I am pretty much knocked out. I did not know shopping for bedroom furniture could be so difficult — and expensive.

The Thriller and I invested in a new bedroom set, after learning our lesson from repeated backaches, courtesy our old mattress. Um…I guess I’ve been out of the loop for awhile. The prices are out of this world:

Mattress, box spring & frame: consummately expensive; approaching vulgar
Mattress cover: way more than it needs to be, given the fact it’s never seen
Sheets/pillow cases: I could almost buy a week’s worth of groceries for this price
Dual control electric blanket because it’s cold up on the 3rd floor: ridiculous
Comforter: it’s a blanket fuh cripesake, sheesh what a ripoff

(However….sleeping on a cloud: priceless)

And I’m talking Wally prices, people — not Pier One or Macy’s. Yipes. And now I’m shopping for the finishing touch. It’s a money pit, this furniture racket.

OK. Weigh in on which one you like. Doesn’t matter about the room décor; I think of myself as “eclectic,” which means I can defend any choice even though I have no interior decorating sense. Thumbs up.

Have a good Monday, all. I gotta go to work so I can pay for all this.

During coffee this morning, I checked out some top ten lists at Listverse. If their research is to be believed, some of the #1 choices were surprising. Did you know…

It’s true. I’m a longtime fan of Cecil Adams, the world’s smartest human, and he quotes some pretty impressive facts about hippos over at The Straight Dope.

The #1 Most Fascinating “Only Existing Photograph” award goes to Frederic Chopin. Cool. He was so afeared of being buried alive, he decreed that his heart be cut out after his death. His hands were also cast. Look how long his fingers were. YIKES

~

#1 on the list of “Fascinating Facts that are Wrong”:  You can see the Great Wall of China from space. Funny how you just assume that such impressive-sounding declarations are true. I never disbelieved it. There seems to be a microscopic grain of truth to it, but as far as seeing the wall from space with the naked eye…nuh-uh.

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I’ve saved the most amazing for last. Have you ever heard of the Superb Lyrebird? I hadn’t. It can mimic everything it hears. Check out this vid. You’ll hear an incredibly convincing camera shutter, car alarm, and chain saw. Unbelievable.

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Welp…out of time. It’s Jon’s birthday feast tonight, and Mavis and I have some shopping/cooking to do. Requested menu: burgers on the grill, homemade mac and cheese, salad, and strawberry cake. Wahoo — get yer grub on, pard.

FO

J’ever think of something weird and say to yourself, “Hey, I gotta write that down”? I do. If I compiled a list of every strange, funny, annoying or generally off-center thought I ever experienced, it would be quite lengthy.

The coolest “Hey, I need to write that down” manifestation has got to be the Facebook fan groups, though. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen one and said, “Hey, yeah…”

Below are some of my faves.

• I hate it when the mascara wand misses the tube and it goes all over your hand
• Typing what you really think, then backspacing and typing something else
• Jared’s Law: Protecting Us from Nothing Since 2008 (school humor)
• I hate it when I open my car door and snow falls on the seat
• Stopping the microwave just before 0:00 because you don’t want to hear the beep
• There is nothing worse than a rejected high five
• That was NOT your last piece of gum, so stop lying
• I hate it when I think of a really good comeback — after the argument
• No, I don’t care if I die at midnight — I am not passing on your stupid forward
• When I realized that the word “bed” looks like a bed, my mind was blown

My own creations would be of the “Yep, this is my life” variety:

• The severity of my headache is inversely proportional to the time remaining until I have to get up and go to work.
• My need for a blank CD is inversely proportional to the number of blank CDs in my possession. (I could go on all day long with this…)
• What I’m looking for is always, always, always in the *other* pocket
• If I didn’t need it, it would be sitting out in plain view, getting in my way

Heh heh. Hey, it’s Finkday. Enjoy it.

Just read an article about a voracious carp threatening the Great Lakes. This is a picture of a controlled fish kill. There is NO WAY that is Lake Michigan water. It’s…I mean…like….blue.

~

Didn’t he useta have red hair? Talk about NBC’s newest drama…

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*GASP*!!!! You must be joking. The UN? Wrong? My skepticism (and, admittedly, cynicism) levels are at an all-time high lately, and getting worse. What are we going to do with me? And while we’re on the subject…

The fact that people are cheering from Boston to San Francisco about Scott Brown’s win over Martha Coakley proves that we, as a nation, are no less partisan and no more concerned about unity than we were, oh, a year and a half ago. Not grinding any political ax (don’t have one)…just saying that both sides talk out of both sides of their mouths. The end.

~

I was using tweezers to handle a thin stream of strawberry purée frozen with liquid nitrogen because if you touch it, it falls apart.”

Not talking about a science experiment here. He’s referring to something he’s fixing for you to eat.

Yummy. Speakina…time to get some breakfast and hit the shower and the road. I actually have school today. The noive!

FO

And we all know it. Or at least my family and fiends know it. Do you have strange rituals and idiosyncrasies? Please say you do. I’m sure some of mine infuriate the Thriller (and others), to wit:

1. I check my online bank balance every morning, and sometimes several times a day, even though I know nothing has changed.
2. I will not get into a cold car in the morning during the winter. If that means I’m late, then I’m late.
3. I hate nearly all vegetables, but adore pickled beets. I could eat a ton of ’em.
4. I’m such a typophobic, I have to compose all my concert and musical theater programs myself, for fear of offending a coworker if I found a misspelling and had to do it over again. (And I would have to do it over again.) At least if the typo is my fault, I can just be annoyed at myself.
5. I have a thing about people’s salivary habits and sink basins. (If remnants of tooth-brushing are not completely rinsed away, something inside my head snaps.)
6. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I have to do my own choreography for my dinner theater show, and my own piano playing, because I’m afraid someone else might not do it the way I want it done. More useless phobias.
7. I think really horrible thoughts about people who carelessly take up two parking spaces in a crowded lot. Really horrible thoughts. Like, get out a paper and pen and leave them a nasty note thoughts — or worse — forget the paper and just write the note on their paintjob thoughts.
8. I occasionally eat chocolate and cookies and cereals without a thought about the sugar content — but I absolutely refuse to drink any beverage with sugar in it. Go figure.
9. I think one of the reasons I don’t wear lipstick is probably the fact that I can’t stand the sight of it on the side of a coffee mug. *shudder* Naaaaaasssssteeeeeeee
10. I have to put something here because I can’t stand lists that end on numbers 6-9.

Bet some of you could out-weird me if you tried.

Fink, enjoying the extra coffee time (sans slimy lip prints on the mug) this morning