Nine of my pet peeves about other bus passengers, aka if you do this I hate you.

1. Playing your music loud enough so everybody around you can hear. This is the worst thing you can ever do around me. But you know what brings the 'worst' up to the next level? Not using headphones at all. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Your music sucks! I swear I have never heard a single song I like playing on someone else's portable device in all my years of being on the bus. Nobody is enjoying this but you, asshole. And you know what's even worse than that? Whistling along to your music! AAARGH

2. Putting your feet or bags or luggage or whatever on an empty seat when the bus is nearly full. Don't be a weiner. You are no more important than anybody else and everybody wants a seat. If you put your feet on the seat you are getting your disgusting dirt and dog poo and street crap and garbage on that seat and could be ruining someone's khaki pants. How rude!

3. Loud talking. Prolonged cell phone conversations in a valley girl voice are so obnoxious. Nobody wants to hear about what Jen said about your shoes. Same with loud conversations with your friends where you are trying to sound cool but actually you sound like a total white trash idiot: talking about who tried to shank you, talking about the hot chick you banged, talking about the drugs you're on...you are a loser and are ruining my quiet bus reading time.

4. Sick people on the bus. People who cough without discretion. COVER YOUR DANG MOUTH! I'm so serious about this, do the vampire sneeze and the vampire cough or try to do that closed-mouth-impossible cough. Bring tissues when you're sick and be discrete when you blow your nose. If I get mothereffin' sick because you're too much of an dick face to cover your germ-hole I am gonna be SO ANGRY.

5. Not holding on while you're standing up. DUDE you don't look cool stumbling all over the damn place falling into people's laps and hitting them with your backpack. Just hold on. If you're afraid of germs then bring some fucking purell in your pocket. I got myself in the habit of washing my "bus hands" the second I get home, and never touching my face or eating after being on the bus until said hand-washing occurs.

6. Letting your kids do what they want on the bus. I never ever want to sit beside your toddler because you think they're old enough to start talking to strangers. And I never want some baby pulling my hair. It's not cute.  I don't want your two boys to be reaching across me, hitting each other.  Worst of all, watching your kid to go down the steps of the double decker is stressful as hell! What if they fall? They'll break a leg! Hold that kid's hand, dangit!

7. Eating on the bus is disgusting. I don't want to smell shrimp flavored chips and you are probably ingesting some form of the bubonic plague.That is all.

8. Picking a fight with other bus patrons. This is a weird one that happens more often than you'd think. Usually it's young men between the ages of 18-35ish who have had a few brewskies on the way home from whatever their jobs are that causes them to wear brown carhart overalls covered in paint. And be drunk. Double worse? Picking a fight or talking back to the bus driver. Oh how I feel for the bus drivers. What a terrible job. I always cheer on the inside when a driver kicks someone off the bus. You got your come-uppance, fool!

9. PDA. Nobody wants to see your tongue anywhere near anybody else. And really? Is this romantic? Because I think it's akin to making out in a dumpster, maybe with less rats. No matter how great your girl looks in her sideways Ed Hardy cap, orange makeup mask, spider leggy mascara and/or Lulu Lemon yoga pants, please, just wait 'til you get home, mmkay?

I bet if I thought about it I could come up with thirty more things...sometimes I just really hate people. Except for you guys of course. Heh heh heh (awkward)

Diptych: I get bored.

Things I Love Thursday

I love wearing these two colors together.  I also love...

This hilarious razor ad.

The thing people in each US State think is coming to get them.  

This killer embroidery.

The silliness of busyness. 

So...tubas aren't made of gold?

It's amazing how much a little money can do. 

This dreadlocked...well you'll see. It's not a bear eating grass! 

The 3D market. Where you can buy basically any model of 3D paper glasses.

---

These parody cereal boxes by Ron English, that were actually placed covertly onto grocery store shelves. I would bust a gut if I actually saw these somewhere! 

Found via Laughing Squid. 

---

6 silly sounding jobs that are way harder than you think. 

8 questions to ask besides "So when are you getting married?"

How amazing the human brain is. 

A brief survey of ridiculous anti-drug propaganda.

Caitlin's diagram of the creative process.  So true!

It socks to be lonely.

The real scientific process.

And last but not least...

...these unomoralez loops: 

click here for more

---

silly hobbies and puzzles and thought experiments

Recently Diana of Our City Lights wrote about how she sometimes thinks she has silly hobbies for a 30 year old, like toy cameras and playing guitar. I, at a youthful 29, have never thought that cameras and guitars were silly. In fact, I am under the impression they are cool. What do you think?

Anyway I commented on that post something like "what would you rather be doing, building a puzzle or something? LOL" and then it hit me: I would rather be building a puzzle! Any of you have any recommendations for good um, puzzle brands? Or something? Is there such a thing as a better quality one? I know nothing about them except it's easier if you start with the corner pieces and I haven't done one since I was about twelve years old.

***here comes a famous Nova segue***

Speaking of puzzles, check out these illustrated videos of famous thought experiments! I found these via Yes and Yes, which you all should be reading for so many reasons if you aren't already.

lately...

Reading:

I recently finished The Poisonwood Bible - it took me probably a hundred pages to even get into this book but once I got past the crazy bible references and nutso dad it was really interesting! It's basically the story of missionaries sent into the Congo, as told by the children and wife of a preacher.

I don't really say I like a book until something sticks with me and makes me feel. In this book it was when the youngest daughter was playing with a Congolese boy, and he told her she should not say the word "snake" after dark because if a snake heard it, he would think they were calling it. So instead they should use the word "string". So for the rest of the book whenever the little girl is talking about snakes she calls them strings. I just love it, it's so cute.

I have also just finished Just Kids, the Patti Smith book.  Wow. I mean...I don't even know how to describe this book, it's so interesting! It's about her and Robert Mapplethorpe while they were in their late teens to mid-twenties, living in New York in the '60s and '70s. I especially fell in love with The Chelsea Hotel. Wowzers. You should definitely read this book if you get a chance.

I want to go to there. Image from here, and more on the Chelsea here.

And right now I'm reading Lamb by Christopher Moore, a humorous book in which the protagonist is Jesus Christ's best friend, who goes back and re-tells the "real" story of their childhood together, as opposed to what the bible says.

Watching: Um, duh, The Walking Dead, season 2. EEK! It stresses me out every time. LADY WITH THE GUN IN THE BATHROOM, STOP PUTTING IT TOGETHER FOR LIKE ONE MINUTE. You all know what I'm talking about.

Images via here and here.

Listening to: Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. I know I'm super late to the Chelsea Handler train. I'm listening to this as an audio file rather than reading the book. Mostly it's funny and crass, but there's a few kind of racist remarks that actually had me saying "I don't know about this". The chapter about her getting caught drunk driving and going to jail was hilarious though.

Eating: um...nothing really exciting, but I've been craving apple slices with peanut butter lately. Yum!

Loving: that I finally got a pair of black boots, so I can dress like a girl again. Don't worry everybody, I also got brand new inserts as well, you know, for safety purposes.

Hating: STILL not being able to stand or walk for like, any period of time without re-hurting myself. DAMN FEET.

Looking forward to: my sister coming to visit! She contracted a photography job here in Victoria and will be around for like, four days! Hooray! She takes really nice photos, you can see them here and here if you're interested.

This is my sister, by the way. Isn't she beautiful? I've got to be honest, I only have dudes in my life at the moment (at home, work, etc.) and I'm nervous letting some of them them anywhere near her...

diptych: two spooooky photos for Halloween

As I said last year, be safe and get candy! Happy Halloween!

photos: Halloween crow and our pumpkins!

This particular restaurant always has orange lights on around the patio. It just so happened that a few days before Halloween I caught a creepy crow hanging out there. I love when things just come together like that.

And here are our jack'o'lanterns. I decided after seeing Amalie's post  that I wanted to make a scary mouthed spiky teeth guy too. Ryan went for a not-carved-all-the-way-through Cartman, and the kids...did their own thing. One has a unibrow, so there's that.

The process:

The finished product (it was hard to get a good pic of Ryan's):

 And then we found the glow sticks...