Inside My Head show number eighty one.

No. Just no.
Things are not going my way, and that includes my allergies.

Wondering how this year’s “Quest for a Shamrock Shake” went? Shawno and I recorded our yearly trek to McDonalds, and I included it in today’s show. You get to come along with us, and see if we did, in fact, manage to obtain the highly coveted Shamrock Shake.

Today’s haiku of frustration is called : “Pollen Count”.

This haiku is part of my contributions to the Envisage 365 blog. The blog started in September of 2007, and there were fifty women from all over the world involved. Each of us submitted one photo each day, and we will continue to do so until the year is over. We are more than halfway through now. If you like looking at photos, you may want to go over there and click around. All my photos have an exclusive haiku attached to them, that you won’t have read anywhere else.

Music in today’s show by:
* Trey Green, with a song called “My Fantastic Ass”. Couldn’t say no to the guy with the Fantastic Ass song!

* Jonathan Coulton, with a song called, “Take Care Of Me”. I’m always impressed by the work of Jonathan Coulton.

Normally, I do not include videos of songs that are made by fans, but, I am fairly certain that Jonathan Coulton allows his fans to use his music for videos they create. I found this wonderful video for the song “Take Care of Me”, by Jonathan Coulton, that some brilliant person put together with scenes from the TV show “House”. Unfortunately, the creator of the video has disallowed embedding, so, you will just have to go here to check it out. It’s worth it, especially if you are a fan of House.

Ok, that’s all I got for now. “Have a great day, or not. The choice is up to you!” (This phrase is announced daily at the school I work in).

I got this book as a gift from a good friend. “It’s a Thanksgiving present”., she said. I’d never read anything by Pratchett before, and had been planning on reading one of his books, in that nebulous time all things are supposed to get done in, known as “Someday”. My friend, undoubtedly realizing the vast distance from Now until Someday, went ahead and put the book directly into my hand. A very good strategy, as it made me go ahead and read a book by Terry Pratchett long before Someday actually arrived. I even had some left over time to spare, which allowed me to write this review, for you to read when Someday does finally arrive. After having read this book, and enjoying it greatly, I believe that, henceforth, the official gift to give a procrastinating friend as a “Thanksgiving present” shall be a novel by Terry Pratchett.

While I’m not certain if Wyrd Sisters is, in fact, the first book in the series, I do know that it reads quite well on it’s own. There is a wonderful description of Discworld, what it is, what it looks like, and why so much magic can be found there. Once you learn about all of that, you are ready to jump in and explore Discworld for yourself.

In this book we meet three very influential women of Discworld, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, who are also known as “The Wyrd Sisters”. Granny Weatherwax is proper, somewhat conservative, and a witch. Nanny Ogg is wild, passionate, (both about her drink and her men), and also a witch. Margrat is young, not yet confident, and learning how to be a witch. The three clash on how to go about doing most things witches do, but, manage to work together when they really need to. It is my understanding that these three characters appear in other Pratchett novels, which makes me happy, because I would love to hear about whatever else they end up doing.

At the beginning of this book, we meet King Verence, who is a king troubled with problems. One problem is that he happens to be quite dead. Another problem is that he is absolutely miserable as a ghost. His biggest problem might be either that his infant son wound up missing soon after his death, or, that his somewhat insane cousin, Duke Felmet, has now taken over the kingdom. It’s hard to tell which is worse.

The Wyrd Sisters, um… I’m going to say “find”, the infant son, and decide immediately exactly what is best for him. They get him adopted by traveling performers, where no one will ever think to look for him. Until, one day, the Wyrd sisters change their mind, go looking, and implement a creative and detailed plan to set things right once again.

In between, there are lots of things I am leaving out for the reader to find and enjoy for his or her self. Death is a character, and he’s rather funny at times. There is this horrible cat named Greebo, who is, by far, is my favorite character. I laughed out loud at every scene Greebo was in, and then insisted my poor husband listen to me read him those scenes, so he could laugh too. Greebo is awesome! There are lovers who are lacking in social skills so much that I doubted if they would ever manage to finally get together. Many characters have hidden identities. There is a dwarf who writes plays you just might find oddly familiar, and a magic stone, who is painfully shy.

Sound a bit strange? Well, that’s because it is. But, that doesn’t stop Pratchett from creating a world I’d like to visit if I could, or from tying up all the loose ends together in a colorful, if off-center, bow.

Live show?, Erk in America, shopping, eating, random cell phone conversations, movie review, franchise renewals, Sham Wow guy gets a ho, As The Type Moves, fan mail, wacky news, more.

Links:

• Channel Erk
• Batman (buy the DVD) (download the DVD)
• “Prince – “Dreamer” on Leno 3/26/09:”
• The Dark Knight (buy the DVD) (download the movie)
• E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (buy the DVD)
• “ShamWow Guy In Slap, Chop Bust”
• 2broadscast.com
• Millionaire or Bust
• “Barack Obama is @#$% tired of this @#$%!”
• “Courtney Love Being Dragged Into Brave New World Of Twitter Litigation”
• “Quakes keep shaking California’s Salton Sea area”
• “Keswick man’s ‘threat’ to drive tank through bank causes panic”
• “The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??” Named Official Oklahoma Rock Song”
• “Ourobouros Podcast #93 – Hating On The Reality TV Stars”
• “Hey, Wesley”
• Music heard in this episode: The Sidebars (download the song)

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Show length: 1:36:10
File size: 66.1 MB
File type: 96 kbps stereo mp3

Click the play (>) button below to hear this show now!

I’ve written my first article for Helium. Feel free to read it here.

Adorable!

Pollen count is high
All of nature… it hates me
Oh, just kill me now!

Here’s our third song, “Bubble.” Jen wrote the lyrics for this one. I did everything else. This is the first song we’ve ever collaborated on. As I mentioned before, this song was inspired by a chat Jen had with a friend on Facebook. Enjoy.

I’ve been thinking about money a lot lately. I suppose a lot of people are. In an attempt to keep more of mine, I made some phone calls. The first two were successful; I managed to get my home phone and cell phone bills lowered. The total savings only amounts to about $30.00/month. But I won’t complain. (I’ll be able to save even more in a few months when I can get out of my current cell phone contract by switching to a different carrier.) I then had two unsuccessful phone calls. Both (not surprisingly) to creditors. It’s no shock that the last two companies weren’t interested in helping me lower my monthly payments. But it didn’t hurt to try. I’m also considering looking into the government’s new program to help lower mortgage payments. My apprehension with the program is that it seems like it’s geared more towards homeowners who are under threat of foreclosure. And I’m glad to say that I’m not in that boat. Still, it’d be nice to save some scratch on the mortgage payments. Guess I should take my own advice and just give ‘em a call.
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