Tuesday, August 21, 2007

brave dog survives danger, shoddy writing

so cnn had this story on the air about a fourteen-year-old dalmatian that got stuck in a storm drain underground for four days; concerned friends and family eventually rescued him.

i went to the web to find an article of this happy-ending story that i could forward to my wife and her sister (both ardent dog lovers)

and this.... this is the first article i find:

KLTV in Tyler - proofread what you put on your website
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8/21/07 Wayne County , West Virginia
Dog Buried Alive Trapped Four Days Underground

Dog trapped underground in a storm drain for four days has been rescued.

Listen carefully, and you'll hear a grown man cry: Tears of triumph over tragedy. Finding his buried dog: alive.

This is a story of sheer perseverance! It could have had a completely different ending. The threat of a cave in, after heavy rain, was very real!

Alex the Dalmation was trapped 15 feet underground in an old storm drain. He crawled in to cool offand got stuck.

A danger, not only to the trapped dog, but it's owner: who had been digging for days to try and free Alex. A friend with a backhoe came to help, inching dangerously close. It's giant, iron claw capable of ripping the animal in half. A hole large enough to swallow this ladder whole and everyone and everything in it.

That was the thing we had to whisper a little prayer for last night, because these dogs get to be like part of the family.

But after 4 days of searching and two days of digging, Alex, was free.

For 14 years he has bee a part of Thompson family.

Alex was taken to the vet, early this afternoon: he arrived on a stretcher. iI's a miracle.

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a veritable minefield of:
- exclamation points! !! !
- colons and commas dispersed on a seemingly random basis
- fragment sentences that start almost in mid-thought and end jarringly abrupt
- apostrophes where no apostrophe should be
- missing letters and misspelled words


it's so bad, it's almost poetic. brave, brave doggy.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

30 is the new 20

hey, my friend of friends, Steven, who in the beginning gave birth to this website, was given birth to on this earth this day thirty years ago!

so happiest of birthdays to you Steve, my contemporary. if your thirtieth year is anything like mine it'll usher in an era of curiously increased focus on the richness of the green color of the lawn grass bordering your domicile. then again, recent home ownership may have contaminated me as a subject for purposes of the scientific "age 29 vs age 30" study.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

i'm alive

that is to say, i'm more alive than my blog has been of late.

same excuse remains: work and process of moving into home, trying to keep track of all the things to buy and errands to run.

bright spot of hope: probably going to get a new laptop soon so i can take care of my computer reponsibilities wirelessly from the comfort of our couch at home. this will enable some more responsible blogging frequency (and possibly catching up on old post ideas that have been mouldering) than what i am able to accomplish at odd moments during the workday