by Sue Horner | Dec 22, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“It’s the Holiday Season.” This phrase drives me crazy, whether or not it is accented by unnecessary capitalization. Winter is a season; so is spring. Christmas (and the ensuing holiday) is not a season, even though advertising that starts before the...
by Sue Horner | Nov 4, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
If you used Google today, you will have noticed the “l” looks a little different. In fact, it looks like a pair of legs — those bright orange legs belonging to Big Bird. The “doodle” celebrates the fact that Sesame Street is 40 this...
by Sue Horner | Sep 25, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Yesterday was a big day for those of us who notice and cringe at signs with extra or missing apostrophes. If people suggest that makes you a nitpicker, tell them you have nothing on former newspaperman Jeff Rubin, the founder of National Punctuation Day. Jeff started...
by Sue Horner | Aug 28, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Here are some interesting items I came across this week: PostSecret: Frank Warren started PostSecret.com as a community art project. Since November 2004, he has received more than 150,000 postcards, each sent anonymously and containing that person’s secret. The...
by Sue Horner | Jul 25, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
It has rained here most of the day, so what better time to share some of the websites that never fail to bring a smile: I can Has Cheezburger, or LOL cats. Talk about creative writing! The silly captions to crazy pictures of cats (and occasionally other small pets)...
by Sue Horner | Jul 10, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Everyone can write, can’t they? But it takes real skill to come up with truly awful writing, like that celebrated by the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. This is almost as much fun as the Oddest Book Title of the Year contest. But instead of just finding...
by Sue Horner | Jul 6, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
In the movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You” (seen on the plane on the way home from San Francisco), Drew Barrymore’s character laments the sorry state of communication with the opposite sex: “I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work,...
by Sue Horner | Mar 31, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
This is such a great contest: The Diagram Prize’s Oddest Book Title of the Year. Its 2009 winner is The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-miligram Containers of Fromage Frais. I’m sure you are wondering, how could that possibly have beat out Baboon...
by Sue Horner | Mar 9, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Happy birthday to Barbie, who turned 50 today. Talk about a toy with legs! Whether 50 is the new 40 or 50 is the new 30, she sure looks good. And she’s got all kinds of “dream” things — dream bedroom, dream dining room, dream kitchen, dream...
by Sue Horner | Feb 5, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
At one point, word clouds were everywhere: illustrating a newspaper article, highlighting a book’s content, offering a glimpse into a web site. And for good reason. They are great visual signals for what’s inside. I made the one shown here with a fun toy...
