Culture Club

I recently became obsessed with the band The National. They are so much more refreshing than anything else out there. Their newest album, Boxer, is a startling departure from the drab indie rock world where Ben Gibbard whines from atop his throne. The lead singer's voice reminds me of the guy from Interpol, but with a much more deeper, melancholy feel. The lyrics are smart, romantic, dirty: they are New York without once mentioning the city. They are beauty and ugliness rolled into one. The melodies are catchy and sad. This is the kind of music my bones, my blood, my sinews are made up of. So really, listen. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

The most trraumatic 84 minutes of her life

JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED

Tavolladet Maborak - That's how you say happy birthday in Farsi!

Happy 19th(/21st) Birthday to Jess's roommate and Josh's favorite party enthusiast, Dhani Mau. Bitch has got it goin' on.

Spotted on my Facebook home page:
"The Shins in Concert.
Sponsored

See The Shins Live! Find out when they will be in your area and get great tickets today."


Ughhh. I blame Garden State. I swear to god, if they become the next Weezer I just might shoot myself. (Ironically, of course. Wearing skinny jeans.)

A Goddamn Rant: Makin' Emma Goldman Proud

I woke up late today because I took too many Xanax last night. Josh lulled me to sleep with the sweet sounds of his nasally voice and the lovely smell of Sparks. When I finally went out to seize the day (by waiting for the bus, which was only 10 minutes late today!) I was greeted by a leering old man driving by in what can only be described as a kidnapping/refugee toting unlabeled white van. As I lit a cigarette, I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and he literally looked at me and STUCK HIS TONGUE OUT in a sexual/provocative way which caused me to audibly gasp, much to the dismay of the other people waiting for the bus. It was lewd and crude and all of those other adjectives my Grandmother typically uses to describe my behavior. I almost threw up my Honey Bunches of Oats.

Now, I wasn't even wearing a provocative outfit. I was wearing black leggings and boots and a knee length skirt and a blouse. I thought only slutty girls got hit on? This isn't the first time this has happened, either. This happens to me daily. Same sentiment, different nasty sexual motion.

At work I put the disgusting thought of his snarling face out of my mind so that I could focus on getting really really pissed at the copy machine, Office Space style. But then, on the way home, another man in a very similar van YELLED at me that I was "sexy." There were other people looking! They started laughing! I was just making my way home, trying to get my Dad on the phone to bitch about how I had been closed out of all the classes I wanted, and this guy starts saying things I wouldn't even want my (hypothetical) boyfriend saying! I was mortified.

So what gives these men the right to verbally and facially harass women? I don't get it? Do I have to go outside wearing a chador in order to not be treated as a sex object? Because I will, god dammit! Except.... that shit gets really hot in the summer. Ugh.

-Jess

A Layman's Guide to Laughing Out Loud

The first time I heard the term "lol" I was 10 and didn't know what a riot the world really is. Since then, my humorous vernacular has expanded dramatically, allowing me to communicate just how funny I think things are through a variety of socially acceptable internet acronyms. Below I give you the guide to the infamous LOL.

1) lol: To be used when someone attempts a funny joke, but you do not actually think it is funny, so no laughing-out-loud actually occurs.

Example:

JOSH: my dad can make some pretty biting remarks

JESS: must run in the family

JOSH: apple, meet tree. don't fall from it.

JESS: lol

2) LOL: To be used when you actually do laugh out loud, but only slightly: perhaps a whispy giggle, or the mere beginnings of the onset of true, laugh out loudum.

Example: Dancing horses.

3) LMAO: To be used when your roommate can hear you laughing in the next room over. Usually follows a self-depracating joke, something found on gawker, or when something awful befalls a person you detest.

Example:

4) LMFAO: Only to be used when high, and watching Youtube. Specifically, this video.

Warning: Never, EVER employ the term "ROFL." The only people who use this term are people who use these kind of smiley faces:

^__^ <__> -__-

UNACCEPTABLE.

Boy George Just As Creepy As You Thought He Was

"Oh, Boy: George Charged with False Imprisonment
Gina Serpe, E! Online

According to British authorities, the answer is yes, Boy George really did want to hurt him.

Scotland Yard has formally charged the '80s icon with false imprisonment stemming from an April complaint filed by a male model claiming to have been chained up and threatened at the singer's East London home, after turning up for a photo shoot."

On my Comcast headline news thing, the story's abridged headline read "Male Model: Boy George Kidnapped Me," which ranks as one of the weirdest-yet-most-expected things I've read in a long time.

Boy George is crazy.

Jess's Unattainable Holiday Wishlist

I mean, all I really want for Christmas is my two front teeth, but the following five things would suffice.


1)Elizabeth & James Sequined Dress
As if to balance out their ridiculously overpriced line of American Apparel look-alike clothing, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have released a still ridiculously overpriced line called Elizabeth & James. (According to Ashley, it is not named after their sister and brother, but just so happened to turn out that way during the brainstorming process!) My tendency to be a semi-crazed Olsen aficionado, coupled with my embarrassing love of sequins, has caused me to fall completely in love with this version of the sequins shift MK wore to an event two years ago. At $499.99, it definitely falls under unattainable. I might be more willing to cash in some savings bonds for it if it came with a free gram of coke. These girls need a new marketing team. Go with what you know, ladies!

2)The Digital Volcano Vaporizer
At $669.00, you’d need about 15 friends to chip in on it, and I just don’t have 15 friends, let alone 15 friends willing to buy me an “herbal” smoking device. And somehow I doubt my parents would be able to sleep at night knowing they had bought me such a thing. The horror! The shame! Apparently I’ll be sticking to papers. Sorry, Mom and Dad.

3)A Trip to Paris with my Boyfriend
This is unattainable for two reasons: First, economy class tickets to Paris range anywhere from $900-$2,000, not to mention how much it would cost to stay in the metropolitan area, and I am NOT staying in the French countryside. They have like, no vegetarian food there. Second: I don’t have a boyfriend. Fuck.

4)To be, for one night, as wasted as Amy Winehouse is at any given moment in time.
Trust me, folks. I’ve tried. It’s Just. Not. Possible.

5)World Peace
See here.

Paris Hilton Cares About Stuff: Hypocrisy, hilarity ensue

Hilton Tries to Help Drunk Elephants

Pot, meet kettle. Cross-species hypocrisy is the best kind. At least elephants can't get pulled over on Sunset for "driving erratically."

Said Hilton: Once we harvest the ivory from their tusks, they can drink all themselves silly. Party at Hyde! (Get it?!)

Mac Attack

The Mac Dictionary is a wonderful thing. Sometimes, it is also a hilarious thing. The hilarity usually lies in the example sentences it gives for its definitions; from the inane to the non-informative to the borderline offensive, there's always fun to be had when you absolutely have nothing better to do. Here are today's selections:

Gay- "(of a person, esp. a man) homosexual : That friend of yours, is he gay?"
I like this sentence because it not only avoids actually explaining the definition of the word in context, but also seems to be coming from the point of view of a sad closet-case or insecure new-gay, too naive to have developed his own gaydar and too stupid to realize that if he has to ask, then the other guy probably isn't interested.

Nerd- "a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious : one of those nerds who never asked a girl to dance."
WELL MAYBE HE'S GAY. (Or, the sentence could be describing a girl who is straight and would therefore never ask another woman to dance.)

Black- "2 (also Black) of any human group having dark-colored skin, esp. of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry : black adolescents of Jamaican descent."
What, did the Mac Dictionary writers blindfold themselves and pick a random country from the world map, and hope it wasn't in Europe? Before landing on Jamaica they probably got, like, Sudan, but didn't want to go near that one.

Cotton- "a soft white fibrous substance that surrounds the seeds of a tropical and subtropical plant and is used as textile fiber and thread for sewing : an Indian hammock woven in colored cottons."
The thing about this one is, they give two perfectly fine example phrases before this one. But nope, they just had to blindfold themselves again and pick a country whose exports are exotic and made-by-underpaid-children-enough to be "woven" but not so far gone that they wouldn't use cotton. The Mac Dictionary people probably hated International Day when they were in elementary school.

-Josh

Crimes Against Newsmanity: First Edition!

Welcome to Crimes Against Newsmanity, our weekly take on some of the nation's most ridiculous and awful news headlines. [Ed. Note: The NY Post will NOT be included in this section, sheesh people]

"Live from Hollywood's Hottest Hot Dog Spot!" - TMZ
Ok, TMZ, we know you're reporting from West Hollywood, but using the term "hot dog spot" to refer to teh gayz' favorite Rage Nightspot is just bad taste.

"Squalor, Crime Follow Wave of Foreclosures" - MSNBC
But I thought the government seizing your assets and forcing you out onto the streets would reap great, great rewards upon our utopian society?

"Skateboarding Rolls Out of the Suburbs" - NY Times
I'm all for puns, but skateboarding is inherently funny and retarded: why butcher that natural humor? BONUS: The pictures' caption is "Chairmen of the Board." I need a drink.

The Only-Funny-When-You're-Not-Sober Picture of the Day

Fruit Jokes

Q) How does a ghost eat an apple?

A) By goblin it!

Q) What do you get when you cross a potato with an onion?

A) A potato with watery eyes!

Q) What is a vampire's favorite fruit?

A) A neck-tarine!


The funniest aspect of these jokes is that they're from an actual book, entitled "Alexander The Grape: Fruit And Vegetable Jokes," by Charles Keller, which has immediately jumped to the top of my books-I-need-to-own list. Who knows, it might even give me gooseberries! I mean goosebumps. I mean ugh.

*insert ambarella-ella-ella jokes here*

Let's talk about... ANXIETY DISORDERS

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do after puttin on a pot of coffee and takin all my meds is check my e-mail. I don't even have to navigate away from my homepage, because my e-mail provider is my homepage! (I can haz dignitee??!11) Most of the time I don't have anything important in my Inbox, but there is this compulsive urge I get when I wake up to find out what people said to me or about me while I was asleep.

The problem is that, once I login for the first time, I can’t stop logging in all day long. Every time I open my internet browser, my e-mail page pops up, and without thinking I hammer my username and password into the little boxes. Part of me knows that I won’t have any new e-mail, and the other part of me realizes that what e-mail I do have will most likely be unnecessary Facebook notifications or little notes from my Dad asking when would be a good time for him to come visit me in the city. (Never) But checking my e-mail has literally become a compulsion. It feels almost like a chore to search through all the messages posted and e-mails received. It isn't something I necessarily want to do, just something I kind of feel like I have to do. I didn't even realize this until Josh pointed it out to me: "Is it like, part of your OCD that you have to check your email every time you open up Firefox?" he asked with mild concern. Yes, we were stoned, but still.

Not only do I navigate and login to certain websites obsessively multiple times a day, I also have certain things that I click on over and over again even though I know that their status won't change. For example, when I login to Facebook, I always check my notifications, then peoples' photos, then my friends with updated profiles. It's just the natural progression of the way I figure out what went on in the Facebook world since my last login 3 minutes ago.

The frustrating thing is that I know logging into Facebook 20 times in an hour will most likely not yield a change on the site at all. There is the slight chance that my ex-boyfriend will upload pictures showing how awesome his life is without me (it's not) within that one hour time-span, but most often, nothing ever changes. The most obvious example of this is in the status updates on the Facebook Homepage: Alex is [and has been] studying. Updated 36 minutes ago. Do I think that Alex will stop studying and that will somehow impact my life? Will the next new photo album uploaded by those girls I hated in high school help me figure out the kind of person I want to be? The answer is no. But I keep logging in anyway.

So what's there to do about all this? Deleting your Facebook account and delegating e-mail checking to only once or twice a day would be ideal, but when you work in an office, these are your only sources of entertainment and a little OCD is sometimes better than death-defying boredom. For me, I just try to put all this in a context that makes me feel a little crazy. As a self-proclaimed neurotic nervous wreck, I often fear I'm bordering on the psychotic, so asking myself "Is your behavior normal?" will sometimes help me take a step back and realize that logging into Facebook before even showering in the morning is a little crazy. Plus, there are always medications to assuage the pain of internet OCD. You could get an anti-anxiety prescript from your doctor, but my suggestion is to try smoking a J when you feel like you're going a little overboard on the internet front; the only website I'm ever interested in when I’m high is Youtube, because, well, that shit's just funny.

-Jess

Our First Blog: A bigger vanity project than greatest hits albums, children

Though we are avid blog readers, Josh and I were originally wary about starting our own blog because, well, we're just not as interesting as Marc Jacobs.

That said, we do like to talk about stuff. And in a world where reality T.V. reigns supreme, and people write about their sex lives with a shocking amount of panache, we have to assume that the kids out there in cyberland are just as voyeuristic as we are.

So put your monocle and tophat on and enter the world of Jess and Josh, where we talk about... stuff.

JOSH: so much of my wall nowadays is you. and thats a-okay with me.
JESS: sarcasm?
JOSH: no, you're consistently half my wall. and, perhaps, vice versa.
JESS: i know, but are you a-ok with it?
JESS: cuz i can start like posting less heh *fidgets nervously*
JESS: *uses asterisks to convey motions she's not actually doing*
JOSH: omg i used to do that all the time!
JESS: *refers to herself in the 3rd person*
JOSH: *reminisces*
JESS: i fucking hate that shit its almost as bad as ^__^
JOSH: its such a buffy-message-board-esque thing to do
JESS: if hello kitty had a screen name she would communicate using only those faces and asterisk-marked actions.

JOSH: the amount of inside jokes we're developing is dizzying. we could actually write a book.
JOSH: and we'd be the ONLY ONES THAT GET IT
JESS: it would be a bestseller..........
JOSH: no, it wouldn't. no one else would pay to see a deer looking through a window.
JESS: i think you and i should seriously start a blog.
JOSH: okay lets start a blog.
[Ed. Note: We are, indeed, as easily persuaded by things as this post alludes to. Take note, creepy old men who want to buy us drinks!]

JESS: except i kind of hate the idea of blogs. they're so self-aggrandizing and pretentious.
JESS: then again so are we.
JOSH: yes, my specialties
JESS: this conversation should be the first post. our vanity project, if you will.
JOSH: done.