NEW RELEASES
I’d rather have a shrinking butt
I was alerted to a great list of trivia questions this week and if there’s one thing I love it’s trivia. I have a head full of completely useless knowledge and I just keep cramming more and more in there. One of these days I’ll finally get on a game show and, just watch, I’ll freeze like an Otter Pop and get nothing right. I’ll walk away with “lovely parting gifts” like a lifetime supply of Simonize and a free Bikram Yoga membership. I love Bikram yoga almost as much as Ava, but not quite.
Anyway, I thought I’d drip some of the more interesting trivia questions over the next couple of weeks. Of course, I’ll add my thoughts. I guess my wonky musings matter or why else would you torture yourself with these blog posts?
In the 1970s, Mattel sold a doll called “Growing Up Skipper.” HerWhile looking for her on the internet, I found all kinds of disturbing dolls like "Shaving Ken". Ick.
breasts grew when her arm was turned.
Well that’s just fabulous. I don’t remember a lot of girls in the junior high school locker room swinging their arms in a circle, but I’ll admit, I was mostly just trying to get my clothes on and get the hell out of there. Thus I may not have been the most observant thirteen year old.
Of course, this tidbit of information makes me wonder. Now that Skipper is nearing fifty and all kinds of bad things have happened to her perky little body, do you suppose if you wind her arms the other way, her breasts go back up to where they’re supposed to be?
In Our Humble Opinion . . . conference calls suck.
If I’m going to join a shooting range, I’ll need bangs
If you read this blog, you know that Ed dragged me to a gun show several weekends ago. What I didn’t mention was that we actually purchased a gun while we were there. It’s not pink but it is a lovely matte silver with black. It goes with most of my outfits. Some of you might wonder why that matters. It matters because we live in the wild west in a state with only one gun law: You must own a gun. That means you can carry it without a permit.
Since I haven’t fired a handgun in over thirty years, Ed thought it prudent that we take some classes so that I could avoid shooting off my foot. I did agree that this was a sound plan.
So, on Saturday, we took an NRA sanctioned and approved super beginner “like you’ve never seen a gun in your life even on tv” pistol class. There were only three people in the class, me, Ed and a hapless college student. I felt sorry for her. I feel sorry for anyone trapped with just me and Ed. For eight hours, all in a row.
After introducing ourselves and giving our brief gun backgrounds, I stopped feeling sorry for her. Sure, now she was a college student but for the last EIGHT years, she was in the military!!!! As far as I’m concerned, that’s cheating. You can’t say you’re a beginner if the government issues you an M16 that you have to sleep with every night.
I’m slightly competitive – of the three of us, I was sure to be the worst gun shooter there. At this point, I was ready to go home. Ed knows me and didn’t even need to look at my face before he says, “This is not a competition, so calm yourself.”
That’s easy for a 200lb man who can bench press over 300lbs to say. He wasn’t going to come in dead last and accidentally shoot a his own foot, ruining his $45.00 pedicure.
ID Guy holding Target
As it turned out – I didn’t come in third out of three people, I came in first. FIRST. The instructors were surprised. Ed was bemused. The college/military girl was shocked. However, I was not surprised, bemused or shocked. I was mad.
Bangs
Just before we started target practice, Ed signed us up to join the shooting range. They make you up an ID card right there, on the spot, with your picture – no matter how many times you say “Not today – I need a haircut.” I hate having my picture taken, it’s always awful. I took one look at it and realized I was in desperate need of bangs. Every shot I took at the target was really at the ID guy who takes such rotten pictures.
That’s how I came in first.
If they’d let me have a goat I’m sure it would be happy to chauffeur
Once again, I found an outstanding article in the Daily Picayune. This one once again appears thanks to the recent tradition of re-publishing stories from 100 years ago to celebrate the centennial of our state.
This one is especially funny, hysterical even, and I’m confident that if newspapers wrote more irreverently humerous articles like this one, the industry wouldn’t be in nearly as much financial trouble as they are now.
Sit back and enjoy.
Dec. 8, 1912
A goat, one of the animals who have helped to make Bock Beer famous all of the civilized world, held up Doctor H. E. Crepin yesterday. Although it was a hold-up pure and simple, the goat took nothing from the physician but patience – and Mr. Goat took all of that.
Like all other affairs of its kind, the hold-up was the result of an unfair advantage plus a sudden onslaught. The doctor was making a professional call in the south end of the city and had left his automobile in front of the patient’s house.
The automobile was all alone, no one to guard it and nothing to do – it is presumed that it finally grew lonesome. In the mute language of distress it sent the C.Q. D. for aid (Morse Code distress signal)and soon a rescuer hove in sight. Casting aside all formalities of introduction, the rescuer, who proved to be the goat, assumed charge of hte abandoned car and climbed upon the seat. After examining the dashboard carefully the goat gave up in disgust – it was not equipped with a self-starter, and it is just as hard for a goat to crank a car as it is for some other people, so the goat gave up in despair and decided to wait patiently until the physician arrived and assumed his responsibility as chauffeur. (It may be that the goat knew how to start the car but was not a licensed chauffeur under the new law.)
Upon the doctor’s return, another war was inaugurated, and according to the war correspondent, the doctor signed the protocol but refused to revictual the stronghold – whereupon the goat withdrew without giving up his arms or dignity.
Doctor Crepin in an interview said that he has often taken dogs to ride, and it is possible that the goat knowing of this considered himself welcome. The result of the affair is a positive statement from the doctor that he will not take any goat, whatsoever, to ride in his car.
Was I right? Funny, huh? I feel like I might have been a reincarnation of this reporter.
Like “Let’s Make a Deal” only totally not
Sassy made a deal with me. If she could correctly answer three questions of my choosing, then she could stay up and read for another thirty minutes. I was in a wagering kind of mood, so I agreed, especially with the codicil of “my own choosing.” Foolish girl.
Too bad there wasn’t any money at stake.
“Question number one,” I began, “What is Grandma’s middle name?”
“Which Grandma?” she asked.
“Either.”
“Myrtle?” Oh, this is definitely my kid. No one else in the world would have pulled that name out of the air.
I laughed and made the buzzer noise. “Nope. Aleta or Ann would have been acceptable. Question number two…”
“Nothing about family members,” she interrupted.
Fine. I could work with that. “Number two. How many pounds of pressure is in my car tires?”
“Uhhhh, nine?”
Again with the buzzer noise. “Nope. 32 pounds. Number three..”
“OK, nothing about cars or people in the family.”
“I wasn’t aware we could make up new rules as we went along,” I noted.
“Yeah, well I don’t know any of those things,” she informed me.
I wonder how hard it would be to get one of these out of Australia?
“Duh. That’s why I asked them. What do you know about?”
“Animals, I know lots about animals,” she said with confidence.
“Fine. How many feathers on a duckbill platypus?”
“NONE!” she hollered across the expanse of the dark bed.
I laughed. “Very good. Trick question. The score is two for me, one for you.”
“I’m gonna win!” Her voice was high with misguided self-assurance. “I told you I know animal questions.”
“So you say. Are you ready for question four?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What was the Elephant Man’s real name?”
“That’s not an animal question,” she protested. It’s too bad there wasn’t a judge around to hear her case. It’s hard to say who would have won, but I’d like to think it would have been me on the technicality that there was an animal in the question. “That’s like a half an animal question.”
“Quit stalling,” I told her preparing to get out of her bed and give her a final kiss good night. I hummed the Jeopardy theme music.
“I don’t know.” I could hear the pout in her voice.
“Just give me his last name, then.”
Heavy, huffing sigh. “Forget it.”
“Good night. I love you.”
“You are really unfair.”
“Yep.” I kissed her forehead. “You know, ‘Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line’.”
“Mooo-ooom! No one ever knows what you’re talking about.”
“Inconceivable!,” I said as I waltzed out of her dark bedroom, “cause I’m really funny.”
“No you’re not. You’re just weird.”
I’m totally fine with that.
Bikram Yoga = Hell on Earth
According to Wikipedia, the definition of Bikram Yoga is a system of yoga that Bikram Choudhury synthesized from traditional hatha yoga techniques and popularized beginning in the early 1970s (Proof the 70s were stupid – my add in). Bikram’s classes run exactly 90 minutes and consist of a set series of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises. Bikram Yoga is ideally practiced in a room heated to 105°F with a humidity of 40%.
The real definition is a system of yoga practised by insane people (Ed) [also our crazy sister, Kelli – amylynn] who have nothing better to do for 90 excruciatingly hellish boiling minutes that feel like 90 hours in Death Valley except for the humidity. Oddly, the three classes I’ve been forced to attend have been overly crowded. I was certain the only people who would be in attendance were me, Ed and the yoga teacher – the teacher being there because she was being paid. Not so. Each class has had not less then 15 or so crazies. I keep wondering how they found each other? Is there a posting on Craig’s list that I don’t know about? That would make sense because Ed does a lot of his shopping on there.
I’m going to tell you what happens in a 90 minute (read 90 hour) session so you don’t ever have to go. You’re welcome, feel free to send me a gift of gratitude.
Unlike real yoga, you don’t need a yoga mat – you need a large beach towel. I know that made you smile, what could go wrong if you need a beach towel, right? Hold on to your left ankle with your right eyebrow (pose #27 in Bikram Yoga) because a lot is about to go wrong! Really wrong.
The instructor tells you to stand on your towel with your feet together and your hands clasped together under your chin. She says you are going to breath. How hard can that be? You breath all the time. But no, you are going to flap and move your arms like a giant bellows, stoking a fire to weld metal. The funny part is that it’s getting hot enough in the studio to actually perform blacksmith work. Let me point out that you’ve only been at this for less then 5 minutes.
At this point, I found out you are not allowed to talk for the ENTIRE 90 hours. You are especially not allowed to shout. Shouting – “I’m going to kill you Ed.” is not tolerated. Not at all. 15 people will turn and stare at you as if you actually did kill Ed right there in class.
Aside from the heat, the ridiculously impossible poses and the hostile non-namaste stares, you’ll notice that the instructor does none of the poses. None. She is just there to tell you what to do next and tell you to look at other people if you don’t know the moves yet. My mind wandered and I wondered what would happen if all 15 people were brand new to this self-paid for torture. Anarchy, that’s what would happen. The air conditioning would go on and the beer would flow.
The entire classes progresses with you sweating like you’ve never sweat before, your sweat will sweat, trying to twist yourself like fusilli pasta into positions the human body is not meant to twist into and a mantra-like chant in your head (certainly not out loud) of – “Wait until we are in the parking lot Ed, you’re going to die, Wait until we are in the parking lot Ed, you’re going to die, Wait until we are in the parking lot Ed, you’re going to die.”
In the end, you lay on your soaking wet beach towel, praying for sudden death, crying real tears and hating every person on the planet because they were smart enough not to be in that room with you over the 900 hours.
Here’s one last tip: After class, never recommend that everyone go to the Village Inn restaurant next door for the world renowned delicious pie they serve.
A toast to 2012
Happy New Year!
We’ve been trying to get Kelli off the champagne bottle for a while now, but she just keeps growling at us.
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.