In the book Matilda, by Roald Dahl, Matilda, a little girl, defeats the antagonist, Ms. Trunchbull, by spelling out a menacing letter to her on the blackboard while sitting in her desk, using 'magical skills' she acquired when her superior intellect was channeled into an invisible force she was able to control. As you could imagine, having a letter spelled out to you with nobody visibly writing it would be frightening as heck, enough to drive any ex-olympian beast woman headmistress out of town. But now, that's what you see every day in classrooms, with the introduction of the SMART-podium, now employed by many teacher. It was installed right after everyone figured out that yes, a smart board is cool, but you still have to stand at the front of the classroom, AND you block the projector light, and while sure, you can move things around and let the kids use it, it is really just way too much of a hassle. Anyway. So now you see this everyday. But as you watch the words form themselves on the screen, as though written by an invisible hand, you think nothing of it, and simply continue to copy down all the facts about cellular respiration you never wanted to know. Although to be fair, the words being written are probably not claiming to be written by a ghost of a man you killed and tortured the daughter of.

Miss Honey was definitely too good to be true
Teagan

Purple just got all crazy popular in like, four months. It went from colour the purple fans wear to the colour everyone seems to be wearing to the colour that everyone is wearing. This year, I believe the colour will be salmony pink. Not good.
Firefox is red-lining all my 'colour's, because it is the Canadian way of spelling it and Sir Mozilla is apparently being patriotic to the USA. It's not that hard to remember to stick a couple of U's into a select amount of words, and yet most people never bother. If you neglect to spell things correctly, one day, it will come back to bite you, in the most ridiculous way. And you'll probably end up writing it in to Reader's Digest and making $100 for it, and calling it a stroke of luck, not learning any lesson at all. But I guess that's just how it goes.
Near-death experience today. Not really, but what could have been. Was driving on the highway when the worst flurries and blowing wind EVER took over. The sky was absolutely white, you could see maybe 10 m in front of you. Cars were driving less than 20 and with their blinkers on. We pulled over, out of the little mini convoy we were slowly traveling with to think. A small train of cars drove past us, we considered joining but did not. Finally decided to continue, and just a little down the road we met some better visibility. However, we also met what looked like that small train of cars, one smashed up on the side of the road with two parked beside it, and a fourth car swerved off on the opposite side of the road. Then it got worse again. Followed an SUV for a while, but it was going ever so slow, so eventually we passed it because it died down a little. Then we saw a line of police, their cars and their lights across the road, in what was unmistakably a road block of sorts. They gave us detour instructions. We took them. Later later later later, listening to the radio and their handy road condition update, they mentioned a 12 car pile up on the highway we had been driving on. We suspect that this was the cars we were driving with to begin with. Thank goodness we pulled over!
It's weird how sometimes you just cannot remember something. Something that you know you should know but just can't recall. But on the other hand, people have so much information stored [I know I do], it's a wonder we can recall anything at all.

How many cats is too many?
Teagan
PS. the answer is 8 cats, stick with 7

I don't even bother with this blog anymore. Blogging is like, hey, let me express myself on the internet! But then it gets hateful and sucky. So maybe you should split that blog into a diary and a useful, quirky website that adds useful information to society [as opposed to negative vibes and a whiny attitude].
Other really great books are basically anything that Augusten Burroughs has ever contributed anything to. He wrote his first book, Sellevision, which is fiction, and awesome. It follows the stories of several people working at a television shopping channel (named Sellevision, of course) and how messed up everyone's life is, regardless of what it would seem like. Then came Running With Scissors, an intimate memoir of his childhood and growing up in the most ridiculous way, it's shocking and just fabulously hilarious at the same time. Next read Dry, another memoir that follows him through a stint at rehab, what would be a dark time to read about if he wasn't so consistantly humorous in his writing. And when you have completed reading those fancy finds, move on to Possible Side Effects and Magical Thinking, two collections of essays he has written about different parts of his life, all of which make you think "Wow, this makes my life seems really dull!" and "My lord, how did he turn out remotely normal?" at the same time. When you are done reading [and re-reading] all those books, assuming you will immediately open up a new tab, type in a-m-a-z-o-n-.-c-o-m, and proceed to purchase each of the books I mention, then continue on with your Augusten Burroughs quest and get his brother's book entitled Look Me In the Eye, by John Elder Robison, his older brother with Asbergers syndrome. By the way, if you type in 'eyes', with an S, by mistake, be prepared to be hit with a tidal wave of Jonas Brothers. So there's some light reading to fill in your empty time slots. Pencil it in.
Oh-Nine, Oh My! of course refers to the year. As in 09, clearly. 2009 is epic. Inauguration year! That's not specific. That's technically every four years (unless you get involved with watergate). It was Obama's inauguration, and it is undoubtedly a very prominent moment in history. And yeah, now we're all just waiting to see what comes of this. First big mistake in 3, 2... hopefully it won't come to that. It also refers to the fact that this is the first post in 09. Still technically the first month, if I hit publish in the next oh... 17 minutes or so.
Paintings are just the coolest thing ever. If you walk into a house that has pictures on the walls, you think, "Oh, what a cute family. I bet the mom scrapbooks and the dad fishes and the kids tie their shoes using the rabbit ear method". If you walk into a house with nothing on the walls, you think, "Oh, this house is rather drab. The mother is most likely trying to balance a career and a family, the father probably goes out drinking with his friends and comes home late, running his dirty hand along the walls to keep his balance, and the kids probably colour with the 12 set of crayola crayons instead of the 24". But if a house has paintings, you think, "Wow". However, if the paintings are done on printer paper with watercolour paints and they are of a cat, refer to scenario one.

When your shoes cost more than your dress...
Teagan