so we went up to redlands again this weekend for some more of the pack things up josh's mom is moving to new mexico extravaganza, right? and we brought back a crapload of simpsons figures brand new in the packages that josh collected for a while for sellin' on the ebay. what does this mean to you? special ebay points!!! if you decide to get one of the fabulous action figures or playsets that are for sale through us, you'll get a frequent flier point for every penny spent! now that's smart shoppin!

josh's simpsons action figures

i'm currently stuck in traffic, and i just wanted to share with you that the bonneville inching along in front of me has a huge sticker acker across the back window that says 'creamy dreams'. Um, ew.

--

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

graphic's fin'lly done!
cheers to mel for the new name
of this here contest!

for the first time out,
write a haiku about me,
your favorite dork!

to get full credit,
stick with the five seven five
on the syllables.

every haiku here
gets a snappy twenty points
no matter how dumb!

if yours makes me laugh
more than any of the rest...
extra hundred points!

so there you have it,
write some crazy funny shit!
and this ends my poems!

******

also on the points table for today - my little sister danielle started college today and as i'm sure you're well aware times are tight all over. do you have a graphing scientific calculator to donate or sell for the cheap? if you do, and we end up with your calculator, you get 200 points.

maybe it's not quite this bad... but for a girl who's had 2 inch long hair for 5 or six billion years, my hair currently feels like it rivals crystal gale's.

if you don't know who crystal gale is you should go look it up and then come back.

are you back?

good.

my bangs are currently stabbing out my eyes, it's doing this crazy feathery shit all over the place (which is possibly split ends? i don't know) and i desparately need a haircut, almost as desparately as i'm seeking susan. i don't think i'm going 2" short pixie, but a whole lot of it's gettin' hacked off soon. just as soon as i can find a spare fifteen bucks and a haircutter who isn't crazy. both of those seem like they'd be fairly easy to find, right? BUT YOU'RE WRONG! you should send me fifteen dollars so i can stop lookin like a damn hippie already!

(much like the one seen here:)

whoever said freelancing was easy was lying, probably to get you into bed.

when you're freelancing, kiddies, the following things are very important:

1) make sure you fully understand whether or not you're their hired arteest. make sure you get all of the particulars, and if you're competing with other designers on a project and the chosen design is the one that gets paid... make sure you know that, too.

2) it's a shot in the dark sometimes when you're given a comp to follow. sometimes they like it when you shift things around a little. sometimes they don't. and sometimes when they don't, they really don't. maybe follow the comp you're given to the letter, and then when you send it to them suggest some changes instead of just doing it.

3) communication is key, people.

in other much more fun news, i got hired to work at a party on september 4th! for four hours that evening i'll be walkin around the 70s themed party doing my crazyass fun scribbles!

what's that? get paid to hang out at a party with drunk people and draw their madcap antics? yes please! very exciting. i'm dusting off my fro wig as we speak.

i'm kidding. i don't really have a fro wig. but i really wish i did.

and you know you love it, there's a new t-shirt transfer photo in the store! buy a tee and join the jackassery!

longer, more informative and awesome post filled with explosions and fire coming later i swear, but for right now:

if you can find out what high school they filmed gwen stefani's "hollaback girl" video at, i'll give you 100 points. i saw it the other day at the gym and a bunch of the shots of the school look a whole lot like marina high.

i mean it probably isn't because they have like the same exact building plans that they use for every school, but it really, really looks like marina.

p.s. my 5 year old neice loves that song.

for the finest in baseball card funny, advance token to mark's blog!

please don't be an ass like i was, and actually read the guy's name before raising a ruckus demanding to know why the hell he's so awesome. cuz that's where the funny is.

guys, lemme tell ya about two of the most terrifying random things happened this weekend.

1) i was crossing the intersection of 4th and alamitos at around 5:30 friday morning. i'll be the first to tell you that area of long beach is a veritable hotbed of jaywalking. (not just me, i swear. everyone's doing it and i just want to be one of the cool kids.) but this time i was actually in the crosswalk... the light turns green and i start to cross, and this dude coming in my direction's turning left but he doesn't look before turning and just keeps barrelling towards me, so i sprint out of the way just before i died... if i had put out my hand i could've touched the car as it passed. his window was down, and as he passed me he says "duh... sorry..."

what a jerk.

2) yesterday i went and hung out with michelle for a while. we headed to target to shop for hailey's birthday, and were freaking starving. so we hit the weinerschnitzel because it's right there. michelle pulls into the drive through and i ask her what she's doin, are we eating in the car? and she's all oh right, force of habit. sorry. so she drives to the end of the drive through lane, and at the same time an older model red suv pulls up to the driveway to go out to the street. so he's stopped perpendicularly in front of us. meaning we can't go anywhere until he leaves. and i have no idea what the hell we did, seriously. but the late 30s lookin dude gives us a sour look and starts rummaging around in the front seat.

michelle and i assumed he was looking for a cell phone or his favorite journey mix tape or something and thought to ourselves, what an a-hole, you're totally blocking us from leaving. then he rolls down his passenger side window and hucks a brand new large (or whatever fancypants name they give the large) cup of coffee at michelle's car.

what a jerk!

3) this is my favorite story from this weekend. i've had this penne arrabiata recipe printed out and sitting on my kitchen counter for like a month now. been meaning to make it and it just never happened, you know how it goes. so last night i decided it was time! hooray, i love cooking!

so i got all the ingredients together and sliced up the garlic. preheated the oven for garlic bread goodness, and put some oil in a large frying pan to heat up as directed. threw the garlic in and let it sautee for a bit. tossed in the red pepper flakes, and man this recipe is easy!

the next step... it didn't say anything about getting rid of the olive oil the garlic and red pepper was cooking in before adding the can of tomatoes and tomato sauce... it was like a 1/4 cup of oil... enough to make quite a splash when the liquid from the can of diced tomatoes poured in... lots of that hit the flame from the gas burner underneath, resulting in this:



i swear i haven't yelled a swear that loud since i accidentally put a knife in my hand in art school.

but i handled it like a pro, and the fire dept would've been proud: i turned off the burner, took the pan off the stove and hit the flame good and hard with a towel. it magically went out and i proceeded to soil myself. couldn't really stop shaking after that, because the drawing isn't really exaggerated... the fire was like 2 feet tall and really fucking scary.

josh got to my house from work shortly after that, and we had a good chuckle. and the rest of the meal was a complete success; it really spicy and flavorful and deeeelicious and was probably one of my favorite recipes i've tried out so far. seriously. i can't wait to eat leftovers at lunchtime!

and i never like eating leftovers.

what an ass!

i was driving down main street in huntington beach yesterday,... no wait, check that. i was inching down main street wishing i hadn't missed the turn for goldenwest yesterday, when i saw this banner. i know it's a little hard to make out but i had to take the pic this morning and the light was a little bad. what you're looking at here is an advertisement for the hello kitty boardfest that's happening at the huntington beach pier on september 2 and 3.

upon gazing at this banner, i believe the first thing out of my mouth, an exact quote for the newspaper, was what. the. fuck.

the second thing out of my mouth was a resounding burp.

and then i threw up in my mouth a little. it was gross.

then i hummed to myself. i believe to the tune of prince's "let's go crazy".

this morning my crack team of researchers spent some quality time getting to the bottom of things. meaning i spent 2 seconds typing hello kitty surf fest on google and came up with this... i never quite know how i feel about this kind of stuff. part of me is all hey cool something for the kiddies, get them off their tv-watching asses and out doing something. and part of me is all aw cute hello kitty rocks. and then another part of me wonders what stone cold steve austin looks like in a dress, you know with a wig and all that. but then there's another part of me that just gets really annoyed that hello kitty is getting into the action sports industry.

i mean, it's cool if you wanna have hello kitty skateboards or surfboards or rocketpowered monkey wrenches, but to try and make hello kitty look like she's all badass, check her out she rips it up on the longboard... i don't buy it. leave her alone already. she's supposed to be all cute and innocent and happy with her apples and cupcakes and stuff. just leave her the hell alone!

man now i feel old for ranting about that. today i will buy a rocking chair so i can sit on my porch and yell at the young whippersnappers that go by to turn your durn radios down and get a haircut, you durn tree-huggin hippies!

also of note, josh has a tshirt transfer pic up in the store. fyi, be advised.

man i hate doing dishes! i've been procrastinating on doing it for like an hour now.

i also haven't gone grocery shopping yet. tomorrow morning, i swear.

you know it's time to go grocery shopping when all that's left in your fridge is booze and condiments.

okay so pictures i haven't put up and have been meaning to, they're finally up!

check out the ddr party photos and the stuff we made in ceramics class here!

also, for a good hearty chuckle you should go see the new tshirt transfer pics josh and i did last night...

if i had a billion dollars, i could probably spend at least half of that at fred flare. i'm just sayin.

dammit jenn, you shoulda been a model!

there's a new deal out there for kids who like tshirts! if you get a t-shirt transfer from the store, you get all the regular points - but if you then take a picture of yourself in it and send that on to me, you get 100 extra! immortalize yourself on the internet!

things have literally blown up at my house in terms of little freelance projects - it's awesome to have so much art goin on, but spending 24/7 on the computer is probably bad for you. so i'm unpluggin' tonight - danielle's comin by in a bit to pick up faboo black dots stickers for her band to sell, and then i'm hoping tonight is chock full of more family guy season one, which josh picked up the other day!

also, this was a couple of days ago but i still feel like a dork. the end of the life aquatic always makes me cry like a baby, from the point bill murray and owen wilson get on the helicopter for the last time, on til the end of the movie. continuing into the credits. call the plumber cuz i spring major leaks. can't freakin' help it.

also, uh.. um... what was i gonna say. garrr. i bet it was something good about how i was finally gonna pay back the 20 bucks i owe you. just give up man, that money's gone.

man crazy busy weekends are awesome... possibly the only thing i love more is coming home afterwards and just chillin' for a few days.

friday, as you know, was michelle's birthday. i love that she decided we had to wear cheezy pointy spongebob party hats the entire day at glen ivy. we wore em in the spa, we wore in em the mud bath, we got a few pictures so stay tuned for that! so silly that basically taking an entire day long bath at a spa can be so much fun! they had a deal we didn't know about - if you go on the day of your birthday they'll give you a free pass to come back another day within 6 months, which works out really good for michelle because she would go every day if she could! me, i had a really good time, but day spas really aren't my thing, you know? but it is still fun to partake every once in a great while... maybe i'll enjoy it more someday when money ain't quite so tight...

stopped in at tom's farm afterwards - they have a candy store that sells THE best choco-covered cherries i've ever had in my life. they're freaking amazing. called up josh to see if there was any kind of candy that he wanted, and he came back with "do they have a 12" tall red gummy bear filled with little gummy bears?" they didn't, but i did pick up some gummy mexican hats. which really just looked like gummy nipples. i think they're sellin' off the overstock from a local porn barn or something...

friday night josh and i went to silky sullivan's in fountain valley - his friend erin is moving to virginia at the end of the week to be a sherrif's deputy there, which is pretty awesome. his old roomie shenona's back in town finally after almost a whole year in iraq, too, and it was fun to catch up with her - the girl is hilarious.

saturday morning josh, chris and i headed out to redlands to help their mom sort through a bunch of stuff in the storage shed. have i mentioned she's moving to new mexico? very cool and very sad at the same time; it's gonna stink not having her around. the storage shed housed such wonders as an ancient view master that was josh and chris' grandma's, an antique typewriter for writing angry letters to corporate america, old bus passes from a london trip years ago, a pack rat hiding in the old he-man castle, and a huge cardboard box full of underwear josh had packed away for some unknown reason...

saturday night i was completely conked out by like 9pm. somethin' about that redlands heat just wipes me out...

my favorite part of the weekend, (wait. i don't know if it was better than glen ivy with michelle. let's just say the two are neck and neck. and possibly necking. what a bunch of tramps! but on with our story - yes! on with our story! interjects super grover) was going trap shooting on sunday morning. trap shooting's basically the same thing as skeet shooting, with the clay pigeons, but in skeet the plates go sideways across your line of vision and in trap the plates shoot away from you. it's really, really fun. i love it. did much better this time out, too, i think on the second round of 25 shots i hit like 15 plates... so watch out commies or i'm goin' red dawn on your asses!!!

so cheers to josh for teaching me more about trap shooting, cheers to michelle for a splendid good time at glen ivy, and jeers to it being monday! garrrr!!!!

cheers and happy 30th birthday to my filthy sister michelle! bask in the glory of this fancypants 70s photo of the two of us out fishing with grandpa when we were little!



what's that? you require something a little more... recent? how about this documentation of the fact that madcap mayhem abounds when we work garage sales together.



and now, if you'll excuse me i gotta get my crap together for the celebratory trek to glen ivy today!

every now and then i get a hankerin' for a hunk of cheese. other times, it's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

for my pb&js, i like wheat bread. just put a little bit of peanut butter on one side, because too much pb is really too much. tons of jelly on the other side, though, the more bits of strawberrys or boysenberries in it the better. slap em together and you're good to go.

apparently this is all wrong - according to josh you're supposed to slather both pieces of bread with peanut butter, and then put jelly on top of that. because then when you put the two pieces of bread together, the pb seals the jelly in and keeps the bread from getting soggy.

but dammit, that's too much peanut butter!

tell us what your secret pb&j formula is and get 20 points!

ways to properly jinx your computer, #834:

1) spend twenty minutes drawing a particularly hilarious peanut butter and jelly sandwich in illustrator.

2) under the file menu, choose save.

3) tell the computer where to save your sandwich.

4) think to yourself as it's saving, 'i don't know why i just bothered to save, illustrator's just going to crash'.

5) swear strongly as illustrator crashes, and start the program up again.

6) rinse.

7) repeat.

and while we're callin' out recent awesome designs done by my partners in crime, make haste for the dirty bird special, where trav did a bazillion and twelve hilarious pieces of banner art. just sit there for like 5 hours and keep hitting the refresh button, and laugh your ass off. it's good for you, america. ocean spray.

can i just say that jenn's web design skills will take on godzilla any day of the week and leave him in a crumpled bloody mess on the floor of the steel cage they threw down in?

you have to check out jenn's redesign for conversations about famous people. it will blow your freaking mind and then while you're standing there trying to pick up the pieces, it'll come up and ask for some money for bus fare, if that makes any sense at all.

three cheers to jenn!

i'm calling up my friend nancy after i post this - ms. drew, we got ourselves a mystery!

i don't know why my phone does this, but sometimes it decides to not send my text messages. it just holds them in my phone for days and days, and then sends them when the relavent messages aren't relavent anymore. here's the messages i sent days ago that still haven't gone out:

*thursday*
to michelle: ploploploploploplop

to jenn: cap'n nick paine says practice water safety!

to josh: are you in your house yet?

*friday*
to josh: man i don't wanna sound gay but you totally made my day and unicorns kick ass!

to josh: ps i love that this particular arrangement is the bold and beautiful, which is my favorite cheezy daytime soap!

to danielle: new development - josh is gonna ask robert out on a date

*today*
to josh: 2 hr starts at 9, so you gotta move the car by 11

to michelle: guess what i got you for your birthday

i can't help it; anytime i even so much as think for a split second about that new missy elliot song where she's all "misdameanor says so", it gets stuck in my head for hours.

and not the whole song. because i haven't even heard the whole song. just the dooka-dooka-dooka-dooka keyboard noises and the "misdemeanor says so" line. over and over. hour after hour.

suggest a new song to hum and get 20 points!

BEWARE THE KANGAROOSTER!!!

gaaaaaah!!! delimma time!

finished the hooker. aw, ain't she sweet?

i went to aaron bros today and found a frame i really like. so i bought it and brought it home. and now i'm totally stuck as to what comes next.

i took the glass and the backboard and all that crap out. the painting still sticks out from the back of the frame a tiny, tiny bit, so the little metal hooks you should be able to just bend over to hold the thing in are completely covered and useless.

100 points to the first actual real useful answer as to how to finish framing this thing - i've been looking for answers online and coming up with jack squat. it's frustrating because i've been on this painting for months now and just want to be completely done with it. i have the attention span of a 7 yr old with A.D.D. sometimes.

so yes - how do i get the canvas to stay in the frame, and am i supposed to do anything else with it once it's stuck into the frame? and where do babies come from?

(p.s. - don't be tellin' me where babies come from and expect 100 points for me. the points are strictly for framing answers!)

okay i'm back! WHOOOOOOSH!!!

50 points to jenn for pointing me in the direction of natalie dee's website! seriously folks, if you like funny random stuff and explodingdog, then her website is totally for you. but probably don't go if you're six years old or easily offended.

that being said, i haven't seen all of her stuff yet but this is my favorite drawing so far!

yesterday was awesome - slept in late, which never happens for me. josh and i drove out to his mom's place in redlands... and we really didn't do a whole lot once we got there. got some lunch, picked up some boxes at uhaul and dropped off some stuff at a thrift store, went back to carole's house and took the dogs for a long walk. there was some crazy wind going on, kickin' up all kinds of dust and havoc! josh combatted this by putting avocados in a fire plug and sending em flying when he turned on the water. then we practiced spit takes for when we someday get famous, because that's a must when you're on tv. you have GOT to know how to do a proper spit take, people. it must be a fine mist, really. anything else is just straight drool.

plans in effect for a new funny piece of art. was going to just be a card but i think it has to be a painting. can't wait to do it.

later on, after we all went out to dinner, josh, his brother chris and i went out hunting skunks around the hill. wandered around for like an hour before giving up. there's nothing more disappointing than going out with the idea that we're going to shoot a skunk and make a hat or a brooch or a pteradactyl out of it, and then not see any skunks at all...

i don't know if it was the opressive heat in effect in the redlands area yesterday, but as hard as i tried i could not stay awake on the way home and totally crashed like 3.2 seconds after hitting the pillow.

ooo, guess what i'm doing today! i'm cleaing my apartment, wowee wow wow! also on the list, though, is scanning in the hooker painting to put up on the site so watch for that cuz it's finally done!

i love when people find out i used to work at an internet company, which obviously means i know everything there is to know about building things for the internets...

exhibit a in my i don't know crap case is this very website, which is pretty simple html and took like 9 months for me to put together.

but the important thing is it's finished - let's all drop our pants and rock to the oldies, richard simmons style!

i have one of those underground zits right at the bottom of my nose, where nose meets face. and for some reason i keep accidentally hitting that area and it hurts like hell and it hasn't gone away in days... maybe it's a tumor.

so i've been at ffi for over a year now, right? and for almost a full year of that, i've had health insurance... i recently admitted to myself that maybe i haven't been using it to the full extent of its usefulness, and finally made a damn dentist appointment.

the last time i went to the dentist it was snowing outside and my car was slippin' around on the ice in the parking lot. that puts us back to about february of 2004... not good people, not good. 'specially when you're really supposed to go every 6 months.

when i go to my spanky new dentist on september first, i fully expect the same crap i get every time i get my teeth cleaned - number one, i don't floss as much as i should. number two, i really need to get my wisdom teeth pulled. but i may actually look into that second one this time, since i think with the insurance i have now it's only $50 a tooth. $150's still a lot and i have no idea how that'll work financially, but the buggers are comin' in sideways so i should probaby rip em out before they pierce my brains and eyeballs and other necessary head-related organs...



how long since your last dentist appointment? 20 points to you for sharing with the class!

p.s., i put oc fair pics up today! check em out!