Costume Party For Words (Part 3)

In order to cleanse my mind of anything logical and get ready to create a few songs this afternoon, I used one of my goofy mental exercises. Namely, turning words inside out and making them mean something other than what they are supposed to. Here are today's results. : (By the way: I think everyone should have some fun with words sometimes. Do it and let me know of some funny definitions you come up with)



Newsstand - What reporters have to do while waiting on a story to break

Copperhead - The nickname I give the fake tan, gym rats when they have their fresh coat of orange paint (NOTE: This is a nickname I call them VERY VERY quietly)

Rosebud - your friend at the florist

Bedrock - an action that may happen after visiting your rosebud.

Rattlesnake- thieving infant

Foreground - golf course

Shortchange - switching summertime wardrobe

Lunchbox - What happens when someone tries to steal my sammich

Mailbox - How pugilistics used to be before Laila Ali and her colleagues integrated the sport

Toolbox - the next step of making the sport open to all, an all douchebags division is instated. If either gets knocked out we all win.

Sandbox - amateur impromptu bouts that could be qualified as Toolboxing at the beach (usually stemming from a volleyball dispute or a bikini clad girl)

Background - What the loser of a Tool boxing match feels.

Starfish - it used to be just a regular old fish, It gets in one Disney film and nows he's mister big shot.

Goldfish - the executive producer for the Disney film which made Starfish a Star

Teapot - what they drink in Colorado

Fireplace - shooting range

Popcorn - dad's horrible sense of humor

Sweatshirt - time to do the laundry

Oatmeal - three times a day for a horse

Meatloaf - prevented by the little blue pill

Bedspread - step one when making a bed angel

Worksheets - step two when making a bed angel

Snowflake - indecisive skier

Meatball - worst and most blunt pick up line in history

Woodpecker - I'm gonna recommend a good sanding before use

Airbag - what you get when you buy potato chips

Aircraft - indirectly what someone who makes balloon animals is doing

Airline - day one at balloon animal college

Bridegroom - now legal in a few states

Bucktoothed - eating venison

Backhoe - well….yeah

Ballplayer - come on man, not in public

Barcode - don't grope the girls, throw up on the dance floor, or pass out while ordering a drink

Battlecry - really bad for the morale of the soldiers (and your reputation)

Birthplace - vagina

Birthrate - "Mrs Jones you have a healthy baby boy, but I have to deduct a few tenths of a point for the dismount. I'll give it 8.7"

Birthright - The skill Mrs. Jones is gonna have to work on if she wants to get that score up next time

Blockbuster - most Karate demonstrations

Bobcats - man they hate it when you do that

Cardboard - after 6 hours of a poker tournament

Cheapskate - makes it hard to not fall down during the Hokie Pokie

Chickpea - squatting

Childproof - the 3rd positive pregnancy test

Clockwise - those who master time management

Downscale - goal for a Jenny Craig member

Copycat - I'm gonna eat, lay around, and lick myself…just like felix

Cookwear - I don't know. I can't find him either and we have customers waiting for lunch

Cookout - reason the cook can't be found

Crosswalk - pretty painful according to the Bible

Crossword - INRI

Downfall - I'm not really sure how else you can do it

Downplay - a pillow fight

Forecast - about the point at which I begin wondering if I will get a bite

Ghostwriter - I'm guessing uses invisible ink

Halfback - a darn good rebate

Hedgehog - Hoarder in the Lowe's landscaping department

Highlander - Denver native

High school - CU

Housekeeper - What every homeowner is when the market is down

Network - A good way to catch fish

Nightstand - a security guard's job

Outcropping - where you can find the farmer

Overbooked - that feeling you get on Exam week

Overseer - a world traveler

Pickax - The obvious choice when excavating and given the option of spoon or ax

Redwood - you should probably get that looked at

Superimpose - what some house guests do

Underdog - Earth

Undergrowth - Earth

Understand - Earth

Underwater - Earth

Underworld - thin layer of atmosphere then a bunch of space

Wasteland - putting in yet another strip mall

Wisecrack - the drug of choice for intelligent people

Workshop - the means and ends of a woman's mission in life

"God Doesn't Play Dice", ...well our brains sure do

Hey Folks,
  I know I've gotten a little off into deep profound topics as of late.  Well today I just want to have some fun.

Since I've been a child I have always been fascinated by optical illusions. I like them so much that even now my wonderful mother usually gets me an optical illusion book as one of my Christmas gifts.

I'm not obsessed with them. It's just one of those things I think is fun and interesting.

One of the reasons illusions interest me is because it shows me that the main instrument I use to function in this life (my brain) isn't perfect. As a matter of fact it can be pretty ridiculously bad at times.

And that isn't a reference to judgment. My brain makes errors a lot of time before I even make it to the judgement or decision stage. What I mean is my brain isn't perfect in it's analysis of data phase.

For example my brain perceives the lines in this picture :

to be very very unparallel. Well in fact they are indeed parallel.

 So when I am faced with a decision about the world I not only lack access to full complete 100% Moral Truths (see yesterday's post : http://ericerdmanmusic.blogspot.com/2012/08/dont-pull-that-leveror-do.html), but I'm also not even able to feed perfect data into the imperfect machine. Jeez. What chance do I have? Hahaha

I take solace in knowing that apparently I am not alone in this. I am actually just like every one else. Whew! We ALL have bad brains. Doesn't that make ya feel good? Well, at least that explains some of the silly things we all do at times.

I also take solace in the fact that although some of these illusions show us how our brains are lacking (and therefore skew our perception at times), other illusions actually show how amazingly adept our brains are.

These latter types of illusions are actually my favorite.

I'll show you a list of pixelated , blurry pictures below. These images look like blobs. They aren't even close to approximating the actual subjects, yet our brains can instantly fill in the gaps and construct the correct picture.

Check em out

These images are just blurry pixels. But our brains are able to decipher what was intended (in case you have even worse brains than the rest of us, it was pictures of: Elvis, Bill and Hillary, Martin Luther King, Jr., Conan, and Einstein respectively)

I love it. I also like that if I cross my eyes (giving my brain less quality data) it actually helps it determine what the picture is of. Isn't that peculiar!
There may be a deeper life lesson in here after all.

Sometimes we don't need to focus on every stinking tiny detail in our lives. Sometimes we need to take a step back (literally and figuratively) and understand the general, blurry concept of our situation. I have no doubt that having less data often actually helps us reach a better conclusion.

Anyway, It's just cool to me how the brain works. I wrongly tend to think of it as a computer. I imagine my brain crunching numbers with exacting precision, but in actuality it's way sloppier than that. As these illusions illustrate, our brains are only dealing with a portion of all the data. Our brains miss. Our brains miss often. But at the end of the day our brains work remarkably well for us.

It's remarkable our brains work so well since it seems they are just shooting dice. Our brains are just playing the odds most of the time. I imagine my brain at the craps table , "7 come 11. Baby need's a new pair of shoes".

To me that's what keeps life fun and funny.

And hey, when your brain misses all you can do is laugh at the situation it's gotten you into. Don't worry, your brain will be back at the craps table immediately.

The beautiful thing about our brains is they don't waste time dwelling on their misses. If they kept dwelling on the misses they wouldn't be able to be processing the next "roll of the dice". And they LOVE rolling the dice. They thrive on being part of the action.

So hand your brain the dice,  roll with the punches and have fun.

One more illusion before I go:

This one has even less information than the pixelated ones above yet I bet your brain deciphers it.

"Winner!Winner! Chicken Dinner"