Don’t Know How to Convey Your Annoyance Via Text? Go With a PoEmoji

Posted on by thepoelog

FAKT: I have never used an emoji. I actually don’t even know how to. Are they on my phone somewhere? I am old and decrepit and have no idea. Maybe they’re housed on my Life Alert.

Emoji Life Alert

I recently read that some new emojis are being considered and it got me thinking about which ones I would use, if in fact, I was about 25 years younger and had more than four friends who will actually attempt to text with me.

Also, it got me thinking, “How do I get a spot on that emoji judging panel because I bet the discussions are amazing and intense and just awesomely nerdy.”

One of the PoEmojis that immediately popped into my mind was in fact a taco, and lo and behold, the taco emoji is one of the ones currently being considered for release. Whew. Because I do think I would truly use a taco one. Pretty much anytime my personal-chef-for-life XFE asks me what I want him to make me for dinner, the answers are invariably: tacos and/or ice cream sandwiches. Breakfast, lunch or dinner. Tacos are the perfect food. And ice cream sandwiches are just delicious.

Mmmmm, tacos.

Anyway, without further ado, my contributions to the emoji world, or PoEmojis, if you will.

Soysauced emoji. This one is useful for times you want to tell your friends that you fell and made a spectacle of yourself. (See origination of soysauced here.)

Sample use: “Oh girl. I was walking down the street minding my own business and then wham! <soysauce> I think I recovered pretty well, though.”

Cheese and wine emoji. I’m sure there’s already a wine emoji and probably a cheese emoji, but I really need them to be together. That would be my emoji to indicate that XFE is out of town and single girl debauchery is about to commence.

Sample use: “Hey, sorry you can’t come over for <cheese and wine>. Please be on standby to call Cat Protective Services in case I oversleep and forget to feed the cat.”

Crazy cat lady emoji. Speaking of cats, I know quite a few ladies who could use this one. I would expect to receive this one on birthdays, and especially after a friend fights with her boyfriend.

Sample use: “Hey girl, you better straighten up and act right or you’re going to end up <a crazy cat lady>.”

I always joke that I’m one boyfriend and a caftan away from crazy cat lady status. Actually, I do have a few things in my wardrobe that qualify as caftan-esque, so maybe I’m only one boyfriend away from crazy cat lady.

Real Housewives emoji. I think this one would either be like an eye-rolling emoji or maybe a shocked open-mouthed one. I can’t decide.

Sample use: “So then she said that I was being too dramatic and maybe I should reconsider my position that Texas is the best state, and I was all like, <Real Housewives>. I mean, can you believe her??”

Kim’s butt emoji. This emoji is meant to convey something truly large, perhaps, suspiciously so. Like, maybe, too good to be true? A total fake out.

Sample use: “Well, I thought we were going to get out of having to go to that baby shower, but it turned out it was a total <Kim’s butt> and now I feel like an idiot because we obviously have to go.”

Honey badger emoji. Because I was watching this show the other day on National Geographic (let me tell you….unless you want to watch Sex and the City reruns—on two channels, no less– you are basically screwed on daytime television viewing), and it reinforced once again how badass honey badgers are. I think this emoji would come in handy when you’re trying to tell someone that they best not mess with you or you will open up a whole bag of snake-killing honey badger on them.

honey badger

Sample use: “I got so angry when CVS didn’t have the most recent edition of Us Weekly, I almost went all <honey badger> on the unhelpful and uninterested clerk. Instead, I bought last week’s and read it again. Bye, Felicia.”

Speaking of, I don’t think a “bye, Felicia” emoji would sit in the emoji school yard unused. I see that one as a face with a side eye and a hand up dismissal sort of movement. Like “talk to the hand,” but with side eye.

Bye Felicia

Friday Links: Cold Weather and Blue Skin Edition

Posted on by thepoelog

sheryll princess

The spelling of my first name is pretty unique. I’ve never in my 41 years ever come across anybody else who spelled it the same way. It was actually really annoying when I was a kid and could never find anything personalized at those end-of-the-aisle displays at the truck stop.

But a coworker was at a birthday party in New York last weekend, and she saw a yacht with the same unusual spelling (she supplied the picture above). Sure enough: they have a whole website where you can rent a Sheryll Princess party boat! Having a personalized yacht is way better than some janky ol’ keychain with your name on it.

While I go and scheme on ways to repo my yacht (do you think I can just show them my license and make the case that the boat is indeed registered to my [first] name?), check out these links.

  • As a child of the 1980s, this is beyond awesome. Rufus Starlight. “We Are Brothers.” There just aren’t enough synthesizers and silver unitards at weddings these days. You really need to hang in there till the 4:55 minute mark.
  • Speaking of music videos, one of my Facebook friends dug up this ode (?) to Stonehenge from our favorite Norwegian variety show brothers. I love how they rhyme “so high” with “technolog—iiii” Also, the 1.50 minute mark? What the what?? Oh wait….Stonehenge rising. OK, I get it.
  • Dang. I only know fat, slutty, tatooed, single mom, Halle Berry look-a-likes. Guess I won’t get that finder’s fee from Sleepless in Austin, a wedding photographer/musician looking for a girlfriend. Good luck with that, jerk.
  • Greatest headline ever: Why do people want to eat babies? Also: I must be missing those reward censors they talk about. To me, babies smell like old milk (and sometimes poop), so, no, I do not have impulses to do anything with babies, let alone bite them.
  • This, quite predictably, cracked me up for the entire week, particularly the food bowl emergency. But I’ve also had a cat supervise me while I’m on my hands and knees in my work clothes retrieving cat toys from under sofas. We even have a stretched out wire hanger that we keep on hand for that task. The things we do…..
  • This news is over a month old, but I’m still angry about it. And fearful. Better figure out this whole layering business real fast. Because this winter is going to be cold, wet and white, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.
  • And yes, I still believe in the forecasting accuracy of Farmer’s Almanac. It’s far more reliable than listening to the forecasts from these two dueling weathermen. They got into a parking lot brawl over whether or not it was going to rain last weekend. OR DID THEY??
  • One more thing to freak out about: There are people out there with blue skin. Blue. Skin. Not just one person. More than one. Multiple people.  And not makeup. Like, real blue skin. It gives me the heebies even  thinking about it. I just know I would not stop staring.
blues
None of these guys are who I’m talking about. But man, there are a lot of blue people out there.
abc blue man
I’m talking about this guy. Yikes. Scary. And sad.

 

 

BREAKING: Cats and Birds Are Not Friends

Posted on by thepoelog

There is a rumble brewing the animal advocacy jungle, pitting claw against beak.

This poor cat is being attacked by a flock of birds.

It started with a very mundane and not terribly enlightening study from the University of Georgia (paid for, I’m sure, by U.S. taxpayers) which found that outdoor cats in the ALT are straight-up, cold-blooded, gangsta thug killas. Particularly when it comes to lizards and frogs.

“Results indicate that a minority of roaming cats in Athens (44%) were witnessed stalking or chasing prey; and 30% captured wildlife. Reptiles, mammals and invertebrates constitute the majority of suburban prey. Hunting cats captured an average of 2 items during seven days of roaming. About 41% of the prey were lizards, snakes and frogs; mammals such as chipmunks and voles accounted for 25%; and birds only 12%.”

OK, so only 30% of the 55 participating Georgia cats were actually gangsta-killas. But I personally have seen Petunia attack a bowl of Meow Mix and let me tell you, it is chilling. Nothing gets out alive. There are remnants (kibble crumbs) all over the place. It’s carnage, I tell you. Absolute carnage.

Sharpening her claws for an attack. Or, rather, just sitting on her scratching box.

I’m actually afraid to sleep around her, which is why I make sure I’m hugging her tightly to me when we sleep together at night.

So based on my own research (call me Dr. Obvious), I’d like a government grant now, please and thank you very much. It costs a lot of money to keep Petunia in kibble. And I’d like to buy one of those tiny cameras to put around her neck like those other kitties have.

By the way,  that University of Georgia website? Pretty lame. I think even thePoeLog is more technologically advanced. You guys have partnered with National Geographic on this CritterCam thing (does anyone else smell a NatGeo reality show out of all this footage?). You can go ahead and hire some student from the computer department to build you a better-looking website. You could even pay him in pizza, Mountain Dew and Clearasil.

Or you can pay them with this.

Anyway, so of course, with all these startling statistics of a whole 5 birds being killed over the course of a year by cats, the folks over at the American Bird Conservancy got their feathers all ruffled. And, seriously stretched the numbers.

“If we extrapolate the results of this study across the country and include feral cats, we find that cats are likely killing more than 4 billion animals per year, including at least 500 million birds. Cat predation is one of the reasons why one in three American bird species are in decline,” said Dr. George Fenwick, President of American Bird Conservancy, the only organization exclusively conserving birds throughout the Americas.

How do we get from 5 birds per year to 500 million? I mean, I know its math, which I don’t trust anyway, but seriously?? Also, I know a lot of people let their cats outside, but are there really enough cat thugs running around out there to kill 4 BILLION animals. I think I would notice 4 BILLION animals being left dead in the streets.

The bird group also pointed out, for no apparent reason, that feral cats kill pregnant ladies.

“Most feral cats (between 62 and 80 percent) tested positive for toxoplasmosis (a disease with serious implications for pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems).”

So pregnant ladies, take note: don’t eat cat. It will kill you.

You can however pose with one if they match your outfit.

Then, the crazy cat-lady crew over at Alley Cat Allies (which I donate to each year. Because I’m a crazy cat lady), got all in a hizzy and issued this press release:

“Alley Cat Allies, the only national advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and humane treatment of cats, today criticized the American Bird Conservancy for grossly misinterpreting new research being done at the University of Georgia and using it to support misleading claims that cats are one of the main reasons for bird species decline.

“The American Bird Conservancy’s propaganda is just more of the same–spreading fictions about outdoor cats and making wild ‘extrapolations’ about their imagined impact on other species,” said Becky Robinson, president of Alley Cat Allies. “They’ve used unpublished data to fuel their extremist agenda of killing cats. But there just isn’t evidence that shows cats have any negative impact on bird populations.

Robinson noted that the American Bird Conservancy’s campaign to eradicate cats is shortsighted and ineffective. “Killing one species to save another can never be the answer,” she said. “People are interested in humane approaches for cats, and it’s time that everyone in the animal-loving community acknowledges that.”

And then Becky snapped her fingers in the air in a Z formation and flounced off, her cat-t-shirt billowing behind her.

Stuff that might ACTUALLY be killing birds:

OK, you’ll notice I couldn’t find an actual link for that last one, but come on. The Olympics are lame. They could use the spicing up.

To sum up: Birds are definitely under attack. But they aren’t in danger from the Petunia’s of the world. However, they should be safe and avoid the Olympics.