Facebook Ads

You know those little ads on Facebook that you largely ignore?  Well, I can't ignore them, because they're insane - so I started collecting them.  I don't know a damned thing about the algorithms involved in how they pop up on my page - if you tried to explain them, please believe that I wouldn't understand a word you were saying and it would only end in me squeezing my eyes shut and calling you Mark Fuckerberg until you just stopped trying.  

So. I'm going to show some of these ads to you and then say things about them.  Simple enough, yes?

The first thing I started to notice is that Facebook is obsessed with birds.  It can't shut up about them.  I don't know why, because I don't own a bird, nor am I a parrot.

That last one's less of an advertisement, more of a Mad Lib.  "I Love my Parrot.  It's not a... felony, is it?"  Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Here you've got your strange dwelling/bucket list - because before you die, you definitely gotta live in a watermelon or house that's been through a catastrophic calamity.

They're talking about the town in which I reside - I can't tell you where that is, but I can tell that there are definitely no mountains or majestic water falls.  Which really bums me out.  Show me something cute, me.

Mmm ... delicious, mouth-watering, pygmy marmosets. 


The one on the left would only happen over my dead body, and whatever is going on with the right kinda looks like it's growing on a dead body.  So ... it a no for both, Facebook ads.

Here again, Facebook ads take the inexplicable route.  I would definitely need the help of peyote to explain the ad on the left and uh, hey - I do not fish, I am not fish, my name's not fish, I have not fish.

Along the same vein of hard to explain, the first ad seems to be a conversation already in progress.  For the ad on the right, my reply is that I can fill a table full of unrelated and useless crap all by my lonesome, no problemo.

Ah, babies - who doesn't love 'em?  Although I think these could do with some better wording.  I'm pretty sure I'd end up disappointed when clicking the first ad didn't result in a pregnant baby bag in my mailbox.  Also, as interesting as I might be in becoming a surrogate mothers, I don't think a Facebook page is where I'd get my information.

Now, these are much better ads involving babies.  I can tell you from experience that you always, always want to get samples before making a final decision on a baby.  As for becoming a social worker in only one short year - I figure if a baby can do it, I've definitely got a shot.

These two ads right here basically rest my case for why I never leave my apartment unless absolutely necessary.  I don't don't need to run into this shit, my dreams are already wrong enough.

How. Ever.  I would most fucking definitely leave my house to see the fat kid riding the snail.  Are you kidding me?  Also, if you don't know why the first ad is awesome, you are not.

Okay.  I like bargains as much as the next blogger, but Staff Member has got to be the worst video game ever.  Walmart, however, is getting my respect on this one for truth in advertising - because every fucking sticky, feral kid I run into in their store looks exactly like that.

I'm still collecting Facebook ads.  We'll see what happens.

I play Sims (part18)

Before we get to the Sims story update, I wanted to talk about how completely awful it is.  Since I mentioned in my last update that I was keeping track of exactly how long it took* - from gameplay to story writing - to get one of these things put together, I felt it was necessary to explain that this one is basically a shit sausage.  I honestly feel it's the worst one I've ever done - but since I've already invested so much time in it, and I can't just leave a gaping plot hole or delay posting it any longer - here's me, phoning it in. 

*Twenty-four solid hours - which, when you consider the amount of time most people working in offices spend dicking around on Facebook and Farmville, that's basically a full week of work.

My only explanation is that right before I started the joke-writing portion of the story, the internet spewed forth the demon child that is Rebecca Black, who forcibly inserted Friday into my brain - and trying to stop the almost constant paroxysms of incredulity is taking up a lot of my synaptic energy.  If you are one of the lucky few who've yet to be infected, suffice to say that it makes the lyrics of Christina Perri's Jar of Hearts sound like fucking Shakespeare.

Without further procrastination...

Shang Simla, China is a lot like the other destinations Rachel has visited.  There's an adventure board:

There's some collecting to do:

There's a lot of people to talk to:

Sometimes, you end up just standing in an awkward cluster, for no apparent reason:

Of course, there's always those times you have to pause at the entrance of a tomb, looking fretful and then exquisitely determined, while framed by the landscape:

You know - the usual vacation/adventuring bullshit.  There's also a lot of running around, something Rachel doesn't mind bringing up with her point person, quite dramatically.

So, one of the first things Rachel has to do is go talk to the dude in the brown Hoodiesweater.

Unfortunately, the conversation with Hoodiesweater went from wtf? to worse fairly quickly, so Rachel excused herself as abruptly as possible to meet back up with her point person, who could not have been more excited to see her again.

Rachel's next assignment involves another typical vacation activity: tomb raiding - which tends to include the same elements no matter which tomb you're in.  It all runs together, anyway - at 3am, when you've taken an extra painkiller.

You've got your dive wells:

Collecting:

Conversations with the dead:

Opening a sarcophagus or two:

Pushing statues:

and whatever this is:

Hang on, what's happening now?

At least there's a treasure at the end.

Her mission accomplished, Rachel reports in.

Right after she gets her next assignment, Rachel's point person favors her with her best Gene Simmons impression:

Rachel is not thrilled to realize she's been sent back to Hoodiesweater's place again.

This time, he invites Rachel inside - fearfully, she accepts the invitation.  It wasn't her best idea.

Yeah.  You saw that right.  The first thing Hoodiesweater does is pick up a handful of dirt and eat it.

Hoodiesweater's response is ... inscrutable.



I Play Sims (part19)

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Posting Posters & Creating the Sims Stories

I'm only about 13-1/2 hours of work into my next Sims update, which means I've just barely started the photo editing.  As I've explained to my adorable and terrifying baby sister, I don't just shit those things out on a leisurely Friday afternoon. 

When I first started them, they took significantly less time, but the story has grown and become more complicated - and I am by nature an unrepentant anal-retentive.  I took over 200 pictures in-game for this recent update, and will probably only have about 20 photos in the story.  When you have 200 pictures named "Screenshot-xxx" you have to rename them, or you will go insane trying to keep them organized.  At least, that's what the voices tell me.

Then I have to edit the photos into a general storyline, which is my least favorite part.  That's right - I'd rather re-name 200 pictures than create a loose outline for the story.  The next step is the actual writing, which is a whirlwind of me vacillating between being sure I'm brilliant, and being absolutely certain there's a reason almost nobody reads my blog.  I show it to my husband and he either laughs his butt off, or stares blankly - it really depends on how many Tim and Eric references I make.

Now I'm finally one of those assholes I hate who just explained their "process".  To reward you for reading, and to tide you over while I'm still writing, I offer to you these stupid motivational posters I made.  I hope they're a smack in your lazy bone.



P.S. Happy Birthday (again) Zaggy



The Room

Have you ever watched a film so revolutionary and ground-breaking that you knew it would change the face of American cinema forever?  Well, we don't have time to talk about the movie you've just seen, we have to talk about The Room.

Tommy Wiseau is the architect of The Room - and boy, are his eyes tired.

As belabored by the establishing shots in the opening credits (as well as throughout the film) The Room is set in San Francisco and centers around Lisa (Juliette Danielle) and Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) who live in a magical row home which, once entered, turns into a multi-unit apartment building, complete with a large rooftop deck.  Also resident within its mystical brick walls are Mark (Greg Sestero), Johnny's best friend, and Denny (Philip Haliman), the mentally challenged orphan Johnny is putting through college.

Johnny appears to be some sort of exhausted, shape-shifting alien, posing as a gothic banker who deals mostly in secretive clients and bundles.  His fiancée, Lisa is a stay-at-home plotress who mentioned "the computer business" once or twice, but I believe this is a product of the ongoing stroke she is suffering.  After watching that half-awake giggle machine crawl on top of her less than six minutes into the film, an interruption of blood supply to her brain was the only conclusion I could make. 

That's right, we achieve naked, terrifying, thrusting Wiseau within the first six minutes.  I truly believe you could mentally castrate sex offenders with this footage.

By the next day, Lisa is desperately bored with Johnny, so she confides in her nose-booping "stupid bitch" of a mother, Claudette (Carolyn Minnott).  With one quick call to Mark, Lisa manages to obligate him over for a second sex scene by the seventeen minute mark. 

This would seem to be a pretty standard love triangle, but what you have to understand is that this movie is 10 lbs. of preposterous plot and dialogue in a 10 dram vial.  People wander into that apartment just for the purpose of wandering right the hell back out.  If you're on the rooftop, you're either in grave danger or in the middle of shooting a manpon commercial.  If you have cancer, shrug it the hell off - but if you shave your beard, this demands attention.  Plenty of seating?  Squat in front of the doorway.  Over the age of two?  Go to bed at 6pm.  Holding a folder?  Order the hot chocolate.   

Lisa's incomprehensible bitchcraftery comes to a climax when she grudgingly throws Johnny a surprise birthday party.  At least I think he was surprised - sleepy, half-hearted chuckles are his reaction to everything.  This is where the real shit goes down - but before it can go down, due to the magical properties of the building, it makes its way up to the rooftop, for some air - and then back down, for a second helping of cake.

Watching this movie is like being shot in the common sense by a machine gun filled with absurdity ammunition.  There's no time to recover from one moment of lunacy to the next - don't even try, you'll pull something.  The narrative thread is a hairball, and your mind is Tommy Wiseau's cat box.

In other words, you've got to see this movie.