Friday, March 28, 2008

Brief snippets

* I did another voiceover job yesterday. It was for a pilot of a travel show centered on ecotourism. I hope they sell it because then I'd get to do more work. I'm not in the union but they still gave me a hundred bucks an hour! I wonder what the unionized voiceover people make.

* It's still cold here. It snowed yesterday and it will snow today. (Not a lot, but still.)

* This week in class, we are doing an in-class reading about new spy businesses that offer technologically advanced bugs and cameras and sundry other items seen on CSI. In the article, they mention a semen detector. This is to check up on your cheating spouse who may have a drip or two on their undergarments. I've been having the most hilarious time making the students (adults, all) have the correct pronunciation of the word "semen". It's not siMEN, it's SEAmen, "Now say it with me."

* The first time I ever heard the word "semen" was from my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Shandy. She explained nocturnal emissions to us (in case we had one and got frightened) and I remember hoping that it would never happen to me. Do 6th grade teachers nowadays talk about this stuff?

* Gas prices here have followed the following pattern for the last year: Tues/Wed the price is set (all gas stations have essentially the same price at the same time) and each day it goes down a penny or two. Then on Tues/Wed they bump the price back up. It's usually 10-12%. To put that into perspective, one day the gas is $3.79 and the next it is $4.25 a gallon.

* I want to order this tomato tree. It zooms high as a man in just three months.
* Then again, about the time the tomatoes are ready, the markets will be giving them away. (As will the neighbors.)

21 comments:

CoffeeDog said...

Tomatoes - it's not the destination of the final tomato product, but the journey of growing them that is so rewarding!

HA, in case you are wondering that is me be facetious.

I have always wanted to do voice overs. I have a voice that I do that would be good for a cartoon character. Mrs Coffeedog calls it my Scary Puppet Voice.

Snooze said...

I would pay to hear your class practising saying 'semen'

Anonymous said...

On this giant tomato ad, don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see. Your results may differ. If you're going to grow the plants in containers you would do well to get tomato plants designed for container growing. I remember one year you grew tomatoes and pot or was it potted tomatoes, haha. Ed

Lemuel said...

None of my teachers EVER said the word semen. None of them ever mentioned nocturnal emissions. I might have saved myself a great amount of trauma (wondering what was wrong with me) had they done so. You were quite lucky. I am sure that state-side the wingnuts have gagged any teacher would would even have thought of mentioning those things.

Patricia said...

I think we should be afraid of such monstrous tomatoes. Very afraid.

Snowed here, too. Just a couple inches. But any snow these days makes me crabby. I'm done!

RJ March said...

I question Mrs. Shandy's ethics, talking about nocturnal emissions. My knowledge of them came from the Cub Scout Handbook. Otherwise, since I never had one-- another great lament-- I would never have known about its existence.

Tomato tree is funny. Ridiculous. If it were real, wouldn't they be everywhere all ready? And not offered in some hyper-cheesy ad?

bardelf said...

torn wrote: Do 6th grade teachers nowadays talk about this stuff?

I'm afraid that it's probably second graders these days! I am shocked with how much my young nephews hear in school compared with me at the same age. Times they are a'changin'.

about a boy said...

it might snow this weekend...im really hoping the weather man is wrong this time.

Anonymous said...

Yesterday one of the kids were talking about sperm whales. My pathetic brain kept repeating it in a significant way, "*sperm* whale". I managed to keep my trap shut.

ChickenStrip said...

Wow! An entire tomato farm on one single tree!

GayProf said...

We had snow yesterday. Montréal seems to get our sloppy seconds.

We had sex-ed in fifth grade, which included a "very special video" about nocturnal emissions. It, however, left out all information about masturbation.

Jen said...

Torn: No, not smeegMA, it's SMEGma...

We had sex ed in gr. 6, girls separate from the boys. Ours focused almost solely on menses and v. little about sex. Religion class always included a "Family and Relationships" unit from gr. 1 to gr. 9. Catholic school though and in the 80's, "gay" or "lesbian" were never mentioned.

My verification word is dedicated to GayProf: rubrz

A Lewis said...

Darn, my niece is in 6th grade and was just here on a visit. I should have asked her!

Java said...

When I was in grade 6 I had a friend, a boy, who went to a different school. It was a very progressive school. They had sex ed, we did not. They separated the boys from the girls for sex ed class. He said he already knew about boys, he wanted to go to the girls' class to learn about girls. Yes, he's straight.

Anonymous said...

I read the title as Beef Snippets and got to the end and thought "Where's the beef?" Then I re-read the title and went "Oh..."

You'd be awesome at voiceover! Me? According to Lattegirl, I sound like a Stepford Wife.
-Rox

Lyvvie said...

I went to an all girls school so we got saved from the nocturnal emissions talks but got double duty on feminine hygiene care and the environment.

Yay! I'm growing tomatoes this year too! But never a man hight one. Makes me think of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

Anonymous said...

NCO's in the Navy are called "Seamen."

Dig it.

don said...

My sister told me about sex one day while we were both sitting in a ditch eating weeds. Then Poof I was a gay.

BTW. It actually snowed here today. I am just letting you know after many smug references that I made to the mild winter that we have been having.

David said...

However, while the stores will be filled with tomatoes, the vine grown ones from home always taste better. I love tomatoes, but I end up buying the more inexpensive mass produced, I guess, ones. They taste horrible.

Now ones grown in the backyard: Perfect.

Anonymous said...

Oooo... I used to be an on-air personality and then I did voiceover work for a friends company. I have a kind of resonant voice that friends call a true "FM" voice.

lattégirl said...

George Morris, one of Montreal's leading voiceover/narration guys, was earning $400 an hour back in the mid-80s. You've heard his voice a million times and might not even know it.