That’s crazy!

Decisions, decisions....

Mark,

Congratulations, you are the grand prize winner in one of our summer promotions – the Trade or Buy Summer Sweepstakes! As your prize, you can choose to receive either a new iPhone (8GB) or 50 new CDs of music!

In a few days, you will receive via mail an envelope from lala.com. To claim your prize, please complete the declaration of eligibility in the package and return it using the self-addressed, stamped envelope enclosed. Also, please reply to this email and let me know if it's ok to recognize you as the winner on the lala.com site.

Once I receive your declaration of eligibility, I'll also be in touch via email to confirm your prize selection. If you choose to receive the 50 new CDs, you may want to start compiling your list now, along with a few alternates in the event that any are not in stock. Please note that the CDs must all be available for sale on lala.com, and the total price of the CDs cannot exceed $599.

Thanks for trading and buying on lala.com!

Regards,

Valerie Cousineau

Lala.com

Oktoberfest and belt buckles

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Why is it considered acceptable to misspell October just because the suffix "-fest" has been added on to it?

I was watching series premiere of (the soon to be forgotten) Big Bang Theory and one of the many nerd characters was actually wearing this:

Now, I'm thinking that between this nerd belt-buckle "fad"(?) and using it for things like this, the controllers are going to be in short supply and high demand at some point. Someone, somewhere is going to decide that they want to get into some retro video gaming, and not be able to find any controllers to use with the NES because they're all busy holding up people's pants. Also, this is a really bad idea:

This is where I came in...

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Some should really write a book on the origin of certain phrases in the English language (and I'm including British English here as well. "Bob's Your Uncle"?)

I think my favorite story behind a given phrase is the now less-used phrase, "This is where I came in." Someone may use that phrase just before leaving a room, and it's not referring to the door they walked through in order to enter.

Before the 1960 theatrical debut of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, theaters didn't sell tickets for a certain movie for a certain time. They just sold tickets to the movie, then people could go in and leave whenever they wanted. So it was almost assured that a ticket-holder would walk in sometime during the movie, which would result in seeing the ending of the movie before the beginning. Once the movie got back around to a scene they recognized..."This is where I came in"...and time to leave.
Of course this ruins any movie that is intended to have a surprise ending, thus:

Was I the only person not aware that they are now building usb ports directing into computer monitors?



I found a couple of pretty interesting bands yesterday. One calls herself ComputeHer, and she plays in another band called 8 Bit Weapon. They both use 8-bit sounds from sources such as NES, Gameboy, Commodore 64, toy keyboards, and laptop drum pads to write original music. (One game specifically mentioned was Burger Time.) Anyway, the most interesting part about their 2 latest releases is the packaging. Hand-crafted CD "cases" built from 5 1/4" floppy discs (with the magnetic discs still inside).

Pigeon Monkey (that’s really all I could come up with this time)

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It's impossible for me to not post this. The picture just about begs to be the setup for a punchline.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=481601&in_page_id=1811

The abandoned monkey who has found love with a pigeon

13 September 2007

They're an odd couple in every sense but a monkey and a pigeon have become inseparable at an animal sanctuary in China.

The 12-week-old macaque - who was abandoned by his mother - was close to death when it was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province.

After being taken to an animal hospital his health began to improve but he seemed spiritless - until he developed a friendship with a white pigeon.

The blossoming relationship helped to revive the macaque who has developed a new lease of life, say staff at the sanctuary.

Now the unlikely duo are never far from each other's side, but they aren't the only ones to strike up an unusual friendship.

Get a Clue

I don't think I've seen the movie Clue since I was a kid, but I've recently had a desire to watch it again. ($6.08 at DeepDiscount, but free at the library.) There are lots of board games based on movies or TV shows, but I can't think of any other movie based on a board game. (There was never a Monopoly movie was there?)

All the Clue characters are so completely over the top. And forever stuck in my mind is the girl singing, "I am your singing telegram." BANG! She's shot dead right on the step of the front door.

Take Two

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Well, my recent blog certainly sparked a bit of discussion from the masses (okay, well at least two, but not all responses were posted as public comments).

One response came from 1/2 of a married couple who wrote that they almost exclusively hang out with single people. Fair enough.

First I want to clarify that my comments are generalities and readers should not make any attempt to apply said comments to anyone within my circle of friends and/or acquaintances. It's possible the exceptions outnumber the rule in this case. One situation sure to give rise to an exception is when the single person has been friends with one of the two married people since well before they got married. But I would see it as difficult to get to be good friends with a couple I'd never met before they were married.

Some of my frustration also comes from sitting through 3 weeks of sermons on marriage at church last month. They have marriage classes and marriage counseling and marriage sermons, but there is nothing devoted to singles (and having "singles" events in churches seems like social happenings designed to get the singles together so that some of them might become couples).

Also, some of the previous post was intended to humorous. I always question what will translate well across the webernet. Some things make sense inside my brain better than they might when written, resulting in, "I had to read one of the sentences in your first paragraph a couple of times before I understood what you were saying." Such is the challenge of impersonal communication. How does one communicate sarcasm without having "tone of voice" at one's disposal? Emoticons? I don't even know which one that would be, but I don't think it's this one: . I'm pretty sure that has something to with a horrible car wreck involving the top of the car being sheared off as it plowed under the 16-wheeler.

Completely unrelated:

Could "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With" be the best movie title of all time?

If anyone has lots of spare time, spare crayons, a knife, and incredible patience (talent should go without saying)...

http://www.petegoldlust.com/carvedcrayons.html

Huh?!

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"High School Musical 2" debuted on Disney Channel on August 17 to a record-shattering audience of 17.2 million viewers to become the most-watched individual program in cable TV history.

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Flying Solo

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So for the past year I've been on the road to single-ness (end it already!) and one thing has become painfully obvious to me.

Unlike a year ago, I'm content to be single. What I have the problem with is the couple-centric culture. A society that acts like there's no room for a single person. Think about it. If a couple goes out to dinner, who do they invite to go with them? A single person? Even two single people who they clearly are not trying to fix up together? No, it's another couple, unless they're playing matchmaker. Movies, books, TV, music, all about couples. Even the media devoted to following the people creating these forms of entertainment are only interested in one thing. Who's hooking up with whom? By the culture's standards, everyone should be in a relationship, coming out of one, going into one, or looking for a new one, or else there's something wrong with them. "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

My dad is always printing stuff off of the interwebertubes to send to people in his prison ministry (and he wonders why he's always out of ink.) Well, he decided to print me something about "moving on." Okay...I was pretty sure I'd been "moved on" since last year. But one of last things on this list talked about dating. So when he asked me about what he'd printed I told him it didn't apply because I'd already moved on, and have no intention of dating. He said "Why? God created Eve for Adam."

Yeah, look how well that worked out for him. He's got this genetically perfect woman with whom he's spending all of his time...and she doesn't own any clothes, so this guy's definitely not thinking with his brain. In fact, his brain isn't even turned on. So he can hardly be blamed when she comes up to him and tells him to eat something. And what does he get for listening to her? He loses his home and job. And women wonder why we don't listen. Well, at least now you know when we stopped.