Rude Awakenings

I woke up this morning to an unholy screeching coming from the hallway outside me door.

What on earth is that sound? I wondered.

Is that...is that the fire alarm?  At two in the morning?  

And it was, indeed, the fire alarm, clamoring it's little heart out at 2:14 this morning.

Oh, HECK no, I thought to myself, this is just cruel.  This is a terrible time for a fire drill.

Which, you know, it's great to know that if the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night, I'm just going to assume that it's a fire drill and not actually a fire or any sort of threat to my safety.

I have half a mind to just stay in bed right now out of spite. (Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.  I'm glad to know that if my dorm actually catches on fire in the middle of the night, I would rather burn alive in my bed than get up.)  It will probably stop ringing after a while.

But it didn't.  It just kept ringing and ringing, mocking my suffering and my futile attempts to thwart it's noisy powers.

So, eventually, I got up.  For some reason, I had the presence of mind to take my headphones out of my ears, but not to take off my bite splint, which, if we are being honest with each other, should really never ever be worn where other people can see you.

Anyway, I got up, put on my flip flops, and grabbed my keys, because it has been ingrained in my memory that you should always have your keys with you if you leave the dorm.

Now, granted, they've also drilled into our heads that we should always have our I.D.s with us, too, but I keep forgetting that one.

So, I put on my flippy floppies in the dark, grabbed my keys out of my purse, and braced to open the door.

It was like I had opened the gates of Hell itself.

There was just light, like, everywhere.  Seriously, just all up in my grill.  Oh, and the noise, the noise.  It was so loud.  I covered my ears with my hands like a wuss.  That's how loud it was.

And then, I was so disoriented, I almost forgot that there was a fire escape route, like, right outside my door, and I almost tried to go out the front door, and then I'm like "no, this isn't right" and then I remembered the fire escape route, and so I went down the stares and out the fire door, directly beneath the screechy siren.

It was so loud, you guys, you have no idea.

And then I trudged up the hill outside like a zombie to go stand where some of my friends were, just feeling so glamorous in my old t-shirt and flannel pajama pants (yes, I was wearing flannel in September.  Yes, I'm very well aware that it is still too hot for flannel.  If I had any shorts, I would have worn those to bed, but I don't, so quit judging me.)

And then we all just stood around there, waiting for someone to shut the alarm off, and then there's just some random group of dudes across the street from us, and I'm just like, why are you even here?

Anyway, eventually, they got the alarm shut off, and we all got to go back to bed, but I could not fall back asleep for another hour and a half, for some reason.  I spent most of that hour and a half thinking about how there should be stronger penalties and higher fees for setting off the alarm at night as opposed to setting it off during the day.

I still don't know how it got set off.  I don't think I ever will.  The one thing I do know, though, is that fire alarms hate sleep, and I'm more than willing to burn to death if my dorm catches fire in the middle of the night.

I Think That I Need to Take a Break from the Internet for a While

I think it's turning me into a mean person.

Seriously.  Just now, I wanted to get into a full-out, completely heated word-battle with some complete strangers over which version of a song was better, which is kind of ridiculous of me because both of the versions have their own pros and cons and whatnot, and they are equally soulful in each respect, and the fact that I grew up listening to Johnny Cash does not automatically make him a greater musician, okay, self?

(BUT YOU CAN JUST HEAR HIS PAIN AND-)

Shut up, self.  You are being a jerk.  Just shut up.

Does spending half an hour stalking my own blog make me conceited, or just sad?

Because that's what I just did.

I have a serious internet problem.

I need to go to bed.

I'm leaving now.

Goodbye.

All I Want is an Immortal, Evil, Ghost Uncle Who Can Grow Cheese Plants. Is That so Much to Ask?

Today, I suffered a loss.

You see, for a long time, I have been obsessed with the Sims (seriously, it's unhealthy how much I like that game.)  A few months ago, we got the Sims 3, and my life immediately went out the window because, hello, Sims 3.  

Anyway, I have spent more hours than I care to admit playing this game.  Getting my sims jobs, having them get married and have children and all that jazz.  Recently, I created a new family, one that was sort of like a crime family only not really and I'm pretty sure that no one really cares anyway but I have to tell you because you need to know.  

You need to know about Uncle Paulie.

When I started playing this family, Uncle Paulie was just Paolo Dinardo, a poor, misunderstood teenager.  It seemed like he couldn't do anything right.  He was constantly being upstaged by his goody-two-shoes sister, Gianna.  How could anyone possibly love or understand him?  Who could possibly see through his evil exterior to the sweet young man within?  It seemed that Paolo would be doomed to a life of loneliness.

But then, Amanda moved to town.

Amanda and Paolo were similar in every way that you could possibly think of so, naturally, they quickly fell in love and got married (although, not quickly enough apparently because perfect little miss Gianna was already married at this point, and had also already had her first child Arianna.)

The love of his wife and his niece melted Paulo's cold heart, revealing the lovable Uncle Paulie within.  Uncle Paulie lived a very healthy lifestyle, but, unfortunately, was taken from the sim world far too early.

It seemed that that would be the end of Uncle Paulie forever, and I was heartbroken, because Uncle Paulie was the shiz and didn't take no crap from nobody.  He was an adorable little old man who exercised regularly and grew a massive garden, and I loved him, dang it.

However, an opportunity appeared.  I could take Uncle Paulie's ashes to the science facility to bring him back from the dead.  How could this possibly go wrong?  So, I took Uncle Paulie to the science facility, but the process didn't work properly and he only came back as a ghost.  (At first, I didn't notice that he had come back as a ghost and I just thought that the science facility had heartlessly ash-napped the only part of Uncle Paulie that I had left, and I may or may not have freaked out a little.)

Uncle Paulie as a ghost may have been even more awesome than Uncle Paulie as a living sim.  Ghost Uncle Paulie did what he wanted.  If he wanted to go outside, he would glide through the dang wall.  If he wanted to scare you, he would (and did.  Uncle Paulie and Arianna's husband David did not get along very well.)  Ghost Uncle Paulie continued to grow his garden, and he also learned how to grow cheese and eggs because he effing could.  

Uncle Paulie was the shiz biscuit, and I was totally convinced that I could play this awesome sim forever and ever as long as I had someone alive to take his ashes to the science facility every time he died.

However, as I learned tonight, this was not the case.  While Uncle Paulie was innocently tending his garden, he was sucked down into the underworld, never to return.  

So now I'm kind of heartbroken a little bit and I kind of don't want to play the Sims any more even though Arianna's son's name is Flynn and I was totally going to have him marry a girl named Rapunzel.  I just feel like a Sims 3 without Uncle Paulie isn't really a Sims 3 at all.

And here is where I realize that you probably don't care about my dead sim, even if he was the coolest thing since absolute zero, and here is where I state that I don't care that you don't care because Uncle Paulie deserves a decent funeral, dang it.  You will remember him, because he was awesome, and you're awesome, so you both have something in common.

This may or may not have made any sense, since I'm really tired and kind of upset.  I don't really care any more.  I do what I want.

Just like Uncle Paulie did.

My Life has been Taken Over

By ponies.

Specifically, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I believe that technically this may make me what is referred to on the Interwebs as a "brony."  However, I don't know if I'm entirely comfortable with that title, as I am not a bro.  I am a lady (like Rarity.)

You see, I have been sick all of this past week, so I have been staying home, in great need of something to comfort me (or perhaps to love and tolerate me.)  Enter ponies.

So.  Many.  Ponies.

 Once I started watching the first episode of season one, I was hooked.  I began watching episode after episode on YouTube, in an attempt to catch up to the current season.  I spent unhealthy amounts of time tying to decipher whom my friends most resembled.  (Sassafras Jones is so totally Twilight Sparkle it is not even funny.)

By the way, I'm a horrible person who just Googles things and isn't overly fond of proper citation.  I apologize.  Hold on for just one second.  Snajperpl on DeviantArt is responsible for this glorious display.  Feel free to stalk.

I have a serious problem.  I can't stop myself.  (In much the same way that Apple Bloom couldn't stop herself when she got Cutie Pox!)

Save me from myself.  Please.

(Or don't.  I secretly love my pony addiction.)

I Know You're all Probably Sick of Me Never Really Posting Anything Worthwhile any More, and With Good Reason, but I Have a Legitimate OOH KITTENS

Yeah, I don't actually really have a legitimate reason for not posting anything ever any more, except that maybe I'm about to go over psycho falls in the crazy canoe and I have a bizarre and all-consuming obsession with the Sims.

Oh look, kittens!

AND A PUPPY

And Scruffy!

Basically, what I'm doing here is trying to bribe you all with cute/hilarious animal pictures so you don't hate me any more.

Is it working?

No?  How about this?

I give up.

Predicting the Future with Friends

So, I was having a grand old time with my very good band friends on Friday, and we were discussing what college would be like.  Apparently, it's going to go like this:

I'm going to go off to far away lands and triple major at a private college, thereby making me a recluse and extremely poor.  After I triple major, I'm going to go to another college that's actually in my home state to get a master's degree in trombone.  Why?  So I can be in their marching band, of course.

Really.  That's the only reason.

The Destroyer/David Hasselhoff (You remember her.  We went swimming together.  She plays the trumpet) will go off to that in-state college and be in their marching band from the get-go.  At around week three, she will have a mental breakdown from the stress of homework combined with the stress of so many intensive band practices.  After three days of psychosis, she will stand up and declare the she is the Destroyer/David Hasselhoff and ain't nobody gon get her down nuh-uh.   After she has been at that college for three years, I will begin my master's degree in trombone, and join her in the marching band.  She will have predicted my arrival down to the last second, and when I arrive, she will be petting her trumpet, saying "I've been expecting you."  Only I will be a few seconds late.  She will ask if the elevator got stuck (at which point there is a flashback to me sawing at the elevator cable while the first-chair trombone player stands inside) "Yes," I will reply.  "On a totally unrelated note, though, I'm now the first-chair trombone player!"

Then we will go on to kick butt, only we'll be really poor.  We won't have enough money to drive back home, so we'll go over to our high school band teacher's house because she only lives on campus.  There we will tell her horror stories about how we cut off all our hair and sold it for drugs, then how we sold the drugs for food money.

And that's as far as we got.  I really don't know why I write this stuff down.