The magnets are back, Baby!

Joy Magnetism lives again!

Annnnnnd after a short stint on Pinterest, and a long hiatus, I finally gave in to Instagram. Behold, for one and all to follow:  joymagnetism.

A magnet a day til I get bored, or run out of magnets.

Hint: I won't run out of magnets.

Gone Pinnin'

Joy Magnetism, abbreviated

So I've known for a while that long-form blogging was quickly becoming archaic in this age of 140 characters or less.

Therefore, after 1,324 magnets faithfully blogged upon, I've now picked up where I left off with Magnet #1325 on the Magnets of Joy Magnetism pinboard on Pinterest. Come follow me there!

Of course, I'll miss telling all the fun stories behind the magnets, but I'm thinking this will be a great time to re-stock a treasure trove of fun stories and happy memories.

Kisses,
Funtimejoy

Blue fin

Magnet #1324 - Provincetown Blue Whale

Some friends brought this rather big whale magnet back for me from the Cape.

I've always wanted to go whale watching. Well, sorta.

I think I like the idea of whale watching, rather than the actual practice. I'm sure seeing the grandeur of a blue whale, the largest mammal on earth, would probably be all types of awesome. But, to actually go out on the open sea (already do not like), walk around decks staring into the ocean (which I kinda like), and seeing wildlife swim around me (probably would not like), is another story.

There was an incredible report about a blue whale sighting off of Provincetown last month. Sightings are rare and far between and they're not always in Cape waters - apparently the guy leading the tour has been on 6,500 whale watch trips and has only seen four of them. And this recent one was something like 75-80 feet long. I mean, whoa.

But here's something. A 2YO human could crawl through a blue whale's arteries.

I'm sorry.

WHAT?

And like, how do we know this?

Zoinks!

Magnet #1323 - Scooby Gang

"Oh, Joy. Scooby-Doo won't marry you."

- My mother, upon hearing that I was watching yet another episode of Scooby-Doo mysteries.

What? I can admit it - long into my 30s and I still love a good Scooby marathon. Honestly, when I bought this at Comic-Con a few weeks ago, I couldn't believe this is my only Scooby-Doo magnet.

You would think that watching all those Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?s growing up (and now, to be honest) would desensitize me to anything hokey scary. But nothing could be further from reality.

When I was 12ish, I beat up a Disney World attendant. To let me out of the Haunted Mansion.

When I was in college, I screamed, "You can't do this to me, I'm an American citizen!" to the Jack the Ripper dayplayer who fake grabbed me and held a fake knife to my throat at the London Dungeon.

And just this past Halloween weekend, I was laughing hysterically with tears streaming down my cheeks, literally quaking in boots and wondering if I should yell out the safeword "safety" at the fake scary Haunted House downtown.

Yep. When it comes to scaring easily, I would pretty much roll with Scooby and Shaggy, thankyouverymuch.

Do a barrel roll, Google, do a barrel role

Magnet #1322 - Loch Ness Takes Manhattan

Love this magnet my sister got me. It reminds of that latest Mashable article on the special Google Easter eggs - one of which is when you set your Google home page to the beach theme and at 3:14am Nessie comes out to play.

Mind you, I haven't done it, but it does crack me up.

As does making Google do the barrel roll.

Or going looking for Chuck Norris.

Seriously. Go read that article I linked above.

So interesting how Google has become such a presence in our lives, that we totally take it for granted. You could extend that to all of the Internet, plus mobile technology. Still...for all the wonderful things it's brought us in the last 20 years, I have to say I am still very, very, very glad that I went to college without the presence of either Facebook , mobile communications or any form of instant communications.

My UNC experience would have been so much different had they been around. And I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been for the better.

Tall tales

Magnet #1321 - Giraffe

Bought this one at NY Comic-Con a few weeks ago. Yes, yes, I know, I dunno, I end up buying the oddest magnets in the oddest of places. But NYCC has come to be the place where I buy my cute things, this giraffe being one of them. Wait til you see the rest of the set!

Just read a bunch of facts about giraffes - they have black tongues and spend 16-20 hours a day feeding, they sleep for about five minutes at a time, and no one's ever seen them bathe.

OH! And their tails are like 8 feet long! Like, I always knew giraffes were tall, but I don't think I've ever noticed how tall their tails were.

See what I did there?

I like Ike

Magnet #1320 - I Like Ike

So funny, without meaning to, last weekend, both my sisters and my parents from DC/NC and I from NY converged on the snowbound Pennsylvania - without meaning to. But we didn't meet up.

They headed to Gettysburg, while my friend and I went to Tannersville.

What kills me is that my friends and I have specifically gone to visit Gettysburg many, many years ago. But how is it, that we didn't stop by the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Historic Site nearby!?! For shame!

Looks like we definitely have to plan a trip back there. Especially since we went long before they re-did the Gettysburg experience. Before, we just drove around the sites, walked the streets of the small town, bought a copy of John Jakes' North and South, and that's pretty much it

But, I do love this magnet my sisters bought me, because I do, in fact, like Ike. When I was little, my dad and I did a research project together (I can't remember if it was for fun, or for school) where I learned all of the five-star generals of World War II, and their backgrounds. There's Ike, MacArthur, Marshall, Arnold, and then Bradley.

So that's why I nearly wanted to jump out a window when one of my 20somethings here in the office said, "Wait. President Eisenhower was a WWII general?"

I cringed at my desk, and without turning around, I said quietly, how do you not know this, (kid with political science background)? He said something akin to, I don't know all those historical facts!

Headdesk.