If It’s Thursday, It Must Be Florida

Thursday, March 31st, 2011 – yawning, full of veggie burger goodness, possible flatulence alert

Continuing our series of most informative and certifiably true essays on the United States, what has palm trees, grown adults dressed as animals cuddling small children, Dexter, more elderly Jewish Brooklynites than Brooklyn, a metric fuckton of retirees, Justin Timberlake, The Gulf of Mexico, alligators and dudes with ‘70s’ porn moustaches dressed as Mickey (Minnie) Mouse? That’s right! Florida!

Florida’s an interesting state. It’s got a little bit of everything and the little bit of everything that it has, is sweaty from all the humidity and the tears of terror from the rest of us who have to witness grown men, without a hint of irony, stomping around in flip flops and Cuban shirts with large ladies squeezed into dubious capri pants. If you want to fit in in Florida allow me to give you a few important pointers that might keep you alive.

1) Forget sunscreen. It is not your friend. Nothing screams “I am a tourist, rob me!” quite like a lobster red sunburn and and a constipated walk because your feet are too swollen for shoes, so put on some frying oil well in advance and get nice and crispy. Then don a NASCAR t-shirt, cargo shorts and maybe even a panama hat and act like you’re cool.

2) Drive like your last meal consisted of a mixture of mushrooms (but not the kind you’d put on a pizza if you get my drift), Chef Boyardee Ravioli and some strong barbiturates. Be sure to stop for no reason, abruptly, in the middle of intersections to argue with your portly wife, who is poured attractively into some sausage casing polyester pants, in an eye-melting colour that’s illegal in many states, then proceed to continue driving at ten miles an hour, weaving all over the road with your turn signal blinking for five miles, before suddenly upping your speed to 85 and cutting off a truck at the lights.

3) Your car would look awesome with that confederate flag rear windshield, decal.

4) Change your name to either “Vern”, “Cooter” or “Miguel”.

5) If you’re over 60, treat yourself to an electric scooter which you can drive anywhere, anytime, while blatantly disregarding all road rules, etiquette or the fact that murder by electric scooter is illegal. If you have the big, hairy balls to ride it down the fast lane of the I75 in rush hour, even better.

6) Talking of balls…get some. For your manly truck.

What else? Florida is home to that scorching hell known as “Disneyworld”. I mean I have nothing against Disneyworld per se. If they would just serve free beer and remove all the damn kids who get in my way and let me enjoy the rides all day on my own, before puking all over myself, I would LOVE Disneyworld.

Did you know that Florida is the only place in the USA that has crocodiles? And that sadly, they’re not in Disneyworld? They’re only found in the southern part of the state (the rest has alligators) and they’d like to eat you. But it’s so hot, with Florida being the hottest state in the country, that they can’t usually be bothered.

As well as being the hottest state, it’s also the most tornado and hurricane prone, so if you’re not a big fan of wind, I’d go someplace less blowy.

 In addition to this, it tragically has the largest proportion of tiny sundresses on gigantic ladies, in all the free world. You might not find that statistic in any books, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. I do my own research! Who are you going to trust, some fancy book or me?

Heathens? 16%. I knew you’d want to know. Most of that percentage is accounted for by the fact the Keys exist and they are full of delicious sin. Like margaritas the size of a bathtub and other tropically seductive hijinx. They’re also full of really rancid, nasty sin like Jimmy Buffet music and pretentious idiots posing outside Hemingway’s abode with a serious look on their faces.

I know this is a bit abrupt, but my brain’s still on vacation. Feel free to put your tuppence worth in.

Update: I can only assume I was totally high when I wrote this last night, due to the unforeseen amount of typos. I think I changed the more offensive ones though.

I’m All Petulant and Whiny

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 – tired, hungry, wearing excellent pants

The other day, as I was sweating profusely in an electric trolley-car, next to an exuberant little Frenchman, I decided that travel nowadays isn’t quite what it used to be. In fact, it’s almost too much hassle to actually go anywhere that involves airports or security lines or morons who make you take your laptop out for no reason except to put it in the same bin your coat and bag are in, all of which pretty much leaves your best option spending vacations in your own living room with a bottle of cheap wine and a plastic palm tree.

If you do decide to go ahead and do some travelling, you will invariably end up like me, lugging heavy bags without wheels around an airport in a panic of gigantic proportions, five minutes past the final call for your flight and still a mile from the gate, looking at signs pointing in opposite directions for the same thing and not having the slightest clue which one to follow, while swearing in two languages because no one in this stupid airport seems to have heard of moving sidewalks or luggage carts.

Then a miracle. A nice Frenchman in an electric train thing, normally reserved for the elderly, infirm or marginally retarded, sees your distressed, red, puffy, exhausted visage and homicidal eyes and offers you a ride the rest of the way. And you manage to resist the urge to kiss him, but only just. It was a close call - you are pretty certain you hear angels singing.

Then you will ramble away in French, telling him how you’re about to die from the fatigue of carrying heavy baggage a distance the equivalent of the New York marathon and please pardon your stench but there’s not an inch of you that doesn’t smell like old socks and how you’re not going to make your flight because your previous flight was two hours late arriving, making you run like a crazy person and now there’s a very real possibility you’re going to be spending the night in the airport on a cold metal bench, so thanks a fucking bunch, airline I will not name. The bemused and bored guy at the entrance to your gate lets you through despite your lack of a boarding pass, because you are MAGICAL. All in all, it’s a sweaty, unpleasant half hour of anxiety.

So you know. Don’t do any travelling by air, that’s all I’m saying.

In the end I actually made the flight. I cajoled and begged them to let me on and the tired desk clerks let me, despite everyone already being seated and the overhead bins being closed and it being five minutes from take off. I huffed and puffed my way to the back of the plane to my seat, bumping my giant bag into everyone’s shins and muttering about how a laptop can weigh approximately the same as a small country and trying not to sweat on anyone. What is WITH the heat in airports, by the way? Are they moonlighting as saunas? Heat is not conducive to lugging heavy things anywhere. Anyway, I made it home in one piece and with my dignity mostly intact. So, hi! Thanks British Airways, I guess.

My luggage though? It decided to stay the night in Montreal. Hell, it needed a vacation of its own.

Someone needs to invent a teleporter and do it soon. I can’t take anymore of this flying business.

Stuff on States later in the week. I’m lazy and tired and I already missed a week, what can I tell you? I hope you all had lovelier weekends than I did!

New Tech Is Pretty

Thursday, March 24th, 2011 – surrounded by chaos, urge to play mariachi songs

Last night I spent an enjoyable half hour shoving Lindor chocolate truffles into my pie hole in a joyous, chocolate procession, while loading 707 episodes of my favourite TV shows (yes really) onto my shiny, new, external drive, to save my computer from expiring under the weight of them. I also moved 97 movies and copied a metric fuckton (official U.N. measurement) of back-up photos and music. Oh it’s so light now. My little computer is a slim, dancing diva, freed from the weight of all my media, its happy little quad cores daintily flitting around like M and Ms, bouncing inside Oprah’s belly, on a spring morning. I will say this. USB 3 is a fine invention. Holy crap yes. Because who has 2 hours to sit and wait for a bunch of files to transfer? Not I. These ones zipped in. I have the attention span of a small, excited fish, therefore, this is paramount.

I also bought a new mouse. A tiny, chrome coloured, mini-mouse that fits precisely in my delicate lady hands rather than my last mouse which was like clutching a dinosaur egg with buttons and obviously made for someone with transformer-sized hands who eats steaks the size of a table top while burping battle songs

As a side note, Google-searching for terms like “lady mouse” and “sexy mouse” can only bring nightmares like a mouse I found shaped like a vagina. Find it yourself. You’ve been warned.

Speaking of mice, I haven’t seen Baxter in months, thanks to those of you emailing me to ask about him. I assume he and Maybelline are living it up somewhere warm for the winter and not hiding under the dishwasher taking incriminating video of me, red faced and puffing, in yoga poses again...

Sometimes Life Is Pants

Tuesday, March 22nd 2011 – crashing, sandwiches, working out important problems

I’m a busy fucker this week, you guys. I’m so busy I’m running around like a blue-assed fly, trying to do things, then not doing them because I remember something else more important I have to do and get confused about which to do first, so I do neither, then there’s a sort of Mexican stand-off situation so I have to give in and go get a terrifically gargantuan coffee, after which I find I can suddenly do FIFTEEN THINGS, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, WHILE YELLING ENCOURAGEMENT AT MYSELF VERY LOUDLY, then crashing very suddenly two hours later and sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth and talking in tongues.

I may need to decaffeinate, seriously.

Anyway, this is how busy I am. I have a tube of Cadbury’s Mini Crème Eggs in the fridge and I’ve been too preoccupied to even to eat those. There’s a chance I may have a fever or something that might change the entire future of mankind.

I have a helpful hint for you all as well. Don’t wear sweat pants. Ever. I mean sweat pants are ugly and possibly harbouring extreme evil and should be for sports and running type things only, but we all wear them in the house sometimes and well, it’s winter, they’re cozy, it’s cold out, they’re comforting, you can nap in them, you can run out to the store in them, you can paint in them and do yoga in them and then you can totally eat chocolate and cheese and cake and tequila and pizza and your pants still fit and you’re still cozy and comfortable and happy and munchy but then, suddenly, you have to go someplace where there are people, so you put on real pants with like…a waistband and a zipper and well… What is this fresh hell? Some horrible bastard TOOK YOUR PANTS IN! Probably while you were sleeping. And now it’s like squeezing four pounds of dough into a two pound loaf tin. It’s all the sweat pants’ fault for seducing you with comfort, for luring you to the edge of the abyss then pushing you over, for not telling you to say “when”. Say no to sweat pants. They are fuckers and they will shrink all your other pants.

It’s the only possible answer.

I swear I had a real reason to post this entry and I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it was. To distract you, here’s a new tiny painting for you instead.

Minnesota: Where The People Are Hearty and The Rain is Purple

Friday, March 18th, 2011 – Cadbury mini-crème eggs in fridge, fire in my heart

Hey guess what you guys get for the weekend? A little thing about Minnesota, written in the morning when I’m drunk with incoherence. How lucky are YOU?

Minnesota. Home of corn-fed, wholesome, ruddy cheeked blonde people of Germanic and Scandinavian descent, who all talk funny. That’s pretty much the general consensus by people not from Minnesota, who don’t quite realize Minnesota’s rather tremendous helping of awesome. Because it’s a fine, fine state – at least in the summer time, when it’s hot, dry, pretty and filled with lush, albeit flat, scenery and more lakes than you can shake a stick at. Whatever that means. Also, its state drink is milk. I’m not even kidding about that, it’s milk. Having said that, apparently the state muffin is blueberry, which probably complements milk, nicely. I don’t know. My mind’s still officially blown that the state drink isn’t icy cold German beer served in a colossal, horny stein.

Minnesota, you’ll be overjoyed to learn, is the 32nd state of the 50 United States and one of the biggest, even though around 60% of its residents live in or around the Twin Cities of state capital St. Paul and Minneapolis – a city filled with art, culture, an interesting light rail system and more importantly the kick ass home of great bar food and Tiki drinks, Psycho Suzies. It’s also dear to my heart because it houses the only “Sonic” for miles around.  Frozen cranberry limeade? I think so!

Minnesota is one of the more liberal states in the country, probably because in winter, it’s way too cold to get fancy with the conservatism. Hell, Minnesotans will kill and wear a bear if it keeps them from the frigid temperatures. You know…allegedly. When they’re not too busy ironing their lederhosen and making pierogies.

Wikipedia helpfully informs me that Minnesota’s temperature span can go from its record low of minus sixty degrees F. to its record high of 116 degrees F. (and I can attest to this) so either way, whenever you’re in Minnesota you’re in for some form of temperatural distress. I may have made that word up just now, but doesn’t it sound impressive? Anyway, if visiting the state be prepared to either freeze your balls off or sweat your ass off. However you look at it, your netherlands lose.

Did you also know that Minnesota is the most northern of the United States, besides Alaska? Because it is. It’s practically up in Canada and in fact, if you hang around East Grand Forks long enough with your guard down, there’s a chance a secret ninja army of Canadians will come down and kidnap you and haul you over the border on the back of a moose, just so they can keep you in their basements to hear you go, “Ya, ya, you betcha it’s cold, ya!”

Sorry, I got sidetracked by fantasy for a moment there…

The heathen contingent, you ask? 13%. Wow Minnesota. You let me down, Minnesota. Take a walk on the wild side, why don’t you? I should note, this number rises to about 53% when I’ve been there and there’s been a local beer tasting.

Finally, you can’t really mention Minnesota without talking about dainty, purple, strawberry flavoured, singing elf, Prince (or *$%&@^$ as he’s probably now known), the Minnesota Twins baseball team or the Vikings, whose atrociously loud t-shirts adorning the ample personage of busty, blonde girls, seem to fill the senses with purple panic.

And that about does it for Minnesota. It’s early on Friday morning, for crying out loud, what do you want, something that makes SENSE? Have a joyous weekend!

Snack Sized

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 – zoning out, harbouring serious St. Patrick’s hate, requiring haircut

Apparently it is zero degrees today. I’m not sure if Canada's just not having any weather – maybe a weather strike since everyone's so fed up with winter – or if it’s actually a sign that maybe snow is about to start melting. I’m bouncy with excitement. However, my excitement was somewhat short lived after I realized that I’ve bought four Tim Horton’s coffees in the last week, during their famous, “Roll up the rim and win” season, fully believing my cup contained the keys to a new Toyota, a tropical island vacation, a lifetime’s supply of chocolate, a new season of “Lost”, or at the very least a free goddamn coffee and for what? Nothing. I hereby suggest they should change the name of their stupid game to, “roll up the rim and weep, LOSER”.

There, I feel better for having got that off my chest.

How are YOU fine specimens today? You’re all looking fancy. Yes indeed. Fancy and flirty. But seriously, put on some underwear.

My mood is a bit uppity today. It’s the changing of the seasons (and the clocks). I go from worrying about the people in Japan, one moment, to thinking about nude vs. bright nail polish in the next. I go from debating the intricate nuances of the French language, to “OMG, the Slatkin & Co. ‘pink sangria’ candle at Bath and Body Works might be the most heavenly scent ever invented, I want to take off all my clothes and rub it all over me.”

I also strongly suspect there’s a rogue wire in my bra making a bid for freedom. Something pointy is definitely interfering with my mellow in that region.

Lastly, why does Gwyneth Paltrow keep bleating indignantly about the supposed 10lbs of weight she had to put on for “Country Strong” and how her body repulsed her afterwards? She looked the same skinny, undernourished string bean she did before, to me. Maybe it was 10 lbs of angst, Gwyneth? Eat a goddamn sandwich and shut up.

It All Comes Down To Satan and Pie

Monday, March 14th, 2011, mid-March, still kinda wintery

I can’t really fathom what it must be like to be in Japan right now, amidst a giant crock pot of fuckery, where every conceivable force of nature or man, seems to want to wipe your very existence out.

 It’s making for most unsatisfactory thoughts and I’m thousands of miles away. Those poor people? I wager they’re not sitting there safe and comfortable, sipping hot coffee and sucking on some toffee chocolate balls, like I am. They’re trying to be someplace where there’s less possibility of expiring from radiation sickness, lava or their house falling on them. If they still have a house. This is making me frown an unnatural amount.

I hate to mention him again, but I have slightly worrying idea that Charlie Sheen might factor into this. It seems the more insanity he spouts, the harder Japan gets pounded. I’m pretty sure there’s a correlation there somewhere, if we just look hard enough…

Anyway, here’s to those people having some sanity and semblance of normalcy restored again someday.
In other news, I’m not sure what I did to deserve this, somewhat illiterate, word verification:

So close, Blogger, so close

Finally, for the person (and you know who you are) who emailed me the other day complaining about the severe and unforgiveable lack of pie charts on my blog recently, here, just for you, is a long overdue pie chart.

Happy now? Okay.