6 posts tagged “qotd”

How do you handle phone calls from telemarketers?

As a telemarketer myself--although I have been trained to call myself "fund raiser" (What's in a name? That which we call a rose, etc.)--I am somewhat sensitive to the brutality suffered by all people who deal with strangers on the phone for money. I detest those who hang up immediately upon hearing I am calling from their alma mater, I hate rude spouses who refuse to hand over the phone, I hate people who are short with me as if I am responsible for their traffic. All one requires is a simple, "I'm not interested, thank you." Then I can hang up, turn to the person next to me, make fun of alumni and their answering machines, and continue my calling for another two hours... all in the name of federal work-study loans.

This does not stop my father from torturing hard-working telemarketers, however. He ranges from pretending to be a seven-year-old child saying his father is not home to a bereaved brother saying the man of the house just died.  But I suppose we all must have our amusements in life, especially when one's request to be put on the Do Not Call list is ignored.

I am tired.

What TV show(s) will you be watching this season? Why? 
Submitted by ducnly.vox.com.

Repeated rewatching of Arrested Development. Stop. Rewind. Watch again and again and again and ... don't judge me, but I also watch Prison Break and Lost. I sigh; it's a futile battle. Go ahead and judge.

I am going to eat an orange. My hands will smell of citrus all throughout phonology class, and I'll have small orange bits of peel crammed under my fingernails, but it shall be delicious.

Ever since the crime-scene investigation of our assualted and violated car while we were away on vacation, my dad has decided and carried out his swift plan of pre-emptive warfare on any and all petty thiefs and grand burglars. Today, Craig the Bell South Guy was in our home (and in my room) for five hours installing motion sensors to monitor any suspicious activity. This means a few new things I must resign myself to--

1. Strange beeps everytime someone walks into the house. The network, whom I have dubbed Hal because it's only too appropriate, has not yet had an episode in the few hours it has charged itself with our care, but don't blame me if one day it shoots out lasors at the Mormons coming around and preaching the Word of Financial Duties to God.

2. There are cameras all around the house INCLUDING ONE IN MY BEDROOM. Of course, my father insists that they are simply motion detectors that can notify us should a window be smashed in à la our poor Buick, but THEY LOOK JUST LIKE CAMERAS. What has stopped the government from making a deal with Bell South to keep tabs on innocent families? For goodness' sake, IT'S ABOVE MY BED. IT CAN WATCH ME SLEEP AND IT'S WATCHING ME RIGHT NOW TYPING THIS ON MY COMPUTER. Telescreen, anyone? Hal is smirking, I have no doubt, as my father continues to gaze at it fondly and caress his cricket bat just in case. (He doesn't have a cricket bat, but I prefer the imagery to those of his beaten old golf clubs).

3. I'm still not convinced it can do anything other than emit a fierce beeping noise at intruders. All the theif needs is a glass cutter (for my bathroom window, undoubtedly the most vulnerable spot in the house) with which he will create a tiny hole UNSEEN BY THE TELESCREEN/MOTION DETECTORS and reaching in with his leptodactylous, dexterious hands he will unlock and open the window, leap to the floor with catlike grace, slither into my room, KILL ME, continue upstairs and find... oh wait, that's right. WE HAVE NOTHING VALUABLE IN THE HOUSE. Except for some antiques that I doubt he would be willing to carry. Anyway, when I mentioned this OBVIOUS FLAW in the entire programming, my father just looked bemused for a second, most likely pondering why I have such a morbid imagination. Then he shrugged and was probably going to make a joke about how the sound of me gurgling on my life's blood from the throat slice would probably alert the monitor above my bed, but Craig chose that moment to walk in.

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And now for something completely different--

What's your morning beverage of choice?  Coffee, tea, juice?  Homemade or store-bought?

 My tea addiction has never been stronger, and recently I've succumbed to the numbingly strong taste of Shamrock Irish Breakfast Tea. Of course, I'm a simple soul who relies on the tried-and-true Earl Grey most of the time, however.

(A small disclaimer of sorts: in my current state of extreme wariness, I feel I cannot be held responsible for egregious misspellings or any other destructions to the English language).

What are your favorite and least favorite words?  Any reasons why?
Question submitted by Byrne.

Let me state, first off, how much I adore this question. I subscribe to Dictionary.com's Word of the Day and Wordsmith Word of the Day in order to learn the most bizarre words which I will most likely never use. But as for my favorite words, they don't necessarily occur in the English language. There is the (somewhat cliché) Japanese word "こもれび komorebi" which conveys the imagery of sunlight filtering through trees. I don't like the way it sounds; I decided when I was studying Japanese that it wasn't very interesting regarding its phonemes and intonations, which is perhaps why I don't regret stopping it. But some of their words are so breathtaking and untranslatable, as I've found with at least sixty percent of Chinese.

Unlike a lot of people (it seems), I think the English language is beautiful because of the ridiculously large (stolen) vocabulary and sibilous sounds that we have. I love to read books about the history of the English language because it's so fascinating and has had so many different influences. But for the most part, I tend to prefer words because of their definitions than how they sound. There are exceptions, of course, such as my ridiculous obsession with alliteration. It is a requirement of most poetry I like that it sound incredible when read out loud, like Paul Verlaine's "Chanson d'automne," whose assonance is breathtaking. But I digress into a topic I already wrote my structuralist paper on for my literature class last semester. One word that has an interesting definition and also describes me frighteningly well is "accismus". Other words I like for one reason or another: sublunary, agog (which I first heard sung by Grantaire--"I am agog; I am aghast"--in Les Misérables and almost died laughing), Schadenfreude and indefatigable.

I absolutely abhor the word "hopefully," because it is never used correctly, and I find myself using it wrongly all the time as well. In fact, I tend to dislike and avoid words that are constantly being abused, such as "moot."

I realize that I have turned a rather simple question into one of my linguistic rants, so I will withdraw with the small amount of composure I have remaining to me.

What is your favorite cover song?
Question submitted by Ray.

Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails' song "Hurt." Do yourself a favor and listen to it.

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Things That Cause One to Frown in Disapproval

Writing in library books.
Defunct spell checks.
Cold rain trickling down the back of one's neck.
A slate-gray sky hovering overhead.
Finding that one has wasted half an hour on a Solitaire game.
Searching through the free-mint dish, one only finds green mints, and no red ones.

All my life people have been spelling my name incorrectly. It's not that difficult, really--six letters, A-l-i-s-o-n. It's almost always spelled Allison, but for four years my high school coach spelled it at least three different ways, including Allyson one memorable time on a certificate I still have (if only because I found it both amusing and insulting). He finally decided that if he called me Ali, he could spell that correctly, leading to all of the follow--Ally, Aly, Alli and Allie. According to Freakonomics, which no I haven't actually read but that doesn't keep me from citing it, mothers who name their children Alison are on average more intelligent than those who name their children Allison. I guess this has no bearing on me, but it does give me a vindictive pleasure, if only because I've been trying to explain for my entire life: one L is the correct way to spell it for a first name, two L's is the correct to spell it for a last name. In the end, however, it is futile, especially with the introduction and popularization of substituting Y's for I's. And so I've changed the spelling of my name to Allysyn (that's A-double L-WHY-S-WHY-N) because then people have an easy excuse to misspell it, and it makes it easier for me to tolerate the misspellings. I suppose I need to get my checks changed now.

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What's your favorite drink or cocktail? What's in it?
Question submitted by charm.vox.com

May I simple take this opportunity of the perplexing Question of the Day feature to state that anyone who sends me Smirnoff Malt will automatically gain my affection and approval? Thank you.