Inane Chatter

It’s a poem, but it might as well be a tongue-twister.  Check out this link and then tell me how many words you can’t pronounce (or aren’t sure of).  Five for me (all words I’ve only seen in print, never said out loud).

I don’t mean to turn this into a look-at-the-funny-pictures-on-the-internet kind of blog, but sometimes I can’t help myself.  That’s been happening a lot.  Besides, it still counts as inane.  No false advertising here.

(From reddit, where I have been spending too much time.)

My moods are tied way too closely to the weather.*  I woke up to a bright and sunny (and cold and windy, but who cares when you’re inside?) morning, was in no rush to get up, and had tea and pop tarts.  (Mmm…pop tarts.)  Then I found the funniest thread on reddit about mispronounced words, I’ve been laughing my ass off for about 20 minutes, and I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t start every day like this.

*This is not entirely true.  There are plenty of rainy, snowy, or otherwise gloomy days when I am happy as a clam (usually because I’m snuggled up warm and dry with a book).

Today we have a very special Christmas message from the Aviation Department on the HMS Ocean, using one of my favorite Christmas songs and a couple of Love Actually references.

Looks like the British Navy would have been more fun. (From The Daily What)

I will eventually get back to using words in my blog posts, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen tonight.  Have some comics instead.

I didn’t see that coming. Comic from here.

You’ve got to go to the page this came from to see the ideas he rejected.  I like the first three.

A story (an article, but it’s a story) for Jess and Mom.

(Thank The Bloggess for it.  She tweeted the link.)

The Bloggess recently discovered Doctor Who.  She pinned this…

…on her Pinterest page.  It came from here and here, and since I’m not caught up (and I’m putting off being caught up because who wants to wait a year?), I’m not looking too closely at those.

But I’m SO happy she’s hooked.  I’m a new convert, and I want to convert EVERYBODY ELSE.  Because that’s how it works.

Anne McCaffrey died today.  She was my first favorite author.  (I think.  Asimov came soon after.)  My tattered copy of Dragonflight is the same copy I read for the first time when I was ten (ish), after Dad and Corey read it.  So is my copy of The White Dragon.  (I had to replace Dragonquest – it survived being dunked in a pool because of a lousy toss (NOT my own), but not falling into chunks on a school bus after a sudden stop.)  I always wanted to meet her.  My never-quite-planned trip to Ireland would have included a trip to County Wicklow, just to be where she was, where she imagined and wrote.  She seemed so cool.  She had horses and cats and all those worlds in her mind that are now in mine…well, damn.  I might be tearing up.  Reading the comment thread here (he’s how I found out) isn’t helping.

Watch this.  See if you can find Fenton.

We’d never get Riley back. I saw this on reddit somewhere and at The Daily What.

A crossword clue I liked the other day: Tango quorum.  Maybe because I like the word quorum.  And quagmire.  And quackery.  Quell.  Quench.  Quibble.  Quest.  But I have never understood why the uppercase cursive Q looks like a big floppy 2.  Whose decision was that?

I finished reading Orson Scott Card’s Hidden Empire yesterday.  There are times when knowing more about an author makes reading their books more enjoyable.  There are times when knowing more about an author makes no difference whatsoever to how you feel about their books.  And there are times you wish you could unlearn things about an author because you were SO much happier reading those books before you knew what you know now.  Orson Scott Card falls into the third category for me.  In high school, when Randy badgered me into reading Ender’s Game (I have no idea why I needed badgering, but thank you for doing it), I didn’t know anything about him (OSC, not Randy).  I LOVED Ender’s Game.  I still really like it, and I like all the sequels.  I’ve read just about every novel OSC has written, and with the exception of the Homecoming series and maybe one or two others, I really liked them.  Later, I found out OSC was Mormon.  Not a big deal – an author’s religion is completely irrelevant to me.  Knowing that, though, made me notice that it comes through in his Alvin Maker series, but those books are still fantasy (alternate history with magic), and I like them.  His religion, his feelings about religion, come up sometimes, in some books, but they don’t get in the way of suspension of belief.  Usually.  Yes, one of Ender’s parents is Mormon and the other is Catholic and that’s why they want more than their allowed number of children and yes, the government in the book is painted as evil for hating religion (and other things).  It’s still part of the story, and when I first read it (the first few times I read it, probably), I didn’t see that plot point as anything other than a plot point.  I can still NOT view it as something planted by the author for a reason because it serves the story.  It helps that the vast majority of his books take place in the past or in the far future.

A few years ago, I found OSC’s website.  He writes a weekly column called “Uncle Orson Reviews Everything”, and for a long time, I enjoyed reading it.  At least, I enjoyed reading it when he was reviewing books and movies and restaurants and random products.  I like his writing style, and I’ve found that I like (and often love) books that he recommends.  Sometimes, he discusses politics and world events.  I can’t read him when he discusses politics and world events.  I see red.  He’s a Democrat who hates Democrats.  He thinks global warming is the left’s religion.  He – no, that’s not my point.  My point is that I know this about him now.  And I can still dismiss it when he’s writing science fiction or fantasy that takes place in the future or the past or in nothing resembling real life.  But Hidden Empire (and Empire, which came out a few years ago) takes place in the immediate future.  I don’t remember having as much a problem with Empire, but with Hidden Empire, I couldn’t go two pages without being hit over the head with his worldview.  Right, people who believe global warming is a problem secretly want a third of the world’s population to die.  Sure, only Christians would volunteer to help the sick and dying.  The action was good.  The preaching was not.  I was disappointed.  End of review.

I started to quote bits of OSC’s latest reviews as examples of what makes me want to tear my hair out, but reading those articles is making me crazy, so I’ll just link to a couple.  You can read them if you want to.  Then breathe deeply.  He gets into politics in this one from 9/15/11 and there’s a section on Herman Cain in this one from 11/3/11.

I gotta tell you something crazy, peoples.  Last night, after I got home from work….wait for it….I DIDN’T TURN THE COMPUTER ON.  I know.  I don’t know how I survived.  I’m making up for it today.

From reddit: how did I not know this?  Wait – maybe it’s new.  Right now, go to Google.  Type in “do a barrel roll”.  Google is awesome.  Here’s more.

I want this outfit.  She looks fantastic, of course.

Also, watch this.  I’m too lazy to embed the video, so follow the link for a very fun father-daughter dance medley.

Sorry for all the links and no content.  I have to go to Baltimore at too-early-to-be-believed tomorrow morning, so I’m going to bed.

There was something I was going to write about, something John said or did, but I don’t remember what it is.  I had a very frustrating day that went straight into an online midterm review.  That went pretty well.  I feel better about the exam, at least.  So instead of whatever it was I was thinking about earlier, you can have these instead.

1. Look!  An adorable baby goat playing king of the mountain and being adorable!

And 2.  This (from reddit) makes me laugh every time I look at it.

I think I need to see Madagascar.  Jungle animals doing hilarious things sounds really appealing at the moment.

So…you know how the other week I was over the moon about running?  How I ran my race, and I ran faster than I expected, and I felt really good?  Well.  In the two weeks immediately following that race, I ran a total of 3 miles.  Weird schedule, too many crazy-early mornings – oh, I’ve got plenty of excuses.  But, as John so kindly reminded me this morning, you lose your conditioning a hell of a lot faster than you gained it.  So this morning I ran four miles.  I’ve still got it.  And I don’t want to lose it.  I don’t know if I could jump right in and run ten again, but I’m aiming for 7 or 8 this weekend.  That’s doable, right?

The Bloggess (who you should really be reading regularly because oh my god Snuffleupagus) pins some hilarious and beautiful things on her pinterest page.  You should check in on that every once in a while, too.

I just turned in my third calculus quiz of the semester and I have to take the midterm before next Wednesday.  So I’m going to watch some TV because the band is rehearsing in the basement and who can study through that?

I wish I could unsee this.  Seriously, I’m scared, so only follow this link if you are not easily freaked out.  (You don’t have to read the comments – just click on the picture at the top.)  Even John admitted it was pretty creepy.  But, you know, I had to share.  I can’t be the only person checking behind me every few seconds.

In not scary news, I know this guy!  Kind of.  He was a client at my last job.  He moved to Vegas to play poker professionally.  After winning a lot.  Good for him.  He was always nice to me.

I needed to scrub my brain after that eerie picture, so we watched an episode of Modern Family.  I love that show.  If you don’t watch it, you are missing out.

I had a dream my house was falling apart.  But you don’t want to hear about that.  Other people’s dreams aren’t interesting to anyone but the dreamer.  And maybe the dreamer’s psychologist.  I don’t have one of those, so I’m out of luck.

This is not the week to get sick.  It’s not the week to get blisters or bruises or terribly sore muscles.  It’s definitely not the week to get any sort of running-related injury.  It’s also not the week to lose sleep or be overtired.  To that end, I promised myself that I would be in bed reading by 8:30 tonight.  It sounds utterly ridiculous, but I have to get up super early to get downtown tomorrow, and I’m tired just thinking about it.

And so I leave you with the most awesomest thing ever: a flowchart that walks you through the top 100 science fiction and fantasy books, as listed by NPR a few weeks ago.  Apparently, since the list is just that, with very little detail to guide readers new to the genre(s), the helpful people over at SF Signal created this flowchart (which is the most awesomely wonderful thing and I want a big poster of it).  And now there’s an interactive version!  I was directed here by this post of John Scalzi’s, and in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll tell you that my list of books to buy grew three sizes based on NPR’s list and the comments from John Scalzi’s readers in this post on his site.  You know, in case you’re interested.

I had a strange day.  Got so frustrated with work I was nearly in tears.  Got over it because there’s a lot of funny stuff on the internet.  I know, right?

My favorite tweet today:

My favorite reddit…thing today (it’s actually from yesterday, but it kept me amused today, too):

Must go.  If I stay here any longer, I’ll eat the entire container of rice pudding.  (John’s brilliant idea – who gets a craving for rice pudding, of all things?  So good.)  Anyway, I’d like to pretend today’s odd day never happened, so I’m going to take my book and go to bed and start fresh tomorrow.

The books (the fiction), they have been reorganized and reshelved.  I finished just a few minutes ago.  For now, they’re all flush against the front edge (John loves it), but I have a compromise in mind.  I’ll try it tomorrow.  I have pictures, but my phone’s USB cable is upstairs (and the pictures aren’t that great – let’s hope for sunlight tomorrow) and I’m not willing to go get it.  Once I go upstairs tonight, I’m not coming back down.  I also weeded out all the duplicates today.  We have multiple copies of 54 books.  In some cases (The Left Hand of Darkness, War and Remembrance), we have three copies.  There are a couple others we have two of, but for various reasons, I want to keep them in our collection.  The duplicates will probably join the inventory in the basement.  Unless we find someone who’s dying to have a hardcover edition of The Hidden City (the third book in David Eddings’ The Tamuli) or a copy of The Winds of War that is falling apart (most of the books are in pretty good shape, but not this one so much).  Or any of the 48 books I didn’t name.  47.  John doesn’t want to get rid of the extra copy of Johnny Tremain.  (Just like I don’t want to get rid of my extra copy of Anne of Green Gables.  Sure, I have the box set, but I remember reading that copy.)

In other than book news, I found two of the greatest videos ever on The Daily What today.

The first is a bunch of cows looking crazy interested in a Dixieland combo in a field in France. Good music, funny cows.

The second is a juggling video. AMAZING.

I’m catching up on Wil Wheaton’s blog (I’m in June 2009 in his archives – John wishes I’d just skip ahead already), and I found a video of his friend venting about Twitter.  I think I’ve seen my potential future (re: Twitter, of course, not in general.  I hope.).  I’ll do my best to avoid it.  But the video is hilarious and made me start following him.  Go.  Watch.  Laugh.

All this rain means walking the dogs is out of the question.  So maybe it’s gloomy for them.  It’s been raining almost non-stop all day long.  Very good for the lawn.  I wish I could send some of this rain to Texas.  They need it.

Wait – it stopped.  Walking the dogs is back on the table.  Well, not literally.  I would ruin our pretty (expensive) dining room table if I walked the dogs on it.  And it wouldn’t be good exercise for them.  Not long enough.  Aaaaannnnd…that was dumb.  Moving on.

But not very far. Since I find myself incapable of writing anything anyone might want to read today, I’ll leave you with this video (courtesy of the The Daily What and Say OMG (I think that’s where the original came from)).  It’s only 2 minutes, and the payoff is totally worth the wait.

Why Harry Potter Should Really Be All About Hermione Granger.  Link courtesy of John Scalzi.

I love Harry Potter.