Archive for March, 2016

Happy Easter! Have some charts.

Monday, March 28th, 2016

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Podcasts!

Monday, March 28th, 2016

Y’all listen to podcasts? Well, you should, especially if you commute seventeen hours a day like I do. (Only slightly exaggerating, I commute about three hours a day but still, it’s a looooong time.) Podcasts, in case you don’t know, are basically radio shows made by people for free that you can listen to when it’s convenient for you. You download them to your phone oSometimes they ask for donations, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it’s weekly, sometimes it’s monthly. Often if it has a big enough listening audience the makers get sponsors and make money that way. There’s a documentary coming out soon about them called Ear Buds. They’ve become so popular that WTF with Marc Maron had Obama on as a guest. Yeah, they’re becoming a big deal. And they are wonderful to listen to while walking to and from the station and while on the train so I devour them like an animal. I figured I’d list the ones I am listening to right now in case you wish to join me on this journey of auditory awesomeness.

Comedy Film Nerds: They are the ones making the Ear Buds documentary. It’s two men, Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini, they’re comedians, and they review films. The title is pretty spot-on. If you like movies and smiling this is a good one to check out. I recommend any episode where the guest is Laura House.

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Sklarbro Country: Twin brothers Randy and Jason Sklar are comedians and they are passionate about sports and indie music. I like neither sports nor indie music yet this is one of my favorite podcasts ever which is a testament to their fantastic ability to talk about whatever and be interesting. I’ve seen them live, I’ve hugged them, they are wonderful people.

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The Dollop: Two comedians in a room. Dave Anthony tells Gareth Reynolds a story from American history. Gareth has not been informed of the story beforehand so he reacts in real time. When it’s good it’s a masterpiece. It’s also the only way I learn anything about history. Start with “The Death of George Washington,” “Owen Kildare,” “The Fans of Philadelphia,” or “David Hahn.” The Dollop is wildly popular in Australia for an unknown reason so whenever they record over there they do a story from Australian history. I recommend “Reg Spiers” or “Prince Alfred Visits Australia.”

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How Did This Get Made?: A podcast about movies that should not exist. I mean the movies should not exist, not the podcast. It’s a great podcast. It’s got Paul Sheer, June-Diane Raphael and  the star of the show Jason Mantzoukas. I would recommend the “Sleepaway Camp” episode, “Over the Top,” “Staying Alive,” or “Hercules in New York.”

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Stuff You Should Know: One of the most prolific podcasts I listen to. It’s pretty much what the title says. Two sweet, soft-spoken Southern men educate you on a specific thing for about half an hour. I now know the story of how Tupperware was invented thanks to them.

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The Cracked Podcast: Want to learn something while also being depressed by your fellow man? Then this is the podcast for you! It’s actually really good and informative but it tends to take the negative side of topics. I still like it though and I’ve learned bunchie-wunchies. Sometimes knowledge is a bummer.

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StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson: Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and the head of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. He’s also the coolest person ever. Here he is on The Nightly Show being his bad-ass self.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/rca4i7/the-nightly-show-with-larry-wilmore-neil-degrasse-tyson-slams-flat-earth-theorist-b-o-b

Anyway he invites his fellow awesome friends like other physicists and astronauts and they chat about science and it’s great. Did I mention that Dr. deGrasse Tyson was a ballroom dancer in his past? Because awesome.

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Welcome to Night Vale: Weird. So weird. But so good. This is the artsiest of the bunch. It’s a fake local radio show for a town called Night Vale. Night Vale is plagued by odd occurrences but everyone treats these occurrences like they’re normal.

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For example, this is the sign outside the dog park:

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And here are some of their tweets:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/tweets-from-night-vale-that-will-make-you-question-realit?sub=2595168_1615445#.eaBgpwgqv

Because the people who write this show have crafted such a lush and intriguing world, many artists have chosen to interpret aspects of this world and the work they create is beautiful. Here are some examples I have found.

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There’s tons more and if you start listening to Welcome to Night Vale you’ll see why. I recommend starting at the beginning.

If anyone has any cool podcasts you’d like to tell me about please do. I’m always on the lookout for good listening material.

TV posters and my present obsession.

Saturday, March 12th, 2016

As I walk to work every day I am passed by a ton of city buses that have advertisements posted on the side. They zip by rather quickly so you only have a second to absorb the information presented. Which is how I got two shows very confused. See, there’s a show about what appears to be a family with a gay son.

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Okay, fine, but there’s also a show that I believe is about a son that disappears and a kid who shows up years later and claims to be that long-lost son but who knows?

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The posters designed for buses are nearly identical in structure with the son in the center and two family member on either side in a row. Long story short – I thought they were the same show for several weeks and was very confused and a bit offended. Why is it shattering this family that their son is gay? Is this 2016 or what? C’mon, Mainstream America, get with the program. Then I saw a 30-second spot for The Family and they didn’t mention homosexuality at all which threw me for a loop. Seriously, it took waaaay too long for me to figure out what my issue was. It’s a good thing I’m so pretty because Lord knows I ain’t smart.

Sometimes I go through a phase where I need to see every single YouTube video on a topic. For while it was power-washing videos. Then it was cyst-popping videos (don’t judge, it’s a thing that’s very popular, I am not alone). Now it’s nail tutorials. Oh my gosh, so much glitter. I don’t even really paint my nails because I need them short to type and work on my artsy endeavors but I’ve been like, “I’ll just wash one or two videos…” and then next time I check the clock is six hours later and I’ve grown a Rumpelstiltskin beard and Trump is already president. There are two channels I watch the most of. First there’s Naio Nails out of Yorkshire, England. I tell you the English bit because the accents of the ladies explaining are glorious and they thrill me no end. Really any video is good because they talk in all of them. Their voices are so soothing. Here are some of my favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clo4pqeJ7GI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mw1o4iMPYA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEcZt4dOdDE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCY5xLRFz-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcXSJs2KThc

The other one is Simply Nailogical. The woman who does this channel, Christine, her voice is… less soothing. I sometimes watch her videos with the sound off. However she does some great techniques and she uses so so so much glitter. It heals what ails ya, all that glitter. Here are some of my favorites of hers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffd58TL8wls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYxhMJWi82I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZYG5jSGqpI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2CjRKxsgIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBSWTiaouPI

Beware, the nail tutorials. They will steal your soul and all your free time.

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Bits and pieces.

Thursday, March 3rd, 2016

Guess who has two thumbs and was sent home from work last week with a stomach flu? Me, and don’t touch my thumbs. Go wash your hands right now. It was so sad. The whole situation was like a physical manifestation of that Sarah McLachlan song they use in ASPCA commercials.

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It started the night before. I thought it was general bodily malaise but I couldn’t sleep all night because my entrails felt sunburned and ouchy. Eventually I said what the hell and went to work and that’s when the muscle aches and skin pain kicked in. Børkke found me at my desk weeping softly and sent me home where I writhed in bed because when your stomach is upset you’re not supposed to take Tylenol or Advil but my muscles and skin were so sore and there was naught I could do. You know how they say “Necessity is the mother of invention?” I thought back to all the episodes of Intervention I had seen and all the ways I could get painkillers into my system bypassing my GI tract. Cricket had to deal with texts like this all day:

“Do you have any injectable Dilaudid and a syringe?” (No.)

“How about Fentanyl patches?” (No.)

“Okay, do you have any Oxycontin that I could put on a piece of tin foil and light from underneath, inhaling the fumes?” (Stop.)

“How about an anal suppository sprinkled with opium–” (I’m coming over.)

Eventually after moaning to Cricket for three hours (he’s a very patient boyfriend) I fell asleep and woke up the next day much improved but I’m still wondering, why don’t they sell non-oral pain suppressants? I’ve been told it’s because it’s difficult to regulate the dosage but how is it harder than a pill? Someone get on this. Me wants some stickers that make the owwies go away.

In a vaguely related note I worked a obscene amount in January. Like, all of January. To repay a designer who gives up sleeping and bathing for a month an account team will buy them a thank-you present. It’s usually a bottle of good liquor or a gift card to someplace nice. Those are crap gifts. I got the most magnificent present ever from the team I worked with – a zebra-print felt hoodie with AN INFLATABLE NECK PILLOW BUILT IN. You feel that? That feeling is jealousy.

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It’s glorious. I am not a fan of animal prints in the slightest but I was delighted by this zebra print because what the account team not know was that several years ago Neenernator bought me a zebra print Slanket. Therefore I got to spend Valentine’s Day wearing this exquisite ensemble. Brace yourselves.

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