Random Neuron Firings
Today, my friend Joni shared this picture from someone’s website on her Facebook page. I immediately thought, “Hey — I made that up. Boo to that copycat!” [I say that exact thing to my students every once in awhile. Not the “Boo, copycat” thing, but the saying on the picture. Right…] But it’s not the first time that I have experienced that letdown; the one where you go, “Aw, man…here I thought I was so clever, and turns out the phrase has been around for years.” Nuts.
The other time was when the Thriller and I were on the interstate, and for reasons known only to the angels, traffic slowed to a complete stop. It stayed that way for 15 minutes or so, with the occasional 5-MPH creeps forward. Then, when we got to a certain point, the stone was rolled away and traffic just returned to normal. Just. Like. That. There was absolutely no remnant of an accident or construction site. The traffic jam simply vanished. I said to the Thriller, “Wow…it’s like, I dunno, a phantom bottleneck.” He chuckled and agreed.
I owned the phrase. It was mine. Until, that is, I wanted to find out the reason it happened, so on a whim, I did a web search on the term phantom bottleneck.
Oy. 
Not sussmart after all, are ye Fink?
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Hey, did I mention that we’re in the last 48 hours before the Odyssey begins? Time to go clean out the fridge and start laundry. Wahoo!
I speak in West Wing language… “Well, that’s just hard cheese”… etc, all the time. Even Jeff doesn’t get it sometimes. Then last night, he was talking about work… and he said “Sorry — Random Neuron Firings”. Hand-to-God. It was great. You’re famous!
And MadMen Season finale? Um… I’m not sure how I feel about it. Mixed. I don’t generally jive with shows that split the main characters to different cities or different companies. The only reason they did it in West Wing was because they were writing Rob Lowe out of the show anyway… and the last season, it was split between two candidates and the white house, but they slowly built up to that. Sure — with MadMen, you can get a different perspective… (and stretch some air-time), and maybe it’s like “Well — we’ve already killed off a main character, semi-forced a main character to ______ for stake in the company, and made Megan cry in almost every episode… what are we going to do next?” Obviously Peggy is the only one who could go — they did it with Megan at the beginning of the season, but… it turned out, we didn’t miss her.
But, anyway. Don. The only thing I’ll say about Megan leaving to work on her acting career is that she kept Don together and faithful when she was there. Now — we’ll go back to the cheating, cheating, divorce #2, cheating. (Sounds like Days of our Lives… or the like).
I will say that I liked what they did between Peggy and Don — that was really my favorite part of the whole episode. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not a hater on MadMen — I love it! I’m just curious to see what happens…. in another year…
HA
[In case anyone’s reading this and going, “What the….?”, Rae is replying to yesterday’s post about The Newsroom.
]
So Jefe quoted the ol’ Fink, eh? Makes my day! You know, I only watched one or two episodes of West Wing, and I can’t remember why. Maybe it was because it was on at the same time as something else, and I didn’t have the capability to tape it??? I dunno. And in regards to MM — I think Weiner is starting to wind things down. Makes me very sad. My prediction? D and B get back together and move to Houston or somewhere, where D becomes a rancher.
Ok, that’s a stretch.
Honestly, even though I’m a little bias about West Wing (obviously), many seasons in a row were quite solid. Season 6 threw me for a loop sometimes — but they ended pretty strong, too. It’s very enjoyable, fact-based politics and banter. In the first episode, the deputy communications director has a one-night stand with a woman he finds out later is a “pro”… and the deputy chief of staff (the second great love of my life — Bradley Whitford), almost gets fired for fighting on television with a religious nutcase. At first, they thought Martin Sheen would be just a walk-in and -out character… but, I’m glad they didn’t do that. The show doesn’t seem to reach out as far as you suggested The Newsroom did in the first episode. It’s more realistic than that.
You have given us, indirectly and directly, so many great series to watch. West Wing would be my faithful recommendation to you. I think you’d like it (after your vacation…)
Well all right — done and done! WW Season 1 is in the Netflix queue!
Ah, yes! The “Phantom Bottleneck!” Been through that several times in Columbus. For no apparent reason, a bottleneck occurs–no accident, no construction, nothing! Nothing to indicate there even SHOULD be a bottleneck. Then there’s the “Weave Pattern!” On a multi-lane highway, for whatever reason, everyone starts changing lanes at the same time. Actually I think that would look interesting from an airplane! The funny thing is that NOBODY is trying to get to an exit ramp–they just felt like changing lanes at the same time. Now as to the Phantom Bottleneck–I think it’s a slow driver (sometimes an elderly person) that causes a back-up or two semis that are traveling side-by-side (and watching for Smokeys).
It has to be something like a slow driver, or trucks traveling side-by-side. What else could it be if there’s no evidence of anything going wrong? Makes me crazy.
Whilst cleaning the ‘fridge, did you find any chocolate items that you need guarded while you are on your big adventure?
xoxoxox
Save travels to you & the white-gloved one! ((HUGS))
B
Well if there was any chock-lick, you KNOW where that went!! Haha
Love you! I’ll be in touch once we get back, fo sho