Brown Christmas

I’ve been singing the first half verse of this since I was a kid because, while we do get snow fairly regularly where I live, it’s not usually white on Christmas day.  The dead, brown grass, and any leaves that haven’t been collected litter the ground, as well as the dirt itself, all lend to the general perception of brown.  It’s been a long time, but I finally decided to complete that parody started so long ago.  So, here’s my attempt:

 

I’m dreaming of a brown Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the winds will whistle
And children bristle
To hear “there will be no snow”.

I’m dreaming of a brown Christmas
With every card I send around
Enjoy the leaves still on the ground
And may all
Your Christmases be brown.

Torn, Faded Flag

Who will burn that flag?
That ragged, old, faded one,
That should be replaced.

I recently saw a flag that was so faded and torn that I thought it was a disgrace and should be replaced.

Nano Day 1

So, I started writing just after midnight last night and got 880 words written before I went to bed.  This evening I wrote some more and got to just over 1400 words written before midnight.   I’ve been writing some since then and now have 1776 words, which is enough so that I’m more than caught up for Day 1.  Yay!  Now I need to keep writing so that I can reach the goal for Day 2:  3333.  And I’m crossing my fingers for luck.

Edgy Brownies

Here’s another Does it Work? that I found interesting; it’s the Edge Brownie Pan.  I like corner pieces, so I was glad to hear that this product works.  Some of the pieces even have three edges!  YUM!

Beatles Mania

In some ways I’m  too young to be a Beatles fan, but in other ways I’m not.  I’m not even 30,  but I grew up listening to all kinds of oldies, including the Beatles.  My mom loved them and had several of their albums.  I remember listening to the red and blue LPs growing up.  And I  have several of their albums on CD of my own.  I love their style, and the fact that they always seemed to have fun  making new-sounding music.

Journalists’ Homecoming

I’m glad to hear that the journalists that were being held in N. Korea have been released.  But, I have to admit, when I first heard about it, I thought I heard wrong.  When I heard that Laura Ling was being held, I wondered if they meant Lisa Ling.  I used to watch Lisa Ling on Channel One News, but I’d never heard of her sister Laura.  I wonder how common it is for siblings to go into the same profession, and only one of them becomes well known (or, at least, well known to me).

A Sad Farewell

I recently lost a friend
But not in the permanent sense
Leastwise, not by death
But, perhaps more permanent for it
He chose to cast me aside without a care;
With faulty reasoning
And little explanation
He destroyed what was there;
While there is much I’d like to say
Not of it would do any good
So I give up, without a fight, on something
I thought was precious and rare
Because it obviously wasn’t
Leastwise, from his point of view
And I have to live with that too.

I say a sad farewell
So long, goodbye
Never again to say hi.

Cliques Abound

Big Brother 11 [Back to High School] started up recently.  I missed the first episode because I was busy, but I caught the most recent one, and I fear I’ll be pulled back in (when I’m free to watch it) even though I don’t like very many of the people.  I know which group I’d be pigeonholed in, the ‘brains’, and with good reason, I’m a self-identified nerd; but I don’t even like everybody in that group.  I might be able to get along with the girl in the ‘offbeat’ group, but I don’t know for sure about that; and I don’t think I’d get along with either of the guys in that group.  The light haired girl in the ‘popular’ group hasn’t made an impression on me one way or the other, but I don’t like the other two in that group.  And as for the ‘athlete’ group, I don’t like the bald one, I don’t think the second-timer is as stupid as the rest of them think he is but he could still be played, and I’m uneasy about the other two.  I think the second-timer won’t win because the others will eventually evict him for the simple fact that he’s been there before and they’ll think he doesn’t deserve to win this time because of that.  Beyond that I probably wouldn’t be any good at guessing who will win.

As for the ‘have vs have not’ competition, I was expecting worse.  I was expecting them to have to live in the back yard, and not be allowed to shower at all, or even for it to be a pseudo-Survivor thing.  As it is, they get to take showers, albeit cold ones, and sleep on padding, instead of the cold, hard ground.  They don’t even have to pitch tents, or jerry-rig their own shelter; so, I think it could be much worse.  The girl that had a hissy-fit about the conditions really annoyed me because of that fact.  Then again, I’m a Mid-Westerner, so I tend to think that way anyway.  Now, I could see boycotting taking showers, but that would probably just annoy the other house-guests; or, taking sponge baths to minimise the contact with cold water.  But I thought the hissy-fit was over the top.

Now, back to the cliques idea; my high school wasn’t as bad about this as it seems to be elsewhere.  But I might see it that way because I refused to let other define me.  Sure, I’m a nerd, but that was self-realization, and I didn’t try to fit in with those people that I didn’t care for.  That tended to be the miscellaneous popular people who were popular for reasons I couldn’t fathom.  But I could see reasons to like a lot of the people who happened to be popular.  I was raised to independently assess people to determine if I liked them or not; so, the people I liked or didn’t like would have spanned all the cliques that they have.

But, another aspect of my high school was the fact that there was a lot of cross-over amongst the groups; or, at least, that’s how I saw it.  There were jocks in band and choir, and some were even in the musicals.  In fact, some people were in just about everything.  And popular people could be found in any of the groups.  Again, this is just my, probably skewed, assessment of how high school was; after all, I got along with most of my teachers, so my opinion on the matter probably isn’t completely accurate.  And the people I thought were interesting, may not be the people that other people there would think were interesting.

Oh, and there’s a clique quiz on the Big Brother site for anybody who wants to participate.  I’m probably not going to get involved, because I think you have to join up and I don’t feel like it right now.

I’m a Trekkie

At least, by the Luke Ski definition, I kinda am a Trekkie; although,I don’t do everything in the skit.  I’ve always considered the Trekkie vs Trekker debate silly, but I guess I don’t get why one is an insult while the other isn’t; to me they both just mean a Star Trek fan, unless you’re referring to the Luke Ski definition.  And if you’re referring to that, you could just as easily use fanboy or fangirl (his little blurb at the beginning pretty much says that), or maybe even nerd.  Most of the stuff in the skit is related to science fiction or fantasy, but there are a few things are about other ‘nerdy’ interests.  I’m loath to quote parts of it because he requests that people only quote the whole page, and even though I’ve linked to it, I feel I should respect that.

Right on Somher!

I recently read this and wanted to add my two cents, as it were.  Now, I haven’t seen the Transformers 2 movie yet, so I can’t comment on that; but the point that not every movie has to be made with the goal of winning all kinds of awards is a good one:

Not every film is going to be an Oscar Winner, not every film tries to be. Why does every movie need to wow us with its use of language, or showcase an actor that does nothing more than glower at the camera for 3+ hours? Why can’t some movies, just be movies, with the sole intention to entertain?

I have a brother who likes to complain about movies. And I try to explain to him that not every film has to get everything right or be historically accurate, or even has to get it close.  But he can’t seem to enjoy a lot of movies because he’s expecting too much from them.