MindBlog Archives
 January 1 - 31, 2009

My look may be deceiving
01.31.09 - 6:50 pm (CT)
Occasionally, Jon will tell me I look angry, but really I'm not, I'm just thinking, so I plaster a smile on my face and tell him the truth, that I'm pondering something or other. I suppose I could have a stupid grin on my face no matter what, but then some might think I'm crazy or some kind of fool. A long time ago I might have cared what others thought of me, but that time has long since passed, so my face, and the expression it wears, are mine, like it or not, so everyone might as well get used to it.

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Searching for a theme song
01.20.09 - 6:39 pm (CT)
I've always had a song — a theme song, if you will — for all of our dogs, and now that I have my very own dog, Bob Harper, I have not been able to come up with one. Since Harper is a coonhound, I've been trying to remember all of the words to "Hound Dog" (Sung by Elvis Presley and others) and today googled it and found it, but it was a bust, as my hound dog isn't crying all the time.

Anyway, I got sidetracked at SoundTracks Lyrics Source to a whole string of other songs and ended up at the lyrics for the theme song for my all-time favorite Western, Maverick. Plus, in the process of my search, I ran across an audio-visual at YouTube for Maverick as well. What a find… and to top it off both SoundTracks Lyrics Source and YouTube want you to use their stuff for FREE on your own website, and make it real easy to do. It's just a cut and paste of their code into your own code and, well, the results are quite simply and quickly right here at MindBlog for us all to enjoy.

Lyrics | - Maverick lyrics

Source: Maverick Theme Song at YouTube.com

The long and the short of it is that we all are a bunch of lucky dogs, and all because of my desire to give Bob Harper his own theme song… geez, you can thank my hound dog the next time you see him and then me, because Westerns are my favorite kind of movie, TV show, book, whatever — heck, I even like cowboys… get along little doggies.

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Danger, danger… I'm thinking again
01.15.09 - 1:53 pm (CT)
Jeane is thinking again… not that I'm not thinking most of the time, but on occasion my thoughts, some of them passing and some of them not-worth-passing, are, well, fanciful, which for me can be dangerous… or not. The latest are probably of the not-worth-passing variety, but since I thought of them, I thought I'd let you know that I am thinking nonetheless.

Maybe dangerous is the wrong word to describe my fanciful thoughts, maybe misdirecting would be a better term, or maybe just different, as in different from my usual, everyday thoughts is a better description. As for the thoughts I have been having, they are of no consequence, as I've already put them out of my mind and have gone back to the same old, same old. So, the inherent danger of my differing thoughts has passed and I am back to as normal as I usually am, which, according to some folks, may not be saying much.

On to something else entirely: I just finished reading "All He Ever Wanted" by Anita Shreve and I don't recommend it at all, as it one of the strangest books I have ever read. The only reason I finished reading it was to find out where the heck it was going. Also, a word person needs to keep a dictionary close at hand — the Dictionary Diva would have liked it if only for the new words she would have had to look up while working her way through the early 20th century dialogue of an English Professor.

I, not being a word person, did not bother to look up any of the verbiage, but instead chose to guess at their meanings from the context in which they were used, so there you go, there you have it, there you are… it just minbloggling.

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Pronunciations at Inogolo.com
01.09.09 - 9:42 pm (CT)
My sister-in-law, Illene (that would be my brother Jim's wife), and I have been going slightly back and forth on the pronunciation of the last name of an author we both like — Jodi Picoult. Illene, being from Virginia with a short stint in Kansas, tends to pronounce some words differently from what I consider to be normal or correct. I suppose if I was from her neck of the woods I might (mis)pronounce those same words the way she does.

I finally decided to settle the matter by googling the name and happened upon the Inogolo website that has both phonetic and audio English pronunciations for names of people, places, and stuff, and that has hopefully settled the matter… in Illene's favor. Illene says the word 'peony' with the accent on the second syllable, instead of the first, which makes it come out incorrectly as pee-OE-nee. So, naturally she did the same to 'Picoult', saying it absolutely correct as pee-KOE. I on the other hand, ignoring my 4 years of French, pronounced it pi-COLT.

If you're interested, listen at Inogolo for the proper pronunciation of author, Jodi Picoult's name. While you're there take a look around, maybe they even have the proper pronunciation for a name of whatever that has been bugging you… well, that is if stuff like that bugs you.

Another passing thought: 45 years today.

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Blatherings on PHP, downtime, and a FREE download
01.03.09 - 12:14 pm (CT)
Gee, I have time on my hands right now, so I'm considering following through on my long ago threat (to myself) of learning PHP and MySQL… I definitely have the time, and possibly the inclination, so why not have a little fun during this downtime.

As for this downtime, well, it's not what I thought would be happening right now, but all I can say, is that I can't beat the offer of free labor, as mine is not free. In fact, my labor is worth every penny (and more) than I was paid, and had I known what was to happen, I would have charged much more for my services, which is something to keep in mind for future negotiations with whomever.

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I just took a moment to create the 2009 MindBlog Calendar — I needed one and thought a few of you might not want to spend the time to make one, or the money to buy one, so hence a FREE download from me to you (see last year's note)... you're welcome and have a nice day!

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Fireworks and freedom
01.01.09 - 1:56 pm (CT)
Even though the muckety-mucks in Village Hall have supposedly cracked down on illegal fireworks displays, there are still a few Freedom Fighters here in town that basically say, "Screw 'em!" Well, good for them, because I for one not only enjoyed the display last night at midnight, but wholeheartedly agree with their "Don't tread on me!" stance. This is still America and if you're not hurting anyone else, then everyone else should just back off and mind their own business.

Most of the nanny do-gooders requesting and making these laws are really just snooty busybodies who think the rest of us are too stupid for our own good, so of course, we need them, in all their brilliance, to tell the rest of us how to live… gee, get a life and then busy yourselves minding it. Thank you, you're welcome, and do have the most happiest of New Years!

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