on a similar note, I would have picked Duckie

I'm keeping with the 80's theme that I seem to have going.  Just go with it, I'm feeling nostalgic.

Anyway, I was a huge Duckie fan.  Pretty in Pink Duckie, if you were unclear.

I think Andie was a jerk for blowing off Duckie and deciding to hang with rich, preppy (and kind of not cute) Blane, but I guess you can't make a person like another person, right? Back in the day, I think lots of people were into Andrew McCarthy (the guy who played Blane), I can totally imagine the old Teen Beat posters hanging on the walls of suburban teen aged girls everywhere. He wasn't my type, I didn't like him, I didn't have a Teen Beat poster of him hanging on my wall.  He was too skinny and boring and average in my opinion.  Nothing about him stood out from the crowd.  I thought he was a twerpy sheep.  Also, Andie and Blane had zero chemistry in that movie, if you ask me.

Speaking of jerks in Pretty in Pink, Steff was the exact opposite of the kind of guy I would have gone out with when I was in high school.  Rich jackasses were kind of off my radar.  I do quite enjoy James Spader in general though. I really think it took me a while to like him because his obnoxiously narcissistic character Steff spilled over into real life.  It was hard to look at him and not see a jerk with feathered hair in an over sized blazer. I do love him in The Blacklist  though and I would probably go out on a date with him if he asked me, he does have a really distinctively sexy voice.  But I digress...

So I would have definitely chosen Duckie.  I like quirky and different.  I guess that everyone already knows that in the original screenplay, Andie was supposed to end up with Duckie. Apparently the tester audience or something didn't think that it was believable. I think I would have liked to see them end up together.  He might have seemed a touch annoying and slightly stalkerish, but still adorable and funny and loyal.  And nerdy guys are notorious for being the best kissers. Ultimately, she would have broken his fragile heart, but it still would have been great to see.  

Legit question: Why doesn't anyone ever choose quirky and different?  Why does nobody give the cool, funky guy who isn't afraid to be an individual and wear a bolero a chance?  Sometimes you have to look past things that other people might see as unappealing or character flaws! The best part of someone is their real self!  Who wants a fake, watered down, surfacey version of a person?

Thinking about these 80's characters totally just made me remember someone so out of the typical plain old normal people I'd always surround myself with back then. This guy, Reagan was his name (I remember his name because it was interesting and different), lived across the street from me in Denver, and I'm basically 100% sure he never knew I existed.  I thought he was so cool from afar, though I never had the nerve to approach him. I pretty much forgot all about him after I became friends with other people, but he definitely looked like the kind of guy that would be in a John Hughes film, definitely like the kind of guy I would have been into.  I wonder if as a grown up, he is still kind of cool.

a couple of weird craigslist ads

Craigslist is so weird.  I'm scared to use it, actually.  It's too personal - usually when a transaction takes place, it's face to face, and I just don't like that.  But if you scan the ads, you'll definitely find that some goofy weirdo has posted something hilarious.  I appreciate hilarious, so I'm sharing because I am nice.  My brief and personal comments are in red.

Craigslist Ad #248: Stripper Pole (Waco)

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Reply to: blog-1358449695@craigslist.org
Date: 2012-12-04, 11:09PM Etc/GMT+5
Category: For Sale,pole,stripper,Submitted by Readers!

FREE!!! I have a stripper pole that i no longer need. She broke her leg and is retiring.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 1358449695

--ok, ew.  Sometimes I seriously wonder if these things are legit.

Butt-Pumpkin

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Reply to: blog-1358449756@craigslist.org
Date: 2012-11-29, 11:14PM Etc/GMT+5
Category: Uncategorized

One free butt-pumpkin. Do you want an old pumpkin that looks like a butt. Pick it up in the alley behind Inn-Joy/Small Bar/Thai Village. First come, first who gets butt pumpkin. You can hold it up to your butt in pictures and it looks like you have a pumpkin for a butt. Due to the high demand, we will no longer be taking calls. Thank you.

• Location: Wicker Park

--not quite sure about the butt pumpkin, but I was once given a carrot from the garden that looked like a guy with spiked hair.

Can we borrow your dog? – mw4mw

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Reply to: blog-1358449864@craigslist.org
Date: 2012-10-25, 8:18PM Etc/GMT+5
Category: Uncategorized

Hi So

We bought some bacon and some coffee this morning but due to being drunk we seem to have misplaced it.

We are 90-93% sure it's in our house somewhere. But where? We seriously have no idea. It's driving us nuts. We just want to drink some coffee and eat some freaking bacon. If you have a dog that likes smelling and finding bacon we would love to have him over. We will even feed you bacon once it's found. PleAse help


EDIT: it was in our couch. this took several hours and moments of hard thought. We still love dogs and welcome you and yours.

-- these drunken posts make me laugh and remind me of college

kidnap insurance

Did you know that kidnap insurance is a real thing?

I thought that was only in the movies, but apparently I am wrong.

Yes, I said it!  I. Am. Wrong.  Make sure to take note of the date because my being wrong is pretty rare.  If I do say so myself.  Or at least me admitting that I may possibly be a tiny bit wrong is pretty rare. Ah, I don't care about admitting I am wrong, to be honest with you.  

Anyway, who knew?  I found out about kidnap insurance because my apparently my BIL checked into it when my niece went away to  Peru. 

John always thinks ahead like that.  I'm pretty sure he also bought a tracking device bracelet or something for her when she was gone.  In case she got stolen.  In his defense, she was going to another country without her parents, and she was 16.  And it was after the whole Natalie Halloway disappearance thing.

That's really scary.

He also once bought a wetsuit with a tracking device on it in case he got lost at sea.

He's a weird dude.

7 things every girl wore in the late 80's

Tretorns: 
tennis sneakers for the rich and trendy.  Even if you didn't play tennis.

Ray Bans: 
so Tom Cruise, Risky Business.

The benneton rugby: 
This was a must have.  Along with the Coca-Cola rugby.  I think I saved up for a while for this - it was so expensive back in the day.  You can also see this on an actual real live 80's girl in one of the pics below.

Bomber jackets: 
were the bomb.  See what I did there?  I think this style somehow came about because of Tom Cruise in Top Gun.  I lost mine in college.  I probably was not drunk when that happened. Heh.

The scrunchie socks: 
See below

The oversized blazer: 
Honestly, this is one 80's style that's still kind of on my radar.  I love the oversized coat and jeans.  Keds, scrunchy socks, and Madonna-esque hair? Nah.  Then, yes.  Now?  Not so much.

The Guess overalls:  
Oh man, this picture.  Girl on Left is wearing Ray Bans, Guess jean overalls, keds and scrunchy socks, and Girl on Right with that Benneton Rugby shirt (that I had to have) and denim skirt... so much classic 80's right here. I had those Guess overalls in the shorts version.  They were killer.

10 tunes angsty 80's girls played the shit out of. oh wait, that was me

I think we all can agree that kids these days have it great with such easy access to music.  Any song or album that they want is literally at their fingertips, right there for the taking.  Just pop it in a playlist and you have it forever. 

It was so hard to get a copy of a tune when I was a kid, back in the olden days.  We would go to such great lengths to record songs from the radio.  Nobody wanted to buck up for the entire cassette (or record. yes I am that old) for just one song, so there was a system.  You would sit in your room with the door closed, hoping none of your obnoxious sisters would barge in and ruin the recording. You'd be tuned in to your favorite radio station, cassette recorder in hand, finger on the record button patiently waiting for the moment your song came on. 

Sometimes, we were lucky enough to get a heads up from the DJ that the song we were trying to get would be coming on next, but more often than not, it was left up to chance.  You could potentially have your finger hovering over the button for the better part of the night, no kidding.

I have more than one mix tape that you can hear a door creaking open in the background, or a frantically angry whisper to "Get out!"  With three sisters, it was really hard to get some alone time in my little house, so inevitably I'd pick up on some kind of commotion.

ANYway, I was an angsty teen in the 80's, so I decided to be so kind as to share some of the tunes that I'd be willing to wait hours to record.  If you click on the song, the YouTube video will play.  Watching those videos is kind of a huge walk down memory lane.  And also, what the hell we they wearing?  What songs did you play 500 times in a row when you were a teenager?

1. Bonnie Tyler, Total Eclipse of the Heart

2. Prince, Purple Rain

3.  Peter Gabriel,  Red Rain

4. Phil Collins,  In the Air Tonight

5. REM, The One I Love

6. Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time

7. The Cure, Just Like Heaven

8. Simple Minds,  Don't You Forget About Me 

9. U2, With or Without You 

10 The Replacements, Within Your Reach

apparently smelly candles cause cancer

So I recently read that smelly candles cause cancer.

God damn.  What doesn't cause cancer anyway??  Nothing, that's what.

I enjoy a good smelly candle!  So now apparently I have to buy a special kind of smelly candle that doesn't have the toxic chemicals in the wax or fragrance or something, toxic chemicals that are probably slowly killing me and my family when all I wanted was a nice smelling house.  Run on sentence much?

Did I ever tell you that someone once told me that my house always smells great?  That made my day.  Because I think it smells pretty great, but you know how sometimes you just get used to something and have no idea that it's probably gross?  I have a smelly uncle and there is no way that he goes through life thinking he smells good.  No way.  I think he is opposed to deodorant, but anyway, either he is just so used to being surrounded by his own stench or he doesn't care about the weak constitution of others who may be in his presence.  Maybe he should think about other people's nose holes.

I got off track.  

Back to smelly candles.  So now I feel like I have to burn out all of the smelly candles because it would be a crime to throw good candles away, right?  They're so freaking expensive!  I guess tossing them is probably the smart, responsible thing to do.  How can you ignore the fact that some of those chemicals that are wafting around the room smelling all yummy are actually about as bad for you as second hand smoke??  It's the freaking Paraffin.  Most scented candles are made of paraffin wax, which actually turns into carcinogens when it's burned.  Read up on that guys, because it really isn't a good thing.

So there's that.

I checked into an alternative.  Because you know, I like to be informed, and I like to not consciously surround my kids in apple pie scented carcinogens.  I guess soy candles and beeswax candles are good substitutes.  I haven't gotten any yet myself, but I am going to check out The Honest Company's soy candles, because that Jessica Alba seems to put out some decent quality products.  There are 3 different scents available, I think I have seen them at Target.  I hope they smell decent because damn, they are like $20 each.

I'll let you know how it goes!

staying the course

friday five: resolutions and being sick and such

Friday Five reminder:  Basically, a Friday Five post should be a super easy post. Just set the timer and free write for five minutes, whatever is on your mind, without trying to censor or think too hard. Usually once you start it's easy, and you don't have to think about it at all. 

That's kind of my goal - just five minutes of free writing.  Nothing Fancy, nothing planned, nothing needing to be humorous, or inspiring or anything for others - just for you.  If you feel like sharing, feel free to pop a link in the comments.


Set your timer!

6:31 pm
Well hot damn it's a New Year!  2016!  WooHOO! Here's to new beginnings and great things for the year ahead!

Except currently, I'm on the couch.  The same place I have been since I got home from a holiday get-away this afternoon, actually.  I'm sick!  Wah.  I have a sore throat and cough and stuff.  No fun.  It was inevitable, getting sick.  I sat next to my sick-ish sister for several meals in a row.  I'm sure she coughed on my fork or something.  grr.

I'm not sure if I am going to make any New Year's Resolutions this year.  A lot of times I have all sorts of good intentions with resolutions and they never actually happen.  Then I feel all failure-ish, and that's not fun.

I guess the key is making resolutions that are actually attainable.  So I think if I can do that, I might not be a failure.  I'll let you know how that goes.  Maybe Monday I will post a list or something, so all of you four readers can keep me accountable.  We can keep each other accountable!  How about it?

-time is up!