Jun. 2: Oh, the gumminess

It’s all gummy, all the time ‘round here these days. It started with the cocktails Debi made in the hotel room the other night, which consisted of nothing gummy but somehow tasted gummy-licious. Then Deanna emailed me these little goodies (all the photos link to the sites in which they were found):

Who wouldn’t want a gummy bear chandelier? Can’t you just see this hanging in a museum somewhere? Or my house, where it wouldn’t last very long because I would eat that thing so fast?

I think I have to have this too, but I wouldn’t eat it. Well, maybe a little. Like, the ears look nibble-y. But the nails creep me out a little. I guess they could be used as toothpicks after a gummy meal.

That was kinda gross, what I just wrote. I’m sorry.

I like this chandelier even better than the first, but it’s made of acrylic gummy bears and where’s the fun in that? Not to mention the rotten sugar stink and the fruit flies? But this would last longer hanging in my house. I can’t promise there wouldn’t be a few bite marks here and there, though—I’d probably have to make sure they weren’t real gummy bears. I’d probably have to make sure several times, in several places.

These lamps are cute, but they’re obviously not real gummy bears and that means I can promise I wouldn’t try to eat them.

Because everyone wants to have gummy bear jewelry, right?

Speaking of wearing gummy bears, one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons is when the babysitter sits on Homer’s gummy Venus de Milo and when he picks it off her, she thinks he’s trying to grab her butt and accuses him of sexual harassment. Here’s a link to a blog in which an artist made tiny little gummy Venus de Milos! How cool are those?

Finally, there are a multitude of recipes out there for gummy bear-flavored beverages. I can honestly say I’d never searched for such a thing until I tried Debi’s creation last weekend, and I was surprised to see all the variations people recommend. One of my favorites isn’t so much a beverage as a charming little snack—vodka-soaked gummy bears. I’ve got some soaking right now, and will be posting the results in a few days when they’re complete, unless they turn out so delicious that I’m so drunk I can’t type. Ha → me on a vodka-soaked gummy bear bender.

Last night Jack asked if he could eat some of the bears and, of course, we said no. He argued that he occasionally has caffeine so what’s the big deal? Time for a little alcohol education, I think. And I’ll be keeping a close eye on my vodka bears now, too. DO NOT TOUCH MY VODKA BEARS!

Jul. 8: Where’s the “any” key?

When technology is giving me grief, there’s a small bit of consolation when I find out it was defective equipment and not something stupid I was doing that was wonking everything up.

From the Simpsons episode when Homer gets fat so he can go on disability:

Homer: [reading screen] "To Start Press Any Key". Where's the ANY key? I see Esk ["ESC"], Catarl ["CTRL"], and Pig-Up ["PGUP"]. There doesn't seem to be any ANY key. Woo! All this computer hacking is making me thirsty. I think I'll order a TAB. [presses TAB key] Aw... no time for that now, the computer's starting.

At least I didn’t cause a nuclear meltdown and then stop it with my giant muu-muu’ed ass, like Homer did. You’da probably read about it on the news if I had. Heh heh.

My oh-so-many curse-heavy outbursts this week can be blamed on a router that Linksys finally admitted was bad bad bad. Naughty, in fact. I exchanged it today for one that works, and voy-oil-ay, we’re on the Internet again. I’ve got my pretty curly apostrophes and quotation marks back. Hooray. I know you’re happy too.

Jun. 24: Words, words and more words

‘Member Sniglets? They were, like, THE thing for a little while back in the 80’s, thanks to Rich Hall and HBO’s Not Necessarily The News. Sniglets are words that belong in the dictionary but aren’t—words like todlitter (food debris residing under a high chair following an attempted feeding) and meganegabar (the line one draws after writing the amount on a check, to prevent the recipient from adding “and a million dollars”) and ignoranus (a person who’s both stupid and an asshole).

Sniglets were/are awesome. There’s probably a better word to describe them than “awesome,” but I don’t have a single one of the ten Sniglet books that were published way back when, so we’re going with “awesome.” Sorry.

Why do I mention these made-up words? Because in my last post I used the word-that’s-not-a-word “funner” and Lovely Lori H called me on it. She’s a total editor-snob, and that makes her way cool until I have to start defending my own word usage. When I told her that “funner” is a perfectly cromulent word, I GOT HER.

(What? You’ve never heard the word “cromulent” either? What is WRONG with you??? I mean, if you don’t watch The Simpsons, how do you know what to think about religion and politics? Gah.)

Some made-up words become such a part of our popular culture that we forget they’re not even real. I don’t mean words like “orientate” or “irregardless” or “supposably” or “whole ‘nother.” Those are letters that don’t belong together and that only friggin’ morons think are actual words. I’m talking about words like “Jazzercise” and “smackdown” and “hottie” and “unibrow.” These are words that have been added to English language dictionaries in recent years.

Cracked.com published a list of their top 12 most memorable words and phrases first heard on The Simpsons, some of which are now recognized by Webster’s. Kinda scary, huh? (Some of my favorites that didn’t quite make the list: debigulator, disembowelingest, embiggen, sacrilicious, Jeebus, shutterbuggery, and yoink. We use several of these on a regular basis in our household, along with fab phrases like “you can’t win friends with salad” and “Marge, honey-fräulein, I'm home.” Now don’t you wish you lived with us? It’s a laugh a minute, I tells ya.)

That list led me to a blog called Wordlustitude and it contains such fabulousness, I just can’t keep it to myself. My fellow word-lovers will enjoy it too, I’m sure.

Mark Peters (better known as wordlust on Twitter) is a language columnist for Good, a euphemism-collector for Visual Thesaurus, a blogger for Oxford University Press, and a Contributing Editor for Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. He has written about language for The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Esquire, The Funny Times, Good, Mental Floss, and Nerve. This blog is a growing dictionary of ephemeral words, also known as nonce or stunt words. All readers are strongly encouraged to use these terms (here's the index) in their blogs, poems, prophecies, and recipes.

If the first page of Mr. Peters’ posts don’t grab you, check out some of the links in his sidebar. I think he’s my new favorite dude! (So sorry, Vic—we were good for a few years, though.)

May 7: Gadgety links

• Are you a celebrity (or wannabe) and don’t know what to name your kid? Here’s some help: The Showbiz Baby Name Generator. Our results were Popo Manullang for a girl and Michaelmas Manullang for a boy.
  
• Want to see if you can handle the emo look? Click the image of me and Vic as emo kids below to make yourself look as freaky as we do. Note: I didn’t see where results can be downloaded; I saved the image as a screenshot and cropped it to publish it here.
  
  
  
• I stumbled across some family “photo” generators that are customizable and kinda fun. Also a little lame.
  
  
  My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com
  
  
   
  My Family from WiddlyTinks.com
  
• These next goodies are kinda cutesy-stupid, but my kids love them. The animation’s fun.
  
  
  My Family from WiddlyTinks.com
  
  
  My Family from WiddlyTinks.com
  
• Makes your own Simpsons character. I did this one today (click it to go to the avatar generator):
  
  
  This is the four of us I created a while back:
  
   
  Yes, I know I should’ve used the chubby woman’s body for myself, but I looked way too much like Lunchlady Doris and I just couldn’t handle it. And yes, I probably do look way more like Lunchlady Doris in real life than I ever hoped to, but we’re not going to talk about that right now.
  
  Here’s another Simpsons character generator. This one lets you do different kinds of customizing than the one above, and has a background that can be changed.
  
• While we’re on the subject of cartoon versions of ourselves, check out the South Park character generator at SP Studio. Some of my favorites created with this site are not my own, but fan creations published by a few actors from The Office:
  
  
   
  
• What’s the haircast? Here’s a widget that can help you decide how to style your hair today based on the weather forecast. Enter your zip code and hair type and find your best coif.
  
  
  
• I hesitate sharing this next one, and not only because it put my face on weird and makes me look totally creepy and cross-eyed. Consider it a gift, Shevaun. :)
  
  
  

 

All that junk oughta keep you busy for a while.

July 18: New caricature

Martin e-mailed me a pic of the Simpsons version of himself. I'd like to publicly (not pubicly) thank him for playing along with my little game. Sometimes I think I write this stuff and no one gives a crappity crap crap. Sometimes I think no one even reads it. Sometimes I think maybe no one cares about my recommendations, or follows my awesome suggestions. Sometimes I think I'm all alone in the world. [sob!]

Any-hoodle, I don't know if this Simpsons dude looks more like Martin than Flanders does, but what we see when we look in the mirror is a lot different than what others see. When I look at Martin I just think Thomas Magnum. 'Course, I haven't seen Martin in a long time. Maybe my memory's fuzzy.

Remember, you can make a Simpsons character of your very own at the Simpsons Movie web site. And then you must e-mail it to me. So says I.

--Jen

July 16: The Manullaaaaaaangs

You, too, could be a Simpsons character. Make your own avatar at the Simpsons Movie web site.

July 1: KMA, K-E-M

A few months ago I wrote about 7-11 stores transforming into Kwik-E-Marts to promote the upcoming Simpsons movie (view that post here). Today I read that the transformation is complete, and the stores are located in New York City; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Burbank, Calif.; Los Angeles; Henderson, Nev.; Orlando, Fla.; Mountain View, Calif.; Seattle; and Bladensburg, Md.

What? No Portland stores? I implore you, how does this possibly do me any good? Life's just one big disappointment after another, i-in't it?

I love you anyway (grrrrrr...).

--Jen

June 30: A car for the average family

For the entire two miles to Vic's parents' house in the Passat this afternoon, Katie and Jack screamed non-stop at each other over completely ridiculous matters. Vic and I were reminded of our upcoming road trip to Northern California and why we probably won't want to drive the Passat, where their bickering goes directly from the back seat right into our ears. We probably won't want to drive the MPV either because even if we banish them to the back row we'd still be able to hear them. In fact, it seems that our ideal car is the one Homer Simpson designed in a Simpsons episode from 1991. It features:

• rack-and-peanut steering
  
• a place to put drinks; not little cups, but those super-slurpers at the Kwik-E-Mart
  
• tail fins
  
• shag carpeting
  
• a horn "here, here, and here. You can never find a horn when you're mad. And they should all play La Cucaracha."
  
• a separate soundproof bubble-dome for the kids with optional restraints and muzzles
  
• a little ball on the antenna so you can find it in a parking lot (standard on all vehicles)
  
• ... and it cost $82,000 in 1991, so that'd make it about a million today, hm?

Yeah, if you have a better idea, we'd love to hear it.

--Jen

Mar. 29: Thank you, come again

This just might be a dream come true for Simpsons fans. Looks like 7-11 stores will be converted into Kwik-E-Mart stores to promote the upcoming Simpsons movie. I just hope hope hope they'll sell chutney flavored Squishees. Here are a few different links to articles; I'm not sure how long these news items are kept online: IESB.net, Daily Progress, and TV Squad.

Oct. 25: X-ray vision, the sequel

I got my eyes fried again. My LASIK enhancement was last Friday, and I could see better almost immediately. Five days later, my vision is still great, even while reading. We'll see how things end up once it has all stabilized. Before my first surgery I was -9, and ultimately ended up a -3. Obviously there was a lot less correction to be done this time. Keep your fingers crossed! Mostly, I just really don't want to go through the surgery again. It's quick and completely painless but the smell of the laser burning through one's eyeballs is --shudders-- revolting.

Never been much of a Rush Limbaugh fan. I avoid stories with his name in the headline (although I greatly enjoyed the one about him being detained at an airport for being caught with a big stash of Viagra!). But this story, in which he makes fun of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease, proves he has reached the same level of JACKASS-itude as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

I think Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a great show. I've never regularly watched one of Aaron Sorkin's productions, but I'm finally seeing why they've been so popular. Other season passes on our TiVo right now: The Office, My Name is Earl, The Simpsons, The New Adventures of Old Christine, CSI, CSI: Miami. Shows I'm not yet sold on: Six Degrees (I do enjoy seeing Campbell Scott every week), 30 Rock (love Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin is hilarious in this), The Class (trying awfully hard, and not quite there).

The last movie I saw in a theater was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. When it comes to the cinema, it's depressing to be me.

I added a few Simpsons quotes to the "Click here for chuckles" link on our home page. Check 'em out.

One of Katie's top front teeth fell out yesterday. I'm hoping the other one will start loosening soon, because right now she looks like she lost a boxing match. She is completely thrilled about it, though, and her little brother is trying not to show how jealous he is. Sorta cute.

Daryl and Sally went to a Doodlebops show. I think they took Presley too. I haven't heard how they liked it (possibly because they have not yet recovered), but Sally said she was pretty excited because she knows every word to every one of their songs. YES, I know she was kidding. She's not a nutjob. Anyway, if this doesn't get them the Mom & Dad of the Year award, I don't know what will. Hey guys, ya want the Aunt & Uncle of the Year award too? Cuz Katie and Jack would love to see the Doodlebops in concert, and we aren't ever going to take them.

We're having a Halloween party for the neighbors on Sunday. I've been putting together a playlist of Halloween music, and I just have to share it with y'all because it took me a very long time to find everything. The criteria: scary-sounding music or scary-sounding song title or dark theme or Halloween-y (costumes, candy, tricks and treats) or dark arts kind o' stuff, etc. Pretty much anything you would've been forced to throw into a bonfire if you went to an Adventist boarding academy in the 70's and early 80's (right, Lori & Kath & Martin?). Here ya go:

• Spooky (Dusty Springfield or Santana)
  
• You Can Do Magic (America)
  
• Love Song for a Vampire (Annie Lennox)
  
• Bad Moon Rising (CCR)
  
• Stayin' Alive (BeeGees)
  
• Bewitched TV show theme
  
• In the Midnight Hour (Billy Idol)
  
• Only the Good Die Young (Billy Joel)
  
• Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi)
  
• I Want Candy (Bow Wow Wow)
  
• The Devil Went Down to Georgia (Charlie Daniels Band or Johnny Cash)
  
• Freak Out (Le Chic)
  
• Ding Dong the Witch is Dead (from The Wizard of Oz)
  
• Do You Believe in Magic (Shaun Cassidy--heh heh--or The Lovin' Spoonful)
  
• She's Freaky (Pitbull)
  
• Spirit in the Sky (The Eagles or Norman Greenbaum or Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
  
• Devil in Disguise (Elvis Presley)
  
• That Old Black Magic (Frank Sinatra)
  
• Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
  
• I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)
  
• Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)
  
• Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Guns 'n Roses)
  
• I'm Your Boogie Man (K.C. & the Sunshine Band)
  
• Beetlejuice theme (Danny Elfman)
  
• Munsters TV show theme
  
• Supernatural (Raven)
  
• The World is a Vampire (Smashing Pumpkins)
  
• Addams Family TV/movie theme
  
• One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater (Dr. Demento)
  
• I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight (Cutting Crew)
  
• Jaws movie music
  
• Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
  
• Dead Man's Curve (Jan & Dean)
  
• Devil with a Blue Dress (Little Richard)
  
• Little Shop of Horrors theme
  
• Die Another Day (Madonna)
  
• Men in Black (Will Smith)
  
• Thriller (Michael Jackson)
  
• Sugar Sugar (The Archies)
  
• Love Potion #9 (The Drifters)
  
• Monster Mash (Big Bopper)
  
• I Put a Spell on You (Nina Simone or Ray Charles or CCR)
  
• Magic (Olivia Newton John)
  
• Friend of the Devil (Counting Crows)
  
• Ooogie Boogie Song (Danny Elfman, from Nightmare Before Christmas)
  
• Psycho movie music
  
• Vampire Heart (HIM--funniest drummer name: Gas Lipstick)
  
• Crazy (Patsy Cline)
  
• Live & Let Die (Paul McCartney & Wings)
  
• Candy Girl (Jackson 5)
  
• Toccata & Fugue in D (Bach, used in Phantom of the Opera and every creepy movie ever made)
  
• Let's Go Crazy (Prince)
  
• Some Call it Magic (Raven)
  
• Witch Doctor (Ray Stevens)
  
• Superfreak (Rick James)
  
• Somebody's Watchin' Me (Rockwell & Michael Jackson)
  
• This Magic Moment (Roy Orbison)
  
• The Candy Man (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
  
• King Tut (Steve Martin)
  
• Strangers in the Night (Frank Sinatra)
  
• Tainted Love (Soft Cell)
  
• Magic (The Cars)
  
• The X-Files TV show theme
  
• Ghostbusters (Ray Parker, Jr.)
  
• They're Coming to Take me Away, Ha Ha (Dr. Demento)
  
• Get Your Freak On (Missy Elliott)
  
• Very Superstitious (Stevie Wonder)
  
• Weird Science (Oingo Boingo)
  
• Go Away Little Girl (Donny Osmond)
  
• Witchy Woman (The Eagles)
  
• YMCA (The Village People--best costumes EVAR!)
  
• Nightmare on My Street (DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince)
  
• Halloween (Dave Matthews Band)
  
• Jeepers Creepers (Billie Holiday)
  
• Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley)
  

Yes, this is a very strange combination of music styles and no, some of these songs will not make it into the final playlist. And I may just set the mp3 player to play "random" because then no one can make fun of me. Right? No one will ever make fun of me...

Of course, a mention of the Smashing Pumpkins reminded me of one of my favorite Simpsons quotes. This is during Homerpalooza, or something like that, when Homer first meets them:

Billy Corgan: "Billy Corgan, 'Smashing Pumpkins'."
Homer Simpson: "Homer Simpson, smiling politely."

Gwen is coming for a visit! Aren't you jealous?

--Jen