i just want to conquer people and their souls

It is 2013 and I have reached new depths of lameness. For example, right now I am listening to Ne-yo circa 2008 and eating fistfuls of baklava. Needless to say, I am whale-y and gross. So, like anyone who has sunk to the point where they habitually wear an outfit the Manimal has deemed "failure wear" and who frequently eats Pannettone more than once a day, I have to change things up. I need an inspiration, someone I can look up to who's not John Candy. All good success stories have an older role model guiding and shaping them towards betterment until they force life to just tap out in awe of their brilliance. So, I started thinking: who will be my Summer Resolution icon? Who's life and belief system will I begin to emulate religiously in order to get out of my funk?  At first I was thinking L'il Wayne: * And I can already do a French Inhale too. Score! Pros: He's skinny, and I already partake in the purple drank .  Cons: Face tattoos seem painful. And someo...

Today, I saw something that indicated that, Mayan prophecies aside, we as a whole are certainly spiraling towards our own destruction. I saw this: * In case you were wondering, that phallic orange thing in the background is their carrot rocket ship. Yes, that is a children's series dubbed "Paleo Pals". WTF, Life?!? Look, I know I'm not the best at tolerating other people. And I know I suffer from crippling misophonia that makes me visualize tearing off the faces of those audibly chewing gum and then spitting their bloody parts all over the subway car while laughing maniacally. * I am trying to get my insurance to pay for this. I realize that I am judgey and ill tempered but it seems as though this book was created precisely to whip me into a rage finally great enough to make the papers the next day. Paleo Pals? Come. On. For the uninitiated, "Paleo" refers to the idea of eating  as people might have during the  Paleolithic  era—an era that ...

Who doesn't like Christmas? Oh, right, quite a few people. I am one of the world's most secular individuals. It is now family lore that when I was on  Double Dare (I know! So awesome!) in 1992 I answered "A band" in response to the question: "What is Genesis?" But I still love the birth of baby Jesus, nonetheless. If you know of another holiday which begins a full two months before the actual date of said holiday and expects, nay  demands , that you drink egg nog (alcoholic heavy cream!), open gifts, and then pass out on the sofa after ingesting a year's worth of carbohydrates then you may protest. Otherwise, maybe you should just get down with the 'nog and zip your pie hole. A friggen  egg nog fountain ! I want to go to there. Things that are awesome about Christmas: - Advent calendars. - The fact that the Manimal, JoSi and I try to go to  Rolf's  and eat an entire suckling pig every year. - Going on a Lohan holiday -...

Happy New Year, y'all! What's damp, grey and perpetually drunk? No, not my gran - it's England! The Manimal and I were fortunate enough to celebrate the nuevo ano across the pond and found it to be delightful. We laid waste to this fine land (attached to a finer land ) and, of course, are back with a bevvy of travel tips for all of you Anglophiles. First up: a quick tangent. To get to England I had the pleasure of traveling with what some people bafflingly consider to be the scourge of the skies: Delta "airlines". What I imagined to be a quick hop, skip and jump from NYC to Detroit (?) to Paris ended up being somewhat of a Kafkaesque adventure filled with rage, anarchy, and a Best Western. It all began as I was ensconced in the plane's cabin. Thank goodness I had requested to be seated behind a drunk lady and across from a man clad in triple stripes who had stripped down to bare feet already. "Good for you, sir!" I thought to myself, ...

If you read this blog on the regular, you will know already that I'm pretty finnicky. I'm like an old farmhouse cat perched on a windowsill, swiping angrily at people's nether regions as they try to take a quiet whizz in an outhouse bathroom (What?! This may, or may not, have happened to me recently). But every once in while, once in a blue moon, someone comes along and does something that makes you believe that they really care. Something that touches the deepest regions of your cold, dead heart. This happened to me today, readers.  My wonderful coworker got me a gift because, in her words, "When I saw it, it just spoke of you. It was made for you and expresses your essence to the world." Well, she was right. Behold, my essence in a button:

I just got bangs. I think I look like Brenda Walsh: * Yowser! But the Manimal keeps calling me "Crom".  Some googling alerted me to the fact that this may not be some cute nickname but rather an allusion to the fact that I look like an extra from Conan the Barbarian: Well, I am not in the Cult of Doom, is that clear?! If anything I am one step closer to being Dylan McKay's obsession! Take that, Manimal!

Note: If you're new to this particular feature (ie. my friend Big D and I's project to make a reverse bucket list of all of my past occupations so he can reverse-replicate my life) I suggest you catch up  here ,   here ,  and   here . Oh, and  here . Midtown Deli * This is the actual deli where I worked. Yikes! After my failed dalliance in the arts, I went back to my roots: food service. I saw an ad in the paper for someone who "speaks English and has flexible hours" or something to that effect. Since I could manage both of those things, I took a chance and went to the address on 46th Street. It turned out that it was an interview to work at a fast-paced deli. For those of you not in the know, no-one eats real lunches in New York City during the week. Most people just sprint into a cavernous deli where they either pick out some pre-made panninis with names very loosely linked to their fillings (like the Wild West Santa Fe Peyote Fiesta Chicken Salad or the Lad...