Dogster Made the List!

Blink and you'll miss it. Here's the video! How many do you recognize? I recognized more than I expected.

Not again.

It happened again today! Remember when I pasted the mysterious mothership message? I pasted something else random today. Here is the new message my computer had for me:

I eat tofu and I vote.

Well, that's good to know...

Duhn-dah-duh-duh-duh-dah!

Am I the only person who feels almost obsessive-compulsive after watching this whole thing carefully thrice through listening to the subtle changes in the fanfare, and watching the height of the mountain change? For example, in the slide-in "Television" phase, I noticed the mountain get higher for one year only before getting chopped back to normal. I guess they noticed it was obscuring the all-important word "Television."

EDIT: After watching again and meticulously counting, I have some actual years. In 1974, apparently, they acquired a theme song that would stay for quite a while. And the year the mountain grew was 1987, I think. One starts to lose track at about 1982. It's definitely at 00:27, if you want to skip to there and see. Oh, and the post title is the theme fanfare of theirs I remember best. It certainly wasn't their only.

Commented!

Wow! I just realized today I actually have comments on some posts! When I first started the blog I'd check daily for comments, but when none came I gave up. Imagine my surprise when I take a closer look at my own blog today and see... comments!!! I feel so special. I'm not sure exactly where one is supposed to answer comments, in the comments section or in a blog post, or if you're supposed to do so or not. But I do at least want everyone to know I have read them, and I will return the favor. Also, I would like to answer a few questions.

Firstly, the lovely marmie kit in my profile photo is not mine. I just liked the photo. I will put up a photo of one of my actual cats eventually, though.

Secondly, I had no idea the Uncategorizable Paradox already existed. I just thought it was more of my over-analyzing.

And lastly, pasting random phrases has actually happened to other people? Wow. I wonder if there's a compilation of them all somewhere. Maybe they're a programmer's joke or something.

Random Thoughts

Listening To: 99 Luftballons by Nena

Why do cameras start all their default file names with DSC?

I was in the pink on a storm a few days ago. By the way, pink is, on the weather channel intensity chart, even worse than dark red (very severe) is in the case of a thunderstorm. It can usually be found at the heart of the nastiest supercells. It doesn't occur often around where I am. In the midwest, the pink parts are usually the parts that spawn tornadoes, though it's too hilly for those where I am, thankfully. I can honestly say I've never been in the pink part of a storm before. It was impressive. I actually got pelted with dime-sized hail, the rain was coming down so hard I could barely see out the windshield, even with the wipers (I was in a car) and I saw like 8 huge bolts of cloud-to-ground lightning, pretty up close and personal.

The proper term for something that's misheard is a mondegreen. The Wikipedia article on this has a good amount of rather amusing examples. The worst one of mine is in Round and Round, by Ratt, in the line "Tighten our belts, abuse ourselves." The last bit sounds so much like "The pizza sells." That's what I thought it was for years and years.

When I was in the single digits, I had a very hard time telling the words union and onion apart. For years I thought the British flag's nickname was the Onion Jack.

Exit light, enter night...

I just thought of the dude who sat next to me and absolutely BLASTED Metallica on his big stereo headphones for all 12 hours of an international flight. The same CD, over and over and over. He must have left that plane deaf. It's a good thing I don't mind Metallica or I would have been so mad. How do you fight the dreaded Blaring Headphones, anyway? Just scream "TURN IT DOWN!!!" and then listen to the guy say "WHAT!?!" and go back to playing air guitar and occasionally humming snatches of what's playing, while everyone glares at you for screaming in flight, and you end up being the one that looks bad.

PS: In case you didn't know, the title is part of the chorus of Enter Sandman by Metallica, one of their biggest hits, and one of the songs I listened to more times than I rather care to remember on that flight.

Ienensrttig!

Did you konw it was siad ploepe cuold uluasly raed wdros wtih the idsnie lterets mexid up as lnog as the fisrt and lsat ltrtees seytad in the smae liactoon? Do you aerge?

... Next thing you know, my page was in Albanian!

From this helpful page, posted on July 2-

A bug that made it trivially easy to accidentally set your blog's language to Albanian has been fixed. If you notice that your blog's archives and other text appears to be in Albanian (and you don't want it to be), use Settings > Formatting to change your blog's language.

Why do I find this so hilarious? Is it just because it's so random among all this technical stuff? I know it probably wouldn't be funny if it happened to you, but it's just so funny seeing this totally incongruous glitch! I could so see this happening to me.

Random Word: Qat. Look it up. Not only is the definition interesting but you will find it quite useful for Scrabble.

Don't Even Ask.

This is just another example that anything can happen in my weird life.

This is a story so weird, you know I can't be making it up. Yesterday I went to paste something into an e-mail, and instead of what I intended to paste this came out:

"Return at once to the Mother Ship!"

I didn't even notice it until I was done with the e-mail. When I tried to paste again, curious about what had happened, it was gone. Hmm, it kind of makes me wonder about who's been using this computer. Maybe the aliens were among us and commandeered my computer.

Teapots To Teapots

(an experiment in degrees of separation)

Teapots are pretty.
...
My aunt liked them.
...
My aunt also liked marshmallows.
...
I saw how many marshmallows I could fit in my mouth once. I forget how many.
...
I also forget how many times I have ridden an airplane.
...
I've never ridden a helicopter. I'd like to.
...
You can see Niagara Falls from a helicopter, which I bet would be awesome.
...
My aunt lived in Niagara Falls for a while. The same one who liked teapots.

Random Link

The Web Neko Server!!!
This is a wonderful time-waster site which I shall put up for your enjoyment.

Skyline

(click for humongonormous size)

This is my favorite skyline. I know it's just a tad on the fuzzy side but it was taken from a window, so forgive me. I know it doesn't change a lot, like Shanghai, or have famous, iconic buildings, like New York, or host the tallest building in the world, like Chicago, but it's still nice. Who wouldn't like the skyline of home? (Okay, so it's not quite home, but it's close enough)

The Category Paradox

This is something I've wondered for a long time. Is there such a thing as being uncategorized? Defying categories? Is it impossible? Because, even if you defy all normal categories, you'll still be in a category- the uncategorized category, the category of those who defied the rest, but still ended up in a category. Can you ever be uncategorized? Is uncategorized a category? The word uncategorized is a paradox! Because, it means you can't be categorized so you go under the category of not being in any category which means this category is nonexistent, but it does exist, and so... and... GAAAAH!

I have to stop before my poor little brain implodes.

Summer Night

It's a nice night, one of those ones people in Florida would kill for now. Low humidity and a breeze. It makes you feel like you should go out on the porch (if only I had a porch), rock in the rocking chair (if only mosquitoes didn't exist), and talk with a close friend until one in the morning (if only I had someone around to talk to). As it is, I must settle for watching the fireflies blink lazily in the forest, catch whiffs of burnt trash smoke on the wind, and watch the neighbor's cat wade through the crabgrass, an almost rebellious hint of the wild in the suburban paradise, past the moss-stricken shed and the unpruned rosebushes running wild. The front window offers a slightly less appetizing view of my weeds, asphalt, and the person across the street's chemically Day-Glo green yard. Close your eyes and you'll hear the faint buzz of a million insects, almost timid venturing of the occasional chirp from one brave soul of a cricket, the endless zzzt-SNAP-zzzzt-SNAP-crackle-SNAP-POP-zzzt of the same bugs I mentioned before meeting their demise in the anything-remotely-like-an-insect-hating neighbor's humongous bright blue neon bug barbecue, and under it all the faint roar of traffic eternally passing through the somewhat-distant highway, like water through a river.