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Monday Miscellany

1. I saw a personalized license plate the other day on the way home, which was funny for 2 reasons:* (1) it said PNCREAS, which is just a plain funny word, and (2) who gets PNCREAS as a personalized license plate? You have to pay extra for that, and someone thought, "I know, I will get a personalized license plate trumpeting my undying love for an organ that is both an endocrine gland and an exocrine gland."** I mean, what?

2. I saw a mouse in the kitchen today and literally screamed, and then laughed because (a) I've seen mice before--my mother's house is an old farm house and we would usually get one or two mice a year when the weather changed, and (b) could I be more of a cliche? But it's scary to be standing in your kitchen waiting for your coffee to be done and see something scurrying out of the corner of your eye, even if you know right away that it's just a mouse. Now, unfortunately, I'm going to have to buy a trap. I don't mind mice, but I can't have them running around my kitchen unchecked. There's "Jay doesn't really cook" and then there's "Jay's kitchen has become a breeding ground for vermin."

3. Lynn Viehl, author and contest holder extraordinaire, has a post about this cool Weird Name Generator over at Seventh Sanctum. As someone who recently went through some minor title troubles recently,*** I love the idea of naming a book "The Sagely Jester of the Jade Miter" or "Bodyguard, with an Eye of Amber and the Electrum Diadem."**** But some of the titles generated could be great titles, especially if you write fantasy or sci-fi. Who doesn't want to read a book called "The Girl Who Forgets Secrets" or "The Vicious Queen"? Those are just good titles, man!

4. I know I'm a little behind on the timing here, but I have to say it--the Foster's Home for Imaginary Animals float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? BEST FLOAT EVER. They RickRolled the whole country!***** Take a look! (And, incidentally, God bless Rick Astley for doing this. I've always liked his music, but this just shows that he's also a cool person.)

~~~

* I'm not one of those people who hates personalized license plates and thinks people who have them are jerks. I like them. I used to have one that said CERTI2D, after my favorite stanza in a Matthew Arnold poem. Now I just have a normal plate because I don't want to spend money on a personalized one, but generally I find them entertaining. I like them because you get to read and drive at the same time without the danger of killing yourself. Who doesn't love that?


**thanks, Wikipedia! Wait...do you think there could be some sort of secret message in that from the driver? Like he (it was a he) both endos and exos? ::shudder:: I don't want to think about this any more.

***More on this in a later entry.

****My favorite part of this title is the comma. Bodyguard COMMA. The title itself is awesome, but the comma puts it right over the line from "awesome" to Super Awesome.

*****RickRolling, if you didn't know, is when you click a link to a video (like, on YouTube, or something) and instead get Rick Astley's video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." It's just a silly internet meme, until you get Rick Astley to perform on your float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
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