Bourbon Cowboy

The adventures of an urbane bar-hopping transplant to New York.

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Location: New York, New York, United States

I'm a storyteller in the New York area who is a regular on NPR's "This American Life" and at shows around the city. Moved to New York in 2006 and am working on selling a memoir of my years as a greeting card writer, and (as a personal, noncommercial obsession) a nonfiction book called "How to Love God Without Being a Jerk." My agent is Adam Chromy at Artists and Artisans. If you came here after hearing about my book on "This American Life" and Googling my name, the "How to Love God" book itself isn't in print yet, and may not even see print in its current form (I'm focusing on humorous memoir), but here's a sample I've posted in case you're curious anyway: Sample How To Love God Introduction, Pt. 1 of 3. Or just look through the archives for September 18, 2007.) The book you should be expecting is the greeting card book, about which more information is pending. Keep checking back!

Thursday, December 07, 2006

*The* Google Entry

I was goofing around at lunch and made this discovery: You know who's either REALLY widely linked or just really smart at marketing themselves? The folks at the top of the list when you Google "the."

The full story: In solving a puzzle, I ran across the word "pend," and it struck me that I'm not actually convinced that "pend" is a word anyone ever uses. "Pending," sure. And things depend, and we append stuff, and doom is often impending, and folks wear pendants. But I don't think I've ever seen the word "pend" used as a word all by itself, without other letters attached, and I can't even imagine how you could. ("I wonder if this is one of those election results that will pend.")

So I Googled "pend," and discovered that I seem to be right. Far and away the most common usage is for some city or region called "Pend Oreille." Didn't see a single pend-meaning-to-await-judgment anywhere. There should be a note next to it: "Actually, this word is never used except in 'pending' form."

And then, while I was thinking about commonly used words, I Googled "the." Imagine my surprise!

By the way, when you Google "teh," the first link is to a Wikipedia article about "teh", and how it is used as a joke in leetspeak.

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