Opposite Day #6:

Ms. Kamikaze knows how excited I get thinking about the apocalypse, how I'm even now stockpiling tires and cutting the fingers out of leather gloves. Sometimes when we don't have anything going on a weekend I'll board up the windows and set the yard on fire and everyone thinks, "Oh, this is so fun!" and it is fun, sure, but more than that it's educational. I mean, I don't get up on the roof in greasepaint and practice sharpshooting for laughs, people. It's coming. And when it gets here I'm going to be so much better at burning my yard than everyone else. You don't even know.

So I look at this-- with the bleak gray landscape, the crumbling megastructures, the obviously mutated post-civilization fish people-- and I give myself a naked-finger high five. Okay, let's look at this scientifically: everyone's wearing a Brooks Brothers suit so apparently the capitalist economy and corporate America survived the fall. Impressive work, Apocalypse. Is it safe to assume then that you saw to the demise of our pesky food and fresh water supply? Nicely done. Trying my best to be critical I was going to note that Octopus Head is missing two arms but whoops! No he's not! I keep waiting for Shark Head to fall over. I'm pretty sure he can't walk. I bet the Lobster Head people are pissed about that whole "Rubber Band Your Claws Together" joke. Who pulled that off, the Goldfish Head people? Probably. Look at them, trying so hard to be inconspicuous. Something smells fishy.

I just hope this doesn't mean that ultimately our world gets flooded out or moves underwater or anything. Most of my apocalyptic skills involve setting shit on fire. I'm going to lose my edge if it's damp.

Opposite Day #5

I've been staring at Mia's banner for three and a half hours. I missed dinner, I have to pee, my legs are numb and I'll level with you: I still have some questions.

Things I Get Or Mostly Get:

• The hottie in a bikini singing about a club sandwich;
• The great white shark singing about a hottie in a bikini with an In-N-Out double-double on her neck (I do that all the time);
• The United States of America adopting the great white shark/bikini hottie combo as the official National Predator. I heard it was between this and a Tyrannosaurus Rex with Dick Cheney on his back holding a semi-automatic, but... (multiple choice!)
  

• a) The T-Rex was too scared;
• b) The judges remembered Dick Cheney is extinct;
• c) Cheney's grandmother on his father's side was one quarter velociraptor, and no one wanted a messy conflict-of-interest scandal.
  

Things I'm Having Trouble With:

• Doesn't the great white shark want fries? Where are the fries, shark? Make the hottie's hair the fries, shark, that's what I do.
  
• Don't touch a shark on the face! Come on. This is base camp stuff, people.
• Where's the sandwich? Did she get the sandwich? I'm really hungry. Was it ham, do you think? Ham sounds good.
• "Deepest, bluest, my head is like a shark's fin." It took THERAPY to get this song out of my head last time. Thanks. I don't even know if I can get my therapist to see me four times a day.
  

I love you, Mia. Go get me a sandwich, please.

Opposite Day #4

For Scott, bringer of the cotton-candy, smiley, Peep-colored banner that radiates nice tummy rubs and generates all kinds of "Here, let me get that door for you," feelings: A Fairy Tale.

Once upon a time there was a man who lived alone in a smallish condo on the second floor of a three-story building. Every morning he woke up to the sound of birds snacking on the feeder he kept just outside the window, and he would smile for the only time in a day spent working long hours falling short of his potential. He spent his nights eating cold pot pies and browsing online dating sites, credit consolidation sites, dating sites, credit consolidation sites, and dating sites using the wireless service he stole from either the family with the screaming children downstairs or the family with the screaming children upstairs. The birds went somewhere else at night, he didn't know where. Only that they weren't there. He looked for them.

One morning he woke up and the birds weren't snacking. The man didn't smile. There was a haggard gray rat sitting on his torso. Also not making him smile.

"There's a rabbit in your kitchen," the rat said, looking over his hairy shoulder. "I'm pretty sure he ate your birds."

The man squinted at the rat. He should look into getting some venetian blinds or something, seriously. The rat squinted back.

"He's in there ransacking shit." He pointed with his tail. "I don't know, you should go kick him or something."

The man stood up suddenly, spilling the rat onto the carpet. In the kitchen there was a rabbit with brown fur snuffling for crumbs along the floorboards. The man stared.

"Please," the rabbit whispered. "My wife just had a baby."

"Snort," said the rat.

"We live... we live just under the ventilation shaft? And my wife just had a baby, a little girl. Hannah, she's beautiful." A tear dripped onto the linoleum. "But she's... she's really small, you know? She's so perfect, but oh, she's so small." The rabbit wrung his front paws together. "And my poor wife, she's weak and hurting... I just, I was just thinking if I could get her to eat something."

"He's lying," the rat intoned, jumping onto the man's shoulder. "He just ate six birds, I saw him. He does this all the time. Look," he said, pointing, "he has blood on his paws. Guilty."

"We didn't have the money for a doctor," said the rabbit. "I did the best I could." He bit his whiskers. "I... I just did the best I could."

"Hey," barked the rat. "Who are you gonna believe? The guy covered in blood? Or the guy who came to you, tried to level with you, help you out?"

The man looked at the rat. Then he looked at the rabbit. Then he looked at his empty bird feeder.

In one swift motion, he launched forward and punted the rabbit as hard as he could in the stomach.

"Whoa ho! Field goal!" yelled the rat, holding his arms up. From his shoulder perch he looked the man in the face. The rabbit crumpled himself against the far wall, shaking.

"I ate your birds, by the way," the rat said, "that was me. But man," he chortled, checking his watch, "who doesn't love watching a rabbit get kicked in the stomach?"

Opposite Day #3

You know what I love? Pointy, pointy writing. Show me a font that looks like a gang of starched-collared vampires controlling air traffic with scythes and I turn into an angular mess of font-adoring jelly.

This is what happened when I first saw Mrs. Kennedy’s banner. I saw the squiggle in the “C” and laughed with innocent font glee until Machete “f” sliced my soul in half, forcing me to plug my ears with garlic and roll my chair into a filing cabinet. Full of Bibles.

So what do we have here?

1) Chupacabra. Yes. It is. My hopes told me so. Mrs. K claimed “hyena” but I know better. My ex-fiancé used to turn into a chupacabra at night sometimes so I’m kind of an expert.

Sub-Reasons Why I Left My Chupacabra Ex-Fiancé:

a) always leaving his undead snacks on the carpet;
b) refused to stop gnawing on his collar:
("But how am I going to find you if you get lost, Silly?"
"GRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRRGRRR.")
c) I couldn't tell when he was really laughing and when he was faking;
d) irrational skulking;
e) never went back to grad school like he promised;
f) used his Sonicare toothbrush for four-and-a-half hours a day;
g) smelly.

2) Bigfoot! Kind of. Wow, what happened to Bigfoot? Isn’t Bigfoot supposed to be imposing? Threatening in some way? This looks like my Uncle Doug skirting away from the cash bar at my cousin’s wedding. Only he lost some weight. And he’s not wearing the veil.

3) Paul Lynde. PAUL. LYNDE. What’s more frightening than the world’s most eligible bachelor? Have at him, ladies. I mean, if Center Square is any part of your discrimination process. And it’s cool if it is, I’m not judging. I used to pick my fiance’s leftover ulnas up off the carpet and then bury them to hide the evidence, who am I to tell you who’s right for you?

4) Empty pockets. Scary, sure… until I realized this is actually a picture of me. I wasn’t sure at first but when I saw that the pants were casually and unabashedly unzipped it cinched it. It's me. Thanks. A little personal, but whatever. I just can't believe there isn't any change in those front pockets... hold on a second... there has to be a dime here somewhere... wait... let me just... the other side... I think I at least have a... shit.

Now I'm torn between calling it a night and calling my ex-fiancé. I don't know that my voice is really strong enough for baying (plus brrrrrr! cold outside!) so I guess I'll just go to sleep.

Opposite Day #2

So now that I have all these mastheads in my inbox, I'm slowly realizing that your individual definitions of "opposite" directly-- if subtly-- correlate to and speak unconscious volumes about how I'm genuinely perceived. It's all very Rorschach and subliminal.

As you can see.

I mean, I'm really having to meditate on this one to understand what the lovely Erika is trying to tell me.

Bringing our "noxious poison gas" participation quota up to 100% (we're gonna call it an even dekatherm, and I'm graciously forgetting about the nine dollar delivery charge), this particular masthead reminds me (yet again) that the "stop, drop, and roll" disaster faction better read the fine print and stop with all the easy assuming. That cow skull is either in the military Special Forces or the Witness Protection Program, I don't know which, but as I actually have a list of all the cows currently living under the protection of the US government right now, it's a good thing Erika had the forethought to protect his/her identity.

I only wish I could figure out what this is saying to me...

Opposite Day #1

Birchsprite sent me this masthead, and I must say that I'm impressed. The mountains are clearly opposite of the ocean from the original banner, although I would argue that there are any number of elements that lie in opposition to the ocean: Halliburton, for one. I can't tell what my favorite part is here:

1) String icing-capped peaks;

2) The gently rolling emerald grass-slash-gaseous, roiling, low-hanging poison cloud;

3) The fact that the majority of the M-birds are hanging out near one side, clearly indicating the presence of something dead and/or dying in the frosting;

4) The little stick person. Birchsprite claims that this person is an emissary from Blogger, and he's "toiling over the mountains to bring [my] site back". I can buy this. For starters, he's totally not moving. In fact, he might actually be slowly going backward. Secondly, like Blogger, he has no face. Thirdly? You can tell he doesn't really give a shit.

Nicely done. I'm supposed to go hiking this weekend, and this was the final sign I needed that it's perfectly acceptable to bring some icing with me.

It's An Interim Paint Contest!

So when Blogger held my head under water last night and forced me to upgrade, something happened with my pages and my blog's been listed under a different directory. It's still there, it's just not here. And because New Blogger doesn't have an export function (handy! If I recall correctly the nazis didn't have an export function, either) it might be a while until I can get it all settled.

So here's what I want to do in the meantime: this temporary site that you're on right now is going to become the opposite of "Out of Character". Not in terms of content, only in appearance. I need you to Microsoft Paint (or PhotoShop or whatever) a new banner for this site that showcases YOUR artistic rendition of what the opposite of my site would be.

I'm going to copy paste the actual Out of Character template in here later, so your banner needs to be 1024 x 137. I know. Shut up.

When you're done, email it to my gmail account called floatdrownswim. Make sure you give me your name and website url so I can link you when I post it (unless you just slap something together in three minutes and hit "send". My masthead took me FOURTEEN DAYS to complete. Allowing for my technical incompetence, it should take you at least half-an-hour).

I refuse to use the label options. Stupid new Blogger.

ALSO! I posted about my next tattoo on my other missing page last night (somehow I think Banjeroo won't be offended that I stole the idea-- we'll make it a whole movement) and Mia made me this. And suddenly, just like that? Everything's going to be okay.

ALSO also! All of you people who've said to me at one time or another that you want to send something in for a Paint contest but you don't for whatever reason? I'm calling you people at home. Get it going.

ALSO³! Melati got promoted! Because she's got those gears upstairs twirling, that's why. Take a lesson, write it down.