Weekly "Special"

While working on a post criticizing the Los Altos City Council for its downtown parking policy vote, I neglected to check out the Town Crier's Weekly section. (Frighteningly, this is the second result out of 168 million on Google for "Weekly Special").

Thanks to Miss L.I. for alerting me to the articles I almost missed:

"In new book, Los Altan claims he predicted 9/11 attacks"
You pretty much just have to read this one for yourselves.

"The agony and ecstasy of Austrian lexicography a spelling kerfuffle"
If that headline does not make any sense to you, the last paragraph will explain what this story is doing in a local paper.

So here I sit with my new speller, trying to figure out when to sharp s (ß) and when to double s (ss), when to write a word together or apart, when to lower or upper case. Turning pages, I chanced across one of my favorite German words, "ausgeflippt," the past participle of "ausflippen," which in turn is a derivative of "flipped out." Used in a sentence: "Er ist (He is) total ausgeflippt." I wonder what behind-the-scenes bartering took place for this migrant word to be permitted to join the party. Ausflippen - ja! American riffraff - nein! Riffraff - I like it! Nein! Never! Biff-bang-pow! (Sounds of a scuffle.) OK - you win! But we get to keep the triple-f in "Schifffahrt." Done.

Make sense now?

"Let's go bowling"
Nothing's particularly wrong with this article, but it does technically qualify as another installment in the "Things that are not happening in Los Altos" series.

(To those readers who would have preferred a post about parking regulations, don't worry, it's still coming, because, yes, I am that much of a nerd.)