Update: I got the SD Card out. All I had to do was disconnect every cable from my Mac, unplug it, take it off my desk and shake it a little until enough of the card poked out for me to grab it with a Procter and Gamble cookie recipe from 1998 (don’t ask). I’ll let Renee post her pics on her own site, but here are mine:

bzzzzzzzzzzzz

i'm universal, baby

I am pretty sure I just leveled up as a nerd.

Better pics to come as it heals up and junk!

—

Renee and I got tattoos today (not the same tattoo; I already have a lesbian life partner in Ali). I would love to show you the pictures that we took while getting inked, but I can’t – I stuck the SD Card with the images into the DVD Drive of my iMac, and I can’t get the card out. My iMac ate it. It’s gone. I’ve tried scissors, a butter knife, a bamboo spoon and an actual CD, but nothing.

I would like to blame this on the fact that I am beyond exhausted – I couldn’t fall asleep last night no matter what I tried, and was still tossing and turning at 5am – but I’ve actually done it before. I’ve always been able to get the card out before it disappeared into the carnivorous depths of my computer, but this time my extraction methods are not up to the task.

Shit.

Pictures of tattoos coming, assuming I can get the card out without having to break out the chainsaw. All I have are the phone images taken during the tattooing. Can you guess what the tattoos are of?

renee getting inked

my turn

We went looking for trouble.

We found baby food instead.

I am not entirely sure if the day was a success or not.

Now that episodes of The Big Bang Theory are in syndication, I’ve been trying to get into it to see what all the fuss is about.

And .. I kind of hate the show.

My distaste makes no sense to me – it’s a show about nerds, doing nerdy things, starring nerds that I’ve had a crush on since Roseanne. The theme song is sung by nerds, and .. you know, nerds. Everywhere. And yet, I hate it all over the place.

I really wanted to like it, and I gave it a bunch of solid tries before I threw in the towel. It’s not that it’s not funny – we watched last night’s episode to see Wil Wheaton’s cameo, and I laughed out loud at Mayim Bialik‘s lines a few times – but the rest of the show leaves me seriously cold, and I’ve thought at length as to why.

It’s the laugh track.

The laugh track tries SO HARD to make sure you know that SOMETHING FUNNY IS BEING SAID AND NOW YOU SHOULD LAUGH that it seriously turns me off. I’m a nerd; I KNOW this stuff is funny. It’s right up my alley. The laugh track is so forced though that the entire thing feels like pandering; like the audience is being talked down to. It makes me really uncomfortable, and that’s why I don’t enjoy the show.

I know the core audience isn’t nerds – it’s people who like Two and a Half Men and stuck around to see what else is on – but that doesn’t mean the laugh track has to be so pointed and obvious. It takes the funny situation or exchange and turns it into slapstick for dumb people, and I can’t handle it. I don’t like being pandered to, and the show is nothing but.

It’s too bad – I could really get into it if not for that really loud, jarring noise every time someone opens their mouth.

NERDS! THEY’RE JUST LIKE YOU AND ME! HAHAH!

In the grand scheme of things, my frosty detour (not to be confused with a Frosty detour, which is delicious) was not such a big deal. I did not realize that most of downtown would be closed off for ceremonies so early, forcing Lola and I to go the long way around to get to the office. If this is the biggest hurdle I face today – and even if it’s not, really – I will be grateful for the sacrifices made by my countrymen that allowed me to whine about they trivial things that they literally died for.

It’s very cold in the office today – I forgot they turn off the heat when no one is around. I may have to abuse the hot chocolate machine to warm myself up – it’s either that, or put on gloves.

The more I play with the Phoster app, the more I like it. I have it on my iPad, and I use it to do things like this:

look at them all

Nothing deep or meaningful; just a whole lot of cherries. This makes me laugh, a lot. I am nothing if not simple.

Tell me that the tiny white flaky things wafting down from the sky on my freezing cold ride home were, in actuality, one or more of the following:

• Volcanic ash from an eruption I somehow missed while forearm deep in CRM
• God’s dandruff
• The aftermath of a catastrophic Office Depot explosion in which no people were hurt but thousands of innocent loose-leaf pages perished in the resulting inferno (then kicked up by a sudden windstorm and spread throughout the night sky)
• Cigarette ash from the butts of every person in every car in front of me (which actually happened yesterday; I was never so happy to have your disgusting, repulsive ash in my face)
• This guy, sloppily doing blow:

.. tell me ANYTHING. Just .. not that. Please, not that.

I think I may have just ridden my last pantless* ride of the year.

(*while I technically rode pantless due to the dress I wore today, I am far more protected than if I were wearing actual pants thanks to knee-high boots with thick soles and the sexy shin guard/knee pad combo I wear over them)

Tomorrow will be my very first Remembrance Day with someone to remember. Other than going out and getting myself a raging case of Super Gonorrhea, I don’t quite know what else I can do – I think about the grandfather I never knew on a regular basis, and I respect his sacrifice (and appreciate the fact that he helped make my dad before the war and before dallying with the most diseased French prostitutes 1916 had ever seen so I could be here 94 years later to poke fun at him). I have to work tomorrow so I can’t go to any ceremonies .. but I don’t know that I would go even if I could. I’m not a ceremony person – I pay my respects in my own way, and it generally doesn’t involve Amazing Grace played on bagpipes.

Did You Know: I memorized “In Flanders Fields” in grade 8 for fun (I was a weird kid), and I still remember it to this day. I recite it when I can’t fall asleep – and if it doesn’t work, I move on to Shakespeare. If THAT doesn’t work .. well, there’s masturbation involved. Warm milk is for pussies.

In honour of my grandfather’s Super Gonorrhea, I give you some wartime STD Awareness Posters. I’m thinking he could have really used these in France, but Wangzillas aren’t known for our common sense – also, these are from WWII. Perhaps VD wasn’t as big an issue in WWI, or something.

it's a (booby) trap!

coming MY way?

those are terrible, terrible odds but it still doesn't explain the severity of my grandfather's super mega godzilla gonorrhea

I begged. I pleaded. I opened my soul and asked for help: I beseeched Twitter to tell me, order me, FORBID me from buying these Doc Marten boots.

Don’t get me wrong – the floodgates of support did open .. the other way. Countless people (okay, 5) threw their hands up in encouragement for me to BUY the boots, not to stay away from them. I *KNOW* they’re totally me – that’s why I wanted them so badly in the first place. For the sake of my credit card, I needed help resisting the impossible lure of plaid, 20-hole awesome – but instead, you turned your coats on me and cheered me right into the devil’s hot sticky embrace.

THIS IS YOUR FAULT, INTERNET!

they're fucking awesome, damnit

I ordered them on Friday after you all stabbed me in the back, and they showed up today. I’m both impressed and cursing your names aloud.  Tonight I take them home and treat them with toxic chemicals, then tomorrow we take over the world.

It’s been Crazy Delivery Day here at work – two and a half things arrived for me. My iDevice cases shipped separately and I only got the first one today but it’s really awesome: check my app blog for pics and a review. The case, boots and various girl sauces from Sephora mean I have a busy night ahead of me, no thanks to you crummy people on the internet.

(you know I’m kidding; I <3 even if you drive me to terrible, awesome things. I guess it’s just payback for all the times people have thrown things at me for being an enabler – shopping with me will break your wallet. s’not MY fault I find great things for other people.)

Boots!

Zombies are popular. I can name dozens of zombie-related things – movies, video games, instructional manuals – off the top of my head. Also popular are post-apocalyptic scenarios, in which mankind stubbornly refuses to succumb to the elements/radiation/undead/disease/alien invasion/vengeful plants/Nicolas Cage. I’ve been submerged in worst case scenario survival since the time I could read, and coupled with my love of video games (automatically makes me a trained killer), I am reasonably certain I could predict and react to whatever comes my way. I am just one person – there are millions like me; training for the inevitable disguised as entertainment. Most of them have better aim than I do. Some of them have ready access to weapons. All of us know what to do when a rotting hulk of mindless, hungry flesh shambles our way.

When the zombie apocalypse hits, I think we’re gonna be just fiiiiiiine.

My Monday isn’t so much manic as it is sleepy, dragging and kind of numbing. There is nothing going on right now – no fun packages in the mail; no shocking or hilarious incidents to regale you with. I am tired because I didn’t sleep well last night. I am looking forward to my Death Pasta leftovers for lunch, although it means I will be smelly for the rest of the day.

I have very exciting things coming in the mail; I am disappointed that none of them arrived this morning.

Here is a Dali-esq picture of Hunter S. Thompson. Perhaps it will blow your mind:

is your mind not blown?

Here is a fake panorama of my desk:

click for embiggening

Wake me when it’s time to go home.

Okay, a late post is still a post – I’m still in the game. We had a full Sunday stuffed with breakfast, music, cats and zombies – just a regular day around these parts, but all good just the same.

My only regret for this day? Making Death Pasta while Ed was watching The Walking Dead. Do you have ANY IDEA how disturbing it is to mix ground beef and a thousand hobo spices when a zombie is being chopped up in glorious HD to be used as perfume? It kind of made my stomach roll. I don’t recommend it.

Watching the Autumn Portrait at HMV this afternoon was fun, though:

autumn portrait, dali-style

Other things done this weekend:

• Enjoyed many scallops at the Pinnacle Hotel in North Van, where Blayne and Melissa had a reception to celebrate their marriage last month
• Got trapped in Park Royal
• Two words: Velvet Elvis
• Bought matches at Roots, because that’s what you do at an upscale clothing retailer
• Fed Josh and Shan’s cats in North Van
• Met Heather’s new kitties
• Bought a discounted owl

Um. I’m sleepy. Gonna eat some zombie pasta now. Content? Pshaw. It’s Sunday. Leave me ‘lone.