We love to hate them. We hate to admit that we secretly love them. We taunt them, tease them, organize days on which to beat them. And all this fury serves only to fuel their objective: to be the biggest loser of all. Imagine, a social caste where the suckier you are, the whinier, bitchier, self-absorbed you are, the cooler you are. At least according to the rest of your douchebag friends.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, I am referring to the red-headed stepchild of our, and several others before, generation. The term ‘emo’ has been thrown around for quite some time, and the general ideology has been around since well before Dashboard Confessional pissed and moaned all the way to mainstream. But now it’s reached a very special point. Now one can be emo with zero recollection or even curiosity about the origin of a subculture. Yes, it’s true. It has gone the way of the goth, the vegan, the punk. 

You can buy emo at the mall.

Mopey, stripey scarves. Unfortunate haircuts. Ridiculously skinny jeans. Chunky glasses. Obnoxious tshirts. All can be had with the allowance you earned working at the trendy coffee shop. Oh no, not Starbucks. That (some political jargon about human rights and working conditions and economic blah blah blah) eco friendly free trade something or other place up the street. Because you’re so not about the establishment until you need a new studded belt.

Oh, but it’s not so simple. This new accesibility has started an all out war for scene points! Why, now that you can get a ”vintage” tshirt anywhere, it’s simply not enough! You see him, that skinny young fellow with massive muttonchop sideburns, or ribs that portray his inability to survive a winter without medicare? He’s had that carebear tshirt since the first time it came around. So THERE! And his girlfriend doesn’t have to go to Wal-Mart for skinny jeans, because she sews and was able to alter her mom’s set of jeans from that unbeknownst-to-her fateful Bon Jovi concert seventeen years ago. They’re way more hip than you, poser.

Soooo, yeah. You know, with the time I save not having to consider the cool-power of my tshirts, I tend to find the time to buy more than one colour of clothing, and usually get home in time to eat a full meal.

But why are they my favourite kind of loser? Because I am inherently lazy. You really don’t have to try very hard to make fun of these kids. And when I reach my lazy hand into my grab bag of possible ridiculees, there are just so many fun possibilities.

Which one is your favourite?

"I'm Too Pussy To Be Goth" Emo

"I'll Dress Like This Until The Day I Die, Or Until I Have To Pay Rent And Can't Afford These Accessories Anymore" Emo

"I'm A Slave To My Accessories And Yes I'm Wearing A Tiara" Emo

“Hair Meticulously Done in Mom’s Bathroom Mirror in Front of Standard Suburban Door” Emo

"I'm Only Doing This Cause Mom Won't Buy Me A Car" Emo

"I Was Meant To Be An Anime Character, And I'm The Only One In The World To Thing Of That" Emo

It’s like a very depressed box of chocolates. Awesome.

By now we should all know that I love animals. What sane individual would transform the itty bitty bedroom of an already itty bitty apartment into a wire-free, outlet-free, toxic-free safehaven for four bunnies? This girl. I don’t love all animals though. My cats were smelly assmonkeys. All my life I’ve loved cats, lived in houses full of them, but as soon as I rescue a pair of my own they turn out to be the whiniest, smelliest sonsofbitches you ever did see. I loved them enough to make sure they’d be taken care of elsewhere, but out the door they had to go, followed by rounds and rounds of detoxicating bleach and the disposal of about half my wardrobe.

Fucking cats.

I also dislike small dogs. Lapdogs, to be more precise. Because despite Paris Hilton and her dog-in-a-handbag trend, Chihuahua’s aren’t really the kind of dog you’d describe as a lapdog. They’re kind of…bony? Being a lapdog has less to do with breed or even stature, but more to do with whining, clinging, yippy spoiled behaviour more commonly seen in your elderly woman’s terrier. I call these ridiculously overloved little shits “Mother In Law Dogs.” You have to pretend to love them, don’t you? But when it comes right down to it, every little squeak out of their traps makes you kind of want to puke.

Their owners are worse. My grandmother, not the awesome one, used to share her ice cream with her damned dog. I wish I were joking. I don’t know what the hell happened - she used to be a perfectly sane women with a house full of about twenty something cats before they got that damn dog. My mother and her brother have long been convinced that their mother would have left the money, house, everything to that little brat except they’ve all outlived it.

My parents have fallen into this trap. Not my mother, who is well versed in the idea that if you’re eating knock off Mac’n'Cheese there’s no way in hell the fucking cat is getting name brand. My father and stepmother, a well established pair in a nicely appointed renovated house, decided about a year or so ago that they would purchase an $800 puppy from a local breeder they found at the mall. It’s a shi-tzu poodle mix. Literally, a shitpoo.

I’ve got issues with paying $800 for a dog while hundreds are dying in shelters, but whatever. Some people want purebreds I guess. Or almost purebreds. But this past weekend put things a little further beyond that.

This past weekend, the parentals were off for a drive to pick up my sister from her yearly bout of Pioneer Camp. They couldn’t bring the dog. Something about how if they stopped along the way, one of them would always have to stay with the dog while the others went inside, and this wouldn’t be very fun. Leaving a small dog in the car with the windows slightly down for twenty minutes on a very comfortably cool overcast day is an apparent cruelness. I call it “owning a dog”. Either way, they needed me to make the trek out to their place to let the dog out to pee sometime during the day and were willing to leave $25 on the table for my time.

Normally this would be super fab. A bit of almost-free money, spend an hour in front of the Nintendo-Wii, enjoy the home wi-fi, kick my feet up for a bit and let the little fuzzball out back for a bit. The dog is annoying, but one can’t generally be annoyed to death, no big deal. This weekend, however, it was a huge fucking deal. In all his godly wisdom, Murphy kicked me in the face with this shitty Law that’s been hanging around for a while, and I ended up with a ridiculously dysfunctional Sunday afternoon.  

It was suggested that I arrive at about 12:30 for the dog’s initial exodus to the backyard. This requires me to leave my house at about 11:40. Yeah, they’re nice and conveniently located on the subway line, except their particular stop is at the easternmost point, in ghetto-dreaded Scarborough. I live slightly west of right downtown, where everything you see below is in walking distance. And Toronto is a very wide city. It’s a long trip.

This is North Toronto, or as us downtowners call it, Fucking Ugly:

This northernmost point is also where I had removed both of my parents sets of keys from my rapidly growing set of work and home keys, and stuffed them in my desk drawer for oh-so-convenient safekeeping. Fantastic. So now I have to take a 45 minute trip to the middle of nowhere north to fetch my keys, and then reverse my ass back to central toronto only to transfer and take another 45 minute trip to the middle of nowhere east. Fanfuckingtastic. I love doubling my travel time to a destination I really don’t care about, how about you folks? *big enthusiastic smarmy thumbs up*

The subways are broken. Three stops short of the end of the line where I need to be. They’ve broken out the shuttle busses, so you know its bad. Well fuck it, I’m not waiting for a cramped and smelly shuttle bus. I used to live in Scarborough, I know the bus routes. Or so I apparently think, because whatever platform I went to I have no idea what bus that was. I know what bus it was supposed to be. It was supposed to traverse south Scarborough and graze the neighbourhoods by the bluffs before heading north and reconnecting with the subway at the end of the line. But that’s not what bus it was. It was the bus that navigates every individual side street down by the bluffs before going right back to the same motherfucking station, thereby adding ANOTHER FORTY FIVE MINUTES TO MY TRIP!!! Grar!

Why didn’t I get off? Because I’m in fucking Scarborough. There aren’t any cabs, the bus is the only way to get anywhere. We’re not even near the subway line where this bus is going, and this bus is the only way to get back to it. I could have gotten off and connected with the bus that was going where I was supposed to be. But given that it’s Sunday and the service in Scarborough is shitty, the wait time could have made the trip just as long. That and it’s pouring.

Mmmmm. Scarborough.

On top of this, I’m so blindsided by raging fury and the effort it takes to not lose my shit in these circumstances that I get my subway-expert ass turned around and get on the wrong fucking train. Sure. Why not?

It’s three o’clock by the time I actually stumble, half soaked into my dad’s house. The dog is waiting cross-legged at the door, and rushes outside to take a teeny, tiny, miniscule, solitary squirt. Back in the kitchen, I am greeted with three full voicemails on the machine with instructions on how to care for the dog and tips on unlocking the new patio door that I have no intention of even looking at. I also stumble upon the dogs grooming schedule, taped to the fridge door with appointments made until the end of the year. An hour of collecting my wits later and I’m rummaging through my old coat closet to find a jacket with a hood, sans-umbrella as I am. The coat doesn’t quite fit, and does very little for the part of me that gets wettest - my feet, in their summer slip ons, sloshing through the bacteria-ridden wasteland that is the backed-up mess at the foot of the stairs into this shitty, shitty subway station, incidentally known for stabbings.

For a few brief moments as it leaves Scarborough, the subway line ascends above ground. There is light and trees before diving back underground for the ninety minute trip to the next above ground station way out in the west end of what probably isn’t even considered Toronto by that point. Above ground, briefly, but long enough to see that as soon as I left Scarborough it had stopped raining.

Well fuck this, ladies and gentlemen. Downtown, the subway is the way to go. Fast, convenient, affordable, clean, even trendy. But no way in hell am I taking the subway to Scarborough ever again.

Besides, with a damn mother-in-law dog that tiny, I bet you wouldn’t even notice a piddle on the rug.

Stupid dog.

Alright. Celebrity has-beens. We all love them, we all love to make fun of them, and we all occasionally wonder where they are now.

During our last episode, I was particularly impressed with Macaulay Culkin’s social slippage into Marilyn Manson’s makeup brush licker, a fate only surpassed by being Michael Jackson’s makeup brush licker. One would never have guessed, all those face-slapping eons ago, that the cute-faced, freshly scrubbed little child wonder would grow up to wear tu-tone eyeshadow with an atrocious shade of lipstick and a wild assortment of feathers.

But what happened to the rest of that busy holiday household? As I recall, there were far too many of them to count, the premise behind young Kevin’s criminal abandonment in the first place. (Yeah, did anyone ever wonder about that? Why wouldn’t you call the cops to check on your abandoned child? Fear of criminal charges no doubt. If I were that kid, the wonder of having my family home for Christmas would soon succumb to the intoxicating power that is blackmail.)

So fuck the majority of those kids. The only one that stands out is Bud, the tarantuala weilding assmuncher of an older brother/cousin/vague relative of some sort. He was slightly chubby, with mildly bucked teeth and the safely spiked hair that told us he was a cool kid without giving us any ideas that could possibly lead to midnight escorts home in the back of a cruiser.

Oh snap, the kids name is actually Buzz. Bud, Buzz, whatever. Buzz cola, still has that nice product-marketing jingle to it.

This was him then:

Ah yes. ‘Phlegmwad’. Excellent choice of words for the juvenile mudslinger. We all know Buzz hated Kevin for being such a quote-unquote ‘phlegmwad’, and gunking up his cool status by trashing his room no doubt spiffied up for some hot chick with neon ankle warmers. And Devin Ratray, as he is actually known, no doubt disliked Macaulay to some extent for being the ridiculously overpriced child actor that Devin never was.

Personally, I was completely expecting this young boy to grow up and get an actual job, no doubt involving his protrayed fetish for tarantulas and subsequently getting fired for trying to cross his own genes with the creatures, resulting in either a suspicious death or at the very least a new strain of venereal disease blamed on monkeys for the first twenty years of its existence.

Turns out I’m right. Peep this:

No wait, that’s not him. That’s his understudy.

Buzz himself has actually been getting a fair amount of work on Law and Order, Third Watch and the like. Not that anyone cares, because he never accidentally smeared his face with aftershave and yodelled humourously through an empty house. Either way, here he is now:

Wow. Not looking too thrilled with his latest gig. It seems that despite having more longevity than his overpaid counterpart, Buzz is still pretty pissed at not being afforded his own personal groomer. That unfortunate side part, limp and thinning hair and creeping obesity are nothing more than stinging reminders that if you don’t bust onto the scene with a quick gimmick, you’re pretty much fucked.

Yep, old Macaulay had it all, the style, the entourage, the widely recognized public appearances.

Uh….yeah.

Bud, Buzz, whoever you are. Any monetary/attention bitterness aside, I’m pretty sure you’re counting your blessings. At least you should be.

Not literally, though I came pretty close today with free coffee grounds to be used as fertilizer, and shit being another form of fertilizer. But you know what I mean. I fucking love free stuff.

Okay, I know you’re all dying to know what happend to Bud, but I’m getting to that (I’m actually thinking of a Bud themed post, because I’m now curious about Bud from Married with Children. But I can’t think of any other Buds, so help me out if you know of any.) In the meantime, this thought struck me today, and I feel like telling you about it.

You see, I’m saving up like an absolute lunatic (or at least I was until I blew $400 today on a proper work wardrobe that I have desperately needed for about a year) because one fucking way or another, Josh or myself is going to cross the goddamned expensive border. And I’m not a very patient person. These legal type people don’t seem to understand, I’m above waiting for shit: I’m just going to hold out my hand here, and you’re going to fill it with green cards and fucking cookies. Alas, I’m still coming to terms with my inability to manipulate time, space and humans beyond a certain extent, and so I’m saving my pennies.

I never thought I’d be the one to say this, but I’ve come to fucking HATE spending money.

Because I’m so used to winning at everything I put my hand to, I turn everything into a battle. It’s not entirely healthy, but it gets the job done nine times out of ten. Wake up in the morning after a lazy smoke filled afternoon to the crunch and rustle of several empty Doritos bags: FUCK! I dropped the ball. Stumble upon a sale at Shoppers where that fancy ass thai-rice-in-a-box shit that’s normally $3.50 (and OFF the shopping list) is clearanced at a buck? Oh sweet mother of all things good and holy, PAYDIRT! I am stocking up. That’s half of two dinners (or one whole dinner if I’m really lazy, but I try to avoid that) for one frikkin’ dollar! I win, oh push those tanks across the map fellows, I am on my way. Have the absolute gall to tell me that I might benefit from some three-times-more-expensive carb free pasta? Fuck you and your horse range rider, get the fuck off my lawn.

You see where this is going.

I figured I’d share with you a fun list of all the free shit I’ve managed to get my grubby little paws on. My grandmother would be proud to see her own resourceful genes carried on in the wobbly weak arms of her eldest granddaughter struggling to carry an abandoned dresser up a narrow flight of stairs. I don’t care what the hell you think or how retarded I looked. My tv is now sitting on a free fucking dresser yo, and it stores all the shoes I bought before I realized that money is kind of important. All my knitting is in a large blue trunk dragged up from my curb with the help of Talea, who seriously wanted to take it herself but alas lives further away from my curb than I. All the knitting, by the way, is intended for projects to be sold online and in consignment stores, thus making a profit of my hobby.

Cable? Free. It’s called sticking a wire out the window and creating a decent schedule around seven free channels, three of which are often foreign. Fuck paying for that shit, I get a decent dose of The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, King of the Hill (I like cartoons, fuck off) Friends, Two and a Half Men, The Rick Mercer Report, a variety of vaguely humourous Canadian shows (not including Rick Mercer who is always hilarious and correct) as well as my apparent other boyfriend George Stroumboulopoulos of The Hour (I never authorized this title, but he introduces himself every night with “I am your boyfriend George Stroumboulopoulos” and CBC stopped taking my calls, so I guess I’m stuck.) Free cable is the shit.

Today at Starbucks (I know, I failed again, but a girl needs caffeine sometimes) they were giving out bags of free coffee grounds to dump in your garden. How awesome is that? My neighbourhood is so green, even Starbucks plays along. Anyways, I didn’t take them because I didn’t feel like carrying them, but I’ve recently started indoor gardening, so I will definitely take them up on their offer in the future. Two of three plants, by the way, were taken from work after it was determined that we had too many plants kicking around the front desk.

My sweetest nab so far has been a free router. No, I didn’t steal it. It was a case of finders-keepers-one-month-and-still-no-claims-to-ownership-later.

And now, in awesome full circleness, I get free Doritos for my lazy smoke filled evenings. Because we stock little bags of chips, cheesies and the like in the office I share with Talea, you see. We sell them to our clients, just one more little bit of convenience offered as part of the corporate package - now you don’t even have to wait for the elevator. A lot of people prefer the elevator, it seems, or maybe they just don’t like Doritos. But either way we’ve got Doritos to spare, and as soon as they hit the expiry date corporate compliance demands we get rid of them. And before you go green on me, shut up. They’re DORITOS. Maybe a month from now they’ll be a bit stale, but they don’t grow mould overnight or ever.

Free. Shit. Rules.

Unless it’s actual shit. Again, not interested. Thanks.

So when I initially started this blog, or more like later on when my ratings were at their best, most of what I wrote about was shit that pissed me off, and other forms of snarky ass humour. Nobody, I figured, is going to be much interested in happy boring things like “today my rabbit was adorable”. But lately, a lot of happy exciting things have been going on, most notably with Josh, and our adventures in trying to get together across the miles and legal brouhaha.

And so I’ve created another blog. I’d like to keep this one open for those times when someone is being enough of a fucktard to warrant a nice Auntie Em lashing, or the current whereabouts of various has-beens becomes too much of a curious mystery to leave unsolved. This here page is returning to its sarcastic humourous roots.

That second blog, by the way, is actually a joint effort between Josh and myself, which we both thought was a great idea. So far it’s getting good reviews. Feel free to check it out here. Right now I’m probably on there more often just because that’s what’s most often on my mind, but not to worry! The sarcastic, snarky mood will strike again soon! I feel it brewing as I type. Nevermind Macaulay Culkin, what ever happened to his annoying cousin Bud or whatever his name was, the one with the pet tarantula? I’ll get to that in a day or so. But in between snarky outlets, if you feel I’m far too absent and you happen to miss my awesomeness and don’t mind me bitching about shitty MSN connections and the complications of crossing the border, feel free to check it out.

Love! And stabby gestures. Cause that’s how I roll, you know.

(editors note, WordPress appears to be fucking up, and I can not reformat this post to have any spaces between the paragraphs, this is not because I am retarded, it’s because the internet is retarded. Thank you for your time)

There’s a lot of damn things out there that make me happy, but I think I’ve been spewing enough lately about how awesome my boyfriend is, how cute my rabbits are, and how I’m so awesome my farts smell like Cinnamon Buns (seriously, Josh made a shirt telling me so.)

Yes, I am this awesome

Because they go out the same way they go in. Orange and greasy

Hello all my patient readers, yes, all four of you probably remaining after I’ve been away for about a month. What the hell ass has been going on over here, you may be wondering? Jes?

Well. Let me tell you.

For those not in the know, last October someone who’s blog I read commented on one of my posts. He was thusly blogrolled, as is often the case. His name is Josh, going by Rotgut McCoy at the time, over on blogspot until someone told him how much better wordpress is. Anyway, we had fun reading each others posts, and then graduated to facebook and instant messenger, talking every day, sometimes for hours after work. It got to the point where we got along so well, we started wondering what kind of ridiculous cosmic joke was being played on us. You’d think we would be dating in the 3D world if it wasn’t for the pesky 800 mile difference. And then one day we realized that we’re madly in love, and 800 miles doesn’t seem that far any more. Well shit, that’s awesome, but what now?

For a number of reasons, a lack of vacation time being only one of them, Josh is rather stuck where he is. And so, when the timing was just right, I went down to see him. That’s right, I finally got my ass down to North Carolina to test the sweet sweet waters of internet love out there in the real world. The parental units were rather uncertain, what with me going all by my lonesome down to dixie land to meet up with a strange man in a foreign world. The friends, who know Josh as well and know that he’s not some internet stalker, were more cautious along the lines of “Don’t get drunk and run your ass to a drive thru wedding chapel.” But off I went.

How did it go?

I. Am. Smitten.

That’s right folks. As usual, my gut feeling was completely correct, and hauling myself down to the states via a 24 hour bus ride full of fried-chicken-brandishing toddlers, heinous levels of air conditioning and the wonderful border patrol officers just waiting for the chance to snap that rubber glove all led up to the most wonderful moment in my life so far:

There was no first meeting awkwardness, no “Oh…yeah, you’re not the same in real life.” No weirdness of any sort other than the fact that we’re both just kind of weird as it is. The only thing that sucked was the sickening dread of my departure date, and FYI I will be investing in plenty of anti-anxiety meds for the next trip because feeling like you’re going to die while you’re trying to enjoy your last few hours together is not very productive. But as for the trip itself, a better time could not be had. I love Josh, I love his family, I love his friends. I very nearly didn’t get on the bus home. I probably shouldn’t have considering the trip home, but that’s for the next post

So stay tuned for the regularly scheduled ranting you’ve come to know and love, particularly in regards to Greyhound and their raging ineffectiveness (go on, ask me how I broke some toes), anyone classified as a LaFawnda, and my incredibly biased anger towards the politics of moving across the border. In the meantime, however, some awesome photos.

Equally Weird

 

Shots in Dixieland

 

Yes, there we are in the first of many crazy adventures, licking blue icing off a scary one-eyed snaggletoothed pineapple man. Quite possibly the product of the tequila shots you see there, even though that clearly took place on another occasion. There were many tequila shots. Also, there you can see Josh’s brother Nate and his wife Sami. We stayed with them for the week, and they are unbelievably super cool rad. I heart them very much. They wanted me to buy a house there. I nearly did. 

Caught in the Rain

 So we’ve got this thing about wanting to kiss in the rain, so when the downpour hit we were all over it. In that “Let’s not actually get drenched and instead kiss on the front porch about an inch from the rain” kind of way. It was super romantic and awesome.

Ready, Aim...Fail

So I evidently forgot how to kiss, but at least I’m headed in the right direction. At dinner that night, Josh suddenly leaned over, kissed his own shoulder, and very quickly became puzzled. “I’m…not sure why I did that. I think maybe I thought of kissing you and my shoulder was just closer.” Best. Boyfriend. Ever. Also, I’m wearing his shirt. Best. Girlfriend. Ever.

Awwwww yeah

So we made nacho dip one day after a barfingly cute trip to the grocery store where we stocked up on fun time American food (Sami, my oh-so-future-sister-in-law, is a fan of the Mac’n'Velveeta. She’s wonderful, though, don’t judge her by the cheeze.) FYI, please note that we kept the snaggletoothed pineapple for a few days before eating him.

YES PLEASE

That nacho dip? OHHHHHHH SO GOOOOOOOD. It was like a meal for the next three days, I even warmed some up for Josh when he came home from work for lunch. Apparently being domestic tastes good.

Le Maison LP

Josh’s little brother LP lives in an awesome old farmhouse out in what seems like the middle of nowhere to city slicker me. But it was rad getting there, cause we pretty much got around everywhere on Josh’s scooter. I love it cause it’s like being on a motorcycle, except not big and loud and scary to a girl who can count the number of times she’s been in a car this year on one hand. Sadly, we forgot to get a picture of us on the scooter. I think we forgot to get a picture of LP too, but he may have planned it that way. Either way, here’s us chilling in LP’s room.

Token Emo Shot

Since Josh bought a fancy new digital camera for the occasion of my visit, we very obviously had to take an emo shot or two. I think we do a pretty good job. This was at Josh’s friends Kenny and Rachel (married and awesome, they met over MySpace because America has never heard of Facebook apparently), but they’re in a later picture. For now, cue the My Chemical Romance and a tragic haircut.

Cute, I know :D

Our Picnic

Mah Behbeh

Squeee!

Josh worked his ass off to win a contest at work so he could get an extra day off. We celebrated with a picnic by the lake. I’ll give you a moment to get over the girly squeals…..okay, so guess how else we celebrated? No, besides that. To celebrate my entire trip and our general awesomeness, we also got….matching tattoos!

Super Bad Ass Love Tats

So everybody knows that even if you’ve been married for three thousand years you should never get each others names tattooed on you lest you spontaneously divorce in a brief time space continuum shift. So we went with matching tattoos instead. My stars are red, white and blue, a vaguely americana tribute to my awesome time in dixie land. His are green, natch.

Potato, potato, potato

Josh is very proud of the BBQ heritage of his state, so we obviously took a lunch date to Carolina BBQ, an adorable little restaurant filled with early morning churchgoers and small town news. The food was really good, although it took me a second to realize that everything on my plate was potato based. However, I really like potatos.

Sans Makeup

Josh felt the need to document my makeup application process. I don’t know why. But this was just before heading to a very delicious cookout. You may notice we do a lot of stuff surrounding food. That’s because food is awesome, and wherever Josh and I are, deliciousness abounds. You can see the deviled eggs in my eyes. And the “Chick’n” burgers…

Kenny and Rachel

Cookout Awesomeness

There’s Kenny and Rachel Kenny is awesome. Rachel is also awesome, and also fun sized. Please also notice Angry Johnny Boulder Fists over the BBQ, he was our excellent host for the occasion. He’s actually quite mild mannered and I think was the only one who actually said “What are those?” when I mentioned the Canadian military’s latest secret weapon, the B-Double-A’s (”Bow And Arrow.” Thanks Rick Mercer.)

The cookout was on the day before I left. Since the day I left was somewhat tainted by, you know, being miserable at having to leave and a bit handicapped with anxiety, I think it’s perfect to leave you with a few more glimpses of an awesome day in what now feels like the other half of my life. Enjoy, you lucky people.

 

 

 

            

 

Hey everyone, I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long! I’ve completely screwed up my computer at home, and I’ve been promoted at work! It’s a sweet new job, but it also means less time for blogging at the office. However! I will be back very soon with some FANTASTIC NEWS!!!!!!!!!! JES!!!!!!!

Okay, okay, I won’t keep you waiting any longer. I finally got to go to North Carolina to see my boyfriend face to face and bring love to the 3D world!!!!! It was amazing and I am so retardedly in love. And oh yes there are pictures! Lots of pictures! But that will take time and editing, so hopefully my computer will be back on line ASAP!!!!!

In the meantime, those of you who haven’t stopped by already are encouraged to check out his blog for a sneak peek. Enjoy! I’ll be back soon with more pictures and excellent tales of love, sex, scooters, alcohol, broken toes and my newfound hate for Greyhound and all things LaFawnda.

See you soon!

Okay, I do realize that le boyfriend did this exact same idea not that long ago, but I got such an awesome sampling of music videos during the two or so weeks he spent wading his way through crap to find some decent artistic merit that I was inspired to blatantly steal the concept. Also, I just flat out don’t like Fatboy Slim. There, I said it. Other than that, I do think he has rocking taste in music, but the simple fact is that you can only do so much wading in so much time. One is inevitably going to miss a few samples. So, since I’m apparently cool enough to be his girl, I’m hoping I’m cool enough to augment his top ten list with a few opinions of my own.

Plus, my dad is a roadie and junk, meaning I had good music drilled into my head during the formative years. So my opinion is thusly professional and obviously correct.

Disclaimer: These are the Top Ten *videos* not necessarily top ten songs. Frustratingly enough, some of the most awesome songs in the world have lame or no music videos. Hotel California anyone?

Carrying on.

THE BEST MUSIC VIDEOS EVER

Beastie Boys - Body Moving

Are you kidding? You can’t even begin to tell me you don’t have this exact same ninja fantasy. Plus there’s gratuitous violence followed by super-rad medical impossibilities. And swords! And a helicopter chase! It’s gold, Jerry! Gold! Not to mention how unbelievably catchy the song is. If you don’t instantly have this song stuck in your head, you must have termites in there. Gold eating termites. Please seek medical assistance. Preferably from a guy in a powdered wig, because they can apparently fix anything.

Bjork - Bachelorette

Who doesn’t want their thoughts, dreams, hopes and aspirations, My Story, to be accepted and loved by all to the extent of a grandiose stage production? Also an excellent commentary on the treacherous nature of fame, fortune, and our attempts to solidify human concepts so easily crumbled by the forces of nature and our own silly hands.

Also, Bjork is fucking cool. Try walking around in a Swan dress and see what happens.

Busta Rhymes - Gimme Some Mo

How tired are you of shitty rap videos with a bunch of overly-serious, grilled up lame ass thug life wannabes with their pants halfway down their ass leering over a low camera and pointing as many different combinations of fingers at the lens as they can think of while their homies stand menacingly by, waiting for their turn? Probably about as tired as me. Busta Rhymes on the other hand, has some cool ass unique shit, and even when he does do the finger pointing thing, he’s either making fun of those who do it with sincerity, or at the very least is wearing a large foam sombrero.

Missy Elliot - Work It

Missy Elliot is kind of like the female version of Busta Rhymes, aka Hellass Cool. Especially for not flashing her tits like her skankier counterparts and for poking fun at her own culture based media biases, including the pressure to be skinny and get your hair and nails did. Not to mention being able to rock that getup like nobodies business and the little breakdancing girl who looks like Penelope Cruz with reverse Progeria.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Roller Coaster of Love

Have I told you how much I love animated music videos? No? Well here you go.

Korn - Freak On A Leash

I do think that Korn is pretty much an overall joke, but this video is quite rad. Firstly, it’s animated for a good portion. Secondly, those visuals are awesome. Thirdly, the bullet ripping through a few totems of the all-American boring life - the TV, the birthday party balloons, the cell phone, the office, the corner store, the fat guy in a pool - is fairly poignant. I also like the fuck-youness of the security guard nearly offing a suspicious looking kid that as it turns out was only playing hopscotch. Makes you think twice about being overly assumptive, no?

 Motley Crue - Afraid

So you will have to forgive my ongoing crush on Nikki Sixx here, and perhaps suspend your belief a bit as a fat, suddenly magenta-headed Vince Neil stumbles around in leather pants. It is, beyond all that, a super awesome example of the 80s survivor’s not-often-succesful transmogrification into a newer, cleaner product. Also, fucking Larry Flint is in it, okay? As a guy carving legs. Best the-making-of story ever: Who gets to call Larry Flint and ask if he wants to be in a video where he’s carving legs? Uhhh, Nikki will do it.

Massive Attack - Fucking ANYTHING They’ve Ever Done, EVER!

Teardrop

Protection

Butterfly Caught

Angel

Karmacoma

Seriously, I dare you. Just pick one and tell me it isn’t amazing. It’s like art took ecstasy and vomited up genius.

Michael Jackson - Thriller

If only for affording the opportunity to walk out on the credits in the comfort of your own home. Incidentally, you may recognize the scary-movies-of-yore voice as the legendary Vincent Price. You won’t see him anywhere in the video, however. He thought Michael Jackson was too creepy. All kidding aside though, this is still regarded by most as THE best music video, period. Some would argue November Rain, but as much as I love GnR, that video doesn’t even make it onto my ‘eh’ list. Thriller it is. I know you all think you’ve seen it, and you probably have at some point. But you really need to watch it again, because unless you watched it last week, you have no idea how amazing it really is.

And now…..at my personal number one…drumroll please…

*drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

Weird Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise

Shut your face. You know I’m right.

I’m in a pretty good mood right now. I escaped a random near-panic at work with minimal overall damage, and now I’m watching a feel good news story on my fave hip and trendy urban news team, drinking a Stella and watching my boyfriend type away on his blog (which I have been dying to read for like, a week.) There’s a cool breeze, leftovers in the fridge and a clean outfit for tomorrow, meaning I can put off laundry and other chores for another lazy evening.

And that’s when I notice another quirk about myself. I mean I’ve got about a million, and some of them aren’t so awesome (a few of them are apparently called “symptoms,” and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, but that’s neither here nor there.) But tonight, I rather amused myself. In fact, there’s a lot of things I find amusing about myself. Let’s face it, I’m kind of awesome and stuff. Here are some quirks things that make me awesome. Maybe some of you count as awesome too?

Quirk #4521

I. am. FASCINATED by weathermen. With that whole gesturing to an invisible map behind them? Yeah. I know, I know, it’s not that difficult. But dudes, the guy I was just watching was precise, yo! He wasn’t doing broad gestures, he was circling the individual dot that is me! Or my general vicinity, at least. Is he watching himself on camera? Is it a mirror? Did he spend the rest of the day practicing? I mean, what else does he do all day, he’s the friggin’ weather man! I am endlessly amazed. When the weather comes on, I am five years old again, and they have divine powers. Especially after two beers. (Two beers now…not when I was five. Strict one bottle limit.)

Quirk #3267

I really like blank notebooks. And my own handwriting, but only with certain pens. And if I make a mistake I don’t cross it out, I rip out the page and write it again. Or at least I used to, cause I got pretty tired of keeping diaries, what with it being so much work and all. But I still think blank notebooks are like the awesomest things in the world, especially really nice ones with spiffy covers.

Quirk #2874

When I’m waiting for the bus, I won’t move towards the door until the bus has actually pulled in. Even if I see it coming, I’m totally convinced that if I get up, it’ll magically turn into the bus going in the opposite route, or it’ll be going out of service or something. Coincidentally, that is my exact bus right there. It’s even going in the right direction. This makes me happy.

Quirk #239

I like Friends. Suck it.

Quirk #3751

When I’m looking around on a table for something or trying to remember a long lost factoid, I hold my hands up about half way to my face and twiddle my fingers. It’s like spirit fingers helps me find things.

Quirk #946

I obsessively arrange objects on desks, tables, windowsills, etc. All equally spaced apart at right angles, tallest to shortest. No, that is not my desk.

Quirk #3347

I pester my rabbits and insist on petting them until they start headbutting my hand away just cause I think its so cute. And then they bite me and I have a bruised wound for a week, with nobody to blame but myself.

Quirk #4272

I can’t use a bathroom stall if someone has just left it. For some reason, it really bothers me to see the person who just used the toilet I plan to use. It’s like their aura is still there watching me take a leak.

Quirk #483

Every time I go to my favourite thai place, I get golden curry tofu, one chilli, no red peppers. There’s a nearly identical place up the street (a former chef at my fave place left and started her own business, and is thusly my hero) and I once tried tofu pad thai there, but it was wrong - delicious, but wrong - and I will never try anything new there again.

Quirk #5852

I asked Josh what other quirks I have, and apparently I walk differently when I know he’s looking at my butt. That may be a total overshare, but I seriously had no idea I did that.

And now, as a finale, the first image that came up when I googled ‘quirky’. I quite like it.

Oh, and feel free to share your own quirks. It might make you feel a little less quirky and a little more awesome. Awesomer like me.