Me! Me! (braindead, RIP)

Ok, so I'm an idiot. I'd hope that by now that would be a fairly well estabilished concept for both myself and others, but sometimes I still manage to surprise the former.

Whilst I'm mentioning idiocy, we took the nextdoor neighbours' dogs for a walk yesterday. Harry and Goldie, beautiful retired racing greyhounds. My step-dad had Goldie on the lead, just a short lead, maybe 2 or 3 metres of sturdy black leather. He threw a stick for her to fetch.

But back to my idiocy. It surprises me sometimes, like odd socks turning up in strange places.

I always thought the "meme" trend was this hip, recent, pop-culture triggered thang. I thought the word came from someone saying "It's all about me! Me!" Which would then turn into someone saying "Me! Me!" and then "me!me!" and then just "meme." It makes perfect sense, and although a simple-minded manner for a word to appear, is a considerably more respectable origin than can be claimed by such atrocities as "lol" or "lmao."

So I only just worked this one out. It's like finding out that the wombles are in fact distant relatives of the Dodo.

I looked it up.

meme: noun; a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation)

Shortening (modelled on gene) of mimeme, from Greek mimma, something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate. See mimesis.

Apparently I've been pronouncing it incorrectly too.

I think I've been remarkably restrained when it comes to the seemingly weekly bandwagons of these things. I went through a phase when I first got internet access when I would respond to every single one I got sent by email. It turned into an entertaining exercise in mocking the questions, and eventually drove me to outrightly abusive replies due the sheer dull nature of such a repetetive and self-obsessed gesture.

I can, however, see the value of doing one looking back over the last year. Blah blah appreciate events blah blah perspective blah look to future in context blah. I'm going to write it in stages, because I can't face writing as much as I want to for each question in one sitting. Hopefully I'll learn something about myself. Will work out what I want for 2004. Appreciate the momentous events I'm living through. Blah. So stolen from so many places I couldn't possibly name even half of them, I give you the meme of 2003.

That's that pathetic excuse out of the way, and I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. (But a merrier Lord of the Rings.)