July 21, 2003

Today is the day to wish Whitney Pastorek a happy birthday.

Yes! My computer is here and it is up and running, along with the real Zulkey.com. Please excuse the construction as I clean up from the last few weeks' messiness. Many thanks, meanwhile, to my father and Steve Delahoyde, for their financial and technical help.

A few things to read. At mediabistro.com, a revealing look from a top-secret source at how editors see freelance pitches. Also, on McSweeney's, evidence that I watched way too much VH1 when I was laid off.

Despite the new computer, I am keeping the assignment for this week, and next week will let you off the hook. This week, I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for real dialogue that you think is worth repeating. I haven't received any entries yet (ahem), but I fortunately do have an email exchange from a correspondence between yours truly and a young lady named Kim Bosch, who is my new Canadian friend (which I have a lot of lately. Canadians love me the way New Zealanders love Ben Brown and Germans love David Hasselhoff.)

CZ: Do you guys ever find an American coin mixed in with yoru [sic] change and see if you can get away with using it in a meter/toll/pop machine?

KB: we do find american coins. but they are very rare and people collect them and shine them with expensive oils and waxes and kiss them before they go to bed at night and have names for them like "shiney" and "mr. coin" and "shiney #2".

Can you top this? Send in the true life stories of things people say/type around you. And dude, you gotta get a Dell.