Virtual Suggestion Box

[Soozcat]

I can see the effects of economic downturn everywhere, can't you? The other day I went past the local fire station. Their idea of an engine is a PT Cruiser with garden hoses. Their Dalmatian is a cross between a white rat and a Sharpie marker. Even their fire pole is a Lech Walesa lookalike with the clap. What other signs of economic peril do you spy in your neck of the woods?

[Soozcat]

*crickets chirp*

OK, time to dust the cobwebs off.

Sometimes I think my geekiness affects a few key perceptions here and there. I read the title of a news article: "Gates Says Afghan Vote Will Not Slow Strategy," and the very first thing I thought--and I swear this is true--was, "Woo! Grannies everywhere are gettin' their Windows 7 upgrade whether they want it or not! GO TEAM BILL!" (Truly, wouldn't that be a more interesting story?)

Oh yes, the Pains For Beauty product of the day: a personalized lip vacuum to give you big kissable lips (that presumably throb with pain when you so much as cast an eye in their direction). Personally, I was calling for the check the moment the glamour machine started suggesting that we inject a virulent poison into our faces. If I really wanted to look like a Barbie doll I'd eat Styrofoam packing peanuts for a month or two.

[Soozcat]

I think I may have discovered a new subset of the theory of relativity. I'm going to call it Subjective Shower Time. There is something about the physical properties of a hot shower that causes time to stop, subjectively, for the individual inside it--the hotter the water, the more profound the effect. Think about what happens to your brain when you get into a shower. You go from thinking about all the individual pressures of everyday life and all the different things you have to keep straight and when the electric bill is due and so forth, to a foggy Zen-like trance. The minute hot water hits bare skin you enter The Eternal Moment. All your cares and worries and the fact that someone's banging on the bathroom door and screaming about hogging all the hot water just fade away.

I'm convinced this is what really happened to Rip Van Winkle. He wasn't asleep for 200 years; he was just in a really great shower. He didn't have age lines; he'd gone all pruney.

[Soozcat]

I'm turning 40 this week. Watching the ABC show lineup is kind of depressing for me, especially the remake of "V." I remember when it starred the Beastmaster. I also remember when Starbuck was a guy, when Tron was ahead of its time, and when Indiana Jones didn't glow in the dark. You know you're getting old when you start looking at popular culture and saying, "This is where I came in."

[Soozcat]

Come on, people. Where's Captain Jack to spell me off?

[RWLinda]

Haha, haven't seen her in a while here.

I don't consider myself funny at all, so I wouldn't know what write here, even though I wish I could.

[Soozcat]

There's something else I'd like Mr. Williams to explain: why do so many people have to give their children truly horrifying names? It's like the equivalent of cuddling a darling little newborn and cooing over it, "Aren't you just the sweetest thing? Now I think I'm going to break your leg." Because a terrible name is a handicap. There are the usual bad ones--the ones like Homer and Jethro and Aloysius, that make you sound like you have three teeth and play the banjo with your toes--and then there are the ones that makes it sound like your parents are time travelers from the 19th century, like Lowell and Cuthbert and Thaddeus. Then you have parents who seem to name their children after the first thing they see, like Apple or Rent Check or Mildewstain. When I was a kid growing up in the '70s, I knew a little boy in my second grade class--a child of hippie parents whose name, first and last, was Chance Loving. It probably perfectly described the circumstances leading to his conception. I also knew a family who made up names for their kids--Ezdan, Deulene, Jarreen, Kellan--that could have doubled as brand names for synthetic fabrics.

But the worst name of all was reported to me by my sister, who teaches sixth grade. A few years ago she had a child in her class named Dejabrie, which I've determined comes from the Old French phrase for "This cheese tastes familiar." Seriously, why would you do that to your kid?

[RWLinda]

Ow, I'm sure he'd come up with an intreesting answer as he has named his daughter Zelda. Talk about an original name :S .

There're so many funny names. When i was in high school one of classmates' last name was (literally translated) "born naked". Every time I heard that name the though of "well, duh, aren't we all?!" popped up in my head for a split second.

[Miss Lilly]

I would like to know his thoughts on baboon butts.

[Soozcat]

I would like to know his thoughts on baboon butts.

If you ask me (and yeah, I know you didn't) the primary difference between humans and other primates is vanity. If mandrills had human intelligence, the males would be storming the makeup counter at Macy's to see how the season's latest colors looked on their butts. "Hmm, am I an autumn?"

[Miss Lilly]

*Rolling around in chair laughing my butt off.*

Actually i would like to know anyones thought on baboon butts.

[RWLinda]

I think they're overrated.

[Miss Lilly]

Yeah that and over inflated and over painted. Makes me wonder just what went wrong with that everytime i see one. The things are scarey. It makes me want to start up an organization of some sort that people can donate super glue and wigs to in order to cover those things up. Of course i would have to pay someone to do the glueing and wigging because there is no way i'm getting near one of those things, i'm not going to touch that.

[Soozcat]

OK, I have an idea for a character sketch.

This summer I came across a particular character--a stout woman around retirement age, her hair pulled back into a bun, wearing a T-shirt with a wolf on it, meandering around a bead shop in a local market. You meet people like her now and again... from outward appearance, they may not seem particularly odd or intriguing--except for the shine in their eyes that's just a wee bit too manic--but you open the floodgates when you so much as mutter the magic word: "Hello."

This woman proceeded to tell me, with a slight Oklahoma twang, her entire life story. About how she was looking for wolf beads. About how she was wearing a wolf because it was her totemic animal. How she'd been a wolf in a past life. Then all about how she'd died and been brought back to life, which was why she knew all about her past lives. And how she had subsequently developed the psychic power to control the weather. And how Native Americans all recognized her as a shaman. And how random Buddhists on the street revered her as a holy woman. Meanwhile I could not find a way to extricate myself from the conversation. It was like sinking into the La Brea tar pits. I expect she would have gone on to tell me that she was also an incarnation of Krishna and that she had the power to jump car batteries with her hands, but by then I had successfully gnawed my own leg off and made good my escape.

[Soozcat]

I don't know if this would work as well in person as it does in my head, but today I was talking with my charming and talented hubby about bizarre alternate castings of Hollywood musicals. Demonstrated by singing "Sobbin' Women" (from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers") in Jimmy Durante's voice--"Dem wimmen wuz sobbin', sobbin', sobbin', fit ta be tied, hot-cha-cha-cha," etc.--and for some reason it just gave me the giggles. Seems to me this could be potentially goofy. So who would you cast for the ultimate WTF factor in a musical?