Dear Santa,

Christmas is coming up pretty soon and I just wanted to plant a seed early that this year, I really want a fuzzy, warm, lovable kitten. I'd prefer a sweet one that likes to cuddle, and hopefully doesn't make Steve sneeze! I was thinking that one along the lines of the photo to the left would be a nice addition to the family. Pretty please???? I promise to be good for the rest of the year if you'll leave me a kitten under the tree this year.

Love, Mer

Funniest Thing EVER!! No Really...

Presenting...

Jose and Tony as

THE WEDDING CRASHERS!

http://www.weddingcrashersmovie.com/crashthistrailer/index.htm?id=310887

Happy Halloween!!!

Well, it's that time of year again. Scary movies, stupid emails that scare the shit out of people in the middle of their work day, trick or treating, and really slutty female Halloween costumes. This year, I decided to go the goofy route!! What do you think of my costume? And yes, for those of you that wondered... I am going to be dispensing Sugar Babies candy to passers by... and yes, I plan to wear my hair in pigtails!

I hope you all have a safe and fun Hallowen! Love, Mer

Bored? What are yours?

1. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandmother's/father's first name + favorite snack):
Angie Cheese

2. YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME: (first word you see on your left + favorite restaurant):
Love Chive

3. YOUR SOCIALITE NAME: (silliest childhood nickname + first town where you partied):
Monkey Houston

4. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME: (first initial + first three letters of your last name):
M Man

5. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite animal + name of high school):
Kitty Kingwood

6. YOUR BARFLY NAME: (last snack food you ate + your favorite drink):
Almond Champagne

7. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name + street where you first lived):
Anne Hidden Creek

8. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (favorite candy + favorite musicians last name):
M&M Ciccone

9. YOUR OPPOSITE SEX NAME: (name of [opposite sex] friend + cell phone company you use):
Matthew Verizon

10. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: ( first 3 letters of your last name+ last 3 letters of mothers middle name /+/ first 3 letters of your pets name + first 3 letters of the town you live in):
Mersuedylsan

SAVE DAVIS!!!

You guys have to see this… I heard about it on Craigslist and checked it out on the cat’s My Space page… (Read his profile – it’s so cute!)

Davis sort of looks like Dylan (my old pass, RIP sweet boy!), so the story is tugging at my heartstrings. I donated a day's worth of captivity and got invited to the 'welcome home' party (although I won't attend because it's in Northern California)!

http://www.myspace.com/savedavis

Save Davis

Reply to: mailto:pers-224965154@craigslist.org?subject=Save%20Davis
Date: 2006-10-24, 5:51AM PDT

I'm hoping deep down that you or someone you know loves cats and/or knows our cat Davis. Davis is our four year old baby boy who we found as a stray and bottle fed to life. He's one of the most fun and unique cats we have ever met. On Friday the 13th of October, Davis brought a live bat into our house, so we caught the bat and released him outside. The next day we took him to the vet to make sure he was current on his Rabies shot, he wasn't. Next thing I know animal control showed up and informed me that we had to either keep Davis in quarantine at a professional facility for six months or put him to sleep. Due to our very involved (emotionally and financially) pursuit to have children, we are not in a position to do either. After telling a few people about this story, I was asked how they could help. That's what this is....just a way for people to help if they would like. We are not the type to ask for money, but we would not turn down an opportunity to Save Davis.

If you are not interested, we totally understand. But feel free to forward this to someone who might be. If we work this out we will be throwing a welcome home party for all the friends and family that saved Davis.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAVE DAVIS Check out his myspace page. It has more pictures, a video of me catching the bat, and a way to help via credit card. http://www.myspace.com/savedavis

Jeff Kessinger
Hangar One Brand Manager
Artisan Wines and Spirits
(415) 867-2955

What's Your World View?

Pretty interesting - I scored a 9, 0.

Your rating regarding science/non-science: 0
Your rating regarding values & humankind: 9
Your position on the worldview spectrum: (9,0)

Science/non-science: The position on the vertical axis indicates your view about 'how the world works'. The range of positions along this axis is from 10 (most focused on science) to -10 (most supernatural/superstitious). A position near the middle (from top to bottom) indicates a basis in science with an openness to non-science.

Values & humankind: The position on the horizontal axis indicates the value one places on the human lineage in the natural world. This is based on the answers to questions about values (these questions are outside the realm of science). A high rating means the worldview places a high value on survival of the human lineage (including any offspring) in the natural world.

Positive ratings are plotted on the right, with a maximum position of 10. Ratings on the left are negative and correspond to the extermination of the human lineage in the natural world (often in favor of an after-life). Ratings near the middle of the horizontal axis indicate that neither progress nor extermination of the human lineage is valued highly.

http://www.commongood.org/worldview_quiz.htm

Rave! La Costa Spa

So yesterday, my girlfriends and I went to the La Costa Spa in Carlsbad, California, for a day of pampering to celebrate Kerry and Natalie's birthday. This place was absolutely unbelievably beautiful!!! We spent the entire day in our bathrobes - lounging, having treatments, in and out of the jacuzzis and Grecian bath, having exfoliating scrubs, eating, and catching up. We topped it off with a great dinner at our regular dinner spot, Buon Appetito. The perfect day!!!

I told Steve it was the equivalent of his sitting on the 3rd baseline at Petco Park while watching the Padres in the World Series and he finally understood what kind of pleasure a day like that provides. :)

The French Sure are Funny!

World’s too small for Goofy-on-Chip sex video
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15242140/

Disney takes ‘appropriate action’ over characters’ ‘mouse orgy’ at Paris park

LOS ANGELES - The Walt Disney Co. Thursday said it took "appropriate action" against employees at its Paris theme park who were caught simulating sex while dressed as Disney characters in a digital video that has received wide attention on the Internet.

Disney would not say whether it had dismissed any of the costumed employees featured in the grainy video, which appears to have been shot with a hidden camera at a backstage dressing room at Disneyland Resort Paris.

"The behavior shown on the video is unacceptable and inexcusable," Disney said in a statement.

"The video was taken in the backstage area not accessible to guests. Appropriate action has been taken to deal with the cast members involved."

The video shows Minnie Mouse struggling to free herself as she is grabbed from behind by Goofy and then a giant snowman.

Later, Mickey Mouse simulates sex with the snowman and Goofy does the same with either Chip or Dale, the chipmunks, as laughter is heard on the tape.

The tape is described on the Internet as the "mouse orgy."

Finley at 8 months

Look at the sweet photo and email I got from my 8 month old nephew, Finley, last night! He's so smart...

Auntie Mer,

Mom finally put me in my stylish Polo sleeper tonight. It’s about time! Check out how cute I am in it. Daddy was making me laugh so hard! I can stand now (holding onto something) and I have two new teeth on top (that’s 4 total!).

I can’t wait to see you at Christmas…I should be a real pain in the ass by then.

Hugs and Kisses,
Finn

One More Photo - My 2 Favorite Boys

Finley Joseph Darby, my "nephew", and Ahmed Ali Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim Zied, AKA Steve, Steven (but don't call him that!), Casinote, Steve-O!, KT, and the list goes on...

For Nancy, My Grammarian Cohort

Superfluous Apostrophes
Original URL: http://sandiego.craigslist.org/rnr/197902496.html
Date: 2006-08-23, 12:18PM
Written by Anonymous Poster

I've decided to address an ongoing crisis that is affecting the very way that we, as English-speaking people, live our lives. It is the superfluous apostrophe. I'm not sure if it's my increasing exposure to less grammatically-inclined writing or if it's indicative of a quickly-growing national epidemic, but I have recently become inundated and even overwhelmed by the number of superfluous apostrophes I encounter on a daily basis. No, no, I am talking about the punctuation mark. It is widely known as "that bastard half-quotation mark thing". Let's review a few standards of apostrophe usage.

)1a. An apostrophe can be used to indicate possession. For example, if Robert owned a scooter, one could refer to said scooter as "Robert's scooter." One could further refer to Robert himself as a "scooter-riding pansy", so long as they subsequently acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with that (even if you believe that there is).

1b. An apostrophe can be used to indicate where a word has been shortened into a contraction. For example: "There is not anything wrong with my leg; it has always been thus, and thus it shall continue to be until the end of my days, whereupon it will decay and return itself to the Earth from whence it came" could be condensed to read: "There isn't anything wrong with my leg; it has always been thus, and thus it shall continue to be until the end of my days, whereupon it will decay and return itself to the Earth from whence it came." See how much more efficient that was to say because of the contraction? You can thank the apostrophe for that. Now, why would anyone want to abuse such a worthy punctuation mark?

1c. Similar to (or, some might say, the same as) contractions is the intentional truncation of a word. For example. Instead of "Mordigar went swimming far too soon after breaking his fast," one might say "Mordigar went swimmin' far too soon after breaking his fast." This is particularly useful when one is "keeping it real". In this case, use the apostrophe as a sort of a "wink," as if to say, "I know it's not really spelled this way, and that there are subsequent letters to be had, but I have intentionally omitted the 'g' because I am far too clever for my own good." In this way, we (the readers) will assume that you are in on the joke, rather than that you simply are the joke.

2. An apostrophe cannot be used to indicate plurality. If there is an exception to this rule (and there probably is, because let's face it: English is one fucked up language), it does not come immediately to mind. For example, if you were to write a delightful situational comedy in which Paul Reiser and Greg Evigan were playing two men looking after a young Staci Keanan (who was terrific in "Stolen Poem", you know) after her mother's death, you might entitle it "My Two Dads". You must not, under any circumstances, entitle it "My Two Dad's". For, you see, it is indicating that there is more than one dad - not that dad possesses something, or that there has been a contraction.

3. The word "it," for being such a simple little nonassuming pronoun, produces a set of nightmares all to itself. For the word it does not receive an apostrophe in the case of possession. It does, however, receive an apostrophe in the case of a contraction.For example: If you were to set a pet giraffe free in the wilderness and you were unsure of the giraffe's gender (or if it lacked gender, like for instance if it were plush), you might say "It's on its own now." This is an advanced example, because it shows both forms of "it" that we've discussed - practically right next to one another. Notice how it-possessive doesn't have an apostrophe? Notice how it's - the one with the apostrophe - is a contraction? Another way to say this would have been, "It is on its own now." Or a third way: "I seem to have thrown my plush giraffe toy out into the wilderness. Hell if I'm leaving this car to retrieve it, because I am one lazy bastard."

Like the phrase "and I" as opposed to "and me," I feel that the best bet is to err on the side of ignorance. The same way "My abusive alcoholic father left my brother and I to die in a snowbank in eastern Montana" is worse than "My brother and me like puppies", because while both are incorrect, the former is incorrect and it indicates that the speaker was attempting to speak properly and yet failed miserably, it is better to err on the side of no apostrophes. The reason is simple: Omitting punctuation can be cool and kitschy. Adding superfluous punctuation hints at failed pretense, and there's nothing sadder than failed pretense.

At the current rate of emboldened and inappropriate apostrophe usage, researchers have indicated that the apostrophe may be all but extinct before 2015. But if each person who reads this can seek to eliminate just one superfluous apostrophe per day, we could not only have apostrophes for the remainder of our lifetime and our children's lifetimes, but we may also be able to build a surplus of apostrophes, which we could then market to needy countries like France, who require so many more than we do.

So join with me, friends, in eliminating this rampant misuse o' the apostrophe. Together, we can make a difference.

My BFFs

For those of you that don't know my best friends, this is (me obviously) Natalie, Kerry, and Lauren. Love those ladies!!

Mer

Thirties

So Steve, my loving boyfriend, reminded me yesterday that my birthday is in less than 2 months, and that turning 31 definitively puts me in my thirties. That was nice of him... thanks darling! I'm currently at the point where birthdays really aren't that fun anymore. Last year, my big celly in Vegas, was probably the last big "yea, it's my birthday" birthday party... This year perhaps a nice champagne brunch, some microdermabrasion, and a colonic would serve me best at this point in my life...

In other news, I have officially recovered from the trauma of waking up yesterday to a missing car, since mine got towed Sunday night. What a way to start a Monday morning - spending the last few pennies in my bank account (28,400 of them, to be specific) to get back a car which is already mine to begin with. The worst part about it? It was COLUMBUS DAY, so I had to pay an extra 6,400 pennies - are you kidding me? UGH! To the bitch in the pay-t0-park booth that called the tow truck because my parking pass expired - F*** YOU! Alright, now I feel better. :)

Anyway, check out this photo of me as I entered those wonder years called the thirties.

Love, Mer

Welcome to The Mer Show

For those of you that know me, there's often pretty interesting stuff that happens in Mer World. It's always something - either I've done something fun, stupid, met new friends, gotten in trouble, switching jobs, moving, or something else notable. So instead of always emailing everyone my updates, and since I love writing, I thought I'd start a blog to keep track of the funny things that happen, interesting things I find online, new recipes, photos, and whatever else I find amusing or noteworthy. Sound fun or annoying? If the latter, you don't need to read. :) If so, enjoy my silly musings.

Love, Meredith
Star of The Mer Show
mershow.blogspot.com