Halloween 2011 Links

• Here is the Tinleys' 2011 Halloween album on Facebook.


• Here is Malachi's Halloween 2011 post.


• Here is Resha Kate's Halloween 2011 post.


• Here is Meyer's Halloween 2011 post.

Here's Meyer Hula Hooping

Hello, Internet. It's been a while:

Introducing the Away From the Action Podcast

I'm expanding my role as the writer of the Away From the Action column at Midwest Sports Fans to include an Away From the Action podcast. You can subscribe here or on iTunes. I've done two episodes so far. You can download them below:

• Episode 1—Amanda Lawson: I talk to Amanda Lawson of Aerys Sports and Midwest Sports Fans about the Twins, Harmon Killebrew, the NFL lockout, and more.


• Episode 2—Matt Baxendell: I talk to former Ohio State hockey player Matt Baxendell of 790 The Zone in Atlanta, National Football Authority, and Bucknuts.com about the situation in Columbus, the Thrashers' move to Winnipeg, and Beavis and Butt-Head's return.

Stuff I've Been Doing and Stuff

Blogging about blogging is the lowest form of Internet literature, aside from the comments left in response to any article published by a daily newspaper or national news outlet. So I won't waste your time and mine telling you not to expect new content here at Scrambies until I'm able to replace the laptop that just died andor all of my kids have graduated from high school.

But I'm doing stuff, even if I'm not doing it here. And I should probably let you know about this stuff. So here you go:

• My column at Midwest Sports Fans is now called Away From the Action. You can find all of my Away From the Action columns here. My latest: a case for Jimmy Connors as the greatest tennis player ever, a look at retired numbers in the NBA, and thoughts on what Winnipeg should call its new NHL team.


• Speaking of my Midwest Sports Fans column, a baby name website called Nameberry asked me to write a version of my column on athletes whose names have become popular baby names.


• A few years ago I wrote and recorded a song called "Redemption." (Click that link if you want to buy the mp3.) "Redemption" is now part of a new hymnal/song book called Worship and Song. You can get a free sampler at the Worship and Song website or order one of several Worship and Song editions.


• I'm getting ready to swim in the now annual swim-a-thon to benefit the Mt. Juliet Help Center. Shoot me an e-mail if you'd like to sponsor me. You can pledge by minute, by lap, by kilometer, whatever.

Finally, if your dad is a Christian and a sports fan, and if you still haven't bought him a Fathers' Day present, get him a copy of my book, Kneeling in the End Zone: Spiritual Lessons From the World of Sports. You can find it at Cokesbury, Amazon, and just about any other online bookstore.

Tuesday Night Trivia

I meant to have this up last night, but I got distracted:

Of the four African nations whose names begin with the letter E, this one is the youngest. In fact, it celebrated 18 years of independence yesterday.

Bonus points if you can name all four countries.

If You're Interested

I know that I haven't been writing much on this blog lately, but I have been writing. I've also been doing a poor job of using this blog to draw attention to what I'm writing elsewhere. So I'll do that now.

I've been writing for Midwest Sports Fans. Yes, I realize that Nashville isn't in the midwest (although the Predators play in a division with teams from Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and Columbus). But I lived much of my life in Indiana and maintain allegiances to several teams there. Here are some of my recent MSF articles. The article descriptions are what you see when you share the article on Facebook.

• "How Many Parents Name Their Children After Sports Stars?": After checking the popularity of hils children's names, Josh Tinley decided to analyze data from the SSA to look into the names of popular athletes in an effort to see how many people were naming their children after popular sports stars.


• "A Plea for Geographically Appropriate Pro Sports Nicknames": The 2nd round matchup between the recently relocated Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder is the perfect time for Josh Tinley's simple request: can we name our professional sports teams after things that actually represent the team's city?


• "Which Active Players Are Locks for the Basketball Hall of Fame?": Now that the Playoffs are underway and everyone's paying attention to the NBA, Josh Tinley is posing this question: Which active players, if their career were to end tomorrow, would be deserving of election to the Basketball Hall of Fame?

I've also been doing some writing for Ministry Matters, a new web portal for church leaders. My latest Ministry Matters article, "Checking Our Facts," looks at some common misconceptions and misattributed quotations that I frequently encounter in my work with the church.

Happy reading.

Words and Punctuation Marks Your Writing Doesn't Need

After eight years as an editor, I feel that I'm in a position to offer writers some pointers. Specifically, I think I'm qualified to warn writers about words and punctuation marks that they should avoid or make sure they're using correctly. So I've compiled a short list of words and punctuation that writers should avoid or use sparingly.

Before I continue, I want to be clear that I'm not writing this in response to any particular manuscript I've edited. I also don't want to give anyone the impression that I think I'm above doing things that writers shouldn't do. I confess that I overuse parentheses and semi-colons; I use the word own even when it is not necessary; and I refuse to use they as a singular pronoun, even when stylebooks allow it and not using it as such results in an awkward sentence. (Everyone has his or her own quirks and foibles.)

Anyway, here's my list:

Utilize: Save some pixels and syllables by writing use. It's cleaner and more concise and has the exact same meaning.

Problematic, efficacious, pragmatic, and other college-paper words: These words are great when you're trying to convince a professor that you know what you're talking about (even if you didn't read the book), but they have no use in the real world. Efficacious is just a fancy way to say effective; pragmatic is just a fancy way to say practical; praxis is just a fancy way to say practice. And, if you have to tell me that something is problematic, you probably haven't done a very good job explaining how and why it poses a problem. When you're packing up your college dorm room or apartment, leave these words behind for the next class of incoming freshman.

Impactful: Unless you're talking about meteorites striking the earth, you should consider eschewing all forms of the word impact. The verb form of impact, meaning "to have an impact on," has found its way into dictionaries and usage manuals in recent years, but its use nauseates wordies and grammarians. (The verb form of impact, meaning "to collide into," has always been OK.) Impactful, which is fighting its way into the English lexicon even though most dictionaries don't include it, is particularly gross. Before you use impactful, think about what you're really trying to say. Influential? Effective? Transcendent? Impressive?

Multi-syllable conjunctive adverbs: In most cases, you can replace one of these with a simple, single-syllable conjunction or adverb. For instance, instead of however use but; instead of therefore use so; instead of henceforth use then. Unless you're trying to impress a college professor or potential employer, use conjunctive adverbs such as moreover and furthermore sparingly. Also pay attention to how frequently you use contrary adverbs and conjunctions such as but, though, yet, and nonetheless. Each time you use one of these words, you send the reader in a different direction. If you find yourself making lots of these twists and turns, you should look for a more direct route.

Quotation marks: If you use "quotation marks" for any "purpose" other than marking "quotations" or "titles of articles," your readers will think you're being a jerk. Sometimes that's what you're going for. Just be aware.

Em dashes: Em dashes are like horseradish. Small doses are a great way to add flavor, but large quantities will burn your eyes out. Before you hit shift-option-hyphen—or for Windows users, before you select "Start" then "Programs" then "Accessories" then "System Tools" then "Character Map," scroll down four pages, select the em dash, copy the em dash, and paste the em dash into whatever you're working on—ask yourself, "Could I use a comma instead?" (To answer the question you're no doubt asking, I needed to use em dashes in the previous sentence because the instructions for creating an em dash on Windows are so lengthy and complex that commas would not suffice.)

Ellipses: The ellipsis has a very specific purpose: indicating that words have been omitted. Do not use it for any other purpose.

What Do You Think This Means?

Meyer likes to write. He spends much of his free time typing. A lot of his work is short fiction. He also likes to create quizzes related to whatever he's learning at school. But the other day I found this:



What do you think?

Mally: "Costa Rica'

Here's a video Ashlee shot of Malachi when I had taken Resha Kate to choir practice and Meyer was in Costa Rica with his grandparents:

Final Four Picks

View my bracket here. | View contest results here

Since less than two hours remain until tonight's games, I should probably make my re-picks for the Final Four. They'll both be re-picks because I went 0-4 in the Elite Eight and have been stuck on 570 points for over a week.

I hope with all my heart that Butler will win this tournament, and I know that they're more than capable of doing so. But, after seeing what VCU did to Kansas, following blow-out wins over Georgetown and Purdue, my brain (which hasn't been very reliable lately) tells me to go with the Rams.

In the other game, I've decided that I can no longer pick against Kemba Walker. I say UConn beats Kentucky in a close one. (I also suspect that there's a better-than-50-percent chance that whoever wins this game will end up vacating it following an NCAA investigation. Sorry. Maybe I'm too cynical.)

Go Bulldogs!