*Today's post is dedicated to Clay because, without even realizing, he totally helped me pull it together by reminding me yesterday morning about The Neverending Story, which –– if you're not familiar –– is the tale of a boy named Atreyu who's stuck in a world that's slowly disappearing because it's being systematically consumed by The Nothing and oh, hey! That sounds an awful lot like what's been happening to me during the last four years with The Porcupine! First I was a Mars Rover and now, apparently, I'm a kid who talks to rocks while trying to outrun a gigantic black hole! Oh, just forget it.
And speaking of The Porcupine, I offer you the same standard disclaimer this time around that I do for all self-involved, annoyingly non-specific posts on this subject: You should totally just skip it. Which, if you think about it, is probably the exact same disclaimer I should offer for ALL my posts, regardless of the subject matter, where subject matter equals HAHA! None of the subjects matter around here because this blog is totally like an Interwebs Black Hole Nothing: sucking in material from anywhere and everywhere yet remaining totally empty. I know. IT'S A GIFT.
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Welcome back, everyone! Today we'll be featuring the long-awaited second installment in our Ongoing Adventures in Porcupining series! (You: Okay, seriously? No one waits for anything around here. Mostly we just try to hide from you.) Oh whatever. ANYWAY. This series is basically a comic strip of sorts about life with The Porcupine where life equals most all of it has seeped out of him over the past few years and now it's like he's totally dead inside. Romantic!
I know it's been a while since I've posted much about him, but I've been very, very busy blogging about more important issues such as sending cows through the mail and trying to figure out what Stinking Buggers are (I still have no clue) and worrying about our country being run by people whose names look like the word "BONER." (I mean honestly: How am I supposed to take any Boner-generated legislation seriously?) Of course, I also haven't blogged much about him because doing so forces me to also do very unpleasant things like actually thinking about how a bad turn of events on top of another bad turn of events on top of yet more bad turns of events has changed The Porcupine into a retreated, isolated, former shell of himself and SEE?? Love is FUN!! Or not. Or something. OH, I DON'T KNOW.
And with that I present the following:
My Ongoing Adventures In Porcupining –– Installment #2* (Or: The Um What?? Comic Strip –– In Two Installments Which, If You Do The Math, Equals Two Installments Too Many!) *The first can be found here.
THE (apparently it will never) END.
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P.S.: So, in conclusion, sometimes this:
But most of the time, this:
Wow. I could've spared you guys all that "Adventures in Porcupining" crap and just posted these two pictures instead and basically given you about the same amount of useless useful information. I totally have this blogging thing NAILED!
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P.S.S. Did you all know that today is National Pit Bull Awareness Day? In honor of this, I offer the next two pictures. Because despite all the above evidence to the contrary, love really is a many, many splendored thing:
Buster and his Boy: A Neverending Love Story They're also the best possible PR team this group of often misunderstood and wholly wonderful dogs could ever hope for. And The Boy will never need his own luck dragon as long as he has Buster around.
Because as it turns out? My friend Jared does read this blog! You know, now. After I finally was all, "JUST READ IT!" and then he was all, "The hell?? YUCK I DO NOT EVEN LIKE YOU!" and then I was all, "But I wrote about you in it!" and then he was all click click CLICKCLICKCLICK, "I TOTALLY LOVE THIS BLOG MORE THAN ANY OTHER BLOG IN THE WORLD!!"
So, now not only is Jared a regular reader (HAHA! No one can read regularly around this blog and you are welcome all you people with hundreds of posts stacking up in your readers –– I'm lookin' at you, Mr. Farty and Scientist Laurie), but he also might officially join Team Um...What??!
HAHA –– how ridiculous! Of course there's no free beer here. I have no idea where he got this impression. By the way: This illustration? That looks so much like Jared that it's just like Jared is looking into a mirror right now? Chris drew it. I KNOW!! I couldn't find anything existing that looked at all like Jared* so I asked Chris to draw something in the style of his own illustration so he did whatever it is he does in Illustrator with his graphic tablet and paths and points and fills and strokes and blah blah nobody really knows for sure and then TA DA! Twenty-five minutes later the world's most perfect image of Jared was born! Which, you know, BIG DEAL. I'm totally sure I could have drawn it myself except for the fact that I am very, very busy. Occasionally.
* Note to all iStock illustrators: There are men in the world with beard-like facial hair who also aren't leprechauns for your information.
By the way: Did any of you notice anything different about Chris's illustration?
Luxurious.
Anyway. Today's post will celebrate the fine art of conversation as we spend some time getting to know Jared, who has agreed to sit down and answer some questions for all of us because I told him there would be free beer here he totally loves this blog more than any other blog in the world! And if it's any indication of how it's probably going to go, when I told him I'd make up crap myself if he didn't want to do this, Jared assured me his answers would be crap anyway, so I could add his crap to my crap and then I could have one totally crappy blog post. Which would have been a really generous offer except for the fact that I can write a totally crappy blog post just fine all by myself, thank you very much. (See: every single other blog post I've ever written.)
Let's get started!
Hey! Thanks for sitting down to talk with me. Where's the beer? SO. What uniquely qualifies you to join Team Um…What?? What specific skills do you bring to the table? Gee, that’s a good question. I’m not much of a “Team” player, and my skill set is very general. I do own a computer on which I can keep up to date with the latest Um…What?? news. Does that count?
Sure! Good answer. We're off to an excellent start here. Now: Why do you read this blog? Is it because you’re afraid of what I’ll do to you if you don’t? Because I heard that I was mentioned in it.
So what you're saying is that your love of yourself is greater than your fear of me? What I'm saying is where is the beer?
This blog’s tagline is, “Fueled By Random, Pointless Tangents.” What would your personal tagline be? “Fueled By Anger, Loud Music and Miller Lite.”
Describe yourself in three additional words. Hungry. Bitter. Hilarious. I'm always hungry too! Plus, sometimes I'm bitter and I am so totally hilarious ALL THE TIME!! Just ask anyone! Do you think this mean we're soul mates? We are NOT soul mates. Good god. And you're not really that funny either. Sorry.
I see. So now describe me in three words, one of which will not be "funny." Apparently. JERK. Did you just call me a jerk?
NO. What the hell? Stop trying to stall. Describe me in three words, please. Cat Lady. Modest. Bloggy.
Okay. You do know that's four words right? Did you fail math in school? No, because I am fully aware that three beers plus one beer equals FOUR BEERS. And yet I don't have even one beer. What the hell is that about?
Speaking of things a person needs, can you loan me $50? Sure, if you don’t mind getting it in installments. Don't you think –– you know, since we're friends and all –– that the appropriate answer to that question would be that you'd just GIVE me money? Meaning I wouldn't have to pay you back? Friends give friends beer.
I'm sure they do. Anyway, MC is a total jerk for the way he never comments on this blog, right? We’re supposed to comment on the blog? No. You're not supposed to. But wouldn't you LIKE to? I mean isn't this blog entertaining and inspiring like that? Seriously? Never mind. Okay. What is something about you most people wouldn’t know? There’s a reason people don’t know. There’s some dark sh*t going on here.
Oh, please. There's nothing dark going on with you. This from a guy whose license plate is ILVHUGS. You're totally ducking the question, which would annoy me except for the fact that there's no way anyone is still paying any attention here so, you know, whatever.
Moving on. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Only one thing?
Well, I'd have to agree with that answer. I shouldn’t change anything about me though, right? Umm…uh…hmmm…uh…no.
Way too much hesitation, dude. Way not enough beer.
What is it about me that you find the most inspirational? Your ability to find time to update your blog…occasionally.
First of all, everyone's a damn critic. Second of all, like anyone wants me to post more often. Good point. If I die before you, will you come to my funeral? What will you wear? If you die first, what will you leave me in your will? If you go before me, I will wear my nicest Metallica T-shirt to your funeral. If I die, I will leave you my nicest Metallica T-shirt.
Of course this would be the shirt after I tailored it. Jared doesn't wear girl shirts. Sometimes. Also, notice how I combined two images together but then was too lazy to match the skin tones. This is what's known as I Am An Inspirational Photoshopper.
Besides your favorite Metallica t-shirt, what are five things you love? Baseball, heavy metal, TV, sushi, answering questions for friends’ blogs
Why am I not on that list? Next question.
Speaking of me, on a scale of 1 to 10, how pretty am I? (With 1 being “Completely Pretty” and 10 being “totally pretty.”) I would have to say about a 5, which I think is “thoroughly pretty.” Really, dude? Not even a full five but about a five?? Middle-of-the road FIVE? Did you really think this would be an acceptable answer? Just so you know, I'm gonna call Chris right now and show you how it should be done. Listen and learn:
Chris: What's up? Me: On a scale of 1 to 10 –– with 1 being "Completely Pretty" and 10 being "Totally Pretty" –– how pretty would you say I am?
Chris (with not even one millisecond of hesitation): 5 million! Prettiest girl ever!! Me: Thank you. (CLICK)
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SEE?! Would it really have killed you to say something like that? You do know you were on the phone, right? And that I couldn't hear anything on the other end? I bet that wasn't even Chris on the line.
Well IT WAS and he thinks I am FIVE MILLION PRETTY.
Nobody is five million pretty.
I am.
No you're not. Although you might look better IF I HAD THAT BEER YOU MENTIONED. And are we done here yet?
No.
Oh! And speaking of Chris:
Flowing.
MC should stop sending me e-mails about how awesome this blog is and should start leaving me official comments instead, don’t you think? Great. Not only are we supposed to make official comments, but now we can’t just send e-mails? Ugh.
LOOK. I am not asking you to take Cyanide pills. IT WILL NOT KILL YOU, OMG GEEEEEZ. Okay. Continuing. What do you like best about yourself? That I was asked to join Team Um…What??
You do know you're still on probation though, right? The jury's still out on you. Not just anyone gets to be on the team. I find that hard to believe since Chris is here.
I know. But that was an accident. I can assure you. So. Why don’t you like Fort Minor? Everyone knows Mike Shinoda is way, way, WAY more talented than Metallica. I have to plead ignorance on this question. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Huh. Ignorance. I'm sensing a theme here. Wait. What?
Nothing. So. You used to be a sportswriter. What do you think of my post on slopestyle snowboarding? Maybe I could be a sportswriter, too?? It was good, but with two critiques: too much use of the word “adorable,” and it should have been about skiing. Or baseball.
What? I'll give you the baseball thing, but honestly dude. You must have been a terrible sportswriter, because you obviously have no idea what you're talking about on that first thing.
I rest my case.
What is your greatest accomplishment in life so far? What is your biggest goal you’ve yet to accomplish? Getting asked to join Team Um…What??; taking the time to start my own blog.
Do you know Photoshop? No.
Then you can't blog. Give it up. What?
Just trust me. Anyway. If the world suddenly ran out of beer, what would you do? Start doing hard drugs.
Hard drugs? Dude. This is a FAMILY blog. It is?
Of course not.
Hi Chris!
In conclusion... Oh thank god. ...is there anything else you’d like to add that hasn’t already been covered here? First of all, after re-thinking through the questions and my answers to them, I seem to be a very simple person defined by two things: Beer and Metallica. Wow, I guess I AM pretty cool. Thanks Um…What??Second of all, BEER NOW??
Seriously, dude. Let it go.
(DID I MENTION THAT CHRIS DREW THIS IMAGE OF JARED???)
Hey, Um Whaters! Remember around this time last year when this blog won the Blogger's Choice Award for Best Blog of All Time? (You: WTF? THAT NEVER HAPPENED.) Alright, maybe it didn't. But all that matters is that it totally could have! (You: OMG DELUSIONAL. DO YOU EVEN READ YOUR OWN BLOG?) Oh, come on! I mean what if...OKAY FINE. It'll never win for the best blog of all time. Ever. HAPPY NOW? But I don't even care because what it could win is WORST Blog of All Time which would be so many more kinds of awesome except that at this point I'd need at least 248 votes to win and that doesn't really make any sense because if my blog sucked that badly, why would 248 people know about it? Oh whatever. I am very bad at math. And logic. Apparently. Anyway, why I am even talking about this? Who cares?! I don't need a Blogger's Choice award because I have something way better. I have THIS:
That's right! Mr. Farty's Stinking Bugger Award! Huh.
An award! From Mr. Farty! I mean it just makes me feel like...okay. Seriously, dude? I'm over here blogging my a$$ off when I actually remember to (SO??), and you can't award my Herculean efforts with something slightly more fancy?
Bugger Bling! See? Now would this really have been so hard?
And for those of you thinking I'm just inventing pointless excuses to use Photoshop, all I can say is well, obviously. But that doesn't change the fact that we ARE very fancy here around the Um...What?? headquarters. As a matter of fact we insist on it because even if times are tough and the world is kicking our a$$es, we know we've gotta fake it 'til we make it and not let the chips get us down and never forget for one moment that success is an attitude so we'd better make sure that no matter what, we never fail to dress for it:
This is totally for real. As if I could make up something this ridiculous.
(Image updated 4/7/09 to add even more realism in the form of further BedazzlingMaureen. Because she requested it –– "Why is your bling bigger than my bling? I have NO JEWELS!" –– and because NOT EVERYTHING HERE IS ALWAYS MY FAULT.)
For those of you who don't know exactly what the Stinking Bugger Award is, let me explain it to you this way: I don't either. But I've been doing a lot of research –– which, if you must know –– is the reason why it's taken me so long to get this post up. I'm not just going to slap together some useless menagerie of crap I totally made up (OH, OF COURSE I AM) because you people deserve better than that. (TOO BAD, I'M BUSY.)
ANYWAY, after finding nothing for "stinking bugger" on Wikipedia –– which made me really disoriented at the time because I thought you could find EVERYTHING on Wikipedia?? –– I decided to go to my local library to do some microfiche research because that's what I saw MacGyver do once which I am totally not making up except for the part about it being MacGyver because I think it actually might have been Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote but that is just like six of one/half dozen of another so what difference does it make? But then I was told my library doesn't even HAVE microfiche anymore (WTF?? GOOGLE IS TOTALLY KILLING THE MODERN LIBRARY), so I was forced to try to find information in their Encyclopedia Britannica collection and you can imagine how that went. (Dear Encyclopedia Britannica: Please make your books smell slightly less delicious because then maybe a girl could get some actual research done instead of just sitting around all day sniffing the bindings and getting slightly more than mildly high.) And then while deciding what to do next I got all sidetracked by accidentally having a personal identity crisis (oopsie!) which may or may not have been directly related to the previously-blogged-about Porcupine crisis. Suddenly, I found myself questioning pretty much everyone and everything in my life, and by pretty much I mean there wasn't much about it that was pretty at all. Just ask Chris, who had the misfortune of being the one in the closest physical proximity to me during most of it. It went kind of like the following. Only for a much longer, drawn out period of time. And involving much more of my own snot than is indicated here:
This series of pictures is totally like a bad high school drama club production where the actors are all looking at the audience and not each other while awkwardly delivering their lines. WHICH IS SO AWESOME.
Oh, but enough of all that. Besides, you can see how I got back on point there in the end, right?? Even a slight mental breakdown cannot waylay my never-ending quest for knowledge! And you'll be happy to know that when all was said and done, my extensive research yielded just the kind of results you'd expect from such a tireless and dedicated effort: None.
So, just like all of you, I'm still left here to wonder what exactly is a Stinking Bugger?? Is it a fart? Is it a person who's full of sh*t like a fart? Is it a person who's full of sh*t like a fart and then pollutes the interwebs with their gas-infested blogging efforts? OKAY. SERIOUSLY?? Why do I even care so much about the specifics? ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE SO EQUALLY MAJESTIC* that it doesn't even matter which one it is I've been awarded for because regardless, THIS BLOG CAN NOW OFFICIALLY BE DEEMED 100% SUCCESSFUL! Quick. Someone bend over and then set Um...What?? on fire!!
*Someone has been studying her thesaurus on the off-chance she might be using the word AWESOME too much.
Although on a final note, the picture on the Stinking Bugger Award that looks like some kind of an alien does sort of throw me off, because I really don't know what THAT has to do with anything. To be perfectly honest.
Oh.
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P.S. Click here to visit Mr. Farty's blog, "Better Oot Than In" –– home of the Stinking Bugger!
The first is to loyal and much loved Um What?? family member, Debra. Debra's been here since the earliest days –– you know, back when this blog was simpler. And posts were shorter. And they didn't have any Photoshopping in them. In other words, Debra has stuck around to witness this blog's downward spiral into total crap. Poor Thanks, Debra!
The second is to my friend Jared who I think is a reader here, though I can't be totally sure due to the fact that he's never actually admitted it. Just like my friend MC. Because admitting in public that you read Um What?? basically has the same effect on people as telling them you have Bird Flu. Or the Black Death. Or that you're going to massively fart in their general direction. It sends everyone running and screaming from the room. Apparently.
Despite this, Jared has actually appeared here once before. Anonymously. Pictured on a coffee cup. FOR NO REASON. Which of course is ridiculous and doesn't really make any sense at all because if Jared's face belongs anywhere for no reason it's not on a coffee cup. This is an error I will fix immediately, and by fix immediately I mean this:
And Maureen actually publicly admits she reads this blog. Jared. And not only when she's drinking martinis, either. Hopefully. But just wait, dude: You'll be singing a totally different tune when Um...What?? becomes totally, hugely popular one day. HAHA! GOOD ONE!
Okay. Enough of all this. Let's get down to the actual point of this post. And by actual point I mean oh dear god, of course this post has no point. Are you new here? But there WILL bepicture after picture after pictureof the exact same chair. It's going to be just as awesome as it sounds. Trust me.
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Welcome back, everyone! I know, I know. Posting's been way light around here, even by our standards, though this really shouldn't matter much to you because if you come here you obviously don't care at all about standards. Regardless, please accept the apologies of everyone at Um...What?? headquarters. It's just that we've been bogged down in work and there are seriously not enough hours in the day. Because just like back in 2008, this new year finds us equally overwhelmed with so, so, so much to do. I mean, honestly: It's a wonder this post is even getting published at all.
I seriously need an assistant.
Among all the recent developments around here, the most noteworthy would certainly have to be this:
The arrival of the new chair!! (Pictured above! Pictured below! And then pictured below after that! And then yet again after that and so on and so forth and I am a blogging Sensei. Learn from me.)
If you've been around here for any length of time, it may have previously come to your attention that I have no a$$*. And not in an I'M BRAGGING LOOKIT MY PRETTY PETITE LITTLE HINEY kind of way, but more along the lines of it never ceases to amaze me that I can ever manage to successfully sit down.
*Of course I am not totally without ass on account of, you know, THIS:
We have all met Chris by now, yes?
And speaking of Chris? He was doing this all last week –– which really has nothing to do with anything I'm talking about here except for the fact that who doesn't like a good pair of boobs, right? How about eight pairs? That's SIXTEEN BOOBS, people:
Poor Chris. It really is as horrifying as it looks. (This gratuitous use of boobs in a blog is brought to you by my shameless attempt to grow Um What's male readership!)
ANYWAY. Before the arrival of the new chair, my poor, bony, sad excuse for a butt was forced to write in this blog while sitting on any one of the following:
Oh, of course it's not really made of concrete. CONCRETE WOULD BE SOFTER.
User Tip: Down couch cushions are NEVER a good idea. Take it from me. Eventually they just end up squished beyond all reason –– bony butt or not. I don't sit on this couch so much as I slump down into it. It's designed less for relaxing and more for being slowly eaten alive. It's like having a couch made of quicksand WHICH WOULD BE AWESOME, except for that there's not really any quicksand involved, so instead of being awesome, it's really just ergonomically incorrect or a big-a$$ piece of sh*t.
That's right. I sit here. On All The Above Monstrosities. And blog. FOR YOU PEOPLE. I am seriously like the Patron Saint of Uncomfortable Blogging. Only more saintly. And way more uncomfortable. WAY.
So after much waiting and wishing and scrimping and saving and then having to start completely over on the scrimping and saving part due to my tendency to lose focus and accidentally spend what I save on Michael Kors handbags and Belvedere vodka (oopsie!), I finally got my hands on the extra cash I needed to bring home the world's most enormously awesome and comfortable chair!
WHICH I THEN COULD NOT EVEN SIT ON DUE TO THE FACT MOSES THE CAT APPARENTLY TOOK OUT A MORTGAGE ON IT. Or something.
Five seconds after chair was delivered.
Basically every single subsequent second for the following week:
Of course, I'm just kidding. HAHA! Moses The Cat isn't the boss of me, obviously, because that would just be ridiculous and I am the one in charge here and I can sit on my big, new chair whenever Moses The Cat lets me I want to!! SEE??:
And before you say it, YES I KNOW THIS BOOB SHOT ISN'T EXACTLY THE SAME. Seriously. I'M DOIN' THE BEST I CAN, PEOPLE. Also? I can't understand why I don't blog more often, considering how infrequently I nap.
But these days it really is share and share alike here in New Chairville. As a matter of fact, Moses the Cat and I are sitting together on it right now as I slap together craft this piece of sh*t amazing post!:
View from my side of the chair. This shot originally looked pretty bad. Then I added a special filter layer to it in Photoshop, and now it looks totally worse.
And all this togetherness got me to thinking about my really big, super-huge, enormously awesome chair and how having just Moses The Cat and me sitting on it seems like such a waste. We can all fit on here, people! Climb aboard! Let's set sail!! Because the bloggy family that traverses the bumpy seas of life together probably just ends up barfing all over each other. Fun!
Slightly more doomed than The Titanic. The above image was updated 3/25 to addDonna, the very lovely and adorable and loyal Um...What?? family member I inadvertently left off the first go 'round. I blame the failing economy. And Chris.
And on the subject of fun? Now I can blog, blog, blog in total and utter comfort!!
Awesome. You: OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NOBODY WANTS YOU TO BLOGBLOGBLOG.
And finally, I'm pretty sure my next new chair's probably going to be one of these:
Solvin' two of my problems at once.
And speaking of big butts:
Oh, like this is some kind of a surprise.
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P.S. So, how many of you spotted the hidden zombie?? This post is totally like "Where's Waldo?", only in this case Waldo's undead and wants to eat your brains out. Gather the kiddies 'round!
P.S.S. Okay, so seriously: Jared probably doesn't even read this blog and I'm all, "Why don't you admit it, jerk?!" and "Hey, yer a BUTT" and I bet if I ever said anything to him, he'd be all, "I don't even know WTF you're talking about! It's bad enough I have to work with you. You think I'd read your stupid blog too? And anyways, I didn't even know you HAD a blog." And then he'd give me the finger and leave and go back to his office and blast some Metallica until a lesser person's ears would bleed because Jared LOVES Metallica and then –– OMG! –– I would start a second blog all about Metallica and then maybe he'd read THAT. It probably wouldn't be very good though, since I don't really know a lot about Metallica. Then again I don't know shi*t about anything I write in this blog either, but that never stops me.
P.S.S.S.: And just to put a period on this whole post, on Friday I tweeted something about tattooing a bunch of people's Twitter handles on my butt. To which the lovely and aforementioned Debra answered the following:
The NASA Space Program is very exciting! Just ask the Mars Spirit Rover: Thanks to the NASA Space Program, Spirit has spent five long, tedious years totally marooned on Mars.
If you do the math, that's more than EIGHTEEN HUNDRED days stuck on a mission that –– by the way –– was originally slated to last only 90 days. So Spirit has been there more than TWENTY TIMES longer than expected which, if you stop and think about it, means I have done two complicated math equations in one paragraph, or I am basically a NASA scientist now.
Spirit's mission –– as part of the overall NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission –– has been to study the history of water on Mars. Well, of course. What else would you look for if you were on Mars?
"Um...What??": Wildly popular everywhere in the universe!*
(*excluding Earth)
But honestly? Ninety days? To study the water on a barren, desert planet that almost doesn't have any? Shouldn't that take like zero time at most? OH, WHAT DO I KNOW? I've only been a NASA scientist for a few minutes so far.
Unfortunately, the answer to the little rover's question was the same then as it is today: NO. Because Spirit still had a 90-day1800-day totally long-a$$ mission to complete! (OH WHATEVER. EVEN NASA SCIENTISTS CAN ONLY COUNT SO HIGH.) So all these years later Spirit is still left wandering around on the Martian landscape which, according to abcnews.com is "a cold, hostile place, far away from home."
Huh. I hadn't really thought of it that way until now.
What's next, ABC News? Online videos of baby seals being bludgeoned?
At first I was all, I CANNOT FUNCTION I AM WAY TOO SAD and then I was all OH MY GOD HOW CUTE IS THE SPIRIT ROVER WAS HE DESIGNED BY DISNEY and then I was all FOCUS, LESLEY, REMEMBER THE SAD and then I was all WAIT A DAMN MINUTE because of the way I suddenly realized just how similar Spirit and I are, where similar equals I think I might be a part of the NASA rover program? And no one bothered to tell me? THAT IS TOTALLY MESSED UP. NASA.
And so was born this brief overview of Spirit's mission thus far, as compared and contrasted with my own personal effort to survive my current predicament, or Mission OMGWTF:
MISSION BEGINNINGS:
The Spirit Rover Mission:
Officially began when Spirit first landed on Mars January 4th, 2004.
Mission OMGWTF:
Began on December 5th, 2005, back when The Porcupine first officially lost his mind. MORE THAN ELEVEN HUNDRED DAYS AGO. Is also taking place on barren, desolate, uninviting, freezing cold Mars. Apparently.
MAIN MISSION OBJECTIVES:
The Spirit Rover Mission:
To look for water on Mars –– which is, if you ask me AND I AM A SCIENTIST SO I TOTALLY KNOW THINGS –– another way of actually looking for proof of life on Mars. Its original goal to last at least three months in the hostile Mars environment has been replaced with its current goal to last as long as it possibly can.
Mission OMGWTF:
To look for proof of life, you know, pretty much anywhere. I don't usually have much luck, to be perfectly honest with you. Most days I'm fairly sure I'm wandering around out here all by my pathetic scientific self. My original goal to spend about two years helping The Porcupine through A Super Tough Time has been replaced by my new goal of trying to find the way out of this desert wasteland we've somehow landed ourselves in BEFORE EVERYBODY ENDS UP TOTALLY DEAD. You know. As opposed to the current way we're only kind of dead.
Also: Notice how there's a empty line of space above "To look for proof of life...?" This is called as hard as I try and try, I can't figure out how to override the damn auto-formatting that keeps randomly popping up here or science is obviously useless.
MISSION TEAM MEMBERS:
The Spirit Rover Mission:
Spirit has hundreds of people back here on earth supporting its mission
on Mars including scientists and professors and drivers and navigation managers and robotic
engineers and orbital engineers and even a Knowledge Engineer. (I am totally one of these myself.) (Like I even have to explain this.)
Mission OMGWTF:
I've got people supporting me too, you know –– helping me do things like navigating around tough terrain, cleaning off some of the sh*t dust that lands on me on a daily basis and prompting me to perform various diagnostic tests on my many systems, such as when Chris says things to me like, "What the hell is WRONG with you??" Oh! I'm not sure...let me check! Just because I'm
sometimes 100% certain I'm totally alone, doesn't mean I actually am. I guess. Or so people tell me. I don't really know for sure though. OH WHATEVER. Me: "If you love me you will all put on these glasses." Team OMGWTF: [Collective blank staring.] Me: "But I've seen scientists wear these. SCIENTISTS." Team OMGWTF: [More collective blank staring.] Me: "OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I HAVE NO IDEA BUT JUST PUT THE DAMN THINGS ON."
MISSION CHALLENGES SO FAR:
The Spirit Rover Mission:
Poor little Spirit has had nothing but trouble throughout its mission, where nothing but trouble equals "HEY I THOUGHT I WAS DESIGNED BY WORLD-RENOWNED SCIENTISTS AND NOT MRS. POOLE'S THIRD GRADE CLASS??" There have been the problems with the unrelenting dust storms that no decent rover has ever been expected to endure. (Spirit is solar powered and just like paper covers rock, MARTIAN DUST COVERS SOLAR PANELS.) Then there's the broken right front wheel that stopped working entirely on day #779 of the mission and has forced Spirit to navigate backwards ever since, essentially dragging its bum limb behind it. And there have been several computer glitches, including the most severe instance yet where just over a week ago Spirit abruptly and spectacularly lost its mind. In people-speak? Spirit suddenly had no idea where it was, and no memory of what it had been doing. Have I mentioned lately that this was while it was all alone? In a cold, hostile place, far away from home??
But Spirit –– the little rover that could –– has since regained its faculties and after a series of successful diagnostic tests is once again moving around normally, where normally equals "OHMYGOD I AM SO LONELY CAN I PLEASE COME HOME NOW HAAAALLLLLLP!!!???"
Mission OMGWTF: Also fraught with difficulties and setbacks. My navigation controls are clearly broken as I all I seem to do is constantly go in circles until I'm just this side of vomiting. Also broken? EVERYTHING ELSE. My reserves are low (energy, endurance, resolve, vodka) and my outlook is even lower. Just like Spirit, I've also lost my mind, but that was somewhere back around day #568 and big fat deal: I've beenfunctioning just fine without it ever since. Obviously, BECAUSE DID I MENTION I'M A NASA SCIENTIST NOW?!
Oh. And by the way? This:
BUT MOSTLY VODKA.
MISSION OUTLOOK:
The Spirit Rover Mission:
Because all of the smart, sciencey people follow NASA on Twitter.
Considering I just received the above tweet, I'd say things in the immediate future are looking up for Spirit. Long term is another story, however, since –– in case no one here has figured this out yet –– there's no way to get Spirit back home once it's done with its mission.
It's the elephant in the living room nobody really talks about: Spirit has been sent on a one-way trip to (you know what's coming, right??) a cold, hostile place, far away from home. In the end –– after all it's endured and after all the challenges it's risen above and after all of the pictures it's taken and data it's collected and work that it's done for all of us –– it will be left to slowly shut down and eventually disintegrate into the Martian landscape.
Actually, I may not completely understand the details of the mission's end since I can't find them spelled out anywhere. Not to mention I have no idea if shut-down robots left on Mars actually disintegrate. As disintegration is not my scientific specialty and whatnot. But you know I'm right because have you ever heard of even ONE Robot Rescue Mission anywhere? And I would TOTALLY pay more taxes for that kind of thing because, you know, SAD. And even if I'm wrong about all of this JUST NEVER MIND because that would only ruin this part of my post and I can do that kind of thing without anyone's help.
SEE???
Mission OMGWTF:
DOOMED. Duh.
Yeah. Just like Spirit, I was pretty much jettisoned to my current locale without any kind of plan to get me safely back out either. OOPSIE! But, you know, it seemed like a good idea at the time. OH OF COURSE IT DIDN'T.
Anyway. Against all odds –– because against all odds is WHAT I DO –– I'm not giving up. And besides: The whole landscape could change soon since President Obama is set to appoint a new head of NASA any day now. A few key names are being bandied about, but I think we all know who the obvious choice is here:
Because William Shatner was an admiral in Starfleet, people. I mean do I really have to explain this?
Help get Spirit and me safely home, Admiral William Shatner. You're our only hope.
* * * * * * * * * *
P.S. Exciting!!
P.S.S. Yesterday when Mo and I were talking about this post (YES I SUBJECT HER TO THAT KIND OF CRAP ALL THE TIME), she said, "A dead porcupine belly-up with XX's in his eyes? On Mars? I know it all now. You don't have to finish." For those of you who wish I'd listened to her, TOO BADI apologize.
When I originally started this post, I was all, "Yesterday, my friend MC said to me..." but then I had to change that to a couple days ago and then to a few days ago and finally last week. Because that's the kind of blogger I am: THE KIND WHO NEVER ACTUALLY BLOGS.
* * * * * * * * * *
Last week my friend MC said to me, "I expected you to blog more about your cat."
First of all, what is that? Some kind of insult? Like I have no life and nothing else to write about? Well, I've got plenty to write about for your information. My life is FILLED TO THE BRIM with things like commercials I've seen on TV and crap that Chris does. Second of all, as someone who still hasn't admitted publicly that he reads this blog (he thinks this keeps his total love for me a total secret, which it just might except for the way it totally doesn't), MC certainly spends a lot of time obsessing over the content. "You need more Star Wars references!" "Move me up higher on the cast list!" "The porcupine looks like he's peeing!" "More cat-themed blogging!"
Seriously: Who isn't??
Photo courtesy of Glamour Shots. HAHA! Obviously, I'm just kidding. This is actually a picture from
MC's personal collection that I talked him into giving to me. And by personal collection I mean pictures he had taken at the local Glamour Shots.
Also, when I inadvertently mentioned something to him about having his picture open in Photoshop, he gave me some lip about not wanting to log on here and find himself with a propeller hat on his head. Dude. Seriously? What kind of an immature a$$hole do you take me for, anyway?
EXACTLY.
Plus? I'm also this kind:
And this:
OH! And also this:
Oui, Oui! Servin' it up hot at the "Um...What??" Bistro!
Look. I know. I am very pretty and it isvery distracting (JUST ASK CHRIS) but now get over it and stop lurking around and leave a comment on a post. Because everyone knows that comments are a blogger's life force! Oh, of course they're not. Ads are. And you can see how many of those I have. Which honestly doesn't matter to me since this particular blogger's life force is BELVEDERE VODKA. Which I have plenty of. Although, I'd have a whole lot more of it if the CEO of Belvedere Vodka (Mr. Belvedere?) (Benson?) would read this and then send me, you know, a whole lot more of it.
Anyway, if MC thinks he can blow me off in public but still get behind-the-scenes creative influence here just because he walks around with that hot Irish smolder thing going on, all I can say is well, obviously. So just for you, MC, because I listen –– where listen equals I had nothing better to write about anyway and where write equals to Photoshop a bunch of hats onto someone's head –– I bring you: Some Blogging About My Cat! (Or: Six Feline Fun Facts!) And for my friend Chris who is slightly afraid of cats because they make his air and nasal passages instantly swell shut, which causes him to brutally suffocate and die (OH BIG DEAL), as well as for any of the rest of you who might not be entirely interested in reading various things about my cat –– like, you know, he poops, I will balance out the cat facts by also bringing you an alternate set of thoroughly researched facts about zombies!(Who, incidentally, don't poop, and trust me you do not want to know the details.) Here we go:
Feline Fun Fact #1: Moses The Cat is so good looking that he sometimes gets unfairly labeled as a "pretty boy" and isn't taken as seriously as he deserves. Interestingly enough, this is the exact same problem Chris often has.
Photo courtesy of Glamour Shots.
Alternate Zombie
Fact: A zombie is a reanimated human corpse that feeds on living
brains and flesh, which –– if you ask me –– doesn't really seem all that appetizing.
Feline Fun Fact #2: Moses The Cat has diabetes but he doesn't let this define him. Instead, he prefers to define himself as awesome.
Seventeen pounds of awesome. Plus a dirty sock.
Alternate Zombie Fact: The Zombie Apocalypse is the collapse of civilization caused by a vast plague of the undead. Zombies will attack people, which creates new zombies (I have no idea; I got kind of distracted at this point and wandered away from what I was reading to eat a popsicle), leading to mass panic and the unraveling of society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world suddenly reduced to a hostile wilderness. Oh. So the Zombie Apocalypse has already happened. Apparently.
Feline Fun Fact #3: Moses The Cat has a wide variety of interests including butting his head against things, barfing up hairballs, watching the toilet flush, playing with shoelaces and following Wil Wheaton on Twitter.
Moses also likes to read! Okay, that is just ridiculous. Moses is a cat –– he doesn't read books. DUH. He writes them.
Alternate Zombie Fact:Chris
has read 14 zombie books this past year, "20 if you count graphic
novels." Which, as I understand it, are the zombie books that are really, really, really graphic.
Which doesn't make all that much sense to me since zombies eat brains
so wouldn't they ALL be really graphic? Oh, I don't know. I'm not an expert.
And by the way? This:
Oh, like anyone here actually thought I was done with this.
Feline Fun Fact #4: Moses The Cat has only five teeth because he's had 25 teeth pulled. He's had this many teeth pulled because before I adopted him a year ago, he was very, very sick with multiple infections and illnesses, a condition also known as mostly dead. Even though none of his remaining teeth line up in pairs, this in no way affects his ability to energetically inhale his disgusting diabetes management dry food, where energetically inhale equals does this bench make my butt look big?
Yes. It. Does.
Alternate Zombie Fact: Zombies became a mainstay in modern horror fiction due in large part to the success of the 1968 film, Night of The Living Dead, which includes this famous scene:
"What do we want? Brains! When do we want them? Brains!" (I'm not going to lie to you. I stole this saying off of a zombie t-shirt. But when you run into a zombie wearing a message t-shirt, you're going to remember what it says. TRUST ME.)
Feline Fun Fact #5: Moses The Cat loves to laugh! Personal essays about exploding toilets and riddles about farts are among his favorite things.
Oddly enough? MORE HATS. Coincidence? Or blogging at its brilliant best? (No, NOT THE SECOND ONE. Obviously.)
Alternate Zombie Fact: A recent development in modern day zombie films and literature is that zombies can now run. Uh-oh.
Feline Fun Fact #6: Moses The Cat purrs every single time you touch him and sometimes when you just look at him. Because Moses The Cat feels the love.
Besides purring, Moses The Cat also expresses his love by drooling, rubbing his face against yours and making poops that are only slightly stinky.
Alternate Zombie Fact: The only way to kill a zombie is to destroy its brain. Zombie experts (I have no idea) recommend using either an M1 carbine or a machete and aiming for the cerebellum. Hey. I've got a suggestion for a way less messy way of destroying a zombie's brain: Make him read this blog post.
And there you have it, everyone –– the conclusion of today's requested installment of Some Blogging About My Cat! And in case I wasn't clear enough, I could not possibly love Moses The World's Most Awesome and Spectacular Cat any more than I do now, because I swear if I did I would totally burst. Which, if you think about it, would just make it that much easier for the zombies to eat me.
And in additional conclusion? THIS:
Oh, good grief. This is just totally absurd at this point.
Welcome, "Um...What??" readers, to 2008: The Year THAT SUCKED THE BIGGEST A$$ EVER In Review! Before looking ahead toward whatever may come (ohdeargod), I thought I'd take one final look back at everything that was during this past year at "Um...What??" headquarters. Because hindsight is 20/20. And those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Of course neither of these things has anything to do with anything except for reminding you that I am very, very smart, where smart = I know how to look up famous sayings on Wikipedia. And also? If there's one thing I am, it's doomed.
Let us begin:
Youthful optimism! The world is my oyster! Anything is possible! Exciting, exciting, exciting!
Believe me when I tell you: It's way less interesting than it actually looks.
FYI: Warning signs are for amateurspeople who actually read warning signs:
@#$%@#$%@#$%@#$%#$%!!!!!
I try to blog more often for you people. I swear, I do. But then, you know...this happens. And anyway – what do you all want from me? I'm tired. (See: January - October.)
And by the way, iStockphoto.com, when I query "run down" I do NOT want
to see pictures of actual, real roadkill because WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT TO SEE PICTURES OF ACTUAL, REAL ROADKILL? Well, "Um...What??" readers, that's who, because they love dead
animals. I'm not including any here though. Because that would be a downer and this post is nothing if not eternally uplifting. Or something. Whatever. Who cares. (NOBODY.)
But don't misunderstand me: I don't want any of you to lose heart! I know I'm not going to. Because I can already tell 2009 is shaping up to be that super-special kind of year where everything changes! You know –– the kind of year where everyone dies:
And with that, I leave you all with this one, final thought to close out 2008: Just remember anything that doesn't kill you only makes you really, really wish it did.
Today's post is dedicated to loyal (and suh-mokin' hot) "Um...What??" reader Lisa, whom I inadvertently neglected to mention in a previous post when I called out some of my favorite blogs. This is in NO WAY a reflection of Lisa's site and is instead completely reflective of the dullness of my brain. Sometimes I forget about my own site because I am busy trying to remember things like where I put the cat and also The Alamo. This one's for you, Lisa!
* * * * * * * * *
While innocently minding my own business last week something very, very deeply disturbing happened to me.
Specifically, I accidentally watched this. For three and a half hours:
I'm going to tell you anyway. This is called I Have A PhD In Blogging.
For those of you who are unaware (oh dear God, please tell me it's all of you) Operation Repo is a reality television program currently airing on TruTV. TruTv used to be Court TV. But, apparently, when you abruptly change half of your previously quality programming to stupid-a$$ sh*t like Speeders and Hot Pursuit and The World's Wildest Vacation Videos you also have to change the name of your network to include a misspelled word because incorrect spelling equals yoreyouryou're stupid and so are your shows.
By the way. Did I mention this?:
Seemingly, anybody can now get a show. Hello? I WANT A SHOW.
In a nutshell, the premise of Operation Repo(hno) is that basically Southern California is filled with deadbeats who like to "have" new cars but don't like to "pay" for them, so these deadbeats need to have their cars taken away from them by people who look like even bigger deadbeats.
Enter the cast of Operation Repo(hdeargod), whose motto is "It Ain't No Joke If You Don't Pay The Note!" And trust me –– it isn't:
"Peek-a-boo! I'll repo you!" (This would be my motto.) Although I'm not sure sure I look the required "deadbeat", but I do look
"hot" which, obviously, is close enough. Come to think of it, why
didn't anyone ask me to be a part of the Hot Blogger Calendar? Jerks. Maybe it's not too late for me to get into the Hot Repo-er Calendar? I'm assuming they have one because, well, the above picture? Sonia? Matt? Do I really have to explain it?
As far as I understand it –– and believe me, it's hard to understand much of anything when you're on sensory overload to the point you're just this side of having a moderate to severe stroke –– Lou is the father of Lyndah as well as the big brother of Froy. Froy –– who I'm guessing is named after some Middle Earth-y thing (A hobbit? A hobo?) –– either is currently or used to be married to Sonia. (What's next? THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE??) I don't really know how the hell Matt fits in, though. Some kinda repo freeloader or something. And they all do repo-y things together and live Happily Ever After! Or something. Seriously: I could be making up half of this crap for all I know. There were a lot of distractions going on. Like this one:
And also this one:
Also, at one point I got seriously distracted thinking about this:
Sonia: Operation Repo(MG WTF)'s answer to Beth Chapman! Honestly? I probably lost 20 minutes of my life all caught up in this line of thought. My days are very, very full and eventful. So in case you ever wonder why it sometimes takes a week or so for me to get up a new post, first of all, what is wrong with you people? Don't you have something more important to spend your time thinking about (??) and second of all I AM VERY BUSY.Obviously.
And now, Everything I Need To Know About Repo-ing, I learned from Operation Repo(hmahgah) and will now pass along to you:
1. The first rule of repo-ing is that to be a successful repo agent, you need to make sure you have the correct tools at your disposal: a reposession order (I'm pretty sure this is the least important part paperwork blah blah boring), a tow truck BEEP BEEP, pepper spray (more on this in a minute) and a tutu.
That's right. A tutu. It's the uniform of choice of all the most successful repo peopo. HAHA! See what I did there? Maybe I can have a show where I just do a whole bunch of rhyming and whatnot?? OH NEVER MIND. Back to this:
Trust me: If you could hear what was going on in this moment, YOU'D HAVE YOUR TV ON MUTE TOO. And yes. I actually recorded this. So I could recreate it here for you. This type of thing is called I Give And Give And Give To You People Until I Bleed.
And in case you think I'm taking creative license and the above is just Sonia stopping to do a repo on her way to a Costume Gala, IT'S NOT. Because look! Here is Sonia doing a whole DIFFERENT repo:
Because seriously? The language involved in this profession embarrasses even me, and I don't know how to say ANYTHING without using the F word at least five times. (HI MOM!) And another thing: If you're gonna repossess my car wearing this kind of getup –– fine. But you'd better perform some damn Swan Lake for me before you take my wheels because I Brake For The Arts.
2. The second important rule here is that when repo-ing, you should keep in mind the fact that for whatever reason people tend to get slightly annoyed when you try to take their cars away from them, where slightly annoyed equals they point guns at you and attempt to beat you over the head with baseball bats. (Big deal. This is exactly what happens to me every time I go into Chris's office and try to get him to look at the page bags that died on his desk hours earlier.) This is why, to be safe, you have to make sure you bring with you the pepper spray I mentioned earlier, because everybody knows that pepper spray totally beats both bullets and baseball bats and also? Paper covers rock. And of all the crazy, psychopathic, loan-defaulting deadbeats, never forget that women are the most totally insane of all and by that I mean you do not even want to know what I mean. I'm going to tell you anyway though, because I honestly cannot be expected to be the only one with the misfortune of knowing this crap.
The very first episode I saw is the perfect example of this: Matt, Froy and Sonia show up at some chick's house to repo the car she hasn't made payments on in months. Or ever. Or whatever. I'm kinda unclear on that part as I was too busy being hypnotized by Sonia's eyebrows.
LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BE EQUALLY SPELLBOUND.
Anyway, they all run up her driveway and start hurriedly hooking up her car to the tow truck wheel lift. (Or, you know, whatever the big hook part is called. Who knows! I found this term on line when I Googled "parts of a tow truck" because –– as it turns out –– I don't really know that much about tow trucks except for the fact that they "tow" things and they're also "trucks.") (Oh! And most of them are made by Tonka.) (Wait...right?) So the repo-ee chick catches wind of what's going on and comes running out of the house –– all 95 pounds of her –– SCREAMING HOLY HELL BLOODY MURDER and gyrating and wailing and flailing and cursing and sobbing really desperately (okay, this one was me) and slapping and kicking at anyone who tries to come near her or her car. And then suddenly she's SCREAMING HOLY HELL BLOODY MURDER while gyrating and wailing and flailing and cursing and slapping and kicking andthrowing herself dramatically and messily all over the hood of her car.
At first I was all, holy crap this b*tch is batsh*t crazy, but then I was all, wow, that's actually kinda sexy in a Tawny Kitaen/Whitesnake video kind of way and then I was all OMG, WTF IS WRONG WITH ME (???) and THEN –– and even Stephen King couldn't make up this kind of horror –– she pulls out a Taser gun from even God doesn't want to know where on her person and tries to zap the hell out of Matt (which you know probably isn't a bad idea regardless), forcing Sonia to finally put a much-needed end to all of the girl's insanity not by pepper spraying her but insteadBY SITTING ON HER. HARD. And at that point the room started spinning and I think I blacked out for a minute.
Oh, and by the way? Did I mention the car at the center of this repo was a 1994 Honda Civic? First of all...SERIOUSLY? Second of all, who the hell can't afford to make the payments on a 14-year-old car loan? Someone who spends all their money keeping up with the latest in stun gun technology, that's who.
3. And all of this brings us to the last important rule of repo-ing: If you've done one repo, you've pretty much done them all. You're never just going to drive up, take the car and go. And if I'm wrong about this, NEVER MIND because boring repos result in everyone being really bored and nobody wants that. It's boring. Instead, there's always going to be BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEP-ING and BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAMING and VERY EXCITING VIOLENCE-ING. Quick! Gather the kiddies around! OH! And there's also going to be a whole lot of "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??"-ing, because seriously? At least three people asked this question during various repos I watched. What is this? Some kinda repo trivia game? Ooh, ooh! I think I know who you are!! A deadbeat. I do, however, need to give honorable mention to the below woman for elevating herself to a level above the every day deadbeat crowd when, in an attempt to keep the members of Operation Dumbo Drop Repo from taking her car, she made the uber-defensive, Ninja-style move of pulling out her own pepper spray and promptly pepper spraying herself:
To be more precise, she actually pepper sprayed both herself AND her husband which means, for those of you keeping score, that she managed to attack everyone on the scene except for every single member of Operation Repo(bi-wan Kenobi). Which –– not that I need to explain it –– is awesome. This is pretty much just like the time I tried to take a picture of the sunset but accidentally had the camera backwards and ended up taking a picture of my own eyeball instead. You know, except for the fact that I didn't need medical attention afterward.
And then, like any decent person would after experiencing more than three hours of this crap, I had an aneurysm and died. The End.
* * * * * * * * * *
P.S. Sorry I couldn't find any screen shots of Crazy-A$$ Repo-ed Chick laying around all over her car. I hadn't thought to record the show yet, and then I couldn't find anything on line. (I KNOW, right??? Why even HAVE an internet?)
P.S.S. to Lisa: Sorry the post I dedicated to you turned out to be, you know, this one. You deserve so much better. So did Jesus though, and look at what happened there.
P.S.S.S. to Maureen, who earlier today gave me certain amounts of lip for taking so long to post here. More specifically, she called me CHRIS which, as anyone who's spent any amount of time around here knows by now, is the ultimate of insults: I mean honestly, woman. That is fairly rude. You KNOW how much extensive research (none) goes into each and every post I, you know, post and how much time (none) goes into that kind of in-depth research. I forgive you, though, being that you're my best friend in all the world. Okay, a little bit for that but more so because you gave me an autographed Kathy Griffin t-shirt. SCORE!
P.S.S.S.S.: Speaking of Chris, Happy Boxing Day, dude! In celebration of that? This:
See, Maureen? It's called RESEARCH and it takes TIME.
P.S.S.S.S.S.: I wrote all of these P.S.'s before I died. Obviously.
Hi, loyal "Um...What??" readers! Today's post isn't so much a post as it is a memo that serves the purpose of taking care of a little housekeeping business. HAHA! This serves no purpose! Why would I start that kind of thing now?? I wouldn't!
Before I get to my point (heh), I'd like to throw out a special hello to our newest reader dsbs42 who, if she's visiting here today, is in all likelihood doing so in order to procrastinate some project she should be working on for school instead. This is exactly the same type of studying technique I employed when I was in college and now look: Today I have this highly successful blog! And by highly successful I mean I can't even get my own mother to leave a comment on it.
And speaking of comments, this brings us to the business at hand: I've updated the formatting for the comments you all leave on this blog. This change is the result of two things –– Typepad rolling out their new "Typepad Connect" profile feature AND (more importantly) the endlessly fascinating fact that you guys actually stop by here to visit AND THEN EVEN LEAVE COMMENTS WHEN YOU DO. (I used to think there was something wrong with you for doing this, but now I just think there is something wrong with you for doing this.) Time is precious and this blog is not and yet here you all are. If I could hug each of you and lick your faces, I would!
The new comment platform looks a lot like what most of you use on your Wordpress blogs. I'm hoping if you're so inclined, you might go ahead and sign up for a Tyepad profile to use when leaving your comments here. It would make this blog so much more personal and intimate and inter-connective and social and oh, I don't know. This is what Typepad is telling me, anyway. Mo's the first to create her profile because I made her asked her to and see?:
Isn't this nice? With her little picture and everything? (Mo: Queen of The Daily Snark.)
I'm hoping XUP might create a profile and then upload one of her sexy-slash-mysterious profile pictures where we can sorta see her while at the same time we absolutely can't see her at all. And maybe Debra will create a profile that'll include the first ever known online picture of herself so we can finally see what she looks like! (SHE WON'T.) Maybe Chris will create a profile with a picture of him and a figure model or him and a supermodel or him and some other naked-ish-type model. Like this one, maybe:
Sadly, I'm neither naked-ish OR a model. The crap poor Chris has to endure.
And seriously? This is also perhaps the worst picture ever taken of either one of us. So naturally I'm posting it online! DUH. All I know is my face is NOT that pointy and Chris's head is NOT that round and if I remember correctly, Maureen took this picture with Chris's camera which is, apparently, a funhouse camera. Why would he even HAVE a funhouse camera? (Plus? Chris accidentally cut off all his hair and I accidentally put on not one stitch of makeup and maybe we were already drunk before we left our houses??)
And since we're talking about comments? If you've been lurking around here for a while, I'm hoping maybe the new comment field will inspire you to finally come out of the shadows and introduce yourself because...okay, honestly, there's really no reason at all that it would. What if I told you there was going to be a giveaway and that the more you commented, the greater your chance would be of winning? Well obviously that would be a big fat lie. There will never be any giveaways here! What do I look like? A blogger who does giveaways? I really have no idea. Although maybe I could just give away this whole stupid blog?? Anyway, according to my stats, there seem to be quite a few of you lurkers around and I'd love to know who you are. On the other hand I could be wrong and all my extra hits could really just be my friend MC clicking on this site like 200 times a day, which is probably the case now that I think about it because he TOTALLY loves me. In a borderline obsessive way, really. And by borderline obsessive I mean once he completely forgot I existed for almost a year. By the way, here's this blog's first posted picture of MC. I didn't ask his permission either, because that's the kind of blogger I am –– the kind the rules do not apply to:
Seriously? More girls?? Why the hell aren't there bunches of dudes everywhereI go??
Honestly though: MC does read this blog. And then offline he says cool things to me like, "That was funny!" or "I love the part where you said (insert brilliant thing that I said here)." (Brilliant/Stupid. Same thing. Semantics.) But you know if he ever actually leaves a real comment here, it'll be something along the lines of, "This is SH*T! No one would ever want to read this, right?"
That's. Right.
So
go ahead –– sign up! It's totally easy (after all, I managed to do and
it and so did Maureen) (HAHA! I'm just kidding...just because Mo is
blonde doesn't mean anything!) and then you can commence commenting and
making yourselves known! There won't be any cash or prizes, but I CAN
promise you countless more useless "posts" like this one.
This is the gym in the complex where I live. Doesn't it look like a nice place to work out?:
WELL, IT ISN'T. Because people die gruesome, gnarly deaths here, and by people I mean lots of lizards and birds. And by lots I mean one of each. But, you know...so far.
This tale of death and destruction began about a month ago. I was minding my own business working out in this gym when in between sets I happened to notice something out of place on the floor near one of the elliptical machines. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a GIGANTIC, DEAD LIZARD. And by gigantic I mean he really wasn't but DEATH IS SCARY and makes you feel really, really small in comparison. And he wasn't just regular dead, either. He was dramatic dead. With splayed out limbs and a wide open mouth and a tongue that was hanging out of one side of it and dangling just above the floor. His eyes were also open, which in no way made him seem any less dead and instead made me feel that much sadder about his fate. So I decided to name him Lenny The Super-Dead Lizard because it kinda sucks the way dying causes death, and no one should die alone without any identity or recognition. Plus, dying in a gym? Where people go to stay healthy? That is called irony, or something that tastes like iron. I know the last place I'd want to expire is in a gym. Especially my gym. Because considering how rarely I ever see anyone else in there (LAZY ASS NEIGHBORS), it could be WEEKS before anyone discovers my cold, dead, decomposing body. As if my ass didn't already look flat enough in my gym pants. Oh, who am I kidding. I would look totally hot, even dead. You: We'd love it if you were dead right about now. Me: Blah, blah, who wouldn't.
Poor Lenny The Super-Dead Lizard. He had to lay there on the floor of the gym for more than a week. Despite the fact I asked the manager -- twice...USELESS -- to have someone on the maintenance staff get him out of there. Because seriously? Looking at a dead lizard is depressing. And if there's a dead lizard anywhere in your field of vision, trust me you're just going to keep on looking at it. Not to mention the fact a dead lizard doesn't exactly inspire your workout since it's hard not to think, WE'RE ALL JUST GONNA END UP DEAD ANYWAY SO I SHOULD JUST LEAVE AND GO EAT A LOT OF CUPCAKES. Because I really, really love cupcakes.
But there was no way was I going to touch him myself. First of all because he was dead, and second of all because he was dead. (I don't really have to explain this, right?) The Porcupine suggested I might want to pick him up with a set of barbecue tongs, but this can be filed under Helpful Suggestions Made By The Porcupine That Are Actually Totally Gross And, As It Turns Out, Not Really Helpful At All. The size of this file is RIDICULOUS.
Eventually, someone did remove Lenny the Super-Dead Lizard and just like that my gym became a death-free zone once again. Which, in all honesty, is kind of what I'm looking for in a gym. That and a free martini bar. So you can imagine my reaction last night when, less than a month later, I walked into the place to find yet more gruesome and gnarly death, this time in the form of A DEAD BIRD BELLY-UP ON THE WINDOWSILL. The inside windowsill. You know...inside the gym. Where birds are not supposed to fly, let alone die.
Okay, seriously: How does something like this even happen? How does a bird get himself inside a room where none of the windows open and the door weighs about twenty tons and is designed to close quickly and violently five seconds after each and every time it's opened? Something I really don't see the point of, by the way, unless someone's trying to keep me from stealing the cable crossover machine which is ridiculous and slightly insulting frankly, because anyone who knows me knows if I'm going to steal anything, I'm going to have the good sense to make it the soda machine.
But all of this aside, WHY DO THINGS KEEP COMING INTO MY GYM TO DIE?? And maybe can this stop, please? Because if given a choice, I would rather not work out on the stairclimber while facing A DEAD BIRD BELLY-UP ON THE WINDOWSILL. (No, you cannot use the stairclimber with your eyes closed. Take it from someone who thought you could and then ended up dangling off of the left side of the machine's safety rail while once again staring at A DEAD BIRD BELLY-UP ON THE WINDOWSILL.) Did I mention his legs were sticking straight up? Like birdy rigor mortis? Nevermind -- let's just forget about that part.
Anyway, all of this just leaves me with two additional burning questions: Firstly, what will die in my gym next?? (Memo to God: Please not me.) I'm headed there again in just a bit, but I already know the bird is gone. You bet your a$$ I checked.
I'm guessing this is because while dead lizards make us sad, dead birds
make us sadder because of the way they spread AVIAN INFLUENZA,
something that a lot of people aren't that into for whatever reason.
Secondly, is it possible all this death will end up resulting in my gym becoming haunted?? Which would be AWESOME for reasons that are totally obvious if you've been paying any kind of attention around here lately:
Yes, I am still stuck on this. SO?
To be honest, the more I look at Steve, the less I really care what the answer to any of these questions is going to be unless, of course, the answer is STEVE.
Last week our country held a very, very important election.
That's right: The choosing of America's Most Haunted House in the Ghost Hunters Great American Ghost Hunt!! SCARY! Congratulations house-on-a-private-island-thingy in Thousand Islands, New York! And I have no idea if this island is the birthplace of the salad dressing, but if it isn't it should be. Right, French Dressing, France?? Congratulations haunted-est house, with your ghost of a little girl and your flying spoon (Maybe not flying? Maybe just hanging from nose of invisible ghost? So not as much scary as it is hysterical HAHA!??) and your weird, disembodied voices. Though honestly? Big deal. I lived somewhere haunted once* and I liked it. PEOPLE ARE WUSSY. And anyways, you know what makes any scary scenario way more romantic bearable? TAPS ghost hunter, Steve. Hold me, Steve.
*Seriously.
Also, in another, slightly lesser-known display of democracy last week, Barack Obama was elected this nation's first black tall, dark and handsome president. Which, of course, is no reason at all to vote for someone (What are you? Thirteen?) but is a perfectly good reason to write your name plus his name all over your notebook surrounded by big hearts.
Swoon.
In his acceptance speech, Obama said many, many sexy inspiring things, like:
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on
this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to
America."
And:
"It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so
many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to
put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the
hope of a better day." (Holy CRAP. Why don't people in my own life talk like this? Instead, they just say DUDE a gagillion times a day and SUCK IT almost as many and oh wait – that person is me.)
And:
"This is our moment. This is our time -- to put our people back to work
and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and
promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm
that fundamental truth -- that out of many, we are one; that while we
breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and
those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless
creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can."
Yes we canhave the highly inappropriate hots for our Commander-In-Chief. It's one nation under Oh-Mah-Gah.
Droools.
And then there was the quote that resonated louder than all the others combined:
"Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."
Wait...WHAT? A puppy? THE OBAMAS ARE LOOKING FOR A DOG??? First of all, why doesn't anyone anywhere ever tell me anything?? This is called a huge oversight, or Well Played, Government Oversight Committee. Second of all, who are Sasha and Malia? HAHA! I'm just kidding. I know they're actually...wait. Does Obama have two wives? I CAN MAYBE BE WIFE #3??? And speaking of three, third of all...hello??:
Could maybe change name to Filibuster?
Dear other world leaders who aren't Prince Charles: Take a lesson from him and read this blog, because this blog changes lives and unites countries. You know, where changes lives = induces narcolepsy and unites countries = this reader is in Canada. If President-Elect Barack O-Mah-Gah-Droooools had been reading, he would have known about my determined search to find Buster a home worthy of his wonderful spirit. And our incoming first family would have had the chance to bring with them to the White House the singular greatest dog ever rescued off the side of any road anywhere. And – as a bonus! – on the heels of this historical election where we, as a country, have taken great strides forward in breaking through our racial barriers, we could have also taken an equally great leap toward stamping out America's horrible DOG BREED BARRIERS:
Pit Bull: From feared, misunderstood breed to cuddly international diplomat.
Plus...can you picture it???:
Yes, Buster talks like Scooby in the first picture and an English teacher in the second. Don't question it.
I have absolutely no earthly idea.
Hold me some more, Steve.
Steve, of course, has nothing to do with anything here really, unless maybe the White House is haunted? But either way: He's still hot. Duh. And, frankly, would also look good on a sandwich. Or with his lips stuck to my face.
And for those of you who think I've forgotten what my original point was here, I have. OH! Buster. Right. Notice how I said that Buster could have gone to the White House? It's true: Buster will not be available for underground bunker bowling or licking various visiting members of the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi, you'll have to find someone else to do this) because BUSTER HAS ALREADY FOUND HIS NEW HOME!!
So, it's not the White House. Who cares?! It's a house and it's white. Okay, it's actually not white either but it IS a house. Though, unfortunately, one that isn't haunted. At least as far as I know. Sorry Steve. This time I'll hold you. It also doesn't have 35 bathrooms but, again, who cares?? Buster likes to do his business outside anyway. What it does have is a wonderful family made up of a lovely woman I've worked with for years, her husband and their quite awesome almost-six year old boy. Who, by the way, is made that much more awesome by the fact that on the day I dropped off Buster he told me I was pretty multiple times and kept holding my hand.
Me: I'm giving you a new dog, M.!
M: Yeah, but are YOU staying? You're PRETTY. Grabs my hand. Giggles.
Me: But look! Doggy!
M: You're pretty.
This can be be called Kids Say The Funniest Things or, more accurately, The Most Action I've Seen In a Year.
What I like best about the family Buster has ended up with – besides the fact they all three love the crap out of him, of course – is the story of how he got there. I mean how he literally got there was in my car:
But how he really got there was by beating the odds. Because odds were against him on the side of the road. And odds were against him at the death-row shelter. And in a world where odds are already against most stray animals finding new homes, they were quadruple-y against Buster because of his breed.
And, oh yeah – one more thing (and this is my favorite part): Buster also beat the odds against this particular family adopting him since Lovely Woman's husband had the same reaction to the idea of a Pit Bull that so many other people did: No way. Not in my house. Not around my little boy. And I didn't blame him either, because I understood the stigma. But he hadn't met Buster and I felt endlessly frustrated that such a great dog kept getting this summary verdict rendered against him simply because of his breed.
But Lovely Woman did meet him on that first day we busted him out of the shelter. (Shelter Motto: Welcome to our shelter – where we don't actually give any) (Alternate motto: ANIMALS ANNOY US, WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF THEM HERE??) She and her husband were already looking for a new dog, which is why she was so immediately receptive to Buster. Like me, she gave no strikes against him just because he was a Pit. She liked him. And she trusted my judgment of his personality (God love her) and, consequently, was just as disappointed as I was when her husband didn't go for it.
So Buster went off to live with my friend Kim for a week and then with fosters for a week after that. His fosters, by the way, totally fell in love with him and wanted to keep him, despite the fact the living arrangements weren't at all suitable for Buster in the long term. When they found out I was taking him back in the end, they told me in a fit of hysteria that I ruin lives. First of all, you people don't even know me. RUDE. Second of all, to all the people who do know me? Yeah, um...sorry about that.
So while the fosters were falling in (psycho) love and while I was still workin' it and trying to find Buster a permanent home, Lovely Woman was going about her business trying to find the right dog to add to her family. She visited adoption fairs (God love her MORE) and even tried to bring one dog home with her to see how she fit with them. (She didn't.) And all the while, in the back of her mind, was Buster. Buster with his big pink nose. Buster with his non-stop licking. Buster with his positive outlook. Buster with his addiction to spooning and complete over-the-moon love of people. Buster with that FACE.
So she kept asking me about how he was doing. And relaying the stories to her husband. And then they both started thinking about him. And then they did something I completely didn't expect: They decided to take a leap of faith and trust – to look beyond the stereotypes of Buster's breed and to look, instead, directly at Buster himself. Buster with his big pink nose. Buster with his non-stop licking. Buster
with his positive outlook. Buster with his addiction to spooning and complete over-the-moon love of people. Buster
with that FACE.
So with hope in all their hearts – and, understandably, a little bit of nerves in their guts – Buster came to stay at their house for a while to see. And then, not knowing the exact moment it happened, they all looked around one day and realized Buster had already come home to stay.
Welcome, loyal readers, to Buster 2.0. Where his life is pretty much like this now, every single day:
So congratulations all around, then! Congratulations to Thousand Islands, New York and your most haunted house in America. (Really? Flying Flatware is scary?) Congratulations to incoming President Barack O-Mah-Gah-Droooools. Sorry about Buster, but you can't win 'em all. Congratulations to Lovely Woman and Lovely Woman's Husband and awesome little M. for choosing such an amazing dog to complete your family. Your leap of faith did much to restore my faith in the idea that basically most people are good.
And congratulations most of all to Buster. Welcome to your happy ending!!
Good news, "Um...What??" readers! There have been many, many exciting updates in Buster's life since my last post!!
* * * * * * * * * *
Reader #1: "What last post?" Reader #2: "Was I old enough to read back then?" Reader #3: "Did you blog on a cave wall?" Reader #4: "OH. YOU'RE NOT DEAD??"
* * * * * * * * * *
Yeah, yeah, I know. Plus? I totally made up that third one. Wil Wheaton doesn't read this blog. But if he did? That would be so much cooler than even having
Prince Charles as a reader. And for those of you who are new here yes, Prince Charles totally reads my blog. Although I probably just screwed that up by writing that thing about Wil Wheaton being cooler. Idiot.
Anyway, back to my point WHICH I ACTUALLY DO HAVE. In a long line of many recent developments for Buster, the biggest one is THIS:
Buster?
Is FREE!!!
Cell phone images as pieces of sh*t art. Because seriously? I'm pretty sure my toaster would take better pictures than my "camera" phone.
It wasn't easy busting out Buster. It was actually just this side of damn near impossible. This is mostly because the fact that Buster is a Pit Bull ran up against another lesser known fact that an apparent job requirement for working at this shelter is that you need to be a total f*cktard. And to be fair I'm not saying every person who works there is a total f*cktard, I'm just referring to the particular ones I met WHICH WAS ALL OF THEM. This does not, however, include the volunteers who all seemed very sweet. Though they also seemed nervous and paranoid, which is something I deduced from the way they continuously said things like, "I'm not telling you this" (a comment that punctuated the endpoint of every single thing they told me) and "Don't tell anyone I talked to you," all while wearing those Groucho Marx glasses. Okay, obviously I'm just kidding about that last part. That was actually the dogs.
Witness Protection Program: This is not Buster. (Photo taken with camera toaster.)
You'd lay low too, if you were Buster, because – to review – he understands the volunteers are behaving like this because they are volunteering at a prison under the iron-fist rule of TOTAL F*CKTARD NAZI "SHELTER" WORKERS where shelter = GAS CHAMBER and workers = PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT DO ONE STITCH OF WORK TO ACTUALLY HELP YOU ADOPT AN ANIMAL because they do not care and they are county employees and they cannot be fired no matter what they doYAY!
Remember how I wrote earlier that I was totally wrong about the stereotype of the unfeeling, uncaring, menacing, Animal Control worker? Well, I was totally wrong about being totally wrong. And before all you Animal Control workers send me a bunch of nasty hate mail (because I have no doubt every animal control worker in the state of California reads this blog because, well, who doesn't?), no, I am not talking about you and I am sure you are lovely and wonderful and full of heart and all about putting the needs of helpless animals first. This is about all the other animal control workers who are not you. And now that we are all square on that, I will continue.
Buster's plight was two-fold: Not only did some idiot stick him in the C@st@ic animal shelter (AHEM) (and yes I am disguising the shelter name because I don't need those a$$hats finding this post) (again going back to the idea that every Animal Control worker in the world reads this blog blah blah blah SUCK IT, ANIMAL CONTROL), but he also had the bad luck of being a Pit Bull. But the thing is, he's not a full Pit Bull. He doesn't even seem to be half. He's a big old mushy mix which, as far as we can tell, includes some Pit Bull and a lot of Boxer and Staffordshire Terrier and Sharpei and, oh yeah, some TEDDY BEAR, too. In other words? He's as completely terrifying as you'd imagine:
(Photo taken with camera blow-dryer.)
Unbeknownst to me, putting a Pit Bull (mix or not) into this particular shelter is nothing short of condemning him to death. Only you don't actually put a dog into a shelter, you impound him because apparently dogs are just the same as stolen or illegally parked cars. And yes, I actually said the words (where said = had a Defcon 5 meltdown), "THIS IS A DOG NOT A DODGE!!" to the total f*cktard working behind the desk who told me, "THIS IS NOT YOUR DOG, THIS IS OUR PROPERTY!!" because I think we were having a noun-naming contest that I'm fairly sure I lost because do they even make Dodges anymore? I don't know. But if they do, Buster would love to ride around in one because Buster loves adventures in the car.
You see, different rules apply to Pit Bulls and these rules cause RED TAPE GALORE that not even a highly intelligent person such as myself could navigate within the five day "safety" window, after which they can put him down whenever they want because, "THIS IS NOT YOUR DOG, THIS IS OUR PROPERTY." And even if you could navigate the red tape, they really don't want you to, because that would require work on their part and they do not do that. Because you know something is seriously wrong when your question of "You would put this dog down before you bothered to even make one phone call to me?" is met with four faces staring back at you in one, collective DUH.
Pits never get back out. That's what one volunteer told me. In whispered tones. While wearing a bag over her head. And slowly dying on the inside.
Because I live in an apartment, they wouldn't consider releasing him to me. Most management companies don't carry the insurance required for vicious dog breeds such as Buster and you can't even begin to attempt to sneak him in because Animal Control will call your management company first to alert them that YOU HAVE A VICIOUS, KILLER DOG LIVING ON THEIR PROPERTY.
Vicious Personified. (Photo taken with camera vacuum.)
It didn't matter to them the seventeen different ways I tried to explain that he wouldn't actually be living with me permanently. It didn't matter to them how I tried to explain over and over I was working as fast as I could to find him a good home so could you please assure me that you won't put him down? It just didn't matter to them insert any possible phrase of your choosing here. Because while this is the current Animal Control logo:
It really should be this:
Sure, I could give them a friend's address, but that wasn't working either because they will immediately call said friend's homeowner's insurance company to let them know THEY HAVE A VICIOUS, KILLER DOG LIVING ON THEIR PROPERTY (even though he wouldn't be living there permanently and blah blah blah SUCK IT, ANIMAL CONTROL) and therefore you should be charged $200,000 more a year in insurance. Or whatever. I'm just making up the number. But trust me, it is close enough. And it really comes down to Animal Control covering their own ass in case your VICIOUS, KILLER DOG eats one of your neighbors while they are visiting. Case in point:
WARN THE NEIGHBORS. (Photo taken with camera garden hose.)
So in the end, after much fretting and scrambling on my part and daily visits to Buster whom the "Shelter" Nazis would not, by the way, even let me even take out of his cage TOTAL F*CKTARDS and numerous phones calls and MORE FRETTING and no sleep due to EXCESSIVE FRETTING, my very sweet friend Kim (who is now totally in my will which means she might one day get my entire net worth of about $300 and believe me, she has earned it) pulled some strings and got Buster's plight presented to Ace of Hearts, an incredibly wonderful dog rescue organization that stepped in and threw their considerable weight around (special thanks to Whitney) to get Buster IMMEDIATELY SET FREE. Their motto? "We rescue all breeds...and don't discriminate against any!" TAKE THAT, ANIMAL CONTROL! You can suck it. And another thing: It was amazing how quickly the total f*cktards became my BFF's forever after I had Ace backing my efforts. That is called still not giving a sh*t but being afraid of bad press, or BEING TOTAL F*CKTARDS. Also, if you can get to the actual adoption stage, the cost of bringing home a wonderful, new family member is a very nominal fee of $41.00, which includes neutering and microchipping. It's the best $41 you'll ever spend.
And now? Lesley and Buster are totally in love:
And NO I am not wearing Blueblockers sunglasses. (Photos taken with camera fire hydrants.)
So, tonight Kim and I are taking Buster to a lovely woman who is going to foster him for a couple weeks. Her name is Angel and YES, I'm pretty sure that's not a coincidence. Angel has previously adopted a big, wonderful Bulldog named Lily from Ace, so we already know what a huge heart and love-filled home she has. Up until now Buster has been staying with Kim, and words can never express how grateful I am to her and her family for stepping in the day that Buster busted out. Her parents took her dog while she and her husband took Buster, and her cats took to the bedroom while Buster took over the house. It's been no small effort by ever-growing Team Buster and my part in it has really been the smallest. And all of this has taught me something, too: While some people do totally suck, others can really surprise you. In the end, I think all hope for humanity might not be lost after all. But don't quote me when I totally change my mind on this subject tomorrow.
So in conclusion, "Um...What??" readers, I leave you with one more thing. It was inspired by my friend MC, who said the following to me in a voice mail message two days ago:
"I think your blog ratings are slipping, and we need to return to the fundamentals, and by that I mean MORE STAR WARS REFERENCES."
Alrighty then. Same story as above, done over sci-fi style:
Evil Animal Control DEATH ROW PRISON WARDEN.
Evil TOTAL F*CKTARDS working for the warden at Animal Control DEATH ROW PRISON CAMP.
Heroic Ace of Hearts swoops in and comes to Buster's aid!
Today is Blog Action Day! On Blog Action Day,* thousands of bloggers get together to use the power of their blogs (you know, blogs that actually have power which obviously doesn't include this one) to speak on one specific subject – in today's case, poverty. Past Blog Action Day topics have included the environment and I'm sure many other very interesting topics that I can't immediately find record of after clicking in one place and immediately giving up because I am very, very busy and do not have the kind of time necessary to actually research any of the things I'm talking about in this post. Or any other post for that matter. But it doesn't make any difference. Just trust me. I'm smart.
* Seriously though: Next year Blog Action Day ought to consider illiteracy as its topic because illiteracy is a serious problem affecting many, many people including the creators behind the Blog Action Day website. Organisations? Really? Unless, of course, this is some kind of British spelling like "theatre" or something in which case never mind. Although it's still a good idea for a Blog Action Day topic. That, or Save Mother's Cookies since they've apparently just filed for bankruptcy (HOLY CRAP?) and if no more Circus Animal cookies isn't cause for global panic, then I don't know why we should bother to care about anything anymore. We shouldn't.
Anyway: I, too, am very concerned about poverty, because poverty results in people being poor, and I'm fairly certain that isn't good. (Wait...right?) In any event, in honor of this day I'm doing my part by blogging about poverty or, more specifically, my own apparent quest to actually LIVE IN IT.
Remember this little shmush face? While I will have a more detailed update later, I'm getting him busted out of the shelter (Busted? Buster? It's like somehow I knew) with the help of a WONDERFUL pit bull rescue organization. Or organisation if you're currently reading my blog from Britain in which case I hope you're Prince Charles because that would be AWESOME if Prince Charles read my blog, but don't misunderstand me because even if you're just some other British person that would still be awesome, or even if you're not British, the fact that you're even reading here at all makes you foolishdrunkaccidentally on the wrong siteawesome. Once Buster's out of jail the shelter and before I can get him into a nice foster home, I'll be boarding him at a very swank boarding facility kennel thingie. In simpler terms, this now means I'll be paying rent on two places a month for who knows how long (there are currently too many dogs and not nearly enough fosters) and considering I can barely afford the place that I already have, well, this is called Living In Poverty or Good God, I'm An Idiot.
So take action, fellow bloggers, and blog your hearts out on this very important topic! Let's find a way to stamp out poverty entirely!! MOST ESPECIALLY MINE.
This isn't the post I've been working on for the past couple days, but I've had to momentarily set that one aside on account of the following unexpected turn of events. But before you all breathe a sigh of relief have a collective panic attack, don't worry. I will still be publishing the other one as well. You will not miss out on one single word of the poetic greatness that is "Um...What??" GAG.
Anyway, on my way home from work Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting this guy:
I don't know his name because he wouldn't tell me what it was which was mostly because he was too damn busy constantly sticking his gigantic tongue inside of my ears to be able formulate any coherent sentences. Of course this is the normal effect I tend to have on men so I am totally used to this behavior. Chris. But everyone needs a name so I think I'm going to start calling him Buster. I figure this is probably better than calling him This Guy or Hey Dog, Plus, my backup name is Marshmallow Mush (BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HE IS) and I'm guessing no self-respecting dude wants to be known as Marshmallow Mush. Also? I stole the name Buster from Dad or Bust, one of my favorite blogs EVER and the best daddy blog on the web. And I can totally be the judge of this since I don't know sh*t about being a dad and know even less about blogging. Don't forget me, Dad or Bust, when you're bigger than DOOCE. And yes, Chris, YOU should be my favorite daddy blogger but this would require you actually write in your blog. Because seriously? I'm gonna take back your Lazy-Ass Blogger award and replace it with one for a DEAD-ASS BLOGGER. The good news is I won't have to really change the artwork all that much:
Dead? Lazy?
The only conceivable difference is your breath on the mirror I shove under your nose to make sure I don't have to pay for your funeral. And I am poor so I hope you enjoy making your trip to the afterlife in a cardboard box Hefty Cinch Sak.
Back to Buster: (You: I fell asleep five minutes ago BORING.) When I met Buster he was running around on a very busy road I take back and forth to work. It connects the San Fernando Valley to the area farther north where I live, and while it's busy as hell, it's also akin to the middle of nowhere. There are no houses, no businesses, no ANYTHING in that area. You just use it to get from Point A to Point B. Unless you're Buster. He was using it as some daredevil, stunt-dog training ground as he ran back and forth from one side of the road to another, dodging in and out of cars and causing various drivers to have strokes and heart attacks and near-miss fender benders.
It was clear he was in over his head, but even so, no one was stopping to help him, which I'm sure had everything to do with how freaked out everyone was from having to brake and swerve and nothing at all to do with the fact that a lot of people SEEMINGLY HAVE NO SOULS. So I stopped. And did my own quick version of traffic dodging. Speaking of possible Dead-Ass Bloggers. Unless you're my mom reading this, in which case I am totally just joking about running around in traffic HAHA SO FUNNY! Once I got Buster's attention, it didn't take much to also get him into my car. One "Here boy!" (lucky guess) and two open arms and Buster and Lesley were suddenly just like Fozzie Bear and Kermit The Frog – movin' right along in search of good times and good news! Except that Buster didn't have a banjo. Silly. Of course he didn't. Because he had a harpsichord. Not really!! Everyone knows dogs prefer kazoos:
I am seriously too dumb to figure out how to center this video. Awesome.
After Buster spent about five minutes thanking me profusely for picking him up by licking every square inch of my face and spitting in my ears and slurping on my neck – and sadly this is as much action as I've seen in as long as I can remember MORE AWESOME – I decided to take him to my vet for some kind of guidance because, frankly, once he was in the car I wasn't exactly sure what to do. He was filthy and had no collar, but he was certainly healthy enough. I knew I couldn't take him home myself, because besides having a diabetic cat, I also have a small, one bedroom apartment and no yard. That's right: There is NO END to my awesomeness.
"THAT is a Pit Bull." This is the first thing one of the vet techs said to me when Buster padded happily into the waiting room with me. This is an animal professional and she looked, well, somewhat alarmed. She retrieved a leash from somewhere in the back and told me I had to get it on him right away because "there are people's pets here." Um...what? Isn't that what Buster is? Someone's pet? He was clearly well trained, lying down in the back seat while we drove – except for when he'd get up to put his big head on my shoulder and lick my ear – and try as I might to coax him into the front seat, it was obvious he'd been trained that wasn't allowed. He followed me when I walked and heeled when I stopped. This was a good dog and as sweet as any I'd ever met and it was 8:00 at night and there was NO ONE else there so all the other animals were in the back and this dog was busy licking and licking and licking my right elbow in a really loud and sloppy fashion. Good holy crap: EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES.
Unfortunately, Buster – who they told me was about a year old – didn't have a microchip and that left the two of us without a lot of options. My parents live in the area, but their condo also doesn't have a closed-in yard and they have two cats of their own. Chris lives about ten minutes away, but he's violently allergic to animals. "Hey Buster! We saved your life, but we accidentally killed Chris. Woops!" Maureen lives about five minutes the other direction, but her female dog is in heat (and Buster is unfixed) and that is called Compounding The Problem or Animal Porn. So after a few calls I had no choice but to make arrangements through Animal Control to take him to the Castaic Animal Shelter.
Animal Control? Who wants to call THOSE monsters? Don't they drive around in big, menacing trucks with bars on the windows? Don't they carry huge nets they just smack down over an animal before scooping him or her away to some kind of dirty, depressing Animal Attica? Yeah. That's what I thought too. I was amazed at just how wrong I was. I dealt on the phone with a lovely woman named Alissa who coordinated with the shelter for our arrival (it was many hours after hours at that point) and then stayed on the phone with me while Buster and I drove around in the pitch black, middle-of-nowhere trying to find the place.
Once we eventually stumbled onto it, I thanked Alissa profusely and clicked off. She had assured me this shelter was a loving, compassionate facility where Buster would be well taken care of. And I was sure I believed her, despite the fact that in the dark it looked more like a place where people go to get violently ax-murdered during the dead of night. Which, to be honest with you, wasn't really something I was all that interested in. Unfortunately, this outcome started to seem more and more likely as Buster and I wandered around outside in the increasingly creepy night for almost ten minutes looking for this dude who was supposed to meet us. Tons of barking dogs...not one other human soul. Oh - and the wind! Spooky, swirling, howling wind. Howling. Which, of course, is why I almost had a heart attack when my phone suddenly rang loudly in my hand. I dropped it to the ground in a startled fit and Buster immediately begin licking it. Because, for those of you who haven't caught on to this yet, licking is what Buster does. It was Alissa again, letting me know that the gentleman I was meeting had to go on some animal emergency-related house call. He would be back in an hour at most.
An hour?
In the dark?
By myself??
WAIT! I have a Pit Bull!
"You have a WHAT??" My dad. On the phone. "You let a Pit Bull into your car?" Okay, really? Again with this? Buster and I were sitting in the back seat together, and he was snoring away with his big head in my lap. There was a growing drool spot on my knee. SCARY. "People get killed alone at night in the middle of nowhere, dear." Well, I can't argue with that.
"But I have a Pit Bull with me, Dad!"
"People get killed alone at night by Pit Bulls."
What? "Okay. Now you're just making crap up."
"I'm coming to meet you. You shouldn't be alone in a strange place at night." Not alone! Doggy! "With a strange dog." Not strange! Mushy! "You could get yourself killed." Seriously: My dad spends a LOT of time offering me tips on how to avoid getting myself killed.
And he did show up. Because he's my dad, and that's what he does. He takes care of his little girl. But you know who else showed up at almost the exact same time? The shelter guy. Who, it turns out, was also an Animal Control employee. (I had no clue how these things work. Who did I expect? The janitor?) He was wearing a verrrry nicely-fitting uniform. With a shiny, authoritative badge. He had a killer smile. He offered me a sweet, southern-twanged apology for being late because he had to go "wrangle a snake."
Wrangle? A snake?
Oh. Mah. Gah.
Drooooooools.
Buster was licking him.
I was getting kind of jealous.
I was also not at all happy about the gale force winds that allowed my hair to look like this upon the first moment mine and my new Snake Wrangler boyfriend's eyes met:
Although maybe this is okay, since in a way it looked very similar to this:
But what made Snake Wrangler Boyfriend even hotter was the sweet way he talked to Buster. He scratched his ears, he told him he was a good boy, he laughed when Buster jumped up and licked his chin. And he wrote down my phone number because that's official shelter procedure he was obviously totally in love with me. Droooools.
And with that, Buster was leaving me. And while I was relieved to know he would have food and water and a safe place to sleep, I still puzzled on the drive home over whatever chain of events I'd managed to set into motion that night. I have since gone to visit him twice (they're closed to the public on Sundays), and in the light of day the Castaic Shelter is actually quite a wonderful place. It's on a beautiful piece of land. The enclosures for the animals are clean and larger than you'd expect with both indoor and outdoor portions. The place is swarming with volunteers who walk and play with and love the animals. But the bottom line is it's still no place for any of them to be stuck. At the end of the day it's still concrete and cages and lost souls that have somehow ended up in circumstances that are less than ideal.
And now that I've grabbed Buster off the side of a desolate stretch of
road, I feel responsible for him. Now that I've gotten him locked away in what feels like – despite the grass and despite the lovely volunteers – nothing less than a prison, I need to find a way to break him out. The shelter will hold him for five days in the hopes his people will claim him. (Five days? That's it?) After that, they will do their best to find a family to adopt him, but let's be honest: At that point his future becomes uncertain. It is for every dog in that situation, but even more so for Buster because of his breed. Pit Bulls have gotten a bad rap (PUTTING IT MILDLY) due to a$$holes like Michael Vick, but inherently they're born as wonderful, loving animals. When well trained – as Buster clearly is – they're ideal family dogs. They're intelligent, they're enthusiastic and they're loyal. They live to please their people and they LOVE children. This is exactly the dog I saw in Buster. I fell in love with his dirty, spitty mug, and now I want so badly to save him from his current predicament. Because Buster is a soul in desperate need of some rescuing, and I know a little something about how that feels. The lost look he had in his eyes when I found him? The wandering? The fear of being left behind? Yep. I get it. We're kindred spirits, Buster and I, and I'd like to think we ran into each other for a reason.
Which I'm assuming is something related to the greater good and not just so I could meet a hot Snake Wrangler Bloggy Boyfriend. Although, you know...that certainly doesn't hurt.
Hang in there, Buster. I'm working on it.
* * * * * * * * * *
High Horse Epilogue: If your pet isn't microchipped, what are you waiting for??
* * * * * * * * * *
UPDATE: The following comment was left on this post by Issa, one of this blog's favorite readers (because you're allll my favorites!), and I thought it bore repeating:
Holy moly man. I freaking love
pits. My dad has the sweetest one in the world. She would literally let
my kids take anything from her, even out of her mouth and she just lays
there all patiently. My aunt has an awesome one too. People are what
make pits bad...
Today's blog post is dedicated to my newest reader, Ryan. Ryan has described my posts as "slow-motion car wrecks" full of "crazy ramblings" that induce "watering eyes" and "inner ear-based balance problems." Finally! Someone who gets me.
* * * * * * * * * *
According to Dictionary.com, the word comparison can be* defined in the following way:
Rhetoric.The
considering of two things with regard to some characteristic that is
common to both, as the likening of a hero to a lion in courage.
* I say can be as there are also five other definitions of the word, none of which is as relevant to my point here BECAUSE AS FAR AS YOU KNOW I HAVE ONE and anyway this is just TOO DAMN MANY definitions for one word, so please make up your mind, Dictionary.com.
And thus begins our little lesson in comparison:
On the left? The Porcupine. Inspirer of this blog. Will jab you with his quills! On the right? Luke Skywalker. Inspirer of a legion of Jedi Knights. Will slice you up with his lightsaber! You will never see these two people at a party together. Why? Well, besides the fact that Luke Skywalker is just a movie character and isn't at all real (Do I really have to explain this to you??), neither one of them has any time to go to some stupid-ass party since they both are way too busy saving the universe. Which, of course, I would be doing too if I didn't have to spend all my time sitting here writing in this damn blog for you people. Although I am not yet convinced my doing so won't totally end up saving lives one day. BLOG M.D.
Let's do a quick review:
Luke: Humble beginnings on small-ish planet Tatooine. Two suns! Carcinoma as National Pastime! The Porcupine: Equally humble beginnings on small-ish island. Only one sun, but that's all this particular blogger needs to get carcinoma up the wazoo. Snow White stands next to me so she can look tan! I'm rendered completely invisible on ice planet Hoth! SPF 597 cowers before me! I will get a sunburn. On a rainy day. Wearing a turtleneck sweater. While I am inside my apartment.
Luke: Grew up into a great leader of men. Jedi Master. Fearless protector of worlds. Tragically bad hair. Which in no way hampers his ability to lead but is still majorly unfortunate. Use The Force, Luke. For a haircut. The Porcupine: Has also grown into a great leader. Honest. Principled. Intelligent and aware. Leads by example. Makes those around him better by his mere presence in their lives. Never fails to consider others first. Makes continuous sacrifices for the well-being of everyone else in his universe. Awesome hair. Sure, his universe may not be as vast as, say, Luke's – whose is, to be technical, the actual universe – but that doesn't lessen in any way The Porcupine's drive and dedication and determination to protect the lives and worlds around him. (Also? The Porcupine possesses two additional great leadership qualities known as "Mind-Numbing Hotness" and "A Traffic-Stopping Butt." Drooooooools.)
Trying to build a life with someone like this isn't exactly easy. Which is why – pay attention here – Luke Skywalker never got himself a woman. (This blog's favorite Chris, upon an earlier discussion of this post, said, "He never got the girl because the girl WAS HIS SISTER." Oh, like Princess Leia* was the only girl in the universe. STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY BLOG POST WITH "FACTS.") Anyway, can you even imagine how complicated things with someone like this would be?:
Luke Skywalker's woman: Hey, babe! Maybe tonight we can...
Luke: Sorry – gotta go have a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. The whole universe is depending on me!
Luke Skywalker's woman: Oh. Well then maybe next week we can...
Luke: Ooh. Also bad. Then I've gotta join the Rebel Alliance and go blow up the Death Star. Millions of lives are at stake!
Luke Skywalker's woman: You never have any time for me.
Luke (practicing his lightsaber moves): I'm sorry, hon. Did you say something?
Luke Skywalker's woman (scowling): The Force sucks Bantha butt.
*Speaking of Princess Leia, let's take a quick pause in the spirit of today's post to note how she and I compare. Not in the "I'm like The Porcupine's sister" kind of way (THAT IS CALLED "FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC" or "GROSS"), but in the even more profoundly important way where wetotally have the same wardrobe:
Anyway. Me? I don't have to imagine what the above complications are like, because I live my own version of them every day. And as if that wasn't already enough, life with The Porcupine is about to get even MORE complicated. There's a big, messy storm brewing, and I'm
worried about our ability to withstand it. He's worried too. Because he knows just like I do that all of his qualities that
serve him so well when it comes to helping other people – unselfishness, an overwhelming sense of responsibility, the tendency to always put himself last – are the very same qualities that often aren't so healthy for him. (And they don't exactly get us anywhere, either.) These same things
that make him an exceptional man are the things that often render him a handicapped one, too. He can't seem to draw a line. He will give and give and give of himself until he's so depleted he has nothing left for his own life. He will stop taking care of himself almost entirely in his effort to take care of everyone else. But what good is he to anyone if he ends up losing his hand himself in the process? He does understand this. Intellectually. We talk about it at length. But caught up in the swirl of his current circumstances, he feels he has no choice but to keep doing what he's doing.
So all of this adds up to it not being easy to love him sometimes. There have been more days than I can count where I've been left feeling futile and wholly insignificant from knowing the helplessness he feels – from watching him put his life on hold for everyone else, which in turn puts us on hold – and knowing I can't seem to do anything about it. How
do I do for someone who isn't comfortable doing for himself? How do I help him find a way to help himself? Because our future together hinges on his ability to do this. (And no, the Jedi Mind Trick doesn't work. DON'T THINK I HAVEN'T TRIED IT.) And it's an internal struggle for me too, wondering if I'm selfish, wondering if he thinks I don't understand what makes him tick. Because I do. I don't want to change who he is. I never have. I am his biggest champion. I just want to make some room for a little balance.
And this storm that's brewing? It's coming in the form of his responsibilities and the scope of his universe and what he's being asked to give of himself all increasing suddenly by about a hundredfold. Starting immediately. This is no small order for a man already struggling under the weight of his existing load of these same things. Any semblance of balance we might have still had is quickly going the way of my youthful optimism. If he couldn't see his way through everything before, how in the world will he be able to do it now? HELP ME, OBI-WAN KENOBI OR I SWEAR I'M GONNA KILL SOMEONE. On the one hand, I'm proud of him. But I'm always proud of him. He was born to change the world in ways I could never hope to. But on the other hand? Why am I giving one crap about the universe since the universe CLEARLY HATES ME? All of these things at once? And now another thing? Any one of them on its own would not be pretty but would still probably be manageable enough. But combined? Could anyone manage it all? Can The Porcupine? Can I? Can we?
In the end, I'm not sure how it's all going to go down:
And to stay on point (Okay. Seriously? You're almost at the end of this thing and you STILL believe I have one??), comparatively speaking, the first option is likened to my hope (fading), while the second is likened to my overwhelming sense of doom (growing exponentially). But regardless of how this ends up, in the meantime somebody better be baking me THIS on my next birthday:
Which has nothing to do with anything except that this whole damn situation SUCKS almost as much as THIS POST and I'm a nice girl and I like cake and this post is filled with Star Wars symbolism and so at the very least I should get some freaking DEATH STAR CAKE out of the deal.
* * * * * * * * * *
Luke Skywalker: I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you!
Princess Leia: Do you have any birthday cake?
Luke Skywalker: No, but...
Princess Leia: Get out.
* * * * * * * * * *
One more note to Ryan: If you never come back here ever again, I will totally understand.
Friday night I decided to try out a little design change on this blog.
Let's check in with two of our most loyal readers to see what they think of it:
Chris (later that same night while visiting/commenting on previous post): WHA? ME DRUNKY ALMOSS. BUH JUSS ALMOSS. Bog differ? Nooooozzzzzzz.......(THUMP)*
Mom (the next morning on phone after logging on here): It's different?
Why. Do. I. Bother.
* Okay. This is less part of an actual conversation Chris and I had and more a composite of an e-mail he sent me, the comment he left on my last post and the fact that while doing so he didn't notice the blog was different. This is called creative license.
To be fair, the new banner image you now see at the top wasn't there yet. (You: What new banner image? Me: Slightly more dead on the inside.) And in case you were wondering, yes I drew that porcupine in exactly the same way I drew that donkey a while back. Only this time around I actually paid good money for the right to use it and by that I mean it cost me fourteen dollars which is good because any more than that and I might not be eating this week. I haven't decided yet if using the porcupine illustration is really clever or tragically stupid, but obviously the second would probably be more ideal considering the blog that it's on, and it's not like I actually need to explain this to any of you. Unless, of course, you're new here, in which case I can only apologize and assure you it's not going to get any better.
But there was a different new banner there that looked like this:
This was a part of the new, pre-defined theme I chose (more examples of themes in a moment and yes, this is exactly as exciting as it sounds if not more so), and while I liked everything else about the overall design, I just wasn't sold on the stars. Stars? On my blog banner? What is that? A sci-fi blog? To boldly go where no blog has gone before? My science fiction-loathing best friend Maureen would never, ever visit here again:
Me: Oh! Today on my blog I...
Mo: I hate your stupid sci-fi blog. You can suck it and beam me way the hell on out of here.
My goal for the change was just to update my "Minimalistic" design a bit. "Minimalistic" is basically the No Design design and who would pick that? OH. I wasn't looking for anything radical, just a little attempt at refinement. Because the old design had no defined edges. No structure. The red banner just stretched out seemingly to infinity on both sides (Why??), and pretty much everywhere else was white meets white:
Old, boring blog.
Now, we've got edges with red and headline type with red and sidebar
elements with red and RED, RED, RED, RED WELCOME TO MY BORDELLO BLOG:
New, boring blog.
And seriously? A picture of this blog post inside of this same blog post? You don't get this kind of Hall-of-Mirrors blogging technique just anywhere, you know. Primarily because nobody wants it. (I actually originally wrote "House of Mirrors" but that's a totally different thing where you go to a carnival fun house and look into all these mirrors that make you look deformed and fat and that's a whole OTHER reason Maureen would never come back here.) But this means I have to put up a placeholder image and then publish this and go back really quickly and take a new screen shot and then insert that and publish again while hoping no one sees this post before I do all of that. Excluding, I believe, anyone who subscribes in a reader. I think you automatically see only the first version. With the wrong screen shot. Although I don't know for sure. Because I don't really understand reader services. Or anything else about blogging, for that matter.
But if I hadn't liked the above theme, my blogging service offers well over a hundred additional pre-defined themes in several categories sure to satisfy anyone's taste (or lack thereof). Here's a very small sampling of some of their "scenes" themes:
This one is nice.
This is the one I'd use if I wanted to be clinically depressed every day from having to stare at a lonely, dead tree. Which, if I think about it, is way more symbolic to my actual life than I'd really care to admit. Holy sh*t I HATE this design. Sh*thead designer.
This is the one I'd use if I wanted to have no male readers ever again.
This is what I'd use if I could see Russia from my house. And looking at a polar bear didn't make me at all sad inside because why would it since I know they'renot in any way endangered.
This is what I'd use if I was Chris. And loved football. And hated baseball. Because I had a profound mental defect.
This is what I'd use IF I HATED ALL MY READERS AND WANTED EACH OF YOU TO HAVE A DAILY ANEURYSM. Gag.
Below is one more screenshot. This one isn't of a pre-defined theme, except, of course, for the already established theme of This Blog Sucks. I found it here on this very nice blog that doesn't suck, when I was looking up information about "blogging on blogging" because I was thinking that maybe my last few posts on Twitterclouds and Google Searching and blog design AND JON BON JOVI might finally have me poised for a much coveted Technorati authority ranking! Not a high ranking. Just, you know, any ranking. Blog is topical! Witty! Insightful! People should cite my content! (You: WTF content would THAT be?) Although I only think this ranking system has to do with content. It might just be a popularity contest. Not that the distinction between intelligence and popularity really makes that much of a difference since this blog has neither. And since, according to Jeremy Zawodny, it also apparently sucks more than I even realized and how is such a thing possible?? (You: Oh, it's poss... Me: SHUT IT.) If you click on the image it will open up so you can read it more easily:
Notice how I wrote "I'm" with the apostrophe first. Awesome.
Jeremy Zawodny would totally hate me. Although I am actually going to attempt a TrackBack to his site when I publish this so maybe he won't hate me as much as he'll love me! Okay, he probably won't love me, but maybe he'll at least like me. Never mind. HE WON'T.
But now that my blog design is all tuned up and I've gotten this little lesson from Jeremy on how to be a better blogger content-wise, maybe tomorrow I will actually put up a real blog post! For you – my loyal readers. Won't that be great?? And since I even already know what the post is going to be about, all I can say is no, it won't be.
According to Dictionary.com, the word "disappoint" is defined in the following way:
"To fail to fulfill the expectations or wishes of" or "to defeat the fulfillment of hopes."
Wow. It would suck to be the person who does that.*
Therefore, by logical extension, the definition of the word disappointment is, "the state or feeling of being disappointed" or also – and pay attention here, because this is key – the feeling that overcomes every single solitary person who has ever found themselves on this blog as the result of any type of Google search.**
* I should know.
** SEE???
**********
Innocent Google Searcher: I will enter my search parameters here! Various word selecting and typing. Exclamation point to indicate searcher's excitement level. Google searching is fun! The internet is your oyster! Guess what isn't the pearl? "Um...What??" THAT'S WHAT.
Innocent Google Searcher (after a moment scanning the results page): Hmmmmn. Okay. This one looks good! Note exclamation point. Still excited!! Clicks link to whichever "Um...What??" post has happened to appear.
Innocent Google searcher (after a moment of trying to figure out what he's looking at): What the hell is THIS sh*t?? This isn't at ALL what I was looking for. I am verydisappointed. Searcher crushed. Demoralized. No exclamation point. Immediately clicks off and sends disgruntled, strongly-worded e-mail to Google management. As a side note, did you know that according to ehow.com the exclamation point "can add punch to a sentence when used judiciously" but is also "often overused." Good grief. Please learn to write better, people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Also? If it wasn't for the internet, I swear I wouldn't know ANYTHING.)
**********
ANYWAY, over the past few days, this kind of mind-numbing disappointment has happened to a lot of teenage girls who spent their precious, youthful time searching for either J0n@s Br0thers or N#ck J0n@s or N#ck J0n@s birthday and came acrossthis post. Which was just like two posts ago. And is probably about six inches below this post. And yet I still put a big link to it. STUPID. Also, I have to type like I have Tourette's or something or else these girls are all gonna end up here again. SUPER-STUPID. Anyway. (OMG am so tired. Have lost all transitional skills. Anyway, anyway, anyway!) Anyway (WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME??), most bloggers would KILL for the number of extra page views this post has brought me (about 20 a day). Okay, not most bloggers. Probably hardly any bloggers. Alright, just me. Since before I was averaging a whopping hundred page views a day. Which I am still very proud of, regardless. Especially because I'm sure at least 10 of them probably weren't my mom. And what did these extra girls – I'm assuming they're girls – all find when they got here? They didn't find swooning. They didn't find photo galleries and online squealing. Instead, they just found things like, "Butthead" and "Damn you, Nick J0n@s!" and random pictures of Prince Charles. Do today's teenage girls even know who Prince Charles is? Not unless he was in High School Musical, they don't. Wait, was he? Oh, I don't really know. Or care. Okay, I care. Yeah, right. NO ONE DOES.
Then there was the group of sadly disappointed people who Googled several variations of "Cute blonde who plays with football in NutriSystem ads" (Ugh. Seriously?) and gotthis piece of crap genius in which I said NOTHING about her being cute or blonde and I THINK GOOGLE MIGHT BE BROKEN. Unless "cute + blonde" equals the same as "obnoxious + boobs in my face." Which I kind of doubt.
Finally (You: ohdeargodthankyou), there was the person who Googled "donkey draw" and ended up on the post about my being a kick ass blogger (which, if you're still reading this far down, you understand is A FALSEHOOD). Was this person searching for instructions on how to draw a donkey? And then all he ended up with was a picture of a donkey that I drew but then admitted one sentence later I didn't actually draw but instead just stole off the internet? I'm sorry, aspiring donkey drawer. And by "drawer" I mean a person who draws donkeys, not "drawer" as in a dresser since a dresser drawer full of donkeys would be kind of inconvenient. Maybe slightly more so for the donkeys than for you. Although it would still probably suck for you too because then where would you put your socks? What do donkeys eat, anyway? And no, this has nothing to do with anything I'm talking about here. Welcome to every single blog post I've ever written.
So as a service to all of my readers – those both intentional and accidental – I offer the following visual aid to help you deal with the never-ending disappointment that is The Google Search. And by "help you" I mean "it won't" because it really has nothing to do with anything except for being some random ad I came across while researching the concept of "disappointment" and mainly I just want you to know that yes, I do extensive amounts of research during the course of verbally barfing carefully drafting every single "Um...What??" post because I care about you all that much. Plus, I have some form of internet ADD and can't stay on any one web page for more than 30 seconds before I have to open 17 more.
Anyway (That's. Right.), here you go:
UPDATE: During the course of my writing the bulk of this post last night, someone found me by Googling "um what blog by leslie." (Can't spell my name right SORT OF INSULTING but blog beggars can't really be choosers.) Thank you One Whole Person who actually tried to find me on purpose. It's for you that I do all of this.
Oh please. Like there's ANY reason to do any of this. Ever.
Last week, two very important people celebrated their birthdays:
This guy: And this little cutie:
The guy on left is Nick Jonas. (You: Who?? Me: Exactly.) He is, apparently, who all the teenage girls are swooning over these days. Which of course makes me wonder what the hell has happened to teenage girls over the past 20 years.
Because hello???
THIS is who we swooned over when I was a teenage girl!
Who, by the way, looks like this now and I THINK I NEED A MOMENT.
Oh! Sorry!
I'm getting way off track here from my original point.
There's something that never happens always happens every single post.
And the cute little short-stack on the right? That's my mom. (HI MOM!) Isn't she adorable? I picked that particular photo to post for a few reasons. Because it's always been one of my favorite pictures of her. Because even though she's just a little girl, her face is still so recognizable to me as the first face I knew in life. The first love I knew. The first memories I made. The place I grew my deepest roots. Home. I also picked it because she looks so happy just to be, and that's a feeling I always associate with her and one she always worked so hard to instill in me – something that remains the source of the resiliency and determination I have today. And, oh yeah: I also picked it because there's NO WAY she can call me later and tell me she doesn't like the picture because she thinks she looks too old in it. (HI MOM!)
So my mom's birthday was this past Friday, and Nick Jonas's was Tuesday. The only reason I know anything about Nick's birthday is because I accidentally came across this story. As if I even need to clarify the "accidentally" part because who would read that kind of thing on purpose? Anyway, this news story is basically the lone source of ALL of my knowledge about Nick Jonas, including the fact that he's one of three Jonas brothers when I thought there were only two – although when I took the time to think this is beyond me – and they seem to be very into layering their clothing. After they're done stealing it from Billy Joel and Prince Charles:
Hello?
So, Nick just turned 16 (Big deal! I did that once), and for that incredible accomplishment – and because he's some kind of a heartthrob* and he gets special heartthrob* treatment where treatment equals many, many, many families with young girls give him their money – Nick got to celebrate his birthday at Dodger Stadium.
*Um...no and no:
Hello??
This guy can have MY money.
You know, if I had any.
I'm not giving him any pants though. Because, well, DUH.
According to the news story, Nick and his brothers rented out Dodger Stadium for two and a half hours so they could play some baseball with their friends. Awwww. Baseball. With their friends. Isn't that cute?? NOT WHEN THOSE TWO AND A HALF HOURS COST $30,000, IT ISN'T. $30,000? For a 16-year-old's birthday party?
Look. I'm just as in favor of kids having fun birthday parties as the next guy. Yayyyyy kids!! (Honestly, I don't really care. I'm just trying to keep all the mommy bloggers from hating me.) But this story disturbs me on several levels, the most obvious being why do these marginally-talented kids have so much money while people like teachers and nurses struggle to make ends meet in today's economy? (Okay, I admit I've never heard their music and am just assuming about the marginally talented thing. So I could be totally wrong in that they could actually have no talent whatsoever.)
And where are their parents in all of this? Do they talk to them about the value of money? Do they remind them that most people would love to have an extra $30,000 so they could do things like buy that new mattress they need (ME) or finally replace their 10-year-old couch (ME) or pay off their credit card bill (ME) or just stop scrimping so much (ME). (ME, ME, ME, ME, MAKE THE CHECK OUT TO ME.) I mean honestly: $30,000 to rent out an entire stadium? And did I mention they also invited only 15 of their friends?? (Which all other things aside is pretty impressive as I certainly don't have 15 friends. Do I even know 15 people? God, I hope not.) That few people? In a gigantic stadium? For less than three hours? For $30,000??
Hey, twit Nick Jonas! If you just want to play some baseball, they have these really cool things all over the place called PARKS, and guess what? THEY'RE FREE. Butthead But if you insist on going the whole stadium route, maybe you could also do something a little more meaningful while you're at it? Like inviting a whole bunch of sick or needy kids in desperate need of some fun to come on out and throw the ball around, too? (CHARITY!) Or maybe have some kind of a contest where you let a bunch of your fans come out with you as there's room for tens of thousands of them anyway? (KINDA CHARITY?) Since, if we want to get technical, it's pretty much their money that funded your little b-ball, b-day shindig. Or maybe you could just, you know, WRITE A CHECK TO CHARITY INSTEAD? You do know we've had some hurricanes and whatnot...right? You don't, do you?
But what also bothers me about such a display is this: My mother did NOT have her birthday celebration at Dodger Stadium. My selfless, loving, amazing, beautiful-inside-and-out mother who has been a Dodgers fan for 49 years did not get such a gift. My mom lives and breathes Dodgers baseball. She bleeds blue. She knows all of the rules of the game of baseball. The stats. The history. The teams. The players. She gets depressed come the end of a season when there are so many months before spring training. My mom loves Dodger Stadium. I swear I think it might be her happiest place on earth. (Disneyland can suck it!) No one I know deserves a fancy, $30,000 Dodgers Baseball Birthday Party more than my lovely mom.
But did she get that? No. Why? Because she didn't have an extra 30 grand lying around, and neither did I. She and my dad poured all their money into taking care of their daughter for so many years. My mom always put herself last so I didn't have to want for things. She made sure I got a college education so I could graduate and someday go on to WRITE A BLOG LIKE THIS THAT DOESN'T PAY ME EVEN ONE CENT OF REVENUE. (HI MOM!!)
And how did I pay her back? By not becoming a pop singing sensation-slash-heartthrob, that's how. By not making anyone swoon over my Musical Stylings and Stage Presence and therefore not having an extra $30,000 lying around so I could gift my mom in the manner she deserves. Yes, I know: I could've become a doctor or investment banker or something too, but that has nothing to do with the theme of this post, now does it? Please try to follow along.
Mom? In short? I suck.
What I wouldn't give to be able to throw my mom a party at Dodgers stadium. And if I did, you can bet it would last longer than two and a half hours and would include ACTUAL DODGERS PLAYERS doing things like serving her drinks and rubbing her feet. Throughout my life she's fulfilled so many of the desires of my heart – what I wouldn't give to be able to just once return the favor in totally grand style. But I know that no matter what I do, I could never repay all the invaluable gifts she's given to me over the years: Security. A defined sense of self. Strength. Confidence. The belief that as a woman, I could do anything. The belief that as her daughter, I could do anything. The freedom to fail. The tools to succeed. At once, both roots and wings.
Sigh.
Damn you, Nick Jonas!
But my mom does have one thing going for her on her birthday that little Nicky Jonas doesn't: Her birthday - September 19th – is also National Speak Like A Pirate Day! Avast, mateys!! Walk the plank, Jonas Brothers. And in honor of THAT, I have made my mom THIS:
Here? She also looks young! But in addition? PIRATEY.
Mom?
You are welcome. And I love you. A lot.
And one more thing to the person who wrote that little article: It's DODGER Stadium - not Dodgers Stadium. The team name has an "s" but the stadium name doesn't.
Hey, lesleykim! Twitter called and they'd like their 140 characters back. But mostly they'd like you to close your account. And lose their website address. And – oh yeah! – stick this Fail Whale up your butt!:
(Seriously: Did you know you could get a Fail Whale on a t-shirt? ME NEITHER.)
The image at the tippy top of this post is my Twitter Tag Cloud. It shows – via the size of the corresponding text – what I tweet about the most. And as it turns out? I tweet about pretty much the same thing I blog about: Absolutely nothing that has any point. ("Hey there!" one whole reader left who hasn't already figured this out.)
I mean what does it say about me that my most tweeted word is maybe, followed closely by would, could and should? Well, besides saying I AM A WISHY WASHY TWEETER, it also says, Never mind that – when the hell did I ever tweet about a basement? I don't even HAVE a basement.
Random basements aside (and the obvious fact I clearly must direct tweet at Chris in annoying amounts – both Chris and haliscribbler appear on the next tier SORRY DUDE), my Twitter Tag Cloud seems less of a direct representation of what I tweet about and more of a general statement about my life as a whole. (And by statement I mean those things I never make with any kind of substance whatsoever and who gives a crap what I tweet and why haven't you all just unfollowed me by now??) These days my life is completely stalled at the intersection of Maybe meets Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda and no one is directing traffic and I THINK I'M DRIVING WITH A BLINDFOLD ON. (You know, where life = car and living = driving and OH WHATEVER.)
I feel just this side of futile a lot these days. Like all my steps ahead in fact just move me around in a circle and I keep ending up back where I started. Except not only do I still have no answers, now I also have more and more questions. MaybeThe Porcupine
and I will get there? Maybe we'll all be okay? Or at least maybe we won't die? Okay maybe we'll die but death will be painless? OH WHAT'S THE POINT WE'RE ALL TOTALLY DOOMED. And besides my attempt to look forward, I also do a fair amount of looking back: Oh if only one of us wouldhave...(pointless) or maybe I should have...(useless) because then maybe today we could have...(fail!). OOH! Maybe I can have another Fail Whale for this? But maybe on a cool t-shirt this time instead of up my butt?
And on some days – as hard as I try to rally against it (because other people have real problems like hurricane-ravaged homes and not enough money to pay bills and plus? Nepal is outlawing nude disco dancing and WTF are people over there supposed to do?) – these maybes kind of get me down. Maybe someday this constant panicked feeling will leave me. Maybe someday I'll sleep again at night. Maybe someday The Porcupine will be a little more the man I used to know and a little less the ghost in front of me. Maybe someday soon I will be a little more "actual" happy and a little less "fake it 'til you make it" happy. (I've used this "fake it" mentality since getting it from my skating coach back when I was learning how to do a single axel jump, which is actually a revolutionand a half,and yes this is absolutelyas impressive as it sounds.* My coach would say, "Fake it 'til you make it!" and so I would smile while falling down.)
* Okay: The following is an actual conversation between a five-year-old girl and a then 33-year-old me. The five-year-old is being referred to as "Five-Year-Old" only because I'm guessing calling her "Smart-Ass Bitch Face" is probably frowned upon by various mommy bloggers and parental organizations everywhere, all of which I am totally sure could give one sh*t about read this blog:
Five-Year-Old (after watching me work on my axel for a while): We're practicing the same jump!
Me: I know! Isn't that kind of fun?!
Five-Year-Old: Aren't you way too old for this?
Me: (Falls.)
And in case you're wondering what this has to do with anything I'm talking about, the answer is very little. HAHA! Please. Everyone knows the answer is nothing.
ANYWAY. On the days the maybes are kicking my ass – which has been a lot of my days as of late – I do the same thing to that little "What are you doing?" Twitter box that I do to my blog: I just stare at it. What am I doing? Um, what the hell am I ever doing? (AM I EVEN AWAKE RIGHT NOW? ANYONE?) I sit here in the weird state of suspended animation my life has become, watching all the lovely people I follow tweeting all these interesting and entertaining and witty and pithy things and I'm still sitting there puzzling over what exactly it is I might be doing besides breathing. What am I doing? Am I even doing anything? Well, I am trying to think of something to tweet so does that count? Being that my last two tweets were about my cable company and my cat's shaved butt, uh, NO.
And that's when Twitter can just freak me the hell out. In 140 characters or less I'm reminded of how much life is going on around me and how even though in my own way I'm doing the best I can to participate – I'm falling down a lot but I'm smiling, dammit – I still feel a bit outside of the ebb and flow most of the time these days. I'm not adrift – I have wonderful family and friends who moor me – but I am almost weightless. Long on maybes. Short on tangibles. At times feeling almost without substance.
Clearly, this intangibility I feel comes across in my tweets: Maybe? I dunno? Could or would? Should? Basement? (Screw you Thank you for the insight, Twitter Tag Cloud!) It also comes across in this blog when there are three or four days between posts because the ugly maybes have crept in and I am far from my best and want only to bring my best to this blog. (Because I love you, Blog!) (Blog as boyfriend?)
YES, I KNOW. Begging the question: "Oh my god does she think THIS crap is her best?" Yes. I. Do.
And, oh yeah: If you'd like a Twitter Tag Cloud of your own, you can get one here. I have next to no idea what anything on this page means except for the part that says, "View Your Twitter Tag Cloud Now." PHP? Rest Service? Zend Framework? XFN? Who cares?! The site's author's kinda cute right? And 12-ish? Am I dumber than a 12-year-old?
We're sorry for taking so long between posts this week, readers! "Um...What??" has been a little uncharacteristically "Ewe...SICK??" for a few days now, thus rendering it impossible for this blog to live up to its normal standards. You know, if it actually had any.
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Oh, NutriSystem.
You make me want to stuff my face with cheese-covered fried cheese dipped in melted cheese just to spite you. You also make me want to send you a photo of myself holding a newspaper with today's date to remind you that it isn't 1954 and, oh yeah, JUNE CLEAVER IS DEAD.
This?
Is not me or any other woman I know.
And if I did know her?
I would in all likelihood put that pie in her face.
But seriously though. That's a nice oven, right? Isn't It? Oh, I have no idea. I've never even opened mine and have only a vague idea where it actually is.
As a woman, which I'm assuming is a large part of your target demographic, NutriSystem, I find the commercial you're currently airing with Jillian Barberie (and by Jillian Barberie I mean OHMYGOODGAWWWDSHADDUP) to be annoying and insulting to women at a level second only to every single commercial spot ever run byeHarmony. (WHO CAN GO BANKRUPT ANY TIME NOW, PLEASE.)
I won't go so far as to embed the clip of Jillian's commercial here because I care about you all that much and already feel guilty enough even subjecting you to the following screen shots. But the gist of story by way of introduction goes a little something like this: Girl gains weight (more on this later), girl is better than all the rest of us lesser-type girls watching the commercial because of something having to do with football (to be honest, I don't really get it but whatever) and then girl loses weight THE END.
And now? The same story in seven easy-to-follow images. It's like "Dick and Jane" (low-level reading skills) meets The Iliad (nobody knows WTF it's supposed to mean) only with really unfortunate fashion:
>
1. If you see this? THERE IS STILL TIME TO RUN OUT OF THE ROOM.
2. Jillian (OHMYGOODGAWWWDSHADDUP) says hello and introduces us to her "BEFORE" self and her "AFTER" self! This is even more boring just as exciting as you might think.
3. Here, we learn that OHMYGOODGAWWWDSHADDUP is an amazing and unique type of woman because she has gigantic boobs she likes sports:
"Listen! I know I'm not your average gal. I LOVE sports!!" Then, she catches a football tossed to her from off camera and declares, "FOOTBALL!" Just like that. Just that one word. Noun
naming game? Some form of object-related Tourettes? Intelligence level of
two-year-old? And as if this wasn't bad enough, she follows up her
outburst with, "How many girls can do THAT??"
Seriously??? Catch something?
Listen yourself, OHMYGOODGAWWWDSHADDUP. Unless that thing was hurled at you from a hundred yards away by either Peyton Manning or Donovan McNabb...no wait. I still wouldn't give a crap. Plus, what does this have to do with anything? Nothing. LOGIC FAIL.
4. There are NO WORDS.
5. Good lord. I think there's some technical information given in here somewhere too. You know, pricing and meal plans and blah blah blah I do not care as I'm just busy staring at her ta tas. (WHO ISN'T??)
6. Football thrown AGAIN from, let's be honest, probably two inches off camera at most. Plus, I totally suspect at this point whoever threw it might have been "accidentally" aiming at her head. I'm guessing this football/sports thing is repeated just in case you did not understand this symbolism the first time around. The good news is you won't understand it the second time either. "Get NutriSystem and SCORE!!" What the hell does THIS mean, exactly? Some form of not-so-vague sexual reference aimed at the same group of people who laugh at armpit farts? (Which is ridiculous because any intelligent person will tell you only REAL farts are funny.) Furthermore, does it also imply only skinny girls can have sex? And anyway, who plays football in their lingerie top??? LADIES IN THE LINGERIE BOWL, THAT'S WHO. Hut hut!!
7. Finally, we have arrived at the bitter end, and by bitter, I mean ME.
Look, NutriSystem. You annoy me. Not only are women more than collections of hot pink lingerie and vacuous expressions but, um, A LOT OF US LOVE SPORTS. And by a lot of us? I MEAN A LOT OF US. You know, that is when we can find time to sneak in watching a game or two between doing loads of laundry (BY HAND) and polishing the silver and thinking of ways to please our man and speaking only when spoken to. And Jillian ("SHADDUP" for short), I am not sure how much of this is your fault, but I'm going to try to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were following a script. Although, really? Just for doing so? Female fail.
And here's a little something else you neglected to mention, NutriSystem:
Yeah.
There's a reason Ms. Jillian felt heavier and then suddenly didn't:
It's called PUSHING SOMETHING OUT OF YOUR MOTHER NATURE AND THEN GIVING IT A BOTTLE. Or two boobs. Or...holy MOLY those are some serious boobs. And yes, I know I neglected to draw any kind of happy face on either one of them, but really? Some things just go without saying.
Who knows? Maybe this is an accidental oversight or maybe she talks about the pregnancy in some other NutriSystem commercial that maybe I haven't seen AND ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO.
Also? I saw EIGHT eHarmony commercials during the course of slapping together carefully crafting this sh*tty-ass amazing post. Only it's a different couple now, and not Lee and Anne Marie, which leads me to the obvious conclusion that Lee and Anne Marie have already broken up. I certainly hope my earlier, thought-provoking post had nothing to do with it, because that would be awesome make me feel badly.
AND????? I burped AT LEAST 15 TIMES (!!!) while I was writing this, which has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that I don't think I've burped 15 times total before IN MY ENTIRE LIFE and WTF is wrong with me and this leads me to another obvious conclusion that NUTRISYSTEM GIVES ME GAS.
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For those of you suddenly not so sure you're happy I've resurfaced here...I totally understand.
"Our mission: to rescue, rehabilitate and give sanctuary to abused animals. Through the interaction with our animals, children learn reverence for all life." – founder Ellie Laks
Mr. Farty Thinks I Stink
Oh, big deal. WHO DOESN'T?
(Click on the image to go to Scotchland and visit Mr. Farty's blog!)
For The Four-Leggers
Kitten Rescue:
Fine purveyors of Moses The Cat and now also Gus The Cat!
Team Buster!
You read. You comment. YOU MAKE ME LOVE YOU
(I totally ripped off this "quoting comments" idea from Mr. Farty. Because ripping off is the sincerest form of flattery.)
Bossy: "One cannot Photoshop enough hats, in Bossy's humble opinion."
Buzz "Reading your blog has, in my mind, you sounding like a 19 year old who's had twelve gallons of sugar and is talking to her best friend on the phone at 5am on day three of a "how long can I stay awake" drive. Really. It's a compliment, though."
Chris: "I'm pretty sure I'm ALMOST drunk (but not quite)."
Debra: "I am so honored to be added to the Cast. It's like seeing your name in lights on Broadway...or on the wall of the Post Office."
dsbs42 "Because, if this blog has taught me anything, it's that animal waste is a great topic for a post."
Issa: "What I love about coming here, is that it takes me five minutes to read through your post and fifteen to find the comments box in all of your tags."
Laurie: "The toilets in my husband's building did start exploding one day...no one was hurt or turned into a zombie."
Lisa: "I am confused. Are you saying that someone is going to whip the boner to stimulate his package?"
Maggie "I totally hate you and your blog. But only in bizarro opposite land."
mayopie "I didn't even know they had boob scientists. I really should have applied myself more."
Mo: "I want that mug, damn it. Why can't I order it? Your customer service sucks around here."
Mr. Farty: "Sorry I'm late here, I was reading the Bloggess instead."
Ryan: "Although weird, difficult to follow and easy to lose track of, I still can't stop reading your posts. It's like watching a very, very slow motion car crash."
Steph "I vote for microfiche solely because it's fun to say. And because it'll confuse my children what with them being all used to Google and whatnot. Basically, I want to be able to kick their asses at research. Whippersnappers."
The Bloggess "I would so vote for you for best host if you would pour me some damn booze already."
XUP: "This blog is always like a happy mushroom trip. I always need a big helping of carbs afterwards to help me come down."
