Cracker and crackers

I learned something new recently.

Now I'm sure most people have heard of crackers. As in one cracker, two crackers, ... referring to the biscuit or snack.

And then there's crackers, in its plural form only. As in, "That guy is crackers." Meaning that he is crazy.

What I didn't know was that a cracker was also a slang to refer to white people, similar to how nigger is used to refer to black people.

It seems that this word was used in the southern United States because white people used to crack their whips over slaves or animals.

You can read more on Wikipedia. The article also says:

In reference to a native of Florida or Georgia, however, it is sometimes used in a neutral or positive context or self-descriptively with pride (see Florida cracker and Georgia cracker).

So it is not necessarily pejorative.

Anyway, I learned this while watching a quiz show. I never knew of this usage before, but very soon after that, I came across it in a book I was reading (Life Sentences by Laura Lippman). If I hadn't known the meaning, I would probably have thought they meant crazy people. This makes me wonder, have I misinterpreted any other usage of crackers before this?

Another vicious attack

My Totoro got attacked again.

The koala witnesses were so scared they almost fell off their perches (unfortunately I forgot to snap a picture before helping them back on, but you can see them here)

The kangaroo witness had fallen over on his side; probably shoved by the perpetrator. Maybe he hit his head and lost consciousness till morning. (also forgot to take a picture; you can see him here)

But the worst injured was still my fragile Totoro. Gotta make him stronger...

Jigglypuff was fine. (oh, maybe he sang Totoro to sleep, and consequently the kangaroo slept as well) Pikachu too. The red cow had a minor injury on her behind, being torn away from her "home" (see the red pin?)

The tiger on his high perch was unharmed. Nobody dares to mess with Kim Jong Kook! :P

저는김종국입니다
(I am Kim Jong Kook)

Actually some people had come to install some fixtures for us, so they knocked some stuff over. (let's leave it at that; I'm lazy to go into details) I could make another CSI case out of this, but I don't feel like writing so much at the moment.

The red animals were part of our CNY decorations. We were supposed to discard them after CNY but it felt like such a waste...so I adopted them. (there were others, supposed to be adopted by other people, but I'm not sure what happened to them)

Is that a cover?

I hate it when singers release covers of someone else's song when the original isn't even a decade old!

Like Boyce Avenue covering Justin Timberlake's Not a Bad Thing. (I heard it on the radio recently, which is what prompted this post)

Or someone covering Green Day's 21 Guns. The original was so powerful, and the cover was disappointing. AND... the radio loved playing it. :s

There was also Bruno Mars' song - what was it? - I can't remember but I would probably notice if I heard it again, because the cover is slightly different from the original. I didn't like the song that much anyway, and didn't care for the cover either.

You see, when a song is old, the current generation doesn't really know it, so making a cover is like a tribute to the original singer; you want to promote their song to the people of today. But when you cover a "rather new" song, you are basically taking over someone else's song. Or trying to show that you are better than them (or maybe lose... in some people's eyes - or ears). At least that's how it looks like to me.

Are people so desperate to release songs these days, they can't wait to write their own songs (or wait for songs to be written for them)?

Stopping the aging

Lite FM currently has a contest going on called "Stop the Music". It is a rather good concept actually; you listen to the beginning of a song and say "stop" when you feel you can guess the song and the artiste. The prize money starts off at a thousand ringgit, but goes down as the time ticks away.

I had heard the game being played a few times, but most of the time the person couldn't guess the song at all. Once they guessed the song, but got it wrong (correct artiste, wrong song, unfortunately). But yesterday I heard someone win a thousand ringgit! The song had started playing for only one or two seconds (basically I had heard nothing), and he said "stop". I didn't even catch his answer, but it turned out to be correct. He must be a really big fan of the song. :P I don't blame him... it's a great song, I like it too! (never knew who sang it, though)

So here's Forever Young, by Alphaville (never heard of them!)

Currently reading

I'm reading The Blue Handbag by Fiona Robyn at the moment. It's about a widower who found his deceased wife's old handbag, and something unexpected inside. So he goes on a journey of finding out things about his wife that he never knew about.

The synopsis caught my attention because it had the elements of a mystery in it. And true, there is a mystery in the book. But I feel that it is more of an emotional journey; the book describes the main character's thoughts and feelings very thoroughly. It makes the story's progress slow, but somehow I don't find it boring. I can put it down any time, but I do enjoy how the writer describes things.

One not-so-small flaw about this book, though, is that it has quite a number of grammar/typo errors. I have seen words missing from a sentence. I have seen mis-spellings (like stationary instead of stationery). I thought editors were supposed to catch all that? It's not like there are some in every page; it's more like one every few chapters. Doesn't really take the enjoyment out of reading, but a published book is supposed to have ZERO flaws, if you ask me.


By the way, right before this book, I read The Thief by Clive Cussler. One of the best books I've read. The plot was interesting, and the writing style suited me, too. What I don't quite understand is that he wrote it with someone... so whom does the writing style come from? Will other books written with other people (he has a few series with different lead characters, each written with a different person) have the same style?