Monday, March 22, 2010

Exhibit 'A'


Me:
Thank you!

I'm fine. Had a very busy day, Hit the ground running as soon as I got to work and it didn't slow down until quarter to five. Then had to stick around to complete some tasks so i won't be behind tomorrow.

I hear it was nice and sunny, but didn't actually get to see much of it. :)

How about you? How was your day?
D.

-------------

Him:
I take it, Dawn, you are not interested in chatting tonight? Brian

-------------

Me:
*thinks* WTF???

/exits singing

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Five foot two, eyes of blue

That There Squeakypony had me on a wild goose chase yesterday. He linked to a Mrs. Miller in a comment on my March 18 post. In my dotage, I am no longer master of my brain cells, and I mistakenly thought he was referring to a Mrs. Mills, even after I clicked on the link and suffered the aural assault of Mrs. Miller mangling "These Boots are Made for Walking." I thought, "I don't remember Mrs. Mills singing, just playing the piano." Then darling Gooooogle provided an album cover for Mrs. Mills in the hits for my "Mrs. Miller" search and it all came clear.

I don't specifically remember Mrs. Miller, but I can vaguely remember those kinds of performances on TV when I was kid. Some poor old dear who'd been successful in their day in their own music genre would attempt to "get down wit' da youff" and do horrid things to a current hit. Perry Como singing Beatle hits and such. Although I suspect poor, dear, sweet, presumably deceased Mrs. Miller was never very successful except as a novelty act.

Now we have the reverse phenomenon with rock stars singing oldies. And it's just as horrifying. I’m looking at you, Rod Stewart.

But finding the Mrs. Mills album covers, and this one in particular, reminded me of something. The album the cover for which you see here was in my father's record collection when I was growing up (and may, in fact, be lurking in my basement right now). My father was born in 1912, so the ragtime and honky tonk music of the 20s was the music of his youth. His generation's rap, in fact. And it was just as obnoxious to his parents as most rap is to us and just as hilarious to subsequent generations as rap will be in 20 years' time. Such is the fate of popular music.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard this album. I’d even know all the words if they could all be understood. The backup singers were somewhat inarticulate and, incredibly, at some points the altos seem oddly out of step with the sopranos, (surely it's the other way around?) making it even harder to make out what they’re singing. That fact that this wonky timing made it to the final recording tells me it was the style at the time, but it does my classically trained head in, I can tell you.

And, in a bizarre “you can’t make this stuff up” twist, when I was in London at the end of a school trip in 1972, we were taken to a variety performance of the type for which none of us would have willingly purchased tickets. Our teachers claimed it was the only show for which they could get 30 tickets. I’m still suspicious of that claim. It was the Des O’Connor Show, which was on TV at home at the time.

BUT!!! (I like big buts and I cannot lie) it resulted in me actually getting to see, in the flesh, the very Mrs. Mills whose music I had so often heard as a child. It was worth sitting through the rest of it (which wasn’t bad at all, just not to our discerning teenaged tastes) to get to see her so I could go home and tell my dad that I had. I highly suspect I was the only 16-year old in the audience quite so thrilled to be listening to Mrs. Mills. Unfortunately, in 1972, mobile phones hadn’t been invented, so I couldn’t immediately text my dad to tell him and had to wait days until I got home to do so.

So, in memory of me dear old da’ and thanks to Squeakypony, I give you the inimitable Mrs. Mills as I used to hear her at home as a child. Enjoy! Or run screaming, your choice.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Welcome, Bumbungians!

According to my stats, I was this very morning visited by a resident of the micronation of Bumbunga, of whose existence I have to confess to having been completely unaware until today. The micronation, not the visitor.
There are those on this fair isle who would secede from Canada if they had their druthers.
Micronations, unite!
Oh.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Don't you love arse?*


I have not completely given up on finding lurve online. Okay, I've given up but my profile is still out there in cyberspace. It doesn't result in a lot of contact. Us middle-aged laydees are not in high demand. However, from time to time, I will receive an e-mail from a possible suitor. Which is a word not to be confused at all with suitable, despite the identical first syllable.

The latest candidate appeared normal and could even string a few sentences together complete with requisite capitalization AND punctuation, which puts him light years ahead of the competition.

The first conversation was typical. Nothing remarkable, either good or bad.
But the second? The second was a real puzzler. I wrote something to the effect of having had a busy day, but the weather had been unseasonably nice and I'd gotten out for a walk. How had his day gone?

He reponded with, "Well, I guess it looks like you don't want to chat tonight."

WTF? I replied that I was puzzled. What had given him that impression? "How has your day gone?" seemed a perfect indication of an interest in chatting to me. He replied that I hadn't answered his questions (he hadn't asked any) but that he had answered mine (he hadn't). I have to mention that we were conversing via a website, so the transmission rates are sometimes slow. By the time we'd tried to iron this out, it was silly o'clock and I suggested that maybe we should give the website a miss and move on to email, but that was for another night as it was very late and I was going to sign off and go to sleep. His response? "Give me a quick call before you go to bed. Here's my number..."

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not calling anyone at 12:45 a.m. unless it's 911 and my house is on fire. I'm certainly not going to have the first conversation with someone at that hour. I'm not at my best when I'm 3/4 asleep.

Plus, it would be a long distance call and I no longer have a "call anyone you frickin' like for nothing!" kind of long distance plan anymore.

I am especially not calling, at my expense, someone who has been freakishly obtuse for the past few hours. Can you imagine what the conversation would be like?

"Hi. How are you?"

"Well, I guess you don't want to chat."

"Um... why do you say that?"

"You haven't answered my questions."

"Uh... you haven't asked any."

"And I've answered all of yours."

"No, actually you haven't..."

So, yeah. Don't bother sendin' any clowns. They're here. Firmly entrenched. Bless 'em.



*Apparently, a common Mondegreen in the UK for the line from these lyrics that goes, "Don't you love farce?" due to (if Wikipedia is to be believed) a failure of the performer to clearly differentiate the two juxtaposed labiodental fricative sounds so that "love farce" sounds to the UK English speaker like "love arse."

Hmmm... Big ones? About which you cannot tell a falsehood? Look! A shiny thing!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Duck Amuck

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Sweet Baby James

You can wander over here, cutie. Hubba hubba! But I wish someone would feed him some cheezburgerz and burn those farmer's clothes. All he needs is suspenders/braces and a straw hat.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Rockin' around the clock


2:15 a.m.

3:45 a.m.

4:20 a.m.

6:15 a.m.

I don't remember volunteering to be night watchman, but appears to be the shift I was assigned last night.

Monday, March 08, 2010

Nora makes her classical debut

Too funny!

But I'm alright nooooooooooow!

Thursday, March 04, 2010

This too shall pass

Brought to you by the genius OK Go (and found on Dooce). I don't like the music as much as this song, but the video is cool.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Lot's wife

ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.
Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

What? Salt. Yes, salt. Really? Oh. I would have SWORN it said salt.