This sentence is worth 38 points.

In a city as big and old and famous as New York, there's a landmark on nearly every corner. Someone was born here. Someone died here. Some drag queens started a social movement here. Someone recorded a watershed album here in the '60s. Here's a cafe from Sex in the City. Everyone's got a story about some point of pride in their neighborhood.

Just recently, I learned that the birthplace of Scrabble is the Community Methodist Church in my neighborhood. To commemorate the fact, the street sign on the corner of 35th Avenue and 81st Street, where the church is located, has been made to look like it's composed of Scrabble tiles. It's a bit esoteric, like nerd humor, but I think a subtle nod to a great invention is more clever than a boring old plaque.

Keepon Dancing

This is an old one I forgot to post.

I don't want to be one of those guys who mistakes commentary on YouTube videos for original thought, but this one is too cute to pass up.

This thing dances better than most people.

Here's that little robot, Keepon, again in Spoon's video for "Don't Evah," one of my favorite songs at present. It's crazy how a pair of google eyes can trick you into having an emotional response to a motor and a pair of sponge balls.

Someone at work turned me on to Spoon. I'm scared to buy a whole album, so I just picked up a few tracks from iTunes. (Who buys albums anymore, anyway?)

I made that mistake once before when I fell in love with Combustible Edison after seeing Four Rooms, which featured their music in the opening credits. I only saw the movie because Madonna was in it. I bought one of their albums and sort of hated it.

B CRFL W YR TXT MSGS

For the ultimate in introverted passive aggression, you can't beat text messaging. Who knew the technology would become so indispensable to me?

But be careful. When too hastily thumbing a note to someone, it's far too easy to muddy the message with entirely the wrong word. If you can train your phone well enough, that word-suggestion feature can be handy — for proper nouns and unusual spellings, especially. I, on the other hand, still can't find the quotation marks or parentheses on my phone. There is little hope for me.

For instance, I can't really use those abominable abbreviations so common among nearly everyone younger than me. (The title of this post is somewhat misleading, then.) I have to teach my phone almost any abbreviation. It can backfire, though. I taught my phone the abbreviation "VM" for "voice mail."

Clever, eh?

Not when you're trying to type "to" ... a word that comes up, I have found, an awful damn lot.

There is some comfort at least in knowing that my phone expects something closer to Standard English from me.

Worse, I have somehow managed to program in some completely ridiculous substitutions. Whenever I type "at," the number 28 appears. Instead of "can," I get "226" — which is considerably less useful.

Often the effect is just comical. Once while thumbing out the word "pimp" I got "shop." (I forget the context. Does it matter?) Clicking through the substitutions was almost almost poetic:

Shop
Sins
Pins
Pimp

Here are a few more interesting accidental substitutions I have come across recently:

• Hate yields have


• Male: make


• Save: rate


• Season: reason


• Soon: room


• Note: move


• Go: in


• Fat: eat


• Doll: folk


• Brian: asian


• Home: good


• Stick: quick


• Saloon: salmon


• Kind: line


• Of: me


• If: he


• Mine: mind


• Much: ouch


• And my favorite... Pew: sex

Diamonds are Indeed Forever

Rivaled only, perhaps, by Alanis Morissette's cover of Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" is this startling yet gorgeous rendition of Pink's "Get This Party Started" by the legendary Shirley Bassey. A friend of mine directed me to this video confection at Joe. My. God.
Girlfriend sure looks good enough to eat! I wasn't sure it was even her at first. Immediately, her take on this song seems utterly wrong to me, but seconds later, she wins me over.

I was a great fan of her Propellerheads collaboration "History Repeating" until Graham Norton killed it by making it his theme song. It's great to see that this woman is still having fun. Catch the laugh on her face when she sings "I'll be burning rubber/You'll be kissing my ass"!

I Want to go to Prison, Too!

This is one of the most fabulous things I have ever seen. On so many levels.

Bear in mind, this is supposedly a prison in the Philippines. I love the guy who plays Michael's date.