Soft and sweet

I’ve got it – the answer to my and Benny’s job woes. We are going to quit our jobs and make a zillion dollars by marketing a doll that is both slutty and scary. It’s a sure bet. Little girls are only interested in dolls that are slutty or scary, but try as I might, I can’t come up with one example of a doll currently on the market that is both slutty and scary. To wit:

  • Bradley dolls: My mom was so vocal in her disgust of these big-eyed dolls that I found myself saying I hated them too, even though I secretly coveted them. A sympathetic friend finally got me one in high school, and that’s when I realized that Bradley dolls weren’t just ladies with fancy oldentimes dresses, they were 19th century prostitutes.
  • Baby Alive: I see that Baby Alive is still alive and more gross than ever. Not only does she need to have her diaper changed (when I was a kid, if you fed her the prepackaged “banana” mush, she’d shit yellow mucus), but now you also need to give her medicine and administer a neti pot to remove snot. Next year maybe she can get hives.
  • Bratz: The Bratz never cease to amaze me. They actually have a slutty infant line of dolls. I think the name “Sticky Face Fun Fair Cloe” speaks for itself.
  • Tuesday Taylor: Okay, actually Tuesday Taylor is kind of both slutty and scary. When I was a kid, however, the Suntan Tuesday Taylor doll always struck me as low class and unclean. I think today I would classify her look as “has crabs.” Slutty wins.
  • Charmin Chatty:  She says proverbs. Also encourages her owner to say, “I’m a pig.”
  • Growing Up Skipper: I had one of these when I was a kid, so I was going to say she fell into the slutty category, but now that I see those mosquito bites I’m not so sure (not that big boobs necessarily = slutty). She might be the crossover in the Venn diagram of slutty and scary.

Okay. I think if we combine Growing Up Skipper with some sort of maniacal laughing homunculus, we’ll have a bona fide hit on our hands. Hmm. I’ve got to sleep on that idea a little. Sweet dreams.

Happy Mother’s Day

1. My mom was a very glamorous movie star.
2. She let me cultivate my own sense of fashion from a very early age.

momatbeach

3. I’m obviously leaving out a lot of things about my Mom here in this list.
4. Anyway – thanks, Mom. I love you.

Pop star, is this fruit right for you?

  • Cherries: yes
  • Pineapples: no
  • Bananas: yes
  • Strawberries: no
  • Pinkberry: yes
  • Kiwi (and apricot): no
  • Apples: yes and no
  • Melons: no
  • Papaya: a resounding YES

Words of the day for Thursday, March 5th

I feel inadequate. My attention has just been brought to the concept of family words – jargon specific to a household or group of friends – and no matter how much I think about it, I can’t recall a single example from my family. Linguistic experts and famous authors say that every family has them, but I’m still coming up blank. We didn’t even have a word for the cardboard tube inside a roll of toilet paper.

Benny has family words with his kids: sparkeners, stuffy dogs. I’m going to have to check with my brother on this. I can’t believe my family could be so lame.

In a couple of online discussions of family words, a lot of excellent examples were offered up by commenters:

  • whomper-stomper: a tree pruning tool
  • jesii: a herd or flock of Jesus pictures or statuettes
  • gurk bottle: plastic water bottle
  • abbider: candy stash
  • bebops (also pretties): hair ties
  • valeelee: the indentation left in the skin by waistband elastic
  • winterpepper: backwards flip
  • boombossidy: butt
  • ten, eleven, twelve: no
  • murff: the sound a cat makes when it’s not quite meowing (when Joaquin made this noise, I thought he was looking for a guy named Burt; now I know he was murffing)
  • hobbler: watch out,warning cry of imminent danger (contraction/disintegration of hotburnkilldie)

Those are all pretty grand. For my money, however, the trophy has to go to:

mojamatize2

Mojamatize! It means “hurry up,” and it comes from the mis-hearing of a Boston cabdriver saying, “I’ve got too much air in my tires,” as “I’ve got to mojamatize!” I might have to adopt it.

Published in: on March 5, 2009 at 12:28 pm Comments (1)
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Why yes, I speak European

Okarola at No Cats On The Blog, please let us know where you found this list:

coollist

I have a feeling this is a hoax, but I do want to know what was crossed out. Also, who is Steve?

What did the big acorn say to the little acorn?

Last week I highlighted an irregular polyhedron as the word of the day. In my research, however, I found that quite a few polyhedra have very interesting names. And frankly, I’ve been feeling a little guilty that I only chose one as the word of the day last week.

So in the interest of fairness, I decided to make a list of some other outstanding polyhedra. Now, I understand that not all my readers are fans of geometry, so to that end, I have also included the names of some characters from WC Fields movies.  See if you can tell which is which.

  • Rhombitruncated Cuboctahedron
  • Gyrobifastigium
  • Elmer Prettywillie
  • Bilunabirotunda
  • Baby Elwood Dunk
  • Gyroelongated Cupolarotunda
  • Snub Disphenoid
  • Otis Criblecoblis
  • Great Ditrigonal Dodecicosidodecahedron
  • Professor Eustance McGargle
  • Frustum
  • Disphenocingulum
  • Plumber’s Nightmare
Published in: on January 21, 2009 at 11:10 am Leave a Comment
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Word of the day for Wednesday, October 1

I love autumn. I live in southern California where the temperature is currently a brisk 99°, so autumn doesn’t really mean leaves changing or people bundling up to watch the local pro football team. To me, autumn means Halloween and Thanksgiving, and eggcorns scattered about the landscape.

glowtxt.com image

An eggcorn is a word or phrase that someone uses in place of a “correct” word or phrase, because he has heard the original phrase incorrectly or didn’t understand it, but wants to use the phrase; he makes up a phrase with a similar sound and (sometimes) meaning. Often the eggcorn misses the mark, but the results can be poetic:

  • a social leopard
  • whoa is me
  • baited breath
  • lack toast and tolerant
  • pre-madonna
  • put the cat before the horse
  • jar dropping

“Eggcorn” itself is an eggcorn for “acorn.” And, of course, you can find eggcorns throughout the year, not just now. I just like thinking of squirrels reeking havoc and storing up post-dramatic stress disorders in their spears of influence right now, in preparation for winter.

I’ve been advised that the glow letters above are completely safe to click on.

Published in: on October 1, 2008 at 1:04 pm Leave a Comment
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You are in big trouble, Fish & Chips

Some friends are expecting twins, and for some ridiculous reason they are soliciting names from their loved ones. I don’t know why they would do this if they don’t want to hear suggestions like Benson and Hedges, BJ and The Bear, and Sonny and Cher. They even shot down my suggestion of Mark and Mindy.

I think all of these would be perfectly acceptable in New Zealand, which has strict laws regarding children’s names. So far, the country has rejected the following submissions for newborns:

  • Sex Fruit
  • Keenan Got Lucy
  • Fish & Chips
  • Stallion

I guess I’m a little confused about the court’s criteria for a “ridiculous” name, I have to say. They removed Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii from her parents’ custody, but they did accept the name Number 16 Bus Shelter (maybe this was seen as a romantic gesture; was where the child was conceived?), as well as the aforementioned Benson & Hedges for a pair of twins.

So what’s acceptable? What’s humiliating? Dorcas? Chevrolet? Smacker? Yoda? Bong? Ima Daisy Bottom? I’m sticking to owning cats and leaving the babynaming to others.

Published in: on August 31, 2008 at 6:56 pm Leave a Comment
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Furshlugginer fahrvergnugen

I am shopping for a new car, and it’s actually going better than I expected. I have a decent list of cars that I want to take on test drives, and I think my choice is going to boil down to how practical I want to be.

Of course, I hate “practical” when it comes to cars because it usually translates to “boring.” I like Nash Metropolitans. I like AMC Marlins. I like Checker Aerobuses. I’m not going to get any of those, however, because I’m being practical. Blagh. Practical.

Here are some other cars that I found on the Car & Driver website that I won’t be test-driving either, but only because they aren’t shipping to the US:

  • Isuzu GIGA 20 Light Dump
  • Bongo Friendee
  • Honda Life Dunk
  • Autozam Scrum Stand Off Truck
  • Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard
  • Nissan Elgrand Homy
  • Sbarro Assystem
  • Daihatsu Charade Social Poze
  • Yamaha Pantryboy Supreme
  • Mitsubishi MUM 500 Shall We Join Us?

I already have my own assystem that works pretty well, but some of those others sound like a great combination of fun and practicality. What’s more practical that a Mysterious Utility Wizard?

Photo by 9ine6ix on flickr

Published in: on August 20, 2008 at 4:43 pm Comments (2)
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Only two shopping days left

Published in: on July 2, 2008 at 10:36 pm Leave a Comment
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