UngsungBlog, Random Thoughts Edition: Heat Sucks, Amazon Prime is Evil, And The Most Overused Word In English?

Yes, I'm aware that I still have not yet posted part 2 of my poker story. No, it will not appear in this blog.

I'm pretty sure it'll show up somewhere between now and 2009, though. :P

- I called my mom earlier today, and got her voicemail. She returned my call, and shouted "Happy Birthday!"

Too bad my birthday is still nine days away. It was the thought that counts, right?

- Accuweather.com says that it was about 85F today.

The RealFeel temp, though, was a crisp, cool, 99F.

I think it's time to go visit my relatives in Vancouver. Or maybe I should spend the weekend at a bookstore or a library. Free A/C + literature + (in the case of a bookstore) iced coffee FTW!

(Tangent: I went to Borders a couple days ago, and while I was there, I ordered a "ColdBrewed Vanilla Latte." Two complaints: one, the "ColdBrewed" coffee seemed to be nothing more than a pitcher of coffee stored in their refrigerator, leading me to suspect that "ColdBrewed" meant "instant coffee mixed with water and refrigerated"; two, my receipt, for some reason, was about two feet long, for one cup of coffee! Circuit City thinks that Borders is wasting paper with that long of a receipt.

(Sub-tangent (?): Why is the shortened version of refrigerator fridge? I'm going to revolt, and start spelling it "frige" from now on.)

Ooooh...my first ever tangent-within-a-tangent! One day, I'm going to have a blog entry full of nothing but sub-tangents. I suspect that it will go about five levels before I either finish the thread, or pass out from the headache.

- Amazon Prime is absolutely evil, in the same way that Costco is evil.

(Tangent: For those of you that don't know, Amazon Prime gives you free second-day shipping on any item that is offered by Amazon. It costs $79 a year, but you can share the subscription with up to four people in your household. Assuming it costs $10 to upgrade each order you make from free Super Saver shipping to second day, you'll get your money's worth with just eight orders.)

At the rate I'm going, I'll blitz through those eight orders in the next two weeks. I've had the service for about a week now, and I have already placed three separate orders. And I'm about ready to place a fourth one. And I almost placed a fifth.

(Did I mention that I've had Amazon Prime for about a week?)

Damn you, Amazon *shakes fist*!!!

(Actually, damn the unnamed individual who wanted to share his Amazon Prime account in the first place *shakes fist*. I wonder if I can file a lawsuit, citing "psychological and financial pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and emotional suffering.")

(Warning: the following may contain grammar-like substances. You have been warned.)

- Over my lunch of spaghetti and homemade meat sauce, I was thinking to myself, "What word, that is often used, is the most overused word in the English language"? I figured that I would rule out all pronouns and articles (a, an, the). Then I started slashing the list down considerably; I figured that the most overused word in the English language could not be a verb; even though "to be" and its conjugated forms are quite often overused, I could not say that "to be" is the most overused word out there.

After kicking some words around in my head for a few minutes, I arrived at the answer that I'm going to stick to. The most overused word in the English language? The word "that." Just look at how many times I used it in the last two paragraphs! The word "thing" would probably have come second, but I'm sticking to my answer.

I did an awful lot of research on this subject matter, by the way, browsing through lots of grammar-related sites. By the way, I am not a grammar Nazi, if that's what you're thinking.

(Oh look! I just used "that" again!)

Happy blogging!