AWESOME!

For those who harbor no illusions of a free-roaming life in the forest but embrace their dependence on technology and canned food; those who find the call of the wild less appealing than the call of the sofa; those whose spirit animal purrs rather than growls....

... I present the Three Keyboard Cat T-Shirt. You could, in theory, get it here.

Muchas gracias a Gamma Goblin.

At least the black is appropriate.

Remember that flippin' sweet wolf shirt I talked about a while back? Guess who got one?


Yes, that's Debbie Rowe, who is arguably the mother of a couple of Michael Jackson's kids. I didn't even know she read my blog!

Ten Points!

I know, I know.... I haven't awarded any points in a while. But you may notice that I suddenly have points. Ten of them to be exact. How'd they get there? They're from a fantastic WIN I scored on this old post. You have to read through the end of the comments, but that's where they come from.

The whole situation reminds me of something some people (who shall remain nameless as this is embarrassing) told me recently. A woman they know, a teacher, had explained to them that the correct pronunciation of the word strawberries is straw-burries. She said that in their region people tend to say straw-bear-ries, but that is incorrect. If it were meant to be pronounced bear-ries, it would be spelled bear. Instead it is spelled berr, which, apparently, should be pronounced burr.

There are a multitude of reasons why this woman's logic is torqued. I like to go with the fact that in the English language there are several possibilties for the pronunciation of any one vowel. If it were Spanish, which has only five different vowel sounds, you could base your argument on spelling. In English, that doesn't fly.

The moral of the story is that I'm annoyed by people who feel that their teaching qualifications alone make them experts on given subjects. My annoyance is compounded when such folks try to pass on erroneous information under the assumption that "it must be right because I'm a teacher." (In an odd twist, I do enjoy Wikipedia and readily embrace all of its misinformation as gospel truth.)

And now, in the interest of fairness, here's a short list of the English skills in which I am lacking. The actual list wouldn't fit on the Internet, I'm sure.

• I'm not good with punctuation! Seriously, I use commas (and parentheses) way, way, way too often.
• Sentence fragments. I use them. Regularly.
• Citations/references completely escape me. I just don't know how to do it. 1
• I never learned how to diagram a sentence past noun verb noun. Or if I did, I don't remember it.
• Friends, I refuse to begin a letter with Dear unless I actually love the recipient.
• I dont proofreed.
  

But I guess that's why I have a copy editor for anything that I publish outside of the blogosphere. Her name is Jean and she IS an expert. If she told me it was pronounced strawburries, I might believe her.

Science kicks ass.

A recent study shows that swearing can help alleviate physical pain. I mean, I could have told you that, but it's nice to have it backed up by a study. Read the amusing article here.

I wish I could track down and show this to the nurse who kept telling me not to make any noise while I was in labor. "You're doing it wrong. You shouldn't make noise." I should have cussed that bitch out. It really would have made me feel better.

Hit me with the horns.

Our stations (all 5 of them) only had the Fraggle Rock cartoon when I was a kid. I had no idea that the Muppet version was so much doper.



Thanks, Nat. My kid is rocking out to this.

Mowers. Reel vs. Real, or some such nonsense.

So our beat-up, hand-me-down, more duct-tape than metal push lawnmower finally died. The twig that was holding on the carburetor fell out and, though Brent did rig it back together with a piece of PVC pipe, we decided it was time to get a new mower. And not just any mower. Because we're big lame hippies who feel guilty about any non-eco-friendly purchase, we got a reel mower.

If you don't know what a reel mower is, that just means you were born sometime after 1960. I believe that's when they fell out of favor and anyone caught still using one was branded a Red Communist. Anywho, they're the old-fashioned style of lawnmower. The kind with no engine.

Here's Brent using ours:

What you can't see there is that he's listening to music on his MP3 player. Because he can hear it. Because there isn't a motor spewing 100+ decibels of mind-numbing noise along with carcinogenic exhaust. The thing is nearly silent and it. is. beautiful.

I'm totally in love with the reel mower, but I don't have to use it. I gave it a try on a small section of the yard and found it to be:

• easier to push than the heavy gas mower
• slightly harder to turn
• less efficient at cutting, some spots had to be gone over more than once
• not good on weeds or wide-bladed grasses
• not at all stinky
• better for not spraying cut grass all over the sidewalk
• quiet and soothing
• free to run, no gas needed
• safe for the baby to run circles around while in use
  

Honestly, if you're in the market for a new mower, I would consider the reel option. It's a little more physical work (because of the need to re-mow areas) but so much less of a headache that it might be worthwhile. You could make it into your own Zen workout routine. Of course, if you have a huge yard that's all grass, you're going to be out there for days. Which brings me to my next question... What's up with huge fields of lawn? I never really got the idea behind having an enormous yard with nothing in it.

If you call now....

You know, it may be wrong, tasteless, etc... but this is funny: