Remiss

The Word of the Day for November 21 is "remiss."

remiss: (adjective)

1. Lax in attending to duty.
2. Exhibiting carelessness or slackness.

Synonyms: delinquent, derelict, neglectful

Usage: I had been remiss in the fulfillment of my obligations and failed to pay my bills on time, so my landlord evicted me.

Relevance to my Life: I was remiss in attending to anything but the most basic daily tasks of taking care of myself when I lapsed into that depression after my son died. For the first few days, my focus was on taking one solid breath after another in order to keep from screaming. Some people urged me and my husband to throw ourselves into work or other mindless activities in order to soldier through the roughest times, but that was inconceivable.

Ha! I can't think of the word "inconceivable" without leaping straight to The Princess Bride.



Inconceivable!






Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You Killed my father. Prepare to die.
As big a crush as I had on Cary Elwes, I think I like Mandy Patinkin more.






Wuv, Twoo Wuv
And I know I posted this clip in a bulletin earlier this week, but this is perhaps the funniest wedding scene ever.





My Awful Wedded Wife
Oh, except perhaps for this one:





You may wonder why sometimes I post something painful in the "relevance to my life" section and then go on to add funny, random or stupid things in the same post. Well I would be remiss in my duties as a person if I gave the impression that my life is nothing but pain 24/7.

Although the dark shit has provided me with ample fodder for writing, it is my ability to laugh and see something funny in almost any situation, even when it's dark humor, that has been my saving grace.

Besides, I try to stay true to my random train of thought. :)

Veer

The Word of the Day for November 20 is "veer."

veer (verb)

1. To turn aside from a course, direction of purpose.
2. To shift clockwise in direction, as from north to northeast. Used of the wind.
3. Nautical To change the course of a ship by turning the stern to the wind while advancing to windward; wear ship.

Synonyms: curve, cut, sheer, slew, swerve, trend

Usage: The car veered sharply to the left at the intersection and narrowly missed hitting a pedestrian.

Relevance to my Life: I used to have a pretty clear idea of what I envisioned for my future; extensive travel, living and working overseas; a PhD in Linguistics; publication of my fiction. Looking back from my current vantage point up on my ledge, I can see that my life did not veer off-course as much as it seemed to jump the rails, blaze through land for which I had no map, and, at last, careen out of control down a steep hill headed straight for a carnival filled with frolicking children, petting zoo animals, and for some reason, a conference of Bishops. Don't ask, even I don't know where that came from.

In homage to the nautical meaning of the verb, I thought I'd hunt down some ship-related clips this morning.


The sinking of the Andrea Gail
Try as he might, there was no veering from that rogue wave.




Huge waves
Sure, a cruise ship is big, but the ocean is bigger! Hope they're stocked with Dramamine!
Note: turn down your sound- the noise from the helicopter is loud




White Squall, or as I like to call it: "Boot Camp on a Boat for Over-priviledged White Boys"
Oh sure, Mr. Master and Commander, it's all fun and games until your windjammer's broadsided by a rogue wave and your wife dies...




Ok, I have a thing for submarines and submarine movies. I don't know why.

Anyway, I love The Hunt for Red October (the second greatest submarine movie ever*), and this is my second favorite scene from the movie. My favorite scene is the first Crazy Ivan scene, which goes on to shift scenes between the two subs as Ramius talks in his cabin with his XO. Edit: It's not the second Crazy Ivan scene when Ryan is on the Dallas, like I first wrote. I just watched it again. Sorry!

Edit 2: Ok, the second Crazy Ivan scene is awesome too.

I have to say though, that as much as I love Sean Connery, he has one of the worst accents in Russian I have ever heard. The award for the Worst Accent in Russian Ever goes to a classmate of mine from Texas. Holy Christ, it was enough to make your ears bleed!

Anyway, enough of my rambling.


You arrogant ass! You've killed US!







*The greatest submarine movie ever is, of course, Das Boot, subtitled, NOT dubbed!

Inanimate

The Word of the Day for November 19 is "inanimate."

inanimate: (adjective)

1. Not having the qualities associated with active, living organisms.
2. Not animated or energetic; dull.
3. Grammar Belonging to the class of nouns that stand for nonliving things.

Synonyms: pulseless, breathless

Usage: I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.

Relevance to my life: The first weekend after he moved out, I mostly sat in the dark and drank, slowly morphing into some oddly-shaped projection out of the couch, deadening all sensations, rendering myself mute and inanimate; even my breathing seemed to stop as I slipped into a listless, leaden state of deferred shock.

And now, the award for the Best Inanimate Object Skit goes to...




I love the Muppet Show!



In trying to pick my favorite Muppet Show moment, I found that I couldn't choose between the Swedish Chef's doughnut and lobster skits, so here they both are:


Making doughnuts





Cooking lobsters

Saltation

The Word of the Day for November 18 is "saltation."

saltation (noun)

1. A light, self-propelled movement upwards or forwards.
2. Discontinuous movement, transition, or development; advancement by leaps.
3. Genetics A single mutation that drastically alters the phenotype.
Synonyms: leaping, bounce, bound, spring Usage: The kangaroo's effortless saltation was balletic and graceful. Relevance to my life: I imagine that there are some of you out there who are saying to yourselves, "My Christ, she's doing it again," as you watch each enormous saltation take me ever closer to the edge of disaster. Forget talking me down off my ledge, I'm going to need a crew fitted out with rappelling gear and a straight-jacket and 500 mg of Thorazine for me. What it is NOT: "salutation" as in that time honored cliché, "Greetings and saltations to you my friends!" wrong It's "greetings and salutations."

Speaking of rappelling gear, rock climbing and um, mountains, this scene always gives me nightmares.

Ok, never mind. I was going to put up the opening scene from Cliffhanger, but I just watched it again and, it's upsetting. I guess you could say that I have no problem suspending disbelief with some movies.

Damn. It's going to be Nightmare-City for me tonight, I can just tell, and I'm already starting the day exhausted because Littler Kid was sick last night and had me up, um, pretty much the whole time, and she's probably going to stay home again unless her fever goes down, her cough goes away and she stops puking.

Also, a totally weird aside: I had the word gallimaufry in my head when I woke up from my final doze this morning.

Am I not just the oddest person you've ever met?

Tangential

The Word of the Day for November 17 is "tangential."

tangential: (adjective)

1. Of, relating to, or moving along or in the direction of a tangent.
2. Merely touching or slightly connected.
3. Only superficially relevant; divergent.

Synonym: digressive

Usage: His tangential anecdote added much-needed humor to the talk, though some found the digressions tiresome.

Relevance to my life: The tangential asides and video clips in my blogs only scratch the surface of my whacked-out train of thought, and may appear to be completely irrelevant to you, the Reader, but they make perfect sense if you can follow my bizarre stream of consciousness thought processes.

Alrighty, I can't think "tangential" without thinking "tangent" (you know, like in math), and I can't think about math without thinking about transcendental numbers, which brings me to everyone's favorite transcendental number, pi π.

It's also a movie by Darren Aronovsky. Whenever I watch it, it blows my mind a little more.







Also good is Life of Pi, which mentions pi the number only tangentially.




If you want a book about the history of π, I would suggest The History of Pi.




If you have geeky tendencies like I do, then this next March 14, let's get together and celebrate Pi Day


Pi Song




Finally, my favorite math-related images:






























Oh my God, I laugh to the point of crying every single time I read those!


Have a great day, everyone!

Progeny

The Word of the Day for November 7 is "progeny."

progeny: (noun) One born of, begotten by, or derived from another.

Synonyms: issue, offspring

Usage: He was naturally a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse.

Relevance to my life: People remark about the likeness between the eldest of my progeny and me; indeed, one of the kid's nicknames is Mini-Me.

Did someone say Mini-Me?


You and I





Zip it!
Here we see Dr. Evil interact with his other, less-appreciated member of his progeny.
I do the "Zip it!" schtick with my kids and it sends them off into giggling-hysterics.

Putrefaction

The word of the day for November 6 is "putrefaction."

putrefaction:: (noun)

1. Decomposition of organic matter, especially protein, by microorganisms, resulting in production of foul-smelling matter.
2. Moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles.

Synonyms: depravation, depravity, degeneracy, corruption

Usage: The country had fallen into a state of moral putrefaction, with corruption running rampant throughout the government ranks.

Relevance to my life: The stench of putrefaction wafting up from beneath the driver's seat of my car alerted me to the location of the missing sippy cup. The apple juice inside now swam with colonies of mold, floating in the cloudy juice like hideous black and green jellyfish.

Mmm, putrefaction. What a pleasant word. It even sounds repugnant. Thus far, my searches on Youtube under "putrefaction" have yielded a slew of death metal videos. Ha! How original.

I could do something concerned with moral putrefaction.

The first thing that leaps to mind when I think of moral putrefaction, other than televangelists, is the Marquis de Sade. That brings me to Peter Weiss's play-within-a-play, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, more commonly known as Marat/Sade.

Then there is the movie Quills, also about the Marquis's stay in the asylum. If I'm not mistaken, there was some scene in that movie which prompted me to scream, "I wish I could un-see that! Gah!" Fortunately, I've blanked it out, so I couldn't tell you what it was, though I suspect it involved a big pot of lye.


Quills trailer




Marat/Sade

Jesus, these people are crazy!