Fail

English Fail Blog has to be the best website I've stumbled across in a long, long time. Users submit pictures of the various manglings that the English language endures on a daily basis. The "fails" mostly fall into two categories:

Spelling/Typos: see Closed Caption Fail (I didn't know that was an approved fire-fighting fluid)
Grammar/syntax: see Out of Service Fail
Then there are a few that defy description, like Verbatim Fail. At least that one was edible.

Today I ordered some Flat Rate boxes through the USPS for my mom to use for care packages. In the course of signing up for the account, I came across this grammar fail in the "Password Hint" section. As always, click the picture to get a close-up.



In a nutshell, the word "in" is the fail part. "In" is a preposition and it is gramatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition. To paraphrase an old Garfield cartoon, don't say, "Where's it at?" say, "Where's it at, Bubba?"I think that's what the Postal Service was trying to do. The sentence would have been correct if they left off the last word.

So I took a screenshot of that page and sent it to the good folks at EBF with hopes that it makes it to their site. Here's hoping!
-jas

Ab-ca-def-ghi-jeckel-menop-quer-stuv-wix-ez

It's the most remarkable word I've ever seen! Or maybe a pretty flower...

Pensacola Jen brought it to my attention that Sesame Street turned 40 today. If you have the time and a box of tissues, drop by her site to view her top video clip pick. It dealt with Big Bird coming to terms with Mr. Hooper's death. (1982) I remember when that happened and I was very sad. I watched the clip again tonight and I got teary-eyed. Still.

Here are my Top 5 clips.

#5 - "Memory" (1972). I still recite this grocery list when I go to the store. It's also a running joke in my family when one of us has to remember something. A loaf of butter, a container of bread and a stick of milk. Wait, that's not right...



#4 - "Put Down the Ducky" (1988). This aired during a pledge drive and I remember sitting through the whole pledge break specifically to watch this new Sesame Street video. It's full of celebrity cameos including Ladysmith Black Mambazo at the 2:10 mark.



#3 - "8 Beautiful Notes" (1977). Like all things made in the great year of 1977, [tee-hee] it is still relevant and useful. I use it when teaching my students about harmonic minor scales. The melody of the Count's counting is a C harmonic minor scale. It's weird that this clip is in my top three because as a small child, I had an irrational fear of Count von Count. His face was on the album jacket of a record in our collection. [yes, I'm old enough to remember vinyl. shut up.] One night I must have left it on the floor. When I got up to get a drink of water that night, I thought the Count was following me and that he was going to chase me under the bed and eat me. Yet here we are.



#2 - "John John and Harry Monster Count to 20" (no year given) - He really gets into it after 12. Love it!



#1 - The Pointer Sisters singing the "Pinball Song" (1972). I still count this way when I'm doling out cookies or muffins or anything that comes by the dozen.



If you didn't sing along with this clip, you either grew up in a cave or are dead inside. Crazy person's choice.

Happy Birthday Sesame Street! And many more!

-jas

Bento bonanza!

Watching the exchange rate has turned into sport again and not in a good way. Back in March, one Aussie dollar bought 60 US cents. It was a great time to buy plane tickets and other luxury items because they cost us less. Now the dollar is up to 90 cents and our money is not going as far as it used to. With the dollar so close to parity (1:1) it really puts that $5.50 carton of eggs into perspective.

Secret Agent Man has been buying his lunch at the chow hall pretty much since we landed. When we were in the States, he would buy his lunch primarily to escape the office for an hour. Since that was the only time he was exposed to natural light during the day, I let him. Now he's in a place where there are no eateries remotely close to his office so the choices are: chow hall or brown-bagging it. Enter the bento.

I bought some lunchbox supplies from ReusableBags.com and it's fortunate that they ship directly to Australia. My supplies came in and I've been having some fun packing his lunch. I bought him this stainless steel container and a stainless steel water bottle so I wouldn't have to worry about BPA contaminants or food stains. If there's something that needs to be warmed up he flips the lunchbox over, expands the silicone top and throws that in the microwave. The box looks small but will hold about 750 calories of food when packed. I'll throw in a slice or two of homemade sourdough bread and S.A.M. has an easy-peasy lunch.

I'm still getting used to packing everything tight enough where it won't roll around and started reading bento-related blogs to pick up tips. Here are pictures of the first two bentos I packed for S.A.M.

The first is a bento of leftover skirt steak from fajita night, raw carrots (which have been banned from future bentos by S.A.M.) a container of homemade potato salad, 10 Ritz crackers and a BabyBel cheese round.

The second bento attempt has 6 oz. of oven-fried chicken, homemade potato salad, 10 Ritz crackers and a Babybel round to be eaten with a Light My Fire spork. In lieu of the carrots SAM is getting blueberries. I'm going to give him fresh fruits & veggies if it kills me!


I'm sure there will be more adventurous bentos in my near future. S.A.M. reports that the boys at his table aren't teasing him about bringing his lunch but rather teasing him about the shape of his lunchbox. ("Is that bag for formal nights?") I offered to get him one with race cars on it but that has been vetoed as well. Boys are funny.

-jas

Ghost writing for Aerosmith

a.k.a., "Fisticups, part the 4th"

There's a show on TV here called "20-to-1". It's a countdown show that changes themes each time. Last night's theme was "20-to-1 Scene Stealing Songs." #17 was the Aerosmith song from Mrs. Doubtfire, "Dude Looks Like a Lady". The show did the snippet and went to commercial. Then I hear Secret Agent Man singing in the office...

"Dah-nah, dah-nah....Do me like a lady! Dah-nah-, dah-nah...do me like a lady!"

Rest assured he knows the real lyrics now.

-jas

Standley Chasm hike

There are some visiting workers from the States so Secret Agent Man and I have been showing them the sites as time allows. Yesterday we went out to Standley Chasm, about 30 minutes away. The hike to the Chasm itself is not bad. It's more of a gentle walk. Our group kept going after the Chams, where the trail hooks up with a more strenuous hike. We climbed up rocks, walked across logs and climbed heaps of stairs up to the top. I do fine with the hiking and rock climbing but stairs kill me! Guess I'd better hit the stairmaster so the next hike won't be so bad!

Here are some pictures. As always, click on the pictures for a better view or just hover the mouse on the pictures to see the captions.

-jas

Take one down, pass it around...

Secret Agent Man and I aren't heavy drinkers. I will have a glass of wine on occasion and have been known to down a beer with my burger once in a while. Since moving to Australia we've discovered some good wines.

The good thing about living in Alice Springs is because the population is so transient and people are coming and going all the time, travel tips and foodie tips are abundant. When we have a vacation coming up S.A.M. will ask the folks in his office for suggestions and I put the word out on Facebook that we're looking for things to do and goodies to try. So when a flyer came around at work advertising fine wine at a bargain-basement price of $10/bottle, we had to partake. It came from a vineyard that we haven't had a chance to visit yet but is highly recommended. By the time the flyer had done its once-around at the office, 200 cases of wine had been ordered. The vineyard arranged delivery at a local's house and a dozen volunteers from the office were there to unload the truck.

Do you know what 200 cases of wine looks like? Well, neither do I since I didn't help with delivery. S.A.M. said it was quite a site: 3 pallets' worth of wine boxes. We ended up with 4 mixed cases when all was said and done. (Shiraz, Fergus, & Cabernet Sauvingon) Earlier this week we had ordered a case of Moscato along with 1/2 case of Chardonnay from one of our favorite Yarra Valley vintner and they accidentally shipped the whole case. Sooo...between all the deliveries this week plus the few random bottles of Merlot & Riesling we already had at the house, I have no idea where all this wine will end up. Smart money says that at least 60% of these bottles will come home with us in 2012.

Do you know what 84 bottles of wine looks like? It looks like this:


My kitchen counter resembles a distribution center at the moment and I'm still trying to figure out where to put everything. Even if we invested in a wine fridge we'd still have bottles left over. I guess my work is cut out for me this weekend!

-jas

I'll never wear burnt orange either!

Here's a viral video from ESPN highlighting the three words that no one in our family will ever utter:



-jas

Slag Sauce

It's Monday morning in the Outback and that means it's time for my weekly sojourn to the grocery store. I normally listen to my iPod while I shop just to drown out the screaming toddlers and indigenous people yelling at each other. Since I recently got an iPod touch, I experimented by putting this week's grocery list in the "notes section" so I wouldn't have to carry a pen & paper. Each time I put an item in my buggy, I could just delete it from the screen. Easy peasy, right?

The downside to the iPod touch is the keyboard. It's very small. According to my list, I was supposed to pick up some "slag sauce". Buh? It dawned on me that I really meant "spaghetti sauce" and with the combination of my abbreviations and small keyboard, hilarity ensued.

Another funny from the world of Alice Springs...

I was eating breakfast at the plaza this morning and noticed this statement on the menu of the sushi place: "Made with imported seafood." Given that Alice Springs is 1,000 miles inland and landlocked, I would *hope* that the sushi is not made from local seafood. The closest thing we have to local seafood is...well...nothing.

I have also been experimenting with sourdough bread recipes. It's kinda fun culturing the starter, like playing with glue. I'm making my second loaf tomorrow and should have a full report later this week.

-jas

Housewivery

I've been thinking a lot about my employment plans after the school year ends. My two options until this point have been either to work full-time in town or full-time where Secret Agent Man works (if I'm able...that's another blog).

This past week it dawned on me to take a cue from my engineer husband. When given a choice between A or B, he will create secret option C. When Australian workers go on vacation, the slack is not picked up by the other office workers. The office will generally hire a temp to handle that person's work load. Consequently, working part-time for a temp agency might be the best fit. I will still be able to teach on the weekend and take vacations with S.A.M. when the time comes. We're about to start our 2nd two-year stint and it dawned on us that we have not traveled nearly as much as we set out to. Most of that has been due to his graduate studies but now that he's nearing the end we'll be able to travel more.

I don't have to decide on my employment plans until the end of the year and that gives me plenty of time to be a hausfrau for a while. S.A.M. mentioned in passing that he enjoys having me home during the day but he feels bad that there's nothing social for me to do during the day. That comes with the territory of being child-free. The other wives in town either have full-time jobs or kids to look after. In short, I have no one to play with. :(

S.A.M. also told me that having a mortgage (along with my addiction to white chocolate mochas and clearance sales at Target) were hurdles in the way of me being a housewife in the States. He likes having clean clothes to wear, a clean and quiet house to come home to and I love having the free time to bake. His co-workers also like it when I try new recipes because S.A.M. takes the resulting yummy goodness to work. There have been a few *epic fail* moments when something doesn't look as good as it should but still tastes good so I'll send it along anyway. I've found that engineers are like billy goats: they eat anything, no matter what it looks like.

So for the next few months I'll have some fun being a housewife and see where that leads me at the first of the year. I'm really curious as to how I will readjust to life in the States when the trappings of modern life force me to go back to work full-time!

-jas

Stick a fork in me/Bad Haiku Friday

Well folks, I wish I had something exciting to talk about but I don't. It rained yesterday and the humidity level got up to 20%. It felt like I was living in Pensacola for a few hours which just goes to show you how dry it is here in the desert.

Secret Agent Man continues with his schoolwork. He's taking a double-dose of classes this fall which means lots of late nights. I'm not even aware of when he comes to bed because it's so early in the morning (1:30-2:30am usually) and I'm fast asleep. I am staying out of his way as much as possible so he can get his work done. Most nights this mean holing up in the bedroom to watch DVDs or something. I discovered today, sadly, that one of my Quantum Leap disks from the Season 3 box set never made it into my DVD binder and is more than likely sitting in our storage unit at home. I was really looking forward to this one episode where Sam leaps into the life of a rock star. Guess I'll have to wait 2 more years to watch that episode or buy another copy of the Season 3 disks.

I did get a nifty application for my iPod touch called "Stanza". It's a program that turns my iPod into a Kindle-type device. Basically, I can read books on my iPod. There are also several websites to visit where I can download free e-books to read. It's amazing to realize that I can fit the entire works of William Shakespeare onto my iPod and still have room for Grimm's Fairy Tales, Don Quixote, Anna Karenina and Little Women plus a good chunk of my musical library. I can read Shakespeare and listen to piano sonatas at the same time. Technology! Amazing!

Bad Haiku Time!

Getting toasty here
Bikram yoga on my porch
still, technically Spring

Secret Agent Man
is driving me crazy nuts
sleep deprived, he is

-jas