Wednesday, May 28, 2008

What You Can Learn from Grocery Shopping

Leann: ok, so I wanna go grocery shopping on my way home

(boring discussion about the list)


Matthew: and icecream

Leann: can i buy rainbow sherbet again
that still sounds good
strawberry?
anything else?

Matthew: instead of strawberry, can you get napoleon?
(he never gets it right, Neopolitan)

Leann: sure
we should just start calling it Dynamite ice cream
or or or!

Matthew: haha
that's hilarious

Leann: numchuck ice cream!
OR!
Liger Ice Cream!

(if you don't know where my pathetic jokes are coming from, please watch Napoleon Dynamite)


Matthew: did you know the weapon isn't really called a "numchuck"?
it's real name is nunchaku

Leann: is it pronounced 'num-chuk'?

Matthew: It's confusing, that's why I looked it up
I'm still unsure if you say it "num" or "nun"

Leann: haha

Matthew: it's "nun"
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nunchaku

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And now you too know the correct term nun-chuck .... all because we needed to go grocery shopping!

Who Stole The Kishka?

So, Kishka is a type of Polish sausage. In fact, "Who stole the kishka?" is a line from Brave Combo's "Polkatharsis" album. To set the record straight-- I love polish sausage and polish music, but I hate their dots.

polka dot
n.
1. One of a number of dots or round spots forming a pattern, as on cloth.
2. A pattern or fabric with such dots.
polka dot. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved May 28, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polka dot

One must note that there is a distinct difference between a dot and a spot. A dot is a perfect circle. Spots are a more generic shape. Although their edges are curved, they often are oblong potato shapes. A dot, therefore, is a subset of a spot. However, when referring to a spot, it is usually not completely round or the term dot or circle would have been used instead.

Although not the most reliable of sources, an excerpt on wikipedia explains a little more in depth on the polka dots I dislike:

"Polka dot patterns are quite variable: they range from a series of dots that are equally spaced and sized to a random arrangement of multicoloured dots of different sizes. Polka dots are most commonly seen on children's clothing, toys, and furniture, but they appear in a wide array of contexts. The pattern rarely appears in formal contexts, however, and is generally confined to more playful attire such as bathing suits. Occasionally white on black regularly spaced polka dots appear on more formal clothing."








I've ordered these in decending order of my own preferance. I find it humorous that most polka dots are associated with clowns and odd animals.









Now, there are some really cute polka dot things. It seems that polka dots are allowable on completely absurd and silly objects, but there are some really hideous things out there too that people think are normal. Do these girls really get up in the morning, look in the mirror and think, "Man I look good!"?









Although these shoes aren't my personal favorite, I can understand why someone might like them.













It's probably the engineer in me that can only handle a certain amount of entropy in any given system. I'm perfectly ok with dots that are all the same shape and size. Varying the dot's diameter makes a person seem asymmetrical and lopsided. The dots should be distributed in a normal linear repeating pattern. I shouldn't have to calculate the limit of the summation of some countably-infinite geometic series of dots in order to determine why the dots appear as they are. I prefer the colors to be uniform throughout the pattern. Swirling greens and purples on a yellow background make me feel as if I've been on the merry-go-round a bit too long.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

What Do You Think Sister Engineer?

So, I'm not sure how many times I can stress a point, and yet, no one seems to remember...

I am a leader of a church youth group. I am specifically over the girls from 14-15, but the whole group consists of girls 12-18, and I am considered their leader as well. Well, the girls have a camp each summer, and they all look forward to it, like you wouldn't believe.

So the other night we were doing prep for Girls' Camp, and they all wanted to know what they were going to get to wear up at camp. Not that they don't know what to wear in respect to pants and t-shirt. I mean each group gets a color to signify their group. And then they get to have 3 items to wear at camp, typically of that color, signifying they are part of that specific group. Now typically, these items are cute, have something cute painted/sew/ironed onto them. It takes some creativity to build these signifying items. Well, the girls were hounding 1 leader, and this leader says, let's ask Sister Engineer (that's me, and no she didn't really call me that).

Ok seriously... what part of geek do you not get? I never have had, nor never will have ANY artistic ability. Seriously. I depend on my friends to have that. I mean, check out the links on my page, their design capabilities far exceed what I could even hope to imagine in my head. I have said multiple times, this artsy-fartsy stuff should be left up to the OTHER leaders... not the leader who sits in front of computer all day, and thinks that silver anything looks the best. How boring can I get?

SIDE NOTE : Yes, I know that G is the exception. She is a geek, and has emaculate art abilities... seriously, check out these cakes Woo-Woo and Gumdrop.

And to add to my personal fear that I know I have no art abilities, I don't want ruffles, I don't want hearts or bows, I don't want someone to walk into my house and think country kitchen... so then I stress that maybe I should have some of that frilly stuff, so that my house doesn't look like a hospital room. How do I add that extra flare? How do I make my house look like a home, without adding all the extras? or without making it not me?

Well, all I have to say is thank goodness for a friend who taught me to copy. See a magazine page you like? Do it, copy it. I don't add my own additional crafts, I can't pretend to know what goes with what, but I can grab all the coordinating items at Crate and Barrel, or Bed Bath and Beyond, or other furniture stores, and put it up (in a ordered, aligned fashion of course, none of this crazy spontaneous design).

Sunday, May 11, 2008

What Did It Sound Like?

So, if you are any level of geek, you have seen the movie Sneakers. (Fabulous by the way) In the movie the main character, Martin (Marty), gets stuffed in a trunk. After returning back to his friends/co-workers, his blind friend, Whistler, asks him what "What did it sound like?"

Today as I was driving down the lovely, heat stricken roads of the desert in Arizona, I was reminded of this movie. Why you ask? Well because of the constant thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk as we were driving. Now you geek experts automatically think... You were on a bridge! But no, oh NO, I was not. I was on a main road, and that road happened to have bad seams in the pavement every few seconds. Travelling at an average of 45 mi/hr, that means there is a seam in the road every 60 meters, or about 196.1388 ft. So, every 200 ft on a 2 mile road? Yikes. That's some rough driving there.

As bad as that is, I dream of the day when this is the worst part of driving in Snowbird-ville. But I guess I just have to be content with having a reason to look forward to the 100 degree weather.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Update on Talking Tomatoes

Remember that tiny little garden... check it out!