Rants about ridiculous things. Raves about amazing stuff. Random crap about life.

You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers

I appreciate those of you who took the time to submit a question. If I keep receiving questions, I’ll consider making this a regular feature on OTP, so ask away! Let’s keep this train a’rolling!

Q: Why is Wyoming called Wyoming?

According to Netstate.com, Wyoming is a Dakota Indian word for “at the big flats” or “large plains.” Infoplease.com says it is a Delaware Indian word meaning “mountains and valleys alternating.” I have my own theory. I think it’s derived from the Indian word “Whollyshitwherearewegoing” and it means “Get me the fuck out of the middle of nowhere!”

Q: When are you going to send me your purple Cartman shirt?

A: Way to be discrete, friend who shall remain nameless. ;) This is the purple Cartman shirt in question.

I’ll send it to you whenever I can find another one that isn’t a 2XL. That’s the only size Hot Topic currently has in stock, those bastards.

Do you like Jimmy? There’s lots of Jimmy t-shirts available with the fish sticks reference.

Q: Why is Boo the best cat in the whole wide world?

A: Slight correction: Boo is the best can in the whole wide world that is named Boo. We all know, of course, that Teddy is *the* best cat of all cats in the whole wide world. End of debate.

Q: Why are vampires so popular?

A: You must have asked this question because you’re as sick of all this stupid Twilight shit as I am. I’m pretty sure that is where it’s all stemming from. Of course, Twilight is just the latest craze to be spawned by a series of books about things that were previously unpopular. Before this mess, we had Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in the last decade alone. Prior to that, Scholastic distributed the latest Goosebumps, Baby-Sitters’ Club and Boxcar Children books to kids in such quantity, you’d think they were made of crack. So I’m really thinking that books are the root of all this evil. Blame books. Books are evil.

If you wanna ask your own question, please fill out the form on the sidebar. If you wish, you can submit your question anonymously.

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Whose Domestication is it, Anyway?

Has anyone else noticed an unusually high amount of stories about animals in captivity killing (or at least injuring) humans in the news lately? I have, and this has left me quite confused. Why is this news? This is simply animals rightfully acting like animals.

Let’s face it: With the exception of cats, dogs,and other small mammals, most animals don’t adapt well to human domestication. You piss them off and they don’t waste time kicking your ass. Even my cute cuddly kitty-cat (who does happily live a domesticated life) whips out the claws when he’s had enough of me. It’s his nature, as it is for all animals, including humans. Lest we forget, we too are animals. We pretend we are more civilized because we sometimes carry out our squabbles in a verbal manner. At the heart of it all, though, our primal instincts tell us we should just beat the shit out of the person that’s causing us distress. We deny ourselves that satisfaction (usually) until it’s absolutely necessary. This is where humans and animals differ. In the words of George Carlin (skip to 4:10), [animals have] “no Miranda warnings, no three strikes and you’re out bullshit. First offense – BAM! …” They’re completely honest about how they’re feeling, and if they don’t like you, you’re gonna know about it. This is especially effective for animals that are bigger and stronger than humans, as illustrated by the stories linked above.

This is why domesticating animals is, for the most part, a bad idea. This is why I don’t feel sorry when people that work at zoos, circuses, rodeos and theme parks like Sea World end up killed or severely injured by the animals they cared for. This is why I love it when the animals win. Humans ask for this kind of punishment when they expect wild animals to feel just peachy about a life of captivity because we give them a consistent supply of whatever scraps they prefer. Sorry, that just doesn’t make up for removing an animal from its natural habitat for the purposes of human gawking, “education,” and “entertainment.” We should have stopped playing with animals larger than us in the days of the Colisseum and stuck to the gladiator fights instead.

When it comes to animals bigger than we are, it’s either them or us. They don’t play by our rules any more than we play by theirs. If we really were “evolved” human beings, we’d recognize this and leave them the fuck alone. It would be the utmost act of respect on our part. I highly doubt that most species enjoy their interaction with us anyway, let alone a life of (attempted) domestication. We completely deserve the repercussions of such foolish, arrogant behavior, and you bet your ass I’ll be cheering the animals when they win.

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Ask Me Anything!

In honor of a (rare) free weekend, I created a FormSpring account. Go ahead. Ask me anything. Ask personal questions, questions about the meaning of life, the fate of the universe….whatever plagues your mind. You can even ask anonymously, so don’t be afraid. No topic is taboo. I’ll post the best of the questions with their answers in another blog entry.

Let’s have fun with this. :)

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Beautiful Blogger Award

Hey kids, guess what! My pal Rachel over at The-F-Word has bestowed me with the Beautiful Blogger award. How nifty is that? As a part of claiming this award, I must pass the honor on to 15 blogs I read, so in no particular order, here they are:

  1. Things I Want to Punch in the Face
  2. The Stifled Artist
  3. I’m So Random
  4. Junkfood Science
  5. Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder
  6. Lola Snow
  7. Her Horizon
  8. Between Living and Existing
  9. When Morning Breaks
  10. Cuz I Can Fly!
  11. Avidalegria
  12. Just Eat It!
  13. Now is Now
  14. Peanut Butter and Jenny
  15. Digging Me Up

The other component to accepting this award is to list seven things that most people don’t know about me, so here goes.

  1. I absolutely love hair dye and would play with it every day if doing so wouldn’t ruin my hair. Too bad my hair doesn’t like the dye much; no matter which brand I use or how many precautions I take toward preserving the color, my hair color eventually returns to its light-brownish-red after a couple of weeks.
  2. I have little sense of style when it comes to putting together an amazing outfit and accessorizing…and this bothers me.
  3. Right now, I am completely fine with the idea that my future is a complete blank. I’m enjoying the here and now.
  4. My mind categorizes memories and periods of time by color, scent and numbers.
  5. I cannot stand the taste of beer or wine, so I take shots when I drink.
  6. I’ll finish my bachelor’s degree in psychology this summer, but I question whether or not I will ever pursue a career in the psychology field.
  7. I absolutely cannot sing, but at least I acknowledge this and do not subject other people to the horror of my off-key lack of talent. You can’t even talk me into drunk karaoke. Try it. It won’t happen.
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OTP Got a Makeover

What do you think of the new look? Critiques and suggestions are wanted!

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New Video: Bedtime Story

Our awesome writer-friend David Mirhadi took my challenge of writing our cat, Teddy, a bedtime story written just for him. In return, we videoed Teddy’s reaction as I read the story to him. I think he enjoyed it. :)

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Hey, guess what! I *have* been writing!

I just haven’t done it on this blog, and I apologize for that. I have been completely failing as a blogger since school started. Someday, my life won’t consist of reading textbooks, translating Latin passages and dealing with work issues on campus (I got a promotion, which means more hours but much more fun). That someday, thankfully, will come this summer, but until then…I’ll keep doing my halfassed best. :)

Recent posts on The F Word:

February 19: Fun During the February Blahs

February 26: Recovering, a_witha_teeth_a

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Simple Recipe Sunday: Super Bowl Nom Nom Nom

What do we Americans possibly love more than the Super Bowl? Eating, of course! Much like Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday is a convenient excuse to overindulge in tasty yums. With that, I offer the following suggestion:

7-Layer Nachos

Ingredients:
3 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
1 16 oz. can vegetarian refried beans
1-1/2 cups prepared salsa
1 cup prepared guacamole
8 oz. low-fat or fat-free sour cream
1 Tbsp. mild chili powder
1-2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
sliced black olives for garnish

Instructions:
Spread lettuce in an even layer in a deep-dish pie plate, gratin dish or serving bowl.
Spread refried beans over lettuce. (Hint: To make the beans easier to spread, transfer them to a microwave-safe container, and heat on high for 20 seconds.)
Top with salsa, then guacamole.
Stir together sour cream and chili powder. Spread over the guacamole layer.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese over the sour cream layer. Dot with sliced black olives.

Serve with tortilla chips.

(Recipe is an adaptation from a dish my Uncle Brad regularly brings to family get-togethers. It rawks!)

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In Defense of that Bastard With the Chin

Disclaimer: Even if you don’t believe this as you keep reading, understand that I am with Coco. Conan forever!

Even a deadly earthquake in Haiti didn’t stop the world from learning that Conan got the shaft from NBC. He didn’t get a fair shake and no one was oblivious to this; at the very least, NBC should have stuck to their original deal of giving Conan et. al a year to establish themselves in their new time slot. Jay Leno’s ratings started shaky when he took the reins from Johnny Carson in 1992, and it took several months before his show hit its stride. Why did NBC give Jay a chance and not do the same for Conan?

Well, think about it. Jay Leno took over The Tonight Show after 30 years of Johnny. Of course Jay was going to start off with crappy ratings, regardless of how good those early shows might have been; He succeeded the King of Late Night, for cryin’ out loud! Letterman would have struggled just as much – and so would have anyone else, for that matter. No one can (and ever will) fill Johnny’s shoes.

Conan didn’t face the task of following a comedy legend as big as Johnny. Despite that, it is notable that Jay still held his own in the 17 years he hosted the show. He kept NBC happy by leading Letterman in the ratings and holding the numbers steady until the very end. Jay may not be a comedy legend in my opinion, but he is good in his own rite. I see Jay as the ultimate general audience comic. He has just a little something for everybody and therefore his audience range is broad. In other words, even if you don’t completely like the guy, he’ll still pull a laugh out of you before the night is over.

In contrast, Conan is edgier with a more risque style of comedy. This appealed to people in my then-teenage and early twentysomething generation because we were growing up in the mid ’90s – an “anything goes” era, as I remember it – and the crazier you were, the better. The fact that Conan wasn’t quite as mainstream of a comic as Jay was part of his appeal to people my age, and we couldn’t help but fall for characters like the Masturbating Bear and Gaseous Wiener. We couldn’t get enough out of the live via satellite “interviews” with topical characters and the “If They Mated” skit. We ate it up! We stayed up late just for our nightly dose of goofy shenanigans.

So when it was announced in 2004 that Conan would inherit The Tonight Show in 2009, I was ecstatic. I figured he would rock the house down every night (and he did on his last show, as a matter of fact). And yes, I thought Conan would do a better Tonight Show than Jay. But I was (and am) a fan of Conan. Not everyone is. And Conan’s appeal is to a more specific crowd than Jay. Add this to nervous NBC execs, and you get a shitty spur-of-the-moment decision, which as we all know was exactly what happened.

Conan’s come out of this a hero. Whatever he does next, it will be revered. It’s Jay who looks like the bad guy. He’s been the butt of countless jokes and now faces the task of reigniting The Tonight Show after a widely unpopular decision. Take note that it wasn’t Jay who made this decision, but the execs who have let Jay take all the blame. Strangely enough, Jay seems okay with this, and I think it’s his absence of standing up to the bigwigs that is pissing people off. Why would Jay be so agreeable with these assholes if he hadn’t wanted The Tonight Show back all along? That greedy bastard.

Because, people, it’s not just about him.  It’s part of the reason why Conan didn’t leave quietly. Jay could have settled his contract for a hefty sum, just as Conan did. The thing is, Jay has more longevity on his side. Buying Jay and his staff out of their contracts would have cleaned NBC out. NBC knows that and Jay knows that. By moving Jay et. al back to The Tonight Show, Jay’s staff isn’t left scrambling for work, NBC isn’t bankrupt, and NBC feels that it has a chance of winning its loyal audience back.

That, unfortunately, is where NBC is wrong. They set themselves – not Jay – up for failure. No matter how good The Tonight Show is when it returns on March 1, it will not win back all its fans. Too many people are pissed at the way this whole fiasco happened. NBC will ultimately have to own up to its poor decisions by suffering in the ratings – the very thing that started all this shit in the first place. Jay will pay in the short-term either with eventual failure himself or waiting out a turbulent period of criticism and poor viewership until this series of unfortunate events is erased from the short-term memory of the American public. Either way, Jay is just another pawn – much like Conan – in NBC’s game of lousy management. The thing is, Jay knows this and that’s why he’s putting up with it. It’s business. Regardless of the end result, Jay will also come out of this a winner – either in the form of a second long reign of hosting The Tonight Show, or going down with a sinking ship and taking NBC for all it has when they fire him, too. It’s NBC that’s screwed, not Jay. If you wanna point a finger, at least point it in the right direction.

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Simple Recipe Sunday: Peanut Butter Cookies

Any simpler than this and you didn’t bake them yourself.

Ingredients:
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 whole egg (or egg replacer equivalent)

Instructions:
In a medium bowl, beat peanut butter and sugar together.  Then add the egg and mix until completely blended.

Roll dough into 12 1″ balls and place them on a nonstick or greased cookie sheet. Optional: Create a crosscross pattern with the tongs of a fork and sprinkle the tops of the cookies with sugar (see picture).

Bake at 350°F degrees for about 12-15 minutes or until golden brown at the bottom.

(Recipe from cooks.com)

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