The Duck's Nest: online home of mizducky

Alien Ant Farm's cover of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" rulez

For some reason or another, MJ's "Smooth Criminal" came up for me today (probably because I heard it while messing around online), and I immediately thought of this fun cover by Alien Ant Farm. I confess I am into no other song by this band, but the video they did for their version of "Criminal" is wickedly brilliant. How many references to Jackson's songs, videos, and personal folklore can you count in this thing? My personal favorite? The Ants' hilariously low-budget version of the "jump on car roof, clutch package and scream" move from the original uncensored version of MJ's "Black or White" video.

Sesame Street: Kermit Sings Being Green

Okay, I'm sure that every other NaBloPoMo blogger this month is going to include this video sooner or later, but I just couldn't resist--it's a classic. And by Frog, sometimes it really is just kind of difficult being whatever it is you happen to be. :-)

El chile relleno revoluteno

Green thing du jour: chile relleno from a local taco shop that shall remain nameless. To be sure, the fault is at least partly mine that it looks semi-blenderized; I have yet to figure out how to transport a to-go box without it trying to do somersaults in its bag. Still, this was only somewhat better in taste than looks - and was stone cold after a 10 minute drive home. Not going to this taqueria no mas. P.S. Yes, I know "revoluteno" isn't a real word in Spanish, or in any language as far as I know - I'm being silly in a Humpty Dumpty way. :-)

School's out, so now: "Why a duck?"

I have made it through the final throes of my first semester at Mesa, and so far things are looking good. I don't have my official grade from my intro-level Japanese course yet, but my sensei assured me I would pass--which is a relief, because that course was definitely kicking my butt.

But perhaps more importantly for immediate economic prospects, I completely and totally aced my multimedia web design course, and am now re-equipped with the latest state-of-the-art tools and techniques for modern web design.(I had been down this road before, several years ago when hand-coding in HTML was the state of the art; of course the art, as happens in high tech, has moved on several light-years since then.)

In any case, I'm going to start buffing up the resume to see about landing some better part-time work, and building the ol' portfolio to see if I can land some freelance assignments. And part of doing the latter would be to design a website to advertise myself (and also show off my design sensibility).

But here's the thing--my design sensibility, and also my whole philosophy of life, includes a decided streak of rebelliousness against the kind of mainstream corporate vibe I see embodied by so many designed websites out there. I can certainly do that look, no problem; but the question is, do I wanna?

Or maybe a more pragmatic question is, am I willing to live with the possible consequences of NOT doing that look? Because I suspect a certain demographic of customer needs that look in order to feel comfortable in entrusting their business to a vendor. So if I go with the no less professionally-designed but more whimsical look I'm contemplating, I might be turning off that business.

On the other hand, I might just be turning on the kind of customer who shares my allergy to over-corporateness, and who might appreciate a more hang-loose attitude in design as well as in business relations. I do have a gut feeling that there's a huge amount of competition for the corporate-vibe demographic. I also have a gut feeling there's rather less competition for the alternative demographic.

So--especially since all this is going to cost at first is a domain registration and several hours of sweat-equity, I think I'll go with my whimsical approach and see how it flies.

What is that approach, you may be wondering? Well, it's ... just ducky.

For some years now, I've had a running mental joke about my up-to-now fictitious enterprise named "Whyaduck." The inspiration, of course, is from that classic Marx Bros. routine from the movie The Cocoanuts, in which Groucho and Chico are checking out a map, and Groucho points out a viaduct, and Chico "mishears" him and responds: "Why a duck?" This leads to existential silliness about why not a chicken or a horse or what have you that would have your average philosophy major rolling on the floor. Well, it had me doing so, at any rate.

So ever since then, due to my longstanding "Ducky" nickname, I have laughingly called my "business" things like "Whyaduck Unlimited" or "Whyaduck Productions" or other random things. I even had a little logo--this cartoon fluffy duck with glasses I used to use as my signature logo when I drew cartoons in college. Oh, and I had a slogan: "That's Why A Duck!"

Now, though, I'm thinking of going for reals with it--registering the domain name whyaduck.com and creating a business site for Whyaduck Webworks. "We know web design like the back of our foot! That's Why A Duck!"

Is it really too silly a duck to fly in this crappy business climate? Or would it actually attract attention for being so different from the flock of look-alike cookie-cutter uninspired web business concepts? I dunno--and maybe someone might comment on this post and give me a really good reason for not doing it this way, a reason I hadn't thought of. But right now, the idea is really making me smile, and maybe that's the best recommendation it could possibly have. Stay tuned for further developments.

Another Examiner.com salvo: Halloween Peep Treats recipe

Budget recipe: Halloween Peep Treats are silly spooky fun for all ages

You know Marshmallow Treats, those gooey squares of marshmallow-drenched puffed rice cereal, so simple and yet so addictively good? Now imagine substituting the regular marshmallows with Peeps, so that the finished product turns various Peep colors. Now imagine ghoulishly decorating those Treats with "severed" Peep heads and other bits of Peep body parts--optionally augmented with suggestive squirts of red cake-decorating gel. It's tacky, it's twisted, it's even maybe a little transgressive--in other words, it's what Halloween is all about! Follow the link and see how easy it is to make these goofy (and inexpensive) goodies!

Brief observation

You know that chant "wearing my long wing feathers as I fly"? Well, right now I feel more like "dragging my long wing feathers as I crawl." In other words: tired tired tired. What is it about very hot weather that makes me feel like I've been hit over the head with the Exhaustion Bat? :-P

Weather/moving whine

The only activity I loathe more than packing to move/moving/unpacking after a move, is doing all of the above during a heat wave.

Whine snivel bitch moan.

That is all.

P.S. No, that's not quite all. I still have to go back and clean my old abode. Including the fridge. On Saturday, And weather.com is telling me the heat wave will not have broken yet. Whimper.

Ann Miller says it's too darn hot

... to cook, to think, even to come up with a more substantive blog post than this.

(Ann Miller sang this Cole Porter classic in the movie version of Kiss Me Kate.)

Man, I hope this heat wave lets up soon ... bleah.

That line about the cannelloni from Julie & Julia

Hi there, faithful blog readers -- 

You know I really love and appreciate you all, however you make your way here to The Duck's Nest.

You might also notice that little badge in the right column of my blog, that says Sitemeter. Now Sitemeter is a very handy hit-counter tool, in that it not only counts how many people visit my page, but it frequently also captures what site they came from, or what phrase they were churning through a search engine to get here.

So I know from Sitemeter's data that a number of folks have come visiting recently to check out that wonderfully ripe -- and apparently authentic -- quote from Julia Child about some very hot cannelloni, that I reproduced in my recent review of Julie & Julia.

Now don't get all embarrassed at me. Or paranoid. Sitemeter can't actually tell me who you are, or even where you are, beyond an occasional vague city/country notation. But I do know from the fact that you're hitting my site in search of that phrase that, like me, you're probably even a little more in love with Julia Child for the knowledge that she was capable of letting fly with language like that. And that, also like me, you're probably a little wacko.

And you know what? I love you for that. Don't change a hair. Just set right down, pour yourself a virtual martini, and let's all toast to Julia and other wild inspirational women of her ilk. Like the old blues song goes, wild women don't get the blues. Oh, and bon appetit, and all that.

A little animated humor for lovers of cats (the little buggers)

Funny cat. [VIDEO].

I love how cat-like this little cartoon cat is -- I can totally see one of my cats cause havoc like this. In fact, my naughtiest cat-friend has even done several of these stunts at various points in his life--good thing he had nine, he's on at least life number seven at this point.

Like the vid? Check out its creator's website.