So, last night we sat through our first tornado watch and warning in Nashville, and I'd forgotten what a pain in the ass they can be. Growing up on the plains in Minnesota, I had my fair share of hunkering down in the basement with my dog and a pot of macaroni and cheese, and I know the "head between the knees, hands over head" position that has probably never saved any small schoolchild from a wind storm, much less a tornado or nuclear bomb.
I've been living in Chicago for awhile now, though, and there's something about giant buildings and 100 miles of suburbs that keeps the twisters away, I guess, so I haven't had to deal with this in awhile. And Houseboy's from the DC area, where nothing bad happens ever except that the whole place is so polluted that in the summer exercising outside is as bad for you as smoking a pack of cigarettes, and oh yeah that's where they have all the politicians who cheat on their wives and then kill interns. But at least there are no tornadoes.
Anyway, since it's been awhile I forgot which is worse, Watch or Warning, and Houseboy asked if it was tornado season and I kind of stared off into space and then said something about the cats, and I hadn't realized until we were watching the twelfth interruption of our regularly scheduled programming that we don't have a basement in this building, so if we were upgraded from Watch to Warning we'd have to hunker down in the bathroom with the cats, and also not to mention I haven't been able to get ahold of our insurance agent, so technically we don't have renter's insurance right now, we have condo insurance on an apartment in Chicago with nothing in it.
Oops.
Luckily, no tornado touched down on or near our place, and all our belongings are intact, despite a mild panic attack that led to me throwing things around the room and sobbing about how Allstate doesn't love me anymore. Today I will be calling our agent every hour until he picks up or calls me back, otherwise I'm going to the State Farm office next door, where there's a nice young man who tried to sell us insurance as we were still unpacking our giant truck of furniture.
Happy Friday!
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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
In which I bitch about others' driving habits even though I've only driven three times in the last year
So, Tennessee readers, what the hell is up with people down here and the four way stop? Did they just introduce this concept? Is taking turns really such a difficult thing for southerners to understand? Every morning that we've gone for a run we've encountered the same damn problem at least once, and more often at every one of the twelveteen intersections we cross. We come jogging up at approximately four miles an hour all sweaty and huffing and puffing and really regretting ever taking up this idiotic sport just because our husband would disappear for hours at a time without us if we didn't and then we'd be sad and get fat on ice cream and whole blocks of cheese, and at the same time a car pulls up next to us and another car pulls up to the right of us, not at the same exact time, you understand, but one after another. And then they just sit there, and stare at each other. Or stare into space. Or take a long nap. And I'm happy for the break and all, but at some point someone has to go and it's completely unpredictable who it will be, and I expect that soon we're both going to get hit by multiple cars and die. Sometimes, we come up to an intersection, and there's a car going the same direction as us, with no turn signal on, and it will just sit there until another car comes from the other direction, and then they'll both sit at the stop sign and watch us jog by. I assume that after we're gone they have a barbecue or something.
Also, lady drivers, am I right?
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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Also, lady drivers, am I right?
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Internet love is almost like real love, but with less touching
Check that out. That's like a real honest to goodness internet award of some kind! I didn't get it through any crooked voting or popularity contest either. I got nominated fair and square by Jeff over at This is Why Your Hold Time Is So Long (the same that came up with the One Syllable Horror Title "Boobs," for which we should all thank him profusely and probably with chocolate. Anyway it has something to do with being honest in your blog, which is funny since everything I write here is completely made up except for the parts about how I envision bloody death everywhere I go. That part's true.
So, I'm supposed to pass it on to three other bloggers, hence diminishing my own accomplishment by giving it to others. I thought about just saying "Fuck that, I'm taking this home and putting it on my mantle and no one else can have it," but then I realized I don't have a mantle and besides it's an e-picture, which are hard to put up, what with having to unplug your monitor and then fit it inside a frame and then you get done with all that and realize that unplugging the monitor made the e-picture go away. It's possible I've tried this before.
Okay, so that said, here are the three I choose, because they haven't been chosen by others and I read them nearly every day and even check sometimes on weekends to see if they also don't have a life and feel like Saturday night blogging is actually where it's at:
Fuck You Penguin: All right, so this one is pretty well known and me nominating them is sort of like the star of the local production of Romeo and Juliet bestowing an Oscar on Helen Mirren or something, but it's funny and I like it and plus it's mostly pictures, so not too much reading for you lot out there who bitch anytime I recommend a book.
Incandescently Happy: Ms. Theresa Cha takes amazing pictures and sometimes explains them and sometimes just leaves you with an image of her beating someone on a cross and refuses to tell you why, like that's just something that happens in Korea, didn't you know?
Sassafras Junction: Did you know that's how sassafras is spelled? I didn't. Ms. McNasty is part of my attempt to understand the American South* as I run around down here behind enemy lines.
Runners up are A Pretty Nice Little Saturday, who would totally win if she would ever stop paying so much attention to her job and her "real" friends and write a blog once in awhile, and Miss Minneapolis, who has sadly left us on account of finding love or some nonsense, which just goes to show that non-Internet love is for suckers.
All right, so get out there and read everything I read so we can finally accomplish the mind meld, and then I can just think my blogs and not have to check for typos**.
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* That's what people in other countries call it because apparently it's not south of everything. I flunked geography, so what would I know.
**There probably aren't typos in my brain. Twisted nonsequitors, but no typos.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Monday, July 27, 2009
You slept with my wife. And then you tried to kill her.
So, there are people out there who think it's really cool and makes them smart to not watch tv. They will tell you about how they really only watch the Daily Show or CNN or something, but that otherwise they don't need television because there is nothing good on. If you have cable, this is just false. In my old life, when I had a job and a condo and direct deposit and a savings account, I could find all kinds of things to watch on television. So much so that I wished I didn't have to work so that I could be home to watch the Burn Notice marathon and catch up on How I Met Your Mother while still having time to rewatch my Veronica Mars dvds and wish that the WB didn't suck eggs* so much so that show would still be on.
Anyway, now that I'm trying to save the little money I have, and instead of paying for cable I went out and bought a digital converter and a new antenna and am relying on broadcast television for my entertainment, I think that these anti-television people are truly lacking in a sense of whimsy. Have you watched soap operas? How about any of the twelve religion channels that I now get? Did you know that The Price Is Right is still on? Not to mention the Spanish channel that seems to involve bikini babes selling cars about 24 hours a day. How can you honestly not see the entertainment?
Right now, I'm watching Judge Karen, who doesn't have a thing on Wapner, but still entertains the crap out of me. "How can you laugh when you're standing here today in a lawsuit against your brother? Mm mm mm. I tell you!"
Don't you wish you were unemployed?
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* When I was in first grade I first heard the phrase "That sucks," and repeated it to my parents, who yelled at me but didn't tell me why. Going back to the older boy who had first said it in my presence, I asked what it meant, and he said "It means it sucks eggs." You can imagine that that didn't really explain anything to me.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Anyway, now that I'm trying to save the little money I have, and instead of paying for cable I went out and bought a digital converter and a new antenna and am relying on broadcast television for my entertainment, I think that these anti-television people are truly lacking in a sense of whimsy. Have you watched soap operas? How about any of the twelve religion channels that I now get? Did you know that The Price Is Right is still on? Not to mention the Spanish channel that seems to involve bikini babes selling cars about 24 hours a day. How can you honestly not see the entertainment?
Right now, I'm watching Judge Karen, who doesn't have a thing on Wapner, but still entertains the crap out of me. "How can you laugh when you're standing here today in a lawsuit against your brother? Mm mm mm. I tell you!"
Don't you wish you were unemployed?
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* When I was in first grade I first heard the phrase "That sucks," and repeated it to my parents, who yelled at me but didn't tell me why. Going back to the older boy who had first said it in my presence, I asked what it meant, and he said "It means it sucks eggs." You can imagine that that didn't really explain anything to me.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Friday, July 24, 2009
A book, a movie and other random thoughts
So, with all the moving about and unpacking of seventeen boxes of knick knacks and random wires, I've been behind on the reading and watching of new movies lately. On the other hand, we have absolutely no reception on our tv in here (even with a fancy digital to analog converter box of the future), so I have been rewatching all the old standards about fifty times a day. If I didn't have "Super Troopers" memorized before, I definitely do now.
We did finally find our Netflix movies yesterday, though, and watched "The Believer*," which is an uplifting little film about a Jewish Nazi. I learned three things from this movie. Number one, I think that neo-Nazis just like being angry. Otherwise, why live in New York and take the subway, where you're destined to run in to Jewish people and black people and Asian people and all those folks who send you into a murderous rage? You could move to a small Nebraska town and just never ever have to deal with it. Obviously, they have not been attending their yoga and meditation classes.
Second, and I should probably get myself checked out for this, but I still think Ryan Gosling is hot, even when all Nazi'd out. Ok, not a big fan of the swastika shirt, but the shaved head is kind of sexy. Is this a problem I should worry about?
Third, it turns out there are movies that can have an ending that I will not ruin for you, but I will warn you is not all puppy dogs and light, but is about the best of any possible world you could imagine for the character anyway. That's vague, but you should watch it because you won't cry and get as depressed as you might think you will. On the other hand, if you're like me, you will have dreams that night about killing people and then wandering the streets naked.
Your book recommendation this week is much less disturbing, even though the author died of heroin-addiction-related illnesses before his novel was published. It's called "2666," and it's by Roberto Bolaño. For this week, I just recommend the first section: "The Part About the Critics," mostly because that's the only part I've read yet. This first part is about four academics (three men, one woman) who all translated the work of a German author called Archimboldi into their own languages (English, Spanish, Italian and French) and wrote other critical essays on his work, and thus met at boring academic conferences. The woman and the French and Spanish men each carry on ill-fated relationships, including at least one threesome, before they travel to Mexico to find Archimboldi, whom no one has seen in years, but they hear he's hanging around some rural area where a lot of young ladies are being killed. While the French and Spanish man chill in Mexico, the English woman goes back to Italy and starts shit up with the other man and thus ends part one. There's some other shit that happens too probably.
So, try it, you'll like it. It has some old standby themes of narrator unreliability, the inconstancy of man and the role of the external in identity construction. That sounds smart, right? It's also written very straightforwardly (for example, he'd never use the word "straightforwardly" probably) and pulls you into the story very quickly. So get on that and get back to me.
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*Not to be confused with the magazine, which I have a subscription to, and enjoy explaining to people trying to sell me magazines over the phone, since it's actually a literary magazine and has nothing to do with God or Jesus or Nazis either.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
We did finally find our Netflix movies yesterday, though, and watched "The Believer*," which is an uplifting little film about a Jewish Nazi. I learned three things from this movie. Number one, I think that neo-Nazis just like being angry. Otherwise, why live in New York and take the subway, where you're destined to run in to Jewish people and black people and Asian people and all those folks who send you into a murderous rage? You could move to a small Nebraska town and just never ever have to deal with it. Obviously, they have not been attending their yoga and meditation classes.
Second, and I should probably get myself checked out for this, but I still think Ryan Gosling is hot, even when all Nazi'd out. Ok, not a big fan of the swastika shirt, but the shaved head is kind of sexy. Is this a problem I should worry about?
Third, it turns out there are movies that can have an ending that I will not ruin for you, but I will warn you is not all puppy dogs and light, but is about the best of any possible world you could imagine for the character anyway. That's vague, but you should watch it because you won't cry and get as depressed as you might think you will. On the other hand, if you're like me, you will have dreams that night about killing people and then wandering the streets naked.
Your book recommendation this week is much less disturbing, even though the author died of heroin-addiction-related illnesses before his novel was published. It's called "2666," and it's by Roberto Bolaño. For this week, I just recommend the first section: "The Part About the Critics," mostly because that's the only part I've read yet. This first part is about four academics (three men, one woman) who all translated the work of a German author called Archimboldi into their own languages (English, Spanish, Italian and French) and wrote other critical essays on his work, and thus met at boring academic conferences. The woman and the French and Spanish men each carry on ill-fated relationships, including at least one threesome, before they travel to Mexico to find Archimboldi, whom no one has seen in years, but they hear he's hanging around some rural area where a lot of young ladies are being killed. While the French and Spanish man chill in Mexico, the English woman goes back to Italy and starts shit up with the other man and thus ends part one. There's some other shit that happens too probably.
So, try it, you'll like it. It has some old standby themes of narrator unreliability, the inconstancy of man and the role of the external in identity construction. That sounds smart, right? It's also written very straightforwardly (for example, he'd never use the word "straightforwardly" probably) and pulls you into the story very quickly. So get on that and get back to me.
---
*Not to be confused with the magazine, which I have a subscription to, and enjoy explaining to people trying to sell me magazines over the phone, since it's actually a literary magazine and has nothing to do with God or Jesus or Nazis either.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
I'm not broken, I'm just bent
So, I was googletalking with my friend Sweetbreads the other day, and we were talking about lying. She argued that she's good at it because she was a philosophy major, so she feels that if she can think it, it must be possible. This gives her good believability*.
I also fall victim to the "If I think it, it could be true" way of thinking, but it never seems to help me come up with believable lies. In fact I'm a really shitty liar and the only reason I ever get away with it is that I look like a shitty liar so people assume I don't even try. Score!
Anyway, the sort of things that pop into my head would never make good lies because they are usually bloody and kind of disturbing. For example, I was on the bus in Chicago once and saw a woman holding a baby and leaning out into the road, and I pictured her throwing the baby in front of the bus. That was gross. But not a good excuse for being late to work, because it would probably be on the news.
Also, in our new apartment some of our windows won't stay open, so I propped one up with a box and the Neurotic Cat decided to sit in the sill under this precariously hanging window. Of course I got a flash of him being squashed and blood squirting out everywhere. Instead of using that as an excuse for anything I started to think about how I would explain that to the vet. "Sorry new vet who just met us, I'm really not abusive to my animals, I just smash them with hammers sometimes when they're misbehaving. Can you fix him?"
Anyway, I think I could make one of those really shitty independent horror films about it, where I just walk and ride around and picture horrible things happening to people. It would be called "Lies." Or maybe "Existentialism," if I decide to get off the One Syllable Horror thing.
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*It's like drinkability, but with more believing and less drinking. Most of the time.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
I also fall victim to the "If I think it, it could be true" way of thinking, but it never seems to help me come up with believable lies. In fact I'm a really shitty liar and the only reason I ever get away with it is that I look like a shitty liar so people assume I don't even try. Score!
Anyway, the sort of things that pop into my head would never make good lies because they are usually bloody and kind of disturbing. For example, I was on the bus in Chicago once and saw a woman holding a baby and leaning out into the road, and I pictured her throwing the baby in front of the bus. That was gross. But not a good excuse for being late to work, because it would probably be on the news.
Also, in our new apartment some of our windows won't stay open, so I propped one up with a box and the Neurotic Cat decided to sit in the sill under this precariously hanging window. Of course I got a flash of him being squashed and blood squirting out everywhere. Instead of using that as an excuse for anything I started to think about how I would explain that to the vet. "Sorry new vet who just met us, I'm really not abusive to my animals, I just smash them with hammers sometimes when they're misbehaving. Can you fix him?"
Anyway, I think I could make one of those really shitty independent horror films about it, where I just walk and ride around and picture horrible things happening to people. It would be called "Lies." Or maybe "Existentialism," if I decide to get off the One Syllable Horror thing.
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*It's like drinkability, but with more believing and less drinking. Most of the time.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
I think it's Tuesday
Is it Tuesday? Well, it's Way Back Tuesday anyway, no matter what day it is. For this edition, we'll go way back to ninth grade, which for me was in 1994. If you're clever, you can figure out how old I am from that. Since (as I may have mentioned) I grew up in a small town in Minnesota, this was about the time that grunge hit our scene. Since I had a father who owned flannel and a sister a size or two larger than me, I was set as long as I just wore anyone's clothes but my own. Also, I grew out my bangs, which were never curled and hair sprayed the way they should be anyway, because I'm lazy and because my hair does whatever the fuck it wants; I am not its master.
Anyway, I was 15 years old and thought I was tough in some way I can't really remember or explain, especially since this story involves a band trip. Not Band Camp, you understand, just a fun-filled overnight trip to Madison County, Iowa to compete against other tough band nerds and go to a classical music concert and out to the dinner theater. Rockin!
This was the end of the year*, and as such it was time for the seniors to pass their awesome torch to us freshmen. Because they got rid of hazing after some band dork had to be taken to the hospital when he was wrapped in tape and all his skin came off**, all this meant is that the Seniors gave us those "Awards" which are really just pieces of paper making fun of you. I got "Best Section Leader" because I was (after my senior left) going to be the only person in my section. And because apparently I was so devoid of personality that they couldn't even make fun of me properly. One of my best friends got "Anastasia." Because they couldn't remember her name. Hint: It was not Anastasia. Another best friend got something like "Practice Freak." Because she was really really good and practiced her instrument and it sucked how much other people in her section sounded like ass next to her.
Anyway, that night after our rockin' dinner and awards ceremony, me and my three best friends retired to our hotel room and lit those awards on fire in the tub. I'm not sure how four nonsmoking fifteen year olds got a hold of matches and/or a lighter, but I'm going to guess it involved my friend flirting with one of the older boys who was also a band badass and once called me anorexic and street dumb, but that's another story.
Anyway, there was glue involved in these awards and a fair amount of smoke ensued and we had to turn on the shower and did not burn the motherfucker down like Lisa Left Eye Lopes, but all in all we felt pretty awesome.
I used to have a thing with fire. It's pretty.
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* I think it was the end of the year. My brain kind of sucks at, like, remembering stuff like times and dates and places and names. This story is all true though many details may be confused and/or made up.
** That may have been The Breakfast Club. But maybe it happened in my school too. Who knows?
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Anyway, I was 15 years old and thought I was tough in some way I can't really remember or explain, especially since this story involves a band trip. Not Band Camp, you understand, just a fun-filled overnight trip to Madison County, Iowa to compete against other tough band nerds and go to a classical music concert and out to the dinner theater. Rockin!
This was the end of the year*, and as such it was time for the seniors to pass their awesome torch to us freshmen. Because they got rid of hazing after some band dork had to be taken to the hospital when he was wrapped in tape and all his skin came off**, all this meant is that the Seniors gave us those "Awards" which are really just pieces of paper making fun of you. I got "Best Section Leader" because I was (after my senior left) going to be the only person in my section. And because apparently I was so devoid of personality that they couldn't even make fun of me properly. One of my best friends got "Anastasia." Because they couldn't remember her name. Hint: It was not Anastasia. Another best friend got something like "Practice Freak." Because she was really really good and practiced her instrument and it sucked how much other people in her section sounded like ass next to her.
Anyway, that night after our rockin' dinner and awards ceremony, me and my three best friends retired to our hotel room and lit those awards on fire in the tub. I'm not sure how four nonsmoking fifteen year olds got a hold of matches and/or a lighter, but I'm going to guess it involved my friend flirting with one of the older boys who was also a band badass and once called me anorexic and street dumb, but that's another story.
Anyway, there was glue involved in these awards and a fair amount of smoke ensued and we had to turn on the shower and did not burn the motherfucker down like Lisa Left Eye Lopes, but all in all we felt pretty awesome.
I used to have a thing with fire. It's pretty.
---
* I think it was the end of the year. My brain kind of sucks at, like, remembering stuff like times and dates and places and names. This story is all true though many details may be confused and/or made up.
** That may have been The Breakfast Club. But maybe it happened in my school too. Who knows?
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Monday, July 20, 2009
I speak English
So, day two of all our shit in the new apartment, and I'm discovering a problem that has nothing to do with the box pyramids we have built in the center of every room and the completely fake drawers in our kitchen.
The problem is that people down here say things to me and it's like it's not in a human language. Somewhere in the middle of their sentences I realize that they've been speaking and not just humming or making animal noises and that I should start paying attention and see if I can figure out what they want.
For example, while Houseboy was hauling our dresser on his back and I was carrying in a pillow or something, the guy who does random man-type work on our building started talking to me. It went something like this:
Him: {garble gobble} black poodle?
Me: [Looking around] Huh?
Him: {gibble bobsty} yer black poodle?
Me: [Looking at our neighbor's chihuahua, that's wandering the yard] Um. No?
Him: Aw right then.
Me: Does it have a collar?
Him: [No response]
I gathered later from Houseboy that there had been a black poodle seen wandering, and he was asking if it was ours. The chihuahua was just a coincidence designed to make me feel like an insane person.
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
The problem is that people down here say things to me and it's like it's not in a human language. Somewhere in the middle of their sentences I realize that they've been speaking and not just humming or making animal noises and that I should start paying attention and see if I can figure out what they want.
For example, while Houseboy was hauling our dresser on his back and I was carrying in a pillow or something, the guy who does random man-type work on our building started talking to me. It went something like this:
Him: {garble gobble} black poodle?
Me: [Looking around] Huh?
Him: {gibble bobsty} yer black poodle?
Me: [Looking at our neighbor's chihuahua, that's wandering the yard] Um. No?
Him: Aw right then.
Me: Does it have a collar?
Him: [No response]
I gathered later from Houseboy that there had been a black poodle seen wandering, and he was asking if it was ours. The chihuahua was just a coincidence designed to make me feel like an insane person.
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Technomolology
Back in action, Bidges! I sit here in my apartment in Nashberg, happily getting the Internets because I got one of those laptop stick things from my cell phone company, so now I can be connected to all of you no matter where I am, assuming that where I am gets cell phone reception (sorry rural Maine and northern Minnesota, I guess you'll remain wild and Internet free!) I also sit here notably NOT bitching with all my might about the heat, because we have glorious air conditioning that comes out of vents in the floor and will probably cost me hundreds of dollars a month because I'll be running it all through December. I'm also happy to report that we get great water pressure in our shower, and the electricity is on, even though I accidentally set it up for tomorrow.
On the flip side, it stinks in here because they put the last coat of varnish on our wood floors just hours before we got in, and they haven't finished the molding that connects the walls to the floors. Did you know you need that? If you don't have it, it looks like your house is made of Legos and the kid that assembled it forgot to snap them together tight. We also have all kinds of weird corners and 50 year old appliances in this place, but as long as it's not 500 degrees and humid, for now I'm happy. Houseboy has already realized that being married to me is about to get a lot more challenging as I make this noise every time we go outside "Meeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh! It's hooooooooooootttttttttttttt! I need some water!"
10 years in Chicago and Minnesota and he's not the little bitch he used to be about winter, so now he thinks he gets to laugh at ME. The truth is that people who can survive winter are just better people than those who can survive summer. It's a scientifically proven fact, most likely.
Anyway, now I'm off to get some Krispy Kremes and finish unloading the truck, including my 8,000 pound dresser, which I wish we had just set fire to instead of moving. I have bruises in places you don't want to hear about.
Hint: It's my thighs.
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
On the flip side, it stinks in here because they put the last coat of varnish on our wood floors just hours before we got in, and they haven't finished the molding that connects the walls to the floors. Did you know you need that? If you don't have it, it looks like your house is made of Legos and the kid that assembled it forgot to snap them together tight. We also have all kinds of weird corners and 50 year old appliances in this place, but as long as it's not 500 degrees and humid, for now I'm happy. Houseboy has already realized that being married to me is about to get a lot more challenging as I make this noise every time we go outside "Meeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh! It's hooooooooooootttttttttttttt! I need some water!"
10 years in Chicago and Minnesota and he's not the little bitch he used to be about winter, so now he thinks he gets to laugh at ME. The truth is that people who can survive winter are just better people than those who can survive summer. It's a scientifically proven fact, most likely.
Anyway, now I'm off to get some Krispy Kremes and finish unloading the truck, including my 8,000 pound dresser, which I wish we had just set fire to instead of moving. I have bruises in places you don't want to hear about.
Hint: It's my thighs.
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
How to be a responsible underage drunk
So, because in high school I was not "cool" and didn't like to "drink and drive" and didn't have parents who "let me drink in the basement" and lived in a small town where the bartenders knew I "wasn't 21," I didn't have a lot of opportunities to drink and those I had I didn't take advantage of.
Anyway, so I got to college, which was in the Big City, by Minnesota standards anyway, and I lived in a dorm, so I didn't have to drive anywhere to get liquor, and I knew people with fake IDs and siblings who were over 21 and bartenders who didn't know me from anyone and might have believed I was 21 if I wanted to get a fake ID, which I didn't, but anyway, the point is that I made the very carefully considered decision that drinking was cool and I was cool too and as long as we all went about it in a responsible manner, all things would end well for all involved parties.
This decision was made on a dorm room floor while surrounded by half filled bottles of various liquors dropped off by my friend's sister, who was just tickled that her little brother was taking the plunge into alcohol experimentation, and so gave us many many options to choose from. My roommate and this friend* and I chose vodka as our drink of choice with peach schnapps as our chaser. My friend's sister had neglected to drop off any shot glasses, so my roommate and friend were using small plastic cups, while I chose a measuring cup, which as the night wore on seemed more and more brilliant, as I became more and more convinced of my ability to exert absolute control over my own levels of drunkenness.
This might have been before I decided that I was dizzy sitting on the floor and the chair would be safer. It might have been before we decided that being in the hallway would solve all our problems. It was definitely before everyone on the floor decided that they would join us, including the RA, who was definitely on things besides vodka and peach schnapps.
This obviously set up weeks and months of all levels very controlled and responsible partying, which included:
Wooooooo.
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* Incidentally, I had known this friend since I was eight and he just happened to choose to go to the same college as me, which I didn't find out until a week before orientation. Just a random sidenote.
** In-joke alert: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetbread
Anyway, so I got to college, which was in the Big City, by Minnesota standards anyway, and I lived in a dorm, so I didn't have to drive anywhere to get liquor, and I knew people with fake IDs and siblings who were over 21 and bartenders who didn't know me from anyone and might have believed I was 21 if I wanted to get a fake ID, which I didn't, but anyway, the point is that I made the very carefully considered decision that drinking was cool and I was cool too and as long as we all went about it in a responsible manner, all things would end well for all involved parties.
This decision was made on a dorm room floor while surrounded by half filled bottles of various liquors dropped off by my friend's sister, who was just tickled that her little brother was taking the plunge into alcohol experimentation, and so gave us many many options to choose from. My roommate and this friend* and I chose vodka as our drink of choice with peach schnapps as our chaser. My friend's sister had neglected to drop off any shot glasses, so my roommate and friend were using small plastic cups, while I chose a measuring cup, which as the night wore on seemed more and more brilliant, as I became more and more convinced of my ability to exert absolute control over my own levels of drunkenness.
This might have been before I decided that I was dizzy sitting on the floor and the chair would be safer. It might have been before we decided that being in the hallway would solve all our problems. It was definitely before everyone on the floor decided that they would join us, including the RA, who was definitely on things besides vodka and peach schnapps.
This obviously set up weeks and months of all levels very controlled and responsible partying, which included:
- Establishing and codifying a ladder of intoxication that began with "buzzed" and ended with "blasted" and had a bunch of other levels in between that I no longer remember,
- Drawing an intricate Drunken Makeout Map with lines connecting all the people on the floor who had made out with each other while drunk,
- Some girl who might not even have gone to our school wandering into my friend's room and trying to steal the liquor, but first trying to cut the screen off the top of the Bacardi 151 bottle and slicing her hand open and then running out into the street before we could even try to help her,
- Wandering into a local band's practice session in the dorm's basement and narrowly saving one of the band member's daughters from drinking a rather large glass of "juice" that was actually about 14 kinds of liquor mixed with just a little Sunny D (that we had brought in with us),
Wooooooo.
---
* Incidentally, I had known this friend since I was eight and he just happened to choose to go to the same college as me, which I didn't find out until a week before orientation. Just a random sidenote.
** In-joke alert: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetbread
Friday, July 3, 2009
Horror Movies, Part II
Continuing the thread of the one syllable Horror Movie Titles, today we have "TaB" for Hedgehog/Pretty Nice Little Saturday, and "Awkward" for Marnie, otherwise known as the cheater who somehow pronounces awkward in one syllable. But I did it anyway, because I really like the word awkward. Here you go:
TaB
We open on an elderly woman in a flowered dress and shawl, straightening up around her grandmotherly home: overstuffed couches and armchairs draped with doilies. She dusts off an 8 by 10 photo of a man dressed in a lab coat, holding a dentist's drill and smiling toothily at the camera. The door bell rings.
Shuffling over to the door, the woman opens it, and is greeted by a gaggle of costumed children. "Trick or Treat!!" They yell.
[Ok, basically, she gives them TaB soda because it doesn't have sugar, and you think they're going to egg her house and stuff but turns out the pop is also poisoned and they all die these horrible melting deaths in her back yard and then she shovels their slimy remains into her koi pond. I got unexpectedly bored of the buildup on that one, sorry].
TaB
We open on an elderly woman in a flowered dress and shawl, straightening up around her grandmotherly home: overstuffed couches and armchairs draped with doilies. She dusts off an 8 by 10 photo of a man dressed in a lab coat, holding a dentist's drill and smiling toothily at the camera. The door bell rings.
Shuffling over to the door, the woman opens it, and is greeted by a gaggle of costumed children. "Trick or Treat!!" They yell.
[Ok, basically, she gives them TaB soda because it doesn't have sugar, and you think they're going to egg her house and stuff but turns out the pop is also poisoned and they all die these horrible melting deaths in her back yard and then she shovels their slimy remains into her koi pond. I got unexpectedly bored of the buildup on that one, sorry].
*****
Ok, I was also going to have a poll on which movie idea you liked best, but I can't figure out how to do a poll and I don't feel like spending more than 15 seconds on it. Maybe that will be Monday's project. Enjoy your weekend!
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Awkward: An Independent Film
Omma is an unusual-looking child, and not in that Hollywood unusual-looking child kind of way. Her adult teeth have started to grow in already, and they are bending in a crooked second row around her infant teeth. Her face is wide and flat, her eyes have the look of a Jersey milking cow, and her skinny legs bow together at the knees. Because of her disgusting teeth (she also practices poor dental hygiene, so they're dirty as well as numerous), she talks with a crowded lisp when she talks at all, and has a tendency to insert herself into conversation at disorienting and cringe-inducing moments. She finds it difficult to relate to others as she has an undiagnosed form of synesthesia in which she perceives certain words as violent acts upon both other words and actual objects around her.
One tragic "Take Your Daughter to Work Day," Omma accompanies her father to his job at the local chemical plant and is exposed to high levels of a new form of heavy water radiation which transforms her synesthesia into an uncontrollable superpower. When she comes back from a bathroom break and overhears her father and his coworker discussing how awkward she is, she watches the word slip from her father's lips, turn into slashing swords and hack both men into thousands of gory pieces right in front of her eyes.
One tragic "Take Your Daughter to Work Day," Omma accompanies her father to his job at the local chemical plant and is exposed to high levels of a new form of heavy water radiation which transforms her synesthesia into an uncontrollable superpower. When she comes back from a bathroom break and overhears her father and his coworker discussing how awkward she is, she watches the word slip from her father's lips, turn into slashing swords and hack both men into thousands of gory pieces right in front of her eyes.
*****
Ok, I was also going to have a poll on which movie idea you liked best, but I can't figure out how to do a poll and I don't feel like spending more than 15 seconds on it. Maybe that will be Monday's project. Enjoy your weekend!
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Horror Movies, Part I
As promised, here is Part One of my horror movie ideas for your one syllable English word challenges. For Jeff, we have Boobs, Starring Tara Reid, and for Shine, we have "Umm..."
Without further ado:
Boobs, Starring Tara Reid
We open on a young woman dressing, we see her from behind, and she is beautiful. Shapely and tan with luxurious blonde hair that she flips over the collar of a dress as she pulls it on with no bra underneath. Yeah, we're turned on already. This is going to be a great movie.
We follow the woman's legs as she pulls on stiletto heels and heads out on the town. At a bar, she twirls an olive in a martini and talks to an average-looking stranger. (Hey, we're average-looking! Isn't that nice for us!) They leave the restaurant together.
Back at what is obviously his apartment, she slowly turns her back on him and removes a large knife from her purse and holds it behind her, but right up to us, the camera. He comes in close and begins to unbutton her dress slowly as she arches against him. As he reaches his hand inside her dress he looks down, and his eyes grow wide, and he begins to back away. The camera pans around, and we see her beautiful face for the first time as she smiles maliciously and brings the knife around to the front. Tracing it down her cheek and neck, she then presses it harder against her as she reaches her chest until it draws blood.
"Do you like my boobs?" She hisses.
Without further ado:
Boobs, Starring Tara Reid
We open on a young woman dressing, we see her from behind, and she is beautiful. Shapely and tan with luxurious blonde hair that she flips over the collar of a dress as she pulls it on with no bra underneath. Yeah, we're turned on already. This is going to be a great movie.
We follow the woman's legs as she pulls on stiletto heels and heads out on the town. At a bar, she twirls an olive in a martini and talks to an average-looking stranger. (Hey, we're average-looking! Isn't that nice for us!) They leave the restaurant together.
Back at what is obviously his apartment, she slowly turns her back on him and removes a large knife from her purse and holds it behind her, but right up to us, the camera. He comes in close and begins to unbutton her dress slowly as she arches against him. As he reaches his hand inside her dress he looks down, and his eyes grow wide, and he begins to back away. The camera pans around, and we see her beautiful face for the first time as she smiles maliciously and brings the knife around to the front. Tracing it down her cheek and neck, she then presses it harder against her as she reaches her chest until it draws blood.
"Do you like my boobs?" She hisses.
*****
Umm... (Marketed in Europe alternately as "Ehh..." "Errr..." and "Uhhh....")
In an office, just like any other office. The fluorescent lights flicker in that way they always do. People in ill-fitting collared shirts and khaki pants slightly stained with salad dressing carry file folders from offices to cubicles and back. The loudest noise is the copy machines and the clickety clackety clickety clackety of keyboards.
Isla picks up her styrofoam cup of coffee, sighs heavily and trudges over to Ellen's desk, where Ellen is staring at a Post-It note that says "The fourth one."
"The fourth what?" Isla asks.
"Fuck if I know," says Ellen. "Meeting time?" Isla nods, and Ellen grabs her mug, the Post-It and a notebook, and they head back to the conference room with a distinct lack of hurry. Settling into the uncomfortable chairs, they avoid eye contact and doodle on their notebooks until a paunchy, balding man calls the meeting to order.
"Ellen and Isla," he says, "I have your presentation here, and this is a nice little piece of work, but I think for the maximization of our profit bandwidth it's time to move beyond our B.A.U."
"Umm..."
"What I'm trying to communicate is that our action items will continue to be branded as deliverables only inasmuch as we can drink from the fire hose here and become a part of the paradigm shift."
"Umm..."
"Somehow I'm getting the impression that you are not key enablers of our integrated solution at this juncture and I have done all I can to incent you to avoid restructuring..."
"UMMM..."
{Cut to outside the office building, which explodes. Ellen and Isla walk away unscathed and with small, calm smiles}
[Alternatively]:
UMM (The Cheating Version)
On the small, close-knit campus of the University of Minnesota in Morris (UMM), no one expected the violence that erupted on the Multicultural Student Leadership Retreat, and mystery has always surrounded the events that transpired around the bonding campfire that night. This movie will finally bring to light what really happened and why the students swore they would never tell another living soul...
In an office, just like any other office. The fluorescent lights flicker in that way they always do. People in ill-fitting collared shirts and khaki pants slightly stained with salad dressing carry file folders from offices to cubicles and back. The loudest noise is the copy machines and the clickety clackety clickety clackety of keyboards.
Isla picks up her styrofoam cup of coffee, sighs heavily and trudges over to Ellen's desk, where Ellen is staring at a Post-It note that says "The fourth one."
"The fourth what?" Isla asks.
"Fuck if I know," says Ellen. "Meeting time?" Isla nods, and Ellen grabs her mug, the Post-It and a notebook, and they head back to the conference room with a distinct lack of hurry. Settling into the uncomfortable chairs, they avoid eye contact and doodle on their notebooks until a paunchy, balding man calls the meeting to order.
"Ellen and Isla," he says, "I have your presentation here, and this is a nice little piece of work, but I think for the maximization of our profit bandwidth it's time to move beyond our B.A.U."
"Umm..."
"What I'm trying to communicate is that our action items will continue to be branded as deliverables only inasmuch as we can drink from the fire hose here and become a part of the paradigm shift."
"Umm..."
"Somehow I'm getting the impression that you are not key enablers of our integrated solution at this juncture and I have done all I can to incent you to avoid restructuring..."
"UMMM..."
{Cut to outside the office building, which explodes. Ellen and Isla walk away unscathed and with small, calm smiles}
*****
[Alternatively]:
UMM (The Cheating Version)
On the small, close-knit campus of the University of Minnesota in Morris (UMM), no one expected the violence that erupted on the Multicultural Student Leadership Retreat, and mystery has always surrounded the events that transpired around the bonding campfire that night. This movie will finally bring to light what really happened and why the students swore they would never tell another living soul...
*****
Coming tomorrow: "TaB" and "Awkward." There is still time for more submissions, though, since what I'll actually be doing today is stuffing my face at the Taste of Chicago, since the basic outlines for those two stories are already in place.
I told you that you could not defeat me!
---
P.S.-- I should note that I have nothing against Tara Reid or her boobs. Actually, I feel kind of sorry for her, and if she wants to make my horror thriller and can find funding I'd be flattered. I think we'd make a great team.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
I told you that you could not defeat me!
---
P.S.-- I should note that I have nothing against Tara Reid or her boobs. Actually, I feel kind of sorry for her, and if she wants to make my horror thriller and can find funding I'd be flattered. I think we'd make a great team.
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
You think your Wu Tang Sword can defeat ME?!
So, based in part on a Google talk conversation in which Hedgehog and I outlined an entire horror movie plot based on how I'd kill Houseboy because he wouldn't let me watch the documentary on Jeffrey Dahmer while we were on vacation, and in part on a conversation I had with Houseboy in which I claimed any single syllable English would could be scary if you thought about it long enough, here is your challenge:
Name a word. One syllable. English language. I'll give you a horror movie outline. Here's your example, word supplied by Houseboy, two short outlines supplied by me.
GUM: A Sci Fi/Horror Thriller
A non-sentient alien lifeforce comes to the planet attached to one of our cell phone satellites when it comes in to be serviced. A technician thinks it's just a bit of gunk and scrapes it away with a fingernail, but it gets under his nail and into his skin without him realizing it. It proceeds to fill every open space in his body, every pore, every orifice, all those little sacs of air in his lungs with...... that's right, gum.
Example Two, for the more traditional horror-minded:
GUM: A Slasher Film
Sally seems like your typical American teen. She wears short skirts and mid-riffy shirts and she loves to flirt with the boys, and when she moves to West Ridgedale High, man is the football team happy to see her. She's got a date every night and parties every weekend and it's not long before she's the most popular girl in school. But it's not long after that that people start to notice that Sally's dates have a way of disappearing, and when they ask her about it, all she does is twirl her hair and pop her gum and give them that little smile that all the boys love so much.
All right, your turn. You think there's a one syllable word in the English language that just can't be scary? I dare you.
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
Name a word. One syllable. English language. I'll give you a horror movie outline. Here's your example, word supplied by Houseboy, two short outlines supplied by me.
GUM: A Sci Fi/Horror Thriller
A non-sentient alien lifeforce comes to the planet attached to one of our cell phone satellites when it comes in to be serviced. A technician thinks it's just a bit of gunk and scrapes it away with a fingernail, but it gets under his nail and into his skin without him realizing it. It proceeds to fill every open space in his body, every pore, every orifice, all those little sacs of air in his lungs with...... that's right, gum.
Example Two, for the more traditional horror-minded:
GUM: A Slasher Film
Sally seems like your typical American teen. She wears short skirts and mid-riffy shirts and she loves to flirt with the boys, and when she moves to West Ridgedale High, man is the football team happy to see her. She's got a date every night and parties every weekend and it's not long before she's the most popular girl in school. But it's not long after that that people start to notice that Sally's dates have a way of disappearing, and when they ask her about it, all she does is twirl her hair and pop her gum and give them that little smile that all the boys love so much.
All right, your turn. You think there's a one syllable word in the English language that just can't be scary? I dare you.
---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com
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