Dear Ciao Bella

After a long hiatus, I have returned to make a post.

The following is an email that I sent to Ciao Bella, makers of the famed Blackberry Cabernet sorbet.

Observe: Blackberry Cabernet in all its glory.

Dear Ciao Bella,

In my greatest hour of need, I am turning to you for guidance.

My dear father recently turned 50. In a fit of mid-life-crisis panic, he ran to the grocery store to buy his favorite comfort food, Ciao Bella's Blackberry Cabernet Sorbet.

But alas, he returned home empty handed. After combing through the neighborhood's several grocery establishments, my father discovered the horrible truth-- there was not a single remaining container of Blackberry Cabernet Sorbet.

The family united in the quest to soothe my father's grief. We checked our grocery stores over and over again, but the effort was wasted. We bought Haagen-Dazs's Blackberry Cabernet sorbet, but it couldn't replace Ciao Bella's version. We even bought other Ciao Bella flavors, but nothing could compete with the smooth, rich tartness that is Blackberry Cabernet.

All seemed lost.

But then a light appeared in the fog-- icecreamsource.com sold Blackberry Cabernet, and it could be delivered right to our door! I surprised dear Father on his birthday with five cartons of his beloved sorbet, and you could see the weight lifted from his shoulders. He was a new man!

On the fateful night of August 20th, 2013, I went back online to re-order more sorbet. But I soon discovered the horrible truth; icecreamsource.com no longer carried individual cartons of Blackberry Cabernet! I spent the next few hours braving hellfire and brimstone, searching frantically through the deep folds of the internet for the elusive goddess of sorbet. But it was useless. There was no online store that could deliver Blackberry Cabernet to Northbrook, IL.

My father is having intensive surgery on his sinuses on September 12th, 2013. Please Ciao Bella, in this terrible age of hardship, I beseech thee: tell me how to find this incredible flavor. No matter the cost, no matter the danger, I must find a way to tame the beast that is Blackberry Cabernet.

Help me, Ciao Bella. You're my only hope.

Di te incolumem custodiant,

Beth Jeanne Silverstein

****************

In other news, "di te incolumem custodiant" means "May the Gods guard your safety" in Latin. Because I know how to use Google, bitches.

Review of Camping

People are usually surprised when I tell them that I love camping. This is because I have zero tolerance for anything with more than six legs. Except for hermit crabs. Hermit crabs are actually really cute. I had some hermit crabs once, but then they died because I didn't take care of them the right way. I mean, I tried, but... it didn't work out. I still feel bad because that was only, like, a year and a half ago. It's not like I was 5 or some irresponsible age. I was like, 20. Whoops.

Sob stories/I'm a terrible person!

The point of that guilt-speech was that I strongly dislike bugs. I'm not afraid of them, I just really really REALLY don't want them to touch me. That's not a phobia thing, it's a touch-y thing. There's a difference. Theoretically, I don't care about the bug existing on the other side of the room. It's more about the likelihood of the bug tripping and falling on my skin. I do not want it touching my skin. It is NON-NEGOTIABLE. It's the same way that normal people don't want to touch other people's pee. It's not scary, it's just gross.

And you know what else? Bugs are rude. They have no concept of personal space. I don't just go around touching random animals, so why do they not grant me the same respect? It's obscene! The whole issue is that they can't just leave you alone. No, they have to get all up in your space. Like I said before, I don't care if the bug is on the other side of the room, or better yet not on this hemisphere. But no, bugs are all like, "Look, a stranger! Let me touch youuuuu." You know what we do with people like that? We LOCK THEM UP. You know why? Because they are weird and creepy. So to are bugs.

I am totally side-tracked right now. Anyways camping!

Despite my whole thing with bugs, camping is actually super fun. I love the campfire, and the marshmallows, and the fact that everyone is disgusting and hasn't showered in god knows when. I guess I just like being dirty. Is that weird? I feel like that's weird.

And the thing about camping is that when you're completely isolated and immersed in nature, you totally get used to the bugs. I think it has to do with exposure. You know how they say the most effective treatment of a phobia is exposure therapy? Although I did just say that it's not a phobia. Maybe I lied. Who knows.

I will now tell a story to illustrate how tough I am:

Once upon a time (I think all my stories start this way), I went to overnight camp when I was 15. We had bunks, but we spent a lot of time hiking and camping out in random places. We'd spend one night camping, then one night in the bunk, then another night camping. At the end of the month, we drove up to Canada and did this 5-day canoeing trip in the middle of nowhere. It was intense.

For the whole 5 days, we carried everything we needed on our backs/in the canoes. Food, clothes, bug spray, cooking equipment, all that stuff. You know how heavy all that stuff is? Really, REALLY heavy. And every so often we'd get to a land crossing, and we'd have to lug all the canoes and packs on foot. It was SO HARD GUYS. I literally thought my back was going to snap in half.

So I'm hiking along, and I'm randomly just by myself on the trail, and I'm carrying this big-ass pack and it hurts like a mofo. And I'm grimy, and disgusting, and it's been like 4 days already and my socks are all wet, and I can't even sit down to rest because I wouldn't be able to get up again by myself.

And then comes along the most hated bug known to mankind: the MOSQUITO.

Mosquitoes are kind of like Canada's ambassadors, I think. At least that's what it felt like.

The mosquito decided that it would be the best idea ever to fly around my face and maybe try to bite my ear. Obviously that is the perfect place to bite someone. It was buzzing in my ear, and I kept trying to shoo it away, but it hurt my back too much to take my hands off the straps of the pack.

So guess what I did.

I SLAPPED it on the side of my FACE.

Let me explain something: I am a person who has jumped out of a moving vehicle to escape a moth. I shriek if I see an ant crawling on me. I can't kill mosquitoes, I can't go into those butterfly houses, and I will actually run into traffic to avoid cicadas. I'm the last person in the world who would willingly kill a mosquito with their face.

But I am also secretly a wild-beast-man who likes to go out and, like, rip up logs with their bare hands or whatever. And they wear plaid and stuff, and eat venison. Except I wouldn't eat venison because I don't like meat. I might be thinking of a lumberjack right now.

Soooo I slapped the mosquito (which also involved slapping myself in the face, by the way), looked at my hand, confirmed that the mosquito was a bloody mush on my palm, and wiped its corpse on my pants. And then I used the same unwashed hands to eat three sandwiches for lunch. Because I am MANLY.

Review: Forbidden Planet

The other night, my dad and I watched the movie Forbidden Planet. Forbidden Planet is a sci-fi movie from 1956. I think it's supposed to be a drama, but it was more of a comedy.

Observe.

1950's, we need to have a talk. You clearly do not know anything about science. Also you claimed that all the space-crew guys were in their twenties. Those guys were NOT in their twenties. They were all at least 40. You can tell because they have some wrinkles and they do not move spryly. Men in their twenties are very spry.

And then there is your background music. The entire soundtrack sounds like a malfunctioning Disney ride. Like in Tomorrowland at Disney World, there's all those bubbly-intergalactic-space-technology-blee-bloo-blee-bop sounds all over the place. Except at Disney World, all those spacey things sound very happy and exciting. It's all, PROGRESS! TECHNOLOGY! INNOVATION! THE FUTURE! AMERICA!

It turns out that tomorrow doesn't look like this at all.

The movie, on the other hand, is more like creepy, alien, is-a-Martian-going-to-jump-out-and-eat-me-I-want-to-go-home scary stuff. But here's the thing-- there's a romance fling going on between two of the characters, and the music doesn't change when the two characters are kissing! That is SO WEIRD. I know some people listen to music when they hook up and stuff, but I've always secretly judged those people because they deserved to be judged.

But back to the science. The science made no sense. Take this example scene that I completely made up:

Doc has just died from trying to boost his brain power with the alien machine thingy.

Dr. Morbius: I told him not to do it! The human mind cannot handle the magnitude of the machine's nuclear-atomic-quasi-matter-ray-thing!
Commander Adams: Of course! The Krell uploaded their brains using solar-magnetic-brain waves using inter-nano-centron-genome fusion technology!
Morbius: Fascinating! The speed of fusion is 10 million times greater than the capacity of neanderthal intelligence data-- more than 7 kilo-tron-mega-logic-bytes!
Adams: Xerophyte!
Morbius: Heliocentrism!
Adams: Carbon sequestration!
Morbius: Anaphylaxis algorithm!
Adams: Fibonacci sequence!
Morbius: Fission!
Adams: Sex!
Robby the Robot: For the love of god, SHUT UP.

That's basically the entire movie: made-up science. Also, there's a great scene at the end where Adams gives a speech to the crew about the dangers of the human id and man's egotism. Also Robby the Robot is the best character ever. We love Robby! (We being me. I love Robby.)

In this picture, Robby is putting a shoe on Altaira's foot.

Review: Anesthesia

This post is going to be a story about a time that I had anesthesia.

Once upon a time, my heart was confused and was not doing the beats the right way. Apparently even my heart doesn't have a good sense of rhythm. Maybe this is why I can't dance.

Anyway! There's this really simple procedure where they talk to your arteries in your groin (ew, gross) and laser out these extra electrical pathways in your heart that are messing up the beats and making you a bad dancer. It's really really common, and you don't even have to be asleep during the whole thing.

Since you don't have to be asleep, the anesthetic they give you isn't the kind that will necessarily knock you out. The doctor told me right before that almost everyone falls asleep, or at least lightly dozes, so I should expect to fall asleep.

Guess who doesn't react normally to anesthetic?

My anesthesiologist (or nurse anesthetist, whichever he was (the word anesthesia SUCKS)) was a guy named Dale. As he switched the IV over to the anesthetic, he told me to tell him if I felt anything and needed more or less. 90 seconds later, drugged-me took this as an invitation to tell Dale anything and everything that I had ever thought about ever.

They wheeled me into the operating room at some point. Or maybe it was just a regular room. I don't remember. Dale was sitting next to my table/bed/flat thing that I was lying on.

"Dale," I said, "the ceiling is moving."
"No," Dale said firmly, "it is not."
"But Dale, are you looking at it?"
"Yep."
"I see it moving."
"Well, it's not."
"But Dale, I'm looking right at it and it is moving!"
"I promise you, it's not moving."
I turned my head slightly to look at him. "Well your head just turned into a giant eagle, so whatever."
Dale made a sound through his beak that sounded like a chuckle.
"Kay. Talk to me when you're done being a bird."

At that moment, Dr. Kleinberg walked in (that's not his real name, I changed it to protect his privacy) (cuz you know, I'm super cool and professional and whatnot).

"Hey Dr. Kleinberg!" I shouted.
"Good morning Beth. How are you feeling?"
"I feel so amazing right now!"
"Good, good."
"How are you feeling?!" I was still shouting.
"I'm fine, thank you."
"Dr. Kleinberg, I did not shave my armpits before I came here."
"That's okay."
"Also I didn't get a bikini wax."
"Okay."
I looked back at Dale. "Hey Dale, you're back!"
"Hi Beth."
"Dale, this one time I got really drunk at a Passover seder, and it was really fun."
"That's nice."
"But guess what?"
"What?"
"This is SO much better!"
"Hm.
"No really, this stuff is fantastic! Can I take some home?"
"Nope."
"Can I buy it?"
"No."
"You're such a Debbie Downer, Dale."
"Yep."
"Dale Downer! You're such a Dale Downer! Hey guys," I yelled at all the nurses and miscellaneous people wearing scrubs and lab coats, "Dale is a Dale Downer!"

At some point, they got to the part where they were actually laser-ing in my heart. I knew this because I felt it. It didn't hurt. If you can imagine what it would feel like if your heart was drinking hot chocolate or tea, that's exactly what it felt like.

"Oh my god. Dale! I feel the laser! Guys, I am AWAKE right now! I am going to remember this when I wake up!"
"Okay, okay," Dr. Kleinberg mumbled.
"Dale, is he trying to tell me to be quiet?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Okay, I will whisper," I said in my loudest whisper voice. "Dale, I think we just bonded."
"Okay."
"Are we friends now?"
"Sure."
"You're a good friend, Dale."
"Thank you."

And I NEVER SAW DALE AGAIN.

I did see Dr. Kleinberg after, where he told my parents that I am very animated when given anesthetic. I had to stay in the hospital for the rest of the day so that they could keep me in a bed that was standing up. They wouldn't let me move or eat or go to the bathroom or anything. Instead, they used the IV to give my stomach food and water and such.

And this is the most exciting part: at one point, I said that I was super thirsty, and the nurse said, "I can fix that," and she switched something on the IV and it was the WEIRDEST feeling. It felt like I was drinking water, but through my veins. My throat wasn't dry anymore, and then I had an epiphany-- this is what a tree must feel like! Because trees don't have mouths, they drink through their roots, which are kind of like veins!

Moral of the story: I know what it feels like to be a tree. I am the Tree-Whisperer and it is the greatest thing ever. The end!

Also drugs are the best thing ever.

Review: Pet Peeves

Having a 'pet peeve' is code for 'I am a mean, backhanded person who can only communicate through passive-aggressive snideness and subtle acts of hostility'.

Because really, does it bother you SO MUCH when other people make noises or dress a certain way or engage in behaviors that do not affect you at all? Does it actually, really bother you?

Let's say, for example, that you really really hate ballet flats. That is a shoe style that's popular these days. It's like a ballet shoe, except it's not actually made for doing ballet. Why would other people's shoes bother you? No one's forcing you to wear them. In fact, you don't even need to look at other people's feet. Unless they're in your house and walking on your floors, why in the world do you care? Is your head so empty of interesting thoughts that you have to fill it with criticism of other people?

I actually heard a guy on the radio the other day complaining about how gross and unattractive it is when girls wear ballet flats. You know what I find unattractive? That guy. I could tell by his voice that he was a snobster and was thus unattractive.

Point of contention: it is entirely normal to not like things. It's okay to think something that someone does is annoying, or to have a weird thing about ballet flats or whatever. But when you label something as a 'pet peeve' instead of just saying 'I don't like that', you make it sound like everyone else is so gross and weird and you are perfect and never do anything that bothers anyone ever. Other people are not the issue. People wear ballet flats. People sneeze and crack their fingers and make odd sounds. That is normal. The only person with the issue is you.

This is why:

Let's say that I really don't like when people clear their throats. Maybe it grosses me out or something. I don't know, this is a hypothetical situation.

But let's say that I'm telling someone about this. If I say, "My biggest pet peeve is when people clear their throats," it puts all the blame on other people. It makes the person you're talking to feel ashamed for all the times that they've cleared their throat. It is snobby and not nice.

But instead, let's say you tell your friend, "I have this weird thing about people clearing their throats. It grosses me out for some reason, I don't know why. I'm weird," and then you both laugh at how weird you are because you know what? Your weirdness makes you awesome. You should embrace it and laugh at how silly it is that clearing throats grosses you out, because YOU'RE weird! Not other people!

So next time someone sneezes on you, don't tell your friends that your pet peeve is when someone sneezes on you. Tell them that it is fucking disgusting when someone sneezes on you. It's not a peeve, it's just gross. End of story.

Update: One-of-a-Kind Shirt

Remember the One-of-a-Kind Shirt post that I made a hundred years ago (aka last month)? I have found the identity of the creator, thanks to the lovely Tampa Bay Times. Click here to read the article about Mr. Jeffery Nagle, who has apparently sold 165 shirts at the time this was written. That's 165 people who I will never ever be friends with.

Bonus: the lady who wrote this article is also named Beth! Hello fellow Beth!

Skymall Review: Bob's Affirmation Box

You ever had a moment where you looked at yourself in the mirror and realized that you are the American/other-countries-an version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame? Not the actual hunched back per say, but maybe your veins are too blue for your face, or you have lumps of fat in places that make it hard to wear clothes, or your nose is bad at being a nose. Maybe you have a unibrow, or perhaps a unibutt. Maybe you have a mole on your chin with a single dark hair growing out of it that makes you look like a witch, and you have to pluck it out every so often to avoid being ugly and witch-y (that is totally NOT true story).

Whatever the cause, we all have moments where we feel bad about the way we look. Thank god Skymall is here to help... especially if your name is Bob.

Bob's Affirmation Box

Bob's Affirmation Box is a wooden box that says affirmations when the lid is opened. Except the affirmations aren't directed towards any old person who happens to open the box, they are ONLY for people named Bob. How many Bob's are there in the world? Why would a company limit their market to such a tiny sliver of the world's population?

Thanks to this handy dandy website that knows everyone's names, I can tell Skymall exactly how many Bob's there are in the US. Behold!

I searched for Bob as a first name and a last name. Hopefully there is no such person as 'Bob Bob'.

If you look at howmanyofme.com's home page, they tell you that as of RIGHT NOW, there are 315,803,486 people in the US (this can be verified by googling 'population US' because Google knows everything, I think). You know what percentage of the US population has the first name Bob? 0.0275%. That basically means that 1 person out of every 3,600 Americans is named Bob. There are not nearly enough people named Bob to justify making a talking box ONLY for Bobs.


Soooo this piece of Bob-crap is the perfect gift for anyone named Bob (which is no one). Other than that... it's pretty useless. You could actually get way more for your money with one of those Hallmark cards that lets you record a message for the recipient. That way, you wouldn't have to wait for someone named Bob to come along. Unless, of course, you are one of "Bob's legions of fans". That is the creepiest product description I've ever read ever.

Can you tell that I just learned how to make screenshots and am really excited about it?

Although according to the customer reviews, the box will only say "Way to go, Bob," and none of the other affirmations. If Skymall's customers say it's a piece of crap, then it's definitely a piece of crap. Also, what is a 'big send-off'? They make it sound like that's an object that can fit inside the box. I was under the impression that a send-off was more of an abstract concept? ANYWAY Bob box yes done.