idea for a video game

...chasing down old people! as inspired by this episode of psych where they chase down red foreman who has alzheimer's. i would totally play a game where the idea was to catch old people.

you could get extra points for knocking other fun things over before you get them. or maybe you'd have to gather things up like their meds and blankets to keep their paper thin skin warm. what are you supposed to do with them once you catch them? turn them in? to the retirement home?

 

throw grandma into the cup and you win!

how to be a good driver.

let's face it guys, i'm a really good driver. i can get from one place to another super fast, and i can do lots of other things while doing so. i'm seriously good at driving. plus, i can drive a standard, which only like 4 other people in america can do. YOU get behind the wheel of a car with THREE super complicated pedals and make it work. exactly. difficult stuff that i'm really good at.

because of this, i recently had the thought, "hey, maybe you should give some driving tips! after all, a lot of people out there are really BAD drivers. maybe they could use some help!" genius, right?

so, in order to make the road more palatable, i offer you these helpful hints.

1. driving is a game. in order to win the game, you must be the car in front.

i know what you're thinking, "a game?! no, no, no. driving is about safety". calm down, square hat, you couldn't be more wrong. this is why are roads are so clogged and it takes far too long to get anywhere. if everyone on the road would just man up and play the game, then we would have far fewer problems.

any good game has to have rules, right? of course, bromigo. the rules of the driving game are as follows:

                     1. don't be a pussy. i can't stress this enough. you're never going to get to the front and enjoy blissful, panoramic landscape if you're dragging in the back, afraid to make a move. nope, you'll be stuck behind the old lady wishing you were dead or she was. this is not ideal.
                     2. if you can see the bumper of the car in front of you, you're losing. if you're so far back from the guy who has the AUDACITY to be going slow in the left lane (the right lane is for time outs and non-team players) that you can see his bumper, then what are you doing?
                     3. if you don't want to play, get in the right lane until the absolute LAST second before you have to turn left (if you have to turn left at all, that is).

i think that's about it! it's a pretty simple game. you'll know you've won when there are no cars around you and you haven't been pulled over. (secret cloaking device: if you're speeding like hell in the RIGHT lane, it's like the cops can't see you. i'm serious, try it.)

2. it's totally cool to do other stuff while driving. 

driving is a really easy, menial task. so if you're spending all of your brain energy focusing on something that is excruciatingly boring, it's going to get mad at you. your brain has better things to do than watch yellow lines go by and, in my neighborhood, cows. yellow lines and cows are both lame and pissing off your brain is a bad idea. that's why i suggest doing lots of fun things that are completely unrelated to driving. need help thinking of ideas? no problemo!

1. talk to your friends! friends are fun and everyone has them (even if they're imaginary) so feel free to whip out that phone and text or dial away! tell your friends about the cows (maybe they're dumber than your brain and they're interested) or whatever; it's all about feeding your poor bored brain the fun it needs to keep you from crashing that car. sometimes i like to send my friends random quotes from disney movies. other times i prefer to call friends and leave them long voicemails as to why i don't currently like the songs on the radio. i've made several calls concerning bono.

2. smoke a cigarette or cigar or bubble pipe. whatever. this helps pass the time on tedious drives. holding things in your mouth and then randomly flicking them out the window is serious fun. minus points for taking minutes off your life, but hey, how great was it really going anyway? feel free to invest in a bubble pipe and you can probably keep your minutes, but where to find one of those things? the party store?

3. put on make up or lotion or something. everyone looks better with a little make up! swipe on that eye shadow! glide on that eyeliner! make your lips pop with that cherry red, or if you're a dude, cherry chapstick. your skin is probably dry, so add some lotion to the mix. bonus: lotion makes your hands slippery which makes following rule #1 a lot harder.

4. sing your brains out! bonus points if you head bang your shit all over the place and still stay on the road.

3. speed is just a number, baby.

seriously. speed limits are straight up retarded. who decided i can only go 35? no thank you sir, i'm not trying to get there tomorrow. and school zones, are you kidding me? like it's going to hurt that kid any more if i hit him going 25 vs 50. either way, it's going to suck. take a glance around, and if you don't see any cops, go for it. your car will tell you what speed you need to go. listen to your good buddy.

for example, my jetta's happy speed is about 74-77. i can go faster but then i feel like i'm rushing and ol' robert zimmerman (name of my vehicle) and that results in sloppy driving. 50 is the preferred in town speed, but honestly people just get in the way, which is why rule #1 was created.


the point of driving is to have fun and get there as quickly as possible. after a while you start to feel seriously trapped in that little box like maybe you can't breathe and ohmygod can i stretch my legs already!? that's what happens when you drive too slow; you cause panic attacks.

good luck future super awesome drivers!

toys.

my husband does not understand my obsession with toys. because i work in an environment that is FILLED with toys and games and all sorts of fun things, i am a lot more interested in playing with stuff far below my expected level of maturity. i don't care that i'm 26 years old and should have probably be more interested in things like current events or budgeting.

have you seen some of the fun shit  kids play with today? the sensory toys are my favorite. hello, they are super fun because you can squish and stretch them and they feel weird. i see no reason why responsibilities like paying my bills and not eating ice cream for breakfast should prevent me from playing with stuff that is very obviously rad.

every once in a while, at the grocery store or something, i will grab some ridiculous toy for a dollar or so. kevin almost always chastises me for it. i see each potential toy as hours of fun, silly entertainment. "i can squeeze it when i'm mad!" i reason to him. that way it has a dual use and it's not just me buying a toy. see? responsible.

one time at wal-mart i decided i absolutely HAD to have moonsand. i reasoned that i shouldn't have to limit myself to the painfully rare times when a kid at work would want to play with it. i should have some at my house,  available to squish and mold whenever the mood strikes! i remember being absolutely determined despite kevin constantly trying to convince me to put it back. i could not be persuaded to abandon it; i was a woman on a mission.

i ended up taking it home, and since the packaging was disposable, i put it all in a giant salad bowl and just ended up stirring it around over and over.

since we had no table, it's not like i could lay it out and really play with it or anything. i don't know what i was thinking; we ended up throwing it away when we moved to philly. sad.

still, that was probably the most fun stirring i had ever had. 

irked.

my husband is making me mad by doing productive things like chores on our day off.

i don't want to do chores; i want to lie on the couch and eat candy.

well, i'm not going to let him win. me and the sour patch kids are going no where.

GTFO Michigan!

i drive an hour to and from work everyday, so i see a lot of billboards. lately i've noticed a major increase in a certain type of sign:


photo by arace photography and i hope they don't mind

these signs are everywhere! with all different nature photos that could have been taken ANYWHERE. there is no proof that that is michigan; that bridge could be in narnia for all we know. (first photographic evidence of narnia and they hide it on a michigan billboard? dickish or brilliant?)

in a lot of the pictures there is one random person doing something dangerous in the snow or water. one has a guy climbing a super serious looking rock with a waterfall, and he's climbing up the MIDDLE of the waterfall. look dude, there is dry, easily grab-able rock right next to you. why in the world would you choose to battle some dick waterfall, whose sole purpose is to rush downward? plus water is slippery.

the other photo has people snowshoeing or something. hey michigan, i don't need to travel 5 hours to go snowshoe in the middle of nowhere. i live in bloomington, in. as soon as it snows here there is plenty of BFE for me to wander around in with tennis rackets taped to my feet.

why is michigan trying to invade indiana? why do they want the hoosiers so badly? i am pretty sure the rest of america has no use for a bunch of people from indiana, so what's michigan's plan? are they raising an army ("build me an army...worthy of michigan") to take over the world? or at least the midwest?

my whole life i've been raised to think that michigan is a dirty shithole full of retards. my dad graduated from THE ohio state university and we were taught that michigan didn't even deserve a name, just "that state up north". so naturally i'm suspicious of michigan trying to lure me to it's supposedly retarded garbage heap. has michigan changed? was i taught a lie?

our learned hatred ran so deep that just seeing someone in the unfortunate color combo of "maze and blue" caused me to immediately mistrust them. didn't they know? weren't they aware that those colors were unlucky and GOD himself would probably smite them down because GOD was certainly a buckeye, otherwise how else could you explain their season going so well? i soon began to think that talking to such foolish people would bring the bad luck upon me, so it was probably best to make them my enemy right away so as to be prepared when they eventually turned on me.




ironically enough (or not, i can never tell if i'm using that word properly. i miss the days when me and alanis agreed that irony was just funny shit that happened to you that also happened to suck.) my dad the buckeye now lives 45 minutes from ann arbor, home of the biggest retards of all: the wolverines. poor guy.

so i guess technically that means i'll have to visit michigan sooner or later. sneaky, michigan, sneaky...

the nighttime is the rare time.

vacation time means staying up wayyy past your bedtime and drinking wayyy too much diet root beer.

seriously. i feel like i may just float away. but would that be so bad? floating away on a cloud made of root beer? or even a river made of root beer, since i'm assuming i'm floating because i'm not made of so much liquid. root beer is amazing; i wouldn't be entirely opposed.

these are the kind of thoughts that hit me late at night.

the nighttime is the best time.

no more reinforcing charities with bells.

the christmas season... isn't it special? beautiful lights, delicious treats, family, people supposedly being friendly to each other, presents and the miracle of Jesus.

and then there's the other part of christmas. those damn bells.

when did we as a nation decide to give money to the most annoying people on the planet? those bells are horrible. no one, ANYWHERE, likes prolonged bell ringing. bells are so super annoying that every bell tone ever is under 5 seconds. in churches bell programs are put on only at christmas. then the salvation army came along and decided it would be super rad to annoy people into giving them money.

i just googled the salvation army and the history of bells. some super nice guy decided to put a pot by the pier out in san francisco to help the poor because he saw it work in london. so sweet. somewhere along the line some other asshole (i'm hoping. my brain really wants to believe Captain Joseph McFee (certified badass?) is a good guy.) thought the best way to bring in even more money was to ring a bell to "get people's attention".

here's why i'm against giving money to the bell ringers; giving them money reinforces what they're doing, which makes them think what they're doing is good so they keep doing it. i want no part in encouraging bell ringing.

while we're on the subject of reinforcement, let's clear something up RIGHT NOW. listen close people, this is important. "negative reinforcement" is not a type of punishment. negative reinforcement is not the taking away of reinforcement. i'll say it again, NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT IS NOT A TYPE OF PUNISHMENT. negative reinforcement is the taking away of something negative, and the removal of the negative stimulus becomes reinforcing.

i think an example would help in this situation. example: you do an awesome job on your spelling test (because in this scenario you're 8) and your mother tells you that you don't have to do your chores this week. sweet, right? so the taking away of something NEGATIVE (chores) is reinforcing your awesome spelling skills, increasing the likelihood that you will become a spelling master. are we all clear? good, tell your friends.

so this holiday season, feel free to fire back the "merry christmas" you're likely to receive from a bell ringer with a lengthy explanation as to why your christmas isn't merry because they're ruining it will all of their annoying and unnecessary noise.

but don't forget to give to charities and people who AREN'T going out of their way to annoy you out of money. don't let the bell ringers get you down, it's still the season for giving!

fact.

sugar free syrup is an unnecessary rip-off. give me a glass of water, some sweet-n-low packets and maple extract and i can make you sugar free maple syrup. (the secret's in the shaking).

this fact was discovered today when kevin and i made our weekly journey to wee willie's for brunch and overheard a completely out of place, well groomed and (possibly) pretentious young mother order sugar free syrup for her poor, soon to be disappointed, 4 year old.

to be fair, the odds of wee willie's having real maple syrup and not just pancake syrup are slim as well.

make it so.

we were watching Star Trek: TNG and some alien/devil chick named Audra (coincidence?) locked him in his room in his jammies. his jammies that perfectly accentuate his very muscular legs and chest. which brings us to...

Kevin: whoa! i am getting a Picard-on!

get it? like hard-on, but solely reserved for Jean Luc Picard.

right?


photo