I been around the world, I ain't never seen a girl like this

[cleolinda]

You know, I take issue with the old adage that you should write what you know. Number one, as bibliotech pointed out, the entire science fiction genre would cease to exist. Number two--most of us lead extremely boring lives. If we wrote only what we knew, we would probably replace science fiction with navel gazing, and the You Are Way Too Young to Be Writing This Memoir genre is overstuffed as it is. Therefore, I believe that you should write what you know, and if you don't know it, you should go find it out--also known as "research."

The Joys of Being a Writer, or, Problems You Don't Run Into Much: "Man, I wish they had more pictures of old-fashioned haystacks."

Problems You Don't Run Into Much, Part Two: "But when do you cut the hay? When??"

Part Three: "There is a serious dearth of good haymaking FAQs on the internet."

Part Four: "FINALLY."

Part Five: "Hey, man, I don't judge. If you just need to have a field full of phallic symbols, you know, that's your scene, then, whatever."

Part Six: "This ice cream is not sufficient for my malnutritional needs."

Which perhaps bears some explaining. Since Bluebell is holding out on us regarding the Chocolate Almond Marshmallow ice cream (it's supposed to go back into rotation this month, but I haven't seen any yet), my mother decided to be enterprising and buy from a different brand--Mayfield's Chocolate Marshmallow ice cream and their Chocolate Almond ice cream. "You can just combine them!" she says. I am so touched by the gesture that I restrain myself from pointing out that we could have bought one flavor of ice cream and a bag of almonds. Which might have been a better idea, because it turns out that Mayfield's ice cream doesn't really have that much in the way of almonds--it's more like it's just daydreaming about them, thinking about how it might be a good idea, someday, to include almonds in the product. Also, Bluebell's almonds are chocolate-covered. You understand now, don't you?

Slight update on the YouTube situation: eponine_b says that the people who actually made the video posted it with credit on their website; someone apparently then took it and posted it to YouTube without, I would imagine, permission. That said, it's really not a big deal, you guys. I mean, maybe it is for the vidders if their work was stolen, but I think there's enough commentage on the YT page to thoroughly indicate where the text came from.

P.S. can't stop listening to nelly furtado (stop) send help please (stop)

Comments

[thunderphoenix.livejournal.com]

Personally, I can't stand Mayfield. Blue Bell is probably my favorite.

(And I only eat Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. It's pretty much that or nothing with me.)

[orimornie.livejournal.com]

Listen to this (http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=D078D26646761BFA) instead... its all nostalgic-y :D

[orimornie.livejournal.com]

P.S. In case you're all paranoid like me, its the remix of a theme song from a 90's cartoon :)

[edda.livejournal.com]

I take it your work-in-progress has led you to a hayfield? *clicks photo link*

Oh, my.

And I like Breyer's, myself. Or Ben & Jerry's. If you've ever thought about getting Haagen Dazs' Triple Chocolate, don't waste your cash. Kinda fake-tasting. I have come to realize that no matter what food snobs prance about telling you, Dutch-process cocoa isn't all that.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Ben & Jerry's has a Key Lime Pie flavor right now that is WONDERFUL.

There is a joke about needles in haystacks around here somewhere.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

For the hay making, I was going to recommend that little_details (or whatever the exact name was) LJ comm, but then I saw you'd got it already.

[spike22fowl.livejournal.com]

You know, I've heard the news a million times before...

...But every time I hear it again (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4432415.stm?ls), I just get sad.

I loved the Cookie Monster. =/

[orimornie.livejournal.com]

I've heard it before... but I never knew his name was Sid!

The music video of 'Maneater' is good.

[chenpion.livejournal.com]

Now go listen to 'Promiscuous'!

Re: The music video of 'Maneater' is good.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Damn you! Now I have that stuck in my head!

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

As someone else said, little_details is a good place to ask odd questions. I've bumped into users there who know a lot about a) Queen Elizabeth I, b) weird gadgets and gizmos, c) breastfeeding even though you haven't had a kid, and d) delayed puberty.

Also, I'm surprized you're not whiffle-batting over on bad_penny.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Man, I wouldn't wade into the clusterfuck over at Bad Penny for all the tea in china. I read it, but I'm keeping my mouth shut.

[lilgoala.livejournal.com]

I imagine the field full of phallic symbols is located somewhere near the Valley of Wang (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/7062243/?qo=226&q=by%3Aursulav+sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps).

*worships ursulav from afar*

[vkitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Maneater's kind of addictive isn't it? It was hovering at the top of my Top 25 list for a while before it was subsequently downtrodden by this one. (http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=3BAC88791F02964A)

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

Dude, I coulda told you about hay! I've totally hauled hay when we were living with my in-laws!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hee!

(So, uh, when *do* you cut the hay?)

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Bullysticks (http://www.bullysticks.com)

Just . . . go there. Yeah.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

AAAAAHHHHH.

[exiledprincess.livejournal.com]

I, um, could have told you when they cut the hay. My dad takes care of my grandpa's alfalfa fields. Of course, it's probably better that you found that site, as it's a lot more detailed than any answers I can give you.

[madam-rptr.livejournal.com]

-it's more like it's just daydreaming about them, thinking about how it might be a good idea, someday, to include almonds in the product.

Oh, thank you so much for the giggle that occurred due to reading this. And, yes, I do know what you're talking about re lack of almonds. It's the worst type of false advertising, I say. There ought to be a law...

[gold-tree.livejournal.com]

Blue Bell ice cream is god. I'm originally from Houston, and one of the highlights of my childhood was visiting the "Little Creamery in Brenham" with my family on the way to my grandparents' house.

I don't think I've ever seen Blue Bell up here in Chicago, sadly. Is it just a Southern thing? Is the lack of Blue Bell ice cream some kind of beyond-the-grave punishment placed upon me by my ancestors for daring to leave the South? Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough, or something.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Check the Bluebell site; I think it'll tell you where it's available. Also, try the Brownie Overload if you can get hold of it. I'm not much for the chunks of peanut butter brownie, but the rest of it is made of win.

[r-a-black.livejournal.com]

Have you ever listened to Leaf House by Animal Collective? Now that's something to listen to even if you wish you weren't but really wish you were so you are but shouldn't be. Or just go back to listening to the Kraken, it rocks afterall.

[msilverstar]

Your posts are such fun! Haystacks :-) Just another data point: in Switzerland, way up in Alps, I saw them haying in July.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm thinking of making this a regular feature: Random Shit I Happen to Be Researching Right Now, Completely Without Context. Since I tend to work on multiple projects at once, it might be fun to watch people try to figure out why I want to know about haymaking *and*, let's say, slow-acting poisons.

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,


Part Five: "Hey, man, I don't judge. If you just need to have a field full of phallic symbols, you know, that's your scene, then, whatever."

-Looks to me more like someone's been raising a herd of seriously incontinent Brachiosaurs. There's the plot for JURASSIC PARK IV right there, Steven *g*

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

Another problem with writing what you know is that I live in Indiana--we're not known for knowing anything. I used to live near a woman who thought the president of the United States was Jesus, I kid you not.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

WHAT NO

[redmapletree.livejournal.com]

Cleo...it's your journal, of course, but...why did you stop posting the links to the Hunger/Breast Cancer/Literacy sites? I click on them thrice each every time I see you post them, because otherwise I would forget.

If you just didn't want them on your posts anymore, that's okay, though. :)

[redmapletree.livejournal.com]

...or wait, never mind, now I can see the Hunger Site link. Ignore everything I just said.

Haystacks

[want2bspry.livejournal.com]

Hehehehehehehe

And if you use WorldCat (thanks public library!) you find resources like

England's most dreadful calamity by the late floods
being a most lamentable account of the great damages sustained by the fearful invndations, caused by the unparalell'd rain which fell on the 24th of April, 1682 : and the late rains which have lately hapned : containing the several houses, barns, cattle, out-houses, stacks of hay and corn, being carried away : together with the number of persons drowned, and of some thousands of acres of ground layed under water : giving a relation of the particular damage sustained in the city of London, and the suburbs thereof, at Branford, Camberwell, Dulwich, Depford, on the river Thames ...


AND

Most strange and wonderful nfws [sic] from North-Wales
being a faithful and impartial relation, of what strange things has lately hapned in Merionethshire in that country, how a great track of ground near the sea coast, containing many parishes, has been infested for several weeks, with great numbers of strange creatures like locusts ... : at the same time likewise strange pillars, piramids of fire, and fire-balls have invisibly sprang out of the earth, which has set fire too, and burnt down many stacks of hay and corn ...

Love it.

haystack books

[want2bspry.livejournal.com]

A method of determining the volume and tonnage of haystacks /
Extinguishing fires in silos and hay mows /
Changes in field stored large hay packages /

I could go on. And those are just from 3 minutes browsing the books. Didn't even check the databases. ;)

1 more last one I promise too funny to resist

[want2bspry.livejournal.com]

Sorry everybody. I'm the biggest dork alive. And bored at work -- a bad combination. Next research topic: artificial slate-frames. What are they and why are they the shizz?

Observations upon the important object of preserving wheat and other grain from vermin, with a safe and efficacious method to prevent the great depredations that are made on those valuable articles containing also, some cursory remarks on the national advantage arising from our export corn laws, and proving that the same happy consequences must be derived from the inclosure of our forests, common fields, and waste lands : with a calculation annexed, demonstrating the great savings which may accrue from the use of the patent artificial slate-frames, on hay stacks /

[ceinwyn-1.livejournal.com]

may I humbly suggest Friendly's Jamoca Almond Fudge? (chocolate covered whole almonds, and I totally hear ya on that) also Baskin Robins has a similar flavor. These are originally New England chains...I don't know how far south they've gotten.

omg...ice cream and Nelly Furtado in the same post...!

[suenosdejmi.livejournal.com]

My personal favorite ice creams are 1) mayfield: chocolate ripple, or two) Starbucks...Java Chip. Pretty yum, that starbucks.

And I'm hooked on Nelly Furtado too...I like Te Busque...but the whole album's pretty good. Damn catchy music.

Re: omg...ice cream and Nelly Furtado in the same post...!

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

Word on Nelly Futardo. Some days I just can't stop listening to Say It Right or No Hay Igual.

[kywhippets.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I miss Blue Bell.  Fortunately, we've got a wonderful ice-creamery here, Graeters.

I will probably never eat any ice cream other than Blue Bell or Graeters.  Why waste the calories?