Funtalia (fun-tal-ya)

Let me here you say way-ohh (way-ohh!)!  In keeping with yesterday’s theme of cards, I thought I would blog about something I recently heard of when one of my favorite high school teachers/friend on Facebook (that’s cool, right?) became a fan of them.  (As a side note, if you Facebook, you can become a fan of Funtalia now, too.  How awesome is that?)  Anyway, the object of my ex-teacher’s fanship is something called Boom Boom! Cards.

I was intrigued by the weird name, so I went to their website to investigate further.  Apparently, these are sold as a set of 26 cards that each encourage a specific random act of kindness (or “guerilla goodness” in their words).  Once the goodness has been passed on, so is the card.  It’s the Pay It Forward spirit bundled into “the first ever kit for a social revolution.”  I thought it sounded nice, but not too original…untilllll.  Until I realized that you can register the cards on their site and then track each card’s progress once they’ve moved out of your hands.  Pretty cool, right?  If you want to see how far a little kindness can go, these cards are the key.  They even offer a teen edition especially for you.  If you buy a deck, please make sure to use your “Buy a new car for your favorite blogger” card on me, so you can hear me gleefully burst out with my favorite expletive, “HALEY JOEL OSMENT!!!”  (Yeah, I’m pretty sure the majority of my references completely fly over the heads of my “target” audience.  Hopefully, it encourages a little study on your part.  Try to keep up! )

So have you ever had a Pay It Forward moment?  Did it end with Donald Trump paying off your mortgage?  Did that really happen?

*By the way, happy Friday the 13th!  Take my advice and stay inside today.  If you need me, you can find me with my creepy black cat in my lap, opening an umbrella (ella ella) with one hand and breaking a mirror with the other, under a ladder indoors all day.
It’s just waaay too unlucky to leave the house today!

I got a fabulous Funtalia-inspired birthday package from my little sister yesterday - complete with a “Best Friends” necklace (see this post) and all!  One of the things she slipped in there was the “bomb” flashcard (our favorite) from the slang flashcard set she received a few years ago.  I totally forgot how much I loved these things! I was able to find a few cards online, so I thought I’d include them in this post to aid you with your parents’ education of the following colloquialisms:

bomb adj with da or the
1: best, superlative: “THOSE TRUFFLES ARE DA BOMB.”
2: remarkable, extraordinary: “THAT BOY IS DA BOMB.”
3. popular or visually pleasing

dope adj
great, excellent, fantastic: “HIS NEW ALBUM IS DOPE.”
syn rad, ill, sweet, da bomb, tight, phat, sick, hot, gravy, bad, fresh, fly, fierce

front vi fronted, frontin’ or fronting
1: to put on a false appearance, conceal under pretense, cover up, deny, lie: “HE FRONTED LIKE HE WAS ROYALTY.”
2: to disrespect
3: to confront, engage

props n pl
1: respect, proper respects: “WE SHOULD GIVE TEACHERS PROPS IN THIS COUNTRY.”
2: credit where credit is due: “HE MAY BE DULL, BUT I GIVE HIM PROPS FOR SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT.”
3: praise, recognition
syn kudos, shout-outs

You may want to consider purchasing these for any of the adults in your life who may be frontin’ like they understand the juvenile vernacular, but are actually left conbaffled.  If you know anyone in need, you can order these very informative and helpful slanguage flashcards here.  For everyday quick references, just send them to the Urban Dictionary for millions more dope definitions.  I’m just glad there’s a way for people to interpret what I’m saying now.  It’s hard being so fierce.

If you have a favorite slang word or phrase, please share it with the rest of us.  Make sure to use it in context so as to continue this education process.

Peace!

Thanks for reading (I really do appreciate it), but I was actually referring to all the people to whom I need to send thank you notes ASAP.  I still haven’t sent out thank you cards for Christmas or any event since.  I was tempted to say “Eh, too much time has passed.  Now it’s just going to look tacky,” but then I received two Christmas cards out of the blue yesterday from completely UNrelated parties (crazy coincidence, right?).  So I figured if both of these people were comfortable with sending out their season’s greetings in March, then I really shouldn’t be worried about being thankful only a few (okay several) weeks late.  Besides, I appreciated the senders’ thoughtfulness regardless of their timing.  (I only hope my thankees will feel the same way.)

Now I recently read an article suggesting planet preservation through sending out thank yous via email and scrapping the physical thank you card altogether.  Listen, I’m all for saving the earth, but I found this suggestion plain silly - don’t you agree?  Should we really cut out one of the few surviving formal acts of gratitude to save such small a piece of decorative cardstock?  Can’t we just outlaw junk mail instead?  (Of course, then I would probably encounter an empty mailbox more often than not and I wouldn’t want that…such a sad feeling.)  Going back to the virtual thank you though, please allow me to clarify that I, personally, do not mind receiving a thank you by email at all.  I was just raised by a woman who attended a private finishing school for girls (very hoidy toidy), so handwritten cards were the only acceptable way to go in my house.  Besides, the “World Wide Web” was just some computer nerd space term back then anyway.

Ultimately, because of my mom’s insistence (aka twice daily nagging until the note was written), I gained a testimony of thank you notes and much interest in the cute stationery industry.  I have yet to purchase any fancy personalized cards, but I’m really considering splurging on some cute ones soon.  You might want to do the same.  Since gratitude is always in fashion, go here, here, or here and say thank you in style.

Merci.  Grazie.  Danke.  Gracias.  Obrigada.

Happy Monday!  Don’t you just love waking up to a whirlwind of responsibilities after a worry-free weekend?!  Yeah, me too.  As you can probably gather, I’ve slept through my fair share of alarm clocks in my life.  My sister still likes to reenact the not-so-pretty face I made one morning years ago when I slid Risky Business-style into her room after we both slept through our alarms and I missed my flight.  Wonderful.

As much as I dislike saying so long to Mr. Sandman, I will admit that I do like playing the role of an alarm clock on occasion.  I used to love to disruptively wake up my roommates by bouncing at the foot of their beds, singing our college’s fight song beginning with the chorus: “Rise and shout…”  It only seemed appropriate.  I don’t know - maybe they would’ve preferred one of these gizmos to one of my whimsical wake up calls.

Replace your clunky wood-paneled alarm clock with this funky aqua Clocky.

You’ve probably heard about the Clocky.  It’s a rolling alarm clock that forces you to scramble chaotically around your room until you are successfully able to chase it down and turn if off, helping you make that oh-so-unpleasant jump out of the bed and into the day.  Sounds kind of fun/kind of annoying.  For precautionary measures, I think it should only be used by those with Mary Poppins-par tidy rooms; otherwise, I’m pretty sure serious injury could occur.  So what do you think?  Would you rather wake up to: my peppiest vocals and self-choreographed cheer moves OR a super cool-looking robot clock from the future?  I know.  The choice is obvious, right?

Lily Allen is stalking me right now.  Of course, she’s just everywhere promoting her new album, “It’s Not Me, It’s You,” but I do kind of feel like I can’t shake her presence.  Anyway, I was trying to figure out what to blog about when lo and behold I look up to see her on yet another TV show singing her super cool song, “The Fear.”  The first time I heard it, I had to find it on YouTube immediately.  Then it only won more points with me because I loved the video.  (I’m a sucker for anything with lots of color, dancing, and a little weirdness.)  Plus anything that mocks excessive consumption is alright by me.

Since Lily’s a bit of a potty mouth, enjoy a clean version of her song here and let me know how you like it.  (Now maybe she’ll leave me alone.)

If not, I highly recommend this little gem:

The Cube: Keep the Secret

Pick this up before the weekend, so you can have fun psychoanalyzing yourself and your friends at the next sleepover.  The results may surprise you, and you’ll probably never look at horses the same way again.  “But you don’t have to take my word for it.”

If you have been cubed, tell me a few of your results without giving away the secret!

Yeah, yeah, I know Vans shoes have been around since the mid-60s, but I think we can all admit they’ve made a major comeback among mainstream (aka non-skating) kids of all ages.  Back when Sean Penn was fun, he brought international attention to the classic black-and-white checkered Vans Slip-On when his surfer slacker character, Spicoli, sported them in the 80s teen flick, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  However, like most trends, these (along with his sweet, short shorts) were eventually kicked to the curb.

Spicoli rockin the Vans in FTaRH

I wore different styles of Vans in high school, but they weren’t cool or cute, and the only reason I bought them was because we had a Vans outlet in my hometown.  Plus (and I am honestly just now remembering this), there was a boy who worked there who had a crush on me, so he used to give me killer discounts on the already well-priced footwear.  How could I resist?  (Not the boy, just the shoes - nothing was ever going to happen there.)

Anyway, just look down in the hallways at your school, and I’m sure you will see plenty of Vans chauffeuring your classmates’ (hopefully ped socked) feet around, then look up - because no one wants to see which side you part your hair on - and show off those pearly whites of yours.

I like this girly take on Spicoli’s slip-ons.

I don’t know when I will ever have the need for additional ankle support and I remember finding hi-tops cumbersome when I sported them in elementary school, but I am oddly attracted to these.

Not impressed?  Go to Vans.com and create your own pair of custom Slip-Ons or Old Skools that are completely Y-O-U.  Can we say “awesome?”  Or do you disagree?  How do you feel about this returning trend?