Happy lunar new year...

Well, technically, it's now the second of the year, (you've gone and made a liar of me, happy?!) but since this is a continuation of my Wednesday, y'all are gonna have to make do with the day-late tidings. Also, I went back and forth between calling it Chinese New Year, but I think I like the sound of "lunar" better...not that I'm ashamed of my heritage or anything, seriously...but damn, those crazy-ass Chinese! [snigger] Anyway, sincerest wishes for all of you out there that this year beats the pants off the 4,701 that came before it. Here's to the year of the Cock, (specifically, the wood cock [titter] seriously, you can't make crap like this up...) and all the cockiness it entails. Also, I hope no one took garbage out on Wednesday, it's supposed to be bad luck to take your garbage out on the first of the year. The Chinese are a superstitious ass lot, they are...crafty bastards too, I'm telling you.

I have to agree with D's post on www.websters-online-dictionary.org pretty much being the absolute rockingest thing out there for word geeks (like us...she's so much cuter doing it than I am though!) I've been throwing words and phrases at it all day, and for sheer informational overload, you can't beat it. Sorry to keep misappropriating your links D, but you're just better at finding the cool stuff...go ahead and think of some way for me to make it up to you... ;)

Anyway, as far as neat things discovered on that site go, one new feature of this here page, Unmitigated Ramblings, is an instant define function. Just highlight any word or phrase, hit the letter "D" (and let it serve as a mental reminder to thank D for turning me on to these guys), and voila, like magic, the word's definition, etymology, and other random info, will appear. This might not work if you have a particularly effective popup blocker, I had to enable popups for just the blogspot page for it to work, but it's bad-ass...trust me. I'm fairly certain you won't get other random bad popups on blogspot anyway, because since they're run by Google, who's notoriously against doing things that are "bad", malicious popups will never be seen.

In fact, why don't you go ahead and try it now, I'll give you a word: niggardly. What's interesting, and this is the first time I've run into it, is that they're returning this page. What's weird about this response is that a) I don't think that niggardly is an adult word or in any way inappropriate for children, so what gives? And b) they have an interesting approach to the age check: this is the text of the page you get:


I'm sorry, the word you requested may be inappropriate for children
We require a password to view the page.
The answer to any of these questions is a valid password for this page:

1. Cher's former partner's last name (4 letters)
2. The cube root of twenty seven (5 letters)
3. The "incident" before the Vietnam War (6 letters)
4. The theory that physiology and physics are drivers of economics (15 letters)
5. A good mustard (5 letters)


Off the top of my head, I only know numbers 1 (Bono), 2 (three, but I like "the seventh root of 128" better for the question there), and 5 (dijon, or perhaps honey, a last-minute contender). So what are the other two? Number 3...Korea? Too few letters... Watergate? Too many. Sino-Japanese war? Boxer rebellion? Way off! WTF? Number 4? Heavens, I don't even know where to begin on that one...Going to have to appeal to my intellectual readers here (ironically, reading this crap probably saps brain cells and now I'm asking for help? That's rich!) to help me answer these burning questions! I don't even know where to start looking for info online! But my point is that I know plenty of "adults" who couldn't answer any of those and are then excluded from finding out what "niggardly" means. And arguably, those are the people who most need to know! Conversely, tons of children/minors/underage folks have heard and/or seen Grey (Gray?) Poupon ads, and could probably pull "dijon" out of their asses, so while the staff gets points for originality and good ideas, the execution is a little weak. Either way, help me answer questions 3 and 4...maybe there will even be a prize involved...if I can think of something clever, and largely depending on the gender of the prize recipient...if you know (or think you know), post the answer(s) in the comments, as others might be curious as well...and this way we'll have a record, in case the prize end up being bitchin' and the inevitable disputes should arise.


Please try and refrain from intentionally picking ones that are misspelled, as that just makes me look bad...and I don't need any help in that area, thankyouverymuch. But now aside from the obvious typos, y'all will be able to spot my mistakes, using the wrong homophone, typos, etc. But don't take this as an indication that I want to hear about it or will fix it, but its something entertaining for you guys to do as you read. Call it a gift. Have fun with it.

Don't ever get oxytocin and oxycontin (oxycodone) mixed up (or say one when you mean the other) in the presence of nurses...turns out despite the caregiver mentality so many of them exhibit, they're kind of merciless when they're laughing at you.

I wonder if Colombian hottie Jessica is back yet...I should give her a call...

Holy crap, there are some filthy hotties on myspace...damn...they're crazy with the network invites, too...but then again, when I was on friendster, there were tons of attractive women there, too...but they weren't as outgoing...hrm...

OK, disjointedness rising...hour latening...time for bed.

Guten Morgen...and oh yeah, it's my late Mother's birthday today; she'd have been..let's see...57. [tear] Happy Birthday, Mom...miss you. [bawl]