I can never be a smartass when I want to.

The French have a term for the feeling one gets for discovering the perfect verbal riposte after the fact.  It is called 'l'esprit de l'escalier" or "spirit of the staircase".  Today for your viewing pleasure I have re-created conversations because I am that awesome (And by "awesome" I mean neurotic) in which I come out on top.  Feel free to insert your own "oh, snap" or "Oh, no she dih-ihnt" here. 

For example, me yelling at our dog, Zack for chasing the cats for the gazillionth time.

Me: Zack, Godammit!  Leave the cat alone!

Zack: *blinkblink* *lick*

He then proceeds to give me this look that says,"But but I'm a rescue and I've been so abused and I just want some fun in my pitiful life."

Me: D'awwww. *scratches dog's ears*

What I obviously should have said was, "No! Bad dog! Go lay down!"  Admittedly not very original or witty but at least I didn't get bested by a dog..

Conversation with  police officer who pulled me over for speeding.  Ironically, I was a DD on new Year's Eve.  People that were obviously hammered were driving by laughing their asses off.

Police officer: *giving me the steely officer glare* Do you know how fast you were going?

Me: (At this point I really had to pee and just wanted to get this over with.) *gulp* Er, no.

Police officer: I clocked you going 55.  The speed limit on this road is 45. Have you been drinking?

Me:  Eep.  No, sir.  I was the DD for a group of my friends tonight.

Police officer:  That's very responsible of you. (Issues ticket anyway.)

If I was going to get a damn ticket anyway, I should have said:

Police officer:  Do you know how fast you were going?

Me:  No, I didn't have my radar detector plugged in.

Thank you!  I'll be here all week!

And here is crap that made me laugh today.

Yeah? The maple kind?  I actually discovered this a few years ago but it still makes me laugh.

The fate of my fatass cat.

Every dog ever.

I really miss Mr. Rogers.

I started reading D.J. Paris’ blog this morning.  He is a snarky, well-intentioned, self-confessed dork (honestly, who isn’t?) with a literate and waggish blog.  He made an otherwise unproductive morning even less productive—but at least I had a giggle.

I have my own snark to vent this morning.  It is simply this: hey, internet—stop making stupid people famous!  It’s like television executives are at their weekly meetings saying, “Hey—that’s a thing.  Let’s make a show about it!”

I swear to Christ, I will be overjoyed when I stop seeing the damn Kardashians on every magazine cover.  Never has a family with less moral fiber and more inanity been put on public display.  I am no model of moral turpitude.  Honestly, y’all, one of my lifetime goals is to piss enough people off to have the Westboro Baptist Church protest me.  That would be awesome.  But I digress.  I am convinced that the fame (infamy?) of the Kardashian clan is one of the seven signs of Armageddon.  I tried watching an episode of the Kardashians.  My brain started crawling out of my ears in protest. I had to watch four straight episodes of Into the Wormhole in order to regain a sense of proportion and keep my grey matter intact. The only saving grace in this whole surreal non-reality is that previous overrated fame whore Paris Hilton seems to have stepped out of the limelight.

And Honey Boo-Boo—WTF?!  The child is seven, for the love of God, and she has a hitherto-unknown version of English.  I live in Georgia.  I have a brain (at least that part which I didn’t kill off with collegiate, alcohol-fueled antics) and these idiots are some of the scariest ambassadors for an already beleaguered state. We could have televised a biography of the many brilliant and capable people that hail from Georgia; for example, Deforest Kelley, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ray Charles, or Alice Walker.  Nope.  We chose an illiterate exemplar of Southern humanity instead.  Way to go, TLC.  What exactly are we supposed to learn from this show?

Jersey Shore, My Super Sweet 16, Bad Girls Club, ad nauseum.  When did it become not only normal, but desirable, to act like a succubus in heroin withdrawal?  Most of these people just need a good ass kicking.  Or maybe we can make justified homicide legal, a la The Purge.  It wouldn’t be so bad if there were just a few of these inaccurately-labeled “reality” shows on television.  The problem is that there seem to be more and more of them every season.  

There are a few of these shows that have some artistic or entertainment value.  I will freely admit to being a Top Chef whore.  Partially because Michael Voltaggio is frankly yummy (if a bit of a tool) and partially because the cheftestants (barf) must possess actual talent to be considered.  I also have a minor Deadliest Catch and American Pickers addiction.  But as television goes further and further into the land of heinous crap moronic buffoonery, I will dive further into Doctor Who, House of Cards, and Downton Abbey reruns.  I know I am not alone. At least, dear God, I hope so.

Crap that made me laugh today.

Someone at Wendy's is a jokester.  Or a Satanist.  

It's NOT whiskers on kittens.

So I have been reading the brilliant Jenny Lawson's blog.  She posted a query about your favorite things of the year.  This is in honor of Oprah, who used to do a yearly show in which she would discuss her favorite things of each year.  Genius, really.  I wish I had thought of it.  Regardless, this is my list thus far:

(1) Nedhardy.com--a brilliant assemblage of the best of the web on any given day.

(2) Neil Gaiman (duh.)  He is pretty much permanently affixed to this list.

(3)Christophe Moroccan Argan oil hair treatment--leaves my hair satiny and manageable.

(4) Pieter Nooten "Sleeps with the Fishes" GORGEOUS album.  Go and buy it nownownow.

(5) sushi (again, duh.) I love the nostril burn after you sucked down too much wasabi.  Thank you, Japan.


(6)Earl Grey tea--Bergamot-scented deliciousness.

(7)Pineapple lumps--damn near impossible to find in the States, but this candy is proof of a benevolent deity.

(8)Failblog.com--If you ever need to feel better about yourself (or if you just need a good chuckle) this website is the most ingenious timesuck to ever grace the annals of the internet.

(9)Twitter--who invented this crack?!

(10)My dog's happy puppy dance when I get home from work.  This is also a permanent member of this list.

(11) "Best of Sinatra" CDs.  I have found that it is impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to Frank.  Seriously.  You start doing the Sammy Davis head bob and snap.  Within seconds you are inexplicably belting out "Chicago" like a cracked-out cabaret singer.  It's awesome.

Curse you, Kindle.

I got a Kindle for Christmas.  This is both a good and a bad thing.  It's good because I have now been exposed to a wide variety of books that I would either have ignored or would never have discovered on my own.  It's bad because many of the "Kindle editions" of these books have a ton of errors.  These blunders and oversights drive me up a wall.  I discovered that Laurell K. Hamilton has a very tenuous grasp of grammar and sentence structure--which also drives me nuts. I'm glad that I didn't pay full price for her books--I would have been annoyed.  I know that Ms. Hamilton has legions of fans, all of whom will probably burn me in effigy.  While I can appreciate her creative powers, I feel that her writing is not strong enough to merit her success.  To be fair, though, Laurell K. Hamilton is still much more palatable than that minion of Satan, Stephenie Meyer.  To say that her books are execrable is being kind.  (Stephen King agrees with me.  So there.) 

 I love the convenience of the Kindle and I love that Amazon makes suggestions for me; however, I also will always be an advocate for paper-and-ink books.  There is something so innately satisfying about opening that brand-new book from the store.  I love the slightly musty odor of old books from the library.  I particularly like purchasing books from a used bookstore.  It is always fascinating to see dog-eared, inscribed old editions of classic books. You can see where previous readers stopped reading and where they enjoyed a particular passage. I also like to make up stories in my head about the previous owners.  Why did they get rid of the book?  Did they leave it on a train somewhere in Europe and it ended up here?  Was it stolen from them in some kind of misguided literary mugging?

I just finished "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson.  I need to try to make all men read this book.  I now know that I am not the only one who is a little, ahem, eccentric.  The bizarre conversations with which she torments her husband sound eerily like many of the conversations I have had with my significant other.  He is convinced I'm nuts.  While this is technically correct, he needs to know that ALL women are nuts.  It's not just me.

In an effort to help fellow readers out there, I have compiled a list of the good and the bad that I have stumbled upon via Amazon and the Kindle.

The Good: (and some awesome)

1. "Let's Pretend This Never Happened", Jenny Lawson Hysterical and poignant all at once--quite a feat.
2. "Ready Player One", Ernest Cline Very creative--a combo of a love story to the eighties and  William Gibson- influenced techno thriller.
3. "Wool", Hugh Howey
4. anything by Jim Butcher
5. "Fire and Hemlock", Diana Wynne Jones This book is gorgeous.  Go and buy it nownownow.
6. "Snow White and Rose Red" Patricia C. Wrede
7. "Dare Me", Megan Abbott

The Bad:

1. "Manifesting Mr. Right", Caitlin McKenna.  I am all for cheesy chick lit, but this was just bad.  Bland, trite, and predictable.
2. "The Bitch-Proof Suit", De-Ann Black  Ditto.
3. "Heart's Blood", Carolyn McCray.  Blech.
4. "Incubus Dreams", Laurell K. Hamilton To be fair, I did like the first few of the Anita Black series despite Ms. Hamilton's flawed writing.  At this point, though, she is just going through the motions.  Formulaic.