Gender: Female
Status: Married
Age: 41
Sign: Aquarius
Country: UK
Signup Date:
02/10/07
|
Blog Archive
[ Older
Newer ]
|
|
 |
|
Saturday, April 21, 2007
 |
New rude sign
Current mood: chipper
Many thanks to my (oldest) friend Jen, for the addition of a new pic to my fledgling collection (http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/k4thybrown/SlightlyRudeShopAndRestaurantSigns)..... Some more are awaiting upload (snatch, flange ). Any more for any more?
 |
Currently
listening
:
Cloudburst
By
Pantaleimon
Release date: 06 March, 2007
|
4:11 PM
-
0 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
 |
In gleeful anticipation of the Deathly Hallows
Current mood: exhausted
Warning: Spoiler ahead if you haven't read Harry Potter Book 6 yet.....
(Edit: Thanks to Aaron for suggesting adding a spoiler warning)
Just a quick blog to say I am really starting to get excited about the forthcoming release of Harry Potter 7 - The Deathly Hallows. It's due out in Hardback on July 21st, and I've already got my pre-order in at Amazon. Probably going to get another one as well, to avoid squabbles in our house. This has got to be one of the most anticipated books ever, and is bound to break records for quickest/biggest sales... Just how is JK Rowling going to wrap things up? Is Harry going to defeat Voldemort, will he die in the process? Will Ron and Hermione get together? Is Dumbledore really dead and is Snape really a servant of the Dark Lord? Oooohhhh  I've been reading HP5 - The Order of the Phoenix - and will be reading book 6, The Half-Blood Prince next, in order to remind myself of things before the big launch. Interestingly, Warner Bos are releasing the film version of the Order of the Phoenix a week earlier - July 13th. See a trailer here and read lots of details re cast members etc here. A few of my predictions for HP7 - just my own ravings, you understand, I'm not plagiarising anyone else's theories: * It's going to get messy. * Harry will defeat Voldemort but will have to relinquish his magical powers in the process * Hermione will die * Dumbledore will not come back. This, after all, Harry's battle. * Snape will turn out to be on the goodies' side after all - there was some reason as yet unknown why he 'turned bad' at the end of book 6 * We will encounter Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth ( allegedly the bartender at the Hog's Head in Hogsmead), and he will have a significant role to play. * Harry's scar itself is one of Voldemort's Horcruxes - in which case, maybe Harry does die, in order to take himself out and save the world..... Anyway, time will tell.... All credit to Madame Rowling for delivering us so painstakingly to this denouement. 3 cheers! And speaking of denouements, you could do worse than take the time to download and listen to Mike Bennett's One Among the Sleepless- he's connected as one of my MySpace friends. It's a podcast novel written and performed by Mike. It's very good, extremely funny (Mike's vocal characterizations on the podcast are amazing), pretty saucy, and rather suspenseful... We're currently 25 episodes in and there are 8 weeks to go. Once again, it is fascinating to see how the various strands of the story will come together. I should add 'people who can create credible plots' to my list of heroes, because it's a talent I've certainly never been able to master!
 |
Currently
reading
:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)
By
J.K. Rowling
Release date: 21 June, 2003
|
3:24 PM
-
2 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
 |
Dice Living
Current mood: cheerful
OK - so has anyone out there ever tinkered with dice games? Hey, I'm not talking about Craps or Monopoly here! Primarily I'm referring to a 'cult' book called The Dice Man published in 1971 and written (supposedly autobiographically) by one Luke Rhinehart (see Wikipedia for alternative theory on identity of Mr Rhinehart). The novel tracks the exploits of a bored psychiatrist (Rhinehart), who turns over his entire life to the whim of the dice, and develops the concept of 'Dice Living'. In dicelife, the player allocates a set of choices or outcomes to values 1 to 6, or 1 to 12 if more choices are desired, and then commits to follow the decision of the dice, however they may fall. The fact that he may first designate a set of options keeps the outcome 'manageable', but the path to be taken is ultimately random. Luke applies this framework to direct his decisions on a very wide range of matters, many of which undoubtedly just excuses for him to do things he wouldn't otherwise have the nerve to. One of his earliest 'challenges' set by the dice is to go to the apartment downstairs and rape his colleague's wife. He subsequently leaves his own wife and children (of whom he is not overy fond to start with), abandons his psychiatry practice, promotes dice living as a religion, and enjoys stays in psychiatric institutions in his own right.
The extremes to which Rhinehart exposes himself via Dice Living require him to be, essentially, devoid of emotion and sociopathic. One might also argue 'cowardly'since he defers to the die to 'make his choices for him', claiming that it is 'fate' choosing; however in fairness, he does also address the truth of the matter- that it is he who makes the list of options in the first place. If he were to be truly random, he should have one option which commands him to seek 12 random actions and activities from 12 random people, and as I recall, this is one thing he never does, choosing instead to exercise at least some level of control.
Anyway - this was a fun and interesting read, and led me to wonder whether people actually DO try to live their lives by the fall of the dice? It's something I would LOVE to try, maybe in some time-limited fashion, the main impediment to giving it a go being my real-life responsibilities - family and work.
When I was googling for real-life examples of dice-living, I came across the DiceMan TV show - which I have to admit to never having seen, but it sounds like fun. Travellers set off on a 6-month journey with limited funds and their next steps are dictated by throwing dice.
[This activity bears some resemblance to Dave Gorman's GoogleWhack Adventure - where Mr Gorman's travels are dictated solely by a series of world wide web 'googlewhacks' (too much to explain here - go read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack)
I also found some slightly more 'wacky' examples of real-life dice-living: one man claims as a result of the Dice Man principle, he ended up living in Kathmandu after a series of two years' bizarre adventures, twists and turns. I also particularly liked this chap's blog recount of 'softcore diceliving'.
So go on then - please tell me if you've ever taken the bold step of trying this out, and where it led..... Or why not give it a go and report back? Go on - you roll first.....
 |
Currently
watching
:
The Commitments
Release date: 02 November, 1999
|
4:43 PM
-
0 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
 |
Formulae in life... and the Tao of Steve
Current mood: guilty
Formulae in life... and the Tao of Steve (warning, it's a bit of a head trip, you may need a glass of wine to get through this, I certainly had a few writing it!)...
Here's an anomaly: in my last blog I banged on about random stuff and the spontaneous and the surreal, and yet conversely, there's something about having a rule, or pattern to follow that I particularly enjoy. In many aspects of life. I love spotting patterns created by others and attempting to determine the intent of the creator (Eww.... hang on - I am NOT referring here to 'the Creator'; more on anti-creationism another time). I admit it, I am a manual reader (I DO RTFM!! ). I love to see the rules first and then apply them. They are there for a reason; someone, somewhere has done all the work on our behalf to make things easier - all we have to do is follow the recipe.
I think this is why I love toying with haiku - Japanese poetry format - 17 syllables, three lines, 5-7-5, include some expression or metaphor of nature or the seasons, and....Kazam! There you are!
I much prefer this to anything chaotic or too emotional and woolly. Like romanticism. I think this is also why I like puzzles and treasure hunts so much. There is a pattern or code, there is an answer, someone else has devised it, and the challenge is for me and you to find out what the route to the answer is. Maybe this is also why I managed to delve (albeit briefly) into programming and UNIX a few years ago. Understanding and applying rules has been useful for me throughout life - and is probably what has made me marginally academic. It makes it so easy to remember stuff! All those formulae, mnemonics, methodologies.....I enjoyed learning Latin at school, and dare I say, was good at it. Consequently I like languages - learning the rules of grammar, and toying with codes and alphabets. Not just in language though, I did Business Studies, 22 years ago - at University. I still recall the simplicity behind Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and the hypothesis behind Herzberg's Motivator-Hygiene Theory; and methodologies like SWOT; and the 4 P's of the marketing mix. Which in Business is probably about as much as you need to remember And here's something else about formulae that is fantastic. They all interlink and cross over. You can take a formula from one aspect of life and apply it somewhere else.
Let's stop for a moment and think about this....
1) The obvious discipline is mathematics. Formulae EVERYWHERE, all over the bleeding shop. I read Fermat's Last Theorem, which outlined the work which took place over centuries and decades, to re-prove something for which the original mathematical proof (by Fermat, in the 17th century - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_last_theorem) had been lost. Interestingly (for me at least), the mathematicians that finally managed, at the end of the last century, to re-prove Fermat, used branches of mathematics that hadn't been around when the original dude originally worked things out. So how the hell did he do it? But what was more interesting still, was the way in which you could apply one set of mathematic proofs from one discipline to something quite tangential, and maintain the integrity of what you were trying to solve - like a massive jigsaw. e.g. (and I can't recall the exact details) you might be able to draw on the basic tenets of algebra, geometry, probability, number theory, and calculus, all to solve one universal or quite different problem. Thus showing that all aspects of life, the universe and everything are most probably interconnected. Woh!
2) You can apply rules from business, maths, language etc to solve interpersonal, domestic and philosophical situations. And if you can't, it's fun trying to!
Take Herzberg, as previously mentioned. It's basically just psychology. You can use it to encourage good behaviour in your children. Or SWOT analysis to help you decide whether to make an offer on that dream house. etc etc. I'm sure there are far more way out and bizarre examples, let me know if you've ever applied anything like this in life....?
So....onto the Tao of Steve (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234853/). I listed this in my favourite films, and I've only seen it once! My husband recently described it in less than praiseworthy terms to a mutual friend (I think 'heap of shit' might have been his actual terminology), but to me, it is less about the artistic or production merit of the film, or the plot, or the characterisations (actually, which are all OK), but more about the philosophy on 'how to get the girl' which the protagonist, Dex, espouses over the course of the film. I saw it one time, but it's so easy to remember his three rules for courting success...
1) Eliminate desire 2) Be excellent in her presence 3) We pursue that which retreats before us (i.e. having excited a woman's interest, you should withdraw...)
It makes utter sense. In terms of 'pulling' theory. (The fact that he ultimately has to stray from his own Tao in order to actually get the woman of his dreams is by the by - I just like the sheer *notion* of a methodology for this). I think there's also one in 'A Beautiful Mind', some probability theory applied to 'tapping off'.
Next - oh yeah - Dice Games.... mixing the random with the deterministic, and the trouble it could land you in .
 |
Currently
listening
:
Begins Here
By
Butterfly Effect
Release date: 07 August, 2003
|
3:29 AM
-
1 Comments - 2 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Monday, April 02, 2007
 |
Random Bollocks - Part 1
Current mood: relaxed
Category: Writing and Poetry
So... a couple of rambling blogs on a theme of random bollocks. Part 1: poetry
My kids overuse the word 'random' (as in 'bizarre', 'spontaneous' or 'surreal') to describe everything vaguely wacky and offbeat that they encounter, including the strange utterings that they each sometimes come out with. Usually phrased as 'OMG that was SO random!' [Top Tip if you are the parent of a toddler... keep a notebook at hand to capture memorable laughter-inducing phrases your children come out with... both they and you will LOVE reading them when they are older]. There's something wonderful about sharing those funny little sayings and they often get adopted into the family vernacular. So for example... we never have pins and needles in our house, but we do suffer from 'sprinkles' ('Mummy Mummy! I've got sprinkles in my arm and they HURT!), etc.
Now, I realise you probably `had to be there' to appreciate this next bit, but I suddenly had a memory, today, of something I shared as a teenager with my Dad, which made me weep tears and tears of laughter at the time, and still makes me chuckle today. It all had to do with Kit Williams' 'Masquerade' - one of the best things ever IN THE WORLD, and a phenomenon which caught Britain by storm in the early 1980s.

It was a treasure-hunt puzzle book, with wonderful illustrations and a story containing clues, which together could lead the reader to discover a real-life treasure in the shape of a golden bejewelled hare, buried somewhere in the UK countryside. This spawned many a successive prize puzzle, and inspired many interest groups and styles of treasure hunt in the following years (more of this another time) ....
Aaaaanyway. I recall that one of the Masquerade illustrations (Tara Tree-tops) included a 4 x 4 number grid emblazoned on a lawn in the background. My Dad and I had pored hours and hours over this book, and indeed got some way to interpreting correctly how the treasure would be located. In the case of the number grid, however, we decided that this was an important cipher which would lead us closer to the truth.... and the prize. We determined, in the course of our detective work, that the grid referred to nothing more complex than words from the facing page, and so we assembled our word grid, counting from the top of the page, and came up with this secret message:
`Far tiny from dreams To see say say But Tara to cloud His to Tara to'
which was clearly total bollocks. The number grid turned out to be a red herring, and the numbers were atomic numbers of elements, which when substituted for their letter-abbreviation counterparts spelt out something to indicate as much. But we had huge fun reciting this 'poem' over and over to each other self-mockingly and pretending it was meaningful. God knows why I still remember that. So sad. LMAO!
I think what reminded me of this was that just the other day, I stumbled across the blog of Spartacus Mills, who had posted a piece on 'How to make a Surrealist story'. Simple experimental cut and paste of words and phrases from newspaper articles to make something new and probably more interesting than the original :-). That appealed to me... but I wondered if the surrealist approach would be better suited to poetry (there must be loads of text books on this, sure, but I can't be bothered to read them). This in turn made me think of 'Jabberwocky', surreal in content but not in form. It's well known that Lewis Carroll made clever use of non-words (neologisms, yay!), which sound real and seem to reflect the correct parts of speech, to create the overall mood and impression of dread in his famous poem:
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe'
Also total bollocks but hey! bollocks with style ;-). Look HERE for some great commentary on the poem, including interpretation, and computer jargon, French and German versions!
I decided to have a go myself at a hybrid of these approaches. Random picking of words and phrases (using this week's copy of The Big Issue, April 2-8, No. 738), and observation of linguistic form, to create a social poem - chaotic and yet insightful - commentary on life today .... and utter utter utter bollocks!! Here's what I came up with.... why don't you give it a go? I'm sure you could do better, and it's very liberating after a hard day at the office.
Adults often see children,young lovers steal summer kisses.We're living in cemeteries,play alcohol-fuelled party games.Conviction already in meltdown, include kicking civilians,society trying, as huge potentialfor 25 years' violent confidence.Our page something to brag aboutEveryday life carrying a massivePapier mache headHappy, win awards. Wrong:Less than theatrical, a timelydisarmingly handsome Dame Maggieliving on the voluntary sectorabuse of DVD.... in the previous year to zero.
Next: Random Bollocks Part II - Dice Games
 |
Currently
reading
:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)
By
J.K. Rowling
Release date: 21 June, 2003
|
1:52 PM
-
2 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Thursday, March 29, 2007
 |
St Patrick's Day and Spring Resolutions
Current mood: sympathetic
Category: Life
Well, I haven't an ounce of Irish blood in me, but I do like celebrating miscellaneous festivals - mainly so that I can eat and drink to excess (not Ramadan then...); I like the idea of theming things, a bit of a stickler for the stereotypical observation of Christmas, Pancake Day, 4th July, Bonfire Night at a culinary level, so how could I do some small justice to St Patrick's Day (17th March)? I decided we as a family could do the following at the very least:
* Eat potatoes * Watch an Irish film * Listen to Damien Rice, Clannad, Sinead O'Connor * Do our own rendition of 'Riverdance' * Drink Baileys or Guinness
Not bad for someone who can claim to be 100% Yorkshire . The results were:
1) Everyone wanted their potatoes differently, so we settled for jacket potatoes with fillings, or in the adults' case, with sour cream and Irish beef steak... 2) I polled the Irish people I know and some other people for their recommendations for films set in Ireland - got LOADS of suggestions back (Thanks Fearghal!), and ended up watching Miller's Crossing which is set in the States, but hey ho.... 3) Not allowed to listen to Damien Rice - I like it but no-one else does; haven't got Clannad or Sinead on my ipod... 4) My 13-yr-old obliged with a novice rendition of Riverdance (sure we can improve on this - gonna work on it for next year....) 5) I decided to concoct a new Baileys cocktail, which I decided would be called 'A Bejeezus'. Baileys and..... champagne! Here is the result. It was great! Just like one of those chemistry kits your best mate shares with you after their 10th birthday.... It started to froth and bubble and by some arcane chemical chain reaction turned into lumpy whisky-flavoured Angel Delight. Yum.
It's at around this point that I get hit by a wave of guilt about my general level of fitness, the amount I drink, and the fact that I have a wardrobe full of perfectly good clothes that I can no longer fit into. And summer is coming. So I hit upon a three-point plan.
Part 1 - Cut down on the drink Here is my strategy - 1) only drink gin and slimline tonic without the gin. Easy to imagine it's the real thing.... Other alcoholic beverages are to be avoided except.....2) if someone else is buying champagne, drink it - it's rude not to.... 3) only drink wine with a meal - and preferably a glass of red, for health reasons . I figure if I don't make myself cut it out altogether, it'll be easier. Not really one for cold turkey.
Part 2 - The gym Go to the gym twice a week. New challenge based on rowing. Improve strength, stamina. Keep exercising and rehabilitating my damaged knee. Treat myself by following up with a session in the jacuzzi and steam room.
Part 3 - Walk London I saw an article about a new walking map of London, devised by a group of art students, which annotates the regular London tube map with the walking distance, in minutes, between every station. By this reckoning, it should take me 35 minutes to walk from work to my Mainline station. I am planning on parking my briefcase at work, joining the trainers crew and setting out at least once a week, to walk, not tube it. Should be a pleasant enough route, I'm looking forward to doing this through the summer. Always love crossing the Thames.
So... I have embarked on this regime now, am one week in and have already failed to a) not drink, b) go to the gym midweek and c) walk anywhere much at all. Well, "Please sir, I forgot to bring my trainers!" OK, the resolutions start............
Now!
[PS - Sintra, mentioned below - am actually listening to 'Going Home', Sintra's album, rather than 'Door needs Painting', which was the only thing listed]
 |
Currently
listening
:
Door Needs Painting
By
Sintra
Release date: 06 February, 1996
|
4:42 PM
-
0 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Sunday, March 18, 2007
 |
Gifted and talented
Current mood: replete
Category: replete Writing and Poetry
OK, I have two daughters, and the youngest is 9, well, 10 in a few weeks' time. She constantly delights me with her creative writing - Geoff and I often find little scribblings and drawings around the house, and on our laptops. Sometimes stories or plays that she has started to write. She seems to have adopted the very smallest room of our house as her own - `Lucy's Loo' - and this is often the scene for us to stumble across these treasures trove, on post-its, in notebooks, scraps of paper......
So... I am taking the liberty of posting a couple of her poems from her latest 'literacy' workbook from school on here. I thought they were astonishing, and so did her teacher - he says it is attributable to the number and variety of books that she reads. The first is based on an exercise often set for children in literacy - they are to base it on Kit Wright's `The Magic Box' - so you will spot a lot of similarities there.... but notwithstanding that - what a great imagination!
1) Poem - "The magic box"
I will put in my box
a muted cry on a summer's night, a mermaid with legs, a tired teacher training tortoises.
I will put in my box
a world owned by rabbits, a swish of blue wind pulling me into the air, a zooming zebra racing a slow leopard.
I will put in my box
one last wish waiting to be wasted, the first laugh to be heard, the first tooth of a baby girl.
I will put in my box
a 61st minute of an hour and a pink star, a wise man with a knife, and a knight with a present.
My box is fashioned from silver tinsel, with trees on the lid and butterflies in the corners. Its hinges are toe joints of lizards.
I will run in my box, farther than ever before, I will run to Australia and arrive to the Sydney Opera House and listen to my favourite music: Phantom of the Opera.
2) Poem - "Passion"
Passion is rose pink, It smells like lavender, It tastes like honey, Passion sounds like angels singing in the morning, It feels like the smoothest silk in the world Passion lives deep within your heart.
Awww.... :-)
And while on the subject of gifted children... I have to put in a word for the children who are the talent behind 'Trollmates'. In particular the golden voice of Chloe Howells, 13, from Maidenhead in the UK, and the incredible songwriting and singing talent of Raquel Warchol, a Canadian 13-year-old, whose own track, 'Time after Time' features on the Trollmates' inaugural album - which I think is called 'Dreamin'. Now I like music of all kinds - and I have to say it is no cringe whatsoever when my ipod shuffles round to one of the Trollmates' songs, love 'em!
 |
Currently
listening
:
The Black Parade
By
My Chemical Romance
Release date: 24 October, 2006
|
3:41 PM
-
0 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
 |
A lesson in LOL, for crying out loud :-)
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Life

I realised as I was writing the previous post, that the expression 'LOL' is somewhat ironic, as in my experience people (myself included) are rarely actually laughing out loud when they insert it. Proven to myself just this week when IM'ing my daughter who was sitting using another laptop across the room (illustrative of what modern day family life has been reduced to ), both of us guilty of peppering our script with 'lol', and neither one of us doing physically more than raising an eyebrow. The laughter must have been inside our heads. At best, it can let your reader know you have just BEEN laughing (for which I probably prefer LMAO or PML); or that you are currently engaged in a silent, private smirk; or more cynically, to reassure your reader (especially at the end of a sentence) that you are not intending offense or implying any has been taken. It's somewhat like the rising inflection of the text world? It has become a kind of silent interjection for instant messaging and SMS, more like an emoticon really, but quicker and easier than keying in a smiley face. 'Lol' is everywhere, L-ike it O-r L-ump it, and acts both as an indication of mirth and as a prompt to the reader not to take what is being said tooooo seriously, lol. Annoying, isn't it? Even better, in IM-world, are the little animated gifs which are proliferating - nay - procreating! - to represent the written word. I currently have a small dancing panda which appears in Windows Messenger whenever I key 'lol'. Incredibly childish and annoying - which is why I like using it at work, lol!
And one more phenomenon which came recently to my attention in textspeak: 'TEXT BACK'. WTF is that all about, lol? (See how that use of 'lol' softens any aggression which could be implied by that WTF?) I first spotted it at the end of one of my daughter's texts - don't ask why I was peeking, I don't remember, it was an accident - when she first had a mobile phone and was engaged in early teen text exchanges. Each message was appended with 'tbx', meaning 'Text Back x'. A kind of modern day 'over' to indicate that you have finished what you were saying and signal that you are desirous of a reply. Not long ago I got a text from some guy thinking I was the previous owner of my telephone number. He had a habit of putting 'Text back' at the end of each message, leading me to believe he was about 13. We exchanged a few messages and it transpired he is 38 (Dave, builder, divorced, one son, good looking though he says so himself....) . . . . Lol. Anyone out there guilty of putting a 'text back' on the end of each message, STOP IT. I'll text you back if I want to, not because there's a tbx there.

 |
Currently
listening
:
O
By
Damien Rice
Release date: 10 June, 2003
|
5:40 PM
-
0 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Sunday, March 11, 2007
 |
Words R Fun
Current mood: apprehensive
Category: apprehensive Life
So.... My favourite way of starting a sentence is "So...", and the ellipsis is my favouritest-ever form of punctuation IN THE WORLD. I read Lynn Truss' 'Eats Shoots and Leaves' cover to cover. Can't say I am punctuation-perfect (full stop comma comma nudge nudge ;-) ;-)) but I am quiiiite a big fan of good spelling and grammar. 4 what that is worth in today's uber-geek world of 1337 and IM. I can hardly fathom what my daughters are chatting about online these days, less still when every other line (I won't say 'sentence') is punctuated with a ` ---lol---'. LOL!
So anyway.... words are great aren't they? I particularly like long, fancy and unnecessary ones. Probably my favourite is 'corroborable', as in "His alibi was watertight; his alleged activity during the course of the evening was entirely corroborable, with many witnesses confirming his whereabouts." I adore this word for the way it knocks around on your tongue like a bunch of unruly marbles. But check it out; 'corroborable' is NOT a word. Google it; you'll find dozens and dozens of references, but take a look at AskOxford, Chambers Online or (even ) Dictionary.com, and you'll find nada - it is a non-word. So far, anyway... . Which brings me to the topic of neologisms, which are my favouritest-ever type of word IN THE WORLD. And you can blame the Americans for bringing us 'sticktoitiveness' and 'bottoming out', but all praise to the Washington Post for honouring the neologistic form in an erstwhile monthly column, and annual open contest to find the best in new words and alternative meanings. Many thanks to my friend Marsh for reminding me of this the other day - I have posted below the list of winning entries from one such contest, but sadly cannot find reference to any others, and I'm pretty sure there were a few. As I recall (AIRC), for example, the WP contest was also responsible in recent years for
'Testiculation' - The act of waving ones arms around in wild gestures while talking utter bollocks and 'Extrapolagenesis' - (Marsh, help required with this one - I can't find any online refs.... but you remember! Something to do with creating an entire fantasy ecosystem out of one small historical artefact....)
Another neolegend, attributable to Matt Groenig, is the creation of such words as 'embiggen' and 'cromulent' - ahhh... the power of the Simpsons :-)
I, for one, shall endeavour to continue to simultaneously enrich and pollute our language with my own stitched-together efforts. At which point I need to lay claim to the acronym `TWUTI', which I coined and am watching to gauge how widely and swiftly it gets adopted... TWUTI - texting while under the influence - is to be avoided at all costs and can be the source of huge embarrassment.
Here's one of the winning lists of neologisms and alternative meanings from the Washington Post. If anyone can unearth others, I'd be grateful for a pointer.... There were some good 'uns.
ANNUAL NEOLOGISM CONTEST Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate (sic) meanings for common words.
The winners are:
1. Coffee (n.) the person upon whom one coughs. 2. Flabbergasted (adj.) appalled over how much weight you have gained. 3. Abdicate (v.) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. 4. Esplanade (v.) to attempt an explanation while drunk. 5. Willy-nilly (adj.) impotent. 6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown. 7. Lymph (v.) to walk with a lisp. 8. Gargoyle (n.) olive-flavored mouthwash. 9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller. 10. Balderdash (n.) a rapidly receding hairline. 11. Testicle (n.) a humorous question on an exam. 12. Rectitude (n.) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists. 13. Pokemon (n) a Rastafarian proctologist. 14. Oyster (n.) a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms. 15. Frisbeetarianism (n.) (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there. 16. Circumvent (n.) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:
1. Bozone (n.) The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. 3. Cashtration (n.) The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period. 4. Giraffiti (n) Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. 5. Sarchasm (n) The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. 6 . Inoculatte (v) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. 7. Hipatitis (n) Terminal coolness. 8. Osteopornosis (n) A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.) 9. Karmageddon (n) It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer. 10 .Decafalon (n.) The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things tha! t are good for you. 11. Glibido (v) All talk and no action. 12. Dopeler effect (n) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. 13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web. 14. Beelzebug (n.) Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 15. Caterpallor (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.
And the pick of the literature:*Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an a55hole.
4:09 PM
-
1 Comments - 2 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
Monday, March 05, 2007
 |
Puerile pics
Current mood: pleased
Category: childish Life
Wanted somewhere to start publishing a couple of collections of pics that I have decided to embark upon.
* "Slightly Rude Shop and Restaurant Signs" * "Hats that Aren't"
So - this blog will do for now, if this works.... If anyone can suggest a better way of grouping/displaying these in an album stylee, then please let me know. Nothing that requires too much work - I'm frankly too lazy .
Slightly Rude Shop and Restaurant Signs Hey - send me yours
Slightly Rude Shop and Restaurant Signs " target="_self">Slightly rude....
Hats that Aren't Again - why not send me a link to yours?
Hats that Aren't " target="_self">Hats that Aren't
 |
Currently
listening
:
Martha Wainwright
By
Martha Wainwright
Release date: 12 April, 2005
|
9:30 PM
-
1 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|