Monday, March 30, 2009

Why I hate Mondays...

(which I’m writing because I didn’t do ANYTHING on my spring break because I’m a grown-up and I have a stupid job and no kids and whatever, I super hate Mondays.)

I know the idea of hating Mondays is not new. Heck, there are scores and scores of lame bumper stickers and screen savers dedicated just to this idea. But I, too, happen to hate Mondays and here, because I know you’re super-duper with parmesan cheese and garlic crunchy crispy things on top DYING to know, are my reasons:

1. I cannot go to sleep at a reasonable time on Sunday nights. (which I should actually be calling “Monday morning” because even if I went to bed on TIME I’d be crashing at 1am. Because that’s how I roll) There’s this cascading bad time management thing that happens to me on weekends: I stay up pretty dang late (let’s say 2am?) on Fridays. So then I sleep in some on Saturdays (I’d say when, but my friends with kids would mail me fish heads and horse turds, so I’m sticking with “some”), which then means I stay up even LATER on Saturdays (probably safe to assume a 3am bed arrival), thereby leading to sleeping in even more on Sunday (“What time does the NASCAR race start tomorrow? OK, I’ll get up 20 min. before that…”) and so by the time Sunday night (Monday morning) rolls around I’m AWAKE. If I hit the sack by 1:30am I’m so impressed with myself I promise actual breakfast foods for the next day. I rarely get to see actual breakfast foods on Monday morning. What I DO get to see is me all sleepy and tired and not awake. All Monday.

2. My Dungeon Master always seems super-busy at his workplace on Mondays, and so my D&D addiction gets little to no satisfaction. Add to that the fact that the King doesn’t work on Mondays (seriously, don’t get me started on his killer 4/10s work schedule! I’ll swear! And curse! There will be photographs of rude hand gestures! Ugly, I say!) and so I have NOBODY to satisfy my nerd addiction! I sit here, refreshing and re-refreshing (freshing and refreshing?) my google docs and nothing is ever there. I am alone in a sea of nerd sorrow, only my Star Wars lunchbox and my “Mind Flayers do it with imagination!” t-shirt to console me.

3. My boss comes in and does work over the weekend. I understand she feels like there’s too much to do otherwise, and I count my lucky stars (heck, I count the lucky ones and the slightly less lucky ones, and even the plain old, run-of-the-mill stars and even black holes and stuff) that she never asks me to come in to help her get stuff done. HOWEVER it means that most Mondays I come in to this bloody streak of emails from her, sent the day before, asking me to do stuff. Lots of stuff. In other words, by the time I walk into the office at 7:55am on a Monday morning I’m already hideously behind in my work. Already. (and rumor has it you shouldn’t flip your boss the bird. At least not first thing Monday morning. You do that so soon you got nowhere to go later in the week but two-finger eye-jabs and tire slashing!)

4. Saturday is never so far away as on a Monday morning.

…the good news? As of right now it’s almost Tuesday. (which is a whole day closer to Saturday with the sleeping in and the naps and the glorious “doing whatever I want to do” time! Huzzah!)

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Be Vewy Kwiet, I'm Hunting Wagons...

So the car hunt continues apace. Last week I talked to people who have piles of money and they have agreed that I can have a bit of a section of a part of a chunk of one of their many, many, many piles of cash, but I have to give it back to them. And in fact I have to start giving it back to them right away, AND they get extra. Whatever. But at least that means that I can now get to shopping with gusto.

I’ve already done some narrowing down the field. I took some test drives last weekend just to figure out what would and wouldn’t make me happy. I took my test drives in cars at dealerships, even though I know I can’t afford dealership prices, because dealerships are very used to test drives. And you don’t have to call ahead and make an appointment to drive a dealership car. But an added bonus benefit? Car salesmen like to flirt.

So I’ve looked at it this way: I check out the cars and, while I’m there, I polish the flirting. I’ll know that I’ve perfected the art when one of them will actually sell me a car for the amount of money that I actually have. (Ka-ching!)

I know two things about what I’m wanting (and now I’m back to talking about cars. And you’re a dirty, dirty girl. You know who you are.): stick shift and station wagon. The station wagon is for continued independence, in that I don’t have to borrow someone else’s car if I need to schlep big stuff. Or go to Costco.

The stick shift is because I love to really DRIVE. Not just steer and brake, but actually be engaged in all parts of motoring around. Call me a snob, because in this I SO AM, but I find driving an automatic to be less driving and more riding, now with extra steering. Both of the cars that I test drove last weekend were 5-speeds, and it was on that day that I realized I’d really, REALLY missed driving a manual transmission.

Now I’ll leave so that you can make all those naughty “stick shift” jokes I know you’ve been stifling. Dirty Girl.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.

I miss sex.

(Oops, forgot this part: WARNING! The following blog post could be a little FRANK for some folks. If talk of sex and sex-like-thing-deals makes you squeamish please ABORT! AVERT YOUR EYES! Look AWAY!
AWAY!)
Now, where was I? Oh, right.

I miss sex.

Please to understand first and foremost that my sex experiences are both tiny and remote. Like if you wanted to look at my sex life it would be as standing on the moon and saying “Hey, I can see my house from here!” I’ve only ever had the one partner and that ended (counting. Re-counting, because that CAN’T be right. Shaking head sadly…) 12 years ago last October. I have not had sex in over a dozen years.

I HAVE NOT HAD ANY SEX, NOR KISSING, NOR HEAVY PETTING NOR NOTHING IN OVER 12 YEARS.

Now to my credit most of the time I don’t even think about it. Months can go by without me even thinking a truly dirty thought. I scoff, SCOFF, at those tv sitcoms where people lament the WHOLE 3 MONTHS since the last time they “got some” and say to them that they are pussuahhh*. This is the normal me and my normal thoughts (or lack of same) about “doin’ it.”

But every couple of years I’ll hit a change in season, normally spring or fall, and suddenly it’s all I can danged well think about. Everything is dirty, there’s innuendo (look at that, right there – does that word look dirty to anybody else? No? Just me? I rest my case!) behind every sentence, I blush at the drop of a hat… Ugh. That’s been this spring for me so far.

This time around my stupid, hot and bothered psyche has a new trick: last night I had a sex dream, but not about me. My sex dream was about OTHER people having sex. Apparently my mind has such a hard time imagining me having sex it can’t even picture it in my dreams anymore. Instead my dreams feature my FRIENDS having sex. Smack dab in the middle of a dream that was already turbo-bizarre and vivid, thanks to some kind of vicious food-induced gas, I walk into my friends’ house and there they were in flagrante delicto! And did I step out? Oh no, for I had very not-important things to discuss, so I just stood there, chatting up friend one while friend two stayed on-task. (see, even “on task” sounds dirty to me.)

Also awesome was the fact that I didn’t remember this detail right away when I woke up. No, my evil, EVIL brain held that little detail until I was standing, only half-awake, in the shower. And then suddenly I’m standing there with a brain full of friend-nooky! Gah! Gah!

Needless to say I was very awake then.

I’m very much hoping that this wave of dirty-brain will pass soon. Otherwise I’m going to have to just stop dreaming for fear of what might pop up next. (and that sounds dirty too.)

*pussuahhh: my version of "pussy", akin to the "beotch"ing of "bitch" to make it more usable in common company. Should be pronounced like this: PUS-OOOO-AAAAAAH. Really stretch out the "aaaah" part. Tell your friends.

Monday, March 23, 2009

At First Site

It’s finally happened. I’ve fallen in love.

And it’s so true what they say: it happens when you least expect it! I mean, I just went out for a lark, to have a little fun… I never expected to make this kind of connection! It’s also funny because I totally thought I knew exactly what I was looking for and yet I couldn’t have been farther from what I’ve found. I thought I wanted dependable, simple, modest, safe… But what got me totally hot was flashy! Dramatic! Fast!

And WAY out of my price range! Stupid Mazda Protégé station wagon…

I went out on Sunday to test drive some cars at the lots just to narrow down the field a little, and I thought I totally knew what my first pick was. But that was before I met Suave Salesman Guy and his Mazda Protégé whore Wagon! Sigh. It’s twice what I want to pay for a car but MAN is it a nice ride! I went into the day very sensible: “I can afford this much and I need only these things and I don’t care about bells OR whistles! They cannot sway me! I am strong!” By the end of the day I’m saying things like “What kind of a philostine drives around with a cool ass? Absurd!” or “I can’t believe that I’ve been manually controlling my cruise lo these many years. Like I’m some sort of CAVEMAN!”

The Mazda salesman guy figured out somewhere along the way that my father and I (yes, I took my Dad, and here’s why: he used to be a racecar driver. He LOVES cars. He loves everything about all cars. And so while I’d be good at asking the right questions and checking the acceleration and the brakes and all in the car, he’s going to PUT IT THROUGH IT’S PACES, MY FRIEND.) are car enthusiasts. Armed with this knowledge he took us to meet his car girlfriend, the Mazda 3, speed version. I’m pretty sure he would have French kissed this car if he could have figured out where it’s tongue is. And frankly by the time we were done test-driving it I wanted to feel up its under-carriage a little myself. It’s a real trip to drive a car that is FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST. Sigh.

None of this changes the fact that I don’t want to borrow a big pile of money from someone. From ANYONE. My big goal the last almost 2 years has been all about getting completely OUT of debt. I accept that I’ll have to get some kind of loan for a replacement set of wheels, but despite what Mr. Suave Salesman Guy would have you believe, it is NOT the same thing to buy a ten year old car for $5000 as to buy a 5 year old car for $9000 as to buy a BRAND NEW CAR (“where you put all the miles on it yourself!”) for $25000.

Tomorrow I go to visit the people in the banks with the boxes of money and see how much of this money they’d be willing to let me hold on to for the next few years. And I need to be strong and not think of that trampy Mazda while I’m negotiating.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

My Body, My Self.

I’m tired. All the time I’m tired. Tired at work, tired at home, tired in the in-between times… Today I was driving out to another work location and I dozed off sitting at a red light. (luckily the lovely lady in the car behind me was kind and generous enough to lay on her horn ala NY Times Square to rouse me from my reverie.)

Just now, as I was trying to watch a taped show and write a blog post I fell asleep three or four times. And I hate that because I have to keep rewinding the VCR over and over to watch the same scenes. And also I fell asleep a little bit on the keyboard one time and so my blog post originally started out 333333333333…33333333333333333333.333333333333333333333333333333333333…… 3333333333333333333.333333333333333333333333333.33333333333333.

Now I know my poor friend the Queen would look at the time this post was published and go “oh gosh, why would you be tired at 11:20pm? Weird!” and would then remind me that she hasn’t slept all through the night in like a week because the princesses have been generously sharing some form of plague back and forth between themselves and just today were kind enough to pass it on to the King and then she would suggest that maybe, just maybe I should go to BED and sleep THERE.

But we know that’s crazy talk.

Also the late night thing doesn’t explain the falling asleep at the red light or the evening meeting on Monday or any of the other eleventy-three times I have been sleepy since… um Halloween.

So I’m going to the doctor. And I have theories three and they are:

1. I have a sinus infection and have since the Christmas cold
2. I have a vitamin D deficiency. I need more D. (or shoul I say “I nee more d”)
3. I’m actually part bear and should be hibernating every winter. (this is my favorite theory, although I have concerns about what will be necessary to prove this. I’m afraid there will be shots.)

I really have only one symptom to support the sinus infection theory, and that is green boogers. Since the Christmas cold there has been a steady supply of neon green bats in my nose-caves. I kept waiting for any additional symptoms and nothing’s showed up, but I’m going to the doctor anyway so I figure I’ll ask about the boogers either way.

As for the vitamin D deficiency, it’s apparently THE cool thing of which to be deficient these days. Just ask Oprah. She mentioned it on some little show she does (it must be nice to be leader of the free world) and now all the clinics are being bombarded with calls about people who think they’re dying from a lack of D. You normally get your D from the sun through your skin, but it’s been a little winterish the last few months and that tends to make one bundle up and the sun can’t penetrate the sweaters and coats and hence the deficiency. And I know you’re probably saying to yourself what I said to myself which was “well hell, I’ll just go to the store and get some Vitamin D. They sell the entire vitamin alphabet there, so…” then I found out that if you ARE deficient you have to take 50,000 mg per week. And the vitamins you can get from the store are 1,000 mg capsules. So to self-medicate I’d have to buy and consume an entire bottle of 50 pills each week. And I hate to take pills, so… I’d rather gargle a vase of marbles, ya know?

Where was I? Oh, right – goin’ to the doctor.

I can’t get in until next Friday because someone was crazy enough to let my doctor go on vacation (ridiculous) so I’ll have to try to stay awake for the next week or so. Also will try to resist stealing any pic-a-nic baskets.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The one where my pride doth goeth...

Sometimes work can be great. For instance, last week there was this meeting that I had with the security dept. This was a meeting all about negotiation, about getting what we need for our building w/out giving too much away. I’d talked to some of the security folks on the phone but this was the first time I’d met Mr. Second-In-Command guy, he in all his hotness.

So we’re in this meeting and I’m en FUEGO! I’m all “This is what we need!” and “You’re gonna have to get me the numbers before we can do that” and I’m strong and clever and witty and charming and (by the way) not even a LITTLE bit humble. And I’m also really aware of how Mr. Second-In-Command is really lookin’ at me. His hotness seems to be seeing my hotness. Look at me, totally bringing the hotness to the negotiating table!

I figure he’s sitting there thinking “who IS this woman? How have I never met her before? She’s so STRONG and CONFIDENT! She knows what she wants and she’s gonna get it, and woe be he who tries to stand in HER way!” He’s thinking “how can I get to know this girl more? How can I find out what makes this girl tick? Seriously, I’ve just never been so fascinated…”

All this attention is just spurring me on and by the end of the meeting I’m the TOAST of the security department. I’m wondering which conference room they’ll dedicate to the wonder and awesomeness that IS me. It’s been an entire week of utter crapstorm, with brief flurries of wanting to kill either everyone else or myself, so this meeting is JUST what I needed. Because here I am, getting what we need and making things happen and laying networking pipe and through it all? Hot Mr. Second-In-Command can’t stop staring RIGHT AT ME!

These are the thoughts tra-la-laing through my brain as my partner and I head out to the car. And she’s talking, saying things that are, I’m sure, very important although obviously not as important as the things I was just saying because Hello, did you SEE the hot guy staring at me? But still she’s talking, saying words and things. Things like “that went really well!” (YEAH it did, because I’m a mover and a shaker, baby!) and “It was neat to meet those security people finally” (especially the HOT Second-In-Command guy who, I’m sure you noticed, was FASCINATED by how awesome is me. You noticed that, right?) and “I did think it was kind of funny that nobody asked what happened to your face.”

…I’m sorry, what now?

MY FACE. The frightful, scary and scarry and totally un-not-noticeable full facial laceration right down my face. My face that none of them had ever seen before, so as far as they know I ALWAYS sport a great gashious evil mark down my face-parts. So all this time I’m basking in “I find this woman FASCINATING” when really he was probably thinking “this poor, disfigured girl. Maybe Oprah could help her? Maybe they could give her a make-over or build her a super-fancy house. I really should stop staring at her horrible scar…”

Yeah, sometimes work can be great. I’m crossing my fingers for next week.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

An open letter to the coupled friends. from the almost desperate.

Many single people like myself, of a “certain age” or above, have coupled friends and these coupled friends want to see their single friends coupled. This is mostly a nice thought coming from a place of no malice, and most single people know this. Unfortunately this is the way it tends to go:

“Hey, you know how [husband] and I are trying to find a house to buy with a little granny-flat on the back for [friend] to live in? You remember [friend], he’s the drummer in [husband’s] band? He can’t stay where he’s living now and you know how hard it is to find work, and since he’s been out of rehab for like a whole month and a half we really want to help him out… anyway, he’s single and you’re single, so I was thinking I should introduce you guys. I bet you’d love him!”

…Love him. Yeah, I’ll bet I would. Love him like a cavity search from a porcupine or explosive anal leakage. That kind of special love. (also a flail massage or puss soup.)

Don’t get me wrong, I know that from the coupled friend’s perspective this is coming from a place of love or like or at least non-hate, and also there’s the conservation of energy because “hey, if I could hook up one of my single friends with another of my single friends and YAHTZEE! I’d have TWO friends coupled AT ONCE!” Who can argue with such economy of effort? We ARE in a recession here, people – the watch word of the day IS conservation!

Only here’s the thing I will say to you, oh coupled people out there with single friends just flaunting their singleness: though to you it makes perfect sense, here’s what you’re REALLY saying to you single friend:

“Hey, you know how [husband] and I have that totally flaky/damaged/lost/forlorn or possibly radioactive friend who can’t keep his sh*t together enough to even pay rent, because he’s got a super-dependable career like DRUMMER IN A BAND, not to mention the drug problems and the no money? He’s the guy that made us that wind chime from used soda cans and those kidney stones he passed last Thanksgiving, right? Right. Well anyway, I was just thinking that he’s single, and YOU’RE single, and you’ve been single long enough that you might be just desperate enough to go out with even him! Where should I mail the wedding gifts?”

So a quick note for the coupled people out there: single does not automatically mean desperate. Also? A CRAPPY relationship is actually NOT better than no relationship at all. (And nobody is that desperate.)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Beauty Secrets from Femtastic and Ninja cat

Ya know, you really can’t expect someone to take note of you if you’re not making the most of your look, right? I mean I don’t like to be vain, but I’m trying a few new things with my look to stand out from the crowd. I’m gonna dye over my grey strands, I’m putting real thought into my wardrobe, I’ve added a jagged, incredibly violent looking scar from my right eye down across my nose… you know, little things.

Because dudes – they dig scars, right?

Yeah, with much help from my girl kitty (shout-out to Ms Lulu of the razor-sharp claws and the ninja moves) I’m sporting a little something I like to call “full facial laceration.” The “how” isn’t even that good of a story. I’m all “c’mere kitty” and she’s all “ouch, you’re holding me wrong!” and I’m all “dude, stop with the squirming!” and she’s all “what if I… gotta get… how about if I… flip… flipping around…” and then she did this cool, Cirque-du-Kitteh mid-grab flip-thing right around that would have been awesome if she hadn’t had all the claws extended and if some of those extended claws hadn’t streaked right across my face. My soft, squishy, easily-gashed face. Right on the front of my head.

That made it less awesome. And more “Holy crap, my face!!”

So then I’m sitting there holding my face back on w/ my hand and I’m aware of two things: 1) wow, this SUPER hurts!, 2) my hand is filling up with… something. The something was a liquid something, so next I’m running through all of the things that will be different now that I have just the one eye. (Bike might be a little tricky w/out depth of field. Spend ½ as much on eye-shadow. Cool eye patch! Etc.) Once the “something” filled up my hand and started running down on the cat she was all “Eww, eye juice! I’m outta here!”

This is when Dad noticed the face-clutching and asked, in that mellow Dad-tone, “hey, what happened?” And that’s when I said “Cat… got me… in the face…” and I took down my hand and tried to gauge the level of damage based on how horrific his expression was.

The good news is that the stuff filling my hand was tears. (because when you hurt your nose? SMARTIES! Think of how much your eyes water when you pluck a nose hair or pop a nose pimple. Now multiply that by jillions and jillions, and then double that, and then roll a 20-sided die and multiply your previous number by whatever you rolled on that 20-sided die (thereby allowing for your individual threshold for pain) and that’s how much it hurt. Hence the tears.)

(Important clarification: what I’m trying to say here is that I generally don’t cry. That I’m super-macho and stoic and you could show me a picture of bombs being dropped on a house full of orphans and nice little old ladies who just baked double-chocolate-chip brownies JUST FOR ME and I wouldn’t even burble a little bit. But this seriously hurt, yo? Yo.)

(Important additional clarification: now if the picture of the building being bombed contained even one critter? A bear or a puppy or a mouse or even those creepy looking little naked mole things from the zoo or even one little ladybug? Then I would cry. I would cry big, overflowing, splashing down the face tears. Because of the very important Femtastic rule: no critters are ever hurt. Ever.)

…now where was I? Oh, right - hand was full of manly, searing, pain-induced macho and stoic tears of pain, but contained NO BLOOD. OK, well not NO blood, but only a little trace amount of blood. Tears = yes, but blood = mostly no. WHEW! But the expression on the face of Dad was still pretty… startled. So I figured I’d go check the damage.

(Gorgeous, right?)

So now I get to wander around work with people either doing the “it’s HEEEDEOUS!!” face (ala Peter Lorre) or trying to pretend they don’t see my face while looking right at me, which tends to make them look off to the left side of my head. Like my talking to them is actually coming out in “talk bubbles” that they have to read to respond to. bloop, bloop, bloop: you’re right, it IS cold today, random co-worker person! Say, do you see anything funny on my face?” At some point today when someone finally asks if my cat scratched me I’m going to respond with “no, why?” and then feel my face and go into full-on freak out mode. “Oh my god, what happened to my face? Oh god! The leprosy! It’s back! Don’t look at me, don’t touch me – UNCLEEEEEEN!!!!!” And then run away.

It’s going to be Cirque-du-Ninja-cat awesome.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Little Deuce Crap!

Remember how I was all “dude, I’m totally gonna get all knocked up (which is super-spendy) or become a world traveler (which is also spendy) and just generally rock my world!” and then I made that thumb-pinky hand-shakey thing like I’m a surfer dude? Remember that? And remember how you guys were all thinking “Wow, I so would not tempt fate like that if I were you.” (even though you were too cool to say anything) And how I was all “Naw, it’s cool. I have some extra scratch each month so this will be cool…” And then how you guys just kind of shook your head and sat back to wait for the cosmic spanking that I so richly deserved?

Well, consider me spanked.

It was probably no more than 2 weeks after my bold, manly post that my car said “ummm, die.” And then it died. (actually it was way more dramatic than that. First it did this thing where it wouldn’t go up to the next gear, and then when I went to turn off the radio to see what sounds the engine was making it made a pretty BIG sound! And then there was the terrible, terrible grinding sound it started making in the lowest gear. And in the third gear it would just let go periodically and do that “RrrrrrrrreeeeEEEEEEEE!!!!” sound when the engine just revved maniacally… “died” is much better.)

Here’s what you need to know from my car experience: transmissions are good. They’re important, and really every car should have one. One that works, and shifts the gears. All the gears.

Now that my car has only the “non-working, and probably coming apart each time I try to use it” kind of transmission, and is also 13-14 years old, and ALSO only cost me about $3000 to buy it when I bought it 8 or so years ago, it’s time to move on to a new (used) car.

So now lookit me: I’m Joe “Lookin’ for a car!” Guy!

Here’s what I’m shopping for:
  • Not more than a decade old
  • Something with sufficient space, preferably a wagon
  • Reasonable cost for parts (because no matter what I’ll have mechanic bills. It’s how I roll)
  • NOT an SUV
  • More than 2 doors. We’d accept 4, 5… but not 2.
  • Shiny.
  • Goes “boop boo-BEEP!” when I walk away from it. (I admit I’ve been jonsing for a while to get a car that says bye-bye when you walk away. Love the bonding.)
  • Little to no blood stains visable on any of the carpeting.
  • That it have some carpeting.
  • That a Carfax report on this used car doesn’t include the words “flood”, “inferno” or “possessed by Satan”
  • Has never been filled with cigarette smoke. Or Pina colada air freshener. (shudder)
  • Not white. (its gonna look filthy enough without that.)
Also I don’t know if you guys have heard about this, but apparently the economy is not so good? Yeah. Also people have decided that loaning money is the first step toward wide-spread communism. So there’s that. And maybe I’m a big old financial slacker, but as it turns out I don’t actually HAVE $7000 in any of my jeans pockets. Even the skinny pair I haven’t been able to put on for 4 years. No wads of any cash. (sub-text here: anybody want to mail me $7000 I’ll TOTALLY give up my secret identity! And a key to my house and daily foot washing and the first born of those kids I previously thought I’d try to have!)

I’m gonna go on some test drives of cars tomorrow. Not that I’m ready to buy. But I’m definitely ready to WANT to buy. And that’s really the first step. (or possibly accepting that I have a problem. Which I totally, totally do.)

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Super-Dork gets Knolledge!

I'm sure I've covered this at least a little bit, but I don't like math. Math is hard, and math makes me sad and makes my brain hurt.

Right now there is all of this commotion over the economy and how it's bad. Really bad. "Please kill me" bad. In a sh*tstorm of completely and utter badness, now with more "holy crap, this is just so incredibly bad!!" I understand the news (ok, not so much the "news" as Jon Stewart. But still, it's kind of like the news. and also shut up.) enough to get that things are bad, and that the badness involves credit and banks and such things. But in all honesty (and I can be honest with you guys -- if you were going to judge me here the ship would have MORE than sailed already, so...) I haven't really understood it all.

Like, for instance, I keep thinking to myself "so I know that the U.S. no longer has money, and neither does big chunks of Europe, or Canada, or definitely not Iceland. But then where IS all the money that everybody used to had? Did someone burgle us? Couldn't we just go to the land of the burglers and get our stuff back? And while we're there couldn't we punch them super-hard in the shoulder? Anyone? Anyone?"

Oh, and lest you feel the need to point it out, I already know that to ask these questions out loud would have been the equivalent of painting "massive dork!" on my forehead. So instead I just published it. On the world wide web. Where folks can't judge me. (Hmmm, got a smudge on my cape...)

Today someone at work sent me the video below. And NOW. I. GET. IT! This video is the way that everyone should be explaining it! This video is just simple enough for me, but just clever and pithy enough for people who already get it to still be entertained!

Please to enjoy this video and finally understand how the hell we got where we are. When you're done I'm organizing a trip to go visit all the Mortgage Lenders who arranged for the sub-prime loans. So we can punch them super hard in the shoulder head face sexy good-time parts.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.