I upgraded to WordPress 2.9, and it actually seems to be working ok! Now to find some fun new themes, and actually write more often. Yay!

Update: I swear my Archives tab was working fine, or maybe I just imagined that, because now it’s not. But I’m still proud of myself for figuring out the upgrade. And how do y’all like this new theme? I like it for now. Can you tell that I like turquoise and red/orange together? How can you tell?

Today I’m snowed in at my parents’ house in NC, and while I wait for my mom to remember that she was going to bring me some boots so I could go try to shovel the driveway and/or finish her phone conversation so that I can remind her, I’m trying to upgrade this very blog to the most recent version of WordPress. It seems as though someone hacked into it pretty badly and put “pornstuffs” (in the words of the web host tech dude) all in the coding. I’m not even sure how it’s working right now, because for months there was an error message when anyone tried to access it. I haven’t messed with the nerdy side of my blog since I originally installed it and installed a couple new themes in like 2006 (hence the ease with which someone hacked it), so I’m a little nervous that I’m going to break the whole thing, and all that will remain is the pornstuffs. Wish me luck, Internet, and I hope I’ll be seeing you soon!

Grrl Genius Cathryn Michon is a proponate proponent* of the hot nerd — which is pretty much what it sounds like — a man who is both sexy and kinda nerdy, as opposed to the bad boys many women tend to fall for. Well… I’ll jump on that bandwagon, because as someone who is a pretty big nerd myself and also rather dorky-chic, I appreciate those same characteristics in the opposite sex. Mind you, I’m not going to get all hot and bothered over someone who sits at home all day and night working on some type of electronical prototype for something (unless it is a robot to do my bidding), but I do appreciate a man with a healthy dose of intelligence. And a killer smile. And now? I know where to find them.

My laptop battery was sick last Friday, so I went to the Apple Store, not even considering that the guy at the genius bar who would be very, very helpful would also be adorable with sparkly eyes. I had not even considered it! But he was totally adorable. Possibly not my exact type, but it still made for a delightful genius bar experience — and the fact that his uniform t-shirt said “genius” on the front didn’t hurt, either. Hypothetically, if I wore one of those shirts every day, do you reckon it would help or hurt my dating life? Don’t answer that.

Anyway, so after my pleasant experience at the genius bar, my now happy, healthy laptop and I went downstairs to browse. As I was scanning the various iPod accessories, someone approached me and asked if I needed help. Well, I always say no when people ask me that, because I am stubborn and prefer to find things on my own — but as the “no” was coming out of my mouth, all slo-mo style like Annakin/Lord Vader’s cry of agony in Star Wars Episode III (see? nerd!) except instead of agony it was more like, “Nah, I’m fine, thanks,” I glanced up and realized that he was the hottest nerd in the whole place. Suddenly I really wished I needed help with something, and as he walked away, I realized I did need help, because I wasn’t finding what I was looking for, but by then he was across the store and I was forced to seek assistance from a nerd that was far, far from being hot. D’oh! At least now I know where they hide — and frankly, why am I telling you this? I should keep this little secret to myself! Next weekend instead of going to bars I want to get dressed up cute and go to all the Apple stores in town. And maybe the weekend after that I’ll be on a date with my brand new hot nerd!

*After publishing this, I realize I must not be nerdy enough to ever win a spelling bee!

In middle school and probably high school too, and probably sometime earlier today, I would always pretend I knew what people were talking about, and I seldom did. I mean specifically pop-culture-type stuff. Somehow I just never knew. They’d be like, Oh, did you hear that new such-and-such song? And I’d be all, “Oh yeah, um, such-and-such is a great ba..sing..musician-group-person type thing. I love him her them. QUICK, LOOK AT THAT CRAZY BIRD BEHIND YOU! Whoa, that was crazy. Well, gotta go, see ya!” (I’m actually much better at the music thing, and have been since the advent of internet searches, and am pretty obsessed with music, so maybe I could even turn you on to a great band you didn’t know about — but ask me about lots of other things I should absolutely know about, and I’ll be like, “ummmmm…”)

Other things I did included not telling people what for when they were mean to me, or not speaking up when someone offended me. Like the time I was at dinner with a friend and her husband and some of his friends, and one of them kept saying to his male friend, “OH, come on, you girl. What are you, a girl??” And what I wanted to say was, “Excuse me, but I didn’t realize being a girl was such a bad thing.” But I didn’t; I kept quiet.

I started mulling over this around New Year’s, and I kind of made a vague, half-assed resolution that had something to do with not being afraid to be myself and admit to who I am, but I never put it as plainly as I just did, and never wrote it down. So I figure I’ll write it down now, here, on the internet — the World Wide Web, if you will — so that y’all can hold me to it. This year, I am not going to apologize in words, actions or silence, for who I am, what I like, and what I don’t like. If something bothers me I am going to speak up, to friends, aquaintances, and strangers alike. Not that I’m going to go around shooting my mouth off hither and nigh when anything goes against my grain, but if I need to, I will.

I think it’s easy to mold yourself to the people you’re around. I know I do it a lot. I kind of become who they want me to be. And I’m going to try really hard not to do that anymore, because I am freaking awesome, just on my own, without molding myself to anything. So there!

And you know what else? I’m listening to Kelly Clarkson right now, and I love her! And, I love the buttered popcorn-flavored Jelly Bellies. I know that makes me a freak, but I don’t care; they are so tasty! Also, I’ve never read a lot of the books you have, because all I want to read is Harry Potter! HA! I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK! I LOVE HARRY POTTER AND WANT TO ATTEND HOGWARTS, AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

And tomorrow’s my birthday!

I have some adorable new sneakers that I’ve been wearing nonstop since I got them, but there’s one problem. The fabric on the inside of them is a nice fuzzy felt-y fabric. It feels delightful to the touch, but it grips my socks and tugs them down as soon as I start walking. I can’t go more than ten paces before I feel the heel of the sock slip down over the heel of my foot, and thus begins the quick progression of the sock, shimmying its way down until it forms a lumpy, uncomfortable sock mass right under my arch.

Also, I posted a blentry days and days ago, but lo and behold, it wasn’t posted after all! I could see it when I was signed into my WordPress account, so I assumed it was there, but it was tricking me. So I have re-added it for your enjoyment. Scroll down a couple blentries to “Linkies, Not Minkies,” and enjoy. My favorite link today is the Brick Testament one. Click on “The Law,” and read all of them. They are awesome. Once you click a picture, be sure to click the arrow in the upper right-hand corner of it to view the whole little story. Awesome.

When I was little my mom had a big cedar chest with many treasures inside. Many treasures, but the best by far were two mink stoles. And thinking about that now, I am horrified, but I LOVED them and called them minkies, and would beg her to take them out and let me wear them. There was a white one and a brown one. And they had little heads and little faces, real mink faces with fake little beady eyes, much like this one:

And you could clip their mouths to their tails to hold them around your shoulders. Yes, sir, super creepy, but I didn’t really get the whole concept of where fur comes from. I just thought they were cute little pets. Cute little dead pets. He is kind of cute, you have to admit. And, dead.

Well, that was a totally random story, and the only reason I mention it is because I had already decided to do a blentry with a bunch of my favorite links, and I wrote “linkies,” which led me to remember the minkies, and there you go.

So: Unlike the minks, these links were not killed and clipped mouth-to-tail for creepy ladies’ fashion. These are simply links I’ve bookmarked over the last few months that I think are neat: Because sometimes people who work in offices get bored. Really, really bored. And sometimes those people become so efficient at getting stuff done, including wasting time, that they blow their wad right off the bat, so to speak, and have nothing left to amuse themselves, and the day has just begun. As evidence of such problem, refer to this IM conversation between a coworker and me (myself?) yesterday:

[12:25] Me: btw, i’ve become so efficient at wasting time that even though i have done several releases today and have only been here for 4.5 hours, i have already posted a blentry, checked all my email, both work and personal, researched and made a handwritten list of various makeup items i must try on at Sephora, have read all my usual blogs, and have visited every sight on the internet.

[12:26] Co-worker: HAHAHAHAH

So: To combat such boredom, I present to you: The links!

The Brick Testament
Art Pad
Ian’s Shoelace Site
Anamorphic Drawings by Julian Beaver
Astounding!
Unusual Hotels of the World
Paper Cut
One Sentence
The Simple Dollar – Free Open Source Software

OK, I think this is enough for today. I still have more up my sleeve (or clinging lifelessly around my shoulders, if you will), so get excited.

Happy Friday, My Little Minks!

I hated writing papers in college, especially the dumb ones. I mean the ones with dumb topics that I cared nothing for. I always just wanted to write what I wanted to write, instead of using dumb college words and staying “on topic.” Sometimes a Spanish word seemed to work better in a sentence than anything I could think of in English, and I was so so so so tempted to include it that I would actually write it there, then grudgingly edit it out later.

In one especially dumb class I took Freshman year, a Communications class called “Environmental Advocacy” (Sounds cool, right? Wrong. That’s how they get you), they made the ridiculous mistake of letting us write GROUP papers. My friend Lauren and I wrote a paper together on animal testing for cosmetics (Side note: It is barbaric: They’re not just washing the bunnies’ hair — so go to here and look at what they do to bunnies, then go here to download lists of companies that do and do not test on animals). (Another side note: I hate S.C. Johnson (“A ‘Family’ Company”) with all the fiber of my being, because not only do they perform cruel atrocities on bunny rabbits, but they also have the most sexist, ridiculous commercials ever, with scores of dowdy women with horrible midwestern accents raving about all their housecleaning products. Do men ever clean? Of course not. Do women work outside the home or wear anything besides tapered kakhis and casual button-down shirts and loafers? Gee golly, next you’re going to suggest that women can vote!!! Just calm right on down and greab a handy Pledge wipe, don’tcha know!)

Anyway. So we wrote this group paper, and we kept finding ourselves using the same words over and over, prompting us to use the thesaurus, and we said, what if we just stuck any word from the thesaurus in place of the original word: I.E. we kept using the word “insert” in the context of “inserting chemicals into rabbits’ eyes.” One of the thesaurus’s replacements for “insert” was “thrust,” which of course we put in the paper like so: “This test involves thrusting chemicals into rabbits’ eyes.” In another place, after looking for synonyms for the word “stop,” we discussed various ways to motivate companies to “cease and desist” the unnecessary tests. It was hilarious, or at least we thought so.

On another paper, we had to invent a fake campaign and write about it. We had recently seen an episode of Veronica’s Closet in which Dan Cortese’s character, having already used the word “increase” too many times in their catalogue to describe push-up bras, made up the word “acribitz” (uh-CRIB-its) to use in their advertising. We made one slight adjustment: “acribit,” and based our campaign around it. We called it the Toxic Emissions Acribition Act, and that was the title of our paper. I believe acribit in our context actually meant decrease. If our law got passed, it would acribit toxic emissions by nearly 12%! When we got it back, the T.A. made no mention of the fact that the title of our paper and the campaign the whole paper discussed included the word “Acribition,” but instead just added a tiny red question mark next to the word “acribit” in one place. I think we got a B+ or something. Well, well worth it.

In conclusion, I love having a blog, because I can write whatever the hell fuck fart I want, and nobody gives me a bad grade. And I love the internet, which cannot be censored. Sure, some people might get offended or think it’s boring, but I’m not twisting anyone’s brazo to read it.

UPDATE: I have just heard from the aformentioned Lauren, who reminded me that throughout our animal testing paper we included made-up quotes from totally made-up people we “interviewed” at PETA and Proctor & Gamble, whom we named “Janice Bryan” (a loose interpretation of our high school chorus teacher’s name) and “Nancy Schaffner” (because we thought that sounded like a name we would not have made up).

Jay asked me to draw a unicorn on the cobb. His name is Johnny. l hope you like him.

In this blentry, I asked for requests and dedications, and Joanna wrote:

“I would like to dedicate a picture of two blond little girls in matching watermelon dresses to Childhood. Childhood, you’ve given me so many special memories. I will never forget the good times we had. Thank you for making me into the person I am today. Stay playful, stay innocent. Much Love, joanna ”

I’d like to add my own dedication: To long friendships that change with the seasons of our lives, but remain fresh, strong, and true forever.

Boy, it’s been far too long since I’ve posted a blentry. Lately I’ve had a bad case of blogger’s block. The ideas just aren’t a-flowin’ like they used to. I guess it’s because I’ve been keeping busy with my improv classes and whatnot.

I looked at my blog today and realized my blogroll has mysteriously disappeared. Wait, now it’s there. And now it’s not. What the… I vaguely remember noticing it was missing a while ago, then quickly forgetting again — So sorry to those of you that used to be on there and aren’t anymore, because nobody is, because there isn’t one. Or is there? I’ll try to figure out what the deal is and fix it as soon as I can, but I’m warning you, I am not great at code. I really should be using a free, “idiot-proof” blogging platform like I used to, but no, I got all over-acheiverly all over the place, and selfishly wanted my own domain name. How I ever managed to install WordPress in the first place I will never know, and how I even installed the theme that made it look pretty is another mystery. I’m real proud of myself for doing that all by myself, but we’ll see how I do with the whole “troubleshooting” thing.

Speaking of technology, the reason there have been no new photos in a while is a sad one indeed. My sister came to visit the other weekend, and we were walking on the Santa Monica pier and asked a stranger to take our picture. The stranger then dropped my camera right onto the pier, and the zoom lens got all bendy, and nothing works anymore. I took it to a camera repair shop who told me it will be $150 to fix it, which is $145 more than I had hoped, and I’m really unsure what to do, because I love that camera, but at the same time there were a couple small things I didn’t like about it, so maybe I should just get a new one. But I’m trying to be good and save money, something that, as a rule, I’m not very good at, because I like things, and doing things. So instead I’m doing nothing, awash in an all-too familiar sea of indecision.

Hey, I’ve got an idea! This will be new and unprecedented for this blog. I’ll take blopic requests! If there is a topic you’d like me to write about, please leave a comment, or email me, and I will write about it! (if I want to). Also, if you’d like a drawing of anything, please request that also, or instead. And if you’d like to dedicate it to someone, Casey Kasem style, include that as well. I’ll give you an example. “Marcy, I would like a blentry about socks. I would also like you to include a drawing of a toaster, and please dedicate the drawing to my neighbor, Martha Gentry.”

And, GO!

You may remember when I was stressing out about being on that new game show, Starface, and then how I went and sat around all day and didn’t even get on. Well, I went back and taped the episode, and it’s airing this Wednesday night, August 9, at 9:30 P.M. on GSN. BUT PLEASE check your local listings, because that might be the wrong time. Apparently it’s on an East Coast feed, whatever that means, so maybe it will come on at 6:30 on the West Coast? I’m not sure. Also, when I was checking my TiVo last night, I saw another show called Star Face, two words. I don’t know what that is, but it was on a different station, so make sure you search for the one that is ONE WORD: Starface.

I’m not going to tell you what happened, but I will say there is more to the story. Maybe this will make sense when you watch it; maybe not. I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say right now (I signed some scary lawyery forms saying I wouldn’t disclose the results, etc.) But anyway.

OH, and can I just say, What the H was up with my hair?! I NEVER wear it parted in the middle like that, but that day that is ALL it would do. UGH! I tried and tried to force my bangs into their usual sidesweeping motion, but they were not having it. So, while I may or may not have won that day, in the competition between my hair and me, the hair came out a clear winner.

Hope you enjoy the show! I haven’t seen it, so I hope I don’t regret telling you to watch!

P.S. Did I mention that Danny Bonaduce is the host? Yeah.

As much as I can shake my fist about current political problems here, reading this made me so thankful I live in a country with a constitution that protects free speech. India has banned access to all the blogs that use several popular blogging platforms, including Blogger and type pad. Apparently they did this because suspected villains used blogs to coordinate the recent Mumbai train bombings. (I love the word “villains.”)
Granted, the present regime in the U.S. has taken their power to a seriously annoying (and illegal) level by preying on fear, vis-a-vis all the listening in on private conversations, etc. (I also love the word “vis-a-vis.”) But at least we’re still clinging onto some form of checks and balances, and free speech for the most part still prevails. When all is said and done, the U.S.A. really is still the freeest (that can’t be the correct spelling, can it?) country in the world.

I spent all f-ing day sitting around waiting to tape Starface, and they didn’t even get to me. Now I have to go back another day! I’m just glad I wasn’t there even longer. I guess it could have been worse. As it is, I got an extra couple hours of free time, compared to my usual workday. Whatever. Now I’m at Jeff’s house by myself waiting for him to get off work, because he lives right around the corner from the studio and we’re going out to dinner tonight. I think I’m going to go downstairs and get some Famous Amos cookies! I know he has some, because his grandma always gives him ginormous bags of cookies from Costco. I love that woman. BTW, there were so many contestants today who talked about celeb gossip ALL DAY LONG. These people are obsessed, and are virtual wells of useless pop culture trivia. Useless unless you are trying to win a dream vacation on a game show about pop culture trivia! Blast!