Sharp Corners

My 2012 will be happiest if these phrases stop appearing in my Twitter timeline:

1. “Like a boss” – Unless you are the actual boss of eating Twinkies, playing chess, or finding a parking place. In that case, carry on, but first please tell me what the job requirements are for that position and who’s doing the hiring. Do you get a 401k with that?

2. “That awkward moment when…” – You mean the awkward moment when you discover I threw a flaming brick at my monitor so I didn’t have to read that overused string of words ever again?

3. Any reference to how much you hate Mondays – I believe @JustinRyan sums it up best.

4. “RT to win!” – Asking customers to retweet something so they can do your brand marketing for you is taking the lazy way out. Exception: Home-based businesses and sole proprietors. You get a pass because you don’t have deep-pocketed marketing departments whose employees are out to lunch when they ought to be building customer relationships.

5. “RT @ AnyoneEver “ZOMG, ur product is teh bomb!’” – Companies who retweet 48 customer-praise tweets in a row yet never interact with their customer base should leave Twitter immediately because you’re doing it wrong. So wrong.

On the plus side, I’m continually amazed at how wonderful the Twitter community-at-large is. The people I follow make me laugh until I can’t breathe, cough up quick answers when I need them, and are some of the all-around coolest people on the planet. I love Twitter and have an affection for the people there that probably qualifies me for some sort of virtual Baker Act.

What do you hope never to see on Twitter again? Tell me.

I’m a stalker huge fan of contemporary cartoonist Hugh McLeod, whom many of you may know on Twitter as @GapingVoid. I love the way he looks at the world and the succinct way he presents ideas that you can’t help but identify with instantly.

I came across the image at the top of this post many years ago while struggling with some personal and professional decisions and it captured the essence of my situation perfectly. I’d gotten it into my head that I could have everything I ever wanted, if only I could figure out how to put the pieces together the right way.

Hugh’s cartoon made me realize I was looking at things the wrong way. I was never going to be Mother of the Year, Freelancer of the Year, Friend of the Year, Partner of the Year, etc all at once. All I could be was the best person I know how and hope for the best. Maybe I’d be Lisa of the Year.

The sliver I chose way back when seemed so tiny at the time that I wasn’t sure it was even worth it. Today, that sliver is enormous. I have choices and opportunities that I never expected, plans and goals that I know I can reach, people in my life who encourage me every step of the way, and a future that’s never been more exciting.

I chose my sliver wisely and you know what? I feel like I really do have it all.

I’m trapped in the last row of an airplane that’s callously hurtling me toward Denver at 400 miles MPH. If you’ve known me for more than eleven minutes, you are aware that I’m terrified of flying so this experience makes me want to club a baby seal with a kitten.

I should get a medal for being willing to get into this bucket of steel and let myself be flung 3,000 feet in the air. According to my friends on Twitter though, apparently many of you sick bastards actually like to fly. I can’t understand why. Airports? Yeah, I’m down with airports because I love to people watch and imagine where my fellow travelers are going (of course since I live in the shadow of  The Mouse, no doubt 9/10ths of the people are going home). I even think the planes themselves are kinda cool, especially since everything is downsized. Miniature bathrooms, small seats, tiny liquor bottles (so I’m, uh, told), and itty-bitty pillows (who uses those? head lice, anyone?) But the actual act of flying? No, thank you.

I’d have no problem with plane travel if I bould buckle in while the aircraft simply rolled down the interstate until we got where we needed to be. Driving the plane down the road is about the only way to make this an enjoyable experience for me.

Sidenote: Some maroon in front of me just opened a huge bag of barbeque chips. The whole area smells like a Frito-Lays factory just blew up. How do I find out if there’s a air marshal on board? No, I don’t want this guy arrested. I just don’t want to go to jail for shanking him with my pen.

The illustrious Zack W. told me just before boarding to consider the plane a primitive space shuttle. I’ll admit that got me through ascent, typically the hardest part of the flight for me. Other challenges include: acceleration, takeoff, reaching altitude, flying straight, turning of any kind, descent, full wheelstop, and deplaning. But, yeah, those 13 seconds when I was quietly chanting, “primitive space shuttle, primitive space shuttle” were transcendent. Thanks, Zack!

I’m slightly hyper-aware on airplanes because there’s always the off-chance the flight crew might miss something important like a subtle smell, a tiny noise, or the loss of the entire left wing (who needs the right-wing anyway, bunch of jack-booted thugs *rimshot*). Every time we sail over the smallest bump of turbulence, I tense up like I’m about to be slugged by Ving Rhames. God help me if the “Fasten Seatbelt” sign comes on mid-flight because to me it signals impending doom and certain death.

You see, many years ago I was on my way to Kansas City when our pilot decided to amuse us by flying directly through a thunderstorm or, as I like to think of it Hurricane Delta. The seatbelt sign came on and the passengers dutifully secured themselves, but the cabin crew kept serving beverages (in hindsight, I should have had 36 shots of Jack instead of that Sprite). After a few minutes, the pilot announced “things could get a little bumpy,” which I later realized is code for “we may have to fly upside down to survive this.”

Since the flight attendants were still walking around, I figured things were still going to be all right even though the bouncing was beginning to unnerve me. About five minutes later, I heard a bell and the cabin crew snapped to attention, shoved their carts into the closet and quite literally ran to their seats. I must have looked like I was going to pass out because the man next to me started telling me everything would be fine, there was nothing to worry about, and all the other platitudes people say to calm a crazy person.

If what we’d experienced up til then was pebble-drop on the turbulence scale, the next 10 minutes were akin to being slammed by a meteor. We rolled, pitched, leaned, bounced, and jerked so hard I thought the paint would peel. We pulled maneuvers that the Blue Angels would envy. Of course, I did what any sensible adult woman would do in that situation.

I burst into tears.

The poor man next to me tried so hard to make me feel better but all I could do was weep into a napkin bearing the logo of the airline that was going to get me killed. The turbulence finally let up and everything began to settle down when apparently Mother Nature had one last flare of PMS. The plane abruptly dropped what I’m told was about two feet (though I’m certain it was more like 632), prompting me to grab the thigh of the man next to me. I yelped in fear and he yelped in surprise, no doubt while calculating the cost of a restraining order against me. Ever since that flight, the sound of the “Fasten Seatbelt” sign raises my blood pressure about 90 points.

I also consider it my personal responsibility to make sure I know where the flight attendants are at all times. For example, weight must be evenly distrubuted on both sides of the plane and for god’s sake, don’t ever lean over to look out the window! The aircraft may tilt. Flight attendants are the traffic cops of the airspace and I won’t hesitate to call one over to have to strapped to your seat with headphone cords if you try to alter our delicate balance while we are in flight.

Keeping track of the crew also keeps me aware if anything is amiss because they’re the first to know. If they keep serving drinks after a sudden boom followed by cabin depressurization, then I can go back to my book because everything’s fine. If one of them suddenly beats a hasty retreat to his seat and straps in when everything seems normal, I know it’s time to update my will. All in all, if the cabin crew ever leaves my line of sight I’m a basket case. If they sit, I know it’s time to panic.

Speaking of panic, you probably think I’d make a terrible seatmate but I don’t. Despite being a complete emotional train wreck, I’m the picture of serenity on the outside. To the casual observer, I look like I’m reading Sky Mall as we take off but what you don’t know is that I’ve been staring at the same picture since I sat down. I may seem like I’m enjoying the music on my iPod but in reality it’s not even turned on. I just have my earbuds in so no one will talk to me and distract me from listening vigilantly for the sound of falling fuselage. In fact, the only time a fellow passenger would have issues with me is over whether to keep the window shade up or down (down, so I don’t have to watch as we defy gravity and physics for the whole three-hour flight so back off the shade, bissshh!!!).

As I type this, we’ve hit some turbulence so I’m going to put this laptop away and concentrate on keeping the plane in the sky. One last thing before I go. Before I took off, many of you Tweeted and texted me with words of encouragement, humor, or both. I’m grateful that so many of you took the time to wish me well (or tell me to suck it up and quit whining but, whatever, that works too). If ever I can return the favor or support you in any way, just say the word and I’m there. Unless, of course, it involves flying and then, well, I’m not.

Kids today. They think they invented everything.

When blogs popped on the scene 126 years ago, batches of us jumped on memes as a way to connect and learn about each other. The 100 Things About Me meme in particular was popular for a long time, and lots of long-standing blogs still sport sidebar links to the posts we wrote about it years ago.

The idea has been resurrected recently on Twitter as the #100FactsAboutMe hashtag. We know how much I like to play along with the cool kids but rather than trash your timeline with 100 narcissistic tweets, I’ll point you to the list I wrote in 2004. Besides, I’m lazy and don’t want to bother coming up with 100 new things.

What follows is actually the third iteration of the original list, but this is the most current. Since it’s so old, I’ve added some commentary along the way but, for the most part, it’s still pretty accurate.

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I spent a couple of days in Tampa with my kids recently and gave my poor Twitter followers a play-by-play of the whole thing. I made an offhand comment after the first day that I would share some of the videos highlighting my extreme dorkishness if anyone wanted to see them and, for reasons I can’t really fathom, lots of people asked me to post them.

Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that y’all probably just want an opportunity to mock me. Who am I to take that away from you, so here you go: further proof I am The High Preistess of Dorkdom. Enjoy your visit to my world.
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I spend all my time writing about technology and other nerdy stuff so this is a total departure from my norm. I’m about to go all girly on you so feel free to laugh and point, I won’t mind.

First, the back story: I’m a total tomboy and would happy to sack a quarterback by facemasking the crap out of him and taking the personal foul while laughing all the way to the sidelines. On the other hand, I own about 40 pair of shoes, 50 purses, and am typing this with the tips of my fuchsia-painted fingernails. I’m a bit of an oxymoron, but I’m fine with that. The fact that I’m about to write about making up is kind of making me want to slap myself in embarrassment, but I want to share something.

About two months ago, a company named Cilea Lash started following me on Twitter and we started chatting. I remember it because I mentioned I was nervous about an upcoming date and someone from the account wished me luck. I didn’t even know what the product was, but I immediately liked their social interaction — no selling, just conversation. I checked out what they had to offer and was intrigued — an all-natural lash growth product that’s a lot like the stuff Brook Shields promotes on TV. I added Cilea Lash to my wish list and kind of forgot about it.

Around a month ago, the company offered me a free tube of Cilea Lash and I accepted. No strings attached, no promises to write about their product, no nothing. Just a straight up offer to try it out for a while. Two things occurred to me when they extended the offer: First, this stuff is never going to work. Second, I spend six days a week writing my guts out for pay, I’ll never find the time to give them free advertising. But, hey, I thought, if they want to send me this stuff anyway, fine by me.

I was wrong on both counts.

I’m finding the time to write about Cilea Lash because, holy crap, this stuff works. My lashes have always been long, but they’re not particularly thick. After a month of use, I see lashes growing in and filling the empty spaces between my existing lashes — but that’s not the coolest part. Check it: My eyelashes are now so long they actually catch in my eyebrows. How awesome is that?

Aside from using Cilea Lash, I haven’t changed another thing in my makeup routine. I still use the same mascara (Great Lash!), haven’t changed eye cream, or otherwise altered anything I use on or around my eyes for months. My elongated lashes have to be the result of Cilea Lash. It’s certainly not from wishful thinking — if I had that kind of power, I’d have lost my thigh-jiggle.

Cilea Lash is dead simple to use: just apply a layer at the lashline on clean skin once a day. Though it’s meant for upper lashes, I’ve also been putting on my lower lashline and I now I can’t apply mascara all the way to their tips because I end up with little mascara dots under both of my eyes. It looks a little like Morse code, and it is not at all sexy.

About the only thing I’d change about Cilea Lash is that it would dry more quickly. I tend to sleep with my makeup on quite often (I know, I know), so I usually apply the product in the morning. It takes a while to absorb so I sometimes can’t do my eye makeup right away. On the other hand, I suspect it would need some alcohol help dry more quickly and I’d rather have my booze in a martini than millimeters from my cornea, so the drying time is a small price to pay for, y’know, vision.

If you know me at all, you know my ethics won’t allow me to take so much as a pencil in exchange for writing good things about a product. Yes, Cilea Lash gave me a free tube to try, but they did so knowing that if I thought it sucked monkey fur, I was going to say so. Happily, that’s not the case, though. I love this stuff and I’m saying so in the same vein I tweet about the other things I have strong opinions on (everything!).

So, now you know. If you’ve ever thought about trying a lash-lengthening product but worried the hype was just a bunch of sales talk — you might be right. I have no idea about other similar products but I can tell you Cilea Lash worked for me. I’m going to keep applying it until my lashes get long enough to trip the wide receiver the next time I play tackle football.

I was talking to someone today who asked for the link to my personal blog. Now, as a freelance writer and professional blogger, you’d think maintaining a personal blog would be a no-brainer. After all, words come easy, minimal editing required, and I can pick whatever topic I want. The reality is, my personal blog is the very last thing to get my attention. I ignore it like a bad pick-up line.

I’d love to give lots of exciting reasons for why I seldom update this thing. I’m busy! (True.) You already know everything I think on Twitter. (Also true.) It’s hard to fit it in while I’m training for that upcoming triathlon. (I’m sorry, have we met?)

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I don’t post here very much, and why I want to do so more often. Yes, it’s true, I’m really, really busy. However, I still find time to watch Glee (for the music) and Burn Notice (for the, um, plot lines…), so I can’t be that busy. I’m gonna blame some of why I don’t post much on the force that is Twitter.

Bloggers love feedback on what they write but commenting on blogs has fallen out of favor mainly, I think, because everyone’s pressed for time these days. Fair enough, I’m guilty of not leaving comments on many of the awesome blogs I read. When I post something on Twitter, I get instant feedback (or, deafening silence, which speaks volumes, too.) I’m able to get a dialogue going and, let’s face it, I love to hear myself talk. Deal with it. It’s fun to talk to people about what I think on Twitter, rather than blog about it into the vast echo chamber.

It’s also tough for me to write personal blog posts because, typically, I get far more, well, personal. True, I let a lot hang out on Twitter and, if you care to read between the lines, you can learn a lot more about me than you think. But, over the years, personal blogging has been a sort of catharsis for me. Now that my children are older and read my stuff, coupled with the professional online presence I have, it’s harder to get overly personal about my life.

Sidebar before we move on: This post has enough parenthetical comments to make an English teacher stab me with a quill. Tough crap.

So, why do I want to post more here? It’s not because the Internet needs more of my content, that’s for sure. It’s also not because I think anyone would hang on every word I write, or pine longingly for my next post. No, I want to write here more because writing is what keeps me sane.
Blogging has helped me immeasurably over the years keep my perspective, and sometimes my sanity. (Okay, yeah, the sane train left the station years ago. Humor me.) It’s also the only place I can let my guard down when I write. I don’t have to worry about SEO, phrasing, editors, typos, congruency of ideas, fact-checking, mis-quoting, objectivity, or any of the other 10,000 things a professional writer needs to be concerned with. See? I can even end my sentences with a dangling participle. (Yeah, that might not technically be a dangling participle, but you get the idea, so shaddup). Personal blogging means I can be myself, I can choose my words less carefully, and just be myself. That’s fun.

As many of my writer friends say about their personal blogs, it’s the cobbler’s children who often go shoeless. When you’re immersed in writing for a living, it’s hard to take the time to do it for yourself. When you spend your days relaying other people’s information to readers, you lose sight of the ability to relay your own information to others. When you’re staring down the barrel of seven deadlines, it’s hard to justify writing something that isn’t going to pay the bills. When blogging is a job, it’s difficult to also have it as a hobby.

That said, I’ve found myself missing my poor, neglected blog. So, here I am. I’m not sure how often I’ll post, or what kind of content I’ll bring, but I’ll stop ignoring it quite so much. I know, I know… you’re just giddy in anticipation. Cut the crap, I know most of you and I’m sure you’ve checked Twitter four times since you started reading this. I’ll still be there,  giving you crap and goofing off when I should be working.

But I’ll write here, too. Sometimes, what I have to say is  just too much for 140.

I’ve avoided memes for a long time now, but I just got tagged by Joe Brockmeier for the latest one making the rounds. It’s called “7 Things” and here’s how it works:

1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

Here’s 7 things you may or may not already know about me. Celebrate or mock me, your call.

1. I have an unbearable fear of open-air heights. I’m all right being up high indoors but get me even 10 feet off the ground and I’m a basket case. I’m so terrified of heights that I can’t watch this video — and I’m serious — without starting to black out. Because apparently my middle name is Irony, when I was in firefighter training I was able to climb untethered to the top of a 100-foot ladder extended straight up from the ladder truck. To this day, I have no idea how I pulled it off, but I’m pretty sure I threw up when I got back to the ground.

2. Speaking of names, I’ve always wanted a nickname. I’ve never been given one that’s stuck, though I did come kind of close once.

3. If you’ve been around a while, you already know about my food issues and decorating neurosis, but you may not know I’m a neat freak to the extreme. I make my bed every morning, the wheel tracks on the rug when I vacuum have to line up, and stuff scattered on across countertops makes me either weep or scream, depending on my mood. Monk’s got nothing on me.

4. Although I don’t wear fingernail polish, I never, ever go without polished toes. At a rough guess, I haven’t had bare toenails in about 6 years.

5. All three of my children were born at home. They were wonderful experiences that I wouldn’t trade for the world. All three births were attended by a physician and his staff of nurses, though my last son was born during a snow storm and the doctor didn’t quick make it on time.

6. I am absolutely grossed out by food-scented body lotions. I mean, really, who wants to smell like a guava or nectarine? Ick.

7. I have a really, really bad sense of direction. Thank god my mother got me a GPS for my birthday last year.

Now for the hard part. I have to come up with seven people to tag. I spy, with my little eye:

1. Crystal Edwards, because I secretly hope she’ll sing her 7 things.

2. Kristin Shoemaker, because I always drag my partner in crime with me for stuff like this.

3. Dave Caolo, because I need more than this to tease him about.

4. Justin Ryan, because I know whatever graphic he puts up with his post will leave me writhing in hysterics on the floor.

5. Cory Bohon, because he is a super-cool Apple fanatic and fellow writer that everyone should get to know.

6. Renee Robbins, because I think she’s a really neat woman and I’d like to get to know her better.

7. You. I’d like you to tell me 7 things about yourself, on your blog or down there in the comments. There are about 20 more names I could have put in this slot but, the truth is, I want to know more about all my Internet friends, not just seven. So, go on, tell me what you want me to know.

About 150 bright blue moons ago I told my mother I wanted a Sony Walkman so I could listen to music while I commuted back and forth to school in downtown Chicago. Kind woman that she is, she eventually bought me one though I’m sure there was no correlation to that sudden Goth period I fell into right around the same time.

Walking around with my headphones plugged into that giant moveable tape-deck and listening to Journey, I thought I was the coolest, most high-tech gadget freak on earth. These days, of course, my kids wouldn’t know a cassette tape if it fell on their head (which one did while I was cleaning my closet last week).

I was sure that no electronic device would ever be cooler, smaller, or more efficiently made during my lifetime despite the fact that I needed a sherpa to carry it and its accessories, and it drained batteries dry in the time it took me to walk out the front door.

Now I’m older, wiser, and living in the age of the Apple’s newest music player, the iPod Shuffle, which is short for “I’ve sneezed things into a Kleenex larger than this.” I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that technology rules us, not the other way around. If you doubt me on that, have a look at the effect video games have on the ordinary American child.

I’m from a generation that got to play the first video games ever created, so I understand that some thirty-odd years later most of the people I know still play them. It’s part nostalgia, and part complete awe at how far they’ve come (Pong, anyone?). I don’t begrudge adults that have a blast relaxing over a good game of Super Monkey Ball, I just can’t do it. Video games stress me out. I’m no longer welcome at Chuck E. Cheese after the Unfortunate Whack-A-Mole incident of 2006.

Last year, Nintendo introduced a new video game system called the Wii. It barely got on my radar and I paid no attention whatsoever. During the summer, I gradually became more aware of its existence and once I heard about the Wii Fit exercise game (attachment sold separately, void where prohibited, not valid in Antigua), I decided to pick one up.

Goodbye, productivity. Hello, obsession.

The Wii Fit is a little electronic board that speaks wirelessly to your Wii game console. It’s designed to be set on the floor so you can stand on it while you play / exercise. By the way, that’s some impressive marketing there, my friend. The company gets you to buy a game system for hundreds of dollars, then gets you to pony up another $90 more for something you take home, dump on the floor, and step all over with the same cruddy feet you used to walk the dog at that truck stop near Peoria last month.

Of course I coughed up the cash.

The day I got the Wii Fit home, I set it up, and stepped on to let it weigh me and estimate my BMI. After it was done calculating, it determined I’m 29 which is…ha, ha, ha, ha, ha….. SO not true. It also told me all sorts of sad things I didn’t want to hear, like my current weight. Then I had my 9-year old son step on and the Wii Fit determined he was 77-years old, 173 pounds overweight and knocking on the side door of the Grim Reaper’s house. I suddenly felt much better about what it told me.

The Wii Fit bills itself as a personal trainer of sorts. It puts you through all sorts of yoga poses, strength training, cardio, and balance exercises, then logs your activity and even awards you a “Good Job” stamp on your virtual calendar when you’re done for the day. It tracks your weight loss, BMI, and, for all I know, your menstrual cycle. Frankly, it’s awfully damn invasive, considering it’s nothing but a video game on steroids. I went for a mammogram last week. It offered to tag along and record the results.

I’m so in love with this stupid little thing, it’s kind of getting unhealthy, if you’ll allow me the pun. I’ve bought the Fit a nice silicon sleeve for our first month-a-versary — a slinky little see-through number I think it will like. I was thinking of getting it a mat too, but I didn’t want to seem needy so I’ll wait for our six-month for that.

I love my Wii Fit a Wii bit more than I should. I’ve been having a great time hula-hooping and jogging first thing in the morning, then doing the tree pose and a few crunches before bed every night. Now this is a video game I can get behind.

My favorite thing about the Wii is that you can create a little tiny person that looks just like you to live inside your console and jump from game to game as you play tennis or golf. My Mii (get it? Wii –> Mii. Oh, those silly gamers.) hangs around inside the Wii Fit and jumps up every time I turn it on, apparently to motivate me to keep coming back.

Oops.

I’ve been really, really busy the last week or so and haven’t had a chance to use the Wii Fit as much as I like. Son Two uses it almost every day and he shared some sad news with me today.

Mii, oh my. What will I do? Time to get cracking on the Wii again. Who has one? Who’s in it with me? Wii can do it!

Aw, hell, I’m all out of puns.

My great pal Dave Caolo started a blogging round-robin of sorts and wants to know what songs we hate to admit loving (because, you know, that’s what I always look for in a friend — a willingness to encourage me to embarrass myself to death). I let him and a some other bloggers go first to I could get a good laugh sense of what people were saying, but I can’t put off my part in this any longer. Here you have it. Mock me at will.

Kiss, by Prince – It’s an utterly stupid song, filled with all shrill squeaking His Purpleness could muster. It’s the line, “Act your age, momma, not your shoe size” that does it for me.

Pass the Dutch, by Missy Elliott – Oh, dear god, this song has so much wrong with it that it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, the lyrics vacillate between stupid and nearly obscene. Second, it’s melody has less range than The Alphabet Song. Third, if you play it in your car with the windows down, it’s guaranteed to offend or off-put anyone in 15 mile radius. But it has a great beat and you can dance to it.

Bittersweet Symphony, by The Verve – I like this song so much that it’s one of the first tunes I put on my new BlackBerry. Of course, I’m the only one on the planet who likes this whiny, repetitious, nonsensical, emo song (“It’s just a bittersweet symphony, this life / Tryin’ to make ends meet, trying find some money / Then you die). I’ll bet even the lead singer’s mother hates this song.

Leather and Lace, by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley – I really have no explanation for this except I’m a child of the ’80s and at some point I thought maybe I could hit the same notes as Stevie. Or Don, I really can’t remember.

I Would Walk 500 Miles, by The Proclaimers – This one I can’t help but love. It’s an earworm, through and through.

Desert Rose, by Cheb Mami and Sting – Cheb’s yodeling and caterwauling is what drives most people away from this song, and draws me right to it. I think it sounds lyrical and haunting — at least the first minute or so. Then it’s annoying and ear-splitting.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light, by Meatloaf – This song has cropped up over and over at various times in my life for thirty years. That, my friends, is longevity. And, mysteriously, it never really sounds any better than it did the first 900 times I heard it in 1978. But, tell me, if you grew up with this song are you even slightly capable of not yelling, “STOP RIGHT THERE!!!” if it comes on when no one’s around? Side note: prepare to feel old.

These were in no particular order because, really, there’s no rhyme or reason to how one goes about humiliating themselves, right?