it's the little things that get you through the day

this is what it looks like, when i work.

this is the cutest thing i've seen in 3 years.

i'm going to get it tattooed on me!! if i find a tattoo parlor magically in the next hour, in my office, before i forget about it, at least.

fyi, kurt wild is not his real name

A 22-year-old has been fired from a branch of sandwich chain Subway after a customer recognised him from his gay porn work and complained.

Kurt Wild, who has appeared for Freshmen and Buckshot, was employed in a restaurant near St Louis, Missouri.

He said in an email to BGay.com:

"A customer said they wouldn't even eat there at Subway anymore because of my past work and said that if I wasn't fired then they would boycott the store.

okay, so. how did this customer phrase this complaint, exactly? to put this into some form of context and really beat the obvious, i doubt i'd recognize a single person i've ever seen in pornography if they walked right up to me and asked to buy me a beer, much less just seeing them in a hideous subway uniform, making me a shitty sandwich. so...?

omg what

(seriously, what is with the palin pick? she undermines his experience platform, she's dumber than a bag of rocks, and she's a psychotic super-christian creationist who hates fags and abortionists so how is she gonna get those "hillary swing voters" again? this seems like a brett favre hail mary but no one is having fun out there, and no one looks like a kid.)

coincidence? or does this just not make any sense as a joke?

about ten seconds before the hillary clinton "tribute video"* came on, ross and i mentioned the kool aid man. i thought it was apt. is this funny or am i crazy?

* as i told ross, when you guys make me a tribute video, it better include "treatment bound" and none of this "are you gonna go my way?" shit that was in hillary's. also must involve hannah montana wig, a sam elliot impersonator, and i should be on fire, and riding a motorcycle. thanks in advance for doing this and not making me a lame tribute video.

and speaking of american heroes

please click the image above and read the whole thing. i know the adam schefter wiki is going to revert back to its boring form very soon and we need to keep this. for history's sake.

on environmentalism

the main thing that i fail to get about this ongoing saga about the supposedly environmentally-friendly wooden keys that do not work at the downtown sheraton is this: how in god's fucking name is creating entirely brand-new keys made out of formerly living trees, sustainable harvesting or no, somehow greener than just continuing to use the already-existing plastic cards that can be reused until the magnetic strip wears out, at which point they can be recycled?

anyone?

i hope the wizard of oz trees come and attack these people. it seems unlikely, but as i just said to alex, in a world where chromeo and daryl hall hang out and talk about the vineyards anything can happen.

we can be heroes, just for one day

crystalpepsi, originally uploaded by agent_skwrl.

thanks anders!

profiles in courage

anyone see the dude i just spotted on msnbc at the convention holding up the "bring back crystal pepsi" protest sign? we tried to screenshot it on our fancy computer television and APPARENTLY IT IS GOOD FOR NOTHING. anyone?

obama/chromeo '08

obama/chromeo '08, originally uploaded by allyzay.

brian is a hero to many, especially me, for creating this image.

corporate goth

“A co-worker might be afraid of you because they know that you’re goth, because of your face, or because you do strange things like play role-playing games and think you’re a vampire,” says Scurry. “People can get turned off by that in the workplace.”

uh, you think? what i don't get about this is the insistence on bringing up your personal shit at work. why on earth would you be telling your coworkers that you like role-playing games or that you think you are a vampire? i have a really impressive drinking hobby but you don't see me explaining it to all and sundry, and i work at time out! hell, kids, just shut up about being vampires and no one is going to get all in your business. it's a simple equation! you don't need a new job just cos you wanna be crazy, you need a new common sense.

is this what they do now instead of bleeping ppl?

if so i approve, but...what the hell?



just watch it through to the end. also -- do cats eat spaghetti?

never gets old

wow

30 is the new 12

this article on interviewing has some good (albeit completely common sense, "people have to be told this?") advice in it. however, i was completely mystified by this line: "If you were born in 1980 or later, expect some culture shock when you enter the workforce."

if you were born in 1980 and you still have yet to enter the workforce, you should be shot in the fucking face for wasting everyone's time and oxygen and basic life force. being born in 1980 would make you almost thirty. i should know, having been born in 1980! i've been in the workforce for 13 years. i mean, good god, what have you been doing with your time if you are just now entering the working classes?

go, go godzilla

this is pretty much the most epic thing i've ever seen in a comic.

zelda

zelda, originally uploaded by allyzay.

this is zelda. she is one of many german shepherds my family has had throughout my whole life. if i remember this all correctly, she was a couple-years-later replacement for roxy, who was given to people who owned a farm (FOR REAL, GUYS) because we lived in a small condo and the dog was too hyperactive--it was cruel to keep her there, she spent her days herding me, basically. when we moved to a larger place, we got another one.

a few years later (maybe less time? it's funny what years of drinking does to your memory, isn't it?), my mom comes across a german shepherd, actually from germany. he was a police dog who was being rejected from the force for being "too silly." that is a straight-up translated actual quote. so my mother, always with dollar signs in her eyes, takes him with hopes of producing adorable german shepherd puppies. i have serious misgivings with my mother's obsession with breeding dogs starting and ending with the word "overpopulation problem," but that's not really the point of this post so i'll just stop there.

anyway, multiple sexy time attempts later, my mom is informed by a dog gynocologist (how does one find themselves in this profession?) that zelda, who is nearly twice the size of a normal female shepherd and almost as large as the police dog, now named zeus, is not really a girl dog. she's a hermaphrodite!

my mother then exasperatedly purchased a different german shepherd, kali--a real lottery win for my dad, at this point, who loves shepherds and has now found himself with a veritable bonanza of them--only to quickly find out that kali is very much against the idea of sex with boys, and zeus is too interested in playing and acting like a kid out there (he gives piggy back rides to the smaller dogs, for real) to really force the issue. this brought a final end to the german shepherd breeding saga.

zelda was a very sweet dog who loved to have her photo taken and be cuddled and petted. she had a stroke two days ago, which made it hard for her to keep her head up, resulting in the constantly tipped, quizzical head she's sporting in the above picture. her condition got worse and she was put to sleep yesterday, the end. my dad and mom and two sisters took her picture a bunch of times and cuddled with her and fed her a hot dog (?? i don't know what this is about and don't care to ask, some kind of voodoo i'm assuming) and zelda always loved car rides so at least she went out pretty happy.

and of course my mom chooses this time to inform me that zeus will also have to be put down soon too, on account of him developing the infamous german shepherd hips. it's a wonderful week, everyone! zeus, enjoy the hot dogs, whatever that is even about, while you can.

really looking forward to pineapple express

See more James Franco videos at Funny or Die

james franco is pretty awesome, isn't he?

lying liars and the lies they tell

i was at dinner tonight and sat near us was a table with a flamboyant young gentleman and two very vacuous young hipster girls. this man did nothing but tell them outrageous, obvious lies, which they bought wholesale, no questions asked. this culminated to the point which this man was telling them that they stole a manatee from the georgetown zoo (i'm unclear if he meant the guyana zoo or the national zoo in d.c., since neither are actually called "georgetown zoo" -- i lean towards d.c., since he was talking of d.c. earlier, but later he was talking about the west african coast so who knows) and ate it.

it took a lot of control not to yell "bullshit" at this point.

so, you know, giving the guy the benefit of the doubt that somehow they stole a two-ton aquatic animal from a zoo and then figured out how to eat it at home, i kept my mouth shut, but a pretty exhaustive google search reveals i should've stuck with my instinct to yell "bullshit."

i just want to know how incredibly stupid those two girls had to be that they didn't ask a single question about this, or even really comment, beyond one of them lamenting, "you ate shamu!"

you know, shamu. the killer whale. from sea world. it's easy to see how one would confuse shamu with a manatee from either d.c. or guyana.

there are many days in which, ultimately, i desperately hate everyone in new york.

did i mention this young man had earlier claimed he and some friends had, very recently (meaning, in new york city somewhere), eaten a walrus?

"maybe if her sport was DRINKING, that would be appropriate"

you know, i'm still unsure as to why michael kors thought his drink-themed zings were very good zings at all on last night's episode of project runway. hearing the teaser where he yells, "where is she from? the republic of cocktails?" or whatever it is he exactly says, alex and i looked at each other and agreed, this was a dress we needed to see very much indeed.

this is the dress in question:



which, you might note, doesn't really look like a person from the republic of cocktails at all. it looks like a poorly made dress for girls who think they are betty page. something you'd buy from stop staring's website, perhaps. such a disappointment! tim gunn's zing of this outfit -- if it was a uniform for an olympics airline, he'd buy it -- is much better and apt, though really very meow meow, tim.

now this is an outfit that looks like someone whose sport is drinking:



and here is an outfit for someone whose olympic sport is being a virgin:


(this dowdy monstrosity got the designer kicked from the program, mercifully. she claims to be a surrealist designer. i really have no idea what she's talking about when she says this, and neither do you -- look at that image, and then perhaps look at the one directly above it, from another designer on the exact same television program, and wonder where this girl is getting her drugs. her boring drugs.)

of course, all three of these designers, along with cheroine and suede bluehawk, spend approximately 78% of their air time screaming and bitching and crying about how none of these challenges are "what [they] do." it's constant, unending, and without fail they all pull things out of their asses during these competitions that have fuck all to do with the assignment they were given. for example -- all of these outfits in this post are all supposed to be uniforms for the united states olympic team.

so, yes, obviously, you are going, "oh! of course! why didn't i see that?" ha ha, i'm just kidding, you're not thinking this at all. you're thinking, "oh...? ohhhhhhhh. huh." you might even have your hand on your cheek, thinking that you're concerned.

it's just infuriating to watch at this point. never before have there been such a crew of designers on this show so utterly inflexible, unwilling to bend their "style" at all. i can't stand to hear them say this, especially when "what [they] do" is such insane what-the-fuckery. what on earth did these five think they were getting into when they auditioned for project runway if not a series of wacky projects meant to challenge their stances as designers?

it's exhausting to watch, at times. i found myself looking forward to shear genius last night and worried for this season, basically. hopefully in a week or two, they'll have weeded out more idiots and things will get down to business, but honestly -- guys, just do your goddamned assignments.

then i wonder why i'm gaining so much weight

the jucy lucy, originally uploaded by allyzay.

this is so nasty, isn't it? oh well. i'm not sure there's been a less appealing photo of a food item ever taken. you're liable to murder yourself trying to eat this, since there's no controlling the squirting molten cheese, really. anyone who says there is a way to control it is a liar.

plenty more pix from the minneapolis trip here.

mystery solved!

my mom informs me that this is the chupacabra. when questioned as to why a chupacabra would be in montauk, she said, quite rationally, that it probably escaped from a shipment of goats going past long island.

so, everyone go home. nothing to see here!

sigh

does anyone here have any employment leads? side jobs, freelance jobs, actual real jobs...whatever. i can't bear working here anymore. i do a tremendous amount of work, significant portions of other people's work, suggestions i make are ignored or misunderstood so badly that i might as well have kept my mouth shut, the commute is pretty meh, and i'm underpaid by at least $8k. i just am not sure that some of these people have ever seen computers before, which is unfortunate since, you know, i do online stuff.

but no one is hiring. as much as i love getting called by people who then explicitly tell me that they're probably just going to hire from within, but need to advertise outside for legal reasons, it's kind of grating!

maybe i should just realize that 90% of the adult world goes to work on a daily basis and somehow those people do not become suicidal or homicidal...but then when i say that, i remember that 60% of the people i work with are doing maybe 2/3rds of their own jobs, tops. so, yeah.

blah blah blah, whatever, i guess. i think when i get back from minneapolis, i'm going to demand a raise. or i'll just stop coming in, which seems probably better for my psyche.

look what girls did to the internet

URGENT PONY NEWS!

DEVELOPING...

ok, i don't actually have any pony news, but when i do, or when you do, might i suggest using this new pony version of drudgesiren.gif?

yes, today is slow.

new american heroes, OR further advancements in bacon cups

so i've discovered a website selling a product called bacon salt. bacon salt is, apparently, a vegetarian, kosher-certified, zero calorie seasoning salt that tastes exactly like bacon! this is amazing. as one of the reviews on the site says, why would you settle for fries when you can have bacon fries? vegetarians and jews -- often noted by everyone else in the world for how much they're always bitching about how they wish they could just eat one piece of bacon already as if anyone is stopping them besides their own consciences -- can finally enjoy the great taste of bacon again, without the animal murder or the god fear!

so we're going to buy this product and have a tasting party, by which i mean, "we're going to get progressively drunk while putting bacon salt on every edible item we can get our hands on." i'm thinking of putting bacon salt on chocolate ice cream; bacon coke (either kind) and tomatoes (obviously?? why was this suggested?) are all on the board right now too. feel free to throw your own ideas in the comments! this is going to be an exciting labor day activity for all of us.

also, my favorite thing about the whole venture? the fact that it was apparently funded by a win on america's funniest home videos.

UPDATE: ok, my second favorite thing about the whole venture? the bacon salt lolcats that have sprung up around it.

it's just like an m. night shyamalan film

muppet face is sweeping the nation!

:D, originally uploaded by allyzay.

:D

thanks everyone who came to our party. there are more pix where this one came from, on the flickr. don't worry. the camera was only out briefly and most of you managed to avoid.

the worst outfit in the world

i saw a girl on the subway today wearing all of these items, together, at one time:

(except grey, not black)
(except more floral-y)

(top items tucked into pants. her pants also had weird seaming on them)
(except grey, i guess to theoretically "match" the hat)

she also had a giant blue rusted bike with a basket on front, and was of course dragging this onto the train during the tail end of rush hour. because she has just arrived, today, from the planet ork, and knows nothing of our earth customs.

seriously, i hope you read this, anonymous lady with the ridiculous outfit and the over-dyed black short hair and the strange sooty eye make-up (i'm certain that the combo of make-up and hair was meant to invoke the '20s, but the overall effect became a little more like "rejected extra from benny & joon"), because i'm certain none of your friends have told you yet how absolutely abhorrent you look today.

and even if you get offended and disagree and keep dressing like robin williams's drunken baby sister, at least keep your enormous fucking bike off the rush hour express trains.

thanks!!

get in the car!

i still haven't gotten this book, guys. just in case you were trying to figure out the best housewarming gift you could get.

"did you hear about that guy who tried to blow things up at the super bowl this year?"

my mom sent me an e-mail this morning, which contained only one line: "did you hear about that guy who tried to blow things up at the super bowl this year?" i naturally assumed this was a "tom brady, whatta crybaby!" joke but apparently it wasn't. after going back and forth for several e-mails about what a "big story" this was (during which it changed from blowing things up to shooting people) and how surprising it was i hadn't heard about it, without receiving an explanation or a link, i finally just said, "why don't you TELL me about this story?"

this is the e-mail i received in return:

Okay...[your sister] is going to a kick boxing class. It turns out [your junior high school best friend] is also going to this class. Supposedly she's a rather large girl these days! She told [your sister] she was even 70 lbs heavier at one point!!!!!
When she had her baby, she got sick with a form of like a rheumatoid arthritis. She was on all kinds of medicine including steroids, which pack the weight on. Well, she finally got it all under control and was feeling better so they had a second baby and it acted up all over again - so that's her story. She's still married to that guy (I can't remember his name) and they have two boys.
So [your sister] asked about [bf's sister]. HAHAHAHA Well [bf's sister] got pregnant when she was 17 - which we already knew. She didn't stay with that guy very long. She eventually hooked up with this other guy who is like 10-12 years older than her. They have two kids together so she has 3 now. Well this guy was trying to open a restaurant but Tempe wouldn't give him a liquor license to make it more of a bar. It was supposed to be called "Drunkensteins"

i guess all this impregnation makes sense, but that wasn't the type of "guy who blew things up at the super bowl" that i thought was meant.

pretty much the truth from what i remember

i should stop agreeing to go to these parties with alex. this account is missing the dramatic street readings of gessen's tour de force. i am excited to see those videos.

alex did indeed win those tickets to 80s night at webster hall -- anyone want them? hell if we're going to something like that. i was dragged there exactly once. we met two men who kept claiming to be sailors, but their stories kept changing as to where they were from, where they were docked, why they were even in new york so far after fleet week...so on and so forth. then some terrible person spilled a very weak girl drink (i want to say it was a sex on the beach, made very poorly) all over my dress. we heard "down under" four times because there was an australian bachelorette party in the crowd and, apparently, aussies are all stereotypes of aussies.

i would also like to add that all of the bartenderesses at merchant's need to be fired, yesterday. and their sangria? are you watering it down with o.j.? ban this sick stunt.

if the decision makers were better, they wouldn't be working here

dear maura,

yes. this week's cover is really gross looking. last week's cover, with the lady with spinach-encrusted teeth, was gross looking. you're also forgetting the cover from a few more weeks back -- the cheap eats issue -- which featured a woman's mouth salaciously licking some disgusting-looking sauce off a plate (sauce was also dripping on her hands, natch).

this is also the publication that keeps putting the exact same poorly written "how to be an internet star" article that julia allison wrote months ago on the front page of the website every time she's vaguely referenced by mainstream media. this is the same publisher that put an insanely glamour airbrushed to the point of unrecognizable photo of abigail breslin, who is something like 10 years old, on the cover of a magazine. these are the people who thought that a date with top chef's lisa fernandes was a prize! i mean, the list of offenses being committed here daily are very high indeed.

the apparently constant "we're 13-year-old boys" oral sex photography is really the least of the worries here.

still, it's fucking gross.

sincerely yours,
ally

ps hope to see you fridaysaturday (your writer doesn't know what day her own parties are, it seems)! let's dissect this cover in further disgusting detail.

UPDATE: tehresa, do you mean something like this?:

i think that's a good idea. we should recreate this trend for the party!

what the...?

ok, so i admit that i couldn't stop watching this because, seriously, what the...? that's all i can say about it. except for this: why is it that, starting with that idiotic snl rap, no one will call out all these retarded shorts natalie portman is constantly in for what they are: thinly-veiled hipster racism? i mean...seriously? is it just that i really don't like natalie portman (so shoot me, she's a terrible actress and she's in terrible movies, like the one where she lives in a wal-mart and has a baby and then samuel l. jackson shows up and fights dennis franz or whoever it was from nypd blue and it probably had, like, harry connick jr. in it, because he's just that type of dude and also we had to see ewan mcgregor's cock again and then that really unsexy strip tease that made clive owen look so vomitous? -- i hated that movie), or is it just kind of not really that funny for hip white new yorkers to just be openly and repeatedly ridiculing other cultures? do it in the privacy of your own home while blowing rails, guys. not on the public teevee.

this clip is really fucked up though, i mean because of the octopus thing mostly.

it's basically just pure nonsense that is amusing me at this junction in my life

when i see something like this, and i can't stop laughing at it, i start to wonder: am i turning into my mom?

ghosts of internet past

my mom re-sent this to me today. if you actually watch it through, everything you ever see again for the next 4 months will remind you of david hasselhoff, because everything that has ever existed in the world is in this video.

this fuckin cat

$2k is a very reasonable price for any suite of living room funiture

much less living room furniture formerly in james brown's house.

i heard the sharks have come back to martha's vineyard

a) that shark just roared like a goddamned lion
b) exploding shark!

MY MIND. BLOWN.

"that girl" is one of...THOSE girls

What is the most life-changing book you've ever read?

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Rand said things I’d never heard before. For a young girl who had just spent 12 years at Marymount here I was reading that there was no such thing as original sin! Wow. Rand also said something I have never forgotten: “It’s not the strong people of the world who will kill you. It’s the weak ones.”
By Marlo Thomas on 05/09/2008 9:43 am

seriously? what. the. fuck? more like "free to be me and you go fuck yourself already" amiright?


fyi, this is marlo thomas, and she is going to crush you, just btw

a touch of sadness on a friday

Alex: In what will be his first job since the blockbuster "Iron Man," Robert Downey Jr. is set to star in "Sherlock Holmes," the drama that Guy Ritchie will direct for Warner Bros.
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
;_;
me: ugh guy ritchie
Alex: i know
me: he's fucking TERRIBLE
he still gets work?
Alex: robert downie jr as sherlock holmes = a++++++++
but then
guy richie ;_;
me: yeah
it's like [REDACTED] hitting on some hot chick in a bar only to find out it is a transvestite
Alex: lolol
me: that is what that description is, to me. my personal transvestite

the greatest actor of our generation

<3 <3 <3 <3

every second of the night, i live another life

i had a dream last saturday night (i went to bed at like 4 am, so maybe i should say morning) that we were all in jail. it turns out that, in dreamland, jon williams had become a cocaine kingpin. the details were sketchy to me as to what exactly the rest of us did to get involved with this--were we his buyers? were we helping him run drugs? were we dealing?--but when the fuzz caught up with jon, he ratted us all out. it was basically everyone: alex, laurel, theresa, ross, bill, richard, somehow matos, so on and so forth. so, 25th hour-style, everyone decided to go to a nightclub and get really smashed on coke and booze prior to turning ourselves in at midnight to the jailers. amazingly, i was the voice of reason in all of this, trying to convince people that perhaps showing up high and drunk for our drug-related sentencing was not a great idea considering our predicament, but no one else agreed.

i'm thinking of this because alex just posted this thing about work dreams, and i remember very clearly that one of his arguments for partying it up was that "denton will come bail [him] out anyway" (apparently the rest of us could rot in hell for all dream alex cared).

why am i having dreams referencing someone else's work? why did i have this dream at all? in what world would jon have been able to become a drug lord? also, why were we all going to the same jail? i would've preferred to go to sexy ladies prison and had sexy lady time with my sexy lady friends, thank you very much.

anderson cougar

seriously, this cat looks like anderson cooper. this kitten is not my boo!

no olympics in nazi germany part ii

so apparently berlin has installed some kind of wacky gps-driven BERLIN WALL exhibit along the site of the former symbol for basically the entire cold war and a whole lot of awful shit for the people on the eastern side of it. the reason: tourists kept coming to berlin and asking where the hell the famous wall is.

things i would not ask when visiting berlin: "where is the wall?" because, unlike the rest of the western world apparently, i remember that it was torn down. are these people thinking of china?

what the fuck is wrong with everyone?

patriotism fail

i blame keith and his dog obsession for this.

"the fall hazzard"

i've decided to spend the last half-hourish of my day today not working, but rather fucking around with the tv show name mash-up generator whatever what a catchy name they've got here. here are the funniest. post your funniest in the comments! let's all make america a little less productive (see post below).

teenage mutant ninja guy
the king of criminal intent (this is actually a movie starring christopher walken)
the muppet dad
dance fatman
fantasy strokes (ok, so this one isn't a tv show per se)
scarecrow and people
married...with bear
diagnosis: comfort
my so-called men
dukes of miami
i dream of consequences (me too, my friend. me too)
everybody loves stooges
mama's men
csi: boss?
three's couple (i did that one time and it really, really wasn't what it was cracked up to be)
my mother the beaver
what i like about company
M*A*S*H you
doogie howser, hazzard
mystery science rider (hopefully starring nic cage and sam elliot)
the king of standing
return of the man from flipper
suddenly quest
diagnosis: ghost
space hulk (!!!!!!!! seriously, i would watch space hulk)
planet of the fatman (i have watched this, on discovery health)
the price is fire
judging theater
battlestar street
wheel of no deal
i love beaver
suddenly house
amazing incredible! (this is already on spike tv's "duty free television" segment)
you bet your anatomy
touched by house

BONUS FACT: i shit you not, one of the times i hit the "mash up" button it simply presented me with "family guy." commentary or coincidence? you be the judge!

you know, i went to public school too.

i know a great bar that is friendly to your children! it's called your house! stay there!

time out kids provides the world with a handy list of bars to diligently avoid whenever possible.

UPDATE: related news from the imdb forums!

everybody wang chung tonight

i need a new job.

material hurl

when i saw this image out of the corner of my eye while packing, i said out loud to alex, that it was the worst post headline i've seen in ages. "justify my glove"! god, honestly?

so, it comes to no surprise to me that it did not come from the professional punsters at the post that came up with the other day's "genius" "andy express" on the back page (honestly for everyone -- what does that even mean? is it a pun on pony express? is pettite delivering mail?), but rather from fucking deadspin.

seriously, there is not another site in the gawker media empire -- not jezebel, not io9, not jalopnik, not fleshbot -- that i would rather read less than deadspin.

"justify my glove"! justify my go fuck yourself! justify the fact that having a penis gets you a sports writer job while i was denied one! aggggh.

(ps madonna, a-rod? please tell me this is lies.)

why do i continue to hang out with you?

My Recent Ratings, originally uploaded by WIZARDISHUNGRY.

jon, your taste is smackable.

this would be funny except there are probably people who have sex with pasta, aren't there?

i'm glad it has a yelp page, just in case i want to eat there next time i'm in la!

"the art of war" really does come in handy during important WoW message board beefs

so, maura linked to this lifehacker-commenter-voted list of 25 books that changed their lives. granted, she did specifically use the words "awful" and "geeks" in her post linking to it but i guess i just wasn't really properly prepared for what was going to be on the other side. because, wow. i am starting to wonder if i actually understand the meaning of something changing my life, because i'm not actually sure how the hobbit or dune could've possibly changed the way any person ever looked at the actual world they lived in. excerpts from list:

* ayn rand: i'm not going to even acknowledge this. you are all out of junior high, right? maybe?
* the stranger (though i'm guessing at least half of the voters called it l'etranger)/george orwell's "collected works" (which is exactly 2 things, to lifehacker's editors): you are a very unique holden caufield.
* the hobbit and it's related gaiety:
* dune: "after years of eating bland meat-and-potatoes white folks food, i now use spices more liberally!"
* harry potter: "after years of jerking off to adult actresses who are actually naked, i now jerk off to emma watson photoshops!"

my recommendation for a life-changing book, btw, is the complete adventures of curious george.

I SAID MAAAYYYBEEEE YOU'RE GONNA BE THE ONE THAT SAAAVES MEEEE

one time, i came out of life cafe (bushwick edition) and was sitting outside smoking with alex after brunch and a group of three teenage gangstas walked by loudly singing "wonderwall." like, every word of it. verses and all that! i don't even remember all that. apparently they were ahead of the curve!

what does geir hongro think?

(via fek.tumblr.com

real talk with ned raggett

how is babby formed?


should we get drugs? (it's pride week) (no homo)


can i get your sister jaime's e-mail?"


why does kevin shields say "we want hen fap" in "what you want"?

best restaurant trip ever

i just wanted to publicly thank alex blagg for being the first person to actually send drinks to our table across a restaurant. i thought that only happened in movies but hey! dreams do come true. making the poor, confused waitress tell us that the beers were from "a mr. keith gessen" was a priceless touch. a++++ would've sent a drink back from "ms. julia allison" but you were on your way out.

i know alex already thanked you but seriously that was the most awesome thing a person could've ever done. short of, like, helping us unpack when we move (hint hint everyone else).

an insomniac's missive to the writing community

there's very few things i regret in my life, despite having many, many regrettable occurrances. i have no idea how to spell occurrances -- some writer, huh? the main thing i regret is never taking advantage of the offers i received when i was very young. i could've cowritten an (admittedly destined to be terrible urban outfitters kind of thing) book. i could've worked for the voice. i could've written for many publications, actually -- i was being courted. and i never did it. why? self confidence. greed. you make more money being a desk jockey. i got a lot of attention being a desk jockey, back then (real estate firms only hire ladies that can attract clients), but it was attention in a way that had limited pressure. you know? a mistake, avoiding real pressure.

so i guess that is why people like julia allison (who cannot write) and emily gould (who is a gifted writer) annoy me. emily more so than julia, even though julia's insipid columns are in my magazine and my webpage every week. because emily is talented. she has a gift for painting a picture.

but here's the thing. remember the old writer's adage, write what you know? do you guys--the emilys, the julias, the jakobs, the keiths, the me, the everyone honestly--know what you do not know? yourselves.

you do not know yourself. you possibly can never know yourself. so write what you know. book reviews, movie reviews, thinly veiled fiction, funny stories of the subway life---but stop writing about yourself. you gotta be about 70 until you actually know yourself, for real, and even then, my handful of years working in a nursing home tells me you might not even know. write what you know. write what you know right NOW.

you have no reason to trust me. i'm an anonymous person, signing checks with names that are not mine. but seriously, i'm asking everyone to trust me. you know your city. you know your friends. you know fashion, maybe? you know other books. you know your parents. you know booze. write about what you know.

when you're 70, and you have actually learned how to know yourself, THEN write about you. at that point, you'll be old enough that certainly something interesting has happened. until then, please stop trying. it's actually not worth your time. even gifted writers will be torn apart -- and it is because you are ignoring the golden rule of writing what you know, what actually speaks to you.

and now i drain a kitty's infected ear again. glamorous.

the correct word is...NIGHTMARE

i just wanted to point out that "evil guide dog" is now hosted here.

the world's cutest robot is harrison ford anyway

why does slate have two separate references to r2d2 on its front page today? who is writing these headlines and blurbs? an 8-year-old boy?

i'm goin insane/startin the hurricane/releasin pain/lettin you know that you can't gain/i MAINTAIN

it's friday, so why not have a cute cat video?


Muhammad "The Cat" Ali - Watch more free videos

i want to take his face...OFF!

have i drank too many sodas today? the no-faced blogging cat has grown on me to the point that i now think it's cute. it's like, i felt so guilty over my initial repulsion over seeing a kitty with a skeletor face that my mind forced itself to go as far possible in the other direction as possible. now i want to hug it, and pet it. i mean, it seems like a very sweet little kitty; she and her owner do therapy work with disfigured humans which is a bonus nicety. it just is missing a very, very important part of a kitty: the face part.

honestly, i don't even understand what kind of accident could occur that would even do this. how did chase lose just her little face? i'm imagining a horrible run-in with john travolta, before he settled on taking nicolas cage's face instead.

(oh, and you can all thank me later for not actually posting her picture here. as much as i've decided she is fascinatingly cute, i'm pretty sure the rest of you would still be highly disgusted. here is a billy idol video, instead, courtesy of brian)

and if pens misspell words, what happens in soviet russia?

this guy is the bomb, straight up, and you know it.

help me understand: "elf"

i am so spending this evening's packing, as if we're even going to get around to it, referring to alex as an elf whenever i can remember to do so. i love it when other people provide me with spectacularly ridonkulous insults that i never would've even dreamed of saying to another person on my own.

update: WELL I'M DONE FOR THE DAY.

random thought

as shocking as the rolling stone piece about amy winehouse might be to some (who? people unfamiliar with amy winehouse? people who have never been addicts? i don't really know, but i'm certain someone will be shocked), it just seems like it would be easier to hammer home the condition of this poor girl by pointing out that this used to be amy winehouse. you don't need a lengthy article, really.

this is lake directory, calling party barge

meowrson welles says: the astute people at serious eats have put together a handy-dandy guide to figuring out all of the ways to utilize the free seafaring transportation to the new red hook ikea to not go to ikea, as the driver must expect the utilizers to be doing, but instead do other things, like procure delicious tacos! in light of this, i've decided to come out of retirement to design a day for you, the lovely reader.

1) your day will begin at zaitzeff on nassau street in the financial district. while i have not yet had the pleasure of eating a burger here, i have heard many tales of their deliciousness. after your decadently meaty lunch, you will roll your newly portly self down to the ferry terminal south of the wall street subway stop.
2) you will then board the ikea ferry. please be sure to make pirate sounds! long-time readers might recall how much i love ferries.
3) when you disembark, perhaps stop in the ikea. i hear it has a ball pit! perfect for burning off the remainder of that burger.
4) now that you're done being childish in the ikea, head east a few blocks to the red hook ball fields and re-energize with delicious tacos and pupusas! we have to get our reserves back up properly if we want to engage in our final step.
5) walk back west a few blocks to sunny's, the greatest bar on earth, and throw back a few cheap, cold beers on the waterfront while listening to ancient men play bluegrass. you've earned it, after all this activity!

today i didn't even have to use my AK, i got to say it was a good day

sammy, the stray i'm "fostering," had developed a strange lump on her head. it looked like a bug bite initially, but kept getting bigger and bigger, until it was golf ball sized the other night. in a surprising move on god's part, as soon as i said the words, "i will definitely take her to the vet, that isn't a bug bite or a knock on the head," the cat proceeded to scratch the thing open and leak a delightful mixture of pus and blood everywhere.

now, i've had a pile of cats and dogs throughout my life, and while this is a disgusting thing to have occur, it's actually an okay thing--once the wound is reopened, it can drain. the problem was, sammy, normally a very sweet little thing, was very bothered by anything we used to try to help clean the wound. she continued to make the injury worse, so after a bit over 24 hours of this, i took her to the vet.

the veterinary saga began on the j train on the way home. i probably should've taken this odd occurence as a sign of more ridiculousness to come (usually it piles on). a teenage girl wandered in, straight up wearing a prom dress. at 1 pm. she also had mussed up make-up and hair going on, and looked a bit sleep deprived. i texted some friends inquiring if this was the worst walk of shame they'd ever heard of; richard said no. using more delicate terms than he did, the prom dress as a modern day equivalent to bloody sheets hanging out the matrimonial window seemed an exciting prospect.

i put this out of my mind and go to collect the poor cat. the first driver (what, did you think i was going to haul a caged, injured cat all the way to williamsburg on the train? and then walk to grand from the j? in 85 degree heat?) refused to take me because of the cat, because he was afraid of cats. even, i guess, caged ones. the second driver was very helpful: he opened the door for me, chatted a bit, and really went out of his way to get to the animal hospital quickly. At which point, he leaned over and gave me his telephone number in case i wanted to "hang out." if i call and his wife answers, i'm to hang up the phone immediately.

inside the vet's office, there is a tiny black fluffy dog which is pooping styrofoam. i will say no more about this other than i saw it do it. "styrofoam" is not a metaphor here.

sammy is now at the vet's office overnight. apparently the bump on her head was a bite that didn't heal properly, from before we took her in last week, and got worse (possibly because we introduced the concept of cat litter into her life shortly after she received the bite). as it turns out, this bite was most likely given to her by her boyfriend (in the words of the strangely antonio banderasesque vet). while he was impregnanting sammy. did you know that kitties can get abortions? i didn't, but now i do! thankfully, the vet decided to not charge me for some services, and give me breaks for others. suave method of flirtation or genuine sympathy for the dumb blonde who couldn't even tell her stupid stray foster cat was pregnant? you be the judge.

leaving the cat there overnight allowed me another chance to ride on the subway. sitting across from me was a person who i initially thought was male, wearing a t-shirt that said "i hate crooked cops." this sentiment was illustrated with a picture of a smurf.

all of this before 4pm! excitement never ends. i'll let ice cube express my opinion of today; he does so more eloquently and succinctly than i (obviously) can.

an e-mailed hello from my mom to all of you

(i basically imagine this is tuomas?)

"Parmesan [...] might be just a hair too serious for the occasion."

in the interest of being a better, more helpful person, i'd like to translate the 12 steps to pasta salad in this 600ish-word slate article that i'm sure the author actually was paid to write, because i know many of my readers are not culinary masters and really could use the art of making pasta salad broken down into plain, working-man's english.

1. people who are making their own pasta from scratch are not reading this article. so just use regular noodles that you find wherever! don't cook them too much--if you are wandering off to do blow or smoke cigarettes you're just going to screw this up. why are you even trying to do this?
2. much like a regular salad, you want to put some oil in your dressing. for those of you who have failed common sense 101, butter gets harder when it's cold so don't melt that and put it in your pasta salad.
3. store-bought filled pasta is gross. don't buy it. i don't care how hungover you are.
4. the types of pasta you do want to use are noodles, pasta, noodles, pasta, and pasta. ha ha ha! let's be serious here. anything but a long noodle. unless you're making an asian pasta salad! oh god, just give up now. you have no idea what is going on, do you?
5. mayo is gross, you big fatty. don't glob it on top of a bunch of noodles. you might as well top it off with some frosted flakes and some weed if you're just going to do that! (note: all bets are off if you are adding lobster to your salad; lobster is very classy so it offsets how white trash and disgusting you are, lobbing mayo all over linguine like a common retard.)
6. when i said mayo was off-limits, you totally thought to put ranch dressing on instead, weren't you? plebeian. what kind of pasta salad are you even making?
7. please, please, stop trying to use vegetables to be "festive" without giving any thought to how you are using them. peppers are not confetti!
8. hey, you know what you should actually consider doing? seasoning your sauces. i mean, you don't have to. it's not like you'd even be able to tell the difference, you mayonnaise-guzzling freak.
9. this one's a little out there: have you considered...cheese?
10. here's another weird one: ever consider putting some kind of flavorful meat or assertive vegetable in your salad?
11. oh, hey, don't, like, let it just sit around. it might get weird, or bugs might sit on it. you should eat it at some point. except that you've probably made this complicated, sophisticated dish all wrong, so maybe you should just throw it out at this point.
12. profit!

boredom and television

i saw a commercial last night with a woman who had decorated her entire house in polka dots, only wore polka dots, had furniture that featured cut-out circles to mime polka dots, had a spotted dog, so on and so forth who then went completely insane ocd about a small spill in her oven, stating that she doesn't want spots everywhere.

so i got rid of them on my webpage, because i hated that woman very much.

YSI? the follow-up

thanks to ross, i can now share "hawaiian sophie" with you.



please just wait for it. you'll figure out why you are being made to watch this pretty quickly into the video.

welfare prices

i'm disappointed this does not include an area code. i am very interested in trying to contact this person. very interested.

YSI?

so i'm searching for the video to the song "hawaiian sophie" by a rapper named jaz. this came on vh1 soul earlier and i really, really need to show this to all of you. help? it's not on youtube.

"WHY IS HE WEARING THAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, HE IS THE 'IRON MAN'? WHY IS THAT HAPPENING? OHH, THOSE ARE THE BAD GUYS. BUT I THOUGHT HE WAS A GOOD GUY?"

time out has a feature in which it publishes random write-in rants from new yorkers. often times, these are really obnoxious! this is because most people in new york city are awful, entitled whores with nothing better to do than complain about how nothing ever works exactly the way they want it to for themselves, personally, yours truly included (see: the rest of this internet blog post). however, something about this one really just took the cake for me today.

to sum up, this elderly, upper east side lady doesn't want to pay the full price ($12) that everyone else pays for her movie ticket. she also claims that she overheard a "rough-looking man" effectively taunting the seniors and children being charged full price, conspiring over the phone about how he is going to screw the old ladies and the children, and possibly hit them with hot pokers, or something.

first of all, there is no way in hell this crazy, bitter old bitch actually heard anyone on earth say this. not even in the most ridiculous "please buy sattelite tv because cable companies say evil things in the boardroom!" advertisements on tv do you see a business proprietor say anything like that. she is an insane, addled liar and should be shunned from society.

secondly, why on earth should the elderly and the under-12s get breaks on every goddamned thing? they take up just as much space in a movie theater, and quite frankly, they are far, far more likely to ruin the enjoyment of a perfectly good movie for everyone else. raise your hands, people who have sincerely wanted to punch a poor little old lady for incessantly questioning the movie you are watching, loudly, at her deaf husband? raise your hands, people who die a little inside every time something awesome is only showing at the film forum, the place where million-year-old new yorkers go to die, slowly, while glaring at "children" (n.b.: this means anyone under the age of 80) for not understanding "art"? i've also, as we all have, been treated to screaming, terrified, crying children who really, really, really should've been left at home during mommy and daddy's date to go see american psycho. children and old people should be charged more*, for the sheer inconvenience they cause everyone else in the theater.

do we not have editors anymore at tony? was this just published in the magazine for laughs, much like the inexplicable continued publication of julia allison's rants about how much everyone else, especially men, is mean to her, and also btw she does not drink ever even though she brings this up weeklydating column? no-one had a better complaint this week in a city of awful, incessant complainers? i know a lot of people have quit and been fired recently but, standards, we should have them. maybe.

* exceptions to this rule: children's movies and, um, i dunno, what is marketed to old people? cocoon? hell if i know, but whatever that is, old people should be allowed to see it for free to keep them out of movies that i wish to see.

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE WOOKIEES

when i have my baby, 9 months from friday, it will only ever be allowed to wear this outfit above. also, its name is going to be pasta!

and it will be taken away very quickly by child protective services, i assume.

last i heard, scott norwood is a real estate agent in florida now.

here's a clip of my secret boyfriend performing at tim russert's funeral. dear bills: win more than a couple games next season? for the big guy, c'mon. ok thx in advance.

poppa been smooth since the days of underoos

so we're going to have a competition. find a t-shirt that makes less sense than this, and is also at least as awesome as this, and i will purchase you a dinner at dumont (anything you want, even the pricey skate though you know you're just gonna pick the burger).

i've decided that i love him

Make your own Glitter Graphics

help me save this adorable kitty!

sammy 2, originally uploaded by allyzay.

some of you have heard this already, but i have been adopted by a stray kitten. i've taken to calling her sammy. she's about 6 months old, very friendly, sweet, cuddly, and extremely cute (see above). in fact, i love her.

now, unfortunately, i live with a person who is mildly allergic to cats. alex likes cats and puts up very nicely with not being able to breathe around mr. kitty and stephen meowlkmus, but it's pretty clear that adopting a third kitty would be a major offense. not only that, but having three cats is kind of bordering on crazy-substitute-for-children-cat-lady behavior. sammy is extremely friendly and seems to desperately want to be an owned kitty (she doesn't seem to be the most streetwise of street cats, what with the living on my stoop, waiting for me to give her food angle she's taken), i just cannot own her.

i've been trying to give sammy to keith gessen (he seems like he could use a buddy these days), but he hasn't responded yet. so, this is where you, the viewing public come in. you can either A) find me mr. gessen so he can TAKE BACK THE STRAYS or B) help me find an owner who isn't mr. gessen! like yourself, or your loved ones!

please? just look at it! you want it.

update!: sammy is now on gawker! i have a bad feeling that no one is looking beyond keith gessen's pout and seeing the real victim here, namely this homeless kitty!

"the original wingman"

wookie knot, originally uploaded by allyzay.

i just felt like getting this out to people besides those who are my flickr friends. seriously, what is up with this knot? it looks exactly like chewbacca the wookiee (note: yes, i did spell that word "correctly" and yes, i am a giant nerd but it's not like i watch battlestar galactica or babylon 5 something, ok? star wars is a very popular film franchise and i am a literate human being who likes to learn how to write things properly, so get the hell off my ass).

picture taken at the dearly departed temperance hall in washington, d.c. temp hall was a delightful, awesome bar with two jukeboxes, one internet, one old school, both very well curated; an amazing bartender who made awesome old fashioned mixed drinks; an enormous selection of whiskeys (mainly rye, i feel like); and pretty good food. not to mention a nice atmosphere, what with the outdoor patio and the downstairs and the tin-roofed, tiffany-lamped upstairs.

so, of course, being that this establishment was in washington, d.c., it has been shuttered and replaced with a wonderland clone. well done, "scene."

i do believe this knot is still there.

happy birthday, prince!

SCENE: two people lying on a sofa, suffering from heatstroke, watching vh1 soul. music video for "controversy" comes on.

ally: why do they make him dress like that?
alex: because he's doctor fink.
ally: no, but why?
alex: out of everyone on stage, you're questioning his outfit?
ally: there comes a point during the prince weekend that you just stop questioning whatever the new power generation or the revolution are wearing!
alex: ok, but doctor fink is at least dressed in a recognizable costume!
ally: well...i mean, the revolution is a costume i find pretty fucking recognizable.
alex: "oh how cute! what are you kids dressed as?" "the revolution!"
ally: oh my god, we should totally do that on halloween.
alex: ok, but i'm calling it right now. i'm calling being doctor fink.

(this is the portion of the post where i'd post a prince video for you to enjoy in honor of the man's 50th birthday but apparently he's not a fan of keeping his videos on youtube so here is "summertime" by dj jazzy jeff & the fresh prince instead. HOPE YOU LIKE IT, PRINCE :D :D :D )

just like romeo & juliet

when i was 19, i had this boyfriend who just wasn't really a guy who seemed to get hints. like, he just kind of came with me to my new (studio) apartment and decided that i wanted him to live there. since i was basically constantly drunk and/or high, i let it be. but we hated each other, very, very much. the kind of hatred in which we got into an argument so he picked up my christmas tree and threw it on the ground (decorated!) and then i hauled off and punched him straight in the face. most people would've predicted this kind of animosity, considering he was a person who did not drink, smoke, or really do much of anything (or approve of doing anything) besides listening to the magnetic fields, and i was what one might've called "a girl about town."

well, anyway, after the christmas tree punching episode, he moved out of the apartment that i'm not sure he was actually living in, back to his parents' house, presumably. but he kept showing up! for months and months, behaving like he was my boyfriend, even though we had broken up. often, particularly when around female coworkers of his that he wanted to ask out, he would admit that he was not my boyfriend, but then it would go to hell because i'd go to dinner with my friend dan who was visiting from boston and my "boyfriend" would accuse dan of hitting on me and we'd be back to square one. considering that my house was usually full of people who were not supposed to be living there yet would not leave, i didn't really fuss about it, but we were all very confused. he was still coming around, even after i had very obviously started dating someone else. after a while, we all just reckoned that he really enjoyed being openly and cruelly ridiculed by drunken 19 year olds (he was slightly older). eventually he just stopped coming round, and no one thought of him again, other than occasionally saying, "oh my god, do you remember that guy?" and laughing.

and that is what hillary clinton reminds me of.