Just dropping by to post where I can now be found…

I’ve had to simplify my life some, and this means (among other things) cutting down on the number of blogs I have.

I’ve pulled all of my posts into one place, and now blog only under my real name, India Drummond.

If you want to find me, you can see me in all my bitter goodness at: http://www.indiadrummond.com/

I hope you will join me there!

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I’m not sure what it says about me that my favourite websites are all about mocking other people.  Well, scratch that.  I’m entirely certain what it says about me, but I’m not going to say it out loud.

My new favourite site, Cake Wrecks was brought to my attention by a Facebook friend, and the first time I went there, I spent no less than two hours with tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard.  Although it wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my day off, it was worth it.  It’s the only site I’ve found which has the words “perverted vegetable rodeo” on it, which really is enough of a reason to love it right there.

This site is devoted to professionally created cakes that have gone horribly wrong.  Some are like the pic above, with a huge WTF factor, while others are full of funny misspellings or the baker writing the decorating instructions ON THE CAKE (as in “Happy Birthday - I Want Sprinkles”).

Another favourite site is Passive Agressive Notes, which is pretty self-explanatory, although you’d really have to see the site and dig around for a few minutes to understand why other people’s frustration is so funny.  This one is a combination of a crack-up and a scary vision into the demented minds of other people that makes you want to say something nice to all your coworkers just in case today is the day they show up with a nine mil.  Just sayin’.

One I ran across last year was Crummy Church Signs which I think might only be funny if you live in the South (USA) where people actually put up signs like this in front of churches.  My British husband doesn’t really get it.  Well, he gets the fact that the signs are mildly horrifying, but he doesn’t really get why people put the signs up in the first place.

If you know of a hilarious site along these lines, please share!

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You know, I was raised by a particularly intelligent woman.  And I’m not just saying that because she sometimes reads this blog either.  She already knows it, and false modesty isn’t a sin in which she partakes.  This, by the way, is the disclaimer part of the post.  I do it often.  You’d think that being bitter for so long I’d have ceased to care who I offend, but it just hasnt’ worked out that way.  So, Mom, this one isn’t your fault.  Or, well, really it is, but let’s both blame someone else and then talk about them behind their back.

I grew up believing that romance novels are trashy.  Yes, I can hear you all saying, “But they ARE” all the way over here, but think about it.  Really?  What’s trashy about them?  Are they badly written?  Some, yes, but not all by any stretch.  Jane Eyre isn’t anything but a very old romance novel, and no one calls it trashy.  Well, you say, but it’s a classic!  A classic is just something that’s survived.  Like me.  Not all classics (unlike me) are really any good.  Try reading Moby Dick and then tell me with a straight face that you enjoyed it. 

So if it isn’t the quality of writing that makes it trashy, what is it?  The cover art?  Yes, some is laughably bad.  I love the spoofs on the Longmire website, one of which I’ve shamelessly stolen here.  So we do often judge books by their covers, which is another reason I’m pretty happy that I now own a Sony Book Reader, because I can read whatever the france I want and nobody gets to judge me for it. 

But sci-fi and fantasy are also riddled with bad cover art, but no one says “Trashy” before the phrase “Sci Fi” or rolls their eyes they way you’ll get if you tell someone you have just finished a good romance novel.

So, I decided to test my prejudices and I’ve started downloading romance books.  I blame Charlaine Harris, actually.  I fell in love with the TV series True Blood on HBO (watched on the web because it hasn’t come out in the UK yet, dammit), and have since read all her Sookie Stackhouse novels.  Actually… I read all 8 of them in about 2 weeks.  Seriously.  And I don’t even LIKE vampire stories.  Talk about trashy.  I get images of Béla Lugosi and get the giggles.  Sorry, Anne Rice, but even if you take the comical aspect away, how on earth is cannibalism sexy?  Tell me that?  Anyway, that’s another rant altogether.

Anyway, I could go on and on about what makes romance trashy, and by now you’re probably worried that I will.  Either that or you’re shouting “Too Late!” at your monitor.  I’ll skip it all and get to the point. 

Write this one down, Ethel.  It’s the s-e-x.  If men talk about sex it’s bawdy and perhaps coarse, but boys will be boys.  If women talk about sex… and I’m talking about grown women here… it’s trashy?  It’s trashy to write about it, read about it, and for gods sake, don’t think about it either!  That leads down a path of decay!  Or maybe it’s just that most romance books deal with love and relationships.  By god that IS trashy!

Because I’ve been reading a few romance books lately…. probably… 40 books in the last 4 months. (I’ve got a lot of catching up to do… Jane Eyre was the last one I’d read!)  Some historical, some modern, some futuristic and a couple paranormal (that’s what they call vampires and ghosts these days.)  And I will tell you… some were really crap.  No doubt about that.  But there were a few that made me laugh out loud, got me misty eyed, and even made my pulse go a wee bit faster.  But guess what…. none of them were trashy.  Imagine that.

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CNN reported yesterday that a woman was held for the “virtual murder” of her “virtual” ex-spouse.  Yes, the guy dumped her online, so she logged in to his account in “Maple Story” a virtual reality world, and killed his avatar.

Apparantly the actual charge is something like hacking.  CNN reporters are such a bunch of drama queens.  Murder!

But I think the absolute best part of the story is here:

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.

It reminds me of the young guy that went to police after being beaten up by a pack of old ladies at a Sarah Palin rally recently.  Allegedly.  Or something.  But the point is, if I were a 20 year old man that went to an enclosed space that was guaranteed to be full of activists of quite the opposite point of view from me, I wouldn’t admit that little gem of stupidity, much less that mob mentality had seized a bunch of seniors and I’d gotten my ass handed to me.

And that’s what this is about really….. good judgement.  We expect our political candidates to have it, we want our bosses and our employees to have it, our teachers and even strangers, and then we go off and do things like give our co-workers our passwords after engaging in some “virtual marriage” (as if the real thing isn’t hard enough, we have to pretend to do it online as well) and then are so shocked and surprised when they go postal on us after we tell them that we’re done with them that we call the police when we’ve been virtually wronged.  You know what?  There’s enough real wrong in the world to worry about this idiot guy’s virtual hurt.

I seriously hope the cops end up just laughing at the guy and saying ‘Umm, this is why everyone with brains ever told you never never never give out your password, no matter what kind of virtual nookie you’re getting.”  And then I hope they add “Dumbass.” just for good measure.

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Remember how when you were 19 you could hop in a car and drive for 16 hours and arrive at your desination feeling maybe slightly tired and jazzed from too many soft drinks and fast food, but generally okay?

20 years later and hopping on a plane for a quick visit to ailing parents (it used to be a desperate need to be on a beach, or shopping that would make me drop everything and go, but no more) turned into a month long ordeal involving swollen ankles, thrombophlebitis (which includes steroids, pain killers and a heating pad), an aching back, and really most of the time wanting to be back home, not that said parents aren’t good company, but more that I’ve become a creature of habit and I like my habits.  In other words, I’m getting old.

Not that I’m complaining about getting old.

Okay wait yes I’m complaining about getting old.

I was prepared for the wrinkles and the grey hair, but I suppose I always thought that life would be fabulous.  Or if life wasn’t fabulous, I certainly thought I would be.  Maybe once the cloud of jetlag lifts, I’ll be able to figure out what the hell happened.

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