Dialect Challenge

I was browsing Facebook yesterday and came across a post from Kelley of Kelley's Breakroom. She wanted to have a whole bunch of us get together and do a dialect challenge which consists of us recording ourselves saying a set of words and answering some questions. I was bored so I figured, why not. It sounded like a ton of fun to me and, seeing as I live in a town full of military, I am always curious to see what other people call things.

I was supposed to record myself last night and uplink it this morning. Well, good intentions and such right? I was just getting comfy and Mr. Fluffy was making supper but he decided he needed my help (this is usually just a ploy to get me to spend some one on one time with him) and asked me to come cut the onion for the hot dogs he was making. Well if you know me I am the biggest clutz in the world and I tried to cut my thumb off. Well, I sliced it open pretty good. Seeing as how I am the biggest baby in the world I spent the rest of my night soliciting TLC from Mr. Fluffy.

When I got on Facebook this morning I saw that Kelley had responded to my comment saying how she was looking forward to it and I immediately let loose with some colorful language that did not make it into the video because I had forgotten. I didn't have time to do it before I left for work so I decided that I would take some of my lunch break to get this done. So enjoy the following video, please excuse the way I look. It is casual Friday at work and I take casual to a whole new level, no makeup, big t-shirt and barely brushed hair (they just better be glad I wasn't in my PJs).  I would like to point out that Texas is a big state and we have our own different dialects throughout. I currently live in Central Texas but was raised in deep South Texas.

Just to be sure everyone knows what I am talking about I will post the questions below as posed by Kelley.

Here are the questions:
1. What is the generic term for sweetened carbonated beverages?

Coke
2. What do you call the miniature lobster that you find in lakes and streams?

Craw-daddy
3. What is that thing called that kids drink water from in the hallways at schools?

Water Fountain
4. What do you call rubber-soled shoes that you wear to the gym? Or to run? Or to go to Target?

Tennis Shoes (pronounced Tenny shoe)
5. Does someone cut the grass? Cut the lawn? Mow the grass? Mow the lawn?

Mow the lawn
6. What is the general term for that big road where people, like, drive really, really fast?

Highway or Interstate
7. What do you call a group of two or more people?
Ya'll

How do you pronounce:
8. Syrup?
9. Pecan?
10. Pajamas?
11. Mayonnaise?
12. Lawyer?
13. Crayon?
14. Marry/merry/Mary?
15. Doesn't Pepto Bismol taste really, really good?

Random rubbish I did over the weekend

What to write! Gah! There are so many little things going through my brain right now but the question is, what do I share?

First off, the entire weekend was just great. I needed some much deserved mommy down time and so I shipped the kids off to Grandma's house. It was also good for them, they needed time away from me just as much as I needed time from them and were actually excited to see me when I picked them up.

Friday night after we had pawned the children off with my parental, we pretty much just vegged on the couch. We played CoD, watched some TV, and munched our munchies in our pj's.

Saturday, we spent the morning zoning out and getting ready to go out to the Amtgard field. We had been expecting visitors from another field and it turned out to be a very fun day. I saw some old friends and met some new. Our brothers in arms brought our fledgling group some much needed items and when it was all over no one wanted to say goodbye.

I had made Mr. Fluffy promise to take me on his bike later after everything was done. I told him "I don't care where just ride!" Sounded romantic at the time but the temperature wound up dropping dramatically while we were on said "ride". He decided to take a pit stop at a local "gaming" store that recently opened up and I hadn't seen yet and to show me the awesome flyer that had been made for our amtgard group. Don't get me wrong, I love all kinds of gaming and gamers I just don't do well at roleplaying games like D&D. I enjoy watching people play it but I am just not very good at it myself. This place happens to cater to this type of gamer. Wooo! I love that I really do. So while I was waiting on Mr. Fluffy (he had gone to say hi to some friends) I was at the front counter looking at their wares. A man (who I am going to assume is the owner) came up to me and started a conversation about gaming. He politely asked if I gamed, I told him that yes I did. He then asked what my poison was, I kind of stammered because I mean where do you start? I was shyly trying to name off some games when he was all "Magic? D&D? hmmm?" I told him "Oh, I don't do very well at those, I mainly stick to PC and console games" You would have thought that I had spilled grape juice on white carpet with the look that came over his face. He quickly got himself together and said "Oh a video gamer" as if he was mentioning something filthy. I on the other hand quickly got over my surprise and was trying hard not to guffaw in this fellow's face, because honestly he seemed like a pretty cool guy even if he doesn't like us video gamers. Soon after that we rode over to a very pretty park to scout out an area for a gathering we are going to be hosting in a month. It's very pretty and I am hoping the weather will be nice.

Sunday was pretty relaxed. I worked on making the ugliest bag in history to hold our new treasures. Mr. Fluffy calls it the "Santa Bag", I told him it was more like "The ugly bag of shame." I also posted some pictures of me in "Garb" (term used to signify our medieval dress) so that our new people could see examples.

I was really frakin cold. Thus the smile of "hurry the frack up!"

Yep that is me. Freezin my butt off while Mr. Fluffy took his time using my phone to take the picture.He insisted that we couldn't take the picture in the house "Because they wouldn't be able to see the details" and also he kept having to adjust my hood because at one point I looked like a headless monk from Doctor Who. I think he was just having fun seeing me freeze. There are some other things, but like I said earlier, I am still struggling with if I should or should not share them :)

Huzzah to the Shire of Skywatch

So as I have said before, I am into all sorts of "gaming". I quite enthusiastically enjoy MMORPGs and am not all that bad at first person shooters and the likes. I have been known to play role-playing games as well, but have been hampered by my lack of social graces and unfailing shyness. What I neglected to mention is that a long time ago, when Mr. Fluffy and I first got together, I joined a rousing group of individuals for LARPing. For those of you who do not know what LARP is let me break it down.

Live Action Role Play.

Now, some of you may be thinking "Wait, this chick can't sit at a table and tell someone else what a character written on paper will do but can act it out in person?" Why yes, yes I can. I can do this because of one important thing.

She is me. My persona on the field is just an extension of myself. And it gives me a reason to dress up in period clothing :)

The particular group that I participate in is called Amtgard. Amtgard is all over, there are even chapters overseas. When Mr. Fluffy first brought me in on this, we were participants in a very large and well established group. When we ended up where we live now, there was no group to speak of at all. We made an attempt to establish our own group much to no avail.

A few months ago, Mr. Fluffy had an assignment in his college public speaking course to do a speech about a hobby he had. Even though we had not been active participants for years, he still followed what was going on in the community so he chose to do his speech on Amtgard. Not even an hour later he was having fellow classmates approach him about how to join. When these guys learned that there was no active group here they resolved to fix that. I have never seen a group of people so excited about something before. Before I knew it, they were having weekly meetups and just this week there has been talk about getting us a larger sponsoring group.

I would like to give these guys a big thumbs up. You did a great job.

So go visit these guys on Facebook or on the field and make sure you give them a great big huzzah!

Trolls should stay in fairy tales people

When I was a little girl reading all the nice little fairy tales that society thinks girls should be forced to read the one I would always skip over was the story about the troll and the bridge. I always hated the fact that the troll would bully whoever came along no matter what. So I would skip the story so that I wouldn't feel that rage. I was a bullied little girl, so why would I want to read about them? If I was that person in the story I would have kicked the troll in the junk and crossed that damn bridge with a perk in my step. Just because he tried bullying me.

I have always been a quiet, reserved and a leave-them-alone-if-they-leave-you-alone kinda person. I was painfully shy as a child not to mention small. This led to more aggressive kids thinking I was an easy target. Little did they know, if they pushed me too far I would kick them in the gonads. After awhile, they all learned that it was in their best interest to just leave me be. So when I see a bully, my first instinct is to hit them where it hurts.

As I have gotten older and the internet has evolved to where it is today, I once again have been subjected to people thinking I am an easy target. Sorry, but I can still kick you where it hurts. The latest "troll" in my life is someone I am unfortunately related to but only just met. We friended each other on our personal Facebook pages hoping that we could get to know each other and like each other because of a mutual person we share in our lives. I soon started to notice this person would troll people for the fun of it. Someone will post something innocuous and they will feel the need to get their troll on. I don't think this person actually realizes that what they are doing can actually harm someone. They may actually think they are just having fun and games, but internet bullying has led to so many unfortunate deaths. I find myself glad for that time in my life that toughened me up against the verbally abusive.

Now my issue is that my usual course of action with an internet bully on my personal Facebook page would be to unfriend and block them.You know, a virtual internet foot to the crotch move. Unfortunately in this case, if I do that I may cause a shit storm with that person we share contact with. I have several times posted on my page that I don't appreciate drama and will delete those who start it. Don't attack me, my other friends, or my family. This person has done all three. I had honestly hoped to get past this because we share a common person in our lives and we have many of the same interests. I just can't get past the bullying nature of this person. How they will troll someone just for the fun of it. It isn't always fun for the person you are trolling. The drawback to the internet is that we don't have to ability to see facial expressions and voice tone inflection. All we see are the words and we have to interpret those for ourselves. So if a person with low self esteem or very easily hurt feelings can't tell that you just are having fun, you can cause tremendous damage to them. If you disagree with something someone says, that doesn't mean you need to constantly attack them about it with negativity. In fact, you can keep your asinine comments to yourself. I will never understand the inability for some people to just let things be. Just know that if you continue your troll ways, someday you will run into someone alot like me and it won't be pretty.


So a little forewarning,  if I wanna cross that bridge, then you had damn well better get outta my way troll, because come hell or high water I am going to do it. Even if I have to kick a few gonads on the way across.