Friday's random thoughts roundup!

Here are some awesome thoughts I've had in the last week:

-- A coworker sent an email to the whole department telling us that by nature of our membership in Hertz's Gold Super Awesome program (note: not its actual name), we can rent Hertz cars by the hour. I was really tempted to reply asking if that was at all similar to motels that you can rent by the hour, and if so, I really wasn't interested. If I want to get it on in a car, I can save money by just doing it in my Honda Civic. But then I realized that I could probably rent a MUCH more spacious vehicle from Hertz -- like maybe an SUV or a minivan -- so the banging would be more comfortable. But THEN I realized that we have a bed at home that's a wayyy more appropriate place to bang -- even better than a rental SUV. And THEN I realized that I shouldn't reply to that coworker's email at all, because this whole stream of consciousness is not the sort of thing that should be emailed to coworkers. HR would probably get involved.

-- My brother was a Thanksgiving Nazi. He cooked 90% of the meal, and it was delicious, so I can't really complain too much, but he could have been nicer about it. Specifically, he insisted on using an actual meat thermometer instead of the notoriously unreliable 'poppers' that are a critical part of the Thanksgiving tradition (how else are you going to overcook the turkey and be forced to eat cold side dishes, Ryan? HOW ELSE???). And worse still, he wouldn't let us put stuffing in the turkey because of some sort of risk of everyone getting food poisoning and dysentery from it. My mom was so upset about the whole not-stuffing thing that she kept trying to recruit me to help her ninja-stuff it whenever my brother went to the bathroom. Like he wouldn't notice that the turkey had magically become filled with stuffing. It would be the Great Thanksgiving Caper of 2012. We were totally going to do it but then instead we made another mimosa.

-- The morning after Thanksgiving, we were all lying around watching Top Gun and these commercials kept coming on for this rehab clinic. Like, every fifteen minutes there'd be this commercial with some guy telling us how great rehab is. So I was like "wow, what the hell kind of person do they think is watching Top Gun on a Friday morning?" like it was ridiculous. But then I looked around and saw that both my brother and husband were drinking mimosas out of pint glasses and my mom was on her third bloody caesar AND we were watching Top Gun in the middle of a weekday, and I realized that WE were their target demographic. Us.

-- I'm going to miss the annual work Christmas party -- which has an open bar from 1 til 5PM -- because I now work out of the Seattle office. Discussed it with my boss and we decided that the best compromise is for me to just drink heavily in my office here from 1 to 5 and then go home. "Telecommuting," it's called.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone! And WHY HAVEN'T YOU FOLLOWED ME ON TWITTER YET?? IT'S LIKE YOU WANT ME TO KILL MYSELF OUT OF SADNESS AND LONELINESS. @PatentsPatented is my handle.

Oh, and since I can't put up a post without a single picture in it, here is a drawing of a Diet Dr. Pepper with gas.

I suck at Twitter.

Whenever I try something new, I expect to be good at it right away (obviously). And so when I'm NOT good at it right away, I get pissed off and quit.

And you know what I'm all pissed off at and want to quit at the moment? MOTHER-EFFING TWITTER.

Twitter is an asshole. It's like a really shitty version of Facebook that sucks and I hate it and it also sucks. And here's why:

1

I don't actually know any of the people I follow, and they don't care that I exist

I love Facebook, and I love my Facebook friends (except for the ones that suck and need to get unfriended). My Facebook friends are mostly regular people who I've met at least once in real life. So it's not weird that we talk to each other on there and comment on each other's posts. I think of Facebook as a giant and constant conversation with people I know and feel comfortable chatting with.

The people I follow on Twitter, meanwhile, are super celebrities with a kajillion followers who couldn't care less about me. So I'm all:

Note: I do not actually follow Justin Bieber. I can tell you with nearly 100% certainty that I will never, ever give even a quarter of a shit about anything he has to say. Even when it's about ponies. I don't really care for ponies, as a matter of fact.

The fact that these celebrities don't care about me makes me sad. NOTICE ME, SETH McFARLANE! NOTICE ME, STEPHEN COLBERT!

BUT LIKE A BUNCH OF MEANIE-HEAD CHEERLEADERS, THEY DON'T NOTICE ME.

Then again, the reason they don't notice me is probably because...

2

I don't have any followers

How do I get those? Oh yeah, I guess I need to start tweeting awesome shit and being all relevant with my hashtags and crap.

I bet tweets like this would get me TRILLIONS of followers!

And I need to start publicizing my twitter feed. But here I am, publicizing it, and probably won't get any followers because...

3

I don't know what the hell to tweet

Since I don't have any followers, I don't want to waste any funny thoughts on Twitter because it's like yelling jokes down a well. (a well that Timmy isn't currently trapped in, of course)

Stupid Timmy never plays along.

So I save all my good material for Facebook. I guess I could link my Facebook and Twitter, but then it'd be totally redundant for anyone who was a friend/follower on both. So do I have to come up with different material for each? I DON'T HAVE IT IN ME TO BE THAT CREATIVE!

4

I even suck at following other people

I can't even follow people properly, because I hate most people on there. I will only follow people who are 1) funny; 2) don't tweet too much and clog up my feed; and 3) aren't always telling me to do shit. I tried following The Onion but DUDE, they tweet something like once a minute. And they're all just links to the same articles. Slow your roll, Onion. Unfollow.

Then I tried following Ellen DeGeneres, because hey, she's funny ... but all her tweets were like "watch me on this show today!" and "donate to this charity" and "read this book" and I was like HEY ELLEN, QUIT TELLING ME WHAT TO DO! I DON'T WANT TO READ WHATEVER BOOK YOUR STUPID FRIEND WROTE THAT IS PROBABLY GOOD AND I WOULD REALLY ENJOY IT BUT NOW I'M NOT GOING TO READ IT JUST OUT OF SPITE BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE BEING BOSSED AROUND.

Ahem. Deep breath. And Unfollow.

So the moral of the story is, Twitter sucks and I hate it. I feel like it's high school all over again where I'm the lame loner watching these conversations going on between all these people who understand how Twitter works ... and I'm just sitting there tweeting out links to my blog to absolutely no one.

F*ck you, Twitter. And f*ck you too, Timmy. What kind of an idiot falls down a well all the time anyway? I bet your Twitter feed is worse than Bieber's.

I bet Timmy would tweet meaningless douchey stuff like this.

Meanwhile, can someone teach me how to do Twitter right? It is destroying my self esteem. Follow me, and we can start sending each other tweets about hashtags and stuff. I'll come up with funny crap, I swear!

See? I'm already getting better at it!

 

UPDATE: Guess who just scored a TWITTER FOLLOWER??! Prepare for some mind-blowing knock-knock jokes, world ...

If I were a ghost ...

I bitched about how lame our ghost is. And then a friend commented that the ghost in her house is pretty damned lame too. And then I watch that Ghost Hunter show, and ya know what? THOSE GHOSTS ARE THE LAMEST OF ALL.

I mean seriously; most of the “hauntings” they investigate are ghosts that supposedly show up in the men’s room, or ghosts that stand on the edge of the dance floor looking on disapprovingly.

This ghost sucks so much it hurts my heart.

At least these ghosts are snarky.

What the eff, ghosts. Up your game a little bit.

Here are a few of the awesome things I would do if I were a ghost (assuming ghosts follow the same rules as haunted house employees – you can scare people and you can move inanimate objects, but you can’t actually touch the people themselves):

1

Spell out completely random sh*t in Ouija

Imagine the fun a ghost could have with a couple of idiots and a Ouija board. I’d start with things like “YOU MUST DIET” because you know they’d be freaking out right up until that last T popped up (and I’d make sure to wait a good minute before moving it there), and then they’d be offended because seriously, ghost, everyone knows it’s rude to bring up other people’s weight problems.

Then maybe I’d send something like “BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE.” And if they don’t get the joke, then I’ll start breaking glasses and smashing chairs and stuff like that, because A Christmas Story is a great movie and how can these idiots not have seen it??

Then I’d wait til one of them went to the bathroom (I’m picturing a couple of teenage girls here) and tell the other one that the first one is sleeping with her boyfriend. And then she’ll be all pissed off and confront her friend about it, because why would the ghost lie about that? Ummm, well, because the ghost is easily entertained, that’s why.

 

Then I’d finish up with some random nonsense, like “flaming fecal hat” or “f*cking shovelface.” That’d really throw them off. Then they’d finally realize that their ghost is a complete jerk and they’d put the Ouija board away.

2

Open the shower curtain while they’re showering

Can you imagine how scary that would be if you were showering and suddenly the curtain jerked open but there was nobody there?

Okay that’s too scary. I don’t like that one. Now I’m going to be thinking about that happening every time I shower. I hope I don’t give our ghost any ideas.

GHOST, DON’T DO THAT ONE. IT’S TOO SCARY. I'LL PEE MYSELF.

Though I guess if you're going to pee yourself from fear, the shower is truly the best place to do it.

2 again

Fast-forward through the boring parts of movies I don’t like.

 

Maybe they’ll eventually learn of my distaste for chick flicks and they’ll start watching movies that DON’T SUCK.

3

Load the Dishwasher all Jacked Up
 

Yeah! Solid ghosting by ME!

 

4

Catch the Medium’s Hair on Fire during a Séance

Mediums always seem to have big frizzy hair and séances always involve candles. I don’t think I’d be able to resist the urge on this one.

 

 

Don’t worry; I’m not a complete asshole of a ghost. I’d put it out with a fire extinguisher a second later.

 

5

Cook an Amazing Dinner for them Once a Month

(just to let them know I appreciate them for putting up with me and not calling an exorcist to make me go to Hell or wherever)

(and because I really am sorry about that whole incident with the Medium. It's just ... I mean ... she had SO MUCH HAIRSPRAY on! I didn't realize her hair would catch that quickly and burn so fast!)

 

So you see, I'd be the best ghost ever. But don't go killing me just to get my awesome haunting -- if you kill me I'll just stick to scary things like SUDDENLY YANKING THE SHOWER CURTAIN OPEN or WHIPPING THE BLANKETS OFF YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP.

 

Or LEAVING THE FRONT DOOR AJAR AND THEN SLAMMING IT WHILE YOU WATCH. STACKING UP ALL THE FURNITURE IN AN INSTANT. BREAKING ALL YOUR GLASSES ALL OVER THE FLOOR

 

Or ... WRITING IN BLOOD ON THE WALLS.

 

So ... yeah. You don't want that actual scary shit. Maybe mildly annoying ghosts are the way to go.

 

The dishwasher thing, though -- that might be going too far. I get seriously upset when people load the dishwasher all retarded-like.

 

THE DAMNED TUPPERWARES DON'T GO ON THE BOTTOM, JESSE. THAT'S STUPID.

Angry eyebrows

When I first started writing this blog, I wasn't much of a Paint artist. I'm still not, but I've definitely improved from those early posts. Mostly, I've gotten better at showing facial expressions to really sell the dialogue ... and the key to good facial expressions is knowing when to employ the "angry eyebrows."

Let's have ourselves a little lesson:

Obviously, when you put angry eyebrows on someone with an open mouth, they immediately look supremely pissed off. Like Cookie Monster here:

That's fun and all, but what's even more fun to see is the effect of putting angry eyebrows on someone who's smiling. See this adorable Care Bear here?

Look what happens when I give him some angry eyebrows (and a knife):

See, now he looks like he wants to harvest your kidneys! Isn't this fun?!?!

You can also put angry eyebrows on someone who looks sad, and they go from being sad to being completely exasperated. Check out Eeyore before:

And Eeyore after:

Uh oh, Pooh Bear looks pissed.

A nice passive-aggressive hug between best buddies.

Here is an angry goldfish with a bomb:

And here is Spongebob Squarepants after rampaging through a children's hospital:

This is actually terrifying me.

 

 

Yes, yes, there are many cute cartoon critters who look sinister with the simple addition of some eyebrows.

 

For example, Clifford the Big Red Dog seems to have his "friends" riiiiight where he wants them:

 

 

 

Here's Dora the Explorer and her gang (as in, her actual street gang of dangerous thugs):

 

Oddly enough, the bird with the noose is making me the most uncomfortable. It's like he can see into my soul.

 

 

And here's Scooby Doo watching a little TV:

What an asshole. Seriously.

 

 

So there you go, guys: the amazing power of the angry eyebrow. There's almost nothing it can't do! And in the spirit of the season, here's a message from the Big Guy himself:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the reminder, Santa. Thanks for the reminder.



Watching some TV with the Ghost

A follow-up to the post in which the Ghost and I played some board games:

 

 

 

 

 

 

He really is the WORST ghost ever.

(and if none of this makes sense to you, first meet the Ghost and learn of my aversion to the Big Bang Theory)