Category: Posts

Brought to You by the Number Three

Andrea over at About 100% was nice enough to pick me as one of three bloggers she’d like to learn three things about. It involves a giant number three, sharing three things about yourself, and then picking three bloggers you’d also like to learn three things about. I’m saying three a lot.

1. Last night I dreamed I had a live chicken stuck in my hair, and while someone was trying to get its feet un-tangled from my ponytail, I thought to myself, “Well, at least I can blog about it tomorrow.” Then I woke up and decided to blog about it anyway even though that’s much less interesting than if I had actually gotten a chicken stuck in my hair.

I bought the shit out of this bread.

2. I consider the fact that I both washed some sheets and left the house to buy bread today an astounding achievement. I wrote that previous sentence before I had actually left the house to buy bread, so my confidence is at an all-time high.

3. My dad used to add a half an hour to every hour-plus trip and 15 minutes to every half hour trip so as to reduce the amount of complaining towards the “end” of the trip. I would even make two 90 minute mix tapes to cover the “three hour trip” to grandma’s house. When we always arrived before I had heard all of both tapes, I chalked it up to extra tape in the cassette. I trusted what my dad told me so much I didn’t figure out this scheme until I actually had to drive one of the routes myself in college.

Here’s three bloggers for you to check out and maybe we’ll learn three things about them on their blogs (or, really, you can learn three things about them by just visiting their blogs):

1. Craftwhack: Jeanette writes about a lot of things and is very funny. Most importantly, she’s willing to take pictures of her adorable child being sad at the taste of her homemade fruit treats and given me express permission to laugh and laugh at her sad child.
2. The Reedster Speaks: Cindy started her blog in December, and she is a very funny lady. She’s also a lot of fun on Twitter, too. And, she regularly gives me Klout in Superman and Barry White and I try to up her influence in Salad.
3. Misty’s Laws: Misty is great. She’s been shown a lot of love lately with blog posts devoted to her wonderfulness, and she was even recently inducted into the League of Funny Bitches. This is all well-deserved as she is indeed funny, and also a very supportive, friendly blogger.

 

Facts and Tidbits About 1980s Songs that I Made Up

  •  Mike Score of A Flock of Seagulls may have said he ran so far away, but really he only walked down to the stop sign because his mom said he wasn’t allowed to leave the cul-de-sac. That’s why they had to use aluminum foil and garbage bag dresses to make the video in his basement.

  • Turns out it wasn’t the train. The rails were crazy.
  • The original lyrics of “For Those About to Rock” were, “For those about to rock, take a coat, please.”
  • You can get your Eyes Without a Face with the Face on the side, or you can substitute the face for cheesy grits.*
  • You don’t have to believe we are magic, it’s just highly encouraged, and would be a favor to Olivia Newton John because she kind of already told everybody we are.
  • “Another One Bites the Dust” was the inspiration for the TV show My Strange Addiction.
  • In Glenn Fry’s “You Belong to the City,” the saxophone is played by a California Raisin.
  • The greatest assumption-of-naked-swimming lyric to come out of the 80s is: “You just took for granted that I want to skinny dip” from the masterpiece “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off” by Jermaine Stewart.
  • Your kiss may be on Hall and Oates’ list, but you know what the second thing is? “The sound of my victim’s cries.” Third? “Fried lips with honey mustard dipping sauce.”

 

*That one was blatantly stolen from Tom, inspired yet again from my iPod content.

Look what came in the mail yesterday.

I had a little peek of this season on YouTube to see if it was worth continuing the Super Friends posts and within 5 minutes Wonder Woman was tied up in her own lasso, Robin was hanging by his cape in a tree, and Batman was stuck in a barrel. So I figured the answer was yes.

I only hope it lives up to the first season. It has big shoes to fill, particularly considering this headline from the first season’s DVD:

Here’s some leftover examples of how the first season of Super Friends changed animation heroics forever:

Hot dog! and I don’t agree on what “wrong” means.

Tom and I found this old issue of the kid’s magazine “Hot dog!” from 1984 at a thrift store. We paid 25 cents for it because who wouldn’t?

I didn't read the Garfield article.

Inside they had a “figure out what’s wrong in this picture” thingy. According to them, there was seven things wrong. “EASY!” I yelled to myself, and quickly found all seven:

1. The ladybug isn’t seasonally appropriate and doesn’t have a coat on.
2. That guy calls “Inception” “The Inception” and no one will correct him.
3. The signature in the snow isn’t yellow.
4. She’s giving everyone the bird under that mitten.
5. She’s an award-winning ice skater and is only falling to get attention.
6. He’s putting on a brave happy face even though his parents are getting a divorce.
7. Mice don’t wave.

I didn’t get a single one right. I call bullshit. I saw the “No Ice Fiching” sign, but I learned spelling from Super Friends, so I figured it was fine.

Hot Dog and I also don’t agree on what the word “fooled” means:

You are missing a layer of premise, Hot dog!. Stupid Hot dog!. You’d need to do something like steal your friend’s wallet or shank them while they’re busy spelling if you wanted to fool them. This is more a “make your friend think you’re weird” gag.

 

My Bad Habit: Writing Posts to Further Avoid Having to Talk to My Neighbor

I have many, many bad habits. I pop all my zits (fuck you beauty magazines), I can’t have junk food in the house because I will inhale it in a day, I will stab your sentimentality with a broken bottle, etc. But the bad habit I’m currently suffering from is social avoidance. Which, admittedly, isn’t exactly a habit, it’s more of a neurosis, but I’m not splitting hairs, which is also a bad habit.


You see this? It’s a giant dead tree. It has a leprosy-like oozing wound towards the bottom. It looks like The Jolly Green Giant has been kicking it. All of its branches are on one side, because, and this is just a guess, when the tree was alive, it also was socially avoidant.

This big, dead, dented tree is leaning towards the electricity, internet, and cable-making lines. Every day (ok, twice a week), when I leave the house, I think, “I sure hope that tree doesn’t fall,” and then I think the same thing when I get home, twenty minutes later.

Since we’re trying to sell the house, we think it’s in our best interest to get rid of it (and, you know, because it will kill civilization when it falls), but the problem is, it’s right on the property line with our neighbors. We’re pretty sure it’s on their side of the property line because of a row of now-dead formerly fluffy ornamental plants, which we assume serve as a natural dividing line.

The logical thing to do is walk 200 feet or so, knock on their door, and ask them about it. The neighbor husband works from home, so it shouldn’t be hard to catch him – I’m home all day, too.

I’ve spoken to these neighbors probably 4 times. The first time was when I met them. The other times involved the fact that they let their dog out in their unfenced front yard and forget about him. I don’t like this about them – we live on a very, very small cul-de-sac, right near a busy road. Their previous dog was hit by a car. They haven’t pieced together the problem yet. So, not only do I have my general social anxiety and avoidance to contend with, I also have crazy thoughts like, “I don’t want to go over there when the dog’s not out because he’ll let the dog out when I come to the door and then the dog will get hit by a car and I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

I’ve actually come to the conclusion a few times that I’ll just pay to have this huge tree removed to avoid having to have a 2 minute conversation with my neighbor. But, then I realize that’s crazy, and then I reset the feedback loop.

And so there sits the tree – a giant, dead monolith commemorating my inability to initiate a conversation.

I’m not even going to get into my next bad habit, which will ride the coattails of the current one. Once it’s settled, if I have to deal with the tree, that will involve a phone call, and then we’re talking another month or so of avoidance.
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This post was written in response to Studio30 Plus’ writing prompt, “Bad Habits.“