In honor of Thanksgiving

I give you an honest Thanksgiving bingo. I think I could check off a few of these this year.

Too many green bean casseroles is a guarantee.

(Credit goes to holytaco.com for the bingo card)

These guys…

… I continuously get mixed up in my head.

Actor Simon Pegg (Sean of the Dead, Run Fatboy Run), Singer/Songwriter/Actor Glen Hansard (lead singer of The Frames, movie & album Once w/ Marketa Irglova), and Actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family)

Not the names and who’s known for what, but their faces. They’re just a ruddy, ginge-tinted mush in my head.

GOOD GENETICS

Brought to you by the offspring of Cindy Crawford.

Buttons…

… that are currently failing me.

• The ‘OK’ button on my cell phone.
  Services inhibited by said failure: sending texts that aren’t in reply to one I’ve already received, taking photos, deleting multiple text messages. Just started working today for the first time in 2 1/2 weeks, probably because it knew I was trash-talking it on the webs. Also starting to fail: the green ‘SEND’ button. If that happens, shit’s goin’ down.
• The Eject button on my car’s stereo.
  Services inhibited by said failure: ejecting my goddamn CDs. It always happens when I’m absolutely sick of an album and the reception for any decent radio (read: NPR) is inconsistent. Sometimes takes days until it finally decides to spit it out. Right now I’m on Day 6.
• The iPod button on my iHome alarm clock.
  Services inhibited by said failure: turning music on or off on my iPod docked in the alarm clock. Leaves me half awake, rapidly pressing a button I can barely see trying to turn the damn thing off. Or on.

Let’s not even go into my car or my hot tub having problems right now. It’s too much. Excuse me while I retreat back beneath my technological black FAIL cloud.

I’ve been yelling at the radio a lot more often lately. The preponderance of absolute ill-informed stupidity that is making it way to the media outlets in recent months is appallingly outstanding. From the tea parties of the health care debates to blaming the $1.2 trillion federal deficit on the Obama administration to the H1N1 vaccine melee, there have been a lot of blowhards in the media spreading knee-jerk messages of fear and contempt.

However, when the results from the Maine election yesterday came in and found that Maine was the 31st state to reject same sex marriage, I merely sighed. “At least Washington voted for expanded benefits for same sex couples,” I thought.

But listening to the story this morning on NPR on my way to work sparked a different reaction. Within the first couple sentences I was already muttering swear words, getting more frustrated as the story went on. When they played a quote from a representative from the “protect marriage” group that was jubilant over the results, I flipped. He said something to the extent of “It’s not about hating gays or gay couples, it’s about protecting the sanctity of marriage that should only be between a man and a woman.” That’s when I started yelling.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! NOT ABOUT HATE??! YOU HATE-MONGERING SONS OF BITCHES DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO PROTECT THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE! YOU FUCK UP MARRIAGE ALL THE TIME!”

And that’s when I, rather unexpectedly, started crying.

I could go on for days about the subject, and most of isn’t anything that hasn’t been said twenty times before, but man… it still astonishes me that the vast majority of my fellow countrymen have this antiquated and outright hateful notion based upon what can probably be dumbed down to as a “feeling of ickiness” at the notion of gay marriage.

Crazy cat lady strikes again

While I was watching Jim and Pam get married, I turned my pile of recycling into an outdoor cat house.

I swear, this is being a good pet owner. Not crazy.

My reclusive cat Buffy spends her outdoor time hiding out in my side yard/patio. Sometimes she’s so freaked out by the other cats bullying her that she won’t come inside. Fine in the summer (minus the raccoons eating all her food and washing their grubby paws in her water), but in the winter that isn’t so great. I’ve been contemplating a cat house (read: not whore house) for her for a while. As I was breaking down a bunch of cardboard boxes last night I realized that I could turn it into her house.

I made it water resistant with stiff plastic sheets that held some kitschy placemats and a bunch of packaging tape. I tore apart a long cardboard tube and made reinforcing “columns” as well as a top beam, should anything decide to sit on the “roof”. Then I made a little bed like structure to go inside, also covered in plastic and tape. I’ll put an old towel in there once I get it outside.

Crazy cat ladyness aside, not a bad way to reuse my junk. If I was really enterprising I’d paint it, but I think that puts you into the crazy cat lady realm. Maybe I’ll scrawl a sign that reads “Cat Cardboard Hobo Shack” instead.

I should be a full time digital person– then they’d love me!

If there is anything that drives me insane, it’s people that are addicted to their phones. Now, before I rant any further I should state that I have my phone with me at almost all times. If I get a call or a text message ding and there’s nothing necessitating my full attention at that moment, I’ll pick it up and take a look. If I’m having an in depth conversation, am working, or driving in certain situations I’ll turn it silent or ignore it. I’ll leave it out if I’m expecting to hear from someone. That’s about it. Some might even consider that excessive but I feel it’s practical.

But in the age of iPhones and Blackberries and all that understandably addictive communication technology, I find more and more people are willing to sacrifice personal interaction for the sake of virtual interaction. Some try to be polite and excuse themselves to answer the phone or text message, which can be acceptable on occasion. If done to an excessive degree then it sends the clear message of, “Sorry, I have better people to attend to.”

Some blatantly check their phone mid conversation, only looking up from time to time to make what they must feel is the minimum level of eye contact needed in order to be declared a participant in the person-to-person interaction. Maybe they mumble out a distant, “Mmm hmmm,” or “Huh,” before going back to checking Facebook. Clearly this is a wonderful tactic for sending the message that you are not important to them. Juggling human beings and digital entities (texting, social networking, emails, RSS feeds, etc.) has become this disastrous example of multitasking gone awry.

I could go on for ages buuuut… I’m going to go read some blogs. While I text. Maybe update my Twitter. I’ll update about my blog. You know, get meta. ///

Actually, go here for a brief but thought provoking foray into the subject of a “lifestyle intervention”. I think we could all benefit from one.

What not to wear…

The scene: Me driving to a friend’s soiree, in the dark, last night.

The ensemble: Pretty awesome little get up. Just needed a little bit of nude lip gloss.

The action: Reached into my purse, grabbed the lip gloss. Put it on as I drove, in the dark, without a mirror. Hey, it’s clear gloss. Can’t go wrong.

The delayed reaction: Two minutes later, felt my lips. They weren’t glossy. They were matte. Then remembered the deep, bright red lip stain I had in my purse.

The reality: My face looked like this:

That or Heath Ledger's Joker, your pick.

The solution: Upon parking I rubbed off as much of the stubborn stuff as I could. My fingers looked like that dog’s paws. Still couldn’t get it all off. Covered up the remainder with nude lipstick.

The recovery: Instantly told the HILARIOUS story upon my arrival, thereby offering an instantaneous excuse for me hoorish face. Rocked hoorish face the rest of the night. Cringed upon looking in the mirror at home. Still had a good time.

Morning I-84 Commute Report

Weather conditions? Sunny, warm, and the river is like a sheet of glass.

Tunes? Arcade Fire’s album Funeral.

Where were the cats when you left? Fabrizio was licking dew off of the vinca vines in the front yard, Buffy was hiding in the bamboo, Merlot was MIA.

Roadkill? One red-tailed hawk, one tabby cat, one blackish/brownish animal that was too smeared to be recognizable, being pecked at by crows.

Wildlife? Vultures sunning themselves on the beach at Mosier.

Bottles of trucker urine? None.

Abnormal fear of  boxes alongside the highway containing abandoned kittens? Yep, still there.

The font I loathe the most

Motherfuckin’ PAPYRUS.

Every stinkin’ company who wants to come off as earthy, yet sophisticated, natural, yet classy uses this font as their logo. Walk the streets of downtown Hood River and you’ll count at least 5 businesses in a 4 block radius that use the damn thing. Its gross overusage has me on frequent rants to absolute strangers, some of which seem offended at me spewing hate upon their beloved font.

It’s a default Microsoft font for godssakes. Either you, as the businessowner, have hired a super shitty graphic designer who’s phoning it in from a laptop in a podunk coffee shop with free wifi, or you designed it using Publisher. Worse yet, Word. There is a reason for graphic designers folks, and I’ll let you in on a secret– most semi-talented graphic designers loathe Papyrus. Using it makes you look unoriginal and cheap. There are thousands of fonts out there that can accomplish the same feel without being so entirely fraught with shit.

That being said, imagine my chagrin when a brewery using my family name pops up here in Oregon (also known as Beervana) with less than stellar logo. Initially I was pretty excited, especially upon hearing that they produce some righteous brews.  Then I saw their label and cursed the heavens.

NOOOOOOO!!!!

My last name is Heater. I’m a graphic designer by trade. I do marketing for an Oregon craft brewing company. Seeing this offense by Heater Allen Brewing keeps me from ever, EVER trying their beers. I think you guys did it just to fuck with me. Seriously.

To the folks behind Heater Allen Brewing Company, who if they’re smarter than their label implies, have a Google Alert set up for the company name: I will design you a better label. It will still have all the original elements you’ve used thus far (props on the unique die cut, by the way), but it won’t use that hideous, horrible, godawful font Papyrus. For the sake of family, yo.