Mild Curses, Volume Eight

  • May you instantly sober up as soon as the house lights come on at the end of the evening.
  • May someone start telling you a story, the beginning of which is really boring, and in your head, you're thinking, "This story better have an awesome ending." But it won't.
  • May you start typing a long sentence and then realize that your fingers weren't on the right keys, so everything on your screen is gibberish.

Please, Top Chef, Have an Easy Bake Oven Quickfire Challenge Next Season

The church I go to is doing one of those "Toys for Tots"-type donations, and I signed up to give an Easy Bake Oven. Blast from the past, that. It was the only toy on the list that I'd actually heard of - the rest were strange things like Zhu Zhu Pets and Bakugan Battle Brawlers. Can't keep up with kids these days.

So for reasons that are too boring to go into here, I got sidetracked on my way to drop off the Easy Bake Oven and I ended up carrying this giant, gift-wrapped box all over the city. And what I discovered is that people are real nice to you if you are carrying a large Christmas present. They are all smiley and Christmas cheer-y. I think I'm going to wrap up an empty box, stick a big bow on it and take it everywhere I go from now on. Same outcome, easier to carry. Although this might stop getting positive reactions by around April or so.

Tung Toos

It's getting to be the holiday season, and I know that everyone is looking for a gift ideas, so let me tell you about a gift that will really get people talking. It's possibly the best gift I have ever received in a swag bag. Three words: Candy. Tongue. Tattoos.

It's pretty much exactly what you imagine it to be - you press the sheet against your tongue for five seconds or so and then you have a tongue tattoo! Also it is sour grape flavor. This might be the biggest candy technology breakthrough of our time.

My particular pack was military themed, which is exactly what you want branded on your tongue, I guess. But there are other choices of Tung Toos - you can personalize them for everyone on your gift list! Maybe something patriotic like an American flag or a football for all those sports fans. You can give them to your great aunt, mother-in-law, priest, etc. and I'm sure they will be thrilled.

I took some to work and made all my coworkers try them out. I am so professional. Even one of my supervisors took some - for his children, supposedly. Maybe this could be like a new thing - instead of taking coffee breaks at work, you could take tongue tattoo breaks. Here's what mine looked like:

It's a fighter jet, can't you tell? Duh! I think something went wrong. There should be a FAQ section on that website - "Why does my tongue tattoo look like a blob?"

My friends and coworkers fared better:

Tank

Helicopter

Battleship

Sorry friends and coworkers, I just put pictures of your tongues on the Internet. But it's not creepy! It's not creepy at all.

OK, it's a little creepy.

La La Love You

You can't really tell this from the picture, but this musician, Jay Reatard (in the red shirt), played his entire set with his hair covering his face, Cousin Itt style. That was the most interesting thing about his performance, the fact that he managed to play a guitar like that. I'm assuming he has a face under there, but I guess I'll never know for sure.