Does Anyone Know What 'Literally' Means Anymore?

Is now a good time to rant about something of genuine non-importance? I wasn't sure. Based on my father's example growing up I am left to assume that the best times are during the 6 o'clock news and 'when-it-pertains-to-nothing-else,' but I wanted a second opinion. Too bad I can't hear you advising me not to continue. So, onward.

Recently, I have made an observation that irks me immensely. So immensely does it irk me that I would gladly have forfeited the original observation just to be rid of the damn thing altogether!  I don't know if this is the fault of texting, or instant messenging or computers or Al Gore but I have noticed that people--mostly young adults--seem to have lost the original translation of the word, "literally." 

Now, I'm going to make up some history to explain my point.

You see back in uh... Egyptian times the word 'literally' meant something to the effect of, 'in a very strict sense.'  This way, when the little servant dude ran into the Pharaoh's court, bowed, struck his breast and declared--

"Great Pharaoh, reign forever! Your chariot has been trampled under the hoofs of a thousand pre-historic elephants! It has literally been flattened into a single piece of iron no longer fit for your royal transport!"

 --Pharaoh, time-conscious prude that he was,  didn't need to be all like, 

"Whaaaa? Like fo really, really?"

Cause he knew servant dude wasn't playing around. He said literally, which back then meant 'I have already qualified what I said, please continue with the appropriate emotional response.'

Today, in an effort to further waste my precious time, the people who most frequently use the word 'literally' use it with the expectation that I then should have to inquire if by 'literally' they meant 'lit-er-ally' or nothing of the sort. This is a step I find all too annoying and redundant. This is a step I find all too annoying and redundant. 

See what I did there? Precisely. Now, I rant:

If you, the speaker take it upon yourself to use the word 'literally,' why is it then MY responsibility to follow up to make sure that I understand correctly what YOU meant to say? This is ridiculous. Widen your vocabulary. The movie didn't make you literally cry your eyes out. You still have your eyeballs and they are in your head. The movie made you cry a lot -- say that! This way I can go back to being genuinely enthralled in a story that utilizes a word that in short means 'THIS  ACTUALLY HAPPENED." Otherwise you are robbing me of the visuals that inevitably accompany your statement.  

Therefore, the next time someone yells,

"Oh my god, I was so mad, I like literally-shit a brick!" 

You ask that jackass for proof.  

 

Netflix Killed the Video Store

There are a number of potential blog entries that float through my mind on a daily basis. The majority of them go untapped on account of sheer laziness really. It's almost a shame that the initiating spark for unsung blog posts such as, "You--Tiny Human, to Whom do you Belong?" are given into my hands to be delivered to the world at large. But alas, a few nuggets make it through. I happened upon one such nugget on the bus today as we passed a BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO. 

Now, aside from the fact that this particular location failed to replace the bulbs on a few crucial letters (the storefront actually read _LO_K_USTER __DEO) there was no real reason for it to catch my attention other than the fact that seeing it, sad and vacant as it was, made me realize that as a contemporary American consumer--the 'video store' is simply a concept I have no more use for. Commence bulldozing.

Be honest, who uses video stores? Most people who still have video store memberships are busy moving to different counties to escape the criminal fines. Let's face it, there just aren't reasons to drive to a building to rent a movie when society has declared, "Packaging be damned! Just gimme the square paper thingy with the clear plastic circle."

And I'm not saying this is anything new. I, in no way, was an early-adaptor to the online movie rental phenomenon. Yet, just a few short weeks of Netflix enrollment has restructured the entire way in which I come into contact with post-theater flicks with enthusiasm that far exceeded my expectations. "What's that Inner-Self? Time to check the mail? The movies I cued up yesterday are here? O delightful morn!" 

It's magic, I tell you. Maybe evil magic.

But some critics (read as, unbelievers drowning in a sea of instant-gratification filth) will complain that it's too long to wait 24-hours to get a movie. What if you are called upon to entertain a group of unannounced slackers? You can't tell them they have to wait until tomorrow to see '27 Pounds' or whatever that new Will Smith tear-jerker is. Certainly, now one must rush to a Hollywood Movie Emporium or Mr. Filmtastic, right? Incorrect, again. While Netflix holds the 'video store' in a headlock, Redbox goes straight for the nads. 

Tough, scrappy and available everywhere, the Redbox movie rental kiosk sniffs twice, wipes its upper lip and asks, "You want ya movie? I got ya movie right heera." 

Though rapidly becoming a common watering hole for lowlifes and change collectors, Redbox offers the selection and the immediacy demanded by the quick-fix movie consumer. Besides, you can forgive yourself for rushing into the world's worst movie rental decision EVER if you only paid a dollar (a day) for it. 

Okay, so here's the last straw. The last reason America needs video stores. Video games! Surely, the three racks of previously scratched copies of Extreme Tournament Golf will keep them coming back for more, right? O dagger in my breast! I guess now would be a bad time to bring up Game Fly dot com, where you can even rent the gaming console?

Your honor, I rest my case. 

There you have it folks, a solid three-point defense. Netflix killed the Video Store. Now, give it a slap on the wrist and send it off to play with iTunes.

A pessimistic Sunday leads to pleasant memories

Do you ever have those Sundays when you wake up far too late in the day to accomplish anything worthwhile? Those are exactly the kinds of Sundays I am used to having.

They aren’t all bad news. By loosing half a day in slumber you save up on those precious calories (yes! 789 left!). But the downside is by the time you get moving everything seems dull at best. The warm sunny skies give way to a neutral weekend gloom, and every television station reminds you that unless you have an interest in golf or poorly written situation comedies you need not tune in. Even your multicolored Cap’n Crunch seem downgraded to a murky Private Chewy. The next thing you know, without your consent, it’s become Sunday Afternoon with your favorite Pessimist, you.

That could have been ‘all she wrote’ for me today, that is until an unmotivated dig through a spool of unmarked cds lead me to a rare gem: what might as well had been a musical time capsule from 2003, the year I graduated from high school.

Suddenly, instead of mindlessly populating a PHP database to the hum of my disaster-prone dishwasher, I was reliving moments from the summer I gained my independence. Musing about Commencement weekend to some poppy anthem by Vitamin C, laughing at my own embarrassment for finding the need to capture whatever drivel Vertical Horizon was putting out at that time. All at once, warm and jovial inside a bubble of melodies and memories and seventeen year old bliss.

How bright and unexpected the moments we happen upon when content to bask in mediocrity.

Presence of childen at WALL-E makes for less enjoyable viewing

So, this is one of those blogs that manifested itself as a single thought only.

I wrote that sentence, the title of this blog, a few summers back when WALL E was wheeling his little treads across the hearts of Americans everywhere. The inspiration for such a comment spawned from the time I went to see the feature early on a Sunday afternoon, evidently before the bedtimes of a relatively talkative batch of tiny humans.

In general, it seems that most people are unopposed to things like "child-like wonder" and "merry-making" and what not, and let it be known that I too am in favor of those things when executed under strict supervision within the proper arena. My point? A movie theater is not the proper arena.

Also--animated classics aren't just for YOU, little people. Go find a grown-up to read this next part and listen carefully, as your tired mothers obviously neglected to tell you this:

First of all, children, not everyone likes you. In fact, there are a great many of us who find you to be selfish, abrasive, unsanitary carriers of disease and bacteria which is largely due to the fact that you are consistently covered in old food. Also, as this is really the point I'm trying to make, you really possess an air of entitlement that bypasses cocky and lands you ass-first within the realm of the just plain absurd. It's not your theater and you have no right to carry on as if it were.

Secondly, just because a movie doesn't have human beings or real sets or Keanu Reeves in, doesn't mean it was made especially for you. As a matter of fact, (and you're going to want to hold on to your Pull-Ups for this one) cartoons were never made for you. Grown-ups have been using them to talk politics, social sciences and trade sexual innuendos over your heads for decades now. Well, I would imagine since their inception in fact (look closely at the cover of The Little Mermaid when you're older). I don't care if you found something WALL E related in your cereal box. Eventually, you're going to have a conversation with some adult about landfills and recycling and Peter Gabriel and then you will know that they would have won.

Or even more likely, you won't.

There. Now, does any of that make sense to you, oh underdeveloped little being? You can send your mothers away now as I hope the rest of this tirade reaches you by the vehicle of an unsettling feeling or the urge to suck your thumb. Maybe next time you'll think twice about yammering on with your insolent questions and detracting from my enjoyment of the mute, robot lovers.

Yes. I'm OLD.

[Update: I like children now.]

my worst fears realized

So, by now it should be apparent that I have some pretty irrational fears. Fear of swallowing a spider in my sleep, fear of drowning in the ball pool at Chuckie Cheese (or IKEA), fear of waking up to find I've been transformed into a giant cockroach (see Gregor Samsa via Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis"). But my most gruesome of attainable fears was realized last night when the cottony swab of my Q-Tip dismounted its plastic shaft and became lodged in the primary opening of my right-side hearing device. 

It's the closest I've come to fainting, outside of those two times I actually fainted. 

Just like that, I was made deaf and left staring at the stripped, blunt end of my now, half-naked, Q-Tip. Immediately, my head began to swim with long-lost fragments of ill-composed Biology notes and questions I could not answer: What will happen if I can't get it out? Will it eventually reach my brain? Where the hell is my Semi-Lunar Canal and shouldn't it prevent this sort of thing from happening?!

For a bit, I even had a brief spell where in mental time-lapse I witness the stinking, rotting decay of the cotton swab within my inner ear where it would remain trapped until being eaten by scavenger ear creatures. It's hard to relate clearly what happened next.  Something took over. I must have (with head leaned drastically to the right) unearthed a tweezer and went to work on the matter with little regard for decency. When I awoke I was sitting on the bathroom floor tearing with nervous excitement, examining the surprisingly clean white devil. 

 

Needless to say, I decided to forgo cleaning my left ear. 

let's get up to speed, shall we?

So, I start blogging in 2005 not because I had anything particularly important to say, but mainly because it was easier to write it somewhere and have other people read it than it was to force people to listen to me in social settings. The blog was on Myspace, which was fine, but since I have long outgrown the joy of endangering myself for social gains, I have upgraded to Blogger (Yes, I think it's classy too.)

But don't be concerned, you can put a homeless man in Louis Vitton and he'll still dig up french fries from a trash can. I say that to say that even housed within the more elegant Blogger solution the quality of my writing is not likely to improve. It may -since you brought it up- decline under the pressure.

Anyway, I'm about to post a number of blogs previously posted on Myspace just so that I can catch you up on all the useless thoughts I have been thinking. They will look like as if no one has read them, which is true, but know that they were from a time and place forgotten and that starting from this post, the madness begins again. Just think of all the dumb things yet to be writ.


O.K. I think that's all from me. Happy reading.

Love,
Your mostly melancholic observer of life, Nita.

some misguided efforts for 2008

Happy 8th Day of the New Year!

I can celebrate it, right? Of course I can. Because yes, while you all were toasting and boozing and apologizing to your significant others for making googly eyes at half-clad strangers, I rang in this New Year's with a shot of Amoxocilin and a case of influenza.

Shut up. I had a great time.

In fact, I woke up with 14 minutes to midnight, which turned out to be just long enough to suffer through another Fergie performance of "Big Girls Don't Cry." Needless to say, I was too weak to kill myself.

Then finally the ball dropped and I, with a chain-smoker's hack drug myself through a verse of Auld Lang Syne, wished the television a blessed New Year and went back to bed. But in my feverish sleep I drew the inspiration for this blog. (Hold on, I'll get to the point shortly).

As I laid in bed taking in the sounds of the South Minneapolis area I live in, sounds of police sirens and crackwhores, it was then that I decided: This new year, I'm not going to make useless resolutions for myself. No, I'm going to help others. I'm going to invent well-meaning, but misguided non-profit organizations to help inner city folk, such as the ones setting off car alarms outside my apartment building. So, I went to work on a mental list to save the world/projects. Here's what my deteriorated mind produced:

Shanita's Well Meaning But Horribly Misguided Inner-City Community Building Non-Profit Agencies for 2008:

1. Hug-A-Thug-Everybody (HATE) – Because everyone needs a little love sometimes.

Sometimes you just need to be reminded that not everyone despises you and wants you to move out of their neighborhood and stop endangering the livelihood of their children and businesses.

2. Educated Broke Folk Forever (EBFF) – Together, we can take the "Ho" out of "Homelessness."

Just because you're unsuccessful, doesn't mean you need to turn to the streets.There are lots of unsuccessful people who, because of their expensive education, feel great about themselves and their inability to make ends meet.

3. Illegal Operations Made Possible (IOMP) – You call it, "organized crime" we call it "business management."

In every gang-banger and drug dealer there's a waiting entrepreneur! With proper skills in asset/liability management, bookkeeping and fiscal responsibility there are no ends to where you can end up! (Including, but not limited to a maximum-security prison.)

4. Natural Inventions in Growing Great Agricultural Shit (NIIGGAS) – Helping you grow only the finest hemp under the pretext of medical research since just now.
Start up is easy. We work with what you already have. Transform your hoopty into a fully staffed mobile opium den! They say "You can't!" we say "You CAN(nabis)!" Financial freedom is spelled, W-E-E-D.

Two other potential organizations that didn't get properly thought through were Mothers Of Fundamentally Underachieving Kids w/o ADD (MOFUKA) a group that allows you to blame society for your children and (SHIIT) or Sex Has Its Inherent Troubles, a support group for folk who can't find they baby daddy.

So, there's the list folks. It is unlikely that Oprah will sponsor me. But then again I'm holding out for Dave Chappelle.

Donations?