When I was in college, every semester there would be a 'Health Fair'. I'm not really sure what the ultimate purpose of it was, but I thought that its reason for being was -probably- the free condoms. I mean, what else? Getting your blood pressure tested?
So of course we'd all wander in between classes and check things out, and come away with five or so condoms. Why not? Anyway, one Health Fair, I was in class until late, and arrived five minutes before the booths were scheduled to close. Knowing that I had very little time to waste, I found the free condoms booth. Not a condom in sight. The woman in back noticed my obvious confusion, and she took a minute from closing up the booth to hand me a garbage bag. Inside? Close to NINE HUNDRED condoms.
Well, of course, I used some of those. I was nineteen, after all, and had a steady boyfriend. These weren't just any condoms, mind you. They were gaily colored condoms; I guess they were meant to up the 'fun factor' of safe sex. They came in red, blue, yellow, and green. Or, as we swiftly dubbed them: sunburn, frostbite, jaundice, and mold.

But even at nineteen, using up nine hundred condoms before their expiration date is kind of daunting. After all, I only had ONE boyfriend. And we had to go to class at SOME point. Right? Right?
My friends and I passed them out to total strangers in the hall. We pushed them under the doors of people who recently acquired boyfriends. We filled them with water and threw them at people. We decorated our OWN doors with them. I glued a cheerful string of four down the side of my computer monitor. I used four handfuls in an art project for my sculpture class. (It made my professor laugh. I got an A.)

Even today, eight years and seven moves later, I STILL find colored condoms tucked away in their little plastic packages here and there. FAR past their expiration date, usually cracked open and dried out... but still a cheerful shade of frostbite.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 3:14 AM

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Sometimes it really doesn't take much to make my day, you know? I don't need to win the lottery or fall in love or buy a new car or watch one of those really snotty squealy-voiced fashion-conscious teenaged girls fall in the mud. Well, okay, the teenage-girl thing makes my day every time. But I digress.
Today I went to the post office to buy some $@#%* 34-cent stamps, because, well, I needed them. And I put a twenty in the stamp machine, because it was the smallest bill I had... and after I bought my stamps, I heard this loud TING-TING-TING sound. The stamp machine paid me off in six shiny brand-new gold Sacajawea dollars.
I really hope the new dollar coin catches on. I hope people really USE it, that the government is moved to mint a FIVE-dollar coin, that the Sacajawea dollars don't just become a collector's item, that the coin becomes a commonly-seen form of currency. But at the same time, I'm loath to part with these cool shiny new dollars.
They're so cool, and they made me happy. I hereby forgive the government for hiking the stamp prices again. But I don't forgive them for printing that godawful ugly new paper money.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 2:27 AM

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I'm always fascinated by those high-energy drinks that they sell at the grocery store. You know, the ones that are manufactured specifically to have as much caffeine in them as possible, although they also lay claim to such other dubious energy-boosters as 'taurine'. I always thought that 'taurine' sounded like one of the causes of Mad Cow Disease.
My current favorite is this stuff called 'Red Alert', which comes in one of those really cool skinny silver cans. The liquid is this really alarming brilliant shade of yellow, and it tastes like... well, it tastes like a handful of SweeTarts dissolved in Sprite. Faintly gritty texture and everything. So I don't exactly drink it for the taste.
No, I drink it because it wakes me the heck up, and makes my neurons start clicking and connecting. And then it makes my heart start thundering like a racehorse on speed, which really wakes me up, if only from worry. Plus it's one of the few liquids in the house that the cats don't try to drink if I set it down on the coffee table. I guess their survival instincts are more highly honed than mine.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 2:03 AM

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My goals in housecleaning have always been fundamentally different from my mother's. The Fifties did weird things to a whole generation of Americans, and she's no exception. If you looked at part of my mother's list of housecleaning chores, it would read:
51. Clean tile grout with toothbrush and boiling bleach.
52. Vacuum pets.
53. Trim uneven carpet fibers with nail clippers.
54. Unbolt toilet, carry it into backyard, and deep-clean with fire hose.

Whereas, my list of housecleaning chores is more of a set of beliefs:
1. When tiny flies spontaneously generate in the trash can, it's time to take out the trash.
2. Surfaces should be dusted when they become white. If they were already white, there's no need to dust.
3. When you can't see the top of the coffee table, it's time to take a load of books downstairs.
4. If the sink is full, wash the dishes.
5. If the sink is full again, empty the dishwasher.
6. Try not to lick the floor.

Granted, I'm exaggerating on both ends of the spectrum. But, in general, my mother's house is clean enough to warrant a visit from family, while mine is dirty enough to spur me into frantic cleaning before anyone arrives.
But, seriously, I don't understand the recent consternation about germs. It's like Fifties Lite, seeing all these commercials for 'antibacterial' stuff. 'Antibacterial' is the commercial buzzword of the moment. Remember three years ago, when the commercial buzzword was 'non-comedogenic'? It's kind of like that. It basically means that the product does what it did all along, but now it's got a shiny new buzzword on the label to tell you so.
Okay, granted, I'm careful to cook any chicken I buy within a couple of days, and I wash the chicken slime off my hands before I pet the cats. But I don't boil the knife and cutting board like surgical instruments, either. I ate at Jack-in-the-Box AFTER the E. coli scare. (Eschescheria coli. Wouldn't that make a great name for a fantasy character? Preferably a mage.)

It's my firm belief that obsessively sterilizing your house and your person makes you more susceptible to colds and disease. Because people get sick, and they're going to come near you, and if your immune system got LAZY because there weren't any germs to kill from home, well, they're like a bunch of flabby security guards trying to do a cop's job.
I'm not saying that you should wallow in filth like a bunch of frat boys sharing an apartment, or seek out insane, frothing cows just so you can chew on their thighs. But at the same time, don't spray the entire house with antibacterial goo or boil your underwear or clean your contacts with ammonia. Learn to hit a happy medium. If the house looks good, and the house smells good, and nothing feels sticky or gritty, then you've probably cleaned enough.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 11:37 PM

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I got to thinking about crying at RPGs the other day. I have been known to cry at movies. Also at RPGs. Normally, I'm a fairly hardened and cynical person, but I have this real need to believe in... well, not -magic- per se, but magical moments in mundane life. But at the same time, I'm pretty much immune to sloppy sappy sentimentalism. I don't automatically cry at romantic movies or sappy commercials or 'very special episodes'. I want to believe in magic, but I can't believe in such trite stuff.
I spent an hour or so creating a list of all the console RPGs I'd ever played, to use on my new profile page for this website. And, for no good reason, I marked every RPG that I'd cried during. And I came to the following, rather weird realization:
I don't cry at the sad parts.

No, seriously. I don't. I might feel bad (or in the case of Aeris dying, get all pissed off that I need to train another mage), but I don't CRY, unless it's really extreme. I cried at the end of 'Grave of the Fireflies', for example. I don't think I've ever seen anything so seriously depressing. I cried at THAT, all right. But I digress.
Normally (almost always) I cry during scenes that are a) happy or b) triumphant. Essentially, I find myself moved to tears because I'm happy for the characters in question, or because I'm so proud of the character for what s/he just did.
Which means that I really have to believe in the character. I won't cry at the triumph of a human-shaped piece of cardboard (bunch of pixels, group of polygons). If I can't accept their 'reality' in some dimension, I don't care what happens to them. I'm reasonably forgiving about small stuff (translation bloopers, primitive graphics), but there really has to be a world and a group of people there. Not just a graphics engine and a combat mechanism.

I cried when Red XIII found out the truth about his father and could be proud of him again.
I cried when Fei and Elly finally kissed each other.
I cried when Flik and Viktor decided to stay behind in the crumbling castle to let the others escape.
I cried when the Jumi all cried precious Jumi tears to save you from being turned to stone.
And, oh man, how I cried during Guardian's Crusade. But since I'm one of about ten people who played that wonderful little game, I won't spoil anything.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 4:19 AM

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A little conversation between two policemen that I particularly liked, from 'Torso', a true-crime graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko:
"I tell you, Sammy, when I finally shuffle off this mortal thing... when I go droppers... I tell you, I just don't want it to be ironic."
"Ironic?"
"Ironic. Like, I don't want to die, let's say, like on the day I was born. Or on the same day my dad died. 'Cause that's just... that's just weird. Or, you know, with all the dustups and shaves we've been in on the job... I don't want to die by crackin' my head open slippin' on some ice or somethin'. Then everybody says, 'Isn't that ironic, such a dangerous job, and he dies in the tub' or something."
...
"There's only one way I really think it'd be OK to go."
"How's that?"
"Of really, really old age."
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 11:42 PM

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Nyah hah hah, I have potato chips and you don't!
And they're real potato chips, too. None of this baked stuff. None of this 'Olestra' stuff. Nothing but real artery-clogging salty grease for THIS cow. I may keel over from a heart attack when I'm 35, but I'm happy NOW.
Speaking of which, I don't understand why people were so surprised that Olestra gives you diarrhea. It's a left-handed sugar. It's grease that your body cannot digest, and that your body cannot keep. Where else did they think this grease was going to go? Out of your nose? Out through your pores? All in all, I think that diarrhea was the most pleasant alternative.
Hey, you can always eat a bag when you're constipated. Soon, you'll need a prescription for a bag of potato chips:
'Doctor, I'm... I'm having trouble going to the bathroom.'
'I see. Take two bags of potato chips and call me in the morning.'

Plus, if you feed Olestra to your cats, they'll never barf up a hairball again. They'll just squirt 'em out the other end, covered in grease. Plus, if you squeeze the cat gently in the middle, you get streamers! Like a water pistol, only a thousand times more gross.
Hm. Suddenly, I don't want these potato chips any more. But they're still mine and you still can't have any.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 5:45 AM

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Addendum: After thinking about it, I went out and signed up for Napster, for the very first time. In less than five minutes I was downloading 'Worthless' (the junkyard song) and 'Like A Movie' (the shop song), that someone had recorded off the DVD. Hooray for Napster!
Just do a search for title: 'Brave Little Toaster' and pick up the songs. O happy day!
I've played 'Worthless' twice already and sung along as best I can, not knowing half the words. I LOVE THIS SONG.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 9:09 PM

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I watched the first half of The Brave Little Toaster on cable today. I love that movie. I'm a sucker for animation in general, since I seem to have acquired a degree in animation history somehow, but this movie is special. It does look a little dated compared to the Disneyrific CGI monstrosities that we have today, and the story is a bit slow for some kids. My general opinion on that is 'so what?'.
I'm so disappointed that they never released an official soundtrack for the movie. I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Every time I see the movie, I end up singing the junkyard song for DAYS. But the movie was originally made by an independent studio and only later bought by Disney for distribution, and I guess they never saw fit to soundtrack it.
Granted, it's cute. I mean, CUTE. Adorable talking household appliances. But it doesn't quite fit the Disneyrific formula of gorgeous but bland teenage star, his/her gorgeous teenage love interest (always chaste and of the opposite sex mind you), randomly evil-looking villain, lots of songs, and three or four adorable talking animals/statues/teapots to add that all-important merchandising potential. Nope, in this movie it's the adorable merchandisable creations that get the character development. Whee. I don't think they actually merchandised The Brave Little Toaster, though, which to my mind makes it a BETTER movie.
(Further granted that Disney seems to have broken out of that particular mold. Hallelu. The Emperor's New Groove was actively funny. Now if they can resist the urge to put adorable talking animals into Atlantis...)

Wow, I have digressed. Anyway, rent The Brave Little Toaster at some point. It's cute, but there's some fairly dark stuff in there too... not too much for your kids, but enough to keep your mind occupied. And just see if you don't sing the junkyard song for the next week.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 8:05 PM

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