Language can be so colorful and creative. I especially love euphemisms. Euphemistic phrases get the meaning across in the most amusing and often brutally direct way. Take the word “mouth” for example.
There is nothing more satisfying than telling a loud mouth to shut their pie hole (or cake hole for those of you across the pond). Of course, it’s probably more offensive to be on the receiving end.
I’ve lost count of the euphemisms for death. Let’s see, there’s pushing up daisies, taking a dirt nap, kicked the bucket, bought the farm, croaked, shuffled off the mortal coil, sleeping with the fishes, six feet under, gave up the ghost, sprouted wings, bought the pine condo, and so on and so forth.
I could get three or four posts just on the euphemisms for “stupid” alone. (And believe me, I will… eventually.)
So, how ’bout you? What are your favorite euphemisms?
BP has created a wonderful little model environment for their surveyorbots to roam around in. And you can control them over the web! The surveyorbot has a webcam, so you can see where your little bot is going. There is a little lag between when you send a command and when the surveyorbot responds, but it’s not too bad with broadband. You can even take snapshots of your little adventure. Here I am face to face with another surveyorbot that wants to ram me!
You can also find codes located on billboards throughout the environment that will provide you with 30 seconds of extra time to control the surveyorbots. Try your hand at BP’s Surveyorbots yourself!
So, in my internet travels, I happened upon the following video. My first reaction is “Why? Why take something fairly useful and turn it into something hardly useful at all? Why take an aesthetically pleasing Segway and put so many bike tires on it in the quest for a monster truck appearance?” And, of course, the next thought that pops into my head is “…because they can.” I dub thee “Redneck Segway”.
I’m a burger and fries kinda gal, but on occasion I get on a health kick and will start watching my calories, exercising, and generally try to take better care of myself. Here are some of the tools I use to keep tabs on my health and my fitness progress. Check back often, as I’ll add tools as I find them.
As some of you (“you” referring to the one person out there reading this blog) may know, one of our female budgies recently laid some eggs. At first, we were excited about the prospect of baby budgies. The first egg cracked, probably from being used for budgie soccer. A second egg was laid, then a third. We figured we had a good chance at getting a cute little baby budgie out of this.
We have since given up on the whole thought. In fact, we’re considering contacting Budgie Protective Services to report a neglectful budgie mom. LOL. The second egg has cracked and the third is currently being completely ignored for most of the day. Oh, mama tries. She does. She spends a few minutes a day trying to sit on the egg and/or figure out what to do with it. She even runs off any of the other budgies who try to get near it. But, I’m getting the feeling that she’s just not cut out to be a budgie mom. At least, not yet.
Still, all in all, it’s been fun watching the birds and seeing how they react, whether or not we get a baby budgie out of it.
When I was little, my parents took me and my siblings to Disneyland. We lived an hour’s drive away, so it was convenient. Back then, I was enthralled and mystified by the Blue Bayou restaurant. I really thought we were eating outside at night! I especially loved the fake fireflies. It is truly a magical place. One of my favorite items on the menu was the Monte Cristo sandwich. It was a big sandwich made of smoked turkey, ham, and swiss cheese, dipped in batter and deep fried. It was sprinkled with powered sugar and served with a fruit compote and jelly. Man, was it good!
I was craving one this weekend, as I hadn’t had one in quite some time. So, I looked up the recipe online (my mom has an old Disneyland cookbook, but I didn’t want to bother her to hunt it down) and I thought I’d share it with the one or two people who might be reading this blog. (Note: My hubby was able to create a decent facsimile of this recipe with tempura batter.)
The basic recipe for the sandwich is simple. For each sandwich, you need the following:
1 slice smoked turkey
1 slice ham
1 slice swiss cheese
2 pieces of white bread
The batter is made from:
2/3 cup water
1 small egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
These recipes, additional recipes for the fruit compote and jelly, and complete instructions can be found at RecipeZaar.com.
It’s not the most nutritious or healthy meal, but trust me. It’s delicious! So, if you’re in the mood to treat yourself, try a Disneyland Monte Cristo Sandwich.
P.S. I found a Disney cookbook at Amazon. It’s not the one my mother has, but it has over 350 recipes from around Disneyland and Walt Disney World, so it’s bound to have the Monte Cristo Sandwiches.
There are zillions of social networking sites now: MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Flickr, MeetUp, MyYearbook, and on and on. I barely have time for myself, let alone the hundreds of people who want to poke me, sell me, or whatever the hell they do at these places. They intrigue me, at least the concept does, but at the same time I’m repulsed. Let’s face it, my blog may have butterflies on it, but a social butterfly I am not. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of friends, and in the right crowd I can be the life of the party, but that just doesn’t happen very often.
So, that got me to thinking, they should have anti-social networks, where people would just leave you the hell alone. I thought that was such a clever idea, but apparently it’s been done before: Isolatr, Snubster, and the like. It’ll be interesting to see how those sites do. Most likely, they won’t do as well as the social sites. Humans are very social animals. We’ll have to wait and see how this all pans out.
Our oldest female budgie laid her first egg this week. We were definitely NOT expecting that and we had done all we could to discourage our flock from getting any bigger. But, the deed was done, so we were excited about the prospect of a baby budgie. Unfortunately, it appears that she or one of the other budgies pecked a hole in the egg. I checked it by helding it to a flashlight and it appeared to not be fertile anyway. I assume that she probably knew that and therefore destroyed the egg herself.
She laid another egg this morning before we got up. We’re hoping that she’ll take care of it this time and hatch a baby budgie chick. We may have to separate the younger female into another cage because she’s awfully curious about that egg.
It’s very interesting watching the dynamics between all four of our budgies (two female, two male). The suspected father isn’t paying much attention to the hen, except to try to mate, of course. He spends a lot of time with our younger female, while our older male is spending time with our older female, feeding her and everything. It’s very unlikely that he’s the father, if in fact the egg results in a chick.
Anyway, in case any of you reading this find this page as a result of looking for information about budgie care and breeding, here are some good resources that may answer any questions you have:
