Free Credit Report Your Mom

I know that I haven't written on here in a while, and I am really sorry about that. I guess I just felt uninspired. My temp job ended, my part time job is done for a few weeks, and I haven't even been reading any good books lately. I've just been sitting around in my underwear with a fan pointed directly at me thinking about the world and shit. Nothing that I felt like people would really care to hear about.

Although I did kick some ass at the first annual beer olympics.

Anyway, all this sitting around thinking about how I can justify my existence to the universe as something more than merely a tap on resources since I am apparently unable to participate in the workforce was interrupted yesterday by one of those janky freecreditreport.com commercials. I have blocked most of the commercial out of my brain, but it seemed to involve a golf caddy asking a man "at the top" for advice. And this man at the apex of the wealth food chain replies with a series of helpful word association phrases so that the poor little golf caddy will someday become a successful privileged douchenozzle who is able to hang with the best of them.

And once he has made it to the top, he will presumably play music
from his golf bag stereo, and pretend his arm is broken when he is losing.
I have no idea what rich white men do, but I am pretty sure Caddyshack is fairly accurate.

Here's what irks me about the commercial: Everything. From the fact that they have been making these crap ads for as long as my addled brain can remember, to the fact that the song is essentially a bizarro version of Dispatch's The General. I just hate it.

Almost as much as I hate that this twit is a cultural phenomenon

It's moments like this I wish I had little more power. Not like a lot of power. I don't want to change the course of world events or anything. Just enough power to call someone up and say "no more of this, please." In this case, I would make that phone call, and ask that that whoever created these commercials be "required" to watch them over and over for 24 hours, and then given the choice about whether they should continue being made.

Hopefully he will see things my way.

Anyway, I will try to post more regularly. Sorry that my first post back in a few weeks was a tangent about a commercial.

xoxo
zuzu

I Can't

What is even happening here?

I feel so violated.

xoxo

zuzu

There's Finger Popping, 24-Hour Shopping in Rapture

You guys, the world didn't end! I'll be honest, I didn't post about this last week on the off chance that things went south on Saturday as predicted. I figured that I should just wait and see how things played out, because the line to apologize to Jesus for snarky blog posts about how the apocalypse wasn't going to happen would probably be pretty long.

Man, I'm gonna be here all day, guys!
How about I just send you all to Hell and we call it even? 

Look, religion is a tricky topic. I am not going to pretend that I have any answers, because I don't. Just so you know where my slanted view of all that follows is coming from: I was raised in what I think was a typical Protestant household with church on Sundays, and Bible study on Wednesdays. While one of my parents could easily have been classified as a Bible thumper, the other took a fairly humanist approach to the whole thing. At a bare minimum, I believe in something to the extent that there appears to be a limited order to the chaos of life. And honestly, years of dogmatic teaching by various religious instructors make it really hard for me to outright say that there's no possibility that some stuff in the Bible might be right.

 

Except for that whole leaving out evolution thing. Swing and a miss, Bible.

I also get that there is a long history of trying to impose individual beliefs/religions on the masses. But here's what I don't get: Harold Camping. Camping is not the only guy who has ever predicted the end of the world. Various religions have told the world that the end is coming, and so far no one has quite hit the nail on the head. But I am totally fascinated by this guy. In some ways he is probably just your average bear of a cult leader who uses his position of religious authority to rile people up. My guess is he does it because it makes him feel important, and because there's likely some money in it. But he has also predicted the exact date of the apocalypse TWICE, and has been wrong TWICE.



Although logically, you can probably only be right about the date of the apocalypse once.
It's kind of a one time only production, from what I can tell.



The weird part isn't that other people believed in him. I mean, people love to believe in weird things. (I, for example, totally believe that Richard Gere/gerbil rumor despite all evidence to the contrary). And on top of that, the United States has a very long history of religious outliers finding or making themselves at home on its soil.



Let's just say those Mayflower dudes weren't exactly "mainstream."



But what fascinates me is that even though Camping got it wrong the first time, he had the balls to do it again! It can't be a fun experience to name the exact date the world is ending, and then be wrong. I can't imagine that it feels good, or makes you a lot of friends. But Camping just dusted himself off and said, "Oh, I just forgot to carry the one in my complicated apocalypse equation. We're all good now." And even though he got it wrong again, it seems like he doesn't plan on taking a break from predicting the End Times.



At least take a nap or something, Harry. You are looking grim.



I guess I am mystified because I don’t understand his end game here. Why didn’t he just escape to a private island the last time he got it wrong? Can any one person truly believe in themself, and their abilities that much? If so, is his therapist taking new clients?

If you remember, I could use the help.

As far as the frenzy this created, I expected the religious fanatics to get on board, but what I didn’t expect is that so many people would pay attention to it. Granted most people were making fun of it. But if they were anything like me, it got them thinking about how many extreme natural and cultural events have occurred in the world lately. It seems like most of those events have been really scary.

Although now that Trump isn't running for President, my nightmares have been fewer.

So there is one guy out there who has predicted that the world was going to end incorrectly a couple of times, and that is pretty ridiculous. But religious douchenozzle or not, I think the reason we were paying attention is because of how off kilter everything seems out there right now. It definitely got me thinking about changes I can/should be making in the world.

All this said, I’m glad that the world didn’t end before I got to see Bridesmaids, because I’m seriously excited about that shit.

xoxo
zuzu

Cable Has Ruined My Life

Dodo and Kleine can back me up on what I am about to share regarding my childhood: The limitations on media in our home growing up make the Chinese censors look like amateurs. We were never allowed to have video games, or cable tv, and by the time my mom allowed us to get the internet in the house, I was already in college.

On my way to Philosophy 101.

The tv shows we did watch had to be pre-approved (basically just the stuff on p.b.s.), or were snuck in during the golden hours while my mom was still at work. I'm positive this screwed me up, somehow. For example, while other people watched characters facing similar life choices and learned to identify with them, I had to learn to identify with some pretty weird things.

You guys got Joey Potter, and I got to project all my teen angst onto this guy.

Although I have been able to adapt to some media and technology quickly, I am sometimes reminded that I am incredibly stunted. For example, Bubble Bobble is the only video game I ever played prior to my senior year in college, and I only ever played it once or twice at my friend's house in 4th grade.

However, because it was the only video game I had ever played, Bubble Bobble became what I picture whenever other people talk about video games.

I'm pretty sure this is what Call of Duty looks like.

My foray into video games post-Bubble Bobble has not been very successful, and the only game I seem to have any ability at is "Erotic Photo Hunt" (aka Nudey Touch), which is basically just Bubble Bobble with naked ladies instead of dinosaurs.

Not that I'm complaining.

Unlike my strained relationship with video games, my relationship with tv is probably the other extreme end of the spectrum. I got cable for the first time in college. At the time I had mono and was basically too sick to leave my dorm room for about two months. Having cable was awesome. It was like magic... there were so many channels and stuff I wanted to watch was on all the time! Since then I have developed what I have to admit is a freakish devotion to television. I will watch almost anything at least once.

Seriously. Anything.

I am kind of like a goldfish, who will just eat and eat and eat whatever you put in its bowl until it gorges itself to death...except in my case, my bowl is my living room and I am eating repeat episodes of Cake Boss, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I don't know if that metaphor works, but I am still recovering from the following:  I came home on Tuesday to find that our cable had been shut off because of some finagling with a previous roommate (A situation I will address only with the following NKOTB quote by Jordan Knight from the song The Right Stuff: "You know what you did.").

Friends, when I found this out, I lost it a little bit.


"I swear if Santana and Brittany kiss and I miss it, I will hold my breath until I pass out!" - Me, Tuesday.

 Anyway, the cable company (I won't say their name, but it rhymes with Bombast), said they couldn't reconnect it until SUNDAY!!! Luckily, when I called the next day to harrass them a little bit and see if they could come any earlier, they found a way to get someone to our apartment on Thursday morning. After 36 hours, our cable was reconnected. The whole ordeal made me wonder how I had become someone who would make more than one call to a cable company in order to get my service restored. My guess is that years of not getting to watch episodes of South Park along with everyone else in High School is somehow at fault. But somewhere between trying to figure out how to work a dvr for the first time, and watching the American Idol results show, I pretty much went back to not caring.

xoxo
zuzu

Fresh Breath Is A Priority In My Life

Alright, I'll say it: I'm fucking terrified of the dentist. Yes, I'm afraid! So afraid that I had to cuss! Cuss on the Interwebs! Where cusses basically become etched in stone and follow you around for life! Now I can never run for President, dentist!

Just don't say the F-word and you'll be golden in 2012.

I'm so scared of the dentist that I didn't go to the dentist for approximately 5 years. Maybe longer. How can you expect me to remember when I have put all this effort into forgetting that I have ever even been to a dentist? At first I made all the typical excuses. "I'm really busy" or "I can't afford it" or "I've suddenly gained the ability to fly and need to concentrate on crafting an appropriate superhero costume."

(Not pictured: Me flying behind this guy and holding up his cape.)

Then I went to law school, and for three years I didn't have any dental coverage. There was an option of going to get "free" dental work at a local dental school. But I am already scared enough of the dentist, and I didn't want some baby dentist poking around in my mouth, and pulling teeth by accident.

No, it's cool. I probably didn't need that one anyway. I've got like 30 in here or something.

Also, the physical experience of going to the dentist is pretty close to my idea of hell. You're trapped in a chair, under bright lights, and people poke you in the mouth with sharp pointy objects. So instead of going to the dentist, I bought a Sonicare toothbrush and kept my fingers crossed. This worked really well until about two weeks ago when one of my teeth started hurting.



Apparently Sonicare toothbrushes are not capable of magic.

So I told Sparks about it, and she said to make an appointment with a dentist. Now, Sparks was raised by a dentist (and a lawyer) so pretty much she has brass balls about dental work (and pretty much everything else). I tried to co-opt some of her bravado, and, using my state provided health insurance, I made an appointment. But it turned out that I should never have listened to her, because after five years (or more) of neglect, I only had one cavity! And it wasn't even that bad! And it wasn't even in the tooth that hurt!

I'm pretty sure that this is evidence that my teeth are some sort of legends in the making. Willy Nelson is probably writing a folk-hero ballad about them right now.

Now, what rhymes with "tooth?"

One of the few places in my area that accepted this particular "budget" health insurance is in a fairly bad neighborhood in Boston. But in my mind, I thought that this fact didn't need to mean that I would get sub-par care. And then I scolded myself for even considering it a possibility. But the dentist was really shady. He told me some weird things. Like this gem: "If you yawn, your mouth will freeze and you will end up in the emergency room, so don't yawn. It has happened before."

For the love of all that is holy, somebody call a doctor!

He also told me my tooth hurt because my gums were receding. Which is like a receding hairline but about 900 times more gross. His proposed solution was to "seal the root." And then he proposed that he do this with 3 other teeth, too. And then he proposed he do this with silver fillings. He was telling me all these things while poking his sharp pointy thing into the area of the tooth that hurt over and over again. He kept doing this not out of necessity, but to underscore whatever point he was trying to make. I didn't want to look like a wimp, but at one point I realized that I had clenched my fists so hard that my nails were digging into my palms pretty bad. Needless to say I didn't understand almost anything he was saying because of the pain, claustrophobia, and anxiety. So I took the estimate for the work he was recommending (which despite sounding like something out of Dickens, somehow costs a way more than a "sixpence"). I said would call to schedule an appointment for the rest of the work.

And then I left.

And, you guys...I am never going back there.

Sparks is helping me strategize finding another dentist, but suggestions are appreciated. After Dodo's post about her dentist, I am beginning to believe that absolute fear and distrust are the only way to make it out of a dental appointment alive.

xoxo
zuzu

A Shitstorm be Brewing

There's some pretty horrendous stuff going on around the blogosphere that pertains to USC. Basically, a numbnut in a frat wrote an email that was disgusting, racist, misogynistic, the whole 9 yards. Now, while the email itself is so upsetting (I felt like crying when I first read it), the response has doubled the effect. It's atrocious, to say the least.

But, I really do not want to do a post on this holy-sweet-mother-of-god-what-is-wrong-with-humanity situation.

What I can tell you is that Lairin Paris and I are perpetually in a mental fetal position as we are writing our theses. [And by writing, what I really mean is chicken-scratching out pages of complete nonsense].

Also, about a week ago, a female coworker rubbed my belly--insinuating that I was pregnant. Upon realizing her mistake, she simply said, "Oh...I guess you've been eating too much pizza." WRONG. I've been eating copious amounts of break-and-bake cookies. That's what my thesis wants and that's what my thesis gets.

So, in sum, I'm not in a happy place and to top it all off, this happened, which spurned this conversation between me and Lairin Paris:

No More Talking From You

*sigh*

My first reaction to this was, "who gives a damn what this kid thinks. He's sixteen, the odds he's making informed decisions about politics and personal rights are really low." I mean, he doesn't seem that informed--does he know there are two Koreas? Or that the Korean War happened, let alone the repercussions thereof? Clearly no. I doubt very much that this guy, even were he so inclined, doesn't exactly have the time in his day to sit down with a reliable newspaper, or a history book. Also, isn't he home schooled? He's not really getting a diverse sampling of opinions, s'all I'm saying. Give him a break.

And then I realized: a lot of people care what this guy thinks. Worse, the group of people for whom Bieber is an opinion shaper is also a group that is directly effected by opinions/statements on abortion: young women. Young women who have now been told publicly, once again, that abortion is wrong. This time it's being told to them by someone they respect; more than that, by someone they're obsessed with, by someone who is the definition of cool. And this beloved celebrity tells them that "everything "happens for a reason" and they should not seek an abortion. He sort of acknowledges that rape is bad, but I guess abortion is, like, still worse? Because of the baby? This is more pressure being put on young women to curtail their own reproductive rights. And it's pressure from a guy who: 1) will never be put in a position when HE has decide whether or not to seek an abortion. EVER 2)is SIXTEEN, 3) doesn't fucking know that North Korea is a separate country from South Korea.