“Snap, Crackle, Pop!”

RIP, guys!

I ate Rice Krispies today for breakfast.  It was the first time I’ve eaten them since childhood, and I had forgotten how loud the snapping, crackling and popping actually was.  In fact, I was shocked at the loudness!  As I sat and ate, I recalled several commercials where parents encourage their children to listen to what Snap, Crackle and Pop have to say from the bowl.  The children then go ahead and eat the cereal they just listened to.  Giggling and heartless, they listen to cries for mercy from their cereal bowl, and then proceed to eat poor Snap, Crackle and Pop!  Then I realized I was heartlessly eating Snap, Crackle and Pop as well.  Oops!

“It’s times like these you learn to love again”

            - “Times Like These” | Foo Fighters

     It’s about time I’ve had some lyrics on this blog. 

     It’s suicide season among university students – and no, I’m not speaking literally about suicide, (although I’m sure rates are high at this time of year), but it’s nearing the end of the semester and professors go crazy with evaluation.  Assignments and exams are hitting students in the face from all directions.  Studying takes up about 98% of your life and the other two per cent is shared between sleeping and eating. 

     Sleepy and malnourished, anyone?           Right here.

 

     As I was studying for a mid-term that is nowhere near the middle of the term *raises eyebrow*, I was just cruising along, enjoying a little Foo Fighters and Times Like These played and it made me realize that it is definitely study time when you think all of your interests, hobbies and loves in life, hence “It’s times like these you learn to love again”.  It’s when you have ZERO time for it all, it seems so appealing.  I am well aware that my interpretation is not the intended meaning of the lyric, this is what crossed my mind as I heard it.

            What would I like to be doing instead of studying? 

-       Writing a decent blog post that is not about school

-       Reading a book purely for leisure (although some I have read this were really good)

-       Being creative – doing a craft – making a friendship bracelet!

-       Watching television/movies

-       CLEANING MY APARTMENT

     Those are the first few things that came to mind, but trust me – there are MANY more.  So, I should get back to studying and you can all get back to your lives!

PEACE

“Mistaking celery for broccoli is just as bad as mistaking raisins for chocolate chips.”

It’s like the biggest let-down ever:  So you’re sitting in the food court of the mall, got some nice sweet&sour chicken, chicken fried rice and guy ding in front of you, all ready to take a bite into a lovely piece of broccoli and HOOOOOOOLLD UP!  What is this?  It’s not broccoli, IT’S CELERY! 

The world comes to an end. 

Celery has to be the most disgusting tasting food-from-the-earth.  It literally tastes like dirt.  Watery dirt... mud?  Although celery only has about 19 calories per serving, and the average human burns more calories chewing and swallowing the celery, so it makes for a great healthy snack, it tastes so horrible that I probably wouldn’t accept money to willingly eat the stuff.  Even if you disguised it with cheesewhiz or peanut butter or something – no dice.

So when the tragic event of mistaking broccoli for celery happened, my best friend, Emily, was there providing me with perhaps the best simile I’ve ever heard:  “Mistaking celery for broccoli is just as bad as mistaking raisins for chocolate chips”.  Same concept, right?  About to bite into what you think is a delicious oatmeal-chocolate chip cookie, but wait!  Why are these chocolate chips squishy?  Surprise, you've got raisins.  Have a nice life.

Thank you, Emily, for being an inspiration!  (:

"Long time, no see!"

Hello, peeps.  So it has certainly been a while since I’ve written a blog.  It seems as though my academic career and social life have forbidden what was going to be a weekly post on my part.  It’s not that I have completely avoided my blog; I have been working on a few posts... I just haven’t completed anything other than school work in a while.  Anyhow, I’m going to try to get things back on track. 

          To get things rolling again, I decided to start with the previously hated, yet commonly used phrase: “long time, no see”.  Despite hearing and using this phrase all of my life, (What does that say about my social life?), I still cringed every time I said it.  For the most part, I like to abide by grammatical rules as much as I can, and the ungrammaticality of the phrase caused me to look upon myself with disgust.  Dramatic, I know.  But really, I want to speak as properly as I can.  (Goody-goody)  I continue borrow phrases that are common to my culture, some of which are terribly ungrammatical, but still enjoyable!  I just found this particular phrase as fierce as a smack in the face.

          All in all I’d like to say that I’ve gained a new appreciation for the phrase “long time, no see”.  It’s not that I really like it now, I just hate it less.  Knowing the origin definitely clears up the weird grammatical issue I have had with it: “long time, no see” is actually a direct word-for-character translation of Chinese characters.  Okay, that’s cool.  I am well aware of language translations having word order issues, so now I can live with the ungrammaticality of the phrase. 

          Conscience cleared.  Mind is at ease.  I can now sleep at night.

“Don’t tell me about communism, I know what I know... I’m a communist.”

For those of you who know me personally, you know that I despise anything to do with politics and government issues.  A mere conversation around the topic can cause me to roll my eyes in boredom.  I think this lack of interest stems from my lack of knowledge, which stems from my lack of interest.  I tried to educate myself on the subject, but no luck.  So it may come as a surprise that this quote appealed to my interest in any way.

The above quote was on the television show The Golden Girls, a fabulous show that I highly recommend.  If I remember correctly, it was that a visitor from a communist country was disgusted with America and when Dorthy tried to explain to her about the freedom and how it was much better than communism, she replied “Don’t tell me about communism, I know what I know...  I’m a communist.”.  At this point of the show, I was laughing out loud.  

From what little knowledge I have of communism, I understand that members of a communist country generally do not realize that they are missing out on many ideas and issues around the world due to the lack of freedom/choice withheld by their government.  Essentially, they are brainwashed into believing that the way of life they live is the only correct way to live.  A scary thought, in reality.  But in a satirical kind of way, it is funny that a communist thinks they know about communism.

“May you never live to see your wife a widow.”

While reading the novel Catherine Snow, I came across the statement “May you never live to see your wife a widow”.  I had been reading for some time that particular day, and had to re-read this phrase a few times to make sure it made no sense.  Was this statement a mistake of the author?

Nope!  In the novel the statement had been referred to as an “Irish toast”.  So I Googled it.  I learned that the fact that these statements are absurd or contradictory is what characterizes these phrases as “Irish Bulls”, perhaps there is some relation to the slang term “bullshit”.  

While Googling, I also discovered that there are tonnes of these phrases, and they are not only used in the Irish culture.  If you want to check out a bunch, here is a website:  http://therussler.tripod.com/dtps/irish_bulls.html  If you're just too lazy to click, some are listed below.  Enjoy!

More Irish Bulls:

-       “A lot of people my age are dead at present time.” – Anonymous

-       “And he proceeded to stop.” – Ken Zotigh

-       “At first, I had second thoughts.” – a west Texan

-       “I didn’t go back to sleep until we got up in the morning.” – Carole Mabrey

-       “I distinctly remember forgetting that.” – Robert K. Oglesby

-       “I hate all prejudice people.” – Robert Scott

-       “It occurred to me lately that nothing occurred to me lately.” – Ashleigh Brilliant

-       “They were laughing in my face, right behind my back” – The Russler

-       “They’re both unique in the same way.” - Anonymous

"Did you survive?"

In 75% of my classes today, this was the greeting the professors provided the students with the day after Hurricane Igor savagely swept through town: “Did you survive?”  In my opinion, it is a very dumb question to have been asked by people of such high educational status.  I think it’s quite obvious when I am sitting right in front of you that I did indeed survive the hurricane. Maybe a more appropriate question would be “Know anyone who died?” or as my roommate’s prof asked, “Anyone have any horror stories?”  Just thought I’d share that with you.

“Toss over the boat anchor, I have room for two more in my hip pocket.”*

This quote came from a documentary my Linguistics professor showed in class today.  I cannot remember the name of the person who said it, but they had a good point.  Naturally, this sentence doesn’t make sense.  However, it is grammatically correct, which deems it a proper sentence despite it having little or no meaning.

The documentary was on the subject of language and communication, and the discussion was around the idea that there are infinite combinations of words that can be put together to make infinite sentences.  Language is described as being similar to a game of chess; each piece has a limited number of spaces it can move, but these pieces together can make infinite numbers of games.  Respectively, each word has a limit within the sentence, (noun, verb, etc), but when constructed together, the amount of sentences that can be created are countless.

I do understand the comparison between language and chess, however, I don’t necessarily agree with this metaphor.  I believe that if there are a limited number of moves a chess piece can make, then those moves can be counted, hence the number (though a big one) of possible games can also be counted.  And, on an unreasonable level, so can the possible sentences in the English language.  But no one has time for that, so we’ll just leave that one at infinite. 

* I'm not sure if this is a direct quotation, but it's close. 

         P.S.  Enjoy the comic... I know you love the lame jokes just as much as I do.

"Tastes Great!"

Borrowed this shit from Google.

It's on a package of Gourmet Chocolate Chunk Cookies. I could have guessed that they tasted great, they are cookies. I don't think I've ever experienced a chocolate chunk cookie that didn't taste at least "great"...

Do marketers use this as a selling point? If so, the message was so tiny and printed off in the corner that I didn't even notice it on the package of cookies until I was already half way though. FAIL. (Maybe on my part for not being observant.)  Either way, I didn't sit down and eat half the pack feeling undecided about the flavor that I was experiencing in my mouth, then read "Tastes Great!" and BAM: euphoria - these cookies do taste great! But that's just me, maybe this little message has worked wonders for other consumers.

But thanks for clarifying that Gourmet Chocolate Chunk Cookies do indeed taste great!

Quotes McGotes

Choosing a name for a blog is never an easy decision... unless you have a title and build your blog around. Then perhaps the blog itself is the challenge. In the past I have come up with ideas, but could never get started. Finally after two and a half failed attempts to write a blog, I feel quotes are something I can actually write about.

I promise you the quotes I write about will not be those boring quotes that use old English and are written by some dead guy. I’m talking about good ol’ every day phrases said by friends or heard in movies, (even some books), that make me laugh or cause me to stop and think. Hopefully you’ll get a laugh out of some of them too!

Now back to the name of my blog, “Quotes McGotes”, perhaps some of you already understand the origin of this little mis-quote. If you don’t, I shall explain: ever watch the movie I Love You, Man? Throughout the movie Peter Klaven, the main character, is constantly saying random things in hopes to be cool, but ends up creating countless awkward situations for himself. At one point in the movie Peter attempts to arrange another “man date” with Sydney Fife, his new best friend, and says “Totally... Totes McGotes”. This quote has been popping up randomly in my head since the first time I watched the movie, so naturally it’s a favourite. As I was trying to think of a name for this blog I realized that I was able to mis-quote a favourite to make a bit of a pun. I love puns. So I present to you the blog entitled “Quotes McGotes”, I hope you all enjoy!