Hanukkah 2013: 2nd Night - Magenta Hamster

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

A random object that's been made real!

Once upon a time, I wrote a post bitching about people spelling my name wrong, and in that post , I randomly chose an object as the subject of an email which declared "... I would love a sack full of magenta hamster ornaments." How fortuitous that two years later, I am making ornaments.

Alas, I made him look more like the hamsters I had in college, and I didn't have two shades of magenta. Nevertheless,  I give you, MAGENTA HAMSTER ORNAMENT!

Don't forget to comment for your chance to win my needle felted Dino Ball!

And also, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We can't forget to celebrate with my Thanksgiving classic sing-a-long.

(there is a video here, feed readers)

And I leave you with my sentiments on this holiday:

Cheeseblarg's Ornament-O-Rama Project

If you'll remember from my many mentions, I was raised Jewish, which means that we didn't have Christmas trees... what with the not celebrating Christmas and stuff.

But now that I am an adult, and my family either lives with me or a couple blocks away, I insist on celebrating Christmas every year. I must make clear, I am totally in it for the festivities, and not for any religious reason at all. I will seriously celebrate any holiday where I can give or get presents, and make ridiculous amounts of food.

I don't begrudge other people their faith, as long as they are not jerks about it, in which case I might say snarky things behind their backs, but I just like being nice and celebrating things, so now my family is forced to celebrate Christmas (which is actually awesome this year since Hanukkah is super early, it would be utterly disappointing to twiddle our thumbs all through December).

In the past couple years, I have made do with my paper craft Christmas tree.

It is super cute, and I love it, but I wanted a REAL (fake) Christmas tree, so when everything was discounted after the holidays last year, my mom bought me a half-priced tree friend. Since, unlike everyone else in the world who has a lifetime's worth of decorations saved up, I have... none, I got myself a few ornaments as the leftover Christmas stuff got more and more reduced. However, since I'm a nerd, I ended up with about 7 ornaments that pleased me and stayed within the ever sucking budget of a starving artist.

Quick math problem here:

LOL I can't count.

As bitchin' as my Stay Puft Marshmallow Man ornament is, I don't think it is going to carry the whole tree, so I am launching, RIGHT NOW:

The Cheeseblarg Ornament-O-Rama Project.

As you have seen from my previous posts on the subject, I am working on my own ornaments, but I was reading Sonja's blog, Pintester, and I thought it would be awesome, and likely hilarious, if she and I got together to challenge people to make ornaments for my first ever family tree, since I feel like the Cheeseblargians and my fellow Pintestes are my internet family anyway. And since she agreed, here were are!

While I would love to have nerdy ornaments that are catered to my favorite themes:

• Zombies
• Bacon
• Cats
• Dinosaurs
• Cupcakes (or sweets in general)
• Ghostbusters
• Doctor Who
• Back to the Future Trilogy
• Beetlejuice
• Star Wars and Trek
• Video Games
• Llamas
• Narwhals
• Anything I have mentioned loving on da blarg
• Absolutely not a whale under any circumstance

I will pretty much be happy with whatever I get as long as it is not particularly religious, or a dead animal that hasn't been properly taxidermied, or a live animal, or actual poop, OR a swastika ... even a really cute swastika. No matter how badly crafted it is (pin fails are awesome), I will totally put it on my tree.  Unless it is a whale... in which case I will cry and cower in a corner.

I will be making a post on Black Friday with photographs of each ornament on my tree featuring links to blogs or shops of anyone who has sent me an ornament, so that your pages receive extra traffic, and hopefully sales (if you are a seller of crafts).

So there is your challenge: Ornament me!

The Fussy Details:

• Ornaments need to be to me by November 21st. I want to have plenty of time to arrange and photograph ornaments, as well as code the subsequent post.

• Please, be sure to include your name, email address, and blog address (and/or online shop address) with your ornament so I can give you proper credit.

• Please, don't send me things that you want back. I hope to make these ornaments part of my yearly tradition.

• You don't HAVE to make your own ornament-- I will happily accept purchased ornaments, BUT I need you to include the maker in your credit information so everyone gets the traffic they deserve.

• I will also accept garlands and other things that trees traditionally wear (except toppers... I will cover that one).

• All packages can be sent to:

J Rose
[address redacted]

And finally, for my readers, please consider blogging about your ornament making experience and entering it in Pintester's "Pintester Movement," should you get inspiration for your ornament from Pinterest.



Here is a link to Cheeseblarg's Ornament-o-Rama board on Pinterest, also, in case you would like some further inspiration.

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...

International TYFNKP Day

We seriously need a MAJOR holiday for people who do computer phone support, internet phone support, phone support for anything technological AT ALL. They need parades, and large cash prizes, and pretty much anything they want that is not totally illegal.

I come to this conclusion after trying to help my mom, over the phone for an hour and a half, to download and transfer two files. At this point, I want to destroy planets, take up smoking, and find an orphanage so I can kick some really unfortunate children.

The fact that technological phone support people have not killed us all is a testament to their patience, kindness and over-all awesomeness. Thank you, IT support. For not killing people. You're the best!

And on a completely unrelated note:

So, last year I won Blog of Note from Blogger. I found out a couple days ago that this year, I won Voice of the Year 2012 from BlogHer.*

Actually, I won it in Visuals, so I guess I kinda won Visionary of the Year. Doesn't that sound more impressive than "Voice of the Year for Something You Look At?" The piece that won me this honor was "Occupy the Holidays" which you are all welcome to go look at again (or for the first time, perhaps).

*My "sponsor" aka the people who put those ads on my blog and promote my work and provide my income of 20 bucks every 3-6 months

Thank you BlogHer, for choosing me as someone worth listening to, or looking at, or something. I am very honored and I love it when you guys tell me I am awesome (and send me money*). <3

*Nope, didn't win any money, just thanking them for paying me every 3-6 months.

Cheeseblarg Peeps Challenge Winner- Peep Hunt by Rhea

We have a winner for the 2nd Annual Cheeseblarg Peeps Challenge!

Of it, Dr. Pants said: "Rhea not only succeeded in creating a faithful artistic rendering of an 8-bit classic, but actually succeeded in showing us how the game could have been BETTER. I mean, who wouldn't want to make little marshmallow chicks explode on screen?? Brilliant!!"

Rhea put a lot of work into her piece and quite deserved her win. If you'll remember, she was also the winner last year. Will anyone be able to take her down next year!?

I give you PEEP HUNT by Rhea Blackthorne

Please congratulate Rhea here, and check out her blog that shows some fantastic progress pictures of her diorama.

Remember, next year's theme is: Cartoons. Be prepared!

Hanukkah 2011- 8th Night- From Us to You!

It's the last night of Hanukkah. Despite what calendars say, it is over now. Tomorrow is the last day, but Jews don't acknowledge days. We are like the vampires of the holiday world.
It has been a wild ride. You got some crappy gifts, I did too, but it was fun. Wasn't it? Okay, it wasn't terribly painful? Maybe a little? But the fun kind? Damn it, people!

Whatever, here is your stupid jerk gift.

(unwrap it... with the link below... or scroll... wow, this has been tedious telling people how to access a webpage...)

Blarg of Note

I obsessively check my stats and so, at approximately 5:13 and 45 seconds yesterday, I started typing capitalized exclamations mixed with nonsensical obscenities at my dear friend, Vez (I'm big on nonsensical obscenities. They are much funnier when the word choice/combination makes no sense),  because I noticed a huge spike in my viewers while chatting with her, and those views were being referred by blogger's BLOG OF EFFING NOTE!

Yup, I have been pestering blogger for at least a month, daily, letting them know each time I posted, because I think I am pretty awesome, and HOLY CRAP(!!!) they actually listened. And now I have a bunch more people following me expecting continued funny... which is a whole lot of pressure, but I have nothing better to do at the moment so, WHEE! 

Yes, I'm rambling. I am still totally excited.  How about I let the Cheeseblarg animals take over for the moment?

I couldn't agree more, Blue Whale!

Yes, llama, welcome to all our new friends and old! Thanks for all the comments and subscriptions!

Dammit, narwhal...

So, yes, this is my blarg. It is of note. 

For those new visitors, there are tidbits of information all around.  

To find out why I keep saying "blarg" instead of blog, click here

For an awesome lesson on algebra featuring zombies, click here

To understand why I often refer to goats as dogs, click here

Or you could just read EVERYTHING!!! That would be okay too. 

The Case of the Missing Reactions

If you have no idea what it is like to be neurotic or don't really know what I mean by "I'm neurotic," this post should help you. 

Now, I know that some of you watch my blarg via RSS, which is a different format from the actual blogger site, so you probably don't see that each post allows you to choose, "like," "funny," hilarious," or "llama." They are there because I thrive on feedback, so if you don't feel like commenting, you can always click a ticky box and stroke my ego.

For quite some time though, when I load my main blarg page in the morning, I notice that some of my reactions from the day before have disappeared. Logically, I know this is most likely a glitch, but this is the story my brain tries to convince me is true:

Oh look, Da Cheeseblarg has updated! Hooray!

I must let her know how much I enjoyed this post!

HILARIOUS!

That reminds me, I need to order some cheese!

FARMVILLE!

TOAST BLASTERS 2000!

UNFUNNY! SUCK IT, JROSE!

OMG! 100th POST!

HEY! HEY GUISE!!! This is my 100th post! OMG!!! I started this blarg in November because I wanted to bitch about my computer's touchpad. It is still a jerk, for the record. I think it would work better if I only had one finger. Damn my other fingers for being within THREE INCHES of the touch pad, DAMN THEM!


So, I'd like to tell you about one of the most frightening experiences of my teen years.  I grew up in a house in Miami Beach in a kinda middle class neighborhood.  My sister and I were both lucky enough to have our own rooms but we shared a bathroom.  Each night, there was an ongoing battle (that my sister probably didn't know was happening... can't recall ever bringing it up to her).

See, I am taller than my sister, and I'm also neurotic, as I have mentioned, and I was much more reserved than she was back then. So, every night when I went to take a shower, I would carefully stick together the pink plastic curtain that covered the big window in the shower (who the hell puts a giant window in a shower?!?) so that none of our neighbors would accidentally catch of glimpse of me while I was naked in the shower, that had a giant window in it... at my chest level, for some damned reason.  Of course, this meant I had to blindly fish for the shampoo and conditioners that were on the window sill behind the curtain, but it seemed worth it, because I am neurotic. Every single night, I would go in there and the curtain would be wide open and I would stick it back together, and every time my sister used it, being NOT neurotic, she would open it with wild abandon to get to the shampoo like a normal person.

And so it happened that I got up in the middle of the night, one night, to use the bathroom.  I sat down, half asleep, and started to pee.  And then I noticed movement to my left, towards the shower where my sister had left the curtain open.  'Ah,' I thought to myself plainly, 'It's just the shrub under the window.' And then it dawned on me, in slow motion. 'The shrub... is under my bedroom window.... not the bathroom...." at which point I turned my head ever so slowly to the left and saw the following:

Okay, he may not have had a Jason mask on, but I swear to weasels, that is what my brain interpreted in the split second I saw it. And then he was treated to the lovely view of me scrambling off the toilet (thankfully, I had finished peeing), pulling up my pants as I crawled, on all fours, out of the room.

Once I got out in the the hallway and shut the door, I tore through the house towards my parent's room and woke them up shouting that someone was looking in the window. This resulted in my dad pulling on his running shorts, backwards apparently, busting through the front door and chasing the Peeping Tom down our street holding up his shorts (that were threatening to fall off)  with one hand and waving, what I remember as a machete (but could have been either an ax handle or a Louisville Slugger), in his other hand, barefoot. He might have been yelling too.

I can't remember if that stopped the battle of the open curtain, but probably not.  It did give me a sort of kinship with Rockwell though.

Why do you insist on calling this a blarg?

Until I get an honorary diploma from the Starfleet Academy, this is a blarg, not a blog.

See, I am highly of the opinion that nothing I write shall ever be a log, as that is a privilege reserved for Sea Captains and Starfleet Commanders and seeing as blog is an abbreviation of weblog, I won't use it. It's just not right.

But why a blarg, you ask? 

I ask you, why not? 

Saying things with a weird accent is fun and BLARG feels exceptionally nice in the mouth when said particularly silly-like. Try it, out loud, now.  Nice, right?

as copied from the pages section so that it can be commented upon. =D