FUF #39

Good morning, friends. I'm extremely weary right now, after getting up at 4:15 yesterday and then staying up way too late because of our new bowling league. If I make less sense than normal, please don't hold it against me. I don't know much, but I know I FUF you. And that may be all I need to know, ya know? Since it's indeed another Follow Up Friday, I shall treat it like all the others and ramble for a while. Some things will be related to previous posts, some will be unrelated to anything (like Little Orphan Annie before Kojak adopted her), and then I'll bravely lead you through another Car Watch.

Earlier this week, I talked about my search for a particular clip of "The Neverending Story" and the hilarity that ensued. Well, I found that site again, and since so many of you asked about it in the comments section, I thought I'd include that link here. Enjoy:
http://ithoughtshewasprettyhotwheniwasyoung.ytmnd.com/

While I just kidded about the comments section as recently as last paragraph, I'm very serious this time. My mom posted a comment in which she complained that her name (Elayne) is not in any song. I was shocked to read this because growing up, she always told us that her name was in a particular Beatles song: Penny Lane. Oh sure, it's split into two words, but it's there.

This actually leads me to a larger problem in the world of names. I'd love to save this for an entire post, but I think it'll take me all of one paragraph. Here's my issue: iambic names are troublemakers. For those of you who either don't give a shit about meter or haven't thought about it in decades, I'll give a brief lesson via examples. An iamb goes dun-DUN, like Elayne, Ilyse, and Annette, rather than DUN-dun like Peter, Amber, and Kevin. There are other variations that I'm holding back from explaining, but you have the important pieces now. So, what's the problem with iambic names? Try singing "Happy Birthday" to my mom. "Happy Birthday, dear E-LAYYY-ayyyn." That's f'd up, yo. Quite similarly, I went to school with a young lady named Ravid (pronounced "ruh-VEED). At a party, she was in the middle of a circle dancing. For other people, others chanted, "Go Wendy, go Wendy," etc. For her, it got all muddled and confusing until they settled on purposely mispronouncing her name so it sounded more like "rabid" than anything else. One syllable names have a bit of trouble in both of those same examples, but nothing like the plight of the iambic ones. There, I've made my case.

My lovely wife and I were somewhere when she referred to a fork with three tines as a "thork." I suggested that it should be "threek," even though the original isn't spelled "fourk." Could we have a fivek or a twok? I know one thing for sure: a fork with only one tine is called a skewer.

In an airport with that same wife of mine, she pointed out a shirt to me. It looked like it just said "FBI" on it to me, but underneath, I missed the message: Firm Believer In Christ. Come on, man. You can't arbitrarily leave off a word to make an acronym work (especially when it's probably the most important word in relation to the message). I'm ok with promoting "in" to capital letter status to make something work on a novelty acronym, but that was just poor design all the way around.

Ok, I'm tired, so I'm going to slowly meander over to the Car Watch and call it a week.

My homey Rockabye saw a license plate that read, "IMBORED." I think there's a fallacy in that logic. The driver had to be interested enough in getting that for a plate to fill out the appropriate paperwork. I bet he or she was even excited upon learning that it was available. Therefore, I conclude that said bored person was not indeed bored when said person received said license plate. Said.

Rockabye also sent me one of my favorite plates of the year, if I'm reading it correctly: "DRTHM8R." Unless it's Dr. Themater or some other weird thing I'd never come up with, I'm pretty sure it has to be Darth Mater. That pun is so oddly glorious that I think I know what my next Halloween costume's going to be. On second thought, I might get arrested for wearing what I just pictured.

I saw a silver car with a plate of "REVLIS," or "silver" backwards. Interesting, but kind of a "so what?" gesture, if you ask me. I could put KCALB on my plate, and it wouldn't tell anyone a thing about me other than I know how to spell the color of my car frontward and backward. Yeehaw!

My friend Dusty sent me a BSR (Bumper Sticker Report) recently: "Only LEGAL citizens vote." He was confused by what message that person's trying to send, and I agree with that confusion. I can't honestly tell if it's someone against immigration and saying that pro-immigration legislation will never pass because people here illegally can't vote or if it's someone saying that even all citizens who live and work here (legally or not) should have a voice. Any ideas on this one, politically-minded and good-at-interpreting readers?

And lastly, I saw a non-vanity plate with the letters PYT in it. It made me think of a question I've had for a couple of years that I don't think I've posed here yet. Which song lyrics are more disturbing in retrospect? Option A: Kurt Cobain singing, "And I swear that I don't have a gun." Option B: Michael Jackson singing, "I want to love you (PYT), Pretty Young Thing." They're both bad, but then again, Kurt Cobain was never acquitted of killing himself. I'm just sayin'.

That's it, folks. Have a hell of a weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday, even though it's a holiday for some. Not I, for the sun never sets on UOPTA. If you have any thoughts, questions, complaints, likes, dislikes, siblings, parents, or capacity for abstract thought, ptklein@gmail.com is open and ready to hear from you. Take care, friends, and shaloha.