Snapshots of a… Crazy Kinda Life

The Misadventures of Messie Jessie

Word of the Day July 24, 2009

Filed under: Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 9:04 pm
Tags: , , , ,

Tangential

  • Merely touching or slightly connected
  • Superficially relevant
  • Digressive

How I encountered this word:

A friend of mine went on a few dates with this guy, which she admitted were somewhat awkward (but what first few dates aren’t?). The last time they had a date guy invited her to his house and he cooked her dinner; which for all you men out there, sends us ladies the signal that you really dig us. They made a little kissy-face, and before she departed for the evening guy said he would email her to plan a next date. That was nearing six weeks ago. No email, no call, no nothing. It was almost as if guy had been forced into the witness protection program, never to be heard from again.

Today she calls me to report that in a response a recent facebook status update about a change in her employment, guy adds a random comment that says, “Oh my. But this sounds good, so yay”! Her response (to me): “Seriously, what a tangential way to make a come back in someone’s life after all this time. Why even bother?” Her response (to him): A message simply stating “Dude, what the hell happened to you?” Classic.

 

Word of the day May 2, 2009

Filed under: Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 9:46 am
Tags: , ,

Plural 

  • The form of a word that is used to denote more than one member, set or kind

How I encountered this word:

Ok so, I know we all know the meaning of the word “plural” (or at least I would hope so), but just now I was immersed in some deep thought about how the word “folk” is plural, which means that the word “folks” is a plural of a plural. As I was spiraling into the mental abyss of  compounding pluralism -not unlike contemplating the infinity of the universe- I thought to myself, “wow, plural is a really weird word”. I know we’ve all had that same experience, where you say/read a word over and over and it starts to sound funny and almost foreign.

Just thought I would share this morning’s deep thoughts.

 

Word of the Day April 23, 2009

Filed under: Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 9:42 pm
Tags: , , ,

Ennui

  • Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom
  • the feeling of being bored by something tedious

How I encountered this word:

Part of my daily Yahoo horoscope; which was, surprisingly, accurate today. It foretold that my creativity would get me out of a task I was dreading, which is exactly what happened. And, I can confidently say it was accurate since I read it only after utilizing my creative and decorative juices to get out of paperwork.

 

Quote of the Day March 24, 2009

Filed under: Masticate on this, Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 7:27 am
Tags: , , , , ,

“Taking money from the government is like living with your mother-in-law. You lose a great deal of your freedom”.

 

Art, from the NY Stock Exchange, whose last name I didn’t catch. He was speaking on Good Morning America about companies taking money from the gov’t bail outs, and the related consequences. Since he said this within the first 5 – 7 mins of my waking this morning, I am lucky to be able to remember it at all. But I did, and it made me laugh pretty hard. You can’t ask for much more of your early morning.

 

Schadenfreude at its finest February 7, 2009

Filed under: Word of the Day, Working hard or hardly working — Messie Jessie @ 9:32 am
Tags: , , , , ,

Schadenfreude = taking pleasure in the misfortune of others

In case you need a little more elaboration, here’s a song written about the phenomenon.

 

When I was 8 years old, my mom and I lived in this house that sat adjacent to a 45 degree curve in the road. When inclement weather would fall, that curve became an icy, treacherous mess. My mom and I would sit in front of our second floor window, drink our hot chocolate and watch as the cars would spin out and wreck in front of our house. It was my favorite winter-time activity.

Apparently, some guilty pleasures die hard… And are best enjoyed in the company of others.

On Tuesday into Wednesday of this week, Philadelphia got almost 8 1/2 inches of snow. The streets department is notorious for their poor response to snow, and thus did no salting nor subsequent plowing of minor arterial & local streets.

I work right next to one of these streets, which has a very, very small curve on it. It’s a one way street, so cars are accustomed to zooming down this road without a second thought. The caveat this week was that since the street had not been treated before or after the snow, this curve became covered in first slush, then ice. 

Each morning, as I rounded the corner to the street of my job, there was a cop car sitting in front of my office. The first day, my initial reaction was, “oh great, it’s not even 8am and someone’s in crisis”. In actuality, the cops were there to deal with the cars that were piling up on the other side of the curve. 

On both Thursday and Friday, we had a total of 12 accidents- that we witnessed. On Friday, we were privy to witness 6 cars slip out and hit either each other, or cars parked along the street, within the span of about a half hour.

What did we do about the problem? Yes, that’s right- we sat there and watched.  We also saw a few bicyclists slip out, and one man in a wheel chair take a spill (it’s ok to laugh. He got up and walked his wheelchair out of the road). And me specifically; what did I do? I broke out my camera phone… That’s right, I was the shutterbug voyeur. 

Finally, the cops decided it was in the best interest of all to close off the road. This was about the time I broke out my camera, so while I missed photo-ops for the really good action, here’s a little something to satiate your own voyeurism tendencies.

 

This guy was sitting the the parked white car

This guy was sitting in the parked white car when it got hit

 

 

Cops everywhere!

Cops everywhere!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***************************************************************************************************************************

 

This is the icy curve

This is the icy curve

 

More cop cars!

More cop cars!

 

Word of the Day February 3, 2009

Filed under: Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 5:43 pm
Tags: , , , , , ,

Licentious

1. Lacking moral discipline or ignoring legal restraint, especially in sexual conduct; lascivious.

2. Going beyond customary or proper bounds or limits; disregarding rules.

3. Archaic: disregarding accepted rules or conventionsesp. in grammar or literary style.

 

How I encountered this word:

I read, therefore I learn…

 

Miss Pronunciation January 16, 2009

 

Shout out to my new Photoshop

Shout out to my new Photoshop

You know that clear, plastic stuff that you wrap around foods to keep them fresher (and that generally gets all caught on itself and ends up being more hassle than it’s worth)? What’s that called?

Cellophane. 

Well, when I was a kid, I always pronounced it cellophame. I even thought that was how it was spelled. To this day, I make a conscious effort to say it correctly.

I’m fairly confident that that happens to all of us at some point in our youth. But how often does it occur in adulthood? By the time you reach a certain age, pending a relatively normal IQ and upbringing, you should have pretty much mastered the English language.

Well, just a moment ago, as I was researching something on the internet, I came across a word: effervescent- meaning bubbly and fizzy; its the stuff those Alka-Seltzer commercials talk about. Now, I’ve most certainly used this word in my life, and more certainly, I’ve seen this word in print before. So why is it that not until this moment has it occurred to me that I have been pronouncing this word wrong my entire life? 

I’ve been saying eppervescent all this time. How embarrassing.

 

Word of the day December 28, 2008

Filed under: Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 4:10 pm
Tags: , , ,

Detritus

-Waste or debris of any kind

How I encountered this word:

So, this isn’t really a new word per se, so much as it is simply a good word. I was at my grandparent’s house for the holiday, and in the spirit of killing time between meals I was looking through one of those magazines that sell useless crap, not unlike the Chinese Trading Post. Usually you don’t see higher level words in the product description of such magazines. A pet dander remover caught my eye, and in the details it read, “removes pet fur, dander and other detritus“. I was impressed with their wordage, and thought I ought to give them a shout out for it. 


 

Word of the day December 21, 2008

Filed under: Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 12:22 pm
Tags: , ,

Termagant

1. a harsh-tempered or overbearing woman

2. a scolding, nagging, bad-tempered woman

How I encountered this word:

While kicking some butt playing Scattergories, the BF and I used the same word for Language beginning with the letter P- Portuguese. He insisted that he get a point for it, claiming it his right due to his partial blood lineage. I refuted the point, reminding him that the rules clearly state you cannot get credit for words another person used- no matter where your last name originated from. He jokingly stated, “you are quite the termagant tonight”, and gave himself a point for the word anyway. On the tally sheet I made notation of the point to be deducted from his final score, and made mental note that my boyfriend is a sore loser. 

 

Word of the Day November 30, 2008

Filed under: Word of the Day — Messie Jessie @ 9:15 pm
Tags: , ,

Desideratum:

-Something that is needed or wanted

-Something considered necessary or highly desirable

-Anything desired; that of which the lack is felt; a want generally felt and acknowledge

How I encountered this word:

Well, I think I am going to keep the happenstance of this word to myself since, as my mom put it, it was part of “cutsie talk”. However, looking up analogous definitions of the word lead my mind to scrutinize of the exact meaning of the usage. I will have to ask the rhetorician for elaboration…