The Good Old Days
I look back over old posts and I remember. I remember when this blog was, well, not hugely popular, but popular enough. I had readers who commented with me, with each other, and made my posts far funnier with their input. When I read old posts, sometimes I surprise myself and laugh. I guess I was funnier then, or maybe I just had better ideas, or maybe, I know, maybe I just wrote more. You take a few months or a year or two here and there off and it’s like people just don’t wait around or something.
Anybody here?
Though I think it was more than that. At some point, maybe I outstayed my welcome. I am frankly not sure what to do with myself anymore. I’m not hugely depressed anymore. I’m just – here. I haven’t worked outside the home in nearly two years. This blog kept me going through years of work that was so difficult to maintain along with anything else. My readers, my blog friends, kept me going.
This blog got noticed because I covered some of the worst books of all time, 50 Shades of Grey. But from there, other stories from my life came, “funny stories of angst”, as my counselor said. Sad Pony and Squirrel, stupid TLC coverage, Boppo the clown, a sparkle pony, some creature with a lightbulb for a butt, stories told with Disney princess dolls in the snow, making fun of Dragon Tales and earning the ire of its crazed fans, the murder of virtual people, and a little bit of politics. I was Alice, someone wittier and I don’t know, hipper than the real me. I’m not sure if anyone even uses “hip” anymore. Whatever.
I’m still here. Yay.
I miss the old days though. Some bloggers I knew way back then are still out there, and they still come by here, and I am thankful for that. One or two decided they hated me. Others, I’m not sure. Maybe they got writer’s block and just stopped. Maybe they just got lives and drifted away. I’m not sure, but they aren’t here. I know people still read, or bots at least. Something. I know I don’t write enough, or often enough, but at times I wonder if that would even matter.
I wonder if I matter.
My girls, my Things, who have been such a part of this blog are growing up so fast. My eldest is starting college, and my youngest, my Thing Two, is a sophomore in high school. They were so little when I started. Before I know it, they will be ready to fly away. That is as it should be, and I hope I have prepared them. But I’m not sure I will be prepared to be left in the nest. Sure, I have my husband, Mr. Alice, but it’s not the same. They are my purpose. I am a mother. I’m not sure what else I am.
I want to be Alice. But I don’t think Wonderland will ever be what it was again. And I don’t know where else to go.
The News According to Facebook
Before I start this post, I’d just like to say this new editor sucks. Seriously sucks. And now I can’t find where to go back to the old one anymore. WordPress, you suck. Where the hell is the old editor? If I see one more boop beep bop I’m gonna blow.
Okay, done – for now, saying this post even posts since it’s on this new stupid editor arghhhhhhhh.
Okay, so I don’t watch the news much because it is really depressing and stupid, and I get enough of that in real life. Also in fiction, seeing as authors, even kid authors, have decided to kill off main plot characters for funsies. Like, what the hell is that about authors? It’s not dramatic, it’s just being a jerk to your readers. I mean, sure, you gotta kill a few off but that’s what red shirts are for – you know, the guys on Star Trek that they took down on the away teams to alien planets who were not listed in the opening credits so you knew they were gonna die? Put in more of those guys. Fiction is for escape, not further punishment. Make a note. Try something funny for once, for God’s sake.
Yes, I own this shirt.
But back to the news, right, that’s what I was talking about. Because it’s way weirder than any fiction.
I only see news on Facebook since I’m on there chatting with people. Suffice it to say, it’s an even weirder way to get news since I”m only getting what Facebook considers trending news. It might be as bad as what Fox News considers trending. Speaking of Fox, number one trending news item today (I swear I’m not making up the order or anything here):
Facebook news, now with more Cookie Monster
Rand Paul: Kentucky senator formally announces 2016 Presidential Run.
– Oh, goody. Is there some way I can just take a sleeping pill and wake up when the election is over? Cause it’s already getting painful. By the way, it’s Rand, not Ron his dad, though both are Libertarians disguised as Republicans and as we all know the Libertarian party is best represented by a unicorn, according to my other news source, blogger List of X. Still, he’s a better choice than Cruz who has a Hispanic name so boo-yah, the Repubs have a ethnic! Just kidding, he’s white.
Elmwood Park, New Jersey: 100 year old man killed wife with an ax in murder – suicide, officials say.
– Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of upon reading this headline was – wow, he can swing an ax at 100? That’s pretty darn impressive.
Burger King: Company to pay for wedding of man named Burger and woman named King.
– Yeah, really, this is what came after the murder-suicide. I wonder if the wedding will be catered with burgers and fries and officiated by that creepy Burger King mascot. I would love to go to that wedding.
I’m available for baptisms too!
Sebastian Inlet State Park: Photo purportedly shows bobcat dragging shark on Florida beach
No word on whether the bobcat is planning on a 2016 presidential run, but he has my vote.
And finally . . .
Marilyn Manson Musician reportedly hit in face after argument at Denny’s.
What happens at Denny’s, stays at Denny’s. Unless you are Marilyn Manson, who may also be planning a 2016 Presidential run. I wonder if he ordered the Grand Slam?
Okay enough news for today! Got any good stories of your own? Or a way out of this BLASTED EDITOR? Where’s a good bobcat when you need one?
My Morning on Facebook
My friends Twindaddy and Merbear and I often have Facebook conversations in the morning because we are productive that way. These conversations tend to go off on tangents. I thought I’d give a brief rundown of our topics so you can know how insane we all are.
Topic One: Racist Bread
This all started with the innocent mention of a sandwich on white bread and devolved from there. News flash: Wonderbread is Aryan. Rye, Wheat, Italian, French, Potato – no bread was safe from our discussion.
Once you go pumpernickel, you never go back.
Topic Two: Holy Roller Movies
“God is Not Dead” is in theaters, but surprisingly does not star Kirk Cameron, who used to be cute and in Tiger Beat but is now a pscyho fundamentalist who talks about bananas. Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules, DOES star in the movie, as a professor. The professor in Gilligan’s island was kind of cute, but Gilligan was not. Twindaddy disappeared during this conversation so we wondered if we smelled which led to . . .
Topic Three: Deodorant
We discussed our brands of Deodorant, (I wear Lady Mitchum but Merbear is all Secret about hers) and I found this charming retro ad.
Dumb lady does not know she smells. Like your beauty will save you over your B.O.!
And we wondered why men were not so concerned about underarm b.o, and twindaddy said he was concerned, so I found this other ad.
For the man who wants to smell like kitchen cleanser.
We’ve decided that Twindaddy should use this stuff. Women will think he’s concealing 7-up under his pits and go wild.
Topic Four: Alice needs a post
And I had this bright idea! Don’t like it? Well, smell me.
Alice
2013: A Year of living Alicely
Last year I did my own overview, complete with link drops to my own posts. Because no matter the year, I am still narcissistic. I vow to be more so in the new year. Blogging is also an interesting insight into what was going on in my life during 2013. Clearly not much, because I posted a lot, like enough times to fill more of those opera houses.
Note: I am so lazy, I didn’t even Link Drop.
Anyway, here we go:
January
I started off the year in the middle of covering Fifty Shades Freed, the final (for the love of God) book in the 50 Shades series. Only I called it Fifty Shades Flunked, because the one part of teaching I kind of liked was giving people Fs, and I got to do that a lot with E.L. James. I also had an online classroom of students, many of whom did not realize they were enrolled. So they mostly didn’t notice when I quit teaching partly through the book.
That stick man falling into the black hole was a pretty good description of our class.
Next came the Freshly Pressed nod, which happened right after my washing machine exploded. I can’t express how happy I am that the one post that was pressed was one that featured the word “crap” in the title, and was about, of all things, my quest to get healthier. I joined a gym, and if you’ve ever seen Sport Goofy, you get the idea of how successful this was.
Pro: Gym has equipment
Con: Gym has people
February
50 Shades coverage continues. To counteract the nausea, I try exercise and like all things, I do this in moderation. I review almost every exercise video out there, even the whacked out 80s ones and the frightening Jillian Godzilla Michaels.
Get thee behind me!!!
Still overwhelmed, I took a blog break and went on Carnival Cruise lines for a three-hour-tour. Not really, but it made a good post. A stormtrooper visited Wonderland and shot up the place. The Things and I made up a TV show with a mutated creature named “Mutey and Friends”.
This is going to be picked up by PBS any day now!
March
50 Shades coverage IS STILL GOING. I decide exercise is too much work and try yoga. Writing posts is also work, so I write my first one word post and get more comments on this than most of my actual posts. I goof up both the origin of both Easter and St Patrick’s Day. I decide to quit Facebook no really I mean it this time.
Not that I’m desperate but . . . BE MY FRIEND!!!!!
April
I first notice my Dragon Tales blog stalkers. I am called a “farthead” by one. I get obsessed with yoga and frightened by a panting girl on a video. I finally FINALLY finished 50 Shades and could only utter “Mmmbop.”
You’re welcome.
May
50 Shades is gone and I have nothing to write about, but this doesn’t stop me. I remind people of my birthday coming up and await all the celebratory blog posts. The Fruitcake Award is created and passed around several blogs cause no one wants that thing. More yoga posts. My collection of yoga bling adds up.
Look, Ma, I made it myself!
June
I meet my Wonder Twin, merbear, and we discover a love of making fun of stupid retro ads. Also the sound of our own voices. We riff on ads about magical brushes and laxatives. The Things turn nine and thirteen. We have a lockdown at work because the stupidest crooks of all time pretend to rob a Subway. A squirrel and a depressed pony get Facebook accounts. I find out yoga is of the devil.
Just . . . wow.
July
I get sick a lot (surprise!). Crazed “Christians” swarm my college campus. I declare that I am my own cool table. I start reviewing songs, starting with the “Chipper Cheatin’ Songs”. I tell people what not to name their baby, figuring I’ll tick some people off – instead it’s one of my most viewed posts. Merbear and I find out new uses for Lysol. The anti-awards arrive. I continue my parody of 50 Shades with our heroine Bambi.
These are still available for those people on your list. Take one today!
August
Merbear and I start the Wonder Twins retro blog. Merbear does a lot of the work because yet another of my alternate identities, Mary Alice, apparently falls down a bottle. I talk about murdering virtual people – it is another of my most popular posts, you sickos. Boppo the death clown is born and continues to die horrible deaths in the Sims. Sparky the Wonder Blogger arrives to terrorize us all and my followers become sparkleponys. List of X tells us way too much about Miley Cyrus and twerking.
Sparky the Won-der Blog-ger
September
The Things and I glob glitter on a My Little Pony and actually get people to compete for it in a Sparklepony contest! People had to be as obnoxious in their posts as possible – no surprise this is not a problem for my followers. Evil Squirrel “wins” the monstrosity pony and she travels to his home and falls in love with his Rainbow Donkey (knitted by a blogger) and has babies: (knitted by another blogger). Yes, we are all adults.
A contest based on this.
October
I suffer the Sadz and a small nervous breakdown, but continue to write anyway. Halloween is dissected, another birth story is told, and I describe the game of Life – turns out all of these are of the devil.
Reports about me have been greatly exaggerated. I thought Alice was a pillow.
November
I start reviewing fairy tales – I mean to get back to this in the New Year with the Little Mermaid, that fishy brat. Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and that freak Peter Pan have already gotten the Alice treatment. My Thanksgiving post is a Black Friday Thursday post, because that’s what the real holiday is, right? Yay!
Realism in fairy tales.
December
I spend the entire month griping about Christmas. I discuss the scariness of Santa, write a love letter to George Michael, and discover from Fox News that Santa and Jesus are white. Holiday Paul is offered as a Santa substitute. I get obsessed with a virtual farm. What happened to that exercise and yoga stuff? Hang on, I gotta milk my pretend cows!
No, kids, really – Santa is totally white.
So that’s my year. Did you guys have a good 2013? Are you glad it’s over? Got any News Years resolutions you plan to immediately break? Let me know. And thanks for reading.
Alice
New Year’s Eve or the Post Everyone Else is Doing
I was trying to think of a kick ass readable post for New Year’s Eve. I thought of absolutely
How many times did I use this picture in 2013? Lots!
Then I saw everyone else posting their reviews and was like, oh free post. Everyone will be incredibly interested in my stats. I must say, they are not nearly as fascinating as last year, when my top search word was crack whore. This year it was Dragon Tales. This was also my most popular post, even edging out my Freshly Pressed post. I think this scares me more than having crack whore as a search term.
You can check out my top posts and top commenters (thankfully they didn’t list how many times I had commented on my own blog.) Is commenter not a word? For some reason, commenters is underlined, while commenter is not. So it’s an illegal plural? Where was I?
Oh, right, so here’s where you can see all that fascinating crap like how all my views could fill several opera houses with spambots. If you’re bored and like watching computer generated fireworks, have a look. Stay tuned New Year’s Day for a look back on a year in Alice.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 38,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 14 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
Thanks for a great year, you guyz,
Alice
Pack of Cards
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could look at life and say “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” and then wake up?
WTF?
Alice’s Plan for World Domination (and some contest winners!)
Hi, it’s me, Alice!
That’s right. I’m totally Alice. And um, this is like my blog and all of you are followers of ME, yes ME Spar . . . um, Alice!
Anyway, I am super excited about all of you who agreed to become my minions er I mean that entered Alice’s uh my contest to win the Sparkly Poneh of Wonder! But you will get so much more just by entering! You see we will not stop at sparkly ponehs. No, there are more sparkly doo-dads to be found, my friends. You know those blog awards your peeps have but you don’t? Well, they are all, ALL going to be ours – all the riches for us – yes, yes, even all the Freshly Pressed badges will all belong to me my precioussssssssssss! I mean us! How will we do it? By taking over WordPress, of course!
You say it can’t be done? Yes it can! We just have to storm WordPress’s headquarters. Well, you do, I’m going to sit on my lightbulb butt er my fair fanny. I’m thinking we can send that dj guy in first. He’ll distract all the editors with his suck uppiness while the rest of you guys can take over the site! There may be casualties, but it’s for a greater cause. Me.
Okay, once we’ve got the Death Star secure, we just have to work on the rest of the blogosphere. WordPress is totally the leading blog site, so all we have to do is get everyone to come here by informing them that Blogger, Tumblr, Linked-In (does anyone actually use that) and everything else sucks monkey brains. They will appreciate us so much for freeing them from crappy blogging platforms that they will obey our every command!
Then from there it’s easy peasy to take over the entire earth. ALL the Xboxes on the planet will be ours to play with, you guyz. Are you confused? Don’t worry, I have this handy chart here . . . somewhere . . .
Wait a second . . .
That’s not my evil domination chart! That’s a xeroxed copy of Squirrel’s butt! Hey!
Gotcha.
That’s it, you little rat, give me back my plans!
You mean the plans he just ate? Wait a day or so and you’ll get them back.
What? What??? My secret plans! Are you ready for a fight, Pony?
Fight me and I’ll sit on you.
Oh. Oh, uh, no, don’t do that. You wouldn’t do that to Alice your old pal, would you?
You aren’t Alice! Your clever disguise does not fool me you are Sparky and you won’t win cause we will defeat you with the power of goodness and Xerox machines and Oreo cookies so watch out! Sad Pony, take off the wig and dress!
It is Sparky. What a surprise.
You meddling animals! You haven’t seen the last of me!!!
Hello, real Alice here now. Wow, that was close. Thank goodness my little furry friends were there for me. It shows they really care.
We hate you marginally less than Sparky.
Close enough. For those of you taken in by Sparky’s plot, as I was, do not feel bad. It happens to all of us. Still, I’d like to congratulate our winner, of the coveted Sparkleponeh and a raccoon sticker from Goldfish’s shop, EvilSquirrel! He was chosen using a complex system created by the Things consisting of checking off Sparky attributes (he had the most, maybe?). He also received bonus points for stealing a picture from my blog to make his own award and for his awesome Bond-ish squirrel drawing. Of course all our contestants did an outstanding job and it was still really hard to choose. Thanks so much for entering, my awesome peeps!
THIS. He gets . . . THIS! And a sticker!
But it seems like there should be something more . . . a second prize, which in keeping with Wonderland tradition will be greater than the first prize. And here it is . . . stickers of my two blog defenders, Sad Pony and Squirrel! These fab pictures of my dynamic duo were created by Goldfish, whose store I will once again promote – she has Halloween stuff there now, guys! Cute freaking ghosties!
Sad Pony and Squirrel!
The second place winner is djmatticus, narrowly edging out the others based on bonus points for sheer unadulterated enthusiasm. Congrats! If the winners will email me their addresses, I will send out their prizes ASAP! Thanks again all of you for playing along and for being awesome and very unsparkiesh followers.
The Real Alice (accept no substitutes)
Wait, this is the prize? What kind of a contest IS this?
The Sparkly Home Stretch
I am totally gansta.
Yo, Homies, Sparkleponies, whazzup in de hood yo fo shizzle? Sparky here. I have no idea what I’m saying, but yo, I am so cool. Alice asked me to write this post here reminding you, AGAIN, that she has that contest in which you, if you dare, get to try to be as awesomesauce as I am. Good luck with that one!
We’re in the home stretch now, down to the wire, end of the line, insert metaphor here. In case you lost your Lol Cats calendar, today is Wednesday, September 25th, and that means you have less than five days (wait, let me count) yeah four days to get your entries in! On Monday, September 30th, Alice will announce the winner, who will receive this incredible sparkly prize – THE SPARKLEPONY!!!
Ooooh. Aaaaah. WTF?
Once more, I will give you our contestants and LINK DROP so you can see their posts. Each of these guys is a real contender and totally deserving of that poneh – but the winner? There can be only ONE, dun dun dunnnnn.
djmatticus (our first brave contestant)
You’re not going to let these guys win it, are you? I mean, Alice even added some raccoon sticker in with the fabulous sparkly amazing pony award. But that’s not all. She’ll even throw in packing paper, you peeps. This is THE contest that can’t be missed, this is the SHIZ!
See you all on Monday, September 30, when we announce the WINNERS of my awesome contest! I have such great plans for you, bwahahahaha, I mean, see you then!
– The Sparkster
The Sparky Plot!
Sad Pony, Sad Pony, Sad Pony, Sad Ponehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
What.
It’s that Sparky guy, Sad Pony! He’s eeeeeeeevil and he’s trying to take over Alice’s blog I heard him plotting Zomg what do we dooooo?
He was plotting out loud.
Yesss, all the evil villains plot out loud Sad Pony!
Only the stupid ones. Okay, Sparky counts.
I also found some of his plans on a dry erase board in Thing Two’s bedroom! Look Sad Pony, look, will you look it’s terribleeee!!!!!
Sparky’s Evil Plot Chart
He made a chart. He’s an idiot.
But Sad Pony, Sad Pony if he succeeds then he might want to date Miss Four Eyessss!!!!!
. . . . .
This means war.
Alice is having that contest and getting other bloggers to act like him Sad Pony and then he will take over the blogosphere of Sparkys! Alice is playing right into his hands what do we doooo????
I will have to think on his destruction.
But Sad Poneh Alice is giving the bloggers sparklepony! How we gonna compete with a Sparkly poneh like that oh how, how, how?
We could offer my manure as a prize and it’d be better than that monstrosity.
We’re gonna give them poops? Oh, boy, I have lots of those to give this will be awesome!
No, idiot, not poop. I will think of something. Sparky is going down.
Oooooh!
Hey, I see you guys. You will never defeat me. I is de shiz.
I sense a bit of unrest on my blog . . . to be continued.
– Alice
Introducing . . . .Sparklepony Wars!
Greetings, Sparkleponies. After announcing that I would give everyone more time on my illustrious contest, I got several entries in over the weekend. Thanks so much for your participation! Today I’ll give you links to some awesome posts in celebration of Sparky, but first a word from Sparky himself.
Word.
Yo, homies, Sparks has entered the building. You can all relax. Autographs later. None on the buns, hun.
Alice handed me the stack of entries and wow I was so not impressed, but then, who can be as awesome as I am, right? Still there is that . . . thing she’s offering and I’m going to have to choose a winner. I think I’d rather give more tips first, this time about the comments section. Yeah, no, Alice is not getting her post back.
Be sure and make everything, I don’t care what it is, into a political argument. For instance: Blogger says “My grandma died.” You would then say “It’s all Obama’s fault.” See, simple.
Post anonymously. That way you can say really Jerky stuff and no one will know who to blame. Bonus points if the blogger blames the wrong person.
Get into a fight with another commenter about some random word you disagree with in the post. Keep at it. Never give up. Never surrender. Example: Corn is NOT a vegetable and I will not rest until you accept that!
Okay, that’s all the wisdom I could poop out for now. Let’s get to our contestants. Yawn.
First up djmatticus. This guy thinks he is a jester in some mythical kingdom, yet his wife is a queen and his son is a prince. His wife must have really strange tastes to go for the jester. I wonder if the king knows. Anyhoo, I have to admire this guy’s suction power. We’re talking Hoover here. Also he made up a pointless award with an applesauce jar and tons of stupid rules. Alice actually participated in it. She has no life. Anyway, I like this dj, even if he lied and is not, in fact, a real D.J. I need some tunes, fo shizzle.
I eat awesomesauce for breakfast every morning.
Next is dranoman, oh wait, draliman. Eh, whatever. This guy knows how to properly suck up. Compliment the kids. Moms, like Alice, are total suckers for that junk. He even made her Things their own badge. Well played man, well played. Here’s the badge in case you have yard apes of your own.
How about the awful kids award? Where’s that one?
Okay, next is . . . wait, that’s a dog. We’ve got a dog entering the contest now? Yes? Oh, whatever. Okay, so next up is easyweimeraner. What can I say about this blogger? Cute doggy. Goood doggy. No, that’s my butt, not a chew toy! Uh, anyway, he had to have his human write the post because paws, you know, and wow his owner is clueless. Thought my name was Spanky. Do I look like one of the Little Rascals? Jeez. But doggy did show lots of pictures of himself (are you a he, doggy? I’m not sure and I’m not checking.) which is very sparkyish. Good job! Have a biscuit!
Good one, doggie. I like it.
And now we have . . . okay wait a minute. First a dog and now a squirrel? What the hey with the animal friends, Alice? I thought that was Snow White’s gig. Sigh. Next contestant is evilsquirrel. Well, for a squirrel, he’s pretty dang cool. Not only did he make a picture of me being loved on by really hot squirrel girls (you know, for squirrels) but he also stole one of Alice’s pictures to make an award. I want this guy on my paintball team. Check out his award, which he bestowed upon some Merbear (don’t ask me what that is, I don’t even want to deal with . . .)
Using Alice’s lame-o drawing for a lame-o award. Brilliance right there. Brilliance.
Our next contestant! Merbear! Half bear, half mermaid, she’s all goofy. Alice calls her Wonder Twin because she thinks they are superheroes. They want to be two of the lamest superheroes in comic book history, but whatever. She made most of the post about her own award, which I thought totally rocked. She cried on a dumpster dive record and got people to compete for it. With haikus. And they did. Bloggers will do anything. Remember that.
Imagine this with mold – wow.
Okay, now the last contestant (for now ) is twindaddy. I’m guessing that means he’s a daddy of twins. I’m a GENIUS. This guy has this other personality he talks to, which is totally weird. Like, who does that? And this other personality wrote a post totally dissing the Sparkster here. That takes gall. I admire that. He thinks he’s coming after me, but I’m not worried. My butt has sparks, sparks, sparks, sparks, sparks to light the world. Dude even put a crown on his head. That crown would fit me beautifully. It clashes with his armor.
Silly stormtrooper, crowns are for meee!
Well that’s all the contestants for now. But THERE IS STILL TIME. Alice wants me to stress this. You can still enter the contest by making a post sounding as much like me, King of the Blogosphere, as possible. She’s a little unstable, so you guys might want to play along. I mean, who knows what she’ll do. Remember, this is what’s at stake.
Yeah. Um. This!
Good luck,
Sparks
aliceatwonderland 