| September 4, 1998 |
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How many errors in spelling and grammar can you find in this selection from the 7 Deadly Sins mailbag?
ok... i have a "?" your so loose and cool with the seven deadly sins yet you
seem to readly endorse homosexuality and athiesm and even take the pro side
against those how would would stop such things... seems we like to pick and
choose what we believe in huh? "no, no killing bad ! and so is lazyness, but
go on and shove your pecker in his ass!" let me just say that it is hard to be
good but doesent being gay fall under lust? (i can hear you groaning with
pride in your own opinion) after all the only reason to have sex with another
ones own sex would be only to preform the act and have the sensations of such
? am i in error ... in my very humble opinion i think not.. your loose matter
(again in my own lil opinion) is ok.. its the fact that you pick and choose
what you use so much... and very readly ignore other "sugnificent" things.. ow
well... i dont really care so much as im curiouse...
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Following my dizzying rise to celebrity status after Entertainment Weekly included
the Seven Deadly Sins Homepage in its
50 Greatest Lists of All Time, I made some dramatic changes. I quit my 9-to-5
and started my own biz, doing website design. And as my first autocratic act
as my own boss, I ordered myself to take a vacation.
Off I went to England, a small and quaint country located off the coast of Maine. The choice of vacation spots was an easy one -- it was in England that one of the earliest and most creatively spelled references to the Seven Deadly Sins was made in literature, in The Canterbury Tales:
| Now is it bihovely thyng to telle whiche been the sevene deedly synnes, this is to seyn, chiefaynes of synnes. Alle they renne in o lees, but in diverse manneres. Now been they cleped chieftaynes, for as muche as they been chief and spryng of alle othere synnes. |
There was also a family-visit related reason for going to the U.K., but that is its own story, as family visits are wont to be. Anyway, for any Americans considering a trip to England, I would lay out the following considerations for whether or not to go. CON: You are likely to be killed the very first time you attempt to cross the street in England, when you step off the curb looking in the wrong direction for oncoming traffic. PRO: Any given spot in England is less likely to be butt-ugly than any given place in America. Also there are those cute accents to consider, as well as the fact that the basic beer in any British pub makes American "beer" seem about as tasty as drinking out of the toilet bowl.
I've been lucky enough to travel to a few different places, some of them genuinely exotic. One thing that mystifies me -- no, actually just pisses me off -- is the tourist who journeys to distant locations to see amazing new things, and somehow fails to anticipate that toilet facilities vary considerably from one culture to another. Strange but true: just as the substances we hoover into the front end differ around the world, the places, times, and manners in which people choose to release the resulting waste material are astonishingly diverse.
In my travels, I have seen many exotic toilets. So it was with a curious, rather than critical, mind that I approached the fascinating toilet in one of our hotels. The lid featured this alarming notice: WARNING: W.C. EQUIPPED WITH AUTOMATIC PUMP/SHREDDER. This was repeated in three languages ("ACHTUNG: ELEKTRO-WC!") and followed by detailed instructions of what kinds of objects should not be introduced into the toilet bowl. If you bend your imagination to it, I bet you can conjure up a fairly accurate guess at what the WC with the automatic pump and shredder sounded like. It was disturbingly like there was something in there noisily eating whatever was just flushed. What occurred to me, as I found myself seeking as many opportunities to use the WC with the pump and shredder as possible, was that this is the true joy of travel: experiencing the mundane in an entirely novel and slightly harrowing way.
Coming soon: pictures and ripping tales from England.