Not A Dollarshort

By the People, For the People.

I'm actually giddy after discovering this collection tonight.

So giddy that right after I posted the link to A Day Late, I decided that I just had to blog about it here as well.

The By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.

Not only are the posters fabulous, beautiful and most every other adjective bestowed to vintage prints, but the Libary of Congress offers uncompressed tiff versions of the prints -- some as large as 32 megs!

Be sure to browse by subject so you can view all of the posters.

And, for the most part it seems, the prints all fall under fair-use copyrights.

Gosh, I really love the Library of Congress website.

I just wanted some cereal.

Of all the things that could possibly be printed on the box of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes in our pantry, these five words are probably the most disturbing:

OPEN CAREFULLY
BOX MAY SCREAM!

Now, keep in mind that I hadn't seen the message on the front of the box indicating that the screaming box was part of some Monsters, Inc. promotion.

I literally stared at the top of the box for a good ten seconds -- trying in vain to grasp the meaning of the warning and how it pertained to my sugar cereal.

I don't think the Vicodin I'm taking for my tooth helped the whole comprehending absurd connections moment.

And, really, of all the possible sounds that a cereal box could make, why in the world would any company choose a scream. Perhaps that's the tie-in with Monsters, Inc -- I'm assuming there is a lot of screaming in the movie.

But still.

I waited a good fifteen minutes before opening the box. Actually, I went so far as bringing the box of cereal upstairs. Although I was hungry and all, I was was in no mood to be scared by the possibly horrifying sound that would -- even with forewarning -- catch me by surprise.

And if you box screamed, what would you get?

A Monsters Inc. themed children's bedroom.

Yeah, that would really be worth it.

I eventually opened the box, and thank goodness for small miracles, the box did not scream.

I was tricked!

I received a phone call from my dentist's office today. Apparently, something awful had shown up on my new set of x-rays and I needed to come in later in the day for a consultation about a needed root canal.

I arrived at the dentist in a "consultation" state of mind.

I should have known something was amiss when they started putting the drool bib on me.

In order to avoid the possible root canal, they decided to first refill the offending tooth. And, since I was in the office already... well, you know the rest.

While the procedure was pretty uneventful, I was able to drown out the sound of the drill with the vocal stylings of Mr. Nat King Cole via a portable CD player.

Out of the selection of CDs that the office offered -- Shania Twain, the Titanic soundtrack, some various Beatles albums (Magical Mystery Tour??), I settled on Nat King Cole because of the soothing nature of his voice.

It was ironic, however, to listen to Cole's rendition of "Smile" as my mouth was being pried open by some monstrous metal apparatus holding taut the dental dam.

I swear, I felt like I was in a David Lynch film with a little bit of "A Clockwork Orange" thrown in for good measure.

The moral of this story?

Make sure to floss and avoid Sour Straws.

Is that all there is?

Last Wednesday, I spent an entire day in the library of my former high school.

Why? Why, oh why?

Well, as Ben reported, I was finishing work on a small job that I had agreed to do for the school. And, this job involved using one of the computers on campus -- a computer in the school's library.

So, during the course of the day, I sat through about four or five study halls in a seat only about ten feet away from the students.

You know how you'll sometimes hear an elderly person say that, despite their physical ailments, they still feel like they have a seventeen year-old mind?

Well, maybe they should spend a day in a high school library -- ten feet away from seventeen year-olds and their minds. Then, perhaps, they wouldn't be so quick to disregard the differences between their mind and that of the teenager.

Despite the fact that ageism reared its ugly head, I did attempt to give these kids the benefit of the doubt.

For starters, I came into the library with a positive attitude. I believe I smiled more during those seven hours than I did during most of the days I spent in high school.

"Let a smile be your umbrella," I guess.

And, when some oblivious starter jacket rudely bumped into me without a remorseful acknowledgement, I didn't elbow him in the side.

Aww, the kinder, gentler Mena.

Oh, and I spent a good chunk of time imagining that I would come to the rescue of a freshman boy who -- with his fully zipped-up Member's Only Jacket and shaggy hair -- looked like he could have been the only kid in that school who actually spent as much time online as myself.

I guess I just wanted to go up to his desk and say "it gets better than this."

But, wisely, I refrained from my white knight act so as not to seem any more like the creepy stranger using a computer in a high school library.

It's a Woman's World.

Gosh, how much do I love this commercial? You can view the ad, entitled Time Out, here.

Now, I'm sure that most of America is disturbed at the site of a male cheerleading team -- and there is probably some group of blatantly hetero guys sitting on some couch somewhere saying "that's just f***ing wrong."

I say, it takes a real man to be able to dance choreographed steps like that.

Coloring contest results.

Congratulations go to Susan (entry Entry 1) for receiving the most votes in this last coloring contest.

She receives a $20 Amazon gift certificate courtesy of our sponsor, phonezilla.net and endless praise from dollarshort readers.

The other finalists received a good share of the votes. And, in order of their entry number, they were:

Harmony from hscreative
Emily from sorryfortheinconvenience.com
Cecily from silvershoe.com

They'll receive two official dollarshort.org pencils. Sad, I know.

Thanks everyone for participating! Let me know if you're interested in coloring again.

Now, you can view all the entries here.

Finally.

Between Movable Type and a small side job (is it technically, a "side" job if you don't have a main job?) I'm finishing this week, I've been utterly and completely swamped. This will explain why I'm so damn slow with regard to posting the results of the coloring contest.

Paul, the contest's sponsor and I have chosen four finalists -- now you pick the winner.

Names, for the time-being, have been removed to protect the innocent and keep the voting fair. So, if you're one of the four finalists, please don't tell your readers to vote for your entry.

How do you vote? Well, since I'm throwing this up on the site in a bit of a rush, we're going to have to rely on some old-school method of voting.

So, click the "vote" link next to your favorite entry. You're email application will launch with the number of the entry in the subject.

That's all -- you don't have to include a message in the subject body.

I know, this is so 1994.

The entries:

Entry 1 screenshot - [vote]

Entry 2 screenshot - [vote]

Entry 3 screenshot - [vote]

Entry 4 screenshot - [vote]

And remember, just because you're not on the list doesn't mean you didn't submit something great. Wait until to you see all the entries - they're pretty neat.

I'll take vote emails until 7pm PST tonight.

Who loves Mena?

I received a call from my mother last night.

Mena: Hello?

Mom: I love that picture of you in the yellow dress!

Mena: What picture? (I have no clue)

Mom: The one on your site -- the one where you're wearing the 18th-Century dress.

Mena: Oh...That one.

Now, I've always assumed that my parents already knew about and read the site. It doesn't take much sleuthing around the Internet to find it. Do a Google search for "Mena" and dollarshort.org returns as the number one result.

But, it turns out that my mom hadn't discovered the site before last night and when she did see it, she just had to call up and say how cute she thought the photo on my "about" page was.

And yes, that is my face superimposed on the clipart.

So my mom calls me today from her work. It turns out that she spent some time reading dollarshort and now had some concerns.

There aren't enough pictures and stories about the Aug-man.
I've told you before -- Augie is her favorite and, for some reason, she probably thinks Augie would be hurt if he knew I talked about Annie as much as I do.

Remedy: Here you go, mom. (1) (2)

I make them look cruel.
Personally, I think the whole Brother Larry thing is funny. It gave me personality.

I make it seem like she didn't love me
Now, this is certainly not true. As I told her over the phone today, I know she loves me and I never have posted anything to the contrary. She was offended that I posted the audio interview where I can't get an "I love you" out of her.

She claims that interview never occurred -- despite actual evidence to the contrary. She even implied that I somehow edited her out of the tape.

I did remind her that the point of that post was to show how annoying I was and not to show that she never said "I love you."

Remedy: And so, I must point out that she smothered me with love. She told me quite often that she loved me and even put up with my insecurity antics.

"Who do you love more? Me or Daddy?" was a constant question.

"Raise your hand if you love Mena," was a command that I would issue at the dinner table. And, believe me, I asked that darn question often.

And, of course, my mother's hand always went up enthusiastically.

Radio Daze.

This was a truly daunting task. While I wouldn't claim that I'm shy, I have an impossible time asserting any sort of authority on a subject -- even something like Movable Type.

I certainly do not fool myself in thinking I'm articulate in any way. Nor, do I consider my speaking voice to be any more pleasant than the sound that the Ringwraiths in The Lord of the Rings make. So, obviously, I can't listen to the program without cringing.

Ben and I are certainly a sad lot. He listened to the archived version and came into my room shouting (yes, he does shout) "I sound like I'm special!"

So between Rain Man and the Ringwraith, our radio debut is quite unsettling.

But at least it gives us something to aspire to -- we've made a resolution to try to sound a bit more confident and at least pretend that we can command a room.

Yeah, good luck.

Game Over.

Megan writes a great anecdote about her mother's very non-motherly habit:

Around lunchtime my mother would pick me up, take me out to lunch in the local mall food court, then drag me down to the end of the mall where Aladdin's Castle, video game haven, stood, nearly invisible. She would then proceed to play Pac-man, Miss Pac-man, Klax, Joust and anything of the not-shooter not-quite-violent genre. She kicked ass. I kid you not. Held top scores all the time...

Which, of course, reminds me of a certain video-game related memory.

When I was eleven or twelve, my parents either bought or were given a full-size Super Pac-man arcade consule from my dad's work. Kept in our garage, the big box of fun was probably the only reason I had any friends.

Before you start asking "what sort of spoiled child gets their own arcade game," let me just emphasize that I was no Ricky Stratton.

The purchase of the machine was some sort of fluke that, to this day, seems like a weird non-memory. I didn't have a Nintendo but instead relied on PC games for entertainment. And, for the most part, these games were usually the educational ones that either my dad got from work (Mavis Beacon, Life & Death, Chessmaster) or were a staple in every classroom (Carmen San Diego, Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand).

Hours were spent in our cold garage as I mastered the moves that would eventually allow me to reach level eleven (of sixteen, I belive).

But alas, I never reached the final level because my parents sold the machine before our move to Northern Californa.

And, you know what's funny? To this day, I can actually remember the exact path and the needed hand motions that I would use on each level.

Now that's certainly a useful bit of information in my repository of knowledge.