shame | Annietown

Archive: shame

MY EYES BURN THEY BURRRN

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.

Posted January 28th, 2010 in NYC, parlor tricks, shame | 8 Comments »

Hole for your Internet

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.

Posted January 18th, 2010 in design, shame, technology, WTF | 5 Comments »

WARNING/INSTRUCTIONS

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.

Posted January 18th, 2010 in design, shame, WTF | 2 Comments »

Oh crap.

Sorry folks, comments aren’t working right now. Or maybe it’s working for you, but it’s not working for me. LAME. Sorry, I’ll try to throw money at the problem and see if it goes away.

Posted January 4th, 2010 in shame, technology | No Comments »

Happy New Year

Hello friends, happy New Year!

People have been saying LET’S MAKE THIS THE BEST YEAR EVER! And this is all peachy fine. HOWEVER, I’m thinking why should we make this year the BEST EVER? Why not just make it NOT suck? It’s not that I’m a pessimistic person. I’m just more into setting goals that are achievable. I mean BEST year? How can you possibly know that this year will be the BEST EVER? I mean you haven’t lived all your years yet, so “BEST” is kind of a hard thing to judge. This year might be the SECOND best or THIRD best. I mean maybe in five years you will have a really really awesome year and THAT will be much better than this year. So what I’m trying to say is that let’s just make this year not suck and it will bound to be better than 2009, and, quite possibly, the best, but it certainly doesn’t have to be THE BEST. If 2010 is better than 2009, then we can be happy with better. We can be happy that it doesn’t suck because honestly, not sucking is truly a big accomplishment and we can be proud of that. I’m already proud that 2010 is not sucking, erego, I have achieved my New Years’ resolution of not sucking. DONE AND DONE.

Also, I’ve also noticed everyone saying how 2009 was truly the WORST year ever. Again, you have no way of judging that. There might be really really shitty years to come. Also, I can think of a few other years that sucked more than 2009. The year was BAD, maybe, but it wasn’t THAT bad. I mean it sucked, yes, but I thought 2008 was actually worse. There were probably some years during the 50s that sucked too. I bet you year 1 sucked too. Transitional year and the whole year-re-numbering thing probably was a real pain in the ass. Like you know how after daylight savings you get all confused? I rest my case.

Los Angeles was fun blah blah blah except for the part where my family forgot to pick me up from the airport blah blah blah. It was like 3:00 on Christmas and I get off the plane and I’m like YEAHH I’M PARTYING IN THE CITY OF ANGELS! I go outside, call to see where my ride is and my mother’s like “Airport? Is that now?” And then I fall into some insane rage and I’m like did you FORGET TO PICK ME UP FROM THE AIRPORT and my mother says I didn’t forget to pick you up from the airport, I just thought you were coming at 3:30. And I say no, it was always 3:00. Keep in mind that my parents live about 45 minutes from the airport (WITHOUT traffic) so even if she thought it was at 3:30, she should definitely be ON the frickin road by 3:00. Which she was not. And she starts backpedalling and being like, no actually you’re brother is picking you up. And I’m like oh is he already here? And she says no he just left. Sigh. So I spent a good 45 minutes hanging out at the airport and suffering from acute rage. Yay. I love Christmas. So of course I’m at the airport yelling on the phone being like why do I bother even coming here for Christmas. Why don’t I just come another time when it is easier and cheaper to travel, we don’t even celebrate Christmas, it is just like any other day in our family. And then I realize I’m totally that asshole who is yelling on the phone at the airport on Christmas. And people are like all staring at me and my eyes are like spinning in my head and smoke is coming out of my ears. The works. Then my brother picked me and I said don’t you guys realize that if you fuck up I’ll write about it? Have we not learned anything? And he says no, do you have $2 for parking I have no cash on me.

But the rest of my vacation was rad and did not suck! Mission accomplished! My bandmate Andy Burne got engaged to his ladyfriend Julia! Nathan and his ladyfriend are coming to visit in February! I saw the Bauhaus show at Moma! I got cushions for my shoes! My apartment is really clean! And according to the Weather Channel “It feels like 1°F”!

Also, please note that Annietown has migrated. Things should be all awesome on your end. One of my best friends in L.A. Micah is taking over and hosting Annietown from his living room which may or may not have mice. Special thanks to Ravi who has been hosting the past 2 years and being a good sport about my asshole texts at 3 am OMG RAVI ANNIETOWN IS DOWN. Ravi I love you and you continue to be awesome and full of win and bacon, you’re two favorite things. Now Micah will be my bitch.

Micah! Fix my sidebar! (uh when you get the chance?)

I’m considering doing a redesign of Annietown. Part of me is like, why change it? It’s fine, it doesn’t have to be fancypants, I’m just sharing WORDZ here, not doing anything insane. Then the other part of me is like, well I could make it snazzier? i.e. HAVE MORE EXPLOSIONS. I shall ruminate.

Posted January 4th, 2010 in family, parlor tricks, rage, shame, travel | 2 Comments »

Archeological TREASURE TROVE, NATCH!

I am currently cleaning THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF MY APARTMENT. It’s a big Korean/Asian thing to clean THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOUR HOME to usher (Usher!!!) the New Year. Since I’m leaving for California tomorrow, I have to clean THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF MY APARTMENT now before I leave.

I have made…some archeological discoveries whilst cleaning, I will share them with you because I love you all and I think it’s important that you understand what I have discovered because they are pieces of history and they are valuable and will make me very, very rich.

-A bottle of ketchup. It looks like regular ketchup. Heinz brand. Because Hunts brand really does suck it, I don’t know why anyone bothers to get anything else but Heinz. Seriousy. Don’t be a prick, spend the extra dollar and get the Heinz. Anyway it is ketchup. It is red, it is thick, it is ‘chock full of lypoprene’ which sounds like something my bathing suit is made out of or something baseball players put on their junk because it itches. The only problem with my ketchup is that IT EXPIRED IN TWO THOUSAND AND FIVE. That is (nearly) FIVE YEARS AGO. HALF A DECADE AGO.

-A can of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable Alphabet Soup. I rarely eat canned soup, unless I am very, very desperate. Like when I was in grad school and had $5 in my bank account. What can $5 get you in NYC? Well, it gets you a can of soup and a bagel. It does not get you salad, however. You know how people reminice about their “salad days”? Well clearly they did not live in NYC because you cannot afford salad here. Lettuce costs more than $5. Anyway the point is, my “salad days” were more like “soup days”. I happen to like soup, it is kind of like drinking a food pyramid. Kind of convenient. Anyway, this can of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable Alphabet Soup expired in TWO THOUSAND AND FOUR. Which is when I was in grad school. SIX YEARS AGO. SIX! HALF A DOZEN YEARS AGO!

-I found a bag of what might be brown sugar, but it looks more like a brown brick that is ROCK SOLID. If I had a thousand more of these, I would build myself a wood-fire pizza oven. A PIZZA OVEN, PEOPLE. Everyone likes pizza, am I right? Just say yes even if you don’t agree. Pizza is like advanced phD level toast. You know how much I love toast.

-I also found the following:
Godiva Chocolate Liquor, a third of a bottle
Frangelico, almost finished. Maybe a few tablespoons left
Kahlua, half a bottle
Amaretto, three-quarters of a bottle
Triple Sec, quarter left

I should make some kind of adult beverage out of this business. Like an adult milkshake. But probably not with the triple sec, that stuff is kind of weird. Is there such thing as Double Sec? I mean maybe triple is just too much. Maybe I just want double? You know, I’m trying to moderate more. Triple just seems extreme. Double is fine, thank you.

-I FOUND A TRASH CAN. A REAL TRASH CAN. Tucked away on the pantry floor. Holy shit. A garbage can. I can see why I hid it away. it is a real piece of shit. I wanted to throw the garbage can in the garbage can. I’m not sure how to do that, so I just gave it to my neighbors.

-A box of 3-hole-punched paper. Curious. I have no idea how it got here, nor do I ever remember needing it or using it or buying it. It is a gift from Santa. On his days off he works at Staples. It’s a recession, everyone’s taking on more responsibilties.

-I found a pair of binoculars. Nice. It was in my pantry, next to a can of chile peppers in adobo. Because that is where one keeps binoculars.

I found some other stuff too, all historical artifacts that will make me very very rich. I’m going to the Natural History museum tomorrow to sell all this stuff, I am sure they will be very happy. If not, I’ll give it to the Met. I hear they’ll take anything.

Posted December 24th, 2009 in food, parlor tricks, shame, WTF | 2 Comments »

A Gift

Someone in my friend’s office ordered something.

All I could think was, no, no, no, EURA-tard! Ha ha ha ha!

It’s a European dancewear company. We all know that Europeans make the best unitards. I mean Europe is pretty much synonymous with unitards, am I right?

Posted December 17th, 2009 in shame | 1 Comment »

Frosty Treat

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!!!!

Posted November 16th, 2009 in food, lessons learned, nature, shame, WTF | 4 Comments »

I’m Alive, Shut Up!

I’m sorry, dear friends. I was sick. I know it’s no excuse, and I’m sorry I haven’t been here. But now I am back. I can now climb three flights of stairs without coughing up an alveolar sac, which, in case you’re wondering, looks NOTHING like a nutsac. Seriously. I myself was surprised. I mean a sac is a sac is a sac, right? Like a sac can only look like one thing, and that is a nutsac. But, NO. I was WRONG. Alveolar sacs and nutsacs actually do not look alike. I feel like I’ve been living a lie all these years. Feel free to share that fact. That one is yours to keep.

This has been a week of me breaking shit. The most recent casualty is my computer mouse at work. I think I spilled coffee and water on it too many times, so it got fed up and said, eff you loser and then the little red light wet dim, just like that scene in the original Terminator where the robot gets crushed in the George Foreman grill and it’s little red eye goes dim and it is all, so sad…so dark…and cold…so…alone. That was my computer mouse. Later it came back as sweet fucking liquid metal, and then it came back again, this time as a girl that is not Charlize Thereon but kind of looks like her if you squint, but I didn’t see that one, so I can’t say for sure. Then I guess it came back again to the past to go back to the future. God these things are so confusing sometimes. I need to waterproof my life, that is the lesson learned, friends.

I also busted my wallet. Normally I bust wallets because it’s filled with COLD HARD CASH and it’s like yo dawg, can you break a C-note and they are like uh no don’t call me dawg and I don’t have change, and I’m like whatever, loser!

So here is what I’ve figured out: In order to buy a wallet you need to spend money. That means it comes out of a wallet. But you don’t have one. But let’s say you somehow buy a wallet, but then you don’t have money to put in it. Like, this is some kind of weird black hole/time-space thing, maybe.

Posted November 10th, 2009 in lessons learned, shame, technology | 5 Comments »

Houdini

My good friend Karina lives in Brooklyn and has this backyard where feral cats just roam where they please. Totally not a problem. Karina traps them and then gets them spayed/neutered and then either tries to find homes for them if they can live alongside human mammals or ‘releases them back in the wild.’ The Wilds of Brooklyn.

So the other day she started seeing this cat that had a rope tied around its middle. Pretty tightly. So tight, in fact, that the beast had a big gash from it. The cat was not in good shape. So, Karina trapped the beast, and took it to the vet. He sewed her up and said the cat was most likely PITBULL BAIT.

DUDES. PEOPLE. STOP BEING ASSHOLES.

I know we raise cows and all that to eat. Yes, it’s cruel. It’s horrible. But to go through the trouble of training dogs to be complete killing machines because you can exploit their ability to follow orders and please their owners is a real dick move. Most of those dogs die, and probably not from wounds, but from infections. Which is a horrible way to go. I much rather get shot then die slowly of gangrene. But then to use a cat to tie it to a stake somewhere to get your pooch all riled up is like adding another layer of assholery I don’t even get. A lot of cultures have some kind of cruel animal fighting thing. But a lot of cultures also have that folktale where a kid kills a little bird and the dad is all, dude, you killed a bird, why would you do that? It can’t feed a family, you are a dick, etc. One of those harsh life lessons about mortality and precious life blah blah blah. There’s no Native American folktale where the kid trains dogs to fight and dad is like GREAT JOB KID HIGH FIVE.

Anyway this cat escaped, probably by chewing through the rope. The vet’s office made Karina name it, so she called it Houdini. While at the vet, Houdini got spayed. So now it’s recovering.

She is pretty cute. Looks like she got ink on her face. Karina can’t keep Houdini because her husband is more or less deathly allergic. He is in my top five most unhealthiest friends. Seriously. He might be number two, after my friend Doug who’s allergic to anything made up of atoms. Neither here nor there.

Right now, Houdini’s in a cage at Karina and John’s, shaking and cowering. Karina can pet her head and touch her nose and the cat appears to sniff her. The choices now are to release her back into the wild after she recovers or find a home. But it’s not clear whether she’s a domestic cat that just got Admiral Shaft or if she is feral. She’s not hissing or snapping, but she’s also in some kind of strange comatose state of fear. Anyway, the ideal situation is to find a home, if the cat seems domesticated. But she wouldn’t be a very cat-like cat. I mean she could eventually, hopefully. But she probably needs a home with patient and sensitive owners.

I’d take her but if you saw my apartment you’d think she was better off living in a cage. So there you go.

If you’re interested, email me.

Posted September 18th, 2009 in lessons learned, NYC, rage, shame | 13 Comments »

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