Thank You, Thank You Very Much

Today I finally finished writing thank you notes for Christmas presents.  Mostly because I'm a bum and lazy and tend to forget that these things have to be done, but also because writing thank you notes occasionally fills me with fury.  I'm fairly certain that the people who get these little notes from me say, "Oh, you're welcome" and then shruggingly (shut up, Chrome, it's a word...) throw the card in the trash, disposing of all my fine work.  Although to be fair, I never really say anything more interesting than "Thank you" and "thanks again!" at the very end.  Maybe I could do a little bit of spicing up when it comes to writing these cards.

In looking up "thanks" in the Oxford English Dictionary, I learned that the majority of the definitions were very dull and meant exactly what I knew they would mean.  So that was disappointing.

I also found a number of ironical uses for the word, as well as "thank goodness!" and the like.  Oh, and the ever popular "Thanks for nothing!"

[this is where I say something about church that I censor because I don't need any deities angry at me right now.]

"The value we place on what we've been given correlates to our depth of gratitude for it."

- Todd Stocker

World's End

Today's Oxford English Dictionary word of the day is "world's end."  Really.  I thought that would have been considered two separate words, but fun fact...it's not!  How cool!

There are two separate definitions of the word which won't really surprise you when I paraphrase them:
1) The end of the world.  As in The Day of Judgement.  Apocalypse (fun fact, I had to spell "apocalypse" backwards for a game once, or maybe that was "hippopotamus"...)
2) The end of the world.  As in the furthest reaches of the world.  Where the sidewalk ends, as it were.

Thanks, Google!

This is really intriguing to me because "world's end" reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.  So this word of the day is really timely because my building's staff and others are planning on watching all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies on Friday.  Which is going to be super intense, but I've done it before, and it's just one extra movie, so is it really that bad?  Besides, people watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy in one sitting all the time.  And there's nothing stopping me from falling asleep mid-sentence uttered by Captain Beckett.  Or just taking a walk.

As a rule At World's End isn't my favorite Pirates movie, but it's in second place to the first one because Dead Man's Chest is too much of a cliffhanger to hold my attention for long enough.  I resent that I went to see the second movie so many times in the theatre because all it was was a gigantic cliffhanger.  I don't meant to spoil it for anyone, but nothing resolves at the end of that movie.  It's a huge set-up for number three.

Bright side, number four wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I was worried about paying for a movie ticket, but luckily it was worth it.  Even though I don't really like the female lead with Johnny Depp...not enough chemistry if you ask me.

Anyway....I'm going to go take a final.  Two, actually, so we'll see how this goes.  Ta!

Barbossa: The world used to be a bigger place.

Sparrow: World's still the same.  There's just less in it.

- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

S'mores

"Please sir, I want s'more."
"S'more?  But how can you have s'more when you haven't had any?"

Today I thought I'd write about the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the day.  As you may or may not have guessed, the word of the day is "s'more."

From the entry in the OED, I've learned that the word "s'more" is actually chiefly in the plural, which is something that I find to be true, but interesting because I hadn't thought of it before (thank you, OED, for getting me to think!).  Sure, you can eat a s'more, but more than likely you'll be making s'moreS.

Thank you, Google, for the lovely picture!  I wish the marshmallow was a bit more well-done...

For those who aren't familiar with this particular delicious snack (all my readers who are actually aliens.  That's why they don't subscribe, it's because they don't have blogs in outer space, just the Internet.), a s'more is a marshmallow based deliciousness.  The most common way of making a s'more is to poke a marshmallow with a stick and hold it over the flames of an open campfire.  Preferably at night so the only light is provided by the glow of the campfire.  You toast your marshmallow to the appropriate darkness (I enjoy lighting mine on fire and watching the outside blacken because it's only good if the marshmallow's charred properly.) and ask a friend for help because usually it's a little difficult to do this step on your own.  You've got a graham cracker with a piece of chocolate on top of it, and you put the marshmallow on top of the chocolate before sandwiching it with the other half of the cracker.  Then you have to pull the stick out of the marshmallow and you've got a s'more.

I know this because I'm a Girl Scout.  And we're pros when it comes to making s'mores.  And other things too, but s'mores are the most important of camping staples.
Wikipedia actually attributes the creation of the s'more to the Girl Scouts, which is interesting.  Although it says that the first reference of the word appeared in 1927 when OED claims it first appeared in 1934.  I'm not going to say anything about the reliability of either of these sources, but I'm a personal fan of the OED...

I personally haven't had a s'more in a while because we didn't eat them at camp the last time I went.  It's only now that I realize how disappointed I am about this.

A couple summers ago I wrote a stage adaptation of the story "The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage."  Yes. Sausage.  And I actually wrote that the Sausage cooked homemade marshmallows and the three friends ate s'mores all the time.  It was either s'mores or sauer kraut, because the Sausage was German.  Mostly because I really wanted my actor to wear lederhosen.  Unfortunately that didn't happen, but it was still a really good story.

So homemade marshmallows.  They're good.  When the recipe says to use a "sauce pan," that's not the same thing as a "frying pan."  And gelatin is weird.

This is relevant, I promise.  Just go to 3:26 and watch...

"You're killing me, Smalls!  These are s'mores stuff.  Now pay attention.  First you take the graham.  You stick the chocolate on the graham.  Then, you roast the mallow.  When the mallow's flaming, you stick it on the chocolate.  Then you cover it with the other end.  Then, you stuff.  Kind of messy, but good!"

- The Sandlot