Two of the new American Gladiators, Crush and Wolf, dropped by my ever-festive cubicle to share powerful secrets of gladiating with me and Slezak. Here’s Part 1 of what’s sure to be a truly enlightening series. My fave part is when I blurt out “Gassy!” Awkward…

Update: Here’s Part 2. We talk “style,” and Wolf compliments the tropical fish spandex leggings from the ’80s (Dee Barrett Original Flavored) that I am obviously wearing in these videos.

Michael Slezak (google alert!) is not havin’ it with my awesome pants in this frame.

Okay, here’s the best one, Part 3. Ridiculous challenges include catching candy in our moths, fielding a publicist’s phone call, and flying paper airplanes.

Oh, and I totally have a crush on Crush.

Could I look anymore obnoxious? (Probably!)

Watch the video.

I made it to Stray Dime Island. How pretty is it?!

No, I’m at the Barrett Family Compound (BFC, which also stands for big fucking cabin) in New Buffalo, MI, hard at work in the fields of eating, drinking, and developing skin cancer. This is my first official “vacation” all year! I plan on using it to avoid any houeshold duty whatsoever. My dad’ll be like, “Yo, A, how ’bout a refill on ice water?” and I’ll wince and shake my head, “Sorry,” even though I’ll be standing at the sink, spitting cherry pits that don’t belong in the sink into the sink. Or Dee will cry out, “Annie! Cut yourself a phat slice of raspberry-almond danish!” and I’ll glare at her from my perch on the couch, then point to myself with both index fingers with a powerful smirk that clearly conveys: “ON VACATION.” She will then serve it to me with a fork, and I will laugh and laugh, but not hard enough to make my stomach muscles exert themselves, because that’d be like… working.

MY DVR/LIFE PARTNER DID NOT TAPE TOP MODEL.
I fear we may have to break up.

Fittingly (who says that?), I took this glamour-shot self-portrait of me looking forlorn in the NYU library, attempting to work on my thesis. Looking good, Annie! It was probably right around 8 pm. Maybe I was subconsciously sensing my life partner’s severely depressing malfunction. We’re pretty close like that.

I’m so much sadder now than I was in the library. And look how sad I was there! There wasn’t even water in that bottle, and all my snacks were gone. Don’t you just want to feed me iceberg lettuce and discounted Reese’s eggs?

For some reason, “sadder” is striking me as possibly not a word. But that’s crazy talk. I’m going to leave it. Of course it’s a word. My perception of what a word is is effed-up right now anyway. If I have to read over-inflated academic words like “metastable” and “disequilibrium ” all night, I’m sure as hell going to say “sadder.” Also “funner.”

So instead of the Top Model Ten, I’ll leave you with a prime example of those pesky Grad School Sentences Annie Pretends She Totally Gets:

“Immanentist, de-individuating, posthumanist ontologies might be said to enact their own paralyzing rhetoric of addiction: deterritorializing responsibility, they ensure the transnational consumption of compulsion.”

Exactly. I coudln’t have said it any better myself. (Because I don’t know what thirty percent of the words mean. Right. Supersmart!)

Now get back to work.

My Text Twist obsession has lasted only a few days, but it became dangerous to the point at which I had to quit. TT is a word puzzle on Yahoo! Games that eats up time at a rate I can’t even believe. This can be both good and horrible. But it’s over. I have to stop.

Usually, at work, I’d play with one or two people hovering over the screen, collaborating with me (the typist) to get the six-letter word that guarantees advancement to the next round. I always felt kind of impure doing this, as if I was cheating myself and Yahoo! by getting outside help. But as long as they were there at the beginning of the game and stuck around until the end, they were cool. If we got a high score, it would be all of our high scores and not something each of us could lord over others as reasons why we were individually awesome.

So it really pissed me off when yet other people would walk by and nonchalantly say the six-letter word as if it was really obvious. “Footed. Duh, you guys.” I’d whirl around and literally yell at whoever did this, even if we weren’t friends (and with even more venom if we were friends). I’d be all “How could you do that? This is our game.” What?

In hindsight, this made me look mean, and somewhat deranged.

Late last night, I completed my final round of TT while alone in my apartment. It took about an hour and I was just totally in the zone. I felt unstoppable. My fingers seemed to move independently of my brain, but that’s just because my brain was operating at super-warp word speeds not connectable to lowly things like hands. This game is a lot like Snood in addictive qualities. Unlike Snood, it’s not completely mindless so you don’t feel like a total negative when you play it for two hours straight, fighting off the urge to use the bathroom, eat or drink (quite a feat for me), or even look away from the screen.

My score was 111,250 — a higher score than I even thought was possible for just one person. Even with a three-person tag team, we’d only be racking up 50 or 60,000. As I sat there alone, dominating, I actually wondered if I could turn this talent into a career. Upon emerging from ‘’the zone'’ and remembering this, I decided to give up the game altogether. It’s simply not worth its delusional effects. I’m through.

It’s been 22 hours since I quit. And like a crack addict, I am sitting here with random letters floating through my numbskull, combining to make beautiful words like “tag,” “rage,” and “greater.” But I am greater than this game. I will beat this addiction. You’ll never see me play again. Because I will do it in the privacy of the Pink Palace.

Just realized I made up the word “connectable.” I like that. I also like how up in the first paragraph, the word “eats” is hanging out right next to the large “FOOD” in the graphic/screen capture. How unintentionally excellent.

This morning I received a playful e-mail from Friendster with the subject “Friendster misses you!” Right. It can’t stand life without the cackling girl with a tambourine in one hand and Stoli Raz in the other. I particularly got a kick out of this portion of the e-mail:

Oh, really? I can “blog it up” at Friendster? That’s awesome!

Wow. Each time I read the above blurb, I get a little more pissed off, and I don’t know why. I guess it’s Friendster’s flippant attitude towards the concept of the blog. As if I’d really want to “write an ode to sausage.” God! Anyone knows the best bloggers only write their longest, most memorable missives about nachos and cupcake icing.

The Real World actually seemed kind of real last night, and it only took the death of a loved one. Yay.

Hey, you know what I hate? When people don’t step aside on escalators! I mean, what’s with those people? Seriously!

Tomorrow marks my first official full-time job that I’ll actually be interested in. Past employment gigs of mine (read: TEMPING) have included making sure visitors to a valve factory in Melrose Park, IL put on their safety goggles before entering “the plant.” I spent another summer “tweaking” foreign IT workers’ resumes into Tekmark Global Solutions’ official format (in other words, translating them into English). There was a Quizno’s across the street.

Worse than actually sitting at these jobs eight hours a day was having to answer the phone: “Good morning, Henry Valve” and “Good afternoon, Tekmark Global Solutions.” Believe it or not, I actually had to write that second one out for a few days. It probably wasn’t so much that the text was difficult. I was just in disbelief that that was the company’s name and that I was supposed to say it.

Sometimes the phone would ring and I’d literally have to stare at my post-it and practice the phrase before picking up. And sometimes I started laughing after the trial run. Seriously. I’d answer the phone saying “Tekmark Global Solutions” followed by a giggle.

I think that must have been somewhat on purpose. I might have figured that if I appeared to be lighthearted about having to say that name, maybe the callers would “be on my side” or something… and not make fun of me on the other end of the line for saying those three words together and in that order.

But that makes no sense. The people obviously knew who they were calling. Most of them were the job-seeking foreign IT workers themselves, and my giggling probably confused the hell out of them. The others were from Tekmark Global Solutions’ headquarters in Edison, NJ. What did I think, that one of those times, someone would notice my sarcastic twang and suddenly commiserate with me: “Oh, I know, I think it’s such a ridiculous name, too!”

No. Turns out my laughing benefitted no one. This is why I was ultimately not Tekmark Global Material. (Even though when I left, they gave me a forest green company polo.)

Although — one time, I came really close. I thought I had really clicked with one of those corporate schmucks because right after I answered, a concerned-sounding man said, “Yes, hello. I seem to have a major global problem.” Ha! He was being facetious! I rejoiced, and blurted out “Well, sir, we’ve got your global solution right here!” Turns out the caller was my dad, who phoned at least twice per morning to hear me say “Tekmark Global Solutions” and then make fun of me. Awesome.

In conclusion, don’t mock the company if you have to answer the phone. But if your dad calls to mock of the company, totally do it and talk loud enough for the guy down the hall to hear you and then have to send you out to retrieve him and his fat gut an Italian Beef sandwich “as punishment” but it won’t really be because you’ll get yourself a pizza puff!

Hi. It’s the Internet exile coming to you live from my “job”. I decided to go with POPPY for the apartment, which will from here on be designated as “the room” instead of “the apartment.” Let’s be realistic here. It is a small room with a stove, a fridge and - brace yourselves - a toilet. I don’t even have my own shower. I have to share it with the two androgynous installation artists down the hall.

BTW, totally kidding about the shared shower. They’re not androgynous! They’re really hot men!

Today I lunched at the Civil Service Commissioner’s local branch of KFC, which you already know if you’re a Platinum-level stalker and checked my away message from today. This sadly threatened to be the most exciting thing I would do all week, so I took some photos.

Josh and Larry in their suits.

Larry works hard for the no money.

Josh’s expression hints at what the fatter version of him would be … as soon as he finishes that bucket.

Cause and effect? Either way, the one on the left is hilarious. Sorry about the flash.

If I DO experience anything more exciting by the end of the week, I’ll promptly delete this post and swear it never happened.