Posts published during October, 2005

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Happy Halloween

happy halloween
On this, the spookiest day of the year, I vant to vish you, dear hannihaus readers, a safe and happy Halloween. Mwa ha ha ha!

And if you’re in the area, stop on by and watch trick-or-treaters kick me in the shins, as I hand out raisins instead of candy.

Yes, I am that evil… and I’ve got a pantry full of Sun-Maid to prove it.

Here’s to curbing childhood obesity one box of raisins at a time, while also giving new meaning to the phrase “Abandon all hope [of Snickers miniatures], all ye who enter here”.

Tune in tomorrow at the same bat time, same bat channel for: The Day After Halloween or Why I Got Egged By a Six Year Old.

Cheers! PS. Happy Birthday SORM and Frank Iero (of MCR).

8 comments

I Heart New York

As I snuggled into my punky-colored seat on the Friday night flight, I thought how appropriate that the first song on the new CD I’d purchased for my trip was called Marching Bands of Manhattan. That’s because that’s exactly where I was going –A few days ago, somewhat spur-of-the-moment, I loaded up my iPod with new Death Cab For Cutie, drove to the airport, and got on a Song flight headed for New York.New York City

A veritable virgin, this was my first time in the city, and I have to admit, being there gave me a very special feeling… I think you’d call it love.

If you’ve never been, New York is every bit as exciting, eccentric and excessive as it appears on TV. Yes, Trump Tower with its sold-gold façade really does glitter gaudily from 5th avenue. And yes, the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center is filled with clumsy, apple-cheeked children, even at this time of year. And it’s true, Central Park is smack dab in the middle of the city with its tree-lined canopy, offering an amazingly relaxing retreat from the concrete and clamor that surrounds it on all sides.

In New York I:

* Felt my heart swell as I looked down 86 stories from the top of the Empire State Building to see hundreds of taxis zip past thousands of landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge, Ellis Island, The Statue of Liberty, and The UN and Chrysler Buildings.

* Figured out what enterprising Nigerians do when they’re not scamming kind-hearted, gullible folk via e-mail – They sell high-dollar watches and handbags for dirt cheap, out of cardboard boxes, on the DL in Battery Park.
Ground Zero Cross
* Saw two holes where steel structures had been in the days before September 11th. A metal memorial, fashioned from two beams, made in the shape of the cross, reminded me that this city is scarred, and I felt an immense sadness as I stood looking on the street.

And I guess it’s kind of poetic that a girl, (your mistress), who once referred to herself as the “Pimp of Produce”, would adore, so much, a place called The Big Apple.

View my NYC flickr photos here.

O.k., so I guess this was released a few months ago, but you know what? I’m kind of slow, so you’ll have to bear with me while I gush about Google Video, because it’s just the Jane-dandiest.

My discovery of this searchable database of personally and professionally produced videos couldn’t come at a better time, as my obsession with My Chemical Romance and its sexy lead singer, Gerard A. Way is at a fever pitch.
mcrwallpaper
You, dear hannihaus readers, know that I love Gerard. We talk about him often. But what you don’t know is that I’ve spent more time researching my rock star boyfriend than Ashlee Simpson has spent lip synching shows. (And you know Ashlee’s gone Milli Vanilli many a time, because acid reflux, it’s a real bitch.)

So, I’ve been trying to satiate my desire for all things Gerard by reading interviews, using p2p filesharing, and lurking in teeny rocker forums with names like Gerard Way Is Sex In Cute Little Skeleton Pajamas, or ~*~ Gerard Way = My Obsession ~*~ , or a particular favorite is, I Dance to My Chemical Romance in My Underwear, because – let’s face it – that’s what I do.

…But I digress.

The point is, Google Video provides a simple, centralized way for me to get my skeeze on – to further my pervy, adolescent fascination with Gerard and his Mac makeup, if you will.

And for that I say God bless you Google!

And because we also like to support local bizness too, all of you should check out Manuel’s creepy Live|Journal project.

Mmmm. All this voyeurism makes me warm and tingly inside.

So dear hannihaus readers, if you haven’t done it already, check out Google Video. And then, because you like me, you really like me, you have to tell me what you Googled for. We’ll discuss and chorkle (tm Dima) over our findings.

I have, and I do. Yep my life pretty much sucks right now… mostly because I have foot-in-mouth disease.

I haven’t wanted to run away with the circus this bad since I split my pants in the 9th grade. I was already awkward at 14, and it certainly didn’t help my self esteem to have to feign nonchalance whilst walking sideways all afternoon. To make matters worse, I’m fairly certain that despite my best efforts, a significant percentage of my peers got an eyeful of my unmentionables that day.
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In other news, one of my coworkers said the name I pitched for a new software product reminded him of something you’d see on a package of adult diapers. The good news is, if software writing doesn’t work out, apparently, I’ve got a bright future in adult incontinence… But I digress.

Today kids I want to talk about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And no, I’m not talking about “The” Flying Spaghetti Monster with his noodly appendages and Pastafarian followers. We are much too lowbrow, here at the haus, to discuss the Lord of Linguine and his role in intelligent design. (But if you’re interested, there’s a good summary of the phenom, right here.)

spaghetti monster

Nope, we’re not talking about art today. And I think my dear old dad would agree with this choice, as I have oft heard him cackle with glee, “F- art!”

Yeah CG puts the “art” in “fart”

… But I digress.

So yeah, we need to discuss something that’s really imporant. We need to discuss, dear hannihaus readers, a little something called spaghetti.

More specifically, I’d like to know…

Is it retarded that even though I am, for all intents and purposes, a fully functional adult, I can’t eat spaghetti without first pouring it down my front?

Is it wrong that I instinctively don protective layers (I.e. Angel’s junky tees) before even thinking about eating organic Ragu?

Forget about boogey men and things that go bump in the night –my ass is looking out for the spaghetti monster.

The Spaghetti Monster:
Jumping off plates and leaving nasty stains since 1972
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So you guys remember that horrible lag that just about killed you any time you commented? Well, it’s fixed now. (Thanks SORM!) Comment away kids!

Apparently I’m all hardcore n’ shit, as I’m only one of a handful of ya yas dumb enough to drive through a hurricane to get to work this morning. And guess what? Because common sense indicates I should be home, well that’s where my boss sent me! Wilma, you’re such a saucy minx. Thanks for giving me the day off!

So today, instead of workin’ for the man, I get to do what I *really* want to do, which is write about my Worst. Date. Ever. (which by the way looks like a freaking tea party compared to what Happy Heathen has endured, but I digress.)

Wakahage
In Japan there is a term, “wakahage”, which literally translated means “young bald.” For purposes of today’s story, that’s what we’ll call my date, Wakahage.

Wakahage was 18 and had all the style and stature of Mr. Magoo. In all honestly, I was entirely repulsed by this squishy-faced shorty, but I was a sophomore, and a school dance junkie, and I needed a senior prom fix real bad.

Ambiguously Gay
When he showed up at my house 30 minutes late, I was already in poor spirits. Having endured a 3-hour hair curling session and the fitting of a dress that was cutting off my blood circulation, I was in no mood for shenanigans. Imagine my delight, therefore, when Wakahage shows up with a chaperone! Said chaperone, Wakahage explains, is a friend who graduated from school a year earlier. Because Wakahage has no wheels, the Chaperone will be escorting us to our event this eve.

And because it must’ve been rent-one-get-one at the tuxedo shop, both Wakahage and The Chaperone are wearing ridiculous white tuxedos with tails. The Chaperone is squeezed into a mint green cummerbund, while Wakahage is flashing the fuchsia.

So, we crush ourselves into the chaperonemobile – I’m sitting bitch, and the boys are cranking up the country. Wakahage serenades me. It seems that his secret ambition is to be a country superstar.

And I’m thinking, “Do cowboys wear pink?”

Masterbaiter

Wakahage informs me over dinner that he spends his summers fishing with his dad. Then the teeny, tiny man drinks waaay to many espressos, gets stupid, and starts saying things like “What do you call a lonely fisherman? A master baiter! Bwa ha ha.”

At this point I am convinced, Wakahage – social retard that he is – at masterbaiting, must be expert.

True Romance

We’re at the dance, and that lovers staple, Kiss From a Rose comes on. While we have fairly avoided each other all night, Wakahage is itching for a dance. He asks me to step out.

“Erm, well uh I don’t really like slow dancing,” I lie through my teeth.

Wakage, taking no prisoners, embraces me so I can see the glitter from the disco ball reflecting off the top of his bald head. “I met my ex-girlfriend while slow dancing,” he says.

“Oh… erm…” I say, trying to back his crotch off my leg.

“Hänni,” Wakahage says as he pulls me in and says, “You can’t forget the reason for slow dancing.”

And in my head I’m like (sarcastically) “What, romance?”

And he says, “You know, romance.”

… And then the chunks rise in my throat, and I excuse myself so I can go be romantic in the restroom.

Denouement
When Wakahage and The Chaperone left that night, it wasn’t with me. I had barricaded myself in the bathroom and didn’t come out until I saw the Liberace twins had made their o’hasty exit.

A few days ago, too tired to cook four ourselves, Angelface and I made the unfortunate decision to go foraging for fast food.

And I know what you’re thinking. You’re panicked, because the Nutrition Nazi ate food that was not organically grown and omega3-enriched. Well, if it makes you feel any better, we chose a “healthier” chain that offers vegetarian and wheat-free options for more conscientious patrons, like moi.

And if you really want to click your heels with glee, you’ll be interested to know the fact that I was “good” and didn’t have a full-on, bust-your-gut and damage-your-liver hogfest, didn’t mean a thing. At the end of the night, after enduring a series of unnerving theatrics, I still had that good old fashioned, fast food feeling. You know the one – It starts with guilt and remorse, and then inevitably ends up with you riding bareback on the porcelain pony, making rapid-fire deposits from your six-shooter into the toilet bowl.

But I (and my diarrhea) digress.

So I think it should’ve been a red flag that when I walked into the store, the first thing I saw was an entire seating area taken up with trash. The makeshift landfill was littered with leftover napkins, food containers, utensils and plastic trays. Even the freaking garbage can had overflowed, giving it the appearance of some sort of trash-eating monster that had vomited all over itself.

Despite having witnessed the health hazard fast escalating in Seating Section B, Angelface and I still ventured towards the register. The pimply faced 16-year-old stationed there didn’t immediately take our order. He was too busy complaining about how hungry he was and how he was supposed to be done working a half hour earlier.

And I felt guilty. After all, I knew what it was like to be hungry –while Zitty Face and another employee, we’ll call him Stir Shit Up, (because that was his only discernable job function), participated in a lengthy discussion about how much working late sucks, I was fairly starving.

So yeah, at long length the discussion died down and I was able to put my order in. While waiting for said order, an argument broke loose between the night manager and that stupid ass, bobble-head, Stir Shit Up.

Apparently dumb-as-bricks, SSU, thought that having someone “on the fries” at night, was not necessary, and must’ve felt it was a great injustice to be asked to perform this task, because he yelled across the kitchen at his manager that he wasn’t going to do it.

Night Manager, taking a page from his idiotic protégé’s book, yelled back that yes, damn it, someone had to be “on the fries” until 8pm each night.

Then the two of them proceeded to have a lengthy, verbal pissing match.

As I watched the two of them bicker back and forth like Jews in a gem store, I thought to myself “Oh good lord. If I had wanted to attend dinner theater, I could’ve gone to Medieval Times. At least there this type of battle royale is preceded by a visit from the Beer Wench.”

So in the interim of this bitchy little tiff, the production of Angelface’s hamburger by the night manager had come to a halt. Only when Angel yelled into the kitchen, “Hey can you stop arguing long enough to make my sandwich?” did the bickering stop.

And then, because it needed to be done, I yelled “You – freaking back-talking, plebian employee, take off your paper hat. You’re fired buddy!”

…Well actually, I didn’t really yell that. But I sure did want to.

Anyway, even after receiving our food, a myriad of horrors continued to occur, the most disgusting of which was witnessing the french fry scoop being used as a tool for trash compacting. When I saw the scoop go into the trash, and then back into the french fry, well it made my stomach churn… And then, when I saw that same scoop being used to put fries in a container that was handed to a customer, I had no choice but to throw up in my mouth a little.

So I’ve written my grievance down and sent it to the restaurant headquarters. I’ll keep you all posted, dear hannihaus readers. In the meanwhile, why don’t you share some of your horror stories with me? I need something to cheer me. Hurricane Wilma’s headed this way, and I’ve got house cleaning to do. Double d’oh.

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A Boy Named Google

Remember that boy in your high school homeroom – the one who felt compelled to be the class clown – the one who would, right at the most inopportune moments, mash his eyelids together, hack twice and blow gale-force farts at the teacher?

Yeah, he was pretty lame.

It’s kind of sad what stupid people do for attention.

Bearing this in mind, dear hannihaus readers, meet the Kai family. Internet week introduced me to this wacky clan when they announced “Search-Crazy Swedes Name Baby ‘Google’”.

It seems that Papa Kai works for a SEO (search engine optimization) company, and surprise, surprise is also developing a new Google service from home – a fact he mentions over and over on the series of spammy sites he’s created to exploit showcase the young innocent who has the shitty distinction good fortune of being Papa Kai’s son.

I find it really interesting that Baby Google, born on September 12th, didn’t have a Web site heralding his birth until October 15th – That’s a whole 4 weeks after he was ripped from the safety of Mommy’s womb and thrown into a nursery full of babes who, in six years, will be beating the poor kids ass on the playground.

So yeah, 4 weeks is a long time… Why on earth would you need 4 weeks to make a birth announcement? Gee I don’t know, but I do know that 4 weeks is probably long enough for someone to mastermind and then implement a grotesquely optimized series of pages designed to attract a *hack* certain search engine

And just in case that certain search engine (for which you have massive wood) finds you and makes you famous on their blog, well you’d better be sure to post your RESUME next to that picture of your giggling, bouncing, baby boy.

People who parade their kids around like helpless show ponies, they make me SICK.

I mean what kind of monster has the chutzpah to exploit the sacred institution of procreation, all in the name of professional gain?

TomKat, eat your freakin heart out.

17 comments

Sugar Shock

I really wanted to keep quiet about this, but I just can’t. You see, the words won’t fit in my mouth. Even though yesterday I kind of said it was okay, I can not, in any circumstances, condone soda drinking.

Drink martinis if you must, but for God’s sakes, stay away from the mother loving soft drinks.

They will rot your teeth.

They will make you fat.

They will dance the flamenco on your kidneys, and flood your veins with saccharine swamp gas. (And let’s face it, folks, if you’re anything like me, you don’t need the extra gas. You can only exclaim “thar she blows!” whilst emitting noxious broccoli fumes but so many times a day.)

And I know I’ve got some naysayers reading this right now. Faithful members of the Church of Coca Cola, you think that no matter what I say, you won’t quit drinking the ‘Pibb. You, dear die-hard Tab fan, you think I can not covert you to my Nutrition Nazi ways.

Well open up baby birds, because I’m about to deliver a nice, juicy worm:

soda is bad

Erm, okay so baseballs don’t contain sugar, but like seriously, look at the freakin picture. One tasty little beverage contains a shit load of sugar!

And by the way, unlike Tara Reid’s boobs, this is real. The picture are looking at was taken by a friend of a friend who is a pharmacist, and by virtue of her profession, knows how to do uber cool things like extract chemicals from cola.

Oh and if that’s not enough to keep you off the hooch, well the fact that you could lose your eye sight, well you should take that into consideration. You see, loss of vision has been linked to diabetes, which of course, is linked to excessive sugar consumption.

What that means is, just like masturbation or Viagra usage, if you partake too much in the sweet stuff, well, you might just go blind.

But I digress.

One thing about working where I do is, any time management decides they want to spoil us working-class grunts, they do it with food. Usually the food is tied to a celebration. It’s like “Oh! It’s so-and-so’s birthday – let’s have cake!”, or “Ms. Whats-Her-Name graduated night school. To celebrate, let’s all shove a bagel in our pie hole!”

Lately things have been a little more celebratory than I, she-whose-diet-consists-of-85%-organic-veggies, would like. Yesterday we got an e-mail to announce that – woopie –the Big Guns hooked us up, because the pop machine is now selling Mr Pibb for 25cents! And while we have avoided such a monstrosity for many months, today a large, Funyun-wielding vending machine appeared outside the men’s room on the second floor.

And even though I’m anti, even though I’m so totally against processed foods and their excessive consumption, I have to admit, being given the opportunity for pants-splitting gluttony is great.

Yes, I am a Nutrition Nazi, but I appreciate that the bosses at a Very Hip Software Company like their employees enough to pony up for pizza every once in a while. I mean, where I used to work, my old boss, he was so tight, you could put a lump of coal up his ass, and after a fortnight, you’d probably have a diamond.

Seriously – this dude was so cheap that around the holidays, instead of throwing a party, he forced his egregiously underpaid employees to purchase and prepare various foodies for a mandatory, Christmas pot-luck. This 60 minute intestinal adventure in the cockroach-infested den of iniquity known as the company kitchen, well it was meant to satiate us.

I don’t think any of us were fooled.

As we chewed through the beef jerky that Helen insisted was meatballs, we knew that other companies were throwing real Christmas parties, the kind you don’t bring a crockpot to, the kind where you drink too much and then photocopy your unmentionables.

Yeah, because I worked for Ebenezer Scrooge, we never had that party, and that’s a real shame. After all, nothing says Celebration of Christ’s Birth quite like a Xeroxed set of butt cheeks.

But I digress.

So in conclusion, I won’t be drinking that swill, but the 25cent soda was a nice gesture. It makes Hänni happy. Good job Big Guns!

And good job to you too dear hannihaus readers. If you’re reading this, you’ve made it through another marathon post. I’m on a freaking roll this week – woo.