Well, that’ll happen.
I spent five minutes pacing the hallway of my house wondering why there was blood all over the floor and who the unfortunate, erstwhile owner of said blood could possibly be. Then I realized it was mine. I suppose you have to expect these things every now and then, right? Right? Hello?
Starting the preparations
So it’s December. You know what that means! The preparations for National Bicarbonate Of Soda Day are stepping into high gear! I’m just so grateful that this deeply important, solemn holiday falls on the 30th, giving me a whole month to prepare by purifying myself and begging the Soda Gods for forgiveness for my innumerable, degrading and disgusting sins.
Speaking of preparations, the new year will bring big changes to Weekly Shocks World in the form of new underwear from my mom and a new blog for you good folks. The new blog will actually have, you know, some sort of focus. I haven’t really figured that part out yet, but in between my Soda Day self-flagellations, I’m pretty sure I’ll come up with something.
Good God, this month is gonna be hell!
For the three of you who might be a bit worried about the future of this wee bit of intrawebs-floating bunny turd, fear not: I promise I’ll still update Weekly Shocks with the same kind of regularity and hard-hitting profundity that I currently do. Or not. Who knows.
Also! I caved. I joined Twitter. Follow me if you like. Bonus Charlie Brown photo included.
Puggle Update: Part The Second, or, You Guys Are Filthy
I love you all. Really, I do. But, for f*ck’s sake, people.
Search Engine Terms
These are terms people used to find your blog.
Today
Search Views
puggle penis size 1
No. A thousand times, no.
Um, ew?
The Yankees won. Congratulations to them, their fans, and their Lord and Master, the Dark Prince Satan the Steinbrenners.
Now. Let us never speak of this horror ever, ever again.
WalMart Headline of the Day
I have to open this with a shocking, punch-you-in-your-face-and-knock-you-on-your-hinder confession. So, please: sit down, preferably with a bottle of Scotch handy and some smelling salts if you’re an antebellum Southern belle or otherwise prone to fits of “the vapors.” Ready? OK.
I have never been to a WalMart.
I know! I know! I’m a freak of nature and an elitist snob and a sorry-ass excuse for an American. The worst part is I didn’t even realize this sad fact about myself until very recently. I mean, shit. How the hell have I managed to avoid the obligatory WalMart experience? And not even realize it?! Christ on a bike. I’m going to have to put ‘Visit Shrine of WalMart’ at the very top of my bucket list or else I’m surely destined for a violent and invasive examination by stern-looking Homeland Security officials, not to mention a cozy seat of fire at the hand of Satan, deep in the pits of Hell.
WalMart is making those trips to Hell even more convenient by getting into the coffin-selling business. You can order one online. And have it delivered in 48 hours. This new venture of theirs just shrieks all kinds of trouble if you ask me, but you won’t, because, again: I’ve never been to WalMart. I am deeply ashamed of my shortcomings. Forgive me, capitalism, for I have sinned.
Some scary thoughts on this spookiest of days!
1. In Florida, some kid got her wildlife officer-dad to bring a five-foot alligator to school for show and tell. The ‘gator escaped. It’s still on the loose. Oops. Trick or Treat!
2. I got a job offer from a car dealership in Manhattan, having never applied for it. I have never sold a car. I have never owned a car. I don’t even have a license. And who the hell buys cars in Manhattan? Perplexed. Intrigued. Convinced it’s a cover for a prostitution/drug ring.
3. Along a similar line, I took a freebie ‘what-career-best-suits-your-personality’ test, because the whole witty blogger thing just doesn’t seem to be raking in the dough the way it should these days. I blame the Obama administration. Where’s my bailout, damn it? Anyway, my test results are in. Apparently, I have all the skills and interests necessary to be a coroner. Seriously: it’s my Number One Career Choice, according to this test. And my first thought was, “Well, yeah, that makes sense.”
4. Someone is systematically going through this blog and reading every single post I have ever made. And he/she/it is reading these posts more than once. Um, hi! Thanks for stopping by. You’re lovely. I don’t know whether to cheer or grovel and plead and beg for mercy, but still. Thanks again, please wipe your feet on the way out.
Keep it real, homedawgs. I’ll catch you in November!
“Well, it’s not the worst blog I’ve ever read.”
Behold! An actual critique of Weekly Shocks! From an actual sort-of famous literary/blogging guru person who refused to let me use his real name in connection with this site! So I’m calling him Stinky! Stinky thinks my blog isn’t the worst he’s ever read! HOORAY!
I am so totally moving up in the world.
That time of year
Look out, folks! Halloween is sneaking up on you, and he’s on a massive sugar high and wielding a butcher’s knife! Uh oh! My family is celebrating by going on one of those absurdly luxurious Disney Cruises in the Bahamas and leaving me here unsupervised, so I’m planning on getting into all sorts of mischief, assuming, of course, I can tear myself away from the steady stream of crappy horror movies playing on AMC.
Now before you get your undies in a twist and stuff them down my throat, I will admit that AMC does play good movies now and then. They showed the Stanley Kubrick classic The Shining not too long ago, a fine film featuring Olive Oil as a twitchy, shriek-y wife and a drooling kid with a 70s-styling bowl cut and a totally bitchin’ Big Wheels bike. Jack Nicholson (Nicklaus?) is in it too, playing some minor, insignificant role. Nothing you’d recognize. It was a fun bit of psychosis, like all Kubrick films, but it doesn’t compensate for the rest of AMC’s Halloween lineup which is mostly B-rated gross-out flicks and, occasionally, the completely gratuitous and invariably awful remake of some Hollywood classic.
For example: I got tricked into watching Psycho yesterday. No, not that Psycho. The other one. The Gus Van Sant-directed train wreck made in 1998. I didn’t even know Gus Van Sant was involved with this movie, and, judging by how terrible it was, neither did he. Vince Vaughn was particularly laughable, with his fey, puffy-lipped, giggly and wiggly performance. I loved it. That’s the problem with train wreck remakes – they’re so abysmally goofy, so bottomlessly stupid, so inexplicably pointless – I mean, Van Sant created a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock’s original, fer cryin’ out loud – you can’t help but waste two hours of your life wondering what the hell these people were thinking. It’s terrible, but really, watch it and you’ll feel better about your own life. You will. Whatever failures you may be experiencing at the moment, at least you’re not ripping off someone else’s work and falling flat on your face to the tune of millions and millions of dollars and some anonymous blogger’s sarcastic, floppy scorn.
Speaking of falling flat on one’s face to the tunes of millions and floppy scorn, Facebook updated again. And the inevitable bitching begins! I can’t be bothered to come up with something new, witty, and appropriately cutting to write about yet another stupid Facebook design, so poke around the archives if you must; everything I’ve said in the past about Facebook updates is most likely still applicable. Timeless material, that Weekly Shocks blog is! It must be written by a silly goobernugget devastatingly attractive genius.
Carry on, my lovelies.
Oh, so you think you’ve got it rough, huh?
Been a super busy week, folks. I’ve spent most of the last hour, for example, researching anglerfish on Wikipedia. Don’t you wish you had my life? I know, I know.
Well, we can’t all be me. I know, that’s rubbish, but don’t be sad. Just be grateful you’re not a male anglerfish, yeah? I mean, not only is the poor sucker ugly as sin (see above for a refresher, if you can stomach it) but at some point in his life, he’s going to be reduced to a pair of atrophied fish nuts disintegrating into his lady pal. Sounds like spousal abuse to me. From Wikipedia:
When he finds a female, [the male anglerfish] bites into her skin, and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads, which releases sperm in response to hormones in the female’s bloodstream indicating egg release. This extreme sexual dimorphism ensures that, when the female is ready to spawn, she has a mate immediately available.
Yikes. Looks like someone got beaten repeatedly with the short end of the evolutionary ugly stick. Nice teeth, though, right?
On the dangers of bragging in one’s goofy blog
If you’ve been committing my blog to memory (and if you really have been, please: seek help), you may remember a gratuitously self-congratulatory remark I made in the wee hours of the morning when I triumphantly finished my dissertation. Drunk on lack of sleep, Diet Coke, and the impossibly sweet knowledge that I would never have to write the word “problematized” with a straight face ever again, I shamelessly broadcasted my ability to write over a thousand words an hour. To be honest, up until yesterday, I was still pretty chuffed about that. I mean, 1000 words/hour. Sweet as, right? Hell, until I pulled that off, I didn’t even think I could read that many words in an hour, let alone come up with ‘em. Shit, son. I’m amazing.
So I was rather pleased with and proud of myself and then I had the sparkling bright idea to read Christopher Buckley’s Losing Mum and Pup, his poignant and surprisingly witty memoir about the deaths of both of his parents in the space of a year. I’ve since speedily returned, tail tucked and ears flattened, to my previous self-perception as a half-wit, blubbering hack with three, maybe four brain cells floating around in her skull. You wanna know why? Here’s why: William Buckley, according to his deeply impressed (and impressive) son Christopher, could dash off his seven hundred word columns in five minutes.
Well, then.
Now, comparing one’s writing ability to Bill Buckley’s is never a good idea, unless you’re a self-hating masochist contemplating suicide or Gore Vidal, but I mean, crikey. 700 words in five bloody minutes?! And we’re not talking about just any words here. We’re talking about the words – whether you liked them or not – of the unequivocal intellectual champion of the American Right. And in his free time – you know, when not writing his reams and reams of prize-winning non-fiction or running for mayor of New York or serving as ambassador to the UN – he wrote best-selling spy novels. Just ’cause. Jesus Christ. And here I am, bragging about my 1000 words/hour, virtually unread and unreadable master’s thesis! Pathetic. Don’t I suck a pack of AA batteries. Also, one more thing: “problematized” isn’t even a real word, you ninny! What were you thinking?! Sheesh.
So, I’ve learned my lesson. No more bragging about my mad word-producing skillz in Weekly Shocks. Instead, I’ll brag about the fact that I have now possessed a cell phone for longer than two weeks without losing it, although I have to admit that I can’t remember my own phone number or find the email that contains said number, making the phone not especially effective as a communications device, but still! I haven’t lost the buggery thing, now have I? Oh yeah, baby. Bow down before me. I’m gonna make such a great mom.
Fore (play?)!
I’ve spent most of the last hour watching golf on TV. It’s been that kind of day.
I’m not really a golf person. I regularly confuse Jack Nicholson with Jack Nicklaus – truth be told, I’m still not a hundred percent sure which one is the golfer and which one likes to smash through bathroom doors with a pickax. Beautifully manicured lawns give me the chills – I always imagine pitching forward onto one of them, scuffing up the grass, and being summarily shot. I’ve had exactly one golf lesson in my life and it ended with my instructor in the hospital with a concussion. She was clobbered by an eight-year old’s rogue, hyperactive golf swing. Or, more accurately, she was clobbered by my rogue, hyperactive golf swing. She was nice, though, and didn’t press charges. Still. Golf suggests violent, terrible things, and really goofy-looking shoes as well. So it’s best that I avoid it.
Every once in a while, though, I need a reminder of why golf and I should stay far, far away from each other, and this morning’s festivities were quite helpful, thank you very much. The first young man who teed off saw his opening shot end up in the sand. His second shot ended up in the sand, too. His third shot ricocheted off the sand and landed somewhere in the woods. I have a feeling he snapped his club over his kneecap after that third shot and punched his caddie in the face with the business end of his golf shoe, but I could be making that up. I was too busy giggling over this poor sap’s miserable plays to notice much of anything by that point.
I’ve heard people say that they play golf because it relaxes them, which generally makes me wonder what kind of lives these folks are leading that make hacking away at a tiny ball with a skinny club and ultimately guiding the damn thing into an even tinier hole relaxing. Then the dirty part of my Freudian-soaked brain whispers all kinds of naughty things about sexual frustration and masculine inadequacy and I get the giggles again. But, really, people: I am a grown up and am quite mature and dignified. Seriously. I swear. Stop looking at me.
Speaking of frustration, I admit that the only reason I’m watching golf at the moment is because the Sox are down to their last playoff hope this season at dear old Fenway, and watching them play through the last six weeks is enough to make any lifelong fan reach for her blood pressure medication. In the not-too-distant past, I was pleasantly hopeful about the Sox and their strong opening half of the baseball season, but really, it’s been a limping, downhill mess since the All Star Break. I’m almost kind of hoping that they get slaughtered today so we can finally put this season out of its premature, peaked-too-soon misery. It’s ok, honey, we can just cuddle. No need to be embarrassed; it happens to everyone.
I bet all of the Red Sox will be spending a lot of time on a golf course real soon.
And I am a dirty, dirty girl.
Wanna see what made me bellow “Holy cow!” today?
Sure you do. It’s this photo:
His name is Boomer. He weighs 180lbs and is seven feet tall, nose to tail. He may very well be the tallest living canine in the world. I’m still pretty sure my 8lb Pomeranian rat dog could kick his ass, but he’s a super cutie. I bet he fetches entire trees instead of wimpy, pointless sticks. Good boy!
As a “Holy cow!” side note: I’m still averaging about 20-30 puggle-search related hits per day. Almost none of these people comment on my blog. I imagine they’re just as confused by Weekly Shocks as I am. We should form a support group.
Please explain the following bit of societal nonsense:
Why is it entirely acceptable (albeit ill-advised) to eat a chocolate doughnut at 7am, yet scarfing down a chocolate Klondike bar at the same time is considered puerile and sickening?
First person to explain this to me in small, easily understood words gets a cookie. The cookie will be freshly baked, filled with gooey chocolate, and served at 7am with a side of ice cold soda.
On a completely unrelated note, guess what I had for breakfast this morning? It was good, too.
Reason Number 45789 to Love Boston
The Sox just dropped their second straight game to Satan’s League of Mincing Creeps in the Bronx. I think the Sox were momentarily disoriented playing so close to the gaping maw of hell and subsequently forgot a slight detail of baseball: in order to win games, teams need to, you know, score a run or two. Oops.
Anyway. We’ll toss that sadness aside for the moment. The Red Sox are not the reason why I love Boston today, although they usually are about 65% of the time.
I love Boston today because in Union Square, there was a celebration of Fluff.
You may not know what Fluff is because you may not live in or around Boston. How sad for you. Fluff is pure, sweet, gooey, sticky, marshmallow goodness packaged in a friendly white and blue tub large enough to stick your entire head in, if you’re so inclined, and sugary enough to leave you bouncing off the walls, giggling and drooling, for days at a time. I had a friend in college – who may or may not be the author of this particular blog, but don’t tell her I told you this, because she’s kind of unstable and might hit me if she knew I was spilling her dirty secrets online – who once survived a sophomore year finals’ week on nothing but Diet Coke, Milky Way bars, four hours total of sleep, and a tub of Fluff. The stuff is viscous, miraculous crack.
And it was created right here. Well, technically, it was created in nearby Somerville. Somerville is not-for-nothing nicknamed Slummaville. It’s the kind of place where all the girls are named Krystalle and they all smoke by the age of ten and they all go to the packies to buy beer for their dads when it’s their weekends with the kids. Everyone is Catholic, everyone smokes Marlboros, everyone drives a car referred to as “the Shitbox,” and it’s a safe bet that your Shitbox is gonna get stolen someday if it hasn’t been ganked already. In short, it’s exactly the kind of place where you’d expect a product like Fluff to be created.
And I love it. It appeals, deeply and profoundly, to my inner sanctum of white trashiness, a trait that Oxford tried so hard to beat out of me and failed. Massachusetts – the Great Commonwealth apparently has nothing better to do – is currently debating a bill making the Fluffernutter, a combination of Fluff and peanut butter, its state sandwich. Now, I personally think peanut butter is quite possibly the most disgusting food product on earth besides cilantro, but I’m all for this move. It’s about time Fluff got the respect it deserved, even if it does have to be paired with something so obviously revolting and inferior. But, hey, Massachusetts is brilliantly skilled at condescension already, isn’t it? Did I mention who the Sox had to go visit and play and LOSE TO this afternoon? For the second day in a row? I mean, Christ on a bike. The horrors we suffer.
Fluff as the state treat. Yes. Perfect move: fitting in so many ways, I say. Let’s do it.
Weekly Shocks’ ADD strikes again!
A few shots of liquid rubbish that I simply must share with you fine people when I really should be writing something else:
1) Every time I take a vitamin pill, I vomit. Sometimes, for good measure, I vomit twice. I bet you’re super psyched to find that out, right? Bitchin’! Anyway. Aren’t vitamins supposed to be good for you, though? Or something? What the hell, body? You suck.
2) This blog has received more than 80,000 hits since I started it back in January. Thank you. Really. Thank you. And I’m so sorry.
3) I got my first American cell phone today. I had a mobile in England. It was blue, shaped like a brick, the texting function didn’t work, I had no calling plan, and I really only turned it on when one of my undergrads got so drunk he was puking up several key organs and needed to be carted off to the hospital for new ones. I loved that phone. I named him Gunter. My new mobile is sleek and stylish and way too hip for me. I’d name him, but I need to figure out how to turn him on first. I’m giving myself three weeks to complete that task before I get so frustrated with the damn thing, I throw it against the wall.
4) You know, I’m only on Point 4 of this blog post, and I’ve already mentioned puking twice. Three times if you include this current bit. Sigh. I need to diversify.
5) The Patriots lost on Sunday. Who cares?
6) True story for you:
Sometime last year-ish, my flatmates and I came across a devastatingly heartbreaking tale in our otherwise laughably terrible university newspaper. It was a story of an undergraduate at our inflated, pompous, but really quite excellent Oxford. The student had developed a nasty addiction to heroin in his second year. His College, like most Oxford colleges, was extremely supportive of him while he sought treatment, but his addiction, like most addictions, pretty much took over his life and kicked his ass. So the kid dropped out and was now homeless in the city, selling the Big Issue to his former academic colleagues on the streets.
Now, not to belittle this poor kid’s miserable fortune, but this is my blog, after all, so the punch line is as follows: I’ve realized that I would be in far less debt right now if I had developed a heroin addiction instead of succumbing to the far more expensive habit of formalized education. The federal government of these glorious United States pretty much owns my soul, my ass, and the souls and asses of any and all future children I might bear. I can’t decide if this fact is ridiculously funny or just ridiculous. Probably both. Hooray!
7) Bill Corbett of MST3K and Rifftrax fame just responded to some goofy comment I made on his Facebook page. He pretty much ordered me never to leave the country ever again. That totally made my year.
8 ) Speaking of, those Rifftrax geniuses are at it again. Encore Presentation of the RiffTrax Live Event of Plan 9 From Outer Space on October 8. I’m seeing it, because God loves me. Does God love you? Then you had better be there.
9 ) I may have sold a story to a legitimate magazine. May have. Oh my.
And on that mysterious note, back to the grindstone. Hoo hah!
Bad Trip
OK, anonymous patrons of the intrawebs, I need your help for just a mo’.
Has anyone seen the Dunkin’ Donuts ad circulating on various web pages in which George Washington reaches out from his dollar bill portrait and snags a Dunkin’ Biscuit With Slab o’ Pig? And has anyone noticed the father of our nation’s buggy eyes, giddy expression, and lolling tongue in this ad, then whimpered softly in terror, distraught at the cultural anomie which allows the presidential image on our most recognizable national currency to animate and pilfer junk food?
It’s kind of a brilliant ad, I have to say. I am keeping all of my dollar bills away from sharp objects, though, in case the good General decides to spring to life again and stage a coup in my house. Which, in Dunkin’ Donuts land (i.e., all of eastern Massachusetts), now seems entirely possible.
Anyway, drop me a line if you’ve seen this ad, because none of my “real life” pals have and they all insist there must have been a nasty batch of LSD in my Apple Jacks this morning. I don’t want to throw out the rest of the box (I love me some Apple Jacks!) if I don’t have to, but I can’t go through my days tripping on my breakfast cereal.
Throw me a line, people.
The state of my inbox
Number of six-figure salaried job offers this week: 0
Number of prestigious magazine publication acceptances: 0
Number of agents salivating over the possibility of representing me to the dying breed of publishing houses: 0
Number of cut-rate discounted Viagra offers with obscene titles that made me giggle: too many to count.
This week’s overall assessment: amusing. And encouraging. Seriously. Excellent fodder for my writing.
Have a good weekend, folks.
‘Cause living in Manhattan isn’t bizarre enough.
I’m currently working on a story about a guy who gets abducted by aliens while on a fishing trip with his brother. It’s very dramatic and serious. No, really. Stop laughing. It’s totally serious.
OK, I lied: it’s a goofy mess. But I promise: no anal probes. Unless you guys insist. Then anal probes for everyone!
I probably need to be medicated.
Anyway, the story opens up with my adorable protagonist in the Manhattan Hooters with his somewhat less than adorable brother who bullies him into going there. I discovered there was a Hooters in Manhattan a few years ago while on a trip with friends. One member of our ‘we’re-obviously-not-from-’round-these-parts-so-please-don’t-steal-our-shoes’ gang spotted the Hooters as if it were some beacon of light in a swirling darkness of cacophony and confusion. And it sort of was, I guess. I mean, Hooters. In Manhattan. This quintessential, middle America, vaguely offensive yet comforting symbol of bland food, tasteless beer, and stereotypical, giggling gender roles in perhaps the most modern, cynical, hard, and shiny city on earth. It’s so typically not New York and therefore so typically New York. Severe cognitive dissonance. What the hell, man.
Our friend with the Hooters’ radar meekly suggested we have lunch there that afternoon. He was subsequently shouted down and beaten with sticks. I mean, this is New York, and it was summer, so you can see all the jiggly things you like for free on the street. Why pay for it and subject yourself to crappy wings and watery beer in the bargain? Stupid boy. But the incident stuck in my brain like a lot of other inconsequential incidents, and every once in a while, I drain my skull of all this crap and put the incidents in the weirdo junk I write. Again, I probably need to be medicated, but this is cheaper.
There is a point to this whole thing, sort of. I was telling a friend about the story I was writing, because, really, there’s nothing cooler than saying, “Yeah, I’m working on my story,” unless it’s “Yeah, I’m working on my novel.” I’ve received so many grins of slack-jawed wonder from cute guys this way. It’s totally awesome; I ain’t gonna lie. Anyway. I was chatting away in that insufferably nonchalant, self-important manner that I imagine all unpublished humorists have, and then my friend told me something that knocked the breath right out of my unnecessarily inflated lungs:
Me: “Yeah, my story, you know, it’s so trendy, so relevant, so now, you know? It’s wicked. The opening takes place in the NYC Hooters.”
Friend: “I know a guy who used to live in the apartment complex above that place.”
Me: “There’s an apartment complex above Hooters?”
Friend: “Yup.”
Me: “You’re shitting me, right?”
Friend: “Nope.”
Me: “…”
Friend: “I believe the phrase you’re looking for is ‘What the f*ck?!’”
Really. What the f*ck.
Imagine telling people you live above a Hooters. Imagine the variety of responses you’d get. Holy cow. Holy COW.
But, see, this is New York. So, it makes perfect sense. Sort of, not really? Yes? No? What the hell do I know, anyway?
In a callback to a previous post, bugger me sideways.
