Japan Takes Travel to the Next Level

There are many inconveniences in life.

Having to floss your teeth. Actually showering for the blind date your mother set you up on. That moment of horrible realization when you go to make your morning coffee and realize you've run out of coffee filters.

The worst petty offenders? Getting gas- and pooping.

"Gas went up to $5.25!? Fucking OPEC!"

Scenario: You're on your way to work. You've just left town limits and are singing along to your eclectic mixed CD when you glance at the dashboard and realize the gas light is on. This is a problem, as all the cheap stations were miles back and you know for a fact that the only place in the next ten minutes has a ten dollar surcharge and likes to fuck you in the ass if you don't pay fast enough. Then, as you frantically search around for an alternative, your stomach rumbles. That morning's coffee is coming back to haunt you (shouldn't have gone for cup #3!).

Now you're faced with a high pressure situation- literally.

Birthplace of the Teaparty movement. 

You pull up to the station, throw on a pair of over-sized sunglasses and hope no one will recognize you. It's 50 bucks to get your stupid car filled. It would have been forty if you hadn't spent all your cash on three-dollar Margaritas the night before. Meanwhile, you are staring at the little unisex door next to the dumpster and wondering how many hobos have died in there. The law of averages says at least one, and the reality of gas stations states that part of him is still in there.

When you eventually drive away, you do it with a sense of shame and violation. They've hit you where it hurts- in your wallet, and your dignity.

Imagine if you never had to go through this again. Stretch your mind, and entertain the idea that these problems- gas and pooping- might in fact be each other's solutions. 


This is the kind of thing they think about in Japan.

I hope you weren't eating when you read this post. 

Very soon TOTO, the Japanese toilet company that brought you the talking toilet, will send a man across Japan on a bike that is run on 'biogas.' In other words, shit. The seat on the bike will be a fully functioning toilet, connected to a motor in the back which converts the, ah, waste into fuel. This toilet will, like most traditional TOTO toilets, make noise. It also has a handy new feature where it will read you the stock market ticker or weather reports. If you're interested in the particulars, you can read more at gizmag.com.

At the moment, this is only a promotional stunt in order to raise awareness of bathroom waste.

No, not that kind. 

Apparently a shit-run-toilet-bike is the perfect way to educate people about CO2 emissions from bathrooms. I guess it will garner a lot of attention, but not for the reason they may think.

My question is this: how will they do it? Will the rider, complete with poopy-helmet, just pull down his pants at stop lights? Or will he pull to the side of the road and do his business discretely? The potential for this to turn into a political shit storm is just astronomical.

PUN.

Seriously, though. I know this is just a promotional stunt, but this is the kind of technology that could save our futures. Think of the convenience! Think of the lower CO2 emissions! Of course, accident scenes will be significantly more disgusting, and let's not even get started on the hygiene of it all. Perhaps we'll see a resurgence of pink eye in the coming days. But is that too high a price to pay for such renewable energy?

It remains to be seen.

Shitting in a city near you. 

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.

More Weird Shit I Did as a Child- the Sculpture Edition.

(I'm going to start this post with an irrelevant story.)

This morning I locked my keys in my car. In my own goddamn driveway.

Granted, this could have happened in worse locations- a dunk'n'donuts on the highway, for instance- so I guess I was lucky in that respect. But still. It's galling, and annoying, and mostly I just feel pretty dumb. This meant that I have been stuck in my house all day, and conceivably will continue to be trapped indoors until either (a) someone comes and rescues me, or (b) my mother comes home with her set of keys.

To entertain myself, I decided to do some baking, a hobby I enjoy but rarely have the time/motivation to indulge. Not only was I going to bake, I decided, but I was going to bake something challenging! I decided on Three Pepper Cookies, which are essentially peppery-sweet cookies dipped in chocolate. Here's the recipe, in case you are curious : http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Three_pepper-Spice-Cookies_-Recipezaar

ANYWAYS. On the left hand corner of the top shelf of my spice cabinet, where no-ones been in, oh, years, was a relic of my childhood. It looked like this:

I sort of vaguely remember crafting this racist-Myan ripoff statue in middle school. I think the assignment was to... actually, I have no idea. I can't think of any topic they would give small children that would result in this. Indo-colonialist stereotypes? It's clearly supposed to be some poor South American tribes-person sacrificing to his pagan god.

World, I apologize for this piece of shit.

Yes, that is a skull. I think. *sighs*. 

But you know what? Everyone has one weird art project as a child, right?

Right?

I was a strange child. 

So I had a big sculpture phase in middle school, ok? Or was it freshman year...
At least this wasn't, you know, blatantly racist. The idea was cool (I thought). It was supposed to look as if you'd picked up a block of water, and then had all the bits of fish swimming around and through it. Except the cube of water looked more like...well, a big heavy box.  With penises sticking out of it.

At least my stuff was better than my brother's.

Of course, he made this in first grade. Don't tell. 

Poaching Eggs: More Difficult Than Anticipated

Yes! I am back!

I could give a whole big paragraph full of excuses about why I haven't updated in, oh, two months. I could go on and on about the minor existential crisis I've had since graduating, working at a discount liquor store, and attempting to face up to the fact that a) I'm not going back to school and b) I need to figure out What To Do With My Life. And the broken computer (several times...), leading to the sexy, sexy new mac currently sitting on my lap. But I won't. You know why?

Because I'm both lazy and shameless.

Instead I'll just jump right back in. I don't know how much I'll be updating or what I'll be updating about. Let's just take this one day at a time.

For the immediate future, I'd like to talk about eggs. Specifically, poached eggs, which are delicious and possibly my favorite way to eat unborn fetuses.

Now, I've poached an egg before. I swear I have. I used to work with an elderly Scicillian man (re: 92 and still driving) who taught me how to do it. Under his tutelage, I managed to poach quite a few- AND THEY WERE DELICIOUS...if a little vinegary.

When a man that old tells you to keep adding vinegar, you listen. It's just possible that he reached such an age by pickling himself, and hey- if it works, it works!

The point is that I used to be quite good at poaching eggs. This morning, however, I had a little difficulty.

See how it's all white and cloudy? That's wrong. 

Now, I don't know if you've ever made a poached egg before. It's really not that hard. Basically, you heat water with a bit of vinegar until it is almost- but not quite- simmering. Then you stir the water rapidly, creating a whirlpool that will serve to wrap the egg around itself, keeping it together. Slide in your egg, wait a few minutes, and BAM. Eggy-goodness.

And so we try again!

After mourning my first attempt I decided to give it another go. On the second try, I had a lot more luck. The trick? I turned up the heat until it was just about simmering, and added a lot bit more vinegar.

Look! Look! It stayed together HALLELUJAH. 

The delicious final product.

And success! To complete my eggy-masterpiece, I ate it atop buttered sticky rice, as they do in Japan when they feel like a 'Western' breakfast. Yummy yummy in my tummy.



Final note: As I sit writing this, I am listening to Lykke Li's 'I Follow Rivers.' It's a good song- if you haven't heard it, click on my link and listen to it. And if you're very lucky, as I am, there will be a bird outside your window chirping on beat with the song.


Final Note 2: Here we have the screen capture du jour. It comes to us from our friends at Facebook advertising.

I'm pretty sure he'd prefer a sandwich.

Ta ta for now, folks! Braveworldgirl OUT.

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU- Gateway Edition.

Last night I set my laptop charger on fire. No, not in a fit of pyromania- I wouldn't have used my laptop for that, too expensive, durr- but as the result of 6 months of neglect towards the poor thing. Probably should have done something when the wires began showing through the battery. Oh well.

Now I'm on my parent's home computer. It's a goddamn Gateway. Really that's all I need to say.

...

Nah who the fuck am I kidding, I'm totally gonna complain about this piece of crap. It's slow. It's old. It's ugly. It does nothing for society except to serve as a last defense against the tragic loss of internet access that would otherwise be my fate.

HATE.

To bleed off some of my frustration, here are ten things I wish I could do to this big box of shit. Maybe you will find yourself inspired. Let me know if you do- I want pictures.

Without further ado...

1. Turn the monitor into a fish tank. A very small, very ugly fish tank.
2. SET IT ON FIRE.
3. This one is a multi-parter. First, find an enclosed box or desk and drill a hole in the top big enough to fit a bowling ball (failing a desk, you may use a table with a cunningly positioned table cloth to get a similar effect). Next, hollow out your computer monitor and put it over the hole. Place yourself inside the enclosed object and stick your head into the computer. Now comes the fun part. When your roomate/boyfriend/mom comes down into your basement apartment to ask for rent money (again) say solemnly, "Na-ah-ah, You didn't say the magic word!"*  Repeat this until they run away screaming.
4. Take it into an empty field and beat it with a baseball bat until it stops moving, ala Office Space.
5. Kick it in the face, then SET IT ON FIRE. AGAIN.
6. Take the tower up to the top of a very tall building. Wait for either a) an enemy or b) an ugly person to walk underneath. Drop it.
7. Doorstop.
8. Keep it set up as though it works, then hide your pot/booze/secret missile codes inside.
9. Dump it on Bill Gate's front lawn, while screaming "YOU DID THIS, YOU BASTARD."
10. Turn it into a toilet.

Again, feel free to borrow- but I want pictures. Unless you chose #10, in which case keep it to yourself.




*Note: This may be replaced with either "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?" or "You will be deleted!", depending on your particular brand of nerd-dom.

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.

QUICK! EVERYBODY PANIC!

The apocalypse is this Saturday.

Oh, but don't worry. Saturday isn't the END end. It's just when all the good people who love Jesus get to go to heaven. The rest of us have five months of earthquakes, fires, and zombie hordes to look forward to before October 21st, when the world will actually be destroyed.

Graduation is gonna be badass.
 
All the recent hullabaloo comes from an octogenarian, Christian radio guru named Harold Camping. You can read about his predictions on the technological dinosaur that is his website.

A product of the AARP's new 'elderly web design' program.

I haven't seen something so ugly since 1992.  I bet he still plays Minesweeper.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you think 2012 was the apocalypse? Well you were wrong. And in case you were confused, he's made it nice and obvious right on the front of his website. Next to the countdown.

Look at that- "The bible guarantees it!" That's interesting, as I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the bible pointing to May 21, 2011 as the End of Times. I guess I'm not in the loop since I'm just a silly Jew. Besides Mr. Camping made a very special mathematical formula that clearly pinpoints 5/21/11 to be the end of the world. You probably wouldn't understand it unless you were really really smart and good at Hard Math like he is.

 

I don't remember this being at the end of the quadratic equation...

How can you not believe what he says? He proved it with math. Math! The world runs on math. It is never, ever wrong, especially when predicting the apocalypse. I mean, okay, there was Y2k, but that was just a glitch. Look the point is that math is always right, especially when it comes from numbers found in a 400+ year old book. And especially when it comes from this guy:

Harold Camping: the product of forbidden love.

He has such conviction, such passion, behind his scientific mathematical formula. This is what he said to New York Magazine:

"God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question....I would be absolutely in rebellion against God if I thought anything other than it is absolutely going to happen without any question."

I wonder if that's what he said in 1994, the last time he predicted the End of Times. That was just a "preliminary study," though. He was just testing it out.


GUYS HE'S TOTALLY CERTAIN THIS TIME. FO REALZ.

But you may not be a believer yet. Dear old Harold is just one man, and maybe his calculator was acting up when he divided 7000 by the year of Noah's Flood. What about God? What does he have to say?

Well don't you worry your pretty little head. We're not down this proverbial coal mine without a canary to warn us of disaster.

Ooh, Papyrus! Haven't seen THAT since 8th grade.

Yes, that's right. God put gays on earth as an End of Times litmus test. Every time an office accepted a gay partner at an office party, or a state validated gay marriage, we were taking one step closer to the apocalypse. No wonder the government is so discriminatory to a segment of the population that has done nothing more than love the people they love. Apparently the US government has been taking Mr. Camping's advice- though not for much longer!

I hope Obama has a wrathful-God contingency plan.

 I could go on. I could tell you why Camping's assertion that "the Bible has every word in the original language — it was written by God..." is ridiculous, especially since he uses the King James bible which wasn't written until 1611 (that's 1,611 years after Jesus was born). I could explain that no, math doesn't work like that, Mr. Camping. I could even make fun of his website some more. Trust me when I say there's plenty of material.

But I think that's enough. The point is that this 'end of times' is no worse than every other 'end of times' that has ever been predicted. And so far, they've all been wrong - even though I'm sure that each prophet was always just as confident in his prediction as Mr. Camping. We need to stop waiting for God to take us away from this planet. We're not going anywhere until we die, people. And if I'm wrong, fine. I'd rather be down here fighting off zombies with the sinners than up there with all the boring saints.

In case you want to learn more, I encourage you to visit Mr. Camping's site. Perhaps you would like to read one of his insightful articles, as sampled below. I, personally, am intrigued by "I Hope God Will Save Me!" I'm pretty sure I know the answer already.

In addition, you can read Mr. Camping's interview with New York magazine here.

Stop and Think, Advertisers

I found this advertisement on the Olive Garden's website. And don't worry, I wasn't looking at the Olive Garden for any reason other than to find out what the hell a "Pastachetti" is (the answer is just as disgusting as the name would have you guess).

This advertisement does not make me want gourmet truck food, whatever the hell that is. It makes me want to stay the fuck away from the truck, which, judging from the picture, is driven by aliens eager to stick an anal probe up my ass. And what the hell is that thing on the end? Is that supposed to be a dog? It looks more like a Gremlin.

And not the cute kind, either.

So either there are aliens or evil gremlins on that truck. Or both. Either way, all the signs point to Stay the Fuck Away.

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.

BREAKING NEWS ALERT

This just in: Weather.com Now Providing Advertisement to Dwarf Rapists.

God I love screen capture.

For Shame, Disney.

I'm watching Cinderella for a class (hahahahaha) and during the ball scene, my dirty keen mind spotted this:

The Prince really likes Cinderella.

Anyone else think this looks just a little phallic?

At the very least, its a criminally ugly gazebo.

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.

Osama Bin Laden is Dead, and I Feel Fine.

(Serious post time. We'll get back to the humor tomorrow, promise)

By now, I'm sure you've heard the big news of the night. Osama Bin Laden is dead- and no, not 'mostly' dead. Miracle Max can't do anything for this S.O.B. I wouldn't say that I'm happy about this development. This isn't the kind of situation that evokes joy. Instead, what I'm feeling is much closer to relief- deep, soul lightening, bone weary relief that this is finally done.

Everyone knows exactly where they were when they realized how the attacks of 9/11 would change our lives. For me, it was lunchtime in my middle school's cafeteria, when I realized that my mother had traveled through the World Trade Center only two hours before the first plane hit. Now what haunts me is her face when she talks about how she watched through her office window as two planes crashed into the New York City skyline. When the trains started running later that day and we picked her up from the station, she got in our car and wouldn't talk about it except to say that her shoes had been ruined. Later, watching footage of the debris that had blackened the air in New York play on every news station, I understood why. My mother still gets nervous when planes fly overhead.

I won't lie and tell you I feel any safer now that one of 9/11's biggest perpetrators is dead. I'm not an idiot. As one of my roommates correctly pointed out, Bin Laden is just one man, and undoubtedly others will rise to fill his shoes. There will always be despicable people out there, and far too many are as disgusting, or worse than, Osama Bin Laden. But what it means when the President says that yes, we've got Osama Bin Laden's body, is that in some small measure justice has been done. In a very real way my roomate was incorrect. Bin Laden is not just one of many. He is an example of the very worst that humanity is capable of becoming, and killing him will strike a blow at the heart of Al Qaeda and, to a very limited extent, provide closure for those scarred by 9/11. 

There will be retribution. We have to be careful how we treat Bin Laden's death, because there are powers out there that are going to try and turn him into a martyr. I'm sure in the coming days- hell, even the coming hours- we're going to see increased activity from terrorist organizations as they fight in the false name of revenge, or righteousness, or independence. People are going to die both in the West and the Middle East. We'll also have to resist the dangers that lie within ourselves. We have to remember that the victims of 9/11 included Muslims as well as Christians and Jews (etc etc), and that terrorism is universally deadly. As the President said, "Osama Bin Laden was not a Muslin leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims."

For the moment, however, we can let go of that breath our nation has been holding since 9/11 thrust Bin Laden into the front of our consciousness. Tonight a mass murderer has been destroyed, and damn but it feels good.

As I write the end of this post, I realize that I was wrong when I said that I only feel relief at Bin Laden's death. I see my mother's face, almost 10 years after 9/11, as planes fly overhead and bring her back to that nightmare, and I think that what I feel may be closer to happiness than I thought.

The Royal Wedding

I'm up early to watch the Royal Wedding. Unfortunately I didn't get up super duper early, so I missed much of the beginning, but I've been here since 6:30 now. I'm not a little obsessed with England. That may or may not be why I'm watching this. Also, you never know when someone is going to trip, and isn't it more fun to see that when it happens rather than as a replay?

One of my favorite parts of British weddings are the hats. They range from fabulous to ridiculous, and of course-

Oh, hold on a second. I have to bask for a moment in how much I adore Kate's dress. It's a Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, one of my favorite designers. The skirt is so pretty! The bodice clean, elegant, and flattering. Aw adorable, they curtsied to the queen. Anyways. I love, love love the stiff collar and neckline, and that lace is so gorgeous. I'm glad she veered away from the Princess-poof and went for a (contradictory here) more modern, classic sort of dress. It's a little sleek, and very elegant. 

They are leaving now. In a carriage.

HE'S PUTTING ON WHITE GLOVES. This is why I love England. Holy goodness.

I wish hats were a thing in America. People here wear them, but they don't wear them. At my wedding (presuming I ever have one) I am going to encourage people to find the most fabulous, ridiculous hats that they can. Maybe I'll give out prizes for the best ones.

So far my favorite hat was wearing a woman who sat behind the queen for much of the ceremony. It was a softy, salmony pink, and hung in front of this woman's eye before projecting upwards in a large shamrock pattern. I thought it was Lady Gaga when I first saw her. I'm only 90% sure I was mistaken.

This summer I'm going to be in England for about a week. I'm going to make it my mission to buy the tackiest commemorative wedding tea towel I can find. Or maybe I'll get something like this mug, which was featured on Regretsy.

THE TACKY POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

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.

Working on It

Yes, yes, I know.

Nearly two weeks!

I'm a cad. I fully admit this. I should probably let you know that I was on vacation for most of that time, and while on vacation from school/work I also tend to take a break from the computer. After all, I spend upwards of 4, 5 hours a day on the damn thing. It's nice to get away sometimes.

This being said, when will there be a new blog post?

I'm going to be firm on myself and give a deadline in order to make sure I keep it. By tomorrow, at 12 pm.
(That's Thursday, April 28th, for those who don't read this today, which is April 27th. Yay for dates. ). I'm also playing around with a schedule for the future. I think its only fair that you have some idea of when I'll post things. Hopefully I'll let you know that tomorrow as well.

So I'll see you tomorrow. I'll try and be funny, as per usual. We'll see. I have a bunch of goodies saved up from vacation to share, and hopefully you'll be amused. Or you won't. I can't force you to see the genius in my humor.

For now, a little teaser:

The Most Dangerous Game

The most dangerous game is not man. It's something far more insidious.

Second only to pretentious literary references.

"But that's clearly a picture of a deer," you might be thinking.

And you clearly don't understand the danger you're in.

These fluffy tailed little bastards have been raised upon the Disney altar and worshipped as gods from the cutsie-wootsie animal pantheon. Deer, in large part thanks to Bambi, bring to mind innocence and joy. However, like most of the things you believed as a child, this is a lie.

Hate to break it to you.

What we don't realize when we tell our kids that deer are sweet and innocent is that by doing so we create victims out of our children. Victims- of suicide terrorists.

DOWN WITH AMERICA!

That's a picture of the fauna extremist that is going to jump in front of your car and cause you to crash. Like most extremists, deer don't care if they live or die. They only want to take you with them. Ambushing you in the dark is their weapon of choice.

These jihadist little bastards also have much better cover than your average terrorist. At the very least we're paranoid enough about the modern terrorist to have free titty shows body scans at airports and intimidating Homeland security everywhere they can make commuting inconvenient. 

Deer, on the other hand? You can't spot a terrorist if you've trained an entire generation to find them cute. Imagine if that had been Osama Bin Laden instead of Bambi. If you'd grown up with a stuffed animal of ol' Osama and watched him frolic around with adorable woodland creatures you might have had a harder time believing him capable of atrocities (on a side note, this is just more evidence to support the 'terrorists are dumb as shit' theory. Poor marketing choice, Osama. We're going to blow you up now).

Deer are excellent terrorists precisely because you would never suspect them. They draw sympathy during hunting season from idiots who don't realize that our greatest enemy is breeding unchecked in our very backyards. And though we would never let our children touch one in the wild, we do keep them in zoos for our kids to pet. They are petting terrorists. 

This is America. We don't negotiate.

This is a public service announcement. People, warn your children of the danger of deer. Combat the deadly ignorance of the next generation by explaining exactly why Bambi's mother got shot. Hint: it's not because of hunting season.