Random Neuron Firings

• Now really. Would you react like this guy if you opened your locker and saw a talking head? They’d be carting me off to the morgue.
• I think I have tendinitis in my left elbow, as a result of my crash with the deer last month. Fantastic.
• Faculty Christmas party tonight, at the Roadhouse. I should starve myself all day in preparation for the delicious fare.                 Nah.
• Selling beer in bottles inserted into taxidermied animals? Why not.
• Food blog update: I bought thecomfortfoodie.net a couple of weeks ago. Need design ideas. I’m devoting the next 6 months to it, in hopes of opening in summer. Much to do and research.
• Heading into the last 9 or 10 rehearsals before the Christmas concerts. Hang on to your hats, high school…

I hate that word. The “cyber” label, for me, immediately cheapens a thing. Cyber Monday. Cyberspace, cybersecurity, cyberterrorism. All pretentious prefixes that have come to substitute for the word “internet.”

Where’d this word come from anyway? From Wikipedia:

The term ‘cybernetics’ was coined in Norbert Wiener’s book Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (MIT Press, 1948).Wiener used the term in reference to the control of complex systems in the animal world and in mechanical networks, in particular self-regulating control systems. By 1960, doctors were performing research into surgically or mechanically augmenting humans or animals to operate machinery in space, leading to the coining of the term “cyborg,” for “cybernetic organism.”

By the 1970s, the Control Data Corporation (CDC) sold the “Cyber” range of supercomputers, establishing the word cyber- as synonymous with computing. Robert Trappl credits William Gibson and his novel Neuromancer with triggering a “cyber- prefix flood” in the 1980s. McFedries observes that a backlash against the use of e- and cyber- can be traced to the late 1990s, quoting Hale and Scanlon requesting writers in 1999 to “resist the urge to use this vowel-as-cliché” when it comes to e- and calling cyber- “terminally overused.”

And there you have it. “Terminally overused.” I’ll add “outdated” to it as well, akin to using the terms “surf the ‘Net” and “e-commerce.” You could avoid those, if you loved me. Or you could continue to use them, as you were country when country wasn’t cool.

Regardless, I’m being sucked into the vortex (ah, another outdated epithet) of Cyber Monday, as I shall hit the stores from my parlor this morning. I’m almost done with my shopping — how about you? My secret goal every year is to at least finish the buying part before December hits. Once again, I think I’m going to make it.

Did you Black Friday shop this year? Any stories to share?

Cyberfink out

THANK YOU to my faithful and kind Finkites (all 90 or so of you, worldwide, yeaaaah boiiiiii) who grace this place with your eyeballs every morning. A bigger thank-you to all who leave comments, because, as you know, the insecure artist screaming love meeee needs that on a regular basis.

And now, since I don’t want to leave anything missing from your holiday RtB visit (*snicker*):

Off to make the cherry cobbler…

I got a feelin’…nah, I won’t go there.

Now that that song’s stuck in your head all day (you’re welcome), I will say that I fear yesterday’s post scared everyone away. Did I come across too strong? *looking in mirror* Am I pale? I guess I’ve not been myself lately. And now I’m channeling Daffy Duck. Shoot me again! I enjoy it! I love the smell of burnt feathers… and gun powder…and cordite. I’m an elk! Shoot me! Go on!! It’s elk season! I’m a fiddler crab. Why don’t you shoot me?! It’s fiddler crab season!

*cricket*

Yes, it is definitely time for a brief vacation. And yes, I could go on all day long with the Daffy quotes.

OH, and PS — had a fantastic time at BFF Kay’s birthday dinner last night. Happity birthday, Kay!

As much as I love my job, I’m incredibly grateful to have this little break.

Mavis’s birthday feast was a grand time last night; yay for leftover chicken pot pie — packing lunch was easy today! Now it’s the push to Thanksgiving, which, this year, is going to be a snap. All the kids go every which way for Thanksgiving week, hitting several in-laws’ and grandparents’ homes, while we host the evening meal. This year, we’re just having ham and mashed potatoes, as opposed to decking out a huge turkeybird that some members of the family will eat for the third time in two days. We’re planning to be just a bit different.

And I don’t mind telling you that not having to get the fowl, dress it, make stuffing and gravy, make sure we have the necessary trimmings, and have the Thriller spend 15 minutes carving the carcass doesn’t bother us in the least. We sprang the idea on everyone last night at the feast, and all were A-OK with it, so…yippy. A largely stress-free Thanksgiving. Mavis and I will have it easy, which makes me all the more thumbs-up for my short school week.

I’m enjoying it while it lasts, because after Thanksgiving….oi.

Looks like most of us (at least in the states — sorry Suzanne! ) have a short week of some flavor or another. Enjoy!