Why we laugh- with kittens.

It bothers me, as a humor writer and funny person, that people, for the most part, seem to have absolutely no clue why we, as humans, laugh.

People will often say "HE WAS LAUGHING AT IT, HE OBVIOUSLY THINKS IT ISN'T SERIOUS OR IMPORTANT," which is often the case in jokes about rape or cancer.  And to that I think... you're dumb. People don't laugh at things that they like or advocate, ever... or mostly ever.  People laugh because they are taken by surprise and/or made uncomfortable. That is why knock knock jokes are almost entirely unfunny. We laugh at things that break a regular pattern that we are used to, which is why what is funny to me may not be funny to you. This is also probably why people unsubscribe from me every time I make a new post, but that is besides the point.

In order for something to be funny, it has to be unexpected... and generally negative/dangerous/scary/wrong.

For example:

A fuzzy gray kitten.

Not funny at all. 

A kitten that looks like Hitler. 

Fairly funny.  

Jedi Kittens

... hilarious.

Evil Mike: A Cautionary Tale

The summer before my 10th grade year, I met my first boyfriend, Evil Mike*, over the phone while at my friend Veronica’s house.  Because I was awkward and weird and had REALLY low self-esteem, I immediately agreed when Evil Mike, after talking to me for a week or so, asked me to be his girlfriend.  This happened over the phone, of course, and I had not actually seen him yet, as the internet didn‘t exist so I couldn‘t force him to send me a picture before I accepted. I thought he was funny enough though, in a fart joke sort of way, and his voice was very attractive, which, you should know, is never indicative of how someone actually looks, but Veronica had assured me that he was “totally fine” so I figured I was good.

Yes, Clint Eastwood is my ultimate measure of sexiness, thank you.

I was still 14 when I agreed to his proposal of datitude, even though I was forbidden from actually dating, so our first date required the “best friend secret rendezvous” maneuver, wherein I’d spend the night at my friend Katriya’s house (because she was the friend my family liked/trusted the most) so I could do things my parents didn’t want me to do because they were bad bad ideas.  I got all dressed up in my sexiest acid wash mom jeans and an off-the-shoulder tube shirt with a horrendous flower pattern and applied my iridescent tan lipstick and off we went to meet him and his friend at Loehmann’s Plaza, where we were going to see Child’s Play III.

Katriya and I sat outside on a planter that doubled for an ashtray, nervously waiting for him to make his first appearance.  “Over there, that’s him!” Her voice was not kind  as she pointed at the pair of heshers coming out of the arcade.  “Veronica LIED!” I hissed at her as she began to laugh. Please let it be the blonde, please let it be the blonde, fuck, of course it’s not the blonde.  His friend was fairly attractive.  He, on the other hand, totally wasn’t.  He wasn’t much taller than I was, fancied himself a body builder, but his frame didn’t support it well so he just looked a bit like a tall little person. Beyond that, he had a mullet, but not just any mullet, it was a super mexi-mullet. And he was wearing a fitted jean jacket with Eddie Van Halen air brushed on the back of it. I wanted to flee. To pretend it wasn’t me, but it was too late. He had spotted me.

We bought tickets.  I can’t remember if he bought my ticket for me or if I had to buy my own. I spent the whole movie alternating between chastising myself for my desire to dump him on the spot because he was so repulsive to me and thinking how incredibly awful the movie was.  Really, have you seen Child’s Play III?! Serious crap! He spent the whole movie trying to touch my boobs and making me very uncomfortable by actually acting like he was my boyfriend. The only high point was that he smelled of Drakkar, which he might have bathed in.

Afterwards, we broke off from our friends and walked around the deserted outdoor mall. “So, what do you think?” I somehow realized he was asking me to assess his attractiveness. “Oh, yeah. You’re as fine they said.” I’m a liar, a dirty liar. Which should pay off right? Flattery and what not…  “And what about you?” Of course, he didn’t hold to the same principles that I did as his response was not flattering in the least. “Well, you’re not the beautiful flower they said you were, but you’re okay.”  He was entirely wrong.  I was an AMAZINGLY beautiful flower, and he was a jackass.

When I got back to Kat’s house, I called Veronica and informed her that she was a lying jerk, and she told me I was shallow (which I took to be a confession that she knew damned well that her pants were on fire) and she convinced me that I should give him a chance, which was a really bad suggestion, but somehow when you are 14 and you have really low self-esteem, you make really bad decisions, and instead of dumping him, like a sane person, I dated him for approximately two years.

Those were not two consecutive years, of course, because he would break up with me every couple of months/weeks/days because he was convinced I was either cheating on him at that moment, or was planning on cheating on him at any second, and I would cry and  plead with him not to dump me and he would declare that I just wanted to be with him because he was “sooooo fine.” Each time this declaration would come and each time it was really hard not to guffaw the moment he’d say it, but I somehow managed not to laugh openly at him and would assure him of all the stupid reasons I didn’t want him to break up with me, my level of attraction to him had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it.




* Evil Mike's name was coined after I started dating my husband, who is "good Mike" or just Mike.  But evil Mike was evil... or compared to all other Mikes who did not make my life miserable for 2+ years... Come to think of it, he wasn't really clever enough to be evil, I guess... he was really just a dick.. but Evil Mike has a better ring to it than "Dick Mike." 

_____________________________________________________

Remember, tomorrow is the last day to buy your Limited Edition September Sticker! 

http://cheeseblarg.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-sticker-sale-t-rex-wants-ice.html

And now for something only slightly different.

I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually, but in the meantime the sentiment holds.

Do not remove under penalty of law!

Now that they make clothing with screen printed tags in them, standard, I find myself very angry with all of my old clothes. It is barbaric, being stuck in the neck by a scratchy tag all the time. In my moments of anger, it seems like the only way to address the problem is with FIRE!

Ken Lee

Continuing with my theme of helpful posts, you know what is NOT helpful?  Correcting people's lyrics while they are gleefully singing the wrong words at the top of their lungs.

There are two things in play here... either the person REALIZES they just sang the wrong words and doesn't need to be embarrassed further to realize that they are wrong or they seriously don't give a shit and are just enjoying themselves.

But then a lyric Nazi comes along and is all "IT'S 'SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE,' NOT 'SHE'S OUT OF MY REACH'" and then I am all, "that doesn't even make sense, if she's like the wind, how is the wind out of his league? He must think really poorly of himself if blowing air is too good for him. Man, those lyrics are dumb!"


So, unless you are tasked with training someone for a singing competition, or a lyric game show, seriously, just let them sing shit wrong.

And then make fun of them on the internet by making a comic that points out they sang Jessie's Girl wrong when they were a kid.



p.s. Don't forget... birthday party, on the internet, this Sunday! No need to RSVP if you are specifically avoiding the internet that day to spite me, really... it is cruel.

When Cars Attack

There are some things in life that you are supposed to be able to navigate easily as an adult, and dealing with a minor traffic accident apparently is one of those things.  Not having been in any traffic collisions, until Friday, I realize I have been woefully unprepared for what the quack you are supposed to do when someone backs into your car while you are happily coming about in a parking lot.


How it should happen:

How it apparently really happens when you have no clue what is supposed to happen:

An illustrated guide for taking gross pills.

There are a plethora of really BAD tasting pills out there, and while children are usually the ones we need to worry about, some of them taste so bad that even adults need some help getting them down. The pills, not the children, what's wrong with you!?

I started taking Prednisone a week ago.  After two days, I couldn't take it any more and didn't think I would be able to force one more pill down my gullet, let alone four a day, so I used my well-cultivated creativity and came up with a way to take them without having to run around in circles, gagging and shuddering. I'm not even kidding. That stuff is horrible, almost beyond measure. As bad as guaifenesin (mucus reducing pills) and flagyl (you're usually nauseated before you take this, the taste doesn't help) or any prenatal liver vitamin.

So I bring you, my handy dandy guide (for adults and children) to take pills that make you want to shave your own taste buds off:

One word of advice: Be sure to take care to wrap the pill tightly. Pokey edges don't facilitate the swallowing process, at all!

And clearly, use liquid to swallow the pills, still. Do I need to mention that? 

Change is hard.

I don't buy into the whole, "If it's free, you can't complain" dogma.  My lungs are free, came with the package, but I am totally complaining, as loudly as I possibly can, if they stop working in a useful and helpful way. Something being free doesn't and shouldn't preclude it from receiving feedback, as far as I am concerned.

I do, however, think that making the best of everything is the easiest policy, for one's own sanity, and I rarely join in the "OMG! MAKE IT GO BACK!" crowd. I would rather just make fun of the situation and get on with it... so I have annotated my personal Facebook page below to give everyone a positive spin on all the changes that have happened to the Facebook Layout.

While it seems horrifically changed, it really isn't.  

• There is the addition of the "Awesome Stalk-O-Matic ™" scrolling bar on the right - which is perfect for people who like to obsessively keep up with their favorite people and see EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION THEY HAVE... which is right up my alley.  

          These can likely be cut down by altering your subscriptions to people you don't give a damn about.

• Then there is the "Ninja Algorithm Cool Stuff ™" that is marked by little blue triangles which seems to have no rhyme or reason, but a game can be made of trying to figure out the pattern.

• And all the other stuff that you saw before the change lives underneath the new stuff. Mostly. Except possibly your own posts. Unless you are popular. 

The Mellowcreme Dilemma.

Brach's Assorted Halloween Mellowcremes candy makes me happy and reminds me of crunchy leaves, and cool winds, and corduroy pants, and the late 70s. It also reminds me that, although it is really cute and I love buying it, I don't like the way it tastes, at all.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, Ya Salty Curs!

Arr!

There be play sets ahead! 

Modeled here by Sarah's mug, from A Blogful of Boredom

Why my house is now clean.

There are two types of people who watch the show Hoarders- those who start cleaning their houses before the show is even over. . . and hoarders.

How to survive a plane crash.

How to survive a plane crash in 8 simple steps that anyone can follow:

1. This is the most important step, which is why it is number one-
As the plane is falling from the sky and crashing into the ground, DON'T die.
If you can't even be bothered to do that, then further advice is useless.  You have to really be committed to the "not dying on impact" directive.

2. Fashion yourself a cool headband - this will keep sweat out of your eyes AND let other survivors know that you are SERIOUS about this survival stuff. SERIOUS..LY AWESOME... Especially if you make it out of a live animal.

3. Get a reasonable distance from the airplane until it is safe.  There is nothing more tragic than making the commitment to live through smashing into the ground, only to find yourself sucked into a jet engine while staggering around in shock. Also, shrapnel from exploding planes is adverse to your objective of living.

4. Find shelter- If blankets and cushions are not available for a fort because the plane is a fiery deathtrap, dig a big hole.  It will keep you warm (or cool) and you can always cover it with sticks and leaves when you are not using it, to trick people into falling in.  Practical jokes always raise morale.

5. Look for fresh water- or quickly get used to the idea that you might be drinking your own distilled pee water soon to live.  Beware other survivors who are fine with drinking urine, right off the bat.

6. Watch lots of episodes of LOST and read teen fiction like The Hunger Games Trilogy before any plane travel.  This will make you aware of all of the experiences you are sure to encounter while navigating a survival situation. Shows such as Survivor Man and Man vs.Wild will do you no good.

7. Always wear a suit of snack foods under your clothes when traveling.  While you CAN forage for edibles, that requires that you actually know what you are doing and don’t eat things that want to kill you. It is safer to just eat your clothes. A good mix of fruit rollups, corn chips, and jerky will keep you healthy until to you can be rescued.  Chocolate is not suggested for these garments.

8. Be rescued.

VERY loosely adapted from the SAS Survival Handbook.

VIRUS WARNING! QUICK! GIVE ME MONEY!

While I am entirely against violence and revenge, people who create those viruses that pretend to be virus warnings that try to trick computards, like my sister and her husband, who don't have anti-virus programs on their family's laptop (because WHO NEEDS ANTI-VIRUS!? YAY! THE INTERNETS! OOH WHAT'S THAT!? CLICK CLICK CLICK!

)

into paying said virus makers to remove the virus on their site that pretends to be "Window's Helpful Security Tool"... those people, they should have acupuncture needles inserted into their peeholes. I'm just saying. I don't condone violence*, but they kinda deserve it.

*This statement, the result of 11 hours of wrestling with a fake security warning virus out of the goodness of my heart, which kept me up until 6am, running and rerunning two different malware removers and spybot s&d, to try to get my sister's computer usable for her work trip (which she told me about last night at 7pm), only to find that the virus keeps me from being able to finish the last step to remove it (installing an actual anti-virus program) so that the whole hard drive needs to be wiped, though the backup OS disk has been lost of course, is not representative of my usual feelings or intentions towards hackers, who really should DIAF until I get more than 4 hours of sleep. Really, die.

<3, JRose

Stick it!

When I went to the doctor's office last Wednesday, the nurse I saw suggested that acupuncture might be the cure to my ridiculous intestinal ailments.  I fail to see how sticking needles into me will make me not allergic to things, but other than the whole, sticking needles into me, what could it hurt? Surely it wouldn't make my food intolerances worse.

After talking to the acupuncturist, my worries were allayed that the cure would surely have something to do with stabbing needles into my eyes, because of course, to me, something is not really valuable and useful unless it is the most unpleasant scenario you can possibly imagine. Yes, so no needles to the eyes, no needles to the pee hole, just a bunch of holding things I am currently allergic to while she stabs needles into my back to teach my body that freaking out at food and medicines is not acceptable and will be punished with repeated stabbing. That should do it, right?

Unfortunately, the treatment would cost over 900 dollars and though she SAYS that I would have no allergies when she was done, and I could eat bread again until it grew out of my ears, I don't think she is willing to guarantee that.  There is also the problem that I do not have 900 dollars nor the prospect of having that much money that I will ever be able to spend on something that may or may not work, that also requires me to be stabbed repeatedly.  If I had that much to spare, I would do it. But I'm an industrious and frugal kind of gal, maybe I could just do it myself.  I'm sure we have a box of straight pins in the sewing room somewhere.

It's all about meme!

I've been memed, and since I've been working on the funniest portrait EVAR (which I am waiting for permission to share), I'm memeing this memer. You can blame Kelly at Southern Fried Children.

The rules of this meme are as follows:

What this is about: To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again. (blah blah, more attention = happy Jodee)

 Procedure:
 1) Blogger Blarger is nominated to take part
 2) Blogger Blarger publishes his/her 7 links on his/her blog blarg– 1 link for each category.
 - Your most beautiful post
– Your most popular post
– Your most controversial post
 – Your most helpful post
– A post whose success surprised you
– A post you feel didn’t got the attention it deserved
– The post that you are most proud of

3) Blogger Queen of the Cheese nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part.
4) These bloggers publish their 7 links and nominate another 5 more bloggers
5) And so it goes on! (like a ponzi scheme of getting views, HUZZAH)
6) The site Trip Base be sharing the best posts from participating bloggers on their blog and everyday on Facebook and Twitter at #My7Links


My most beautiful post- Because it was written with love and crap... And Many More

My most popular post- Hands down, Sparkles is Pregnant!? I illustrated this for Jen Yates and holy crap, she posted links and then people actually started reading my silliness!  I try to do the same for people who are funny and awesome, in part, because of how awesome and gracious Jen is.

My most controversial post- Seriously, I lost like 20 readers because of this post. I am sure I will lose more when I remind people that I don't want to make da babies. Dirty Dirty Baby-Hater

My most helpful post- What is more helpful than teaching people how to do algebra using zombies? Nothing. Nothing in the world. Not a damned thing. Monster Math- Zombie and Negative Numbers

My most surprisingly successful post- If you thought I was a freak before - You guys are nice and are good at reassuring non-breeding freaks of nature that they might just be okay. I didn't expect it.

My sad lonely post that needs love- You got red on you!  I worked really freaking hard on this... spent a billion and 42 hours creating it and was fully expecting Simon Pegg and/or Edgar Wright and also Nick Frost to actually look at it and retweet it to everyone in the world and then I would be the most famous blarger EVAR... but alas, very few people looked at it and after about 15 times of sending the link to Simon Pegg et al, I gave up because I just felt desperate and sad.  If any of you can make him look at it and share it, I'll do something gracious to show my appreciation.

My proud post baby that is better than all the rest- The Grand Canyon Incident



AND I now have permission, so you get to see the portrait I did.  I am thinking that this would be the best kind of portrait business, ever, to start.  I could do cute family portraits where everyone is happy and posed (at $60 an hour), but this kind is WAY more fun.

That is Mary of Just Inappropriate with her lovely children... and she is my first tag for this meme. She would probably like you to notice that she looks like a Disney Villain. I think this is one of the greatest family pictures ever.  It could be an offshoot of Awkward Family Pictures... "Ruined Portraits"  who wants to start it with me?

But I digress, I also nominate:
Sarah of A Blogful of Boredom
Gweenbrick
Jennifer of You're doin' it wrong
and
Sars of You Got Sars

And anyone else who wants to do it!

Urine big trouble, bladder!

I was planning on writing something so entertaining today that people would have DIED laughing, but I'm hella tired and I went to the doctor today and peed on my own hand, so the death by laughter will have to wait.

Here are the events leading up to my awesome day:

And... I'll find out in two days what the hell my jerk pee maker's problem is. In the meantime, thank goodness for AZO and cranberry juice.

The Tribute

You're flipping through the channel guide:

All Adam Sandler movies?! OH NO!!!


You immediately google:

Adam Sandler Dead?!

Winner, winner llama dinner.

I was quite pleased with the turnout on our first Scavenger Hunt, in that there was actually a turnout, and there were more than six entries.

Our top three winners, who actually left their houses to find all the items and/or interacted with other humans:


Ten Blue Stars
Kim (who inspired the hunt to begin with!)
Niamh

Lady-people, please send your mailing address to cheeseblarg at live dot com and I will get that envelope of happiness out to you by the end of the week.

And the next three, who had a mix of googling and human interaction are:


Sarah
Ms. MM
Bonnie

I loved your creative pictures and senses of humor in fulfilling my list. Thank you! Here are your personalized badges!

And to all the other people who have turned in their hunt finds, and who are still working on it, here is your badge.  It is on the honor system, but I will totally be mean to you if I find that you are using it without having  joined the llama games.

Please, go look at everyone's hunt results. They all did a great job.

As far as future scavenger hunts, I was thinking a Halloween Hunt might be lots of fun-- that is, that has to be done ON Halloween.  What do you think?

And a pinch to grow an inch!

Hey! Hey guys!

In exactly ONE MONTH, guess what!!!

No... guess again.
. . .

Damn it, fine.

IT WILL BE MY BIRTHDAY!!!

I wanted to give you advance warning so that you could all get together and plan me the best internet surprise party EVAR.  I'll go along thinking, 'they've all forgotten, no one's said a thing about it at all,' but then POW, you'll all jump out and scream "SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" and then I will most likely have a heart attack, which would be really sad... but wouldn't you be quite startled if approximately 1200 people all jumped out at you at the same time? That shit is scary.  Don't do that!

And you really couldn't keep it a secret anyway.  I would be driven to google "Surprise party for JRose" every day, because someone will make some comment somewhere and I would KNOW, just KNOW what was going on, and my detective nature will ruin it all. I'm an asshole like that.

But other than Halloween, birthdays are my favorite holidays. What's better than a day ALL FOR ME ONE SPECIAL PERSON!?  No one in my family really made a big deal about major holidays growing up, but my parents threw my sister and me big theme birthday parties every year that were totally bitchin'. AND they let us have boy/girl sleepovers, in high school, so yeah.

 I know you are thinking to yourself now, 'You've convinced me, your birthday is super important, but what should I get you!?' because like me, you are desperate for love and attention thoughtful and generous. And to that I say, "You don't have to get me a damned thing... unless you want to..." and then I will take anything that wasn't rubbed on a dead body OR poop and that doesn't contain something that will surely cause me some sort of physical harm. No zombie viruses, no anthrax, no ground glass, and though I appreciate the thought, no bodily fluids.

That may not help, but clearly you have been reading my blarg so you should have a slight idea of things that I like.

Llamas, narwhals, goats, dinosaurs, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, R2-D2 (and Star Wars), Data (and Star Trek), Harry Potter, Portal, zombies, bacon, candy (that doesn't taste like bacon), stickers, felt barrettes, large stacks of cash and gift cards, diamonds, unicorn shaped jumbo jets, keys to a shiny new Australia.... or a mash up of any of the above.

Here is some examples of things I think are awesome:

Awesome Dino Felt Barrette

Interesting fact- I always draw myself mirrored. I actually wear my barrettes on the right side. 

R2D2 felted charm

Portal Weighted Companion Cube Pendant

Any of these things from my wishlist on ThinkGeek.com

 

And Archie McPhee is always fun:

 I also collect metal lunchboxes, hand-painted plastic snowdomes, and mold-o-rama figurines and have a wishlist at amazon.com.

And one of my favorite birthday songs, to get us all in the mood!

p.s. You are totally expected to save birthday wishes for my actual birthday. I mean, you can give them now but they don't actually count until 4:04 am EST October 2nd.


ETA- Awesome reader Ronja has created a facebook birthday party event. I think it maybe be a surprise, but I somehow figured it out. =P

September Sticker Sale- T-Rex Wants Ice Cream

Dinosaurs just can't catch a break!

I drew this sticker because I had a dream about dinosaurs last night where I had a teacup triceratops that was bright red, and it was super cute and liked snuggling/ nuzzling its horns into my throat. My neighbors had miniature brachiosauruses that were nibbling on geraniums in their front yard.

This is a limited edition sticker, sold only during September.  There are 48 available.




No longer being sold, sorry!

As always, this is a homemade, hand cut, matte finish sticker. It measures 4" by about 3.3". There is no additional shipping. All sent in a standard envelope with a cute drawing on it by me. And as always, if you have the desire to pay me extra money, the option is available (and super mega appreciated).

Please remember to choose a payment option before clicking "buy me!"- International buyers, please choose international shipping for the first sticker and US pricing for any additional stickers.

Thank you to those who bought last month.  You bought us gas and medicine... and medicine for gas!