Just to Let You Know I'm Not Dead...Yet

My son has been sick for five days. Five long days. He's stopped with the 3 o'clock wailing that he's going to throw up. He hasn't stopped coughing the cough of a chain-smoking former lot lizard living on borrowed time at the local retirement village. Regardless, I said fuck all to the continued health of his classmates and sent him off to school. He--and whatever it is he's carrying--is the educational system's problem now. I'm at work, with the phone lifted off the hook, a light strain of "la la la la la I can't hear you" being uttered in the round to avoid mistakenly hearing the phone ring.

My wife finally went to the doctor yesterday after two weeks of suffering through some sort of pinched-nerve thing which affected both the continued use of her left arm and the ability to put out. The other side-effect has been that she finds it difficult to get comfortable at night in the bed...a bed which she shares with me. Some nights, she merely shifts around, sighs heavily, and then shifts some more. Other nights, she's flopping around like a marlin that's just been heaved onto the deck of a fishing boat and is about to be gutted and turned into steaks...or a former child star on the floor of her rehab cell when someone turns the lights on without offering the proper warnings.

She's been given prednasone, which can sometimes lead to "inopportune arousal", or so I've been told. I shan't hold my breath, for even if that happens, the Reds are scheduled to sweep into to town for a four-game series this weekend. Please ignore the bulging forearms, though I am tempted to draw crudely-rendered stick-figure anchors on them while I hum inappropriate sea shanties.

This past weekend, I had two birthday parties to go to. One, I had to take my daughter to and which involved lots of swimming. The other was for my friend Joe's son, Joe. Creative, no? I also go to meet his dad, Joe, his sister, Jo, and his mom, Joanne. He's scheduled to become the father of a girl in October, whose name I can only imagine will be Josephine.

Anyway, in my hurry to hang out with Joe, I left my daughter's towel and--this is a far more pressing tragedy--a half-dozen of her silly bands at the party. This means I have to drive back out to the birthday celebrant's house and reclaim the towel as well as the silly bands. Priorities, you know.

My dear friend, Elliot, who you might know better as the Displaced Cheesehead, is on the list of people who I must sit and enjoy a meal with ere shuffling off this mortal coil. If this should also involve beverages of alcoholic nature as well as some sporting even, then I should be happy, however I'm not one to look gift horses in the mouth. Nor am I to look gift photography in the mouth, and Elliot provided me with the above image (via the website Oddly Specific). It is grand, and I concur with the photographer of the aforementioned door, "I entered the wrong major."

Speaking of cheeseheadedness, He Who Must Not Be Named has announced today that he's retiring. For reals this time. Maybe. I'm not sure. Perhaps. 50/50 at this point. Should Purple Voldemort finally be gone, I can only assume that someone torched his Wrangler Jeans horcrux, that Aaron Rogers is now the best quarterback in the NFC North, and that John Madden and Peter King are somewhere shedding silent tears with one another and snoodling in order to work through their desultory sadness.



P.S. If you are unfamiliar with the term, do not look up "snoodling" while at work. This is something to look up at home, preferably with the kids nearby, because it will give them an education. We can all agree that kids need more education, and this will provide it, even if the education is only "why not to drink heavily in college".

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol LXXIX

[NOTE]: This is posting really late. I explain the reason why. I'm testy. Deal with it.

Well, good morning...er...day to all of you. You'll forgive me if my sense of time is a little fucked up. At home, there's a sick child. A sick child who feels the need to wake us up at 3:00 in the morning to tell us that he thinks he's going to throw up.

And then he has the audacity to not puke. He comes in, wakes us up, threatens to vomit, then doesn't. He goes back to bed 15 minutes later. Fifteen minutes after that, he comes in, wakes us up, threatens to vomit, and then doesn't. Repeat this for three fucking hours. Mix in a heavy dose of "was the sex really worth it", and you've had my night for the past two nights. Wednesday night/Thursday morning was rough; Thursday night/Friday morning was brutal. For whatever reason, he was coming in right on my dream cycle, so he would wake me up during the middle of a dream and my body, apparently enjoying the recollection of the days of dorm living, refused to move. Fortunately, I have a wife. Even more fortunate, he comes in looking for Mommy anyway.

Still.

Last week, we talked about Daniel Radcliffe's birthday and his predilection toward Latin-based things in his acting career. Tomorrow is Harry Potter's birthday...and also J.K. Rowling's. Convenient, isn't it?

And before you point out what a nerd I am for knowing Harry's birthday, let me just go ahead and up the ante by admitting that I also know Frodo Baggins was born on September 22nd. Now that's true geekiness for you right there.

In case you're a bit of a history buff, today is Baghdad's birthday (July 30th, 726).

Anyway, if you're familiar with the Potter series of books, you'll know that a lot of the spells used are Latin words (there are also some in Greek, Aramaic and various African dialects, as well as others). Some of the big ones are the summoning spell Accio meaning "I call", the unforgivable curse Crucio meaning "I torture" (or "I crucify"), the disarming spell Expelliarmus, which means "You thrust away (your) weapon of war" and the big one, the Patronus summoning spell Expecto patronum, which means "I await a protector".

You should also notice that "patronus" has a derived form of "pater" in it, which means Daddy. And Harry's Patronus is a stag, which is the animal Daddy dearest could turn into. Kudos, JK. That was a nice touch.

There's lots of other spells, too, which are in Latin (as well as the Gryffindor's first password caput draconis, which means "dragon head"). I just chose four of the ones that would be most familiar to people, even if they had only seen the movies. One rule of thumb for those reading along and trying to decipher what's going on based solely on the key word of the spell is that you can look at the ending of the word. If it ends in an -o, this is something that the spell-caster is looking to do directly through him or herself. It matches up with the first-person singular present form of the Latin verb. For instance, Accio means "I am summoning (object) to me".

If the word ends in something else, chances are the spell-caster is looking to cause the recipient of the spell to do something.

And while all this is nice for the Wizarding world and all, there's a lot of practical applications of these spells that could play out in the non-wizarding world (and which make me really, really wish that magic was real).

For instance, try this on for size:

Accio cervisiam!
Pronounced: "Ah-kee-oh care-wee-see-ahm!


Frosty translation in the hovertext!

This is one I've actually tried using on my wife (and was rewarded with giggles...and not much else):

Expellivestis!
Pronounced: "Ex-pale-ee-waste-ees!"


The naked translation in the hovertext!

Closely related to that is this one:
Levitunicam!
Pronounced: "Lay-wee-too-nee-com!"


Uplifting translation in the hovertext!

And finally, this one, which would come in really, really handy in our celebutard-fascinated society:

Pello caniculam!
Pronounced: "Pay-loh cah-nee-cyoo-lom!"


Tee hee!

I guess that picture would be more like pello caniculae, but *meh*

Armed with that knowledge, my little wizards and witches, hit the streets this weekend and have some fun. Especially with that skirt-lifting spell.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Blah Blah Something Something Dildo

So, I've been kind of busy with my job lately, and my wife is trying to recover from a badly pinched nerve which has rendered her flat on her back. And while I am forced to look that gift horse in the mouth--*sigh*--I've been busy playing video games in the evening trying to keep the house running like a well-oiled machine.

Plus, my "always on" high speed internet from Time Warner Cable's Roadrunner...wasn't on last night. In fact, a lot of nights, it doesn't work on my computer. My wife's is fine. She even can do things like "surf the internet" and "check her email". Me? I'm stuck watching the arrows spin round and round while the page tries to load. But, you know, Roadrunner has that awesome blast of speed so that I can do anything I want on the internet. Provided that "anything" doesn't include "use the internet".

Fuckstains.

In light of an actual post (besides, the post yesterday about Cougar Sheri and the Hillbillies ran a bit long), I thought I'd give you this fantastic video that someone sent me a while ago. Just...be sure to watch in the background:

As one of my friends said, "That thing was fucking massive!"

Nothing quite like live news to make your day, is there?

Tales of the Bookstore, Chapter 3

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I'm a Terrible Friend

I think we've established that, when it comes to being blog friends, I, well, suck.

This has been terribly evident over the past couple of weeks as I've only posted sporadically (if at all), and how I hadn't really been reading as many blogs as I once did. I've rectified the latter part (though I haven't left as many comments lately), but still, I've been a terrible friend.

And now, this.

I've been cheating on you.

It's true. I've been having some posts pop up elsewhere. To be honest, it's been some of my best work, too. Short, succinct, a bit of etymology and/or history thrown in on top of it. And all of that accompanied by snark and wit unlike what I've been slapping around here lately.

In case you're unsure of what I'm talking about, I've been popping up over at Sully the Urban Hillbilly for the past couple of weeks, wherein I've been insulting every nation on earth whose name begins with "B".

I first stumbled upon Sully while looking for pictures of the Polish women's curling team at the Winter Olympics. What I found--alongside the pictures of the Polish women's curling team--was witty humor, fine musical tastes, and a healthy appreciation of blonde, busty Slavic women, regardless of their abilities to slide rocks on ice.

Shortly after the Olympics ended, Sully embarked upon a truly noble quest: insulting every member of the Senate. It was arduous, to be sure, but also quite entertaining--especially for someone (like me) whose maturity level ceased developing sometime around fourteen.

After that, Sully decided to move on to insulting every nation in the world, and asked if I'd like to join in. Since I had some choice words for Belgium, I offered to pick up with the B's and we could switch back-and-forth from there. He agreed and, well, we're down through Burma. The insults have been aplenty, and it's been truly enjoyable.

So, check Sully out if you're of mind to. I'm a bit ashamed that I haven't talked Sully up before, because someone who brings me this much joy on the internets really should be acknowledged as such.

Speaking of the Winter Olympics...hmmm...that was almost a seamless segue...I won a contest...a long time ago...on Words³ site for offering up a caption for a picture he had from these very same Winter Olympics. I was sent a marvelous little gift package with souvenirs from Vancouver: An official Winter Olympics refrigerator magnet and--more importantly--and official Winter Olympics shot glass.

Since my camera isn't talking to my computer currently, I can't get a picture. Besides, when the shot glass comes out, my pants come off, and, well, I'm already a bad enough friend without subjecting you all to that mess.

So, thank you, Words...Words...Words...and do not think that I let it slip my notice that your return address was affixed to a Ziggy sticker. Quite awesome, sir.

On top of all that, I haven't taken the time recently to get out and meet many of my new followers and commenters. I'm terrible, I know. I'm getting around to it now. I mean, what else am I going to do while stuck in the house hiding from 102 degree heat? Pay attention to my family? Psh.

And, to anyone else whose friendship I have shirked recently on these here innerwebs, I apologize humbly. And if this apology doesn't suffice, well, then I direct your attention back up to the statue at the top.