Audible.com, and Some Other Things

Hello fellow bloggers and anonymous couple of readers! Time to update you all on the adventures of ME. How's that for Freudian Narcissism? But then, that is the heart of blogging is it not? Some would say yes. (I say we gang up on that guy and kick his ass! And then blog about it.)

First I want to say that blogging is so much easier and much more fun now, so I just might do it more often. The reason? Well, I recently got the new laptop . After much comparing and debating (and name-calling), I went with this one:

[Cue angelic choir]

Isn't it beautiful? It is, of course, the MacBook Pro. So easy to use: never gets hot, doesn't make a sound, don't have to bother with anti-spyware and three hour scans. I love it. Plus I got a student discount AND got a free Ipod Touch.

That brings me to the next item for this post. I have been nerding it up listening to all kinds of cool podcasts on history and grammar on the Ipod. (And of course- Hey Brooklyn by Amber!)

Grammar Girl's podcast is where I found out that you can get a free trial and download a free audiobook at www.Audible.com. (That link has the full address and will take you to the correct page for the free trial and download.)

I have never tried an audiobook. I'm old school. I like to have the book in my hands. Sniff it. Use weird scraps of paper for bookmarks. Throw it at someone to get my point across. Spill coffee on it. The normal fun things one does with books.

But, the audiobook is free so it seems like an opportune time to try it, no? If any of you do the free trial let me know what book you choose. I am having trouble deciding. There is a pretty good selection.

Also- two weeks into school already and it is going well so far. I had to do a simple presentation and had a complete spaz attack. I have been exiled in Mommyville for over two years. It may take some time to readjust to things such as: people that aren't Violet or Jeremy, bright lights, having to think.

Wish me luck. (That way I can be insulted at your implication that I need some sort of magical ward to accomplish my goal rather than relying on talent and intellect alone.)

;)

Crocheting Tiger, Bedridden Dragon

(Or, #failedkungfumovietitles.)

Here are some failed 'Kung Fu' movie titles I am making up as I write. Inspired by the #failedwesternmovie tag (or whatever the correct tag was) from Twitter a few weeks back. For those of you who have thus far resisted the pull of the Twitterverse, I admire your resolve (yet at the same time laugh to myself at its futility, mwahahaha). Not that it's the greatest thing ever, don't get me wrong. In fact it's so mundane as to be slightly hypnotic in effect.

Okay, so here are my failed 'kung fu'/ martial arts movie titles. If you don't get the reference you can click the link on each line to see original film title. God, I'm so accommodating.

• Fists of Mild Irritability
• Three Guys in Tiger Costumes From Shaolin
• The Jersey Connection
• Enter the Gecko
• Board Game of Death
• Jet Li's Slight Trepidation
• Somewhat Socially Awkward Monk from Shaolin

Now it's your turn. Dazzle me.

Now I really want to watch some Bruce Lee movies. He was so badass!

Stupid Plant Tricks

These plants are called 'Hens and Chicks' because the bigger ones sprout little babies from underneath. So, if these are Hens and Chicks...

Then am I to assume that this one is The Rooster?

I've had these a long time and they've never done this before. Pretty weird. I Googled and found that this is what they look like when they bloom. Hmm. I did not know that. Thanks, Google!

Because If I Don't Post Soon My Blogging License Will Be Revoked...

Howdy Fellow Bloggers and random perusers of the Internet!

I have been exhausted. So much so that even blogging seems like an Herculean task. Sad, I know.
Hmmm, let's see. Anything important I haven't divulged? Nah.

Here's all I have at the moment:

• Television has convinced Violet that she needs sugary cereals in order to be happy. The ones she keeps screaming for are "Penny Charms" and "Fruity Devils'. I guess she was too distracted by the screaming cartoon characters that pimp cereal to kids to get the names right.

• My hair is orange at the moment. My roots were growing out and I didn't want to dye it black again so, I used a haircolor remover kit. My plan was to put the red hair dye on right afterward, but... I didn't count on that stuff turning my hair into straw. I think I'll give it a few days. This means I'll probably get my university identification photo taken in a week- with orange hair! Yay.

• Speaking of television: I just heard a (horrible) commercial playing a Black-Eyed Peas song. Why does every song Fergie sings have to be completely idiotic? I know, it comes with the territory, but really. Is it a prerequisite that the lyrics are created by a random word generator stocked with childrens' first words, or what? Did she just actually say "Boom boom pow, them chickens are jackin' my style"? What the hell. But then again, she does spell the word 'tasty' "T-a-s-t-e-y," doesn't she. Yep. Damn those chickens, jackin' her style. I'm going to go listen to some classic Norwegian black metal to scrub the sound from my mind.

That's about it for now. Oh wait- one last thing actually!

Just imagine. This cultural popkern kernel has been lodged in the molar of society all this time, and I only discovered it yesterday. I've been missing out! (The guy doesn't appear in the video until somewhere around 30 seconds in. Enjoy.)

I wish I had this guy's energy. (Or the number for his speed dealer.)

Perks of Being a Thirty-One Year Old Freshman

So yeah, when I should have been in college at the socially-deemed 'appropriate' age I was busy being in a horrid marriage with a soul-sucking jerk.

Now, at age thirty-one (it hurts a little less every time I say it aloud, forgive me) I will be starting school this Fall. Yawn, academia. Now- on to the perks!

1. Student loans! Yes, I do have to take out one, just a small one. Just this once. I can see how an eighteen year old offered these loans could get into suffocating debt, quickstyle. So tempting. At my age I have the advantage of seeing all my peers still completely inundated in student loans from a decade ago so I can learn from their mistakes. Take that, showoffs!


2. The sleek and powerful MacBook Pro I am going to buy using aforementioned student loans. It's completely necessary, for school work you know. The fact that Apple is offering students a FREE! (after mail-in rebate) iPod Touch with the purchase of a Mac, well that is just a bonus isn't it?


3. When the younger students want someone to buy a keg they'll come grovelling to me. Plus, I can probably get a senior discount and pocket the difference! Brilliant. The student loan will be paid back before you know it.
   

See? Bullet-proof. However, the first wisenheimer that makes a Strangers With Candy joke at my expense is getting a Viking send-off. If you know what I mean.

Jerri Blank, Strangers With Candy

How I Came To Have A Maxim Subscription

Not by choice! Last year we were persuaded (swindled) into purchasing a magazine subscription from one of these door-to-door salespersons- saleskid since he was maybe fourteen- who claimed to be travelling the country selling magazines to pay for college. (Get a grant or take out loans, ensuring yourself years of horrible debt like everyone else, kid!)

We knew it wasn't a good deal and that we could buy cheaper by going directly through the magazine's website, however we both wussed out and gave in to this little Oliver Twist. We don't even really buy magazines but finally Jeremy chose EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly) so we could send little Oliver on his way back to Fagin. It took almost seven months before the first magazine finally arrived.

Now, after about five issues of EGM's sporadic delivery and many missing issues, what do I find in my mailbox? Yes, Maxim Magazine. In MY name, by the way. Great. On the front is a sticker from the publisher informing me that 'Unfortumately EGM is no longer in print. As a courtesy our publisher's have substituted Maxim so you can enjoy uninterrupted service'.

Gee, thanks! I can now peruse scholarly features such as: Ask A Hot Bartender, and What Women Hear When You Talk Star Wars. I haven't even mentioned the hot, scantily clad (and heavily airbrushed) chicks. This magazine also answers the timeless questions 'What happens to the fat after liposuction' [What is not used elsewhere in the body or for research is incinerated] and 'Can one actually be scared to death?' [Yes, you can].

While playing with Violet outside today our mail carrier approached to hand off the goods. I saw the magazine and said something like "Oh great, another Maxim." This next exchange proves that mail workers do indeed notice what you get in the mail. This is the third or fourth issue we've received, but he said, "Yeah, I showed them in the mail room that you guys were getting a gaming magazine and they switched it to Maxim. How'd they know they weren't sending it to a child?" Good point, yet creepy that they pay attention to such things.

And remember them. Ugh.

So, moral of the story: put a No Soliciting sign on your door and your life will be much better.

Cellar Door

I'm sure that most of you have heard about this idea (following text borrowed from Wikipedia because I was too lazy to write it out myself):

Cellar door is a combination of words in the English language once characterized by J. R. R. Tolkien to have an especially beautiful sound. In his 1955 essay "English and Welsh", commenting on his affection for the Welsh language, Tolkien wrote:

"Most English-speaking people...will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant."

I recently decided that if Cellar Door is the most phonetically pleasing word compound in the English language, then it is my job (part-time, no pay) to find the least mellifluous.

Here are the front-runners so far:

• Snack Cup




• Pizza Bread




• Monosodium Glutamate




• Ann Coulter




• Vulture Bee (I admit, I got that one from a Wiki random article)




• Lactation Consultant




• Tax Preparer

Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I am not truly separating the sound of the words from their meanings (Ann Coulter, Tax Preparer) and have corrupted the whole idea of this project. You get the idea though.

I want to hear some of your ideas on what YOU think is the most phonetically displeasing phrase in English. Lay it on me. I want to know!

Books, Dumb Celebrity Kid Names and Whatnot

I haven't been able to get as much reading done lately as I would like, but I did start a new book last night. It's called Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. It's the nonfiction story of three generations of women in China during tumultuous times.

It begins with the story of the author's grandmother, who was given as a concubine to a powerful warlord general. That happened when she was fourteen years old. Her father did it to ingratiate himself to the general in order to further himself politically and financially. It also details the horrible and painful "beauty" ritual of foot-binding she had to endure since she was a small child. This was the feminine ideal trait of the time and the resulting tiny (mutilated) feet were described as "three-inch gilded lilies." I'll stick to my Clementine number nines, baby! (Size 8, actually. Quit looking at me like that. I'm not bandaging my feet for your approval, folks.)

I am not even one hundred pages in yet but I already love this book. I picked it up at my local Goodwill on a whim. Some of my favorite books have been discovered that way.

Okay. I was going to talk about some other books but honestly by the time I actually got to sit down and type this I have forgotten what they were. Oops...

I sort of lied a minute ago. I DO get to read more often than I insinuated. It's just that the books I read (over and over) are: Good Night, Baby; The Cat in the Hat; Tom and Annie Go Shopping; and A House for a Hermit Crab.

I may run out of breath by the tenth reading but I am pleased that Violet enjoys books. Oh yeah! Warning- Mommy bragging moment: she has recently learned the alphabet and she recognizes and says all the letters! (Twenty-two months old? Whoa. I didn't learn them until I was like six I think.)

Now to the other topic. Dumb Celebrity Baby Names.

This isn't a new thing by any means. Celebrities have a long history of showing their "creativity" through offbeat names for their (spoiled) offspring. Bob Geldof and Paula Yates may have helped inspire the recent boom in silly names when they began having children almost twenty years ago: Peaches Honeyblossom, Fifi Trixibelle and Little Pixie Geldof. What's in a name. Well, the only news I ever hear of the Geldof girls involves drinking, snogging and snarking. Go figure.

Honestly, I don't care what anyone names their child, as long as they consider that the child will have to live with the name (and possibly shame.) What do you, Reader, think of this bizarre trend?

To me it's like every other lame status thing in Hollyweird. "Yeah well, my baby's name is totally weirder than yours." (Please, Paris, do not breed!) Who can have the tiniest dog, biggest sunglasses, most stints in rehab, and most unusual baby name. Snorrre.

When I started this blog, pre-Violet, I wrote about the name debate Jeremy and I were having. I've always loved the name Violet. a.) I love the color. b.) It sounds cool to me. c.) I knew a little old lady named Violet Canary and just thought she was the bee's knees. d.) It's the name of a song I like. Jeremy, however, wanted to go all Norse mythology on me (which we both love, but...) and name her-

are you ready?

Valkyrie.

Seriously. This was before the Tom Cruise movie came out, but it was being filmed. I told him that besides everything else, people will think we named our baby after a Tom Cruise movie. Why not tattoo Pepsi ads on her while we're at it? Yuck. His reasoning was "No one else will have the same name." Yeah, nor would she run into a classmate named Dogfeathers. Or Arnie Palmer Lite. Or Sassula Spaghetta. Doesn't make any of those a good name for a little girl either!

I suppose that's the price one pays for breeding with a known Dungeons and Dragon player. Well, I think you know who won that one. However he does stand by the idea that he gets to name a boy child, if we were to have one. His pick? Thor. (One good reason Violet is going to stay a single child.)

While we're on the subject: Yes, Violet. No, not "like Ben and Jen." Sorry. That makes me insane when people say that. I feel better now.

Pointless Post of the Day

The bad thing about snow, besides (a) It is cold, and (b) the fact that it is cold doesn't make it a suitable replacement for ice cream, is that when you walk in it everyone will know where you went. (Same is true of peeing in it, apparently.)

(Junk) Food For Thought

• Nothing is worse than the smell of summer sweat, unless it's summer sweat doused in a gallon of cheap patchouli oil. I discovered this to be true when I was stuck for five minutes in a slow elevator at work with three "street kids" (translation, specific to these guys: self-exiled suburbanites looking for new ways to torment their affluent parents by sleeping in the park, not wearing shoes and growing out dreadlocks.) One of these fine catches dated a coworker; a smart girl I actually liked. He was later banned from entering the building after being caught on video urinating in that same elevator.

• People on LSD say the darndest things! Now that is a show Bill Cosby should host. Some of my favorites include these gems: "Do you think this fish needs watered?" (The person who uttered this classic had spent half an hour looking into a goldfish bowl, mind you.); and "It's raining... does your umbrella have batteries?" C'mon, who amongst you hasn't been the designated sane person for a bunch of tripping freaks? What's that? Okay, maybe I did just hang out with losers.

• In my freezer there is a plastic bag containing what we call "Zombie Beans." In actuality they are just refried beans I made one day. They were bestowed with this strange moniker when Jeremy found it so odd that I would freeze refried beans that he felt compelled to ask WHY I was doing it. Rather than tell the boring truth (Why waste food? Beans take along time to cook, and that's IF I remember to soak them the night before, etcetera) instead I said, "This is so we have food when the bodies reanimate. If you aren't one step ahead, you won't even make it through the first wave of zombies, man." I know I won't be fighting zombies to get into Kroger for my beans, fool!

So there. If you bothered to read this, does it feel like your brain just ate a Twinkie? If so, my job here is done.

See? Dreams do come true. Sort of.

The other night I had a strange dream. The only thing I could really remember about it upon waking was that I had handfuls of rubies for some reason.

The next day Jeremy brought me home a huge pomegranate, which I love, but hadn't asked for.

They are sort of like sparkling rubies, but they happen to taste much better.

Things You May Not Know About Me...

(And were afraid to ask.)

1. I am afraid of whales. I don't want to be near them, ever. I read once in a dream dictionary that they can symbolize an overbearing maternal figure. Perhaps.
2. I HATE the horribly over-used phrase "thrown under the bus" which has become a staple in reality shows and even news networks. If I hear it again I may very well throw myself under an actual bus to avoid ever hearing it again.
3. I also hate this phrase "mash up" or "mashup," meaning, according to Wikipedia: "A mashup is a website or Web 2.0 application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new service.” I've also heard Gwen Stefani use it as "a mashup of ideas" on some commercial. I don't like it. It is to language what Scrapple is to the culinary arts. The only way I find it acceptable is in the following manner: "Dottie, git in thar an' mashup them taters before the meatloaf gits cold!"
4. Sometimes I feel as if The Grinch Who Stole the Joy From Living has invaded the little Who-village that is my mind.
5. I own a metal Heathcliff lunchbox.
6. To me, the most shocking or memorable part of Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" was when she mixed an egg and raw hamburger and ate it. Ick! The rest was sort of, "been there, done that."
7. I have listened to Violet's Snoopy's Beatles cd (Beatles songs played on toy instruments and sang by children) so many times that the actual Beatles sound strange when I hear them now.
8. My first crushes were cartoons. First Spiderman, then Scooby-Doo. What a freak.
9. My nourishment so far today has been two cups of Gevalia coffee and four or five no-bake cookies I made last night.
10. I want to strangle the telemarketing asshole who called just as Violet went to sleep at the perfect time earlier. Here's to a long night, again!

We're All Mad Here

Earlier Jeremy warned me that he let in a huge moth. He knows that I will scream like the banshee that I am when I see it, so he was giving fair warning. I don't know, I realize they pose no actual threat to me but they, like most other bugs and insects, just creep me out. I don't want them to get into my hair, or worse: crawl down my throat while I sleep. Yes, unlikely, but totally possible.

Well, here's where my true madness shines through: I momentarily convinced not only myself but also Jeremy that he hadn't let in a huge moth, but that he had actually let in a baby bat. Hysteria is rather contagious. It went so far as Google imaging "baby bat" to compare it to what he saw so we could rule it out. Mind you, I still haven't even glimpsed this creature. I just had the neurotic and irrational fear that he somehow confused a moth with a bat. In my defense he did describe it as both "huge" and "furry." I also grew up in the country and bats flying into the house was unfortunately common. (We country folk didn't believe in them there fancy window screens!)

At least I did quickly recognize the absurdity of the situation. Could you imagine actually seeing something like this and thinking, "Damn pesky moth!"

However, I shall be sleeping with my mouth duct-taped shut, just in case.

Random Sillery

First let me me define "sillery," since I just made it up.

sil-lery (Sihl-uh-ree): A corruption of the word silly; the act of being silly. Nonsense.

Now that that is taken care of, on with the nonsense!

Another word I made up yesterday is "tituated," which is a fusion of "tit" and "situated." It is the process in which you get your squirming child properly latched onto the breast for feeding.

* Update: apparently I didn't create the word Sillery, but did give it a new definition. Check this:
/ˈsɪləri; Fr. siyəˈri/ [sil-uh-ree; Fr. seeyuh-ree]
–noun
a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Quebec. 12,825.

And here is the best sentence I've read in a long while. It's from a real email from someone I know (Hope you don't mind!) It is great.

"last night we went grocery shopping and there were some people speaking french and they had blonde hair and were looking at vanilla extract."