Proofreading a dying art?

I got this email from a friend. And it made me laugh. I can definitely relate to these funny headlines. I work for the local newspaper as a proofreader. Every week I come home complaining about headlines. It would have been faster to type it & then add my own formatting. Instead, I copied & pasted & then worked hard to get it to look the way I wanted it to.

Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife and Daughter  This one I caught in the SGV Tribune the other day and called the Editorial Room and asked who wrote this.  It took two or three readings before the editor realized that what he was reading was impossible!!!  They put in a correction the next day.       Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says No crap, really? Ya think? Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers Now that's taking things a bit far! Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over     What a guy!      Miners Refuse to Work after Death     No-good-for-nothin' lazy so-and-so's!    Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant   See if that works any better than a fair trial!    War Dims Hope for Peace    I can see where it might have that effect!     If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile    Ya think?!  Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures     Who would have thought!    Enfield ( London ) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide     They may be on to something!  Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges   You mean there's something stronger than duct tape?       Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge      He probably IS the battery charge!    New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group     Weren't they fat enough?!   Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft     That's what he gets for eating those beans!      Kids Make Nutritious Snacks      Do they taste like chicken?    Local  High School Dropouts Cut in Half      Chainsaw Massacre all over again! That'll teach'm to be dropouts!  Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors      Boy, are they tall! Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead      Did I read that right?

Some of our own bloopers are a house with a wooden dick instead of deck, LOTOJA peddles though town - bicyclists pedal, not peddle; through not though.

snopes.com

Don forwarded an email to me. It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in. Nine things to do in an emergency situation. It was supposedly written by a cop. I don't forward many things any more, most of the time they are "urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation." I can go to Snopes . com & get the real scoop. So, that's just what I did for 9 Tips. There was one for a serial killer luring women from their homes with a taped recording of a crying baby.

And another one I hadn't heard of before: Water scam! If you wake up in the middle of the night to hear all your taps outside running or what you think is a burst pipe, DO NOT GO OUT TO INVESTIGATE!

Snopes didn't really address the last one, however, they did give some tips:

1. Avoid potentially dangerous places.
2. Stay aware of your surroundings.
3. Do not get into vehicles with strangers or allow them into yours.
4. Do not let strangers into your home.

In 1983, Don & I, along with his parents & brother Reed, were held up at gun point in a Pizza Hut restaurant in Salt Lake City on West Redwood Road. One of the things, Frank, Don's father, did, was to throw his wallet under the table. He & Bertha had been on several cruises & he may have been given that tip by a "tourist gude." However, it didn't work in a restaurant & probably wouldn't in any closed place. Instead, the gunman made him pick up the wallet & stuck the gun in his belly. We were fortunate he did not pull the trigger. Frank was the only one in the entire restaurant who could identify the make of the gun. Bertha was amazed & asked him how he knew. The rest of us were also amazed. Frank replied we'd have looked at the gun too if it was stuck in our gut. Yes, we may have looked at it, but the rest of us wouldn't have been able to identify it.

Yes, most women do just sit in the car when they get in. I have my key out, ready to unlock my car & I put it in the ignition as soon as I get in. One time, before my mission, I was sitting in my car. I had just come out of the bank & got in the car. I was sitting there getting situated & along came a couple of men talking. The older man, turned at my car, still talking to the other man, opened the car door & climbed in. The other man just stood there staring at him & I ... I was shocked! I said, "What are you doing?" He apologized, got out & hurried over to the other car

Happy Halloween

I think it's been over a year since I started blogging. It was a year ago today that Lynette brought Mufasa up to stay for a "little while." I'm thankful that Kents are taking care of him. I fell almost every day last winter going down to feed him. Shari's dad made him a nice cinderblock dog house. We all feel sorry that he can't get out & run, but ... he is uncontrollable & will run out into the highway.

On another note, even though I have cut down drastically on forwards, I find that I am still insufferable in inviting people to join causes & sending stuff on Facebook. "I just can't join everything you send." Well, I don't try to join everything everybody sends me, nor do I open every forward. I delete them or block them. I don't tell the person or people either, although there are a few times I have felt like saying something. President Peel told me as a missionary that I needed to have a gracious heart. And I have tried for many years to follow that advice. If asked directly, I will say something like, "I didn't open that." or "I blocked that." or "I didn't see that."

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of they friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

~ John Donne

Donne puts forth the idea that people are not isolated from one another. Nice thought & beautiful words. I certainly feel like an island. I feel like a pariah, isolated - always doing something wrong.

In one of Arlene Eakle's classes at the Family History Expo retreat that I got to attend this week, she talked about how some people only will associate with people of their own religion, family or neighborhood. She was talking about censuses. She said people are not alone. Ha!!!

"So, don't send me any forwards, don't send me anything you think I might be interested in because I'm not interested in anything except what I am interested in." is the message I feel I have been given.

Well, because I played hooky from work this week, I have to pay the piper & work tomorrow. I hope there's not a lot of work to do & that it doesn't take forever. I took Mother to the doctor on Friday, Oct. 16, & worked Saturday & Sunday. I worked SIX hours that Sunday, Oct. 18, until 10:30 p.m. So, I need to go to bed.

Time flies ...

when you're having fun. I decided my blog list was getting rather long & so was my archive list. So, I've spent the last hour or so doing some housekeeping. Not often I do housekeeping, but computer housekeeping doesn't bother me. I could spend hours computer housekeeping, which I do, & we live in squalor.

I was bummed when I found that Alashandra had wrecked her car, but even more so when I found out she was on her way to the Porter Family Reunion the last weekend of June 2008 & we weren't even invited. Always wondered if the rest of the family thought we were part of the family. I wonder who hosted it & where it was at? It's Mother's turn to have the reunion this year, guess we'll just let it go & let them have their own reunion.

I don't know Loraine's sons-in-laws names, so I had to do some reading. Found out that Alashandra's husband is Matt & Morgan's is Mitch. I only know Tanya's husband because I faithfully read Baby Jonah's blog. Sometimes I check it twice a day. Morgan's blog is private, so I haven't even tried signing up for it.

I left some blog names cuz I like them. Em's Blog is my cousin Edmond. I remember his dad calling him Em.

I had to laugh when I was talking to my friend Janene on the phone the other night. She said she remembers my blog name as Do-Re-Mi. I love it. I told her that works. Almost wish I had thought of it myself. When Don & I got our first email address we named it radon. We thought we were really clever. Nick thought it up, RaDon. Well, guess what? It says ray-don & is an explosive gas. The boys were always laughing at the ads of ridding your house of radon. They said they didn't want to get rid of their parents, LOL. I always said I was explosive, but only when set off :D

PDD-NOS is pervasive development disorder, not otherwise specified. Nick is on the autistic spectrum, the reason I have that bookmarked, but it hasn't been updated for quite a while & I don't know that diet is going to help with Asperger's syndrome anyway.

Computer addict

Hello, my name is RaNae Bartlomé and I am addicted to message boards, Facebook & blogs. I found this blinkie & loved it. She even has a hat!!! Hey, she's my kind of woman. That's another thing I'm addicted to, blinkies, emoticons & hats, LOL.

I just get online to check one tiny thing, see something & I have to check it out. I see an article someone has posted a link to in the New York Times. Now, I know myself well enough to know that my short term memory sucks, so if I don't read it right now, I'll forget where it was. I HAVE to read it right now. I click on the link, read it, decide, "Ewww, that's good. I need to send that to Don (or someone else that might enjoy it)." I then realize I can't remember Don's email address & also find that I can't email it unless I'm a registered member. I still want to send it, so I register, then I still can't remember the email addie, so I have to go to my email account, that btw, I don't check for days. It is so full of junk mail, I hyperventilate when I see how many messages I have in my inbox. Today I had 621 unread messages out of a total of 1,110. And, not only that, I just added one more place that will send me even more junk mail! But I wade through the first page, find that Don has forwarded some emails to me, so I pick one that is titled, "FW: How to fail school tests with dignity." & open it, find his email addie, quickly highlight & copy it, but, of course, now I have to read the email. It's not just text, it's been forwarded 7 times so I have to scroll down to find what he forwarded. It's pictures of actual school tests with the student's answer & the teacher's comment that you have to read to get the joke.

Ok, by now, I've been online, at least 45 minutes longer than I wanted, sigh.

And today, once I read the so-called article, I found that it wasn't just an article, but a blog!!! And now, I need to add it to my blog list, because it's not a new blog, but has been going on for quite some time & I know I can't read it in one sitting, so I come to Blogger & log in so I can add the URL to "More Blogs." I find that even though I added my cousin Loraine's new blog last night, I didn't comment & something one of her girls commented, struck me funny & so I HAD to comment. Yep, I checked it again. By now I've lost another hour and 20 minutes.

I have eaten, only because Nick was kind enough to cook me a pizza when he cooked his own. I'm still not dressed, haven't taken my meds, but I have made the bed.