21 Days of Gratitude and Stuff: the ABCs
I have been involved in some GROUP therapy work which is supposed to make me less Sad Pony and Squirrel and more like my usual sarcastic self.
Pfft, whatever.
Yayyyy this will be fun I am grateful for nuts and sad pony and Alice and nuts! I just pooped on the keyboard!
Day 1 was just signing a pledge that I would do it. Here is my pledge.
I, Alice, pledge to do this gratitude thing because why the heck not.
Today is Day 2. I was instructed to make an alphabetical list of things I am grateful for, so I sought help from my Things and whatever came up off the top of my head.
We want to eat your souuuul!
A: Asphalt – we drive on it and it beats dirt
B: Birth control – I only have two kids! Yay!
C: Calculator – because I am bad at Math
D: Dragon Tales – the show that got me lots of hits from angry crazed fans.
The show still sucks.
E: Elevator – cause I’m too lazy for stairs
F: That word I cannot say
G: Garage – where my husband goes
H: Hatahs – cause they gonna hate hate hate but I’ll shake ’em off, shake ’em off
I: Internetz!!!!
J: Jesus – cause I’m afraid not to list Him
Muffin?
K: Kmart – low low prices!
L: Lunatic – which I am not hurray!
M: Money – I likes it
N: Nice people – cause I can take advantage of them, I mean, cause they’re nice!
O: Organs – Cause livers and spleens are good things to have.
P: Pee!: Always a relief
Q: Quasimodo – Reminds me I do NOT have a hump!
Hugs!!!
R: Radio – even if it was killed by video
S: Spammers – Who are like half my readers! Much to the thanks, guys!
T: My Things (or children, whatever)
U: Ugly people – they make me feel pretty
V: Victory – I like beating people.
W: Words – they go in the sentences (please tell E.L. James)
X: Xanax! Woooooot!
Y: Yeti – they are all white and fluffy and eat people
Z: Zantac – beats acid indigestion
What do you think? Do you have an alphabetical grateful list? Could you make one and put it in my comments section? The weirder the better. The best one I’ll list in a future post with a link back to their blog so spammers can find them! Or you can NOT do it, see if I care.
Alice
National Go Away Creeper Day
Hey Creeper
You’re so gross
You’re so ick
You make me sick
Hey, Creeper! Hey Creeper!
Oh, creeper, you’re so . . . yikes.
Oh, hello there. Just making up new lyrics to the most intellectual and highbrow of songs, “Hey Mickey.” Why? Because it is National Go Away Creeper Day. You didn’t know this? Well, mark it down. And prepare your gifs.
In case any of you are wondering if you’re creepers, you probably aren’t. Creepers don’t realize they creep. Sometimes they leave mean comments. Sometimes they steal your ideas and use them on their blogs. Sometimes they just . . . keep . . . showing up. And say odd things that really can’t be responded to because . . . dude is nuts. And on WordPress, there’s just really no sure way to shake them off your leg.
The only real creeper I’ve ever had was the (Liiiink Drop!) Dragon Tales guy. And all his friends. Unless it really is just one person giving me all those hits looking up various versions of the words “dragon tales”. And reading that post I wrote reviewing the show over and over and over and over. I’m not sure which is worse. One person having enough time to be that deranged on his own, or one person leading an army of whacked out minions.
Just . . . stop . . . stop it now!
But I’ve had friends who have experienced Creeper-ness. I‘ve written about this before, (Link Drop #2!) but it’s Friday, I have no ideas, and yeah friends are still being bothered by these guys. So I’m getting to a point where I think I’m really gonna start sending out my Anti-Awards, of which this is a favorite.
Sending Golum your way!
Are you tired of creepers? Yeah? I can’t hear you! I still can’t hear you cause you’re typing from far away! Anyhoo, if you hate creepers, you can put the creeper sign (either one) on your blog to show your support against creepers. Or not. You know, if you’re a creeper. Or something.
On this special day, do any of you have stories about how you handled blog creepers? If so, let me know in the comments below.
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
The Anti-Awards
We all love getting awards. And giving them. Especially if it is an award like the Fruitcake award. You want that one gone as fast as possible.
But sometimes there comes along a person who, well, deserves a special sort of award. This is the kind of person who, say, is told to back off and leave someone alone, repeatedly, but just keeps coming back because he or she is some sort of love god, right? Yeah, no means no, even on the Internetz. Stop being a creeper.
Or maybe it’s just someone who is plain obnoxious. Yes, I realize I sometimes fall in this category. But these people have really outdone themselves. They constantly show up in the comments and act rude and horrible to other posters. It’s especially fun for them to show up and rant about a very sensitive topic. Because they, my friends, are douchecanoes.
Before anyone starts wondering – am I a douchecanoe? Or a creeper? I’ll say that as far as I know, no one following my blog fits that description. Except possibly the Dragon Tales guy. Hi, Dragon Tales guy! Anyway, here are two new awards created by yours truly, to be used as needed for cleanup on WordPress.
And for the creepers? Don’t worry, I didn’t forget you.
I look forward to the day when these awards are no longer necessary. When WP installs something like a block on Facebook, or finds some way to keep someone from following a blogger. Until then, we really aren’t totally safe. Stalking can occur anywhere, and while I’m having some fun here, it is a serious matter.
I hope WordPress comes up with a solution to this problem, because I hate to see friends bothered by a few jerks, some enough that they consider shutting down their blogs. It has happened before. Don’t let it happen again.
Dragon Whisperer
They are still following me. I looked up my top search terms and you know what the top one was well DO YOU? Check it out.
Search Terms for all days ending 2013-05-06 (Summarized)
All Time
| Search | Views |
|---|---|
| dragon tales | 439 |
| wordpress alice at wonderland | 47 |
| dragon tales characters | 32 |
| aliceatwonderland | 24 |
| 50 shades of alice in wonderland | 22 |
| alice at wonderland wordpress | 18 |
| alice in wonderland wordpress | 15 |
| sad pony | 15 |
| fifty shades of alice in wonderland | 11 |
| dragontales | 10 |
| crack whore | 10 |
| dear santa | 10 |
| dragon tales emmy | 10 |
| next week horoscope | 9 |
| dragon tales logo | 9 |
| 50 shades of grey satanic |
Yeah, that’s right, folks. It’s dragon tales. By a FREAKING LAND SLIDE. What the heck? But that’s not all. We’ve also got dragon tales characters and dragontales and dragon tales emmy (whu?) and dragon tales logo. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? I mean, sure, there are some others. The old reliable most popular search word from last year “crack whore” is still holding in there with 10, but that’s no 439. Dragon Tales got more than Sad Pony, more than Santa, more than 50 Shades, horoscopes, or the name of my flipping blog.
My dragon tales review is suddenly my most popular post as well, even though I wrote it like two years ago before I even got to WordPress, hence the lousy formatting transfer. So I decided to search dragon tales on Google and see if my blog came up. It didn’t. I went through like 10 pages and no sign of Alice anywhere. So just . . . wtf? I did find some other disturbing things. For instance, did you realize there was fan fiction for this show?
Shudddddddder.
I don’t even want to THINK about what they might have done with the bipolar dual-gendered dragon.
It’s weird, guys, it’s really weird being stalked by dragon tales fans. 50 Shades creepers I get, sure, but dragon creepers? I was up late last night chatting with a friend and bounced over to my blog – this was a short time after midnight. I had one visitor and one view and guess what he/she was looking at? Dragon tales. Dun dun dunnnnnn.
I had no idea I was the dragon whisperer, but apparently I am. Maybe I can get a show on Animal Planet. They talk about Bigfoot and mermaids, so the idea of dragons not actually existing will probably not faze them. I should get something out of this, since WordPress doesn’t seem to offer a blog restraining order. But just so you know, dragon tales peeps, I know about you. And I am NOT scared. Nope, not at all.
Okay, maybe a little.
My First Troll or Dragon Tales Still Sucks
When I first started reviewing 50 Shades of Awful and Twidud, I figured I’d get some angry fan spittle all over my blog. Even when I had only a handful of viewers, it wouldn’t have surprised me. There are some fans so dedicated they will seek out anybody, no matter how small, in order to protect their sacred cow (moooo). And yet – I never heard a peep. In fact, one person who was a fan of Shades still thought I was funny and reblogged my post. Go figure.
Then it happened. A troll. A real, live troll! On my blog! It was a wondrous day, you guyz. I had to read the comment a few times to make sure it was real. It was so much better than the spammers (this blog to read is educational to be coming back soon.) You’ll never guess what post irritated the reader. Not 50 Shades, not Twilight, not my occasional political ramblings, not the times I screwed up revered American holidays like Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving. Nope.
Welcome, troll!
It was Dragon Tales. It’s been a while since I’ve done a review of awful children’s T.V. I must get back to this, now that I’ve finished awful adult books. But the troll was angry! He or she told me “Dragon Tales is a good show! It’s for kids, not for 40-year-old fartheads like you!” Said troll had no blog, just an email address that went something like “dragontalesmaniacalfreakedoutfan.” Let me tell you, I was deeply saddened by this insult. For your information, troll, I am NOT forty, okay?
And that’s not all! There was another comment on another post, this one about how Clifford was either doin’ steroids or exposed to nuclear waste. It said, and I quote “Again, mean!” Mean? Me? I thought my blog was sweetness and light! Now I’m all disillusioned.
Sort of like when I saw this show the first time. Those are NOT dragons.
I thought this was the end of it, but I think this person has a whole fan club that is still tracking my blog. I keep getting hits because of it. Check out the most recent search words people used to find my blog. Just today: dragon tales (10), dragon tails (2), dragon tale (1), dragontales (1), and yesterday: dragon tales (11), dragon’s tale (3), dragon tale (1). And this has been going on for a while now. It might be my new top search word this year. It would help if this fan club could figure out how to spell Dragon Tales.
Far out, huh? This just goes to show you how bizarre the Internet can be. I suppose I should be thankful to these guys for giving my blog traffic. Therefore, I’ve decided to review it again. Here’s the original post for any of you who missed it. And a clip of the show, too. Guard your stomachs.
Upon reviewing the show again, dear troll, I have to say . . . it still sucks. Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, yes, it is for children and not adults. But adults are usually forced to watch this crap too. Unless they prefer to neglect their children like Max and Ruby’s parents. (Max and Ruby review coming up, Max and Ruby fans!) Besides, just because it’s for kids doesn’t mean it can’t have a little quality to it. For instance, I can watch Sesame Street without gagging as long as I turn it off before the Elmo comes on. But Dragon Tales makes the mistake of not only being annoying and stupid, but pretentious about it.
So sorry to spill your milk there (everyone makes mistakes, oh yes, they do) but I don’t like it. Sure the dragons teach the kids Spanish (Why are the dragons Spanish? Do they also have Russian dragons? Scottish ones?) but we already had Dora for that (Saltaaaaaaaaaa!) We didn’t need any more. I mean, Dora was shrieky and irritating, but at least she didn’t whine nearly as much as these so-called dragons. So, yeah, review stands. On the suck-o-meter, we have a ten. But please – do come back. I’ll leave the rug cleaner out for you.
Love and kisses,
Alice
THE ONE WITH THE BILINGUAL DRAGONS
PBS means well – they really do. Back around 2000, they started making more shows with minority characters, because I guess they felt left out of the wackiness. Which brings us to my next children’s program:
Two kids, Max and Emmy, who look white and speak English like Anglos, yet have a disembodied parent voice with a Mexican accent, find a glowing scale in their playroom. No, not one you weigh on; it turns out it’s a dragon scale – and it’s magical, of course. I’m thinking if I saw something strange and glowing in my room, I might get Mom and Dad. But not these two. They say some magic words – I guess whoever left the dragon scale left instructions or something, I forget. Anyway, these magic words – which are repeated every episode so they can reuse the same animation – transport them to dragon land.
Hey wait my hand is stuck arghhhhhh . . .
Now I’m a big fantasy fan, and I’ve read a lot about dragons. They’re big, scaly, and they breathe fire and eat people, especially knights. They seem oddly fond of kidnapping princesses. So I’m waiting for these kids to get roasted, but, alas, turns out they’re friendly. And they can speak Spanish. No, really! Who knew?
Anyway, there are several eccentric (read: annoying) dragon characters. Cassie is the pink one, who shrinks when she’s unhappy and whining, which is pretty much all the time. Org, or Ord, I was never quite sure, is the token big, stupid one. And then there’s . . . Zack and Wheezy, the two headed dragon. They have one body, two heads, yet one’s a boy and one’s a girl and . . . anyway, they also have opposite personalities. Zack is paranoid, and Wheezy is so obnoxious you want to kill her. Talk about your therapy issues.
Toys for confused children
They also have a teacher, Quasimodo, no wait, that’s the hunchback. At any rate, he’s the typical old, wise teacher, and apparently the only adult Max and Emmy come in contact w/ besides disembodied parent voice. From time to time there are guest star dragons, like the one in a wheelchair. Cause his legs don’t work. In that case, I don’t know why he doesn’t just fly, except that they all have such tiny wings on such huge bodies that I’m not sure how any of them fly.
Dragon paraplegic?
From what I can tell, Max and Emmy spend most of their time in this dragon place, and their parents never know the difference. They never say how long the kids are gone, but when my kids got quiet for more than five minutes at a time, it usually meant they were covered in Noxema or something and it was time to check on them. Either this doesn’t occur to the parents, or they’re just so glad they’re gone that they don’t care. Maybe they left the dragon scale there on purpose.
I really didn’t like Dragon Tales. I’m not certain which character was the worst – I guess they all tied for last place. Where the heck was St. George when I needed him?
Final Analysis:
Spanglish: Yes
General Weirdness: Yes
Two-headed, Bi-Polar, Dual Gendered Dragon: Yes
Didacticism: Yes
aliceatwonderland 