Suck It, Fondant

I've outdone myself. Most likely I've outdone you. I know that sounds arrogant, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

If you are a fan of the show Sons of Anarchy (and you should be) you will most likely recognize this as the top rocker and reaper logo from the Sons colors (motorcycle jacket for those that don't watch the show or Gangland on the History Channel):


Looks an awful lot like a leather jacket, no?


I drew that myself.

IN FROSTING.


Cake (not a leather jacket)


BUTTERCREAM FROSTING.


I'm better than you. Na na na boo boo, stick your head in doo doo.

The frosting of the moment is fondant. Its consistency makes it the favorite for detail work in current cake decorating trends. It is also a bitch to work with, tastes like chemicals and won't adhere to your cake on its own meaning that you still have to make buttercream frosting to decorate a cake with fondant. Fondant loyalists will try to tell you you will never get the kind of precision with buttercream that you can get with fondant. I point to the above cake as definitive evidence to the contrary. My cake is pretty AND delicious, and I defy you to repeat the detail work of the reaper's bony hands and bloody scythe with friggin' fondant.

A Heartwarming Story Of Love You Definitely Don't Want To Read

"You should not have said that. I mean it. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. None," I said to the volleyball team at the end of the bar. It is uncharacteristic of me to voluntarily talk to total strangers, but in this case my sense of duty outweighed my social phobias. A cute, young, apparently volleyball-playing girl had come in with the rest of her team and announced, to no one in particular, that she wanted to hear some gross out stories. She said this within earshot of the bartender. I have known the bartender for over six years at this point and we have been roommates for more than four of those years, so I know better than anyone: between working at Tai's, his prior work experience at the notorious Manhole, the cast of characters he hangs around with and his normal every day activities, the bartender has accumulated more gross stories than any human should be able to collect in a life time, and there is nothing he enjoys more than relaying those stories to unsuspecting newbies.

I knew what was coming. The Poo Bottle, Public Fisting Incident, Pool Table Porno, Drilldo + Midget Stripper, Turd of Frightening Diameter, Cocaine Toilet Seat, Sausage Fingers, Suspected Incest...I'd heard them all, but one story always stands out above the rest of them, and as the bartender turned to me grinning and asked me "Should I tell it first or save it for the end?" I knew he could only be talking about one story: Condom Holly.

Holly is a peripheral friend of the bartender and me, and by that I mean we know a lot of the same people and she tends to show up in places the bartender and I are known to frequent (rather than that she is somehow actually our friend). She is also a fucking train wreck. I mean it. If you look up "train wreck" in the dictionary, there is a photo of Holly and a note that reads "See also: Shit show, Hot mess." Holly lives off an apparently infinite supply of money from a settlement she was awarded after an accident many years ago. Her entire life consists of going to concerts and consuming as much drugs and alcohol as her smallish frame can handle (and usually more). Her commitment to complete self-annihilation is staggering to the point of almost being impressive: she has managed to age herself to a point where she looks fully 25 years older than she actually is and she makes the comic look like a tee totalling choir-boy.

Holly has an on again/off again boyfriend who is nearly as gross as she is. They fight and make up constantly and she always takes him back despite the fact that in the course of these fights he regularly beats the shit out of her. It was the aftermath of one of these fights that lead to the now infamous "Condom Holly" story. I will warn you now just as I warned the volleyball team on Thursday night: this story is not for everyone. As a matter of fact, this story really shouldn't be for anyone, but it takes all kinds and since I've already pretty much started it, it would be unfair of me not to go the whole nine. Just remember, I warned you to stop reading now and will not be held responsible for any retching or nightmares you may experience should you choose to keep reading. You are hereby informed.

One day, Holly showed up at a divey punk bar on Clark Street with bruises on her arms and a black eye. This sort of thing had happened before, and the owner of the bar did his best to talk some sense into her. "You have to get rid of this guy," he told her. "He's a fucking loser. I mean, you're no prize, Holly, but you deserve better than that piece of shit."

"You don't get it," she replied. "He LOVES me."

"Holly, he FUCKING HITS YOU. Kick his ass to the curb already!"

"No, he loves me. And I can prove it," she said with absolute conviction.

She then proceeded to cite an example that she felt "proved" that he loved her: Several months earlier they had got into yet another fight that degraded into a screaming match and possibly some fisticuffs. Eventually he stormed out of the apartment. She stormed out as well and headed directly to the nearest bar where she proceeded to get completely shit-faced. In due course, she managed to attract the attention of some random ne'er-do-well who was clearly too drunk to notice or care that she has the face of a bog monster suffering from smallpox (not to mention the breath of a coke addict - I should know, she's breathed on me in the past) and per the rules of white-trash culture, she took him home with her for a one night stand.

Some time the next afternoon, the loser boyfriend returned home all apologies and contrition and Holly of course took him back, as she always does. What followed was the inevitable make up sex. Holly had apparently not bothered to have a good wash after her activities of the night before. This was made evident when the boyfriend started going down on her and...and...(excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth a little)...and wound up sucking the used condom from the other guy that was still in her from the night before into his mouth.

"...and he STAYED with me," she finished to her horrified audience. "because he LOVES me." I can't necessarily argue with her logic on that. What frightens me most though was not even that this ACTUALLY HAPPENED but that she felt this was a story that was acceptable to tell other people and that it has now become so infamous that the bartender and now I also have come to think it's acceptable to tell other people.

There you go: the Condom Holly story. I informed you thusly.

Stand And Deliver

It's been pretty well established, I think, that I am remarkably lazy and perhaps a little bit selfish as well. Many of us are. There are a few people among us, however, whose selflessness and courage allow the rest of us to be this way. These people are called veterans. They are also called awesome. And today is Veterans Day, they day in which we do what we should be doing every day - honoring them and thanking them for their service to their country.

My most sincere and heartfelt thanks to both of my grandfathers and my roommate's father (R.I.P.), my dad (I love you Papa!), my Uncle John (who I only know because of his service - he's not my real uncle, he's my dad's best friend from the Navy), my parent's friend John K. (he's my friend too), Juice and Will from Tai's (Semper Fi, mofos), Terry (also from Tai's but he was Navy), Michelle (my R.A. from college), my amazing high school friend Erin (also I am jealous of her gargantuan boobs), my ex's father Ozzie and best friend Ronnie (miss you guys), Jamie from the Globe (Royal Navy), my favorite Browns fan Eric and his father Earl (who happen to be the brother and father of my best friend H-Town. Eric once sent me a photo of a camel spider while stationed in Iraq, I haven't slept well since), Dave from Ginger's (keep on rippin' and tearin' buddy), Machetti and Pretty Sean from Delilah's (drool drool drool), the incomparable Corporal a.k.a Chris (oi my good friend. P.S. You're ignorant!), my gorgeous friend Marty (he is seriously hot. I'd hit that. For sure.) and my former neighbor Marcus (who has appeared on this blog under the name "the Marine" when he accused the bartender of being a Communist because he doesn't like The Princess Bride, also he has two cats named Patton and Nimitz). I am so very proud of all of you and I am eternally grateful for all you've done. I owe you, well, everything, but I'm hoping you'll settle for beer.

Happy Veterans Day everyone!

Amberance: Hopeless Romantic

on why I won't be the one to walk away from my pseudo-relationship first:

I could tolerate you for decades if I only have to see you twice a year.

Tremendously Tremendous

Me: I'm kind of starting to have a crush on Eddie Olczyk.

BrownsFan: (horrified) Not...physically...right?

Me: Um, well not really because I think he'd keep yelling "stop it right here" all the time. And that wouldn't be fun.

BrownsFan: ....Ok.

Me: I just think he's really funny and intelligent and I sort of like his little accent (giggle).

BrownsFan: Look, I know you finally had your way with [boy who doesn't call], but I REALLY think you need to go to Bermuda and have sex all week so you're not so...

Me: Boy crazy?

BrownsFan: Obsessed.

A Trip Down Memory Lane: Six Years of Bullshit Bizzybiz

For the first time in six years I have realized that it is my blogaversary on the actual day of my blogaversary. Six years ago today, I posted two very short blog posts: one because I was upset that CAKE hadn't scheduled a show in Cleveland until after I'd already driven all the way to Columbus to see them and the other because earlier that day, the CEO of the company I was working for at the time had asked the question "What is the process of statement processing?" which he thought constituted a double entendre (per the fabulous Mary (who I miss terribly) immediately after leaving that meeting, "I believe the word you're looking for is 'redundancy'. 'REDUNDANCY'!"). And thus Bizzybiz was born.

I started a blog primarily because I had started reading the blog of Salam Pax a.k.a. the Baghdad Blogger, a young Iraqi architect who was writing an amazing blog about what he was experiencing as a resident of Baghdad while we were bombing it called "Where is Raed?". I was tremendously impressed with his writing but moreover I was completely fascinated with the medium. The idea that regular people could share anything they wanted to say with everyone in the world who had an internet connection seemed completely amazing to me back then. H-town also had a blog at the time (she's been on extended hiatus for a few years) which turned out to be instrumental in changing our relationship from college buddies who called to catch up once in a while to the one we have now where she is my very best friend because it enabled me to keep up with her life on a daily basis. Also it was frikkin' hilarious. I wanted in.

I don't think I've ever taken the time to explain what "bizzybiz" actually means. I named this journal "The Bizzybiz Blog" because of an incident that occurred in close proximity to the time I started think about starting a blog. When I worked at the number factory, there was another company on the same floor of our building and like most office high rises, everyone on the floor shared a bathroom. Most of the women who worked there were nice when you'd run into them at the sinks, but there was this one angry looking red-headed girl who would scowl at you every time you walked in as if you were scum coughed up from hell just to ruin her private hand washing moment. The women of my company were discussing it on our way to the sundry shop to buy cigarettes (this was also right around the time that I tried to take up smoking because I wanted to be a cool kid. I hated it and couldn't stand to have a cigarette unless I also had a big glass of chocolate milk to kill that horrible charred ass taste. It was my smokin' milk. This adventure lasted 4 months before I finally woke up and said "What the fuck am I DOING?") and I said something along the lines of "That girl is a biz-atch" because I sometimes like to talk like Snoop Dogg. Bia, who was from Romania and who spoke impeccable English except for when she was trying to repeat words I had just made up, agreed with me by saying "Yeah! She is a...bizzybiz! Or whatever you just said." The new word wound up being a staple of our conversations. So "Bizzybiz Blog" literally translates as "Bitch Blog". Now you know.

When I first started the blog, I didn't set up a stat counter because I am an incorrigible narcissist and I would never have gotten anything done because I would have constantly been checking to see how many page views I had. Fortunately or unfortunately, earlier this year when blogger did a redesign, one of the changes they made was a tab that automatically tracks your stats whether you asked for it or not. I am fucking obsessed with my stats now, exactly as I predicted (to be fair, so is the comic. "How many page views do you get per day?" he wanted to know last week as we both kept frantically hitting the refresh button.). What I found out was I have a LOT more lurkers than I realized, and in places I wouldn't have expected. For instance, I have far more pageviews in the Netherlands than I do in the U.K. despite the fact that I go to England to visit friends every year but have never been to Holland and don't know anyone Dutch. India and South Korea seem to have taken a great deal of interest as well. Also, hello to my lovely readers in China, I am pleased that you are here since I just assumed I was banned in China. People seem to find the site while searching for some really bizarre things ("slutty Hogwarts", "men and women licking frosting", "huge naked grandma boobs"). The most viewed blog post is Amber And The Intern: Bad Wedding Guests  and I have absolutely no idea why unless the intern is running around driving people to that page (thanks if you are. I still think your decision to take up the bagpipes is really weird). I've also want to say thanks to a couple of readers who have been around since the beginning: my wonderful Canadian friend Pronto and the amazing but spider loving monogodo whose home I will never be visiting as he and his wife have surrounded themselves with tarantulas. You guys rock.

Thanks to each and every one of my Bizzybiz readers for your inexplicable interest in the ramblings of a highly accident prone, sex obsessed, boy crazy, immature, neurotic, socially inept, Christmas loving, moderately drunken midwestern girl with a Girl Scout Cookie addiction. You complete me. (But seriously, naked grandma boobs? How the hell does that search get you to here?)

Brotherly Love

I had lunch with my brother today.

Cap: Ok, see you. Be good.

Me: Yeah, see you soon. (pause) I'm not going to be good.

Cap: Oh, ok. Well go fuck yourself then.

Amberance, Simplified

You know you have chosen the right person as your best friend when they know you well enough to distill your entire existence into three words and a drawing. For example, MY best friend H-Town made this for me on Someecards yesterday:

That's the kind of person you should be looking for. If they can explain what exactly a barometer is measuring, that's handy as well (I've been assured it doesn't count how many baros there are, nor tell you the direction of the nearest drinking establishment).

Just As An Aside

When editing that last post, Blogger spell check said I should be spelling Schaumburg "Scumbag".

Oh IKEA, I Am Such Your Bitch.

So here was the situation: having recently bought a Princess Leia slave costume, slutty Hogwart's student costume and sexy Christmas elf costume, I found that I was entirely out of room in my costume drawer* and also that I didn't have any other drawers. It was obvious that I needed another dresser. (Also because if I had another dresser I might be able to fit all the buildings in my Christmas village into one scene. For real, this is how I pick out furniture.) And for that I would need to go to IKEA.

There was only one problem: I don't really have time to go to IKEA. IKEA is a magical world full of rooms you wish you lived in, unpronounceable words and meatballs. And they build them like a Vegas casino in that once you're inside they hide all the exits to prevent you from getting out. You can lose three days in IKEA and not even realize it, and I can't have that happen right now because I have other shit to do (such as buying more slutty costumes - the Halloween stores only appear once a year people).

So this was my plan: I went online and checked inventory for the things I wanted (because I was also buying a night stand so as to hide my little bottles of lube in a drawer, yet have them still handily nearby) and I wrote down what aisle and bin I could find them in when I got to Schaumburg IKEA. That way I could bypass the Maze of Wonder and go straight to the warehouse and I would only lose the time it took for me to drive to Schaumburg and back (oh, also I actually printed out the directions for getting there. I always think I know how to get there, but IKEA Schaumburg is tricky in that you can see it from the highway and surrounding streets, but it is almost impossible to find the actual entrance. I once drove around for an hour before figuring it out).

My plan was sound. Really. It was. EXCEPT.

What I did not account for, because there was no way I could have known, is that right next to the place where they store the flatbed carts was a great big fucking display of Christmas decorations. IT WAS A SWEDISH CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND. It might as well have been a giant pile of crack. Clearly I wasn't going anywhere. There were shiny things! There were trees! There were adorable strings of snowflake shaped LED lights OMFG GIMME GIMME MORE MORE MORE MORE!

Yeah.

I have no idea how long I was trapped inside the holiday vortex - it could have been hours, it could have been weeks. What I do know is this: flat-packed dressers are fucking heavy.

I found this out while trying to wrestle one off of the shelf. I was really annoyed with myself because I've been weight training every other morning since April and I really ought to be able pick up and carry a four bedroom house by now. I was also really annoyed when an IKEA employee the size of an MMA fighter watched me have a cat fight with a box trying to get it into my car by myself while he calmly collected empty carts.

Upon returning home and dumping off my new possessions (after wrestling them up three flights of stairs first, natch) it was obvious that the only way to fix the fact that I'd wasted half a day wandering mesmerized through a warehouse and that I now had arms with the approximate strength of cooked spaghetti was to drink several margaritas and call it "lunch", then go drunk grocery shopping while simultaneously phoning the comic in England and then yelling at him for answering his phone when I wanted to leave a message. I wound up spending $52 on chocolate syrup.

Thanks, IKEA.


*I was giving an inventory of my huge collection of stereotypically slutty bedroom outfits (nurse, french maid, etc.) to a friend in an e-mail and got this response back, "You are either the perfect woman or a stripper."

Well, I Can Die Now.

It has finally happened: I have managed to call in on the appropriate day at the appropriate time in order to be live on the most inappropriate and brilliant podcast ever recorded*. Check out episode 202 of Total Talk Nonsense with Jon and Scott and you can hear me chat with them about the blog, football, the Blackhawks, my amazing pants, catholic school, conspiracy theories, Scooby Doo, vacation, boys who only call when drunk and boys who don't call at all. Unfortunately, I forgot to talk about Scientology, my Super Secret Project and to use the phrase "want to ride that like I stole it" in regards to the boy who doesn't call. I'll just have to get myself invited on the show again at some point. While you're at it, why not just subscribe to Total Talk Nonsense so you can download and listen to all the episodes? It's the only place you're going to find the original tet-anus.


*In suburban Chicago, Illinois.

I Like It Stuffed Up My Ass. I Just Hope It Doesn't Burst While It's In There*

For those that missed it, last week on Facebook there was a rash of women leaving status messages about where they "liked it" i.e. "I like on the floor next to my bed" or "I like it on the washing machine". You, the reader (especially the male reader) were obviously supposed to think this was a declaration of where this lady prefers to screw. What she actually meant was that this is where she stores her purse when she gets home from her long day of frivolous shopping and shitty parallel parking attempts. There is a name for people who do this sort of thing. These people are called "teases" and they are no fun at parties or the drive in.

For the most part I really love internet memes - I've been to Candy Mountain, IMMD and I can, in fact, has cheezburger. What I don't like is what appears to be a trend (remember the "what color my bra is" bullshit?) of women on Facebook ganging up to fuck with people while they giggle behind their hands. Stop it, you uncreative sheep. It's dumb. Also nobody likes a tease.


*I don't actually carry a purse, but I am an international drug mule.

Fish: Adept at Innuendo

Fish: Excited about Bermuda? Will you be visiting the triangle?

Me: Someone will be visiting a triangle.

Fish: Oh I see what you did there.

College Football Wrap Up

What a day!

• #1 Alabama lost to South Carolina. I am only marginally upset that Lou Holtz called this.
• Boise State needs to stop wearing the blue on blue uniforms at home. They blend into the field and I can't frikkin' see them.

Boise State (may or may not be appearing in your picture)

• Spartans beat the Wolverines (again). Suck it, Blue.
• O-H! With the Alabama loss I am very interested to see the BSC rankings when they come out next week. Also congrats to Coach Tressel on 100 wins and your uncanny ability to look like my dad.
• Proposal: LSU is the most entertaining team to watch in all of college football. Please state your disagreements in the comments so I can tell you why you are wrong.

The Insanity Has Begun

It's getting to be that time of year when I go completely insane*. The two biggest events of the year are right around the corner: Christmas, the best holiday ever invented, and then the most glorious day of all days, MY BIRTHDAY.

Yes, I do know it's September and that Christmas starts in November** and my birthday is in January. I am running out of time! There is planning to do! For the inevitable Christmas cross-stitching marathon, I have patterns to design and thread to buy. More importantly, I have to brush up on my knowledge of structural engineering.

Why? I'm glad you asked.

Faithful readers of Bizzybiz, prepare yourselves for the Greatest Birthday Cake of All Time. Seriously. My volcano cake from a few years back? Child's play. The Flying Spaghetti Monster cake? Amateur hour. The Death Star cake and accompanying X-Wing and Tie Fighter cakes? Pure crap. This cake, my friends, this cake is going to be such a triumph you will cry tears of joy at the majesty of it. You will be at odds with yourself wanting to eat it because you know it will taste like love and rainbows but also not wanting to eat it because if you do you won't be able to look at it and bask in the glow of the heavenly light that surely will be shining down upon it. Provided that I can fortify this delicious monument to my birth enough to keep it standing up and to transport it from my kitchen to the bar - hence my needing a tutorial in How To Build Things That Don't Immediately Fall Over.

As I said at the beginning, it is that time of year.

*as opposed to my normal baseline level of insane.
**The 40 Days of Christmas, invented not by me but someone else (in all fairness someone equally as unbalanced as I am), begins on November 16th for those who have not been around in previous years to roll their eyes at me.

In Which Amberance Is Too Amberancy For Her Own Good

Most of the time I'm pretty good at impressing boys, because, let's face it, apart from the tits and the vagina, I am one. The average guy seems to really enjoy the fact that I can intelligently discuss football and hockey, know positions and formations and who the players are, and most importantly the fact that I never claim to enjoy such and such player because "he is so hot"*. Your nerdier type of guy is usually drawn in by the fact that I can recite the entire original Star Wars trilogy verbatim from memory, or that I'm happy to debate Kirk vs. Picard for as long as it takes to convince you that it is obviously Picard. By the time the conversation turns to sex (and the conversation ALWAYS turns to sex) every guy around thinks I am their dream girl. I'm happy to point out and then join you ogling that girl over there who is falling out of her shirt, after all, that IS an incredible rack! Girls need to be less selfish and uptight: blow jobs and anal sex for everyone, all the time! And did you see the centerfold in Playboy last month? Oh, because I subscribe, that's how I saw it.

The thing is, and here's the rub (heh): the above behavior is the kind of thing that works best in a group setting. When you're one on one it can be kind of off putting in that it comes off as overly aggressive, and when you're one on one with your really hot friend who is so attractive he distracts you and throws you off your game it can be a disaster. Such as when he is nice enough to drive you home and he makes a comment as he's dropping you off about the hilarious squeakiness of your vinyl pants. Answering that statement with a pouty sounding "Well you were SUPPOSED to take them off me!" can quickly make you go from "this girl is really cool" to "this woman is fucking terrifying". I should probably apologize for that. You know who you are.




*Seriously girls who like sports, this is annoying. Stop doing it. I'm not saying you can't think they're hot, but you need to keep that shit to yourself and not bring it up in the middle of a conversation about whether or not the Wildcat can continue to be an effective formation in the NFL now that the defenses are prepared for it (it can't).

A Night Out With Gene Yaas (The Few Bits I Remember Of It Anyway)

I have to blog about Saturday night because I have not kept up with my promise to post weekly dirty grocery lists and because I vaguely recall telling some people that I would write about it. Also because the comic has a blog now and I refuse to allow him to outblog me. Unacceptable.

My friend Jon of the brilliant Total Talk Nonsense podcast was filling in on drums for his friends' band for a gig that was in the city. Jon is suburban folk and is never in the city, so it seemed like a good opportunity to hang out without having to drive to the middle of nowhere and then not drink because I'd have to drive back.

The evening started out in the way that most of my evenings out typically end: with me nearly falling over and some vague molestation. Due to my own sheer stupidity, I thought I should take the red line train at the same time the Cubs game ended, thus ensuring that I would be crammed into a train car with the maximum number of douchebags possible. One of those douchebags was the guy who got on the train directly behind me. I admit, the train was very crowded, but given that I was not glued to the back of the person standing in front of me, I don't think it was quite crowded enough to have him pasted up against me like wall paper. Turning sideways was not helpful either. No matter how I tried to adjust my stance I couldn't get this guy (literally) off my ass. And then he started slightly humping me. Seriously. Weirdly I was far less concerned about the rapiness of the situation than I was about that fact I was having a hard time standing upright in heels with this guy's full weight pushing me forward. Either way it was bad so I ended up getting off at the next stop and waiting for the next train which blessedly was filled with only the normal, non-rapey, drunk Cubs fan type of douchebags.

Jon et al. (we'll get to them in a minute) were playing at US Beer Company. I had never been there before. I don't anticipate being there again. It's the most poorly named bar I've ever patronized - they have a whopping four beers on tap, one of which they were out of, and about a dozen bottles, a third of which they were out of. It didn't matter much because tracking down a bartender was about as frustrating as hunting a Sasquatch. The stage is adjacent to the bar and faces a wall about eight feet away, so your choices for viewing the band are to stand right in front of them which feels creepy and stalkerish, or sit off to their right where there are chairs and tables and also a huge cabinet blocking most of the view. The sound guy was on his second day working there, looked nervous and appeared to be 12 years old. I sat at the bar and peered between the cabinets and the 12 year old, from which I could see the tip of Jon's sticks, a microphone stand and part of Gene's right shoe.

Gene Yaas is a band I had actually heard before on an episode of TTN*. They play what they describe as "adult goof rock" which is incredibly accurate. It's rock music with lyrics that are slightly x-rated, extremely funny and entirely absurd. You'll like it. They have an album, you can buy it here or the other usual places (iTunes and such the like). Jon was filling in for the drummer, who was filling in for the lead guitarist, who was missing in action (the band claim he has been deported, but I suspect they got that information at www.madethefuckup.com). There were supposed to be four bands, but three of them didn't show up, so Gene Yaas had the show to themselves, which worked out great because everyone in the place had come just to see them anyway. It was suggested they even do an extended set which would have been cool, but unfortunately Jon had only learned 12 songs. They sounded great in spite of the nervous 12 year old.

At some point someone realized that one band was not going to be enough live music to cover the night and called in the back up plan. The back up plan was a hip hop group - the kind that inexplicably hold their microphones upside down and have a guy on the stage whose entire job seems to be standing there and nodding. It didn't really follow from Gene Yaas. It was funny, just not on purpose.

From here things start to get hazy. The problem is that I know this is the part of the night that I told people I would blog about because everyone was saying things that were funny, but all I remember is the laughing part. I have no idea what the details were. Drinking is bad, kids. I know that everyone liked my dress (which was as inappropriate as my t-shirts and reads "You want me to suck what?") and that Gene Marteen know something about Buckeye football that impressed me (no idea what) but that he didn't know what he was supposed to do when someone yelled "O-H!". The only thing I remember in detail is talking to Scott about the quality of various brands of telescopes, because it is a law of social functions that the two nerdiest people will start a conversation that absolutely no one else cares about. I think I also mentioned that humpback whales look like giant pickles, apropos of nothing. I was obviously a brilliant conversationalist (luckily I was the only girl in the group so I think they all gave me the benefit of the doubt).

By the way, protip: If you ever buy a telescope, make sure you also buy a red flashlight. It takes at least a half hour for your eyes to get acclimated to the viewer, and using a regular flashlight when you're changing the filters means your eyes will have to adjust all over again. A red flashlight will allow you to see enough to change filters without ruining your night vision. You're welcome.



*I went back and listened to it again today, which I do not recommend. It starts out fine, but they quickly get overJamesoned and it turns into a train wreck. I believe I said to Jon and Scott that it was the most excruciating thing I had ever heard, and that was after they had played audio the week before of Bill O'Reilly reading some sort of pornographic drug story. Some of the best sound clips they have now were taken from the drunken ramblings of the band's front man on that episode. Jon reminded me he had been on the show after he introduced him to me on Saturday, to which I said after a beat, "Oh. He's THAT Gene Marteen." He turned out to be really adorable and not at all annoying, but also the bar didn't have any Jameson.

Is Star Trek Voyager Good For You?

It's a question we've all asked ourselves at one time or another. I personally have spent many hours pondering it:

I can't stop staring at Jeri Ryan's tits, and I think I've developed a Borg fetish. Can this be good for me?

I'm not sure if I want to give Neelix a great big hug or punch him square in the face. Can this show be good for me?

And so on for 172 episodes.

Good news everyone! The comic (this guy) and his friend Brian (who bears a startling resemblance to Neelix) have a new show this week at the Camden Fringe that answers this very question and is coincidentally titled "Is Star Trek Voyager Good For You?" FELLOW NERDS, THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. The show is this Thursday, August 12 (or 12 August depending on where you live) at the Roundhouse Studio Theatre in Camden, London, England. Tickets are £7.50 and are available here.

Go because this is an important question to have answered. Go because it's going to be absolutely hilarious. Go because I need you to report back to me with a full transcript* as I'll be trapped in the United States on Thursday and won't be able to see it. IT IS ONE NIGHT ONLY so be there before the answer is lost to you forever.

*With helpful footnotes and drawings please.

Amberance: Happy Yet Full of Rage

I have mixed feelings about the weekend festivities in Canton, Ohio. I was happy for Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith, though I had to tune it out when Smith started crying. I'm not saying men shouldn't cry, mind you, I'm just saying they shouldn't do it on television.

The bartender and I were excited to watch the Hall of Fame Game at first, enough to scrap tentative plans to drive to Green Bay for a Social D concert even. In retrospect we might have been better off with the 7-8 hour round trip drive. The game turned out to be such a shit storm that we turned it off at halftime. Still, even though it was one of the most crap games I've ever seen (and mind you, I'm a 32 year Browns fan), it means that football is back and I am delighted.
In related news, my next door neighbor remarked that my new dark auburn and purple hair looked like Ravens colors. (Long pause while I count to ten) OK Matt, look. Number one: no it does not. It's a reddish brown, not black. Number two: Fuck off. And number three: IF YOU EVER SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN I WILL THROW YOU OFF THE FUCKING PORCH.

Note to my readers: Your mother lied. Counting to ten does not work.

The Scientific Method Step 7: Publish Results

I formed a hypothesis at this years Tai's charity golf outing in Galena that the real reason people golf is for the sexual innuendo*. Based on the swearing and frustration, I don't think there's any way people could be golfing for fun. I cite several examples from the foursome** I was in, aptly named Team Spank:

-(The bartender on the green): This is wetter than I thought.

-(Bob and Sarah sorting out golf balls) Bob: Sarah, did you grab both of my balls? Sarah: No, and that's my ball in the trap.

-(Bob, encouraging the bartender in a sand trap): Whack it away. Just go right at it.

-(The bartender, commenting on the little prize flag stuck in the green): We'd find out about closest to the hole.


The discussion is open. Opinions?

*In YOUR end-o.
**While I was technically in a foursome, I didn't actually golf. Not that they didn't try to make me. Sometimes I love being left-handed.