World Cup begins this week. I do not know anything about soccer. I don’t. Seriously. I know that the ball is black and white. I know that people chase this ball and that other people chase the people with the ball. I know there’s a net with someone in front of it. I know at some point, a bunch of bros line up in front of this net and cover their testicles with their hands. I don’t know why they do this because from what I understand, people are aiming the ball at the net, not at testicles. But what do I know? I don’t know anything about soccer. Oh, but I do know that many of these players are rather good looking gentlemen who are much younger than I am, not that there’s a problem with that. Nope, no problem at all.

Here is something else I know: I love to bet money on sports I know nothing about. Interestingly, I love to bet money, and yet I hate to lose money. And I often lose money because I don’t know anything about sports. This creates a situation. A situation in which I lose money and have complicated feelings of anger, confusion, loss, regret, despair among others. I should also mention that I hate losing. Maybe somewhere there are people who lose and think “It’s not about winning or losing, it’s about how you play the game.” You know what? Good for them. They are better than I am. I’m sure they floss every night and use ethical traps to capture and release mice. Listen, I’m not a good person. I like to WIN. I hate to LOSE. I want to DESTROY mice.

The point is, I have joined my friend’s World Cup pool. During the March Madness pool, I believe I came in second to last. It was truly madness. I was pretty mad, in fact. Mad that I WAS NOT A WINNER. DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I AM A WINNER. EVERYONE TELLS ME I AM A WINNER, LIKE FOR EXAMPLE, MY PARENTS. Actually that is a lie. My parents do not think I am a winner. Mostly because I have not produced human offspring and also because I am not a doctor.

So yes, World Cup soccer. Very exciting. I cannot wait to watch some games and HAVE NO IDEA what is going on. Sure, I could read about it on Wikipedia, or have one of you cats out there explain it to me. But, you know what? I’m ok this way. I love mystery. It’s tasty.

Sidenote: If there is an award for best username/handle, then I should win it. Because mine is Clam Scene Investigation.

If you want to see my picks and follow along at home, you can do so here. Send me your picks too!

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.

A few nights ago I was walking in Chinatown/Lower East Side and passed by this sweet shop.

It is the Romantic Hair Art Center, Inc. If you want romantic hair, then this is where you would go. But wait, Annie, what is romantic hair?

Close your eyes. Now picture this, which will be difficult because you are reading this and cannot actually read this if your eyes are closed. So, uh, open your eyes, read this, and then close them, GOD do I have to tell you how to do everything? WTF. Now, think about the crystal clear, impossibly blue waters of the Caribbean. You are riding on a horse, galloping across the beach, with your hair being all romantic n’ shit. Maybe it’s trailing behind you in the wind or it’s piled on top of your head and little tendrils are falling down in that perfect way to frame your face and accent your high chiseled cheekbones. Sure, you might be a dude with short hair, but for this imagine you have really nice Fabio locks or something. Work with me here, people. Now the horse’s hair is being all romantic n’ shit too, it’s all waving around and silky smooth. I don’t know if you guys have ever touched a horse’s mane, but that shit is not silky. But let’s pretend it is. Later James Franco brings you cocktails, writes me a fat check to pay off my student loans, and then you shoot up because obviously you are Amy Winehouse rocking some serious romantic hair art.

I was very excited about perhaps going to this Romantic Hair Art Center, Inc. but then upon further observations, I read the fine print.

The fine print says that the Supreme Court of the State of New York has issued a restraining order to the Romantic Hair Art Center for practicing unlicensed massages AND PROSTITUTION.

Romantic indeed.

The real issue is why do all the good places shut down before I get to ‘check it out’?

My naked neighbors finally got new curtains! Actually, they are blinds, and they even go all the way down so I no longer have to see their nether regions. I no longer have to see the dude talk on the phone (loudly) and scratch his testicles. For this I am grateful. You know what I was thinking? The dude would scratch his sweaty balls whilst on the phone and then eventually he’d switch hands so his ball-covered hand would be all over the phone. So what I’m trying to say here is that his phone probably smells like balls. OMG I AM NAUSEOUS. It’s like sometimes you use a mic and it smells really really bad. Like the contents of someone else’s stomach. It is kind of gross. So do you think his girlfriend ever picks up the phone and think, hmm, this phone smells funny. And yet familiar. Like my boyfriend’s balls. Anyway this is what I was thinking. And now, through the power of words, you are thinking it too. Enjoy that, it was for you. A gift from me to you.

Your welcome.

In other news: My lease is up. So I must decide whether I should stay in this crapbox apartment or move into another crapbox apartment which may or may not be the same rent. I have a feeling it might be more. So I must make a decision. I am thinking I should move to another crapbox apartment. Seems like the right thing to do, I think. I like that after months of my neighbors being naked and making loud sexy time, they finally get curtains, and THEN I move. Ha ha ha. Sigh, sob, laugh, repeat.

Last weekend I went to Detroit. Yes, Detroit. Yes, there. No, I didn’t get shot. No, I didn’t see Eminem. I did however drop my camera and shattered it. The ironic part is that I did this while TRYING TO PUT ON THE WRIST STRAP SO I WOULD NOT DROP IT. Basically it was like destroying $300. Like oh is that $300 I see? I better rip it up and then light it on fire.

Look how nice it looks! I did notice that I can still take pictures, I just can't see what I'm taking a picture of. Nor do I know what settings I am on. This could be a fun little device. Or it can BE TOTALLY FUCKING USELESS. Gah! I destroyed $300! If you see me on the street, punch me in the neck. Then, give me opposable thumbs. Obviously it is something I lack.

Anyway, I totally digressed there. So yes, I went to Detroit. One of my best friends on this planet Rosalyne is teaching at University of Michigan (surprise, surprise she is an architect) and she and the other teaching fellows pooled their fellowship cash monies to buy a house for $500 at an auction. Then, they installed cool shit. You can learn about the cool shit here. As you can see, it is very cool shit. They sold the house to some local artists for $1, which is also very cool shit. I would like them to come into my crapbox apartment and “deal with the situation”. This would mean ripping out part of a wall and sticking in another window, which is what Rosalyne did. Then of course, I would install curtains because this is what people do when they have windows. They put up curtains so they can be naked in private. This is something that happens pretty immediately and not, say, a few months after the fact. OMG I AM BEING PASS AGG.

Just thought of something: What if we make a shower out of soap!? That’d be nice, right? Yeah? Then we can just you know, rub up against it to bathe. Plus, we wouldn’t have to worry about soap scum getting on the shower. And we wouldn’t have to clean the shower because it’s already clean with all that soap and all. in addition, the shower would smell great…like an Irish spring if you will. OMG WHY AM I NOT RICH? I really should be rich.

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.

I’m glad we’re friends.

I find you very friendly. Like, I would totally have a beer or a coffee or split an entire bag of Doritos with each and every one of you. I mean that. I don’t share Doritos with anyone. Sometimes people are like Oh I love Doritos, are those yours? And I’m like no…no why do you ask? Don’t you have…somewhere to be?

What I mean to say is we are all good friends. And like good friends, you guys e-mail or text or call or tweet me and each other. That’s great. This is all great. I appreciate these little golden nuggets of communication. Tarugitos de communicación del oro, if you will. I actually have no idea if that’s right. Doesn’t matter, really. Anyway, sometimes people e-mail or text or call or tweet and, like, do it wrong. Wait, Annie, you ask, is there a wrong way to do those things???

Yes. Dudes. Yes, there is.

Let us begin with some hypothetical examples that may or may not have happened in real life because they are hypothetical:

“Do you guys remember this IKEA commercial? It is AWESOME.”

Do you
A) TWEET THIS
B) E-MAIL THIS
C) TEXT THIS
D) CALL ME AND TELL ME ABOUT IT WHILE I AM NOT IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER AND THEREFORE NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET

The answer is A and B. Tweeting links is what Twitter is genetically engineered for. You do not text this. Text is not designed for this. Texting a link is kind of like teaching a parrot to sing “Happy Birthday to You.” Yes you can do it, BUT WHY and in addition IT’S A LOT OF WORK and more importantly, IT’S ANNOYING. E-mailing is fine and reasonable. I’m cool hand Luke with that. But if it’s a link I’d love to see, then it’s probably a link everyone wants to see, erego, Twitter.

“Oh my God, I just got laid off from my job, I don’t have any money, unemployment won’t kick in for another three weeks, my rent is due what do I do? OMG OMG GAH BLARGH”

Do you:
A) TWEET THIS
B) E-MAIL THIS
C) TEXT THIS
D) CALL ME AND TELL ME ABOUT IT WHILE I AM LOUNGING AND WATCHING RERUNS OF “GREATEST AMERICAN HERO” ON HULU AND REALIZING WHAT A TERRIBLE SHOW IT ACTUALLY IS AND COMMISERATING ON MY CHILDHOOD WHERE I HAD BAD TASTE AND WONDERING HRMM WILL I LOOK BACK ON THE CRAP I WATCH ON TV NOW AND THINK THE SAME THING? HOW SAD I AM GOING THROUGH A BIT OF SADNESS NOW, OH DEAR MAYBE I SHOULD EAT MY FEELINGS I NEED SOME CAKE

The answer is D. I suppose you could do B or C, but, you just went through some heavy shit, why not talk person to person? E-mailing is fine, but, it’ll take me a while to get back to you. You clearly need to kick it and chill out. Have a good talk, a good cry, go punch something, perhaps a small annoying dog. Maybe we can meet up and I will buy you many alcoholic beverages. It’s not like you need to go to the office tomorrow.

“Hey I’ll meet you in front of the movie theater at 9:15! Buy my ticket if you get there first.”

Do you:
A) TWEET THIS
B) E-MAIL THIS
C) TEXT THIS
D) CALL ME AND LEAVE A MESSAGE.

The answer is C or D. I think this is obvious. It is certainly NOT A. The entire world does not need to know we are going to see a movie (especially if it’s something embarrassing, like Clash of the Titans in 3D), so Tweeting is probably the wrongest answer, if there is such a thing (and there is). I hate it when people Tweet each other being like “I an running five minutes late!” TEXT IT. If you must use Twitter, then direct message, that is precisely what that is there for.

“It burns when I pee.”

Do you
A) TWEET THIS
B) E-MAIL THIS
C) TEXT THIS
D) CALL ME AND TELL ME ABOUT IT IN DETAIL WHILE I AM EATING WITH MY PARENTS

The answer is actually E) SEE A DOCTOR. I suppose you can do all of the above too, just because you want to share?

This stuff may not actually apply to any or all of you. Most of my friends aren’t on Twitter or don’t text because their phones are dumb. I’m totally cool with that. So, long story short, I love you guys. You know what else I love?

This IKEA commercial!

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.

My good friend Chris celebrated a birthday over the weekend. We surprised him at a Japanese restaurant in midtown and then proceeded to get very, very drunk, which is a very, very downtown thing to do in midtown.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was the BEVY/PLETHORA/MYRIAD/GRIP of celebrities that showed up for Chris’s birthday!

This includes Karl! Lagerfeld! ZOMG!

I know everyone thinks Karl Lagerfeld is kind of a dick and a total megalomaniac and a diva and an old coot. And guess what? Everyone is right. Karl spent most of the night yawning and saying Japanese cuisine was “played out” and that “dee only people who do da Japanese right iz das French.” His words, not mine.

You know who else was there? Jay-Z. OMG WHO WANTS TO EFFING TOUCH ME?

He’s got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one. Beyonce was not there. She apparently had better things to do, though I can’t really imagine what that could be. I mean come on. It’s Chris’s birthday. It comes once a year. Sometimes twice if you’re lucky and a little confused.

Karl and Jay-Z were a little embarrassed and perhaps a bit annoyed that they wore the same thing to dinner.

Actually a lot of people were there. Here let me show you:

From left to right we have: Grover, a bear wearing sunglasses, the HOVA, Karl, and Zidane.

You cannot see in the picture, but Zidane has a “blemish” on his lip. He says it was from head butting someone, but actually, upon closer inspection, it is a herpe. I know usually herpes travel in groups, therefore the use of the plural, herpes, but Zidane only had one herpe. I tried not to stare at it all night, but it’s hard. I mean he’s talking to you and the only thing coming out of his mouth is “Herpe herpe herpe, herpe! Herpe, herpe…herpe.”

Fact: Grover and Bunsen Honeydew were my favorite characters on Sesame Street. I was convinced that Bunsen was Asian, which is why I liked him. Yellowish, glasses, scientist. I mean come on. He’s a brother. My favorite Muppet was Waldorf and Statler, the crotchedy old dudes on the balcony who loved and then hated everything. I still relate to them.

Happy birthday, Chris!