Mardi Gras on George Street

So I went down to George Street the other night for Mardi Gras!  It's not real Mardi Gras, though.  That's in February or something.  In St John's Mardi Gras just means Halloween Party.  I don't know why.  It's kind of confusing.  I mean, why steal somebody's holiday if you're not even going to pretend to do that holiday?  Just call it Halloween on George Street, seriously.

But anyway.  Costumes!  This is the first year in a while I actually did a costume, instead of just throwing on some awesome stuff I had lying around.  I went as Wesley from The Princess Bride!  Well, sort of.  The Universe was pretty insistent on me being Stripper Wesley, because when I went to look for a shirt the only ones I could find with the right sleeves were transparent.  The only non-see-through shirt I could find was too small for me, so I couldn't do up the top button properly and my cleavage was pretty visible.  Looked good though.  Not Quite Stripper Wesley is a good look for me.

It was a quick and cheap costume, for the most part.  I already had the sexy boots, and most of it I bought at Value Village.  Except for the leggings.  They were surprisingly expensive, but at least I was allowed to try them on.  I've been burned by leggings before.  You gotta be careful when you buy them, because a lot of the time they are labelled leggings when they're actually just footless tights.  You know what the difference is between leggings and tights?  You can see your underwear through tights.  Always check your leggings for underwear sightings.  And wearing dark panties helps too.

I'm on the phone with Shannon in this picture.  He asked for photos.  You're welcome, Shannon.

I went to Mardiween with Petron, because his friends ditched and Sam didn't have money to get in and then when she could get in she had a headache from shitty glasses, and Ash had to work but she showed up later anyway because she's cool like that.  Petron was a blogless mad scientist with a tube of glowy worms.  It was pretty cool, he did it by sticking a couple of glow sticks in a jar of milk and water.  Then he dropped it and the top cracked, but it still worked.  The seal didn't break so no milkwaterglow spilled anywhere. But he kept rolling it all over the table, because he never learns.

We went down around seven, because that was the only time I could get a ride.  It is unfortunate, because the weather was crap so most people either didn't go, or waited until nine or ten to show up.  Including Ash, who didn't get off work 'till eleven.  So Petron and I were kinda stuck on the street waiting for hours and hours for it to get interesting.  We passed the time by calling random people, getting food at Greensleeves, and trying to harass our friends into showing up.  Also I called Shannon, because Shannon is cool and apparently my phone does reach Clarenville when it wants to, and every other time I've tried to call people in Clarenville it was just being a wuss.  I don't know how a phone can be a wuss.  Probably by being too wussy to call numbers.  Thanks, phone.

But it got cool eventually!  Later in the night people in cool costumes showed up, like the Lego Batman people and the Adventure Time characters.  I didn't get photos of them though.  I should have.  And Ash came down dressed as a mob bitch/mobster/mob boss/person in rad outfit.

After Ash got there, we switched it up!  Instead of wandering aimlessly all over the street like we had been doing, we started wandering aimlessly all over the street and dancing in one of the bars.  Took photos, made fun of people, got photos interrupted.  Seriously, don't bother trying to do a posed photo around drunk people, they think it is hilarious to jump into it.

Petron went home at around one or one thirty, and Ash and I went to another bar and made new friends, Doctor Who, Po the Teletubby and a Free Mammogram machine.  Ironically, Doctor Who was the only one without a sexy foreign accent.  And yes, I know technically he is The Doctor, but face it everybody calls him Doctor Who.  Even the show does it.  Calm your tits.

Also what the heck is the deal with stuff on George Street.  You have to pay twenty bucks to get on the street, and they give you both a ticket and a wristband, but if you leave the street you can't get back on?  What the hell is the point of the wristbands?  Either use the wristbands to say "You have already paid for your ticket and been on the street, so if you leave this is proof that you can come back," or don't bother with the fucking wristbands in the first place, what the hell.

But we stayed on George Street till last call, me and Ash and Tom of the Free Mammograms and Po the Drunk Teletubby, and after that we went down to a really cool little bar with a nice atmosphere and stays open serving alcohol past the legal hour, lets you smoke in the bar, and never cards anyone.  I love that place.  I don't smoke and so far I've always had my ID, but it's cool to know that there's a place like that to go if I am hanging with underage smokers at three am for some reason.  Then we went to Celtic Hearth and stood around waiting in the rain for like half an hour waiting for a table.  Po ditched us to join a group of strangers who got a table before us, and vanished into the night like a mysterious wasted ninja.

So overall it was a pretty rad night.  Well, half and half.  The first half was kinda lame, but only kinda.  Petron is awesome to hang with, and we got some decent food.  The second half was rad as fuck, despite a lack of Petron.  I have no idea how I spent as much money as I did, but whatever I spent it on was probably worth it.  It was a good night.

It's Not Porn, It's Erotica: Abigail Barnette's Hardball Series

The other day author Jennifer Armintrout aka Abigail Barnette had a giveaway on her blog, because she is a Psychic Baseball Wizard. I apologize for not believing in your sports wizardry, Jen. I was wrong, and I feel shame. ALL OF THE SHAME.

The giveaway was her three baseball-themed romance novels, Long Relief, Double Header, and Triple Play. Now, normally I am not much for romance novels. I just don't care about reading what feels like five billion pages of meaningless angst while Perfect Boy and Perfect Girl try to think of reasons not to get together until the last chapter. I am also not much for baseball. I know fuck-all about the game. It seems kind of boring (now I think that about pretty much every sport, so it's not just anti-baseball-ism). But I've never read any of Jen's books, and I've been getting kind of desperate to because her 50 Shades recaps are just that hilarious and well-written that I already know she must be a great author. So of course when she had her baseball-romance-giveaway-gamble I had to get in on the action. After all, I don't hate romance novels. Or rather, I don't hate them on principle. It's just that it seems damn-near impossible to find a romance novel that I can get through without finishing the book hating the characters. And if anybody can write a good character, it would be the woman who is so skilfully ripping apart the most irritating one ever to be plagiarized every week. Plus throw in an adequately interesting plot to boot. Also I don't care what the hell the genre is at this point as long as I get to read something she wrote.

And yes, she delivered. I was hooked immediately by the first book, because the character of Maggie was spectacularly, amazingly perfect. Neatly avoiding every irritating romance-heroine cliche that made me avoid romance novels, she instead kicked all of the ass. Just this totally badass woman who didn't put up with any shit, actually didn't and not just "I am a Strong Female Character and I don't put up with any shit!" amidst all the shit she is happily putting up with. And the dude of the book, Chris, was also pretty rad. I loved that he wasn't the young hotshot perfect prodigy baseball player, but an older dude with a slightly fucked shoulder who was at the end of his career. And who earned less than Maggie. Not that that matters, but it's just really cool that for once the woman is the one who is rich and successful and business-persony (well, more rich -- he is a pro ball player, after all), since usually it's always the guy who is the distant mysterious billionaire who is perfect in every possible way. I could probably just write a whole blog post on how totally rad these two characters are, but i'm trying to cut down on my excessive word-vomit and actually look at all the books in this post, so I'll shut up about them and get on to Double Header.

Second book! I'll admit, I wasn't as enthusiastic right off the bat (no pun intended), but only because I loved Maggie and Chris so much and kind of wanted to read more about them, and wasn't sure if I would get as attached to the new protagonists. I got into it pretty quickly though, and after a few pages anny attachment-doubts I had were gone, because the characters in this one, the adorably-still-in-love-despite-everything ex-boyfriends Zach and Javier, are just as fun to read. Usually the whole "they both love each other but are too stubborn to say anything/figure out it's mutual already, argh why don't they just FUCKING TALK" plot drives me crazy in a book, but it worked here. I dunno why, maybe it was that Zach was in a sorta-happy relationship situation that he was trying to make work or that they had a previous messy breakup that was throwing up roadblocks for them and so it wasn't just an "I can't admit my feelings yet there hasn't been enough conflict in the plot yet" thing that was doing it, but whatever it was, it was way more satisfying than I would have thought from a summary, had I read one.

Third book, also great! More awesome characters - Eva, the sports reporter who is just as awesome as Maggie, and the two friends Taylor and Jeron who both love her. It's a love triangle that I like, for once. Probably because it's not a "Who should I pick, Mister Perfect or Obvious False Lead?" thing, but a "Who should I pick, Mister Perfect or Mister Also Perfect In A Different Way? Fuck it I'll have them both" thing. Because if you start out with a threesome you might as well end with a threesome. Granted, it's not quite as cut-and-dry as that, there is some very satisfying plot that kept me from getting too impatient for the inevitable end, and with polyamory being not nearly as common or as accepted as monogamy it's not the quick and easy answer that, say....okay my lack of familiarity with romance novels and such mean I can't think of a good example of a plain old love triangle off the top of my head, so I'll just have to go with 50 Shades and say the Ana/Christian/Jose triangle, but it feels really unfair to compare that crap with Triple Play. Actually, Twilight's Bella/Edward/Jacob would work better as a comparison because as bad as Twilight is, at least it tries to pretend for a while (though not very hard) that there's a real love triangle there. Wait why am I talking about these books, I'm supposed to be talking about a good series. Go buy Hardball instead of 50 Shades of Twilight, the end.

I feel like I should try to put in some criticism here, since all I've been doing so far is gushing.  But even the stuff that I should probably criticize seemed good to me.  The books are all very short, I think it took me maybe an hour to read each?  I am not sure, it's hard to guess time after I've finished a book.  But it didn't take me long, because I finished both Long Relief and Double Header at work this afternoon, and Triple Play this evening in a couple of chunks while I did other things, like laundry and dinner.  So they're short, the shortest books I've read in a while.  But I can't really list that as a flaw, because I don't want to spend all day reading a single romance novel.  It's boring.  You know how they end, it's not like romance novels ever have a twist.  I challenge you to find me the romance genre's Fight Club or....whichever movie made M Night Shyamalan famous.  I don't care what he got famous for don't bother telling me, my point is fuck wasting ages on a will-they-or-won't-they when won't-they was never an option.  I loved these books because I never had time to get bored of them.

Let's see, what else can I think of that could be a flaw.....well, a few times the character's families would be mentioned, like Maggie's family who were angry at her for getting the job they thought should have gone to her brother, or Zach's mom, where "Her love for her son was fierce and obvious at first sight," or Eva's super-religious family who are going to assume that she's joined a cult because she's in a monogamous threesome. But again, that's tied into the thing above, where the books are good in part because they are so short. I can't think of how you could add in family drama to the plot without making the plot seem overly long and overly dramatic. That sort of thing seems like it would work better as straight-up sequels, rather than crammed into these stories. Again, part of the charm in this series is it's short and sweet, not long and convoluted and filled with padding.

So that's all I got. Nothing really wrong with the books at all. They're a short, fun read, well-written and very charming. And as for "it's not porn, it's erotica," well, is there much of a difference?  Romance novels are just another type of porn, it's just more polite to read Triple Play on the bus than it is to watch Ass Blasters 3 on an airplane.  Somebody would have to work pretty hard to read a sex scene in someone else's book compared to getting an eyeful of hardcore sex on somebody else's computer screen.

Oh wait, ass-blasters were from Tremors 3. Never mind, you can watch that on an airplane no problem. It's not as good as the first one though, so you should probably watch that instead. Or the second one, that was okay.  The fourth one was crap. You know what? Just go with the first one, you'll be fine. Tremors never needed sequels anyway. You know, I think that might be the only film I've ever seen Kevin Bacon in. Maybe I should watch Footloose tomorrow, it's supposed to be good, right?  What else has he been in?  He's some famous successful actor, he's gotta have been in more than two movies.  To Wikipedia!

A Word A Day

Who else subscribes to A Word A Day?  It's a fun little subscription, it emails you with a new word every day.  Half the time it's a word you already knew, like yesterday's word cassandra -- who doesn't know the phrase "cassandra truth"?  But a lot of the time it's a completely new, frequently unusual word that is a nifty little addition to your vocabulary.  Like today's word.  I like today's word.

Today's word is "Pangloss".  It is almost obnoxiously cheerful.  I'm not sure if I like this word so much because it's just such an optimistic word, or because I like the quotes that came with it, such as "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds," or "The world is a better place than it used to be."

Or maybe I just like it because it is a happy word.  I like happy words.

How To Get Along With Women

I was in the car with Dad the other day and caught a bit of some CBC thing on the radio.  Somebody wrote a book called "How To Get Along With Women" and CBC had taken a bunch of comments from people who called in or tweeted or whatever, with advice on how to get along with women.  Now one thing before I start ranting, the book itself is not actually instructions on how to get along with women.  Or I don't think it is.  I didn't hear the interview with the author, but it's supposed to be a bunch of short stories.  I don't know what the stories are.  I have zero knowledge of the actual book, and no problem with it either.  I'm sure it's a fine book. If I ever read it I'll make a post about it, but until then I'm just reacting to what I heard on CBC, not the book or the author or anything.  End disclaimer.

Not actually what this post is about.  Sorry for any confusion.

All I heard was CBC asking people for advice on How To Get Along With Women and airing the replies, like "Just say 'yes dear' to everything," or "Give them whatever they want" or "Obey them" or whatever.  I almost wish I had known about the original call for advice, so I could give them mine.  Are you ready for it?  Okay, here goes: how about you treat women like fucking people instead of The Great Women Monolith, where All Women want the same things and will react the same way to any given approach because it's How You Get Along with them.  How do you get along with men?  I presume by treating them as people who have their own minds and motivations and not assuming that all men are interchangeable.  Well guess what?  It works the same way with women, too!  You get along with them by not being a fucking asshole.  If you are a fucking asshole, you don't get along with anybody and it doesn't matter what the hell their plumbing is downstairs.

You might think I'm overreacting here, but I hear this so fucking often it has stopped being just a dumb question and has started being super-rage-inducing.  Guys asking for dating advice, because "You're a girl!  How will Chick I Know react to this."  What?  How the fuck should I know how she'll react to it, I've never even met her.  "You're a girl, right?  What did my girlfriend mean when she said [thing]."  I think she meant stop asking random people on the internet what she meant and start asking her, because she's the one who would know.  Women don't have a secret code that we all share, despite whatever the shitty sitcoms are telling you.

So seriously, I'm begging you.  Stop asking this stupid fucking question.  Everybody stop asking it.  It's a shitty question.  Any answer you get won't actually be about women, people you know, coworkers or family members or friends.  It will be about Women, who are all stereotypical caricatures with shrill voices who insist on Talking About Feelings and shopping and going to the bathroom in packs and spending two hours doing their makeup while The Men wait downstairs, talking about sports and cars and guns and Manly Things like that.

If you really have a question on how to get along with a Specific Woman, like that cute redhead at the office or the neighbor to your left or your best friend's cousin, go ahead and ask a question.  But ask the right question, to the right people.  Don't ask Random Online Friend Who Is Also A Lady what Julie-from-work meant when she said [thing she said].  Ask Steve-from-work or Alice-from-work what Julie meant.  You know, people who know Julie.  As a person, not just Random Woman [insert optional description here].  If you want to know how Emma Next Door would react to [thing to react to], same deal.  Ask people who know her.  Don't ask any random person because You Are Woman What Does The Hive Mind Say About It.

It's just.....augh, fuck everyone for this.  "Give her whatever she wants, agree with everything she says, that is how you get along with women!"  Why is that the advice for dealing with women?  Seriously, nobody says that about men.  Is it okay to say it about women because women are shallow and only want you to give them small unimportant things whereas men are the ones you have to actually negotiate important things with?  You see what's wrong with that, right?  Women are people.  Men are people.  If you can get along with men, then you can get along with women.  If you are having trouble getting along with women when you get along with men perfectly fine, you know what that says about you?  It says that you are treating women as less-than-men, and they can tell.  That's what the problem is.  If you can't get along with women, it's not because you didn't get the right advice for How To Deal With Women.  It's that you think you need advice for Dealing With Women (The Monolith) because you are treating them as Women first and as People second, if you treat them as People at all.  So.....fuck you, I guess.  You are being a douche.  Hope it works out for you.

I Hear The Sound Of Stupid....

No, seriously.  I heard Dad watching a video in his office and I just had to go in and say, "I hear some really stupid things being said in here, what the hell are you watching."  Turns out it was this.

I just, I can't...  The stupid, it burns.  I can't even make fun of this, it's just that ridiculous.

I have a newfound respect for hairdressers

I coloured my grandmother's hair tonight.  It was the first time I've ever done somebody's hair, and it has taught me a valuable lesson: I do not want to be a hairdresser.

I mean, not that it was ever a real danger, that I'd accidentally trip and fall into a hairdresser job.  You need to go to a special school for that shit and everything, so I knew it wasn't just some easy minimum-wage thing.  And I certainly didn't learn anything about fancy hair stuff in college when I studied carpentry (well, I learned something) but dang, that stuff is annoying.  And I did it for less than an hour this evening.  Imagine how tedious it would be doing it all day every day?

I'm sure that hairdressers have a passion for their stuff and all, but between the smell of the hair dye, the awkward conversation, and the discomfort of having to bend over and try to get her hair into proper light so I can see what was and was not dyed, man do I not want to do it any more.  I mean, I'm sure I'll end up doing it anyway next time her grey hairs start to show, but between now and then I would like to spend absolutely zero time doing anybody's hair.  Even my own.  I am just haired out.

(tl;dr i was too lazy to get up and find a comb today so i'm blaming my grandmother's hair dye IT'S A FOOLPROOF PLAN NO ONE WILL SUSPECT A THING unless i tell them in a tl;dr oops)

AAAHHHHHH

I freaking love this nail polish.

My nails are so bright and colourful!

LOOK AT HOW CUTE MY NAILS ARE

Again, camera not great, picture them as like about ten times more blinding than they are in the pic.  

True Grit

Just watched the original John Wayne version of True Grit.  One of these days I should read the book.  The 2010 Cohen brothers film was rad as fuck, I saw it in theatres and I've watched it a few times since then.  I should buy the DVD one of these days, instead of just watching the pirated version.

I guess I could go into some sort of film-review compare-the-versions deal, but honestly the Nostalgia Critic already did that and he's the professional (or was) so go watch that instead.

I just wanted to share an observation I made about the end of the two films.  Spoilers!  In the remake, the one I saw first, it ends with a flash-forward where Mattie is all grown up as a one-armed spinster lady, and when she finds out that Rooster has died she has his corpse dug up from where it was and interred in her family plot.  Very touching and poignant.  In the original film (and possibly the original book?  I really gotta read it) this is not in the future.  It's right after the whole catch-Tom-Chaney adventure, where Rooster brings Mattie home and she's all "This is what I wanted to show you!" and shows him her family's little graveyard.  And is all, "This is my dad's grave, Mom will go next to him, that's where my sister and her family will be buried, this is where my brother and her family will be buried.  I'm gonna be buried right here when I die, and when you die I'd like you to be buried here too!"

Which is just, like, sweet, I guess?  It was olden times so I guess nobody had much else to do but sit around and plan their death, since they didn't have the internet or anything fun to do.  But I can't get over how the version where one of the characters is actually dead is somehow less morbid than the one where they both live.  Like, what is up with that.

ADHD

Okay, so I have ADHD.  I don't bring it up often, but it's a thing I have.  When I do bring it up, I expect a couple of different responses.

The most common one is, "Oh, you have ADHD?  I never would have guessed!  You don't seem like that kind of person."  Because people with learning disabilities are all idiots, I guess.  Yeah, you can always tell who has a learning disability and who is normal.  The LD kids are different from normal, not-stupid kids.  They can't read well, if they can read at all, they aren't smart, they talk slow or don't "get" things easily.  So a lot of the time if I mention that I have ADHD, people are surprised.  Because I'm not stupid, or something?  I'm not obviously one of those "special needs" people with a learning disability.  I mean, you know what those people are like, right?  They're just different from regular people.  They're stupid.  That's why they have learning disabilities.

(For the record, this is where I was gonna embed a video clip from Bob's Burgers, but Youtube blocked it because FOX has copyright notices and shit. I am annoyed that FOX hasn't figured out that funny clips on Youtube are a good way to get more people to watch their shows.  And maybe I will eventually find another site to put it up on because fuck you FOX you cancelled Firefly.  But the clip I was gonna post was from Spaghetti Western and Meatballs, where Gene says "I acted like Banjo and took Choo Choo down.  Everybody laughed!" and Louise goes, "Well, one kid.  He has a learning disability."  Because kids with learning disabilities have a crappy sense of humor and laugh at everything, because they are not as smart as the kids without ADHD or whatever.  They just laugh hysterically whenever they see or hear things going on around them.  Because they're stupid, I guess.  All of them.)

No, by the way.  In case you didn't get that.  You can't just immediately go "That person has ADHD!" and "That person is completely normal!"  It does not work that way.  Sometimes the kid who has ADHD or some other learning disability is one of the smartest kids in class.  Sometimes the class clown who's failing everything is just a lazy, stupid, neurotypical kid.  Sometimes people with learning disabilities aren't even kids!  They're grown-ups who just go on with their life, and keep having ADHD or whatever even when they get out of school.  You don't hear about those people very often, do you?

The second most common is, "Oh, right.  Sure.  I guess you went online and found a list of symptoms, right?  I hate that, people always have to convince themselves that they have whatever bullshit disorder they read about online."  I always feel equal parts indignation and smugness when I tell them, "Actually, I was diagnosed.  By a real doctor and everything, when I was in elementary school.  And I see that doctor every couple of years just to check up on the whole ADHD thing, you know, just making sure it's still there."  Yeah, there are a couple of hypochondriacs out there who insist that they have Super Special Snowflake Syndrome because they're just so different and special omfg.  There are also a lot more people with Actually A Thing They Have Disorder, whether it's been diagnosed or not.  So maybe don't assume all the time that the person you meet who says they have something going on is lying.  How about you try asking them about it a bit before you immediately jump in with the accusations, okay?  Because you're gonna have a hard time talking with your foot in your mouth after I tell you that no, I'm not making it up for attention, it's actually something I have to deal with.  And trust me it's a lot less awkward to give a hypochondriac the benefit of the doubt than it is to go off on a rant about how ADHD is not actually a real disorder and people just pretend to have it because they suck at school, only to find out that actually the person you are ranting at was diagnosed years ago and takes daily medication and knows a lot more about the subject than you do.  And who now thinks you're a complete moron.  Congrats.

This one I don't get quite as often, but it still comes up and it's still really, really infuriating.  Usually it shows up in specific situations.  Like I'll be talking to somebody and saying, for example, "The recipe I'm following says I can prepare the blahblah while the thingy is fizzing, but I have to prepare the blahblah before I start the thingy fizzer because of my ADHD, I'll hyperfocus on blahblah and won't hear or smell the fizzing scorch.  I'm not good at multitasking."  And the person I am talking to will be all "Oh, well just pay attention to the food while it's cooking!" and gives me instructions on how to do the thing I'm doing.  Okay, first off, the problem isn't that I don't know how to do it.  The problem is I can't.  I know I can't, I've got a lot of experience failing before I gave up and started doing it this way.  Second, congratulations!  You've just cured ADHD!  "Just pay attention," holy shit, I can't believe nobody thought to tell me this all through school.  What the hell was I doing taking medication and shit when I could have just paid attention to the stuff I couldn't pay attention to?  WOW!  Now that you have that out of the way, why don't you go tell people with lung cancer that they probably shouldn't have smoked so much.  Cured cancer!  Dang, you are on fire!  Way to go, dude, your Nobel prize is in the mail, being shipped with a rabid honey badger.  Enjoy opening the box.

So I guess what I'm basically trying to say here is, I dunno, don't assume people who have a learning disability or whatever are all recognizably learning-disabilitied, or that people with a learning disability are just weird or dumb or "special" all the time and are super-visible about it.  Don't assume that someone who says they have a learning disability is making it up for attention when they say, hey btw I have an eldee.  And don't tell somebody with a learning disability that "Hey if you just act like everybody else does then you will be completely normal!  You are just lazy and you intentionally don't pay attention to stuff going around you because I guess you just don't care."

That's...that's kinda all I got.  I thought I was starting out with a point to make but I guess I just wanted to complain about morons who have been saying dumb shit to me lately.  Uh.....sorry?  I'll try to actually have a point next time I write a blog post.  Hint it may or may not be about Jem and the Holograms. 

Stop having lame groups, Facebook.

Seriously, what?  "Actual anti-bullying"?  One, how is it more "actual" than any other anti-bullying group, and two, if you are going to say you are somehow different then you should probably make a description to explain why you are "actual" and other groups are somehow fake.

Also, what the fuck Facebook since when can people add me to groups without my agreeing to join the group.  That is incredibly sketchy.  Now I need to go through my facebook page and see what, if any, other random stupid groups people have added me to.

For the record, while I am against bullying in schools, I am not gonna join in with a shitty circle-jerk of a group that comes off as incredibly arrogant right from the get-go (remember they are ACTUAL anti-bullying, as opposed to those posers who only PRETEND to be anti-bullying) without even the initiative to describe how their group is different from the others, that does nothing to actually stop the problem, not even passing around petitions or proposing new policies for schools or brainstorming ways to enforce the policies already in place, and for some reason feels the need to break off into completely random tangents to lecture furiously about the danger of teachers in short skirts and low-cut tops and how they must set an example for the students (???).

QuestionableContent archive binge, noooooooo

So I've been re-reading old QC strips and just got to the introduction of Hannelore.  Dang, she is almost completely unrecognizable!  Also, in retrospect Ellen was kind of a dick sometimes when she was dating Steve.  I wonder if Jeff had the whole breakup thing planned from the beginning.

wait it's five am when did that happen

Fuckity pissdick, when the ass did it get this late/early.  I think I've wrecked my sleeping schedule, after managing to hang onto it for like three fucking weeks.  I always do this.  I stay up all night and then I'm completely fucking useless for the rest of the week because I can't manage to sleep on a proper fucking schedule.  How the fucking shit-chute did reading about furniture on Wikipedia suck down four hours?  AND WHY THE FUCK AM I BLOGGING ABOUT IT INSTEAD OF GETTING THE FUCK TO BED ALREADY WHAT THE COCK IS WRONG WITH ME

Princess Leia Hair

I should learn how to do Princess Leia hair buns.  I'm pretty sure I've got enough hair for it.  Especially if I can get my hands on some of those hair bun donuts.

It'll have to be a pretty big donut, though.  What the hell Chrome, why is donuts correct but not donut?  Either they're both ridiculous or they're both fine, make up your friggin' mind already.  Whatever, I like the doughnut spelling better anyway.

I spent too much money today :(

So today I went to the mall!  I was supposed to go with Sam, and head up to Value Village to look for a Halloween costume, but she was a butt and decided to feel sick today.  So the Halloween costume search is put off 'til next week, but I still needed new headphones (as you may remember) so I went to the mall solo tonight.  Insert Forever Alone face here.

Overall I'm relatively pleased with my purchases! I got the new Harvest Moon game -- well, relatively new, it came out last year -- and two pairs of headphones instead of just one, because I lack willpower.  Nail polish for the same reason.  But both the headphones and polishes are really cute so it's okay.

I haven't tried the earbuds yet.  I'm expecting them to be pretty mediocre-to-terrible, since they were only six bucks.  I'm sure they will crap out in a month or two and I'll have to buy another, better pair.  I did try the big over-the-ear headphones on the way home, and I think they were kind of shitty?  I can't really tell.  I mean, they don't sound as good as my old earbuds used to, but that might just be because my earbuds were noise-cancelling and these aren't, so I'm expecting them to be louder than I have a right to expect them to be, uh, loud.  Still, that's what I get for buying the cheapest pairs in the store.  I should have gone for the Skull Candy ones, like TK recommended when I called him for an opinion.

I might end up buying a better pair next paycheck and just keeping these as backup.  They are really cute, and they did a good job of keeping my ears warm.  Plus they fold together to be small enough to be (kinda) portable in my purse, and they have that nifty curled telephone-wire on them which just looks neat.  And they were cheap.  So overall, I'm happy with them.

Trust me, they're adorable.

I haven't played the Harvest Moon game yet.  I'm gonna start it tonight, and I will probably be completely sucked into it and disappear from the world for a week or two once I do.  I will have to do my best not to become completely obsessed.

No promises.

The nail polishes are omfg crazy cute.  I tried the pink and green colours on my left and right hands, respectively.  The pink went on frickin' neon!  I thought it would take a couple coats, but nope.  Straight out of the bottle, blinding pink.  Also it dried into sort of a matte finish, rather than a gloss.  I've never had polish that dries like that before!  I like it.  I always did prefer the feel of a matte finish to a smooth gloss finish.

For the record, my camera does not do justice to the crazy-bright colours of these polishes.  Or to my bright pink headphones, since we're on the subject.  All these colours are like ten times more intense than they look.

So that's what I got at the mall tonight.  It was an arduous journey, but the loot was worth it.  Now excuse me while I go play Harvest Moon for the next eight hours.

I'm a pretend reporter!

Okay I will admit it up front, this is probably a lame thing to be excited about.  But you can just fuck right off, because I still think it's cool.

There was a two-car crash on the Outer Ring Road this afternoon, in the westbound lane of the Paradise turnoff.  Traffic was blocked for a few kilometres back, and there was police and firemen and an ambulance there flashing away.  I was driving home from work with Dad, we didn't see the crash itself but when we saw the big mess Dad gave me the phone and I called up CBC to let them know about the crash and the traffic.  Not five minutes later they reported it on the radio! 

It was pretty rad.  I mean, it's not like they mentioned names or made a big deal out of the report, but I still think it's pretty cool that I got to call in with a report that they thought was helpful or important enough to announce right away on the radio.  And then repeat just as we got home, using the exact information we gave them.  I've done it a couple of times before when driving with dad, but this was the first time it was for something exciting like a car crash and not just "The road is washed out" or "There's construction on that street" or something.

And....that's all I got.  Nothing else interesting going on except for a tuna sandwich that is maybe a little too old to eat.  But possibly not?  I will sniff it.

Oh, no, that's gone bad.  Into the trash it goes.  Bye-bye, sandwich.

Well today sucked

I haven't been having the greatest day.  Nothing really huge happened, my parents didn't die or I didn't find out I have cancer or I didn't get killed in a car crash or anything.  It was just a whole bunch of petty irritating things that added up to one sucky day.

It started out looking like a good day!  A friend of mine from Clarenville was coming to town for the day and I was supposed to hang out with him.  I was super pumped for this, because he's pretty much the coolest guy in the whole world and I never get to see him, not since I moved back home after college.  Plus I have adorable new socks!  Clearly today was supposed to be the most awesome.

But I hadn't realized how early in the day he was getting in and leaving.  I had to go to work around noonish, and we pretty much wasted a day.  It was boring, we were supposed to do a prewire but when we were in Tim's one of Dad's friends called up and since they were right around the corner dropped by to have a cup of coffee with us and catch up, and we ended up sitting around gabbing for like an hour.  Or Dad and his friend did, and I sat around playing games on my iPod.  So we didn't have time to do much more than check out the house we were pre-wiring and figure out what we needed to do, then go home again.  So now we're a day behind schedule. Fuck.

By the time I get home and call my friend, he's already headed back to Clarenville.  So, fuck.  That is lame.  I did not get a chance to hang out with Awesome Friend, and if I had realized beforehand what a waste today's workday was I could have just not gone and seen him while he was in town.  Fuckles.

Oh well, hopefully he'll come by again soon and we can hang out then.  It's not the end of the world or anything!  So this evening I was all, "Hey, I'm not gonna stay inside all night just because I couldn't hang out with a friend!  It's not that bad out, I think I'll go for a walk.  In fact, I think I'll go for a walk to McDonalds and get an apple pie!  I do love me some apple pie, yes sir."  Those were my exact words.  I said them out loud to an empty room, it was weird.

So I go for my walk, listening to my iPod (specifically, listening to the soundtrack for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic -- fuck right off, those songs are happy as fuck) and when I get to McDonalds I go to the bathroom.  Oh, how I hate the bathroom at McDonalds.  There is no room to open and close the stall door (unless you're in the big handicap stall), you gotta lean way back and pretty much hang over the toilet bowl to get in and shut the door.

And so there I was, twisting backwards like a contortionist as I work out the complex close-the-stall-door technique, when I hear a *plop* sound.  Which let me tell you, is not something you want to hear when you're leaning awkwardly over a toilet bowl and not actually using the toilet.

I hadn't realized my ear buds were hanging out of my pocket.  And had fallen into the toilet.  In a McDonalds bathroom.  And they are the only headphones I own.  So now I can't listen to music until I get to the mall and buy new headphones, which probably won't be until next week sometime.

So yeah, in short, not exactly a fantastic day.  I have had worse days, and I will have worse days in the future, but today is not all that high up on my list of Days That I Enjoyed.  Clearly I need to end this day with adorable cat gifs and go to bed before it gets any worse.

Awwwwww!