Wooord! The Ghostwriter Drinking Game

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Drinkin' 'n' Watchin' GW*
Drink when/for

• new Gaby's in the episode
• Calvin is in the episode
• Hector makes a grammatical error
• there's sexual tension between Tina & Alex
• exceptionally bad line execution
• some sort of fake product/brand name is shown or mentioned
• anything overly "ethnic" happens
• Lenni displays her "talent"
• Rob displays his "talent"
• Jamal uses science
• Tina videotapes something or mentions being a filmmaker
• holes in the Ghostwriter mythology
• celebrity or pre-celebrity
• ill-fitting clothing
• exceptional stupidity *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• Tina's wearing her retainer
• "Everything's in Brooklyn!" phenomenon
• cop says, "I don't know how you kids do it"
• Frank, Kathryn, etc use wooden old-timey slang
• deep social issues
• tension because there aren't enough letters for Ghostwriter to send a message
• a code is cracked
• Jamal acts "suave"
• mention of the High School of Science
• Lenni flips out at/is rude to her dad's girlfriend
• Jamal has more immediate familythan his grandma
• bad computer effects
• the handwriting is obviously different
• someone says "rewind"
• someone says "peicing the puzzle"
• someone says "Ghostwriter!" like they forgot about him
• fake music
• bad dancing
• mention of the casebook *drink twice if it's not Gaby's*
• someone wears too much makeup
• there's an unnecessary use of a computer
• someone new sees Ghostwriter
• a team member's in a life-threatening situation *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• *drink twice if a team member is suspected by anyone*
• mention of Lenni's mom
• team member in a tunnel of some sort
• bad accents
• Tina's family is mentioned or shown
• Rob's carrying a skateboard
• criminals that do completely retarded things
• someone's passing puberty is obvious
• wooden British slang when Jamal's in the UK

(We think this was written 2001-2002.)

She’s clinging to the nearest passerby.

I learned something today. I learned that I am completely without coordination. Here’s how:

The longer I spent in that last town, sedentary and car-commuting, the more I knew I needed to start doing some sort of exercising. Except I never had the extra money to take a class (plus, when you work until 7, you get used to class scheduling difficulties).
So I figured I’d bring some exercise DVDs home from the library I was working at. All I could find was Paula Abdul’s workout video* and a Bollywood thing. Paula had nostalgia going for her; my friend Cindy had the video in college, memorized the dances, and could sometimes be persuaded to do bits at 80s night. If we weren’t too busy with our ridiculous “Like a Prayer” dance, that is. The Bollywood one had good music going for it (bhangra) and the logic that Cara bellydances, and Cara and I 80s night dance similarly, so I thought I could do well.
Oh, how wrong I was. That’s when I remembered that my 80s night Dance Machine style evolved based on how little I can follow someone else’s dance move instruction. There’s a reason why Lara took ballet classes and I filmed Lara’s ballet classes, after all.**
Then I moved here and, while moving into my third floor apartment, got way more winded than necessary. I walk a lot more, but I still need something. And I’m just not a gym kinda girl. Mostly in that I know I don’t have the willpower to motivate myself to go to the gym. Nor do I want to spend the money, or explain to overly friendly gym—mates why I’m wearing a tshirt with “We’re yr inner Kim Gordon & Moe Tucker. We’re here to kick your ass, inner Richard Marx!” on it.
So I put the Punk Rock Aerobics book on my holiday list. It’s kind of perfect for me: instructions for exercises, how to put them together into a respectable class dealie, and song recommendations, including the notion of stretching to Joy Division. And pictures of a pigtailed Mary Timony doing jumping jacks!
Unfortunately, the laptop I’m using right now gets cranky when you try to upload cds, so I had a limited selection for my mix. Luckily, though, Tiff was using this guy to make mixes, so there were still lots of things to choose from. Including London Calling, which is doubly fortunate as pogoing and skanking are two of the few punk rock aerobic moves I really excel at.
Basically, here’s my problem. I can master 2, maybe 2.5, steps. 3 steps I can maybe sometimes get, if they’re baby steps. 4? Naw, I was a mess: losing my balance, falling over shit, the works. I also am pretty much physically incapable of any exercise/dance move that involves moving one’s left leg and right arm at the same time. That whole opposite thing. Also, when I pick my foot up and put it down behind me, it’s never in the same place twice. This is also, if you were wondering, why I do so terribly at Dance Dance Revolution. I lose the arrows.
But I know my weaknesses, and I know the others may come with practice. Now I just need to learn to stop jumping on the loose floorboard in my bedroom.

*Can you believe they bothered to release this in DVD!?
**My first super8 film was from her beginning en pointe class. It looked really good, but I never picked it up from Filmmakers after the big projection night.

No talking like a grizzled 1890s prospector, consarn it!

My New Year's resolution is to talk like a pickpocket. Good thing there's a lot of reciprocal borrowing agreements in my new neck of the woods.*
One of my nerdier interests is slang and slang dictionaries. Especially old-timey slang--and this is another Simpsons chicken-or-the-egg: do I find old-timey stuff funny and that's why I love those jokes, or do I love those jokes because I've been watching a show written by fans of old-timey jokes since I was 10?
The current obsession with Deadwood isn't hurting either. I've been sorely tempted to keep a notebook next to me while I watch, so I can jot down all the great outdated euphemisms and slang.
I was looking through the reference section at the new library and found Casell's Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green, who also has a LibraryThing, which is pretty cool.
I kind of feel like working my way through all of his books tagged with "reference" or "slang" at some point. Teenlit and etymology, that's what I read!

As a middle-of-Chanukkah present, here's some fun outdated slang, from the aforementioned Cassell's:
back-row hopper someone who goes to bars, hoping they'll find someone who will buy them a drink
bacon hole mouth [I think I may have found a replacement in my heart for pie- and/or cake-hole.]
baste someone's coat beat 'em up severely
cross-cove and mollisher a man and woman who work together as thieves
crusty-beau an aging dandy who takes lots of care with his complexion by using cosmetics
dandysette a female dandy
get a spark up strengthen one's spirits with a drink
coffin varnish Prohibition era liquor
pick up a nail get vd
sweetheart and bag-pudding baby momma
snaffle to steal; to arrest; to seduce
Liverpool kiss blow to the mouth or face

I've determined that what I really need isn't a slang dictionary, but a reverse slang dictionary. That way it would be easier to skip past all the hundreds and hundreds of words for penis, vagina, and sex, and concentrate on what I really want, which is archaic euphemisms for getting drunk, thievery, and general debauchery.
What's interesting though, is that I'm not really as much a fan of Cockney rhyming slang. Like, it's interesting, but not nearly as much as slang with more of a history.

*As opposed to the last town, where it was every system for themselves unless you wanted to pay like $50 a year.

A Song of Modern Love

'Cause nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain



We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain

But lovers always come and lovers always go
An no one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away



Do you need some time...on your own
Do you need some time...all alone
Everybody needs some time...
on their own
Don't you know you need some time...all alone



And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain
I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain



(I came up with this stupidly funny idea while driving to work this morning. And I promised an invalid Tiff I'd post something entertaining today. Well, at least I think it's entertaining.)

Standing in a queue of a school canteen.

Yes folks, the wait is finally over.
Introducing...The PoBaL Literary Crush List!
(oooo, aaaaah.)

• The first crush I can remember having on a character in a book was Peter Pevensie in the Narnia books. He's all responsible and noble and shit, plus, if I ever had a giant evil talking wolf that needed killed, he could totally do it for me. And really, isn't that what we're all looking for in a man?
• Zooey Glass. Sure, he's snarky to his mom, mean to his sister (kind of) during her big crisis of faith or whatever, and was quoted in Ally Sheedy's book of poetry, but how could you resist a guy that looks like "the blue-eyed Jewish-Irish Mohican scout who died in your arms at the roulette table at Monte Carlo"?* And you'd be snarky to your mom, too, if she wouldn't leave the bathroom when you wanted to get dressed.
• Carrying on with my trend of wounded, arrogant, asshole-ish boys who are also loyal, noble, etc., I've got quite the crush on Sirius Black (unlike my Oliver Wood or Weasley twin crushes, it has everything to do with J.K. Rowling and nothing to do with casting directors).
• ...and Bran from Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series. Totally arrogant, but, as his absent father is King Arthur, kind of understandable. And hot, if I'm allowed to say that about a fictional 13yrold. Which I'm probably totally not. But that's the thing about literary crushes, especially when most of what you read is teenlit. You have a lot of age-inappropriateness.
• Also, sometimes you get the species inappropriateness. I know Foaly, the smartass tech geek in the Artemis Fowl books, is a centaur, but I still crush on him. Insert your own awful "hung like a horse" joke here.
• I also like Ravus the Troll from Holly Black's Valiant, but he's at least human-shaped. Sort of. And there's this great scene where Val thinks he's about to make a magic potion and it's actually hot cocoa. If a boy made me hot cocoa, I think I could overlook the whole green skin and fangs thing.
• After I read Heavy Metal and You, I got a really big crush on Chris Krovatin, the author. That counts for this list because the book kind of smacks of thinly veiled autobiography.
• I can't tell if I have a crush on Nick from Nick and Norah or if I'm crushing on the whole crazy infatuated night the two characters have.
• Jacklyn Moriarty writes some pretty crushable boys. She's very good at the smirky charmers who are actually quite nice boys once you get to know them.
• If you're the sort of girl who can have a crush on a drawing, which I completely and unabashedly am, there are whole genres of manga dedicated just to you. Right now I'm all about Saiyuki. There's a lot of pretty, and a lot of jackassery.
• Speaking of crushes on drawings, Drake from Scooter Girl is totally my boyfriend.
• Because it's just not a crush list without a straightgirlcrush, Dess from the Midnighters series is awesome. She fights monsters with math! And snarks around a lot!

*Yeah, I had to grab the library copy of Franny and Zooey for an exact quote, but I had a good deal of it memorized. I always forget where the roulette wheel is.

Aesthetics at the Grammar Rodeo.

I remember learning that when you have 3 things in succession, you don’t have to put a comma between the last 2, but that it was preferred.
Is it just me, or has everyone given up on that second comma? It’s a case of
“I like candy, plastic toys and thrift stores.”
VS
“I like candy, plastic toys, and thrift stores.”
The extra comma just looks better, and, I think, sets off each item nicely and equally. In the first sentence, doesn’t it kind of look like “candy” is one item, and “plastic toys and thrift stores” is another?
I don’t like it.

When a word is capitalized and hyphenated, do you have capital letters at the front of both parts? Because “Test-word” looks like ass to me.

This I know is against the rules, and I don’t care. It’s just more aesthetically pleasing to me, and looks are what counts, right?
I HATE the way it looks when the punctuation is included before the second quotation mark, if what’s in quotes isn’t a complete sentence.
Example:
She said I was “interesting,” and then she left.
VS
She said I was “interesting”, and then she left.
See, that comma just doesn't belong with the quote part. It belongs to that whole part.
Be honest: you hate it too. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your 6th grade English teacher.

So, yeah, I'm insane and a complete nerd. Officially now, I think.

S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G, we're shopping

I broke down and bought a box of condoms I'd actually use before I figured out what to do with box A.
Which is why I found myself in the local Walmart the other night with a open, yet full box of non-spermicidal condoms with gluestick all over the opening.
This would be after the realization that I'd have to pay postage to send the box to the company and declare my dissatisfaction.
Which is why I found myself in my office, furtively gluesticking the top of an open, yet full box of condoms, hoping to god no one would come in and see what I was doing.
Brian used to tell all these stories about what walmarts would take back, so I figured this would be a cinch. Except, here's a word of advice: if you're gluesticking a box of condoms, don't use the purple Colorations brand, 'cause it just plain won't stick.
And I was planning to use that store credit to buy catfood, too.
There go my chances at this year's Spinsterlympics, I guess.

I'm a nerd, but...

...this is freakin' awesome!

I hate you, Found Magazine guy: I had that idea first.

Some index cards I found in a book (assume sic):

Slide 2
David Robert Jones was born January 8, 1947 In Brixton, London.

Slide 3
The instruments he played were saxophone, guitar, vocals, & keyboards.

Slide 4
He left Bromley Technical high school to work as a commercial artist for 3yrs. After that he started playing in bands such as: the Konrads, the King Bees, David Jones & the Buzz, the Manish Boys, & Davey Jones & the Lower 3rd
1966 he changed name to David Bowie so noone will get confused with him & the Monkee's Davey Jones.

Slide 5
Married Angela Barrett on March 20, 1970 & they had a son named Zowie now called Joey in June of 1971.

After they divorced he married somallian super model Iman & they are still married.

Slide 6
the albums that he made were Changes on bowie, Lust for life Tin machine, Tin Machine 2, & oy Vey, Baby.

Slide 7
Some of the movies he played in were the Labyrinth & the Man who Fell to Earth.

Slide 8
Pictures of Bowie.
Thanks for listening
***
This almost beats out that post-it drawing I found in a book in the teenhole at the Crescent Hill branch of the Louisville public library, with Trogdor and a girl Trogdor burninating peasants. That's on my fridge right now, next to Chynna Clugston-Major's Duran Duran story from Spin.

my collating style is unstoppable

Some people save lives. They cure cancer, or I think about the people that keep planes from crashing. (OK, it's been a long time since my last Mallrats viewing. This is supposed to reference Doherty's breakup speech to Jason Lee. Sorry.) Some of my greatest talents? I can identify any Brady Bunch episodes within the first 15 seconds, just about. I can find you a story, in some format or another, you'll enjoy. I also make one hell of an amateur stylist/personal shopper. I have no problem bravado-ing my way through just about any social situation and/or home improvement project. And I kick ass at repetitive menial tasks.
Seriously. Ever notice how quickly I type remarkably similar numbers into a computer, over and over again?
31912 this is the beginning of every item barcode at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
11912 this is the beginning of every patron barcode at the Carnegie
29205 patrons where I am now
392050 items where I am now
And I suspect, if I really tried, my fingers could still remember the first 5-7 digits of the University of Pittsburgh barcodes, something I haven't needed to know since May 2000...31735. Told you.
Janice and I used to talk about trying to "race" the copiers at our individual student administrative assistant jobs, trying to flip to the next journal page and smash down the bound journal before the light under the glass went away, trying to keep the beat steady. If I get cancer, and it's not lung cancer from the 68D and 67F, not to mention all of the trucks on their way to 376, or second-hand smoky 80s nights, it will be caused by years of making copies with the lid up.
My temp jobs didn't bring out my talent nearly as much as one might think, except when I was working on my trading cards. A coffee house job, on the other hand, is tailor-made for me. I loved the act of grinding, pressing, steaming, etc., especially once I mastered foaming milk. Sometimes I still kind of miss the actual making coffee drinks part of the coffee job. Anyone want to buy me a commercial espresso machine? Setting it up in my kitchen sounds like one hell of a home improvement project for me to bluster through.
With Kinko's, my talent hit paydirt. NOTE: this was nowhere near enough to keep the job from sucking. However, the moments when I was in the back, not having to worry about punkass customers, collating or binding, folding or stapling, were probably when I hated Kinko's the least. One Sunday I stapled hundreds of 1/4 sheet sized booklets using a stand-up saddle-stapler, perfectly content and at quite a pace. This was also, I believe, the hungover Sunday I discovered that my hangover breaking point is not small poorly disciplined children running around a public library, but Simply Red. Really, a career-making point in Jessy's life.
Why bring all this up now, other than because it's a slow-ass Wednesday night and I don't feel like doing a home visit recap or playing Alchemy? Because I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that I'll never be able to plie, or perform open heart surgery, or have a gallery in New York (or screech about having a gallery in New York while pouring beer on my head--jury's still out on my dream of being someone else's Christian Joy, though). But I'm damn good at collating, and I was doing some of that earlier today.
The thing about repetitive mindless tasks is that, while your hands are doing the same thing over and over again, your mind gets to wander. This is perfect for a beer label peeling, fingernail munching, where'd my embroidery go girl like me. And today, as I was putting together summer reading program propaganda, all this is what I was thinking about.