Have you guys been keeping up with the AnnieCup? You can find the latest here. As you can see, I am not winning. That is really the only thing that matters. I am not currently a winner. I suppose this shouldn’t come to a surprise to me. And yet, it does. I am disappointed, people. I am disappointed about the way things are turning out for me. Am I happy that Bibit is currently in first place? Sure. Sure I am. That’s great. For her. However, I also know that there’s still, like, 100 World Cup games left to play. And surely in those 100 games, I can make up the points and be a winner. Of course I can do that. So, really, I am a winner, just not right now, on this particular day, in this particular hour. That can change.

It is also interesting that Mr. Pony’s strategy of basically picking only ties is not working. Currently, Mr. Pony is in last place. I happen to think he will be in last place for a long time. Maybe even forever. This is the man who in a March Madness pool picked schools based on mascots, which is nice, if you think about it. Mascots never get any credit. And plus, there are some really lame mascots out there (Stanford, University of Hawaii I’m looking at you). I think actually it got him kind of far. Until it didn’t. Then he was the loser. Which is a mean way of saying he didn’t win. Because he’s a loser. Man this circular logic is making me hungry with it being circular and all, much like a cookie.

In squee news, I went to the Bronx Zoo yesterday, and took pictures with MY SWEET NEW CAMERA. I’m not going to “boar” you with pictures (ha ha ha!) but I will share two picture things and one fact thing.

First the fact thing: I learned that 1/3 of all animals on Earth are beetles. It makes sense, since insects are basically the most numerous type of organism here, but when you put it that way, it makes me really want to hurl.

Now for two picture things.

The “Dancing Crane Cafe” has many food options, including Kosher food. Unfortunately, their kitchen is not actually Kosher. As a result, Kosher food is dispensed out of a Kosher vending machine. You can get things like onion rings and fries and some kind of sandwich maybe, hard to tell from the picture. But this begs the question: Wuhhhhh? How can a machine dispense fries? Are they fried INSIDE the machine? Does the machine get stocked with Kosher fries, so does that means someone has to delivery already cooked fries and put them in a vending machine where they will sit for….hours? Days? It is a mystery. A Kosher mystery.

I like this turtle because it has a strange pig snout for a nose. I believe it lives in the waters of southeast Asia. I do not believe this turtle is Kosher.

My posse and I roll into a supermarket because that is how my posse rolls, and we are looking for ice cream because we are a very hard posse, and we roll into the “ice cream & frozen novelties” section. And next to the Klondike Eskimo Pies and next to the Popsicle Brand Fudgsicles, we see this.

READ CAREFULLY.

FROSTY PAWS.

IT IS ICE CREAM FOR DOGS.

Ice cream. For. Your. Dog. For your goddamn dog, you guys!

A few things:

1. This “treat” is right next to shit people eat. Like nestled between frozen novelties specifically created for HUMANS. Between the Klondike Bars and the Fudgsicles. As if to say “IF YOU LOVVEE KLONDIKE BARS, THEN YOU’LL LOOVVEE FROSTY PAWS!” I can foresee a situation where someone quickly picks this up because of the cute packaging and then goes home and then, upon discovery, becomes sad. And maybe, just maybe, a little curious. Like, hmm, what if I tried this? And after a few sniffs and rudimentary licks and a double-dare from your stoner of a roommate and then a choke and a gag, the depression truly sets in. Not to mention the fact that when you want ice cream, you really want fucking ice cream and now you are left without ice cream. Or a dog. That is the true sad story there.

2. The packaging looks very close to a kids’ cereal, which makes the whole thing even more disturbing.

3. JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE EAT ICE CREAM, DOES NOT MEAN DOGS SHOULD.

4. DOGS DO NOT NEED ICE CREAM. They lick their own buttholes. They eat garbage. They don’t need ice cream, you guys.

This kind of goes along with what I was saying before about dogs not needing sweaters because they are born with them. They don’t need ice cream. They don’t have to eat the same food as you. In fact, they shouldn’t. I imagine, and correct me if I’m wrong here, that when packs of dogs were running buck-wild, they did not eat ice cream. A raging mutt did not hunt and catch a squirrel and think, god I can really use a Frosty Paws right now. They also did not think, man life would be so much cooler if I were in someone’s handbag.

Ugh. I can’t stand that dogs are turning into people. We have enough people on this planet. Let dogs be dogs. THUMBS DOWN!!!!

A reader from Annietown, “Dill Mates” sent me a picture that upon opening, I said OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD BLLARRGGH and then proceeded to forward it to people who will most likely not appreciate it. This is why I’m posting it here. So you can not appreciate it too.

A horned lizard, found at a construction site. It is a bebeh. God I want to cuddle it. And hold it in my mouth. Not eat it. Just hold it there. That is what happens when I see very cute little things. I want to put them in my mouth. Dude, don’t ask me why. It’s just a feeling that comes over me. Some strange mammal instinct.

LOVE IT.

If you asked me right this very second, HEY WHERE ARE YOU BLOGGING FROM? I would answer CANADA. And if you ask WHERE? I would answer CANADA. Then if you ask NO IDIOT, I MEAN WHERE IN CANADA? I would say HEY, HEY NO NEED TO YELL AT ME. I AM BLOGGING LIVE FROM CANADA, EARTH, THE MILKY WAY, WHAT IS UP WITH THE THIRD DEGREE?

So, I’m above the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There. It’s a place. In Canada. There are trees here. Polite people. A womanizing dog. A gentle breeze. Peace. All good things.

I’m trying to figure out how to post pictures from my phone without having to pay these stupid mobile data charges to Wordpress. OMG, it’s like Canada doesn’t want me to be a winner. Listen, I’m on to you, Canada. You are going to try to rip me off but I won’t have any of it. No. I will settle this as I settle everything: via CAGEMATCH.

I’m leaving for Canada on Saturday. I believe it’s what the common people call “vacation” but what Canadians just call it “going home”. Anyway, I did this last year, if you recall. I am told that Canada has Internet access, which surprises me because it really seemed like a country full of heathens who can’t tie their own shoes. But listen, I was wrong. Canadians can tie their own shoes. Sometimes, I’m wrong.

Anyway, Canada will be filled with all kinds of outdoor activities. Some of these activities include running away from bears. Other activities involve getting into something called a “kayak” and looking for beavers. Heh. Beavers. Kayak is the sound I make when I karate chop someone. FYI.

So I’m trying to get together some books for my trip. There’ll be a lot of reading because I think the weather is going to be BUTT. Anyway, I go on B&N website to get some fly books and then I start seeing the “recommendations”. Dude.

HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES:

If you like Thomas Pynchon, you may like DEAN KOONTZ!

If you like Thomas Bernhard’s the Old Masters, you may like TWILIGHT!

If you like War and Peace, you may like ANGELS & DEMONS!

Dude. I don’t even want to live anymore.

From Wiki, with edits so it doesn’t read like a 7th grade book report:

Thomas Bernhard: Austrian playwright and novelist. He is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era. His main protagonists, often scholars or, as he calls them, Geistesmenschen, denounce everything that matters to the Austrian in tirades against the “stupid populace”. His work also continually deals with the isolation and self-destruction of people striving for an unreachable perfection, since this same perfection would mean stagnancy and therefore death.

HOW IS BERNHARD LIKE TWILIGHT, SOMEONE TELL ME. When I read Bernhard, I think, OMG I love this book because it has hot and sexy vampires that can go out during the day and sparkle. NEIN NEIN NEIN.

Thomas Pynchon: American novelist based in New York City and noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Pynchon is a MacArthur Fellow (my note: GENIUS AWARD PEOPLE) and a recipient of the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Both his fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, styles and themes, including (but not limited to) the fields of history, science, human sexuality, and mathematics. (MATHEMATICS PEOPLE).

HOW IS PYNCHON LIKE DEAN KOONTZ?

Dean Koontz wrote a book called Ticktock. He wrote Demon Seed. There’s also a book called Mr. Murder, which sounds funny but I am sure it’s not supposed to be. (”No sir, that’s MR. Murder to you!”) I’m not knocking this dude. Like, if you want to read the Koontz, do it up! Read it! Watch it when it becomes a movie starring Ben Affleck. But Pynchon and Koontz? You’d think the B&N robot could figure out different genres. Murder mystery thriller versus 500 page books that might possibly make no sense and chock filled with Po-Mo stuffed in a beret.

I don’t really like Pynchon and I don’t really like Koontz. I kind of like Ben Affleck, I guess. But I’ll read Pynchon’s new one. I’ll probably watch Affleck’s new one too.

Twitter is totally ruining my blogging. There was even a story on it, somewhere, about how blog entries are ‘down’, not to say that people are totes “down” with the blogging, but people are not blogging as much as they used to and perhaps not “down” with it anymore. But, Twittering is “up”. But fear not, friends, I will make more of an effort. Kind of. I will make AN effort. Whether that’s more or less effort is subjective.

Over the weekend I visited Charleston, but not the Charleston you are thinking. This is the one in West Virginia. WEST Virginia. That’s the Virginia to the west of the Virginia that everyone knows. Hence, West Virginia. The most northern of the southern states, the most southern of the northern states, the most western of the eastern states, and the most eastern of the western states. I’m not sure if I agree with that last part, but you kind of have to say it because of the parallel construction.

Anyway here is what I learned:

1. It is SO green. Oh good god, it’s so green there. It’s fecund. FECUND, people. So fecund. Very, very, very pretty. Seriously, it’s like why haven’t people completely ruined that place? I mean they have with strip mining and chopping off the top of mountains to put in Walmarts, but I mean I’m surprised people haven’t ruined it even more. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s still a lot more to ruin!

2. People do not play the saw and drink moonshine out of clay jugs with XXX on them. They do not play the washboard either. They wear shoes. They apparently have the last names of Samples or Means. Not the Hatfields and the McCoys, as the story/poem might lead you to believe. You know, for a long time I thought James Hetfield of Metallica’s last name was Hatfield and all I could think was him shredding across the holler and the crick to rock the pants off the McCoys. That story would be so much more awesomer with Metallica.

3. Jomo’s friend knows a guy who makes moonshine and he swears it will cure any cold. It’s like 170 proof or something insane. It’s more alcoholic than rubbing alcohol. I think when you open the bottle all of it evaporates. So the moonshine part of Point #2 above is kind of true. The dude apparently buys like 200 lbs of sugar, bags of corn feed, and has a little distiller thingy he got on Ebay. Apparently you can do this all at home, as long as you have 200 lbs of sugar and enormous amounts of corn feed and a PayPal account. This is sadly off limits for me since Food Emporium doesn’t carry corn feed. Yeah I know, I was surprised too. I went to aisle 4, which is where they have all the grains, and corn feed was not there. So to all the people out there who say “you can get anything you want in NYC,” you are totally lying. Go look for corn feed and get back to me. Anyway, I think making moonshine is illegal? I dunno. Seems like it would be legal in West Virginia though. They don’t seem that uptight about that kind of stuff.

4. I saw a lot of ‘wildlife’ there. Frog, deer, TURKEYS, and this guy. CHECK OUT HOW RAD THIS IS.

It was cold chillin’ on the Morrison lawn. I put “lawn” lightly. It’s more like a compound.

Seriously though, how cute is this thing? It seems unfair that we don’t have shells. I’d love to have a shell. Sure it’d be heavy, but man I’d be so stoked and safe. Like oh? You WANNA HIT ME, BRO? I DARE you. Shells should be Humans 2.0.

I don’t have pictures of turkeys but they had little bebes that were super cute. Turkeys! They are oddly cute in a totally ugly and cute way. Way cuter than a pug. I also saw a lot of lightening bugs, which I know are everywhere, but guess what? They’re not in NYC and they’re not in the SAN FERNANDO VALLEY where I grew up, so everyone shut it. Everytime I see them I think, man this is CRAZY. You are LIGHTING UP. So that brings me to Humans 2.0 part II: lights. Also prehensile tails. So handy. It is stupid we have evolved our tails out. We need to retro-volve. RETROVOLUTION.

Special thanks to the Morrisons for hosting! Special thanks to beer!

There are pigeons roosting on my fire escape. They are calling to each other, and now there’s a dude pigeon trying to get with the lady pigeon and doing the sexy dance. They are going to do it–ON MY FIRE ESCAPE–and then spawn disgusting mini-flying-rats. This is completely unacceptable. I’ve been batting them away and telling them to “take it somewhere else, you filthy animals” but then they come back to flaunt it in my face. They’re giving me bird flu, I can feel it. BIRD FLU do you understand? BIRD FLU is BULLSHIT.

There are feathers stuck to my screen. Bird poop everywhere. Pigeons smell bad. In New York City, they take baths in the gutter and you’re like dude, wtf is wrong with you, pigeon? I am positive in their nests you can find syringes and toenail clippings and pubes. Oh yes. Anyway, the big problem is that they are very noisy. They coo to call to each other and when they are trying to get all sexy they coo really loudly. Right now the lady pigeon is like not having any of it, but the dude pigeon is very persistent so by the end of the week they are going to be going steady and by the end of next week they will be doing the nasty and getting it on. And in just a few weeks there will be pigeon spawn. Oh my FIRE ESCAPE. If there is a fire, I’m going to get really mad if I slip on some bird poop and break my hip, this is what I’m thinking.

Anyway, I’m not sure what to do. I do not like pigeons. I especially do not like sexy pigeons.

1. I pulled a muscle in my neck. Or maybe something in my shoulder that’s affecting my neck. It happened while I was lifting a car off a panda. Damn those pandas, always playing in traffic. I feel like an owl where you have to turn your whole face and body to look at something. Except owls are much cooler and one of the few types of bird I respect because they are so bad ass. Anyway it hurts. Waaahh someone call the wahmbulance. I need cheese with my whine, etc. I would take a hot bath but my bathtub is like really small. Only my legs would be taking my bath. Which wouldn’t help my neck.

1a. It’s always weird to see movies where people are lounging in a sudsy bath and then they get up and just towel off the soap. Like, shouldn’t you rinse off first? I had this long discussion the other day about how some Europeans don’t rinse off the soap off their plates either. Just soap it and then put it in the rack. My friend’s Danish roommate did that. Oh you wily Danes!

1b. You know Giant Pandas get a lot of credit, but what about non-giant pandas? Like regular pandas. They are very excellent animals.

2. Allergies or a cold? Hard to say, but I have one of them. Or I have both. Probably both. There are many people I can blame for this cold. For example, the people of Luxembourg.

2a. Could also be people of Paraguay.

3. 21st Century Plowshare If you live in NYC, why not plant some crap all over Bed-Stuy? April 11, from 11 to 3pm. I’m doing it even though I hate gardening and plants and trees and nature in general. I hear if you sign up James Franco will make out with you. Truth.

I have been watching the entire Planet Earth series. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to start watching it. I feel like a total loser. I am just way too late to get into the club and now I am sitting alone on a Saturday night, washing my tights in the sink. Anyway this series was genetically engineered for me. I sit there and watch it on my pathetic laptop, drool flowing out my mouth, and I say out loud HOLY SHIT. Literally, every two seconds, I am saying OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS SO AWESOME ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS? And I look over next to me and the chairs are empty because I am by myself. I am sure my neighbor is wanting me to shut my piehole big time. But hey, how about you stop wearing heels in the house and stop listening to Coldplay? Same album, always. The one that sounds like all the other ones.

Anyway my only problem with the series is the writing. They got unbelievable footage but it’s written by a seventh grader who looked up shit on Wikipedia. Part of the problem is that the subject area is very broad, so they mention broad facts that aren’t particularly novel, like 75% of Earth is covered by water! Like yes, dudes, we know. Anyway it could’ve been done so much better. They should’ve asked me to write this whole thing. I would’ve done it for free. FREE LABOR. YES, BBC, FREE. I WOULD EVEN PAY YOU. Call me. I think that will be my next career move. It’s pretty close to what I do for a living, kind of, not really.

So here are my recent favorites.

The plateau pika! Native to Tibet. It’s a relative of the rabbit. Think bunny with small ears. I WANT TO CUDDLE AND NUZZLE IT AND PUT IT IN MY POCKET. They get nice and fat and turn into a loaf of pika. The picture does not do it justice at all.

Here’s the thing that eats the pika, which is also ridiculous.

It’s a Tibetan fox. It has a square head and nice Asiany eyes. It is so dreamy. I can get lost in its eyes forever. Didn’t Eric Carmen right a song about that? I am positive it wants to sit at my feet and keep them warm. It might eat me, but that is the risk I am willing to take. After all, what is life without risks?

I am totally bored of monkeys. So boring. Sorry. People really like monkeys and I did like them, when I was like six and didn’t know better. Ha ha ha, no really. I got bored of them. But then they filmed 150 chimps invading another troop’s territory and then the chimps cannibalized their enemies. Oh yes. Monkeys not so cute now, are they? I don’t mind the cannibalization actually, it is neither here nor there to me, but one of them busted out with a patch of flesh which was basically the face so it got all Silence of the Lambs for a little bit. Sweet. Real life always wins over Sir Anthony Hopkins.

I always root for the predator. Always. They were interviewing this cameraman about how he felt so sad that this shark or seal was going to town on these cute penguins. And I was like listen, penguins entire philosophy is safety in numbers. And while they are cute and blah blah blah I do not like groupthink dynamics. Same with when this tiger was going to town on this mountain goat thing. I’m like dude. There are like six tigers left. Shut up and let her eat. Why must people root for the underdog? As far as I’m concerned if there are only six of you left, you get to eat whatever you want. I kept on going EAT IT EAT IT! GO GET IT! And the narrator was all feeling sad for some gazelle or bison calf. I guess what I mean to say is that I am very verbal when I watch this stuff. Like the way my dad yells at the TV when he’s watching baseball. Yes, I know yelling will not help anything, but guess what? Shut up.

My co-worker just sent me this.

Mike lives in Hawaii. Hawaii is a magical place. Yesterday, we had a meeting. Mike was “there.” I say “there” because he was actually “there,” but in a very virtual fashion. He was trapped inside of a laptop. His head took up the whole screen. When you see Mike in real life, his head is very large. It’s larger than a laptop screen, in fact. But somehow through a complex combination of magic and technology, Mike managed to fit his head inside of the computer. Throughout the meeting I kept on hearing tropical birds in the background. They were taunting me. Oh yeah, chirp chirp, we come in colors other than brown and gray. Chirp chirp. DO YOU WANT A PINEAPPLE? OH YEAH? WELL TOO BAD YOU CITY PRICK. Seriously though, the birds were very loud. Some suit at the meeting asked where Mike was and he said, “out of state.” Someone in the room said “out of the country,” to which I laughed but then remembered that sometimes people forget that Hawaii is a state. It really shouldn’t “belong” to the U.S. it’s disorienting. All I can say is if I lived in Hawaii I’d be telling everyone and their mom. OH YOU LIVE IN NEW YORK? THAT MUST BE NICE BECAUSE I LIVE IN HAWAII. I’M SORRY I CAN’T HEAR YOU THE WATERFALLS ARE JUST TOO LOUD. YOU KNOW WHAT’S A DRAG? I AM ALLERGIC TO COCONUTS. THERE ARE COCONUTS EVERYWHERE. LIFE IS HARD HERE IN HAWAII.

So then I was thinking that in Hawaii, everything comes with an umbrella. I drew a picture for Mike. I am going to share this picture with you. Keep in mind that I write for a living. If I could draw, I would draw for a living. There is a reason why I do not draw for a living.