I am so unedumacated

Did you know that there's a small island country in the middle east called Cyprus? I didn't! I've spent the past few hours taking quizzes such as this one: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html
and failing miserably.

Miserably, I tell you.

It's appalling. There are entire *countries* that don't exist in my brain. What happens in Cyprus? I don't know! For all I know, unicorns could control parliament and people shit gold bricks.

Oh, but the real shame, my friends, was taking the US quiz. I am truly an embarassment to every geography teacher in this country. Good lord there are a lot of squarish states somewhere 'round the middle.

Not surprisingly, though, I was able to find Djibouti on the first try. Come on. That's a great name for a country. I wouldn't let you down, Djiboutians.

Bow Down Before the Flav

He shall be exalted! All the lands sing his praise! For Flavian got a perfect score on Karaoke Revolution's "Under Pressure."

Behold!
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/6298/up2md.jpg

In the wise words of Flavian: "Seriously, fuck that guy that just says 'bee bee do bo dop!' all the time."

Preach it, brother flav. Preach it.

The Holiest of Trinities

I really wish I knew a guy with 3 balls. Then I could nickname him trinity and everyone would just assume it was Matrix-related when really, it's scrotum-related. How hilarious would that be?

The Flav has informed me (hopefully jokingly) that I could give him the nickname Singularity if I wanted to. Ew.

In other news on the Flavian Front, his birthday was last weekend. Happy b-day, Flav!

We got together and had dinner and drinks. I thought I did a good job of holding my liquor. The next morning, Scott informed me that I had been stroking The Flav's foot and talking to it. What's worse, The Flav was drunk enough to make his foot answer back in an english accent.

The foot has been renamed Lord Shropshire, in case you're wondering.

Shout out

Just wanted to give a shout-out to my homies at Lowe's. Whazzaaaa?!? Hardware reprazentin! Appliances in da hizzous!

I used to shop at Lowe's a lot. My husband and I would play a game called the $5 bong. It's pretty self explanatory. You have to make a bong out of stuff for sale in the store and you can only spend $5. It's not that hard until you run into the helpful staff. This requires quick thinking at a time when you're maybe not thinking so quick, and it usually goes about like so:

helpful staff: "So, what size PVC pipe are you looking for?"

me: "Ummmmm... about this size: (makes an "o" with mouth while giggling hysterically)"

helpful staff: "Okaaaaaay... is this for a plumbing project?"

me: "ha ha ha you said 'plumbing.' (giggling, but thinking fast) Um no. It's for... an art project. Or something."

helpful staff: "Okaaaaaaay. What type of art project?"

me: "The kind that requires pipe."

helpful staff: (suspiciously looking at bizarre assortment in cart)"You're making a bong out of this, aren't you?"

me: "No. NO! (drops pipe and runs)

You can see I'm suave. I don't think I've ever made it through a whole $5 bong game without running out of the store. Somehow, that fair-weather friend that I shop for also causes me to believe that a Lowe's employee actually has the power to arrest me. They haven't caught me yet, though!

Exodus! Movement of Jah People!

Okay, maybe not quite what Bob Marley had in mind...

http://www.christianexodus.org/

That's right. There's a Christian organization dedicated to upping the already mindboggling concentration of people with Strom4Life tatoos in the state of South Carolina.

It's as if these people sat around thinking to themselves "What could possibly make Ryan hate South Carolina more than he already does? A-ha! Let's ask a bunch of delusional right wing fundies to move in to the state and threaten to seceed from the union! That worked so well for us last time around."

And that's just what they're trying to do.

Ol' Flavian weighed in on the matter, with his usual supportive enthusiasm:

"Whatever floats your boat, guys. If you're getting South Carolina the hell out of this country, be my guest."

So, not much objection from the local liberals at this point.

You may be asking yourselves why they want to do this, though. Well let me tell you! According to the website:

-Children who pray in public schools are subject to prosecution
-The 10 Commandments remain banned from public display
-Preaching Christianity will soon be outlawed as "hate speech"

In summary, they're doing this because they love making hyperbolic lists.

But truly, I understand. You just can't understand true oppression until you've lived a life of lonely isolation- where people of your kind are merely the vast majority of elected and appointed leaders. Where you can shit on other religions, but you can't quite smear it around as much as you'd like. Where people will occassionaly look at you funny when you make blatantly racist or homophobic statements.

In the inspiring words of Mr. Marley (a man who is certainly rotting in hell):

So we gonna walk - all right! - through de roads of creation.
We the generation
trod through great tribulation.
Exodus!

Welcome to my desk. Now stop being a douchebag.

I was, coincidentally enough, reading an article on xenophobia at my desk when I found myself staring at it. In t-shirt form.

"Welcome to America. Now speak english!" was the friendly request. I really think that in cases like this, there should be a standing exception to general professionalism guidelines. I'd really love to have given him the finger, but I had to settle for passive aggressive methods.

I started with my favorite mode: the stare and roll. I took a long, hard stare at his shirt as if he had a shit stain on it that only I could see. My next move (and this one I have down to an absolute science) is where I pretend like I don't want the subject to see me roll my eyes, when I actually do. Sometimes I'll let out a faint sigh if I think they're not looking.

He proceeded to try to hand me something, which I naturally pretended to not notice, until he finally gave up and set it on my desk, clearly bewildered.

Do you see all the effort I have to go to to snub someone in a work environment? Wouldn't it have been a more efficient use of my time to just flick him off and get on with business?

Somehow, I doubt I'll be able to convince my boss of that, but I think the benefits of a free-to-flick office are clear.

"white guy. fancy that."

I'm too lazy to write anything on this anti-french fry crusader that Bush has nominated to the SCOTUS, so I'll let the following conversation be my in-depth political commentary on the situation. Russia is my pinko-feminist-liberal friend who's currently in Russia, because she kicks that much ass.

Russia: who is it?
Russia: the nominee

Me: some utter douchebag
Me: john roberts jr?

Russia: a man?
Russia: wasn't expecting that.
Russia: white?

Me: yup. white guy

Russia: fancy that

Me: uh huh
Me: and he seems to be anti-roe, anti-labor, anti-affirmative action, etc etc

Russia: yup, i just skimmed an email to that effect
Russia: did harry reid give him as a nominee? is he supposed to be one of those that gets an easy confirmation?

Me: I don't really know. The dems haven't come out all "Rabble Rabble Rabble" yet, but they seem to be cautiously ticked.

Russia: my soul hurts

Me: hahaha I know, right?

Russia: so melodramtic but it's true

Me: I'm in the wacky denial stage right now.
Me: Like "hahaha! he nominated a douchebag! Oh that bush, when will he learn?"

Russia: so, the silver lining: at least the liberals have some credibility. we've been saying since 2000 that an evil person would be nominated and that's what happened.

Me: yup- it's some consolation
Me: the "told you so" factor is big with me.

Russia: nothing like regressing to a five year old to make you feel better.

John Roberts Jr

It's being said that the name John Roberts Jr. has been leaked to NBC as Bush's nominee. Who the deuce is he?!?!

When placemats attack

So someone found my blog while searching for "painless geography placemats." I have NO idea what kind of sadistic geography placemats this lost soul is currently dealing with but there clearly needs to be a better way to attain geographical information while eating potroast, people! If they ended up at my blog in search of help, they're clearly running out of ideas. I fear that time is a factor here. This time it's just a map of the earth. Next time, who know? It could be planetary placemats after your ass. And that just isn't something I'll stand for.

Wankershanks 4SCOTUS!

So... 9pm tonight is the big announcement. Someone, probably Arlen Specter said that he hoped someone with varied life experiences would be the supreme court nominee, not just someone with legal expertise.

I'm hoping this will be a good sign for me. I was crushed when I lost my bid for pope, so hopefully this will pan out for me. Justice Wankershanks has a *great* ring to it. I'll let you all know as soon as I get the call.

WTF?

O'Conner is retiring? No no no. That's one hell of a typo, Mr. CNN Guy. That's supposed to say "Rehnquist." Really.

Can I get a big "dubbleya tee eff" from my homies? Really. WTF?

The only good thing to come out of this is that my friend Rachel (aka Wyzardess, aka the most awesome girl in the whole world cause she's in Russia right now and simultaneously working with Ohio NARAL on some kick-ass pro-choice stuff) has informed me that it's okay to use Supreme Court justices as verbs, as in: "I'll brb. Me and Aaron are still O'Conner-ing."

I'll probably be O'Conner-ing the rest of the day. That sounds a lot more fun than it is.

recipes 4 life

I clearly should not be allowed around impressionable people. Here's a conversation between myself and my 14 year old cousin (the sexy hero!) Jessica:

Jess: Pro-lifers are really great.
Me: Whaaaaaaa?
Jess: Well, if you cook them just right.

ha! I probably should have said something about it being morally wrong to broil your political opponents in a nice marinade of lemon and garlic. Maybe a little fresh thyme. Fresh ground pepper... little splash of olive oil....

Anyway. It's wrong. But do I say that? No. I laugh. I guess I'm one of those morally bankrupt liberals I keep hearing about. But come on. You would laugh too.

Bad Move...

My boss left the keys to his Aston Martin here at my desk for the weekend. What was he thinking?!? Of course, I'd never actually do anything immoral/illegal with these keys, even though we all know that this is definitely the only opportunity I'll have in my middle class life to drive one of these. But I wouldn't, because I'm just that trustworthy. And because I fear the cold embrace of a jail cell. But mostly, it's my refreshing honesty and high moral standards that prevent me from doing anything exciting.

Still, I keep staring at them obsessively as if they're going to walk out of the office if I don't stare hard enough. It could happen. I open the drawer every five minutes to grope around for them, lest they skip town on my watch. Perhaps it's a good thing that I'm destined to have a moderate income for the rest of my life. If I'm this stressed over holding the keys to a nice car for a few days, I'd probably die a painfully premature death if I did it everyday.

Speaking of nice things, and why I'm not allowed to have any:

We just moved into a new apartment. It's bigger! It's better! It's in the "nice" section of town. As far as I can tell, the "nice" section of town is official douchebag central. We spent two years putting in our time at the crappy apartments in the high crime area with the loud parties and the drunken college dropouts. It was an okay place. The toilet didn't always flush properly and the ceiling leaked once or twice. But the neighbors was good people. The woman next door would offer me a cigarette and tell me about her child support troubles with her ex. The guy upstairs would tell us about his difficulties finding work as a pakistani-american. Joe from downstairs would always smile and wave as he rode his bike to work. And the guy to the right of us, well, he usually littered the porch with beer bongs and played music loud enough to vibrate our kitchen appliances, but he could chug a guiness faster than I could say "go."

But we're in the "nice" place now. It's gated. It's got alarm systems in every apartment and cameras in the parking lot. And what happens the first night there? Someone hits my parked car and leaves no note. I'd like to know how they rationalized that. I keep imagining some monacle-wearing, lexus-driving jackass swerving into my econobox after a night of overpriced mint juleps... probably thinking to himself that a mere thousand dollars worth of damage was hardly worth stopping for.

I did meet one woman who was nice... in a cluelessly priviledged kinda way atleast. As we were looking for a place to park the U-haul, she informed me that it was okay to park it in the handicapped spot directly in front of the door. 'Everyone does it and it's not like there's any handicapped people here anyway.' huh. Is this how the upper middle class makes small talk?

So, with that in mind, the Aston Martin keys stay firmly in the drawer. Maybe rich douchebaggery isn't contagious, but I don't want to take any chances.

Prince William replaces mapquest.com

According to yahoo's front page for news (talk about a slow news day) Prince William just received a Master's degree in geography.

Geography?!?!

Do they really give grad degrees for that? Maybe I'm just out of touch with the ever-changing reality of... the placement of countries, but wouldn't you probably get laid off the second your employer discovered maps? Seems like a fickle job market at best.

Nerds are the new black

Ol' Flavian recently alerted me to this breaking news story:

Nerds make better lovers.

He thinks this means his day has come. "First Christina Aguilera, then the world!" he said.

Of course, his excitement should probably be tempered with the reality that this is the same newspaper that breaks stories about pot-heads prank calling an ex-president and that feels that slang and nicknames are appropriate headline fodder.

Sexy Heroes!

My cousins, Jess and Becca are sexy heroes. I'm not exactly clear on why that is... but that's what they want me to say on my blog. Sexy heroes!

I went to visit them yesterday for the first time in... quite a while, I'll admit. Going to their house is always a learning experience. This time, I learned that while Johnny Depp is in fact hot, some poor, tortured white guy named Gerard is even more so. Gerard is some sort of tragically hip goth rocker from what I can tell. Think Trent Reznor with a snazzier webpage and you're pretty much on track. But he's in pain, mind you. Deep, searing pain that not even a tissue box of c-notes can erase.

I also learned that the sand at Pine Island Park in Spring Hill, Florida smells like rotten eggs. But don't make the same naiive mistake that I did! This does not mean that either of my younger cousins will hesitate to fling it at you. Thankfully, my aunt intervened to save me from the wrath of Jess and Becca.

As we were leaving the park, my uncle noted a bumpersticker on the car next to us. It said "I asked Jesus how much he loved me. He said "this much" then spread his arms and died." To which my uncle replied, "wouldn't you feel really bad if you had been the one to ask *that* question?"

So that was my day with my sacril-arious family! Sexy heroes, one and all!

Once Upon a Wankershanks

So, it seems that Brian (aka Flavian, aka GuyIncognito) has a girlfriend. I'll just let that soak in for a while.

Brian + Girlfriend = whaaaaaa?

For those of you who don't know the Flavinator like I do, the probability of this occurring is somewhat greater than the odds of him saying "Binary is dead to me!", but slightly less than that of him growing a third eyeball.

But I suppose stranger things have happened. To celebrate this momentous occassion, I'd like to regale you all with the greatest love story of all time: How Mr. and Ms Wankershanks met.

It's a rather lame tale. I generally cringe when people ask about it. As a wee lass, I'd always dreamt that I'd meet my future husband doing something exciting, or at the very least, sordid. If it had involved, let's say, a spatula, The Jerry Springer Show and a minimum of 2 rabid monkeys, it would have been acceptable. Throw in a few murderously rampaging gerbils and we're talkin. But it didn't. It involved...

a church camp.

That's right, a church camp. Now I could tell you that it was some crazed, alien-fearing, cultist deathcamp that we had been sold into by our slave-trading parents. But it wasn't. It was a Presbyterian church camp. And if you know anything about Presbyterians, you'll know that they're basically respectably aged hippies: generally pretty mellow folk. The camp was outside of Asheville, NC at a scenic private college called Montreat. Neither Scott nor I were religious folk, but we went because it meant getting away from our respective parents for an entire week. We met one afternoon outside the dining hall. He had his CD case open, revealling an array of Tori Amos CD's. It was sooo *hawt.*

We spent the week skipping church services together, which sounds entirely more rebellious than it was. It turns out that the Presbyterian Camp Overloards didn't really mind if we skipped church. Mostly, we just wandered around the hills and valleys talking about how much we liked math, and how Mad Magazine was really sucking ever since Sergio Aragones ditched. Occassionally, we had the "religion is like, soooo oppressive" discussion because we apparently had no concept of irony.

The week ended and we went back to our respective states- him in Alabama, and me in Florida. We kept in touch over the years, visited each other a lot, and eventually he moved down here. And that's the tale. You can see why I'm disappointed.

I had bigger dreams for Flavian's "how-we-met" tale. But he met his girlfriend through a coworker who made the astonishing connection that they both love the show Arrested Development. According to the Nielson Ratings, they're about the only ones, so I suspect she's just staying with him long enough to procreate... a lot... so she can get another few seasons of the Bluth Family Antics. Love is in the air.

Flavian's Last Ride

If you could choose how you died, what would you pick? Disturbingly enough, here's Flavian's answer:

"... skydive over a city (sans parachute AND clothes). I'd probably take some poison before I hit the ground, just to make it as painless as possible. Plus, it would confuse the fuck out of the medical examiner. (Not to mention everyone who witnessed my fall). It's raining men! Oh dear God, it's raining men! Take cover! OH! And I'd strap a huge boombox onto my back with that playing in loop. Man, I've got this all planned out!"

Don't worry. If he starts mentioning specific cities, I'll give you all a heads up.

A brief conversation overheard at the beach...

Here is a brief conversation that I heard while at Cocoa Beach on Monday. It's short, so please read slowly to savor the utter randomness of it.

Young girl, eyes alight with wonder: Wow- look at all the umbrellas on the beach!

Young boy, eyes alight with mischief: Your mama's an umbrella!

Oh, snap! You know, it's really good to see the non-sensical "your mama" insult being brought back by the youth of today. Some of the sayings from my youth just haven't outstayed their welcome yet, in my humble opinion. Of course, your mama did outstay her welcome. Booyah.

How I Roll With the Red Phone

Many of us know that bizarre, impractical, and blatantly silly ideas often come from working in large companies. We all know how these come about. Some magical person with a fancy-pants title imagines that some less-magical person with a regular-pants title needs some extra step in their day to perform their job more efficiently. The former, hereafter known as "The Man," usually has his magical head crammed straight through his fancy-pants and into his Butt of Wisdom.

So, there's this phone at my desk. It's a red phone. It's red because it is the "emergency" phone. The idea being that if it ever rings, we drop what we're doing and answer it because, um, it's probably an emergency. I can understand why this might seem like a good idea to The Man. Emergencies are generally considered to be important.

It's sort of been an odd fixture on my desk for the past 3 years. It's never rang. Not once. There have been emergencies, but it turns out that people tend to dial "911" for those. Go figure. So I was only moderately surprised when the tech guy came down to rewire the desk a few weeks ago and asked me why we had a big red phone that wasn't plugged into anything.

Eh?

That's right. Not plugged in. Turns out that the phone is somehow not compatible with our super crazy phone system. That's right. It's *never* been plugged in. It's been nothing more than a shiny red paperweight for over 3 years. Surely, you say, someone would have noticed! Anyone who dialed the magical "emergency" extension, 5555, would have let us know that it goes nowhere! Except that as it turns out, *we* were the only ones who were told what the extension was.

Oh! And to further the drama, I just dialed 5555. It goes to another phone entirely.

Some people find fulfillment in their jobs when they save lives, I find it when discovering useless protocals and making fun of them. Am I bitter that The Man makes so much more than me? Of course not. The sense of intellectual superiority is all the compensation I need.