Monthly Archives: April 2009

Nostalgia About the Early Days of the Internet

Posted by plumpdumpling on April 10, 2009 – 2:07 pm
Filed under i used to be so cool, super furry animals
Tagged as ,

Remember how much more important the Internet seemed in its youth? How we didn’t rely on it for everything and didn’t entirely take it for granted?

I don’t remember how I knew what it was exactly, but I do remember the first time I ever used it. My best friend Tracey and I were going to a Men’s Glee Club concert at THE Ohio State University one day in our early years of high school, and we stopped by her older brother’s campus apartment beforehand to waste time and use his computer, which included what must have been the slowest modem ever made.

As I remember, it turned out that we’d left our tickets to the concert in her parents’ car, so we spent the entire afternoon looking up song lyrics and pictures of our favourite bands of the time: silverchair, Megadeth, Bush, and Nirvana. Recently, we had spent an entire Friday night at her house watching, pausing, watching, and pausing Bush’s performance of “Insect Kin” on “Saturday Night Live” that my mom had taped for us so we could figure out all of the lyrics. Which took hours. So yeah, the Internet and all of its tricks seemed AMAZING to us at the time.

I bring this up because my co-worker Nik was hovering over my desk this morning, swinging the laces on the hood of his hoodie back and forth over my monitor like windshield wipers, and somehow, it reminded me of the eSheep I had back in high school.

This little Sheepy would hang out above the taskbar at the bottom of your screen, walking, running, sleeping, and occasionally getting bug-eyed and dying. You could pick him up with your pointer and drop him, causing him to bounce, but that’s literally all he did. AND I THOUGHT IT WAS AWESOME.

Still do, to be honest. And thankfully, there’s a 4-minute+ video on YouTube to help me relive its glory.

So tell me: what did you love about Web 1.0?

NYC Pillow Fight 2009!

Posted by plumpdumpling on April 8, 2009 – 10:47 am
Filed under living in new york is neat
Tagged as ,

I celebrated World Pillow Fight Day on Saturday by attending the fight on Wall Street. You’ll note that I said I celebrated and not my loyal and faithful friends and I celebrated, because while I’m generally regarded as the flaky one of the group, I was the only one who actually showed up. Boo-yah and a thousand points for me.

I didn’t actually bring a pillow with me, because you know I wasn’t going to risk mussing my hair, but the train downtown was loaded with children with animal-shaped pillows, hipster girls with pillows in handmade cases, and middle-aged couples with pillows they’d seemingly owned their whole lives. This young German-speaking couple got on the train at Union Square and bumped into me without a word of apology, so I set about hating them in my mind and then set about laughing at them in my mind when they got all confused at City Hall when the 6 line terminated and they didn’t know which train to take to continue down to the Wall Street stop. Superiority!

When I got off the train by Trinity Church, masses of people had stopped on the sidewalks to see where all the pillow-carriers were going. The street I had planned to take to the intersection of Broad and Wall was barricaded by the police, so I tried another street, which was also barricaded, and then another street, which was also barricaded. I ended up stopped behind a construction project a good two blocks away from the action, cursing the NYPD for ruining anything remotely community-forming and hopeful, and taking lame pictures like this with my tiny zoom:

The sidewalk opposite me was open almost to Broad Street, so people were crowding in and trying to burst through the barricades, but the police kept pushing them back and yelling through their bullhorns. Everyone looked so dejected coming back toward my intersection, and I was already feeling sort of down about being alone, so I decided just to call it a day and spread the word about how lame the event turned out to be.

But just then, someone slapped someone else with a pillow right beside me. And then someone else slapped someone else. And then it was all-out war, with people streaming down the sidewalk to join in the impromptu fight.

Pillow innards filled the sky as cases ripped open against heads and shoulders, and I was so glad that absolutely no one had heeded the organizers’ rule against feathers:

The police tried to break things up, but the fighters’ will would not bend, and the cops finally settled for merely separating the crowd when cars and bulldozers came through:

Pillows were thrown at windshields, but it was all good-natured fun. My favourite part of the day was when a limo rolled up to the intersection, the throng obediently separated, and just before the car could pass through, a guy unexpectedly ran along the line of people and smacked every one of them with his pillow:

THAT, my friends, is the spirit of New York City.

No More Hiding Behind Tinted Windows

Posted by plumpdumpling on April 7, 2009 – 12:48 pm
Filed under fun times on the subway
Tagged as

When I turned 16 years old, my dad told me I could have any car I wanted. I told him I wanted a black truck, because

a) I was a farmgirl living in Ohio, but more importantly,
b) the boy I had a crush on had a black truck, and clearly creepily buying a twin vehicle is the way to any man’s heart.

A few days later, I owned a black ’86 Chevy Blazer with a grey stripe along each side that a family friend’s son was selling. Although it wasn’t exactly the shiny new Dodge Ram I’d imagined, I couldn’t have been happier with the way I could pretty much back into everything in sight and not inflict a bit of damage to my precious bumper with the inherited “Fast Boys Dirt Toys” sticker on it. It was only when my dad made the same offer to my little sister a year later and she ended up with a ’98 Ford Mustang that I reconsidered my ride.

I thought that moving to New York City would rid me of my constant worry that everyone pulling up beside me at red lights was judging my poor Blazer. I thought that without a nonfunctioning rear windshield wiper to hinder me, I’d have no insecurities. What I didn’t realize is that public transportation is ten times worse.

. . . And you can click here to read the rest on my Examiner page. OHHHHH! BURN!

Haute Butt

Posted by plumpdumpling on April 6, 2009 – 11:02 am
Filed under too much information
Tagged as

Do you spend all sorts of money on totally useless crap but feel unwilling to pay basically nothing for necessities?

I ask, because I was wearing a pair of really comfortable underwear yesterday, and whilst admiring their fabric and construction on the toilet, I realized that they belong to my best friend, Tracey. My first thought was, “I have to get these back to her!” Because really great underwear are not something I have in abundance, and I assume that’s true for everyone else, too.

But as I thought more about it, I realized that normal people probably don’t think of underwear like I do. My absolute favourite pairs, for instance, are from American Eagle. I don’t normally shop at that store and would have never thought to buy underwear from it, but my non-wicked stepmother took me there to return some of my step-siblings’ jeans after Christmas ’07 and forced me to pick out some for myself. I was generally skeptical despite the super-cute polka-dot and sailboat patterns, but I soon discovered that they’re the best underwear in life–soft, thick, durable, and generally not skanky.

Yet I’ve never owned any past those three pairs, appalled at the idea of spending $7.50 on something no one but Kamran will ever see. (Or, if my dad’s reading this, something NO ONE BUT ME will ever see.) I’m absolutely aware of the fact that these underwear are now two years old and are in perfect condition, yet $7.50 still seems crazy somehow. Even when I’ll drop $7.50 on a Chipotle burrito–something I’ll enjoy for a maximum of an hour, if you don’t count the four days’ worth of black bean burps–without a second thought.

So I went crazy on Friday and used a Visa giftcard from my work to buy 11 pairs of underwear online. I felt like such a badass money-waster. Even though I bought them on clearance, of course.

Do It Again!

Posted by plumpdumpling on April 3, 2009 – 3:22 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am
Tagged as

My friend Emily likes to tease me about the photos I take for this here blog. She says the number one thing out of my mouth on an outing is:

“You know that really awesome thing you just did? Do it again so I can take a picture of it.”

Which is entirely true. So in honor of all of my spontaneously hilarious friends who so obligingly re-pose for me, here are my favourite of the “do that again” photos of recent history:


Kamran about to bite the head off a prawn at a yakitori joint.


Adam sleeping while he was supposed to be teaching a training class of customers at work.


Emily looking so completely badass with some graffiti.


Sad LaChantee after being told that she wasn’t allowed to sleep under my desk at work.


Meredith looking innocent on our outing where we saw the rotating meat.


Kamran flapping the wings of our poor Cornish game hen on our first Thanksgiving together.


Bethany and Tracey “biting” into the pizza-themed glass cutting board my parents gave me for Christmas to mock my cooking skillz.


Sonya wishfully thinking.


Kamran being EATEN IN THE FACE by a monkey at Dave & Buster’s.


Katie being EATEN IN THE FACE by Nick’s alligator head at Evolution.


Oliver, WHO WAS MY BOSS, trying to get me to do GOD KNOWS WHAT by offering
a dollar up to me through the glass on a rainy night at a bar on a work trip in New Orleans.


Joanie and Tracey figure skating in a Kohl’s in Kentucky.


Dominique telling the obnoxious wallpaper in her apartment building to pipe down.


Mike and Jessica, the vegetarians, clearly craving some meats.


Sonya pretending to actually love Adam for more than just his hair.


Kamran casually eating his frozen yogurt after totally dropping a big brown splotch on his shirt.


The one time someone actually did the “do it again” to me.

Thanks, friends!