Loose Leaf Notes

1. Headlines like this keep life interesting: Man dies after live roach-eating contest in Florida.

2. What could be stranger than a video game starring an Italian plumber named Mario (the most famous character in video history) and his brother Lugi who live in a mushroom kingdom? I guess the answer might be the fact that these two plumbers are heroes to the pre-school population, including my four-year-old grandson, Bryce.

3. Bryce is so sweet that, even though he is scared of dinosaurs, when I told him they no longer exist, he was visibly upset.

4. Sometimes clicking around with my mouse at the computer is like twiddling my thumbs, a way to give myself time to think about the next line I want to write or the next place I want to go.

5. Like skipping high school and going right to college, I completely skipped the cell phone and went right to the iPhone. For the first couple of weeks of having it all I could remember is that the phone’s personal assistant’s name sounded like Tom Cruise’s little girl.

6. Even though “Siri” is a software app, some of her responses are human-like and surprising, like this: Question: Siri, will you go out with me? Siri: I never really thought about that. Question: Please. Siri: Ok. Or this: Question: F*#@! Siri: I’m not programmed to respond to this dialect of English.

7. Seen on Facebook the morning after the second presidential debate: Mitt Romney at 9:20: “In the next four years my administration will create 12 million jobs.” Mitt Romney at 10:24: “Government does not create jobs.”

9. Best tweets of the night: “Clean coal is kinda like clean porn.” Chris Rock.  “Jim Lehrer is a much stronger moderator with the wig on.” Sarah Silverman

10. “Loco (local) chickens are the best.” – spoken by Bryce while playing a long elaborate game in which he was collecting black walnuts in buckets and pretending they were eggs.

11. Already becoming techno-savvy, after he stops playing, Bryce says, “I paused the game.”

12. All my adult life whenever anyone asks ‘what time is it’ I answer ‘4:30’ because of THIS song (first song uploaded to my iPhone).

13. Watch Honey Boo Boo endorse Obama HERE.

Thirteen Thursday

PS: Mario’s hat isn’t as cool as Rickie Lee Jones’s red beret, but it keeps the sun from burning my face.