Gretch-a-sketch (old)

Greatest email ever?  Yeah, I think this qualifies.

 

I went out to lunch with some of my mom's side of the family today. They brought up this conversation from a few months ago that I'd completely forgotten.

Me: Ugh, I can't stand Taylor Swift.
The Lil' Bro: Why? She's totally hot.
Me: I dunno. She always struck me as a skank.
Mom: Gretchen, you're kind of a skank.
Me: WHAT?
Mom: Well, you dye your hair...
Me: I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Mom: I figured it meant a wild, rebellious girl.
Me: (after a stunned silence) So close, yet so far.

Anyhoo, she now knows the definition. And next time she calls me a skank, I'll know she really means it.

Just a few things to help take the edge off of a Monday...
(Some of these have been cross-posted over on my tumblr, but it's all worth a second glance.)


Saved the best for first! I L.O.L. every single time I see this.


In case you were wondering, this is a picture of a young Steve Martin ironing a kitten.



(via OfficeTally)

Jemaine: Are you and Lisa gonna get married now?

Bret: I wish, but I don't know. She's got to go to war.

Jemaine: What?

Bret: Yeah, Iraq.

Jemaine: Iraq?

Bret: Yeah.

Jemaine: Lisa?

Bret: Yes, she's in Delta Force. She's been deployed to Fallujah.

Jemaine: But she works in the croissant shop.

Bret: Yeah, well, she's got two jobs. She's a pastry chef and a sniper.

(Via Flight of the Conchords)

Ahoy! Today be the greatest day on yonder high seas...International Talk Like A Pirate Day! (Now infamous with a little help from that scurvy dog Dave Barry.)



(Tina Fey and the Bookaneers)

Get yer pirate name here and be dubbed somethin' fierce. Guard this knowledge well, me hearties!

Godspeed,
Marilyn the Malformed

I've officially hit that slump that seems to have affected the blogosphere these days, so in lieu of anything substantial, you get a picture of the Lil' Bro channeling George Michael Bluth.


Shall we compare?


My dad paid him five bucks to wear the shirt on vacation, which he gladly did. He'll do anything for money.

Michael Cera, if you ever need a stunt double, just give me a call! Or, you know, call if you'd like to meet an older girl who has a borderline-creepy crush on you. (It's even creepier now that he reminds me of my brother......I've made a huge mistake.)

...Than They Probably Are In Real Life

Angel's Grove
Bonanza
Christmas City
Devil's Slide
Dragon (Trogdor!!1!)
Eggnog (It's now a goal of mine to visit here and Christmas City on the same day.)
Emerald Isle
Gooseberry
Koosharem (Say it out loud. Do it. Isn't that great?)
Lark
Little Bonanza
Mexican Hat (Dance)
Moonlight
Oasis (I hear this place is going to be bigger than the Beatles!)
Paradise
Pickleville (Hee!)
Rainbow
Shivwits (See: Koosharem)
Thermo
Unicorn Towne (I may be making this one up, but the rest are totally real.)
Wheatgrass

And just to put things in perspective, here are some Utah locations that very aptly describe what they're like in real life (or so I imagine).

Bone Valley
Coal City
Coyote
Desert Mound
Dry Fork
Fish Springs
Little Water
Mound City
Old Limber Pine
Pigeon
Standardville

Standardville? For real? Way to really promote yourselves, guys. When I name a city, it's going to be called Awesomeville.

I'm baaaack! What'd I miss?

You'll get the annotated vacay recap on Monday, because today I'm going to Lagoon (Utah's sucky amusement park, but it should still be fun) and tomorrow is Nancy Pearl Wannabe's Choose Your Own Blogventure! It's going to be EPIC. And I mean that in the truest sense of the word.

Can we give a massive round of applause to my guest bloggers? I love those guys like today's fat kids love Oreo Cakesters.

Speaking of guest posts, go say nice things about me on Michael's post and win some great stuff, like a Starbucks gift card, his sister's homemade bath stuff, and music. I'm a sucker for compliments and just to up the ante, if you leave me a comment, I'll write a post saying nice things about all of you! It's an idea made of win-win-WIN.

I'm hoping to debut my tumblr blog and review blog both next week. Get psyched.

I need a new tv show to obsess over. I've narrowed it down to Buffy or Lost. Which should I pick first?

Because my parents live in the 1990's, our home computer has dial-up. It's so annoying...every time I sign in, I want to cut the internet like a taun-taun. We're talking about getting high-speed, but it might be a couple weeks. Hence, commenting and twittering may be sparse. This is killing me softly and slowly.

Still, it's good to be back. I missed you guys.

So while Gretchen is out of town (Hi, Gretch! Hope you're havin' fun!), I get to step in here and talk to all y'all for a few minutes. [Editor's note: This is brought to you by the fabulous Brooke from Oh My Seven.] I've only

In roughly two weeks, I move away from my teeny college town. I'm not terribly saddened by this fact, but there are a few things I'll miss, such as the quaint homes, the cheap theater, and the crime report.

1. Unlocked door at Maurice's--No biggie, but did the police really need to be called in on this? I mean really?

2. Theft (wooden pallets from Albertsons)--"Hey guys! I know where we can get wood for our bonfire! Oh yeah, I had a roommate who did this all the time!" I am 100% positive this is what happened.

3. Complaint of elderly woman harassing subject with homemade jelly--Maybe it's best not to know.

There is a wild thunderstorm outside right now. It's times like this I wish I had a governess.



I'm pretty sure any girl's interest in authoritative men can be traced back to Captain Von Trapp.

For your viewing pleasure: The visual aids for my addiction presentation in neuroscience today.
A+? Or A++?



I was always the Jessie of the group.



The ironic thing about this video is that the words they use to diss dope at the beginning are also pretty good descriptors of their character.

(I also plan on using Michael Scott's line about more people using cocaine than reading a book to their children during my portion on addiction statistics.)

I love my camera phone because it's there if I need to capture something that instant. Heck, even National Geographic published a book centered around how to take great camera phone pictures. Because, you know, if I'm ever in the Amazon and this rainbow macaw comes flying by, I am going to whip out my Samsung Stripe and get some great shots courtesy of NG.

1. I went to the new Asian Market with my family on Friday. Those places rock. I saw everything from Tofu Jerky to "Cutted Pork Foot." They even had a whole section for Oriental Kitsch. This was one of my favorite finds:

It's a Pearl Soybean drink in Mung Bean flavor. As Creed Bratton will tell you, "I sprout mung beans on a damp paper towel in my desk drawer. Very nutritious, but they smell like death." Ah, Old Man Smell in a can!

2. This sign is in the hallway at our university library. I kind of wanted to take it down and hang it in my room, because I'm just that much of a nerd.

3. Without getting into the various rules my uber-conservative school enforces , let's look closely at the wording on the sign. "Leggings may only to be worn with modest knee-length clothing covering them." My favorite part's the person who crossed out the "to" and wrote next to it, "Proofread, stupid!" EDITING FAIL.

I'm going home for the weekend to spend some quality time with my pops and meet some amazing teen bloggers, so it should be fun.

I cannot get enough of watching this, even though the guy on the left reminds me of the guys I automatically despise. You know, the kind that think they're the funniest person on earth.



Happy Friday the 13th (spooky!), Happy Useless Holiday Day tomorrow, and Happy Father's Day on Sunday!

Or
In Which I Get Ranty About Something Really Stupid
(Consider yourself warned.)

We got a letter from the apartment management tonight--exterminators are coming to take care of the invisible ant problem tomorrow. Okay, I understand the need to take preventitive measures, but it's at a really inconvienient time AND they made us move all of the furniture out from the wall. Which is large and heavy and laaaaaame. I don't know, it's really not that big of a deal, but I just was so not in the mood tonight to cope. And I don't know if they meant all the stuff from our closets, too, but that crap is staying right where it is. With the help of my stronger roommates, we were able to get everything moved, but it was still a pain. In the moving, I found a dollar behind the chest o' drawers. In this situation, there is only one process for an instant pick-me-up.


1. Drive to the fake downtown.

2. Sing along at the tippy-top of your lungs to the following songs on the radio: Lamar's On the Wings of Love, Miley Cyrus' See You Again, and Sean Paul's Temperature. Strange mix, but even stranger that I knew the words to all three.

3. Purchase this little beauty from Mickey D's.

4. Scarf it down faster that you can say "I'm lovin' it."

5. Hope that the rest of the week goes better.

P.S. Can I get a holla for the new iPhone?

P.P.S. I graduated from high school exactly three years ago. This makes me feel simultaneously very old and very young.

P.P.P.S Back tomorrow with some semblance of normalcy.

Okay, it's not up on the voting page yet, but I couldn't wait and just had to show y'all my latest creation.
GraphJams is my new favorite internet meme...some of the graphs are soda-out-your-nose hilarious. They are mostly taken from song lyrics, but a bunch are from movies. Hence, I came up with this:

Video

When it does make it to the voting page, I'll let you know, so you can vote vote vote (like a leetle stoat) and get it to the front page. We can make this happen! We can be the change we want to see on the internet!

The professor I TA for: "Well, I'm not really up on 'pop culture' or anything like that, but is your hair supposed to look like Uma Thurman's in Pulp Fiction?"
Me (stunned that my straight-laced prof just referenced that movie): "Um...no. I didn't actually have anyone in mind when I got it cut."
Prof: "Okay. At least I tried!"
Me: "I appreciate it."

Via the Lil' Bro's birthday postcard--the front reads "National Procrastination Week has been moved to next month"
On the other side: "Hey look! I didn't procrastinate your birthday. Congrats! 21! You can now legally buy liquor and gamble. Hats off."
[I don't know why, but the deadpan "Hats off" slays me everytime.]

Text conversation with the BFF:
Me: If there were two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think likes dolphins more?
Her: I'd say Flippy!
Me: Well, you'd be wrong. It's Hambone.
[I love that we get each other.]

Roomie #1: "You should blog about it." [I don't remember what "it" was, to be honest.]
Roomie #2: "Yeah, Gretchen, that would rock. But you know what they say...thou shalt not covet thy roommate's weblog."
Me: "Yeah... I think that's like Commandment #56."

On the local pizza joint's sign:
BEETS ARE BACK.
LEAVE ME ALONE.
-MATT
[1. Um...what?! 2. A part of me hopes it's a beet pizza that pays tribute to Dwight.]

Don't forget to enter the contest by tomorrow afternoon!

I never liked playing tag in elementary school, because I am the opposite of a fast runner. I'd always get tagged first and then spend for-EV-er [/Squints] trying to get close enough to the other kids so I could end the misery and maybe catch my breath, if I was lucky to last that long. But blog tagging? Everyone wins! I believe what it says on the Alamodome--we are all winners! [/Miss Texas]

Elisabeth tagged me for the six random things meme, which I've always kinda wanted to do, so yay!

Post the rulez on your blog:

- Write six random things about yourself in a blog post

- Tag six however many people you want in your post

- Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

- Let the tagger know your entry is up.

(Intro: In a fit of brilliance and/or boredom, I decided to do this Six Degrees style, a la Ken Jennings.)

1. For all the post-strike episodes, Office Tally has arranged for fans to ask questions of the writers. Brent Forrester and Justin Spitzer wrote "Did I Stutter?" and actually answered my question! How cool is that? I have had semi-contact with the writers of The Office. I'll let you guys figure out which question was mine... Also, am I the only who thinks it's weird that Dwight keeps putting odd substances on Michael's head? Last week it was vaseline and the week before it was peanut butter. Oh, Dwight! You need to get back with Angela STAT.

2. In second grade, we had a writing prompt about what we would do if we opened a brand new jar of peanut butter and "HELP!" was scratched into the otherwise shiny top? My story involved using a recliner-turned-rocket to go into space to save the aliens. (The aliens were the ones in distress, natch.) To this day, every time I break out a new jar I wonder if this will be the time I find the call for help.

3. Help! is an incredible Beatles album, but it's not my favorite. That honor goes to the one and only Abbey Road. It's so tightly-crafted from start to finish, which is ironic given that the band was so not tight at that period. George Harrison is at his absolute peak and John and Paul aren't half-bad, either. Maybe someday I'll do a full review of what I love about it...there is so much I could write. From the opening shoop of "Come Together" to the bizarre and yet somehow apropos finish of "Her Majesty," Abbey Road will forever hold a place in my musical heart.

4. While other girls dreamed of being the long-lost daughters of Her Majesty the Queen, I dreamed of being the long-lost daughter of Tim and Jill Taylor. Yes, I wanted desparately to be the fourth child on Home Improvement. This show was my first taste into traditional sitcoms and it was the one show we would watch as a family on a weekly basis. Remember when the NASA astronauts visited and Gothic Mark and jokes about Al's mother? Amazing.

5. I had this astronaut uniform as a young'un that I'd decorate with badges from the Forest Service and my grandpa's old Army pins. I wanted so bad to go into space. That dream turned into deciding to be an aerospace engineer in high school and that dream turned into one day of engineering classes in college. Yeah, not for me. I liked the idea of it, but the thought of actually doing that for the rest of my freaking life had me a little keyed up and not in a good way. I dropped those classes like they were hotter than Ben Affleck in Armageddon and moved on.

6. I keep a keychain of Malibu Barbie on my keys. The reasoning behind this is tri-fold. 1) It's really easy to grab out of my purse. 2) It reminds me of my time at the toy store and also of high school, when a few friends called me "Barbie." Blond and skinny will get you that. 3) Depending on my mood, it signifies that a) I can be a strong, capable, multi-talented woman, because Barbie's an awesome girl power symbol or b) I don't want to be conformist (see: high school) and Barbie's the ideal symbol of people who need distraction from the pathetic emptiness of their meaningless, consumer-driven lives. [/Kat Stratford] Plus, she's also super cute and probably has a slew of hot boyfriends, named Brent or Justin.

Tag! The Roommate Edition: Marlayna, KK, and Elise! You're it!

Business in the front...


Party in the back!