some random shit ...a list of 20 things

I signed in wanting to post, knowing I've been delinquent. But truly I am so very blogstipated.  I've nothing worthwhile to say whatsoever.  But once I logged in, I saw how REALLY delinquent I've been, (no posts for the entire month of April!! I'm DREADFUL!!) so there's no way I can procrastinate even more on it. So I'm just going to list stuff all stream o' consciousness & rapid-fire like, and if nothing else, it will prime the proverbial pump.  .. I hope.

1. French's Fried Onions. 

I fecking love them.  I think there are large segments of the populace who are doing themselves a disservice by buying French's Fried Onions only when they have a green bean casserole to make.  They're pretty terrific just plain from the can.  HOWEVER, the last time I bought some, they were soft , which I guess is their fate when they succumb to staleness.   Y'know, you'd think if I LOVE loved 'em, soft, stale onions would be--while not ideal-- acceptable.  But nooooosiree Bobby.  Soft fried onions are repugnant. A REPUGNANT ABOMINATION, I TELLS YA!!  I still have this can, by the way, I have plans for said can.  Initially, I was like "WTF, Co-Op?  I can't believe a highbrow grocer like yourself would leave old product on the shelf!!"  But, actually when I turned the can over to scope out the date stamp it was a "use by 5/2013" stamp.  So I'm going to see if I can leverage this into free French's Fried Onions FOR LIFE.   Gosh, EVERYONE will wanna be my BFF then , huh?

2. Distracted driving.  
Last week, I  had to drive allllll over creation for work.  I went to Canaan, Plymouth, Pomfret, and Bradford.  A total of  193 miles!! If I have to go anywhere next week, I am going to Hulk the @#$% out, I swear. Both Monday morning and Wednesday ,as I zipped along, I simultaneously slathered on Gold Bond Medicated Foot Cream.  Mid-slather, I was thinking: heeey, this actually has a quite pleasant odor (the cream, that is...notsomuch my feet) and I bet Ralph Teetor would be appalled (or at the very least, annoyed)  if he knew I was appropriating his brill innovation of automobile cruise control to do something so g-d stupid.
You're going to have to take my word of honor that I didn't just now Google the inventor of cruise control.  I knew from before, I really did. Teetor was blind, and therefore  I found his accomplishment 10x more commendable and extra interesting (which is why he has remained in my noggin)

3. I get super annoyed with people who are excruuuuuuciatingly SLOW with their right turns.  And hey, you really don't have to come to a complete stop first.  That move mighta gotten a rave reviews from yer Driver's Ed teacher once upon a time, but you don't hafta do that out here in the real world, Sparky.

4. I don't  think guys named Dennis should spell their names with one "n". There are some that do, and it's idiotic of them. Oh, and DON'T EVEN get me started on Stephens. . . .

5. Speaking of name spelling. . . I encouraged my coworker Sue to change her name spelling to the cooler, punkier "Sioux" . She's only slightly cool and not punky in the least, but it would amuse me and therefore she should do it.

6.Distracted driving II--  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a quality soundtrack is *imperative* to a good drive.  Lately, I've found this song below to be my top car-karaoke pick. Terrific song, blecch video...


Both Elton John & Lionel Richie were acquired tastes for me.  As a young 'un, I avoided everything of their oeuvres, but in my adulthood I've revisited their stuff and felt I dismissed them too hastily.  Mind you, there's still a few Elton John songs I can't take..."Crocodile Rock" is a trifle too chipper for me to take, and "Levon" is just dreadful.  But I do like lots of his stuff.
And to make it up to you for that hum-drum video above (if you indeed sat thru any of it) I give you Lionel Richie, starring in one of the best videos of all time.  Yeah, I know you're thinking I'm going for the obvious pick-- "Hello". Yep, creeper Professor Lionel  macking on that simpletion blind girl (INAPPROP!!) and then that hideous bust she sculpts of him is, on its own, worth the price of admission.  That one IS classic.  But naw, am gonna go back to his Commodores days.  I adore this song and they made SUCH a cheeztastically awesome video for it--

But back to the subject of car tunes...and why they are so necessary.  Well it's mostly to keep you from getting bored, and depending on your condition, to keep you from nodding off.  But personally, I find that if I'm not musically diverted whilest driving, I am prone to succumb to philosophical reveries.  I succumbed to one the other day, but as it wasn't one where I got all dwelly on the subject of my own mortality, it ended up happily enough, with a quirky insight. It started off with me generally contemplating free will vs. destiny (ohhh THAT  old chestnut).  Was thinking basically about how one could work really hard to have their life turn out one way and life could still take an unexpected turn on its own and thwart their intentions entirely. And suddenly this concept reforms in my head as: PLINKO is a metaphor for life.  You do all you can to line up your chip just so, so that it winds up in that $10,000 slot (the big $$ center slot was a $5000 slot when I used to tune in, back in the Bob Barker era) but the spokes ricochet that chip about  every which way and you still might wind up in a $0 slot, regardless of how carefully you lined shit up.  (scope it HERE, if you're not up on your TPIR pricing games  &  are in need of a visual aid)  Think about it...

7. Speaking of game shows... I watched Family Feud the other night...the Steve Harvey version. Mehh.. I've always felt like, in theory, the Feud was one of the best game shows out there, and yet, though the actual game has altered not much over the years, I only *really* enjoy watching the classic Richard Dawson hosted episodes. I've always been rather curious about how the infamous SURVEY is conducted. In my mind's eye, I envision Family Feud interns schlepping around the suburbs with clipboards with a dozen or so show questions clipped to them. Although I'm sure it was never done that way. Nowadays,I'll bet they use some dullsville web-based voting system.
I watched tha Feud because I was watching GSN ...back-to-back episodes of The 25,000 Dollar Pyramid.  Is it just me, or did most of the recent Dick Clarke tributes neglect to make mention of that show?  Stupid oversight--that show ruled.  Dick had this great habit, when a team failed  in the final Pyramid round, missed by one or two, he would try his hand at giving the clues to see if they could get it.  Now, the guesser , who already feels shitty, is like "UGH..just put me outta my misery already!!"  Also, that move is somewhat of an F.U. to the clue-giver.  It sorta sez "Now let me show you how someone who wasn't a total shit-for-brains would've handled that..."  Looooved that.  And y'know, I would LOVE GSN if they would stick to classic game shows.  But they are compelled to make all these new shows and they tend to suck.  I don't know why there has not been a decent new game show in DECADES.  OK, so I am willing to entertain the possibility that I just miss the doofily-coiffed guests of the early 80s and/or the checkered suits, helmet hair and skinny mic of like a Gene Rayburn-type host. Well that's all true certainly (nostalgia junkie that I am) but I also think it's true that they haven't come out with any worthwhile new game shows in eons. Deal or No Deal?? HOW can that even be classified as a proper game??

8. The check engine light in my car is on.  As far as I can tell though, it's not running any differently.  I feel like if the jalopy had a SERIOUS ailment, I wouldn't have been able to drive 193 + miles last week without breaking down. Ohhh, I dunno.  A check-engine light haiku--
                                                             O, vague glowing plague
                                                        meaning impending doom OR
                                                                  nothing much at all

9. If I was starting up a bar & grill (or some such establishment) , and it was festooned with the multiple flat screen tellys that are standard equipment in most places nowadays, I would say to hell with sports, and play music videos on all screens.  It would be something of a novelty-- music videos on a TV.  I'm not saying the medium of the music video is dead...but I would certainly bet that most videos are now viewed online.  So in my bar, you'd have the novelty of having them back on the TV, and also, usually when you watch a vid online, you've selected it , clicked on it, so there is no element of surprise. It's always great to hear a good song,  but there's something more to it, when it accosts you unexpectedly, like when your jam comes on the radio.  So, yeah, I'd have that going for my place too.  And you just know I'll  be playing the Commodore's Lady video in there.  I'm also very fond of---


10. I realized this while writing this post--  Gene Rayburn of Match Game / EuGENE Wrayburn of Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend novel. That's just a coco-bananas cultural juxtaposition, that's all

11. Hey, has Wheel of Fortune ever done the Before & After puzzle "FLEETWOOD MAC AND CHEESE"?  They very well  might've, without me knowing it, as I am not a big fan of the Wheel (aside from the Before & After puzzles--thems are clever) But if they haven't... they f-ing SHOULD!!

12. APRICITY

I found this word on the terrific site The Futility Closet.  It occurs to me that it would be quite clever to repurpose this as a name.  I like names that mean something.  And what a sweet thing for your name to mean, right?  I just don't know what you would shorten it to for casual address, that's the only prob.  OK, well it's not my #1 baby name pick, but someone should use it.  It sure as shit beats "Neveah"  (which is heaven spelled backwards....I have seen that name on an astonishing number of our newborn peds admissions at work...ick) It could be a character name.  You could have twins named Felicity and Apricity.  I am perpetually stumped for an original plot idea, but am always finding names I like for characters.  Am starting to think I should start a written compilation.

13. Siri-- My 14 yr old niece has this on her phone...damned petty of me, but I am SOOO jealous.  It's not as easy to use as Sam Jackson makes it look in his commercial.  Have you seen it? Way to show the softer, sultrier side of Samuel "get these motherfuckin snakes off my motherfuckin plane" L. Jackson, eh?  It kinda feels to me, like it should have a schmoopy rom-com twist ending where Sam's date night date stands him up and  he has a romantic night with his true love Siri... I mean, he'd been flirting with her the whole commercial, hadn't he?  C'mon, if you've seen the movie "Some Kind of Wonderful" you know just the sorta ending I mean.  Zooey Deschanel's Siri commercial is even stupider.  I do indeed covet the iPhone, but I would hate to become so Siri-reliant that I cannot trust my own audio-recognition of the sound of rain on the roof without having my smartphone verify it.  Oh, and there's always the old timey peering-outta-the-window tactic. And Deschanel herself--I don't dislike her, but she  seems too cutesie to be a real person. She really doesn't  seem too far removed from the SNL parody of her.
Anywhoo it was the older Siri commercial, the one where the aspiring musician instructs his phone to call him "rock god", that inspired me. I got ahold of my niece's iPhone and told it to call her "fuck-tard". I know, I know,beaucoup INAPPROPRIATE.  And  then I discovered that there is no amount of enunciating that can make Siri not hear that as "Fucked Hard"  ZOINKS-- now that is a trifle too inappropriate.... even for a crass beeeyotch like me.  So anyway, I changed Chloe's iPhone alias to "Turd Burglar" instead.

14. I won a laptop at the Windsor Rotary Club Penny Sale.  It was the 98th prize in the third round (3 rounds in toto, 100 prizes per round) I was kinda zoned out and resigned to not winning a damn thing, and wondering what time I was gonna get home when suddenly I make out my number being called and --holy frijoles-- it's for one of the big ticket items.  SO awesome!!  I don't particularly need a second laptop, and what I really ought to do is give it to my niece (you know the one--Fucktard Turdburglar) for starting high school next fall.  But I'm kinda liking having a second laptop.  I feel all stacked--in a technological sorta way.
15. Speaking of techno-geekery, I highly recommend the show The I.T. Crowd.  It's damned funny and Chris O'Dowd is kinda adorbs.  Another terrif Brit-com (that I've just recently stumbled onto) is Outnumbered.  They only play reruns of the early seasons on PBS (and you can find season 1 on Hulu)  but the inavailability of  newer seasons doesn't vex me since I rather suspect that later episodes where the kiddos have grown out of their cuteness are less entertaining.

16.Cheap hair product that works like magic--

 I dunno how that stuff works but it really does.  And I've had fine hair forev, have tried all manner of product for going on 20 yrs now,  and I don't think I've had much work as easily as this stuff does. It could very well be pixie dust.  I also like that brand's dry spray shampoo.  That'll give you a good hair day, but also can be somethin' of an enabler for a sloth like me that would much rather sleep in an extra half hour than get up and take a shower.

17. I started a Twitter account... I did it on a whim , in the middle of the night one night.  I was up with..er..uhh, fructiferous borborygmi...and signed up on my phone.  I wanted to comment on something on The Voice, but, when I scrounged up a message board on the NBC site, it was actually something of a ghost town.  The Voice is HIGHLY Tweet-centric ..and also I am an old fogey not realizing that message boards are soooo 1999. But my enthusiasm (to remark whatever remark  it was) waned, and I never really used the account.  I'm thinking it could come in handy for all my weird TMI confessions I sometimes feel compelled to put out there. (about fructiferous borborygmi, possibly) I would never put it in the public forum of Facebook, and this here is only quasi-anonymous.  I could change my Twitter handle (also no one would be following me to begin with)  and then let fly with every humiliating and/or icky Tweet fathomable.

18. I've always been fascinated/ amused by the pet name (primarily used in hardcore R&B / softcore hip-hop) "tenderoni".  Why on earth was anyone ever inspired to call their g.f. that?? It sounds like a Chef  Boyardee product.

19. I watched Flash Gordon today and I loved it.  I don't think that film could be made the same way today--so unapologetically cheezy.  There's something innocent about it.  Sam Jones plays Flash like a total featherbrain and it's pitch perfect.(let's just give  him the benny of the doubt that it's a deliberate choice). I would *much* rather be Princess Aura to Timothy Dalton's Barin any day.
Wonder why Topol doesn't act anymore??

20. OK, to balance this list out, I'm stating for the record that I don't only like/ ingest crap food (like item #1) I love me some green onions...it's so very simple to snippity-snip some up with the kitchen shears and improve nearly any dish (aside from like, chocolate pudding) Also I enjoy a good radish...so much so I could probably become a Fraggle.  Radishes, in case you did not know, are their staple comestible.  I also happen to be down with the whole ethos of their race (dance your cares away, worries for another day etc. etc. etc...)