I can't sleep for the life of me. It is after 1 am and I am WIDE AWAKE, in spite of having taken Nyquil earlier. Nyquil? Am I sick? No. But it occurred to me the other day that every night I take an allergy pill and a sleeping pill. And then the next day I got coupons for Nyquil and a stronger 12 hour allergy medication. So I came up with this brilliant plan to take the stronger allergy medicine in the morning, and Nyquil at night. I thought for sure the Nyquil would help with my nighttime congestion issues, and knock me right out. Right? Wrong. Whatever. I took it 2 hours ago and my throat still hurts and I'm still congested, and I am obviously wide awake.
I give up!
So here I sit with a head full of odd thoughts and the overwhelming urge to share them with you. First, my kitten is not a tiny baby anymore. I swear he gets bigger every day. This is best evidenced by the fact that we used to share my pillow. He has this crazy overwhelming urge to sleep cheek to cheek with me. When he was the size of a small nerf ball this was cute. He curled up next to my head as I slept and was happy as long as his face was next to mine. But now he steals the entire pillow, and actually complains and bites me if I dare take up too much room on it myself. How did this happen? When did the kitten start calling the shots around here? Right now he's sleeping next to me with his back paws up on my arm. As long as he is touching me, he is okay. But if I dare move him, he will bite me and start complaining loudly. And then no one gets to sleep.
My next random thought-
Did you know that the next big thing in television is going to be personalized commercials? One of the developments that has come along with digital television is being able to track you as the viewer more closely. For instance, the "reader" can tell by public records, and my viewing choices, that I am a single female, in that vague age range of 30-40, with no children in my house, with a certain type of income, all by analyzing the tv shows I watch. I watch several prime time shows, no family shows, no cartoons, many "chick" shows, and a few sporting events. This will tell my TV to not waste its time showing me diaper commercials, or large truck commercials, and to focus on cosmetics and clothing instead. Tonight I was watching some shows online, and the commercials that I was getting were so not for me. And all I could think was that I look forward to the day when the commercials are better segregated and personalized for me.
Another interesting type of technology that is coming out will be for our DVR's. Anyone else out there wish that when they see a commercial for a show coming up that they could just hit record on the remote control right then without having to go look up the show? The technology for this has been around for a while, but for some reason isn't very widely used. I,for one, look forward to this technology becoming more popular.
Last but not least, I really really don't get the concept of giving children really bizarre names or intentionally spelling them oddly. As someone with a slightly uncommon name, I can testify to the childhood sadness of never being able to find your name on a mug or keychain at amusement parks. Or how annoying it is when someone spells your name completely wrong (it isn't Aaron! that's a boy's name!). Or when they just flat out mispronounce it (eee-rin is not a name!). Giving your child a stupid spelling isn't going to help them any in school either. What about all those i before e rules?? How are they supposed to learn these things when apparently their parents are too good (or too dumb) for them? For the love of Pete, give your children easy to spell, normal names! Give the poor kids a chance to fit in! Also, have you ever noticed how no one names their kids Jennifer, Amanda, or Heather anymore? Apparently those name never made it out of the 70's.
That's enough for one night.
Goodbye.
Ok, the TV thing worries me a little, I'm just paranoid, I guess. As for the cat--Emma's like that too. Not with sleeping on the pillow, but in general. The lates thing is that she insists on being spoon-fed again, like we did when she was a baby, and she chooses which parent will feed her, in which chair the parent will sit, in which chair she will sit (of if she prefers to be held at the moment) and which particular food on her plate she wants to consume at that moment. And if we don't do it all her way we get to hear her scream about it until we give in--she has the ability to scream for hours, literally, until we do what she wanted. And we feel silly for giving in to her all the time but can't stand the screaming. Then we feel guilty for spoiling her. But since we know a lot of that will stop by necessity once baby sister arrives, so we indulge Emma now, knowing her world is going to change dramatically in a couple months.
ReplyDeleteAnd I totally agree with you on the name thing, as another child who grew up with an unusual name that was never on the preprinted things and whose name is always misspelled and mispronounced. Nobody knows how to say Tamigene. And of course now we have a cousin with a middle name with a very unusual spelling. Poor kid. It's their right to name him, but he's going to have problems with that his whole life.
Makes me wonder what the TV commercial thing would think of me watching the Sci-Fi channel, BBC-America, the Cartoon Network and a lot of anime, and every genre prime-time TV show I can get my hands on, plus a smattering of PBS. If the advertising on the Sci-Fi channel and G4 is to be believed, there would have to be at least one 20-something guy in my household, and possibly at least one boy child. Which there isn't.
ReplyDeleteI don't like advertisements in general anyway, but the advertisements on the channels that assume their main audience is guys ticks me off. Just because I like SF/F doesn't mean I'm a guy.
If this is true, and the dominant viewers in my house dictate the commercials, there will be plenty of ads coming our way for Hannah Montana toys, and maybe the occasional Old Spice or Beano.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the name issue.
ReplyDeleteI have a theory that the term "common spelling" is about to become obsolete.
I so agree with you on the name thing. That's one of my pet peeves myself. People think they're trying to be original when all they're doing is making 80 years of life miserable for the kid.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the name thing too, kinda. I like a little different. Like Dayle (think Dale) is my daughter's name and I love it. Does she get the occasional Daleeeeyyy thing, sure, but we just tell her it is those peoples problem and how special her name is. And Eli is my son's name - believe it or not, people really do ask me where we came up with that name (heard of the bible anyone?).
ReplyDeleteI grew up with Karena - hello!! 'How do you spell that?' 'With a K, huh, never seen that before' 'car-in-a (think car, then in, then a) or 'Karen - a?' And the kids - you know what Karena rhymes with - Purina for one!
Exhausting and I got over never finding my name on anything, although I admit I still look! How sad is that?!
I think a little different builds character, but names like Apple, Happy, Lettice & Digby (isn't that the dog's name on Pushing Daisies?) are a little too different. Seriously, how are their children ever going to get respect someday with names like that? Has anyone seen Baby Mama where they make fun of that (scene when they're walking on the sidewalk and the mom calls her kids)? It's funny - we re-wound it just to hear it again.
Okay, there is my rambling for the night on that subject.