a day trip proposal, courtesy of my mom.

so on the heels of watching local news coverage on how floyd landis' appeal has been rejected by some self-appointed sports governing body, my mom apparently only heard "lancaster county" and then turned to me, asking if i wanted to go visit mennonite country with her. in response to my subsequent question of why i would want to sacrifice precious eating/sleeping/tv watching/doing anything but visiting lancaster county time, she listed the following reasons:

1. there are chickens.
2. there are cows.
3. there are barns.

unfortunately for my mom, she failed to mention the outlets.

unsurprisingly, the trip is a no-go.

(sexy amish girl/strawberry shortcake-inspired costume via spencer's. please read the costume description at the site, as it is both ludicrous and awesome.)

someone dropped the ball.

no one told me that i should be watching design star on hgtv. as a result, i am PISSED because i missed the simultaneously best/most pitiful elimination reaction on tv (click the pic):

for some reason, i want my mommy.

how i found out my dad is not just a fiscal republican.

(on tv, judge judy is yelling about a police officer's right to protect himself)

dad_outburst: WHAT ABOUT REASONABLE CAUSE?!? YOU CAN'T JUST SEARCH WHEREVER YOU WANT! ARE YOU STUPID? THIS IS AMERICA! WE HAVE RIGHTS!

in order to defuse the situation, i had to quickly turn to the animal planet, where we all relaxed via purrfect predators. true story.

let the romance begin (!).

this voicemail reminds me of one of those giant cartoon snowballs that just get awesome-r and awesome-r as it quickly goes downhill. i've found that anyone who has to call himself a catch is indeed, a true catch (and release). background story here.



p.s. bonus points for his url! be sure to sign up for his various self-help courses like "slut finder" and "confident aura builder"

the one woman campaign for sterilization.

this is a snippet from baby borrowers, where young adults try to fathom what it's like to have a baby by... borrowing them. in this scene, the girls have to wear pregnancy suits to a baby care class. drama ensues.



private to kelly from dunwoody, ga: you need to CHECK yo-self before you WRECK yo-self. i'm pretty sure you have to concede the right to throw tantrums once you bring a BABY into the world.

update: make that two women. i couldn't find supporting youtube documentation but if you make the poor decision to watch this show, i KNOW you will agree. fo realz.

holy crap, i LOVE this show.

i humbly present the best routine of the night (read: season). it's the whole shebang from the human interest intro to the teary reaction from crazy mary. you're welcome.



summer = ciao bella + fireflies + so you think you can dance

i don't even know what to say.

l.a.'s version of the trojan horse, perhaps?

(source)

do rock band skills count?

also, sucks to be graham.

(source)

the yellow penguins vs. the green monkeys.

this sounds like two teams from legends of the hidden temple, but they are actually from "i survived a japanese game show", now playing on abc. i didn't think it was a possible to have a show more OTT than american gladiators, but here it is. it might have something to do with the fact that everyone in the audience has their own tambourine. hand percussion instruments always get the home viewing audience riled up.


select quotes from this episode thus far include:

(re: sake) I was expecting a wine cooler, but it tasted like lighter fluid!

(meeting the mama-san) I am your Mama-san! Not yo momma!

i dare say the opening scene was the best, though.

host: you’re going to… japan!
group of contestants: squee!

(hugging and jumping ensue)
random female maki beast in the back: SUSHI!!!!!

maybe you had to be there. but it was completely amazing. and i'm not going to say that you should watch this show.

also, reverse psychology probably does not work at all.

weird animal tricks.

just now, i came downstairs to find my parents watching this:

that's a hippo fight, for you non-pbs/nat geo/animal planet watching folks. then, as i was trying to distract myself from the tv while simultaneously spending some qt with my parents, i came across this school of swimming piglets:

finally, the coinciding appearance of these bizarre animal images reminded me of the weirdest thing i've EVER seen, including all of those richard bey/jerry springer back-to-back epis i used to watch:


that's right. a panda handstand. to mark its territory. it's spelling out "bring it" in urine.

(image sources 1, 2 & 3)

rock-em, sock-em grandmas.

does one of the following grannies belong to you? if so, you've got the COOLEST, thug life grandma of all time. i envy you for coming from such fine breeding stock. no, seriously.



(source)

remember the (awesome) wedding band from old school?

no? that means you haven't watched the movie nearly enough times. anyway, this should jog your memory:



fyi their street name is the dan band. also, this will also be the only time i mention american idol on purpose. unless something stupendously awesome happens. or a joke must be made at seacrest's expense.

of course the yankees have this guy.

switch-hitting batter + switch-throwing pitcher = infinite baseball feedback loop.



the most comical recap starts at 3:40. dummies.

"these looked like fingers so no one would eat them."

it's time to open your impending recession-clamped wallets and buy these leftover sausages on eBay, where the seller found their uncanny resemblance to phalanges hard to stomach.

in unrelated news, (people) feet keep washing up on the shores of canada... wait, what?!

(source)

from shady to what?!? in five seconds.

via time.com:

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head.

gems from lala-land.

courtesy of us weekly:

McConaughey, 38, was seen "resting in a ditch" before "screaming in broken Spanish" to patrons at the Iguana bar in San Juan Del Sur that he'd lost one of his flip-flops, according to the report.

From Charlie Sheen: "I deeply apologize by my choice of words to all I have obviously offended; especially to Tony Todd, an African-American, who was my best man at my first two weddings."

also, this just in from miami animal police:

up next, the cat dumper still refuses to accept responsibility for his actions.

busy night.

back on the headline horse.

two out of the three headlines below are NOT news:


also, please ignore which links i clicked on. i'm not a serial killer/nascar fan, i swear.

incremental innovation in full effect.

not sure how much time little boys spent time thinking about their various crushes and whether they would live in mansions, apartments, shacks or houses with them, but the girls i know did. which was why we played mash incessantly during sleepovers, field trips and phys ed. many a crush was revealed during those lil labors o' luv.

well apparently the actual labor part of filling out the mash form was way too much for the millenials, so it has also been digitized like word processing and human interaction. you can play your own version here. or here. or here. apparently everyone is playing mash except you.

so here is my own future as determined by mash. all info that follows is true to life with the exception of each fifth entry. under the new jersey school of mash regulation, the last space has to be filled out with the worst possible option, although i definitely forgot what the numbers and colors were for. i mistakenly assumed number of marriages and house decorating schemes, respectively. this is the gen-y yuppie in me talking.


and without further ado, here is my future as predicted by mash:


it is surprisingly spot on. i would TOTALLY marry optimus prime in a heartbeat. squee!

entrepreneurial innovator of the year.

(source)

dickies get an upscale makeover.

this guy looks like he could be the rare hybrid toeing the fashion meets finance line:


...but just kidding! he totally loses all credibility in both realms when you realize he's just wearing the business professional equivalent of a dickey (technically known as a business bib) over his wifebeater:

SO hawt. i guarantee that the slanket guy makes excellent use of these during his teleconferences with all of those "retailers."

(source)

once you're done with that dogeared copy of sky mall.

apparently the actual entertainment is really in the safety manual located in the pocket of the seat in front of you:

(source)

one hat's worth of sun protection too late.

the handlebar mustache gets me every time.

obviously.

fyi: the fear of friday the 13th is known as paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia. hope that comes in handy at some point during the next three hours. you're welcome.

meanwhile, the fear of big words is (ironically) hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. good thing i'm not hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobic.

i am a lazytard.

that is what best week ever branded the target consumer for the slanket. which i declared i was five months ago. which was only renewed after seeing this forbes feature:



comments at the source are also gems in and of themselves, including my personal fave: "it kind of makes the person look like they have given up on life".

summer has officially arrived.

so you think you can dance commenced competition phase last night. wednesday and thursday evenings are now spoken for through mid-august. wet your whistle with clips from season two below.





what can i say? i ♥ choreographed dances set to top 40. i blame it on paula abdul and mc skat kat.

(image via visualpanic)

an (un)fortunate coincidence.

no, i'm not above poo humor.

(source)

sorry i missed your party, wall street | madison ave edition.

one day, i will figure out how to get on the cool kids' vip list. until then, i will just have to live vicariously through observing the exploits of their crème de la crème in the fashion meets finance photo gallery.

witness the following charmers who had just met, prior to posing for this photo:


and then later (but apparently not late enough):

meanwhile, the best comment at the source?

OMG... I hooked up with that donald trump lookalike last night also... terrible kisser

it was a really hard-fought battle between that and the following, though:

Girl: "Victoria's Secret outsources 65% of their underwear designs, and do 55% internally."
Me: "Do you mean 65/35 or 55/45?"
Girl: "Oh, yea, 65/45"
Me: "That's still not an option"
Girl: "Why not?"
Me: "Math"
Girl: Embarrased and clearly still not comprehending why she's wrong "oh yea, haha, totally"
Me: "So which is it then?"
Girl: "What's what?"
Me: "Nevermind. I need a drink."

sometimes i wonder if i'll ever regret opting for the marketing path. this is not one of those times.

breaking news (!).

apparently danny wood (of nkotb fame, obvi) managed to score halle berry. in 1989.


no seriously, here's another picture for proof. and please keep in mind that these were taken before the days of photoshop. plus, nobody cares about danny wood (except halle, apparently) enough to doctor 20-year-old pics of him.


i just blew your mind, right? you're welcome. also, I JUST BOUGHT TIX FOR NEW KIDS AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN ON OCTOBER 27th (!!!!1!!). excuse me while i go dig out my nkotb watch, trading cards and throw pillow.

there is nothing about that last sentence that is not 100% true.

(pic source)

so i guess there's like a heat wave outside or something.

(paraphrased from tonight's evening news)

roving_reporter: were all area catholic schools closed today?
elderly_spokeswoman: that's correct, because of the heat.
roving_reporter: so was that because it's hot as hell?

(speedy fade to black)

hobbies that i can tell other people about.

so in b-school, i realized that i can't put "avid (voracious? insatiable?) tv watcher" down under the activities section of my résumé, no matter how accurate/reflective it might have been. therefore, in my countdown to rw-day (rw = rejoining the workforce or real world, not random walk or retirement weekly as suggested here) i've decided to try to grow some hobbies, seeing how athletics is obviously not an option.

with m safely tucked into his internship and fellow newly graduated friends acquiring real estate/having babies/generally being adults and doing adult-y things, i'm feeling a little homeless without anything tangible to call my own (sadly, saaby has passed on to the wholesale car market in sky). my first project? teaching myself how to cross-stitch.

you didn't honestly think i was going to waste my time on dried flowers and baby animals, y/y?

(image via subversive cross stitch)

life just divided itself into b.t. & a.t.

i finally got around to watching the transformers movie today. wow. i REALLY regret not seeing that in an actual theater. afterwards, it was difficult to walk around and not imagine that each car on the street could a) transform into a giant robot and b) side with either the autobots or decepticons. in case you were wondering, subaru bajas and pontiac azteks are definitely out to destroy mankind.

i am a nerd. it's ok, i learned to live with it long ago during my mighty morphin power rangers phase. like eight months ago.

also, is there an official name for crushes on giant robots? because i definitely ♥ optimus prime. maybe even more than megazord.

meet the real supreme lord of e!.

amazing. i love you, joel. insert fangirl squee here.

the times, they are a changin'.

high fives are totally like, 2000.

(source)

to the patronizing librarian my mom and i had to battle today.

also,

ugh. btw if you ever need to communicate something difficult, emotional or honest to me, you should definitely use someecards. not only is it written in my mother tongue of ill-spirited sarcasm, but it is also color coded, which helps me determine what exactly you're trying to emote.

seriously.

living the dream.

margaret cho just fulfilled my lifelong asian-american game show fantasy:

her summary of the experience is exactly how i would have described it too:

We all did celebrity Family Feud yesterday and we kicked ass! We didn't win, but we made a very respectable showing. We played against Corbin Bernsen and his family, who were very nice and good opponents. They ended up winning and going up against the American Chopper dudes who were super cool!

I was really proud of my parents because they didn't know what Family Feud was. The only thing they have that is similar in Korea was the war. They did remarkably well and my dad even razzed host Al Roker a little. It was awesome. We did just as good as any white family would have!

so in conclusion, you go girl.

they're not just glorified bathers.

ok. the most RIDONK tv show on right now is definitely groomer has it on animal planet. and honestly, that's saying something since maury is currently showing a behind the scenes exposé of underground teen sex parties featuring a correspondent named egypt.

anyway, i was introduced to this gem by what else? but the soup. btw joel mchale, my mother thanks you. learning is absolutely a lifelong pursuit.



so while i hung out with my brother and sister-in-law this weekend for the first time in months, i made us all watch episode 107 which is definitely the BEST. SHOW. EVER.

however, i think the best discovery was groomer to groomer magazine. because i now feel like i've been living under a rock all my life. prepare yourself for the best cover shoots EVER.

a perfect belated memorial day tribute:

their take on the cw's farmer takes a wife:

harry potter is this dog's bitch. so to speak.

this dog does not feel embarrassed at all. even on behalf of its owner.

this dog, on the other hand, is having an identity crisis. i mean, which pair are its real ears? also, apparently the use of blackface is still acceptable in the grooming community. it's because groomers live life on their own terms. wow.

on that cheery note, hope you had an excellent monday. even if you didn't, fear not because thursday's groomer has it mini-marathon is just around the corner.

while you were channel surfing...

...i was watching ninja warrior on g4 when this magical subtitle popped up on the screen:

g4 is definitely the weirdest channel on tv. one of the advertisements for the channel featured a top 5 foods for vomiting list, which was awarded to yogurt, in case you were wondering. personally i thought cottage cheese was the obvious choice.

anyway, i've clearly been up to A LOT during the past few days. productivity - it's a beautiful thing.