Tag Archives: humor

It’s a Bit Cold

Everyone is so up in arms about winter happening.  Yes, it’s colder than it usually is, but let’s focus on the real problem here, shall we?  How it affected ME.

I went home for my birthday, which is late in December.  I flew United, which turns out to have been a mistake.  Here is a brief overview of my recent air travel experience:

1. Flight from NY to CA – I arrived at the airport at 4 AM, having not slept the night before, to find out that my flight was delayed by about two hours.  Since this meant missing my connecting flight, I had to call the convenient customer service number.  The robotic voice told me I’d be on hold for about three minutes.  I was on hold for over an hour.  Flight got rebooked, everything was fine I guess.

2. Making my way back to NY – So apparently the midwest was royally screwed by the weather, but my flight was not to the midwest.  My connection was in DC.  But as I was sitting in the airport waiting for my first flight, an announcement was made that there was a “mechanical” issue with our plane and go rebook all your flights now.  Long story short: Two hours waiting in the line for customer service, rebooked on a flight that was leaving a full twelve hours after I got to the airport, got to Washington DC only to find that my connecting flight to NY had been cancelled, more customer service, crying at the customer service desk, finally get flown in to a city that is over an hour’s drive from where I live, stop at the airport I was supposed to be at to pick up luggage, get told luggage never left CA.

My anti-anxiety/depression medication was in my checked bag.  A bag I paid to have checked, mind you.  Now, I know what you’re thinking: You idiot, Bex.  Who packs their medication in their checked luggage?

I know, I know.  But I did.  It happened.  And nearly a week later, I still haven’t heard about my luggage.

Let me just tell you a little bit about anxiety.  This is me/my brain without anti-anxiety medication:

Anxiety

It’s especially bad when you stop taking those meds very suddenly.  Fortunately, I finally got over my own stubbornness and called my doctor for an emergency refill.  But as long as we’re on the subject, let’s go ahead and talk a little more about my mental problems.  Especially since some people seem to believe they’re made up.  Not you, of course, but some people.

This is my anxiety:

Anxiety

It’s a little beast that spills milk and makes me cry over it.  Worse, it makes me cry over all the milk that has yet to spill.  Hell, it might not ever spill but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to worry about it anyway.  Because the anxiety beast tells me to.

This is my depression:

Depression

It’s a shadowy creature that whispers to me that I’m worthless.  It tells me not to care.  To stay in bed all day and watch YouTube videos and not eat because nothing matters.

My family and friends are very supportive, don’t get me wrong.  I’d be nowhere near this sane if it weren’t for them (and a little therapy).  But the medication also helps.  It gives me the push I need to be Okay.  With a capital O.  It is a sword I use to fight the monsters.  And it works quite well.  So when United airlines took that away from me, I got pretty mad.

I hope I see my luggage again one day.

That is all.

Word of the Day: Overwrought (adj) – extremely or excessively excited or agitated

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Filed under Animation, Humor, writing

Red

Home for the holidays!  Well…for my birthday at least.  Chanukah is long gone.

I just wanted to write today about one thing.  A book I saw in the YA section of Barnes & Noble the other day that I think you should know about.  It’s called Red.  The author’s name is Alison Cherry.  And here is the synopsis for you:

Felicity St. John has it all: loyal best friends, a hot guy, and artistic talent. And she’s right on track to win the Miss Scarlet pageant. Her perfect life is possible because of just one thing: her long, wavy, coppery red hair.

Having red hair is all that matters in Scarletville. Redheads hold all the power—and everybody knows it. That’s why Felicity is scared down to her roots when she receives an anonymous note:
I know your secret.

Because Felicity is a big fake. Her hair color comes straight out of a bottle. And if anyone discovered the truth, she’d be a social outcast faster than she could say strawberry blond. Her mother would disown her, her friends would shun her, and her boyfriend would dump her. And forget about winning that pageant crown and the prize money that comes with it—money that would allow her to fulfill her dream of going to art school.

Felicity isn’t about to let someone blackmail her life away. But just how far is she willing to go to protect her red cred?

This is a published book.  THIS.  I know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (or the blurb on the back), but I am judging away.  THIS book is published, and I am struggling.  How is that even remotely fair?  There are even positive reviews at the bottom of its page on the B&N website.  I mean, I’m not saying it’s terrible.  I haven’t read it.  Maybe it’s pretty good, or a successful satire, but I don’t really care right now because LOOK AT THE SYNOPSIS!  It’s about a girl with dyed red hair who doesn’t want people to know she dyes her hair!!  Jeez!

Okay I’m done.

Happy Holidays everyone!

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Filed under books, Humor, writing

The Horrors of Anthropomorphic Food

This post has nothing to do with writing.  I just want to get something off my chest:

Selling food in commercials by anthropomorphizing that food is horrific!  Please stop!

There are three offenders I want to talk about today, though I’m sure there are more that I should include.  Think I’ve forgotten an important one?  Let me know in the comments.

1. M&Ms

The thing I hate about anthropomorphized food is that we’ve taken something we eat and given it the chance to either scream and fight back or smile pleasantly, as if ignorant of its obvious fate.  M&Ms fall into the former category.  Commercial after commercial has presented our two male protagonists – Red and Yellow – finding themselves in various situations where they are about to be eaten alive.  And we are supposed to find this funny.

M&Ms

In this image I took from a recent commercial, the female, brown M&M is at a party.  She learns there is a woman there – Kristin – whom she should “steer clear of” because “she can’t control herself around chocolate.”  This goes from bad to worse when it cuts to Brown setting Red up with this woman.  The commercial ends with the woman – Kristin – dragging Red outside.  Red even comments “Oo strong grip.  OW!”

So let’s break it down: One living chocolate is casually told to avoid a person at a party because that person will straight up murder her with her teeth.  Then, knowing this, the brown chocolate arranges for the murder of the red chocolate.  There’s no other way to see this.  We are supposed to laugh as the red M&M is dragged to his slow and painful death.

I could go on to talk about how the two female M&Ms – Green and Brown – are portrayed as sex objects, but I honestly don’t even want to touch that one.  Let’s just move on.

2. Frosted Mini Wheats

Frosted Mini Wheats’ mascot used to be a two-faced, M&Ms-esque cartoon.  I tried to find a picture or an old commercial on Google and YouTube respectively, but could not.  So we’ll just move on.  The current Frosted Mini Wheats commercials have taken on a new advertising tactic – make the cereal pieces seem like little smart-making shoulder angels for children.  I guess some scientist found somewhere that eating a food consisting entirely of stuff your body can’t process or take nutrients from – pure fiber and sugar – was  a surefire way to help kids concentrate and learn.  And how do they convey this?  With adorable little cereal squares that have smiling faces, legs, arms…

Frosted Mini Wheats

…and a total acceptance of the fact that they are going to die very soon.  Here you can see them lounging in a hot bowl of milk.  The blue one and the pink one actually start off outside the bowl and they choose to get in with the others rather than run for their lives.  What the advertisers want you to think is: Oh, that cereal would taste good with warm milk.  What you should think is: Oh, all those cereal pieces are perfectly happy to be eaten alive.  But nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare with this:

3. Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Just look at this picture here.  But be prepared to lose your appetite.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Yep.  Cinnamon Toast Crunch decided to take this to a whole new level.  Not only do their cereal pieces have faces and limbs, but they actively cannibalize each other.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch 2

Cinnamon toast crunch 3

See?  They eat each other.  They friggin eat each other!!!  How is that okay?  How does anyone see this and think, “Hmm…I see.  The cereal is so delicious that it can’t even resist eating itself.  I fully intend to buy a box, and I hope I only find one piece inside of it, having just finished polishing off its brethren.  And then after I eat that one piece, I’m going to murder some hydrangeas.”

I will end as I started: Please stop!

Word of the Day: Anthropomorphic (adj) – ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human, especially to a deity.

Oh my!  What is this?  That’s right it’s a comic!

Writer's-Block-Strip-39

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Filed under Comic, Humor, writing