It all sucks, regardless of name!

Source: Wash. Post

Interesting chart. Snow is predicted here in Pueblo, CO for this Thursday. I'm pretty sure I've never witnessed graupel before.

I feel like a year ago I woke up in some sort of surreal dystopian version of the world I had already grown accustomed to for thirty two years. How has this happened? Why has this been allowed?

How do we stop this?

Hey ho- I have a new blog!

My husband and I have created a beer tasting blog. He tastes and rates the beer, and I check out and rate the designs of the labels. It's called Porters and Palettes. Check it out here!

My Drag Name

Fat Girl Problems

I bought some new clothes the other day. This is normal. Less normal: I wait until the dog has eaten all my pants or I have paint on everything I own to buy new things. I have a skirt that is at least 13 years old at this point. Etc. This is because clothes buying as a fat person is not fun. And I don't mean fat as in Dove commercial fat or Instagram fat. I mean fat as in- "Geez, why doesn't this bitch just invest in some muumuus and wall herself up in her bedroom already". Whatever y'all- Darlene Cates lived to be 69 so suck it. Side note: do not let little fat girls watch What's Eating Gilbert Grape? That movie scarred me for life. FOR. LIFE.

Anyway, it's super fun to look for clothing when your measurements aren't even acknowledged to exist by most clothing designers/manufacturers. I managed to find some stuff, even a couple mildly cute things. But I also had to deal with a whole lotta bullshit.

Now selling a size 3X shirt to a size 3X person by displaying it on a size 2 model is deeply stupid enough (looking at you Modcloth).  But check out these sweet treats I saved, just for you, my non-existent readers.

This first one is a double whammy of suck. First off, I want you to notice this shitty garbage site. I go to it because it has great deals! And also, I have no other choice! Cool! It used to be called "Woman Within". That is exceedingly awful and gross. "We here see you as more than a gross fat monster- we see the woman within you. Though the outside is, still, a gross fat monster. Now give us your money!" Awful. Again, I have no choice.

Recently (within the last year or so) they changed the name to "Fullbeauty" which is . . . fine. Whatever. At least it's not blatently offensive. Yet this screenshot is from only a few days ago. Notice the top sales banner. Hey Fullbeauty: your web person is slackin'. Get on that shit. Don't remind me how even eviler you used to be while I'm trying to give you money.

This same screenshot shows another fun thing. When searching for underpants (panties is a gross and awful word) this is what I got while doing a search for my size. Four options. all shaping solution bullshit. I already have a shape, thanks. It's called ROUND and I LIKE IT THAT WAY. The frustrating part is that this is a lie- they sell underpants in all sizes, my size included, in various styles. But when you do a search this is all that comes up. I had to scroll through all the styles to find others. HMM. INTERESTING.

Le terrible.

I noticed while browsing that Mellissa McCarthy's collection is now up. When I heard this announced I remember thinking "Girl, why? You always look bad." I hate her constant long sleeved floor length gown bullshit. Anyway, look at these clothes in the pic. The cardinal fat girl clothes sins are all here in this one pic. Ugly prints, animal style prints, French shit. Man, of all the stuff about fat girl clothes I don't get, the constant French language and imagery stuff is the most baffling to me. Anyway, it's mostly ugly, only goes up to 3x, and is VERY expensive. Guys, I just dream of a day when I don't have to pay thirty bucks for a goddamn tank top. 

Finally I will leave you with my personal favorites. I thought it was just this one individual underwear listing but it turns out there are a LOT. Enjoy these pics of tiny models selling plus size clothing that is apparently made entirely out of photoshop. Or, honestly, MS Paint. 

 "Because fuck you, that's why."

MST3K: The New Class

Reviewing the New MST3K: Episode One

I backed the new MST3K project, meaning that I got a sneak peak at the first episode on Sunday. The full season will be released this Friday but I'd like to share my thoughts.

THIS REVIEW DOES NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS. I took no screenshots, I'm not revealing the movie they riff, I'm not going into details. I'm sure those things can be found online in a second (and I would argue sharing those details aren't really outside of the spirit of the show), I just want to focus on the show itself and not the details right now. So I'm just going to discuss my thoughts about the new cast, set, riffs, etc. Keep in mind two things when reading this- I really hate change and this is probably my all-time favorite TV show. (Edited to add: meaning, I'm going to appear fair on the outside while hating the changes with every fiber of my being on the inside.)

(These are notes I took while watching. I wrote them on the inside of a cardboard Pocky box.)

MASH for Millenials

I'm what is known as an old millennial. It's a fun group to belong to. Born in the eighties, people my age got to grow up during the rise of cell phones, file sharing, and the Internet in general. For me, being raised by hippies, it sometimes felt like there was a disconnect between the world I was experiencing firsthand and the rapidly changing world I was seeing outside of my home. This line was further blurred by my family's early access to computers and the Internet due to my mother's involvement in academia. 

For me, the gap between my parents life and my own was never more apparent to me than during the golden hours of 4-6 pm, when our local network affiliates would play an assortment of pre-dinner time TV that I found frustrating as a kid. As I waited for the reruns of The Simpsons to come on, I'd sometimes have to sit through the closing minutes of MASH or Cheers to get to the good stuff. Those shows, for me, were firmly in the category of "ADULT STUFF THAT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND OR CARE ABOUT."  They seemed utterly alien to me.

Even though as an adult I've come to appreciate so many things now that I didn't before, MASH was still intimidating to me. It ended its run before I was even born. It was about SERIOUS TOPICS. And it had an intimidating number of seasons and episodes. 

I felt compelled to watch it anyway, to fill in my knowledge gaps and to report back. So the question I set out to answer was- does a show like MASH have any appeal left in it to someone in 2017, someone my age or younger? Does it hold any interest besides just "I always wondered what the show that came on before The Simpsons was about?" Having run the whole series, I can now honestly report back with a solid and confident . . . maybe.

Arts!

2017, Week 11. 'The Horsettes."

Updatels

Hey, you can now follow me on Instagram @misstwosense. Art, pet pics, sketches, travel pics, etc.

I haven't been writing much here because of a big reason: I've been learning how to type properly which means I can now type about 24 words a minute- the old hunt and peck way I could do up to 70 wpm. So this slowdown is INFURIATING. I will continue to practice till I get faster, but that may take awhile.

BTW, I'm using a site called typingclub.com if any out there is interested in learning to type correctly. It does kind of feel like a superpower.

Art Piece for 2017, Week 8

"Love"

This is my week 8 art piece and it is mildly NSFW so I am posting it here instead of on Facebook.

Can Crafts be Considered Merch?

Hey! You can now purchase arts and crafts from me directly with the new "Support the Blog" tab on the top menu. Several different items to choose from, all reasonably priced, all available directly from this blog via Paypal.

All the items I have for sale ship free in the continental U.S.

Also, check out my new Facebook page here. This time around, it's just for my art. Yes, you can buy stuff there but it also is a much more relaxed page that is dedicated to whatever I'm working on. Right now I'm working on a goal which is to complete one project a week for all of 2017 and I'm already eight weeks in, so go check those pieces out!

Thanks!

A Day In Trump's America

Perfect Day 
Lou Reed

Just a perfect day
Drink Sangria in the park
And then later
When it gets dark, we go home

(Fun! But also, achingly sad! I wonder why??)

Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later
A movie, too, and then home

(It's almost as though the music reflects some sort of backdrop of sadness and regret contrasted against the super fun day. HMMMMMM.)

Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on

(HANGING ON BY A THREAD.)

Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun
Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was
Someone else, someone good

(Because we are all garbage now.)

Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on

(Uh oh, I forgot today was a special day and glanced at the news briefly . . .)

You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow

(*Angry sputtering*)

Hi.  

Every Day Sucks

It's pretty hard to get up in the morning (or in my case, late afternoon) and feel enthused about the day when the first thing I compulsively do upon waking is check the news. The news is making me struggle in my day-to-day life. And this is especially disheartening since I moved to Colorado a fourteen months ago. Every day here is so sunny and gorgeous, even in winter, that it really rubs it in my face when I get up in a dour mood.

So why is the news making me feel this way every day? Besides the obvious reasons (the total dismantling of our government, fascism, etc) I think it's that ever since last November I've had my world view shaken. I think deep down inside of me, beyond the endless layers of fat and snarkiness, I truly believed that people where basically good. Deeply stupid, easily manipulated, constantly afraid, but basically good. And now . . . now I'm not so sure anymore.

Maybe part of being an optimist is having a certain innate naivety within oneself, but I can't help but be let down by the people around me. There is a streak of vile hatred running through the current administration that seems so against everything I've come to believe and stand for. Maybe it's my fault for ever believing any conservative who claimed to vote republican based on states rights, or the economy, or religious reasons. I thought those people were being honest. I thought they really cared about those things. But they don't.

And maybe that's what really bothers me. Because I haven't changed at all. I am still who I ever was and my beliefs have never wavered, and they didn't waver when democrats were in the white house either. But the people who voted for Trump? The ones who call themselves the moral majority, the ones who sit in their self-righteous pews every Sunday? They don't believe what they claim. They will sell their souls to feed their hatred. They will gut this country just to punish people who live a different lifestyle than they choose to live. They will violate this earth and lay it to waste to further their own interests, even though their lives mean nothing to this world.

The people who voted for Trump have no morals. They do not deserve to be treated fairly or to have their words taken in good faith anymore. Because they have shown themselves to be completely morally bankrupt in every way. And that to me, is the most disillusioning part of all of this. If the people who claim to have the most moral high ground, to be the most steadfast in their beliefs are also the ones who are quickest to throw that all away then maybe people aren't basically good after all. Maybe fear will always outweigh doing what's right or what's smart on the scales of life. Maybe we haven't evolved past hiding in caves to escape the noisy thunder of god after all. Maybe we were fooling ourselves all along. Maybe I was.

GET IT? BECAUSE WOMEN DO DIETS AND DREW BARRYMORE IS A WOMAN LOLOLOL

I recently finished watching the new Netflix show "Santa Clarita Diet". Drew Barrymore stars alongside Timothy Olyphant as a suburban mom and real estate agent who becomes a neighbor-munching zombie. A fairly breezy thirty minute comedy, I couldn't help but feel dissatisfied after finishing the ten episode first season. Why?

What is bothering me about Santa Clarita Diet?

The 2017 Movie Challenge

Do you see what I see here?

The 2017 Movie Challenge

If you can look at the banner I made above and not become super angry then congratulations: either you are brain dead or have already been driven insane by today's political climate. Either way, the alive and sane envy you now.

Cabin Fever (2002) was a somewhat successful Eli Roth movie that was remade in 2016 using the same script as the original version. The outcry over this fuckery was pretty pathetic, though the remake was at least totally panned for being what it was: lazy and unnecessary (and bad). Of course it's hard to be too shocked over the lukewarm outcry when so many us spent 2016 eagerly searching for new info about the upcoming THIRD re-imagining of Spider-Man to debut since only 2002. (Or the next Star Wars, or Star Trek, the next Alien movie, and etc, etc.) Apparently, laziness is the agreed upon norm for the film industry currently.

What has so degraded in the movie going public (of which my hands are not totally unclean) that this has become acceptable, let alone commonplace? Now, I'm not saying that we should abolish remakes or sequels totally- they are a legacy of movie-making going back to the very beginning of the art form. But never has it seemed that so much of the funding available to filmmakers has gone to so few new ideas and concepts.

So now the challenge. I challenge myself and others to stop the madness this year. Stop giving money to every studio that just wants to do the same thing over and over again. Stop allowing our nostalgia to be endlessly recycled and used as a weapon against our wallets. Let's stop convincing ourselves like a person in an abusive relationship that this time will be different. Moreover, let's think about what different even means. Even if the next Star Wars and the Star Wars after that are acceptable or even good, do you still want to be seeing Star Wars and Star Treks and Avatars when you're in your forties, fifties, sixties? 

I pledge to not watch any sequels, prequels, or remakes this year. I pledge to make 2017 a year about new ideas, since lord knows we could use some new ones right about now. The rules are simple.

1. No sequels, prequels, re-imaginings, remakes, or extended universe movies.

2. Across all platforms: in the theater, but also on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.

3. Release year doesn't matter. You're probably not going to enrich your life by going back and watching all the Hobbit movies at this point, trust.

See what is out there that is different. Find something new and challenging. Explore the works of other cultures. Go back in time and see how fresh the old can seem to modern eyes. I will be doing it and you can too.

Be the change you want to see in the world and use your spending power to send a message: we want new ideas, new worlds, and new voices showing up on our screens in 2017!

Welcome to . . . the FUTURE!

Hello there, loyal non-existent readers. Welcome to 2017. I made it. Barely! I have made some changes in my life and I want to share them with you. Join me, won't you? Thank you.


1. Accidentally Awesome is no more. Whuh??? Yeah. From now on my art and crafts and stuff will be sold and produced under the wildly creative header of "Haley Newman Art". So bold, I know. I think the AA name was off putting and confusing to people, as well as awkwardly long. Also, though the intent was good when I came up with it, it's a little stupid to call what I do accidental at this point. I may always be an outsider artist but I do know what I'm doing.

2. Therefore, the AA Facebook page is gone. Which is good because guess what: I don't know how it ever got 1500 likes anyway. Because it behaved pretty much the way a page with only a few likes would. Were they bots? Confused people? Confused bots? Too late now to ever find out- bygones!

3. The Etsy shop has changed names also. Big loss, I know. I made literally ONE sale in 2016. One!!!! That is bananas. The crafts I make are good stuff so this is pretty frustrating. BUT. I have a plan.

4. Worry less about what others want and more about what I want to do. The world doesn't need more goddamn products right now- it needs ideas. 2017 is going to be one terrifying ride and the people who it effects the most are going to need to know they are not alone. Art is one way to help accomplish that.

5. Things will no longer be published on a schedule. I have chronic mental health issues and trying to maintain a rigid schedule is just not ever possible for me. (See: my lost post on this blog being from Sept 2016.)

6. By making my business more about ME and less about A BRAND I hope to be able to be a bit more personal in my writing. I HAVE A LOT TO SAY.


So there you have- a total re-branding by de-branding. Welcome to 2017! It's gonna suck!