kdiddy.org

I must have missed when this got started and I don’t know the rules, so I’m just going to take the prompt and run with it.

Where were you when…?
Our parents’ generation can recall exactly what they were doing when JFK was shot - it’s a Cultural moment that defines a generation. What big cultural event occurred during your childhood/youth that you recall clearly, if juvenile-ly? What was its impact on you?

I feel really corny saying this, but I remember with startlingly vivid clarity finding out that Kurt Cobain died. It was in the early-ish afternoon and I was asleep in the car. My mom was driving me to ballet. The announcement came over the radio and it pierced my sleep. I woke up suddenly and gasped and asked my mom to verify what I had just heard. When we got to ballet, I ran and told my friends.

I didn’t dress in black for days afterward and I didn’t participate in any vigils or listen to In Utero while crying in the dark. I was just really bummed about it and angry that people thought it was okay to mock the situation. I thought a lot about Frances Bean, who was just a baby at the time, and how she would never really know her dad or understand how big of an impact he had.

Mostly, I was sad that a figure like Cobain was gone. I think he managed to come to the spotlight and be an idol for people who weren’t finding life to be all it was cracked up to be as they came of age. He got that and sometimes when you’re really young and don’t understand why you feel different, it’s good to know that someone else feels the same way. And that it’s okay to yell, to scream, to be silent, and to give the middle finger to people you’re supposed to respect for no good goddamned reason.

***

Aside, here are some things that have made me cry and/or barf in the past day or so:

Reach in and touch the inner cow

A trip to the Creationist Museum. I think a field trip to this museum is in order, lubricated with lots of booze. The existence of this place confirms this shocking epiphany I had last night: people are full of shit.

Angela’s story of finding a small turd on the floor of the bathroom at her work. You don’t want to know how long I sat around wondering how that happened.

I get a decent amount of visitors to my site who stumble upon it by searching for “the white man marching on” and find themselves at this post. Tonight, I had two such visitors right next to each other. One was from Austria and the other was from Germany.

Awesome.

Hi Kelly,

By accepting Pittsburgh Bars as your friend, you will be able to send Pittsburgh Bars personal messages, view Pittsburgh Bars’s photos and blog, and interact with each other’s friends and network!

Wow, all of them? All of the bars in Pittsburgh want to be my friend? I feel special. And alcoholic.

Also, here’s a short list of awesome things that happened since 8:30 a.m.:

1) flat tire
2) lost nose ring while blowing my nose. I’ve done this twice now.

I have 7 active games of Scrabulous on Facebook.

I’m being spanked soundly in every one.

Also, why is the internet dead today? Is there another holiday I don’t have off for?

Apparently, I’ve seen everything on the internet and am just starting over at the beginning.

I forget where I saw the link for those pictures that I posted about yesterday, but I’m guessing it was Google Reader. This morning, one of my friends’ shared items was a link to a post on MetaFilter about the same pictures and the discussion was full of complaints about it being a re-post at least 5 times over. Following the links in the discussion, I found myself at this video and realized that I had definitely seen those pictures and that video months ago and had completely forgotten about them.

Is there a name for this phenomenon wherein a dork spends so much time looking at dumb shit on the internet that it eventually starts looking new to her?

I don’t know. ‘Tis a question for the great minds of our day. Alright, I’m off to email everyone about this unbelievable Lysol douche ad and this hilarious video game translation. Because as far as I’m concerned, those are brand new all over again.

Looking at these pictures, I’m not entirely convinced that spray tan isn’t the new blackface.

I mean, seriously…

If that was my gene pool, I would manually remove my reproductive organs. And what’s with that hairdo? Dudes obviously should not have access to hair product. It’s too bad, especially since the girls are relatively cute and normal, shiny prom dresses notwithstanding.

One of my professors has a really interesting research area: Pittsburgh Speech or Pittsburghese as we call it. Last year, she asked me to help her with some podcasts that she was doing for her website.

Being a native Pittsburgher, I’m rather fluent in Pittsburghese, but the teachers that I had as a child made a point of encouraging us to be aware of our speech and not to slip into the dialect. I generally speak (or try to, anyway) in a relatively neutral tone of voice, but can turn Pittsburghese “on” when I want to.

Or when I’m drunk.

In any case, you can hear me on the podcasts for “nebby” and “dahntahn.” Check it aht.

Apparently, if you post a bulletin to MySpace, you immediately receive friend requests from ladies like Jaclyn, Mary Beth, and Katie who unfortunately had to move their “modeling” pics to another site.

I hate MySpace. So much. I so want to delete it, as it is possibly the suckiest site on the internet. But I like having some method of contacting people I might need to contact at some point in the next 20 years.

Facebook is only slightly more tolerable. Though I will admit to not having the first clue what is going on in that Oregon Trail game. Apparently I committed suicide while a member of a friend’s wagon party, of which I wasn’t even aware I was a part. Figures I would miss my own demise.

I make with the writing at MamaPop. Today, I threw my Lasso of Pissiness* around Clay Aiken.

I’m telling you this because you need to go visit that site ON THE REGULAR. Ya heard?

*It’s like Wonder Woman’s Golden Lasso. ‘Cept it’s made out of angst.

Edited 10:14 p.m.: Uh, I wrote this at like 5:30 and apparently didn’t hit “publish.” Dur.

I am so all about this. And I want to help spearhead the movement.

Admittedly, I need to work on my putdowns. My most biting criticism of late was uttered the other night during a discussion of Joe Francis’ “success” with the Girls Gone Wild franchise: “Any woman who shows her boobs to a camera for free is a fucking idiot.”