NaBloPoMo....The End

Well, it is officially December 1, and that means that NaBloPoMo is over. I was amazed how many people committed to doing this, and I obviously expected many to fall out of the running...but I did not expect 'that' many people to stop posting everyday. Yeah, it's a hard thing to do, but considering only those who truly thought they could do it were likely to add their name, it was crazy to see some people fall out of the running within a couple days, and sad to see those who made it 3/4 of the way before having to drop. Life happens....I don't see not blogging everyday to be a failure, to say the least. I just found it interesting to watch. I'll be even more interested to see the final tally of who made it all the way through and how the prizes are distributed.....it's nice to see them rewarded for their efforts, and even some of them who missed a day or two, kept on trudging because they got their own personal benefits out of it. I met a lot of great people through this contest, so I'll continue to read some of their blogs on a regular basis from now on. This post really doesn't have a real point, other than to acknowledge that it's over and say congrats to those who made it, so yeah, yay!

(The picture is a lurker, by the way, because that's what I did since I couldn't participate....I did leave a lot of comments along the way, but for the most part, I just watched and read....)

Knee-High to a Grasshopper

Lisa, over at amerideutsch/Raison D'etre (the woman who I talked about her nose piercing for those of you not keeping up), passed along the post about Girls vs. Women from a couple weeks ago. She mentioned that I was a youngin' (and that I am, by the way, although not nearly as young as this kid....Reilly's Best Friend....a twelve year old that was spotted by Crap-O-Rama while she was doing the review list for NaBloPoMo....some of it is actually kind of interesting to read through like his post about how Mother Nature ruined his chance to skip school to go hunting....it's a nice trip down memory lane of the little things from our childhood that we've likely already forgotten.)

Okay, anywho, enough of the links, geesh! The point is, when she called me a youngin', I had a sudden flashback of when people you haven't seen in a long time say (put on your best old hick accent for this one) "Well I haven't seen you since you was knee-high to a grasshopper!" Most people tend to say "since you were a baby" or "in a long time," etc, but there's something about the old country generation that likes to refer to you as a comparison to a bug. And not even a cute bug. Not a ladybug (which although I don't find cute anyway, they seem to have an effect on Halloween costume). But a grasshopper. Now I know that people are always cooing about babies/kids being "cute as bugs," but when I hear the idiom about grasshoppers, I picture this old, brownish, spiny, tobacco spittin' monster that was apparently twice my size the last time I was seen. (And for the record, I imagine him standing up....more like on hind legs like a human would....as opposed to how the picture is at the top).
You see, I played with my fair share of bugs when I was a kid. Quite a bit of that time was spent in Kentucky where I was surrounded by tobacco fields and these grasshoppers that spit nasty brown tar stuff all over the place (and no, it's not really tobacco...it's partially digested food...and I don't know why they love to spit it, but it's not pleasant). They weren't those cute little bright green ones....or even the lazy dull green ones. They were big....and ugly....and yes, I still enjoyed playing with them....but it doesn't make for the greatest comparison. "Oh! I remember you. The last time I saw you, you were standing next to this huge nasty creature and you only came up to his knees. No wonder I haven't seen you since!"

This is where my imagination gets me in trouble. Why on earth do I have to have mental images accompany absolutely everything I see?

And speaking of images, I was going to end there and just add a couple pictures like I always do. I thought it'd be cute if I could find a shot of the idiom....a kid standing next to a cartoon grasshopper or something. What's the first thing I come across, though, before I even click the 'image' tab so that I can just look at photos?

Knee-High to a Grasshopper
Why I went ahead and clicked the link, I'm not sure. Curiosity seems to be another one of those traits that takes me down weird paths. It's just a kids' clothing store. Nothing too out of the ordinary about that....until you read the invitation that states:

Come on in and have a peek at our "kid-bits"

I think I grew up in the wrong generation because the first thing that came to mind was how inappropriate that is. It's just asking for trouble and child porn comments. For those that spent the majority of their lives without constant reference to Michael Jackson and priest molestation, it's another story. But for me, it makes me subconsciously scream "That's sooo wrong!"

To make matters worse, I was afraid to click further into the site. Yep, that's right. My curiosity will take me all over the net and I've viewed things that I'll never be able to erase from my memory....but I was too hesitant to click that one. It's still opened on that page, but I don't want my suspicions confirmed that it's actually a child porn site in disguise. I think I'll just leave the kid-bits for someone else and hope that no one was harmed in the making of that website.

Link Association--Horny Rhino

Okay, so if you've ever had some time to yourself online, you've surely clicked a link....and that link probably lead you to another link....and another and another. We've already mentioned this once in the last few hours here, but I felt the need to say it again, simply because that's exactly what lead me to my disastrous discovery of the song currently going through my head.

So Randomizer lead me to Space Monkey Pants...

Space Monkey Pants lead me to the post about Rhinos...

Rhino post made me read "Rhino rhino rhino rhino rhino" over and over again and used the phrase "The Rhino Song"...

The Rhino Song made me think "Should I know that reference?"...

That thought lead me to Google....

Google got me no where...."The Rhino Song" obviously wasn't as popular as say, something like the "Peanut Butter Jelly" song....

Useless Google lead me to YouTube to try to discover a video including it instead...

YouTube gave me this video....Horny Rhino (though it's not *the* rhino song)

Horny Rhino lead me to Yahoo to search for straight jackets as "I'm horny...horny, horny, horny" played through my head repeatedly.

So thank you, dear Space Monkey Pants, for inadvertently enlightening me to the world of horny rhinos.

And I'm sorry, Mom...you will never see me use the 'H' word again....

Ramble Behind the Next Post

(This post started off being titled "Time Consumers," but then I got off on a random description of what I was going to post instead of actually posting it, so now the actual purpose of this entry is being bumped to a new one...hehe)

For many of us, our time is viciously eaten up by school or work or both....toss in family and a halfway decent social life, and that leaves little time for showering, eating, and sleeping, not to mention those added bonuses here and there that a few of us would like to actually indulge.

Now, of course, judging from how many posts I've added to this blog already, most of you would assume that I have lots of time on my hands, when in all actuality, I'm just replacing other things with this new found habit.....and I can guarantee that I am *always* doing something else while blogging (which means, when you run across a typo or I start making less sense than usual, that's why).

My next several blog entries will come from my multi-tasking skills being put to use. Today, while sitting for two hours in an econ experiment where I made $97.60 cash for doing next to nothing, I spent probably an hour of that total hitting the NaBloPoMo randomizer and copying/pasting links that were worth my 5 seconds of time. Because I made that random cash and I spent the majority of the time finding links that I felt work re-link worthy, I feel no shame in being able to spend a few minutes here and there typing up my findings. And that's exactly what I'm going to do now that it is once again 4:30 am and I've already completely two major papers and have outlined two more. I have the entire weekend to finish them up and start the next set, so I'm already ahead considering it's only Thursday morning and I only have one class to attend tomorrow.

/ramble.....begin next entry instead....

I Fuck Like a Girl

Yes, I know, this has already been posted, but I just wanted to pass along someone else's random thought. You see, the majority of the participants in the contest are women...but what if a guy happens to be chosen for this prize? I wonder how many guys would actually wear the shirt (probably quite a few, but only as a joke...or they'd pass it along as a gag gift for someone else, lol).

And, by the way, what exactly does it mean to 'fuck like a girl'? That certainly can't be a bad thing, can it? ;-)

NaBloPoMo

So somewhere along the path today, I stumbled across this site (okay, so I know how I got there....I went from one blog to the next, and that lead me to yet another, and at some point, here's this icon on someone's blog talking about how they'd just signed up for NaBloPoMo).

What is it you might possibly ask? (Even if you didn't think to ask, it's okay...I've got your back....I'll tell you anyway.) It's National Blog Posting Month! Duh!

"NaBloPoMo is an alternative to November's NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, the program wherein you crank out a novel in thirty days.

Post every day for the month of November. That's it. The deadline for getting your url on the participants list below is, oh, let's say November 1 at 11:59 p.m. Not that I'll be up that late, waiting, but that will be your last chance to get your first day's post in. No cheating and backdating posts, either. You're on your honor."

They have all sorts of prizes that are being given away at the end of the month by random drawings (the shirt above is one of them). The list of participants is 'huge' and within a few minutes I found a couple new blogs to keep an eye on occasionally. The good thing about these is that they'll be posting for the next 30 days, at least, so it won't be like some of the random sites/blogs I run across where they seem really interesting....and then they're not updated for a month and I've already lost interest by then. Don't get me wrong...I'll lose interest in most of these, too, but at least I'll have something to base my interest off.

And look at the buttons they have for participants to use:

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