Stark reminder

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Had a meeting with my pal Stoney yesterday. We pretty much got September’s rehearsal schedule done. By the time I left for home, it dawned on me: summer’s really over; time to think about getting serious.

The second half of this summer has been fabulous (first half, not so good, but hey – everything happens for a reason). I’ve spent time with the grandchildren, my friends, and my awesome fam. For the first time in many years, I’ve taken time to enjoy myself over the summer, instead of being chained to this box twelve hours a day, doing research and writing papers. Icky.

One more semester of that nonsense, and I am done. I will never take another grad course as long as I live. (That’s the plan, anyway.)

So for the next two weeks, I’m heavy into score study, transcriptions & transpositions, and updating choir tour accounts. I plan to hold down the sofa for the weekend and work on the laptop. Sounds like fun, eh?

To the people with real jobs: it’s almost Friday. :-)

Gran éxito

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deet deet deedle-eedle eet deet dee deeGreat success!

~

Yesterday’s little game was fun, and I learned a lot. Touché! Gracias to all my fiends who played along (some more begrudgingly than others, albeit, but I heart you for it). If you didn’t get a chance to play yesterday’s game, please do so. I covet your articulate and compendious replies.

You know, I got to thinking: maybe few people comment because the content is insufficient to stimulate cogent thought. Yikes. If that’s the case, back to the draw-ring board. Still, I’m happy.

And since I’m happy, I’m bringin back the nostalgia. Yes, I admit it — I think this video is hysterical. I have neither explanation nor excuse. My students will probably think I have truly lost my mind (if they don’t think that already). It’s the dumbest thing ever, and yet, I laugh.

Back from when MTV was actually worth watching on occasion: Sifl & Olly.

Fink out (for a busy day, arg).

All together now

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I ponder something this day. I wonder how many people:

  1. Don’t care to comment on a blog post, even if they have strong opinions or would normally contribute a comment if it weren’t in writing
  2. Are afraid/intimidated to comment on a blog post, mostly because of the “retribution” factor
  3. Just enjoy being anonymous and having a (hopefully) good read, and not feeling responsible for advancing the discourse
  4. Think I’m just cute

writingratMy blog stats regularly show between 70 and 150 unique visitors a day (I know — not much on a worldwide scale, but you could say quantity isn’t everything), and very few of them come from search engines, with the exception of about a dozen or so who arrive at the site looking for images (which is why I give most of my images non-descriptive names). In other words, most of my hits arrive with “no referring link” — that is, they access the site from a bookmark or by typing finkweb.org into the location bar.

But only a handful of those readers actually comment. And, for those who are blog-savvy, commenting is what keeps a blog moving forward; alive. And I must admit, it’s my absolute favorite part of this little endeavor — even more than my writing. I am a textbook extrovert, which means I draw my energy from others. I live for the repartee, don’t you know.

So, all together now, let’s play us a game. [Regular RtB commenters, please get the ball rolling here, k?] I’d like to see how many lurkers we can draw out of the shadows. If nothing else, it’ll give me a better idea of who comes knocking in Finkville.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to share the following, to the extent with which you are comfortable:

  1. Your state (geographical, as opposed to, like, dazed — and if not US, your country)
  2. What you do for a living (laborer, homemaker, student, retired, yadda)
  3. An interesting fact about you (a hobby, an accomplishment, a research interest, you once sang in a boy band, etc.)

I will respond to everyone’s contribution, and I hope others will respond to them as well. The result: some fun banter, some new information about Finkites, and probably some funny exchanges here and there.

Because I’ve been around the internet block a couple-a times, I know there are people who might be untruthful or silly, but that’s just taking the wheat with the chaff, and I’m fine with that. It’ll still reveal some interesting stuff.

So….ready, steady, go! I’ll start.

  1. Ohio
  2. High school choral director/Musician
  3. In 1973, I won my 8th grade spelling bee. Mrs. Lewis, my English teacher (Mickey Finn, do you remember her? She was my fave teacher EVER–largely responsible for my love of  reading and writing), gave me my very own copy of The Andromeda Strain as a prize. I felt like I’d won a gold medal at the Olympics.

Allons-y!

LeFink *poof*

Just another manic Monday

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Better than depressive, I guess, eh?

And since I am indeed manic today, here are some funnies. I have long intended to clean up my hard drive and copy my hee-yooooge “Blog” subdirectory to Gmail or portable storage, in the event the digital equivalent of Hurricane Katrina befell my machine. Well, while attempting to tackle that job this morning, I found some entertaining images I’d totally forgotten about over the months/years. I will share them with you this day.

hello

image005

This will mean much to a few. :-)

For Kody, the Pez collector

And now it’s off to my Monday…putting the Thriller to work in my classroom. (I’ll bet he’s excited about that.)

FO

Things That Bug Me

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J’ever wonder why certain things bother some people, but not others? Is it that we’re all just charming little flavors of OCD, simply varying in subject and severity?

This morning, while doing the obligatory phrase search (to avoid title clash; 518 posts in only 17 categories can stretch the originality a bit), I found a rant I posted three months ago. I laughed — did I really write all that craziness? A friend told me several weeks ago that he’d gone through RtB in its entirety over an extended period, and read every post. I’m not sure I’d want to do that myself, for fear of editing every post. Anyway.

It made me think about how different we all are, and in the funniest ways. For instance, waiting at a railroad crossing — even when I’m in a hurry — doesn’t bug me. Yet, I know people who will rant at the train as if the conductor planned to intersect their path at that particular moment. The Thriller doesn’t mind cruising in the left lane on the interstate, but it makes me want to squirm right out the window (he knows this, and, I’m convinced, derives some small-but-evil pleasure out of doing it on purpose).

So, what niggling issues (I love the word niggling) make you squirm? You know a lot of mine; let’s hear some-a yurrin. Still, I am beholden to my fiends to insert my list forthwith, though few will surprise:

Things That Bug Me

  1. Posters or TV commercial graphics that say there are “1000’s of items” available. “One thousands” of items? And worse, “One thousand–apostrophe–s” of items? Yark.
  2. Inserting the infuriating “and” when talking of numbers and dates. What year is it? Why, it’s two thousand and nine. NO, it isn’t. It’s two thousand nine. Say it. 2009. Two. Thousand. Nine. What, Americans can’t comprehend a complex number so we need to break it up into smaller chunks by saying and? Then there’s money. The dress was two hundred and fifty dollars. NO….it was two hundred fifty dollars. I swear we are the only culture on the planet that does this annoying thing. Some folks don’t care about it at all, but to me, it’s like chewin’ foil.
  3. Unrinsed dishes in the sink. Arrrrrg! OCD! OCD! (Fortunately, that doesn’t happen at my house.)
  4. People crying, “OCD! OCD!” at every little stupid thing, like putting dishes in the sink.
  5. “All the sudden.” I mean it. Next puppy that crosses my path gets it.
  6. Touching wood that is wet, like washing a wood-handled knife. Sets my choppers right on edge.
  7. Always, always, always, always reaching into the wrong pocket.
  8. Tripping over shoes left on the floor. (And they’re always mine.)
  9. Calling the tech support line for a huge corporation and hearing, “our office is now closed…”

So share. Maybe I’ll discover other things that, if they don’t bug me now, will potentially bug me in the future because you implanted the suggestion.

Snark Fink

EDIT 10:04 a.m….

This is the coolest and most creative thing I have ever seen on YouTube.