This Will Make Your Day

Stop whatever you're doing and play this right now. Trust.:

http://nothingsgonnastopmenow.com/

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I'm Not Dead, But I've Been Busy

... so, Internet, please tell me what I missed this week. I literally have no idea what cat video is meme'ing right now and that troubles me deeply.

And that troubles me deeply.

What were the highlights of this week? Did we get a peek of Snooki's bum(p)? What's the baby animal de jour? (it was hedgehogs last time I checked. Are hedgehogs still hot?? I need to know!) Are women in the States still allowed to have sex?

I'm serious - I need a report!

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Yello!

This has the potential to be both awesome and depressing at the same time:



Eeee?!

And yes, that's a trailer for a commercial. A commercial. We don't know what product it's for yet, but if Ferris ends up shilling for an insurance company, I might kill myself.

Regardless, this buzz for an ad confirms that the cultural tastes of future generations will be exactly as they were portrayed in Demolition Man:


(I'm actually not judging; I would totally be charmed by a jingles-only radio station.)

But let's hope for the best that this mini Ferris Bueller reprise is fun and doesn't send us all into a grief spiral over our lost youth and lame dulled adult lives.

Eeee?!

Happy Friday?

Here's a song for the road, my favourite one from Ferris Bueller's Day Off:


Oh, what the hell, here's a few more:




The best for last:


God, I really love everything about that movie. Don't fuck Ferris up, ad people!

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I Am So Very, Very Easily Charmed

I'm not a fan of "performance" reality TV competitions (like American Idol or X-Factor or Dancing with the Not-Really-Stars) nor do I watch musicals or, ugh, Glee, but when I see a politician sing well, regardless of what political stripe they wear, gosh darnnit if I'm not just positively tickled pink.

Barack Obama only gave a couple lines of Al Green last night, but I am on the verge of fan-girling:


It's not the first time he's sung for a crowd:


And he's certainly not the only politician to do it. Here are a few other examples ...

Canada's Prime Minister Harper is a surprise guest of the National Arts Centre a few years ago and performed this Beatles song:


Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi sing something I don't know:


Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter drops some Sugarhill Gang:


Russia's Prime Minister Putin is more cringe-worthy than charming in his rendition of Blueberry Hill, but check out all the Hollywood types in the audience:


And it's not singing, but remember this? Ha. Oh, Bubba, those were the days:


It almost makes you wish all elections had a talent component. Almost.

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And Now For Something Completely Different

Compliments of The Oatmeal:

a.k.a. Why Wikipedia is all fucked up right now.

Want to help in the fight against SOPA / PIPA? First, go learn about the bills. After that go contact your elected officials. Wikipedia has a handy-dandy page set up which allows you to locate your state representative.

Have at 'er, Americans (I would, but crabby letters from Canadians are generally regarded as toilet paper alternatives by American politicians).

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How Many Tacos Will This Buy Me In Heaven?

I received this in the mail today from someone who reads my blog:

Um, thanks?

I will say, however, that it sure beats the email I received a month ago from someone who attached a copy of her TV cable bill and asked if I wouldn't mind paying it "as a way of saying thank you for being a blog reader". Yes, that's right, I should be paying you to read this blog (that is, when you're not watching TV, of course!). What's more, the "fan" suggested that I surely must have "come into wealth" from all the traffic on this website, much of which she feels she contributed to by "posting the 50s experiment on Facebook".

Guys, the only profit that I've directly reaped from his blog is pictured above:  a Seven Dollar Jesus Bill - and I'm pretty sure I can't even redeem that until I've a) accepted Him as my Lord and Saviour; and b) died.

You know, if this is what I receive, it really makes you wonder about the kind of mail Oprah gets. Just take a minute and picture it.


Wow.

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Pinplement

Pinplemented!
(not "Purplemented" as it kind of appears.)

I'm making up a new word:

Pinplement
pin-ple-ment v. pin-pluh-ment
verb
To create, buy, do, or otherwise actualize the things you pin on Pinterest.

I really love Pinterest, but I've quickly realized that I've been pinning and pinning stuff rather than actually doing or making these things that I'm so charmed by.

And so it should come as no surprise to those who regularly read this blog that the first thing I decided to pinplement was a recipe: lemon poppyseed pancakes.

This was the pin, originally from the website, Picky Cook:

And this was the pinplementation:

Not as pretty, but yay!

It was the world's smallest batch of pancakes as Patrick wasn't interested in having any (I just don't get him sometimes), and I really didn't need a load of them, so that's all I made; three little pancakes (that's a bread plate they're on, not a dinner plate).

Making such a small amount sort of felt like that scene in Bridesmaids where Kristen Wiig creates that single, elaborate cupcake; the only difference is that I didn't eat what I made as glumly as she did.

Fact: Never in my life have I ever eaten something glumly - not even the food at a funeral.

Wow. Congratulations, Jen. After all, who could ever wallow in sadness when finger sandwiches* and date squares* are around.

* The Official Refreshments of Funerals since 1894.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

Where was I? Oh, right: Lemon poppyseed pancakes. Did these differ much from regular pancakes? Not really. Just a tad crunchier, as if I was eating pancakes with flavourless roe baked into them. But that's not really the point. The point is this: Hurrah for doing something and not just pathetically staring at things that other people on the Internet have done.

... Ooh. I hope that last sentence didn't make you feel awkward, People of the Internet. You're not the pathetic ones - I was totally talking about myself and those other weirdos out there. Every second you spend on this blog actually makes you cooler. It's a fact.

Oh, God. Please don't ever leave me, People of the Internet. I need you.

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Wait, That Was Real?

Do any of you remember this clip from Sesame Street about a flea circus?



Did you know that flea circuses were real? Sadly, they didn't raise flags or light canons, but they did push miniature carts around and got everyone feeling itchy. In the second one, the fleas also bring to life a merry-go-round and roll a ball:





Grody.

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This Is Why You And Your Husband Don't Have Sex Anymore

Edited to Add: If you can't see the embedded video, you can watch it here.

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I Can't Imagine Walter Cronkite Doing That (And I Won't Try To Either)

Watch the whole thing. Pay special attention to his right hand. Those are your orders.



As seen on The Soup.

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I Get That I Don't Get It, So Get Off It

Recently there was an article posted on Jezebel titled, "Oops, I Must Have Been Too Busy Bitching About Not Getting Any Sleep to Mention How Great My Kid Is." by Tracy Moore. The piece (which is conversational, light-hearted and an easy read, so go munch on it for a minute) is largely a response to a conversation she had with a childless co-worker, who, upon listening to the writer complain about some truly heinous child-related sleep deprivation, commented, "Whoa man, you make it sound like your baby ruined your life."

The article goes on to explain that she wishes all of us childless people could simply grasp the awesomeness of parenthood and how, while it's not always a ray of sunshine - in fact, far from it on some days -, that there's something just so marshmagically delicious about babies and being the proud maker of one, that we just can't possibly "get it" if we've never had a child of our own.

Uggghhhh.

You know, I get it. I get it that I don't get it.

I can quite plainly observe friends and family members who find their social lives radically altered, are elbow-deep in the grossest of bodily fluids (some of which aren't even their own!), who come over for a little break and end up sitting on my couch uncontrollably crying (and that's the dads!), who are on the verge of losing their minds over a kid who refuses to sleep more than an hour at a time, who see money spraying out of their bank accounts - like the projectile vomit they have become so accustomed to - on new furniture, clothes and daycare, and who have confided in me that they have moments where they just want to lock their toddler in the room, leave the house, and get wasted in the middle of the afternoon.

But you know what I also observe? That many these same people go and have another baby! Or light up when they see a picture of their kid. Or sit there with a truly enamoured smile long after they've finished telling you a story about their child.

So even though I am an ignorant, childless heifer (though I prefer "childfree" heifer), I understand that there's something - something huge and verging on magical - that counters all the shitty, horrible things about having a kid. It is the "it". "It" is the thing that is more powerful than logic or memory. "It" is individual with each child, "it" is hard to describe, and for most parents, "it" is the best thing that has ever happened to them.

I get it, even if I've never personally experienced "it". You don't have to sell me on "it".

From Jezebel:

For us, it's not about whether a baby is "special" enough to take on all the shit that comes with parenting, it's about whether we are willing to deal with all that specialness, especially since we really like how our lives are now. Why the author thinks people who "get fucked up a lot" would make ideal parents is beyond me, but whatever. Do those people want kids? Because we're personally unsure. Call us "Team Undecided But Sorta Leaning Toward No". Neither of us has felt a big yearning for kids that wasn't fleeting, so to just go ahead and have a child in the hopes that we'd experience "it" and "it" would be worth the risk, is a big leap of faith for us. And since I'm an agnostic and he's an atheist, "faith" isn't exactly our forte.

What's irritating, is that articles like the one on Jezebel presume that everyone who has a child experiences "it", guaranteed, that "it" is what's missing in their lives, that "it" outweighs all other perks of a childfree lifestyle, and that once you experience "it", all those worries about whether you want a kid / would make a good parent / can stick with it until you're dead, will melt away.

And that's something I just don't buy.

I know, without a doubt, that there are people who regret having children. It's hard for them to say this out loud because it goes against, oh, everything, and people somehow derive great pleasure in pointing that out. Many of these people get called every name in the book for admitting what a "real parent" is never supposed to feel. But whether you like it or not, they're proof that "it" isn't universally appreciated. They're selfish monsters adults who discover that they'd be happier without kids - and I don't mean hypothetical children, but their actual kids - healthy, well-behaved little people with faces and names that they have feelings for. Children they believe are more burdens than blessings when it comes to achieving happiness in life.

And there's another nagging regret to the issue; the fear of "but what if I figure out I want kids and it's too late!" It's something articles poke at, although subtly. If we're too ignorant to "get" the obvious amazingness that is being a parent, surely we're also incapable of knowing how we'll feel about this in the future. How could we possibly know we'll be ok with a decision to not have kids in five, ten, or twenty years from now if we're too [stupid, self-absorbed, immature, goofy] to realize how crazyballs fantastic it is to make a small human being who loves you unconditionally?

Articles on this topic weren't always as cutely presented as the one on Jezebel. From an article by a woman simply referred to as "The Country Contributor" in the April 1911 Ladies' Home Journal (100 years ago!), this awesome opinion was splayed out:

In case you can't read that, the snippet says (to be read aloud in a ridiculously regal voice that I like to call "Lady Boddemboddem"):

No Woman Should Ever Marry Unless She is Willing to have a child or children. If you are not willing to institute a family you should remain single. It not immoral to refrain from having a larger family than you can support, or from subjecting a wife to child-bearing until her strength is exhausted; but on general principles it is immoral to marry with the positive intention of having no children, and it is very vulgar, too, as you will certainly understand some day when you awake to the plain realities of life.

Epic, no?

But beyond the part about being vulgar, isn't the message that "you will certainly understand [it] some day when you awake to the plain realities of life" all that different from "sigh. It's hard to explain till it happens to you directly."?

I think Tracy Moore's article is fine and cheerfully-natured, but I wonder if she realizes that it comes across a touch belittling. What's funny about all this, is that no real person in my life has ever tried to press me on the fact that I don't have a deep understanding of what it means to be a parent, nor the idea that having a child might not be for me. So maybe that's why I find it funny that articles like these keep getting churned out.

Do people really talk like that to one another, or did I win the friend lottery?

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Congratulations On Your Random, Unfocused Writings

Jessica from the blog Jessica, Why Are You So Bossy? recently contacted me to let me know that I had won "The Versatile Blogger Award". It's not so much an award as it is a modern-day chain letter among bloggers, but I takes what I gets, especially when it affords me the opportunity to do something I so seldom do: talk about myself. So, thanks, Jessica!

The OFFICIAL rules of the award are:
-Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post.
-Tell your readers 7 things about yourself.
-Give this award to up to 15 recently discovered bloggers.
-Contact those bloggers and tell them the exciting news!

Here's seven achingly fascinating facts about yours truly:

1. I believe that everyone should have to - yes, be forced to - work in the service industry for six months at some point in their lives. It would be like military service for the capitalist soul. The result? Our society would become 30% less dickish.*
2. While I can hear things pretty well, I can almost never tell what direction the sound is coming from.
3. I'm always surprised that when we talk about things that happened ten years ago, we're no longer referring to the early '90s.
4. I want to get a bicycle but I'm oddly rather scared to ride one.
5. I sometimes take intentionally bad photos of myself and send them to friends to cheer them up. I feel sorry for people who avoid doing things like this because they think they might one day have a career in politics:
   
   
6. I get really nervous around balloons. I'm certain they're going to pop at any second. I particularly want to barf when a helium balloon is touching a popcorn ceiling.
7. Roughly 90% of the things I say on Twitter are about things I see on TV. That should embarrass me but it really, really doesn't.

* Fact.

And I now ceremoniously bestow the Versatile Blogger Award on:

• Old Sweet Song
• Tea and Crumpets
• The Science of Domesticity

Check 'em out!

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I Hope That When We're Old, Grey, And Trying To Figure Out The Jet Packs, Patrick Will Still Like My Boobs

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The Cruelest Thing About This Clip ...

... is that they named him "Leslie".

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Brought To You By The Letter C

Because "C" is for CUTE:



My favourite reaction is around the 1:09 point in the video. Ahh!

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Two Questions

1. Cable access still exists?
2. What the hell is this?:



I think the Internet has broken me. I can no longer tell what's a joke and what is ... ______ (art? Legit hipster parenting? Non-legit hipster parenting?).

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I Don't Know About You ...

... but this isn't how I kiss:



It is, however, exactly like how I make love.

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Say Hello To My Little Friends

Late last week, I started writing a post titled "I Am Becoming The Honey Badger".

Because honey badger don't care. Honey badger don't give a shit.

I had officially had enough with this home selling business and no longer felt like being real estate's bitch. I realize that in most markets, having a home for sale for a month is totally no big, but for this market, it felt like it was dragging. People in our building typically sell their homes in two to six days. We were getting steady traffic in our place - between two and five showings a day everyday - but no bites. As someone who works from home, I was starting to find it just a tad obnoxious having to keep the place uber tidy and having to leave all the time to let people view our home privately. You know, so they could enjoy a quiet moment to pee on our floors. Ah, YAH, IT HAPPENED. There is nothing like opening your doors to strangers to make one think less about the human race as a whole.

As you may recall, I was feeling so fed up that I even turned to stupid no-good cupcakes and Catholic superstitions that involved burying a plastic religious icon head-first in a pot of flowers. In other words, my mind was unraveling.

And then on Friday I finally turned to something I liked: my 1950s magazines and books. We always had fun with our 50s Housewife Experiments and our home felt so devoid of fun recently ... so I decided to honey badger it up and do some old school cooking and baking in my cute little dresses between showings. I didn't care if these concoctions ruined the depersonalized aesthetic of our home, because I just didn't give a fuck anymore. Not one crazy honey badger fuck.

My Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book says:

Well, gee, that's all that was missing from people thinking of my condo as a home? Done! So I spotted a recipe for the ultra girly Pink Azalea cake:

... and added my own sweet touches to it. I'm not normally a "pink" kind of person, but this cake is simply adorable, especially once I housed it in a little glass cake dome:

Still on a wholesome kick, I made some strawberry pie:

I then came across an ad featuring the pre-Bob Barker host of Price is Right, Bill Cullen, shilling for a tea company. Just me, or does he sort of remind you of Matt Damon, if Matt Damon was completely drained of all sex appeal?:

And so, I made some home-brewed iced tea with lemon slices, baked some chicken breasts, prepped some corn on the cob and made some potato salad.

I was feeling really happy - finally able to get in the kitchen and DO stuff rather than delicately walk around my home afraid to disturb things. So, naturally, I took it too far: I decided to make The Crazy 50s Shit That Makes Me Laugh.

Remember that green soup with dicks in it? Remember the great names you came up for it? Well, I found the official recipe for it in my Woman's Day July 1959 magazine:

Wanna know what it looks like in person?

No. Definitely not.

Too bad!

Not nearly as green. More, brown, really. Dick a la Sewage. Ah well, in the fridge you go! Just be grateful, soon-to-judge-my-home visitors, that I didn't just leave it on the stove top. Because I was tempted. Seriously, seriously tempted.

And the pièce de résistance in my cooking and baking spree? Want to take a guess?

If you'll recall, the first "fancy" gelatin mold I tried to make did not turn out well. At all. It was a sloppy wet mess that exploded its contents all over the place - not unlike a teenager who has drank too many wine coolers in the woods behind her house. Certainly not speaking from personal experience there or anything. With this home situation being so out of our control, I decided that I was going to try to tackle something that had challenged me before, and I was going to succeed, dammit! I went for something layered and colourful with silly things inside.I was going balls out with this jello mold and if it splatted on the floor 30 minutes before our next showing, so be it.

Oh, what a thing of repulsive, fantastic, proud beauty:

That's lemon jello with lemons, orange jello with carrots and lime jello with celery. Sounds disgusting, but by golly, did it ever hold together well! I was one drink away from extending my arms and screaming out the window, "I'm the James Cameron king of the world, motherfuckers!"

I gave the gelatin mold the "glory spot" in our fridge - right underneath the bulb. There would be no escaping it, should anyone viewing our home open the fridge. It was my crowing jewel in my collection of Food I Made Once I Stopped Caring About These Weirdos Coming Into My Home:

We then had people come in for a showing early that evening.

And on Saturday?

They gave us an offer.

Today the condition on that offer was removed, so it's official. We've sold our damn condo!

Maybe it was dear St. Joe (who is indeed also killing the flowers as I predicted). But maybe, just maybe, it was the jello mold. Both shall have places of honour in my new home.

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Enjoy This Vancouver Rioter's Instant Karma

I don't usually cheer at what could be considered a great shot police brutality, but when it fits so well with the America's Funniest Home Videos formula for laughs, it really does get my approval. All that's missing is a high-pitched Bob Saget voiceover:

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If I Ever Have A Son ...

... may he be a gay son. Because this is far, far more enjoyable to watch than any lame Little League game (but he can do that too if he wants):


ME AT NINE, PERFORMING TO MADONNA IN SUMMER '91! from Robert Jeffrey on Vimeo.

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