Category Archives: Updates

A traditional update in the grand update tradition

Roommate’s cats

Updates

A couple of weeks ago I moved into a townhouse. I like the place, but my roommate has four cats, which is ludicrous. When you open a cupboard, often a cat will bound out from it onto your head. I am constantly waking up in the middle of the night to find that my pillow isn’t a pillow at all, but yet another cat. I’d swear there were about eleven or twelve cats, but I know for a fact that there’re only four because I made a list:

Reuben
This is the token “fatty” of the group. He’s also batshit crazy. He sits there meowing at the wall for no reason while flipping his head around in a circle. One time he was sitting in the bathroom sink when I needed to brush my teeth and I couldn’t get him to leave, so I turned on the water in an attempt to flood him out. He just sat there in the sink with the scalding hot water coming down on him, purring like a complete moron.

Pete
When you crinkle up a piece of paper, Pete will come running toward you from any room in the townhouse. If you throw the paper, he will dart after it and carry it around in his mouth as if he’d caught a mouse. Then he will actually bring it back to you and drop it, awaiting your next throw. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a fetching cat. In my opinion this is the only cat of the four that should be fed every day.

Charlie
I can’t stand this cat Charlie. The other cats hate him, too—whenever they see Charlie they tackle the shit out of him, causing him to scamper away. They don’t have any idea why they hate Charlie, and neither do I. All I know is that for some reason every time I see him, the thing I want most in the world is to punt him like a football.

Bitty
Until recently this cat and I got along very well. He mostly minded his own business and that was fine by me. I had been warned he had a habit of humping a particular stuffed bear, but I figured that what he did in his private life was his own business. Then a few days ago I was in my bedroom reading a book when I casually glanced toward my left. To my horror, there was Bitty, going to town on his bear. He had actually dragged the ratty thing into the only room that was being occupied by a person, as if he was proud of his behavior and wanted an audience. I know Bitty’s just a cat, but that is sick, unconscionable behavior. Since this incident it’s been awkward just being in the same room as Bitty, and if I ever find his little girlfriend in my bedroom again I swear to Christ I’m moving out.

Awards

Updates

People are wont to give away all sorts of awards. I recently read in a catalogue about a stapler that was purported to have an “award-winning” design. Sounds pretty prestigious until you consider the fact that there’s no such thing as an award for office supplies. I know there isn’t because if there was, everyone would buy tickets to this marvelous gala event. But you mustn’t just give away awards willy-nilly—if you do the whole concept becomes meaningless.

The fact is, if you have ever been given any awards you may as well throw them in the dumpster, because very few awards really matter. Your so-called “gold” and “silver” medallions are not actually made of gold and silver. I can’t say what they’re actually made of since I’ve never won any awards, but I’m imagining a cheap chalky type of plastic. Trophies are the same—those fit little golden men and women in their fancy athletic poses. They’re concentrating extremely hard on their little sport, and you can tell they’re probably really good at it, but come on. You needn’t put these creepy little men on your mantel. All you’re doing is making me feel bad that the only trophies I have are a swimming trophy from the ninth grade and a miniature golf trophy from Putt-Putt. I’m not particularly good at miniature golf, and I can’t say why my local Putt-Putt even bothered awarding trophies, but I honestly do have this trophy in my possession. I would never throw him in the dumpster. He is a little golden man carefully lining up his little golden putter and he’s just about the greatest thing I’ve ever won in my entire life.

Corporate websites

Updates

Everybody knows that corporate websites have absolutely no value. Upon visiting them, you’ll first be confronted with a seven-minute flash animation that will eventually ask you to select your preferred language. Not content with this, they’ll also want to know exactly which country you’re visiting from, and since they are for some reason unable to interpret your IP address, you’ll need to go ahead and click one of a dozen flags that are being juggled by the silhouette of a bear on a unicycle. Next you’ll be treated to another needlessly elaborate animation from which eventually emerges a menu that is more difficult to navigate than the Bermuda triangle. If you are resilient to motion sickness and very patient, congratulations–you may now enter the serial number you’ve found on the back of your bottle cap for your chance to instantly win a shitty baseball cap.

It’s all just one big circus to these people, isn’t it? Well the internet wasn’t always that way–ten years ago it was even more ridiculous. Please join me for a very special episode of eKarjala: Internet ’96.

Dessert book

Updates

Back in the fourth grade, my elementary school friend Robbie and I discovered what I now acknowledge to be the funniest book I’ve ever read. It was an illustrated book about deserts whose text consisted of a series of insipid facts relating to their patterns of precipitation, the plants and animals who thrive there, etc. However, when we began reading the book one of us inadvertently read “desert” as “dessert,” which resulted in a sentence that had us in hysterics for a well over twenty minutes. I don’t remember what the book was called, so I can’t provide an exact quote, but by looking up deserts on Wikipedia I can provide an accurate approximation: “Desserts usually have an extreme temperature range. Most desserts have a low temperature at night. This is because the air is very dry (contains little moisture) and therefore holds little heat so as soon as the sun sets, the dessert cools quickly.”

If that sentence isn’t funny to you, perhaps you’re not actually imagining a dessert, as in a some kind of pastry or cake served after dinner. As far as Robbie and I were concerned, this was a miracle of comedy. Applying the same formula to the rest of the book, we had the rare privilege of reading such sentences as: “About one-fifth of Earth’s land surface is dessert” and, “Because desserts are dry, they are ideal places for human artifacts and fossils to be preserved.” By the time we’d completed our book about desserts with ludicrous properties, our laughter had become maniacal and we probably had to be escorted out of the classroom.

The next day we tried applying similar alterations to other books, but quickly realized that the effect couldn’t be forced, and that nothing would ever compare to the magical afternoon Robbie and I learned about the harsh, unforgiving landscape known as a “dessert.”

Winking

Updates

There’s nothing creepier than when somebody winks at me. Why are you winking at me? Perhaps you are trying to convey that you are having an amusing little joke and want me to play along, but all I hear you saying is: “Sometimes I enjoy molesting children.” You are trying to make me complicit in your strange little joke, but your winking is only making me feel uncomfortable. If you’re kidding around, that’s OK, but tell me that in words, not through winking. Never wink at me again you invasive freak.