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?

January Sticker Sale- It's a Trap(tor) Color Sticker

Hi there.

I have been thinking for days, "Damn it JRose, you should post something... just post SOMETHING!" but the problem is, everything I draw or try to write comes out like poop. Not out of my butt, I mean it looks like/reads like crap. There are reasons, but never mind that now, never mind that. As soon as I can produce something worth looking at/reading, you guys will be the first to know. In the meantime:

New year, new sticker, old image, because really, my drawing ability is broken...not kidding, but the picture is different, at least. As are the rules. There are only 50 of these limited edition stickers, but I will sell them until they are gone. Each is about 3.75" x 3.7".  Printed on sticker paper, by me. Cut by hand (that means it might not be Stakenblochen). Sent first class via USPS (shipping is included).

[no longer available] For those outside the US, please choose the outside US option for the first sticker, and $3.50 for any additional sticker in the same order. If you have a problem with Paypal but would like to buy a sticker, let me know and I can provide other payment sources, as well as accepting cash and candy.

Spring Forward, Fall Back... into bed

I realized, this morning, when I woke up at 6:45 am, that the "extra hour of sleep" that comes from us "falling back" only counts when you are the type of person who actually has things to do and wakes up using an alarm. Otherwise, it is just losing time as you lie in bed staring at the dark ceiling, waiting for the world to catch up with your obnoxious bladder that insists on waking you up ridiculously early, and who is in cahoots with your brain that refuses to let you go back to sleep after getting up to pee way too early in the morning.

And by tonight, my body will refuse to go to sleep at a decent time, and I will then get into a cycle where I get less and less sleep until I begin threatening people, and screaming randomly while crying, and then something will snap and I will sleep for five sixths of an entire day, after which I will get back to sleeping like a normal human being again.

In summary, if I continue to live in the United States, I should move to Arizona or Hawaii.

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.

Do not remove under penalty of law!

Now that they make clothing with screen printed tags in them, standard, I find myself very angry with all of my old clothes. It is barbaric, being stuck in the neck by a scratchy tag all the time. In my moments of anger, it seems like the only way to address the problem is with FIRE!

Ask me no questions.

I have a problem.  It seems, sometimes, like the words that I say are translated to the people around me by an utterly drunken bunch of babel fish.  I understand that it could be my tone of voice, or a look on my face, but people regularly translate questions I ask into demands.

It is very frustrating and causes a lot of arguments. And while I could just stop asking questions, I suppose, and stare dumbly out the window at all times, ignoring the world around me, I am a question asker by nature.  If I don't understand what is going on around me, I ask.
Apparently, other people don't do this and instead use questions as some passive aggressive message delivery system, from the responses I get, because I rarely just get an actual response to my questions... from anyone.  Everyone seems to be trying to figure out the secret code in my question in an attempt to figure out what my implication is, and all I get are scoffs when I explain that I am really JUST asking questions.  Now, if I ever got an actual answer, I might make a request using the information I received...

But most of the time, I would most likely respond with a simple "Oh, okay. Thanks."

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.

Or I could go to Australia...

I hate doing dishes.

And I hate doing dishes mostly because I am incapable of doing them without incurring the wrath of the sink.
By this I mean, dishes, quite clearly, hate me as much as I hate them.
I know this because I cannot get away from a sink of soiled bowls, utensils, plates, pots or pans without somehow spraying the entire kitchen with water, or soaking the front of my shirt and pants in a tell-tale oblong "splash of shame."

Now I have been told that, apparently, it is possible to wash dishes without looking like you've been visiting Sea World, and I've tried to thwart the soggy wrath with a kitchen towel placed on the edge of the sink, but then, I manage to soak the towel and then myself, or at the very least, I manage to place an ice cream scoop under the faucet, which results in spraying my entire shirt, sleeves, face, and feet because of course, I am freaking out that I am being dowsed with tepid sink water, and  I can't figure out to turn down the water pressure instead of quickly moving the concave surface while water ricochets everywhere.
It must be noted as well, that I have the keen ability to fill my sleeves with water, which seems like something only an idiot would do, but... I seem to be an idiot.

And just last night, I realized, apparently, I'm allergic to dish soap, or at least the ridiculously cheap crap that we buy, so getting soaked also means looking like I have leprosy in the places where the soapy water comes in contact with my skin for more than a few seconds.

I was hoping that my histamine reaction to dishes would get me out of having to do them, but no... of course they make hypoallergenic soap... bastards!

And yes, I know they make dishwashers to do dishes, but I have a tiny kitchen and a tiny counter top dishwasher, and all that it fits are plates and bowls, which are, of course, the easiest things to wash by hand.

______________________________________________________________________

Remember, today is the last day to buy May's Limited Edition Llama sticker. They won't be available tomorrow!

And I made another dress-up game (with tutorial on how to do dress-up games all day Saturday) on my art blarg that features  the Nacho Dress.  It is NSFW unless you get the clothes on the underwear clad JRose figure fast. =P   Go there to dress me up!

OCD Robot

I would never make it as a robot because I cannot stand my hands smelling like metal.

Pet Peeves- Part Two

This is the conclusion of yesterday's "Pet peeves- Part one" a series in which I discuss pet peeves.
Today, instead of llamas, we have squirrels!

Pet Peeve #4- The "K" Reply:

I am terrible at texting.  It is probably because I don't actually have a cell phone, though I have the use of one for emergency purposes.  The cell phone that is in my possession is the free type that the store gives you thinking, "This thing is totally nonfunctional, surely this person will buy a better one." But I didn't buy it, and it is only for once in a while, so it is crap.
And I live in Montana, where cell phone towers don't seem to actually exist and we don't have new fangled things on our service like, the ability to receive photos texts on our phones, even with a phone that is not bottom of the barrel.

Anyway, I can't text well, and each short message on my 3+ year old phone takes me about 5 minutes from beginning to end.  It's a lot of effort, so I am therefore peeved when I send out a several sentence text which takes me 3 minutes per sentence to type and I get back a reply of "K."  Even more so when I have asked a question in the text before making a statement and I then have to write another tortuously slow message to clarify.

Someday, I hope to get a real cell phone and maybe some friends so I can add super fast texting to my list of skills.

Pet Peeve #5- Superfluous Questions

I am a question asker.  Most of the time, if I don't understand something, I will ask question after question until I understand.  Thankfully, I am pretty self-reliant so often I try to figure things out myself first, but questions come in handy when interacting with others and trying to understand their motives.  However, there are a few questions that just get my goat, big time. What are these questions, you ask?

There are two major classifications of questions that drive me nuts: The Rhetorical Response and The Unanswerable Opening.

My mom is big on the rhetorical response.  After everything I tell her she answers, "Really!?" 

Me: I had the cafe' burger for lunch.

Mom: Really!?

(silence)

Me: . . . yes. . .

If it didn't shut down the conversation, I wouldn't mind it so much, but what do you answer when someone seems incredulous to every thing you say, and doesn't really respond with anything that lets you continue.  I usually just get mad, or stop talking and think about bacon.

The Unanswerable Opening is usually met with weirdness from me.

Although I am great at deductive logic, I am not great at being met with "Guess what!?" as an opening query.

"Guess what!?"

"You ...sold your feet to a Russia sausage salesman?"

I know I am never going to be right so I figure if I say something weird, people will stop telling me their news that way.

I think this may be exactly why "Chicken butt" was created.

Pet Peeve #6- Pet Peeves?

My last pet peeve is reserved for people who don't understand the concept of pet peeves. You ask them what their pet peeve is and they answer something like, "Lying," or "Racism," or "People who murder babies."  Now, I know that these things are bad, and I don't deny that, but they qualify as quite a bit more than a peeve.
A peeve is supposed to be something with which most people have little to no problem.  A mild personal annoyance. They are supposed to be little things that drive you bonkers but that other people can laugh at.  I don't know a single person who is completely fine with liars, or racists, or baby murderers.  Not one.

So what are some of your pet peeves?

Pet Peeves- Part One

This post is about my pet peeves. I was hoping the title might give that away, but just in case, that is what this is about, pet peeves. Llamas will be playing the part of me in pictures today, because I really like drawing llamas.

Pet Peeve #1 - Things in Chairs:

I was raised in a household where horizontal surfaces were for things.  There was rarely a horizontal surface on which there was not something, or a lot of things, precariously balanced.  It wasn't exactly messy, but it was certainly cluttered.
I still have way too many things and while you can actually see the surface of many of my horizontally-surfaced furniture pieces, the rule is absolutely NO STORING THINGS ON CHAIRS!  Chairs are for people, not things!
Honestly, this is mostly because I don't like cleaning and I don't want to have to stop and move things/put things away when I want to plop down, and though I am not above shoving things on to the floor when I really need to sit down, I ultimately feel guilty about doing so.

Pet Peeve #2- Shower Caddys:

The shower caddy is one of the worst household inventions ever created in my estimation. While I understand that some people find them exceptionally handy, I find them to be an evil contraption of potential energy and fear.

It has never been a matter, with me, of whether or not something would fall off the caddy and smash my feet or scare the crap outta me, but when... because when I have had to endure them in my life (and shower) there has not been a single shower I have taken without something plunging towards my ankles with malicious glee.

Usually, I am sudsing up my hair, eyes closed to avoid getting shampoo in 'em, and CRASH, BANG BOOM! The damned thing has shifted because I accidentally jostled it with my flailing elbow and now I have to say bad words and curse the person who thought putting heavy bottles on a platform high up in your shower was a good idea.

Pet Peeve #3- Damn vs. Damned:

Seriously, this one has almost broken up a relationship.  I'm a word nerd.  I used to read dictionaries for entertainment as a child and I value preciseness in language. I am much more tolerant of other grammar flubs, don't mind bad spelling as long as I can work out the meaning, don't mind prepositions at the end of sentences, but words, I think, should make sense when you use them, and the meaning of damn is not the same as damned. Damned is an adjective, and an adverb-- Damn is a verb.  So, "that damned shower caddy" makes sense because all shower caddies should be damned while "that damn shower caddy" doesn't.  Of course, "Damn that shower caddy!" would work just fine.
But because people use it all the time, it is considered acceptable according to Merriam-Webster, and according to linguistics, the -ed was dropped from many words where two consonants come together because it is difficult for people to pronounce when speaking quickly (for example, ice cream used to be iced cream) so I have ceased writing people off for not using the original, but you will notice, that I make the choice to always write it "damned" when it might well be spoken "damn."

To be continued. . .