Creme That Egg!

(See: The Land of Chocolate)

T-minus 16 days until Easter. That means only 16 days until I can drink Dr. Pepper again. Also, this is the time of year I hopelessly gorge myself on Reese's Eggs. (They say if you give up one vice, you replace it with another...) Why is the peanut butter in them so much better than the regular cups? This is a mystery I have yet to solve.

Along with:
1.) Why did a bunny became the nameface of Easter?
2.) Why would a rabbit horde eggs? Last I checked, rabbits were not reptiles OR fish, so there's no parental instinct. What are those little buggers hiding??

Well, how bout this for an answer to both questions, albeit from a possibly unreliable Wikipedia article:

"Eggs, like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols of extreme antiquity. Since birds lay eggs and rabbits and hares give birth to large litters in the early spring, these became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth at the Vernal Equinox." Interesting.

On a related note, somebody had way too much time on their hands:

Vagrant Flautist

Two and a half years ago, I went to New York City, and one of the most striking memories I gained from that trip was seeing a homeless man playing "America The Beautiful" at the World Trade Center site. He had a long white beard, and he donned a bright red, thick windbreaker to shelter his somewhat fragile body from the cold autumn wind.

I recently returned to New York City last weekend, and found the exact same man (pictured above) filling the area around the Washington Museum on Wall Street with raw notes from "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Kind of a surreal experience anyway, but made even more surreal by the fact that I saw him twice, in a different spot, many moons later.

Chief

Move over Robert Parish. There's a new "Chief" dominating the basketball courts these days.

I submit for your approval the ass-kicking-est name for an athlete anywhere ever: Grlenntys Chief Kickingstallionsims, Jr. (or Chief Kickingstallionsims for "short"). The 7-foot chief leads SWAC-champion Alabama State against Morehead State tonight in the NCAA tourney play-in game. I'm going to watch, simply because I wonder how they can fit his name onto a jersey.

The story: Chief Kickingstallionsims Fills Out His Dance Card. (I especially like the first comment on that blog: "Speaking of which, whatever became of that high school prospect, Medicineman Punchingdonkeygasms?")

Side note: On the eve of the men's NCAA tournament, you heard it here first: Duke over UConn in the championship. (With North Carolina and Michigan State rounding out the final four.) Also, going out on a limb on the women's side, I'll boldly predict UConn will complete their undefeated season. Hardly an unsafe bet, seeing as their average margin of victory is 31 points, and they haven't won by less than 10 points all year.

JoshCast #4 - Betrayal

Tim Reynolds, one of Dave Matthews's partners-in-crime, is a can't-miss live act, from what I hear. A couple of years ago they teamed up for a show at Radio City Music Hall, an exhibition that was immortalized by CD/DVD/Blu-ray. "Betrayal" is one of two songs Tim performed solo at that show; this recording isn't quite as sharp as the one from the Radio City album, but it's still not too shabby:

Betrayal - Dave Matthews & Tim...

EDIT: Hooray! Now this is the MUCH BETTER recording from the Radio City album. Enjoy.

Literally

I was watching TV the other day, and an advertisement came on for a Lasik eye care clinic. Patient after patient made a brief, glowing testimonial about the wonders of laser eye surgery. One woman gratefully declared, "Lasik eye surgery changed my life. Literally."

Which got me thinking. (Unfortunately for you, the reader.) I think the word "literally" has lost its meaning. In the context described above, its purpose used to be well-defined: to distinguish the literal meaning of a phrase from its figurative or metaphorical meaning, and to drive home the fact that you actually intended to use the phrase's literal meaning.

I've noticed that my little step-sister (just one representative from the up-and-coming "Generation Text") says "literally" all the time, but each time she does, it's not to serve the aforementioned purpose. Rather, it's to emphasize what she just said. Sort of like an exclamation mark, without the shouting. In that commercial, the Lasik eye surgery REALLY changed the woman's life. It's not like we could make the mistake that she meant that figuratively, right?

Examples of how literally "should" be used are difficult for me to come by right now for some reason; anything I come up with now in my stream of consciousness seems a bit contrived. But here goes anyway.

1.) "Wow, that wind tunnel blew me away. Literally."
2.) A college student, who on a particularly wild night that included seven Bud Lights and (for some reason) a little carpentry which resulted in him missing the nail with his hammer and instead breaking his index finger, might say, "I got so hammered that night. Literally."

You get the point.

But maybe the ongoing evolution of the word "literally" isn't necessarily incorrect, i.e., it hasn't really lost its meaning. Perhaps it's simply a change. The English language just changes. Every word of it. My dad, also known as Super English Teacher Man, has an old textbook that shows this happening. No joke, a printed quote from the Anglo-Saxons from the 1200s (or something like that) looked like the typewriter threw up on the page. But that's exactly where English was born 800 years ago, and this is how far we've come. From the olden days of the Shakespearean plays, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the lyrics of a Beatles song, just about everything about the language has evolved to what it is now. So why not the word "literally"?

Can you say "over-analyze"?