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.

Rush's Bain Conspiracy Goes Deeper!

It was reported that Rush Limbaugh made the claim that the character Bane (who was featured in the 1993 DC Batman Comics) was created to be the villain in "The Dark Knight Rises" to conjure thoughts of Bain Capital, which was designed to undermine Mitt Romney's presidential bid.

This unearthed woodcut comic from the 1500s shows that it goes way deeper than that.

Crazy Mike and the Debbie Stick

Hey, mom and dad, you might want to skip this one…

Yesterday, I was in the gift shop in St. Regis, Montana, which is one of my regular stop-offs when going on road trips because it is roughly 2/3rds of the way from my house to my friend’s house, and because once I took a bus to Washington State and it stopped there, so since professional drivers deemed it a good place to stop, I do too. Also it has a Live Trout Museum, and if you won’t stop for a Live Trout Museum, what the hell will you stop for?

During this particular stop, I was searching this giant gift store for something small and amusing to give to a Cheeseblarg follower on Facebook, because I like rewarding people for paying attention to me and humoring me without my having to actually put a lot of effort into posting. I think of it as Operant Conditional Love.

What I wanted to buy was a flashing solar keychain that said “Debbie” but I realized that I hadn’t told you the story that makes referring to everyone as Debbie hilarious, so I bought something else that was equally as amusing, to me at least, and made a note to tell you guys the story, which is what I am about to do.

When I was in college, I had low self-esteem, which as we all know, leads to some really bad choices and amusing tales, thankfully. This story started at a Drag Show at the gay club in my college town. I sat outside on the porch, smoking (which I no longer do), and was approached by a very handsome guy who I had noticed around town before, due to his handsomeness, and somehow, the details of which are fuzzy, it lead to us making out by the stairs. (Yeah, parents, I told you to stop reading this).  As I was giving him a ride home, it occurred to me that I didn’t really know him and he was leading me down unlit and unpaved roads and that he might be leading me to a dark, out of the way clearing where he was going to murder me, but, as you might have guessed, since I am writing this now, and called it an amusing story, he didn’t kill or rape me, for which I am quite thankful.

I didn’t bother getting his number or anything, I just dropped him off and went back to my dorm because I realized that my stupidity was overwhelming, and that while it was quite an experience, it was really a dumb DUMB choice to let someone into my car who I didn't really know, but I could now cross “make out with random attractive stranger” off my list of things to experience in life, and yay, I survived it.

Except Crazy Mike apparently didn't feel the same way about the experience that I did.

I think it was when he started giving me random presents that he got the nickname, Crazy Mike. The first was a Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch tape. No case, just the tape.  And I should probably mention that this was about 1996 so Marky Mark had not been heard from for about 5 years.

 The next time he gave me a ring. I think it was a man’s ring. He might have found it discarded in the street.

“Oh, that’s nice…” I said sitting on the porch of the gay bar with my friends.
“Yeah, we’re gonna get married.” he told me.
“Oh?”
“You’re my girlfriend now.”
“Oh…” For fuck’s sake.  And THIS is why you are not supposed to make out with random strangers, THIS right here.
Entirely creeped out by this, I tried avoiding  the gay club. Crazy Mike, however, started showing up all over town, usually sitting on the hood of my car when I would come out of Denny‘s or Simon‘s. I drove a big ugly station wagon. It was pretty easy to find apparently.

So after a few weeks of being unable to avoid him, I finally went back to the club, and sitting on the porch was Crazy Mike’s equally crazy brother, Mark.

“Hey, Debbie! Debbie!” I looked around, and then realize he was talking to me.
“That’s not my name.”
“My brother likes you, Debbie.  I think you look like a hippopotamus.”
“Well, thank you, Mark. My name still isn‘t Debbie though.”
“He’s got a present for you…”

Oh yay, another present. How wonderful.

He wasn’t there though, so I went inside and watched the Drag Show, and after a while, I grabbed my friend and went to leave.

“I have something for you.” he said when I came out of the club.
Oh, was pretty much my standard response at the time, because OMG, LEAVE ME ALONE, somehow was not part of my vocabulary, most likely on account of the low self-esteem. I looked up at him, sitting on the top part of the porch, he was holding a knife and something that looked like a very long ax handle.
“I made you this, I’m carving your name into it.”
He handed me the stick, which I really can’t be sure wasn’t a very old ax handle. He had carved two lines all the way around it, kind of intertwining around the length of the stick, and at the top, he was starting to carve the name “Debbie.”
“Yeah, my name is NOT Debbie!”

After I received the Debbie stick, he seemed to lose interest in me, although a few weeks later, he found me outside Denny’s and told me that he had something to show me.  Apparently he had learned my name by then because he had it tattooed really crudely in a misshapen heart on his shoulder. I, on the other hand, really appreciated the gift of the stick, even though I had to change the name to my own, myself, because he had actually given me a weapon that I could use to bludgeon him if he had chosen to take his creepy stalking up to the next level. I actually still have it, because it was a nice stick. And also because it serves as a reminder not to make out with strangers who don’t know your name and who have brothers who tell you that you look like a hippopotamus.

They call it a PET for a reason...

My husband bought a $3 fish tank from Good Will. He likes fishes. I have a general distrust of any pet that you cannot hug without killing.

He hasn't actually gotten a fish yet, because, as he informs me:

Mr. Rose: I have to get gravel and fish food and you have to get it an "air stone" because fish will use up all the oxygen in the water and suffocate.

Me: Wait, that doesn't sound right... if they use up all the oxygen, does that mean they are just swimming in liquid hydrogen? Does it cease to be water? Since water is H2O and they're using ALL the oxygen...

Mr. Rose [interrupting]: Fine, let me rephrase that. I have to get an air stone because if I just put the fish in there it will die. I don't know why.

Me: I think it is because fish are assholes.

Warning, Meteorites!

I honestly had no idea what this sign meant, despite driving past it countless times when driving through my friend's neighborhood. I always thought it meant "Look out for Meteorites!" You've gotta give it to me though, it DOES look way more like a meteorite than an eye. In fact, I think, when informed that it was a Neighborhood Watch sign, I actually said, "What do meteorites have to do with crime?"

I like to imagine it being left over from the Cretaceous Period. If only they had had a Meteorite watch... if only.

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Yesterday, after 4 years of being in Montana, I broke my falling on ice virginity. It was almost as traumatic as losing the other virginity... only less bruises this time (I kid).

I had a series of falling incidents in college where I would just be walking along, my ankle would twist, and next thing I knew, I would find myself on the floor while my friends walked on, not even noticing I was no longer next to them.

A slipping fall is much more traumatic, I think, because your brain has the time to register that you will be falling soon. It seems to happen almost in slow motion. The most damaging part for me, since I am well padded, is that it seems I pulled about every muscle in my body trying to recover my balance instead of just going with the fall.


That is why I think people should ALWAYS be drunk while walking on ice.

A.A.A.D.D.

Dearest parents (especially mother), you should either not read this or, if you insist upon doing so, you should take a lot of illicit date rape sorts of drugs before reading this so you don't recall it and never discuss it with me. Let's go with never reading it, okay? Awesome. 


I'm not kidding either. 
Okay, on to the post ...


I was just reminded, when the boy I had a crush on in middle school added me on Facebook, that I was a fucking psycho when I was a teenager.  I think I owe pretty much everyone with a penis (who was not an immediate member of my family) that I knew from the ages of 11- 19 a major apology.  See, when I say "the" boy I had a crush on, I mean ONE of the 7 billion boys I had a crush on, but  definitely the one I spent the most time terrorizing, from my recollection. No, wait, the one I spent the most time terrorizing in eighth grade, and also part of 7th. I terrorized the hell out of a bunch of guys. I had a problem... we shall refer to it as attention and affection deficit disorder (AAADD).
I was  really bad, as a teenager, at ascertaining when someone was attracted to me. That is, people for the most part, weren't attracted to me, but if they were willing to make eye contact with me, or respond to me when I spoke and I found them even the remotest bit attractive, I was pretty sure they were in love with me. Or maybe it was that I was pretty sure I was in love with them, and any modicum of attention convinced me that the feeling was mutual or could, through repeated pestering and writing of REALLY bad poetry, be cultivated.

If you could imagine Chris Farley.. hell, you don't have to imagine. Here is a clip.

Yes, that was me, only quite a bit cuter. But the thing is, there was no chance of me having any sort of normal relationship with anyone at that time because responding to me was enough to set me off in a pattern of psychotic smothering attention. If I could just get my foot in the proverbial door, they were sure to adore the ever loving shit out of me... but the reality of it was, they were more than likely terrified of me, because my attention was fairly terrifying. And that was when I wasn't thinking of anything more than just holding hands and pop kisses.  I was probably about 42 times more terrifying when I was trying to seduce every male who interacted with me, not excluding my 9th grade Math substitute, some weird French guy who owned a leather furniture design company who may have been in his late 40s, my best friend, who was a male (the poor guy), C.B. Barnes, and our 25 year old neighbor.

Of course, people who WERE actually attracted to me, I was oblivious of.  If they approached me first, I was suspicious and bitchy.  Yup, bitchy is the word for what I was, in that it is a word that doesn't start with a C that would probably be a better word for how I acted, but people seem to have an aversion to that word for some reason that I am unable to fathom. Anyway, I mean that I was a jerk version of crazy when I wasn't being otherwise crazy and writing, have I mentioned, REALLY horrible poetry... like the kind where each line starts with a letter of the boy's name, and which I carefully calligraphized on floofy purple stationary that I might have rubbed on a perfume sample page of a beauty magazine so he knew it was from a girl and that I then stuck in his locker. After I stalked him and saw that he had seen the poem and hadn't come running to confess his love for me, though he was one of the most sought after boys in school and I had no concept of "out of your league,"  I then carefully extracted said horrible purple calligraphied poem out of his locker while pretending to go to the bathroom, so that it couldn't be used to humiliate me any worse than I had already done myself. Wait that wasn't clear. I meant, I asked my teacher to go to the bathroom so I could stop by his locker and go mission impossible on it, not that I was pretending to pee while I was shoving my fingers through the air holes of the locker to get the embarrassing fucking thing out.

Anyway, yeah, sorry boys, and maybe some girls too, for making you uncomfortable and for being unable to handle having female hormones. I'm much more balanced now, though I am still prone to bouts of adult AAADD... I am just aware of things like restraining orders and mace now, so I have toned it down and there is nothing to be afraid of. And also sorry for the poem. You didn't deserve that. Nobody deserves that... nobody.

It's (also) a Trap!

We've still not caught the mouse.  In fact, my husband is the only person in the house who has seen this mouse, and I am beginning to wonder if he is having rodent-centric hallucinations.
I bought two more humane traps today because he keeps seeing it in different rooms of the house, and since the trap in the dinning room area wasn't enticing it, it seemed only logical to get more.

Pro-tip for you: When you get a humane mouse trap, you have to put down the little flange so the effing mouse can get in it.

How I learned not to pack pick axes.

What with my trip tomorrow, I have been perusing the TSA website for potential lulz, and by potential lulz, I mean for lists of things that sane people would probably NOT try to bring on a plane.

As a collector of snow globes and meat cleavers, I can't tell you how disappointing this is.


*FYI, pre-purchase of art from the "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" project through the donation link on "The Good, the Bad, and the Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" is available until October 29th.  After that, art will be available for sale on Cheeseblarg's Etsy site at retail prices.

These Boots Were Made for Walking... Dead

Look, "The Walking Dead," I like you, or at least I want to like you, but fer real... I am going to have to start rooting for the zombies soon if you don't stop with making the humans complete freaking idiots.

I mean, yes, they are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, they are a little stressed, I get that, but I cannot continue to spend the rest of the series yelling "OMG STFU you IDIOT!!!!" at my television.  Zombies=STFU. They just do. When things want to eat your flesh and/or brains, that is not the time for obnoxious whimpering or squealing or crying. It is time for absolute stillness and silence.

You're going to need to cover blood pressure pills for me if this continues.

VIRUS WARNING! QUICK! GIVE ME MONEY!

While I am entirely against violence and revenge, people who create those viruses that pretend to be virus warnings that try to trick computards, like my sister and her husband, who don't have anti-virus programs on their family's laptop (because WHO NEEDS ANTI-VIRUS!? YAY! THE INTERNETS! OOH WHAT'S THAT!? CLICK CLICK CLICK!

)

into paying said virus makers to remove the virus on their site that pretends to be "Window's Helpful Security Tool"... those people, they should have acupuncture needles inserted into their peeholes. I'm just saying. I don't condone violence*, but they kinda deserve it.

*This statement, the result of 11 hours of wrestling with a fake security warning virus out of the goodness of my heart, which kept me up until 6am, running and rerunning two different malware removers and spybot s&d, to try to get my sister's computer usable for her work trip (which she told me about last night at 7pm), only to find that the virus keeps me from being able to finish the last step to remove it (installing an actual anti-virus program) so that the whole hard drive needs to be wiped, though the backup OS disk has been lost of course, is not representative of my usual feelings or intentions towards hackers, who really should DIAF until I get more than 4 hours of sleep. Really, die.

<3, JRose

Thirsty

I make dumb choices sometimes based on misinformation and/or bland assumptions. Thankfully, the awesomeade was not poisoned... this time.

The Wrong Number

Yesterday, as I was jazzercising*, my crappy borrowed cellphone rang.  Since I am currently out of the service area and it costs like 2 dollars a minute to take a call, I just checked the number, realized it was no one I knew and went back to my squatting jazz hip thrusts, ignoring the ringing, which is more of an ephemeral ghostly wailing than a ringing, but you probably wouldn't have known what the hell I was talking about if I said I ignored the ephemeral ghostly wailing without letting you know that that is my ringtone. I only chose it because it was the least aurally offensive of all the rings available, and because I was unable to program Hedwig's theme into this phone by hand, since I am certainly not going to pay for a ringtone for a phone I hardly ever use.

Anyway, the phone then made a tinkling shooting star sound, which is the sound it makes when I get a message of the textual persuasion, which I always get when I ignore a call or miss one by accident, which I also usually ignore if I am doing something else, but then... I got another tinkling shooting star sound and I wondered, 'well, what the hell was that?!' So I checked and the person who I did not know had left a message.  And curiosity beat out. My logic being, if it was actually an important call for me from a number I didn't recognize I should know what it was, or if it was something important for someone else like "Billy, it's Devon, mama's being mauled by a snow leopard, you have to come home from the bar RIGHT NOW!" I might wanna let them know that they dialed the wrong number, for mama's sake.

But it wasn't for me, and it wasn't Devon calling for Billy, it was Ron, calling for Josh.

Hey Josh, it's Ron.  I'm in Montana for a few more days so give me a call when you get off work, dude, okay?! I wanna hang out. See ya man!

I can only assume that Ron was in town for something having to with a medical marijuana convention because this was the rest of the exchange when I texted to let him know that Josh was not getting his messages:

Me: Wrong number- sorry!

4:40pm Ron: What is the #

Me (thinking, doesn't your phone have that feature where you can see who you dialed? I thought that was standard, but fine, whatever...): XXX-XXX-XXXX (only I put my phone number instead of Xs, obviously, although I can't see that it would have made a difference had I not used numbers).

5:09pm Ron: Got it dude thanx when u off work

Are you fucking kidding me?! You were asking me, the person on the receiving end of the wrong phone call, what Josh's actual number is... *facepalm*

Me: This really isnt josh. XXX-XXX-XXXX has never had a male owner. (Screw capitalization and punctuation for wrong numbers, let them think I am dumb, what do I care?)

5:59pm  Ron: Cool send me a pic so I know this aint josh

FFS... really?! Now I have to sext you to get you to stop calling? But I would have sent a picture if I had had the capability to send pictures just to get him to go away. It would have looked a lot like this:

Yes,  I would have hired a skywriter for the occasion.

But instead, I just ignored him, while being annoyed and partially amused. Until 8:46 pm when I received yet another call from Ron, which again, I ignored. And again, he left a message... and again, I was too curious and had to listen to it.

Josh- Ron. Dude, give me a call.

*blink*


If he calls again, I am texting him a link to this post.


 *fine, I wasn't really jazzercising, but that is more pleasant than what I was really doing, just trust me on this one.

Use our MRI or DIE!

I went today for an MRI on my brain to prove, once and for all, that I do not have either tumors, or a woodsman in my brain causing my headaches.

When I met my technician I didn't catch his name, but let's call him Chip, he looked like a Chip. I told him, as we walked to the MRI room, "I'm gonna try not to freak out, but I cannot promise anything." Chip assured me that he would do his best to hurry and was super nice about explaining to me what would happen, though I knew because I can't go into a situation without researching it thoroughly, especially when it might tell me I have a woodsman in my head. Plus, I watch a lot of House. I was then told I could listen to music while they did the procedure. I, of course, chose the 80s music channel and Chip offered to turn the music way up so it would drown out the sound of the machine. Thanks for the thought Chip; it totally didn't work.

And then, and I had considered this, it played a song by Van Halen that my stupid idiot jerk boyfriend from high school used to cry through because "It was SO meaningful and deep." No, idiot, "When It's Love" is not deep, you're just a tool. Plus, seriously, Sammy Hagar sucks, I mean compared to David Lee Roth... He was alright on his own, but Van Halen totally fell apart when they replaced David Lee Roth. I wish they had played Panama, or Ice Cream Man, or anything that didn't remind me that I dated a stupid jerk for way too long, but it was amusing, being stuck in a tube with sub-par Van Halen and my memories.
Then they played "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band which I loved, clearly, because if you don't love that song, you suck*, or haven't heard it. And then "Tenderness" by... who the heck sings that song... General Public? Who knew... probably people who really like General Public.

Part way through "When It's Love," Chip called into me to make sure I was okay and then told me there were only 6 minutes left. He didn't, however, tell me that those were the six loudest, most terrifying minutes of the procedure. Towards the end, the machine started shaking and beeping like there was a nuclear melt down happening. It crossed my mind that the Yellowstone Caldera had finally blown and that Chip had fled for his life and I was going to die wedged in a tiny tube.

But, I have already gotten the results back and my brain is, apparently, completely normal. I think that their definition of "normal" may be a bit skewed but my headaches are just headaches and I can finally say for sure:



IT'S NOT A TUMOR!


*sorry for telling you you suck if you hate this song. I've just been through something traumatic, you'll have to forgive me.

That's why you gotta drink 'em fast Harry, trust me!

While slurpees, slushies, freezes, frappacrappos, and other drinks made primarily of crushed ice and flavoring are friggen delicious and wonderful for a hot day, or for when you have a fever, I think they are indicative of how idiotic humans, as a species, can be.

 I would write more on this, and it would be really profound and brilliant, probably earning me some sort of award or book deal, but I cannot form full coherent thoughts currently because I am suffering brain freeze from drinking a delicious new Pina Colada Freeze from Taco Bell way faster than I should have, and my brain hurts.

How I learned not to jump at solid objects.

Today's post is guest illustrated by my darling friend Vez, who is also (or actually) my darling friend Rhea, who has a link to her Etsy shop featured on the side of the blarg.  Check out her art blog here! And now to our regularly scheduled program!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In middle school, my logic centers were not nearly as strong as they are now. This is best illustrated by the time I went to my friend, Marie Silva's, house one summer afternoon to go play in her pool.  They had a giant pool in a screened in area and it was awesome because it had a diving board AND mosquitoes couldn't eat you.  So, we were all playing in the water and taking turns jumping off the diving board, merrily as can be.  It was her little brother and sister and the two of us, and playing in the pool turned from just jumping off the board, to a frenzied race to be first off the diving board, up the ladder, around the pool, and back over to the diving board. So we jumped, and swam, and ran, soaking the pool deck, scrambling back on to the board to jump off again, quicker and quicker. After a few turns of this, I got it into my head that the best way to get out of the pool faster was to jump closer to the ladder.  Unfortunately, there was some sort of mathematical failure in my head (I probably forgot to carry the one, somewhere).

In fact, my brilliant idea of jumping towards the ladder did not work out as I had planned at all and actually turned into gracefully smashing my face into the metal ladder, biting nearly clear through my lip, and almost knocking myself out, as my chin hit the step.

This is also the day where I learned the lesson that other people's parents don't want to take you to the emergency room, as I was ushered into Ms. Silva's car and driven across Miami, past at least three hospitals, where I was unceremoniously dumped on my doorstep so my own mother could take me to the ER.

 Once there, we waited for a several hours, with a sock full of ice on my face, so they could tell me that I didn’t need stitches because I failed at biting through my lip all the way, and I just needed a butterfly bandage and a better respect for the laws of physics.