When Voice Transcription Goes Bad (pt 1)

So, we get transcripted voicemails from our various phone providers. Sometimes they get it right.  Other times, not so much.  These are not presented in order of their hilarity as perceived by us.

• Hey Jeff. It's me. I just thought I'd see if you had a bed access bradley, I'm, I thought of a With this week cos I don't. Don't worry about it try to fix it, that they can understand St. You. So whatever 204th. Bye and the blocking the driveway make up. Hit me up. So But the I called my got to go and Yeah, so that they can. So, alright. Bye.

• "Hi here yeah it's Monday. I was just wondering if you had be had be out yeah Harry Potter the Harry Potter. We'll talk to this song, Doug Buck. I need it I need it for a project for like not quite a quite a homework assignment. So the school for school. So yeah, thank you you. If you was wondering if you had it because it due my office okay, cool, cool. So yeah, I just wondering if you had to confirm it for like a little bit because I need Abby to school. Please call me back as soon as you can my cell which is 52833539450 and my dad and then I'll do it for me could please please call back as soon possible. If you don't have it sorry I was trying to figure it out but hey, I know what like if you had the book" ... more. Please listen to your voicemail for the remainder of this message.

• Hey, it's me. I'm going to swing by. Anyway I was. Smith. I'm down that or lunch, whatever just trying to do anything C D alright talk about the almost 4 o'clock. So You know my book.

• Hey did rid Smith, How are you. I was just I'm working from home office today. Just pick up the stack of mail and realized it was a saying, hey liz the school and I think that's where the online hello.

• Wreck Hello. Yeah this is the principal calling from 10 o'clock. Yeah, I am calling to inform you that our records show that migraines absent from school today. Yeah, you know. Yeah attendance and school is very important for a successful school year. Yeah, please remember to send a note in with your child when he she returns to school, explaining the reason for the absence yank your.

Oh shut up, Rush.

I was going to post my rant but Emily Yoffee beat me to it. :D

Actually, to begin, Limbaugh needed to first call Sandra Fluke, and if she wouldn’t take his call, he should have had a letter of apology delivered to her. Then when he issued his public statement it should have been something like: “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke. My remarks about her were false, cruel, and repulsive. There’s no excuse and I offer none. I seriously crossed the line and I am sorry.”

Welcome Spring!

So - meteorological spring tiptoed in last week with a snow storm.  Um... goodbye winter?  It's a little backward this year - a fall storm (3-4 days without power) and a spring storm, but technically nothing during the winter.


With us getting to "spring forward" this weekend, I put away the "happy light" hoping the end of the long dark winter tunnel is near.  The daffodils area all up and rarin' to go under the blanket.  Hopefully they aren't all frostbit.

This was the first thing I saw today - on "the daily squee".  Love it.  I went online and found it where it was stolen from originally.  A collection of 50 Best photos from The Natural World on boston.com.    It was taken by a photographer named "Kham" for Reuters news service.  Which brings me to one of my pet peeves.  The material on the internet was created by  someone.  Attribution is necessary.  This is being ignored, and "stealing" is being taught in schools.  Makes me absolutely bananas.   


The Kid has a project every couple of weeks.  One of the parts of the project he's graded on is grabbing photos from the internet, printing them out, gluing them on to the page in his notebook.  As a photographer, from a family of artists, this pains me.  These students should be taught to attribute the photographs.  List, at the very least, the site they grabbed them from.  I think the next one I'll require my kid to cite the source of his photos, even though it's not required.


My FIL recently was contacted by a student putting together a thesis and wanted to ask if he could use some of this photographs from his portfolio.  FIL was tickled pink because the kid ASKED before he just printed them out and stuck them in his paper, which would have been ridiculously easy.


Just because it's on the internet, doesn't mean it's free for your use.  Too many friends have discovered their photos (exif included) in various places.  It's not "orphaned" just because it was posted.  A teeny bit of work can usually uncover who produced it.


I had a book on "How to draw Celtic Knotwork" years ago.  I wrote the author (we didn't have email back then) in Ireland if I could use some of the designs from his book in my jewelry designs.


This should be common sense, but it isn't.  And it makes me sad.

Blue Man Group!

Took the kid to see Blue Man Group for the first time.  Our third time seeing it.
The kid got to be up close and personal with the blue men.   He also had the theater manager take him and a few other kids to the side to tell them what one of the secret ingredients of the show was.  Awesome.  Even J got to be part of the show.  Thanks to great seats and our habit of getting there early.  

Our first real date nearly 15 years ago was to BMG, then J surprised me for our 10th anniversary of our first date (our real first date, which was April 1, 1997), and now around our 15th anniversary of date 1, we go again - this time with the kid. Next time the kid will be 14!  

The Boys and a Blue Man after the show

Almost St. Paddy's Day!

And - two weeks before the party starts the cleaning frenzy.   It's combination spring cleaning and OH MY GOD HOW AM I GOING TO FIT 40 PEOPLE IN HERE madness.  It's relatively enjoyable though.  Next weekend will be the sun porch.  Here's hoping for another 70 degree Parade Day!


update:  We've never actually started cleaning for this party so early - we've discussed it, but it never happened.   I hope we'll have time to decorate and stuff rather than throwing everything up in our bedroom and shutting the door in the hours before the party.

Thank You, N. E. Patriots~

What a great season; unfortunately a heartbreaking loss in the last seconds of the game.  


I wish I could be at Foxboro to welcome the team back home.  

I suck at blogging. Hey, here's a leg warmer!

Almost finished with the first leg-warmer.  It's hilariously misshapen and I managed to gain a couple  of stitches.  I love it.  Warts and all.  I only hope my short attention span allows me to complete the other one, or else I'll end up with one very cold ankle...  I'll be like an old lady version of LL Cool J with the single leg warmer. Wow.  I need to throw some lotion on the tootsies.  Look away!


So - I spent the past two weeks down with a migraine.  Glad I have a dr's appt next month to get those sorted out again.  Finally they stopped, and I didn't have one on Saturday, until the roller-rink place played a song and had a bunch of strobe lights going.  End of the migraine free- day.


Sunday's Chinese New Year feast was delayed a day, but it worked out because The Kid got his report card yesterday and it was all As.  He brought up the single B - and that was celebration-worthy.    He wanted rice-balls and pot stickers. YUM.  Lots of work, late supper where I don't get to eat with everyone, but totally worth it.


Squishy post alert:  So proud of my kid.  He's doing so well after a hellish year, and he doesn't even realize how hellish it was.  Great attitude.

When your mom freaks you out

Watching the preview of "A Clockwork Orange" reminded me of the time my mother walked in on my watching it on VHS and saying, "Oh, I LOVED that movie.  It was a bit disturbing, though".    


I couldn't even make it all the way through - and it was one of her favorites.   

Such a Phal...

So - the thing is, I'm doing this because so many people I know keep saying "oh, you should do a blog".  Why not, right?


Assuming you know me, you'll know who "My Sweetie" and "The Kid" are.  'Nuff said.


My Sweetie came up with the name for the blog.  "You should make a blog called PHAL-blog" when I was talking about a spike starting on my phalenopsis that I'd never gotten to rebloom before.


So, here I am.  I've got a very funny family, and awesome friends, and I find odd things humorous.  I'm a dork, married to a gorgeous geek, with a brilliant, talented, hilariously funny kid.  I hope this is interesting.


And the Pats are playing the Broncos right now.  GO PATS! What freakin' team we've got this year.