Looking up words, trying to sound smart, the dictionary decides to give me some advice....
WORD NOTEutilizeThis is a puff-word. Since it does nothing that good old use doesn't do, itsextra letters and syllables don't make a writer seem smarter. Rather, usingutilize makes you seem like either a pompous twit or someone so insecure that he'll use pointlessly big words in an attempt to look smart. The same is true for the noun utilization, for vehicle as used for car, for residence as used for home, for indicate as used for say, for presently, at present, at this time,and at the present time as used for now, and so on. What's worth remembering about puff-words is something that good writing teachers spend a lot of time drumming into undergrads: "Formal writing" does not mean gratuitously fancy writing; it means clean, clear, maximally considerate writing.

So our room is littered with bottles that I need to draw, and rather then freak out at the mess Cass put a rose in one of them. What a sweetheart.


I can never sleep after games but I'm usually parched so I drink a lot. This means there's a big need to pee in the morning. Well it's morning and both our bathrooms are taken by the recruits who are staying for the weekend. One's plucking eyebrows or something and the others caking on the makeuWHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE MY TRACTS ABOUT TO EXPOLOD