I almost went with the Title: Beelzeblog. But it felt sacrilegious. So I changed my mind at the last minute.

Zach thinks this is ridiculous, well not the blog itself, but putting the word "blog" in all of the titles to my posts. I agree. It is ridiculous. But being a lover of all English grammar, I get a kick out of word play. Maybe I think I'm clever. Ok, yes, I think I'm clever. I laugh every time I type a title. But I'm also realistic. I don't expect other people to find them as funny as I do! They are there for my entertainment, my satisfaction.

So yes, they are ridiculous. And no, I don't mind if you think that they are. But yes, I will always use the word "blog" in my subsequent titles.

It's like the time in Romania, driving through the Carpathian mountains in a fifteen passenger van from the 1980's. After visiting a beautiful and breathtaking castle, my three other team members and our dear friend and trip leader Dawn stopped for a snack. The snack, a Romanian sausage like something or other was called Mici (Pronounced Meech).

They were small sausage links that came bundled together in a paper towel. Now that I think about them, I have no idea what they were really made out of..... Pigs and cows are very valuable over there, I mean you can buy meat in a grocery story. But what kind of meat is being sold by a gypsy on the side of the road? Hmmm.....

There were lots of stray dogs in Romania. I mean lots. Bob Barker would have his work cut out over there. There was also a grizzly bear chained to a tree across the street.

But, no, I'm sure it was pig or something... Or something. Ok, I have officially grossed myself out and need to get back to the point of the story.

Anyways, so the four of us college kids enjoyed the mystery meat anyways, no matter what it was made out of.

And made word jokes the entire hour and a half back down the mountain. We thought we were hilarious. Dawn, our dear friend, not so much.

But that is exactly the kind of nerd I am. I love words, and grammar, punctuation. Or should I have said punctuation! (Declarative, not Imperative.) When I read a book, I correct it. That's right, if I see something that's not write, a typing error, or editing error, I get out a red pen and correct it. In fact, I cannot continue to read until I have fixed the problem.

When I text, I am the same way. I enjoy words spelled out completely, using apostrophes, and commas in their places, tossing out Internet jargon in favor of actual, real, and acceptable phrases. I do not like TTLY, or LYLAS, or C U L8R. Those don't make sense. I mean, seriously. What do they mean? Can anyone tell me?

Just kidding, I do understand those ones. That's why I used those for examples. But there is an entire language out there that I don't understand. Maybe I'm just showing my age, or generation or something. But truthfully, I have had conversations with other people via text where I have literally had to google their cutesy little abbreviations to figure out what the heck they were talking about!

There is one exception. I do use LOL. But only half of the time. I also use Hahaha. But it's hard to believe that Hahaha, carries the same message as Laugh Out Loud. And here's a tip. I also never use LOL, unless I actually am Laughing Out Loud. So... There you go.

But I mean seriously, have our fingers gotten that lazy that we can't type out the entire word? L8R doesn't really take less of an effort than Later, especially when you figure in the use of the function button just to get to a number. Besides, I don't have to sound out Later in my head, and than out loud. I recognize Later. I do not recognize L8R.

Well, that's enough of that. I didn't really mean to go off on a tangent about texting. I honestly, don't really care. It doesn't bother me that much. I just worry about the next generation. I mean you can't type a smiley face into a term paper, and wut is not the real spelling of what.

Do you know what else I love? Or loved, since I haven't done it in a really long time. I used to love dissecting sentences. You know, drawing the little lines and breaking apart the sentence into Noun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Prepositional Phrase. All that kind of stuff. That's fun to me.

Yep, I'm totally a nerd.

Oh, before I finish.

"What did one sausage say to the other?"
"Nice to Mici you."

LOL.