Redundancy @ MindSay

Yesterday, Lorelei and I were talking about food.  (Yeah, like we never do that...)  She mentioned that she’d had some tuna fish earlier in the day.

 

“Tuna fish.” 

 

Why do we call it that?  We don’t amend any other sort of fish with a word that clarifies what it is.  We don’t say “salmon fish” or “roughy fish” or “grouper fish” or “trout fish.”  

 

For that matter, we don’t say we’d like “stuffed pork mammal chops” for dinner.  Or maybe we could just go out to “Kentucky Fried Chicken Bird.”

 

And please don't tell me it's because there are people in the world (other than Jessica Simpson) who don't know that tuna is a fish.

 

 

With this heat wave in California, we're at record high power usage in the state.  Naturally, the energy companies are urging us to conserve.  And rightfully so.  I mean, it's just good sense.

 

But some of the suggestions aren't.

 

For example, in yesterday's paper, they recommended that if we're not at home during the day, we should turn our air conditioning off.  What lunacy.  I can just imagine how it would be...  millions of Californians return home between five and six p.m. to find their homes are now 120 degrees inside.  They snap on the AC, crank it down low, and the power grid has a seizure.

 

Yeah.  Real bright.

 

Also, they suggest if you are home during the day, keep your AC set around 82 degrees.  Um, no.  If I'm home, it's going to be, at most, 76 degrees.  Call me a bad environmentalist.  Call me spoiled.  So be it.

 

I could see setting it at 82 while I'm at work.  But I certainly won't shut it off.  And I'm not going to try to sleep with it being 82 degrees in my bedroom.  Sorry.  I did that as a kid.  And there are some things you shouldn't have to do, once you're in control of your own thermostat.

 

  

I'm going to tell you my phobia's.  Because I'm bored and have nothing else to write today.  Thanks to Phobia List.

• Aphenphosmphobia - Fear of being touched
• Insectophobia - Fear of insects
• Acrophobia- Fear of heights
• Demophobia- Fear of crowds
• Agoraphobia- Fear of open spaces or of being in crowded, public places like markets
• Catagelophobia - Fear of being ridiculed
• Arachnophobia - Fear of spiders
• Kenophobia - Fear of voids or empty spaces
• And one I couldn't find.  Fear of touching dirty clothing.

Crap on a cracker, I am strange.  I got a blog here just so I could make smartassed comments on Mal's, and I had to make it pretty and use it to write about school.  I am the world's biggest geek.  Now this thing gets to go back to dormancy because I am done with school for a month and will therefore have nothing to say for a while.  Well, I am going to go see The Revels, which is a medieval drama pretty soon, but that's not quite the same.  I'm still baffled by my own specialization of useless blogspace.  If it's any consolation [to me], this one exists not because I feel the need to specialize like the kind of insect Robert Heinlein would despise (+3 book-nerd points) but because I love what I do so much I want to give it its own little home.  Aww, look at the little brain, all safe and snug in its little brain-house!  It's kind of nice to be working on something I care about this much.  Having been apathetic and confused about college for years-- yes, I have been thinking about college since childhood, blame my overeducated parents-- I can't imagine having gone on like that.  Just not having any kind of enthusiasm, interest, or passion seems a bleak way to go through life.  Eurgh.  So there's that.  Cheers all.