It's not me, it's you, @Dell!

I have been a loyal Dell consumer since 2003. My first Dell computer was a desktop named Lola.

This is what I imagined she would look like as a person. 

I killed Lola in only a few months by accidentally pouring a ginger ale in the back of her while trying to fix my router. That was totally my fault. I immediately purchased a replacement Dell, a standard tower, no frills, and I salvaged what I could from Lola and pieced together my new computer, Frankenlola.

Personification of Frankenlola. I was doing a lot of pinups at the time. 

Frankenlola lasted for many years with no incidents. I eventually passed her down to my husband and bought my first Dell laptop for $1400 with money I earned as a research assistant at the University of Florida in 2005. Her name was Lucille. I played a lot of Sims 2 on Lucille, and when I replaced her in 2009, she was literally falling apart. Unfortunately, Lucille’s replacement, whose name I can’t recall, likely because of the trouble I had with her, was the beginning of a downward trend. On November 16, 2010, less than a year old, the hard drive on that laptop died.

http://cheeseblarg.blogspot.com/2010/11/ill-be-back.html 

After much arguing and complaining, Dell honored their warranty and replaced the hard drive in their depot.

A few months later, to treat my husband, since Frankenlola was getting mighty slow, I bought him a new Dell desktop (he doesn’t bother to name his possessions).

After the fight I had then with getting the hard drive replaced (because it was close to the end of the warranty period), the computer only lasted 2.5 years, until July 5, 2013.

On Feb, 8th, 2014, I bought yet another Dell laptop. This one was named the S.S. Lil’ Mare after my friend Mary who worked at Dell and helped me pick out the system.


In May of 2017, I bought another Dell (this time refurbished) for my husband when the hard drive on his desktop failed right before finals, and 2 months later we had to replace the replacement, when its hard drive also failed. Thankfully, the seller of that computer on Amazon happily refunded the price and another Dell desktop was purchased for an additional fee. When the Lil’ Mare died on July 11th of last year, having had to buy 2 computers for my husband, leaving us no extra funds, I saved up until November to buy my current computer, Ernestine, on Thanksgiving morning. My saga with Ernestine has been so horrific that I really never want to deal with Dell, ever again.

When Ernestine broke two weeks into my ownership, I asked Dell to replace it. They insisted on trying to fix it. Fixing it was a whole ordeal. I asked them, please, I’ve only had this for two weeks, just replace the computer. At one point, as I waited with no word from the repairman, they agreed to replace the computer over the phone, but were only willing to offer a refurbished unit. For some reason, they didn’t think I deserved a new one. Desperate, I agreed. Moments later they rescinded, saying the repairman would be there shortly.

The hard drive was replaced on my kitchen table as my cat looked on and it worked poorly for January and February, and then died again, with a catastrophic hard drive failure yet again on March 8th. I asked them to replace the computer once again. They insisted it be repaired and sent a repairman to my home again when I refused to send it in to their depot. Being a writer by trade, I am not pleased with losing my computer for weeks at a time and wanted it done in a timely manner. Forty-five minutes after the repairman left, the computer broke again, this time shutting itself off moments after booting it, repeatedly. After complaining bitterly on Twitter, Dell called me and attempted the third repair, which did, to use a colorful turn of phrase, fuck all.

As a person with processing issues from a chronic illness, talking on the phone is difficult. I can hear but I can’t process speech in real time, often times. I watch TV with subtitles because my brain can’t keep up with the sounds I hear. Having to follow directions from a person with a heavily accented voice in a noisy environment on a staticy phone when I was stressed to begin with was absolute torture, and I was not willing to try again when, predictably, my computer was still broken and I was told I was not eligible to have the unit replaced. After expressing my dismay on Twitter, completely distraught, they convinced me to send the computer into their depot, where it would be fixed once and for all, completely perfect and in tip top shape. I was told the turn around would be very quick. It took 5 days just to get there. And then there was a 5 day wait to get parts to fix it.

After 15 days, I was pleased as punch to have my computer back. I am in the middle of a manuscript for a novel I am excited about that I started in May of 2017, right before the S.S. Lil’ Mare died and am anxious to get back to writing, which I cannot do on my smartphone. Imagine my dismay, reading the documentation that came with my computer explaining that my computer had been carefully fixed and tested, when my newly “repaired” computer, shut itself off within 2 minutes of booting the system to Windows.

I am absolutely livid with Dell. The computer should have been replaced the very first time that there was a problem in the first two weeks I had it. Their bait and switch behavior feels like a scam, and it is making me physically sick. That previously mentioned chronic illness is an autoimmune disease and it is highly reactive to stress. I am currently on a month long course of steroids because my immune system was attacking my joints and internal organs to the point that the low dose chemotherapy I regularly take couldn’t do the job of suppressing it as it should, and my liver was being damaged by the attack.

Over the past day, Dell has offered to send another repairman to “fix my computer right in front of me,” as if this was some sort of treat. If they couldn’t fix it in their depot that is presumably a clean room, how in the hell were they going to fix it in my cat hair filled home? Upon asking that question, they thoughtfully offered to have me send it back to the depot if I didn’t want it fixed in my home. And for that matter, what the hell were they doing with it while it was in the depot in the first place? It was supposedly tested, and yet, Windows wasn’t reinstalled when I turned it on fresh out of the box, and it persisted in the behavior the moment it was fully booted. It seems clear that they didn’t test it and that the computer cannot be fixed.

What I would really like is to be able to buy a different brand of computer so I never have to deal with Dell again, but unfortunately, I am chronically ill and my husband and I depend upon student loans and my writing and art to survive. When I don’t have my computer, I don’t have a way to work, and his loans are solely for his education and must be carefully budgeted to get us through each semester. I would love to have an i Mac or anything, actually, reliable and sturdy enough for process intensive digital art and film making. But regardless, I honestly believe that Dell needs to make this right and that seems very far off.

As it stands, they have passed my case on to an escalation specialist. I was told they would call within 24-36 hours. They called way sooner while I was out assisting my husband with a photography project for his semester final. I was told there would be a call back number direct to the specialist should they be unable to reach me. Predictably, there wasn’t a direct line. I had to answer 20 questions to be patched through to a number where I was promptly hung up on. Mr. Christopher’s phone doesn’t have voicemail, and while he assured me he would be available until 6 pm, their system wouldn’t put the call through because it shuts down at 5 pm.

Over the past 15 years, I have been incredibly loyal to Dell. As the family computer specialist, I have instructed all of my family members to purchase Dells. I have told coworkers and students and friends. I want my computer replaced. I want a machine that works and that I can work with, with the same or better specs and I don’t want another damned platitude where I am told that being frustrated is understandable but their hands are tied. This is a shitty way to do business and it would take a monumental response to rectify the damage done to the relationship. At this point, I’m just assuming even if I am able to harangue a replacement computer out of them, I will forever be disappointed and will spend the rest of my excess energy warning people away from the brand because the treatment I have received and the difficulty I have faced is something no paying customer should ever subject themselves to.

My Summer from Hell - Part One: The Surgery

I just got a computer, yesterday, after 5 months of being without so my first task after restoring all my files and programs is posting for you guys. Thank you, Black Friday sales for decent computers cheap enough I can afford. The last time that I was without dedicated computer access for this long was in 1994, my freshman year of college, but most people didn't have computers then, so it wasn't quite as jarring then as it is now, especially when my entire life exists online.

So I wrote on Cheeseblarg's facebook page a while ago that y'all would find it hard to believe all the shit I had been through this summer, for those of you who aren't following along there, and you probably won't, but I assure you, it's all true, and it's absolute bullshit.

My wish for the upcoming year is that I never have to hear the words, "We're afraid it might be cancer," ever a-fucking-gain from a doctor. This summer started with a mysterious mass in my cervix. I went to the doctor in June because I was experiencing this weird feeling of all of my insides dropping when I stood up for more than 15 minutes which in itself is pretty alarming, but it was accompanied with sweating and feeling like I was going to pass out. Once it got to the point that I couldn't stand long enough to shower without feeling like I was dying, I decided I should probably do something about it, so I bucked up and went to have my lady bits probed by a stranger. I mean, she was a professional, not just some random person on the street with a speculum and a hankering for some gynecological exploring.

Since scraping my lady bits turned up nothing, we went to the next step of sonic spelunking. This revealed the aforementioned "mysterious mass" and then we went to the next step of traumatizing me forever and ever, amen.

Frankly, the whole business gives me more ammunition for the idea that there is a grand conspiracy of hatred for women in this world because I cannot believe that any kind of human rights coalition would allow the equivalent to a cervical/uterine biopsy to be done to any man without general anesthetic. And I've heard that testicular biopsies are done under local and still hurt like hell, but I'm arguing that that is not really equivalent, because testes are not muscles that try to slam shut when you drill pieces out of them causing your entire body to try to escape from what's going on in your nether regions. It was really awful.  So awful in fact, that before I even left that appointment, I made plans with my doctor, before the results came back, to have my uterus and accompanying accouterments removed as soon as possible so I would no longer have a cervix so that procedure could never ever happen to me again.

And my uterus was mint, guys, never been used, though it had been remodeled monthly since I was about 10, so I don't know if I could have gotten full price for it. Anyway, it's totally lost its value now because I took it out of the box. At the end of August, I had them remove my reproductive organs (though I kept my ovaries so they can grow cysts and be generally annoying to keep me off of hormone replacement therapy), and I finally finished healing last month after one of the holes popped open in a cinematic fashion when we thought they were all almost closed.
So that's the story of how I spent 3 months worrying that I had cancer before having a hysterectomy. I didn't have uterine or cervical cancer, but my cervix was faulty and if I had kept it, I would have continued to need biopsies regularly and it would have continued to make me feel like I was dying, and frankly, I wasn't planning on using it anyway, and I'm much happier to have it gone.

Spending all the time in a gynecologist's office, of course, led to appointments with mammography. And instead of just being routine, of course, I got my next, "it might be cancer." I was supposed to be going tomorrow, in fact, to have a lumpectomy to ensure that the tumor they found in my breast during the first biopsy is completely non-cancerous, but I got an ear infection, so now I get to add two more weeks to my 3 months of waiting to find out that this one is nothing too.

And I know that countless people who aren't so lucky would love to be told that it is nothing repeatedly, but having six months of your body constantly trolling you that is mutating and is gonna kill you only to have it yell "PSYCH" after you've had surgeries and near constant stress diarrhea, is relieving as hell, but also really fucking annoying that you had to go through all of that in the first place when your body could have just stopped growing benign tumors in the first damned place.

So that's part one of my trauma. I'm thinking I can wrap it up in one other post, hopefully, next week.

Forget Mensez, Here's Period Pocket!

If you have not seen this innovative new product, Mensez**, let me introduce you to it.

Dr Daniel Dopps, Kansas Chiropractor, is marketing a new way to control the ickiness of menstruation... literally gluing the labia shut so your period doesn't leak out. Genius, right!?

According to his Facebook page (which sadly has been taken down already, but this link works), women are idiots for not thinking of this before.

It's such an easy concept, you just apply this "Lip-stick" (get it, it sticks your "lips" together) comprised of amino acids and stuff and then it holds in all your oozing blood flow until you have to pee. Then, some magical formulation of glue that doesn't react to the moisture in blood lets go with the power of pee, and all the blood rushes out where he claims you never even have to look at it or touch it, which seems a pretty amazing claim, since he also says you need to clean up "down there" and apply more of this glue and then hold your labia together, presumably, until it dries enough to stick your junk together.

While this seems like a great idea, I think my idea, Period Pocket, will get the job done in a much easier and quicker way! With just a few pieces and a little glue, you can use your labia to capture all your blood without having to reapply any pesky glue. Allow me to illustrate!

The metal structure to the pocket is magnetic so you don't have to worry about movement making the pockets come unsnapped.

And, Period Pocket doesn't only have to be used during your period. You can also use it to store spare change or small snacks at other times of the month. Also helps with incontinence and overactive bladder*.


Of course, if you can't afford the low low price of $19.99 each month, you can always improvise with a plastic Zip-lock bag and some Krazy Glue. Just cut off the bottom of the bag, glue the opening to your vulva, and then yellow and blue makes green!




*may not actually help with incontinence or overactive bladder. It is really just a deconstructed coin purse.


** This is a real product, with a real patent. Or moreso, it is being marketed as a real product though it hasn't actually been formulated or tested yet because it is one of the most ridiculous ideas ever conceived. Honestly, gluing your labia together...

Why I am a careful and cautious driver.

I think most people can relate to this, but when you're wearing plus-sized jeans and you're poor, it hits home even harder. Every time I watch a medical drama where they are cutting people's clothes off, I gasp in horror and consider only wearing sweatpants in my car from now on.

A Tale of IC

So, awhile ago, I wrote about my jerk faced bladder. After all kinds of horrific bladder-related tests, including the one where they put me under general anesthetic to fill up my bladder like a big festive balloon until it cracked, I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis.

Interstitial Cystitis or IC, is basically punishment from Satan in the form of the feelings of a UTI (urinary tract infection) because your bladder lining is faulty, with none of the therapeutic possibilities of things like antibiotics or cranberry juice.  In fact, cranberry juice is one of the things that makes it worse.

When I first started feeling the effects of IC, I was guzzling cranberry juice like a person desperate not to have yet another UTI, which only made my bladder angrier and angrier.

And then, like a misunderstood teenager, it began to self-injure

Once I figured out that I probably had IC, two years before it was finally diagnosed, I immediately started an IC diet to try to appease the angsty beast that was living in my groin, and it worked pretty okay, though it was (and is) inconvenient.

Basically nothing with acid, sourness, caffeine or deliciousness.

But, I also found that certain medicines that I had been prescribed for other issues also tore the hell out of my bladder. At 4:45 on a Friday about a year ago, I found myself on the phone, pleading with my urologist's office to give me something to stop the bladder pain before I found a bridge to jump off during the weekend.

What I got worked well enough that I did not have to go out searching for appropriately tall bridges. It is a handy dandy pill that I dissolve under my tongue made from the root of the mandrake. Mandrake or mandragora, if you remember from Harry Potter, is a powerful restorative.  It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed, to their original state.

 Actually, wait, no, it is an antispasmodic drug that soothes the muscles, so, I guess it would work to unpetrify someone who had been petrified by a basilisk (spoilers, sorry), as well as someone who has ridiculous cramps in their bladder that makes them feel like they have to pee every 2 seconds.

I was also introduced to the "Bladder Cocktail" which is likely not as fancy as it sounds at all.

Basically, it is the most wonderful thing ever invented, surely sent from any god that might exist who doesn't like punishing people for having a bladder. It's a mixture of lidocaine and heparin that coats your bladder and numbs the crap out of your bladder wall.

Now, you are likely wondering, like I was when this was first described to me... so... you just pee on yourself? Somehow, this magical concoction from heaven doesn't affect your ability to feel a full bladder, it just stops all the pain associated with having pee in your bladder, which is part of the actual problem with Interstitial Cystitis.

Now, there is a drug to coat your bladder with magic that is on the market called Elmiron, and it works pretty nicely, but it does have side effects.  In my case, along with a bunch of other drugs, it beat the hell out of my liver and I ended up in the ER thinking I was dying of liver failure where I was advised to maybe stop taking pills that were killing my liver. It also beats up your stomach really badly because it is housed in a capsule made of pure evil, but switching it into a generic gelatin pill capsule is enough to combat that... but not if your liver isn't working.

So... I have a crappy bladder disease, and I am managing it with mandrake pills and emergency bladder cocktails when the disease flares beyond what I can control with diet, because I can't handle the pill that would make my life normal, which is part of why I decided to write this post; because right this very moment, my disease is flaring and my mandrake doesn't seem to be working so I called my doctor's office for my "you can come in any time, immediately, no problem, emergency bladder cocktail" and immediately, in this case, translates to "in 11 days." ELEVEN DAYS!!!!

So, I figured you should know what happened, just in case I can't find relief and need to find a suitably tall bridge before I can make it to next Thursday.

Cheeseblarg on Global Warming

I was rage forced to do this comic because of Facebook posts by an old schoolmate who repeatedly posts weather reports about polar vortexes and snow and then adds the oh-so-witty "Global warming strikes again!" or something similar that reads as, "Yada, yada, I don't understand science!"

It's okay if you don't understand science. It is not a crime... and neither is talking about science when you don't understand it, by poorly quoting other people who don't understand it either... unfortunately.

It would be super awesome if people didn't talk about science when they don't understand it, for the sanity of people who do and so as to not infect more people with idiot ideas, but alas, there are scientific studies that say that when people are really bad at things, they are unaware of the deficiency (which is why I always thought I did really awesome on all of my algebra tests in college when I failed most of them*), so my request is really likely to fall of deaf ears through the fault of our silly monkey brains.

*-I was a late algebra bloomer - after I started substitute teaching, I used the teacher's guide and worked backwards until I finally understood it all.

Some Like It Hot!

Someone needs to take my adult badge away...

This is the second time I have burned myself this week. 

The first time, I was melting wax on my stove to use while felting and I accidentally placed my hand on the element. I think I should get a pass on that one, because I have one of those flat top stoves and when the element area is being lazy, it's black (instead of glowing red) like the rest of stove top (Wow, that comes off as really racist upon reading it aloud).

Tonight's burning really is putting me in the realms of, "You can't use the stove any more."

I was innocently heating up a tortilla to make another pulled pork soft taco to eat while watching "We Are The Millers" and the tortilla, which I had just placed in the pan that had been sitting over heat for a few minutes, wasn't particularly warm when I touched it, so I lifted it up and put the back of my fingers directly on the pan... that had been sitting on the heat for a few minutes. As you might expect, which somehow I didn't, it was hot. Very fucking hot. I will need adult supervision until further notice.

Hanukkah 2013: 4th Night- Narwhal Ball

On the fourth night of Hanukkah, your Cheeseblarg gives to you:

A nar-ball in a fake tree.

And with him, we have come to the end of Operation: Recreate Papercraft Tree Ornaments. I'll have you know that he is being a total jerk to all the other ornaments on the tree. For those of you that are new, narwhals are total dicks.

Suck It Narwhal Shirt by cheeseblarg

Design t shirt designs on zazzle.

Don't forget to comment for your chance to win my needle felted Dino Ball and come back every day for more awesome presents I made just for you'se.

Touchy, touchy!

Is everyone in the world just WAY less gross than I am or are touchscreen computers as awful an idea as I think they are?

I'm not a Luddite. I am happy to embrace new technology when I encounter it, but look... my screen is disgusting enough with me NOT touching it. I seriously thought a guy had a mole in the middle of his forehead scrolling through my Facebook feed tonight... until I scrolled a little more and then realized there is just a mole on my monitor.

Every year around Black Friday, I fantasize about getting a new laptop to replace the one I got 4 years ago that has no backspace key, that overheats in 10 minutes of being on, that randomly scrolls through page after page without any movement from me when it is in a bad mood, but if all of the laptops currently available are ALL touchscreen, I just cannot picture myself buying one.

And that is because... I have pictured myself using one.
I spend a lot of time on my computer, so it is not uncommon for me to be eating something while computing, or picking my nose, or. . . Look, lord knows where my fingers have been or what is on them when I am using a computer, okay? I wash my hands a lot, but I'm totally not getting up to wash my hands after eating an eclair while watching shows on Project Free TV so I can stop the video to obsessively check my email or whatever.

Beyond having to place your mouth or genitals on your monitor to use your computer, I cannot think of a worse design. So, is this working for people? Or do you all just have Cheetos dust covered, sticky, nasty monitors? Or am I just really really gross?

Portal

Do you ever have those dreams where you're in school and you're supposed to be going to a certain class but you realize you haven't gone to that class in like... 8 weeks, and so now it feels like it would just be embarrassing to show up and be all, "Hey, algebra class, I'm back...oh... we have a test? Shit. Also, why am I only wearing a towel?"

Yeah, well that is why I haven't posted anything for like a month.  I took the 22nd off because it was husband's birthday, and then it spiraled into, "Well, shit, I can't go back... I don't have an excuse for not posting now." Only, I do have an excuse...

That is not entirely true, I guess. I have a whole list of things I could write about that I haven't... like the fact that there is a portal to another dimension that has followed me around since I was a child.

In 1984, my parents bought me and my sister a Barbie Silver 'Vette. It was entirely bitchin'.

source

Unfortunately, when we went to put it together, there was a piece missing, the roll bar that held the back window on... not that that really bothered Barbie much. She was well aware that rolling her Corvette without the roll bar was going to do her no harm because her head is made of soft plastic, and it had seat belts. It was just kind of a bummer because the box was sealed, and a piece was missing. I still had loads of fun playing with it for the next 8 years.

Several months later, however (or maybe weeks, I don't know, time is exponentially more wibbly wobbly when you're an 8 year old), I was rummaging in a closet in my grandmother's den, and there was the friggen roll bar, just hanging out with some sensible shoes and a few scarfs.

In the past 29 years, I have had all sorts of things disappear and then reappear at a later time, but I was reminded of the 'Vette incident when we recently had our kitchen and pantry floors redone. My husband stashed as much as he could in cabinets and then moved everything else out of both of the rooms. When everything came back, the lids to all of our pots were gone. We looked through every cabinet, every box, in the basement, EVERYWHERE.

A month or so later, I was sitting next to the kitchen sink, waiting for water to boil, and I thought, 'Eh, I know we've looked under the sink a bajillion times, but why the hell not?' and I peeked in the cabinet and the motherfuckers were sitting right there out in the open.

Seriously, we had pulled everything out of there. They weren't there, and then, all of a sudden, they were.

I have thus surmised that it has to be an inter-dimensional portal that is responsible for the phasing of my belongings in and out of my environment. It is really the only thing that makes sense.

In... er... never mind...

Everyone enjoys the pervy fun of adding "IN BED!" to fortune cookies, and it always works, because the more it doesn't make sense, the funnier it is.  I am convinced though, that there are fortunes where IN BED is probably going to make for some awkward after dinner conversation, as in the following:

Feel free to add your own.

New Things I Learned This Week - Episode 2

First thing I learned is that it is damned near impossible to open a laptop case.  There is no illustration for this. Just imagine 65 tiny screws and one JRose spouting colorful curse words.

So yeah, the fan in my laptop no longer turns which means that I can only use my computer until it starts to turn into lava, and then, I have to turn it off or it shuts off the monitor and starts smelling like burning components. It is kind of ruining my will to live.  I tried to open said laptop case thinking that if it were just 3 years' worth of lint wedged in there that I could clean it out, my computer would not be a total loss, but alas, I couldn't get the fucking thing open. I clearly do not have the secret password to the hopping club that is going on inside there.

Also, GIMP... While I am sure it is a lovely drawing program made by very nice people who are kind enough to give it away for free, it is NOT comparable to Painter 12, which is what I usually use to illustrate this here blarg, and my frustration with trying to install my drawing tablet on my friend's computer and wrestling with layers on GIMP today has lead to a fair bit of crying. I miss my computer.

Second thing I learned, on Father's day, actually. Someone working in Google Chrome's spell check programming department is obsessed with Allie Brosh. I have surmised this because I tried typing the following in to my facebook status and this was what it suggested as a correction:

And lastly, I learned, while driving to visit my friend on the interstate, a fact that I am very sad to know:

The beautiful majestic monarch butterfly...

... is a terrible bright mustard yellow on the inside.

New Things I Learned This Week - Episode 1

I wanted to share with you, each Thursday, new things I learned during the week. I thought it might be fun, and according to my long ago Facebook poll, some of you agree, but thankfully I am in charge of what gets posted here, so even if you were all, " NO WAY! That sounds boring!" I would probably still post it if it made me laugh.

So here are a few new things I learned this week:

Despite thinking I was completely useless at first person shooters, because of that one time that I turned on my roommate's Xbox to try playing Halo while he wasn't home and was shot repeatedly in the head within seconds of spawning, I learned, playing Bioshock Infinite, (because my husband was tired of me nagging him to check garbage cans while he was playing and handed over the controller) that I am actually pretty good at video games... unless there are 8 people shooting me from different directions, and one of them seems to be Fire Marshal Bill who is throwing large lava rocks at me. Then I just do a lot of yelling of "OMG STOP SHOOTING ME!" and cry while getting killed a lot.

Also, it is totally acceptable to eat cotton candy that has been in a dead man's pocket.

I highly recommend Bioshock Infinite though. It stands alone well, so you don't HAVE to have played the other two games (though they are awesome also, so you should), and it is just stunning, visually, and so much fun... though the last battle took me a million tries, since it goes from relatively easy -- on the easiest setting-- to WELL THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY in the last battle. If you utilize your many different powers correctly, it is completely doable... demonstrated by the fact that I did it, finally (after looking up helpful hints).

This is the trailer, where you can see how beautiful it is, but be warned, there is a slight amount of gore in it... and know that I chose the trailer with the least spoilery stuff in it:

On to the next thing I learned:

Spiders pee-poop. Also, spider pee, not flammable.

Also, I was reminded that without the aid of spell check, I am apparently unable to spell the word flammable.


New thing trice:

We now have to worry about an epidemic of kitten perpetrated nipple maulings. So much so that I was able to use this card I made for Jen Yates for my friend, comedian Jen Kober, only a few days later.

Feel free to use it, should you know someone who is impacted by this horrifying kitten trend.

And finally:

Despite a hidden desire to kick/punch a punching bag, which was realized when watching some stupid banking commercial, it would make me feel bad for abusing an inanimate object; this feels like it would be much more likely:

Extra points if you recognize the room I am reading to the punching bag in... extra extra points if you verify your knowledge by "shouting" quotes.

Life Lessons: Inside Voices

I've noticed, since it's heading towards summer (here in Montana, it is not quite there yet), humans, particularly of the vagina carrying type, have seriously upped the negative self-talk. You know, where you announce to the world (or repeatedly to yourself) that your (name of human body part) is (adverbly/adjectively) (negative adjective).

 I used to do this ALL THE TIME.  In health class in 11th grade, we all had to introduce ourselves, and my introduction was, "I'm JRose, and I'm fat." and that wasn't a simple declarative like I use now, it was an attempt at being mean to myself, and to let everyone know that I was aware of my (negative adjective) fat, and they didn't need to tell me because believe me, I thought I was (negative superlative adjective-er) than they could ever think me.

And I was superlatively unhappy.  Even if my body changed, I wasn't happy. No matter what happened, I had a negative remark to fit the occasion, and while there were certain jerks in my life who helped me cumulate those negative thoughts, mostly, it was me, repeating them in my head, allowing people and companies to steal my self-esteem and sell it back to me wholesale. It is a lucrative business, selling self-esteem.

But here is what I learned... there is an unending supply of self-esteem out there, so much that no one ever needs to mine it from someone else. All it takes is... not buying into that bullshit.

Now, I am not saying that everyone should be a stubbly smelly bridge troll, unless you are into that sort of thing (not that there's anything wrong with that), but if you are tired of feeling like crap about yourself all the time, you can totally stop. You don't have to do a thing other than telling your jerk brain to shut the hell up when it starts nagging you. When it starts saying, "Jesus, Joe and Mary, think your thighs could possibly make anymore sound when you're walking!?" Say to that voice, "Yes, asshole, corduroy, now shut up. I have some Doctor Who replacement to think about... ain't nobody got time for your smack talk." And when it says "You have wrinkles at the corners of your eyes, you looking fucking ancient." say, "I laugh a lot, that's why, bitch. I'm happy and I have fun when you aren't here talking shit about me! So I get all squinty -- enough that, of course, my skin shows it. That is what skin is built to do." And when it says, "You're a loser!" Say, "YOU'RE A LOSER! SHUT UP! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH ANYWAY?! You know we are working here in the same body, right, if I'm all the shit you say I am, you are too, and you know what, neither of us really are, and there is no reason for any of this! I am making the choice to silence you RIGHT NOW. ZIP IT!"

Does this mean sit in a hole for the rest of your life pleased as punch about how awesome you are without ever doing anything positive? Probably not. I mean you could, if you really wanted to, but there are very few people I know who think sitting in a hole singing their own praises is terribly fulfilling. But it does mean that you can cut yourself some slack.

For example, I don't run, I have no desire to run, I don't think I would even really want to run if someone was chasing me with a machete.

Not once in my life have I enjoyed running, so things that pertain to my skills as a runner are not things that I worry about. Why should I? I have no interest in it, so it's not something I should be ashamed of having no skills in.  I do worry about my skills as an artist, it is important to me, and is fulfilling. But sitting here telling myself that this artist does better work than I do does me absolutely no good. Just like telling myself that my knees are not what I consider ideal, visually, does nothing positive for me. They are the knees I have. They have gotten me through 36 years of walking, and skipping, and sitting, and hopping, and other things that I won't write about because my mom reads this (Hi Mom!), and I would rather have them than have no knees at all. Seriously, my lower legs would be much less appealing if they were trailing behind me attached by some rope and a twist tie. So, I am not saying that you should never work on things that are important to you.  That is not what this is about.

I'm just saying, there is a good chance that your life, and the lives of those people you surround yourself with, might just be a little more awesome without that dick voice in our heads being allowed free run of the place. That little voice is usually just trying to fuck shit up, because it is what we have all been trained to do, and it's easy, it's habit, and because for some reason, this society has some sort of beef against people who actually like themselves. Companies have a HUGE interest in convincing you to hand over your self-esteem so they can mass produce it, package it in fancy wrapping, and then sell it back to you by working in collusion with that little fucker in your head. Your self-esteem is YOURS. The word "self" kind of assumes that... you already have it. Sometimes, you just need to shut that son of a bitching voice inside your head off so you can hear it.

That said, my challenge to everyone reading this, should you like to experiment, is to do what you can to shut that voice up for one full day. Just one day of no complete negative self-talk (complete, as in allowing the whole thought to come out unchallenged). That voice is gonna yell like a toddler having a temper tantrum most likely, so don't let the backup voice chastise you for the first voice trying to get its way, but try, for one day to see how you feel without negative self-talk, and let me know how it goes!

Why I Should Not Be Given Comment Boxes.

I went to order delicious chicken wings last night because I am a fan of chicken wings because they are delicious, and I had the option to order online, which is like HEAVEN for someone who is socially awkward and hates talking on the phone, which would accurately describe me. The ordering form, however, was broken into three different pages, only, I had no idea it was broken into three different pages, hence my comment on the first page, but then each page had its own comment section. This is what the order ended up looking like:

This is not something I did to make a funny blarg post about how weird I am. This is how I am. It is an unfortunate way to be when people don't take it well, but thankfully the cashier assured me ("JRose, with all the comments"), that they heartily enjoyed laughing at my social ineptitude, which works for me (since I detected no spit in my meal at all).

And if you have a Wing Stop near you, I highly recommend the Garlic Parmesan wings. They are totally worth the money. Even though, apparently, chicken wings are one of the rarest food parts of all time for how much places charge for them.

The Day I Stopped Smoking Cloves.

A (n unfortunately true) Cautionary Tale

And in case you can't read my chicken scratch:

Remember that time in high school that I went to Dick Clark's American Bandstand 

to hit on my adult neighbor who was DJing there? And I was smoking clove cigarettes? 

And then I threw up in my hair? And  on the dance floor... and in their bathroom sink

because all the bathroom stalls were taken? 

Good times...good times.

When Fruit Cups Attack

So I got these delicious sounding Del Monte cinnamon peach fruit cups on clearance. I was going to eat one while laying in bed watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (up to season 5, whew hew), and I know they have a tendency to burble over some when you open them because of the vacuum seal, so I set myself up with a towel over my chest/neck, and slowly peeled the plastic lid off the cup.

 Apparently, this cup was SUPER vacuum-sealed because I was treated to a powerful nasal douche of cinnamon peach juice to my sinuses. I was amused, but also quite uncomfortable nasally. It was delicious (since I ate the cup after cleaning up the incident, the post nasal drip was a little off putting though), however I wish they opened without exploding and/or squirting long distances. Especially since they are for kids, or for adults who eat fruit cups in bed while watching supernatural shows made for kids.

 Also, I've passed this on to Del Monte and asked them if I could send them my doctor's bills  if I get a sinus infection from the peach cinnamon sugar water still lingering inside my face, but they are staunchly ignoring me, just like all the boys I ever loved...


Most hilarious comment when I posted about it on Facebook:

Just proves that no matter how well you prepare for a known eventuality, the universe is just going to shoot cinnamon peach juice up your nose anyway. - Lora-Lee

Saying Sorry: A Guide

"IF"s do not belong in apologies.

The only time IF should be in an apology is:

 a)  if the apology is for a future possible action or outcome:

or b) if you are in a crowded place such as a Subway train:

                                                                   source

or c) there is some uncertainly as to whether you are the person to blame, or if another person was responsible

                                                                   source

Under no circumstance, unless you fancy the idea of someone wanting to harm you, should you add "IF" to an apology when you have just been told that you did something that required an apology.

The phrase "I'm sorry if," when there is no uncertainty, directly translates to: "It is unfortunate I have to hear you bitching right now. I want you to shut up. I am going to say words now in the hope that you will do just that. I am certainly not sorry, and to boot, I think you'll let me get away with this."

"THAT" is the keyword to sincere apologies. I'm sorry THAT I made you angry. I'm sorry THAT I got you pregnant. I'm sorry THAT I also got your sister pregnant.




I'm also sorry THAT I used the example of rubbing crotches on people in the subway.

Hanukkah 2012: 4th Night- Catnukkah

Happy 4th night of Hanukkah. I got you a grumpy cat, and one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits of late.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Cheeseblarg!

Here we are again. This little blarg that I started two years ago on this date is celebrating its birthday. It's done so much in that time, and I hope it does much more in the future.

Remember the time when we won Blog of Note from Blogger? And that time that we went to NYC to hang out with our Coco Llama in Conan O'Brien's gallery with the help of you readers? And we won Voice of the Year from BlogHer? And I was published not once, but twice, with Cheeseblarg art?

Yup, we've done a lot so far, and someday, we'll get our mention from a celebrity and we'll finally buy that Unicorn Jumbo Jet we have always wished for!


Happy Birthday, Cheeseblarg, and thanks for reading again, and always! And of course, I made cake!

If you want to give Cheeseblarg a present, share your favorite post with friends and celebrities, or cash donations work to. ;)

...see more about the creation of this cake below...