During the lonely summer months when network television has abandoned me, I search for anything to tide me over.

I play video games, watch reruns of What I Like About You, Gilmore Girls and Star Trek: TNG, and I desperately search for something new (some good, and some bad).

This led me to the discovery that my TiVo is quite capable of showing me YouTube videos on my giant television.  Although YouTube is hardly a new invention, I have never really embraced the phenomenon.  I can always find better things to do on my computer than watch videos.

But watching videos on my television?  Well that’s an entirely different beast.  So I embarked and soon found myself subscribed to Marina Orlova, host and proprietor of HotForWords.

The premise of her website and videos are simple — discussion of the origin of certain words, what they mean, and what they used to mean.

Marina is a philologist by trade so she’s not just some fly-by-night internet researcher.  Her love for words makes her ’students’ hot for words, and there is no better motivator for learning.

Sure it doesn’t hurt that she has a sexy Russian accent and looks like a super model, but it’s really the content that got me to to subscribe.  Learning is fun, and learning in bite-sized chunks is even better.

That long introduction of HotForWords was really to get to a discussion about one of Marina’s latest videos:

This video discusses the meaning and origin of the word mondegreen. It is a word I believe I have come across before but I don’t think I could have told you the meaning before watching this video.

For those unwilling to watch the hot Russian girl above (seriously, what is wrong with you!?), a mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a lyric.

I can’t remember all of the mondegreens I have come across in my life, but I know they are plentiful. From my youth, I can particularly remember mishearing a line in “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid.

The real line goes, “Bright young women, sick of swimming, ready to stand!” but I always heard it as “Pregnant women, sick of swimming, ready to stand!”

I always just assumed it was some sort of reference to Ariel’s unspoken desire to be a mother.

From the video, I have definitely been guilty of “Hold me closer Tony Danza.” I think the first time I heard Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”, I had no idea what he was saying.  Given his preferences, I figured it was perfectly plausible that he had written an ode to Tony Danza.

What are some mondegreens that you’ve been guilty of? With all of the singing of pirate songs and rock concerts you people go to, surely you’ve run into a few.

They just never stop with the laughs.  Today I go to CNN.com to find this little nugget:

Haha.  Those are two headlines that should have never ever been put near each other, eh?

Oh CNN.  You should hire someone to pay attention to your site.

Best Super Bowl commercial ever.

I don’t know why I think this will be fun, but I’m going to post a quote.  I’m intentionally not going to source the quote just to see who picks it up.

It may be from a show you don’t watch.  It may be something you recognize readily.  It’s not really a game so much, but just a way to perpetuate inside jokes from pop culture.

I’ll try to do it every week, but who am I kidding?  This will probably be the only one ever.

If I do keep it up, I’ll just pick a quote that made me laugh and post it.  Kudos to you if you can figure out where it came from.

This week’s is:

“I want to go to there.”

See. That wasn’t so bad.  Now we’ll see if I drive people crazy by never sourcing it.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a long time.  I’ve spent time raiding, soloing, pvping, and just about everything else you can imagine.

I consider myself to be in semi-retirement now, not being a member of a guild and not raiding on any regular schedule, but even still it takes a lot to make me smile anymore in relation to the game.

I’ve seen it all.  I was there for almost every major event in WoW history; if not in game then in spirit as I read the blogs that chronicle every nuance of every event.

But this morning, something happened that I wasn’t expecting and that I’ve never seen.

I was checking my mail in Shattrath City when there was an announcement — Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain would be performing in the World’s End Tavern (home of such auspicious patrons as Haris Pilton) at the top of the hour.

I looked at the clock — 5:59am.  Perfect.  I hopped on my wyvern and headed down to the tavern to see what the fuss was all about.

And sure enough, the band showed up and performed one song.  It was just me and a lone Draenei Pally in the audience, but I partied like it was 1999, stripped down to my tabard, and did my Britney dance.

Apparently this is not a new phenomenon, but it has escaped my attention until this morning when it hit me by complete surprise.  I /cried when they finished their set, and the Draenei Pally /comforted me.

With as much reading and playing as I do, I don’t know how I’ve always missed the L70ETC concerts, but I’m glad I did.

The surprise was able to bring a smile to my face from a game that rarely does anymore.  It’s always the little things…

(click on the pictures for something that doesn’t resemble a blurry mess)