internet wtf of the week: incessant "lol"ing

I'm not sure what's going on these days for me to be so absent. Maybe it's the fact that as soon as I'm off work, I tend to tunnel-vision getting home, which makes my brain tunnel-vision thoughts as well. Maybe it's because the weather is so Vancouver-esque that I can't help but sleep all the time. Or maybe it's the simple fact that as soon as I get home, weed and television and eating take precedence over everything.

Anyway, regardless, I'm baaaaaack! And I promise that I will not just disappear like that again. Life gets really hectic sometimes.

So, to kick off my return (and to finally give you this week's goods), I am going to rant about today's "internet wtf of the week". Cue applause!

Everyone who knows me personally understands my deep-seeded hatred for internet acronyms (with the exception of "brb", that one seems to be my favourite and I've also somehow used it enough for it to have morphed into a word in my vocabulary). My most hated, in particular, is the eponymous "lol".

Now, I don't really give a shit if you the "lol", it IS 2013 after all and people (including myself) are becoming progressively lazier in that we refuse to use full words to describe how we feel or some kind of action we may have just made. But there's something about "lol"ing which just boils my blood.

I think what it is is not so much the "lol" in and of itself, it's the fact that people use "lol" so fucking much to the point that I want to smash my computer. Are you really laughing THAT much? Like, ALL THE TIME? And do you still "laugh out loud" when it's not appropriate? Because 80% of the time when you inject "lol" in a sentence, it doesn't make very much sense.

So, people of the internet, please stop using "lol" to point where it doesn't even fit it. Especially starting and ending the same sentence with "lol". We got the fucking point the first time you said it.

Try such interjections as "um", "like", "but", or "and" (if those are actually even interjections... I'm just making shit up at this point). Most of the time when you throw "lol" in a sentence, your brain is probably trying to think of words like the those mentioned above, but your fingers are used to "laughing out loud".

STOP IT. Please, for the love of god. It's really fucking annoying. And I know your vocabulary can extend beyond three letters. Sigh.

Happy Friday, errrbody!

(I will be inviting "contributing editors" -- yeah, I know -- to submit any internet rants they may have, so email me at voteshortee@gmail.com if you want to submit a rant cos clearly I like to disappear for long periods of time)

tales from the bong #8

so i came home tonight and reached for the bong and guess what? that shit was already packed! i'm pretty sure it was totally a fluke because i was really stoned last night and packed the bong but obviously just passed out on the couch. but it was still a really dope surprise. WINNING! i think i'm going to make that part of a bedtime ritual -- packing the bong before i send my mind to outer space so, when 24 hours later i am dying to get baked, it's ready to go. lock that one in the vault, lydia.

anyway, today's conversation is about hugs. haha how random and weird and hippie of me to start my post like that, but they are definitely more powerful than you think. observe:


hugs. they can tell you so much about a person. they can give you an idea of how compassionate that person is toward you. they can either be heart-warming or totally fake.

last night i felt like there were hugs all around. when it's been a while since you've seen a huge group of people, you're bound to be saying hello more than verbally. hugs, high-fives, head nods.

the one thing i have a hard time grasping is the fact that, regardless of how people feel about each other, they feel like it's some kind of social grace; that it's almost necessary to hug someone (whether or not it's someone that is close to them or not) when they see them.

not always so, my friends. as much as you would think that your hug is sincere and a gesture of general niceness, people can tell when you're full of shit and just doing it to be "nice".

just a heads up: your hugs are bullshit, and it shows in how intimate your hug is, how long your hug was, and the strength in which you squeezed. if i'm going to receive and genuine and authentic hug, i want it to be legit and i want you make it incredibly apparent.

so next time you're doling out hugs to everyone, maybe give that one person you're not 100% into a pound or something so they don't feel like you're just doing it because it may be the acceptable thing to do in whatever scenario.

hugs can definitely be more vicious that way.

biscuits and graaaavy and everything's crazy

Last night the lightbulb went off in my brain for "highdeas" (you know, those amazing ideas you get when your lazy, thc-filled brain can only think of the easiest, most non-labour-intensive way to make something satisfying for the stoner palette).

I decided to have an impromptu pizza party at my place that turned into copious amounts of conversation, copious amounts of booze, and an unnecessary amount of food and weed. Obviously everything was ingested and good times were had.

My bestie sarah was pretty much at the helm of this ingenious idea when we had a text conversation yesterday. I had replied to one of her texts with the word "gravy", to which she replied back "biscuits and gravy", and naturally my brain added sausage gravy to pizza dough with cheese. And thus the spawn of southern and italian cuisines was introduced to the world.

So sure enough, I decided to go to the store, buy a ridiculously large pack of bratwurst sausages (or if you make your own, that would suffice tenfold!) and some individual-sized pizza crusts and got to work.

Here's a recipe for something that I promise you will never regret everytime you put it into your body (and is so easy to make, you can do this shit in your sleep!).

- 1 pack individual-sized pizza crusts (there should be about 3 or 4 in each pack)
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- half a medium yellow onion, diced finely
- 5 bratwurst sausages, casings removed
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- half teaspoon each garlic powder and onion powder
- 1 heaping tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1.5 cups milk or half + half
- salt, pepper + paprika to taste

And here's the easiest part, putting it together!

Grab a medium-sized saucepan, turn the heat up to medium-high and once that shit gets hot, dump the oil in there. As soon as THAT gets hot, dump the sausage in the saucepan. Let that shit cook and be sure to smash the sausage up so it looks kinda ground-beefy. Once the sausage is about 80% cooked, throw in the onions and garlic and let cook until they become soft and the rest of the meat is fully cooked.

Once that's done, dump the flour into the mixture and incorporate. Once your mixture has kind of turned into a pasty-looking kinda thing,

Cook out the flour for a couple of min, then add in your milk/half + half. Turn heat up a bit higher and let mixture thicken. Once you've reached a desired consistency, add in your garlic and onion powder and salt and pepper, and you're good to go!

Once the gravy is done, scoop ladles of it onto your pizza crust, and preheat oven to 350F. When it's heated to the proper temperature, throw that shit in there and let it bake for about 20 min. Take it out, sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and broil for 7 min.

Take out, let cool, smoke a bowl or a joint, and smash the shit back. YOU'RE WELCOME.

internet wtf of the week: bitstrips comics (UGH!)

So today is wednesday, and it feels like a lifetime since I've last shared something really annoying and possibly insightful with the world. Independent reviews of my burger weekend will follow, so don't worry about not hearing me freak out about the best food on earth.

Moving along, since I've been absent for some time, I've decided to fire off my return with a "internet wtf of the week". This week's installment will be about those stupid bitstrips cartoons everyone seems to be posting.

I'm not sure where you've all been for the past, I dunno, 100 years, but this kind of thing could have been achieved by everybody at some point. Its called "drawing". I'm guessing the reason why everyone is so into it all of a sudden is because (ta-da!) we live in a day and age when people are so fucking lazy and are only willing to do something for instant gratification.

That being said, please take note of the following as it applies to all of you bitstrips geeks: your cartoons aren't funny, so let real animators and writers take care of that shit. Also, there is zero similarity your cartoon bears of you, so please stop attempting to make yourself the equivalent of a simcity citizen. Its almost like taking a selfie and then making it into a cartoon. PLEASE, JUST STOP.

For the rest of the world that has their head on kinda straight and aren't going to dive into internet fads quite as quickly, thank you for helping make the world a mildly more productive place by not wasting precious time, energy, and paid resources to vandalize the internet with the most annoying shit possible.

You know what's way funnier? Real photos of you doing the shit you're "doing" in a bitstrip comic. At least then the internet can actually laugh at you.

Happy hump day!

thanks, friends.

this evening's post won't be anything really cerebral (not like anything that i ever write on this blog is even remotely cerebral), it won't be very funny and it won't be anything that jumps off the top of my head.

if you aren't ready for a rant that's pretty real-life and relatively intense and definitely not funny, then you should probably go here. if you are capable of dealing with a serious lydia, then continue on.

tonight i would like to touch on something that isn't exactly the easiest thing to deal with. it definitely beats divorce and getting arrested for insider trading by a thousand on the scale of worst. that thing is loss. "loss" being the people that you met and that made an impact on your life in some way. that person can be your friend, a rad acquaintance, your family, or even someone who you didn't even know that, from afar, changed your life in some way, shape or form.

last evening a massive group of friends lost their friend, a wife lost her husband, and a family lost one of their own. every day this happens and it's such a common occurrence, but it doesn't really quite hit home until it happens to you. in no way am i trying to be a finger-pointing wench, but i feel as though every time i say a permanent goodbye to someone in my life, i get a progressively harder slap in the face waking me up to the reality of how actually temporary (for lack of a better word) life is.

last evening we lost our friend. the situation was really awful, terrible and could have been completely avoided, but alas the universe makes our fateful decisions for us. my heart breaks endlessly to know that the last time i saw this friend was only a couple of weeks ago. him and his beautiful wife (whom i had the pleasure of meeting that evening) came by to visit several friends at the sugarbowl where my friend chris and i were djing.

it's so haunting to know that a situation that was so light at the time would be the last time i would have ever been able to say anything to him. maybe that's why i so firmly believe in never holding grudges, and enjoying life for what it is and to not take anything so seriously. because when you factor things like that, paired with anger, you may sometimes have very regretful final words, whether or not they are directed to anyone. those words will forever burn in your psyche.

so, i guess what i'm trying to accomplish out of this random, rambling, but somewhat coherent rant, is to take a step back and appreciate everyone that enters your life. yeah, of course you're going to run into at least 500 assholes that will essentially ruin your life in some manner (physically, emotionally, financially, etc), but if your mind isn't clouded with anger, stress and endless frustration toward trivial things, then you will learn something from these assholes and eventually capitalize off them SOMEHOW.

but then there are those golden people who make you laugh, whose faces you remember because they were so distinct and so rad -- having those people in your life makes dealing with those 500 assholes worth it. because when you both say what's up, high five, order beers and bullshit for a while, they produce dope memories in your brain. and those are the memories that make you appreciate everyone around you that much more.

so make sure that every time you say "goodbye" and "i love you" to all your friends and family, you mean it, and you say it like you mean it. because you'll never know whether or not that will be the last time.

rest in peace, brennan.

winner winner, hamburger dinner (and a side of high blood pressure)

I've always wondered what it would be like to host some kind of food show, whether it be a cooking show or a show where I just eat everyone's food and talk about how delicious it is between bypass surgeries. Either way, it would be so insane. Easily the best job ever.

I (sporadically) read this blog called "a hamburger today". As you could imagine, the only thing they do is talk about nature's most perfect and delicious food, the hamburger. One of the more major contributing editors to this blog is this guy named george motz.

You thought guy fieri's cholesterol is bordering on unmanageable? George motz crushes him by eating hamburgers across america. And george doesn't share with his crew. That guy will smash back so many hamburgers on his show that you will either be salivating profusely or will never want to look at a hamburger ever again.

Watching this show has rekindled the fire inside me to get down with the special soft spot in my heart (and belly) for ground, formed, grilled meats covered in cheese and condiments, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles + onions and stuffed between two slices of some sort of bread.

That being said, the weekend is officially upon us (well, at 5pm it will be) and I think everyone should make it some kind of mission to go somewhere and have a delicious hamburger. My suggestions to you: next act, red robin (for realz!), sugarbowl and if you feel savvy, make your own (then that means you can violate health codes and eat that shit mid-rare).

I'm going to embark on a personal burger mission this weekend and will be documenting my emotions during each and every tender bite. Stay tuned, and make sure the defibrillator is handy!