Oh, Hi

Do you like Kickstarter? Do you like laughing at hipsters? Well, I do. And I'm here to tell you all about some of the recent worst of the worst. You'll enjoy videos featuring the "Oh, hey! I didn't see you there" gag and some guy that enjoys things that you have yet to hear about. These videos and Kickstarters come direct from the recently-added page, so they're fresh enough to donate to.

I'll see you later, because I'm the hot. Cereal man.

1. Your new calendar
The HOT Cereal Man 2013

2. Your new collection
A Card Game to Beat Your Friends Senseless

3. Your new tour of a goat farm
Automated Milking System

4. Your new unique artist's calendar (another calendar, Alexis?!)
Starry Nights Calendar

5. Your new overly-glorified silicone dots
Bonus Rounds for iPhone

6. Your new hipster (I mean) hip shorts
Tomi Otee: The New Standard for Sports Chic Fashion

7. Your new Indianapolis prostitute
Help Me Live While I Write My First Novel

I had to stop searching at this point because there were more zombie-premise movie trailers than I could handle. Zombie make-up is pretty much free. How much would it really cost to go to an unnamed graveyard and film for a little while?

Okay, so I realize that I'm giving these people what they want, which is promotion, but I genuinely don't care about that, simply for the fact that the laughter they have brought me is payment enough for this silly promotion. And while these projects are awful, they might give someone the strength to do something better. The Kickstarter idea as a website is a really clever means of getting shit out there, but it tends to spawn awful things such as t-shirts with rib-cages on them that cost 22 bucks. And a pointless load of EP's and independent films that are horrifying glorified and again very pointless.

Now, I realize that there is a market for interpretive dance about things people do in the city, but I just don't get the point. To me, there should be some ultimate outcome at the end of a performance. Something other than, "Oh, yeah, people definitely do those things in the city." An ending where everyone dies or moves to the country would be interesting, I suppose, but even then, I'm not the proper market for that, so I guess I can't really judge. I don't even like when a movie suddenly turns into a musical for one scene.

Please hear me out on this one, internet, but if you are creating mash-ups of the famous painting Starry Night, calling yourself an artist, and then pasting those images into a calendar, well, I guess this is pretty self-explanatory, but you are not an artist. If you sell meme shirts that you printed yourself, you are not an artist. If you stick on some big non-candy dots to your iPhone, you are a slave to Apple and you need to see that it isn't a good thing.

And number one probably appealed to you, but it's fake. Sorry, friends, but the hot cereal men are nothing more than bored college boys who still think that calling themselves hot when they aren't so much is funny. Once again, sorry.

Just Some Idiot Twenty-Something Chick

There's this tanning salon across the street with a now hiring sign on the door. I applied, and even went across town to speak with the manager, and yet, nothing. No calls.  She even said something along the lines of "I'll review your application and call you if I need to." Cool, not when you see it. Just whatever. Not like you're hiring or anything.

The fitness center across the street took my application, jerked me around for two weeks, with this "the manager just left" and "sorry, come back later" bullshit, only to find out that they don't have but two shifts available, and to "come back this summer when the college students are gone."

Subway isn't even hiring here, and the frozen yogurt place I applied at hasn't called back.

I'm trying to stay in the area because I don't have my own vehicle, but there is either nothing here or I'm just some dumb-looking twenty-something girl who isn't even in college. I have skills! I just haven't been working my whole life, or at least at enough places to make it look like I'm some damn workaholic puppet.

"Der! Lookee, I maka the job go good for you boss man! You likee me work hard like good monkey?"

I don't know what the world is looking for. It eludes me. If I'm doing something wrong, well, I wish somebody would tell me what, because I don't want to just be a cashier girl. I want to at least do something different for once. I also don't want to dance for money. I'm not talking as a stripper, but just as a 'model employee.' It would make me suicidal if I had to spend the rest of my life performing like a good little monkey for money's sake. It's useful, but not that important.

My Etsy shop is very close to being up and running. I just need my debit card from my new bank and I'll be set with that. Hopefully I'm not a failure at that. I don't know. Maybe I can just do that for now.

But currently, fuck college towns with a bunch of replaceable twenty-somethings.

Good Morning, Let's Start Over Tomorrow

Welcome to 2013, you potentially fat, lazy, potentially American blog viewer of mine. Welcome to the year some thought wouldn't ever come. It's late morning, or perhaps evening when you get around to this, and you've just popped some aspirin because last night we celebrated and it was super cool how Jessica did bong hits and keg stands and somebody streaked in the snow and 2013 started off so well. Until you woke up. And you tried to exercise but your head is spinning so now you're sitting on the couch under the covers listening to The Decemberists and trying to stay focused enough to write one fucking post for once.

Well. Maybe.

Maybe you're screwing around at work. In which case, quit screwing around. This isn't important enough for that. But if not, let's rap. This year you pledged to exercise or do diet better or whatever, I get that, but for those of you who drank themselves silly last night/this morning, I have a question. Is today a throwaway? You're probably pretty sore and tired and sick, so you can't get around to that routine til tomorrow. That's kind of weird, right?

I'm just dicking around right now, so I'm going to declare that this is the year of questions. Questioning authority, questioning the questioners, asking yourself stuff. Yeah. That stuff. Like, why did everyone just give up on Gotye? I liked his Making Mirrors album, even if his song Somebody That I Used to Know got super out of hand on the radio, and his other songs were really interesting. So what if everybody else likes the same song as you. If it's decent, catchy music, don't shit on it just because you remember it. I haven't heard anything about it since the noise died down back last year or whenever.

Also, what's with the underground 'anti-pants' movement popularized on Twitter? I really don't like wearing pants, but that's not because it's edgy or weird to take a stance against an item of clothing. They're just uncomfortable. I guess it's good that people are rejecting a rigid item of clothing for once. Maybe we can move past being frightened of nudity that past generations have instilled, for fuck's sake, but it just seems weird that people act like they don't like pants because it's cool.

Okay, I can't really think of any other questions right now, so, keeping with this unstructured mess, less talk about other stuff. Doug Stanhope is coming to the UARK Bowl in March, I do believe, and that's in Fayetteville, like three miles from where I live with Brandon. That's going to be pretty sweet. I've listened to every album I could find on the internets. Including the shit you can't get for free on Spotify. So that's awesome.

Whatever. I'm getting tired. I'm gonna try and write some stupid songs today, so let's conclude this weird dear diary entry blog. Have fun with your hangovers.

To All Post-Apocalyptic Christmas-Celebrators

Ahh, it feels good to survive, doesn't it? Business as usual. I assume I'm the only one left doing my part as a blogger, discussing and documenting the world as I see it. So lucky you, live from Indiana, me! Blogging about the weather. There's snow. I expected that. I mean, it is winter, so I hope people didn't think it would be like, a summer apocalypse or something. Because that would be dumb of you.

America, of course, is the winner of the countries on Earth. Why not? I live here. It's only natural. Jesus was born here. He'd save America and all of our stuff. Jesus probably was just pissed because the end was scheduled before his birthday, and that's just not fair, so he decided probs to change our end of the world to, like, some annoying Canadian religion or something. That totes makes more sense.

Do you think there will be another apocalypse soon? If not, when? We need one, or at least, WalMart does because they made bank off of all the emergency prep tubs people stupidly bought.

The post-apocalyptic scene is pretty weird so far. Some bowling shoes, a Mayan-themed restaurant, and other totally random things. Like a car. LOL. Where did that come from? (Inside joke, haha, you totes wouldn't understand)

I just don't get it, you know? This whole Christmas after the apocalypse scene feels pretty wrong, if you ask me. Like, where do we get off making light of such a serious situation by bringing Christ our savior into this mess?

This is probably the stupidest thing I've ever written.

I'd write more, but the wolves are attacking.
To the future,
Alexis

I Am Not Wedding-Savvy

Was that not obvious before? Well, after this long-winded argument against weddings and marriage in general, you'll never have to wonder which side of the fence I'm on.

It didn't take me long to find some terrible wedding photos, since they're everywhere, but what I have here I took from TackyWeddings.com, a lovely website that reminds you to stay single and away from redneck weddings. Or all weddings, really.

Story time! Once, I went to a friend's cousin's wedding in my old hometown of Fairland, Indiana. It's a small town of only about 1500 folks who spend a lot of their lives never leaving. So it's only natural that someone would be getting married at nineteen, right after high school. That's part of small-town living. You grab onto the first nice boy/girl before they get a chance to see the rest of the world so that, if they leave, they feel compelled to come back to you. Or you love each other, whatever. This wedding was held at a pretty cottage house/farm where one of them lived, I think, and the ceremony/reception all took place in a barn.

This barn had crepe paper and sheets of colored paper haphazardly covering the ladders and the farm machines, and if you ignored the walls and the location, the rest of it could be considered as decently decorated. There was much pre-wedding food and music to be had, but as the friend to the soon-to-be-married cousin, I had to visit the bride and groom before they got to see each other. My friend wanted to check on her cousin, the groom, who was sitting in the first floor living room with all his dude friends, and holy Hell; the room smelled like forty percent sweat. It was horrifying to think that this one day could put so much fear into someone. He looked practically horrified. But he did propose, so I couldn't really feel sorry for the guy.

The bride was upstairs in a tiny bedroom with like fifteen women surrounding her. The amount of perfume needed to cover up the scent was apparently bucket-loads, since of course, ladies don't sweat. But, of course, my friend is a lover of all things wedding, so we lingered longer than I needed to.

When we finally went outside, I sat at a table (which was also the seating to view the ceremony, which meant that some people had to turn around to watch them get hitched) and waited for things to begin. It took forever. Maybe like two more hours. We even went back to the car and listened to music to pass the time. But when things finally began, the real magic started happening.

The groom entered through the open garage door, and the crowd hushed to silence while a Rascal Flatts song played through the attached speakers of a laptop. Somebody was arguing about whether or not the music should be on when the bride came in, which didn't happen until ten minutes later. It was long enough for the groom and his sweat parade to stink up the place. When the bride finally came, we could hear the shuffling outside the garage door, which had returned to a closed position so she could make a proper, 'grand' entrance.

Whoever was running the music had decided to leave the song on (the same song), but midway down the aisle, the song cut off. So the bride walked the rest of the way in silence. The song kept being turned back on and off, as if two kids were pressing buttons and fighting over the music. That eventually stopped and the wedding proceeded as weddings are want to do.

Look, I get it. You're in love. I'm not saying that all weddings are terrible. But they are pointless. If you need a lavish ceremony to keep some girl or guy from running off, there's really no chance that it's going to last long enough for them to learn to love you. It just doesn't work that way anymore.

And if you need a wedding to celebrate your love, you're wasting money and time. Unless you're rich out your ass. Then knock yourself out. But, for those who can't really afford an expensive dress or giant cake, why spend that extra money when you could put it towards something awesome, like a vacation or an awesome espresso machine or whatever it is people like now? That sounds so much more fun than having all your worst relatives kiss you and worrying about people smoking too close to the kids' play area or worrying that your dress will get torn or your bride will run away.

Or is it that you want to put on a show for everybody? Everybody, look at us, we're happy! We're doing great and you need to see this in order for me to truly be happy in a relationship. Or is it that you haven't been brought up any other way? You need to think that you're going to have a Disney happy ending where you get married and all is well forever. Well, it's not going to be like that. Stop assuming things will get better if you could just get married.

Because I am a studious and fantastic blogger with absolutely nothing else to do, I did some cost research and found out how much money people are blowing on this wedding junk.

Flowers: $698
Dress: $1,100
Cake: $5.60 per slice ($200-500)
Marriage license: $15-80
Photographer: $2980
Tuxedo: $100 (because I just know)

As you can see, it's already adding up. And it just keeps getting more expensive. Venue, decorations, potential honeymoon? Ouch. No money left for yourselves. I'm proposing a different approach.

To compare, I've thought about Brandon, the dude I live with and am happily in love with. We're not boyfriend/girlfriend, but we're together. It's difficult to explain, but it works for us. We don't talk about the future or force each other into things. We can talk about anything, and both of us know each other's weird histories and what we want out of life at the moment. And that's all. We don't need more from each other. We spend more time together than anyone I've ever been with, and it never gets old.

In contrast, I was with someone before him who really wanted to get married. It was all he talked about when we talked about the future. He even told me he was going to propose to me. And my whole life I'd spent fighting the issue and disagreeing with people who said I'd change my mind. But I was going to compromise myself for this guy. Thank heavens he broke up with me the day after Christmas. And now I realize how unhappy I would have been. Stuck in Indianapolis or somewhere nearby because he couldn't part from his family as a wife and probably mother to some hipster who didn't really have his head on right.

I don't like marriage. I've never liked it. I've never daydreamed about it or wondered where I would go on my honeymoon or made a pretend guest list. And now, I'll never have to worry about my guests doing the Thriller routine on the dance floor and posting it on Youtube.

NSFW Good Morning, Look What I Made

Good morning, 12/12/12ers. Instead of thinking about how you just missed the greatest time this year, start staring at this collage I made. That's right. I took the time to make this furry collage just for you, viewer, to stare and vomit as you like.

Seriously. This is the internet. Just go. Get a degree or something. I don't care anymore.