Vintage Amber: The AT&T commercial that bore absolutely no resemblance to life as I knew it in the mid to late 90s

This was one of my favorite commercials when I was in high school because it depicted my romantic ideal as well as my technological ideal. 

As I've mentioned before, (non homeless/non elderly) guys didn't show any interest in me until I was in my 20s, so the back and forth between Larisa Oleynik and her romeo--with his perfect '90s-boy center-part--was totally foreign and almost unfathomable to me. I didn't get the internet or a halfway decent computer until I was a sophomore in high school, so all of the technology in this commercial seemed very futuristic and confusing. Though I now have a boyfriend and a pretty sweet MacBook, I still have some trouble relating to/understanding this commercial.

So maybe things are different when you're younger (or super cute), but as an adult, if I were to send a guy an "I miss you soooo much" email right after seeing him not only would he not email me back but he would never talk to me again. Also, this font is soooo large. Is this what all emails looked like in the '90s? 

I like that their font choice correlates to their gender. Hers is cursivey and girly while his is bold and masculine. I'm glad that we've made so much progress when it comes to fonts and gender roles.  

I don't think I could pull this off. Wait, let me try.

I was wrong. Nailed it.

 Is this a scanner? A fax machine? Do fax machines work like scanners? I actually think this commercial would be very erotic if they were just faxing each other all night long.  

What is this face? I think that he thought that he was going to get a naked pic. I do remember hearing that email in the olden days was primarily used for sending naked pics.

Did computer screens used to go black right after you sent an email (by pressing the "send email" key)? 

So this is what guys like. I'm starting to understand why I failed so horribly with the opposite sex. 

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Best picture ever?

Former U.S. prez Bill Clinton and former U.S. vice prez Al Gore are like the patron saints of Democrats. Remember that time Clinton went to North Korea and got American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling out of prison by serenading Kim Jong-il with some smooth, jazzy sax playing? Or what about the time that Al Gore told us about global warming and we were all like, "whoa, Al, that's a really inconvenient truth, thanks for sharing your wisdom with us"? Clinton and Gore are also a couple of dreamboats. If there's a picture on the internet more provocative than this, I certainly haven't seen it. After staring at Clinton's thighs for 45 minutes, I understand why Monica Lewinsky couldn't resist him. 


Billy, billy, billy, can't you see? Sometimes your thighs just hypnotize me. And I just love your flashy ways. I guess that's why they broke and you're so paid. 

(photo)

A Guide to Recognizing Your D.J.s

I never knew anyone named D.J. when I was a kid, yet I grew up with two people named D.J. Maybe you experienced something similar. 

 

The First Thanksgiving (Abridged)

Happy Thanksgiving...I guess.


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What the Kids Are Watching: Jessie

With all of my student loan problems under control, right now, my biggest concern isn't that I'll get thrown into some Dickensian debtor's prison/that I'll have the sort of horrible credit score that'll prevent me from purchasing the robo-hacienda style condo of my dreams, it's that someone will walk in on me while I'm watching Jessie--this inane Disney Channel show loosely based on the child procurement practices of the Jolie-Pitts.

Here's what the Disney Channel website has to say about the show and the characters (I've included a few annotations):

The only thing more disconcerting than being inexplicably compelled to watch Jessie is that while visiting the show's website I was actually excited about the prospect of playing "hide and seek with the Ross kids."

On one level, watching Jessie is just one more manifestation of my struggle to stay young--I really became aware of my age when I read this comment on YouTube:

What the hell is this person talking about? If you know what any of these things are or understand the use of the interrobang (!?) at the end of the sentence I am super jealous of you and your youth.


On another level, I think we're all genetically predisposed to watching shows about rich kids who are being cared for by working class people. Jessie was created by the same woman who created Charles in Charge AND the Nanny!?

Oh, and can any young people reading this please explain how Wizards of Waverly Place backfired?

My Birthday + My Blog's Birthday = Double Birthday, Oh My God! Double Birthday, All the Way!

Yesterday was my 28th birthday, peeps! I did it! I've officially lived longer than Jimi Hendrix! I think that's pretty impressive. Especially when you consider the fact that I just got health insurance after 3 years without coverage.


It's also the two year anniversary of this blog! I did it! I've officially been blogging longer than Jimi Hendrix! Anyway, thank you, errbody. I really appreciate your hilarious comments and I'm glad your folks decided to have sex the day you were conceived. This song is for you from me and Jon B featuring Babyface:

My goals for this, my 28th year of life, are to (a) survive (b) continue blogging and (c) become BFF with Matthew McConaughey. Matt and I share a b-day and if we become BFF, November 4, 2012 has the potential to be rad.

First, I'd help Matt work on his abs, delts, and glutes during one of his impromptu, open-air exercise sessions.

Then, we'd invite Sam Rockwell over and taunt him for being born on Nov. 5 instead of Nov. 4 (like most cool people). 

We'd end the day with nude bongo playing.

I have small boobs.

Once again, thanks for reading, commenting, following, etc. J.K. livin', you guys, j.k. livin'.

Gage Creed: Undead Toddler, Dark Prince of Fashion, The Littlest Dandy

Behold your style icon, people!

Most see Stephen King's Pet Sematary as nothing more than your standard horror movie about a kid brought back from the dead who slices up everybody's portentously exposed ankles with a scalpel. But today I'm here to tell you that that interpretation is completely off base. You see, Pet Sematary is actually about the meteoric rise and fall of style wunderkind Gage Creed.

The movie begins with tiny, innocent Gage getting hit and killed by a speeding semi truck. His guilt-ridden father Louis deposits him in an ancient Indian burial ground because (a) who wouldn't? And (b) this particular plot of land has the power to bring the dead back to life. 


Unfortunately, boringly dressed Louis is completely unprepared for the sort of sartorial drama that has historically been linked to ancient Indian burial grounds. 


When Gage died, he was your basic toddler, wearing diapers and OshKosh B'gosh. But he was reborn a dandy, undoubtedly pulling inspiration from the likes of Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire. 

No one is able to deal with Gage's newly discovered fierceness.

They're all intimidated by his preternatural ability to smile with his eyes (aka "smize").

They try to stifle his creativity, dissuade him from making such bold and unconventional fashion choices. So, he has to kill them. 

What else could he do? There was no other way that he'd ever be able to express himself. Louis is unable to come to grips with all of this--I'm sure, secretly, he was more than a little bit jealous of Gage's little velvet off the shoulder number--and kills his son.

Gage stays fierce until the very end.

Vintage Amber: The 1991 news story that confused everyone at my day camp

That morning, some kid who I didn’t really know—but who probably had a rat tail since everyone had a rat tail that summer—ran into the wood paneled activity room of our day camp and rather loudly announced the news.

My heart sank.

Pee-wee was a really important part of my life, quite possibly the most important part of my life (I had all the toys, my very own Pee-wee’s playhouse, and of course watched the show EVERY Saturday).

How could this loud-mouth kid be so cavalier about such positively tragic news?


Unfortunately, the kid didn’t know why Pee-wee had been arrested—either his parents had shielded him from this crucial bit of info or he didn’t understand what indecent exposure was—so for the rest of the day, the group of 7 and 8 year-olds that I was kickin’ it with that summer speculated about how Pee-wee had managed to land himself in the pokey. 

At one point, a boy came up to us and said, “I heard Pee-wee robbed a bank.” 

This seemed logical. So logical, in fact, that I repeated it with complete certainty when my mom came to pick me up that afternoon.

A day or two later, I found out why he’d really been arrested. Because I didn’t know that there were porno movie houses or that there was even a thing called porn, I thought that he’d “exposed himself” at a run-of the-mill theater while watching something like Beauty and the Beast or City Slickers.  

Anyway, I didn’t find what he’d done too appalling, as I had recently become obsessed with flipping the bird to no one in particular whenever I was in dark public spaces (movie theaters, Space Mountain at Disneyland, et al.) 

I guess I sort of connected our two transgressions in my mind—perhaps thinking that he’d done that thing he did to achieve the sort of exhilaration that comes with being a super sneaky scofflaw.  

Ultimately, the most disturbing part of the whole incident was finding out that Pee-wee Herman wasn’t Pee-wee Herman at all. He was some dude named Paul Reubens.  

I don't think that I've ever been as thoroughly disillusioned.

Where were you when you found out about Pee-wee?  

I have a feeling that Abraham Lincoln was sexy under that top hat

Like everyone else, I often wonder what super intelligent and influential historical figures would look like with Ninja Turtle/True Blood abs. I drew the following sketches, first and foremost, to satisfy my curiosity but also realized that they could serve as a masturbatory aid for history buffs (history buff = person who gets his/her jollies by looking at olden days peeps naked). I have yet to encounter topless photos, paintings, or daguerreotypes of any of these men, so who's to say they didn't look like this? Seriously, WHO'S TO SAY??

Abe Lincoln

Abe was so studly that the people at the U.S. mint or department of the treasury or whatever were like, "we need to put this man's face on the $5 bill AND the penny!" And everyone in America was like, "that's a really good idea. You guys know what's up." 19th century a-hole, John Wilkes Booth, killed our second hot president (Franklin Pierce being the first) because he was jealous of Abe's beard-growing prowess. (Booth did have a douchey little mustache but every time he tried to grow a beard it would come in all patchy like Keanu Reeves's.)

Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton discovered apples and invented gravity. Despite being naturally sexy, he wore a wig because he was self-conscious about his unconventional good looks. In terms of hotness, Isaac Newton was the Alan Rickman of the late-17th/early-18th century. In terms of cleverness, Isaac Newton was the Isaac Newton of the late-17th/early-18th century.

Nikola Tesla

Tesla was a Serbian immigrant who came to America because he thought it would be a good time but then had all of his brilliant ideas stolen by Thomas Edison, history's biggest prick. One time, Tesla sent 200,000 volts of electricity through his body just for the hell of it and everyone watching was like, "OMG, Tesla! That was frickin' sweet!" Eventually, he became David Bowie and helped Hugh Jackman clone himself. Christian Bale ended up being hanged in jail but it was OK 'cause he had a twin brother. Michael Caine was there too. 

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was born a slave but escaped to the North where people were more willing to accept how badass he was. He wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave and some white people were like, "there's no way a black man could've written that." Douglass was pretty chill and was just like, "I'm super smart, I totally wrote this book, stop being so racist." In time, he became buds with Abe Lincoln and the two of them would just hang out and try to figure out how to make the country better. The cool thing about their relationship was that Douglass never kissed Abe's ass; he always called the President out on his shit and Abe respected that about him.

 Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was such a weirdo. He married his 13-year-old first cousin.

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer whose neck was so sexy that he had to keep it covered at all times lest he incite a wave of spontaneous orgasming. For a while, he worked with Tycho Brahe who is famous for holding his pee for too long and then dying. After Brahe died, Kepler took his place as imperial mathematician--a job that sounds kind of awesome and mystical but really just means that he was the Holy Roman Empire's preeminent nerd.

Lewis and Clark

Lewis and Clark worked for the Daily Planet. Clark was secretly Superman. Sometimes they hung out with Sacagawea.