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Friday, June 15, 2012

Journal Prompt #2

          Hi! Okay, today's prompt is still a little vague, just to get your creative juices flowing (that actually sounds pretty gross). I promise they'll get more interesting over time, but I know when you first start writing, you usually need some freedom. Today, you need to write a fictional story. But here's the catch: you can't think about it. This is the way I always tell stories, and they always come out awesome. People ask me to tell them stories all the time, stop asking about it! There's no outlining or character development. You pretty much just say the first thing that pops into your head. That way, instead of writing a boring story with a moral or plot or other dumb stuff like that, you get a hilarious adventure of a waffle riding a unicorn to Bulgaria to discover the power of friendship. And no cheating. If you need a noun, and you think platypus but you want to write nasal congestion, get over yourself and write platypus.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Journal Prompt #1

          Alright, everybody. It's the moment you've all been waiting for (I hope). The very first journal prompt!
          This is an easy one; sort of a way to ease into it and set the tone for the rest of your journal. Write a letter/sign/introductory page warning any snooping eyes not to read on. Paranoia is a plus. Threats are better. Maybe draw a picture of a menacing animal to really drive the point home. Maybe rig up some kind of noise thing that will go off whenever your journal is opened (I've been trying to think of a way to do this with one of those cards that plays a song when you open it, but no luck so far). Maybe even make a fake cover that makes it look like a different book. Get creative.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The Super Stupendous Journal Experience

          I recently decided to get back into journaling, which I've tried pretty much every six months or so for my entire life and have always ended up failing. So this time, I decided to do a little research. I Googled journal ideas (your move, chess club) and was uninspired. Most of these ideas start off by introducing the purpose behind keeping a journal, which is usually to discover your true self or whatever. Which is cool and stuff. But then the prompts are these stupid things like "make a list of your favorite foods" or "write a letter to someone who inspires you." What is this, a sixth grade English class? Call me crazy, but I don't think writing down how much you love pineapple or Abraham Lincoln is really going to inspire you too much (and if it does, you are an extremely boring person and we probably would not be friends). Then I saw this idea of a journal challenge at http://iheartrunwithscissors.blogspot.com/ (which is an absolutely adorable blog, by the way), where every day a new journal prompt is posted, and then people post pictures of their journal entries. It's super cute. However, I chose not to do this, mostly because most of these entries are really artistic and I'm more into the writing side of keeping a journal. But then I thought to myself, hey, I have a blog! And thus, the Super Stupendous Journal Experience was born.
          Basically, I'm pretty much going to do the same thing as the other journal challenge. I'm going to post a new journal prompt every now and then (I won't promise every day, because I'm a busy person), and they will be interesting. If you want to write about how much you love cupcakes, by all means, exit this window, grab your Justin Beiber notebook and go to town. But if you are awesome and REALLY want to create a journal that you will want to continue for years to come, then please join me. Here are the rules:
          1. THERE ARE NO RULES. That's the beauty of a journal; you don't have to do what anyone else tells you, and you don't have to worry about what anyone's going to think. It's YOUR journal--that's the whole point. You don't even have to write every single day. You don't even have to write about the prompt. Maybe the prompt is about describing the grossest thing that ever happened to you, and you're all like, nah, I really just wanna draw a potato. You draw that potato.
          2. By no means do you have to post what you've written--or share it with anyone at all, for that matter--but I would love to see everyone's thoughts!
          3. This is the only actual rule (which I guess means Rule 1 was kind of a lie): if you decide you would like to participate, leave a comment on this post. I just want to know how many people are actually writing!
          4. Even if you don't want to share your journal entries, I would love to hear about your progress. Feel free to leave me a comment or whatever about whether you're having fun, what you're having trouble with, if you did or didn't like a certain prompt, etc. I'm seriously just making this up as I go along, so the more feedback, the better.
          5. If you have an idea for a prompt--or if you just want another way to give/get feedback--follow me on Twitter (@thebardashian).

          Hopefully people will actually do this! I'll post the first prompt tomorrow!

America's Biggest Problem

          At this point, I think we can all admit this country has some serious problems that need to be addressed (most of which have something to do with somebody whose name rhymes with Schmarack Globama). But today, I'm not going to focus on the economy, foreign policy, or any other shananigans those liberals have gotten themselves into lately. No, I'm going to talk about an issue that no one else seems to have any concern over, and that is completely appalling to me. Grammar.
          Somebody really needs to get working on the public education system, because it really sucks. The priorities are so skewed. Can someone please explain to me why it is more important to know how to derive a function than know the difference between "your" and "you're," or why people can list off dozens of Civil War battles but don't know how to spell basic three-syllable words? I'll tell you why; it's because they let any idiot stand in front of a classroom. If standards keep going even further downhill from here, I am bracing myself to have a Speak and Spell as a college professor.
          But there are some things about grammar that I can't even blame on the schools. I think America's combination of contentment with stupidity and hipster culture has caused people to start drumming up new grammatical errors, because proper use of the English language is SO mainstream.
          Without further ado, here is a list of quick grammar lessons with corresponding phrases to help you learn them. If you don't learn these things, I am starting an army which will go around pantsing grammar offenders.

1. Rule: When ending a quotation, place punctuation (comma, period, etc.) BEFORE the end quote.
Correct: "I am an educated individual who understands the English language," said Professor N. Telligent.
Incorrect: "I am a blithering idiot", said Dum E. Pants.
Hint: If you put punctuation outside a quote, disgusting pus will come out of your throat!

2. Rule: Don't end a sentence with a preposition.
Correct: I can't decide with which of my many friends I should celebrate my Smartest Person in the World party!
Incorrect: Now that I am an idiot and have no friends, I have no way of knowing where my life saving medication is at.
Hint: Only those with a poor disposition end a sentence with a preposition.

3. Rule: "You're" is a contraction of "you are," while "your" is used to show ownership.
Correct: I'll be your best friend if you're going to keep up that awesome grammar usage!
Incorrect: Your almost as dumb as me!
Hint: If you use "your" when you mean "you are," your brain's as useful as a jar!

4. "A lot" is two words.
Correct: I sure am having a lot of fun being this smart!
Incorrect: I'm having alot of diarrhea.
Hint: If you put "a" and "lot" together, I'M GOING TO SEND YOU PICTURES OF SPACE BARS AS WELL AS A LINK TO http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ UNTIL YOU GET THE POINT.

I don't want everyone's tiny little brains to get overwhelmed with too much complex information, so I'm just going to end this here. So spend a little less time tweeting about your "bestfriend" and get to know your new buddy, the apostrophe (that's the one that looks like this: ').

Monday, June 11, 2012

A Very Long Way To Explain How I Found a Bunny with a Waffle on Its Head

          Beans has been having some tummy trouble lately, so I was looking up some stuff today to try and figure out if I should take him to the vet or not (Can anyone give me advice on this? He has big clumps of poop stuck to his butt a lot, but it's been going on for about a month now off and on. I'm thinking he has some kind of dietary problem going on, but I can't really think of anything I've changed. Also, it seems like gastrointestinal stuff is normally accompanied by lethargy or depression, and he's playing pretty much the same amount as he always does. For non bunny lovers, I know, it's gross. Poop is a part of the bunny life), which was pretty alarming, considering everything basically boils down to "your bunny will be fine one day, and then he'll poop weird one time, and then he'll die instantly." So I was getting pretty worried, and then I found this thing that just made me smile.
http://www.knockknockstuff.com/blog/2011/bunny-with-a-pancake-we-couldnt-help-it/
          It's a bunny that balances stuff on its head! Kind of makes Beans look bad though, since he can't even keep food in his mouth. So I didn't show him (is that weird that I show cool stuff to my bunny sometimes? Whatever, I'm going to do it anyway).

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Fancy new stuff

          Ooh la la, what a fancy blog we have here! You see that header thing up there? The one with the cute little bunny on it? I MADE THAT. It took me a ridiculously long time, but at least now it looks slightly more like a vaguely interesting blog instead of a quilting website (which appears to be about 86% of Blogger). So let me introduce you to these high-tech new features!
  • DARLING CUSTOM BACKGROUND: Not really much to say about this...it's blue? It's argyle? Woop.
  • TAB BAR OF HOPE AND WONDER: Now you can click back and forth between different pages! Although right now I only have one page! So this is not really necessary! But I thought it looked cool! I really like exclamation points!
  • LABELS OF THE FUTURE: This isn't really new, I just stopped being lazy and organized stuff. Hooray (Do people still say hooray? I don't think so. That's going to be my new thing. I'm bringing hooray back.)!
  • THE GORGEOUS HEADER THING AGAIN: I just wanted all you people to know how hard I had to work on this thing. I don't have Photoshop or Illustrator or a computer that doesn't function like a drunken old man, so I had to make this like the cavemen used to make their blog headers. I first had to go on Paint (Yes, Paint still exists) and cut out my bunny. Then I had to go onto--are you ready for this?--my free downloaded trial version of Publisher (!), find a plain template, MEASURE MY HEADING BAR WITH AN ACTUAL PHYSICAL MEASURING TAPE, cut the template down to that size, spend four and a half hours doing stuff that would have taken any other less suckish laptop about twenty minutes, save it, go onto Blogger, upload my beautiful work of art, find out it was somehow still the wrong size, go back and save my Publisher thing as a .jpg, open it in Paint, resize it (repeat eight times), upload ot to Blogger again, and weep with happiness when I saw my blood, sweat and tears finally manifested into the glorious 11x4 rectangle most fourth graders could make in their computer classes. So you're welcome.

People Have Too Much Time On Their Hands

          I decided to start doing this little segment thingy ("The Internet is Amazing") every now and then, partly because the internet really is amazing and partly because I really need to blog more. So, this first list is just a bunch of stuff I found on the internet that is completely pointless, but is still either really funny or interesting because someone put a ridiculous amount of time into it. These internet people don't get nearly enough recognition most of the time, so...now they'll get recognition from a bunch of Russian people who somehow seem to find my blog more than anyone else.

http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Transcripts
This is a forum-type thing where people have actually taken the time to transcribe every single episode of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (which is a fantastic show). Some of this was done with the help of closed captioning, but the majority was transcribed BY EAR. That means these people either can type incredibly fast or have to transcribe the way I always do when writing out song lyrics or something, which is listening to a few seconds, trying to remember it while it's paused, and repeating the process about 854875474798 times. Bronies of the world salute you, you heroes of transcription.

http://www.moustacheyourself.com/
Here, you can put a moustache on a picture of yourself. I guess this is a priority for some people.

http://www.fartnames.com/
This list names and describes different types of farts, as well as giving additional names for farts. Perfect for the twelve-year-old boy in your life.

https://www.mywonderfullife.com/
For people who really love to plan ahead, this site allows you to plan your own funeral. From the way it's laid out, it looks like the social media site for the terminally ill. So that's always fun.