Day 2409

As a writer, I find all the talk about Melania's speech interesting. I don't doubt that there was plagiarism involved. Plagiarism is endemic is today's society. If you're a musician, you might call your plagiarism sampling, or perhaps a remix. If you're an artist, you might say you're paying homage to someone. Like it or not, there is very little original thought in this world.

I've been accused of plagiarism myself. Ironically, I wasn't plagiarizing others, I was plagiarizing myself. If you're an advertising writer, you write the same shit over and over again for different people. How many ways can you tell someone that a bank offers friendly service or a hamburger is juicy? Sometimes I like the way I've described something and I'll use it again. I'm not even aware of doing this, but apparently clients aren't very happy if you use the same words more than once. "Oh, jeez, I'm sorry," I'll say and quickly substitute some other adjectives that say exactly the same thing. I guess I'm not surprised that several people might say that if you work hard you can achieve anything you want in exactly the same way. How else would you express this thought? That being said, someone should have run the speech through one of those plagiarism checker websites that teachers routinely use with students papers. As a lazy person myself, I can tell you that there is no real excuse for being lazy. There's no excuse for trying to destroy someone for a few lines of identical text either.

I don't think I was lazy today, but I certainly didn't accomplish anything significant. I did get out of the house at least. I  found a $20 REI coupon in my wallet, so I went to the store and bought another pair of cargo shorts with huge pockets that could hold my cameras when I walked the dogs. T-shirts and cargo shorts has become my new Summer uniform. I'll probably continue wearing a longer version of these things next Winter. Lots of pockets are great.

Dot is still pretty weak, so I canceled her therapy appointment for the second week in a row. We're still just going around the block in the morning. It's not very far, but it seems to be the right balance between getting no exercise at all and becoming exhausted. I wish I knew what I know now when my first Dalmatian was getting old. It takes a long time to learn what dogs are trying to tell you. I think I'm getting pretty good at interpreting Dot's moods and desires, but I've still got a lot to learn. I hope she manages to teach me the wisdom of dogs before Dash gets old. Dash is going to be hard to handle.

I spent quite a while trying to remove some sticky road tar from my car this afternoon. Tar is much more difficult to deal with than dog poop. I don't think I need to worry about anyone plagiarizing me. I've pretty much cornered the market on writing about dog poop. Why would anyone else even want to copy this.

Jade is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day