Oh Kansas I’m Kneeling, Oh Kansas Please

Thursday, January 27th, 2011 – late/early, hungry, pear liqueur, who put glitter in my lip gloss?

As a pre-post courtesy, I should probably point out that I may or may not have been partaking in some tasty, potent liqueur shots before I wrote this, therefore, exempting me from any liability or offense the following extremely informative and intelligent ‘essay’ may cause.

INTRODUCING STATE NUMERO TRES: KANSAS

What I know about Kansas, you could probably fit on the back of a postage stamp. A really small postage stamp. I mean, the first thing a normal human thinks of (I’m using me as an example here and you can just shut up) when they think of Kansas, is tornados and the second is “The Wizard of Oz”. Which was set in Kansas. And had a tornado in it. Thus, proving my point. I defy you to tell me something else of immediate notoriety about Kansas, unless you live there, in which case I’m sure you know other stuff that’s at least moderately fun and hopefully gossip-worthy or illegal or both.

I also know that Kansas is comprised mainly of flat prairie land and is situated in the American Midwest. Someone still needs to explain to me, to my satisfaction, why the Midwest is even called the Midwest, because to the best of my knowledge most Midwestern states are either a) not even remotely in the west, or b) in the west but in the very easternmost side of the west. Let me show you what I mean with a canny diagram:

If we're being technical here, UTAH is really the midwest. Right? Also, YOU try writing with a mouse.

Back to Kansas, sitting slap bang in the middle of the country, minding its own business.

Its name comes from the native American tribe “Kansa”, which means “flat, hot, hella windy and thankfully on the border of more interesting states like Colorado

* ”. Okay, I’m kidding, it actually means “people of the wind” but I like my version better. Although maybe people in Kansas just eat a lot of bean burritos, I don’t know. I wouldn’t go putting money on it in Vegas or anything.

Perhaps its slogan should be - Kansas: Full of farts

Anyhoo, here’s an interesting fact courtesy of the book of all that is true - Wikipedia. Apparently Kansas holds the record for the joint fifth highest temperature (along with North Dakota) ever recorded in an American State, at 121 degrees Fahrenheit. Holy fuckety that’s hot. That’s hotter than a naked Justin Bieber, sporting a tiny pink boner smothered in peanut butter, to a room full of 12 year old school girls and 40 year old moms.

Even more frightening a realization than that image I just planted in your mind, is finding out that only 9% of Kansans are non-religious. That’s an even higher proportion of Jesus Fish stickers than in West Virginia last week! If you’re of the Atheist or Agnostic persuasions, it’s probably best, for example, to detour to Colorado from Missouri, via Oklahoma or something. You know, if you enjoy the idea of keeping your balls and your limbs and your eyeballs and your hands, etc. Of course if you’re passing through Missouri you might already be sans hands if you passed through the Ozarks. I saw “Winter’s Bone” you know. I know what happens when shit gets real in that state.

That’s about it except to say, you know a state’s lost the plot a little when it has a city named after it and three quarters of that city is in another state entirely. I'm talking about YOU Kansas City.

I’m not sure I taught you anything here to be perfectly truthful…

Anyway, you all just have a smolderingly exuberant Thursday! Unless you’re in Australia or NZ or someplace where it’s already Friday, in which case, in the words of the great profit Cee Lo Green, fuck you. I’m only joking. You go ahead and spoil yourself by having a joyous Friday instead.

* Sorry Kansas

When Cute Turns Bad & Other Stories

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 - Sunshine, coffee, Terry's White Chocolate Orange, Sci-Fi villains

This morning I was all gung ho about posting an entry I wrote last night about how sick I was of having to tell people their newborn baby was "beautiful" when to me, half the time, babies look like some sort of hideous Picasso painting or a Cabbage Patch Doll. About how I always want to say inappropriate things to new mothers like, "I expect he'll grow into those chins!" or "Is he supposed to look like that?" 

Today I'm sneezy. The rest of the week I'm going to work on being the rest of the seven dwarfs. Except maybe Doc. Because I don't cure anyone's ills.

And why is it "dwarfs" and not "dwarves"? Grammar rules don't apply. Did Walt Disney make that rule himself because in real life he was a man known for some rather questionable racist prejudices and being singular minded so one day he just decided, "Screw the grammar rules when it comes to pluralizing words ending in 'f'. I'm Walt Fucking Disney, we'll spell it my way!"?

Wait, what was I saying? Oh yes. My point is, my allergies are partying today all up in my nose caves. It's like someone toppled a tub of pepper in there. Gah. They feel full of goo. I'm sorry to bombard your visual receptors with that sexy image but there you have it. You can call me Snotty McGooerson.

On a totally different and irrelevant track, did I mention to you all I've been avoiding the news lately? Because I have. I've been not watching any news on TV or reading any news online AT ALL. Like when someone popped a cap in that lady politician down in Arizona, I didn't know for about three days and I only knew then because people kept referencing it on blogs. I was gloriously out of the loop. I like it. I feel free of global worry and liberated by ignorance. I'm not avoiding it forever, but it's certainly nice to have a break from all the crazy, scary crap going on in the world. There's a chance the world will end and the apocalypse will arrive at my door and I'll be sitting here all alone at my computer going, "Why is no one updating their blogs? Who will entertain me?" and be completely unaware of it. I'll only notice when I go to the store and there's no cheese left and the cashiers are...you know....zombies.

You may have gathered I don't have much to say today but I felt it my civil duty as one of the world's unofficial educators, that I bring you that baby article. Aren't you just happy to know me?

Happy Burns Day, Scottish people. May you eat haggis and raise your kilts and shake your hairy balls in the face of celebration! And may the rest of you stay the hell away from Scotland today.

It’s All About Me!

Friday, January 21st, 2011, breathing, exhausted, happy, itchy boob, craving oatmeal and yogurt

Well it’s been a while since I’ve produced a meme on a Friday and I bet you all thought “Thank God for that nonsense being over, we already know too much crap about your insanity!” Well surprise! Four people asked me to do memes this week because they got together and ganged up on me (not really) so I thought I’d do one of them for now and tackle the others on other Fridays. Maybe. If I remember.

 This week’s meme is from the sassy Wynn over at Chronicles of Wynn. Go see her and call her a bad name!

Rules:
1. Thank and link back to the wonderful blogging friends who gave me this award – oui! 2. Answer 10 survey questions – oui! 3. Pass the Award on to your fabulous blogging buddies - meh 

Q1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren't anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously so that you could be anonymous now?

I do blog anonymously, yes, and I’m quite happy doing it. I’m not some secret freak or anything whose identity needs to be protected or someone would declare a jihad on me, but there’s public me and there’s private me and I like those people to be different people. I never understand people who put it all out there. There are perverts out there, people, who will print out your picture and lick it and maybe wait outside your apartment with firearms and candy.

Q2. Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side.

This is one of those questions like “What’s your favourite movie?” and “Who is the skinniest lady in Hollywood?” – there are so many possible answers and, yet, when asked, one can never come up with one. I’m very stubborn. I’m stubborn about everything because my head likes things to be a certain way and until it gets its way, it will not budge. For instance, last night I was sprawled on the couch with a headache and I couldn’t reach the remote to change the channel so my stubborness of “I am tired and therefore, will not move!” dictated that I lie there, frowning and watch two whole episodes of that godawful Bret Michaels’ reality show, feeling dirty and ashamed.

Q3. What do you really see when you look at yourself in the mirror?

Well truthfully it all depends on the mirror and my mood. My bathroom mirror is my BFF. It always manages to make my hair look shiny and delicious, my eyes sparkle and my skin look all peaches and cream. It never shows up those fine lines or insomnia eye bags and basically strokes my ego and makes me feel like a princess. All other mirrors in my house, however, should be covered in tarps and avoided at all cost, because they’ve obviously been tampered with and show some heinous pasty witch who needs a haircut and a decent foundation and a lip colour that doesn’t scream “WHORE IN THE HOUSE”!

Q4. What is your favorite summer cold drink?

Duh. Margaritas? FROZEN margaritas? It’s THE summer drink. They’re the perfect beverage. Cold like a slurpee, fruity like a soda, alcoholic as holy fuck yet cunning enough to go down smooth and trick you into thinking you’re not drunk until you stand up and fall over your own feet and refreshing as one of those TV showers under a waterfall in slow motion. The downside is of course, the next morning you always seem to wake up with your pants still half on because you got frustrated halfway through getting undressed and just gave up and also you feel like a team of angry wrestlers just moved into your head.

Q5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

Usually I like to sit and think of all the things I COULD do, then totally procrastinate all of them. I might paint though if the mood takes me. Or draw. Or read something if I’m feeling fruity. Or play my guitar or ukulele. Or work on my crochet blanket that is now the size of Texas. Or I might get a tasty, unhealthy snack and snarf it down while watching a movie. God what a boring answer. I’m almost ashamed of this answer.

Q6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life?

Pretty much everything. I’d still like to jet ski and paraglide and about 500 other such sporty endeavors. I’d like to just one day realize I’ve reached a point where I can go, “Holy shit, I’m content with everything and no longer feel any guilt or shame or resentment or fear or inferiority or fatigue or annoyance or urge for unhealthy foods or embarrassment or regret or the need to struggle. I’d like a nice car, that doesn’t overheat or try to kill me by dumping me on the highway when it’s minus three hundred degrees out, would that be okay? I’d like a couch I can lie down on without dangling over the edge. I’d like the metabolism of an 8 year old boy so I can eat cake and cheese all day every day and not put on an ounce. I’d like to appreciate wine properly and start running again and not curse in Walmart.

Q7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?

I was a hybrid of all of the above. I wasn’t the class clown except with my friends, I was shy but not chronically, I was pretty much a straight A student (yes really, shut up!) and in high school I ditched school fervently depending on the subject. Like whenever we had circuit training instead of a sport in gym I was all, “Thanks but if I wanted to be tortured to the point of death I’d listen to an entire Poison album!” then I'd go home for a couple of hours and eat cookies.

Q8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?

I’d see a time where I used to get eight hours sleep and wake up as perky as a Disney movie. Oh wait, that would be never. Not the perky part anyway. I’m not a morning person. I will never be a morning person. I have a theory that people who embrace mornings need to be put on an FBI watch list or something because they clearly have motives beyond wishing for world peace. I think the most poignant moment in my life was honestly when I was 21 and my dog died. I say this purely because I can pinpoint that that was the day I actually felt a tangible, negative change in my life.

Q9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events?

I choose not to share anything deep on my blog. I don’t get into “me” at all in any real sense. I don’t find it hard to write about my true thoughts, I just prefer not to. Because it’s none of anyone’s beeswax. And because I prefer the social aspect of just chewing the fat with other crazy people online, without getting all serious. I’m a weird hybrid in real life of very serious and the polar opposite of very serious, which would be batshit crazy non serious. I find everything hilarious and nothing hilarious. I'm demonically anti-social. Even I think I’m a bit of an odd combination.

Q10. If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

I’d rather have my arm sucked off by a jet engine than talk on the phone. I hate phones. I have no fear of them particularly, I just despise them. They’re fine in a work setting but I can’t talk on them in any social manner because they aggravate me. I get all ants in my pantsy and want to get up and do things while on the phone. I fidget. I check email. I constantly let my mind wander off the conversation. I hate it. I will send a text or make a quick call if I need to make arrangements or something but other than that, you won’t find me chatting. I can go entire weeks without picking up my home phone. I’m happy to yak all night to you in a bar or in person somewhere but don’t call me, seriously. So I guess I’d read a book. Although I need to be in the mood to even do that these days.

Well wasn’t that all fascinating? I won’t tag anyone because I never do, but you all should think about doing this meme so I can gather up information on you all for my dossier, that I will use at some future point to blackmail you. Ok? Have a stellar weekend!

My Head Would Like An Off Switch

Thursday, January 20th, 2011 – cross-eyed with the tired, hunchy, sniffly - kill me now

I always think there are two occasions you should never attempt to post a blog entry.  One would be when you’re rubber-faced drunk and two, when you’ve had no sleep whatsoever and are nine different kinds of delirious.

Oops!

You know how sometimes you toss and turn and don’t sleep at all?  I mean hardly a single wink, let alone forty of the suckers?  Then when you wake up you feel like you’re in some sort of parallel reality where things look normal but you feel like there’s a wood sprite in combat boots dancing around in your skull and you can’t quite focus properly on things?  And you have to read sentences about six times before they make sense?  And when you look in the mirror you see some hybrid, heinous, hell-spawn of a zombie and Tara Reid, the morning after a marathon orgy of cheap champagne and penises? 

That’s sort of how I look right now.   I’m all stuffed up and my sinuses sound like they’re crying.  I ran out of congestion pills yesterday and forgot to buy more so now I feel like someone got inside my head pumped it full of air with a big pair of bellows.  

On the upside, I bet that’s the only time you’ll see bellows mentioned in a blog entry today.  Go me and my uniqueness!

So I consoled myself by pouring a big glass of ginger ale even though it’s only 6am.  You see, ginger ale is my bitch.  It eases all ills.  I look forward to it.  And since I weaned myself, kicking and screaming, off of aspartame, I will drool on my own chest thinking about sweet Canada Dry instead.  I really want coffee but any hope of an hour’s sweet napping will be blasted to kingdom come if I get near that. 

I hear some people like to start the day with tea but despite my British roots I never saw the appeal in it myself.

Not that this is surprising.  There are a lot of things I don’t understand the appeal of - digital photo frames, line dancing, Twitter, Nicolas Cage…  I could spend an entire week listing things people like that I just don’t understand. But instead I’ll just suck down this glass of golden nirvana and try not to plan any murders.

Short and Opinionated Like Danny DeVito

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 – cold, no coffee, no cake, no point

I have to point out how delighted I am at Ricky Gervais’ “Golden Globes” monologue. It was funny, yes, but the funniest thing about it was Hollywood's outraged reaction. Which amused the pants off of me because really, who doesn’t like to see privileged people who constantly award and celebrate themselves, roasted like pigs on a spit?

The more uncomfortable and rude it got, the funnier I found it. Let’s be brutally honest here, if you hire Ricky Gervais to present a red carpet awards show, surely you are not expecting tame, old school jokes, lots of ass kissing and a musical number? I mean have you SEEN Ricky Gervais live? Just go get Billy Crystal if you want that shit.

Besides, I though he was relatively tame as comedy goes. I think he toned it down a bit. Plus Alec Baldwin looked like he was about to pee himself he laughed so hard. If Alec’s not pissed or calling someone a “rude little pig” it must be ok, no?

Plus do you really think they were naïve enough to let him on stage without approving his material? If they were, then it’s their own fault.

Hell, if you really want Hollywood to just spontaneously combust in a smoky fog of indignity, get the South Park guys to host next time. You’ll be begging Ricky to come back on stage in no time.

Really, to make those award shows more bearable for the audience they should invent some new categories. Like “most overrated actor” and maybe “most pompous director with delusions of grandeur” and “biggest waste of a hundred million dollars while people are starving in the world” awards. Perhaps they could have a “most surgically enhanced parts” award or “most entitled” or my favourite, “most up his own ass” award. Which would always be awarded to Tom Cruise.

I might watch that show.

Almost Heaven–West Virginia

Monday, January 17th, 2011 – Devious, hungry, cold feet, impatient, expecting death threats

Continuing, my series of highly informative State essays, I’ve long had a theory, that I’ve mainly kept to myself for the sake of my own personal safety, that the prettier and more rural a state is, the higher the likelihood will be that Old Paw who runs the corner store is banging his own sister and proudly harbouring several junior Paws all with six toes and an unusual arrangement of facial features. It doesn’t say it in any geography books I’ve read but who are you going to believe, some learned professor type, or me? Really?

Which brings me neatly to West Virginia. Who doesn’t think of West Virginia without snickering and coming up with phrases like “inter-familial-boning” (I just made that up, it’s good no?) and visions of scraggly, old, beardy-men brewing moonshine in the woods, while wolves howl in the background and scraggly, old, beardy-dude number one’s seventeen year old daughter, Luanne, can be heard indignantly yelling way in the distance, “Noooooo Jim-Bob, y’all put it in back or we’ll git pregnate!”

Whoa, even I can’t believe I wrote that. I AM sorry.

But only a little.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, John Denver seemed to like WV and its “Country Roads” and there’s no debating that if you like mountains and forestland, and what sort of city-assed pantywaist doesn’t, you’ll see the beauty in West Virginia. Majestic mountain ranges, lush valleys, regal forests and fuck-me-I’m-running-out-of-impressive-adjectives type of rivers, all make up its inner structure.

West Virginia confuses people because it’s not actually part of Virginia at all. It’s like the forefathers were all active up in Virginia to the east and they thought, “So what we gonna call that piece of land with the mountains on it, west of Virginia? Oh wait here’s an idea…”

 In actual fact WV was once part of Virginia, way back in the fetal stages of the day, but decided to secede from its confederate neighbour during the American Civil War after Virginia took its ball and refused to give it back or even let it play with it. Allegedly. That’s how I heard it anyway. Never you mind my sources.

Despite what you might think, West Virginia’s state motto isn’t, “Don’t y’all look at my sister that way, she’s mine”, it’s actually, "Montani Semper Liberi” or “Mountaineers are always free” if you prefer English. That motto is really only true if those mountaineers are not captured by some baggy-eyed, hillbilly Appalachian types in overalls with a tooth apiece and who want you to impregnate their daughter. Yet, despite West Virginia’s “rustic” qualities it’s one of the few states that do not have the death penalty.

Not officially anyway…

Now that I’ve gotten those stereotypes out of the way what can I tell you that’s interesting about West Virginia? That it’s the most northernmost southern state in the United States? That a tiny part of it is actually above the Mason Dixon line and so dangerously close to Washington DC that they can come down from the mountain and steal your children at night? That the highest point in the entire mountainous state is a place superbly named “Spruce Knob” making me twelve years old again by saying things like, “I really want to sit on Spruce Knob”.

I hear it’s a big knob.

Did you know that only 13% of West Virginians claim to be “non religious”? If you’re a fire-breathing Atheist you might want to keep your heathen, murderin’, stealin’, hellbent ways out of West Virginia or end up being taught the error of your ways, by the penises of several toothless men who all look the same, while you’re hogtied to a moonshine-still in the barn.

I actually tried to read the Wiki page on West Virginia for serious research purposes, but it was full of actual information and statistics and links and YAWWWWWWN! Who can read pages of that nonsense without spontaneously combusting? It didn’t mention incest or toothlessness or scandal even one time, (BOOOOOORING!) so I found myself drifting off and thinking things like, “I wonder if I can bake an awesome new lemon cake tonight?” and “I really need to scratch an itch all up in my bum, but someone might notice.”

Lastly, it turns out those tooth-devoid, daddy-humping, banjo playing Appalachian people are actually descended from the Scots and Northern Irish, which makes them related to…me. What goes around comes around, as some purveyor of useless, smug sayings once pronounced. As of now, I’m delighted to report that I still have a full set of teeth and am happily not married to my uncle, so I don’t think there’s any reason to panic.

I think that’s about all you need to know really.

Please note that this informative essay is for fun purposes only. I don’t really believe that West Virginians are in-bred, half-witted, toothless, backwoods dullards.
Not all of them, anyway.

How To Talk a Lot Yet Say Nothing

Friday, January 14th, 2011, sore back muscle, navy blue eyeliner, I am stylin’, I dislike bendy rulers, talking to Lefty the cow

Yay, it’s Friday and I’m cosy in the house, contemplating putting on pants but deciding ultimately that it would be a colossal waste of my time since I don’t plan on going anywhere and if the postman should show up and make me open the door, big deal, it’s not like he hasn’t seen me sans pantaloons these past few weeks, in fact he should be positively used to it. Expect it even. So there will be no pants. “Liberation” is my middle name. That and “Delusional”. And maybe “Feral”.

Actually “feral” reminds me too much of Will Ferrell and that’s never a good thing. Will Ferrell makes me fear for the human youth of today. It seems they haven’t yet figured out that he isn’t actually funny, he just LOOKS funny. The ball will drop one day. We can only be there to console.

 Same with Ben Stiller. The sooner everyone figures out the dude’s scathingly awful and always sports a menacing glare that yells, “I strangle grandmothers!”, the better off civilization will be.

I think I’ve ranted about my Ferrell/Stiller hatred before. My hatred knows no bounds.

I had big plans for today that didn’t involve uber-procrastination and watching more snow falling or laughing maniacally at the chubby kid who just scooted by the front window, hit a patch of icy snow, did some alarming type of unexpected Riverdance before falling on his ass making his hat fly right off his head, or wondering what point of the iPad actually IS. No, I wanted to make oatmeal and clean the bathroom and do something disinfecty (it is a word) to the in-house dishwasher and start painting a Cylon Raider but have I done any of that? Hell to the no.

What have I done? Let my coffee get cold, informed BeckEye that a gentleman she has a crush on looks like a homeless woman’s vagina, called Free Flying a “Sky Muffin” and taught Mr. Peevers how to make possibly the best sandwich mankind has ever heard of (Marmite, peanut butter and cheddar).

So in a way I feel all KINDS of accomplished and therefore, am probably deserving of some sort of decadent cake or expensive red wine as a reward.

As no one is providing me with these things I will probably eat something boring then stare at a blank canvas for an hour before deciding, “Meh. Maybe tomorrow.” Which oddly enough is my motto.

I’m sorry this is a ramble, but no one really reads blogs on Fridays anyway, so who cares?

I hope you all have quite astonishing weekend. In a good way, naturally. Not in the, “I just opened my blinds and there was a totally naked Vince Vaughn looking back at me with his cold, psychotic, ‘I do meth’ glare, while holding the corpse of a kitten and wielding a machete.”

No one wants that kind of astonishment.

Presenting North Dakota: The Greatest State of All Time

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 – holy mother of fuck I’m tired, allergies, sprouted grains, lethargy

As you all probably gathered by now, I’m all about teaching people really useful or informative things; new swear words to shout, true historical accounts of things the way they actually happened (i.e., in my head), how to get out of doing almost anything. I figured a good thing to do would be teach you all a bit of useful information about the world, beginning with the United States. So let me ask you this. What is the most awesome state ever out of all fifty states? That’s correct! It’s a state I’ve come to know very well - North Dakota.

I bet you all never gave a hot damn about North Dakota did you? You all probably think it’s some empty, cold wasteland that’s practically in Canada and well…you’d be correct.

 But I’m here to tell you that ND doesn’t get the respect it deserves. North Dakota is a veritable wonderland of fantasy and adventure. And I know this because I found some guy on the web that says so, because he’s a native North Dakotan and he gave many perfectly valid, intelligent reasons as to why ND is the greatest state that ever existed.

Oddly, one of those reasons isn’t, “Because Veg hangs out there”. So clearly, he’s an idiot because I raise that state’s cool profile hugely. Even when I’m not there I’m sure they talk about me with hushed reverence and bestow me with honours. Kind of like when the mudders gave Jayne Cobb a statue (and a song) in Canton after he “donated” all that money to their cause. Look it up, TV philistines.

I’m not sure this ND guy’s done a whole lot of traveling though, because one of his reasons for North Dakota’s supremacy is:

“It is the home of places such as Fargo, Bismarck, Minot, Grand Forks, and Medora”

Yes. Yes it is. All world class cities of major importance and all in close proximity to some fine missile silos. Plus, I can never find a parking spot in downtown Fargo for all those movie stars and fashionistas hanging out everywhere looking glamorous while all I want to do is get into the IHOP.

Or some other posh restaurant that ND is full of.

My favourite of all his reasons though was this one, quoted verbatim:

“[ND is] a state that has a high percentage of it's high school graduates go on to collage”

I’m going to go ahead and assume one of those graduates wasn’t this guy, or if it was, we can be pretty sure he didn’t graduate in grammar or spelling. I mean we all make the “it’s” vs. “its” error now and then if we’re in a rush, even I do it sometimes because I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I’m not 100% perfect, merely about 98.9%. I can forgive that. But “collage”? Although, I don’t know, maybe I’m the idiot because perhaps he just meant that North Dakotan high school grads are just really excellent at making kickass collages of stuff. Like, for example, the 49 better states. Or major highways out of North Dakota.

Sorry North Dakota, I’m kidding. I actually like ND. There, I said it. I’m somewhat amazed at myself but I do. People are nice, stuff is cheap, there’s low tax, lots of space, practically the lowest car insurance in the whole of the United States and it’s close to the three Ms (Minnesota, Montana and Manitoba) if it all gets too much and you need to get out fast.

And then there’s the accent. Ya, ya, you betcha! Who can’t hear that and not be cheered up?

I’m not sure that this is the best reason to toot ND’s horn but this guy does:

“[It is] a state that has a high percentage of church goers.”
This here would be the very reason I’d surround the entire perimeter of my ND apartment with garlic wreaths and photos of Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson every night. Those repel devout church goers, don’t they? Garlic and goths?

So come on peeps, let’s hear it for North Dakota whose slogan isn’t, but should be: NORTH DAKOTA: SOUTH DAKOTA’S AWESOME HAT.

Whose state will I pick on next? Who knows? Suggest one if you want, I have vast and fabulous knowledge about all of them.

Mean

Monday, January 10th, 2011, Good God it’s still not July, where’s my cake, another unrecognizable, nonsensical, made-up scientific word on my yogurt carton, stubbed, throbbing right big toe, forks up the wazoo

Is anyone else over winter yet or am I alone in that skyscraper of doom? Long, frigid, seemingly never ending dark snowy days and nights are making me feel about six different kinds of disgruntled. Today I even growled at myself to fuck off after dropping my toast on the floor. When you’re feeling stabby at yourself, it might be time for a vacation. And I’m feeling VERY stabby.

Proof in point, the other day, while having my mellow slowly obliterated by some slow, whiny, annoying woman checking out ahead of me in the supermarket, all I could think about was the surprised sound she’d make if I suddenly jammed a fork in her butt cheek, with gusto. This diffused the situation somewhat by cheering me up immensely. Nothing makes a supermarket nightmare more bearable than dreaming about random acts of zesty violence with cutlery.

The problem is supermarkets make me testy at the best of times and she was using a lot of coupons which refused to scan, which combined, make a lethal combination for my mood. The only way to get through the experience unscathed is to fantasize about emerging triumphant through bloody mayhem. Lady, those savings aren’t going to be worth a rat’s ass if you’re stabbed in the buttocks with a fork.

There ought to be a dedicated line for coupon people. It should have a neon, glowing sign over the top of it that says “People refusing to pay full price, line up here” and if you have more than three coupons you have to stand in it under a giant flashing arrow and have a guy in a uniform fingerprint you and frisk you in front of everyone and possibly threaten to have your children removed and your husband castrated.

There, I got that off my chest. No one was hurt.

In other news, I didn’t get enough sleep last night and I’m grouchy and there isn’t a single, new, decent sci-fi show on at the moment I can spend the long winter nights obsessing about. God, I miss “Battlestar Galactica” and “Firefly” and “Lost”. Can someone just go make more of those, please?

Someone might want to send me some coffee and the mood of a four year old in an Ikea ball pit. In return I won’t fork you. Have a delightful Monday!

A Chocolate Cake You Say?

Those of you who don’t want to bake a cake and who came here looking for a real entry, you'll find it below this one or if you're really lazy you can just click this sentence. Fly like the wind my friends!

Hey my little charmers! I’ve had numerous – yes really, numerous – emails and comments and things from people saying “post your chocolate cake recipe, or die motherfucker!” (or at least words to that effect), so I decided I better comply so I can live a few more weeks at least. Just for you guys (the rest of you can go play outside till we’re done). I hope your waistlines enjoy it very much because it’s not exactly slimming.

Veg’s Stupdendously Moist, Uber Decadent, Super Simple and Resolution Busting Chocolate Cake

Note: I roll imperial but I will convert to metric as well to keep everyone happy. How nice am I?

8oz. of Self Rising Flour (225g) If you must use All purpose flour use a teaspoon and a half of BP and a teaspoon and a half of Baking SODA also. SR is the best though if you can get it.
12.5oz. regular granulated sugar (350g) Caster would work too but hey I am never that posh
3oz. cocoa (85g)
2 large eggs
9oz. of 1% or skim milk (250ml)
4.5oz. canola oil (125ml) I imagine other oils would work too but Canola is my favourite I think
9oz. boiling water (250ml)

*I have to admit for the dry ingredients I do ounces and for the wet I use MLs. This is because I'm schizo.

Method: Throw everything except the flour and boiling water into a bowl. It works no matter what order you throw the stuff in even if you forget and put the flour in first – it is just harder to mix that way. No need to beat the eggs in advance or anything. Just throw it all in. Mix the shit out of it with a whisk. If you’re posh and have an electric mixer, knock yourself out but I mix by hand. It should be sort of sticky and thick and gloopy. That’s ok. In fact that’s perfect. Then add the boiling water and mix some more till it’s thinner. Don’t worry if it seems too thin – it isn’t. Add the flour gradually and mix that baby up till it’s good and battery and the flour is absorbed. It might still be fairly thin but no worries, it works just fine, I assure you. Once this is mixed do the following:

1) Get two round 8 inch or approx. cake tins
2) Line with wax paper and grease on top of the wax paper with margarine (this is important as this stuff is sticky later)
3) Divide mixture between the two tins
4) Put the tins into a preheated oven at 350 degrees F/180 degrees C/if you’re cooking with gas it’s Mark 4 (I looked it up, I swear)
5) Bake for 30 minutes. This may vary by oven (if you use gas you might want to check after 25 to be safe) but 30 minutes was perfect for me with my old ass, seventies looking electric oven.
6) Lick out the bowl of chocolately goodness – it’s a shame to waste it, right?
7) Lick the whisk/spoon too
8) Laugh at all the mixture you got on your hands/face/floor/countertops
9) When 30 minutes is up, pull those suckers out and leave the cakes in the tin on the counter for maybe five minutes or so
10) Using the edges of the wax paper ease the cake halves out of the tins and rest them on a plate/rack/other surface that isn’t a dog or child, to cool
11) After maybe 20 minutes, gently lift the cake halves and rest them top down on the palm of your hand to peel off wax paper. It should come off easily. Wait till cakes are half cooled to do this or you’ll end up with cake stuck to your hands. Replace cakes on surface to finish cooling. If they’re more than half cooled I usually stick ‘em in the fridge to finish.
12) When cool fill with your favourite filling be it fresh whipped cream or a delicious buttercream as follows
.
Chocolate Buttercream: Put a metric buttload of butter or a decent margarine spread in a bowl. The amount is up to you. If you don’t make enough you can add or make more. You can use low fat versions but they’ll be thinner. I use an olive oil based spread and it works just fine. Add a trainload of powdered icing sugar and blend thoroughly with a fork. Sprinkle in a little cocoa to taste and blend again.  Add a little milk if you need to thin it out. Spread on one half of cake, top with other half. Sprinkle some virgin icing sugar on top of cake. Eat the fuck out of cake and moan ecstatically. (you can leave out the cocoa for a plain butter cream if you prefer)

Note: This thing should stay good and moist for a good three days in the fridge in a plastic container.

I believe even a chimp could make this. You guys have no excuse. If you make it, let me know how you make out.

The One Where I Deconstruct Art Like A Pro

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 – frigging cold, Rice Krispie Squares, gaseous, trolololo, got my paint freak on

Holy Jesus in a taco, January is boring. It’s only five days old and already I’m all, “When is it not January anymore?” and “when’s the next holiday?”

To celebrate the new year I made a new painting. It’s been a while, I’ve been letting my painting mojo sun itself in the Mojo-Caribbean or wherever mojos go when they’re not making you do something productive, so the last few months I haven’t painted anything at all. Figures that when I do finally get back to it I produce something that looks like someone swallowed a day-glo paint stick then threw up their lunch and graffitied all over it.

what the fuck, eh?

As some of you know, I normally paint actual things in a slightly abstract manner, but with clear obviousness as to what it is. I do not normally paint a giant mish mash of nothing in a very abstract manner, like someone filled me up with Red Bull and amphetamines and gave me a paint gun.

I don’t understand abstract modern painting. I like it. It can be tres jolie! It gives me pleasure without knowing quite why. But I don’t GET it. I don’t look at it like some frowning artists who dress in black and tweak their tiny beards and adjust their berets and say, “Oh, this represents the mind’s confusion and chaos over complicated and erroneous judgments and the guilt of the aura when confronted with societal free falling and anarchy!”

No, I’m all, “This says I had an accident in a paint factory and mushed everything up real purty!”

I showed it to my sister who emailed me back the following: "I imagine the walls in hell must look a little bit like this." Well fuck yes.

So that’s what I painted and I enjoyed the hell out of it too. Something about making a free form mess on canvas and adding more crazy over the top just appeals to my sense of liberalism. It’s not anything. It’s a big, colourful burrito of trash, kind of like the inside of my head. And I’m ok with that.

It also needs a suitably pretentious name, so I welcome all suggestions, even filthy lewd ones.

Hell, especially filthy, lewd ones!

Pain and Cake

Monday, January 3rd, 2011 - Eek cold! Giant gimpy hand, coffee, urge-to-kill threat warning: negligible

So 2011 is underway properly now and I'm in Canada the next couple of months which means we’re back to the harsh reality of January – the greyest, most depressing month there is, unless you live in Australia or have a nice Mexican vacation or a birthday or a lottery win ahead, to warm it up for you.

Personally I think January in the northern hemisphere ought to be a “nap three times a day” month and this should be compulsory with possibly a complimentary cabana boy/girl to serve you cocktails or hot chocolate, depending on your state of mind. It should not be    –26 degrees and sudden asthma when you try to take out the garbage.

I welcomed 2011 by baking possibly the best chocolate cake ever produced by a human. It was from an old basic recipe that I’ve tweaked over time and changed to make it my own and although it’s fairly basic, I now have the quantities and ingredients so correct that even NASA would be impressed at my scientific abilities in the kitchen and probably have me work on the next generation of space shuttle technology. It’s moist, chocolatey as all fuck and has a delicate light-chocolate buttercream filling. My cake I mean, not the space shuttle, although granted, that does sound like a step in the right direction.

Screw starting the year with a lettuce eating binge! Start with cake and work your way down, that’s what I say. I like to keep my resolutions real. “Eat cake but eat slightly less cake!” is one of them and “Don’t make resolutions” is my other one, which has the mysterious smell of irony about it.

I also started the year by managing to injure myself in Walmart yesterday. Now I don’t know about you, but almost every time I’m in Walmart I think about hurting myself just to make the experience end, but this time was purely accidental.

You know how they have their exercise equipment on a little platform thing at the back of the store? Well I was in the middle of doing some very scientific research into the resistance level of a stationary bike by pushing the pedals around with my hand, when it (my hand) somehow got wedged between the moving pedal and the body of the bike, crushing the living shit out of it. I don’t even know how this happened, it was like a mystery force just sucked it right in there like it was a 747 engine or something.

The pedal kept trying to turn and my hand kept getting more and more crushed while I tried to summon for help in a ladylike manner, by delicately exclaiming things like “Holy mother of fuck it’s trying to kill me, it’s trying to kill me! I’m very injured and important, please help me, AAAAARGGGGGH!”

Once I managed to finally get free, my hand looked like a Christmas ham after it’s been stomped on by a pissed off Kirstie Alley. There’s a quite impressive black bruise all over the knuckles and some lovely swelling. It looks almost like I’ve been punching the shit out of Snookie for an hour, which coincidentally, is a fantasy of mine.

No guitar or uke playing for me this week. At least I can type, aren’t YOU lucky?

I hope 2011 is starting off in a pleasing manner for you?

Happy 011111011011!

Saturday, January 1st, 2011 - that's a lot of ones, I'm cold, are there no good movies on TV anymore?

Happy new year my little party monkeys! I hope your New Year’s Eve was a hoot and a blast and didn’t involve too much tucking your dress into your panties (especially you boys), dropping burrito crumbs in your cleavage, or bending over random gutters watching your dinner reappear in liquid form. Not that I wish to suggest any of MY celebrations have ever ended this way…

Well, they don’t allow such behaviour at the nunnery.

Me? I was spending New Year’s here in cold-assed Canada, having cramps of the lady variety and feeling grouchy, uncomfortable and like I possibly had some small, rabidly violent, martial-arts-practicing ninjas living inside my boobs. This resulted in my welcoming 2011 by sitting on the couch, scowling and ingesting Kraft cheese slices while watching Toronto and NYC basking in most unseasonal, balmy sweatiness, causing Dick Clark to almost have another stroke.

For those of you wondering why I didn’t go and take my succubus-like sexy talents out on the town to mesmerize the local male population (you can call me “Lost Girl”), it was –24 degrees C. here (minus 11F), thanks for asking. Minus twenty four. Even if you wanted to go out and bounce around festively in the snow, you couldn’t, unless you actually wanted hypothermia and frostbite, in which case, it would have been your lucky night.

I lit some candles and sat there in my pajamas making lame fun of Ryan Seacrest and the vast plethora of boy-bands trying to entertain at new year’s TV extravaganzas. Particularly New Kids on the Block, who are yet to learn the delicious definition of irony. Maybe they should just suck it up and change their name.

“Slightly Creased Kids on the Block” or “40 Year Old Bankers On The Block” are my suggestions.

I didn’t even have a drink. Yes, you heard me correctly. No alcohol passed my lips. No wonder I was grouchy, right? Cramps, Ryan Seacrest, aging boy bands, no cake, copious slobbery close ups of delirious couples kissing and no alcohol. What is this fresh hell?

Today though things are looking up. I had some good coffee and I cooked up this savoury French toast sandwich with fried onions, peppers, spicy tomatoes and melted cheese sandwiched in the middle in a big, sticky, delicious goo. Yeah. It was sexy good.

Other than that, it feels like Sunday. And Lord knows, I hate Sundays. Happy MMXI people!