Solitaire

Lately my Facebook newsfeed has been inundated and clogged with the onset of "Which ____ from _____ are you?" Buzzfeed / Thought Catalogue tests. Aside from the "What is Your Inner Potato" quiz I haven't been able to get excited about any of them. I feel a sense of deep frustration.

The natural course of action was to devise my own personality analysis quiz. Something we can all relate to. And without further ado...

What does your go-to Solitaire Card Back say about you?

Seashell
You are bold to near-recklessness. You are a bad B and no one can touch you. You know when to keep it Times New Roman and when to get your Wingdings on. 

Robot
Your mom and dad decided you were playing too many war simulator games and took them away when you got a 'D' on the Of Mice and Men book report. This punishment included Minesweeper. Playing with the robot card was your way of sticking it to them. In short, you are anti-establishment. 

Hand of Aces
You are a Dad. Or a creep. 

Roses
You are ambitious and determined in your romantic pursuits. All you think about is relationships and true love and that INCLUDES the time you are playing solitaire. I think I hate you.

Clownfish or Palm Tree
Life's a beach and you're just playing in the sand.  You are a risk taker--willing to break the rules for the sake of a good time. As the life of the party, you are likely holding a margarita right now. 

Flowers/Flowers with a Filter
Gotta be honest and say it--you are boring as hell and possibly pretentious. You are no-nonsense and that's fine except you have no passion. Stop being so stiff.  If you opt for the latter then you saw the value in filters before any of the rest of us. For that I tip my cap to you and you may disregard the beginning part of this description. 

Haunted House
You are generally troubled. You have donned a dog collar as jewelry and you're not afraid to say so. You played Solitaire in the background as a cover for what you were REALLY doing on the the computer--trolling the chat room circuit. 

I hope this helped you get your daily dose of self-satisfaction / you know yourself better now. That's what these quizzes are for--right? By the way my inner potato is French Fries. 

Stop Pinning, Start Doing

Remember that time I said I was going to be really active on Pinterest?

For those who don't know: Pinterest is an online, primarily female, community of people who basically create collections ("boards") of recipes, JCrew clothes, home decor, butt-toning exercises and wedding centerpiece ideas. Sometimes unidentified babies are thrown into the mix. It is essentially a virtual refrigerator door or glorified cork board. 

I have come to the conclusion that Pinterest is NOT for me. I can't bake those recipes. I can't contort my body into those yoga poses. I have no interest in a 7 day juice cleanse. I don't have a multi-bedroom house to fill those crafts with...OR the skills to make crafts. I don't have a wedding to plan. I have ready access to adorable animal pictures on my iphone. I just don't have a place in the Pinterest community.

Okay--maybe I'm just bitter that nobody follows my boards. Why doesn't my collage of my favorite books' cover pages interest you people? What about my board that only has a softball glove pinned to it--are you guys saying my glove isn't fascinating?

I'm mad at everyone. 

But here's a link to my pinterest anyway. Just incase.

Allison's Favorite Things

For the record IDGAF about your favorite things, Oprah, but I still took a peek at your 2012 selections because I hate you. I tend to keep a close eye on the people I hate.

Coach Puffers. FUCKING EW, O. May as well pair your ugly Coach Puffer with some chunky black Steve Madden shoes and go to your middle school band concert because I can't think of one other place where you'd fit in.

Microsoft Surface Tablet. Yeah? You love it so much that you tweeted about the product from your iPad? You're so fake--spare us.

I see you have not one but two Macy's Hotel Collection items (bed set, towels) on your list of favorite things. Anything for your sponsors, huh? No shot you sleep with sheets that are only 600 thread count. 

And finally--Nobody is interested in your favorite jellies. So nasty. Use with Cornish hens? Who are you? Bye.

To you I simply say: Move Bitch and make way for Allison's flyest (albeit random) things for America:

Ciroc : "The Art of Celebration"

Whatever Aaron Paul toasts with is what America needs to be unanimously toasting with, asap.

Mad Men Fashion

We all need to reevaluate our lives and our choices, using Christina Hendricks' ensembles as a guiding spirit. Further detailed in an earlier post from this year.

Nike Frees

Do you just want to wake up at the crack of dawn, JUMP out of bed and haul it out the door for a run without even stopping to brush your teeth? Buy them. Not in the hot pink/black/blue combo though....don't rip my style.

Chicken Quesadillas (with EXTRA special sauce)

Taco Bell is delicious and everyone who pretends otherwise is a bonafide hater.

Bruno Mars 'Locked Out of Heaven'

Being the benevolent and righteous girl that I am, I've forgiven Bruno for his 'Lazy Song' atrocity. The Police and Michael Jackson undertones present in this song just work. 

May the new year bring you all good fortune and an increased presence of my flyest things.

Stacks on Stacks on Snax

I read a Huffington Post article titled Bon Appetit: Snacks from the '90s We Love and Miss and I just have a few comments...

Surge Soda
How are you going to mention Surge and NOT discuss the fact that everybody thought it was a sperm killer? Rumor or not, that was a very integral part of Surge's shelf-life as a Coke product, and a disgrace to the marketing team that must have spent MANY sleepless nights thinking of ways to convince the middle school population that their ability to produce off-spring wouldn't be affected by this Mountain Dew knock-off. Huge oversight, imo.

Doritos 3D
Couldn't agree more with HuffPo on this one. I hated 3D Doritos. I'm in a distinct camp of people that believe Doritos have been on the down-swing since the '90s--a phenonomen I detail in greater length here. The introduction of 3DD to the chip market was a blow to the Dorito legacy.

Air Heads
Can anyone, anywhere, tell me what White Mystery was? SOS.

Oreo O's
This one goes out to the one, the only, Sheila Gilchrist. The final arbiter of all things Oreo (be it Cakesters, Golden, or DoubleStuf variety) in the Gilchrist household. Loved that shit like crack. Glad this cereal is getting a well-deserved spot in the mainstream media.

War Heads
This candy did not make the list and I'm baffled. Where I come from, War Heads weren't just candy--they served as currency. Lemon was the equivalent of the penny, whereas getting a Blackberry was akin to having crisp Benjamin in your wallet. Social mobility was quite fluid in a society where wealth came in the form of War Heads. You could go from rags to riches in no time, so long as your mom bought the 500 piece bag. Anyone could be Elementary Royalty. Who doesn't miss that?

Oh, and HuffPo, you forgot Ring Pops.

What's In A Name?

A lot, IMO.

At 11:30 PM on June 4, 2012 #MyNameWasSupposedToBe was trending on twitter in Washington. Legend has it that one of the names on the short-list of possible names for me was "Roxanne."

...I know, I know. Honestly what I think happened was my mom didn't get weird food cravings, but rather weird name cravings. I can't think of one single other reasonable way to describe her near lack of judgement. I get that hormones make you do crazy things, but 'Roxanne' would have been cruel. I mean, being the rockstar that I am, I naturally would have been able to rock 'Roxanne' (no pun), but it would have been unfair and I would have faced adversity my whole life. 'Allison' is about average. Not excessively common, but not abstract. Just normal. It suits me well. My sister used to try and tell me that I was named after Allison Transmission, and even if that were true I'd prefer that over Roxanne.

Allison didn't make the Top 40 Baby Names of 2012, but 'Zoey' did. Sometimes I don't get you people. Zoey? Isabella? Jacob? Just how many people are naming their kids after Twilight characters/Disney channel stars? Number 1 for boys is MASON?! As in Kourtney Karshdashian's baby with the angry eyebrows??  Is someone going to have to name their kid iCarly before we start saying parents are going too far?

And what is really good with hipster names? I love this article. "Why do parents who are making such efforts to move ahead of the crowd end up simply jumping off a groovier bridge?" These are the questions... 

It's a little different for animals, I know, but nonetheless I have been agonizing over the name of my future kitten (ETA June 20)! The pressure isn't particularly crippling because it's not even a question of whether or not kitty and I are going to be ride or die, but I would still feel bad giving it a weird name regardless of the fact that the love between us will be unconditional. I'm going with 'Oliver' for a boy (which I'm hoping for), or 'Ollie' when it's just the two of us running around the apartment and jumping on the bed. Oliver made it onto the top (human) baby names list linked above, but as far as I'm concerned Oliver is only appropriate for orphans and kittens.

It seems that people aren't always as cautious as me in naming living beings. I met a woman and her puppy in an elevator sometime last month. She was be-floppy hatted, but otherwise she seemed ordinary. The dog started licking my hand as an introduction and then she announced, "This is Justice...Justice Dandelion" (verbatim).

Whoa, excuse me? Stop right there. I almost called PETA immediately because this is obviously a form of animal cruelty. Justice Dandelion? Why? JD is going to have his ass HANDED to him at the dog park, and it is completely this woman's fault.

Granting a name to another living being is a sacred opportunity. To some degree you control someone else's identity. Let's be serious--anyone that names their kid Allison but uses "Y" instead of "I" or the dreaded single "L" is setting their daughter up for imminent failure. The poor girl could never feel complete, and who wants to live that way?

In Defense of Trash TV

There are a few personality quirks that make me Allison. One of those things is my love for Latin America. Another characteristic is that I value the relationships I have with my pets more than the relationships I have with other people (generally). Most importantly, I love trash television. MTV, TLC, VH1, whatever network Sarah Palin's Alaska show is on...you name a network, there's a show I just have to watch. Among the many stars, there is one brilliant supernova...

Teen Mom

There is nothing better than coming home after a long day of reality and sitting in front of the TV watching miserable people procreate. If I had a rough day, it would honestly make me feel better to watch Leah and Corey's marriage crumble on TV. If you would just give Trash TV a chance, I know you'd love it too.

Is there anything more satisfying than watching Janelle and Keifer (sp?) and their tempestuous relationship? Nothing. If anything, I'm learning from them. It's educational. I appreciate my relationships more. I'm grateful that my boyfriend isn't homeless and doesn't need me to bail him out of jail.

I definitely will not completely disparage the people who argue that shows like "Teen Mom" and "Sixteen and Pregnant" glamorize teen pregnancy and young motherhood, but to those people, I simply present Exhibit A:

After years of watching Teen Mom, I am no more likely to want to have sex and subsequently have a child with this creature.

The point of watching TV is to be entertained. It's a chance to escape from the real world after having to think about the world all day long at work. Haters need to open their minds a little. You'll never look back.

The Market

In my high school it was common to refer to someone else's popularity as "stock." The social stock market was all-knowing and extremely volatile. Depreciation-worthy offenses included (but were certainly not limited to) joining after-school clubs that weren't sports, leaving the country for an extended period of time, or simply getting on the wrong side of the alpha male. Once he said your stock was down, the market reacted and it was hard to sway public opinion of the stability of your stock. Conversely, getting a perfect score on your SAT's, having good parties, or knowing someone over 21 to acquire alcohol beverages were examples of reasons why one's stock could suddenly shoot up in value. If you didn't catch my tone already--I didn't like this system. It was normally used in jest, but still, it's very Mean Girls-esque (not that I don't LOVE Mean Girls).

I decided it would be interesting to apply the social market principles and norms to global events/trends. Read on for my thoughts on the value of certain social stocks today:


OWS -Devalued. Way devalued. The "movement" not only lacks a clear, agreed-upon mission, but the Occupiers also terrorize free Starbucks bathrooms everywhere. If they haven't been already, OWS camps will be bull-dozed soon enough. No one should invest anymore time/attention to these people.

Swine Flu - Bankrupt. No one gets swine flu anymore.

Blackberries for personal use - Plummeting, absolutely plummeting. Sell immediately, cut your losses. The Blackberry was, at one point, the cream of the smart phone crop. Blackberries joined breathing, food, water, and homeostasis as one of the primary necessities listed at the base of the Hierarchy of Human Needs pyramid. The features were divine. We all knew that BBMing was just way better than normal texting. Actually, I stopped texting people if they didn't have BBM. Actually, I stopped being friends with people who didn't have BBM. Brick Breaker was cutting edge, but now we have Angry Birds. The sole reason why the Blackberry stock has any value anymore is because companies usually issue them for remote email access, and that's a huge turn-off for me.

Caring about Uganda - SELL! SELL! SELL! Good for you for having the foresight to care about Uganda, you obviously bought low and now you get to sell high. You could even donate your profits to non-profits by texting "Haiti" to 080808. Or not--that's also an option. If you don't have shares of this stock, you need to buy immediately. If you don't, you are not only going to be excluded from the flash mob on your local college campus, but you will also be labeled heartless, ignorant, and probably a Republican. Can you imagine?

Actually taking the time to read about Africa beyond Kony2012 - Penny stock. The eventual payouts could  be worthwhile, but that is dependent upon a lot more people developing a lasting interest in the welfare of Africa. The sad thing is that I'm not very optimistic about that at all. 

Update: lol @ Kony2012 now. Masturbating in public? I couldn't have wished for a better way for the demagoguery to be tarnished.

Threatening to leave the country if a GOP candidate wins the White House - Way up. The best thing you can do is sell and use the money to actually leave the country. It's more than likely that nobody would miss you, but it is very probable that you'd miss us. 

Napster - Bankrupt :( God I loved Napster, RIP.

Mario Kart - If you're a guy, you've probably moved beyond Kart. If you're a girl, however, it's absolutely mandatory that you swear to all of your guy friends that you are awesome at Mario Kart. Sell or buy accordingly.  

I hope I've been able to properly inform people about what is tweet/facebook status worthy. You're welcome.