Lissla is it jiggly-like? did you move it recently? mine went jiggly when we moved it closer to the kitchen (I think it was the microwave). It had something to do with electromagnetic stuff. I fixed it by changing my color scheme to 256 and then back to… whatever it is now. You can also do it by degaussing, I think, but I can’t remember exactly how to do that.
sorry I’m not much help there…
Meh. If it’s a mechanical problem, it’s Mr. Lissar’s problem. Machines scare me. I think they run on magic. I try not to upset the Computer Gods (or demons. They’re probably demons).
damn. and I was hoping I’d come in here and find that you’d said, “Oh my Goodness, Ella! you’re a genius! it worked! you might be smart enough to hang out with us after all!”
OK, OK, OK. Just pipe down a bit. I’m giving away a great Doper secret with the link to this thread.
I’m a bear. Really I am. Google it. I live in the swamps of south Jawja. Actually near the second largest swamp in Jawja. Google for that too. My name is educational.
wait… so there’s actually no “where did you get your name?” thread already? (thanks for that name suggestions thread, VunderBob)
and swampbear… I looked it up. And color me confused… it took me a good ten minutes to figure out that “Jawja” was “Georgia.” (it is, isn’t it? there are swamp bears in Georgia.) I was cursing myself for being so gullible until I figured it out. (“jawja” in google seemed to be a blogging community and “jawja swamp bear” wasn’t turning up any results) but now I’ve officially learned something today. thank you kindly!
Well, movie day is over. Or movie half-day. We had stuff we had to do, then we went to two movies in more or less rapid succession.
First was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I thought it was kinda fun. I kept staring at Johnny Depp trying to see Capt. Jack Sparrow in his face, but it didn’t work! Still, I liked the movie.
Then we saw War of the Worlds. I promised my sweetie ahead of time that I wouldn’t be snarky during the movie. He needn’t have worried. I thought it was too stupid to merit snarking. Too much if it was completely illogical. I can only suspend so much disbelief. But I did my wifely duty and didn’t snark.
I haven’t heard from 'Toons yet - for all I know his wife took one look at the chandelier and put it and him on the front lawn… He did say before he left that it could well become a traveling Dope souvenir. Beware if he comes to your town. 
We did our usual sunny weekend gig, and played on the boat. We took a friend and her two kids, along with my husband’s nephew and the nephew’s fifteen year old daughter. My kids elected to stay home.
We had fun; we water skiied (how the hell is that spelled? “skied” doesn’t look right today); we tubed, and we cruised around. It was very enjoyable. However, when we were loading our boat on the trailer it didn’t seem to be “right”. It was very difficult and I kept hearing some noise like it was rubbing. This shouldn’t be the case as we have an EZ-Load trailer. When we came home, we discovered the problem. Apparently, a bolt has come out of one the brackets that holds one of the “runners” or whatever you want to call it. No way to fix it until we dump the boat in water again, so hubby has just left for the hardware store to get the requisite bolt. This is a brand, stinkin’ new trailer. What kind of ridiculous crap is this? It’s a simple repair and all, but IMO, this shouldn’t have happened. Ah, well.
In an hour or so, I’m going to fire up the grill and grill some chicken breasts. I haven’t decided what side dishes I’ll make yet, but I do know I’m eating chicken breasts. The nephew is going to come back over as soon as he’s done dropping his daughter at the airport. She’s heading back home to Idaho.
I watched a rather stupid movie last night. Do not watch Cursed , it’s beyond lame. I, however, was lame enough to sit through the entire movie. :rolleyes: There was one very funny part however. I won’t share it here, in case someone wants to actually watch this movie.
I have nothing else exciting or mundane (let’s face it, most of what I type is pretty mundane) to report or share.
And look for the picture thread, while you’re at it, EllaBean. Although we have no definitive proof of his ursinity, at least not with the pictures that he’s given us here. :dubious:
There’s no real reason behind my username. My nickname in high school was “donkey”, due to a conversation with another random guy.
Random guy: ::point:: “What’s his name?”
Other Random Guy: “Donkey.” (never figured out why)
<snip>
Random guy: “Hey, Donkey.”
Me: 
“What?”
So then, I wanted an AIM name, but donkey was taken. Random adjective plus “donkey”=username.
Just wait for Flarduh, Virginny, and Indiannoplace to come up in next week’s thread…
Ooh ooh! What will I do with my little treasure? I could put him outside on the balcony and share him with the world, but he’d get brittle and I wouldn’t be able to see him as much. If I put him inside I get to see him all the time but the world is deprived of his radiant and awesome beauty. Of course, I could take him to work but I’d be afraid someone might be tempted to steal him. Giant plastic grasshoppers being completely irresistable the way they are. Also, just how does one go about wrapping a giant plastic grasshopper for mailing? And what could I give you in exchange? I mean, anything I could get you would melt, be illegal and/or something you’d be able to get yourself, so that’s not very special. Oh, I know! Do you like putting things in other things or resting your elbows more? Italian or Chinese? Also, your three favorite colors.
Waitaminute! Is it right of me to deprive the MMP of such an excellent newbie torture device? I’ll abide by whatever the MMPers decide. It’s only fair. I suppose.
[sup]Whimper[/sup]
I’m wearing two different shades of navy blue today. My tank top has slightly more royal blue mixed in the navy blue than my jammie pants. I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all.
So how did I come up with my user name asks Ella Bean. Well, one day I was sitting there looking at the SDMB registration page on my computer screen, trying to come up with a good name. It had to be not stupid and kinda cool and short, which is nearly impossible. Well impossible for me that is, I mean you just have to look around to see plenty of user names that fit my criteria so obviously it’s not impossible completely.
Which is something you’ve mentioned noticing already and isn’t surprising in the least because you seem like one of the sharper crayons in the box. That always struck me as a rather odd expression. Even factory sharpened crayons aren’t terribly sharp. Another expression that never made any sense is ‘dumb as a box of hair.’ Now I have a ziploc baggy, sandwich sized, of hair that I mean to braid and then make into a cover on a hair clip and my mom also has a bag of hair that is a regular bag of the kind that you got years ago and don’t find much anymore, because it requires a wire twist tie to close. A red twist tie in this case. Mom’s bag of hair is also mine, from my own head not that it’s some random bag of hair that I loaned her, to clarify, which isn’t as weird as it sounds because it’s a braid of my hair from the first time I ever got a bunch of it cut off at once. It’s really blonde and the cut end is velvety soft. Too bad it’s so old or we could donate it to Locks of Love because it’s about nine inches long even braided. Aside from bags of hair, I know Victorian women used to keep a ceramic hair keeper on their vanities so they could collect enough to take to someone who’d use the hair to make things like hairwork flowers. So really bags and ceramic keepers are generally what are used to hold hair, not boxes, and that’s why that expression befuddles me.
Anyway, my mind wandered and then I saw something shiny and it was hours before I got back to the registration page. It was finally my prep period, which is sixth period and is nice *only * because I can leave my room a couple of minutes early and make it out of the parking lot before after-school traffic makes that right turn into the left turning lane impossible for nearly an hour.
I went to take off the big old denim shirt that I wear as a smock when I do anything really messy like ceramics or making a plaster mask of someone’s face. Word to the wise: plaster masks are another situation where you just can’t use enough lubricant. So I felt a little lump in one of the breast pockets, which was really on my ribs because it’s a big shirt, I’m telling you. And I could tell that it was a little lump of paper that had gone through the wash.
I dug it out of the corner where it was a little stuck, because sometimes I find money I forgot about completely and then when I do find it months later it’s kind of like winning the lottery only on a much smaller scale and they don’t give you one of those gigantor checks. I wonder if you get to keep that big check or if you have to leave it? It’s not like you could cash it, so that’s not the problem with letting you keep it, if they actually don’t that is. And would it fit in your car I wonder too.
Giant things are hard to drive with, let me tell you. Once back when I had barely started teaching I made a giant flying pig for my sister who used to love pigs but doesn’t any more. That thing was about four feet long and the wing span a good six feet which made the cab of my little old faded red truck a bit crowded to say the least. Now I know you’re thinking, ‘well if she had a truck, why didn’t she put it in the bed?’ and that would be a very reasonable question to ask, except you don’t know that the giant flying pig was made out of papier mache and wouldn’t have made it through the entire three hour drive up to Riverside which is where she lived at the time. My sister lived there that is, the pig wasn’t there yet and it was a boy pig in any case even though I hadn’t made him anatomically correct or anything. It would be rather oogie to make papier mache pig gonads I would think, and be hard to explain if the principal walked in, that’s for sure. Plus, he just had a boy-pig air about him, so he was a boy and so it wasn’t to him I was referring when I wrote ‘she’, though there was no actual physical evidence of his boyness.
So I had to put it in the cab and amusingly, it fit best facing forward so it looked like I had a giant pig with lavender wings and pilot’s goggles sitting next to me while I gave him a ride to the airport or something. People laughed at that the whole way, which was cool because anytime you can brighten someone’s day is a good day, until the laughing gets irritating, which is about three quarters of the way toward Riverside from my home.
Turns out that it wasn’t money in my pocket it was a little square of note paper from the notepaper cube I keep right here on my desk actually. Which was weird because I hardly ever use that pad to write anything down, that I’ll take out of the house. Unfortunately, the message was completely washed away except for a ‘g’ and that didn’t help me at all, so it would have to remain a mystery, which I hate. I mean, I don’t even like to read mysteries unless they’re funny like the ones Janet Evanovich writes. Have you noticed the last couple of books in her Plum series really haven’t been as good? That’s extra sad because her other non-Plum books aren’t very good at all. I’ll still read the new one but not until I can get a paperback version.
So anyway, I was standing there holding the mysterious piece of note paper with the unhelpful ‘g’ on it, when naturally my user name came to me. I know, I know, you’re thinking why didn’t she see that coming a mile ahead?, it’s so obvious. But it was my prep period after all and I’d gone six hours straight, teaching art to teenagers, so you’ll excuse me if I need to be hit with a clue by four. Which is an expression I like, by the way.
So yes, I totally didn’t notice that the note paper was from one of those cube shaped pads that has a little hole in one corner to hold a pencil, not provided, thanks notepad cube makers, and the outside of the cube is printed with pictures of stuff. Way back when I bought it I had to choose from several artsy themed pictures because I was in The Museum Company store and they sell lots of art stuff, being a museum gift shop sort of place and it’s to be expected.
What wasn’t expected is that the place stayed open for a really long time before closing last year I think. Of course I don’t understand how the Taco Bell here down on the border where I live stays open either. I mean, every other restaurant around here makes better tacos than Taco Bell ever dreamed of, much less actually makes, but people go in there all the time, so that tells you I’m no judge of which stores will fly and which won’t. That’s another expression I don’t understand either and maybe I’ll write into Cecil about it. Where does the expression ‘to fly off the handle’ come from Unca Ceece, Hunh?’ Only he’s probably already answered it and I should go search the archives instead of asking the man the same question twice.
The only notepad message cube thingy I really liked was the one of a stained glass window of some pretty flowers, by Tiffany of course. The stained glass, not the cube. I don’t know who made the cube because I just checked and there’s nothing printed on the bottom and I threw out the wrapper years ago.
You’re probably groaning in disgust that it took me so long after finding and seeing the little note paper before I could come up with my user name. It’s a little embarrassing I do admit. I mean how much brain power does it take to put together the posies in my pocket and come up with Ashes, Ashes? Evidently more brain power than I possessed at the moment. But it’s okay because I get a lot smarter during summer break when I don’t have so much on my mind and right now my tank is almost completely refilled.
It was nice of you to take an interest Ella Bean. What about you?
:eek:
best story ever!
and I’m going to have a lot of searching to do when I become a real member (It’s taking a little more convincing than I had anticipated. After all, why would I want to pay money to be on a message board when there are plenty of free ones?) The picture thread will be at the top of my list. I like seeing the people I’m talking to. Right now, I picture you all looking sort of like the smileys. And that’s just wrong.
My eyes hurt. That was a long story. My eyes also hurts because I’m tired.
There were at least a hundred thousand people or so milling around listening to music tonight, just outside work. Maybe the paper tomorrow will have the precise number. I hope so. It really was at least twenty-thirty thousand, but I’m not great with estimating huge numbers.
Sleepy.
I made a big pot of chili, and some Stealth Onions. Mr. Lissar throws up if he eats onions, but I think onions are an essential flavour component in many foods. I caramelized a huge bunch of onions, blended them smooth, and then froze them in ice cube trays. I will now sneak them into food.
I’ve done it before. It works nicely- I get onion flavour, and he doesn’t throw up. Perfect.
Also, Ella, you haven’t joined yet. You should do that. Say tomorrow?
Preview is my friend. Keep working on the People with Credit Card Powers.
When I was still single and bought my first house, one of my sisters lived with me - my picky eater sister. She claims to hate onions. She’ll use them when cooking for others, but she won’t eat anything with onions in it - so she says.
I know it’s a scientific fact that one can’t make a good meatloaf without onions. Just can’t. Knowing this scientific fact, I made meatloaf for us one day. She asked if I’d put onions in it. I lied and said “No” - she ate it and liked it. I snicker about it lo these 25 years later.
My grandfather had an onion speech - my maternal grandfather. If someone said, in his presence, “I don’t like onions” he’d launch into it.
Onions are good for you! You’ll never see a worm in an onion. They’ll go rotten but they’ll never get worms. Onions are good for you.I never did get the connection with the worms and the rot, but I do like onions - cooked onions. Not raw ones. Maybe you can try the speech on him, Lissla. You’re welcome.
Ashes, Ashes, my goodness! Did you drink an eight shot Americano or something? Or…are you taking lessons from dangergene?
Well, we’re heading back out on the boat again, so I better get ready to go now.
Thank you. I think Mr. Lissar would say it’s because onions are so toxic that not even worms will eat them.
The list of things Mr. Lissar won’t eat is incredible. I am glad that I have Driving Husband and Attacks Things Husband. They’re both good eaters. Lazy Husband is even pickier than Mr. Lissar. He eats pizza, fish and chips, and slushies. That’s about it. Pretty depressing.
Let’s see. Mr. Lissar doesn’t like muffins, bread pudding, anything with onions, gingerbread, cornbread, cherries, blueberries, baked potatoes, rice pudding…
Ashes, it’s not healthy to hold your breath while you’re posting. Really. You’re allowed to breathe between paragraphs. Between sentences. Sometimes between words, even.
But still the best name story, even though I’m not sure what it was.
Me, I garden and I travel. Sometimes I travel to gardens. Sometimes I garden when I travel. Seemed like it summed up a significant chunk of my non-working life.
Ella, you’ll be glad to know that Etlanner is also a city in swampy’s neighborhood.
Also, there have been several name threads in the last couple years. I think this one is the latest one. It has links to previous ones. I don’t remember very many MMPers participating in them, though.
Yesterday, I went on a garden tour kind of in the Dayton area. Today, it was lunch after church, and then my continued search for a phone that isn’t an answering machine (I have voicemail) but has a speaker phone AND has reasonable sound quality. You’d think that would be possible to find, but apparently phone quality ain’t what it used to be. I have one with poor sound quality both coming and going. Found one that was OK on my side, but the people I was calling couldn’t hear me clearly. Maybe today’s will be better. I’m going to look at my pics from yesterday and then it’s back to reading Harry Potter.
GT
I’m an adverb.
I might be the only one on the SDMB! Just an adverb, I mean, not a phrase.
I try to live up to it.
Except today, watching Lance on the podium, when they played the national anthem. Then I was more Weepily.