The Slice: A better way to cut newshole

Snip snip here, snip snip there.

“Here’s a topic I don’t think you have asked about,” wrote Terri Ring of Spokane Valley. “Does anyone sit and read the paper with scissors and highlighter handy?”

It appears at least one reader does.

“My Sunday morning routine is the paper/cup of coffee and pen and scissors handy. I clip out articles and highlight stuff. My husband tries to get up earlier and read it before I get to it.”

I can see where that might be preferable to perusing the paper after it has been, uh, processed.

By acting as a personalized news service for those in her household, Ring is just carrying on a family tradition. “My father would cut articles out for me or my mom.”

•If this makes you start humming “Waltzing Matilda,” don’t blame me: In years of teaching in Silver Valley schools, Rick Barth of Wallace has encountered lots of kids dressed in items of apparel from the Billabong line. Not one has ever known what a billabong is.

Barth said the students never fail to seem disappointed upon learning that it is an Australian term for a pond or smallish lake.

He wonders if they thought it referred to an item of drug paraphernalia.

•Quick quiz: The Spokane Chronicle folded in the summer of what year?

Give up? It was 1992.

•This date in Slice history (1999): How long should the new person at the office wait before using co-workers’ nicknames?

•No-brain binky: What exactly is wrong with parents who buy pacifiers for their babies that say things like “Stud muffin,” “Flirt” and “Born to shop”?

•Slice answer: Les Norton doubts that anyone misses the Seahawks training camp more than him. Active on a Seahawks fans’ Web site, Norton always looked forward to reconnecting with online pals from all over. “We would catch up on each other’s lives in real life rather than computer time.”

•Well, yes, in a sense: A reader noticed a lost-dog classified ad in the S-R. The canine was described as a “nurtured male.”

•Speak softly and carry a large bag of snacks: “My adopted granddaughter and I have figured out a way to get marmots to pay attention and not run away,” wrote Fran Menzel. “We call ourselves the Marmot Whisperers.”

I can’t wait for the movie.

•Speaking of marmots: The Marmot Lodge held a quick meeting during your vacation and you were named our United Way rep. Congratulations.

•Today’s Slice question: Who appreciates this area more — the lifers or the transplants?