Honest question from someone who thinks you're awesome: How do you pronounce your first name? I was taught as a child that you should make an effort to say people's names correctly, always, because it's often the first chance you have to make a respectful impression. And people will respect you if you respect them. …

There's a funny Hark, a Vagrant related to this!

Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound, Polliver, Thrillist...

Yep, the men at my company are "passionate" but I'm just a bitch. And I'm in big trouble for this. It's so dumb.

I stood up for myself on two related work issues today — I refused to be a pushover, and pointed out both problems in detail, and asked for improvement from the other side. But instead of looking at the merit of my complaint, I'm now being lectured on my communication skills.

A story you folks might like: Lostronaut, by Jonathan Lethem (New Yorker fiction)

I am drinking a Curious Traveler Shandy. It is delicious! Found this product at a craft beer festival last weekend, and the distributor guy said they sell it at Wal-mart (yuck) — but sure enough, my WM had it. It's a good spring/summer beverage.

Class of '95 and a 5th-generation IU grad here! Bloomington is a fantastic town, and deserves to be judged by far more than these dumb girls. Was just there last weekend, had dinner at the Irish Lion — such memories! (Blarney Puffballs + Nutty Irishman)

TEAM EDITH! I hope she takes a lover.

I don't even know; I just saw some obtuse reference to the fact that some people apparently asked for, and received, some sort of new authoring* permissions at the time of site update. Whatever or wherever it was, I totally missed it.

Yes, I missed the "get invited to be an actual author" post (or whatever it was) on Groupthink, and now am demoted to little more than a troll — dammit, I had a star once!!

You might get a lot out of the novel The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. Very nice work.

I'm OK with (or can adapt to) most of these changes; the one thing I really do not like is the over-large image capability, on the home page. Makes it difficult to fake like I'm working, in a cube farm! And I would like the opportunity to select "Latest Posts" as my default, cookied display. Thank you.

I am of the opinion that anyone who perpetrates a purposeful sexual assault has rescinded his/her right to be treated or tried as anything but an adult. I just think that type of crime is "adult" by nature — and letting these kids off with relatively light punishment is an inappropriate technicality. (PS: Bullshit…

Girl, get thee to "The Fault in Our Stars." And maybe "The Book Thief."

Linda Lovelace? Larry Linville? Lex Luthor?

She's Harvey Weinstein's It Girl this year — of course she won, he bought it for her much as he did for Goopy years ago (when Cate Blanchett was CLEARLY more worthy, for her tour-de-force Elizabeth I). But JLaw didn't play along with the Daddy's Little Girl speech like Gwyneth did — I bet he's pissed at her for that!

As a kid, I used to see phone numbers in sets of colors — usually horizontal stripes. My mom's office number was 257-6977 and it was gold and black and sage green (and there was a little bit of wave and sparkle to the stripes). My best friend Melissa's number was 255-0825 and it was light blue and white, with…

Well, the parties pretty much switched sides on this issue thanks to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s. I doubt Lincoln would identify as a Republican today (although my opinion on that is worthless speculation, as is any such thought on what any long-dead person would think or say or do in…

I couldn't agree more. This "fair and balanced" line is such bullshit, but boy, do they swallow it.