Miss Begotten tries to speak plainly, but sometimes she tends to babble -- parenthetically. It's never my intention to offend (and usually that's true - except on those [maybe not so] rare occasions when I mean it very friggin' much) but it sometimes happens, so if you're unusually easily offended...
Doomed to spend another Monday in a place I do not want to be, the song just seems apropos. It's ridiculous to spend much of Sunday dreading Monday like the plague. There has to be an answer. Perhaps I should put myself up for adoption? Meanwhile, you can help me out by spreading giggles. Tell me jokes, draw me cartoons, write me raunchy limericks ... whatever. Just send on smiles.
And listen, nobody said (obviously!) it has to be good poetry. I need some laughs today, so I'm sitting here waiting to see what you come up with. And just to be a good sport and show you how very, very bad poetry can be, I'll even go first.
"Shure!" Captian Dameg said To the lady of the night. "It apeears 'tis no sacrafice of a good doubloon, but you might Lose the bellicose attidtude before bed."
And so she proformed, and druuged it out, Her stamina quite a suprise. And the captian, the hirsute lout, Was not left a'wainting the final prize.
It was quite an experiance when the deade Was done, and 'neath the covers he wallows, And imbibes a tankard of sweet honey mead, For who knew, bad Carma, she swollows.
Two young boys walked into a pharmacy one day, picked out a box of tampons, and proceeded to the checkout counter.
The man at the counter asked the older boy, "Son, how old are you?" "Eight," the boy replied. The man continued, "Do you know what these are used for?" The boy replied, "Not exactly, but they aren't for me. They're for him. He's my brother. He's four. We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now, he can't do either."
It was a sad day in L.A. yesterday with the loss of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on the same day. Certainly, Jackson redefined the word "weird" and grew more eccentric with each passing year, but there's no denying his talent. "Thriller" was one of the finest pieces of work ever produced, in my opinion. Farrah's passing was, due to the nature of her illness, expected, but Jackson's sudden death was shocking.
Moving on, TGIF and wishes for a wonderful weekend to you all. Y
Your Address Says You're Growing
Right now, you are working on changing your life for the better.
You feel restless and ready to get moving. You're stick of sitting still.
At your best, you are forgiving of yourself and others. You're ready to move on.
Twisted though they are, it won't take you long to figure out who the clues point to. I wish there was a prize involved. There isn't, of course. You'll figure it out anyway, though, won't you? You are, after all, members of the Blasfomy Posse. These are the clues:
The way the press is treating me is unfare, as are the prices of plane tickets these days.
Men of my calibor are often found in high places.
I was recently one of several southward bound immagrants.
I suppose my wife has a ligimiate beef with me -- and South American meat.
I know that people are questioning my mentalty.
I probably need an attourny now, don't I? Several, perhaps -- criminal, civil, divorce, yada yada.
See these tears? No? Somebody bring me another onion! I'm really feeling discrimated against.
No, I wasn't out shooping for food last week. Or hiking.
My whole damn staff is angery at me.
Doiesn't an elected official deserve a little fun occasionally?
My security detail already knows I'm not an amatuer at this kind of thing.
Still, the phenominal sex was worth the terable press.
You know what today is. It's mid-week. My work week is 3/4 over. It's Wednesday. And it's ... Hump Day. Have a Happy, Happy!
Oh, yeah, and it's also the day when I don't have to write anything because somebody already did it for me. It's the day when I pass along one of my favorite recent e-mail "forwards." Enjoy.
I can't respond to any emails today -- something has crashed on my computer...
In the spirit of noblesse oblige and because, well, it's just the kind of person I am, I am begging for soliciting contributions to send my boss to a half decent asylum. I am now convinced that she is indeed certifiable and that she is not going to get any mentally healthier sans some damned rigorous treatment. I sincerely believe that electroshock therapy would not be excessive in her case. She needs heavy-duty drugs, although I'm perfectly willing to cut costs by letting them try out the experimental stuff on her. She'll also require some fairly extensive therapy, rehab (because those places aren't gentle), severe (and frequent) shocking, and a nice tailored straitjacket. This stuff costs money, and I don't have it -- because she doesn't give me much.
Unlike many wrinkle creams and erectile dysfunction remedies, I can't, of course, guarantee results. But then, I don't really give a flying fluck about results. All I care about is that during her nice serene stay in the far, far away asylum, she'll be out of my hair. A certifiable boss out of sight, out of mind (literally) in a forbidding institution with crenelated towers and rubber rooms -- in, say, Sri Lanka -- whose methods, cleanliness, and success rate I couldn't care less about translates into a much happier Serena. I'm the one who needs the serenity. She doesn't deserve any. As you may have intuited by now, a happy Serena is much preferable to a pissed off Serena.
All contributions will be accepted with such maniacal glee you wouldn't even believe it. One Dollar, Five Dollars, a Thousand -- it doesn't matter. Just do it! You'll feel good for having contributed to such a worthy cause, and I know you won't say anything if I skimp on her treatment a little (okay, a lot) and go get a facial and a pedicure and a few new outfits.
And by the way, we won't be sending Skank Girl with her. They'd enjoy that too much. No, I have other plans for our trailer-park Lady Chatterley. I'll let you know when it's time to get charitable again and donate to that fund. That one might cost a little more. There's quantum physics, dark matter, black holes, and a little junk science involved.
Some days, things are (a) exactly what they seem. Other days, (b) nothing is what it seems. It's like life goes a little schizo and can't quite decide what it wants to be.
Are you having an (a) or (b) Monday? Although it's early, I can tell you that I'm having a little bit of both. My main life is pretty much "what you see is what you get." Here at the office, however, on the other side of the looking glass, it's always surreal and nothing, no matter how simple it appears on the surface, has one straightforward, sane meaning. Some people belong in straitjackets.
This has to be one of the best singles ads ever printed. It is reported to have been listed in the Atlanta Journal.
SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a very good girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me.. Call (404) 875-6420 and ask for Daisy, I'll be waiting....
Scroll down...
Keep going...
Over 150 men found themselves talking to the Atlanta Humane Society.
Your boss is a jerk. They are mean and make fun of you at board meetings. But in the long run they probably won't try to make your life a living hell and you might get a promotion... sometime...
If you're so inclined, you, too, can rate your boss by following the link. Be forewarned, though, that it's not all that accurate. I'm quite sure my boss rates higher than any 44%.
These little thingies may be all I have the energy to post for a while. I have a project (not work-related, believe me) going on and it's going to take some time and energy.
I have Words Gone Wild this week, and I know what to do with the damned blasfomys. And I don't mean sending them back to the cornfield, either. Nope, we're going to write poetry with them; i.e., you are going to write poetry with them. I do know, of course, that I have to go first or you won't do it. So I'm doing it. Damn it. So there. I don't care what style you decide on. It's totally up to you. Just ... write.
Here are the blasfomys with which we will write our poetic masterpieces:
I sit, head in hands, angsting over Being thrust into the pit and forced to Wallow in the prescence of mediocrity, Having just peeked at the helariously Shotty editing job hoisted off on me by The regin jagua who calls herself an editor. I could shoot her, And quite ligitametly, for who Could convict me for harning The controversible dilettante who, Five minutes from quitting time and Having not yet made her quotent, Blasphemously incorrectly red-lined me, Leaving me rediculed and reviled? I could shoot off her head and Let her wear her diamond, neckless. Oh, hell, I am apostate, Her oppisite, becuse I have inheritated Some firing neurons but little brawn and so I've no love of being provocked by Poseur twits who, without excuse, if they could write, Surely would. But no! Vock her and the screwy Format she faulted me for. Cloaked in gimme-gimme genes, She genuflects at the altar of A conspicuously empty brain pan. Oh, God, now I can admit it to myself... I am a fucking genious.
The Grammar Witch would also like to say a few words today.
What is up with nationally known physicians who go on TV and discuss the whoop-ing cough rather than the hoop-ing cough? Doc needs a little whoop-ass. And how about talk-show people who yack about some washed up actor re-prizing his role rather than re-preezing it? If you ask me, they all need to get a job. We have this local news anchor, a very annoying person in all respects, who aggravates the pee out of me by talking about sammon-ella when people eat bad food and get sick. She knows how to pronounce sammon, the fish, so I suppose she believes it must follow that the letters s-a-l-m-o-n are always pronounced sammon. Not so, honey!
People who for real and for true should know better continually grate on my nerves by uttering such grammatical oddities as:
"They gave awards to Jack and myself." "They told my husband and I the car was totaled but we weren't dead." "They had went right but ended up left of nowhere."
Well. They gave Jack an award. They gave me an award. They for damn sure didn't give myself an award.
They told my husband. They told me. I doubt seriously that they told I anything.
And ... they had went? What?! Make a career change, girlie. Broadcast journalism ain't for you.
And a Happy (and deliriously grammatical) Thursday to you, kids!
We haven't done a Meme in a while. Let's do one today. And not just because my brain went a bit mushy yesterday and I couldn't think of anything else to do, either. They're fun! You know they are. We'll call this one the Meme by Fives.
1. My 5 favorite things to eat are: Ice cream, ice cream toppings, shrimp, french fries, cheeseburgers
2. My 5 best childhood friends were: Bobbie, Lynne, Stephanie, Sharon, Janet
3. My 5 favorite non-alcoholic beverages are: Coffee, iced tea, water, Coke Zero, Dr Pepper
4. My 5 high school boy/girlfriends were: Kenny, Lewis, Billy, Tom, Dennis
5. My 5 most annoying traits are: Need for space, quick temper, reading/writing marathons, stubborn, horrible at Math
6. If you ask me, my 5 best qualities are: Ability to see both sides of an argument, logical, reasonably tolerant, quick study, I don't yell, bite, or claw unless provoked
7. The names of 5 pets I've owned in my life are: Tasha, Simon, Katie, Molly, Puck
8. The 5 things I like best about my job are: Bathroom breaks, smoke breaks, food breaks, Internet access, quitting time
9. My 5 favorite TV shows are: The Closer, In Plain Sight, Bones, CSI, Law & Order
10. My 5 favorite authors are: Tess Gerritsen, James Lee Burke, Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, Alafair Burke
11. The 5 things I'm most scared of (aside from vampires, zombies, and the Apocalypse): Deep water; dark caves, especially underwater; large, hungry animals, especially if they're rabid; psycho killers; boredom
12. My 5 most annoying habits are: Collecting killer shoes (or so I'm told), impulsiveness, letting moron drivers know how annoying they are, watching TV in bed (or so I'm told), grunting/groaning/muttering/gritting teeth when annoyed
13. The 5 primary reasons why I answered this Meme: I had to go first or you wouldn't do it, boredom, it's a non-creative day, et cetera, ad nauseam
This was the earworm in my head all day yesterday. I don't know why. There was a full moon last night. Perhaps that's explanation enough. I'd have preferred the original Van Morrison cover; couldn't find one. Oh, well.
Here's what's on my mind today.
You've probably seen these little doohickeys before. It's just a simple little widget thing you can make from the site listed. Some people like to put them on their Web sites for whatever reason. I think they just do it to be cute -- unless they're mean, and then they do it to scare people. Don't freak, though. All you can see is your own information, and all anyone viewing the site can see is their own information. Nobody else's. It does give one pause, though.
Don't be lulled into complacency by such harmless little banners and widgets, however. While they are completely benign, your private information is available to the operators of the sites you visit. Some of this data is available via "stat counters." I use those myself to keep track of Web traffic (not that I have much time any more to actually glance at them). They provide such information as IP numbers, approximate city of origin, and what pages the visitor viewed. It's amazing to me the number of people who have no clue that their computers broadcast their Internet Protocol addresses and other personal, possibly identifying, information to every site they visit.
I find stat counters helpful if I get a troll onboard, or am besieged by a relentless spammer. I've never been hacked (knock on wood), but I have been -- I don't know, I guess the word for it is "spoofed." In other words, I've had people create fake (and wildly obnoxious!) blogs using my name and such personal information as they had access to. Stat counters were very useful in those situations because these morons bragged about it elsewhere, their IP numbers were captured, the site owners traded information with me, and I was able to pinpoint who did it. The trackers won't tell you the offender's name, of course, but it will give you enough identifying information to have some small sense of who it is if you know you've had a problem with someone from a particular region. More importantly to me, it provides me with an IP number to ban from my sites. Blogger needs to provide a banning function to us, because I know a lot of bloggers get spammed and trolled every day and have no recourse other than to take their blogs private.
There are much more sophisticated tracking programs than stat counters out there, though, and some of those can be downright scary -- especially in the hands of those of a criminal bent. I've even heard rumors of a new software coming that will be able to take one teensy piece of information about you and use it to track down articles, posts, etc., you may have posted years ago; in effect, creating an online dossier on you. Clearly, there's no such thing as anonymity on the Web any more, but I fail to see any legitimate need for that kind of Big Brotherish software. It's bad enough that government agencies have license to flag key words from private citizens' e-mails. Give the criminal element the ability to do much the same thing and I foresee nothing but trouble.
In addition to good anti-virus software and strong firewalls (which can still be breached if some creep is relentless enough), you can (for now, anyway) avoid the worst of such dangers as phishing, pharming, and evil twin attacks by purchasing anonymizing software. Trouble is, the criminal element also benefits by using software that camouflages their real IP numbers and other identifying data.
Nobody wants to cut their Internet connection, so ... be careful out there!
When they're really following you, you aren't paranoid!
Home of Twisted Linguistics & Latter-Day Blasfomys
********************** Hale McKay and I are co-writing Verbicidal Tendencies. We could certainly use some additional team members. **********************
The poetry that you all write in your comments is now being showcased at Poetically Twisted.
**MISSBEGOTTEN/PARENTHETICALLY SPEAKING is my MAIN blog. You can call me "Serena" or SJ or you can just call me Sherry. If you call me anything else, I'll hear about it. Believe it. As regular visitors know, this, the team blog (VT), and PT (the repository of your poetry) are my only blogs. If you see some other blog out there purporting to be mine, please, just ignore it. I don't even have to tell you that it's not me. You know the difference and you can spot the fakes in a heartbeat. Moving on -- I write every now and then and I ... read. I love a good mystery/thriller. If it has me up late, double-checking the locks on the doors, it's hit the mark. I want... Well, I'll let you know when I know. I ADORE comments, by the way (hint-hint).
COURT IN SESSION - WORDS GONE WILD ON TRIAL. SHIRT, SHOES, & DICTIONARY REQUIRED.
Posts From Serena's Cellars
ER - QUIET! WORD REHAB WARD - BEDS STILL AVAILABLE. DR. INTERPRETATOR ON DUTY IN LOCKED TWISTED LINGUISTICS UNIT. NO SHARP OBJECTS, NO SPITTING, NO SHOOTING. PLEASE DON'T FEED THE PATIENTS.
Moody?
Be sure and pet Pink Duck with your mouse, and don"t forget to feed him.