Nerding

I’m not telling you what to do, but I am strongly encouraging certain behavior. Okay, fine, yeah, I’m telling you what to do. Do it.

What should you do? Read some romance novels.

I used to dodge these things like they were being not-adorable and I was Bailey. That sentence is atrocious, dear God; I used to go out of my way not to read them, that was the point I was trying to make. I thought they were cheesy and poorly-written and “not real literature” and whatever other stereotype has ever existed for the quality of these books. I’d also assumed that they were not feminist, that they showed women being attracted to nightmare humans, and that they were all basically Ms. Perky from Ten Things I Hate About You and I would die of embarrassment if I were ever caught even walking through the section of the bookstore on my way to Serious, Real Books. These things were for sad, lonely, misguided women, and I was… okay fine I was and am all of those things (depression!) but I had Standards, or something.

You can and should note that during this I was still extremely into fantasy and into science fiction which are both genre fiction and yet those didn’t get my snobby treatment and you would be correct and then you would say “is that because of internalized misogyny?” and yes, yes it was. Thanks for playing the part of Question Asker for this paragraph, reader, I appreciate you a lot, and the last few sentences went entirely off the rails.

ANYWAY, I’ve got some specific suggestions to make you join me in my trash habits. Minus the Bridgerton books, these are all contemporary romances, and maybe I’ll do one of historical romances too, idk. Yeah, I should. Hold me to it, readership, would you?

Bridgerton series

Hey, wanna be cool as heck and know what’s gonna happen on the new show that Shonda Rimes made for Netflix? Of course you do. So go read Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton novels and you can be cool like me. Or something.

As it was before, is now, and ever shall be, books without end. Start with The Duke and I if you wanna begin where you “should” and then read Romancing Mr. Bridgerton if you love Penelope as much as I do which you should if you have good opinions.

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

This is also going to make it to the big screen, and honestly, that doesn’t even matter, because this book is so good it could exist in its one state forever and ever and just be perfection. This is the best enemies-to-lovers romance I’ve ever read and yeah that includes like Much Ado About Nothing fight me I ain’t scared. Josh and Lucy are both assistants to the co-CEOs of a publishing house that exists as a result of a merger, and as I’m typing it, none of that matters that much. They could be assistants to co-CEOs of the company that makes Henry Cavill’s wig for The Witcher and it wouldn’t affect the story and that’s a good thing. You’re so wrapped up in these two flawed humans with very human reactions and emotions and worries that you realize you’ve read several hundred pages and have no idea what city or country they’re in, and that’s great. This book is first-person present via Lucy, and I know that’ll bug some people, but like, get over it, or something, idk, just please read this book it is so good.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

Hi hello don’t talk to me about how good this one is or I’ll start crying. As you may know (HA) I didn’t particularly like the end of Game of Thrones and that goes double for Jaime’s plot and this book borderline fixed that for me. This is April and Marcus’ story but it is also the story of anyone who has ever read or written fan fiction or wanted to fix what is technically canon.

The leads met online in a fanfiction forum where they write about their favorite books that have been made into a show. April is a soil scientist, and Marcus… well, Marcus is on the show that he’s writing fanfic about. DUN DUN DUNNNN. April posts a picture of herself doing cosplay because she’s trying to fuse her fanfiction life and her “real” life a bit more, and because she’s plus-size, she gets destroyed online because people are horrible. Marcus sees this, someone challenges him to ask her on a date, and he does. When they meet, he discovers that she’s his best friend in the fanfic community, but she doesn’t know this.

I KNOW, RIGHT? Read this book now. It does such a good job with the idea of found family, and loving yourself, and even if you’re not involved in reading or writing fanfiction, you’ll still love this beautifully written book. And if you are? Boy howdy is this a delight and a half. Also if you just wanna get a little more Thrones angst out of the way, this is the way to do it.

Also in general, read fanfiction? It’s great? Like some isn’t, okay, but that goes for everything? I dove in after asking the internet “other people think Jaime and Brienne need to get married, right?” and the internet said “duh” and I was better for it.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

This is a romance that is also a book about writing, and a book about women’s writing, and it has the honor of making me genuinely laugh out loud, which almost never happens when I read (not that I don’t find things funny, I just very rarely vocalize a laugh, I’m dead inside, don’t worry about it). This is a story about January and Gus, who met in college in a writing class, and then meet again when they’re staying in houses across from each other at a beach. Gus writes **serious literary fiction** about horrible things or whatever and January has written a series of successful romance novels with happy endings. I’d probably read both of their stuff.

And this isn’t a spoiler, so I can share my favorite line in the book that isn’t a spoiler. They’re reintroduced in what might be my favorite meet-cute/meet-angry? and after Gus asks January “which do you find more fascinating to write: love-struck pirates or love-struck werewolves?” January replies with “what’s it like writing Hemingway circle-jerk fan fiction? Do you know all your readers by name?” and I don’t know how to express the joy I felt at this line because I’ll never write anything that deliciously cutting. I cannot hope to match it and I’m okay with that – reading this line was like watching someone speed-debone a fish, and the whole book is like that PLUS you get to eat a delicious meal. I’m shit with words; please just read this book.

Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

Kate Clayborn is a menace and a goddess and her work makes me so upset because it is everything about writing that I cannot do and it makes me envious that I can’t do it and it makes me happy that at least someone can. She’s an artist, that’s all there is to it, and I can whole-heartedly recommend her romance trilogy The Luck of the Draw (three best friends win the lottery in a life-changing but not life-ruining amount and the books follow what each does with the money).

But that’s not this book: this book is somehow even BETTER than those books, and I am a disaster even trying to convey how good the writing is it’s like experiencing your favorite comfort movie for the first time, it’s like iced coffee on the first good day of spring, it’s how it feels to chew Five gum or something idk idk please just read it.

This is a book about Reid and Meg, and they meet when Reid and his fiancée hire Meg to do the calligraphy and art for their wedding invitations and program. (I could not remember the word “calligraphy” and just had to Google “fancy letters synonym” why do y’all read this blog). The wedding is called off before it happens for incompatibility reasons, but not before Meg subtly highlights the letters M-I-S-T-A-K-E in their wedding program. Reid notices, and goes to meet with her about it. I. KNOW. What a beginning. They are both reserved sweethearts who are trying very hard to figure out what the future looks like (Meg’s career is taking off, Reid doesn’t want to live in New York City anymore) and I don’t know how to explain how much of a hug this book is. It’s a long visit from a friend you haven’t seen in a while and all the stories and your friend is doing well and then you both go to sleep and then wake up and go to the most delicious brunch. My metaphors need work; this book needs no corrections it is perfect please read it.

Well Met by Jen DeLuca

Did you know you needed a romance novel set at a Renaissance Faire? Now you do! Because you need this book! It is so great! So! Great!

This book is about Emily and Simon. After a breakup, Emily recently moved into her sister’s house to help her sister out with her teenage niece and other household stuff after her sister got into a car accident. Her niece wants to do the summer Renaissance Faire, but to be able to do it, she needs an adult to volunteer with her. Emily shows up and meets Simon, who is running Faire and whom she immediately dubs the “RenFaire Killjoy.” He is bananas uptight, and understandably so – Faire was started by his brother, who passed away several years before the summer of the book’s plot. He doesn’t like things to change, and Emily is a fixer, so they fight constantly and it’s just really, really good. Simon dresses as a pirate for the Faire itself, and is flirty and hilarious towards Emily in-character, and the author is just very talented at weaving all these threads of emotion together and not letting any of them fall. It’s also just so flippin’ cute, the whole thing.

There’s a sequel that got released last year and a third book coming, and you’ll see why as you read: the supporting cast just begs for their own books and then you get them. Everything is adorable and nothing hurts and if these books don’t make you want to go become extremely dusty and warm at a local Renaissance Faire while you watch some jousts and buy a handbag I don’t know what to say other than you’re wrong. Huzzah.

HUZZAH.

I’m definitely forgetting some books because it’s impossible that I wouldn’t, so forgive me on that front in advance and if you’re like “but what about ____?!” YEP YOU’RE RIGHT I’M SORRY THAT BOOK IS ALSO GOOD.

Plus, I will probably need to do a second post about the historical romance books I read and their authors (Rose Lerner! Lisa Kleypas! Courtney Milan! Tessa Dare! Sarah MacLean! Cat Sebastian!) and just how many of them are former lawyers. It is bananas, it’s like all of them, they’re all lawyers, it’s a riot.

Please read romance novels. They are so good and they do not hurt you and if they do they’re very sorry and they apologize well. If you need specifics come to me and I will help you find your book happily ever after.

Hello friends from weirdly warm PA, where all non-life-sustaining businesses are closed and the announcement made it extra clear that this includes professional services like accounting and legal, and tbh I’m pretty sure they said that because we’d get all “but SURELY they cannot mean MEEEE” and then Governor Wolf is like “did I stutter” and it’s a whole thing. So yeah. Home and working from here and socially isolating because I’m a good citizen and also starting tomorrow morning it’s against the law.

Mostly, for this post, I just wanted to write about a show that I’ve been enjoying, but considering that many of you/us are working remotely, or asked not to come in, or simply just quarantined based on symptoms or exposure, here’s a show you can spend some of your time on. Post title reflects this. Stay healthy and safe if you can and watch this in your down time if you can’t or won’t leave the house. Holding you all in my hearts, and if you’d like prayer on something specific please do reach out. Any way, here we go.

I am not what you’d call a “car person.” The extent of much of my automotive knowledge is “that certainly is a car, wow, look at it go” and I can barely drive stick (like I *probably* won’t stall it instantly and I can get you from one end of a parking lot to the other). Loud noises stress me out. Danger stresses me out. The only thing I know about engines is that the War Boys in Fury Road did that V8 thing with their hands and also that V8 is a rarely-delicious beverage. Cars, to me, are get-my-body-to there-machines with some very needed padding. I know just enough about cars to not get totally screwed over by an unscrupulous mechanic (if you try to tell me that my 12-year-old Camry needs a new flux capacitor I will bid you an uncomfortable goodbye and leave the premises) but not more. And, sure, I’ve watched a decent amount of Top Gear and The Grand Tour but boy howdy do I zone out on the tech stuff big time. My expert analysis when they test out a new supercar is “wow fast” and scene. I still hear the awful Sascha Baron Cohen French accent from Talladega Nights say “Formula uuuhn” when I read it. Now you are doing the same thing, and I’m not sorry.

Anyway, all of this is the lead-in to “please go watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive right flippin’ now” because it is great and it is so great that I am now a person who cares about Formula 1. The first season of this show was released in March of 2019 and I watched it all almost straight through having had no idea about anything. Definitely go watch the first season, and then come along with me and watch the second season which I’m halfway through. And if you’re wondering, yes, it covers the previous year’s race season, so the first season covers 2018, and the current one covers 2019, and the 2020 season is, well, on hiatus. Races are postponed, and they are trying to set up a virtual race series, and I am getting way ahead of myself sorry ANYWAY

“Wait, what even is Formula 1,” I hear you saying. “I really want this lady with basically negative amounts of car knowledge to educate me on its finer points,” you say. I hear you; let’s go.

Formula 1 is the highest level of open-wheel (tires do the sticky-outie thing to the sides vs under the car like your Hot Wheels probably were, like the car is a lizard rather than a moose, I am incredible at automobile mechanics) racing in the world, and there is a bonkers amount of money in it. Throughout a season, there are 21 Grands Prix, and the goal for everyone is to win points at each of these races. There are ten teams, each with two drivers/two cars each, so there are 20 total drivers at any given time, no more. The championships for which they are competing are both the driving championship, and the manufacturers’ championship. So, for example, last year (and a whole bunch of years before) Mercedes won the prize for being the best car maker, and Lewis Hamilton, on the Mercedes team, won the prize for the best car driver.

The way they do that is by earning points, and you earn points for finishing the race fastest, and I can feel you rolling your eyes at me, it’s fine, I know, just give me a goshdarn second to explain details, okay? Each race has trials the day before, which is where you (either by yourself or with not as many cars) get to go around the track and try to set the fastest time, which earns you (stop giggling) pole position. That gets you the best spot on the track for the real race. You can also lose spots by doing dumb shit, like hitting other cars or cutting corners or not parking your yacht correctly (that one is only at Monaco and I think I’m joking but I cannot confirm). When that happens, even if you were fastest, you get knocked down some spots. It’s not impossible to win from a very far back spot, but it sort of ends up a self-fulfilling prophecy: you did worse at trials because you are worse so you start worse and you stay worse.

And the points available aren’t like 20 for first place, 19 for second, 18 for third, all the way down, etc. Nope. You gotta be in the top ten to earn any points, so if you zoom around forever and cross the line 11th, that is unfortunate and you stole Fizzy Lifting Drinks and you get nothing, you lose, good DAY, sir. And it’s not even a straight shot for those top ten places: you get 25 for first, 18 for second, 15 for third, then 12, 8, 10, 6, 4, 2, and 1. You can see how those podium finishes can just catapult you comfortably to the top and you can stay there. Sometimes the drivers’ championship is wrapped up with like 3 or 4 races still left in the season because no one can catch the guy in first. OH, and if you’re in the top ten and get the fastest lap, you get an extra point. It’s like a little extra bonus award but if you aren’t in the top ten you can’t get it because they don’t give points to losers. I’m kidding. I think. But seriously I think it is so that you don’t go careening off the track in an attempt to get the fastest lap? You are not here for my editorializing, it’s like the zoomiest guy can have a little a point, as a treat, no I cannot stop being Extremely Online sorry not sorry moving on

You get those points for you and for your team, so while each team’s best interest is to have two good drivers, the drivers themselves are frequently trying to edge out the other guy on their team since there’s a championship just for them. Like, sure, it’s good for Mercedes to have a one-two finish regardless of which driver gets which place, but it’s good for Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes to be in that first spot.

So yeah, the sport is fast cars and lots of money and very good-looking men (I genuinely don’t know if there’s like an in-writing requirement but a number of the drivers have model-level good looks and can you please leave some beauty for the rest of us, no really, go look up Carlos Sainz, he drives for McLaren and his eyelashes deserve a sonnet where was I) but why should you watch this show, specifically? Here, you can get some additional reasons that I like it, which are the correct reasons.

Cool thing number 1 about this show

The races are really, really cool to watch in the way that Netflix filmed and edited them. Really. And again, even if you are not a car person and the idea of watching a motor go around a track a bunch of times sounds awful, they only put the best and most exciting parts on-screen. Their film crew is amazing and the shots are all amazing and they ZOOM SO FAST, GUYS. SO FAST. It’s easy to like any sport when you only see the exciting stuff, and that’s what happens here.

You also have a lot of shots from the driver’s point of view, and while the film isn’t as high-quality, it’s still very much like you’re a screaming terrified passenger along with the driver for the race. That’s me, I’m the terrified passenger.

There are also aerial shots of these tracks and some are like, rolling hills and sunshine and some are twisty-turny streets and it’s like that joy you felt when picking a map in MarioKart in N64 that was a thing right sorry I only ever played at friends’ houses Monaco :: Rainbow Road I think

Cool thing number 2 about this show

It is multilingual as heck and yes a large number are European languages but there are also a bunch more (a few teams use Honda engines, for example, so there’s some Japanese) and it’s delightful to listen to and yet another plug for my using subtitles. It also just Smackdowns you to the floor re: your level of accomplishment and while that might not be your thing, it is mine!

It is a nice reality check for me/most Americans that we are absolutely atrocious with language. Leaving aside the gross nationalistic “speak English” stuff that your least favorite cousin does, we are so flippin’ lazy it is borderline humiliating, and basically every minute of this show is a strong reminder of this fact.

All these dudes speak at least two and sometimes three or four languages. The drivers from France and Denmark and Spain and Monaco and Germany and Finland and Brazil and Italy all do their interviews in English, and very good English, at that. The Brits and the Australians are kind of like us, so we aren’t alone in our monolinguality, but it is just comical to see these extremely talented people who are already so impressive at driving and managing the press also switch flawlessly between entire languages. I took like 8 years of French and my skills include “that fuckin’ r sound” and “saying French words really pretentiously in the middle of English speaking, i.e., Grands Prix.” Charles Leclerc, for example, is an infant who is allowed to drive a car worth a million dollars and can speak to Netflix about his emotions surrounding being partnered with a four-time world champion on the Ferrari team when at the Italian Grand Prix in English despite it being his third language after French and Italian.

It’s fine, go drive your little Hot Wheels or whatever, I’ll be over here resentfully pronouncing Lacroix as “lah-CWAH” and forgetting I’ve left the parking brake on

Cool thing number 3 about this show

The speed at which these drivers and teams do anything is also just staggering. Their average pit time is two seconds. TWO. SECONDS. I can’t even remember the last time I had a thought that only lasted two seconds, and these people take off one set of tires and put on another one in two goshdarn seconds. There’s a segment of the Mercedes episode where one of the cars is pitted for almost a minute, and the announcers are treating it like they’re announcing the Hindenberg crash. It sounds ridiculous until I remember that a minute is thirty times longer than the average, and that these races have gotten down to thousandths of a second, and a minute is basically the Hundred Years’ War being fought mid-race. Everything is fast, all of it, even these drivers with their little go-karts they drove as kids. When I was 12 I was an incompetent little doofus trying my best to not fall over when I got up from the dinner table. These kids get the keys to the rocket launcher.

Cool/mildly depressing thing? number 4 about this show

Not joking, they are all infants. Infants! One of the drivers that is winning all the time is 22 and he won the very first race he entered and he was EIGHTEEN. ONE. EIGHT. At 18 I tried to find a whole-ass cookout during college orientation and failed. This kid maneuvered a ground spaceship past 19 other ground spaceships in his first spacerace.

That kid I mentioned above, Leclerc? They have a scene with him and Sebastian Vettel, his Ferrari teammate, driving up to one of the races in the same car. Vettel, who is 32, my age, turns on music, and “Come Out and Play” by The Offspring comes on, and Leclerc has no idea who they are, and then I remembered he said his birth year earlier in the episode, and it’s 1997, and then I looked up the release date of the song, and “COME OUT AND PLAY” IS THREE YEARS OLDER THAN HE IS. I appreciated Vettel very much in that moment for lightly ribbing his teammate for not knowing anything because instead of a dried-up, irrelevant skeleton shouting “you gotta keep ’em separated!” I was a cool, relevant beacon of maturity like 4-times Formula One Champion Sebastian Vettel. And then I remembered that they were about to race against Max Verstappen, who made his Formula One debut at age 17, and then my decrepitude pulled me horizontal once again.

Yeah, watch the show

It’s interesting, it’s fun, it has soap opera levels of drama, it has guys you love to hate and guys you love to love, it has interviews, it has zoomies of the highest caliber, and you’ll be able to use it to make European friends, or something. I don’t know.

Stay safe, stay home, I’ll post another couple of things like this while we’re all trying our best.

(Here’s the real one, if you’d like to read it)

This is definitely not advice in any way and things might change very quickly and no, I don’t know what you should do other than walk directly into the sea, which I personally have not ruled out as an option. Everything is bad, submit your claim or opt out or fake your own death and move to a wooded area, it doesn’t matter. I am grumpy and we should eat the rich and I don’t particularly like being a product, but I do like to write as a mediocre way to process my feelings.

I also realize that the FTC and Equifax are not one and the same, but there is their cooperation in this settlement and that in and of itself is yikes, but I do kinda wander around a bit with who I’m identifying in this post. Also of course this is not legal advice, a thing I shouldn’t have to say, but I’m saying it.

Enjoy

1.When will the claims process start?

It started already, you greedy punks. You’ve got till January of 2020 to file and get your stupid like, 21 cents of settlement money. Vultures, all of you. Why do you think you deserve to be compensated when the information from the breach hasn’t been found anywhere on the dark web? Oh, you say “right but I had to freeze all my credit and worry about things and my information still isn’t safe and the linear passage of time creates the possibility that my identity could be stolen and misused in the future”? It is goddamn a-DOR-able that you think we care even a little and frankly we zoned out after you said “information.”

2. When is the deadline to file a claim?

What, are you gonna file twice? You have till January, like we just fuckin’ said, but you definitely filed already, didn’t you, because you’re so desperate for that money to spend on PopSockets or avocado toast or whatever the hell you guys like now. In fact, write us an essay about what you’re gonna use the money for, and we’ll give you some if we like your answer. 500 word minimum, but we’re not gonna read past the second sentence.

3. When will I get my benefits?

When you pay for them. LOL, just kidding, not like last time. Totally different than when we gave you a free year of stuff and then tried to make you pay for it after that while also trapping you into binding arbitration. We’re the New and Morally Improved Equifax.

What was the question? Oh, right, when will you get the stuff you asked for.

*shrug* when they tell us we have to give them to you? It’s January 23, 2020, at the earliest, and you know that means “not January 23, 2020” so have fun waiting for that during the holiday season and whatever else you’re doing, we don’t care, not even a little.

4. How will I get my benefits?

Well, if you *snort* asked for actual money *giggle* we can send you a check that will be worth less than the stamp it required to mail it, or you can get a *wild laughing* debit card. Oh, my God, please take a selfie video of you trying to use that debit card, and the card not working, and everyone getting frustrated at you for trying to use a debit card with twenty cents on it.

5. I thought I could choose $125 instead of free credit monitoring. What happened?

Well, the settlement inexplicably set aside a total of $31 million for alternative (read: cash, which is apparently alternative now? words mean nothing) payments, despite fucking over half of America with this breach. If the fund did pay out $125 to each claimant looking for the equivalent of a decent pair of sneakers for the egregious loss of their most personal data, it would be empty before we hit 250,000 people. We have labeled this response “overwhelming,” because we’re fucking incompetent, and we don’t know how to do math or relate to people.

The free credit monitoring offers a much better value, if you don’t already have it because of the dozens of security breaches all of these institutions have suffered, and at least one source is saying it’s being offered by Experian, which is not Equifax, so you don’t have to worry there! And definitely don’t ask if Experian or anyone else is getting paid to do the monitoring ha ha ha who would do that

But yes! This monitoring! It will protect you and your information and your identity!

6. Wouldn’t the offer of a credit freeze be a much better way of accomplishing this protection?

We do not understand the question! Ha ha!

7. Why is it not automatically free to place a credit freeze?

We do not understand the question! You are guaranteed 4 years of monitoring at each of the three credit bureaus! 4 years! That is more than 3 years!

8. Right, but rather than a freeze, which is just a hard backstop against fraud unless you affirmatively unlock it, the free credit monitoring is a gamble on the consumer’s part that it works and actually catches an attempt to open credit that you didn’t authorize-

Why would ANYONE not want to continue to open lines of credit!!! We do not understand! The fact that we get money when credit histories are pulled is completely unrelated to our bone-deep dislike of credit freezes!

9. *enormous sigh* I’d like to change my claim to get free credit monitoring instead of a cash payment. Can I do that, or in the alternative, be permitted to punch one of your executives in the face?

Of course you can! That’s the spirit! You’re gonna get an email if you picked the cash and it’s gonna say “hey so what credit monitoring do you already have” and then you’re gonna say “I have a structured settlement, but I need cash NOW” just kidding that’s JG Wentworth just a little hip humor for you kids. Oh, and if you want to stick with the cash, you have to give us more information about your credit monitoring and we promise to be good with it and definitely not get hacked and then have to offer you more free credit monitoring like some monstrous financial ouroboros which you’ll endure until you die.

Ha ha!

10. How much of the settlement fund can be used to pay claims for time spent dealing with the data breach? Can I just submit a bill with my hourly rate, you soul-sucking profit-prioritizing complicit ghoulish assho-

Ohhhkay let’s stop you right there. But yes, you can submit a claim for time spent getting credit monitoring or dealing with a fraudulent charge or any of the myriad ways this breach could have screwed you. You will be able to get a whole $25/hour for this! If you spent more than ten hours though, we want proof. Oh, and if you paid for anything we will need receipts.

What was the question? Oh, right

Remember that $31 million? Yeah the hourly stuff and the stuff you paid for is coming out of that too. We will slice this pie so thin you’ll be able to see us laughing at you through it.

11. *sharp inhale* did ANYONE with ANY amount of experience or skill or knowledge of even basic fractions look at this settlement or was it thought up by vindictive, drunk toddlers?

This seems like a trick question! But, yes, toddlers. We didn’t let them nap, either, before they drew this up. We really, really don’t like the idea of people getting money.

12. Equifax literally earns money by selling our information. Your revenue in 2017 was $3.36 billion. And that new CEO you hired can get up to $4.5 million in salary and bonuses and has $17 million in stock options. You didn’t even double the value of his stock options for the whole cash settlement you planned to offer. Are we a joke to you?

Mostly, yeah.

13. *rubs eyes tiredly* I’m not sure I was affected by the data breach. How can I find out?

Flip a coin, honestly. It was half of you.

14. What else can I do?

There’s a whole other website with different FAQs, if you still have the will to live. It includes the very complicated process for doing literally anything else other than signing up.

Oh, and you could refinance. Or get a car loan. Or do anything that lets us back into your life to an uncomfortable degree. See you next time!

So, ya girl got to go see this rainbow bagel of a film a week early thanks to being an Amazon Prime member (and an elitist, let’s be real).  Andrew is a very quality spouse and 1. wanted to see this movie plus 2. knew this movie had been taking up an entire chamber of my heart and lobe of my brain since it had been announced that Jason Momoa was gonna play the title character.  As you may have noted from this post, I adore Jason Momoa.  He is labrador energy in a grizzly bear body.  He is starshine and your oldest, most comfortable pair of shoes.  He is a waterfall of enthusiasm and he’s probably broken some ribs with his hugs, and he is hashtag goals.

We went to see it on December 15th, but you have all now had access to it for a week, so now I can talk about it.  Additionally, I have seen it twice, and although I was willing to vouch for it entirely based on one viewing, I am standing even more fully in support.

This movie, man.  This movie, which combines the beauty of James Cameron’s Avatar with the terrible dialogue of… James Cameron’s Avatar okay I’m done that was not true.  But legit, this movie was The Fast and the Furious: This Time We’re in Water  and I adored it.  Like, the below still is him while he’s talking to a man who is about to drown.  That’s the look we went for.

this is it, this is the whole movie

And let me be clear: this movie is not reviving DC like Wonder Woman.  This movie is not Wonder Woman.  I loved WW, but it made me laugh and cry and feel things about the substance of humanity and souls and what can be saved and what is deserved and where hope lies.  Aquaman made me laugh and laugh harder and pump my fist for CGI battles with Atlanteans riding on sharks and for Momoa’s pectorals.  It is an absolutely bananas movie, and I will slowly work up in levels of bananas.  Spoilers for everything: don’t read if you haven’t seen it and care about spoilers, but if you won’t see it and just wanna see me say stuff about Jason strap in

Reasonable amount of bananas

Black Manta

So they advertised Black Manta as being in the film, and he is, but he is mostly set up to be a recurring problem for our damp wonderboy.  And he’s… fine?  He’s not in the movie as much as I thought he’d be, but he is a part of this really gorgeous chase scene through a Sicilian town, and he could be fun in follow-up movies.  His origin story made sense: he and his dad are pirates, Aquaman shows up to rescue a sub they attacked, his dad gets trapped and Aquaman doesn’t save him.  Manta therefore hates him and yeah, that’s a solid backstory.  This isn’t even that bananas, it’s just that the head of the costume looks kind of like that Lord Farquaad costume from Shrek.  It is unreasonably large.  Also mantas are chill animals but I digress.

King Orm

The actual “villain” for this movie is King Orm, who suffers from the same problem that Killmonger did, in that when he talks you’re like “eeeeeeerm homeboy is kinda right???”  Like he is starting the war because surface-dwellers (i.e. humans; he’s not mad at echidnas) are throwing their warships and submarines and their relentless trash into the oceans, and that is killing them, and… shit, he’s got a point.  He’s so incredibly extra about everything, but we are genuinely ruining the oceans and while I appreciate not having a heavy cruiser landing on my home, we have to be less terrible.  He still looks like an elf from Lord of the Rings who calls the cops on the party next door at 9:30 PM on a Saturday, but homie has a point.  He has several points, in fact, since he has a trident heyyooooo okay please don’t yell at me for that joke

Jason’s little forehead kiss to his lady at the end of the movie

I really don’t have any commentary for this, but obvs Aquaman and Mera, Ariel in Real Life become a couple, and in the last triumphant frame of the movie that shows them, he hugs her to his body and gives her a little forehead kiss and if you need me I’ll be lying down

tbf if you need anyone with eyes who has seen this movie they’ll be lying down too

Fully into the bananas farm now

Willem Dafoe

You guys.  YOU GUYS.  Dafoe plays Vulko, the vizier to Orm (sidenote has any vizier ever in the history of fiction NOT betrayed his king or queen like) and just pretty much does what he wants?  Like it is hella unclear what his duties are other than saying “BUT, MY KING” and swimming a lot.  His job has such a good vacation policy that he can apparently visit Arthur all the time to Aqua-Karate-Kid (Aquate Kid?) train this little bastard to be swimmy and fighty and hidey and good with that trident.  How.  Like, does Atlantis have an FMLA policy?  How do you have this freedom? Don’t you have like, a to-do list?  Is there an Outlook calendar for you to plug in a scheduled absence?  What do you put, like, “training your nemesis to fight you, April 12 8:30 AM to 4 PM”  He’s totally necessary to the plot, it falls apart without him, and the training itself makes sense, it’s just odd to watch him go back to The Bad Guy after he’s done From Here to Eternity-ing Jason Momoa.

He also has a top knot that makes him look like a hipster Prince Zuko

him and Baby Arthur

I’m saying it’s bananas, I’m not saying I didn’t like it; I LOVED IT

The initial battle between Arthur and Orm

It is… just, a lot.  Our lovable, stupid hero challenges Orm to a battle to the death, because he is stupid, he is so stupid, he looks like a college freshman challenging the president of the campus’ party frat to a drinking contest (YOU WILL LOSE, YOU OVERCONFIDENT CHILD) and the challenge is called The Ring of Fire.  Johnny Cash is not there.  Lava is.

You know what else is there?  An octopus with a set of timpanis.  He has a mallet in each tentacle and plays the pump-up music for this fight on his enormous soggy timpanis and IT’S ONLY LIKE 2 SECONDS OF THE MOVIE AND WE MOVE PAST IT.  It fits the scene, and I adored it, and who better to play the drums than an octopus?

Dolph Lundgren

Dolph Lundgren is in this film as a watery king.  There’s nothing I can say to enhance this image; whatever you’re picturing is it.

The bar scene

These tough looking biker guys go up to Arthur, ask him if he’s “that fish boy,” he replies “fish man,” they say they have a question, and that question is if they can take a selfie with Aquaman.  The spokesman for the bikers has a pink iPhone case.  This set the tone for the entire movie (that tone is “Arthur Wants to Hit Everything Into Justice/It’s Not That Serious”) and it was great, my theater cracked up.  This alone was worth the price of admission.

Nicole Kidman

She’s a queen of Atlantis.  She gets a long blonde wig.  She eats a goldfish.  She is clearly having a goddamn blast chewing scenery and delivering lines like “where I’m from, the sea carries our tears away.”  Like that is objectively TERRIBLE but she delivers it like she’s in The Hours again and she is just so EARNEST and EMOTIONAL that you are listening to her deliver the lines like they’re the tears in rain monologue.  They’re not.  They’re bad.  But she absolutely owns the part of a stunning sea queen.

Now, onto my favorite section

An excessive level of bananas

Pitbull’s cover of Toto’s “Africa”

We earned this, everyone.  We did.  Our hero and Ariel are riding a plane to land in the Sahara desert to continue the chase for this trident (stay with me) and the plane flies over sand to a cover of Pitbull singing “Africa.”  And technically, Mr. Worldwide is just Mr. WorldRapping the verse while his Mr. WorldWomen sing the chorus and I don’t even know, guys.  I started laughing in the theater and couldn’t stop for about a minute.

Julie Andrews

This is a spoiler, but my girl voices a sea monster.  And this thing is like a kraken plus Surtur from Ragnarok. It eats people.  She’s the voice.  Like if Smaug had a girlfriend.  I absolutely LOST IT when I heard her start talking.  She’s perfect I love her if she needs a kidney she can have both of mine

Aquaman’s attire

(just real quick to the producers) CHANGE NOTHING, I DIDN’T SAY I DIDN’T LIKE IT

He is shirtless when he is saving people, which… fine, you know your audience.  Which is a bunch of desperate, thirsty people.

And then, you go ahead and put this fucker in jeans and a leather belt and leather armbands and a big ol’ necklace that is not affected by drag I guess and like 400 rings to go swim in the goddamn sea like that makes any sense at all and you know what?  Good.  This might have just been how The King of Thirst showed up on set one day and you went NAILED IT and just started shooting and made him walk through mist while a guitar riff plays and he is smirking and wearing what have to be the least comfortable pair of jeans in the entire world and good.  The world is a broken, sad place where logic infrequently reigns, and this costuming choice was chaotic good.

liKE????

HE HAS HIS KEYS OR A WALLET OR THE HEARTS OF US ALL ON A CHAIN, LOOPED TO HIS BELT, THIS HAPPENED, THIS WAS A CHOICE

And I just realized we are all lusting over a character with a chain wallet

supports my theory of “Jason Momoa could wear anything up to and including the line from Derelicte from Zoolander and make it look appealing”

Atlanteans have evolved like a drunk cladogram

Yes, yes, I hear you, people who are like “okay but whales are weird, too! They were on land, and then they went back to the sea, and that doesn’t make sense either!”

But, okay, there are 7 kingdoms, one is Atlantis, two is Atlantis but not Atlantis because we need a princess who isn’t Orm and Arthur’s sister, three is people who are also fish (Orm mocks them by calling them philosophers and poets and…they can hang, probs), four is the Brine who are, I believe, crabs, for all intents and purposes, and five is the Trench, who are the scariest things to ever happen to me don’t TOUCH ME.  Two are dead and gone.  I… how.  How.  How you get crabs, and fish people, and gills, and not gills, and people but our city sunk into the sea and we did okay, and… what.  Vulko signs off on this with “our technology allowed us to survive” WHAT.  That’s like me getting dropped next to Guam and being like “nah I’m fine I’ve got my glasses with me.”  Like the rest of the bananas stuff, I’m psyched they ran with it, because the final battle was Return-of-the-King-FOR-FRODO gorgeous, but it makes less than zero sense.  Just because Willem Dafoe delivers the story and he’s supportive and terrifying doesn’t mean I’ll buy it, movie.

and, my favorite

There are dinosaurs and no one cares????

There’s another kingdom, at the center, you get there by going through the Trench, Atlanna was stuck there, the trident is there, they get out, but THERE ARE DINOSAURS AND EVERYONE IS FINE WITH IT.  Even just the existence of AN ENTIRE OTHER OCEAN AND WORLD AND THE REST OF IT is like “oh look it’s MOM”

Nicole Kidman is very pretty and your mother is very important but THERE ARE DINOSAURS

DI

NO

SAURS

And Scales-R-Us here just swings back with the trident like “not now I got stuff to do” and lets the dinos stay there and… well, okay, yeah, based on a whole bunch of Jurassic Park movies that’s probably the best call but literally no one says ANYTHING about it.  We are too busy strapping plasma guns to sharks and letting Julie Andrews voice a calamari to even focus on the dinosaurs.

to be fair this is the battle

And like the rest of the movie, let me reiterate: it is Ain’t No TrawlaBack Girl b-a-n-a-n-a-s (please appreciate my fishing boat joke) but in no way did I dislike it.  More shark plasma guns.  More swimmy jeans.  More Dolph Lundgren.  This movie was everything I needed to seize some happiness, and I am delighted that it exists.  2019 is the Year of No More Gritty Reboots.  I don’t wanna watch anymore sad stuff, okay? And if you fee me a diet of Willem Dafoe’s topknots, I will give you all of my free time.

Last year, I unfortunately missed out on being able to sit out front and hand out candy, but I am making sure that I am out front this year, perhaps with Bailey, who will be dressed as The Goodest Girl oh WAIT that’s not a costume that’s who she is.  I didn’t realize how much I’d like it, but there is a really simple joy to seeing a kid and parent just be super psyched that you gave them candy while they put on a fun outfit.  If you’re a robber baron, of course the bowls left out with no one to guard them are prime, but as a kid, I really always liked actually getting a person when I walked up.

So, while we can all agree that dressing up and getting free candy is just A+, there is some disagreement regarding what candy is the best to receive in your bag.  I’m here to lay the debate to rest for good.

IMPORTANT: these are ranked as if a child is receiving them, not me

I’m not gonna get turnt over Fun Dip now, even though that weird as hell candy was A+++ when I was a kid yes please give me powdered sugar on a stick and then let me eat the stick

ALSO IMPORTANT: for simplicity and fairness, I will be rating the “fun sized” version of each of these candies, especially since it was the most likely size you’d end up with

Full-sized candy was for rich kids and mini-sized candy is for white ladies to put on a coffee table during a dinner party  Continue Reading…

everybodaaaaaay

rock yo’ body riiiiight

Backmuscles’ back, ALL RIGHT

No, that doesn’t scan, and frankly I don’t care.  Yes, it has been a while since I’ve typed out an ode to actin and myosin (that is a muscle fiber joke stay with me) but given the recent release of The Meg I figured no better time than now to sing the praises of everyone’s favorite terrifying English dude. I am having difficulty uploading the pictures I chose of his intensely coiled body and face, so this is a text-only post, and if you stop reading now because of it I would not blame you.

That’s right.  This post is about Jason Statham.  You can’t spell “Man” without Jason Statham.  I don’t know what I’m saying.  I just love his bald head and his intense stare and his accent that never changes and his aggressive dedication to playing one character forever because boyyyy howdy will I continue to watch his stuff until the abyss swallows us all.

Continue Reading…

I am, of course, in this scenario, implying that I will not be murdered or robbed or otherwise harmed during the Purge

Untouchable as a moonbeam or Dwayne Johnson’s appeal

Anyway. I would commit these but no worse because, while I adamantly believe that certain aspects of our society are deeply unfair, my sexuality is composed entirely of following rules, so anything more than these minor transgressions would send me into a panic spiral.

Mild crimes I would commit during the Purge

• Break into the Cincinnati Zoo and meet Fiona, the baby hippo
  • This is of course only if this would not cause Fiona any harm
  • I do not have to pet her, I would be quite happy with waving at her and taking a photograph and perhaps feeding her a vegetable or something
• Deposit inaccurate checks in order to clear some debt
  • I do not understand how this process works if there is a financial crime
    • Like what if they say “your payment will post within 2 business days”
      • Like
      • That would still be fine, right, because you technically posted it on the day of the Purge
      • Or do you have to post the payment and ensure the deposit would land on the date of the Purge and that way it’s legal?
      • What if you post-dated a check to have the date of the Purge on it would that be okay
        • I am a goshdarn de-LIGHT when I go to movies with people and am not annoying at all what are you implying
• Just like, clear out a Sephora
  • 3 samples? Not today, homie
    • Just swiping off the entire Drunk Elephant shelf into one of those little black baskets and walking out
      • Yeah I’m taking the basket too
      • We all VIB Rouge
        • VIB Purge
          • That sounded better in my head
• Borrow a golf cart and ride it
  • I’ve never driven one and I want to
    • “But Christina, why wouldn’t you steal like a Lambo or a McLaren or literally any other thing with an engine”
      • That is too much responsibility for me and I will stick with my cart
        • Beep beep I’m playin’ through
• Go into a museum and touch some of the things
  • Like I’m not gonna smash the glass on the Dead Sea Scrolls, I’m not a villain
    • But I’m def gonna pet a dinosaur leg bone and I’m gonna touch one of those suits of armor and I will happily pose in a diorama of saber-tooth tigers pretending that I am being hunted by them
      • Also pose with a woolly mammoth
        • No, I’m not going to knock them over, I just want a super fly looking profile pic
• Get all the dog park regulars together to get some lamps and floodlights and have a dog party at one of the parks that closes at sunset
  • CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP  PUP RAGER
    • We are always kind of sad that we have to go home and the doggies are like “no but…still ground? So still play?” and we have to explain the passage of time to them which is just an enormous downer
    • You may think that no one would clean up after their dog at this pup rager, but you would be wrong
      • Instead of mildly pointing out that your dog has pooped, these owners will escalate immediately into a fistfight
        • Dog park people can be scary and I would go to them if I needed protection
• Scan and upload as many textbooks as possible 
  • GO KIDS
    • DOWNLOAD
      • I DON’T CARE IF YOUR MAJOR IS STILL “UNDECIDED” DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE DAMN BOOKSTORE
      • YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT PAYING FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A BOOK THAT HAS A DIFFERENT COVER THAN THE PREVIOUS EDITION AND THAT IS IT
• Frolic in one of those fountains that says “don’t jump into the fountain”
  • I will leave any change thrown in there, of course
    • That money supports our parks, or something
      • I’m not a monster
• Costco
  • Everything is a sample during the Purge
    • That OLED TV? I would like to sample it plz
    • Sampling the jewelry too
    • Gonna try a sample of that fancy electric toothbrush by putting it in my cart and walking out
• Seize the means of production
  • wait what
• Blast every stadium rock song loudly in defiance of any and all noise restrictions
  • Be your own Jukebox Hero
    • And this isn’t in an attempt to make people like the ridiculous music I like, because that clearly isn’t going to work
    • No, this is for me
      • I am going to ENJOY THESE SONGS at the VOLUME THEY WERE MEANT TO BE ENJOYED AT
        • ALL-CAPS VOLUME
          • AND I WANT
            • AND I NEED
              • IT’S THE PURGE
                • ANIMAL
• Take a bite of froyo from my cup before I pay 
  • Like, I’m good for at least ten dollars on this stuff because I have no sense of proportion and I like cookie dough, let me have a goddamn mouthful
  • No, you know what?
    • I will straight-up eat one of those pieces of cookie dough that always adds a cool dollar to my total because they are made of plutonium or something
    • You betta watch me or you gonna miss some serious crimes, yo
• Make everyone deeply uncomfortable by openly and repeatedly discussing any and all illnesses and past trauma with loved ones, acquaintances, and strangers, thereby utilizing the Purge to its full intended purpose, i.e., a release of pent-up frustration and aggression caused by a sense of futility in the fight against the darkness

Why are you looking at me like that