Monthly Archives: October 2013

Scary Things / Halloween Decorations 5: Glitter

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Greetings, Fluffsters, and Happy Halloween!

Yes, indeed. This is the day that my most recent posts have all been leading up to. Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, October 31, Fall Fest, whatever.

Because I’m looking forward to a lot of fun, today’s is going to be relatively short. After all, it doesn’t need to be much longer… I’m just talking about:

Scary Things and Decorations: Glitter.

When I asked people about scary things, 4/5 people (or so) did say that glitter was the scariest. And even though I use the stuff, I can’t say I blame them. There are several reasons for this.

1) It sparkles. Yes, that’s the point. But it’s so blinding at times! And if it gets on your eyelashes, it looks like there are little flecks of light dancing in front of your eyes, which can be distracting, especially if you’re trying to dance. (Yes, this is experience talking.)

2) It gets everywhere. This is the biggest reason. There are lots of times I’ve tried to confine my glitter to a specific place. The glitter, though, has a mind of its own. You can almost hear the chorus of little voices saying “nope!” as they run ALL. OVER. THE PLACE.

That’s actually about it for scariness… But that’s enough, wouldn’t you agree?

Decorating with it.

Don’t. Just don’t. You’ll regret it. I’m warning you, it really gets everywhere!

If you’re still reading this, you clearly don’t believe me. So here are some instructions to minimize the damage.

1) Don’t. Seriously. Don’t use the glitter.

2) If you must, use lots of glue. That will help keep the glitter in approximately the right place.

3) DO IT OUTSIDE. Not kidding, the stuff gets EVERY WHERE.

Well, that about sums up glitter. Have fun!

Scary Things / Halloween Decorations 4: Lost WiFi

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Hiya, Fluffsters! Can you believe it’s Wednesday already? Only one more day left in the series! (After this one, of course.)

Today’s post is truly frightening.

One of the scariest things in the (first) world: Lost WiFi.

Think about it. You’re on your computer, watching your funny cat photos, when, WHAM! No. WiFi. No. Internet. This is terrifying, for several reasons!

1) Disconnect from your social life. What if someone is trying to email you? You’ll not see it for another while, until the internet comes back!

2) Disconnect from real world events. No breaking news about celebrities. No twitter updates from your friends a few hundred miles away who are experiencing an earthquake five seconds before it reaches you, which would have given you enough time to run around frantically for a whole FIVE SECONDS LONGER as you try to remember proper procedures for earthquakes!

3) You need to face reality. Or at least a more tangible one. Or a non internet one. Granted, you could read a book and still escape real life, or play a (gasp!) on-your-machine computer game like solitaire. But really, who does that?

Yes, I think it’s safe to say that lost WiFi is one of the scariest things. It’s a bit hard to decorate with, but I think you can do it.

Decorating with a “Lost WiFi” Theme

1) Print out large versions of this symbol:

no internet symbol

NO INTERNET!!!

Actually, that’s about all I can think of right now. Maybe place that sign strategically between the “bugs in your code” posters I suggested yesterday? Huh.

Well, happy Wednesday!

Scary Things / Halloween Decorations 3: Cheerful Greetings

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Greetings, Fluffsters! Happy Tuesday! I hope you’re having a FANTASTIC week so far!

…Oh, no. Please, tell me you didn’t take my comment yesterday about peppy greetings seriously.

…

Actually, today’s post is, in fact, about the next of scary things in this series:

Overly Cheerful Morning Greetings

Here are several reasons why:

1) There are few people scarier than morning people. I’m looking at you, miss “I wake up at 5:00 every morning so that I can run 20 miles, clean my room, study Descartes, solve Nuclear Physics, and do my hair / nails / makeup perfectly before breakfast” person! You’re too insane. And cheerful mornings are a way of coming across as someone who does that.

2) It’s in the Bible.

Proverbs 27:14: Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice,
rising early in the morning,
will be counted as cursing.

So, yes. It’s biblical that too-early morning greetings are scary.

…ok. I might grant you those. How do you decorate with a Cheerful Greeting, though?

There are several ways I can think of right now, actually.

Halloween Stuff to Do with Cheerful Greetings

1) Intersperse Hallmark greeting cards with your other decorations. The cognitive dissonance will be a bit much for any visitors.

2) Print out overly cheerful spooks / monsters / etc., and give them speech bubbles of cheerfulness. A scary monster… who’s cheerful? Odd. And freaky. Think about it. Even in books where monsters are friendly (*coughtwilightcough*) the creatures are gothic. They’re not bright, bubbly, OMG HI YOU’RE HERE LETS PLAY!!1!!1 types. Which is a bit odd, really, since that would be more of an indication of psychopathy in the monsters. So the books where monsters are evil should really have a lot more cheerful, morning monsters. And then you could print out posters of the characters, and incorporate cheerful greetings into your Halloween decorations.

3) Or, just dress like one of those characters who may not exist yet. Granted, that’s not strictly decoration. But I still think it qualifies.

Well, happy Tuesday! Can you think of anything I missed, Fluffsters? Or have you decorated this way before? If so, I’d love to see it.

***bonus***

Well, I just thought of a way to decorate with extra cheerfulness that would also be frightening.

Take a sheet ghost, with its cheerful speech bubble, and give it a feather boa. Feather boas are frightening to begin with. Throw in peppiness and mix it with Halloween, and I think you’ve got the winning scary decorations.

Scary Things / Halloween Decorations 2: College Websites

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Hello again, Fluffsters! Happy Monday!

So… your next post in the “scary things” series- is it on greeting people? And wishing them a happy Monday in a too cheerful manner?

…No. But that’s actually a good idea! Maybe I’ll do that next year.

Today’s post is actually about one of the genuinely scariest things on the face of this earth:

College Websites.

Pause for a moment. Think about it. You know it’s true. Especially if you’ve tried to navigate one before.

You know what? You’re actually right. Those things are scary.

Thanks, Fluffy! It’s nice to have outside confirmation.

How College Websites are Scary

1) You get lost too easily. Frequently, a college or university website is nothing more than a set of miniature websites jammed together into a “single” website. There’s no rhyme or reason, and broken links abound.

2) You can’t even find anything. Seriously. Most of the time, rather than actually using the site to find someone, like a specific professor’s website or anything, I use Google. Here’s a useful tip for you, actually: If at the beginning of your Google search you put (site:sitename.ending keyword1) that tells Google to search just that site. So for example, if you want to find information about getting a Ph.D from Harvard in economics, you’d type site:harvard.edu phd economics . It helps. It’s certainly a lot easier than trying to click your way around to the econ department site!

3) They can determine your future. If you can’t find out how to apply to an undergraduate program, you can’t go to that program for your degree. If the site crashes as you’re trying to upload an application or trying to pay for an application, it might not work. Then your application wouldn’t go through, and you won’t get into the school, and your life might be worse off.

4) They suck away your money. Applications are expensive. College websites are responsible for applications and charging you for them. So therefore the university websites take your money from you.

In other words, college websites are scary, and totally worth being used as Halloween decorations.

…Ok, you got me. How do you use a website as decoration?

I’m glad you asked!

Using A College Website as Halloween Decorations

There are several ways you could do this.

1) Print off the homepage. Some universities should seriously reconsider the graphics artists they invested in. Just looking at the homepage is enough to make one cringe.

…says the person who designed a site to look like a baby-yarn star exploded onto the web.

This website’s at least tasteful, ok?

It’s not like a school that uses pictures of the grounds in the background… in such a way that the pictures can’t even be seen fully.

Oh Redevki. Some school sites actually do that?

“Redevki”?

Oh, sorry. It’s a mild expletive on my world. It’s comparable to your “Oh My”, but a little bit stronger.

Ah.

But yes. I’m not going to inflict that link upon you. Needless to say, though, it would make a halloween decoration too scary to behold.

2) Print off the 404 links on pages that you need to access. Then paint an evil face on it. Maybe fold it, and make it look as though it’s coming to eat your soul. I tell you, the 404 errors will get you every time.

Weird… You’re actually writing stuff I agree with this post.

It had to happen some time. Don’t get used to it.

3) Create a slideshow of the code. Especially areas where the website uses any sort of inline styling. I realize this just went over the heads of anyone who doesn’t do website stuff, but trust me: it will make every (decent) web developer cringe to look at.

3b) Draw bugs over your slides of the code. That way you can demonstrate genuine bugs in the code. This gives you the added bonus of the evilness of a pun!

4) Require guests for a party to print off a particular page that you describe as their ticket. Or as the way they get candy. Granted, this isn’t strictly decoration related. It’s still Halloween themed, though, so I’m including it.

But there you go, fluffsters! Some more information about the scariness known as university websites.

Scary Things / Halloween Decorations 1: Hairspray

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Greetings, Fluffsters! I’m back! And you have no idea how glad I am to be. Do you have any idea how hard it is to write even the minimal HTML I use in these posts on a cellphone? Well, it’s difficult. Let me tell you that.

But that’s not actually the purpose of today’s post. No. You see, Halloween is coming up in a few days, and I’m deciding to jump on the bandwagon that I’m sure is out there, and make my posts roughly relate to the mood.

In other words, I’m going to be trying to write a series on scary things. And since Halloween decorations are usually scary things, I guess this means I’m also writing about the creepiest Halloween decorations of all time this week! Or just scary things, if it’s intangible. You know.

Things you eat could fill out the series quite adequately…

Hey, I already suffered through that Lemon Dessert for the sake of this blog. I’m not going to do that more than necessary.

Besides. I already have a topic in mind:

Hairspray.

This stuff is really weird. And this comes from someone who uses it fairly often. I still think it’s scary for several reasons.

Like the fact that people use it?

Funny. No, that’s not exactly one of the reasons.

1) Its flammable warnings. It’s very plain on the bottles that it’s flammable. So why are there warnings? Have you ever considered that?

2) It’s like superglue. But for hair. The “crunch” it leaves in hair is quite bizarre. How does it do that?

3) Using it around eyes/eye-wear is nerve-wracking. You need to make sure that your contact lenses or glasses are far away from the spray, or it could cause problems. You also need to make sure to cover your eyes if you’re going to use hairspray, or it could hurt. That’s a bit scary!

4) How does it get ink out? Because it does. You can use heavy duty hairspray to get ink stains out of at least clothing. Sometimes it even works on skin.

There you go, fluffsters! Four reasons why hairspray qualifies as a halloween decoration. I hope you enjoyed. Have a great week!

Spontaneous Fun

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Greetings, Fluffsters!

This post is being written from a phone. I love technology!

because of this, though, I’m going to cut this post short. Happy Saturday! I’m having an AMAZING one, hence my need to write this on a phone.

more tomorrow! Have a great weekend. 🙂

Starch Three Ways

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Hello again, Fluffsters! Happy Thursday!

Once again, I’m going to be lazy and take advantage of foodish type things that happened at the cafeteria I go to regularly. Today’s demonstration is of dinner a couple days ago. I now present:

Starch 3 ways!

a meal served by the dining service- couscous, pasta, and bread.

A balanced meal. Starch is evenly distributed throughout the entire meal!

The three main parts were bread, a “chicken Parmesan pasta bake”, and couscous. In other words, starch, starch with a bit of protein mixed in, and starch with a few veggies.

I’m guessing that it qualified as “balanced” for three reasons:

1) Technically, it included vegetables and meat. Even though they were very difficult to find.

2) We have “Itallian”ish bread, a grain from North Africa, and a purely American invention. (I’m quite sure the Italians would be cringing at what’s been done to the pasta.)

3) Most importantly, it’s well balanced on the plate. The center of mass remained at the approximate center of the plate, so it’s therefore balanced.

So, Fluffsters, can you think of any other ways that this meal is able to be considered balanced?

Late Night Discoveries: Fish is an Adjective

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Did you know that lack of sleep makes life… fun?

Well, it does. So many things just POP OUT at you that you wouldn’t have noticed before.

Huh. I think I really don’t want to know where this is going.

Probably fairly accurate.

For example, here’s an example of a late night discovery.

Fish is an Adjective.

I think I’m going to leave before you make my brain hurt.

…suit yourself. But all I’m going to do is explain why the word “fish” is an adjective.

…Exactly.

Some folks…

Ah well. So, think about the word for a moment. Fish. (Interesting sound, isn’t it? It has a vowel/consonant ratio of 1:3. And it sounds weird!)

Now think about another word. Owl, for example.

Now think about the word Owlish. That’s an official word- my unedited spellchecker says so! It may not accept my name, but owlish is definitely a word. But I’m getting away from the main topic here, aren’t I?

Owlish is a word. More to the point, it’s an adjective, because it ends in the word “ish.”

Similarly,  the words trueish, blueish, and amateurish are all adjectives. They start off as nouns, and then you add the word “ish” to them to make them adjectives.

Therefore, fish must be an adjective- it ends with “ish.”

It even makes sense. The word describes a particular concept, and it sounds a bit like what the creature does. Can’t you hear the splash with the “sh” sound? Add the “f” sound right before, and it really sounds like it’s describing something splashish!

This was just one realization I came to last night, after way too little sleep, too much caffeine, and too much sugar. Isn’t life more interesting like this?

Happy Wednesday!

“Creative Minds” Habits.

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Greetings unto you, readers all!

Today, in my perusal of the vast amounts of information now available, I came across a rather interesting article. I appreciated this article in part because it uses the word “faff”. That is a wonderful word, is it not?

The article discussed the various routines and habits of creative minds throughout history, and provides an analysis of the author’s attempts to imitate those habits. I have to admit, some of them looked like they would be rather interesting to try.

If you are looking for some easy to read ideas for self-improvement, I recommend reading the article.

I hope you have a joyous Tuesday!