Monday, November 8, 2010

Alternatives

It's been quite awhile since I posted, as I've been busy. I'm sure you have, too, so I'm not worried. I am, however, worried about some of our culture's colloquialisms. Most notably the phrase "Happy as a clam" or "happy as a bug in a rug." I'm not sure the origins of these words, but I am reasonably certain that clams are capable of neither happiness nor any other emotion. The same certainty extends to bugs and their affinity for rugs.

Therefore I'd like to propose some modern alternative phrases for the general population to use in everyday speech.
  1.  As happy as a turkey farmer on Thanksgiving. This one speaks to the massive demand for large, unprocessed turkeys on the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving. I do not know what Canadians eat for their holiday of the same name.
  2. As happy as the grim reaper on Judgment Day. I'd say this is self-explanatory.
  3. As happy as a squirrel in your walls. Okay, to be honest this one will probably not catch on with the general population. But how many times have you heard that scratching in your walls? It's obnoxious for us humans, but I imagine the squirrel is just pleased it found a warm spot to spend its winter.
You are welcome to use any of these that you like, but I'd like to see more use of the the turkey farmer on Thanksgiving phrase.

Speaking of farmers, go support your local farm stand before it shuts down for the winter. Farmers need your business. Alternatively, we could just start eating farmers.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Just desserts

Anyone who is vaguely familiar with me in the real world knows I have, shall we say, a reputation in the car. It began many years ago, shortly after receiving my license.


Note the anger vein on the forehead. This is done anime-style, but it gets the point across. I was frustrated with the general retardation exhibited by the driving population in Fort Worth.

Skip ahead a few years to my early twenties. I am just out of college, have begun commuting to work, and have a fresh loathing for all humanity. I had a twenty+ minute commute which is, to some people, laughably short. For some reason, my generally pleasant demeanor devolved into a shaking rage each and every time I turned the key to start my car's engine.


Needless to say, my friends and family were wary to enter the passenger seat. I acquiesce before man and machine that I am an angry driver, and not to be trusted. Close your eyes upon embarking on any journey involving city traffic. Believe it or not, I am, for the most part, quite calm on cross-country travel (evidenced by my recent move to Massachusetts).

Speaking of cross-country travel, I have recently made a Huge Life Change and moved away from home for the first time. Instead of taking a nice, gentle step like Colorado or perhaps Illinois, I plunged directly into the heart of New England. Hello, Massachusetts, home of baffling traffic patterns and offensive driving habits.

This angry driver has met her match. As my dog's vet so succinctly put it, "There is no defensive driving, only offensive." Now, as someone who has been demonized as a horrible, angry driver, I expected nothing less than a hundred thousand clones of me out on the road every day.

What I have found, however, is a horror far worse than my wildest imagining. What you get in Massachusetts is a coagulation of what appear to be 'roided-up soccer moms, businessmen angry that they aren't getting their way like they do in the affair they're rushing back from just now, and slack-jawed retards (those are everywhere...there is no escape) all hovering around like they're playing a massively multiplayer game of Crazy Taxi mixed with a little Twisted Metal and possibly Grand Theft Auto. The structure of the roads does NOT help. For the following visual: light gray is the 3-lane, 65 mph road. The gray lines are narrow, bumpy, 25 mph off/on ramps leading to invisible merges with traffic going 55 mph or traffic which is completely stopped without warning. The green lines are trees, all of which obscure every possible inch of the data necessary to adjust one's speed to merge into the traffic ahead. Please note that this is statewide, and not just in my area.


Would you not expect people to traverse such dangerous conditions with caution and finesse? I certainly would, and that is how I started out driving. I went the speed limit, slowed for exits, and yielded to merge. Instead of fitting in with what is, logically, the way people should drive under conditions above, I was honked at, tailgated, and generally harassed. In a disturbing twist, I now look like this all the time:


...which is what I assume everyone in Fort Worth looked like every time I got on the road. Sigh.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

A True Tale

After my vigorous morning workout today, I sat on the floor to frolic with my adorable Maizieface before traipsing off to get ready for the day. Instead of playing, however, my sweet little precious wuffle fuffle got directly up in my business and headbutted me. Now, this wouldn't have been such a big deal, except I am in an exceedingly silly mood today. The events of the past few days coupled with the knowledge that somewhere someone is watching the episode of Invader Zim with POSTUUUUULIO have made me realize how wonderful the term "headbutt" really is.


Thank you, and have a lovely day.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

"Maybe I should poke it......"

Saturday night, I came home from hanging out with my family, ready to microwave some turkey bacon and drink beer alone, when I noticed something.




Have you worked out what we're looking for?



That's right! A little blorpy fuzzy thing clinging to the screen. My first thought? Giant goddamn roaches that have grown fur to make us say "awww" before they hiss and spit acid into our eyeballs and devour our flesh.

But no, it was a bat! A tiny, fuzzy, non-threatening bat. So I did what anyone in my situation would do.



(Nothing happened. I did not receive The Rabies. It did not move at all. AT ALL.)

So I waited until Monday and told the apartment office, knowing full well the gape-mouthed yokels who work there would do nothing about it. The little bat didn't appear to have moved since my initial discovery, so I figured it was dead. BUT LO! Lazarusbat did arise from his slumber and devour the souls of the damned. No wait. That's some other story maybe...

Tuesday eve, upon deciding to let my dog go potty, I did stumble upon the Cutie Wuggums crawling around on the screen! I again did what any normal person would do: flee in terror and deadbolt the door behind me.


Several internal deliberations on the liklihood of myself or my dog receiving The Rabies later, I ventured out. Suddenly, Cutie Wuggums decided to FLOP ONTO THE WINDOWSILL AND CRAWL LIKE A BROKEN-ARMED ZOMBIE TOWARD ME. My dog was very confused by my darting motions and high-pitched squeal, but she does enjoy a run, so when I started to do that, she kept up pretty well. Here is what my fight or flight response mechanism told me I was running from:



Fortunately, when I came back, the bat was crawling on the screen under the glass of the window, and my tender flesh was safe...FOR NOW. The little bat was adorable, really he was. Behind a glass window he was. Yes.

Upon safe re-entry to my apartment, Roommate and I weighed our options and decided to try and catch it in a bag. At that point, we had vague notions of releasing it outside I guess? Being instinctively frightened of things that move in EXCEEDINGLY CREEPY WAYS, we squeamished out and decided to call animal control the following day.

Ultimately, it disappeared INTO THE GODDAMN AIR VENTS...TWICE and has not been seen since Tuesday night. I hope our terrifying, adorable, and hungry little friend [We also got to watch him eat a BUG (from the safety of a crack in our door)!!!] has found his brethren, but also hope it is not still in our air vents. I don't want to breathe The Rabies. I hear it's airborne and weaponized now. Yeah. It's like that.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Podcast roundup!

Recently, I've been shunning music at work in favor of (at times) depressing podcasts. I have also been asked, on occasion, what podcasts I like. That's a difficult question to answer, because I listen to SO VERY MANY! Here's a list of some recent shows that have made me smile, laugh, or possibly cry.
Soooo I hope that will give you at least a little introduction to some EXCELLENT podcasts. I listen to a whole bunch more, but these are some of the most accessible (minus the science fictiony ones) Maybe somebody out there can provide me a good list of songs to get that will help me get through the work day.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

On Archaeology

This post is brought to you by not sleeping well for 2 days, and by soul-crushing sinus pain:
 
Whilst browsing the internets for something to alleviate my boredom, I stumbled across this article on ancient writing. Now, archaeology and anthropology are fascinating areas of study that I like to learn more about. But as I read articles trying to tell me what an object was used for 60-thousand-hundred-million years ago, I have to stop and think.

What if these artifacts we find, these ancient relics of our human ancestors, were really just some kid's crappy art projects? There is no possible way to determine exactly what a thing was used for unless someone who lived at that time documented (in a language we understand) its use. If we found a 3-pronged fork-like object made out of, i dunno, jade or something, we would assume it was a fork and label it as such in the museums. How do we know it was used for eating? Maybe it was a stylish hair comb? It's made out of JADE for chrissakes. Or what if it was a ceremonial Stabbin' Trident? YOU DON'T KNOW!


Or MAYBE, just maybe, it was a 20-something "abstract" artist's idea of biting social commentary on the luxury of the non-slave classes. You just don't know! What I hope is that things we assumed were clay water jugs (such as the one pictured at right) were really chamber pots, and all those Egyptian Curses people from the 1920s suffered are really just centuries old diseases found in ancient Egyptian Poop.

That said, I'd like to propose something a little radical. To hell with good art. It's lovely and beautiful, but in another few millenia, whatever sentient race takes our place at the top of the food chain will be digging it up and making assumptions about who we were as a people. So let's give them something REALLY confusing to look at. Instead of making gorgeous works of art on canvas, do it on something that will last. Draw it on the walls of our modern dwellings, on anything that can be successfully preserved if buried for several thousand years. More importantly, however, you must make only the most ridiculous, abstract art. Then, put it in a clay hut at the foot of a volcano. (Hey, it worked in Pompeii.)

In a meel-yun years, do we really want to leave behind detailed descriptions of how life was in the 21st century? NO! We want to create as much ridiculous crap as ancient humans did for us. Get out there and draw some penises on washing machines and rusty cars. It's the only way we can win!