".... we still face negative unemployment among people who understand the Internet. "

This is a quote from an article by Jakob Nielsen, famed usability dude.

I read this article some months ago, and I still from time to time suddenly have to stop and ponder what exactly "negative unemployment" means. The double negative here fascinates me perversely.

Had reason to re-remember the dubious term again today.

It'd be nice if Mr. Nielsen applied a few of his commandments on usability to sentence construction and comprehensible terms.

"Negative unemployment impacted the micro-climate."

"The guru's legacy triumphs mainly on the plain in spain."

"Right-sized. What a load of .... Omphalaskepstic euphemisms."

Ooh, I'm just making up hype-speak now. Making up THOSE sentences sent a shiver through me -- like the kind when you poke at a bruise on your arm intentionally just because it sort of feels good to irritate the tender spot.

Make them stop.

____________

On the other hand, an email thread with my old friend Lenore led to making up some other sick things today. Under the subject: "The POEBOAT, with your Cruise Director, Ligeia", I degenerated into this spew:

Nautical bells, bells, bells. The Loooooooosssssst Looooove Boat ..... sinking evermore ....

Just imagine Ligeia, the Cruise Director, with that short feathered hairdo, and your laughter will render all her shuffleboard sign-up sheets powerless .....

Join us for the Masque of the Red Lido Deck as we sail to our luxurious destination: a weekend jaunt around the the Plutonian Shore on the

Loooooooosssssst Looooove Boat ..... sinking evermore ....

with:

Hop-Frog, as Your Bartender
Montresor, as the Captain
Roderick Usher as "Doc"
and the Ourang-Outang, as Your Yeoman Purser

____________

I think I have to stop the graphics binge soon. My brain is obviously leaking. On the bright side, though, I just finished the page where I made my older novels available as PDF files now .... if anyone wants to see them, they must email me as they're tucked only in a semi-public directory. I decided not to make them fully public, but I'll pretty much let anyone who wants to read them have access to the directory .....

Need to redo the writing index to include this now .... but I think I'll nap a bit now.

I seem to have started in on a graphics cycle that just won't leave me alone. Everything requires something else to be done. Although I started messing with some graphics projects and some web page re-hashing in order to take a break from writing, now the graphics have taken over my attentions, and I bloody well want to stop.

Lessee. What have I done that is viewable? Bloody little, actually. I did a bunch of stuff in preparation for a bunch of other stuff mostly. Although I DID register my own domain, finally: batcafe.com, and moved the "Bat Cafe" newish sub-section over to that before it grew mold. I redid the Poefest on Sepulchritude front page. (Happy Edgar Allan Poe day, two days late, by the way). I did this or that.

And just as news for the current thread going on in my guestbook -- I've been experimenting with Quicktime movie stuff -- so .... if I can figure out how to compress the dang thing enough, perhaps, just perhaps, "Une Saison En Enfer, Mon Amour" might surface on web page in the conceivable near future .....

I must cease with the graphics binge soon, though, because I WAS, before I started in on this, in the midst of working on a novel. I only meant to take a short hiatus from writing on it -- to let the research settle, as it were ....

The Chicken Glass. Found 3 of these at Goodwill for 99 cents each. It was a goodly day.