August 29, 2006
Is it weirder that I just took a nap and had a dream about being a badass vampire living in a house with Spike and Angelus, or that when I woke up, I was upset that it wasn't true?
Sarcastic British guys who call me Love gets me every time.
So, before another person IMs me to tell me how much they hate me, I didn't end up going to PAX because on Thursday night, I came down with a Killer Monster Death Disease. Call me melodramatic, but I spent much of the weekend rolling around in bed whining to Justin to bring me paper for my last will and testament. I also think I watch too much "House," because I was certain it was a tumor and I was going to have an aneurysm any minute. PAX next year, though. Definitely.
I also just have to mention this. I read in the paper today that the Emmys were on. Actually, I knew about it before because Traci was Tivoing it, and it made me hearken back to days when I cared about Awards Shows, which was around the same time I cared about who was a member of the New Kids on the Block. Anyway, so I read this morning that 4 -- let me say again FOUR Emmy Awards were given to...the 78th Annual Academy Awards.
What? WHAT?! An awards show won an award at another awards show?!
Now all they have to do is make a movie of the Emmys, and they can win an Academy Award to return the favor.
My old roommate Sam used to joke that a supervillain would one day release the Academy Awards as a feature-length movie and ruin the game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" forever. Now, it doesn't seem so unlikely.
Speaking of Sam, I was recently given the following video of him. I don't really know what it is, but I think it's a commercial for Smirnoff. Sam is the one who usually stands on the right out of the three guys. I am proud to say that I knew this guy. Well, know this guy. He's still alive. He just doesn't return my phone calls. If I imagine it's because he's making commercials like this, I guess it's okay. If, however, this isn't a commercial, but rather his hip new rap group, I think it's for the best that he doesn't call me back.
August 24, 2006
I have to keep this short, because due to a cruel hoax perpetrated by my fitness center's physical trainers, I am unable to keep my arms elevated from my sides for any period of time without tearing up.
I know, I know, I said I wouldn't pay for their bollocks, but they made me an offer I couldn't refuse, namely, holding up a picture of me eclipsing the other bridesmaids at the bachelorette party. Anyway, now would be a really bad time for bad guys to break in and try to kill me. I consider myself a pretty savvy girl, and before my mind drifts off to dreams of kittens and rainbows at night in bed, I always make a mental note of the most easily accessible or readily improvisable weaponry which could assist me on my various escape routes I have planned out of my house. One of my current favorites is wielding Scamp's scratching post as I monkey out the back window and up the avocado tree.
Anyway, as a present to myself for working out so hard, and as a peace offering and apology so I don't give myself the silent treatment and make myself sleep on the futon, I am taking myself to PAX this weekend. Justin can come, too.
I have actually never been to a "con," which, for all you non-nerds, stands for "confidence man." I'm unsure what to expect. Should I dress like Tycho and/or Gabe? Do I need to get there early so I can make it in time for the heat-sweltering lines wrapped around the block? Am I going to be the only one there with a second x chromosome? (Hint: NOT what the x stands for in PAX.)
Well, I'm super excited, and I wish I had planned ahead better so I could make all three days of it, but I was afraid of making a commitment, because...well, just read this if it isn't obvious already that I have a few issues that need to be dealt with.
I'll be sure to take lots of wacky pictures!!!!
August 22, 2006
I've off-handedly voiced my opinion on MySpace before, and over the past few years it's oscillated between "Oh, my gosh, I can't believe people like this crap" to "Hey, there's that guy I forgot existed!" to "No, I will not accept your friendship, Rock Band from Skowhegan" to "No, you did NOT leave me out of your Top 8! WE'RE THROUGH!"
Now, I have a few friends who are viciously against it, and even though their names are Traci and I love them, I look upon their nonconformist disdain with the same smirk of pity I used to reserve for people in high school that reminded me at every opportunity that they "just don't like TV all that much." These people are named Tom, and they now open conversations with me with zingers from the latest Family Guy episode.
MySpace isn't as much of a necessity as e-mail, isn't as helpful as Google, and isn't as regularly hilarious as, say, Gorilla Mask, but it's definitely an amusing way to waste some time, and isn't that why we're all here on the internet anyway?
Here's the thing.
An old teacher of mine made the following comparison back when I took my Required Computer Class freshman year of high school. Of course, back then, the people who have elaborate layouts on MySpace now were eyeing the keyboard as if they'd just been asked to play an impromptu concerto on the harp, while the savvy, nerdy kids had AOL accounts and were proud of it. Our poor teacher was trying to tout the benefits of using the newfangled "browser," Netscape, and point the AOL hipsters toward the light. He said using AOL is like riding a bus, whereas using a browser is like driving your own car. With AOL, you go where AOL wants you to go, and if AOL wants to stop the bus or crash into the side of a building and burst into flames, AOL will do it! Whereas if you own your own car, you can drive to the store, the library, your friend's house, the porn shop, the free cialis mortgage penis enlarger store, ANYWHERE YOU PLEASE!
Of course, I used this new-found knowledge to "drive" myself to a forum during class (that I adorably called a "chat room." Aren't I cute?). I used every subsequent class to chat with someone named "JokerGuy," who for some reason, thought I was 25, blonde, and really interesting. This was clearly before the days of firewalling or website blocking or any form of history monitoring in the school, but I was never able to tell if we didn't have it because it was before the technology or if it was because my computer teacher was in the other room posting in the same forum under the name "JokerGuy."
MySpace is the new Bus of websites. It's a bus that plays any music you want, even -- NAY, especially if your friends want to hear ANYTHING BUT your crappy taste in music. It's a bus that can make you look like a king of web design for the small price of having a huge button at the top proclaiming "LAYOUT PROVIDED BY SEXY_VAJAYJAY'S HOUSE OF MYSPACE LAYOUTS!" It's a bus that makes you wonder "If I have so many friends, why don't I have ONE DAMN COMMENT ON A PICTURE I POSTED?!?"
Now, recently, as I've mentioned in the past, someone let it slip to the media that MySpace is a popular website.
Well, ever since then the Evil Media has been trying its darnedest to make MySpace out to be a cesspool of pedophiles and sexy, sexy young girls. The Evil Media hates a lot about the internet -- especially the whole part about people paying more attention to it because of the (slightly) smaller number of commercials and larger number of people sharing interesting stories from the heart and not from the TelePrompTer.
Well, I have a message for you Media. MySpace isn't evil. It's just a smaller, easier-to-use internet. Pedophiles and sexy, sexy young girls are everywhere, but statistically more are gonna get it on via MySpace. It's sad, but true. The same principle applies to the sheer probability of statutory rapes that happen at my cat's scratching post versus the local children's playground.
Do you see the math? Just because slightly more pedophiles and sexy young girls hang out at local playgrounds than at my cat's scratching post, it's easy to tout the numbers and act like the playground is to blame, when plenty of other normal people use the playground for playing and meeting friends and posting shitty Fall Out Boy lyrics and goddamn surveys in bulletins every fucking day. I DON'T CARE IF YOU LIKE SKIM MILK MORE THAN 2%! GET A FUCKING PERSONALITY.
I'm sorry. That got a little out of hand there. I'm okay now.
So there's my MySpace-ifesto. It's a necessary evil. Like, uh, I don't know. IPods. You don't really NEED it, but you're not really gonna use a walkman, are you?
August 20, 2006
So I've been pretty much in a bad mood all week.
I've been dieting and working out for the past week and a half and so far the only changes I've seen in my life are that I am much more hungry and sore and cranky.
So while in Emo Mode I happened to notice how much of my daily routine is comprised of Making Myself Presentable.
In my bathroom, I have Whitening Strips because my lack of drinking coffee and smoking coupled with my brushing twice a day just doesn't seem to cut it anymore.
I also have tanning cream, because I don't want to frighten small children with my pallid exterior. I don't want to tan "naturally" because I don't want skin cancer, but I try to avoid going outside anyway because there are bears out there. Unfortunately, I am slightly allergic to the tanning cream, but itching all over is a small price to pay for not looking like a Joss Whedon character.
In my bedroom, I have SuperMax Anti Perspirant which is so potent I can only use it once a week. If and when I do perspire even one drop, it stings so badly, it's almost as if it's simply pH-balanced shock therapy designed to condition me mentally to stop sweating.
All the food in my overflowing pantries is nothing I actually want to eat, but rather what is "good" for me to eat. Unfortunately, life is not a video game, and if I eat +1 apple, I can't actually watch my health meter go up, I just kind of have to hope that it does.
When I look around, the only self-indulgent things I own are my computer and my video games, both of which I turn to when I am hungry, sweaty, and pale.
I don't blame society for doing these things, because I like people who are thin, tan, have white teeth, and no sweat marks. I guess I'm just upset that I have to do a whole lot of crap to appear normal.
Then I remember that right now, my brother is alone in a forest trying to find a squirrel so he can eat today. And I feel like a bitch for complaining. But that's a story for another day.
August 13, 2006
You know what I'm sick of?
I'm sick of people on websites getting big and famous. Sour grapes? No. It's because they become even more boring and self-involved than they already were.
I enjoy reading Greek Tragedy, but nowadays all the entries are about how her book's coming out and how boring interviews are and how she feels about giving speeches at Borders. She's a good writer. But...she's also hot and talks about sex explicitly, which = media coverage. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but anyone who's seen "Sex in the City" should be so over that. People act like it's breaking news that women have sex and talk about it.
I sometimes enjoy Maddox, and I very much approve of his scathing humor, but when I saw that his book was 30% off and next to a collection of Cathy comics and "Chicken Soup for the Authors Who Can't Think of Another Damn Group to Give Chicken Soup To's Soul" at a local Borders, I couldn't help but smile a big smile. His book is all about being macho and butch, and when I gave it a pity thumb-through, it reeked too much of present-day Maxim magazine's attitude of "I'm trying to hard to buck the sensitive guy image of the '90s, so here's a picture of me punching a baby! Edgy and fresh, right, guys?!" I can't say that I hate him, though, because I enjoy his opinions on most things, and he doesn't shamelessly tout his book. I just disapprove of the image he thought he had to portray to appeal to the masses in his book. Why not write a book on all the stuff he complains about? His articles have nothing to do with being manly. They have to do with common sense. I guess common sense doesn't sell books, but if you want to appeal to frat boys, book-readin' probably isn't the smartest route. Might I suggest the visor and popped-collar industry?
Finally, there's Tucker Max, who I won't even grace with a link. I hate this guy more than I hate drunken self-absorbed aging frat boys, which is what he is anyway, so he is like an imploding void of my hate. To know my enemy without falling victim to the Shock-Jock-hatred conundrum (hating a DJ, but somehow still listening to his show every day) I have read a total of three of his stories, and each of them seethed so much hatred out of me that my hair almost caught on fire. He basically posts about what an drunken ass he is and how much everyone loves him. And since the internet is a cesspool of drunken asses, he gets a lot of hits, and then wrote a book about being an ass and people loving him. Now he posts about being famous and an ass and people loving him. What I hate about him is what I hate about Fifa and Madden games. We nerds used to have our safe havens of video games and the internet, but now that those things have been dumbed down for the masses, we're subjected to all that crap. It's like I have to take up friggin ham radio to be a nerdy minority anymore.
Anyway, I promise you that if I ever "make it" in the Internet or even the t-shirt business, I will try to keep it real and not punch any babies.
August 12, 2006
Yesterday a woman asked me if I was Melissa's mother.
I have been mistaken for a lot of things. I've been mistaken for my brother. I've been mistaken for a boy. I've been mistaken for a Target manager after mistakenly shopping there with a red shirt on. But I have never been mistaken for someone's mother, especially when that someone is only a month and 2 days younger than me.
I'm not sure if the woman based the assumption on the fact that I look like I'm 50 or if Melissa looked like a little kid. Let's just say I was a slut and had Melissa when I was 12. That would make Melissa...14 now. I guess she could pass for a 14-year-old. Let's just go with that.
But the reason the woman asked me if she was my daughter was because I was parking at Melissa's work and I asked her if I could use Melissa's parking pass. So the woman assumed a 14-year-old was employed as a high-profile Hollywood assistant. Yeah, that's likely, right, guys?
I guess I'm gonna go exfoliate or something.
August 09, 2006
I just want to start this post off by saying that I think it's really cool that no one ever comments ever and that comments definitely do not affect my sense of self-worth. Just so we're clear on that.
So my personal trainer tried to kill me today. They lured me in with promises of a free day of training and a shiny new notebook in which to record my progress, and then she took me up to the weights and tried to kill me with them. I always thought that there was a rule that you go a little easy on out-of-shape sloths like me so that their atrophied muscles don't herniate out their skin pores. Was that a nice visual? I should write for doctor books!
Anyway, this trainer clearly did not subscribe to this theory. And since I'm really a guy in a sexy, sexy disguise, when she said "Now, 10 more, but it would be awesome if you did 20 more," I always did the 20 more. And now I need a wheelchair.
She was just my trainer for one day, and after she explained the price for simply a weekly personal trainer, she will remain being just my trainer for one day. I think I'm capable of kicking my own ass just fine. And although I don't have a snazzy notebook of goals since I didn't pay their bajillion dollars, I came right home and made an excel spreadsheet of my goals. It looked a little sad, so I colored in the cells with a rainbow theme! Okay, maybe I'm not really a guy in disguise.
August 07, 2006
I saw "Over the Hedge" on the plane ride home yesterday.
In my defense, my laptop battery had just died in the middle of a good episode of Buffy, and I was yearning to do something that was not sleep and not read the boring magazines in the hands of the people sitting on both sides of me.
Anyway, let me just say that I would have WALKED OUT, had "out" not meant through an emergency exit at 30,000 feet. "Over the Hedge" offended me as a human being.
Let's deal with the superficial first. The characters were boring looking. It looked like they were programmed with one expression and then copied and pasted into each scene, reminding me of Poochie's dramatic exit back to his home planet in The Simpsons.
The voice acting was awful. AWFUL. I'm sorry, just because you're a big star does not mean you should be a squirrel. Steve Carell was AWFUL as the part of a hyperactive squirrel. It sounded so forced. I also think they sped it up to sound higher. How hard would it have been to get Dane Cook or someone else who is actually really hyper all the time? Yes, fine, Steve Carell is a funny guy. Whatever. He makes a funny face. Guess what? Not so good for voice acting.
Most everyone else was just a caricature of themselves. William Shatner was William Shatner. Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara were married and had midwest accents. Hey, I remember that movie being funny...WHEN IT WAS CALLED "BEST IN SHOW." Avril Lavigne couldn't act, but she can't sing, either, so I didn't expect much. Garry Shandling was nervous and self-loathing. HOWEVER DID THEY GET INTO CHARACTER?!
Ben Folds provided the music, which was so promising and made me so happy at first...until I discovered that he rewrote "Rockin' The Suburbs" for the credits. It went from being about middle-class white boys acting all bad ass to being about how America is stupid because they go to supermarkets and have credit cards. FOR SHAME, AMERICA! Why should you want food or use alternate methods of payment?! What a sellout America is!
This leads us to the plot of the film. Not 10 minutes in, Bruce Willis the annoying-voiced raccoon explains via montage how easy it is to get food in suburbia. However he used the "Steven Colbert" method of explanation by pretending it's a good thing, when the whole audience thinks it's hilarious because it's NOT what you're supposed to think is a good thing!
The old switcheroo!
See, the little expressionless raccoon explains to the other animals how easy it is to get food since America loves food so much! A doorbell is just an announcement that food is here! Cars are just used to get food! People are couch potatoes! Wocka wocka wocka!
Probably poignant except for a few parts. Um, we need to eat. Can't we make a touching liberally slanted movie about how parents neglect their children by popping an "Over the Hedge" DVD into the player? How about mommy and daddy spending more time at work than at home? Perhaps a film about how stupid kids are these days? Can we stay away from the basest building block of life -- eating? Okay, maybe nachos aren't part of a complete breakfast, but if you're going to get preachy, do you think you should maybe stay away from mocking the demographic that the movie is going for? People who eat?
Let's not even mention the fact that you can pick up your own "Over the Hedge" figures and toys WITH YOUR WENDY'S KIDS MEAL!
OOOOH, Marketing: 1. Annoyingly touching message: 0.
They whine about a few other things: urban sprawl, driving SUVs, inhumane extermination, which would be valid points if only every single person I knew who touts himself as an ecology-minded vegetarian didn't live in the biggest house in the nicest part of town, drive the Hummiest of vehicles, and smash the most innocuous of bugs with their pints of Ben & Jerry's.
I felt the same way when, after my viewing of "An Inconvenient Truth," I watched the three hemp-wearers behind me, who had hooted and cheered through the entire film, hop back into their Hummer, crank up the A/C, drove off, and somewhere, Al Gore shed a single tear. There's one reason and one reason only why these movies upset me: I don't like being hypocritical.
I recycle, I don't litter, I try to conserve water, but I'm not going to agree with a movie that mocks people who drive SUVs and eat nachos, because guess what? My SUV has enough space to hold LOTS of nachos, which I like to eat.
Let's get to the most hypocritical point in the movie. THE END, so don't read this part if you're going to see it, which you shouldn't, so keep reading. The baby hedgehogs save the fucking day by using a GPS and driving a van using moves they learned on Grand Theft Auto 3 (which the movie "hilariously" called Big Stealy Cary 3 or some crap like that). But it wasn't even an ironic joke. It wasn't a lesson learned that, guess what, we don't live in log cabins and drive horses and eat maize anymore for a reason. They just...kind of saved the day that way, and meekly tried to drive the point home that the day was saved because the hyperactive squirrel found all his nuts so the turtle and his gang could eat the next winter.
The worst part -- I AM NOT MAKING THAT PLOT UP!!! Someone actually wrote and someone else actually green lit that piece of crap. Things like this make me yearn for Disney Schlock because at least Disney Shlock was pretty and had some catchy tunes.
I'd like to write more, but I've overshot my angry capital-letter quota for the day. I think I'll stick to watching Buffy on the plane because that has a message I fully endorse -- Don't let vampires bite your neck. Ooh, unless that vampire is Spike. Pretty Spike.
August 04, 2006
I worry too much.
I didn't want to buy my plane tickets for the bachelorette party too early because I worried that they were going to change the date on me. Plus, contrary to common sense, airlines don't give you any cheaper fares for booking way in advance. This, of course, is ludicrous, which makes my worrisome nature conflict with itself -- do I book now and get it over with, escaping the possibility of forgetting to do it at the last second, or do I wait because a random cheaper fare may come at any moment. I honestly think that the airlines' method of choosing seat prices is they feed a large book to a goat, and whatever pages he doesn't eat, they add the page numbers up, and that's your fare.
So I've been worried about that in the back of my mind for about 6 months, and some internal clock set me on "Worry More" as the date loomed near. When I finally booked the flight, I was just within the window of opportunity to ask off for work. That was a close one. I then booked the flight, and the next day, my google calendar reminded me to book a flight -- right on the day when it would have been too late to call off. This is why I worry. No matter how many precautions I take, I still come that close to moronosity.
So all of last week, I'm worried that it's Thursday and I'm missing my plane. Every night, I have a couple moments of fear that I've been so stupid as to miss the plane. In my own defense, I've never actually done this in all my years of flying, but I wouldn't put it past me.
Thursday comes and I of course remember, only, on the way to LAX, I start freaking out that I might be departing from Burbank. My printer doesn't work, so I just copied the important stuff like flight numbers and times, not the unimportant stuff like which airport...
I get to LAX and it's of course the right airport, but I can't remember which airline. Luckily I call my mom, or as I call her, The Root of OCD, and she politely informs me that it's United, and asks if I happen to know what city I'm flying to. Mexico, Canada perhaps?
After a little drama at check-in -- they don't accept my card, and for the first time, some random number I wrote on my paper actually helps me -- I stand in the longest line ever for security. Ironically, this is the only time I'm not worried. The silly people around me, however, who only left 1 hour to spare before their flights are fretting about it, but not me! I left 3 hours to spare! And they call me anal. Who's laughing now?!?!
Not me, because soon I get to my gate, and it does not say Washington (my connection city before Pittsburgh), it instead says Sydney, Australia. It's common to have flights at the gate before yours, especially when you get there 3 hours early, so I sat down and tried to relax with my book. However, at this point in my book, the bad guys were right on their tail, and I was unable to relax.
3 hours came and went, and the gate still said...Sydney, Australia. Another sheepish call to my mom got me the next crazy question -- "Well, did you look at the monitors to be sure this is the right gate?"
No, mom. I just thought I'd pick the gate that had marked the furthest possible city from where I wanted to go. It turns out my plane was delayed, so all the chumps in the line had no reason to fret, while I was about to have wasted 4 hours of my life I can never get back.
Once I finally boarded, I had one last tinge of terror when the pilot said "Flight 212, nonstop to..." and I was sure he was going to say China or something else. They pause EVERY time they say that, I'm sure because they've been in 4 other cities that day, but it always freaks me out.
So 6 hours later, I miraculously arrived at my destination, as I always miraculously do. And now I get to worry that I'm so jetlagged I can't sleep, and I will simply sleep through my 8:00 appointment at the spa with the bridesmaids tomorrow morning. But if I don't, I will definitely deserve the massage I have lined up for me.
August 01, 2006
Yesterday, my cat Scamp turned 1.
1's a big year. Of course, I spent most of it drooling and hitting myself in the face with rattles and here Scamp is stalking and killing deadly flies with Matrix-like jumps from chair to chair, but I don't think he means to brag.
Don't tell him, but I'm actually not sure if that's his birthday. I got him from the kennel when he was 6 weeks old, so I counted backwards, got to roughly the same week, and chose to go with Harry Potter's birthday.
So tell me. Does it make me crazier to buy a cat a birthday cake with his name on it, or to buy him a new bowtie for special occasions?
Because I did both. Enjoy!
