You Wont Believe These Disney Princesses, Re-imagined!

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You may think you've seen these Six Disney Princesses before, but you've NEVER seen them like this. These re-imagined princesses will have you saying "OH MY!"

It seems like Disney Princesses have been re-imagined in literally every possible way you can think of. They've been made slightly chubbier, slightly skinnier, made to look like pinup girls, given realistic faces, gender swapped, made into tattoo covered hipsters... and...actually that's pretty much it.

With literally gallons of reimagined Disney Princess click-bait articles all circulating the same handful of concept art princesses you would think we might come up with a new cheap attempt at generating site views with worthless content. You might also think people would finally stop clicking on them.

Apparently you'd be wrong on both counts! WE WILL PLASTER YOUR FACEBOOK FEED WITH SLIGHTLY PHOTOSHOPPED PRINCESSES UNTIL YOU BLEED FROM YOUR EYES AND DIE.

As Promised, Here are six Disney Princesses presented in a whole new way, like you've never seen: As Grapefruits.

1. Ariel

2. Cinderella

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3. Belle

4. Mulan

                                                    the joke is that it's a chinese grapefruit.

                                                    the joke is that it's a chinese grapefruit.

5. Snow White

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6. Jasmine

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PS. The lesson here is that garbage clickbait articles are the worst. If you agree, but are also a hypocrite like I am for making this in the first place, please share! Stop the clickbait spam! (except for this one. Spread this one because people looking for Disney Princesses and getting Grapefruit is hilarious.)

PS Also: I am not proud of myself for this.

PS also also: I kind of am, just a little.

I am Weedman

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Last weekend the single worst thing that ever could, or ever has happened to a human being happened to me. I received the following text:

 
 

Dear sweet Muppet Baby Jesus, this is my nightmare.

The "who this" text, is like the digital equivalent of a Jehovah's Witness coming to your house. Except instead of knocking on your front door where you can sit perfectly still in the den and pretend not to be home, he came in the side door and started making potato salad in your kitchen before you even realized he was there. 

You just walk into the kitchen because you want some juice and there he is, all "Hey buddy, want some potato salad? Want to talk about Jesus?" You aren't prepared for him and he's already breached the defenses, so the next thing you know you're thumbing through a copy of The Watchtower and eating potato salad. And you weren't even in the mood for potato salad. AND you never get your goddamn juice.

The point I'm tying to make is that I have a hard enough time dealing with people on a day to day basis in places I expect to have to deal with them; I am not equipped to handle the stress of having them pop up within the sanctuary of my phone.

Whilst wrestling with the crisis of the first unsolicited grammatical travesty, mystery texter sent me this follow up gem:

 
 

Whelp, I was having a heart attack over getting a stranger text, but that statement is so ridiculous I decided I was going to have to take action; You don't just double text somebody some "who this" texts with no regard for grammar, punctuation, capitalization or the fact that you shouldn't tell a stranger you have them in your phone as 'Weedman'. We're trying to have a society over here buddy, pull it together.

Here is how I chose to respond:

 
 
 
 

I guess once they discovered that I didn't have any weed they lost interest in talking to me. That or they thought I was some kind of maniac. Either way they didn't text me anymore, so I got what I wanted out of the situation.

Me: 1  

Stranger who learned a valuable lesson about what happens when you text random numbers like some kind of animal: 0

Moral of the story: 

  1. Don't call or text random numbers and have the audacity to ask the person you just phone molested who they are.
  2. If a random number calls or texts you in what clearly seems to be a wrong number situation, don't call them/text them back to see who it was. If it's someone you actually know they'll leave you a message. But hopefully not a voicemail, because people who leave voicemails are almost as bad as people who text strangers. You're just making everything worse for everyone forever so stop it already.
  3. Just be normal and avoid having to have contact with anyone ever like the rest of us.

That will be all.

Also, now I want potato salad.

The Dogs Broke My Wife

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Every now and again my wife gets caught in a loop where she find something (usually herself) so goddamn funny that she devolves into hysterics for minutes at a time, laughing at pretty much nothing. 

I took this video a while back when the dogs were being a pair of complete assholes and it launched Emily into what can only be described as a physical manifestation of  a person who "literally can't even".

Maybe it's just me, but I just find these fits of hysteria infectious. Whenever I need a laugh throughout my day I get out my phone and play this video and it never fails to put me in a good mood.

I'll just leave this here in the event that it can brighten up someone else's day just a little.

If that made your day even an infinitesimal amount better, I'm glad that I shared it. If you know of somebody else who might need something to make them laugh at something dumb for a few minutes in an otherwise crummy day send this to them too. Or send them a video of yourself breakdancing while wearing one of those inflatable t-rex suits. Or go to their house and give them an atomic high five. Or do literally anything to make you or someone else just a little less full of rage and disappointment at the world.

 

P.S: I feel like I should apologize for the fact that I shot the video in portrait mode. I wasn't raised by wolves, I know better then that.

I'm Super Famous Now.

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I'm proud to announce that I am the star of a smash internet hit video.

I've been a huge Rooster Teeth fan since I was in about 8th grade. Rooster Teeth is a company that makes web content, for those not familiar. They have massively popular shows like Red vs Blue and RWBY, a number of super popular weekly podcasts, and a whole slew of other shows and content.

A few months ago, Rooster Teeth released their first feature length movie, Lazer Team. As a Christmas present for by brother, I purchased two tickets to the premier so we could see it in one of the select theaters showing it opening night.

At the screening, an intro for one of Rooster Teeth's shows Achievement Hunter Weekly Update was shot by a fan. It's a video of the entire audience shouting the intro line for the show, but I think we all know who the real star was. That's right. Me.

The clip was submitted and ended up being used in the video for AHWU #310 a few weeks ago. Thanks to my breakout appearance in the video I am now a famous internet star.

If you want to check out the full video, I'll include a link to it at the end. To save you some time and get down to the real main attraction, I've used the marvels of modern technology to show you just the important part. Here is where I make my youtube fame debut:

First you go to the video, and pause it at 10:24

Enhance

 
 

Enhance

 
 

Enhance

There we are.

 
 

My Brother is the sort of teal colored amoeba and I am the reddish thing that kind of looks like an alien/ Beaker from the Muppets waving it's hands above it's head.

I'm not sure what to do now that I am a huge famous youtube star. I'll probably have to quit my job, move out to LA and start signing lots of autographs. Don't feel bad that you guys are only mere peasants now that I have outgrown you and am a huge important deal.

I'll remember you all fondly.

P.S Here is the link to the original video: AHWU #310

How To Do A Terrible Job Refinishing Furniture

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The first time I decided to write about taking on a home improvement project around the house I chronicled the natural disaster that was attempting to fix a leaking sink drain in a post entitled I Suck at Home Repairs.

Never one to admit defeat after being resoundingly ineffective at man-type handy work, I recently took up my latest project: Refinishing a piece of furniture. The reason I am refinishing this table certainly has an explanation; And that explanation is some whole thing about furniture having to match the color scheme of our den instead of looking like we plucked a random assortment of home furnishings out of a dumpster and then put them inside for lamps and stuff to go on. However, I think we can all agree that nobody gives a shit about that and we just want to get to the part where I do a really bad job on a table and take pictures of it.

Bottom line, I have a table, and I want that table to be a different color than the color that it currently is so I am going to do a bunch of stuff and make it the color I want.

 
*This is literally my favorite joke in the entire post

*This is literally my favorite joke in the entire post

 

What makes me think I can take on and successfully complete a task of this nature having never attempted it before and generally ruining everything I put my hands on around the house? Two things. One: I read a blog by a lady who said it was super easy and I believe everything I read on internet blogs. Two: Since the last time I attempted and failed miserably at a home project I have grown a beard.

Having a beard adds a skill modifier of at least +4 to all of my manliness rolls, which means I should easily be able to tackle this project despite the fact that I just made a Dungeons and Dragons reference like an enormous nerd.

*mANLINESS GREATLY EXAGGERATED FOR EFFECT, Actual Moustache Fanciness may Vary. Manliness aLSO oFFSET BY wIZARD rOBE.

*mANLINESS GREATLY EXAGGERATED FOR EFFECT, Actual Moustache Fanciness may Vary. Manliness aLSO oFFSET BY wIZARD rOBE.

Anyway, what is always the first step on any burgeoning home improvement project in my household? TO LOWE'S!

Phase One Prep

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The second step is of course getting to Lowe's and realizing I don't have any idea what materials I need for this project and desperately googling "How to refinish furniture" on my phone in the paint aisle like an asshole.

I had dragged Emily with me on the quest for stuff to science a table into a different colored table, so after a considerable amount of arguing about what stuff I would need I left with the following in hand:

 
 
  • 1qt- Paint (Some kind of olive green-ish color that probably has a specific name which I don't care to learn.)
  • 1 container Wipe on Polyurethane
  • 1 baby size roller
  • 1 paintbrush
  • 1 roll blue tape
  • 1 package of dust masks (which I know I'm not going to wear but bought anyway)
  • 150 grit and 80 grit sandpaper (as if I understand what the difference will be) 

With all of my treasures acquired we headed home and I lugged the thing out into the garage to start working.

Approximately 1 hour later I had accomplished an amount of sanding so negligible that I didn't even bother to take a picture of it, worked up a gross amount of sweat for how little progress I made, and decided that I was going to purchase an orbital sander and power tool this b!%$h. 

One day, one trip to Lowe's, and $39.98 later, my new sander and I were ready to sand us a table.   

 
 

After spending an hour making the paint on one square inch of table leg a slightly lighter shade of blue when I was trying sand the table by hand I expected I would come home with my orbital sander, and melt the paint off the table with the precision and expertise of a master craftsman; paint vaporizing instantly beneath every pass of my sander leaving clean, bare wood exposed beneath. This was not the case. Twenty minutes later and:

 
 

I succeeded in making a slightly shittier blue table.  Positive I was either doing it wrong, using the wrong grit of sandpaper or some other novice mistake, and concerned by the fact that even through it was technically working I was going through a sheet of sandpaper every five minutes I did the only thing that made sense. I Got stubborn and kept going. 

 
 

The process was a giant pain in the ass, but it was starting to come along. I sanded until I was really sick of sanding and then called it a day, deciding to come back and finish it off later so that I could get it painted.

That was the last time I touched that table for two entire months. There were a number of reasons I didn't get back to it: Later that initial week my wife and I went out of town for a few days while she went to visit vet schools for interviews, then there was a big snow-storm and the cars were in the garage, then there was a long period of time where it was cold and I didn't feel like it. Then I got the flu. Then there was some more time when I didn't feel like it.

Some of you might be asking, 'Hey, what have you been doing for a table all this time that you've had this one out in the garage not working on it?' 

Good question, friend. I'll tell you. We've been using a sweet red and green plastic tub full of the Christmas ornaments as a table.

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Classy as f#@k. The candle really complements accents of the red and green plastic tub and it just goes so well with the crooked lamp shade. Someone get a hold of  Martha Stewart's people, I think I'm really on to something here.

Anyway, the guilt and shame of having left this project half finished for so long finally caught up to me and I decided it was time to get down to business. 

Full disclosure; It still took me two weeks between the "Its time to get down to business" motivational decision and actually doing anything with the table.

Once I -did- start, I was not going to be stopped, that table was going to get sanded until there was no more blue paint to be found! NOTHING WOULD STAND IN MY WAY! Except that I used up my last piece of  sand paper about fifteen minutes in and had to stop.

Two days later I found myself once more in Lowe's looking for some more sandpaper. This time however, I made a discovery that would prove critical.

Apparently THIS:

Is not intended to strip paint off of wood. It's only supposed to be used on drywall. This certainly explains why I was going through a sheet every ten minutes and used an entire pack while only managing to sand a third of the table. You know what though? How was I supposed to know it was the wrong stuff? I mean, sure it was in the section with the drywall stuff, and sure it says 'DRYWALL' on the package in all capital bold letters right at the top but anyone could have made that mistake. 

So, not wanting to repeat my mistake, I went on over to the section with the power tools and on the wall literally two feet away from where I bought the sander was the heavy duty stuff actually intended for the job I was trying to do:

You can tell it's the right stuff because of the picture of those rugged man hands sanding a deck or whatever.

Now equipped with my power sander and proper bits of sandpaper it was go-time for real.

 It was glorious. The paint came off like... paint being sanded off by a sander. After spending hours laboriously attacking this table, gnashing my teeth and cursing every time I ruined another sheet of that drywall sandpaper to get jack-all done this was like heaven. 

I sanded, and sanded some more. I may have gone a little power mad for a bit, swept up in the ecstasy of conquering the shit out of that piece of furniture. I was like "Yeah, coarse grit for paint removal!" as I buzzed away the blue paint which had been taunting me for months. Then I was all "Whammo! Medium finishing grit! Fine finishing Grit! Suck it table, I'm the human here! My opposable thumbs and not being an inanimate object make me the goddamn boss!"

I sanded until I was happy with the result and then I sanded a little bit more because I was kind of into using the sander and I got carried away.

After three months I had finally succeeded in turning that table from blue to not blue.

I was pretty pleased with myself at this point. Sanding was done, so all that was left to do was to scuff, prime, scuff again, paint three coats scuffing between each, stain the top, stain drawers and cabinets, apply the polyurethane finish put all the hardware back on and then reassemble everything. Piece of cake.

Phase 2: Prime and Paint

After a refresher Google search for how to refinish furniture I learned that if I wanted my coats of primer and paint to go on nicely without a bunch of crap stuck to the table I needed to get tack cloth to wipe everything down between sandings.

I didn't know what tack cloth was, though I guess I really should have put two and two together based on the name. It's basically just a piece of cheese cloth that is sort of sticky that you wipe over the furniture to pull off any stray dust or hairs or whatever.

Off to Lowe's again I guess.

 
 

Tack cloth acquired, I went home wiped everything down, taped off the parts I didn't want painted and applied a coat of primer.

Next day, on went the first Coat of Paint.

 
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Then a second coat of Paint.

 
 

The thing I read said to do three coats of paint but... meh. Close enough. ON TO PHASE THREE!

Phase 3: Stain and Protect

Almost done now. The end is in sight. Just gotta sand down those cabinets and drawers, re-stain it all and put on the polyurethane I got to finish it all off.

Looks like I get to go to town with my sander again.

(note: I somehow lost the photo I took of the sanded down cabinets, so please enjoy this stock photo of a grapefruit instead

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After I finished the sanding I realized two things. First, two of the knobs from the drawers and cabinets were wrecked up, so I was going to have to replace them. Second, I have no idea what I did with the wood stain I bought three months ago and was going to have to go buy more.

Guess where I had to go, again?

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Determined that this would be my last visit to Lowe's for this god-forsaken table, I made sure I got everything I needed.

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Apparently reading the labels on stuff helps when you don't know what you are doing. I left the store with my stain, something called pre-stain which I suspected might be a scam to make me spend an additional 8 bucks on a product that doesn't actually do anything, some rags, a bunch of foam brushes and four new knobs for the drawers. 

I went home, followed the instructions on my various wood treating products, and got down to business. First was the pre-stain and then stain fifteen minutes later.

Then after another fifteen minutes or so the polyurethane went on. Two coats with a few hours apart to let it dry as recommended by the good people at Minwax.

I let it air dry for a day, put all the doors and cabinets back in place and hauled my completed table outside to admire my manly achievement.

Besides one of the cabinet doors being weirdly darker than everything else and there being a few spots where you can see I did a shitty job with the sander if you look close enough it all turned out passable. In the end, we no longer have to use the Christmas ornament box in the den and that is what really matters.

Five tips to Lowe's and three months to complete, but I have conquered this table. I am the manliest of men.

P.S.

Griff photobombing my first attempt at taking that last picture

Also P.S.

As promised. The dust masks that I didn't use.

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I'm probably going to die of breathing in lead paint dust.

Milk Mustache

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A man can dream cant he? Also, please ignore the fact that the milk is shaded too dark. Maybe it's chocolate milk or something, OK?! Ir maybe the way I tried to color in the glass made it turn the wrong color when I put the black and white filter over it. One of those two for sure.

I'm trying a thing I'm calling comic strip Friday. As it turns out I have a lot of stupid thoughts that don't make sense as a long form post or anything, so I've been making them into short little comics. Until I can figure out a better way to format them on the site I'll just post them on the main page.

My Friend Had a Baby!

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I had a new experience recently. For the first time in my life I found myself in a situation where I actually give a shit about a baby.

Okay, so I realize that sounds bad, but I don't mean it like I'd watch a baby wander into traffic and not get up to help because I was just really into the sandwich I was eating at the time. I'm not a monster. It's just that i'm not interested in babies outside of ones that are actually related to me, unless they are actively doing something amazing like break-dancing, or they are involved in some sort of adorable hijinks  involving the family dog. 

Even though a lot of people won't admit it, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that feeling either. It seems to be an unspoken rule that new parenthood is just one of those things that we all tolerate people oversharing about on Facebook. When presented with people's babies, either digitally or in real life we l make the appropriate noises, click 'like' or whatever and then get on with our day continuing to give exactly the same amount of a crap about that person's baby as we did before. Which is 0.

I'm at that age where a lot of my friends are getting married and some of them are starting to have children, so my social media is particularly ripe with pregnant people, pictures of babies and other such nonsense. Now, I don't begrudge people for sharing their baby pictures and living under the delusion that anyone cares that Jr. looked particularly cute sleeping today versus when he was sleeping yesterday; I'm going to be a goddamn nightmare when I have kids. I mean, I've got an entire website to fawn over my future children with, so arguably my offspring will be a worse offender of spamming people's newsfeeds than the babies we're all pointedly not caring about now. 

Despite my general disinterest in other people's babies, when one of my oldest friends and her husband had their first baby just a few days ago, I discovered that I actually care about his existence. Not in the fake way that most of us usually pretend to be interested in babies but legitimately. Like, I want to meet him and I want to get him a tiny baby  present and whatever other stuff you do with a baby. Hold him up like Simba maybe.

When she first told me she and her husband were going to have a baby the conversation went like this:

Her: *texts photo of ultrasound* "Hello Uncle Matt"

Me: ...

Me: First of all, Congratulations. Second of all. I will pay you one million dollars to name that baby Volcano-Halfpipe.

Her: Well what if it's a girl?

Me: Last time I checked Volcano Halfpipe is a unisex name. You will have the most epic of babies.

Her: OMG, that is the best baby name I've ever heard and I will for sure name my baby Volcano Halfpipe*

*response paraphrased, but that's totally what she said. For real.

As you can see, we have a special kind of relationship where she can text me with enormous life changing news for her new family and I can immediately insist she name the baby something preposterous. And by preposterous I mean f*#%ing awesome.

The appropriate incubation period later, she sent me the following:

 
 

It's good to see she has at least embraced Volcano Halfpipe as the baby's name, or at the very least accepts the fact that I will call him this for the entire rest of his life regardless of her opinion on the matter.

In my mind that baby is the most metal baby on the planet. I want that baby to do a kickflip off a ramp while jumping over a bunch of other babies and shooting a lazer gun as an explosion goes off in the background.

It's a really weird to think that someone I've known since we were basically kids now has an entire person that they made and are going to teach to be a human. It's even weirder that opposed to the general apathy I have towards other people having babies, I'm 100% thrilled for her and her husband, and am really excited about him.

I don't know what it is that has stirred this change for me. I kind of feel like the Grinch when his heart grows three sizes and smashes that x-ray machine. At first I thought maybe it was just a by-product of the fact that I'm maturing and my values are becoming more adult and complex. I considered that I may be at the point in my life where I am starting to become a mature person with a grown up outlook on life.

Then I remembered that I spent two and a half hours yesterday drawing a cartoon of an anthropomorphic head of lettuce gingerly dipping it's butt-cheeks into a bowl of water, so clearly I've not undergone any personal growth since the fourth grade.

 However, I do think part of the reason is that as I get to the point where having kids starts to appear on the horizon in my own life, it's resonating with me in a way it never has before. Sure with Emily going to vet school it's still at least several years off, but the concept is a lot more real than it ever has been. Its a lot less foreign of a concept than it has ever been before.

Ultimately though, I think I'm just getting sentimental over the fact that it seems like I was just getting dropped off at an amusement park by my parents to hang out with my friend and her new boyfriend who she wanted me to meet for the first time and now they are married and created an entirely new human being. I love them both dearly, and although the extent of my interaction so far with their new son has been a picture sent to me via text I already love him too.

Welcome to the world young Volcano Halfpipe. May you shred harder than any other baby and may you grow up to be an unmitigated badass in all things.