Caution: This post contains political incorrectness
It’s 4 AM and there’s a fat man in leopard prints pants on TV. I don’t know why.
The satellite TV isn’t working because it’s raining. It’s been raining forever. I wanna know how big a cubit is (a free humor book to the first person who can tell me what a cubit is)
I can only get three local channels without the magic satellite signal, and I can’t check the on-screen guide to see what retarded old movie this is. Two of the local channels are showing infomercials. Even in my depleted mental state I will not watch an infomercial. That leaves some 90’s teen movie on the remaining channel. It’s colorful, and has pirates, which should be enough for my reduced brain function.
Ahhh…pretty colors…nooo, brain is insisting it must know…stupid brain. I Google the only celebrity I recognize, Corey Feldman, (Googling Corey Feldman sounds like fun, but only would be, if Google was wearing a studded leather dog collar and carrying a whip.)
Here we are…the best review (unedited, cause that’s what makes it “special” and yes I mean retarded) from IMdb:
National Lampoon: Last Resort - this movie was soooooooooooo FUNNY! I seen it on USA when i was obsessed w/ corey feldman and i used to tape all his movies that were coming on….Anywayz while i was watching it i couldnt help but realize how stupid it was but thats the whole point!
Uh, OK. I got up for this?
No, I got up because of the friggin’ rain. Incessant, mind-numbing rain. Rain that drips like Chinese water torture and keeps me awake and yes I know that saying, “retarded” or “Chinese water torture” is politically incorrect and I don’t give a flying monkey.
A flying monkey carrying a letter of the alphabet.
This is how I explained e-mail to my mother-in-law.
How did we get from retarded pirates to my mother-in-law?
It’s easy when you’re me (thank your lucky stars that you’re not).
As loyal readers know (all three of you, since I never have time to visit anyone else’s blog and therefore my readership has fallen like so many incessant raindrops) I’ve been spending a lot of time with M-I-L. She’s family, and she needs me, so it’s OK that I’m losing my mind.
She bought a computer.
She’s planning an estate sale to get rid of a lot of Pop’s things, since he passed away in February. Now it’s June. God, how’d that happen? Anyway, she has all sorts of collectibles that she wants to sell, and some people at bingo suggested we put them on eBay. Damn them. So she wanted a computer.
Guess who gets to teach her how to use it?
Ever tried to explain the Internet to your grandma? After a while you just sigh and say that there are tiny flying monkeys that take the words off the screen and carry them through the phone line to somebody else’s computer.
About to lose my mind from all of this, I bitched to Amy, who has the patience of a saint. Amy is a smart woman, whose advice to me was, “Never let her see your blog.”
Amy, who is wise in the ways of the Internets also hooked me up with Twitter.
Twitter is a new (to me anyway, since I get to spend about four minutes a month online these days) website that lets you leave little IM-type blurbs about what’s driving you crazy. It’s one of those cute little sidebar thingies over there—->
This is another thing I will not be showing Grandma
Grandma is not grasping the basic terminology of cyber-world.
She wanted to make lists of the things that we are going to look up on eBay, so I installed Word on her new computer. Grandma called it Microwave Word.
I enlarged the font, once I got out of the bathroom, where I went to hide and laugh without hurting her feelings.
Now she calls it Microscrot. Picturing an operating system designer with a miniaturized scrotum is easy after you spend a few days trying to figure out Vista. Get me the dog collar and whip again.
The Worst Salesman in the World warned us. We went to look at computers and talked to SuperSlacker.
He informed us (in exasperated faux geek talk) that all new computers are equipped with Vista and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nope, you can’t install an operating system you know how to operate on it - voids the warranty.
He went on to say that nothing would work with it, not even the free printer in the ad that drew us to the store.
Grandma didn’t understand anything he said after “Whacha want?” (Which I’m sure is in the employee handbook as the proper way to greet customers wanting to drop hundreds of dollars in your lap) and SuperSlacker assumed (wrongly) that I knew nothing about computers. Ha! I speak geek you fool! (I may not actually understand how all of this stuff works, but I know the terminology by God, and can BS with the best of them).
Plus a menopausal, sleep-deprived woman who’s driven ten thousand miles to haul her mother-in-law to the computer store in the incessant rain is not one to mess with.
I laugh at your extended warranty offer! No - “DPI” does NOT stand for digital photographic images, it’s dots per inch, you jackass! I will NOT purchase anti-virus software for $49.99 when I can download AVG for free! You will NOT sell me a five-dollar printer cable for twenty-seven bucks!
Now stop quivering and carry it all out to the car or I’ll sic my tiny flying monkeys on you.
Posted by Marti @ 
Hi there Geek… errr sorry Marti, you have been having fun haven’t you, with all the computer tuition that you’re doing I don’t think you’re gonna have time to build an ark but just in case…. a cubit is a measure of length, sad to say it varies from 17.5 inches up to 22 inches depending on the era of use and who’s telling the story.
I think the important thing to d would be to settle firmly on one measurement and stick with it, very hard to make your ark waterproof if you’ve used different cubits for say the front and the back.
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:30 am
Woo-hoo! We have a winner!
I will contact you, Peter, for mailing info for the book! Thank you for being a loyal reader! You deserved to win!
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 am
I once had a mason tell me a cubit is the distance from the bony prominence of your elbow to an imaginary plane at your knuckles formed by making a fist.
I’m glad Peter got it.
In RE: “Flying Scrotums”
Where in hell is your head at these days? What an ugly image to burn into my frontal cortex!
I much prefer flying pigs, by the way. Flying monkeys always remind me of flying poo…
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:06 am
So sorry, Wil! Thanks for stopping by!
I appreciate your definition of a cubit. I knew it had something to do with building Noah’s Ark….lol
I have no idea where my head is these days - lol
When I think of flying monkeys, “The Wizard of Oz” always comes to mind. But, uh…flying poo as a description for how the Interent works ain’t bad - LOL
Best wishes to you!
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 am
Too funny! I LOVE your MIL. And no, you don’t have to buy a computer with Vista on it -you can always get a Mac.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:56 am
isn’t a cubit that little guy with the bow and arrow you see around Valentines Bay?
June 4th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Oh my I’m too late about the prize. I guess I’ll just read the rest of the entry…
FINISHED!
Teaching the elderly about the computer is not an easy task. I have always been my Dad’s e-mail checker since he doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do with his own e-mail account. Not that I am complaining
June 4th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Hi Missy! I considered a Mac, but I’ve never used one, so we’d have TWO people who didn’t know what they were doing - LOL
Paula - that is hysterical! You are too funny!
Empress - good to see you! How nice of you to help your dad like that!
June 4th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I think I’ll take you shopping with me next time I need someone to shake those freaks down.
June 5th, 2007 at 1:45 am
“Twittering Scrotums” - is this like the x-rated version of “Bambi”? Oh, you remember when Wise Old Owl is telling Bambi and Thumper about being “twitter-pated”. Marti, I ’bout passed Maxwell House through my noise upon the opening of this post! Guess I didn’t read the subject line from my e-mail very well.
Don’t hog all that rain, either. Send it southward, PLEASE!
June 5th, 2007 at 6:33 am
I don’t know how you do it Marti! Even with all you have going on you still make me laugh.
Thanks!
June 5th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
For the record, I didn’t know what Twitter was either until you mentioned it. In fact, I still don’t really know, but at least now I know that I don’t know!
:)
Mystery
http://www.shotinthedarkmysteries.com
June 6th, 2007 at 1:23 am
Hold the phone on declaring victory. While it is possible that a cubit can be 18 inches (exact), it also can be as much as 45 inches. So how big do you want your ark to be?
And don’t give me that crap about having only 4 mins on the internet. Took me about 10 to get thru this.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Ah…when I saw your title I thought I was back at the goat dairy farm watching the bucks, um, buck their way into dominance. The toughest dude of all have twitters that nearly hung to the ground.
But that’s neither here nor there. Well, actually it is there, because Twitter lives and Twitter breeds and that’s why we have kids - baby goats, that is.
I have a REALLY bad hormone headache right now. Does it show?
My mother IS your grandmother and I help her with her PC even though I have a (please bow low and remove your shoes) Macintosh.
I also help her even though she lives in SC and I live in Maine and I never know what she’s talking about. I’ll be posting about it VERY soon and you WILL read it because you feel guilty for not autographing my copy of your book.
I need some Ibuprofen.
Did you notice that your “twitter” arrow points at your Queen Clutz reviews?
Did you notice that I spelled Queen Klutz incorrectly?
Can we send the little monkeys over to my mom to help her figure out how to download pictures?
Maybe I need something stronger than ibuprofen.
I’d better go before my incessant droning starts reminding you of the incessant rain.
Ciao!
June 7th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Pamela - be happy to - LOL
Michael - you are too funny! I’d send the rain to you if I could!
three collie - thanks!
Mystery -
to you to hon!
Hoss, I type r-e-a-l-l-y fast - LOL
groovy - you are such a hoot! Try Aleve, it works wonders!
June 8th, 2007 at 7:11 am
YAY! I finally bought your books! Woohoo! I’m going to keep one for myself and give the other two as gifts for now. Can’t wait to get them!
:)
Mystery
www.shotinthedarkmysteries.com
June 8th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Hi Marti,
Amy’s Musings’ mom here, she sent me over and I am so glad she did. You are hilarious..love this and will be back! Geez, some of this reminds me of “me”..well I’m not this bad, but Amy has been known to growl under her breathe occasionally at me ;0)
June 9th, 2007 at 11:48 am
I spent the entire time I was reading this giggling! LOL thanks.
June 10th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Talk about measurements you can’t get your head around…. let alone remember from elementary school math class…yesterday I was online ordering tissue paper for my shop and found that I could only order it in “choirs”… needless to say, I wasted way too much time trying to figure out how much a choir was and if I was going to have to pay extra shipping to get it here. Yes, I am still clueless and tissueless….any suggestions???
June 10th, 2007 at 10:14 am
You almost made me spray my Pepsi all over my keyboard, Marti!
Microscrot. I’m loving it!!
June 10th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Hi Marti,
You are too funny… I laughted so hard I… I’ll spare you the details.
Thanks for visiting my Blog… you have the honor of being the first one to post a comment.
June 11th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Mystery - THANK YOU!
Hi Amy’s Mom! I stopped by your blog - you’re a hoot! Thanks for visiting!
Twisted - I am so glad I could make you smile!
Julia - that is some freaky measuring! LOL
Hi Deborah! Great to see you!
Alice - I am delighted I could be your first comment! Best wishes for many more!
June 12th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Great entry. There were so many things that cracked me up….the subtle Noah’s Ark reference was my favorite though. I just pictured so many people asking “What the F is a cubit?”
June 17th, 2007 at 1:28 pm