Bruno is now at the bottom!!

Jerksblog!

Date-Based Archive Rick's friend Dave

Sent me this. Seriously, what the hell?

Clearly Dave drew it himself... but uh...??

Posted by erin at 08:17 PM | Comments (7)

Date-Based Archive It's [not] the punk!

Today I'm wearing my super-tall extra-cute Japanese school-girl socks (under pants) for warmth. I lack the sock glue, known as "It's the punk!" so my socks would normally fall down. However, I had a stroke of genius this morning and decided to put on knee-high nylon stockings underneath the socks. It's almost noon and the socks are staying up in an acceptable manner!

Also, my legs are adequately warm.

Posted by erin at 11:47 AM | Comments (11)

Date-Based Archive Assorted Leftover Topics

These are some topics I was going to write about on Friday, but never got around to:

Filled with Sci-Fi Club goodness?

On Thursday night I hit sci-fi club during very nominal hours. The obnoxious people were not being obnoxious at all! All my friends were there! (Except N., and Franco, and those of you in Japan, of course.) Good conversation was had! I left at a decent hour and picked up some otafuko just as the place was closing. It was their last one.

Apparently after I left things got irritating, though.

Getting people to do stuff - the eternal struggle

I thought a lot on Friday about the eternal struggle that is getting people to do stuff. Think about it! All of life, all of commerce, all of civilization is moved by getting people to do stuff. You were born because someone convinced someone else to sleep with them. Capitalism works because people convince you to buy stuff all the time. The Egyptians got slaves to build their pyramids for them. What is work, what is any major corporation except people getting other people to do stuff? And when you really think about it, it's pretty hard to get people to do stuff sometimes. And yet, it happens every day! It boggles the mind!

Strange Fascination with coffee stirs

I remember the first time I ever saw a coffee stir. It looked like a weird little straw, with two chambers and a stripe. I thought that was pretty cool - miniature double straws! Then an adult told me it was a coffee stir. I was disappointed, since I didn't drink coffee at the time - plus, as a child I assumed anything from the adult world was probably really boring. I'm still kind of fascinated by coffee stirs - but now it's more because they're so weirdly disposable. "I don't want anything that's touched another person's coffee!" Does that seem odd to anyone else? I mean, maybe after you start drinking the coffee it'd be gross to stir it with some implement used by someone else - but at Starbucks the function of the coffee stir seems to be this: Add sugar, stir coffee, chuck coffee-stir immediately. The end. It's used once.

Yes, I know that's weird.

Posted by erin at 05:35 PM | Comments (8)

Date-Based Archive N.'s room = National Disaster Area, Fedral Funding Needed

N. found my Final Draft CD, in his room, near the desk, on the floor (right where he said it wasn't). He cleaned his room last weekend, but in only one week, it is once again absurdly messy.

This solves 98% of my screenwriting problems. ...but I'll still need to re-install Microsoft Word.

Posted by erin at 10:17 PM | Comments (18)

Date-Based Archive Sick & 9.1 Kills Me

I haven't been sick in ages, but I'm sick today. I've been sick all week. I missed work Monday, went in yesterday, and felt worse this morning so I stayed home again.

I did a very bad thing - I installed photoshop, and in order to do so had to update to Mac OS 9.1. Updating the OS broke my crappily pirated version of MS Word 98, which I was using to type new scenes for my screenplay. Now I only have Word 5.1, and I can't find my borrowed Final Draft Pro CD. I think it's at work or at N's, but I'm not sure, 'cause I'm at home.

Posted by erin at 04:02 PM | Comments (8)

Date-Based Archive Vortex

It turns out that the girl sitting next to N., right now, is reading Dave's blog, because she used to be one of his roommates.

Or something.

The Canadian (not Tum, but John) has met the real Frank Abingale, Jr., and talked with him for a while, as he was at the Catch Me if You Can premiere party. But then again, the Canadian also interview Gibson (maybe?).

N once went to a Troma party. My roommate also knows some Troma people. To the extent where she's gotten free DVD's from them.

But then again, my roommate also knew a member of the Pro Yo team - the guy who always wear goggles. Outch, perhaps? She didn't remember his name. She has also... get this... dated Moby briefly. They are still good friends, and he emails her a lot. I didn't quite believe her at first, but she produced a picture.

N is pretty sure he is a vortex of some kind, which reminds me of the movie Sudden Manhattan, an Adrian Shelly film that I liked that I don't think anyone else would.

Posted by erin at 03:45 PM | Comments (12)

Date-Based Archive Kindereggs for Hipsters

I just came back from Williamsburg, where N's old roommate lives. And what did I find, but surprise! surprise! he collects the little toys from inside of Kinder eggs.

"Good god!" said I, "My friends love those things! Where did you get it?"

"Why," he replied, "At the store just around the corner."

So there is a Kinder Surprise Egg supplier in Williamsburg, somewhere within a few blocks of the first stop on the L train. I think he said it was from a deli.

Posted by erin at 11:05 PM | Comments (5)

Date-Based Archive PATH tran fun; One Year Anniversery

I've been extremely busy at work lately, due to the new product that I'm kind of responsible for. Yesterday I accidentally included the words "test test" in an email that went to 2000 customers! Wheeee! But I'm not in trouble, or anything.

So I haven't been blogging as much, or answering jerksquad, due to the general insanity of the workplace, and my efforts to revise my script in the evenings. So I missed blogging about two important incidents during the week:

On Wednesday night, during rush hour, the PATH train broke down. The PATH, for those of you who don't already know, is the Port Authority Trans-Hudson subway, which connects New York to Jersey City at $1.50 a ride. I use it every day, and it has never shut down completely (short of Sept. 11th) until Wednesday. Suddenly there were thousands of commuters stranded on both sides of the Hudson.

I had to find another way to get back into Manhattan. My options included figuring out the NJ bus system, walking for a half-hour to Hoboken and taking NJ Transit trains, paying a million dollars for a cab, swimming the Hudson, or taking the ferry. Naturally I took the ferry, which leaves from a dock conveniently near my workplace. Unfortunately several hundred other people also decided to take the ferry.

There was only one guy selling tickets, so I had to wait in the cold, for an hour and a half, while three boats came and went, before I finally bought my ticket. When I finally got on the boat, it wasn't full, or even crowded. In fact, there were empty seats. The line I had waited in for tickets still stretched far away, up the dock, and I realized the one guy selling tickets could not work fast enough to fill a boat.

The PATH was shut down, as I found out later, between 5:30 and 7:00pm, because of some smoke at Christopher Street. I usually leave work at 5:00, but I left at 5:30 that day, and I got on the boat at 7:00, at about the time that PATH service was restored.

The Anniversary

N and I have now been dating for an entire year, and we celebrated our anniversary last night. This is a major achievement for me, as I've never dated anyone for an entire year before. My last boyfriend dumped me a few weeks short of a year.

N and I decided to do the same thing we did on our first date - we saw a movie and ate at Cozy's.

Some of you will remember the extremely cold day last year in January when we got together and saw The Royal Tennebaums. I had a bad cough, and was almost dead. At that point I was unsure if N liked me or not (although I expected he did) so I invited the larger group of friends just in case it wasn't really a date. I also was forcing Adan to see the movie, if you'll recall, and indeed, he liked the film. Before the movie started I stole Hal's seat (was it Hal's seat?) so I could sit next to N. It was very obvious to Hal what was going on.

This year N and I saw Catch Me If You Can which was quite good. Later, I'll tell you a knock-knock joke.

Posted by erin at 03:41 PM | Comments (8)

Date-Based Archive Newer, Gay-er Background

You see, now the text matches!

For more gay anitcs: http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity1567.html includes the colorful dialog:

Pants: Will you go to the prom with me?
Deuce: Yes and No.
[next panel]
Deuce: Yes in that I will rape you and never call you again.

OK so the new background is from, as Rick and ET, and N will know, "Revolutionary Girl Utena." Which is a ridiculous series with rose petals, duels with swords, and general insanity. Oh yeah, I made you guys watch the movie.

Posted by erin at 02:57 PM | Comments (3)

Date-Based Archive No longer baby-elephant sized

My mom joined Weight Watchers a few months back. Or, more accurately, someone else in her office joined and then photocopied all the material for everyone else in the office. My mom has lost something like 35 or 40 pounds, and spoke highly of the system when I was home.

About a month back I realized I'd gained another 5 pounds, making me like, 206. I thought maybe it was all muscle - but before Christmas I tried one of those body fat percentage thingies and I was still at 36%. That's really bad. Although I'd gotten in shape, and could bench 95 pounds, I still felt like a fucking fat-ass. It didn't help to learn that my mom, at her "fat" weight, was only maybe 185. I look MUCH thinner than her.

Anyway, the point here is that I joined Weight Watchers at work. A 12-week session costs tons less than a personal trainer (less than two visits with Lindy, anyway), and it worked for my mom, and my doctor recommended it.

I realize it seems totally lame, but actually its kind of amusing. The camp value is totally free.

The way it works is just fancy calorie counting. They give you a little sliding-card thingy where you calculate fat grams, fiber grams, and calories to find the weight watchers "points" for what you eat. You're supposed to eat within a certain range of points per day, depending on your current weight. You can eat whatever you want, but you're supposed to also try and get in two servings of milk, 6 servings of fruits/vegetables and 6 cups of water.

You can eat whatever you want, which is appealing to people like my mom, but you see, they trick you, because where a Snickers bar is 12 points (and a typically day is maybe 25 points), vegetables are all 0 points. So you're forced to eat healthy if you don't want to go hungry. I've been eating waaay more vegetables than normal.

And so I lost 6 pounds this week. In my "group" only one other person lost that much, other people mostly lost one pound. The recommended weight loss is like, 2 pounds per week.

I'm still going to the gym and all, I'm not an idiot. The recommended maximum weight for an adult of my height is a skinny-ass 155 pounds. I cannot imagine weighing 155 - I would probably be totally ripped with muscles. The last time I weighed 155 was probably 8th grade. My cross country weight was like, 175.

What gets to me is that I don't have a big chest, really. Not for someone of my weight, anyway. At 155, I would not have any breasts at all. I think I would be happy with 165. But if I do reach 155, I'll get a refund from Weight Watchers.

Posted by erin at 07:47 PM | Comments (12)

Date-Based Archive My new roommate is Bruno

And by that I mean she strips for a living.

Should I tell my parents for shock value? Hmmm...

Posted by erin at 03:04 PM | Comments (21)

Date-Based Archive Stinky cheese, Spices and Hundreds of Dollars

Every time a roommate moves out on me, I usually end up acquiring a great deal of crap (not really the case with Maggie), and I also end up losing a bunch of crap. I don't mean roommates take personal items from me, rather, I lose the use of useful roommate items that I do not otherwise own.

My very first set of NYU roommates moved out a week before I did, and took with them all the shower curtains and wastebaskets. Fortunately I knew someone with an extra shower curtain, and I was able to hang plastic bags on doorknobs for wastebaskets, and, as you can imagine I was not happy with my ex-roommates, as the wastebaskets and shower curtains were provided by NYU. I owned almost nothing at the time. They also took all the lamps, and the remaining lighting was woefully inadequate. I strung together the desk lights and listened to my alarm-clock-radio for entertainment.

Maggie leaving has not left me in such a rift. Rather, leaving most of my stuff to Lauren left me in a rift. When I moved into Tedd's place, he was over-stocked with dishes, pans, silverware, and small appliances so I took almost nothing with me, leaving my silverware and such to Lauren, who had none. I currently have a bare minimum of two forks, two spoons, a butter knife, and one sauce pan.

The point here is that every time I move into a new place I end up dropping around a hundred dollars or more on replacement items, or on new things that I never had but now need. I'm not talking about crap like anime or posters, or even anime posters. Last night I got a new bathroom rug, an expanding file folder-thing, a small frying pan, a cutting board, three small plastic cups, and some cheap steak knives.

My current dilemma is much like the one I had at water street - when you know you're going to move in with someone who has stuff, but you need to use stuff now, what do you do?

It is the coffee-bean grinder dilemma: When I lived behind the elevator I planned to move in with Demi the next semester. She had a coffee bean grinder. I had some coffee beans. When I needed to grind them and she wasn't home, so I ended up buying a coffee bean grinder. Then I moved in with Demi. Then Demi moved away. Then I had two coffee bean grinders. At some point I threw one out.

Later I moved in with Lauren. I stopped making coffee. When I moved out, I didn't take the coffee bean grinder, or indeed, the good coffee maker (Demi's old one).

I face a similar problem now: I know that in about 6 months I'll move in with N. His apartment is well-stocked with pans, and a good coffee maker, and a blender and such things. But I need a cutting board NOW.

Thus ends the segment, How I Spent $70 at K-Mart Last Night and How I Felt About That.

Moving on, there is some stinky cheese in my fridge. Who's is it? (Maggie's? A.K.'s?) Also left behind: assorted toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner for color-treated hair, and a lot of Indian spices that I don't really know how to use.

Posted by erin at 01:55 PM | Comments (13)

Date-Based Archive Phone Tag

So I'm taking the bus home, and I happen to look over at a pay phone on 2nd Avenue, and there are these two guys, and it looks like they're both trying to use the phone at once.

First they kind of squeeze together shoulder-to-shoulder, and I'm thinking, are these guys joking around? Are they friends or what? And I can't tell because one of them is smiling, and one is dead serious.

The smiling guy manages to successfully place a call, but the dead serious guy is shoving him around a little. Finally the serious guy backs up a little, and I think he's given up...

...but no! He's just backed up so he can get a running start to RUSH THE GUY ON THE PHONE! This knocks the smiling guy out of the way, but he doesn't fall over or anything. The serious guy hangs up on whoever smiley was talking to, and that was that.

My bus pulled away as the light changed.

You know, there are a lot of payphones on 2nd Ave.

Posted by erin at 07:18 PM | Comments (3)

Date-Based Archive Wide Open Beavers

So today I'm in the gyncologist office, and I notice that in the examination room there's this tasteful nature poster of an otter.

But at first, I'm looking at the otter, and I'm thinking, "There's a picture of a beaver in here?"

So the question of the day is: Would you go to a gynocologist that put up photos of beavers on the walls?

Posted by erin at 11:37 AM | Comments (5)

Date-Based Archive Craigslist Giveth, Craiglist Taketh Away

I found a new roommate via the same site that got Maggie her job - craigslist.com !!!

Her name is also Erin, and she has agreed to take the small room. She works nights!!! So it will still be as if I have no roommate at all!

Posted by erin at 11:26 PM | Comments (1)

Date-Based Archive Umbrellas and Foam Rubber Butts

Someone has left an umbrella at my apartment. It is a pretty big one, with one of those collapsable plastic cup thingies on the end, so you don't get water everwhere when you're indoors. I suspect it belongs to AK or Sam's friend.

To the Members of My Gym:

Me: The owner of the blue umbrella. The only umbrella that was in the yellow umbrella-bucket in front of the front desk on Friday night. You: The jerk who stole my umbrella. Did you know I only bought it two weeks ago? Thanks, asshole, it was raining really hard.

To the window-dressers of Crunch:

What's up with the display of foam rubber butts in the front window? Seriously, there are a lot of butts. They are somewhat realistic looking, as much as a foam rubber butt can be, but I fail to see the point of such a large display of butts.

Posted by erin at 04:59 PM | Comments (9)

Date-Based Archive Working on Saturday?!

This certainly might suck!

I also can't tell if they want me to come in or not. GARRRRR!!!

Posted by erin at 02:16 PM | Comments (4)

Date-Based Archive A Warning

I feel rather ill right now. I hope I did not catch N's viral sinus infection. I also hope to make it through the day of work.

That said; there is really one thing I will not stand for. See here:

Once in junior high I made the mistake of playing Dr. Mario with my friend Jen. I'm not particularly fond of Dr. Mario, but I'd played it quite a bit at that point, since my brother owned the game. Jen did not own the game, so she was not as good at it as I was. So I beat her. Jen insisted on playing again, as her competitive nature mandated.

We ended up playing 16 games in a row, and Jen lost the first 14. She demanded that we were to keep playing until she won. And when she finally won, she demanded we play again, just to make sure I had not "let" her win.

I don't even like Dr. Mario, but she made me keep playing it. She would not let me quit. Afterwards, I really hated Dr. Mario, and avoided playing it whenever possible. I would certainly never play against Jen again.

Jen was my best friend for 7 years, but I absolutely refused to play Dr. Mario with her ever again.

My point here is painfully obvious; friendship and gaming, although linked in some ways, are not two inseparable things. Frankly, I think that I could never play D&D with Jen, even if she wanted to (which she wouldn't, especially if she discovered that you can't win the game). There are some people who I could be friends with but never game; likewise, there are people who I could game with, but I could never be friends with.

Let this be a warning to you - if you're going to bad-mouth N while I'm around, I cannot possibly game with you OR be your friend. You can save your hurtful remarks and evil glares for when I'm not there, because I don't want to hear it, and I won't stand for it.

I understand that some of you are very upset at N for leaving the game, and that's fine, you're entitled to those feelings, and I'll allow for a certain grace period of saying things you might not really mean about him. But that grace period is over starting right now.

I'm only playing D&D for the reason I started in the first place - in order to hang out with my friends. N never wanted to play to begin with (as he knew he had "issues" about the game), he just wanted to spend time with me. I cannot continue to play if people are going to make disparaging remarks about N in front of me - and that includes on public blogs. If you enjoy having me around as a friend, please keep this in mind.

Posted by erin at 10:06 AM | Comments (8)

Date-Based Archive A Tumultuous New Year's Eve

Many exciting things happened on New Year's Eve.

First of all, I finally finished something I set out to do a long time ago - I had 50 copies of Hal's first novel, Scaevola, printed out and shipped to me. Or, more precisely, shipped to N., who risked life and limb to bring said books to my apartment on New Year's Eve. Perhaps someday he'll tell you the story himself.

I intend to sell copies of Scaevola to friends for $4, and non-friends for $5. This covers almost all of the printing cost, and practically none of the shipping. If you'd like a copy, email me your snail mail address and I'll hook you up. First I ought to figure out a way one could pay me via paypal... hmmmm...

Anyhow, I have been busy as of late for other reasons - out-of-town guests, the whole holiday season, me leaving town, and so forth. I had hoped to work on my screenplay this week and last but it just isn't working out that way.

For the full story, click below: Our much-anticipated gaming session on New Year's Eve started out promising enough. A.K. rejoined us with Heloise, the Obnoxious Nun, and Sam's friend played a ranger who would've been a thief, so we had two extra players. The game was a going a little more roughly than usual, with more bickering among players.

At the break, N and I went down the street to my other friend's house, where a drinking game of Simpsons Trivia was already in session. N announced at this point that he intended to quit our game of D&D. He did not intend to return after midnight as originally planned. However, after much passing of a whisky bottle and no small amount of beer, N decided to keep gaming.

At this party, there were two old friends whom I hadn't seen in ages - a former roommate and a former next-door-dorm neighbor, both of whom I am quite fond and was glad to see again.

I made a mistake, however, in that I convinced N to leave his coat at Sam's apartment, since we were travelling less than a block. Then for the duration of our time there my friends insisted on standing outside, so a handful of them could smoke. N was wearing a T-shirt and very cold.

When we returned to D&D I was drunk, but not so drunk I couldn't play for about an hour. I had been staying up very late all week, and could barely stay awake, even if I hadn't been drinking, so eventually the game turned into me waking up to make rolls (and fail them) then going back to sleep. Eventually I gave up and went to sleep on the couch. I was awoken an hour later by N, who was saying something about leaving immediately.

I found this rather confusing, as I was still largely asleep and everyone else was still playing. I was at a negative modifier for things like standing up, not puking, and being able to see, since my contacts had rapidly begun to dry up on my eyes. Eventually I realized the N was extremely ill, thus the reason for our immediate departure.

We called a car service to no avail, and headed for the subway. Somehow, by some strange miracle, we caught a cab, and for a mere $12 were magically transported back to N's apartment.

While in the cab, N explained that his back was spasming, and he was suffering from exhaustion, something that has happened to him once before. He was in serious pain, and I half-expected to spend the rest of the night in the emergency room. When we got back he had a fever, and he expected to be very sick the next day.

But in the end he was only a little sick the next day, and he isn't feeling that well today either.

However, N will stop gaming with us. He will have one more session (possibly) wherein his characters will leave the party, and that's it.

Why? You may ask, and I'll tell you: Although N greatly enjoys Hal's being the DM, and appreciates the story, and has, in fact, said that this is the best game he's ever played, his reason for quitting is the same reason he stopped gaming ten years ago - N can't stand the way most players play. He'll explain it more himself, I'm sure, but in the meanwhile I'll tell you that although I might like checkers, and I might like my dad, I sure hate playing checkers with my dad, because of the unique way he plays the game.

Unfortunately, there is simply nothing anyone can do to convince N to keep playing - so don't pester him about it.

Obviously we all have things we like and dislike about D&D. Sam likes rolling dice, Maggie dislikes private sessions with the DM, Adan likes yelling at Hal, Dan likes killing easy foes, Lord Everlake likes to steal our books, and I like spending time with my friends. N only appreciates the way Dan plays, and everyone else (even me and my passive, sleeping ways) is driving him crazy.

There is no way to fix this. You can't tell Maggie to be more rational and to start liking private DM sessions, nor can you tell Adan to be a team player, so please don't ask N to take the game less seriously, because he just can't do it.

I intend to keep playing for the time being, but if I find the game unsatisfactory without N around, or I miss him too much or what have you, I will also quit, as regrettable as that may be.

Posted by erin at 12:52 PM | Comments (13)