State Capitals, Part One

Good morning, everyone! Today we're going to begin a series on STATE CAPITALS! Everyone else is definitely as excited about this as I am!

PART ONE: THE LETTER A
Did you know 5 state capitals begin with the letter A? Isn't that amazing? The only letters that have more capitals are C and S, and since these letters appear the word, "secession," we we will not be discussing any cities that begin with them.

In alphabetical order, Albany comes first. I have no interest in Albany, so we will pretend that the actual capital of New York is Buffalo and move on.

We will also skip Annapolis and Atlanta.

This brings us to Augusta, Maine. Maine is one of two states whose capital should actually be Portland.

Austin is the fifth and final state capital beginning with A. Coincidentally, it rhymes with Boston, which is also a state capital. It is important to note, however, that Boston begins with the letter B, which is not the letter A.

Isn't learning fun?

Second Dolphin-Related Post This Month

Let's be honest with ourselves. Nobody knows the difference between dolphins and porpoises. The sooner we can own up to that, the better.


Speaking of porpoises, I'm rediscovering my love for purpose/porpoise wordplay. Please enjoy the following examples of it!

NASA DIRECTOR: (Immediately following a spaceship explosion) I sure hope that was an accident.
SOME GUY: Actually, I did it on porpoise.
(Everybody laughs)

QUESTIONING GUY: What does this button do?
ANSWERING GUY: The porpoise of that button is to turn on the awesome alarm.
QUESTIONING GUY: Did you say "porpoise"?
ANSWERING GUY: Umm, no, I said purpose.
QUESTIONING GUY: I could have sworn you said "porpoise."
ANSWERING GUY: OK, yeah, I did say "porpoise."

KID: Hey daddy, look at the dolphin!
DAD: Actually, son, that's a purpose.
KID: A purpose?
DAD: Oh wait, I guess it is a dolphin.

Taco Alliteration

I've recently observed that tacos taste much better with alliteration, a la "Taco Tuesday." In most cases alliteration is annoying, a la "Washington Wizards," but in the case of tacos, it greatly increases their deliciousness. So tonight I was pretty sure I'd eat some spaghetti and read a book, since it's Monday.

Thankfully, I'm hanging out with some friends tonight to watch a movie called, "Troll." What a perfectly alliterative partner for tacos! Whether we call it Taco Troll or Troll Tacos makes no difference to me. All I know is that they both begin with the letter T.

Here's a plot outline of the movie, adjusted to be more taco-centric.

Torok is an ancient troll, and he is using the body of Wendy Anne to disguise himself as a taco, in order to turn an apartment building into a taco bar. Wendy's newly-moved family is just settling in, and while her parents, who don't particularly like tacos, suspect nothing, her brother Harry notices an increase in Wendy's taco-cravings instantly. Using an emerald ring, Torok transforms the residents into piles of cheese and salsa to restore his old taco-flavored world in which he once lived in many years ago. We soon discover Torok is the ex-husband of Eunice St. Clair, a resident in the building who was married to Torok long ago before he became his taco-mad self.

Who wouldn't want to see this movie?

Numerous Syllables

The best names have two syllables.

I discovered this as I pondered over the names of some characters in my newest writing adventure. One-syllable names are OK, two-syllable names are ideal in every situation, and three-syllable names are utter disasters.

For instance, there is a female character who I have tentatively named "Lindsay." Unfortunately, despite the fact that this name has the perfect number of syllables, it doesn't work. I can't think of any real monosyllabic girl names. Only Ann, and I know too many Anns in real life. I considered changing her name to "Gloria," but who in their right mind would pronounce all three of those syllables? And you can't shorten that name. Glor?

Same goes for the rest of creation.
Kevin? Good. Roger? It's got an upside. Jasper? Solid gold. Bud, Pete, George? I threw up a little in my mouth just thinking of those. Or how about Sylvester, Julio, and Frankenstein? I'm imagining people who are horribly deformed and have speech impediments.

Yet somehow Ricardo Montalban is one of the greatest names mankind has ever known.

Qwerty

I am now absolutely convinced that the "qwerty" style keyboard is actually some elaborate code system. Whoever invented it arranged the letters in a particular way so that you have to learn a custom-tailored typing method, but these diabolical geniuses arranged the letters in such a way that if you move your hands to different places on the keyboard, you would be able to type out some kind of Nazi code.

I have yet to discover what the hand placement for the code is, and I'm afraid that without the original encoded message to translate, I won't be able to figure it out. So we are almost definitely in the hands of some clandestine, evil organization that is operating right beneath our noses, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Dear

From now on, I begin every letter with the word "Dear," sometimes maybe "Dearest" if I feel so inclined. Why? After a long line of getting sick of things (the internet, rock music, facebook, etc.), I am now sick of the word "Hey." Not thoroughly sick of it; it's far too deeply ingrained in my vocabulary for me to disregard it completely. I'm only cutting myself off from it in writing where I can control what I say. While I'm at it, I think I'm going to swear off email all together. And cell phones.

26

I'm kind of frustrated with the number of letters in the alphabet. Twenty-six doesn't really do it for me anymore. Not that I can think of any new letters, but someone should.

I realize it'd be difficult to come up with new letters and incorporate them into words somehow, so maybe it'd just be easier to change the symbols of our alphabet completely. Like a breath of fresh air.

Even as fake ideas go, this is the worst idea I've ever had.

Unspar in Action

Continuing in the vein of self-indulgence that consumes and destroys this blog, I present to you the more curious results of an "unspar" google search. I know I discussed this briefly yesterday (four times because Blogger totally effed up), but this is different. Different enough, anyway.

Some hymn that actually uses the word "unspar": But "unspar the gate" still sounds like perfect nonsense. Remove the bars from the gate? What? If someone told me to unspar the gate, I'd probably disassemble the gate. That wouldn't go over too well.

An anti-child abuse website for which "unspar" is a shortened version of "unsparing," I think: As if that makes sense. But I appreciate the positive impact this has on my reputation. Hopefully this will stem the tide against my popularity in pro-abuse sects.

Some book that also uses "unspar" in the context of a gate (text does not appear on page): Who are these people who unspar gates? Somewhere there is a society with a catastrophic gate problem.

"UNSPAR" as acronym: Finally a use I can understand. But wait...using the acronym UNSPAR in that context doesn't fly. Not only does it ignore the I and the S, which seem to me to be pretty important to whatever UNSPAR is, but it also stops short and doesn't incorporate the last word. All in all, this is the worst acronym I've ever seen.

There you have it. Any use of "unspar" beyond me is erroneous, misguided, and insane.

Atila The Fun

I woke up this morning with an unfamiliar acronym in my head: ATF. It came out of nowhere, really, just three letters into my head. It could mean a couple things. It could be "Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms," which is some government division. It could be FTA (the church group acronym) backwards, which is kind of creepy.

But the first meaning that came to my head when I woke up was what you see in the subject line.

Atila the Fun.

The Good Word

The word of the day is "Quebecois," (ke.beck.WAH).

Technically Quebecois means "from Quebec," but I decided to establish a new meaning for it, mostly because I very much like the sound it makes. So I will now use it to describe people who are independent-minded and are forced to follow the majority.

Examples:
-John McCain is in some cases Quebecois for expressing dissent against the Republican majority but nonetheless voting on the party line.
-John Frusciante consistently pursues his solo project, but it is not at the expense of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He is therefore Quebecois.

Use it in a sentence:
-Jeremy, I know you want the group to do the presentation your way, but if you would be a little more compromising and Quebecois, the presentation would turn out much better.
-Mary, it's very Quebecois of you to stifle your brilliant creativity so that the rest of the class can understand what you're talking about.

Hail Quebec!

There's a new Mexico?

There's occasionally a bright moment that makes this job not unbearable. I spend most of the day overhearing my co-cube monkey describing how secure email works, but for a three-second reprieve, there's New Mexico.

I've enjoyed speaking to the few New Mexicans I've spoken to here, but it's never crossed the line to making me smile until now. A caller from New Mexico, in complimenting one of our employees, said that we at Cigna Behavioral Health are "gooder than gold."

I wish I could come up with phrases like that.

I'm Going Insane

I hope there are some hackers out there because I'm about to publish the password for my Cigna computer.

Yesterday I was prompted to renew my password because my old one would expire in 14 days. I had already used my standard password assortment, but you have to have at least five passwords in rotation at Cigna for some reason. I needed to think of something and fast. So I thought of something I'd never thought of before:

Albertville

I have no idea where that came from. No idea. Anybody else have a clue?

EDIT: I think it derives from my frequent use of the name "Albert" and inexplicable love for the suffix "ville."

Names Have Smells, Apparently

I was just filing something under the name "Myrtle," and for some reason the foul stench of cow poop filled my nose. While part of me wonders why I associate the name "Myrtle" with cow poop, a larger part of me wonders why I did not immediately associate it with Yertle the Turtle.

Office Joke of the Day

One of my coworkers took a Clorets mint, and it was really strong, so she said something like "These Clorets mints are really strong." But I thought she said Clorox, and said something about how she shouldn't eat bleach. We laughed.

Sometimes, I wish somebody would shoot me. Like in the leg or the shoulder or something.

Speaking of shooting, I need a tetanus shot.

The People v. Gravity

Conversation I had with friends about another friend:

Me: She's a kinesiology major.
Brother: She's also pre-law.
Front-seat girl: Isn't kinesiology the study of movement?
Me: Yes.
Front-seat guy: What kind of law is she gonna do with that?
Me: Movement law. Like the Law of Gravity and stuff.


Now, for clarification, is that a play on words, a pun, or just a joke? All I know is that I didn't laugh, but some other people did. Or at least one person did.

A Glimpse at My Psychosis in 3 Parts in Reverse Order: Part 2

From the guy who brought you such words that you made fun of him for as "bunk" and the use of "chill" as an adjective comes...

Build Your Bencabulary
Episode IV: "Hopscotch"

Many of you know that the lame or clever of the world occasionally replace the word "hell" with the letter "H." This appears in sentences like "That's weak as H, dude," or "Hot as H."

I recently* discovered that "H" could be replaced with another word beginning with that letter and, after a couple tries, successfully replaced it with "hopscotch." It has since entered my regular usage.

As with all episodes of Build Your Bencabulary, this is not to convince you to use my words but so that you may understand them when I use them.



*I used "hopscotch" a whole week before Seth Cohen used the word "hockey" in a similar strategy on The OC. I am not ripping off Seth Cohen, but this is further proof that he is me.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Sonic's Adventures in Typing

Something I realized while staring at my keyboard:

The similarities between comas and commas are striking.

Before I expound on these similarities, I feel I should clarify that I was for about two minutes under the impression that "comma" (,) was the word used for this symbol (:), which is actually a colon.

The similarities between comas and colons are slightly less striking.

Mo' Mammon, Mo' Problems

I present to you the funniest phrase of the new millenium:

"Mo' Mammon, Mo' Problems."

I seriously cannot stop laughing. This could go on for days.

Mammon.

I suddenly discovered that this phrase is considerably less funny once you know the meaning of Mammon. I suggest you not look it up.

I had one thing to say, but now I have a different thing to say.

I just encountered, for like the fifth time in my life, the word "webinar." This word bothers me. It means "seminar on the web." I'm not too concerned with the linguistic nonsense of the word. I don't care that a "seminar" is not hosted in a "sem" or that "sem" is not a prefix at all and therefore cannot be so haphazardly replaced. I'm upset because this word sounds ugly.

Let's explore this issue. Webinar. Sounds more like the name of a wizard or a really lame board game, and let's face it, those things are not known for their cool sounding names (names like Gandalf and Parcheesi).

I suggest we abandon this word. And let us abandon the thing that this word means.

My New Favorite Language

Cockney Rhyming Slang is about the smartest thing ever developed. For those unfamiliar, here's how it works: you have a word (balls), then you find a phrase that rhymes with that word (cobblers' awls), then you drop off the part that rhymes and you get your slang (cobblers). It's excellent, and I plan to bring some of the obscure ones into everyday use.

Intersesting Cockney Rhyming Slang fact: the use of the word "bread" for money originates in the slang because of the phrase "bread and honey." Bet you didn't know that, smart guy.