by Phyllis
On to Web Fun, Part 2, but I must revisit Web Fun, Part 1 for a second. As it turns out, Darryl is desirous to make one thing clear: she who hated Prince's Batdance and made the Ada County arrests page is NOT his half-sister, but his STEP-sister. His desire to correct this error screams out clearly: "This person does not share my blood!"
Oddly, an argument could be made that she is of MY blood. How? Well, there was once a young girl (a beautiful and talented sister of mine, as it turns out) who completed that binding and sacred transaction of becoming Batdancehater's "blood-sister". To my knowledge, this bond has not been dissolved or annulled through official channels. So there you have it.
And now, a little more fun on the web. The other website which used to occupy hours of my idle time (when through a huge effort I could find idle time) was right here. From this website, you can look up various information regarding houses in our dear county. I will admit it was a little more fun when one of the pieces of information included was the last time the house was purchased and how much it was sold for. But there is still some good stuff: assessed value, square footage, tax districts, pictures. Yeah, I know--only good stuff if you are curious about stupid things like that.
A weird thing, though: if you were to look up my house on the website you would see that as far as Ada County is concerned my house is 2598 square feet. This is grossly wrong. There are over 600 square feet (I ballparked it) that are not counted for some strange reason. The report does show 664 sq. ft. that are counted as something called "Car Storage," but I am not clear on what that means.
It is all quite confusing. I remember looking at houses in my neighborhood, and each was advertised as having bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, etc. But all of them were also said to have a 2- or 3-car garage. I don't know what this is. These areas are clearly meant to be part of the house, and should be counted in calculation of square footage. They are ideal for putting all the gross, disgusting, broken-down, and useless items we don't want dirtying and cluttering up the bedroom, family room, or kitchen. Right?
Adding to the confusion is another misnomer used to describe the paved part of one's property that leads directly to this "car garage" thing. Why is it called a driveway when it is obviously a location for storing one's automobiles? The unfortunate use of "driveway" falsely leads some people to think of driving across this area and into the garage. But why on earth would you do that?
And names like "road" or "street" or "avenue" don't help either. Many of these near my home should be renamed to "driveway" or "lot" for it is clear this is another place to store vehicles. Looking out my front window it looks like that area right outside Bronco Stadium, and I believe it is called a "lot." How about some consistency here?
Alas! I must confess I am adding to the confusion. Upon first driving to our new home, I drove our cars into this poorly named 3-car garage thing and left them there. I found it highly convenient to have them there and have been flouting convention ever since. I know I am wasting several hundred square feet of space by choosing to keep the vehicles cooler in summer and warmer in winter, and I am grossly negligent in helping my "street" look like the parking lot it should be.
Sorry about that.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Not Even Close
by Phyllis
It might not seem like a big deal, but I will admit I spent more than a couple minutes in 1993 thinking about music as I thought about my impending nuptials with MLB. No, I was not concerned about what we would hear playing in the background or who might perform at the reception. (This was decided for me, and as it turns out, although I have a musically talented family, some girl I didn't know played the piano and and another unknown sang a song.)
But I was thinking about the kind of music I like, and what MLB's tastes were. Trust me, people. It's an important issue. Seriously, what if she had been a devotee of Rush, or Def Leppard, or Phil Collins? Suppose she really liked Vanilla Ice, had been to several Exposé concerts, or had all the Garth Brooks CDs? Honestly, how is such a person to be worked upon?
Fortunately we had no huge issues and found we had similar tastes--truly a key ingredient in the recipe for wedded bliss. Even some of the slight differences in our musical tastes have been reconciled over the years. MLB has begun to like some music I like, and I have followed her lead, as well.
There is one band I like, however, that was a source of confusion for MLB: The Icicle Works. She never had an interest when I would listen to them, and didn't put forth much effort to understand who they were. As a matter of fact, she repeatedly referred to them as Icehouse, a travesty and disgusting untruth which made me as angry as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Each time MLB said it I would set out 'at once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.'
"How could you confuse those two bands?" I would bellow, and soon we would be discussing Icehouse's ridiculous "Crazy" video. (Go ahead and watch it all, if you want some good laughs. A few key items to enjoy: the woman's utter ecstasy after making her song request, the hat, the worthy and powerful mullet, the pants--wow, it's all nearly too much!) But, alas! a hilarious video and the king of all mullets do not a good band make.
So I would play a song for MLB by Icicle Works, "The Cauldron of Love" for example. What a great song! So I would ask her: "Do you want to hear more? A Factory in the Desert, Little Girl Lost, Walking With a Mountain, Evangeline, Hollow Horse, Who Do You Want For Your Love? Clearly there is no comparison." Surely MLB would remember from now on, right. I sure hoped so.
Last week a horrible thing happened. I was enjoying the Icicle Works station I created on Pandora. It was cycling through some good stuff, you know, New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears, Aztec Camera. Then one sweet tune ended and a terrible cacophony began to assault my ears. I quickly maximized the Pandora window and stared in amazement: it had queued up "Crazy" by Icehouse!
Bad job, Pandora! Are you confused, too? Thumbs down!
It might not seem like a big deal, but I will admit I spent more than a couple minutes in 1993 thinking about music as I thought about my impending nuptials with MLB. No, I was not concerned about what we would hear playing in the background or who might perform at the reception. (This was decided for me, and as it turns out, although I have a musically talented family, some girl I didn't know played the piano and and another unknown sang a song.)
But I was thinking about the kind of music I like, and what MLB's tastes were. Trust me, people. It's an important issue. Seriously, what if she had been a devotee of Rush, or Def Leppard, or Phil Collins? Suppose she really liked Vanilla Ice, had been to several Exposé concerts, or had all the Garth Brooks CDs? Honestly, how is such a person to be worked upon?
Fortunately we had no huge issues and found we had similar tastes--truly a key ingredient in the recipe for wedded bliss. Even some of the slight differences in our musical tastes have been reconciled over the years. MLB has begun to like some music I like, and I have followed her lead, as well.
There is one band I like, however, that was a source of confusion for MLB: The Icicle Works. She never had an interest when I would listen to them, and didn't put forth much effort to understand who they were. As a matter of fact, she repeatedly referred to them as Icehouse, a travesty and disgusting untruth which made me as angry as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Each time MLB said it I would set out 'at once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.'
"How could you confuse those two bands?" I would bellow, and soon we would be discussing Icehouse's ridiculous "Crazy" video. (Go ahead and watch it all, if you want some good laughs. A few key items to enjoy: the woman's utter ecstasy after making her song request, the hat, the worthy and powerful mullet, the pants--wow, it's all nearly too much!) But, alas! a hilarious video and the king of all mullets do not a good band make.
So I would play a song for MLB by Icicle Works, "The Cauldron of Love" for example. What a great song! So I would ask her: "Do you want to hear more? A Factory in the Desert, Little Girl Lost, Walking With a Mountain, Evangeline, Hollow Horse, Who Do You Want For Your Love? Clearly there is no comparison." Surely MLB would remember from now on, right. I sure hoped so.
Last week a horrible thing happened. I was enjoying the Icicle Works station I created on Pandora. It was cycling through some good stuff, you know, New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears, Aztec Camera. Then one sweet tune ended and a terrible cacophony began to assault my ears. I quickly maximized the Pandora window and stared in amazement: it had queued up "Crazy" by Icehouse!
Bad job, Pandora! Are you confused, too? Thumbs down!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Unacceptable
by Phyllis
Forgive my digression from Web Fun for a moment, but I must speak. The following is a portion of an e-mail that was forwarded to me recently. (The name has been changed.):
"As per our convo, Betsy Warner is not able to see her computer displayed thru the projector. The DVD works and everything looks like it is hooked up correctly. Can you please ask the IT folks to check it out. Keith"
No.
I am aware that "combo" is used as a shortened form of combination. And I can accept that. But give me a break with "convo" already. Do you mean to tell me "o" is now an acceptable shortening for the last three syllables of all words that end in "-tion"? Try again. Or let me make an obso about this. It would bring many complos to our language. People would find themselves needing to give an explo or even a defo of what was just said. Frankly I think it is an abomo, so please let's take this practice and give it a good defeno.
The only appropriate use of ridiculous shortenings of this type is for humor. Any of you who saw the 30 Rock episode where Josh's agent helps him with his contract know what I mean. That was hilar.
Other unacceptable shortenings:
sitch
vacay
And many others. What have I forgotten?
Forgive my digression from Web Fun for a moment, but I must speak. The following is a portion of an e-mail that was forwarded to me recently. (The name has been changed.):
"As per our convo, Betsy Warner is not able to see her computer displayed thru the projector. The DVD works and everything looks like it is hooked up correctly. Can you please ask the IT folks to check it out. Keith"
No.
I am aware that "combo" is used as a shortened form of combination. And I can accept that. But give me a break with "convo" already. Do you mean to tell me "o" is now an acceptable shortening for the last three syllables of all words that end in "-tion"? Try again. Or let me make an obso about this. It would bring many complos to our language. People would find themselves needing to give an explo or even a defo of what was just said. Frankly I think it is an abomo, so please let's take this practice and give it a good defeno.
The only appropriate use of ridiculous shortenings of this type is for humor. Any of you who saw the 30 Rock episode where Josh's agent helps him with his contract know what I mean. That was hilar.
Other unacceptable shortenings:
sitch
vacay
And many others. What have I forgotten?
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