gonna join Twitter; cannot say the word "tweet" with a straight face (or say the word "venti" at Starbucks -- enjoy giving me a "large" coffee or suck it). Oh, and "American Girl" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers is tight; now playing on iTunes.

Do It: Check Out Blog Wild

My pal, Ford, is doing a new blog for National Geographic. A great way to keep up with the planet via readable, photo-heavy entries with irreverent titles.

My favorite so far: the headline "Canada Rules World" on an entry about a team of three teens who won the National Geographic World Championship (the international version of the Geography Bee). Woefully, the "brand" could never come up with something so ironic and funny and relaxed.

So, do it: check out Blog Wild.

PS - You can learn all sorts of stuff at National Geographic. One of my favorite recent ah-ha moments was discovering Africa's "desert blues." Oh, and "Ai du" by Vieux Farka Touré is wild; now playing on iTunes.

5-4-Fri: Online Cartoons

The Internet gives and gives. One of its high points is the plethora of comedy. Within that genre, I am enamored of the cartoon/animated funniness. Here are five sites worthy of your attention:

1. Doonsebury. Gary Trudeau is America's premier satirist, has a hot wife, and still produces this awesome comic strip about Mike Doonsebury and his pals, which is so on-point that newspapers cowtowed to threatened politicians and moved it to the editorial page. Check it out daily.

2. Homestar Runner. This fully online animated series takes real advantage of the Net to produce an original virtual world of nuttiness. My favorite part is how Homestar's friend Strong Bad is a Mexican wrestler with boxing gloves and surplus attitude who manages to answer your emails despite an obvious typing impediment. I have never laughed harder online. This series is so funny that I still watch the by-now endearingly retro site intro.

3. New Yorker Cartoon Bank. Your pal, iClipse has been a die-hard New Yorker reader since he was approximately 11 years old. Now-a-days, Robert Mankoff offers you access to the magazine's predigous archive of cartoons online; but the best--and most frustrating--offering is the Caption Contest. Each week, you are presented with a captionless cartoon and the chance to suggest a caption and win a signed, framed copy of the cartoon after the New Yorker publishes your winning entry in the magazine. No, I have never won, woefully. Yes, I feel robbed.

4. Odd Todd. One day a dude got laid off and started a site about it. Odd Todd has emerged as one of the InterWeb's most interesting and amusing homes for humor and grown organically as its founder has grown up. If you've never been, start here.

5. Dilbert. By now, a classic. Still, the more and more I work in an office, the funnier this strip gets. Congrats to Scott Adams for keeping the effort up and remaining relevant (I'm talking to you, Cathy).

PS - My brother has suggested a pretty funny (but technical) humor site to me, which I am enjoying as well. Check it out. Oh, and "Fou de Fa Fa" by "Flight of the Conchords" is funny, funny stuff; now playing on iTunes.

Funny Thing: Kids Today

Time for another "funny thing happened" anecdote. This one highlights the truly sublime nature of intergenerational change.

I have a colleague who was recently in an elevator with a 13-year-old girl and a few 7-8-year-olds. No, no, not like Michael Jackson; he was just in the elevator with them.

The younger kids were discussing their distressing lack of phone signal in the elevator and the 13-year-old turns to my colleague and says without irony "Wow, what's happening these days? When I was 7, I didn't even have a cell phone! Today's kids are just ridiculous. Right?"

PS - I am flabbergasted by the woeful lack of perspective that some kids have these days, although I am quite sure that I came off this way a bit when I was a kid -- "You had to have big ICE BLOCKS delivered to cool the refrigerator?!" Still, I didn't have a cell phone until I was 37, much less seven years old. Oh, and "Amsterdam" by Guster is download-worthy, kids; now playing on iTunes.