im moving to tumblr

http://cookiesareforfatgirls.tumblr.com/ nothing personal blogspot, it just seems like the right time. ive transferred most of my work from here to there, and ill be leaving this up for all of you to link over easily.

dear online advertising teams,

      If you decide to advertise online, good for you! but please bear in mind a few things. for starters if your ad begins with audio or video without my clicking directly on it, not only will i silence it before i know what it is, but i will assume if i were to click on it that some kind of terrifying virus will be overtaking my computer and personal information and my accounts will be drained without my knowledge... most folks i know feel the same way, even if they don't share in my virus paranoia they still find it annoying and will not click on your ad. a gif is one thing, a video is another. (also a note to the pages who allow this sort of ad on your site: i immediately navigate away when these things show up and do not return.) 

       If your ad shows up before i can view my video on youtube or on some site that allows me to watch full episodes of my favorite shows for free, thats cool, i turn off the volume but it doesn't bug me. If however your ad continues to interrupt my video at the places where a commercial break would have happened had i watched on tv, be smart, don't show me the same damn thing three times in the course of one viewing. some people remember my posts on the ads for doritos and wheat thins, neither would have brought on such distain from me had they not played three or four times over. i never buy wheat thins anymore. i like wheat thins. the advertising has actually gotten under my skin and rubbed me so raw that i cannot bear to buy them anymore.

 I am not angry, but i just think you should fire whomever it is that came up with these tactics. you should hire someone outside of advertising, not to come up with ideas, but to simply say 'no' to ideas. NO. That is annoying, don't do it. I could be your girl for this. i have ideas, but thats not what you pay me for, just let me say 'No. That is a bad idea and here is why...' 

I have the time if you have the cash. I can say 'No' to anything from ad placement to style to content. I am ready to say 'No.' 

You know where to find me if you would like me to save your company.

                                                                                                          yours,

                                                                                                                Amanda McCall

my apartment

My apartment looks as if a crazy hobo lives here. A crazy hobo with good taste in antiques and an apartment...

That said, i have been making an effort to clean my act up, and with my act, my apartment. Nothing motivates me to clean like buying new things to put up or with which to clean it. So i got myself a new vacuum. My old vac was more of a 'make-the-house-smell-funny-scare-the-cats-machine' so it seemed like this might be the time for an upgrade to something that might actually contribute to the cleanliness of my floors. i decided to get one with a clear canister where i might see the evidence of the filth I'm removing and boy oh boy did i make the right call on that.
I have since spent my time ignoring my dishes and pushing my clutter into a pile just to enjoy the shocking satisfaction of how much dirt i can collect from so little a space. In truth i should be ashamed of myself for letting it get to the point where a fist sized collection of pet hair, my hair, dust, and general debris can be pulled up from such a small patch of carpet, but I'm not. I find myself oddly proud...

that is...

until i was invited into my neighbors apartment. i share a wall with the woman in c-1, and when tonight she invited me in for a beer and apologised for the mess, i realized that for two days of diligent work on my place, i would still never EVER feel i could invite her into my place without what would probably amount to a week of work on this and even then i would still be apologising for the mess...

being an adult is hard...

maybe i wont do it after all..

please jesus, i take back what i said in 5th grade, i dont want my period anymore... but id like to keep the breasts...

I was born in august of 1986. my parents, Pat, and Nancy, were all set to name me Stella, until, soon before my birth, my Aunt Glo called up my mother and asked "How's Amanda doing?" I have always suspected that had my mother named me Stella my personality would have developed differently, I imagine i would be vastly more aggressive (if you can imagine that) and perhaps a better singer... don't ask me why, its just the feeling i get.. As it was my parents called me Amanda, which, as it happened, was the third most popular name in the United States that year, thus making me one of four 'Amanda's in my elementary school classes. The Amanda's and I spent each year from grade 2 til grade 5 together.

Children of this age group rarely base their friendships on much beyond who lives near them or who has blond hair or who likes Michael Jackson. as for us, I and the other Amanda's based our friendship on our shared name.

One day in the 5th grade the adults decided it was time for a school administered version of "the talk" and the boys were taken to one room and the girls another, and we were all shown films and shown diagrams that warned us that soon our bodies would be changing and our hormones would kick in and ruin everything that was once simple. i can't say what the boys were told, but based on some of the clueless comments and confused sexual metaphors i heard in later years i cant imagine it was very much beyond instruction to wear deodorant. It is clear even now that even that little bit did not stick for far too many of them...

For the girls, we were given deodorant, and ... *maxi pads* ... we were told that soon we would get our periods and that around the same time we would gain weight on our hips and most importantly we would be getting *breasts* . We couldn't wait for those breasts! The giddy joy of the possibilities of womanhood was almost too much to bear...
That day at recess the Amanda's and I all met under the tree at the edge of the playground to discuss what we had been told. To my delight we were all on the same page and it wasn't long before we agreed we should hold hands and pray to Jesus to give us our periods so we could have our breasts. We believed of course, that the period was the key to the breasts...

years later, i can report, that we all got our periods, but I am the only one who got breasts, and I am the only one who has lost Jesus. who needs him now that i have my fantastic breasts? although i could really do without this stupid period....

writers block

i know i promised a sheep story but im havin a bit of trouble putting it together...

things however are looking up now, and i think it wont be long til i have something worthy of a post to show you..

imaginary friend...

heartbreak lends itself well to the spending of long hours listening to songs about heartbreak as one drifts through the painful time it takes to remember yourself, by yourself, and happy. there are many albums perfectly suited for this particular kind of self torture as when one feels this way it is as if every song was written just for you. but i, when i have decided to wade through misery (or joy for that matter) listen to audio books... and lately David sedaris is my author (and reader) of choice. his work tends to consist mostly of stories about his own life told from a first person perspective... so when spending long hours wondering through ones own pain, listening to the funny yet slightly melancholy stories of the same man, it can sometimes lead one to feel as if the stories really are being told directly to you. like a conversation with a friend who is consistently more interesting than i am, so i listen, content to enjoy his company keeping the mundane details of my day to day to myself. this feeling is comforting for the most part, but has recently left me with the urge, when i need to vent... to call... David..Sedaris.. whom of course i don't know, and whom i do know isn't really speaking to me. i know this... but he has become what is essentially a grown up version of an imaginary friend. the only difference is he is not imaginary, except in so far as i feel as if he is my friend...

bloody mary (drinks and ghosts)

those who know me are already well aware that the bloody Mary is my favorite drink by far, (though technically i like bloody caesars, the difference being i use clamato instead of tomato juice); on occasion when i have run out of vodka i have tried variations like the bloody geisha, with sake (not recommended) or the ruddy Mary, with gin (lovely).
tonight, feeling a bit glum and preparing for a lovely bubble bath, i got ready to prepare myself my favorite cheer-me-up beverage. however after realizing i had only one drinks worth of vodka left in my freezer i decided i would wikipedia some other variations to avoid having to take a long pathetic walk through the rain in my pajamas to the liquor store (thus proving to myself that have become a p.j.s in public desperate total degenerate. yeah i could put on pants, but, fuck you public... who are you to judge me "flatbush liquors"? nobody.) anyway already having in my cabinet Jameson and in my fridge beer i tried the bloody molly, with whiskey, which was gross but may have been better if i weren't using clamato... and then i tried the red eye, which is half beer and half clamato.. neither really did it for me but at least the red eye was sorta good even though it didn't compare to the michelada which is a corona or other Mexican beer with hot sauce, a bit of tomato, pepper, and a lime and salt (one of the best hangover cures i can think of and delicious too boot)....

anyway, i gave up on that and decided to go with a hot chocolate with coffee liquor and cayenne pepper. while i was on wikipedia, i checked out the disambiguation page for bloody Mary and suddenly was rocketed back in time to the sleepovers of my adolescence. bloody Mary the creepy little story girls tell each other at sleep overs has always gotten under my skin. having not thought about it in years, suddenly i was recalling my fear, and then... reliving it. bloody Mary is said to have gone crazy and murdered her children, chopping them up into pieces, and the way i heard it she hated her eldest daughter for her pretty face and so slashed it up before she killed her... now, if one goes alone into a dark room with a mirror and repeats her name three times, bloody Mary will appear in the mirror and scratch your face off and kill you... a girl named Stephanie told me that, and ill be honest, I've never done it. i recall in middle school lying at a sleepover, after being sent in to a bathroom alone to test the ritual and lying, claiming i wasn't afraid, and that when i did it, i wasn't surprised when she didn't show.. so Stephanie, here's the truth: i was scared, i didn't do it, I've never done it, i get nervous having even typed her name so many times, even reading it... and I'm still not gonna do it, and no one can make me.

late night cheeseburger flavor: beer and cheeseburger vomit?

okay so here we go with a little doritio inspired rant. their new advert for their new "flavor" is distressing for many reasons... here it is:






doritos is presenting this advertisement to the wrong demographic, pretty skinny club girls dont eat doritos, and they definetly dont eat late night cheeseburgers, and any combonation of the two, well that is just gross. which brings me to my next problem with this advertisment, in no way does eating chips of any kind make me feel more dressed up or pretty or like im ready for the hot city late night club scene; if i am eating doritos, i will not be in heels, sparkles, and certainly not lipstick. i will be in sweat pants with no shirt on drooling on myself in front of the tv if i am eating doritos, just like the people they aught to be marketing to.
this is not to say doritos are exclusively for those people, and i am certainly not suggesting that showing that sort of scene would be a good image for their ads. im saying that is their main demographic, and that is why we usually see ads protraying doritos as the sort of thing x-treem sports people and attractive gamers with good skin will eat. their aim is off.. they are shooting too high going for club girls, late night cheeseburger perhaps should be targeting the dive bar scene and frat boys doing keg stands if they want to move on from skaters and gamers and go for the drunks. not. club. girls. give it up doritos, they too pretty for you and they are out of your league.

also, late night cheeseburger is a gross idea for a chip flavor, especially the "late night" part. you know who eats cheeseburgers late night? stoned people and people who have drunk too much and are worried they will barf. and they will barf. and now it will be late night cheeseburger flavor.

fuck you doritos.

advertising

i have a problem with a great many advertisements for a great many reasons, so I'm going to tackle a few of them and explain myself in a few posts here.

i will begin with wheat thins current line of advertising in which a van full of wheat thin employees check twitter for wheat thin related posts and then jump out at the posters of said tweets with boxes of wheat thins. i have a problem in general with this fake guerrilla format, and wheat thins are not the only ones, )see domino's pizza forcing people who gave bad reviews to their pizza to give it another chance) but the wheat thins are offensive to me in a way the pizza isn't.
my big problem isn't really even how ridiculous the idea of some woman bothering to tweet that her life is over because she is out of wheat thins; my problem is their ludicrous reaction. they deliver her enough wheat thins that they need a fork lift to put them in her driveway and then speed off.
why would anyone want that. if i was that lady i would be pissed. its just.. offensive.







another of their spots involves a guy who supposedly tweeted that he wishes there were crunch proof headphones so he doesn't have to turn up the volume when he eats wheat thins. so they show up with what they claim to have invented in their labs, a pair of crunch proof earphones. they put them on the poor guys head interrupting his meal out on the patio of some cafe, and crunch at him through a megaphone.
what. the. fuck.
anyone who has ever eaten something crunchy while watching TV or even in some cases listening to their headphones knows that that man is not referring to crunching from others, and if you don't have experience with this then at least you can read his supposed tweet and know what he means! god damn! and sound canceling headphones already exist! wheat thins, you know you didn't invent those in your cracker lab!

i don't know why this drives me so crazy, but it does. i like wheat thins, but no more, i cant look at them without thinking of that lame van and that smug fuck in charge of where they go.

fuck you wheat thins. fuck you.



up next, my thoughts on dorito's late night cheeseburger.

i got a new tablet for my birthday!!

so heres a dino i did real quick for phil!

sneak attack visit

my mother and father called me this previous weekend to tell me that they will be visiting me Thursday this week. i, being the eldest of their adult children, and having moved farthest away, feel a certain level of ambivalence regarding my lifestyle. on the one hand, I've been living on my own the longest, and should, in theory have gotten the hang of living like an adult by now... on the other hand living just far enough away to avoid the parental-pop-in has my apartment usually looking as though a crazy homeless person has been squatting there, nice things, but all piled up on the floor and on table tops, and absolutely no clean dishes.

so i tried to clean for their visit, which i suspect was prompted by my recent break up. since they, i believe, are coming here to make sure I'm not drinking myself into oblivion over it, i decided to first take out the recycling. the bag of course was chock full of beer, vodka, and whiskey bottles (their fears are not entirely unfounded, but they don't need to know that), and now i fear my super will judge me too when he finds this huge sack of empty booze bottles. its not that I'm such a drunk, but more like it takes me a long time to take out the recycling.
after that i did some basic things like sweeping the hall, putting all my dirty laundry in a pile (as opposed to blanketing my entire apartment all spread out), and putting dishes in the sink. this is where it all falls apart... it looked pretty good to me... but when someone comes inside your apartment you see it as if with new eyes for its shocking filthiness, so i decided to leave and come back pretending to be my mother.
i walked in to an impassible hallway, but gave myself the benefit of the doubt that this isn't so bad, then i walked into the living room and cringed at the pile of god-knows-what stuff covering my table and imagined my mother going through and assessing the details of the contents of the mess. then i went into the kitchen where i (still pretending to be my mother) dropped to my knees clutching my heart and hollered "oh god nooooooooo" the place is quite a sight if you aren't used to it.

discouraged, I've given up. my new plan is to keep them so busy they don't have time to really look too close...

**update**
the busy plan was in fact scrapped and instead i went with a much more devious and fun plan... i got them wasted and in the morning hollered "oh my god look what you did to my apartment!" which worked beautifully.

you are where you live more than what you eat.

if my place is a mess, so am i... and its a two way street, when my place looks like a disaster area chances are it started because i fell into a funk emotionally or my other responsibilities became overwhelming, but.. having allowed my apartment to fall apart it only added to the problem that had caused it and before long both situations are out of control. a messy apartment can become so unmanageable and overwhelming very fast, and its not a healthy environment to fix anything else either. how can i get my head together when every dish in the house is dirty and i cant see the floor in my bedroom or living room for all the clutter? thank goodness that cleaning can be like therapy.

if my place is too dirty to see where to start, it helps me to come up with a new furniture plan. this could mean moving all of the furniture or just a few key pieces; this could also mean purchasing new shelves or something of the like. if you have to move furniture or work in a new piece then you are forced to deal with the floor and surface clutter that blocks the way (not to mention anything that might be under something you are moving).

i find that once i get the ball rolling with something like this its much easier to continue and actually get the whole psychotic mess under control. when you move furniture there is an artificial feeling of greater progress which can be all the motivation i need to tackle all the other little problems in the house.

once you have your place in order you feel good. not only have you conquered a major project but your surroundings are now in harmony with the adult you are supposed to be. freshly cleaned and rearranged spaces are full of positive forward moving energy.

im more likely to shave my legs or work out or even do my homework on time if my apartment is clean and the furniture is where i like it and i dont hate my curtains.

p.s. i also bought new curtains online...

the best investment

i have long said that instead of forcing highschool students to get through algebra II there should be a new requirement to graduate, a course in basic personal finance. included in the curriculum would be things like balancing a check book, and key things that impact your credit score (not to mention the impact of your credit score on your options for housing and other major life purchases) and most importantly how to read and comprehend a contract for a credit card.
people know that you have to pay off a credit card with intrest, they know, but so many dont really understand. the intrest rate most will get on their first few credit cards and likely all of their credit cards they will have over their lives, will be very high and are subject to change for no reason by the company. this means if the balance is not paid promptly that over time it is likely that the purchases made with the card will cost about three times whatever they originally cost when purchased.

paying off your credit cards is the best investment one can make. do you really want to pay $300 for the $100 printer you bought so long ago? or still be paying months down the line for the shoes you long ago banished to the back of your closet because not only can you not afford a nice night out but they also hurt your feet?

if you dont have the money to buy something, dont buy it. just because you have credit does not mean you have money.

paying the minimum balance gets you nowhere, pay as much as you can as often as you can. its good for your credit score and it reduses how much you will pay in the long run.

you need credit. you need it, for emergencys and large one time purchases, but dont go buying stupid things, needs and wants are not the same thing. you dont need new shoes if your current shoes are appropriate for your daily life and in decent shape. you dont need $4.00 lattes or $15 meals. knowing what you are spending your money on is the first step to curbing those habbits.

cat joke

there were two cats trying to cross a river,

the first was one two three cat,
the second was un deux trois cat,

so which cat won the race

one two three cat won because un deux trois quatre cinq

prop 8... some unfinished thoughts....

Marriage is traditionally a religious ceremony in which a man and woman are joined in “holy matrimony” till death do they part. But today it has become a state institution from which benefits such as tax breaks, rights to visitation in hospitals, and the sharing of insurance can be obtained from the state.

The state, promises not to discriminate based on religion or sexual orientation. The state also shouldn't be discriminating against individuals who are ugly or bad lovers or just undateable and thus unable to find a partner...

What then separates a marriage from any romantic relationship? These days one can get a divorce if they are no longer happy, so there is no more till death do us part if we don’t want to. Many people have open marriages in which they are free to have other partners. Many couples are made up of two of the same sex. Some married couples even have a non-sexual arrangement. Atheists may get "married" by the state in a courthouse by a justice of the peace. So, what is marriage really these days?

Why does the state feel that it is beneficial to support “marriage”?

And why should that definition maintain its traditional context excluding same sex couples if it still allows for divorce, straight couples of alternative religions and non traditional arrangements?

To promote families for the rearing of children is the usual response to why the state should support matrimony.

But what about couples who are barren or do not wish to have children? Should they be required to adopt or else have the marriage annulled? Is there some other reason for getting "married" as opposed to just dating till death do us part? theres no reason a same sex couple couldnt adopt, and there is no evidence that they do any better or worse as parents.some try to argue that its a slippery slope to bestiality and man and pumpkin weddings. but lets slip down the other side of that slope, if the state can regulate based on gender what relationships are valid what is to stop them from passing anti-miscegenation laws (again) or regulating people of different educational backgrounds or income levels.

Same sex couples seeking to get married say it is to celebrate their love and declare their feelings and intentions to friends and family, not to mention to be able to share insurance and obtain tax benefits associated with a state recognized union. So what’s wrong with just accepting civil unions then? It’s a matter of not allowing the state to invalidate your lifestyle and your relationship with blatant discrimination; if the state recognizes any wedding, it should recognize same sex weddings.

How to be a Philosophy Major.

1. assume that all your classmates are morons and have reached their current level of understanding of a text by reading about it on sparknotes or are just faking it by only quoting from the two pages they read right before class.

2. make lengthy comparisons to other philosophers (the more obscure the better)in class, even if the comparison is a stretch. this will let the other students know that you are more well read than them.

3. be sure to look bored when you talk about philosophy as it will leave others with the impression that what you are telling them is remedial to you and you are doing them a favor by stooping to explain it to a novice like them. you'd rather be discussing something more advanced.

4. if someone trumps your knowledge of a philosopher act as if you dismissed the theories of that philosopher a long time ago and cant be bothered to delve any deeper on a subject so obviously beneath you. laugh at them for bringing it up so they will know how much better you are than them.

5. do not wash your hair any more than once every two weeks, but no less than that either unless you are also an art student, if you are an art student do not wash your hair more than once a month.

6. cultivate an intellectual look by wearing unfashionable glasses and sportscoats to go with your dirty hair. always look bored and slightly annoyed even when speaking to people you like. this will let them know that you are better than them.

i know what im really shopping for...

do you ever feel like you're really shopping for the self you wish you were when you blow all your credit on some dumb outfit you'll wear only once... if ever?

sometimes i look at my wardrobe and wonder who i was shopping for when i bought all this stuff...
im really shopping for the body i think i should have,
and a lifestyle in which im not sure i really want to participate...

i guess what i'm getting at is that i've taped my credit cards to the inside of a drawer and im done searching at the stores for what they dont sell.

(or at least thats my official position on the matter)