Real Ultimate Punchiness

When you slip a ninja joke into a headline, it’s time to go home for the evening.

I’m glad Peter’s getting this vacation — he certainly deserves it — but I didn’t realize just how hard his job is as editor.

“Chinese Democracy” gets a release date

A few days late, but this just gets funnier every time I read it: Axl Rose has announced a release date for the next Guns N’ Roses album, “Chinese Democracy.”

To say the making of this album has been an unbearably long and incomprehensible journey would be an understatement. Overcoming the endless and seemingly insane amount of obstacles faced by all involved, notwithstanding the emotional challenges endured by everyone — the fans, the band, our road crew and business team — has at many times seemed like a bad dream in which one wakes up only to find that they are still in the nightmare. Unfortunately, this time it has been played out for over a decade in real life.

The true, ongoing, behind-the-scenes triumphs and casualties are much more complicated than any negative speculation that the media or otherwise has managed to hit upon. For much of the time, various legal issues have arisen, demanding that the best way to deal with these things publicly, quite frankly, was to keep our mouths shut in an attempt to ensure the best outcome — especially one that wouldn’t jeopardize the band or the album. It’s easy for people to point out how others have handled similar situations or how they would have dealt with these issues themselves if they encountered them in their own lives. But again, without full knowledge of the various dynamics and circumstances involved, these types of comments or commentary are just uninformed, disassociated, generally useless — and often hindering — speculation.

In regard to a release date for the album itself, certain minor –- and I do mean minor — additions, as well as contract negotiations, need to be completed. Barring any unforeseen complications, these things have now been adequately scheduled. The band and I, along with our record company, feel that this record deserves the proper setup and promotion, not the “13 Tuesdays leftâ€? and “It may just appear in your record storeâ€? approach offered by management. We believe this strategy may have been used as a tool by management to sell this latest tour to the various promoters, and if this was the case, this was obviously unfair to them. The stress of dealing with this situation has been considerable for everyone, including the band, but more important, in our opinion, it was something utterly insane to do to our fans. You have our apologies, and please know we have been laboring over this with management for the entire North American tour.

It takes approximately eight weeks for an album to hit the shelves once it has been turned in to the record company. For whatever reasons, it appears that it may have been mistakenly inferred by management that this time period could be condensed to three weeks. With that being said, this is not a promise, a lie or a guarantee, but we do wish to announce a tentative release date of March 6. This is the first time we have done this publicly for this album. Others have made up all the other dates for their own reasons. We would like to assure the fans that everything in our power will be done to meet this date. Once it is finalized and official, you will be notified. If we are delayed for unseen reasons, you also will be notified as soon as possible in regard to a new date, and the album will be released as shortly thereafter as is possible. We thank you for your patience.

In the end, it’s just an album, but it’s one that I, the band, our record company and all involved believe and feel is a true Guns N’ Roses album. Ultimately the public will decide, and regardless of the outcome, our hearts, lives and our passion has been put into this project every step of the way.

The album will be the band’s first album of new songs since 1991 and was originally scheduled for release in 1997.

I’m not going to both keeping March 6 free on my calendar.

PlainLanguage.gov

It’s a little surreal stumbling across this site, but if ever there was an organization that needed to make an effort to speak in normal English, it’d be the US government: PlainLanguage.gov. (Academia could probably use it as well, come to think of it.)

Many definitions of plain language exist. Fundamentally, when we write in plain language, we present information in a way that makes it as easy as possible for people to understand. All definitions emphasize the importance of audience, clarity, and comprehension.

It’s depressing that this kind of thing would even need to be spelled out for government employees, but having had to puzzle through more than a few government documents in my time, I can’t say it’s a big surprise.

We’re all busy people. We don’t want to waste a lot of time “translating” difficult, wordy documents. Plain-language writing saves our offices time. If we save time, we save money. It’s good customer service and reduces the burden you place on the public.

Plain language means your readers can understand your documents more quickly. Readers won’t call you so much for explanations. They make fewer errors filling out your forms. They comply more accurately and quickly with requirements. If your customers don’t understand your documents, you may have to:

• Answer phone calls
• Write explanatory letters
• Write an explanatory document
• Litigate

Though no one knows the total cost of poor communication, the information we do have suggests it’s high. While writing in plain language isn’t easy, it pays off in positive results.

Despite the somewhat surreal nature of a site that has to argue that it’s beneficial to talk like a human being, there’s some neat stuff on the site, including a fun bit on How to Write Good:

1. Always avoid alliteration.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague–they’re old hat.
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
8. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
9. Contractions aren’t necessary.
10. Do not use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.

(Source.)

A site worth checking out for anyone who communicates with the written word. And in the 21st century, that’s pretty much everyone in the Western world.

Iraq news clearing house: IraqSlogger

With American embedded reporters in Iraq now numbering under a dozen, it’s worth seeking out additional sources of news about the war. One such source, with a staff of dozens of Iraqi reporters, along with compiling news feeds from elsewhere, is IraqSlogger.

I make no promises about the bias or lack thereof at the site, having just started reading it myself. I will say I’ve read stories there I haven’t even heard about elsewhere, which is probably a good sign.

Podcast line-up, December 2006

As promised, here’s what I’m listening to via podcast at the moment:

• APM’s Marketplace
• Coverville
• Dave Cusick’s Post Modern Rock Show
• Ebert & Roeper
• KCRW’s Film Reviews
• KCRW’s Martini Shot
• KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic
• KCRW’s The Business
• KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune
• KCRW’s The Treatment
• KQED’s The California Report
• NPR: 10 a.m. ET News Summary
• NPR’s Most E-mailed Stories
• NPR: Koppel on the News
• Official Disneyland Podcast
• On the Media
• Our Ocean World
• PRI’s The World – Geo Quiz
• science friday podcast
• StarDate
• The Official Lost Podcast – This may only work via iTunes nowadays; it gives Juice fits
• The Onion Radio News
• They Might Be Giants Podcast
• This Week in Tech
• Tiki Bar TV

As always, stick those URLs into the podcasting software of your choice.