NEW RELEASES
December 30
There won’t be any mention of auld lang syne in this blog. The Sisters rarely use Latin. Not that we wouldn’t if our public education taught us Latin to begin with. Although one of us learned Braille (pathological fear of blindness) and one went to Catholic school (there is a shot at a little Latin retention there) but the third can’t even remember her proper verb conjugations from the 37 semesters she took of Spanish. That being said, these five things were among the things that kept us alive this week.
1. Hooliganism. It has been a long standing tradition in the seven whole months we’ve been doing this weekly feature to share with you new and
NOT The Bandit - rather a fine example of wee hooliganism
scintillating words to add to your vocabulary. It’s just another service to humanity the Quill Sisters offer. This week the delicious little contribution to lexicon building is: hooliganism. Just this week we posted the article where this word was discovered. To be perfectly honest, we believed this word may have been made up by the newspaper reporter that wrote the original article, but we found a bunch of examples when we Googled it. Either way, we don’t care. Hooliganism. Say it and try not to smile. You can’t! Right up there with snackerel, snackage, and kerfuffle, hooliganism can only add amusement to your conversation.
2. Siri. If you don’t have an iPhone 4S, we’re very sorry. Ava refuses to discuss it. Hint: she’s just jealous. We’ve long wanted iPhones because our Samsung phones were such garbage. We wanted speedy phones. Phones that didn’t freeze. 
Phones that we weren’t compelled to chuck out the car window at 57 miles per hour. We had no idea when we got our iPhones that we would fall instantly and compellingly in love with Suri. For those of you living in a vacuum, Suri is the android assistant living inside the phone that does all kinds of nifty things. The most fun to be had with Suri is asking weird questions. When we asked her the meaning of life, Suri answered, “42”. When asked if we should wear shorts or a skirt tomorrow, she said, “Amy, I’m not sure what to say.” The answer to her favorite color, “My favorite color is…well, I don’t know how to say it in your language. It’s sort of greenish, but with more dimensions.” I suggested she talk dirty to me and she replied, exasperated, “Amy, I’m not that kind of personal assistant.” Oooohhh, the time that can be wasted…..
3. Not having brain tumors. Don’t freak out. There was never any real risk here. Today, Ava said that she could smell coconut and she thought that might be a symptom of a brain tumor. She heard somewhere that if you smell weird things you should have that checked out. In that particular scenario it was almonds, but surely coconut must mean something equally as ominous. Amylynn suggested that it wasn’t fair if she got a brain tumor by herself. Just when Amylynn asked Suri, “How do I know if I have a brain tumor” Ava realized that it was her tropical Chapstick. So lets recap.
Totally trustworthy
Ava does NOT have a brain tumor, she’s just crazy. Crazy is funny. Smooth, kissble lips always go nicely with a straight jacket.
4. Jesse Ventura. There is nothing funnier than a retired professional wrestler turned governor turned conspiracy theorist. TruTV has started running a show with Mr. Ventura where he does hard-hitting investigative… Forget it. We can’t even finish that sentence without laughing. The Sisters don’t believe in conspiracy theories. Why? Because it has been our experience that you can’t even get four people to keep a secret much less whole divisions of government, but it’s funny watching him try to pull this off. We’ll give you a hint, Mr. Ventura. Yes, they will shoot you if you try to get into Area 51. It’s not a secret. There are signs right there that inform you of that exact outcome. He suggested with outrageous indignation,
click to enlarge
“What are they going to do? Kill a former governor?” Yes. Yes, they are, dumb ass. But it’s an amusing way to waste an hour.
5. Who Shot Rock & Roll. The Sisters love rock & roll. So much so in fact that one of them even married a musician. A bass player of course because they’re the coolest. We also love how imagary is so important to rock & roll. One sister visited the Who Shot Rock & Roll exhibit at the local Museum of Art and was blown away. With very few exceptions, the pictures are all evocative black and white prints. This picture of Mick Jaggar was outstanding in it’s dramatic flair – much like Mick himself. He was supposed to get in a car with the leopard for the photoshoot but, fortunately for Mick and generations of Stones fans everywhere, someone sane decided that would be far too dangerous. Instead, the photographer, Albert Watson, took a picture of the leopard’s face, turned the film around, and took a second photo of Mick’s face, double exposing the film. What you get is an astounding, sexy, raw image of the leopard superimposed over his face. All done old school style in the days before Photoshop and all that nonsense. Perhaps if Mick showed up at Area 51 looking like this, they’d pause a minute before they shot him.
I say skip the day your being audited by the IRS
I came to understand that Samoa is changing time zones and skipping a whole day. That is to say that they will go to sleep
on Thursday and wake up on Saturday. I tell you this because The Quill Sisters are all about keeping the Internets informed about the comings and goings of the world. That’s what people say when they come away from our site. “Wow! Those Sisters really have a handle on world news.”
Hahaha. Ah. I love absurdest humor.
Back to the news. I see a lot of possibilities with this concept. Now, the Samoans are doing this in order to be better in line with the Asian Financial markets which increasingly include New Zealand and Australia. I think that’s marvelous. Good for them. I however see all kinds of potentially advantageous implications of this philosophy.
As you may know from my late night ramblings, I am a night person. A late night person. I am the person they made up 
the term “night owl” for. Honest to Zeus, I can stay up all night with absolutely no problem whatsoever. However, it doesn’t matter what time I go to bed at night, be it 7pm or 3am, I can’t get up in the morning. If left alone, I will always wake up sometime between 10 and 11am. If you experience insomnia some night and get bored, I’m the person you can call at 1:30 or 2am just to chat. I’ll be up. This being said, I operate on around 5 hours or less of sleep a night. If given the opportunity to just sleep through one entire day…. Well that would be magnolious as my father would say.
I’m thinking about writing my governer – although she’s probably too busy writing stupid books with forwards by even stupider people – and asking if our state can change time zones and skip a day. According to a spokesperson at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, “the international arbiter of official time”, there is no reason that any country can’t decide to be in any time zone they want. If that’s the case, why can’t that be extended to states? I mean Arizona is a maverick when it comes to timekeeping anyway. We don’t observe Day Light Savings Time. We thumbed our nose at that why not pick a time zone we like better and go with it and skip a day while we’re at it? Do we all have to come to a consensus on the day we want to skip or could we just have one year to pick a day so long as by December 31, 2012 we all end up on the same day?
I wonder about Samoa though. Why skip Friday? Friday is a good day, the best day some say. For crying out loud, skip a Monday or tax day or the day you have to take the dog for vaccinations or the day you have a parent/teacher conference because some kid keeps spitting at people. Skipping Friday is just stupid.
I know! Lets skip December 21, 2012 – that’s the day the Mayans say it all ends anyway. That would solve A LOT of world problems. See – the Sisters are always thinking about others. That’s just how we roll.
My favorite – for this week
Once again www.Criggo.com has amused the hell out of me.
“Hooliganism” might just be my new favorite word. Hooligan in and of itself is a fabulous word but as soon as you add the “ism” it just ratches out of the atmosphere.
Try it out. Say it with me. Hooliganism.
Did you know, if you’re a hooligan you probably participates in a lot of kerfuffles.
Hooooooliganism. My new favorite word.
Now this one doesn’t have any especially fabulous words but it’s pretty damn funny.
Is there an app for that? I totally need that app.
Meet Bambi. Her turn ons are warm coal braziers and steam engines
I was looking for pictures to post for the holidays – pretty Victorian pictures, and instead I found this.
Does anyone else think this is very weird?
Sure, all women stand around in their underwear with their hair done and evening jewelry draped over them reading books in front of open windows.
I guess what it comes down to is this: Men are weird and, mostly, porn is just odd no matter the era.
I wonder if she’s wearing shoes? I don’t suppose they had five inch lucite platform hooker shoes in 1850 did they? So what do you suppose the hooker version of 1850 shoes would be?
Maybe barefoot would be more salacious.
Oh look, now I’ve wasted twenty minutes contemplating Victorian porn.
Christmas was wonderful – now let’s take it all down.
Christmas was lovely – a very Bright-ish version of excess as usual. Now it’s December 26th and I want that damn tree down. It’s lovely but it’s so in the way. Does that make me Scroogish? I don’t know. I don’t care. The damn thing has to go.
Now Ava will take her tree and such down sometime in March. I don’t know how she can put up with it – but Ava really loves Christmas decorations. I’m telling you if our tree was still up in March, I’d set fire to the thing right there in the living room.
That’s the same way I feel about the outside lights, too. The neighbor lady across my street leaves hers up all damn year. I want to get drunk and shoot them out with a BB gun every time I see them in June and August. That is the only thing I can see that having a home owner’s association would be good for.
I hope Santa was good to you all. Santa was extraordinarily good to me. I got a iPhone 4S under the tree! Yippee. I’m still with Sprint – but we’ll see how much happier I am without that blasted Samsung piece of crap. I am enjoying playing with my new toy though. I keep asking Suri – the android assistant who lives in my phone – all kinds of stupid questions. She does all my Googling for me. It’s genius and glorious and I don’t know how I lived without her before nor will I want to go on alone if she should disappear.
I haven’t decided on an appropriate death for the old phone yet, but I’ll come up with something. If you have any suggestions don’t hesitate to share them. It’s really too bad the damn thing can’t bleed. That would be very satisfying.
Just so you don’t think everything was quiet over here, I’ll tell you that on Christmas morning Sassy was up at 2am and then 3am trying to get us to unwrap. At 4:30 I found her out watching television surrounded by wrapped presents. I made her go back to bed. At 7am I awoke to find my bed completely full. There was My Honey, of course, but also, Sassy and The Bandit, Roscoe and Winnie. I could hear the cat snoring under the bed. I wiggled down into the three square inches allotted to me in my own bed and figured I’d doze until the others started waking up. At 7:30 my Mom-in-law rang the doorbell. Lord only knows what time we’d have gotten up if she had not been invited to come watch the kids open. Can you imagine the glories of a Christmas morning that didn’t begin until 10am?
That will be my next year’s Christmas wish: Late mornings and then elves that come on the 26th and take it all down.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas!
We hope everything is merry and bright.
Merry Christmas Eve
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.
The Sisters are hoping you’re all on the good list this year or that you were so bad and it was so worth it that you don’t care if you’re on the good list or not!
Might need an alibi
My boy was nowhere near any golf courses, but honestly this does seem like something he’d do.
From the funny people over at www.criggo.com
They say karma’s a bitch…
This is not a delicate blog post. If you’re squeamish, then I urge you to look away. You have officially been warned.
I tell you this story because, honestly, I don’t think you all believe how completely circus-like my house is. Some of you think I am exaggerating. Other’s have accused me of lying. Whatever. The Sisters know the truth. They know because they’ve called my house and heard the chaos first hand. They know I hide in the bathroom to talk on the phone. My agent is always supposed to call me at work because it’s impossible to discuss anything of any importance over the phone at home.
It’s a lunatic asylum and, now that we’ve added the puppy, Winifred, who I am certain is half black Labrador and half dervish, we’ve only added to the feel of anarchy.
Last night we had left-over lasagna for dinner. When I’m finally convinced to make lasagna I always make a huge pan therefore there is always plenty left for days. Even after we finished dinner there was still 1/4 of a pan left. I got up to do the dishes, but Sassy stepped up and insisted that she would do them instead. I can only assume she was trying to bank points for some other horrible behavior sure to exhibit the next day.
I happily let her take over and wandered off to the office to write for a bit. 45 minutes later I went back to the kitchen and all the dishes were still on the table. I mentioned this to Sassy who said, “Yeah, I’m gonna get to it in a minute.” I wanted to give her every opportunity to sink her own boat or do the right thing so I back to the office I went.
Half hour later, Sassy wandered in with an empty lasagna pan. “Roscoe ate the lasagna,” she told me.
I didn’t answer, just looked at her with raised brows.
“I don’t want to tell Dad ’cause I don’t want Roscoe to die.”
I sent everyone to bed. I’d do the dishes later and think of a way to torture Sassy in the morning. I was busy trying to get The Bandit to bed, supervising teethbrushing and urination and such, when I heard the screaming from Sassy’s room.
Let’s make one thing really clear here. Sassy is a walking, talking, temper
tantrum throwing, text book example of Crying Wolf. She is also an Oscar worthy over reactor. Screaming from her room no longer even rouses a jog out of me, much less a panicked sprint. Besides, her father was in there and he could handle the disaster. Only it went on really long so I sighed and headed down the hall.
Roscoe was standing outside her bedroom door, head hung low, looking very hound doggish. In a magnificent example of stunning karmic retribution, Roscoe has vomited up the entire lasagna on her bed.
Holy crap – I could never, ever have come up with a more fitting punishment.
Sassy is loudly demanding that her bed be burned and a new one brought in immediately. She is stomping around the house having what I can only describe as a horror-struck nervous break-down.
My Honey is calmly divesting her bed of ick.
Don’t you know I start laughing which does not improve things.
Here is the mind boggling thing. I swear on a stack of Julia Quinn books that the vomit is still in EXACTLY THE SAME SHAPE IT WAS IN THE PAN. On her quilt is an “L” shaped slab of noodles, meat and cheese that, if you didn’t know better, you’d never suspect had recently been in the dog. Not even a tooth mark. Roscoe must have opened his gullet and swallowed it whole like a side show knife swallower.
And that, my friends, is why you should listen to your mother and do the dishes right away.
Physics = pastries
I had come to the conclusion that The Big Bang Theory was making me smarter.
If you’re not watching The Big Bang Theory, then you’re totally missing out on the funniest half-hour of television. My
Honey and I have been hooked since the get go and recently got Ava and her family addicted as well. TBS runs the reruns – sometimes as many as four or six episodes in a night.
If you don’t know the show, it centers around three physicists and a mechanical engineer – four smart guys. There is also a pretty neighbor across the hall. I know. Written that way, the show sounds derivative and sorta stupid. You’re going to have to trust me on this. It’s completely laugh out loud hysterical. The show has been nominated for a zillion awards and the actor who plays Sheldon Cooper has won two Emmys and a Golden Globe.
Back to my education. The characters on the show talk all the time about physics and various scientific concepts . It doesn’t matter if you understand it or not while you’re watching. In fact, you’re certainly not supposed to understand. That’s what makes it funny.
So I was reading the Wall Street Journal as I so often do during the course of my day at Bank of No Forks. It takes me several hours because I frequently read all the articles and I only get to do so while my computer is slowly doing mysterious computer stuff or when I’m on hold. I came across an interesting article called, “Physicists Close In on a Universal Puzzle” by Gautam Naik. It’s about work being done at the Large Hadron Collider run by CERN in Geneva.
I’ve read other articles about the Collider before, and I have a very rudimentary understanding of what the Collider was built to do. The first paragraph mentions the Higgs boson.
Hey, I’ve heard of the Higgs boson before, too. Scientists call it the God Particle. They even mentioned it on The Big Bang Theory. The characters once visited the Collider.
I kept reading. The next bit also mentioned stuff I’d heard on The Big Bang. This encouraged me to read on. I postulated that if I understood those last few paragraphs then I must be getting smarter.
The next paragraphs talked about “subatomic particles” and searching for “statistically significant ‘excesses'”. Then things got a little dicey. Soon they were discussing the likely mass of the Higgs boson being somewhere around 116 to 130 gigaelectronvolts or GeV.
science cupcakes
I blinked, but soldiered on. Pretty quickly I was lost in theory.
“Under this scenario, the Higgs field permeates the universe, and any particles that interact with it are given a mass through the Higgs boson. The more they interact, the heavier they become.”
Alright, now I’m thinking the Higgs boson is basically cupcakes and I’m a particle interacting with it.
More theory. More lost. All I’m really thinking about now is cupcakes.
By the end when the scientists mention ghost like particles called neutrinos traveling faster than light. Now wait a minute. I recall Einstein having something to say about this. Apparently this development is exciting because it “breaches the cosmic-speed limit.” I’d like to pretend that I saw that coming with my pathetically elementary understanding of E=MC2.
Yeah. The Big Bang isn’t making me smarter and now, thanks to physics, I want a cupcake.