Category: lists

a few categories of people

Tonight I am feeling envious and/or jealous of the following categories of people:

  1. Those people who ever get to sleep past 7 a.m.
  2. Those who have time to watch TV, watch movies, or read books, especially on weekends.
  3. Those who haven’t committed to revising and submitting conference abstracts due on a Friday night.
  4. Those who don’t have another conference paper revision due the following Monday.
  5. Any individuals who have not insanely committed to presenting a computational linguistics textbook chapter to a group on the Saturday morning of the same weekend as those other deadlines.

Really, it’s all good. But I find myself with strong cravings for mindless entertainment and near-vegetative activites. I thought a little bit of whine might help. Ooo, and maybe some cheese.

I’m dreaming of a pants Christmas

Yesterday, I was most pleased to be able to share with you all a bit of holiday cheer in the form of a Christmas pants song. Which leads me to think there could be far more holiday pants songs. On top of that, this week’s Monday Mission asks for posts in the form of Christmas lists. And I thought to myself, “I should make a list.” So, here I offer you a very Merry Christmas Pants Playlist. Pull up your festive pants and enjoy!
pants_tree.png

Pants Holiday Playlist

  1. Deck the Pants
  2. Pants We Have Heard On High
  3. God Pants Ye Merry, Gentlemen
  4. Hark the Herald Angels’ Pants
  5. O Little Pants of Bethlehem
  6. I Heard The Pants On Christmas Day
  7. Jingle Pants
  8. The Little Drummer Pants
  9. O Pants, All Ye Faithful
  10. Silent Pants
  11. O Holy Pants
  12. The Twelve Pants Of Christmas
  13. Pants to the World
  14. Pants Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
  15. Ding Dong Merrily on Pants

I am not an accountant

Sometimes I forget to tell myself that. I’ve never been an accountant. Nor have I ever planned to be one. (Not that there’s anything wrong with accounting. I can see the appeal of putting things in order.) But this lack of accountancy in my life is usually not at the forefront of my mind.

Day after day I can go about my non-accounting-related business without once thinking, “hey, I’m not an accountant.”

But just a few days ago, I became truly aware of this. “I’m not in accounting!” I loudly proclaimed. And I realized how true a statement that was. And I have Blogger to thank for this epiphany.

You see, Blogger has made some changes to their comment forms. Now, instead of being able to type in my name and the URL for this blog when I leave a comment, I must choose between logging in with my Blogger ID, using a “nickname” (Should I have a nickname? What about Snake?), or being anonymous. So I’ve been using my Blogger ID more often lately. And on a whim, I decided to check out my minimalist Blogger profile. After all, someone might follow the link from a comment I leave here or there. (Well, not here. But there.) And imagine my surprise when I saw that my profile said I was in the field of accounting.

I quickly went to edit my profile, and select “not specified” for my field, since, shockingly, “linguistics” was not listed on the drop-down menu. When viewing the profile next, I was relieved to see that I was no longer masquerading as a grad student of accounting. But then I thought to myself, “maybe I should say a bit more about myself.” So I added a bit of stuff. And saved my profile. And lo and behold, I was once more in accounting. I went back in, changed the field. Saved the profile. All was well. But, oh crap, there was a typo in my link. Fixed it. Saved. Dammit, there was the frickin’ “accounting” thing again.

“I am not an accountant!” I cried. I felt I needed to affirm this. It’s been good to have this reminder.

I have a lot of trouble defining my identity. When asked for a description, I tend to give a list: student, wife, mother, friend, blah, blah, blah. It varies how many items I put on that list. But I have never once in my life listed “accountant” as an identity.

Of course, I have never listed “not an accountant,” either. And this opens up a whole realm of possible identities. I am also not a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, chiropractor, dancer, mime, mugger, jogger, juggler, or provost. The possibilities are staggering. But for now, at least, I can just remind myself that indeed, I am not an accountant.

candles at both ends

As the nights get longer up here in the Northern hemisphere, we look forward to having a bit more light. When you’re not in the mood for a lightbulb, you might consider lighting a candle.

Candles are used for a wide range of purposes: religious, decorative, symbolic, and as a light source for when the electricity goes out. Here’s a list of a few candle things and candle traditions to light up your evening on this Themed Thing Thursday.

A list with candles at both ends (and in the middle)

hanukiyot.jpg

  • Hanukkah
    The 8-day Jewish holiday, also known as the Festival of Lights, is observed in part by the nightly lighting candles in the Hanukkah Menorah, or Hanukiah. Today was the second day of Hanukkah. (Hanukiyot photo by photo by Beth Brewer.)
  • Christmas
    Candles are also featured in many celebrations of the Christian holiday Christmas, such as with advent candles. Other traditions include using candles to decorate, such as using them on trees. Contemporary Christmas tree lights evolved from this tradition, as electricity became available, though in Denmark, people still decorate Christmas trees with real lighted candles. People will also place candles in windows, a practice said to have been popularized in Colonial Williamsburg.
  • Lucia’s Day
    In Sweden, as part of the traditional celebration of this holiday (December 13th), girls will wear a wreath on the head with lit candles to celebrate Saint Lucia.¹ “>Apparently people have also moved to battery-operated candles:

    In Sweden we do not wear candles anymore because before girls caught their hair on fire very often. Today we use modern candles with batteries in them.

  • Birthday cakes are often decorated with miniature candles. The candles often represent the age of the person having the birthday, whether by using number-shaped candles, candles arranged in the shape of a number, or most often, a candle for each year of age.
  • Sixteen Candles (1984) A John Hughes movie starring Molly Ringwald as a girl whose 16th birthday is overlooked.
  • Candle in the Wind A song by Elton John (lyrics by Bernie Taupin) written in honor of Marilyn Monroe in 1973, rededicated it to AIDS victim Ryan White in 1990, and rewritten and remade in honor of Princess Diana in 1997.
  • The Babylon candle: A magic candle appears in the movie Stardust (2007), allowing the user to travel great distances. I found a suggestion that the source of the name for this candle is the nursery rhyme:

    How many miles to Babylon?
    Three score miles and ten.
    Can I get there by candlelight?
    Yes, and back again.

  • hold a candle to: an expression meaning “measure up to.” Usually used with a negative, as in: X can’t hold a candle to Y, A could never hold a candle to B, the word trousers doesn’t hold a candle to pants.
  • light a candle for: People will light a candle to show remembrance of someone (such as Yahrtzeit in Judaism) or in support of some cause, such as “lighting a candle for peace.” The phrase has also been used more generally as an expression, often interpreted as “say a prayer for,” possibly based on the tradition of lighting a candle in a church to accompany a prayer. The expression is also sometimes interpreted in reference to leaving a lit candle in the window as a beacon for a loved one who is away.
  • not worth the candle: an expression meaning worthless, or not worth the expense
  • burn a candle from both ends: an expression meaning get little sleep due to being busy from early in the morning till late at night, or to generally work too hard and spend energy recklessly:

    Our current understanding of this phrase refers to a life that is lived frenetically and unsustainably – working or enjoying oneself late into the night only to begin again early the next day. It didn’t having that meaning when it was first coined in the 18th century. The both ends then weren’t the ends of the day but were a literal reference to both ends of a candle. Candles were useful and valuable (see not worth the candle) and the notion of waste suggested by lighting both ends at once implied reckless waste. This thought may well have been accentuated by the fact that candles may only be lit at both ends when held horizontally, which would cause them to drip and burn out quickly.

  • You can also see a short movie of someone actually burning a candle at both ends. (YouTube)

    • —————–

    ¹ My friend Gregory, who recently moved to Sweden mentioned recently that he would soon be sharing some information on this tradition:

    They put candles everywhere except the roof of their cars (they do wear them on their heads, as I will explain in a couple of weeks)…

    have you ever?

    I made it through November with my 30 posts for 30 days. (40, if you want to add in those I did for the Ministry of Silly Blogs.) It wasn’t particularly hard for me to come up with topics for daily posts (though it was sometimes hard to work up the motiviation to post at all.) I didn’t manage to do too well on the list of my intended topics.¹

    Another thought I’d had was to do a meme I’d seen at Stretched to the Limit, which had a big old checklist of things done in one’s life. Many of the things I’ve done on the list have some sort of story behind them, and I thought I’d work my way through some of them. In fact, I still might do that. But probably not for last month.

    The instructions are to bold the “done” things. I’ve also gone and italicized things that I haven’t quite done, but where I have a story related to that thing. (It’s kind of a weird list of things, and it makes me curious about the origins. It reminds me a bit of the drinking game “I never,” or a related game where people state something they’ve always wanted to do but haven’t done.)

    01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
    02. Swam with wild dolphins
    03. Climbed a mountain
    04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
    05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
    06. Held a tarantula
    07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
    08. Said “I love you” and meant it
    09. Hugged a tree
    10. Bungee jumped
    11. Visited Paris
    12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
    13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
    14. Seen the Northern Lights
    15. Gone to a huge sports game
    16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
    17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
    18. Touched an iceberg [I’m assuming this doesn’t mean the lettuce]
    19. Slept under the stars
    20. Changed a baby’s diaper [duh]
    21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
    22. Watched a meteor shower
    23. Gotten drunk on champagne
    24. Given more than you can afford to charity [possibly]
    25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope [probably]
    26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
    27. Had a food fight
    28. Bet on a winning horse
    29. Asked out a stranger
    30. Had a snowball fight
    31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
    32. Held a lamb
    33. Seen a total eclipse [maybe]
    34. Ridden a roller coaster
    35. Hit a home run
    36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking
    37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
    38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
    39. Had two hard drives for your computer
    40. Visited all 50 states
    41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
    42. Had amazing friends
    43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
    44. Watched whales
    45. Stolen a sign
    46. Backpacked in Europe
    47. Taken a road-trip
    48. Gone rock climbing
    49. Midnight walk on the beach [may not have been actually midnight]
    50. Gone sky diving
    51. Visited Ireland
    52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
    53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
    54. Visited Japan
    55. Milked a cow
    56. Alphabetized your CDs
    57. Pretended to be a superhero
    58. Sung karaoke
    59. Lounged around in bed all day
    60. Played touch football
    61. Gone scuba diving
    62. Kissed in the rain [probably]
    63. Played in the mud
    64. Played in the rain
    65. Gone to a drive-in theater
    66. Visited the Great Wall of China
    67. Started a business
    68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
    69. Toured ancient sites
    70. Taken a martial arts class
    71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
    72. Gotten married
    73. Been in a movie
    74. Crashed a party
    75. Gotten divorced
    76. Gone without food for 5 days
    77. Made cookies from scratch
    78. Won first prize in a costume contest
    79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
    80. Gotten a tattoo
    81. Rafted the Snake River
    82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
    83. Gotten flowers for no reason
    84. Performed on stage
    85. Been to Las Vegas
    86. Recorded music
    87. Eaten shark
    88. Kissed on the first date
    89. Gone to Thailand
    90. Bought a house
    91. Been in a combat zone
    92. Buried one/both of your parents [not taking this literally]
    93. Been on a cruise ship
    94. Spoken more than one language fluently
    95. Performed in Rocky Horror
    96. Raised children [I don’t think quite yet]
    97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
    98. Passed out cold
    99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
    100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
    101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
    102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
    103. Had plastic surgery
    104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
    105. Wrote articles for a large publication
    106. Lost over 100 pounds
    107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
    108. Piloted an airplane
    109. Touched a stingray
    110. Broken someone’s heart
    111. Helped an animal give birth
    112. Won money on a T.V. game show
    113. Broken a bone
    114. Gone on an African photo safari
    115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
    116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
    117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
    118. Ridden a horse
    119. Had major surgery
    120. Had a snake as a pet
    121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
    122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
    123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
    124. Visited all 7 continents
    125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
    126. Eaten kangaroo meat
    127. Eaten sushi
    128. Had your picture in the newspaper
    129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
    130. Gone back to school
    131. Parasailed
    132. Touched a cockroach [possibly]
    133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
    134. Read The Iliad – and the Odyssey [just the Odyssey]
    135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
    136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
    137. Skipped all your school reunions
    138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
    139. Been elected to public office
    140. Written your own computer language
    141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
    142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
    143. Built your own PC from parts
    144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
    145. Had a booth at a street fair
    146. Dyed your hair
    147. Been a DJ
    148. Shaved your head
    149. Caused a car accident
    150. Saved someone’s life

    So it looks like I’ve done 56 things on the list. How many have you done?

    I’d love to take requests for stories or details on any of the above listed items. You could just pick a number, or several. At random, even. And I may even treat you to the tale of how I once ate sushi when I had dyed hair.

    ——–

    ¹ I guess this is my NaBloPoMo Post Mortem. My NaBloPoMoPoMo, if you will. It’s probably not post modern enough to be a PoMoNaBloPoMoPoMo, though.

    some things about ThThTh

    Some of you may have noticed that I like to put together lists. In fact, at this point, I have now tagged 96 posts as “lists.” That’s a lotta lists. I have also, for the past half year or so, started making a regular weekly list. A list of things. Things that have some sort of theme in common. And these themed things, I bring them out on Thursday. Occasionally I get asked what this is all about. Often people are just confused by my lists. And I’m okay with that. But I have been meaning to write some sort of ThThTh about page for a bit. And seeing as I’m a bit burnt out from the excessive blogging of NaBloPoMo reading and writing, rather than bring you a new list, I’m going to regurgitate a list of old lists. A nice, big mega-list of a meta-list. And maybe a wee bit of explanation.

    What the hell is ThThTh?

    ThThTh is a tag I use when I put together a list of things on a theme on Thursday. What these lists have in common is that they are lists of things that have one thing in common.

    Why do you do this craziness?

    Putting together these lists helps satisfy my desire…to put together lists. I like to categorize like things, and have been doing this in my mind for years. I have a tendency to collect things, as in the physical objects, but this new outlet for collecting collects a lot less dust.

    What sorts of things are they?

    I like to pick from among the universe of things, and not be limited to a medium or category. So my lists will include things like movies, books, folktales and myths, songs, cliches and other sayings. The lists may include toys, products, names, and other totally random things. (I also will more than occasionally put together lists of just one type of things, such as books, movies or songs. But I consider those a separate type of list.)

    What sorts of themes are they?

    I often pick themes that are somehow loosely related to something that is going on in my life, or something seasonal. Or sometimes based on nothing much at all.

    My inaugural ThThTh post was on teeth, to pay tribute to the usefulness of teeth in producing the voiceless interdental fricative that we represent as “th” in the words theme, things and Thursday. I have now posted 24 ThThTh lists, on top of those themed lists I threw together before I’d settled on having Thursday be my special list day.

    At this time, you can find lists on topics such as turkeys, turtles, trees, squirrels, birds, parrots, pigeons, pigs, and pigtails. There have been spiders, ants, bats, balls, shoes, and black clothing. There were blue, green and red dudes, vegetables, peaches, berries, pumpkins, apples, tomatoes, chocolate and cheese.

    I even made one list of things I did not expect to make lists about.

    gobble, gobble, gobble

    turkey_6.pngToday is Thanksgiving, a holiday here in the US traditionally (or at least moderately traditionally) celebrated by a day of feasting with family and by expressing thanks. It’s also a day when most Americans eat turkey, a large bird that is native to North America.¹ This has lead to many people calling Thanksgiving “Turkey Day.” So what better Themed Things list to bring you for this Turkey Day than a list of turkeys. (However, these are turkeys you won’t likely see at the dinner table.²)

    Ten Turkey Things for Turkey Day

    1. Turkey in the Straw: an American folk song, often fiddled. (Listen to it, if you like.)
    2. hand turkey: a picture made by tracing one’s hand to make the approximate shape of a turkey. The thumb represents the head and neck, and the fingers the tail feathers. Usually, the drawing is adorned with a beak, an eye, wings and a wattle.
    3. a turkey: a movie that got bad reviews, or that otherwise was poorly received.
    4. a turkey: a bowling term meaning 3 consecutive strikes.
    5. talk turkey. An expression meaning “to speak frankly.” Has some debatable origins.
    6. jive turkey: one who acts as if they know what they are talking about, but really doesn’t.
    7. Wild Turkey. A brand of bourbon. My grandmother liked bourbon. Not sure if she had a preferred brand.
    8. cold turkey. The act of quitting abrubtly, without tapering off. As in “quit drinking cold turkey.” (Which may also involve quitting drinking Wild Turkey.)
    9. Turkey: a nation. (I wonder how often people not native to the US expect that there will be some sort of Turkish cultural event on Turkey day?)
    10. Twas the Night before Thanksgiving, by Dav Pilkey. A somewhat controversial picturebook about some kids who “liberate” some turkeys from a farm and have them over for dinner (but don’t have them for dinner). (I found the full text online listed as an “anonymously” written animal rights poem, but I think Pilkey was the orginal author.)

    —-

    ¹ Some Americans will instead eat a tofurkey, such as a Tofurky, a tofu-based turkey substitute.

    ² Well, except maybe the bourbon, in some households.

    how do I plead?

    Erika of the fabulously-titled mmmm, brains has tagged me with a meme that intrigued me. (As usual, though, it’s taken me over a week to get to it.) The meme in question is on the topic of “guilty pleasures,” and was abbreviated from a longer assignment. The full thing, which I won’t indulge in, was as follows:

    • Name six guilty pleasures you wish you had the courage to indulge.
    • Name six pleasures you once considered guilty but have now either abandoned or made peace with.
    • Name six guilty pleasures no one would suspect you of having.

    Erika just did the last one I listed. So I thought I could do that one. The trick is, who is this “no one?” I think most of my guilty pleasures are pretty public. So I’ll modify the task a bit further and name 6 pleasures that I feel guilty (or embarrassed) about, and that have been known to surprise people.

    1. I have a weakness for certain types of junk food. I like to eat healthily, and to eat good quality fresh food. But I have rarely turned down Nacho cheese Doritos, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups or donuts.
    2. Action movies. This is not a surprise to anyone who reads this blog, seeing as I have a whole project related to these. But I am a peace-loving academic who studies language. Why do I enjoy watching a good fight scene?
    3. Tuna. I stopped eating red meat and poultry over 18 years ago, but I can’t quite manage to give up all seafood. Most seafood and fish I could take or leave. Mostly leave, actually. Canned tuna doesn’t excite me. But a seared tuna? Or tuna sushi? I realize that it’s wrong on many counts. Over-fishing and all. To some extent I have the same guilt liking for salmon, especially smoked salmon.
    4. I like some music that I feel somewhat embarrassed about. Specifically some 80s music with boppy synthesized beats: Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones, early Depeche Mode. What can I say? I was a teenager in the 80s.
    5. Checking my blog stats. It’s a sickness, really. It’s not so much the numbers as seeing what people look at and where they came from. Since most of my traffic is due to search engine hits by people who probably barely stop to look, I like it when I see signs that someone looked around, such as visits to my “about” page or some of my favorite posts. (Comments are, of course, the best. Those get emailed to me. Not too surprisingly, I always check my email eagerly, too.)
    6. I like memes. I know I should be scornful of them. But I think they are fun. And I find it fascinating to see what different people do with them.

    It looks like this memage involves tagging 6 people. This is the part of meming that I find the trickiest. Some people tolerate memes. Others loudly protest them. Others welcome them. I once had a good experience tagging a couple of random people: one I found through the WordPress “pants” tag, and one who I found using the WordPress “next” button. I had no luck getting Kevin Smith to participate. (Kevin, if you read this, you’re tagged, dammit. Or for that matter, I suppose I could tag this other Kevin Smith.)

    So, I’m going to go all random again. I will tag the folks at these 6 blogs I found totally randomly through the NaBloPoMo randomizer. (Okay, it wasn’t totally, totally randomly. I did skip a few blogs where music played automatically, and a couple of very topic-specific blogs, like a birding blog and a chocolate blog.)

    If anyone else out there would like to indulge in this meme, please consider yourself tagged.

    throwing together a themed list (even though it’s not Thursday)

    125_125_banner_a.jpgI came across¹, a site that I think is pretty fun. It’s got a bit of a running vocabulary quiz. At the same time, the site is set up such that for each word you get right, 10 grains of rice get donated through the United Nations. (The rice is paid for by advertisers.)

    It’s kinda cool to see the running totals they have posted, too. The site only started on October 7th of this year. Yesterday, 198,342,51 grains of rice were donated, whereas 6,645,520 were donated 1 month ago.

    Anyhow, that’s getting to be a decent amount of rice. And it’s inspired me to throw together a bit of a list of rice things. Even though it’s not Thursday. It’s a short list, anyhow.

    A Few Grains of Rice

    1. One Grain Of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale A picture book by Demi.

      It’s the story of Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days. Remember your math? That’s lots of rice: enough to feed a village for a good long time–and to teach a greedy raja a lesson.

    2. On a Bed of Rice: An Asian American Erotic Feast, edited by Geraldine Kudaka. An erotic anthology. I like the name, what with the mixed meanings of food and sex. And if there are two things I like (aside from pants), they’re food and sex. (I also just found myself thinking that a somewhat similar phrase would make for an interesting book title, too. “On a Bed of Noodles.” Perhaps it could be an erotic humor anthology.)
    3. “Rice, rice baby,” by Weird Al. I think you can guess which song it parodies.
    4. 米国 beikoku, a Japanese term for the US, which means “rice country”

    ——

    Aside from the bit about donating rice, I find it fun to test my word knowledge and learn new words. So far, my favorite new word that I’ve learned is, without doubt, omphaloskepsis. It means navel-gazing. And then I thought to myself, “now that would be a fine blog name.” Indeed, it is.

    Other words I have encountered which make me happy include the following:

      eructate=belch
      anserine=gooselike
      bumbershoot = umbrella
      edentulous=toothless
      demulcent = soothing

    Anyone want to go play for a bit and bring me back some tasty word morsels?

    —–

    ¹ I came across links to this site at least 3 times, though I can only track down one, which wasn’t even the first place I saw it. Anyone else reading this post about it?