OBLIGATORY POST ABOUT PINTEREST

The internet has been all atwitter (no pun intended) about Pinterest for a few weeks now, and as per usual, I took it upon myself to get out in front of the trend to figure it out for you, both of my dear readers. Because the phrase "online corkboard" is kind of meaningless, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to figure out what the point of such a thing might be...until you've used it for yourself.

After a few weeks of intrepid testing, I'm ready to explain

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Pinterest But Didn't Care Enough to Ask Because Honestly? It Sounded Kinda Dumb

First things first: It's not actually that dumb. Pinterest, like pretty much everything else on the internet, is as dumb as you allow it to be. It can be put to good use for planning things, collecting ideas, finding book/recipe/movie recommendations, etc. But Pinterest, like pretty much everything else on the internet, is also heavily abused and misused by morons. For the most part, these morons are harmless, and some are even amusing! I believe the key is knowing what to expect going in. To that end, I've created some handy descriptions of the most common pins you'll find on the ol' homepage:
Blue Balls for Crafters: This is one of the funnest games on Pinterest, in which someone finds a really cool/cute/fun/quirky project and posts a picture with a comment like "DIY cold fusion! Neat project for the kids!", but because they've pinned the picture from Google Images (rather than any kind of instructional page), you will never ever figure out how to actually do the damn project, ever. Find the one where you knit a beard for your baby and show your favorite crafter and watch her rip her hair out! Neat project for the kids!
Memes: Pinterest is ground zero for memes. One of the most common is this bizarre thing where Ryan Gosling's face gets pasted behind something that starts with "Hey girl..." and ends with some supposed fantasy man phrase, usually about how awesome her hair looks or how much he loves shoe shopping with her. This is officially stupid until it looks like this:

Wedding Porn: OH MY DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN ENOUGH WITH THE WEDDING PORN! Pictures of brides, pictures of veils, pictures of hair, pictures of seating, pictures of wedding cakes, pictures of dancing couples, pictures of tuxes, pictures of lighting ideas, pictures of invitations... STOP. JUST STOP. Oh, and let's not forget the most common of the wedding porn pics:

Source: weddings.theknot.com via Katie on Pinterest

It would be one thing if it was primarily pics that said "This is my engagement ring!" But most of them say something more like "I want this to be my ring someday!" LADIES! THE RING IS NOT THE REASON WE GET MARRIED! WRITE IT DOWN! And just to be clear: I'm not hating on the women who are planning their actual weddings, for which they already have a groom lined up - my issue is with all (and there are A LOT OF THEM) the teenage (or younger) girls who are investing all this time and effort into compiling ideas for their ideal wedding. Trust me on this, girls: you need to find the guy first. He's kind of important and finding him WON'T be the easy part. I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT HERE.
Depressing Bucket List Crap: The "Bucket List Board" is very popular, and not a bad idea! Some of them are full of genuinely awesome ideas like this one:

Source: weheartit.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

And some of them are more like this:

Source: perfectbucketlist.tumblr.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

I can no longer find my all-time favorite, but thankfully I found it shocking enough to save to my drive when I first saw it:

Really? REALLY? Is that an "achievement" or a "biological coincidence"?

Half-Naked Women: The interesting thing about the half-naked women is to note whether they were posted by men or women. Women post WAY more half-naked lady pictures than men do, and where the men are posting with a note like "she's hot" or "gorgeous!", the women's remarks are more along the lines of "I wish I had her [fill in body part here]" or "I WILL be this thin", etc. Basically, the men are making deposits to the wank bank, but the women are using these images to remind themselves of everything that's wrong...with themselves. C'mon, girls, get it together.
Psychologically Damaging Quotes About Thinness: This really just follows on from the above.

Yes. Hey, are you gonna eat that cake, Skinny McStarvingson?

I'm all in favor of health, and Lord knows I could afford to lose a few pounds. But I worry about the mindset of someone who trawls the internet all day looking for images and quotes with which to beat him/herself up for being fat.
Pictures of Fried Food/Pictures of Desserts: Just for the sake of irony, you'll often find these flanking the thinness quotes on the homepage. But you have to look quickly in order to see it before your head explodes.
Simple Wisdom: Not "simple" like "homespun profundities"; "simple" like "idiotic nonsense". There are a lot of meme-generators on the web these days, and there is no IQ test to prevent morons from using them. As a result, you will periodically find pins featuring a generic stock photo in the background, and a really profound observation like "sometimes people will be mean to you even though you like them". And you will think to yourself, "Someone on this planet actually had nothing better to do than spend their time creating that. We should reinstate conscription."

All of this said, Pinterest does not have to be a huge waste of your time, so long as you understand from the very beginning that a lot of it is useless. Like all social media, the problem with Pinterest is: people. But you can get on there yourself and make it better! Pin something useful! Or at least something funny! See if you find something other than breasts and knitting patterns on the internet! I know there is more out there! Let's find it together! SPECIAL BONUS FUN: If you think you're up to the challenge and you want a Pinterest invite, feel free to shoot me an email (see link on the ride sidebar) with your email address, and I'll send one along :)

This Pepsi Brought to You by Coke

Good news, everybody! Internet advertising is still insanely creepy! Case in point: I decided a few weeks ago that I might like to take a little vacay in sunny (not really) San Francisco. So whenever I've had a little down time on the ol' laptop, I've been playing around with airfares, hotel selections, etc., trying to decide if/when I might want to go. I figure that's probably why I saw this ad on one of my favorite not-my-blogs:

Firstly, this irritates me because I am still such a naive moron that when I first saw it, I thought, "Oh wow! It's kismet! I want to go to San Francisco, and here's Delta, practically TELLING me to go to San Francisco!" Then I remembered that The Internet (aka multinational internet and software corporation Google) is always watching my every move, and has essentially done away with kismet and coincidence in the 21st century. Nothing is ever "a sign" anymore. It's just "proof that Delta paid Google some money so Google would slip them a sheet of paper in a back alley that said 'Kimberly Welsh wants to go to San Francisco'". How depressing.

It also irritates me because HELLO?!?! What is being advertised? When I see a tailor-made ad, I expect to see some sort of special offer or discount! Is it really supposed to be news to me that Delta flies to San Francisco, bearing in mind that I have recently searched the Delta website on more than one occasion to ascertain the departure times and airfares for said flights? I already know you go to San Francisco, people. I'm not going with you until you give me a good reason.

But my absolute favorite part is the tiny tiny print at the bottom. You could enlarge the screenshot to see it, or you could just take my word that it says "Travel may be on other airlines". Obviously they're referring to codesharing here, and in 2012, I doubt anyone is surprised by this clause. I just enjoy the contrast between that and the much larger font at the top. It reads "FLY DELTA TO SAN FRANCISCO", but what it really means is "FLY WHOEVER YOU WANT TO SAN FRANCISCO, BUT BE SURE TO PAY US!"

I Refuse to Not Be Apprehensive About the As-Yet Unmade Changes to Facebook

I know what you're thinking: "Another social media post?!?!" Well, YES, in fact. It is another social media post. Thanks for asking!

Part the First: I am Allowed to be Displeased

When f8 happened in late September, all the super hip in-the-knowsters popped up on Facebook, Twitter, G+...everywhere saying the same thing: "Uh-oh! They're making changes to Facebook! All the whiny ignoramii are going to complain! It's a FREE service! You don't get to complain about a FREE service!"

Pardon my French, but you're talking out your organic gluten-free naturally-sweetened with agave bean sprout cookie hole, you accursed hipster! Put on your argument-parsing skinnyjeans, cuz this just got real.

Point #1: Facebook makes changes/people complain.
Well, quite. People don't like change. It's just a fact. How would you feel if Bon Iver announced they were taking Britney Spears on as lead singer and going in a "new direction"? Pret-ty unhappy, I should guess. Still, congratulations on making a massively unoriginal observation about one of the most basic aspects of human nature.

Point #2: You can't complain about a free service.
Really? Because WELCOME TO AMERICA. I can complain about whatever the I want, and you can't stop me! Since when can we not complain about anything we didn't pay for? Have you ever heard of PBS? The selection of books at the local library? Or "the weather"? We're professional complainers and we're not about to stop now. More to the point, though, we do pay for Facebook with our personal data. And that is why we are allowed to raise holy hell about "real-time apps".

Part the Second: Go Ahead, Tell Me EVERYTHING.

Since I started blogging, I've come to realize that my personal interest in maintaining a modicum of privacy makes me unusual, at least among bloggers. I try to write things that are funny and true (insofar as my opinion is true-ly my opinion), but I'm never going to use this space to tell you allllllll about my job, or my personal relationships, or my bodily functions. And yet I have found that other (often more successful) bloggers make regular post-fodder of the sordid details of their sex lives, the minute-by-minute report of their run on a treadmill(!), or the "inside story" of what went on at the widget factory today. But even those people could easily be lying through their teeth. The woman who blogs anonymously about her filthy dirty sex with a string of rich, gorgeous men may very well be a fat man in his mother's basement. That treadmill run may never have taken place! And NOBODY KNOWS WHAT A WIDGET IS*!

*As it happens, this statement is not true after all

But that's the beauty of the internet - you can control your own brand! Put forth the image you want to portray! As long as you aren't doing so in a private chatroom with an underage correspondent, no harm no foul. But Facebook is about to DESTROY IT.

Let's say your Facebook profile currently looks like this:

Billy Bob McLaughlin
Male
Single
Interested in:
Women
Interests:
Music, Movies, Reading, Rock Climbing, Gaming, Car Repair
Favorite Books:
The Bible, Anything by Stephen King, Catch-22, Watership Down, Bridges of Madison County
Favorite Movies:
The Help, Forrest Gump, Das Boot, Rudy, Die Hard, Transformers
Favorite Music:
Radiohead, Bon Iver, The Shins, Coldplay, Kings of Convenience, James Taylor
Inspired By:
Jesus, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama

C'mon, that's a pretty well-tailored profile. It's undersood that this is not a comprehensive list of EVERY little bit of entertainment you've ever consumed and/or enjoyed, but you've been allowed to curate it so that it reflects a certain image of you. And there's nothing wrong with that! This profile doesn't tell me everything there is to know about you, but it tells me that you're culturally literate, have a variety of interests, and are basically a normal person.

But with the new breed of "real-time apps", these days are gone. Now you won't just tell us what you want us to think you like; we're going to be privy to EXACTLY what you choose to do with your time, all the time. Like so:

Billy Bob McLaughlin
Male
Single
Interested in:
Women
---------------------------------------------------------------
Netflix, 1:15pm:
Billy Bob just watched 5 minutes of "Ho-Down in Hooter Hollow"

Kindle, 1:20pm:
Billy Bob is reading Vehicle Maintenance for Dummies

Kindle, 1:25pm:
Billy Bob just highlighted the following passage in Vehicle Maintenance for Dummies: "You have to manually retract the caliper piston" and added the following notation: "?!?!?!?"

Spotify, 2:00pm:
Billy Bob is listening to "You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)"

Amazon, 2:05pm:
Billy Bob has just purchased 2 tubes of NARS lipstick and a blonde wig

Netflix, 2:30pm:
Billy Bob just watched the same 5 minutes of "Ho-Down in Hooter Hollow"

Kindle, 2:35pm:
Billy Bob just downloaded a sample chapter of "How to Tell if You're Addicted to Porn"

Netflix, 2:37pm:
Billy Bob just watched 5 minutes of "Ho-Down in Hooter Hollow"

Foursquare, 3:15pm:
Billy Bob arrived for his 3:30pm appointment at North Fulton Hemorrhoid Specialists and unlocked a $5 coupon for his next Egregious Hemorrhoid Treatment!

Wells Fargo, 3:57pm:
Billy Bob has just overdrawn his checking account while attempting to pay a $450 charge at North Fulton Hemorrhoid Specialists :(

Amazon.com, 4:06pm:
Billy Bob used Amazon's new medical subscription service to arrange monthly delivery of a case of Preparation-H direct to his door!

Netflix, 4:15pm:
Billy Bob just watched 5 minutes of "Ho-Down in Hooter Hollow". AGAIN.

You take my point. There's nothing wrong with sharing as long as it's optional; linking other sites/apps to Facebook (by doing something as seemingly innocuous as clicking "Use Facebook to log in!") and letting them automatically broadcast my life from that moment forward is...not OK.

And lastly, a note to everyone who will inevitably say that Billy Bob should simply stop doing things he doesn't want other people to know about, I say this: If the choice is "stop watching porn" or "stop using Facebook", which option do you think will be most popular? Exactly.

This is Why I Never Make New Friends

I have a lot of acquaintances and friends, but I need more really good friends, like D and J. But making friends isn't easy once you're out of school and working at a place where you don't really like anyone. I should know. I've tried a lot of things over the years and I've learned the harsh lesson that generally, when you go out to some sort of "meet new people" gathering, you find that 1/3 of the people there want to sell you something, 1/3 of the people there want to get in your pants, and 1/3 of the people there aren't the least bit interested in speaking to you, much less being your friend.

It's far too pricey a road to depression; I could get the same "wish I was dead" feeling by sitting on my couch drinking cheap cider and eating frozen pizza.

Improv is the closest I've ever come to success, and the last thing I tried before improv was a French language thingy. The last meeting I attended was in 2006. When I left, I was in possession of five business cards from people offering their translation services - a fact which baffles me to this very day, as I was only at the function because I already spoke French, and therefore had no need of translation services. Maybe they just felt that their French was that much better than mine, which is an insult and a decidedly unfriendly thing to imply. With my purse filled to the brim with unsolicited cards, I sought out my friend and asked if she was ready to leave, but...she had met a Frenchman.

God help us all.

This is how I ended up seated beside her on a couch as she flirted endlessly with "Patrique", leaving me open to the unwanted attentions of Whatshisface From Hell. I kid you not, this is how our conversation unfolded (although the original conversation was in French):
HIM: I've met you before.
ME: I think you've mistaken me for someone else; I've never seen you before.
HIM: No no, I've met you before. I gave you my number.
ME: Did you? Because I don't remember...
HIM: WHY DIDN'T YOU EVER CALL ME?
ME: Um, in all seriousness, I really don't recall ever seeing you before in my life. I'm pretty sure you're yelling at the wrong complete stranger.
HIM: I'm playing in a soccer game this Saturday. You should come watch.
ME: Um, OK, well...I'll have to check my schedule.
HIM: I want to take you to dinner sometime.
ME: That's very nice of you, but I'm very busy...
HIM: You can check your calendar and get back to me.
ME: Great!
HIM: ...only this time I will call you. Because you never called me last time.
ME: Again, that wasn't me.
HIM: What's your number?
ME: (Gives him my home number)
HIM: OK. I'll call you and you'll tell me when we're going to dinner.
ME: Right, well just FYI, that's my home number and sometimes I'm not home but if you leave a message.
HIM: What's your cell number?
ME: You don't need it! You have my home number! I get really crappy reception...
HIM: You HAVE a cell phone - I saw you check the time on it a minute ago. WHY WON'T YOU GIVE ME YOUR CELL NUMBER?
ME: (Getting seriously fed up with this crap) Because you don't need my cell number, because you have my home number.
HIM: Are you just trying to avoid me? Is this why you never called the last time?
ME: OH MY GOD I'VE NEVER MET YOU BEFORE IN MY LIFE, BUT SINCE YOU ASK, YES,  I AM TRYING TO AVOID EVER MEETING YOU AGAIN.

That was the end of French Meetup Group.

But as I say, I've been feeling the need to branch out lately, so I thought it might be worth taking another crack at the meetup site. After all, everyone always says that if you find a group of people doing something you enjoy, you'll find that its members are like-minded individuals you can bond with. And anyway, I really am looking for friends - not some kind of speed dating nonsense. Unfortunately, I had a little trouble finding any meetup activities that really strike my fancy...
- Baby Exercise Time
- Mommies Running Group
- Polyamory Club
- Kink Atlanta (note: Just what the hell is "The Midnight Munch?" *Horrified face*)
- Real Estate Trends and Education
- Various "Boot Camps" around town
- Atlanta Fetish Models

Sooooo yeah. I think I pretty much struck out here. Then again, if I tried to identify my interests, they would mostly involve writing, reading, and watching TV - not very social activities in the first place, unfortunately. And in fairness to meetup, it just helped me discover that Atlanta has a skeeball league(!?!). I might have found my tribe after all...

Try to *Avoid* Saying Sad Things to Your Friend

One of the best things about having a blog is looking to see what search terms are driving traffic to your site. I think you're supposed to use that to gear your writing to an ever-growing audience for ad revenue purposes, but as this blog makes exactly no money whatsoever, I just use it to amuse myself. The main takeaways so far are that a lot of people loathe Gmail's "consider including" feature, but even more people loathe the Wizometer. This is particularly impressive when you consider the fact that the Gmail feature affects people all over the world and the Wizometer is specific to a local news station in Atlanta. And STILL more people hate the Wizometer! Are you listening, 11Alive? KILL THE WIZOMETER, PLEASE.

I digress.

Every now and again people find me using search terms that completely mystify me. I don't know why you would search for these things, and I really don't understand why Google thought you might need to read my blog, based on that search. But there were two recent searches that made me feel, well, guilty. I guess it's not my fault that Google led this hapless searcher to such a useless page, but I still feel that I've failed him or her by not providing the answers he or she clearly needed. I don't want to be responsible for the failure of a relationship, and if that searcher ever comes back, I want him or her to come away with something helpful. So here you go, searcher person! Say these things to your friend!

"Nice Things to Say to Your Friend"

• You look nice today!
• What zit?
• I bet nobody even notices.
• I only noticed because you pointed it out!
• It's AWESOME that you got cast in a Neil LaBute play!
• Look, somebody's gonna win the Nobel Prize for Literature - why not you?
• Here's $50.
• Your mother doesn't know what she's talking about.
• You're the wind beneath my wings.
• I already ordered a pitcher of margaritas.
• I would never have guessed this building was a converted Federal Prison building. Ooh, you have a fireplace!
• You're so right.
• Surprise! I submitted your name to "Extreme Home Makeover" and they picked you!

"Sad Things to Say to Your Friend"

• Justin Bieber has a girlfriend.
• I'm gonna need that $50 back.
• She says they're out of tequila.
• Your date had to cancel.
• Road trip! I packed carrots and lite beer!
• Surprise! I submitted your name to "Intervention"!
• They aren't gonna do another series of Peep Show*.

*This is just an example; they totally are gonna do another series of Peep Show. Don't cry.

Internet Comment Perfection Has Been Reached. Now Closed to New Submissions.

Generally speaking, I can't stand people who comment on news articles online. It seems like the same cabal of idiots post their comments on CNN, the Guardian, the Telegraph,...and God help you if you accidentally go to a local news site. In case you are a million times smarter than I am, and have never read such comments, here's how they usually break down:

• 3% Spam telling you how to WIN AN IPAD2 or MARRY A HOT MILLIONAIRE or WORK FROM HOME...
• 30% People blaming Obama for whatever the article was about, including but not limited to: the economy sucking, natural disasters, Lady Gaga, and the high price of beef jerky
• 30% People blaming Bush for whatever the article was about, including but not limited to: the economy sucking, natural disasters, Kate Gosselin, and the high price of tofu
• 7% Bush-blamers calling Obama-blamers "inbred morons" and Obama-blamers calling Bush-blamers "gay"
• 5% People who are either commenting on the wrong article or have gone off their meds
• 5% People who use ANY news article as an excuse to malign their ex-spouse
• 20% Trolls (n): People who say the MOST offensive thing they could POSSIBLY say, then repeat it until a moderator kicks them out, at which point they invent a new screen name and start over. If we could identify the people who think trolling is the best use of their time, we could make a lot of progress toward stemming our national tide of wasteful, vindictive stupidity. I don't know why this is not priority #1 for the Department of Homeland Security.

I usually try to avoid reading the comments at all, but of course I fail miserably. Sometimes I genuinely wonder what other people thought of the article, but that still doesn't explain why I read the comments. If you review the list above, you'll notice there was no category for "People who have a literate, well-formed opinion they wanted to share in the spirit of open discussion". I guess it's just morbid curiosity that drives me to sit there, sometimes for an hour or more, and subject myself to the horrors of the internet comment board.

But one day in January of this year, it paid off. In fact, it was glorious. I will screenshot the comment below, but if you want to see it in its original context, you can go read this very sad CNN article (NOT RECOMMENDED - VERY SAD) and then click through to page 14 of the comments. There, you will find this text:

As you can see, jerry falls into the 5% of commenters who use news articles to malign their ex-spouse. I feel for jerry; it's clear he's going through a lot of pain. I hope he got everything resolved and managed to move on.

Although to be honest, I rather doubt he did manage to get everything resolved. Because, you see, it should not take you 5 lines of text to realize your Caps Lock is on. And even if it does escape your notice for that long, you can re-type your comment with minimal effort, correcting the Caps Lock error. But jerry didn't do that. jerry typed with furious abandon, not even looking up at the screen to see what he had written until he was done. And when he saw his mistake, did he fix it? No! But he did acknowledge it, with the aid of a brilliantly original sentence construction that has made me laugh out loud every time I've thought of it for the past 8 months and counting. God bless you, jerry, and your locked caps.

If anyone was wondering what to get me for Christmas this year, I would pretty much love a decent-quality t-shirt, preferably in an angry shade of red, that simply reads "DANG MY CAPS WAS LOCKED." Size M. Thank you.

The Internet 2.0: Word Hate

I'm a writer. I don't mean that to sound grandiose, like I think I'm the next [name of whoever you think is a good writer, since you probably wouldn't get whatever bizarrely obscure reference my brain is proffering]. What I mean is that I'm a compulsive writer. That's why I have this blog. And the two anonymous blogs. And the three handwritten journals. And the notebook I scribble in all the time. And 50,000 to-do lists. And a collection of postcards I buy everywhere I go so I can randomly send them to people. And a bunch of friends who require corrective lenses as a result of reading a series of 12-page emails from me every single day. I can't. Stop. Writing.

I try to draw sometimes, but invariably I end up with a bizarre little sketch...and a half-page description that says "This is the cupcake I drew myself for being strong enough to resist the REAL cupcakes that someone left in the break room. This cupcake looks like it would probably be plastic, though - not very realistic. Maybe it's actually a secret hiding place for keys. Why would you put your keys in a plastic cupcake though?"

Seriously.

So any given page in any given "sketch book" still ends up with more writing than drawing on it. I've come to accept this about myself. Not only that, but I've sought out the internet presences of other people who are compulsive writers, because that helps me feed my compulsive reading habit and reminds me that I'm not alone. And I need that kind of comfort lately, because the hipsters of web 2.0 are spending all of their time excluding people like me. I keep trying to play with them, but it's very clear that I am still the dorky kid on the playground.

First, I tried tumblr. ALL the cool kids have a tumblr. Tumblr is great because you can do such fun things with all your awesome photos and videos and hand-drawn art and graphic designs! This is what happened when I got a tumblr. Note the conspicuous absence of photos, videos, hand-drawn art and graphic designs. Also note my pitiful MS Paint attempt at a joke on April 11th. Oh, tumblr. It was never going to be us.

Then there was Instagram, which I once used to take a cool picture of the booth at the theatre with the blacklight on. End of Instagram. I mean, I technically still have it on my phone, but when something interesting happens, I tend to think, "I should tweet about that!" instead of "I should take a picture of that, then apply some cool retro effects!" This is because I know what a terrible photographer I am, and we may as well not even bother.

The other day, one of my favorite Britterers (British Twitter-ers! Get it?), Lauren Laverne, mentioned a new thing called blipfoto. It really does look cool - you join, you upload one photo a day...it's a daily photo journal! Just like it says on the website! But then, the website also says this is a "community of everyday people". This community is largely made up of Brits at the moment, so maybe life is just more interesting/visually arresting over there. (It certainly seemed that way to me when I was there, but I always assumed this was because I was on vacation.) A quick glance over the recently uploaded photos shows us 15 gloriously sharp, beautiful pictures of adorable children eating ice cream, brilliantly captured seaside wildlife, a dog in a colorful hoodie, a half-naked guy at the Edinburgh Festival, a dog on a boat, an historic countryside cathedral, and the cliffs of Guernsey, as sampled below:

COME ON! (Image yoink'd from Guernsey Girl's blipfoto account, which is amazing)

Now, I am nothing if not an "everyday person" (also: writer), but I can guarantee you that if I joined this site, my pics would not be anything like those of my fellow "everyday people". Firstly, I very rarely go anywhere or do anything. Secondly, on those occasions when I do go somewhere or do something, my ability to capture it in images proves to be woefully inadequate. Put simply, I take the kind of crap photos that DO NOT BELONG and ARE NOT WELCOME on sites like blipfoto, instagram, and tumblr. Don't believe me? Here is a 5-photo sampling of my portfolio. I call it...

Give an Ape a Camera...

Those white dots are birds (Ibis?) in a tree at Disney's Pleasure Island. Captivating. 

Again: what *looks* like a grainy picture of a parking lot and half a car is actually a picture of my friend Chris practicing a new puppet character. 

Me. Attempting to text my friend Drew a picture so she could give her opinion on my character's new outfit. I'm bad at the Narcissistic Cell Phone-In-The-Mirror Pic. I'd never taken one before. Seriously.

I LIKE HELICOPTERS! MUST TAKE PICTURE OF HELICOPTER! It was a Medivac. I hope I didn't accidentally also take a picture of a fatally wounded person.

Tilt Shift iPhone app + Dimly lit Aquarium viewing window  = my attempt at artsiness. Silly girl! You can't tilt shift a whale shark! I mean, some people can. But you certainly can't!

And as bad/grainy/unfocused/poorly composed/ill-thought-out as these photos are, we need to bear in mind that they are among the *best* and *most interesting* I could find amidst the screenshots of horoscopes and pictures of my cat that make up the majority of my repertoire. If I were to join blipfoto (AND YOU KNOW I'M THINKING ABOUT IT), my "daily photo journal" would probably go: 

8/9/2011: Picture of my coffee, sitting by my computer, in my cubicle, at work

8/10/2011: Picture of my keyboard, at my computer, in my cubicle, at work

8/11/2011: Poorly composed picture of the Atlanta skyline, taken on my way to rehearsal

8/12/2011: CAT PICTURE!

8/13/2011: Picture of my coffee, sitting by my computer, on my writing desk, at home

(Repeat every single week)

I mean, I realize that blogs have been around for ages, so those of us with a writing problem have had an online outlet for years now. It's good that people who are better with images than words finally have a number of ways to express themselves too. I just get jealous, I guess. I want so badly to point at my awesome online photo journal where every picture is some beautifully detailed image of a striking moment in time, simultaneously fun, of-the-moment, and making a biting satirical point about the state of the world as I saw it on that day. But the closest I'll ever come is:

CAT BUTT PICTURE!!!

Special Bonus Fun Thing: I have a lot of postcards I need to send people, and a lot of friends who are sick of getting postcards. So if you'd like me to send you a postcard, let me know your name and address! You can use the email link under my profile on the right; no need to put it in a public comment where the riff raff can find it :)

Dear Internet: Call Me

I am a total dork about the internet. I LOVE the internet. I love that I can order food in my PJs - without talking to a person - then have it magically appear at my door. I love shopping online, I love social media, I love Words With Friends, I love that I'm rarely more than one Netflix/Hulu/YouTube search away from any movie or TV show I feel like watching.  I love the BBC iPlayer! I love email and IMs! I love blogs! I love online check-in for flights and having seen the hotel room from EVERY angle before I even get there! Yessir, the internet is amazing. And I love to see more and more businesses maximizing its potential to make my life awesome, so I was stoked to discover that my doctor's office is now doing Online Appointment Scheduling! SCORE! I assumed it would work just like the Online Appointment Scheduling at my favorite salon. As follows:

1. Set up account/log in
2. Fill in a few fields indicating services needed
3. Search available appointments for one that coincides with a free spot in my calendar
4. Reserve one of said appointments
5. Receive confirmation. Hooray!

But I had forgotten that this was a medical practice, and medical practices, unlike hair salons, know I need them more than they need me. This is not about customer service. This is about holding my time hostage. Here's how their process works, apparently:

1. Set up account/log in
2. Fill in a few fields indicating services needed
3. List 3 dates and rough times ("rough" as in AM vs PM) when you might be available
4. Leave website and go about your business
(24 hour delay)
5. Receive voicemail from "scheduler" who is "calling to schedule your appointment"
6. Return call. Leave voicemail.
7. Receive voicemail.
8. Return call. Leave voicemail.
(24 hour delay)
9. Receive voicemail.
10. Return call. Speak to "scheduler", who has no idea which doctor you wanted to see, when, or why, even though you spent 10 minutes giving the internet all of that information.
11. Schedule appointment over the phone
12. Be accidentally put on hold for 3 minutes in the middle of appointment confirmation
13. Receive confirmation

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this whole fiasco is the way I stumbled on the "Online Appointment Scheduling" in the first place: I had gone to the website to get the phone number so I could call and make an appointment. And had I just done that instead of falling for the "Online Appointment Scheduling", we would've been done three days earlier. Because that was not "Online Appointment Scheduling". That was "A Form to Request a Phone Call". And anything that happens on the phone did not happen online. FAIL.

Let's Just Get it Over With

You may have noticed that I keep referencing online dating, and that is because it is an endless font of inexplicable human behaviors that make me laugh. And that is because if I didn't laugh at them, they would make me cry.

I think the biggest problem I have right now is that my profile is basically blank. As a result, the only people who message me are people who just liked the picture or are literally writing to every woman on the site. I keep trying to fill in my profile, but...I mean, come on. This is what the form looks like:

• My Self-Summary
• What I'm Doing With My Life
• I'm Really Good At
• The first things people usually notice about me
• Favorite books, movies, shows, music and food
• The six things I could never do without
• I spend a lot of time thinking about
• On a typical Friday night I am
• The most private thing I'm willing to admit
• I'm looking for
• You should message me if

Is it me? That's too much information to demand all at once. I might as well just publish a thousand-page autobiography and have the inside back cover read: "If you got this far and didn't want to gouge your eyeballs out, call me". Anyway. I keep trying to fill the stupid thing in, and I can't. Because I just don't care anymore. Besides, if I'm going to take the time to answer that many personal questions, I won't have the stamina to maintain the false veneer of cheerfulness throughout. Something's gotta give. Which is why I decided that instead of filling that out, I'd just come here and tell you...

What I'd Like to Say in my Online Dating Profile

• My Self-Summary

*THIS PROFILE IS CERTIFIED FREE OF DUMB DOUBLE-ENTENDRES AND CHEEZY, FLIRTATIOUS PICKUP LINES.* I have yet to meet anyone who self-identifies as an "objectivist", "libertarian", or "foodie" who didn't make me want to claw their eyeballs out after talking to them for a minute and a half. I am a person. I have needs. They include, but are not limited to, M&Ms and silence. I'm sure you have needs too, but frankly I don't want to hear about it. First chance I get, I'm moving to the UK. So don't get too attached. Not that I was going to give you a chance to. 

• What I'm Doing With My Life

PISS OFF! What are you doing with YOUR life, jerkface?  

• I'm Really Good At

Grilled cheese sandwiches, consumption of

Pointedly ignoring small children

• The first things people usually notice about me

The fact that the word "thing" has been made plural in that sentence makes me suspect that I am more or less supposed to make either a crass reference to my breasts or a dreamy reference to my eyes. But I'm going to buck the system and be honest: most people don't notice me.

• Favorite books, movies, shows, music and food

I don't really know why I would fill this out. I've read enough guys' profiles to know that you probably enjoy the Terminator and Die Hard movies, any number of God-forsaken bands I can't stand ranging from Nickelback to Rammstein, SPORTS, one or more TV shows with lots of female frontal nudity (Californication, The Tudors, Boobs McGee: Private Detective,...), and steak. You are all so original. In the unlikely event that you remembered to mention a book, it will have some cringe-inducing title regarding the length of your workweek, the location of your cheese, or how you're gonna be Six Sigma Certified in NO TIME! Or it will be something by Ayn Rand, in which case DO NOT CONTACT ME OR SO HELP ME YOU WILL REGRET IT...

And of course, you don't really care what I like. This section only exists so we can look for commonalities. So have a look: I like The Bell Jar, Catch-22, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Robert Harris's Imperium, which I'm currently reading and quite like. You've never heard of any of the TV shows I like, because they all originated in the UK. The last movie I saw in the theater was Potiche. I like a lot of music you routinely make fun of, like Tori Amos, Björk, and Imogen Heap. Oh, and I'm a vegetarian, which is something else you'll mock me about while thinking you are hilarious.

• The six things I could never do without

1. Regular appointments with a mental health professional
2. Facebook birthday reminders

3. MY CREDIT CARD
4. Scratch-off lotto tickets

5. My copy of The Rules

6. A package of rotting mushrooms shoved way in the back of my fridge. I don't know why, but I keep buying them. So I must need them.

• I spend a lot of time thinking about

How long I have to wait after publicly eating an entire pizza before it would be acceptable to stop pretending I'm full and start demanding frozen yogurt.

• On a typical Friday night I am

Eating an entire pizza and a Double Caramel Magnum bar in rapid succession in the privacy of my own home where no one can judge me.

• The most private thing I'm willing to admit

Yeah, right.

• I'm looking for

A relationship that starts at the 6-month mark so I don't have to do all the stupid getting-to-know-you crap. I just need someone to get the tater tots out of the oven so I don't have to keep pausing this documentary about Nazi art theft.

• You should message me if

In my experience, this is another one I shouldn't answer, because most of you don't seem to need a reason to message me. Instead, I think it would be more helpful if I told you why you shouldn't message me:

- You only have one sentence, and it's either a greeting or a comment on my appearance.

- You've already messaged me three times and I haven't answered. TAKE A DAMN HINT.

- You don't like: vegetarians, cats, liberals, "socialists", French people, English people, the proverbial Other, intellectuals, treehuggers, having a President who's smarter than you are, Apple products, cheese, pizza, Mexican food, the concept of wood sprites, public broadcasting, ketchup, Twitter, or Burberry perfumes

- You've already messaged me three times and I haven't answered. TAKE A DAMN HINT.

- You DO like: Ayn Rand (see above), the Tea Party, monster truck rallies, killing for sport, recreational arguing, subservience, CAMPING, math, Jersey Shore, or skydiving

- You are a triathlete. NO. THANK YOU.

- Your profile included 3-4 lines about how much you hate "grammar Nazi's". Feeling's mutual, pal.

- You've already messaged me three times and I haven't answered. Yes, I know that's the third time I've said it. It's irritating, RIGHT?

- You are more than 15 years my senior and you're going to try to flatter me by implying that you think I'm special because I "might" be "mature enough" to handle your awesomeness. It is your misfortune that I am "mature enough" to recognize a really lame play when I see it.

Can YOU Spot the Serial Killer?

Alright boys and girls, all these graphics-intensive posts have been taking forever to create/edit, so today we're going to use our imaginations! This ain't The Oatmeal. Word.

As I mentioned once before, I occasionally toy around with (and subsequently run screaming from) online dating. I just don't think I'm cut out for it. But I've tried a new site this time around, and while I still don't think I'm going to meet anyone other than Mr. Right-Up-Until-He-Opens-His-Mouth, I am very intrigued by their methods, especially since I've discovered Spot the Serial Killer emails. The concept is pretty simple:

1. Guys on the site rate you as they come across your profile.
2. If you're lucky (and/or your picture is sufficiently grainy and unfocused - go me!), a guy will occasionally give you a 4 or 5 star rating.
3. The site then takes that guy, throws him on a list with 8 other guys, and sends you an email that says "SPOT THE SERIAL KILLER!" "Someone Chose You!"
4. This same email invites me to play their game, which means going through this set of 9 guys, rating each of them. If I give a high rating to the same guy that gave me a high rating, the almighty computer will give us its blessing and automatically send wedding invitations to all of our family and friends.

OK, maybe it doesn't quite end like that. I think it's something more like "it suggests we should probably talk to each other instead of spending all of our time rating people on the internet". And that's kind of a weird suggestion anyway, because the second he stops being a person who wastes his entire life on the internet, we will no longer have anything in common. I digress. In my case, there are always 8 pictures of normal, happy-looking, reasonably attractive guys...and one picture of a man with a shaved head and a highly offensive tattoo, sitting in a dark room with his face illuminated only by the glow of his monitor, glaring angrily at the screen while picking his teeth with a hunting knife. Hmmm...I wonder which one chose me...

Remain Calm: The World Is Ending

I'm getting increasingly fascinated by all the weird ways websites use their error messages to set themselves apart - from the Twitter FAIL whale to the Superpoke FAIL message I got one time, webmasters are doing a much better job of keeping the mood light when things go wrong and we want to punch our monitors.

From cheezburger.com

But I have now come across a highly customized FAIL message that opts to terrify the living crap out of me rather than amuse me. I don't know why. Have a look:

AAAAAAAAHHH!

I grabbed this screenshot while trying to listen to the Radio 4 Afternoon Play on the iPlayer at the exact moment that a huge press conference was going down about the News of the World scandal. So it's not surprising that the servers were overwhelmed. But why did they have to show me that nightmare-inducing picture?!?! The disturbing fair-game clown doll would've been bad enough, but why is it sitting in front of some God-forsaken apocalyptic blaze? And what's with the blackboard that says "500"? Is that how many points you score for hitting the doll in this ball toss in the Bowels of Hell Fun Fair? It all looks even weirder when set beside such normal, non-horrifying explanatory text.

This why the UK rocks. NPR would never put an apocalyptic clown ball toss game on their 404 error page. Never.

File-a-Friend: For All Your Friend-Filing Needs

OH MY GOD HOW HARD DO I LOVE GOOGLE+ RIGHT NOW?!?! Let me count the ways...

Just kidding, there's only one: Filing human beings is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Or with just your shirt off. Seriously, I had no idea that I wanted to do this with the various people in my life, but it turns out I very much DID want to do this. On Facebook, it's difficult to file people. It can be done, but it's time-consuming. And then, when I want to say something, I can either share it with everyone I've ever met, or spend an absurd amount of time deciding who gets to see what.

The root of the problem is - and you may have gathered this by now - I'm a human being. And as such, I have a variety of friends, interests, and even emotions! Sometimes I feel sad. Sometimes I feel happy. Sometimes I feel drunk. Sometimes I feel...nope, that pretty much covers it. When I feel sad, I want to share with friends who will be gentle and sympathetic. As below:

When I feel happy, I want to share with friends who will be happy with me and say nice things. As below:

When I feel drunk, I want to share with friends on whom I have so much dirt that I don't have to worry about them EVER telling anyone about that thing I said while drunk, as I would be mortified. As below:

But what usually happens is more like this: I feel sad and want to share with gentle/sympathetic people. Being too lazy to go through all 200 (rough estimate) of my friends and identify those people, I post to everyone and assume humanity will sort itself out. And I am gravely mistaken, as below:

I feel happy and want to share with happy/nice people. Being too lazy to go through all 3,000 (rough estimate) of my friends and identify those people, I post to everyone and assume humanity will sort itself out. And I am gravely mistaken, as below:

I feel drunk and want to share with people on my Mutual Assured Destruction List so I know it won't come back to haunt me. Being too drunk to go through both of my friends and identify the one who won't rat me out, I post to everyone and assume humanity will sort itself out. And I am gravely mistaken, as below:

So this never goes well for me. Ever. The alternative, as mentioned above, is to hand-pick which friends get to read a particular bit of news. This process is painful and annoying and, most importantly, I don't trust Facebook to work right half the time, so there isn't much point. The option I go with most of the time is just keeping my trap shut altogether. That's fine as far as it goes, but surely it defeats the purpose of social networking when I can't say ANYTHING without fear of attracting all the wrong attention?

Also, if I keep writing blog posts like this one, I won't have any FB friends left. And then I'll have to move permanently to Google+.

But that will be fine because Google+ has completely circumvented this problem by creating "Circles"! Circles are genius, and their creation method is even better. Google gives you a page with little pictures of all your friends (sorry - no good way to screenshot that without outing my friends, and I'd like to keep some of them), and then it gives you little circles to drop them into! You can put the same friend in multiple Circles if you want, they never find out the names of the Circles you've put them in (my previous experience with FB is that it does show the names of your little friend groupings), and then you can choose which Circles get which news! Brilliant! Tell your Yoga class about clearing your throat chakra WITHOUT inviting the mockery of some drunk asshole you knew in high school! Show your family a thousand cute pics of your cat without having your new boyfriend find out that you dress Mr. Biggles up like an old-timey barber! Circles = privacy, and it's about time we got a little more of that!

Circles also give you (er, me) a maniacal feeling of power. I can already tell that my current Circles, politely named "Friends", "Acquaintances", "Family", "Improv", etc. will soon be replaced or joined by Circles with names like "Jerks with whom I'm obligated to socialize", "Evil Incarnate", "Stalkers", and "Barnacles". And then I will lose hours and hours of my life in the practice of avenging real or perceived wrongs by moving people from Circle to Circle. Like: "Yeah, you WERE my friend! But a gift card to Bass Pro Shops? For my birthday? Welcome to the Barnacles Circle, jerkface." Even now I only know 12 people on Google+, and I am already far too enamored of staring at their little faces, pondering which file fits each one best.

It's a sickness. I hope I never get well. I'll see you all on Google+...but I'll never tell you which Circle you're in. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Post-Posting Final Thought: Why is it that Google is so good at recognizing my need to keep certain people out of certain Circles, but they STILL don't understand that the "Consider Including" crap in Gmail is literally the stoooooooopidest thing since snack packs of Oreos?

They're All Horror Movies Now

If there's one thing in this world that has cut my productivity in half, it's Netflix's amazingly wonderful Watch Instantly service. And as it has slowly become my primary source of televisual entertainment, I have  grown increasingly mystified and intrigued by its recommendations. You may have to enlarge this screenshot to see what I mean; note the "Recommended based on" square in the lower right corner:

On the one hand, this recommendation is spot on - I loves me some Shakespeare, and this production sounds very promising indeed! But how does it know? I struggle mightily to believe that any algorithm in the world adds Spinal Tap to Monty Python and the Holy Grail...and comes up with Macbeth. Am I forgetting the part where Macduff turns it up to eleven? Is there a deleted scene in which the Three Witches endeavor to buy a shrubbery? These films are not related in any discernible way. And yet, the almighty Netflix computer has used them to come up with a remarkably accurate model for what I will or won't like. Terrifyingly accurate, actually.

Please. Someone. Save Me From Myself.

I went out and had a lovely evening sharing a pitcher of margaritas with a friend tonight. Margaritas always make me feel happy, bubbly, and flirty, so I came home thinking "I know! Maybe I'll get back on one of the free dating sites and see if there are any good possibilities!"

Why did I think that? Sure, it was partly because of the margaritas. But mostly it was because I am a brain-dead idiot with the memory of a gnat. Because I JUST rescued myself from match.com! Why would I go and get back into the same stupidity again?!?! On the plus side, I've now had a hearty laugh and been gently reminded of why the margarita flirt-high should be allowed to pass unindulged in the future.

First, I get on the dating site and look around. I spend a good hour just laughing at the terrifying and/or sad profiles and congratulating myself on avoiding this mess. Then, just as I'm about to give up, I see someone halfway decent.

Next, I decide I might as well put up a picture and a 2-sentence summary of myself. Just in case he was interested. You never know.

So I post the picture and get started on the profile...

ME (thinking): Hmmm... what's the first thing people notice about me... lemme think...

SITE NOTIFICATION: Euthanizer666 is checking you out!

ME: Uh-oh! I wonder how I turn that off. I don't need a pop-up window every time...

SITE NOTIFICATION: Beelzebub72 is checking you out!

ME: Yeah, this is exactly what I DON'T want to...

INSTANT MESSENGER: MILFHunter said: So what are you doing up this late? Wanna chat?

ME: Mother of God, how do I make it stop?!?! MINIMIZE! MINIMIZE!

iPHONE (sitting on the desk by the computer): *new email sound*

ME: New email? From whom? OH GOD NO!

EMAIL: RightGuy4U has sent you a message! Message text - Good evening good lookin'...

ME: *vomits into the wastepaper basket* Where was I? Oh right. The profile blurb...

iPHONE: *new email sound*

ME: New email? From...crap.

EMAIL: 35RestrainingOrders has sent you an erotic poem in the original French by Pierre de Ronsard! His profile says he doesn't speak French, but he is attempting to pass this off as an original work!

ME: Dammit! Where are the email settings?

SITE NOTIFICATION: NiceGuy is checking you out!

iPHONE: *new email sound*

INSTANT MESSENGER: Rico_Suave said: Voulay voo cooshay avec moi? Ha ha! 

Pretty soon I begin to feel like I don't need a date; I need an exorcist who specializes in Apple products.

I want to stress that this has nothing whatsoever to do with how I look, and it is NOT (repeat: NOT) the ego boost you might think it is, if you've never been on a dating site before.The first time you set up a profile, this happens (and it happens to ALL of us), and you think you might have seriously underestimated your hotness. But soon you realize that there are about five hundred guys out there whose entire strategy consists of finding whoever is new to the site and bombarding her with seriously weak pickup lines. They don't care what she looks like and they definitely have not bothered to read her profile, because they don't care who she is or what she wants. The messages they send are evenly divided between something along the lines of "Your so beautiful" (note: this is the entire body of the message and they ALWAYS make that grammar error) or something more like "I see we have a lot in common..." (this is pretty much NEVER true).

It's the Fresh Meat approach, and I can't imagine that it has ever worked, but I guess its devotees know something I don't. Mostly it's just the most irritating thing ever, like a denial-of-service attack on my love life. From the wikipedia entry on DoS, emphasis mine:

One common method of attack involves saturating the target machine with external communication requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable.

I suppose it's just as well. I have an awful lot of sketches to write/edit in the next two days. And any time I don't spend on sketches really ought to be spent making ginormous glossy posters of myself to be distributed to every Mexican restaurant in the metro area, featuring big black letters that say "DO NOT SERVE MARGARITAS TO THIS WOMAN".

DISCLAIMER: There are nice, decent, real guys on these sites who really do read women's profiles before blindly assuming that mutual desperation will be a sufficient basis for a relationship. It's just that you don't hear from them until the first week has passed, and this post is about the first horrifying seconds after posting a photo. So don't yell at me. I didn't make the rules.

Stock Photo Nightmare

I didn't originally intend to use this blog as a clearinghouse for every dumb thing I found on the internet, but apparently I can't keep my trap shut when I see something like this:

CNN is based right here in Atlanta, of course, so I have the inside story on just exactly how this picture came about.
EDITOR: The article is about financial infidelity - how to avoid it, how to spot it, how to determine financial compatibility with your spouse...

PHOTOGRAPHER: Right, right...OK, I'm seeing one of the B-52s here

EDITOR: Not the guy?

PHOTOGRAPHER: No, not Fred Schneider. One of the girls. Probably Kate Pierson. I'll get my people on it. Anyway, she's wearing a Pepto Bismol pink light denim business suit. Then I want to get her a really stylish bag from Versace's Scrotum line and fill it to the point of overflowing with cash...

EDITOR: But how will we convey the concept of infidelity?

PHOTOGRAPHER: Simple! We'll hold the shoot in a bedroom - Mary Todd Lincoln's bedroom, if we can get it - and...hmmm...what do financial adulterers do with money? I know! She can be haphazardly shoving individual bills under the mattress! And she'll be looking nervously over her shoulder as if to say, "I hope my loving husband doesn't come in here and catch me enacting my treacherous and financially unfaithful plan of stashing cash in various places of historic significance! I'm not even wearing my wedding ring, for God's sake!"

EDITOR: Hmmm...can she also be awkwardly bending over in a way that suggests she's trying to distract her husband with her ass and/or has sprained her back?

PHOTOGRAPHER: Of course!

EDITOR: Shoot it.

Dear Gmail: Consider Including My Free Will

Am I the only one who is completely bowled over by the sheer stupidity of Gmail's latest non-optional "improvement"? Perhaps you've seen it yourself: the helpful little "Consider including:" line that pops up under the To line in an outgoing email, suggesting other people you might want to include on the thread. It seems to make its suggestions based on mutual friends and/or people who are commonly included in group emails.

It's been live for a few weeks now, and while I can find some grumbling about it on them internets, there isn't nearly enough. We have to rise up, people! And we have to do it NOW. Because these aren't just names listed off to the side - they are clickable links that automatically add the [theoretically] interested party to the To line. In other words, you can type something akin to this:

To: Drew
From: Me
Subject: OH MY GOD HOW MUCH DO I HATE BILL?
Consider including: Bill
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My hatred for Bill burns with the heat of a thousand Tabasco vats. Sometimes looking at Bill's face literally makes me want to throw up. Seriously. If I could get a voodoo doll that allowed me to stab him directly in his soul, I would. Does he think he's funny? HE IS NOT FUNNY. I can't stand him. Let's pants him.

And if your mouse should somehow happen to graze that little "Consider including: Bill" link, you will shortly find yourself making a very unconvincing pitch to Bill about how this was all a joke. Ha ha. At first, people told me I was overreacting. But last week this actually happened to me. OK, it wasn't about Bill, who isn't a real person. And obviously it wasn't nearly as vitriolic as the above, because I am an angel and would never, ever say anything remotely like that. But I *do* sometimes say things I maybe don't necessarily want certain specific other people who are mentioned by name in the body of the email to read. It's not even always something mean! I could just as easily be saying "I cry myself to sleep every night because I love Bill so much and he doesn't even know I'm alive." But you know what? I still wouldn't want Bill to read it! (SPOILER ALERT: I caught/deleted the unintended recipient before clicking "Send". NO THANKS TO GMAIL.)

I may be a bit oversensitive about this issue, owing to a problem I had 2 years ago when a text that was meant for a close girlfriend accidentally got sent to the guy who had *just* asked me out, and who was, in fact, the subject of said text. This led to the most awkward after-midnight phone call I have ever made. Have you ever had to beg someone not to read the text you just sent them? Especially when it's someone who thinks you might be flirting when in fact you are COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY DEAD SERIOUS? It isn't fun, I can tell you. I still have flashbacks to that phone call, as well as to the subsequent phone call I placed to my best friend, at which point her husband saw my number on the caller ID, picked up the phone, and said, "You're an idiot". Thinking about it, everyone I call probably should answer that way all the time. Anyway, my point is: I've had more than enough mis-sent electronic communications already, thanks. I don't need any more.

I figure the Google people are subjecting me to this for one of two reasons: 1) Gmail is trying to encourage openness and honesty in all human relationships or 2) Gmail truly believes I am SO stupid that I genuinely don't know who all needs to be included in a given email. (Yes, I just said "who all". Welcome to the South.)

If reason #1 reflects their thought process, then I guess their goal is commendable. But they should bear in mind that for every cheating spouse or mean-spirited gossip that gets outted by their little Honesty Initiative, they are probably also ruining a surprise party somewhere. Is this a price we, as a society, are willing to pay? I submit that it is not. I heart surprise parties. NOT IN MY NAME!

If reason #2 reflects their thought process, then I have a knuckle sandwich with their name on it. Ever since this started happening 2 months ago, there has not been a single instance - not one - where I finished writing an email, scrolled up to proofread/click "Send", and said, "Oh crap! You're absolutely right, Gmail! I've just written a soul-baring missive to a close personal friend, and I almost forgot to include these three randomly chosen people we went to elementary school with! Sure, little Jimmy Penderton used to eat paste, but I bet he has some valuable insights about the next step in my spiritual journey. Thank Hera you reminded me to include him!"

(I'm making my "not amused" face here.)

Look, Gmail: If I need to send an email to a dozen people, it is very easy for me to pull up my contact list and tick boxes next to all of their names. You've done a great job with that, and I appreciate it. But 99.9% of the emails I write are only intended for ONE person's eyes, and including anyone else would be a patently bad idea. How about you just assume that I have considered including literally everyone else I've ever emailed...and I've decided against it.

Viagra Ads Go Straight Over My Head

On a news website today, I was intrigued by the first frame of a Viagra ad:

I stared at it for a while, completely baffled as to what this had to do with Viagra. As a person who spent the first part of my adult life buried deep in academia, I can't turn down a good quiz, and this whole thing felt like a puzzle. How the hell is this related to ED? "You've installed windows before" = "You've gotten an erection before"; "But never on the roof" = "But now you can't anymore"? I didn't see the connection. At all. I reasoned that if indeed there was any metaphor to be found, it would surely be meant to convey that this is a problem the man cannot solve alone, and he should turn to his doctor. So the correct answer is obviously "call a professional"...

FAIL!

I was wrong. The Viagra people did NOT want these men calling professionals to solve their problems! They want these men to clamor onto the metaphorical rainy roof of their sexual dysfunction and confront it on their own! Sure, they might fall to their deaths trying to install the skylight of their virility, but by God they should climb the ladder of stoic self-sufficiency to the non-apex of their genitals and get to work! I clicked "install the skylight"...

YEAH! Why start now? You have a medical condition that could indicate anything from depression to dangerously clogged arteries, and it's nobody's damn business but your own! So fix it yourself! Get up there and, um, install that metaphorical skylight in your junk! Or something! Maybe get some sort of pump? Though I don't see how that helps the Viagra people. Is it me or is this metaphor just not working AT ALL?

...wait, so now the message is "Fix it yourself! Call your doctor!"? The "call a professional" option was right all along? Help me out here, people. This makes no sense.

I guess this is one of those cases where no one in the marketing department is bothering anymore. It's not like there's anyone in the Western world who doesn't already know what Viagra is for, and the market for it certainly isn't going anywhere. The head of the advertising department came into the meeting and said, "OK, so we'll open with an image of a roof and some text that says 'You've installed windows before. But never on the roof'..." And then the CEO said, "Whatever, Bob, sounds great. Just make sure it says VIAGRA all over the internet. I don't really care how you do it."

How I'll Spend My Summer Vacation

Just as an FYI, I’ve decided that the “trying really hard to be funny” thing, while entertaining (for me), is not a sufficient raison d’être for a whole entire blog. I will still be doing that going forward, but today’s post is the first in an occasional series of exciting glimpses inside my actual head! At long last! PROOF that something is happening in there!

As some of you may know, I’m on The Twitters (@kwerky_girl - follow at will!). I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much useful information comes through that timeline, and one of the more wonderful items in the past few weeks was the announcement of fortnightly sketch shows penned and performed by one of my most revered writing role models, John Finnemore! They’re taking place in London, which might be a problem for some Atlantans, but not me! My first thought was: “HELL YEAH I will be dumping my savings account into a duffel bag, carrying it to the nearest Delta agent, and yelling ‘LONDON PLEASE’ at the top of my lungs.” But then I remembered that before I can do that, I have to dump $200 of my savings account into a much smaller bag along with a picture of myself to be delivered to the US State Department, then wait 4-6 weeks for them to get out their damn glue stick and slap the picture on a new passport, because the Delta agent will almost certainly notice that my current one expired earlier this year. There’s no way I can make it. [insert heartbreak here] I mean, they do can do a 24-48 hour renewal in extreme/emergency situations, but I bet they have a loophole that excludes “I will kill myself if you don’t give me a passport” from that. Otherwise everybody’d be doing it.

So I was despondent for a while there. I pulled the website up and just to see how nauseatingly affordable the tickets would be if I could just get there (answer: £6. ARGH!). Then I saw the text on the ticket-purchasing site, which reads as follows:

The triumphant return of the least imaginatively named show since 'Cats': John Finnemore, writer and star of Radio 4's Cabin Pressure; regular guest on The Now Show; and popper-up on things like Miranda and That Mitchell and Webb Look, presents an hour of brand new sketches every fortnight over the summer. Completely different material every show. Bloody hell. Now I see it written down, that's a lot of sketches. I should probably get on with them.

And as I read those last few sentences, I thought, “Christ! That really is a lot of sketches. Assuming one page=one minute, that’s 60 pages of original sketch material every two weeks. Jesus. Someone send that man a metric ton of coffee.” And then I thought, “Wow. That would be a really incredible challenge. Especially for someone who, say, needed to dust the cobwebs off her brain and get back in the habit of writing sketches regularly.

Like she used to.

Yep.

60 pages every two weeks.


Quite a challenge.”

And then a [really stupid] part of my brain said, “I ACCEPT!” And thus was born Kimberly Welsh’s Sketch Night. That happened a week ago today, and so far I have 15 pages. And based on their content, I had to modify the name to Kimberly Welsh’s Incredibly Mundane Sketch Night (Mostly About Ordering Coffee). Then I realized that there won’t be any public performances, so the “Night” part doesn’t really fit. So: Kimberly Welsh’s Incredibly Mundane Sketch Challenge (Mostly About Ordering Coffee). I’ve spent more time rewriting the name than finishing sketches. Not exactly epic progress, but give me a break! I had to work 40 hours and spend 2 evenings at the theatre. I have most of my weekend free, so hopefully I’ll be able to get on track now. Wait - not “hopefully”; DEFINITELY. And while I’m not going to get all obsessively serious about it, I will keep you posted. Why? Because you care.

The good news for everyone is that this will keep me off the streets this summer. And it has taught me a valuable lesson about why it’s important to keep your passport up-to-date at all times: Because you never know when John Finnemore will start a run of sketch shows. Apparently. 

The Deadhead Imagery Makes So Much More Sense Now

Let me tell you something I know: if you have to google "How to be more imaginative", you've already failed.

I know this because I got bored and googled that very thing yesterday. Thankfully, there is a wikihow page out there for all of us unimaginative people, and it...it is glorious. Whoever wrote it spent a great deal of time and effort on it, and hell, I googled for it, so it certainly isn't useless/pointless information. And I guess it was pretty effective, because it got me thinking...

In section #7, for example, we find these two sentences:
Do you have a friend who speaks random, ridiculous phrases that seem to defy logic and rational thought? Your friend may be more imaginative than you. 

As it happens, ALL of my friends speak in random, ridiculous, logic-defying phrases like "you can't eat JUST raw cookie dough for three weeks" and "I'm not going to loan you any more money" and "don't give up bathing for Lent". So they are probably pretty imaginative! Then again, by this logic, there is a guy living on 14th Street who ought to be doing creativity seminars. It's a fine line, is what I'm saying.

Later in the same paragraph, the author suggests we "try to solve a problem using only penguins and mason jars". Ha! Here's a real challenge: try to think of a problem I HAVEN'T solved with penguins and mason jars! Exactly.

Moving on to section #8, we discover the most disturbing picture I've ever seen, which frankly drives home my point about crazy people:

Nightmare-inducing photo courtesy of above-referenced wikihow page

Based on its context in this article, we can assume this is a picture of a person who hit some kind of creative block and said to himself, "I know! I'll rip the head off an animal or likeness thereof and wear it over my own skull! Of course!" ...and that's how they found him. Asphyxiated in a teddy bear head. Because that's what happens to imaginative people. Lesson learned.