Reasons I Love NY Vol. 3

Because there is a store that sells raccoon penis bones:

for only $10. Now I know what to get all my friends for Christmas!

I've walked by this store

(it's called Evolution, located in SoHo) a billion times but never went in. It's one of those places that I always make a mental note to myself to go back and then when I have free time I always forget where it is or what it's called. But a couple of days ago I had an actual need to go in: my friend Alex wants a mounted deer head (she's awesome) for her new apartment, so we went on an adventure after brunch to see if we could find one for a reasonable price. Evolution's offerings were a bit over her budget, but we had an awesome time poking around. The place has everything: need a stuffed porcupine? Got it. Freeze-dried rats and mice? Check. A snarling lion, a penguin, a fetal skeleton, a rattlesnake and a piglet? Please proceed to the register, because they have ALL of those. My two favorites that I would buy in a second? A beautiful white peacock:

and a chipmunk:

which I would dress in a tiny top hat and monocle. I can't wait to get an apartment of my own.

Direction

Along with many other lovely summer dresses, skirts and shirts that will soon comprise my summer work wardrobe (Thanks Mom!) I bought this for myself:

Yes, the compass works. I justified this purchase because: not only is it extremely cute but when I get off the subway and I'm extremely disorientated and perhaps a bit tipsy and need to go south, I can reference my handy-dandy sailor necklace. My father's Boy Scout days are influencing me in ways I never could have imagined.

Expensive

I may be alone in thinking this, but paying $10 to ride one of these:

is absurd. Therefore, I did not do it today with my sister and grandmother. Screw you, Territory Days!

Horoscope

CANCER
June 22-July 22

Something you really need to do is still on your radar, but that doesn't mean that you have to finish it up right away. It's a good time to follow up on whatever needs to be kept up with, though.


Yeah. Tell me about it.

Want Vol. 2

I have a limited time frame where I can hang up posters in my living spaces and have it not look juvinille, and I want this poster. Very bad. Concerning the whole debate on whether Shepard Fairey is a plagiarist, I could really give a flying f***. The whole debate about recycling images is an old one, and something that is going to continue as technology continues to make the manipulation process easier. Is it so wrong that I just want to buy the damn poster?

Much needed update

So the reason I haven't updated this for a while is because I did a little thing called GRADUATING COLLEGE.

Whatever. I was over it the second it started- I wasn't really graduating anyway because I have to take summer school, my parents almost missed the ceremony, it rained, I got seated in the wrong spot and almost fucked up getting my "diploma", and to top it all off I got under two hours of sleep/ate nothing but a muffin and the ceremony lasted until 3:30. I'm pretty sure the universe was concocting a giant FUCK YOU to send me on my way, and boy did it deliver. I was so tired and over it that I didn't even stay to take the requisite billion pictures with people I'll probably never see again (and if I do see them again, I can just put on my cap and gown and re-create that hellish day. You better believe I kept that shit). And now fucking facebook is plastered with everyone and their mom screaming with joy about how they're done forever while at the same time sobbing about not being able to find jobs. Seriously, if I see one more picture on my newsfeed of someone's random relatives or a miniature Tom Brokaw delivering his speech from a billion miles away, I'll throw my laptop at a small child and then push them off a cliff. And now, a list.

Other things that have happened in between then and now that got overlooked:
1. I saw Star Trek. It was good, not mind blowing or superb like all the critics are saying, but worth seeing in theatres. I'll probably devote a post to that later, so I'll move on.
2. I engaged in Senior Week activities, and discovered that a) drinking on a boat is awkward and awesome at the same time, b) running after a cab barefoot is not the smartest idea, and c) watching people run face first into trees will never not be funny.
3. My parents found out about my tattoo and didn't care. At all. Which is weird.
4. I moved into my summer housing assignment and I think I'm living with all freshman. Joy.
5. Got a new haircut.
6. Was told that my boss at my internship is scary, and now I'm terrified to start working.
7. Hung out in Central Park with my dad and sister on one of those perfect spring days when everyone else is there and laughed at the crazies playing guitar around the "Imagine" thing in Strawberry Fields.
8. Flew home on a plane that was 80% senior citizens and 19% soldiers.
9. Am home now with no car, but my mom bought me a case of Stella (ha!) so I'll be sitting up in my room drinking/watching my Six Feet Under DVDs/updating this until I fly home on the 25th.
10. I can't think of anything else, I just wanted to make it an even 10.

Time Travel

Last night's season finale of Lost was awesome. I will admit that I was a bit sceptical around the time it was revealed that some would integrate themselves with the Dharma Initiative, not because I thought it was bad writing, I just was uneasy about where the show was going. Like others who watch the show, I had assumed that the entire season would revolve around the Jack, Kate, etc trying to get back to the island. But after watching last night and reflecting on the season as a whole, I'm thoroughly satisfied. The only thing I'm pissed about is having to wait so long for the next season. It's like the seventh Harry Potter, I want want want the end to be here but I don't want it to be the end, if that makes any sense at all.
The greater issue in this season of Lost that I've been thinking about is the one of time travel-not about whether it's possible or the loopholes- no, I've been thinking about (god, I'm such a nerd) if it happened to me, how much I would suck at it. I'll allow Hurley to demonstrate:

No tests my ass, Sawyer. This was one of my favorite Hurley moments of the season (there were so many, it's hard to talk about them all) but it really got me thinking. If I was somehow transported back in time, I would suck so hard at a) convincing people that I wasn't from the future and b) at preventing catastrophic events. Ask me the date of when this happened:

or when Kennedy/MLK/Lincoln was assassinated. I dare you. Because without Wikipedia, I couldn't tell you. I have a general idea, but if it came down to me stopping something on a specific date/time, well, let's just say history would remain unchanged. I would be more than useless: if I tried to invent the light bulb or the television or vaccines or just about anything that involves more than Popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue, it would be over in two seconds. What I could do is predict what movies were going to blow up the box office. But watch that save my ass after getting transported back to medieval England. No, I would be burned as a witch, or suffer the rest of my short life blind as a bat because contacts haven't been invented yet and I'm certainly not going to get the ball rolling on that one.

Reasons I Love NY Vol. 2

Because, according to Gothamist, there's a giant sad panda that lurks around Battery Park.

Game

The people at PopCap have invented a distraction to help keep me indoors all summer:


The zombie dolphin is my favorite.

Carbonation

Sugary drinks have been a staple in my diet ever since they were forbidden by my parents (damn hippies). This year I've been trying to cut out my daily can of Coke and substitute it with water in an effort to not gain 5 billion pounds. But it's a habit I can't quite kick. My preferences have slightly changed; I'm starting to favor more old-fashioned drinks like Boylan's:

over the polar bear covered cans of my youth. This probably makes me a hipster douchebag, but I really do think that they taste better because of the glass bottles they come in. And if I'm eating Mexican food, there is nothing better than a bottle of Jarritos:

Those little bottles of bubbly Mexican perfection fill me with utter joy. All this talk of carbonated drinks reminds me of my days at summer camp. I attended one in Michigan, and you could tell where the other campers were from solely by what word they used to describe beverages- "pop" meant you were from the north/midwest, "soda" meant you were from the rest of the states. I refused to refer to it by anything except "Coke" because a) I was a child superhero and wanted my origins to remain hidden, and b) Coke was the only thing I would drink. Pepsi wasn't sweet enough, Sprite was too watery if you put it with ice, Orange soda (while the favorite of Kel) was too sweet and reminded me of liquid candy. No, Coke was and still remains my favorite out of all of them. I just wish they sold it in glass bottles here more often.

Top of Netflix cue

List

I took (and probably failed miserably) my last real final exam yesterday afternoon. This fills me with a small amount of excitement, because while I'm not that thrilled about graduating, I am over the freaking moon that I will never have to endure a finals schedule like the one I just did. Two mind numbing exams on Thursday and then another one on Friday had me hysterically laughing/screaming while curled up in a small ball on my couch. (I'm not exaggerating. Ask my roommates. They were scared.) Now everyone is telling me to celebrate because I'm done forever and get to enter the real world and be a person, which I've been desperately trying to avoid for the past 5 years. I know I'm going to get extremely nostalgic in the coming months/years/decades about college, so I figured to counter that I would compose a list to remind future me of the brain dissolving pain I have just endured.

Reasons Why I Hated Final Exams

1. Sleep deprivation. I do not do well in life if I don't receive lengthy amounts of sleep. Even getting 8 hours, which would refresh a normal person, requires me to consume caffeine in order to function. I have never, ever been able to pull all nighters because they make me physically sick. I become more of a bitch than I already am, if you can believe it. Plus, I love my bed. I love being in it, I love eating in it (ala Liz Lemon), reading in it, doing.... ahem.... other things in it (like reading or watching Lost. Heh). My mattress pad is one of those Swedish space foam ones that just absorb your hand print/body and my sheets are soft and it's great. I freaking love my bed. So anything that deprives me from being in it automatically = hate.

2. I miss my TV shows. Yes, I KNOW I can watch them online the day after. I'm not stupid. This doesn't mean I like to. I actually hate watching things on my computer, it hurts my eyes, the quality often sucks ass and my university internet connection is so slow I'm pretty sure it's powered by a room of senior citizens plugging and unplugging phone jacks or other important wires hidden somewhere on campus. Yes, online TV has less commercials. This doesn't make the commercials any worse to watch. In fact, it's even more annoying to watch the same horrible commercial about the benefits of grape juice or some car I'll never buy 5 times in a row than the traditional blocks of assorted ones. Plus, I like being able to multitask- chat on computer, eat cheeseburger, watch 30 Rock, talk on phone. Finals negate ALL of that.

3. The constant writing of essays aggravates my neck/shoulder to no freaking end. I gave myself whiplash (because I'm awesome) at the beginning of last summer, so now when I'm under a ton of stress and have to write a lot, all the tension becomes centered in those two places. This time, the pain got so bad I couldn't sleep. I even got a massage and it didn't help.

4. I miss out on awesome geeky things like the opening night of Star Trek. Now everyone and their mom has seen it, except me. Which means while everyone is going to be talking about that one cool one alien fight or what an asshole Spock was, I'll just be sitting there drinking myself into a coma and counting down the days until Terminator comes out.

5. The library here at school makes me want to set things (and certain people) on fire. It's a windowless cavern filled with blinking fluorescent lights and asshole law students who have forgotten simple etiquette/enjoy having whisper-shout conversations while others (me) are trying to get work done. I can never find the girl's bathroom. Unlike the boy's, which is located right in front, the geniuses who designed this place used Harry Potter magic to make it so the toilets I require move to a different place each day. It's like the Room of Requirement, but in reverse. And the AV room, oh sweet lord. That fucking room is always closed when I need to check out a movie for class, and when it happens to be open, 9 times out of 10 the professor has made it so that the DVD can't be taken out of the room and you have to sit in the most uncomfortable chairs ever for 2 hours trying to watch Japanese or Italian children die while the law student next to you is yelling about torts or objections or dicks in their mouths. I hate the library.

6. I'm a terrible test taker. Two hours of me scratching away in some little blue book never reflects my full comprehension of the class. I suck at spelling. My handwriting is awful. It's just not a good thing. Papers are better because I have more time (unless I procrastinate) to formulate my arguments, correct mistakes, etc. I'm horrible at remembering names and dates, so if you want the specifics, let me write a goddamn paper. I sucked in high school, I sucked at the SAT's, I suck now, and if I decide to go to grad school, I'm going to suck then. It's just how my brain works.

7. Caffeine does wonders (sarcasm!) on my digestive system.

8. The universe likes to wait and save the most beautiful, warm spring days for when I have to be holed up in a dark room trying to memorize things like the different types of gay culture featured on 'Will and Grace' or how the TV news has changed from informative to soul-suckingly awful. The Communications and Media Studies major, ladies and gentleman!

9. Finally, in about a month, maybe less, I will have forgotten 67% of this information I slaved/cried over for the past semester. In 5 months, I will forget 83% of the Spanish I have spent 5 years learning. Puta madre.

So, future me, I hope that by writing this I've made you feel a bit better about missing college. Have fun returning to your 8 hour job serving assholes at Starbucks!
XOXOXOXO
Hartley

Michael Ian Black knows how I feel

From his blog:

Today was tough. I woke up cold, crabby, and with a sore throat that made me feel as if I had spent the previous evening blowing Neptune, God of the sea.

EXACTLY. He and I are kindred spirits. Also, his blog is hilarious. Check it out.

New Favorite Website

Lookatthisfuckinghipster.com has this to offer, and much, much more:



I almost lost it in the middle of the library. The hipsters provide me with such joy.

Quote

I think this quote accurately sums up most of the material I've been exposed to as a Media Studies major:

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognise that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.-Edward R. Murrow, October 15th 1958

Buckets of Awesome

Skateboarders + explosions + Spike Jonze + hints of plaid = amazing.

New Favorite Artist

Mike Mitchell. His stuff is awesome.

Like, super awesome. Website here.

Wow.

It's like looking into the future (except without being pursued by Matt Saracen and moving back with my parents).

Hi Denny!

And now, a much needed update. Last Friday I had the honor and privilege to attend a midnight screening of a movie called The Room. Not many people know of it, but it's gained cult status out in LA where they do Rocky Horror-ish monthly screenings. Now they've started screenings in other cities, and it's starting to get a major underground following. Why? Because it's bad. Oh dear god... is it bad. Not "Waynes Brothers let's make fun of white people and sports movies" bad. Bad to the point of utter brilliance. Although I dont know what else you would expect coming from a man that looks like this:

That's Tommy Wiseau, the director, star and mysterious genius behind The Room. But more on him later.
People love this movie- the line to get in the theatre stretched around the block and people dressed up in costume. (Side-note: I feel like you can tell a lot about the quality of the product by judging the members of the fandom. Example: Twilight fans? Just...no. But to quote my friend Jon, "The Room has hot nerds".) The Room has earned itself a sizable and eager fan base, and not just out of ordinary, run of the mill NYU film nerds. FAMOUS people love it too. How do I know this? Sit down kids, and prepare to be amazed. A little back story: Tommy Wiseau is known to show up to the LA screenings and do Q&A sessions before the movie, where he treats the audience to rants on his film's brilliance and refuses to answer questions about where he's from and how the hell he was able to finance the project. After we had all taken our seats, ushers dressed in tuxedos announced that the man himself would be joining us. That turned out to be a lie; instead of Wiseau a man in a bad wig ran up in front of the screen. I was about to yell something like "How dare you deceive us, I want the real Tommy not some asshole in a wig blah blah blah" and then the man turned around to reveal his face:

I let out such a fangirly scream, all the dogs in a 10 mile radius probably went nuts. DAVID FUCKING CROSS PEOPLE! That, if anything, solidifies the brilliance of this movie. Cross took questions as Tommy and tossed a football around (makes sense if you've seen the movie) and made us laugh and solidified in my mind that the man can do no wrong. But I digress.
I'm not really sure how to describe the actual movie. It takes place in San Francisco (prompting movie goers to yell out the "Full House" theme whenever those vertical houses are shown on screen). Tommy stars as Johnny who has a lot of money and dates this girl Lisa who's cheats on him with his best friend and for some reason adopted the world's oldest orphan. The plot itself really isnt important- you just have to know that Lisa's a lying whore. Wiseau must have some serious issues with women; every single female is a manipulative liar, fixated on money, and in one case, likes to break in and have sex on friend's couches. Plot holes and technical errors abound- the movie will go out of focus, people appear with no introduction or explanation, and some of the worst usage of green screens in history are featured. Framed photos of spoons are all over the apartment where the action takes place. Lisa's mother is ill:

and never mentions it again. Denny gets beat up for buying/selling drugs and then spends the rest of the movie just being creepy:

That's him creepily staring at the pillow fight, a scene that occurs before one of the movie's many.. um... shots of Wiseau's ass pumping away. Luckily? Denny has left by then. Johnny and his friends toss around a football at incredibly close range, once in tuxedos for no reason at all. I could go on, but you really have to see it to really understand. Needless to say, it was one of the most amazing nights of my life, and I will be returning every month to throw spoons at Wiseau's dimpled ass. To finish, I'll leave you with one of my favorite scenes ever.

I have resolved to greet all dogs I encounter a la Tommy from now on.