Thursday, January 17, 2008

Crazy coincidence or potential royalties suit?

For fun, I decided to type "barguments" into the You Tube search engine. Only one video came up. It's titled "The problem with barguments" and it's three people arguing in a bar over whether one of the guys (Ed) tripped or fell while drunk. The odd part: the people involved are reporters I used to work with eight years ago at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. You can read the details here.

The guy filming -- who you don't see or hear -- is Esteban Parra. This will sound more suspicious, but I've been reading his blog "Parra Grafs" fairly regularly after a fellow ex-colleague sent me there to read an update about another ex-News Journaler that Esteban had put on it about a year ago.

You should check it out-- his posts are usually very funny or sort of pitiful (such as when he gets out of bed at 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and rakes leaves) but almost always entertaining to read.

I will say this about Esteban's You Tube post: it's one more example of someone misusing the term "bargument." You'll recall the new Urban Dictionary makes the same mistake. It's not just an argument at a bar. A bargument must revolve around a debate you would probably only have in a bar, or at least while drinking.

Arguing over how someone fell doesn't qualify as a true bargument. Arguing over whether you'd rather fall on your face in a church wedding or in a job interview would.

But as you watch the video (warning: early f-bomb, very loud), you can see a formula that should serve the Barguments book well: (Friends+alcohol)*Arguing=Fun!


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