bostonman

You should have seen her in Wonderful Town, in a purely zany comic role. She's really a very versatile actress. I first saw her as Vera in Pal Joey in Boston - a role that needs equal parts comedy and drama, though the comedy part is certainly on the droll/dark side. (This was just before she did Passion.)
 
You also might be surprised to learn that she was also one of the original replacement Audreys in the off-Broadway Little Shop Of Horrors. Hard to imagine, huh?
 
However, Forbidden Broadway did tap into your reservations, doing a marvelous parody of her when she was playing Anna in The King And I just after she did Passion. Called "I Whistle A Sondheim Tune," the idea was that she would be carrying too much of Passion's darkness into the (mostly) "bright and breezy" world of Anna. Very funny.

"Speaking truth to power"
 
Not that I don't agree with the definition - just that the phrase has become a very tired cliche. It's also always sounded rather pretentious to me.

Steely Dan.
 
I still remember the first time I heard "Peg" as a kid. Those jazz-inflected harmonies were so fucking cool - and yet this wasn't really jazz. But the sound of it wasn't built on the "basic" rock chords one would expect. As a young musician, the chord progression underneath "then the shutter falls" etc really caught my ear. It still does. Amazing stuff.

Steely Dan.
 
I still remember the first time I heard "Peg" as a kid. Those jazz-inflected harmonies were so fucking cool - and yet this wasn't really jazz. But the sound of it wasn't built on the "basic" rock chords one would expect. As a young musician, the chord progression underneath "then the shutter falls" etc really caught my ear. It still does. Amazing stuff.

But, much of the time, it's used instead of "figuratively," and that's the problem. The same happens with the word "veritably" when it's somehow used to describe something in a metaphorical way.

As a musician, "#" to me is "sharp." I don't use twitter, but I think if I did, I'd say "sharp" instead of "hashtag" lol.

Some text/computer shortcuts that I despise:
 
Ur (i.e. your)
Wat/wats (i.e. what/what's)
Tryna/Trynna (i.e. trying to)
Azz (i.e. ass)

Just a side note on that...
 
I work in a college musical theatre program - and given the many pop/rock-oriented shows on Broadway and elsewhere these days, we have made sure that pure pop/rock repertoire training is part of our program. Last summer we were in the process of hiring a new teacher who would be teaching that material among other things - and we were talking about the music that students often relate to when asked to pick a pop/rock song from the past (as opposed to something in the current zeitgeist). It seems that most of them tend to go for something a decade or so in the past - a song they identify with from their early adolescent years. I remarked that it's interesting to see that happen as a general rule - just like we as adults, I think, tend to think back to the songs that defined our high school/college years and maybe a bit beyond into our post-college 20's. Everyone agreed. We all seem to put something special on whatever that musical era was for us.
 
I graduated high school in 1982, and college in '86. And though I like a whole spectrum of music, I will say that the popular music of the 80's does hold a certain emotional resonance for me. Not that I love it all, necessarily, lol - but certain songs of that era will still being up very strong memories of that time in my life - much more than other decades. I wonder somehow if it's really more about those formative late teens-early 20's time in our lives than the music itself - but that the music provides an unforgettable soundtrack to those years?
 
That said, though - I was born in '64, and my parents, who had a huge wonderful eclectic taste for so many kinds of music (my father had been a classical pianist and I owe my huge love of classical and opera to him - also musicals, etc) played the Beatles albums a lot when I was a kid - and I got to know those albums SO well. And maybe it's cheating to say that I identify with them, because in a way I hope we all do - but hearing the Beatles today still puts me in a very special place. I don't know if I necessarily literally identify with them - but I sure feel a parity with their music, in all its wacky wild wonderful variations.
 
Maybe actually that's what I love about them the most - there is no one genre they fit into. Their music itself was so eclectic.

Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) was indeed the cutie,
 
http://www.savedbythebellreviewed.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/02/Zack-shirtless-300x211.png
 
but of course there was also the hunkier Slater (Mario Lopez):
 
http://static.celebuzz.com/uploads/2012/07/30/Mario-Lopez-Then.jpg
 
...and, for those of us who might have those fantasies of helping the nerdier boys get to manhood, Screech (Dustin Diamond) had his charms too...
 
http://cdn02.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/2015/02/screech-wasnt-invited-to-save-by-the-bell-reunion.jpg

Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) was indeed the cutie,
 
http://www.savedbythebellreviewed.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/02/Zack-shirtless-300x211.png
 
but of course there was also the hunkier Slater (Mario Lopez):
 
http://static.celebuzz.com/uploads/2012/07/30/Mario-Lopez-Then.jpg
 
...and, for those of us who might have those fantasies of helping the nerdier boys get to manhood, Screech (Dustin Diamond) had his charms too...
 
http://cdn02.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/2015/02/screech-wasnt-invited-to-save-by-the-bell-reunion.jpg

Ah - well, yes - percentages ARE valid when used that way. Good catch.

We live in a hyperbolic world, where 100% clearly is no longer enough.

We live in a hyperbolic world, where 100% clearly is no longer enough.

We live in a hyperbolic world, where 100% clearly is no longer enough.

Similar with "Ice tea."

Ah yes - I liked them too. I forgot about McNichol.
 
Also, Timothy Hutton in the film "Ordinary People" - and this was right on the cusp of my official coming out.

Yes - and its close cousin "forcive habit."

Yes - and its close cousin "forcive habit."

I'm guilty of the basic idea, though I tend to say "I hope you're doing well" or something similar, rather than the grammatical stupidity of hoping that "the email finds" - even if we all understand what's really meant.
 
But of course the whole need to use that kind of greeting is rather superfluous - it's a meaningless way of easing into the real purpose of the email rather than a sincere wish that the person is well. It's a bit of politeness, but nothing more than that.

Also - "de nada" in Spanish (colloquial for "it was nothing") is a common response to being thanked.

Also - "de nada" in Spanish (colloquial for "it was nothing") is a common response to being thanked.

I'm guilty of the basic idea, though I tend to say "I hope you're doing well" or something similar, rather than the grammatical stupidity of hoping that "the email finds" - even if we all understand what's really meant.
 
But of course the whole need to use that kind of greeting is rather superfluous - it's a meaningless way of easing into the real purpose of the email rather than a sincere wish that the person is well. It's a bit of politeness, but nothing more than that.

Also - "de nada" in Spanish (colloquial for "it was nothing") is a common response to being thanked.

This reminds me of an exchange from I Love Lucy:

I've wrestled with the overuse of "robust." I feel that it used to be a word I heard fairly rarely, and then, really only to describe a food or drink's strong flavor. Then all of a sudden I started hearing about a meeting's agenda being robust, or a program being robust, and similar things. A lot. And that use may well be appropriate, but it seems like it's used a lot more (and to my chagrin) than it used to be.