Category Archives: my uber-confrontational personality

The Voice, Erin Martin, and Why I Should Be the Judge of All Things

Posted by katie ett on March 9, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under a taste for tv, music is my boyfriend, my uber-confrontational personality, stuff i hate
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Did anyone else see this singer on “The Voice” and feel really, really betrayed by the judges?

They claim that this is a completely new sound, but if you heard (and were annoyed by) Macy Gray in 1999, Erin Martin’s voice shouldn’t seem the least bit exciting to you. And they, the music professionals, should recognize that. Instead, they pressed their buttons in awe, they stood up in their seats, they said things like, “THAT is cool!” She has foot-high hair, a foot-long skirt, and a headband on her forehead. Not. Impressed.

Now, I actually like “different” voices. I love being able to recognize a vocalist. Jack White, Chris Cornell, Andrew Bird, Thom Yorke, Rufus Wainwright, Neil Young, Beck, David Bowie, and of course Adam Levine—these are voices you know in an instant no matter what they’re singing, and I love them all.

Last season on “The Voice”, Dia Frampton was a huge hit with her whispery vocals, and I thought she should’ve won:

The difference is that Dia’s voice sounds genuine. I get really tired of voices that sound “put on”. Like, I can sound exactly like Macy Gray and Erin Martin if I try. By forcing myself to sing with a baby voice while purposely mispronouncing letters.

It’s the same thing with Duffy, Eddie Vedder (although I think I like Pearl Jam because they got to me at an age when I was still an innocent non-hater), and basically every single person who auditioned for “American Idol” this year after of the success of vocal-weirdos Haley Reinhart and Megan Joy Corkrey.

I know different people have different tastes and that Erin Martin will probably do well on “The Voice”, but I wish the judges would just call a baby-voiced spade a spade.

Secret-wish-to-be-a-rockstar-fueled rant complete.

The Formula for Style Blog Success

Posted by plumpdumpling on February 21, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under my uber-confrontational personality
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Something got me started on craft and style blogs late last year. Despite being a total androgyne and not having any access to/room for crafting supplies, I like looking at the pretty things other women are making, the pretty things they’re wearing, the pretty things they’re decorating their spacious out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere houses with.

But man, those things can tire me out pretty quickly. There seems to be a formula for them, and this is it:

1) Blog names involving animals: Kittenbear, Saturated Canary, Dainty Squid

2) Cutesy words for everything: “love this cardi”, “swooning over these sunnies” (that’s cardigan and sunglasses, for those of you who don’t read stylespeak)

3) Faux-awkward clothes-modeling poses that have obviously taken the “America’s Next Top Model” advice to “try to look like a broken-down doll” way too much to heart

4) Opening up a shop to sell handmade or thrifted items, usually on Etsy but more preferably at Renegade Craft Fair but even more preferably in a 1949 Airstream camper painted pink with white trim:


photo by Little Chief Honeybee, whom I actually really like despite my fun-making

5) Being very young or trying to act like it: dressing up their Blythe dolls, owning everything rainbow-colored, loving hearts and sparkles and baby pandas

6) Describing themselves as “awkward”. Or “wonderfully awkward”. Or “adorably awkward”. (I AM ACTUALLY AWKWARD! You have 15,000 Facebook subscribers who are trying to mold themselves into you!)

7) Closing every post with an image that says “love, [whatever cutesy name the blogger has, because they're all cutesy]” in a signature font:

8) Having long lists of “likes” in their sidebars that include puppies, cuddling, and a dessert of some sort

9) Inserting their URLs at the end of every comment, making it clear that they’re only commenting to plug themselves:

10) Strategically moving nearest to the thrift store in town that always manages to have designer clothes with their tags still on, mismatched but perfectly coordinated vintage plates that will be glued together to make a cupcake tower, and an array of mason jars dating from 1885 to present, all bedbug-free


Of course there are plenty of really original craft and style blogs, including some awesome personal blogs that I read daily. And I know that people complain about the fact that blogging women apparently have nothing to talk about but the clothes they wear and the homes they make, but even the most militantly feminist among us is still pinning cake pops and salad-in-a-jar recipes on Pinterest.

Even I have a little Kittenbear inside of me trying to get out.

Bus Stop Line Jump

Posted by katie ett on November 10, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality, why i'm better than everyone else
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Kamran and I were in Hell’s Kitchen Sunday night, having traveled to the exact opposite side of the island to pour our months of collected pocket change in one of those machines that exchanges it for gift certificates. We were waiting at a bus stop with our riches in hand, staring longingly at the side-by-side 99-cent pizza and Gray’s Papaya, when a man approached with a large instrument in a case strapped to his back. We were standing just to the left of the bus shelter, leaving enough room for someone to slip past us in line if he wanted to be a jerk. But he stood behind us instead, avoiding the waist-high pile of garbage bags on our other side.

We stayed in that configuration until the bus arrived some minutes later, when the man with the instrument came out of nowhere to stand in front of me in the line of people waiting to get on the bus. I couldn’t even help myself when my blood took a sudden surge; I simply had to march around him and insert myself back into the line where I rightfully belonged. The fact that he had waited until the last second to make his move made me so much angrier than if he had just done it from the moment he came to the stop. At least then he could’ve pretended to be looking for a seat or a place to rest his instrument in the shelter.

Read the rest here!

Insulting Jerks the Classy Way

Posted by katie ett on November 2, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
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Last Saturday, Kamran and I were out for a pleasant jaunt around the city to enjoy what seems like it may be one of the last days of nice weather. We were crossing 42nd Street on 5th Avenue in front of the Main Library when an aging compact car rounded the corner from the left and attempted to cut in front of us before we could slow him. We were perfectly within the limits of the crosswalk sign, of course, and continued ahead as such. This clearly displeased the driver, who kept not just inching toward us but, like, feeting toward us threateningly.

We were sipping bubble tea, and I had my camera slung ’round my neck, so maybe the guy thought we were a couple of podunk tourists, but this queen bee of the city doesn’t get messed with like that, so I bored a hole in the guy straight through his windshield and said, “Hey, F*** YOU!”

Because my mama, god rest her soul, raised me to be classy.

It took him a couple of seconds to recover from these words he most assuredly had never heard come out of the mouth of such a sweet-looking lady, but then he retorted, “Same to you!” while finishing his turn and continuing down the street. I felt fine about yelling at the dude, because you get your car out of my pedestrian city, a-hole, but I was a little upset that the first thing I resort to in times of crisis is cursing. (Not that you didn’t know that.)

I first decided I should’ve yelled, “Come at me, bro!”, but then I remembered that the guy was in a car and would’ve killed me had he come at me. I asked Kamran what I should have said instead, and he suggested, “I’m going to tell your mom on you when I see her later tonight.” Which are pretty strong words from someone who enacted a rule that I can only insult his mom once a day.

Well, luckily, my friend Sarah posted this on Facebook yesterday to help me out, from Tastefully Offensive:

So next time someone attempts to plow me with his car, I’m going to look him square in his beslubbering little elf-skinned eye and yell,

“THOU GLEEKING FAT-KIDNEYED WHEY-FACE!“

Accidental Racism is Probably Still Racism

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 11, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under good times at everyone else's expense, jobby jobby job job, my uber-confrontational personality
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Sometimes I pass the one black lady with natural hair on our floor at work and think about that sign I put up that one time on the bathroom door about going to stall #4 “if you want to see the longest pube ever” before I knew there was a long history of black people’s hair being compared to pubes, and even though it could’ve totally actually been a pube, it probably was her hair, and she never says hi back when I say hi, and I kind of understand why.