Q is for Quackle

Mood: Calm – for now

Listening to:  Completely ineffective ceiling fans – it’s hot!

Since I’m a ginormous nerd, I decided to discover a new Q word for today. Using my trusty friend Google, why by the way never lies to me, I found quackle. Bwa ha ha ha ha. The fun things about finding new words is that you’re never really sure if they are real or not.

Here’s what http://phrontistery.info/q.html had to say about quackle: to choke; to suffocate

Hmmm. This kind of makes me wonder why we needed a new word for choking someone. Don’t get me wrong, quackle is awesome. It’s sure to diffuse any situation where you actually feel like choking someone.

“Knock it off or I will totally quackle you.”

Yep. The subsequent laughter will actually prevent any quackling from happening. Can you imagine how funny this would be in a BDSM context?

“You want me to quackle you baby?”

I’m rolling on the floor here people. But wait, that’s not as fun as Quadroon. A person who has ¼ African American ancestors. Seriously? Who comes up with this nonsense.

Being a word nerd is so much fun. Just try not to use too many big ones in one sentence. It tends to confuse people and then they may want to quackle you. Yep, still laughing about that one.

Becky

The General.com

Mood : Tired
Listening to: John Stewart

I was watching some show the other day and saw a commercial for the general.com. It’s an insurance company with a cartoon general as a mascot. I don’t know about you, but I have a serious problem trusting a no-name insurance company that uses a cartoon as a mascot. Geico is pushing the line with their animated gecko, but at least most people know who they are. General.com is not. What kind of insurance coverage would you get? It almost doesn’t matter, because really, who is going to go check it out? A cartoon general? I think they need to either hire some marketing guys or find some who will encourage people to take them seriously.

Taking Up Residence in a Clothing Receptacle

Mood: Cranky from the obscene heat and humidity. For the 3rd day in a row.
Listening to: Hercules. Again.

I know I’m a little late in making fun of this, but I’m just getting around to blogging again. It’s not the easiest thing in the world for me to get on the computer. Not with 2 kids and a co-dependent husband.

So what kind of person, exactly, wanders into a stranger’s house and then decides it would be a good idea to take up residence in that person’s spare bedroom? In the closet. In a compartment. I guess she was homeless, but how could you possibly think that the person would not notice activity in a spare bedroom? Not to mention food going missing and such.

To the dude: What? How could you not notice a strange, homeless lady in your home for an entire year? This just goes beyond anything. You didn’t notice missing food, a disturbed shower, or say, long hairs laying around? What? Maybe it’s just because I live in a smaller apartment or perhaps because I have my closets filled pretty much to the brink, but I am pretty damn sure I would notice if someone else was in my house. I’m pretty observant and like things in their place. I’m positive that I would notice someone else using the shower.

Crazy!

Becky

Segway Scooters at the Mall

Mood: Relaxed
Listening to: Anthony Bourdain China

I just had to giggle to myself the other day. I noticed that one of the mall security guard had a nice segway that he was wandering around the food court in. Wait, what? Why in the world would a security guard need a scooter? This has just reduced my faith that mall security guards have any function beyond form. Seriously, a 2000 square foot food court. Do you really need a little scooter to move you around? This falls under the same lunacy as wheels in tennis shoes. Stop being so lazy and walk, son! The pinnacle of this sighting was when the guard parked his segway next to the stairs and walked down and outside. It was SO tempting to just jump on there and take off with it, laughing maniacally.

Becky

Get Outta My Personal Space

Mood: Calm
Listening to: Anthony Bourdain in China

So I was at Target with my kids the other day and I had the unfortunate experience of meeting someone who had absolutely no concept of the polite distance between strangers in the western hemisphere commonly known as personal space. We were in line at the snack bar (because, well, I had my kids along and at 3 pm, lunch still looked hours away if I didn’t eat while running errands) and I noticed that someone behind me was standing really, really close to me. As in touching my back with the side of her body. Now I’m not a touchy feely person. I am very, very jealous of my personal space and generally try to avoid touching people I don’t know. I got a little uncomfortable and inched forward. There wasn’t much room to move forward, as I was as close as comfortable to the guy in front of me. This person then scooted forward until she was touching me again. I’m not talking about bumping into me, I’m talking sustained contact. I turned around to see what in the world her problem was, but then she backed up an inch and wouldn‘t meet my eye and decided that the ceiling tiles were fascinating. I’ve come across skeevy guys who don’t have a concept of personal space or just want to cop a feel, but this was a chick! An older, middle aged woman chick! After I turned back around to talk to my four year old, she sidled up to me again. It was the weirdest thing I’ve come across in a long time.

As you probably know, I live in NY. Not bumbledum upstate NY, half hour from NYC NY. People are pretty eclectic here, but overall, educated and normal. So what gives? How did this normal looking middle age woman simply miss the personal space etiquette that is glaringly obvious in the US? We just paid for our food and scooted off really quickly, and she just left. I’m still not quite sure what happened there.

Becky

Sending Myself Sexual Solicitations

Listening to: Jungle Book
Mood: Calm – for now

I was looking through an old email inbox recently and happened to notice my name in the inbox. I was sure that I hadn’t sent myself anything, so I was really curious as to what was in that email. I opened it and found an ad for obtaining a larger penis. Now I always get a kick out of these type of ads in a roll your eyes sort of way because, well, I don’t have a penis. Why would I need a bigger one? The idea that I sent a penis ad to myself just made me laugh out loud. (That’s right fools, writing as LOL just makes you look stupid. Same goes for IDK. ) I know I probably have a spam producer somewhere on my computer, but it still made my day. So here’s to offering yourself a bigger penis than the one you don’t have.

Becky

Total Eclipse of the Children of the Corn

Listening to: The absolute madhouse chaos of McDonald’s play place on a busy day

Mood: Content

I was watching a show on VH1Classic the other day and happened to catch Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler. Now this is one of my husband’s favorite songs of all time, so we both sat down and watched the video. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before as this song became popular way before I was allowed to watch MTV. My parent's were afraid it would corrupt my preteen self forever.

Wow. For a nice, traumatized, love song, they sure missed the boat with the video. What is with the whole children of the corn vibe? With the glowing eyes? How does this fit at all with the video. And then it ends with a creepy, stalker-esque, cougar situation at the end. It’s such a passionate song, they could have done much better with the video. Am I missing something?Does this song go with a movie of the Mrs. Robinson caliber?

You gotta love the 80’s hair that Bonnie is rocking though. It’s so fun to look back on the 80’s and rip on all the totally silly fashion stupidities that occurred. So help me if leg warmers ever truly make a comeback.

Becky

Getting Rich - Some Day

Listening to: The absolute madhouse chaos of McDonald’s play place on a busy day

Mood: Content

I know I’ve been rather absent. I had been hoping to write quite a bit more often than I’ve been able to. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with life and motherhood lately. I’ve been trying to get back on the horse, but the damn thing keeps trotting away. Anyhow, I’m trying to get on here more.

So I was driving home recently and heard a commercial on the radio. It just happened to be a day that both my kids were quiet at the same time, so I could actually hear the radio. Normally I just ignore commercials, but this one caught my attention for one reason or other and then I was hooked just from the ridiculousness I was hearing.

The commercial I listened to promised people untold wealth – eventually. They were trying to get people to turn to them instead of a get rich quick scheme. Now I don’t know what’s passing for marketing experience these days, but if that’s all it takes, I think I’ll go into marketing.

Come on! Who wants to admit they want to get rich eventually. Well, I’m sure that those who do don’t order self help/instruction tapes off of the radio. Do you really think that it makes the schtick make any more believable if you don’t promise immense wealth immediately? Most people don’t get immensely wealthy unless they are very lucky and win the lotto or they have a fantastic business idea that takes off.

Just think about it. Who wants to explain t their spouse, “But honey, it promised untold wealth eventually!” I think my husband would come really close to beating me if I spent money on something like this. I would probably beat him if he did it too.

Becky

Good use of Tax Money

Since just over 1% of the US adult population is in prison now, I thought maybe this would be a good use of their time. A lot harder to find time to get into gang nonsense and shank people if you're worried about dancing in unison. I know I wouldn't want to get caught if it meant dancing to soldier boy and MC Hammer. With lots of other guys. Then again - too much MC Hammer may incite violence against the gaurds..... Check it out.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/220961/

Personal Messages from Failed Emails

Listening to: Rain – The Beatles
Mood: Tired and a bit cranky – getting a cold

I tried to send an email to a friend recently. Well, he’s only my friend by proxy – really he’s my husband’s friend. Anyhow, this friend gets along really well with my eldest daughter. We had some cute ballerina dress up pictures that my husband thought he would like to see. I got his email address from hubby and proceeded to send the pictures. Now since I get on average about 6.3 minutes to myself on the computer a day, I got off and proceeded to be a maid/cleaner/milk fetcher for my 2 kids. The next day I got an email saying that the mail was undeliverable. I’m not sure if I had the wrong email address or the picture bounced off his email because it was too big – it really isn’t important. What I did get a huge kick out of was that the email sounded almost as if it were sent by a person. It read, “I’m sorry, I cannot find this mailbox. I have given up.” Now, I’m sure this is either a bot, or an automated response. I just got so tickled that it sounded like a real person. I know, I’m retarded like that. I actually felt sorry for Yahoo mail because it sounded so dejected about not being able to deliver that mail. So thanks, whoever programmed Yahoo undeliverable mail responses, you made my day.
Becky

Are You Ready for Your Closeup?

Listening to: Backyardigans

Mood: Calm and slightly incredulous

I get Time Magazine and generally enjoy reading it a lot. It helps me feel connected to the world and politics around me. I just read an article in Time last week about having your own personal paparazzi. Wait a minute. What? Why in the world would you want this?

I’ve always given kudos to the uber-capitalist society that we live in here in America. It’s really an amazing system. However, how do you fool people into thinking this is a good idea? I imagine this kind of service can’t come cheap, and that people with money like this to spend have at least a few more functioning brain cells than the rest of us. So how do you possibly convince people that they should spend money to have a camera hound chase them and spill all their secrets? What kind of narcissistic ego issues must you have to want this when you’re not famous? Even famous people detest the paparazzi. Why, just why?

I definitely need to develop a product or service like this. If you’re stupid enough to part with your money for things like this, why in the world should I not cash in?!
Becky