Period, the underappreciated punctuation symbol.

I've realized that our little punctuation friend, the period, gets very little respect these days. Compared to its cousins, the question mark and the exclamation mark, the period seems boring in contrast. Its existence, banal, its sole purpose seemingly only to serve as the end to sentences in which we do not wish to convey any emotion. When people are angry or upset, it is the exclamation mark that becomes the sentence-ender of choice, for example, "I'm getting very angry!". Similarly, when there is confusion, the question mark is the only choice, i.e. "What's going on?". If things are really crazy and there is confusion AND anger, the period is always left out of the ensuing orgy of punctuation symbols, such as in "What were you thinking?!?!?".

After much rumination, I've come to the conclusion that the period is capable of conveying just as much feeling, if not more, than the exclamation mark and the question mark.

For example, compare and contrast the following AIM conversations:

superstud19: i think i'm gonna flake
girlie32: fine!

superstud19: i think i'm gonna flake
girlie32: fine?

superstud19: i think i'm gonna flake
girlie32: fine.

First of all, the second conversation doesn't even make any sense and this would only happen if girlie32 did not have a firm grasp of the english language. With that said, I argue that the third conversation carries significantly more emotional weight than any of the other sentences. The combination of a single world plus a period convey a cold sense of finality, a feeling of "this is it" that the first conversation lacks with the exclamation mark. "Fine!" seems chipper almost, infusing the conversation with unnecessary enthusiasm. In fact, if I were superstud19, I would think that girlie32 was making a funny joke. In fact, I would laugh! "Hehe! girlie32 is expressing her anger in an exaggerated and over-the-top way in the style of George Costanza!" On the other hand, "fine." seems dead, it's not just "fine", but "fine... PERIOD."-- the conversation has ended and there is nothing left to discuss. I would be infinitely more crushed and soul-bruised if the third conversation were to take place. In fact, if the third conversation were to take place, there would be grave consequences, so grave that the resultant conversation would be laced with many more unnecessary periods to illustrate the seriousness of the situation. Possibly along the lines of:

superstud19: i think i'm gonna flake
girlie32: fine.
superstud19: why are you so mad.
girlie32: i'm not.
superstud19: yes you are.
superstud19: now i'm mad too.
girlie32: fine be mad.
superstud19: }=( .

Okay, now wasn't that conversation just dripping with malice and emotional gravity?? I thought so.

So yeah, the next time someone makes you mad, you might just want to think about adding periods to the ends of your sentences and letting your little pal period do some work for you.

My Blog's Reading Level

Aww helllll yeah.

I mean, what I meant to say is: I am deeply humbled that my meager little blog has received such high acclaim from this computer algorithm that counts the number of syllables in my sentences, of which there are many. This is, of course, simply a natural consequence of my Faulkner-isque writing style and not a feeble attempt to misrepresent my inteligence. Now if you'll excuse me, I am off to jubilate my award.

Cal Football

As much as it pains me to say this, we simply do not deserve to be invited to a bowl game this year.

SPAM

Here is a recent spam email that I found in my gmail spam folder:

From: Chris A. Gleason
Subject: With larger peni's you will have the hottest women at your feet

Message:
that my name has been linked to known steroid users bythis information half an hour before it actually
"All we know at this point is that there is a bombDadullah also claims that there are "hundreds" of


Tired of viewing explicit videos and tossing off,
because you cannot find a lady, who would be contented with your small penis?
Then our offer is definitely for you!
With MegaDick you will be able to upgrade your ding dong adding several extra inches to its size and get it on with any woman you wish!

And believe us, she will never stay dissapointed!

Try it here now and prove, that you deserve better s'e_x!


individuals of interest to federal agents and may be"All we know at this point is that there is a bombWe didn't receive press releases or scripts in advance
taken into consideration as they try to take measures tosources who refuse to be identified in order to generate

_________
Best regards,
Chris

So what I don't understand is this: who is actually clicking on the links in these emails? The title of the email and the body of the email are barely even related and the body of the email seems to contain several different messages. Even the TITLE of the email has a misspelling. Yet, surely someone is clicking on these links otherwise whoever's spending the time to create these emails would be broke already... right? I don't think that there are people who are so desperate for enlargement that they'd just click on the first link they'd see and it's not like there is a compelling message within the body of the email that would fool anyone with any sort of reading comprehension to go to the advertised website. At least the spam emails from those supposed Nigerian princes asking for advanced deposits to liberate their family fortunes have an actual storyline. I could see people getting tricked by that.

By the way, to avoid some chance ironic situation where one of you people reads the above email and is inexplicably convinced to click on the link, I changed the URL to cnn.com so you didn't get computer viruses.

Anyways, I suppose people might click on the URL if they really don't understand computers at all and if they just click on blue text blindly. But if that were the case, it seems to make more sense just to send the URL without the extra stuff. Something like:

From: Chris A. Gleason
Subject: With larger peni's you will have the hottest women at your feet

Message:
http://www.expand.com

Now I could see people clicking on that. I might even click on that if the title of the email actually interested me (which, in this example, it doesn't). I guess the spammers don't do that because it would be too easy for software to filter out.

By the way, the above link also points to cnn.com. Don't believe every naked URL you see on the internet!

Things to come

I've decided to once again re-sharpen my writing skills and so naturally, I thought I'd do so by posting my assorted thoughts in blog-form online where you wonderful people can partake in the magic of my nascent writing and then post anonymously to tell me I'm an idiot.

There will be a couple of changes on this blog from my previous blog/xanga/website incarnations. A couple of points:
1) I will be posting about whatever I like. Back in the day, I used to actually pander to you people who wanted entertainment. Entertainment! Like I was some kind of clown. Now, I will post about all sorts of things. New topics will include sports, videogames, maybe even some politics. Let me just say right off the bat: I am neither a sports guru nor a particularly well-read individual, in fact, my "sports posts" might just consist of nothing more than "Go bears!" or "Cal sux :(". Every once in a while, I'll roll off a multisyllabic word to create the illusion that I now what I am talking about, but in reality I know nothing.

2) I'll still post random thoughts but they'll be far sparser than before and they probably won't be whimsical or funny at all. You might be surprised to know that about 75% of the time not much is going on in my head and when there is something, it's usually about something dull and not entertaining at all, such as how I am going to scrounge up enough quarters by the end of the week so that I can do laundry.

3) I should be posting semi-regularly. Now, I know that I said this when I created my website and that I said the same thing when I made my xanga, so you are all probably rolling your eyes with doubt. Doubt me will you?? Damn you!


Anyways, that's all for now. Welcome and please check back for more!


There is a 50% chance that this will be the last post I ever write on this blog.