Monthly Archives: November 2011

badness, life

Raptor Jesus would be disappointed

I’m having a crisis.

amirite?

I love singing in a choir, being part of a group that creates beautiful, inspiring music.  So I joined the office choir that performs only at the office holiday party.  Notice it’s called the “holiday party” and not the “Christmas party” because it’s supposed to be non-denominational.  So I figured the holiday songs would be more about sleigh bells than Jesus and boy, I could not have been more wrong.  Every song we do it’s JESUS this and SAVIOR that.  What the hell?  I’ve gone to two of four practices, and I think I’m gonna have to bow out.  I sang in a choir for eleven years (age 10-21), in the children’s choir, then the girl’s choir, then the adult choir in the church associated with my elementary school.  Most of that time I was an atheist, but I loved the music because it was traditional, Latin, old-church perfection.  It was gorgeous!  And everyone loved doing their best, while this choir is sorta… casual.  Which isn’t a sin, but… *sigh*.  I miss it.  And I just can’t handle singing about Jesus if it’s gonna be this kitschy.  I object as an atheist, and as a human being with good taste.  I can’t go against my belief system that there is no god, and that We Need a Little Christmas is just awful.

Not looking forward to telling the co-workers about this one.  Most of them are Jewish, so that might make it a little less awkward.  Maybe.

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goodness, humor

Xmas: Always a hilarious semi-disaster

wait until there are presents!!

My hands smell like a pine tree!  We just bought, carried upstairs (via freight elevator), and decorated our 6-foot tree with white and red lights, and gold and red ornaments.  Also, little Gregory (a felt gingerbread man I bought at the fabric store) almost made it to the top of the tree this year, but was usurped by a cheap, glittery, plastic gold star we use every year, which really tops the whole thing off nicely.  We figured out how to punch a whole in it and wind some twine through it and thereby affix it to the top of the tree so we didn’t have to hot-glue it this year.  Yep.  Classy shit.

Diminutive Roommate’s cat, Calico, is fweaking out, as usual.  It’s an annual ritual: the tree comes up, she investigates, goes medieval on the white twine that was used to tie it down to the roof of the car, then tears around the house when we hiss at her for attacking the lights.  It’s quite a little show.

The first year we lived at the old place (2008), it seemed like everyone was out of town with family: all my friends, both my roommates, even Sister I think.  I was pretty alone at home, and a few days before Xmas, I decided to spruce the place up, and bought myself a tree.  It was pretty tiny, only three or four feet high.  I threw it on top of the Pontiac, grabbed a stand to put it on, bought some seriously discounted lights at the local grocery store, and went home.  The guys at the lot gave me one giant nail with which to secure said tree to the wooden pieces of the stand, plus a plastic bowl for water.  It’s a pretty simple formula:

simple enough... for some

And yet somehow I was so excited about putting the tree up that I forgot about the bowl, and nailed the ever-loving shit out of those boards onto the bottom of the tree.  I stood it up and immediately realized my problem: I had fucked it all up.  And I could not for the life of me get the nail out of the boards or the tree stump.  I had done a world class job of securing them together, and it was going to take some creativity and muscle to separate them.

First I tried using the other side of the hammer.  No dice.  I tried standing on the wooden stand and pulling.  Painful and fruitless.  I realized I would have to apply all the force I could muster against something with more resistance than my body was capable of.

I came up with a brilliant, obnoxious plan.

The rear door to the building was made of metal, and opened up on an alley.  I decided to place just the portion of the tree with the stand on it outside the door, then close the door just enough so that when I YANKED on the tree, the stand would be forced off.  It seemed like a simple, if absurd plan.  I was pretty sure it was going to work.  What I didn’t count on was the noise, and the number of times I would have to repeat this amazing strategy to get that fucking stand off my goddamn tree.

mad genius

It must have been 2am by the time I started hurling the stand against the door and its frame.  The alley provided for some horrifyingly efficient acoustics.  I pitied anyone who lived within fifty yards.  After the first ten or so swings, I really got the hang of it, and threw my whole body into it.  A few minutes in, I took a break to laugh hysterically at the sweaty absurdity of my situation, then got back to work.

Eventually I succeeded, and none of my neighbors complained about the racket I had made (maybe because they were CRAZY).  I affixed the stand properly, decorated the tree sparsely, and placed it in an empty corner where it sat, looking warm, yet lonely, which described that Xmas perfectly.

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badness, family, goodness, life, nerd

Thanksgiving grade: B+

I had a blast with my cousins over Thanksgiving.  I’ve come to discover that my mom and her siblings enjoy each other’s company while my cousins and I enjoy each other just as much, but for different reasons.  We got drunk a bunch while the adults stayed (mostly) sober for obvious reasons including Alcoholics Anonymous.  We had fun sober, too, and Chinese Friend from Office Job got to stay for two nights and experience a big American Thanksgiving before she leaves to go back to Shanghai.  She seemed to really enjoy herself, and everyone loved her.  She got invited back by everyone.  I hope she can make it, she’s pretty great.

Friday night with the cousins was epic.  I had four shots of Patron and a beer (Negro Modelo!) before promptly forgetting my phone in the bathroom where it was stolen before I realized it was gone a half-hour later.  So my iPhone 4 is totally gone.  Tragic.

We tracked it down via GPS the next day via iCloud and set off the alarm remotely after locking it, but the asshole who stole it (let’s call him Dirty Thief) turned it off, so we had to give up our search.  So sad.  I was bummed.  Now I have to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone.  Please help.  It’s the only reason this year wasn’t a solid A in my book.

WTF this couple should be neutered. seriously, of all the HP shit to get permanently affixed to your personhood... the killing curse? really? fail.

I’m optimistic this will turn out ok.  Maybe I’ll get the 4s!  Maybe something magical will happen.  Maybe Dumbledore will come flying out of my butt holding Dirty Thief so I can pummel him before we green-flashy Avada Kedavra his ass.

If only I could pour my molten nerd-dom into the shape of a dwarven hammer, and just pummel people with it.  But then, maybe that’s what it’s like to hear me talk at all.  Huh.

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goodness

Gingerbread massacre

DIE, COOKIEMAN

I’m not a cookie person, or even a sweets person in general.  I don’t crave chocolate, I don’t order sugary, fruity drinks.  But PUT A GINGERBREAD MAN IN FRONT OF ME AND HE WILL BE CONSUMED AND DIE IMMEDIATELY.  I like to eat the legs first to keep him from getting away, and as a lesson to the other gingerbread men who might be watching to demonstrate that escape is impossible.

Do you have any idea how much self-control it took to bring this cookie up to my desk so I could put it down and photograph it for this blog post?  Do you have.  ANY.  Idea.

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badness, goodness, humor

Ultimate internet thing

Diminutive Roommate was nice enough to show me this truly horrifying video: Welcome to Kitty City.  It has many cats.  And when I say cats, I don’t mean “Aww, so cute,” or “Wtf is that cat doing?  Weirdo.”  I mean I stared at the screen with a confused, I-can’t-look-away kind of face.

There are no cats getting eaten alive or anything horribly violent like that.  This video is what happens when the internet is focused by a giant magnifying glass, and that tiny point of concentrated interwebz hits your brain and makes it hurt.  That’s what this video is: dehydrated meme, force-fed into your eyeballs with terrifying efficiency and a hypnotizing broken-down carnival-ride soundtrack.

Here’s the creator’s website.

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goodness, humor, nerd

Everyone loves Cthulhu

I found myself in the strange position of explaining the Cthulhu phenomenon to my dad over the weekend.

STOP COMPLAINING AND EAT IT

It started with this hilarious-looking game, Miskatonic School for Girls, where members of the H. P. Lovecraft universe make up the staff.  The point of the game is to help your house’s students retain their sanity longer than your opponent.  The card that pushed me over the edge?  Cthulhu as the lunch lady.

First I explained what Kickstarter is; an online service that allows people to raise funds for independent projects for which there are too few/zero financial sponsors.  Then I told him about the game.  Then I tried to explain how Cthulhu has become an internet meme for some reason, but I’m not sure how, so I found myself saying stuff like, “He’s an underwater god from the Lovcraftian universe, but people online make fun of him by making him out to be emo or adorable.”  Which makes no sense of course, but it’s an internet meme, so all it has to do is entertain in the void to be a success.

how do I even begin to explain Cthulhu Spock...?

Cthulhu really is the perfect internet meme, now that I think about it.  He’s an obscure reference to a piece of literature at the root of sci-fi/fantasy nerd country that few people have actually read, but somehow everyone knows and loves enough to poke fun of and ironically turn into plushies.  He devours souls, people.  And now he’s a knitted baby toy.

YOU WIN, INTERNET.

I made this

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goodness, life

A simple meal

perfection

I’ve been making myself really delicious dinners recently.  It’s not that I don’t love ramen.  I do.  I love ramen.  But it was time for a change.

I’ve been eating these delicious sandwiches: olive bread, brie with herbs, rotisserie chicken, lettuce, tobasco sauce.  Toasted.  Eaten.  Amazing.

Last night was simpler.  Spicy sausage, fried egg, toasted hunk of olive bread with butter, wine.  A few weeks ago, dinner was spicy sausage, cheese, wine.  Hearty, simple, delicious.  I’m going to have to do this more often.

Boyfriend and I went to the Red Lion in Silverlake months ago, and had beer, sausage and potatoes.  It was one of the best meals we’ve had together.

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goodness

Hokusai, you are the BEST

if only this were real

I just found this print at Giant Robot, and I might have to add it to our wall of quirk (The Quall).  You can actually get the Hokusai wave as a wall sticker, too, because waking up without thinking JESUS A GIANT WAVE-oh fuck wait it’s just a sticker is a wasted morning.

And check this out, he did a study with cranes.  I always love looking at studies rather than just finished pieces.  The artist puts down shapes, and finds harmonious ways to compose a larger piece.  Studies are visually whispered insights on the the artist’s process, and they speak even after the artist dies, like he’s showing us what he was considering before that one painting made him famous.  Also known as magic.

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anime, goodness, humor, life, martial arts, nerd

I am many nerds

I’m a nerd in a lot of ways; I read comics, play computer games, play video games, read Tolkien, read manga, watch anime, watch sci-fi, play table-top games, attend (and dress up for) Renaissance Faires… the list goes on and on.  I pulled out my keys the other day and noticed that some of my nerd-dom was fully on display, and had been for quite some time.

the weighted companion cube was a gift from Diminutive Roommate 🙂

Behold!  My awesome nerd keychain crap!   A Weighted Companion Cube from Portal, a light I got at ComicCon from the Battlestar Galactica booth, and a little carrot icon from the old days when a carrot on a stick was the most valuable item you could pick up at Gadgetzan in Tanaris from that one goblin, and god help you if you actually got those blue goggles instead, because that 3% meant life or death on a PVP server.

I get made fun of (mostly by Sister) for being a nerd, but she can eat shit for all I care.  I’m having a blast.  I’m not shutting myself in my room every weekend, hunched over a comic or my computer, avoiding sunlight and making no attempt at human interaction.  I am not a Gollum-nerd.  I am a modern-day nerd, enjoying my nerd friends and my eclectic interests.  Plus, I have a few anti-nerd weapons I can whip out: I’m female, I’m attractive, do KARATE HAI-YA!, I have many friends, I go out, I have an (attractive) significant other, I socialize easily with strangers, etc.

I am many nerds, and I am happy.

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goodness, humor, life

Highly inappropriate

there was also a stripper pole, fake money, and little spanking paddles

Teacher Roommate had a party yesterday to truly celebrate her birthday.  It was an Inappropriate Party, where everyone is supposed to show up wearing something offensive.  I thought about going in black face, but eventually decided on going naked.  Naturally, I didn’t have the stones (or the blood-alcohol level) to do that, so Diminutive Roommate and I got some nude unitards, colored on some askew nipples, threw on some thongs and fake pubes, and BAM!  We were ready for the party.

Unfortunately, we were not told that the rest of the females invited knew that “inappropriate” meant “excuse to dress whorishly.”  I have to say, I was disappointed.  I expected some creativity.  Instead we had no less than three “sexy school girls,” one “sexy Santa’s helper” (complete with lazy boyfriend in half-costume), one “sexy devil,” one dominatrix, etc.  So sad.  I expected more creativity, and less T&A.

Needless to say, Diminutive Roommate and I did everything we could to make people uncomfortable with our super gross fake pubic hair sticking out of the thongs we wore on the outside of our rather unflattering unitards.  I was pleased with our costumes; we got lots of laughs and had a fun time giving a lap dance to two prudish girls who showed up without costumes (apparently one was staunchly Christian, score!).

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