Tuesday, October 31, 2006

so, you thought you could fly below the radar?

The name may have changed, but he's back: Media Dump

Yay!!!!!!

Bank Card

Found.

Dammit!

Wow, you watch a lot of T.V.

The other night I was over at the Anti-blogger's house watching a movie with Matt & the Washrambler. After the movie was over, Matt began flipping channels and commented on my ability to name even the most obscure T.V. shows in just a few seconds. At first I was defensive about this - as if my being able to identify Still Standing in a split second is a bad thing.

Then I got to thinking: it's not a bad thing. I'm impressed when someone can name a song after only a few notes, so why not be impressed when someone possesses the same knowledge about T.V.? So to Matt I say, "Thanks."
This blog post is brought to you by "TV Tuesdays"

Happy Halloween!

I was going to post a picture of the awesome jack-o-lanterns we carved at FishFrog & Nell's party, but blogger is not letting me. BOO! Boo!, I say!

I hope everyone is having a frightfully awesome Halloween! I will be learning about Classroom Management this All Hallow's Eve. ooohh, scarry!!

Friday, October 27, 2006

setting feminism back 20 years

So, last night Panda noticed a lot of her lights and outlets were not working, so she rightly thought to look at the fuse box. We both looked at it and determined that a fuse had been blown. This afternoon when our friendly handyman came to look at it, he told me that the fuse was not blown, but that we simply need to make sure that we flip the switch totally off before trying to flip it back on. I felt pretty dumb, and trying to explain that we had flipped the switch to no avail seemed pointless & unbelievable.

This reminds me of when I worked in a Wal-mart's tire and lube. Yes, I said tire and lube (and yes, I said Wal-mart). I worked out front - I helped people use the computer that tells them what kind of battery they need, and helped them locate various other car things. I also ran the register for the oil changes, etc.
Each day, without fail, This would happen:

Older Gentleman: I need to speak to one of the men in back.
Me: They are currently busy, is there something I can help you with?
O.G.: I'd rather talk to one of the men, but thanks sweetie.
Me: I can try to answer your question, and if I can't, we'll get one of the guys from the back. What do you need?
O.G.: I need some turtle wax.
Me: Here you go.

I'm not kidding, this happened daily! Unfortunately, it would also sometimes happen that the older gentleman would have a actual question regarding cars that I couldn't answer. The conversation would go much like the one above but instead of asking for turtle wax, he'd ask something about alternators & I would have to get one of the guys from the back. I hated this even more because it was as if I proved that little girls don't know anything about cars, when in fact it was just that THIS girl knows nothing about cars!

I never understood why Big Ed hired me for that job - I told him straight out that the only thing I knew about cars was how to put gas in one, but still he hired me.

Lost and gone forever

Not only is that the name of a guster cd, but it is the fate of my debit card. I just called to cancel my card & it will take about a week before I get my new one. This really sucks. You don't realize how much you use your debit card until you don't have it to use. What is really going to suck is when I find my debit card in the back pocket of some jeans when I do laundry this weekend.

Happy Anniversary!


Thanks for reading!

Thursday, October 26, 2006

StuporHeroes!

A friend of mine has a web comic called The StuporHeroes. It is actually quite funny. I suggest you check it out - comics are updated 2 times a week & I suggest you click on "first" and read from the beginning.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Part 2: The Word of the Week!

Wow, great words! Several of the words pop out at me as frontrunners for the word of the week. Still, there can only be one that holds that title!

This week's Word of the Week is:


Insouciance

1. The quality of being insouciant; lack of care or concern; indifference
2. Blithe lack of concern; nonchalance
3. the cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you

Insouciance - it sure is a good feeling! Just be careful not to let it rule your life, because it's important to get hot and bothered about something every once and a while.

I know a lot of people LOVED fishfrog's submission of imitate v. intimate. And, it was a cool submission; I loved it too. There were several words I wanted to pick, but only ONE could be this week's word.

Part 1: The Words

You all outdid yourselves with submissions for the word box and I could not be happier! I apologize for the delay in getting the words and word of the week winner to you. Alright, let’s look at our words!

Encompass
1. To form a circle about; encircle; surround
2. To enclose; envelop
3. To include comprehensively
4. Obsolete. To outwit.

Insouciance
1. The quality of being insouciant; lack of care or concern; indifference
2. Blithe lack of concern; nonchalance
3. the cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you

Protean
1. readily assuming different forms or characters; extremely variable
2. changeable in shape or form, as an amoeba
3. (of an actor) versatile; aple ot play many kinds of roles
From Classical Mythology: Proteus, a sea god, son of Ocianus and Tethys, noted for his ability to assume different forms and to prophesy.

Samizdat
1. a clandestine publishing system within the Soviet Union, by which forbidden or unublishable literature was reproduced and circulated privately.
2. a work or periodical circulated by this system

Solecism
1. a nonstandard or ungrammatical usage (example: “unflammable” or “they was.”
2. a breach of good manners or etiquette
3. any error, impropriety, or inconsistency
Orgins: Soli was an ancient city in Cilicia (present day Turkey) where a corrupt form of Attic Greek was spoken.

Obloquy (the entry was oblequy, but I couldn’t find anything for that word, so I’m assuming you meant obloquy).
1. Censure, blame, or abusive language aimed at a person or thing, esp by numerous persons or by the general public.
2. discredit, disgrace, or bad repute resulting for public blame, abuse, or denunciation.

Is (alright, arfanser, here you go!)
1. to exist or live
2. to take place, happen, occur
3. to occuby a placy or position
4. to continue or remain as before
5. to belong, attend, befall
6. used as a copula to connect the subject with its predicate adjective, or predicate nominative, in order to describe, identify, or amplify the subject
7. used as a copula to introduced or form interrogative or imperative sentences
8. used with the present participle of another verb to form the progressive tense
9. used with the present participle or infinitive of the principal verb to indicate future action
10. used with the past participle of another verb to form the passive voice
11. used in archaic or literary constructions with some intransitive verbs to form the perfect tense

Intimate (the verb) Vs. Imitate & why fishfrog get them confused
Intimate (v)
1. to indicate or make known indirectly; hint; imply; suggest
2. (archaic) to make known, announce

Imitate
1. to follow or endeavor to follow as a model or example
2. to mimic; impersonate
3. to make a copy of; reproduce closely
4. to have or assume the appearance of; simulate; resemble

Fishfrog, I suspect you (and many others) confuse these words because they sound & look rather similar. As you can see, the definitions are not similar, so it’s probably best if you stop mixing them up.

Nincompoop

1. A fool or simpleton.

Squirrel
1. any of numerous arboreal bushy-tailed rodents in the genus Sciurus of the family Sciuridae
2. to store or hide (money, valuables, etc), usually for the future

Somersault
1. an acrobatic movement either forward or backward, in wich the body rolls end or end, making a complete rotation
2. such a movement preformed in the air as part of a dive, tumbling routine, etc
3. a complete overturn or reversal, as of opinion
4. to perform a somersault
Thanks Dictonary.com for all your help!

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Even 10 more things I love

  1. The Bourne Identity
  2. Halloween
  3. Turning leaves
  4. The great words in this week's word box
  5. Pumpkins
  6. Alvin, of Alvin and the Chipmunks
  7. Pulp (the band, not the annoying part of orange juice)
  8. A clean house
  9. Road trips
  10. PaRappa The Rapper 2 on PS2

Monday, October 16, 2006

Movie Quote Game

In what movie would you find this quote:

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.

This blog post brought to you by "Movie Mondays"

Word Box


The word box is hungry for some words.
It will remain open until Wednesday @ 12noon.

Happy Wording!

Clang, clang!

When I was 10, my parents bought my brother and me Nintendo for Christmas. We played Mario Brothers so much that at the end of the night, when all was quiet and dreams were beckoning me, I would hear the "clang, clang. clang clang" of collecting coins from the game. Now, nearly 20 years later I've been reintroduced to video games (see this post). Instead of the sound of coins ringing in my ears, now when I close my eyes feel as though I am rolling my katamari ball around to pick up the many things on earth. It is very unsettling, much like I image motion sickness to be. Instinct tells me these games are rotting my brain. Panda tells me they are making me smarter, however, so I'm going to continue playing them.

*yet another amusing blogger spell check example: replace "katamari" with "stammer"

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Get your folk on!

Ani Difranco concert tonight! Whoo-hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Something I never thought I'd say:

Grand Theft Auto is totally awesome!

Last night Panda and I borrowed PS2 from a friend & he included Grand Theft auto in the bag of games. I was not hip to play this game, what with all the violence and misogyny, but Panda insisted. It turns out, the game is pretty fun. It's totally inappropriate for kids & I'm opposed to it in every way, but damn! if it isn't fun. If you want a car, you just pull a driver out of his and get in! When you shoot at people, they run away screaming and it is really funny. Panda found out that you do not beat up old ladies 'cuz they will beat your ass down until you are dead.

How did this game get made? For all that is holy DO NOT buy this game thereby giving the creaters any money, but DO borrow it from a friend and play it.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Happy Fall!

It is chilly!

I can hear the wind blowing outside and it is quite chilly in my apartment. Poor Lucy is curled up by the heater. She is also kind of annoyed with me because I've been on my computer all week. Mostly, I've been working on a unit plan for my class. I'm actually quite annoyed, not because I had to make a 10 day unit plan, but because our only instruction was: make a 10 day unit plan. Now, I realize I'm in a masters class & it would be easy to assume that everyone in my class is already a teacher, but in fact only 4 of us are. The rest of us have never seen a unit plan before or attempted to put one together. We are all at a loss. I finished my plan yesterday, and it was probably crap, but at least it's done. It is also on a topic I care about - Indian boarding schools and Indian Identity. So, hopefully once I know what I'm doing I'll be able to salvage parts of it and make a new unit plan. It just annoys me that in this program I am in there are no classes on the basics - the thought is we'll learn it during our practicum and student teaching. Well, um...what about all the assignments before then? I guess I'm going to have to learn it on my own because apparently the thousands of dollars I'm shelling out to this school is not enough for them to offer even one workshop on lesson plans! Alright, rant over.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Six Degrees...

Connect these two actors in 6 degrees or less!

Christian Bale and Patrick Dempsy

GOOD LUCK!

This blog post brought to you by "Movie Mondays"

Friday, October 06, 2006

Matt's Neat Links & Missoula

If you go to Matt's Blog, and all 5 of my readers do, you probably have visited some of his "neat links." Right now, there is one titled "Bear vs. Tranquelizers vs. Trampoline." I suggest you click on it. This is amusing to me because the clip actually takes place in my favorite town, Missoula, MT. Bears in trees are actually not all that uncommon there. During my sophmore year of school there was a bear stuck in the tree outside of my freshman year dorm. Another time a bear was found sleeping on the quad ouside of the building where I checked my e-mail every day. Luckily for me, the bear was snoozing at the same time I was (early morning) so we did not encounter eachother. Ahh, Missoula....the last best place.

The hell?

I went to the farmer's market on Wednesday. Everything seemed as it should be for a fall visit to the market: fresh vegetables were plentiful, bags of candy corn were on display, toy spiders and scare crows adorned the shelves, and pumpkins littered the ground waiting to be bought and carved. Something was off, however...Something did not seem right. Next to the beautiful orange pumpkins sat ugly white pumpkins.

White pumpkins!?! "The hell?," I say, "What the hell?" The little ones look like cloves of garlic - what's the fall fun in that? The big ones are just unsetteling, and I imagine will look like the bald heads of mad-men when carved into jack-o-lanterns. White pumkpins are weird & I am appropriately vexed.

Yay!

I lost my glasses about a month ago. Thinking I'd merely left them up at the farm, I asked my dad to look around last time he was up there. No luck. I was bummed, not because I particularity like my glasses, but because glasses are expensive.

Jump to tonight: Tonight, I am having trouble sleeping. Since my "retirement" I have reverted back to my natural sleep patterns: stay up late, sleep in late. Well, I'm trying to get back on a normal schedule because I'm going to have to start subbing soon & my current schedule isn't going to fly with that. But I digress... Basically I couldn't sleep, so I started cleaning my room. As I was putting away my duffel bag I heard a noise. "That's odd," I thought, "I cleaned this out weeks ago." (I had just neglected to put the empty bag away). When I looked inside the pocket I found nothing. Then, I noticed a rip in the lining - inside: my glasses!! Also inside: a 50 dollar bill left over from my MT vacation. It is a good night tonight!

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

TV Trivia!

Answer me this:

Family Matters was a spinoff of what show?

This blog post brought to you by "TV Tuesdays"

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Philosophy of Special Agent Dale Cooper



Never drink coffee that has been anywhere near a fish.