Monthly Archives: December 2012

Have You Accepted Jesus Christ as Your Lord and Savior: The Game.

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Yesterday I was at work driving to a customer’s house with an assistant (sometimes I get an assistant!). We didn’t talk much and just had the radio on quietly. I had turned off the radio at one point to make a phone call and neglected to turn it back on. After a couple of minutes of silence he looked at me and said “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?”



Well, shit.



With that one question every silence between us for the rest of the day became an awkward one. Way to go, pushy Christian.



I didn’t jump down his throat about it. I know, religion is a personal thing and it’s annoying and almost a little creepy when somebody you barely know is trying to get you to change religions while you’re just trying to work but they’re honestly just trying to help. As my friend Tony mentioned yesterday on facebook when I posted about the interaction, these people honestly think that you’re going to quite literally burn in hell if you don’t believe like they do. They want to help you.



Knowing this doesn’t make them any less annoying or intrusive but I try to remember this and cut them some slack when dealing with them. If you’re not as patient (or as much of a pushover) as me, you can play the new game I invented the next time you’re confronted with one of these people. It’s-



Have You Accepted Jesus Christ as Your Lord and Savior: The Game.



Rules: Points are awarded based on how you respond to someone asking you the titular question. Play with your friends or play alone!



(0 points)
Just mumble something about how you’re not exactly atheist but you don’t really trust any church and yada yada yada. Trail off on some bullshit about how you think he had some good teachings and hope they shut up (this is what I usually do).



(5 points)
Tell them that you’re gay. Points are only awarded if they say that it’s a sin and you argue them on it.



(10 points)
Make them give you the infomercial pitch. Say “well, I’ve heard about Jesus and heaven but I just don’t see what the big deal is.” Make them sell heaven to you in as detailed manner as possible.



(20 points)
As soon as they ask look at them with wide eyes and say “You can do that? Oh, thank God! Please! Hurry!” Sometimes they’ll try to give you a “rebirth” right on the spot. This usually involves them asking to accept Jesus and reject Satan. When they begin roll your eyes in the back of your head, lower your voice as low as it will go, start growling some backwards latin sounding jibberish and then look at the person and say “Too late, this one is MINE NOW.”



(25 points)
Just start crying. When they ask what’s the matter look at them and say “Jesus RAPED ME!”



(40 points)
Think about it for a second and say “Well, it sounds interesting but let me throw this out there. Have you considered accepting me as your lord and savior?” Really try to sell them on you being the messiah. Offer to buy them waffles and ask them when Jesus ever bought them waffles. Bonus 5,000 points if you can actually get them to follow you.


Good luck

They’re Pro-Something Alright…

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You know where the best place to put an anti-abortion message is? On a coat hanger.

There's all that empty space...

Words fail me.

Apparently, Springdale Drycleaners in Cincinnati, Ohio is putting these pro-life messages on their hangers. Their coat hangers. Their wire coat hangers.

“Look, there’s just all that empty space on that paper, and really, if you’re going to hit your target market… besides, every one loves a theme!”

I’m going to ask this, because I think it needs asking, and it obviously hasn’t been asked enough…

“HOW THE FUCK CAN ANYONE THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA?!?!?”

No wait, let me ask this correctly.

“HOW THE FUCK CAN ANYONE THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA FOR OVER 2 YEARS?!?!?”

No really. I haven’t been able to find a single news report on this, only internet rantings, and mostly just pictures with the caption WTF. But the earliest I can find on this is a post to Regretsy in September of 2010.

So somehow, our incredibly liberal media hasn’t picked up on this to trash it. And our conservative media hasn’t picked up on this to applaud it. Or, somehow, ALL our media is too busy pussy-footing around to try to please their followers that reporting on ACTUAL issues is too scary.

They might lose a rating, you know.

Look, I don’t like abortion. I really don’t. I’ve had some friends have abortions over the years as a means of family planning, and every time it happened, I’d get this sick, icky taste in my mouth. It actually makes me feel nauseous.

I don’t like abortion so much that, at the tender age of 20, when I was unexpectedly pregnant, I chose not to have an abortion.

And I chose it because I had that choice. The moment someone has the power to tell me I can’t have an abortion, that’s the moment someone has the power to decide that I *have* to have an abortion. The thing I’ll agree with Libertarians on is that we over-regulate a hell of a lot. To the point of losing certain freedoms. Like control over my own goddamned uterus.

The last thing I need some asshole in Cincinnati trying to control it by shoving his pro-life message up my twat.

Keeping People in the Internet Loop

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I have a love/hate relationship with the internet. Usually it’s love. I mean, I did post about how I suspect the internet fathered my child. There’s a lot of love to be had. It gives me so much.

But today, I’m mad at the internet. I made a lovely post about how I was going to switch out hosting servers over the weekend, and the first thing I did was change the domain name to my new hosting site.

And then I waited for the DNS to propagate. I waited some more. And then, after waiting, there was more waiting.

I’m still waiting. Just as many of you are waiting for me to explain what the hell DNS is and why this upsets me.

It’s easiest to think of the internet as a city. Not this city:

I still remember my old neighborhood and street address. No, I'm not telling you what it was.

I still remember my old neighborhood and street address. No, I’m not telling you what it was.

…but a city with addresses. Now, when you think of a web address, you’re probably thinking of the URL or the domain name (such as youngnotions.com or www.penisland.net). But those aren’t the actual address for the location of the website. They just get you there.

Let me explain.

The actual location is the IP address. You’ve probably seen this before when trying to set up your fancy new wireless modem for HOURS, talking on the phone with Comcast before you give up and call your 14 year old niece to come fix it, which she does in 5 minutes, and she also fixed the slowness issues you’ve been having, and found your porn stash which you cleverly titled “important documents” but she’s not going to bring it up with you, just pretend that she never saw those tentacles or KitchenAid appliance.

Seriously dude. You’re into some weird shit.

The IP address is a series of numbers like 169.254.0.16 that give the actual location of the server on the network. So, it’s easiest to think of the IP as the actual street address, like 1234 Main St. (yes, nerds. I know it’s not a perfect analogy. This is why you can’t talk to real people. Shut it.) If the IP address is the street address, the domain name is like the nickname of the place, or the name of the establishment. If I told you I was visiting the pentagon, you know where I’m talking about, even if you don’t know the street address for the pentagon. People in that area know how to get there, but might not know the actual street numbers. Also, I can tell my husband that I’m going to Ben’s house, and he know where that is without knowing the street address.

Well, actually, maybe not. We know a lot of people named Ben.

Now, on the internet, we keep track of domain names through the DNS, or domain name system. Right now, you’re thinking of one giant computer holding onto all those location nicknames, but it’s actually several computers that talk to each other on a fairly regular basis. Like a gossip circle, if you tell one of those computers, soon all the other computers will know. They chatter at each other all the time about what shoes you wore that day, and where so-n-so lives now, and it’s such a nice neighborhood… so much better than that run down shack they used to live in, though the kitchen is a little small, but you can’t have everything, I suppose.

Why no! I didn't hear about the new domain host. Please go on...

Why no! I didn’t hear about the new domain host. Please go on…

The point it, you all have friends that have everyone’s address. Let’s say one of those friends is Betty. And you’re supposed to go to Bob’s new housewarming. So you call Betty to get Bob’s address. But she doesn’t know he’s move yet because usually Char keeps her up to date on Bob’s happenings, and they haven’t talked yet today, so she gives you Bob’s old address. Well, now you’re at Bob’s old house with a bottle of wine and a boardgame, and no one to share them with.

Look nerds, I know that’s not the perfect analogy either, but seriously, NO ONE CARES. Shut your trap.

That’s basically where YoungNotions is at right now. We’ve moved down the street, and we told the people we usually tell, but they haven’t talked to their friends yet, so youngnotions.com is still telling people to come here to wordpress.

WHICH IS REALLY FRUSTRATING because I told Char 2 DAYS AGO and she still hasn’t let everyone know where I live. How can I have people over to my new place? Come on, Char. We’re all waiting on you.

So I hate the internet. I’ve been mad at it all morning. But then it gave me Bob Dole’s campaign website from 96, and www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com.

Awe, Internet… I can’t stay mad at you.

We’re Moving, Kinda

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Here’s the deal, kids. We’re moving from the free WordPress blog to our own space on a server. Theoretically, you shouldn’t notice that many changes. But it will be enough for you to come back to us on Monday, look around and say something like “kids, I told you not to throw any parties while I was gone. But there’s a beer bottle on top of that bookshelf you missed. Also, when did we get a 3rd bedroom?”

You didn't even know YoungNotions HAD a logo, did you?

You didn’t even know YoungNotions HAD a logo, did you?

We started YoungNotions almost 2 years ago. I had been toying with the idea of a website where Bill and I could both promote shows, promote our comedy, promote ourselves, and work on mutual projects together. When Bill and I talked about him staying home to focus on comedy, one of my stipulations was that he would write everyday. Be it a script, a blog post, or what have you, I wanted him to write daily.

We set up YoungNotions to fulfill all of that. And for a while, it did what we needed. Bill was posting every day. Well. Most days. Some days I would fill in. But mostly it was Bill writing. We had our performance calendars, I had my acting resume, we had Bill’s stand up clips, and we had our shared projects all under one website. It was our promotional tool, our fun daily performance, a few jokes tossed out for people to enjoy mid-day.

A few months ago, Bill got a day job so I could stay home and pursue facilitating my son’s education. And helping start up a theater production company (Fearless Comedy Productions. Maybe you’ve heard of them). And do some other theater things in the area and still have time for my son. When we made this decision, we had a long talk about what to do with YoungNotions. What role does it fill? What role *should* it fill?

The thing is, both Bill and I love writing for this blog. But it’s not really much of a blog in the way it was originally intended. Instead of being some dude’s random thoughts, we’ve become much more satirical and observational in our focus. We’re both writing now, and very little of it has to do with our home life anymore. And we no longer use it rto promote ourselves.

I took our calendars down months ago and none of you said anything. I also got a haircut and no one noticed. I’m very hurt.

Thing is, we’re not a blog anymore. YoungNotions has become its own comedy site. We went from getting excited over 50 hits in a day to our highest blog post getting over 2,000 hits in one afternoon. We get thousands of hits in a month, from all over the world. We’re regularly getting shared on reddit, digg, stumbleupon, and at least once a month, something one of us does goes viral on Facebook.

I’m not saying that we’ve hit the big time. Far from it. As far as comedy websites go, we’re pretty much the bottom rung of the ladder. But we aren’t “blogging” anymore. Bill isn’t talking about his day job unless there’s a joke to be had. I’ve talked up a couple of charity events lately, but it was obvious that this is not the place for those things anymore.

You kids have come to expect daily noontime jokes to break up your day. And we plan to deliver. Hell, we’re even working on YoungNotions shows outside of the website. Not just Bill and Jena, but YoungNotions shows. As YoungNotions. It really has become its own thing.

So we’re moving to a hosting service. This will allow us to do a couple of things. First, I’ll be able to do more and better customization for the site. That menu thing that’s always bothered me where the spacing was off and the items ran together? I can fix that now. It wasn’t worth it to pay to fix it when we were living in a rental.

And that’s the second thing. Moving will allow us to monetize. Not a lot. Hopefully enough to cover the cost of moving to a server. But those awkwardly placed ads in the blog posts? Well, now I can put them where it best makes sense, and instead of that money going to WordPress for the free hosting, it’ll now go to us to pay for the hosting.

We’ll also be able to set up our CafePress shop so you can purchase cool YoungNotions swag. I’ve already got some YoungNotions logo items available featuring that swanky logo I posted earlier. The thing is, we’ve had that donation button up there for months now, and we’ve received one donation (which, seriously- thank you). But I don’t blame anyone for not donating, because what do you get out of it? Now, a part of the proceeds will go toward YoungNotions, AND you get something for your money. And who doesn’t want a YoungNotions thong?

Soon....

Soon….

Did you just picture Bill in a thong? Oh, well NOW you did… Ugh. This is horribly awkward.

The point is, this site is no longer going to be about us. It really hasn’t been for quite some time. We’re just trying to keep up with the growth of our little baby blog.

Awe, look at it. All growed up and moving out.

There might be some bumps along the way. I believe what I’m doing will preserve subscriptions, but if you don’t see us in your email or feed on Monday, please let me know and/or re-subscribe. I promise we’ll be here, and with 20% less narcissism.

And the awkwardly placed ad is VVVVVVVVHEREVVVVVVVVV I mean, part of the post or no?

Penn State Taking Baby Steps to Being Less Awful.

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CNN posted a story about Penn State’s Chi Omega sorority posting a picture on tumblr that’s… well, here it is.



Yeah...

Yeah…





So yeah. That’s pretty racist. The photo was taken at a mexican themed party at the sorority and a lot of people are very offended and Penn State is currently investigating the sorority but I think it’s really important to remember that this is Penn State we’re talking about. At least a bunch of kids didn’t get raped in this scandal.



Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s pretty bad that the Chi Omegas would think it’s funny to reduce latino culture to a bunch of sombrero wearing, mustachioed landscapers and it’s baffling that they would think it would be okay to post the picture online but take a look at that picture again. How many kids are getting raped in the picture? Zero. That’s a real step in the right direction for Penn State.



Not to mention it only took a week after this picture was posted for the shit to hit the fan. Why, I remember a time where it would take well over a decade of something bad happening at Penn State before anybody would know about it. Penn State has really taken great strides in being open about their horrible culture.



Racism is bad. I’m not trying to debate that. I’m just saying we should be thankful that all they did was make fun of Mexicans and not rape a bunch of them and try to cover it up for years and years.



Hopefully, the girls of Chi Omega have learned to be a little more respectful and understanding of different cultures and hopefully the scandals of Penn State become less severe as time goes on. If we’re lucky maybe we’ll hear about some illegal gambling going on at Penn State a year from now. As long as they’re not enabling a serial pedophile.


The Liberal’s Guide to Murdering Christmas: 2012 Edition.

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Well, it’s December so that means I’ve been very busy with my liberal friends trying to wage our war on Christmas. My nights have been filled with meetings with local reps from the ACLU, PETA, ADL and Planned Parenthood trying to brainstorm for ways to weaken Christmas even further. We’re trying to petition Congress to recognize the phrase “Merry Christmas” as hate speech but there’s little else we can do because Christmas has just become so… secular.



It’s hard to completely kill the holiday with our current battle plan because we’ve been attacking it as a religious holiday. We can use the First Amendment (the only Amendment that matters) to weaken Christmas on that front publicly but how do we take care of all of the many, many aspects of modern Christmas that have nothing to do with Christianity?



If we liberals are going to kill this holiday once and for all we need to think outside the organic, recycled, fair trade box. Here’s a few things we can do to start.


1: Santa’s Elves are non-union labor.
Nothing destroys a business quite like a union! Now, of course Santa’s elves aren’t real but just by injecting unionization of his labor force into the Christmas myth it will rattle the foundations of the whole story. We should probably make people call the elves something overly politically correct, too. Something along the lines of “Vertically Differentiated Polar Natives”.


2: Christmas trees are killing the environment
It’s hard, as a liberal, to attack something so tied to Paganism but it needs to happen if we’re going to get rid of Christmas. Real or fake, the use of Christmas trees are killing mother earth! The real ones chop down trees and the fake ones are made from plastic. To make it seem like we’re trying to be fair, offer some hideous alternative nobody will want like growing a potted soyplant to put the presents around and eating the soybeans with Christmas dinner.


3: Santa promotes childhood obesity.
Santa Claus promotes unhealthy lifestyles and unrealistic expectations. He tells kids you can live off of candy canes and cookies and live to be hundreds of years old.

Diabeetus.

Diabeetus.

Bonus: Try to get conservatives to hate Santa by saying he promotes socialism by giving away toys.


Okay, liberals. There’s the plan. Together we can finally murder this holiday. Namaste.

I’m Dying

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Kids, I’m dying. Here’s how it happened.

Yesterday, I sneezed and hurt my back. Bill had a late night with his gig, so I was walking in to wake him up when I sneezed. That one, tiny little sneeze caused every muscle in my upper back to constrict and shrink in on itself. So what Bill woke up to yesterday morning was “Bill honey, it’s time to OOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! GODDAMN FUCKING SON OF A BITCH WHORE!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKFUCKFUCK OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!”

I should have put my finger under my nose.

I should have put my finger under my nose.

True to form, Bill’s first reaction was to ask if I was okay, and his second was to talk about changing the settings on his alarm clock off of “pained wife.”

To which I responded with “OWOWWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWO!!!! FUCKFUCKFUCK I HATE YOU! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

I know my body. I’ve always had muscle tightness issues. I actually once had a masseur poke at my back for about 5 minutes, and then say “I… I’m not even sure where to begin.” I’ve done a lot of lifting in my day. Not nearly as much as I was a few months ago when I was tossing 70 pound printers around like it was no big deal. I once carried a 50 pound iMac several blocks because we were all out of hand trucks and I was NOT going to miss my appointment because the boys couldn’t be bothered to haul a 20 pds monitor without wheels. I’ve done tumbling, fighting, and dancing. I push my body hard near constantly, and through trial and error, I learned when I should push, when I should stretch, and when to stop.

I knew that before I could even diagnose myself proper, I had to get the rest of my back to relax a little. I did yoga child pose and after a bit slowly worked in some cobra pose. Moved into cat pose, and then some downward facing dog. What are those? Those, dear reader, are douchebag words us Uptown fitness wanna-bes use when we want to sound like we did a lot of hippy workout stuff when what we actually did was stretched.

Here are some other poses for you kids.

Here are some other poses for you kids.

After I was able to kinda get some of the muscles to relax a bit, I worked my way over to the computer and Googled “upper back pain.” But there were so many different types of injuries, and almost all of them had to do with slipped disks, which I was pretty sure had not just happened.

So when I couldn’t get the answer I needed from Google, I turned to my next reliable source of information… Facebook. I told the kids I was looking for some stretches for my back and asked if anyone knew any.

I got everything but. Lots of people telling me to ice it and rest, a couple people telling me to go to the doctor. All good advice if I had actually pulled it. But I was pretty sure this was still just most of my muscles constricted and needing a little it’s okay, it’ll all be okay stretching. There was so much going on, I just needed to get more of my back to relax before trying to really get into the problem and how to fix it.

But this, dear reader, is how I learned I’m dying. In among all this advice was a warning from a friend “Also check for other possible symptoms of other illnesses” with a link to Heart Attack Symptoms for Women.

I responded that I had sneezed.

And my dear friend replies with “Sneezing can be very dangerous!”

So you see, I’m dying. I had a heart attack the same moment I sneezed, popping my ear drum and cracking my rib. It’s been great knowing you all.

**Writer’s note: I have been icing it like a good girl… don’t any of you start telling me what to do or I’ll hunt you down and wake you up with Bill’s “pained wife” alarm clock setting. No really- I don’t recommend it.**

The Republican Party: A Voice for the Voiceless.

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In just a few weeks the tax cuts implemented by George W. Bush will expire, causing a hike in tax rates that will put a huge hurt on Americans. The President keeps butting heads with Congress trying to pass a bill that will extend some of the tax cuts on middle class families but the republican led House of Representatives refuses to back down from a bullying president that wants to try to help fix the country’s deficit on the backs of the most underrepresented minority in this country, the rich man.



For far too long rich people have been treated as second class citizens in this country. They’re forced to fly on private jets rather than use public transportation. They have to send their children to private schools. Some of them are so ostracized from society that they have to send somebody out to shop for their groceries.



This sort of prejudice is so deep and widespread that it’s affected rich people’s very own view of their identity. Most of them don’t even see themselves as rich and actually say things like it’s hard living on $400,000 a year.



Even if they do see themselves as rich they try to hide it. They call themselves “Job creators” and “small business owners”. They’ve been so bullied by society that some of them will actually try to make it look like they make less money when they file their taxes out of shame.



Some people try to justify their rich bashing by hiding behind the bible. Taking quotes out of context like “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Hate is hate, no matter how you try to mask it.



Thankfully, the rich have an ally with the Republican party. Republican congressmen have stated over and over that they do not want this economy fixed on the backs of the rich. They will not see this country raise tax rates on some people just because they have an insane amount of money.



Thank you, republicans. When our grandchildren look back and scratch their heads at how we’d even think to ask people to pay more because they have more, you’ll be content to know you were on the right side of history.