Erin The Great

Upon amazing request by a friend of mine, I dove into the magical world of thesneeze.com! After reading its contents, it was only moments before I had tears in my eyes and I was rolling on the floor in gut wrenching laughter!

There is a particular segment on this website called ‘Steve don’t eat it’. I honest to goodness never thought I would find someone with more time on their hands, and a more creative mind then myself to pass ‘said’ time. This guy goes around eating anything disgusting he can get his hands on. From Cuitlacoche (Botcholistic Corn) and Urkel-O’s to Prison Wine. This is of course the exact moment I chose to finish off my left over Café Rio… smart one Erin. All I want to do after reading this segment is address a small letter to my mother.

Dear Woman, (a term of endearment I use to call my mother)

I never again want to hear about the crazy stuff I pull when I get bored and feel the necessity to ‘liven things up’ ever again! Please read ‘Steve don’t eat it’ and you will understand to what I am referring.

Your loving daughter,

Erin

P.S. You should also be pleased that I’m not bored enough to make ‘prison wine’ in my bathroom.

I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time! My stomach now hurts from the constant laughter and trying to keep my food down. Enjoy!

I was watching the movie High Fidelity the other day. For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity, nay the privilege of viewing this masterpiece, it is about a man who owns a record store who can’t keep his love life in check. The best parts of the movie include not only Jack Black, but also the ‘Top Five List’. The Top five list consists of 5 things under subjects varying from songs and music to relationships to many other random subjects.

In the spirit of this wonderful movie, I’ve decided to have fun and make a few lists of my own for the next little while.

Top 5 Over-Rated Music Artists.

1. Prince
2. Sting
3. Fergie
4. Jennifer Lopez
5. Miley CyrusTop 5 Favorite Movies

1. Empire Records
2. Shawshank Redemption
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. The Emperor’s New Groove
5. Singin’ In The Rain

Top 5 Best Television Shows – Currently On the Air

1. Scrubs
2. The Office
3. The Simpsons
4. Boston Legal
5. CSI

* I’m giving a polite nod to 24 because the first 4 seasons were amazing!

In my place of employment, we have the misfortune of having what is called Musak. Musak is a cornucopia of crappy music that some higher realm of establishment has deemed worthy and appropriate for the work place.

This is a far cry from when I started almost 3 years ago. We were lucky enough not to have the musak stations. We had to make due with a stereo that enabled us to listen to good but also appropriate music. When our corporate first put in the evil system, we had access to over 900 music stations. This was nice especially since you could find just about anything you wanted to listen to. Now, we only have access to 20 of the worst music stations alive. The music changes daily depending on who is working. It firsts starts out with really bad country, really bad emo, and then moves toward the oldies. When we’re sick of oldies we change it to the top 40 station where the music variety never seems to change.

Everyday my fellow co-workers and I go verbal rounds against the really bad variety we have been stuck with. I imagine hell having Musak… or a compilation CD with Yoko Ono, Sinead O’Conner, Muse, Hilary Duff, and Courtney Love. Ask ANY music lover about Musak and they’ll all tell you about the evil poser-istic nature that ‘is’ Musak.

I miss the good old days of decent music that didn’t have me secretly hoping someone would come to rob the place and then shoot us all, putting us out of our misery.

There is nothing like saying something in jest and having someone look at you like ‘how could you say that’ and realize that what you said not only really hit home, but there is a little if not a lot of truth to it as well. This is what I like to call ‘Foot in Mouth Syndrome’. I don’t suffer from it often, but when I do, I suffer hard core!

One of my favorite TV shows happens to be Scrubs. There is an episode where JD wonders what would happen if there was an opera singer to orchestrate when you’ve said something REALLY stupid or insensitive. You say your comment and without fail the opera singer belts out a well deserved ‘MISTAAAAAAAAKE’. I had such a moment last night.

Picture it: Provo, April 2008, I’m sitting in my living room with a few of my friends and we’re talking about our heritage. I happen to be Irish, and I was teasing a friend of mine for having the most Irish name possible without a single drop of Irish blood in him. He started telling me a story about how his grandfather was from Poland and was adopted and his name had been changed because of this. It then clicked in my brain that my friend was a Pollok and I asked him how many pall bearers were used at a Pollok funeral? Well there’s only two handles on a garbage can…Leave it to me to instantly bust out a Pollock joke, and ordinarily this would have been funny, until he told me that his very polish grandfather had just passed away and he happened to be one of the pall bearers. I could here the opera singer….MISTAAAAAAKE!

Picture it: Orem, January 2008, I was having a usual sarcasm spat with one of my buddies. This happens all the time so I usually think nothing about being a little rude, because it usually gets thrown right back at me. After verbally fighting for over an hour I ask him if he thought of doing something good for humanity and that sterility might be a very good option for him…. Only to find out 2 days later that particular day was the day he had surgery for testicular cancer…. MISTAAAAAAKE!

Picture it: various places in various time segments, unbeknownst to me, walking into a mourning crowd and then exclaiming ‘wow, it’s really dead in here’. Good one Erin!

I’m telling you, I don’t do it very often, but when I do, I do it up right! Every time I do it though, I just imagining the person taking a big ‘jerk’ stamp and stamping right on my forehead… one day I’ll learn to tune into situations like that and just keep my mouth shut.

I know the last thing you want to read is ANOTHER blog about the crappy weather, but too bad!

For many people like me, we suffer from a form of depression called SAD, or Seasonal Depression. I know I’ve talked about it before but I’m just going to talk about it a little more. Like many depression sufferers, the sun is absolutely necessary to help raise the serotonin levels in our brains, thus helping us rejuvenate. Let me tell you, nothing feels better then being in the bright sun after a ridiculously loooong winter such as this one. For anyone who lives in Utah valley, you know our weather has been nothing short of odd. One day it’s mid 50’s with overcast then the next day it’s 80 degrees and sunny and the next day it’s back down to lower 30’s and snowing and then it’s back up to the 60’s, just blustering away. You would think that I could just savor the sun while it lasts but, the fact that it has not only been extremely cold but really dark and gloomy, we haven’t had enough sun to make up for this factor thus leaving the sufferers of SAD longing for some seasonal stability.

Thanks to Mother Nature’s nasty bought of PMS, we, like all people are suffering the affects of a woman suffering from ‘Mad Cow’ disease, and I think she needs to take some Midol quickly so the crazy will stop! So, while Mother Nature is insisting on having piss and vinegar running through her veins, the rest of us are just trying to keep a float by doing things that usually make us feel better. Today I did just that! I sat in the parking lot of my work with 10 minutes to spare, guzzling Dr. Pepper, eating French fries with ranch dressing and air guitaring to Led Zeppelin. It may sound weird and I really don’t mind sharing because I know everyone has their own way of surviving less then thrilling circumstances…. I think it would be nice to hear a few anecdotes… please leave a comment and share with everyone a relaxation technique of yours! Audience Participation time!

There is a land called Passiveagressi-ville. Passiveaggressi-ville is occupied by billions of emotionally repressed people around the world. This is the land of people that look happy on the outside, but are basically walking time bombs just waiting to explode on the next person that ‘crosses’ them. It’s a land where people get put out at the slightest inconvenience to them because off all the pent up emotion with no outlet…. until they lose it on something or someone that has nothing to do with what they are actually mad at.

Today just so happens to be passive aggressive day at the bank. Ordinarily this wouldn’t bother me, I’ve grown up around various degrees of this mind set, but today it is particularly bothersome. Basically my ‘open hostility’ mindset wants to beat the crap out of every person who is offended by the small things. Small things like the fact that we don’t have a coin counter, the person our customers want to talk to isn’t immediately available, or my person favorite, why don’t we have a drinking fountain? If this weren’t annoying enough, they then give me the ‘why are you doing this to me’ look, like I have some sort of control over what is going on. Apparently it’s MY fault these things aren’t available. On the surface I of course have a pasted on smile while I apologize for the inconvenience, when all I really want to say is ‘well, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other… and just see which gets filled first, so quit your complaining!’

You think after living with my brother (the current reigning mayor of passiveaggressi-ville) I would have developed a sense of when the storm is coming instead of wondering why there is a BYU student on the roof of a grocery store ready to shoot up the place. Instead I laugh and walk on my merry way. I’m beginning to wonder how many of these types of people now want me dead because of my lack of compassion. Well here’s the thing. After walking into my kitchen one day, and promptly stepping on a shard of glass from a glass that got thrown across the room because of a passive aggressive induced rage, I started loosing my compassion. Do what everybody else does and take up kick boxing or yoga. Leave me the heck alone!

I believe my days as ‘Erin the locksmith’ are about to be over. For the last 5 years or so, I’ve been the resident ‘locksmith’ for anyone in my apartment building that on occasion has locked themselves out.

It all started a couple of months ago when I lost the ability and the patience to pick locks, thus leaving my friends locked out instead of into their apartments. This was indeed frustrating since up until recently I haven’t found a lock I couldn’t pick. I’ve now found many, and what’s even more frustrating is the fact that my butter knife trick now seems completely useless.

My moment of mounting shame is upon me! Last Sunday night my friend Jackie had locked herself out. As she told me of her predicament, I was already on my way upstairs to get a butter knife and my lock picking set. I tried picking the lock for about 5 min and decided to use my knife trick instead. I had at the window for a little bit and after about a minute, the window slid right open… Horray! I had done it! I got in! My pride was soaring! I was not a failure for the hundredth time this year at getting someone into their house. I climbed through the window and unlocked the door and immerged from the apartment victorious. I went back around and shut the window, took the ladder back, and walked back over to my friend’s apartment. We reached the door and low and behold it was locked! What? You have got to be kidding me! How could it be locked? I just opened the door! I looked at Jackie and that’s the time she decides to tell me that her door automatically locks behind you when you leave. Crap!

There was no way I was going to be defeated by this apartment! I went and grabbed the ladder and started going at the window again. The very same window that I had so easily gotten open the first time, was now giving me much grief now! I tried opening that thing for almost 20 minutes when I finally gave up and admitted defeat. I was tired, scraped up and a little sweaty after putting some serious elbow grease, and a couple of encouraging swearwords to help it along, but to no avail.

I stand here extremely humble. For where the lord giveth, he also taketh away. There is nothing worse than losing a talent. Even when it is a shady talent that I was using for good!

I know what you’re thinking! Nano what now? NaNo WriMo is the National Novel Writing Month.

Every November thousands and thousands of people write over 50,000 word novels in the span of only a month, to prove to many that they are bonafide novelists! Apparently your novel doesn’t even need to be good or have a plot; it just has to be over 50,000 words.

I know it is seven months until the month of November, but I’m putting the word out there just incase there are some aspiring novelists, or people who just need something to occupy their time.

After much deliberation I’ve decided to re-name my ‘stupid news’ section to something much more appropriate and all encompassing. Please welcome ‘Darwin News’. It will touch down on not only the stupid, but the odd, weird and oddly heart warming news.

Woman found living with rats and snakes – hmmm. At least my friends don’t urinate all over my living room floor.

Seattle man in tree house gets a new home – To be perfectly honest, I think it would be awesome to live in a self built tree house.

Man Arrested for forgetting to pay for pop - I wonder if he was in Utah at the time?

‘Chainsaw Man’ must leave homeless alone - I think the ‘voices’ told him to do it.

Postal workers attacked by wild turkeys - Why don’t they just shoot them? They have no morale problem walking into Post offices and opening fire!

That’s it for this weeks Darwin News… Stay tuned!

I just spent the last hour gazing upon the wonderment that is ‘Must See NBC Thursday’. (I wish I could add fanfare to follow that, but I’m not geeky enough) After months and months of waiting in anticipation, they finally came! Brand spankin’ new episodes of The Office and Scrubs! It was the best hour of my life!

The Office starts off with an ‘Overtime party’, that Michael sets up to get Jim/Pam and Angela/Andy to go to dinner at his house with Jan for a ‘couples dinner’. I laughed, I cried and I cringed through MOST of it. I thought the first season was good but the fourth season is shaping up to be better than the last three. My favorite parts were the interviews in the bathroom with hushed tones so their ‘hosts’ (more like captures) can’t hear them and a surprise visit from Dwight and some random lady he picked off the street. Between Jan’s old secretary’s music, the constant ‘babes’ and Jan thinking that Michael and Pam used to be lovers…It’s a good thing I wasn’t eating anything because I would have choked several times.

Scrubs picks off right where the last one left off, with this particular day being Turk and Carla’s Anniversary of their first date. The show starts with Turk and JD talking to the interns from the roof of the hospital, where the interns have turned into the old Atari game ‘spaced invaders’. As the interns start dancing around just like the game, Turk and JD begin throwing water balloons them causing one of them to receive a concussion. It then moves onto Turk wanting ‘Brinner’ or breakfast for dinner. He had secretly learned Spanish for Carla but instead of telling her, he decides to use it to his advantage. Elliot helps JD take a burn victim to his graduation where he promptly falls after 5 steps, but at least the dynamic duo is back together as really good friends…. My only hope is that they get together already and realize that they’re perfect for each other.

I hope your viewing pleasure was as good as mine. It was a great night for NBC and they should be proud! Especially after the episode of ‘My Name Is Earl’ where Joy, Darnell and Randy try to cross off ‘stole a man’s motorcycle’ off Earl’s list because Earl is in a coma. Seeing Randy in a Chicken costume was totally worth it!