Stalking PAX Prime

Last night, I was all settled in for a lovely semi-marathon of BBC's London Hospital. Little Guy was down for the count. The house was reasonably clean. And Mr. Dude was out with friends to watch the new Captain America movie.

[As an aside, I was supposed to go to that movie, too, but we couldn't get a babysitter in time. So I couldn't watch the latest iteration in a never-ending parade of superhero/comic book-based movies. Oh darn.]

And then I get this text message:

Grammatical errors aside [because I'm one of those annoying people who try to make sure even my text messages have proper capitalization, punctuation, etc.], this pretty much sums up my weekend. 

Stalking PAX Prime tickets. 

Mr. Dude [who really is listed in my phone as "Yours Truly" ... and who chose a ridiculous profile picture based on a meme] knows that historically, PAX Prime tickets are announced very soon after PAX East in Boston has concluded. 

So the man who has a Twitter handle and never uses it turned on notifications for @Official_Pax a week ago to be sure he could rush to a computer at a moment's notice to get one of the coveted 4 Day Passes. Since PAX East was this weekend, there's been a tweet every. freakin'. 30. seconds.  

That's a lot of notifications on his phone, people. 

And a lot of times for my heart to start racing, waiting to hear him yell out, "To the interwebs!" 

And a lot of times of not knowing when I'm going to have to drop everything [except for maybe the 1 year old Little Guy ... I love my husband, but I draw the line there] to run to my computer and basically live out this scene: 

Key Difference that Mr. Dude would like you to note: They're trying to get into Comicon in San Diego. Not PAX. 

I actually offered [!!!] to go to Emerald City Comicon last month and he refused. 

Why?

"That's for a bunch of nerds, Stephanie."

Riiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhttttt ... 

[Updated: Apparently I should use the interwebs for some of my proofreading. You know, so that I can discover that it's spelled "Comicon" instead of "ComiCon" ... like I tried to do the first time around.] 

Giraffe Nonsense and Snarkiness

Giraffes are cool.

But not cool enough to make me change my picture on Facebook.

Social media gimmicks are most decidedly not cool.

I use Facebook as a way of keeping in touch with various people, and occasionally post ridiculous, and usually very impersonal, thoughts.

But if you ask me to play Candy Crush Saga, copy and paste a status, or "like" a picture so that something amazing will happen, I will ignore you. I promise.

So there I was, scrolling through my news feed, when lo and behold, a bunch of people had suddenly turned into giraffes!

What the whaaaa ????

Oh. It's one of those "everyone is doing it, so I will, too" gimmicks. Probably just something else to ignore.

Try the great giraffe challenge! The deal is I give you a riddle. You get it right you get to keep your profile pic. You get it wrong and you change your profile pic to a Giraffe for the next 3 days. MESSAGE ME ONLY SO YOU DONT GIVE OUT THE ANSWER.Here is the riddle: 3:00 am, the doorbell rings and you wake up. Unexpected visitors, It's your parents and they are there for breakfast. You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread and cheese. What is the first thing you open?Remember... message me only. If you get it right I'll post your name here. If you get it wrong change your profile picture.

Yep. Definitely just something else to ignore.

And then, I saw it. Even she had given in.

A college roomie - with her bachelor's of science in biology, a master's degree, pending medical school applications and all - had changed her identity to that of Giraffa camelopardalis. 

I decided that if she was going to give in, then I'd bite. But with pizzazz. 

If you're with me for an hour, you'll know that I love to cook. If you're with me for just 5 minutes, you'll know that I'm snarky. Sarcastic. Irritatingly meticulous about loopholes and technicalities. And slightly ridiculous. 

So here was my answer to the riddle: 

Eyeballs ... you have to open your eyeballs. I guess technically it's your eyelids - you get the point. But the riddle only supposes that I'd give in to my automatic reflex since I'm not blind. If I WAS blind, then would I still automatically open my eyelids? Or would I keep them closed since my body knows that it doesn't utilize that sense anyways? And it could be the door if I manage not to open my eyelids, but that assumes that I"m not sleeping underneath covers, so you could argue that you have to "open" your bed, in a manner of speaking, in order to get out of it. But if you're one of those weird people who doesn't sleep with any sheets or covers, then you'd have to open your bedroom door, if it's closed, and then your front door (if that's where your parents are ringing the doorbell from - some people may put their doorbell at the backdoor). Ooh, I almost forgot - what if you need to open your closet to get out a robe, slippers, etc, in order to answer your parents' ring? Heck, on the way out to the door, you may need to open the liquor cabinet to get a stiff dose of courage, depending on what kind of a relationship you have with your parents. Or maybe you need to open the fridge for a snack since you shouldn't store jam at room temperature in warm conditions (you could be in Florida in this scenario, you know). Since they're unexpected visitors at 3 am, and you haven't answered the door yet, maybe you need to open your firearms safe? It could be a sketchy neighborhood, you know. Seriously. So many holes in this riddle that it's ridiculous. No WONDER you have to change your profile picture to a giraffe if you get it wrong.

You know, if I wasn't the mother of a young child, you'd think I had too much time on my hands.