I don't know what you know, but maybe if it gets shared... something good can come of this.

Sources: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvBJMzmSZI&feature=player_embedded#  and http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/fb2vl/the_most_amazing_video_on_the_internet_listen_to/

National Kazoo Day

source

source

I don't have a problem with kazoos or vuvuzelas or this

Accoutrements can be kinda sexy.

Wouldn't want to wake up to any of it.

Woke up to this, this morning:

Got another one! This is pretty cool. The Minute Man's Wife gave it to me and as with all blog awards there are conditions:
#1 Pimp out the giver. The Minute Man's Wife is a fairly new blogger but there's substance and it's nearly always funny if not insightful. She's doing the meditation shtick a la Chopra so that could explain why. She wore red shoes on her wedding day. She's a writer and I can't wait to see that book that she's got in her. Dunno if I should say more... I mean, she's got followers that want to sedate me. On second thought, I should say more so they don't find me...but that's not logic. Anyways, I enjoy her comments and her posts and there's always some food for thought. Knowing her is going to be a great thing. Giggle.

#2 Give it out to others. Number of new awardees is arbitrary...but all these women make me laugh, and Copyboy's funny too.
     Calling People Names- the otherworldyone - my original girl crush, no homo.
     TexaGermaNadian- partner in crime. I feel like we could put together a heckuva political ticket.
     Blogging Butter - young, funny, doesn't know I exist.
     Not About Cake - she makes cakes. but that's not what this is about.
     The Kitchen Bitch Ponders - sassy ScotBrit. my second girl crush, shhh! don't tell.
      Copyboy - snips, snails, puppy dogs tails, everything that's hilariously disgusting about boys

#3 Share seven things about you that people don't know

7: My retirement plan is to be a cartoon character voice actor. Think Robin Williams' character in 'Mrs Doubtfire'.

6. Captchas are way too funny to me. You know, word verification?  I always think, 'yup, I admit you're a word even though you are nonsensical.' On reddit, there's a subreddit totally dedicated to captchas and Inglip. I enjoy the cartoons.

5. I used to think I was a twin. Imagine my disappointment when, after careful scrutiny of my birth certificate, I  am a single birth after all. But, I immediately began positing several conspiracy theories why this might be so. Naturally, I've kept these all to myself.

4. Not an Oprah fan. Her name's misspelled. But I'm a fan of Paula Deen. Ooooh those cheeks! They're so fluffy!

3. I can get obsessive over something. Once I acquire it, I may have a few days of contentment, but eventually I find something else that I feel I can achieve true happiness with. Having said that, I don't shop all that much and right now, I'm in the hurricane eye. I have couch. I have running water. I have washing machine that works and a boiler that's minorly sporadic. I'm fine for the moment.

2. I don't really care about the plight of mass contained chicken. All I want is for it to be plucked, cleaned and fried. With some biscuits. And Bob Evans gravy. I just had a thought about PETA reminiscent of the punched in the face skit on SNL. I would totally do that to or even alter it by throwing a bucket of chicken innards on the people who spray paint fur coats worth hundreds of dollars. Bon Jovi's hot and resilient. And you'll like it because of zombies. too.

1. If I have to, I will use my teeth on my toenails.


Believe in your dreams, people.

Un jour grand dehors à la bibliothèque et d'autres endroits

Yeah. I read this book. Today. All of it.

And obviously, the book was good. I got to sit by a huge window, drink some coffee, and eat the tastyhardawesomeness of Bourbon Chocolate Sandwich cookies. All for £1.10. So I hung out at the local library then moved to The Coffee House, Gregg's, and back to The Coffee House. Picked up the kid and the man, went out for curry. I like chicken tikka shashlick. 

Why am I not surprised that 'shashlick' gets the red squiggly lines. It's the damn spelling from the menu!

Bus trip home. Now in a comfy t-shirt and the gray yoga pants the man stole from Autumn. THAT'S A FUN STORY! Save it for another time. [trollface]

Here's where I admit that getting out today was the first time I got out of the house (other than to the local Tesco) since last Friday. I am on a seriously extended three-day weekend, lull, vacay, holiday...whatever. When Natalie wasn't at St O's, I had more shape to the days because I made sure to get and and and and... well, provide her with opportunities and activities other than staring at a TV screen. And then we started to get on each other's nerves. Well, more me on hers than her on mine. 

Here's a fun trollmom thing that I did to her...you recall a previous post where I vowed to call my farts 'the barking spider'? Well, at dinner two nights ago, kiddo lets it rip...and asks us if we heard that spider barking. The man is not amused and I'm like 

Yup. Paving the road to her therapist's office with troll intentions. Hopefully his or her office is across the street from a library.

Reddit is my time waster.

Remember xanga? So 2006.

I like to Google myself every once in a while, just to make sure that the blog is still invisible. Guess what I found?

My old xanga blog!  It had a couple of pictures that I'd forgotten. I was soooo cool.  And young! And skinny! Oh my.

Should I add the old posts from xanga? Nah, probably not. I was more terse in 2006. And some of the posts I can't remember what I'm referencing.

Hung out with Posh Ruth tonight. She invited me over to watch 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding'. That girl has a hollow leg. Anyway... MBFGW? Imagine a community like the Amish but with Pageant Mom sensibilities and Taliban taboos.

Just precious. Jaw dropping. Eye popping. Heartbreaking.

You wouldn't think that these people consciously set themselves apart, based on what the girls wear and how they dance... but apparently so. They've got some weird courtship rituals and according to Ruth's mom, via Ruth, oddball wedding ceremonial rites.

Take for instance the Puritan-like view of female chastity. Girls aren't allowed to go anywhere alone. Not even older ones. The courtship ritual of 'grabbing', I think, fits in with this. Boys will 'grab' a girl they like, take her off from the main group, and hold her until she consents to a kiss. Holding appears, to me, violent. So far, I've seen twisted arms, arms held up from behind, and punches. The pain stops when the girl consents to a kiss or is able to get away. Some girls let themselves be grabbed, others disdain the idea until they're ready for marriage...likely the following year.  They're getting married at 16, 17 years old.

I'm not saying that this is unheard of for me. I just find it somewhat appalling that these teenagers, while readied for their culture's rite of passage at that age, are not readied for life in global terms. Some, not all, but a good number quit school at the age of 11. Then five years later, they're married!?

It's a very 'in the present' lifestyle and culture. Could be due to the transient nature of their habits.

So it's on for a few more weeks. Comes on on Tuesday nights. I know I'm most likely to bring it up again. It's all TexaGermaNadian's fault.

Oddball stat: the wii just surpassed the Nintendo as the all time selling system. By far outstripping the Xbox. Nintendo's 2008 profit margin per employee: $1.28 million

Nintendo is a bigger company than Yahoo, Nike, Lowe's. Especially hard games to beat are called 'Nintendo-hard'. 

Relatively, Mario jumps 27 feet according to his stature.

I loved playing Nintendo with the stepsisters. Wasn't as good as the oldest, but equal to or better than the others.

Doubt I can beat my brother at DDR.  Really. That boy's got skill.

Burns Night...FREAKY!

Today is Jan 25th...Robert Burns' birthday...First, I want to take you on a internet trip...

For lunch today, I ate the can of Scotch broth that'd been lingering in the cupboard.   It wasn't bad. The lamb fat threw me off for a second, but otherwise it was a very tasty soup. I had crumpets too, but that's not important...or even remotely freaky.

Now, here's my freaky part:

I'm on reddit, browsing the new and controversial topics. I see a link: Woman has her Facebook account banned. I read that, then I click on the link in the sidebar: Kate Middleton resigned to life as a royal and quits her day job. I decide to check out her parents' business website  thinking that maybe there'll be something I might want to get for Nat's birthday... yes I know it's seven months away! But I have to start thinking about things ahead in advance so I know what it is that I want to execute as final product.

Anyways, they have a blog! And the blog asks me if I'm celebrating Burns Night. So of course I have to wikipedia Burns Night.

Today I learned I can't draw a straight line in screen capture mode.

Hurrah! I have pseudo-celebrated Burns Night without knowing it. But boy oh boy, did it freak me out! Here I am, iggerant lil Okie eatin' soup with literary association.

But I draw the line at haggis.

A Burns supper sounds like lots of fun. Anyone out there been to one?

I leave you with one of his poems:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne* ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp !
and surely I’ll be mine !
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pu’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d i' the burn,
frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
and gie's a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

If Facebook has anything to say, auld acquaintance will never be forgot... even if we wanted to. Except for Kate Middleton.

If it's going to screw up, it's going to be on a Friday

Late Friday, the front loading washing machine made this godawful industrial blaring alarum sound that about squeezed my brain out of my nose and cause my ears to bleed. I even took video just so I could share it with you. There may be a reason why the audio didn't come through. Probably so I don't subjugate you to the same unholiness.

Had to ask ourselves

So we spent a lovely chunk of time on Saturday morning doing this:

Carefully removing offending and overlarge noise maker from under counter without messing up the balance. And you know I swept behind that damn machine without a Swiffer! Only had to kill one spider. Not bad.

First line of defense was stupid. But honestly, it was my first time so it's bound to be a little stupid.

Since bukkit was stolen, the mixing bowl was chosen. No, I'm kidding about the bukkit. 

And I love that man for doing the majority of the work. All I had to do was mop up the excess water that didn't make it into the pan and bowl.

Oh, it was so gross which, amazingly enough,  surprised me. There were weird little beige specks in the water.

The smell. Oh sweet Jeebus, it was offensively odoriferous. Stagnant, tepid, fungal... and pouring straight out of a machine designed to clean with that water. Didja know that front loaders can develop lovely moldy spots on the inner seal ring? I didn't until I moved here.

But it wasn't all bad. Apart from the smell and generally ickiness... it got fixed. It works like a champ. Rewashed the clothes that were in there and was able to wash the towels used in the line of duty.

 And the cause?

Me. My fault. Two hairpins and a paper clip.  They got into the filter and were jamming the draining functionality of the filter and valve. Moral of the story? Clean your pockets out each and every time.

It's sh** like this, England

All I wanted to do was clean the floors.

Ohboi! Flor kleen! Yai, Happee!

Getting to the big store is a two bus trip journey, so if I make the effort to get to the Tesco Extra, my expectation is that I should have no real problems with any of my purchases afterward. I needed a floor mop that would use my Tesco brand wet cloths for floors. Don't want them to go to waste.

I bought a brand new, Tesco-brand, Swiffer-style floor mop. It cost me £4.00. It replaced an equivalent bn,T-b, S-s fm that was here when we moved in but was in disrepair (read: broke-as-sh**).

In the beginning, I used that first floor mop like it was my own personal addiction prior to a 12-step. I didn't use it, it used me. And then, I decided to break the habit of using broke-as-sh** tools. I asked for help and received it in the form of a dry floor mop with fluffy blue tentacles that would snag up those dust bunnies and send them to the underbed in the sky. Trip to Tesco #1.

That particular purchase did not even attempt to uphold my standard of cleanliness. How can one be akin to a domestic goddess when one's floors aren't clean?  Sadly, banisher of fuzzy rodent-like grey matter warped in storage...bent all out of shape and thus, became another broke-as-sh** tool

And so commenceth the beginning of this week:
I acquire the bn, T-b, S-s floor mop. I go back to bus stop and get on bus. I get on wrong bus. Bus drives me all around the county and drops me off in a town I don't live in and have only been through once. I walk to another bus stop 60 yards around the corner and wait for a new bus. I get on new bus. It takes me to Tesco. Luckily, the bus is going back to my bus station, so I can stay on this bus. Trip #2, no problems, I get home. The off-brand swiffer goes next to it's new home, the cupboard under the stairs. I use it the next day to sweep and mop. It broke.

I <3 reddit

Okay. Hmm

I call Tesco. I find out I can return the broke-as-sh** floor mop provided I have my receipt. PERFECT!

And you know what? They took it back! Thanks Tesco! Trip #3 is awesome!!!!1!

And then I got on the wrong bus again.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK

TL;DR - I have broken cleaning supplies, I get new one that breaks, I take wrong buses trying to get home. I end up with no good cleaning supplies.

Bright side: floor's clean

Check this out: amazon sells Swiffer Wet Jet© Starter Kit for £71.  That's like, $100, easy.

Oh, and my washing machine's broken.