This photo has not been altered. This actually happened. A bear comically dropped out of a tree the other day after being tranquilized near a university. The students got to pet its paws before it was taken away. So cute.
it looks like a bear on a trampoline
This happens… almost every night I spend at Boyfriend’s place. He’s an affectionate guy, which I love, but sleepy time is time to sleep, not time to invade Girlfriend’s space until she’s so annoyed that she has to get up and go to another bed in the house to sleep. Most of the time I just grumble and give him some little nudges and push him back over to his side of the bed, which he takes good-naturedly, and if he’s awake enough, I hear a few muffled, “sowwy, sowwy gurlfwend, sowwy.” It’s pretty cute, when it’s not infuriating.
truth
Teacher Roommate and I were sitting in the living room watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix when she burst out laughing, and could not stop. She turned her laptop around and showed me the below image she found on Pinterest under the category “how to humiliate your pets.” I doubt this image will ever fail to improve my day.
bwahahaha so cute omg adorable
magnificent
Diminutive Roommate had a medical scare recently, and was super stressed about it. Teacher Roommate offered to do a puppet show to cheer her up, and she took the offer seriously. I decided we should do a musical, and the first song that came to mind was “Knights of the Round Table” from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.
Teacher Roommate is quite the artist, so she was on sock puppet duty. I learned the basic chords on the ukulele to play the song so we had some instrumental to sing along with. The guy who got us into ukulele came to play with me, and another friend came to play the king puppet and one of the little knight puppets. We needed a castle to use for Camelot, so Teacher Roommate got her postcard from Harry Potter World and propped it up in front of the pot we used for the bridge where people’s helmets get banged on with a wooden spoon.
It was… total chaos, but Diminutive Roommate was super pleased. We had a blast, ate some strawberries, drank some beer, and humiliated ourselves to put on a ridiculous show for a friend. Worth it.
the bureau made for a fine stage
This collection of pro-gay marriage protest signs made me smile today. Nothing like a sense of humor to invigorate your cause.
My personal favorites:
LMAO
"get back in the car, honey."
finally, irrefutable evidence
A meeting I organize every other month went well yesterday, and as usual, we had a ton of food left over from the catering. We did what we usually do: we took it back to the office to feed the starving students. Sometimes people don’t understand that food left on the counter in the small kitchen area we have in the office is free-for-all, so I was sure to make a sign everyone would understand, and, more than that, would flood the onlooker with warmth and a sense that this food really was meant for general human consumption, devoid of any financial commitment.
mission accomplished
When I was a student, I used to get a calzone and salad with a drink almost every day I had class for at least a year. The line was obscenely long around the lunch hour, so one day, since I was in a hurry, I just walked out. I was in a hurry, and almost broke anyway, so I figured what the hell? If anyone stopped me, I would say I was just saying hi to a friend, and jump back in line.
I ended up getting away with it, only to discover that stolen food tastes better than food I’ve exchanged for currency. This is not a fluke; every item of food I’ve ever stolen has always tasted better than when I pay for it. How fucked up is that? But I didn’t make the rules. These are FACTS. I’m just acutely aware of them.
Teacher Roommate can be very… blunt and to the point with herself. This comes out in little ways like how she writes little reminders to herself in terse little messages on the back of her left hand, or in the titles of the alarms on her iPhone.
Her dad is in town on a visit. They are the drinkin’est family I have ever heard of (aside from the Australians I encountered when I visited my family in Tasmania). Naturally, when I get home around 730, they’ve already been out drinking for a while. We texted back and forth for a bit about the internet debacle (now fixed), and how her dad helped her set it up (thanks dad!). Then I receive this non-sequitur gem:
her awkwardness is my LOL
And my day has been made. Thank you Teacher Roommate.
No wonder I love Sherlock. He is secretly an otter. In case you didn’t know, otters are the cutest animal.
I’ve read a few Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was hilarious and a bit of a genius. I love everything about these stories. They’re short and fun, and written in what I like to call, “The Old Style” that I love so much (1880-1925).
I was looking through my iPhone photos this morning, and a random thought occurred to me: what would my life look like if I could only see every hundredth photo? I recently cleaned out my phone of extraneous contacts, photos, emails, apps, etc., and the aftermath is just over a thousand photos of the past year and a half. Here’s what one percent of my life looks like:
#1
I have to include number one; it’s a good starting point. My mom gave me her iPhone 3g when she got a Blackberry from work, so I inherited some of her photos, and haven’t had the heart to delete them. She travels for work (too much), and took this shot at a waterfall. It was nice to turn on my “new” iPhone for the first time, and see that my mom has a good eye.
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#100
I work at Karate Job in Redondo Beach three times a week now, and there’s a pretty strong jalopy following down there. I used to see at least one every few weeks. This one was particularly shiny and handsome. The owners are always happy to let me snap a quick shot. It’s like a car version of really good cosplay; they put a ton of work into it, and are happy to share their enthusiasm with others.
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#200
I’m your average nerd in a lot of ways: table top/online/video gamer, cosplayer, renaissance attendee (with costume), BSG fan, anime fan, manga reader, etc. When I bought some go-karting tickets for Boyfriend for his birthday, we decided to go with a group of friends, who promptly decided it would be fun to dress up like Mario Kart characters. Some of us bought our costumes, others made theirs from whatever they had lying around. I did a combination: I painted an old helmet like an 8-bit piranha plant, bought a green spandex body suit, and voila! A costume I could wear on the track without using any of the public equipment. This is the helmet in-progress. It turned out really well.
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#300
My friends are (of course), nerds too, bless their little hearts, and for a while, Wrath of Ashardalon was our game. We couldn’t get enough. I even drew my own character art, and wrote a dozen spells specifically for him. This is one of those games where you pick your final boss at random. Our first game, we pulled the game’s namesake: the main boss, Ashardalon, a giant fire-breathing death lizard. His character dwarfed ours. We were honestly a little scared. It was a close one, but we pulled it off! A very exciting game, and one that I felt the need to document. As you can see, one of us has already died, while another has just rolled horribly. Note the cave-in in the adjacent room. That was a fun series of disasters.
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#400
I love the Renaissance Faire. It’s so harmless and fun. Women dress like tarts and men dress like warriors, and no felony sexual assault results. People walk around fully armed with many very sharp swords and daggers, and no one fights. Everyone is friendly, even to that one guy who dresses as a ninja, or that other dude who came as Captain Kirk that one time. Everyone is so wrapped up in admiring costumes, eating turkey legs, playing games, and going to hilarious shows that a sense of good will permeates the fair grounds, and one feels out of place without a smile.
Boyfriend couldn’t make it to last year’s fair, so I took this photo to remind him of how pretty I look wearing girly stuff.
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#500
Diminutive Roommate has been on the hunt for a house for the past year or so, and most of the houses within her price range are in the valley. I like to go with her whenever I can go give her a second set of eyes, and just to hang out. Of course, it’s sweltering hot in the valley half the year, so on our way back from visiting one of her prospects this past summer, she blurted out, “Let’s get a watermelon!” I said, “You’re a genius. You’re my favorite person right now.” We pulled over at a Trader Joe’s, grabbed this little guy and strapped him into the back seat. I’m still pretty protective of my new Fiat, and Diminutive Roommate was eating raspberries or something in the front seat, and had her hands full. So I improvised.
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#600
I can’t believe it took six hundred photos to randomly fall on one of Calico, Diminutive Roommate’s adorable cat. She’s like a dog trapped in a feline’s body. She flops over to have her tummy rubbed. She loves smelly feet. She begs when we eat delicious meats. She’ll cry until we feed her, or if she just wants some company in the morning. She tackles our legs with all the force her little body can muster, and sometimes it’s really scary. She’s very sweet, and super cute. She loves her tennis ball, and she occasionally chirp/meows at the birds outside. She had just gotten trimmed before this photo, so she looks tiny. She’s usually pretty poofy.
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#700
My room needs some overhead lighting, so when Dad and I went to Ikea to pick up some cabinets for the apartment we’re fixing up, we decided to see if they had any cool light fixtures. In order to get to the lighting section, you have to pass through the entire store, so like most people in Ikea, we went a little crazy. Dad has a great sense of humor, so when he saw these stuffed sharks, this is the first thing he did. I made him freeze so I could snap a quick photo. Y’know, for posterity. (note the Lanikai Canoe Club hat 🙂 )
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#800
My family has had a rough time this past year and a half, but this Christmas was really nice. Mom asked Sister and me to spend the night Xmas eve, and sleep in our old beds, just like when we were little. She coerced us with a promise of pancakes and bacon in the morning. It’s a commonly-known fact that my mom’s pancakes are the best pancakes. You didn’t know? Yeah, they’re the best.
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#900
Diminutive Roommate and I used to go grocery shopping together all the time, and we always had a blast. It was like going to a theme park. Every isle held something fun and stupid to laugh about. It was a golden era; we were both dating nice guys named John, we shared a room in a pretty gated community in Culver City, we were still in school, and everything was as it should be. This talent to find fun in ordinary places is one she and I have retained, but when we found a hat in the shape of a giraffe at Joanne’s while hunting for fabric to cover my couch, the pieces sort of fell into place on their own. I think it really suits her.
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#1000
I just took this photo last night! Diminutive Roommate’s coworker came over a couple weeks ago to play poker, and mentioned that he had taken up playing the ukulele. He’s the outdoorsy type, and wanted an instrument he could take with him on backpacking trips and the like. I said I had always wanted to learn to play the uke, and he offered to teach me. Diminutive Roommate said she wanted to learn too. My Lanikai uke just arrived yesterday; hers is arriving tomorrow. I can’t wait to jam with her and her friend.
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A quick summary of the first thousand photos on my phone:
Mom has quite the artist’s eye on her travels.
Jalopy’s are fun and remind me of Archie.
Go-karting is a perfect venue to show off your love for Mario Kart.
My friends and I love our table-top games.
The Renn Faire is the only place I feel comfortable dressing like a lady.
Watermelons are the ultimate summer snack.
Calico is as adorable as she is deadly.
Dad allows himself to be mauled by a shark to keep us sane at Ikea.
Mom makes a delicious Xmas morning breakfast.
Diminutive Roommate does her part to maintain tradition of being weird and fun.
I love my new uke.
I’m pleased with the turnout here: family, hobbies, friends. It’s a happy collection, but I’m disappointed at the locality of them. New goal for the next thousand: exotic locations, new experiences.
Be Random, Be Clear 