-brid not the same thing as -lander

Today my library doppelganger became even more of my doppelganger. There's this girl who looks like me, kind of dresses like me, and works at the help desk. We see each other just about everywhere, and acknowledge each other, but have never really spoken. Today, she was sitting at the help desk and someone taking leave of her said, "Have fun with your French!"

!

I'm taking French too! And I was working on it right then, too!

the 1/2 lb. bag of M&M's and I have reached a ceasefire

Someday I will be a linguist and I will write an article for a journal of linguistics about the suffix "-ass." I will study the following words: "janky-ass," "dumbass," "pansy-ass," smartass," "crazy-ass," "kickass," and "stupid-ass." And "ugly-ass."

I will call it "Semantic and Morphological Properities of the Suffix '-ass' in American English."

i just learned to get to your apartment

Two different friends recently made the following remarks to me:


"They look like shoes you'd wear in an insane asylum" (Re: a pair of espadrilles I have)

"It looks like something you'd get out of a gumball machine" (Re: a neclace I'd made)

.

Now, I really like having friends who feel like they can be honest with me, and I like having friends who are creative and smart. I just wish they'd be not so good at metaphors sometimes.

sure is lonely up here on the high road

One day, at the library, I was sorting books and came across one that said "Women's Center" on the spine above the call number. I asked a coworker, "what the hell is the women's center?" She shrugged, and I put the book aside and continued sorting. Less than a minute later, the phone rang, someone calling from the Women's Center. She said, "did I accidentally drop my book there by mistake?"


Later that same day, a patron came up and wanted to know what hours we would be open for the 4th of July weekend. We looked at each other and shrugged. Then the phone rang, someone calling from the Dean's Office, letting us know the revised 4th weekend hours.

For the rest of the day, whenever something came up that we didn't know how to deal with, we kind of looked at the phone, expecting it to ring.

It didn't.

napalm-flavored chewing gum

Does anyone know any recent great novels by a female author? I love Jonathan Franzen, and I love (now) Dave Eggers, and I tried to love Elizabeth Wurtzel, but good God does she get tiring by the 300th page of self-pity. I would love to find a female author who can do the same type of stuff Franzen and Eggers can.

Anyone?

butter tarts are essential

So, exactly how common is the knowledge of "whack-a-mole"? It's used as a metaphor in a link from one page of a Salon article to the next today, and I have used it metaphorically before to describe various things. It's the greatest metaphor sometimes, because there really is nothing else - nothing so concrete, that is - like whack-a-mole. I think I'll google "whack-a-mole."

Well, I just googled "whack-a-mole." And what do you know but it's being used for nefarious purposes as a computer game/virus. O, whack-a-mole, what hath you wrought? I remember when whack-a-mole was a real game, not a computer one, found in the likes of Chuck E. Cheeses and arcades. You would have this big... I don't know, whacker thing - it was about the width of a thing of cotton candy, but perfectly cylindrical, with foam inside and a leather outside. Then you'd stand in front of this board with holes in it, and when a mole would pop up, you would wield the paddle with all your might to smackdown the mole. They'd pop up and down really fast, and you'd turn into a whacking dervish, grunting and laughing. And whacking.

I guess I'm glad that whack-a-mole is still alive and flurishing on the internet, but I can't help but believe that wielding a real leather paddle and smackingdown real plastic moles is much more satisfying than clicking away with a pansy-ass mouse. So if you know of an arcade or Chuck E. Cheese going out of business, please let me know so that I can attempt to buy their Whack-A-Mole. (And keep the phrase alive)

On our personal information site for the university, this is what it says:
"Student Information effective from First Semester 2003-04 to The End of Time"

wow.

Am I a Rock Star Yet?

Found Poem: Half A Pizza Advertisement:

Come celebrate with us on Jul

and pick up a Large One Topp

these days from 11am -9pm.

July 24th thru July 27th we ha

May team and I look forward to

Mike Burke

Finished The Nanny Diaries. Was cute and entertaining. Reading Revolutionary Road. Have only read the first page, so will withhold judgement.

Donde esta Fush?

There's this guy I work with at the library. He's a really nice guy, but he has a terrible cough. Some days he'll just start coughing and will not be able to stop. But instead of, like, stopping the sentence he's in the middle of and letting the coughing take his full attention, he talks through it.

This habit infuses his sentences with a "dying words" quality. But since he's usually talking about work stuff - fines, collecting fines, dealing with people from whom he has to collect fines - it's kind of disorienting.

translation: Middle America doesn't give a shit about sea turtles, they just want cheap shrimp

I walk to work. It's probably half a mile, through "uptown," meaning "the only street with cute stores on it in town." Most days I am Plainly-Dressed Girl Who Likes Animals and Children. Today I was BadAss In Girl-Skull T-Shirt.

This town is weird, beause there are some days where people will kill themselves to let you cross in front of them. You could stand on the corner avoiding eye contact for 5 seconds (a long time in driving terms, no?) and the second you look up, they wave you across. Today was one of those days for me, perhaps because of this BadAss GirlSkull T-Shirt. Everyone is afraid I'll rip their car in half if they don't let me cross.

Further along the way, I passed two men who had some sort of job to be doing who were talking at their van. One said to the other, "If she's not careful, she's gonna get run owver." I pretended they were talking about me, crossing the street in my BadAss T-Shirt.

Somebody wants to run BadAss Girl down.

fee fie foe... fum?

Well now. Looks like I get to have my cake and eat it, too, considering that at the beginning of the week (well, yesterday), I was thinking that because I was declaring Positive Week on me blog, I wouldn't be able to talk politics; this was because, of course, my political discussions were necessarily woefully negative.

But now...

A quote from Salon: "In retrospect, Cannistraro says it's clear 'the decision was made within a couple of months of Sept. 11 to get rid of Saddam Hussein. But the administration had to find rationale to do it. So they set up a secretive group through Feith which started producing information on Iraq that was more compatible than the CIA.'" This from an article about the "Office of Special Plans," an obscure office created after September 11th that apparently had a hand in intelligence, much of which provided the basis for going to war.

And now, Congresspeople want to investigate.

Here's a link to MoveOn, which is leading a drive to investigate distortion of Iraq intelligence; it does not specify whether the Office of Special Plans would be included in its investigation, but I would imagine it would come up. You can help by signing the petition and contacting your Congresspeople.

Okay, okay, okay,

So I said I wasn't gonna talk about politics, but this is just too good: Bush claims that Saddam Hussein wouldn't let weapons inspectors into Iraq. Maybe someone should have explained that whole thing about reality not just being what you want it to be to W.

as in, "I think that's what I named my blog..."

Welcome to Positive Week at Original Like A Rose Trope! I've decided that instead of bitching about politics, I'm going to tell witty and charming stories about my life. If I run out of witty and charming things to tell within a week, I'll go back to the bitching and give up my hopes for anything better forever.

So last week, I had lunch with a girlfriend who told me a story about thinking spider bites on her neck were tumors. We talked about how gross it is that spiders crawl on us while we sleep - and how biting us seems especially rude when you consider that we're completely harmless and defenseless what with being asleep and all. So I thought that I was out of the woods for a spider dream, but this morning I woke up and noticed two little marks and a couple more smears on the wall that looked like spider legs and guts. I spent the next hour trying to surreptitiously figure out where the other part of the spider went. This was hard because I sleep in a twin bed with another person, who, oddly enough, was trying to sleep. I didn't find it, but finally got up to go to the bathroom and inspected every inch of my body for half of a mangled spider. Satisfied that it wasn't anywhere on me, I went back to bed, albeit on the other side.

But when we both got up and after I'd told him about the spider legs I'd seen, I looked again and they weren't there. So either he considerately got rid of the spider legs/guts in order to convince me that it was only a dream and thus ease my mind, or it was actually a dream. I'm kind of afraid to ask if he did that, though.

Hmm... that wasn't an especially a witty or charming story. I'll work on it, although I'll probably actually have to start doing things that are witty/charming-story-worthy.

I read Mark Crispin Miller's The Bush Dyslexicon recently, and it's appaling. His argument isn't that Bush is just a big dumbass - it's much scarier than that. He argues that Bush is helped enormously by TV to create an image of himself as a "leader," and that all the focus on the stupid ways he's said things (and there are many of them) is actually bad because the focus should be on the content of what he's saying. When you look at the content, it's unbelievable. He regularly responded to questions - in televised shows - about foreign policy with statements such as this: "I really don't [have a take on Vladimir Putin]. I will if I'm the president." Well, good, we should fucking hope so. Maybe, like the other candidates, you should have one before you're elected, so we can decide whether we like yours better.

God, there's just so much more people should know about him, other than the pundits' repeated declarations that he's a real damn likeable guy. If you're interested, start by reading this book.

Fifty bucks and a bottle of white wine

"The typical American shares the values of most liberal activists and progressives," says Reich, "but the typical American has been fed a nonstop diet of lies and angry, snide, resentful, bitter diatribes by right-wing radio talk-show hosts and right-wing TV talk-show hosts. The typical American doesn't know what the facts are. He believes that the typical family is getting a $1,000 tax cut. He believes Saddam Hussein was somehow responsible for 9/11. He doesn't know that Afghanistan is falling apart, he doesn't know that we're completely unprepared for a terrorist attack. He hasn't been told that most of the corporate scandals of 2002 could happen again because most of the legislation never went anywhere."

This quote is from this article on Salon today.

George Bush really needs to lose this election.

"Your message to xxx regarding "linko commie bastard" is the kind of thing that would get your keyboard washed out with soap, if you get my drift," says my e-mail program. And so I say to my e-mail program, you are not a person! you do not have a 'my'! stop freaking me out!

Hubba

Through this page (which frightens me a little - whose is it? why does it exist?), I found this interesting site (called "Blog Left").

Game pieces void if defaced / mutilated / forged / illegible / reproduced / altered & / or not obtained through authorized channels

Liev Schreiber has a dog named "Chicken."

Why don't I have a dog named "Chicken"?

D'oh.

So I've been looking around for reviews of L'Homme du Train in French, so I can read them (with the help of a dictionary) and giggle about how worldly I am. I found one, and it completely pans the movie. This puts a damper on my opinion of myself as worldly, considering that I liked the film so much, and some anonymous Frenchperson hated it. Some quotes: "Johnny (Hallyday, the lead actor) turns everything he touches to lead." Also, "a heavy, clumsy, badly acted, badly written film."

And in a twist that I find truly amusing, I was kind of pissed at my French text for making me memorize the word "naufrage" ("shipwreck"), figuring that I would be better served knowing a useful word like "toilet" in its place. But, of course, this review refers to "this shipwreck of a film." Thank you, French text. I never should have doubted you.

Something to keep in mind, however, is that I have no idea what's considered mainstream (and therefore, of course, tripe) in France, and if perhaps this was a shipwreck because most French films are comparatively infinitely superior, I have no way of knowing that. I just know that this has to be better than From Justin to Kelly, Bruce Almighty, or The Hulk. There are probably some good American films out, too, though, I'm not saying that American = shitty. I'm just saying you'll find more Charlie's Angles ("lookie, boobies and cool special effects") than L'Homme du Train movies.

Unruly, to say the least

I saw a French film today, The Man on the Train, and it was great. The story, acting, and cinematography were quite enjoyable, and it was also a chance to test my ear for spoken French. (I'm learning how to read, but not speak or write it.) Here is a list of words I could pick up:


J'ai = I have

presque = almost

jamais = never

chose = thing

quelque = some

oublier = to forget

banc = bank

peut = you can

mieux = better

baguette = baguette

Considering that the French language has more than 9 words, I still have some work to do before I can move to France and eavesdrop on the conversations of French people. Unless they are extremely concerned with being able to have or forget some better baguettes and banks.

Today was kind of a nice day, because, having been nearly drowned in our hatred (yes, sadly, hatred) of American culture (read: advertising, sitcoms, summer blockbusters and advertising), bad things were going to happen if we didn't get out of the house. The film was so good - simple, beautiful, funny - and we found a coffee shop with some freakin personality, finally, where there was a little Pug puppy, who, oh my God, was sleepy and therefore extra adorable, and he wasn't trying to sell us anything. And and and, there was a cool thunderstorm.

The college town that I live in has 3 school bookstores and not one - not one - non-textbook one. 16,000 undergraduates, no independent bookstore. Not even a freakin scaled-down Barnes and Noble. How is that even possible? There are two coffee shops, practically right next door to each other (Oh, and a Starbucks... shudder) but both of those are so sterile as to be painful to hang out in. Yards and yards of white tile. A college town coffee shop needs several hundred used books, mismatched furniture (that looks like it could have been hand-made) weird, colorful posters/objects on the wall, several rugs, beaten-to-hell easy chairs, hardwood floors, mardi-gras beads everywhere, and hand-lettered signs. Among other things. Art by local art students for sale. Very old dishware. Cute music and literature majors (of both sexes) working behind the counter. Late hours. A resident cat (or Pug puppy). I had thought that this type of coffee shop was prerequisite for a school's accreditation (sp?), but I guess not. Mon Dieu.

Oh yeah, I can also pick up mon Dieu.

i am the enchanted wizard of rhythm

beck make things all better.

ants in my goggles

This Bush remark is a really good example of how it's impossible to be completely without bias in a news story. Here's a story from Yahoo! on it in which democrats are pouncing and Fleischer is clarifying, there's some talk of what's actually been happening in Iraq, there's a talking head saying that Bush gets rhetoric-y when under stress, then another telling us that Americans liked hearing what Bush is now being attacked for saying, and not to blame the Dems becasue it's their job as candidates to attack stuff like that. Here's one from Google (Associated Press) which focuses on Gephardt (a lot), Kerry, Graham, Kerry, and Dean (Gephardt's opponents), and ends on criticism of Bush from Dean; one from USA Today, which includes several quotes from Gephardt, descriptions of some of the attacks Bush was attempting to denounce, and ends on descriptions of other presidently things Bush is doing.

None of the articles seem particularly well-organized. That's beside my point, though, which is that it's easy to word things in such a way to cast good light and bad light on things. Why not run a quote from someone saying it's Fleischer's job to paraphrase the president's words into less contentious meanings, so he shouldn't be faulted for it (which also would imply that we shouldn't take him seriously), just like the one about Dems criticizing b/c it's part of their job? Why do some candidates get 5 paragraphs of Bush criticism while others get one?

I'm not saying that all these stories are biased to a conservative viewpoint, not by a longshot. The fact that the Yahoo! story was at the top of the news list (and has been for a while now) is probably serving more of a liberal viewpoint; the story on the same issue was near the bottom of the Google news page. It's just so interesting that we always hear about how the news media is supposed to be objective, but that's really an impossible goal. Wouldn't it be better to acknowledge and learn how to navigate the bias of the media?

French for New-Age Mystics

The most discouraging thing about trying to learn a new language is when you look at your own language and realize how fast you talk and how easy it is for you to discern the slightest utterances at low volumes on crowded buses. As I'm cursing the French language for being ambiguous, I am forced to notice that English has a sound (tu) that means three different things (a number of objects between one and three, also, and a weird yet highly important preposition), all of which are used on a regular basis, and then I think about how it's not really fair to curse the French when my own language does exactly the same thing. Then I marvel about how thorough and complex and amazing the human capacity for language is, and then I forget where I was in the translation passage and get frustrated and throw the dictionary.

Also, the text we're using has the annoying habit of giving us reading passages containing grammatical elements that we aren't introduced to until the next chapter.

wedding ring tan line

Here are some good things about my new (kind of) computer:


1) I can still turn it on with my toe.


2) I don't have to worry about it crashing every time I exit Internet Explorer.


3) I can burn sweet-ass mixed cds. (Though certainly not with songs I've illegally downloaded. Seriously.)


4) My worries about Big Brother snooping around my hard drive are assuaged by the nice blue glow of the word "Vaio" on the box, the pretty desktop image of trees in autumn, and the Windows NT dialog boxes that look all ergonomic and nice to touch, like clouds or bunny rabbits. Blue bunny rabits.

mmm, vinyl chloride...

I make up songs, then get them stuck in my head. Sometimes I wake up with songs in my head from dreams.

What is the world coming to?

Okay, so apparently 'dismantlement' is a word. It's just a made-up sounding word. My bad.