I tell every smoker I know about how my grandmother died from lung cancer. I don’t expect it to help. I don’t expect them to listen. I just wish I could make them understand.
Maybe they should all watch this PSA instead.
[Courtesy of Rori]
Episode III Spoof
OMG. This just about made me piss my pants.
Anakin: “Ow! This helmet is chafing my eyebrows! I swear!”
Obi-Wan: “The boy’s pure dag-nasty evil.”
Mace Windu: “Uh-huh. Ya think?”
Yoda: “Warned you we tried. Listen you did not. Now screwed we all will be.”
[Courtesy of An Artsy Fartsy Weblog]
Neighbors
Our next-door neighbor just freaked my shit out. I could have sworn I heard someone call a hello through the open door upstairs, and then I heard the chain-link fence rattling. Was someone in our back yard?
I went upstairs to the living room, closed the front door, and started peering out all the windows to try to see what I’d heard. Finally, looking out our upstairs bedroom window, I saw movement: branches of the overgrown bush that’s beginning to encroach onto our property from our neighbors’. I figured it had to be the neighbors doing some yardwork, but I had to be sure.
I put on socks and sandals (I know, I know) and headed out the back door. Sure enough, once I got into the middle of the yard, I could see him out there in his own side yard, with a tree pruner plunged into the middle of this straggly bush, cutting away. Of course, he saw me, so I had to say hello and make small talk: stupid shit like, “Decided to chop down that bush, huh? I heard noises out here and wondered what was going on…” and so forth.
Keep in mind, we’ve never introduced ourselves to our neighbors in the year-plus that we’ve lived here, so he was understandably perplexed to see me. He also wasn’t in the mood to talk—he was in the mood to kick the shit out of that bush. So, I wished him good luck and went back inside.
Nobody scoping out our backyard in broad daylight. Just the neighbor getting rid of the bush Aaron had been complaining about a couple weeks back. 🙂
If I’d Grown Up In Holland…
…I might have watched Sesamstraat as a child.
Like the American version, Sesame Street, Sesamstraat features Kermit, Grover, Bert & Ernie, Elmo, Zoe (the little orange Elmo-esque monster), Oscar, and “Koekiemonster.” However… they also have a purple Big Bird character named Pino, a pig named Purk, a Rowlf-ish dog named Tommie, and a rodent named Ieniemienie (or Ienie for short).
I translated part of the Dutch FAQ with Babelfish (because the Google translator doesn’t include Dutch to English). With minor editing for grammar (but not enough to destroy the charm of automated translation), this is the result:
Q: Why is Pino yellow in America?
A: That is not Pino, but his cousin Jan (in American: Big Bird). Sesamstraat is transmitted in about 160 countries around the entire world. As lot of countries make their own version of ‘Sesame Street’. Tommie, Ieniemienie, Pino, Mr Aart and only plays all other Dutch actors in the Dutch version. In each country there other animals that live in Sesamstraat. Because Pino is also a large bird he is frequently wrongfully confused with his American cousin.
The purple Big Bird just warped my little mind when I first saw it, though.
New Toy
So, this is what’s been occupying my time for the past two days: Aaron’s (early) birthday present to me. *squee*
See, a few days ago, I told Aaron that I was going to splurge one last time with my new Amazon Visa before I lay off the spending. Of course, he asked what I was going to buy, and I told him: an iPod Mini. And he got this look on his face and said that maybe I shouldn’t really buy one right now…
*facepalm* I should know better than to buy myself stuff right before my birthday. I’ve done that before, and thrown Aaron for a loop. Luckily, I hadn’t actually purchased a Mini yet, so all was well… except that I’d managed to ruin a really, really keen birthday surprise.
It’s still keen, though. I’m still all a-squee about it, although I can tell that it’ll soon become part of my normal gear, like my wallet and my lomo.
Wanna know what’s on my iPod?
The Afghan Whigs / Air / Bob Mould / Catherine Wheel / Coldplay / The Cure / Depeche Mode / Fischerspooner / The Flaming Lips / Flogging Molly / Folk Implosion / James / Keane / Lou Barlow / Peter Gabriel / Smashing Pumpkins / Sugar / Tegan and Sara / The Violent Femmes / The White Stripes
…among other things. @whee!