unscheduled

Movin' On Up

2008-12-29T13:52:00.001-06:00

Remember this? Well, I finally finished. I'm blowin' this here popsicle stand, and I've set up shop over here. Change your bookmarks & feed readers, minions, because I have BIG PLANS to actually update over there on a semi regular basis!

Join the Impact: Protest Prop 8

2008-11-14T13:56:00.002-06:00

California's Prop 8 is a medieval, unconstitutional parade of hate and suck which accomplishes nothing other than spitting in the face of equality, progress, and human decency. There are plenty of states with equally medieval, unconstitutional, hateful, sucky laws against same-sex marriage, but California and its Prop 8 are worse because it's the first time a state has rescinded previously-granted gay marriage rights. Prop 8 blows, and everyone who voted for it is a jackass with no compassion for the fundamental rights of their fellow man (or woman).

Tomorrow (Sat, 15 Nov) there will be a nationwide protest against Prop 8, and people in every single state will be holding simultaneous rallies. Go to Join the Impact to find the rally in your state, and get your ass down there and protest the hell out of this shit.

Special Holiday Only For ME!

2008-11-13T02:34:00.001-06:00

Today is totally my birthday! Happy birthday to me! I have BIG plans to do jack shit all day. Well, maybe some laundry, but mostly I'm gonna sit around and watch crappy movies and eat a bunch of popcorn and lemon chiffon cake until I throw up. Also, liquor might happen. It's gonna be awesome as hell.

So... this video is completely random and at least half the pictures in it make no sense (wtf does Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have to do with birthdays?) but whatever, it has that song by The Vandals and it was the best one that came up in my extra-diligent 20 second YouTube search. Watch it!

Fuck you, it's not your birthday, so do what I say! Okay?

The space within becomes the reality of the building.

2008-10-11T03:24:00.000-05:00

Even though I hardly ever update, I'll be making some serious changes to this here backwater dump in the near future. I actually might be moving to a different backwater entirely. I've been messing around with a template for awhile, but it's taking forever because I'm doing it in between all the other, more important, stuff that I'm doing for several other sites. I'm not exactly sure when it will be ready. Maybe by November? Even that might be overly ambitious. I don't have a whole lot of free time lately, to put it mildly. Whatever, the point is: GET EXCITED. Okay, so it's not really that exciting, but it will definitely be a huge improvement over this incredible blandness I've got going on now.

L'Shanah Tovah!

2008-09-30T20:11:00.000-05:00

Disaster is a natural part of my evolution toward tragedy and dissolution.

2008-09-24T11:51:00.007-05:00

So... I'm still in the trenches, but I haven't surrendered yet. The hell if I'm gonna let this book beat me, no matter HOW bad it is. Because I am a good and generous person, my gift to you today is a little teaser of the real-time review. This is a tiny portion of the hot mess I'm currently cooking:

Wednesday, 24 Sept 11:36am
It’s been 18 hours. I have been powerfully drunk and hungover twice, and I’ve had four Full Throttles. I took Tylenol PM and essentially passed out for a bit. My chest hurt a little when I woke up, because that was a helluva lotta energy drink and I’m probably lucky I didn’t have a small-scale heart attack. I took a shower and realised when I got out that I had just washed my hair with conditioner. I put my contacts in inside out. I combed my hair when it was wet, but haven’t brushed it since. I am dressed in a red and orange tie-dyed t-shirt that’s about six sizes too big for me, a green hoodie with ducks all over it, and purple plaid pajama pants. I am wearing one brown sock and one Christmas sock (I’m not entirely sure how that part happened). I ate fried chicken for breakfast. I am at least half drunk already, and it’s not even noon. I am a goddamn disaster right now.

Are you excited? Oh yeah, I'm excited, too. I'm so excited I'm practically Irene Cara. That may or may not be the tequila talking, but whatever. Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I have several nerve endings and at least three or four brain cells not yet screaming in agony, which means I've got more reading and drinking to do.

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

2008-09-23T17:08:00.005-05:00

I'm gonna be kinda busy for the next... uhh... it'll prolly take me at least a couple days, on account of how many times I'm gonna pass out from alcohol poisoning, and I'm guessing I'll need my stomach pumped at least once. In the meantime I'll be laying low, just me and the third Twilight book and a bottle of tequila.

...don't let that make you feel like I absolutely can't be interrupted, though. 'Cuz yanno, I'm just saying I'm available in an emergency, yeah? So like, if you really, REALLY need something I can be pulled aside, is what I'm trying to get at here. It doesn't even necessarily have to be a technical emergency, per se. I don't wanna turn you away if it's just urgent, and then feel bad later if you suffer an unfortunate accident because I wouldn't come to your aid, is what I need for you to know. You get me?

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HOW THICK CAN YOU GET?? INTERRUPT ME! PESTER ME! I WANT TO BE BOTHERED! SEND ME AN EMAIL, CALL MY MOBILE, TEXT ME, WHATEVER! SWEET MERCIFUL CHRIST ON A CRICKET BAT, COME TO MY RESCUE!

I spit on your Rorschach test.

2008-09-21T07:54:00.002-05:00

Ugh. So I was tagged with one of those asinine questionnaire thingers by Jana, who I at first told to kiss my ass, but then she pointed out that people who don't HAVE blogs update their blogs more often than I do, which is... well, mostly correct, actually. Since answering form-letter questions from an alphabet-themed survey is just about the laziest kind of update there is, that's what you jackholes are getting. You'll take it and you'll like it.

A. Attached or single?
Single. Even when I'm attached, I'm single.

B. Best friend?
The person I spend the most time with is Jenni.

C. Cake or pie?
Why does there always have to be cake and pie? Humanity is so disgusting. The only kind of cake I believe in is lemon chiffon, and the only kind of pie I believe in is chicken pot pie. The rest can go straight to hell.

D. Day of choice?
What a dumbass question. Who has a favourite day? I don't have a normal-style job, because jobs are for peasants, so I pretty much never care what day it is.

E. Essential item?
Lip balm. When I misplace it I have a mild nervous breakdown, and if unable to locate it, I will freak the fuck out until I get to a store to buy more or convince someone else to go get it for me. If they bring back the wrong kind, I consider it evidence that they have a death wish.

F. Favourite colour?
Grey

G. Gummy bears or worms?
Neither. They make my teeth hurt.

H. Hometown?
A side effect of growing up in two places is the lack of a hometown.

I. Indulgence?
The petty lives of others.

J. January or July?
January.

K. Kids?
Are noisy.

L. Life isn’t complete without?
Laughter.

M. Marriage date?
Yeah, right.

N. Number of brothers & sisters?
Two.

O. Oranges or apples?
I like both, but I eat apples a lot more than I eat oranges.

P. Phobias?
Unless you count commitment, I don't have any.

Q. Quotes?
Fuck you and the quote you rode in on.

R. Reasons to smile?
You know how there are all those rotoscoped commercials lately? Yeah, well those do not make me smile, because when I see them I mostly just wish for a blindfold made of thumb tacks. But then I think of hunting down the people who make those commercials and punching them in the face, and that makes me smile.

S. Season of choice?
Autumn.

T. Tag seven peeps!
Like hell I will. And don't say peeps. Only douchebags say peeps.

U. Unknown fact about you?
The only things I keep secret are the things nobody wants to hear.

V. Vegetable?
I love all vegetables except eggplant and okra.

W. Worst habits?
I'm kind of a heinous bitch. Most of the time this is fine (in fact, I rather prefer it), but it's so ingrained that I'm not particularly skilled at being nice when niceties are warranted.

X. X-ray or ultrasound?
As in, do I have a preference? No. If this is supposed to be asking whether I've had them, I've had both.

Y. Your favourite food?
Popcorn. And I find this question to be more than a bit of a stretch as qualifying for the "Y" category, by the way.

Z. Zodiac sign?
Scorpio.

Well, at least it was nice knowing me.

2008-09-09T17:39:00.004-05:00

I believe I've mentioned before how weird my friend Morgagod is. She called me today, and I turned the ringer off and ignored the call because I was busy as hell (okay, so I was really watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit?). She left me the following message:

"Hey Sarah, it's Morgaine. I was calling because they're going to turn on the LHC at CERN tomorrow. I know... scary. Anyway, the world's gonna end and I thought I'd say it was nice knowing you, even if you are a wonderful bitch. Bye."

Everyone I know is so goddamn crazy. My sister also sent me a text message today telling me she couldn't remember when my birthday is. My own sister! She's totally getting a sandwich bag full of cat puke for Christmas.

That's right, I'm a goddamn pirate.

2008-08-09T00:03:00.001-05:00

Find out Which Movie Hero Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!

I found this on Agent Bedhead. I love these nerdy little quiz thingers.

As it turns out, people really care A WHOLE LOT about zombies.

2008-07-30T10:02:00.006-05:00

So... the Zombie Threat Level Advisory System that I did up as a joke the other day kind of turned into a little mini-phenomenon. Stacey stuck it in yesterday's Pajiba Love, which I didn't know about until I happened to check my Statcounter late yesterday afternoon. Suffice to say the numbers were surprising. My counts have been relatively low lately, because I mostly disappeared for awhile and wasn't updating regularly. I seriously thought for a second that I had forgotten how to read when I saw how many hits it had gotten. The referrals mostly started from the Pajiba Love link, but then they were coming from all over the place. I didn't check all of them, because the list was insanely long and I'm really lazy, but the ones I bothered to look at were interesting. Anyway, what I've learned from this is that lots and lots of people want to look at goofy stuff about zombies, especially if it involves liquor in some way. To that end, I present to you ZombieForecast.org in all of its ~~idiocy~~ glory.

There's not a lot there yet (I just decided to set it up yesterday) but it's got a bit of a start. I kind of hate the header and favicon that I put up, but I'm not particularly artistic. I can do stuff with square boxes and words inside of them, but that's about the extent of my wizardry. I will depend upon the charity and kindness of those who can make magic happen with pretty pretty pictures of horrifying undead monsters. Which brings me to a related point... a call to arms! I would like to do this as a group thing similar to TK's brilliant music project, but with less melodious harmony and more groaning and eating of brains. I'm working on drafting contributors, but if you or someone you know loves zombies (or loves to hate zombies) and you/they are funny and can write well, let me know and perhaps you too can be a part of our ~~random insanity~~ defense of life as we know it! I'd like to get enough people involved to have regular updates without requiring too much of a time commitment from anyone. If you're interested, email me.

Safety First.

2008-07-27T21:52:00.008-05:00

In preparation for the surely forthcoming zombie apocalypse, I feel that a good advisory system is a necessity. There are, of course, many zombie threat advisory systems already in existence, but they suffer from a shocking lack of references to liquor and illicit substances, and are therefore inferior. Thus, I was forced to make my own:

Vigilance is its own reward in these dark times of constant threat from the living-impaired. It is imperative that we remain guarded at all times, so... rum or tequila?

UPDATE:
Due to the overwhelming response this post has received, I decided to call in reinforcements and embark on a mission to monitor the threat posed by the walking dead. Please visit ZombieForecast.org to get the latest information on the status of the worldwide zombie threat. While I suppose the idea was conceived (albeit by accident) here, you may read about the birth of ZombieForecast in this post.

Because merpeople love a bargain?

2008-07-26T17:54:00.004-05:00

So, I'm still not dead. Some stuff happened, but that's not really important. What's IMPORTANT is that Big Lots! apparently wants you to send a Merman-O-Gram to friends, loved ones, and innocent bystanders.

Just what in the blue hell a merman has to do with discount retail is beyond me, but what I can tell you is that this thing is hysterical. It's like the bastard love child of King Triton and Gilderoy Lockhart. You upload a photo of the victim of your choice, and Mr. Under the Sea over there proceeds to woo them like a drunk old man with some kind of smarm syndrome. The only way this would be any better is if there were singing involved.

Behold.

I'm not quite dead yet.

2008-07-03T12:48:00.007-05:00

Quit worrying, y'all! I'm still alive. I've been a bit under the weather of late, but I assure you, I will be just fine soon enough. I once had viral and bacterial pneumonia at the same time for six weeks, and that didn't manage to do me in. Evil never dies, people! I shall live forever.

In the meantime, however, I probably will continue to slack on the updating. If you find yourself withering outside the glow of my sunshine and light, you may email me, and I promise I will dig deep and muster up the ambition to reply. Even though it's, like, work. Because I am a giver, that's why.

In other news, my cat just climbed in my lap and belched in my face. He's a giver, too.

Superbitches.

2008-05-24T19:12:00.001-05:00

So Jenni and I are heinous bitches, which is not news and should shock no one, but sometimes we're even bitchier than usual. Here's part of a conversation we had today:

Jenni: He was dressed up, so he probably totally thought he was hot shit, but...
Sarah: Did he look even more like a Hobbit than usual?
Jenni: He just looks like he has Down's Syndrome to me.
Sarah: Well, he is clearly retarded.
Jenni: Yeah. So I have a really hard time finding him attra- ...well, I would never find him attractive, but I have a hard time even finding him normal-looking.
Sarah: I think that's a problem for everyone.

Yeah. This is how we talk about our friends. It's a wonder we have any. Although, to be fair, it's not like we just do it behind people's backs or anything. That's just how we talk to people. We're really mean. We're even mean to each other. Jenni repeatedly (and justifiably) told me I was a fucktard today:

Jenni: I think she just wants everyone to hang out and drink at her house, because she sent me a text reminding me about liquor stores being closed tomorrow.
Sarah: They're closed? Why?
Jenni: Liquor stores are always closed on Sunday, stupid.
Sarah: Wait...what? Tomorrow is Sunday?
Jenni: Yes, tomorrow is Sunday, you goddamn genius.
Sarah: Oh. I guess I'm a day ahead of myself. I thought tomorrow was Monday. I know Monday's a holiday and all, but liquor stores are never closed on holidays.
Jenni: Ugh. How do you not know what day it is, you retard?
Sarah: Well, you know why I don't know what day it is? 'Cuz I took a nap, and that confused me so I totally thought it was tomorrow.
Jenni: Sweet Jeeeeeesus, you're an idiot.

These are among the many things that piss me off.

2008-05-12T23:44:00.003-05:00

Conversational Gropers
These are the people who touch me unnecessarily when they talk to me. I do not generally like to be touched. Stop touching me. Why do you even need to touch me? Your voice is not transmitted through your palms, and I don't hear through my skin. Your inappropriate touching is not facilitating our communication and it's making me uncomfortable, so get your damn hands off me.

Capers
These are so disgusting that I cannot understand why anyone would willingly consume them. They look like rabbit turds and they taste like toxic waste. They're also often to be found consorting with otherwise delicious menu items and sullying them to the point of being inedible.

People who talk in baby voices
Who the fuck do you think you are, Minnie Mouse? Knock it off, you stupid gobshite. You sound like a preschool phone sex operator. Either get a grown-up voice or shut the fuck up before I kick your ass.

Chain emails
Jesus cheerleading Christ, people, why the hell are you still sending around chain emails? Are you goddamn retarded? Little anemic Kayla in Miami will not be cured because you got 12 more people to read some dumb fucking kitten story. Your secret heart's desire will not be given to you when the 9th person reads your lame forwarded limerick, unless I'm the 9th person and your secret heart's desire is to be dead to me.

Chain text messages
Like chain emails, only even dumber and more annoying. I consider these an invitation to commit violence upon the person of the sender, as they are very clearly asking for it.

Pastry Pushers
These are the people who think I'm kidding when I say I don't believe in pie. These are the people who think I just need to try their homemade quintuple chocolate mousse pie or their grandma's apple pie and it will turn my life around. Listen up assholes, I don't believe in pie. I don't like most kinds of chocolate, I don't like whipped cream and I hate mousse. I fucking can't stand cooked fruit. It doesn't matter how "good" the pie is. I don't like pie. I don't like it at Thanksgiving or Christmas or the Fourth of July or any day, ever. I goddamn HATE pie. I won't like your stupid grandma's pie. Stop trying to make me eat it, or I'll smother your grandma. That'll teach you.

People who start a sentence eight different ways before getting to the point
I don't even have words for how much I hate this. I am not made of time. Spit it out, jackhole, or I will relieve you of your tongue and feed it to my cat in front of you. If you cry about it, I'll let him eat your eyeballs for dessert.

Step 3.

2008-05-11T19:54:00.002-05:00

Remember how I got the Litter Kwitter thingy on clearance for $4.50 and then went totally insane and decided to actually try it? Well, it's going really well so far. I know! I'm as surprised as you are! If you just landed here by some Google-related accident or are otherwise just tuning in, you might want to refer to when I officially took leave of my senses, and when I continued to pursue this crazy scheme. That will make this photo slightly less completely bonkers:

So...this is what my bathroom looks like now. According to the manufacturer, this is the "amber training disk" but it's totally just an orange pan insert with a hole in the middle. I had to switch Simon to a flushable litter before we could move on to this step, because a whole bunch of litter is going to end up in the toilet every day and I didn't want any tomfoolery with clogged plumbing. There are all kinds of flushable cat litters, but I picked Swheat Scoop. I didn't choose it because it's better (although it may very well be; I have no idea) but rather just because I'm a lazy bitch and the Target store right down the road from my house carries it. Simon adjusted right away and doesn't seem to mind the new litter at all, but he's never been particularly fussy anyway.

Here he is inspecting the new setup:

He is deeply in love with the whole visible water situation going on. He unfortunately figured out what the flush lever does, and has been obsessively flushing the toilet for about an hour and a half. When he's not flushing, he's walking around in circles and kicking litter into the toilet so that he can flush it away:

Yup. That's my Simon. Total idiot savant. So anyway, it's looking like this insane plot will really work, in which case this was the BEST DAMN $4.50 I HAVE EVER SPENT. I really thought when I started this whole thing that it would just be a funny story which would result in nothing more than hilarity and possible disaster, but it's actually working just like it's supposed to. I know, crazy, right?

Super suck.

2008-05-09T22:17:00.002-05:00

No drunken shenanigans after all, because I appear to be getting the flu or something. I was on the phone with Morgagod and I started to feel kinda dizzy, but I didn't think much of it because she's a really eccentric and vaguely disorienting person, so I wasn't alarmed. Then my sister called and demanded I check the mail for her, and I remember walking down the stairs and feeling really warm, but I had just blow-dried my hair so again, not a big deal, right? Well, I woke up on the living room floor, so apparently I passed out for a second. Now I just feel really tired and hot and cold at the same time, and my head hurts and I'm incredibly thirsty, and I'm really pissed off because even driving to goddamn Faribault would be more fun than this. I'm taking Tylenol PM and going to bed.

A narrow escape!

2008-05-09T18:48:00.015-05:00

Amber's grandpa never called the Munchkin back, so we don't have to go to Faribault tonight after all. We might have to go later this weekend, but whatever, I don't have to go right now and that's good enough for me. Jenni called me at 6:10 to find out what I was doing tonight, and when I told her I don't have to go to Faribault anymore she got that suspiciously pleased tone in her voice and asked if I wanted to come over, which of course means we'll be hanging out with Morgagod and Frodo. I agreed, on the condition that we could get drunk off our asses first. If I have to listen to Frodo talk about his pyramid scheme and Morgagod talk about the joys of douching, I need the buffer of alcohol to prevent me from killing them both.

This will be me at approximately 9:30 pm:

It's a pretty fair likeness, except that I won't be sitting on a box. Which is probably for the best, as I'd only fall off anyway. I prefer to keep my drunken shenanigans at a low elevation to lessen the impact when I inevitably fall on my ass and/or get knocked over by someone tackling me or chucking something at my head.

Teh SUCK.

2008-05-09T14:31:00.014-05:00

Ugh. I have to go to Faribault with my sister after work, because she's selling her old car to Amber's grandpa. Faribault's not that far away (maybe an hour and a half with Friday evening traffic) but it's gonna be totally boring because the Munchkin obviously won't be driving down there with me, since she has to drive her old car. If we're lucky, that heap of junk will make the drive in one piece and become Amber's poor grandpa's problem. I don't feel a lot of pity for that old man though, because apparently he's been warned the car is a complete pile and he still wants it anyway. I'm not sure why, but as far as I'm concerned he can use it to build a Doc Brown time machine or turn it into Christine and I'll just be happy to have it the hell off the driveway.

At least the trip back will be better because I'll have my sister's crazy ass for company, but getting there will be icky sucky boring. I don't wanna drive for an hour and a half in traffic! I can't read in the car if I'm driving, and it's not like there's anything remotely interesting to see on the way to goddamn Faribault. Guh-ross. This is so not how I planned to spend my Friday evening!

Maybe I can trick Jenni into coming with me.

Because this week is All About Asshats!

2008-05-08T14:44:00.002-05:00

HOLY SHIT:

Hackers try to cause seizures on epilepsy site

So apparently these fuck monkeys were trolling an epilepsy forum and spamming it with pictures and links to sites containing aggressively flashing graphics in an attempt to induce seizures in the readership of the Epilepsy Foundation's support group.

You have GOT to be kidding me. Who does that? That, right there, is a spectacular variety of worthless. Like, if Paris Hilton knew how to read, she'd see that article and be all, "Oh my God, grow up, that is not hot."

ATTENTION CITIZENS: If a wonky-eyed, pigeon-toed, useless slattern is inherently a better person than you are simply for finding the restraint to keep her herpes mostly to herself, you have a problem.

Sweet jumproping Jesus.

The storm is passing.

2008-05-08T14:05:00.000-05:00

I received an email from Mr. Alexander which contained a sincere, albeit somewhat patronising, apology for the unpleasant circumstances in which I find myself. He said he has nothing to do with the phone harassment to which I've been subjected, and I do believe he's telling the truth. For his sake I hope that I'm right, because the authorities have gotten involved, and because death threats were made they have begun taking action against the perpetrators. The phone calls slowed considerably last night, and stopped late this morning, hopefully for good.

Now I can get back to my regular rotation of crazy. My parents are still in the middle of a divorce, my cat's learning to pee in the toilet, my sister turned 21 yesterday, and I gotta go to a First Communion on Sunday, which means I better dress appropriately so the holy water won't burn me. Where does one procure a Teflon burka?

Open letter to an asshat.

2008-05-07T17:21:00.006-05:00

Dear Mr. Prioleau Alexander,

I am hereby publicly requesting that you and/or your friends, family, neighbours and associates cease and desist calling my private, unpublished cell phone. Since 5:45 am CST today, I have received 34 phone calls from people who are angry that I reviewed your book and expressed my honest opinion. I have been told that I will be, among other things:

run over by a Humvee

strangled

sodomised with a shotgun

"dropped in Iraq"

While I am thrilled for you that you have such a seemingly vast network of acquaintances who share your particular levels of taste, charm, and decorum, your attentions and the attentions of your supporters are unwanted and I would like for them to stop. If these actions are being taken without your knowledge or consent, I would like to request that you please ask your friends, family, neighbours and associates to refrain from contacting me further. While you're at it, I'd like for you to get the HELL over yourself, you narcissistic, unprofessional, Napoleonic jackhole.

Good day, sir.

Hush little baby, don't say a word.

2008-05-06T22:01:00.001-05:00

Here's a lovely little tale for all of you kids, and it's all about how I done pissed off an ex-Marine because I hurt his last feeling. Those military types can be such delicate creatures, you know. Plus, in all fairness, I am very scary and intimidating. I'm a short little white girl from Minnesota, and sometimes I say what I think! Run for your life, Mr. Soldier Man! Don't forget your guns! You'll need them to protect yourself from my terrifying opinions! Oh, the humanity! Won't anyone think of the children? And of course by children, I mean you, you gigantic sniveling crybaby.

What the holy hell am I talking about, the rest of you ask? Well, there's this beautiful gem of a media review website called Pajiba, for which I just recently agreed to do some book reviews. I turned in the first one on Sunday night, and because another feature got bumped, it was published the very next day. So yesterday, my review of You Want Fries With That? by Prioleau Alexander went up, and I thought I'd be lucky if it garnered even ten comments, because it's my first review for them and it's about an unimpressive little book by some dude nobody's ever heard of. Well, it got a little bit more of a reaction than I was expecting. You see, I did not love the book, and I had the unmitigated gall to say as much in the review. Shocking, I know!

Then, three things happened:

Someone copied a whole paragraph of my review and used it as part of an anonymous comment to the author at LISNews.
Mr. Alexander, who was already throwing a bit of a tantrum over there about how his genius is misunderstood and under-appreciated and librarians are a bunch of meaniepants book burners, decided that the anonymous commenter must be me, and proceeded to pitch a fit in my general direction.
Mr. Alexander, in the midst of this hissy, linked to the review on Pajiba, which the statcounter then picked up, and litelysalted (Pajiba's linkmaster) posted the link to the LISNews thread in today's Pajiba Love.

Who'd have thought my little book review would create such a fuss? It's crazy enough that it would be plagiarised and posted by an anonymous commenter, but on a LIBRARIAN site? And who would have ever imagined that the author would try to start a juvenile, name-calling flame war because he couldn't handle my opinion? I mean, he came off like kind of a tool shed in his book, but this level of asshattery is just hilarious. It's like a gift. A box full of crazy, all wrapped up and tied with a giant velveteen bow, sealed with duct tape and some drool and covered in scratch 'n sniff stickers.

The funniest part is that I wasn't even that mean in the review. Just this morning I told my sister that I hoped a bull shark would swim up from the Mississippi delta and eat her face off while she was fishing in the river, and she's my SISTER and it's her damn birthday tomorrow. She didn't start wailing about it, though. She laughed because she's awesome. This guy's book was absolute pants, and I was actually pretty restrained in saying so. I couldn't have predicted he'd be such a spineless little girl about it. Besides, I don't have the time or the energy to go around worrying that I might break people with words from my brain. I am FAR too busy trying to toilet train my cat.

Step 2.

2008-04-27T18:17:00.001-05:00

Simon has moved on to Step 2 of the crazy scheme. Aside from the fact that this is what my bathroom looks like now, things are going very well so far. He doesn't seem to mind the contraption at all, or that he has to jump on the toilet to use it. He keeps pulling kleenex out of the box and dragging them everywhere, but that doesn't really surprise me since he's always been obsessed with those little travel packs of kleenex. He's been pretty curious about the flush lever, but he hasn't yet figured out what it does. I doubt he ever will, which is probably for the best because when he was a baby and he figured out what light switches do, he'd flip one on and off and on and off and it was like a damn strobe light until the bulb burned out and he'd move on to another light and do the same thing all over again.

Anyway, the instructions for this nonsense say about 7,500 times not to rush the cat or they might flip out and, I dunno, pee in your hair or something. Definitely better safe than sorry when it comes to cat pee, so I think I'll wait until at least next weekend before moving on to Step 3, which is the orange-ish insert tray with the hole in the middle. I'll also have to buy flushable litter then, as I suspect it will probably end up half on the floor and half in the toilet every day.

Again, aside from the fact that my bathroom now looks like some kind of practical joke is being perpetrated on my toilet, the only real drawback to these shenanigans so far is the litter that Simon kicks everywhere since he's no longer using an enclosed box. I have to sweep the floor three times a day, and he still tracks litter into the hallway so I have to vacuum every single day. I'm a bit of a neatnick anyway, but this is pretty extreme even for me. However, if this craziness actually works, there will be no more litter anywhere ever again, so I'm still okay with the hassle. I will be so excited to throw the litter box off the roof and then run it over with my car and set the remnants on fire.

Human-related update.

2008-04-24T09:21:00.007-05:00

So...I keep getting emails which basically consist of, "Listen lady, I don't give two shits about your stupid fucking cat OR where he pees, so could you maybe update about some normal stuff? Like, did your parents kill each other over the divorce yet and you can't face reality so you've disappeared into a world of crazy cat lady obsessiveness, or are you just a lazy bitch?" I might be paraphrasing a little.

First of all, of course I'm a lazy bitch. Second, I guess kind of a lot has happened since Friday. Yes, my parents are getting divorced, but they're both okay and acting totally normal about it. My dad's probably moving to North Dakota (that's slightly less crazy than it sounds, as he grew up there). The munchkin (my sister) is NOT transferring to Winona State anymore; she's going back to St. Cloud State, even though that's the school she left a year ago because she said she didn't like it, but spontaneously changing her mind is what she does best. I dyed my hair dark brown (well, okay, I used dark brown dye but it just ended up a slightly darker shade of auburn). I hung out at Jenni & Casey's on Saturday with Frodo yapping about some idiotic pyramid scheme he's gotten himself roped into, and he got mad when I basically told him it was the stupidest fucking thing I'd ever heard. I detailed the interior of my car. I went to a Seder at Jenni's parents' and we ate ourselves retarded. Buckwheat (my brother) and his wife are still trying to spawn. Work has been insane levels of busy. I have a cold. The end.

Updated UPDATE:

2008-04-23T18:45:00.002-05:00

I just got home to find Simon making use of the new facilities. The good news is that since he peed in the contraption, he clearly no longer thinks of it as a toy box. The bad news is that the little pan obviously has no cover, and Simon is a big fan of the obsessive digging and kicking, so there is litter goddamn EVERYWHERE. It's like a sandy beach in there. There's litter on the fucking window sill; it's ridiculous. But whatever. If this crazy scheme works, then there will be no more litter anywhere ever, so I think I'll just have to tough it out for a few weeks. I'm willing to put up with some inconvenience on the off chance that this pipe dream becomes a reality. So anyway, tomorrow I will take away his regular litter box, and then I'll give him another day or so before I move the gizmo to the toilet.

In other news: remember how Simon had a cold? Well, he still has it, and he's feeling generous enough to share, apparently. I am sneezeriffic. I've gone through a box and a half of kleenex already today. I am contemplating taking some NyQuil and going to bed around 8pm.

UPDATE:

2008-04-23T00:23:00.003-05:00

Simon still using old litter box. Sniffed around and pawed a bit at the Litter Kwitter pan, but apparently deemed it to be there solely for entertainment purposes, then went and fetched his stuffed squirrel and buried it in the new litter pan.

Rather inauspicious beginning thus far. I remain skeptical. Simon remains unimpressed.

I have officially taken leave of my senses.

2008-04-22T22:17:00.002-05:00

So I had the following conversation by text message earlier this evening:

Sarah: I got this on clearance. [picture embedded]
Jesse: You've probably forgotten that my phone is fucktarded and displays pictures at 3% of their correct size. What's the picture of?
Sarah: I don't think I ever knew that about your phone. Never mind, it's a totally crazy cat related thing.
Jesse: Can you give me any more detail than that, or is it sort of a picture requisite thing?
Sarah: Let's just say that I've officially gone crazy. It was only $4.50 and maybe by some miracle it will work, but I doubt it.
Jesse: I would argue that is not a recent development.
Sarah: No, this is seriously crazy.
Jesse: Could you email it to me? Perhaps it would make an interesting topic for your blog.
Sarah: It's called the Litter Kwitter. Google it and laugh your ass off.
Jesse: OK, that is pretty fucking crazy. You'll have to let me know if it works.

For the 99.8% of you unfamiliar with the Litter Kwitter, behold:

I know, right? But listen, it was on clearance! It was only $4.50, so if it doesn't work then I'm out less than five bucks and I have myself a funny little story to tell people. But if it DOES work, then I never have to buy litter or clean a litter box ever again, and it will pretty much be the best day of my life.

So anyway, Step 1 is supposed to be taking the regular litter box away and putting this gizmo on the floor right next to the toilet. Right off the bat, we have two problems. First, Simon is a big cat. Not like a huge fat Marlon Brando cat, just a really big cat. He's approximately the size of a Shetland pony. If I took away his litter box out of the blue and left him this weensy little pan, he'd probably shit on my bed in retaliation. Second, the toilet in my bathroom is in a little nook, and there isn't enough space between the commode and the wall for this contraption to fit. I decided on a compromise (or two, actually). I moved the regular litter box into the bathroom for now, and I put the Litter Kwitter doohickey right next to it, and both are right across from the toilet. I'll give him a day or two with this setup before I take away his regular litter box:

Assuming he starts using this thing when his old litter box disappears, Step 2 is to transfer it to the actual toilet. Steps 3 & 4 are the two other inserts with graduated openings in the middle, so there will progressively be less and less litter, and then the contraption comes off and he'll be flying solo, as it were.

We shall see.

Sasquatch Lives! And other new developments.

2008-04-18T19:18:00.022-05:00

On the way home from work today, I saw a deer leg on the side of the entrance onto 35E. Not the whole deer, just a leg and a haunch. The rest of the deer was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it was eaten by a sasquatch. Either that, or there's some weird ass cult shit with deer carcasses going down in Eagan. You know, whichever. I really think Bigfoot makes for the more heartwarming story.

THIS JUST IN: Bigfoot is apparently real, and lives off Interstate 35E and Lone Oak Road. There's no need to panic, though. He's chosen to live in Eagan, so he's probably like a suburban Harry and the Hendersons kinda Bigfoot, all friendly and bumbling and generally harmless. Unless you're a deer, of course. Then he'll totally eat you and leave one of your legs behind as a warning to the other deer to stay the hell off his freeway entrance. Because apparently in my psychotic fantasy, Bigfoot hates deer. Jenni will no doubt be pleased by this, because she also hates deer. She says deer are assholes and that they always have jerk looks on their faces that make her want to punch them (incidentally, this is the origin of why we say that we're going to punch someone in the face like an asshole deer). It's too bad Jenni doesn't live in Eagan anymore, because this would probably be a good foundation for a beautiful friendship between her and Bigfoot. Jenni feels about deer the same way I feel about chickens. Except I don't think chickens have jerk looks on their faces, but I do think they're assholes. Maybe if they were capable of facial expression I would find them good for something other than dinner.

In other news, my mother served my father with divorce papers today. I haven't talked to him yet because he won't answer his phone, so I'm not sure how he is. I mean, I'm sure he'll be fine, because this can't possibly have come as a shock to him. They should've gotten divorced, like, when I was about nine. Probably even earlier, except my sister wasn't born until I was nine and a half, so I'm glad they didn't split up before that. They've been talking about it seriously for years. I just think now that my dad's retired, my mother had to either divorce him or knock herself into a coma. Now that he doesn't work, he's just...around, all the time, being crazy and weird. I love him because he's my dad, but he's totally crazypants. Anyway, my mother called me crying after she signed the papers, because even though this will be good for both of them in the long run, they've been married for nearly 32 years so it's still emotional and whatnot. Which is why I wish my dad would answer his phone, just so I know he's okay.

Also, Simon still has a cold.

Oh. My. GOD. Becky, look at her butt. It is so big!

2008-04-16T21:10:00.005-05:00

A conversation I witnessed in line at the grocery store:

Stupid Girl #1: Kim Kardashian is so fat.

Stupid Girl #2: She's not regular fat. She's just a fatass.

SG1: She's fatter than Lindsay Lohan.

SG2: But she's not, like, totally fat.

SG1: She's totally fatter than Jessica Simpson.

SG2: They're both fatter than Paris Hilton.

SG1: OH MY GOD, Paris is so pretty! We should totally be on her show. She would love us! We could be her new BFFs!

SG2: Only one person can be her new BFF, so we can't be on her show. We should totally be on a show we can win together. We should try to be on Kim Kardashian's show!

SG1: But Kim Kardashian is so fat.

Sneezy McGee.

2008-04-15T22:04:00.000-05:00

Simon has a cold. He's totally sneezetastic and seems pretty miserable. If I go more than five feet away from him, he starts mewling pathetically. I don't think it's serious, because he's not wheezing and his eyes aren't runny. He just keeps sneezing kitty snot all over my bed, which is awesome. I'm so super excited to wash the sheets every single day until he's better. I can't get mad at him though, because it's not his fault and he's so pitiful right now. He only calms down when I'm holding him or he's lying right next to me, and he keeps looking at me like he wants to die and shoving his head into my hand so I'll pet him constantly. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Simon, this is very unlike him. Normally his level of affection is more along the lines of lying across my feet and plotting world domination. My very kind neighbour has agreed to cat sit tomorrow while I'm at work, and she'll keep an eye on his breathing and call me if he seems worse. Knowing Simon, it's far more likely he'll eat her little dog when she's not looking.

Aye aye, Cap'n Hardass.

2008-04-12T03:26:00.005-05:00

So my physical therapist is a total slavedriver. First off, he expects me to actually WEAR my knee brace. Like, every day! And now that I've got a larger range of movement in my knee, he wants me to do daily sessions with him. DAILY. I don't even bother to put my contacts in every day, so I'm not sure who this dude thinks he's kidding. Second, he has taken it upon himself to "rehabilitate" my busted foot as well, and seems to think I should appreciate this extra effort. Unfortunately the fixing of my foot seems to consist of twisting it around and bending all the busted bits while digging his fingers into them, so mostly it sucks and I tell him what an asshole I think he is. It turns out he's like a hydra, though. Every time I rip off his head he just grows back two more of them and gets pushier. He is exhausting because he actually fights back. I'm used to people just bending to my every whim! Although come to think of it, I'm not sure why people usually do whatever the hell I want. I'm a pretty heinous bitch, and I don't even ask nicely most of the time.

I am a delicate flower.

2008-04-07T20:31:00.005-05:00

Not that this should surprise anyone, but it turns out I've got a mouth like a sailor.

I found this little quiz on Agent Bedhead:

Created by OnePlusYou

Around 39.3% of the pages on your website contain cussing.

This is 391% MORE than other websites who took this test.

Update on the busted leg.

2008-04-07T11:59:00.001-05:00

Okay, so remember when I dislocated my knee again a little over a week ago? Since injuries are more fun in pairs, at the end of last week I banged up my right foot and broke a couple toes, because my knee collapsed under me one day and I fell down and went boom. Well, at least I thought I just broke two toes. Over the course of the weekend, most of my right foot turned purple and it was...well, let's just say it was a smidge uncomfortable to walk. So I went to the doctor this morning, because that's what you do when your foot turns purple, and luckily nothing is actually broken aside from the two toes, but it's busted up every other kind of way. So now my foot is all wrapped up and they injected some crap into it and they wanted me to use crutches, but I don't have the time or patience for that shit so I said no thank you and I'm just kind of hobbling. It doesn't hurt nearly as much now as it did over the weekend, unless I have a shoe on. So I'm wearing a knee brace, a slipper on my left foot, and some Ace bandages and a sock on my right foot. It's exceedingly professional. Thankfully, I don't have any client meetings scheduled this week. Bonus: Everyone is my minion now. I haven't had to do squat all day, because everyone is convinced I will fall down and die if I move to do anything. If I were drunk, this day would be perfect.

Battlestar Puppy Killer.

2008-04-06T21:08:00.004-05:00

As many of you already know, I have some weird-ass viewing habits, especially when it comes to television. I've been told repeatedly that I don't watch "real" television, because I mostly only watch old, weird, or bad shows and boring documentary stuff. I have been recently making an effort to change that, and have started watching some of the stuff that people have said for years is really good. I watched Firefly a few weeks ago, and I really liked it a lot. Everyone who ever told me it was great was absolutely correct, and I was an idiot for not watching it sooner, and I should have listened to you all and I'm very sorry. I liked it so much, in fact, that I'm on a bit of a sci-fi kick now. I bumped the first season of Battlestar Galactica up to the top of my queue earlier this week, and I've watched the first three discs of it. Again, I really like it so far, and everyone who ever told me it was great was absolutely correct, and I was an idiot for not watching it sooner, blah blah apology cakes.

Aaaanyway, I watched the last disc that I have yesterday afternoon, and I won't get a new one until tomorrow, and it's all rainy today and I was bored and wanted to watch more but I didn't have any more discs, so I ended up watching some of the original Battlestar Galactica (the 1978 one) on Netflix's streaming thingy. It was...interesting. I've only watched part one of the first episode (which I think might have been a miniseries, actually, but I'm too lazy to look it up) and it's pretty cheesetastic, but still good in a 1970s kind of way. I had no idea Rick Springfield or Jane Seymour were in it, although Rick Springfield didn't last very long since he played Zak Adama. Whatever. My primary complaint: When the Cylons attack Caprica, Jane Seymour is all running around and shrieking and huddling basically right in the open with some kid that I think is her son but they're not very good at bothering to identify who's who so I'm not positive, but the kid had this dog that comes running toward them as they're huddled at the edge of some building and the dog gets squashed. THEY KILLED THE DOG. With an obelisk. I put the show on a time out so it can think about what it did, and if I feel that it has learned its lesson I might watch more of it later.

I have some areas of concern.

2008-04-02T19:57:00.018-05:00

They are, at present, as follows:

1. What is up with all the orange cars? Is this just a local thing, or is the epidemic more widespread? I see orange cars all the hell over the place lately. I mean...orange? For serious? Don't get me wrong, I loves me some random orange shit (I own four pairs of orange socks, and have been known to wear them with, say, a grey shirt and jeans...in May) but an orange car? Why? Driving home today, I saw a burnt orange PT Cruiser. Now, a PT Cruiser is ass ugly to begin with, but burnt orange? Are you kidding me? It looked like a Halloweentown hearse. I am left to conclude that there is some kind of cerebral parasite going around that turns people colour blind. I suspect it is waterborne.

2. Speaking of orange things, I still can't stop eating carrots.

3. The movie The Ruins:

This movie looks goddamn retarded, but it's based on a book about a plant that eats people. Or something. I haven't actually read the book, but the plant stalks people and burrows inside them, I think. I am on record as having a severe weakness for movies in which people get stalked and killed by things, and therefore I will surely be unable to resist this siren song of suck. Especially if I find out the plant actually eats the people. It would be just like Little Shop of Horrors, only stupider and really annoying. I'm supposed to say no to that?

4. As of this past Sunday, my father is officially retired. He is now made of nothing but free time and crazy, and he is anxious to share. He called me six times at work today. Two of those calls involved questions about toast. I may be forced to kill him in his sleep.

Totally unrelated, and not an area of concern, but I got this voicemail from Jenni earlier tonight:

"Ummm...okay, well, I just got your cuh-reepy message, and you should call me back. But only if you're still in a good mood, because I'm in a good mood, and I don't wanna talk to people that are crabby. Well...you're an exception. I suppose you can call me back either way. Okay, bye."

This was in response to a message that I had left her late this afternoon. I was in the most disgustingly, disturbingly good mood, and it always creeps people out when I'm like that. Since I enjoy creeping people out, I thought I'd call Jenni and share. Because I am a good and generous friend. And also evil and creepy as hell.

I live in a lush tropical oasis.

2008-03-31T19:25:00.010-05:00

I just went outside to get the mail, because I forgot to do it when I got home and I just remembered there are Netflix movies out there. This is what the front yard looked like before I trudged through the snow to the mailbox:

Here's the even more tropical view from the deck out back:

Those are not spirit orbs. Those are giant-ass snowflakes, glowing in the porch light. Not that you can tell amidst all that white, but on the ground down there is a large pond. Which is frozen. And covered in snow. Some of you may be thinking, "Oh ha ha Sarah, that is a funny early April Fool's!" Yeah, I wish. This is very much my reality. My arctic reality.

I also had the distinct pleasure of dealing with a bunch of lost, panicked tourists in gigantic SUV's with out-of-state plates fishtailing all over the freeway on the way home. Here are the three main things about tourists in Minnesota:

Anyone who will venture practically within the arctic circle just to shop at a gigantic hellmouth mall is obviously retarded to begin with.
None of them have the first goddamn clue how to drive in snow, and they operate motor vehicles like rocket ships of death. It's like a homicidal ballet on ice.
When it snows like this, the road signs get completely coated in thick white fluff. If you don't already know where you're going, well, you're pretty much royally fucked.

Admittedly, some of the tourists at the moment might be here for the baseball opener, and not just the stupid mall, but since I don't care about baseball I still have no pity for them. They just better not crash into my brother, because he and his wife are also at the Twins game. Speaking of crashes, there were accidents everywhere and it took forever to get home, and I was almost vehicularly assassinated about fifteen times. We're supposed to get another four inches overnight. I am thrilled to the tips of my frozen toes.

Happy spring!

2008-03-31T16:51:00.003-05:00

I took this picture a few minutes ago with my phone. This is the view out my office window:

Suck it, Mother Nature. You are a malicious bitch with a warped sense of humour and I hate you.

Cold sunshine makes you crazy.

2008-03-28T14:27:00.006-05:00

Jenni called me at work and left me this voicemail, entirely in a deranged lunatic sing-song voice, at 12:51 pm today:

Hi-iiiiiii !! Guess what?!?! I'm wearing flip-flops today! Cuz it's so nice out! Anyway, call me back. Bye.

It is 40 degrees. Fahrenheit. She is so goddamn crazy. I'm pretty sure that's the number one reason we're best friends. Also, to be fair, it is nice as hell out today. There is actual sunshine, and I didn't wear a jacket.

Bring out the gimp.

2008-03-27T17:47:00.005-05:00

I dislocated my right knee. Again. For the fourth time.

Not awesome.

I don't even remember doing anything to it, so I can only conclude that I must have kicked my own ass, Karate Kid "Sweep the leg, Johnny" style, in my sleep. I mean, I guess I could blame it on Simon, but even though he's pure evil he's also really lazy and besides, I'm the only person in the world he actually likes. Whatever, I woke up and my knee was all swollen and not bending how a knee is supposed to, and I tried to walk and it didn't work out so well, so I had to go to the doctor at the crack of dawn. They x-rayed it and sure enough, dislocated. Again. Anyway, once the doctor told me the damage wasn't too severe this time I pretty much stopped listening to him, which always drives him crazy. He was yapping about how I'd have even more scar tissue inside the joint now, but I was preoccupied with some pirate Legos that were on the tiny tot table in the corner.

Here's the funny part of the conversation.

Dr: Are you even listening? Put down the pirates. Arthritis is not amusing, young lady.
Me: I've already had arthritis in this knee for years. I'll live.
Dr: I can drain the fluid to ease the swelling and give you some movement, but I think you should consider surgery this time.
Me: On a knee? Are you crazy? That'll just make it worse.
Dr: There's a fair chance it could reduce the chronic pain.
Me: What's the chance it'll mess up the knee even more than it is now?
Dr: ...significant. But not absolute.
Me: Just drain it enough so I can walk.
Dr: You're so stubborn. You'll need physical therapy again.
Me: How long this time?
Dr: Eight weeks. Maybe a little more.
Me: I hate you.
Dr: Just when I thought we were becoming best friends. Give me my Legos back.

Lord, grant me strength...

2008-03-20T17:20:00.004-05:00

Mum: There’s no 7:00 Mass tomorrow.
Me: Okay.
Mum: I can’t believe it. We’ll have to go at 5:00, I guess.
Me: I’m not going.
Mum: What do you mean you’re not going? Tomorrow’s Good Friday.
Me: Tomorrow is also Jenni’s birthday, not to mention Purim.
Mum: What’s Purim?
Me: Only the best holiday in the history of mankind, when getting drunk is a mitzvah.
Mum: Is this Pern a Jewish holiday?
Me: It’s Purim, and yes, it’s Jewish.
Mum: Are you doing that again?
Me: If by “that” you mean avoiding Mass and getting drunk with my friends, then yes.
Mum: That's not funny. I mean the Jewish thing. Are you doing that again?
Me: You don’t “do a Jewish thing”, Mother. Jesus.
Mum: Well, are you?
Me: I never converted, remember? I just studied for a year.
Mum: Is this a phase? Are you experimenting? Is that safe?
Me: Educating oneself about religious diversity is not dangerous.
Mum: Mass is important. You should go with me.
Me: It’s important to you, not to me.
Mum: Your faith isn’t important to you?
Me: We’ve been over this. Our views differ. I’m sorry if that makes you sad.
Mum: Faith used to be important to you.
Me: I’ve been agnostic since I was ten.
Mum: You always were a handful. You’re coming on Sunday, right?
Me: I thought we weren’t doing dinner? Dad’s working, Buckwheat’s in Vegas, and Munchkin doesn’t eat real food.
Mum: I meant are you coming to Mass?
Me: Don’t you think it’s hypocritical and blasphemous for me to go to Mass simply to appease you?
Mum: You can’t go to Mass to appease someone. We’re going to the 10:00 service.
Me: Are you even listening to yourself? Cuz I know you’re not listening to me.
Mum: I listen.
Me: You think you listen. There’s a difference.
Mum: We could go at noon if 10:00 is too early.
Me: I don’t want to go at all.
Mum: You don’t mean that.
Me: I seriously can’t deal with you right now. I gotta go.
Mum: Why? We haven’t settled our plans.
Me: I gotta go stand in the middle of the street and wait for a bus to hit me.
Mum: Your smart mouth is not necessary.
Me: But it’s my best quality.
Mum: You’re really not going?
Me: Really.
Mum: But you didn’t even go at Christmas, either.
Me: Yes, Mother. There’s a pattern here, if you care to notice.
Mum: You’ll outgrow this eventually.
Me: Outgrow what, Mother? My personality?
Mum: Don’t be so melodramatic. We’re going at noon.
Me: Oh, sweet Jesus, I wanna kill myself.

You can't just keep crazy all shut up in the bathroom, fool.

2008-03-20T12:08:00.006-05:00

Remember this?

Well, saner heads have prevailed, it would seem:

Boyfriend of Woman Stuck to Toilet Charged

This whole little saga is just one of the approximately four trillion news stories you hear every year that make you wonder how it could possibly be that 87.6% of the population of America was absent the day they had the police come and teach about 911 in kindergarten. People will call 911 for the dumbest shit in the world, but it seems like whenever there's a real, actual, genuine-style medical emergency it's the last goddamn thing they think of.

I was once in a grocery store and a woman had a seizure, and I tried to catch her as she fell but she was significantly larger than me, and there was a kind of sliding smushing thing that happened. There were about 45 people standing around just staring at me, squished under a large, medically incapacitated woman, and no one made a move to call 911 or haul her off me until I started yelling at them.

I just don't get it. Why is this concept so difficult? It should be the simplest thing in the world. If there is a health-related issue that is beyond your capacity to deal with, pick up the phone and call 911 already. That's sort of the whole reason it exists.

Anyway, hopefully this lady can finally get the medical and psychiatric help she so obviously needs, and hopefully her dickbag boyfriend will meet a special friend with bathroom-related fetishes in prison.

FAIL.

2008-03-18T19:55:00.009-05:00

This happened in January, one year and six weeks after I bought a new laptop, which naturally had a one-year manufacturer's warranty. Sorry for the crappy picture; it was taken with my phone:

It was not dropped, or kicked, or shot with a rifle. Nothing happened to it. It just spiderwebbed right in front of my face one day for no reason at all. I was obviously less than thrilled, but I didn't have a meltdown or anything because I only paid $266 for it including tax. I never even bothered to have it looked at when it happened, because it would cost more than that piece of shit was worth to get it fixed. I would imagine if they gave away laptops in Cracker Jack boxes, they'd be better than that thing. I had never had a Compaq before, and I will never ever buy one again. Even though it was practically free, I think I was overcharged.

As a comparison, my old Toshiba (the fifth one I'd owned) was once dropped on the driveway, where it bounced down the pavement and landed in a puddle. It still worked just fine. The only difference was that the right hinge on the lid was always a little wonky after that. Thankfully, I had been too lazy to do anything with it after I bought the Compaq, so I still had it and had been using it until this morning...

...when Simon decided I wasn't paying enough goddamn attention to his royal ass and flopped down on top of the Toshiba in my lap, snapping the wonky hinge in half so the screen was only attached on one side. Good news: it actually still mostly works. Toshibas rock, I tell you. Bad news: the screen is only partially attached and needs to be propped up MacGyver style, and occasionally blacks out spontaneously.

I conceded defeat, and realised I'd have to either seriously contemplate fixing the horrible Compaq or just suck it up and buy a new laptop. I already knew what the answer would be regarding the Compaq (seriously, look at that picture...what a piece of shit) so I bought a Vaio on the way home from work. It is lovely. Bonus: I only paid $499. There may or may not have been shameless flirting involved in getting that price.

Oh, c'mon...what? It's a Vaio. You'd whore yourself out in a second for one, admit it.

Happy St. Patrick's Day Hangover!

2008-03-16T11:14:00.003-05:00

Last night and this morning were a spectacle of drunken (and then hungover) idiocy. Thank God we decided to record it for posterity. This is pretty long and pathologically stupid, and it's only a sampling of the shenanigans that went on. Pretty much all of it makes me look like a complete asshole and possibly a slut. It's very possible that this will only be funny to the people who were there or those who know us in real, actual life. If those categories don't apply to you, you might just want to skip right over this whole dumb thing.

Before we even left, let alone had anything to drink:

Morgagod: I give up. Jenni, you're just gonna be cuter than me today. As you are every day.
Jenni: Well, I'm sorry that I'm always the cutest one. Sarah could be the cutest one, but she usually never brushes her hair or wears real clothes, so...I was gonna say we would all take turns being the cutest one, but Sarah always forfeits her turn.

We went to dinner at Chula Vista. Poor sober cab Casey had to sit there for two hours while the rest of us drank margaritas. After the first pitcher, he called Jesse to see if he was coming over later.

Casey: (on the phone with Jesse) I'm not sure where we are. A Mexican restaurant.
Morgagod: Chula Vista.
Casey: We're at El Taquito.
Sarah: Did he just say Al Pacino?
Jenni: What the hell?

Then our waiter disappeared and was replaced by a tiny, incompetent waitress who kept messing up our orders.

Morgagod: Where's our waiter?
Jenni: I think he went home. I saw him with a jacket on.
Sarah: I miss him. He wasn't functionally retarded like that other little thing that just happened [pointing to tiny waitress].
Jenni: SSSHHHHH! It's happening again!

After still more margaritas, I ended up slipping down the leather seat in the booth, landing on the floor, and crawling out from under the table.

Jenni: Did you just fall? Also, what's in your pocket?
Sarah: What pocket?
Jenni: Your back pocket.
Sarah: Nothing...[patting ass] oh, this? A rubber band. Hair binder. Why, did it look like a condom?
Jenni: Yeah.
Sarah: I don't even carry condoms anymore.
Jenni: You don't?
Sarah: Why do I need them? I haven't slept with anyone since Andy.
Jenni: That's sad for you.
Sarah: Tell me about it.

After yet more margaritas...

Sarah: I...forgot what day it is. That's how this happened.
Morgagod: You mean you forgot what MONTH it is.
Sarah: No, day. That's a 3 and this was supposed to be a 15 and an 8, but some number sex happened and I wrote 18.
Jenni: Ugh. I am not willing to read all that. [Throws book, which lands in margarita puddle in the middle of the table]
Sarah: Hey! No throwy in the grossy!
Jenni: Well, stop being gross. I gotta potty.
Sarah: I already did. I locked myself in the stall for a minute.
Morgagod: Did you pully instead of pushy on the door?
Sarah: Yeah. It was like a Mensa test.
Morgagod: I was in there earlier and a girl did the same thing.
Sarah: But she wasn't blind drunk.
Morgagod: You're not blind drunk, either.
Sarah: I fell off the table! Chair...seat. Bench!
Morgagod: Booth.
Sarah: Same thing. I fell.
Morgagod: Yeah you did, drunky.

On the way home...

Jenni: I call shotgun on the bathroom!
Casey: For sex.
Morgagod: Who has sex in the bathroom?
Jenni: Sarah does.
Sarah: Hey, I have not had sex in either bathroom of this apartment.
Jenni: You had a lotta sex in the bathroom of the old apartment.
Sarah: The only room in the old apartment I didn't have sex in was the kitchen. And I almost had sex in there too, because Assface Jason stuck his hands down my pants in there.
Jenni: Keri stuck her hand down my pants in the kitchen at my birthday party, so I kinda had sex in there, too.
Sarah: Well, at least when I did it there wasn't any glitter involved.

When we got back, we made more margaritas and then brilliantly decided to smoke ourselves retarded.

Brad: Can you smoke a human?
Jenni: Brad just tried to smoke me.
Sarah: [pointing at Brad] I can't riddle what's wrong with that thing.
Jesse: Jesus, look at Sarah.
Brad: Is she dead?
Jenni: She's a zombie!
Sarah: I'm not dead.
Jenni: That's cuz you're a zombie!
Sarah: You can't be a zombie if you can't die, and I will never die. We've been over this. Evil never dies. I'm gonna live forever, like the Highlander.
Jenni: But I thought I was the Highlander!
Sarah: Well, there can be only one.
Casey: Fight to the death!
Morgagod: Advantage: evil zombie.

I wouldn't remember this part at all if it hadn't been recorded, but apparently we watched Hitman right before we fell asleep.

Morgagod: I can't hear anything. Turn it up.
Casey: It's already loud.
Sarah: Can closed captioning happen?
Morgagod: Hey, that is a great idea!
Sarah: Yep. I am a goddamn genius.
Morgagod: You're not just another pretty face.
Casey: I'll punch you in the face. That'll make it pretty.

I woke up really early because I drank a whole lot of energy drink before I fell asleep in the middle of the living room floor sometime after 4am. Morgagod and Brad were the only other two who were awake.

Morgagod: Are you okay?
Sarah: I dunno. My heart is jack hammering in my chest from all the Rock Star I drank.
Morgagod: Well, that was a lot, especially for a shrimp like you. Was the movie good?
Sarah: What movie?
Brad: The movie we watched.
Sarah: We watched a movie? Which one?
Morgagod: I don't know. You kept singing.
Sarah: I was singing?
Morgagod: Yeah, you kept singing the actor's name. Elephant?
Sarah: ...Timothy Olyphant?
Morgagod: Yes. Hitman.
Sarah: Oh, Jesus. Was it good?
Morgagod: I don't know. You kept singing, though.
Sarah: I don't remember that at all. Was I unconscious?
Morgagod: Probably not, since you wouldn't stop singing. Why did you drink so much energy drink?
Sarah: I was really thirsty, and it was the only liquid I could find.
Morgagod: What about water?
Sarah: I had a bottle of water, but I couldn't find it. Casey hid it from me.
Brad: ...in the fridge?
Sarah: That's not where I put it. When we got back from the grocery store, I put it on the floor...dropped it on the floor...I might have thrown it.
Morgagod: That sounds about right.
Sarah: What the hell is all over my hand?
Morgagod: Jenni drew on you.
Sarah: Drew what? What is this?
Brad: A smiley face.
Sarah: This doesn't look like a smiley face. It looks like she had a seizure with a pen in her hand and my skin got in the way.
Brad: Let's watch cartoons.
Sarah: Is this Tiny Toons? If this is Tiny Toons and you change the channel, I will kill you. Oh, it's over. Never mind. Do whatever you want.

So that was my St. Patrick's Day. How was yours?

1-800-WEHATEYOU.

2008-03-14T23:12:00.001-05:00

Jenni called me today to talk about our crazy ass game plan for tomorrow (so far we have three conflicting sets of plans made with different people). Here's how the conversation started:

Sarah: Hi.
Jenni: Uggghhhhhhh.
Sarah: Are you...okay?
Jenni: I just got off the phone with Suzanne.
Sarah: Oh, God. What now?
Jenni: Yeah, I know.

So we started from that and wandered our way through the varying scenarios for tomorrow (we ended up deciding to consume lots of liquor at Chula Vista and we'll follow where our moods lead us from there) and then talking about details for Jenni's birthday party next Friday, and then somehow we ended up here:

Jenni: The neighbour thinks you hate him.
Sarah: Me? Why? I wasn't even mean to him!
Jenni: I know, and you're normally mean to everyone. He thinks you think he's weird and creepy because he came up to us in the parking lot.
Sarah: I barely even said anything. Why would he think I hate him?
Jenni: Who knows? He thinks I hate him, too. I am nothing but nice to that jackass!
Sarah: I think it's weird and creepy that he thinks everyone hates him.
Jenni: Well, I do hate him, but he doesn't need to know that.

Ye olde biddy redux.

2008-03-14T15:08:00.006-05:00

I'm starting to hate Fridays. I had to have lunch with the crazy racist old lady admin again. We talked of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings. But mostly we talked about what a deranged lunatic she is. First of all, she's wearing her Hooters sweatshirt again today. She's 74 years old and maybe 4'10" and she dresses like a co-ed on spring break. She's like a tiny orange sack of dementia. She kept trying to get me to taste her roast beef sandwich, and I kept reminding her it's Friday so I can't eat meat, and then she asked me to explain to her how Catholic Lent works. Ugh. Okay, normally anyone who's known me for more than about eight minutes would know I'm the last goddamn person in the world who should explain any religion to anyone. I don't even believe in it, I just have some idiotic habits leftover from having been raised Catholic, that's all.

Anyway, I told her that God artificially inseminated a lesbian who then married another man, and then Mel Gibson made a snuff film about the lesbian's son, and so we all abstain from meat as a ritual recognising the rejection of patriarchal society. I'm pretty sure maybe she bought it, but it's also possible she had a mini stroke because she spontaneously announced that she needed to show me her doll. I was all, "Say what now?" and then she pulled out this doll, and holy Howdy Doody is it ever fug. It's about the size of a Cabbage Patch Kid, only scrawny and kind of shriveled and creepy as hell. Dolls are a little creepy to begin with, but this one looks almost exactly like what would happen if Chucky were flash-fried in hot oil.

Old lady: Isn't he precious?
Me: It's...what is it?
Old Lady: He's a Madame Alexander doll! He's a collector's item!
Me: Well...it sure is something.
Old Lady: His name is Joshua. He's a preemie.
Me: He looks like he has progeria.
Old Lady: What's that?
Me: Nevermind. He's lovely. What happened to his arm?
Old Lady: It fell off. I put it down his pants so I wouldn't lose it.
Me: Of course you did.
Old Lady: That's why I'm going to Sacramento to visit my cousin. She used to make dolls, and she's going to fix him. Do you think airport security will let me take him in my carry-on? They won't think he has drugs in him or anything, will they?
Me: Not unless you start talking about drugs in a doll, they won't. I would suggest, however, that you not tell anyone his hand is in his pants.
Old Lady: Will that matter?
Me: It's just not a good idea.

After that nightmare-inducing sequence, she told me a fascinating story about arch supports and her podiatrist, and then told me she wants to take me shopping. She said she needs to check her calendar before she knows when, but I have a sneaking suspicion I will be busy that day. Or possibly have Marburg.

Holy Hell.

2008-03-13T11:48:00.004-05:00

Riddle me this:

Woman sits on boyfriend's toilet for 2 years.

I...don't understand. I mean, clearly this unfortunate woman has some issues, to put it mildly, but WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HER BOYFRIEND? Why in the name of all that is holy did it take him two goddamn years to call 911 about this? Oh my God, every time I think I've heard of the assholiest thing in the world, I am smacked upside the head with something to top it.

I would have pasted the text of the article here for those who don't wanna clicky the linky, but then I thought about it for 2.7 seconds and realised those people are lazy worthless fucks just like this woman's boyfriend.

What's up, Doc?

2008-03-12T20:45:00.003-05:00

So I think maybe I have a serious vitamin A deficiency or something, because holy crap I can't stop eating carrots. I've eaten almost an entire three pound bag of carrots since Monday. Maybe I'll end up with carotenoderma and turn orange like an Oompa Loompa or Lindsay Lohan, but on the plus side, I'm pretty sure I might have infrared vision now.

Sometimes old people suck.

2008-03-07T15:05:00.004-06:00

Eating lunch in the company of a 74-year-old lady is sometimes a decidedly awkward and unpleasant experience. For example, today I was treated to a 45 minute long story about tax accountants at a senior centre that never remotely approached anything resembling a point. That wasn't the worst part, though. There was another story (there's always another story with old ladies) about a guided tour of Bachman's. Only a septuagenarian would think a field trip to a florist makes for titillating conversation. Anyway, at one point the following exchange took place:

Old Lady: We got to see the lower levels, and we watched a black man make a flower arrangement. It was almost artistic. You know, I think people of colour really are better suited to household tasks.
Me: Uhh...what?
Old Lady: They have their slave history to draw from.
Me: What are you talking about?
Old Lady: I think they just have a certain knack for domestic chores.
Me: I think the most polite thing I can say is that we disagree completely.
Old Lady: You're young. You'll learn.

I just...I don't know. How do you even respond to that? This is a conversation that took place at work, in our conference room over lunch, with a 74-year-old woman I've known since I was 14. It was a completely horrifying experience, being trapped in a room at work with a bonkers old lady telling a nonsensical and racist story.

Beyond that, though, it's just disturbing when someone you're very fond of says something so wildly inappropriate. I know a lot of people might try to argue that the elderly are somehow exempt because they were born in a different era and blah blah blah, but honestly, I think that's no excuse. First off, racism was never okay in any era, and secondly it's not like she was in a coma or shipwrecked on a deserted island for the last fifty years. Even considering society's backward way of thinking when you were young, what kind of rationalisation is there for spending half a century refusing to evolve your outlook?

The whole concept of the willfully ignorant old-school racist is one that really bothers me on a personal level, because my father is one of them. He's never been malicious about it, if that makes any sense; he doesn't think minorities should be killed or beaten or deported or imprisoned, but he's still racist. He uses a lot of heinously offensive terms, sometimes even in public, and he's completely embarrassing. He was born on a farm in North Dakota in 1943 so I realise that he's a product of a certain time and place, but that's not enough to excuse him. He doesn't live on a farm in North Dakota anymore, and it's sure as hell not 1943. I struggle a lot, trying to come to terms with the man who took me to Lake Nokomis to feed the ducks when I was little being the same man who uses racial epithets and thinks that's okay. Plus, it brings up all kinds of unpleasant thoughts about how it turns out that my grandparents were actually horrible people who raised racist children. Your parents and elders are supposed to be wise and deserving of your respect, not scorn and pity.

I guess the point is that I've had a crummy afternoon and now I'm all depressed about the sorry state of humanity. Liquor would surely improve my outlook, but I've still got two hours left of my work day. Besides, I've got to keep my wits about me to successfully hide from the batshit crazy old lady, otherwise she'll corner me with another story.

Totally jinxed myself.

2008-03-07T08:38:00.003-06:00

Remember yesterday when I was bitching about how cold it was? Well, it's not above zero anymore. I would whine about it, but I don't want karma to dump a surprise weekend blizzard on my head. Instead, let us take a little trip down memory lane to another time when it was Mankind Against the Elements:

19 January 2006

Jenni: If it's nice outside, I'm totally wearing flip-flops the rest of the day.
Sarah: Whatever, weirdo.
Jenni: What? It's nice outside!
Sarah: It's all wet outside!
Jenni: That's the best time to wear flip-flops! They're made for flippin' and floppin' through water.
Sarah: [blank stare]
Jenni: I can't believe I just said that.
Sarah: I can't believe you said it, either. I can totally believe I'm gonna record it for posterity, though.
Jenni: Ugh. We gotta go. We have to talk to Leah on the way out.
Sarah: What? Why? And what's this "we"?
Jenni: Well, she wanted to talk to me, and I require that you be there. As backup.

Later, on the way to lunch...

Jenni: I should've worn real shoes. My feet are freezing.
Sarah: [finding DVD on car seat] Was this movie good?
Jenni: Not really. It was weird. I didn't like it the first time I watched it. We can watch it, if you want.
Sarah: The hell if I'm watching it twice.
Jenni: Well, the first time I watched it, I didn't have my glasses on. Or my contacts in. And I had taken two Tylenol PM.
Sarah: So you didn't see it at all the first time, is what you're telling me?
Jenni: Pretty much. It was good the second time.

A couple of blocks later...

Jenni: Ugh. Look at this fool with a trombone.
Sarah: That's a kid.
Jenni: So? He has a trombone! Look at him - where does he think he's going? School's out, dude!
Sarah: It's 3:49. He's probably walking home from the bus stop.
Jenni: At first I thought it was a snow board and I was all, "Where does he think he's gonna go snow boarding, that hill right there?" Then I realised it was a trombone and I was like, "What the hell is he doing with a trombone right there, and where is he going?"
Sarah: He's a kid! He probably just got done with band!
Jenni: Still, who has a trombone outside?
Sarah: He's walking home!
Jenni: Whatever. I'm an equal opportunity judger over here.

Leaving the restaurant after lunch...

Jenni: Oh my God, it got like 20 degrees colder while we were in there, and now I feel like a fool for wearing flip-flops.
Sarah: Just now?
Jenni: Yeah, just now.
Sarah: Ugh. Whatever.
Jenni: What? I didn't earlier. It was nice as fuck out.

Money for nothing (and chicks for free?).

2008-03-06T14:38:00.001-06:00

I came back from lunch today to find $6,705.00 in cash sitting in my inbox on my desk. It was not in an envelope and it did not have a note of any kind anywhere near it, nor did I have an email from anyone with a heads up that the money fairy would be paying me a visit. I sent a company wide email asking for someone to claim their stash, and I have yet to get a response from anyone. The agents do this kind of crap all the time. I mean Jesus, I work in accounting, not clairvoyance. Slap a Post-It on your money, bitches, or I'll just create a file in the general ledger called "Alms for the Awesome" and consider it a bonus. Honestly.

In other news, I am no longer freezing because I am now wearing four layers.

Brrr.

2008-03-06T09:40:00.002-06:00

So, when I woke up this morning, there were sunbeams streaming in through the window and a cat lazily stretched out next to me, and when I got up and looked out the window it seemed like it was super nice outside.

Except not so much, in actuality. It's 4. As in degrees.

...Fahrenheit.

But hey, at least it's above zero.

Anyway, I'm cold and I'm tired and there are all these sunbeams still streaming in the window with their trickery and lies and it is not helping. I can't seem to focus on much of anything. Maybe I'll go clean something. The smell of bleach might perk me up.

Horrible Movies I Shamelessly Love, Part 4.

2008-03-04T08:59:00.001-06:00

Comedies

9 to 5
I hate Jane Fonda like crazy, but I love this movie so much that I even love her in it. It's probably because Dolly Parton is fantastic enough for at least eight people, so it kind of evens out. Lily Tomlin is also in it, and the three of them plot to kill their horrid boss. Hilarity ensues.

My Stepmother is an Alien
Kim Basinger is an alien who comes to earth and marries Dan Akroyd in the most ridiculous dress ever created. Actually, she wears all kinds of ridiculous dresses in this movie. There's also a one-eyed snake that lives in her handbag. No, I am not kidding. It's hideous. The handbag, I mean. Well, the snake won't win any beauty contests, either.

The Trouble With Angels
I love Hayley Mills, and this is my absolute favourite movie of hers. It's two girls playing pranks in a Catholic school, pretty much. Hayley Mills runs around cooking up nasty schemes and announcing, "I've got the most scathingly brilliant idea!" That's something people should say more frequently, I think. I just like the way it sounds, all filled with evil and glee.

The Witches of Eastwick
Jack Nicholson is the devil, and he has affairs with Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. Several people projectile vomit cherry pits, there are shenanigans with a voodoo doll, and Jack Nicholson sort of ends up living in a television. They all have his babies, even though none of them are named Rosemary.

Oscar
Sylvester Stallone as a 1930s gangster and Marisa Tomei as his shrill daughter. There's a lot of tomfoolery over stolen money and switched bags and mistaken identities. It's a lot like Clue only with less murder, if Clue kinda sucked and wasn't the best movie in the history of ever. It's possible that the resemblance to Clue might be the main reason why I like this so much.

What About Bob?
Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss playing the two most annoying people who have ever lived. I actually used to hate this movie, but somehow I came full circle and everything about it that used to drive me nuts now amuses me.

Love Potion #9
Sandra Bullock before she got famous in Speed, and Tate Donovan before...well, he never did get famous, but he was totally in Space Camp that one time. Anyway, this movie is moronic (there's even a fake Prince of Wales at one point) but the parts with the tubercular hooker make it all worthwhile.

Overboard
An amnesiac socialite and the handyman who cons her into thinking she's his wife because he wants a maid and a nanny. It's like Cinderella, only backwards and inside out and kind of retarded. Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell are super cute together.

Real Genius
Scrawny young nerd goes to made-up Pacific Tech college, where his slacker genius roommate puts an ice rink in the hallway and has a bum living inside his closet. Crooked professor uses students to develop laser technology as military weapon. Students exact revenge by blowing up professor's house with popcorn.

Heartbreakers
Sigourney Weaver running around in wacky clothes and a wackier accent, cockteasing Ray Liotta and waiting for a chain smoking, emphysemic Gene Hackman to die. Jennifer Love Hewitt and her boobs play the sidekick.

Horrible Movies I Shamelessly Love, Part 3.

2008-03-03T08:44:00.003-06:00

Dramas & Romances

The Man from Snowy River
Probably the best thing you can say about this movie is that it's really pretty to look at. The rest of it is a pretty spectacular mess. It's set in 19th century Australia and it's about horses. There is a lame, star-crossed romance. Kirk Douglas plays his own hillbilly twin. My brother and I watched it approximately 8,359 times growing up. I own it and its (far, far worse) sequel on both VHS and DVD.

Space Camp
This movie was made in 1986 and stars Lea Thompson before she had sex with a midget in a space duck costume, Kelly Preston before she entered into a polygamous marriage with John Travolta and the delusional corpse of L. Ron Hubbard, and Joaquin Phoenix when his name was Leaf. Oh, and Tate Donovan, who as far as I know hasn't changed one bit. It's about kids who go to space camp and get accidentally launched into orbit by a robot named Jinx. Yeah, that's right, a robot. The robot is also Leaf Phoenix's best friend. Oh, and Kelly Preston's character once read a book on Morse code which she remembers perfectly, so she sends a message to NASA and saves everyone. If you watch this movie, you are 64% more qualified to become an astronaut.

Project X
Helen Hunt and Matthew Broderick and some space program research chimps. I don't actually even know why I like this movie. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen. That does nothing to stop me from watching it, though. I don't have it on DVD, so I have to dig out the VCR to watch it. I would buy the DVD but it's $10, which is at least 250 times what it's actually worth.

Cloak & Dagger
One of the most cheestastic things you will ever experience in your life. Two little kids become spies, basically. My brother and I loved this movie so much when we were kids. I don't own it, so I kept Netflixing it until they added it to their streaming movies and now I watch it all the damn time. If Netflix would only let me stream The Last Starfighter and Adventures in Babysitting, I might never leave the house again.

The Outsider
This is some dumb TV movie which originally aired on, I believe, HBO. It stars Naomi Watts as a Quaker widow whose sheep farm is threatened by encroaching ranchers, and Tim Daly as the wounded outlaw she shelters after she finds him unconscious on her land. They fall in love. It is exactly as stupid as it sounds, but Naomi Watts is so pretty and charming, and Tim Daly is really hot.

Romancing the Stone
Romance novelist. Kidnapping. Treasure map. Unspecified variety of smuggler/adventurer. Wild goose chase. Gigantic emerald. Danny DeVito being tiny and vaguely, bumblingly menacing. Alligators and/or crocodiles - is this distinction ever made clear in the movie? I can't remember. Whatever, a dude's hand totally gets bitten off, just like Captain Hook!

Jewel of the Nile
The (even worse) sequel to Romancing the Stone. No treasure map this time, but still with the romance novelist and the adventurer and the kidnapping and the tiny Danny DeVito, only now in a made-up, vaguely Middle Eastern country! Also, the jewel is not an emerald this time. It is an idiot.

Steel Magnolias
Julia Roberts is buck-toothed and annoying, but she didn't really bug me too much before Pretty Woman. Actually, this movie is teeming with annoying women, but somehow it works for me. Maybe because Dolly Parton is in it, and her fabulousness can't help but rub off on anyone within a five mile radius. There's a lady named Weezer played by the completely insane Shirley MacLaine, and everyone is southern and crazy and they fight all the time. Then Julia Roberts gets a haircut so bad that it kills her.

Mystic Pizza
Julia Roberts again, still toothy and annoying, but still pre-Pretty Woman so I can deal with it. Also Lily Taylor and Annabeth Gish, both of whom I love. Lots of melodrama, including a commitment-phobe bride fainting at her wedding, fish barrels dumped into a convertible, a dad sleeping with the babysitter, and foolishness with a TV food critic and a pizza parlour.

Ever After
Drew Barrymore sporting one of the most random and painful accents ever committed to film while falling boringly in love with an idiot prince. Thank God Anjelica Huston is around being completely awesome and delightfully evil. This movie is sugary sweet and stupid, and somehow I love it anyway. Drew Barrymore is weirdly charming in ways that I don't understand, because she is a lot of things that normally grate on my last nerve. I suppose it's one of the deep mysteries of the universe.

Horrible Movies I Shamelessly Love, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo.

2008-03-02T06:14:00.004-06:00

Dance Movies & Musicals

Center Stage
The cheese! The angst! The soapy drama! The staggeringly bad acting! I played with Lincoln Logs as a child that were less wooden than these people. Except for Susan May Pratt - she is not wooden. She is histrionic and AWESOME. No, seriously, I love her in this movie. Plus, dancing! Pay special attention to the big number at the end. There is a motorcycle on a ballet theatre stage, with stripping and simulated DanceSex, and costume changes which defy the laws of physics and possibly tear a hole the space-time continuum.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Take the following elements:

1 Part Sarah Jessica Parker, post-Square Pegs and pre-Sex and the City.
1 Part Helen Hunt, post-whatever she did before this besides that one time she guest starred on The Bionic Woman (Original Flavour) and pre-Mad About You.
1 Part Shannen Doherty, post-Little House on the Prairie and pre-90210.
65 Parts 1980s fashion tragedies and musical abominations.
1 Part private girls' school with uniforms.
1 Part mock-dangerous public school guy on a motorcycle.
3 Parts feud with spoiled rich girl.
6 Parts dance contest for a fictional show called DanceTV.
1 Part disapproving military father.

Mix randomly. Consume with mindless glee.

Footloose
Kevin Bacon and his skinny ties and his crazy hair bring white boy soul to religious dustbowl. John Lithgow is a fire and brimstone preacher with a daughter named Ariel. There is a game of chicken played with tractors. Sarah Jessica Parker and Sean Penn's dead brother play the best friends. There is a lot of what looks like electrocution or a grand mal seizure. It rocks.

Newsies
Oppressed 1890s paper boys singing and dancing for their rights. Ann-Margret appears on a swing in a brothel (oh, I'm sorry, "dance hall"). It is both so much better and so much worse than it sounds.

Summer Magic
This was made sometime in the early 60s and stars Hayley Mills and Burl Ives, both of whom I love. It's a dorky Disney period piece with all the requisite foolish trappings. I love every stupid thing about it, especially the insipid musical numbers. Burl Ives even sings a song called The Ugly Bug Ball.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Think of the stupidest, most sexist movie you've ever seen. Make it even dumber, turn it into a musical, and dress everyone in insanely bright clothing. The result would be about half as bad as this movie. I love it. I don't even know why. It is truly heinous. I wish I owned it on DVD so I could watch it all the time.

Sister Act
Singing nuns!

Dance 'Til Dawn
I've encountered very few people who have actually seen this movie. Y'all are missing out. The cast is chock full of people from 80s television shows. The plot is the dumbest thing ever written. If I somehow found out the script was created by a bonobo chimp tap dancing on top of a typewriter, I wouldn't be too surprised.

Grease 2
Exponentially more stupid than Grease. Michelle Pfeiffer sings a number while intermittently dancing on and straddling a stepladder. There's a big group song about bowling. At one point, while dressed as a Christmas tree, Michelle Pfeiffer has a dream sequence (while she's awake, on a stage, in front of a crowd) and sings to her possibly dead mystery lover.

The Happiest Millionaire
Disney period farce about a rich dude with a boxing ring in his house and alligators in his foyer who runs some kind of wackadoo bible camp out of his living room. Lesley Ann Warren is his daughter who gets engaged to another rich dude, and the rich families meet and hate each other. Everyone is crazy, and they sing about it. It is awful and idiotic and 141 minutes long and I love it.

Horrible Movies I Shamelessly Love, Part 1.

2008-03-01T12:17:00.004-06:00

Creature Features, Action Movies and Disaster Flicks

Deep Blue Sea

So very bad...yet so funny. There are evil genius SuperSharks! And they eat everyone! Well, nearly everyone, at any rate. Okay, the dialogue is painfully bad and the acting is really hamfisted, but whatever, haters. Samuel L. (Motherfucking) Jackson gets bodyslammed and chewed in half mid-rant. Michael Rapaport's leg gets bitten off and the foot twitches as it floats away. L.L. Cool J's talking parrot gets eaten and then he (L.L., not the dead parrot) has to use an ax to hack his way out of a gas oven that was turned on by a shark. It is glorious. My hat is like a shark's fin, indeed.

Reign of Fire

Again, terrible dialogue, only now with added Baldy McConaughey and his barking, growling and scenery chewing! I see your point, but I would refute it with Christian Bale and dragons breathing fire and eating people. Wait, I mean the dragons breathe fire and eat people and Christian Bale is just, you know, around. Being awesome. Not eating anyone.

...that we know of.

Pitch Black

Vin Diesel is a black hole of suck, but there are alien insect/bird creatures that stalk and eat people! In the dark! Just ignore everything anyone says, because it's all stupid and pointless. Sit back and enjoy the eating of the idiots. Maybe on mute.

Any and all incarnations of "The Mummy."

Brendan Fraser is supposed to be some kind of sex symbol, but I think he looks like he has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This minor setback is overcome by the fact that the movies are funny (stupid funny, but still) and there is a pissed off mummy who blows a lot of sand around and whatnot. Lots of running around, fighting and madcap hijinx, plus scarabs that eat people! Rachel Weisz is charming and pretty, and Oded Fehr is megahot. Also, The Rock turns into a giant, cartoony scorpion with a tiny wrestler head and what would appear to be a bad weave.

Resident Evil
This is one of the dumbest movies ever, and word on the street is that it bears very little resemblance to the game. Never having played the game, I cannot vouch for the film's accuracy to the source material. Here is the bottom line, though: There are zombies, and they eat people. I love any movie in which there are zombies and/or creatures that eat people. This movie also has zombie dogs, and some sort of mutant humanoid with a lot of tongue happening. Oh, and Michelle Rodriguez dies. That cannot happen often enough. Plus, I have loved Milla Jovovich ever since she was in Night Train to Kathmandu. If you have never heard of this movie, consider yourself fortunate. It makes Resident Evil look like high art. I haven't seen it since I was about ten or eleven, but I remember that it was absolutely terrible and I loved it.

Arachnophobia
Spiders! Spiders everywhere! Spiders that eat people! Or drain them of their blood, anyway, which is good enough for me. Also, I find John Goodman strangely attractive, even as a deranged exterminator.

Commando
Arnold Schwarzenegger shoots everyone who will stand still long enough, and when he gets bored with that he moves on to a rocket launcher and later impales a guy with a pipe. Alyssa Milano plays his kidnapped daughter, and she wears cuffed overalls and pink Converse high tops and has a perm, because it was the 80s and she didn't know any better.

King Arthur
If you pay any attention whatsoever to the plot of this movie, you might end up wanting to kill yourself. It's really bad, and Keira Knightley pouting up the joint does it no favours. It does, however, have lots of burly men fighting with swords. Swordfights are awesome.

Jumanji
This is based on a children's picture book about a board game. Yeah, you read that right. It also stars Robin Williams, King of the Spazatrons. On the plus side, it has Bonnie Hunt and Kirsten Dunst (I don't care how drunken and snaggle-toothed she is; I like her anyway) and there are animals running amok all over the place. It is stupid and fun.

The Day After Tomorrow
If movies were people, this one would be the guy who picks his nose during his wedding ceremony to his own sister. It's that retarded, yet whenever it is on television, I cannot look away. It's like the sum of its idiotic parts combine together in a sorcerer's amalgamation of ecstatically bad phantasmagoria.

Ring-a-Ding-Ding.

2008-02-29T14:38:00.003-06:00

[Phone rings, caller ID shows it's Jenni]
Sarah: Hi.
Jenni: [Loud, indistinct background noise] How do you spell ukelele?
Sarah: Uhh...U-K-E-L-E-L-E. I think. It might be A-L-E-L-E, but I'm pretty sure it's the other way.
Jenni: [Muffled by loud background noise]
Sarah: Where are you?
Jenni: At Jimmy Johns. The background music might be kind of loud.
Sarah: Why do you need to spell ukelele at Jimmy Johns?
Jenni: Don't ask questions!

Sweet Mexican Jumping Bean Jesus.

2008-02-28T20:27:00.001-06:00

Ugh. Seriously. It snowed, like, two inches today, so it took an hour and 45 minutes to drive the nine lousy miles home. I cannot begin to understand why the smallest quantity of snow makes everyone drive like they're mentally delayed. It's Minnesota, people, get with the programme. There will be snow in winter. If you can't handle it, take the bus or move to Arizona with the rest of the snowbirds.

I had to stop at the effing grocery store to buy a bunch of pasta (I'll get to that in a minute) and of course it was like a carnival in there. I was in line for ages to check out with my three stupid items, wondering the whole time what the hell all these people were doing with their mountainous carts. I know it's snowing, but to the best of my knowledge the government is not about to declare food rationing, spazatrons. Calm the fuck down, go home and order pizza like normal people.

Here's why I needed the pasta: We have a 74 year old admin at work, and she got it into her head that we should have a Leap Year Lunch tomorrow, I guess because she could die any day so chances are slim that she'll see another leap year. She's gotta party it up while she has the chance. She wanted it to be a potluck, because that's how old ladies work, except since it's Lent we can't have any meat. Anyway, she and all the rest of the ladies (yeah, I work in bizarro world and our only male employees are independent contractors, so the entire office is female) decided that we should have nothing but salads and appetizers, for no logical reason whatsoever. I got assigned pasta salad, but none of those bitches will eat whole wheat pasta and that's all I have in my house. That's how I ended up waiting in line for half an hour with all of those bunker-stocking maniacs, just to buy two boxes of pasta and a bag of carrots.

When I got outside, some jackhole in an Escalade backed into me and knocked me flat on my ass in a snowdrift, then didn't bother to get out of his stupid SUV to even check if I was still alive or bleeding in the snow, but did take the time to give me the finger as he was pulling away. Congratulations, sir, you are the Dickbag of the Month.

I need a drink and a nap. I'm really crabby.

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

2008-02-26T17:41:00.001-06:00

I woke up with a headache, so I started the day pissed off before I could even crack both eyes open. I hate waking up with a headache. I get headaches kind of a lot, I guess, although not nearly as often as I used to. Starting when I was about 13 or 14, I got migraines and cluster headaches all the time, and sometimes my ears would bleed or I would pass out. They finally tapered off a few years ago, and I'd still get them but only intermittently. They're becoming more frequent again lately, and I don't like it one bit.

The pants I'm wearing today are too big, and every time I walk down the hallway I have to keep a hand on my hip or they start to kinda fall down. Hopefully Jenni won't read this, because she'll just call me an idiot and tell me to wear a belt like a normal person, and that's only if she forgets that I told her (the last time she called me an idiot and told me to wear a belt like a normal person) that I don't own any belts, and she told me I was the biggest freak she'd ever met.

My remote desktop connection has been down since just before noon, and most of my accounting stuff connects through it so I'm doing everything manually. So far I have red ink all over two of my fingers, a bunch of piles of paper all over my office floor, and a worse headache than I started the day with.

My dad keeps calling my cell phone and asking me to bring him a bag of potting soil. What the hell he needs a bag of soil for I have no idea, because even though it's pretty warm today, it's still Minnesota and it's only 21 degrees Fahrenheit. Whatever he's got it in his fool head to plant, I'm betting it won't work out very well. I keep having to remind him that I'm at work and I can't deal with his crazy ass right now, and then he just calls me back in a half hour for the same thing.

It's absolutely freezing in my office because for some reason (likely related to the fact that God hates me) the heating vent in my ceiling isn't working. The building maintenance people are apparently off-site someplace, so they won't even come check it until tomorrow. So I'm wearing my scarf. At my desk. Whenever your workday turns into a scene out of Charles Dickens, you should just give up and go home, I say.

Jon & Kate + 8 = AWESOME.

2008-02-25T21:58:00.003-06:00

I don't watch a lot of "normal" television. I've only seen one or two episodes at best of some popular sitcoms and dramas, and all the others I've never seen at all. I watch totally random stuff. I'm obsessed with Project Runway even though I dress like a hobo whenever I can get away with it, and I also love stuff like Dirty Jobs, Bizarre Foods, and whatever that show is called about Charm City Cakes (and I don't even like cake).

My newest love is Jon & Kate Plus Eight. It's a good thing the kids are cute, because those little buggers are everywhere. It's like a midget circus in that house. Every minute of the family's life is insane, and I love it. The parents (Jon and Kate, obviously) are so normal. They bicker a lot because Jon is more laid back and Kate is kind of a control freak, but first of all they have eight tiny tots hijacking their sanity, and second they fight like actual human-style people and not like tv famewhores. They seem really close and they genuinely respect each other, but they're open about venting the frustrations that come from two very different personalities being swarmed by children. They have a great sense of humour about themselves and their nutso family. The kids are adorable and hilarious, and watching them do the most boring things on earth, like eat breakfast and go to the dentist, is completely fascinating. It's all so heartwarming that it should make me queasy, but it's totally awesome. I can't even explain it. I know it sounds utterly lame, but if you haven't seen it, seriously - give it a try.

People who creep me out.

2008-02-22T17:45:00.001-06:00

Giada de Laurentiis - Jesus, lady, stop smiling. Why the holy hell are you so goddamn happy all the time? Are you functionally retarded? If you don't knock it off, your lips are gonna meet at the back of your skull. Plus, with that maniacal grin on your face every second, you look like you might launch yourself at the nearest person and start eating their face right the fuck off. Is that the secret to your cooking show? Is that the magic ingredient in your recipes? Human flesh?

Milo Ventimiglia - Have you suffered a stroke? Are you secretly related to Sylvester Stallone? Why does only one side of your mouth work? Is it a manifestation of divine punishment for being a filthy perv with a girlfriend whom you could have legally adopted at age six? Please go away now.

Tyra Banks - I'm not sure if I actually believe in aliens, but you're a pretty good argument in favour of their existence. I would like for you to stop. You know, everything. Just stop.

Elijah Wood - I think Tyra Banks' home planet is orbiting somewhere in the depths of one of your ginormous eyeballs.

Jennifer Lopez - Congratulations on your spawn. Are they human? I am admittedly no expert on the physiology of the undead, but I would have thought your husband would be sterile. Are the babies his reward for services rendered to a dark overlord? Also, I must confess I am a little concerned that he might eat them. The flesh of the innocent is supposed to be very rejuvenating. I would suggest the swift employ of a very intimidating nanny.

My cat - Stop staring at me. I mean it. You are so disturbing. I love you and all, but sometimes I think you might be the antichrist. Then I remember about Ann Coulter, and you're in the clear again.

Remember when...

2008-02-20T15:58:00.004-06:00

17 January 2006

Jenni: How much will you give me?
Sarah: I already gave you a dollar.
Jenni: I demand four more.

Later...

Jenni: Is this your receipt?
Sarah: Yeah, it's mine.
Jenni: You charged it? It was 59 cents!
Sarah: I gave you my dollar.
Jenni: But it was 59 cents! That you charged!
Sarah: It was my check card! And it was 59 cents that I didn't have, because I gave you my dollar!
Jenni: Who doesn't have a dollar? Cuz really, who doesn't have a dollar? ...Besides me.

Still later...

Amanda: What's with this receipt? 59 cents?
Sarah: I didn't have a dollar. Well, I did, but then I was forced to donate it.
Amanda: So you charged 59 cents?
Sarah: I didn't have a dollar!
Jenni: Who doesn't have a dollar?
Sarah: You.
Jenni: I had a dollar!
Sarah: Yeah, that I gave you.
Jenni: Well, then you should always have two dollars, cuz I'm a needy friend.

Laziness & impending intoxication.

2008-02-16T18:21:00.004-06:00

As it turns out, Jenni and I didn't drink at all last night. Casey was half drunk when I got there, and he did some of the jello shots, which Jenni and I tasted. She made them with vodka, which I normally can't stand, but you could hardly taste it so it was kind of okay. Then we ordered pizza and put in some movie (I don't remember which one, because I wasn't even facing the screen when it was on) and sat around and talked until almost 3am. I fell asleep on the floor like a Sim, as per usual.

I woke up around 9:30, because I have issues with extended consecutive hours of sleep, and I watched The Cutting Edge and ate pizza for breakfast. Jenni woke up when it was half over, and she watched the rest with me and we sat around and gossipped until we took Casey to work. Then we sat around and gossipped some more, accomplishing absolutely nothing all day.

Around 4:30, I realised I'd have to go home soon to dress in real clothes like a normal human being, since I had come over the night before in a hoodie and yoga pants. It may just be some stupid bar with some shitty cover band, but I still figured I should dress like I'm not homeless. I was whining about how I didn't want to drive half an hour home and then change and come back, and Jenni told me to go to the store and buy clothes...so I did. How's that for the laziest thing ever? I got a really cute pair of shoes, though.

When Morgagod came over, she told me the shirt fits my boobs funny, even though it looks totally normal. It's a babydoll tunic thing (whatever, it was on clearance for $6) and Morgagod seems to think that the empire waist should be all obscenely tight under my boobs, but GOD, seriously! We're going to a bar to see a shitty cover band named Rhino that covers songs by other cover bands, and we're gonna drink something called a Trainwreck (it has at least ten different kinds of liquor!) so what the fuck does she WANT from me?

In other news, Jenni's dad gave her this weird alarm clock/radio/pen holder cup thing, and I would like to quote the directions for setting the alarm. All text is exactly as it appears in the instructions.

Function operation: Press a key to show the normal time, and connect again out to insulate the slice.

1. Normal time mode: While openning the machine, the normal time shows to 12:00 time establishes
In the normal appearance, press the key enters 12 Hrs/ an appearance, press the key of SET into time, date establishes, and below the row order establishes respectively hour, minute, year, month, day etc., pass the UP/ DOWN key match to complete its establish.
- Set up the scope
- Establishes at the same time in the date, the week the ground of cowgirl is automatic to change.
- At establish appearance, if have no a minute in key to them withdraws to establish automatically, combine the current in manifestation establishes a time, date.

2. Alarm clock with love to sleep mode
In the normal appearance, press key two or direct press the key enters to make the bell mode.
The alarm clock establishes
In the alarm clock mode, press the key of SET in to make the bell establishes, and below the row order establishes respectively hour, minute, music, pass the key match to complete its establish.
If open to make the bell only, but did not open love to sleep, then be to make the bell arrive enactment time, ring to make a minute.Keyed to stop arbitrarily ring make. If have opened love to sleep, then make every 3 minutes ring, every a minute, ring totally for 4 times.
- At love to sleep ring to make, keyed to stop ringing to make arbitrarily, but the love to sleep marking still gleams, keeping to 4 times ring make the be over or is canceled.
- At not love to sleep ring to make, press the key cancels this love to sleep function; (namely the marking stops the flicker)But press the key of to then close the love to sleep marking.
- When make bell and love to sleep markings to open all and not, making the bell to close with love to sleeply at the same time. Only have to make the bell marking open, the love to sleep function just is valid.

3. The birthday reminds the mode
In the normal appearance, press the key can enter the birthday reminds the mode.
The birthday reminds to establish
Remind the appearance in the birthday, press the key of SET into the date with establishes horaryly, pass the key of be matched with to complete its establishes, and below the row order establishes respectively:
- When time that birthday establishes when reminding arrives, broadcasting 5 minutes in song in birthday to bless birthday HAPPY!
- At establish appearance, if have no a minute in key to then withdraws to establish automatically, combine manifestation current a time, date for establishing.

4. Timer mode:
In the normal appearance, press the key can enter the timer mode.
The timer establishes
In the timer appearance, presses the key of SET in to establish, and below the row order establishes respectively hour, minute, pass the key match to complete its establish.
- Set up the scope
- The beginning accounts the hour:At position number that show the " DATE" from 00 change into 59 circulations are gradually decrease, current a minute for setting up the number gradually decrease open to start, the same a number for setting up gradually decrease also start.
- When account arrive 0:00 00 hours will ring to make to hint a minute, if front is in the appearance of TIMER, ringing to make at the same time to hold act last manifestation of 0:00 00 will gleam without intermission.
- At establish appearance, if hae no a minute in key to then withdraws to establish automatically, combine the beginning accounts the hour.

5. Temperature mode
Current environmental temperature in manifestation, in the normal appearance, the key of SET that press conversion proceeds Celsius/ Fahrenheit.

6. Music listening mode
In the normal appearance, pressing the key of can open or close the music.When the music opens, can circulate to broadcast 7 different pop musics.

It's no wonder she can't figure out how the hell to programme it.

This can't end well.

2008-02-15T20:41:00.003-06:00

I received the following two texts from Jenni tonight:

6:50pm Do you think that gin and lime jello would make good shots?

7:57pm I made jello shots with this stuff called raspberry fusion jello...we will see what happens.

Yeah. So I'm about to leave to head over there, and then tomorrow night we're going to Jersey's to see some shitty cover band that Morgagod's all excited about. I don't even know what they cover, but I'm almost positive the quality of their performance will be directly proportional to the amount of liquor I consume...so I can tell you what's gonna happen. Come Sunday, my hungover ass will be online, looking up just how you go about getting on the transplant list for a new set of kidneys. I best start saving my pennies. I hear dialysis is expensive.

Um....yeah.

2008-02-01T19:29:00.000-06:00

Sleep deprivation, bad TV & boredom.

2008-01-22T12:24:00.000-06:00

The past couple of weeks have not been great in the area of sleep. Admittedly, I generally never sleep much, but it's been particularly brutal lately. That's how I ended up channel surfing at 3am. Aside from infomercials, televangelists and "celebreality," it was pretty slim pickings. The Disney Channel plays actual shows all night, but apparently 3am is the magic hour of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. I'm too tired to summon the requisite virulence with which to describe my incandescent hatred for that show, but suffice to say I did not stop to watch it. Even the commercials drive me up the wall. I hate those little boys and their foofy mop-top hockey hair. What is it with male celebrity twins and their universal aversion to haircuts? Those little boys on Full House had idiot twin hair, too. Ricky Nelson (from some 50's show, like Donna Reed or something) had twin sons with an album in the 90's, and they had full-on Malibu Barbie hair. That was before one of them disappeared and the other one joined that show on VH1 (Fallin' Off the Wagon For Fun & Profit, or whatever it's called). Even Fred and George Weasley couldn't escape the mysterious draw of Idiot Twin Hair. To be fair, though, every single one of the boys in the Harry Potter movies had stupid hair for a while.

Whatever. The point is that I was driven, by the desperate boredom of the insomniac, to watch Grizzly Man on Animal Planet. Have you seen this? I had heard of it, of course, but I was somehow under the (wildly mistaken, incidentally) impression that it was the normal-style documentary of a naturalist who was killed by a bear in Alaska. Turns out it's actually the video diary of a socially maladjusted man's sad, misguided infatuation with a fantasy version of nature, and the inevitable tragedy that results from his inability to face the restrictions and consequences of reality. It was pretty disturbing to watch because it just seemed like he really, really needed some counseling, or assistance, or something. He never got it, of course, because he practically vibrated with rage and slipped into unhinged, barely lucid tirades almost immediately after anyone told him anything practical or sensible. And then he was killed and eaten by a bear. It was exhausting, but not in the sweetly putting me to sleep kind of way. Probably not the best choice when what I was really looking for was the television equivalent of a lullaby. Next time I'll watch a Spanish soap opera instead.

So anyway, I only managed about an hour of sleep, and I am nine kinds of tired now. I had to do a Webinar this morning on customising reports, and it was skull-crushingly boring. The majority of it wasn't even in colour, and it was almost unfathomably bland and dull. It's part two in a delightful series, part three of which I get to enjoy on the 29th. I am absolutely breathless with anticipation. I spent the rest of the morning reconciling a bunch of wonky electronic payments that showed up in disjointed fragments. It's been an awesome day so far. I'm going to go eat a sandwich and await the magic of the afternoon. Maybe some more people will email me with requests for year end reports they were supposed to have done themselves and turned in two weeks ago. I love when that happens.

Four months later, pretty much nothing's changed.

2008-01-19T03:57:00.001-06:00

So...yeah. Turns out I'm still as awesome as ever about the whole concept of updating. On the plus side I am still alive, which leads me to believe Dawn has not yet assassinated me for my failure to follow even the most basic of instructions. Dawn, you're awesome; you rock as an editor, and I suck at life and everything. Remind me to buy you a drink.

In other news, I've been thinking about it super hard for the last 15 seconds or so, and it seems I don't remember very much of the last four months. Not because I became a raging alcoholic and blacked out constantly or anything, but because nothing wildly interesting took place. I turned 30, some holidays happened, I entered into a Bad Idea Relationship with a generally smart and fun guy who was totally wrong for me because he was looking for something serious and commitment makes me hyperventilate and break out in hives, I had a turbo boost of inspiration for a couple of crazy ambitious projects and disappeared into my work for a couple of months and only resurfaced last week (I hadn't even seen Jenni since my birthday; it was like I fell off the face of the planet for awhile), and I finally grew a backbone and ended the Bad Idea Relationship tonight. Or last night, I guess, since it's morning now. That's the short version of the last four months, anyway.

This whole last week, since I started existing in real life again, I've had this weird feeling of displacement. It's like my life is a pair of shoes that I found buried in the back of my closet that I haven't worn for a long time and they don't really fit anymore. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do about it. Maybe it's just like jet lag and it will sort itself out.

To all the folks who can suck it.

2007-09-13T11:47:00.002-05:00

Dawn: Holy God, woman, get off my back. I'm updating! Please don't kill me in my sleep.

My sadist eye doctor: You weren't, like, serious about those eye drops, right? Can't we just scoop my eyeballs out of my head with a melon baller and have done with it? Cuz I'm pretty sure that would be less uncomfortable than eye drops. I have the heebie jeebies even thinking about them. I picked up the prescription on Wednesday and I haven't even opened the bottle yet. I'm almost positive they will never, ever get put in my actual eyes.

My allergies: I hate you. You make me want to kill myself. I can barely breathe. Also, everything itches and I'm so tired I think I sometimes hallucinate a little, plus my eyes are red and puffy and they won't stop watering. I don't even remember the last time I was able to smell anything. 1948, probably.

My attention whore cat: Yeah, I see you over there knocking shit off the shelves for the sheer evil fun of it. Sleep with one eye open tonight, asshole.

The weirdo who keeps calling my cell phone: I ain't your brother Pedro, lady. You have the wrong fucking number. I don't know anything about your nephew Juan or his girlfriend or their car or why they didn't go to your daughter's school play, but if I had to venture a guess I'd say it's because you're the most goddamn annoying bitch I've ever talked to in my entire life, and you're a little slow on the uptake, too. Work on that and maybe your family will stop avoiding you and giving you the wrong number.

In conclusion, here's a phone conversation I had with Jenni today -

Jenni: Is it legal for gas stations to sell alcohol in Wisconsin?

Me: How the hell should I know? I don't go to Wisconsin.

Jenni: What the fuck is wrong with you? Everyone's been to Wisconsin.

Me: I've been there. I went to Wisconsin Dells with my family when I was like 12. Why would I go to Wisconsin now?

Jenni: Here's why you go to Wisconsin - to buy alcohol on Sundays, stupid.

Me: First off, today isn't Sunday. Also, here's a little story about the one and only time I had to go to Wisconsin to buy alcohol on a Sunday: I was with YOU. Remember that?

Jenni: Okay, you don't need to get that kind of attitude with me, missy. And furthermore, I don't like your tone!

Projects & Headaches.

2007-09-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

Last night, in between loads of laundry, I got the brilliant idea to sort through the bathroom drawers, cupboards and closet. I wasn't quite prepared for what I was getting myself into, to say the least. Sometime just before 3am, I gave up and went to bed - leaving the bathroom looking like it had been ransacked by thieves. In the process, however, I discovered that I am the proud owner of enough expired medications to poison/overdose a herd of rhinos. I also need to immediately find an 80s hair band, to which I can donate the cubic ton of hair product and makeup I unearthed. On the plus side, I no longer have to replace my broken hair dryer. Who knew I had another one laying around? Not that I remember ever buying a red hair dryer, but whatever.

Boredom & other workplace hazards.

2007-08-31T11:41:00.002-05:00

Holy crap, I'm bored. Since it's the Friday before Labour Day, there's almost no one here. I'm the only person in accounting, and there's only one agent, a couple of administrative people and two of the partners in the office.

Here's what I've been doing since yesterday afternoon: The office Christmas cards. Yeah, it doesn't get any more exciting than that. Especially since it's August. Also, one of the cards is embossed, and the graphics margins don't line up. I can't fix it because the ratios of the embossing and the graphics are different. All I can do is make it mis-aligned in a different direction, so I have to design new cards, and I'm mostly just giving myself a migraine with this exercise in frustration.

I don't even have any big exciting weekend plans with which to console myself. Last Sunday, I told Jenni I'd go with her to synagogue tonight to hear her sing. I'm not even sure which synagogue she goes to (she's told me at least three times, but I wasn't listening so I don't remember). I know she's not Orthodox, so the services can't last that long. I've actually never been to services at anything but an Orthodox synagogue. It'll be interesting to see how different it is. It can't possibly be more boring than some of the church services I've been to. Mass is only interesting when there's a full choir (usually only on holidays) or when Father Tom tells one of his rambling, nutso stories. Lutheran services are always boring. The weirdo born-again Christian services at the church of one of my childhood friends are only interesting (albeit creepy) when they turn up the crazy and get all riled up about something and start waving their hands in the air and speaking in tongues; the rest of the time it's just a lot of droning about eternal damnation and heinously boring folk guitar music.

I'm guessing on Saturday I'll be doing something silly with Jenni and Morgagod, since last week we reinstated our weekly girls' night thing. If it goes according to our tradition, Jenni and I will get drunk and be really bitchy, and at some point Morgagod might cry and go home, after which I will fall asleep on the floor like a Sim. We also might try to play this board game that I can't remember the name of. It has something to do with mysteries, or murders, or something - I think there's a crystal ball involved somehow, but I might have made that up. I'll probably be once again too much under the influence of alcohol (or something else) to learn how to play properly, so I'll wander off to do something retarded while everyone else bickers. That's what happened the last two times we tried to play that game. Otherwise we'll just watch a dumb movie and goof off, unless Jenni wants to take us on another tour of random "haunted" places. If I can be drunk while that happens, I'm up for it.

In other news, the property managers of our office building are having the roof redone, and whatever alcoholic batch of crazies they hired to do it, they've been determinedly making the biggest racket in the history of ever all week. They drive ATVs up there (yeah, on the roof - not at a cautious rate of speed, either) and toss around objects heavy enough that the support columns and walls in the office are always shaking. I've stopped even answering my phone, because between the building shaking, the ATV engines, the jackhammers, the steam rollers and their blaring radio, I can't hear a damn thing anyone says on the phone anyway. The fish in the aquarium on my desk is convinced the world is ending, and has been hiding in a plant since Monday. This morning, part of the ceiling came down here in accounting. I certainly hope another piece doesn't fall on my head, because I'd be hard-pressed to think of a lamer way to die.

The unbearable cuteness of Simon.

2007-08-30T21:06:00.000-05:00

Simon is almost five years old. He is a Bengal/Ragdoll mix approximately the size of a small pony. He is the cutest thing in the history of ever. He is also the living embodiment of evil. Here is photographic evidence (primarily of the former):

Crappy cell phone pictures can't fully dull the cuteness.

Awww, even cuter while sleeping and not destroying anything!

This is from a couple Christmases ago. The ball-spinning scratcher toy thingy has catnip inside it, and he pretty much passed out after having gone on a bender.

So sleepy.

2007-08-29T20:04:00.000-05:00

Still have a cold. Took half of an Advil Cold & Something-or-Other (Cold & Allergy? Cold & Sinus?) tablet, on the theory that half a pill would only make me half as tired. Used a big butcher knife to cut it in half and nearly severed a finger, plus sent half of it (the pill, not my finger) flying across the kitchen and had to crawl around to find it again. Can actually breathe now, but I've been so sleepy all day since I took it. Almost fell asleep a couple times at work, and spent the rest of the day forgetting what I was doing while in the middle of doing it. Actually did fall asleep a couple times when I got home. The Last Starfighter came in the mail from Netflix today. Tried watching it, but fell asleep again. Still sleepy. Going back to bed.

Fairs, hair cuts & head colds.

2007-08-28T12:42:00.003-05:00

Already slacking, and not even a week in. Anyway, here's a belated and somewhat truncated update.

Saturday night: Went to Applebee's with Jenni and Morgagod, had two drinks with dinner and got drunk enough to fall out of the car door in the parking lot at Super America and let Morgagod talk me into buying a lottery ticket (ridiculous waste of money). Went to see Stardust at Showplace in Inver Grove Heights (they have the best popcorn) and it was fantastically good. We picked up Jesse and Casey, and went to find some "haunted" house that Jesse heard about from some high school girls. Got there and Jenni had a mild nervous breakdown in the dirt road leading to the place, so we left and went to the Factory instead. Around 2am she drove us to see some crazy lady's unkempt property in St. Paul someplace while I was yelled at on the phone by my drunk sister. Went back to Jenni's and watched some movie that I don't even remember because five minutes in, I fell asleep on the floor like a Sim.

Sunday: Lazing around Jenni's, she decided she wants bangs and said we should cut them ourselves, I refused and convinced her to go to a salon where she got a super cute haircut and I spontaneously decided to get most of my hair cut off. It's chin length now, with a bunch of choppy layers. A little after 5pm, Marci came over and we picked up Casey and went to the State Fair. Turns out I love the State Fair. Ate a bunch of yummy stuff (cheese curds & corn on the cob) and scary stuff (deep fried pickles & corn fritters) and bought a bunch of weird stuff (floating eyeballs & a bonnet - don't ask). Saw a bunch of baby animals, went through the Haunted Mansion, rode Ye Old Mill (dumbest thing ever) watched a carny show and goofed off. Got home around midnight.

Monday: Woke up and couldn't breathe at all. Spent the entire day sneezing. Convinced myself for a while that it was my allergies (they've been really bad lately) but by evening was so miserable I conceded defeat. Definitely have a cold.

Today: Raging head cold. Didn't stop sneezing long enough to sleep more than an hour at a time all night. Having recurring daydreams about crawling into bed and dying. Feel like I've been at work for a week and a half, and it's still not 5 o'clock yet.

Weekend plans.

2007-08-25T01:31:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time (like, last year) my best friend Jenni and I used to do a girls' night thing with our friend Morgagod. It kind of stopped happening a few months ago, somewhat because Morgagod is a deeply eccentric individual, but mostly because Jenni and I are selfish bitches and sucky friends. Anyway, we missed the girls' night thing, and even though she's odd, we missed Morgagod because she's crazy and fun. Early this week we called to ask if she wants to hang out, maybe have dinner and see a movie this Saturday. We're going to see Stardust; hopefully it won't disappoint, and hopefully Morgagod won't talk the whole time or do that skull crushing fangirl squee thing. I told Jenni that if Morgagod won't shut up, I'm calling an usher and getting her kicked out. Jenni said we could just get up and move instead; she likes to keep things simple. Like I said, we're selfish bitches.

Tomorrow we're going to the State Fair. I've technically been there twice, but the first time I was three years old, and the second time I was in high school and I just worked at an Andersen Windows stand for a day and didn't do or see anything. This time should hopefully be a whole lot more fun. If it turns out it sucks, at least they sell beer.

A depth of weirdness.

2007-08-24T11:36:00.003-05:00

I watched a movie last night called Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. It was weird. I'm not even sure if I liked it. Apparently, it's based on a novel (which I've never heard of) and was made by a bunch of well known (but certainly not to me) German film-type people. No one in it is German, and it does not take place in Germany. It's set in 18th century France, but was filmed in Spain. Dustin Hoffman plays an Italian master perfumer (cast, I can only guess, for his nose and NOT for his painfully bad accent) and Alan Rickman plays the father of a girl being pursued by the killer. The killer himself is played by some English guy named Ben Something-or-Other. The story is weird, the main character is weirder, and it's made in such a way that the killer almost becomes the protagonist. You know, except for not, obviously. Like I said - weird.

The music was beautiful. I have no idea who did it, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but it was excellent. Some of the shots were gorgeous, as well. The Ben guy who plays Grenouille (the killer) was also very good. The physicality of the character is striking. I think it's something about the way he holds himself so still. A bit like an insect. Inhumane, but not in an evil way, despite the fact that he does all sorts of evil things. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's like Grenouille is this tragic, damaged obsessive who's consumed by his creation, and it just so happens that a number of women die at his hands because of it.

I'm still not sure if I liked it. Now, the day after I watched it, I feel kind of like when I wake up after having a really odd dream. I don't dream very often, though. I think most of the time I don't sleep deeply enough to dream.

I had dreams more often when I was a kid. I even had two recurring dreams. One of them was about making my bed, except that it wasn't my actual bed, it was some giant random dream-conjured bed that was still somehow mine. The other was about a tea party, vaguely reminiscent of the Mad Hatter's, with this hugely long, elaborately set table, and all the guests but me were penguins. We'd have tea and toast fingers, and the penguins would then paint their flippers and my hands with water colours.

I was a deeply strange child. I could lie and say I'm more normal now, but I'm a terrible liar. Whenever I try, the lies usually come out like questions. The rare times they don't, they're so absurdly off the wall that no one in their right mind would believe them anyway, and I immediately follow them with, "That's a lie." Except for when I tell people I'm psychic. 'Cuz seriously, if they'll fall for that nonsense, then there are things wrong with them that can't be fixed.

In other news, in the middle of the night I got a text message from a semi-friend of mine, telling me she misses me and that she had a dream about me, and in the dream I had blonde hair. That's a little weird, but everyone I know is weird, so I wasn't freaked out yet or anything. I texted her back, asking her what the dream was about. She said she dreamed she was at work, but she had to wear a cowgirl outfit that day, and I came in to see her and she cut my hair. The hair cutting part isn't as nuts as it sounds, because she's a stylist, but the cowgirl outfit? Yeah, that's messed up. Plus, the last time I saw this girl was at my best friend Jenni's housewarming party. I think Jenni moved into her new place in March, which would mean I haven't hung out with this chick in five months. We're not exactly close. She texted me some more stuff after that, but I was half asleep and I don't care about her, so I don't remember what it was. That's mean. I should be sorry for thinking it. You know, if I were a better person.

Futility?

2007-08-23T17:53:00.002-05:00

Vain efforts repeated are funny things. You know that cliché that says repeating the same action and expecting different results is the definition of insanity? Not that this specific repeated action is the only example, but I'm clearly out of my mind. I've had, over the years, a number of blogs. I'm terrible about them. I barely keep them up, and I inevitably abandon them. I think I've had four, but honestly, I don't even remember exactly.

Once, when I was in sixth grade, my English teacher (whose name I can't remember, but she had this really unfortunate, dirty blonde hockey hair thing happening) made us keep a journal. I forget how much it counted toward our final grade, but I do distinctly remember that I had to do a crapload of extra credit to keep my marks up, because after about the first week, I never ever ever wrote in that journal.

A few days ago, Dawn (my editor) sent me an email asking for a link to my blog. Then this phone conversation happened:

ME: I don't have a blog.
DAWN: Of course you have a blog; everyone has a blog.
ME: Remember the part about how I'm crazy and weird?
DAWN: Jesus, you're kidding. You've never had a blog?
ME: I didn't say I've never had one. I just don't have one now.
DAWN: Why? What happened to it?
ME: Them. What happened to them.
DAWN: Fucking Christ, you are so strange. And lazy. And
you have to start a new blog.
ME: Why?
DAWN: Just do what I tell you.

Which brings us to this. I have my doubts about the chances for success, but I suppose anything's possible.