A new addition

To my links, that is. I've seen Failblog before, but Carrots reminded me of its existence. I've just guffawed for half an hour, and I needed that!

I can't breathe!

A fictitious Obama campaign staff sings "One Day More" from Les Miserables. I don't think I've laughed that hard since I first saw Tina Fey do Palin! Go Here

Cloven hoofs

My husband has a thing for goats -- as in he finds them endlessly amusing, even their mere existence. So he put them in a story.

Bang

When you are looking for work and float out to the Internet job sites a vague title like "writer," you get very interesting results. Especially if you include the D.C. area in your searches:

Ammunition Handling Doctrine Writer

I've heard of snake handling, but this is a new one. Bet that's an interesting religion.

Searching for public affairs also brings up fun new careers: Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Specialist and Social Norms Marketing Coordinator.

Editor is generally not as interesting, but here's one I'm sure my sister would tell me to go for: Assistant Editor, AMERICAN HUNTER (the NRA).

Virginia is the place to be.

Robot Parade

Fun with cardboard and aluminum foil! I'm actually surprised my daughter could fit in this tiny box -- maybe one of my thighs could. By the way, the hat has been promoted to daddy's official "Thinking Cap," which Abigail insists must be worn whenever he is at the computer. He threatened me with my life if I blogged a picture of him.

While enjoying the pictures, consider listening to "Robot Parade" by TMBG or "The Humans are Dead" by Flight of the Conchords.

Stealing

I'm stealing this from a., but given my collegiate history with Monty and the gang, I simply had to let everyone know about the record-breaking number of people clip-clopping with coconuts to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

No word on whether African or European swallows were used for the coconut transport.

"But they could grip it by the husk..."

By the way, if anyone can find this as a sound clip, I'd love you forever. :)

It's a small world after all

Abigail has returned from her week at Disney World with my in-laws, bubbling over with excitement at what she saw and proudly proclaiming herself a princess. I wish I could have seen some of the stories we heard, especially meeting Cinderella. I believe she had dinner with Cinderella, as well as the mice, the fairy godmother and the prince. What I loved: She asked Prince Charming to dance! Not following her mother's wall-flower ways!

The night after she came home, the Disney effect was still evident. She announced to us at dinner that: "Romantically big loud flushing toilets are scaaaaaarrrrryyyy!"

I find this funny

I have before mentioned some of the joys of living in a somewhat small town. There are even greater joys to be had living in a county that is still half rural. And one of them is County Councilman Curwood Chappell, our very own Boss Hogg.

Damn, that's a drawl! Or a drunken-sounding mumble! And the swearing at the end! That's priceless. Almost enough to make you want to be a county reporter. Almost.

UPDATE: And at the next meeting, Curwood apologized. Kinda.

Pilotless drone

I know I've got at least a couple of copy editors checking in here, as well as several word buffs, so here's a good laugh for you. First, go to this clip from the San Francisco Chronicle to get appropriately ticked off. The Chronicle has begun podcasting audio letters to the editor, and this guy is out of control. As a former copy editor, I just want to smack him and scream, "You have no idea what we do every night!!!"

Now, go here and laugh your ass off! That's my kind of dance music!

Jesus is full of hot air!

I wonder how much crazy hate mail I'll get from that title ...

Of course, I do not mean that literally. Or rather, I intend it literally about the alarming inflatable, illuminated nativity that popped up on one lawn here in town. Now, I find the whole inflatable trend pretty idiotic -- geez, and we complain about energy prices?!?! -- but a three-times larger than life glowing holy family? Come on, people! Thankfully, baby Jesus wasn't in a snow globe, but I still find it incredibly tacky and just a wee bit too irreverent.

Although it provided much humor on an extremely windy evening last week as the whole stable whipped about in a frenzy, nearly crashing into the nearby inflatable snowman and Santa.

But seriously, people. Leave the all-out stuff to official town decorations. I plan to take Abigail to McAdenville, and that will be loads of wonderful tackiness, but we don't need it on your average residential street!

Of course, I've always been biased toward white lights of the non-blinking variety. And I'm not totally against manger scenes in the front yard; someone in my mom's neighborhood had a lovely white, cut-out silhouette of the inspiring scene, gently lit and only about 3 feet tall. There are better ways to spread the spirit of the season!

On the half shell

Does anyone know what "Oyster Attire" might mean in relation to a society wedding rehersal party? I tried to google it, but all that came up was a Michigan swingers site, and given the people this party is for, I really doubt that's applicable here ...

Otherwise, it's ridiculous how fascinated I am by this whole society wedding concept. Thanks to a., I have an appropriate cocktail dress, though my last dress that even came close was my prom dress. My rather self-righteous, formerly poor self absolutely can't wait for this people watching!

Hardcore Backyard Wrestling

My brother-in-law may be a Dunce, but he has a knack for finding entertaining sites. Acronym Finder is a highly entertaining waste of time, where you can enter your initials and see all the corresponding abbreviations, initializations and acronyms. For me, my favorite was the title of this post, though my maiden name also came up with Hybrid Fluidized Bed. Not bad. I know my sister is just pleased there are other responses to her old initials other than the elementary school bully favorite, "Your initials backwards spell bra!"

Yours truly, Hartree Fock Bogoliubov

Ca, c'est bon

Brad found the most wonderful site last night. Frankly, there could be no better site for me: an artist obsessed with Paris and chocolate. Fellow chocoholics, enjoy.

Wonders of Wally World

Bath time is approaching quickly, but I just had to share what I saw today in line at Wal-Mart. I saw light up plastic shoes -- on an adult. Clear plastic flip-flops with sparkles in the straps and two-inch stiletto heels that lit up as the woman walked. Ah, yes, Wal-Mart.

Separately, there is a brand new, enormous miracle of ultra plush squishyness in my room where the board-hard, squeaky implement of torture used to be! Hooray for my first good night's sleep in four years!

I can't believe the news today

One of Brad's friends found a hilarious little movie clip of Bush singing "Sunday Bloody Sunday" -- made entirely out of snippets from State of the Union addresses. The Web site it's from confuses me (how sad), but you can see the whole thing on here.

Word of the day

Brad has a wonderful tear-off calendar called "Forgotten English." Today's word: tyromancy -- divining by the coagulation of cheese. Yummy.

Slightly unsettling

frosty
Originally uploaded by HFBW.

What might this be? A strange cult practice, perhaps associated with the Flying Spaghetti Monster? A large purple alien landing on another planet with the local inhabitants unable to restrain their curiosity? A message from an ancient people, akin to Stonehenge?

Or perhaps just my daughter's perpetual fascination with "Frosty the Snowman", in particular with recreating the scene where Frosty is first built, receives his magic hat and announces, "Happy birthday!" (Seen here, the bathtub version) This same formation has occured with stuffed animals, Little People, even food. It's like every day is Christmas -- or at least a poorly animated 1960s TV special version of it.

The hilarity continues

Okay, this guy has a site of all KINDS of ironic commentary! Wheeee, who needs housework?!

Weapons of mass congelation

You know, most food products never really need to congeal. That's even an upleasant word to say. Now, I am okay with plain old Jell-O, Jell-O fruit salads and even jigglers. Adding bananas, pineapple, etc. or even mini marshmallows or cream cheese, all fine within reason. That really yummy pie my mom makes with Jell-O and CoolWhip, none of which may actually be able to be classified as food, that's just wonderful. But there are many congealed things that are simply wrong: aspic, Jell-O salad not of the fruit variety -- don't offer me lime Jell-O with grated carrots, call it Congealed Salad and try to convince me it's a vegetable -- and dishes including the following ingredients: olives, kidney beans, hot dogs, corned beef, and I have no earthly idea.

Making regrettable gasping, dorky noises of laughter

Oh. my. god. And, yes, I must be that Valley Girl about it. This site is HYSTERICAL. If you don't at least find it mildly amusing, I obviously don't know you, so you should go away and stop reading about my family! Thanks, a., I knew you needed a blog.