Failbook

Social networking sites are a nightmare for me, but yet I still continue to look at them multiple times a day. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. . .despite my disdain for them, I have them all.

Every time I log on Facebook I’m appalled by the amount of people who don’t know the difference between there, they’re and their. (I mean, c’mon people, it’s grade-school grammar.) Even worse than the repeat grammar offenders are the people who post controversial status updates just to encourage argument. I myself have the tendency to choose the path of least resistance, so confrontations and arguments are not something I enjoy, (In fact, they bother me so much that I sometimes lay awake at night thinking about all the arguments I’ve ever had, wondering how I could have avoided them.)  so it is beyond my realm of understanding why someone would want to have an argument on a public forum such as Facebook. The third and final thing that bewilders be about social networking sites is the young age at which kids are making Twitters and Facebooks. I’ve had children as young as 7 try to add me as a friend on Facebook! When I was 7 we didn’t even have a computer, and when we did finally get one I spent most of my time on it creating “masterpieces” in Microsoft Paint. At what age will my future children have a Facebook? Will they just be assigned one at birth? Will the nurses say “When you choose a name for your baby we will go ahead and create her own Facebook and update her status to ‘OMG, I WAS JUST BORN GUYS, HAPPY BDAY TO ME’.” *heavy sigh*

So the question remains, WHY do I put myself through the torture of scrolling though Facebook, and Twitter? If it bothers me so much, why don’t I just delete all my social networking accounts? Well, maybe it has something to do with the pictures of baby animals that my grandma posts to my Facebook timeline on a daily basis . . . Or maybe because I follow my celeb crush, Joseph Gordon Levitt on twitter, or because my best friend posts pictures of her Corgi wearing various costumes on Instagram. The smart thing to do would be for me to delete all the folks that annoy me, and only keep the people I truly care about. (Such as my grandma, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and my best friend’s Corgi.) 

Adventue Time is a Post-Apocalyptic World!

I have been asked by a couple ofmy classmates to explain Adventure Time,so here it goes. . .Adventure Time isa popular cartoon that is featured on Cartoon Network. The setting is the Landof Ooo, which is an island on post-apocalyptic (I’ll get more into that later) Earth.

Main Characters:

Finn The Human-The only human inthe Land of Ooo, was 12 years old during the first season of AT.

Jake the Dog-Finn’stalking/magical dog. (Finn was raised by Jake’s mom and dad. . .So really they’rebrothers.) He is 28 in magical dog years.

Princess Bubblegum-Ruler of theCandy Kingdom, made entirely of bubblegum. 18 years old.

Lumpy Space Princess (LSP)-Lookslike a floating purple cloud. Lives in “Lumpy Space”, so technically she’s analien.

Marceline the Vampire Queen-1000year old vampire, though she still acts and looks like a teenager. She singsand plays the bass guitar.

Ice King (Formerly SimonPetrikov)-The Ice King is a wizard, but 1000 years previous to the time settingin AT he was a human studying to be an antiquarian (specialist in the knowledgeof ancient artifacts). But when he found and donned an anceint magical crown(the crown that the ice king is always seen wearing) he began transforming into a wizard. (The crown is the source of his wizard powers, and his extreme oldage.)

Okay, now on to the good stuff. Isaid earlier that this is a “post-apocalyptic” world, here are a few clues thatI picked up on to make this connection.

    1. Characters often refer to the “Mushroom Wars” (Finn finds a VCR and Jake says that no onehas used those since before the “Mushroom Wars”.) and “Mushroom” refers to themushroom clouds that occur after a nuclear bomb explodes.

--The NuclearWarfare happened 1000 years previous to the time setting of AT, so this helpsto explain all the strange creatures, they have evolved from the humans andanimals that survived the war and the radiation!

     2. Earthis shown often, but instead of being the round Earth that we know, it is shownwith a big chunk taken out of it, likely brought about by the “Mushroom War”

      3. Inmany episodes what appear to be left over nuclear bombs can be seen lyingaround, in fact, in the opening song at the very beginning you can see thebombs.

      4. Inthe episode “Mortal Folly” Finn travels to what appears to be the dilapidated NewYork Subway system. Also, skeletons wearing what we would think of as modernday clothes are strewn about.

Adventure Time is a very interesting and entertaining show (Eventhough it is pretty silly/weird sometimes!) and I hoped this may have generatedsome interest in the show for some of you! If so, check out a few episodes onmastertoons.com, then let me know what you think!

Beautiful Rare Words

Words! Beautiful words!! The words featured up there in mycomic are just a few of my favorite words. I have supplied the definitionsbellow.  Check these rare words out!

Basorexia-Overwhelming urge/hungerto kiss.

Chimerical-existing only as theproduct of unchecked imagination : fantastically visionary or improbable

Mulligrubs-ill temper; colic;grumpiness.

Mimp-to speak through pursed lips.

Apodyopis-the act of mentallyundressing someone

Lanule-the moon shaped marking on thebase of the fingernail.

Vulpine-crafty; cunning; fox like.

Paralian-someone who lives by thesea.

Druxy-something that looks good onthe outside, but is rotten within.

Qualtagh-the first individual aperson meets after exiting his or her house.

Tittle-the dot over an i.

Petrichor-the smell of the earthafter it has rained.

Agelast-a person who never laughs.

Gauster-to waste time conspicuouslyesp. by talking and gossiping

                I liketo think that I have a faily large vocabulary, but finding new words like thesereally humble me. There are so many words out there that I had no idea about!  (My personal favorite is qualtagh, who wouldhave thought that there was a specific word for the first person you encounterafter leaving your house?!) Although some of these words are silly, andprobably wouldn’t be used in normal conversation, (Girl-“Hey! Were you apodyopingme?” Dude-“Uh, what? No?”) they should still inspire us to expand ourvocabulary to include more interesting words!  Let’s all try to liven up our language with afew of these rare words. Instead of saying, “Man, I’ve just been grumpy today”,try saying, “I have a bad case of the mulligrubs this Monday.”  Sure, people will probably think you made thatword up, but at least it can be a conversation starter!

                Do anyof you have any favorite “rarely used” words? I’d love to learn them! Let’sexpand each other’s  vocabs. J

Everyone Makes Mistakes

My biggest pet peeve is when people use your instead of you’re. So, just for the sake of education, let’s have a crash course is the correct usage of you’re and your. YOUR shows possession, such as “Is that your cheese?” or “Your mustache looks really good.” While YOU’RE is the contraction of you and are, for example “You’re the cutest thing I ever did see.” Or “You’re not the boss of me!” Most of us would agree that this grammar rule is easy-peasy, no problem. . .But sadly, it seems that quite a few people missed the School House Rock episode that explained contractions.

Now just because that is my pet peeve does not mean I run around like a crazed grammar nazi, correcting every your/you’re mix up. Actually, I don’t correct anyone’s grammar ever, unless I am specifically asked to edit something. Why not? Because I’m not their English teacher (yet), and it isn’t my business to correct them. Also, if I went around correcting everyone’s grammar, if I were to make an accidental grammatical error I would look like a hypocritical ass, or at least that’s my logic. Although, I have discovered that not everyone shares my logic . . . I still remember it like it was yesterday, I was simply scrolling around on Facebook (probably procrastinating on a paper that was due in a few days), and I made the simple comment on someone’s status, “You’re friends are funny.” At first I didn’t even notice my mistake, I was in a hurry to go get my popcorn out of the beeping microwave, but when I returned to my computer I saw it. A comment underneath my comment, and all it said was “your*”. That’s it. I was mortified, I had made the one grammar mistake that I always hated . . . I was one of them. I thought about pleading my case in another comment, “Please understand, that was just a mistake! I know the difference between your and you’re, I really do!!” but the damage was done, I would just have to live with the shame. (Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but you get my point.)

Everyone makes grammar mistakes every now and again, even us English majors. So next time you see a grammar mistake on Facebook, take a moment to think, “Should correct this person, even though I’m not their English teacher? Maybe they were just in a hurry to race to the microwave to prevent their popcorn from burning. Maybe I should give them a break.”  Leave the corrections up to the professionals.