Well, shit: a new scientific study on beauty shows that people seem to think they are far more attractive than the humdrum reality.

In fact, findings from a recent study by Nicholas Epley and Erin Whitchurch suggest that most people unconsciously overinflate their own physical appearance. In a well-controlled series of experiments published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Epley and Whitchurch took photos of undergraduate students with a neutral facial expression, invited these same students back to the laboratory two to four weeks later, and simply asked them to identify their actual face out of an assortment of eleven possible images. But here’s the really clever part. These other images were in fact the actual face morphed to varying degrees with either an extremely attractive gender-matched composite face or unattractive targets suffering from craniofacial syndrome.

This is definitely a blow to my ego. I mean, I was already convinced that – all tongue-in-cheek comments aside – I was barely fit to walk this earth given my numerous deformities and inability to be photographed looking anything close to human, but now I find out that in all likelihood, I am actually UGLIER than I had originally thought. Fuck! This is not what I needed right now. I was already having trouble deciding what to wear tonight and now I need to find a matching paper bag? This is just not my Thursday.

We ugly people need to band together. Who’s with me? Fuck your fascist beauty standards, anyway!  Not even my MOM thinks I’m pretty!

I’ll never be one of the cool kids. :(

I have a theory that it is impossible to have a bad Tuesday while wearing rainbow toe socks:

these are my science socks

I will report back with my findings at the end of the day.

Saturday night was pretty much exactly what I needed – a no-pressure party with good friends, good food, and a great deal of silliness. The last line of my rather disturbing previous post was in fact true – I wasn’t drunk; I didn’t drink anything that night that wasn’t Diet Coke – but I was feeling pretty high on .. well, if not life itself, I DID eat a great deal of cheesecake. It might have been that.

This week is shaping up to be a busy one on all fronts. While my calendar today is blessedly free from meetings, there’re a million things I need to have done before Wednesday morning. As well, I’ll be balls deep in Social Media from Thursday evening on – Northern Voice is this week, and I have endeavored to weasel my way into the scene as inconspicuously as I can. As long as I don’t lean over, I should be just fine.

There are rumours of a return visit to the Potato Farm as soon as next month, and I can’t wait. Talk of the Sex Cauldron was the reason our Saturday night took a turn for the filthy, and it was *bad* – we scared away a stranger. I suppose we should have been at least a little ashamed of ourselves, but really we were having far too much fun to be stopped. I’m sorry, small girl who was a guest of a guest of a guest – I fully admit we take some getting used to, but the majority of the time our conversations are NOT all about the pros and cons of rimjobs.

As glad as I am that I don’t live in Alberta anymore, I am seriously bummed that we do not get Family Day in BC. Our next long weekend isn’t until April, and I have a great deal of trouble to get into before then. Recovery time would be nice, but that extra Monday off isn’t worth giving up things like our mid-February scooter ride to the ocean.

I am seriously scatterbrained today. Perhaps I should go get some lunch before I utterly forget and then wonder why I feel like a bag of hell at 3pm.

Three rules to live by: Continue reading →

VALENTIMES!

grahh

Tomorrow may be Valentine’s Day, but today is Friday the 13th.

When I was 12, I was slightly obsessed with horror movies. My enthusiasm for gore was mild in comparison to my all-consuming adoration for Transformers – the sheer depth of my robo-obsession made little room for other things like social skills or boys, but I managed to squeeze things in here and there.

My personal favourite was Jason Voorhees. He was SO much cooler than Freddy Krueger – the strong silent type with a machete always wins over the smug chatty guy with long fingernails. My friends and I rented movies almost every weekend (it’s a good thing there were so many sequels), and occasionally we would mix things up with some Michael Myers (strong, silent, butcher knife, mask of William Shatner: also cooler than Freddy). I don’t think we ever strayed outside the big three – it wasn’t so much the genre we were into, but the villains themselves.

I’ve loved keeping lists of things for as long as I can remember. Therefore, in honour of today being Friday the 13th, I present to you:

The Body Count from Friday the 13th Parts 1-8, as tallied by my teenaged self in a small notebook featuring Optimus Prime on the cover:

• Friday the 13th: 9
• Friday the 13th Part 2: 10
• Friday the 13th Part 3: 12
• Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter: 13
• Friday the 13th: A New Beginning: 17
• Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: 17
• Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood: 15
• Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan: 19

It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

It’s been almost a month with no suspicious activity, so I think it should be safe for me to spill the proverbial beans. Ed does not want me to tell this story, but since when do I listen to voices of reason. Sit back, relax, and drink this all in:
Continue reading →

It’s Hello Kitty Tuesday at all ends of the spectrum, and I’m kind of okay with that.

I love Hello Kitty stuff. I own a significant amount of Sanrio things, including the fabled Hello Kitty vibrator. My last PC was even named Hello Kimmy in tribute. It’s not necessarily a sickness, but sometimes I just want to look at cute as a pleasant change from my usual agenda of death, decay and destruction.

I awoke to an email letting me know that MAC’s Hello Kitty collection launches today. I’m somewhat ashamed – but not enough to skip it entirely – to note that I’d been eagerly awaiting this announcement, because even though it’s cliché and more than a little stupid I am but a helpless mass of estrogen when it comes to cute. If that wasn’t enough, on my way to the car I noticed a bright pink piece of mail tacked up on the message board: a HK-shaped postcard with another reminder of the MAC launch; one that is now on my cubicle wall at the Lab.

fear the mouthless army

I get the point – I’m supposed to go buy Hello Kitty stuff today at lunch (except I can’t – meetings are super). The universe wasn’t quite done with the hinting, though. It felt like a sausage kind of day, so I went through the Drive Thru on my way to work. Signs announcing the new Happy Meal toys were everywhere, and oh look – a whole series of Hello Kitty watches available now. I may or may not have bought one with my McMuffin, and it may or may not perfectly match my outfit today.

a creepy coincidence

It’s good that I have this small and ridiculous bright spot, because I’m really quite cranky today. The aforementioned “rubbish” comment really pissed me off, and being stuck in a meeting for 75 minutes that didn’t apply to me did little to soothe the savage beast. I’m trying really hard to have a good week, but I seem to be failing spectacularly.

Is it strange that I hope tomorrow’s court appearance will cheer me up?

Who knew? Apparently being told that something I’ve done is “rubbish” completely gets my hackles up. I’m as close as can be to snarling without actually showing teeth. Fun!

Few things sour my Monday morning mood faster than being run off the road.

I chose to ignore the ominous dusting of snow on the hills behind my house this morning and instead focused on the positive – the shiny yellow sunshine highlighting the shoes dangling from the trees across the street. My ride in was brisk, but I’ve been colder. In fact, it was largely uneventful if I completely ignore the fact that Fabio tried to kill me in a Range Rover.

He was on his cell phone – naturally – when he thought it would be an awesome idea to change lanes right into me. I braked hard to avoid the collision and zipped around him on the left, laying on my horn the whole time. I stopped at his window – he rolled it down, and apologized in a thick Italian accent. The accent combined with the smile were probably really quite charming, except I really fucking hate it when people don’t pay attention to the road and almost take me out. I was too pissed to let loose my usual barrage of insults and random swearing, so I just shook my head in disgust and went on my way.

Something about a shiny new day seems to make people kind of stupid. I was also cut off at the entrance to the bridge by an asshat in a Civic, but it wasn’t nearly as close as the Incident with Fabio. I was in a fairly good mood before the idiocy, but I got grumpy pretty quickly. I need to shake this bad mood; it’s too nice outside to dwell on rich assholes and their giant cars and stupid cell phones.

So, what should I wear to my COURT DATE on Wednesday?