December 15, 2008
I'm sure that most everyone has heard of the famous comedy team Abbott & Costello, and surely if you have heard of them then you have heard their most famous routine "Who's On First?"
I think I was about ten or maybe even as old as twelve when I first heard "Who's On First." If memory serves me I was sick and laying in bed when my father came in and brought me a tape. It was all white with black letters on it. He said that it was a comedy routine so I put the tape into my little boom box and hit play. For the next five minutes I could not stop laughing. I had forgotten that my head was stuffed up and that my throat was raw from coughing for the past two days. These two guys were geniuses, I thought. I played that tape over and over again until I cried from laughing so hard.
Years later I was on the phone with a friend of mine who wanted me to help her learn a little Spanish. We were just about to end the phone call:
Me: So, how about drinks after work tomorrow? Que Piensas?
Her: Sure sounds good. What was that you said in Spanish?
Me: Que Piensas?
Her: Oh, what does that mean?
Me: What do you think.
Her: I don't know. What does it mean?
Me: What do you think.
Her: If I knew I would tell you. I thought you said you'd help me with some Spanish.
Me: I am.
Her: Well then what does it mean?
Me: What do you think.
Her: I don't know what it means. That's why I am asking you!!
If you haven't figured it out yet Que piensas means What do you think in Spanish. My friend and I had a good laugh after I finally told her that I had been telling her the meaning the whole time. When I think about that conversation we had, I always think it sounded just like an Abbott & Costello routine.
Go on hit play. You'll laugh until you cry even if you have heard it a million times before.
Showing posts with label Opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinions. Show all posts
First On Mars
A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a website called First On Mars and now I just have to share it with you. The name intrigued me so I had a look. What I found was a vast array of TV shows at my finger tips and readily available for my viewing pleasure. I have always been a fan of being able to watch TV shows from the comfort of my computer, but have never settled on one particular site.
First On Mars is an unique site and that's what keeps me coming back. The layout is very user friendly, like nothing I have ever seen, and the graphics are wonderful. When you first open the web page you get a pop up saying you can add a mood to your favorites. This is a very neat tool. Say one day there is nothing on TV so you head over to First On Mars, but you don't really have a show in mind. You can pick a 'mood' and let First On Mars show you a list of related shows. I selected 'Futuristic' and got shows like Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes to name a few. I also went through the extensive library and picked out some favorites so I can find them easier.
A lot of the classics are on showcased here too. For example you can find Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bewitched, and Fantasy Island. I absolutely love that anyone can watch these old shows that are not even being aired as reruns.
Ever since finding First On Mars I have been watching past seasons of Lost and have been utterly immersed in this spectacular series. Almost every night I find myself glued to my laptop until the wee hours of the morning telling myself that I will only watch one more episode and then go to bed. Ha! Five episodes later I am still watching it. I only have until January 21st to make it through 4 seasons before the new one airs on prime time. Think I can do it?
First On Mars is an unique site and that's what keeps me coming back. The layout is very user friendly, like nothing I have ever seen, and the graphics are wonderful. When you first open the web page you get a pop up saying you can add a mood to your favorites. This is a very neat tool. Say one day there is nothing on TV so you head over to First On Mars, but you don't really have a show in mind. You can pick a 'mood' and let First On Mars show you a list of related shows. I selected 'Futuristic' and got shows like Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes to name a few. I also went through the extensive library and picked out some favorites so I can find them easier.
A lot of the classics are on showcased here too. For example you can find Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bewitched, and Fantasy Island. I absolutely love that anyone can watch these old shows that are not even being aired as reruns.
Ever since finding First On Mars I have been watching past seasons of Lost and have been utterly immersed in this spectacular series. Almost every night I find myself glued to my laptop until the wee hours of the morning telling myself that I will only watch one more episode and then go to bed. Ha! Five episodes later I am still watching it. I only have until January 21st to make it through 4 seasons before the new one airs on prime time. Think I can do it?
Black Friday - The Unofficial Holiday
Ah, yes Black Friday is just around the corner. On this day thousands of people will kick off their Christmas shopping. While Black Friday is not an official holiday many businesses give their employees the day off. I have had the misfortune of working for companies where I had to report back to work on Black Friday, and let me tell you it is no fun.
It is said, by Wikipedia, that the term Black Friday originated in Philadelphia when the police officers coined it Black Friday because of the heavy traffic that day. Now store and business owners are referring to Black Friday as the start of retailers turning a profit or being in the black. This unofficial holiday goes back as far as the 1960's, but the tradition of starting the unofficial Christmas season on the day after Thanksgiving dates back to the 1920's.
I have never been one to rush out the day after Thanksgiving and go Christmas shopping. I refuse to fight with all those people, drive around the mall parking lot looking for a parking spot, and battling those gigantic crowds. If you are wondering where I will be on Black Friday it will be right here in front of my laptop squeezing out the last few thousand words of my NaNo novel, because at 5 AM when those retailers open their doors to the masses I will not be standing there bright eyed and bushy tailed. No sir. I will be in my nice warm bed with the covers pulled up high waiting for the sun to gently wake me up.
For those of you who will be braving the mad rush on Black Friday, may someone pull out of the coveted parking space the moment you get to your destination, may nothing you really want to buy be out of stock, and may there always be a Starbucks where ever you are to keep you going, 'cause 5 o'clock in the morning comes fast! Here is a link to the Official Black Friday site to get you ready for the big day.
Since I will be with my family tomorrow I want to wish all of my readers, visitors, and passersby a Happy Thanksgiving!
May all of us eat until we cannot eat anymore, and then have dessert until we bust.
It is said, by Wikipedia, that the term Black Friday originated in Philadelphia when the police officers coined it Black Friday because of the heavy traffic that day. Now store and business owners are referring to Black Friday as the start of retailers turning a profit or being in the black. This unofficial holiday goes back as far as the 1960's, but the tradition of starting the unofficial Christmas season on the day after Thanksgiving dates back to the 1920's.
I have never been one to rush out the day after Thanksgiving and go Christmas shopping. I refuse to fight with all those people, drive around the mall parking lot looking for a parking spot, and battling those gigantic crowds. If you are wondering where I will be on Black Friday it will be right here in front of my laptop squeezing out the last few thousand words of my NaNo novel, because at 5 AM when those retailers open their doors to the masses I will not be standing there bright eyed and bushy tailed. No sir. I will be in my nice warm bed with the covers pulled up high waiting for the sun to gently wake me up.
For those of you who will be braving the mad rush on Black Friday, may someone pull out of the coveted parking space the moment you get to your destination, may nothing you really want to buy be out of stock, and may there always be a Starbucks where ever you are to keep you going, 'cause 5 o'clock in the morning comes fast! Here is a link to the Official Black Friday site to get you ready for the big day.
Since I will be with my family tomorrow I want to wish all of my readers, visitors, and passersby a Happy Thanksgiving!
May all of us eat until we cannot eat anymore, and then have dessert until we bust.
Trivial Pursuit
A few days ago I was playing Trivial Pursuit with a good friend of mine. Every now and again we get together to play, and every New Year's Eve we play with a group of friends while we wait for the ball to drop. So, getting together with my friend and playing was sort of like a little practice session. I personally love trivia of any kind.
Have you ever noticed the odd words that are used in the questions? Seriously, who uses the word warbled? I have never once in my life heard someone say, "Hey have you heard that new song that 50 Cent warbled? It's the shizzle!" No one I know uses that word in everyday conversation.
A question taken directly from a Trivial Pursuit card:
So you've been playing Trivial Pursuit for hours and hours. Finally you have just answered a question that has earned the last pie piece to complete your token. "Yes!" you exclaim pumping your fists in the air but then your opponent reminds you that in order to win you have to make your way back through the wheel and land exactly in the center. Then you need to answer a question of their choice. No big deal you say to yourself. And now the real torture begins. It wasn't enough with the odd words and the questions you had to decipher. They didn't even give you a decoder ring. Or the grueling hours you have put into this game. No, that wasn't enough for the creators of Trivial Pursuit. Now your focus is getting to that middle hub, as they call it, and answer one final question that no one on the planet knows the answer to. So you land in the hub for the first time after five attempts and your opponent being the person they are reads you a question from the category you are the worst in:
I love this game, even though it gets on my last nerve with the crazy way they word questions and how they seemingly do not use words that come from the English language. I always have a blast playing and this year I think I will be purchasing the Seinfeld version to mix it up a bit on New Year's Eve.
Are you a Trivial Pursuit fan too or a trivia buff?
Answers to the above questions respectively: A. Bloodhound B. Chesapeake Bay
Have you ever noticed the odd words that are used in the questions? Seriously, who uses the word warbled? I have never once in my life heard someone say, "Hey have you heard that new song that 50 Cent warbled? It's the shizzle!" No one I know uses that word in everyday conversation.
A question taken directly from a Trivial Pursuit card:
What dog breed's four billion olfactory receptors let it track a trail of single cells left by its quarry?Say what?! Who talks like this? If they wanted us, really wanted us, to understand the question they would have worded it something like this: What dog has the greatest sense of smell known to man? That I understand. Not all this olfactory receptors and single cell craziness. I believe that one of the reasons the questions are written in that manner is to trip up the players, and it really works especially after a few cocktails.
So you've been playing Trivial Pursuit for hours and hours. Finally you have just answered a question that has earned the last pie piece to complete your token. "Yes!" you exclaim pumping your fists in the air but then your opponent reminds you that in order to win you have to make your way back through the wheel and land exactly in the center. Then you need to answer a question of their choice. No big deal you say to yourself. And now the real torture begins. It wasn't enough with the odd words and the questions you had to decipher. They didn't even give you a decoder ring. Or the grueling hours you have put into this game. No, that wasn't enough for the creators of Trivial Pursuit. Now your focus is getting to that middle hub, as they call it, and answer one final question that no one on the planet knows the answer to. So you land in the hub for the first time after five attempts and your opponent being the person they are reads you a question from the category you are the worst in:
What gigantic estuary was formed when rising sea levels flooded the mouth of the Susquehana River?What is an estuary? And where in the world is the Susquehana River? Does such a river exist? Smacking your palm to your forehead because you know it's going to take another two hours of rolling the dice to get back into the hub, you yell out in desperation "Oh hell I don't know. The Hoover Dam!" Wrong, of course. Eventually you manage to answer a question correctly in the hub and are declared winner. It's now the year 2010, but hey you are the Trivial Pursuit master.
I love this game, even though it gets on my last nerve with the crazy way they word questions and how they seemingly do not use words that come from the English language. I always have a blast playing and this year I think I will be purchasing the Seinfeld version to mix it up a bit on New Year's Eve.
Are you a Trivial Pursuit fan too or a trivia buff?
Answers to the above questions respectively: A. Bloodhound B. Chesapeake Bay
What's Your Favorite Childhood Cartoon?
My absolute favorite cartoon as a kid was The Jetsons. By the time I was a kid The Jetsons were already off the air and the shows I was watching were reruns. I loved that show because I wanted to live in the future. I wanted a car that flew and an apartment with a conveyor belt just like they had at the airport. Instead of eating dinner and sitting around a table they swallowed pills. The elevator was really one of those tubes like they used at the drive up bank. Astro, the family dog, cracked me up with the way he spoke. "I ruv you Rorge." Slurp! But I never understood George's job and even as an adult it still makes no sense. George's job was pushing a button. Now isn't that a great job with no stress? Oddly enough George had his share of stress from Mr. Spacely. He was always getting yelled at through the huge screen in his office. Yelled at to get to Mr. Spacely's office so he could ask George to do some daunting task that no one wanted. I love The Jetsons so much that when I get a text message on my Blackberry it plays The Jetsons doorbell.Then there are the old stand by's like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Bugs was always escaping Elmer Fudd and when he wasn't doing that he was picking on poor Daffy. I loved watching Wile E. Coyote chase the Road Runner all over the desert. Although I wondered why he didn't just give up and chase something else. The looks on his face when he fell and how he turned into an accordion when he got up always gave me a laugh. Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn come to mind, but I didn't care for them too much.
Inquiring minds want to know what your favorite cartoon was when you were a kid?
The Electoral College
You have all heard of it. They even tried to teach you this in school, but what is this Electoral College really?
I am sure that most of you remember the infamous 2000 election between Al Gore and President George W. Bush. Gore received 537,179 more popular votes that President Bush on that Election Day but after the Electoral College met they awarded President Bush the state of Florida and he won the presidency. There were three other instances in which the Presidential candidate with the most popular votes did not win the presidency. They were:
What do you think? Is the Electoral College a good idea or do you prefer electing a President by popular vote?
The entire process goes something like this: We the people of the United States of America get up, go to work on the second Tuesday of November, and then before going home we stand in line at our favorite voting booth and vote for our next President. We race home and eagerly watch the numbers unfold and watch the map of the United States turn red and blue. Ultimately someone is named the victor. But, this victor may or may not be the next President. On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December the electors of each state meet and vote for President. Those votes are sealed and sent to Congress where they are read on January 6th. Then the new President is sworn in on January 20th."The Electoral College is a controversial mechanism of presidential elections that was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise for the presidential election process. At the time, some politicians believed a purely popular election was too reckless, while others objected to giving Congress the power to select the president. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution."
I am sure that most of you remember the infamous 2000 election between Al Gore and President George W. Bush. Gore received 537,179 more popular votes that President Bush on that Election Day but after the Electoral College met they awarded President Bush the state of Florida and he won the presidency. There were three other instances in which the Presidential candidate with the most popular votes did not win the presidency. They were:
- 1824 John Quincy Adams received fewer votes than Andrew Jackson. Adams was awarded the Presidency after the House voted on it.
- 1876 Rutherford Hayes lost the popular vote to Samuel Tilden. Hayes received 5 of the 6 smallest states electoral college votes along with Colorado to win.
- 1888 Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote to Grover Cleveland, but he won the electoral college by 65.
What do you think? Is the Electoral College a good idea or do you prefer electing a President by popular vote?
Kindle
Have you seen this little gadget yet? It's Amazon's latest and greatest thing and it was just featured on The Oprah Winfrey show last week. Kindle is a wireless reading device that allows the user to store thousands of books on it. The wireless connectivity allows you to shop directly from your Kindle. So now you can download a book within minutes. Kindle can also download magazines, newspapers and even songs. It is certainly the next generation of the book world.
My knee-jerk reaction of Kindle was dislike. I didn't like it when I first saw it or heard the concept of the whole thing. Sure we have become technology driven, trust me when I say that I love technology and all the gadgets that come with it, but I have to say that being a writer and an avid book reader I am disheartened by the whole electronic book idea. When I think of Kindle I imagine a world that has no libraries and no bookstores. A world where a person can't step into a bookstore with the smell of new books dancing around them and peruse shelf after shelf of imagination. That first step into a bookstore is intoxicating and full of adventure. Gone will be the days of having bookshelves in your home to show off your collection. Gone will be the day when an aspiring writer gets their first novel published and hands their family one of the first prints. The moment when the writer can hand someone a book they have toiled over must be exhilarating. Instead they'll be sending emails telling them to download it to their Kindle. No more will people be able to say "That book was a real page turner." What pages are there to turn on a Kindle?
Over the weekend I was ranting to a few of my friends about Kindle and one of them stopped my rant dead in its tracks. The moment I mentioned that Kindle held audio books she interrupted me and reminded me there are people in the world who are sight impaired and cannot read. They live on audio books. She also reminded me of people who prefer to listen to books. To have something that is portable for those people is so liberating for them. Now they can be anywhere and hear a story. Further into the conversation she even said that with Kindle, when I publish my novel, I will be able to reach a whole new audience that I otherwise could not have.
Walking away from our conversation I realized that while I prefer the smell and the feel of a book in my lap as I sit in my reading chair, not every human being out there does. And just because people will buy this gadget and download their favorite books does not mean that bookstores and libraries will cease to exist.
How do you feel about Kindle? Will you be buying one?
My knee-jerk reaction of Kindle was dislike. I didn't like it when I first saw it or heard the concept of the whole thing. Sure we have become technology driven, trust me when I say that I love technology and all the gadgets that come with it, but I have to say that being a writer and an avid book reader I am disheartened by the whole electronic book idea. When I think of Kindle I imagine a world that has no libraries and no bookstores. A world where a person can't step into a bookstore with the smell of new books dancing around them and peruse shelf after shelf of imagination. That first step into a bookstore is intoxicating and full of adventure. Gone will be the days of having bookshelves in your home to show off your collection. Gone will be the day when an aspiring writer gets their first novel published and hands their family one of the first prints. The moment when the writer can hand someone a book they have toiled over must be exhilarating. Instead they'll be sending emails telling them to download it to their Kindle. No more will people be able to say "That book was a real page turner." What pages are there to turn on a Kindle?
Over the weekend I was ranting to a few of my friends about Kindle and one of them stopped my rant dead in its tracks. The moment I mentioned that Kindle held audio books she interrupted me and reminded me there are people in the world who are sight impaired and cannot read. They live on audio books. She also reminded me of people who prefer to listen to books. To have something that is portable for those people is so liberating for them. Now they can be anywhere and hear a story. Further into the conversation she even said that with Kindle, when I publish my novel, I will be able to reach a whole new audience that I otherwise could not have.
Walking away from our conversation I realized that while I prefer the smell and the feel of a book in my lap as I sit in my reading chair, not every human being out there does. And just because people will buy this gadget and download their favorite books does not mean that bookstores and libraries will cease to exist.
How do you feel about Kindle? Will you be buying one?
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