YouTube Tuesday: Russian Roulette Roll'D

I'm sure all of you out in interweb land have heard of the gag that was born about two years ago called 'Rickrolling'. For the uninformed, a bit of back story courtesy of wikipedia. For they can sum up many topics much better than I can.

"Rickrolling is an Internet meme typically involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait & switch: a person provides a web link that they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. When a person clicks on the link and is led to the web page, he or she is said to have been "Rickrolled".



My favorite description of Rick Astley? From comic Mo Rocca, "I'm a skinny, little white boy with a big 'ol blaa-ack voice." (sung in place of the lyrics, 'never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.' geez, how hard is it to describe a quote that is sung? hard.)

I also vividly remember the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float that Rickrolled the whole audience.

Place: My living room; Cairo, Egypt
Activity: Watching the Macy's Parade
Date: Thanksgiving '08

The kids were only mildly interested in watching the parade. I don't blame them. It has gotten progressively worse. It was family tradition to watch the Parade every year. Once I got married, I continued on with this tradition, but some of the magic was lost. And it wasn't because I was older. More commercials, less class, etc. I was watching in Egypt because I wanted some sort of 'cultural tradition' to hold onto. Though we were watching it after dinner instead of before.

The parade managed to grab their attention with the announcement that the next float was "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" singing some song that was attractive to the 12 and under audience. Then, just as the song is getting going, Rick Astley himself bursts out of the float and sings his signature song. It was freakin' hilarious! We adults were rolling in the aisles, wiping tears of hilarity from our cheeks and the kids looking at us like we'd gone insane. They wanted the other song back.

Well, I stumbled across this video just this last weekend. It was described as 'Ray Roll'd, The NEW Rick Roll" Russian version. I don't know about that. Don't worry, no translation needed. There isn't an intelligible word sung. I had a dilemma; shove the ice pick in my eyes or ears? Can I choose both? Well, you be the judge.

"The Pants"

It is unbelievable. I fit into "The Pants". Those pants. The Pants have been the only 'skinny clothes' I kept from college. Each year, a few more articles of clothing would be angrily discarded. After looking at the size, I'd be disgusted that I was ever that size and tell myself to think realistically about this post-baby body. I'll never have the body I had in college and I never will again. After a baby, well, things change.

I have still hung onto The Pants. Actually, Spencer has been hanging on tooth & nail to The Pants. Whenever we go through a closet purge, they always end up in the top of the closet, tucked just out of sight.

"Why are we keeping The Pants, Spencer?"

"I like them, " he just says.

"But I don't fit them and never will again. Why keep teasing myself?"

"But you wore The Pants on our first date! And you'll fit back into them, it'll be a goal to work toward, " Mr. Eternally Positive says.

So that is how they have managed to hang on. Any time I feel like I've made some progress, like I would dare to dream of a day in The Pants, I get them out and try to shimmy my way into them. Never. In 10 years since the First Baby, never.

Until today.

I put them on.

I didn't have to prostrate myself on the bed, taking shallow breaths, angrily yanking at that zipper while it wouldn't move a millimeter. Or the usual, not being able to fit my knee in past the thigh region.

I put them on. That zipper glided right up the the top and I could swear the button smiled at me as it peeked itself through the buttonhole.

And you know what? Zippers were a lot longer when I was in college. Fashion dictated a higher waistline. They are so retro, they're not cool again. Yet. Maybe that will be the hope I hold onto for the next 10 years. Back to the top of the closet you go.



p.s.
fortunately, i have no one to take a picture of me in Them. And mine don't have those awesome pleats. Though I may have owned a pair similar to these at some point in time.

YouTube Tuesday: Almost lost in Wonderland

I stumbled across this video last week. I was debating about posting it because I'm not the biggest fan of the newest incarnation of Alice in Wonderland. I haven't seen it, but it just doesn't interest me. I'm not a huge Tim Burton fan. This video I'm showing today was the first ever film version of Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland. Made in 1903, it was restored by the BFI National Archives. To quote BFI Films,

" Restored . . . from severely damaged materials. Made just 37 years after Lewis Carroll wrote his novel and eight years after the birth of cinema, the adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel's original illustrations.

With a running time of just 12 minutes (8 of which survive), Alice in Wonderland was the longest film produced in England at that time. Film archivists have been able to restore the film's original colours for the first time in over 100 years. "

Absolutely amazing. And another interesting tidbit, they included the name of the music, "Jill in the Box". Enjoy.

I give up

I really, seriously don't even have time for this today. Who says I don't believe in escapism? A run down of today.

7am --> Alarm goes off.
7:05 am --> Wake up
7:10 am --> Really, I'm getting up
7:15 am --> I HAVE to get up. *kicking myself out of bed*
7:20 am --> Rousting 4 sleepy children that, ironically, want to keep sleeping. Why can't they do this on the weekend?
7:30 am --> Pack snacks for school because it's just a half day.
7:38 am --> Switch Grant's shoes to the right feet. There's a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but not in his case.
7:45 am --> Shove graham crackers in everyone's hands and hustle them out to the van.
7:46 am --> Start the van and realize I need gas.
7:50 am --> Gas up and then remember that we left the snacks at home.
7:59 am --> Finally back on the road and heading to school.
8:13 am --> Arrive at school only to be told that the power is out, so there's no school. Crap. The high schoolers & middle school can stay, they have some projects. Eliza hops out and runs inside. I have 3 children in the back seats screaming mutiny.
8:26 am --> Home and dressing kids in their snow get-ups so they can go outside and not be inside. I ask each child, multiple times, if they have to go to the bathroom. "No, Mommy!" is the consensus.
8:40 am --> After me asking, "Are you sure?" just as many times, they trample out the door.
8:50 am --> Jacqueline is pounding on the front door to let her in because she has to pee.
8:51 am --> I open the door to a Jacqui standing in a pool of pee.
8:52 am --> Guess who doesn't have to pee anymore?
8:57 am --> Her clothes are changed, coat back on, but sans snow pants. You know, because of the PEE!!
9:05 am --> Grant comes bounding back through the door imitating a Zulu warrior march crossed with a Sufi dancer. Oh wait, I was wrong. He just has to pee.

And it's only 9 am. Is it time to go back to bed?

What's the bra-blem?

two peas in a pod

Sunday morning. Everyone bustling around, getting ready for church. The kids were pretty much on "self-maintaining" mode while I was hunting high and low for my bra. I do own more than one, but this was the last clean one. I asked both older girls if they had seen it.

"No, Mommy," they said, "Have you looked in the laundry room?" Mairyn asked me.

I told her, no I hadn't, but that my bra hadn't been downstairs. I took it off in my room last night.

"But it can't hurt to look, so you go down and look, Mair." I said.

Two minutes later, she appears in the hall, "Hey Mommy, here's your bra! It was in the laundry room after all!"

Something was suspicious about this whole dialogue. I asked her why she thought to look in the laundry room and she immediately blurted out,

"It was Eliza's idea!!"

Huh? What was whose idea? "Eliza! Come here! Why were you two playing with my bra?"

*cricket* . . . *cricket* . . . *cricket*

I still never got a straight answer out of them as to why they had my bra in the first place.

YouTube Tuesday: A dog meowing?

You'll have to watch this next clip before reading any commentary I make. It won't make sense.




I liked this clip because, well, I don't know why. It's with morbid fascination that I can't look away. It's part astonishment, part repulsion. There is, undoubtedly, a degree of respect for this guy. To get up on stage and do that? I was cringing for him at times; I also breathed a sign of relief once the audience started clapping and cheering. He got through because they needed someone pretty okay to be voted out first so that the really amazing can shine through. I don't think I'd go listen to his act. Eek.

p.s.
i had a really hard time choosing which clip to feature this week. i saved the better one for next tuesday. oh boy!

Moody Monday

My exact sentiments today.



Zip-a-dee-doo-dah