No, when I say “The Sinister Minister” I’m not talkin’ about the professional wrestling manager, James Mitchell. I’m talkin’ about the song by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones! I ran across “The Sinister Minister” last week on iTunes when I was looking for some mood music. I wanted something a little funky, a little dark, a little mischievous for a story I was working on. Well, this song fit the bill. Once I heard it, I had to download it.

The Sinister Minister was very conducive to my creativity. I wrote about 8 pages one night (which is a lot for me). I just looped it and started cranking on the story. By iTunes’ count, I’ve played it 162 times already (and yes, it’s playing in my rockin’ Bose® around-ear headphonesright now!) and counting.

Take a listen and let me know if you love this song too!

Hey, here comes play #163! Hehehe…

With so many different languages and cultures around the world, sometimes things get lost in translation. This was very evident to me the other night while perusing YouTube. There is no end of videos, most of them pretty hilarious, that take full advantage of misunderstandings and mistranslations between languages. Here are a few of my favorite examples:

Dschinghis Khan’s “Moskau!” as “translated” into English by Buffalax. This isn’t really an English translation, but rather what the song sounds like if you assume it’s sung in English, which it isn’t.

The next video never ceases to crack me up.

And once again, Dschinghis Khan with “Samurai”.

Now, here’s a clip from Bulgarian Idol. Apparently, this lady is attempting to sing “Without You” by Mariah Carey. However, she calls it “Ken Lee” and well, her English pronunciation isn’t all that great. LOL.

A long time ago, I watched the great Mel Brooks movie “The Producers“. I recall my favorite character being Lorenzo St. DuBois as portrayed by the late, great Dick Shawn. I recently ran across a video clip of Lorenzo’s audition for Springtime for Hitler. This scene always makes me laugh. Shawn’s rendition of the song is funny enough, but coupled with his groovy dancing, the hip high boots, and the Campbell’s soup can hanging around his neck, and it’s just over the top. The song starts off lighthearted and lovely, but quickly devolves into a rant against society. I can relate. LOL.

I’m not sure, but I think the chick in the background with the guitar might’ve gone on to become one of the Robert Palmer girls.

And while I’m posting, I think I’ll play blog tag and challenge my friends to post an amusing video clip, some light-hearted musing, or something outrageously funny.

I think I’ve learned my lesson. Never, ever, under any circumstances, clip my budgie Peanut’s wings anywhere but the enclosed bathroom. The last two times I clipped them, she’s gotten away from me after the last wing was clipped and hidden away where we couldn’t get to her.

The first time it was under the fridge. Fortunately, that ordeal only lasted about 40 minutes and we were able to get her out once we figured the fridge rolled out of its spot.

This time, however, she made a break for the stove and it resulted in a three hour ordeal. We tried coaxing her out. We tried setting out seed. We tried putting the cage with our other budgies nearby so their calling would coax her out. No dice. So, we finally tried pulling the stove out, an ordeal in itself. Little did we know that there were holes in the side of the cabinets next to the stove. We spent the next two hours tearing the kitchen apart, trying to figure out how to get this scared little bird out alive while doing the least damage to our kitchen.

Fortunately, I was able to push back some particle board in the cabinet far enough to get a stick in and coax her backward to the space behind the stove. Before we could grab her though, she made a beeline for the space between the stove and the cabinet on the opposite side. At that point, she completely disappeared. We didn’t know if she was in the stove or in the cabinet. We tried probing carefully with a stick in both areas to find where she was. Nothing. We had no clue where she was and we just about thought all hope was lost.

We searched the stove. Nothing. We pulled it out as far as we could and my husband got behind it to check the cabinets. I got him a longer stick to probe with. At this point, I was in just about full panic mode and about ready to pass out from hypoglycemia (hadn’t eaten anything yet and it was late afternoon).

A few minutes later, a little squawk let us know that our wayward budgie was indeed under the cabinets. A few minutes of work sweeping the stick through the hole in the cabinet resulted in the appearance of a teeny little budgie head poking out the hole. My husband gently coaxed her out a little further, then grabbed her. As he stood up, he bumped his head on the microwave overhead and our little escape artist flew off, making another break for it. I caught her mid-air, held her close to my chest, and quickly hustled her into the bathroom to wash all the dust and gunk off her. Then it was back into the cage for her, where she’s now sitting nice and dry and sufficiently preened. She’s sitting, staring at me, no doubt planning her next escape.

Our little adventure resulted in a little “remodeling” of the kitchen, but we consider it an improvement. We’ve done away with the carousel in the corner cabinet and will be putting shelves in. Hubby cleaned up and put everything back in its place. We both took showers, I ordered pizza, and we crashed on the couch for the rest of the night.

This week, we’re going to Home Depot for some “bird proofing” supplies. I think we should change that little parakeet’s name to Trouble.

For some reason, tonight I got the urge to take a walk through the 80’s. I checked out some websites that listed top 40 hits for the era. I found some old favorites. I found some stuff that I couldn’t believe I actually listened to at the time. I found some of the videos on YouTube. It was a great trip down memory lane. Let me share some of it with you.

I’m sure I’ll be adding more posts on the 80’s. I’ll also be adding some lyrics from some of my faves in my lyrics section. In the meantime, feel free to comment and add some of your faves.

I Love a Rainy Night – it’s such a beautiful sight, love to feel the rain on my face, taste the rain on my lips.

Big Shot – Ok, not quite 80’s, but I was so into Billy in the 80’s. You hadda be a Big Shot, dintcha?

Hazy Shade of Winter – Nice Bangles cover of the Simon & Garfunkel tune. Hang on to your heart, my friend.

Roll With It – When life is too much, Roll with it, baby

I totally loved Level 42 in the 80’s. I still have one of their albums on vinyl somewhere.

Lessons in Love – I’m not proud, I was wrong, and the truth is hard to take.

Something About You – But making mistakes is one of life’s imperfections…

Running in the Family – Our dad would send us to the room, he’d be the voice of doom…

A little Georgia Satellites…

Keep Your Hands to Yourself – Got a li’l change in my pocket goin’ jang-a-lang-a-lang…

And who could forget Peter Gabriel?

SledgeHammer – You could have a bumper car bumping, this amusement never ends.

Somebody’s Watching Me – I’m just an average man, with an average life. I work from 9 to 5. Hey, hell, I pay the price…

Who Can It Be Now? – Who can it be knocking at my door. Go away. Don’t come ’round here no more!

Down Under – Do you come from a land down under?

Abracadabra – I heat up, I can’t cool down.

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.

BMI Calculator

Calorie Database

Health & Diet Reference at WebMD

Nutrition.gov

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.