Mindy & Me

Hello ScoFans!

This week, Hillbilly Duhn has thrown a creative challenge out to myself and all of her readers. First she makes me her first ever Follower of the Week and then a few days later threw out this challenge to her readers with the opportunity to win some great books.

You know me. I won't say no to a writing challenge.

As I stood there, looking out, I thought about all the good times, and the bad times we shared.

I thought about all the games we would play when we were younger.

I thought about the silly things I did, because I was a child who didn't know any better.

I thought about the times I chased you down the street calling your name.

I thought about the times you curled up at the foot of my bed because you were cold.

I've been seeing you in my dreams. It's always the same dream. I'm watching TV on the floor and you're sitting on the other side of the room. You look over to me and I pat the floor in front of me, your invitation. You walk over and rest your head in my lap and look at me with those sad eyes.

At this point I usually wake up, and in the moment before I am fully aware of the world I look forward to seeing you again. And then I am awake, and it strikes me that you're gone.

I thought about Christmas 2007 when I surrounded you with balloons while you slept



And I thought about the last time you were truly happy, which was right here, in this spot.

I know I will never come back to this place.

But I also know I never want the dreams to end.

Okay, so maybe I want a funeral for my birthday

We've all made wacky and potentially embarrassing pacts with our buddies, particularly after we've had a few drinks. So we get why English best friends Kevin Elliot and Barry Delaney made a pact that whoever outlived the other had to wear a dress to the dead one's funeral.

But the deal took on significantly more weight when Kevin Elliot, 24, was shipped off to fight in Afghanistan. On August 31, Elliot was killed while on foot patrol.

True to his word, Delaney, who had warned Elliot's family in advance, showed up to the funeral in a tight green dress with pink legwarmers. Delaney looked completely ridiculous, mourning among Elliot's army colleagues in their regimental uniforms, and Elliot's proud family in their Sunday best.

And for the fallen soldier, mission accomplished.

http://www.asylum.com/2009/09/17/man-fulfills-death-pact-wears-dress-to-fallen-soldiers-funeral/


Hello ScoFans!

After hearing this story this week, I though I would share with you something I've been thinking about for a few weeks now. Something I have told some of you about in tweet form, or in comment form, but now you'll get to read it in blog form, which will be longer and.. well actually just longer.

So I was thinking about this and about the pacts people make and how much they must love and care about each other to be prepared to do make fools of themselves, and then I asked myself the question, "What would I be prepared to do for the people closest to me in my life?"

And then I asked myself the even more important question, "What would they be prepared to do for me?"

What sort of crazy ridiculous thing could I get people to do at my funeral? I mean, if I'm dead, they can't say no right? Because if I do, I will give them such a haunting.

And do you know what I decided?

Okay, yes, some of you do because as I said I've told you, but some of you don't so I'll tell you if those of you who do know would just stop interrupting me. I'm telling the story right so be quiet.

I want rows and rows of my family and friends doing the Thriller dance.

Look, I even found a handy little "How To" guide.

I should start distributing it now to everyone I know. I don't want anyone to be caught off guard now do I?

In fact, Christmas is only a few months away, wouldn't it make a great Christmas present?

"Merry Christmas Nanna and Pa, enjoy this! Oh, and learn it before I die, okay?"

Wait, what? My Grandparents? But surely, unless there's some great tragedy, they will be dying a long time before I do, so what do they need it for? Well, in my mind, the highlight of the whole room was my Grandparents there getting down to some Thriller style action.

But I don't want to die young (I'm sure nobody does) so this does leave me in a pickle.

Fear not though ScoFans, for as you can see from the title of this post I have worked out a solution.

My birthday is now less than away, and what I should ask everyone to do, for me, on my birthday, is to throw me a funeral. Because at the end of the day, aren't birthday parties just funerals with music?

I mean, it's still good food. It's still a lot of people you care about in one place, the only difference it's that at a funeral there's one less person you care about. (Okay, that was a joke in poor taste.. but I'm not deleting it now. What's been typed cannot be untyped)

And of course, at my birthday funeral, there would be music. There would be Thriller, and there would be everyone I know all dressed up in their best formal gear dancing to it in a church. And a priest as well, because next to my grandparents the priest is the highlight the way I imagine it.

Maybe I could even get the priest to be all..

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

and then I jump out of the casket and we all get our Thriller on.

Okay, so maybe I have spent a little bit too much time planning my own funeral, but if I didn't plan it it wouldn't be anything like I wanted it to be.

And while we're talking about Michael Jackson, what is the most inappropriate thing you can think of happening after his death?

Think about that for a second..

Now tell me if it went something like this..

So anyway before you all go off and start practicing the dance, tell me, how do you see your funeral playing out?

Close but No Cigar

"Is it hot in here? It must be Summer" - Howard Wolowitz - The Big Bang Theory

Hello ScoFans!

Okay okay I know I blog about this show a lot but I was watching it this week and Summer Glau made a guest apperance and it made me think "Wow, this girl has popped up in a lot of shows I watch. If I didn't know any better.. I'd say she was somehow stalking me through the television."

As it turns out, I don't know any better, and that is now the theory I am working with.

And I know that might sound crazy, but let's just take a look through the shows she has appeared in and how blatantly obvious it would have been to her or anyone else for that matter that I would watch them

The Big Bang Theory (Herself)

I'm starting with the most recent show (because I've mentioned it already) and working my way backwards through her catalogue.

Now let's run the checklist on this show:
[x] Sitcom
[x] Nerd friendly
[x] Video game references
[x] Math and science humor
[x] Sheldon

With all of those boxes ticked, how can I not love the show? Not only that, I've mentioned it in my blog a lot lately so I think she knew I loved the show. And if that was all, I might consider it a coincidence, but let's work out way backwards some..

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Cameron Phillips)
[x] Terminators

The show doesn't need any more than that. Really, any male who is currently in their 20's-early 30's was going to give this one a chance. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt here.

Next stop..

The Unit (Crystal Burns)
[x] Dennis Haysbert (loved his work on 24, was always going to give his next project a chance)
[x] Robert Patrick (loved his work in Terminator 2 and the X Files)
[x] Guns and explosions
[x] A fresh perspective on a show essentially about military life

Summer showed up as Crystal in series two of the show when me and my brother were heavily addicted. It was always going to become an obsession for us, a perfect combination of action, humor and occasionally a bit of sadness as well. It took me a few episodes to realise I had seen her before...

Serenity / Firefly (River Tam)
[x] Nathan Fillion
[x] Sci Fi.. without being TOO Sci Fi

I'm pretty sure Summer knew I wouldn't watch this show when it was on TV because it looked too Sci Fi for me, but would later be sold on it after my brother borrowed the DVDs from his math teacher and finally convinced me to watch because Nathan Fillion (from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza place, which is like my favorite show ever) was in the series.

Yeah, she knew that was bound to happen just like that.

And finally, the place where I first saw her..

The 4400 (Tess Doerner)
[x] Interesting plot
[x] Sci Fi without being TOO Sci Fi
[x] Superpowers
[x] Way better than Heroes, which is just a cheap knock off marketed for the masses

I didn't actually realise Summer was in this until I was watching the DVDs after seeing her on The Unit and Firefly. This must have been where her obsession with me started as she watched me backwards through the TV screen (which all actors do)

Well Summer, I'm sorry. It's obvious you've gone to all this hard work to make me notice you, and you obviously have made me notice you because I'm blogging about you now, but really, I'm just not that into you.

And it's not you, it's me. I mean sure you're attractive and everything, but I'm just not into anyone like that.. because you see relationships are all about being equals.. and I have no equals.

I guess what I'm trying to say Summer is you can take over my TV shows, you can even (apparently) have a post about you in my blog, but you'll never take my FREEDOM!

(Oh, and before any of you say it, I've already had to tell NKOTB it's not so much that I think the world revolves around me, it's just that I know they're all out to get me)

Do you have an actor or actress or just happens to show up in everything you're watching (without you seeking the out. Yes I mean you who only watch "Pirates of the Caribbean" for Johnny Depp)

Jillian was her name
She was sweeter than aspartame
Her kisses reconfigured my DNA
And after that I never was the same

And I loved her even more
Than Marlon Brando loved souffle
She was gorgeous, she was charming
Yeah, she was perfect in every way

Except she was always using the word "infer"
When she obviously meant "imply"
And I know some guys would put up with that kind of thing
But frankly, I can't imagine why

And I told her, I said
"Hey! Are we playing horseshoes, honey?
No, I don't think we are!
You're close! (Close!)
But no cigar!"

Weird Al Yankovic- Close But No Cigar

Shamoo The Mysterious Whale

Hello ScoFans!

Last week, I gave a math lesson which I'm sure all of you thoroughly enjoyed (at least you pretended to, which is almost as important as actually enjoying it), well this week it's a whole nother type of lesson.

Okay, so by show of hands how many of you are familiar with the term "mondegreen"

Okay, now put your hands down because I can't see you anyway and I'm sure you look ridiculous sitting at your computer at your home or place of business with your hand raised like that. I mean really, how embarrassing for you.

For those of you who have not heard the word before, a mondegreen is a misheard lyric often resulting in much embarrassment (almost as much as raising ones hand because the words on the screen told them to) as someone belts out the wrong words drunk in front of their friends, only to be corrected by a friend or loved one.

And for anyone who is interested in the history of the word, I'm going to steal from Wikipedia (where would I be without it?)

The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term mondegreen in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," which was published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954. In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Murray." She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl Amurray,

And Lady Mondegreen.

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". As Wright explained the need for a new term, "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original".

Like the Fibonacci sequence, I also love a good mondegreen. There are a number of websites devoted to them on the Internet, most of which leave me laughing and wondering "What the hell did they think the rest of the lyrics were, if that's what they thought that line was?"

Which brings me to today's post. With the knowledge now of what a mondegreen is, can you guess which lyric has been misheard for the title of this post?

Yes, it's U2's "Mysterious Ways".

So now, ScoFans and people who have wandered here looking for "gays suck me dry" (you know who you are, I read it in my keyword analysis), I give you "Mysterious Ways", rewritten to suit the line "Shamoo, the Mysterious Whale"

Shamoo take a swim with your sister Naroon
Let her love in, and let it in soon
You've been living blind you see
Ignoring her plea
She's been longing to swim
To where you can't be
Land

You're happy
She's feeling down
She's thinking of running aground

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Shamoo, the mysterious whale

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Shamoo, the mysterious whale

Shamoo take a swim with your daughter again
Let her talk of things that have bought her pain
She needs you to hear
To hear is to heal
If you want her to survive
Better learn how to feel
(Learn to feel boy)

So just stay
By her side
And see the pain inside of your child

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Shamoo the mysterious whale

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Shamoo the mysterious whale

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Open your heart, light up her life

One day you will look.... back
And what will you see... then?
Will you hold her... now?
Either do that... or
You could just stand... there
She needs you at this moment
To show what you're feeling

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Shamoo the mysterious whale

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Shamoo the mysterious whale

Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Hear her cries
Naroon's having difficult days
Needing love from the mysterious whale
She longs for it
She longs for it
Open your heart, light up her life