5 reasons the polar vortex is the best thing to happen to winter

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

polar-vortex-cold-weather-USA-11

I am LOVING the polar vortex. Do nothing and eat a bunch? I didn’t know it was so cold in HEAVEN. Here’s why I’m having the time of my life.

1. Lay in bed and watch Netflix ALL DAY

Are you kidding me? Is this my birthday, Christmas, AND Halloween combined? Check it: Lay in bed, wear whatever crazy combination of sweaters, hot pants and fun socks your heart desires. Throw on a tiara if you want. Paint your face up like Heath Ledger in that Batman movie (I know it’s the Dark Knight u shoulda seen ur face) or like Gaga in her “Applause” video. Scare your roommates with said faces, and then after a good stabbing laugh, invite them into the living room for an afternoon of Netflix. Pick the most disgusting guilty pleasure shows that have ever existed to man and watch them, like Bridalplasty or The Swan. Or maybe you like really good things and don’t waste your time watching the worst humans alive compete for plastic surgery (u suck but whatever). I hear Breaking Bad is good. Also MELROSE PLACE has all the murder, love triangles and personality disorders you could EVER dream of.

You’ve been gifted HAVING to stay indoors under blankets and watch TV. Don’t fuck it up by doing anything else, like productive shit. PRAISE BE TO ARCTICA, GOD OF POLAR WINDS, UNLIMITED STREAMING AND EARLY BED TIMES.

2. Eat whatever you want images

It’s a polar vortex outside! Are you kidding me! High temperatures are in the high -10s! YOU EAT THAT FROZEN PIZZA. You eat it good, and eat it by yourself. After that, eat a bag of chips. Then ice cream. Then an apple because you should eat one healthy thing at least sometimes. But most importantly eat whatever you want because you might need those calories when your ’03 Ford Taurus hits black ice on the highway and sends you careening over the side of a bridge only to be caught in the strong and sexy limbs of a frozen tree. Yes you’re STRANDED  in a car, stuck in a tree, and even though you’ve survived a harrowing once-in-a-lifetime experience, your dad is still gonna KILL YOU for playing Candy Crush while driving. But at least you ate enough pizza and chips beforehand to be able to survive falling off a bridge in a car and being saved by a tree. You’ll be a Facebook star for like 5 hours (suck it, people with cute kids)!!  Pretty sure that’s called living the dream.

3. FUR

Um, if there’s any time to bust out that fur coat your politically incorrect yet fabulously stylish grandmother gave you before she moved into some old person orgy center in Florida, it’s now. I don’t care what that vegan says on Facebook (why are you facebook friends with a vegan). WERK DAT FUR OR DIE A BITING DEATH IN THE FRIGID ELEMENTS.

you could look THIS fabulous in the polar vortex. you kno you wanna
you could look THIS fabulous in the polar vortex. you kno you wanna. GAGA YAAAAAS

4. Social obligations are nil

You know what? You DON’T have to go to your ex-roommate’s new roommate’s boyfriend’s free rock show tonight. Maybe your car battery seriously isn’t working, or maybe it is buuuuuuut there’s no need to push it. Maybe it’s too cold out to find parking and then walk 5 blocks in the hip part of town for drinks because frostbite really DOES set in after 5 minutes! Maybe you’re an alien working for a galactic organization hell bent on taking over Earth and the subzero temperatures don’t affect you. But who’s to say you don’t deserve a couple of quiet nights in? YOU DESERVE IT.

Guilt-free stay-ins? THANKS POLAR VORTEX!!!!

5. Bonding time

The polar vortex is a GREAT way for some extra bonding time with your roommates. Get to know the person who smells your shit in the morning a little better. Do they like Katy Perry? Do they “get” performance art? Have they ever murdered anyone on purpose? Who did they vote for in the last People’s Choice Awards? Throw a pizza in the oven, pop a stale 40, and open up those floodgates, baby.

this is you during the winter vortex. you've never looked happier.
this is you during the winter vortex. you’ve never looked happier.

THANKS POLAR VORTEX!!!

Relationships: Facebook displays of affection

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
O great. Image via drunkenstepfather.com

So I’ve been Facebook stalking a high school acquaintance of mine. It is, for the most part, the craziest wall I have ever read on Facebook since 2006 when we were all but young bucks puking on each other ripe on the vine of life. The ups and downs of this kid’s love life and the people he/she interacts with are nothing short of astonishing. In the few weeks I’ve been following the story, there has been a faked suicide, supposed teenage polyamory, and more declarations of love than you could ever imagine. It’s like a goddamn hormone farm of bad grammar and terrible life choices. AND IT’s SO JUICY.

Nevertheless, JESUS CHRIST. All this very public talk about how much you love somebody and displaying conversations that should without a doubt be private are plastered across our newsfeeds and are ABSOLUTELY begging us to get involved and inevitably mock. It’s the internet, that’s what its there for. Because honestly, any sane adult would have the tact and life experience to know that if you’re constantly, CONSTANTLY posting/writing/spamming about how in love you are, chances are you’re probably doing it for the attention.

I’m sure it feels nice sir. But kindly keep the photographic evidence on your Dell. Image via youngchubby.net

Don’t get me wrong: one or two posts once in a while from a stable and actually in love/sane couple who still acknowledge their individuality is all gravy. Love should be celebrated! But a fucking paragraph every night explaining to the hopeless world how nobody “gets” your love? PUKE. It’s a game I just made up like to call Young Love, Low Intelligence Adult, or Bullshit. It’s also insulting to everyone who has ever been in love in the history of love, because EVERYONE feels that way about their person of the moment. Puh-leaze. Ain’t nothin special goin on there kids. Unless, when you lock eyes, the known universe reveals its secrets to you, but only if she farts into your mouth and pees on your teeth simultaneously. Because everyone knows THAT’S Real Love®. HOLLA

 

This exists: Unbaby.me for your Facebook newsfeed gets rid of unwanted babies

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

.

Instead of this (this baby is cute though, if only there was a filter for ugly babies)

You get this:

Pretty genius, right?

Now if only this was a life app for unwanted children.

“Need an abortion? Replace your fetus with limited edition Cadillac prints from the 1970s!“

I can see the future so clearly.

What’s up with all the engagements on Facebook?

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
I find this oddly endearing. It’s better than rose petals, that’s for damn sure. Image via unionversity.com

I swear there has been an increase in engagements on Facebook just in the past couple of weeks. Perhaps it’s due in part to the fact that summer may be halfway over, and happy enough couples are scrambling to fulfill their happy (!) quota for the season. Or maybe they need to book NOW to get a decent place for a summer wedding. What’s better than a fall and winter full of engagement photos, questions about napkin sizes and where to seat people you don’t really like!?

No. Image via perfect-wedding-day.com

I can handle an engagement here and there. Maybe once a month, but that may be pushing it. When it’s my actual life friends, I’m truly overjoyed. When it’s a parade of Pinterest addicts you met in high school math class and their boyfriends in middle management who jerk off to Hentai, my feelings take a different, less enthusiastic turn.

I’ve deduced some possible reasons for the influx of our acquaintance’s recent engagements:

  • Election year! They love the idea of getting married in front of their homosexual friends, because it’s always fun to do stuff other people can’t, much like rolling your tongue or weird finger tricks
  • Cute people are convinced they won’t find anyone better, or that their cuteness might run out (sunscreen and gym will fix that)
  • Settling for a guy/gal with a decent job. Not good, but decent, which is sadly relevant in today’s economy
  • Someone is pregnant with “traditional” parents (which really means the newlyweds are spineless hamfarts)
  • Shared mortgages are secretly an aphrodisiac
  • Splitting the cable bill, rent and AC sure beats paying for it by yourself

The divorce rate in this country is 50%, or something close to that. So, technically, that means that half of all these marriages are gonna end by one of the following:

  • Hidden tiny hand fetish
  • Gay
  • My Strange Addiction participant
  • An affair with a former Teen Mom
  • Online gambling/video game second life addict
  • Farts
  • An unhealthy obsession with fictional supporting characters of one season television series on the now defunct WB

There are just so many uncertainties in a world full of crap relationships and blood diamonds, that we’ll just have to let the swift hand of fate deal their cards. But you believe me this: We can suck it up through the wedding photos, bachelorette parties and beef jerky dancefloors knowing that at the end of this dark tunnel, there is a light. Divorces have to be entertaining, right? Then we can REALLY watch some shit unfold on Facebook. Invest in your defriends wisely.  One day, these newlyweds may make great divorcées. It could be their calling. Who wouldn’t want them to fulfill their destiny? Besides, There’s nothing better than a “new independent woman” with a Facebook status to update. I almost can’t wait.

Happy engagements!

Relationships: The virtual EX

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
"What, you're not gonna recycle? I've always hated you you fucking prick." Image via memphisflyer.com

Not only do we have to worry about running into exes in real life (thankfully all of mine are on different continents!), but now we have the down right *pleasure* of running into their virtual presence just around every mutual friend’s status update comment section. How lovely.

Being that there is nothing to do about a virtual run in, short of changing your Facebook name and fake-moving to Guatemala to work with blind cats, it still doesn’t make seeing their fake-happy face pop up in your newsfeed (usually filled with such jolly posts as Look at this cat or Please read this article about Ron Paul) any easier. I mean, the last thing anyone wants is to see their ex, looking happy, gorgeous or worse -moving on- every.single.day. 

What a bitch! Image via thebuzzonaisya.blogspot.com

Keeping ties with your recent ex on Facebook has got to be just about the most excruciating social networking experiences ever. I’ve never done it, as it’s always best for me to rip that bandaid off rather than agonize over who he just friended, because I’ve seen this before way too many times via movies, real life friends and a little thing I like to call dating in college. At one point or another in our dating and relationship lives, we’ve all had conversations that go a little like this:

You: Oh my God, he friended someone. Who is she? What’s her name? Is she ugly? Is she fat?

Your best friend: She’s fat. And you are SO much prettier than her. Seriously. She’s fucking hideous. And fat. Did I mention she’s fat? (Friend cringes because doesn’t know if the ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ new girl post-breakup quota has been met)

You: Thank God. She’s a fucking bitch. I hate her. No, wait. I hate HIM. He’s the REAL problem. He’s such a piece of shit. Do you think he misses me? DAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! I’ll be alone forever!!!!

Your friend: (Sigh of relief. Fat and ugly quota met) Fuck him. Let’s just get wasted. Forget that piece of shit. Margaritas?

The plot of "The Breakup" is literally what online breakups are like. Your ex is still around, eating up all the good comment space and STILL leaving the toilet seat up. Dick! Image via alphalifestyle.com

Breakups used to be hard enough. A deadly note passed to you at your locker in 6th grade with the ominous “I don’t like you anymore” or the more mature but still lame phone breakup that was all the rage in 7th. Then there’s the through-a-friend breakup that had someone else knowing the fate of your breakup before you, email breakups, texting breakups (those people should be lobotomized), skype breakups and the much more respectable but still pretty shitty in-person breakup. And NOW, you’re telling me that we have complete access to our exes’ daily lives?! GROSS.

I propose an app. If you’re the kind of person, like me, who just wants it out-of-sight-out-of-mind, then this newfangled app would block access to that person’s page for like 3 months, until you’ve completely forgotten about the sucker and moved on to cuter, wealthier pastures (more like semi-cute and alive. But hey, a girl can dream). The late night photo-viewing sessions and friend request-stalking is hilarious and frightening in an I’m having your first born and then eating it because you talked to another girl sort of way.

It’s really best for the sake of everyone if we all just take a nice, big virtual breather after a breakup, because eating your first born to exact revenge on a shitty ex-boyfriend sounds like a real drag. Unless you’re into that.

Social networks are the new time capsules

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

I had 4 years of unread emails because I literally forgot about an email account that I used in high school and while I was studying abroad. It was a case of forgotten password and probably a lot of ex-boyfriend emails that I never wanted to look at again.

The findings:

I had a billion emails from Papa Johns, Barnes and Noble and a few wayside Linkedin invites. Also, before Facebook took over the world, Brazilians used Google’s Orkut social network, and since I had finally recovered my password, I could look into a little time capsule that was left behind from my sparklier days.

This is what I love about social networking and Facebook pages. To be able to go back to 2008 when I was living in Brazil and see my Orkut, or to 2007 when your Myspace page was BLOWIN UP and had 10,000 friends is a luxury for memories when we are old.

Image via ME

It also gives a peak into how your love life was doing at the time. I know who I was dating during this email address, and I read some email exchanges that were pretty cringe-worthy. Like, desperate, can’t-let-go-of-shitty-first-love desperate. Yikes. The whole “let’s be friends!” bullshit that I’ve thankfully left behind (because it NEVER works) was written over every breakup-themed letter I’d written while using this email. I’m so glad I’m not 20 anymore (because 24 is so much better! HA.)

It’s fascinating to see what kind of things I was writing to ex-boyfriends, and what they were writing to me. Being a little bit older and hopefully a little bit wiser, these messages are time capsules of figuring out this whole love biz. I was unsure, sensitive, bitchy, insecure and just trying to get along dating in a foreign language and culture, while still being stuck in contact with a past bf that was totally self-destructive. Take out the foreign element and you’ve got practically any 20 year old discovering how to act with people in relationships as semi-adults.

This is also why Facebook’s timeline is a good idea, even though we all hate the shit out of it now. I never delete anything from Facebook, because I want to preserve the virtual time capsule of my life. I want to be able to look back and read posts I exchanged with friends and family, pictures and their comments, being happy with old boyfriends, pictures of random things from around the world, etc. How cool would it be to look at your grandma taking shots when she was in her 20s, or to read how people spoke to each other back then? Tres cool.

Watch this now: If Facebook was invented in the 90s

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

 

We should seriously make all the old people we know watch this before they get a Facebook. They don’t need to know it wasn’t invented in the 90s. Then they’ll watch The Social Network and be all “hey, what gives!” and we’ll be like “payback for Santa Claus, suckas.”

I love the way she says "pitchure" for "picture." Genius. Image via firebellymarketing.com

Interweb: Pinterest is cray

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
Image via Pinterest

Pinterest is so crazy. It’s just a bunch of aesthetically pleasing pictures that you categorize into your own personal “pin board.” Just a bunch o’ ladies (and minimal dudes) organizing the internet. NBD. It seems like a huge waste of time, but it really doesn’t take long to pin some stuff. I think it’s two clicks. Bizarre, yet entertaining.

Follow 20poorandfab on Pinterest (and Facebook)! Lot’s of fashion and DIYs for us poor and fabs. WORD!!

Dating: The Facebook relationship status

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
Image via thetechjournal.com

What has become the status quo in terms of stating your relationship on Facebook?

Back in Facebook yesteryear (2006) it was exciting to post that you and Billy Highschool-love were staying strong, even after freshman year started. It was a warning to potential suitors (and possibly a reminder) that you are, in fact, dating some guy from some other town.

That was when we were younger, and when Facebook had still been for college students only. How has the Facebook relationship status changed and how are people using it now?

Let’s look at our options:

  1. Single. Probably the most striking FB relationship status. It normally yields either a “yeah, no shit” or “seriously?! we HAVE to meet up with him” reaction from any given stalker.
  2. In a Relationship. Seen by FB friends as “yeah, I’m still with him” or “that shit is gonna crash and burn in like 1 internet year” (about a week).
  3. It’s complicated. The most volatile FB relationship status. It shows your brazen attitude towards letting everyone know exactly what’s going on in your relationship.
  4. Engaged/Married. Same shit, unless there’s a crash and burn revelation by either party and it turns into a furious SINGLE. Mostly translated by viewers as “Oh, good for them,” “I better get invited to that wedding” or “that’s not going to last very long. They are both batshit crazy.”
  5. In an open relationship. Yeah, unless it’s a friendship faux relation, nobody cares. You’re “in a relationship” asshole. There’s nothing less attractive than other people’s drama when you’re trying to get your freek on.
  6. Widowed. Sadsies. “That was really, really awful. Who wants drinks?” (you know it’s true)
  7. Separated/Divorced. Depressing, yet probably yields more jubilation and sick satisfaction to your FB viewers than any other relationship status. “Fuck YES I’ve been waiting to hook up with them since junior high!” or “Knew it! Who wants drinks?”
  8. In a civil union/In a domestic partnership. It’s either true, or it’s some boring white 20-something couple trying to keep the spark alive. “Oh.”
  9. BLANK. The elusive, mysterious blank.
That's creepy. Internet dating can be weird, y'all. Image via gawker

Most people, at least on my friend list, stick to the holy trinity of in a relationship, single, or married. Straightforward. No muss no fuss. However, once in a while your dramatic friends begin to update their relationship status daily: “In a Relationship.” “Single.” “It’s Complicated.” “In a Relationship.” “SINGLE.” “REEEEALLY SINGLE.” “So totally single I’m going to talk about it for 9 months because I clearly have obsessive tendencies and a penchant for oversharing!” I really which that last one was an actual status.

There are also the faux relations, where two friends decided to be virtually married or dating a friend forever. Good for friends everywhere, bad for potential dates stalkin’ on your info.

Then, ever so often, you run across a couple who leaves their status blank, but have been together for like 3 years. When you think of it, if you’ve been together that long and all of your friends know this, it’s really not pertinent information.

On the other hand, there are the couples who have been together for like 4-6 months and are still kind of in the honeymoon period of officially being a couple, yet leave their FB relationship status mysteriously blank. Is it because they don’t want people to know that’s who they’re dating, or is it simply a case of not caring about the FB relationship status?

Fascinating. Image via betweenthekids.com

One factor in omitting relationship statuses on Facebook is the fear of virtual breakups. It can be stressful and embarrassing to go through a break up, not to mention one that people can comment on or even ‘like’. Gross. It just leaves a lot of annoying “I’m so sorry! You’ll find someone better, I KNOW it!!!” comments that don’t make you feel better and make you want to jump off a bridge into a lake filled with needles. Relaying your most recent pain and heartbreak to a few people you care about and a LOT that you don’t is just another added stress of keeping up with relationship statuses on FB.

When not in a relationship, that I will gladly post, I prefer to be a blank. I think it’s the best way to be single, because you’re not stuck with this ‘single’ title. If you start casually dating someone, you’re not immediately pressured to let everyone know by switching your ‘single’ status to something else. There’s also an added air of mystery surrounding your relationships and dating life which is a beautiful thing in this digital age where everyone shares everything with each other.

Clearly everyone takes their FB relationships status differently. What’s your Facebook relationship status?

Facebook political season Part 1: Kill me now

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
Image via kenny08.com

Oh great. In the eternal words of Mortal Kombat, “It has begun!”

Yet another season of “Why MY political candidate is the new Jesus and not yours.” Throw in a “Go America!” or a “Fuck America!” depending on intelligence.

I’m either gonna develop a drinking problem, get hooked on pills or delete my facebook account until November. It’s exhausting reading so many spelling and grammar mistakes and general flawed logic while ranting about the other side discussing politics on Facebook.

So, wonderful readers, tell your stupid friends to kindly “wake up, you turds. Politicians are liars. Choose the least evil one and get on with your life. No politician in the history of politics has EVER done every single thing they said they were going to do during their campaign.” Or at least think it in your head because talking to anyone on facebook these days is a huge drag.

Uh, can he be President? Image via politifake.org

If all our idiot facebook acquaintances we went to high school with could remember back to 6th grade social studies, they would know there’s these little things called the House of Representatives and the Senate. You know, as a way to SHARE POWER and not let just one person decide everything. Otherwise that would technically be a dictatorship. But they probably only think brown people who don’t speak English and don’t have Walmarts can live under dictatorships. Those silly kids fully developed adults!

Let’s get one thing straight: Times are tough. Well, tough-ish. Not being able to buy everything one wants all the time isn’t really considered tough by like, 90% of the world. No one politician short of God him/her/itself can solve all of our problems immediately. I think it’s forgotten that we have things like Congress set in place to do checks and balances. Those checks and balances take time, y’all.

We know who the democratic candidate is, Mr. Obama. Has a law degree, prior work experience, ok cool. But seriously, I could find a better set of republican candidates on the bottom of my shoe after a walk through a shitty park. That’s all they could come up with? There is no doubt in my mind that Obama will be re-elected. Santorum? Gingrich? Skin bags full of crazy. Romney? Rich asshole. Paul? Nice try, sweetheart.

Yup. THAT GUY wants to run our country, ladies. I don't fucking think so. Image via reverendbuki.wordpress.com

Nonetheless, it really makes me sad to see people putting all their faith behind any one candidate to be elected for President. Why? Let’s not divide this way, folks. It’s an old trick. Split the population, make us think we’re a “divided” nation, just to have either candidate do the same shit they always do. The entire republican vs. democrat shit is embarrassing for anyone older than 16 and not in high school government class. Honestly. It doesn’t do us any good.

We as people need to figure out what we want (remember that little thing called the constitution that says “We the People“?), not be told what we want by any candidate on any spot of the political spectrum. It’s not okay for politicians to tell US what to do. We tell THEM what to do, dammit. Let’s as a nation have a little bit of self respect for once.

Until we find ourselves united, there will be so so SO many facebook political gems just around the corner from every login. Happy FBP season, and please don’t kill yourself over all the stupidity. We need you.