Top ten most memorable moments from Teen Girl Squad

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please reconsider your misspent youth.  Because this is what my friends and I watched at b'grl parties in middle and early high school :)  So visit this website when you have a free hour or ten, and relive the glory days of the early 'naughts.  But in the meantime, enjoy the fact that I could make all these references without looking them up.

Honorable Mention #1: A wave of babies.

I admit What's-her-face, this one doesn't make sense.  You were the only one smart enough to not jump in the lion's mouth.  But you get punished somehow by a hawaiian man drowning you in a wave of babies?  I guess it's not the weirdest manner of death in this series. But still. Memorable.

Honorable Mention #2: Hi Brett.  Thanks, you've filled out nicely too.

Oh So-and-so and talking to the imaginary boyfriend you made up in the first grade.  Maybe if you were watching where you were going you wouldn't have fallen down that bottomless spirit pit.  When you fall down a bottomless pit, you die of starvation.  Someone throw that girl a juice box.  Or maybe some lunchables.

10. I think my friends and some presidents just flew by.

Because hilarious things always happen when you're not there.  This one's for you What's-her-face.  I never understood why they remembered to invite The-ugly-one but not you.

9: That tompkins is such a renegade.

You hear that girls? Pizza belongs in a triangle.  But So-and-so, I am shocked you were so easily swayed away from your imaginary boyfriend!  But no worries--worldwide starlets get much boys.... or so I have read.

8. Your stepmom has questionable taste.  And like a million jogging suits.

Because where else would you practice with your made-up band Kissy Boots?  Step-mom Judith's walk-in closet of course.

7. Poss-ums.

What's-her-face reminds us to always use caution when walking home unaccompanied from the thrift store.  Especially since all the clothes smell like Grandmas. Apparently that attracts possums.

6. Now I can overachieve like a bandit!

TEN-O-CLOCK AND TWO-O-CLOCK.  So-and-so, you are a girl after my own heart.  With Cheerleader gone, it looks like the start of a kinder, gentler squad of teen girls.

5. And then crazy-learner's-permit-girl game me a ride to babbages.

What?!  They don't even have any turbo-graphx games???  You might as well have just eaten a heaping bowl of staple sauce.  Because corn chips are no place for a mighty warrior.

4. I'm. Hesitant.

Because you should never jump into a lion's mouth.  Even for a holiday decemberween gift exchange.  Once again What's-her-face, you are a paragon of knowledge. A gift card for fashion?? How did you know!?

3. Wiggedy-wack? Nope.  Just regular type.

Ya'll are so wack! It's moments like these that I remember just how many of my euphemisms come from Teen Girl Squad.  Thank you cheerleader.

2. Grood.  I mean Great.  And  good.  Good and great.

Stop saying words! You just try and recover from that one Cheerleader. We all know you'll get your comeuppance one of these days. (Cerebellum'd!)  And in the mean time, we will just keep quoting this one.  At least weekly.

1. Weirded Out.

The only appropriate response when you discover your friend talking to her imaginary boyfriend.  Points for you What's-her-face.  Especially for coining probably my most-used phrase ever.

It's Not All Our Fault: Exhibit E

More reasons for why our generation is messed up.

Exhibit E: The interwebs.  

Technology in general.  Did it make us a smarter, more well-informed people?  Or do we live in a fantasy and have no real drive to accomplish tangible things?  Both?  Laziness.  Debatable.

This is a baby that thinks a magazine is an iPad that doesn't work. Totes adorbs.  And also kind of sad.

This is Second Life.  People spend real-life money to buy things that aren't real.  And have relationships with avatars that aren't real, but are controlled by other people who spend their real-life money on things that aren't real.

I remember when DVDs were first a thing, Dad's favorite joke was that we needed to rewind it before returning it to blockbuster.  This is a group of people who have never seen a VCR, and don't know what a re-winder is, nor that it was considered polite to rewind your VHS tape before returning it to the video store.  Also, they've probably never seen a video store because they are all out of business now.

Also, they don't know why the 'Save' button in every software on the planet looks like this.

I once referred to different types of fonts as 'different types of handwriting.'

Did you know that, while teenagers aged 15-19 lose about 18 seconds of educational time for every minute they spend online, Americans aged 20-24 only lose about 7 seconds for each minute?  A number that continues to decrease as age increases.

I couldn't tell you my husband's phone number, but I remember all my friends' numbers from elementary school  when memorizing was still a thing that people did.

What will presidential elections look like in 20 years when people can go back and look at the candidate's college years on MySpace or Facebook?  Trouble.  That's what it will look like.

It's a million times easier to write papers, both researching and fact-finding, as well as looking up appropriate publishing conventions.  Not to mention how much faster it is to type a paper.  I still hear horror stories from my parents about discovering a typo on a page and having to retype the whole thing on the typewrite.  Gross.

Can we talk about spell check?  Because for good or ill, that little device has certainly made it's mark.  Publications are more accurate, but people are less certain of how to spell the word to begin with.

You can g-chat with your long-lost friends that are practically fallen off the face of the known world.

But also this article about our time spent online.

Thanks Al Gore.  For ruining our lives.  I bet you didn't wish you had taken credit for the internet now.

Things that aren't around anymore but should still be a thing

Starburst California Fruits.

Not Baja.  Just California.

It was quite possibly the greatest combination of Starburst flavors ever.  Wild Cherry, Strawberry-Watermelon, Raspberry, Plum Passion.  It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about the delicious juicy-ness.  Admittedly, it wouldn't be amiss to replace wild cherry with mango melon or kiwi banana (speaking of delicious but culled Starburst flavors...), but really.  How do you even try to improve on that bit of awesomeness?  It's like a fruit-flavor all-star list.  This team would win the candy world series!  And no one remembers that it was ever a thing.  How?  How did that happen world?

I remember writing them a strongly worded note about 10 years ago about how Starbursts fans around the world were falling into a state of depression without their California fruits.  Clearly mine was the only letter they received.

But I still remember you Starburst California.  I keep alive the flame of faith that one day Mars Corp will bring your flavors of deliciousness back to store shelves everywhere.

Stay juicy my friends.

Time Out for Art!

It's an important thing.  Using a different set of skills than the ones you use everyday not only expands your horizons, the variety sharpens your senses and makes you better at the things you normally do.  The brain is an amazing thing.

These are the mugs Tyler and I designed and baked!  Hooray for craft night!

Irrational Fears

Happy Return from the Holiday Season post!! [Because in my world, the holidays go from Thanksgiving to President's Day.]

I am constantly on the hunt for a good solid reason for hating monkeys.  Because I really, really don't like them.  It is borderline irrational.  But I feel like there has to have been some sort of bad experience that I can blame it on.

Oh you think they're awesome and cute 'cause they're furry and vocal and groom themselves and have hands and feet with opposable thumbs?  Wrong.  Monkeys are the worst.

Most likely candidates for why I really, really don't like monkeys:

The flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz.  I loved that movie.  Watched it over and over again as a kid.  My mom would always threaten to turn it off because she would come in and I would be hiding behind the couch... but I'm pretty sure what really freaked me out were the winkie gaurds... not the monkeys.  Those guards and their chant gave me nightmares for years.  I guess the flying monkeys are scary, but probably not the main reason I hate monkeys.





The Monkey King from Big Bird in China.  I used to watch this movie every time I got sick, which if you know me at all, means I watched it a few times a month as a kid.  The monkey king would make me nervous.  He had some cray-cray makeup on, and he was always popping in-and-out of the frame because he was magical.  And he didn't move like a normal person.  Probably because he was trying to be a Monkey King.  It didn't matter that he was theoretically a good guy, trying to help Big Bird find the phoenix bird, giving clues and such.  He was always mild-to-moderately creepy.  A strong contender.




The movie Congo.  Have you seen this movie?  Because this movie was not appropriate for small
children... and I saw it several times as a small child.  They lure you in with the sweet talking gorilla at the beginning,[they outfit a quasi-domesticated gorilla with a device that converts her sign-language into speech]  then the researchers decide they need to take the gorilla into the Congo to see how wild gorillas would react to a gorilla that speaks.

Spoiler alert:  It doesn't end well.

Cliff Notes: Dogs Decoded

And, this is totally seasonal because the National Dog Show is always on at Thanksgiving... not that I ever watch it or anything.

[Dogs have been happening for a while now.]

I was watching an episode of Nova last night called Dogs:Decoded.  It was so amazing!  Basically, it was about how geneticists, anthropologists, and archaeologists are beginning to recognize the important role dogs had in progressing humanity out of the hunter-gatherer stage.  They have begun conducting experiments and gathering data evaluating things dog owners have claimed for years; namely, that dogs and people can understand each other.

The data was fascinating.

On the human side, most people seem to be able to understand a dog's basic emotions.  When given audio of different kinds of barks, people can accurately identify the emotion or situation the dog is trying to convey.  Curiously, wolves (the dogs direct ancestor), bark very little.  They make occasional sounds in order to convey danger, but the sounds dogs make seem to have originated solely as a method of communicating with humans.  Which makes perfect sense.  If you assume a dog has an intelligence level similar to that of a toddler before it begins forming words, many of the comparisons become clear.  Any parent can tell you their child understands words and meanings, and communicates in their own way, before they learn speech.  Why not a dog?  In fact, further research indicates that when a human is petting a dog, both experience a jump in oxytocin levels, the same hormone that helps generate the bond between a mother and a newborn.  It's no wonder we bond with them.

[Clearly the happiest dog ever.]

On the animal side it gets even more interesting.  Dogs have become adept at learning non-verbal cues.  Not only are they capable of understanding hand signals--such as pointing or other information providing gestures, they are able to understand them as a rule, and not as an exception.  Even small puppies are able to follow the direction of a pointed finger.  While other animals, such as chimps, do theoretically have the ability to learn and understand hand signals, it takes a significant amount of training and does not seem to be a universal trait like it is in dogs.

Even more importantly, dogs can read our emotions.  In multiple studies,  it has become clear that dogs use the same method of facial tracking that humans do to read emotions.  They are the only known animal that does this.

[How is this not the most adorable thing you've ever seen?]

So three-cheers for the dog owners.  Turns out they were right all along!  (But maybe still you shouldn't have long conversations with your dog like you expect him to answer.)

I'm told I have a dark sense of humour

[The other denizens of the workplace jungle watched in horror as the stress of Fiscal Year End Crocodile claimed another victim. March and April would never be the same.]