May 2009
40 posts
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all my exes live in texarkana
ok, i confess to two things: 1. i am not yet tired of portmanteaux and 2. only 38% of my exes actually live in texarkana, the rest just work there.
in addition to t-kana (as everyone in the know, knows it) there are several other u.s. border towns named for states that they bord. among them:
Delmar, Maryland (Delaware and Maryland)
Florala, Alabama (Florida and Alabama)
Idavada, Idaho (Idaho...
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unsolicited endorsements, volume ii
from time to time i like to force things that i like onto people who never asked me to do so. now is one of those times.
pencil: palomino graphite hb
edutainment of the highest order: rough science
board game that is loads of fun but has the world’s cheesiest name: that’s life
fairy tale: little, big by john crowley
water: tap water
a site far better at compiling these things:...
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an end to my obsession with hybrid dog names
i would be a big fat doofus if i didn’t include a list of singularity dogs—pooches that are the product of a freaky dog three way (like the pugglepoo):
Cav-a-Jack (½ Cavalier King Charles Spaniel + ¼ Chihuahua + ¼ Jack Russell Terrier)
Cheaglehund (¼ Beagle + ½ Chihuahua + ¼ Dachshund)
Chijacky (½ Chihuahua + ¼ Silky Terrier + ¼ Jack Russell Terrier)
Chipaperanian (½...
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hybrid dog names that sound either obscene or like...
potentially obscene
Amstiff (½ American Staffordshire Terrier + ½ Mastiff)
Cheeks (½ Chihuahua + ½ Pekingese)
Chiweenie (½ Chihuahua + ½ Dachshund)
Chestie (½ Chihuahua + ½ West Highland White Terrier)
Cockapoo (½ Cocker Spaniel + ½ Poodle)
Eskijack (½ American Eskimo Dog + ½ Jack Russell Terrier)
Peke-A-Tese (½ Maltese + ½ Pekingese)
potentially from lord of the rings
...
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a note from the editor of the ragbag
i will be temporarily divorcing all forms of technology (including my casio calculator wristwatch) for the next two weeks as i will be on holiday touring a part of the world known as florida. i have enlisted the help of a guestblogger who, ironically, is a robot (i am using technology to help me escape from technology). so, even though i will be gone, expect my roboblogger to relay a genuine...
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changes to the elementary school science...
there is a new ocean
there is one fewer planet
the brontosaurus is no longer called that
we are in a new geological era
others?
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how to decipher theatre reviews
when the dust jacket of a novel informs you that miss x is “the new jane austen,” you instantly know that her book is full of bitchy remarks, and any novel written “in the style of virginia woolf,” obviously has no plot. similarly theatre criticism can be understood once the technical terms used by the modern critic are decoded.
brechtian production: the company...
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ahhh, bachhh!
Bach isn’t merely a musical commodity—he’s a religion. Adored by intellectual virgins, Bach’s music is a pseudo-substitute for sex. It’s purity grips minds which are, by nature, too rarified for the trappings of proper religion. Bach’s canon should be admired, sung, played, and discussed with an expression of ineluctable piety.
It’s possible to like Bach and...
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know your dvořák
match the following dvořáks with their bios:
ann
antonín
august
john
radek
vernon
designer of the dvorak keyboard layout (the home row reads: DVORAK PWNS).
a czech composer of romantic music (the r in romantic should be capitalised but that is not a thing that i do around here).
a retired american meteorologist who developed the dvorak technique to analyze tropical cyclones from satellite...
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malaprop du jour
at the pearl s. buck estate today, a father yells to his young daughter (in regard to the peafowl that she is trying to pet): “darling don’t get too close to that peacock, it may try to ravish you.”
now that would be a sight to behold.
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unsolicited endorsements*
card game: saboteur
literary criticism: anatomy of criticism by northrop frye
t.v. show: the thick of it
summer reading: the sot-weed factor by john barth
letter sequence: the wkw in the word awkward
yard game: kubb
wood identification manual: the woodbook (25th anniversary edition)
adventure documentary: long way round
snack: jalapeño cheddar pretzel sandwiches
website for getting quick...
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spotting the liripoop
with graduation ceremonies upon us, let us not forget about the game: spot the liripoop.
the liripoop is of course the long tail of a graduate’s hood.
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fousty bologna
oh my garsh! who less-than-sign-numeral-threes folk dictionaries? raynor ganan, that’s who. here are some of the most obscene f-words that the dictionary of newfoundland and labrador has to offer.
fairy breeze: a squall of wind on an otherwise calm day.
fallish: the feeling of autumn in the air.
firk: to scratch or dig gingerly, “the hen is firking the ground for a bit of...
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he who smelt it...
i was perusing my favourite dictionary while doing 300 crunches to make my abs look awesome, and came across this gemma°:
randle (răn’dəl) - n. a nonsensical poem recited by irish schoolboys as an apology for farting at a friend.
i immediately consulted the OED to find out more… but nothing. nothing more on the internet either—just amateur dictionaries that have the same definition word for...
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things i do more or less on a daily basis and...
taking photographs
observing birds, flora, clouds, etc.
cooking (also: plating food and tasting ingredients)
being social in social situations that require one to be social
viewing architecture
it seems like doing something every day would be a killer way to improve one’s skill set. yet in three years of living by myself i know four recipes (two of which are chowders), frame all my...
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how to make your leftovers more appealing in 1...
1. refer to whatever leftover dish that you are about to eat as réchauffé, just as the french do. thus:
A PERSON: what are you having for dinner tonight?
YOU: réchauffé and evian® water
THE SAME PERSON, PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED: and dessert shall be you and i and a bowl of whipping cream.
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now holding auditions
for raynor ganan impersonators. it will be your responsibility to be my decoy at real life tumblr meetups. i will give you access to all my best accessories (sock garters, pocket squares, eyepatches, a bottomless flask of peach schnapps, etc.) as well as certain never-before-released-anecdotes (about the time that i was caught clipping my toenails in the executive washroom, or my father’s...
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an amusing pastime
forget fraternity-style games like flip cup, beer pong, and spin the bottle. just break out your favourite thesaurus (mine is this one) and give the following a shot:
There is a…rather amusing pastime, which involves picking a word and its opposite, and then finding a path of synonyms that leads from one to the other, using, say, Roget’s Thesaurus as arbiter. Thus a hopeful person is...
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f-names
in honour of surname day° at the ragbag, and as this week’s installment of f-words, i present some curious last names from the dictionary of german names by hans bahlow (1967):
Fackler: torch maker.
Farsbotter: ‘fresh butter’, hence: butter dealer.
Fechter: one whose occupation it is to fight duels either for legal purposes or at fairs.
Federer: feather dealer.
Fickenscher:...
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ragbag mailbag
last week, i received a non-hate letter that went something like this:
Dear Raynor,
You are the best thing that happened to the information super highway since AOL provided access to the open internet last year [a paraphrase].
I was looking up the name of a virus for work-related stuff on urbandictionary.com (gana-herpa-syphilitis-human papilloma virus) and came across this. Just a kind of...
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another peculiar holiday tradition:...