%$#@ Yeah!
Heavens to Betsy! This one is for me and all my potty mouthed friends.
Click image to see larger size:
Pearls Before Swine comic strip from October 31, 2011
Month: October 2011
Nightmares
In honor of Halloween, the scariest day of the year, I figured I’d do a little mental deep dive and reveal some of my most scary nightmares.
Perhaps in the light of day they won’t seem so scary, right? Maybe I can take some of the fear out of them.
I had one of these dreams last night and found it hard to shake off. So let’s start with that one.
I’m in my car, driving too fast, and suddenly, my brakes don’t work. The pedal feels right, I’m pressing on it and it gives resistance, but the car isn’t slowing down. I grab frantically for the handbrake but that does no good. I try to take the car out of gear, but that doesn’t work….often I’m rolling down a hill. Sometimes it’s in San Francisco.
Only once in my life did I had something similar happen. I was in college and driving my dad’s old ’72 full size Blazer, and the master cylinder was going out. I rolled to an intersection, hit the brakes, and it went all the way to the floor. Yipes! I was able to get my toe under the pedal, lift it, and kept pumping the brakes until I finally stopped. I was scared, but thankfully got through that safely.
I have no idea what this inability to stop is about but it *freaks* me out. I was all jittery driving to work this morning.
I’m in danger, I turn to run, but my legs are heavy and I can’t run. I’m making a running motion but moving slower than molasses in January. I bend over and use my arms to help me run/crawl, scratching at the ground trying to get away.
I think this one is a fairly common dream. A lot of people have it. I’m not much of a runner in real life and I think this dream plays on my own insecurities about that fact. Like, if I was ever really in trouble, could I run away?
Yeeeks!
I’m in college. It’s finals week. Trouble is, there is a class that I haven’t bothered to attend all semester. I’m freaking out! What am I going to do? There is no way I can pass this class! I’m going to fail!
The class I forgot to attend is usually a math class (my absolute worst subject). Sometimes it’s accounting. Lately it’s morphed into that god awful advanced Economics night class I had in grad school.
This is such a weenie nightmare. I can’t believe how much it totally freaks me out. Oh dear, I might fail a class. Big deal!
But I wake from this dream *frantic* and freaking out.
The monsters of the mind are far worse than any creepy Halloween story, I guess.
I’m staying in a really nice hotel. I go to my room and check in. Then I leave my room for some reason, I need ice, I need to find something to eat, whatever. And then I can’t find my way back to my room. I go up and down stairs. I wander through hallways of the hotel. I keep taking the elevator and it puts me on floors I don’t recognize. The more I try to find my way back, the more lost I become. I start getting more and more frantic.
This dream often takes place in a huge Las Vegas casino (ever felt hopelessly lost inside of a huge casino in real life? I sure have.). Sometimes it takes place on a college campus or a high school building. It’s a dream of chasing my tail ’round and ’round.
Whenever I check into a hotel in my real life, I inevitably try to find landmarks so I can find my way back, owing to my whackadelic brain and this dream that recurs month after month, year after year.
Tornados. Enough said.
I’ve chronicled my own Really Bad Day dancing with a tornado in Carlsbad. I think that one afternoon left me irrevocably scarred.
Ok, of all of my frightful dreams, at least this on and the brakes going out are dreams that I can go “well yeah, that’s actually scary!”
I think the rest of my nightmares listed are pretty much crazy machinations of an over emotional brain.
To misquote Emerson, simply hobgoblins of my little mind.
Happy Halloween everyone!
Devil graphic by Viktors Kozers and used royalty free from stock.xchng.
The Marketing Department Needs a Hard Slap Across the Chops
Several years ago I did quite a riff on stupid car names. It’s good stuff, go back and read it if you get a chance.
In that same vein comes today’s post.
Stupid cell phone names. Yup, the mobile phone manufacturers have gone well past idiot car names and have slipped into ridiculous.
Since I work way, way too much with mobile phones, I have to not only see these dumb names, but utter them aloud.
Here’s my personal top eleven list of “Someone Should Get Slapped for that Brand Name”
- HTC Salsa: Seriously? Salsa? Because I’m going to dip a chip into the device? Bleah. Just Bleah!
- Palm Pre: The suffix pre means before. So this is the phone that’s what? Before the actual phone? Before the demise of Palm? Before HP killed it?
- Samsung :): Oh how I wish I was making that up. The actual name of the phone is :) How do you even go to the store and ask for that? “Um, yes, I’d like a sideways smiley please?” Lame. Lame. Lame.
- HTC Rhyme : Rhymes with stupid.
- Casio G’zOne Commando: First of all I can’t get over Casio, maker of tacky Dad-watches is also making phones. This is a kind of cool looking device, but godDAMN it’s a bad name. First of all, what the eff is G’zOne? And second of all, commando makes me think of going without chones. I don’t think my mobile device should evoke that.
- Motorola Citrus : Mmmmm! Lemony!
- Motorola Photon : I tested this device and I actually liked it a lot. But neither The Good Man nor I could stop pointing the device at each other and going “pew pew!” It is, after all, a photon. Pew!
- LG Remarq : One, you misspelled it. Two, my remarks are “WHAT THE SEVENTEEN KINDS OF SAM HELL ARE YOU THINKING with this name?!?!” That concludes my remarqs.
- Sanyo Innuendo : I heard a rumor this was a cool device, but it was just innuendo.
- LG Rumor : Oh for crimeny’s sakes!
- LG Thrill : I’m left…unthrilled.
That’s it, I’m done. I could go on and on. There is really no end to silly device names. I think the phone manufacturers think they are being clever.
I think they are anything but.
Not for nothing, but these are almost all Android devices. I used to think iPhone was a boring name. Right now it looks pretty damn good.
Don’t EVEN get me started on Google’s cutesy operating system names….
Cell phone art by Rob Pettit
This is a pretty tenuous use of Theme Thursday‘s theme of: Thrill
Gettin’ Ready!
Hello Lady Readers, just a quick post for you.
Back in April we chatted about about my fandom for Sally Hansen Salon Effects, a fabulous easy to apply nail polish product.
Well, I’m back and I love Salon Effects more than ever.
New in stores, seasonal nail goodness!
I love that I’m wearing this at my stuffy corporate job. Most ladies here have simple buffed and clear polish hands.
Not me! (Ok, to be fair, I did check the calendar and I don’t have any in-person meetings with suppliers or managers until next Tuesday. The ghosties will be stripped off by then…. I do have some sense of decorum…..un poquito….)
Wheeeee!
Happy Early Halloween!
These Spammers Are Getting Pithy
Today, as part of my regular blog maintenance, I went into my spam catcher widget and took a look at what’s been caught.
I look it over because occasionally I’ll find a comment that shouldn’t have been marked as spam, so I like to check.
Usually it’s the normal stuff: Cheap Rolex! Pen!s enlargement! Xanex, cheap and easy!
To be expected, I suppose.
But today, I’ve noticed a bit of a change. An advancement.
Those comment spammers are getting smarter.
Here’s a sample of some of the actual comments caught in my spam queue. These completely cracked me up today. I’ve added what I’d respond if I was the sort of person who baited trolls:
“How do i delete everything on my laptop?”
Why, is the laptop stolen? Let me know when you find out.
“Why is my browser redirecting search results to fake search engines?”
: shrug : Sounds like user error to me.
“Whoever wrote this, you know how to make a good artcile.”
Why thank you! I think. Wait, what’s an artcile?
“The genius store called, they’re rnuinng out of you.”
Flattery will get you EVERYWHERE. Ok, that got my attention.
“And I thguhot I was the sensible one. Thanks for setting me straight.”
Good thing you’re not the spelling one.
“Please teach the rest of these internet hloiogans how to write and research!”
If only I could, darlin’, if only I could.
“Information is power and now I’m a !@#$ing dcitator.”
And what does that make me? I’m GOD baybee!
“I came, I read this atricle, I conquered.”
YEAH you did! Raaawwr!
“Free knowledge like this doesn’t just help, it pomrtoe democracy. Thank you.”
Wait. Can you both be a dictator and promote democracy?
“This free sharing of inforamotin seems too good to be true. Like communism.”
Wait, wait, wait. Are we a dictatorship, a democracy or communists? This is getting very confusing.
“Wham bam thank you, ma’am, my questions are anserwed!”
Buddy, this is not that kind of blog. Take your wham bam somewhere else.
“Boom shkalaaka boom boom, problem solved.”
Ok, maybe this is the kind of blog that boom shaka boom booms…hard to know.
“This piece was coengt, well-written, and pithy.”
Your comment, however, was not. Besides, who uses pithy anymore? And is coengt supposed to be cogent? Inquiring minds need to know.
“Brilliance for free; your parents must be a sweetharet and a certified genius.”
Why you gotta bring my parents into this?
“You put the lime in the ccoount and drink the article up.”
Best. Comment. Ever. In the history of this blog. All other commenters, take heed. This is the apex of comment glory!
You drink this article RIGHT up! That’s right you do! Drink it in!
“Great hammer of Thor, that is powerfully helfupl!”
Glorious right boot of Wonder Woman, you’re welcome!
“I could watch Schnidelr’s List and still be happy after reading this.”
Now THAT’s a compliment! Well done, commenter.
“I hate my life but at least this makes it berablae.”
My powers are stronger than even I suspected…..
“Four score and seven minutes ago, I read a sweet article. Lol thakns”
Ok, that’s kind of charming.
“With the bases loaded you struck us out with that awnser!”
A baseball metaphor *always* works with me….
“I bow down humbly in the presence of such gearnetss”
I am a benevolent God. Mostly.
Whew! Good stuff. Made it kind of hard to delete all those spam posts. Charm and wit will always win me over. Too bad they are still trolly trolls who live under mossy internet bridges.
And that means I still did what I had to do. Bye!
