Spinning Off

I believe we have reached a new generation of laziness in childrens' programming.

Now, I have no problem with spin-off series as long as they're handled gracefully, but there is currently a show on the Disney Channel called "Timmy Time"


Timmy Time is a spin-off of Shaun the Sheep

Which is a spin-off of Wallace and Gromit

I'm not positive, but I'm thinkin' that it miiiight be a bit of a stretch at this point...

I haven't actually seen Timmy Time, so I don't actually know if it's any good or not, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt because both Wallace and Gromit AND Shaun the Sheep are awesome. I was just a little bewildered by the fact that it's a spin-off of a spin-off... Don't know how much further you can go before it starts getting ridiculous.

Insanity and Bangs

I've discovered recently that a surefire way of making people think you're crazy is to have bangs.

I have bangs. They are the only part of my hair I ever do; I fix them so they levitate about half an inch from my forehead so they don't touch my skin and get in my eyes and drive me up the wall all day. Most of the time they rest perfectly in position, however, when I walk through doors, or cross campus on a windy day they often get blown the wrong direction -- across my face and in my eyes. This is a minor annoyance, but anybody knows that a minor annoyance becomes a lot bigger if it's constantly present, and so for this reason, I often angle my head in the direction of the breeze so that it blows my bangs back in the right direction. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that I am constantly walking with my head tilted to one side like a confused puppy, veering off my walking course, batting irritably at my face, and jerking my head violently sideways at random.

Judging by some of the looks I get, I can pretty confidently state that my bangs have convinced a good number of people that I am mentally ill. I can't decide if that's awesome or distressing yet.

Hands

"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
-Matthew 5:30

Actually, the right hand and I are doing okay -- we are still bros -- my left hand, however, obviously did SOMETHING to offend me because it is currently covered in more paper cuts and accidental nail gashes than I can count. Hopefully we can make up before I succeed in severing it completely.

Saturday Musings

Call me crazy, but I love going to the Dentist. I really do. Not for drilling or root canals or any of the other horrible procedures the Dentist has up his sleeve, but I really like going in for the routine checkup and cleanings. Of course, I do hate the little metal pick they drag along your teeth when they're checking for tartar or whatever; that part is pure, liquid nightmares.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up at all is because I was thinking about how when the person cleaning my teeth is doing the pick thing, they always wipe it off on my little bib; that always makes me feel a little indignant, like they just came up and wiped something horrible on my shirt... Then I remember that the bib is there for exactly that purpose. And then I feel silly.
Am I the only one?

Lemons

An obnoxious person once said "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." In fact, they've probably said it to you at least once this week, and will again in the near future. Nevertheless if you break it down, it's a good bit of advice -- just try to make the best of life's problems -- good words to live by... Keeping that in mind.... What do you do when life gives you a LOT of lemons? Like... thirty five of them? Cause that's exactly what happened to my family this week:


There are more in the fridge.

So anyway, my mom brings home this bag of lemons that somebody left behind in their room at the manor that my family runs kinda like a hotel (people sometimes leave food in their apartment fridge, and if it isn't tainted or something, my mom brings it home so it wont go to waste.) Upon arriving at my house, this bag of lemons raised a burning question in the minds of all who live here, and that question was "What in BLAZES are we going to do with them?"

Now, if we go back to the old saying, we can find a seemingly logical answer to this question: "Make lemonade." This would be a great solution, but unfortunately, my family doesn't eat sugar. Once you take that into account, the ratio of options to lemons starts looking quite disproportionate.

So here we are with about five thousand lemons and no way to use them, which wouldn't be quite so distressing if we could figure out WHY on Earth the guy who bought them needed so many in the first place. I can not think of a single reason why one person would need to buy out the entire supermarket's supply of lemons. Well... I can think of a lot of reasons, but most of them are stupid, and all the others are insane.
I think that this is a mystery that may never be solved, and it will eventually drive me mad...

Until then, we will be drinking a lot of iced lemon water around here.

My Security Blanket

I have a security blanket. It has cats on it. I sleep with it every night; can't sleep without it. Last time I tried I had to get up and shamble around blindly in the middle of the night trying to find it. As pathetic as that is, I think the kicker is that this morning it actually got confiscated so my mom could (finally) wash it... I was sincerely worried that it will not be done washing before bed tonight.

A Sophomore in college and still object-dependent... My future is looking pretty good, I'd say.

In Unrelated News:

I bought a car this week.
My sister-in-law was all like "Wanna buy a car?" and I was like "Kay."
And so, car.
Shazam.

This was probably the most nonchalant major purchase I've ever made.

Puberty 2: Electric Boogaloo

There is a period of development that takes place in humans somewhere between the ages of 19 and 21. This is the time when your body finally decides to give you the cognitive maturity that should probably have come pre-packaged with the sexual maturity you got at Puberty (it's like you're finally getting the owner's manual for all the fancy new equipment you got when you were 12 a good 8 years later.) Yes, the transition from adolescence to adulthood is that important final step in getting humans ready to function in the real world, and yet I can't help but feel that it is very frequently overlooked. Let's take a look back at Puberty for a moment; it's all anybody can talk about. Puberty thinks it's SOOOO great because of all the gangling, squeaking, pizza-faced monstrosities it fills our middle schools with. Everybody likes to talk about how much Puberty sucked, but I've been thinking about it, and am beginning to believe that the transition to adulthood (Puberty 2.0, I like to call it. Or Puberty 2: The Musical! On ICE!) far surpasses it in suckitude. Here's why:

So you hit Puberty. Boom! Your life suddenly becomes a jumble of confusing feelings and awkward, hideous transformations. Yes, this sucks a lot, but it is also allowed. Middle schools and Junior high schools know that everybody is going through Puberty, and they allow for confusion and emotional upheaval. Now, when you are becoming an adult, you get no such luxury. Your life is not allowed to suck because you are far too busy. Unfortunately, in the prime of your adolescence, when you're finally free from the bonds of high school and are finally feeling good to be you, your body figures it's time to finish wiring that little monkey brain of yours, and gives you a healthy overdose of hormones while it's at it. Of course, now that you have no idea what's going on in any aspect of your life anymore, it's time to start pretending like you have a completely solid idea of everything that's going on, and also finish typing up those five papers that are due next week. Then come the meltdowns. During Puberty your mom would hug you and wipe away your tears and tell you that you're just growing up and that you are a beautiful little shining star. Now, as an emerging adult (unless you live with your parents like I do,) you get people uncomfortably watching the many dubious liquids leak from your puffy, red face, perhaps giving you an awkward pat on the back or a feeble word of encouragement. Sure, good friends will be supportive, but they wont always be around when you completely snap in your economics class. And of course, everybody is pretending that this transition doesn't exist, so if you have a psychotic episode in class, you are suddenly labeled as the crazy one.

It is very late now, and I fear that my mashing of keys will soon cease to make any sort of sense (if it hasn't already.) I guess all I'm really trying to say is that Puberty 2.0 deserves a bit more recognition. Everybody goes through it, and everybody pretends that they don't, which creates some interesting problems when the nervous breakdowns start happening. Really though, none of us college Sophomores have any idea what's going on, so perhaps it ought to be just a bit more socially acceptable to have random episodes of explosive crying, giggling, or outright insanity in the classroom.
Just a thought.

Clear the Aisle

My family is very close. We all love each other very much, we agree on most things, and we hardly ever fight. However, there is one issue that forms a cavernous rift that is forever tearing us asunder...

The debate in question is over the lyrics of the song "Never Smile at a Crocodile" , the very awesome song that was written for, but never actually used (except for the tune) in Disney's Peter Pan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMaPTZdwjPE

The part that we just cannot agree on is at the end. My sister and I hold firmly to the belief that the lyrics at the end of the song are "Clear the aisle and never smile at mister crocodile," while my parents stubbornly insist that the words are "Clearly I will never smile at mister crocodile." My brothers, I'm sure, do not have an opinion one way or the other on this, so they are not included here (Dan... Joel... If you DO have an opinion, I urge you to leave me a comment, and then join your baby sisters in this cause.) Anyway, this argument has arisen many times, and has never been resolved, despite the many instances of playing the song aloud, and looking up official lyrics to find evidence. No matter how many sets of lyrics Laurel and I pull up on Google that proves we are right, my mother and father continue to insist that "clear the aisle" makes no sense, and so the real words must be "clearly I will..." Even despite our arguments that "clear the aisle" makes for a better rhyme, and makes enough sense to at least be justified, they remain firm that "clearly I will" is the more logical phrase.

Try as we might, no conclusion has ever been reached. I fear that we shall never see eye-to-eye on this, and that "Never Smile at a Crocodile" will continue to drive a painful wedge between our family forever.

... Or my parents could just admit that they're TOTALLY WRONG! It's right there in the official sing-along, dudes! "Clear the aisle!" Can't get more proof than that! PWNED!

... can I still come home for Christmas?

Introducing: 4th Wall

I've decided to start posting updates to my comic series -- 4th Wall -- on my blog as well as my Deviantart page. For those unfamiliar, 4th Wall is basically a journal (or blog, as it were) in comic form, so I figure that it fits.

Drop me off some feedback and let me know if you'd like this to continue.

This one is entitled "Infidelity"

Click to enlarge

What's Your Sign?

I was thinking the other day about my favorite road sign: The Neighborhood Watch sign. The one with the shifty little trenchcoat dude on it.

Yeah. That one.
This sign is my favorite because that little "suspicious person" is just so durn cute. I love that guy! Also, it's funny cause it gets the idea of a neighborhood watch across in such a bizarre way. If it were just the picture, I'm pretty sure most of us would assume it was a "No Shady Characters" sign, like unto the "No Pets" or "No Skateboarding" signs that one sees from time to time. And it's much better than that boring old eyeball on some of the other neighborhood watch signs. I fill with joy every time I see this thing.

And... then I got to wondering if I'm the only one who consciously has a favorite road sign, cause, y'know... that's really weird... So, readers, tell me; do you have a favorite sign? Why is it so awesome? Am I the only one who actually thinks about this kind of crap?

I guess that even if I am the only one, it's all good. Most things are hilarious if you think too hard about them (which I usually do.) Y'all are seriously missing out.