Aaarrgh. That man. And his sidekick. What country is this again?

The MySpace, I love it!

Sorry about the hijack... I really wish the whole country instead of just parts of it would agree to move Halloween to the nearest weekend. By the time I get home from work I will have missed most of it, assuming I get home from work safely without squishing any little kids.

Also, aarrgh.

WeatherUnderground beats weather.com

Good God, I know just what you mean about inserting "the" before proper nouns. We used to tease my mother mercilessly about going to "the Kroger" or "the Baskin-Robbins" and it's come around to bite me in the ass. I did it last night, and a friend called me on it. I'm seeing my mom this week, and will have a full helping of crow.

Good luck with tomorrow's traffic!

You're so the cutest!
Hating the Daylight Losing Time already and I don't have to deal with the traffic.

Internets & The Google - he must be reading CRAP (CRazy Aunt Purl).

That kind of reminds me of my grandma, who was most definitely a New York girl... when she was going to Macy's, she'd say she was "going to pay a visit to Mr. Macy," or even better, "going to see what Mr. Macy has to offer today." Shopping without her is not nearly as fun or elegant-sounding...

thanks for the laugh!

I heard that "The Google" thang on NPR and almost fell while mopping the floor. When I lived in NC I used to enjoy the reports of things my friend's mother said, such as, "I got it down to'the CaseMart" (K-Mart), or "Would you please 'member to shut the scream door?!"

For a time I was surrounded by people who insisted on transforming the names of every major chain store around us into possessive proper nouns: Safeway became "Safeway's", J.C. Penney was "Penney's", etc. Even I eventually became guilty of going to "Kroger's." Now I live in a country where I don't understand the language, and there are times when I'm quite happy about that.

The "Nicole Richie seeks help gaining weight" headline is also noteworthy. You need guidance gaining weight? Give me your money and I'll tell you what to do. Eat M&Ms every morning for breakfast. You'll be set. Now, that'll be $200 for my advice, please.

My friends and I like to add a pause and an "a" in front of "the."

e.g. He looked it up on... a-the Google.

Hee!

...well. It's funny to us. :D

That reminds me of the part in the movie Office Space where his neighbour says he's doing the drywall down at "The WalMart". Classic!

Thank you! I SO needed to laugh today, and boy was it a good one!

"the trifecta of traffice jams" - priceless!

Yikes! I was just telling someone I needed to make a trip to "The Wal-Mart" for bottled water('cause Lord knows, if you're in Arkansas, you go to the Wal-Mart or you go without! None of that K-Mart or Target business for us.)
And as soon as I heard the words "The Wal-Mart" coming from my mouth, I realized my transformation is complete and I have officially become MY GRANDMOTHER (and I'm sure she's in Heaven, laughing at me and fixing herself another martini to celebrate).

How about putting "the" in front of road names Ms. LA.... I swear every person I know IRL who has lived in CA can not name a road without giving it a "the". We don't do that here in the midwest, and it sounds funny as heck to us when others do.

The with Traffic! It's a Bonus ;)

I am so embarrassed. I saw that interview on the news and missed both of those points! See, I need you.

My son started with "the Allergies" when he was about 4; I can't say it any other way now. Maybe I'm Southern from some ways back?

True, true, true about the traffic on the 1st day of "daylight losing time". People will forget how to drive in the dark, just as they do (at least in SoCal) when it rains. Will have to stop at
The Trader's for wine on the way home. Heaven knows I will need it. Nicole Ritchie just needs someone to tie her down and feed her.

My mother used to refer to me and my affliction as: "This my daughter, you know the one with the lupus." My mother was not that old and was not Southern and was not an immigrant. The "the" thing supercedes all cultural and societal boundries!!!

Did you get my package??? What did I send? ;o)

Another favorite: the WalMarts.

I have to say, I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning and they did this piece on Dubya and his use of The Google. They also mentioned how several years ago in an interview he talked about The Internets -- and all I could think was: He stole that from Crazy Aunt Purl!

I had a roommate in college who used to refer to everything as "Mr." as in, "Get out of my way, Mr. Truck," in heavy traffic, etc.

Well, one day she woke up in a foul mood and the toaster - a garage sale find - malfunctioned, and she snarled at it, "F*** you, Mr. Toaster."

I could NEVER deal with that kind of traffic. Never. It takes me six minutes to get work.
I'm a small-town girl all the way.

Remember, he is trying to save us from the SARS and the Anthrax...according to Whitney Houston.

Oh, the Mr. President from the Texas who graduated from the Yale? One must laugh, mustn't one, when he speaks publicly about fighting the war against an emotion (don't you mean war on terrorISM, George?) or maybe it's against a fictional Civil War-era plantation (Tara). Whichever it is, it sure explains why the whole thing is so expensive.

Hmmmm......interesting opposite of my friends from England who talk about someone being "in hospital."
I always want to ask where's the THE??

I feel for you about the traffic! I do think it's so interesting about the article "the" in front of highways in CA. I didn't even notice it when I lived there, but when I moved back to DC, if I was telling a story about San Diego, I would say "the 5" or "the 805" and people made fun of me. I realized that here it wouldn't ever occur to me to say "the 66" or "the 395." Is this particular to CA? Where did this come from?

perhaps the bush is related to the manolo and is the superfantastic

i shouldn't say that. that's mean to the manolo. and the bush, he is in no way the superfantastic.

isn't GeeDub from new england?

he's a brush rancher. no cows.

putting "the" in front of the freeway name is particular to southern California. All the northern Californians laugh at me for that one.

Hey, at least imitating you makes Bush sound (a little) smarter...."the internets," heh.

Theresa, my husband, a native of SoCal, says "the" before highway numbers, too. What is up with that??

This post reminds me of the time my mom asked me to show her how to send email. She wanted to know if we could send email to our family overseas. I tell her, "Sure, as long as they have an email address, too." She asks, "Well, how does it get there?" I'm all confused. She asks if the email comes to their door, or if they have to pick it up somewhere special.

Really, she's just too cute for words.

I've lived in Georgia all my life and haven't started putting "the" in front of stuff (yet). However, a few years ago, back when I thought I was happily married and all, my ex-husband said he was hot. I have no idea where it came from as I had never said it before, but I chose to say to him "why don't you go put your short pants on". Of course I did this while we were visiting his family in NY and they already thought I was a total hick before that. They possibly wet their (long) pants they were laughing so hard.

Bring your knitting, that's what it's for.

Like Theresa, I am also frequently shouted down for using "the" in front of whatever freeway. I will not succumb!

>we lose the ability to drive in the dark and have to re-learn it.

I live in Minnesota...or MinneSNOWta and yet at the first flurry everyone loses their flippin minds and completely forgets how to drive. We have cars flying into ditches at an alarming rate. Even when it's not slippery. So I understand what the dark can do. In fact, thanks for reminding me to leave work early today.

The Californians are crazy with "THE" interestates - The Five; The Four-Oh-Five; The Fifty-Two. My NY'er friend tells me we're the only ones he knows of that refer to our freeways in such a manner!

Uses the InternetS?!!! To reach THE google?!!

How many InternetS ARE there?

Maybe he should use "The Google" to look up "failure".

That man is eleven eggs short of a dozen.

You on the otherhand are cute and charming. ;)

Oddly I catch myself doing that too. It's alarming at first. I thought I was loosing it. I mean I'm only 31. What goes next? o.0

I also blame it on growing up in Southern Indian so there you go.

Southerner with dying brain cells here. But I just thank God for my almost-daily dose of THE Crazy Aunt Purl. ;-)

My daughter gives me Hell about saying I have "the headache". It IS Southern. I sometimes think it deserves "the" because it hurts so bad!!!

Dear Sweet Internetsers,
It's The "Lose" not The "Loose" so you're "losing it", not "loosing it" which implies you're doing something kinda gross.

Sorry. Pet peeve. Shutting The **** up now.
:o)

After all, it's a nice day when the headlines are
1: the President of the US uses the internet
2: Some girl named Richie tries to gain weight.
All is well then.
No bigger, bad, news to be worried about.

I like that Nicole Ritchie seeking help to gain weight is somehow deemed Headline Worthy. Sigh.

The blog is giving me the laughs again.

Someone above mentioned they thought the President was from New England. He was born there but raised in Texas from toddlerhood.

There's a new traffic guy on a local country station I listen to in Dallas and I swear the other day he said "the" in relation to a highway. It immediately caught my ear (remembering that CAP talked about it before) and it made me wonder if he was from CA.

we do that "the" thing in Ontario Canada too . . . but only in relation to 400 series highways. The 407, the 401. Never "the 11" or "the 5"

I still remember riding around in my little Louisiana town on weekends... making the circuit of both "The Sonic" and "Walmart's"

Excellent! Of course at the moment I am reeling at the gratuitous use of "sugar" said by a woman with the faux Suthun accent on an episode based in Atlanta. I think I read somewhere that the time change Mondays are the worst traffic days there are for accidents and jams because people are all out of their heads.

Laurie! I met your boyfriend Drew over the weekend. We were both taking a knitting class on color here in Houston. When we were asked to introduce ourselves, he spoke of his crochet projects. It was a EUREKA moment. Laurie's DREW! So of course I introduced myself, and we had a lovely time talking about the FABULOUS MISS L. You have fans everywhere!

Seattlites somehow forget to drive in the rain....even if it just rained yesterday. Traffic grinds down to 4 mph and it takes an hour and a half to get anywhere. It's enough to give a lady the vapours.....

Well, here in Alaska we have our super Uncle Ted, Senator Steven's who said that the internets were like a bunch of tubes.

And, amazingly we do the silly daylight savings thing, too. Why, no one is really sure. So now the sun is setting at 5:03a and rising at 8:30p and we are losing 5 minutes of daylight a day. So in two weeks we will have negated the whole early morning effect. YIKES!

And in the 20 miles between my house and my FIL there were 15 cars off the road, and 5 of them were upside down. YUP, snow is here.

Hi!

Ms. Knitingale's comment made me laugh - I'm a Washintonian, and I have to agree - even if it rained yesterday, some how, our lovely neighbors forget how to drive! (Even though it rains 3/4 of the year here, or at least that's what it feels like) It's amazing!

Happy Monday!

"The Internets", et al, actually put me in mind of a tradition that has developed with some friends which was based on an elderly Norwegian relative of one of us. Said relative referred to people as having "The Gay" (as if it were akin to having "The Flu" or "The Sugar"), and it caught on for some reason....
While I myslef do not seem to have The Gay, I am by many reckoned to have The Crazy. This may be related to the amount of Southern in my bloodline...

Oh thank you for explaining this. I have started doing the exact same thing myself, and had no idea why. But now I know-it's because I live in Georgia :)(also the cause of one of my favorite phrases, "I'm gonna get me one of those.")

Theresa is correct. Putting "the" in front of an interstate number is purely a SoCal thing. In the northern part of the state, we just say the number. Now I did notice that when I lived in Virginia, folks liked to say "I" before the number as in I-64.

As for rush hour, that's why I'm glad I teach. I can leave work at 3:10. hehe Of course, it's usually more like 4 or 4:30.

I'm de-lurking myself because anytime someone points out a purely southern quirk, I have to laugh out loud. You know why? Because I'm always guilty of doing whatever it is ;) Yep. I live in a small town in NC and go to The Wally-World, The Ace Hardware, The Food Lion, and The Subway. Ya gotta love us weirdos, we make the world a more colorful place!

I nominate you my queen of funny. Thanks for the laughs. :)

-the Wendy

Left my house tonight at 4:45, got to LAX (30+ miles away) in time to meet a 5:55 flight. Traffic was moving pretty well and the change to REAL time (as opposed to stupid DST) meant we weren't driving right into the sun. Of course I do live on the EAST side of LA, not the West, which is not as glamourous but is much easier to navigate.

The Maryse, I cannot believe she mentioned the George W. Bush and the superfantastic Manolo in the sentence of the sameness.

Okay just a few things.

1) I'm in the South now and yes "the" Goes in front of most things. But another cute little thing is... "gave". As in "I gave $45.00 to Kroger's." This in no way is to imply that you rec'd something in return. It's more like you generously donated the money to the grocery. It's quite entertaining.
2) I moved here from So. Cal. And really you must respect the freeways and highways AUTHORITY. In NO OTHER state is the need for roads so paramount as it seems to be in So. Cal. At least where Laurie is there is public transportation. Not so in ALOT of the areas. SO I move that California Highways are more notable because of the mere importance factor. They are not lowly roads but Have raised themselves to the stutus of proper nouns. :)

Geez, even my grandparents don't call it The Google. And my grandmother has never had an email address.

Just wait till it gets dark at rush hour, AND IT RAINS! Holy shit! You may as well take a sleeping bag to the office. Or stay home in the first place (my personal favorite). I moved to the boonies (29 Palms) years ago, and there are some things I miss about LA, but that ain't one.

You simply must stop by The Complete Bushisms on Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/76886/

This is one of the things that I have found the most hilarious since moving to LA! Darkness, wind, and rain, being considered states of emergencies requiring everyone to drive like my grandfather. It ties in with the weather reports which talk about how we're in for a cold spell when the temperature drops to 72.

This totally cracks me up. I grew up in New York. 'Nuff said, probably. I moved to Maine a few years ago, and discovered a baffling phenomenon: Mainers put "the" in front of certain road names. Not ALL road names, just certain ones, without rhyme or reason as to why some and not others. To get to Sherman you can THE Grindstone Road, and the Quirk auto dealership is on THE Hogan Road, but the school is on High St and Stephen King lives on West Broadway, plain and simple. It still never fails to make me giggle, especially when the boyfriend does it.

It's a British thing, too; they take "the" M1, or whatever, to get to the Estate in Gloucester; I was there on "the" Thursday; yet, they go into "hospital", not "the" hospital; they go on "holiday" not "a" holiday. I find it so charming, these linguistic idiosyncracies. Also, in Atlanta, you go to "the" Grady's (public hospital) when you're in a wreck, get stabbed, or don't have insurance; it's always been "the Grady's" just as it's "the" KMarts.

And also, maybe Bush has been reading The Manolo (www.shoeblogs.com) too much!

Too funny. It would be nice if he was joking around, you know, the way we do? Somehow, I don't believe he deserves the credit...

It's not a southern thing, it's an old thing... Bush and his family are all from Massachusetts. Thank god for term limits.

I flew through LA this past weekend and thought of you : )

No, the "the" thing is not done in Massachusetts. If he was dropping "r"s in the middle of words and adding them at the end, that would be different. Or if he said "wicked pissah", that would be a MA thing. But I hear ya on the term limits thing!

It's not just LA -- all Californian's are guilty. Each year between May and October, we forget how to drive in the rain after dark. I think there's something in the water...

I live in the suburbs of Los Angeles (but work Downtown) and your comment about the traffic coming to a grinding halt at rush hour because it's dark cracked me up! That is so true. And, gasp, wait until it's dark and rainy season starts!

I hear you on the traffic. I live next to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and I'm sure the traffic is nowhere near as bad as in LA - but I can assure you that the traffic doesn't cease anymore here, 8 am to 7 pm. Seriously, it's hell. It takes 3 hours to drive 60 km.

Lame.com

I was just browsing the internets and found this, so don't feel to bad about calling it "the myspace," cuz these young crazy boys call it that too. You're just down with it all Laurie!

Ok.. Let me just tell you.. I live in a somewhat smallish somewhat ruralish ( hey we got a superwalmart ) town.. its in the western new york area of the country.. we get snow.. lots and sometimes LOTS and Ridiculously stupid amounts of snow.. One time we got something like 72 inches overnight.. anyway.. so come November around these parts we sometimes get some pretty good snow storms.. and what amazes me ( follow me here I am heading toward traffic and driving ) people who have lived in this area their whole lives forget how to drive in snow.. its like the spring and summer has caused some kind of crazy snow amnesia. ( and believe me I would like to forget about the stuff myself ) however I have not once forgotten how to drive in it.. I dont get it.. kind of along the lines of your bad to worse traffic conditions due to day light savings time and rain. just thought I would share