Attention Hogs

Did you ever have that one friend who no matter what the situation ALWAYS had to be right in the middle of it? If it isn't all about them, they try to make it about them. Like say for instance, the coolest thing that ever happened to you just happened and you're all excited to tell people about it and then along comes the attention hog who spends the next hour telling about something similar, only way cooler, that happened to them five years ago.

What kind of barren, hollow, unfulfilled life must someone be living if every waking moment they feel the need to push their presence to the forefront to be noticed by others. Maybe they are oblivious as to how pathetic it looks to sacrifice their dignity seeking only the approval of the people standing around them. I find it absolutely rebarbative.

That's the Merriam Webster Online word of the day:

rebarbative • \rih-BAR-buh-tiv\ • adjective
: repellent, irritating

Don't you find it rebarbative when someone is so desperate for attention that they'll think of anything just to have an excuse to talk about themselves. I know a guy like that. ATTENTION HOG! Even stooping so low as to hog to himself five entries in a row on a blog that is supposed to be a collaboration. And its not like he even has anything interesting to say...he's just regurgitating words out of the dictionary to hear the sound of his own voice. Ugh. Rebarbative indeed!

Word of the Day: Bucolic

My attempt yesterday at raising this blog's level of sophistication had mixed results. The part that could still use improvement: I again ended up talking about butt wiping. But on the plus side: we had our first two confirmed reports of someone (other than ourselves) actually reading our blog. Okay so one was my wife who I practically had to force her to read, but the other was my sister-in-law...my very sweet, proper, polite, conservative sister-in-law from Japan...and I was talking about butt wiping. How embarrassing.

I suppose it just goes to show that I can try all I want to put on a show of being sophisticated and cultured but when it comes down to it, I'm still just a redneck turd from the sticks. And it isn't a good idea to try to polish a turd. Just try it sometimes. Or better yet, don't. It's a messy thing only a country fried hick would attempt. Which brings me to the Merriam-Webster Online word of the day:

bucolic • \byoo-KAH-lik\ • adjective
1 : of or relating to shepherds or herdsmen : pastoral
2 : relating to or typical of rural life

I have been bucolic all my life and didn't realize until tonight. I knew I was a couple of other things ending in -olic but never of the "buc" variety. But step one of overcoming any problem is identifying it.

I know I'm bucolic because:

• I currently live in a town of less than 3,000 people.
• The major industry here is the dump.
• The most famous person that lives here has an outrageous mullet.
• You can see the city limits sign from the other city limits sign.
• You can write "Ethel" on an envelope, put a stamp on it and the post office knows exactly where to deliver it.

I didn't always live in this town though. The place I grew up in was even more bucolic. I had five classmates in my fifth grade class. We shared the same classroom and teacher with the two fourth-graders and the four sixth-graders. One time my dad pulled out to the end of the driveway and had to wait for a car to go past and complained about the darn traffic. Yes we were a bunch of raging bucolics.

But this is good. Now that I've admitted to myself what a bucolic I am maybe I can get myself some help. I'm sure there are a few good government programs that help unfortunate bucolics such as myself. My town is probably too bucolic to have its own chapter of Bucolics Anonymous but maybe the next town over...the one with the liquor store...

Bucolics Anonymous, there's a contradiction in terms. If you ever want to be anonymous don't come to a town that's full of bucolics. People might not all know your name but they all know about something personal about you. For instance, some people in town call me by my name. Others call me "that guy who's dog stole my burrito last summer." And everyone knows exactly who they're talking about. I haven't tested this theory yet but I wouldn't be suprised if I received a letter some day addressed only to "That guy who's dog stole my burrito last summer."

Now that I've admitted that I have this problem, I feel pretty good about my chances of kicking this bucolism. That's not to say I won't fall off the wagon every once in a while but I think that with the help and support of my family and friends...hey look at that! Bubba's got himself a brand new riding lawnmower and wants to race! Oh well, maybe I'll quit cold turkey next week.

Word of the Day: Inveigh

In an attempt to make my blogs more enlightening (apparently some people think that discussing the ramifications of wiping your butt with puppy tp has no redeeming value) I am now committed to upholding certain standards that will hopefully convince our readers that reading our blog is educational and is in no way a waste of time.

So my first step is to institute a "regular" feature called Word of the Day, that will neither be regularly featured on a daily basis nor will it necessarily contain actual words. I'm just calling it this because it sounded good at the time. In this feature, I will from time to time discuss a new vocabulary word as found on Merriam-Webster Online.

The word for today is INVEIGH. It is a verb that means to protest or complain bitterly or vehemently. For example: Many people inveighed my last blog, whether complaining about my overly descriptive narration of de-muddifying (that should be another word of the day) or my insensitivity to puppies.

I, in return, must inveigh that unlike vocabulary building, wiping is in fact a regular feature probably done by most people on a daily basis. If left undone it can lead to serious health, social, and emotional problems.

So this is my argument: Wiping is more important than learning new vocabulary. So if Merriam-Webster is going to devote a whole section of its website to vocabulary building, shouldn't they have at least two or three times that amount devoted to wiping?

This will hopefully put the matter into perspective for those of you who inveighed me for yesterday's blog.