Let’s take a moment to reminisce

Today’s subject is The Oregon Trail series of computer games, which were supposed to educate us (…how?) but mostly just provided us with a way to slowly kill fictional characters. A friend and I ALWAYS named the father of the family Abuser Joe, and then gave the families hardly any food and set them on a grueling pace. The rest of the family dropped like flies. I guess I did learn some things from Oregon Trail: if it wasn’t for that game, I wouldn’t know much about fording rivers, or know how damaging cholera and dysentery are to already underweight children. The best part of the game, aside from slowly picking off family members one by one, was going hunting. Sadly enough, Oregon Trail is probably still the video game where I’m most likely to hit what I’m aiming for. Shooting games just aren’t for me.

Some people made a fake trailer for the game. If you’re in the late 20s/early 30s demographic and ever played this game, you should definitely watch.

Dr. Kiko to the rescue

Kiko is actually a dog, and not a doctor at all, but when he noticed that his owner’s big toe was infected, he did what any reasonable pet would: waited for the man to pass out in a drunken stupor, and then ate the infected toe. That part’s gross. Still, his actions were probably motivated by his greater sense of smell and intelligence (who walks around for a month with an infected toe???), and he saved the dude’s life, which is awesome. Still…

This story has been turning my stomach since I first read about it, but I thought that I shouldn’t have to suffer alone. You’re welcome.

Bureaucracy at its finest

Only paper-pushers would demand the VIN for a chariot operated by King Tut. The bumbling of bureaucrats knows no bounds. That’s actually only a small part of this article about exhibiting the chariot in Times Square, but it’s probably what will stick with me the longest.

Sitcom to follow

This is probably the best-case scenario when you find out that you were switched at birth, but I wonder if anybody has really pondered the awesome sitcom potential.

Do NOT mess with the cheerleader

It’s amazing enough that a 16 year old girl was able to tackle and subdue a shoplifter, but the fact that she did it in a strapless dress is, to me, by far the craziest part of this story.

You shouldn’t be able to wear Louboutins until you can legally drink

I think it’s pretty hilarious and awesome that Selena Gomez (who?) wouldn’t take off her high heels when my favorite building-exiter ever, Justin Bieber, asked her to, but my rah rah girlpower mood was kind of killed when I realized that she’s wearing ~$700 shoes in the accompanying picture. I’m not wishing an excess of teenage angst or even acne on the kid, but seriously? Let the grown-ups handle the designer footwear, kiddo.

Who is breeding with these people?

For the last time, people (and by people, I mean men), put down the babies before you lunge for foul balls. Thanks.

I knew I should have gone to Comic-Con

I feel that my friends on the West Coast have an unfair advantage when it comes to awesome conventions. They get the real Comic-Con (not the knock-off NYC version)  and WonderCon, which a friend who has attended tells me is awesome. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my coast’s crap luck when it comes to conventions, but I do feel minor pangs of sadness when I hear about conventions that I would have attended if it had been geographically feasible. This past weekend, I read several items about this year’s Comic-Con and felt a little sad. Until I saw this article, and then I felt a lot sadder.

Pacey-Con??? I know that this is all for a Funny or Die skit, but the premise still pretty hilarious. I’m envious of California people, again.

I didn’t realize that the plague, AKA black death, was still around (in this country? I’m pretty sure I knew it still existed in general). A lot of people, myself included, use the phrase “I had the plague,” to express a particularly unpleasant illness, but I’ve personally never meant that I had the actual plague. I think that everybody knows this, but I’ll apologize now if I’ve just rocked your world.

Scarily enough, rodents can carry and transmit the plague, a fact that I’m going to remember everytime I see those cute chipmunks that burrow near my house, despite the fact that most US plague cases are reported in the Western states. Can’t wait to avoid all rodents when I get to California in October!

Gross gross gross gross gross.

Once again, I am accidentally ahead of the curve

NPR says that libraries may be the next big thing ala cupcakes, which is awesome, except that the next big thing eventually turns into something old and played out. I’d like for libraries to be the next big thing ala flip-flops, which have existed in one form or another for hundreds of years. Despite their lengthy history, it has only been in the last decade and a half that flip-flops came on the scene in the US as acceptable public, adult footwear. Given their ubiquity, despite how bad they are for the feet, I doubt that they’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.

So, while I thank NPR for encouraging people to think about libraries, I don’t want readers to equate these amazing institutions with cupcakes. Cupcakes can be great, no doubt, but they can also be generic and ridiculously expensive, and as a trend cupcakes are dangerously close to overexposure. Instead, when you think of libraries, think of flip-flops: easy to find, accessible to all, and inexpensive to use. But not detrimental to your arches.