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!