Some choice words

Why hello there, homemen and homewomen. I don't know where that came from, but I like it quite a bit. I guess homeboys should grow up eventually, right? I have to remember to use that more often. "I was talking to my homeman Greg last night..." It will likely confuse the hell out of people though. "Oh, is he your realtor or something?" No, you silly hypothetical person not understanding my hypothetical conversation with you. I don't think we should hypothetically hang out anymore.

It should come as no surprise to any of you who have visited UOPTA more than once that I enjoy the world of words. They're simultaneously powerful and fun to play with, much like a bear cub. (I could've gone many, many ways with the end of that sentence, but you should trust me that "bear cub" was a much better choice than other things that I was tempted to write.) Today I shall write more about the "playing with them" side of things, as I am wont to do.

In college, I took four different creative writing courses, and I loved them all. I've always had an easy time with form, and meter's always made my heart grow warm. So in the beginning of my second class, I started challenging myself to do more. For example, I wrote a sonnet about waltzing and made the rhyme scheme ABC ABC ABC ABC DD as a way to mimic the 1-2-3 beat of a waltz. I know I just lost half of my audience, but if you follow me at all, you hopefully see what I'm talking about. This ended up backfiring just a little, because by the end of the quarter, people were guessing what I "really meant" in some poems in which I'd actually been straightforward. That's ok, because the exercise was almost always just for my own personal gratification.

As my mother reminded me recently, wordplay has been a big part of my life since I was a kid. In 7th grade, I had an English class with one Mrs. Greenberger. (The next year, incidentally, I had Mrs. Bluestein. I've confident that if I had stayed there for 9th grade, they would've hired someone named Mrs. Yellowbaum to keep the color-and-Jewish-suffix streak alive.) She would provide us with a list of vocabulary words each week, and we would have to do the same thing each time. First we'd define each one, and then we'd have to make up a story that included at least five of them in there. I loved this, and I wish someone still gave me a task like that every week. I don't have any of those stories left, and but my parents and Mrs. Greenberger herself thought they were great. I almost felt like a professional athlete or actor might in that I was doing something that I loved and other people were getting joy from it. Ya know, minus the millions of dollars of course.

In high school, crazy lady Mrs. Dunlop gave us vocabulary lists as well. She just wanted us to define them and then write one sentence for each. This didn't afford me too much room to maneuver creativity-wise, but I did what I could to still have some fun with it. I remember some of the words from that year because I think of my exact sentences every single time they come up in conversation. Here they are:

Ephemeral: The ephemeral mayfly's life expectancy is only 24 hours.

Ubiquitous: In the movies, Superman is portrayed as ubiquitous whenever danger occurs.

Formidable: Ron rolled up his sleeve to show off his formidable bicep.

Cumin: My health-conscious aunt ate the whole family's cumin.

I know none of those are earth-shatteringly original or anything, but those full sentences have accompanied those words in my head for the past 16 years. That's a long time to have the same words floating around, don't you agree?

The next year, I forced my wordplay upon my friend Jon. Back then, he was still in his shell a little and I was the outgoing one of the two of us. An MFA in Acting later, I think the roles have switched a bit. In any case, he had a history assignment in which he had to write about Abraham Lincoln's decision-making in the time of the Civil War. I was over at his place, and I suggested that we have some fun with it. He was against the idea at first, but when I offered to implement my ideas (i.e. do his work for him), he eventually acquiesced.

My idea was to find two random words and somehow incorporate them into the two-page essay. I kept flipping through the dictionary and pointing blindly, but the first few attempts landed me on very common words which weren't any fun. Then I hit "aquifer," a word neither of us had heard of or really have since. Our friends at Merriam Webster tell us that it means, "a water-bearing stratum of permeable rock, sand, or gravel." Naturally, I constructed a contrived sentence about Lincoln using his generals like disseminate his instructions, much like an aquifer delivers water. Did it make sense? Not really, no, but he let me keep it in there.

I then opened Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," which I have since come to know and love through the years. After a few attempts, I landed on the lovely "cross-gartered," which is how Malvolio dressed up for Olivia because the fake love note told him to. In any case, there was no way to easily associate someone wearing garters with our buddy Abe, so I changed its definition to one meaning "confused." I said something about conflicting reports leaving Lincoln feeling cross-gartered and unsure of how to proceed. Again, Jon let me leave it in there. I'm not positive, but I seem to recall a red circle around that and a "Word choice?" comment in the margins. I didn't care though; I had fun with it and it wasn't my grade being affected.

So there you go, homepeople. My wordnerdiness has been around for a while, and all signs point to it remaining with me indefinitely. Have a good day, and I shall be back here again tomorrow. Feel free to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything in the meantime. Shaloha, friends.

FUF #10

Do you ever print out my Friday posts and put them in your pocket for later reading? If so, you might say you FUF and fold. Here we are with yet another milestone, folks. The 10th FUF since I started that trend. The Steve Miller Band was right: "Time keeps on slipping (slipping, slipping) into the future." And "I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree." A true visionary if you ask me.

Are you ready for some random thoughts from myself and my 8-10 readers followed by a longer-than-usual Car Watch? If you answered "Yes" to that question, then you're in the right place. If you answered "No"...sorry, I guess. That's what's happening here.

A funny thing happened on the way out of the bathroom this week. I noticed a few times that I had a particular song in my head: "Ultraviolet" by U2. After the second time, I remembered that this has happened before with this song, and then the light bulb went off. You see, I've recently restarted taking multi-vitamins in the morning. I didn't intentionally stop before, I just forgot for a month or three. In any case (and I apologize for being freshmanic), my urine has been particularly luminescent of late due to the vitamins, and "Ultraviolet" immediately pops in my head each time. The mind is a powerful thing, my friends. Fortunately, I like the song a lot, or else I'd have to stop taking them.

We have some fond farewells to announce here. First, and most obvious, is the departure of Mr. Sanjaya Malakar. We hardly knew ye, Sanjayjay. Next, I have learned that the TV Guide channel chose not to renew the contracts of Joan and Melissa Rivers. If you recall from an earlier post, I hate Joan Rivers with almost every ounce of my being. I'd rather hear ten Sit N' Sleep commercials back to back than watch a three-minute segment of her "interviewing" someone. Goodbye, Joan, and I hope that this leads to your overdue retirement.


Car Watch time, Car Watch time, everybody loves Car Watch time! (There's a tune to that, but I'm not good with musical notation.)

First, folks, I saw a license plate with PFK as the letters. This most likely means nothing to you, but it made me smile and think of a trip my wife and I took a few years ago. We were in the province of Quebec, and on the side of the road I noticed a Kentucky Fried Chicken. At least that's what it looked like - same colors, fonts, etc. Instead of "KFC" though, it said "PFK." I first joked that it stood for "Peter Fucking Klein!" Then we thought about though, realized we were in a French-speaking locale, and decided it must stand for "Poulet Frit Kentucky." Same company, but they translated their own name to help the locals understand. I thought that was interesting enough to share. Was I right? Actually, don't answer that.

On the surface, a license plate that reads "GYNO TOY" is simply bizarre. But when you factor in that the model of the car was a Probe, it takes on a whole new meaning. I guess I should thank my mother-in-law for telling me about this, but I keep just thinking, "Ewwwwwwww" instead.

She also saw a license plate frame that read, "My Other Auto is a 9mm." You can't teach "classy" folks, it just happens naturally.

My bro was driving and saw a bumper sticker that read, "What are you looking at?" I kinda like that. To me, it's the "Whatever you do, don't think of Abraham Lincoln" of bumper stickers.

My lovely wife saw "I'd Rather Be Sleeping" on a plate and so wholeheartedly concurred that she had to tell me about it. I like a good sleep as much as the next person, but this driver apparently would always prefer sleeping to anything else. That's a little sad, don't you think? There are a few benefits to being awake in my book.

A couple of mornings ago, on a really beat up car, I saw "This is NOT an Abandoned Vehicle!" I wonder how many times one has to be towed before buying that sticker. Two? Five? I don't know.

As always, a FUF would not be complete without Car Watch items from my homey Rockabye. This week, he was almost overwhelmed by the bizarre things he saw. First, a bumper sticker that read, "My Honors Student Never Pays Too Much for Gas at Arco!" I don't get this. Are they saying "By getting gas at Arco, my kid always gets a good deal" or "My kid never gets gas at Arco because they overcharge?" I keep re-reading it hoping one of them will become the leader in the clubhouse, but it's not happening. I think it's the former, but I'm not sold.

Rockabye also saw "MMLJ: Make Me Like Jesus." Who is the owner talking to? That is, who has the power to make someone like Jesus? Furthermore, which "like" is it? Make me similar to Jesus or I don't really like him but I want to. Please, please, make me like Jesus? I don't know, but I don't really see that one catching on.

Lastly for this edition of Car Watch, Rockabye saw "Where the Hell is Martinez Lake?" I guess that's a form of an ad campaign in that they want people to look it up or something. I personally don't know where Martinez Lake is, and it didn't cause me to find out either. It's either that or the person was so lost that he had time to make a sticker in hopes of someone rolling down their window with directions. Ya got me, man.

Two final thoughts for you all. In two weeks, I'm going to my aunt and uncle's house. Why is that interesting? They live in the house I grew up in, and more specifically, the house that has a wall in which Greenie, Grassy, Bob, and Chris lived. I'm going to look for them, and I'll report back with my findings.

And lastly, my sister-in-law Weezie's 30th birthday is this Sunday, so Happy Early Birthday! We're all going out to Lawry's for dinner, so my Monday blog might smell a little like prime rib. Sorry, I just re-read that sentence and realized how disgusting it sounded. Too late now.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and keep the emails and comments a'coming.

Numb and number

Beware today! Yes, the Ides of March are upon us. The term "the ides" of something has really fallen out of favor. Does it just mean 15? If so, I'm using it from now on. "I get paid on the 1st and the ides of each month," etc. But beyond date stuff, I can use it for everything. "Yeah, he's in 10th grade, so he must be ides or 16 by now." I like it. Before I get too carried away though, let's check in with our good friends over at wikipedia.org:

"Ides may refer to: A day in the Roman calendar, that marked the approximate middle of the month, i.e., the fifteenth day in the months of March, May, July,
and October, and the thirteenth day in the other eight months. The word ides comes from Latin, meaning "half division" (of a month)."

Wait a second, not only does it not mean "fifteen," but it also makes zero sense. Let me see if I'm grasping this correctly: some of the months that have 31 days use 15 as their approximate middle. Ok, that makes sense. The other months, whether they have 31, 30, or 28 days use 13 as their approximate middle. Bullshit. 15 is the exact middle of 4 months, yet their ides is 13. I'm not happy about this un-unified ides crap, and if there were somewhere I could write
a complaint letter, it would already be on its way.

You see, this is typical. I say something trivial, get intrigued and look for more information,
then end up getting mad. Maybe I should just base things on limited, possibly incorrect information. That's always worked for people in the past, right?

This totally isn't where I thought today's post was going, but my tangent has led me to other places this morning. The world of terms for numbers. We all use terms like "dozen" with great frequency. In fact, it's popular enough that it has two spinoffs: "half-dozen" and "baker's dozen." Could bakers just not count well or were they being generous and tossing in a free cookie or
bagel? Maybe bakers introduced the concept of coupons to the world, with their whole "buy 12 get 1 free" shtick. I could look that up, but I'm finally getting less pissed off.

Other terms are known but not in most of our everyday vocabulary. The next most popular that comes to the top of my head owes its fame to Honest Abe. Yep, I'm talking about a "score" of something. It's just a cool way of saying "twenty," and I think we need to bring it back. I remember first realizing that Lincoln was unnecessarily making people do math in the Gettysburg Address, and imagining the crowd missing the next couple of lines of the famous
speech because they were busy thinking, "Ok, so a score is 20. He said four of those, so that gives us 80. And seven, right? So that makes 87 years ago. What did he say our fathers did then? I missed it; I was doing math. That's ok, the world will little note nor long remember what was said here anyway."

Next on my short list is "fathom." It means "six feet," and I'm absolutely shocked that I haven't been using this term frequently. Why? Because I'm a fathom tall when wearing shoes, and just a smidge under a fathom without. A "smidge" means "half an inch" from this point forward. Sure, they probably still use it a bunch in some field like ocean-mapping or something, but we need to bring that one back. "Hey, wanna join a Fathom and Under basketball league this fall?" Hell yes I do. "I just bought season one of 'Fathom Under' and it's really compelling!" Oh yeah, it's on.

The last major one I can think of right now is a "gross" of something. This seems pretty arbitrary to me, and I don't want to spend the time finding out why it's not. Basically, it means 144. How often can that possibly come up? I'm sure for some reason some products are ordered in grosses, but I rarely come across that specific number in my everyday life. In fact, as far as I know, my wife might use "gross" 100% of the time she refers to 144, but I still wouldn't know because it just doesn't come up. It's too bad too, because I'd like to use that term. Maybe I'll start going out of my way to use it when I normally would've said 150. That doesn't come up often either, but I won't miss the extra 6 of whatever I'm talking about.

What other terms am I missing, gentle readers? I know "fortnight" is two weeks, and that's pretty cool. Being short for "fourteen nights" though, it's almost too sensible for me to use. It would be cool though to tell someone that "We're pretty busy for the next fortnight, but maybe that following Saturday would work." Hmmmm. I know I'm missing some, so help me out.


I also want to make up some new ones. I think that'll be fun, and we can start a grass roots campaign right here to get it into the public consciousness. Email me at ptklein@gmail.com with suggestions for new terms or numbers that need terms, and I'll try to have a post about them sometime soon (hopefully within the next fortnight or score of days).

Have a great day, everyone, and tomorrow's FUF is still wide open, so email away.

Long minutes

Oy vey. The word of the day so far is "slooooowwwwwww." Traffic coming into work was worse than usual, and it just took literally 12 minutes to turn on my computer and open Internet Explorer. I don't know what's going on, but I sure hope other parts of the day are at least at normal speed.

At least there were some interesting things on the way to work. I've talked about how my friends and I text each other with bumper sticker reports and license plate frame reports. In fact, Dusty texted me yesterday saying he saw a license plate frame that read, "Pan Am...Gone but not forgotten." I guess they mean the entire airline company, but don't you think that's a very odd thing to remind people about? What's next, one for Datsun?

So I see a car in traffic this morning with two bumper stickers. The first says "Civil War Re-enactor, Living Historian" and the other says "I Love My Wife!" My first thought was, "Wow, who knew those guys got the chicks?" My second was, "I love my wife too, but slapping that on your car seems a little defensive to me." My third was, "Alright, I gotta get a look at this guy." I changed lanes and sped up, and I shit you not: the dude looked like Abraham Lincoln. More like him than anyone should, and I'm guessing his re-enactor position chose him as much as he chose it. Back to my first thought - someone married this guy? I wonder if the re-enacting extends beyond the battlefield, if you know what I mean.

Then I heard a commercial for Samsung's flat screen high-definition televisions for "the big game." First, I get annoyed every year around this time when commercials say "the big game" instead of "the Superbowl" because of trademark issues. There's no problem plastering "Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl" all over the place, but for some reason the biggest sports brand in the world wants to limit its exposure in this sense. I understand that companies would have to pay whoever owns the term "Superbowl" to use it, but the whole thing just strikes me as stupid. Why build an ad around a term you can't use just to hope the euphemism holds up?

Second, Samsung's commercial was not just about watching "the big game," but if you buy a Samsung HD tv, you can get a $100 gift card to nfl.com. Yes, one hundred smackeroos. Keep in mind, we're talking about a product line that Best Buy sells ranging from $1,200 to $3,100, but they seem to think that giving you $100 back to only use on one website is going to push people over the edge. Come on, Samsung, think about your audience a little.

Lastly, Kevin and Bean on KROQ announced that they were having the founder of the "Rate my Turban" website on the show. I groaned aloud, because I've seen these "rate my x" sites before, and this seemed like a bad idea for one. I first saw these listed mainly for body parts or overall hotness. In fact, you could probably type in any body part after "ratemy," slap a .com on the end and have hours of not-safe-for-work entertainment. Then a friend told me about ratemypoo.com years ago. For some reason, I went there and after rating a couple, felt disgusting enough that I never went back. I don't suggest any of you check that out, because it's even worse than you think. I just did a Google search for "ratemy," and found sites for teacher, body, kitten, fish tank, boobies, undies, boner, and finger. I gotta say, I'm intrigued by the last one and may have to check that out.

But I wasn't too eager to hear about this new site devoted to rating turbans, because I had a feeling it was going to be very stereotypical and cringe-inducing. But I stayed on the station because I had limited other options. As it turns out, the founder is a very intelligent man who is a practicing Sikh. The site is intended to be educational as well and entertaining, with links about the history of turbans and how to tie one. Coming into the interview with extremely low expectations, I was quite pleasantly surprised. Even Kevin and Bean remarked that the interview was much different than they were expecting.

Did all of these things make up for the traffic? Nope - I would gladly take open freeways over interesting sights and sounds on my commute. Gentle readers, I sure hope your days go more quickly than mine so far. I have no proof, but I think my minutes are 75-seconds long today. Well, at least that gives me more time to rate fish tanks and long for the days of Pan Am.