February 2007 Archives
I'm so glad I finally made a game where people got all the answers right! Here they are for you anyway, for the official count. And also in case the people whose pictures I used ever find this site and are all, "Flickr clearly states you have to link back to all pictures you use, bitch." I love these pictures. If you want to have some fun, pop random pairs of words into Flickr's search engine and see what turns up. This makes me wish I actually used the tag function more creatively, or at all really. I like to think I make up for it by putting all my pictures in neat little sets.
Answers:
A. Cat, tortilla (I was hoping to throw some of you off with searches for "cat, pancake" or something, which would have been awesome, by the way.
B. Doll, button
C. Dancing duck (this one came up on the first page when I created it, but now doesn't seem to come up there at all. Uh...good job anyway! This one was tricky, but I thought it was too funny to pass up. Because the duck is totally dancing.)
E. Purple cake (though you guys found it with "teacup cake," which also works)
I sorta loved doing this last game, but internet searches are my kind of fun. Maybe I should make that a bullet point on my resume: enjoy Googling.
This weekend a bunch of us went to Artopia, which is supposed to be a giant art-based show in a club setting, but was mostly a bunch of alcohol sponsors spread out over four floors handing out tiny shots. Yes, there was some art, and we saw a couple fashion shows, and there were some bands in the basement, but the highlights of the evening were definitely figuring out which sponsors had the best swag and then figuring out if they'd notice if we doubled back an hour later (Bailey's, no).
Around 11pm, the sponsors started dispersing, at which point, they were looking the other way while people unloaded as much free stuff from their free stuff tables as possible. A couple of our friends came back with armloads of cigars and were positively giddy with the wealth of it all. Given that they don't smoke, and none of our friends there smoked, they were left with the task of then getting rid of all them in some sort of creative fashion. (These are the same friends who came across an abandoned soda fountain on a baseball field in high school and, after drinking their fill of soda but being loathe to leave a bunch of free soda sitting there doing nothing, filled a cooler with all the soda it could hold and went to another friend's house to trick him into exiting his house. Whereupon they dumped the cooler of soda on him. They got to reminiscing about this last month and got into excited talks about tracking down that friend--who is now in Brazil--and dumping another cooler of soda on him).
They worked themselves up into some sort of Italian stereotype/Borat-inspired mode and went around yelling at the top of their lungs, "For the baby-making! You smoke this now! He make for the baby!" and variations on that theme, while tossing cigars at people. Eventually body movements were added into the mix and soon they were mimicking the action of pulling a baby out of one's nether regions while yelling, and then tossing the cigars.
It was unclear whether the people lined up outside the club thought that they worked for the cigar company, but they didn't care. They were like a pack of ravenous cigar-eating animals who hadn't feasted in weeks. You would have thought they were throwing out packs of money or locks of Britney's hair or something.
So, crib sheet for next year: Bailey's gives out martini shakers and fancy glasses, Don Julio has little key chains that might immediately break, Flying Dog will tell you you can leave the bottle you designed with them and get it later but they will be gone later, if you get there early you can score an official Captain Morgan hat, and at the end of the evening the cigars are yours for the taking.
It is already the end of February, and thus the end to Real Girl's blog challenge: games. So here it is, kids, the last of my internet games for you. Here's the deal: I stole the following five public pictures from somewhere on flickr and you have to find their original urls. You may be able to find them in other ways, but they are each findable by plugging two different words into the flickr search engine. If you use the two right search words, the picture will be pulled up on the first page of photo options. For instance, if I gave you this picture, if you typed the words "pepper hat" into the search engine, it would be one of the first pictures pulled up. Got it? You can either paste the urls into your comments or you can list your two search words that pulled up the picture. As always: no cheating! Try not to peek at others' answers until after you paste your own.
Also: if your comments include links, they will be held for approval, but I'll approve em as quickly as possible.
Good luck!
The cookies were a hit!
It turned out there were green bean candies from Vietnam and some other Japanese things, so my worries about offending anyone were unfounded and lame. The next cooking challenge is a weird one. We've all been assigned body parts and have to cook something inspired by or resembling that part. Then, we'll assemble a "body" on the table by placing all the dishes in the correct anatomical positions. (Look, it could have been weirder.) So if anyone out there has a genius idea for "left brain and side of face" you just let me know.
All my whining about a vacation bore fruit! While I am not going anywhere, Krista is bringing the vacation to me and coming for a visit in a couple weeks (coinciding with J's birthday). She is also my March blog challenge giver, and she's stepping up the game by making me actually talk to people and do stuff. There will be pictures and a game element for you, too; she really worked her challenge-giving power. More on this next week after my final game is posted.
Also: happy ANTM premiere week eve! I have very low expectations for this season's girls (unlike past season's, who have skyrocketed to fame and fortune, er, VH1 commenter status). But low expectations can be the mother of giddy surprises, so I'm strapping in for the ride.
I think you collectively (with some hints) got all the celebrities I (J) cut up and glued together. To recap, the correct answers are:
Hair: Trump
Body: Nicole Richie
Eyes: Mary-Kate Olsen
Eyebrows: Zach Braff
Cheeks: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Nose: Owen Wilson
Mouth: Jon Heder (aka Napoleon Dynamite)
Chin: Reese Witherspoon
Sweet.
Look, I understand that if you're an apprentice tattoo artist, you have to practice in order to get better. But seriously, who are these suckers that are letting Yoji tattoo them? If there is a time where I would want the absolute best, most qualified person on the job, it would be when there was someone coming at me with sharp tools to make a permanent alteration on my body. That is not a time to cut corners or feel sorry for an apprentice tattoo artist. Luckily, they found some waifish, spacey girl who wanted something terrible like a human heart with a star on it and also nails jammed in there. I have a sad feeling like there will always be waifish girls out there willing to let an apprentice tattoo artist go at 'em for a chance to be on a television show. I just hope she's out of it enough that she never ever realizes that the shading is so bad on the nails that it looks like the heart is full of black, cancerous holes. That's what I hope.
I mentioned to J that I, like the rest of the nation, was very concerned about Britney. Specifically, it was this report that after shaving her head, she wandered alone into a nightclub where some stranger was having a karaoke birthday party, and no one even noticed her. She apparently spent most of her time "sitting alone in a booth." That would be a sad scenario for anyone! Who doesn't like to be talked to when the go to a party? Even a stranger's party you've crashed by yourself. J said he'd like to think that if she'd wandered into one of our friends' parties, we would have noticed and talked to her, eventually talking her down from her ledge of crazy. Does everyone feel like this? That if only you could talk to her for a little while, she'd be better? Maybe another mass delusion on our part.
I spent the evening making little green tea almond cookies to take to tonight's Chinese New Year-themed cooking club. I spent the week before worrying that matcha, the green tea powder used in the cookies, is really of Japanese origin and that it would be an insulting treat to bring. J insisted that they are almond cookies, which are traditional during Chinese New Year celebrations, and anyways it's supposed to be a riff on a theme, and double anyways who is going to be insulted? That doesn't stop me from feeling like I'm bringing a pot of matzah ball soup with pork.
While in the grocery store during lunch hour a little while ago, a baffled older man stopped me in the baking aisle and pointed to the bags of sugar.
Man: Excuse me, can you help me out?
Me: Uh, sure.
Man: Are all these sugars the same? Which one do I get?
Me: Do you just want plain white sugar?
Man: Yes, just plain sugar! There are so many!
Me: These here are all the same; just different brands. So any of these will work.
Man: But the pricing is all different!
Me: You can always look right here and see how much it costs per pound, then compare those prices.
Man: So, I can get this one? [holding up a bag of sugar]
Me: Yep.
Man: Thank you! You know what? You should work here!
Me: Ha ha, thanks, I have another job already.
Man: I'm serious, though, you should really work here. You're very helpful and knowledgeable.
Me: I'll keep that in mind.
Man: You should definitely get a job here.
So, if my current job goals fall short, I apparently have a backup career plan in Albertson's customer service. Which, after teaching, editing, and banking, is the fourth most popular career path for English majors, so I'd be in good company.
I'm itchy to travel. I want to go somewhere on an airplane and go to some new restaurants and stay in a hotel and get lost in a city and visit with some friends. I want to own something that I can say I bought in a different city. I want to eat some food I'll be able to be nostalgic about in a few months. I want to upload pictures to flickr whose two dimensional effect won't do anything for others, but will transport me immediately to the entire surroundings of the place. I know it's primarily because of finances, but I wonder why I don't travel more. I always thought I would be one who travels, but apparently I am one who sits at home a lot and wishes I were traveling. That makes me sad. I still have a trip on JetBlue somewhere out east from when my December trip was cancelled, so perhaps I will have to head out there soon. Maybe in the spring when the weather is lovely again and everyone's in love with the east coast.
I think my crazy pilates instructor has successfully convinced me to come to a belly dancing class at lunch today. She's been begging people to come for weeks and promises that the class will be mostly pilates and yoga moves. I guess if I can't travel, I can still humiliate myself at lunchtime gym classes.
Y'all! Do you want me to tell you the answers to the game challenge or do you want more time? Here are some hints: there are two guesses for the eyes that I would technically accept. The mouth is from a guy. The eyebrows are from a guy on one of my favorite prime-time comedies. The chin, it is pointy.
I really wracked my brain for a new game for my weekly challenge. It was late, it was Sunday, and we had failed at making a Where's Waldo based on bloggers' cats. So this was born:
I know! It's HIDEOUS! But it's made up of eight different celebrities. I know you'll get some of them right away and some will be a little tougher, but I promise they are well-known celebrities and they've contributed well-known features. Be looking for distinctive hair, body, eyes, eyebrows, chin, cheeks, nose, and mouth. I have faith in your disembodied celebrity feature radars.
Eater X's mom needs a kidney. On a holiday that's all about heart, this would be a good time to check out his plea and see if you or someone you know fits the bill and is willing to part with a kidney. I'm not the right blood type, but I'll toss in a cookie-based referral bonus for the cause.
Again, no one got all of them, though you got most of them. And Sally picked up on the one that everyone else missed, so I know it wasn't impossible (like the whisk). I thought it was interesting how many people thought I did something very tricky, like change the contrast slightly or make one picture 7 pixels smaller than the other. Even I am not that lame. Ten things!
1. The dog's tail is uncurled
2. The reflection of the motorcyclist in the rear view mirror is flipped
3. The street lines are missing (the yellow and white lines counted as one thing!)
4. The truck's license plate is changed
5. The "HONDA" is missing off the back of the motorcycle (J was very proud that he removed the reflection, also)
6. The dog's collar color
7. The rectangle (handle?) on the truck bed has been photoshopped away
8. There is an extra bolt in the back of the motorcyclist's seat
9. The street lamp is missing (near the left rear view mirror on the motorcycle)
10. And finally, the bag strap is gone (check out his right sock)
This one was fun to do. J got into this challenge and did all the actual photoshopping with a little direction from me.
After a nice warm spell, it froze over again last night, leaving approximately an eighth of an inch of solid ice over my entire car. The kind that takes serious muscle to remove. As I was balancing on a slippery snow bank, falling over the roof of the car so I could get a proper angle for removing a layer of the glacier attached to the windshield, I thought about how easy it was to take the subway everywhere in New York or to climb on the bus outside my door. That feeling lasted exactly the amount of time it took me to climb inside the warm car and drive past all the people huddled up at the bus stop. Suckers!
On the radio this morning people were calling in to talk about things they were "too old for" now (bikinis, concerts, saying "dude," shopping malls, etc.) I think I am too old for MTV. I mean, I really should not get excited to watch new episodes of "Sweet 16" and should not watch entire episodes of "Juvies" and "Engaged and Underage." It's embarrassing. I will even admit that I have been keeping up with "The Real World," due in no small part the the fact that they replay episodes approximately 50 times a week. (Which means if you flip over to MTV for 2 minutes several times over the course of a few days, you will end up watching entire episodes. Twice.) There is also my morbid curiosity about them being in my town and watching them do stupid things like go to Monarck repeatedly or get lost trying to find a nail salon. But surely there is someone out there who is also watching and can tell me definitively whether Brooke's "sprained ankle" keeps switching feet. Because I think it does.
I highly recommend these robot valentines if you need a little something to give your lust object tomorrow.
Oops, I almost forgot my game challenge for this week! J and I saw this dog while we were visiting Ohio last summer. All he needs are some goggles. There are 10 differences between these two pictures. Name 'em all.
Click here to see a larger version.
Try not to look at others' answers in the comments until after you post, you cheater.
First and foremost, happy birthday to Willow! Growing up, Willow and I had almost the exact same taste in guys. We had a racket going where one of us would date a guy and then decide he was weird, then the other would date him and eventually decide the same thing. Then we would get drunk and laugh about it. We were very fickle ladies, so usually the dating time would only be a couple weeks. At one point at the end of high school we were dating a couple of Colorado-brand punk-music lovin' farmer types and that was fun. Except my boyfriend was the type who always like to pay for dates and hers was the type to get out of paying whenever possible, so it made for some interesting double-dates. Then in college, we weren't in the same place geographically, so we went in different directions. Her freshman year bf was a drama guy with dyed hair and mine was an insomniac punk with dyed hair. She developed a soft spot for skinny arty guys and I rebelled by finding pot-smoking frat boys adorable. And then, of course, it was her who had the crush on J first, while I was making eyes at his buddy. And it's good that my crush was unrequited because that buddy turned out to be MIKE! No, I'm lying. Mike never lived in New York, but wouldn't that have been a better story? Anyway, happy birthday, baby; thanks for finding my love! (Let's work on some back story so this whole you with Mike thing rounds out our history better, 'kay?)
For those of you who thought I couldn't possibly be a bigger competitive eating nerd: you were so wrong.
The other day I was at the dermatologist (the goal of Colorado air is to deprive your skin of any moisture it might think about retaining) and the doctor asked me if I had any hobbies. I sat there stumped for a couple seconds, not because I couldn't think of my hobbies, but because I was trying to imagine how "creating fantasy competitive eating teams" and "reading" would offer him any insight into the condition of my skin. "Um," I said. "No sweatbands or anything?" he said, indicating where a sweatband would stretch across one's forehead. Ah. No, no sweatbands.
On the upside, he gave me some pills to take, which I noticed on the container are also dispensed for malaria. I started taking them at night and they give me extremely vivid dreams. In one, I competed in a donut eating competition and I did very well. I kept thinking, "This is so easy!" But then I was beat by Joey (1st), Sonya (2nd) and Tim (3rd) and I was humbled.
During a recent spin class, during which the instructor had on some loud techno dance music, I kept thinking this one song that was playing seemed very familiar. Eventually, it occurred to me that what we were listening to was a dance remix of the "Brokeback Mountain" theme. That means someone was all, "When that music doesn't crush my heart and make me want to bawl my eyes out, it sure does make me want to get down on the dance floor!" and then they put a hot beat behind it and my spin instructor was all: "Perfect!" and there I was exercising to the saddest love story brought to the big screen.
Usually on Fridays at the office, the front desk brings out a big basket of candy, which makes Fridays Candy Fridays, and thus worth looking forward to all week. But today there was no candy and I kinda feel betrayed. Like, "I went through this whole week for nothing?"
I found him under the big wraparound porch next door. The house is going to be demolished, so it's in raggedy conditions: perfect hiding spot. I had a hunch and went by an opening to shake some food and call, which he completely responded to. He seemed glad to be home: he ate some food, washed himself, and went to sleep for the rest of the night. Pinky wasn't glad at all that he'd come back. She spent the night glaring at him and sniffing him with a look of disgust. He does have a little patch of hair missing above his eye, but I think he's otherwise fine.
He was almost dirty enough for me to consider the cat washing machine.
Anyway, enough about cats...are we psyched for Lost? Truth be told, I am only moderately psyched, but have hopes that this season will redeem the show for me. There have been a lot of promises floating around the internet.
When J and I got home last night, it was immediately apparent that something was wrong. The whole house smelled like dank cat pee, which is never the scent you want to be greeted with. A short investigation led us to the basement, where a pool of water was seeping out from underneath the washing machine. The laundry room is also where we keep the cat box and an old bathmat to catch the litter from the cats' paws. The good news was the smell wasn't from a terrible cat pee accident; the bad news was the water had spent the day soaking the bathmat and emitting the musty cat pee smell into the air. We tossed the bathmat outside and called the landlord about the mysterious water.
The landlord came over and quickly determined that the water was leaking in from the massive pile of snow next to the house, which had overwhelmed our drainage system. J and he spent some time outside clearing it all away and some time inside sopping up the water and trying to air out the basement by cracking the little windows down there.
These windows open on a top hinge and just have slide locks on the bottom. We're supposed to open them up when we run the dryer, but I'm afraid the cats will find a way to squeeze out of them, so we usually have a steamy jungle atmosphere in the basement when laundry is going. Anyway, things got cleaned up, I lit a pink grapefruit candle to help with the smell, and we settled in to watch some "Heroes." (Real Girl TOTALLY CALLED who Claire's dad was going to be. She is a genius.)
Before going to bed, I gave the cats some food. Hmmm, no Max. I went down to the basement to turn off the lights, and my stomach dropped: the window had been left open. A quick search around the house confirmed what I guessed: Max took another vacation. At least this one had a quieter exit than the last one. We did a search last night to no avail and I went to sleep with terrible dreams about lost cats and bad things happening to them.
This morning I woke up early to a peach sunrise and went out to do another search. In some ways, I'm more nervous than I was when he was lost in Brooklyn, because the places he could go were limited; he couldn't get into backyards from the front of brownstones. Even though our new neighborhood is quieter, there are infinitely more places he can hide. There is a whole alley of backyards, cars, garages. We back up to a parking lot that releases into a very busy street. It's easy to get to the front of the house, where there is access to all the fronts and backs of houses in all of Denver. Chances are, he's doing what he did last time, which is balling up in a dark place and waiting. But what if we don't find him before he gets unscared and starts exploring? What if he has no sense of what our house smells like from the outside?
A. Tums
B. Salt and pepper shaker
C. Tomato in a baggie
D. Monopoly logo
E. Cotton square
F. Necklace
G. Whisk!
Click on the link above to see more panned out versions of the pictures. You all guessed every one right at least once, except the whisk. It's one of those silicone-coated ones, so I was being a little tricky.
Real Girl has put this challenge on the table for February: "Game night. Only on your blog. Create a game a week that we can all virtually play through comments on your blog."
Initially, I had zero ideas for this. But then I had some flash of inspiration from a memory of one of my favorite magazine games as a kid: the back of the Highlights (?) where there were close up pics of everyday objects, which were rendered mysterious by lack of context. So here is your game: name these objects!
Also, it is cold here. And sometimes our heater in the car doesn't turn on and one person has to scrape the INSIDE windows of the car while the other is driving because the meager heat our bodies are producing is enough to condense and then FREEZE on the glass. In related news, I hate winter.