My Battlecry: I Don't Want Any Magazines!

Most people who know me for any goodly length of time (by which I mean to say a month or so) know my tale of woe re: getting hoodwinked into magazine subscriptions by an on-campus solicitor as a freshman, after which I answered the door for the remainder of the year with "we don't want any magazines!"

Anywho, for most of my life, I have had some magazine subscription or the other. For the last 3-5 years, I have subscribed to JANE magazine, among others. Recently, I decided, hey, I'm really done getting this magazine. I'm older now, they're sort of unreliable about sending my magazines, and really, we've outgrown this relationship. So I ignored all the renewal notices and at last, today, I received my final issue.

And how will I remember JANE?

Harassing me to the end!

Why, oh why, is it necessary that my last issue's cover be glued over with that cardboard cover that says "THIS IS YOUR LAST ISSUE! ACT NOW!" ? That seems a bit over the top. It's only like $14, okay? Can't we end this with dignity and respect? Can't we honor what we had and say farewell quietly? Why must you be so tenacious? Why must you use all caps? It's over JANE. And Bon Appetit-- bonne nuit. Real Simple? It's been real. Now stop harassing me. I don't remember my separation from Highlights and Ranger Rick being so traumatic.

What can I say? I just don't want any magazines.

It IS Magic!

For those of you not in Houston or who exist in the realm of "eh, don't care," and if you also did not receive a text message from me last night, The Houston Astros are, for the first time in their 43 year history, going to the world series! WOOT!

Astros fever has taken hold of this town. The whole place was crazy last night and even I, considered by many to be an extremely casual sports fan (Erin might say a buffet fan who just steals the caviar garnish, though I loathe caviar) was lined up for nearly two hours to buy an NL Champions shirt at Academy, where thousands of others lined up, cheered, screamed, honked and parked on every available surface.

My iPod alarm clock woke me up this morning (randomly, I swear) to the 80s hit by Pilot "Magic," and in a meta-sleep state, I was re-hearing these lyrics in ultra cheesy MaryT fashion, below for your enjoyment.

Oh-ho-ho-it's Magic. Go 'stros!
Never believe it's not so.
They're magic, the 'stros.
Never believe it's not so.

I could regale you further, but honestly, I am caught off guard and slightly embarassed at my own fan-dom.

Missing Houston, Musically

This morning in the shower, I was just thinking how many songs are loving odes to their cities and how rarely loving odes are made to Houston, which if you ask me (and you might, since you are reading my site right now) is a heck of a town. Of course, there is no end to jazzy, bluesy, folksy, silly et al tributes to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. Granted the Miami ones are usually Latin-themed and spicy to the exclusivity of other genres, except maybe rap, but I am hard-pressed to think of one song that mentions Houston without the concurrent mention of some incarnation of booty or the R & B triumverate of "smoov, silky, and sexy." Not to mention that in these songs, Houston is only mentioned laterally as "H-town."

Now I loves me some H-town. Don't get me wrong. I'm in the hizzle with it and what not, but where is the jazzy ode to the waterwall or the Transco/Williams Tower? What of our absurd mid-town which is NOT between downtown and uptown, but rather a confused, lamer Montrose*. And what of our Montrose?! We're bigger than San Francisco, Las Vegas, AND Miami (me-ah-me!), and yet the best I can come up with is Stevie Nicks singing "Too Far From Texas," in which her mention is basically about a down-on-her-luck stripper waiting in a hotel room in possibly La Porte (I like to imagine she works at heartbreakers or something), waiting for her sugardaddy to leave his wealthy, genteel life in London and be a stand-up kind of baby daddy. And we're back to the baby-daddy genre (admittedly, somewhat extrapolated) for Houston songs.

If I were a songwriter, I would write one for Houston. And because it's me, it would be jazzy, in every sense of the word. Can I see some love for my H-town? Ah, crap. I am assimilated. Oh well.

*Jesse, bless him, is also in opposition to the completely queer idea that Houston has a mid-town. It does not. We are right. All your base are belong to us.

I (heart) Hate Mail

It's not often that I get hate mail at French-Roast, but I wish I got a whole heck of a lot more. I get so jazzy about it when I do, it makes every comment-checking errand seem like Christmas. To be quite honest, since F-R's heyday and the ubiquity of Captain Courageous, I haven't really seen any. I guess it's because for most people, going to the trouble of reading the blog of a stranger that you find vapid/dry/insipid/boring and then further going to the trouble of telling her so seems like kind of a misuse of time. I don't think that though. I think it is awesome.

For those of you who don't check the comments, I'd like to immortalize this little gem of circular logic from the 36 Hours on Craigslist Casual Encounters post.

next you should go to an orphanage or maybe make fun of the kids on the short bus . . . but that aligns with the lack of any interesting commentary on this blog . . . since you don't post your own picture, maybe old man river turned --you--down?

If I may, I'd like to provide a translation for anyone who doesn't quite follow.

I am one of the guys who showed up at Starbucks, but instead of making fun of me, you should liken me to a mentally retarded or parentless child and simply grieve for my future. Because of your inability to see how similar the unfortunate child and I are and write on that instead, your writing is dead to me. And because there is no readily-available image of you with which I might pleasure myself, you too, are dead to me.

I don't know, gang. What are ya gonna do?

This is my new back-up band. A demon.

I saw this little guy on a Christian literature web site. He is supposed to be Satan blowing a fuse because these people handed out proselytizing tracts that got noticed by everyone because WOW--cartoons! Apparently, the ones they want to reel in are the total buffoons who are utterly distracted by the idea of cartoons in a pamphlet. Just think of the market that whole "Can you draw? Take this simple test?" people are missing out on brainwashing.

Never mind. I'm sure plenty of people think applying to tv-version "art college" is legit. They are probaby also born agains. Same market, you know. Well, not that there's any shortage of buffoons, but whatever.

"Look! I can go to coll...HEY! cartoons are on tele...HEY! ice cream!"

Without further ado, my new mascot.

Reason 32948739546465 Why I Hate Birds

I got a car wash yesterday evening around twilight. From the hours of about 9pm to 6am today, my car was parked under a tree. In those 9 hours, the birds who nest in that tree called their buddies, neighbors, relatives, and basically any passing bird in to wage a full-scale poop assault on my car. Ho-LEE. My car is typically red, but this morning it was varying shades of white and poop.

Add this to the incident of last week in which I briefly walked under a tree while walking Molly and a bird bullseye pooped on the crown of my head where there's that tiny spot of not-hair, and I am seriously considering spraying down specific nesting trees with a hose connected directly to a tank of diarrhea.

Oh my God. What a hilarious idea. Don't steal it. Where can I get a tank of diarrhea with a hose with a power nozzle? Birds, watch out. I HATE YOU.

36 Hours on Craigslist Casual Encounters

Well, I am up to my old tricks again. Sort of. At least, I am involved in others' tricks again. This is kind of long, but pretty cold and evil, so you know, worth it.

For anyone who has never experienced the truly unique world that is craigslist casual encounters, I recommend you go here now, unless of course you are at work. Basically, it's a bunch of dudes and very few women, plus a lot of spammers and hookers, trying to organize some type of orgy. Indeed.

In general, I have no problem with desperate people. I have a deep and abiding reverence for the freaks and generally leave them alone, provided they do not impinge upon me. However, I am almost always interested in poking someone or something with a stick in the name of science and I was recently handed a very sharp stick. In this case, the poked, ironically, were the fellas from Houston Craigslist casual encounters.

(Meta thought: Holy crap. The Astros are now in the 18th inning!)

My favorite new trickster, Jesse, made the proposal. Suppose "some woman" (and by some woman, it is understood that I am such a woman) is about to start exclusively dating a man, who has given her 48 hours to er, sew her wild oats with any man she likes before she pledges her fidelity to him. This woman, might, perhaps post an ad on casual encounters soliciting offers from men who would like to entertain her in these 48 hours.

The responses to the post, which has now been deleted (for my safety and sanity), were sent to an anonymous hotmail account created especially for this purpose, and to which approximately 8-10 people had access. Within a couple of hours, there were about 25 responses. All told, I received about 225 responses from approximately 95 unique email addresses over 2 days. Some with pictures, many with phone numbers, all exceedingly frightening.

Enter my favorite old trickster: Matt (of the pen-loving variety), who beautifully orchestrated a rather cruel comeuppance for these uh...gentlemen callers. Matt distributed my email--urging "applicants" to meet up with me at a specific starbucks at a specific time wearing a specific thing-- and a googled photo of a girl with a dog to all these men. He then carefully checked the emails and sent timely replies to the eager beavers (ha!).

At the appointed time, Jesse, Matt, two of Jesse's friends, Molly, and I staked out starbucks. I was terrified and felt like a terrible person. However, the ensuing folly of men made me realize these guys desperately needed to be not just pitied, but also: drop-kicked. About 4-6 guys, that we know of, showed, but there's no telling exactly WHY that starbucks was buzzing at 10 pm with quite a few other men who were not wearing the agreed-upon outfit. Hmm. One such man, was, I believe Old Man River himself and was ABSOLUTELY wearing ankle-high black zip-up go-go boots.

In the following couple of days, disgruntled would-be lovers posted about their disappointment to casual encounters in very crude ways, but I imagine if I had been pointedly called out as a big, dirty pervert to no one's apparent knowledge except my own, I'd be kind of annoyed also. I also continued to receive very crass suggestive emails and no end of photographs of genitalia. Blech.

And now quickly, a few tips for the guys who emailed me/plan to email others:

• Don't use your WORK email address.
  
  
• DON'T use your freaking work email address, you moron!
  
  
• Rule of thumb: if one penis picture doesn't win her over, it's not likely that five additional ones will.
  
  
• Try to at least pretend you have read the post. For example, "please do not email me pictures of your penis" typically does NOT mean "please, by all means, be sure to include a picture of your penis."
  
  
• Old man river: wtf? Your chances of getting sex from an oldster are low, but from a 25 year-old? Randomly? hahahahaha

So that's all for now about this week's adventure. Stay tuned.

Congratulations, Houston Astros (18th inning division champs!)--let's win at the National League Championships!

Didja miss me?

Too bad. New *crazy* stuff coming tonight. Probably.