Anus Horribilis

Occasionally, a "real" writer will thrown down a latin phrase in the midst of their composition to stand in for what could have been said in perfectly good old-fashioned english (pronounced as AIN-glish here in mi-ZU-rah).  This phrase will be written in italics, which is the signal to let your brain know that it is not english so that you can just skip over and ignore it.  Often used examples and their translations include:

quid pro quo: I'll rub chamois cream on your taint, if you'll rub it on mine

veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I felt guilty aferward that I didn't call you the next day

coitus interruptus: I saw, but I didn't come

I stumbled upon one of these phrases this morning reading an article on Andreas Kloden in cyclingnews titled "What's eating Andreas Kloden?"

 

At first glance, my brain just skipped over the term annus horribilis because, as previously mentioned, it is written in italics, thus I've been given permission to ignore it.  But in this case, I went back and re-read that because I was pretty sure they just said Andreas Kloden had a horrible anus.  But then I realized that the word they used was annus with two 'n's - not anus with one 'n'.  Ah - what a difference a single 'n' can make.  So in fact, 2002 was a "bad year" for Andreas, but not necessarily one with ass-rot.  Good to know.

However, contemplating bad years and ass-rot made me think about writing again.  But why, exactly?  Well, let's just say that I've received several indications recently that the end of humanity is nigh, and thus I've felt the need to once again, put my little mark on the interwebs before our species is finally undone by its own stupidity and eradicates itself from the surface of the planet once and for all.

Example #1:  The zombie apocolypse has begun.  Naked man eats bathsalts and chews off somebody's face, and gay porn star dismembers somebody on camera who actually volunteered to be dismembered, and then mails body parts to unsuspecting victims.  Don't know what I'm talking about?  Consider yourself lucky.

Example #2:  A Dutch man has turned the body of his dead cat into a helicopter, which actually is capable of flight. 

No shit.

Example #3:  Two hairy leeches have taken up residence on the sides of Bradley Wiggins' face.....and he apparently is doing nothing to remove them.  Sources say he's named them Harald and Kumar. (link)

Example #4: Currently on twitter, the term #schleckchute is trending.  It's being deployed with some regularity, apparently.  Translation of german sources indicate that not only has Andy's drag chute been in frequent use, but his name has been changed to "Tiny-Schleck" and that he "may get box" soon despite a recent knee injury.  Let's all pray for Tiny to get some box.

Lord knows he needs some kind of a break considering Johan's recent attempts at "motivation".

Oh, by the way.  Spoiler alert - but big congrats to Eddie Bo-Hog for taking stage 3 of the CDD today.  Here's a pointless picture of Edvald in red pants, a cardigan and bowling shoes - which is doubling as the offical Norwegian Olympic clothing collection.  Natty, I say!