Um...What??

This Post Has Slopestyle Snowboarding, A Poopy Diaper, Really Confusing Fashion and An Awesome Drinking Game I Played All By Myself

Welcome, everyone! Today at "Um...What??" we will be getting educational, with an introductory lesson on the sport of snowboarding –– slopestyle snowboarding, to be exact. And I am just the perfect person to teach you because I know absolutely nothing at all about it I am totally an expert!

I recently discovered how much I love slopestyle snowboarding when one night last week I unexpectedly found my television tuned in to the Winter Dew Tour.

Andy by I love slopestyle snowboarding, I mean:

HELLO! I love a man with a name I can't spell by myself.

The moment we met, I knew Torsteen Torstien Tore (OH WHATEVER) he was meant for me. Because his athletic skills were like nothing I'd ever seen before and involved being immune to gravity as well as spinning over and over without barfing on himself or other people. And let's face it: The qualities that come with being an elite athlete –– discipline, drive, passion, dedication, a traffic-stopping butt –– ARE HOT. I also knew we were meant to be because of the way he was totally adorable.

Plus? Do you know what else is totally adorable? The fact that Torrstine (sp?) was born in 1987. The year I graduated from high school.

Awesome.

       

Also awesome? THIS:

Toarstein (sp??), sometime last year.

SO WHAT?! Age is just a number blah, blah, plus I don't look a day over 25!!! As far as you know.

Anyway. The original Dew Tour (sponsored by Mountain Dew or maybe invented by the makers of Mountain Dew or –– no! ––I think the Mountain Dew people actually invented snowboarding or something? OH, I DON'T KNOW) debuted in June 2005 and included only non-snow related action sports like BMX and skateboarding and motocross. Then something something this and then blah blah blah another thing that and then something else yadda yadda (nobody really knows for sure) and then ta-da! This year's inaugural winter version of the Dew Tour was born! One hundred gagillion years after I graduated from high school.

The particular Winter Dew Tour event I happened to watch was called the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event. I'm guessing it was called this because the competitors were men. With snowboards. And there was this gigantic snow-covered slope they kept going down. All while dressed in the style of people working in a very, very cold forensics lab:

Oh! And speaking of style:

 

Really, Tourstiin? (sp?)

And as an FYI:

I didn't watch the Superpipe event, however. Because at the time I didn't know anything about it. Because at the time I didn't even know anything about the event I WAS watching. Because I was born tenteen bazillion years ago when they didn't even HAVE snowboards. Or electricity. Or upright walking.

In the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event, –– which involves a form of snowboarding known as freestyle –– Toarstyne (sp?) and a bunch of other people I don't care about the other competitors went up against each other on two separate runs down the slope, which is also called the course. Although, it's possible it was nine runs or maybe five or OH WHO KNOWS. Because let's be honest: It's way easy to lose count when you're taking a shot of Disaronno every time one of the on-screen announcers yells, "BIG AIR!!"

During a slopestyle run, there is no clock and snowboarders are awarded points for style and difficulty while performing a wide variety of tricks on their way down the course –– moving around, over, across or down various terrain features like boxes, rails, jumps and jibs. These tricks include things like a switch backside 1260 and a boardslide 270 out and a nose/front board combo and a cab 900 and a 50-50 to backside rodeo 5 off the canon and a cab 270 to frontside boardslide and a switch backside 900 and a frontside 1080 stalefish. See?? This paragraph, by the way, is called totally clearing up all the details for you or you are welcome.

This is one of the previously mentioned tricks. Luckily, it's totally obvious which one, so I don't have to waste my time or yours explaining it.

And now, more slope style!:

 

Why, Torrstynne? (sp?)

Toerstiene (sp?), who is from Norway which means he is Norwayian, or –– more accurately –– a Viking, really only had one true competitor in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event, the reportedly very popular, crazy-talented (OH, I DOUBT IT) and far, far less adorable snowboarder, Shaun White. Shaun was actually favored to win this event, but that's mostly because he's basically favored to win every single snowboarding event, even the ones he doesn't enter.

Nevermind Shaun White. ALL TORSTEIN (!!) ALL THE TIME!

In what were described as near-perfect runs –– not by me, of course, since I had NO idea at the time WTF was going on EXCEPT THAT IT WAS AWESOME –– Torstein (SP!!) threw big (snow) balls in the face of his no-competition competition by doing things like this:

  

And also this:

 

Plus some of this:

HOW CAN SOMETHING SO COLD BE SO HOT??

And by combining these moves with, you know, even more moves, and then combining these combined moves with an equally amazing move known as adorability, rising mega-pro Torstein took first place in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Event and won the much-coveted Dew Cup! One hundred bazillion trillion years after I graduated from high school. Congratulations, Torstein!!

I don't even get it.

(I have a PhD in Photoshop. As if I even need to point this out.)

      

 

Torstein's Dew Tour victory ceremony! Oh, honestly. It could be anybody under there.

And this winning moment brings us to the conclusion of today's informative and entertaining post on slopestyle snowboarding. I think we can all agree that we've learned the most important basics of the sport, which are Torstein Horgmo IS slopestyle snowboarding and I am old.

And on that note, this also brings us, sadly, to the end of mine and Torstein's love affair. Alas, I just don't think it's going to work out between us, on account of how I just found this...which is sliiiiightly more slope style than I can handle in my advanced years:

Torstein Horgmo: Norway's answer to Flavor Flav??

Somebody pass me the Mountain Dew. And please put a lot of vodka in it.

Don't worry, Torstein. At least we'll always have the Winter Dew Tour Men's Slopestyle Snowboard Event:

Lesley and Torstein: True Love Forever For A Few Minutes.

STOP CRYING, TORSTEIN.

THE END

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P.S. The amount of research I did for this post is amazing! This blog has reached a new level of greatness, where greatness equals oh my god no one is even reading this far down anymore.

P.S.S. Take a minute and a half out of your life and watch this before you go, because the snowboarding shots I included above don't come close to doing the sport justice:

And if you don't find this at least a little awe-inspiring, well then you haven't actually hit the play button yet. Or you are slightly dead inside. But don't worry: We like that kind of thing around here. (We even have shirts for it!)

P.S.S.S. HOLY FREAKING CRAP that is HOT. Nevermind –– we're back on, Torstein! I'll just have to adapt:

Because I am totally like a chameleon. Only with a better hat.

The Post Where I Tell Readers To F*ck Off!! (No, Not You, Readers) ("Feed Readers") (OH NEVERMIND – I DON'T GET IT EITHER)

So: I just published a new page on this blog (See above? In the navigation bar? "The Um...What??" store?) (OH, NO ONE CARES) in which new page equals this thing you work on just as hard as you work on all your posts but that doesn't get picked up in anyone's "readers," so then nobody sees the new page, which essentially means "readers" make me lose readers. WTF??? This is called irony or what previously wrinkled clothes now look like.

And as if this wasn't bad enough, the new page activity doesn't get registered in my blog calendar either, so in my sidebar it looks like I haven't published anything since January 11th which is incorrect and I do not appreciate that, Typepad. This makes me seem like I only blog every 11 days at best and what kind of lame-a$$ blogger does THAT? I blog every 8-9 days. JERKS. So then in order to alert you I have to publish this quasi-post which isn't even worth getting picked up in anyone's readers but still does anyway and then you log on and find THIS and you're all, "WTF IS THIS STUPID-A$$ CRAP??" So then I'm all, "Vagina mittens!" and "Elephant porn!" because it works for The Bloggess, and then you're all, I'M DELETING THIS NON-BLOGGING, PLAGIARIZING, IDIOT-A$$ BLOGGER FROM MY READER!!!!" which sucks for me because it's not my fault I have to write crap like this because everyone's "readers" DON'T WORK RIGHT. F*ck off, "readers!!!!"

Oh, good grief. This is just ridiculous.

Did I mention I published a new page on my blog?

Also: Next time I'll be blogging about snowboarding, which I know even less about than "readers"...if this gives you any indication as to how that's probably going to go.

Personally? I think the entire world of blogging might be tragically corrupt. I also think my blog is broken.

This Post Has Moses The Cat, Brain-Eating Zombies, My Friend MC And A Ridiculous Amount Of Hats (It Also Has NEXT TO NO POINT AT ALL) (Seriously...There's No Reason To Even Read This)

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 is very 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.

* * * * * * * * * *

P.S. to MC:  You are welcome.

2008: The Year In Photos (None of Which I Took Myself, Of Course, Because What Do I Look Like? A Photojournalist?) (I HAVE NO IDEA, ACTUALLY)

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 amateurs people 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.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy Various Holidays, Um What-ers! Let's Celebrate With Pepper Spray, Bank-Approved Auto Theft And A Black Lace Tutu!

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!

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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 yore your you'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 and throwing 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 instead BY 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.

This Quasi-Post Defines Both "Highly Successful" And "Borderline Obsessive" (It Also Has Drunk People In It!)

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 everywhere I 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 Post Has Door Slamming AND The Slammer! (It Also Uses the Word "Dipsh*t" Twelve Times)

This is a door:

"Um...What??" management -- that's who!

But it's not just any door. This particular door belongs to my new neighbor who just recently moved in across the hall from me. Or does it?? This is called The Setup or trying to get someone (ANYONE) not to immediately click off after waiting more than a week for a post from me and then logging on only to find a picture of a door. By the way? Here's another one:

 
This is totally true! You know, unless you count the home of The Bloggess or The Daily Snark or XUP or Wil Wheaton or Bossy or Reflecting or Maggie or Ryan (HI RYAN!) or Waltz or Lisa or Issa or any other blog on the web. Except Chris's blog, of course. BEING THAT IT'S DEAD.  Chris does have a nice Facebook page, though:

 
At least I'm assuming it's nice. I can't actually see it myself since I'm not a member of Facebook because Facebook is for people who actually do things like doing things, after which they brag about them online to people they know. Because Facebook is also for people who actually know other people. I know my cat, but that's called CATSTER and anyway I'm getting totally sidetracked at this point.

As far as I can tell, my neighbor moved in across from me about two weeks ago. At least that was when the new and festive doormat appeared. It was striped and colorful and kind of reminded me of the circus which made me think of clowns and how it would be kind of awesome to be neighbors with a clown, except for that whole part about how clowns are completely creepy. Not to mention the fact I've worried on occasion –– usually any occasion I happen to be watching Poltergeist –– that my death might end up being directly or indirectly caused by a clown. Which would be pretty embarrassing if you think about it. Way more embarrassing than, say, getting killed by a Samurai which would at least have some kind of dignity due to the fact he would have a gigantic sword. And I don't really know for sure, but I think a Samurai is a more polite version of a Ninja, and that's nice. Because if you're going to kill me, the least you can do is try to be polite about it.

Okay, honestly: Why are we on this topic? Enough about my death (You: Nooo! We love this topic!) and back to the subject of my new neighbor. Appearing next to his doormat on that first day was a cheery stone sculpture of a rabbit, which doesn't really have anything to do with anything except for how I know you guys like dead animals and whatnot and this is the closest I can come to including one in this post.

Anyway, you'd think a festive doormat and a cheery stone bunny would add up to a nice new neighbor, wouldn't you? WELL IT DIDN'T. Instead, it added up to this, where 1 + 1 = IS IT 2 LATE FOR ME TO JUST GO AHEAD AND OFF MYSELF?:

 
Meet! My! Neighbor!
"Won't you be, won't you be, won't you be...MY NEIGHBOR?!"
OH MY GOOD GOD. NO.

Also, it turns out I just found out this guy's real name. More on how I discovered this further down in the post. This is called Dramatic Suspense or THE SIX PEOPLE STILL READING THIS DO NOT CARE.

I'm not sure what issue my apartment complex has when it comes to doors, but our individual apartment doors slam just as hard as the one to our gym does. If you don't hold onto your doorknob to help guide your door closed -- and forget ever having your door stand open on its own -- you're going to knock pictures off your own walls. And this is not even a slight exaggeration since I am not exaggerating even in the slightest. All you have to do is accidentally let your door fly just once and you're not only going to realize that what results is way too loud and way too violent for civilized living, but you're also probably going to need some kind of resuscitation from your self-inflicted heart attack, but none of your neighbors are going to give this to you because you just slammed your door and, well, DIE, DOOR SLAMMER! (You'll also need a new picture frame for the picture of Moses the Cat you had hanging in your entryway that is now in two pieces on your floor.) And so for these reasons and also because you don't hate your neighbors, you're going to be careful when you close your door. Because you live in an apartment community where community equals a social group where each of you shares a certain locality with the others but you don't want to actually talk to or interact with anyone else but still want to know that someone will care enough to call the authorities should they smell something dead coming from your apartment, especially if no one has seen you go in or out of it for days.

But these rules of community do not apply if you're The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy! Because if you're The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy YOU WILL JUST KEEP SLAMMING YOUR DOOR. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. LIKE A DIPSH*T. Because, well, who cares? Because Dipsh*t Guy has nerves of steel -- you don't even know the half of it yet (this is called Foreshadowing or THE FOUR PEOPLE STILL READING THIS DO NOT CARE) -- and because Dipsh*t Guy should also have a totally different doormat -- like one with the phrase "I'm A Dipsh*t Guy" written on it. Or perhaps the slightly less poetic but equally appropriate phrase, "SCREW YOU."

Because it's one thing to slam your door every time you go in or out of your apartment. It's another thing entirely to slam your door every time you go in or out of your apartment when you have periods where you go in and out of your apartment an average of 20 times in an hour. At all hours including many times before seven in the morning and other times after midnight. Sometimes I'd have absolutely no idea what he was doing because I couldn't see where he'd go. Other times I'd have even LESS of an idea what he was doing because I could see him, and my brain simply couldn't process the information. Like, for example, when everything came to a head during last weekend's Beach Chair Incident.

(No, not this weekend that just passed. The weekend before that. Thanksgiving weekend. Because "Um...What??" is that busy. YEAH RIGHT. No one is busy here. This blog just SUCKS and it's THE BEST WE CAN DO and we consider it a miracle when we can even FIND the publish button. Or our pants.)

Anyway. The beach chair. Last Saturday afternoon, The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy slammed his door no less than 13 times in a half hour period. That's right. I took notes because I wanted to tell you all about it here because I knew you totally wouldn't care. Basically, he was moving a beach chair around. And moving his vehicles around. And did I mention he was moving a beach chair around?:

Exit apartment.

SLAM!   (This is when I ran to the peephole and then ran to my front windows and then back to the peephole and I am a VERY, VERY busy person, by the way. That time before when I said I wasn't was just creative license.)

Go downstairs. Retrieve beach chair from back of truck and bring it upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!

Go immediately back outside, still carrying beach chair.

SLAM!

Go downstairs. Put beach chair back into truck.

Go back upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!

Go back downstairs, maybe 30 seconds later at most. Retrieve beach chair from truck again, this time stuff it into back seat of BMW. Stare at handiwork for a moment, then go back upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!

Immediately open apartment door again, glance around hallway for a bit, then go back inside.

SLAM!

(Seriously. WTF?)

Wait a couple minutes, then emerge from apartment to go back downstairs again.

SLAM!

Take beach chair out of BMW (I AM NOT KIDDING) and (do I even need to tell you??) put it back into truck.

Pull truck out of parking space and move it into visitor parking. Then move BMW into space truck was in. Even though BMW already in a legal, assigned space. TAKE BEACH CHAIR OUT OF TRUCK AND BRING IT BACK UPSTAIRS INTO APARTMENT.

SLAM!

BOOM-BOOM!!!  Okay. This part actually had nothing to do with neighbor guy and everything to do with the sonic booms created by the space shuttle reentry. Only I forgot about the space shuttle reentry -- despite the fact I'd just been watching NASA TV online –– because I became momentarily distracted running around between my windows and the peephole. And since I was now certain that the booms I heard were the result of an explosion because suspicious neighbor had just BLOWN UP HIS PART OF THE BUILDING, I had a slight heart attack followed by the urgent need to breathe into a paper bag only I didn't have a paper bag because who makes brown bag lunches anymore and what else would I use a bag like that for? Oh. RIGHT. But then Wil Wheaton sent this tweet and I realized I didn't need a paper bag or a defibrillator:

Seriously: 70% of what I know is from Wikipedia, the other 30% is from Wil Wheaton. NOT REALLY!
85% is from Wil. Duh.

Until:

SLAM!

Stand out in hallway and look thoroughly concerned and perplexed. Obviously doesn't know what the sonic booms were. Clearly not enjoying LOUD, FRIGHTENING DOSE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE. Goes back into apartment.

SLAM!

Go back downstairs (NO BEACH CHAIR) and move truck into parking space where BMW was. So now (for those keeping track) both of his cars are back in his assigned spots...just reversed now. We are also at 10 slams. Get out of truck and stand and stare at it for a while. Go back upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!  (Now 11.)

At this point I have had enough and I am writing A NOTE. There's another slam (SLAM!) but I don't see what he's doing because I am busy writing A NOTE that includes the word "PLEASE" 13 times (counting the extra one in parenthesis for effect) as in "PLEASE x 13 STOP SLAMMING YOUR DOOR." And the fact that the number of times I wrote "PLEASE" and the number of times he slammed his door ended up the same is either a total coincidence or it is foreshadowing of the evil that is to come because 13 is an evil number, right one whole person who is still reading here (or: Maureen)?
 
So while he was outside doing whatever, I ran across the hall and shoved the note in his door jam. Then I ran back inside as fast as I could because I'm not an idiot (well, I mean except when it comes to blogging) and I'm fairly certain this guy is BATSH*T CRAZY. He eventually comes back up the stairs, pauses to read my note, crumples it up and goes back into his apartment.

SLAM EXTRA SUPER-HARD WITH FEELING!

By the way: When he came back up he was holding THE BEACH CHAIR. No one could make up this crap. Which means he went down with it. Again. And then immediately brought it back up. Again. And I have NO IDEA what is going on. Again. And oh yeah: JERK! Deliberately slamming his door after one of his neighbors sarcastically politely asked him if he he could maybe please (x 13) stop?

So, I did the only thing left to do: I e-mailed the apartment manager to complain. And by Monday night when I got home, there was a note on each of the doors in my building talking about "increasing complaints of door-slamming" and citing various 1.23 blah blah codes in our lease about "noise regulations." Because where I live? They take your crap seriously. That...or the fact that the one person who actually shares a wall with Dipsh*t Guy and, therefore, might be the one guy more annoyed than me is the apartment manager. HAHA, World's Dumbest Dipsh*t!

The letter stated that if the door slamming didn't cease and desist immediately management could and would evict the offender(s). First off, this is the kind of balls-to-the-wall management style I can totally get behind. "PAY YOUR RENT ON TIME OR WE'LL BURN YOUR SH*T DOWN." Second off, they were NOT kidding because shortly thereafter the police showed up, slapped the cuffs on The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy and hauled his a$$ away! Because guess what??? It turns out that slamming your door repeatedly in the Santa Clarita Valley IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE.

HAHA! Of course it isn't. But running a multi-million dollar credit card scam out of your apartment is.

To be totally honest with you, I had no idea at all about the arrest at the time it was happening. Sure, I was in my apartment and sure there were like six cops milling around in the hallway outside my door (I found out later) and sure I could see the flashing cop car lights through my front window and didn't think anything of it. Because, apparently, unless door slamming is involved I cannot be bothered. For all I know there might have even been a shootout in the hallway (I'm not totally clear on this) but I do play my TV kind of loud and sometimes Moses The Cat can get all chatty and who the hell can hear the blaze of gunfire over the sound of the meow-meow? No one, that's who. And really? The only reason I know anything about this at all has nothing to do with either Wikipedia or Wil Wheaton this time and instead has everything to do with my friend Kathy who -- for the 14 plus years I've known her -- has had an uncanny ability to remember and put together the most random of details to observe things in the world most people miss.

This is what she did last week when, after I made a very passing mention of my door slamming dipsh*t of a neighbor and his two vehicles and his unhealthy obsession with his beach chair, she came across an article in her morning paper last week that instantly caught her eye. "Hey," she said to me. "Doesn't that guy have a truck and an older BMW? And didn't you say he still had a bunch of moving boxes stacked up inside his door?"

OH. MY. GOD. Yes and yes. And as it turns out? This guy was up to a lot more than slamming his door:

 

You do realize the irony of all of this, right? The door slammer? Going to the slammer???
 
Welcome, everyone who has hung with me this far (or: Maureen), to my neighbor's NEW door(s)!:

NO.

Innocent until proven guilty and blah blah blah GUILTY!!! All I know is three dudes showed up a couple days ago and hauled away all his stuff. Now the place is all locked up and I can't get in there to snoop around RUDE. And now I am left in blessed, slam-less silence to contemplate my two remaining burning questions:

1) What the hell happened to the beach chair? And 2) WHAT IF THE DUDES WHO LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF ME ARE UP TO SOMETHING, TOO?? Oh, like I even care. The fact is they NEVER slam their door so I LOVE THEM.

 

I'm The Tiger Woods of Bloggers! Unless It's Like Copyright Infringement Or Libel Or Something, In Which Case I'm Totally Not

If I have learned one thing from my blog stats, it's this: I seriously do not understand my blog stats.

Take this week, for example. This week my stats seem to indicate that, if given a choice between live animals and dead animals, you people would much rather read all about dead ones. Either I'm confused by the numbers and this is totally wrong, or you people are sick. Because after the whole dead lizard/dead bird post? MY STATS HAVE BASICALLY TRIPLED. Tripled.

Me: This is so exciting! I have rescued a super-cute doggy schmush face off the side of the road! Cute! Licky! Plays the kazoo!

You: Sound of snoring.

Me:  Hey! There are dead animals everywhere I look!

You: OH MY GOD!!! Click click click click page view page view page view page view click click click e-mail link to friends retweet click click page view TIMES A GAGILLION bookmark click click page view page view click click click click SMOKE COMING OUT OF BACK OF COMPUTER click page view click page view DEAD ANIMALS DEAD ANIMALS DEAD ANIMALS click click click click clickclickclickclickclick WEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Okay. While I'm pretty sure this behavior isn't normal and I probably should be worried for your souls and whatnot -- I am nothing if not deeply invested in each and every one of you -- HELLO? TRIPLED BLOG STATS? It turns out I'm busy so you'll have to tend to your own eternal selves.

HA HA!! Who am I kidding? Caring about stats is for people who actually, you know, care about stats and anyway, what do I look like -- a statistician? Truthfully, I have no idea. Maybe! Are they hot looking? Oh, never mind. This doesn't have anything to do with my actual point here which, if I keep typing long enough, I'm sure I'm bound to remember sooner or later.

You:  Like maybe now?

Me:   Blank staring.

        Excessive blinking.

        Eventual light napping coupled with slight drooling.

        COMA.

Me:  (17 hours later):  OH! I remember! BUSTER! (Keep reading. CHRIS.) I have an update on Buster who is very much alive. Which makes me happy because I am a normal person who prefers my animals with a pulse. Learn from me. But don't worry. I've got you all covered, so just stick with me through the end of this post and you won't be sorry.

First, my Buster update. Remember this illustration?:

         

Well here's the real thing:

This is seriously the most awesome thing I've seen in as long as I can remember, where the most awesome thing equals THE MOST AWESOME THING.

Unless, of course, it's this:

              
 Or maybe this:
        

 

That's right: This blog post is all about A-LIVE Buster and his happy ending! My blog stats can just suck it -- big deal! Plus, to be perfectly honest, I'm not completely convinced that lower stats aren't better. What if blogging is like golf? Lowest score wins! Maybe I am the Tiger Woods of bloggers? Should blog wearing green blazer?

Regardless of how amazing I look in a blazer (think "professional" meets "sexy" where professional means sexy and sexy means even sexier), the moment M's mom told me how much it meant to her that I'd given her son the amazing gift of a best friend to grow up with (because that is what Buster and M have quickly become), I realized that if I do nothing else in my life that makes any kind of a difference, I've managed to do one thing in my life that's made a big kind of difference.

And second (because yes, there was a "first" -- it was just a while ago because SOMETIMES I GET SIDETRACKED...SO WHAT??? This isn't English class and anyways, if it was? A++++ for me!) I have this for you -- in case near-negative stats ARE bad (not that I care, but sometimes when I think about it, I get afraid Typepad or maybe the government will make me shut down my blog on account of it creates a GIANT BLACK-HOLE VORTEX OF USELESS SPACE ON THE INTERWEBS, except of course, for the days it's filled with DEAD ANIMALS) and also because I am here to make you happy, death-infatuated faithful readers:

 

There. Happy?? Good! I will most likely burn in hell, but don't worry about that.

Seriously though. Who would draw something like this? And who are the other nine people who downloaded it before I did? Oh, like I don't already know it's YOU GUYS.

Next time? Stay tuned for BARBEQUED BUNNIES.

Oh dear god OF COURSE THERE WON'T BE ANY BARBEQUED BUNNIES. Not next time or ever. Get. Some. Help.

Dead Lizards And Birds Really Aren't That Inspiring, Frankly (But A New Soda Machine In My Living Room Would Be)

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.

This Post Has A Dead Blog, State Politics, A Baby In A Festive Hat And A Lot Of Pairs of Boobs

This blog is dead.

No, not this blog. This blog is fine. There will be plenty of posts after this one for you to return to again and again:

Yeah. Disappointing.

The blog I'm actually talking about is this one. Chris's blog. Chris, who most of the time, doesn't even seem to remember he has a blog. Hey Chris! You do. And it looks like this:

       

It's not really Chris's fault though. Or so he tells me. Or something. Oh, I don't really know since I'm usually only half-listening. As far as I can understand, he has a busy life. Largely in part because of his extremely busy publishing job. Busy, busy, busy, busy:

 

See? Work, work, work. It's just as awful as it looks. Trust me.

   

More work doing...this. (This is extra torturous since math is involved.) The girl on the right is me. HAHA! Of course it isn't me. I'm way hotter.

       

 

And this...cheerleader-y thing.

         

Plus this. I'm tired just looking at this. When does the man sleep? Sad.

       

Busy, busy, busy, BUSY.

   

This kind of deep thinking is a LOT of work.

    

     As is this kind of high-level Political Summiting:

 

Politics blah blah state economy yadda yadda action hero woo wee write in your dead blog, dude.

Why??

Because I have ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD where NOTHING EVER CHANGES and I AM BORED, BORED, BORED, BORED and I need something new to read:

I seriously wish I was kidding.

In conclusion (part 1): In lieu of flowers for Chris's dead blog (R.I.P. Scribbles), please send donations TO ME since I have totally slapped together worked very, very hard on this post.

And in conclusion (part 2): To all of my readers who like the ladies, you are welcome. And to all of my readers who like Chris, you are welcome too.

Dreams Do Come True (Not For Me, Obviously, But For Other People Who Aren't Me) (Oh, And For Dogs I Meet)

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 can have 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!!

Swooooooooon!

And speaking of happy endings:

More Steve.

This Is Not A Real Blog Post (Though You Can Rest Assured You'll Be The First To Know If I Ever Write One) (I WON'T)

Yesterday, I added a new page to my blog. Which I thought was really awesome until I hit publish and then spent the next 27 minutes trying to figure out where on my site it actually went. Which, if you think about it, is hardly any time all. I totally am an idiot have a black belt in blogging. Anyway, after much futzing I finally got it situated up there in that other thing that's new to this blog as of yesterday: the navigation bar. See it? Up there on the left? Above my picture?

I was so excited once I found out Typepad had finally rolled out this feature. I then became slightly less excited when I found out that incorporating the navigation bar would probably require each of you to enlarge your screens to at least 175% to even notice it since it's created in a default font size of REQUIRES ENLARGING TO AT LEAST 175%. At least it does in this particular Typepad theme, anyway. And I'm not switching themes either, because this theme is red and I like red, especially since I recently found out that red totally boosts my sex appeal and if that's not the point of blogging, I have no idea what is. Of course this same article also points out that red doesn't make you appear any smarter, which clearly isn't news to anyone here.

But this post isn't actually about the navigation bar, it's about – try to stay focused here – my new Cast of Characters page. Because for those of you who subscribe to this blog in a reader, I know it won't pick up a new page the way it picks up new posts. I honestly have no idea how I first came across this little tidbit since I don't subscribe in any readers myself. (To any readers?) Anyway, when it comes to other blogs I thought I was the reader so really this subject does nothing but confuse me and I need to stop talking about it.

So for those of you who think I haven't written anything in a week, I have. And for those of you who seriously doubt what I'm doing here is called writing, it isn't. It's called boring blogging, which everyone knows involves WAY more talent, including but not limited to drawing arrows on your pictures in Photoshop, adding tongues to dogs in Illustrator and bragging to your fellow bloggers about how you have higher stats than they do. Even though regardless of who offers up the higher number you are both totally lying. Unless you are me. Because I never lie. Plus? I can actually prove how high my stats are:

 

Take THAT, Perez Hilton, with your "three million unique visitors" a day. I seriously doubt all those people are all that unique.

I hope all 275 gagillion of you like the new page. Which I'm alerting you "subscribe in a reader" readers of via this post. I'll revisit and update the new page as needed.

Like any of you need any of this.

OH: here's a link to the new page for those of you who still can't find the navigation bar.

Actually, My Life IS Scary Enough That I Probably Should Be Peeing On Myself Way More Often Than I Already Am

My friend MC recently asked me if I actually did draw that porcupine up in my banner. I love this question because it so perfectly symbolizes all the years of our friendship: I am a talentless hack-slash-borderline idiot, and he just refuses to think I'm anything less than wonderful and accomplished, despite all ongoing evidence to the contrary. And it's not that he disregards the evidence. It's that he really doesn't see it. Because he's my friend. And automatically assumes the best of me. And I really do hope all of you out there are lucky enough to have a person like this in your lives. You know, one who has suffered an undiagnosed head injury.

Because seriously? I can draw a grand total of one thing. Which I have been practicing for at least 30 years now. And happens to look like this:

And before you make fun of me (which, to be honest, is rude), please note I drew this with my mouse. And my right hand. (I'm left-handed.) You can rest assured that if I actually drew this on a piece of paper with a pencil and my proper hand, it would look exactly as bad.

Anyway, our conversation about the porcupine drawing took place on the phone and went a little something like this:

MC:  (Blah, blah, blah bunch of stuff I don't really remember that clearly, probably about how I am beautiful and intelligent and complete him and give his life meaning and yadda yadda you get the idea...) So that Porcupine IS pretty good. Did you draw him yourself?

Me:  What? Are you new?

MC:  Oh. Hold on. So you did?

Me:  Of course I did. (Oh my good god. Cannot even draw Tic Tac Toe board. Can only "draw" Elephant: Butt View and that doesn't even count because I've practiced it 905,413 times so it's not even like drawing and is instead more like tracing from my brain. So I can only brain-trace it.)

MC:  I have to say though – that circle that's under him?

Me:  The spotlight thing?

MC:  Oh. Spotlight. Okay. With the expression on his face and everything? I was thinking it looks like he just peed himself. And that circle is pee.

Me:  Silence.

MC:  You know like, "Oops! I just peed. How'd that happen?!"

Me:  Silence.

MC:  You know, with the face? 'Cause his face looks all startled and confused? Which is how you'd look if you suddenly peed on yourself?

Me: Silence.

MC:  And then were standing in your own pee?

Me: Silence.

MC:  Did I tell you how beautiful you look today?

Me:  CLICK.

* * * * * * * * * *

To be honest, I might have taken some liberties with this conversation. Like the part where he said I looked beautiful. Obviously he didn't say that, because he couldn't see me through the phone. What he said was I looked hot which, of course, I did. Because I live in a world where having gray roots one week out of every month and wearing jeans with a baggy ass basically every single day are both way sexier than having big boobs. Which I also have. Just in case. Just to be clear.

You can't see me now, but I'm totally peeing. And I'm nowhere near a toilet.

Get Out Of Jail FREE! (Or For $41.00)

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 do YAY!

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!
   

YAY! Buster is saved!

THE END.

* * * * * * * * * *

For more information on adopting this wonderful boy, please visit here.

I Might Be Totally Missing The Point

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 foolish drunk accidentally on the wrong site awesome. 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.

First I Met A Dog And Then I Met A Snake Wrangler And Then I Had Really Bad Hair But Not Necessarily In That Order

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:

Read more about adopting me here!    

          

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...

Thank you, Issa!

This Post Has Carcinoma, Delicious Doom and The Butt Of A Bantha

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 we totally 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.

I'm Blogging About Blogging Again...In The Hopes I Can Distract You From The Fact I'm Not Actually Doing Any REAL Blogging

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're not 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.

If You Got Here By Googling "Boobs In My Face" I'm Guessing This Probably Isn't The Type of Site You Were Actually Looking For

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 very disappointed. 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 across this 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 got this 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.

It Would Have Been Really Awesome If I'd Remembered To Put The Following In Yesterday's Post (Or: I Wonder If I'll Be Allowed To Blog In Jail?)

The following is an actual conversation in that it actually happened. TWICE.

Mom:  When I die, I want you to spread my ashes on the field at Dodger Stadium.

Me:  What? I can't do that. They'll ARREST me.

Mom:  So?

Me:  Okay, honestly? I do not want to even be having this conversation.

Mom  (after a moment of silence):  I will haunt you. HAUNT you.