Why An Oilers Blog?

The answer is quite simple: my aunt, Glen (from Wainscott, Maine), gave me a thesaurus for my birthday. It’s the Roget’s International Thesaurus, Eighth Edition, which—as you well know—has been widely regarded as inferior to the prior edition.

Gary E. Hoover (renowned Amazon user) puts it thusly:

“Unfortunately, the index in this 8th edition is awful compared to prior indexes. For example, in the index to the prior, 7th edition, if you look up "hook," it tells you which section to turn to if you mean an anchor, a point of land, a lure, or 3 other meanings. The index of the 8th edition just lists the section numbers, without disambiguating the different meanings. This change is true throughout the index, making the book far harder to use. For many words, this means it takes 5-10 times as much time to look up something, than it did with the older editions.

I understand the book was getting huge, but I'd rather have two volumes or more pages, and get a book that is as powerful and easy to use as possible. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the 7th Edition!

3 stars”

Another well known Amazon user, CiscoD, puts it thisly:

“I pre-ordered this edition, having used the 7th since it came out. The indexing has been radically changed, probably to save space, but the editor might have just as well decided to omit random words. (Not that there weren't plenty missing from the 7th.) It makes the volume so difficult to use that I'm returning it. Too bad! I'd buy two volumes. I'll just continue with the 7th.

2 stars”

and so forth…

Wow, Aunt Glen—couldn’t even put in a moment of research before wasting your money on a terrible gift. I’d, frankly, rather have a piece of boiled armadillo shit wrapped in discarded COVID masks than this desk weight you call a thesaurus. I feel like I get stupider when I flip through the pages of this awful tome. I mean, I love my Aunt Glen, but fuck her.

Anyways, I was given this stacked and bound pile of garbage and I thought to myself, “Christ, Aunt Glen, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Why would I need to increase my vocabulary? To what end, Aunt Glen? TO WHAT END!?” I racked my brain for months (not really) in an effort to put this trash to use so that the tree-and-a-half that was murdered to produce it wouldn’t have died in vain. Again, I thought to myself, “What could I possibly write about?” I listed my interests: Oilers hockey, ivy plants, grip strengthening exercises, the mountain ranges of the North West Territories, Chinese food, and the deep foreboding call of the open ocean. Of all the items listed, I decided to go with the first option, Oilers hockey.

Ah, Oilers hockey…Oilers hockey…Oilers hockey…is…good…for me…to watch. I enjoy watching Oilers hockey because it’s fun. It is also exciting and good.

(hmm, maybe I should just keep writing about my shitty thesaurus)

Oh, I know!

The Oilers just wrapped up their 4th preseason game against the lowly* Winnipeg Jets with a convincing** 4-3 win on a last minute goal by The Nuge. The powerplay looked as elite as last season’s historic effort;

*The 2021 playoffs actually never happened. Sweep? Heavens! What ever are you talking about?

**not convincing