… with a sorry excuse for a post like this, what else can I call myself? (This is Anna-Liza. I think Lyda would at least try to make it look like she made an effort.) But once again, Marin found a completely irresistable blog quiz, and I don’t have anything else ready to add to the post. So here ’tis:
You Are 70% Weird |
 You’re so weird, you think you’re *totally* normal. Right?But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks! |
Lyda here, with my results.
You Are 80% Weird |
 You’re more than quirky, you’re downright strange. But you’re also strangely compelling, like a cult leader. |
Filed under: Culture - pop & other, Movies, TV, Weirdness | Tags: Adam West, Batman, geek, it is to laugh, Jaws, jump the shark, land shark, leopard, pig licking, review, Saturday Night Live, scary movies, sharks, Steven Spielberg, warthogs
Lyda here. Sorry for the absence; my wrist is much better now.
Jumping the shark. Again. And showing my age. Also again.
I watched the original “Jaws” (1975) last night. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. Ya’ll know what? It totally holds up. The suspense is still there, and so are the scares. And my favorite scene – the three men on the boat singing of “Show me the way to go home” – is still awesome.
Of course, by today’s standards, the shark may look a bit… mechanical. But ya’ll know I love hokey special effects, so that’s not a problem for me. On the Pollyanna scary movie scale, I give this 3 out of 5 brains for good scares, and 2 out of 5 brains for gore.
Just in case you’ve forgotten the plot, here’s a 30-second version. With bunnies. Check it out, Angry Alien Productions have all kinds of movies! 30-second bunny version of Die Hard! That’s right: Still all Bruce Willis, all the time.
Of course, Steven Spielberg was not the first to explode a shark. And I have proof! Ah, Batman. Is there anything you are unprepared for?
For some real shark jumping, check out this. Who knew white white sharks could jump like that? Who knew National Geographic posted on YouTube?
Well, now you do.
You’re welcome.
By the way – Baby warthogs! Now that’s pig-licking good. And that leopard agrees with me.
But I digress…
Over at The Great White Snark (heh), there’s a list of the top 5 geek shows that jumped the huge swimming predator.
And speaking of sharks, there’s this commercial.
And then I saw this:
more graph humor and song chart memes
So of course, I had to go find the original Saturday Night Live skit.
And yes. I saw it when it first aired. I told ya’ll I’m old.
Filed under: Around the Blogiverse, Knitting, Weirdness | Tags: biology, brains, frogs, naughty bits, rats
Hi, Anna-Liza here.
I found this on this post on William the Coroner’s Forensic Files. William the Coroner found it here, on Crafty Hedgehog’s Etsy shop. She has a big ol’ bunch of really cool patterns for sale, including the logical companion to the lab rat, the dissected frog.
That girl is clever. (There are also a lot of deeply cute, happy, undissected animal patterns on her site. I promise.) Of course, all those innards reminded me of the famous Womb pattern on knitty.com. And Tit BIts, which is actually a breast prosthesis, not a model of a real breast, but it’s all sort of connected in my admittedly haphazard mind.
And then, of course, I couldn’t resist the lure of Google. I found this post on Citizen Skein, which gives a pretty good overview of the knitted naughty bits topic. And \katherine dexter\ had this post up just a few months ago, which brings us back to more biologically correct (and oddly beautiful), less naughty bits. Like BRAINSSSSSS …
Filed under: Culture - pop & other, Weirdness, Whining | Tags: cake, Olympics
Lyda here. Yes, the obligatory Olympics-weren’t-they-awesome post. Michael Phelps, women’s volleyball, the pomp, the pagentry, the inspiration… all that. I know, this is last week’s news, but what the hell.
My favorite moment was Anton Fokin doing an awesome routine on the men’s parallel bars and winning the very first medal that Uzbekistan had EVER won in the modern games. And they ended the games with 6 medals, including a gold in wrestling. I bet the party is still going on. He was so happy! He didn’t care that it was a bronze. And I had this great dream about him that night… Oh, sorry, digressing…
It was a year for breaking records, and breaking age barriers. A 41-year-old woman won swimming medals. A 33-year-old woman won a gymnastics medal.
But – since this is me, after all – let’s talk about the weirdness of the Olympics.
Other than the time zone problem (which means I operated on too little sleep the whole time) and the boring parts (I didn’t watch the entire women’s marathon, but they showed it all)…
I have one huge problem with the Games:
The men’s outfits.
The original Greek Olympics were played completely in the nude. C’mon, guys. Get in the spirit!
Okay, I understand that nude isn’t realistic in the modern Olympics. And would be painful in equestrian events.
And would certainly affect the swimming times. (Heh. Twelve.)
But imagine the ratings!
But I digress…
Back to the men’s outfits.
Now, the male swimmers are fine. In more ways than one. The track and field guys – their outfits work for me too.
I’m sure that’s their main concern when designing them: “Yes, they’re aerodynamic. But will they work for Lyda?” “Hmm. I see what you mean. Back to the drawing board.”But what’s up with the rest of the men’s outfits?
The women’s beach volleyball players wears sensible, but revealing, outfits.
And the men’s beach volleyball players wear really ugly baggy shirts and baggy pants. Just like the basketball players.
It’s just wrong, people!
I’m not saying they should play in Speedos…
But really, guys.
Lose the shirts.
I’m paying for this.
Or, well… I’m watching the ads for this. Sort of. I usually mute them and wander off but… hey, that’s not the point! The point is…
Uh. What was the point?
Oh yeah.
BEEFCAKE!
What? Ya’ll know I’m obsessed with cake.
Filed under: Colorado, Family & Friends | Tags: bouncy castles, Campaign to Move Lyda to Colorado, cotton candy, fire spinning, giant puppets, Longmont Festival on Main, organic doughnuts, Summer
Hi, Anna-Liza here. This post is taking me all kinds of time to put together. I keep clicking the wrong thing and deleting half my post, or getting weird formatting, and stuff. But here goes again. After all, I do owe you, our faithful readers, as much hotness as possible, n’est-ce pas?
So, how’s this for a hot guy?
The Hottest Guy in Longmont
Blurry, but definitely hot. But I did say “guys” plural, didn’t I? Alrighty then, there was Chase,
(he’s the mystery hottie in the previous post).
And there was Casey, a break dancer with fire-feet:
And Stephiniti, the lone female in this show–that’s Darlin’ K lighting her fire there …
Zombie Son was there, too, but none of the pictures of him turned out at all. And seeing the caliber of photo I am willing to post here, you know that has to be bad.
The Longmont Festival on Main is basically a giant block party for the whole city. The official estimate of the crowd this year was 17,000 people! Main Street (aka State Highway 287) is blocked off from 3rd Avenue to 9th and all the booths and bouncy castles
and bubble towers (it spouts bubbles from the top, scads of them!)
and etc.
are set up where traffic usually flows. I like the fact that there are things for really little kids, like a gentle train ride and the big space with lots of sidewalk chalk and jumpropes, as well as more thrilling fare.
You know, I thought that sort of thing was forbidden under the Geneva convention, but the queue to be flung screaming into the air, repeatedly, was the longest one I saw. Oh, and all this stuff is free–no tickets, no tokens, no nuthin’. The city pays for all of it. Well, you have to pay for tschotchkes and food, like cotton candy
or these delicacies
(I didn’t get close enough to see what they had, but the idea sort of fascinates me.)
There are buskers, too.
Look, a pirate!
There’s also music. Some years there have been some fairly big names, but they usually go local. Hazel Miller was here a couple of years ago. This year saw Mojomama as the opening act and The Nacho Men were the headliners. It’s unlikely we’ll ever see, oh, Devotchka, but the music is generally very well done blues-R&B-rock danceable stuff. Not that I generally get to hang out and listen and dance much–I’m chasing kids or standing in line with them mostly, when I’m not at the fire show. This year, my in-laws came for the show and watched the kids so I could safety spot. (That means crouching as unobtrusively as possible with a very wet towel in my hands, watching for someone to catch on fire and not be able to put it out quickly on their own).
Saturday morning we had our neighborhood yard sale. I was putting stuff out in the yard when one of my neighbors rode by on her bike and shouted, “So you’re living with a celebrity now!” I intellegently replied “What?” and she told me that Darlin’ K was on the front page of the paper! And when I got my hands on a copy, sho’nuff, there he was! I think it’s pretty likely that he’ll get asked to do the fire show again next year. And next year, I expect to see you there!
Filed under: Culture - pop & other, Texas, Weirdness | Tags: dork, fail, redneck
Lyda here. Just a quickie, I promise not to overwork my wrist.
You know you’re a redneck when… your mailbox looks like this.
see more pwn and owned pictures
Hi, Anna-Liza here. And I’m here to reassure Lyda’s adoring fans who may have noticed she has been less prolific in her blogging than is her wont. She’s fine, she just managed to strain her wrist when she was cleaning out her garage so she’s trying not to overdo the keyboarding for a bit.
She won’t be gone long, and she’s cooking up more Random Wierdness in her head even as I type. I’ll be around, of course, but we all know who the big draw is, don’t we?
So Lyda, take it easy, don’t keep pushing yourself so damn hard, and wait ’til your wrist is all better before trying to lift anything again, ‘k? Besides, what’s a big, strong, teenage Resident Sith Master for if it isn’t to help his mom with stuff like that?
Love, A.
P.S. Since I haven’t finished my post about firespinning and the Longmont Festival on Main, here’s a wee giftie:
Who's That Hottie?
Filed under: Around the Blogiverse, Culture - pop & other, Food & Drink, Weirdness | Tags: meme, weird drinks, weird food
Lyda here. I stole this food meme from the Velvet Cerebellum. Anna-Liza here–my answers and comments will be in this color.
I was going to provide links for each thing, but it got crazy. I don’t want to crash your computers or anything. Ya’ll can look up the unlinked entries on Wikipedia (I checked, and they are on there). I put links for the rest. ‘Cause I’m all public servicey like that.
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/ linking to your results.
The VGT Omnivore’s Vegetarian’s Hundred:
1. Venison Venison
2. Nettle tea (link) Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare Steak tartare
5. Crocodile Crocodile (did ya’ll know, a group of crocodiles is called a bask?)
6. Black pudding Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue Cheese fondue
8. Carp Carp (ya’ll know, goldfish and koi are types of carp)
9. Borscht Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari Calamari (look up “squid” on Wikipedia)
12. Pho Pho
13. PB&J sandwich PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses cheese Epoisses cheese
17. Black truffles Black truffles
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns Steamed pork buns (link)
20. Pistachio ice cream Pistachio ice cream (link)
21. Heirloom tomatoes Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras Foie gras (but I don’t think I’d have it again)
24. Rice and beans Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche Dulce de leche
28. Oysters Oysters
29. Baklava Baklava
30. Bagna cauda Bagna cauda (link)
31. Wasabi peas Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder Clam chowder
33. Salted lassi and sweet lassi Salted lassi and sweet lassi
34. Sauerkraut Sauerkraut (but I don’t like it)
35. Root beer float Root beer float
36. Cognac Cognac
37. Clotted cream tea Clotted cream tea (link)
38. Vodka jelly / Jell-O shots Vodka jelly / Jell-O shots
39. Gumbo Gumbo
40. Oxtail Oxtail
41. Curried goat Curried goat
42. Whole insects Whole insects Delicious and nutritious:”An issue of the Food Insects Newsletter reports that 80 percent of the world’s population eats insects intentionally and 100 percent eat them unintentionally.”
43. Phaal curry Phaal curry
44. Goat’s milk Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more Don’t like whisky Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more Me either. I have tasted Laphroaig, however.
46. Fugu Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear Prickly pear (link)
52. Umeboshi Umeboshi
53. Abalone Abalone
54. Paneer Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spätzle Spätzle
57. Dirty gin martini Dirty gin martini (Martinis should be served up, with a twist. Only.)
58. Beer above 8% ABV Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine Poutine
60. Carob chips Carob chips (ick)
61. S’mores S’mores
62. Sweetbreads Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin Kaolin (it’s the clay mineral in Kaopectate)
64. Currywurst Currywurst
65. Durian fruit Durian fruit
66. Frogs’ legs Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (mmmmm … Lucile’s beignets … )
68. Haggis Haggis (it’s really not bad at all)
69. Fried plantain Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost cheese Gjetost, or brunost cheese
75. Roadkill Check it out, Roadkill Zombies! Only I could find the zombie link in a list of food and drink. Roadkill (but I know someone who has eaten freshly dead roadkill.)
76. Baijiu wine Baijiu (it’s not actually wine, it’s closer to vodka)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie Hostess Fruit Pie (link)
78. Snail Snail
79. Lapsang souchong tea Lapsang souchong tea
80. Bellini cocktail Bellini cocktail (sounds pretty yummy to me!)
81. Tom yum soup Tom yum soup (although I usually get tom kha)
82. Eggs Benedict Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky Pocky
84. Tasting menu (link) at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (link) Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef Kobe beef
86. Hare / rabbit Hare / rabbit
87. Goulash Goulash
88. Edible flowers (nasturtium, violets, rose petals…) Do sunflower seeds count? Edible flowers (nasturtium, violets, rose petals…) No, they don’t. Violet petal candy does, though.
89. Horse Horse
90. Criollo chocolate Criollo chocolate (link)
91. Spam “what have you got then?” Spam (fried Spam with ketchup was a staple of my childhood)
92. Soft shell crab Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa hot sauce Rose harissa hot sauce (link)
94. Catfish Catfish
95. Mole poblano Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee don’t like coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee love coffee
100. Snake Snake
This meme originated at Very Good Taste, which is a great blog about food and drink. If you want to know more about how things made the list, read this. Read it anyway. It’s funny.
And now I’m going to take the Resident Sith Master and his sister to In N Out.
For some reason, I’m hungry…
Filed under: Movies | Tags: Eileen Brennan, horror movies, Jeepers Creepers, Justin Long, movie review
Lyda here. I did take some breaks from the Olympics to watch some scary movies.
I saw “Jeepers Creepers” (2001) with Justin Long - ya’ll know I like him, I’ve written about him before; he was in two of my favorite movies, ”Galaxy Quest” (1999) and “Accepted” (2006), I should write about those movies… and of course he’s in “Live Free or Die Hard” (2007) which we loved, I could review that too…
But I digress…
Gina Phillips costars as his sister - the girl can act, and, of course, scream. They are traveling home from college on a lonely stretch of road – where horrors are waiting.
What I learned from this movie: Avoid scarecrows. They don’t all get their brains from the Wizard.
Not a zombie movie, but the bad guy is incredibly hard to keep dead.
Creepy, atmospheric, and a bit gory. A great cameo by Elaine Brennan. On the Pollyanna scale, I give this one 2 out of 5 Brains for horror movie fun, and a 3 out of 5 for gore and the creepy concept (some pretty icky stuff, but mostly it doesn’t last too long – at least in the televised version I saw). Not one to seek out, but okay for a weekend afternoon.
Best quotes:
“Is he dead?” “They never are.”“You know the part in scary movies when somebody does something really stupid, and everybody hates them for it? This is it.”
Shouting at the characters not to do stupid things – that’s part of the fun of horror movies.
And then I saw “Jeepers Creepers II” (2003), again on TV. Set a few days after the original, it continues the reign of terror. This time, there’s a whole busload of teenagers in peril - football players and cheerleaders returning from a game, gee, has anyone ever done that before, yawn. Then again, I guess the chess club would be able to think their way out of danger…
My favorite parts of the sequel feature Ray Wise as a farmer determined to destroy the monster. And Justin Long does a cameo. In a dream, no less. Yes, one of the cheerleaders has a psychic dream. Shake your pom-poms at that, baby.
The sequel misses the humor of the original, and there are so many teenagers it’s hard to tell them apart. This one just goes for one scare after another. Not as much fun as the original, unless you have something against high school jocks and cheerleaders.
Which you may.
The Creeper certainly seems to…
Filed under: Books, Craft stuff, Whining, Zombies, cleaning | Tags: cleaning obsession, depression, ennui, Kim, Marin, Olympics, Sporks, twelve
Lyda here. Perhaps it isn’t ennui. Perhaps it’s my old nemesis, the Depression of Doom. Nothing new, just the constant and endless same old shit.
So, Saturday I cleaned. Obsessively. The bathroom and the kitchen. And I did the laundry, but not obsessively. I just washed the clothes and towels.
And did nothing much else but watch the Olympics (more on that in the next post). No quilting. No knitting. No work on all the other things I need to do.
And I caught up on your blogs. Thank you all for being so funny and insightful and wonderful.
I discovered that search terms are weird on other blogs too. Like over at The Velvet Cerebellum. Ya’ll may know her as Auntie Bubbo on Ravelry.
Reading Mason-Dixon Knitting lead me to these two places:
- 10 Fiercest Olympic Fashions which is funny and hopefully will make ya’ll laugh
and
- What’s in Your Hope Chest? on CraftStylish – Which is a weird concept to me. Why a hope chest? Why aren’t you using it NOW? I understand a memory chest, and I understand why girls used to have hope chests. Making and collecting things for your own home while you were living with your parents made sense back then. But to me, now it would be the same as people who have fancy china and never use it. If you love it, USE IT! But I digress… What a shock…
That article is written by Jennifer Worick, who wrote The Prairie Girl’s Guide to Life which has instructions to do all kinds of prairie crafts, which could be fun. Or at least help us appreciate that we don’t have to do things that way any more.
She’s also the co-author of The Worse-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex. Check out the Table of Contents; there’s a chapter on dealing with a bad kisser.
This book could be helpful.
But it doesn’t say anything about how to tell if your date is a zombie. Or what to do if he is a zombie.
My advice?
If your date is a sickly green, smells like dead meat, and mumbles “Brains…” – get out of there FAST!
And remember, a shovel is a girl’s best friend.
Or you could send him my way. He can join the Zombie Army.
We’re going to need reinforcements when the Sporks Wars come. You have to read the comments to understand about the Spork Wars. How many times have I told ya’ll, always read the comments on Marin’s blog?! Okay, I don’t know either, but I must have mentioned it at some point. I usually copy and paste the footnotes into a Word document too, so I can read the footnotes as I read the post without scrolling around too much.
Heh. Scrolling around. That pleases my twelveness.
Look at me, digressing all over the place…
But since I’m doing it anyway…
Heh. I said I’m doing it. Twelve!
Also, how weird is it that I never read Kim’s blog before?
Many. Many weird.
So, hi Kim! I found this on your blog and I copied it.
You Are a Log Ride |
 You prefer to live a fairly calm, relaxed life… with a few surprises thrown in.You don’t tend to get yourself worked up easily. You can roll with what life throws at you. In relationships, you are steady and solid. You maintain a pretty broad perspective on what’s going on. That’s not to say you can’t get swept away. You’re emotions run as deep as anyone else’s.Your life seems like it has been remarkably easy so far. But that’s due to how you manage it. You never stretch yourself too thinly, and you think out your decisions carefully. Taking the time to enjoy each day is important to you, and you don’t let your emotions rule you. You stay the course and do what’s right… knowing it will all work out in the end. At your best, you are tolerant and understanding of other people’s quirks. You take “go with the flow” to the extreme. Even if you don’t like where you’re going. At your worst, you repress your feelings and end up being a little tightly wound. You definitely have some explosive emotions that occasionally come to the surface!
|
Pretty much, yeah, that’s me.
Also, Kim’s got a contest going on where you pick your favorite hunk, and she’s got pictures of…
Hey, where’d everybody go?
Okay, time to go and spy on Kim and her plans for Spork world domination. I won’t be looking at the hunky pictures at all.
Well.
Maybe a little.
For research.
Ya’ll know.
