Back of the Cereal Box

A Good Day at Work

2012-01-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

Mere hours after I rediscovered “Missing Missy” and recalled that I too find a great deal of satisfaction in annoying people in creative ways, the opportunity to do exactly that presented itself. Work friend Sara asked if I could Photoshop these two images together for a friend’s birthday:

I agreed and shortly thereafter sent Sara the following composite.

This was not what she had in mind. Clarification: “Can you instead put my friend’s face on the old lady’s body?” I agreed and shortly thereafter sent Sara the following composite:

Sara didn’t feel that the Creature from the Black Lagoon added all that much to the arrangement and asked me if I could just Photoshop only her friend’s head and only onto the old woman’s body. I agreed and shortly thereafter sent Sara the following composite:

She said that it made her friend look like a monster, and then she asked if I could just “do it right.” I understood that this friend clearly meant a lot to Sara if she was wanting be so particular about this little birthday note. Personally, i thought the friend should know how much Sara cares about her. Shortly thereafter I sent Sara the following composite:

Sara didn’t like it. She then explained that she just wanted to give this to her friend, an avowed fan of French bulldogs, as a little way of celebrating her birthday, but I wasn’t being helpful. (Also, I think maybe Sara wished I had chosen a different photo of her.) Understanding the situation now on a deeper level, I asked myself, “What would Sara’s friend really want?” Shortly thereafter I sent Sara the following composite:

And Sara actually liked it — and that’s funny because I had the “real” image waiting for her the whole time, but there was now no need for it. Here it is:

I mean, after all this work, I had to do something with it. Happy birthday, French bulldog-loving girl, whoever you are. (Between you and me, I think you looked best in the third iteration.) I may yet print out the fourth iteration and put it in a frame on Sara’s desk.

A Stray Thought About Tonight’s 30 Rock

2012-01-26T16:22:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed last week’s 30 Rock, and I happily await tonight’s part two. However, in watching the part one, “Idiots Are People Two,” I was troubled by something strange about Denise Richards and Kelsey Grammer appearing in the same episode. At first, I thought it had to do with something about their tabloid-attracting personal lives. There may be something there, honestly, but all I could find to connect the two was Adrienne Maloof. (Denise is the ex-wife of Charlie Sheen, Ms. Maloof’s neighbor and friend, and Maloof herself is on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with Camille Grammer.) But I think the thing that bothered me about the episode was the fact that it made Kelsey Grammer out to be some kind of James Bond figure, which, though funny, is awkward in that Denise Richards was actually in a James Bond movie. Watch the over-the-credits portion of the episode for yourself:

Yeah, it felt weird for me to recall that too, but Richards played the inappropriately sexy nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough. And I feel confident positing that it’s a marker of how far Denise Richards’s star has fallen that she played the spokesperson for the idiots of the word in the same episode that Dr. Frasier Crane is sending up the ridiculousness of James Bond movies.

Of course, I could be overthinking otherwise inconsequential matters again. Anyone? That said, I’m not the only one who noticed that the silhouetted woman that Grammer shoots in the James Bond-y closing credits of last week’s episode looked a hell of a lot like Camille Grammer.

So the next episode has to be called “Idiots Are People Three,” right?

Snow White and the Five Clones

2012-01-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

For me, so far, 2012 is the year of Zooey Deschanel, and per her demands, my every waking minute is devoted to her — her beauty, her style, her effervescent personality, all her good qualities, always good things, always, always, good and not bad, because if I don’t think happy thoughts Zooey will upon me with her Light of Judgement, which she fires from on high and which burns pure.

Ahem.

(I have issues with Zooey Deschanel.)

But in my little post on Dennis “The Beeper King” Duffy and the guy from Burn Notice, a commenter noted that my tendency to spot famous lookalikes wasn’t strange because she feels that Deschanel looks like Katy Perry. I totally agree. More than once, I’ve had to stop and make sure I was looking at the actress who can also sing (Deschanel) and not the marginal singer who can marginally act (Perry). And that’s not all. Here, then, I’d like to present Zooey Deschanel and the six women that I’d like to think she had surgically altered, should some various world government, fearing her power, decided to take her out.

Here you go:

Starting from the top left, and moving clockwise: The Deschanel, Anna Friel (the one from Pushing Daisies, who actually think looks the most like Zooey and whose Pushing Daisies promo shots look remarkably like Zooey’s New Girl shots), Katy Perry, Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls, Party Down and now New Girl, oddly enough), Emily Blunt (stern looks, stole Jim from The Office from America) and Mia Kirshner (The L Word, Black Dahlia).

I’m not saying all of these women look alike, but I am saying that they all exist along the Zooey Deschanel continuum of light skin, dark hair and bright eyes. Any one of them could play another in a biopic (except Perry b/c is awful), and for each I’ve had done a double-take at least once.

And before I open up the floor to public opinion, a question: Why isn’t Anna Friel more famous?

People I think look alike (regardless of what you think):

Henrietta R. Hippo

2012-01-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

Notable ways people have been finding my blog lately.

Whoever Googled this is easily the first person to overlook everything else about Nicki Minaj’s appearance and notice her teeth.

I actually have this one!

Well, how often do you feel like you’re being watched when you use the bathroom? Because ghosts love watching the living poop.

Again, I actually have this one! Maybe Google is getting better?

cartoon girl thats from brazil and wants to travel

Nope. Not at all. Google is not getting better.

This is either adorable or sick.

Honestly, that seems like it would be easier to make than to Google.

With a tip of the hat to ol’ Tharpe-Tharpe, whose similar blog post reminded me that this is something that I used to do back in the day.

ADORABLE MEWLING KITTEN NEEDS HOME!

2012-01-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

I guess today will be an unusually cat-centric day on this blog, but it’s for a good cause. Mere days after I told my friend Stephanie that I miss having pets, a kitten presented itself to her. Alas, she already has a cat (and he’s rather territorial), while I just don’t think I’m at a point in my life at which I could be a good pet owner. Thus, I’m doing my best to find this cat a home.

Just look at this freaking cat? I mean — right? What a kickass package of kitten you’d be getting here. If that’s not incentive enough, please watch this video of the kitten able demonstrating her cuteness, helplessness and tininess with a series of plaintive meows.

She’s mewling for you! But will you be the one to save her from this bathroom dungeon of despair? Seriously — if you’re in the greater Los Angeles area and needing an additional feline presence in your life, contact me.

The Cat Breed Whose Name Must Be Whispered

2012-01-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

Did you know that there exists a breed of cat with Corgi-like proportions? Literally, it looks that the great maker got distracted during these cats’ construction and simply attached the feet straight to the torso, It’s the Munchkin — yes, that’s the actual name — and I have to imagine that it’s just not capable of the high-jumping acrobatics that its non-mutant-legged cousins.

Gaze, if you dare, upon this unfortunate creature.

So unfortunate! It cannot jump to the highest, comfiest seats and dandelions tickle its nose as it strolls through the meadow!

But here’s the thing: The shortest-legged, squidgiest of the Munchkin cats has a name… and that name is Rug Hugger. I would have trouble saying this name out loud, because to me it sounds like some horrible offensively name for one minority group or another. I’m not sure which.

Rug Hugger.

Rug Hugger!

You lousy, misbegotten Rug Hugger.

Maybe I should just yell this in crowds and see who gets mad?

Other disturbing cats:

Myra / Myron

2012-01-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

I found a note jotted down on the back page of a copy of Myra Breckenridge.

In case you can’t read it, it says, “How does a child’s irrational fear of everything and its irrational confidence that things will be taken care of live side by side?” I did buy the copy of the book, and I’m eager to find out if reading it will explain what it means.

Super Mario, King of Japan

2012-01-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

A little nuggets of awesomeness hidden in Super Mario Bros. 3, and all but invisible to American children who didn’t appreciate geographical Easter Eggs back in 1988.

So the third world, the seaside one…

That last island, where the final castle is, before you fight Wendy…

Bears a striking resemblance so a certain other chain of islands…

And corresponding to almost exactly to where the castle appears on the Super Mario Bros. 3 map is Kyoto, where Nintendo is headquartered. And, as if to clinch it, the king of this particular castle (once you have rescued him)…

Just happens to bear a striking resemblance to the hero of the game and the guy who made the company a financial success.

Just an amazing little Easter egg that I didn’t appreciate until twenty-four years after I first saved a little kingdom of islands from Wendy O. Koopa. I’d always wondered why this one king looked so much like Mario and thought it was a strange decision on the part of the design team to make him look this way. Now I get why.

(Via.)

Watercress Girl Revisited

2012-01-22T17:55:00.001-08:00

In looking for images of the watercress girl for that last post, I found this particularly great vintage book cover featuring a watercress girl if not the watercress girl.

I meant the Henry Mayhew character. Regardless, this book cover is as probably as visually appealing as any watercress girl has ever been made to look. Such is the fate of a character who’s literally one basket of wilted greens away from selling herself on the street.

It looks like everything in my elementary school library.

A Field Guide to Street Children

2012-01-22T17:02:00.000-08:00

How often have you batted a tiny hand away from the moneysacks that hang from your belt, shouting “Be away from me, ye wastrels”?

Have you ever stopped, mid-shout, and wondered if you were using the correct word for the type of impish chield-fiend you’ve encountered? Fear not! In time for your next back-alley stroll, I’ve found the word for you!

tatterdemalion (TA-ter-dee-MAYL-yen or TA-ter-dee-MAH-lee-un) — noun: a person dressed in ragged clothing. adjective: 1. ragged or disreputable in appearance. 2. being in a decayed state or condition.

All in all, it’s a wonderful word that makes light of the target’s station in life whilst simultaneously boasting enough syllables to give the speaker an air of learned superiority. Really, how better to put one in their place that to slander them with a word they won’t (and can’t) know? The etymology is unclear, with the first part most like coming from the word tatter but perhaps being related to the word Tartar — referring to one of several historically disadvantaged or dangerous peoples causing or receiving trouble in Eurasia — with that last part being simply a “fantastic second element,” according to Etymonline, whatever that means.

According to a system that I just now made up, tatterdemalion is actually the kindest word one could use to describe a poor child whose family made the unfortunate decision to be poor. On its end of the “Young Unfortunates” spectrum are the wee ones who are more likely to elicit pity or paternal affection than other the other ones, who are more likely to stab you with a penknife after being paid a mere nickel by one of your longtime social rivals. Let’s have a look at the various gradations, so as to prepare yourself for your next visit to an orphanage, an urchin farm or the underground bowels of that factory you secretly own.

Tatterdamalion

(rumpled in a way that you’d consider adoption, Mr. Drummond-style)

Waif

(you don’t necessarily blame the child for its under-nourished condition)

Ragamuffin

(appealing in his poorness, yet lively enough to cause trouble)

Scamp

(a ragamuffin who has somehow obtained the amount of daily calories that a wealthy child would get and is therefore unpredictable)

Rapscallion

(the child has made it into the house and his mischief has a sinister edge)

Hobo Jr.

(the child’s conduct is wine-propelled and his mirth is just as destructive as his malice.)

Guttersnipe

(crafty enough to use his unfortunate condition to catch you off guard; keep walking to avoid the ambush)

Hooligan

(any young person in the company of two or more poor children; v. dangerous)

Kinderscoundrel

(bubs his hand grime into your wounds, ensuring your death)

Please update your discussions of the your neighborhood watercress salesgirl accordingly.

Previous words of the week after the jump.

acné excoriée des jeunes filles, adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
barrack, beeturia, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer, brinicle
catholicon, cecaelia, cephalophore, cherpumple, chilver, chyron, cockernonnie, collywobbles, coprolalia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, culaccino, cummingtonite
darkle, deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingbat, dingle
eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui, exoterica
fabiform, Feghoot, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, freekeh, froward
gallinipper, gnaborretni, grandgore, grue, guilloche, gyaru
hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hobson-jobson, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus, hoyden
ignivomous, iracund, isabelline, itaiitai, izod, izzard
jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
kaffir, kakopygian, kayfabe, knipperdollin
lagniappe, leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
malacia, malison, maroon, milt, mongo, mooncalf, morepork, muzjiks
narrenfreiheit, nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
ochanee, ogonek, ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
pace, padiddle, pareidolia, pavonated, perendiate, perigee, petrichor, pettifogger, pettitoes, phlegmagogue, pismire, pixilated, pogonip, pong, pruniferous, puggle, pulveratricious, purse
quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc, quiff
ronion, roynish, rubirosa, rumpsprung, runcible
salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, sharrow, shebang, sinople, slampadato, slubberdegullion, stan, stevedore, suovetaurilia
tappen, teratogenesis, tergiversate, tetromino, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tutoyer, tyro
ucalegon, ultramontane, umiaq, umquhile
veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
weeaboo, widdiful, williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
xenodocheionology, xyster
yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang