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Big Mama Cass asked me to do a meme and since I’m all about the Mamas & Papas and Friday’s all about memes, I agreed.

* Wait a goddamn second…didn’t Mama Cass choke on a sandwich or something? Could Big Mama Cass be an imposter?!?!

Anyway, the meme is about ten honest things you might not know about me and since I’ve done this meme I think 500 other times before (ok maybe four times or something), I’m not at all sure there’s anything left you don’t know about me, making me feel quite fucking violated, thank you very much.

*On Fridays swearing is allowed. I make the rules.

So without further ado, scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last time - THE TEN.

1) My preferred manner for eating French Fries is with salt and vinegar sprinkled on liberally then dipped in mayonnaise. If you are offended by this you can just suck it up because I have awesome taste, motherfuckers.

2) My least favourite sound (apart from Bono in his private jet bleating about saving the environment – hypocrisy much, Bono?) is the noise the TV remote makes when it hits a hard-wood floor from a height. That noise makes me want to drill a hole in my own skull.

3) I have a big thing for retro wallpaper. The more screamingly offensive it is, the more I tend to like it. The brighter the colour and more geometric the pattern the more I want it. Basically if you could put the sixties and seventies together in a big, nasty, eyeball-boiling, melting pot of colour-clashing awesome and stir it with a magic spoon, the result would be my idea of a good time.

4) I have never had fondue. Sue me. Other things I’ve never had and ultimately don’t want: foie gras, a lobotomy and Bret Michaels.

5) I adore the smell of Kiwi shoe polish. Seriously, it’s one of my favourite scents anywhere. It makes me want to do bad things. It’s just sublime. They ought to hand it out at UN summits and War debates and make everyone kiss and make up and kiss each other's bottoms and things like that. If you ever want me to do anything you want, just bring me a monster tub of Kiwi polish and I’m yours, baby.

6) I do not own a cell phone. When I did have one all I did was send obnoxious texts because I’m too anti social to call anyone. Other things I don’t own: A Twitter account, a Facebook, a MySpace, a naked sculpture of Britney Spears pleasuring a donkey or an iota of common sense.

7) When Criss Angel claimed he could levitate us right through the TV the other night, I laughed my ass off, then I decided to try it. I even loudly offered to give Criss Angel a "stupendous BJ" if he succeeded because I knew he was full of shit. I mean I wouldn’t put YOUR mouth near that guy’s baby-stick. Naturally, (thankfully!) I didn’t levitate but I did call him a "repugnant elephant-fucker" just because I can.

8) I recently scored 149 on the MENSA IQ test. Those things are bullshit. It was the same day I locked my keys in the car at the supermarket. Irony? I think so.

9) I like to play pranks on people but they always go hideously wrong. For example, recently I pranked Soda & Candy and unintentionally freaked her out big time, then I pranked Some Guy Chris and almost gave him a heart attack. Sorry guys. Haha. Kind of.

10) I like the name “Vladimir”. If I ever get a male cat I’m calling him Vladimir, for sure. That’s a bad-ass name for one’s pussy.
Well, that was fairly lame. I was running out of things to tell you. I mean I’m fascinating and all but there’s a limit. Pfft.

I’m now tagging ALL OF YOU to do this. You know, if you want…

For some previous things you didn’t know about me see here and here. There are others but I can’t be bothered looking for them, so try not to cry, I know it’s disappointing.

Have a sexy weekend!

The Large and the Small Of It

I went to Costco last night to purchase a new camera after I accidentally dropped mine on the floor last week and sent it into a non-recoverable coma and put myself into deep mourning. That camera and I have been everywhere together and taken all manner of dull, interesting and downright vulgar photographs - none of which featured my naked boobular region, so don’t go thinking it. 

Sure the old guy was clunky and slow despite its SLR goodness and yes, maybe it did only have four poxy little megapixels which ensured graininess when enlarging anything but it was part of its rustic charm. And what if it WAS six years old and horrendously out of date? I loved it! RIP clunky Olympus dude.

But the time had come, I guess. One must move on. So I bought this tiny, spunky, back-talking little Canon whore with 12 megapixels and a cavalier attitude. A little sexy two-tone, pinkish coloured minx that fits in my smallest bag or pocket. It’s only a point and shoot camera but at least I can take pictures again. You know, once I figure out what the hell all the buttons and menu items are for. If there are too many coloured lights and buttons and knobs and things, I go into a sort of stimulation overload type of seizure.

I’m used to manual settings and complete control so it’s extremely possible that this highly automatic, pouty little vixen will mess with my psyche in the worst way till I figure out what I can override and what I can’t. And if I can’t, I’m going to sulk. And probably rethink my position on this not swearing business. I hate figuring out new technology. It makes me feel retarded.

This is riveting isn’t it? I can see why you come here!
The point that I was actually wanting to make and failing, was about Costco and its hypnotizing array of larger-than-life produce. Can anyone really consume sixteen giant muffins? Who buys those paint can sized tins of Heinz ketchup? When did coleslaw come in a bucket?

Why does that last sentence sound nasty?

Of course, someone else out there is wandering around Costco in a haze going, “Who buys those blocks of cheese the size of a Florida Condo?” and the answer would be, I DO! Because you can never have too much cheese. One day someone is going to open my fridge door and be confronted with a whole wall of cheddar and I’m going to sit back, smug congratulatory look on my face, going, “BEHOLD MY GREAT CHEESE ACHIEVEMENT!”

And that’s the day I will have reached my sanity goal.

570

Sometimes you find yourself somewhere for the very first time and you feel like you belong, like there’s some sort of cosmic force pulling you toward it like a magnet. Even though you’ve never been there before, it feels almost like home. A place secure and serene, yet with no walls to hold you in or keep the world out. You may never live in that place, but that place will always live in you. You don’t find these locations often but when you do, they carve a hole deep in your psyche - persistent worms of inspiration and clarity, like it was always meant to be.

There’s a lonely two lane highway that snakes through Eastern Alberta and into the rugged folds of Saskatchewan. I’ve only been down that road once but it’s a road that reeled me in with its gentle magic and has never let me go. It represents peace in a mind so often filled with non-peaceful thoughts. This is a road which winds for a couple of hundred kilometres through sun-soaked fields of scorched hay and stretched cornflower-blue skies, where you might never pass another vehicle the entire route. Where you’re more likely to encounter grazing antelope than another human being. It’s as though beyond the confines of the road, the real world doesn’t exist. It’s a road dripping with the lazy drone of bees, the lilting creaks of birds and the sweet melody of a silence devoid of man.

Somewhere, amidst all that emptiness, I really feel alive. Small yet significant. Still, yet soaring like a kite. A cool balm of soothing tranquility for a bruised mind. All my problems evaporate into that hot, blue nothingness, leaving behind a slowly rising mist of hope.
It’s a road to nowhere in particular, yet, somehow, a path to everything that’s possible.

You might never get to drive along its remote surface, thick with cracked paint and potholes that hold a thousand stories, but it doesn’t matter because there are lonely roads everywhere just like Highway 570 and when you find one it will always take you where you need to go.

*&$#^9@

You’ll all be delighted to know I am trying to swear less. Even though I considered framing and worshipping Words Words Words' comment that I am the Michelangelo of swearing, I am making a valiant effort to sound like I don’t spend most of my time hanging around the docks with drunkards and truck drivers. Which I don’t. In case there was any doubt.

Those guys hang around ME. For swearing tips!

I don’t actually swear that much in real life. I swear way more on this here blog, because it’s a shameless hussy that brings out the devil in me. But it’s not pretty to hear a lady say bad words and as I am a lady I am trying to cut down on it. I wouldn’t want those tasty, sexy little words to lose their emphasis because I over use them. If anything, I'm not decreasing swearing so much as increasing its effectiveness, no?

* I'm listening to Tony Orlando's "You're a Lady" for encouragement. It includes the classic, poetic line "You're a lady, I'm a man". Thanks Tony Orlando. Thanks for noticing. I secretly heart Tony Orlando, the smooth bastard. OOPS, sorry! That one slipped out (that's what SHE said!)

I’m not stopping altogether. For example, I’m not about to drop a sledge hammer on my big toe and scream, “GOSH THAT SURE HURT QUITE A BIT!” No, in severe cases like these I’m going to use every reserve swear word in the swear bank that I’ve been saving all month, even particularly foul ones I only utter on special occasions. I might even invent a few.

I thought about starting a swear box but I’d only use it to buy chocolate and Diet Pepsi – the DP cancels the chocolate, I read it somewhere – and besides I’d have to make a swear scale because not all swear words are equal. An irritated “shit” ought to cost less than a rousing “fuck” don’t you think? A “c*nt” is worth about five bucks. See, it’s so potent I didn’t even want to spell it out!

I’m still going to say “goddamn”. I like “goddamn”. It accurately conveys a person’s dissatisfaction with the job at hand. I’m cutting down on swearing, not blasphemy. Blasphemy is my goddamn middle name.

Maybe instead of a swear word I’ll make a bleeping sound like on network TV. Or carry a gong around with me and smash it whenever I want to yell the eff word. Who knows? The world is my flipping oyster.

Naturally, on days where I'm particularly disgruntled (like Sunday through Saturday) you might get a mercy "fuck" out of me, or even a "pigfucker!" if I'm really feeling evil. I wouldn't want to forget how to use them after all.

I know what you're thinking too, don't think I don't. You're thinking, "Maybe you should think less about cutting out the swearing, Veg and think more about cutting out the 'rambling like your life depends on it!' thing."

Well, screw YOU hippy.

Vegetable Contemplation

People have their own dreams of what they want their lives to be.

Maybe it’s success at work, to drive a better car or have a pool built in their yard. Perhaps they want four kids and a house in the country. Maybe they want a penthouse apartment in the city and annual vacations to the tropics.

Sometimes they want to work in soup kitchens or animal shelters or grow their own crops.

Me, I was never conventional in my hopes and aspirations. I never wanted a big house and a mortgage. I never wanted kids or the sort of responsibilities that tie people down. I never wanted a sports car or a ridiculous fur coat. I laugh when people say “Money can’t buy you happiness”. It might be true, but I admit, money sure helps.

Despite this, I’m more concerned with freedom than with money, although I’d like enough money to acquire the freedom, it goes without saying.

Because none of us are free and it’s a shame. We’re a slave to work and stress and other things that get in the way of fulfillment and happiness, because we have no choice. I saw a recent statistic that stated that something like 76% of people disliked, hated or were indifferent to their job. It hurts my soul that as people, we are resigned to spending all day working for someone else, to afford to live our lives when we’re wasting so much time.

I always wanted freedom. As a child I’d roam the countryside on my bike, loving the open space. As an adult nothing makes me happier than an empty beach or open blue skied prairies or vast red expanses of desert brush. Road trips make me joyful. I love to see old diners and old cars. I love to feel the sun on my face.

I like that my ties are to people rather than things. My feet itch so badly to keep on moving. I’m not sure they’re ever going to stop. I don’t have that nesting urge. I don’t like to be in one place too long.

I’d like to split my seasons between the Florida Keys, the Arizona/New Mexico deserts and the Canola filled prairies. I want to avoid winter. I want to swim in lakes and oceans and eat outside by firelight. I want to travel around seeing little places and travel overseas to see bigger ones. I want to paint outside by the ocean and drink cocktails watching the sunset over some distant desert mesa or Mexican vista. I want the person I love to be there too because this dream is worthless alone.

I want to wake up in harmony with the world and myself. I want to do a job I love and contribute something meaningful to society and not just earn a pay cheque.

The things I want aren’t big things, they’re just hard to acquire, but they shouldn’t be.

Really I just want endless summer.

And one day I am going to find it.

Signs

At the moment, as well as cutting down on the naughty words, I’m trying to drink more water.  According to the experts in magazines and online, if you don’t drink at least seventy three gallons of water every day you will likely lose your mind and start kebabbing babies and little kittens and gnashing your teeth or speaking in a strange Welsh monotone while lamenting on fine wines and their complement to certain internal organs.  

The thing is, water’s so boring.  It’s not exciting in the least.  It’s the beverage equivalent of Michael Bolton, only substantially less offensive, mainly because it has no mouth or vocal chords or pictures of Fabio hanging in its bedroom. 

Incidentally, beware of bottled water brands who make ludicrous claims like “we have the best tasting water” because water shouldn’t “taste”, surely?  If your water tastes of anything, it’s tainted and you’re going to die a painful, torturous death possibly involving your innards being sucked out through your belly button and eaten by a wolverine.

I’m trying nonetheless.  For example, I just drank a liter bottle of Norwegian mineral water named “VOSS” which comes in an attractive tall glass cylinder that looks like it belongs in a lab or Regis Philbin’s bathroom (or wherever he keeps his embalming fluid). 

Before you all go thinking “Wow, don’t you have some high-fallutin’ tastes, Veg!” I don’t normally go buying designer water when I can just turn on the tap and get it for free, but this water was a gift of sorts.  I got it at the market across the street while I was trolling around in there muttering to myself one afternoon.

This place calls itself a “Mediterranean Market” which is a fancy way of saying “We import regular foods from other countries, most of decidedly non-Mediterranean origin and charge exorbitant amounts for it.”

When I went to pay for my items, the cashier handed me the cylinder of water as a free promotion and as I’m all about free stuff, I smiled all the way home.  Because I am easily pleased.  

But don’t be thinking I’ve quit Diet Pepsi because honestly, I’d rather run through the Senate wearing a Miley Cyrus t-shirt and sporting a salami clenched between my buttocks than do something that outrageous.  No, I have merely limited myself to one DP a day (to ensure peace on Earth – and in my gut).

Gosh, look at me – a non-swearing, water drinking, goddamn ray of sunshine.  Does this mean I’m becoming a functional member of society?

Mean Girls

Sometimes I’m a mean, mean person. And I laugh at things that other people love and I don’t even feel bad about it. Like today, when I found out that Hackers had taken over Twitter, like dirty little cyber pirates aboard an Internet cruise ship, I practically got some champagne and toasted those rogues.

Of course, they hack a damn thing of mine I will castrate them all with rusty gardening shears. That goes without saying.

But I have a feeling we can all survive a day without hearing about the size of people’s poop or the fact they’re cooking boef bourgignon for dinner or seeing Ashton Kutcher’s ass photos of Demi Moore. Or Michael Moore. Or Mandy Moore. Whichever Moore's ass photos he's exploiting today.

Although I'm sure Mandy has a nice ass.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t say anything in 140 characters or less. That’s like saying “Here’s an ice cream cone without the ice cream part” – what’s the point? I’m VERBOSE, people. I will not be cut down to bite sized morsels and thwarted.

Even though you wish I would.

You know what would make Twitter better (apart from someone making it explode in a glorious, bloody mass of pulp and brains and letters and user names)? If you had to haiku everything you posted in a hilarious manner. I might even embrace that concept. I heart haikus. They are wonderful and make me happy in my pants. It could be called “Haikwitter” (no, it couldn’t) or “Twittu”.

Anyway, I have this pleasing image of everyone running around cyberspace today in a giant, panty-wadding panic, unsure of what to do with themselves, or where to find people to talk to. I imagine Facebook is contemplating alcoholism due to sending out five billionty of those fake beverages and poking the ass out of half the world, just to give people something inane to do with their typing fingers.

Ironically, I didn't even know Twitter had gone down (there were no Tweets all over the fucking place to tell me about it, after all!) until I read about it in the UK Sun, which is hilariously ironic in itself, since you're normally more likely to find a giant naked picture of some diseased strumpet's boobs in The Sun than you are details about some actual current event, so kudos to them I guess, for recognizing "news" when it reared up and bit them on the ass.

It’s all pretty funny.