My Favourite Nickname

Best nickname to date: "Lawfirm" for Benjarvus Green Ellis (I'm sure there is at least one hyphen in there but as I've already misspelled a Super Bowl winning QB's name on this blog I might as well continue the trend).

Band Names

So you know how people say we're all here for a reason/we all have some kind of gift or talent? I'm not ever very sure that I've found mine, but one curious thing that I find I have an affinity for is coming up with weird band names. I wish I'd kept track of some of these over the years (uh, hello, use your blog) but unfortunately easy come, easy go. However, I thought I'd share one recent co-creation that was inspired by a game of charades and SNL's Jeopardy parody. So in the charades, the word was "Psychology" and the guesses had kind of stalled at "Psycho G". As one of the partygoers has the nickname "G", it took awhile before someone put the pieces together and got "Psychology" rather than Psycho G. But then, this reminded some of us of the Sean Connery character Jeopardy parody on SNL, in which he picks the category "Therapists" as "The Rapists". Perhaps I should have thought a little longer before speaking, but I said to the group, "hey, how about that as a band name, Psycho G and The Rapists?!" I do recall there may have been a gasp or two and some other assorted reactions. I didn't mean to make light of rapists or raping, of course. I just pictured a poster with "Psycho G and Therapists" and the real in the know fans of the band would pronounce it as the rapists while others would wonder if there shouldn't be a "the" in front of therapists. 

And today, there was an incident (more to follow in another entry perhaps) that I called "The Waffle Explosion" and then thought, hey, another possible band name. Can you picture the poster? I'm seeing it as done by a talented and funky graphic artist, with text something along the lines of... "Psycho G & Therapists (The Rapists??) with special guests The Waffle Explosion. Tickets $15 at the door". 

I will conclude by noting a real band name that I think is very clever. Canada's The Tragically Hip. Good stuff. And while I'm giving shout-outs (oh, did I just say that, I did a half cringe/half throw up in your mouth - shout out??? really??? gag) I would be remiss to not mention Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Perhaps not totally appropriate band name for this particular post, but hey, I like their CD and I saw them in concert and it was good. (I guess music reviewer is definitely not my talent - can you imagine? "Saw Pink last night. She sang. It was cool." or "Lollapalooza this year, a lot of bands, some good, some not so good, a few awful.") Okay, I said I was concluding but then I decided to throw in one more thing... Not sure how "true" this is but I heard that The Talking Heads were going through some sort of battle over use of the name after the group was splitting up and so the one faction called their album "No Talking, Just Head". That cracks me up.

Breaking News Alert: There is a God!....

...or a higher power, creator.... whatever name you wish to use is fine here at Great Blogspectations. So how is it that we have come to this conclusion? Rather hastily as many conclusions are come to? Yes. And is the title a bit sensationalized? Yes. "There is" implies proof, and, as we all know, the almighty church of science tells us that there is never proof, only support for a hypothesis. So here's the support...

I'm at the grocery store, getting a bunch of stuff, finally feeling a bit more inspired around food after a long drought (hmmm, more "proof" perhaps? sounds biblical, doubt, drought...). As I'm unloading my wares onto the conveyor belt, I remember that the kitchen garbage bag supply is dwindling and that I probably should have picked up another box (for the bathrooms and such I just reuse plastic grocery bags - somehow, despite the fact that I pretty much use reusable cloth type bags 100% of the time, this supply never seems to dwindle). I hesitate, figure 'nah, never mind' and just then I hear (from another till, "...and you'll recieve this box of biodegradeable garbage bags for spending more than $60....") and I know that I will have easily surpassed the $60 mark. Sure enough, I get the free garbage bags (only a box of 10, but still). When I arrive home, I check the sizing against the old box of bags and sure enough, almost exactly the same size! Conclusion: Woohoo! (There is a god).

Hockey Player Names

So everytime I see Goc (San Jose) - or I should say hear him in the play by play, I find myself thinking about how I dislike his name (no offense Mr. Goc ;) ) It sounds to me like a combination between crotch and gaunch. Bleh.
I had a boyfriend once who wasn't into hockey but would sometime see some when I was watching. He got a real kick out of some of the names. Please tell me I'm not turning into him. I can remember him guffawing heartily over Tugnutt. And Pitlick. Although I have to admit, Pitlick is a pretty funny name.
This isn't really about a name (although most people seem to pronounce it "Clod" - I thought the proper pronounciation was Clooowd) but Claude Lemieux back?! Man, I always disliked him.
Ah, that reminds me, I was quite disappointed to find out I wasn't unique in yelling out Pickles! everytime they announce Vlasic or Soup! (Soupy) with Campbell.

The Long and The Short of It

So again from the recent trip...

Who ever thought I'd be writing about fashion at this blog but there were a couple observations I made while away that I thought I'd comment on. It's a sort of "near-far" thing from Sesame Street coupled with a multiple choice exam. So here goes, fashion "advice" from GB...

If your hair is longer than your dress, you may want to:

a) buy a longer dress, skanky
b) get your haircut, hippy! (I kid, sorry hippies and hippie-lovers)
c) consider a new career as a Lady Godiva impersonator, think of the wardrobe costs you'll save

If your jean shorts are shorter than the pockets in said shorts, you may want to:

a) grow some longer shorts
b) reduce your pockets
c) start a new fashion trend and extend the pockets

Super Soup Saturday

Long (and not exciting story) about plans being cancelled yada yada. End result being that I'm opening one of those cartons of soup to grab something to eat, an unusual experience. So I read the directions re: opening (pull up the tab and tear) and I say, "wow, this is tearable soup". Which, when you aren't typing but talking, sounds just like, "wow, this is terrible soup". Isn't that scintillating? Maybe I should add that word to the title...

Going in Reverse

Wow, I haven't posted since February??!? Yikes. Here's a short one to kick things off.

I'm driving down a major road the other day. I see ahead of me a car that looks like it's been through several wars. The rust is incredible. Picture ivy taking over a building. Except it's rust on a car. I think you get the picture. I then note that the car has veteran plates. Now I thought those referred to the car owner being a veteran. I think in this case the plates actually referred to the car. As I get closer, I note that even though we are moving forward, the car's reverse lights come on and stay on as we increase speed. Great. At any moment will the car suddenly clunk painfully into reverse? I suppose a car of senior citizen status might take a while to, ahem, change gears so maybe it'll be ok. No disrespect to senior citizens anywhere.

Signs of Wisdom

Saw a sign today that said:

"If you come to a fork in the road, take it"

Now I'm not an advocate of stealing forks, but this sign did inspire some wise words of witty wisdom (or not) from me:

"If you come to a fork in the road, have something to eat"
-- GB

November 9th, January 18th

What is the significance of those two dates? They signify that I'm not a dead blogger. My last post was November 9th, and today is January 18th. I'm alive!!!!!!!!! And off to do a 'real post' now....

Flight of Fancy

A34. B36. Like bra sizes.
Then lift off.
It's dark. Mood, feeling, sensation. Eerie?
Then the lights of the city spread out below. Dawning only of recognition. Then clouds.

Close eyes. Bumps. Association to a Tragically Hip song, but first hear a different song of theirs... "at the looooooooooooonely end of the rink, you and me..." before the song originally thought of, the more apt "Freak Turbulence".

Thoughts of food seep in...morphing...sexual. Over an hour, first today? Female... But awake?...the hour, so early. Doubts that this would really matter if male.

Thoughts - death. Like being an orgasm, back to the source? Swirling in this for several infinite moments.... BAM! The seeming infinite orgasm of being dead ends as it zips down to merge with an orgasm on earth, a newly fertilized egg......eyes blink open, take it in, close, BUMP! Wheels down, screech....

Blog Inspiration Synchronicity

The subtitle of this post should be: "A.K.A. awkward title" or "Take out the middle initial and you're left with BS". But I digress.

So over at IPB we were talking about 'old-fashioned phrases'. I mentioned that I had said "the proof is in the pudding" and the person I was speaking to (late 20's I think) said xe had never heard that expression.

Later that same day... (screen goes wavy), I was reading a book (coincidentally it was about blogging) and the author (Mason) was talking about "phrases you wish would come back into fashion".

So here goes...

"I don't give a tinker's damn." (Have to admit, that's new to me. Did tinker's have dams and someone got confused? Were they really crappy, leaky dams?)

"Here's mud in your eye." (Did that used to be the equivalent of the F word?? Once upon a time it was 'Mud in your eye!' and now it's 'Fuck off'?)

"He's a tall, cool drink of water." (Yeah, but the more pressing question is, who is the straw that stirs the drink?!?! Am I right?!)

"I like the cut of his jib." (Sailing is soooo kinky!)

"I'll fix your little red wagon." (Apparently wagon fixing is right up there with sailing, who knew).

Movie Moment

I recently went out of town to attend a wedding. I was leaving my friends' hotel to walk back to mine, standing at the crosswalk with other people waiting for the light to cross. All of a sudden I feel this...chivalrous...hand grab my arm. WTH? My head spins quickly to the side. I discover that a limo was backing up in the hotel drop off area to negotiate a turn, and as I was on the end of the line of people waiting, it was about to hit me. This dashing young man had leapt forward and taken my arm to ensure I was not hit. When I had sufficiently recovered my senses, I realized that this guy was also quite attractive. We exchanged a few comments. And I thought this would make a great "how did you meet?" story. Of course at the wedding we'd have to leave out the "and then we went back to my room and made out like rabbits" part ;) On second thought, I have a feeling rabbits are pretty quick, so I hope that saying refers to the frequency of the act, not the time spent. Sheesh, I've turned my movie moment into a damn porno. Maybe that's a new genre. It starts out as a romantic comedy and ends in porno. Gives new meaning to "Titanic". Heh heh. "We're going down!" But I digress, and wildly. Must focus. What? ...

...Brought To You By The Letter P and the Number 3

So I'm over at a friends' place the other day, having breakfast in the dining room when all of a sudden there is a mighty crash/explosion sound from the kitchen. Upon investigation, it turns out that a pan exploded in the oven. As this is discussed by those present, I happen to notice that everything involved starts with "P". It was a Pyrex pan of pumpkins for pie. The pumpkins had to be declared unusuable as the 'glass' (Pyrex) had shattered so incredibly that there were bits everywhere. My friend made the best of it, saying it was only $3 worth of pumpkins. And there was a 3 year old present. And a 33 year old. So I made the joke that today's episode is brought to us by ... (see title of the post), a Sesame Street Shout-out.

Did you have to be there? Or did this translate to the blogosphere?

Celtic Concert Contemplation

So I went to a concert the other night that featured a celtic band. They were quite diverse and the whole experience was very enjoyable. Small venue. The woman in the band who spoke the most was very funny, with a Scottish accent. She liked to tell a bit of a story about the songs they would play and they were very improvisational. 'What should we play now?' they'd say to one another and then pick something. At one point she said they were going to do a song by this guy called Time Will End (the song, not the guy - and I think that's what she said, don't quote me). She said that she thought this was a neat title and she emailed this guy to ask what the story was behind his song, thinking it might be very cool. He said he was "contemplating his navel" when he wrote it but that if she came up with a good story, be sure to let him know. So she put it out to the audience to do just that. She said if anyone wanted to share and had a good one, she'd use it at future concerts and even give them credit.

So they start playing and I sort of zone out a bit and just let the music wash over me. Wow, that sounded so incredibly cheesy that I feel nauseous. It wasn't that weird. So anyway, I'm seeing if anything comes to me from listening to the music but all I can think of is the navel contemplation and I find myself kind of wishing that she hadn't put that in because it's interfering with me thinking of anything. Then suddenly stuff comes to me. So I thought I'd share...

I visualized a guy sitting in a room and literally staring at his belly button. (I didn't think until right now the symbolism involved in this, being that the umbilical cord unites mother and baby blah blah). Anyway... I see him doing this and then the screen goes wavy and we whoosh into his belly button in a sort of tornado like motion. There we see, sort of in miniature, a whole little 'village' in which the grass roofed huts are being lit on fire by marauders and people are running and screaming (there's no noise but you know they are). Then it morphs in the tornado way again and we see another scene. Each scene is a different time period but all sad in theme (or evil or what have you). The feeling that came up was depressing. Like since the beginning of time there has been ugliness (killing, hatred, etc) among humans and it will never change kind of thing.

At this point the music of the song kind of changes and I feel there's a different tone to it (not musical tone, just ... you know). So then I see the same kind of thing as before except now the scenes are more happy or at least ... emotional is the only word I can think of... like weddings or children being born or something. I think at the end of the song perhaps it zooms back out and we see the guy sitting in the room again, kind of expressionless.

------

"That's my story...and I'm sticking to it."
(Borrowed from a live version of "Highway Girl" by The Tragically Hip - very very very cool song).

Toast Talk

I was away from home for a few days awhile back and when I returned I found my toaster outside. I figured either my housemates were VERY slowly moving me out, or something was up with the toaster. I later found out that it was apparently 'shooting out flames' while someone was making toast. I was kind of sorry I missed that. Then later I found a piece of toast outside, near the abandoned toaster, and it made me laugh because the toast was VERY black in the middle.

And while I'm on the subject of toast(ers), this summer I discovered one of the most annoying things - a Disney toaster - it plays stupid songs while it makes toast. And I thought mornings were bad before...

Fun With Food

I was recently trying to find something for lunch. Found some homemade humous (however you spell it) and so I looked for some tortilla chips to have with it. I found a previously opened (but sealed) bag and proceeded to eat (the humous & chips, not the bag silly). After the first bite, however, it became obvious that the chips were stale. I consulted the best before date. Well past. More than a month, closer to two. So I say to the person I'm having lunch with, "I think I'm going to need to abandon chip". Yeah, I thought that was pretty clever.

A day or two before that, I was out for dinner. I ordered the gnocchi (it was quite good). The next morning I got this song in my head... "I did it all for the gnocchi, the gnocchi, so you can take your head and shove it up your ...." (to the tune of that Nookie song by Limp Bizkit.)

Culture....Only in Yogurt?

So I've been reading this book (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs... A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman) and it may inspire several blog entries. This being the first. And if I don't do others, the last too. Which would make it the only. But anyway...

So I'm reading one particular chapter and I come across this...
"The most wretched people in the world are those who tell you...."
(wait for it...)
"...they like every kind of music 'except country'."

When I read this I think I actually may have blushed. Or something. I think I also looked around furtively to see if anyone knew "my secret". Which would be that I have said a variation of the above on occasion. It was sure a shock to think that *I* could be among the most wretched people in the world. I mean, I'm not always the nicest, but I think that's ok. Anyway, CK goes on to say that "People who say that are boorish and pretentious at the same time."
Damn, and just the other night I was saying I didn't like pretentious guys (people). Now I have to face that label possibly sticking to me along with boorish. Ouch. (He goes on to say that of course this only applies to "new" not "old" country music).

You know, this was all a lot better in my head. I think I even had a point. Oh well. Somebody else take over...

Did you just say...

Scene: Recently, at a party - a discussion gets around to the topic of choking...

Someone suggests doing what I hear as "The Heimlich Manoeuvre" (making perfect sense). However, another party-goer says, "did you just say *Hindlick* Manoeuvre?!"

And indeed, that is what the person had said. Needless to say, there was a fair bit of laughter and jokes made around this.
I suggested that this "Hindlick Manoeuvre" might indeed help someone to stop choking - in fact, perhaps more effectively than the Heimlich. I think I was visualizing the look on someone's face if that were to happen.

Miss Remiss

I, probably like many people today (and when I say "today" I do not refer specifically to this day, but in the more general sense of "today's day and age" as they say), have several email accounts. Perhaps there are some who would question this, perhaps they would query if it would not be more simple to have one account. And to them I say, yeah, whatever.
So anyway, in one email account I had 330 new messages. I started recently to go through them. I know other people would just delete anything of lesser importance, but I have some...let's call it a quirk, that sounds like fun - rather than, say, calling it an annoying habit or compulsive behaviour...which means that I will actually go through and read/watch anything other than junk (e.g. "Increase Your Manhood!" - this last bit leads me to think of a line from the movie Dead Man on Campus, "Kick me in the junk!" but I digress, and, as usual, wildly. Yep, I'm a wild digresser.)
So where was I? Oh yes, reading through the beginnings of 330 unread messages. Which does not include ones that I quickly read as they were potentially important/time sensitive but did not turn out to be 'important or time sensitive enough' shall we say to merit my responding immediately. However, I should have responded by now. It's a wonder some of my friends haven't disowned me. Or perhaps they have, but I just haven't gotten to those emails yet. Did I just digress again? Sheesh.
And I chuckle now to think that there really isn't a point to all this anyway. I think this entry is really a metaphor for life, enjoy the journey, not the destination. Hell, if this blog turns into one of those aphorism (is that even the right word?) posters with the gay sayings (sorry, that's probably not PC, give me a break ok, I know I used the word "gay" in a negative fashion, but just let it go) and the cheesy sunrise pictures I will be forced to kill myself. Hell, wouldn't you guys chew off your own arms to escape a fate like that? Man, maybe that's what hell is...eternally trapped in a place where every room is filled with those posters. Which is funny (and when I use "funny" I sometimes mean more "ironic") because just this morning I was saying to myself (not outloud, just in my head) "you're going to hell now forsure". I wonder if anyone just perked up a bit and thought, 'hey, this has some potential, what was GB doing to say something like that?' Nothing that grandiose. Just some impure thoughts during a time that impure thoughts were probably not appropriate. But at the time the hell thing was a bit of a joke, now that I've considered the possibility of aphorism hell, I'm a bit more worried. Anyhoo... you know what, anyhoo is one of those things that I would be willing to bet I'd find super annoying. Yet I use it from time to time and it doesn't seem to annoy me really. Hmm.
Okay, I think this may be my last "point." (And yes, I use that term loosely. Very loosely. Like taking the skin of a full-grown male elephant and putting it on a person loosely. Yeah, that loosely. Behold.) So as I started out saying, I was going through the beginnings of all these unread emails and I came across one for saving money on sending flowers. It expired June 22nd. So I look more closely at the email and realize that yes, in fact the emails I'm going through are from FREAKIN' June. 330 didn't seem so bad. I thought people were just sending a lot of jokes and shit. But now...