Tortured Nicolas Cage Puns > Work

So this all started when my worky-friend Robyn went off on holiday with her boyfriend and didn't even take me with. Rude!

As is customary with our dorky awesome group of worker bees, we had to do something silly to her desk before she got back. As an example of the incredibly high standards at my office, here's what happened to my desk when I took two weeks off back in February:

Yes, that's a disco ball.

The plot thickened when Robs announced that she got engaged on the last day of her holiday - now, her desk not only had to say "We're bitter that you went on holiday" but also "Congrats, dude!"

And then, a beautiful pun was born.

Congratulations on your enCAGEment!

Every inch of her workspace was diligently covered with a frighteningly enthusiastic Nicolas Cage! So simple yet so effective. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm more proud of this project than any of the actual work I've done at this company. Well, maybe I'm a little ashamed. But I'm a copywriter, shame is part of the job description.

After the big reveal and the explanation of the pun and then the dawn of realization and then the laughter, Robyn's desk went relatively back to normal, but there was one glaring problem.

What does one do with around a hundred Nicolas Cages?

A question many prank-inclined philosophers have battled with.

At first they all got stuffed in the bottom drawer of my desk. But then... something started happening.


It started off simply enough...

birdCAGE

Then it got kinda abstract...

enCAGE... or N*Cage, if you prefer

Then it got kinda meta...

CAGEbirdcage

Then it got confusing...

birdCAGE in a CAGEbirdcage

I took some requests...

A glass CAGE of emotion

The glitter glue and rolly-stamps did not go unused...

Nicolas RAGE

I'm sad to say I found this amusing for much longer than everyone else. The thought the magic had faded. BUT THE MAGIC WILL NEVER FADE.

Not with the mighty powers of Nicolas MAGE

 Okay, maybe I went a little crazy there.

Do forgive me.

It's just a Cage I'm going through.

My Blogging Life in Neil Patrick Harris Gifs

Today I saw this amazing list of Neil Patrick Harris gifs, which spoke to me so deeply I had to make a post out of them. I'm probably doing this "When X happens, my reaction is Y" meme wrong, but I don't think there's police for that.

Enjoy!

So Here's My Blogging Life In NPH Gifs OMG

When I realize someone other than my mom reads my blog

 

 

When I blog about something and everyone assumes I'm an expert

 

When I keep to my posting schedule

 

 

When I think about monetizing

 

When I finally hit POST

 

When that post still has zero comments

 

When I get that "1 new comment" email

 

When some bitch has more followers than me

 

When I get more followers than that bitch

 

When a commenter corrects me

 

When somebody finds my blog entertaining / helpful

Really?

 Oh, and when you make it to the end of this post

The Great 2 A.M. Wasp Drama

So on Sunday night, I'm casually headed to bed after a not-so-fun day at my job that I don't really love too much, and a night of far too much youtube, when I happen to see that there's a GIANT-ASS WASP on my bedroom wall.

I hate wasps. I really, really, really hate wasps. They're like the sick result of a three-way between a bee and an Orc and Satan. Usually I would just scream and slam the door and avoid the wasp-infested room for as long as humanly possible... but my bed was right there. I was tired. I was already in my pyjamas.

So I decided to be brave and went (okay, ran) to the kitchen to get what is possibly the most ridiculous weapon available for a war against the devil's spawn: a long-handled bright pink feather duster.

I had a vague plan to smoosh the wasp in the feather duster and then shove it out of the open window from whence it came, but as I stood at the door to my room I sorta lost my nerve. The more I stared at the wasp, the bigger and scarier it looked - I'm sure it grew from the size of my thumb to a decent-sized rabid terrier. What if the smooshing went awry? What if it escaped and stung me, or - even worse- GOT STUCK IN MY HAIR?!

This whole situation just crystallizes my plan that when I'm a grownup I'm going to have an industrial strength beekeeper's suit in every room. Actually, make that in every corner of every room.

So I figured the safest thing to do would be to gently shoo the wasp towards the window - but the bastard would not be shood. I'd fluff the feather duster at it and it would fly up and freak me out and settle down a meter away from where it was.

HEY LOOK, I drew you guys a picture of my epic struggle between woman and beast!

Accurate.

So every time I got it flying I would suppress a shriek and bolt out of the room. For something so obviously menacing, it didn't seem to have much forethought going on, because it wouldn't go to me and it wouldn't go out of the window, it just hovered around aimlessly like a big dork. Then it'd just settle down on another obviously-not-window part of the room. We carried on this stressful dance of lameness for a fucking hour.

At one point I got ridiculously hopeful because I saw it dart behind the curtain of an open window, heard it buzz a bit, and then stop. It MUST have flown out! Already feeling victorious, I gave the curtain a little prod to make sure it wasn't just sitting on the other side. Nothing. I started to relax, giving it one last sharp poke just to reassure myself. Out zooms the fucker, circling me (and I'm sure I heard its buzz go a bit higher in its waspy lulz) before sitting quite resolutely on the light in the middle of the ceiling.

The wasp and I had battled it out for the territory of my room, and it had won. I admitted miserable defeat and went to sleep on the couch in the lounge.

Now, you guys know I'm a sensitive soul, right? Here's another fun fact about me: I don't react well to sleeping in strange beds. Most times I'm not in my own bed, I don't sleep at all. And if I do, I have weird icky dreams and wake up feeling hungover.

Lying on the couch covered in blankets that smelled a bit like cat, I was prepared to have an uncomfortable sleep. What I didn't expect was the epic nightmare I had about evil ghosts that were eating my soul. I'm not even exaggerating, this was some trippy existential shit. And it had one of those awful patterns where you wake up and think everything's okay but then it turns out you're still in the nightmare, so you wake up again but you're still there, so you wake up again...

Eventually I woke up for realsies and decided no amount of scary wasps would make me stay on that couch for another second. So I got up, checked that I still had my soul, (just in case), and went to my bedroom.

The wasp was still sitting on the light, its wings closed. It suddenly looked small and unimpressive. It was minding its own business. I let it be.

I left the door open and climbed into bed. I'll admit I had the covers up over my head until I got too hot and tired to care anymore.

In the morning the wasp was gone.

HELL YEAH IT WAS. Apparently I'm most intimidating when I'm unconscious.

The Amazing Dehydration Diet

Are you feeling a bit plump? A touch too fleshy? Do you dream of a flat stomach, flat butt, and flat... everything else?

Are you positively ripe for a change?

You don't have to roll yourself around anymore! Introducing The Amazing Dehydration Diet!

There's no need for special foods, pills or shakes - all you need is willpower and time! A very very very long time!

Look at Mr. Tom Ato's incredible results* with The Amazing Dehydration Diet!

"I feel great!"

*Diet only effective when you forget about yourself in a dark dry cupboard for what archeologists estimate is at least six months.

I made some friends! Out of pixels.

This blog is still alive. I feel like I haven't posted in ages.

Varsity-work wise, I'm incredibly, gloriously behind. I've got at least 2 assignments to hand in for each course and 2 exams next week. Fuck. This would be a great time for the braingels (brain-angels) to kick in. Any day now.

I'm done tutoring for the year and a part of me will miss it. A little part. The other 95% of me will just be happy to sleep in on Monday mornings.

I've tweaked a few things about this blog, the biggest change will be a reduction in ads. There will be half as many and only text, no sexy flashing images. Sorry for those who relied on this blog for those irresistible offers to create a Zwinky avatar of themselves. Now you'll just have to scavenge the rest of the internet for that rare and valuable opportunity.

Speaking of avatars -- no, not the movie. Yes, I enjoyed it and the special fx were amazing. No, I don't think it was so amazing otherwise that it's cool to quote N'avi in everyday life. Anyway, back to actual avatars,  I was thinking about my NaNo plans and hit the old brick wall: that all my characters look the same. Namely, the female lead being a thinner version of me and the male lead being a manlier version of Jared Leto (don't ask, because I don't know why.)

So I found a cute little doll-maker site which I used to brainstorm. I may have gotten a tad carried away since I ended up with about ten different characters -- a preview:

 

Looking back at these, I have to admit in all-caps that I AM A TOTAL DORK. Yes, they're at high school, and yes, they each have a different adorable pet. And yes, these were really fun to make :D

I'll never tire of making these...

Today's Random Album is the moody electronica duo Air City. Their second album, What is beyond it, seeks to explore the new facets of life opened to the band after the success of their debut work last year, titled Can't Breath without the Beat. Much of their new works deal with the complexities of experiencing air transport and living in upmarket hotels.

While fans may miss Air City's earthy, common lyrics like: "My mom thinks I'm a loser, yeah / I spend all day on the computer, yeah / I wanna get a job but / That might put me in an artistic rut," their new album has an atmosphere of refreshing maturity. Gone are the days of trite youth, such as the club anthem of 2009, "I wanna love you all niiiiight, just right, alright! / until then don't fright / I'll scrub my acne with all my might" and enter the more sophisticated lines of their newest single, "In a postmodern context, baby, you're so sexy, I wanna transgress your binary, while you deconstruct my hierarchy... all niiiiight!"


Random Album Covers make me happy. To make one, follow these steps:

1 - Go to a random wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr's “explore the last seven days": http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop, MS Paint, or similar to put it all together.

For the record, my band name was Air City (TV series) a Korean show that only ran for a year, about a woman who manages an airport (which is pretty much the same as managing a McDonald's) and her personal drama which culminates in everyone in her vicinity falling in love with her, including some FBI agent who also, erm, works at the airport. I'd watch that. The beautiful photo is linked here, I love me some windmills. The quote I used is by Francis Thompson, which goes "In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it," a sentiment which I think Air City the band would appreciate, baby, all niiiiight.

T-shirt ideas

I had completely forgotten I'd made these until I was desperately scouring my documents for something decent to put into my writing portfolio.

As for my portfolio, I didn't find anything but about 20 pages of an awesome Sylar x Mohinder fanfiction (that's Heroes, y'all) but I don't think fanfics really count as 'creative writing' so much as 'perverted plagiarism' ... but maybe if I change Sylar's name to Rolex and Mohinder's name to Raj, and add a little prologue: "So Rolex is an evil superdude who steals other superpeople's powers by cutting their heads open; and Raj is an adorable scientist guy who's technically from India but sounds more like he's from California and trying to sound like he's from London. Cool, now on with the fanfi -- Uh, completely original work of prose!"

Yes, this sounds like a plan.