Congratulations to BlauerMond, who has won the $55 USD cash monies for the 2010 World Cup Annietown Pool! Even though she chose Argentina to take it all, she still managed to be a winner champion victor trimphant world-beater conquerer. She came in at 241 points. That is over ONE HUNDRED more points than me and like a THOUSAND MILLIONS points more than Mr. Pony, who is the Ultimate Winner. I will be Paypalling BlauerMond the cash monies, congratulations, you are now $55 richer. Please tell us what you will use your new found riches to buy. Hopefully you will buy something totally awesome, like a MINIATURE PONY ZOMG. Dude how cute is that. I want to nuzzle and hold it and put it in my pocket to keep it safe. Anyway, BlauerMond, please do something reckless and dangerous with the cash monies. Don’t use it to pay your electric bill or something. Real winners don’t need electricity anyway.

The second place winner is Mr. Savoury, who is in England. Congratulations, Dave! You have won…a booby prize. Everyone likes boobies! You will have to email me your mailing address and I will send you something at my discretion. I can tell you right now that it will not be as good as $55 USD, so don’t get too excited.

Thanks to everyone who participated. Sorry to those of you who lost. I’m particularly sorry that I lost. I am sure you guys are extra sad that I lost, too. I know I let a lot of people down. The best part is that now we don’t have to talk about this again for another four years.

And now comes the hard part:

sobering up.

GUESS WHAT IS IN THE CONTAINER?

HINT: IT IS AS BIG AS MY FINGER AND HAS THREE (3) TIMES AS MANY LEGS AS I DO.

HINT: IT IS A FILTHY DISGUSTING VILE PEST THAT LIVES IN SHIT AND GARBAGE AND ALSO APPARENTLY IN MY KITCHEN.

HINT: IT KIND OF LOOKS LIKE A DRIED DATE.

HINT: I MEANT DATE THE FRUIT, NOT DATE, LIKE THE HOTTIE YOU ARE MEETING TONIGHT AND GOING OUT FOR DRINKS AND DANCING.

HINT: NO ONE REALLY DOES DRINKS AND DANCING ANYMORE, SOUNDS KIND OF OLD FASHIONED. LIKE HEY LET’S GO CUT A RUG!

HINT: THESE DAYS KIDS ARE MORE LIKE YO LET’S GO TO A RAVE.

HINT: OK KIDS DON’T REALLY SAY THAT UNLESS THE KIDS ARE LIVING IN 1994. HONESTLY, I’M NOT SURE WHAT KIDS DO THESE DAYS. THEY PROBABLY DO TWEET UPS OR SOMETHING. I DUNNO. THAT’S NOT REALLY THE PROBLEM RIGHT NOW.

HINT: THE PROBLEM IS THE THING THAT I TRAPPED IN THIS CONTAINER BECAUSE I WAS TOO SCARED TO DESTROY IT. IT’S THE HARD CANDY SHELL AND THE JUICY CENTER THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

HINT: OMFG IT WAS CRAWLING ALL OVER MY OLIVE OIL WHICH IS SERIOUSLY MAKING ME WANT TO THROW THE WHOLE BOTTLE OUT EVEN THOUGH IT IS BRAND NEW, DON’T WORRY I WILL JUST DISINFECT IT WITH BLEACH WHICH WILL PROBABLY RUIN THE OLIVE OIL.

HINT: YES I’M A BIG FAT BABY CHICKEN WHEN IT COMES TO THIS SHIT, BUT DUDES, IT IS BIGGER THAN MY FINGER. HOW CAN YOU KILL SOMETHING THAT IS BIGGER THAN YOUR FINGER? I THINK IT WAS SMILING AT ME AND DID THE CABBAGE PATCH.

HINT: I GUESS THE ROACH IS AS OLD AS I AM. NO ONE DOES THE CABBAGE PATCH ANYMORE. ANYONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO DO THE CABBAGE PATCH IS PROBABLY DEAD OR IN JAIL.

HINT: SHITBALLS, I THINK IT JUST VOGUED.

I am not sure what do with this. It is…a situation.

Today is Memorial Day. I have been memorializing all weekend, let me tell you. Yesterday, friends and I went to the park, and I memorialized JoMo’s trip to Modell’s to purchase a badminton set, and memorialized JoMo’s seemingly simple and yet overly complicated set-up of the badminton net, and then memorialized Marco and JoMo’s game of badminton and then memorialized Lizzard and Stephanie’s badminton game. It was a lot of work, all that memorializing. I was so busy memorializing on the picnic blanket that I didn’t have time to play badminton, with all that bread and cheese and strawberries I had to eat. Really tough work, you guys. So tough. I should get a medal for all the work I did. You guys should be memorializing me because honestly, I really ate the shit out of those strawberries. I should get credit for that. A medal even. A certificate of participation. Anything.

Anyway today is about memorializing my shitty apartment and cleaning the shit out of it. So, I cleaned the windows. The last time I did this, we had a different president. Anyway, I realized a few things.

1. Windows get really dirty. I know this comes to a surprise to many of you. Hah.

2. When you clean windows everything in your home looks a lot brighter.

3. When you clean windows and these windows happen to be in a shitty apartment, it makes your shitty apartment look even shittier.

So my conclusion is this: if you live in a shitty apartment, don’t clean your windows.

Finally, I’m memorializing the horrible event that unfolded on Friday. I was making simple syrup-that’s when you take equal parts sugar and water and then simmer it. Well, I set the pot on the stove, turned on the burner, AND THEN LEFT THE HOUSE.

FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS.

The pot did NOT catch on fire and my shitty apartment was not burned to a crisp. However, my apartment still smells like burnt sugar. Now you might think: but burnt sugar smells nice, like a candy shoppe! The kind of candy shop that spells it “shoppe,” you know, to be cuter. After all, isn’t caramel just burned sugar?

NO. It does not smell like this. Maybe after five minutes it smells like a candy shoppe. But after ALMOST TWO HOURS it smells more like burning hair. Fact. If you do not believe me, come over and take a whiff and you will be like “dude, are you baking a hair pie?” and I will laugh because “hair pie” is really funny wink wink but then I will tell you NO it is BURNT SUGAR and also ask WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE? And you will say BECAUSE YOU INVITED ME YOU PSYCHO BITCH and I will be like shit you are right, I hate it when you are right.

I took this picture in Berlin last fall. Specifically this was taken at Checkpoint Charlie.

Yes people, that says Snackpoint Charlie.

So when like people were like trying to escape the war and the death camps and all that boring shit (zzzz), they totally made a quick stop to get an eggplant parm and a chicken lo mein. It was crazy! They were like holy shit, next time we should come here for dinner instead of waiting in line for soup. And everyone was like for realz, Fraulein, pass me the soy sauce these egg rolls are da bomb and then everyone laughed because you know, saying something is da bomb is particularly hilarious during WWII. Then they opened their fortune cookies and did that thing where they end the fortune with “in bed.” So funny, even back then. Fact.

And another photo: My friend and I were walking around Wall Street area just for the goof as they say, and we happened upon the Wall St. bull.

Here is a person touching its balls. Rubbing them for luck, I presume. I don’t know who this person is, but I am positive this person is going to have really good luck just like everyone else on Wall St. I should note that there was a group of tourists WAITING IN LINE TO TOUCH ITS BALLS. And, in addition, people taking picture of said balls. I suppose I would fall into the second category.

But seriously dudes check it out. The bull has gigantic balls. And he is a lucky bull because there are many people who want to touch its balls. Note how shiny its balls are. They have been touched many, many times.

OK, one last photo. I recently took a look at a West Village apartment. The dude tells me, listen it’s on the ground floor, but it still gets light. So I go take a look because I am curious.

That’s the front window. As in facing the front. Yes those are stairs blocking the window. Yes the apartment isn’t technically ground floor. It is more like basement floor. Which is to say lower than the ground, or, if you will, underground. It is also a very small apartment. So it is a perfect apartment if you do not like light or space. It is also a perfect apartment for those who love to spend money on rent. If you like the smell of trash, then it is perfect because the building’s trash cans are conveniently located outside your window. Rats and heat are free though, which is nice. Oh, also, the other windows face the air shaft. So it is also a perfect apartment for those who do not enjoy air, or enjoy air that has been in one place for a long time.

If you are on a Mac, go to the dictionary/thesaurus in your dashboard and look up “word” and then scroll down to “word up”.

OR, if you are a PC or maybe just to make things easier, you can just look at it here.

Nice, right? Real nice. If you look up “Asian,” it says “Ching chong, let’s smoke some opium while you do my dry cleaning.” Then there’s actually a picture of a white person pulling his eyes to the side and a gong plays. Loudly. Fact.

Over the weekend, a friend and I took a walk around the city and we came upon two “points of interest.”

They both happen to be playgrounds.

This one is from Chinatown/Lower East Side. As you can see, Alfred Smith Park is not afraid to express very “strong emotions”. You can’t see it here, but the merry-go-round is made of little middle fingers where you sit and spin. The fountain is full of piss. I’m actually serious about that. I think people piss in the fountains. Why not? After all, it has running water. It’s a great place to make urine. The only better place might be in your mother’s mouth OH COLD SNAP DANNGGG.

This MIGHT be the most depressing playground in NYC. On the other side of that wall is the FDR. So imagine, if you will, this awesome playground against a backdrop of traffic, honking, a chorus of “No fuck YOU!”, ambulance sirens, and a ton of automobile exhaust. My question is, what is the POINT? They should’ve just left it as a dumping ground for used needles. It would be more pleasant than this garbage. Can you imagine your parents being like heeeyyy let’s go to the playground, and you get all excited, and then they take you to THAT bullshit? “But look honey, you can rock back and forth and check out that very cool chain link fence!” What a scam. I should sue the city for false advertising. That is no playground, my friends. The depressing part of that is that the money spent to make that bullshit playground could’ve bought a set of books for a classroom, with money left over. And you could take the leftover cash monies, roll it into a big gigantic fatty and smoke it, and it’d still be better used than this playground.

Just saying.

I just had a very sad day of flying. It snowed A FOOT in Dallas/Fort Worth, which messed up the airports. Plus Texans are like what is this white stuff y’all and it’s like yo, buddy, it’s SNOW but you don’t have to DRIVE THREE MILES PER HOUR IN IT. I mean seriously, Texas. It’s snow. It’s not like small Chinese orphans lining the street. You can actually drive on TOP of it and no one will die. However, I have to say Texans are like the nicest people. Everyone was saying hi and thank you and it was just totally off putting. I was like no one has told me to fuck off in two days I feel a little lost. I need a hug. And a swift kick in the nads.

It also snowed a thousand feet in NYC, so it messed up those airports. I happened to be flying through Dallas to go to NYC so I was double punched. Pow! Pow! So what that means is that I spent a lot of quality time at the airport and then spent quality time on the runway. And then we spent quality time in the plane while it was getting de-iced. And then I spent quality time in a cab sitting in traffic. So much quality, you guys. It was restaurant quality, in fact.

The cabbie was UNREAL though. We were sitting in traffic because, hello, it’s rush hour and before a three-day weekend, and I was trying my best to direct him around according to the Google Maps traffic fairies and the dude just blows up. Laying on his horn, yelling at people, yelling at ME because it’s obviously my fault that everyone wants to leave NYC over Prez Day weekend. And then, we’re on the streets and there’s this fire engine trying to back up into its garage and the cabbie flips out and is laying on the horn. AT THE FIRE ENGINE. I was like dude, it’s a fire engine! And it’s like one of those firehouses where half the guys died in the towers on 9/11 too so there’s always flowers and candles and photosin front of the firehouse so the cabbie is looking like an even bigger monster prick. I was totally embarrassed. So I was like come on, just let the dudes park their truck, it’ll take five minutes, tops, and then he totally ignored me and kept on laying on the horn. What I mean to say is that the cabbie was not projecting a very positive image.

So now I’m home.

What a better way to relax than watch some shiba inu puppies! Warning: You may squeal.

New neighbors moved into the unit across the alleyway from me. So we are in two different buildings, but they are basically next door to me. If I go out onto my fire escape, I can almost touch their fire escape. That is how close we are to each other. We could set up cute little sytrofoam cup phones. That’d be cute right? Not really. Styrofoam is bad for the environment. Our beds face each other. Like! At camp! They are practically my roommates. Except they are not. Because they suck. That is not to say a roommate cannot suck, but if my roommates sucked, I’d totally throw them out of my house. I’d probably get all dramatic too, like throw their clothes out the window. I’ve always wanted to do that. It’s like a dream of mine. GET! OUT! OF! MY! HOUSE! And then there’s this cascade of clothes and bad CDs and random sporting equipment and maybe a TV if it’s not too heavy. The point is, my neighbors are NOT my roommates and I cannot throw my neighbors out of their house, which is sad, because I really want to.

They moved in weeks ago and didn’t have curtains. NO CURTAINS! Ladies and gentlemen, CURTAINS are among the FIRST things you put up. Curtains and toilet paper. Everything else you can do later. But you NEED curtains (especially if you live in NYC and you can touch your neighbor’s fire escape). And, of course, you NEED toilet paper. I cannot say for sure if my neighbors have toilet paper. I mean, they may not. I don’t know. If they don’t have curtains, why would they have toilet paper? But I can definitely confirm that THEY DID NOT HAVE CURTAINS.

So I did all these passive aggressive things like walking past MY window so it is obvious that YES NEIGHBOR YOU CAN SEE ME WHICH MEANS I CAN SEE YOU! OMG! And then I modeled good behavior by closing my curtains. OMG NOW I CAN’T SEE YOU! RAD! YOU GUYS SHOULD REALLY GET ON THIS CURTAIN THING. IT’S THE BUSINESS. So for weeks, I’d see my neighbors spooning or whatever, etc. Really awkward. It’s like coming home and finding strangers spooning on your bed. Like. Dudes. That’s.. my bed.

Fast forward to a few days ago. Neighbors! Got! Curtains! Joyous! Celebration! Balance was restored. Now we can both trade off having them open. That is what I did with my previous neighbor Monsieur European-Underwear Man. That is another story for another day.

So then, today, I come home. My curtains happened to be open. And there I see my neighbors. Having sex. Loud sex. With. Their. Curtains. Open.

So what I’m trying to say, is that my neighbors do not know how to use curtains.

Also I’m trying to say that my neighbors do not understand the value and sanctity of private space in the City of New York. Or they just don’t care that they are having sex in my apartment. MY apartment! Strangers! Having sex! In my apartment! Seriously, I just washed those sheets, too.

Also I’m trying to say is that what I have seen cannot be undone. There is no control-Z (command-Z if you are on a mac) FOR MY EYEHOLES.

This was sent to me by Marco. Taken in a Taipei hotel room, I think.

It’s an Internet Hole! A hole from which you get the Internets. Some people thought the Internets came from the air, but actually it comes from a hole. See? You learn things here at Annietown.

I am continuing to clean out my inbox. It’s like stepping into the Way Back Machine. Except the Way Back Machine is filled with all kinds of crap.

Here is something I just found. This was sent to me by Aaron. Found on a plastic bag that came around his new laptop. I can’t tell if they are warnings or instructions. Either way, you don’t need warnings or instructions on a effin plastic bag.

Remember you guys, don’t put plastic bags on your head and choke yourself. You probably only need to do one or the other, but not both. Both seems overkill. Just saying.

Also don’t put a plastic bag on a baby’s head. If you want to keep the baby fresh, put the bag over the entire baby and store it in a cool, dry place or in the crisper of your refrigerator.