Monthly Archives: September 2008

A grown-up MySpace survey

Heh.

Made you look. You’re right — there’s no such thing. “How many times did you text your boyfriend/girlfriend last night?” “Are you grounded right now?” “What if your mom walked into your room tonight and…?”

You get the idea. But I do like to read them. I admit it. They give me interesting insight into the habits, feelings, opinions and general wackiness of the participant. And what they *don’t* say is often more intriguing than the answers. You know, the “I’m not telling you that” type of response. They make me wonder what the answer might really be. Ok — it makes me wanna ask ’em. I’m nosy like that. Zwut ya git. If you dangle the carrot, expect people to try and yank at it.

After reading TRO’s site this morning, and linking to a cool survey from there, I kifed some questions from that post as well as from other places.

So in the interest of fun, laziness, and basically attempting the impossible, here is an entertaining, somewhat silly, but still grown-up version of a MySpace survey. I promise there will be no questions like, “Who do you like right now?” So please give me some of your responses. I yearn to learn.

MySpace Survey for Grownups

  1. What was the last thing that made you cry? When my research proposal, red-lined by my prof, was posted in the open class, with my name on it, and offered for public download.
  2. Could you go a day without eating anything? I have done in the past, but I was pretty sick. I’ve also gone all day without eating when I was very upset (divorce, death of my parents, previous question).
  3. What was the last thing you ate/drank? Strawberry Shredded Wheat and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Life is friggin’ fantasmagorical.
  4. Is it easy for others to make you feel awkward? Letting others make you feel any certain way is just that: letting them. It’s a choice. I try not to give people permission to “make” me feel certain ways (unless it’s loved, special, cute, like a princess, etc.).
  5. What is the last thing you yelled aloud? “What…..was THAT!?!” — to my 7th/8th grade choir, when half came in on one verse and half on another.
  6. What did your last incoming text message say? “I could kill them I’m so mad.” Heh. Awesome.
  7. How difficult is your life right now? Two letters should answer that: B.U.
  8. What was the first 45 RPM (or, if you’re not a crusty – tape or CD single) you ever bought with your own money? Wow, that is a tuffy…it was probably “I Want You Back” by the Jackson Five in like 1970. About 5th or 6th grade. Mavis – remember going to the T.I. with our allowance money and buying records?
  9. What do you wish people would do more? Reserve judgment.
  10. How easy is it for you to tell people they’ve hurt/upset/offended you? Not very. I tend to sweep it under the carpet so it can blast up to the surface at some other inopportune moment in the face of friends, family or students who don’t deserve it. But, I’m getting better at telling people. I think I’m getting to that age where it is going to get even easier, too.

Ok – your turn – post some answers and don’t be shy. Yes, even those under 40 can participate. I run a non-discriminatory ship here. (Well, with a few exceptions; mean people can go away. And D***d S**l. He can bite me.)

Fink out.

HB Rousseau – yar

Avast, me hearties…it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day. I love it for several reasons:

  1. I get to say “yar.”
  2. I tell my 5th & 6th graders to say “yar” all day long to their teachers. (The teachers love it, believe me.)
  3. I look forward to visiting the teachers at the end of the day. Heh heh.

But most of all, I love TLaPD because it’s Rousseau’s birthday. YAR for Rousseau!

We think he’s 7 or 8 (he was a pound puppy, adopted by Bob & Kay at about 2 or 3 years old). I chose today as his birthday a couple of years ago. I guess it doesn’t matter, though. Every day’s a party for him. He’s the spolt-rottenest canine on the high seas — and on land, too, for that matter.

I’ll be a-caperin’ up the stairs for to get ready to sail for the school house. Arrrgh.

Fink, honin’ the pi-rat-titude

The Most Awesomely Awesome

Every once in awhile, somebody brings up Orson Welles. You remember him…he was a large man in his later years, and never went anywhere without his big ol’ nasty stogie.

He was a polished actor — viewed as one of the best of his generation, starring in what has over and over again been voted the best black-and-white-era movie of all time: Citizen Kane.

But do you know (certainly you do) that Welles was also responsible for the biggest Halloween hoax — and most dramatic episode of public panic — of all time? I can never get enough of this story. I just wish I’d been there.

Ok, not really. I probably would have been one of the people hiding out in their bathrooms with a vial of poison, ready to end it all. Mulder and Scully would have loved it, though.

I have often imagined what it would have been like to have my ears glued to the radio (no TV in 1938) when the Mercury Theater show started. Nice music, some commercials for deodorant or whatever, then back to the show. All of a sudden, an “announcer” breaks in:

Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas…moving towards the earth with enormous velocity.”

Would you have freaked? Or at least been concerned? I have no clue as to the dangers of “incandescent gas,” or incandescent anything for that matter, but it sounds ominous. Back to the music.

What followed was an amazing parade of bulletins — each one becoming more dramatic, frantic, and out of control. And even though Welles, who accurately suspected the possibility of public hysteria, dropped in announcements that the show was just pretend, people still flipped out. According to transparencynow.com:

People packed the roads, hid in cellars, loaded guns, even wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from Martian poison gas, in an attempt to defend themselves against aliens, oblivious to the fact that they were acting out the role of the panic-stricken public that actually belonged in a radio play.”

War of the Worlds. Awesomely awesome. You should really read the whole script. Poor folks, though. Talk about punk’d.

Fink out. BOO!

Photo credits: imdb.com; war-of-the-worlds.co.uk

Do you ever have those days…

… when you hate everything and everyone? I am having one this day. I hate everyone.

Except you.

A bright spot today, however, was my choirs. All 5 of them had moments of excellence. Outside of that…pretty sucky day.

But hey, it ain’t over yet. I still have rehearsal tonight. I am hoping (against hope) that everyone will arrive a) on time, and b) with the large majority of their music memorized.

As for those who are clueless/unprepared/disruptive/attitude-ridden: abandon all hope, ye who enter here…

Heh heh.

Fink, on a mission. From Gad.

TBS Pipeline III

Frank Caliendo. The guy’s hilarious. He does the best George Bush out there.

From TBS, it’s Frank TV, covering the election madness. All new October episodes include sketches on:

  • Oliver Stone’s new take on the Monica Lewinsky scandal
  • John McCain seeking a celebrity endorser
  • William Shatner’s new kidney stone charity
  • Scooby Doo at the White House

Then there’s this. The Obama guy is funny…