Archive for the ‘Stuff’ Category

Mental Detritus.

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

I have nothing terribly interesting to report about anything going on at my end, only that I’ve been working like a dog and I hope to go see August: Osage County with my father tonight. I’ve seen it once already, but it’s a new American Classic kind of play, and there’s lots of psychological tension, and my father loves that kind of thing. He’s been a good boy and finished all his vegetables, so I thought I would reward him.

1. Ruby came with Nelly to work the other day. On the same day, Harley came to work with Mili. It was a day that included much petting and snuggling.

This is Ruby being bored and doing her best impression of a worm. You can almost hear the full-body sigh.

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Later on, Ruby sat on Nelly’s lap and while Nelly talked to various account people, Ruby did her best impression of a sentry, or perhaps the nekkid lady on the prow of a ship.

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And Harley was not be ignored either. She’s a very sweet Yorkie. Here she is sitting on Mili’s lap while Mili coos over her, but in this pic Mili looks like she’s going to suck Harley’s brain out of her ear. Which is totally feasible, considering I’ve eaten entire burritos bigger than Harley.

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I am so lucky not to have Mili’s hair. Her hair is naturally that blond (I call it “Playboy Concubine Blond”, since Hef’s “girlfriends” often sport that color), and if my hair was naturally that blond, I would consider it God’s way of saying, “It’s a blank canvas! Dye your hair green! And blue! And pink! All at the same time! You will resemble a pinata! Avoid blindfolded children carrying sticks! Go vivid or go home!” and then I would have gross Manic Panic hair all the time and my tub would look horrifying. I don’t know if you’ve ever dyed your hair with Manic Panic or any of its competitors, but your hair runs and leaks every time you wash it, and often your grout turns whatever color you have adorned yourself with and you leave rings o’ color everywhere, it’s unavoidable and extremely unnappetizing. What I’m saying is I would not be able to resist the call of the nuclear hair colors.

2. A tidbit from MetroNorth this week:
Hey, 40-something, sweating, paunchy, balding businessman reading Twilight – you look like a pedophile and you’re creeping me out. Maybe you know the movie’s coming out and you want to be current on pop culture. Maybe your daughter recommended it and you want a topic to bond with her on. No matter what your reason, I just see you hiding in bushes somewhere drooling while watching some prepube brushing her hair before bed. It’s awful and it’s not the way I want to start my day, so knock it off.

3. I was at Cricket’s house the other day. I went outside and was blinded by all the red and orange and yellow. It was overpowering on the eyes, like I imagine being in a lavender field in full bloom would be to your sense of smell. I took a picture of one small corner of it before I fell down on the driveway and had a seizure.

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Halloween beasties in costume.

Monday, November 10th, 2008

Cute Overload and Martha Stewart paired up and had a contest for Best Pet Costume this past Halloween. There were tons of entries, but I culled the herd down to a few I really liked as well as a few costumes from years past, and here they are for you.

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Belated Halloween post. Also, sick.

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

I have a raunchy, nasty cold. It started in my lungs, and over three days it migrated up until it was in my face, exploding out of my sinuses like fireworks on Chinese New Year. Throw the Rockettes doing a line-kick in there too and you have an idea. I can’t breathe. My office-mate Nelly is going to kill me because when I drink water I can’t inhale, so I sound like a French bulldog. I don’t feel bad about it, though, because she is the one who gave this disease to me, so she has to listen to me snuffling and horking all day as penance. Ha ha *cough* ha.

We celebrated Halloween here at work, so I got all dressed up as my interpretation of a scarecrow, only to get out of the costume an hour later and not go to the party I had intended to go to because I felt so poorly. Maybe I’ll wear the same scarecrow costume again next year, no one will remember or care. Here are some pics.

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And later I had someone take a picture of the nest with eggs I had in my hair.

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I was trying to use my hands to frame the nest, but someone looked at this picture and inquired if I was doing the robot. I see that now.

Also, to get my hair curly, I slept in rollers and wore them to work all day and was mocked by one and all.

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Go ahead. Laugh at me. Everyone else has.

I wish I hadn’t been sick, I would have enjoyed frolicking in a downtown party. Also, if anyone is wondering why I make my own costumes, this video should clarify that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4rUiV_Hh74

There’s some coarse language in it, so don’t watch it at work unless you have your headphones on.

Addendum:
I thought my homemade costume was lovely, but then I saw my co-worker S.’s costume and I was like, “Oh yeah, there’s a winner.” S. was The Cyclone, the Coney Island rollercoaster. Seriously. Check it out.

S. from the side:

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S. from the front:

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Wait, it gets better. The whole track is lined with little white Christmas lights, and the red sign is lined with little red Christmas lights, all attached to a battery pack hidden in the boxy midsection. Mind-blowing, I know. S. went down to The Today Show that morning to see if he could win best costume, but he was beaten by Spiderbaby. He was a good sport about it, c’mon, Spiderbaby is freakin’ adorable. And the costume is clever.

http://jezebel.com/5072166/spiderbaby-attacks-today-show-with-killer-cuteness

Best campaign commercial, maybe ever.

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

First of all, I would like to apologize to B. because he hates this whole meme. I am sorry.

Eight years ago, the “Wassup?” commercial came out. I thought it was very funny the first couple times I saw it. Then there were those damn animated aliens doing it, and it was in “Scary Movie” and all of America including me was sick of it. Sick, I tell you. I never wanted to hear “wassup” ever again. Here is the commercial, which I recommend you watch right now, because it will make the next part even more betterer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L38wthA4Ld0

Great. Now that that has brought back eight million irritating memories, check out what I saw last week. It brings such mirth to my life, I can’t even stand it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8Uc5BFogE&NR=1

I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time. Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.

Websites that are fairly self-explanatory and fun to look at when you have nothing better to do.

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

People who totally look like other people, or things:

http://totallylookslike.com/

Some of the finest school and glamour photos ever taken in one collection:

http://renz-o.blogspot.com/

And finally, hot chicks with “men named after a feminine cleansing product”:

http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/

Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival.

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Last weekend I went to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival. I heard there would be bunnies and llamas and alpacas and punkin’ chunkin’, I just had to go. So my mom and I took the two-hour ride up to Rhinebeck, NY. The weather was gorgeous, the leaves were changing and it was just so durn pretty. And lookit – I took pictures.

Right in the entrance you were greeted by a pen with two lovely rams with spotted noses and pretty horns.

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Then immediately after that, there were lemurs! I know! I was surprised too.

Ring-tailed lemurs, three of them hanging around a heat lamp:

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And a brown lemur who looked slightly deranged and sleep-deprived, but I think that’s just how they look:

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And a super-Qte kangaroo sunbathing.

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Mmm, tasty sun. Do you see the pouch-hole? It’s a lady roo.

Then there’s the food booths, all kinds of predictable and unpredictable fair options. I had just had brunch (I really freakin’ love a good Bloody Mary. It’s always a good day when you start with alcoholic gazpacho.) so I passed on pretty much everything offered, but they had deep-fried dough, baked potatoes with a myriad of toppings, ice cream, caramel apples (okay, I TOTALLY had one of those, SO worth it), sheep cheese sellers and this booth, which clearly sold a little of everything.

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Well-painted signage, too. My favorite are the two signs inside the booth, one for pickles and one for cappuccino. It reminded me of one of my first dates with Cricket, when we went to the Museum of Natural History (“the wacky evolution museum”). We had toured it and needed lunch so we went to the cafeteria and I learned an important thing about Cricket, which is that he liked to dunk food items into other food items regardless of what either of those items are. We get lunch and Cricket gets a slice of pizza, some garlic knots and some raspberry coffee. You can tell where this is going. Garlic knots right into the coffee. I was like, “O …kay, that’s an intriguing flavor combination.” Meanwhile a greasy garlic film is forming on his coffee and I’m considering dumping him right there, it was so gross. I didn’t and I’m glad I overlooked his strange dunking fetish. But when I saw the pickles and cappuccino signs right next to each other, I thought perhaps if Cricket was there, he would consider that an excellent dunking situation. Moving on.

Shortly after the food options was the fiddling competition. Really. I have pictures. Look, fiddling.

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Waiting for their turn to fiddle.

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More kids waiting for their turn to fiddle. I had no idea there were this many fiddle-playing aficionados in upstate New York.

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And then, sheep. A great multitude of sheep. Come meet some sheep. This one had cool horns.

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Different angle on horny (tee hee!) ram.

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These are sheep getting judged for whatever sheepish (snork!) qualities the judges look for. I also learned sheep hate being judged.

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They make a shrieking “BAAAAAHAA!” noise and try to kick, they are not all poised like show dogs. However, outside the ring, they can imitate lap dogs.

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Awww. That’s Sue. Sue the Sheep. She likes to sit on her owner’s lap and just hang out. Isn’t she sweet?

Every farm that was there got a pen, and you could hang a sign telling people who you were and what kinds of sheep you bred, wool you had, etc. Most signs were just big vinyl ones, but this one was different and charming.

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And this one made me want to give the owners of the farm a big underpants wedgie.

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Then we moved onto the llamas. Big, fluffy llamas. Here is a llama peering at me through clothing made with his fiber. He’s an inquisitive llama.

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But some llamas are not as bright. This llama was staring off into the distance. See how his mouth is full of hay? He’s not chewing it. Just, you know, blankly staring. Holding hay in his mouth. I would like to think that he was thinking about something very important that required all of his brain power, but I’m guessing he was listening to the breeze gently flow through his empty head.

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There were alpacas there too, but I forgot to take pictures of them. Just imagine a smaller llama with a cushion of fluffiness on their heads. That’s what an alpaca looks like. There were also some rabbits there, angora and lionhead rabbits, and they were just delightful. I was so busy petting them that I forgot to take pictures of them. I found some on the internet, though.

Lionhead rabbits:

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Angora rabbits:

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And did I mention there was some wool at this thing? Oh, there was wool.

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Rooms and rooms of the stuff.

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WOOL. TONS OF WOOL.

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By then, Mom and I were tired, so we headed out and on out way back to the car, we saw the kangaroo again. And the little joey was poking its little joey face out of the pouch! Everyone standing around melted like sno-cones in the sun. So precious.

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Also, I wanted to add that I saw a woman there with a baby boy, and the baby boy was sporting the most delightful hat.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16012273

That’s the baby, and that’s the hat. Go buy it for everyone you know. The hat, I mean.

And this woman has a video blog about 2006’s festival (which looks identical to this year’s festival) I recommend you watch it.

http://letsknit2gether.com/2006/11/01/episode-005-nys-sheep-and-wool-festival/

Spam, wonderful spam.

Monday, October 20th, 2008

I like to keep everyone updated on the type of spam I receive. Most of the time it’s sexually related and pretty blunt: “Things that go into other things! Different people, different places!! Click here!!!” Now I’m getting spam with one of these as the beginning:

Hello design-newyork.com , grim for my spam, I realy desperate straits moneys, I’am a inadequate student…

Hello design-newyork.com , stark for my spam, I realy emergency moneys, I’am a pitiable student…

Hello design-newyork.com , grim for my spam, I realy dire moneys, I’am a as a church-mouse student…

And then it goes into More Things Into Things!!!. I totally don’t get this new trend. In my mind I see this little Victorian boy dressed in rags in the street peddling smut to make a shilling. “Please sir, if I don’t sell this mature lesbian video, Mummy won’t be able to feed all us. One of us will go hungry again unless someone purchases this granny-on-granny lovefest.”

If I was on Twitter, these might be tweets.

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

1. Holly Madison left Hugh Hefner as his primary concubine because he is unable to make babies and she wants babies. DUDE. He’s OLD. His spermies are dusty and brittle. They’re like that blanket up in your grandmother’s attic. If you move it and bend it too much, POOF! it turns into a powder due to dry rot. Like a certain person’s little flagellators. Also, what was she, like 30? She’s past her Playboy prime. It’s about that time for Hef to get a set of shiny new jiggly gigglers. Which he has done. 19-year-old identical twins, no less. Delightful.

2. Head’s up to the two homeless twenty-somethings I pass on my way to work: Perhaps if you had not spent your money to get unattractive tattoos all over your face, thus preventing you from working in many fine establishments around the country, you might not have to be panhandling. Just a little fiscal wisdom from your Auntie Jessica.

3. Nothing warms the cockles of my heart more than walking to work with big displays of dismembered heads and screaming skulls. I truly dislike Halloween sometimes. Patton Oswalt, one of my most favoritest comedians ever, summed up what it was like when I lived at home with my parents in True Suburbia (fast-forward to 3:10):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFI9siGOT7s

That sums it up perfectly. Really.

A Halloween Tale.

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

I’m listening to The Ting Tings right at work right now. Golly gosh, they’re a peppy band. Especially “That’s Not My Name” and “Fruit Machine.” Actually, all the songs are good so far. If you like boogie-ing around your house whilst emptying the dishwasher, this is excellent music for that.

There’s an email that went around work last week:

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There were many responses to this of the “Count me in!” and “I’m there!” variety. And it reminded me of a tale, a personal experience I’ve had with haunted houses. Many of you have heard this tale, but it’s a delightful tale with a moral (don’t pretend to be someone you’re not, because if you do, you’re going to look like a total loser). Gather around children, here we go.

I started dating Cricket in August, so we were still trying to be on our best behavior in October. His ex-wife had mentioned to him that she had gone to the Playland haunted house and it was cool because there were live people in it that came out at you. Cricket said we should go, and I, being a complete and total dumbass, said, “Sure! I iz not fraidy cat!” So we showed up one night and stood in line. While standing in line they had loudspeakers playing the standard horror fare: screams, creepy laughter, creaking and slamming noises. All of that was fine. What really freaks me out is children and anything child-related. You know, when the guy is going into a dark room and they play some notes on that tinkly little kid piano? Or a little kid is singing softly and off-key in the background? Or they show a toy with big staring eyes? AAAAAAhhhhhhhAAAAAAAhhhhhhaaahhhhhh. So we’re standing there paying for our tickets and on the loudspeaker I hear in a sweet tiny voice, “Mommy? Mommy? Where are you, Mommy? Help me find my mommy.” And then with no warning it switched to THE MOST DEMONIC VOICE EVER, all grating and evil, “HELP ME FIND MY MOMMY.”

Oh, that was the end of that. I shrieked, “I CAN’T DO THIS,” and took off for my car on the other side of the parking lot. Cricket grabbed the back of my coat and I shimmied out of that like I was covered in Crisco and kept bookin’ it like my hinter was engulfed in flames. I am not kidding. I ran to my own car, forgetting that my keys were in the pocket of the coat that Cricket was now holding in his hand back at the entrance, and started banging on the windows of my car screaming, “LET ME IN!” My own car. Cricket slowly sauntered over and explained that we had just paid thirteen dollars a person for this and we were going. I looked up and I had crazy twitchy eye going and was shivering with fear and I shrilly and briskly informed him that I would be going nowhere except home and this was not happening and he could take me in there NEVER. That’s when. NEVER. I probably used a plethora of curse words as well. I must have looked completely daft. Cricket, being the frugal creature I have grown to love, informed me that I had to take the tickets we had bought mere minutes ago and sell them to someone else in line. I would have sold a kidney if it got me the hell out of there, so I went back to the line and sold my tickets to someone else, sheepishly explaining my reason. They were cool and by the time I got back to the car (Cricket had let himself in with the keys in my pocket) I felt like a complete tool. Cricket proceeded to laugh at me for quite some time after that. There was much mockery at my expense, which could have been avoided had I just said, “No,” when he asked if I wanted to go to the haunted house.

So children, when you receive an invitation such as the email above, think long and hard about how much of a weenie you are comfortable looking like, otherwise you will have a humbling tale like mine.

Ruby, Fishies and Other Fishies.

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

1. I work with Nelly and Nelly has a dog, a maltese named Ruby, who came to work a week ago. Ruby is a lovely little fluffy thing who plays with you and wiggles her butt stub masquerading as a tail and is generally all kind of sweet. But being at work all day is boring, so she spent most of her day chillin’ in her carry bag, looking like this:

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What could it be? Perhaps a large hairy white muffin? And then you’d say, “Hey Ruby…” and you’d get this:

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So cute! I did that about sixty times.

2. I was visiting Neenernator this weekend and, as usual, being unable to do anything but watch her totally rad fishtank. She has a Jack Dempsey:

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And an albino pleco (suckerfish):

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And a festive variety of other fishies (those are my favorites). She also has two lumpy iridescent blue fish, a male and a female. We were looking at them on Saturday and we noticed the female’s fins were shredded and thin. I expressed concern that it could be fin rot, and then the male sauntered up and started chomping on the lady bluefish’s fins. Just chewing on them with his teeny-tiny teeth. I was like, “Wha…?” and Neenernator said, “Yeah, that’s how he courts her. See all the scars on their faces? They bite each other’s faces and hang on and drag each other around the tank.” This has to be the worst courting ritual EVER. It’s way worse than the schoolyard prank of shoving a snowball down the back of the shirt of the girl who interests you. What do the fish do in the wild? Does a male saunter up to another male and say, “Look over there. She that fish that looks like Frankenstein’s monster, who can’t swim around because her fins are like wet toilet paper? Aww yeah. She’s my girl. Gonna make a great mom one day, if I don’t gnaw on her and make her all mangledy in the baby-making parts. Because that’s love, dawg, that’s love.”

3. Speaking of fish, I hung my deep-sea fish paintings in my apartment. I really don’t like to hang my own art in my own place, it makes me feel arrogant (“Only MY art is worthy of MY walls”) and self-centered. But my momma loves the fishes and she wants to see them all the time, so I did it. And here they are, in all their fishy glory.

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