Alyssa’s Blog…a modern day diary of the random thoughts of Alyssa Amsbaugh

idk if it was written by Neil Young or Nicolette Larson…I know they both sang it and I tend to think that Mr. Young wrote it. (Go, Neil! I love him and haven’t listened in awhile.) Anyway, it goes like this:

“It’s gonna take a lotta love
To change the way things are.
It’s gonna take a lotta love
Or we won’t get too far.

So if you look in my direction
And we don’t see eye to eye,
My heart needs protection
And so do I.

It’s gonna take a lotta love
To get us thru the night.
It’s gonna take a lotta love
To make things work out right.

So if you are out there waitin’
I hope you show up soon,
‘Cause my heart needs relatin’
Not solitude.

Gotta lotta love
Gotta lotta love.”

What brought this song to mind was that it was gonna take a lotta something…namely DETERMINATION…to get those fallen pine branches from the backyard to the curb this morning. But I did it!

Yeah, they were much larger, wider, and heavier than I had anticipated. I even had trouble getting them from the backyard into the driveway! omg, they were taller than me! But with my supergirl strength, I used leverage to break off one of the smaller branches and, for the larger ones, I used a hand saw. But I did it, damn it. They are curbside and they now (loosely) resemble a Christmas tree! (That is important as our town is apparently still picking up spent Christmas trees.)

Hey, they have no way of knowing whether this stuff fell down in my yard or whether I took it down as part of my decorations…I COULD be into a very rustic look. (And actually, I do like rustic…as in Walt Disney World’s Wilderness Lodge, for one. Oh yeah, and the Alligator Bayou section of Disney’s Port Orleans…the former Dixie Landings…where it looks like beavers just finished gnawing on the bedposts. Gotta love it.) Still, I will keep you posted on whether or not they take it. Wish me luck!

Yes, I made a few scientific observations this week. They may not make it into the next issue of “Scientific American,” but they did tickle my fancy…

1. If you sleep on your stomach, you’ll wake up overheated! So if you’re cold when you go to bed, that would seem to be the optimum sleep position. Personally, while that IS my favorite sleep postion, it’s too hot for me and I wake up prematurely. Like I did today. FYI, I prefer to feel some cool air on my skin.

2. That brings us to point #2. Some things are just innate. Ever since I was a baby, I always preferred sleeping on my stomach. (I know, it goes against the SIDS recommendations of today, but it worked for me or, more specifically, my parents, who needed to get some sleep themselves!) Yeah, I understand that I slept on my tummy with my butt sticking up in the air. Today I’ve flattened out that position a bit, with one leg straight and the other one hiked up high, taking up as much bed space as possible, but the basic form is the same. So comfy!

3. You MIGHT be able to get away with putting out huge branches from the pine tree in your backyard on “vegetative waste Tuesday.” The ones that broke off because of heavy ice. In the winter. When the town doesn’t normally pick up vegetative waste. But they DO pick up Christmas trees. Yep, I noticed that some of my neighbors finally put their Christmas trees out curbside and I’m going to pretend that these “branches” are trees! LOL We see how I make out.

4. In order to run properly, a car needs oil. And oil changes. Enough said.

5. If you can beat the pants off of unsuspecting children in an online Disney game in order to get more points, you should do it! LOL My new strategy is to play, play, play, win, win, win, and save, save, save in order to buy some really neat magic pins (if they are still available). But I have a long way to go. So kids, watch out, because I plays to win!

6. If you get an idea for a blog while you are sleeping, you HAVE to get up and blog it IMMEDIATELY or its “flavor” is lost. I can’t tell you how many mornings I wake up and think “What a cute idea for a blog!” only to lose the essence of those thoughts because I didn’t jot them down or get up right away and blog them. Even this blog isn’t exactly as I had written it in my head. It WAS very amusing to me and something got lost in translation. Believe me, if we go with all the off-beat things that I’m thinking at any given time, I’ve got a blog gold mine!

And finally…

7. If you build it, they will come. wtf? Just kidding! LOL

Wait! There’s one more!

8. This one really is scientific. I was pondering the nature of two of our senses…scent and taste. What prompted this? I was thinking about those Harry Potter jelly beans. The really gross ones. With flavors like “ear wax.” wtf? Who really knows what ear wax tastes like? Can something really be any flavor or even tasteless, just HEAVILY SCENTED to smell like ear wax, in order for us to perceive it as tasting like ear wax? These two senses are so very closely connected…if you can’t smell, you can’t taste. I really do wonder about this one. Put on your thinking caps and let me know what you come up with, OK?

Actually JR is the one who discovered it, but I did drink it today and I SWEAR it made me jittery! LOL Just what my co-workers want to hear, right? I’m consuming even more caffeine! I’m silly enough as it is and should probably cut down.

Anyway, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! LOL (So stay away from me in the mornings…)

Yep, that’s what I bought this week. In the form of disposable dental flossers. The product’s name is “Plackers” and it boasts having “new improved Super Tuffloss…Engineered not to shred or break during use. The same fiber used to make bulletproof vests.”

It sounds sexy, doesn’t it? I had never heard of Tuffloss but, truth be told, my razor sharp bottom teeth tend to tear normal dental flossers to shreds in just a few passes, so I figured what the hell…I gotta try this stuff.

omg, it’s amazing! THIS STUFF WON’T SHRED! My only negative comment is that they advertise it as tasting like mint and it really doesn’t taste like anything to me.

It’s cheap, too. I don’t have the receipt with me, but I think it was under $2.00 for 90 disposable dental flossers. At that price, maybe I should stock up and use some of that floss to bulletproof my bras or something! You know, just for fun! ;>

and I didn’t want to wake up! LOL I was staying at the castle, only the castle was a resort and its interior was huge. There was also a huge gift shop there and I went shopping, too! omg, there were so many neat things, like name tags with LCD screens and lots of Victorian things for the house. It was like I died and went to heaven.

No wonder I slept so late! Thank God it was Saturday! LOL

I say that because, once again, I was asleep, I really had to pee, and I had a dream where I really had to pee but couldn’t find a bathroom! Eventually the message got to my brain to WAKE UP, GET UP, AND PEE! Thank God! LOL I know I’ve had this dream before because I recognized components of it. It really is amazing how the human body works, isn’t it? What a connection to make. MY BODY SENT A MESSAGE TO MY BRAIN FOR ME TO WAKE UP!

And speaking of amazing, it’s ALSO amazing how the moray eel’s body works. I watched a program last night that taught me a thing or two about a thing or two…that the moray eel has A SECOND JAW IN ITS THROAT. It looks like something out of the movie “Alien.” It’s incredible. The first toothy jaw grabs its prey and, at that point, THE SECOND TOOTHY JAW SPRINGS OUT TO LATCH ONTO THE PREY AND PULL IT IN AS IT RETRACTS. What a brilliant design. Who knew? Here’s some additional information I found online:

“‘It looks like a funny pair of forceps with curved sharp teeth,’ said evolutionary biologist Rita Mehta, lead author of the research, which appears Thursday in Nature. Before the discovery, scientists thought that all aquatic predators swallowed their prey using suction. By dropping the lower jaw and creating a flow of water into their mouths, they draw in the prey. The two species of moray eels studied by Mehta and Wainwright are the first examples of an alternative feeding method. Instead of sucking, one of these eels bites its prey with its primary set of teeth. It then draws the second set of teeth into its mouth by contracting long muscles. The secondary jaws clamp down on the prey, allowing the eel to move its primary jaws forward in a gulping motion to take in more of the prey. The two sets of jaws take turns until the whole animal has been swallowed.”

OK, class dismissed. That’s all I’ve got for this morning. I’m going to watch “The Horror of It All” now. It should be an old B&W movie featuring Pat Boone of all ppl. He plays the fiance of some British girl (or ghoul?) and meets her creepy family @ their mansion. It’s categorized as “horror” but I find that hard to believe. The all-American, clean cut Pat Boone in a HORROR flick?!? If so, it’s because he would be the perfect foil for a creepy family. I’m relatively sure this movie is going to stink and that’s great because I’m a sucker for this type of “B” movie! LOL After all, one of my favorite Christmas movies from my childhood IS “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”…a B&W (and slightly colorized) flick from 1964. What can I say? I’m the Godzilla generation…scifi is in my blood!

That’s what I found out when I checked him out online. But why did I check him out in the first place?

I was listening to Howard Stern (just as I do every day on my way to and from work) when mention was made of Chuck Zito. Chuck WHO? Other than on Howard’s show, I had never heard of him before. Apparently he’s some sort of bodybuilder. Maybe he’s a bodyguard? Who was in some movie(s)? And now has a show on Sirius satellite radio? idk.

Anyway, Howard was raving about how Chuck is a real “man’s man” and how successful he is with women. Then he played a little bit of Chuck’s radio show where Zito was telling the tale of how yet another woman he just met ended up in bed with him.

Curiosity always seems to get the best of me, so naturally I had to do a Google search when I got home to see if Chuck Zito really is “all that.” After all, when I looked up porn star Nick Manning, he did turn out to be somewhat handsome. (Mind you, I don’t watch porn. The only reason I know his profession is because he talked about it on Howard’s show! LOL And I only looked him up because Robin was drooling over him.)

Anyway, imho, it seems that Chuck has over-developed muscles to go along with an over-inflated ego. omg, how I hate the latter. So that said, I can’t imagine who would jump in the sack with him, let alone upon a first meeting, but I guess it takes all kinds. No offense, Chuck, but you just aren’t my cup of tea.

YOU do a Google search and YOU be the judge!!!

Oy. Well, that would be me. I can’t keep my stretch-band watch on in one place on my wrist anymore…it keeps slipping down and twisting around.

Good thing men really admire a svelt wrist. At least I have THAT going for me! LOL

omg, I couldn’t help myself this morning.

I got into a LITTLE bit of trouble yesterday with an e-mail that I sent to a friend from work. It was completely innocent. I had to laugh when that friend laughed and told me how I ruined their morning by implanting an image in their head.

Well, Day 2, and this one isn’t innocent! Am doing that e-mail one better by sending a picture to help ingrain that awful image.

I’m a stinker, ain’t I? LOL BUT I CAN’T HELP MYSELF!

LOL I laugh when I say that because SOME ppl would ask, “WHAT tan?!?” Well, there IS a difference in the color of my arms up to my shirt sleeve line and that difference is fading, hence I had a tan! LOL (Hmmm, must be a redneck tan.) WHATever!