It Turns Out, I'm Good at Unemployment

Have you ever wondered how you would fare as one of America's 14 million unemployed people?

This handy dandy "game" allows you to make decisions based on the premise that you're unemployed and have children. It's called "Spent". You basically have to make it through the month with a positive balance in your bank account. Along the way, your relatives die, your car breaks down, your kids have to go to birthday parties, all of which take money away from your meager salary.

I suppose I'm at an unfair advantage with this game- I mean, I'm already unemployed, I have "kids" (cats). But at the end, I survived with 400 dollars but had to keep my kid home from a museum trip, delay getting a weird dental surgery AND ignore my car insurance demands. 

It's all kind of part of an advertising project to get people to give money to the Urban Ministries of Durham. Play if you want to be momentarily depressed.

Ill-Advised Insomnia-Influenced Post

It's 4 AM and I can't sleep. This is due to many factors, one being an impromptu early nap brought on by wine/beer/pure laziness. Ok, that was really the only reason.

You may have noticed that I have a recent and burgeoning obsession with Jersey Shore. Sadly, many of my friends do not sympathize with my love for the guido's and guidettes of the shore, and have refused to allow their eyes to feast on the tanned entertainment that they have to offer.

I can kind of understand- when Jersey Shore came out, I was hesitant to compromise what I believed were my "intellectual" qualities to watch what I underestimated to be another mere "Real World" masquerading as something special.

How wrong I was. There are so many reasons to watch this tan-fest, and my mission is to make my unwilling friends watch just ONE episode, of my choosing. 

1) Snooki She is a reason all of its own. Maybe I'm partial to people below 5'2, but this pickle-loving ball of fun has captured my heart. She makes funny noises and is perhaps the most well-intentioned of the bunch


2) Vocabulary Lessons DTF, Grenades, Landmines, Shady Bitches, GTL; the list goes on and it's too late/early for me to explain it all. See here

3) Endless Parody Opportunities (See also, Snookishop)

Funny or Die Jersey Shore Parody
- Watch more Funny Videos at Vodpod.

Watch this, I beg of you, if not only for Pauly D's wonky British accent. 
Also, the song Grenade has a whole new meaning to me now, because I imagine Pauly D singing it to The Situation.

4) Feel intellectually superior, if only for a moment Case in point, when Angelina, the "Kim Kardashian of Staten Island" finds out she will be selling shirts on the boardwalk in the first season, she proclaims this humble profession is beneath her.
"I'm a bartender. I do...Great things," she says.

5) Biology Lessons Did you know women are sometimes called females? Well, the men of Jersey Shore are super scientific and they know this well. When Sammie "Sweetheart" is being taunted by a belligerent guy on the boardwalk, Ronnie shouts repeatedly, "Bro, she's a female. Bro, she's a female." See also, Facebook group dedicated to this biological observation.

6) To study the effects that Xenadrine have on a person's mental health: See;Ronnie.


7) Vicarious Confrontation I'm someone who doesn't enjoy confronting people about their behavior, much less pulling hair and throwing punches when the mood is escalated.  This show is a great outlet for my passive-aggressive streak. See some of the fights here.

8) Research about the state of Pop Culture These people, whether we like it or not, have now become ingrained in our popular culture. So much so that at times they're caricatures of themselves (see; The Situation). According to Know Your Meme, this is explained partially because of the interwebz:
"Considering the already exploitable nature of the Jersey Shore characters, Snookishop and similar Jersey Shore parodies can be seen as an example of how mainstream media and online exploit/gossip culture increasingly feed off each other."
(BTW, Snookishop is this amazing conglomeration of Snooki photoshopped into various images. )
We may not like the things that our pop culture deems important, but this show is really representative of the way people garner fame and how they become enmeshed in our mainstream media.  

Finally, to end this modest plea, in the hopes of us all coming together for this upcoming season of Jersey Shore (IN ITALY!) I ask for your consideration. How can you say no to these faces?

C'est Pas Possible

There are many reasons--my current 7 PM attire of bulky socks and pajamas being one of them-- that I am contesting the fact that I've recently turned 24. There must be some kind of conspiracy or calculation error that led me to this seemingly advanced age- it just cannot be.

I didn't type it on a typewriter but I thought the font would help me channel Hunter S. Thompson.

Dear Forces of the Universe,

I'm writing to address a gross error on the part of the time-space continuum, of which I believe you are the department head. According to my birth certificate, I am 24. Sadly you have not equipped me with the proper tools to possess these many years, and I must ask you for a reversal of this time, the reasons for which are herewith.  

1) I just tried to (successfully) hack into my own online bank account. Every time I come up with a new password for it I forget it as soon as I turn off my computer. Trying to hack into my own brain is harder than I imagined.

2) I spent the last 12 or so hours watching the first season of the Jersey Shore. I'd rather not comment on this, as it's particularly shameful. SHAMEFUL that I didn't see season 1 when it was on television! I've seen this intro way too many times and can hear it playing in my head:

        

3) The only reason I put on pants today was that I have new neighbors in the building across from mine and I know that they can see into my apartment, because my previous neighbors walked around naked all the time and I scarred my retinas by unwittingly glancing over at their uncovered windows.

4) A cupcake is my motivation for getting out of the house today. (In my defense, it's a pretty amazing cupcake, being held hostage by one of my dear friends. So I'll get to see her and eat a cupcake. Did I mention the cupcake?)

Sweet Arbiter of My Fate

6) I have a stack of library books that is my height, and I think I've read maybe one of them in full. I've become a library book hoarder.

7)I'm all of five feet tall, constantly carded, and told I look 16. 

8)I'm seriously considering starting a conversation with myself on Gchat due to the two separate Gmail accounts I have open a this moment. 

Thus ends my argument for now. Please carefully review my reasoning. You can speak with my team of lawyers at your soonest convenience.I expect either an age reversal or a lump-sum of monetary compensation.

(NOTE: This being said, thank you to the ppl (and felines) who spoiled me this weekend.)

Gleetise

Oh look, the title of my post is a mash-up of two words (albeit a bad one). You know who loves mash-ups? Will Schuester. My friend over at iamjudgmental happens to think he's repulsive, and when you see him sing, I agree that there's some sleaze that oozes from the screen.

But whatever, I'm not here to repulse you with an analysis of his sultry renditions of 80's rap or BoyzIIMen.

Yesterday's Valentine's Day episode of Glee ("Silly Love Songs") encompassed all that is extremely unrealistic and disconcerting about this show.

A million questions ran through my mind as this train-wreck of cheesiness barrelled into my living room.

• Who the hell would give a bunch of high school kids sparklers? (See the "Firework" segment in which Lea Michele sings dramatically in a dimly-lit school hallway with sparklers ablaze behind her) I must caution you in watching the video below, it's likely you won't be able to erase this song from your memory anytime soon. I don't mean this in a complimentary way.

• Why are they going Katy Perry crazy? Is this some kind of evil plan to make me go insane as her pathologically catchy songs loop endlessly in my feverish mind?
• Why is "Firework" the inspirational song of the moment? (It's been used in the Golden Globes Promo's, American Idol, and now Glee.)
• If you dance and sing to love songs in a hallway of a high school, it seems you have a higher chance of being teased.  Strangely enough, whenever the kids sing in the hallways (which happens often) they are almost always unscathed by the usual bullying. This seems strange.
• Why haven't they sung anything from Moulin Rouge? This would help buy back my affections. 
• Why was Tina crying uncontrollably in her love song? And why was it never explained?

I realise most of my complaints are "Firework" based. In other disturbing news, I just happened upon a website that seems to have some kind of desire for Quinn and Will to be together (Quill). All is can say is; ew. He already seems too chummy with his students. This is just uber-disturbing.  It seems to be an internet wide campaign, as this creepy imagined scenario demonstrates. I've seen too much.

Epic Equation of Doom

+

=

A movie so bad that mankind will have to go into hiding to escape the annihilation/permanent paralysis of our brain cells

*Note, I have seen neither of these movies. I saw The Mechanic last week, so I've already been punished. But from what I hear, The Room has achieved cult-like bad status, and The Roommate...Well, it's just bad. (It has an 8% on Rotten Tomatoes...8%! The Room has 31%- that's a pretty big difference, considering The Room has been dubbed the "Citizen Kane of bad movies."

Poultry Prophecy

One of my closest friends has a theory about chickens, which she revealed to me when we were in high school.

"Chickens are evil," she said casually, when someone asked her why she abstained from eating poultry.
"Wait... What....?" We responded, confused. I had chickens as pets when I was a child, so it was hard to imagine them harboring some kind of evil plan that they were to hatch upon mankind. (Pun regrettably intended).

"Yeah, they're going to take over the world," she said again. As my face showed all signs of being flabbergasted, images of dominatrix chickens whipping docile humans while holding them on a leash flashed through my head. My friend's convictions wavered at times--they didn't apply to Chicken McNuggests, because, as she said, those weren't really chicken.

I couldn't find a picture of a dominatric chicken.

In hindsight, my friend had a bit of prophetic wisdom in her words, after all, avian flu was and still is a serious threat in some places.

But the other day I came face to face with an evil chicken that taunted me from beyond the grave.

As you know, I love my cats. This love involves me cooking for them, rather than cooking for myself-- giving me a convenient excuse to constantly eat take-out (it's a win-win situation). And the other day, I thought to myself while shopping with a friend, "Why not cook an entire chicken?"

Victim and Perpetrator

Bad. Bad idea. I overestimated my Julia Child-esque butchering capabilities. I was left, half-wretching, half-crying, into my sink which also held a chicken's whole carcass maimed by my feeble attempts with a cooking knife. (I was trying to take off the skin for cat health purposes) One of my friends had the misfortune of being on the phone with me- an anecdote she was telling me was constantly interrupted by my faint cries of "blergh...blerghhhh...blerrghhhh....."

Own that chicken Julia!

In the end, I submerged that evil agent of destruction into a pot of boiling water and prayed for it not to leap out with its little wings at my exposed throat. (No such thing happened, although I'm pretty sure that it's possible.)

I thought I'd conquered my fears but now I'm unable to smell or eat chicken. My friend was right. Chickens are evil. I know because I've faced one and lived.

(This is by far the most idiotic thing I've ever written.)

Never Mind My Obscene Voice Mails

In 2008, what is now referred to as "Sachsgate" got in the way of one of my most enduring obsessions: Simon Amstell's reign on Nevermind the Buzzcocks. After Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left some unsavoury messages on Andrew Sach's voicemail, (one pertaining to Brand's trysts with his burlesque-dancing granddaughter) an explosion of discontent went off in the British media world- even Gordon Brown spoke out against this act of telephone abuse.

I don't particularly care about Jonathan Ross or Russell Brand, but after this tsunami of craziness washed over the BBC I found out that a prerecorded episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, in which Russell Brand was a guest, had been cancelled from BBC's schedule. I had been cheated from my precious last moments with Simon Amstell as the host of this irreverent pop quiz show.

"DAMN YOU BBC!!!!!!!!" (I thought to myself, shaking my fists towards the sky as rain pelted down on my face. Well, not really, I think I ate some cake to make me feel better)

Thanks to the glory of the interwebz, those moments have been restored.