Thank God for Sardi's

Last month, I went to New York City to visit my brother and, perhaps more urgently, see a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. By "Yankee Stadium", of course, I mean the real Stadium, in use since 1923 (when the Yankees defeated the Red Sox in the opening game) until now, and not the Yankee Stadium that was built next door. Since the Yankees are moving to their new stadium next year, my goal of sitting in the first base side bleachers in the house that Ruth built took on a new sense of urgency this year, but I was able to cajole my mother (who mastered spelling "baseball" for this trip) and brother (a transplanted Manhattanite; he required less cajoling) to attend the opening game of the last Red Sox series, played on August 26. Other bloggers have probably wondered out loud whether Alex Rodriguez would have hit a grand slam in the bottom of the seventh, rather than a weak double-play ball, if his annual salary was $29 million a year instead of only 28, but I did some other things while in town, including a classic "to-do" item: having a martini at Sardi's.

Sardi's is one of those bars with a reputation that it does or does not deserve depending on whom you ask. It's right in the theater district, and I think there was an era when you had time to get a cocktail there during intermission if your theater was close enough. I'm sure they have a full range of cocktails prepared by an expert bartender (the night we went, it was Jeremy) but I could only consider one libation while at Sardi's, and that is a martini. Living in Austin, a mixologist's backwater if (if) cultured in other ways, I have grown accustomed, when ordering martinis, to being asked whether I want gin or vodka. So I held my breath when I asked Jeremy for a Coke, a beer, and a martini. His inspired response: "Coming right up, sir!" Beautiful. We found a table near the wall full of caricatures from the bar's heyday, and I went back to the bar to get the drinks and some cheese and crackers. Jeremy then asked "What kind of gin would you like?" Of course, he had Tanqueray, which he then proceeded to stir -- stir! -- in a shaker of vermouth and ice before straining into a chilled glass with two olives.

Oh, what a beautiful martini. The Yankee game would have beat that for the best night I'd ever had in New York, but only if they'd beaten the Red Sox.

Once Upon Dickson

This has nothing to do with grammar (well, unless you count one poorly crafted sentence in the blurb at the link). There's a new book about Dickson Street, which is to Fayetteville, Arkansas as Sixth Street is to Austin (or Westheimer is to Houston, sort of). You may notice a name that suggests a family connection.

Now go buy it.

Fed Up Some More

This afternoon, I was sitting in the lobby of a criminal attorney friend of mine. Being a civil lawyer, I arrived promptly at 4:00 p.m. Being a criminal attorney, he was late. So, to pass my valuable time (or his non-valuable time, or lacking-value time), I found an old Consumer Reports magazine and read an article about the high cost of health care. One of the persons interviewed in the article, a small-business owner, complained "Because of the high cost of health insurance, I can't give my employees hourly raises."

Well, sorry, but I don't know how long you're going to stay in business in the first place, if you give your employees a raise every hour. Maybe you should give them one BIG raise every day, or better yet every month; that way, you could spend more time on, you know, business. Or editing your sentences.

Fed Up

As I've said before, there used to be a great newspaper in New York. It was called the "New York Times". I have no idea what the hell happened to it.

From today's obituary for the late Paul Scofield (an actor whose reputation towered over Olivier, Gielgud, and Richardson in their prime):

He received his secondary education at Varndean School in nearby Brighton and, at 13, made his debut as Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet” on the school stage. “I had to wear an embarrassing blond wig,” he said. “But it was a turning point, because thenceforward there was nothing else I wanted to do.”

One might get the impression, from the context of this quote, that Scofield decided not to take any more roles after his fiasco as Juliet. One would be wrong, of course, since Scofield illuminated the screens and stage for decades after his teenage debut. I don't know who to blame this ambiguity on; I suppose I should blame Mr. Scofield, but I'm generally not one to speak ill of the dead.

So it's the Times's fault.

And there's more.

Important Announcement Regarding Serial Commas

In a break with the Associated Press, Punctuation Man has endorsed serial commas.

Yay.

The idiosyncrasies of idiosyncracies

Yesterday's usage tip of the day from Bryan Garner has to do with the correct spelling of the word idiosyncrasy, meaning a characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. Unfortunately, the word is commonly confused with the word idiosyncracy, which means, by way of example, the Bush administration.

Stolen from another grammar snob.

Why don't I write anymore

A Harris County criminal defense lawyer left a comment asking why I don't blog anymore, wondering if it's because I've decided the state of grammar has improved to the point that it no longer needs me.

Would that it were so. If anything, grammar has gotten worse; but mainly, it's just becoming less relevant. It used to be fun to try and locate the occasional misspelled word or incorrect usage in the New York Times; now, it's just depressing. I can only guess that the rise of the internet has pinched print media to the point it can't afford the kind of editing staff that could find and eliminate the numerous elementary errors that make their way into the NYT on a daily basis.

So, no, grammar still needs me, but I only have ten fingers and there are so many holes in the dike. And there are other dikes demanding my attention. Plus, I've never been good at prioritizing my leisure time in the first place. But I'll try to do better.

The Lingering Death of the New York Times

There was a time, maybe, before blogs, even before the Internet, when the New York Times could be held up as a standard, if not the standard, for good grammar. After all, it was one of the most popular papers to write for, so good writers would contribute articles, and good editors would read those articles, so subscribers would have reading material that was not only accurate and true, but wouldn't have any comma splices or dangling participles.

I miss those days.

"Ottawa may have been unfairly branded as boring, but exploring Parliament Hill (Wellington Street; 613-239-5000; www.parl.gc.ca) is anything but." -- 36 Hours Ottawa, NYT, August 26, 2007 (Travel). (My italics.)

But what? Boring? Branded as boring? Unfairly branded as boring? Maybe it's branding all the other places in Ottawa as boring? Or doing so unfairly?

I hear that William Safire is semi-retired. Maybe he has time to scan the Travel articles before they find their way into print.

Definitely a short post.

I don't know why it bugs me so much, but why do so many people misspell "definitely"? (Or "definite", etc.?) Maybe it's because they mispronounce it, too, because they have lazy American speech patterns, like "nukular". Pronounce it "deaf in it lee".

At any rate, the word is definately not spelled "definately". It is definitely "definitely". This is one of those errors that, when you fix it, results in your readers' opinion of your IQ rise about 15 points.

Other than that, today's not been bad so far.

Update: Jamie Spencer, publisher of the fine Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer blog, has politely pointed out that one of my sentences above (now italicized) could be, um, improved. I would have been a lot less polite. I'm too proud to try scanning it and counting the errors; you may amuse yourself with that task if you like. Here's my stab at an edit, though.

This is an error that, when fixed, will result in your readers' estimates of your IQ rising about 15 points.

That's still awkward, but it keeps the meaning of the original sentence. Definately better.

Clarification about the meaning of snobbery

I guess I'm not really much of a snob when it comes to grammar. In my mind, a "snob" is a person with an unreasonable disdain for others who are unlike him in some sense. I don't think my disdain for people who don't know the difference between "it's" and "its" is unreasonable. Now, my disdain for NASCAR fans is, arguably, unreasonable. Well, no, not really. Bad example. How about people who don't like classical music? Maybe, except that I don't have any disdain for them, simply over that.

But it turns out I'm a snob about some things.

Here's what triggered this post. I'm at the office, and I make a phone call to some one in the course of business. The conversation goes something like this.

"Good afternoon, Akin Butz, may I help you?"

"Yes, I'd like to speak to Ima Shyster, please."

"May I ask who's calling?"

[After years of therapy, I've broken my old habit of simply replying "Yes", and instead telling the person who answered the phone my name.]

"Yes, this is Michael Simpson."

"I'm sorry, Mike, it looks like she has stepped out of the office. Would you like her voice mail?"

Last things first. I wouldn't like her voice mail, but I'll settle for it. I'll accept a less favorable alternative, if it's the only one I've got. (Now, see, all you real grammar snobs are rolling your eyes at my use of the word "alternative" instead of "alternate". Just kidding, guys.)

But there was a time, even in the South, when you wouldn't think of referring to a person you just met by his first name. And this clown didn't even do that; he took it upon himself to shorten my name to Mike. Would it kill you to call me Mr. Simpson? No, because the receptionists at the thick-carpet firms on Congress Avenue do it all the time.

But I've never really raised hell about it, until today. I know that if I did, people would think I was a snob. Which I am, in this case, because it is unreasonable, but only a little because I really don't care that much. So grant me this one vice.

I finally get connected to the voice mail, and it opens thusly.

"You've reached Ima Shyster."

No I haven't! I've reached your voicemail, dammit! AAAAAAUGHHH!

The Top Ten Surprises in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

Like many people half my age -- okay, okay, 1/3 of my age -- I spent this weekend reading the seventh, and last, book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And while J.K. Rowling has made it clear that this book is much darker than the previous books in the series, many of the twists in the story line still took me by surprise. Please don't read this list if you haven't read the book yet; I don't want to spoil it for you.

THE TOP TEN SURPRISES IN HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

10. With Dumbledore gone, okay to use "waterboarding" curse.

9. Donald Rumsfeld finally gets job as Defense of Dark Arts teacher.

8. Butterbeer now available with no trans-fats.

7. Bald character added so Patrick Stewart can finally be in one of the damned movies.

6. Ravenclaw Tower demolished to make room for new Wal-Mart.

5. Weasley twins caught by their mom comparing wands.

4. Klingons unexpectedly arrive to fight Death Eaters at the last minute.

3. Right before final fight scene, Harry says "screw this" and joins Hogsmeade National Guard.

2. Hogwarts students master powerful new spell, Expecto uranus!

1. The real identity of Voldemort? Dick Cheney!

A comment on comments

Every now and then (but not frequently; my blog isn't well-read because there are no pictures of Paris Hilton or Posh Spice) someone e-mails me about something I wrote in my blog that she disagrees with. To date, however, there's only been 1 comment about any of my posts, and I wrote that one.

So, if you have something to say about anything I have to say, say it in a comment. That's what they're there for. Or would be, if they were there.

I'm on a roll

Okay, here's the second post for the day, after a two-month absence that ended only last week. This has nothing to do with grammar, again, but something to do with snobbery. Today, my target audience is waitpeople. The theme of my post is: I don't owe you 15% of my bill just because I sat at your table.

I'm a single male. Chances are I eat out about three times as much as you do if you are married, and about twice as much if you're a single female. It's not that I don't like to cook; I just don't cook as much as I used to, a combination of not having time and being lazy when I do. I like the food I make more than restaurant food, and it's way cheaper. But sometimes, I just feel like having my lunch handed to me. My point is, I go to restaurants a lot. So I think I know what's going on in them.

Consider the following two scenarios. I go to a restaurant about 30 minutes before the rush starts. I'm seated in a waiter's section, at the same time as a family of four.

In the first scenario, the waiter appears, looks at the family of four, looks at me, and then goes to wait on the family.

In the second scenario, the waiter appears, looks at the family of four, looks at me, smiles and says "I'll be right with you", and then goes to wait on the family.

Wonder which one will get the better tip?

I think most customers have reasonable expectations of waiters. We know that when someone gets double-sat (and let's not get into a discussion of whether "double-sat" is a word right now), they have to choose someone to wait on first. If I were a waiter, I'd want to get the big party first. But at least spend a second of your life to acknowledge the existence of the guy who's going to lose the race to the kitchen. Hey, if you want to wait on me first, all the better, but you should go say "hi" to the family, in that instance. It's just courtesy, and that always pay$.

How formal should waiters be? I think the rule should be: too formal is better than too informal. Don't call me "honey" or "buddy". Don't touch me while you're waiting on me. Don't sit at my table. Don't -- Do not -- DO NOT put someone else's dirty dishes on my table ! Are you KIDDING?


I'd rather not be called "sir", but when I am, I assume it's someone being formal to be courteous, and that's okay. It's won't cost you anything.

In fact, it's hard not to get a decent tip from me. The best way to try is not to wait on me for a long time after I'm seated. What's a long time? Someone should come by my table within a minute. Yes, a minute. If you don't think that's a long time, go sit by a table for a minute and then you tell me.

Other than that, the only thing that will really screw up your tip (besides just crappy service, obviously) is bringing me my change. Okay, say the dinner was $9.63. I give you a twenty. First, don't ask me if I need any change. Of course I do, I'm not giving you a 100% tip. Second, don't bring me a ten dollar bill and 37 cents -- that's just as bad. Keep in mind that you're probably getting paid out of the change.

Speaking of which, most waiters don't like to make change down to the last penny, and that's fine. But the last time I went to one restaurant in Austin, I had an $8.20 tab, paid with a $10, and got a dollar bill in change. Fine -- that eighty cents you just stole is your tip. Like I said, it was the last time I went there. (Hope my waiter doesn't miss his "buddy".)

And why should a tip be more than 15%, anyway? Now all the waiter rant sites say you should leave 17%. If the service is great, sure. If it's good, 15% is plenty. Don't whine to me about inflation. You're getting 15% of something that's a lot more expensive now than it was 30 years ago.

Thanks for listening, honey.

Dangling, the wordsmith left the participle

In my last, very recent post, I mentioned that I'd been working on a post about dangling modifiers. Turns out some other folks have already thought about that. So I was going to discard the whole subject; in fact, I just deleted the whole draft. But this morning, I read an article in The Daily Texan, the University of Texas's daily paper, about Troy Patton, a minor-league pitcher who's supposed to be the next great Houston Astro southpaw someday. Though he didn't get a lot of strikeouts in the particular game featured in the article, he gave up only one run in seven innings. It was the description of how the run scored that bothered me, too much maybe.

Patton's only run came in the fifth inning after what easily could have been ruled an error. After giving up a walk to leadoff hitter Bill McCarthy, Jorge Padilla came up to plate and lifted a ball into the outfield....

Padilla didn't give up a walk to Bill McCarthy, though; Patton did. A carelessly hung participle ruined the meaning of the sentence.

But this really isn't about dangling modifiers. It's about this. There's a good chance that the author of this story (I'm not naming names; you can track him down on the internet if you're that ambitious), and his editor, if any, both graduated in the top 10% of their high school class before coming to UT. Either they don't know what a dangling modifier is, or they don't care enough to eliminate one from a printed article; either way, I hang my head in shame for the state of public education in Texas, yet again.

By the way, I'm looking forward to Patton's debut with the Astros. Hope it happens soon.

Comes now?

As always, because I have a real job I don't get to post to my blog as much as I like. I've been editing a post on dangling modifiers, since there are only 52,138 other internet pages explaining why dangling modifiers are bad, but I haven't finished mine, which will be the pinnacle of dangling modifier criticism, I suppose. (Again, for those of you who haven't the foggiest idea what a dangling modifier is, surely there's a NASCAR race stored in your Tivo ready to watch.) Instead, I've got a blog for my fellow attorneys, many of whom file pleadings in court containing the phrase "Comes now". As in:

"Comes now Plaintiff, John Doe, and complains of Defendant, David Evildoer, and pray the Court grant him judgment, and for cause of action would show the following."

A question. You're sitting on your favorite barstool at the local watering hole, taking the edge off a rough day in the salt mine with your favorite poison (for me, a tall draft of Harp or Warsteiner, or on a Friday, a shot of Maker's Mark with a sidecar of ice) and your best friend walks in to join you. Do you exclaim "Comes now Drew, and sits next to mine self to drink beer"? Okay, if you answered this question "yes", an exciting career in writing boring pleadings awaits you. If you answered "no", then I understand why you hate legalese.

I can tell you that the stilted "Comes now" style of prose is not taught in law school. At least, not at the University of Texas School of Law, the shoddy public state school where I learned the law. Instead, this horrible style of "writing" is passed on to law clerks -- the trade slang for interns, or law students with summer jobs -- by attorneys who may or may not know better, but either don't, or are too lazy to care.

Now, no pleading is ever going to make the New York Times's best-seller list or appear in Atlantic Monthly's poetry section, whether it be written by David Dullpen or Clarence Darrow. The pleadings are meant to be read only by judges and lawyers. Okay, they're not even meant to be read by those folks. Arguably, they don't matter at all. Except that I just lied: pleadings should also be read by a group of folks more important than judges and lawyers: clients. And this is the reason that they are written so badly: legalese has to be dense so lawyers don't let on to their clients that what they're doing is not rocket science. It's difficult, of course, but because clients may not understand the real reasons that practicing law is difficult, we have to give them a fake reason: the convoluted pleading language that no one can read, and very few people attempt.

Early in my career, while a measly clerk at the OAG in Texas, I came upon the worst pleading I'd ever read, in which the plaintiff's attorney redundantly paired every word he possibly could, resulting in such legalistic crap as "then and there", "failed and refused", "way, shape, or form", and so forth. A petition for relief that should have taken 6 pages took 17. (It was also printed in some horrible font, like OCR, which was almost impossible to read.)

Here's a sample of an opening statement from one of my pleadings:

"Paula Plaintiff complains of Dave Defendant, and for cause of action would show the following."

Keep in mind that this is the least important, and therefore worst, sentence in a petition; everything else is at least in English. Nevertheless, compared to some pleadings I've read, it's Shakespeare.

Well, not really

Yesterday's post contained a list of words that do NOT follow this famous rule:

I before E except after C
Or when sounding like A as in "neighbor" and "weigh".

Looking back I see some words that should be on the list, but aren't, like beige and heifer; I also note the list lacks spontaneity. (Make your own punchline; I tried, but couldn't.) The list also doesn't include different forms of other words that are on the list (i.e. "deify" is there, but not "deified", etc.). I was stunned to find that "leity" wasn't on the list, until I realized it is spelled "laity".

On the whole, though, the rule is right about 70% of the time. Some other blogger did the math and came up with a higher number than that, but he also excluded words in which the "i" and "e" belonged to different syllables. And he still didn't get "beige". If I can find that page again, I'll link to it. Until then, "I before e", and so on.

Are the exceptions swallowing the rule?

Can you figure out what the following words have in common? It shouldn't be too hard, but I'm not going to tell you today.

albeit
ageing
atheism
being
caffeine
counterfeit
deify
either
foreign
forfeit
height
kaleidoscope
leisure
neither
protein
reimburse
reinforce
reinstate
seeing
seize
sovereign
surfeit
weird

Stay tuned.

To hell with "to helm"

Few segments of the American population as are culpable in the ongoing assault on American English as the writers in the entertainment industry. They are trying to create as many synonyms as possible for a short list of nouns and verbs that, really, don't need more synonyms. Consider "to helm", which is now a synomym for "to direct". Horrible.

"Grindhouse will be presented as one full-length feature comprised of two individual films helmed separately by each director." -- "Mr. Disgusting", www.bloody-disgusting.com

"[Ken Olin] Executive produced and helmed the ABC family drama, 'Brothers & Sisters'." -- Unknown, tv.yahoo.com

"The tuner will be helmed by two-time Tony Award-winning director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall (The Pajama Game)." -- Staff, Broadway.com (Omigod, this quote uses both "helmed" and "tuner". Run for the hills!)

Another usage that makes me wretch is using "to bow" as a substitute for "to premiere" or "to release". It's one thing to use "bow" as an intransitive verb in this sense.

"'Ocean's 13' to bow at Cannes Film Festival"
At least that's almost as inoffensive as simply saying "to debut". But please, PLEASE, someone save me from the horrible use of "to bow" as a transitive verb.

"VeriSign to bow online movie service" -- headline, fierceiptv.com

Bow should NEVER be a transitive verb meaning "debut". NEVER EVER. You can bow your head but not your movie.

So just for the record to all you horrible entertainment writers out there: if you have ever committed any of these crimes against language, no one is ever going to read your screenplay.

Split, split, split that infinitive!

Take a careful look at the following sentence and see what's wrong with it.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before."

It's not a sentence? Well, um, okay. What else?

Did you say "nothing"?

Congratulations. I agree with you.

A generation or so ago, back when they taught grammar in schools, one of the quickest ways to get a red mark on your English homework was to split an infinitive. An infinitive, in English, is the form of a verb when preceded by the preposition "to", i.e. "to go". It was commonly, though often incorrectly, thought to be wrong to split infinitives, ever. That absolute prohibition, never completely well grounded, has vanished nearly to the point of extinction nowadays. This probably has less to do with today's high school students casting a more tolerant eye towards infinitives than the fact that they probably have no idea what an infinitive is, of course, but if you are reading this blog instead of downloading Justin Timberlake videos, you probably do have an idea. But as they say, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. (Though not as dangerous as no knowledge, but I digress.)

Almost every English verb has an infinitive form beginning with "to", but some do not. My seventh grade English teacher, Ms. Sowder, was reminded of this the year before I began junior high when she offered an "A" for the six weeks to the students in one of her classes "to anyone who could think of a verb that did not have an infinitive form beginning in 'to'". One of my lifelong friends, and a bigger smart aleck than me, thought for a while, and responded "To could?" Several helping verbs later, he and some of his classmates no longer had to worry about homework for a while.

One theory about how the rule against split infinitives began is that Latin infinitives are only one word. Thus, the Latin word for "to love" is "amare". Since there's no splitting "amare", it follows that one cannot split "to love". Unfortunately, Romans were even worse about obscure grammar rules that English teachers; there are six, count them, six infinitives for each regular Latin verb. I suspect the real reason Rome burned was not that Nero was playing his violin but was practicing conjugation for his dissertation defense. In any event, it's not clear that Latin usage is a sufficiently strong reason not to split infinitives in a different language.

(I should note that the Latin origin theory of the rule against split infinitives is only one of several.)

If there is no good reason not to split infinitives, why does the prohibition persist today? the short answer is that there are good reasons. Even though it's not always bad to split infinitives, it frequently is. The reader's mind tends to think of an infinitive as one word, and if it's possible to keep the two parts together, it should be done. If not, you may sound as awkward as this famous wordsmith:

They want to not just get you off the air but also — to savor the full enjoyment — bring you to your knees financially.

This is a compound infinitive, because the italicized "to" belongs to both "get" and "bring"; the latter appears a full fifteen words later in the sentence -- and after a second "to", to boot. The composer of this horrible prose is none other than Dick Cavett, who is featured in the New York Times Select online edition as ... an expert on grammar. There are various ways "to not just get" could be edited to read more smoothly; the solution to the second split is much easier.

Not only do they want to get you off the air, but also -- to savor the full enjoyment -- to bring you to your knees financially.

(Don't get me started about "but also"; that has to be another post.)

So, it appears, though there is no absolute prohibition against split infinitives (never mind what your college English teacher taught you), it's a good idea to avoid them when it obscures the idea you were trying to convey.

But what if the "correct" infinitive sounds wrong? For example: "Boldly to go where no man has gone before", or "To go boldly where no man has gone before". The infinitives are standing at attention, dutifully appearing in unitary unsplit form, but their sentences sound awkward to us, and it's not just because we've heard the "incorrect" version so many times. Adverbs normally do not belong at the beginning of a sentence (or, in this case, a phrase masquerading as a sentence). "To go boldly" is a little less jarring, and I suspect if Mr. Shatner had uttered the phrase in that incarnation, we'd all be the same. But there is something about the rhythm created by splitting the infinitive.

To bold-ly go where no one has gone be-fore.

The line is so close to iambic pentameter it's virtually Shakespearean. That, and the recurring emphasised "o"s, make a little thing like a split infinitive seem silly.

This just in: Kurt Vonnegut was a writer. He died. So it goes.

Restart THIS

My litigation schedule is heavier than I like right now, so I still haven't published my post on split infinitives, but rather than finishing that, I've decided to vent some steam about one of the stupider ideas from our favorite mediocre American icon, MicroSoft.

My opinion of MicroSoft is colored by my perception that it has prospered not by building a better mousetrap, but by building a barely-good-enough mousetrap and doing a better job of marketing it. Ask any lawyer whether he'd rather run an office based on MicroSoft Word (any version) or WordPerfect 4.2. MicroSoft seems to me to be an endless tinkerer, but comes to market before its tinkering is complete.

Luckily, most of its post-release tinkering is now available in free updates, although one is still expected to purchase new boxes on occasion to fix problems with the old software. Why this isn't akin to having to buy tires for your new car, because the manufacturer forgot to install them in the first place, beats me.

At least you don't have to spend money to get these new updates. The little shield-shaped icon alerts you that the updates are there, and then you can keep working while MicroSoft is updating your computer.

But once the updates are ready to be installed, you have to restart the computer. And the shield gives you two choices: restart the computer now, or later. Almost always, I choose "later". What the shield doesn't tell me is "Okay, but I'm going to interrupt you every five minutes until you restart the computer, because you're so stupid you'll probably forget that you need to install me." And, of course, if it did tell you that, then you could reply "No, I'm not, you inanimate presumptous piece of code, it's just that I have more important things to do right now than restart my computer, like get this $*@&%! brief out before 5:00, so shut up already."

So why is it that MicroSoft won't give us a third choice: "Restart when I damned well feel like it"? Beats the hell outta me.