I know I've already said this before

For some reason, the line "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" is, like, the most famous line from Romeo and Juliet. I guess cuz it's from the balcony scene, and that's the most famous scene? And I'm sure we're all familiar with various modern allusions to it, in which people always seem to be looking for someone when they say that. But let me show you something. The line is:

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

NOT

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Do you see what I did there? Fucking everyone, when they say "wherefore art thou," uses it as a direct address. But it's not. Juliet is bemoaning the fact that she and Romeo are children of feuding houses--"wherefore art thou Romeo" means, "Why the fuck is your name Romeo Montague, you unfortunate son of a bitch? If it weren't we could be together!" Roughly.

Yes, he's spying on her while she says this, but she's not looking for him. She's moping. Here's the whole thing she says:

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name!
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
and I'll no longer be a Capulet.

She might as well be saying, "Wherefore am I Juliet?" But that's not very poetic, is it?

Even aside from all of this, I just don't understand how you would see this word, wherefore, and just assume it's, what, like some archaic version of where. Use your brains.

Unintelligible squealing

If I were ranking my imaginary girlfriends again, Kelly Clarkson would once again be at the top. I can't believe I almost kicked her off. She is the loveliest woman on the planet, and she sings, and I LOVE her. Last night, I watched the video for "My Life Would Suck Without You," which is just so...cute!

Oh my god, and then, internet, I actually wrote a review of the single for iTunes, just cuz. I don't write reviews of things! At least not anywhere other than here! It was an unintelligible bunch of baloney, but I really wanted to give the song five stars, and then they had this whole box for words, and I like words, so I wrote some. (Also, iTunes has a list of helpful suggestions for review writing, and one of them is "Take the time to copy edit your work so that you avoid embarrassing typos or grammatical errors." I LOVE YOU iTunes.)

Also, there's this brief part in the video where she's wearing a man shirt and boxers as, like, pjs, and oh man. So cute. I have to find her and pledge my love.

(I included both of these screen grabs cuz I couldn't decide which was better. Deal with it.)

I don't know. I can't take it. I love her so bad, and apparently her album is coming out on March 10 now instead of March 17, which, yay! But that's still too far away. I would like it now. And I would like iTunes to sell it with bonus tracks if you pre-order it like they did with the last one. Chip chop chip, iTunes.

Lesbians and language--my two greatest loves

Hey, lesbians, you know that scene in But I'm a Cheerleader when Graham and Megan finally kiss? (By the way, doesn't anyone else think Graham's root should be the fact that her parents named her Graham?) And they're all fighting, because Megan freaked out about seeing Sinead grope Graham, and blah blah, and Graham goes, "You want me to do what I want?" And Megan says, "I could care less!" And then kissing! And it's supposed to be the big romantic climax, right?

Every time I hear her say, "I could care less!" I get taken right out if. I can't even focus on the girlkissing!

It's "couldn't care less," because if you could care less, my friend, that means you at least care a little. But if you can't care less, why then, you simply don't care! Right, Pierre?

Angry and boring part eleventy thousand

Here are some totally boring pet peeves of mine:

I hate whatever fool decided that numerals in titles of things precede the letter A when lists of titles are being alphabetized. That is ridiculous. The numerals always have a corresponding lettered form, you know? So. The 40-Year-Old Virgin goes where, children? Where does it go?

With the Fs. Next.

I also hate the notion that anyone would alphabetize their collection of books by title. Like, no. It has to be organized alphabetically by author. What a mess it would be otherwise! Um, mostly this bugs me because whenever I log in to librarything, my collection is organized by title, and the titles that have numbers in them are first, and then I have to fix it myself. Stupid! You would think the one place that could get this right is a website full of crazy-ass booknerds. Sigh.

OMG, did you know that if you google "since you went away" grey's anatomy song my stupid blog is the first thing that comes up? Just in case my stupid blog didn't help you find your answer, intrepid googler from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, (sometimes I love Canada) the song's "What Can I Say" by Brandi Carlile. You're welcome! Wee!

Oh marry me, Jacob Clifton

From his recap of last week's episode of Gossip Girl:

"She texts Dorota (911, party to plan!!!) and they smile vaguely at each other; she waves the furious texting off like 'you know how it is, we're drunk, don't worry about it.' Hopefully that's the explanation for the punctuation abuse, anyway: my Blair certainly doesn't hit three exclamation points when only one is required."

Er, and Potes again, too:
"What? I carry my handbag in my vagina all the time. It really frees up your arms to carry groceries or pet kittens."

Come rescue me

I had the weirdest dream this morning: I was on some kind of field trip with… the Babysitters Club—or at least Mal and Jessi (who my brain mistakenly called Jackie), and the trip was being chaperoned by Tom Colicchio of Top Chef. And! Mal and Jessi were secretly dating girls—at the tender age of eleven—and everyone knew, and no one had a problem, but they were too scared to admit it, so I was trying to open up a way for them to say they were actually with their girls (because I can’t stand it when eleven-year-olds are in the closet, you know) when Colicchio came over and yelled at us. And then the dream ended with me getting off the bus and talking to Kristen Bell, who was, like, Colicchio’s minion, in some kind of stupid accent while she picked up trash.

Wait. What?

First of all, I don’t know where this Kristen Bell thing came from. I have never even seen so much as ten seconds of Veronica Mars, and only her voice is on Gossip Girl. That was bizarre. Second, why was I dreaming about Mallory and Jessi from The Babysitters Club, and why was I dreaming that they were both lesbians? If anyone in The Babysitters Club is a lesbian, it is Kristy (duh). Also, I haven’t even thought of The Babysitters Club in months. Oh, did you know Zach Braff guest starred on an episode of the horrible tv show? He did, as a love interest for Dawn, and his mom wanted to cut down some trees to build a development or whatever, so Dawn had this conflict between cute boy and saving the environment. Dawn was easily the most boring babysitter. More boring than Mary Anne? Yes.

I guess the Colicchio thing makes the most sense, since I watched the last ten minutes of Top Chef last night (and didn’t tell Allison, because she was already bummed out, and her favorite got axed while my favorite won the challenge). Still! Chaperoning a field trip. That’s kind of hilarious.

This concludes another entry in Emily’s Dream Journal.

Today, I had a fight about an apostrophe, and I lost! Which is even more irritating because I was right! And no one cared! Why am I here, then? Fuckin’…fuck.

Like endless rain into a paper cup

So Starbucks, the evil coffee empire, is named for Starbuck, first mate of the Pequod, the whaling ship in Moby-Dick, which is all very literary and pretentious and lovely, but I don’t get it. Why is it plural? There was only one Starbuck. (Although, apparently, there’s another one on this Battlestar Galactica show everyone’s watching, which actually sounds like something I might like, but I don’t know if I care to get invested in a sci-fi drama right now. Also, this Starbuck is a girl. Weird.) If they want an ‘s’ on the end, because it sounds better, it should be Starbuck’s Coffee. Even though Starbuck had nothing to do with coffee ever. I read on Wikipedia that the founder dudes wanted the name of their coffee company to be Pequod, but that just didn’t have the right ring to it, so they snagged Starbuck. And made it plural. Whatever, it bothers me.

I just freaked out about this over there on Twitter, but it is bothering me, and I have a snobbish-nerd need to expound. All over the place lately, it seems, I am reading “lightening” when people are talking about lightning, you know the electrical flashes that come with thunderstorms. “Lightening” is actually a word, because “to lighten” is a verb, as in “Try lightening up about spelling and grammar mistakes, you freak!” Never! “Lightening” is the present progressive form of “lighten”—“lightning” is a regular old noun that should not occur in February in New England, but nevertheless, it, um, did. By the way, it’s spring today! And there are still piles of snow everywhere. And it won’t stop raining and/or snowing. “Droghte of March,” if only.

I miss group games of Trivial Pursuit. And then I think, “It would have been so much better if I’d more than two friends who drank in college.” My friends are such squares! Actually, three of them drank—no, four—but one of them never played board games with us (actually, maybe two of them never played board games with us), and the other one we do not speak of anymore, because she showed herself to be the biggest asshole to ever…exist. Wow, that insult went nowhere. Whatever, we graduated, and she turned into a giant jerk. So it was just me and the potato who were drinkers, really—and he wasn’t even into it that much. God. So. Lame. Thank god I hooked up with Mike the alcoholic after college and let the real fun begin! But I don’t think Mike and his friends would be very interested in playing drunk Trivial Pursuit. The best I can do for that is my grandparents and aunts—and it’s fun! But it could be funner if I had friends who would drink and play Trivial Pursuit.

Oh, so last night, Jess and I went to see A Fine Frenzy, even though both of us were sick, and Boston was wet and cold, but it was totally worth it. I’d already seen this girl twice, but only because she was opening for some other girl whose name I totally can’t recall at the moment, but this time she was, like, a bazillion times better. I have no idea why, really—she just sounded better. That girl whose name escapes me and her boys stole Alison’s drummer, Daxx, which made me sad, because he was my favorite thing about A Fine Frenzy’s performances, but oh well. I was on the wrong side of the stage to get to see him anyway. She played a brand new song at the very end that she wrote on guitar, and it was the first time I’d seen her play guitar, and it was such a good song. It had the kind of rambling country feel that “Closer to You” and “How These Days Grow Long” have, which made me think that perhaps she wrote it last fall. But it’s possible that she didn’t—except, it didn’t sound like any of her other songs. And I liked it better than all of her other songs combined. Hmm.

Anyway, I told that whole story just so I could tell this one: during her encore, Alison did “Across the Universe,” and it was lovely, about a billion times better than anything happening on American Idol these past two weeks (good riddance to you, Amanda!), and I kind of want an mp3p of it now, because my new thing these days is lovely women who sing Beatles songs. I need to get my hands on more lady versions of Beatles tunes. It’s even better when they don’t change the gender-specific pronouns. I used to have this mp3 of Cyndi Lauper doing “Strawberry Fields,” which was splendiferous, mostly because I love Cyndi Lauper, and oh my god, I’m still not telling the story!

After the show, as Jess and I were waiting in the rain for the train (I can’t resist a cheap rhyme), she told me that she didn’t know that “Across the Universe” was the name of the song. Even when the movie came out, she was like, “Huh. That’s interesting—I wonder why they called it that.” And I was just laughing my ass off, and I was like, “What did you think the name of the song was?” and just as she answered my question, I answered it for myself, “Nothing’s Gonna Change My World.” I don’t know why I find that so amusing—Jess is so literal sometimes. Also, “Across the Universe” is a big deal song! But this is from the girl who thought Led Zeppelin was a guy. I loved Carlos’s reaction to that: “No, Mrs. and Mr. Zeppelin did not have a baby and name him Led.” Oh, Jess. She’s so precious.

Lady Sings the Beatles:
Hold Me Tight – Evan Rachel Wood
It Won’t Be Long – Evan Rachel Wood
Why Don’t We Do It in the Road – Dana Fuchs
Helter Skelter – Dana Fuchs
Blackbird – Sarah McLachlan
Mother Nature’s Son - Sheryl Crow
We Can Work It Out – Heather Nova
I’ve Just Seen a Face – Brandi Carlile
I Want to Hold Your Hand – Brad & Nikki Boyer (Nikki is the one who sings.)

Regina did a Beatles cover for one of those, like, save Darfur charity albums, but I can’t remember which one. Maybe she did “Imagine”—should that not count, then? Since it’s not the Beatles, just John? Also, I clearly need to get Fiona’s “Across the Universe,” which is really the only non-Beatles “Across the Universe” worth having, but, um, I’ll get to it. Right now, I need new and different lady Beatles covers. Where even do I begin?

Brandi and linguistics

All right, so I've been convinced that in a few live versions, Brandi sings "I'm so sad since she went away," but then I started thinking about how the girl isn't the clearest enunciater, and I realized that there's a linguistic explanation for why I hear "she." First, she pronounces "you" more like "yew," so you get a long 'e' sound in there. But there's this thing that happens in people's pronunciation sometimes when the 's' sound is immediately preceded by the 'y' sound--the 's' and the 'y' kind of blend to get the 'sh' sound, as in the word 'tissue.' So you take "since you," and it comes out of her marbly mouth as "sinshew," which you could easily miss hear as "since she," since you'd give the 'w'-ish sound to the next word, "went." I forget the linguistics term for that mashing up of sounds--I learned it in my study of the development of the English language. I learned a lot of things in that class--and then promptly forgot them.

Oh, college. Only useful in my nerdy blog posts.

Things I thought!

I love how everyone who isn't from New England spells Worcester with an h. Do they pronounce it Worchester too? Wooster, y'all, with the double o like in book.

Speaking of books, I need a new one to read. I'm re-reading Many Waters and Annie on My Mind, because they are beloved, but I also would like to read something brand new. I think I'm over The Other Boleyn Girl--historical fiction is usually not my thing, even though Elizabethan England is one of my favorite historical periods. But since this is pre-Elizabethan, it does not hold my interest. Even though it, uh, leads directly to Elizabeth's existence. Whatever!

So I finally saw half an episode of Idol today, and oh my god, Danny Noriega is the textbook definition of a fagtron. Seriously. That was such a drag queen performance. I felt like I was at the 3. He also reminds me of Ian Cheever, somehow, though Ian is cuter. And red-haired. And really looks nothing like Danny Noriega, but reminds me of him nonetheless!

This is one of my favorite stories about language ever. I probably have already told it, but I feel compelled to retell it. Sophomore year of college, in my conversational Spanish class, we were talking about regional word usage, and the one boy in the class, Eddie, talked about "wicked," and how in New England, it is totally an adverb and not an adjective. He said one his friends said something like, "My mother is wicked," and Eddie felt like he was left hanging. "Wicked what?" he asked. I love it. "Wicked" is a qualifier, not an adjective. It's my favorite regionalism, I think.

Tugging her collar like it might be a noose

So. You know how people will say “aks” for “ask”? They’re not that wrong. That used to be the spelling and pronunciation of the word. Ugh, and there’s a linguistics term for when two letters get switched that I can’t remember, but that’s what happened to ask. It used to be aks; then the k and the s got switched, and now we say ask. What I don’t understand is why that hasn’t happened with the spelling of Wednesday. Does anyone actually say “Wed-nes-day”? No. Everyone switches the n and the d, so we get Wends-day. I know Wednesday comes from some Norse god—Woden, I believe—and that’s why it’s spelled that way. Methathesis! That’s the word, for when you flip consonant sounds. Now I can’t find confirmation of that ask—aks story, because apparently, ask comes from the Old English ascian, which I kind of remember learning, but why would Dr. Chaika lie to me? Maybe it got methathesized to aks in Middle English, then back to ask for Modern English. I do feel like the aks thing happened in some Middle English text we were reading rather than an Old English one. Okay, so I found it in Chaucer, so I didn’t make it up. So I think the moral of this story is that for as long as the word “ask,” has existed in English, it has been methathesized to aks. So stick an effin’ sock in it. Lemme aks you a question!

Why don’t we spell Wednesday the way we say it? Because it is too late to revise spellings? The dictionary has standardized the English language! Standardized spellings did not exist until, like, the 18th century! Madness! So did they say Wednesday in the 18th century? When did it get methathesized to Wendsday? These are things I need to know but don’t feel like looking up! I need a minion/research assistant. I’m sure there’s a grant for that.

In Futurama, a thousand years later, it has methathesized back to aks! It’s a frickin’ yo-yo! I’m in a glass case of emotion! I…don’t know. Er, next!

Here is the one full-on country song that I LOVE: “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. I love it so much that if I had any kind of musical talent, I would play it in coffee shops. And I would go back to El Paso just to play it there. And, uh, to see Carlos. But! It commits a sin worse than being a full-on country song. The song has a first person narrator, right, and at the end of the song, the narrator dies. I hate that shit! Then, who, exactly, is telling your story, Mr. Cowboy-Outlaw Man? I love that song, though. I really do. I feel I have done some serious growing during the past year or so since I have graduated college. Now I can love things in spite of the fact that they do things that irritate the holy hell out of me! Like “El Paso,” Brandi Carlile (in spite of her suspected illiteracy), and Kelly Clarkson’s song “Don’t Waste My Time.” I am all mature and shit now. Woo! I rule!

Let us rejoice, shall we? For I do not have to work tonight! But I have some major cleaning to do. Which might be even less fun.

I started losing sleep

Today, I was doing some early-morning proofreading of something that had not been written by our copywriters, and I came across this gem: "occupy's." I actually underlined it and wrote "really?" but then I also corrected the spelling, just to be helpful. "Occupy's"! What the fuck? That is not a typo--that is pure idiocy.

In New Hampshire, we have two license plates to choose from: one with the deceased Old Man in the Mountain and one with a moose and a mountain pond scene. The moose is on the left side of the license plate, and then your letters and numbers go next to it. So, on the way to work yesterday, I saw a car with a moose license plate that said "& SQURRL"--brilliant. I laughed for a good minute, and I tried to take a picture with my phone, but the car had gotten too far ahead of me.

Speaking of things I saw on the back of cars, today I encountered a giant navy blue truck with a bumper sticker that read, "NRA: the front line of freedom" or something, and I just wanted to rear-end him. I get that way whenever I see pro-life bumper stickers, too. Oh, yeah, the NRA is all about protecting freedom. What the fuck ever.

So I watched the latest episode of The L-Word, and I want to say like, "Finally! A girl who isn't throwing herself at Shane," but they're totally going to end up fucking next week. Shane was cuter this week than she's ever been, but I still don't get it. Also, "Don't ask; don't tell" has got to be one of the most insulting official policies of the United States government in its history. It is beyond time to get that shit repealed. God dammit. You know I hate the idea of a standing military, but whatever, if you feel that that is the way to serve your country, you should be able to join up no matter what. "As if you could win a war without lesbians."

Everyone has an opinion!

A: oh my god have you slipped into an alternate universe?
E: an alternate universe? what even are you talking about?
A: haha, I'm talking about Tina Fey usurping the thrown [sic]

Tina Fey can probably spell "throne," too. Boo-yah.

Skip this one

Let's talk about something I discovered today: ItsDeductible tax-related software, from Intuit. It's bundled into TurboTax or something, but whatever--that's not the point. I don't care to discuss this product as a product; I want to talk about its name. First of all, what is up with shoving two words together to make one word? I find this convention ridiculously stupid, and it is all over the software world. Second--and this is my real problem--the apostrophe in it's has been eliminated. The way this is written, you're left waiting for the conclusion. Its deductible what? Donations? Socks? Coffee filters? WHAT? Here, this is what I mean: "He filed the company's taxes; he should have been aware of its deductible charitable donations." What Intuit means, though, is "it is deductible"--it's some tool that helps you keep track of your donations for tax-filing time. But that's not what the name actually says. Boo.

Um, sorry for that boringness, but that name really bugged the shit out of me. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, in all of the apostrophe abuse I've been seeing everywhere these days. The apostrophe is my pet punctuation cause, because people abuse it and discard it so carelessly.

Okay, so I am a whackjob, getting all worked about the helpless apostrophe like it's an abandoned kitten, but this is why I'm a professional proofreader, people.

G-d damn it, these stupid bags of chocolate gelt are so hard to get open. Never mind peeling the foil off of them.

I know I've talked about this before, but seriously, you guys. I hate Pink. Hate herrrr. That stupid song that I totally can't think of the name of right now, but is not the one about telling the guy the only action he's gonna get tonight is from Handgela, was on the Semi-Annual Sale CD at the good old BBW, so I had to listen to it all the time. It's a terrible song! Horrible! Someone kill it! "Big Girls Don't Cry" was also on that CD, and I wanted to die every time I heard it. I don't know what happened to that after hours CD that had Kelly, Regina, and Brandi on it, but I really wish we could just play that all the time. There was no Fergie on that one. There might have been Pink, though. Small price to pay to be able to belt "The Story" at work.

I don't drink hot liquids of any kind. That's the devil's temperature.

I finally watched an episode of Grey's when it aired, and I love Callie again! Mostly because she looked really pretty last night! And for the way she yelled at George. For some reason, though, on my tv, everyone looked like they had jaundice, but my stupid brother, home from college for a whole fucking month, has been hogging the HD tv since he got here. He fucked up my recording of Cashmere Mafia too, because of course the HD tv is the only one with the DVR. And there was more girlkissing! He sucks.

Anyway, they already did this Bailey's baby in peril storyline, and I do not like that Bailey has to have problems at home just because she's the awesomest surgeon who ever awesomed. No one on this show can have a relationship except for Meredith and Cristina. Theirs is the only one that works, and it is also the best one on the show. Meredith is whiny, but I seem to like her more than most people, but I will always and forever love Cristina. I also love how everyone in the hospital (that we know) loves Bailey so much that they're all freaking out about her baby. I love that Cristina loves Bailey so much that she finally became human and took care of Tuck when Hahn wouldn't let her in the OR. It was the perfect--and only--time for Cristina to act like Izzie.

I hate the way Derek treats Meredith, but I love his friendship with Bailey. Mostly, I just love Bailey.

I go back and forth on Hahn; I kind of love her friendship with Callie, but I do not love that she told Mark, "Yeah, I'd fuck you if we didn't work together." No. Don't give him anything, woman. Sheesh. Also, do not cross Miranda Bailey. The end. Goodnight.

So how awesome was 30 Rock last night? Tina Fey drunkenly singing "You Oughta Know" might be the highlight of the history of television. And then the group sing of "Midnight Train to Georgia," which was even perfecter because Gladys Knight showed up at the end to tell them to shut the hell up so she could take a nap. Tina Fey is the most brilliant woman ever.

Okay, so I know I pretty much had a geek orgasm all over Special Topics in Calamity Physics yesterday, but later that day I was devouring it, and Marisha Pessl used impact as a verb when she really meant affect--or have an impact on. Impact as a verb has a very specific meaning; it is not a synonym for affect, and I have made it my crusade as proofreader to eliminate this word in everything I read for work. So in order to continue to read this novel with so much promise, I crossed out "impact"with a pencil and wrote "affect" and continued on with my life.

Here is what the OED (which I can still access online with my PC ID!) gives as the number one definition for impact as a verb: "To press closely into or in something; to fix firmly in; to pack in." A third definition is, "To come forcibly into contact with a (larger) body or surface." That's all you get, okay? When you want to say something had an impact on something else, say that. Or use affect. Next!

Okay, so once again I have proven I have no principles, because I broke down and watched Cashmere Mafia online. Sorry, writers. I need some lesbian entertainment. I still won't buy DVDs though. I swear. Anyway. Miranda Otto and Lucy Liu are much better with deadly weapons in their paws. I need to watch Kill Bill and that one when Eowyn kills that thing that no man can kill, because she ain't no man, bitches! (Two Towers, right? I really wish she hadn't stupidly pined after Aragorn, but you never get truly perfect female heroes in stories written by men. At least she's badasseder than Arwen. Can we talk about how much I hate Liv Tyler? And how much I clearly need to read the books again? But that would be an undertaking and a half. It took me, the book nerd, three years to get through the trilogy, and most of that time was spent on The Fellowship of the Ring. This parenthetical is now longer than the rest of the paragraph.) Caitlin remains the best character (and not just because she's the maybe gay one)--she's also the only one who's ever funny. The girlkissing on the this show is really tame, and Caitlin gets a rather disproportionate amount of screen time. Sigh. Allison thinks the lesbian (Alicia, I think her name is) looks like Charisma Carpenter. I still don't see it, except for the hair. Maybe. Anyway, Caitlin needs an episode to focus on her. Also, Lucy Liu's old boss, Grant, was, like, the worst gay executive ever. Bah. I do like how tight all four of them are, though; those were always my favorite parts of Sex and the City, when all four them were together.

So apparently, Emily was the eighth most popular baby name for girls in 2007, and while it is true that Emily is a ridiculously popular name, at least it is not a fad name. There are a million women named Emily in every generation. Yell "Emily!" in Bath & Body Works, and you will get the attention of your five-year-old, me, and somebody's grandmother. That happens all the time, too: someone yells my name at work, and they're only talking to me half the time. The other times, it's some exasperated caregiver trying to wrangle an unruly child. (For the record, I was the least unruly child ever, but now I'm a huge pain in the ass, so I respond to the yelling.)

Anyone who can get me an mp3 of the cast of 30 Rock's "Midnight Train to Georgia" will win my everlasting love and devotion. Um, sorry that's all I have to offer.

Festive!

Okay, I just got the best fake myspace message, I feel compelled to share it, in all its [sic]ed out glory:

"hii.. basically i never ever likeed anyone from myspace and i clicked your profile from browse and i thought you were festive and found myself actually interested in you. lol i talked to my friend ash and she said to go for you and we should take a compatibility test first... anyways i believe in this kinda stuff so i made one for you its in my profile just look its big and green in my profile. if we match.. and you are interested in me contact me back. i promised ash i will not respond back to you until i get the official test results so if you send any msgs to me i wont get them until you finish. you seem perfect i never had this feeling before.. **im crossing my fingers**

~toodles"

"I thought you were festive" is my favorite bit. "Festive"! That's a new one. Anyway, I'm somewhat confused--like did this compatibility test she put on her profile just start spamming random myspace accounts? The girl's from Texas, and she doesn't seem to have any friends other than Tom, so I didn't get found through some six degrees of separation. Maybe she's not real? Maybe this whole profile is just an elaborate front for a spam compatibility test! "Festive"! I also love how she/it included a fake friend with a name so I'd totally think it was a real message. Though it is longer than most of the spam messages I've gotten. Ever.

Anyway, not like I'm looking to find love on myspace, people, but it would be fun to get one real person who at least thinks I'm cool. I am tired of being the only one! Also, if I'm going to fall in love on the internet, it is going to be when some hot, available girl who just happens to live in Massachusetts or New Hampshire comments on my blog. Though now that I've opened up the blog comments to anyone, I'm sure I'll get my share of blog spam too!

PS, future internet girlfriends, if you even want a shot with this, spellcheck your spam. Thanks!

"Festive"!

I never was cool

What did I tell you? If I bought a kitten, this would turn into a cat blog. I am now a crazy lesbian who likes her cat too much. At least I only have one. For now. And he's cute! So sue me.

Hey, so I finally accurately called the ending of a reality show! Of course, it was Shot at Love, so it's really nothing to be proud of, but two weeks ago, I bet the air in front of me ten bucks that Bobby would win, and the air in front of me has not paid up. That's what I get for making bets with things that are not even corporeal. So, hands up, who fell for MTV's attempt to make you think Tila suddenly changed her mind while making out with Bobby? Come on now. Not even she is that retarded. I can't believe MTV even tried. Also, she's a "singer/songwriter"? I indicate my disbelief with those quotation marks of sarcasm. Please. I believe model, but not singer/songwriter. Finally, could MTV be any more cliched? Lesbian love connection = Indigo Girls? At first, I kind of thought it was hilarious, their lack of imagination, but now I just find it gross. The Indigo Girls are too good for MTV reality trash. Of course, I still laughed all the way through "Least Complicated" last night--I don't take these things that seriously.

Some other fool across the ocean years ago
must have crashed his little airplane

If Brandi and the Indigo Girls were going to Texas, that would be a good excuse to go see Carlos--and drag him to the show. He likes the Indigo Girls a lot, though--and we played Amy Ray's solo album on Girly Sounds when it was in the add bin. And! We played a live version of "Shame on You" and totally forgot to censor that f-bomb Miss Ray drops. Whatever--I think that was when we had our radio show on, like, Sunday morning, and no one was listening. Jess told me she called him during Brandi's set at PC to get his butt down to wherever they were playing (where were they playing? the Alumni gym? Slavin lawn? I don't even know), convinced he'd love her, but I think he was just like, "Yeah, she's good." Oh, Carlos. I wonder if Josh was there. I'd think he'd have apprecianted that the girl tours with a cello player. However! Even if they were going to Texas, I kind of doubt they'd make it to El Paso--or anywhere near El Paso. Damn Texas is so huge. I'd have better luck dragging him to a show if they ended up in, like, Albuquerque. But is that any likelier than their appearing in El Paso?

Darker than night were the eyes of Felina
Wicked and evil while casting her spell

Do you know what I can't stand? (Many things, but here's just one.) When the phrase "all right" is written as one word: alright. It's not a word, people, just like "alot" is not a word. It's a phrase. Composed of two separate words. I also can't stand when people put apostrophes in plural words for no reason, like words is now word's. I hate that even more than your for you're. Seriously. Speaking of things I can't stand: why do people still use emoticons? They make me break out in hives. When I had a livejournal, my bio consisted of a quotation of a diatribe against emoticons lifted from the pages of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Oh my god, I am such a nerd.

I don't wanna be the sober one
I don't wanna be your only one

Oh! And while we're still speaking of things I can't stand, let's move on to a lesser category: things that bug me--in songs, when a word is rhymed with itself. Avril Lavigne is the only perpetrator I can think of at the moment, because Carlos and I totally bonded over this issue while Jess made us listen to that song of hers that was on the radio senior year. I can't remember the name or any words or even the melody, but she rhymed a word with itself. And lately, it's happened in that Victoria's Secret commercial with the model babbling about the air bra or whatever the hell it is, and she rhymes air with itself. Hideous. The remedy for this is changing the word before the ending word and pronouncing them together, like they're one word that happens to rhyme with the word at the end of the preceding line. That makes it somewhat okay--because repetition can be necessary in a song or poem. I can't think of an example right now--those lines I spewed forth above don't really qualify, but they don't bug nearly as much as that Avril song or the Victoria's Secret commercial, because the repetition is necessary. Or I'm giving Brandi a pass. You decide.

I don't think most of that paragraph made any sense... Oh, well. Next bitch!

Speaking of next bitches, I bought Lizzy's album on cdbaby.com, and it's good. Weird like Lizzy--but good. Naturally, "Next Bitch" is still my fave. I miss when she would just hang around Dore, playing her guitar--once she even played Jen and me to sleep while we decided to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. She's good peeps, Lizzy Picciallo is. Heh, and then another time, she, Carlos, Katrina, and I got baked at Katrina's house in the middle of the day, and we ate crunchy peanut butter sandwiches, and Carlos started freaking out in this way that was really hilarious, because I was too stoned to, like, decide if he was really freaking out or just being a doof. Drugs are bad for that boy.

That's not what I said
and that's not what I meant
To be honest
you lack substance

This quotes/lyrics in between paragraphs thing is probably not the new format for blog entries. It's just something I feel compelled to do right now. I have quotes and song lyrics tumbling around in my head at all times, and sometimes I just need to get them out.

I love it when snow has an ice covering, because the ground gets all smooth and shimmering, and then it's fun to, like, bust through it with your tattered Dr. Marten. It's also fun when it holds your weight, so you can walk on it gingerly, just waiting to fall through. Although that's more fun when someone's walking ahead of you, and he's the one who falls through. Whatever, people falling down is funny. I never said I went for highbrow humor. Or highbrow anything, for that matter.

We're livin' in a powder keg and givin' off sparks!

Those lyrics have nothing to do with anything, but "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is on the radio right now, and I love that line. So dramatic! You know what other song I forgot I loved? "Somebody to Love" by Queen. I heard it last night in my brother's car--my sixteen-year-old brother listens to classic rock stations. I suspect that this has something to do with Guitar Hero. (Also, is Guitar Hero hard? It sounds like the kind of video game I could get behind, but I have no sense of music timing and no finger coordination. So it's probably not hard, but it would be hard for me.) I should have asked for iTunes money for Christmas, because the way I sit at work downloading whatever song pops into my head gets expensive. (No I did not just download "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Hearing it on the radio is enough for me.)

Ever since I started bitching about the film version of The Golden Compass, people searching things related to it have stumbled upon here. I got two variations of "why did the master try to poison Lord Asriel?" and one about Mrs. Coulter and one: "who put the spyfly in the tin?" Well, to that last one, I say, intrepid googler, that that was Farder Coram. Now. Why did the Master try to poison Lord Asriel? That is a good question. Most likely because he thought that if Lord Asriel didn't set off for the North to, you know, build his bridge, he could prevent Lyra's destiny, because he loved Lyra and wanted to keep her safe. And clearly, the only way to stop Asriel is to kill him. But, um, if the alethiometer told him what was going to happen to Lyra, then it was going to happen. And it did happen, precisely because he tried to kill Lord Asriel. Oooh, fate is weird, innit?

By the way, none of you has predicted the future and told me the fate of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass as films. I hate to say this, but I'm disappointed in all [three] of you.

Sometimes I wonder how I ever started lovin' you

I think this is in serious contention for best song title ever: "You're Pretty Good Looking (for a Girl)." I could never explain to you why I find the White Stripes' music so amazing--because I can't explain anything about music--but I love them so. Song titles like this just bolster the love some more.

If Ben Folds's audience participation bit in "Army" went head to head with Brandi and the boys' in "Turpentine," who would win? If the "Turpentine" bit went head to head with the "Not the Same" bit, Brandi and the boys would win, I think, but Ben's "Army" thing is so fun. Why is everything a competition for me?

When Canada is dead and gone, there'll be no more Celine Dion!

Forgive me if this is totally wrong, but I swear to god I heard Celine Dion singing "Feliz Navidad" on the radio yesterday, and now I'm too frightened to look it up and confirm. That song is awful enough as it is, but if Celine Dion is singing it? Shudder.

Speaking of Christmas music, though, I felt compelled to make a mix CD of songs that don't give me hives for the holidays:
1. "Welcome Christmas" - All the Whos down in Whoville
2. "Baby, It's Cold Outside" - Leon Redbone & Zooey Deschanel
3. "What's This?" - Danny Elfman (from The Nightmare Before Christmas)
4. "Donde esta Santa Claus?" - Guster
5. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" - Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan
6. "I Saw Three Ships" - The Chieftains with Marianne Faithfull
7. "The First Noel/Mary, Mary" - Sarah McLachlan
8. "Spotlight on Christmas" - Rufus Wainwright
9. "2000 Miles" - The Pretenders
10. "Twelve Days of Christmas" - John Denver and the Muppets
11. "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" - Thurle Ravenscroft
12. "I Want an Alien for Christmas" - Fountains of Wayne
13. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" - Mariah Carey
14. "What Child Is This?" - Sarah McLachlan
15. "River" - Joni Mitchell
16. "Blue Christmas" - Bright Eyes
17. "The Heartache Can Wait" - some chick named Brandi
18. "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" - Martina Sorbara
19. "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" - Sixpence None the Richer
20. "One More Sleep 'Til Christmas" - Kermit the Frog
21. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" - The Pretenders

Light on the Jesus, but I do still love some of the traditional songs. The best part of that Muppets' "Twelve Days of Christmas" is when they all join in for the "ba dum bum bum" after Miss Piggy wails "five goooooooold rings." I love it. (That's a good album title, right? No Hives for the Holidays? I'm a genius.)

Battle of the Bands IV

Special double edition today, because it's Friday, and there are only three E songs!

D
“Desire”: Ryan Adams vs. Zwan
The Decision: You know, I don’t really have anything to say other than this is not my fave Zwan song.
Winner: Ryan Adams

“Does He Love You?”: Kelly Clarkson & Reba McEntire vs. Rilo Kiley
The Decision: This was an awesome battle, because not only do the songs have the same title, but they’re also about the same thing. But, seriously, Reba’s song is one of the reasons I hate country music, but it’s Kelly Clarkson dueting with her, y’all, instead of Linda Davis, and I saw the music video recently, and it’s kind of awesome, because Reba blows up a yacht, containing her cheating husband and that skank Linda Davis, at the end. That’s a good way to get revenge on your cheatin’ man and his girlfriend if I ever heard one. However. We’re not comparing music videos here. And even Kelly Clarkson singing a terrible country song can’t save it. Plus, this Rilo Kiley song is good even without all my hateration of country music to buoy it up. (Did I just say “hateration”? Yes I did.) Yes, even though it has the exact same theme as Reba’s song. Whatever. Rilo Kiley did it better, making you sympathize with both the wife and the girlfriend. Plus, no country-ness!
Winner: Rilo Kiley

“Dog-Faced Boy”: Eels vs. Phish
The Decision: Well, this is one of the only Eels songs that survived my recent iTunes purge, but I’ve been partial to this Phish song since I was ten. Tough, tough, tough!
Winner: Phish

“Down”: Ben Kweller vs. Stroke 9
The Decision: You know, I’m not quite sure why I still have this Stroke 9 album (I bought it way back in…the last century possibly for that “Little Black Backpack” song, and none of the other ones were as good). And I’ve yet to hear a Ben Kweller song I didn’t like—and I even like this one a lot.
Winner: Ben Kweller

“Drive”: Dispatch vs. R.E.M.
The Decision: Oh, man, I forgot how much I liked this R.E.M. song in high school. Goodbye, Dispatch!
Winner: R.E.M.

“Dumb”: Garbage vs. Nirvana
The Decision: Feh, I think I’m over Garbage. Plus, this Nirvana song is up there for me. Dumb or happy? It’s a fine line.
Winner: Nirvana

E
“The End”: Ryan Adams & the Cardinals vs. The Beatles
The Decision: Here’s a reason I like country music—Ryan Adams and his band doing country-ish rock ‘n roll. I don’t think I’ve ever really listened to this song, but I totally dig it. I don’t know. It might be enough to beat the Beatles. (Hah—oh, that was terrible. I’m sorry.)
Winner: Ryan Adams & the Cardinals

“Everyday”: Lisa Loeb vs. Dave Matthews Band
The Decision: Bleh, I don’t like this Dave song. I might purge that whole album. I also don't like how both of them actually mean "every day" but have titled their songs "Everyday"--but I had to pick one.
Winner: Lisa Loeb

“Everything”: Lifehouse vs. Alanis Morisette
The Decision: I’m sorry, as much as I loved this Lifehouse song when I was seventeen (and I loved it), this Alanis Morisette song has lines that purposefully do not end in prepositions: “you dig everything of which I’m ashamed,” for example. No contest.
Winner: Alanis Morisette

Maybe Christmas doesn't come from the store

O to the m to the g, y'all, I am so glad I finally saw the runway portion of the Sarah Jessica Parker episode, because it featured my fave thing! Elisa saying, "I'm coming to your planet, but with gifts." I love her. I don't know that I could, like, be friends with her or something, but watching her on tv is magical. I also like how she took Tim's and Sweet P's advice--she may be crazy, but she knows when she needs help, and all in all, she seems really sweet, just a little out there. Also, the other best part of the runway was Heidi's telling Marion and Steve that their outfit looked like it came out of the basement. Where does she get this stuff? I heart Heidi. And Sarah cringed when Heidi said that! She must be feeling some kind of empathy for these guys--she couldn't be mean to them or even watch Heidi be mean to them. (I can watch you be mean to them all day, Heidi--keep it up.)

Ryan pointed out another reason to hate Christian: he doesn't listen to Tim Gunn. Um, my friend, if you are on Project Runway, you are there to listen to Tim Gunn! Dammit. Seriously, that's the advice all the veterans give to the new designers: listen to Tim. And whenever you don't listen to Tim, it bites you in the ass. He told Christian his design was too retro, and that is exactly what Nina Garcia and Michael said on the runway. The only time this didn't happen was when Keith didn't add anything to his outfit and won the "make a dress out of your apartment" challenge in the third season. Whatever. The one time Tim Gunn was off. Plus, Robert and Uli's dresses were better. Anyway!

Motherfuckin' Brandi Carlile wrote a Christmas song, y'all, in the vein of "River," so you know I totally love it. She even plays it on the piano, just so I can associate it that much more closely with "River" in my head. I love to inject a little melancholy into Christmas. Especially these days, since I kind of hate Christmas. Believe me, if Christmas really were about peace on earth and good will toward men, if it could come "without packages, boxes, or bags" I would be all about it. But it's not, y'all. It's about buying things. And that makes me ill. The Grinch thought that's what Christmas was about, and he was right. I wish he weren't. Plus, I've become totally disenchanted with Christianity, so Christmas has lost even more meaning for me. And I've been hearing people talking about getting all their Christmas shopping done since October. Why do you have to buy all this shit to tell people they mean something to you? Working in retail is really ruining Christmas for me. Also the fact that I don't believe in Santa any longer. Christmas has totally lost its magic now.

I think I need a good dose of The Polar Express; that always breaks through my cynical little heart and maybe makes me cry at the end (the book, not the horrifying movie--but did I even have to tell you that?). However! It is still November. It is not Christmastime yet, dammit.

Hah, there are even official lyrics for Brandi's new song, and someone proofread them before sending them off to the internet. Apostrophes in the right place, no spelling mistakes, love it. Although, I did find further evidence that girl can't spell: before "Same Ol' You" in Bellingham, she was singing snatches of country songs I don't know, and one of them included spelling the word surprise, which she fucked up. But she knew she fucked it up. And it was funny.

I always forget this, but I have such a crush on Winona Ryder. Especially when she played my literary hero number one, Josephine March. Not so much in Edward Scissorhands, though. What is with the blonde hair? I don't know why I forget this, because when I first saw Keira Knightley, I thought she looked a lot like Winona Ryder. Which one is prettier? It's difficult to say.

Don't let me down

Okay! Here's a post devoid of my weird internet issues, I swear.

So I finally watched a new episode of Grey's, and it was surprisingly good. It was worth all of it to see Callie and Cristina bunking together at the end--and Cristina telling Callie that she does mind if she cleans up the slob's apartment. However, if Callie has the millions of dollars, why is she sleeping on Cristina's couch? And why did she live in the basement of the hospital? Did she and George ever move out of the hotel? Whatever. I like Callie and Cristina bonding; I like Cristina giving Izzie the cold shoulder; I like George when he's interacting with anyone but Izzie. I don't like Bailey's marriage problems, but oh well. She is still Bailey. And the chainsaw to the foot thing was more than I ever needed to see! Christ.

Seriously. Is anyone rooting for this George and Izzie pairing? Anyone? Because it is making me dry heave. I don't see anything between them. At all. I forgot, too, that Alex lived with Meredith and Izzie these days. I like that.

Also, I need to talk about this new blog I found, thanks to blogger itself. The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. It's bangarang, because one of things that bugs me most in my life is that people seem to think quotation marks should be used to emphasize things. I even wrote an inarticulate livejournal entry on this issue way back in the dark ages of my internet writing. Quotation marks are used for two purposes: to quote something somebody else said and to indicate, basically, that something isn't what it claims to be. A "free" lunch, for example, is a lunch that claims to be free, but as we all know, there's no such thing, and so the quotation marks around free indicate that the lunch does, in fact, cost something. A free "lunch," on the other hand, is something free that isn't really lunch. It's just a bag of peanuts or something masquerading as your noontime meal. Anyway, the blog is hilarious. If you're a nerd like me, check it out.

Edited hastily to add this:
Stephen Colbert has his own flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Too bad Mike hates ice cream, or I'd buy him a pint. Maybe I'll buy him a pint anyway and eat it myself, but let him keep the carton!

I say these things so I can sleep at night

And now it is time, once again, for an overly dramatic post! (This one, though, is not about books.)

Oh my god, I can't believe I forgot about this until just now, because now I can't really remember the specifics (dammit), but, y'all. You know how I feel about the misuse of apostrophes (which is getting worse, I think). I saw a sign for something somewhere, and on this sign, a verb had an apostrophe in it. Like, it was just the singular form of the verb, not a contraction or anything. With an apostrophe. Like "write's" or something. What. The. Fuck!

Does anyone read anymore? I blame that on the nation's tenuous grasp on the English language. No one knows how to use punctuation. Also, I think on that sign, they didn't use an apostrophe when they should have, in a possessive or something. Blargh. It made me so angry at the time, that sign, that I turned purple and could barely tell Mike what I had just seen, and then I must have repressed it. Because it was awful! Like nipple hair or Rachael Ray's face*!

Dammit, I really wish I could remember where that came from, so I could go back and document it and post it all over the internet, because this madness has got to stop!

*Actually, I kind of love Rachael Ray. That was just something from Drawn Together.