a random quiz while eating hamburger helper

1. if you were to create an entirely new brand of frozen foods, what would you make?

2. if you could have one of the following in your house, what would you choose? A. 12' hot tub B. 70" plasma tv w/surround sound C. laundry shoot with automatic cleaning system D. an entire pantry system that swiveled on a lazy susan

3. if you could pet any animal at the zoo, which would you pet? which would you NOT pet?

4. let's say an elderly relative miraculously gave birth to a bouncing baby boy/girl, and in her senility, she let's you choose the name. what would you choose?

5. if you were to undertake one of these adrenaline-pumping aquarisks in the next year, which of these would you choose? A. Cliff diving B. Speedboat racing C. whale riding D. shark fishing E. Underwater photography in caves

and coming in third

Today we saw a commercial on the weather channel for an upcoming show entitled "The 100 Biggest Moments in Weather." It made me think about the importance of lists and rankings in our culture, and how it's one thing to talk about a person or thing that was "pretty interesting," or "above average," or even "outstanding," but how it fails to captivate our attention as if we were to call it the greatest/biggest/tastiest/sexiest/most scenic/most substantial person or thing in the entire neighborhood/city/state/world. One word can make an item stand out, possibly much farther than it ever intended to stand out.

So with that I wondered what other lists we could come up with. What list could we create that would find an audience in the world, even if it was just for the fact that we called it the greatest? We'd need experts in each field to debate these rankings on tv of course, but do you think we could build a following for ............

Top 10 Worst Horse Stall Disasters
20 Moments in Knitting That Took Your Breath Away
The 100 Greatest Bullfighters of All Time
The World's 20 Most Important Math Problems
Top 15 Most Unromantic Flowers (and the guys who gave them)
5 Best Uses for a Lima Bean
20 Most Useful Things to Do While Debilitated by Kidney Stones
100 Most Annoying Sounds on the Planet
15 Great Moments in the History of Pet Breeding
State's 20 Most Handsome Poodles

rise and shine!

I admit I have trouble getting up in the morning every now and then. The more comfortable the bed, the better the covers-tempurature ratio, the greater the hindrances the night before in getting a full, satisfying span of rest, the unispiring appointments to go to in the morning ..... the excuses can add up easily. Sometimes it helps to have a little prodding to get out the door.

When I was little, my mom used to give one call into the room (hey, it's time to get up!), and then would come in and pull back the curtains. If I was having additional trouble waking, she would come in and sing:

Mr. Sun, Sun,
Mr. Golden Sun,
Please shine down on me.

The other day I employed the tried and true "Skillet and Spoon" method to wake someone from her dreaminess. What methods have you used, or have been used on you? What method do you least prefer?

across the border, over the hedge

It's always amazing to me that certain songs/stories are known by people from all over the world, some with completely different backgrounds. How is it a joke I heard as a kid was a joke heard by a kid in Connecticut? How is it I can meet someone in Virginia today who knows the same stories my Sunday School teacher told me when I was a kid in Wyoming? It just seems strange.

Tiffkin and I found out we both know this random song:

Little Bunny Foo Foo
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

Down came the good fairy and she said

"Little Bunny Foo Foo
I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head.
I'll give you three chances
And if you don't behaveI'll turn you into a goon!"

The next day:
Little Bunny Foo Foo
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

How is it some random stories/songs travel so well? Any instances where you were surprised someone knew something you knew?

i'll think of something in a minute

this was a post i made the other day when i couldn't think of anything to write. on a search for inspiration, i ran across this picture.

wagered

I have never been a fan of placing bets. As a kid, I was always scared of losing money (or whatever else was valuable), and fear of throwing away my personal goods just to avoid looking sheepish didn't make sense. I treasured money, even a little, and even if the bet looked fail-proof, I was either wary of some unknown entity changing my fortune in an unexpected rush of disaster, or the altruistic heart in me would invoke pleas of empathy for my much too undereducated counterpart. I couldn't just stand there and let fate (or some cleverly crafted scheme) determine where my goods ended up, even if I thought for certain I knew the outcome.

The most famous of the many bets I didn't take was the summer after my freshman year of college, when I was confronted with what seemed to be a certainty in the world of country music. We were listening to the radio when a commercial came on highlighting a concert that was coming up during the National High School Finals Rodeo, which were held in my home town. A male voice was singing a country tune, and the announcer said something to the effect of "Terry Clark! Come see Terry Clark in concert ....." Then later a woman's singing voice came on in a new song and the announcer said, "... and special guest, Dani Hoover."

Now I had absolutely no idea who either of these people were, and neither did the college guys I was working with, but it seemed completely obvious that the male singing voice who opened the commercial was the first name mentioned: Terry. The second person, as unique as the name Dani is for a female, definitely lined up with the female voice at the end of the commercial.

But for some reason during the day, we started talking about the plausibility of a man being named Terry and a woman named Dani, and one of the guys I worked with decided he thought it would be cooler to start calling the female's voice "Terri" and the male's voice "Danny." Well I started ribbing him about this because of the order on the radio commercial, and we had a silly argument going for the rest of the day.

He finally got so fed up he said, "Well, if that's what you think, then bet me $100."

One hundred dollars was a lot to me then (and still is), so even with frequent appeals I wouldn't give in. I was dead dead certain that I had enough on my side to with one bet be $100 richer, but a lingering sliver of doubt and a love for things that are mine made me hold off.

Several days later, by mere accident, we found out the results. Terri Clark is in fact a woman. Woops.

What does it take for you to take a bet?