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People Frame Me Ranting
September 26th, 2001 - 2:33 a.m.
I'm Currently Avoiding:It's been 3 days since I last updated. People have been reminding me of this and practically chastizing me for not updating, so I guess I should do that. Even though I really don't want to.
And since I have to include the normal stuff, yesterday, today, & tomorrow...
September 25 is ... National Comic Book Day (Enh. Some comic book heros are good though.)
September 26 is ... National Good Neighbour Day and National Pancake Day (The good neighboring pancake day? I don't know about you, but if my neighbor was a pancake, I'd be worried.)
September 27 is ...Crush A Can Day (But I only buy bottles!)
reiterate (v. ree-IH-tuh-rayt)
: to state or do over again or repeatedly sometimes with
wearying effect
Can you guess the meaning of iterate, a less common
relative of reiterate? It must mean simply to state or do, right? Nope. Actually, iterate also means to state or do again. It's no surprise, then, that some usage commentators have insisted that reiterate must always mean to say or do again AND AGAIN. No such nice distinction exists in actual usage, however. Both reiterate and iterate can convey the idea of a single repetition or of many repetitions. Reiterate is the earlier of the words -- it first appeared in the 15th century, while iterate turned up around 1533. Both stem from the Latin verb iterare, which is itself from iterum (again), but reiterate took an extra step, through the Latin reiterare (to repeat).
enclave (n. EN-klayv)
: a distinct territorial, cultural, or social unit enclosed within or as if within foreign territory
Looking for the keys to the etymology of enclave? You'll find them in French and Latin. English speakers borrowed enclave from French in the 19th century. The French noun derives in turn from the Middle French verb enclaver, meaning to enclose. Enclaver itself can be traced to the Latin prefix in- and the Latin noun clavis, meaning key. Clavis opened the door to a few other English words, some of which might seem unlikely relatives of enclave. Clavicle, the word for the bone that joins the breastbone and the shoulder blade, comes from clavis, as does the musical sign clef.
arriviste (n. air-ih-VEEST)
: one that is a new and uncertain arrival (as in social position or artistic endeavor)
An arriviste is someone who is just beginning to arrive, in the sense of achieving success or making a name for oneself. Often it can have slightly negative connotations, indicating a person who is highly aggressive or perhaps unscrupulous in his or her climb to the top. Like its synonym parvenu, arriviste can also indicate a lack of certainty or confidence in one's newfound position. Arriviste is something of a new arrival itself, relatively speaking. English speakers borrowed the term from French in the early 20th century.
somnolent (adj. SAHM-nuh-lunt)
1 : of a kind likely to induce sleep
2 a : inclined to or heavy with sleep : drowsy b : sleepy
Maybe Scott knew what it was to nod off, but he wasn't the inventor of the word somnolent. It goes back to the late 15th century -- its first known appearance was in the redundant phrase somnolent sleep. Somnolent came into English through French, but the French took it from the Latin word somnolentus, which itself comes from somnus meaning sleep. Another offspring of somnus is somnambulism, which is a synonym of sleepwalking. Insomnia is also a member of this sleepy word family, though it might be considered the black sheep, since it means, of course, the inability to sleep.
I've been having issues lately. My lamp is giving me issues. I have one, which basically provides all the lighting. I thought the bulb had burnt out, so I went to a lot of trouble to get a new one, and I couldn't even get the right wattage and had to settle for a 150 when I should've gotten a 300 watt bulb. Then I go to another lot of trouble uninstalling the old bulb (breaking it in the process) and installing the new one (not as easy as it sounds, considering this is a halogen lamp), only to discover to my dismay that the problem isn't with the bulb in the first place, but with the dimmer switch! And of course, the warranty on this stupid lamp is a year, but I've had it for closer to two. Even if I wanted to try to use the limited warranty to get my lamp fixed, it wouldn't work b/c every time I try to call Holmes to ask them about it, I get a computerized message, and then a busy signal. Bastards. Haven't they ever heard of call-waiting? So now I get the joy of purchasing another one.
Speaking of yet more things which irritate the hell out of me... ARGH! Know why I'm updating now? Because I'm not really doing anything else while I wait for my friggin laundry to be done. First of all...people (other than me) should Not be doing their laundry at 1:30 on a Wed. morning, leaving the space clear for me to finish all of my laundry in an hour and a half instead of it taking somewhere along the lines of 3 hours and 15 minutes (it might be less, we'll see, but it damn well better not take longer). Secondly, I pay a fucking MINT to come to school here. And for more money than some people make in a year, the very LEAST this friggin school can do is have dryers that actually WORK! It's bad enough that they're charging me effectively $2.25 per load just to *do* my laundry (assuming 1 time through both the washer and the dryer), if they're going to charge me to actually *use* the damn things, they should actually DRY! This isn't a terribly difficult concept here people, I just don't understand why this university doesn't seem to grasp it. I'm awake at 3:30 in the bloody morning doing laundry...I would like my laundry to actually be properly laundered damnit! Not only that, but when they "repair" these washing machines and dryers when they break (and break they do...they're nowhere approaching modern), they always manage to bollocks it up somehow so that it *still* doesn't do what it's supposed to, only now it doesn't do it in a very unique way. Basically, it chafes my ass. And now I begin to wonder...have I just sworn more in this paragraph than usual because it's late, because the laundry has annoyed me, because I'm tired, for some unknown reason, or all of the above? And when did I become British? Maybe I've been writing my chapters too much...or not enough, and the accent is beginning to spill over into my diary instead, one or the other, or perhaps neither.
Ooooh! MORE things which annoy me about doing laundry. Other people who absolutely CANNOT take their clothes out of the frigging washer and/or dryer until their clothes have rotted and are full of dryer lint. They seem to be under the false impression that they won't be *needing* their clothes back from the washer/dryer until sometime in the next millenia. This absolutely drives me bonkers because I don't want to touch other people's clothing. I don't like it when people remove MY clothes from the washer/dryer, even though I, unlike other people, am fairly prompt in getting my clothes out of one machine and into the next so that someone else can use that machine, or I can do another load. Hence, I don't like to remove the clothes of others unless they've pissed me off and I've seen the same bloody bunch of clothing in that washer or dryer for the past 2 hours and no one's bothered to retrieve it yet. Drives me mad, MAD I say!
On a slightly less pissy note, what's up with McDonald's? I meant to mention this earlier, but I've been busy not doing anything lately due to the moping and sleep-inducing effects of the light-less situation. Or that could just be an excuse for me not updating. Only one person commented on my 200th entry. That person is wonderful, every one else sucks. I was supposed to be lauded damnit! Anyway, back to McDonald's. They changed their hours here for one thing. They're now open until 1 am Sun-Wed (I think?) and 4 am Thurs-Sat. This is just insane. I don't care that Thursday through Saturday encompases the big party days...who the frig is going to go to McDonald's at 3:30 in the morning? I'm sorry, but unless you're only of those freaky jogger people or one of those muggers who like to rob the freaky jogger people, you're not even going to be *awake*, much less going to go eat at McDonald's that late at night.
P.S. People also say that: "You need to use phrases like Terry Bradshaw is gay and Chlorophorm bondage...things like that'll pull in hits, ha. Oh, and Joyce Hyser's naked tits."
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And I like it that way.
