It’s that time of year again when everyone’s making New Year’s resolutions about eating less and exercising more and improving their lives and cooking at home instead of eating out and not yelling at their kids so much and cleaning more and so on and so forth.
Me, I never make those sort of resolutions. Because a) they’re dumb, and b) I’m a realist. I know that come January 2nd I’ll already have blown several of them – even the one about the kids and I don’t even have kids - and well…there’s no point starting something on the second right? It’s the first or nothing. Starting on the second would be…untidy. Like starting in the middle of a cake and eating your way out.
Which sounds actually sort of awesome…
Having said that I decided this year I might make some resolutions to show willing, but to be sure of success I will choose resolutions that I have at least a fighting chance of keeping so I can attain a level of smugness usually only seen in TV chat show hosts, all year long.
My ten resolutions for 2010.
1) I will not stab anyone in the eye with a fork. I think I can pull this off but truly it all depends on me avoiding as many actual people as possible for as long as possible. Plus bear in mind I said “fork”. All other instruments are fine.
2) I will eat at least one cake a month - I’m pretty sure I can pull this off because I am a very determined cake eater.
3) I will never say a nice thing about the show “Jersey Shore” – Also every time I see that guy “the Situation” I will pledge to yell things at the TV about him being a “self-righteous, orange little girlieboy” and ask rhetorical questions like, “What are you, like 30 and you’re still acting like a 19 year old frat boy?” and “for the love of the baby Jesus, put your shirt back on, loser and find your way back to Earth!” and “What the fuck am I doing watching this shit?”
4) I will consider potato chips as vital as vegetables in quest for a “balanced diet” – I am serious people. I am willing to do this. Can I do it? Well, I have will power of steel. Steel.
5) I will not watch C.S.I. anything, NCIS or Without a Trace – This one is just here in case I suffer a head injury and wake up one day salivating wildly and grasping for the remote while muttering “Mainstream major network cop drama, give…me…now…” To be fair, this has never happened to me ever so chances are good it won’t happen but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
6) I will procrastinate a lot – Because you know, that’s totally hard for me. I’d actually procrastinate more but I figure meh, I can do it later.
7) I’ll write a lot of lame blog entries in 2010, most of them about bugs crawling up asses and fart related observations and the intricate nuances of cake, interspersed with substandard Photoshop drawings of me doing dumb things while always wearing the same clothes. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Well let’s not get hasty here, Veg, don’t tax your giant brain with this intellectual stuff!”
8) I will vow to save vast amounts of money for a stated purpose then I will instead squander it to buy paint, condiments and handbags, forgetting I probably would have to earn said money first. I do this every year so I’m pretty sure I can keep this one.
9) I will not become a famous celebrity renowned for my talent and my amazing stories about my travels. That’s right. Don’t try to make me. I will not do that.
10) I will aim to eat a grilled cheese sandwich about three times a week. It’ll be unpleasant people, but I think I can pull it off. In the name of resolutions.
I foresee a successful resolution keeping year ahead for me, what about you?
P.S. If I don't see you before, happy new year you lovely, lovely people! Thank you to you all for stopping by and reading this nonsense and fellating my gigantic balloon-swollen ego throughout 2009.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Bad Losers (On Yahoo Chess)
Hola Blogola!
Well I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (those of you who celebrate it anyway) and that you’re recovering now without too much trauma of the over-stuffed belly variety. Were you all good girls and boys? Did Santa bring you your heart’s desire or did he frown and bring you a “Twilight” DVD and make you cry? Then you need to behave better this year, loser. Or he’ll bring you the sequels.
I did no entertaining, no visiting, nothing at all except be lazy and devour chocolate like it was about to be illegal, then wash it down with some delicious Pimms and Advocaat (not at the same time, I’m not a Philistine).
I know Advocaat is considered a really old person’s drink by many people, but I like it. It is delicious and creamy and outstandingly tasty and despite what people might tell you, nothing like eggnog at all (I dislike eggnog) and especially ravishing when combined with Sprite and lime juice thus making it a cocktail known as a “Snowball”.
You people over in the UK know all about Snowballs, i.e., you all know the undeniable allure of the Snowball, even if you refuse to admit it. In fact, ladies now and then will go to a bar and sweetly ask the bartender to mix them one and it’s perfectly acceptable, but a man could never actually order a Snowball in a bar for himself unless he wanted the bartender to possibly * tase his bollocks then confiscate his man card.
* I mean here that the bartender would tase the guy's bollocks, not his OWN bollocks because what would be the point in that, it's painful and stupid and he'd drop the liquor.
If a guy’s going to buy himself a Snowball in a pub he might as well order it while wearing a t-shirt featuring a decal of a unicorn knitting a pink sweater and teabagging George Michael.
Despite this, if you’ve never had Advocaat you must rush out and get some immediately. Otherwise remain a savage Plebian forever, your choice. No pressure.
What was I saying? Oh yes, Christmas. I did not even leave the house apart from ten minutes on Christmas Day when I had to go buy some Sprite during a snowstorm (it was that or drink alcohol neat and I’m too much of a classy lady to do such a thing – or at least to tell you about it), meaning I had to walk through knee deep, unploughed snow in boots with no tread which made me look like I was possibly born with Rickets.
Despite my “do nothing at all” mantra, I did manage to finish the following panting. I haven’t decided what I think of it yet, however, I’m impressed with myself for the fact it’s neither blue nor green, therefore victory is obviously mine.
Anyway, I just noticed that this entry blows, therefore, I am going to slink away and do something mischievous elsewhere. Maybe SOUTH Dakota.
Be good.
P.S. There’s a prize to the first person who can tell me what album I was listening to all over Christmas – there’s a clue in this entry somewhere.
P.P.S. The prize is my adoration and a big, fat nothing. You’re welcome.
Well I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (those of you who celebrate it anyway) and that you’re recovering now without too much trauma of the over-stuffed belly variety. Were you all good girls and boys? Did Santa bring you your heart’s desire or did he frown and bring you a “Twilight” DVD and make you cry? Then you need to behave better this year, loser. Or he’ll bring you the sequels.
I did no entertaining, no visiting, nothing at all except be lazy and devour chocolate like it was about to be illegal, then wash it down with some delicious Pimms and Advocaat (not at the same time, I’m not a Philistine).
I know Advocaat is considered a really old person’s drink by many people, but I like it. It is delicious and creamy and outstandingly tasty and despite what people might tell you, nothing like eggnog at all (I dislike eggnog) and especially ravishing when combined with Sprite and lime juice thus making it a cocktail known as a “Snowball”.
You people over in the UK know all about Snowballs, i.e., you all know the undeniable allure of the Snowball, even if you refuse to admit it. In fact, ladies now and then will go to a bar and sweetly ask the bartender to mix them one and it’s perfectly acceptable, but a man could never actually order a Snowball in a bar for himself unless he wanted the bartender to possibly * tase his bollocks then confiscate his man card.
* I mean here that the bartender would tase the guy's bollocks, not his OWN bollocks because what would be the point in that, it's painful and stupid and he'd drop the liquor.
If a guy’s going to buy himself a Snowball in a pub he might as well order it while wearing a t-shirt featuring a decal of a unicorn knitting a pink sweater and teabagging George Michael.
Despite this, if you’ve never had Advocaat you must rush out and get some immediately. Otherwise remain a savage Plebian forever, your choice. No pressure.
Despite my “do nothing at all” mantra, I did manage to finish the following panting. I haven’t decided what I think of it yet, however, I’m impressed with myself for the fact it’s neither blue nor green, therefore victory is obviously mine.
Be good.
P.S. There’s a prize to the first person who can tell me what album I was listening to all over Christmas – there’s a clue in this entry somewhere.
P.P.S. The prize is my adoration and a big, fat nothing. You’re welcome.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Dear Santa, Part Two (When Xmas Gets Sinister)
Hey Big Guy.
So what's the deal? Last year you showed up at my house half smashed and dipped your wanger in the Eggnog. My grandma drank that eggnog. She complimented its "nutty aftertaste". I didn't have the heart to tell her the only nuts that had been anywhere near it were yours.
This year could you be a little more discreet do you think? Maybe you could use the front door? The chimney's been out of commission since before I was even born. You'd think by now you'd know that, especially after that one time you were wedged in there for four days till we pushed an indignant elf up there with a vat of Vaseline and a shoe horn.
Anyway, can you do me a giant favour and bring me the following items for Christmas? I'd get them all myself at the hardware store but the last time I tried that they told me they'd have to just ‘run in the back for a second’ and then those fuckers totally called the cops.
Here’s what I need:
1) Seven feet of rope, one inch diameter should do it
2) One plastic container no smaller than four feet long and three feet wide. Make sure it doesn't dissolve in sulphuric acid. I didn't know about that last time and it took me about a month to clean that crap up. Thankfully the cops still think that dude moved to Florida.
3) One gas mask
4) A lead pipe heavy enough to use as a cosh
5) A chainsaw
6) Acid – about six gallons should be ok
7) Overalls
8) If you could pick up a litre of tequila as well I'd be pretty grateful. Just don’t drink it before you get to my house this time.
Thanks Santa, tell Mrs. Claus I hope the ointment did the trick.
- VEGX
So what's the deal? Last year you showed up at my house half smashed and dipped your wanger in the Eggnog. My grandma drank that eggnog. She complimented its "nutty aftertaste". I didn't have the heart to tell her the only nuts that had been anywhere near it were yours.
This year could you be a little more discreet do you think? Maybe you could use the front door? The chimney's been out of commission since before I was even born. You'd think by now you'd know that, especially after that one time you were wedged in there for four days till we pushed an indignant elf up there with a vat of Vaseline and a shoe horn.
Anyway, can you do me a giant favour and bring me the following items for Christmas? I'd get them all myself at the hardware store but the last time I tried that they told me they'd have to just ‘run in the back for a second’ and then those fuckers totally called the cops.
Here’s what I need:
1) Seven feet of rope, one inch diameter should do it
2) One plastic container no smaller than four feet long and three feet wide. Make sure it doesn't dissolve in sulphuric acid. I didn't know about that last time and it took me about a month to clean that crap up. Thankfully the cops still think that dude moved to Florida.
3) One gas mask
4) A lead pipe heavy enough to use as a cosh
5) A chainsaw
6) Acid – about six gallons should be ok
7) Overalls
8) If you could pick up a litre of tequila as well I'd be pretty grateful. Just don’t drink it before you get to my house this time.
Thanks Santa, tell Mrs. Claus I hope the ointment did the trick.
- VEGX
Monday, December 21, 2009
Proof You Can Post About Nothing
So while all you people out east have been frowning under a big, fat blanket of white wintery snow (and all you L.A. dwellers are crying for your mamas and calling out FEMA because the temperature got all badass and fell under 60 degrees F. for a while there), out here we’ve had merely a tiny light dusting of the white powdery stuff. For your information, that's snow, not cocaine, but thanks for thinking it, degenerates. It was sort of like a spritzing of fairy dust, which is surprising and pleasing all at once, if a little unusual.
Actually all of us badass northern United States along with the central Canadian provinces (from herein known as “La Resistance”) just got together covertly, in a special underground, secret bunker and decided to reroute all our normal snow to you guys out east and paid a formidable dude called “Johnny Knuckles” who isn’t listed in the phone book, to go deliver it in the dead of night. We had to pay him in the limbs of kittens and small children, so it's a serious matter.
Actually all of us badass northern United States along with the central Canadian provinces (from herein known as “La Resistance”) just got together covertly, in a special underground, secret bunker and decided to reroute all our normal snow to you guys out east and paid a formidable dude called “Johnny Knuckles” who isn’t listed in the phone book, to go deliver it in the dead of night. We had to pay him in the limbs of kittens and small children, so it's a serious matter.
Talking of small children, this photo never fails to bring me joy. Also this kid looks like a 10 year old Hunter.
So surprise east coasters! Happy Holidays! You can thank us later. Viva la resistance!
The past few days weren’t even cold up here. It was about 26 degrees F which is practically summer. I was even able to go walking my errands the other day without dying. Usually, going out this time of year constitutes standing nervously at the outside door gathering my wits about me, before sprinting to the car like a demented hyena, then sitting inside shaking and feeling my innards freeze and chanting nasty words till the engine heats up.
Then driving off with the engine still plugged in (oops!)
But not lately. It’s been all calm and delightful and I’ve been wistfully waiting for palm trees to spring up in the yard.
I mean true, during my errands walk I almost froze off my ears in a miscalculation involving me completely forgetting about a little thing called “wind chill” and concluding with me buying a startlingly unattractive, yet cozy, emergency hat, complete with furry ear flaps, in order to make it home without frostbite. If you can imagine a five foot six, red cheeked, sweary lumberjack with boobs, tromping through a pitifully tiny amount of snow in the evening darkness, saying things like, “holy mother of fuck, I have gravely underestimated the situation!” then that would be me.
I’m also somewhat amazed that Christmas is happening this week. I mean this week, people. How did that happen? It just sort of snuck up on us. I mean I know it happens every December and I probably shouldn’t be all that surprised, but yet, I am.
I like Christmas! The food, the drinks, the pretty lights, my welfare Christmas tree from the Dollar Store, the bottle of Pimms currently sitting on the kitchen table, me making a trifle, not doing anything except eating, sleeping and watching bad TV. Perfect. It should be Christmas every month. I mean I realize I’m about as religious as a grapefruit, but I still like the whole good cheer element of the holidays. The magic. Santa Claus and cheesy music. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that nonsense. Plus I love that law that states you must eat chocolate all day on Christmas or you get arrested.
What? You don't know that law? Take it from me, it's serious. And I am nothing if not a good law abiding citizen.
Did you just call me sappy? Don’t call me sappy.
...just me then.
The past few days weren’t even cold up here. It was about 26 degrees F which is practically summer. I was even able to go walking my errands the other day without dying. Usually, going out this time of year constitutes standing nervously at the outside door gathering my wits about me, before sprinting to the car like a demented hyena, then sitting inside shaking and feeling my innards freeze and chanting nasty words till the engine heats up.
Then driving off with the engine still plugged in (oops!)
But not lately. It’s been all calm and delightful and I’ve been wistfully waiting for palm trees to spring up in the yard.
I mean true, during my errands walk I almost froze off my ears in a miscalculation involving me completely forgetting about a little thing called “wind chill” and concluding with me buying a startlingly unattractive, yet cozy, emergency hat, complete with furry ear flaps, in order to make it home without frostbite. If you can imagine a five foot six, red cheeked, sweary lumberjack with boobs, tromping through a pitifully tiny amount of snow in the evening darkness, saying things like, “holy mother of fuck, I have gravely underestimated the situation!” then that would be me.
I’m also somewhat amazed that Christmas is happening this week. I mean this week, people. How did that happen? It just sort of snuck up on us. I mean I know it happens every December and I probably shouldn’t be all that surprised, but yet, I am.
I like Christmas! The food, the drinks, the pretty lights, my welfare Christmas tree from the Dollar Store, the bottle of Pimms currently sitting on the kitchen table, me making a trifle, not doing anything except eating, sleeping and watching bad TV. Perfect. It should be Christmas every month. I mean I realize I’m about as religious as a grapefruit, but I still like the whole good cheer element of the holidays. The magic. Santa Claus and cheesy music. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that nonsense. Plus I love that law that states you must eat chocolate all day on Christmas or you get arrested.
What? You don't know that law? Take it from me, it's serious. And I am nothing if not a good law abiding citizen.
Did you just call me sappy? Don’t call me sappy.
...just me then.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Me, Me, Me, Meme
What’s that you say, “Veg is doing a meme on a Friday, is there a blue moon? Was that pink streak in the sky a quick flash of flying pig?” Well it’s been a few weeks so you can just suck it, people and put your sarcasm right back in your pocket.
Anyway, I have to do it because I got all tagged up by Jules to tell you all about ten things that make me happy and since Jules is letting me be a judge on her Blogger Idol video karaoke thingiemabob in the new year due to my Simon Cowellesque scathing cut downs, well basically I’ll do anything for Jules.
But like Meatloaf, I won’t do that.
I always wondered what exactly it was that Meat wouldn’t do? Clearly it wasn’t cheeseburgers.
So yes, ten things that make me happy. Obviously I’m supposed to tag ten of you to do it too but you know me, I’m far too lazy to do that nonsense, therefore, consider yourselves all tagged. Even you, lazybones.
Upwards and onwards.
So ten things that make the Vegetable Assassin happy. Let me see:
1) fluffy clouds, 2) the giggles of adorable, plump little babies, 3) my relationship with Jesus, 4) long walks by the river, 5) the joy on the faces of little children, 6) rainbows, 7) unicorns, 8) Koombaya, 9) Snuggies, 10) loving my neighbour
BAHAHAHAHA! I slay me.
Here’s my real list.
1) Animals make me happy. I get all sappy when I see them. Even the not so pretty ones, like alligators or warthogs. But not bugs. I don’t like bugs. Bugs can all just fuck right off instead of flitting around in my face or lying in wait for me in dark corners or waiting to crawl up my butt if I let down my guard and sleep with no pants on. I’ve mentioned this before I know but it bears repeating. No bugs in the ass.
2) Drinks make me happy. Especially cold drinks. They probably make me happier than food even. There’s nothing as satisfying as a cold, wonderful beverage, even one that doesn’t have alcohol in it, before you go getting the wrong idea. Non alcoholic things I like to drink: skim milk with ice in it (shut up), icy cold Diet Pepsi, orange juice, Irn Bru, limeade, the blood of babies (although truly that’s leaning more towards warm)
3) A deserted beach in summer, smelling the ocean and listening to the waves makes me happy so long as there are no hippies on the beach. Otherwise the sound of me drowning hippies in the waves makes me equally blissful.
I’m kidding, hippies, it’s just that you’re such an easy target with your hemp and your big, fat doobies and your Jesus hair and your Birkenstock sandals and the fact you say stupid ass things like “We need to all just love one another and save the planet” when we could save the planet a whole lot faster by inventing alternative fuel from burning all the hippies.
4) Painting makes me happy. It keeps me stable and serene and this should, in turn, make you happy, because then I’m a nice, balanced, modest, smiley person who isn’t brandishing an axe or swearing at you.
5) Sleeping makes me happy. I don’t do enough of it, but it makes me joyous when I’m so damn tired I just want to melt into the blankets and be asleep before I can even finish my thought.
6) Really weird, unimportant things make me happy, like the other day I got one of those fancy Febreze thingies that are a flickering light on a wooden base with a scented shade so it looks like a candle but like…totally isn’t a candle. It’s a fake candle! It’s a lie, people! Sort of like a pre-op trans-sexual who looks like a lady but still has a penis. And then I sulked because the fake candle was broken and the light wouldn’t come on even after I removed the battery tab thing and then someone with more intelligence than I calmly took it away from me and flicked a switch on the bottom and it worked just fine and I felt like an idiot because it had a switch? Who knew? Clearly not I.
7) Road trips make me happy. I like being in the car just going someplace, even if that someplace is just WalMart or something. But preferably somewhere much more glamorous and far away and less full of screaming children smacking into my legs with carts.
8) Memes sort of make me happy because I can ramble for hours about myself ad nauseum and feel all self-important and awesome. Hi!
9) Music makes me happy. This week I’ve been rediscovering some vintage Aztec Camera, a kick-ass Rilo Kiley playlist and listening to Shirley Bassey’s “The Girl From Tiger Bay”.
10) A clean toilet makes me happy. Last night I cleaned the toilet to within an inch of its existence, then bleached the living shit out of it (literally!) After it was done it was so sparkly I licked all round the rim of it with my tongue, thus depositing germs on it. The toilet I mean not my tongue. Because…the toilet was cleaner….than my tongue?
...I totally did not do that.
OK so it wasn’t a great meme but it’s 7 am, people, you shouldn’t expect miracles.
Anyway, I have to do it because I got all tagged up by Jules to tell you all about ten things that make me happy and since Jules is letting me be a judge on her Blogger Idol video karaoke thingiemabob in the new year due to my Simon Cowellesque scathing cut downs, well basically I’ll do anything for Jules.
But like Meatloaf, I won’t do that.
I always wondered what exactly it was that Meat wouldn’t do? Clearly it wasn’t cheeseburgers.
So yes, ten things that make me happy. Obviously I’m supposed to tag ten of you to do it too but you know me, I’m far too lazy to do that nonsense, therefore, consider yourselves all tagged. Even you, lazybones.
Upwards and onwards.
So ten things that make the Vegetable Assassin happy. Let me see:
1) fluffy clouds, 2) the giggles of adorable, plump little babies, 3) my relationship with Jesus, 4) long walks by the river, 5) the joy on the faces of little children, 6) rainbows, 7) unicorns, 8) Koombaya, 9) Snuggies, 10) loving my neighbour
BAHAHAHAHA! I slay me.
Here’s my real list.
1) Animals make me happy. I get all sappy when I see them. Even the not so pretty ones, like alligators or warthogs. But not bugs. I don’t like bugs. Bugs can all just fuck right off instead of flitting around in my face or lying in wait for me in dark corners or waiting to crawl up my butt if I let down my guard and sleep with no pants on. I’ve mentioned this before I know but it bears repeating. No bugs in the ass.
2) Drinks make me happy. Especially cold drinks. They probably make me happier than food even. There’s nothing as satisfying as a cold, wonderful beverage, even one that doesn’t have alcohol in it, before you go getting the wrong idea. Non alcoholic things I like to drink: skim milk with ice in it (shut up), icy cold Diet Pepsi, orange juice, Irn Bru, limeade, the blood of babies (although truly that’s leaning more towards warm)
3) A deserted beach in summer, smelling the ocean and listening to the waves makes me happy so long as there are no hippies on the beach. Otherwise the sound of me drowning hippies in the waves makes me equally blissful.
I’m kidding, hippies, it’s just that you’re such an easy target with your hemp and your big, fat doobies and your Jesus hair and your Birkenstock sandals and the fact you say stupid ass things like “We need to all just love one another and save the planet” when we could save the planet a whole lot faster by inventing alternative fuel from burning all the hippies.
4) Painting makes me happy. It keeps me stable and serene and this should, in turn, make you happy, because then I’m a nice, balanced, modest, smiley person who isn’t brandishing an axe or swearing at you.
5) Sleeping makes me happy. I don’t do enough of it, but it makes me joyous when I’m so damn tired I just want to melt into the blankets and be asleep before I can even finish my thought.
6) Really weird, unimportant things make me happy, like the other day I got one of those fancy Febreze thingies that are a flickering light on a wooden base with a scented shade so it looks like a candle but like…totally isn’t a candle. It’s a fake candle! It’s a lie, people! Sort of like a pre-op trans-sexual who looks like a lady but still has a penis. And then I sulked because the fake candle was broken and the light wouldn’t come on even after I removed the battery tab thing and then someone with more intelligence than I calmly took it away from me and flicked a switch on the bottom and it worked just fine and I felt like an idiot because it had a switch? Who knew? Clearly not I.
8) Memes sort of make me happy because I can ramble for hours about myself ad nauseum and feel all self-important and awesome. Hi!
9) Music makes me happy. This week I’ve been rediscovering some vintage Aztec Camera, a kick-ass Rilo Kiley playlist and listening to Shirley Bassey’s “The Girl From Tiger Bay”.
10) A clean toilet makes me happy. Last night I cleaned the toilet to within an inch of its existence, then bleached the living shit out of it (literally!) After it was done it was so sparkly I licked all round the rim of it with my tongue, thus depositing germs on it. The toilet I mean not my tongue. Because…the toilet was cleaner….than my tongue?
...I totally did not do that.
OK so it wasn’t a great meme but it’s 7 am, people, you shouldn’t expect miracles.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Splaturday
Well hi there Monday morning, you son of a whore!
My weekend was full of painting, sleeping, eating Italian food, drinking alcoholic beverages, freezing my ass off and finding out that there was a new, putrid life-form that used to be a cucumber squatting in the vegetable drawer in the fridge.
That last one required an approach with trepidation and a SWAT team, followed by a nose crinkling frown and a hasty clean up, complete with many squalid and colourful little swear words and the holding of the pungent object at arm’s length while not breathing for an extended period. This was immediately succeeded by a frantic trip outside to the dumpster and drawer fumigation. Who knew one little innocent veggie could smell so much like hell? In fact, if I ever had to hazard a guess as to the stench inside Bono’s leather pants, that rotted cucumber mulch would be pretty damn close.
Before you get the wrong idea, I don’t spend a lot of time speculating about the inside of Bono’s leather pants. Or anyone else’s.
Saturday was also my chance to attend some friends' office Christmas party which was most enlightening because:
1) I learned that it’s fun to dilute 7UP and home made fruit punch with the magic, sassy touch of Jose Cuervo. Jose makes anything better, truly. Well except your head next morning. Or your dignity. Or your ability to stay awake past about 10pm. Or to keep your top on.
I kept my top on, shut up.
2) Karaoke is a tool of Satan and there is almost no karaoke song on Earth in a key people can actually sing. Screw karaoke, man. Also? You can not appreciate karaoke sober. It is not possible. Even smashed it’s painful.
3) Driving across town with the fan in the car broken, no heat and the windows down when it’s minus thirty out, is less fun that you might imagine. It makes shopping at WalMart on a Saturday afternoon seem like a worthwhile and pleasurable experience.
Also, while at the Christmas party I heard a really fantastic true story that culminated in a handicapped little person sitting in a closet with a glass of milk, but it’s not my story to tell, so just know, it put the “awe” in “awesome” and tickled my fancy extremely. You can all use your imaginations on that.
You’re welcome. Now I need coffee.
My weekend was full of painting, sleeping, eating Italian food, drinking alcoholic beverages, freezing my ass off and finding out that there was a new, putrid life-form that used to be a cucumber squatting in the vegetable drawer in the fridge.
That last one required an approach with trepidation and a SWAT team, followed by a nose crinkling frown and a hasty clean up, complete with many squalid and colourful little swear words and the holding of the pungent object at arm’s length while not breathing for an extended period. This was immediately succeeded by a frantic trip outside to the dumpster and drawer fumigation. Who knew one little innocent veggie could smell so much like hell? In fact, if I ever had to hazard a guess as to the stench inside Bono’s leather pants, that rotted cucumber mulch would be pretty damn close.
Before you get the wrong idea, I don’t spend a lot of time speculating about the inside of Bono’s leather pants. Or anyone else’s.
Saturday was also my chance to attend some friends' office Christmas party which was most enlightening because:
1) I learned that it’s fun to dilute 7UP and home made fruit punch with the magic, sassy touch of Jose Cuervo. Jose makes anything better, truly. Well except your head next morning. Or your dignity. Or your ability to stay awake past about 10pm. Or to keep your top on.
I kept my top on, shut up.
2) Karaoke is a tool of Satan and there is almost no karaoke song on Earth in a key people can actually sing. Screw karaoke, man. Also? You can not appreciate karaoke sober. It is not possible. Even smashed it’s painful.
3) Driving across town with the fan in the car broken, no heat and the windows down when it’s minus thirty out, is less fun that you might imagine. It makes shopping at WalMart on a Saturday afternoon seem like a worthwhile and pleasurable experience.
Also, while at the Christmas party I heard a really fantastic true story that culminated in a handicapped little person sitting in a closet with a glass of milk, but it’s not my story to tell, so just know, it put the “awe” in “awesome” and tickled my fancy extremely. You can all use your imaginations on that.
You’re welcome. Now I need coffee.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Announcement: I have Unfriended The Cold
There’s nothing quite like that moment when you wake up one morning and realize it’s finally winter and that you’ve been living in denial for the past two weeks, during that slow descent from “bracing” to “chilly” to “Fuck me, this is surely illegal!”
Today, when I dragged my reluctant arse (followed by the equally reluctant rest of me) out of bed, it was still practically dark and my mind wasn’t talking to me at all, since it had just been rudely dragged out from beneath the warm, tropical bliss of Blanket Bay and into the cold, evil, almost light of a northern winter's day. Well the cold, evil light of the computer room anyway. Let's not get carried away...
I pulled on a sweater over my pyjamas and dutifully checked the weather. If you live in a cold climate, checking the weather in the morning is like breathing. If you intend risking your life by leaving the house, even if it’s just to sit and shiver in your frigid car for ten minutes before you can drive anywhere, you had better know just how much swearing you’re going to be doing in advance, in order to prepare.
In fact, instead of giving the temperature in degrees you might as well give it in sweaters. “Today is a seventeen sweater day, enjoy!” then you can mumble incoherent, inappropriate insults to the weatherman about exactly where he can stick his *cheery forecasts, as you’re waddling out to the parking lot, arms at a 90 degree angle to your body, due to your Michelin Man-like proportions from the 23 different layers you’re wearing.
*Another great idea for weather forecasting would be to give the degree of cold in ‘celebrities’. Like say, for example, a ‘Morgan Freeman day’ would be a mildly chilly day, nothing to worry about, no winter woollies necessary, almost pleasant in fact, while, at the other end of the scale, a ‘Robin Williams day’ would mean, “If you leave the house you will freeze to death in seconds like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ it is even possible there will be a new Ice Age.”
So this morning my iPod gleefully informed me it was minus twenty-three point eight degrees F. The “F” stands for “Fuck me, I am not going out in that.” So yes, if you’re complaining that it’s 30 degrees Fahrenheit or something in your neck of the woods and BRRRRRRR it’s cold, just you shut the fuck up, please.
I went out at lunchtime to get some fixings for dinner tonight and a Diet Pepsi, (let’s get real here, it’s cold, it’s not a goddamn Apocalypse or anything) and it had warmed up considerably to a balmy -4F (–21C), so I got out my bikini and my sun tan lotion and lay out in the parking lot, bathing in the rays and drinking a pina colada.
Actually, I called winter a “giant goatbanger” and ran like I was being chased by Andy Dick at a cocaine party, across the road to the store, before I got frostbite in my extremities.
I decided after that, that if I miraculously won the lottery, the first thing I’d do would be build myself a little house right on the Equator and screw this winter business.
OK, technically it’d be the third thing I’d do after I bought all the Diet Pepsi on Earth and banned P. Diddy from ever hoisting his nastiness on the public ever again.
Priorities people, priorities!
Today, when I dragged my reluctant arse (followed by the equally reluctant rest of me) out of bed, it was still practically dark and my mind wasn’t talking to me at all, since it had just been rudely dragged out from beneath the warm, tropical bliss of Blanket Bay and into the cold, evil, almost light of a northern winter's day. Well the cold, evil light of the computer room anyway. Let's not get carried away...
I pulled on a sweater over my pyjamas and dutifully checked the weather. If you live in a cold climate, checking the weather in the morning is like breathing. If you intend risking your life by leaving the house, even if it’s just to sit and shiver in your frigid car for ten minutes before you can drive anywhere, you had better know just how much swearing you’re going to be doing in advance, in order to prepare.
In fact, instead of giving the temperature in degrees you might as well give it in sweaters. “Today is a seventeen sweater day, enjoy!” then you can mumble incoherent, inappropriate insults to the weatherman about exactly where he can stick his *cheery forecasts, as you’re waddling out to the parking lot, arms at a 90 degree angle to your body, due to your Michelin Man-like proportions from the 23 different layers you’re wearing.
*Another great idea for weather forecasting would be to give the degree of cold in ‘celebrities’. Like say, for example, a ‘Morgan Freeman day’ would be a mildly chilly day, nothing to worry about, no winter woollies necessary, almost pleasant in fact, while, at the other end of the scale, a ‘Robin Williams day’ would mean, “If you leave the house you will freeze to death in seconds like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ it is even possible there will be a new Ice Age.”
So this morning my iPod gleefully informed me it was minus twenty-three point eight degrees F. The “F” stands for “Fuck me, I am not going out in that.” So yes, if you’re complaining that it’s 30 degrees Fahrenheit or something in your neck of the woods and BRRRRRRR it’s cold, just you shut the fuck up, please.
Actually, I called winter a “giant goatbanger” and ran like I was being chased by Andy Dick at a cocaine party, across the road to the store, before I got frostbite in my extremities.
I decided after that, that if I miraculously won the lottery, the first thing I’d do would be build myself a little house right on the Equator and screw this winter business.
OK, technically it’d be the third thing I’d do after I bought all the Diet Pepsi on Earth and banned P. Diddy from ever hoisting his nastiness on the public ever again.
Priorities people, priorities!
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Weekender
Today I am home doing my own thing and thinking to myself about random stuff while generally being a gloating asshole about the fact it’s snowing out but I get to stay home all day and be warm. At least I was until I realized, with a growing horror, that I’m all out of Diet Pepsi and that if people don’t want the world to end in the next ten minutes, I’d better obtain some by any means necessary, or spend the day being a huge, cantankerous heap of bitchy, muttering and talking to myself.
So with a heavy heart I forced myself into some clothes that ARE fit to be seen in the outside world – because normally if I’m home, I’m content to laze around in holey (not holy!) leggings and a giant sweater and no make up and the only reason I don’t spend all day in my actual pyjamas is that the postman might come and bring me a present and me opening the door in my sleepwear might give HIM a present in the form of a coronary from the terror. No one should have to see that.
There are hearts on my pyjamas. That coupled with my crazy hair sends the postal workers over the edge of sanity. Let’s face facts - they usually don’t have far to go.
So anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, Diet Pepsi. I threw on some clothes and a scarf and I tromped across the street got a bottle of Diet Pepsi the size of Dog the Bounty Hunter’s preposterously colossal ego and triumphantly returned to my warm lair to drink it and regain my mellow.
However, just as I was sitting here thinking (mostly about the colour green but also some other things – I’d tell you about those too but if you saw a list of the random thoughts in my head at any one moment you’d never come back) I suddenly, out of the blue, hear a lady’s voice loudly say the words “tent poles”. Just a disembodied voice. And there was no one in the room but me.
And I thought, “…the fuck?”
And then I thought, “Did I say that?”
You might laugh, but last year, when I was in Fargo, I was having a nap one Saturday afternoon and I was scared awake by someone yelling the word “PIGEONS!” in a really distressed tone. My heart was beating like a snare drum. Until I realized that it was me. I’D yelled it! And I’d yelled it so loud I’d managed to wake myself up. Then I was anxious because, what the hell else do I yell in my sleep? Swear words? That I enjoy looking at men’s packages in ballet tights?
Anyway, I thought maybe the “tent poles” thing was me again, in some sort of waking trance, but it turned out there was a woman outside the window talking to some other unseen entity and she’d said it. Random bitch! So for the hell of it, I loudly yelled back, “MOCCASINS!” quickly followed by, “SWIFFER WET JET!”
She didn’t even smile. But then she probably laughs at “Two and A Half Men”.
So with a heavy heart I forced myself into some clothes that ARE fit to be seen in the outside world – because normally if I’m home, I’m content to laze around in holey (not holy!) leggings and a giant sweater and no make up and the only reason I don’t spend all day in my actual pyjamas is that the postman might come and bring me a present and me opening the door in my sleepwear might give HIM a present in the form of a coronary from the terror. No one should have to see that.
There are hearts on my pyjamas. That coupled with my crazy hair sends the postal workers over the edge of sanity. Let’s face facts - they usually don’t have far to go.
However, just as I was sitting here thinking (mostly about the colour green but also some other things – I’d tell you about those too but if you saw a list of the random thoughts in my head at any one moment you’d never come back) I suddenly, out of the blue, hear a lady’s voice loudly say the words “tent poles”. Just a disembodied voice. And there was no one in the room but me.
And I thought, “…the fuck?”
And then I thought, “Did I say that?”
You might laugh, but last year, when I was in Fargo, I was having a nap one Saturday afternoon and I was scared awake by someone yelling the word “PIGEONS!” in a really distressed tone. My heart was beating like a snare drum. Until I realized that it was me. I’D yelled it! And I’d yelled it so loud I’d managed to wake myself up. Then I was anxious because, what the hell else do I yell in my sleep? Swear words? That I enjoy looking at men’s packages in ballet tights?
Anyway, I thought maybe the “tent poles” thing was me again, in some sort of waking trance, but it turned out there was a woman outside the window talking to some other unseen entity and she’d said it. Random bitch! So for the hell of it, I loudly yelled back, “MOCCASINS!” quickly followed by, “SWIFFER WET JET!”
She didn’t even smile. But then she probably laughs at “Two and A Half Men”.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
It’s All About Me
Today is my birthday and I am planning on mainlining cake, possibly snorting it with a straw and then rolling around in the remains, while muttering things like “Come to mama!” and “Oh yeah baby!” and “I love you, cake.” Just try and stop me. I aim to eat a piece for every last one of you. There will also be other treats and I might bust out my big pants for afterwards just to be safe.
So yes, I just came on here to boast and leave you with a haiku that justifies my behaviour.
One must eat the cake
Fill ones belly to the brim
Lie on bed and groan
In case I don’t get to say it on time, happy birthday RED for tomorrow. Later! I’m off to eat lunch in public, and it may or may not include copious amounts of bacon.
So yes, I just came on here to boast and leave you with a haiku that justifies my behaviour.
One must eat the cake
Fill ones belly to the brim
Lie on bed and groan
In case I don’t get to say it on time, happy birthday RED for tomorrow. Later! I’m off to eat lunch in public, and it may or may not include copious amounts of bacon.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thanksville
Happy Thanksgiving America!
Since it’s Thanksgiving, I should say that I am thankful that the raging eye socket headache I’ve had since yesterday finally appears to be fading. I was starting to think the only sure-fire way to remove it was with a hammer and a large spike. Or maybe a Mel Gibson, Sugartits-strength bender.
Curing an eye headache with a hangover though, seems counter productive. In the end I blitzed it with muttered threats and a vat of industrial strength Tylenol. And a Diet Pepsi. That is key.
Other things I am thankful for today:
- Bath & Body Works have a “Buy three, get three free” sale going on, which means I can get about seven million (ok, six) tubes of my favourite Black Raspberry Vanilla body cream for about thirty bucks instead of about $80. Woo! I might be insane but I smell delicious.
- Some people love me despite the fact I am a grade A idiot.
- My mum sending me parcels of tiny Japanese glass animals and chocolate.
- The Flight Control App. on my iPod. If you saw me on it you’d be thanking your lucky stars I’m not a real air traffic controller.
- All you lovely people.
Don’t you feel better already? Have a fun holiday, or if you’re not here in the States, hey, it’s almost the weekend.
Since it’s Thanksgiving, I should say that I am thankful that the raging eye socket headache I’ve had since yesterday finally appears to be fading. I was starting to think the only sure-fire way to remove it was with a hammer and a large spike. Or maybe a Mel Gibson, Sugartits-strength bender.
Curing an eye headache with a hangover though, seems counter productive. In the end I blitzed it with muttered threats and a vat of industrial strength Tylenol. And a Diet Pepsi. That is key.
- Bath & Body Works have a “Buy three, get three free” sale going on, which means I can get about seven million (ok, six) tubes of my favourite Black Raspberry Vanilla body cream for about thirty bucks instead of about $80. Woo! I might be insane but I smell delicious.
- Some people love me despite the fact I am a grade A idiot.
- My mum sending me parcels of tiny Japanese glass animals and chocolate.
- The Flight Control App. on my iPod. If you saw me on it you’d be thanking your lucky stars I’m not a real air traffic controller.
- All you lovely people.
Don’t you feel better already? Have a fun holiday, or if you’re not here in the States, hey, it’s almost the weekend.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
November: Now With Stuff
Because I'm bored and somewhat kind of heart, (and totally lazy) here is a little repost from a couple of years ago that I wrote in honour of November, which tends to be a bit of a nothingy month. I never do reposts and usually I’m sort of staunchly against them but hey, whatever. I made a few edits, therefore, it’s almost new.
You can pay me later. I accept food stamps and naked photos.
You can pay me later. I accept food stamps and naked photos.
- According to Morrissey and his fey hair, November "spawned a monster in the shape of this child"! I wonder if Morrissey was born in November because, if so it would go a ways to explaining THIS photo of someone's dad going to the Bingo Hall Social.
- November 5th, we Brits celebrate "Guy Fawkes Night". Mr. Fawkes was some dude who, with a bunch of Catholics, tried to blow up parliament with gunpowder, back in the olden days and given the fact he had a ton of it he failed miserably and ended up executed by the Protestants.
I imagine the night of the "incident" went something like this.
"Are these gunpowder kegs in position? Yes? OK then. Light the thingy then on the count of 'one' run like your knackers are on fire. Which they will be if you don't pay attention to that last point! Wait... What do you mean you 'didn't bring any matches?'"
Now we remember his "lack of win" by letting off fireworks, roasting marshmallows on a bonfire and setting scarecrows on fire. Don't knock it till you've tried it.
- Allegedly, it is somewhat customary for humans of the male persuasion in Melbourne, Australia to grow a big, furry moustache during the month of November. This is apparently known as "Movember" for "moustache" and "November".
- In Finland, November is celebrated as "Month of the Dead". That's a whole month of death. Take that Mexico. And let me tell you from the experience of one particularly blurry night in Helsinki, the Fins know how to throw a fucking celebration. Those people drink like prohibition is just over the horizon and barrelling towards them at the speed of light. And I'm from Scotland so you know, don't go thinking the irony of that statement is lost on me! So ..don't go to Finland in November. As well as your balls freezing off you're liable to get iced in another way. Just saying.
- In Croatia, November is known as "studeni" which apparently means "cold one". I'm not sure if they are referencing the weather, Betty Draper, a stiff (Hi Finland!) or they want another hit of Karlovačko. Regarding Karlovačko? I imbibed that very Croatian beer while sitting in a square in Split once (at least I think it was square, it was spinning a lot at the time). For two days afterwards I thought I was the Russian prime minister. That stuff is dangerous. They say it's only twelve percent proof, but twelve percent of what, that's what I want to know..
- November is the most boring month of the year because I can find almost nothing interesting that happened during it, probably because everyone's getting either hammered or murdered. Even Wikipedia was like, "Dude, that is SO all I have, go find a life or something, please!"
Thursday, November 19, 2009
You Don’t Know What It’s Like (To Love Somebody)
Hi! I seem to have had a busy week not being here. But things are calmer now. Personal projects are complete. I have relaxed by eating Havarti cheese. And acquiring a giant appreciation for the Bee Gees. You heard me right, don’t look at me like that.
I know I make fun of the Bee Gees sometimes. It’s so easy. That hair. Those pants. Those voices that sound like they’re being forcibly sodomized by a scalding hot tire iron. But I like the Bee Gees. I like their quirky, catchy, retro, goddamn cheesy songs. They’re infectious like the plague. I wish I'd been a dazzling 18 year old disco diva back in 1976, resplendent in sparkly gold lame so I could strut my funky thang to the Bee Gees in some palm frond decorated, Miami discotheque.
You can quote me on that. Sniff. I was born too late.
The thing is, I feel it’s my right to tell you all that the Bee Gees are ok. Really they are. Don’t fear the Bee Gees. Step into the light. You need to get their Greatest Hits album and play it in heavy rotation till your ears bleed, especially when doing mundane tasks. It makes sticking a marigold-gloved hand down the toilet seem like a pleasure when somewhere behind you, the brothers Gibb are shrieking “You win again!” It’s like they’re huddled by the door frame going “You go girl! You blitz the stains off that porcelain! You turn that water blue with a fresh stick-on! You get that brush down there and twirl!” Your own personal bathroom cheer squad.
Maybe lock them out for a while when you’re pinching a loaf or something though…
Making dinner is so much less a chore when you can swig a cold beer and have the Bee Gees ask “How Deep is Your Love?” When things get hard you know it’s going to be ok because the Bee Gees know all about “Tragedy” but they’re “Stayin’ Alive” and so can you. (well except that one Bee Gee who didn’t manage to stay alive, but no method is foolproof).
Rest assured though, when the Bee Gees tell you “You should be dancin’ yeah!” you should be fucking well dancing! Don’t mess with the Bee Gees man, the Bee Gees will cut you. Don't be fooled by the gold lycra and open chest shirts, they will FUCK. YOU. UP.
What’s “Jive Talking” about though? Can you really think of three whiter boys to be talking about jive talking? But the Bee Gees pull it off with aplomb. Talent like that doesn’t come around every day. Embrace it. Love the Bee Gees!
Veggie out.
I know I make fun of the Bee Gees sometimes. It’s so easy. That hair. Those pants. Those voices that sound like they’re being forcibly sodomized by a scalding hot tire iron. But I like the Bee Gees. I like their quirky, catchy, retro, goddamn cheesy songs. They’re infectious like the plague. I wish I'd been a dazzling 18 year old disco diva back in 1976, resplendent in sparkly gold lame so I could strut my funky thang to the Bee Gees in some palm frond decorated, Miami discotheque.
You can quote me on that. Sniff. I was born too late.
Maybe lock them out for a while when you’re pinching a loaf or something though…
Making dinner is so much less a chore when you can swig a cold beer and have the Bee Gees ask “How Deep is Your Love?” When things get hard you know it’s going to be ok because the Bee Gees know all about “Tragedy” but they’re “Stayin’ Alive” and so can you. (well except that one Bee Gee who didn’t manage to stay alive, but no method is foolproof).
Veggie out.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Entry With No Name
Yesterday was Veteran’s Day and to many of us, apart from remembering the troops, that meant a holiday. I decided to spend it the way a holiday ought to be spent – sleeping late and polishing my poppy and going back to sleep.
It was a plastic poppy. From the gas station during a trip up north...
Things I have learned this week:
1) There is such a thing as too much chocolate.
2) If you’re not careful it is possible to unknowingly attach a club lock to a steering wheel in such a way that it slightly depresses the horn which in turn seriously depresses several of your neighbours when it proceeds to blast on and off all night resulting in a drained battery the next day and possibly many livid glares. Oops.
3) It is possible to find a soy based veggie burger that doesn’t taste like shit.
4) The new version of the old sci-fi eighties’ series “V” is jaw droppingly awful. Let me try to put it into words for you. It’s like when a hot band of pain flashes across your belly all of a sudden and you know you’ve eaten something bad and you groan and you rub your belly and you clear a path to the bathroom just in case your innards think about becoming outards while sweat starts to trickle from your hairline onto your clammy forehead and you can’t sit still because the pain feels like there’s a diseased elf filled with malice jabbing your gut repeatedly with a hot scythe, while his little accomplice bastard sits behind you kicking you hard in the lower back with steel-toe capped boots, and you feel queasy and uncomfortable and achey, and the bile is rising in your esophagus, ready to burst forth at any second in a fountain of puke, so you get up, breathing heavily and you clutch your abdomen and you hobble, painfully, slowly, muttering and grimacing towards the bathroom, tearing your pants off in blind panic and throwing yourself on the mercy of the porcelain throne and you sit there, sweating, aching, blasting noxious, toxic gases from your bum, aware suddenly that you were too panicked to close the door and now there’s a crowd of ten people you invited round for drinks, including your boss, all gathered around the bathroom door staring at you, anxiously inquiring if you’re ok, while you’re butt naked on the toilet and you think, “Nothing can be worse than this moment.”?
Yeah, well watch “V”. Surprise!
5) Lastly: Haiku are fun so go see Hunter over at Time Crook as he wrote a great car related entry filled with haiku, a few of which I even contributed, so go on over and check it out and while you’re there check out his whole blog because it’s full of dry humour, poignant thoughts and the sort of general awesomeness I can never hope to aspire to.
It was a plastic poppy. From the gas station during a trip up north...
Things I have learned this week:
1) There is such a thing as too much chocolate.
2) If you’re not careful it is possible to unknowingly attach a club lock to a steering wheel in such a way that it slightly depresses the horn which in turn seriously depresses several of your neighbours when it proceeds to blast on and off all night resulting in a drained battery the next day and possibly many livid glares. Oops.
3) It is possible to find a soy based veggie burger that doesn’t taste like shit.
4) The new version of the old sci-fi eighties’ series “V” is jaw droppingly awful. Let me try to put it into words for you. It’s like when a hot band of pain flashes across your belly all of a sudden and you know you’ve eaten something bad and you groan and you rub your belly and you clear a path to the bathroom just in case your innards think about becoming outards while sweat starts to trickle from your hairline onto your clammy forehead and you can’t sit still because the pain feels like there’s a diseased elf filled with malice jabbing your gut repeatedly with a hot scythe, while his little accomplice bastard sits behind you kicking you hard in the lower back with steel-toe capped boots, and you feel queasy and uncomfortable and achey, and the bile is rising in your esophagus, ready to burst forth at any second in a fountain of puke, so you get up, breathing heavily and you clutch your abdomen and you hobble, painfully, slowly, muttering and grimacing towards the bathroom, tearing your pants off in blind panic and throwing yourself on the mercy of the porcelain throne and you sit there, sweating, aching, blasting noxious, toxic gases from your bum, aware suddenly that you were too panicked to close the door and now there’s a crowd of ten people you invited round for drinks, including your boss, all gathered around the bathroom door staring at you, anxiously inquiring if you’re ok, while you’re butt naked on the toilet and you think, “Nothing can be worse than this moment.”?
Yeah, well watch “V”. Surprise!
5) Lastly: Haiku are fun so go see Hunter over at Time Crook as he wrote a great car related entry filled with haiku, a few of which I even contributed, so go on over and check it out and while you’re there check out his whole blog because it’s full of dry humour, poignant thoughts and the sort of general awesomeness I can never hope to aspire to.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Container Madness
I’ve been in the mood for a spot of spring cleaning lately. And before you point out the obvious, “But it’s AUTUMN!” - well yes, you would be correct, but it’s more the principle I’m going for, not the season.
Not that I have a lot of stuff to organize – I have mercifully few things but somehow I still need to get them encased in their own private accommodations with miscellaneous containers and things. I’m obsessed with containers. They’re like a sweet drug I can’t turn my back on. You can keep your hash cakes and your Ecstasy – just point me in the direction of somewhere with a fine array of containers and I’ll be high as a kite all day.
Well maybe save me ONE cake. For old time’s sake.
I can find a use for any container. So long as it’s functional and relatively cute. Cute is necessary. You don’t want an ugly container cluttering up your apartment do you? That is counter productive to any organizing Mecca.
I’m not above making my own containers either. Coffee tins are particularly good for painting up all fancy and keeping stuff in. It’s recycling! So long as you don’t mind your stuff smelling like coffee, you’re golden.
So anyway, I take a little trip to the dollar store. I know I mention the dollar store all the time and you all think I probably live in the goddamn dollar store but I don’t. I just go there for;
a) striped socks in offensive colours
b) cheap paint of undetermined origin
c) containers – all things you hate paying real money for.
They have all sorts of containers that make me drool on myself because I lose control of all bodily functions when my eyes glimpse all that shiny, multi-coloured plastic everywhere in all shapes and sizes. I start to twitch and mutter and I realize how those five, lucky golden-ticket winners in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” must’ve felt upon entering Willy Wonka’s candy factory. Just like when I was sixteen and I’d practically pass out with ecstasy at lines and lines of vinyl records lined up in my local record store.
Now I’m getting the vapours from containers. This is a sad development. Yet oddly pleasing.
Detouring back to the Dollar Store for a moment here though. The Dollar Store has a food section and I find this slightly alarming. Really, who buys food from the Dollar Store? There has to be a reason it’s a dollar, surely, and that reason can seldom be good. If there’s a steak in the Dollar Store fridge, it’s probably never been destined for the menu at any classy restaurant. It probably has the cooties and came from a rat or something. I don’t know and truthfully, I don’t want to dwell on it too much. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll let myself buy a big bar of chocolate or something for a dollar. I mean how bad can that be? A giant Milky Way for a buck? Sign me up.
But back to the containers. I have them all commissioned instantly. “You would be great for my paints, you would be good for pens, you would fit my measly make up supplies and you would hold my laundry!” I am triumphant in my delegations. I am all delighted with myself. More than usual even.
Don’t even get me started on the Container Store…
Not that I have a lot of stuff to organize – I have mercifully few things but somehow I still need to get them encased in their own private accommodations with miscellaneous containers and things. I’m obsessed with containers. They’re like a sweet drug I can’t turn my back on. You can keep your hash cakes and your Ecstasy – just point me in the direction of somewhere with a fine array of containers and I’ll be high as a kite all day.
Well maybe save me ONE cake. For old time’s sake.
I can find a use for any container. So long as it’s functional and relatively cute. Cute is necessary. You don’t want an ugly container cluttering up your apartment do you? That is counter productive to any organizing Mecca.
I’m not above making my own containers either. Coffee tins are particularly good for painting up all fancy and keeping stuff in. It’s recycling! So long as you don’t mind your stuff smelling like coffee, you’re golden.
So anyway, I take a little trip to the dollar store. I know I mention the dollar store all the time and you all think I probably live in the goddamn dollar store but I don’t. I just go there for;
a) striped socks in offensive colours
b) cheap paint of undetermined origin
c) containers – all things you hate paying real money for.
They have all sorts of containers that make me drool on myself because I lose control of all bodily functions when my eyes glimpse all that shiny, multi-coloured plastic everywhere in all shapes and sizes. I start to twitch and mutter and I realize how those five, lucky golden-ticket winners in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” must’ve felt upon entering Willy Wonka’s candy factory. Just like when I was sixteen and I’d practically pass out with ecstasy at lines and lines of vinyl records lined up in my local record store.
Now I’m getting the vapours from containers. This is a sad development. Yet oddly pleasing.
Detouring back to the Dollar Store for a moment here though. The Dollar Store has a food section and I find this slightly alarming. Really, who buys food from the Dollar Store? There has to be a reason it’s a dollar, surely, and that reason can seldom be good. If there’s a steak in the Dollar Store fridge, it’s probably never been destined for the menu at any classy restaurant. It probably has the cooties and came from a rat or something. I don’t know and truthfully, I don’t want to dwell on it too much. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll let myself buy a big bar of chocolate or something for a dollar. I mean how bad can that be? A giant Milky Way for a buck? Sign me up.
But back to the containers. I have them all commissioned instantly. “You would be great for my paints, you would be good for pens, you would fit my measly make up supplies and you would hold my laundry!” I am triumphant in my delegations. I am all delighted with myself. More than usual even.
Don’t even get me started on the Container Store…
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Paranormal Activity in my Gut
I woke up this morning ravenous. This almost never happens as I need to be alert to be hungry and being alert generally takes most of my day. I can perform tasks for hours before I’d classify myself as actually alert. I have auto pilot. I have zombie efficiency. So it was a surprise to find my belly growling like a Satanic demon.
And a shock since I went to bed feeling like I was housing the entire world’s food surplus in my belly. I got all social last night and went for a dinner of junk food type deliciousness, which is always a damn fine treat, and which included a grilled cheese sandwich and sweet potato fries all healthily cancelled out by a giant Diet Pepsi. When I’d done I felt like there was possibly a full grown human curled up in my gut. Or at least the Olson Twins.
All this munching turned out to be a huge mistake as I went to the movies afterwards and it was some half price Tuesday nonsense, which sounds like a really good thing doesn’t it? Except it’s not really half price at all. It’s full price but you get a free popcorn and a giant free soda with your ticket. Which I didn’t know. Or particularly want after a belly full of awesome. I don’t even like popcorn much and I didn’t eat any of it. Really the half price ticket would’ve been a much better deal, you fuckers. This is the great thing about smaller inconspicuous states like North Dakota. They have cheap awesomeness up the wazoo.
I forgave them though because I got such a kick out of the movie. (“Paranormal Activity”) I’d seen so many reviews and I’d read all the hype and I thought “Well OBVIOUSLY it’s going to be a letdown because all hyped moves are!” but you know what? It wasn’t. I thought it was better than expected by quite a bit. And it’s a long time since I’ve gone to bed at night totally creeped out.
In fact, it was scarier after the movie than during even. I like stuff that starts off really slow and unremarkable and gradually builds. The entire first half I was thinking “This is creepy but not really scary.” Then the last half hour happened. Holy fuck. The last minute or so almost gave me palpitations. I loved how there’s this crazy, tense, shock of a last scene then the movie just ends with no credits or anything and the lights come on and everyone’s just sitting there shell shocked.
Wicked!
I guess if you like your scary movies full of implausible slasher super killers, blood, gore, torture and predictable cliches (how many times can we see the whole ‘girl closes bathroom cabinet to see nasty entity in mirror’ thing?) you won’t like PN but if you like slow building, realistic, gets under your skin creepiness, you’ll probably love it like I did.
And I woke up every hour to check there was no one standing at the side of the bed watching me sleep, because if there was it’s possible I’d be on the news today for setting a new world speed record for sprinting.
Toot toot!
And a shock since I went to bed feeling like I was housing the entire world’s food surplus in my belly. I got all social last night and went for a dinner of junk food type deliciousness, which is always a damn fine treat, and which included a grilled cheese sandwich and sweet potato fries all healthily cancelled out by a giant Diet Pepsi. When I’d done I felt like there was possibly a full grown human curled up in my gut. Or at least the Olson Twins.
All this munching turned out to be a huge mistake as I went to the movies afterwards and it was some half price Tuesday nonsense, which sounds like a really good thing doesn’t it? Except it’s not really half price at all. It’s full price but you get a free popcorn and a giant free soda with your ticket. Which I didn’t know. Or particularly want after a belly full of awesome. I don’t even like popcorn much and I didn’t eat any of it. Really the half price ticket would’ve been a much better deal, you fuckers. This is the great thing about smaller inconspicuous states like North Dakota. They have cheap awesomeness up the wazoo.
I forgave them though because I got such a kick out of the movie. (“Paranormal Activity”) I’d seen so many reviews and I’d read all the hype and I thought “Well OBVIOUSLY it’s going to be a letdown because all hyped moves are!” but you know what? It wasn’t. I thought it was better than expected by quite a bit. And it’s a long time since I’ve gone to bed at night totally creeped out.
In fact, it was scarier after the movie than during even. I like stuff that starts off really slow and unremarkable and gradually builds. The entire first half I was thinking “This is creepy but not really scary.” Then the last half hour happened. Holy fuck. The last minute or so almost gave me palpitations. I loved how there’s this crazy, tense, shock of a last scene then the movie just ends with no credits or anything and the lights come on and everyone’s just sitting there shell shocked.
Wicked!
I guess if you like your scary movies full of implausible slasher super killers, blood, gore, torture and predictable cliches (how many times can we see the whole ‘girl closes bathroom cabinet to see nasty entity in mirror’ thing?) you won’t like PN but if you like slow building, realistic, gets under your skin creepiness, you’ll probably love it like I did.
And I woke up every hour to check there was no one standing at the side of the bed watching me sleep, because if there was it’s possible I’d be on the news today for setting a new world speed record for sprinting.
Monday, November 2, 2009
PB&J
I almost missed daylight savings altogether as my head thought it was all going down next week and, as always, I assumed it knew best. Let’s hope my head never plans a bank heist.
It was ok in the end though. I got some extra sleep and managed to get up this morning without having an internal struggle, probably due to my small pea brain’s confusion. Maybe I’ll make a morning person yet?
Still, it might have messed with me in other ways. For instance, it’s not even 9:30am now and I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing because I’m already fixated on the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But it’s much too early to be thinking of such things. It’s coffee and granola bar time really. One doesn’t screw with societal convention. Although I already eat breakfast food for dinner because I’m a rebel of society so this shouldn’t really be a great stretch.
Peanut butter and jelly together are two of life’s little pleasures. A simple delight and a sticky one but sometimes those are the best kind. Growing up in a country not bred on such mixtures, I was the lime in a bowl full of lemons as a kid because I was weaned on a strict diet of cheesy American TV shows and knew two things from an early age; if you were anyone at all you ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and you drank root beer, two concepts so foreign to me they sounded almost exotic. I’d never tried either.
I eventually tasted root beer as a kid, during a family vacation to the States, during a heat wave, and after braving what seemed to be a 300 day wait in line at a cafe at the Statue of Liberty. When my dad asked what my drink of choice was I excitedly asked for root beer. Because I was in the know with the cool kids. I was practically American goddamn it. I was fucking COOL.
I took one sip of that root beer and pulled a face that suggested maybe someone had accidentally fed me a cup of salted duck guts. “What is THIS?” I said, disgusted. “It tastes like hospitals!”
To this day I can’t touch root beer. Stuff is just NASTY. People are just devoted to it and I can’t figure out why. Unless they had some unfortunate taste-bud killing disease…
The peanut butter and jelly sandwich however did not let me down. In fact, in my late teens my sister and I and some mutual friends used to frequent a local indie club together once a week. This meant drinking copious amounts of “Snakebites” (beer and cider mixed into a lethal pint-sized cocktail of extreme danger and flavoured mildly, in our case, with a splash of blackcurrant) and grabbing a taxi home in the wee small hours then trying not to wake my mum upon arrival with our rubber-limbed attempts at making a snack REALLY QUIETLY BUT NOT REALLY QUIETLY.
We were always ravenous and about as drunk as Nick Nolte at a titty bar. My mum could always assess our level of drunkenness in the morning by the debris we left in the kitchen at 4 am. If there were cheese gratings we were coordinated enough to work the grill and make grilled cheese sandwiches – nectar of drunken bums everywhere. However, if we were really incoherent and giggling, there’d be a peanut butter jar, a jelly jar and a half uneaten loaf and she’d know we couldn’t quite fire on enough cylinders to deal with actually cooking something. On those mornings she took extra care to be noisy. Who said mothers have no sense of humour?
It was ok in the end though. I got some extra sleep and managed to get up this morning without having an internal struggle, probably due to my small pea brain’s confusion. Maybe I’ll make a morning person yet?
Still, it might have messed with me in other ways. For instance, it’s not even 9:30am now and I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing because I’m already fixated on the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But it’s much too early to be thinking of such things. It’s coffee and granola bar time really. One doesn’t screw with societal convention. Although I already eat breakfast food for dinner because I’m a rebel of society so this shouldn’t really be a great stretch.
I eventually tasted root beer as a kid, during a family vacation to the States, during a heat wave, and after braving what seemed to be a 300 day wait in line at a cafe at the Statue of Liberty. When my dad asked what my drink of choice was I excitedly asked for root beer. Because I was in the know with the cool kids. I was practically American goddamn it. I was fucking COOL.
I took one sip of that root beer and pulled a face that suggested maybe someone had accidentally fed me a cup of salted duck guts. “What is THIS?” I said, disgusted. “It tastes like hospitals!”
To this day I can’t touch root beer. Stuff is just NASTY. People are just devoted to it and I can’t figure out why. Unless they had some unfortunate taste-bud killing disease…
The peanut butter and jelly sandwich however did not let me down. In fact, in my late teens my sister and I and some mutual friends used to frequent a local indie club together once a week. This meant drinking copious amounts of “Snakebites” (beer and cider mixed into a lethal pint-sized cocktail of extreme danger and flavoured mildly, in our case, with a splash of blackcurrant) and grabbing a taxi home in the wee small hours then trying not to wake my mum upon arrival with our rubber-limbed attempts at making a snack REALLY QUIETLY BUT NOT REALLY QUIETLY.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Obligatory Friday Attendance
I am home, cozy, installed in some comfort-level, slightly worn pyjama bottoms and a big t-shirt, my reading glasses perched on the end of my nose like a disapproving librarian, my hair inventing angles that astound the geometric world, a big cup of coffee by my side, some tunes blasting in the background and a pristine, giant white canvas on my easel waiting for me to utilize the pots of pink, magenta, red and purple paints laid out in anticipation. Because yes! Once again I defy blue by attempting something in another colour spectrum – the spectrum of “offensive to the eyeballs”.
There’s also the possibility that later I might bake something fragrant to nibble while watching a movie later tonight. So really, what’s not to like? Come on over and play. And eat a cupcake. Filled with lemon butter cream and joyous little exuberant calories.
I have a slight eye socket migraine going down behind my right eye. It’s nearly always my right eye, because Right Eye is a party animal. There’s all manner of chaos going on behind there. Left eye, in the meantime, is the serious one, the studious one, the one who wants to sit nine feet from the TV and use a glare screen on the computer. Left Eye likes early nights and gardening and possibly reading up on spiritual fulfillment, whereas Right Eye prefers strip clubs, hollering cheesy song lyrics and drinking a 40 in two minutes for a bet. Sadly, Right Eye is dominant. I am a slave to its every whim.
Anyway, I hope your spooky weekends go terrifyingly. My Internet is doing odd things – or rather, NOT doing them. Maybe one of the gnomes that runs on the treadmill to power it is sick today or something?
There’s also the possibility that later I might bake something fragrant to nibble while watching a movie later tonight. So really, what’s not to like? Come on over and play. And eat a cupcake. Filled with lemon butter cream and joyous little exuberant calories.
I have a slight eye socket migraine going down behind my right eye. It’s nearly always my right eye, because Right Eye is a party animal. There’s all manner of chaos going on behind there. Left eye, in the meantime, is the serious one, the studious one, the one who wants to sit nine feet from the TV and use a glare screen on the computer. Left Eye likes early nights and gardening and possibly reading up on spiritual fulfillment, whereas Right Eye prefers strip clubs, hollering cheesy song lyrics and drinking a 40 in two minutes for a bet. Sadly, Right Eye is dominant. I am a slave to its every whim.
Friday, October 23, 2009
One Hot Mess
Hey, it’s the weekend (my weekend starts on Friday, I don’t know about yours). I’ve been crazy busy the last couple of days as all my spare time’s been used up painting a new giant canvas and playing cheesy playlists as I find cheesy songs fuel my painting process like the bejeezus. Or the Bee Gees!
Today I’m all sort of infuriated because I keep getting rubber shavings from my eraser in my white paint. They don’t add much to the painting at all.
You know, when I was at school erasers were called “rubbers”. I know! We said that out loud ALL THE TIME. Nowadays you’d get into all sorts of hot water asking an 8 year old if you can “borrow his rubber”, right? The sad thing is, he’d probably HAVE one. A condom I mean, not an eraser. Try to keep up here.
Talking of condoms, we used to call those, “johnny bags” and we spent many happy pre-pubescent hours sniggering about older boys who carried them in their wallets because oh my God, johnny bags were so DIRTY.
And then there was a big scandal in my school when I was about twelve because a gym teacher arrived to school early one morning and found the *bush outside the gym literally covered in hanging johnny bags! Just hanging from the bushy branches like mutant, latex leaves. I never did find out if they were used or not - because, let's face it, that's the first thing everyone was thinking - but by the time I got in there were, sadly, no hanging johnnies left to be seen.
However, people were LIVID. You’d think we’d disembowelled a nun on school premises the way they went on. It’s only johnnies, people, jeeze, really.
*somewhere in there is a joke about a “bush” covered in “johnnies” but I’m too lazy to go find it.
Talking of condoms again, I once was out with my mother and her camera ran out of batteries when she was photographing some park or other and I accidentally said, “Oh it’s ok, I have a spare pack of Durex in my bag!” When I meant Duracell. Oops. Anyway…
I’m getting off subject here. Painting. I like painting and it relaxes me a lot except when I get eraser shavings embossed into the paint. And the little bristles from the paintbrush that you have to painstakingly pick out while mumbling things like, “Go fuck a cow you cocksucking little fucks!” and then it occurs to you that maybe expecting to do a professional grade painting using brushes you bought at the dollar store while you were looking for a rubber spatula, might not be the most genius idea you ever had.
So yes. I came on here to say I don’t even have a meme for you today, that’s how lame I am and I ended up posting this nonsense instead. However, if you’d like a nice, cool, refreshing beverage of the alcoholic persuasion this weekend, I think you should nip over HERE to Miss Buffy’s site where I am guest hosting a cocktail for her Cocktail Friday. Honestly Buffy is one of the most interesting people in the whole world! I believe it's written in stone somewhere. Her parents were bona fide hippy types and she’s a professional actress and bartender and once worked in an editorial capacity, at “HUSTLER” alongside one Larry Flynt. I mean really, how cool is that? Go check her out and while you're there, see if my cocktail makes your tastebuds swoon.
Toodaloo!
Today I’m all sort of infuriated because I keep getting rubber shavings from my eraser in my white paint. They don’t add much to the painting at all.
You know, when I was at school erasers were called “rubbers”. I know! We said that out loud ALL THE TIME. Nowadays you’d get into all sorts of hot water asking an 8 year old if you can “borrow his rubber”, right? The sad thing is, he’d probably HAVE one. A condom I mean, not an eraser. Try to keep up here.
Talking of condoms, we used to call those, “johnny bags” and we spent many happy pre-pubescent hours sniggering about older boys who carried them in their wallets because oh my God, johnny bags were so DIRTY.
And then there was a big scandal in my school when I was about twelve because a gym teacher arrived to school early one morning and found the *bush outside the gym literally covered in hanging johnny bags! Just hanging from the bushy branches like mutant, latex leaves. I never did find out if they were used or not - because, let's face it, that's the first thing everyone was thinking - but by the time I got in there were, sadly, no hanging johnnies left to be seen.
However, people were LIVID. You’d think we’d disembowelled a nun on school premises the way they went on. It’s only johnnies, people, jeeze, really.
*somewhere in there is a joke about a “bush” covered in “johnnies” but I’m too lazy to go find it.
Talking of condoms again, I once was out with my mother and her camera ran out of batteries when she was photographing some park or other and I accidentally said, “Oh it’s ok, I have a spare pack of Durex in my bag!” When I meant Duracell. Oops. Anyway…
I’m getting off subject here. Painting. I like painting and it relaxes me a lot except when I get eraser shavings embossed into the paint. And the little bristles from the paintbrush that you have to painstakingly pick out while mumbling things like, “Go fuck a cow you cocksucking little fucks!” and then it occurs to you that maybe expecting to do a professional grade painting using brushes you bought at the dollar store while you were looking for a rubber spatula, might not be the most genius idea you ever had.
So yes. I came on here to say I don’t even have a meme for you today, that’s how lame I am and I ended up posting this nonsense instead. However, if you’d like a nice, cool, refreshing beverage of the alcoholic persuasion this weekend, I think you should nip over HERE to Miss Buffy’s site where I am guest hosting a cocktail for her Cocktail Friday. Honestly Buffy is one of the most interesting people in the whole world! I believe it's written in stone somewhere. Her parents were bona fide hippy types and she’s a professional actress and bartender and once worked in an editorial capacity, at “HUSTLER” alongside one Larry Flynt. I mean really, how cool is that? Go check her out and while you're there, see if my cocktail makes your tastebuds swoon.
Toodaloo!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Spirits: And Not the Liquid Variety
With Halloween waiting in the wings, I’ve been in ghost mode lately. Personally I don’t know what the hell I believe pertaining to supernatural beings. I’d call me a sceptic. I’ve never had a true ghostly experience of any sort, although I know lots of people who claim they have. I’m very curious about the paranormal – there seems to be a lot of stuff out there that can’t be properly explained, but I’m not sure I’m ready to believe there are spirits hovering around us either, haunting us or helping us, no matter how many “Ghost Hunters” type shows out there tell me otherwise.
Plus come on, if you believed the ghost of your dead grandmother was watching over you, you’d never do that thing with the whipped cream and the drilled out melon again, would you?
My only possible ghost experience was years ago, when my sister, our friend and myself were teens and were driving home from my grandmother’s house on the main motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It was night time and dark and the road where we were was starting to wind a little. We were in the middle lane of the highway and there was very little traffic ahead or next to us although there were cars some way behind. We were doing probably 65 mph when we rounded the bend and suddenly, there in the middle of our lane, was the figure of a man in a long overcoat with his back to us walking down the road, with his head down. We had no time to really react, but we swerved hard into the left lane and onto the shoulder to stop, in order to miss him and when we looked behind us he was gone. Just not there. And there were only fields around us. He’d been right there in the middle of the damn highway so if we didn’t hit him someone behind us surely would have, but there was nothing. No one. I never figured out if he was real or not but we all saw him and then he was gone. It was just a weird experience.
I do enjoy hearing other people’s ghost experiences though, so basically if you have any stories of your own, feel free to leave them in the comments so I can be entertained. It’s all about entertaining me you know, even if I don't believe that stuff.
Plus come on, if you believed the ghost of your dead grandmother was watching over you, you’d never do that thing with the whipped cream and the drilled out melon again, would you?
I do enjoy hearing other people’s ghost experiences though, so basically if you have any stories of your own, feel free to leave them in the comments so I can be entertained. It’s all about entertaining me you know, even if I don't believe that stuff.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A Public Service Announcement
I was reading Becky’s post today about her allergy to gluten and thinking about how my stomach is made of asbestos, therefore, I am not allergic to anything (apart from winter and strenuous exercise) but then I remembered that I am, in fact, extremely allergic to Quorn.
“What the eff is Quorn, Veg?” I hear you Americans yell, as you’re all thinking, “Is that some fucked-up type of corn or some evil, determined, scarred Star Trek villain?”
Well let me enlighten you all. This is Quorn.
Let me recap for you slightly. It’s a man-made, laboratory-grown fungus, used as a meat (often chicken) substitute for vegetarians and is extremely popular in European vegetarian dishes, particularly in the UK. Doesn’t it sound attractive? Whenever my stomach starts to rumble I can’t get my mind off chowing down on some man-made, lab-grown fungus, can you? Nom nom!
Most people eat Quorn safely – my sister swears by it and every vegetarian I know in the UK uses it in some form or another. Me though? I don’t like it and it likes me even less. In fact, it makes me turn into a human Niagara Falls of puke. Every time someone is feeding me veggie food I have to be a total butthole and ask “Does this have Quorn in it, because you do not want to witness the aftermath, if so.”
Naturally, it took me a few severe vomit-tastic episodes to figure it out. I always knew it tasted weird to me and that should have been a clue. Well, that and the fact that not long after eating it I always ralphed like I was going for an Olympic medal in vomit. One time, I spewed forth on the bus and another time in my next door neighbour’s hallway. Surprise, neighbours!
My mum once gave the non meat eaters in our family Quorn turkey at Christmas, which they tucked into eagerly. I had one bite and knew I couldn’t eat it. Two hours later I blew chunks in an impressive display of ‘The Exorcist’-worthy mayhem all over my mother’s bathroom, complete with a noise that sounded like Satan was trying to enter the real world through my esophagus. I think that was the time I actually figured it out. No more Quorn.
So that really is today’s entry – beware of man-made, lab-grown fungus no matter how gorgeously appealing that sounds, because you might get to see your innards on the sidewalk.
I know, you’re all delighted I made this entry because I saved you all from a vomity evening as I can sense you were all dying to get some of that lab-grown fungus action, right?
Well that is why I am here.
“What the eff is Quorn, Veg?” I hear you Americans yell, as you’re all thinking, “Is that some fucked-up type of corn or some evil, determined, scarred Star Trek villain?”
Well let me enlighten you all. This is Quorn.
Let me recap for you slightly. It’s a man-made, laboratory-grown fungus, used as a meat (often chicken) substitute for vegetarians and is extremely popular in European vegetarian dishes, particularly in the UK. Doesn’t it sound attractive? Whenever my stomach starts to rumble I can’t get my mind off chowing down on some man-made, lab-grown fungus, can you? Nom nom!
Most people eat Quorn safely – my sister swears by it and every vegetarian I know in the UK uses it in some form or another. Me though? I don’t like it and it likes me even less. In fact, it makes me turn into a human Niagara Falls of puke. Every time someone is feeding me veggie food I have to be a total butthole and ask “Does this have Quorn in it, because you do not want to witness the aftermath, if so.”
Naturally, it took me a few severe vomit-tastic episodes to figure it out. I always knew it tasted weird to me and that should have been a clue. Well, that and the fact that not long after eating it I always ralphed like I was going for an Olympic medal in vomit. One time, I spewed forth on the bus and another time in my next door neighbour’s hallway. Surprise, neighbours!
My mum once gave the non meat eaters in our family Quorn turkey at Christmas, which they tucked into eagerly. I had one bite and knew I couldn’t eat it. Two hours later I blew chunks in an impressive display of ‘The Exorcist’-worthy mayhem all over my mother’s bathroom, complete with a noise that sounded like Satan was trying to enter the real world through my esophagus. I think that was the time I actually figured it out. No more Quorn.
I know, you’re all delighted I made this entry because I saved you all from a vomity evening as I can sense you were all dying to get some of that lab-grown fungus action, right?
Well that is why I am here.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Meme Me Baby
Hola fine people of blogland. Whoa, I have been MIA this week, huh? I’ve been busy as a fucking fuck the past week with a big project that hurt my head. And it wasn't even for money! It was for kicks! Busy as a little busy bee. Busy as a wall covered in neon-coloured paisley wallpaper. And also, on top of this, I’ve been busy getting some paintings finished and ready to ship to an actual gallery to display, because I am now famous in my own HEAD. Hell, you have to start somewhere, right? I’m also thinking about being pretentious full-time. You may call me “Claude” (don’t call me Claude).
So for now, let me give you a meme. It is Friday after all. I’ve told you all – Friday is for memes. Just like Thanksgiving is for turkey and Don Imus is for punching in the balls.
I got this one from the divine S.E. Sward whose name makes her sound like some awesomely accomplished novelist who writes about pirates on the high seas and swarthy men in billowy white shirts and leggings who go around fighting other similarly clad dudes with bandanas on their heads and who say things like “AAAAAARRR. Them be thine concubines I surmise! I will now duel to the death with you for the hands of thine wenches of ill repute!”
Something like that…
So, yes. The meme. As usual, feel free to do it yourself. I ain’t taggin’!
1. Where is your phone?
Two feet from me on the desk. It doesn’t work very well but I don’t care enough to think about upgrading it in any way.
2. Your hair?
Independent. Does its own sweet thing in its own sweet time. Sort of like the rest of me.
3. Your mother?
Great as the obnoxious answer to questions you don’t want to answer. “What were you doing last night?” “Yo’ mama.”
4. Your father?
In the 1970s he looked a lot like Fat Elvis. You know, if Fat Elvis chain-smoked, liked terry cloth shirts and enjoyed drinking gin a little too much. He used to make homemade potato chips and write short stories. Not at the same time. Not usually.
5. Your favorite food?
I’m a big fan of good garlicy Italian vegetarian food. I also like good cheese. None of that processed, plastic crap. I’m not a meat eater.
6. Your dream last night?
I worked most of the night. And I painted for an hour or so. I didn’t actually sleep till 9 am this morning since I have nowhere to be today, but I dreamt that I went to San Francisco for a conference about interior design and it was hosted by that jackass Johnny Knoxville (haha!) only his name was “James”. He liked pink shirts. Then I woke up and it was noon.
7. Your favorite drink?
Diet Pepsi is my beverage of choice. I believe it is favoured by royalty and cool people everywhere. I also enjoy a nice, icy Irn Bru. When I’m in Canada Irn Bru is readily available. When I’m in the States, it isn’t. I could become a famous Irn Bru smuggler and smuggle it over the border and be like… the North Dakota Queen of Irn Bru. I'd be the northern States Irn Bru dealer. Irn Bru also makes fabulous floats of the ice cream variety.
You know, unlike those other floats.
8. Your dream/goal?
To never live in a house stuck in one place forever. Or at least not until I find that perfect place. Oh, and to find a way to eat cake every day without gaining any weight. And to live somewhere where it never gets cold. And to sleep more than four hours a night. I used to be great at sleeping. Now I have to threaten myself to withhold privileges if I don’t get some sleep.
9. What room are you in?
I’m in the home office/my paint studio. OK, that was a bit grand of me. It’s a room with the computer in it and my easel.
10. Your hobby?
I guess painting has become my number one hobby. Painting, swimming and cake. And jewelry making. And blogging. And baking. And not sleeping.
11. Your fear?
Dissipating daily. I sometimes fear that I’ll wake up one day and find that I like Lady Gaga and have to commit myself.
12. Where do you want to be in six years?
On the road. Working from home all the time and not splitting my time between North Dakota and Manitoba or waiting in lines at borders.
13. Where were you last night?
On this very seat, being busy. And nursing a headache that had been lingering for about four days on and off. I also took a couple of hours off to watch some old “Larry Sanders Show” episodes.
14. Something you aren't?
Latina. Purple. Extroverted. Miserable. A fan of winter. Right-handed.
15. Muffins?
Safeway gourmet muffins from their bakery. They have a cranberry and lemon one that is to die for, but horribly hard to find. Usually though, I prefer cupcakes or pastries to muffins. Or pizza.
16. Wish list item?
I don’t really want much. I don’t have many belongings anymore and I’ve found that I’m fine with that. I want fulfillment. I understand myself more every day. I’m a lot more open than I used to be. A lot more positive.
Ah screw it, I want an Airstream and a big lottery win. :)
17. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Scotland. Where it’s light till 11pm in the summer and dark by 3:30 pm in the winter. Where you’re never far from the sea. Where it rains a lot but will always be home. Where I learned to tell people to fuck off in Scots Gaelic.
18. Last thing you did?
Ate some banana and pineapple bread I baked yesterday. It was supposed to be banana bread but I ran out of bananas and supplemented with pineapple. It worked. Yum.
19. What are you wearing?
Some weird jeans I bought in Fargo that fall off if I don’t wear a belt.
20. Your TV?
By the bed. I like to watch it to unwind every night before I fall asleep. You know, assuming I sleep.
21. Your friends?
My friends are like Nutella, they are completely nutty. And like Nutella, they are spread all over the place. But less sticky. Than Nutella…
22. Your life?
Complicated yet fulfilling. And tranquil so long as my Diet Pepsi supplies don’t dry up.
23. Your mood?
Generally mellow and even. I went through a phase of being more uptight and stressed but I’ve learned to appreciate things and I find I’m quite happy and competent and stronger than I used to be.
24. Missing someone?
I miss my cat.
25. Vehicle?
Temperamental yet adorable, even that time I locked the keys in the ignition and had to walk home to get the spares.
26. Something you're not wearing?
Lederhosen. Not today. Lederhosen are for Wednesdays.
27. Your favorite store?
Target and Ikea. If you don’t love Target or Ikea you’ve had a brain injury of some sort which rendered your taste, null and void.
28. Your favorite color?
I’d have to go with that colour of blue the sky is on a late afternoon in July.
29. Last time you laughed?
I noticed some guy’s name on a list I was perusing earlier and chuckled because his name was Dick Boggler. That is just awesome.
30. Last time you cried?
I actually remember this. I had PMS a few weeks ago and was feeling belligerent and there’s this door handle in my apartment I am always smashing my elbow off of, so I went to great pains to thwart that stupid door handle, and I was so busy avoiding bumping into it and being smug, that I stubbed my toe on the bottom of the door instead. And it hurt. And it bled. My toe, that is, not the door. If the door bled it would be time to move.
31. Your best friend?
Knowledgeable, caring, smart and makes mean borscht.
32. One place that you go over and over?
Home. That’s why it’s home.
33. One person who emails you regularly?
Julia. With her wicked smarts and sassiness.
34. Favorite place to eat?
If we’re talking basic chain type junk food then I’d say when I’m in the U.S. I like me the occasional white trash hoe down at Ihop because in all seriousness, Ihop make the best omelettes known to mankind. When I’m in Canada I like me some equally white trash hoe down at the Salisbury House who have the best sweet potato fries and spicy dip, ever. If we’re talking eating out in general, Mexican restaurants are hard to beat. I just love Mexican food. North Dakota is oddly rife with Mexican restaurants and tasty margaritas. It doesn’t seem right somehow… Finding one in Manitoba though is a lot harder.
So for now, let me give you a meme. It is Friday after all. I’ve told you all – Friday is for memes. Just like Thanksgiving is for turkey and Don Imus is for punching in the balls.
I got this one from the divine S.E. Sward whose name makes her sound like some awesomely accomplished novelist who writes about pirates on the high seas and swarthy men in billowy white shirts and leggings who go around fighting other similarly clad dudes with bandanas on their heads and who say things like “AAAAAARRR. Them be thine concubines I surmise! I will now duel to the death with you for the hands of thine wenches of ill repute!”
Something like that…
So, yes. The meme. As usual, feel free to do it yourself. I ain’t taggin’!
1. Where is your phone?
Two feet from me on the desk. It doesn’t work very well but I don’t care enough to think about upgrading it in any way.
2. Your hair?
Independent. Does its own sweet thing in its own sweet time. Sort of like the rest of me.
3. Your mother?
Great as the obnoxious answer to questions you don’t want to answer. “What were you doing last night?” “Yo’ mama.”
4. Your father?
In the 1970s he looked a lot like Fat Elvis. You know, if Fat Elvis chain-smoked, liked terry cloth shirts and enjoyed drinking gin a little too much. He used to make homemade potato chips and write short stories. Not at the same time. Not usually.
5. Your favorite food?
I’m a big fan of good garlicy Italian vegetarian food. I also like good cheese. None of that processed, plastic crap. I’m not a meat eater.
6. Your dream last night?
I worked most of the night. And I painted for an hour or so. I didn’t actually sleep till 9 am this morning since I have nowhere to be today, but I dreamt that I went to San Francisco for a conference about interior design and it was hosted by that jackass Johnny Knoxville (haha!) only his name was “James”. He liked pink shirts. Then I woke up and it was noon.
7. Your favorite drink?
Diet Pepsi is my beverage of choice. I believe it is favoured by royalty and cool people everywhere. I also enjoy a nice, icy Irn Bru. When I’m in Canada Irn Bru is readily available. When I’m in the States, it isn’t. I could become a famous Irn Bru smuggler and smuggle it over the border and be like… the North Dakota Queen of Irn Bru. I'd be the northern States Irn Bru dealer. Irn Bru also makes fabulous floats of the ice cream variety.
You know, unlike those other floats.
8. Your dream/goal?
To never live in a house stuck in one place forever. Or at least not until I find that perfect place. Oh, and to find a way to eat cake every day without gaining any weight. And to live somewhere where it never gets cold. And to sleep more than four hours a night. I used to be great at sleeping. Now I have to threaten myself to withhold privileges if I don’t get some sleep.
9. What room are you in?
I’m in the home office/my paint studio. OK, that was a bit grand of me. It’s a room with the computer in it and my easel.
10. Your hobby?
I guess painting has become my number one hobby. Painting, swimming and cake. And jewelry making. And blogging. And baking. And not sleeping.
11. Your fear?
Dissipating daily. I sometimes fear that I’ll wake up one day and find that I like Lady Gaga and have to commit myself.
12. Where do you want to be in six years?
On the road. Working from home all the time and not splitting my time between North Dakota and Manitoba or waiting in lines at borders.
13. Where were you last night?
On this very seat, being busy. And nursing a headache that had been lingering for about four days on and off. I also took a couple of hours off to watch some old “Larry Sanders Show” episodes.
14. Something you aren't?
Latina. Purple. Extroverted. Miserable. A fan of winter. Right-handed.
15. Muffins?
Safeway gourmet muffins from their bakery. They have a cranberry and lemon one that is to die for, but horribly hard to find. Usually though, I prefer cupcakes or pastries to muffins. Or pizza.
16. Wish list item?
I don’t really want much. I don’t have many belongings anymore and I’ve found that I’m fine with that. I want fulfillment. I understand myself more every day. I’m a lot more open than I used to be. A lot more positive.
Ah screw it, I want an Airstream and a big lottery win. :)
17. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Scotland. Where it’s light till 11pm in the summer and dark by 3:30 pm in the winter. Where you’re never far from the sea. Where it rains a lot but will always be home. Where I learned to tell people to fuck off in Scots Gaelic.
18. Last thing you did?
Ate some banana and pineapple bread I baked yesterday. It was supposed to be banana bread but I ran out of bananas and supplemented with pineapple. It worked. Yum.
19. What are you wearing?
Some weird jeans I bought in Fargo that fall off if I don’t wear a belt.
20. Your TV?
By the bed. I like to watch it to unwind every night before I fall asleep. You know, assuming I sleep.
21. Your friends?
My friends are like Nutella, they are completely nutty. And like Nutella, they are spread all over the place. But less sticky. Than Nutella…
22. Your life?
Complicated yet fulfilling. And tranquil so long as my Diet Pepsi supplies don’t dry up.
23. Your mood?
Generally mellow and even. I went through a phase of being more uptight and stressed but I’ve learned to appreciate things and I find I’m quite happy and competent and stronger than I used to be.
24. Missing someone?
I miss my cat.
25. Vehicle?
Temperamental yet adorable, even that time I locked the keys in the ignition and had to walk home to get the spares.
26. Something you're not wearing?
Lederhosen. Not today. Lederhosen are for Wednesdays.
27. Your favorite store?
Target and Ikea. If you don’t love Target or Ikea you’ve had a brain injury of some sort which rendered your taste, null and void.
28. Your favorite color?
I’d have to go with that colour of blue the sky is on a late afternoon in July.
29. Last time you laughed?
I noticed some guy’s name on a list I was perusing earlier and chuckled because his name was Dick Boggler. That is just awesome.
30. Last time you cried?
I actually remember this. I had PMS a few weeks ago and was feeling belligerent and there’s this door handle in my apartment I am always smashing my elbow off of, so I went to great pains to thwart that stupid door handle, and I was so busy avoiding bumping into it and being smug, that I stubbed my toe on the bottom of the door instead. And it hurt. And it bled. My toe, that is, not the door. If the door bled it would be time to move.
31. Your best friend?
Knowledgeable, caring, smart and makes mean borscht.
32. One place that you go over and over?
Home. That’s why it’s home.
33. One person who emails you regularly?
Julia. With her wicked smarts and sassiness.
34. Favorite place to eat?
If we’re talking basic chain type junk food then I’d say when I’m in the U.S. I like me the occasional white trash hoe down at Ihop because in all seriousness, Ihop make the best omelettes known to mankind. When I’m in Canada I like me some equally white trash hoe down at the Salisbury House who have the best sweet potato fries and spicy dip, ever. If we’re talking eating out in general, Mexican restaurants are hard to beat. I just love Mexican food. North Dakota is oddly rife with Mexican restaurants and tasty margaritas. It doesn’t seem right somehow… Finding one in Manitoba though is a lot harder.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Golden Girls Gone Wild
I had an email from my mother this morning, who is currently doing a spot of travelling in far away places, to tell me she landed in Tokyo safely and that it was 26 degrees Celsius and humid. I don’t know about you guys’ mothers but mine always likes to keep me abreast of the weather situation, at any given time, wherever she is, just in case of emergency. She’s British you see, therefore she still has this inbuilt wonder and appreciation of any weather that isn’t apocalyptic.
I have visions of being on some game show like, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and the question comes up, “What is currently 26 degrees and humid?” and I can glance at the choices and confidently smile and say, “Well Regis, if I’m not mistaken, ‘David Hasselhoff’s sweaty ball sack’ actually clocks in at a rather tepid twenty FOUR degrees, therefore, it would have to be C) the weather in Tokyo!” and everyone would gasp and applaud, fully impressed that someone should know something so absurd and Regis would be all, “Ah, I assume you have a retired mother visiting Tokyo?” and I’d be like, “Sure do Reeg. And coincidentally, she’s the one who told me about the Hoff’s sack!” and we’d all laugh and nod knowingly and ideally I’d get $250,000 (and some soothing salve for my mind after its imagination of Hasselhoff’s balls.)
My mother’s a touch eccentric to begin with and she likes to travel, so when she emailed me a few months ago and said, “I’m so tired of the rainy weather this summer, I think that Pat and I will take a little trip somewhere to escape!”, I didn’t think much of it as she and her best friend Pat are always going on little weekends here and there since they’ve now both retired.
One year they splashed out and went to Greece for a week, returning with tales of heavily moustachioed Greek men who called them “ladies” and plied them with Ouzo while they stayed out till ALMOST MIDNIGHT!
“Where are you going?” I asked, when I next spoke to her on the phone.
“Well…” she said. “We’re spending ten days in Tokyo, three weeks in Australia and a week in Hong Kong!”
So that was her idea of a “little trip”. For the record, my “little trips” normally involve a weekend up in Grand Forks to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas till I pass out then waking up with a bra on my head. And realizing “That’s not MY bra!”
Anyway, she was excited because Japan’s not like anywhere she’s ever been before and she wasn’t sure she was ready for the culture shock. To be honest, I’m not sure Japan’s ready for the culture shock of two sixty-something year old ladies trying to figure out the intricacies of sushi and vending machines full of secret alien substances. I’m sort of half hoping for entertainment’s sake, that she comes home dressed as as schoolgirl and sporting a Hello Kitty backpack.
I have visions of being on some game show like, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and the question comes up, “What is currently 26 degrees and humid?” and I can glance at the choices and confidently smile and say, “Well Regis, if I’m not mistaken, ‘David Hasselhoff’s sweaty ball sack’ actually clocks in at a rather tepid twenty FOUR degrees, therefore, it would have to be C) the weather in Tokyo!” and everyone would gasp and applaud, fully impressed that someone should know something so absurd and Regis would be all, “Ah, I assume you have a retired mother visiting Tokyo?” and I’d be like, “Sure do Reeg. And coincidentally, she’s the one who told me about the Hoff’s sack!” and we’d all laugh and nod knowingly and ideally I’d get $250,000 (and some soothing salve for my mind after its imagination of Hasselhoff’s balls.)
One year they splashed out and went to Greece for a week, returning with tales of heavily moustachioed Greek men who called them “ladies” and plied them with Ouzo while they stayed out till ALMOST MIDNIGHT!
“Where are you going?” I asked, when I next spoke to her on the phone.
“Well…” she said. “We’re spending ten days in Tokyo, three weeks in Australia and a week in Hong Kong!”
So that was her idea of a “little trip”. For the record, my “little trips” normally involve a weekend up in Grand Forks to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas till I pass out then waking up with a bra on my head. And realizing “That’s not MY bra!”
Anyway, she was excited because Japan’s not like anywhere she’s ever been before and she wasn’t sure she was ready for the culture shock. To be honest, I’m not sure Japan’s ready for the culture shock of two sixty-something year old ladies trying to figure out the intricacies of sushi and vending machines full of secret alien substances. I’m sort of half hoping for entertainment’s sake, that she comes home dressed as as schoolgirl and sporting a Hello Kitty backpack.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Why Sleep is Important
I’m a laid back sort of person for the most part, but sometimes, especially when I’ve been a crazy insomniac for a lengthened period of time, things just mess with your calm demeanour out of pure spite. Like today I got visibly pissed off at some chocolate that wouldn’t melt fast enough. The audacity of that damn chocolate, man. I mean come on, I had COOKIES TO FROST! I wanted to EAT those stupid cookies.
I stood there over the stove prodding it with a wooden spoon (the chocolate not the stove - what would be the point in that?) and…it just stared back at me like, “Yeah?????”.
So I started muttering at it. Things like, “Oh. Oh, so let me get this straight, when you’re in my jeans pocket for more than two minutes you melt into a shitty brown pool of goo and smear all over everything but I lay you over a pot of humid, steamy, boiling water and you’re all ‘oh, hi, nice day, how are you?’ and display no sign of melting? You fucking fuck.”
It succumbed in the end. The cookies were good. Would you like one?
Also, did you ever wake up in the night with a jolt, because you heard an unidentifiable sound that you know wasn’t a regular floor creak or a car driving by outside and you’re all sort of freaked out and afraid to peer out of the covers in case you encounter some huge black mass with glowing red eyes, malevolently staring back at you, bending its crooked, bony finger back and forth beckoning you, with an evil, rotten-toothed grin on its face, sort of like Shane MacGowan's evil, psychotic, less-talented, incinerated twin, and you strain your ears to decide if whatever bastion of pure, undiluted evil that made that sound might still be hovering with psychotic intent waiting to snap off your head with its decaying incisors as soon as you pop your head out and so, as a deterrent, you put the pillow over your head and decide denial is the best policy but you can’t get it out of your head that maybe that foul deviant is wielding an axe just feet above your neck, and it might be better to be forewarned about such a thing, so you reluctantly decide to take action using the element of surprise to your advantage, so you take a deep breath and fast as lightning you move the pillow and the blanket off your face and sit up really fast, and yell something undeniably forceful like, “Please leave now, nasty, smelly creature of the undead or I will be forced to dig out my Bee Gees collection!” to totally catch him unawares (because I’ve heard that yelling combined with catchy disco tunes scares evil away) and when you do…there’s no one there?
That happens to me a lot.
This is why you should eat your vegetables and not be an insomniac, kids. Evil nightmares and long sentences.
I stood there over the stove prodding it with a wooden spoon (the chocolate not the stove - what would be the point in that?) and…it just stared back at me like, “Yeah?????”.
So I started muttering at it. Things like, “Oh. Oh, so let me get this straight, when you’re in my jeans pocket for more than two minutes you melt into a shitty brown pool of goo and smear all over everything but I lay you over a pot of humid, steamy, boiling water and you’re all ‘oh, hi, nice day, how are you?’ and display no sign of melting? You fucking fuck.”
It succumbed in the end. The cookies were good. Would you like one?
This is why you should eat your vegetables and not be an insomniac, kids. Evil nightmares and long sentences.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
1010
Big Mama Cass asked me to do a meme and since I’m all about the Mamas & Papas and Friday’s all about memes, I agreed.
* Wait a goddamn second…didn’t Mama Cass choke on a sandwich or something? Could Big Mama Cass be an imposter?!?!
Anyway, the meme is about ten honest things you might not know about me and since I’ve done this meme I think 500 other times before (ok maybe four times or something), I’m not at all sure there’s anything left you don’t know about me, making me feel quite fucking violated, thank you very much.
*On Fridays swearing is allowed. I make the rules.
So without further ado, scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last time - THE TEN.
1) My preferred manner for eating French Fries is with salt and vinegar sprinkled on liberally then dipped in mayonnaise. If you are offended by this you can just suck it up because I have awesome taste, motherfuckers.
2) My least favourite sound (apart from Bono in his private jet bleating about saving the environment – hypocrisy much, Bono?) is the noise the TV remote makes when it hits a hard-wood floor from a height. That noise makes me want to drill a hole in my own skull.
3) I have a big thing for retro wallpaper. The more screamingly offensive it is, the more I tend to like it. The brighter the colour and more geometric the pattern the more I want it. Basically if you could put the sixties and seventies together in a big, nasty, eyeball-boiling, melting pot of colour-clashing awesome and stir it with a magic spoon, the result would be my idea of a good time.
4) I have never had fondue. Sue me. Other things I’ve never had and ultimately don’t want: foie gras, a lobotomy and Bret Michaels.
5) I adore the smell of Kiwi shoe polish. Seriously, it’s one of my favourite scents anywhere. It makes me want to do bad things. It’s just sublime. They ought to hand it out at UN summits and War debates and make everyone kiss and make up and kiss each other's bottoms and things like that. If you ever want me to do anything you want, just bring me a monster tub of Kiwi polish and I’m yours, baby.
6) I do not own a cell phone. When I did have one all I did was send obnoxious texts because I’m too anti social to call anyone. Other things I don’t own: A Twitter account, a Facebook, a MySpace, a naked sculpture of Britney Spears pleasuring a donkey or an iota of common sense.
7) When Criss Angel claimed he could levitate us right through the TV the other night, I laughed my ass off, then I decided to try it. I even loudly offered to give Criss Angel a "stupendous BJ" if he succeeded because I knew he was full of shit. I mean I wouldn’t put YOUR mouth near that guy’s baby-stick. Naturally, (thankfully!) I didn’t levitate but I did call him a "repugnant elephant-fucker" just because I can.
8) I recently scored 149 on the MENSA IQ test. Those things are bullshit. It was the same day I locked my keys in the car at the supermarket. Irony? I think so.
9) I like to play pranks on people but they always go hideously wrong. For example, recently I pranked Soda & Candy and unintentionally freaked her out big time, then I pranked Some Guy Chris and almost gave him a heart attack. Sorry guys. Haha. Kind of.
10) I like the name “Vladimir”. If I ever get a male cat I’m calling him Vladimir, for sure. That’s a bad-ass name for one’s pussy.
Well, that was fairly lame. I was running out of things to tell you. I mean I’m fascinating and all but there’s a limit. Pfft.
I’m now tagging ALL OF YOU to do this. You know, if you want…
For some previous things you didn’t know about me see here and here. There are others but I can’t be bothered looking for them, so try not to cry, I know it’s disappointing.
Have a sexy weekend!
* Wait a goddamn second…didn’t Mama Cass choke on a sandwich or something? Could Big Mama Cass be an imposter?!?!
Anyway, the meme is about ten honest things you might not know about me and since I’ve done this meme I think 500 other times before (ok maybe four times or something), I’m not at all sure there’s anything left you don’t know about me, making me feel quite fucking violated, thank you very much.
*On Fridays swearing is allowed. I make the rules.
So without further ado, scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last time - THE TEN.
1) My preferred manner for eating French Fries is with salt and vinegar sprinkled on liberally then dipped in mayonnaise. If you are offended by this you can just suck it up because I have awesome taste, motherfuckers.
2) My least favourite sound (apart from Bono in his private jet bleating about saving the environment – hypocrisy much, Bono?) is the noise the TV remote makes when it hits a hard-wood floor from a height. That noise makes me want to drill a hole in my own skull.
3) I have a big thing for retro wallpaper. The more screamingly offensive it is, the more I tend to like it. The brighter the colour and more geometric the pattern the more I want it. Basically if you could put the sixties and seventies together in a big, nasty, eyeball-boiling, melting pot of colour-clashing awesome and stir it with a magic spoon, the result would be my idea of a good time.
6) I do not own a cell phone. When I did have one all I did was send obnoxious texts because I’m too anti social to call anyone. Other things I don’t own: A Twitter account, a Facebook, a MySpace, a naked sculpture of Britney Spears pleasuring a donkey or an iota of common sense.
7) When Criss Angel claimed he could levitate us right through the TV the other night, I laughed my ass off, then I decided to try it. I even loudly offered to give Criss Angel a "stupendous BJ" if he succeeded because I knew he was full of shit. I mean I wouldn’t put YOUR mouth near that guy’s baby-stick. Naturally, (thankfully!) I didn’t levitate but I did call him a "repugnant elephant-fucker" just because I can.
9) I like to play pranks on people but they always go hideously wrong. For example, recently I pranked Soda & Candy and unintentionally freaked her out big time, then I pranked Some Guy Chris and almost gave him a heart attack. Sorry guys. Haha. Kind of.
10) I like the name “Vladimir”. If I ever get a male cat I’m calling him Vladimir, for sure. That’s a bad-ass name for one’s pussy.
Well, that was fairly lame. I was running out of things to tell you. I mean I’m fascinating and all but there’s a limit. Pfft.
I’m now tagging ALL OF YOU to do this. You know, if you want…
For some previous things you didn’t know about me see here and here. There are others but I can’t be bothered looking for them, so try not to cry, I know it’s disappointing.
Have a sexy weekend!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Large and the Small Of It
I went to Costco last night to purchase a new camera after I accidentally dropped mine on the floor last week and sent it into a non-recoverable coma and put myself into deep mourning. That camera and I have been everywhere together and taken all manner of dull, interesting and downright vulgar photographs - none of which featured my naked boobular region, so don’t go thinking it.
Sure the old guy was clunky and slow despite its SLR goodness and yes, maybe it did only have four poxy little megapixels which ensured graininess when enlarging anything but it was part of its rustic charm. And what if it WAS six years old and horrendously out of date? I loved it! RIP clunky Olympus dude.
But the time had come, I guess. One must move on. So I bought this tiny, spunky, back-talking little Canon whore with 12 megapixels and a cavalier attitude. A little sexy two-tone, pinkish coloured minx that fits in my smallest bag or pocket. It’s only a point and shoot camera but at least I can take pictures again. You know, once I figure out what the hell all the buttons and menu items are for. If there are too many coloured lights and buttons and knobs and things, I go into a sort of stimulation overload type of seizure.
I’m used to manual settings and complete control so it’s extremely possible that this highly automatic, pouty little vixen will mess with my psyche in the worst way till I figure out what I can override and what I can’t. And if I can’t, I’m going to sulk. And probably rethink my position on this not swearing business. I hate figuring out new technology. It makes me feel retarded.
This is riveting isn’t it? I can see why you come here!
The point that I was actually wanting to make and failing, was about Costco and its hypnotizing array of larger-than-life produce. Can anyone really consume sixteen giant muffins? Who buys those paint can sized tins of Heinz ketchup? When did coleslaw come in a bucket?
Why does that last sentence sound nasty?
Of course, someone else out there is wandering around Costco in a haze going, “Who buys those blocks of cheese the size of a Florida Condo?” and the answer would be, I DO! Because you can never have too much cheese. One day someone is going to open my fridge door and be confronted with a whole wall of cheddar and I’m going to sit back, smug congratulatory look on my face, going, “BEHOLD MY GREAT CHEESE ACHIEVEMENT!”
And that’s the day I will have reached my sanity goal.
Sure the old guy was clunky and slow despite its SLR goodness and yes, maybe it did only have four poxy little megapixels which ensured graininess when enlarging anything but it was part of its rustic charm. And what if it WAS six years old and horrendously out of date? I loved it! RIP clunky Olympus dude.
But the time had come, I guess. One must move on. So I bought this tiny, spunky, back-talking little Canon whore with 12 megapixels and a cavalier attitude. A little sexy two-tone, pinkish coloured minx that fits in my smallest bag or pocket. It’s only a point and shoot camera but at least I can take pictures again. You know, once I figure out what the hell all the buttons and menu items are for. If there are too many coloured lights and buttons and knobs and things, I go into a sort of stimulation overload type of seizure.
I’m used to manual settings and complete control so it’s extremely possible that this highly automatic, pouty little vixen will mess with my psyche in the worst way till I figure out what I can override and what I can’t. And if I can’t, I’m going to sulk. And probably rethink my position on this not swearing business. I hate figuring out new technology. It makes me feel retarded.
The point that I was actually wanting to make and failing, was about Costco and its hypnotizing array of larger-than-life produce. Can anyone really consume sixteen giant muffins? Who buys those paint can sized tins of Heinz ketchup? When did coleslaw come in a bucket?
Why does that last sentence sound nasty?
Of course, someone else out there is wandering around Costco in a haze going, “Who buys those blocks of cheese the size of a Florida Condo?” and the answer would be, I DO! Because you can never have too much cheese. One day someone is going to open my fridge door and be confronted with a whole wall of cheddar and I’m going to sit back, smug congratulatory look on my face, going, “BEHOLD MY GREAT CHEESE ACHIEVEMENT!”
And that’s the day I will have reached my sanity goal.
Monday, August 17, 2009
570
Sometimes you find yourself somewhere for the very first time and you feel like you belong, like there’s some sort of cosmic force pulling you toward it like a magnet. Even though you’ve never been there before, it feels almost like home. A place secure and serene, yet with no walls to hold you in or keep the world out. You may never live in that place, but that place will always live in you. You don’t find these locations often but when you do, they carve a hole deep in your psyche - persistent worms of inspiration and clarity, like it was always meant to be.
There’s a lonely two lane highway that snakes through Eastern Alberta and into the rugged folds of Saskatchewan. I’ve only been down that road once but it’s a road that reeled me in with its gentle magic and has never let me go. It represents peace in a mind so often filled with non-peaceful thoughts. This is a road which winds for a couple of hundred kilometres through sun-soaked fields of scorched hay and stretched cornflower-blue skies, where you might never pass another vehicle the entire route. Where you’re more likely to encounter grazing antelope than another human being. It’s as though beyond the confines of the road, the real world doesn’t exist. It’s a road dripping with the lazy drone of bees, the lilting creaks of birds and the sweet melody of a silence devoid of man.
Somewhere, amidst all that emptiness, I really feel alive. Small yet significant. Still, yet soaring like a kite. A cool balm of soothing tranquility for a bruised mind. All my problems evaporate into that hot, blue nothingness, leaving behind a slowly rising mist of hope.
It’s a road to nowhere in particular, yet, somehow, a path to everything that’s possible.
You might never get to drive along its remote surface, thick with cracked paint and potholes that hold a thousand stories, but it doesn’t matter because there are lonely roads everywhere just like Highway 570 and when you find one it will always take you where you need to go.
There’s a lonely two lane highway that snakes through Eastern Alberta and into the rugged folds of Saskatchewan. I’ve only been down that road once but it’s a road that reeled me in with its gentle magic and has never let me go. It represents peace in a mind so often filled with non-peaceful thoughts. This is a road which winds for a couple of hundred kilometres through sun-soaked fields of scorched hay and stretched cornflower-blue skies, where you might never pass another vehicle the entire route. Where you’re more likely to encounter grazing antelope than another human being. It’s as though beyond the confines of the road, the real world doesn’t exist. It’s a road dripping with the lazy drone of bees, the lilting creaks of birds and the sweet melody of a silence devoid of man.
It’s a road to nowhere in particular, yet, somehow, a path to everything that’s possible.
You might never get to drive along its remote surface, thick with cracked paint and potholes that hold a thousand stories, but it doesn’t matter because there are lonely roads everywhere just like Highway 570 and when you find one it will always take you where you need to go.
*&$#^9@
You’ll all be delighted to know I am trying to swear less. Even though I considered framing and worshipping Words Words Words' comment that I am the Michelangelo of swearing, I am making a valiant effort to sound like I don’t spend most of my time hanging around the docks with drunkards and truck drivers. Which I don’t. In case there was any doubt.
Those guys hang around ME. For swearing tips!
I don’t actually swear that much in real life. I swear way more on this here blog, because it’s a shameless hussy that brings out the devil in me. But it’s not pretty to hear a lady say bad words and as I am a lady I am trying to cut down on it. I wouldn’t want those tasty, sexy little words to lose their emphasis because I over use them. If anything, I'm not decreasing swearing so much as increasing its effectiveness, no?
* I'm listening to Tony Orlando's "You're a Lady" for encouragement. It includes the classic, poetic line "You're a lady, I'm a man". Thanks Tony Orlando. Thanks for noticing. I secretly heart Tony Orlando, the smooth bastard. OOPS, sorry! That one slipped out (that's what SHE said!)
I’m not stopping altogether. For example, I’m not about to drop a sledge hammer on my big toe and scream, “GOSH THAT SURE HURT QUITE A BIT!” No, in severe cases like these I’m going to use every reserve swear word in the swear bank that I’ve been saving all month, even particularly foul ones I only utter on special occasions. I might even invent a few.
I thought about starting a swear box but I’d only use it to buy chocolate and Diet Pepsi – the DP cancels the chocolate, I read it somewhere – and besides I’d have to make a swear scale because not all swear words are equal. An irritated “shit” ought to cost less than a rousing “fuck” don’t you think? A “c*nt” is worth about five bucks. See, it’s so potent I didn’t even want to spell it out!
I’m still going to say “goddamn”. I like “goddamn”. It accurately conveys a person’s dissatisfaction with the job at hand. I’m cutting down on swearing, not blasphemy. Blasphemy is my goddamn middle name.
Maybe instead of a swear word I’ll make a bleeping sound like on network TV. Or carry a gong around with me and smash it whenever I want to yell the eff word. Who knows? The world is my flipping oyster.
Naturally, on days where I'm particularly disgruntled (like Sunday through Saturday) you might get a mercy "fuck" out of me, or even a "pigfucker!" if I'm really feeling evil. I wouldn't want to forget how to use them after all.
I know what you're thinking too, don't think I don't. You're thinking, "Maybe you should think less about cutting out the swearing, Veg and think more about cutting out the 'rambling like your life depends on it!' thing."
Well, screw YOU hippy.
Those guys hang around ME. For swearing tips!
I don’t actually swear that much in real life. I swear way more on this here blog, because it’s a shameless hussy that brings out the devil in me. But it’s not pretty to hear a lady say bad words and as I am a lady I am trying to cut down on it. I wouldn’t want those tasty, sexy little words to lose their emphasis because I over use them. If anything, I'm not decreasing swearing so much as increasing its effectiveness, no?
* I'm listening to Tony Orlando's "You're a Lady" for encouragement. It includes the classic, poetic line "You're a lady, I'm a man". Thanks Tony Orlando. Thanks for noticing. I secretly heart Tony Orlando, the smooth bastard. OOPS, sorry! That one slipped out (that's what SHE said!)
I’m not stopping altogether. For example, I’m not about to drop a sledge hammer on my big toe and scream, “GOSH THAT SURE HURT QUITE A BIT!” No, in severe cases like these I’m going to use every reserve swear word in the swear bank that I’ve been saving all month, even particularly foul ones I only utter on special occasions. I might even invent a few.
I thought about starting a swear box but I’d only use it to buy chocolate and Diet Pepsi – the DP cancels the chocolate, I read it somewhere – and besides I’d have to make a swear scale because not all swear words are equal. An irritated “shit” ought to cost less than a rousing “fuck” don’t you think? A “c*nt” is worth about five bucks. See, it’s so potent I didn’t even want to spell it out!
Maybe instead of a swear word I’ll make a bleeping sound like on network TV. Or carry a gong around with me and smash it whenever I want to yell the eff word. Who knows? The world is my flipping oyster.
Naturally, on days where I'm particularly disgruntled (like Sunday through Saturday) you might get a mercy "fuck" out of me, or even a "pigfucker!" if I'm really feeling evil. I wouldn't want to forget how to use them after all.
I know what you're thinking too, don't think I don't. You're thinking, "Maybe you should think less about cutting out the swearing, Veg and think more about cutting out the 'rambling like your life depends on it!' thing."
Well, screw YOU hippy.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Vegetable Contemplation
People have their own dreams of what they want their lives to be.
Maybe it’s success at work, to drive a better car or have a pool built in their yard. Perhaps they want four kids and a house in the country. Maybe they want a penthouse apartment in the city and annual vacations to the tropics.
Sometimes they want to work in soup kitchens or animal shelters or grow their own crops.
Me, I was never conventional in my hopes and aspirations. I never wanted a big house and a mortgage. I never wanted kids or the sort of responsibilities that tie people down. I never wanted a sports car or a ridiculous fur coat. I laugh when people say “Money can’t buy you happiness”. It might be true, but I admit, money sure helps.
Despite this, I’m more concerned with freedom than with money, although I’d like enough money to acquire the freedom, it goes without saying.
Because none of us are free and it’s a shame. We’re a slave to work and stress and other things that get in the way of fulfillment and happiness, because we have no choice. I saw a recent statistic that stated that something like 76% of people disliked, hated or were indifferent to their job. It hurts my soul that as people, we are resigned to spending all day working for someone else, to afford to live our lives when we’re wasting so much time.
I always wanted freedom. As a child I’d roam the countryside on my bike, loving the open space. As an adult nothing makes me happier than an empty beach or open blue skied prairies or vast red expanses of desert brush. Road trips make me joyful. I love to see old diners and old cars. I love to feel the sun on my face.
I like that my ties are to people rather than things. My feet itch so badly to keep on moving. I’m not sure they’re ever going to stop. I don’t have that nesting urge. I don’t like to be in one place too long.
I’d like to split my seasons between the Florida Keys, the Arizona/New Mexico deserts and the Canola filled prairies. I want to avoid winter. I want to swim in lakes and oceans and eat outside by firelight. I want to travel around seeing little places and travel overseas to see bigger ones. I want to paint outside by the ocean and drink cocktails watching the sunset over some distant desert mesa or Mexican vista. I want the person I love to be there too because this dream is worthless alone.
I want to wake up in harmony with the world and myself. I want to do a job I love and contribute something meaningful to society and not just earn a pay cheque.
The things I want aren’t big things, they’re just hard to acquire, but they shouldn’t be.
Really I just want endless summer.
And one day I am going to find it.
Maybe it’s success at work, to drive a better car or have a pool built in their yard. Perhaps they want four kids and a house in the country. Maybe they want a penthouse apartment in the city and annual vacations to the tropics.
Sometimes they want to work in soup kitchens or animal shelters or grow their own crops.
Me, I was never conventional in my hopes and aspirations. I never wanted a big house and a mortgage. I never wanted kids or the sort of responsibilities that tie people down. I never wanted a sports car or a ridiculous fur coat. I laugh when people say “Money can’t buy you happiness”. It might be true, but I admit, money sure helps.
Despite this, I’m more concerned with freedom than with money, although I’d like enough money to acquire the freedom, it goes without saying.
Because none of us are free and it’s a shame. We’re a slave to work and stress and other things that get in the way of fulfillment and happiness, because we have no choice. I saw a recent statistic that stated that something like 76% of people disliked, hated or were indifferent to their job. It hurts my soul that as people, we are resigned to spending all day working for someone else, to afford to live our lives when we’re wasting so much time.
I always wanted freedom. As a child I’d roam the countryside on my bike, loving the open space. As an adult nothing makes me happier than an empty beach or open blue skied prairies or vast red expanses of desert brush. Road trips make me joyful. I love to see old diners and old cars. I love to feel the sun on my face.
I like that my ties are to people rather than things. My feet itch so badly to keep on moving. I’m not sure they’re ever going to stop. I don’t have that nesting urge. I don’t like to be in one place too long.
I’d like to split my seasons between the Florida Keys, the Arizona/New Mexico deserts and the Canola filled prairies. I want to avoid winter. I want to swim in lakes and oceans and eat outside by firelight. I want to travel around seeing little places and travel overseas to see bigger ones. I want to paint outside by the ocean and drink cocktails watching the sunset over some distant desert mesa or Mexican vista. I want the person I love to be there too because this dream is worthless alone.
I want to wake up in harmony with the world and myself. I want to do a job I love and contribute something meaningful to society and not just earn a pay cheque.
The things I want aren’t big things, they’re just hard to acquire, but they shouldn’t be.
Really I just want endless summer.
And one day I am going to find it.
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