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OnlyInYourHead
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Name: La Femme Nikita
Metro: Fargo
Birthday: 8/30/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: "looking it up"
Expertise: frozen dinners, making a mess of everything (literally and figuratively), coming across as pretentious, doing the right things for the wrong reasons
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/6/2003
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| Zandbroz = Danz bros.
like Mario Bros., but Jeff and Greg instead of Mario and Luigi
Also, I just decided that Greg Danz reminds me of David Bowie as Andy Warhol in the movie Basquiat, which is probably too convoluted to be funny to anyone but me. Good thing I find it hilarious. Even if you don't know what I'm talking about, I bet you'll still enjoy this:
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| Jack's being a real sweetie-pie. It's like he knows he only has a week of kitty cuddle time before I leave on vacation. Of course he doesn't really know that, but maybe he's picking up some of my "Awww, I'm gonna miss you while I'm gone" vibes.
I drove past the town's parade today, and it was fairly impressive. It was much better than the 4th of July parades that Moorhead has, which is good, because our 4-o-J parades are super lame. They don't put any effort into those since it's assumed that most people will go to Fargo's parade instead. Today's parade sort of acted as a living moat between me and my destination (home). I'm not anti-parades, but I typically am anti-taking-20-minutes-to-drive-the-last-three-blocks-home. If I have to sit in my car that long, though, it helps to have sparkly beauty queens and various-aged kiddos in Tae Kwon Do outfits waving at me or offering ice pops.
I'm having an odd reaction to the day. In general I am a very private mourner; I actually cringe a little when I see an online/public declaration of sad news. I understand the need for support groups, but I have trouble with what often looks like someone capitalizing on tragedy and fishing for (insincere? obligatory?) sympathy. Self-promoting, almost. Everyone deals with grief differently, of course, and I have to remind myself not to be judgmental or jump to conclusions about people's motivations, especially when they are sad. I think I've veered off topic, though. Today is weird because it's obviously not a private tragedy that's being dealt with. I have some fairly intense feelings and memories bubbling up, the sort that I would normally not even be mentioning on Xanga, but today is such a unique event. Clearly very public, very shared. I mean, there's a parade, and a festive one at that. I barely know how to explain other than saying that it feels surreal. My instinctual coping mechanisms are at odds with external forces, but I know that today of all days is a day to open up.
Anyway, I'm glad I saw part of the parade. And I feel very priviledged to live where I live. Not always proud, but definitely priviledged.
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| I'm sick of being stuck at home due to being sick (of being stuck at home due to being sick of...)
Also, I think I've gone a little stir crazy. Enough so that I decided to research the etymology of the phrase "stir crazy." Somewhat interesting. I suppose I could tell you about it,
but I won't.
It's that time of year again. The loud, littering college D-bags are back in full force, and they insist on having their bro-versations near my open living room windows, often into the wee hours of the night. I suppose it irks me just a little more this year since I am finally a real college graduate and no longer have to remind myself that they are my peers.
How did I become such a curmudgeon? Time for more Gatorade. Those statements were unrelated.
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| --Jorges Luis Borges In my childhood I was a fervent worshipper of the tiger: not the jaguar, the spotted “tiger” of the Amazonian tangles and the isles of vegetation that float down the Paraná, but that striped, Asiatic, royal tiger, that can be faced only by a man of war, on a castle atop an elephant. I used to linger endlessly before one of the cages at the zoo; I judged vast encyclopedias and books of natural history by the splendor of their tigers. (I still remember those illustrations: I who cannot rightly recall the brow or the smile of a woman.) Childhood passed away, and the tigers and my passion for them grew old, but still they are in my dreams. At that submerged or chaotic level they keep prevailing. And so, as I sleep, some dream beguiles me, and suddenly I know I am dreaming. Then I think: This is a dream, a pure diversion of my will; and now that I have unlimited power, I am going to cause a tiger. Oh, incompetence! Never can my dreams engender the wild beast I long for. The tiger indeed appears, but stuffed or flimsy, or with impure variations of shape, or of an implausible size, or all too fleeting, or with a touch of the bird or the dog. | | |
| Today I got a letter notifying me that I have to report to jury duty in July. I haven't even been done with school a week, and The Man is already giving me crap to do this summer. Bastards!!!
While I was online trying to resolve an "appendices vs. appendixes" discussion, I decided to look into the "flammable/inflammable" issue, something my dad brought up at lunch last week. (The question was about why they're used as synonyms when they sound like antonyms.) Here's what I found:
Flammable Versus Inflammable
"Flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing; they both mean "easy to burn." "Inflammable" is the original word, but then in the 1920s, according to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, the National Fire Protection Association started encouraging people to use the word "flammable" instead because they were worried people could mistakenly think "inflammable" meant "not flammable." They saw it as a safety issue. Academics were inflamed (get it?) because they didn't appreciate the Fire Protection Association messing with the language and promoting "corrupt" words. Perhaps they thought dumb people should die a fiery death if they went around holding matches to inflammable objects. Regardless, linguists have groused about "flammable" in usage books ever since. If safety is important and you really want people to understand that the thing you're talking about could burst into flames, it's best to use "flammable" or some other phrase like "burns easily." In other cases, you can use whichever word you like. (Taken from http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/flammable-versus-inflammable.aspx)
So it sounds like the word "inflammable" was created to mean "capable of being inflamed," and the prefix "in-" had nothing to do with the Latin meaning, but people were (legitimately) worried it would be misunderstood. The ironic part, in my opinion, is that having both "inflammable" and "flammable" in use makes it that much more likely that people will get confused...myself included. I didn't know any of this was an issue until last Friday. Fortunately I haven't burned down any buildings because of that fact. Wait a sec, that sounds like a good way to get out of jury duty!
For legal reasons, I will clarify that the previous statement was a joke.
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