(no subject)

Writing pet peeve: Stories and novels that have friends and coworkers thinking of each other using last names. Seriously, who DOES that? I have to stop to think about the last names of some of my friends and coworkers. Obviously, there are settings where this is logical: historical novels from certain time periods, military stories, things like that. But it drives me batty when people are writing modern stories that take place in, say, a Walmart or a beach party, and the clerks or sunbathers are all thinking of each other as "Johnson" and "Anderson" and whatever.

Extra bonus rage points if all the male characters are "Johnson" and "Anderson" and whatever and the female characters are "Cynthia" and "Abby."

I don't know why I just thought of this, but I did, and now am full of grrrr.

(no subject)

Okay, this seriously made me laugh harder than anything else has today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8237558.stm

...in which 2 Bangladeshi newspapers apologize after reporting on a news story originally broken by... The Onion.

Oops.