Janelle's Life Boot Camp: 5 Steps to Making It In the World

(cross posted. Deal with it.)

At my office, we tend to bitch about things. A lot. Most of the time, it's about technology (software, hardware, 3DHD Audio Force Fields, ball in cups, etc).

However, another theme is people. Or, more specifically (and less mean, I guess), characteristics exhibited in many people that make them really annoying. These people need Life Boot Camp. And I'm here to help, for the low low price of four payments of $29.95. (blog hits are also accepted)


Janelle's Life Boot Camp: 5 Steps to Making It In the World ***
by Janelle


1) Learn to Evaluate Social Cues

A baby must be raised by a human, unless you are Mowgli and are lucky enough to find some nice anthropomorphic wolves. So, all things considered, a human should be able to interpret basic human social cues, such as eye-rolling, an avoidance of eye contact, body language, verbal assaults, etc. that one normally encounters from infancy up through death.

Example: If you're talking to me, and I have headphones on, am surrounded by open books, am chewing on a pen lost in thoughtfulness, and am barely acknowledging your presence, odds are I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU. You lose points if I have my arms crossed in a defensive manner, sigh impatiently, and give one-word answers to your queries.

The example is an extreme one, sure. But take it from me: learning to recognize these painfully obvious cues will lessen your douchebaggery.


2) Know Enough About Human Sexuality to Appreciate a "That's What She Said" Joke

I really hope, if you're reading this, and you have read our "Overheard" posts, that you do not fall into this category. You don't need to be a 7 & Van Dyke hooker to giggle when someone says something like, "I can't get it in." Immature? Yes. Hilarious? Absofrickinlutely.

Granted, there are various levels of dirty minds that can be tolerated. I don't expect a 7 year old to laugh when, as their father is fixing the sink, he says, "Damn, that's really tight." However, anyone 14 years and older, barring a physiological/psychological disorder, should be wise enough in the ways of the world to not only laugh at that -- but make it better.

Example:

Sean Connery: Craven Morehead.
Alex Trebek: WHO IS Craven Morehead?
Sean Connery: The guy who slept with your mother last night.


3) Watch Good Movies

I realize that this category is subjective. Except, it's not. I'm the judge of it. I'll evaluate your life skills when I know what kind of movies you like, and more than likely, you will fail. Also, you must like musicals.

Examples: The Blue Lagoon, Heavyweights, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1990), The Sound of Music, The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story, Grey Gardens, Beauty and the Beast, Labyrinth, Funny Girl (etc etc etc etc X infinity)


4) Know When a Joke Has Gone Too Far

Unfortunately, there are several people in my life who have yet to learn this skill. My basic rule of thumb: you can beat your wife with a stick no wider than your thumb. My basic rule of jokes: if it's gone on for longer than a minute, and no one is laughing anymore, and someone says "you've taken this way too far", the joke is dead. So bury it, mourn it, and move on.

Example:

Person 1: "And then he was like OH MY GOD MY FOOT FELL OFF!"
(Person 2 and Person 3 laugh)
. . . seconds later . . .
Person 1: "OH MY GOD MY FOOT FELL OFF!"
(Person 2 and Person 3 chuckle, then return to what they were talking about)
. . . milliseconds later . . .
Person 1: "Hey Person 2, did your foot fall off?"
(crickets)
. . . 15 seconds later . . .
Person 1: "I bet YOUR foot fell off!"
Person 2: "Not funny anymore."
Person 1: "HAHAHAHHA"
(Person 1 then goes on to post Facebook statuses about various people's feet falling off for 4 days.)

(see also: "Learn to Evaluate Social Cues")


5) Don't Be Dumb

If you're going to do something, do it right.

If you're going to say something, be right.

If you say something wrong, don't.

If you think you're right and I say you're wrong, I'm right, because I'll look it up and prove it.

Don't be wrong, and don't be dumb.

LIFE SKILLS, beeyotches.

Example:

Someone: "Jodie Benson did the voice of Belle in Beauty and the Beast."

Me: "No she didn't."

Someone: "Yes, she did."

Me: "Nope, it was Paige O'Hara, and the Beast was Robby Benson, and Lumiere was Jerry Orbach, Cogsworth was David Ogden Stiers, Mrs. Potts was Angela Lansbury, Chip was Bradley Pierce, it was directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, released in 1991 and nominated for a Best Picture Oscar."

Someone: "No, I know it was Jodie Benson."

Me: "She was considered, since she was the voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, but was deemed too 'all-American', and they wanted someone more European sounding."

Someone: "I don't think you're right."

(I pull out my "The Making of Beauty and the Beast" special edition book, as well as my "Behind the Scenes" VHS tape and my 3 copies of the movie.)

JUST DON'T DO IT.






*** Disclaimer: I have not yet made it anywhere, so I'll let you know if this works. No refunds. Sorry Roger, you tiger now.

Don't Watch The Dark Knight and Play The Sims Before You Go To Bed

I had the absolute weirdest dream I've ever had last night.

Have you ever seen Inception? Well, I swear I had a dream-within-a-dream. It started with me and a bunch of people at "school" -- it seemed like a school for the arts, and there were random people from my past and current life in it. These people changed a lot -- at one point I was walking around with my former best friend Nadia, another time I was with Alex Waner from Harlaxton, and another time I was with Scott and Tommy from work. There was a big renovation project going on at the school, so we were having a class in a big empty room with hardwood floors, and the walls were in the process of being painted gray.

Someone starts talking about how the Joker was on the loose again. Apparently we were living in Gotham City, and this wasn't completely shocking to us. It was nighttime, and our class was letting out for the day. Suddenly, someone notices that the ceiling was covered with drawings of little stick figures, each with a name written under it. Everyone in the class had their name under a stick figure. Waner gets up on the desk and pushes in the ceiling tile where his name was, and pulls down a beaker of blue liquid. Everyone does the same, except me. I'm really nervous about this, but all of the other people pull down their blue beaker of liquid and drink it. Immediately, it's evident that they've all been drugged. They start going crazy, like they're on LSD. I start yelling at everyone, saying that the Joker probably put them there, but they're all drugged. Suddenly, I'm all alone, and I'm faced with the possibility of walking home alone in Gotham City with the Joker on the loose. I know that he'll be back at some point, so I'm very creeped out, thinking that he could still be in the building. The whole building, which is being renovated, is dark, and I grab my backpack and manage to make it out unscathed, although I was certain that he was in the building following me (the building looked a lot like Harlaxton at night when you're not supposed to be in the state rooms but you are anyway because of the fire escape that's open in the basement . . . whoops.) And it was terrifying.

As soon as I make it to my apartment building, guilt sets in. All those drugged people are in that building, probably ready to be employed as the Joker's minions against their will. Also, I had forgotten my purse, with all of my ID's -- so the Joker, who would know that I hadn't taken the drugs and therefore knew that I knew what he'd done, could come to my apartment and kill me at any time. I decide I have to go back.

When I get back to the classroom, my beaker of blue liquid had been taken down from the ceiling and placed on a table in the middle of the room with a card with my name written on it. I am immensely creeped out, and then I see that he had laid out all of my cards on the table next to it, so he knew where I lived. Grabbing all of my stuff and turning around, I see him standing there.

He says, "Why did they all leave you alone?"
I say, "I don't know."
He says, "Well, go home, I'm not ready to play with you yet."

Then I wake up.

But I'm still dreaming. I'm in a luxury high-rise flat, which is apparently my house. I walk out into the amazingly bright, modern kitchen, and Scott and Tommy are eating cereal and each reading the paper at the island. I tell them my dream (I literally retold the entire thing in my dream.) (Also, we built a house on the Sims for me, Scott, and Tommy, and I played it before I went to bed.)

Scott says, "Stop doing drugs."
Tommy says, "I think the whole point of the dream was that she doesn't do drugs."
Scott says, "But dreams are just subconscious, so she probably really wants to do drugs, but doesn't want to be out of control."
Tommy says, "This isn't Inception."
Scott says, "How do you know?"


Then I woke up.

I THINK I REALLY AM ON DRUGS.

House Hunters

I'm, of course, addicted to HGTV. I've always loved being able to get an inside look at all different kinds of houses, and imagining the potential in all the properties they show.

However, I get really pissed at these stupid people that walk into these houses and say, "Ugh, I hate the carpet." or "This third bathroom is way too small, even though the other bathrooms are awesome." Or, "These counters aren't our style."

Well, duh, it wasn't your house. If you're buying a house, you should budget for renovations. You're never going to find a house that's exactly your style unless you build it yourself. If you have $150,000 to spare on a house, you should set your budget at no more than $120,000 and put money into making it your own. What the hell do you think you're doing? This isn't the Sims, where you can use the money cheat and customize every detail with the "create a style" button. No. You are dumb.

You should walk into the house and say, "Wow, we could totally customize this house to fit our needs." Not, "Ugh, I wanted marble floors in the formal dining room that we'll never use, not this hardwood floor that's awesome and original to this 1890s Victorian."

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, get your shit together. You annoy me. HGTV should just have a "Let's Tour Awesome Houses" show, like MTV Cribs, only not with annoying people like Snoop Dogg and Vanilla Ice showing off their sex rooms.

Diary of a College Graduate

Do you all want to know what a college graduate does?

1) I woke up at 10:30am.
2) I finally got un-lazy enough to connect my Netflix account to the Wii, which, yes, takes about 2 minutes.
3) I watched almost the entire first season of Dexter.
4) I drank 3 cups of coffee and ate nothing.
5) I worked out.
6) I watched my dad break, fix, break, and fix the vacuum cleaner.
7) I took a nap with my cat.
8) I took a shower.
9) I talked to people on Facebook while they are in their college classes.
10) I am now waiting for dinner and watching Animal Planet with my dad.

I'm just living life. Wallowing in sucktasticism. Hakuna matata.

Sucktasticism

I'm very sorry, loyal readers. But I have been exploring a new creative endeavor: the Sucktasticism movement.

Sucktasticism (n.): The artistic movement in which one cannot get his or her shit together long enough to honor commitments and/or vague promises. Symptoms include watching large amount of television, dicking around on the internet, not blogging, playing The Sims, and not getting out of pajamas.

Basically, everything about you is garbage, and you sit around thinking up awesome ideas that never come to anything because you feel very lazy and don't want to do anything.

I'm trying to not completely submerge myself into Sucktasticism, but sometimes it's really hard--like when you come home every day and your parents have dinner ready. Or when you wake up at 11:30am and watch the Price is Right and then take a nap. Or when you just re-read all 7 Harry Potter books in one week.

I can give you life updates on my Sims (Mortimer Goth is boning Bella Bachelor, but she and his mom hate each other. Mortimer's dad quit his job as a CEO and became the Mayor of Sunset Valley.) That's art.

Take a voyage into Sucktasticism. But please, don't stay too long -- you might miss the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars.