things kevin hates

I thought that New Orleanians would know enough not to panic at the sight of a wimpy little hurricane, but I was wrong. What we saw today was an instance of completely unnecessary tropics-induced panic. Call it CU-TIP for short.* We had a wave (no pun intended at first, but now that I realize it’s a pun, I’m quite pleased) of school closures throughout the metro area, most of them for no good reason whatsoever. I understand people want to play it safe because no one likes lawsuits (well, except lawyers, that is), but really, people? We got all bent out of shape over this? First of all, even at its peak it was only a pathetic little Cat 2. That’s nothing. Second of all, it was forecast to weaken rapidly upon reaching that peak, and it has, down to tropical storm strength as I write this at a little after 4 p.m. Monday. Third, it was always going east of us, and, as everyone probably knows by now, the western side is almost always weaker than the eastern. Continue reading ‘completely unneccessary tropics-induced panic’

It seems like half of the apostrophes I see are used incorrectly. People get confused, I think, because they aren’t able to understand the difference between a plural and a possessive, and they get caught up in a tangle of s‘s and apostrophes. A plural means there’s more than one of something. In that case, you almost never use an apostrophe. The only exceptions, basically, are when you’re dealing with something that’s italicized (such as a book title, magazine title, non-English word, etc.), when you’re dealing with abbreviations that have periods in them, or in a few words or phrases where it’s become standard (“do’s and don’ts,” for example). Continue reading ‘misused apostrophes’

I watched the Saints’ win over the Falcons. After the Falcons turned the ball over on downs with 1:49 left, I thought, “I realize they can’t quite run the clock out, but with an 11-point lead the Saints should kneel on the ball and then punt on 4th down. I realize this is one of those things where people are going to say, “Kevin, you’re only saying this because of what happened.” Well, that’s true; had the Saints run for a first down, had there not been an injury, had there not been a fumble, no, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. (I’d still be right, though.) But I definitely thought the Saints should have taken a knee. And my dad said the same thing when I talked to him after the game, and I checked a few message boards and saw at least one more person agreed with us. Click here for my explanation.