There's no "P" in "meme", please keep it that way
Meme from my midwestern speechbuddy lingprincess
Panda - Ah, pandas. Such adorable white & black things. My interest/love for them started around Summer 2002 with an incident at The Doug. Kris was making 2:37 AM and one evening described a planned scene to Steve. He said "Then, I pan to Jill, and..." Steve heard this as "Then, I panda Jill" (oh, casual speech!) and responded "Panda?" with paws and all. "WHAT?" This has been kind of an ongoing joke which is not really a joke, but a way of life. November 15, 2002, Dave & I went to Towson to visit RadioShack so's I could buy myself a new phone. (At this point in writing I took about a 25-minute detour through old e-mails & archive.org attempting to determine when I first bought a cell phone. Then I realized it was sitting in a file folder at the foot of my bed. May 10, 2002. Digression over.) We asked the saleslady to show us a model, which she obligingly pulled from the case and flipped open only to reveal as the backscreen... A PANDA. Dave & I, whom I should point out were dressed up, raised our paws to each other and asked "Pandaaaa?" This confused her. I bought the Knilepandaphone immediately. Thus, for most of my cell phone ownership, I referred to my phone as "the panda". As in "Give the panda a call." Summer 2004, I met Jenny who has a similarly odd fascination with the creatures. We bonded over this, and sometime later, she came across 2 "panda glasses". Until I received them, I was hoping for something like "panda goggles" which made my eyes look all cute. Turns out they're cups, but wonderfully big cups. (Sadly, I think one got sacced due to mold or something a while back, as I can only find one these days.) Epilogue to the phones: When I switched to Verizon, one of the default screens for my new phone was two polar bears boxing. THAT's a keeper if I've ever seen one.
Phonetics - The sounds of language fascinate me. I think I've always known this on some level, but probably didn't really figure it out until Language & Mind at the earliest and maybe not even really until I got to working in the Auditory Neurophysiology Lab that it's at the heart of what I'm curious about, at least for the foreseeable future.
Pennsylvania - Though a weird state in many ways (beer distributors?), I have had many a good time in the Keystone State. My earliest worthwhile memories of it were at Mansfield. Other great times of note: the old Flipse compound, road trips to PSU with Andy, and cheesesteaks. Less great times of note: the Harrisburg bus station, the Pittsburgh airport.
Pretentious - ACA have an ongoing debate as to who's more pretentious. She's a Yalie, but I'm anti-Ivy. Yet I went to a relatively snobby college. Her most recent zing was that I advertise the fact that I enjoy port. (another p!) I ask you, dear readers, am I pretentious? In my defense, I'd like to point out that I enjoy shopping at thrift stores and.. stuff.
Phish - Pressly really introduced my to Phish on ski trips in 6th grade, then later Katie Puccio copied for me a tape her brother had of a 1990 show and I started getting more into them. This led to trading tapes with various people online, hanging out in #phish on the Undernet (the source of the nickname "Knile"), and a red hat that I wore all through college. I didn't get to see Phish until 2003, which is a shame, partially because of the next item. These days my listening tastes have expanded a great deal, but I do go back to my tapes & CDs now and then.
Pneumothorax - My left lung collapsed at least three times between 1996 and 1998. In January '96, I thought I was having a heart attack when my dad was dropping me off at school. He realized I was having severe chest pains and couldn't really talk or breathe well. He flipped out & took me to the pediatricians' office, which wasn't really open, but they took us in & checked me out a tiny bit while the doctors were in a meeting. They weren't sure what was wrong, and across the street I went to the ER. The ER docs were similarly worthless for a little while despite an X-Ray: "Oh, it's just a heart murmur, it'll pass." Fuck no, this was the worst pain of my life! Eventually they figured out "Oh, look, 20% of his left lung isn't inflating." They stuck a shunt in me to suck the air out of the chest cavity (like they did to Logan recently and after 4 days I was out of the hospital. Two and a half years later, while Mom & I are trying to get a hotel reservation in Syracuse to see Phish at Vernon Downs, a similar pain hits. The surgeons cancelled my upcoming trip to see the show and scheduled laproscopic surgery for that day. They went in and found a blister that leaked air, so they snipped that part out, and stapled me up again. Two months after that ordeal, the lung collapsed again, and they told me it was time to break my ribs and remove part of my chest wall so that the lung would reattach better. I had the surgery over Christmas vacation, and man, that was one of the worst weeks of my life. I'd advise NOT undergoing recreational thoracotomy. On the upside, I do have a really super badass scar across the left side of my body. [Edit: And the incidents mellowed me out a bit, showing me the fragility of the human body. Sure it's cliche, but I appreciate life more. There's a lot of great things in the world, why not enjoy them?]
Pinewood - I grew up on Pinewood Circle. It's more like two sides of a triangle, but there are a lot of pine trees there. (Imagine that with Mitch Hedberg delivery and it's not really funny, but it sounds like something he'd say, no?)
Paranoia - I once requested my own FBI file because I was afraid the TSA had me on some list that led me to being searched frequently at airports. It was empty...
PhD - Eventually, I'll earn one of these? Please? I reckon it'll happen around 2010. This always blows people's minds, it's such a far-off date.
Poultry - Birds are disgusting creatures, and that's why I like to eat them. Actually, I like to eat them because they're DELICIOUS creatures, once properly dead & cooked. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite meals, a turkey sandwich is a way to my heart, and Buffalo wings come from Buffalo not buffalo.
Stuff I could've written about but didn't: Psycholinguistics, Praat, puppies, Pantaloons, public radio.
Why am I up so late writing this? Because I'm awake and I'm on another mice-killing kick after finding evidence of one in my room, then seeing one just now. Now I'm all grossed out and want to sleep in the living room.
I didn't really get much done today.
Leave a (content-ful, please) comment and I'll reply with more content & a letter of your own to waste bandwidth & time about!
Panda - Ah, pandas. Such adorable white & black things. My interest/love for them started around Summer 2002 with an incident at The Doug. Kris was making 2:37 AM and one evening described a planned scene to Steve. He said "Then, I pan to Jill, and..." Steve heard this as "Then, I panda Jill" (oh, casual speech!) and responded "Panda?" with paws and all. "WHAT?" This has been kind of an ongoing joke which is not really a joke, but a way of life. November 15, 2002, Dave & I went to Towson to visit RadioShack so's I could buy myself a new phone. (At this point in writing I took about a 25-minute detour through old e-mails & archive.org attempting to determine when I first bought a cell phone. Then I realized it was sitting in a file folder at the foot of my bed. May 10, 2002. Digression over.) We asked the saleslady to show us a model, which she obligingly pulled from the case and flipped open only to reveal as the backscreen... A PANDA. Dave & I, whom I should point out were dressed up, raised our paws to each other and asked "Pandaaaa?" This confused her. I bought the Knilepandaphone immediately. Thus, for most of my cell phone ownership, I referred to my phone as "the panda". As in "Give the panda a call." Summer 2004, I met Jenny who has a similarly odd fascination with the creatures. We bonded over this, and sometime later, she came across 2 "panda glasses". Until I received them, I was hoping for something like "panda goggles" which made my eyes look all cute. Turns out they're cups, but wonderfully big cups. (Sadly, I think one got sacced due to mold or something a while back, as I can only find one these days.) Epilogue to the phones: When I switched to Verizon, one of the default screens for my new phone was two polar bears boxing. THAT's a keeper if I've ever seen one.
Phonetics - The sounds of language fascinate me. I think I've always known this on some level, but probably didn't really figure it out until Language & Mind at the earliest and maybe not even really until I got to working in the Auditory Neurophysiology Lab that it's at the heart of what I'm curious about, at least for the foreseeable future.
Pennsylvania - Though a weird state in many ways (beer distributors?), I have had many a good time in the Keystone State. My earliest worthwhile memories of it were at Mansfield. Other great times of note: the old Flipse compound, road trips to PSU with Andy, and cheesesteaks. Less great times of note: the Harrisburg bus station, the Pittsburgh airport.
Pretentious - ACA have an ongoing debate as to who's more pretentious. She's a Yalie, but I'm anti-Ivy. Yet I went to a relatively snobby college. Her most recent zing was that I advertise the fact that I enjoy port. (another p!) I ask you, dear readers, am I pretentious? In my defense, I'd like to point out that I enjoy shopping at thrift stores and.. stuff.
Phish - Pressly really introduced my to Phish on ski trips in 6th grade, then later Katie Puccio copied for me a tape her brother had of a 1990 show and I started getting more into them. This led to trading tapes with various people online, hanging out in #phish on the Undernet (the source of the nickname "Knile"), and a red hat that I wore all through college. I didn't get to see Phish until 2003, which is a shame, partially because of the next item. These days my listening tastes have expanded a great deal, but I do go back to my tapes & CDs now and then.
Pneumothorax - My left lung collapsed at least three times between 1996 and 1998. In January '96, I thought I was having a heart attack when my dad was dropping me off at school. He realized I was having severe chest pains and couldn't really talk or breathe well. He flipped out & took me to the pediatricians' office, which wasn't really open, but they took us in & checked me out a tiny bit while the doctors were in a meeting. They weren't sure what was wrong, and across the street I went to the ER. The ER docs were similarly worthless for a little while despite an X-Ray: "Oh, it's just a heart murmur, it'll pass." Fuck no, this was the worst pain of my life! Eventually they figured out "Oh, look, 20% of his left lung isn't inflating." They stuck a shunt in me to suck the air out of the chest cavity (like they did to Logan recently and after 4 days I was out of the hospital. Two and a half years later, while Mom & I are trying to get a hotel reservation in Syracuse to see Phish at Vernon Downs, a similar pain hits. The surgeons cancelled my upcoming trip to see the show and scheduled laproscopic surgery for that day. They went in and found a blister that leaked air, so they snipped that part out, and stapled me up again. Two months after that ordeal, the lung collapsed again, and they told me it was time to break my ribs and remove part of my chest wall so that the lung would reattach better. I had the surgery over Christmas vacation, and man, that was one of the worst weeks of my life. I'd advise NOT undergoing recreational thoracotomy. On the upside, I do have a really super badass scar across the left side of my body. [Edit: And the incidents mellowed me out a bit, showing me the fragility of the human body. Sure it's cliche, but I appreciate life more. There's a lot of great things in the world, why not enjoy them?]
Pinewood - I grew up on Pinewood Circle. It's more like two sides of a triangle, but there are a lot of pine trees there. (Imagine that with Mitch Hedberg delivery and it's not really funny, but it sounds like something he'd say, no?)
Paranoia - I once requested my own FBI file because I was afraid the TSA had me on some list that led me to being searched frequently at airports. It was empty...
PhD - Eventually, I'll earn one of these? Please? I reckon it'll happen around 2010. This always blows people's minds, it's such a far-off date.
Poultry - Birds are disgusting creatures, and that's why I like to eat them. Actually, I like to eat them because they're DELICIOUS creatures, once properly dead & cooked. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite meals, a turkey sandwich is a way to my heart, and Buffalo wings come from Buffalo not buffalo.
Stuff I could've written about but didn't: Psycholinguistics, Praat, puppies, Pantaloons, public radio.
Why am I up so late writing this? Because I'm awake and I'm on another mice-killing kick after finding evidence of one in my room, then seeing one just now. Now I'm all grossed out and want to sleep in the living room.
I didn't really get much done today.
Leave a (content-ful, please) comment and I'll reply with more content & a letter of your own to waste bandwidth & time about!