Thus I became a Smart Phone user.

It’s not that easy to become a SmartPhone user out of the blue, because “smart” is describing the phone, not necessarily the user. Since I’m a novice to this whole thing, I don’t even know what it’s supposed to do. My phone apparently does a zillion different things, and it didn’t come with a manual. It came with a barebones “getting started” booklet which included things like “answering your phone” and “making a call.” However, every time some random event in the universe happens, the phone makes one of 25 different noises that sound like Tinkerbell farting, and though I thought I turned them all off, it still twinkle-farts every now and then. Usually, my way to deal with new technology is to go through the manual and do all the different things in there one by one. However, I was able to figure out how to do all the stuff in the “getting started” booklet myself. I found an online manual, but it needed some new version of Adobe reader or something to decipher it, and when I tried to upgrade, it crashed or something, so half the pages don’t show up. Oh well, I’ll figure out something. It somehow added every single person I’ve ever emailed to my phone contact list (i.e., everyone who ever answered a Craig’s List ad when I was selling stuff, every potential date I’ve ever contacted etc.) I figured out how to get rid of all those people at least! To get rid of the Tinkerbell-esque sounds, I uploaded a new ringtone from my computer (there’s a site where you can do this for free) so it would play the word “wombat” in morse code every time the phone rings. However, it’s way too complicated a procedure and I have no idea if the ring tone actually saved or not, and if so where it stored it.

This morning  the phone started making a more insistent shimmering sound. For a moment I thought I was having a flashback on a 1980s sitcom, but it turned out it was just Moth calling. She was actually telling me that Mikala wants me to go to Thailand, and I should get on that and also why haven’t I been playing Scrabble? “Are you OK? You sound weird,” she said.

“I wasn’t sure if my phone was actually ringing, or if it was just telling me the stock prices in Equatorial Guinea had just dropped 3/10 of a point,” I said.

I told her about my misadventures with the Smart Phone. Moth said “oh, now you can play Scrabble on your phone! … but I see you don’t want to play anymore. I guess I should just give up on our game(s).” These days Moth’s life revolves around online Scrabble. She actually called me once a few months ago to ask me if I was sick because it had been, like, 3 hours and I hadn’t made a Scrabble move.

I tried to appeal to her maternal desires to populate the world with more grandkids (or at least see me coupled up since in her mind it’s  impossible for a female to be happy while single) and said “well I’ve been sorta like seeing this GUY… I haven’t had time to play a lot of Scrabble…” However,  Moth knows me too well. She just said “well do you actually LIKE him, or is just another, you know… whatever?” I had to walk this line carefully. If I said, “meh, whatever” then it would be no excuse to not spend every waking moment playing online Scrabble and every sleeping moment dreaming about Scrabble moves, so even having mentioned it would just have been wasting time.  If I said “I actually LIKE him,” then it would be assumed that armies of grandchildren would start marching out of my nether regions possibly beginning next week. “Um, he’s cool?” I began… luckily Moth has the attention span of a fruit fly and non-commital responses trigger her desire to rapidly move onto the next subject. Phew!

Back to the SmartPhone, though… I have a month to decide if being a SmartPhone operator is enough of a positive addition to my life to keep the phone or cancel. At this point (being a user for less than 24 hours), I really can’t see how it’s improving the quality of my life. Maybe that will change as I actually learn how to use the damn thing. Maybe in 29 days I will say “HOLY CRAP I AM ADDICTED, HOW DID I EVER LIVE WITHOUT THIS TINY HUNK OF METAL!?!?!?” we’ll see. I do get 4G network thingie, though I’m not entirely sure what that means. It’s fast? So if I need to download pr0n on the go, I can do it really fast? Apparently it uses up a lot of battery life to do that. It does take nice pictures, though!

Dear HTC Evo Shift 4G, maybe we can be friends sometime.

hey, the new phone can make everything artsy!

Then Little Bitch told me about this trip to Cuba that he and his friends are taking in May. CUBA! You have to get there by flying from Canada first! Cool! I could put to use the Spanish I speak like a 5 year old!

Then Mikala decided to do a couple of months volunteering teaching English in Thailand and wanted to spend the last 3 weeks travelling, going to Ankor Wat and stuff like that. She wanted a travelling companion and Allie doesn’t want her to go alone. COOL, THAILAND!

So, which do I pick? It was a tough decision, but I decided on Thailand. Then Lil Bitch’s friends all bailed on the Cuba trip, that’s OK, whatever. Now Mikala has heard from another place in Thailand where she wanted to volunteer to clean up beaches or something. Now she wants to spend the last 3 weeks volunteering, and isn’t sure if she wants to travel anymore.

The Big Country thing I wanted to go to in England is Feb 11th, although it doesn’t look like there are still tickets available for that show. I’d like to go to the one in Dunfermline (hometown of Stuart Adamson & Bruce Watson as well as the Skids), but that one’s even closer, on Feb 7th. Of course, when I was planning this, back in November, the round trip tickets to London were about $250. Now they’re in the $700 range.

So, it looks like I’m not going anywhere this year, unless I can think of somewhere else and get off my butt to plan it. I’d really like to go to Peru. Will this be the year? I’ve been wanting to go there for decades! Hmmm. I’ve been looking at field schools around the world, too…

I bought tickets for Lil Bitch and I to go see Mission of Burma at the Brighton Music Hall months ago. I was positive it would sell out. I mean, who would miss up a chance to see MoB in an awesome tiny venue like the former Harper’s Ferry? Apparently lots of people because it didn’t sell out. But anyway… It had snowed the night before, so Lil Bitch came up in the afternoon to hang out so he wouldn’t have to drive in the snow at night. Or something. He brought burritos and tequila as well as a bottle of what he thought was Margarita mix, but actually had tequila already in it. After mixing it with tequila it was pretty strong, to say the least. I had had the lovely norovirus all week and so I didn’t drink so much. At some point Lil Bitch and Dee got the idea that they wanted to go to Deep Ellum (a local bar) and get some hot cocktails. So, we went down to the bar and drank hot buttered rums which were delicious… but alcoholic. Lil Bitch insisted upon buying us shots of Jameson on the way back since he didn’t think he could make it all the way back to my place through the snow (we were walking), so we stopped at The Draft and had shots.

When we got back home, LB was in that special surly phase of drunkeness. He started talking about how his stepsister got raped in France and how she deserved it because she had narced on her classmates in high school or something. After about the 15th exclamation of “The bitch DESERVED it!” I tried to change the subject to no avail, but it was time to leave for the show so whatever.

LB has been already pretty tanked for some time now, yet still we get beers at the show– $4 for a 16 oz PBR, which LB rants on about being criminal. He even texted Pete a poorly spelled and even poorly worded rant about how it’s all his fault PBR is so expensive damn hipsters. I wasn’t quite sure of his logic, but this is Little Bitch we’re talking about. Logic is not one of his strong points on the soberest of days.

The opening band were called Shepherdess, and while they weren’t exactly my thing, LB decided they were the worst band in the history of music and proceeded to tell me this in between yelling “YOU SUUUUUUUUUCKK!” at them. I tried repeatedly to shut him up, which of course just made him rowdier. Eventually the bouncer came over and cut him off from further drinking. Thus, he tried to get me to buy him a drink. The conversation went like this:

LB: Buy me a drink. I can’t get one myself.

ME: there’s a reason you’re cut off.

LB: I want a drink

ME: sucks to be you!

LB: I want beer.

ME: I want a pet unicorn.

LB (shouting): UNICORNS CAN SUCK MY DIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!

When he realized that I was not going to buy him a drink, he yelled “THIS IS FASCIST BULLSHIT! I’M OUTTA HERE!” and stomped off. I was a bit relieved, to tell you the truth, and pushed up closer to get a better spot to see Mission of Burma. This is the one time being short is awesome– you can pretty much shove your way to the front of a concert and nobody cares because pretty much everyone can see over your head anyway. it almost negates the fact that if you’re short, you can’t see a damn thing at concerts unless you are in the very front anyway!

Anyway, the band starts and, as always, they are awesome. They get 2 songs in when I start getting texts.

“Where are you? I’m scared and alone.”

I tell him to go wait for me at my house.  He replies that he doesn’t know how to get there. I text him directions (it’s less than a mile home). He saysto come get him, he’s still confused. I text him the house number and tell him to get a cab.

“But I dint [sic] do anything! I’m cold and lost.”

Finally it dawns on me that if he really does manage to find his way back to my place, he will get into his ginormous SUV and drive home, probably killing himself as well as mow down a bus full of nuns chaperoning orphans to a party with kittens or something.  I leave after the third song and all the way home he rants about how it’s a conspiracy and he has every right to heckle crappy bands and it’s because of the Obama administration that everyone is forced to be polite and how he’s going to vote Republican and he’s never going back to that fascist place and fuck Mission of Burma, they’re not really punks if they let bouncers kick rowdy drunks out of their shows etc. I stick up for the bouncer, and, after calling me a “dumb bitch” and a “stupid cunt” several more times, he says possibly the best line of the night:

WHY DON’T YOU GO FUCK NEWT GINGRICH, SINCE YOU LOVE THE DOMINANT PARADIGM SO MUCH!

I don’t know, the unicorn line was pretty good too, but it didn’t contain the phrase “dominant paradigm” used without irony.

We get back to my place and I physically wrestle his car keys away. He calls me many more bad names and insults my political views, my hypocrisy and mentions how “slaves like [me] exist to suck the cocks of  the dominant paradigm.”

“Well the dominant paradigm is telling you to get your fucking ass into bed and sleep it off!” yes, I couldn’t think of a better witty comeback. I was fairly furious at this point.

Cursing, he climbs onto my bed and, after muttering about fascism and stuff a bit more, falls asleep, snoring loudly. I go downstairs to sleep on the couch. Sometime in the early morning, LB finds the keys I left for him and leaves. I go back up into my bed, since I’m sleeping on the small 2-person couch because Tanya is sick and crashing on the big couch. I notice that the pillow is upside down– it’s the pillowcase I decorated myself of a menorah, and it’s menorah-side-down.

That’s what it looked like after I finished it (it came with crayons)– The punchline to the night is…  it no longer looks like that because when I turned it over I discovered that it was covered with used burrito. Yes, LB had turned the pillow over rather than clean it up. W.T.F.!?!?!?

I wish I could say

That’s when I reached for my revolver.

SETTING: my mom’s car. I am in the back seat with the oblivious nephews, one is frantically texting all his friends and the other one is oddly quiet. Moth is the passenger. Slug is driving. We are discussing how annoying it is that everything has inspirational messages on it.

MOTH: have you seen those necklaces? You know, that jewelry? With that what is it, a heart on it? It’s that actress. You know, the British one. Jean. Joan.

ME: I have no clue what you’re talking about.

MOTH: That one from that tv show. You know, about the doctor. it’s SO UGLY! Seriously. it’s the ugliest stupidest thing ever.

ARI: How ugly is it?

MOTH: It’s so ugly that… that if ROBERT DOWNEY JUNIOR asked me to MARRY him, and gave me one of those necklaces… Well first we’d have to get rid of Doug.

DOUG: yeah, don’t forget that part!

ME: So Robert Downey Jr. helps you hide the body…

MOTH: So Robert Downey Jr. helps me hide Doug’s body… and then he asks me to marry him and gives me one of those neckaces. Medicine Woman! That’s her show. Quinn…

ME: Jane Seymour!

MOTH: THAT’S IT! So Robert Downey Jr. gives me one of those… they’re called “open hearts” and they’re hearts that aren’t closed so you are reminded to keep your heart open or some bullshhh….. bull-oney.

ARI: You almost said the S word!

MOTH: Anyway, I’d be like, “sorry, Bob. I’m gonna go dig Doug up.”

DOUG: Awww, you’d rather be with my rotting corpse than with Robert Downey Jr’s ugly jewelry! Honey, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said!

=========

Yes, my family is kind of insane, but at least they’re entertaining!

less preferable than my stepdad's rotting corpse.

So dear Santa, here’s my wishlist for the Perfect Christmas Album:

I’d like one where

1.  you can understand the lyrics
2. It have no guitar solos
3. it have no slow jams, though those are kind of funny, especially when Mariah Carey is involved.
4. it have a minimal amount of original songs unless they are sufficiently funny as to be entertaining.
5. There are no children’s choirs present
6. “Santa Baby” is not included
7. there is a minimal amount of bells, chimes, glockenspiels and music box noises.
8. If you’re going to sing in a foreign language, please make an attempt to pronounce it correctly. If you don’t know French, just don’t sing “Un Flambeau, Jeannette Isabelle!” It’s simple as that! “Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella” may not sound as good, but it will be less painful than you mangling French.
9. Avoid the token Hannukah song. Let’s face it, good Hannukah songs may exist, but the average non-Hannukah celebrater only knows “I have a Little Dreydl” which kind of blows unless you are 5 years old.

When people try to make Christmas carols RAWK!, it usually fails miserably. This may be because most “traditional” carols (i.e. those written before 1900 or so) are written in 6/8 time. A lot of them, like “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger” are lullabies, and lullabies are often in 6/8 because it lends itself to more of a rocking motion. Ironically then, that it doesn’t RAWK!, since most rock music is in 4/4.

Anyway, that’s my wish list for listening to X-mas music this season. So far, She and Him’s christmas album is OK. That is, when it was playing I completely didn’t notice it was on which is a good sign!

My favorite Christmas albums:

Firestone presents Your Favorite Christmas Carols Volume 5 with Julie Andrews

I had this album when I was a kid and was completely obsessed with it. Yes, it’s cheesy and overblown, but I keep hearing tracks from it in various stores and Julie Andrews still holds up. The other volumes (I had a green one and a gold colored one and maybe a red one?) just weren’t as good.

Mojo Nixon and the Toadliquors “Horny Holidays”

This is awesome, especially “Good King Wenceslaus” where Mojo admits nobody actually knows the words to this so everybody just sing “la la la”– a classic! They also sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus.

Jim Jones, “A Dipset Christmas” — come on, who could resist a song called “Ballin’ on Christmas?”

2 Live Jews “Christmas Jews”– I used to have a collection of Jews with Christmas Albums (i.e., Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow), but I had to abandon it because I realized I would have to actually purchase Kenny G’s album, and even I have limits to my kitschy compulsions. Anyway, 2 Live Jews’ album was the crowning glory of this (or any holiday) collection. Anyway, sing “Bagels and bagels and bagels and lox” to “Jingle Bell Rock” and it’s just awesome times a million.

Bootsy Collins, “Christmas is 4 ever” – Bootsy is just awesome.

Various Artists: “A John Waters Christmas”– this one is almost cheating. It’s supposed to be awesome in that kitschy way, and it totally delivers.

I’m sure there are a couple more Christmas albums that don’t make me homicidal, but I can’t think of them right now…