Recent Love Affairs

Here are some things I have been obsessing over lately.

1. Vanilla Cream Soda
Soda is ok, it makes you pee a lot, but vanilla cream soda is the closest thing to heaven you can get in the soda department. At the Bent Spoon in Princeton, they have italian soda ice creams, and my next adventure in the Bent Spoon department will be to have a vanilla cream ice cream soda. heck yeah!

2. Leg Warmers
I've been searching for a good cheap pair of leg warmers for forever, always too lazy to order from catalogs and internets, but always on it when I find them in stores. This Sunday Lee and Matt and I went to Columbus flea market, and I bought 3 pairs of legwarmers, 2 pairs of tights, and 4 pairs of socks. The legwarmers are my favorite. They're just so practical, and, since I bought them in the brightest colors they had, guaranteed to make a statement to what might be an otherwise colorless work outfit. Bonus - they can double as arm warmers. Also, two pairs of them have lil buttons! Too cute. P.S. the two pairs of tights that I bought had nifty patterns - grey and black stripes, and get this - ARGYLE.

3. Dr. Mario
I'm good at this game. Some days, I'm great. I can beat everyone I know. I can't beat everyone on the internet though. There are things I see people who are better than me doing when I'm playing against them that I understand, but can't recreate with that amount of speed they do. Right now my rank on Wii kind of shuffles between 6600-6800. Over the last two months I've completely lost interest in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (its just too much of the same thing over and over again, regardless of how many jobs they've stuffed in there it can be extremely boring to the point where i've fallen asleep playing it) and since Persona 4 comes out in a steadily decreasing amount of time I have refused to pick up another serious game. That has led to me playing Dr. Mario, sometimes for 5+ hours, online, almost every day. The big lure is that I am more often than not going to play against someone different every time, so its a constant gauge on my skills. I really would like to have some serious bragging rights to this game, so if you have a Wii, and you have downloaded this game, lets play. I'd like to prove to you that I can kick your ass. And if you're better than me, well hell, its awesome to play against you. You will never get better at a game unless you play people who challenge you.

That's that. Persona 4 comes out in about.. 2 days, so don't expect many things coming from here that aren't related to that game.

I got a new hat

It cost five bucks. What do you think?

This is the last time I ever do this ever.

Lauren and I went out on the porch to smoke, which is weird because I've been trying to quit and didn't really expect to smoke, and there happened to be two small white dogs walking through the street. One of them is shaggy, one of them is a chihuahua. The shaggy one they named Dusty, the little one Peaches. Peaches is a boy. He snaps at everyone, he sucks. Dusty pissed on my floor.

I'll post pictures tomorrow. I'm also going to call animal control. It sucks to have to keep them here in the cage, but I couldn't just let them roam. We put money on the idea that some family had mad people over for dinner and the dogs escaped. If I see a flier up I will call, but I can't keep them here. Wilma would flip.

In other news, we got an X-Box!! Heck yes. We don't really have any games that I'm super excited about right now, but the library will build. We have Bioshock, so good for that but its too scary for me to play home alone.

Happy Thanksgiving

//~DOG UPDATE, FRIDAY~//
This morning a guy was looking for a dog, so I asked him if the small dogs were his, but they weren't. I walked around the neighborhood and asked around to see if anyone had lost dogs, with no luck. Animal control is closed. Fuck. I let the dogs outside, and the chihuahua found a way to escape my yard and wander into Rocky's (the neighbor's dog). Well the neighbor pulls up, and I tell him about it, and we end up talking for about an hour cause some serious shit just went down in his life. Rocky tries to have sex with the small dog (who has attacked my neighbor and I a few times for no reason at this point), and neighbor guy goes, why are you putting yourself through this, and we kick the dogs out.

So that's that. I don't feel bad about it, because those dogs were assholes, especially the small one. Mike was right, again. We should have put them in the oven.

We painted the living room!

Check out the living room!

We painted and cleaned for about 6 and a half hours on Saturday. This is how it came out.

The kitchen is half stripped of wallpaper, so I should have that done by the end of the holiday weekend. So cool! Home decorating is rad.

pho pho pho nom nom nom (plus aquabats = superrad)

Mike bought us tickets to the Aquabats.

We left early (about 6:45) because I thought it would be a good idea to get some pho at anywhere in Chinatown before the show (at the Troc). We got to about Girard Ave exit (40 mins to get there, the exit right before the right one to get where we were heading), when Mike asks me if I have the tickets. I didn't. We turned around and drove back home, got the tickets, and headed back down to Philly. At this point I'm starving, so I ask Mike to call the Troc to find out what time the bats are playing. 9:45. Perfect. Its only 8:30, and we're right outside the city.

We roll up into Chinatown, and drive to the Troc. I think to myself, great, we're going to spend a half hour finding parking, and I'm still going to be starving.

Not so. There was a parking spot right in front of the Troc.

I'm not talking about down the street, I'm talking about RIGHT IN FRONT. HA! Fuck all you guys, its cold. We don't have to walk NO blocks to our car. Double luck hits us as well, because there is a pho place right across the street. We both get the same thing, pork with spring roll and verm noodooz, scarf that shit down in 15 minutes, and go to the show.

We missed Tragedy, the metal tribute to the Beegees, but whatever. We did see the end of Suburban Legends, who we thought were a boy band before the dancers picked up their horns and started playing, that was pretty cute. The Aquabats were hilarious - I had never seen them before, and now I am superglad I did! I did get a belly ache and missed a portion of their set while I watched a cockroach come alarmingly close to climbing up the toilet I was pooing on, but overall a great time.

There were lots of kids there which I'm sure you already knew, but they were really cute. Its good to see that there are plenty of kids out there still going to shows and having fun. We also saw a MIKEPASUNDOPPLEGANGER - this kid was just like Mike 5 years ago RIGHT DOWN to the flannel shirt. He didn't have the sleeves cut off, but it was cold, so I'm going to stick with the idea that he probably wears cut-offs in the warmer weathers. The thing I noticed the most about him though was how he was singing in the crowd and rocking out - so incredibly like Mike's mannerisms.. people, it was eerie. I should have gotten his number.

Sunday we .. well spent all day in bed, but we also went to SKA IS DEAD at the Starland, which I hate. Having slept until about 4:30, only getting out of bed around 530 and stopping at a bar to eat on the way there, we got into the venue right as the Toasters were finishing their set, which sucks, because they were the real reason I wanted to go in the first place. If we had waited to get bar food until after the show we would have seen it, but I was convinced that the Toasters were more important than the Pietasters and Mustard Plug. Turns out I am incredibly wrong. The show had started at 3, but the Toasters basically opened up the show for the other three big names (about 7 bands played, i think). THE TOASTERS PEOPLE! TWO TONE ARMY! I guess I am one of the few people in the world who think that they are one of the most important bands ever, or people just don't care. Who knows.

We left about 20 minutes after getting there.

At the bar, there was a bug hanging out on a chair. The bar's motto was, "A good place to hang out". I guess the bug thought so too.

So that's my ska weekend, in a nutshell.

(we also painted the kitchen and got verizon fios, but we no longer get MSNBC. KEITH OLBERMANN! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Oh, hi internet

Things that have happened that are cool:

Pumpkin carving party at Sara and Steves, we carved about 30 pumpkins in 3 hours
My brother moved out
I went to Salt Lake City for work, more on that later, because there are a few pictures I'd like to share
Works been ok
World of Goo is a great game
Saw a girls volleyball game at Princeton, was rad
I'm officially a Supervillian, arching Princeton, more on that later
Totally obsessed with the Venture Brothers
Keith Olbermann, what a douche, but so funny
Barack Obama is our next president!

Things that have happened that are not cool:

My brother took his Xbox and his computer (but my new computer is on its way)
I got serious depression (working on it)
Wilma got fleas
I have to give my brother 200 bucks (for the tv)
Mike's been working too much
When we get verizon, all of the DVR items are going to be lost.

So that's about it. I haven't seen any movies.
The games I have been playing are: Pokemon Pearl, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, World of Goo, Megaman 2 and 9 (fuck 9), Dr. Mario.

Japanese classes have started and they're half awesome and half shitty. We're covering things I've already learned, but it has made me feel so much more confidant in my skills. I'm pretty sure that I could have a serious conversation with a Japanese person at this point, so long as they talked a little slow. There are two reasons that the class sucks, one its kind of slow, and two its at 9am in the morning on Sundays. I really dislike having to get up early on Sunday.

Salt Lake was interesting, I didn't get to see the stupid lake again, but we had a good time. We hit a martini bar, I played shuffleboard for the first time with my boss (and got beat), we met some cool people, learned some stuff. I was really bored a lot though, and totally bummed that no one would go swimming with me. We ate SO MUCH food though, which was great, even though I'm starving now.

Money and I aren't getting along really well. But I wonder if that is really just me, or if things are really that stupid expensive now? My brother and I are also not getting along, mostly because I think he is a putz and lazy.

Works been good, I've been proud of a lot of the design work I've been doing lately, but I'm still interested in a different position.

My first arch in Princeton didn't really start as one. I gave Dr. Boyfriend some money to play tunes in a bar there, and there were stuffy jerks all over the place, I mean CRAWLING with them. So he put on six dollars worth of metal. They got so annoyed after awhile that they actually TURNED THE MACHINE OFF. HA.

I've realized, in this new endeavor that I am on, that it is very hard to come up with ways to arch without risking yourself being labeled a terrorist or being brought up on some kind of homeland security issue. I mean people are so scared these days, that even what I might think is the smallest prank ever may be taken so seriously. Its been harder than I imagined to really get a system down on how I am going to pull this off. In time, I suppose, I mean, I really just started this whole thing two weeks ago.

I'd like to take this final moment to recommend The Bent Spoon in Princeton. See, I have three soft spots for that town. One, the girls volleyball team, two, the store "Morning Glory" run by Koreans with tons of awesome import items in it, but also, The Bent Spoon. The people who run The Bent Spoon are my heros. Its an ice cream place, with THE BEST ice cream ever, and all kinds of home made stuff like marshmellows, whipped cream, root beer, hell, they even have HOT hot chocolate. Like jalepenio hot. No shit, right?

I promise, more to myself than whoever reads this site, to write more.

Bloomsburg Fair = Chicken Pretzels and Huge Cows

So Sara and I went up to Bloomsburg for the annual fair they do up there. Its a pretty amazing event, with amazing people, livestock, food, I mean pretty regular state fair stuff but in coal country, the raddest place on earth.

Some highlights include:

Livestock: Holy crap I saw the largest cow I have ever seen in my entire life. I can't wait for Sara to get the picture over to me. I can't describe it anymore. You'll have to see it. Also there were giant cocks and cute bunnies. I'm pretty down with the livestock thing, except the size of the utters kind of upset me, since you know that was all kinds of hormone induced. I was definitely afraid of being shat on in the cow pen. And the horse show, for crying out loud young girls, stop putting glitter on your horse, its fuckin trashy. Also, it smelled, so bad. SO BAD.

People: I love you guys from the coal region. You did not disappoint.

Food: I still did not try the chicken pretzels, but I was tempted to this time. Last time not so much. I got some great chee fries, dollar ice cream, and a 2 for a dollar hot dog that was definitely only worth a dollar. It basically tasted like bologna. But man, you can't beat fair food. It actually seemed this time like there was more food than actual stuff to buy.

We saw a sideshow, which could have been cooler if it didn't seem like it was run by a bunch of kids. if they had really tried to sell it I think it could have been a lot better. They had the oldest working munchkin from the wizard of oz there, and man that guy was really creepy looking. They had a spider lady, a snake lady, a headless woman, but it was more of corniness than actual entertainment. You can get away with doing really corny shit if you just put a little OOMPH into it, and this really didn't have it. It kind of ran like a bad talent show. Now they said that they are trying to keep alive the traditions of the day back before we had YouTube and could watch all of it online, but honestly, they could have spiced it up, and with all the money they make, I think they could also have gotten better spider lady costumes.

Long story short we got exhausted even though we tried not to, ended up at the Silver Spur in Mt. Carmel, where we thought there would be karaoke, but no luck. We ended up talking to a really great older man at the bar for a few hours. Alex, I think his name was. He chatted it up with us about everything from the bail out to comic book movies. There is nothing better for the soul than some good wisdom and conversation with a stranger from Mt. Carmel. We thank him for a great time at the bar.

Our room at the Pine Burr Inn (classic 1970s decor Inn) was pretty awesome. It had plastic couches. They overcharged me. I have to call them about that tomorrow.

The next morning we went to get blastin blueberry pancakes at our favorite spot to eat up there, Yanni's. The horrifying thing about being there was the lack of customers due to the smoking ban and financial crisis. Honestly, I won't talk politics here, but fuck it was scary.

The drive home was the most horrifying drive I had ever been on, ever (with a sober person). The highway looked like a lake. And to top it all off, when we got back to Sara's, her street was blocked off because of a block party, that had been rescheduled from another time due to rain, but failed to tell anyone else about when it had been rescheduled to.

It was an exhausting, fun, disappointing, happy, long weekend. Cheers.

You can see pictures by clicking anywhere on this long sentence.

Ok, here is the cow.

Sea Creatures are Really Really Cool.

From http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-94406:

Nerding Out in NYC

Another adventure occurred last weekend. Mike, my partner in adventuring, and I camped out in NYC with Kathy and a few of her friends to get into the Nintendo Power 20th anniversary party. The magazine told us that the first 400 people in line with an issue of Nintendo Power would get in for free, but they lied about that. I think they basically let in as many people as that place could handle at once. I went mostly because I saw it as a perfect opportunity to battle some kids inside Nintendo World in Pokemon Battle Revolution, and Mike wanted to just get some free stuff. You know, nerds.

The camping out overnight was completely unnecessary, but super fun. I got to finally trade some Pokemon with people (I am now the proud owner of a Munchlax), battled some people (got the shit kicked out of my team), drank a bit, saw the sunrise, met some people from Florida, and saw some cute kids in costumes. I honestly had a good time, and embarrassingly enough it made me feel a little younger than I actually am for once. Once we finally got inside in the morning we got a shopping bag of free stuff (a wiimote keychain that I owned at one point, some gay trading cards for three games, plain stylus's, just, nothing good) and walked around a bit looking at the games they had to play. I headed straight for Pokemon central, only to find that THE WII THAT HAD POKEMON BATTLE REVOLUTION ON IT HAD BEEN REMOVED AND NO POKEMON GAMES WERE BEING PLAYED. My heart was broken. I turned on my DS a few times to see if anyone was battling or something just to see if there were some rouge trainers, but no luck. At that point I completely gave up on the event, and decided to stand with the goods and wait for Mike to finish having a good time.

There was some free food there which was kinda rad, rice krispy treats and cheese sammiches and french toast sticks and stuff, and at one point when I was getting very irritated Mike brought me a bag of sour patch kids, and man, just sometimes a guy can do a thing that doesn't seem to be that big of a deal but really is.. so there you have your "i love mike" moment of this adventure. Eventually he realized there was nothing much to do around the place, so we headed out the door. THAT is when I saw Mr. Zack Morris himself, the kids from the Wizards of Waverly Place (sans Selena Gomez, but fuck her, she sucks), COREY IN THE HOUSE (meant to be read loudly) and the kids from Run's House. and the mom. You can see them in the pictures. I really wanted to try to stay to get my picture taken with them or something, but they were taking pictures with "special" children and what not so I figured they would not be even trying to think about taking a picture with a 28 year old woman-child so.. we left.

The funniest part of this whole adventure was the walk back to the train station. We looked homeless. I'm not kidding. We were smelly, wet, ugly, fuck, you ever see those couples in train stations with backpacks and they look like they haven't showered in weeks and they're tired and you just don't even want to look at them because you know they need money? Yeah, that was us. We got so many looks. As tired and miserable as I was, that really entertained me. Oh, and there was a street fair there which was cool cause Mike bought me a parasol on the way back which I got to use the next day at the Septemberfest (uneventful).

The train ride home was half cute because there were brown toddlers in front of me and an annoying cunt behind me talking on the phone, not in a polite tone of voice way but in a FUCK EVERYONE ELSE ON THIS TRAIN IM TALKING TO MY BEST FRIEND CINDI (i dont really know what the girls name she was talking to was) voice. It was horrible. Mike and I talked a lot of shit out loud, maybe she heard us, maybe she didn't, but if I wasn't so tired I probably would have done something else. Actually, I probably wouldn't have. I don't really know. Maybe.

So you can see pictures from the night here, they're not very interesting save for the pics of the kids in mario costumes (I thought the really small kids sitting in NYC playing DS were really adorable), the buizel costume (eerily I found this kind of sexy) and the celebrities. The first picture is of me and mike on the train, because we waited a good hour and a half for one. They almost made us take the train to Trenton and then back up to NYC. They didn't though. Some ladies were really angry about that. Eh, public transit.

People in Japan don't have to deal with that kind of shit, unless someone kills themselves on the train tracks.

So, in other news, Japanese classes have started again for me and I'm having a good time.

In sadder news, we are currently mourning the passing of one of our furry family members, Jordan the hamster. She had some kind of skin infection that was obviously putting her in a lot of misery and pain, so the decision was made to put her down. Send Mike your love, because he was a great hammy daddy, and he loved her so much.

J-Money, you were the cutest hamster we had ever seen. love.

funny image thursday!

The network's caption says it all.

WTF? This isn't even something off of engrish.com. Mail sent to Mike.

Summer of Sober Sara

This is a long entry because its been awhile since I've filled the internet in on whats been going on in my life.

I went back up to the Walton campsite for a weekend with my dad, which turned out to be half a disaster and half a good time.

Bad News: We were lured up there with the promise of being able to use a tractor and rock out some land digging, but the trailer never made it. Traffic sucked. I heard the weekend after the whole thing broke down too. I got real sick and threw up a lot on Saturday morning. We went to fly a remote control plane and it ended up getting broken. My dad did not sleep well and he seemed to be pretty miserable the whole time.

Good News: We got to see some deer up close. I went on a really awesome ATV tour through the back woods with my pops. A guy and I caught a frog. We got drunk. I got to go to Panda's Parlor and got ice cream (panda tracks) and a panda water bottle and panda coffee.

Overall the trip was pretty regular, but it was nice to get out there for awhile. I plan on going back up with some people to camp on the hill because I've definitely sworn off sleeping in the trailer, but lack of money and really knowing who would be interested has kept me from getting my shit together.

Secondly, Mitsuwa had a summer festival fair, and Tina Dan and Xander and I went up to check it out. I was supposed to hang out with people from Japanese class while I was there, but it didn't work out as such - by the time they called me to hang out we had already left, me being tired and cranky and really ready to just pack up and leave for vacation. We got to see some taiko drumming, which was spectacular. We also ate some gyoza, beef bowls, ice cream mochi and the likes. I mean overall it was pretty nice, but it was crowded (as always, and that place is just not super for crowds), and hot. I spent more money than I should have. More than anything it was good to get Xander up there to see something that he hadn't before, mingling with the Japanese kids and what not. To tell the truth the only thing I was thinking about the whole time was

VAACAAATIIOOONNNN

Mike and I left for the outerbanks (duck, NC) that night, around 3am. I was throwing up during most of the drive there because I had drank a few shots before I went to bed and well that is just normal for me these days it seems, but Mike was able to drive most of the way there.

We had a really good time.

I won't bore you with details, because there aren't really actually, we did not much but lay around and play video games and watch the Olympics. We went parasailing, went to the ocean once, and took a day trip to Ocracoke which is an awesome island south of Hatteras. Here's the pictures I took.

I've been to the outerbanks twice now, and I've always wanted to stay north near Kitty Hawk and what not, but now that I have I know why Holly has always gone to Hatteras. Its just better there, calmer, less kids, etc. We're already planning on going back next year, but this time I'm bringing my dog, and more people. It was super nice to be there with just Mike because we had never really spent that kind of time together, but we both agreed it would have been more awesome with more friends. That way I could have gone fishing, and he would have someone else to pummel in Smash Brothers Brawl.

Here's some of our pictures from the vacation!

Friday Hilarity

mollyann1224: oh
someone left a picture of david bowie article in blender open in the bathroom for me to see when i went in there this morning
you know how awesome it is to wake up and walk into a bathroom and see david looking at you circa 1972 with his red hair

Daniel: hahahaha
Ello, Molly
it's a good thing you're pulling your erogenous zone out, you're gonna need it on the roads we're driving

mollyann1224: emergency
brb
hhahahhashaiSAWOEHAOUYRAWIUERYAWODH A;
omg
AHADHASIDHAHHAH'
how am i supposed to do anything after you just said that to me
hahhhahahahhahaahahahaha

Daniel: i was just about to make him wink at your hemmerhoid and make it disappear too
i was just at a swingin' gala, molly.
EVERYONE SAYS HI

me: XD
always funny
ALWAYS

Daniel: haha
i'll be around, get outta here, ya knucklehead

600x800+Monday= frownyface

I had to change my screen resolution to 600x800 today. It turns out that the client in Florida for some .. bizarre? .. inexplicable? .. totally fucked up!! reason has their screen at that resolution. My parents don't even have their screen at that resolution (though theirs at 1024x768 isn't a huge improvement).

I'm not one to sit and bark about how people should all have their screen resolutions at some high obscene number or anything like that, but if you're seriously using a computer at 600x800 at this point in time I think it might be a good idea to kind of sit back and reassess why it is that you even own a computer in the first place.

Tina and I made an awesome cake.

My boyfriend's sister and I are friends. I helped her with her son's fifth birthday party. It was a medieval times theme. It was pretty fun. We did a lot of prep for it, though a lot of it was totally unnecessary.

The best part was the cake. Tina used the internet and found out how to make a dragon cake. She baked it, but we both put it together and decorated it. Man, it was rad.







The wings are made of sticks and fruit rollups. Tina had the brilliant idea of using pineapple leaves as dragon spikes.

The cake was really really good. Of course, the kids were pretty impressed.

Radda radda, radda radda radda radda.

I really like the TV show Chowder on cartoon network. Its slowly becoming better as time goes on, and definitely is sneaking up on Fosters as my favorite cartoon. Fosters has a lot more episodes under its belt, so we will see how things go at the end of Chowder's second season, but I find myself falling a lot faster for Chowder than I did for Mac or Bloo, or even Eduardo. The thing about Fosters is that there were so many different characters I cared about, while in Chowder there's really only two (even though there are way more), so Shnitzel and Chowder get more love between the two as compared to say Cheese, Bloo, Mac, Eduardo and Frankie, who all got equal shares of the pot.

HELP CHOWDER BATHROOM PEE EXPLOSION

Spaceships of the (FUTURE)

Sometimes meetings at work can get a little boring, and 90% of the time when I am bored I start doodling on my notepad. I never go into meetings without one, and every once in awhile I find that I've doodled something swell.

Today was not one of those days!!

We have weekly status meetings in my boss's office, which I guess are pretty helpful, if anything its nice to stop sitting in front of the computer for a half hour. Either way since some items of discussion only require the attention of two people that don't include me, I usually end up thinking about some kind of theme and then draw stuff based on that theme. Today it was safari!



You can see I've drawn an elephant or two, a giraffe, an ostrich, and I think that the guy on the right is some kind of hippo, but the jury is still out.

A few weeks before this masterpiece was conjured up we had a meeting about design drafts, and I had the song Purple Bottle by Animal Collective stuck in my head. I doodled some lyrics, and drew a bottle, and also some toothpaste for some reason. After the meeting the boss came over to my cube, and checked out what I had accomplished in my notes. He decided that the bottle was actually a lamp, and drew up a nifty little toothbrush to go with my tube of toothpaste, which according to him was called "Molly Fresh".



Don't ask me how Godzilla got there, because I honestly don't know.

Lastly, during a brainstorming session quite awhile back, my boss and I came up with different ideas for Spaceships of the (FUTURE). As you can see below, the highlight of this doodle-fest was the Octopus Bus. According to my boss, the Octopus Bus is a spaceship that is made mostly for public transportation. There are jets that shoot out of the end of the tentacles for navigating the skies and landing softly on giant Octopus Bus landing pads. I wasn't subscribing to this idea, so we actually had a pretty detailed discussion about how it would work and the pro's and con's of this kind of transportation system.



Basically the whole thing ended with me trying to prove his ideas as ludicrous and completely impractical for public transportation, or any kind of transportation for that matter. He claims to this day that I was just jealous of his creativity, but he is also responsible for the Penis Needle spaceship you see up there. So you be the judge of that.

Last week while he was on vacation I had the honor of being proved a moron by a CNN story about Google launching a race to outer space. Next to the article on the home page of CNN's science and technology section was this computer generated artist's interpretation..



I don't know if something like this actually is in some kind of production, but boy do I feel the asshole. Also please do not sue me if this image is not allowed to be here. It came from CNN.com. I don't know who is responsible for it. But I am not claiming that I did.

So it seems that not too long from now we'll all be riding in Octopus Buses. Or at least until the next big animal inspired space ship craze comes around.

The Best Parts of Movies That Aren't the End

I saw The Happening this past weekend. I really liked it. I want people to go see that movie without some kind of predetermined idea in their head that its supposed to be this horrifyingly gory life changing movie. It was basically hilarious and fucked up. The director says he was trying to make the best B movie ever. While its definitely not the best, its got to be up there.

While I'm waiting for the rest of the world to get their heads out of their asses and learn how to enjoy themselves while watching a movie again I figured I would post up here my favorite parts of movies (that I can remember today) that isn't the end of a movie. I made that rule because while Dan and I were discussing what ours were he mentioned that the end of Big Fish and The Life Aquatic were two of his favorite parts of movies. While I agree with him I also think that generally the end of a movie is supposed to be the best part of the movie or at least the part that leaves the largest impression on you, so this has more to do with the parts of the movie that weren't intended to be such a big deal but in reality, are.

1. Blue Velvet - Ben's (Dean Stockwell) Karaoke Solo
After the first time I saw this movie every other viewing of it was pretty slow generally because there were no more surprises, but this scene still gives me the goosebump smileys and always demands complete attention from the audience. You have no idea if Frank is going to kill or hug Ben, and fuck if Ben doesn't lip synch this song like he's saying some kind of personal eulogy right before an infuriated rampage of fucked up drug induced slaying. I mean you get the idea when you meet him that Ben is a pretty chill guy, but for some reason watching him sing this song makes me think that when he does guys in the ass he is pretending his dick is a five sided saber sword and the fucker's head is exploding with maggots while his balls are duct taped to a pack of firecrackers. Here's the video, courtesy of YouTube.



2. Zardoz - Zed's introduction to the Renegades
This whole fucking movie is amazing on so many levels that I don't think most humans are capable of comprehending. There are so many things in this movie that could arguably be the most fucked up things that happen, or the funniest, or the most confusing, but I'm going to go with the first time Zed sees who and what the Renegades are. I mean here you have a cold blooded killer, who rapes women in his name, Zardoz, on any given Zardate. This guy climbed into the mysterious stone head and without a second thought MURDERED his own God in COLD BLOOD.

So what is it that scares this beast, this massive perfect-bred human capable of destroying the tabernacle and the world as the Eternals know it? The only way you are going to find out is by scrolling about six minutes and thirty seconds or so into this clip below. Brace yourselves, you'll thank me later.



3. Ted Bundy - Mid movie music montage (camping scene)
My brother got into another discussion with a lady about why he loves Ted Bundy so much while he was at Bonnaroo, and the lady couldn't prove any of my brother's points to be wrong. I mean face it, regardless of how you feel about Uncle Ted, you have to admit that he was one of the smartest guys ever. He got away with murder and robbery countless times, broke out of jail twice, pretty much had everyone who knew him (including crime writer Ann Rule) fooled about who he really was, and to this day no one really knows the whole story of how many people he did or didn't kill because of how he was using the criminal psychiatrists to delay his death sentence. If you ever listen to the recordings of the interviews with Ted Bundy you'll get a glimpse of how hilariously cunning he was, its solid gumby gold.

Anyway, a guy made a movie about Ted, and its a great movie, again, regardless of how you feel about the guy. About half way through the movie there is a nice little music montage of a few of his murders, and the upbeat music makes it more than memorable. You'll find it about 7 minutes in on the video below. My personal favorite is the clip of him camping out having a smoke next to some very lovely, but quiet, ladies. Enjoy.



An honorable mention goes to the scene in I Heart Huckabees when Tommy (Mark Wahlberg) fucks shit up in the meeting room. Kind of an interesting coincidence that Mark Wahlberg is also in The Happening, basically playing the same dude, but a lot better dressed and clean shaven.

New York Field Trip!

Squids just look so damn cool

Ever since Japanese class ended I've been having a hankering to visit the Japanese Grocery Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ. Problem is, its about an hour and a half drive away up the turnpike, and costs about 15 dollars in gas and another 7 in tolls to get there. That's kind of a lot of money to only go to one place for the whole day, and a lot of time traveling for only a small thing. So Mike and I decided that instead of taking that route (and since we had not been able to spend much time together recently aww) we would make an entire Saturday adventure out of it by taking the train to NYC and doing some New York stuff then taking the Mitsuwa shuttle to the store.


Though we didn't get as early of a start as we both would have liked, we ended up in the city around 1230/1, and traveled down to Chinatown to check out a place I think called "Elizabeth Place" on Elizabeth St. It was my first time really walking down Canal St. in the middle of the day, so I got pretty excited when I saw this squid hanging in the window. I bought some cherries, too.

The first thing I noticed when I got down the escalator was a giant tare panda (lazy panda) plush in the window of one of the stores. I dropped my jaw, as I have heard of such wonderful treasure but I had never seen it in the flesh. Before I could say the words "Lazy Panda" Mike was purchasing it at the register. Happy birthday to me! And yes, we carried it in the giant plastic bag it came in all the way through New York city for the rest of the day. But it was well worth it. The rest of the items in the basement of this place was mostly random jewelry, plushes, key chains, charms posters and the likes. I could have spent most of the day in there just picking out tiny things as gifts for people, but instead I made a mental note of what I saw for internet purchases when people's birthdays come up and the likes.

Mike and I smile in celebration of delicious food

After we headed out of there we both realized how ridiculously hungry we were, which was pretty stupid of us because we had planned to eat as soon as we got there. I kind of had an issue because I had eaten Chinese for the last three nights, but as luck would have it we found a place that had Pho, and inside this wonderfully cheaply priced place I was able to get the rice noodle dish with beef that I used to get for lunch when I worked in Pennsauken. I don't think I've ever mentioned it before, but we would seriously go a week eating this stuff for lunch every day, and I seriously missed it. I knew that I would be able to find something similar to the combo platter we used to get, but this was the exact same thing- even spring rolls on the side. I knew I would be able to find it one day, but I did not expect this to be the day. Even better was the fact that we got to sit in the window door jawn, and the two meals plus some chicken stick thing we got came to under 20 bucks. Such an awesome thing to have happened.

Mike vs. Pop Burger

We took the subway up to FAO Shwartz and checked that place out. They had a wall of stuffed pandas, a giant dragon over the front of the store, guys in toy soldier suits at the doors, and that giant keyboard that Tom Hanks and that chick played on in the movie Big! They had retro robot toys and jack in the box and really nifty Harry Potter merch. The store was neat to see mostly because of the giant stuffed things they had about. Across from there we saw a place called "Pop Burger". We had to go in to check it out, and Mike ended up ordering the 2 pop burger item.

As it turns out, Pop Burger has really great burgers. The 6 dollar item was basically 2 small White Castle sized burgers, but the patties were pretty damn thick, and the bun was a serious roll rather than thin white bread like roll. Mike swears it was worth it, and I had a taste and it was a pretty damn good burger, though six for two of those guys was asking a little much if you want my opinion. We then headed down to Nintendo World, and the whole place was plastered with Wii Fit posters. Up and downstairs every system was playing Wii Fit, and all the new clothing was Wii Fit Yoga stuff. I thought that was kind of lame. We DID find snorlax items though! Never before had we been there and they have had them. Mike and I both got the small 2" figure, while he bought the 6" plush. I'm pretty jealous that I didn't get one now that I've had the chance to hold it. He also got himself the keychain that I got for free when I subscribed to Nintendo Power that I lost at the Bloomsburg fair.

Mike Vs. Takoyaki

Lastly we headed over to the Port Authority and took the shuttle to Mitsuwa, where I bought two new books at Sanseido called "ehon o yonde roli poli" (read a picture book roly poly" and "Papa is Ultraseven". It turns out at Mitsuwa that day they were selling fresh takoyaki (fried octopus balls) of which I am seriously not a fan (but it was really awesome watching them make it!). Mike bought some and it turns out that he really likes them. I tried one because I am a sport, and I couldn't even swallow it. I did get some pretty decent sake though, and ice cream mochi which is probably my new favorite Japanese dessert. We didn't end up getting a real meal there since we were kind of still full from earlier and it was pretty crowded, but we did get the shuttle back to the city just in enough time to walk to Penn Station and basically walk right onto a train going home!

The train ride home was really crowded, so we had to stand for a few exits but kept ourselves entertained by playing a game Mike learned about from Excel Saga. When we stopped at Newark airport it smelled pretty bad for some reason. When we did finally get a seat we spent the rest of the time reading Ehon O Yonde Roli Poli out loud. We certainly peaked a few people's interests reading a picture book in a language they probably couldn't place and laughing pretty hard.

The end of the day was topped off by me beating Mike in Pokemon Puzzle League! Huzzah!

I have something to say!

There are a few things that I would like to get off my chest, so lets consider this post my first and hopefully last where I actually talk about my feelings outside of superficial daily life happenings.

1. Its way too windy where I work.
This is pretty surface evident. When I leave my house at 830, its 70 degrees and warm. When I get to work, its 50 and cold. My place of employment's parking lot is basically a giant wind tunnel, and I just want everyone out there to know how much of an effect this has on the outcome of my day depending on how many times I have to go out into it. The wind is basically one of the largest problems I have with having to go to the work building every day, and this morning it really bummed me out. So now that I have that off my chest, lets move on.

2. Sometimes I sound like a complete asshole.
Last Wednesday we had our final Japanese class at MCCC, and since there were only 8 of us in the class we all agreed to take our sensei out for dinner and have a little post-class horrah. Sensei thought it would be fun to hear what the reasons for everyone getting into the Japanese language class were. As I was listening to everyone else's reasons I was preparing a list in my head of what exactly it is I love about Japan and its culture. I was half listening to the reasons everyone was giving and half exploring the feelings I had, trying to make sense of something that I really hadn't talked about in a long time. I had a bit of trouble, because I really have made this whole Japan thing a part of who I am, rather than just being a fan of anime and video games. Everyone had pretty interesting reasons, especially Nelly-san, who went on to explain her love for Japanese art and print making, and how she had grown up in Peru surrounded by her father's art books and literature. That woman is truly something amazing by the way.

When it finally came to be my turn, something inside of me completely collapsed, and I ended up saying how I had always been a fan of video games and anime, but never really fell in love with Japan until I went there and realized 'how much better it was there'.

How much better it was?

Are you kidding me, Molly? What exactly does that mean? Are you saying that Japanese people are better? Are you saying that America is such a crappy place to live? Do you really think that all in all that country is just 'better' than it is here? I never really got to explain myself. I think I might have gotten out something about how much prettier it is, but at this point I don't really remember. I can only remember being so saddened by the actual words that came out of my mouth and following it up with how I want to live there, but only in Tokyo (prompting my sensei to later refer to me as a 'snob') and also having to defend myself about my dislike for Japanese food.

How in the hell did I become so socially akward? Have I always been this way? Is this why people think I am such a retard? I never actually am able to say what I am thinking until hours later, it seems. Even when I do put a lot of thought into what I am trying to say.

Well to save some kind of face, what I did mean to say in those five minutes that I had, was that I feel that Japan feels like it would generally be a better place for me to exist in. That it is much more aesthetically pleasing there. That the care that goes into such simple things like the shapes of trees and landscaping and the general relationship between nature and the city is a wonder to me. That there are things in Japan that I am more interested in than in America. That I feel that push-button eateries are much more fun to eat in than a diner. That the McDonalds tastes better there. That the subways and trains are always on time. That the country is cleaner. That the people are more beautiful. That the fashion is more forward and innovative. That the music is more captivating. That the language sounds more pleasing to my ear. That it smells so much more like the Earth seemingly should smell there. That there is a culture there that people respect and love. That people are more efficient. That the television is more interesting and funny.

The reason I only want to live in Tokyo, also, is that it is a city! I'm not saying that ONLY TOKYO ONLY ALL THE TIME, but I am saying that if I am going to move across the earth you can be sure that I am going to move to a place where there are a lot of people and also there are going to be other gaijin. Not to mention I have only spent a lot of time in Tokyo, so if I am going to ship there for awhile I am going to, for my sanity, have to spend time there before I can gather the ambition to try living somewhere else. Japan, for me, is a land of complete unfamiliarities, which scares the shit out of me. Tokyo, I believe, would make that transition much easier. I believe it would serve as more of a stepping stone, rather than the only place in the country I deem good enough for me to live in.

I mean I could go on but I think at this point you can see how incredibly ridiculous I felt after saying 'its better'. So I while I apologize to everyone sitting at that table for sounding somewhat arrogant, I do want to stand by the fact that once you go there for yourself I believe strongly that you will better understand what exactly I mean when I say 'better'. I know very personally that Japan is not an awesome place all the time, especially for foreigners. However, I do also feel that Japan's feelings for gaijin are occasionally justified, and I feel that those downs that I have so brutally experienced first hand are a small price to pay for the bigger picture.

3. What the fuck is up with my art?
This is the last thing I am going to talk about. Its more of a curiosity thing than anything. I've been working with the same kind of style of art for awhile, and while I believe that the quality of the work I've been doing has somewhat been compromised by quantity, I used to get a lot of positive feedback about what I was doing. Lately, I've been putting things up for sale at etsy.com, and while many people have been saying, oh your art is great, no one ever buys some.

I have sold two custom pieces, but thats not enough for me.

Now I know buying art isn't really something people do as often as buying clothes or music or whatever, but its lead to me thinking about how much people like my art as opposed to how many people that I know and are my friends like to TELL me they like my art. I don't really have the same kind of access to critiquing that I used to when I was in school, and I guess its lead me to question the authenticity of what people have to say about what I do. Maybe I just need a break from producing illustrated things for awhile, maybe I really have been too focused on making many ok art pieces rather than a few great ones, or maybe I am trying to hard to make new kinds of art (objects etc), or maybe I need to move onto a new medium for awhile?

If you read this blog, I'd be happy to hear what you have to say about what I do. pandakabobs.etsy.com. I'm not trying to get you to go there to buy things. I want some honest feedback. I think about what kinds of art I make a lot, and criticism is something that I honestly take to heart, especially from strangers who can give me a fresh look on something that I really spend a lot of time doing instead of thinking about.

So thats all, hopefully something rad will happen soon that is worth blogging about.

THE INTERNET IS NOT WORKING

dream come true!

Guess who went camping again!?!?

Me!

So let me tell you how it went.

Thursday I left work early to get some things done, and around 2 my brother, father, and I headed out to our friend Ralph's 200+ acre property in Loomis, NY (about an four hour drive). On the way there we stopped at the Chester diner, which quite possibly was the worst diner I had ever eaten at ever. I'm not even kidding you when I tell you that the cole slaw was bad. I know you're sitting there thinking, who the hell eats diner cole slaw. Well I do. My dad does. Its a thing. My dad tried the slaw, said, "Damn this shit is bad." I said, "Pops, all diner slaw isn't that great," then I tried it. It was so horrible. It was the worst diner slaw that ever existed.

We stopped at a liquor store that a nice old lady worked at. I remember her because she was smiley and helpful and nice, and she had a very well put together hair do. She was from Jersey, as it turns out. We left Chester.

Driving up to Loomis none of us remembered seeing signs for the Panda's Parlor. This kind of put a new level of excitement to the weekend - we were all wondering if the place was still there. I don't know if I talked about that place or not, but in case you're unfamiliar with it Panda's Parlor is an ice cream/carwash/coffe joint. Panda-themed. Heaven.

The first thing my dad did once we got up to Ralph's was get his truck stuck in a ditch.



After that was taken care of, we headed into the trailer for some much needed winding down with some box wine.



Ralph had a sandwich, because pulling vans out of the mud is hard work.



Truthfully, he was going to take us out to dinner, but we had already eaten at that horrible diner.

The next day we woke up to snow, and temperatures quite colder than the day before. We were now accompanied by our pal Jun, and made our way into the nearest town, Walton. Walton has a castle in it. It also has the largest walk in cooler around. I'm inclined to believe they have the ONLY walk in cooler around. You could also purchase girls underwear at the hardware store. I thought that odd. We had lunch at a different diner, which had


freedom toast

But their food was bangin. The locals stared at us for quite awhile when we came in, all eight of them. It was kind of eerie, but I knew it was going to be the last time in 3 days I was going to be inside somewhere and warm, so I stuck it out.

After pickin up a tarp, some groceries, and food from the dollar store we headed back to Loomis mountain and hiked everything up to the campsite in the ATVs. Set everything up, got rained on for a few hours, drank quite a bit. It took us about 2 hours to get a solid fire going. After we finally had the opportunity to warm up and grab some firewood, we realized we had no dinner. Lucky for us, my trusty new cell phone got text message service up there, and we entrusted Ralph Jr. with the task of bringing hot dogs.

Ralph showed up about an hour later, not only bringing hot dogs, but the warmer weather with him. It stopped raining, which made things a bit more comfortable. Ralph and Jun and I at one point headed up to the phone booth at Lake Flappenralph (the phone booth is just a spot on the top of the hill where most people can get cell phone service). There was a bit of snow on the ground, and Ralph decided to do some donuts in it. That is how he flipped the ATV, which you see at the top of this post. We all kind of dicked around for the rest of the day, until the night brought in the fog.

The thick, horrifying, blacker than the blackest black fog. You could not see more than 20 feet in front of you near the fire. When you left the fire, it was basically pitch black. Since we were expecting company soon and Ralph Sr. needed to know when to take the ATV back down to the trailer to pick them up, Ralph Jr convinced me to take the ATV with him back to the phone booth. We honestly could not see a thing. Even with the headlights of the ATV on it was incredibly hard to see. I'm not embellishing in the slightest when I tell you it was exactly like a horror movie. When we got to the top of the hill, Ralph flipped the lights of the ATV off - I was riding on the back -- and I couldn't even see the back of his head. I'm not talking about closing your eyes maybe seeing a little light behind the lids darkness, I mean I can't see my hand when I hold it in front of my face dark. We even got lost on the way back trying to find the entrance to the next field, passing it twice before finally using the light of the distant campfire to find it. I honestly was terrified, and though I usually get scared over the dark and dumb shit like that, this was a kind of darkness that I had never experienced before, and I doubt that many people have ever experienced it.

That night we were joined by a family of four, Ralph's sister in law (ex sister in law? hm) and her 2 kids and her husband. Two more people showed up at about 3am, but stayed in the trailer and came up the next morning.

The next day I woke up to see the trees - which is not supposed to happen considering I have a flap that goes over the top of my tent. Well that flap, and the tarp, were blown over by the wind that night. No one slept well, and everyone was freezing cold. My brother's things and tent were soaked, so he came and sat in my tent while we listened to the state of the art stereo system, which was really just my ipod and headphones hanging from the hook in the middle of my tent. The day was spent trying to keep warm, going for ATV rides, chopping firewood, exploring the rock quarry, and playing DS. I had brought my markers and some plastic to draw on, but it was certainly way too cold to even consider that. It did get nicer over the course of the day, and we spent about an hour that evening trying to track down the sound of turkeys coming from a distant field. Turkeys sound just like a bunch of kids laughing and fighting. Its kinda funny. We never did get to see the turkeys, but that just gives me something to look forward to next time. Dinner was ab fab spaghetti and home made sauce, accompanied by a tasty salad concocted by yours truly.

We got pretty wasted that night.

The next morning we all woke up a little chilly, but the weather was gorgeous. My dad went down and slept in the trailer with Ralph because he was startin to hurt (first real thing he's done since he got out of surgery), so Ricky got to stay dry by sleeping in dad's tent. I was ready to jet - present company was really getting on my nerves and I didn't want to spend six to eight hours stuck in traffic like the last time we came home from Loomis. We ended up leaving around 1. I do hate leaving that place, because its just so damn beautiful, but because of the rain, and the mud, and the snow, and the wind, I just felt horrifyingly dirty. This is coming from a girl who sometimes goes a week without showering. Thats how dirty I felt. And I smelled bad. Not the usual camping woft, but this was some brutal camp fire mud shit smell.

On the way home we DID see Panda's Parlor, so we stopped, but the ice cream place was still closed. I got some coffee from Panda's Java Joint instead. It was pretty damn good coffee! I actually didn't expect it to taste good at all, considering we were in the middle of nowhere and I figured that pot had to be stewing all day long. I was wrong. And it was only a dollar. Plus I got a cup with a Panda on it. How rad.

So thats about it - I'll probably have to come back and amend this if I think of anything else super rad that happened - but in the meantime here is a link to the pictures I took. Can't wait for next time!

Photos of us camping!

Photos of artsy things around Breezy Acres

What a funny looking food

The orange I ate today was slightly more deformed than normal.



Also Dan and Mike and I went to see the Pillows and Noodles in NYC on Friday. We had a great time because instead of rushing right to the show we actually had a good amount of time to spend in the village and Toy Tokyo. We ate at a very good Korean restaurant, and Mike paid an extra 4 dollars for his meal to come in a stone bowl, something that he swears was worth the extra money and still is talking about to this day.

I also want to mention something that is not so obvious but impossible to ignore - that the New York City subway is so incredibly fucked. Why is it that Tokyo is so awesome, but NYC's is so horrible? Why is this? Are subways across the earth like this, with Tokyo as the exception? If so, why?

Noodles is my second favorite all girl Asian rock band, but they were not as interesting and pleasant to listen to live than they are recorded. Their songs have a pretty slow pace, and though they sounded tight, I did not get the same kind of satisfaction seeing them live as I thought I would. My opinion of them has not faltered though, I still love them. They were all sold out of L and M concert shirts though, since NYC was their last stop on the tour, which I think totally sucked.

The Pillows basically played the FLCL soundtrack, which I guess was to be expected, but it was honestly a good thing to hear after being such a fan for so long. They sounded great, they had a lot more energy than I thought they would given their ages (their drummer looked like he was late for his blood pressure screening), and the singer was extremely funny to listen to when he talked. He did the kind of things that would sound really silly for me to repeat here, but believe me when I tell you that Dan and Mike and I will be cracking jokes in the singer's fashion for some time to come.

I came home to my house full of people, which was to be expected, but the window was open and the smoke and music was pouring out loudly - at 130am. Some floozy was making out with a boy with his car running and headlights on in front of my house so I could not park.

Needless to say that my brother and I are having some words this week about him not having parties anymore, and relinquishing his house keys when I am not around on a weekend.

Other things that interest me this week:
Bioshock (360), Smash Bros. Brawl, new earrings, my dog knocked over my new shoji screen and broke a panel, Rock of Love 2 written by Steve Revesz (Sara and Steve's house is very awesome by the way), and I'm going camping next weekend with a possible pre-game Saturday.

Kinda gross, hilarious

Sometimes I wipe my boogers on things. Boogers are funny. A few weeks ago, a few days ago, I don't remember when, I wiped a booger on the wall of a bathroom stall. I figured someone would clean it up.



totally still there! Wonder how long it will live there for??

In other news, I've been playing Bioshock. I know I'm pretty late on the train for this one, but fuck is that game awesome. The best part about it? Now I understand all the "little sister" jokes all the video game cartoons had been making.

Grocery Store Novels

Not much that I find interesting enough to blog about has been happening. I threw a party last week that went alright, I've been doing a lot of cleaning and rearranging of the house, taking care of my dog's ear infection, and also doing a lot of sewing and drawing. Its apparent to me from my drawings that I am very out of practice and I haven't done anything that I'm particularly fond of yet, but you can check out my etsy store to see what I've been up to. Right now I'm working on a commissioned piece for an old friend of mine. I've been getting better at sewing, I finished a skirt that I have to alter, I made a bag that could be better, but my skills are slowly improving. I haven't sewn in over a week because I've been constructing a studio area in the front of my house, but that's irrelevant to this blog.

Mike and I went to the grocery store the other day to get a salad. We are both on a health kick. My doctor put me on a weight loss program that involves vitamin b-12 shots and once a day appetite suppressant pills that are basically amphetamine, and Mike had some blood work done that came back in not the best shape, so we're working on the getting healthier thing. The salad bar was closed when we got there.

On the way out we stopped at the novel section of the grocery store to see if we could locate a book that we saw at a Rite Aid once - Habeas Corpses - which from the title I can only assume you understand how awesome this book probably is.

//sidenote// I was just doing a google search for information on the book to share with you and found out that Habeas Corpses is also episode 8 of season 4 of the television show Angel. Disclaimer: I do not watch/endorse watching the show Angel. //sidenote//

I feel that the cover art of this book speaks for itself:


But here's the Habeas Corpses plot summary just in case that didn't sell you:

Summary:
[From author's web site] Two years ago Christopher Cséjthe survived a blood transfusion with a master vampire only to discover that he was infected with one of the two viruses that transform the living into the undead. Since then he has survived by his wits as men, monsters, and government agencies have hunted him for secrets his mutated blood may hold.

His personal life is almost as troublesome as the assassins that keep turning up in ever increasing numbers: his bodyguard is a sexy vampire, his jealous werewolf lover can't abide his touch after a silver bullet poisons his blood, and the ghost of his dead wife is being siphoned off by some dark and mysterious force that transcends the grave. The "neighbors" from the cemetary next door tend to drop by every night and someone is sending him grotesque messages in the form of dismembered body parts that are still alive!

Being almost undead has already provided a coffin-load of challenges. But this time around an assassin's bullet knocks Csejthe out of his body and into the afterlife as he journeys through the realm of the truly dead before a final showdown with an evil spawned in Nazi Germany. An evil kept alive through genetic manipulation and nanotechnology and waiting only for Csejthe's blood to overcome the last hurdle to immortality!

How could you not want to read this book? And what kind of person does it take to write this stuff? Turns out that William Mark Simmons, author of Habeas Corpses, seems like a normal dude..

From his wikipedia page:

Simmons has worked a journalist, educator, entertainer, and broadcaster, spending over 30 years in the latter category working in classical music formats and NPR affiliates.

So anyway, we're in the Giant, looking for this book, and though we didn't find it, I came across some other gems that I thought I would share.

Now the lone cowboy had more than his honor to uphold—he had a petite, pregnant powerhouse running his senses wild.

Elle James, the author, is not fortunate to have a wiki written about her, but she does have her own web page, located here. It features a flattering black and white portrait of her with a red rose in her hair, a biography where you can learn about her "military brat" and "exotic bird raising" past and present. She describes her books as

written especially for those who like a little mystery and a lot of edge-of-the-seat suspense.

Lastly, be sure to check out her blog: http://ellejames.blogspot.com/ I seriously suggest you head over there, because her most recent blog is about the research she did on cowboys for this novel.

Next we have a set of two from what seems to be a series of baby-romance themed books.



The only thing I am going to say about these books is that one author (from their respective web sites) is from St. Paul, Michigan "with a Bichon-poo who thinks he is human", and the other "knows how to use a credit card as a lethal weapon, and proves it regularly by putting major dents in the household budget. Abby and her family recently moved back to the city after a few years in the country. Watch out, malls, here she comes!" Abby Gaines has also written The Natural
in A NASCAR Holiday 2.

Finally we have

The emperor has outlawed dragons and dragonborn ordering them killed though he has bonded with a dragon. Natiya is the surviving daughter of two dragonborn whom the emperor had murdered. She dreams of avenging the deaths of her parents while hiding the queen dragon egg she is carrying hidden in plain sight as a naval jewel; one day that Unhatched dragon will live in a sacred bond with her.

I implore you to read Jade Lee's biography. It features an entire list of ancient Chinese rumors about her family. My favorite line explores the relationship she has with her current family:

At home, her husband and two daughters try to ignore her stacks of zen sexual texts.

Other books by Jade Lee include:

• The Tao of Sex
  
• Tigress Erotic Romance Series (including Cornered Tigress (#5) and Hungry Tigress (#2)
  
• Miss Woodley's Experiment and
  
• a book that falls under the category of "Futuristic Paranormal Romance" called Oracle

I don't make this stuff up.

Daily Cuteness

Here is a picture of some sleeping mice that I saw at the pet store.

I Went to the Public Library

A lil backstory.

I've been in kind of a personal rut lately, overcome with boredom, unhappy with my appearance and overall having a time that to sum up could be a lot more fun. Long story short I decided to start sewing my own clothes, initiated by the revelation that this spring I will not be wearing any pants, only skirts. Problem is, I'm usually broke, and its hard to find a good skirt these days that I don't have to pay at least forty dollars for. However, its not hard to turn my jeans into skirts or find five dollar patterns and 40% off fabrics at a chain store (see how that plays into the whole money issue? I'm so awesome).

So Saturday in all of my DIY glory after successfully turning two pairs of pants into two skirts that look exactly the same (two different colors, of course, and one of them sewn much better than the other) I decided that perhaps our trusty Hamilton Township Library might have some good DIY sewing books. Its not every day that I think about utilizing the library, but the day before Mike and I had planned on studying there (which we never did) and I have really fond (for lack of a better word) memories of that place from when I was little. My dad used to take me there all the time to get books, and I still honestly believed that the public library is that magical place where amazing things happen that they told me in elementary school.

For some reason before I went I got a coffee. When I got in my car I realized that I probably couldn't bring food or drinks in with me. When I got to the library I walked up to the door with it and saw the NO FOOD NO DRINKS sign like I thought I would and put the coffee back in the car.

Also on the way up to the door (which for those of you who are unfamiliar is a long walk up a hill) I saw two young girls with library books in their hands leaving with their mother. This brought back some nifty little feeling and further induced the notion that this visit to the library after five or so years was going to somehow change my life and who I was. I was completely convinced that I was going to find this treasure trove of information, and I would never have to go anywhere to get any kind of information on anything again.

Its all in my library. I KNOW it is. I FEEL it. Like the young girl feels the cosmos in Katamari.

I go inside, it all looks the same, theres the front desk where you check out, the children's section to the left (I almost walked into it just to remember what it was like to be there), the adult and etc section to the right, and right at the front door the steps to the downstairs area where they have little township get togethers. I took my cousin to one when we were like 11, I thought it would be cool, but he totally thought the dude was lame, it kinda made me feel bad.

So I go to check out the little electronic card catalog and see that every computer except one is being used. I go over to that computer and its just got its windows screen, and I'm pretty much like, fuck this, I'll just browse the shelves, because if memory serves me correctly the crafts are over here near the gardening and VOILA! After about a 10 minute browse by looking like I know what I'm looking for I find the sewing section.

There were about 35 books there, most of them about sewing techniques and making your own patterns. I grab the ones that are about making clothes from old clothes, using your old clothes, making patterns from old clothes, everything that looked like it remotely might help me out without being a technical guide because lets face it, I don't really care how to do special stitching. I took my books, I found a secluded desk, I dropped all my shit, pulled out my notebook and my ipod, turned on some Deerhoof (thanks Greg!) and got excited to have my mind filled with knowledge and ideas.

The first book I opened pretty much set the pace for the next half hour of "research". I was looking at this book, I have the name written down at home i'll update this later, looking at these horrifyingly outdated outfits that I didn't know to laugh at or cry that these things may have actually gotten made in someone's living room. I'll let my favorite piece in the publication speak for itself:



Awesome. Look at that style. Look at that sleeve. Fuckin planets people.

I kind of chuckled and put the book down after I did a thorough front to back scrutiny of what other amazingly horrifying things I could find. There was some great stuff in there; full body jumpsuits, overalls, pure gold.

I kind of got the idea at that point that the rest of these books were going to be as outdated as that one, if not more. My curiosity and my hope pushed me to continue - even though at this very point I realized I was probably doomed.

Something inside of me propelled me to open the Vogue magazine style guide.

I was treated to about 500 pages of this:


sigh.

I spent about 15 minutes leafing through the rest of the books I had - none of them were anything close to what I was looking for - regardless of how outdated the styles looked on everything they were also really tasteless, I mean 70/80s style is one thing, but these were the kind of clothes that Aunt Maureen from Ohio sends you on Christmas that your mom makes you wear when she comes to visit - you know what I'm talking about - you've seen that movie too.

Finally I get up to put the books back, I've admitted defeat at this point and I've decided that while the library might be the place to come for a slew of other ideas for craft projects, gardening, civil war history etc, its just not the right place for fashion tips. The library will have to induce inspiration in me for another project, on another day.

For some reason while I'm putting these books back though I have the urge to look to see if there are any gems that I missed out on, pretty amused by the books I was looking at previously. I find a book called "Make it in Denim". I get excited, half because there has to be some kind of rad 70's outfit in there that I hadn't seen yet, half because I actually expected something good to be in there. What I found was more than I could even hope for.



I laughed out loud at this one. I put it back after I snapped that picture and went back to the car and finished my coffee.

Between the time I sat down to look at the books and the time I got to my car I made it through 12 1/2 of the 13 songs on the Deerhoof album.

Maybe next time, library. Maybe next time.

Yesterday Was Pet Doctor Day!

Wilma, my dog, had her first visit to the vet as a member of the Schneider family last night. While she was a little frightened she behaved very well. I took her there to get a check up, and to see what was up with her ear scratchin habit. Turns out she did NOT have ear mites like the shelter thought, but she does have very dirty ears and what could be a yeast infection (in her ears!)

Other than that we found out that she is pretty healthy! I also found out that the size of her nipples (they are large) COULD mean that she had puppies, but it could ALSO mean that she is just very well endowed, which sounds like a better explanation to me since big breasts are something that runs in my family, and I am proud to be able say my dog has huge tits too.

Doctor Addler-Bush (or Bush-Addler?) gave me some ear cream which is supposed to help out her ear issue, and taught me how to clean her ears with this liquid cleaner that smells bad and gets everywhere which I need to do once a week. I had the shelter fax over all her information regarding previous tests and treatments, and she goes back to visit in two weeks.

I was very proud of the monster (her nickname)! The only time I think she was very worried was when she initially jumped up onto the puppy elevator (the examining table moves down and up for easy placement of animals) and it started to move. She looked at me with very frightened eyes, but since the tech was hugging her and we were all talking to her nicely I think that she realized that no one was trying to hurt her, and she didn't panic or struggle. She received compliments for that on her check up report card! The vet also complimented my brother and I for adopting an adult dog, something that I am very proud of myself.

The trip was rather expensive, but my brother is helping out with the bill and that means a lot. My brother and I are also looking into perhaps getting puppy insurance.

All in all it turned out well. I will give you an update on her status after we visit in February.

Here's a picture of the healthy girl (and Greg!)

Oh Yeah! Giraffes!

Dan told me today that he saw a video last night of a Giraffe falling down.

I didn't know that they could! I mean its a giraffe! Its so tall and nifty looking, you don't really think about them being able to fall over. They don't exactly look clumsy. Dan cleared up my disbelief by saying that two giraffes were swinging their necks at each other and one fell down. OOOH! Ok, so the jury is still out on if there are clumsy giraffes falling down for no reason (I would probably be that giraffe), but we do know that they can fall while swinging their necks. Totally believable (have you ever seen how long their necks are!?!?)

So then Dan told me that maybe the giraffe died, he didn't know. It was on mute.

Well thanks to Yahoo Answers, we have solved that mystery:

Loren Asks: What happens to a giraffe or an elephant if they fall down?
do they die?
can they get back up?
i just thought of this because i just saw the video of giraffes whacking each other with their heads

Shreyan (who apparently gave the best answer as selected by the questioner) replies: They can get back up. Giraffes fight only for mate, not food. They can stand up more easily, than other animals because they have long legs. Elephants can stand up. They take time, but at any cost, they stand up.

The only animal which cannot get after fallin or getting tilted is the turtle. The struggle for their best to get back to their original position when tilted & sometimes die in starvation in that way.

Poor turtles! But we're not talking about them here, are we.

I went to Youtube to find a video of a giraffe falling down, but I found this instead. The poster describes it as

an elephant and giraffe fall deeply in love in this heart-warming romantic comedy

Enjoy!

Persona 3, Food Adventures

I beat Persona 3 this weekend, except for needing to watch the final fmvs and some talking to people. I logged almost 100 hours of it - and decided to just run through the last month of play. Kind of regret it, kind of don't. Got the boyfriend playing it now though, so I can more than likely live the dream through him.

The ending did not produce as large of an emotional response as the events that happened in the game did, to tell you the truth it ended exactly as I had expected it to, so I guess it was more closure than anything else. I have yet to see the very ending of the game, but the last boss is beaten. So ends a chapter in my life that I am inviting to end with open arms - there are SO MANY other video games I could be playing..

At least until Persona 3:FES comes out.

In other news, I have been going on some food adventures!

First off, the apples.

Mike and I went to the WORLD CLASS Shoprite near the Sbucks he works at for dinner, and while we were there I decided that I needed to buy some damn food. When I went to get some apples I was pretty surprised to find that there were over 10 different kinds of apples. We stood there for about 15 minutes trying to decide which ones to get, but I ended up getting one of four different kinds.

I got Macintosh (sour!) Jazz (tastes like snapple apple!) Pink lady (tart, with a funny aftertaste!) and Stedman (havent had it yet!). So far I have not found the right apple for me (banking on the Steadman by the looks of it) and next trip to that Shoprite I will be getting four different kinds of apples. Pretty soon I will be an expert on what kind of apples I like to eat.

Secondly, French Press!

Mike, for no reason what-so-ever (and this, by the way ladies, is why I am luckier than you) bought me a french press coffee maker from his work. I wasn't being smart enough to realize that when I ground up coffee to use in it that I needed to get it ground in the biggest chunk possible, so I tried to make it using the fine grounds. The coffee pretty much came out like very thick coffee, pretty much espresso-like. I drank some of it and had to throw the rest out. I have decided that I'm going to use up the rest of the coffee (Ubora blend, again courtesy of the boyfriend) thats fine ground in the one cup coffee maker. Which, by the way, kind of stinks, because I only have one mug that will fit in the coffee maker. The rest of the mugs are too tall! So once the fine Ubora is gone I can move on to the special Princeton blend, get that ground thick, and try this french press thing all over again. I'm sure there is some kind of water/coffee special balance that I have to achieve, but thats the best part about it - always an adventure!

Next, I made miso soup from scratch for the first time last week.
The thing that sucks the most about that though is that there is APPARENTLY some kind of secret miso/water/stock combination formula that I don't know yet - so every time I make the soup its a giant experiment of whats going to taste good. Other thing that sucks is that I don't readily keep broth in the house - so I had to use shitty campbell's chicken soup broth which has tons of sodium in it and really threw off the flavor. Other variations of miso soup use fish stock instead of chicken, and different kinds of miso, so there is a LOT of experimentation that is going to be going on over the next few months.

Finally in some kind of celestial breakthrough I found a kind of mushroom that I like! They're called enoki mushrooms, and they're cute AND delicious! I put them in my miso soup and they act as a kind of noodle since they get mushy. They don't really taste like anything, its more of a texture thing, but thats rad!



Like I do with most things, I bought them because they looked cute. Who knew they would be so tasty (in miso) as well!!

Its David Bowie's Birthday!

He is 61 today.

Happy birthday, Ziggy.

Best Bands That Don't Exist Yet

Dan and I spend a lot of time during the work day trying to find ways to keep us both entertained. Sometimes we do surveys like the ones you find on myspace, but they got boring. We did mad libs for awhile too. Thursday we came up with some really great band names. I decided to share them with you.

Rad Kids Who Also Knit
oyster cracker nut pants
Grounded Astronauts
Bottle Rocket Flight 77
No More Ducks
Scissor Kick Swim Team

Folk Bands
Gene Twist and the Sun Dollars
Solemn Forest
Changing Leaves Changing Minds (this band only put out one EP, then went seperate ways to form bands with better names and more successful, but they had a small follwing in the late 90s.)
The Midwest Maple

Album
Oscar Frontbottom and the Swooners live from the Gabbin' Cabin
dan: one album and they think they're so good they do it live with probably a bowie cover in there
molly: changes or something like queen bitch, a hip tune
dan: kids come to our shows, what of it?
molly: the younger ones like to dance


don't touch the sides
OPERATION
molly: like some kind of daft punk ripoff?
dan: probably. like Clinic

Hissy Fitt and the Flatliners
molly: Hissy Fitt is a rad chick
dan: totally
molly: like, the opposite of beth ditto
dan: she has the exact haircut of Izzy Sparks

The Barn Fire
molly: barn fire is a good one man. like, if there was a band like that, i think people wouldnt think of arcade right away, but they'd probably sound a lot like them
dan: yeah, but you'd be like, these guys are definitely from the country

Needles in Haystacks
Cherry Chee and the Chocolate Mousse

novelty folk band
Grits Again!?
dan: and then hipsters will call them GA!?

the devil's advoCUNT
Winston's Farewell (definately assholes)
the Supermen
Pink Elks
Comedy of Slaughter
Pickles (that could be anything, but probably a three piece pop punk band)
Gary In Diana (like the city, probably a better song title)
Peyton's Arm
lazer guided rocket pussy
Empty Boxes
origami (no capital letter allowed in that one)
My Tears Wrapped in Tissue Wrapped in Your Arms
The Fascination
Understanding Your Body
Swans in Tron (electro folk??)
Enterance to System 42
Octagon Snatch
Israel's Vow
My Teenage Pregnancy
We Will Sing When the King Sleeps
Sonic Euthaniasia
Solution: Lasers
Star District
Foot Long Hot Dogs
Hank Huskee and the Mush
Drama Between the Henchmen
Thunderturd
7th Grade Tour Jacket
The Hobo's Cry
Pizza Town
Pizza Delivery Noize
Pizza Pi
She Smelled Like May 25th
A Noose and Stepladder Fable
Mechanism
the virginia tech hokie pokie against the kansas st. whocares (this isnt a band name but its really funny)
Manilla Fold Her
Acropolis Gateway
Puppy Playground
8th Place Trophy

aaron: speed limit of sound
dan: ::: shrug :::: IDENTIFICATION CONFIRMED
molly: aaron sucks. who invited him to play
dan: he started me on it
aaron: johnny rockstar and the mnemonic devices

Aaron and his Self Loathing Imaginary Friends
Aaron and the Self Loathing Invisible No-Fun Gang

Paper Plate Halloween Masks
Sinisturd
Wheelchair Gary and the Handstands
The Flaming Crips
Dan Stern and the Fighting Spirit of the Non-Jews
Dan Stern and the Too-Shys
An Anagram Solved
Knock KnINTERRUPTING COW
the spotted zebra complex
Jason's Football and the Wishful Thinkings
Jason and the Bummouts
Pico de Gallileo
Lisa Needs Braces
Japan Massive Attack Big Style
DENTAL PLAN
Super Fire Pink Guitar Robot
Uncouth Youth Booth
Planes Falling on the Plains
Handicapped G-Spot

If you wish to use any of these band names please send us money or else we will sue you because they are obviously copyrighted for our protection.