January 31, 2007
What your method of online procrastination says about you:
Taking Quizzes
Maybe you saw the results posted somewhere else and thought it was an accurate description of that person. Maybe you're just obsessed with the topic and hoped you would get your favorite character/drink/STD. If you're supposed to be doing something else, what's the harm in taking a little quiz? Those radio buttons are just too easy to click!
Too Bad You
End up fudging the results so that you do indeed end up being a Carrie Bradshaw Martini Herpes. Or Raphael Gin and Tonic Crabs.
I think the quiz you really need to take is: Why do I obsessively take online quizzes and think other people give a crap what I scored? A) I have low self-esteem. B) Online quizzes beat me when I was a kid. C) I have actually gained many friends from the results of my scores and am now very popular and also a liar. D) All of the above. E) All of the above INCLUDING the phrase "All of the above" above.
Reading Celebrity Gossip
Oh, man. You TOTALLY knew about Brittney and K-Fed -- OR SHOULD I SAY FED-EX?!?! -- before the rest of the world! Ew, and the blogger who posted the news TOTALLY drew a penis in MS Paint right next to K-Fed's face! PRICELESS.
Does that mean he's gay? ONLY THE BLOGGER KNOWS FOR SURE.
Too Bad You
Are wasting valuable brain cells devoted to following these pointless stories. You know that one episode of "Married With Children" where Al is trying to teach Kelly trivia to win a game show, but for every new fact she learns, an old one is forgotten, including that Al scored 4 touchdowns at Polk High, which was the final question? You don't remember it? Neither do I. You know why? Because I know that Lindsey Lohan is causing problems in rehab. Thank you, Lindsey, for being a stumbling drunk slut. Now I can't even remember cautionary tales from my favorite TV show from when I was a kid.
Filling Out Surveys:
Nothing says "Get to know me as a person" like posting 74 damn myspace bulletins about how you prefer Coke over Pepsi and that your latest text message was BRB BBQ LOL from your cousin.
Too Bad You
Are the only person who will ever read the survey you filled out. IF someone else stumbles across it, they will read the questions because they will be thinking of whatever funny thing they will put when they fill it out.
Watching Viral Videos
Why, back in MY day, College Humor was something that involved me shoving my drunken male roommate into one of my prettiest dresses. Back in my day, YouTube was accessing the Network Neighborhoods of people in your dorm and trading videos of Bill Gates getting a pie in the face.
Thank God the internet has grown to where it is today, and I can now find video after video of teenage boys inexplicably jumping off houses into shopping carts full of knives pointing upwards while their buddy laughs hysterically behind the camcorder.
Too Bad You
Don't get shocked by anything anymore because you've seen Jackass AND Jackass 2. And MTV, or as I like to call it, ALL BAM MARGERA ALL THE TIME. Catch his new series, "Bam Attends His Grandmother's Funeral"! What will that lovable scamp do this time? Well, we don't want to give away too much, but we'll just say one word: Roller-Coffin.
Endlessly Refreshing Your Various E-mail Accounts
It's an old joke, but it still holds true. Every minute closer to the deadline of whatever you're supposed to be doing is a new minute where someone may have e-mailed you! Quick, check Gmail. Nothing? Check hotmail. Hmm, nothing? How about myspace mail? Nothing?! AND no new picture comments?
WHAT THE HELL GOOD ARE FRIENDS IF THEY AREN'T CONSTANTLY VALIDATING MY EXISTENCE?!
Too Bad You
Didn't respond to the creepy guy who left your school in 3rd grade and somehow found you online and asked you, "So what's been going on since we last saw each other?" Maybe if you had, you would have some new e-mail from him to read. Or a restraining order to send.
Well, I've gone through all of my bookmarks -- I MEAN run out of things to make fun of people about, so I guess that's it. I hope you enjoyed reading this comprehensive and informative article instead of doing something you really needed to do. I feel honored.
January 25, 2007
Dear Comedy Central,
I am writing to apologize to you that I never watch you anymore. But you can hardly blame me. It began with the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour," and when you got around to playing "Mind of Mencia," I just couldn't forgive you.
We go back, CC. Can I call you CC? I used to watch you when the North Hills was the only town that had you as part of its cable, before South Park signed your meal ticket, back when all you showed were three things:
1) Entire sets of comedy performances. And I'm not talking like "Comedy Central Presents." I'm talking like "Camcorder in the Back of Laffs Aplenty in Toledo."
2) Entire, unedited episodes of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," which was often over 2 hours long.
3) Entire episodes of "SNL" FROM THE '70S. I SAT THROUGH JOE PISCOPO FOR YOU!
I guess we've grown apart. I may come around for a little helping of Jon Stewart, a second bite of South Park, and I might even wipe a nostalgic tear during Reno 911. I'll miss you.
--Lauren
P.S. If you bring back Dr. Katz, I'll accept that as your formal apology.
Dear Court TV,
Look. I don't know what the deal is, but unless there's a glitch in my DVR, there aren't any "Forensic Files" coming up in the next week. And there weren't any last week. I even distrusted my search function, and when I browsed through your programming, what did I find? A virtual 24/7 marathon of "Psychic Detectives." I misuse "marathon" here, because it implies some holiday or explosion of a show in high demand. No, that's your programming. "Psychic Detectives" is even worse and less funny than "Psych," which I wasn't sure was possible. But you're real people working with real crimes, which Forensic Files has taught me is totally awesome. And now that Forensic Files is apparently no longer being played, I don't even know what's awesome anymore. What am I supposed to watch? CSI? Written by a writer? Sorry, Jack. Writers can make anyone as crazy as they want. Your characters ARE crazy.
And since the Forensic Files website seems to think you're actually on the air, it seems that I may be crazy. This clearly can only be remedied by stabbing my DVR multiple times with an ice pick, and then dressing it in a nightgown to hide my shame.
--Lauren*
*if that is my real name
Dear USA,
You keep doing what you doing. I...I think I love you.
"Monk," "4400," "Dead Zone"? Come on.
"Psych" isn't even so bad. I was just trying to hurt Court TV. I didn't mean it.
You even play reruns of "House," whose parent company is Fox, unlike yours, which is NBC, you dirty, dirty little network. Call me.
--Lauren
January 21, 2007
Gather round, religious people and musical fans, I've got a question for you that has been bothering me for YEARS.
You churchies pull out your Old Testament, and you theater geeks pull out your lyrics sheets to "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."
So we've got Joseph, right? Favorite son of Jacob. So Jacob's a playa, right, and he's got all these wives and tons of sons. But Joseph is his favorite son because he looks like Donny Osmond, and he gives him this big psychedelic trippy coat to show him how much he loves him. Naturally, all Joseph's brothers get totally jealous of all the attention Joseph's getting. It doesn't help that he keeps telling them about these dreams he has where they're all stars in the sky, and he's shining brighter than their crappy stars.
I'll tell you what, if my brother told me that, I'd immediately sell him as a slave to the Ishmaelites, which is exactly what Joseph's brothers did to him. To cover their tracks, they tell Jacob that Joseph was killed wrestling a goat. You can't make this stuff up, people.
Well, turns out being an Egyptian slave isn't too bad, as long as you can convince the king that you can interpret his dreams, which, again, is the first excuse I would use if I were sold to a hairy bunch of Ishmaelites.
Skip forward a few years, and Joseph is Number One to the Pharaoh's Jean Luc. It just so happened that one of the dreams Joseph deciphered had to do with stockpiling food for a coming famine. Well, unfortunately for Joseph's brothers back in Canaan, word hadn't reached them that they should keep seven years of wheat in tupperware, so they're all starving. Someone gets the bright idea to go to Egypt and hope someone will take pity on them and feed them.
The brothers show up on Joseph's doorstep, but they don't recognize him since he's all pimped out in Pharaoh handouts. So he decides to play a trick on them to see if they've changed their evil ways.
He lets them in, but after a while, he pretends he's missing his favorite golden cup, and accuses his brother Benjamin of stealing it. Suddenly, all the brothers jump to Benjamin's rescue, saying he's innocent and they like him and they'll gladly go to jail in his place.
Joseph decides that this proves they've changed their evil ways and more or less tells them, "LOL, HAY, GUYS, I'M REALLY JOSEPH!" Then they all join hands and sing about how cool it is not to be thrown in jail.
Okay, so here's my problem. The brothers hated Joseph. And who would blame them? He's all, "Gee, I keep having these dreams about how you all suck! Why do you want me to be killed by a goat?" So then he tests them by seeing if they like their other brother? And when they do, he forgives them? That doesn't prove that they've changed their ways of hating HIM. In fact, I would think that being tricked into thinking they were going to be thrown in jail for cup-theft is grounds for REALLY wanting someone to be killed by a goat.
This bothers me because I feel like such a glaring hole wouldn't be in a popular Bible story -- one popular enough to be made into a musical. Is there something I'm missing? Or does everyone just think that proving that you don't hate some other random brother is worthy of forgiveness for everyone hating you?
Or should I stop taking so seriously a musical that contains the couplet:
"His astounding clothing took the biscuit
Quite the smoothest person in the district"?
January 19, 2007
I have to admit...I profile when I assign abilities to my video game characters.
Now, long gone are the days when it's socially acceptable to write a video game with a character like Leena from Chrono Cross who fights with a frying pan, or Marge Simpson from the Simpsons Arcade game who fights with a vacuum cleaner.
But honestly, who actually CHOSE Marge or Lisa when they played that game? Statistically speaking, a jump rope or a vacuum cleaner is probably more likely to do more damage than a bowling ball that never left your hand. Also it shouldn't really matter anyway because none of the characters in that game were actually different from one another.
One could argue, I guess, that people just played to be their favorite character, which makes sense, because I remember playing Ninja Turtles as Raphael whose weapons used while battling the wily Foot Clan were about as effective as using a fork.
But we have been taught to profile from the wee early years of Final Fantasy. Profiling wasn't all bad. I never got to finish FF3, but I really liked the premise of some weird green-haired chick who was the only one in the empire who could do magic. Of course, that just meant -- HEALER! And so has it for games to come.
Every so often, someone throws in a wild card like Tifa or Lara Croft to let nerds know that girls can still kick your ass while having anatomically impossible breasts. Or perhaps with her anatomically impossible breasts. But underneath so many of the games, it was understood that boys fight, girls heal.
Yeah, sure, I play a female hunter in World of Warcraft, but it's only because I get to have a cute panther friend I named Chairman Meow. I also made a priest, mainly so more people would be my friend, and I'm actually wearing really low-level robes...because they're prettier than my stronger ones. Don't tell anyone in my guild, though. I'll lose all my street cred.
I say that to say that I buy into this profiling. Final Fantasy X was the epitome of easy character building, because everyone fit neatly into their peg. Boys fight. Wussy legacy of the future girl - HEALER. Weirdo goth -- BLACK MAGIC. Spunky robot-loving chick -- uh...Steal? And like...backup healer. Or something.
But I'm having a lot of trouble with Final Fantasy XII. I don't know who I want my main healer to be. I guess it could be the weird bunny girl with the accent I hate, but she's kind of scary looking. Like she could put your eye out with her stilettos. So maybe she's black magic. Then we've got a warrior looking girl, so she can't be a healer, because I have to beef up her armor and sword stats. Then there's Penelo, (who I cannot stop pronouncing "Peen-olo" in my head) who doesn't really seem to want to be good at anything.
I'm just upset that it's not more clear. I play video games to relax, not to dole out abilities with regard to political correctness and social impact.
Maybe I should make Vaan and Basch the healers and throw a wrench in the system. I won't actually be able to win the battles, but I can make them last for hours! Or maybe I should kill off all the characters except Balthier because I have an unhealthy crush on him. Ooh, I always like the bad boys.
Well, I'm off to search the internet to look for Balthier/Spike from Buffy yaoi fan-fictions. Because you just KNOW some exist.
January 15, 2007
Mike Franz
1979-2007
Mike was a teddy bear. A loud teddy bear, but that's why we loved him.
His sense of humor and his sportsmanship will be missed by all who knew him.
I'm sure the turf in heaven is perfect for lacrosse and Ultimate Frisbee.
I'll miss you, Mike.
January 12, 2007
I have spent my life trying to alienate myself from women by playing video games and from men by loving Broadway musicals.
If you read the blog, you might also know that I work for a Theater Camp that performs more than 8 plays a year for kids from 2nd grade to 12th grade.
I write this to condemn the modern musical.
There are many musicals I've come across in the past few years that I've fallen in love with, but I'm upset that they can never be performed at my camp.
Why? A few reasons.
First, the cast. Anyone wanting to perform an ensemble drama knows that dramatic plays are written with a skeleton cast in mind. The same seems true with musicals. "Evita" has a whopping one female role, and two males. "Little Shop of Horrors" has one female, (four, if you count the backup singers), and, oh, three male leads, (four, if you count the Audrey II.) Both great shows, both sucky breakdowns when you have a group of 30 young hopefuls, the overwhelming majority of them being female.
Avenue Q was looking like it had potential, with the omission of a few choice songs, until I actually saw it and discovered that most of the actors play two characters. Lame to the max. Isn't acting competitive enough without reducing the cast by 50%?
Second, we are unable to perform these plays because the "cool" modern way that musicals deal with cultural zeitgeist. Which, according to Rent and Avenue Q, translates into orgies, AIDS, pornography, and drunken one-night stands with puppets. Sure, I love it, but would I invite my grandmother to see it? Would I want a 2nd grader to star in it? Probably not.
I am all for new musicals coming onto the scene. I recall a scene from Li'l Abner that we had to edit because it referenced a trinket from a presidential election so obscure, it would have confused the entire audience. Annie even has a song called "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover," which is sung with such sarcasm and scathing political commentary...that no one but a poli sci major gets the hilarious nuances. Well, I'm exaggerating a little, but it certainly doesn't have as much impact as when Avenue Q sings about how happy they are that things that suck won't last forever, such as George Bush.
I guess what I'm asking for is a modern musical without all the swearing and sex and death by AIDS, *and* with enough roles for, say, a jury to happily perform.
I won't even get into how few roles there are for strong female altos, because I doubt anyone has even read this far.
January 05, 2007
Yeah, that was a stretch, even for me.
I am writing to express my disappointment with George Carlin's third book, "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" I am continuing to read it only to fuel my hatred, because I would hate to make a rash decision and base my disgust off a few crappy jokes at the beginning. But no. He has a strong follow-through of crapola.
I liked his first two books, "Brain Droppings" and "Napalm and Silly Putty," because they were insightful, funny, and really made you wonder, "Yeah, baseball IS the only major sport that appears backwards in a mirror." He pointed out a couple funny repetitive phrases that have become part of our lexicon without us even noticing, like "added bonus" or "English language." He even taught me a lot of things I now know to avoid, like how light-years are measurements of length, not time, and that the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary's birth, not Jesus'. Yeah, I didn't go to church when I was little.
But he completely dropped the ball on this one. If he were any more washed up, beached whales would feel sorry for him. Not only does he just sound like a curmudgeonly old man desperately searching for a humorous, pithy point, but he contradicts himself with complaints that cancel out previous complaints.
Let me make a little aside here to point out a pet peeve of a person I know. Let's call him Joe. Joe likes things to be done right, but he also works in the service industry. As such, he is in the unique position to both bitch about annoying customers AND be an annoying customer himself. It's embarrassing. He will come home after a long day and talk about the GALL of someone who wanted good service. Then he will go to dinner or the store and REAM a poor worker with unrealistic demands. Am I the only person who sees how ridiculous this is?
This is George Carlin. He has a joke in an earlier book that totally sums up my feelings about this book. Paraphrased: Did you ever notice how everyone who drives faster on the road is a maniac, and everyone driving slower than you is an idiot? This joke is funny because the world does not revolve around self-centered assholes, and they are not the judge of who is and is not a moron like they think they are. Because in this case, all the "idiots" think Carlin is the maniac, and all the "maniacs" think he's the idiot.
Here are a few of the more specific examples of how this book pisses me off:
-He acts both ridiculously liberal and overly conservative, which makes every reader both agree with him and get pissed off. You can't have both. That's why we have a damn bipartisan system -- both sides have good points and bad points. You can't make a joke about loving to waste paper and asking recycling centers to fuck themselves and then, three pages later, talk about how sad it is that the rainforests are depleting. He didn't make those specific jokes, but the real contradictions are there and arguably even less funny.
-His old formats used to be fresh and interesting. He'd have sections of blocky prose, probably perfected from stand-up routines, followed by a McSweeney's-eque lists or commentary, then a few one-liner "Bits and Pieces" reminiscent of Gallagher, except actually funny and with less exploded produce.
Now, it's just really forced non sequitur one-liners like "You know what kind of guy you never see anymore? A fop." Uh...yeah? And?
And the snippets of dialogue just seem like his editor phoned him 5 minutes before the book went to print and asked for more wacky inserts, and George scrawled them on a Starbucks napkin.
-He complains about how things that should be changed, even though if they were, he would complain about them again. This is the Joe Factor, mentioned earlier.
In the book, he talks about how he hates it when, in a department store or something, people leave a BIG space between the person at the desk and the second person in line. "Why is everyone obsessed with being overpolite?" he complains, in my paraphrase. "I'm going to just step in front of the second person in line. They had their chance." Wow. What a groundbreaking complaint. I can't believe you got to it before Seinfeld. Only, if people didn't do it, you'd be all "Why are these cocksuckers all breathing down my neck? Back off!"
Then he complains about how children (and people in wheelchairs) get to board planes before him, and it's not fair. "Most children are accidents. Why should we reward people for their mistake of having children? Why can't mature adults get on the plane first and make these idiots wait?!"
Oh, gosh, he went there! He really says what's on his mind! Only...the plane only takes off when everyone's aboard. It pisses ME off in airports when they're boarding and the whole damn terminal crowds around the ticket agent. We're all going the same place, morons. If you're so eager to SIT, why don't you just SIT right here until your seat block is called?
So if Carlin gets his way, he'll get on first and complain about how all the children are blocking up the aisles and taking so long to get on.
PS - If I have learned one thing in my 26 years of flying on planes, it's that the loudest, most clueless, aisle-blocking morons are these "mature" adults he speaks of. I'm so sure his 70-year-old ass is the most savvy plane-boarding not-at-all-annoying customer in the universe.
-In the book, Carlin makes a lot of personal complaints badly disguised as jokes. At one point, he nags about restaurants who serve desserts with chocolate and strawberries or some other fruit. "Leave my chocolate alone!" Okay. Well, good for you. Luckily, though, you're not the King of the Universe, because I happen to like strawberries and chocolate. Maybe if you're writing your memoirs, you can talk about how strawberries abused you as a child, but since this book is supposed to be comedic, why don't you try making a joke or two?
-Finally, some comedian once said that he hates other comics who make jokes based on a false premise, except that it actually outs them for the idiots they are. Like "Sugarless chocolate? What marketing genius came up with that? Who in the world would buy this stuff?" Uh, diabetics? But good research on that one.
Carlin goes out to say, "Purina now has a cat food made especially for cats who live indoors. 'Indoor cat food for indoor cats.' Meanwhile, I'm sure you're aware that some human beings have no food at all."
Okay, so here he's wearing the liberal hat, trying to make humans feel guilty for existing (like that damn Over the Hedge) by pointing out that we waste time on extraneous cat foods, while upsetting things happen elsewhere in the world.
Only...indoor cat food is supposed to contain a different calorie count, since they don't get as much exercise as outdoor cats who daily run for their lives from cars and dogs. Also, outdoor cats have a wider diet -- ie. grass, mice, trash -- and thus have slightly stronger stomachs. Indoor cat food contains a formula easier on kitty's stomach.
So, what Carlin's joke really said was, "Some people don't like their cats to puke. Also, some people live in poverty." Oh, MAN! KNEE-SLAP-O-RAMA!
Here, I got another one that both says something true, then attempts to make a bleeding-heart statement. "Some people wear ponchos in the rain. Also, a few hoot owls have become extinct." Now, where's my HBO special?
I'm sorry, George. Let's just pretend you stopped writing after "Napalm and Silly Putty," and you never wrote this book or starred in "Jersey Girl."
Carlin often apologizes at the end of his rants by saying "These are the things that I think of while I watch TV on the couch," or "These are the things that I think about on the toilet." Yeah. Those methods of epiphany are a pretty good example of what should not appear in a book.
January 03, 2007
There are a lot of things I should be doing right now.
I should be at Melissa's changing her sheets, because she is sick and gave me that one request, possibly to infect me or something. I should be in bed, because a rested girl is a productive worker! I should be cleaning the house, because we just went to Costco and I didn't feel like putting everything away, so it looks like I could build a homeless shelter in here using only boxes of ramen noodles.
But what I should be doing MOST is playing Final Fantasy 12.
Now, I'm not too far in just yet, so I'm hoping things don't take a turn for the suck, but it's looking good. I played the first four hours twice, though, because this happy game has one of those Jerk Secrets where if you accidentally look in the wrong direction, you lose the Ultimate Sword you would have gotten, oh, about 70 hours in. I call this the "Return to Zork" Effect, from the very fun but very easily losable PC game where there is a random plant on the very first screen of the game where if you don't do the EXACT CORRECT THING out of say 12 choices, the game will be unwinnable, only you don't know about it until the game is 3/4 over. That's just a little "F-you" from the programmers and designers whose last game had probably rated low on the "replayability" scale by some magazine.
While I'm complaining about my new favorite game, I should also point out that the camera angles may just have been coded by hyperactive fleas with ADD. You pretty much have to control it yourself, much like Kotor, if I remember correctly, but even if you do this and you accidentally pan left and happen to be next to a wall...ZING! Your camera is 10 feet up in the air, and you're staring down at your own head!
Actually, this was probably coded by the graphic artists in charge of hair design. Yes, it looks great. Millions of individual hairs for each character? Neat. Now, can I please get a look at this hot rabbit person standing in front of me?
But I've been thinking, and actually not much else about the game annoys me. Justin thinks it looks a little too much like Kotor, but I think he's referring to the fact that I wandered around the uptown and the slums a little too long, because I am obsessed with gaining the backstory of each and every character with dialog. Actually, now that I think back, it kind of made me mad how I was confined to that first damn planet on Kotor. I felt like I ran back and forth delivering damn blasters and Wookies or whatever for AGES. In this game, I'm like, "You want me to go into the desert NOW?! I haven't even been to a magic shop! I've barely seen a damn moogle. What the hell is a gambit? I'M GOING TO GET KILLED!"
Finally, I knew this game was something special when I began daydreaming about coming home and playing it while at work. It has been a WHILE since I did that. I was into World of Warcraft for a while, but signing on was kind of like a chore. I did it out of guilt or loyalty or remembering that it was Tuesday, and I really wanted to have a pretty "Sergeant" next to my name in Local Defense chat.
But alas, it is getting late. I'll just have to come home quickly tomorrow, so I can play all night. Unless Melissa wants me to rotate her mattress or change her tires or something.
January 01, 2007
Reading back over some of my posts in the past year, I can pretty much sum it up by saying I did some embarrassing stuff, and I complained about a lot of other stuff. So here's a much more interesting year in review taken from various memes around the internet.
In 2006...
Things that I learned:
1. Do NOT let companies get away with their crap. If some asshole corporation is making you pay for something you did not get and giving you the runaround, it's because they think you will give up easily.
2. Health insurance is EXACTLY EQUAL to setting your money on fire and throwing it into the trash. But I need to keep it for an "emergency."
3. Worrying about my cat dying and me crashing in a plane don't actually prevent them from happening. But I did, and they didn't, so I'll probably keep doing it.
Things that I have yet to learn:
1. Most people do not care about my cat.
2. Just because I pay for the video games, yarn, and enough crafting supplies to fund a new craft store doesn't mean I will actually use them.
3. Not updating your website makes people not come there anymore.
Things that made me cry:
1. That episode of "Futurama" where Fry finds his old dog.
2. That one Applebee's commercial where they stay open late for the football team.
3. Yeah, pretty much everything nowadays. Damn it.
Things that made me laugh:
1. My friends and family, with honorable mentions to Melissa, Justin, and Jordan.
2. "Family Guy." Still got it, baby.
3. Videos on the internet of cats falling into things / onto babies.
Things that did not make me laugh:
1. Carlos Mencia.
2. Borat.
3. George Carlin's "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" Just sad.
Current unhealthy crushes:
1. Spike (James Marsters)
2. Yeah, that's all I got.
New TV Show Favorites:
1. "House"
2. "30 Rock"
3. Anything with Jeff Corwin. I guess he could be an unhealthy crush.
Resolutions:
1. Write more.
2. Work out enough to not watch what I eat at all. This includes but is not limited to eating fried chicken while on a treadmill.
3. Changing things I don't like. About work.
Happy 2007, all.