What the Blog am I doing? 11/19/09

So, here it is, a blog page. And it is setting there staring at me, all empty and white.

       Not so scary, really.  On a scale of one to ten, one being the old nightmare of showing up at school late on finals day after the test is over wearing a giant panda suit (does anyone else have that dream?)

And ten being trapped in a stopped elevator after drinking the super saver large soda,  with several Bad Elvis impersonators, a divorcee who just has to talk to some one, two rappers and an unhappy looking dog who has just consumed a rather large amount of squishy french cheese.

A blog can at best only rate a four or five, somewhere between bathtub sharks and man eating ducks.

My problem is "what do you do when you haven't anything worth blogging about?".

 So, I tried my friends, " what  are you going to blog?" I would ask them craftily. Well darn, apparently, they were just about as clueless as I ( though, I like to think I am in a special class of cluelessness some what above the average)

 Perhaps a book, I am a library associate after all.

So I looked and YES! There it was, Blogging for Dummies by Word Press.  Then I saw those little works

"all copies are currently checked out".   I take no little comfort in the fact that there are others in my situation, while at the same time being irritated by the fact that my rescue resource was out of my reach.

Double darn with HANGNAILS!

Then I stumbled upon the obvious " look it up on line!"

  A brilliant idea, there are lots of bloggers out there.  Someone should have idea or two.  And they did.

Now I am not sure if many of these are good subjects for blogging, but they gave me something to do for a few minutes of my copious amounts spare time.

Here are some of the ideas I tried and  my results (for the record these are real I did not make up any of these ideas)

   Go gor a walk and come back with some "treasures".

This I did, several times.  Alas the dog wanted to share in the experience and I really don't want to talk about the "treasures" I gathered.

   Draw  simple pictures on napkins and put them in your kids lunch bags.

I  discovered that 

 A. this is NOT cool MOM!

 B. I am an embarrasment to all preteens even those I am not related to and

 C. My daughter is now eating only hot lunches that are garanteed parent tamper proof safe.

I suppose I should be thankful that they haven't covered restraining orders in sixth grade civics class yet.

Still I have not found my blog subject.....

Make a sock puppet and pretend that it is your alter ego   

 Yet another learning experience.

 So I made my new friend and named him hugo.    Hugo and I got along famously.   My daughter rolled her eyes and suggested that I get some proffessional help.

 My husband, used to my oddities, had a lovely conversation with Hugo. It seems they both enjoy the John Stewart  Daily show.

And alas the dog nabbed my poor alter ego and is holding him hostage somewhere under the bed.

  I am so glad I used my husbands sock.

Write your creativity manifesto

I really plan on getting to this one...just as soon as I look up the word manifesto.

There were a lot more ideas, most of them were far more time consuming than I could handle.  Or would get me even closer to my family buying me a nice white coat with buckes on the back.

For now I will have to content my self with the fact that I still haven't anything to write about.   And later tonight I will begin renegotiations for Hugos almost safe release.

Dance of the martian 11/17/09

Hitch rises again

Snarky beast 11/08/09

Sometimes it's hard to relax with all this in my head 11/02/09

I looked around the room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Everything was normal
Finally I could relax

Horrible habbits 11/2/09

OK, Everybody is allowed one bad habit
Of course I keep a selection and rotate them daily (sometimes hourly).

Of all my bad habbits, I best love the dubious beauty of the majestic pun.
The pun or paronomasia, if you wanna get fancy, is a form of word play that exploits similar sounding words for the punnsters own evil purposes, and or amusement.
Believe it or not, there really is a science to punning. they can even be classified... and no by that I do not mean bad worse and total groaners.Though any of those applied to a pun can and often is considered a compliment.



The first kind of pun is the homophonic pun . It uses word pairs that sound alike but are not the same in meaning.
For example, "Atheism: a non-prophet institution"

The second is the compound pun is a sentence that contains two or more puns. Such as, the sign on a golf course "when you have been drinking, do not drive. Don't even putt!"

The recursive pun is one of the most common. Itis a sentence that contains a pun that refers to similar sounding words.
"Where does bad light go? It goes to prism. "

A transpositional pun is a complicated format with two aspects. It involves transposing the words in a well-known phrase or saying to get a clever redefinition of a well-known word unrelated to the original phrase. The redefinition is thus the first aspect, the transposition the second aspect.
" Dieting: a waist is a terrible thing to mind" , is taken from " a mind is a terrible thing to waste. "

Spoonerisms are the act of moving letters about to create a whole new meaning to a statement.
One of my favorites is Dorthy Parker's famous "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" Later to be coined by tom t bone sankovitz.

A Feghoot is a short story ending in a truly atrocious pun. If you end your tale and the audience does not groan. Please try again.

A Wellerism is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed.
"We'll have to rehearse that," said the undertaker as the coffin fell out of the car. "

"I should have studied harder," said Tom testily

A daffynition is a pun format involving the reinterpretation of an existing word, on the basis that it sounds like another word .
"How much does a pirate pay for ear rings? a buccaneer."

As you can see the humble, and often horrible, pun has more than the eye can see to it.
There is both an art and a science to it.
It has been immortalized by many famous people. so I will include a few of their words.

The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability. ~Edgar Allan Poe

A pun is the lowest form of humor, unless you thought of it yourself. ~Doug Larson

Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. ~Fred Allen

7.5 learning habbits 10/29/09

7 1/2 Learning habits

STEP 1. Begin with an end in mind.
OK. here is a major problem for me. I am, by nature, as curious as a ferret. And probably the same amount of discretion. When I discover an new idea or an opportunity to learn a new skill, I leap in with both feet. Dignity is boring!
I have never really waited until it was necessary to learn a skill to fix a problem. if a sill is there for me to grab onto now, I will.
Of course with no real goal in mind to force me to learn I never worry about deadlines.
What can I say? I'm the person who likes to get my term paper finished a week after it's assigned. Now don't get me wrong, I am not an eager beaver, greasy-grind for responsible time usage. It is just that I learned early that I like deadlines (I especially like the cool sound they make when the go whooshing by). It's just easier to fight procrastination by jumping in the deep end and paddling around until you know what you are doing. If I make myself get excited, I wont quit until I get it right. It's very difficult for me to set the "end" artificially, because I'm never as good at anything as I am going be.

STEP 2. Accept responsibility for your own learning.
There's a given! If I'm not learning it I am a) in need of some skill that this skill should be built upon. This means do some review work and find out what I need to do this. Or b) I am not understanding my resource correctly. Do I need additional resources? Time for research.

STEP 3. View problems as challenges.
I love a challenge! If you win regularly, you need a harder game. Failure is where I learn the most, though I prefer to not have challenges that leave scars ( I hate pain and highly disapprove of blood...it means I am probably leaking from somewhere)

STEP 4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent learner. I dunno....competent? Me? Eager, excited, curious, yep I am capable of those. But competent? Maybe...I'll let you know when I feel that I have mastered something.

STEP 5. Create your own learning toolbox.
Tools.....yippee! I love tools! Hand tools, power tools, books, resources, and skills that you pick up when you least expect it, pinch me I am salivating just thinking about them.
My favorite thing is when I find a tool and put it to an unexpected (and generally unrecommended by the manufacturers) use.

STEP 6. Use technology to your advantage.
Back to the tools! Technology rocks! I sooo wanna be a techno geek. Again I find new skills around every corner.

STEP 7. Teach/Mentor others.
I'm not a half bad teacher. I'm not quite great either. I just like to share. When I share what I have learned , the person I shared with gives me all sorts of new ideas....

STEP 1/2 Play!
This is my favorite part! I love to play. You learn so much playing. I especially love non computerized games. Nintendo is OK, but it's so much more fun to play WITH someone real.
I am terrible at most games. this makes me a popular opponent because you get to win more. This is OK because the challenge and the fun is in the game itself, Besides, I learn more with every loss.