Meem vs. Meme

Whenever I go to type "Meme", I usually end up typing "Meem" instead and then I have to correct it. Stupid spelling. Are there memes that aren't Internet memes? (A la the Rickroll, or random tasks that I "stole" from another blog that I do based on the fact that I have nothing of note to blog about but feel like I should, because I'm procrastinating and this may prove to be somewhat productive...?)

From the New Oxford American Dictionary: *an application stored within AJ, though the physical pocket dictionary is in my desk*

an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.

From Wikipedia: (as always)

"a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena."

Oh, and the word was invented in the 1970s by a British guy. And everything that exists in media/culture/life kind of started as a meme. Nothing is an original, just a series of mutations to things that already exist. (Ex: melodies, racism, genes, religion)

ANYHOW... I'm not going to bore whoever may be reading with my Wiki-hunt findings, but that's an interesting thing to think about to me.

A quote from Dr. Laurence J. Peter-- "Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it."

Now that I'm past that, and almost completely positive no one is still reading this: The actual meme I intended to do before I got sidetracked by the oddness of the word and had to hunt Wikipedia for answers and Google who said stuff about originality being the art of forgetting your sources BECAUSE I had forgotten the source of this quote.... (oh, irony. Thou dost amuseth much.)

The Friday 56!

Instructions:

* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions, or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
*Post a link along with your post back to this blog.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

I had to wrap my arm around my desk and randomly pick one of the books *ever-so-neatly* (in this case the stars do not signify footnotes, but instead signify complete bullshit) stacked and waiting to be read for English later in the year. Out of that pile, mixed in with random papers and stuff and whatnot was The Odyssey (said to have been written by Homer, translated by some guy. It sounds intellectual and probably is, but I swear I didn't dig for it. I haven't even read it.) The fifth sentence on the 56th page is this:

"This is a brilliant and attractive reading, but like many other interpretations, it does not take full account of the fact that Penelope does not have a choice in the matter."

It's still in the INTRODUCTION. This is sure going to be a fun read. On the 56th page of the actual poem part (page 133), the 5th sentence is this:

"Then all the rest of the troops kept stock-still, all but Anticlus."

And that, dear readers, was yet another example of how I can belabor a point of utter nonsense (Title drop!) into a blog-length post.

FIPOGI!

Wednesday

It is Wednesday.

(Or, if you happen to be reading this on Thursday, or Friday, or perchance in THE NEXT MILLENNIUM, it was Wednesday.)

Wednesday is a pretty awkward name for a day. It's long and strange and kind of out of sequence. Which is how Wednesday IS, though, so it's appropriate. I also dislike that it's called "Hump Day", meaning it's downhill for the rest of the week, school/work/whatever is more than halfway over... but the day in and of itself is never particularly exciting. And Wednesday's child is the one whose life sucks. (paraphrasing, of course)

In an attempt to make a day of the week more exciting, I have turned to Wikipedia. (all-knowing source of all that is interesting) Long story short: (this may be one of the FEW things not even Wiki can make an interesting point of...) Wednesday is either named after a German god of wood, or Mercury. (In other languages it makes sense, but not English...) The wood god is all bearded and goblin looking, bitter that he couldn't be the god of something cool. In other religions it's regarded as a day of fast and blah blah, and Friday is too, so Thursday is like "AHHH MEAT FOOD OM NOM NOM!!".... and then back to fasting. Hah. Religion + Diet = does not make sense, as I have noted. Actually most religions spell it out that you're not supposed to eat humans. This is common sense, but whatever stops people from trying... I've always thought it would taste like salmon. (not chicken, that's too cliche. But I think the texture would be like salmon...)

Wikipedia is doing nothing to zestify this post with excitingness. Random useless holidays to the rescue! (Brownielocks is an awesome resource when you're looking for something to celebrate.)

WHAT.

That is not even a punctuationally correct fragment, that's how flabbergasted I am. Are you ready for this?

The only holiday listed for Wednesday, February 24th is.... *sarcastically anticlimactic drumroll please*

Inconvenience Yourself Day

How utterly crap is that? I missed all the good ones: Chocolate Mint Day, Pancake Day, Read in the Bathtub Day, International Snow Sculpting Week, ... though I DID celebrate World Nutella Day. Oh yes.

**NOTE**: I looked up the calendar for '95, and guess which day I was born on? *long-suspenseful-pause-though-the-answer-is-obvious drumroll please* Wednesday. I find this very funny in a twisted way. But really, none of the other lines fit me, implying respectively: Pretty, graceful, EMOTASTIC, some journey or something, loving, hardworking, "bonny and blithe and good and gay" L-O-L. Oh the irony.

Oh, and of course no homage (I like to pronounce it "HOMM-aj", British and odd-sounding. :D) to all things Wednesday would be complete without

That sums it up pretty well.

A Non-6WS

So my Internet randomly stopped working between my last post and when I tried to do Six Word Saturday. In lieu of 6WS, I'd like to steal a different topic from the wonderful Cate, (or kind of two, going back a while...) Lent. So yeah.

I have a lot of Christian friends, who a.) faux-nag me for eating a turkey wrap on Friday, b.) Do not know the answers to my *trivial* questions about the random aspects of their religion. Not any of the important ones, meaning of life/life after death and so on, i.e: "Why is the symbol for Jesus that fishy thing?" They didn't know, but Wikipedia DOES. Google and Wiki are the closest things there are in the world to a known omnipresence. Contains most of the answers to life's questions, in a neutral, multiple-choice kind of way. c.) Go insane without the thing they gave up. It's funny. Even Teresa, who only drinks soda when she is not in the presence of her caffeine-restricting parents, gave up soda. (another gave up candy, but a last year gave up Facebook. HAH. I don't have one, but people get attached to it...)

Biiig sacrifice there. Is the point to give up one of your BIGGEST temptations? Or like give to charity instead? That sounds nice and all Jesus-y. Give something instead of taking away from yourself. Ease suffering and do stuff for other people, instead of making yourself more miserable so as to match them.

MORE suffering than currently exists in the world isn't going to help anything. Is that what Lent promotes? Suffering so that you can say you felt the pain and suffering and crap Jesus did? Hmmm, being stranded in the desert with no one to talk to but the SATAN *dun dun dun*... or not drinking coffee for a month and a half. *makes invisible scales with hands* Yep, pretty sure Jesus had it worse than those people just suffering from withdrawal syndrome, and it's not like any divinity would force us to suffer for them. "Yeah, I HATED it, and I'm mentally stronger than you or whatever probably, so why don't YOU give it a try? >:D" Naaaw...

Different point: Isn't weird how only Hispanic people feel free to use the name Jesus (with an accent)? It's not like Spanish-speaking countries aren't Christian, the name holds the same meaning. (Jesucristo, again with an accent somewhere. Maybe the suffix is the difference?) But if someone named their kid "Jesus" in English there'd be some kind of uproar. If not an uproar, definite confusion considering the fact that "JESUS!" is a common interjection. (most interjections/expletives fall under 4 categories: Religious, Sexual, Parental, Scatological. None of them happen to be inherently insulting, just kind of nonsense.) Example: "Jesus, come out of the PlayPlace!" "Jesus, will you please listen to me? It is NOT okay to stick jellybeans up other people's noses!" Which would probably lead to people thinking the parent/legal guardian/namer of this kid had anger-management problems of some sort...

FIPOGI!

Milanos!

Oh my god I love these cookies, no matter how truly eeeeevil they are.

Think about it: They're packaged 5 to a cup, implying that 5 cookies are equivalent to 1 serving. It's not. This leads to said Milanos being eaten much quicker than intended. ONE flute is a THIRD of the bag. The nonexistence of Milanos = sadness. Plus, they're probably really unhealthy and so on, so any one person probably should NOT eat a third of the package. All of this is almost sue-worthy. (or at least an angry letter that they don't know what to do with, so they send a form letter and coupons for free cookies. MMMmmm. It's happened to me. *just a smartass observation about bug spray, but I'm assuming it would get the same response.*) But no one dareth sue over something so wonderful. This is their plot. They are aware of their deliciousness and use it as a distraction from their true, evil motives. They really should bottle this quality. It actually works.

I'm over thinking it, just because I couldn't think of a topic and am currently eating said delivilcious cookies. I know they're irresistible just because there is chocolate involved. Ahhhh chocolate I want to marry you. Eat you. Smell you. Anything short of the only instance of CHOCOLATE GONE CRAZY EVIL-- Chocolate AXE. Fuck no. Does not smell good in any way. Does not smell like chocolate, rather more like burned tire and Sharpies.

How do I know what Chocolate Axe smells like? Aforementioned in another post, "Rico" seems to think that this scent is attractive to, well, everyone. So he sprays it in World Studies. A lot. There is one other girl who enjoys this and often steals it to use on herself. She basically gets high off of it. (you can get high off Sharpies, hmm...) This is probably because of Axe's (highly effective, as this is an example of...) marketing. Axe = YOU GET WOMEN. TO USE. FOR SEX.

Wrong. But what matters is what people believe...

Other than that random point, I have little to say. I have a cold, which I'm trying to sustain until Monday so I can get off school. I've mentioned how much I love colds, and that's another of the reasons... I actually haven't missed any school yet this year. Cold and flu season is almost over, I think I'm deserving of a day off before I have absolutely NO excuse. (This is of course just a speculation, faking sick is bad and I'll have to make up work and on and on, but my POINT is that if I act now I won't HAVE to fake entirely per se...)

FIPOGI! (Olympic Edition)

(Six Word Saturday to be posted separately later...)

Sounds Like...

Okay, rest of the weekend was good, and today is President's Day (another whole day to procrastinate, yay!) but the highlight was definitely yesterday, wherein I discovered the hilarity of "Guesstures"* Following guesses/conversation: (All shouted on top of each other, but this what I made out. Actions not asterisked... become apparent. Made more awkward by the fact that all members playing were over 60, or me.)

"Hump."

"Grind!"

"INTERCOURSE!"

"Why the hell would that be on one of the cards?"

"Fuck...?"

"Ear fetish? Fetish?"

"Sounds like, idiot."

"Ummm, duck puck pluck chuck suck buck cluck..."

*general w00t-ness*

"...WHY did you not just act like a chicken?!"

"Because then you would have SAID chicken."

(and yes, even though it was very likely not a card, I wanted an excuse to shout "INTERCOURSE!" and have it be relevant... I have no idea if this is funny to read, but consider it an example of the level of insanity achieved when more than 3 members of my family join at a time....)

*I suck at the acting out part, being basically charades but faster (That's what it looks like when *I* serve in badminton... :P) but stuff like this happens. I suppose this counts as a product review or some crap, so no I wasn't paid and blah blah blah.)

The Prevail of My Social Life? You Decide!

Wow, no blog for over a week! Besides snow and school (don't know which you'd rather hear less about...) not much is going on, except that I hate all this fricking snow and am glad it's melting, and that school has been insane with an abundance of HARD and DO NOT UNDERSTAND and even more than usual PROCRASTINATION. So, am glad this is coming to an end. Why the lack of pronouns? Because, that's why. Plus I felt like I should blog since that last post was up there for a long time. Awkward.... (I can judge the general awkwardness of a blog based on the amount of comments it gets. Quite a few of them like that, but whatever.)

Actually, today/the forthcoming Friday & weekend is starting to look up a bit, if only because I have less school-related crap to do and more social-related crap. (for once)

Things To Do in the Near Future:

Finish (TWO) essays.

Eat (I'm hungry right now, as evidenced by the placement on this list)

Post blog (how near is "near", anyway?)

Eat CAKE. (my aunt's birthday. 60th, hah. Having a bit of fun pointing this out. ;))

(Can you tell I'm hungry and/or stretching a point here, what with all the unnecessary parenthesis?)

Watch a musical (School, but certainly more entertaining than the essays, I know people in it, and it looks fun. Wikipedia tells me that audience members with unusual names and no acting experience are chosen for some kind of participation...? And juice boxes are given. That's definitely what I'm signing up for. Sounds pretty much like me. **BONUS POINTS if the know the musical I'm describing, thanks Wikipedia!**)

Eat some of those Necco hearts (which do indeed taste like shitty chalk, but this is beside the point.)

Breathe

Blink

Turn on a lamp (even though it's NOT dark yet! Woot! It's also just sunrise when I haul myself to the bus in the mornings now, too. Freezing cold, dead tired, and with some inevitable studying to do on the bus, but this makes me smile.)

End this uninteresting list with some kind of interestingness....

FUN FACT TIME!

--Armadillos **proof of the wonder of proofreading: I had originally typed "Lepers" here, and typed the rest of the paragraph without noticing it.** are the only animals besides humans that can contract leprosy. (Do people still GET leprosy? How did we give it to the armadillos? Did they give it to us? Was it like an STD? Is THAT how leprosy is spread? Who the heck would want to have sex with a leper? Isn't that visually apparent, with general zombie lookingness? Is there a cure for it now, like the plague? It seems so old. Biblically so, even. I felt an armadillo when I was 3 and thought it was the coolest thing EVAR.)

FIPOGI!

Must Stop... Shatner-Style...Pauses

I use ellipsis (... is there a plural form of that? Or is it like "parentheses"... just "parentheses", no plural? Like, "deer" and "fish". Wait, is "fishes" correct? Which is more correct? Gah, I'll stop. I also use WAY too many parenthesises, on that subject....)

Other than that, I don't have much to say today. Except for a little story from the bus of doom... formerly named as such because of its oldness and general hazardousness (which spellcheck is telling me IS indeed a word...) but living up to its title in the following way:

Long story short: A condom landed in my hair yesterday.

Long story long: What the fuck is there more to say?! I was reading, (As I usually do to keep from interacting with people, after the few sane people on my route get off...Good Omens, fyi. Neil Gaiman and some other British guy. It's quite fantastic.) and it seemingly fell out of the sky. (I'm oblivious, I know. Just because I'm AWARE of this does not mean it's going to change.) Once I looked up, two very rational (RARE, especially in this circumstance) thoughts ran through my head:

1. Do not scream. You have not determined what this is yet, and doing so you will unnecessarily draw attention to yourself. Do not want.

2. Do not shake your head like a crazy person. Unaccompanied by said scream it will most likely look like some kind of seizure, and/or it will fly into your mouth. Do not want, once again.

Choose instead to stare at it like Helen Keller or something until across-from-you-guy plucks it off you. THEN proceed to freak out. Fucking CONDOM, centimeters away from face. DO NOT WANT. (this delayed reaction most definitely made you look like a loon, nullifying the non-scream/seizure from earlier. Smooth.)

Ugh, not dwelling on this any more. But PLEEZE, dear GOD/Morgan Freeman/Jesus H. Christ/Google/Bus Deity of the Terminally Unfortunate-- don't let it happen again. *shudder*

How was YOUR Tuesday, cyberspace?

FIPOGI!