scif-fi fry guy
PANDORA HILARITY
If you want a laugh, you should check out Pandora’s “liner notes,” where it explains why it chose to play the song it’s playing. What kind of music do you like, Mimi? Oh you know, stuff with electric rock instrumentation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, repetitive melodic phrasing, and extensive vamping.
THE SAVAGE DECLUTTERER
I am on a throwing-shit-away bender and it feels amazing. I cannot be stopped. Seriously, don’t put your stuff down in my house for too long because I will probably sneak up on it and throw it away. Or donate it to the thrift store. Or put it out in the alley, which seems to be a sort of open-air thrift store for our neighborhood. I cannot really deal with Freecycle because people are way too flaky, and you have to rearrange your life to wait around for flaky people to come and get your stuff (or not, because of the flakiness). But I am all about giant trash bags of stuff dropped off at the thrift store before it is even open.
However, one giant new item did get introduced to the house recently: I bought Nora the fifth Harry Potter in wallet-draining hardcover (THIRTY DOLLARS!) to celebrate having made it through first grade. The bookstore did not have the paperback, and her little anxious face when I suggested we maybe look for it in another store on another day was enough to make me pull out the credit card. Every morning she wakes up, stretches, reads some Harry Potter while still in her underpants, puts on shorts and a t-shirt, eats breakfast, and gets ready for another day of backyard sprinkler/popsicles/goofing around. It is shaping up to be a iconic suburban summer vacation, only in the middle of the city.
NOW THAT’S A PLAN. A SICK, AWFUL PLAN.
Nora: You know those snake mice?
Me: Yeah? [ed. note: She is referring specifically to the “feeder mice” sold for snake food, the ethics of which we have discussed REPEATEDLY and in NAUSEATING DETAIL]
Nora: I bet their intestines would make good catfish bait.
Me: Uh. Maybe. That’s kind of horrible though, raising mice just to slice them open for their guts.
Nora [sensibly]: They are used for snake food anyway.
Me: True. I think that’s also kind of horrible.
Nora: Well, maybe you could ask for some that are dead. Some of the mice must die, you know. Sometimes they might die right at the store, from a disease or something.
Me: How about just continuing to get your catfish bait from the bait store?
Nora: Okay.
GET A ROOM OH WAIT YOU HAVE ONE
I hate it when married people talk to each other on Facebook. I don’t mind too much if they are just joking around or breaking each other’s balls, but the “happy anniversary to my special sweetie” followed by back-and-forth loving affirmations is gross. Don’t you two live in the same damn house? Is this the grown-up equivalent of making out in front of your locker, so everyone can see that you have a boyfriend?
LT and I are not Facebook friends. It started out for philosophical reasons like the above, and now we stick to it because it’s funny to watch Facebook continually suggest us to each other. Our lack of Facebook friendship is straining Facebook’s little algorithmic mind to the breaking point. Facebook cries, “But you must know each other! You have SEVENTY friends in common!” Sorry Facebook, never heard of the man.
A PRODUCT OF MY GODDAMN TIMES
I just realized that this entry mentions no fewer than three web-based applications by name, which marks it as annoyingly era-specific. Sorry, people of the future! Maybe you can use some sort of future-Google* to learn what the hell I’m talking about.
*Four!
SCHNAPPS AND HARMONY
Last night I was kept awake by some sort of raucous Eastern European sing-along. It went on way too late and was accompanied by handclaps and guitar and occasional sounds of breaking glass. Was this World Cup-related? Or just the usual drunken neighborhood Serbs? It is a mystery.
—mimi smartypants can’t stop the music.