CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
"'That deathly feeling.' People often speak of having 'deathly sensations.' What are the actual sensations of death? Are there really any feelings of pain when death comes?" From the Duluth Evening Herald, 1895.
We previously saw that every day is Christmas, but there has to be a holiday occasionally. We finally tracked down "the day it really wasn't Christmas." From Together, 1969.
"Nobody knows just when he's going to walk in front of an automobile, or entertain a house party of nice, husky, vicious, little disease germs." From Wadco News, 1922.
Not sure why mysterious music and an elusive rainbow are newsworthy -- given that we're always listening to obscure music and have found every rainbow we've chased to be evasive, this sounds quite mundane. From UFO Newsclipping Service, 1991.