That’s right, it’s finally here! Tis the time of the year where we try to do our taxes, send them in, find out they’re rejected and then buy some computer software to do it for us. Every year I become more and more excited for rebate checks – or – refund checks? Any kind of check will do.
Last year my excitement had reached an all time high. My friends were already regaling me with tales of hundreds of dollars received. I crossed by fingers and closed my eyes while pressing “Calculate” on the computer. And then…. I wound up owing the federal government $3.00. That’s right, the tax refund I had spent weeks dreaming about turned out being me sending them a check for three dollars.
My only consolation is the faith that with the personnel, the processing and the equipment involved, my $3.00 check may have wound up costing the federal government more than $3.00.
I can’t help but think that when things become too big they become useless and ridiculous. There seems to be an entire portion of the species obsessed with making things the biggest of that thing to ever have existed. The problem with creating the biggest thing is that, well, it’s certainly not going anywhere. So once these things are built, and the owner gets sick of it an leaves town, they’re just… there.
In the spirit of useless big things, I present to you the world’s largest foosball table:
Giant foosball - barf!
Does this item allow me to have a good time with my friend? Does it allow me to crush a single opponent in mortal combat? No. The only thing the world’s largest foosball table helps me do is throw a big party where everyone needs to agree to put down their drinks for a few minutes and fight over choosing teams in order to play a game. Thanks giant foosball table!
Speaking of drinks for that big party….
Monster 6 pack and town's auxilary water supply!
It’s the world’s largest six pack! I’m sure the town is relieved to know that in a time of crisis, they could always turn to the nearby buildings-full-o-beer to drink, cook, and bathe with.
.
Finally, after a night of partying, I can’t help but end with the world’s largest phallic structure. Which, I was surprised to learn, is an actual phallus.
China's phallic monument tries not to leave anything to the imagination
Dear Mom,
Who told you about this site, was it my brother? Oh… it was Facebook? I’ve always told you that program would lead to trouble, regardless of what you might have seen on Dateline.
The SAME RULES apply here as to my bedroom when I was 15. Don’t come in. Don’t look around (no, not even if it’s just to pick up my laundry). I need my private space and website!!!!!! Why can’t you just understand that? Jessica’s mom never reads her blog.
No! No! Sometimes I am going to blog past 11 pm!!!!! Don’t worry about it – I can wake myself up for work the next day just fine – I don’t need your help!!!!!!!!! Just chill out and leave me alone. And tell Dad he can’t come here either.
Jeez, this is so uncool.
You know that feeling you sometimes get? The one you just can’t shake…..
Where the hairs
stand
up
on the back of your neck and you get an eerie feeling.
.
You Don’t wAnt to l0ok,
buT it’s ineviTAble.
It seems like someone is staring at you….
but you turn around
and no one is there?
-
-
-
That’s me.
Sorry about that.
I just spent all the time I had available today fixing up the images on this post from August. If you didn’t read it then, perhaps you could read it now. Because, well, I’ll never get that 1/2 hour of my life back.
I should add that I performed the same type of verbal misnomer for the word “binoculars”, which I mispronounced for 22 years. I used the British pronunciation ˈbɪnˌɒʊ.lə(ɹ)z instead of the correct version: bə-nŏk’yə-lər. For those of you who aren’t employed by a dictionary company, that means I said “Bye-noculars.” As in: neighbors, say goodbye to not being spied on.
Look at the picture below:
We probably all know what this is. We grew up with one (or something like it) in our house. We pestered our fathers to turn it up higher at night but, since they grew up in houses with wood-fire stoves set to 45 degrees, they are most comfortable at freezing temperatures. But though we may not have been allowed power over the thing, we all know what it is, right?
Right?
For the first 20 years of my life, I called this device a “furnacestat“. As in, something you use to adjust your furnace. And the ”stat” part – well, maybe its because you’d want to adjust the furnace very quickly, I don’t know. It wasn’t until I was finally renting a house in college, with several roommates, that one of them responded ‘What did you just say?!” when I offered to adjust the temperature of the… furnacestat.
I have carefully listened to my family since that fateful day, and nobody else has uttered the word ‘furnacestat’. For two decades of my life, I had been speaking a jibber-jabber word of my own design! What caused them not to correct me at home? Was it that they figured they heard me wrong? Or was it just too doggone cute? Regardless of their reasons, the experience has left me with the lingering feeling that somewhere, hidden inside my brain and vocabulary, there are other words that have never really existed.
Perhaps this explains why I’m so good at finding Boggle words no one else has down….
I might be the first person… ever… to do this
Recently I stopped at Radio Shack with two missions: buy a headset for my phone, and batteries. The first item was on the list after a recent ticket for driving on my cell phone (who knew they actually gave those things?) and the second to get every appliance I own running again. Batteries had already been shuffled out of all the clocks, the keyboard, and the smoke alarms in order to fuel the thirsty Wii remotes.
After picking out a headset I was happily checking out at the desk – thinking about how from now on people on the street would think I was talking to them while I actually talked to much more important people - when the salesperson asked me: “Would you like to buy some batteries today?”
“Holy smokes yes! Throw some of those in as well. Thank you so much for asking!! Wow, what a lifesaver.”
I could tell by the started look on his face that nobody has ever bought the 40 pack of Enercell batteries at the counter. Unlike the classic, dollar question “would you like fries with that”, Radio Shack has decided to push a $24 package of batteries with every purchase. But sometimes it turns out, against all odds and precedent, to be exactly what I need.
You know, Enercell - like Duracell and Energizer, only Radio Shack!
This is just a title, actual post to come later! (Hold your breath)
