Hi. *waves*

Anyone still check this blog their spam folders for slightly clever and/or interesting entries? I do. Though the pickings have been lean of late, I did get this one today.

Dear vermax,

I don’t know what to say, mostly because I remember so little from my high school Russian classes. Guess all I can tell you is “вот он Ёжик.”^*

I’m Radioactive Jam and I approve this message.

^* Translation: “Here is the hedgehog.”^†
† Possibly.

Sunburn for your mind:
reciprocity failure?
Drink your Plurk kool-aid.

Right now you’re probably thinking, “Huh?” Do not worry my feiends! Haiku are kind of like poetry, only without the rhyming and making of sense. For example, consider this famous self-explanatory haiku which I have printed on a t-shirt:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t make sense
Refrigerator

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Last weekend I met one of my wife’s friends, who happens to be deaf. Since then I’ve been thinking about deafness, thinking about some audible things I take for granted:

• Footsteps
• Background conversations
• Soundtracks
• Favorite songs
• Breathing
• Hissing/ringing in my ears

I try to imagine my “world” without these things, and find I… cannot, at least not convincingly.

I want to ask someone who knows, but I’m not sure how my curiosity and fascination would be perceived. I’m not interested in hurting anyone’s feelings, or making someone uncomfortable.

Perhaps someday I will ask. In the meantime I’d appreciate any reading suggestions on this subject from you.

Thanks

While Plurk addiction is common in the Plurk user community, Mad Plurk Disease (MPD) is more serious and not easily recognized. Make no mistkae: if you are an active plurker, you are at risk!

As a plurking public service I have put together this list of common warning signs. You might have MPD if you:

• have ever plurked “Look at the time!” or similar
• plurk “Hi” and/or a single emote
  • and other plurkers respond
  • and extol your cleverness
• hope traffic lights stay red longer so you can plurk while you wait
• type emote strings such as (s_dance) anywhere other than plurks
• postpone or neglect sleep, meals, and/or personal hygiene so you can continue plurking without interruption
• wake up in the shower
  • with a plate of food
  • and a “zip-lock” bag
  • with your laptop inside it
• coerce family members and friends to join plurk (aka “sharing the fun” aka “spreading the disease”)
• make up words and change nerdy acronyms to incorporate “plurk” e.g. ZOMPWTPBBQ! Absoplurkinglutely!
• use the word ‘plurk’ as a verb
  • in a real-life conversation
  • with anyone
  • ever
• “accidentally” take your cell phone for a swim so’s you can upgrade to a shiny new web-enabled model without incurring the wrath of your ever-frugal spouse
• think about adding your karma level, friends and fan totals to your C.V. or résumé (note: if you’ve already done this, get help. NOW.)
• add ‘Stalker’ as a résumé skill
• add ‘Stalker’ as a résumé objective
• blog about plurking
  • and plurk a link to the blog post
  • and respond in both places
  • with plurk emotes
• re-post and/or re-plurk this list

Aside to family and friends: don’t worry, not all these symptoms apply to me.

I’m still working on my résumé.

The Radioactive Realms - whatever that means - may soon become a sovereign nation. Proposed name: Wazootystan. As your radioactive overlord I am pleased to inform you that leaving a comment on any post here automatically qualifies you for citizenship in Wazootystan.

I cannot tell you how much this excites me, but I can say this: granting Wazootystan citizenship to every commenter is almost the least I can do.

Update: now working on a Wazootystan national motto. Choices so far include “Teh few. Teh Proud. Teh Stoopid Wazootys.” and “Something is technically wrong with us.”* Yes, I need help could use a little help here. Ideas, Wazootyzens?

Also if anyone knows how to get .wz assigned as our top level domain… yeah. Not holding my breath on that one.

* The phrase “Something is technically wrong” comes from one of Twitter’s (unfortunately) many and diverse error notifications. The “with us” addendum was suggested by Twitterfeiend mxbx as something that would look nice on a t-shirt.

Late at night and without permission, some of the voices in my head have been listening to a couple tracks from The Weepies new album, Hideaway. Even worse, they…

*ahem*

I won’t lie to you, this isn’t easy for me.

…

They, ah, … *ahem* … well, it seems they like The Weepies.

*throws shovels full of dirt into the open grave of his self-respect*

Okay FINE but I swear, if the voices start listening to some band with a name like The Whingeing Emo Dorks, I’m drawing the line.

From today’s Twitter stream. Aside: this is all twitterfeiend akaSylvia’s fault.

akaSylvia: I’m not a morning person. I’m not much of a night owl, either. I have about two good hours in the afternoon. Gah, and one of them is gone!
bc: @akaSylvia my good hours are stuck in traffic. In a different time zone. And they need to pee.

Twitterfeiend Pewari suggested I get my response printed on a t-shirt. While that might happen someday, at this point I’m content to settle for a blog post.

Yet another aside: Sylvia and Pewari also blog. Check ‘em out here and here; you will like them I am sure.

* * * * *

Do you have a Twitter account? If not, why not? I’m just, you know. Wondering.

When I pulled Bucky The Spork from my backpack for lunch, I found this “impaled” thereon.

I (briefly) thought about swallowing it, just so I could say “There’s a little mad scientist in me.”

Which brings me to a trivia-type question: I think I read a novel which referred to something as “Little Doctors.” Anyone else remember this and if so, what was the novel? I found some things through Teh Google but so far I can’t recall the context. Help?

Spotted this book in the store today, and for some reason its cover image caught my attention.

You know what my first thought was?

. . .

Veggie Tales.

I’m not suggesting anything; I’m just saying.

Family and real-life feiends met this past weekend at ground zero of the Radioactive Realms - otherwise known as our house - to help celebrate the Radioactive Spouse’s birthday.

Happy birthday RaS!!!

Somehow I ended up in charge of the evening’s entertainment (I know can you believe it?). So I said to myself, “Self, this would be a great time to open that shiny new box of jelly beans.” My self told everyone else,

Let’s Play Trivial Pursuit!

Me: Teams of two, nice prizes, bla bla bla, if you can’t answer your question, you or your teammate must eat one of these special jelly beans. With special flavors! Like toothpaste. And black pepper. And uh, peach! And. *cough*vomit*cough*
Everyone: *murmurs of disinterest disgust discontent*
Me: Er. Okay… any time you do answer a question, I’ll eat a jelly bean.
Everyone: Woohoo!

For the record, the box we sampled during the game seemed to have mostly pleasant tasting beans therein. And for the record, after the game ended, the Radioactive Son and I opened another box and selected 30 or 40 a few choice beans for each other, picked and eaten in turns, one at a time. Kind of like Russian Roulette, but with slightly less risk of dying.

He got several cafe lattes… and a skunk spray.

I got five or six* licorice… and the boogers.

They were bad. Seriously. On a Nasty Scale of one to ten, I’d give them an eleven. Possibly a twelve.

My feiends, believe me - some of these flavors truly defy description. And you know how jelly beans work, right? Once you start chewing, you’re committed; they stick to your teeth, and there’s no spitting them out. More than once I caught myself reaching for the box, thinking - hoping - I might get lucky and pick a nice, fruit-flavored bean to help get rid of whatever mind-bogglingly foul taste was assaulting my mouth. Each time I stopped. Did I really want to replace that rotten egg flavor with vomit?

The spectators party-goers almost wet themselves laughing seemed fairly amused by our self-inflicted discomfort, so I guess it was worth it. I mean, you guys were laughing with us, right?

…Right?

Bleah.

* After I gave him the skunk spray he really wanted me to share his experience. Unfortunately all the remaining black jelly beans were licorice. “Too bad, So sad, Your dad.”