Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: Books and Bistro (Page 65 of 92)

What type are you?

The typist type?

Times change, but WE don’t always. When you call someone to apologize for your grievous error, do you plead, “Don’t hang up!” Even if you know they’re on a cell phone?

Heck. You know they can’t “hang up.” They can only “click off.” Or, is it “push red?” Touch End?

We don’t have a great phrase for this yet – I’m thinking. When don’t have a new phrase, we cling to the tried and trusty phrases during our daily conversations. And we have a bunch.

Don’t touch that dial, for example. In truth, though, I don’t hear this one so often anymore. There haven’t been dials on televisions for ages and even most car radios by now are fitted with buttons rather than dials.

Got a note from the BA bureaucracy the other day. I’ve snapped a picture of the official line, where we business owners must affix a signature or undoubtedly suffer the consequences. In case my camera-work doesn’t do it justice, I’ll just spell it out: TYPE or PRINT.

Huh? What’s that?

I have to print or – Type? I’m guessing I am one of the few licensed restaurants in Broken Arrow (probably Oklahoma) that actually has a typewriter on the premises. Bound to be one of the few operators who actually took Typing in high school. Are those machines honestly (Or dishonestly?) still being used in some offices?

A young fellow was in the shop with his mother and looked at my Royal, positioned at the front window.

Mommy! He called out, Look at that old, old computer!

Before screens were invented, I wanted to say. But, I’m half-tempted to use that machine on my response form…

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St, Broken Arrow OK!

The words. A clue to authenticity.

Don’t get me wrong – I love George Clooney. Here’s the trouble. Right off the bat, George’s character says, in the World War Two setting, “We have been tasked with….”

Reality check.

In the WWII era, NO ONE had ever been “tasked with” anything. They might have been assigned the task of, or have been “given the task of” doing this or that. George’s new movie, Monuments Men, is set in the 1940s, back when the word “task” was a noun. They’re changing up the grammar rules, I guess.

Tasking? Or – as presented in the past tense – tasked? I’m sorry. That’s a made up word. Like gifting.

Engish, I realize, is a constantly changing language.

But it will be a good while before I snap a “selfie.”

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main, Broken Arrow OK!

Ooh. Sooners!

I expect a call immediately from OU coach Bob Stoops. Thanks are in order. There has been a (shall I say it?) jinx over the years. When I watch the Sooners play on TV, they lose. When I don’t watch – they win. Needless to say, I was in front of the television the night of the Sugar Bowl. I watched a crime show.

Granted, I flipped over every ten minutes or so. I was fortunate enough to watch – LIVE – a Sooner touchdown! I changed channels immediately, worrying about the whole sports balance of things. (When I flipped back later, there was a significant penalty against OU, which I figured was Karma for my having seen an OU scoring drive.

Earlier in the evening – me alone in the bookshop – I said some words I won’t repeat in this public forum – after hearing the ESPN announcers prognosticating the odds of a University of Oklahoma win as slim. NO. It wasn’t a no chance thing, not at all, it was an impossibility for the University of Oklahoma Sooners to win the Sugar Bowl game against the Alabama Crimson Tide. No. No chance. Nada. None, whatsoever. (Get it?) The Sooners can NOT possibily win. Oh, the announcers were very eloquent about the subject, but the bottom line was, the University of Oklahoma against the University of Alabama? Sell the souls of your children. It won’t make any difference. No divine intervention will stop the Crimson Tide. Not a prayer in the world will be heard on behalf of an OU win.

Arghhh!

It’s hard to hear that kind of talk. Especially when it comes to the Sooners. I’m old enough to remember the years of Sooner Magic. When – against all odds – the Sooners – Oh, OH! Time is running OUT! – pulled out the win.

OH!

The blood pressure! Now, SportsCenter is calling it the biggest upset in the history of the collegiate Bowl Games. AAAaaaaahhhhhhhh! It is only an UPSET because the on-air doofus-announcers chose to call a Sooner’s win an impossible task.

Ouch.

I’ m really proud of OU – knocking off the Crimson Tide in a BCS Bowl Game. It never occurred to me that winning the game was against ALL odds. But that is what ESPN is all about.

They’ve even hired Tim Tebow, their main-man, their Prince-of-Pigskin, their Messiah of Mainstream, as a broadcaster for future collegiate games. Their guy who was the answer of ALL football questions. His future co-horts?

Mark May? The fellow who said the Sooner had ABSOLUTELY (Absolutely!) no chance of winning the game? Ooops. He was wrong.

Has he admitted his error? Not as of this late hour.

It doesn’t matter to me, though. My daughter – and all the money I could spare – went to OU. She was gracious enough to invite me to some Father-Daughter games and I was flattered at her invitation and excited to attend with her. As an OU family, it means a lot to get a win. (I remember when she attended a Bowl Game in New Orleans and the Sooners lost. The LSU fans wound up buying her drinks, even in her loss. (She knows public relations!)

Congratulations, Sooners! (And – as for my personal struggle – wanting to watch the game but knowing I can’t because of the resulting jinx – I’m hoping my viewing-abstinence can result in some form of – game over recollection – or at least a chance to watch a replay.) Nah. On second thought – I’m just happy just to have tuned in at the end, when the University of Oklahoma got the win over the team that ALL over America thought would be the winner.

Boomer. Sooner!

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Broken Arrow, OK!

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