I really kinda hate it when people make up these weird “awareness” weeks like “National Wear Your Pants on Your Head Day” or “Foot Growth Awareness Week.” I mean, yeah, I see your growth and I am VERY aware of it, THANK YOU.

I think the only “National [blah blah] Day” I was ever excited for was “National No Pants Day” and that was because I hate winter and along with pants I hate wearing shoes and by May it’s usually warm enough to put on sandals too. And no, before you ask, I was no one to run around in my skivvies, it would just give me an excuse to wear shorts.

I digress. If you feel the need to be aware of or celebrate your procrastination, then by all means, please celebrate your holiday. I on the other hand will continue to be less procrastinative (“uh, I don’t think that’s a word, Rachel!”) and continue to use the Pomodoro Technique, but that discussion is for another blog post at a later time.

Corollary: After reviewing some comments on this post, I failed to mention my affinity for “International Talk Like a Pirate Day.” How could I have forgotten this? It’s on my fricken birthday. I have then come to the conclusion that I am fine with “National Whatever” days but if I have to be “aware” for any extended time, I go batty. I can only take my insanity in small, bite-sized pieces.

I did the most marvelous, outstanding, PERFECT even parallel parking job last night when I went to go pick up take out because I was too tired to make my own food. I had just done a U-turn at the light and approached the local Italian eatery in my town. I scoped out that there was exactly one street parking spot left in front of the building and decided to go for it.

I lined up my car parallel to the one next to me, turn my wheel hard to the right and back up until I was at 30 degree to the curb, straightened the wheel and slid smoothly into the parking spot. I only needed to move forward a foot or so to bring me into the most perfect spot ever to be seen by human eyes. I was exactly flush with the curb and equidistant in length between the two cars in front and behind me. The women who were parked behind me shortly exited the restaurant just as I was stepping out of my car and admiring my work. I can only guess that they decided to come out and say to themselves, “holy shit, she just parked a perfect parallel park!” I know, I know, ladies. No autographs, please!

Now, this might seem like a small feat to some but let me assure you, I am usually a horrendous parallel parker.

When I was just learning to drive at 16, my family took a trip to the Cape in Massachusetts. I was driving my father’s boat, a 1999 Lexus, and we had to parallel park on the left side of the street in order to get out and see a landmark we had been looking for. I was at the wheel and my father was my co-pilot directing me for landing.

Somewhere along the line, wires crossed, aliens attacked, didn’t know my left from right, etc but I ended up with the butt of the car on the curb and the nose of the car pointed out into traffic – a perfect PERPENDICULAR park in a parallel parking space. Other automobiles were honking and my mother covered her face and slowly sinked into the back seat. Suffice it to say, that day will live down in infamy and family and friends still remind me of it to this day.

This story is just a testament that yes, dreams do come true.

Contemplating the finer points of life

Nothing is better than something that is free. Well, I guess a free punch in the face isn’t that great, but it does give you an awesome free story to tell people.

“Yeah, I was just standing there and I got a free punch in the face!”

“A free punch in the face? Whoa! Usually you gotta DO something to get one of those.”

“Yeah, I know, riiight?!?!”

I got a mailing a few months ago about this “wonderful” service full of free coupons and la dee daa, you get a free iPod shuffle if you sign up, right now, like RIGHT NOW. I’m sure it’s a scam. They charge $24.99 for this service for great deals at salons and crap. But, you know what? You only live once and I wanted that damn free iPod shuffle.

I have limited active memory capacity so I immediately forgot about it when I sent the form off in the mail for it. So imagine my surprise when I opened this mysterious envelope 6 weeks later and a beautiful new iPod shuffle tumbled out onto the kitchen counter. SQUEAL! It’s JUST LIKE MY BIRTHDAY.

I got to work this morning and I held this magical package containing the iPod shuffle for a few moments, basking in its wonderful glow. When I awoke from my stupor some minutes later I opened its plastic shell case and the angels from the heavens sang their glorious praises upon the heavenly device.

I immediately launched my MacBook Pro and carefully tried to steady my hands as I plugged the delicate clip into its polished stand and the usb connecter into the laptop. iTunes SPRANG to life and alerted me of celebrated new device connected. I hurriedly entered some minor details and watched in awe as my new iPod shuffle filled with 161 songs of bliss.

After 5 minutes of anticipation, I detached the iPod Shuffle from its mechanical throne, plugged in ear buds and took a deep breath. The pure sound emanating from the ear buds just might kill me if I am not careful. Fully prepared, I clicked the “play” button and waited. Nothing. Nope. Nothing.

Wondering if my ears were not pure enough to comprehend the mighty promised music from the Shuffle, I almost began to cry and then I noticed the small “OFF” switch. Delighted, I flipped the switch and attempted the button again. At once, the mighty music played! Joy filled the office and my co-workers bowed down to the trophy I had brought upon them.

I am quite sure that my life will only be better thanks to the free 1GB iPod Shuffle I was gifted. No longer will I live life wondering “what might have been.”

I’m trying to write a site game going on another domain http://landofrhul.com and also I write silly fantasy stories on the side about this fantasy world I’ve created. To keep my mind somewhat organized in what I’ve created as dogma, I keep a wiki of concepts, characters… etc. The only wiki I’ve ever been somewhat pleased in was MediaWiki. If you’ve ever tried to dance with this beast, I am sure you will agree with me that it is a very ugly girlfriend and you wish you never looked under that hood.

Anyway, I haven’t really found anything I liked better so a while ago (I’m talking years) I installed it on my DreamHost server and tried to use their one click install robot to maintain it for me to try to keep what little sanity I have left.

Short story, that robot suck balls because after a few updates the actual site was unreachable because the database and code got un-synced and the shit just hit the fan and I was graduating last year and I just didn’t feel like dealing with that mess.

Actual photo of scene

Today I finally spent a little time while eating lunch and was able to recover some of the data from the RhulWiki. Thankfully, I found an old version of MediaWiki, installed it, and loaded it with the old database and it seems everything is intact or semi intact. (Good news for me.) I have a bunch of information up about individual species and that’s kind of the primary source of information for a bunch of stories and stuff.

Whew. I hate MediaWiki but it’s kind of a necessary evil for what I want to do, I really needed a decent wiki to draft information on stuff I was writing. Now I gotta move the old pages to the new database I set up with the most recent software. I don’t know if I’ll ever update the software again after this mess.

An ugly cupcake enacts his revenge.

I thought I’d write a short post on a very awesome web comic. I first heard about Kawaii Not from a present for my last birthday.

Do you like cute? Are you sure you like cute? Do you like sick humor? Do you like cute things with sick, twisted humor? Then you’ll love Kawaii Not!

One of my favorites...

Kawaii Not started off as a webcomic done by Meghan Murphy who does some neat-o looking vector graphic-y artwork. It involves everyday objects anthropomorphized into cute objects doing sometimes innocent, sometimes grotesque, things.

In 2008 she compiled together 100 of the strips and included them in her book, Kawaii Not: Cute Gone Bad.

So check out her site and let me know which perverted cute object story is your favorite.

Harry and Pepper are no longer on speaking terms. Photo: CBSNews.com

OH NO. Stop the presses! Mother Nature has pitched us another curve ball.

Just when the world was getting comfortable to the idea that homosexuality indeed DOES exist in nature and that it wasn’t just some fluke that humans made up, the world’s favorite pair of gay penguins have apparently BROKEN UP.

Pepper and Harry were in a loving relationship for 6 years at the San Francisco Zoo’s “Penguin Island” and were even given an abandoned egg to hatch, nurture and raise together. Known to take long walks by the water side and spend hours gazing into each other’s eyes while preening, they were the epitome of happiness and a favorite among zoo guests.

This all changed after a secret chance meeting with a recent window, Linda. After her mate, Fig, died earlier this year, Linda quickly set her sights on the unsuspecting Harry.

Harry’s conflicted heart drove him to attend a Christian homosexual recovery camp and overcome his “homosexual desires” to return to a sinless life. He returned to the burrow he shared with his mate of 6 years and emotionlessly stated that their relationship was over.

A violent confrontation among the love triangle proved to me emotional and stinging, a triumphant home-wrecker waddled off with Harry and a wounded Pepper was left with an empty burrow, and heart.

1. When I was a baby, my father was trying to administer to my behind *cough* and I was wiggling around a lot. In order to complete the task he bent my body in half and I threw up red gunk all over the place. He thought I threw up blood and started screaming thinking he broke the baby. When in fact, my mother had just fed me red jell-o earlier in the day!
2. I once drove to Boston from New York just to say “hi” to a friend and then drove all the way back home.
3. To try and win tickets to a concert “back in the day,” I video taped myself singing to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” dressed up like a stereotypical chick from the 80s with huge crimped hair. Suffice it to say, I didn’t win the tickets and the video has been buried forever and you will never see it! MUAHAHA.
4. I love my tiny car. Once I had to fit it in a tiny parking space at the train station and had to contort my body in different ways to get out of the car. But, it fit!
5. My father gets the best ideas. We had a little red wagon that my parents used to cart us around when we went to amusement parks and on various trips. We’re talking smaller than a sled, on wheels. When we moved, our new house had a very steep concrete drive way. He put me in the sled and said “this will be fun!” and gave me a push down the drive way. My mother happened to be standing at the front window over looking the street, and was witness to my dramatic descent down the drive way and inevitable propulsion from the wagon to  the ground below. Let’s just say she had a few choice words for my dad.

That was fun. Enjoy!

The agreement whittles down to this:

When anyone adds a new post to their blog, above and beyond whatever post debt they may have accrued, all others will endeavor to update their blog within 24 hours of the initial post. Auto-generated posts pulling from twitter do not count towards the agreement. Leniency will be provided in case something comes up of course, but try to do your best to be prompt. Failure to update without good reason may result in us calling you names or insulting your mother. You have been warned.

The Victims

Belynda Cianci of Dimestore Romance,
Dave Halperin of Thought Alarm,
Ian Muller of Aberro Specus,
Tom Quinn of Time With Tom,
Brandon Schory of Extant Musings
…and Jaco Vermeulen of Jaco’s Random Writings

We’ll see how long THIS lasts.