My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Season Three!

OMG.  Omg omg omg omg.  The new season of My Little Pony started!  What took them so long!?  The third season premier was pretty good.  Rarity is the sparkliest crystal pony!  Pinkie has a Fluttersuit!  Twilight is excited about libraries!  Pinkie has a Fluttersuit!

Overall, the first two episodes were pretty fun.  I mean, the evil unicorn king dude wasn't as cool a villain as Queen Chrysalis of the second season finale, but he was okay for a dude with pretty much no speaking role (or characterization in general).  And Twi can be bizarrely dumb when it comes to tests.  Like, I knew that to begin with?  But this episode sorta took the cake on that.  Your mission was to save an empire from a giant hatemonster, your train of thought should probably be more "Damn what can I do to help, the fate of the ponies depending on me rests on my shoulders!  I should put all my effort into saving them no matter what!" and less "Damn I'm doing a test, I'm gonna ace this test, I'm failing this test, also ponies.  Last minute revelation, save the ponies!"  But her unreasonable priorities when it comes to tests are part of Twilight's character, so it would probably be more weird if she didn't obsess over the test.  And besides, it's not like the plot to this was even important in the first place.  I think we all know what the most important thing in this episode was.

Aw, shit!  I just looked up the episodes, and the next two (in order) are going to be Pinkie-focused and Crusaders-focused.  I am not generally an immediate fan of Pinkie episodes, she works best in small, insane doses in episodes focused on other characters rather than the main star of an episode.  Don't get me wrong, some of her episodes rock -- Party of One, anypony?  But some of them (I'm looking at you, MMMystery on the Friendship Express/Baby Cakes/A Friend In Deed) (Well okay maybe not Baby Cakes, it's kind of on the cusp for me) are....eh.  Let's just say I don't bother to re-watch them when I need my pony fix.

But the Crusaders!  Noooooo!   I have yet to really like a single episode about the friggin' Crusaders.  I wish they'd been a spinoff series instead of getting episodes in the main series.  I know, I know, the show's for a younger audience and I shouldn't complain when it isn't tailored to my demographic.  But they're just so irritating, holy fuck.  I want to punch Apple Bloom right in the accent.  

New hats!

I dunno if you realize, but I love hats.  I collect them.  I have a box full of dorky hats, and I need more.  More!  I've got a cow hat, a sheep hat, a raccoon hat, a cat hat, a frog hat, two fedoras, a sparkly top hat, a Cookie Monster hat, a Luigi cap, a one-up beanie, and now two more!  Plus, all those other hats in my box that aren't springing to mind immediately. Hey, it's like all the way in the other room, I'm not getting up and looking through it for a dumb blog post.  Just trust me when I say I've got a ton of hats.  Where did you think the name came from?

So I bought two hats this weekend!  Now that winter is slowly, slowly approaching, then backing off, then coming up again for a day, then going back to summer, then threatening to eventually come back, I figured I need a new hat to keep my ears warm when my other hats won't do because I need more hats all the time because you never have enough hats ever no matter how many are in the box.  And because the store was having a two for one sale, I bought two!  I bought a panda hat, and a superbright hat!  I wore the panda hat downtown this weekend and two different people stopped me on the street within like half an hour of wearing it, so they could compliment it.  And one woman was like, "Oh wow, I want that hat -- wait, I have that hat!  It's got a panda on the front!" when she saw it from behind.  The superbright hat is also rad.  It is like the traffic cone of headgear.  It is retina-meltingly-bright!

I wish my camera could show you exactly how bright this hat is.  It practically glows.

I gotta limit my hat-buyery though.  Lets face it, I can only wear one or two hats at a time.  If I bought a hat every time I wanted a hat I'd be broke and crazy warm.  So I only buy a couple of hats a year, or whenever I see one that I really can't resist.  Hey, I don't have unlimited willpower.  How do you expect me to resist a puppy hat or a Canada Day visor if I see one?  That's just ridiculous.  You are ridiculous.  I'm going hat-shopping.

Shockwave Crash

Thank you, Shockwave Flash.  Yes, I know you've crashed.  You crash every fifteen minutes.  I'm starting to forget what my browser looks like without that fucking yellow alert under the bookmarks bar, SHOCKWAVE FLASH HAS CRASHED OH NOOOOO.  Did you ever work right for longer than fifteen minutes, or is everybody just so used to you crashing constantly that nobody even questions it any more?  Go drink a litre of piss, Shockwave.  I hate your fucking guts.

Doontoon

So I've spent the last week or so hanging out downtown while I buy shit, eat shit, and admire Halloween decorations that still haven't been taken down.  Wait, hang on, I don't eat literal shit, I just mean like the general food downtown, like greasy chips and the sketchy hot dogs from the vendors on George Street.  Unhealthy foods.  Though the flambe at Magic Wok was pretty delish.  Noodles were ok.  They had a weird texture, so every bite had me going, "Oh, ew, I don't like -- oh, wait, now that I taste it it's pretty good.  I'll have another bite!  Oh, ew, I don't like -- wait, now that I taste it..."  It was kind of awkward.  Deliciously awkward.

Anyway, Halloween decorations.  Is it just me, or is everybody doing the sick pumpkin face these days?  I swear, every third house had a jack-o-lantern vomiting pumpkin guts.  I guess everybody in Newfoundland has finally seen that photo that's been floating around for like a billion years now.  I gotta say, the vomiting pumpkin thing isn't nearly as funny when it isn't surrounded by beer bottles.

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)