Oh My God

Now, I am not a religious person, mostly because of the Westboro Baptist Church. I have basically written off organized religion on the grounds that it makes people blinded and bigoted and self-righteous and just generally not fun to hang out with on the weekends. But now, I think I've found my man.

Meet Epimetheus, God of afterthought and the father of excuses.


Oh, I'm sorry I didn't cook dinner tonight. I spent the whole night praying to Epimetheus.

Oh man, that laundry. Yeah, sorry-- Epimetheus Day!

In addition to being a lazy son of a bitch, which I can totally respect, Epimetheus is also responsible for giving the animals their positive traits. I love animals! Epimetheus, you rule.



Oh and in case you wanted more of those cray crays over at the WBC, check out this gem of a clip from Michael Moore. You can't wait until Fred Phelps says, "You guys are headed straight to hell in a faggot's handbasket."

Clampocalypse?

You're going to want to skip right ahead to 1:35 ...



By the way, I find this totally disgusting.

If there was a clampocalypse, the world would get a whole lot grosser, and rollier. Look at how this guy moves! Also please note, two miniature versions of Irena and myself freely yelling the world clam at about 0:29. I hope our children sound just like this one day...

Tinkle Tinkle Little Embarrassment

I had to write this for my humor writing class which I just started today for work. (Pretty decent aspect of the old career, eh?) And seeing as I love humiliating myself, I thought I'd share it here. Hooray!

Peeing on playground equipment is not an advisable way to spend an afternoon.

This is one of the first lessons I learned in life, and one that took the longest to live down.

As an awkward 4-year-old in kindergarten, over-riding the state system to inflict Miss McClean’s 1991 class with my pinching problem, unstructured laziness, and complete inability to tie shoes, I faced social obstacles on a daily basis. One of them was recess.

It was a rule at Monsignor McHugh Catholic Elementary that once students left the cafeteria for recess, they were not allowed back in to use the bathroom—a law, no doubt, laid down by God himself. My affinity for Ssips was a problem I had proudly mastered by taking a dutiful bathroom break at the end of every lunch. Up until one fateful March day, I had made it through the potty system unscathed.

Then I discovered “extended kindergarten recess.” It was a celebration of spring, a joyous occasion for all, as we embraced our extra 30 minutes of playtime and clamored around the lawn like a pack of wild dingoes.

About five minutes in, the great Battle of the Bladder began. At first, I tried to stay strong. I played tag, which mostly consisted of crossing my legs on “base” and trying to keep a low profile. When that got to be too much, I took to the swings, with one leg tucked up underneath me for comfort. It was a quiet refuge, until Sergeant McClean called the troops to line up and take one last sadistic ride down the slide.

I panicked. The only tactic I had in my back pocket was to keep avoiding the front of the line, so I could continue to wiggle in peace. But slowly the line grew ever shorter, and more and more of my classmates—34 in all—were forming a semi-circle around the base of the slide. In a tinkle-filled haze, I found myself at the top of the slide, about to go down, and little classmate Aitza Santiago’s puffy, pink, nylon ski jacket lingering at the bottom.

That’s when the bladder platoon captain gave the signal: Full Speed Ahead, and my daily dose of juice box went streaming down the slide, hurdling towards its absorbent, pink landing pad below.

It was the urination heard round the world. Time stood still. No one spoke. Not even Miss McClean.

Then my 5-year-old classroom compatriot Matthew Tribiani said, simply, poignantly, “Erika.”

Yes, I had done it. It was a war crime and there was no escaping. I had lost the battle, and so received my punishment. It was off to the nurse and into an old school uniform circa 1975, of an entirely different pattern and color than the current design in use—the only one that fit me in stock.

My day was spent in the lonely gallows of shame. It’s a loneliness that fills the heart of someone who knows, even as a simple toddler, that this will be the butt of a joke for many, many years to come.

If Irena and I Were Models...

(from the February 2011 Urban Outfitters catalog)

Doggies in the Window

Even though I have a Gary*, I secretly still prefer dogs. That's why I get so excited for the Westminster Dog Show. It's like a cuddlier version of Miss USA. Fortunately, the New York Times has created a totally awesome image gallery of every best of breed winner, so we can all pick out our favorite puppy wuppies!

My favorite puppy wuppies (in order of appearance):

And on the 8th day, God said, let there be naps with Bernese Mountain Dogs.



The Bloodhound, because I want to smush my face in this dog's face.



Yeah, I love huge dogs. The bigger the better, and the Great Dane wins.



The Irish Wolfhound. These guys are just so giant and awesome, and this one time when I was little I got to hang out with one allll day with my babysitter and, man, that dog was just the COOLEST.



Watch out Beyonce, this Otterhound's about to show you up, getting all SORTS of scruffalicious. I'm putting a ring on it. If I owned this dog, I'd walk around the neighborhood singing like Orphan Annie all day, every day.



Alright, so this dog is like, "whaaat?!" but at the end of the day, his name is Cordmaker Rumpus Bumpus, so he obviously gets my vote. (By the way, the breed is the Puli, soon to be known as the North American Rumpus Bumpus. Big shoutz to Genevieve and Armel for bringing this to my attention.)



This one didn't photograph too well, but I've always wanted a Saluki. They look so lithe and delicate, and I want to make one love me. They're like the runway model of dogs.



This Irish Red & White Setter looks like ice cream tastes.



The Shiba Inu is about as close as you can get to a domestic fox. Therefore, gimme gimme.



The Spinone Italiano makes we want to start smoking pipes, wear jackets with leather elbow patches, and drive an Aston Martin. (Yes, I know that's not the intended cultural reference, but it clearly doesn't matter.) Let's do it, Italiano. I name you: Watsioni.



Phew! Well that was fun. Clearly this is only the top 10 of my top 35 breeds. My main goal is to snag some tickets to next year's show at MSG. I'm going to secretly fill my pockets with bacon and then let the magic unfold. I wonder if they screen for that?

*By the way, check out image number 3 (as of today... duh). Actually, even more important to check out is Gary's Bizarro World/Doppelganger: woah, woah, woah.

**Anyone else notice a severe lack of weimaraners, dalmations, pugs, german shepherds, etc.?

My Paperless Post Post

I am a huge fan of Paperless Post. Ever since my cousin's fiancee sent around invitations for her bridal shower, I was converted. There is no turning back. I am sending cards left and right, popping them out like it's nobody's business.

Well, I guess it's Paperless Post's business. And they are good at what they do. For far less than it would cost to send actual cards, you can send out really well designed digital ones in about 30 seconds. Plus, if it's an invitation, Paperless Post provides you with a really useful RSVP tracker.


Really, though, the best part about this site is the designs. These cards are awesome to look at-- whether they are cute or girly or serious and formal, they are all on point. Run one quick google search for cards and invitations, and you'll see how much awful, garish, cheesy, color-overloaded crap is out there. This site is extremely refreshing.

I sent two cards to James on Valentine's day, which were very funny, I like to think, and I'm extremely tempted to put them up here. But I am not going to be that girl. So I will show you the fronts...



Not too shabby, right? Later on I fell in love with this one, and it's making me wish one of my friends would get violently ill.

It turns out that all three of these cards are made by a Brooklyn-based design company, called Enormous Champion. Realizing I clearly love them, I check out their site. Turns out they also make amazing WHALE TOWELS and have a cat named PENNY LANE! Meanwhile, here I am, loving the shit out of whales and naming my cat Penny Lane. This is magic. Do not deny it. Look at this effing whale towel I am going to own in 3-5 business days. Thank you, Paperless Post. Thank you.

Clam Jam #13: Southpaw Was the Shit

Alright, three cheers for Dio's brithday. If it wasn't for that spectacular evening, we may have never gone to Southpaw, and never danced to the glory that was the 90s. I busted out so many moves that I learned off of MTV's "The Grind." (The most successful was, of course, the pepper shake.) James created a new move: The Dougie, straight into The Bernie. He made several women fall in love with him on the dance floor.

Needless to say, the night, and its jamz, are still hot on my mind. This Clam Jam is brought to you by one of my favorite moments of the night:




Oh and um, here's a video of The Grind? Should we talk about how weird it is that this was an actual show? Maybe focus a discussion on Why the Hell is That Girl Riding a Stationary Bike? Just leave it alone? Yeah, ok.

Alice + Olivia + Digression

So... blah blah blah, it's fashion week. This time of year does nothing but make me feel short, poor, and covetous. Well, pass me the Ben & Jerry's and a gift card to Forever21, because I'm diving in head first.

(see the whole thing at Refinery 29)

Alice + Olivia are kind of the coolest, right? And they're, like, almost in my price range. There's this glimmer of hope that some day within the next decade, I can walk into an Alice + Olivia boutique and be like, "BAM - Grab me that dress in a 4, woman. Mama's taking it home with her tonight." And then I spill like a milkshake or something on it and my cat cuts a hole in the sleeve that night, but WHATEVER! It's still mine.

So um, the 20s? Yeah they're kicking it. It's good because in nine years it'll be the 20s again and then, shit, we'll all be ready to shimmy and party and just roar it the fuck up in golden age part two. It's gonna be the bees knees.

Also maybe this is the sign of the end of the prohibition coming? Eh? Eh? Wink wink?

Whatever.

Look at this couch that's almost ten times better than those clothes, but also very reminescent!


This photo was taken in the dressing room of what is clearly the coolest place to buy clothes on the planet: Post Script. It's all vintage shi shi run by ex-model Julie Skinner, whose life basically makes my existence look like a modern tragedy. Check it out.


This is some sort of *totally amazing* item you can apparently buy at her store, *if your life is made of silk and diamonds and unicorn tears that you sprinkle in your champagne to make all your dreams come true that day.* I would sell a sizable portion of my soul to wear this out to a disco dance party.


Speaking of... whatever it is I'm saying, Swirl by Daily Candy is now selling vintage bags from Balenciaga, Dior, Chloe, Gucci, Valentino -- you know, all the kids at the popular table. Really, "vintage" here means "totally outdated-looking a la 1998-2003." This was not a good time for bags, folks. Remember the tiny little u-shaped slouchy ones? And the saddle bags? Say what you will, I was not a fan. I am even less of a fan now. These things do not translate well over time. That said, this little number is pretty tight (and kinda goes with my theme here):


Skunk. Who'da thunk it. I could add this to my odd varieties of fur collection... or my curio collection. Whichever. I want to wear this in the rockiest of ways, even though that's about the lamest thing that's come out of my mouth in days. What I'm trying to say is that this bag would look best with some skin tight leather pants and a BMI of about 2.5. You should definitely only hold it if you also have a cigarette in your hand. I mean, your mouth.

It's like if Kate Moss and Nancy both had time machines, and they collided mid-trip and smashed down in 1924, you know? It's not hard, people.





By the way, 1920s chicks were totally badass. Look at these broads, just out on the town, broadin' it up. They're probably about to go flap. And drink moonshine.

On a final note (finally) this is my favorite one. Give me that head, right now.

Getting Back to Our Roots

Sometimes, we all just have to take a moment and remember where we came from. And we, ladies and gentlemen, are rooted in a solid foundation, built brick by brick, pearl by pearl, out of a deep love for one thing:


This guy comes with a lot of questions: Is he dancing? Walking around outside? Is it Halloween? Is he selling food? Is his costume partially constructed out of condoms? but most importantly ... Who is his friend with that sweet, sweet jacket? We should be friends!

Check Out Trump's Smacker

Look at this fishy fish fish face he's got on! It's totes legit:

You're Cut Off!

Have you guys heard of You're Cut Off! yet? Never has a show incited me to write hate mail, but this one, THIS ONE. Well, it's the fucking worst. I literally looked up the cast's full names so I could try to hunt them down, and figure out a way to publicly chastise them.

Is that creepy? Don't answer that.

Apparently this show, which follows spoiled "princesses" after their family cuts them off from all their money and support, is in it's second season. I've just been blissfully cut off from what is clearly humanity's black hole, televised. These girls are like 28 years old! How is that possible?

These are real human beings who have spent 28 years on the earth, yet still have no idea what happens on this planet. They have tearful realizations that working minimum wage means you make about $30 a day. Who knew?! They found out there are shoes that cost less than $300. Seriously... who. knew.

Also, despite having been around for 28 years, and spending approximately $1 million dollars on themselves for each of those years, these girls still manage to look TERRIBLE. I mean like the "oof honey, get yourself fixed UP" kind of terrible, even in their head shots for the show:

That's why the show is here -- to teach them how to be people. They learn how to share money and write up grocery lists. That's really hard! And they learn how to have a group conversation without throwing a temper tantrum that gets them held down by security and kicked off the show. Actually, they didn't quite learn that one yet. Maybe next season!

So all these girls are really awful, but Hana Hills? Hana Mother Fucking Hills. She is a TRIP! What a doozy! Can we take a peeksy at her twitter page to see how awful she is?

Woof. It's just a yikes, yikes world for Hana Hills. Hana I Wish I was Paris Hilton. Hana Run for the Hills and Buy me a Pack of Cigarettes because I'm going TANNING Today. (No really, that was an episode theme.)

And I mean... that's about it. The show is pretty awful. Awful in that these girls are terrible humans, but also awful in that they're clearly forced to say some pretty idiotic things, even to their standards. And god damn, those are some low, low standards. Like, if there were standard deviations for how terribly low people's standards can be, these girls would be... you know... really really far to the left, where the curve goes on closer and closer to the X axis for infinity or something. Basically what I'm saying is these girls standards are as poor as my math skills. And the same goes for the producers of the show.

So now you totes want to watch a clip right? Well VH1 sucks and won't let me embed it. Here's a clip of the girls fighting about cigarettes and wine! Yeah!

Catastrophe Roundup

Guys there's so much natural disaster coming our way, and the stupid dummy Mayans didn't even realize it!


First of all, a giant asteroid is totes going to crash into Earth. I know, I know, it's exciting news. But hold on to your panties and save yourself a trip to Ricky's (obviously we're gonna get all snazzed up for the greatest disaster of our lifetime). This bad boy isn't going to hit until 2036, though first it's going to drop by and wave hello in 2029, passing just a few thousand miles from our atmosphere. God is such a tease, isn't he?

The real question is, how do respectable 48-year-olds celebrate the end of the world? I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's safe to say whiskey is a better apocalyptic beverage than, say, a mai tai. Feel free to brainstorm awesome party ideas. Maybe you can find inspiration when you calculate the impact of the asteroid with this handy simulation program. At any rate, we have some time to think about it.

Ok, but asteroids? I mean, so yawn, right? Once you've seen Ben Affleck act his way through an asteroid situation, you know it's a dead topic. Remember that Armageddon scene with the animal crackers? I mean that just a doomsday scenario killer.

Not to worry! We can always die from magnetic polar shifts. That sounds cool, right? This article is really poorly written, and the author apparently hates commas, but it's a fun read nonetheless.

Superstorms with winds reaching 300 - 400 miles per hour? Time to whip out your wind surfing gear! We're gonna cruise our way into the afterlife.

Rampant DNA mutations? Eh... I'm going to have to work on a positive spin for that one.

Maybe we'll just all die like this (at least some of us definitely will. definitely. no question.). Obviously dying from an asteroid/devastating magnetic pole shift is a lot cooler than going down in a pipeline explosion--err, literally--so I'm going to try and hold out for the former.

Eat This Now, Thank Me Later

Since I work from home, I spend a large percentage of my time procrastinating by looking for things to eat on the internetz. I go the grocery store almost every day, as well, just to get out of the house. It's a good excuse to change out of sweatpants and into yoga pants (truly the tuxedo T-shirt of the lounge wear world). I discovered this recipe over at Stone Soup,a blog dedicated to 5-ingredient recipes. It's all in crazy metric measurements, though, so I've been playing with it a little bit to get the proportions just right. It is hands-down the most delicious thing ever to come out of my blender, requires about 4 minutes of effort, and uses only 3 ingredients. I can't stress this enough guys: go home and make this immediately. I realize it's cold and snowpocalyptic over on the east coast right now, so just crank up the heat, and eat some damn gelato.

what's left of the strawberry

Easy Fruit Gelato

Combine in a blender:

• 16 oz. bag frozen fruit
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Puree until smooth. Done.

Microwave the fruit for a minute before you add it to the blender to make it easier. Add a splash of orange juice if you're feeling adventurous. Stick the whole thing back in the freezer for about 2 hours, or until its reached your desired consistency. You can eat it immediately, if you like, but it'll be a little soft. Thus far I've made this with raspberries, strawberries, mangoes and pineapple. I've got plans for chocolate-banana and blueberry this week. My favorite is mango: it's super creamy and subtle, the most similar to American ice cream. Strawberry was also pretty spectacular. Raspberry was really brightly fruity. I loved it, but I have a special affinity for raspberry seeds that not everyone shares. The boys all really loved pineapple. As far as I can tell, you can do no wrong with this one.

Clam Jam #12: Let's Get Biblical!

Alright, so Irena's back, stealing my thunder, and all I still have time for is clam jams.

Seeing as the end of the world is coming and all (I can't wait!), I figured I'd do a little shout out to the big G-O-D. Let's get down with some bible music. Sorry these aren't actually videos. You can just stare into the void really, really hard until you see the stigmata appear on your hands and Ted Haggard dancing around on your screen.

There Will Be JEOPARDY!

Maybe it's the old person's soul buried deep inside of me, but I have secret soft spot for game shows. It's right next to my secret soft spot for stealing sugar packets and right above my secret soft spot for complaining about people leaving the lights on. Regardless, at 7 p.m. I like to settle in for the one-two punch that is Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (Speaking of Wheel, have you guys seen Vanna White lately? I'm pretty sure there's an old copy of Playboy locked in her attic, becoming more and more disfigured with each letter she taps.) The past few weeks they've been running advertisements for a special edition of Space Jeopardy of the Future! where the show's two biggest winners compete against an IBM computer named Watson.

That's exactly what Watson looks like.

The computer was built specifically to compete in Jeopardy!, which seems like a perfectly reasonable use of millions of dollars and IBM's top engineers. Watson must decipher slang, irony, and a whole bunch of other things humans are better at than computers. Watson was engineered to deduce the meaning of a question, search a database of more than half a million books, and then press a buzzer in under 3 seconds. Needless to say, I am beyond excited for this John Henry-esque installment of America's Favorite Quiz Show®.

With nerds and their meager romantic prospects in mind, the first episode will take place on February 14th. I must remember to tell the boyfriend to cancel all those wildly romantic gestures he's been planning; Jeopardy! waits for no one (unless you have a DVR, of course).

Clam Jam #11: Wish Me Luck, Or Something

One degree of separation aside (full disclosure, or whatever), I think the concept is spot on, the execution barely falters, and the song makes me wish it was a minute and a half longer. If that's not a successful video endeavor, I don't know what is.

"Old In Florida" by You Can Be A Wesley from loroto on Vimeo.

The Great Shoveling Irony

As I waddled my way to the train stop this morning, over an entire block-length of three inch ice-slush (that's an inch of ice, covered by an inch of slush, covered by another layer of hard ice over top that cracks and splashes when you step over the fossilized footprints of the Slushozoic Era below. Oh, and there's water on top of that, like the Devil's slip and slide. It's perfect inspiration for next year's Winter Wipeout course.), I couldn't help but get really, really mad at Mayor Bloomberg. He is the guy to go after, afterall, right?

My superintendent gets up at the crack of dawn every day to scrape off whatever weather poop the skies have dropped in front of my apartment. He does some good old fashioned shoveling, salt sprinkling and pathway carving that makes it pretty a-ok to get up and out of the house. Everyone else on my block does the same. And the restaurants and store fronts do it 10 times better still, lest they catch me off guard on a bad day and get their asses SUED, mother fucker!

So why does the next block, with public park to the north and stalled construction to the south, sit completely unkempt and totally treacherous? Is this not the great hypocrisy of our time?

Don't shovel out your building? Get a hefty ticket. Don't clear your store front? Feel the wrath the of the civil suit, and a get hefty ticket. In fact, the law says you have a mere four hours to clear a path in front of your building. Violators can get a $150 citation from any city sanitation worker, not just police. And yet the city is all la-dee-da about their own properties. To put it in Sarah Palin's recent, brilliant words: WTF?

I think all of the people that cite poor shoveling and write tickets should be put to work hacking at the ice mounds piling up along abandoned buildings, city parks, and --hello?!-- every street corner in the entire city. How is it acceptable to leave snow compacted into the sewers, and allow five inch deep lakes of murky, city slush water to form around every one? And when I say every one, I don't even mean just NYC anymore. That goes for you too, Boston and Philly, and I would assume every other major city that gets snow.

Is there no way to solve this problem? The great minds in America have come together to create the a-bomb, perform stem cell miracles, put spaceships on Mars, but shit... how do we get the snow off of public property? How do we do it? I hope whoever gives the next State of the Union Address is sure to include this issue in the agenda. It is truly one of the great challenges of our time.

That's it. No facts. No solutions. Just rant.


The end.

PS - that woman is having the best day everrr!