#hashtags

This will more than likely become obsolete within the next few months because internet trends advance and progress so quickly, but I feel the need to address it while it's still relevant. I am, of course, talking about the latest and greatest in online trends; the pound key, the number sign, the tic-tac-toe, the scuff mark, the sharp, the hex symbol, the scratch mark... the hashtag.

The 'hashtag' is a unique and useful symbol that has recently (within the last few years) gained more purpose than it has had in years past. I have no idea why I'm even beginning to explain what a hashtag is, because if you've even touched a computer at least sometime in the last year, you already know what I'm talking about. Hashtags have recently made their way to more and more social networking websites, and their usage is now quite widespread. And while they can come in handy if used correctly, you'd better believe that there will always be those prepared to misuse them. For this reason, and for the benefit and well-being of the internet, I bring you...

Rule #1: Don't be redundant.  Let's say you discover something new and want the whole world to know about it; a new drink for example. It is perfectly acceptable to use a few hashtags to express something about the drink or maybe what you think of it, i.e. "Wow! Who knew apple flavored Snapple tasted so good! #delicious #anappleaday." There is nothing wrong with that sentence. Not that I would actually post something like that, but you get the idea. This is where it gets out of hand: "Holy apple Snapple! Apple Snapple is amazing! #holy #apple #Snapple." This is incorrect. Rather than expressing your love of the drink, it appears to me that you are expressing your love of monotony. It lacks creativity, and you would've been better off just leaving out the hashtags altogether, as they say nothing different than what you typed five whole words ago.

Rule #2: Don't replace whole sentences.  #There #is #no #excuse #for #typing #like #this. Seriously, can you imagine what it would be like if someone actually talked like this in real life?

Rule #3: Don't overdo it.  This is easily the most frequently broken but most important rule to remember. I am reluctant to show you an example, but I have to do so for educational purposes. Please put on some protective eyewear before viewing the next picture.

Stop. If this is you right now, stop. If your ultimate goal in posting something like this is to get as many 'likes' or 'retweets' as possible, you're doing it wrong. In fact, a post like this is the fastest way to get me out of my chair and send me running in the direction of the nearest corner to cry for hours.

...So there you are! You now are fully educated on how to 'hashtag.' Be sure to use your newly-given powers wisely. Educate your friends! Clean up internet rule-breakers! Fight against attacking hashtag misusing ninjas! Whatever!

(P.S. I totally didn't use a picture of a ninjabread man cookie cutter as a drawing reference...)

The "Tormenting"

After recently leaving the state to visit my brother, I began to remember how much he used to intimidate me. In actuality, nothing on this trip even triggered any of these memories, but I had to have some reason to randomly start blogging about him, and my recent visit with him was the perfect excuse... even though I meant to write this blog post months ago. Me and procrastination high-fived.

*fllaassshhbaacckk*

So imagine a six-foot tall 16 year-old who's broader than a doorway. Now imagine that this guy is 10 years older than you and makes a hobby out of collecting swords, knives, and other dangerous and deadly weaponry. This guy would be my older brother.

His appearance and obsession with sharp things had nothing to do with the fact that I was afraid of him, however. His bedroom was a different story.

Located upstairs at the very back of the longest hallway in the house was his room. Because the door was always shut, there was no way of knowing whether or not he was in there. But if there is one thing I ever learned from him, it was to never enter his room. Ever. Mom either disagreed with this rule, or she just liked to watch me struggle in agonizing fear, as she could come up with a million different reasons to send me to that unholy place. Every time I approached that door, an overwhelming wave of fear would penetrate me, leaving me literally frozen in front of the door, arm outstretched toward the doorknob, just standing.

I don't even know what I expected to be on the other side of that door, but it was a 50/50 shot. Either my brother was in the room or he wasn't. I'm not sure if I've done a good job expressing the strictness of the "do not enter" rule or not, but it was basically a life or death situation.

If he wasn't in the room, I could bolt in there, retrieve whatever it was my mom wanted out of there, and run out. If he was in there, I had two choices: I could hope he didn't hear the door open, then shut it and tell Mom I couldn't find what she wanted, or I could quietly approach him and explain the situation.

I usually stuck with the former.

There is a reason I made such an effort to play by my brother's rules. My mom has always had a very soft-spot for anyone under the age of 13. Being 6 years-old at the time, I got away with a lot of things that I shouldn't have. My brother saw what was happening, and took it into his hands to discipline me. This usually involved me getting yelled at, then being sent to my room for a few hours; a technique my mother referred to as "tormenting." The only thing my brother hated more than me getting away with everything, was that term. His threats and the fear of getting in trouble with him was what intimidated me, and why I used to avoid coming into contact with him whenever possible.

With all of this in mind, the most sensible course of action was obviously to sneak into his room while he was at school and play his video games all day. I'm pretty sure he still doesn't know about that.

I was too paranoid of him showing up behind me while all my focus was in one of the games, that I rarely played for longer than 30 minutes. Still, it was the closest thing I've ever done to diving into a swimming pool of dynamite with a lit fuse strapped to my back.

To be fair though, without my older brother "tormenting" me through a couple years of my life, I'd probably still be getting away with stupid stuff and more than likely be a bit of a wimp. Also, I never would have had the opportunity to be chased through the house by a man in a bloody scream mask threatening to kill me if I didn't yell "I'm Bobo the Clown and I eat crickets!" into a tape recorder. So thanks for that, Sloshy. ;)

My Strange Desires (PART 3)

**NOTICE** Since I have neglected to update in quite some time, I thought that I would do something a little different to shake things up a bit. For the next few posts, I will be hand-drawing all of the cartoon panels. Enjoy! --- (This post is part of a three-part series. You'd probably have a better idea of what's going on if you started at the beginning: bit.ly/107WvFh)

You've probably seen one of these before. Either on some redneck, or a country hick guy, or a country redneck hick guy. Maybe you saw it on a famous old cartoon or a black & white TV sitcom somewhere (what do you watch?). Nevertheless, you've seen one. And the first thing you probably thought was "wow, that is stupid-looking."  "that is easily the most breath-taking thing since sliced... cucumbers!" At least, that's what I thought, and I don't even like cucumbers.

So there it was, staring me in the face from behind the computer screen. I didn't think of how it would look on my head. I didn't think of the possible Peter Pan jokes that would come out of it. I didn't think of ham and cheese sandwiches. All I thought was "I must have it." Surprisingly enough, it wasn't that hard for me to convince my mom that I would rather have a coon hat than the rainbow stovepipe hat I had been nagging her about for the past 17 hours. So we both switched gears and began looking at as many Daniel Boone hats that 2 people could possibly look at for 20 straight minutes. It seemed as though there was as much variety in these hats as there were in the Dr. Seuss hats. Grey ones, brown ones, ones made of real fur, ones made of faux fur, ones with short tails, ones with long tails, and some with 2 tails. I finally came across a hat I liked with a perfect combination of tail length, color, and size, and imploded with joy at the sight of the "your order has been placed" message box appear on-screen.

 I wasn't going to let this hat make it's appearance quietly, so when it arrived in the mail, I immediately threw it on my head and ran outside. I don't even know what I planned to do out there, but I knew that the world had to watch me flaunt my hat's outstanding...ness. I think I ended up playing catch with myself or something, but it didn't matter because all of my 2 neighbors weren't even outside to marvel in my new hat's glory. Despite this, I was still the proud owner of fuzzy head warmth. When it was time for me to go to bed, I hung the hat at the edge of my bed's footboard and dozed off.

When I woke up the next morning, something didn't feel right. I sat up and looked around, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I stepped off my bed onto the floor and immediately jerked my foot back; my carpet was unusually soft. When I glanced down at the floor, I noticed brown and black fur scattered everywhere, and my dad's dog sleeping peacefully. I cannot put what I thought at that moment into words, so here is the most realistic reenactment of the events that took place that I can portray:

That concludes the three-part series. Next post will be in full color!

My Strange Desires (PART 2)

**NOTICE** Since I have neglected to update in quite some time, I thought that I would do something a little different to shake things up a bit. For the next few posts, I will be hand-drawing all of the cartoon panels. Enjoy! --- (This post is part of a three-part series. You'd probably have a better idea of what's going on if you started at the beginning: bit.ly/107WvFh)


Back in grade school, my school used to host a yearly "fun festival" as it was called. It was sort of like a big outdoor party before summer break began and it was easily the best day of the school year. Water balloon fights, a lot of soda, face-painting, pieing-in-the-face, confetti eggs, and rock climbing were just a few of the many activities that took place at this fair. Of course this festival was just a big fund-raiser for the school, so in order to do any of the activities you'd have to buy a bunch of tickets, probably at a stupid price (I wasn't the one paying so it didn't matter to me). You could either use these tickets for all of the stuff aforementioned, or you could try using them to them to earn special colored tickets that could purchase prizes that the standard tickets couldn't... which brings me to strange obsessive phase #2.

Each year during this festival, a certain system ran through my mind. I don't remember how accurate this system was, but basically the thought was who ever was wearing/holding the most crap purchased with the colorful tickets, the higher rank they were on the "awesome" scale. And I can certainly tell you that the kid holding the inflatable electric guitar and wearing the rainbow stovepipe hat was the most awesome child, to ever have graced my presence, at that specific moment in time.

 

Well I guess I had missed my chance because the festival was starting to wind down and my family and I were about ready to start heading home, right? Heck no! I immediately flipped around and pushed through the crowd that was attempting to exit the school-grounds, nearly tripped over the hotdog guy, and found myself standing in the gymnasium; the prize room; the cave of wonders. I casually strolled over to the prize counter like nothing was going on, when inside I was dying of excitement over the fact that I was about to look that much more amazing.

I guess it never did occur to me that I only had about 20 colored tickets in my possession when in reality, about all that could get you was a plastic spider ring or a Chinese finger trap made out of straw. Not until I asked the lady at the counter how much one of the hats cost did I realize that I was virtually broke in the ticket realm. She replied with a heart-sinking "75 tickets" and then strengthened the blow with "this is our last one." Realizing that I had been defeated, I bought myself a deck of cards and sulked to the car.

The fact that the stovepipe hat in all of its glory just barely slipped through my fingertips was apparently not in itself a depressing enough thought for me. Nope, not until I envisioned Awesome Kid walking in front of me, flaunting his rainbow floppy hat around on loop, was my brain satisfied with its misery. Over dramatic? Just imagine if you almost had the chance to walk around like a floppy rainbow Dr. freakin' Seuss all over the place. I bet you'd blog about it too... or not. Whatever.

Sometime between the mix of unpacking my backpack, eating dinner, doing the dishes, and getting used to the fact that school had just gotten out, my mother decided to bring to my attention the fact that there is such a thing as the internet, which just so happens to be a source that contains all things in the known universe; stupid looking hats included. For some reason there was always this connection in my mind that said if you could see it physically, in person, then it was able to be purchased. Not once did it occur to me "well that's okay, I can always just search up the hat and find a price for it on the intertangles of the computer universe." Also, a side note that was equally enlightening was the fact that my mom was the person to suggest anything about the hat in the first place, not me. But obviously there was no time for any sort of comprehension at this precise moment because a decision of my mom's that was this sporadic had the danger of being second-guessed at any given point in time. I had to act quick.

I rushed her over to her computer and immediately started scrolling through the pages and pages of stovepipe hats that flooded the monitor. Red, blue, grey, yellow, purple, and green striped. The list of colors went on but I never did see a rainbow one. The rainbow one. The one hat that somehow had the ability to posses all of the universe's awesomeness in one tall array of cheaply stitched felt. I started to ponder whether or not I should just choose a different color scheme since there were obviously plenty to choose from. But then I saw it. Not the rainbow stovepipe hat*, but a different hat. A better hat. Not even a stovepipe hat at all, but a hat so amazing, that it was a wonder how I ever could have managed to even physically exist without owning one...

...TO BE CONCLUDED


*Note: I did eventually end up getting a rainbow stovepipe hat, but it happened a couple of years later. One of the ladies at the prize counter was nice enough to sell it to me for 40 tickets! Score! (I haven't worn it since)

My Strange Desires (PART 1)

**NOTICE** Since I have neglected to update in quite some time, I thought that I would do something a little different to shake things up a bit. For the next few posts, I will be hand-drawing all of the cartoon panels. Enjoy!


I went through a close to three year phase in which I would focus in on all of the "coolest" made-in-China crap you could ever imagine. I"ll admit, a faux leather wrist strap with transparent blue spikes sticking out of it does sound just a tiny bit ridiculous now, but back then, the only thing that might have been cooler would have been a jetpack. No I take it back. This spiky wrist strap was way cooler. And it was all mine. The only thing required from me was to obtain half a dollar and to conquer one of my arch-enemies. The claw.

Immediately I rushed over to the machine and drooled all over the glass. Spikes. On your wrist. I probably would have envisioned myself adorning this masterful piece of work on my wrist while sporting a leather jacket and being the coolest grade-schooler you've ever seen, but there was no time to lose. I had to beg my mom for some money before she walked too far from the machine. As I approached her, a sudden dreadful thought clouded my mind.

I decided to try my luck and ask her anyway. That's when my worst fears came to life. As I remember, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hey Mooooom! Can I borrow two quarters so I can play the claw game and win pretty much the coolest thing ever created on earth by human hands?"

Mom: "No."

Psh, whatever. It's not like we don't go to this grocery store every other day. Eventually she'll have to cave-in to my age-ten perfected nagging skills and give me at least the chance to win the spiky-wristy-thing. Right? Fast-forward a couple of months later. I nagged my mom about the spike bracelet practically every day but to no avail. Perhaps I would never have the opportunity to flaunt around my spiky wrist in other people's faces for enjoyment after all.

It was now getting pretty close to my birthday, and my parents had told me that we would be celebrating it at the Dave & Busters down near the mall. I was so freakin' excited about Dave & Busters for the next week that the spike bracelet didn't even enter my mind once. Until I walked through those double doors. Boom. An identical claw machine to the one at the grocery store, except this one had spiked wrist straps and spiked collars. I was immediately transported to a place in my imagination that involved something to do with strange spiky apparel. I was so immersed in these thoughts however, that I didn't even notice that my parents had already paid for our game cards and were walking away. When I noticed this, I realized that I had just blown my chances of begging my parents for their money. The "but it's my birthday" excuse would just have to wait.

After about ten minutes, I realized that this place was enormous. Nobody could convince me that this place wasn't bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. It literally just kept going and going. After about three straight hours of partying, it had begun getting late and we still had to get home to eat cake and stuff. Of course the entrance and exit of the place were the same doors, and that gave me just enough time to pass by the claw machine yet again and bring back those taunting memories of spiky wrist and neck wear. This was about the time when it occurred to me that my parents had just paid for me and my entire family to enjoy unlimited gaming at the Dave & Busters, and I got the feeling that it would be ungrateful to ask them for more. Just after leaving, I realized that that would probably the last time I ever saw the claw machine again, to which I had an internal meltdown for letting my last chances to be spiky and awesome slip away so easily.

Now I was eleven years-old, but that didn't mean anything because I still didn't have any way of expressing my love for spiky wrist and neck gear. Somehow in all of this, my older brother overheard me talking constantly about my love for these things and referred Mom to a store that might carry something similar to my spiky needs. That's all it took. Close to four months of begging and pleading was nothing compared to my brother's words of wisdom, apparently. But it didn't matter. My mom finally agreed to make her son become the coolest guy ever.

When my mother and I entered into this store for the first time, I immediately began to question my brother's sanity. Every person in this place looked like something straight out of a horror movie. Of course the first guy to greet us was a man completely hidden in a black cloak with a massive needle running through his "face".

While I slowly started to gather the fact that I was the only eleven year-old in his school uniform at the store, my mom casually explained to the Grim Reaper that she was looking for a spiked choker for her son. He somehow manged to spawn a cellphone out of nowhere and call other locations around the area to see if they had anything in stock. He was just starting to explain to us that "they're on back-order" for the next couple of weeks, when a random employee walked up and handed me a collar that he had apparently found digging around in the "back room". It was exactly what I was hoping for, but by this point the only thing in my mind was if it would be possible to escape this place alive.

Now... I had finally achieved the goal I had been dreaming of for the past few months... I am now the coolest person who ever lived...

...I wore the collar one time and realized that I looked completely ridiculous in public...but! The story doesn't end there. In fact, this was only one of the many strange pre-tween phases that I went through. I have gone through so many of these phases in fact, that I am going to blog about them in a 3 part series. So stay tuned!

...TO BE CONTINUED

Playing With My Food

I think "don't play with your food" is pretty much a universal rule for most households. Well, we either didn't have that rule, or my parents just never noticed me doing it.

Take third grade for example. Every single day for lunch I had the most bland peanut butter sandwich ever created, some random healthy thing that I'd never eat, and a Capri Sun. To put in perspective how old that got, if I had some sort of pretzels or Goldfish in my lunch box, it was a big deal. So it's no wonder that I...erm..."played" with my food. It kept things interesting.

As you can imagine... most of my classmates avoided sitting at any table within fifty feet of me. Except for the awesome people of course.

But how could I stop there? I mean, if the destruction of the crappy sandwich was so much fun, just imagine the possibilities! But obviously, I wasn't allowed to run rampant around the house torturing different food items at my disposal. No... I had to find the perfect target.

This led me to one very important day at the grocery store.

I can kinda be considered a very creative person. For example, when most people saw thirty sticks of asparagus bundled together with a rubber band, I saw a machine gun. And you can bet that I, nor the rest of my siblings for that matter, would ever pass up the opportunity to have an asparagus machine gun "war", right in the middle of the store. Complete with sound effects.

Alas, this food would not do, for the "bullets" that the asparagus fired were only imaginary. And besides, there wasn't any physical dismemberment involved in which to maniacally laugh at. And thus, my search continued.

Well, Mom had already checked out, and by this point I had forgotten all about my bloodlust toward food and was just ready to get home and eat... until I found out what was for dinner.

It wasn't until I bit the head off of my brontosaurus and double-dipped it into the ketchup that I realized it was perfect. Not only was the ketchup the appropriate color, but it was also just the right consistency to act as a sort of 'glue'. This led to me dismembering the poor nugget at all of it's key limbs, then re-gluing it back together with the ketchup so that it was seamless again... and then hacking into pieces again to see the "blood" on the inside.

And this is the story of how all dinosaur nuggets became known to us as "dino bloodies".