You know those "this makes sure you're not a computer" things? (Part II)

Today's collection of letters and numbers that you have to type in so that a website knows you're a human?

2DRTDB

Shakespeare!

Ghost Toast Launch!

Check out Shira's and Jake's web series, Ghost Toast! It's way awesome. Also, I'm in the first episode. Enough said.

Friends in common?

Probably the best randomly generated depiction of my facebook friends to date.

Movie Marketing 101

Possibly to justify the monthly subscription fee and the many hours I've devoted to watching Law & Order: SVU, I like to think that I've learned a lot about the movie business through my Instant Netflix subscription. For example, I recently became aware of a surefire movie marketing strategy for poster design. It is this:

Title: "The (noun reflecting a group of certain kind of individual)"
Graphic: The torso of one of those individuals, who is ripping away his or her clothing.
Tagline: Something related to business that sounds like it's trying to be a play on words but isn't actually a play on words at all.



I'm pretty sure this formula will come in handy when I design the poster for my future blockbuster hit, "The Superheroes," "The Strippers" or "The Victims of Cardiac Arrest Who Need To Have That Shock Thing Done On Their Chests."

Now available on DVD with bonus features:

Otters Gone Wild!



For Shira. Link via The Daily Otter

Dog Court Improv

#&!@ caution.

So I'm taking this writing class...

And our first assignment was to write 2 or 3 monologue jokes! Fun right? I think more kids would like school if assignments like that were more prevalent. Anyway, here are the three I came up with in about half an hour before class. They're not stellar, but at least you all can enjoy watching me learn. Or something.

"The FCC said Tuesday that it will review the incident involving a fleeting glimpse of pop singer Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Superbowl. Janet Jackson's breast could not be reached for comment, which is not surprising since it has not been seen or heard from in over 5 years."

"In Washington state today, a few cattle participating in a local parade veered off course, entering a convenience store. A pair of cowboys was forced to enter the store on horseback to drive out the cows, who emerged with 2 dozen taquitos and a Battle Berry Slurpee."

"Investigators reported today that a shipwreck off the Italian coast may hold radioactive waste sunk by the mafia. This came as a surprise to officials, who had not realized Glenn Beck was missing."

"Defying Gravity" Defies Longevity

ABC has announced that Sunday night's episode of the space-based drama, Defying Gravity, will be the show's last. In the absence of an official cancellation announcement by ABC, rumors are swirling that the show, which stars Ron Livingston, was not in fact canceled, but has been asked to come in on Saturday.

Aw, what's the matter, little brain? Are you gonna cry? Does wittle bwain want his mommy bwain?

In honor of back-to-school, a brain teaser! What's the missing number in the sequence?

3 , 3 , 5 , 4 , 4 , 3 , 5 , 5 , _ , 3

I'm doing the damn thing.

(Originally posted at The Bear's Necessities)

I recently spent a good three months planning my future career as a clinical psychologist. I was pretty excited about going back to school and eventually entering a field in which I could marry my interest in figuring out how people ‘work’ with my desire to help people (or whatever). I imagined the nice house in Atlanta that I’d share with my husband. We’d have two kids, two cars, a dog and a huge flat-screen TV. Most nights, I’d come home around 7pm with a few bags filled with prepared meals from the Whole Foods buffet. After the kids were in bed, I’d relax for a bit in my delightfully over-sized shower (separate from the bathtub), put on my cotton designer pajamas, and curl up with a mango or passion fruit sorbet on my very plush, neutral-colored couch to watch whichever variety show host that would appropriately appeal to my age bracket and liberal sensibilities. At first, I’d chuckle along with the host’s witty antics as he/she jovially poked fun at pop culture trends and the inane goings-on of public figures. Then I’d spend the rest of the evening angrily communicating with my sorbet via violent spoon-digs that ‘I could do that.’

You know that moment in a movie when the main character is teetering at the edge of an abyss? At this crisis point, pretty often a character that you thought was cute but dismissed as comic relief, or maybe at best a foil highlighting important facets of the protagonist’s personality, steps in and says something that (frequently unwittingly) communicates to the protagonist exactly what s/he needs to do in order to resolve the conflict and leave the audience with that cathartic resolution that they so desire.

I went to Atlanta a couple weeks ago for a week-long vacation. It was a great trip in which I got to bake a peach cobbler with my grandmother, hang out with my friends and family, deal with going to a bar and then needing to drive home afterward, and resume my preferred 4am-1pm sleep cycle. At one friend’s birthday party, I was feeling pretty nauseous, something that had been happening once a day for the past week or so. I still valiantly powered through, nursing a glass of white wine as I caught up with my college roommate, Nina, who had returned to Atlanta recently. Nina listened thoughtfully and nodded as I explained my new life plan. She then asked me what the hell I was doing.

I’m not going to be a psychologist. Instead, I’m doing the damn thing. Currently the damn thing game plan is no more specific than “don’t spend any money for ten months” and then make ‘the move’ out to LA when my lease is up in June. It’s likely that I’ll talk myself out of doing this six or seven times until then, but I’m really hoping I don’t in the end. I’m getting too old for Nina to keep making mystical guidance figure appearances in my life, and plane tickets to Atlanta are never as cheap as you’d expect tickets to a ‘hub’ to be. So please indulge me over the next few months as I fantasize about living near the beach, evading the oppressive and unnecessary BS that is ‘winter’, finding an affordable hybrid and adopting a dog that I will name Bear. Incidentally, I haven’t been nauseous since Nina verbally smacked me and shook me to my emotional core.

An Open Birthday Letter to Shira

Dear Shira,

Happy birthday! I bet right now you’re reflecting nostalgically upon years past and contemplating with cautious excitement what experiences and adventures are in store. That’s what birthday celebrations are for, after all. That and presents. Upon further reflection, I bet you’re mostly just thinking about the presents. Specifically the one you’re getting from me. I bet you’re thinking to yourself about all the great presents I’ve given you in years past and contemplating with cautious excitement what I could possibly have in the works for you this time around. Well, unfortunately I’m going to insist you curb your anticipation right now. I don’t have a present for you. I did have a present, and it was great. Like, not just one of those “Gee, thanks, Liz, how thoughtful of you,” type presents. It was a “GOLLY… GOLLY,” type present. What happened to this exclamation-à-les-1950s-worthy gift, you ask? Well, I’ll tell ya:

So I told you I was going to Atlanta for a week, right? Lie! It was all a clever ruse to secure your birthday present. I can’t be terribly specific, but let’s just say I had to board lots of flights, bribe many a customs agent, and my passport is now heavier with ink than a bloated squid. Speaking of squid, I had to learn how to scuba dive. And mountain climb. And parachute from an airplane flying at 30,000 feet directly into the ocean in full scuba gear, thereby making it nearly impossible for the Navy to triangulate my position. Those parachutes can be pretty tricky to navigate in the water, incidentally. I also acquired skills in the arts of stowing away, hand-to-hand combat and carbon dating. But before this birthday note starts to read like a cover letter, I’ll get to the meat of the story.

I had to be pretty careful the whole time I was transporting your gift. Again I can’t be incredibly specific – there is, after all, the possibility that I’ll be able to find a second one and I don’t want to ruin the surprise if that’s the case! – but I can tell you that the gift was incredibly delicate. It was not only structurally unsound, but it also had the capacity to produce an impressive explosive reaction upon coming into contact with water, sugar, sodium or air. Luckily I was able to devise a storage container that allowed for safe transport. Due to the structural protections necessitated by the very delicate gift, the storage container bared an odd resemblance to Michael Jackson. I originally failed to notice this similarity. In fact, it escaped my notice entirely until I reached New York.

Well, as I removed the storage container from its overhead storage bin, the woman who had been sitting next to me during the flight (and who had spent the majority of in-air time knitting baby booties for babies she does not yet have with a husband she does not yet know but will probably meet via eHarmony.com) made note of the container’s eerie Jacksonesque appearance. A few aisles back, a professional eBay vendor of all things appearing to be, but not actually being Michael Jackson overheard her comment and started trying to purchase your present’s protective shell. Valiantly I refused, explaining that this Michael Jackson face contained my dear friend Shira’s birthday present, and as such was a vessel for her very happiness. Then he attacked me!

I fought pretty decently at first. I would throw the storage container into the air, deliver a swift jab to my adversary’s face, and then catch your gift in a Vin Diesel-would-be-jealous-type performance. I then attempted to use a Jedi mind trick on the guy, but he was more intelligent than his ponytail, Hawaiian shirt and neon green Crocs would have made you guess. It was at this point that the eBay adversary knocked me into my seat neighbor and I became tangled in her many many baby booties. Trapped and helpless, I could only watch as the villain grabbed the unintentional ode to MJ and sprinted off. I desperately fought against the oppressive string and baby footwear. Finally freeing myself using my handy pocketknife, I started to pursue the perpetrator in all haste. Unfortunately, airport security saw my handy pocketknife and tackled me to the ground. They were about to arrest me when a sudden blast rocked the terminal. Later I would learn that the evacuation that ensued was attributed in the media to some guy entering the main terminal with what appeared to be bomb parts. But the security team and I know what really happened. We know that the eBay fiend opened the storage container. We know your gift destroyed itself upon contact with the air, eviscerating its captor along with it, and maybe, just maybe, making eBay a better place.

Obviously airport security knew they wouldn’t be able to successfully hold me, what with all my amazing aforementioned skills, so after awhile of intense interrogation, they released me. So that’s why I was a little late to your party. And why I showed up without a gift. We cool?

Happy birthday!

Liz

p.s. Seriously though, can I treat you to a show/beers or something?

My current "wish list":

- The Flip
- Honda CR-Z Hybrid
- An iPhone (I hear they're thinking about a model with projectors!)
- The digitally remastered Beatles albums being released in September and/or "The Beatles: Rock Band"
- The Kindle

Sometimes the lists I make reflect my socio-economic background all too clearly...

Pizza Hut finally stops insisting what it sells has anything to do with pizza...

In a move to update its image for the mobile generation, Pizza Hut is rebranding and will now be known simply as "The Hut". Leaders at the company are convinced that this move will serve them well in the end, changing consumer expectations so there will be no disappointment when the food they are served is more reminiscent of a rickety old shack than of an actual pizza pie.

eHows that bite off more than they can chew, part II

So this is technically a wikiHow, but the point remains:

5/8/09: How to Cheer Up

Get the f*ck over it in just 8 easy steps! Also, from the "tips" section:

"Learning How to Be Optimistic is a good way to ensure cheeriness in the long run."



In other news, the #1 'How To' over at eHow.com is "How to Clean a Dog's Ears"

It's clearly a renter's market

Check out this apartment in Chelsea for only $1600 a month! Now you can conveniently scrub and scramble with ease!

I miss apartment hunting.

You know those "this makes sure you're not a computer" things?

Where you have to get really close the computer screen to decipher what letters/numbers are in a graphic so you can type them in so you can comment on your friend's blog?

Sometimes, I wish those words were real words.

Take "bortne." I think bortne would mean something like, "dissatisfied acquiescence." For example, "Tanya reacted to her boyfriend, Malloy's, desire to see 'Terminator' with a certain degree of bortne."

Fawns are cuddly slutbags

Playing hard to get... unconvincingly!















Clearly about to make out...












Caught in the act!!
























Threesome.

So. Many. Wonderful. Things.

About. This. Family. Portrait.

Fortune cookie fortunes I kept whilst a paralegal

The following are fortune cookie fortunes I refused to throw away whilst a paralegal:

- Idleness is the holiday of fools.
- You have an unusual equipment for success, use it properly.
- Good beginning is half done.
- You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home.
- Serious trouble will bypass you.
- Treasure your good memories and you need not worry about ending a banquet.
- You will make many changes before settling satisfactorily.

I quit!

Announcing a new Bear O Snark Segment: eHows that bite off more than they can chew.

eHow is pretty cool in general, offering step-by-step instructions across a range of topics. Want to learn how to find the right gym? Ask eHow. Want to know how to make a duct tape skirt? eHow it! Interested in how one might purify water in the case of an emergency? eHow do you do! But sometimes eHow gets a little big for its britches. On occasion, such oversteps will appear here, conveniently located on Bearosnark. Take a gander! Today's misadventure:

How to use the Constitution

I weep for the nation.

A really bad idea:

This.

Why: First, a lot of people - especially ones you don't know that well - will be grossed out if you up and hand them a slice of meat. Second, wallets are warm places. Those business cards are gonna start getting smelly and bacteria-y. Not only will your smell drive away some potential business contacts (or pretty ladies), but if you actually manage to hand someone the card, they'll probably get sick and die shortly thereafter. Of course, there might be one person who won't be driven away by your smell, won't die from bacteria exposure and won't be grossed out by you handing him or her a slice of meat. But the type of person that wouldn't be grossed out by that, who would find that sort of thing fun and/or respectable, is also exactly the type of person who would eat that business card, thus losing all of your contact information. Fail.

Then again... meat and lasers...

OK, I'm buying some of these. And then I'm gonna make lots of friends at the "Star Trek" opening !

The way nobody looked up
when she walked into a room made her sad; she
thought of herself as
Someone who wouldn't care about such things,
Such trivial things as being worthy of attention.
So when they didn't look up she explained to herself
that She wasn't bothered,
that She liked keeping to
Herself.
So they kept their heads down until
Someone else walked in.

Over at Cute Overload

(a blog which, not surprisingly, I frequent), this picture was featured with the caption, "if you turn this pic 90 degrees it's a much happier story":














Assholes:

Excellent.

Really Confusing TV Intro - watch more funny videos

OK, so I'm excited about this movie:

But I do have one question... what's up with Meryl Streep being compared with a brown egg while Amy Adams is depicted as a white egg? I've done my research. Brown eggs and white eggs are nutritionally the same, but there are a couple key differences that make this poster way controversial!

First of all, white eggs are cheaper. What are you trying to say, Hollywood? That Amy Adams is some sort of cheap floozy? Or is this some sort of commentary on the industry as a whole, calling for an end to studios bowing to the outrageous salary demands of megastars of Ms. Streep's caliber, especially in these tough economic times?

You know why brown eggs are more expensive? It's because the chickens that lay brown eggs are bigger than the chickens that lay white eggs and require more food. What, Hollywood?! Are you calling Meryl Streep fat? Because if you are, shame on you! The woman's a babe. Or are you instead highlighting the pressure placed on young actresses like Amy Adams to conform to ridiculous standards of beauty, forcing upon starlets restrictive diets and excessive workout routines that ultimately destroy their health, perhaps only after obliterating their self-respect? Huh? What's your angle, movie poster?!

Finally, according to the Egg Nutrition Board, "White shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and ear lobes. Brown shelled eggs are produced by hens with red feathers and red ear lobes." OMG, movie poster! Are you kidding me? Are you trying to suggest that Meryl Streep has red ear lobes? That's ridiculous! I have seen literally thousands of pictures of Meryl Streep in my life and have noticed nary a red ear lobe. Or are you trying to point out that famous Hollywood actors are subject to an insane amount of media scrutiny, that in this industry commercial success is frequently accompanied by almost constant violations of personal privacy with no real avenue of escape, essentially trapping movie stars and their families into a fish-in-a-fishbowl type existence in which all of their flaws and mistakes are scrutinized nonstop?

Verdict: controversy shells.

New, Serious(ish) Blog!

Hi, fart-heads.

I'm sorry, I don't know why I called you all fart-heads. Well I do, actually... see, I wanted to suggest that you all check out my new semi-serious blog (The Bear's Necessities), which will feature the semi-legit discussion of things I actually find pretty interesting. And I wanted to distinguish that blog, my outlet for actual discussion and intellectual investigation in this nebulous ether we understand to be the internet, from this blog, my humor blog, which is supposed to be kinda funny, if only in a half-smile, half-eye roll kind of way. So I got nervous about seriously plugging my serious blog on my fun website, since the tone of a serious plug would contrast with the typically un-serious tone of this blog, delegitimizing the serious plug entirely. So in a moment of desperation, I grasped at straws trying to find the hilarious greeting that would legitimize my legitimate plug of my serious blog by conforming to the typical tone of a legitimate blog post in the context of this less serious blog. So I called you all fart-heads. That was wrong. You should read my new blog anyway. Maybe I'll write something about the social and cultural forces at work that lead some to find humor in the vaguely scatological while others become big poop faces who can't take a joke.

Titular Nonsense

If a Titanic sequel were made, here are some of the names they'd probably consider:

- Titanic II: Hope Floats, Men Sink
- Titanic II: Deep Freeze
- Titanic II: The Dead Sea (or alternatively, Titanic II: Dead in the Water)
- Titanic II: A Rose by Any Other Name (than DeWitt Bukater or Hockley)
- Titanic II: Dawson's Dead, Son
- Titanic II: Two Bodies, One Cupboard

Other ideas?

Area Man Spends Somewhere In Area of 5 Minutes Measuring Area of His Area of Area Apartment

Aerial photographs to be made available soon.

Facebook says I may know a guy named Ironheart

For every fifty people Facebook suggests "you may know" and actually do know but have been actively trying to avoid (and who are clearly actively trying to avoid you since they're probably getting a message saying they might know you too... the door swings both ways, kids), there is one person who you do not know at all and really really really wish you did. For me, that person is a dude who goes by the name Ironheart. I refuse to click on the picture that links to his profile because I'm sure I'll be disappointed (maybe he works in Finance; perhaps he's friends with those kids I hung out with orientation week who refused to expand their social circle as college progressed - save to include Ironheart - and who would quickly look away whenever I passed them on campus for fear that we might make eye contact and they would have to deal with the sad truth that, at least for a week, they had thought I - a person who wanted to form relationships with people for reasons other than our shared experience of having our parents pay for us to attend the same scholastic institution - was cool; possibly, his name is not actually Ironheart). Nope. In exchange for repeated suggestions of people I may know that remind me of high school friendships gone sour, potentially lovely relationships gone awkward and other moments of missed opportunity, I'll keep an image of me in another world, chilling with my pal Ironheart. We'll be watching "Howard the Duck."

In an email I received from career networking site "Doostang":

All-star jobs. Some of our best and brightest in fact. Hurry before they're gone!

VC Associate, Los Angeles, CA

Consultant - Financial Analyst, New York, NY

Business Development Associate, Boston, MA

Senior Associate, Alternative Asset Management, Washington DC

I'm all for being employed, but seriously, if Venture Capital Associate is "in fact" the best and brightest they can come up with, I'll take my chances on poverty. Maybe it's just me, but the idea of competing for a position wherein my chief responsibility would be to manage assets alternatively makes me want to suck my eyes out.

My blog is becoming nothing more than a list of things I find adorable

World's nicest dog meets world's rottenest kid

Excited!

Shallow Musings

You should take pains to not over-dissect, lest you may destroy that which you sought to understand. Like a frog's innards.

Some Notes In My Notebook (and what I think they meant)

"Two golden candy wrappers (Reese's perhaps) rolled into perfect balls and placed in the center of two adjacent subway seats." I like to imagine that these were actually underdeveloped Golden Goose eggs, and that two really negligent Golden Geese were randomly sitting next to one another on the R train when they simultaneously and totally unpredictably each laid a golden egg weeks before their due dates. The really negligent Golden Geese, embarrassed by the incident but touched by their mutually shared experience, ran off together, encouraging one another to throw caution to the wind and waddle away from the responsibilities imposed on them by society.

"Asian newspaper front page photo." I'm not sure which Asian language this newspaper was in (apologies), but the guy next to me on the train one morning was reading a cover story with two accompanying pictures. The larger photo was of a man standing between a bed and a wheelchair, leaning on neither. A smaller photo was superimposed in the lower right hand corner; this photo was of a man's hand reaching for one of a myriad of pill bottles arranged on a mahogany shelf. The arrangement of these two photos seemed to imply, to one who could comprehend the text in no reasonable fashion, a cause/effect relationship, with the stupendous recovery of the man from paralysis being attributed to his consumption of an inordinate amount of medications. If this was actually a huge medical breakthrough, the photo caption seemed like a letdown to me: Man takes plethora of pills... celebrates medical miracle by standing near two things he usually sits on.

"Mr. Pellequin looked like a pelican and also like a penguin." I'm pretty sure a person I saw on my commute one morning inspired this note. I think I was going to use that statement as the introduction to a very uninteresting short story. I'm tempted to write that short story anyway, just to prove to my early morning uncaffeinated commuter self that I wasn't completely wrong.

"Instinct... that freak out at the theatre with the shoe, the purse string snake on the subway and the dolphin-shark." I think this was a late-night commute note. A couple weeks ago, the glint of light hitting the shoe of a improviser doing a side-kick onstage freaked me out because I thought something was flying at my face. This was unfortunate for the people around me as I spazzed out. A couple days later on the way home from work, the tassles on my new purse had wrapped around my thigh and for a split second I thought I saw a snake crawling up my leg. Again spazzed out, again unfortunate for innocent by-sitters. I have no idea what the "dolphin-shark" bit is about.

"NordicTrack open on iPod." Got me?

Is it creativity or is it crack?

It's kids like this one that actually make poppin' one out seem like an OK idea.

Who's a good Slumdog Millionaire? Yesh you are, oh yesh you are!

Who's da Bestest Picture of da year? Isyou, isyou, isyou, isyou, isyou! Would you like anothah tweat? You would?! Of course you would, of course you would! Who's da best at cinematogwaphy, diwecting and editing? Is it... Slumdog? Yesh it's Slumdog! And who has da bestest owiginal score and bestest owiginal song? ... It's Slumdog!! What a good picture, good film! And who's got da bestest Sound in da whole wide entertainment industwy? Isyou, isyou, isyou! Oh, what's dat, Slumdog? Am I forgetting somesing? Oh, how siwwy of me, who's da bestest at wighting in da categowy of scweenplay based on matewial pweviously pwoduced or pubwished? Whadda good Slumdog!

Tom Hanks to Blow Up World

Despite years of playing heroic figures onscreen in hits such as Road to Perdition, Saving Private Ryan, The Da Vinci Code, Apollo 13, Philadelphia and Splash, Tom Hanks has recently announced his intention to destroy the world and potentially other large chunks of the universe by turning on the Large Hadron Collider operated by CERN near Geneva when repairs have been completed. He then immediately apologized for exposing the LHC's nearly limitless destructive power to the world before confirming the existence of such abilities with the LHC first.

In related news, Kevin Kline has signed on for a new romantic comedy to be directed by Frank Oz, tentatively entitled Machine Designed to Simulate the Big Bang & Evil Underground Scientific Lair That Will Create Black Holes Destroying the Earth and Its Surroundings (Paramount Pics).

Times Are Tough

It's true. But in trying episodes such as these, it is absolutely imperative that we all take a moment to remember that this happened and was amazing.

Valentine's Day: Some Advice

Don't be the asshole who sticks his tongue out before the kiss starts.

Also, get her a puppy or she'll probably dump you.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

The beauty of blogging

Is that if you remember a really great and applicable word exists weeks after writing an entry, you can go back and plug it right in. You can then blog about how great it was that you were able to transcend time like that, how you were able to travel back to a moment where you went, "OK, 'christened' will do," and say to yourself, "No! You will not settle! You will reflect and find the perfect word, that ideal thing that will capture the very essence of what you mean to express in a concise collection of sounds!"

Yclept.

A Rabbit I Wish Only Elwood Could See

Is it just me?

Or does President Obama's shadow appear to be mockingly waving goodbye to Dubya in this picture?

Hmm.

Within a period of two months, two separate friends who have never met one another sent me cards. The first card has a picture of a beagle staring up to a table with a pie resting upon it. The second card has a picture of an unidentifiable dog staring up to a table, his attention fixed on a cupcake. I don't really know why cards with dogs staring at pastry laden tables remind people of me, but I'm gonna take it in stride.

Warning: Spoilers Abound

Not for nothing, but this made me giggle. Then I realized the same guy is responsible for the existence of "Two and a Half Men." Such is life.


Addendum: While I was aware of Chuck Lorre's vanity cards and other TV ventures (Dharma & Greg, omg!@**#!), I did a little more research on the guy after writing the above. Seems dude composed (along with Dennis Challen Brown) the music for the Teenage Mutant Ningja Turtles TV series in '87. How the mighty have fallen.

Snibben Story Series

Announcing a new Bear 'O Snark blog project! Several months ago - September 15, 2008 for those of the rigidly time-oriented among you - I was trying to come up with new ways to inspire ideas for short stories. One concept I wanted to try was to take honest answers given by a real person to random questions and then use those answers to create something that bordered between real-life and ridiculous-life. My lovely friend Hibben graciously agreed to take part in the endeavor, providing snippets of her life (Snibbens, if you will) for my creative inspiration. So, without further ado, please enjoy the first in a series of short stories based (extremely loosely) on the life of my good pal Hibben. Try to separate the reality from the fiction, if you dare.


Jewels of the Sole

"Meh, he's probably better off on his own anyway," Hibbany snarled as she caught sight of the whimpering young boy in her rear-view mirror. Her view of the lad sitting on the side of the road about 20 feet away from the now burning wreckage that had once been his family's minivan quickly grew smaller as she sped away in her green Jeep Wrangler. Hibbany typically would not have been overly bothered by a minivan cutting her off in traffic. On any other day, the traffic taboo might have provoked her to tighten her grip on the wheel and mutter something suitably road-ragey to herself (her go-to of the moment was: "I hate you, die in a fire."). Perhaps, in her most severe of moods, Hibbany might tap lightly, politely even, on the car horn, communicating the annoyance caused by the inconsiderate action at a volume that, possibly, would induce in her transgressor the urge to reform. But today was not a typical day. Today, she had committed vehicular manslaughter.

Pushing the accelerator to its limit, Hibbany's Jeep tore down the highway, eliciting stares from passersby (or, rather, those bypassed). Nearly missing her exit, Hibbany rapidly cut across 5 lanes of traffic, leaving a small 3 car pileup in her wake. She did not usually take this road; on any other Tuesday morning, Hibbany would not be on any road at all at this hour. On any other Tuesday morning,Hibanny would be at her desk scarfing down a Starbucks egg, cheese and turkeybacon sandwich. On any other Tuesday morning, Hibbany would be impeccably dressed in an outfit selected with the utmost care and patience ("I want to wear my white jacket; I bet my purple dress would look nice under it...ugh fuck the purple dress is dirty. Uhhhhh OK, I haven't worn that pink dress in awhile, that'll do. OK now gold or silver accessories? I feel like I wear a lot of gold, but my silver necklace is too long for this outfit. Fine I'll go with gold... ugh I wear this gold necklace too much. Oh I know! I haven't worn these pearls in awhile...why are my bangs doing that?") But it was not a typical Tuesday morning. On this Tuesday morning, Hibbany was still in her pajamas (flannel shorts andGW hoodie ) and semi-shoeless. That is, she had no shoes on her feet. She did, however, have a pair of adorable gold flats next to her on the passenger seat. Something was amiss.

A beam of sunlight struck the shoes and they glittered in response. This caught Hibbany's eye for a moment, further fueling her anger. The shoes, which until this Tuesday morning had been lovingly referred to as Hibbany's Princess Pumps (despite the fact that Hibbany was neither a princess nor were her flats pumps), were the source of Hibbany's seething rage on this quite atypical Tuesday morning. That was because it had been discovered on this particular Tuesday morning, as Hibbany was in the process of assembling her outfit, that the diamonds embedded in the souls of the shoes (given to Hibbany by Sir Elton John himself) had been stolen. Only one person could be responsible for this heinous offense: Duchess Myrna Minkoff.

Myrna had stolen something else from Hibbany the previous summer: her boyfriend, Thom. Thom had been a "student" in the US Naval Academy and was reasonably dreamy. Thom would write to Hibbany every day, even if they had seen each other or spoken on the phone. Despite the extensive practice, Thom was not very good at writing love letters. His vocabulary was simple, his language direct. The few times he tried to be romantic on paper, he wrote poems comparing their love to boats, the sea, harbors, various marine creatures and other aquatic entities with which he was very familiar. Still, a nice effort. After two years together, the duchess had lured Thom away with promises of his own naval command. Thom had assumed that Myrna had been referring to the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom; instead, he found himself the captain of her Myrna's father's best yacht. Sadly, with his fate already sealed following his brazen defection from the US Navy and an incredibly awkward breakup note to Hibbany (simply a postcard of DeLoutherbourg's The Defeat of the Spanish Armada), Thom had no recourse but to stay with the deceptive duchess, Myrna Minkoff. On the bright side, Myrna was always in a bathing suit.

In addition to her enjoyment of her father's yachts and her interest in ruining the careers of potential American naval heroes, Myrna had one additional pastime: jewel thievery. It wasn't about the money; her father had enough of that. It wasn't even for the thrill resulting from successfully sneaking past security systems of all varieties - in a bikini - unnoticed and emerging with a valuable treasure. Myrna's obsession: to become the duchess with the strangest and most stolen jewel collection in history. Myrna Minkoff had unique goals.

Most people would not have suspected average, everyday Hibbany to own diamonds that would be of much consequence. Most people would not have suspected average, everyday Hibbany to have interned for Sir Elton John. Most people would not have suspected average everyday Hibbany to have done such an impressive job while interning for Elton John that, upon completion of the internship, average, everyday Hibbany was given a pair of adorable gold (real gold) flats with pink diamonds cut into the shape of an E and a J, respectively, embedded in the souls. Most people, however, are not former US Naval Academy "students" who have dropped out of the US Naval Academy and now spend all their free time catering to the whims of a royal bikini-clad jewel thief. That is, Thom knew about Hibbany's shoe jewels.

Hibbany slammed on the brakes as her Jeep careened into a parking space at the marina. A quick scan of the docked boats revealed the probable yacht, a pink monstrosity yclept "Royalties." As Hibbany approached, her suspicions were all but confirmed as the air immediately surrounding the yacht permeated with the scent of liquor, perfume, marijuana and incense to cover up the smell of marijuana. Hibbany stealthily boarded the vessel, unwilling or unable to consider the dangers that could lie ahead. She presumed herself caught when she heard someone running in her direction. With nowhere to hide, Hibbany braced herself for discovery. To Hibbany's relief, the runner was simply an excessive partyer whose excessive partying had led to sudden and irrepressible sickness. Hibbany groaned as she watched the girl vomit over the side of the ship and then collapse on the deck and pass out. Approaching the unconscious wretch, Hibbany forgot her anger and purpose for a moment, leaning over to check the girl's breathing. "YOU!" Hibbany whirled around. She had not heard Myrna Minkoff emerge from below deck. "How did you get here? Security!" Before Hibbany could react, two men ascended from below and grabbed her.

Moments later, Hibbany had been redeposited on the pier and the Royalties had cast off. "No!" Hibbany shouted, vomit on her bare feet and tears streaming down her face. "No, my pink Elton John diamonds! I killed a family, and possibly others, with my reckless driving! Curse you, Myrna Minkoff ! If I ever get my hands on you, I'll choke the life out of you with your own bikini strings!" Defeated, a hunched over Hibbany slowly turned to trudge her way back to the parking lot. At the other end of the dock waiting for her, she could just make out the figures of two uniformed police officers. "Ohhhhh Jesus," Hibbany thought to herself, "I killed a family... and possibly others... and just threatened a duchess..." And with that, Hibbany dove into the water and attempted to escape almost certain incarceration.

Several weeks later, Hibbany finally made bail and was released back out into society. As she arrived home, exhausted and entirely over neon orange jumpsuit ensembles, Hibbany sulked over to her mailbox, now overflowing with bills, Victoria's Secret catalogs and, ironically, several jury summonses. Hibbany's eyes started to water as she felt the full effect of Myrna's Elton John shoe diamond theft. She was about to break down into all out sobs on her front lawn when her tear-filled eyes zoomed in on the one piece of mail that was neither bill nor lingerie catalog nor command to perform one's civic duty. Curious and sniffly , Hibbany opened the small manila envelope with no return address. A tiny Zip-lock baggie held the commandeered shoe diva diamonds! There was no note, but Hibbany knew who had returned her treasured shoe jewels. The faint aroma of salt and moisture clung to the envelope. Perhaps it was the smell of seawater. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the scent of the heartsick tears shed by a broken man taking his one last stand against a bikini clad jewel stealing duchess. Hibbany would never know for sure. But now, at least, she could use the diamonds to pay her legal fees.

Screw you, Robert Palmer!

I'm clearly NOT gonna have to face it!

Mind-Control Games

According to a USA Today report, we may soon be seeing the mass-marketing of brain-to-computer products in the form of "mind-control games". These games translate brain-wave activity into physical action and will further assist children in the quest to play while remaining as motionless as possible.

I do love Fun Dip and Cherry Coke...

I wish LFO had written a song about liking girls who wear Urban Outfitters. I think that would've sent a better message to the country at large. And it probably would've boosted my self-esteem at an important developmental juncture.

CNN "special" report

CNN reports that CNN journalist and CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, has been approached by President-elect Barack "CNN" Obama to serve as Surgeon General, according to sources at CNN.