And I helped.

That’s a lie…I did it ALL BY MYSELF.

Weeellll, okay, I asked a few questions.  And there were a couple of calls to tech support.  But I had to make them.

This will be my last post here at the PQ Nation.  Everyone wave goodbye to PQ!  And thank her for the lovely layout.  I will be using it until I figure out all this coding myself.  Which, if I’m to be honest, could be a while.  You see there’s this issue with a right sidebar and I really want to…

Never mind.  I have the right to not incriminate myself if the author of that code ends up with a black eye.

So boys and girls (and those of you I can’t classify), please click here and find yourself ON MY NEW BLOG!  YAY!  You’ll notice it mostly looks the same, but I am still working out a few kinks.  Have patience.  We can do this if we stick together, right?

Clickety clickety CLICK.

Okay, you guys, I know that I JUST moved my blog here and asked you kindly to change your bookmarks, BUT…

I’ve decided to put on my big girl panties and get my own hosting and be all that I always knew I could be (though not in the ARMY). So in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be asking you to do it all over again. Once I transfer my domain and all that jazz. It’s going to be a process, but I want to do it ALL BY MYSELF (well, aside from some questions to friends who know things about the internets).

I know it’s hard to contain your excitement about having to change your subscriptions again, but try, friends; try really hard. I’m going to need you to focus.

Focus. Heh.

That’s what I used to say to my dog when I wanted her to poop outside. What? It’s better than “POOP!”

The point is, keep your eyes on this space and I will happily tell you when I move for what will hopefully be the last time. I’m excited. I’ve been learning HTML and CSS and, um, this free photo editing software for Mac. That one is going to be the death of me. And I’m doing all of this for YOU, preciouses. Because I love you.

That’s right. I said it. I love you. Well, most of you. A couple of you could use a shower.

Oh wait, that’s me. Nevermind! I love you all!

Because instead of getting to go, I got food poisoning and spent the next 24 hours puking my guts up. Literally.

My New Year’s Eve was spent in bed, trying not to move, lest I throw up again. I’m still sore from all the heaving and gagging.

Please look to PQ or Mandy or Just a Girl for an update on their festivities. I know many Funyuns were eaten.

Truthfully, food poisoning on the last day of the year was sort of a fitting end to a pretty crappy 2009. So I’m happy to say so long to last year and hello to this year. I know it will be better because I’m better.  On Friday, just a little bit late, I will write you a breakup with 2009.  I couldn’t move enough to do it last Friday.  Until then, I hope everyone’s New Year’s Eve was better than mine.  And I’m sure everyone’s New Year’s Eve was better than poor Princess’s, as he spent the evening cleaning UP my puke.

I know.  But I told him he didn’t have to and if I had, there just would have been more puke.  It wasn’t pretty.

After deleting my MySpace account (I know, right?  What’s MySpace?), I felt so…free.  It was a great feeling.

Facebook?  You’re on thin ice.

Look, I love Spam as much as the next Tennessee kid, but I need to make a request.  People, PLEASE, be a little more discriminate in the people you click to invite to EVERY GROUP AND APPLICATION YOU JOIN.

Have you ever gotten such a request from me?  No.  You know why? Because I don’t really join anything.  But also because when I do, I don’t feel the need to invite everyone I know to it.  It’s just rude.

If I get one more email that “So-and-so has invited you to LOVE JESUS!” I’m going to scream.  Because I don’t love Jesus.  I mean, look, I’m sure he was a nice guy and all, but I don’t really have any ties to him.

Here are the groups I’ve been invited to join RECENTLY:

• One Million Strong Against Socialism – Guess what!  We don’t live in a socialist country.  So unless you’re fighting someone else’s battle against socialism, I’d suggest you find another catch phrase.
• Mafia Wars ANYTHING – If I haven’t joined by now, I’m probably not gonna, right?  Get the picture, please.
• Retake Congress – I don’t really wanna, but thanks.  This was fun.  Also, I’m not a republican.
• Take Back America in 2010 & 2012 – From Whom?  Oh, I see…because those shady democrats got a hold of it.  I’m not really much of a democrat either, but good grief.  You lost.  GET OVER IT.
• Virginia UNCONSTITUTIONAL NULLIFICATION RESOLUTION Coalition – I don’t even know what this means.  I looked it up, and I’m thinking it has something to do with state’s rights and not letting the federal government dictate what individual states can do.  But I’m not sure if you’re for that or against it.  Either way, it’s a dangerous little game you’re playing, except that you don’t actually affect anything anywhere anyhow.  Aside from annoying the crap out of me.
• Become a fan of Jesus Daily! – Again, I’m sure Jesus was a nice guy.  I’m also pretty sure he doesn’t give a damn about Facebook.  He’d probably want you to stop getting on my nerves.  Don’t make Jesus cry; stop sending me these invitations.
• Calling all Christians!  Let’s see how many Christians there are on Facebook! – I’m guessing…about ten REALLY LOUD ones.  Then a bunch of other people who are willing to join and do nothing.
• I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who hate cancer! – It would be a bigger challenge to find a dozen people who love it.   Just sayin’.  At least make it interesting.

I’m not a Christian.  I’m not a republican.  I’m not so much a democrat (because generally I hate politicians and everything that goes with them).  I’m not conservative.  I don’t like the mafia.  I don’t want to farm on the internets (I don’t even understand the DRAW of this one, but I’m going to just assume it must be fun or something).  I don’t like cancer, but then no one does.  I don’t care if some guy in Utah or whatever can decorate his house like a pirate ship if ONLY 1,000,000 people join THIS group.  I don’t want to be in the BIGGEST GROUP ON FACEBOOK LIKE EVER TOTALLY OKAY.

It’s completely unnecessary for you to just invite everyone on your friends list to every group you join.  Have a little respect for other people’s beliefs.  Not to mention their tolerance for your spam.  I can’t find any way to take myself off the “INVITE ME” list, so you’re just going to have to work with me.  Or I’ll be happy to start sending you invitations to every atheist, socialist, political leftist, anarchist, cancer-loving group I CAN FIND.  This is not a joke.

Friends don’t let friends invite everyone to everything.  Think about it.  It’s in your hands.

****Have you resubscribed to my new feed yet?  No?  CLICK HERE!****

I don’t know about you, but I keep hearing these commercials on the radio about how gift cards have a monthly service fee and all the money you’ve got stored there is slowly being sucked away.

Anyone?

It’s an American Express commercial and they want you to know that they’ve solved the problem for you.  They’ve decided to give you your gift cards for free!  No hidden monthly service fees!

Except, well, I just got an American Express gift card for my birthday.  And while it’s true that they waive the monthly service fee for a year, after that, I will be charged $2.00 per month every month the card still has a balance.  So it seems that American Express isn’t really eliminating the problem, just postponing it.

Granted this probably isn’t an issue for any normal human being, but I tend to hold on to my gift cards for long periods of time, until I’ve found exactly the right purchase.  For instance, I just used the one from my birthday in 2008 to buy a watch a couple of weeks ago.  Thanks Aunt Kim!

I thought I’d do a little research in the matter, and it seems that American Express is telling you straight about one thing:  Gift cards are tricky little buggers.  I just read this Consumer Reports article on them.  It was pretty informative.  Well, in a really general way.

I guess what I’m saying is…gift cards are nice, but use them FAST!  Or, ya know, request cash.  At least then you’re only at the mercy of the economy and stuff.

Now, I’m interrupting myself to tell you some exciting news!  My little ol’ blog was ON THE RADIO!  Yes, you heard me.  I WAS ON THE RADIO.  It seems a Mr. Artie Spanier (I know, doesn’t he look special?) googled himself and discovered that on the day before Thanksgiving, while breaking up with Dallas Cowboys fans, I called him scum and wished him salmonella for Thanksgiving.  Apparently, this upset him.  So he mentioned my little blog on the radio!  Looks like we’re famous, guys!

On Saturday, while doing some super important lying around on my couch, I thought, “Self, you know what you need? You need a Wii!”

Then I thought, “Self, that means getting off the couch. Oh, and you’ll probably want to put on some pants.”

That part of the plan sucked, but I made it through.

I got in my car, it magically started, and I drove myself to the nearest Target. Somehow, I had forgotten to consider the implications of it being the Saturday before CHRISTMAS.

How, you ask? Because Christmas isn’t really my thing anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the day off. But as I don’t believe in God and stuff…well, let’s just say I don’t really have the urge to celebrate his son’s birthday.

Also, I HATE Christmas music. With a passion.

Well, lookie there, I just had a little rant in the middle of my rant. Aren’t you excited?!

Sometime around pulling out of my parking garage and pulling in to the Target parking lot, this realization hit my in the face. I was about to go to TARGET. On the Saturday before Christmas. To buy a Wii. WITH EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.

I was committed to the mission, though, so I pushed forward. I parked about ten miles from the door to my neighborhood Target, did a fair amount of cursing to get to my parking space, and then even more to get to the actual door and inside the Target.

There were a million people in there. It was an absolute madhouse. Children were screaming, old people were cowering in the corners, mothers were crying.

Okay, I’m exaggerating. But it was really busy.

Shockingly, they had no Wiis. Hehe. No Wiis.

I had a second brain-child-style plan and thought, “Self, maybe they’ll have one at Best Buy.”

Now, I hate Best Buy in even the most calm of shopping experiences. Why I thought it would be a good idea to go there on the SATURDAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS is beyond the capabilities of my little brain to process. RIDICULOUS.

And this is where we have a talk. Because at Best Buy? It took me 20 minutes to park and then 20 MINUTES TO UNPARK.

Just because the holidays are upon us, does NOT give you the right to be an asshole. Seriously. The rules have not changed just because it’s the “season of giving.” By giving, I don’t think anyone means “giving someone the urge to murder you for deciding you’re too good for common courtesy.”

These are the Top 10 Reasons I think we should do away with Christmas:

10. Just because it’s for your child and I’m an adult, you do NOT have the right to snatch it out of my hands.

9. I understand that you have somewhere to be. I do, too. If you stop being a jerk, we could probably both get there faster. Basically, IT’S OKAY TO LET ME OUT OF MY PARKING SPACE. Especially when you’re already sitting at a full stop with no hope of moving.

8. Those shopping carts? They’re actually not made to decorate the parking lot. Put them back.

7. Along the same lines, if the stores would like you to return the carts to their handy little cart-return dealimaboppers, they might consider actually putting them in the backs of the parking lots, so you don’t have to walk almost the whole way back to the store. We all know you’re too lazy important for that, right?

6. Christmas music. Nuff said.

5. Somehow the holidays are an excuse to keep your child up after its bedtime, so that it can be out in the store where I am, screaming its head off when it should clearly be sleeping.

4. Just because that STOP sign is red doesn’t mean it’s a Christmas decoration. It still means STOP. I’m talking to you.

3. Now we’re all broke from buying crap for other people that they don’t need and we’re about to have to receive a bunch of crap we don’t need from other people all in the name of making ourselves feel better about being kind, giving people.  I’m guessing if we all saved our money, we could buy our own crap.  This rule does not apply to those with more money than everyone else.  You guys can feel free to buy presents.

2.  The poor poor people who actually have to work over the holidays don’t need your attitude.  No, really.  They don’t.  It’s not their fault that someone else bought the last Tickle Me Elmo (can you tell it’s been a while since I paid any attention to Christmas shopping?).  I thought this was the season of giving?  Were we only talking about attitude?

1.  And finally, Santa is obviously communicating to children that it’s cool to be obese.  C’mon, dude.  It’s an epidemic.  Maybe lay off the cookies, eh?

In other news, I actually did find a Wii at the third place I stopped.  I HAVE A WII! And I’m totally not admitting to this, but I may or may not have purchased…um, this*.  Wanna play?

*Yes, I look exactly as ridiculously hilarious as you think while playing this game.  Also, my arms HURT.

So if you’re here, it means you’re not an asshole and you decided to go ahead and follow me on over to my new home.

If you’re not here, well…I think you can put two and two together.  But you don’t have to because you’re also not reading this.

Pity.

I think this little adventure into WordPress will be fun for everyone.  Can’t you feel the excitement?  Now I can reply to your comments individually.  I’m so excited!

Of course, it’s probable that sometimes I still won’t do that because I’m very busy and important and all that jazz.  You know how it is.  The life of a blogger.

Just in case you haven’t already, click HERE (DO IT!) to subscribe yourself to my feed.  If nothing else, how could you not want to see that sunshine everyday?

I want to take a second to thank the lovely and talented PQ for all her hard work on this.  I’m pretty much an idiot when it comes to programming the internets, you see, so she offered up her services at a very reasonable price.  If you ever want to change up your own blog, you know who to call.  You understand I that by “who,” I mean PQ, and by “call,” I mean email or some other form of civilized communication.  I’m not giving you her number because it’s MINE.  And she likes it when I call her and talk to her in my GPS voice.

Also, this is a blog-warming party, so where are my presents?

What do you mean you didn’t bring any?  Wine?  Food?  NOTHING?  Man…you guys are slackin’.

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen. It’s time for LiLu’s TMI Thursday!

I’m writing this on Tuesday because well, because it happened last night. I’d like to keep all the details fresh.

Last night, after I got home from work, I decided to take a bath before meeting my mom for dinner. For those of you who know me, you know how much I love a good bath. I had about an hour, so I settled in with a book for a good soak.

Of course, in the middle of it, I had to get out and poop, but that’s a whole different TMI story. Probably one that doesn’t need to be told.

Anyway, I finished my bath, but instead of reaching down to unplug the drain while I was still sitting in it, the way I normally would, I just…got out of the tub. With all the water still sitting in it.

I realized my mistake as I was drying myself off, so I went to the side of the tub where the drain is located, so I could lean down and unplug it.

Sounds simple, right? But here’s the thing. My skin was still all wet. And my shower curtain is vinyl. It was basically like sitting in a car with vinyl seats on a hot summer day. My skin stuck to the shower curtain like a tongue to a frozen metal pole. All of my momentum was carrying me forward. I lost my footing and proceeded to fall, head first, back into the tub. Pulling the shower curtain into the tub with me, but somehow not ripping it from its metal loops on the rod itself.

It took me a few minutes to come to terms with what had just happened and then a couple more minutes to untangle myself. I got out of the tub, dried myself off and realized…I still hadn’t unplugged the drain.

Last year, over spring break, I took a little trip to Me-hee-co. It was lovely. The beach was awesome, as was the swim-up bar. Who doesn’t love a swim-up bar? But I think my favorite part of the whole thing was the speed bumps.

I know, I know. It seems weird. Mexican speed bumps are the shit, though. There are at least five different kinds, and they’re everywhere. Residential streets, highways, sidewalks, hallways, you name it. And they take that shit seriously in Mexico.

First, they have the normal, average, everyday USA kind, but about 2 inches taller. If you’re in your teeny tiny car, it’ll rip you up if you don’t slow down. So everyone slows down. These were mostly in public parking lots, like the airport.

Then there are… well, how do I put this? You know the road tits? The ones they use for the left turn lane, so you’ll think really long and hard about trying to get out of it once you’re in it? They’re like the lane dividers but ten times the size? Well, there are speed bumps made out of two to three rows of those. They’re all over the highways and busy streets. They seemed to be the most effective. No one speeds over those things.

After that, we have the big-wide-rounded-top speed bump. It was my favorite when I lived in El Paso, because it’s fun to speed over that kind. They had them in the Target parking lot, and we always referred to them as “Target Speed Bumps.” It never occurred to me that Target may not put those in parking lots nation-wide. What a disappointment. But they had some in Mexico. Not as fun because the cab drivers slowed down too much.

The next ones are the slant-up-flat-top-slant-down kind. I don’t really enjoy these so much. They were the least prevalent, usually seen at check points and things like that. I actually only remember encountering them on the day trip to Chichen Itza. I was on this giant bus. And I get carsick. The tour guide wouldn’t shut up. He kept making these incredibly ridiculous numerological parallels between the Mayan pyramid and everyday things in Western culture. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the Maya didn’t know anything about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or that there would eventually be 52 cards in a deck. But thanks, dude. Glad you could listen to yourself talk for nine hours.

My all-time favorite speed bumps were these ones that were almost the reverse of the slant-up-flat-top-slant-down kind. There were two slant-down-flat-bottom-slant-up-flat-top ones in a row. These were everywhere, but mostly in the residential neighborhoods. Like the one on the way to the hotel. It was almost like they just decided to build in structured potholes. Probably you could get away with speeding over those things, but I wouldn’t advise it.

Of course none of that matters, since lanes and speed limits are really barely even suggestions in Playa del Carmen. Going the wrong way, but in the right lane? No problem. Just pull a U-turn in front of all the traffic, they won’t mind. And if you happen to drive a tour bus, you have the right of way. At all times. Even if it means the guy driving the other way while you’re passing someone has to go off-roading for a few minutes. Some would call it a really boring game of chicken, in which everyone knows who the winner will be. On another trip, some passengers were telling us about the driving in the Dominican Republic. Apparently, there mothers will drive little scooters while just holding their children onto their sides, sort of football style in my imagination. Compared to that, the driving in Playa del Carmen is amazing.

To start your Monday morning off right, Rebecca over at Losing It in AZ came up with an awesome idea. We should all share some stories of our past failed relationships. These stories can be about any relationship: a boyfriend, your mom, your cousin, your boss, your cat…you get the picture. Obviously, you’re going to want to hop on this train, because I think if we put our heads together, we can come up with a really hilarious collection of our failures.

Failed Relationship: Josh, kindergarten boyfriend
Age: 4
Length of Relationship: Approximately 48 hours

I started kindergarten* at the ripe old age of four. As you can imagine, I was the youngest person in my class. Actually, I was pretty much the youngest person in my class until I graduated from high school. You see, my mom had to work. And, well, she needed me out of her hair. So even though I was three months past the cut-off birth date for admittance into school, she talked them in to taking me off her hands.

I was in class with my cousin Summer, who was a giant trouble maker. I bet she still is. She’s the reason I got spanked for talking at nap time. You see, I was big into rule following. I still am, actually. It’s just that now I pick and choose instead of following all rules presented to me. Life’s more fun this way. Oh, and my mom ALWAYS signed that little piece of paper saying they could spank me at school. Rude.

Anyway, in our class, there was a boy. And this boy would steal my jacket and color on my paper and eat my chapstick and drop the see-saw really hard when I was on the other end. It was love, obviously. Except, of course, that I hated him. Then one day, he gave me a Valentine. Oh, that day was Valentine’s Day. I suppose I should clear that up, so you don’t think that he was some weirdo kid making Valentines on April 12th or something.

Oh man, I was so excited. I got a Valentine!

From a boy.

Weird.

Kind of icky.

Well, maybe it could be all right, if he would stop eating my chapstick. Ass.

After that, he held my hand and we played together at recess. Somehow this still involved him stealing my jacket during tag, but I think that’s because he would always grab onto it to try to catch me, and I would unzip it and skip out of it (Yes, I totally mean skip. I was always a crappy runner, so I would skip and I could still beat most of the boys. True story.), leaving him holding my jacket and looking puzzled. Worked. Every. Time.

This is about the time I learned an important lesson. Boys are dumb.

Write that down.

About a week later, I found out that he had also given a Valentine to one of our other female classmates. What a jerk! We “broke up” and he stopped eating my chapstick (Yay!) and I refused to play tag and that, my friends, was the end of that.

*Actually, for all I know, all of this could have happened in the first, second, third, or fourth grade. Those memories are all sort of jumbled together in my mind. Except I know that in third or fourth grade I peed on myself and had to wear a borrowed Alf sweatshirt for the rest of the day. Along with borrowed pants, obviously. I didn’t manage to just pee on my torso. Wow, that was embarrassing…