Come On To My House, My House, My House

Everyone who has been pestering me for pictures of my apartment (duplex, house, whatever), prepare to get excited!

Here we have the living room, facing the front door and The Orange Fireplace (I wasn't kidding):


We pan over to the right and there are my two tiny windows, my lovely bookcase, and The TV (it really deserves caps, don't you think?). Of course, a Celtics game is on:



Here's half of The TV and my very artistic photos of trees. And a little bit of the kitchen. And the terminally cluttered dining table that we never use:



Here is the kitchen, in all its glory! Actually, this is mainly to show off my fantastic dragonfly decals (link):


Now, backing up a bit into the living room, here is another dragonfly, another artistic photo of a tree, and another bookshelf! At least I'm consistent. You can also see the little square "hallway":



Next, we turn ninety degrees to the right, where the couch is. That door is still the front door, for those of you interested in orientation. Check out my awesome hand colored map of Southern California:


Here is the little square "hallway", along with dragonfly number three. I think I'm going to name them. You can see into the bathroom too:


Now we take a giant step backwards, and presto! We're in the bedroom. Some more artistic photos of trees and my dresser. And a mess. See? Consistent:



Turn to the right and there's the bed and my giant sun, hanging out, being a giant sun:



Turn a little bit more to the right and there is my other tiny window (bedroom version) and the fourth and final dragonfly. And my giant closet thing that I painted green. Because houses built in the 40s don't have much closet space:



This completes the tour of Sarah's Awesome Apartment.

It's My Party

I am so stressed out with work and life that I am teetering on the verge of frustration tears at and given moment.
I truly love my job and my coworkers, but our manager has been in and out sick since New Years and our director is a frustrating man who loves to hear himself talk and also loves to ask us why we aren't doing six people's work with a staff of three, one of whom is me, and I am by no means proficient at what I am doing. I literally didn't have time to check my email yesterday.
Another thing is that I was off my birth control for about two weeks and then went back on mid-cycle, so my hormones are seriously wack right now. For example, I was watching Tool Academy, which is a show about asshole guys learning how to not be such assholes to their equally asshole girlfriends who tricked them into going on this show (the guys thought the show was a competition for Mr. Awesome) and I started crying. There is no circumstance under which a VH1 reality show should make me cry unless it is because I am laughing so hard.
So please forgive the lack of recent posts. I'll come back soon. For now, just keep watching the crazy German song with the cute cat. It still makes me giggle.

Crazy Germans

Oh, For Fuck's Sake!

See, this shit right here is why I hate PETA.

Huffington Post: PETA wants to remane fish "Sea Kittens"

(stolen from Chez)

Say What, Now?

My horoscope for today is baffling. Like, even more than normal. Check it out:

You might feel like a mental ninja warrior today, but every thought you throw into a conversation is washed aside by someone else. You may feel ineffectual, as if your ideas cannot quite gel. It's no fun when you cannot blend your many trains of thought into one coherent knockout punch. Instead of growing frustrated and then retreating, stay aware that your feelings of being "off" are temporary and a more positive attitude will return in a few days.

How does feeling ineffectual make me a ninja warrior? Isn't a ninja, by its very nature, incredibly effective? Not to mention the closer statement of "Yeah, you're going to confuse yourself today, but stop being a whiny bitch an accept it. Buck up, lil' camper!" Thanks, Google. You bastard.

Brighton (Part 1)

This picture pretty much captures the feeling of Brighton. Bright lights, fun activities with your friends, a sort of child-like delight in what you are doing.

It also captures the natural state of inebriation I was in much of the time, but that is neither here nor there.

Brighton is really quite beautiful. Especially at night. It's kind of amazing how many pictures I managed to take at night, since I was there during the summer and the sun didn't fully set until around midnight. It was a unique experience going outside in the outfit you were wearing to the club while the sun was still shining...

One of the more impressive things in Brighton is the Royal Pavilion. It was undergoing renovations of some sort while I was there, so during the day it was covered in scaffolding, which wasn't very conducive to beautiful photographs. At night, however:

Amazing, right?

I have a really funny story about the Royal Pavilion too. I was friends with the girl across the hall from me, Catherine, and her cousin, Liz. Liz was older than me by a year or too, and a quiet, reserved kind of girl. She was really funny, just in a quiet way. Catherine was the complete and total opposite. She was a goofball, in every sense of the word. So one day, I believe it was this day:

We had a few drinks. That pitcher cost something like four or five pounds, which was a great price. The three of us split it and enjoyed it thoroughly. Then we meandered around, possibly partaking in other drunken activities, and gradually made our way to the bus stop, right in front of the Royal Pavilion. We were waiting for the bus when Liz announced that she had to pee. Like, right now. We told her to just hang in there for a few minutes, we were going to be home soon. Then Liz disappeared. A minute went by. Then another. The bus was coming down the street. Then Liz magically reappeared beside us. We asked her where the hell she was. She replied, "I told you, I had to pee." We asked her where. She pointed to the Royal Pavilion. "How on earth did you pee there?"

"I hopped the fence."

She had seriously climbed over an eight foot fence, relieved herself on the front lawn of the Royal fucking Pavilion (in some bushes), and then climbed back over the fence. In a matter of minutes. There is no way she could have done that sober.

On a completely different day, we all ended up wearing green shirts out. This was unplanned, and even unnoticed by us until we had someone take this picture of us:

(I completely forget that fourth girl's name.) The person who took the picture said something about the green shirt girls, and we all looked at each other and went "Ohhhhhhhhhh..." Catherine's jacket looks blue in this picture, but trust me, it was green. This pub was particularly awesome because of the way we found it. We were either out on the pier or in a restaurant, I forget which, and this guy started talking to us. We chatted with him a bit, and he recommended that we go to a pub called Shakespeare's Head. If we told the bartender that guy had sent us, we would each get a free pint. Never ones to refuse free beer, we got directions and struck out. The pub was somewhat difficult to find, I do remember that part. But we did find it, and that picture up there is us with our free pints. Yay beer!

One of the many things that Brighton is famous for is a place called The Lanes. Or was it The Liens? There were two areas that sounded the same (to my ears anyway), but were two separate places. One of them was a neighborhood of spectacularly colored houses. The other was a whole bunch of shops on streets that made a very intricate maze. You could wander around those streets and find all manner of shops, ranging from fantastic (like an FCUK outlet) to completely bizarre. Case in point:

Before you flood the comments with explanations that vegetarian shoes are real, and they are super great and amazing, blah blah blah, keep in mind that this was 2005, and no one that I knew had ever heard of vegetarian shoes before.

There was also a shop that served us glasses of champagne while we tried on clothes. No wait, that wasn't in Brighton. Where was that? That shop (with the champagne) was where I purchased the green top that I am wearing in the free beer picture. So there's that.

And finally, there is this picture:

I swear to whatever you hold holy, this picture is not altered in any way, shape, or form. I ducked into a shop to use their bathroom, and this is what I found. The entire place was blue. Or, more likely, it was white and they used blue light bulbs. My head started to hurt after mere seconds in there. It was nuts. When I went back out into normal light, everything looked yellow for quite some time. Very unsettling...

Tackiness Contest Ahoy!

There is a contest going on for the tackiest thing on the internet. Here are my entries!

Patrick Swayze Centaur Rainbow Tattoo:



Made all the more frightening when you take into consideration that this is a tattoo. As in permanently-in-someone's-skin.
We had Boxing Jesus already, so how about a little Baseball Jesus:

In Yo Face, PETA!

This is why bikers are often times the best people I know:

I just learned about the group Rescue Ink from Jezebel, and I feel like I need to spread the word. Hell, I might even join them. Mama and Mr. D, get on it!

"But why is this in PETA's face?" you may be asking yourself. Well, you see, most animal right's groups are full of shit. Or rather, full of shitty people who would rather talk about how animals are our brethren and should be respected and not eaten, etc, meanwhile they really do jack shit in terms of directly benefiting animals. Sure, they'll stick naked women in cages to protest eating pork (somehow...), but actual, hands on rescue work? Not so much.

Here's a direct quote from Rescue Ink's website, "We will stop at nothing within the bounds of the law to protect animals at risk. We will intercede without hesitation when we are informed of a situation that needs to be addressed, and we will address it. If we need to convince people to do the right thing ... we can be very convincing, we'll even buy animals if that's what it takes to get them away from abusers."

I love how they are basically saying, "We know we're a bunch of big scary fuckers, and we're gonna use that power for good, dammit!" Sign me up! I mean, I know I'm not that intimidating at first glance, but that just means that people underestimate me.

Irony?

A long while ago I picked up a few 2009 calendars when they were on sale at Border's or Barnes and Noble. One of them is a monthly calendar for the wall with fantastic Chagall paintings. It goes very well with my cartoon insect refrigerator magnets. The other one is one of those thing-of-the-day calendars for your desk. I just remembered that I had made this purchase and brought it to work today. The thing-of-the-day I chose? Common Errors in the Usage of the English Language. I am a nerd. Today's error?
presumptious/presumptuous
"Presumptive" has an "I" in it, but "presumptuous" does not.

Netflix Adventures

This week: Dirty Harry
First impression: I always like a good shoot 'em up flick
Will I watch it again? If I happen upon it in the bargain bin, I'll probably pick it up

Overall I enjoyed watching this movie. The only nagging point I have is why they asked Harry to deliver the ransom the second time. That part just makes no sense to me. This guy has made it absolutely clear that he wants to kill this murderer, and yet they ask him to play along and do what the bad guy says. Unless they knew that he would kill him, and that was what they were counting on...The plot thickens. I'm probably reading way too much into that.
As far as shoot 'em up cop movies go, this is one of the better ones I've seen. There's weren't any wacky explanations about why the killer was doing this. It doesn't matter why he's doing it, what matters is stopping him. It also addresses a flaw in the judicial system when the killer is released because his house was searched without a warrant. I'm not entirely settled on that point anyway, so it's good to see a strong take on how the systems put in place to protect us can also harm us.
One thing I am sure of: I would kill someone to get my hands on this trench coat!


Is that not the most beautiful jacket you have ever seen? I couldn't find any images of it online, so I straight up took these pictures of my tv. I am dedicated. I will have this jacket.

Update: As Pamala pointed out, yes this jacket does look like cheap plastic "leather" in these photos. You will just have to trust me that it looks way better on tv. It's shiny because it is sort of metallic looking. It doesn't look cheap on tv. Yes, somehow shiny+green+metallic+jacket = not cheap looking. Just go with it.