Duct Tape And Benadryl

I have always had the long cherished idea that if and when the kids get too hard to handle, I will use duct tape and administer Benadryl in order to get some peace and quiet.


Today I got the hard evidence, via an email doing the rounds, that some other parent has beaten me to it! I don't know who this child is, but it looks remarkably calm. And the duct tape appears to be working as intended ..... this is definitely now on my list of things to do. We'll start with The Boy and go from there!

And Now A Word From Your Friendly Internet Spelling And Grammar Nazi

"Pretard" (as in someone pretending to know something, but they really don't) is NOT a word.

The word is spelled ridiculous, NOT rediculous. For the love of baby kittens, stop spelling it that way.

It is = it's. You are = you're. It's really that simple.

Lose vs. Loose. If you lose weight, your pants are loose. If you can't tell the difference you are a loser.

Thank you is two words. TWO words!

I before E except after C.

Vagetarian - as a synonym for a lesbian - is quite amusing, but alas, still incorrect.

"L77T" speak is for twelve year olds, not adults. If you don't know what I'm talking about, thank your lucky stars. If you do, you are pwned and all your base are belong to me.

It's Kinda Like Television

On a lighter note .....

Like Television is a nifty little place I've recently stumbled across in my endless wanderings of all things internets.

It is a little treasure trove of classic TV, films and commercials. While it's by no means a comprehensive site, it does offer up a few gems. They have old toy ads that took me waaay back; "Barbie's Camper Van"! OMG I had that! "Mystery Date!" I had that too! Awwwww, look, it's "Slinky"! I still have that!

The best bit was the collection of clips from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. I am very curious as to how they got permission to post downloadable video, as getting video rights clearance from The Tonight Show is about as hard to get as it is from the Monty Python crew. Trust me, I used to do that kind of stuff for a living.

Anyhoo, here's a beauty - Ed McMahon is a wee bit tipsy, and a marmoset gets nervous .....

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

I'm On Facebook, Help Me!

In the last few weeks, I have recently been persuaded by my friend N@ to join Facebook. Along the lines of MySpace, it appears to be much more popular amongst my UK friends, in that they are much more likely to respond to my messages. Unfortunately, joining yet another "hey pay attention to me and be my friend" site is taxing my admittedly already crappy cyborz skillz. It's all I can do right now to keep up with this blog. I am belatedly realizing that you can spend WAY too much time maintaining all things internet.

The upshot is, I've spent at least 3 hours trying to figure out what in the hell you're supposed to do on it, with limited success. I managed to get a picture of myself on there and get a few friends to add me to theirs. Yay me! I am not a total loser! I will rest easier now basking in that knowledge.

Which leads me to another question about this whole FaceSpace/MyBook phenomenon. I'm quite sure this idea has been posited before elsewhere, but aren't these sites really not just jumped-up popularity contests? I mean, does anyone really have 10,420 friends? I think not, sir, I think not. Oh alright, I know that bands, comedians, even films and businesses all have their own MySpace pages now, and it's a grand way to promote your work, I suppose. But still, if you're not a band, comedian, or a film, try easing up on the adds a little. It smacks of desperation.

Everybody who is listed as a friend of mine on either of my sites (except for Tom on MySpace - he just won't go away, he stalks me every day) is more than an actor from a movie I liked, or a band I enjoy listening to. I have actually spoken to them, ate with them, cried on their shoulder, hung out with them, heckled them personally in some way shape or form, or generally gotten to know them as a person in some fashion. Does this mean I lose at the internets?

Perhaps it's just a generational difference, and I am nothing if not old and cranky now. One of our friend's teenage daughters added me to her MySpace, in a moment of pity for an ageing lady I think, and it's amazing the stuff they can do and they stuff they say. Wow. Reading her page, I do get a glimmer of the way things could have been for me regarding my relationship with computers, had I been born 15 years later than I was. Instead of the enemy, the computer could have been my friend. Awwwww.......

P.S. My brain zaps are still going strong, maybe that's why all this stuff seems so complicated at the moment; yeah, that's it, it's not me that's stoopid, it's all my brain's fault! Um, wait, that means my brain is ..... well, never mind then, maybe it's not such a good theory. Stoopid brain!

GodTube

I have found a new internets religious site that ranks up there with Fundies Say The Darndest Things!

GodTube is YouTube for the Christianist set. It's chock full of sermons, short films, and "funny" videos. I especially loved the piece about porn; it quotes Matthew 5:29 "if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away" and features a man destroying his computer because porn dared appeared on his screen. I suppose this is hilarious to a certain sub-group of Christians who refuse to take personal responsibility seriously. I found it weirdly scary. It's the same justification that fundamental Muslims countries like Iran use to make woman wear the burka - you can't have woman walking about uncovered to tempt all the poor hapless men. Bless.

However, there is a series of parodies of the Apple/PC ads called Christian/Christ Follower which gave me hope that not ALL Christians are right-wing nutjobs. And this awesome video called Baby Got Book. I laughed all the way through it.


*****I had embedded another video of a much more scary film that was agitating Christians towards killing anyone who disagreed with them. Armegeddon, here we come! It was awfully exciting. However, either their site has been down all day, or my IP address has been banned. How I would love if that were the case!!!!! Either way, I had to remove it, it was messing up the flow.

I don't hate religious people, I consider myself one. I'm just scared of the extremist ones. I am a Methodist, we don't care for all that nonsense.

187

I passed my test! I can't tell you how RELIEVED I am that I don't have to take that damn thing again!!!!!!

The top score was 200 and I came in at 187. The passing score was 145 .... I can't quite fathom how I managed that high of a result, as I was really convinced it was touch and go if I would pass at all. I am a happy bunny today!!!!!!

I can now get my teacher's license and hopefully a job for this school year. That's the next hurdle to leap.

The downside is, of course, that I don't get kicked out of the house and must remain here with all the children, dogs, and dirt....

My Space

After kicking and screaming and generally loathing all things Friendster/Classmates/My Space/WhatEver, I have finally succumbed and turned to the dark side.

I have a My Space Page.

I was seduced by the siren's call of of synergy, marketing, networking, blogging, blabbing, contacting, and/or gossiping. I do have friends who absolutely love My Space, but they are all under the age of thirty. I think I'm just too old and cranky to really "get it", but I'm gonna give it a whirl.

I will admit that I have had enormous fun trawling around various pages of people I don't know. It's like walking down the street at night and stopping to peer into your neighbor's windows to see what's going on in there. (Yep, I do that, too. And it's NOT stalking, dammit.) But doing it the cyber way is much warmer, attracts less police notice, and I can drink a glass of wine at the same time.

Well, gotta go and see if I have any friend adds yet - I don't want to be the sad loser that has only Tom for a friend!