Cromulence
The other day, Jason Kottke posted an entry about the word "embiggen," calling it a "cromulent" word.
I had to look up "cromulent." I don't remember what it means, but I know that it comes from The Simpsons, a show that, like almost all televised entertainment, I have never seen.
The Simpsons challenges my sense of humor. I know that it's supposed to be funny, but I disapprove, massively. I am a complete prune on the subject of The Simpsons. Never having seen the show, I don't know what it is that I disapprove of, but that's not important. As my mother once said, when all my sister and I were doing was burning incense, "I'd know the smell of marijuana anywhere!"
As far as I'm concerned, the only constructive thing that the Federal Communications Commission could conceivably do would be to stop television altogether. That's right - no more TV for anybody! Given my draconian perspective, I didn't really give a damn about the Second Circuit's rejection of an FCC ban on "vulgar" language. The deck on the Times story, though, was amusing. "If Bush Can Blurt Curse, So Can Network TV."
When I got up this morning, the cable service was out. When I tried to place a call on the cell phone, the screen told me that I had an "unregistered SIM card." Both problems have been cleared up. The cable service came back on after a while, and rebooting the phone (if that's the way to put it) cleared up the registration problem. But I'm feeling a bit fragile.
To put it another way, I'm in no mood for cromulence.
