AwesomeK’s Big Adventure

I grew up in a very small town, a town that outsiders call “quaint,” and locals think would be great if only we could get a TGIF. Up to the age of 18 the most exotic location I ever traveled to was Niagara Falls. But in my post-adolescence, I made it a mission of sorts to do a lot of traveling: solo road trips and many other random U.S. destinations, not to mention a plethora of European locations during and since my time living abroad. Yet since I’ve been living in “The World’s Capital” all of my travels have been either to visit a friend or loved one, or an exploration of a new place with a friend or loved one.

So it’s long over due then, that I, AwesomeK, step out into the world on my own again. For the next nine days I will be rainforest-exploring, hot spring lounging, volcano-hiking, and otherwise adventuring in Costa Rica. I hope to come back without too many mosquito and monkey bites, having mastered how to say, “I’m a vegetarian” in Spanish, and who knows, maybe a little changed, or at least tan.

Until then, AwesomeK has left the building…

In which I’d prefer that my unborn children not be stereotypes who only read books with sexy covers.

Some would argue that Moby’s entire existence has been a simultaneous cry for both help and attention. But, despite (and maybe at times because of) his antics I always found him kind of endearing. Until know.

Now, he just seems really f-ing clueless. It’s like his heart is in the right place but he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. Which is basically, “I like gay people so much that I hate straight people, because my stereotypes of straight people aren’t as hip and fun as my stereotypes of gay people.”

(Actual Moby quote: “If and when I ever have children, I want gay children…(the gays) have started fewer wars, and they tend to be well educated, fun to hang out with, and they have nice homes, bars, and restaurants.”)

Also annoying is how Moby’s stereotypical unborn gay children are marketed to. You see, kids are totally image conscience, even kids who read, and they can’t go around reading a book from the 1970’s with a cover that reflects at all the decade in which it takes place/was written. "It's a style—it's saying, 'We are exactly who you are. This is the world you'll feel comfortable with. Nothing about this book is going to make you feel awkward to carry it and wear it. It's as sleek and cool and as with-it as you are.'"

No it’s not as cool as you are, and it’s not a pair of jeans or issue of Seventeen, it’s a book for Christ sakes and even kids are that image conciseness. Sure update the cover of a book when new additions are printed, but personally I hate reading books with “Now a Major Motion Picture” and lame movie poster printed on the cover.

Besides, teenage girls will read Forever even without the stupid chick-lit looking cover. That book is H-O-T!

What's Wrong this Week

There’s a lot wrong with the world. A LOT. Here are just two things this week that are particularly f-ed up:

America’s Next Top Model
Okay, so it’s been common knowledge for a while now that Trya Banks is bat shit crazy. Which is probably a large part of ANTM’s success (that and equally bat shit crazy half naked anorexic 20-year-olds). And I am a religious guilty pleasure watcher of the show. But lately I have started to feel like I must be watching the show for masochistic reasons because every episode just leaves me slightly confused/annoyed. Like this week, where they wore necklaces and underwear made out of meat and then posed next to buckets of innards and 100s of pounds beef. Because…models sometimes have to do gross stuff?? Aside from the fact that the factory farmed meat industrial complex is totally whack, wasting 100s of pounds of perfectly good food on meat panties is a more than a little pointless. I mean there are starving people that could have used those panties…

Crazy-ass women blaming Elliot Spitzer’s wife for him spending $80,000 on a hooker.

So first I was annoyed by Silda for doing the Hilary Clinton move of standing by her slezzeball husband. But why do people have to give these backwards crazy women like Laura Schlessinger and Cindy Adams a mouthpiece to set back women’s progress a couple hundred years. (Their respective views: A) He wouldn’t have done it if she would have treated him better and B) Sleeping with a hooker is really doing her a favor, it’s like getting takeout so you don’t have to cook dinner..) You have to be fucking kidding me.

Things I’ve thought about this Week

I’ve thought about writing about several things this week, but didn’t have enough to say about any of them to warrant their own post. So here they are in a convenient “listicle”:

• As if people needed more forums on the internets to whine, there is a site called angryjournalist.com. Sometimes though, they make a point…the best I saw: “If you got a journalism degree, you probably don’t even know how to spell obituary nevermind write one.”

• Speaking of spelling, to know me is to know my spelling anxieties, and my creative methods of getting around my dyslexic shortcomings (i.e. looking up synonyms of words I want to use in order to find how to spell them because even spell-check doesn’t know what I’m trying to say.) Truly, my poor spelling is one of the things I am most self-conscious about. Imagine then my horror last Saturday night when I was forced on stage during 30 plays in 60 minutes to participate in a Spelling Bee! I lost of course. And was told “ You have to decide if losing this means that you are a loser for this moment, or if you will be a loser for life.” How about a little from A and a little from B?

• I have found pretty much everyone to be mildly to highly annoying in recent weeks. Top honors to these “anti-sprawl arsonists/activists” though, way take a worthy cause (anti-sprawl and environmentalism) and get it completely f-ing wrong. Burning “green” houses to make a point about conservation? Well done.

• I am completely over Obama-fever. In fact, I am over the presidential primaries all together, they reached the oversaturation point a month or two ago, yet still managed to hold my attention. Until now. Seriously, I don’t care if Bill and Hillary took a walk in the park or if Obama is now using the word “transformative” instead of “change”. I’m just over it. For now. At this point, I’m voting for Nader. Also, wil.i.am? The first video was cheesy, but sure, inspiring. The second video? the chanting is kind of creepy, and um, really why don’t you just sleep with him and get it over with already, he’s going to need a restraining order if you keep up this kind of fawning.

• Despite myself, I don’t hate Ellen Page as much anymore. I watched Hard Candy last weekend and was quite impressed with her performance. I think that maybe all the hype about her in Juno was because people wished they made bigger deal out of her in Hard Candy, but torturing a pedophile isn’t as mass market friendly as an emotionally unconvincing poorly written pregnant high schooler. Plus she made fun of the lame Juno dialog during her SNL monologue, and for that I am grateful.


• And finally, this week I’ve been mildly obsessed with Songza