Hunger Games, Mind Games

You guys, I had a nightmare last night, and the plot of my nightmare was that I was chosen to be a tribute in the Hunger Games! Yes, so apparently these books are engrossing enough (and my brain gullible enough) that reading the second one for 2 hours before bed gave me my first bad dream in what must be 4 or 5 years.

If you do not know the plot of this series, basically in a post-apocalyptic (or something) world, there's this Capitol civilization that's all rich and shallow, and there are 12 neighboring Districts, which are poor and have shitty jobs and live in fear of the mean old Capitol's vengeance. They tried to revolt a number of years ago, so as punishment, the Capitol makes them send 2 teenagers apiece each year (12 x 2 = 24, you guys) to fight to the death in a televised match that's basically their Super Bowl. It's pretty brutal, and it makes for an awesome 1 2/3 books so far.

So anyway in my horrible dream I was chosen to fight, and since this wasn't one of my awesome Buffy dreams I still occasionally have, I was just gay old me. So before we all were to be taken to the arena, all the tributes and I were sitting outside chilling (as you do) and all I wanted to do was scream and yell and get them to band together and revolt, but nobody would listen to me. And then a big group of them started singing "Eye of the Tiger" to express how excited they were to start killing, and I was so terrified at what that song represented that I started screaming at them, but they sang over me and did hand motions, you guys it was the worst moment of my life!

When the song was over, though, I realized I couldn't remember who originally sang "Eye of the Tiger" so I forgot about my imminent death for a minute and asked the kid next to me, who said it was an old World War II song. That's when I realized that he came from a parallel universe where that was true. So that was pretty awesome.

Then I noticed Aziz Ansari sitting across from me, and I said "Oh no, they got you too?" But he explained that no, he was not chosen, but the Hunger Games pain him so much that every year he goes to the rally before the event and sits with the tributes to say goodbye. It was really touching. Thanks for being there for me, Aziz.

That's the end. Even though most of the dream was technically awesome on paper, it was all still terrifying, and I woke up scared and was grateful I got to snuggle up to C.C., who also does not know who sang "Eye of the Tiger".

The answer is Survivor.

Stats

Infinity months ago I stopped looking at my blog stats because I forgot about them, and I eventually just cancelled the service I used to aggregate them, but I was just clicking around on the Blogger site and noticed that it's been keeping them for me all this time! And I forgot how fun they are!

So I average around 80 page views a day, indicating a 0% rate of growth from 3 years ago! Hooray! Furthermore, most of my "referring URLs" are Virus- or Sex-filtered by the library, meaning I have some wonderful sponsors.

But the most important stats to keep track are the top 10 searches people do that lead them to my shitty blog. It would seem people are less perverted than they used to be because for the first time, it's not all about porn and penises (though it is a little bit.)

1. spring awakening sucks
2. kyle schmid
3. jennifer hudson fat pictures
4. seth mctigue
5. florida stereotypes
6. celebrity hard ons
7. ��������� ����������
8. celebrity hardon
9. nancy drew the movie
10. a girl who talks with her barbie heads

I love those question marks in diamonds, I love that people agree with my views on Spring Awakening (now my most commented-on post), I love that people are specific about what type of Jennifer Hudson they wish to see, and lastly, I love that "a girl who talks with her barbie heads" has led people to me 4 times. (I'm pretty sure they were looking for that movie Tideland.)

So anyway, I blog best when I am obsessed with talking about my blog.

Things I Am Into Right Now

Not talking about Starbucks every two seconds.

Yeah I don't even go every day anymore. Now that I got my mayorship back, it's lost some of its allure. Also Latte Boy is never around and Gay Latte Boy is very hot and cold with me. I'm not sure what I did.

Minecraft

None of you care about nerdy video games, but I've been playing this off and on for many months now (I'm an alpha adopter, ladies) and I just love it. It's basically a sandbox where you dig and scrounge for materials and make stupid shit and fight monsters. I have a base carved into a mountain and an indoor tree farm and an aquarium with nothing in it and a wall of fire that automatically kills cows and sheep for me and a tower with a giant ball of lava at the top that took me 9 hours to build and now I'm working on a secret library you have to swim up a waterfall to discover what no I go outside all the time and have lots of friends shut up.

Epic Meal Time

This is my newest YouTube subscription.

Cory, this is how I'm going to kill you. (Readers, Cory is allergic to meat or should I say he is allergic to being a man.)

The Hunger Games

Dudes, you have got to read this book. It's totally ridiculous, and I approached it with serious trepidation, but it's so good I read the first 300 pages in one sitting. You have to suspend a fair amount of disbelief, but Ms. Suzanne Collins hits a lot of good notes here.

Everybody at work talking really loud so I can't concentrate all day

I'm so into it, you guys.

Philadelphia is the topic

I dunno but basically I was in Philadelphia all last week for a conference. I didn't see much of the city, but it's not one I particularly need to visit again. Sorry, Philadelphia.

Here are some crappy iPhone pictures I took and then ran through that Instamatic app that's so popular now because there's no point in doing art if it doesn't look the same as everyone else's.

I took that one while waiting for a trolley with this kid I met while wasting an afternoon in the hotel lounge. It was kinda nuts, but he's got this gregarious charm that makes you forget that you're totally uptight with new people. He sat across from me to charge his phone, we started chatting, and 5 minutes later after I told him all my secrets I was riding the subway to the north part of town to ride one of Philadelphia's old street cars. It wasn't a date (we both have lovely boyfriends), but if it were, it would have been a pretty good one.

The trolley took us through some crappy neighborhoods, but what Philadelphia lacks in Stuff I Wanna Live Around, it makes up for in Stuff That's At Least Cool To Look At. Most of the ride was through Fishtown. ><}}}*>

Aside from conference stuff and the meeting of some lovely new professional contacts, that story's kind of the best thing I came away from the conference with. Well... that and a new affinity for Women Cops of Cincinnati acquired through a 4-hour marathon on TLC. Anyway the guy lives in Jersey, so hopefully we will be besties now if I ever remember to e-mail him when I'm not doing something else like blogging for you and only you.

Don't look directly at that one. The discerning eye will notice that this picture of Earth's yellow sun (and the previous of Earth's yellow tattoo parlor) neither are perfect squares, nor look like they were taken by a douchebag with ball-mangling jeggings. That's because I used Photoshop Express for the iPhone, another fun gadget this guy introduced me to.

Uh-oh.

To conclude, it is impossible to visit Philly without having that Flipadelphia chant from Always Sunny running through your head the entire time (6 days).

American False Idol

Now is the time when I post a bunch of pop songs with the lyrics changed so they become Christian songs. Because nothing says "I love God" like internet videos with no production value.

The wedding ring/purity ring thing isn't terribly inventive, so there are a ton of them to this song. I chose this one because I like the girl's womb chair.

The next girl shows her faith by changing the words to one of her favorite songs about bicuriosity:

God made the world, and he liked it. Yeah. But then he gave us free will, and all we've done since is fuck it up and have gay sex all over the place. Way to go, human race.

This one I legitimately like:

Isn't that soothing? It makes me want to smoke a joint and talk God with him and then maybe run my fingers through his hair. I don't like the part where he points at me, though. Back off, man, just enjoy the groove what kind of conditioner do you use?

Here's my personal favorite: Holyback. It has satans in it.

I'm really glad he set it to shitty home videos from his vacation: videos full of timber.... and a lake. Oh, I see what you did there! I also see that sin, and.... and I'm craving it! THANK GOODNESS YOU GOT HERE IN TIME!

Strangely, it makes me want to get my holy on. Holy on. Holy holy holy. Y'know how some words lose their meaning meaning when you say them too many times? Holy. Holy! HOLY! And Hosanna in the highest.

This post in inspired by a facebook post by my dear friend JC.

UPDATE: I have a new favorite Christian now and no it's not you it's this guy:

Anyway, you guys should totally make your own Christian music videos, and I'll link to them in my illustrious blog, but none of you will because you can hardly be bothered to take 2 seconds and leave a comment. "Wow, bitter much?" Yes, every day.

"Ice" to See You!

First off, happy Groundhog Day. Let's hope that son of a bitch doesn't see his shadow because I've about had it with New York City's inability to salt its sidewalks. Seriously, all yesterday it was "Winter storm ice bullshit advisory OMG we interrupt this broadcast of the Nancy Grace show to tell you that she is a sensationalist bitch and also ice will fall from the sky all day and night" yet nobody decided to take measures until this morning.

My walk to the subway is uphill for 3 avenues, and there were times I got halfway down a block and had to turn around because the sidewalk was literally intraversable for being covered with ice. A little girl going the other way got on her butt and slid down 20 feet, and her mother, unwilling to degrade herself, scaled a snowbank into the street and STILL almost ate it trying to get to her daughter. The outdoor subway platform at Queensborough Plaza: solid ice. A man in hiking boots skated across and used his momentum to leap onto the train. It... it was pretty sweet.

Then I got to work to hear "yeah, whoever doesn't come in today can make it up." Thanks for the heads-up; I braved this crap for 1.5 hours with the remnants of yesterday's horrible migraine when I could've stayed home consequence-free. So with the exception of the actions of one precocious girl and one daredevil working man, I submit that nothing today has been handled properly.

Anyway I do have some good news, and that good news is I am way better than you because I have all three stars in every available level of Angry Birds and you don't. No autographs but if you do something nice for me, I'll put your number in my phone so you can be close to my victory that only took about 52 hours.