well… believe it or not, summer is long gone. long gone-ish, i guess. i’ve been at the lovely university for a week worth of class now and was here for a week of band camp (yup, this one time… well, i’m sure you already know the drill) before that, so to me personally, summer’s been done for a while. and i’ll just put it out there (i don’t like making big speeches. i’m a straight shooter. i call them like i see them. what you see is what you get. ain’t nobody gonna break my stride. ain’t nobody gonna slow me down. [that’s from the ever-chuckle-inducing “not another teen movie”, by the way]). i like summer. a bunch. i like being at home and not having a million (and a half) things to worry about every moment of my day. so the end of summer, for me, is a bit of a sad time.but anyway. the start of school does have it’s perks. one such perk just so happens to be the purchasing of a brand new, shiny (or not so shiny) tube of toothpaste. i scoured the shelves of walmart for the best paste possible and ended up going back to the old favorite, crest pro health. but! it now comes in several delicious flavors. so i’m now the lucky owner of cinnamon flavored tooth squand, instead of the obsolete minty tooth squand. such excitement, i know.thankfully for you, however, today’s words will be about more than just tooth squand (though trust me, i could go on and on about it). today’s wonderful focus will instead be on rules. yes, rules. specifically, how they are dumb. now, not all rules are dumb. take the “you can’t call timeout as you’re falling out of bounds” rule that was recently instated in the game of college basketball. that’s a solid rule. you can’t be diving for a ball, have little or no control of your body, and also claim to have enough possession to call a timeout. it just makes no sense. so yes, definitely a good rule.the problem is that many rules aren’t as logical as that one. so many times, “the man” (as we will hereby refer to anyone deserving such recognition) will formulate rules for ease of control and administration that are downright silly. and believe it or not, the reason i’m bringing up this regulatory topic is that i have recently found such a rule. an unjust and unnecessary rule that the man has tossed into my path (not to mention the paths of so many others) for no reason but to scoff at me (and/or us). this rule is about candles. it is found in section 18, paragraph g of the university of connecticut housing contract and reads as such: “the burning of candles and/or incense is prohibited in all university-owned housing. candles and/or incense are prohibited in all university-owned housing. residents found responsible for burning candles and/or incense may be removed from university-owned housing.” ridiculous, i know. now to make sure that i’m not hiding any true feelings or biases about the issue, i’ll come clean right here from the get go. i would like to have and burn a candle in my dorm room. it would be nice. otherwise, it’s going to have no chance but to smell like dirty laundry, sweat, shoes, and other not-so-pleasant things. the only real smell-producers are bad ones. so a good smell to counteract those would be fabulous. especially if it was something like a fruit smoothie scented candle (which i may or may not have purchased at the beginning of the year before being informed of the newfound regulations). it’s not like i’m asking for the world. just a decent smell to live in.but no. i can only live in filth. this is what the university students pay for. living in filth. of course, i do understand the initial reasoning behind this new rule (and by the way, the whole rule isn’t new. you were never allowed to light candles [or anything else for that matter] in your room before. but they added the complete candle ban this year). if there are no candles then there are no lit candles. if there are no lit candles then there are no burning candle wicks. if there are no burning candle wicks then the fire safety issue (for candles, at least) disappears. it is a bit understandable. but then again, it just goes back to the man trying to make it easier on himself. i have never had a candle burning in my dorm room. and that unlit candle has thusly never caused a fire. so why should i be punished for doing what i was told? seems a little sketchy to me.and since we’re on the topic of lovely section 18, paragraph g, i’d like to take a step back and look at it a little more closely. it first prohibits burning candles and incense in your housing. alright. and toward the end, it states the punishment, that having a candle in your room can get you kicked out of your housing. sure. but how about the middle line. “candles and/or incense are prohibited in all university-owned housing.” um… wait a second. if you can’t have a candle, how are you supposed to burn one? seems like with line two there, line one becomes a wee bit redundant. yeah. oops for sure. kind of. for you see, this is from the 2007-2008 housing contract. a quick look at the 2006-2007 housing contract (which is substantially less stylish than its descendant) shows us where our little problem comes from. the older version states only as follows (in what was at that point section 15, paragraph g): “the burning of candles and/or incense is prohibited in all university-owned housing. residents found responsible for burning candles could be removed from the residence halls. possession of previously burned candles is prohibited.” you see, they only had the burned (or “burnt” depending on your grammatical preference) candle bit. they had to add the sweeping candle ban line because of the new sweeping candle ban rule. so they did. of course, they could have been intelligent students of writing and removed the unnecessary line afterward. but why? that would make too much sense. what do you think this place is for? smart people?while we’re here, i think it would be helpful for us to take a peek at section 18, paragraph t. it’s a doozy. within this portion, there is a small bit found within parentheses. as anyone who has read any post on this blog knows, such parenthetical use is found mostly (if not always) in unneeded times of overkill and repetitiveness. so for your sake, i will leave that part out. with that addendum, it reads as follows: “any activity which could cause personal injury or cause damage to property is prohibited within university-owned housing. snow ball throwing and/or fights is prohibited in or around residential facilities.” if you happen to disregard the snow ball portion (which seems really strange and random, considering that it is the only activity mentioned on its own), you are left with quite a statement. “any activity which could cause personal injury or cause damage to property is prohibited within university-owned housing.” wow… so we had a “welcome back” floor meeting the other day, and the hall director told us to be careful in the shower because someone had cut his hand somehow while in one of them. now i’m thinking that slicing open my hand sounds a bit like personal injury to me, so according to the rule, showering is now prohibited (thank goodness i’m already living in filth anyways or i might have been a bit upset). just thinking about it for a moment, i’d have to say that basically anything “could cause personal injury”. it probably won’t. but it could. and that’s what the rule says. oh man.so unfortunately, i cannot continue our lovely sharing time. apparently, staring at a computer screen for too long isn’t really very good for your eyes. i hope nobody finds out i’ve been looking at it. i’m not sure where i’d go if i got kicked out. though, on the bright side, i could probably bring my candle. and that would be nice. regardless, i leave you now with this line of inspiration by the fabulous jack black from his performance in the cinematic classic “school of rock”: “give up, just quit, because in this life, you can’t win. yeah, you can try, but in the end you’re just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the man. the man, oh, you don’t know the man? he’s everywhere. in the white house… down the hall… ms. mullins, she’s the man. and the man ruined the ozone, he’s burning down the amazon, and he kidnapped shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! and there used to be a way to stick it to the man. it was called rock ‘n roll, but guess what, oh no, the man ruined that, too, with a little thing called mtv! so don’t waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome ’cause the man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. so do yourselves a favor and just give up!”true story. ish.
Archive for grammar
peeves, of the pet variety
peeves are unfortunate. pet peeves especially. actually, i don’t know if there are really any non-pet peeves. according to the ubiquitous scholars at thefreedictionary.com, a “peeve” (referring to the noun-esque version of the word) can be simply defined as a “vexation”, “grievance”, or “resentful mood.” a “pet peeve” on the other hand is an informal noun defined as “something about which one frequently complains” or a “particular personal vexation”. so i suppose that they are slightly different in theory. but personally, i’ve never heard someone talk about a “peeve” without using the word “pet” directly before it. by the way, our friends at wikipedia refer to a “pet peeve” alternately as a “pet hate” (just so you know. and i know you were wondering [i always know]). so lo and behold, peeve or pet peeve, it doesn’t really matter. i’m not a fan either way.
you may be wondering why i bring this up. and rightfully so. it was a bit of a random point (not that i ever do that). and well, the short version is that i witnessed a pet peeve of mine and thusly (ladies and gentleman, i present this week’s lesson in grammar: the word “thusly” was introduced in the nineteenth century as an alternative to “thus” in sentences such as “hold it thus” or “he put it thus”. it appears to have first been used by humorists, who may have been echoing the speech of poorly educated people straining to sound stylish. the word has subsequently gained some currency in educated usage, but it is still often regarded as incorrect. a large majority of the usage panel [a scholastic panel sponsored by “the american heritage dictionary” that pursues the task of deciding which terms and phrases shall be considered correct and usable and which should not] found it unacceptable in an earlier survey. in formal writing “thus” can still be used in certain situations, but in some other styles “this way”, “like this”, and other such expressions are more natural) thought it over.
the pet peeve that i happen to be referring to is music. not just any old music, though. in fact, i rather enjoy music. one could even venture to say that i spend far too much time around music. i find it to be a neat little thing. the peeve (you see what i did there. i left the “pet” part out. wouldn’t want to get caught in old habits) that we’re talking about is music in movies. well, i actually like that too. the instrumental movie soundtrack/score happens to be one of my favorite (if not my favorite) musical genres. so we’ll move things along here and be a bit more specific. the problem at hand is as follows: when actors or actresses play roles in movies that require a scene (or scenes) in which their character sings or plays an instrument and what the viewer sees and hears is a perfectly studio mixed audio track (often from someone other than the actor or actress) on top of a cinematic fake job. yeah, that’s it.
what brought about my thoughts on this subject was the dandy little cartoon network (which happens to be the home of a neat little cartoon that i like called “foster’s home for imaginary friends”). on this very evening, the cartoon network played the very awesome movie “school of rock” (which isn’t a cartoon, but hey, it’s a good movie [and for those wondering, my favorite explanation for why they were showing a non-cartoon movie on the cartoon network, which i found on this forum, was this: “communism”]). i like music, and i like teaching. so a movie about jack black teaching music is a pretty sweet combination. the thing that really pushes this particular film up into a whole new echelon, though, is that it’s legit. it’s a movie showing a class of prep school kids turning into a sweet rock band that plays a sweet rock song, and they actually did it. they acted. they sang. they played. the stuff you see and hear is what was actually happening in front of the camera. this is all pretty incredible considering that the kids were all between the ages of 10 and 13 when the movie was made and considering that they’re all awesome musicians. but i mean, that’s how it should be. if you’re going to make a movie about turning a random bunch of rich kids into pint-sized rock stars, you should definitely be obliged to find kids that can play the part (in all meanings of the phrase).
most movie makers, however, don’t go this far. they just don’t bother. they get some big name stars that will sell tickets and make money, regardless of how silly their musical fake jobs look and sound. this concept, not to be overshadowed by the discussion above, was most recently demonstrated to my mind by the lovely and talented hilary duff in her classic (or not so classic) film “raise your voice”. it’s a nice little teenage film about responsibility and letting go. these adorable themes are formed around a musical storyline that involves miss duff going to a top-notch music school for the summer. she’s basically the worst singer in the school, but that’s okay because she’s the main character. and the main character always wins.
i’d like to remind you, the reader, that hilary duff is not only an acclaimed actress but an acclaimed vocalist as well (not to mention the fact that she has her own clothing line ingeniously called “stuff by hilary duff” [or so wikipedia says]). in fact, all three of hilary’s albums have gone platinum (meaning they’ve each sold at least one million copies) under the standards of the riaa. with this in mind, one might think that a movie about hilary duff’s character going to a music school would involve lots of hilary singing on camera. and you would be logically reasonable to believe this. unfortunately however, you would be mighty wrong. to give her some credit, it is her voice that we hear when her character sings, and that is better than many movies can claim. but that’s where the legitimacy ends. her singing, especially in the dramatic, climatic ending song, is so studio-ized that it created (for me, at least) a great deal of frustration. apparently, the girl can sing. and apparently, she can act. so why not let her sing and act in the front of the camera at the same time? maybe then it would look and sound natural and not ruin the scene. but goodness, why would we want a good scene? a few of those might lead to a good movie. and that would be no good.
but trust me, hilary duff is not the only one committing this cinematic crime. take a look at mandy moore’s rather poor fake job in the ending wedding scene in “because i said so” if you don’t believe me. i have to admit, though, it is a step in the right direction. at least they’re singing their own parts. many (if not most) times, even that doesn’t happen. michael j. fox will certainly prove that to you in the enchantment under the sea dance scene in the original “back to the future” (which by the way is one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies. but it’s obviously not him singing or playing the song) when he’s rocking around the stage tearing up chuck berry’s classic tune “johnny b. goode” (and all you chuck berry [and/or michael j. fox] fans out there will be glad to know that in addition to being placed at number 42 in “q” magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitar tracks, “johnny b. goode” was ranked by rolling stone as the seventh greatest song ever on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time). so miss duff and miss moore do get a little bit of credit. either way though, it’s a serious pet peeve of mine. directors and producers and all those important people in hollywood spend millions and millions of dollars to make big, realistic, cgi-laden blockbuster films. and then they add cheesy fake singing. does that make any sense to you? yeah, me neither. but what can you do? if people go to see movies with fake singing and playing, they’ll keep making movies with fake singing and playing. alas.
well, i’m glad at least that we got that out in the open. just couldn’t keep that one pent up inside any longer. pet peeves. yeah, they’re just dandy. but now back to life, the world, and everything. though, if you’re ever bored or even better aren’t bored but need something interesting to check out, go take a look and a listen into joey gaydos, jr. and his band. mr. gaydos played the guitar player and songwriter zack mooneyham (yes, mooneyham) in school of rock and now has both a solo and group album out in stores. if you want to rock, give him a listen. he certainly lives by the incredible credo that we should all strive toward (as sung by mr. black in the one and only school of rock): “you’re not hardcore, unless you live hardcore (but the legend of the rent was way hardcore).”
jay-z in jerusalem
happy easter tuesday. what is easter tuesday, you ask? well, it’s the day after easter monday, of course. well, to all those in albania, andorra, anguilla, antigua and barbuda, aruba, australia, austria, bahamas, barbados, belgium, belize, benin, botswana, the british virgin islands, bulgaria, burkina faso, cameroon, canada, the cape verde islands, the cayman islands, central african republic, chad, the cook islands, côte d’ivoire, croatia, cyprus, czech republic, denmark, dominica, egypt, equatorial guinea, the faroe islands, fiji, finland, france, french guiana, gabon, gambia, georgia, germany, ghana, gibraltar, greece, greenland, grenada, guadeloupe, guatemala, guinea, guyana, hong kong, hungary, iceland, ireland, the isle of man, italy, jamaica, kenya, kiribati, latvia, lebanon, lesotho, liechtenstein, lithuania, luxembourg, malawi, martinique, moldova, monaco, montenegro, montserrat, namibia, nauru, netherlands, netherlands antilles, new caledonia, new zealand, niger, nigeria, niue, norway, papua new guinea, poland, romania, rwanda, senegal, serbia, seychelles, slovakia, slovenia, the solomon islands, south africa, spain, st. kitts and nevis, st. lucia, st. pierre and miquelon, st. vincent and the grenadines, suriname, swaziland, sweden, switzerland, tanzania, trinidad and tobago, turks and caicos islands, tuvalu, uganda, ukraine, the united kingdom (minus scotland), the u.s. virgin islands, vanuatu, western samoa, zambia, and zimbabwe, at least. if you’re not from any of the above locations, i regret to inform you, but easter tuesday is simply the day after the monday after easter. you don’t celebrate easter monday. thankfully, however, easter tuesday is a made up holiday, so even though you don’t celebrate easter monday, you can still proudly celebrate easter tuesday. by the way, if you happen to be from the united states of america, like myself, you don’t officially celebrate easter monday. but, if you head over to buffalo, new york, you can celebrate “dyngus day”, or “wet monday”, which is the polish name for easter monday. such excitement.
the fact that we’re wishing a happy easter tuesday (and by “we” i clearly mean “me”) would lead us to believe that we must have recently had an easter monday and accordingly, an easter. it just so happens that this past sunday was that great and glorious day that some refer to as easter. and easter is quite a day. according to our uber-intelligent friends over at wikipedia.com, easter is “the most important religious feast of the christian liturgical year” (they also claim that “the 2006-07 nhl season saw the toronto maple leafs attempting to recover from a 2005-06 season in which it finished two points out of the final playoff spot in the eastern conference” [the “2006-07 toronto maple leafs season” being the article that popped up when i clicked on the “random article” link], but that isn’t really all that important at the moment [except for the very interesting grammatical dilemma that arises when talking about sports teams. for you see, the team is called the “toronto maple leafs”. “leafs”, which is actually grammatically incorrect anyways and should be “leaves”, is clearly a plural noun, but the fact that it is a singular team makes it a singular noun. so we have a problem. the wikipedites used the pronoun “it” when referring to the team, whereas i would have personally used the pronoun “they”, referring more to the players than the the team as a whole. that, in my opinion, makes more grammatical sense and creates a more continous and parallel grammatical number. honestly, i have no idea which one is actually correct. but anyways]). while easter is a wonderful opportunity to bring up religion, religiosity, and all other kinds of religiousness, i will control myself and stay away from such affairs for the time being. this is going to be a politically correct post (yeah, that’s it). we’re going to stick to basics here. basically, for a great majority of the past few weeks i haven’t had internet on my side of the dorm room because of the ridiculous people over at the university of connecticut “resnet” department (which is the section of the residential life department [otherwise known as “reslife”] that deals with the campus internet [otherwise known as the “net”]. “resnet”. get it? good.) and their (not so) slight inability to solve simple problems, like turning my internet back on when three separate workers (and their boss’s standing behind them who i could also hear during the phonecalls) could find absolutely nothing wrong with my computer. so i’ve had a lot of time to do a lot of things. unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), that turned into me playing a lot of “little league baseball” for the nintendo entertainment system on the nes emulator on my computer (my favorite team, by the way, happens to be canada. they have [or “it has”, depending on what side you take in the previously stated sports team grammar discussion] a hot shot third baseman who can’t hit for his life but makes some absolutely incredible plays at the “hot corner” that make him totally worth it). in all my internetless time, i also had a great deal of time to think. and unfortunately, i believe that i’ve been sucked into a place of mental mush. it’s the whole “too many cooks spoil the broth” concept. so many interesting and/or ridiculous things have passed through my brain since the last time we chatted that nothing jumps out as being the greatest or being worthy of attention over the others. but i suppose the show must go on. so instead of the greatest, we’ll go with the latest. i guess that works just as well. if i hadn’t you told, you would have never known anyways. my bad.
so i was able to go home from the university for easter, which is always a lovely thing. i went home on friday afternoon when i was finished will all my friday classes and probably got home around 5:30ish. i then had the wonderful honor of going to see the st. thomas passion play over at st. thomas church. the other four members of my family (and my sister’s fiancé) all happened to be in the play, so i figured i would make an appearance (that statement, of course, disregarding the fact that now that i’m in college and can’t be in the play anymore, going to see the play is something that i look forward to basically all year long). everyone did a really great job, and when all was said and done it was a top notch extravaganza. i wouldn’t want to give away any of the plot lines and make this into a “spoiler”, so i’ll just leave it at that (though i will mention that it could still use a quality “hosanna”. see my previous post entitled “have you heard the story” for more details on that issue). there was one thing that caught my eye or attention or something like that. basically, the singing. this version of the passion that the st. thomas cast puts on always has lovely songs interspersed throughout in an attempt to keep the interest and excitement high during the course of the entire production. in that regard, the singing was normal. it was there. there were some new songs. there were some old songs. it worked. but what caught me was something much more obvious (and as far as me be ridiculous and abstract, this one actually doesn’t go all that far into left field, but like i said, this is the latest and not necessarily the greatest). it struck me that everyone broke into song. together. at random times. for no apparent reason. now, as far as musicals go, there was nothing strange about this concept. that’s how musicals work. songs break out all the time to emphasize the exciting, and sometimes not-so-exciting, moments in the play or movie or whatever it is that’s being watched. but as i was sitting there, i took a step back for a moment (which can be a hard thing to do when you’re sitting) and really thought about it. i mean, imagine if that ever happened in real life. well, you actually don’t even have to imagine. just take a look at the short video “reach! a lecture musical” by the small time acting troupe “prangstgrüp”. the main character in the skit is seemingly just sitting in class one day being lectured at and then randomly breaks into song. of course, it was all planned and choreographed, but for everyone else besides the handful that were involved, it was completely spontaneous and unexpected. the interesting thing, however, is that for some reason the rest of the class doesn’t quickly jump up and join in with the song. the students and professor just sit and stand there (respectively) shocked and laughing at what’s going on. but wait, laughing? why would they laugh? in musicals, everyone sings and everyone takes everything in stride as if it’s completely normal. so why not in this lecture hall? well, i see two possible answers. the first is that the cross-section of people in that particular lecture just happened to be perfectly selected (at random) so as to be a group of people that would not join in on, let alone fully appreciate, the perfectly normal scenario that they were put into. the second is that musicals are weird. lovely and entertaining. but totally weird.
this point actually came up again during my time at home when i found myself watching “the sound of music” on television with my parents. that movie is equally guilty of random song breakoutages. and when you think about it, it really is an interesting phenomenon. movies and plays get bashed by viewers and critics if they leave too many plot holes or loose strings unanswered or unfulfilled. but in so many musicals you’ll have the whole town just breaking into song and dance in perfect unison or harmony. it truly is a beautiful thing. but you have to question how it is that they are all able to do that. and is that question ever answered? no. it’s just left to hang, unanswered for eternity with no viewer repercussions. i’m no movie or tv history connoisseur (and yes, i did have to look up the spelling of “connoisseur”), but i know of only one moment of truth in regards to this matter. that moment came in the episode “zanzibar” of the once great nickelodeon cartoon “rocko’s modern life”. the whole episode played out as a musical, and after the very first song, they made reference to the ridiculousness that was going to continue throughout the episode. here, take a look for yourself:
thank goodness for rocko. he’s only a lowly wallaby, but apparently, he’s the smartest one around. so what is there to do about this craziness? nothing i guess. it’s probably just a government conspiracy anyway. someday we’re all going to be controlled by random slave drivers that break out in song, and we’ll all just follow along with what they do. yeah.
and with that thought, i leave you. i told you. it’s been a weird couple weeks. but on a chipper note, this discussion we’ve had did remind me of the eternally fantastic plan that myself and a certain svan had about making the passion play a great and incredible experience (well, even more great and incredible than it already is). that plan, of course, involved the one and only jay-z (better known as shawn corey carter) breaking through the back of the stage in the middle of the play and rocking out to “big pimpin” while all of jerusalem boogied down big time. yup, that was the plan. really. but a discussion of the workings of the male teenage mind would be far too intricate to even begin to delve into. so just trust me. jay-z in jerusalem. it’ll make millions.
nutritious and delicious
you’ve come to recognize, i’m sure, that life is based around cycles. years for some. seasons for others. maybe even weeks or months for the more short-term folks. something else you’ve probably come to realize is that my cyclical thinking occurs based around none of those but something much more important. my toothpaste. for you see, my toothpaste is an extension of myself (it’s deep, i know). regardless of whether it’s a conscious or subconscious situation, i believe that you can tell a lot about someone’s current emotional and psychological state by their selection of paste. for further explanation on the matter, i’ll use myself as an example. my toothpaste that was a crazy combination of vanilla and minty goodness ran out yesterday, so i had to go and purchase some more. so i did. and while i was there i thought long and hard about what kind i should get. i had the realization that my previous couple of toothpaste selections had been based solely upon the pleasure of the brushing. when i went to buy them, the only factor i really considered was the taste. basically, i was looking for something yummy.
this time, however, that wasn’t what i thought about. it’s not that i didn’t care about how it was going to taste. that was still something in the back of my mind. but my main concern was instead more about what it would do for me. i looked more at all the words like “cavity protection”, “tartar control”, “whitening”, and things of that variety. the toothpaste that i ended up purchasing was a new one called “crest pro-health”. supposedly (according to the box, at least), it “provides dentist recommended benefits” and has many healthy-teeth kind of words on the bottom of the box. all in all, the packaging looks very fancy and professional, and everybody knows that you have to buy the item with the spiffiest box.
there are very small words on the box’s corner that say that the flavor is “clean mint”. basically, as far as most toothpastes go, that means it’s going to taste pretty bad. i was expecting, from this name, a classic white pasty toothpaste that was bland and minty. but like i’ve said, it was more about the effects than the taste. so i bought it and walked back to my dorm and went about the rest of my day and all that. it came time to brush my teeth, and it was an exciting moment. i mean, you can’t help but be both a little excited and a little nervous about a new toothpaste. it’s a big deal. i opened the box and brought the tube to the bathroom, and when i opened it, i was in for a surprise. it was not the average white toothpaste that i was expecting. it was actually blue. and gel-like (i was going to say “gelly”, but it seemed like the word would open up a can of worms of grammatical thought that could lead to a blog post all its own). i squeezed it out onto the toothbrush and put the brush in my mouth. and now is when the real excitement began. i think the best way to describe the scenario is as follows. basically, the first ten or fifteen seconds of my brushing experience felt like i was trying to brush my teeth with squand (unfortunately, they do not produce the lovely product anymore, so i wasn’t able to find a good name-brand picture online, but that is a nice non-nickelodeonized version of the same thing). now before you put the squand in water, it’s just sand. and i, admittedly, have never had the honor of tasting squand. but from looking at the waterized version of it, this toothpaste was my version of exactly what that would taste like. it was weird. really weird. i was expecting this smooth gel of a toothpaste and instead i was treated to a strange, grainy texture (which i later learned from the box to be the “activclean crystals”…duh). so was it awful? actually, no. i was pleasantly surprised that after my initial texture shock, i found the taste to be different (i can’t really put a finger on exactly what it tastes like) but not too bad.
my toothpaste quest, thankfully, was a successful one. and i learned a valuable lesson. a few really. first, don’t eat squand (unless it’s in the form of a toothpaste). second, surprises can be a good thing. especially when it means your new toothpaste ends up tasting better than you thought it would. and third, things can actually be nutritious and delicious (with both of those being slight streches, as we are talking about toothpaste here). so i leave you to ponder yourselves, your lives, and your toothpaste. the next time you’re in that aisle picking a flavor out, really think about what’s grabbing your attention. it may lead you to some wonderful, subconscious enlightenment about something that will save the world someday. or not. but that’s okay. sometimes a good tasting toothpaste is close enough to saving the world anyways. just don’t get the cinnamint. never get the cinnamint.
…and larry
you will all be very glad to know, i’m sure, that today was a wonderful day. for me at least. it, actually, was a somewhat normal day but one with a very wonderful twist. in my world, that twist was toothpaste. if you have any history with these internet writings, you will know that it all started a little over a month ago with that very same topic. my dislike for my toothpaste brought about the beginning of all the words you have seen thus far. that toothpaste will never again inspire me, though. and that is because it is gone. the tube has run dry. and a new tube is now present and was used for the first time. since you’re all dying to know, the flavor is known as “refreshing vanilla mint”. yes, it was the “-mint” part that drove me away from my previous paste, but this one smelled nice on the scratch and sniff sticker that was on the box, so i went for it (also, something to note is that the convenience store i was purchasing from did not have the best toothpaste selection in the world, so that was also a bit of a factor in the choice). and it’s good. as of now at least, i like it much better than the old “cinnamint” garbage. but what does toothpaste have to do with some guy named “larry”? well, it doesn’t really. the fact that my brushing situation has improved just put me in such a nice mood that i decided to write even after just writing rather recently. so you’re lucky (or not so lucky, depending on your opinion), i suppose. this has all simply been a rather odd and somewhat lengthy introduction to what is really coming. but we must leave that introduction and move on with our lives. and so now, back to our regularly scheduled program:
the english language can be a rather interesting thing. it’s phonetically horrendous and the defining of what is “grammatically correct” and what is not can be so vague and obscure that there often is no definite answer as to what is actually right. but whenever a rule is actually made (or an attempt is made to do so) there are always plenty of examples of speaking and writing that blatantly do not follow it. and that seems to be okay (for whatever reason). i was walking to one of my classes today, and a phenomenal example popped into my head. i can remember sitting in my ninth grade english class (home of mr. horatio bonner and the little known art of travelling) and learning about sentences. when you speak or write a sentence, it should be done in a way that offers the least possible confusion and the most logical sense. for example, why would you say “before each night is done their plan will be unfurled by the dawning of the sun to take over the world” when you could much more logically say “their plan to take over the world will be unfurled before each night is done by the dawning of the sun” or “their plan to take over the world will be unfurled by the dawning of the sun before each night is done” (your choice)? well, the obvious reason (in this scenario) is so it will rhyme. and that does help greatly when you’re freestyling, writing poetry, or maybe even singing a television theme song. and so we have an example of the problem with the english language. depending on what we are doing, the grammatical correctness of something isn’t always the most important part. sometimes rhyming (or one of many other things) can be in the forefront. add on top of that the fact that (in this example at least) there isn’t even a single answer that could really be considered “the best”, and that throws a different wrench altogether into our dilemma. is there a way to fix all these problems? i doubt it. and so we deal. and we try our best to pass english class.
and thus i leave you with this video. enjoy. i like it a lot. (and by the way, this is the “…and larry” version of this particular theme song, which was used for one quality episode. while the original is fantastic, this one just has a little extra “something something” as nick cannon would say.)
green cherries on the beach 