Katdish.net

Ah, yes gentle reader. It is once again time for another installment of the epic and never-ending series of blog fodder known as the katdishionary. For your convenience, I have combined all previous posts in one place. (See the katdishionary tab) If there are other words you have observed me using that have yet to make it into the katdishionary, please feel free to share them in the comments section of that page. And as always, sorry/you’re welcome.

And now, on with the katdishionary:

Awesome Cat – (pronounced: Ah-sum-kat)

Definition: Awesome Cat defies definition. He is awesome. The end.

Origin: My friend Shaun sent me the picture, which he found on Digg. As soon as I saw it, I knew Awesome Cat must be the unofficial mascot of the brain trust that is the Fellowship of the Traveling Smartypants.

Badgertastic – (pronounced ba-jer-ta-stik)

Definition: Very definitively and enthusiastically having to do with badgers.

Origin: Sleep Talkin’ Man Blog – a blog that chronicles the nocturnal ramblings of a seemingly mild manned English chap by day who tends to get a tad profane whist sleeping: “My badger’s gonna unleash hell on your ass. Badgertastic!” (Note: not suitable for all audiences.)

Example: Did you read SCL’s post about proposed VBS games? My favorite was Badger in a Bag. Badgertastic!

Badger in a Bag – (pronounced: ba-jer-in-a-bag)

Definition: A VBS game concept described as follows: “Let’s hide pieces of caramel in a bag and then put a really angry badger in the same bag. To win, you have to successfully grab a piece of candy from the bag without losing a finger.” ~ Jon Acuff

Origin: Stuff Christians Like Post #275 – Playing Red Rover at VBS

Example: To heck with our liability insurance! Let’s bring badger in a bag back to VBS this year!

Faction – (pronounced (fak-shun)

Definition: A memoir written by a relatively unknown and unpublished author with no ties to celebrities (in or out of rehab) which is rewritten as a novel in order to draw a larger audience.

Origin: Very savvy and smart publishers. (And no, I’m not being sarcastic. It’s brilliant marketing.)

Example: Snow Day by Billy Coffey. Available October 11, 2010 at bookstores everywhere. Buy one. Heck, buy 100. They make great stocking stuffers!

HRM – (pronounced: H-R-M)

Definition: Acronym for Helen of Random Musings. HRM is used to differentiate Helen when she interviews herself on her blog.

Origin: “I first thought of interviewing myself when Former Governor Blagojevich was causing a media circus by going on any show that would have him claiming that he shouldn’t be impeached because he hasn’t been convicted of a crime. (And that he is innocent, and Rahm Emmanuel should be subpoenaed to testify on his behalf at his impeachment hearing, blaj blaj blaj (sic)….) His antics were driving me crazy, and it occurred to me that by using a split personality as a literary device, I’d be able to demonstrate to people reading just how crazy. My friends liked the interviews and suggested I do them more often, so I have.” – Helen (aka HRM)

Examples:

Blagojevich Part I

Blagojevich Part II

How I Didn’t Become a Nun

Dancing With the Kumquats (My Supermarket Salsa Post)

About My Fortieth Birthday

My New Year’s Resolutions

Midyear New Year’s Resolution Update

Skunkalicious – (pronounced: skun-ka-li-shous)

Definition: The state of not wanting to leave the house due to an excess period between root touch ups which gives me the appearance of wearing an odoriferous rodent on my head.

Origin: Genetics. Asian DNA which causes premature graying. I started going gray in my late 20’s. Sadly, the math gene was not passed on to me.

Example: Sorry. I can’t meet you for lunch today. I’m feeling a bit skunkalicious.

This concludes this edition of the katdishionary. Always a pleasure to educate the internets.

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” -John F. Kennedy

“If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.” -S. I. Hayakawa

So, I was commenting on my buddy Jason’s blog the other day that my blog roll is pretty diverse, and that with a few exceptions, many of the blogs I frequent, based upon the number of comments received, are not exactly burning up the site hit counters. The thing is, I actually like that. Not that I don’t want people to read their blogs, I just like feeling like I’ve stumbled upon something really special that hasn’t been ruined by a bunch of lemmings following each other over a cliff. (I don’t even know if that comment made sense, but I’m going with it.)

One of my favorite blogs is The Wide World of Timbo. Like most of the blogs I frequent, I found this one via Stuff Christians Like. Unlike most of the commenters on SCL, he uses the Name/URL function when leaving a comment. I actually had to track him down. On my first attempt, I googled “The Wide World of Jimbo”, which is something completely different…

Anyhoo, one of my all-time favorite SCL posts is WOTAM, baby, straight up WOTAM. (Christian Text Abbreviations). The post was great. Here’s a sample of one of Jon’s updated text abbreviations:

9. OTTOMH
Original Meaning = Off The Top Of My Head
Christian Meaning = One Time This Orangutan Mauled Hank
Usage: OK, this one is kind of a niche phrase. I admit, you won’t get to use it often. But if you ever go on a mission trip or a retreat or simply have an orangutan outreach program during church service and one of those orangutans mauls someone and that someone happens to be named Hank, you are going to be so happy that you read this post and can immediately text all your friends, “OTTOMH! OTTOMH!”

While the post itself was hilarious, the comments were some of the funniest I’ve ever read. Most of them were simply adding more ridiculously funny text abbreviations. Until you get to Comment No. 52 from Tim M. which says: “Hi. I’m new to this blog. I got here by googling “orangutan mauled Hank” to see if there’s any update on my cousin Hank after his horrible accident.”

Irony –
1: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony
2 a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c: an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2): an event or result marked by such incongruity b: incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony tragic irony.

Thursday night, as I sat in front of my computer reviewing the post I had written for the following morning, I decided it would be a good idea for Jeff (pastor) to review it and make sure I didn’t have any glaringly obvious flaws as they pertained to “Zeke” and what he represented for C3 . I attempted to cut and paste the content into an email, but the the pictures became html codes and it was incredibly distracting. (Jeff’s a tad ADD himself.) I then got this brilliant idea that I would allow him publishing rights to my blog so he could review the post, then revoke said rights afterwards. It’s not that I don’t want him to post here. He can tell you that I have asked him on numerous occasions to guest blog, it’s just that he’s kind of busy. Besides, when I added him as a contributor, my giant head disappeared from the sidebar, and I knew how much all of you would miss that. But I digress…

So, all that happened. He added the disclaimer about Jesus being the Living Cornerstone and associated scripture. Which was great, because some people will look for any reason to tell you how whack they think your theology is. Anyhoo, I made the final changes, scheduled it to post simultaneously with my my SCL premiere, then revoked Jeff’s publishing rights. Except that I accidentally revoked my OWN publishing rights instead. I immediately called Jeff and told him what I had done. Irony? I’m not so sure. I think that situation would fall under the category of grace – unmerited favor, because he could have REALLY made me suffer, and trust me — we wouldn’t even be close to even in that department. So, do I have a point to this story? Not really. It just reminded me of the song “Ironic” by Alanis Morrissette:

and the fact that the situations described in that song are unfortunate, but not ironic. As a public service, I have decided to add some words to the song, thereby making it ironic. (You’re welcome.)

An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day (because he accidentally poked himself in the jugular vein with the pencil he used to fill out the winning ticket)
It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay (that happened to be an albino fly, so it was white)
It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late (because the electric surge caused by the execution resulted in the phone lines going out two minutes earlier)
Isn’t it ironic … don’t you think (no, not really)
Chorus

It’s like rain on your wedding day (in the Sahara desert)
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid (for the bus)
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take (from Governor Blagojevitch)
Who would’ve thought … it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
‘Well isn’t this nice…’ (Okay, that actually is kind of ironic)
And isn’t it ironic … don’t you think
Repeat Chorus

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything’s gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face (and that is very unfortunate, but not ironic)

It’s a traffic jam when you’re already late (for your job as the head of public transportation)
It’s a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break (at the Marlboro plant)
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife (to cut open the boxes of spoons)
It’s meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife (who works as a pharmaceuticals rep for Ambien sleep aid)
And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think
A little too ironic… and yeah I really do think… (no, not really)
Repeat Chorus

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out (which is nice, but not ironic)

Here’s some irony for you: Angry, white Canadian girl becomes international singing sensation with a smash hit called “Ironic”, which isn’t.

Okay, maybe I can connect all these rabbit trails. On a day when I had planned to sit at my computer all day and bask in the glory of my new found pseudo-celebrity status, I realize that I have to go the grocery store, the “oil changed required” light comes on in my car, and I get a call from the school nurse informing me that my daughter is running a fever and I need to come pick her up.

Do I consider this ironic? Nah. I consider that God saying to me, “Get over yourself You’re not that big a deal.”

So, I got an email last week from Jon Acuff. Actually, it was a reply to an email that I sent him earlier which, among other things, shamlessly hyperlinked a post I wrote about Sky Mall Catalog. Anyway…his reply was to let me know that he would be linking that post to his post, The hate mail mongoose (Or the pastor’s gift guide). Needless to say, I was pretty excited about the possibility of all those hits on my blog. (Why I would be excited about such self-aggrandizement* is something I should probably pray about.) But regardless, I began to think of ways to write a post that would be more “Jon Acuffish”. But then it occurred to me that the reason I like “Stuff Christians Like” so much is that it’s Jon being Jon. Funny, transparent, often profound, often gooberish Jon. So, for me, trying to write something like an SCL post would be as pathetic as the knock-off grocery store margarines trying to imitate “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” with products like “You’d Think It’s Butter!”, or “Butter, It’s Not!”, or “Tastes Like Butter!”, or, my new personal favorite from my peeps on my mother’s side of the family: “Unbelieveable…This is not butter!” (Note the extra “e” in “unbelieveable” –That just CRACKS ME UP!) Sorry, I’m easliy amused.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the blog post. In the end, I just decided to do what I always do, which is write about whatever I happen to be thinking about at the time, which was, not surprisingly, Sky Mall. It wasn’t my favorite of the series, but I worked all day (painting for a new client) and I was tired and it really takes me a long time to cut and paste all those pictures (waa, waa, waa). I probably should have just left well enough alone — I actually really liked “Diary of a Mad Black Wiener Dog”, the post from the day before. (Which, incidentally I wrote in Google Docs, posted to my blog then immediately saved it as a draft because I wanted to schedule it for the following morning.) I only tell you that as an amusing (or not) aside because my crazy friend Helen managed to post a comment within the nano-second it was up on my blog that was funnier than the original post. But I digress…

I know a whole lot of people all over the world read “Stuff Christians Like”, but I had NO IDEA how many hits that hyperlink would generate! Now, I have enough of a grasp on reality to realize that the vast majority of people either read the post and said, “Eh…”, or saw my half-face profile view and said, “Oh no, not THAT smart *ss!” But for those of you who liked the post enough to be back for more today, I just want to say:

“>

P. S. – For the record, if you’re wondering which of the Sky Mall posts was my favorite, I’ll tell you. Honestly, I like the first four very much. Like a mother with more than one child I would have to say, “they’re all my favorites for different reasons.” But if I were pressed, I would have to say that the Creepy Elvis post was my favorite for two reasons. The first being that for Sky Mall to promote that product is akin to leaving an ice cream truck unattended at a Weight Watchers convention — way too tempting. They were practically begging me to make fun of it. But the main reason I love that post is because it also featured another product called “The Slanket” and frankly, I LOVE saying that word! Slanket, slanket, SLANKET! (Like I said, I’m easily amused.)

P. P. S. – Angela, if you’re reading this, I’m afraid this post might edge out yours for the most hyperlink codes in a single blog post. And because you were the lone SCL commenter who came to my rescue in my hour of need, you deserve all the credit or the blame — depending on your perspective.

*A big shout out to Tim Keller for introducing me to the word “self-aggrandizement”. Cause I’m pretty sure he reads my blog…(yeeee-ah, right.)

Okay…that’s all I got. Thanks for your time. I know you’ve got other blogs to read! If you’re looking for some really good ones, just check out the ones on my sidebar — I dig ’em the most!