Just Sayin'

In the spirit of the Christmas season, I decided to do a holiday themed blog.  I don't know what it is about wrapping paper and scissors and tape, but something does not compute. You'd think wrapping Christmas gifts would be easy. All you have to do is take a big piece of paper, wrap it around your object (perhaps a book or a nice penguin), and then tape it in place. That sounds simple, right? It should be, but somehow -- someway -- I always manage to screw it up. I am one of the worst Christmas gift wrappers you will ever meet. I'm not even talking about wrapping weird shapes; perfectly normal rectangles are completely beyond my capabilities. The other day I was trying to wrap a book. After twenty minutes, I was just like "well, I give up." I started off my cutting a piece of paper that was too small, then I cut a piece of paper that was too big. Of course, then I was like "what do I do with all this extra paper at the ends?" No matter what I do...

I'm a big fan of the concept of air travel. It's quick, it's relatively simple, and, when you're flying with someone you know, it's not so bad. But I absolutely hate flying alone because, when you fly alone, you end up sitting next to someone you don't know and that person is always suffering under the delusion that, because you have to sit next to them for four hours, you're suddenly best friends. These are the people who want to talk to you. These are the people I hate. Now, I never initiate conversation with strangers but, under normal circumstances, if a stranger tries to talk to me, I attempt to be a mammal. I'll say 'hi, I'll say 'how are you,' I'll wish you a 'merry Christmas.' But, if you try to talk to me on after I got up at 5 AM to catch this plane and went through the torture that is airport security, you're poking a timber-rattler with a pixie stick. This is how it goes. I'm sitting in my seat. I'm co...

The immortal fish, he hates socialization, happiness, and having fun So, as I've written before, fish are delicate creatures . I don't know if it's the gills or the cold blood or what, but, if you expose them to toxic chemicals, they're very likely to die (which I don't get because I drink Diet Coke on the daily and I'm still kicking). Currently, I'm combating an ammonia poisoning crisis in my fish tank. Without getting too scientific about it (science = snore), basically what happened was I destroyed my fish tank's biological filter when I cleaned it. I cleaned it to, you know, get rid of the horrible disease that was killing all my fish . Established fish tanks have a certain level of good bacteria that process waste, which is good because, if you don't process waste, you get toxic chemical build up. Anyway, while I wait for the biological filter to rebound, I have to be on high alert for ammonia and nitrate spikes. I test the water for p...

No One Appreciates Me! So, the other day I was starring out the window diligently studying in English when I had a thought: I'm really grateful that I live in a society that appreciates Justin Timberlake. Like, the frightening truth is that history is full of cultures and nations that wouldn't have liked JT. I, for one, am EXTREMELY glad that we have progressed as a species. Do you think the Romans would have appreciated SexyBack ? No! They would have been like "um...we're bringing Caesar back." Do you think the vikings would have listened to Suit & Tie ? No! Vikings didn't wear suits! In fact, they were probably pillaging all the people who wore suits and ties. If you turn up in a suit and tie in a viking town, you're liable to get the blood eagle. If you don't know what a blood eagle is, go look it up on Urban Dictionary and then come back here and try to tell me that you're not profoundly grateful that people are now able to wea...

So...I think it's time to add posters to the official list of things I'm addicted to (if you're just going us, that list also includes eyeshadow, Snapchat, gory vampire fiction, making fun of Voldemort, nail polish, and Justin Timberlake music). Seriously, ever since I moved into my new apartment, I've gone poster crazy. I have over twenty posters in my bedroom alone. That's not normal! And don't even get me started on my expanding collection of living room posters. At some point, something just clicked in my brain and I was like "OMG, I can hang things on my walls."  That was the beginning of the end.  I've gone through over 100 command strips since I moved in. It's gotten to a point where one of my roommates  actually had to say, "I don't want to live in a catalog. There has to be some white space." My response to that was " quoi? " Like, making the apartment look like a giant picture book was sort of my ...

I miss True Blood There's been a fang-shaped hole in my heart ever since True Blood ended this summer. I mean, you just don't get that sort of graphic violence, strong sexual content, and explicit language on network television. Fortunately, I stumbled across Netflix's token vampire/werewolf based drama Hemlock Grove and promptly watched every single episode in less than 48 hours. I don't think I've ever seen so much gore in my life and I watch Game of Thrones ! It was a magical experience. Anyway, I was about half way through the first episode and I was like "hey, self, doesn't the actor who plays Roman (the main character on Hemlock Grove ) remind you of someone," and then I was like, "yes, thanks for pointing that out; he reminds me of Eric from True Blood ." WELL. It turns out that the actor who plays Roman Godfrey, Hemlock Grove's compulsory brooding vampire with a six-pack, is actually Bill Skarsgard, the brother of Alex...

If you read my last blog about my fish, you know that my fish tank is going through a bacterial swim bladder disease epidemic, which, surprisingly, is much less fun than it sounds. Anyway, in the middle of this whole thing I left for a couple of days to visit family and I left my roommates in charge of the fish. While I was away, one of my fish died and my roommates didn't notice right away. Well, they didn't notice until they caught my Chinese Algae Eater EATING the dead fish. There was some screaming that day. Needless to say, my Chinese Algae Eater is now in time out. Which basically just means that he's in a tank by himself and I scold him whenever I walk past the tank. Now, a lot of you may think that this is too harsh. A lot of you may say "he's just a fish; he's just following his instincts." That's not true! My Chinese Algae Eater, whose name is Joaquin (but I call him Joaquo [pronounce wah-co]), is not really a fish; he's more like...