Bada-bada-BING!

Forget Sinatra--Bing Crosby rocks my socks.

Warning: Exploding Ear-drums Ahead

One day when I was a baby, my mother was concerned because I would not stop crying--nay, wailing--for an extended time. Anxious, she called my grandma while my dad held my adorable and upset little self. (I was quite an adorable child, in case you didn't know, and tend to be quite vain about it. Well, I was adorable except for that period of a few months in which I was starved and resembled Gollum, in an endearing way. Anyway...) As she conferred, I abruptly stopped my cries, and my ear started to emit blood. Apparently, my tympanic membrane had burst, some symptom relating to several ear infections I had suffered. I never heard this story until about three days ago, and now I am terribly paranoid that it's going to happen again, though sans the infections.

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waggery (n. mischievous merriment; pleasantry)

Oh dear...

My friend Kari sent me a list of ways to entertain yourself in an elevator. There were too many, and some might end with a mandatory chat with a security officer (like #27), but I'll post my favorites:

2. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering "Shut up, all of you, just shut up!"
3. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside, ask, "Got enough air in there?
4. Stand silently and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
6. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.
7. Meow occasionally.
9. Stare at another passenger for awhile, then announce in horror, "You're one of THEM" and back away slowly
16. Stare, grinning at another passenger for awhile, and then announce, "I have new socks on."
23. Call the Psychic Hotline from your cell phone and ask if they know what floor you're on.
25. Drop a pen and wait until someone reaches to help pick it up, then scream, "That's mine!"
26. Bring a camera and take pictures of everyone in the elevator.
27. Move your desk into the elevator and whenever someone gets on, ask if they have an appointment.
31. Ask, "Did you feel that?"
33. When the doors close, announce to the others, "It's okay. Don't panic, they open up again."
38. On the highest floor, hold the door open and demand that it stay open until you hear the penny you dropped down the shaft go"plink" at the bottom.

What frightens me is that I would do some of these (especially things like 2, 3, 6, and 31). They sound almost as fun as ending mundace sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy."

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pugilist (n. one who fights with his fists)

Concerning Pronouns

I was listening (evesdropping, I suppose, but it was rather inescapable due to the close quarters of a 16-passenger van) to a discussion between two girls on my basketball team, one from Japan, the other, South Korea; I noted that the latter used "it" several times during the conversation, where most English-speakers would have used "he." "It" was never used in a way that is grammatically incorrect, but a few times, the term just seemed out of place.

Trivial Update

Illness has been waging a vile and ferocious war against me for the last few weeks, and it is finally reigning victorious. I stayed home from everything but chemistry on Wednesday and slept, fighting a sore throat, aching muscles, dry cough, and loss of appetite; the rest gave me the oomph to finish the week, but the common cold has caught up on me. The Thanksgiving cold is somewhat of a tradition for me, which leads my mother to postulate that it is allergy-related.

Our first basketball game--last Friday--went alright. We lost pretty bad due to a weak first half, but met most of our goals for the second. Our opponent was roughly the best team we will face this season (assuming we are not miraculously accredited and make it past districts onto state...which is disproportionately unlikely, but always possible). The last two games have been against roughly the easiest teams we will challenge, and have both been wins (yesterday's by fifty points). The climb is uphill from here, with quite a pivotal game on the 29th against a team we've never in the two year history of our Varsity program beaten. That could very well change quite soon...

Lions' Record: 2-1
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"Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right." Aldous Huxley

A Fighter by his Trade

I am recalling the opinion I gave on Fib's site about the S&G lyrics to "The Boxer." After reading through the entire song, the meaning has become quite apparent, indeed. Meh, it's SO freakishly clear, I don't know how I missed it. But to explain it coherantly...*laughs grimly*: The boxer is a semblance of who the singer was--a fighter. As a boy, he resisted ridicule (for being poor, maybe, or whatever), possibly verbally, possibly physically, what have you, until he "squandered his resistance for a pocketful of mumbles." Instead of continuing to resist the ridicule, he just mumbled a response and stopped fighting; he accepted the opinion of the unnamed antagonists. He walked away. The singer is lamenting for the fighter he knows he still is, somewhere deep inside (I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains/ Yes, he still remains). It's a brilliantly coined line, really.
How did I miss that?

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peccadillo (n. A slight offense; a petty fault)

So it Begins...

The 2005-06 basketball season began Thursday evening, starting with five strenuous practices in the space of 48 hours, with an all-nighter at the coaches' on Friday, where we stayed up watching Coach Carter til past 2 AM (smart decision, we know). Two people have dropped, putting our number down to eleven, with another girl considering quitting, also. Today's practice came much easier, my only real comlaint being the temperature of the gym; it's cold at the beginning of practices, and I've developed quite a cough from the irritation. Have to talk to the Coaches Pullman about that one...(Yes, the names of the innocent have been changed to protect their identities.) Varsity is going to be incrementing a new play this year, and we players are supposed to be musing about what to name it. I think it should be called "Renegade," or something random like "Zealand," just for the heck of it. Either way, I'm finding the exercise is really releaving an overload of stress right now, even if part of that stress is from basketball. Go figure...

*gasps* Pronouns? What shameful intolerance.

Why I Hate the PC Movement

a prolonged rant by an enraged Kate

There are a few reasons, but the one that irks me the most is that it has destroyed grammar. I learned this last summer as I was editing papers for my aunt's grad-school classes. She was studying special-education and how technology can assist it, especially at the college-level (my brain refuses to recall the official name of her science), and her papers focused on the empowerment of the disabled student through various means; delightfully, nefarious words such as *transitions to whisper* "he," "she," and even "he or she" have become politically incorrect. "One" is even frowned upon. Instead, one must use "the student" where previously--back in the dark ages of non-enlightenment--a pronoun might have been used. This makes for some mighty awkward sentences with "the student" repeated several times. But, ya know, I can understand because, I mean--pronouns?--who actually uses those vile, discriminating words? Come on. People are way too easily offended. I don't care if a generic pronoun like "he" is used positively, or even "she" negatively (although I think the use of "she" is unnecessary, since as a whole we are referred to "mankind," but no need for splitting hairs). If it's referring to the human race, I just fail to see a reason for displeasured resentment.
Oy vey...

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"Political correctness is just tyranny with manners" --the great philosopher Charlton Heston

Rapacious (adj. very greedy; preditorial; voracious; ravenous)

Quarters for the Cause

This is formatted to be an email, but who believes chain mail? So it's in my blog instead:

Subject: Quarters for the Cause
Hi, I wanted you to take a quick look at a new fundraising idea for the benefit of the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. As you may have heard, the Red Cross, and many other charitable organizations, are struggling after the terrible hurricane season put a huge strain on their resources.
There is a new idea just getting started that is focused on getting kids involved in the fundraising process. With their help, we can raise over $7 million every single day…one quarter at a time!
Here's how it works:
The US Mint now prints individual states on the backs of quarters. There are over 2.8 billion quarters in circulation from the Gulf States that have been affected by the hurricanes (Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas). If we were able to get just 1% of those quarters donated, it would mean $7 million in additional funds.
But, here's the twist...once these quarters are donated they will be spent and put right back into circulation. So, if this concept were to catch on, $7 million would be donated EVERY SINGLE DAY. That’s over $2.6 billion a year.
So, how do you donate your Gulf State quarters? It's easy...the Red Cross has teamed up with Coinstar to make donating change simple. Just go to http://www.coinstar.com, find the nearest location (there are over 40,000 collection machines nationwide), deposit your quarters and designate the funds for the Red Cross.
The key is that this program makes giving fun and can teach kids to make small sacrifices for the benefit of others. Sit down with your kids this weekend and go through their change with them, looking for Gulf State quarters, they’ll be excited when they find one.
You can get more information by visiting http://www.glennbeck.com/news/11032005.shtml and we urge you to send this email along to everyone you know so that we can get the ball rolling. With your help, this idea will take off, ensuring that this country will never again have to worry about the financial side of a tragedy.
P.S. - This idea was created and started by a man who wishes to remain completely anonymous. He hopes that the slogan, "Good ideas succeed if no one cares who takes credit for them." is absolutely true and he's counting on the good in all of us to prove him right.

Quizzz...

Previously, I avoided posting quiz results on my blog because I thought it was flakey, but I have been brainwashed by myspace, where quizzes are ubiquitous. The picture on this was much better when I took it a few weeks ago, but such is my punishment for procrastinating....heehee.


Your element is Earth. You have your feet on the
ground and are in touch with reality. Some may
say you need to lighten up, but you are just
not that way. It's not that you don't enjoy
having fun, you only find it in more calmer
activities such as writing or reading a book.
But before you have your fun you always make
sure your work is done. You are considered the
reliable one among your friends, you would
never betray anyone just like and are not
influenced on peer-pressure. Friends and family
can always come to you for guidance because you
are wise and smart. You know what is right and
what is wrong and you study hard to become
something big in the future. The bad side is
that your friend/s feel ignored when you spend
more time with books and papers rather with
them. You are not such a people person and are
sometimes a question-mark on how to behave
around them at certain times. Luckily it always
works out, somehow. Love is not really desired
in your world right now, maybe in the future
when you've got a work and so on under control.
After all, you are a perfectionist. Rate and
message!

What is your element? [with pics + detailed answeres]
brought to you by

Batman Begins

Watched this movie on Halloween. It was a fun flick; not amazing, but not too bad. My only critique (and I haven't seen the other Batman movies to compare and contrast it with) is that it seemed like they were trying too hard for the Spiderman-2 emotionally moving and didactic affect, and it didn't really work. Oh, and I couldn't erase the image of Tom Cruise attacking a couch every time Kate Holmes came had screen time. Still, the story was interesting, particularly the psychological aspect, and it was well-acted. I'd say it's worth renting.

Ah, the Irony...

Professor Pettygrove did a demonstration in chemistry class last Friday with a Geiger counter concerning radioactivity and its use in household goods. Among the many items he tested was a pre-1960's, bright orange Fiestaware dish, which is apparently uncommonly radioactive because of the uranium used in the glaze. It was an interesting presentation, but I didn't really think much about it after class. So that evening, we're sitting around the dinner table having some creamy potato soup with muffins. We're all discussing how the day went, and I start talking about the radioactivity of various items in our house, and as I start to tell about the Fiestaware, I glance over at my mom, who is taking a bite out of her muffin, which had just been sitting on an old, slightly chipped orange piece of Fiestaware.
I'm waiting for her to develop some cool super-powers.

Brain Glitch Moment: I misread a pop-up add as saying "You have been rejected..." instead of "selected." My self-esteem was *momentaribly dragged into the depths of self-pity.

*"Momentaribly" is not in any dictionary by Webster or Random. It is a word that was accidentally coined by my pastor during a sermon. I feel he inadvertantly filled a gap in the English language. It's much better than horrinstantly or briefariously, though I'm struggling whether it should be spelled like "momenterribly"or "momenteribly" instead.
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"Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom" --Anatole France