Happy New Years and Booby Traps

Happy 2009 to you all! Here's hoping it's a bit more upbeat in terms of economic, social and political stability!

Now that the altruistic stuff is out of the way, I'll get down to the bragging!

The Helm was just featured in a "Best of" press release by Dark Horse Comics. (I didn't use an exclamation point there, even though I wanted to.) The Helm was one of 16 books they singled out as having been singled out by critics for repeated praise during 2008. (Again, no exclamation point, even though it totally would have been warranted.) I like repeated praise. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling comparable to the sensation I get from wearing my new, warm and fuzzy house slippers that I just got for Christmas.

And why did I need new slippers, you may ask? Because my old ones are still in a box in my basement somewhere. Remember that Borg Cube of boxes containing 98% of my family's worldly possessions? Well, the boxes are still there, but they have de-cubed. They have become more amoeba-like over the weeks as we have raided them for various essential items. Now the basement is more like some kind of wickedly clever, booby trapped maze.

Booby trapped. A trap for boobies. Titter titter.

Ever wonder about the origin of the term booby trap? It was not, as it at first appears, coined by tittering fourteen-year-old boys, drunk on the possibility of capturing women's mammary glands for their own nefarious pleasure. No, it refers instead to traps for dumb people--you know, boobs. Boob, in this context, descends from the Spanish "bobo" which means stupid.

That other kind of boob descends (titter titter) from the Elizabethan word "bubbies."

One Elizabethan gentlman to another, "I say, Lord Dodderington, cast thine eyes upon yon bawd! Nice bubbies, what what?"

Lord Dodderington, "I'd fair foin that trollop! Dibs!!"