Good news, bad news

First of all, HAPPY 5TH OF JULY!!! Today is the day when all the fireworks go on 75%-off clearance and I get to load up for the rest of the year. Yesssssssss.

& I hope you all had a happy 4th of July, as well. But I'm really mostly just glad that it leads to the 5th of July.

So, for the bad news today: I think I broke my toe at work Friday (lifeguarding). My friend says I should tell people that I kicked a naughty kid in the face, but alas... it's not quite that blog-worthy. I tripped, kicked a pole, & felt an ominous little snap in my foot (sound effect!).

I looked down & saw a crooked little toe, then my foot promptly swelled up & turned blue just like Violet Beauregard when she HAD to try that damn Willy Wonka gum. Time to take it to the juicer?

After hobbling around all weekend, I've never felt more grateful for being a (usually) able-bodied person who can walk faster than one mile an hour. I went to the grocery store last night, and was sorely tempted to steal a shopping cart to use as a walker for the rest of the week.

As for the good news? Thanks to moving our mattress to the living room, we've discovered Jason can do a stunning impression of Pepé Le Pew.

(Unfortunately I am terrible at editing videos, so you're going to have to put up with my creepy slo-mo laughing at around 0:25.)

Because my broken toe & Jason bounding gracefully across our living room are SUCH related topics.

*That foot photo was for YOU, Lauren Anderson ; ) ; ) 
(I told you I know a creepish amount about you.)

Rainbow Recap & R-Rated Pictionary

As per the results of last week's Great Thematic Debate (thanks for everyone's input), Rainbow Birthday Party won the cause!

 Click-to-zoom? Highly encouraged.

(Seeing as I don't drink very often, one glass of beer severely disabled my camera skills, and I completely screwed up missed quite a few individual shots-- so here's the whole crew together.)

Check it out-- even the pizza was colorful.

This place wasn't called "Pizza Research Institute" for nothing-- yes, that's a peach slice. Sitting atop curried cauliflower.

After pizza, we spontaneously decided to cram everyone into our tiny apartment, where we did some serious damage on a giant jug of sangria and played Telephone Pictionary.

Telephone Pictionary, without fail, is THE Most Surefire Way to Get a Group of Six or More People into Complete Hysterics. (Yup. It's so official that it overcomes my laziness about hitting the shift key.)

You sit in a circle, and each person has a pad of paper. You write down your initial message-- for example, we chose to write down "song or book titles." Everyone passes their paper to the right, and the next person has to turn to the next page and draw it.

The next person in line must write what they think the drawing is. As it's passed around the circle, you alternate writing and drawing.

It gets screwed up REALLY fast.

Jason wrote down the song "Citizen Soldier" by 3 Doors Down. By the end, it had turned into the COMPLETE opposite. Flip through!



So from Jason's point of view, he wrote "Citizen Soldier" and, 12 turns later, received happy Jesus playing the guitar. Gooood times.

DON'T flip through this next one if you anticipate being offended by slightly censored F-bombs, and cartoonish illustrations of... uh... the aforementioned F-verb.



So, in the end, we had a good time and I highly recommend this game. My abs are still aching two days later.

Not to mention that sitting in our tiny little apartment, listening to the hysterical laughter of twelve of my favorite people, is definitely my idea of a good time.

Birthday Battle: Dark Side vs. Rainbows

toughest duck face ever.

Even though my name is April, and I like ducks & bunnies, and my favorite color is white, and I've been called "bubbly" on more than one occasion-- I have a punk rocker side.

(Don't laugh! You'll hurt my inner punk-rocker's feelings.)





So considering this, and my favorite pastime (costume parties), I was thinking:

       pre-birthday-party @ my house
     +washable markers
     +colored hairspray
     +lots of safety pins
     +etc. (copious amounts of etc.)                                                   
       a wonderful excuse to have fake tattoos and
       colored hair for a night

And then this is where I get stumped. Go out to pizza and look ridiculous? Go play on a playground? Go bar-hopping and accidentally end up in the middle of a gang war?

ALL OF THE ABOVE??


But thennn, I stumbled across this Cup of Jo post:

Rainbow birthday party!

and became torn with indecision.

Wouldn't it be fun to dress like this and have an Easter egg decorating party? (The ducks & bunnies side of me would have the time of her life.)

So, which shall it be? Decorating eggs or decorating people?
Please help us decide by voting:




And PLEASE don't say, "Whatever you want to do, April, it's your birthday." I am incapable of making heavy adult decisions like these.

Further ideas? Feel free to comment.
(If I only know you via blogging, feel free to chime in as well.)

Elevator music

It's been a busy week for me in terms of job-hunting (this is a good thing! I'm patting myself on the back!), but that doesn't mean I'm not going to skip out on giving you, dear readers, some major distraction from whatever else you were doing before you decided to visit.

First of all, prepare to never look at a plastic bag the same way again. (Note that this is voiced by Scar, which makes it all the more credible:)



Oh, yes. That really just happened.

• Another cute little guy that I want to watch over & over & over (the first "cute little guy" being the bumbling little plastic bag, of course).

Also:

• When former spelling-bee geeks grow up to be activists.
• And what they do in their spare time.
• And what they really, really want for their birthday which happens to be coming up in 36 days ; )

{via}

Furthermore:

• Say goodbye to the next five minutes, at least. (Hint: hit your "refresh page" button to clear checked boxes.)
• Instant daily karma.
• And some awww factor (aside from the plastic bag & frisky fox.)

(P.S. Cross your fingers for me!! I'm really looking forward to rockin' the cubicle life-- not even kidding.)

Eeexcellent procrastination tool.

Jason found this AWESOME website that lets you design your own ambient sound effects.

You combine different noises, like "waves crashing," "boat rowing," and..."lemur?!"
(Yeeesh, wouldn't wanna be in that boat.)

When the Hubster first discovered this website, he called me into the room.
I glanced at his computer screen:

--but before I could decipher the meaning of all these knobs on his screen, this is (a reenactment of) what I heard... and saw:

(Is your sound on?)



Living with this guy puts me into hysterics Every. Single. Day.

Soon we were coming up with stuff like, "Beach camping with Darth Vader who's out collecting firewood."

Alas, this website discovery is yet another reason I'm heartbroken to be missing my favorite holiday today. ...Anybody wanna make our day by sharing your own morbid concoction in the comments section? Or do you already have enough homework as it is?

(Use the "Save as Link" feature on the website.)
(Oh, here's the website.)
(PLEASE don't use the "Children Giggles" sound, that's so far past my WAY-TOO-CREEPY line it's not even funny.)
(I shouldn't have even said that, should I?)
(Happy Halloween, by the way!)