Vindication! (and it's officially no longer a cool thing.)

Merriam-Webster's Word of '07: 'W00t'

Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to "w00t."

"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.

Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.

"It shows a really interesting thing that's going on in language. It's a term that's arrived only because we're now communicating electronically with each other," Morse said.

Gamers commonly substitute numbers and symbols for the letters they resemble, Morse says, creating what they call "l33t speak" — that's "leet" when spoken, short for "elite" to the rest of the world.

w00t!

So, how was your day?

I spent 45 minutes stuck in mud because I did exactly what the freaking contractor told me to do!

Fairly new site in Dublin. Really, all that is out there right now is construction trailers and surveyors stakes. I have one pallet to drop. I call the guy while parked next to the GC trailer, and he comes out. So far, so good.

Customer tells me to roll over to his conex, and seeing where the pallet is on the truck, points out a route that will get the right side of the truck facing his little corner of heaven (no forklift, you see... we're taking all this crap off by hand.) I obligingly follow the path he showed me, skirting between to obvious Lake Ontario-sized puddles, and I'm about 15 feet from my goal when the truck stops moving.

Folks, I have not seen mud this gluey and adhesive since Fort Benning. When I got out of the truck, every step brought up enough mud to form a rim at least an inch thick around each shoe. I could see that what I had driven across wasn't actually dry, but instead a thin crust of dried earth on top of this cauldron of slimy goo.

We tried everything. Rocking back in forth from reserve to first gear. Putting wood under the tires for traction. The contractor even tried pushing and pulling me out with his little Dirt Devil. No luck. After some discussion, help appeared in the form of a large backhoe/grader that pulled me free of the grasping mire with little effort.

After that adventure, both my mud flaps lived up to their name, the steps to my driver door were simply coated in mud from my repeated attempts to clean my shoes, and the inside of my truck? Ick.

Next time, this guy can walk over and get his shit.

20 First Lines.

Seen everywhere. Here are the first lines from the first twenty songs iTunes pulls out of my Top Rated folder. You tell me the artist and title.

I will warn you: There are two filk songs and one from an extremely obscure Canadian band in there! Some should be blindingly obvious, some pretty damn hard. I did skip over songs that were band repeats and covers.

1. I turn on the tube, and what do I see? A whole lotta people crying 'don't blame me.' nimrodjcs gets a half credit. Technically, it's an Eagles song.

2. Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire dalen_talas shouted "BOOM!" when he saw this one.

3. Besides yourself if radio's gonna stay grimmwire and I are both not sure about that first word.

4. I like to keep it in the refrigerator. kshandra keeps the powder dry and the action quicker.

5. In a foreign field he lay

6. Didn't know what time it was the lights were low

7. Hey there, all you middle men fragbert has heavy vibrations coming up from the floor.

8. Is this the real life? filkerdave has a devil set aside for me.

9. The mother of all that is evil

10. Speaking as a guy who's really got it going on,

11. You pretend you're high madelineusher shows off that college education.

12. Head bangers in leather heartofawarrior is an up-front fanatic

13. There were guns and drums and drums and guns, haroo, haroo kshandra gets half credit. It's by Captain Tractor.

14. Shot through the heart, and you're to blame heartofawarrior still keeps a picture of Jon on her notebook

15. Mother was an incubator

16. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, filkerdave hits with one of the best filks ever.

17. Words like violence christophine was last seen trekking the moors with a beach chair.

18. The scientist sits at his sonar and he's scanning the lake for a sign Am I surprised that filkerdave got both filk songs?

19. Just a little touch of make-up; just a little touch of bull;

20. I went to a party last Saturday night heartofawarrior says it ain't no big thing.