UPDATES AND MORE

I'm back! Actually, I never went anywhere. Well, except Texas. Yep, John and I moved to Texas and bought a house in the Dallas suburbs.

For those playing along at home, since starting this blog in 2003 I've lived:

• 2003 - 2012 St. Paul/Minneapolis
• 2012 - 2013 Baton Rouge, LA
• 2013 - 2016 Reno, NV
• 2016 - 2016 (four months) Salt Lake City/Bountiful, UT*
• 2016 - 2019 Reno, NV again
• 2019 - McKinney, TX

* We moved to Utah when John got a job in SLC, but the company went bust (as video game companies tend to do) and John's old company in Reno lured him back. In retrospect, I'm glad we moved back to Reno, because it's beautiful there and we had good times and met some great people. 

So now we're in McKinney. I'm glad to live in Texas, which is a sentence I never thought I'd write, but even more happy with our new house.

A HOUSE, Y'ALL ! WITH A YARD AND EVERYTHING!

No, that's not a giant Texas bug on John's shoulder. I blacked out our house number because I'm not posting our address on the internets for all and sundry. Besides, if you know me, 

you already have my address (or you will shortly). 

I love my backyard.

Anyhoo, jeez Louise, do I have more to post! And I will get around to it. By the way, in case you were wondering, I have no desire to ever abandon this blog. It might get updated sporadically, but it will still be updated. My blog is my last online refuge. And over the years I've seen so many blogs disappear, blogs that I LOVED--my friend Marcus's blog for one, as well N is for Neville (long gone), and the blog of an online friend (who was also the editor of my favorite zine in the '90s) a blog that had been around forever that she recently took down (much to my chagrin) because she writes serious articles for the internet now, and she deemed some of her older blog posts to be "problematic" as the kids say, and didn't want them dug up by any nosy parkers. I understand her reasoning, but damn, that blog made me laugh til I was physically sick and I miss it dearly. So for the smattering of people out who follow my blog--but mostly for myself--I'm never ending this one, dammit. Old school blogs like mine are an endangered species, and I feel a great need to keep it going despite the odds. SO THERE.

STILL HERE, BITCHES!

An oldie but goodie....taken from the archives. Not my archives, but the archives of Capnwacky's Zonar. You may remember my Capnwacky-related post from last Easter.
Enjoy.

**************************************************************************** 

Zonar reports on Thanksgiving

The following text is a report I have written up on the human holiday Thanksgiving to send to the Superion High Command. I repost it on this blog so that you humans may enjoy my insights on your culture:

REPORT: AMERICAN-HUMAN THANKSGIVING

This week hails the holiday of Thanksgiving for humans living in the Earth country called The United States of America. Being a American-created holiday, it focuses on American's favorite activities. First, there is a day of eating, followed by a day of shopping. Also, apparently there is some football watching, though my observances are inconclusive if this is part of the holiday traditions or merely normal everyday behavior that continued during the holiday.

Colonists, fattening their prey.

The first day of Thanksgiving celebrates the day American colonists arrived from the old world* and ate all the native Americans. To commemorate this day of conquest, humans gather together with their family members and eat large, cooked birds (symbolizing the "Indians"). Also, there is pie.

Following the day of consumption, the second day of Thanksgiving is focused on purchasing consumable goods from chain stores. This is apparently a contest among the Americans to see who can purchase as many items as possible in a single day (I am inferring this, as I see no other reason for the frenzy given that these consumable goods are available both before and after day two of Thanksgiving, and purchasing them on any other day would be a simpler and more comfortable experience). Predominantly the female American humans take part in this contest, and must survive through rounds of driving very early in the morning, finding a parking spot, and the traditional running of the fat ladies. It appears to be a grueling, dangerous experience. Fortunately, they have loaded up on carbohydrates the day before.

Eager combatants outside of the arena.

When a winner of the competition is selected, the surviving female combatants return home to divide up the remaining piles of food and retain the remaining piles of resentment. Everyone hates themselves for ingesting so much on Day 1 and prepares to repeat their mistakes throughout the following holiday season.


*not literally another world, but merely another country on the same world. "The Old World" is merely a term used by humans, indicating their dim view of the universe and how it works.

Comment Spam ---- Why I Can't Look Away



Comment spam fascinates me more than it should. Given that it's been around since the dawn of the internet, I can't help but wonder if these ridiculously lazy, assinine marketing ploys actually work on people. I mean, it's a supply and demand kind of world, righht? Who are the suppliers? Who are the demanders? I need some answers.

Think about it. Are there actually people out there sipping their morning coffee, half-heartedly reading some blog post about Kim and Kanye's unholy spawn, scrolling down to the comment section to read witty bon mots about Kim's giant ass and Kanye's sucky music, then stopping cold as their eyes latch on to some mysterious, cryptic comment extolling the virtues of some "weird trick" for eliminating belly fat, a simple, miraculous technique so effective that "diet doctors don't even want you to know"? Really, do these people exist? Do they say to themselves, "Holy cow, this must be fate! Here I've been wondering what to do about this jelly roll around my waist, and then I just happen to click on this lame Kimye story and--out of nowhere!--there's this post right here--like it was meant to be--claiming there's a safe and easy way to get my body 'bikini-ready' in six weeks? Hey Ashton! Put down that damn X-Box doo-hickey and fetch Mama her Discover card!"

And then there are my questions about the purveyous of comment spam. For instance: am I correct in assuming that most comment spam is autogenerated? Or is some rube with a tenuous grasp of the English language being paid like 5 cents per post from some fly-by-night outift in like, Singapore or something? If you have any theories, please feel free to post them in the comments.

Without further ado, here's some of the more entertaining comment spam I've recently come across.

From a YouTube video of an old "Love Connection" episode, comment posted by a Daniel Enache:

"That was good information. I'm here simply because my mate all of a sudden turned awesome with girls. He started getting chicks magically. I found myself stunned. He pretended he didn't notice. Then he smiled and told me while he was wasted. Turns out he uses the Jake Ayres Master Attraction Formula. Google it and you'll find it... He's dating a sexy chick."

Another comment under the same video clip, this one courtesy of an Ujwol Suwal:

"I'm bothered. My friend resides in the opposite room. I'm displeased because he lately turned outstanding at seducing gals. The guy found the Master Attraction web page by Jake Ayres (Search in Google). All he's doing now is screwing women. He's continuously getting the ladies back. I hear it, which is gross and If only he never discovered that site. My best companion just signed up and got a blowjob a week later. I am envious!"

Same comment section, from another jealous fellow called Dinesh Jain:

"Alright. I'm bothered. My friend resides on the floor above me. I'm aggravated because he just grew superb at attracting the women. The guy found the Master Attraction site by Jake Ayres (Search in Google). Now I hear him bringing women back. He's continuously bringing ladies back and I hear it, which is gross and I wish he had not found that site."

Then there's this one, from PLFM (the first blog to pick up my Simon Reid story):

"Whаt's up, always i used to check blog posts here early in the morning, because i love to learn more and more. Feel free to surf to my blog post: deep fryers on sale."
 

Finally, these last three gems are comments posted on a Hollywood gossip site beneath a photo of C-list actress Jennifer Love Hewitt with her new baby daddy. It's just....I mean.....wow. "Sniff that panty"? I'm really out of words here.

"Please feel carefree to pursue her profile on sniff-that-panty-dot-com I have hear that she has many the wild fantasies. Bon Chance!"

"She is really sexy!!! I have ever seen her hot video at interracialconnect.com which is a niche interracial dating site for all singls. She is really sexy with bikini in that video. You will know how passionate interracial kiss it is after seening it."

"They are a pair made in heaven. They members on nudistmingle.com where they met and dating like their nude photos and profiles. Merry Christmas!"
 

Merry Christmas, indeed. And God bless us every one.

Happy Easter! Here are some disturbing greeting cards!

Image from Capnwacky

In honor of Easter, I wanted to pay tribute to one of my favorite (sadly, no longer updated) humor blogs, Capnwacky, and their brilliant gallery of creepy greeting cards from the days of yore. They called it The Unfortunate Page and it featured a myriad of WTF vintage cards, including goofy Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and even Washington's Birthday cards (does anyone send out cards for Washington's Birthday?). They even added a bonus section of Unfortunate superhero and Star Trek costumes.

Anyhoo, here are some of my favorite icky Easter cards, courtesy of Capnwacky. I've also copied and pasted the captions from the site, which hopefully the Capnwacky guys won't be pissed about, since I'm basically giving them a big ol' plug, too. Also, Capnwacky guys? In case you're reading this...UPDATE YOUR SITE! I miss it. I especially miss Zonar, the human-hating alien.

"And you thought Joe Camel caused trouble."

"Yes, the Easter Bunny brings treats to good boys and girls, but beware
the evil Easter gnomes who steal treats and bite children on the ankles."

"Ah yes, the frontier. Forged by nancy-boys in
sissysuits, riding egg wagons pulled by bunnies."

"So, are these tiny people, or are the birds freakishly huge?
Either way, it adds up to me not getting a pleasant night's sleep."

"Only big bunnies get to cavort with humans."

Ready for some META?

This blog post helped to bring Simon Reid to justice. I wrote that angry rant about discovering Simon's deception nearly three years ago, in August of 2008. This was at the tail end of a bout of crippling depression where I could barely be arsed to get out of bed. And I didn't know this at the time, but Simon had fled to England and was already at work on a new relationship with an Englishwoman called Jo. After feeding her some of the same lies and then running for the hills--taking with him thousands of pounds he'd "borrowed" from her--Jo googled Simon's name and found my blog, then contacted me. I offered her my condolences and told her I'd be willing to help however I could. I didn't hear anything more about his UK exploits until last summer, when Nicola and Laura--two of Simon's latest conquests--also found my blog. They were understandably concerned, as they were both currently in a relationship with the bastard.

And then the women decided to do something AWESOME.

Jo, Nicola, Laura, and a fourth woman (who has declined to be interviewed in the press) invited Simon over to Laura's house, where they were all waiting to question him...along with a journalist friend brandishing a video camera. They gave him a wicked little "surprise" party, then sat him down so they could grill him for four hours (God I'd LOVE to see that entire video!). At the end of it all the women called the police, and--long story short, Simon Reid is in jail in the UK for 30 months after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud.

The week that Simon was carted off to the slammer, the story absolutely BLEW UP in the British tabloids. Jo, Nicola, and Laura gave interviews and appeared on the UK breakfast television show This Morning before flying out to NYC to appear on The Today Show with Yours Truly so we could all tell our story.


I know--crazy, right?

Anyhoo, I had a fabulous time in NYC, and it was awesome to meet the three of them. We hit it off right away (Jo, Laura, Nicola, and Kate, who was along for the ride) and we had a blast shopping and sight-seeing in Manhattan. The moral of this story? Simon Reid still sucks, but I've met some lovely new friends because of him. I guess every cloud does have a silver lining, even a dark, toxic, polluted cloud of a human being like Simon Reid.

I posted the Today Show video shortly after returning from my trip (it's no longer available online--BOO!) but here are some other links to the story that are still live.

Article from The Daily Mail (Alan Partridge's favorite newspaper!):

Shout-out to Maggie Flecknoe, pop culture commentator, stage and voice actress (and fierce Texas chick!). This is Maggie's take on our story:

Damn, what a whirlwind! SO yeah...things have been happening. It's all good though!

In spite of it all...
Thanks, That Was Fun

Received this cheerful little news item in my inbox today:

Man accused of conning two girlfriends out of £18,000



A man has appeared in court accused of swindling two girlfriends out of £18,000.

Simon Reid, aged 44, allegedly borrowed money from women claiming he could pay them back using his business interests in the US.

But prosecutors claim that he had no such assets.

Reid is charged with two counts of fraud by false representation.

He allegedly obtained £17,000 from one woman between August 31, 2008, and August 1 this year, and another £1,000 from a second woman between December 31 last year and August 1.

Reid, of Embankment Lane North, Prince Rock, Plymouth, indicated "no plea" to both charges.

Soo Jackaman-Hall, prosecuting, said: "The defendant entered a relationship with four women and told them that he had businesses and assets in the US. He obtained money from them, saying he would pay them back with the proceeds of the assets. The sum total of what he obtained was £18,000."

But she claimed that there were in fact no assets abroad.

Magistrates ruled that the case was so serious that it would have to be heard at Plymouth Crown Court.

Reid was released on unconditional bail to appear back before magistrates again on January 19 next year.

Don't drop the soap, asshole!

Got a Simon Reid tip/sighting? Email simonreidtips@gmail.com

Coming very soon, so soon you can practically taste it:

An actual, bona fide, brand new blog post. A fabulously andie-tastic post sure to make you laugh, cry, and ponder the existence of a benevolent God.

To keep you sated, here is something else from the brain of yours truly, updated today!

Chapter 3 Steppin' Out (short excerpt)

Try not to piss yourself with excitement.

'Tis the age of self-promotion. I gotta do my part until someone does it for me.

I've created a blog for Jordan Lockhart. Jordan, as some of you may know, is the protagonist of my novel Thanks, That Was Fun. I did have a website for my novel at one time, but that has since been suspended until further notice (i.e. until the novel is published. Stay tuned for details). Plus, blogs are just more fun. Jordan will be updating the blog frequently with excerpts from the novel, along with other fun stuff.

In the immortal words of Judge Reinhold in Fast Times at Ridgemont High:
Learn it, know it, live it.

www.thxthatwasfun.blogspot.com