Irrational Fear is Irrational

Most people don't like spiders. Some people don't get along with bees and a few people can barely sit in a room with a clown picture. Yes, I'm an asshole but no, I'm not about to put up pictures of those things. I don't pick on you because I hate you ;)

  Now, not liking something and a phobia are two separate animals. You might see a spider and gasp but you probably will get something to kill it with or if you're too kind for words, you might trap it and release it outside. I don't know, burning the house down seems like a perfectly reasonable way to get rid of a bigger spider.  If you were phobic to spiders, you would leave the room, possibly the house, knock on a neighbor's door or you might even call someone on your phone to come and take care of it. Just the sight of it would trigger a flight or fight response strong enough for you to perform a mighty feat such as leaping out of your chair and moving before your feet hit the ground. 

  I'm like this with vomit. It's one of the most inconvenient phobias that I can imagine. The best way to describe it is, someone is sick and my brain instantly freaks out. Before I can really register what's  going on, I'm moving as far away from the situation as possible. I've bailed out of a moving car because someone was ill. (Don't worry, we weren't on the highway, I don't have hideous road rash or anything) 

  It leads to a lot of weird situations where I work in a bar but I won't engage with people who seem overly drunk and if someone is swaying I will just walk away quickly, just in case. It controls every area of my life. I don't like flying on planes because someone else may be airsick. I don't do amusement parks because people get sick on rides all the time. Don't even get me on the subject of hospitals.

  I hate flu season and will avoid going out of the house because the places I go have the lowest paid workers who will still go into work sick. I can't afford to catch the flu, if I'm the one who's sick it's even worse, I start having hysterics like a fucking Victorian nun who just saw an ankle. I have to camp out on the floor in the bathroom because I can't move if I feel nauseated, I'm scared I'll throw up on myself and freak out. I gotta close my eyes and hold my nose so I don't see it or smell it and it seriously fucks with my blood pressure. 

  It's called an irrational fear for a reason. There's no reason why I should be so scared that I will avoid any and all situations where someone might even be remotely sick. It's a natural thing that happens sometimes and we even have to do it sometimes or we'll get even sicker.  It's like a sneeze or a fart, why is it different in my head?

  I can't reconcile it, all I can do is cope. There's no medication for phobias, just therapy which sometimes involves getting close up to the thing that makes you scared so I'm not down for that at all.  

  Some phobias are alright in my book and aren't really irrational. Take spiders, I grew up in Alabama and we have black widows like some states have ants. They'll spin a goddamned web nearly anywhere you aren't walking at the moment and get all fucking pissy and bitey when you stumble into the web. I now live in the northern states and we got brown recluse up here. Don't stick your fucking hand into a dark place, especially at the end of summer. They want to migrate to your nice warm house and live in the back of the closet behind the boxes of photos and the Christmas lights. You go to get those Christmas lights and bam spider bit you! You're fucked now!

 Phobia of spiders is therefore legitimate. I see a spider, I'm gonna kill it because I can't tell the damn difference between a harmless, fuzzy, fly-eating spiderbro and the one that will make my skin rot off. 

 Phobia of vomit, or emetephobia, is NOT rational in any way, I mean, how many people puke and die from it? Don't answer that, for the love of Pete don't answer that. 

I had a girl riding with me in the car once and I was driving and she was going to be sick. I had no idea what to do, I couldn't run away it's 3 am on the side of the highway! I can't cover my eyes because I'm driving and I can't plug my ears because driving and she's telling me to just drive and I'm freaking the fuck out. I shrugged my shoulders up into my ears and stared ahead and hummed a low tone just so I could drown out any noise and she put her face in her purse. 

  I don't know how we survived, honestly because I was outside of my skin by the time I got to drop her off. She must have puked nine times into her coach purse and I kind of felt bad that I couldn't comfort her in any way and must have seemed like a cold hearted bitch. 

 I know very well there's nothing to really be afraid of but that doesn't help, it just makes it worse! 

 If you or anyone you know suffers from any kind of phobia please understand that we aren't having a meltdown because we want attention or are trying to ruin everything, we legitimately just want to die right then. We want nothing more than to not melt into a puddle at the sight of a bee or run off naked into the snow because there was a spider in the bathtub or to sit in the hallway naked because your husband ran into the bathroom to be ill while you were in the shower.

Introducing Sarcasm Tomatoes!

Hi there! Have you ever been on an Internet forum and said something sarcastic and got immediately eaten alive by other posters because of lost context?  Have you ever texted someone something sarcastic and they took you seriously? Have you ever decided to just not comment because people would just think you're an asshole?

NEVER FEAR, SARCASM TOMATOES ARE HERE!! 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

 Most of us have smartphones. Some people have emoji keyboards. If not, I can't help you, you'll be misunderstood forever. For me, a current Dino phone user of iOS 7 on an iPhone 4s it's down at the bottom and looks like a little globe. 

     See it, the globe at the bottom?

Well, inside is a plethora of little pictures and I sound like a condescending asshole but the tomatoes are in there. You know it, for some reason there are tomatoes and eggplant but I don't think there's any carrots...anyway, moving on. 

 Use these tomato quotes and I guarantee people will be more worried about the tomatoes than arguing with you. Even if you have to explain they mean sarcasm, it's still better to have to explain them than to get misunderstood. 

Example!   Your friend texts you and asks if you want to meet at the bar for drinks.

 Friend: hey, since we are all going out can I invite Amanda? 

  (Everyone hates Amanda because she always throws up in someone's car)

 You: sure, everyone would love it if she came out.

 Friend: okay I'll call her too!

    NOOOOOOO!!!!

See if you had used my tomato quotes, you wouldn't need to awkwardly clarify after she got all excited. 

  You: 🍅sure, everyone would love it if she came out.🍅

  Friend: what's with the tomatoes?

  You: it's being sarcastic, Amanda can't hold her liquor and I haven't got the smell out of my car yet. 

  Friend: oh yeah...

 Then, over time, your friends will start to use them too and already know what you mean. Everyone wins! 

🍅I just love gargling razor blades!🍅

🍅just what we need, more snow!🍅

🍅I could use six solid hours of children screaming🍅

 

The sarcasm tomato quote system, filling all of your contextual dark humor needs! Get yours today!!

Let's Talk RNG

As many of you know, I play a shooter called Destiny. It's kind of like Halo and World of Warcraft got drunk and had a baby. Space magic. There's warlocks. Anyway, it's got something that draws me in a tad more than even the cooperative play: the LOOT! Shooting any enemy in the game has a chance to drop these neat little octahedrons or engrams.

   Those shiny things! It's like Christmas!

 They don't dissapear and if you can't pick them up for some reason, they go to your "Post Box" where you can pick them up at any time.  

  When they're laying on the ground, you can't tell anything more than it's rarity. Green ones are the most common, followed by blues, then purples and finally gold ones. When you pick it up you can see what class it's going to be or what slot it's going to take up. You gotta head to one of 3 social spaces in the game where there will be an NPC who will tell you what it is aka "decoding". 

 Here's the thing. There's a little thing going on in the whole system called RNG or Random Number Generator. Any enemy could drop any engram up to gold (only dropped by boss level enemies) and there's a small chance that a blue one will actually turn out to be a purple item and a purple has a random chance to become a gold item. Then, the items themselves come with a  completely random set of perks from a skill set. It's farkin bananas, you guys. That means that you're running around killing everything on the off chance you'll get some loot and it will be awesome! 

  Some people just seem to have better luck than others.  There's a hierarchy to the guns in this game and getting some of them to 'drop' are like our white whale. Some examples being the Gjallerhorn rocket launcher, the Hopscotch Pilgrim, which is a pulse rifle, I didn't name it, yes it's a fucking stupid name, the Zen Meteor sniper rifle and and any armor from the "Desolate" set.  I might have to cross Gjallerhorn off the list because in a recent update they made it a reward for doing a campaign mission instead of a random drop but for two previous years, it was THE reward. It was like once you had it the game was on easy mode. 

Gjallerhorn, it's tracking rounds have been replaced with kittens. It is no less deadly.     (It doesn't really shoot kitty rounds but that would be amazing) 

  Some people *cough cough* husband *cough cough* who played since the beta had the chance to get this rocket launcher at the beginning of the game from a weekly-visiting vendor named Xūr who is an asshole, tentacled dick face.  Xūr shows his spurious, gold class wares for three days a week, usually they're the things that you just had found that week. If you found a SUROS Regime auto rifle, you could usually bet that trencoat wearing cock would bring it for sale that weekend. I guess I shouldn't talk badly about the mysterious douche, he does carry heavy ammo refill packs for like dirt cheap. 

 You dick-faced whoremongering bastard

 

  Xūr only takes a certain kind of currency, which, you guessed it, drops randomly. The first week of the game, Xūr sold it and nearly no one bought it because no one had played the game enough to earn enough to buy more than one item. At the time, rocket launchers were not the shit and no one really bought it. 

  We were all stupid. Very stupid because RNG made it fucking impossible to get this weapon.  Videos started to spread about how awesome it was and you could collectively hear the community bang it's head against the wall in frustration. 

A couple of us sitting around, thinking up ways to get Gjallerhorn.

  Random Number Generator rewards make for my brain's happy place. It means there's always something to work for, always a reward to get. It also makes for some hilarious videos where people found the exact loot they were hoping for.

 My husband does not have good RNG. Hasn't sacrificed enough goats or something, I don't know but he once spent two weeks trying to get a certain gun to drop with certain perks. He had to do these campaign missions called "strikes" that take about 10-15 minute to complete depending on the difficulty. They can drop engrams during the mission plus you get rewards just for completeing it. Well, he played 156 before he got what he was looking for. He could do them in his sleep! I even did a couple for him because I needed him to take a break. 

 This wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't joined in on his first couple of strikes and gotten the exact gun he was looking for with the exact perks that he wanted too. MFW: 

  We played the day after Christmas. I had just gotten my own Playstation and had to make a new account and so I had to start two other characters (you can have three) to maximize my loot chances. Lots of people do this. Trouble was, those two new alts needed guns and armor! Well back then the RNG was stronger than today and getting purples was the best you could hope for and they didn't drop often. It always gave me a little 'yippee!' and some adrenaline when I saw one. The day after Christmas I managed to get 18 purple engram drops which mostly decoded into stuff I needed for my alt accounts, just like REAL Christmas! I got the dirtiest looks that day, I was accused several times of indecent acts with employees at Bungie in exchange for good drops. I plead the fifth on any and all accusations. 

  The day after the April 2016 update (not a paid DLC or expansion but major changes happened) there was a new gold class sniper rifle out that everyone wanted to play with because three critical shots would trigger a fourth bullet that was loaded from thin air. This magic bullet would make big boomy-boomy pow-pow if you managed to get another critical, not your average pew-pew.

 Yeah, I got it the day of the update. I legitimately felt awful. It was the first gold engram I decoded! The other half of the living room was cold. Husband keeps getting an older weapon and he is kind of pissed. You know in anime when a character is about to murder another one and the top of their face turns blue and they make this gargling noise? I heard that. 

  We went off and did some of the new activities hoping he could grab a few golds with the new system that the update introduced. We counted. Out of 12 gold engrams he got nothing he wanted. I on the other hand with 7 gold engrams had 7 copies of that shiny new sniper rifle. 

  NO I AM NOT FUCKING YOU, it looked like I was sucking RNG's dick directly.  If my husband wasn't there to utter curses of disbelief even I wouldn't have believed it happened. Then I got my 8th engram of the day. 

                     GODDAMNIT

 FUCK. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!  I didn't play for the rest of the day. I was too worried the next time I came back to the tower I'd get another one and my husband would destroy my Playstation and bury it in the woods. He continued on, quietly raging every time he got something he didn't want. 

 Rahool is the name of the guy in the tower who decodes the engrams. The general attitude is that he takes the engrams and then gives you whatever shit is lying around his overgrown fruit stand. He's therefore a piece of shit. He knows exactly what you want and just wants to see you cry. 

  Rahool had been giving my husband the dry dick for days and just wouldn't give up the Zen for him. The atmosphere in the apartment was...uncomfortable.

  Finally he threw the controller at me and said "You do it! I'm tired of getting Hereafter!" I was in the hot seat. I could have farted diamonds. My hands got sweaty. Rahool was going to give me a stupid Patience and Time sniper rifle just to fuck with me. I was going to look like a total asshat because Rahool the tool knew I needed this.  

 I touched down and headed over. 

 I'm seriously going to suck your dick, man.

And that's how I got the nickname of "Priestess of RNG".  

The Time I Carved a Storm Trooper Pumpkin

So, a few years back, I decided I wasn't young enough on the inside and wanted to carve a pumpkin. I'd done this before, poorly. I always ended up tossing the pumpkin out of a second-story window and being satisfied that I'd done my part in contributing to Halloween Anarchy. What made this time different? I have a husband who knows how to do stuff and he gives encouragement! Hooray for positive reinforcement!  Alright, lets reminisce together and show you the time I actually successfully carved a pumpkin.

 Here's the pattern. I was supposed to print it out and tape it to the pumpkin but I'm a rebel without a printer so I just used a white piece of paper. Okay okay, I used like 8 sheets of paper before I got it right. Did I tell you that I can't draw either?

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  This pumpkin was about twice the size of my head. That's a totally accurate, scientific measurement.  I figured the paper would hold up against my caveman hands and wet, pumpkin-y insides. Yep.

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 Don't do what I did and do this in the living room on the carpet. That TV table collapsed twice and my butt fell asleep from sitting cross-legged. Oh yeah, make sure your knives are sharp or better yet, get one of those kid's pumpkin carving sets, they're cheap and you aren't going to use them for anything else.

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 This was the fun part, getting to dig around inside the squash. It was really hard to try to dig out with  just my fingernails so I ended up getting a spoon and scraping the insides out. I don't know what this could be good practice for. Taxidermy? Nevermind, that's gross. Hey look! Hockey on TV!!

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  Save these. Put'em in a colander or sieve and run them under cold water, pressing them against the side to separate all the gooey shit from the seeds. Toss the clean seeds on a baking sheet and throw that shit in the oven at 200 degrees for, I don't know, I forgot they were in there and was lucky I didn't burn the apartment down. At this time, take a short break and give your hands a rest because they are about to get fucked.

---

  This part was NOT fun. Take a toothpick or something pointy with a good handle on it and prepare to make 10,000 tiny holes. That's right, you gotta poke out the pattern before you can cut it and it makes a dotted pattern on the pumpkin which allows you to tear off the paper. This part is hard to explain, but the end result is to have a copy of the design on the fruit that you can follow with a knife like a really sharp game of connect-the-dots. This part wasn't hard but my hands hurt like six bitches in a bitch boat afterward.



Seriously, I spent the last two periods of the hockey game poking holes in that pumpkin. I wanted to give up, especially because we lived on the second floor and I had a reputation to uphold but my husband told me I could do it and he's usually right so I kept going.


   NO MORE HOLES PLEASE BABY JESUS

---



  Yeah, yeah I'm well aware we skipped a whole section. I can't find the pictures. Guess you're just gonna have to figure out how to stick a knife in the thing and follow the dotted pattern from youtube. As long as you aren't trying to cut large lines out quickly you'll do fine. I did. Look at that thing. It's beautiful in the way that ugly dogs are, like, "That's my thing, I made this thing and I approve, it looks mostly like what I meant it to." So I know it's a bit early for this kind of post but if stores are putting out candy I should be able to get away with a little pumpkin fun.  Sorry I didn't cut off any fingers or anything climatic but there's always next year!



  I got a little overboard with the success of the first pumpkin so I got another one. I'm glad I stopped at this one because at $12 a pop, art isn't cheap. I look back and I like them, the pictures are kind of neat but really what I remember is "I spent $24 on a carving of a storm trooper and a deer that is only going to rot away...This is nearly as bittersweet as it gets and I paid for it." The worst part was that no one really got to enjoy them but us. Kids don't even smash them like they used to. I was looking forward to coming out the morning after Halloween to find my little experiment smeared all over the parking lot. It was the first time I'd had a pumpkin worth displaying and no one even bothered to smash it!
  I'll probably do another one maybe this year and do a post on that closer to the real holiday, it was a cool thing to do even if it did take forever, hurt the hands and only last a few days. I like getting flowers, don't I?

Food that's too pretty to eat, a rant.

  

  That's a Bailey's Irish Creme coffee latte. It was delicious. So why did I feel guilty? It was too pretty. 

  So many times I've gone to a really nice restaurant, the food comes and I'm completely emotionally attatched to it. I've named it, figured out where I'm going to display it in my apartment...I think I may need help on that but I don't think I'm completely to blame. Food is just too attractive, it gets served as a feast for the eyes and the stomach and I can't resist!

This sushi?

I didn't get to eat this, a friend ordered it but it looks like a painting! Everything is placed so nicely and it just takes my breath away.  I was instantly thinking "Can I shellac that? How would it hold up over time? Can I order some fake food that looks that good without guests thinking I'm weird?" The answer to all of these questions, after a bit of thinking, is a resounding No. 

  These were at a Mother's Day event I went to at a local restaurant. I regret nothing. I must have stared it them for a very long time before the lady whose guest I was noticed that I was infatuated with them. She was irritable and reminded me that I could take a picture instead of just sitting and staring.  I thought "well, she's absolutely right! If I take a really close-up picture of these then I can call it art and use it as a phone wallpaper!" And so I did that and people think they're fake. They weren't and also were delicious when I finally ate them. 

  How the fuck am I supposed to pick these and make a fucking pie? They're gorgeous!

  This one wasn't too pretty, I just wanted to show you a cake with a giant chocolate penis on it.

  For real, Zebra Cakes? Little hearts? Fuck, I've had these for about two years now and I haven't thrown them out even though they come out every year. I'm kind of attached to these two now like a pair of Twinkees that are riding out the apocalypse.

  This loaf of bread. There's just something that makes me not want to cut into a loaf for the first time. I know it has to be done and I could slice just a little at a time to prolong it but what's the use, once you've cut it, you've cut it.  

  So the point is, I get unnecessarily attached to inanimate objects, especially food. It's a curse. I don't want to bring it home for a pet like a lobster...

I swear. We ate that lobster. 

Cheap French Press Coffee for Dummies

Hey fellow broke people who love coffee! Hope you got your favorite cup today and I'm gonna show you how to make a cheap as fuck cup of coffee that tastes great!
  I used to see french presses in thrift stores all the time. I'd heard they were messy, got coffee all over everything and didn't really filter out the grounds well. I assumed they were only for snobby rich folks who had 15 minutes to spare every day to make coffee and enjoy it. Well, I got one for my birthday this year (New of course) and found that not only do I enjoy the relatively quick process but I've saved money and cut back on how much I drink overall.(so rich!) Anyway, you probably don't care, GET TO THE COFFEE, LADY!!

 Gather the shit.

  You'll need coffee, doesn't need to be expensive. This coffee isn't even this brand, it's $4.00 a bag stuff.

  You'll want your favorite mug, mine holds 2 cups.

  The french press. This one was $9.99 at a major retailer with a red sign. It comes with a carafe (the glass part) and a plunger.

  You'll also want a plastic spoon or a straw or something to stir the grounds with. I got some plastic spoons from a local greasy diner for free.

. Fill your mug with clean water.

                                                                  

     Water fountain, tap, bottle. It doesn't really matter as long as it's clean. I use the mug I'm going to drink out of because it's more convenient than trying to use measuring cups, which often aren't the same volume as a coffee mug. Plus it keeps the mug warm.


 Microwave the water until boiling OR use a kettle on a hot plate or stove.

  Water goes around and around for two minutes in my microwave. I'm kind of glad I don't have a kettle, those things are loud. BOILING, I SAY!


Temper your glass carafe.

   While your water is in the microwave, put some hot tap water in the glass part. You don't want to put near boiling water in cold glass, it could explode! I did this once with some glass coffee mugs and a standard drip machine. Not my favorite mess to clean up after. Kitchen smelled great though.

Dump the temper water and add the grounds.

  The water has boiled and you took it out of the microwave or the stove and set it down for about 20 seconds. you don't have to be super timed, just set it aside while you dump the temper water out of the carafe and put in the grounds. How much grounds? depends on what coffee you have and your taste. For dark roasts a little less than a tablespoon per cup is a good rule of thumb, medium roasts get a full rounded tablespoon and light roasts get the same as medium. It depends on how strong you want it to be. Its going to be a richer coffee than out of a drip machine though so keep that in mind.

Pour the hot ass water in on the grounds.

 It's going to look like this. It's totally fine and you want it to get all foamy like this. If the water isn't hot enough, this won't happen and your coffee will be hard to plunge. It's okay if it looks a little clear like above, the grounds have to steep after you stir them. Yep, that's what the little plastic spoon or straw is for! This is called "Blooming" the coffee. It means the grounds start to swell with water and exude coffee.

Stir it a little



Now we swish it to break up the mat of grounds that forms at the top a few seconds after you put the coffee in. See how much darker it is now? Sweet. Okay, you stirred it a little now what?

Put the lid on carefully and walk the fuck away for 2 minutes.

   Put the lid on but don't push down the plunger just yet. The plunger shouldn't just go sliding down when you put the lid on but be careful anyway and hold it up. If it's really bad about it, it's not getting a good seal inside and it's going to make grainy coffee. Now, walk away from it. Go get your phone, pet the cat, gather cream and sugar if you want it, just don't touch the coffee for 2 minutes or maybe 3 if you like it really strong. You will be tempted, I believe in you!

PLUNGE TIME!!!

  Take off the lid, swish the grounds one more time to ensure a clean plunge!
  Put the lid back on and slowly push down,
down,
  all the way down till it stops. See all the foam is still there, YUM!

Pour!

  I couldn't hold the button down when I took this picture but hold the lid when you pour so you don't get any grounds in the cup. This is my favorite part because I feel like a princess or a lady at court.

BAM COFFEE!!

  Thanks to using the mug itself as a measuring cup, you pour the perfect amount, every time. There's even some of that foam on top. Does it make the coffee taste better? I don't have any scientific proof that it does but my human brain likes to see it very much.  The timing? From start to finish it takes about 5 minutes to brew, about as much time as it takes a drip machine. The two longest steps are boiling the water and the steeping. you can go do other stuff during those times.

 Well, that's how easy it is to make french press coffee. You can buy them for pretty cheap up to 8 cup carafes. I'm the only one in the house who drinks the stuff so I only need one cup. You also make yourself look really fancy when you do it and it impresses just about anyone.  Have fun and Stay WIRED!!!! 

A collection of amusing images

Want to see some stuff I found that I thought was chuckle-worthy? Okay!

Here, we see a local cereal, Jordy Flakes. This guy is Jordy Nelson, a football player for the Green Bay Packers. I thought it should be Aaron Rogers Flakes but whatever, I'm not even from here. They're better than the original, sweeter, more corny and a heavier flake than the Tiger kind.

Of course Darth would light a cigarette this way, if you owned one it would be the only way you lit anything.

 

 Here's a baby possum in an ash bucket. Fucker wouldn't move so I just assumed he had a habit, we had no argument with each other and I went back inside peacefully. 

 When a pickle in your Bloody Mary just isn't enough, I spotted this guy with an entire hamburger on his. 

Okay, I lied. This isn't amusing, it's terrifying. 

 This is a curling iron. No, it's not a pleasure wand. Really. It gets super hot, don't get it near things you love like your genitals.

That moment when the cat thinks there's something tasty in your hair and you kind of freak out. This was the dumbest cat I ever knew. One day I will tell you about him.