some words currently in my head:
Denobulan-
I think I spelled it right. It’s an alien type in the Star Trek series
Cinnibar Brown-
Eye color for fruit flies. It is not the same as sepia.
Blue gloves-
This morning I tried to say it to Dan while still mostly asleep. I can’t remember why either.
Today’s episode of sesame street was a good one. Here’s some highlights:
The amazing Mumford is doing a big and little trick on the letter M. He accidentally turns Big Bird little and no one notices. Big Bird wanders around on the ground looking at items that are now REALLY BIG to him. He sees a penny, a ball, and a leaf. He talks with an ant who recognizes him from when he was big. Snuffy walks by but can’t see or hear the tiny Big Bird. We are left hanging as Big Bird tried to get Allan and Gordon’s attention.
This is one of those skits I think might have scared me as a child. The way no one sees Big Bird; they might step on him! Of course this skit is brand new and I’m grown so no worries!
A pianist I should have heard of doing “Everybody’s Song”
(I love that song!)
Jack be nimble is too tired to jump the candlestick. We learn that he has had no breakfast. In nursery rhyme fashion he shouts out: Mum be nimble Mum be quick, make me breakfast- get on the stick!
The count tells us about his favorite show- 24. Every episode is 24 seconds long! The show is about a man dangling from a cliff. In the 24 seconds that beep across the screen like calculator font, we see various scenes across a black background of: dangling feet, clinging hands, torso, and kicking legs. After 24 seconds is up the camera pulls back and the man lets go and drops down to the ground which is only a foot below.
A 90’s animation that looks a bit like paper cutouts. Twenty grapefruits! Bellhop has to fetch them and keeps remembering 20 20 20 20. When he gets to the store the man asks him, twenty what? Bellhop says, uh I forget.
Elmo’s world has Mr Noodle on a see saw, but he can’t seem to find anyone his size for a balance. He tried an ant and ends up slingshotting the ant up in the air. Oops! As I wonder aloud how that ant landed, a tiny voice shouts out as an aside, “I’m ok!”
Why does elmo always ask a baby? Hi Baby. How do you go up and down? How do you have fun? How do you eat food? Universal answer: baby just stares at Elmo.
Grover (voiced in this clip by Frank Oz) sends Elmo and email about exercise. He tries to fly but can’t remarking, “My cute little cape seems to be caught on something unseen and below the frame.”
I love the clips where they still use Frank’s voice. He is great at adding little funny remarks and exaggerated reactions to the situation. It just gives it that something extra that makes me say, “Yup. Nobody does it like Frank.”
In the Buster keaton short, Love Nest, he writes his girl this letter:
Dearest,
Since you have canceled our engagement, I have decided not to marry you. I am leaving to sail around the world so that I will forget you.
Yours, but not anymore,
Buster
p.s. If you do not receive this letter, write me.
In strongbadia the Cinder Block breaks up with its mate in this letter:
Dear Stop Sign,
I am a stop sign and you are a cinder block. Therefore I think we should break up. I hope we can be’s friends.
Love Always,
Cinder Block
Now a conversation with a guy I met the other day:
me- If you had a fish, what would you name it?
Woody- That depends on what kind.
me- It’s a betta.
Woody- Male or female?
me- Probably a male.
Woody- What color?
me- Bluish red with shimmery green- like on his fins.
Woody- I’d have to go with Shasta the Resilliant.
Later I caught a mole in my house. He or she was caught in a mousetrap by the nose. I let it go outside and it survived and got back in the next day.
To Dan, “That mole should be named Shasta the Resilliant.”
I’m on silent films right now. They seem to be surprisingly hard to come by. I was listening to a Queen song with the lyric “be your Valentino” and decided I needed to see some Valentino. I haven’t seen any yet due to the aforementioned shortage. I have seen a little Chaplin and a little Keaton. I like Keaton! He is called Stoneface by some people because he reacts to situations by not reacting. His face stays blank and he pauses with whatever emotion is required going on in his head. I think it is funny in the same way as a comic not laughing at his own jokes is funny. If a guy (or girl) can deliver a joke that the audience laughs at but he or she doesn’t laugh it, that makes the joke funnier. And in the same way a comic cracking up as they deliver a joke detracts from the humor.
The other big thing that impresses me about Keaton is the physical stunts he is capable of. In this age of camera tricks and computer magic, we are used to seeing the unbelievable. But they were actually doing the unbelievable! I find myself not reacting to this and I am upset that I don’t notice, yes, obviously he has no stunt double. And most (or all) of the throws, hits, and falling buildings are real and life size. The one scene that really hit me is not probably the most famous. In Steamboat Bill Jr., Keaton has to rescue a girl by climbing on a rope. Once he gets to her, he lets her cling to him as he hangs by his hands. WAIT A SECOND… I have tried this trick before as a child. Hanging from a tree by my hands I tried to let my little sister hang around my waist. It is not too easy. Many people cannot hold themselves by just their hands, let alone with another clinging to you. I do not think I have ever seen this stunt done in the strict sense. Always you see a face and blurry ground behind with feet kicking. Or a side view with the hands relaxed and face looks calm. You know these shots have been doctored. Or green screened. There’s no way that person is actually hanging by their hands. This was the one shot that reminded me how awesome these early film actors were. I’ll be going to the library soon to lay my hands on some more Keaton films.
Quote of the moment:
The chair now recognizes the nation of… Lita
I wanted to write down some stories Mom tells over and over about her past and how she met Dad how they got engaged, ect. So here’s how they met and got engaged as interpreted by me after listening to Mom tell it.
Mom was at the Klondike bar near BCS high school with I think it was her brother who stopped there for just a minute. She must have been 17-not-quite-18 because several people offered to buy her a drink but she wasn’t supposed to have alcohol. One of the guys there was my dad. Maybe they talked for a minute but nothing more happened except they both thought the other one was good looking. Dad was out of high school and wanted to know how old my mom was so he asked Mom’s brother Neil. He said, “I think she’s 16” A message got back to my mom that my dad liked her but wouldn’t date her because she was only 16. My mom, who must have had a birthday by then, said, “Will you please tell him that I’m 18?” So my dad found out how old she really was. At a later date they saw each other by chance at the Tastee Freeze and Dad asked my mom out. She said yes and they started going together.
When they had been dating for a long time they began to talk about marriage. They both wanted to get married, but hadn’t made any definite plans. So my dad went and got a ring and had it with him one day while they were talking. He brought up the subject again and asked my mom if she was into getting married. She said yes. Then he pulled the box out of his pocket and opened it saying, “Good, lets get married then!” My mom doesn’t say what her words were at this point but I know she was surprized and very happy. Later they got married and did some other things and eventually had me and my two sisters.
First a list of alternate chemical names for lab chemicals. I think they all sound like first names:
crystal violet-
Aizen Crystal Violet, Aniline Violet, Axuris, Gentian Violet, Hidaco Brilliant Violet, Kristall Violett, Meroxyl, Pycotanin, Pyoverm, Krystalova, Violet Zasadita
L- ascorbic acid-
Ascorin, Catavin, Cebid, Cebione, Cecon, Celin, Cemagyl, Cemil, Cereon, Cergona, Cevatine, Cevimin, Cewin, Cipca, Citriscorb, Colascor, Davitamon, Hicee, Hybrin, Ido-C, Kyselina Askorbova, Meri- C, Natrascorb, Ribena, Roscobic, Vicelat
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is my favorite stop-motion Christmas special. I like the character Yukon Cornelius. Everything he says is funny. When asked what supplies he’s going to get he says, “Cornmeal, gunpowder, ham hocks and guitar strings!” Then when he’s riding the floating iceberg with Herbie and Rudolph they crash into land. Cornelius shouts, “LAND HO!” after they have already struck it. Herbie looks at him and says REALLY sarcastically, “No kidding.” Then again they have this funny exchange:
Yukon-This fog is thick as peanut butter
Herbie- You mean pea soup.
Yukon- (shouting) You eat what you like and I’ll eat what I like!
He does always seem to be yelling something, doesn’t he?
Funny Signs partially burned out:
CAR WASH -> SH
Price Chopper -> Price Clopper, rice hopper, Price Chop
Westgate Plaza -> Vestgate Plaza, tgate Plaza (one on each side)
Circuit City -> ir uit ity
Borders Books and Music -> Borders ks and Music
I’m so happy because I got to meet Ben Folds- in a dream, but I’m still happy. He knocked on the door of my mothers house (in which I live somehow) and I wasn’t even surprized to see him. I probably said, “Come on in” and he did. He told me he got my DVD and was afraid it might be something nasty of the homemade variety. I said, “Oh so you threw it out huh?” kind of disappointed. Then he said, “Actually it was pretty good. I like what you did with the characters all dancing to my songs and the band playing their little instruments. Kind of cute.” I then said, “It was actually only the second project I tackled with the camera.” And he said, “That was just your second try? I’m impressed.” Since he was obviously so happy to meet me and talk with me, I asked for his autograph and he signed my copy of the DVD. Then I asked if he had time to let me get a picture of us. He said yes and my Mom took our picture. He still didn’t leave and I asked him if he wanted to play rock garden tag for a while. He said ok and some of my neighbors came over. I had never heard of rock garden tag before I went to bed last night, so I am fuzzy on the details, but here’s how it goes vaguely. You stand in the rock garden on rocks. You are protected by a ring of rocks which you must stay within. Other players have to try to get into the circle before you tag them. Also it helps if the rock garden is surrounded by a variety of terrains such as trees, vines, a small cliff, and a pond. I was trying to get past Ben and into the circle (he’s really fast at tag) when I woke up. But I was still so happy I met him sort of.
Went to see Ben Folds in SUNY Brockport. Was freakin awesome, but I have to get to work. More details will follow soon- here they are!
Oh but first. Yeah I threw that DVD on stage. I was trying to get Ben’s attention like all night but no luck so in the end I threw it. It broke apart. And he stepped over it. ouch. I made that DVD all myself. Oh well. Sucks to be me unless some nice stage hand picked it up and gave it to Ben. Which I’m not holding my breath for. At least I can describe to you why I liked the concert so much. I’ll try to go over some of the parts I remember about the concert in some kind of order. I thought we would be in seats there but nope, we were let in to the gym all empty and we ended up standing all evening. This was probably the only bad thing of the night and it didn’t bother me too much. The Fray opened for Ben. They were okay, nothing super, nothing terrible. I bouced a little.
Then we waited like FOREVER to see Ben. Or maybe just a few agonizing minutes. They cut all the lights FAST and shone some blue ones up on stage to tease us while the into music played. The music was from the Jesus Christ Superstar overture. I feel this might have been a nod to The Beatles stunt where they claimed to be bigger than Jesus Christ. Or just coincidence. So at the end of this they (Ben and two bandmates Jared and Lindsay) come out on stage. All in the place cheer and scream and clap. Then they launch into “Bastard” and continue to rock all night or nearly that. He did a set by himself without the drummer or bassist, and also did a set of slow songs.
During several songs he sung a da da da line to the audience and delegated parts to us like a choir. And we all faithfully sang what he gave us. First we did “Army” providing the wordless part that sounds like fake horns right before “in this time of introspection” in two parts. That sounded very nice indeed. Then he coached us in the ah-ahhh chord for “Not the Same” which he did as encore. Three parts this time, at the end of which he stops to have us sing the chord a few more times faster and slower following his conducting. He’s grinning the whole time, it must have felt so wicked awesome to have so mang people hanging on that up and down hand movement he was doing. Then someone calls out something and Ben says, “On the piano?” and climbs right up. So he’s conducting the whole audience from up there. Again, must have been magical.
He did “Rockin the Suburbs” near the end when his band was on again. I believe that when the song had it’s major curse he actually just shut up the first time and let the audience sing it. I love the way the song sounds but I’ve never been big on the cursing. That was also the one in which he stepped away from the piano to play the bass for a minute. Among the solo set he did “lullaby” which helped me fall in love with my then friend, now husband, Daniel. And he did “Last Polka” which has some ridiculously cool piano stuff; fast runs up the keys and heavy pounded chords. This sort of thing really showcased his prowess at the piano. I took some piano in grade school and again in high school so I can appreciate how hard it is and how hard Ben must work at it.
I remember that in the song “You to Thank” he said drugs instead of buzz, but I only noticed because it is on my new favorites playlist which I have memorized every word of. Then “Philosophy” which has not the rhapsody in blue riff but something else I’m googling as Misirlou. Sounded great anyway. Thinking back on the concert I determined that paying $20 was the same as two movies I could have seen, only this was WAY better. And a Ben Folds concert is worth at least 4 or 5 of the Lord of the Rings or original Star Wars movies. So I got a good deal. If only I knew for sure what happened to my DVD…
(additional memory here added 4/6/06)
It was at the end of Army when the line says, “I thought about- the army” Instead he sang, “I thought about- Shelby.” I believe she was one of the coordinators of the event. He had thanked her at an earlier part of the program.
Another random one here. I have been saving for a while and can’t wait anymore. I had a memory the other day of a guy who came to saint rose early in the semester to perform one night. I forget what he was booked as. Something like “he sings, he dances, he does comedy!” And he really did too. He did some spoofs on songs that were popular at the time. He told us that every song has a country song in it if you play it right. Then he gave some hilarious examples on his guitar. He also made fun of the extended version of the Friends show theme. He claimed that the whole problem with the song was when they added the second verse. In the first verse it says “So no one told you life was gonna be this way” but then the second verse says “your mother told you there’d be days like these”. Then also in the second verse they sing “you burned your breakfast, so far things are going great”. This guy tells us “Hey how many of us make breakfast that can actually be burnt?” He was pretty funny. I thought he was better than any other comedian we had in four years. He also juggled and asked us to give him three things to juggle and he would juggle them at least three rotations. I can’t remember the other two items but Nick, my boyfriend of the time, gave him one of those expanding balls you can buy at discovery store. They get bigger and smalled depending on how you hold them. When they’re small they look like a star and when they’re big they look like a skeleton of a sphere. So he took it and looked at it and looked at it. We all laughed at the faces he made. He was a good sport and was up there trying for 6 or 7 minutes. He would try and not get it then we would laugh. At one point he said, “Oh shut up Nick!” because he was the one who handed him this impossible object. It was mostly exaggerated I imagine. Anyway he finally did get it juggled for at least 5 rotations and we all cheered. That was a fun time.
Another thing I want to tell you about is setarepo. It needs to be pronounced -sitar eepo- This is kind of like morphtal worftal. I guess my sister (same one) was reading a sign on the window from the wrong side. It said “operates” but it read like “setarepo”. So then she told my other sister, “Setarepo!” who responded, “what?” So they told me about this and I thought it sounded like a word you yell jumping out of an airplane. You can shout, “Geronimo!” or “Yahoo!” or “Setarepo!” We also decided to call it setarepo when a person speaks backwards. So then ‘gninrom doog’ for good morning is the use of setarepo.
Next subject!
On the way to Webster today we got behind an older person driver. AND they were going slow. So Dan was annoyed so he was pretending to be an old geezer talking about young whipper snappers. Instead he said “young-snappin silly-slickers” That’s it for the story really. It was just funny as all get out.
It’s been ridiculous rainy lately. I guess it’s because of all the tropical storms. I think it had been affecting my sinuses and equilibrium. They are all the way past the alphabet on naming tropical storms. They started over at alpha (Greek alphabet) and now they are at beta. How many more are coming? We shall see.
Quick note:
The nicknaming of pop stars who are chicks that wear too little clothing and dance all slinky- pop tarts! HA! That is a really good one. Someone at my Tuesday night Irish dance class told me that one. She didn’t coin the phrase and neither did I, but if you did and you’re reading this- WAY FUNNY Thank you.
I do. I feel like it must be right somewhere though. Can anyone help me identify it as correct in some parody or different song version?
I somehow got this longing the other day to hear “Puttin on the Ritz”. I found out that it is an old song of which I know the snappy 80’s version. So I go onto itunes and buy the snappy 80’s version and wait for the best lyric of all “razzle dazzle” with a synthesized voice having both high and low components and it sounds like a computer talking. I listen to the song and nowhere can I find the words “razzle dazzle”. In their place at least 3 times the singer says “super duper”. The computery voice is there but the words are wrong. I did a google search for razzle dazzle with ritz but found no trace of my (imagined?) song lyrics. I want someone to tell me I’m not dreaming and that these words were once in this song. Anyone?