a blog of intensely low readership

29 September, 2005

The origin of "OK"

Due to sheer randomness and time wasting web putzing, I have come across a wonderful little nugget about my two favorite letters in the alphabet: OK. The origin of this word/acronymn/thing is thoroughly described at The Straight Dope, but I found a few facets of its beginning particularly of note (which I will share with you presently).

OK was devised during a time when abbreviations of common phrases using not so common spellings were all the rage (interestingly enough, over 175 years ago). Things such as NG ("no go"), SP ("small potatoes"), and OW ("oll wright") were way hip amongst the cool cats of the 1830's, and while many didn't last that long, one of them managed to remain popular: "oll korrect." Weird, eh?

There are many other details about how it became popular during the campaign of Martin Van Buren in 1840, but that's not why I chose to post this nibbit today. I thought it very intriguing that there was such a rage over kooky acronyms so long ago, especially given the current popularity of such gems as OMG, BRB, WTF and the like with our digital communication. I guess we're not as novel as we thought we were... ;-)

Now what about smileys...

posted by Mr. Ryan-Head at 1:59 AM   0 comments

26 September, 2005

ResFest 2005


Well, I'm back. And I've decided to post another messsage, in the hopes that the copious number of individuals reading this blog can give me some feedback. I'm heading to ResFest 2005 in Chicago in a couple weeks, and I'm wondering if any of you have been to it yet (in other cities) and have recommendations as to which acts to see.

Currently I'm planning on checking out a couple of the shorts sessions, plus a feature or two. I don't have the funding to purchase a ResPass (nor really the time to make full use of it). I'm quite interested in Nando Costa's work, though... Love his use of gradients.

I don't anticipate getting any actual responses to my plea, since I think that a grand total of 0 people have even read my blog since I began posting oh so many days ago. Lemme know, mates...

posted by Mr. Ryan-Head at 2:26 PM   0 comments

24 September, 2005

I made a blog today

Hi. I made a blog today. This is something that I have never really intended to do, but hey, why not... here it is.

I mainly signed up so that I can post stuff to my buddy's blog: Murphy Abroad, who is, as you have probably deduced by this point, abroad. He's spending a semester in England, of which I am eternally envious. I really shouldn't be, since I did this myself two years ago, but it's still a wicked experience, as you may gather by reading his blog.

So that's where I have started. And, perhaps, now I'm finished.

posted by Mr. Ryan-Head at 3:04 PM   1 comments