Category: Tools and Toys

What Venomous Egg-Laying Mammal Are You?

Matthew 13 Comments

What Venomous Egg-Laying Mammal Are You
Personality Test

Find out, by answering these ten questions.

The most important personality trait is :
In new situations, I :
I enjoy books and movies that are :
Do you wanna make out? :
If I could be any animal, I’d be :
My favorite digit of pi is :
Peanut butter :
And the bartender says :
No way :
When confonted with a difficult decision, I usually choose :

Vocabulary Bookmarks

Matthew

Here’s something vaguely cool.

As I read books, I try to jot down any words I encounter with meaning unknown or unclear to me. Later I look these words up, in the hopes of Increasing My Word Power and allowing me to understand novels written by Don DeLillo. That’s the idea, anyhow. Back in the good old days I would write unfamiliar words on the inside of the back cover, but now that I have become a Cheap Bastard and get all my books from the library this is no longer an option. For a while I lugged around a small notebook for this purpose, but it didn’t take long to lose that. And I’ve often thought about carrying a Palm Pilot to record words, but the downside with this plan is that it would require me to carry a Palm Pilot and then I would be a dork. What to do?

Well, this is my newest cockeyed scheme. I whipped up some bookmarks, printed them onto card stock (which turned out to be unneccesary — regular weight paper works fine), cut them out and now use while reading, one per book. Each section on the bookmark has three fields: the first for the word itself, followed by a small dash where you can write the page number where you found it. Below this are two lines where you can either write the definition or the context in which the word was found. Each section also has a small box in the upper-right hand corner.

This is how I’m using them. I record unknown words as I read, look them up after I’ve finished the book and write the definitions down in the space provided. Then I tape the bookmark to the side of my computer monitor. Whenever I manage to use one of the words (in email or whatever) I check the box to reflect this fact. In this way I do all three of the things that I have found are necessary for me to retain the memory of new words: looking it up, writing it down, and employing it in conversation.

*shrug* I dunno, it might work. The bookmarks are pretty useful, but my use of them is currently desultory at best. (Woohoo! Checkmark!) Here’s a PDF file of the bookmarks if you’d like to try this system for yourself.

Update Email:

Let me get this straight: You're a dork if you use a palm pilot, but not a dork if you design and make your own bookmarks?

He may have a point. But I’m going to steadfastly refuse to acknowledge it.

Jell-o Brand Pudding Pops Googlefucker

Matthew 18 Comments

Oh hey: talking about pastimes I created and the mellifluous word “fucker” reminded me that I invented the most addictive Internet game of all time, although, for some unfathomable reason, it has failed to catch on as of yet. Remember Googlewhacking, where you would try and find two words which, when entered into Google, would result in only a single hit? Yeah, well my soon-to-be-insanely-popular meme is exactly like that, except totally different. Now the goal is to find a Googlefucker: a two word phrase in the form “_______ fucker” which, when entered into Google (enclosed in quotation marks), results in only one hit. Like, you know, “sofa fucker” or “toothpaste fucker”.

Try it. This is gonna be the Next Big Internet Craze, and you’ll wanna get in on the ground floor. Not only is it a great way to waste time, but you’ll also have a blast trying to explain to your wife why, when she typed ma into Google, Internet Explorer helpfully suggested “mango fucker” as a completion.

“ fucker”     
Update: Great news! Someone at the Jell-O company saw this entry and forwarded it on to his bosses. Well, they agree that Googlefucking is poised to become the Hugest Internet Fad Of Forever, and have agreed to sponser me! I can’t tell you how much they’re paying, but let’s just say it’s well over $50. So the site I’m working on, Googlefucker.com, will be hosted on their servers, and promoted on the Jell-O Brand Pudding Pops boxes and everything. The only catch is that now, if you find a Googlefucker and are bragging about it on your blog or to your friends, you can’t just call it a “Googlefucker” anymore, you hafta say “Hey Carl, did you know that the phrase “Unix Fucker” is a Jell-O Brand Pudding Pops Googlefucker?” So be sure to do that, okay?
Update: Someone at Jell-O looked up “fucker” in the dictionary and found out that’s it’s quote-unquote “vulgar”. So the deal’s off.

Heartless Bastard?

Matthew

Take The Online “Am I A Heartless Bastard” Quiz!

A few years ago my wife and I were sitting on the couch watching a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the Yankees, and just as designated hitter Chili Davis stepped up to bat, my wife (who was really my girlfriend at the time) got up and went into the bedroom and returned with one of the comforters from our bed draped around her shoulders and when she sat back down I said “were you chilly?” and she said “I was so chilly I was Chili Davis!” and then we both laughed and snuggled, and even to this day we will still say “I am Chili Davis” when one of us is cold.

1. I thought this story was