Archive for: October, 2006

Arachno-ablutophobia

Oct 31 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Confession

I, as a rule, do not mind creepy crawly. Once I had a june bug on me and that freaked me out and made me scream, but bugs and spiders and worms and snakes do not bother me. Unless they sneak up on me. Cicadas bother me. Those are bugs. But those are bugs that croak and swarm and get in your hair. And the folds and cuffs and creases in your jeans so that you can be minding your own business in the backseat of your affianced in-laws and a hitchhiking cicada buzzes and you scream so loud you almost cause a wreck.

But! For the most part, creepy-crawly is okay. Snakes are interesting. So are exotic cockroaches and millipedes and the little silver trilobyte things that crawl out of the ground when you dig it up. And so are spiders mostly.

When spiders aren’t cool is when they try to share the shower with you. They’re also not cool when you get out of the shower and they keep on trying to share your personal space, because you’re evidently well liked in the spider community. Or at least the spider community that hangs out in your bathroom.

I was in the shower this morning, as I am every morning, doing my thing. I don’t know what everybody elses shower habits are, but as much as I need vision correction to do most things, I don’t wear glasses or contacts in there. I know the shampoo bottle is tall, the soap is white, the washcloth hangs from the bar, and it gets hotter if you turn the lever to the left. So there isn’t a lot of detail in my shower. I, like I assume many women do, prop a foot up into a corner of the tub to shave my legs. So I did that this morning. I set my foot into the corner under the shelf that holds the shampoo and soap and leaned over to start shaving my legs.

And came face to face with a really large spider, crawling quickly back up into his web. I was started and jerked back. And promptly lost sight of it, because it was too small and shower-colored to see without glasses. I decided I could live with a bit of stubble and resolved to clean the tub well tonight.

Got out of the shower, and proceeded with the rest of my ablutions. There is drying and deodorizing and dusting with a nice talc. So I’m going through that routine, the first part of which is to put some contacts in. And just as I’m about to starting the part with dusting powder, I noticed something in my peripheral vision. I move my head back so I can focus on it and it’s the spider! Dropping down on its thread of silk, just in the middle of the room, stopping at eye level to say, “Yo!” I was freaked out, mostly because I felt like I had already had a moment with it that morning and we had come to a certain amount of beauty routine detante.

So I ripped a page out of the copy of Mental Floss on the trashcan, held it under the descending critter and when it landed, promptly wadded it up and threw it away. We could’ve talked relocation to the porch if it had just waited ’til I had some clothes on.

4 responses so far

Capitalism FTW!

Oct 28 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Speechifying

This is John Galt gifts, which I just discovered today. I would very much like this sticker. And this hoodie, big as it comes, please. And one of everything else, especially the anti-Che shirt, because that’s comedy gold. They need more keychains. I’d like one that looks the way Dagny Taggart’s Rearden metal bracelet looks in my head. I wish I’d known about this place in grad school.

I also slapped up some Google ads, but I tried to be inconspicuous about it. Evidently I’ve held back on the f-word enough to get approved.

And I started to get serious about my Flickr page. The world needs more pictures of my cats.

One response so far

This Fake Movie Soundtrack is Far More Dramatic Than My Actual Life

Oct 26 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Memes and Assorted Nonsense

I got this off a friend at my LiveJournal and it was too fun to pass up. My winamp is full of all kinds of stuff, so by the end, it was actually starting to get a bit uncomfortable. If anyone has questions about bands or would like one of the songs, I’d be happy to oblige.

Goes like so:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…

Opening Credits:
“Party at the Leper Colony” by Weird Al Yankovic (man, you know this is going to be a FREAKING AWESOME movie)

Waking Up:

Slavonic Dance No. 3 for orchestra in A flat major by Antonin Dvorak

First Day At School:

“A Parting Gesture” by The Bluetones (“I’m not the same person I was a year ago. You cut me deeply and the scars still show.”)

Puppy Love:

“Philosophy” by Ben Folds Five (“Won’t you look at me? I’m crazy. But I get the job done.”)

Fight Song:

“Walk of Life” by Dire Straits

Breaking Up:

“You’ve Got it Bad” by Ocean Colour Scene (“If I was in your shoes, would it be the same? Would you sit in silence while I dish out the blame?”)

Prom:

“Somebody Told Me” by The Killers

Life is Good:

“Turn Around” by They Might Be Giants (Human skull! On the ground! Turn around!)

Driving:

“Gryffindor Rocks” by Harry and the Potters

Flashback:

“Good Day to Die” by Travis

True Love:

“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2 (Oh, snap!)

Wedding:

“Good Enough” by Sarah McLachlan (Emo-est wedding evar! Plus, contains the word “bullshit,” which is romantical AND classy)

Moment of Triumph:

“Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles

Death Scene:

“Tell Her This” by Del Amitri

Funeral Song:

“Like a Surgeon” by Weird Al Yankovic (Oh. My. Gawd.)

End Credits:

“Please Forgive Me” by David Gray

Isn’t the credit music perfect? It works on so many levels!

Y’all play along. Or at least point and laugh.

9 responses so far

I Am in Your Internet Eating Your Tubes

Oct 24 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Geekery

Im in ur internet eatin ur toobs.

Y’all, what does that mean? Seriously. Please. Where did it come from? How was it derived and why has it spread like a bad case of the clap so that it’s everywhere and everyone says it yet no one understands it and ends up appropriating for humorous captions on picture of cats. My personal favorite is “We’re in ur fort stealin ur legoz.”

Cats love legos! I’m so confused!

I want to know where this came from. I know it’s probably impossible to trace it to the first person who texted it to someone, who put it on some aol forum, where it was promptly digged and thusly cirrculated, but if I could just get the basics of its philology, I think I would be happy. Or at least happier.

I can’t find it in any articles about web or blog slang. I haven’t tried really hard– still sleeping and bathing– but I do really think about this all the time. And I find myself using it, and I hate to inculcate phrase-ology I can’t explain. Not that anybody listens to my explanations, but someday somebody might.

In conclusion: Im in ur regedit hackin ur config. Yes, you, Mr. Virus Blocking Spam from Porno Sites. Thought I’d have to reformat, didn’t you? PWND!

10 responses so far

Ready Normal People?

Oct 23 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Geekery

I haven’t felt this dumb in a long time. I was messing around on the web this morning, seeing what there was to see, following links here and there. And I was doing it on some websites I probably ought not to have been looking at. Googling fetish porn probably isn’t the best way to start the week, but I read a phrase I didn’t understand, so I had to look it up, and then there were pictures. And one thing led to another and the “see more” link turned into the “free download link” and in my haste to get rid of it, I aimed the mouse wrong and installed instead of canceled.

Then I spend the next 3 minutes in a state of terrified slow motion, screaming, freaking out, hitting ctrl+alt+del as fast as I could, running desperately around the desk to yank the computer out of the wall. To no avail. I’ve managed to get rid of the majority of it, but I still have a program that wants to get rid of all my viruses. So here I sit, feeling like an idiot, watching my system tray blink at me with misbegotten scrubbers free to me from the nice people who take pictures of naked people. I mean, the freaking pop-up that tells me my system might be infected (YOU THINK!?) isn’t even spelled correctly.

On the upside, Christopher’s idea of a hot night alone with the computer involves wiping hard drives, so I called him up to confess and get advice and now he’s giddy with the prospect of smiting my autoexec.bat. Only 136 minutes left on the first leg of the backup.

The internet is for making your normal, natural, completely healthy curiosity force you to do idiot things.

4 responses so far

Cocktails with Birmingham Bloggers

Oct 20 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Never Off the Record

Tonight, at Innisfree:

“I was just telling Sarah here how guys operate,” Skillzy said, gesturing to me with the hand already wrapped around the pint of Guiness.

“Like this?” Batonga asked, sliding back up onto a barstool, then bringing his hands up on either side of his eyes, giving himself blinders. “Pussy, pussy, pussy pussy pussypussypussypussypussy?!”

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It’s Pronounced “So-wen” But Don’t Tell

Oct 19 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Never Off the Record

Last night’s trivia rocked from minute one, when Dave held out his hand to greet Christopher and then gave him the psyche, old school. There was a moment when we didn’t think Skillzy would show up with the Space Pen to get our answers in, but he did make it, in the nick of time, and promptly caused a full-on Hooters Wait staff nerf of my salad. He ordered the same thing, except without all the parts that technically made it a salad, so what he really ordered was Chicken Fingers on Lettuce.

HD: Hey [Batonga], I dare you to run right through that tape. I dare you.

Skillzy: Where’s Brian?
HD: I sent him to Atlanta. I’ve already got crap about it.

Luckily for us there were no sports questions, so we were okay to go without Brian for one week. And everything that actually happened before the game got started enough was funny enough for me to not be able to stop writing at all.

Batonga: M-E-T-S, Mets Mets Mets!
Skillzy: I hate the Mets. I remember 1986 all too well.
Batonga: What happened in 1986? Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Relax! Don’t Do It!
Skillzy: In 1986, Bill Buckner let a grounder roll through his legs.
Batonga: Yeah, that’s not the Mets’s fault.

HD: [Batonga], you go sit down by Dave.
Sarah: Did you go to exercise class?
Batonga: No. I’m bummed about it.
HD: Did you have some heroin before you came over?
Batonga: No. I watched Jeopardy.

Skillzy: Where’s [Elizabeth]? I thought she was gonna be here.
Batonga: Sarah bamboozled us.
Sarah: I didn’t. I just said she IM’d me and said she was thinking of coming.
Batonga: Where does bamboozled come from?
HD: Bamboo. Up the ass.

J and C, of Doppelganger Flutter notoriety, came on out and were in fine form as well.

Skillzy: [J]! Notice how we’ve been winning since you stopped showing up?
HD: If we lose tonight, you’ll be tarred, feathered, and keelhauled.

J: What the fuck is wrong with people in Birmingham? They go to the Lowe’s on Valleydale and steal the gas caps off the lawn implements!

Really, what is wrong with people? When did gas caps get to be a good time? Is there some sort of black market trade in gas caps? Unfortunately, that wasn’t one of the trivia questions. The questions themselves we seemed to do pretty poorly at. Such as how many stars there are in the Big Dipper.

Skillzy: It’s pretty sad when a team called Space Pen can’t get that.

We also couldn’t figure out which Rice Krispies spokes elf wore a red and white striped hat.

HD: Pop. It’s Pop.
Christopher: No, I think he wears the chef hat.
C: How do you tell them apart?!
Joe: We think it’s Snap.
HD: They think it’s Snap. I’m staying out of it.

Turns out it’s Crackle. Bastard.

But all was not totally lost. We managed to squeak a few answers that we wouldn’t have gotten solely on the merit of subjective concepts like “right” and “wrong.”

HD: I know I get more points by cheating for this team than anyone. By cheating.

And I screwed up most of our answers. I was incorrect about the first licensed lunchbox characters. It’s Mickey Mouse, but I thought Little Orphan Annie. I thought the city founded by the Spanish in 1610 that’s a state capital must be Tallahassee and really argued to the point of convincing people and it turns out it’s Santa Fe. And my camera phone full of pictures of my cats didn’t yield any information about how many rows of whiskers cats have. But we did learn that pretty much all anybody uses their cell phone cameras to take pictures of is cats.

I did, however, know what the Celtic holiday Halloween is based on is called. I rushed out of the bathroom with seconds to spare and right up to Skillzy to say, “Samhain. S-a-m-h-a-i-n. Pronounced ‘so-wen.’” Nobody cared about the pronunciation though, and all the Hooters Girls said it incorrectly, which chapped me.

Skillzy: This is America. If enough people say it’s right, it’s right.
Christopher: It’s a democracy, dammit!

Yeah. A democracy of twerps incorrectly pronouncing things.

Sarah: What’s going on with the pitcher of beer behind us?
Batonga: They put ice in it. That’s a baggie of ice. They’re what we call lightweights.

After that there wasn’t too much attention-paying, because we weren’t doing very well. And there were enough people talking that conversations got a bit muddled and hilarity ensued.

Sarah: Are you gay?
Skillzy: I’m not gay, but my boyfriend is.
HD: What happened? I’ve never seen you guys laugh this hard.
Skillzy: Just making fun of homosexuals.

Skillzy: What?!
Sarah: I’m just happy.
HD: Are you on heroin now?
Sarah: I got some of [Batonga’s] heroin.
Batonga: A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!

We ended the night not even placing. Tournament wise, we’re still winning by 500, but we could definitely do better.

6 responses so far

He’s A-headed West from the Cumberland Gap

Oct 18 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Speechifying

I used to work really hard at being a music snob. Like really, really hard. My musical snobbery coincided with the rise and fall of Britpop and so I got to weep and wail and rend my garments when Oasis canceled their Don’t Look Back in Anger tour the day before I was supposed to see them in Atlanta. Since then it’s been downhill and I went from buying five or six CDs a month to getting one or two CDs a year, usually as gifts. But I wasn’t ever very good at it because I had a tendency to just latch on to whatever the people I admired said was good.

I’d like to think I’m over that. And my taste in music is fairly different. It helps that there’s not a lot of good britpop out there anymore, bands like Keane notwithstanding, and that the best of britpop lately, The Killers, are from Las Vegas. Until a couple months ago, I couldn’t even really classify the music I liked best. It was sort of pop but not. Sort of country, but not. A little bluegrass, but not traditionally. Singer-songwritery, but not entirely. Indie, but not stuck up about it. “Alt-country” was the closest I had ever seen anyone come.

Then at Matt’s mid-summer blogger get together, Echoboomer clued-in me in. I told him I was really into Neko Case and he told me that I liked Y’allternative. It delighted me to hear that name. Finally a cute, catchy name for the strange, cross-category music I liked. I have pretty broad tastes anymore, but I cannot stand the super-produced, twangy, iambic tetrameter cheesy lyrics glam country. I don’t know if growing up in Nashville contributed to this at all, but ugh. But I like bluegrass and gospel and rockabilly as well as indie-pop and singer-songwriter. Wrap those all up and they become Y’allternative.

Tomorrow night, Old Crow Medicine Show is playing at the Alabama Theatre. I will be working late, and so not able to attend. Somebody please go for me, and enjoy it. Write a review. And when they play Wagon Wheel, sing along at the top of your lungs, because I listen to this song no fewer than 5 times a day.

13 responses so far

The Only Time You’ll Ever Hear Me Say Ignorance is Bliss

Oct 17 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Confession, Uncategorized

I just got off the phone with the surgeon’s office. My insurance was filed on October 4. When I asked about how long she thought it would take to hear a response, she said, “I don’t know. Blue Cross does whatever they want.” She went on to say, “sometimes it’s a week, two weeks, three weeks, whatever they feel like.”

Before I knew this, I could direct all my anger and frustration at specific people– my family doctor, the surgeon’s office, the faceless committee of sadists at BCBS of Alabama who get to tell me what a month is and is not. Now I can’t have any anger and frustration. There’s nothing left to be angry at right now, and no one left to be frustrated with. If I’m approved, I’m going forward with it. If I’m denied, I’m fucked, because then I have too many options.

It’s almost a relief at this point. It really is out of my hands. I’ve done everything I could do– though not to the best of my ability, as the best of my ability would have been to realize that these people who try to screw me on what does and does not constitute a month and beat them to the thirty-day punch. Now I wait. Tomorrow makes it three weeks. BCBS does whatever it wants, though.

No responses yet

Open Quote, Name, Comma, Close Quote

Oct 16 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Geekery

More conundrums in the gray area between web syntax and Proper English:

If I’m telling someone to make a certain image a link to a certain homepage, which sentence is correct?

“Using the image “certain.jpg,” make the image a link to your homepage.

“Using the image “certain.jpg”, make the image a link to your homepage.

I know good and well that there needs to be a comma in there after the name of the image, but I’m very worried about possibly messing up the syntax of the code. Can I trust a reader to realize that the comma goes inside the quotation marks and is not, in fact, part of the image name?

Is it really a grammatical conundrum if my fundamental problem is that I don’t trust people to be smart enough to understand why there’s a comma inside the image name. Would it be better to italicize the image name than to quote it? Does anybody else worry about this sort of thing? Is there some sort of manual? Right now I only have 12 or so books on usage. I think one more would definitely make me feel better.

Not as good as knowing where to put that comma, but better.

6 responses so far

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