A Breath of Fresh Bear

Sale Alert!

2010-02-05T14:21:00.003-05:00

Buy a funny red jacket, get a panda absolutely free!**Shoes not included.

The story here.

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

2009-12-22T15:15:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-11-13T10:08:00.001-05:00

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?

2009-11-13T01:52:00.003-05:00

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

Movie Marketing 101

2009-11-07T02:13:00.005-05:00

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:

2009-10-09T13:57:00.002-04:00

Otters Gone Wild!

For Shira. Link via The Daily Otter

Dog Court Improv

2009-09-19T01:08:00.004-04:00

#&!@ caution.

So I'm taking this writing class...

2009-09-16T22:29:00.005-04:00

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

2009-09-14T14:13:00.004-04:00

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?

2009-09-09T10:30:00.003-04:00

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.

2009-08-12T01:46:00.002-04:00

(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

2009-08-02T14:59:00.003-04:00

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":

2009-07-14T13:56:00.002-04:00

- 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...

2009-06-20T13:24:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-08T23:13:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-08T10:55:00.002-04:00

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?

2009-05-28T12:29:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-18T16:47:00.005-04:00

Playing hard to get... unconvincingly!

Clearly about to make out...

Caught in the act!!

Threesome.

So. Many. Wonderful. Things.

2009-05-13T11:50:00.003-04:00

About. This. Family. Portrait.

Fortune cookie fortunes I kept whilst a paralegal

2009-05-13T10:51:00.004-04:00

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.

2009-05-12T13:07:00.002-04:00

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:

2009-05-07T17:44:00.003-04:00

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 !

2009-05-01T03:30:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-27T23:32:00.004-04:00

(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.

2009-04-10T16:17:00.001-04:00

Really Confusing TV Intro - watch more funny videos

OK, so I'm excited about this movie:

2009-04-08T14:34:00.004-04:00

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!

2009-04-07T17:35:00.004-04:00

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

2009-04-06T00:45:00.005-04:00

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

2009-03-30T16:01:00.003-04:00

Aerial photographs to be made available soon.

Facebook says I may know a guy named Ironheart

2009-03-27T02:14:00.006-04:00

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":

2009-03-24T16:02:00.005-04:00

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

2009-03-16T01:36:00.001-04:00

World's nicest dog meets world's rottenest kid

2009-03-14T23:46:00.003-04:00

Excited!

2009-03-04T23:51:00.000-05:00

Shallow Musings

2009-03-04T00:52:00.005-05:00

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)

2009-03-02T14:15:00.011-05:00

"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?

2009-02-26T17:50:00.002-05:00

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!

2009-02-23T10:55:00.003-05:00

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

2009-02-18T23:49:00.004-05:00

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

2009-02-18T23:38:00.003-05:00

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

2009-02-13T12:28:00.006-05:00

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.

2009-02-06T16:30:00.011-05:00

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

2009-02-06T11:27:00.003-05:00

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

2009-01-29T17:43:00.003-05:00

Is it just me?

2009-01-28T15:02:00.003-05:00

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

Hmm.

2009-01-28T12:07:00.001-05:00

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

2009-01-26T18:09:00.003-05:00

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

2009-01-17T14:26:00.010-05:00

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!

2009-01-15T11:43:00.003-05:00

I'm clearly NOT gonna have to face it!

Mind-Control Games

2009-01-09T21:53:00.005-05:00

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...

2009-01-09T10:19:00.003-05:00

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

2009-01-06T17:19:00.004-05:00

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.

One time I was in a club

2008-12-25T17:10:00.003-05:00

And this guy rated me 'an 8'. At first, I found this strategy of giving a girl a "room for improvement" rating ill-advised, or at least questionable. But then I found myself kind of admiring the guy's honesty. Point of the story: it's easy to be a dude in Manhattan.

Merry Christmas!

If I had live blogged my trip to airport this morning, it would've read something like this:

2008-12-24T18:08:00.006-05:00

[For the busiest/most impatient of my dedicated readers, the really exciting stuff starts around 5:43am.]

5:10am – Wakey wakey, eggs and bac-ey!

5:18am – Ok, if I put the two makeup cases in my suitcase it makes the carry-on too fat for the overheard storage bins. But if I put the two makeup cases in my purse, they make the purse super wide and unwieldy. Even if I wanted to abandon one, I’d have to go through each of them individually and reorganize what to take and what to leave and who has time for that? When did I become the type of girl that can't fit all her makeup into one damn case? Wait, where did my cute new hat go? I really wanted to take that hat! It’s actually cool, and I like looking cool when confronted with high school classmates. Oh, hey, if I shift my boots this way then there’s more room for the makeup cases…

5:25am – Alright, need to leave in 2 minutes, everything’s good. I’m dressed, deodored, my suitcase is shut (and of the appropriate storable size), boots are on (should I really take the brown ones? I’m wearing a black cuddly sweatshirt for the flight… do they look stupid together? Well, I should take them, they’re the only cute brown winter shoes I have, really. Oh, and this way I can take my green skirt! Ugh, I hate myself…), computer in bag, iPod charged… sweet!

5:34am – Where the hell is that hat? At this point I’m more concerned that I’ve lost it altogether than I am about bringing it. Last seen on my head on the way home from work last night. Hmm, not on the table or the kitchen counter. Oh I ordered Indian last night. But I wasn’t wearing the hat when it came. What if it’s in the trash can? Checking the trash can… why would it be in the trash can?? Oh god, late now, forget the stupid hat! It’s too trendy anyway, you hate that.

5:37am – Great, out the door. Didn’t slip on the stairs, that was good. Leaving the building, I’m surprised by a woman who’s walking super close the fence outside my apartment building. She’s clinging to it and warns me that the sidewalk is super slippery. She’s pretty right. Basically the entirety of Brooklyn is covered in a minuscule, invisible, but absolutely effective layer of ice. Oh yeah, and those brown boots I insisted on wearing? No traction. At all.

5:38am – Reach my corner; contemplate going into the WaMu to put on better walking shoes. Abandon idea… only other shoes I brought are heals and my Vans, which aren’t that much better in traction terms. Girls are dumb. Girls who wear Vans are worse.

5:43am – Woman starts yelling for help across the street. Uh oh. Stupidly respond to pleas for assistance from what appears to be a crazy bag lady. “But it’s Christmas Eve, you have to help her.” “But she’s a crazy bag lady, and I’m running a bit behind schedule.” “You might be a bag lady one day.” “Yeah, and I’ll have the good sense not to be outside in the winter at 5am; that’s no condition for… wandering around with bags.” “Well that’s irrelevant anyway, you’ve responded to her. You’re engaged now; you know you’ll feel way awkward if you ignore her.” “Fuckity.”

5:44am – Help crazy bag lady walk a few blocks on the ice mass that is Brooklyn, NY after she is nearly hit by a van (as people who are standing in the middle of the street making no attempt to move out of the path of oncoming traffic might expect to be, but logic is apparently totally irrelevant in the real world). Learn that crazy bag lady is not actually a crazy bag lady, but is in fact a 55-year-old woman who is being driven crazy by her mother who lives with her and hoards things. She tells me she was out this morning to throw some of those hoarded things away, since this is the only hour she can get away with such actions. I don’t feel the need to ask the crazy lady why a simple action like throwing something away would require walking any more than a few steps away from ones apartment, thus necessitating assistance on the several blocks slide home. I’m just happy she feels the urge to get breakfast now; because that’s normal.

5:54am – Finally arrive at subway station… wanted to be here at 5:45am latest so I could catch the 6:30am bus to Newark. Oh well, the train will probably be here soon.

6:10am – Train arrives. Lazy jerk. Sit next to lots of guys who look like they work in construction or some other industry that actually requires labor whilst at work. The smell of sawdust and/or dried concrete powder permeates the subway car. Think about how I probably get paid more for far less real work. Feel guilty. World kinda sucks and is unjust and stuff. Oooh, “Jump” comes on the iPod.

6:35am – Emerge from the subway depressingly close (but just too late) to the bus’s scheduled departure time. Do some mental calculations… “if you catch the 7am bus, you’ll be cutting it close but you should be at Newark by 7:30ish, and that’ll give you like half an hour to get through security and get to the gate for boarding, which should start around 7:55.” Cool.

7:12am – WHERE IS THE BUS?

7:17am – Ok, everything is fine… I’ll only have about 10 minutes to get through security, but it’s fine. Everyone’s on the bus, we’re on the way. We’re even hitting the lights pretty nicely.

7:45am – OH MY GOD WHY ARE WE STILL IN MANHATTAN? We have been stuck at the same intersection for almost 20 minutes and the driver WILL NOT think about an alternate route EVEN THOUGH WE CAN SEE A RAMP OF BUSES MOVING DECENTLY 50 YARDS AWAY. Finally a couple passive aggressive women bitch and moan enough for the driver to UM, DO HER JOB AND DRIVE. Y’know, that whole way with dealing with life typically annoys me, but it gets shit done. I can’t believe I'm gonna miss Christmas because I stopped to help that crazy bag lady. Stupid.

7:55am – On the phone with Dad, like 13 Delta agents and getting a little hysterical about how I’m going to be calm no matter what. My flight is boarding now and we’re still 30 minutes from Newark. Delta says there are no seats available on any flights out of Newark today and I’ll have to go tomorrow morning instead. I ask if they can check other airlines; they claim they can’t but I know they used to. Assholes. Dad finds out there’s a flight going out of LaGuardia at 4pm. Call Delta back and reserve a spot on that flight since I’ve probably missed mine. They tell me to call back when I’m sure the flight has left Newark so they can edit my reservation. Because I, on the bus, have access to Delta flight information and can tell when the flight has left. OH WAIT, I’M A PERSON, THEY’RE DELTA AND HAVE ACCESS TO THAT SORT OF INFORMATION.

8:25am – Arrive at Newark Airport, Terminal B. Thank the driver when she unloads my bag from under the bus. Feel pretty good about myself for being polite since she’s the reason (along with my good samaritan-ness) I’ve missed my plane and not might make it back home for Christmas. Feel defeated by life, and think karma is a sham.

8:26am – Enter terminal and look for departure screen to verify that the plane has departed so I can confirm my new flight. Flight #847 to Atlanta… BOARDING! Look around frantically for some Delta rep to let them know I’m here and that I’m coming and that I will do all sorts of degrading things if they’ll just please please please hold the plane. Only 2 Delta people are around and they’re both helping people… there’s a line… I could maybe cut in front and just ask what I should do… it’s the holidays, which means people will either be generous and ok with that or be totally stressed out and will yell at me and make me cry… shuffle back and forth, confused… accidentally get in the AirFrance line… start running towards Security (which I’m sure is a smart thing to do in a period of heightened alert).

8:28am – The guy who checks your ID and Boarding Pass is taking LITERALLY FOREVER with some foreign family. Let them through! They’re a nice family of 7! They’re from Europe! Two of them are old! Dah!

8:35am – Make it through Security and sprint towards the gate, sans shoes. Think fleetingly about how I could compare myself to Shoeless Joe Jackson, then realize that I'm basing that comparison solely on the commonality of being shoeless; consider reading up a little more on baseball, but conclude that I really don't care enough to bother. First automatic sidewalk is broken. Second one works. Hop on and continue running. Scare young child on end of sidewalk… she was keeping 20 feet back from her mom, as kids do sometimes… only then she sees a crazy lady sprinting towards her (still no shoes)... desire for independence crushed, she rushes to her mother's side. Oh well, I’m teaching her to not wander too far. This is Jersey. Shit’s dangerous. Good life lesson.

8:37am – Arrive at gate with another dude who is equally late. We are both overjoyed to learn that the pilots are stuck in traffic on the way from Manhattan (surprise!)… planes can’t leave without them!

9:12am – Did I brush my teeth?

Over 13 years ago...

2008-12-21T15:06:00.002-05:00

... a footnote was included in a rather thick novel that, over 13 years later at 3am on a Saturday night, would induce in a 22-year-old professional woman an irrepressible fit of laughter that would not be abated, as it should have been, by concerns of waking those within a close proximity to her bedroom. Rather, the fit could only gradually dim and disintegrate as it was overcome by sheer awe at having been given the privilege of sharing a laugh with the author over 13 years ago, others who enjoyed the footnote before her and those who would enjoy the footnote in years to come.

Books are neat.

Confusion:

2008-12-18T12:06:00.004-05:00

How come Ziploc baggies always come out of the box closed? How could that possibly be helpful to anyone?

Oprah, Once Again, Sensible

2008-12-08T17:38:00.005-05:00

Oprah does lots of sensible things. She endorses the right people. She guest stars on the right shows. She gives presents to audience members that have been vetted with greater scrutiny than certain Presidential candidates' VP picks. A new addition to Oprah's list of sensible actions: Oprah reacts sensibly to the idea of a grilled chocolate and brie sandwich.

Oprah: at least 4, Giada De Laurentiis: 0

UCBT-LA gets Jon Hamm??

2008-12-02T17:51:00.006-05:00

Ok, I get that this was cool. And yes, perhaps my comedic sensibilities and nostalgic impulses feel strained upon the the realization that I do not appreciate Robin Williams' surprise appearance at UCB a couple weeks ago nearly enough (presumably because I wasn't there to witness the miraculous, hilarious event myself). But damn it, I'm an adult now, and I want this:

I'm moving to Cali. Like, right now.

Foxstamp Murphy Sketch Comedy Premier(e) Show

2008-12-01T17:12:00.003-05:00

Announcing the debut of my sketch group, Foxstamp Murphy, comprised of 4 of the funniest Columbia grads to grace the streets of NYC and Gabe.

Foxstamp Murphy is:

Shira Danan
Matt Kantrowitz
Gabe Miner
Liz Varner
Olivia Whelan

Check us out online at www.myspace.com/foxstamp or IN PERSON at our debut performance at the Triad Theatre (72nd and Broadway) this Saturday Dec. 6th at 9:00pm. Tickets are $10/$5 w/ a valid student ID with a 2 drink minimum. It'll be hella awesome, for reals.

Tired of all the mixed signals, she threw herself into oncoming traffic...

2008-11-20T00:51:00.001-05:00

A penny for your thoughts? Nay!

2008-11-19T23:20:00.014-05:00

At least a quarter! After much urging by ardent supporters and friends bored stiff at their day jobs, here is an update to my quarter life crisis project. For $0.25 in New York City (or its burroughs) you can purchase:

Balls! This particular item is available throughout the metropolitan area in a variety of sizes, colors and levels of elasticity (surprisingly, however, they all seem to come in the exact same shape!). Those pictured here I found especially nice due to the preponderance of orange hues; however, while sizes of available bouncy balls around town did vary, I did note a decided decrease in average size as compared to my childhood memories of the majority of bouncy balls encountered. Although, again, this might have been symptomatic of my formerly tiny hands.

You can say a lot of things about the Lower East Side. But why waste energy or time talking about a place where $0.25 can't even buy you a properly constructed extra large plastic die? (For those of you not in the know, a die's opposing sides are suppose to add up to 7... spot the error if you dare.)

What's there to do in Douglaston, Queens, you ask? Well lots probably, but finding a decent engagement ring for a quarter dollar certainly isn't a viable way to pass the time in this upper crust section of Kevin James' fiefdom. Is it so much to ask that the plastic jewel be auto-hot glued in the center of the faux-gold ring? Romance is dead. But I digress.

Monkey, see?! In Brooklyn (clearly the best of the suburroughs, despite its commute that makes me want to strangle myself and those bunched around me on the subway with my purse straps), you can buy a friggin' monkey for 25 cents! Now that, my friends, is an improvement from the days of yore. Monkeys were definitely not available for purchase in the small town in Georgia where my tenderest years were spent. Although I'm pretty sure I could legally rent a tractor.

I cheated a little on this one, I will admit. I broke a rule I had held to steadfastly (miso soup arguments aside) and spent TWO quarters on this little find. But I couldn't help myself. I was on the UWS... things are expensive there... and I was drinking. The best part about this purchase was that this little plumber dude is actually just one in a set of ten "white trash" figurines. I want to meet the person who is actually trying to amass the collection in its entirety. "Come on, please let it be Drunk Truck Driver, please oh please!" *Clink, clink, crank, sssss, thmp* "STD-infested diner lady again? That makes 7! Son of a-." I think we'd be friends. And I think s/he'd be an ibanker.

Caring is creepy?

2008-11-10T16:58:00.012-05:00

So it turns out I'm a big jerk and it took a blog 'experiment' to really elucidate that fact for me. A bunch of time ago (Sept. 10th, if you'll scroll down a couple ticks), I decided to make fun of strangers and, to a lesser extent, my dear friend Flo's audacity in hoping to find some sort of meaningful connection with another human being on this emotionally crippling cement island I have isolated myself upon. That was douche of me. Not because Flo didn't think my idea was smashing good fun, but because I was setting literally everyone else up for failure, and in retrospect that's not all that nice. My bad, strangers. Many apologies, Flo's hopes and aspirations

I set up my profile, which was a nice blend of good-natured sarcasm, free-spiritedness and chutzpah. It also included important personal details like my aversion to wasabi (since remedied), my unnatural appreciation for the movie Independence Day and the standard list of books I provide, when requested, that is meant to impart to my judges a well-rounded literary background without actually communicating my preferences, saving me from scathing critique of the obscurity, low quality, pretentiousness or played-outtedness of my favored texts. (Just because I read Grisham on the subway doesn't mean I'm not a person, you elitist fuck.) (Nor does it imply that I consider it good literature, plebeian.) I then prepared for the grotesque responses that I would hyperbolize for my own purposes.

Who knows why I anticipated such negative fodder for my silly little blog. Perhaps it was the anonymity of the internet that I figured would allow men (or women) to saturate my inbox with messages containing the sort of depravity that would make my grandmothers weep. Maybe it was my assumption that all men (or women!) are shameless sex-fiends with an innate business sense allowing them to capitalize on a search engine capable of locating many of the loneliest of city women, starving for attention and affection, surviving on hope inspired by the matchiness of internet-based personality tests alone. Could be I had had a bad commute, the soul-crushing kind characterized not so much by the observation of human viciousness as by the depraved indifference that 98% of commuters pretend to exhibit in response. In any event, I giddily awaited the responses I would get from the assumed plethora of lecherous hooligans lurking in the tangles of the interweb, counting on the creepiness of people to supply me with ample material at a point when I was otherwise uninspired.

As the old proverb goes, "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me." I think that's kind of unfair, because I really don't think I made an ass of anybody but myself in this situation. (I will also point out that anybody who would say that phrase in any amount of seriousness would be, for all intents and purposes, an ass.) But good news for humans: I'm an ass! I was surprised to discover that the vast majority of messages I received were... well... really nice. There were a couple chuckle-worthy attempts (dude commented on how hot I was before my picture was up; dude sent me two identical messages a month apart, both in which he professed to have just discovered my profile and to have instantly fallen in love with me), but for the most part the messages were semi-thoughtful (dudes had actually read my profile and asked questions about information found therein) and not even a little creepy (despite my darndest attempts to look at them as such).

This was unfortunate partially because it gave me a stunning lack of blog-spiration, but mostly because it made me realize I'd been being callous and drawing from an "everything sucks and has gone to hell" place, rather than a "lots of things suck, but maybe pointing them out and getting people to think about them can actually improve things" place. So I'm starting to approach, I hope, that second place with my whole comedy/writing/thinking-about-shit thing. So although the experiment failed miserably, it sort of failed super happily in the long run. Yeah, I'm sure many of those bros were just feeding lines to get some, hoping to take advantage of the fragile young thing than I am. But I'm also gonna go out on a limb and hope that some of them weren't. We'll see how that goes.

Oh yeah, and on a clearly related but causationally/correlationally questionable note: gObama!

I think...

2008-10-24T01:10:00.010-04:00

... you can learn a great deal about a person by their reaction to reaching the subway train just as the doors have closed.

How creeped out can I get after 4 years in NYC: An Experiment

2008-09-10T01:33:00.006-04:00

Fear not, $0.25 for 25 days shall continue on, but another investigation to add to the mix!

Inspired by my friend Flo - who is essentially me (a Euro History major at Barnard, currently a paralegal in Midtown living in Park Slope) but Asian and better at video games - I have created an account on okcupid.com, a terrifying website that attempts to predict everlasting love based on extremely scientific personality tests (ex. the "Superhero Archetype" quiz and the "Which Color M&M Are You?" quiz). Of course, this sort of relevant information in combination with the details available in my carefully constructed profile (favorite books strategically listed to appear intelligent but not too pretentious, activities in which I no longer participate, interests about which I am for the most part dispassionate, etc...) provides a completely accurate picture of myself as a person, how well my suitor and I will get along and how fantastic our sex life will be!

Now, Flo is not the only friend that inspires this blog post/experiment. My roommate, Shira, frequently posts some of the ridiculous/adorable/ hilarious emails her company receives from curious kiddies in her blog. And if we can find humor in the total inability of children to engage in logical follow-through, then it must be possible to find the hilarity in the creepy messages I am bound to receive! Since my profile's completion at 1:00am today (approx. 33 minutes ago), I have already received 3 messages and 1 "five star rating," whatever that means. As of now, the messages have been pretty mundane; but if all goes well, some really terrifying dudes will think I'm pretty and the laughs will roll. As a proud Barnard grad, I am stepping up and Taking Back the Site; I will not fear the terror - the terror will fear me! Or, like, I'll get bored and delete the account.

Confession: I am already a little in love with some dude's profile. The "I thought meeting people in real life was the way to go" romantic in me finds this sad, but I think it will ultimately make for a funny story to tell our grandkids.

Further confession: Incorporating my inspirational friends into my blog post was inspired by my friend, Hibben. Who can now die happy.

My project needed kelp

2008-09-05T02:09:00.009-04:00

So today I was going to use a portion of my lunch break to find a 25 cent treat in the area around my office on 59th and Lex. I was very excited about this, primarily because I tend to crave the impossible. And finding a reasonably priced item in Midtown East is about as feasible as resolving the "who's the better superhero, Batman or Superman?" debate. I digress.

Alas, as sometimes happens in the fast-paced, action packed world of the litigation paralegal, my lunch was canceled due to a rather sudden deadline, which, if missed, could only result in chaos, fire and brimstone. Fortunately for the world (and unfortunately for those with their money on 9/4/08 in the Armageddon pool at the office), I skipped my lunch break and persisted. The focus, intense; the hilarity, minimal. I trudged on, past my normal frozen yogurt break, through my typical blog perusal and facebook checking hiatus, even beyond my daily quitting time.

Still in my cubicle at 8:30pm, my stomach reminded me that I'm a human and I ordered dinner. There are some slight perks to being a super-paralegal/saving the world from ultimate destruction. One such plus is $10 towards dinner from the firm if one stays two hours past departure time.

Sushi! One seamlessweb.com visit and 30 minutes later, my food had arrived: a spicy tuna roll and a seaweedy tub of miso soup. Total (w/ tip): $10.25. Total (w/ tip) - firm overtime $10 dinner deal: $0.25. That's right, ladies and gents. Bitch got miso soup for a quarter. As evidenced above, the soup was about 20% broth and 80% wakame. So it's possible to get some broth for $0.05 and some seaweed for $0.20. Mom would be so proud. (Note: I am aware that based on the above logic it is equally possible that bitch got a sushi roll for a quarter or gave the delivery dude a 25 cent tip; however, I find the implications of paying $0.25 for raw fish equally disturbing as being a cheap asshole. So I paid 25 cents for miso soup.)

Incidentally, the answer is definitely Batman.

Labor's Sticky.

2008-09-01T17:22:00.007-04:00

Purchase #1! Made today (day 'o labor) outside of the Met grocery store in Park Slope. As hoped (who knew the odds, it was a vending machine that distributed random toys!), a sticky green hand!

We outsource sticky hand manufacturing nowadays.

I then got to the playing. When I was little, as I might have mentioned, I would throw sticky hands against car windows. Now, I throw them on Picasso's "Guernica." Movin' on up!

When I was young, I would also gleefully throw sticky hands onto the ceiling, thinking it immense fun to have my parents retrieve a ladder to fetch them back down. My ceiling sticky hand stickage would result in the confiscation of my sticky hands. But it was worth it.

Now that I have to climb to unstick sticky hands from the ceiling myself, I have realized, in retrospect, that I was kind of an asshole.

Purchase #1 in the Amassed Purchases Box (APB).

Some other things that APB stands for:

Accounting Principles Board (accountants)
All Points Bulletin (law enforcers)
Advanced Peripheral Bus (Advanced Microcontroller Bus architects)
Atrial Premature Beat (abnormal hearts)
Anti Pass Back (parking management and really lame club bouncers)

Quarter Life Crisis

2008-08-19T13:02:00.006-04:00

As many of my peers are faced with indecision and uncertainty following their graduation from college and entrance into the "real world," quite a few of them find themselves experiencing a "quarter life crisis." This depresses me no end, in part because it means my friends are unhappy and in part because it implies they will all die somewhere around the age of 88-92.

Personally, I anticipate living until the ripe old age of 117 (at which point I plan to OD on heroine), so my quarter life crisis should come around the age of 29.25. As a result, I cannot at all identify with the life-in-transit crisis that my dudes are experiencing. I can, however, reflect on the absurd depreciation of the value of a quarter in our modern economy and the profound sense of loss I feel as a result.

Now, unlike my mother, I cannot recall a time when a quarter could buy you a Coke (and a smile!) and a couple pieces of candy at the corner store. However, I can recall a period in which a quarter could get you a massive handful of candy (although I suppose my hands were smaller), most of which would end up on the ground (damn you, tiny hands!). A quarter was also enough to get a really cool toy, like a bouncy ball infused with glitter, a rubber finger puppet, a temporary tattoo or maybe - just possibly - one of those jelly-like sticky elastic things that you could fling onto the car window on the way home from the grocery store, or maybe at your little brother's face.

Well, America, I may not be having a quarter life crisis myself, but I am worried about the state of a quarter dollar for us all. It is with this in mind that I embark on my newest (and most exciting!) project: $0.25 for 25 days! That's right, you guessed it... we're gonna test how far a quarter can go in the world of today (and in the City of New York, no less). After the purchasing period has ended, the amassed tchotchkes will be analyzed, and we will know better the value of a quarter in the world in which we live relative to, say, a purchase at Starbuck's and, perhaps more importantly, how much better off we were as kids than the runts being raised today.

Rotten things to do to Post-Its

2008-07-29T08:44:00.001-04:00

Stick Post-It to felt. Remove Post-It. Attempt to stick Post-It to anything else. Mock Post-It’s inability to perform.

Affix the adhesive strip of one Post-It to the adhesive strip of another Post-It, forming a long rectangle. Call the sum a piece of paper.

Find old school Post-It pad that is stacked accordion-style (as opposed to the currently popular pad-stacking-style). Find calm cat. Attach first Post-It on pad to cat’s collar. Find laser pointer. Release cat, taunting with laser pointer dot as you do so. Please note: small dogs can be substituted for calm cats; pad-stacked-style Post-Its cannot be substituted for accordion-style Post-Its.

Write something really important on a Post-It. Start to frame Post-It. Stop suddenly and yell, “Oh my God! What am I doing?! This is important! I can’t use a Post-It!” Sneer. Cast Post-It aside.

Tell Post-Its you’re switching to miniature legal pads. Do so on a Post-It.

R.I.P. Elizabeth Varner's Youth

2008-05-14T09:30:00.002-04:00

January 20th, 1986 - May 15th, 2008

She was young. She was hip. She was so beautiful.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Elizabeth Varner's 401K.

'Ello, Govna

2008-03-14T21:37:00.004-04:00

Lieutenant Gov. David Paterson is set to become the Governor of New York State Monday following the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Paterson will make history as the state's first African American governor. But, perhaps even more significantly, Paterson will also be the first legally blind governor in U.S. history.

Finally, this neglected segment of society will be represented in the highest office of the State, giving a voice to those without vision.

Dr. E. Varnberg's "A Brief History of Time"

2008-03-04T12:49:00.002-05:00

Sun.
Sand.
Gears.
Electrical power supplies.
Ralph Nader attempting to destroy all things good because he should be allowed to.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a rat's antebellum

2008-03-03T00:46:00.005-05:00

I went to an international school. Subsequently, me and US History, not the best of amigos. Usually this only gets me into serious trouble when I laugh at what is recognizably an American historical reference, albeit one with which I am unfamiliar, at a comedy show or on TV, and the person next to me asks me to explain the joke. Unable to admit that I had only pretended to understand the quip, I begin the futile endeavor of trying to explain why the reference was hysterical in only the vaguest of terms. It's kind of like watching presidential hopefuls campaign in sparsely populated grocery stores.

This lack of a practical working knowledge of US History brings me to my most recent scholarly embarrassment… my lack of recognition of the term “antebellum.” Now, let’s not exaggerate my stupidity here (despite the inherent entertainment value this would bring to the blog). I knew we were talking about something that happened after the American Revolution and before the "war of northern aggression". – I would like to take this moment to celebrate the fact that in some of Atlanta’s more elite private schools it was not unusual for 16-year-old boys to begin a night of heavy drinking with a toast “fucking Sherman”. – In any event, it was time to start some serious soul-searching in order to determine what “antebellum” really meant.

“Ante” – from Latin, meaning “before.” Cool.

“Bellum” – from the French “belle”, meaning “hot people.”

Therefore: “Antebellum” – adj. Before people were hot.

New recurring dream!

2008-02-14T09:31:00.000-05:00

If half of it happened twice, it must mean something / two halves make a whole lot of crazy!

So start by placing yourself in a state of bliss. You're swimming in crystal blue water. The sun beats down, the sea catching its glow from every angle and illuminating itself entirely. As you swim along, you daintily disturb the sea's surface, sending infinite ripples out into the universe and playful droplets dancing through the air, the sun's rays exploding each one with a rainbow of color as it falls back into the abyss of its own existence. The water is cool and calm, gently lifting you to its surface as you swim along as though on a cloud.

Cut to: one big fucking tidal wave.

Suddenly you realize that you're not actually cushioned in perfection's bosom; nay, you are in fact swimming in the Hudson, where all good things in Nature go to die. But that's not important right now. What is important is that big fucking tidal wave.

You start free-styling towards the shore, cursing your decision to quit your community pool's swim team when you were ten because you were a friggin' individual and couldn't stand the sound, sight or smell of stay-at-home moms and their brood of upper-middle-class, entitled-to-it-all (including but not limited to cutting ahead in line for the ice cream truck, thereby obtaining all of the chocolate fudge pops before some of us politer kids were able to get one) "children."

You feel the water swell up beneath you, and as the currents complicate themselves and start to pull you under, you wonder exactly how so much water can exist in this one spot of space/time while in Atlanta, a metropolis of 4+ million, people are worried about having enough drinking water. You then start to reflect on how life is pretty unfair. Then you remember that you've been sucked beneath the angry waters and will probably die, so you feel less bad about stupid Southerners not coming up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the growing population and the environmental pressures this growth will inevitably cause.

So now you're underwater, right? You get pulled and tugged, nearly split apart it feels, and try to curl yourself into a ball with every fiber of your strength. You then brace for some unknown yet inevitable impact that will in all likelihood kill you, but if not will hurt a whole whole lot.

Then, an eery calm. Absolute, deafening silence. 'Isn't absolutism crazy scary?' you ask yourself. Then you realized you just survived a tidal wave. So you start swimming towards shore. After what seems like decades (you're 22 now, you're allowed to say you know what 'decades' feels like), you finally reach land.

Cut to: you have learned in a literally unbelievable amount of time (dreams last like 3 whole minutes in life-time!) that this tidal wave has resulted from a scientist definitively proving global warming exists. You understand that there is a disconnect in logic here... I mean, global warming wouldn't suddenly and dramatically manifest itself just because empirical proof was finally presented substantiating its existence, right? Right?! But you're dreaming, so it's ok if your mind takes a few leaps you wouldn't otherwise condone. The tidal wave has caused the water around New York to rise 45 degrees. You, again, understand that this isn't how water level is measured or how an increase in water level would be expressed. You are OK with this. You are not bothered by what this might imply about your essential understanding of mathematical and physical phenomena.

You have also learned that the world population in its entirety has been reduced by a significant amount, and those remaining are now being controlled by a coalition of men wearing camouflage combat gear and bright red berets, carrying around ping-pong paddles covered with the same bright red fabric. That's right; it's a regime of vaguely French troops à-la-1998-Godzilla-blockbuster (starring Matthew Broderick of The Lion King and The Producers and other Broadway musicals fame). It is the new French Terror, and the neo-Jacobins dominate the masses by inducing an unconscionable fear of the paddle. What used to be part of a generally light-hearted pastime (although occasionally becoming an epic battle of wills) has been turned into a tool of destruction and violence to enslave the people and suppress their spirit. And only you - swimming back to shore while this new government took shape and thereby avoiding indoctrination - have the power to fight the politics of paddle-fear.

What will you do? How will you survive, thrive and save the world from an abundance of fraternité and paddlephobia? Tune in sometime in the distant future when you've worked through your shit and the dream comes to an exciting conclusion.

Announcing...

2007-12-07T17:33:00.000-05:00

Chowdah Sketch Comedy and Sweeps!

Columbia's sketch and improv troupes (dare I say, troops?) team up to fight the good fight in a war against soul-quashing finals, papers and holiday cheer.

Tonight (12/07/07)
9p.m.
Furnald Lounge (115th and Broadway)
Suggested donation/unanticipated offering: $2

So come join us as we celebrate Comica (and see the premiere of my sketch "Bad News Bears").

S'gonna be killah.