The genius of google, and "white trash"

I'm really tired of my blog format, but I'm even tireder of work. The blog stays.

I just saw (and I am actually currently seeing) a guy wearing what I call a silver gangster necklace. I did not realize these were still fashionable, the last reported incidence being brother ben in the nineties. (Ben may actually still wear said necklace, but he is exempt from any comment being a) highly fashionable and b) my brother.) I could describe the necklace to you, but you know they say a picture says a thousand words and I'm into overdoing it lately.

Here are a thousand words from google images on "silver gangster necklace."

Google reads minds. So does Apple. I don't know how they do it, but they know me better than I know myself. So this isn't exactly what I had in mind, or what this guy is wearing, but it's pretty darn close. Strangely, it sort of resembles my David Yurman necklace (the picture, not the real one the guy is wearing) which is not gangster at all. I wonder how this fine jewelry store feels about their necklace showing up as the top image hit for "silver gangster necklace."

Because I couldn't believe that google knew me so well, and because I was unsure of my classification, I did another google image search for confirmation: "silver white trash necklace."
This image confirmed that my first hunch was right. What I was witnessing was gangster, not white trash. The above necklace is the sort worn by men with over-sized tshirts and pants. (I don't know what kind of pants, but pants are typically worn. The over-sized tshirt is the important part.) The below necklace is apparently worn by people who are white trash.

While doing this google image search, I thought about "white trash" and how unpleasant the combination is. I thought about how maybe I don't want to use this word anymore, because it sounds so hateful, so I decided to check out "white trash" in the urban dictionary. Here is some of what I found:
white trash: ignorant white people who like to fight and not finish school. Hobbies include cursing extensively, drugs, and wearing extremely large whife beaters. Traits--too much gel (or is it spit), ugly.
(I especially love the traits section. I have never seen a whife beater.)

white trash: White trash is a mind set and a condition of the heart....Being judgmental is a white trash trait, as well as being selfish and verbally abusive to others.
(So what do you call someone who calls someone else "white trash?")

No offense to any males who wear silver chain necklaces--gangster, white trash or otherwise.

To the day. A toast of random!!!

First of all, I see now that little yellow triangle with the ! informing me of the scheduled outage that is scheduled to outage right now. This means that I am writing into a void, on the faith that the outage will return to onage and this moment that I experience alone will exist later for you too.

Can you tell I'm running on 2 hours of sleep?

I thought my stomach growling was the wind. How could I think that something inside of me was outside of me?; how could I fail to recognize my own?; how could I confuse something so me for something so not me--so scary to me, the ultimate other???

What is the significance of three ??? in a row? It makes me dizzy to look at it and to think of it. I wish there was a sound for the question mark rather than a name; well, I suppose there is: it's the rise in the voice as it heads from ground to heaven, from knowable to un-.

I found a single bowtie at the bottom of my penne. I enjoyed the thought of being disconcerted by its possible whereabouts more than I was actually disconcerted...my fork might have slowed for a second as it approached my mouth, the landing pad, the mother ship, the giant red and black u magnet for comida. But now the single bowtie from my plate is a single bowtie in my stomach, maybe being bullied by those penne--those pesky pernicious penne who move through my insides like a gang sulking the streets.

Who am I kidding??? I don't know whether gangs sulk or if they just walk, or if they move at all like the united formations of birds I love on "Winged Migration."

I'm going to bed.

Can I be my own child?

By which I mean to say, can I post videos of myself making a fool of myself as though I had children and I was them? Because it feels a little vain to put stuff on here of myself, but I do have a few people out there who won't get to see this vid any other way cause the file's too big. So forgive me. Here's the ward talent show, the fruits of my labor. This video is dedicated to Uncle Mike.

Yodeling (in a trance)

Little old lady who?

The other day I saw a girl from my appartment complex at school and she said, "Are you the one I heard yodeling the other day? [implied but not said aloud--through my closed appartment and bedroom door?]"

And guess what I said? "Yes. Yes, that yodeling you heard, that was comin from me."

You may recall from a previous post that I've had a goal to learn to yodel, ever since I saw Uncle Mike at the Christmas party. I was no jokey. I have been practicing, rather loudly it appears, but let me tell you there's really only one volume for yodeling. I feel sorry now for being so critical of my daddo when he was picking up the tenor sax, because there was only one volume for the tenor sax too. I have a hunch that me yodeling wins way more annoying points than my dad tenor saxing, although it did get pretty old hearing the lead in to "Goodnight Sweetheart" over and over.

My dad's quirks do not end (or begin) with him ordering a tenor sax off eBay after seeing someone play "Goodnight Sweetheart" at my high school choir concert. I don't think I even solicited his help re: yodeling, but I did find the following videos in my inbox one day. If that (and by that I mean looking up weird youtube videos to help your daughter--and let's be honest, yourself--learn to yodel) is not the mark of a good father, I'd like to know what is.

I couldn't figure out how to get the vids to post so here are the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfdfTsdg1Iw

prefacing this one, my dad wrote: "if the first one doesn't work..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=389fdI7GlKc

Snow Caves

"Now there's a bad idea."



How 'bout we shovel a huge heapin' pile of snow into one place and then move all that snow into another pile? Just for fun. If that sentence was confusing, and you've never experienced making a snow cave, let me be more clear. I don't remember the last time I spent so much time doing manual labor...I started to wonder what I was being punished for. I have a few ideas, and you probably could think of some too, but back to the cave. Second counter-intuitive move: (after the initial decision to build a snow cave of course) burying our packs to save time in the dig-out. How 'bout we pile loads of snow on top of all of the stuff that's going to keep us alive just for added suspense and motivation? So long headlamp, stove, food, and warm clothes. Each shovel was a death wish.


So after we made our pile of snow, we began the dig-out which is pictured above. This part was slightly more fun and slightly more claustrophobic. Not going to lie--there were many moments when the whole process felt totally futile and I thought, "I'm gonna die out here! Even though I'm only minutes from the car, I'm gonna die out here!" I am a worst-case scenario type of gal though, so this isn't surprising behavior really. But we finished our cave, which is pictured below. I think it looks a little bit like Luke Skywalker's home on Tatooene, except made of snow and none of those little robber guys hiding in the dunes. Otherwise, pretty much the same. I'm pretty proud of our creation; not that you couldn't already tell by the fact that I'm posting about it.


Despite my moanings, this was a pretty cool experience. I enjoyed it much more than I'm letting on. I now know that I can camp in the winter (I had been skeptical before.) I'd like to thank--after the manner of Ben--dear mr. 0 degree marmot sleeping bag, mr. down jacket, mr. polypro gloves, mr. columbia boots, mr. nalgene hot water bottle, mrs. capilene long undies, and ms. everything else I had for making the trip so pleasant.

I did have a moment of panic when I woke up inside the cave after probably an hour of sleep convinced that my cave mates were dead. I couldn't hear any breathing or moving, I couldn't find my headlamp, and I thought I could feel the weight of several feet of snow above me. I asked a couple people, "If it collapses me, will I wake up?" and one girl answered, "If it does collapse, you'd better hope you don't wake up." I went to sleep on that thought. Below is a picture of the entrance and the site of the crime. Needless to say, despite the good times, don't come to me if you're putting together a snow cave outing. Unless you want to hire me on as supervisor instead of grunt. (One snowcave...is never enough. That is a false statement...but if you can name the movie reference, I take back my previous comment. I'll join your snow team any day.)