The Poway Rodeo is coming up this weekend and while I now would avoid attending the rodeo since its pretty much cruel and unnecessary despite the kettle corn, I’m not ashamed to say I have gone in the past.  One of the best things about the rodeo, besides the Mutton Busting (small children riding sheep), and eating aforementioned kettle corn, are the acts they have between the events.  A few years ago, my dad and I went to the Ramona rodeo and had the pleasure of witnessing a Rodeo Monkey named Whiplash.  I was inspired to do a quick search for Whiplash this morning and, let me just say, his website exceeds all expectations. 

It’s pretty much everything you would want a website about a Rodeo dog riding monkey to be.  The all bold text proclaims:  WHIPLASH THE COWBOY MONKEY IS A TRULY A FAN FAVORITE, HE IS AN INTERNATIONAL STAR AND A TRUE COWBOY.  This makes me wonder if Whiplash has ever met Sugar Bush Squirrel, the “International Superstar.”  Maybe they could get together and discuss what it is like to be a small animal dressed in ridiculous human clothes. 

The Whiplash website also includes a page with “SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT EACH ANIMAL.”  I was definitely curious to learn more about Whiplash.  While the fact that he likes Animal Planet is not the surprising (he probably enjoys watching what normal monkeys, ones that aren’t constantly humiliated by humans and forced to ride dogs do), but I was sort of surprised to see he also likes “Law and Order.”  I wonder why?  Last time I watched Law and Order it was just a lot people sitting in court rooms and really lacked the bananas I would think would make a show appealing to a monkey.  The page also has information about the dog he rides, Ben, who is apparently “THE MOST LOYAL AND COURAGOUS DOG EVER” (just a fact).  Another fact about Ben is that “HE IS AWESOME.”

According to Whiplash’s schedule, he will not be in Poway this year, and I probably wouldn’t go to the rodeo even if he was.   The remains in my thoughts and my heart however, and I wish him the best of luck as he continues to “ROCK THE HOUSE.”

Tags: , kettle corn, monkey, rodeos

…well apart from finding a website that tells me how to tie my shoes…

My cousin Laura, who is taking a Media Design class, got the okay to use one of my poems for a design project she has to do.  The poem, (My Wedding) is one of my favorites (that I wrote (how conceited is that)) and I am pretty excited about it.  Anyway, according to her “It’s basically supposed to be a lot of still photographs with music and voice-over of the poem.”  I thought I would stick the poem up here.  I’m also planning on including it in the chapbook Hannah is helping me put together…

My Wedding

If an ancient mariner

showed up at my wedding

I would be pissed, unless

he brought a very expensive

gift, like a nice china set or some crystal,

and then I would be

a little annoyed, but I would

let him stay.

Then he would probably end up getting

too drunk (I’ve heard mariners are rowdy)

and leading the Congo line right into a wall

Or else trying to put the moves on

my mother who would also

be too drunk and would

only encourage him

Maybe he would be one of those weepy drunks

and start whining about that damn albatross

to anyone that would listen and

everyone would be like,

“whoa that ancient mariner needs to be

cut off”

Anyway, it wouldn’t ruin my

wedding, it would only

be one of those things my husband and I

would joke about on the plane to our honeymoon in

Russia, and my friends

would joke about at the

scrabble parties we would host

in the years to come

 ”Oh remember that

ancient mariner,” we’d say over a glass of wine, “and how he showed up

at the wedding and wouldn’t stop

talking?”

And I’d say, “boy, he really smelled bad,

but I guess being at sea on a ship full of dead people

and wearing a dead bird around your neck

can really do that to you” and everyone would

laugh and say, “oh, you’re so terrible”

meaning funny,

and then I would put down the

word “zygotes” and win the game

But really this is all

one big “what if” because

what are the chances of

an ancient mariner

showing up at my wedding

anyway?

Tags: ancient Mariners, poems, self-promotion, weddings

(This is how I look when I camp)

Last weekend I went to Leo Carrillo National Park to camp and generally enjoy the great outdoors for the few days (which for me mainly means drink lots of beers and eat grilled cheese sandwiches). I had been looking forward to the trip since I booked it back in May since Leo Carrillo is basically the 5 star hotel of camping spots and is incredibly hard to get a reservation at from May to about December. It’s on the beach, has wonderful shady camping spots and is one of the more gorgeous places I’ve ever been. Anyway, in preparation for the trip, I did some research online and came across this eHow article on vacationing there. The article detailed how to make a reservation to go there (useful), instructions that in order to camp you need to set up your tent (campers should probably already know this, but ok), and what to do in the morning (”Wake up to the smell of burnt out campfires, the sun just coming up and birds chirping,” it would sort of suck if you didn’t wake up).

Anyway, I had not really had any experience with eHow before I was facinated to look through it. eHow is an interesting idea but it results in some very ridiculous instructions for things you should already know how to do (typing in “how to tie your shoes,” for instance, gives you 4,150 results). I decided that today, I will attempt to live an entire day simply by following eHow instructions.

7:00- Wake up and drink coffee

Articles that could help me with this include:

How to Wake Up in Good Mood and How to Brew Coffee (which hasthe very exact instruction “Serve in a large mug with 18% cream and sugar to taste”  18%???  how do I measure this?).

8:30- Drive to Work

Can I shorten my commute anymore if it’s already 4 miles?

9:00- Work

How to Meditate at Work 

5:30- Spin Class

For a while now, I’ve been trying to figure out How to Enjoy strenuous exercise.   If only I had read this and known that my problem was not wearing appropriate clothing!

7:30- Dinner

How to Finish Dinner on Time 

In short, eHow could instruct me on how to live my entire day.  I mean, I could spend the time trying to figure out how to brew coffee or wake up on my own, but why bother when I can ask the average internet user and get an answer?

The information age rocks.

Tags: , camping, eHow

Sometimes, in the morning, I get a cup of coffee and troll craigslist looking at their “Free stuff” section to see if there is anything good.  Mostly it’s just pictures of free couches with suspicious looking stains or someone giving away a bizarre assortment of things they found in the back of their yard and/or freezer (a recent posting was for free soy ice cream bars and the poster swore that they had only eaten one), but occasionally there is something really awesome on their (not that I ever go get the awesome things… I am too lazy, even for free stuff).  Anyway, this morning, there was this mysterious post for, for free bees:

–Free Bees, you remove.

The post also had a phone number, but there was really no other supplementary information.  This, of course is exactly the kind of thing that gets me thinking.  What circumstances lead you to have a bunch of free bees?  What do people charge for bees that aren’t free?  With the nationwide shortage of bees should we even really be giving bees away?  How do you remove a bunch of free bees? 

I am sort of tempted to call this person and try and get the free bees for myself.  Having an army of bees to do my bidding would be pretty awesome (although I imagine bees are sort of hard to control and more interested in making honey than waging war).  Anyway, thought I would toss it up here so everyone else could ponder it too…

Tags: bees, craigslist, free

There is something that occurs in Maxim Magazine interviews that I like to call “Hot Girl Trying to be Even Hotter By Making Stuff Up Syndrome” (or HGTEHBMSUS for short).  Basically it occurs when a girl who is already ridiculously hot and famous in an incredibly obscure way (Brazil’s Number 1 Thong Model!) then gives an interview to Maxim magazine so that the men that purchase it have something to point to when they are trying to convince their girlfriends that they aren’t just looking at Thong Models.  In this interview, the Hot Girl in question will make a variety of incredibly unbelievable statements that she obviously thinks will make most men find her even hotter.  “There’s nothing I love more than giving my boyfriend a massage while he watches his favorite sports team and eats chicken wings,” the model will say (Maxim will then put this quote in bold on top of a photo of said model licking a popsicle).   “I also really like wearing lingerie around the house while I clean, drink beers, and fantasize about that hot drunken night my college roommate and I had in Cabo” she’ll add.  HGTEHBMSUS is basically the magazine equivalent of kissing your sobriety sister at a Frat party to get guys.  Completely false, manipulative, and embarrassing for everyone involved and anyone that actually falls for it.  So far, I had only seen it in Maxim magazine, but today HGTEHBMSUS hit a whole new level, it spread to GQ.

Megan Fox, last seen pretending to be the world’s most unrealistic 16 year old (even Michael Bay should be ashamed) in Transformers opened up to GQ about a lesbian affair she had when she was 18.  It is safe to bet this was a hard decision for Megan Fox, but one she felt she had to make because it was a question being brutally honest with her adoring fan base (also one that had NOTHING to do whatsoever with the upcoming Transformers 2 and Fox’s movie “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” which opens October 3^rd).   From CNN:

Megan Fox has nothing to hide.

The candid 22-year-old “Transformers” star, who’s currently engaged to actor Brian Austin Green, opened up to GQ about her love life, telling the magazine she was once in love with a female stripper. Fox, who appears on the October cover in a black bikini, said she was in the relationship when she was 18 and first living in Los Angeles alone.

“Well, that year my boyfriend broke up with me, and I decided - oh man, sorry, mommy! - that I was in love with this girl that worked at the Body Shop,” said Fox. “I decided that I was going to get her to love me back, and I went out of my way to create a relationship with this girl, a stripper named Nikita.”

Fox said Nikita would do “these beautiful slow dances to Aerosmith ballads.” The actress also said she would bring the Russian stripper gifts and try to inspire her to quit her line of work.

Fox’s publicist, Dominique Appel, confirmed the contents of the GQ report Monday.

Despite the brief relationship with a woman, Fox said she does not identify herself as gay.

“Look, I’m not a lesbian,” said Fox. “I just think that all humans are born with the ability to be attracted to both sexes. I mean, I could see myself in a relationship with a girl - Olivia Wilde is so sexy she makes me want to strangle a mountain ox with my bare hands. She’s mesmerizing. And lately I’ve been obsessed with Jenna Jameson, but … oh boy.”

Wow, Megan Fox, really?  You just so happened to have had a hot lesbian affair that happens to sound exactly it was ripped from the dreams of the average 14 year old boy (your target audience)?  If Megan Fox was going to make up some bisexuality to make herself more interesting you would think she would AT LEAST be a little bit more subtle about it rather than going all out and throwing in a strip club, a Russian stripper named Nikita (Hannah, is that even really a Russian name???), AND Aerosmith ballads.  I mean, come on Megan Fox, did you guys also sometimes ride sweet fourwheelers together while you were wearing bikinis and drinking Steel Reserve?  Did you have a day job where you were a librarian, but you know, a really sexy one? 

Megan Fox then goes on to even further destroy any credibility by listing as her two celebrity crushes  Olivia Wilde (who plays a bisexual on House and has also frequented Maxim’s “Hot Lists”) and Jenna Jameson (she wasn’t even trying with that one). I like how Megan Fox, (much like the Katie Perty song “I Kissed a Girl”) is quick to point out that she isn’t actually gay (average 14 year old boy you still have a chance!) she just likes women when in the most titillating possible scenarios.  In fact, maybe Megan Fox and Katie Perry can get together and discuss how they like kissing super hot girls (Katie Perry claims her inspiration was Scarlett Johansson), but they hope their boyfriends are cool with it because they totally have boyfriends are not actually real lesbians. 

Someone needs to call Nikita for a comment.

Tags: completely BS publicity stunts, HGTEHBMSUS, Maxim Magazine, Megan Fix, Scarlett Johansson