An Open Letter to Weather.com

Dear Weather.com: I have some concerns about your website that I wanted to share with you. I've included them in this letter, along with exemplary pictures, for your convenience. Please don't take this the wrong way- consider it constructive, loving criticism from a friend.


First, I'd like to address your handling of the newest threat from our seas, tropical storm Ophelia. 

I can tell you're stressing, weather.com. You've probably got some pretty fabulous banner ads in the making, getting ready to prepare us for the storm with your classic combination of hyperbole and hysteria.  But- and I know how hard this is for you- try not to get too excited this time. Ophelia will probably drown herself before anything terrible happens.*


I also wanted to point out an error in an advertisement I saw on your site. I think someone got the copy wrong. Don't worry- I corrected it for you!

Finally, I'd like to turn to one of your news stories.

Nice job on the green screen!

Let's look a bit closer at this story's headline:

I hate to be so critical, but to this I can have only one reaction: DURRRRRRRRP!


What, exactly, is the speed of thought, Weather.com? How did you measure it? How, for that matter, are you measuring the melting of the arctic ice? It must be melting pretty quickly to go faster than thought. Say I've had 5 thoughts (scientifically abbreviated to th) during the last 10 seconds. That's a 5th/10s ratio, or 1th/s. The rate of the arctic ice melting is about 1 cm per year, or a 1cm/3,556,926s ratio.** Obviously thoughts move much, much much faster than the speed of melting ice in the arctic circle. My scientific conclusion?  Either I'm a genius, or- and I hate to break it to you, Weather.com, since we're such good friends- you may be retarded.


I think the answer to that question is clear.  


I dearly hope this letter hasn't ruined our friendship. I'm afraid that there's a chance I've lost your good opinion, but though it hurts, I'll move on. Luckily, my good opinion of you was lost a long time ago!


Sincerely,


BraveWorldGirl.












*Please tell me you get this joke.
**Statistics and equations brought to you by the Harold Camping Society for Better Math.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

While cleaning my room the other day, I found an old journal from 5th grade. That was the year I had Mr. Folk, the famous teacher with one fake ear (but was it the right? Or the left? He would never say; I suppose I'll never know). I started flipping through this thing, and I came to one conclusion:

I was a weird little kid.

I thought you might find some of this amusing. So, of course, I'm putting it on my blog. With illustrations. I even left in all the bad grammar and spelling mistakes, because hey- shits funny. You're welcome.

Hopefully you'll be as amused as I was to read them. If not, well I don't really care. Have fun!




#1: Snow, or What the Hell Was I On?

3/23/00

I was very suprised when it snowed on the first day of spring luckily, it didn't stick. It was snowing the size of footballs! Snowing cats and dogs! Pancakes! Giants!...It was a miracle! ...I'm telling you, its this El Nino thing. The guys a complete loony! I don't think there's a loony bin in this side of the GALAXY big enough to hold his nuttiness. The guy must have had a brain transplant were you give away your brain but don't get a replacement!

An Artist's Rendering.

#2: I Was an Anxious Child


4/4/00
yesterday, I went to Mc.D. I had heard that they have Furby's at their stores. I was quite pleased. But then I had a thought; WHAt if they didn't have them? I was soon to find out....
When we got there the drive through was too crowded so we went inside. The lines were relatively long, but withstandable. The question still remained; Did they have them?

Finally it was our turn. we ordered. I was all tense. Then, to my great releif, i saw the man put in the Furby! i was all excited. The Furby was white with brown spots it has pink and brown ears. I makes a gurgling noise. 
 

PUT IT IN THE F!*%ING BAG, BITCH.

#3: Adventures with Proper Nouns


Date Unknown
The Other day I was over at Emilys house with Kristena. We were going outside to play crocay. When we opened the door we heard a wierd sound like this, "Eeeeooooeee." I peaked my head outside the door and in the Bushes was a racoon! We got really excited and ran to tell Emilys dad. He chased it away. I was really excited! 
Later on, When I got home I toll my dad. He said that the racoon must have rabies. I got very nervous.

GET OUT OF THOSE BUSHES, MR. RACCOON.

Reasons Why I Luv Senior Spring Term

Thursday I didn't feel like going to work, partly because I over slept and partly because I'm lazy as hell.
So instead of finding an appropriate excuse or dragging my ass to work anyways, I sent this in:


Hey Boss Lady (name removed):

I woke up this morning with a very severe case of Senior-itis. I think I may be contagious, so
I've decided to stay home today in order to keep you all from catching sick.

I'm sure I'll be better by tomorrow, though. I hear these bugs only last for 24 hours.
See you then!

Thanks,
Hannah

LIFE IS SO WONDERFUL GUYS!

OMG BALL.

10 reasons I love Senior Spring Term:

1. The only class I'm taking is about fairytales.
2. Consequentially, most of my HW involves watching Disney films or reading the Grimms' Fairy Tales and ragging on men for their sexist attitudes. Win.  
3. I don't think I've had more than one sober weeknight since I got back from break.
4. Did I mention Disney? Yeah. Suck on that.
5. My professor showed up an hour late to class yesterday. For the second time.
6. We have snack break in class. Yesterday we had cheezits. The day before? Oreos and milk.
7. I know I'm outing myself as a nerd here, but I've watched SO MUCH Doctor Who in the last three weeks.
8. Also my book? The one I had no energy for during the Dark Ages Winter Term? I'm rewriting it now. And it is gonna be bad ass.
9. I actually have the energy to cook again! Now, granted J still does the majority of the cooking. But last week I made Gazpacho (no, not salsa) and then we all made f'ing carrot cake. Mother F'ing carrot cake.
10. I have time to go see movies again! Granted last night's choice was Thor, which was awful. So, so, so bad. For a good idea of how fucking bad it was, click here.



Anyways. That's what I've been up to. Plus looking for a job, and fretting about graduation, etc, etc. I try to focus on the positive.

Oh, and to round up this post: I nabbed this screen capture while wasting my life watching Doctor Who. Yes, that is a man holding a banana. And an electric screw driver. And three very confused looking people.

Go ahead. Try and explain this.

I'm challenging my (two) readers with a Caption Contest! Or even an Explain What's Happening Contest. Let's see what we can come up with! Because frankly, even having watched the episode this is from, I'm still very, very confused.

Spring Break- Part II

...In which we have Excellent Hats, the Best Walmart Trip Ever, and Gray's Anatomy of Drunkenness...

So for some reason I have been struggling with this blog entry. It's not that I don't have anything to write about- I do- it's just that, well, most of my break can be encapsulated in this picture:

The blurry state of this picture is a good visual metaphor for my vacation. Note the beer & the hat I was drunk enough to be wearing.

To further illustrate this point: One of the perks of our condo was a large, analog wall clock (picture the kind of Pier 1 import that middle class white people would enjoy). My friend set it back to 5 pm every time he started a new drink.

He only made it past 7 twice.

(On a side note, I hope this picture portrays just how excellent that hat was. We found it in our garage at the condo, and of course immediately started to wear it around the kitchen. It was the perfect drunken accessory. J's tan fedora also got a lot of play (the dirty thing). I'd like to say it was the booze but I'm sure the same would have happened if we'd have been sober. That's just the kind of people we are).

To further explain, below I have labeled a picture of our fridge. Please take note of the booze-to-food ratio.

That's 9-1 if you're a little slow on the uptake.

In summary, while we did a lot of amazing things on vacation, most of them boiled down to us singing drunkenly along to Robyn while sitting in our kitchen eating carrot sticks and hummus.

There may have been skinny dipping, but I'm sure you're not interested in that so I won't go into details. There were also several beach-ware shops, all inexplicably run by Asian women. And one scruffy, dirty, sexy little hippie man. He and my friend A shared a moment during a conversation about double fisting.

I really do have to tell you the following story, though. Because while on vacation we went to Walmart. A lot.

As you can imagine, 8 people in one house need a lot of food, not to mention near daily beer runs. So while we had done an initial foray into Walmart (thanks again, Costco) we frequently found ourselves needing some essential thing we'd either forgotten to buy or had run out of. Since I'm really fucking lazy, I usually tried to avoid these trips. I did go on one trip with my friend A, however (A, if you're reading this, I want you to know that its dedicated just for you). I forget exactly what we had been looking for- I think he had to return a movie, and because I'm a fatty,  I wanted some pie.

The fun started when we waited in line to return the movie. The line took forever, due to the fact that the balding saleslady was more interested in conversation than in doing her job. She also smelled like low tide in the nastiest way possible. Connected? Perhaps.

Anyways, we were standing in line when an old man came out of the bathrooms. He wasn't old old, maybe in his sixties or so, and seemed pretty unremarkable. What made him noticeable was the windshield wiper he was clutching in his hand as he emerged from the men's room. What made him memorable was the fact that he looked at us, adjusted the windshield wiper, and then began using it like a dowsing rod as he muttered his way past us and into the store.

And yes, I double checked with A to make sure it wasn't a B.O. induced hallucination.

It was soon after this encounter that the real magic happened.

For out there, somewhere, sits The Mountain. And lo, but from The Mountain doth come the parade of Tacky Tee Shirts.

First came Three Wolf Moon, and if you haven't read the Amazon review page for that shirt go read it right now. Right. Now. A sampling: "This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened..."

You might be able to guess, but I love the Three Wolf Moon Tee shirt. I love it so much that I forget sometimes that people wear it seriously. Once, at a convention, I saw a thin, ponytailed man wearing one. Of course I sniggered at him then said, "Nice tee shirt!" with a little thumbs up to show that I got the joke. Unfortunately, he was the joke, and until that moment neither he nor I knew it. He walked away from our encounter very confused. I walked away impressed once again that there are people outside of Walmart who dress like that in their everyday lives.

Imagine my joy, then, when our epic Walmart trip yielded not only a Two Wolf Moon shirt for my friend but this wonderful gem for myself:

I dub it the 'Two Giraffe Moon' tee shirt. It was only available in XXL and higher.

I paid nine dollars for it, and consider it nine dollars well spent. This is perhaps my most hipster purchase ever. I only wish it were smaller so that the public could revel in my ironic genius. It's a thing of beauty. Look at the deep, soulful eyes of the giraffe, the poorly screen printed shadows, the almost-but-not-quite tie-died background. It even comes with The Mountain logo on the bottom right hand corner, just so you can be assured that what you are wearing is an original.

This tee shirt is truly amazing. Not only does it cover my girth, but I really feel that the giraffe print lends it a certain exotic flair. When people see me in this shirt, I know they will be wondering how one person can exude so much wild sex appeal, and will have trouble preventing themselves from launching at me like crazed Robert Pattinson fans.

Rawr.

Who knows what purchases are on the horizon now? Perhaps a Fashion Snuggie, or maybe a Slap Chop. I could use it to cut up leftovers for all the cats I'm sure to have in the future.

Over all, my vacation was pretty awesome. I got tan, I relaxed, and best of all I got myself a sexy, sexy tee shirt to help attract all the boys. Life is good.

Spring Break- Part I

Last week I had my best- and last- college Spring Break. Like any proper college student, I spent most of my time drunk, tanning, naked, or some combination thereof.

It. Was. Amazing.

But before the fun could start, I had to embark on a journey- for science, humanity, and the pursuit of prestige.

I ended my finals week with a three day trip to North Carolina. Last semester I took part in an advertising class, where we basically spent all our time- both in class and out- creating an advertising campaign for JCPenney (or Jacques Penne, as some call it when they want to be classy. Consider who we're talking about, and then rethink your choices).  The culmination of all this was a regional competition, in which our campaign was judged along with about 8 others.

After hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears, we didn't place. I'm not bitter about this at all (lies).

See, the trip to Charlotte wasn't a complete waste. I came away with two things. These included the reaffirmation that JCPenney is the best, tackiest example of what is wrong with retail today, and my first time riding a mechanical bull.

This is basically what I looked like.

The Whisky River bar was all it promised to be. Shitty music, crappy whisky, sketchy men in their 30's...a dream come true for a bunch of exhausted, fun-deprived college students (did I mention that this was just after finals? And thesis papers? And- well, you get the idea). It also gave me the opportunity to live out my life long dream of riding a mechanical bull like a real friggen cowboy. Not that cowboys waste their time on mechanical bulls- they have real ones, after all- but I had to think that the experience was somewhat similar.

Also, my best friend is awesome and had ridden one only the week before, and I was totally jealous.

I was filled with giddy glee to have my own turn at what promised to be a violent test of my physical, emotional, and highly inebriated strength. Unfortunately it was not as much of a challenge as I had anticipated. The creeper operating the thing seemed more intent on making our boobs jiggle than on actually throwing us. In the end, I had to throw myself off. It was a little anti-climactic. Kind of like everything M. Knight Shyamalan's done since Signs.

"Shit, honey, don't piss off the plants. They can hear you."

I felt the worst for the poor bull. He was clearly depressed. Imagine if you'd been built for power and wild, bucking adventure and were then made to give pervy yet gentle rides to intoxicated bitches? It's a tragic waste of talent.

The next day was the competition, with its depressing results. This assuaged my guilt over the hangover I was sporting when I met with my class that morning. I should mention that there were consolation prizes at this competition, perhaps a last ditch effort to make participants feel better after they ripped out our hearts and ritually consumed them. Mine contained the following 'goodies:'

• 1 visor advertising a local medical practice
• 3 plastic pens
• 1 plastic TV Disney bag, advertising "The Suite Life of Zac and Cody" on one side and "Victorious" on the other
• 1 refrigerator magnet from a local State Farm agent
• 1 coosie
• 1 XXXL tee shirt
  

It was painfully clear that all of these 'goodies' were really 'free shit we got from local vendors.' Overall, I was mostly amused by the whole thing (re: bitter). It was an experience, certainly.

Catharsis, thy name is Blogging.


Luckily, I was able to leave for real Spring Break after this ridiculousness. Feeling a little older, a little wiser, and a lot more hungover, I was picked up by my friends with a new sense of 'holy crap I need vacation RIGHT NOW.'

Little did I know that our quest for relaxation had only just begun. Like any true adventure, before we got the reward (vacation) we had to pass through three trials. First, we'd had to fight the demons of Finals Week, a valiant struggle through which we all, thank Gawd, emerged victorious.

NOTE: Mom, if you're reading this, you might want to skip the next paragraph for the sake of your Poor Worried Nerves. Borat will let you know when its safe for you to continue reading. 

Our second task was to drive through what felt like the beginning of Noah's Flood. My friends and I, in our tiny ark- aka J's car- slogged our way through fog, howling wind, and rain so thick you couldn't see the cars in front of you. It was a journey of biblical proportions to get to The Beach. I'm pretty sure we almost died a couple times (see, mom, this is why I told you to skip this paragraph). Later we found out that we'd just missed some tornadoes and massive flooding that actually did kill a handful of people. Though I have to say, scary as it was it was never as bad as flying through a Typhoon. Now that's a memory I could happily forget.

Iz safe now for nice lady!

Once we reached South Carolina, we were faced with our third and final task: Grocery shopping. We headed to the temple of Cheap and Bulky, the holiest of grocery holies: Costco.

Apparently, some bitches decided to complain that too many nefarious people were sharing their cards with people like their children and spouses, and this was ruining their exclusive Costco shopping experience.

...

I don't think I need to explain why this is stupid. Let's just file it away as more evidence for the "people are dicks" theorem I'm putting together.

Really, the joke was on them. After all of this the Costco employees were left with an entire grocery cart full of unpaid food which they had to return to their shelves. They lost out on close to 200$ worth of shopping AND increased their workload. Is it wrong that I took vindictive pleasure from this? Scratch that, don't care. Thankfully Super Walmart was happy to take our money. You know its a sad day when you feel that shopping at Walmart is a victory.

It was only after all of this that finally, exhausted, battered, yet triumphant, we were able to make our way to our vacation condo at The Beach. That's when the fun actually got started.

A fish, a hat, and a pie walk into a bar...

To be continued in Part II, in which we have Excellent Hats, the Best Walmart Trip Ever, and Gray's Anatomy of Drunkenness.