SEGUE MAGIC LIVES! I don't really have words for how excited I am about this. Actually that's not true. The problem is that I have too many words. I recorded over 20 minutes of video and it was only through sheer force of will and tenacity that I managed to get it under 4. It ends sort of abruptly, but that's the price I had to pay.
This was sort of an odd topic to revive this with, what with it not being particularly pop-culture-centric, but it was fun and I could talk about it forever (clearly). I might cobble together an extras video of some sort for all the things I dropped. It's mostly just place #2 that suffered.
In some offline news, I joined a local book club this past month! If I'm honest, I had a big worry about the people I would encounter there. I mean, I knew pretty quickly that they were lovely girls, very smart and well spoken with great taste in beer and good conversation. Still, there was that niggling fear in the back of my mind. I waited for my moment, and as soon as I saw it, I went for it: So, what did you guys think of Fifty Shades of Grey?
Lucky for me, the two girls who'd actually read the book hated it and everything was safe. I exhaled loudly and rushed through an explanation about how I spent almost two years recapping that book chapter by chapter.
Lucky for me, the two girls who'd actually read the book hated it and everything was safe. I exhaled loudly and rushed through an explanation about how I spent almost two years recapping that book chapter by chapter.
OK, so, this post should have gone up months ago, but let's pretend that this is right on time. NOTHING TO SEE HERE. TOTALLY APPROPRIATELY TIMED POST. Ballots have been cast and the results are in (in a totally timely fashion). Pop the cheapest champagne you can get your hands on and don your tackiest sparklies. It's (finally) time to celebrate the winners of the first annual Traumaland Awards:
April is the best month of the year due to it being the month of my birthday and Coachella and hanging out with Lorraine and the blog's birthday and also my birthday. (L: Did she mention her birthday? HAPPY BIRTHDAY.) Of course, all that excitement was a lot to take in and meant that we got a little more off-schedule than usual. Like, "Post the bloggy equivalent of a vacation auto-responder" levels of off schedule. But good times were had and we hope the, "CHECK OUT OLD POSTS!" stuff kept you all occupied. Hopefully we didn't lose too many of you in our absence because we're back and rushing to play catch up.
Three years ago, snarksquad.blogspot.com had it’s first post, titled “Trauma Never Looked So Good.” Lorraine put together a video from all the silly shit the original team of five had uploaded...
I had a cryfest at some point in the middle of this month, and I'm blaming it mostly on exhaustion. I'm only a little bit ashamed to admit the cryfest happened while watch The Voice. I always tear up during that show, though, because people's dreams coming true makes me emotional.
What was I saying? Oh yes, exhaustion. I've been working a crazy schedule for the past couple of months, and it's a safe bet that any lapse in posting you saw this month were either courtesy of my extended work hours or Sweeney's multiple trips.
Sweeney: There was a small possibility of leaving town this weekend and for the first time probably in forever my response was, "PLEASE NO DON'T MAKE ME."
What was I saying? Oh yes, exhaustion. I've been working a crazy schedule for the past couple of months, and it's a safe bet that any lapse in posting you saw this month were either courtesy of my extended work hours or Sweeney's multiple trips.
Sweeney: There was a small possibility of leaving town this weekend and for the first time probably in forever my response was, "PLEASE NO DON'T MAKE ME."
ANOTHER MONTH HAPPENED! That's how we begin each of these recaps of recaps (#recapception) because that's about how it feels. Sitting down to work on a TMYK leaves me with all sorts of big, dramatic feelings of concern for the rapid disappearance of time. This post is especially like that, having recently finished a big, enormous project that has been such an essential piece of this blog.
We've both been busy with work and life and planning all the things. These first two months were my two stationary months before a long string in which I will be in a new time zone at least once a month until August at the earliest. This should mean I can do some awkward blogging from airplanes in the near future! Snark Squad: bringing additional passenger discomfort to a flight near you.
We've both been busy with work and life and planning all the things. These first two months were my two stationary months before a long string in which I will be in a new time zone at least once a month until August at the earliest. This should mean I can do some awkward blogging from airplanes in the near future! Snark Squad: bringing additional passenger discomfort to a flight near you.
Hunkering back down into our pre-holiday-craziness schedule has been a challenge. We've gotten a little better in the last week or so, but we've yet to give you a full week of posts since the new year started. Sorry, but also, life is hard.
Sweeney: This is your monthly update that yes, indeed, life is still hard and we are still daydreaming about our magical future in which we quit our jobs and become full time Snark Ladies.
Lor: We aren't there yet.
Sweeney: This is your monthly update that yes, indeed, life is still hard and we are still daydreaming about our magical future in which we quit our jobs and become full time Snark Ladies.
Lor: We aren't there yet.
HERE IT IS, DEAR READERS. If you're unclear on what's happening here, there's a tiny bit more explanation (not much) and a few gifs on the original nominations post. It's pretty basic: we're reviewing 2013 on this blog. All the material we covered and all of our favorite (or most traumatizing) recurring themes. It's up to you to vote and determine the winners.
The idea behind the two week delay between nominations/ballot was to give you all some opportunity to post about it, though there weren't enough posts to warrant a separate roundup post. If you're curious, though: Ashlea blogged about it, I vlogged, and we retweeted a few tweets about it. So there's your expert commentary before you make your final decisions.
The idea behind the two week delay between nominations/ballot was to give you all some opportunity to post about it, though there weren't enough posts to warrant a separate roundup post. If you're curious, though: Ashlea blogged about it, I vlogged, and we retweeted a few tweets about it. So there's your expert commentary before you make your final decisions.
It is no secret that we have a lot of thoughts/feels on all things popular culture. There are only so many hours in a day and so we simply cannot recap everything, placing some constraints on what we can dissect here. Having said that, I came across something the other that gave me so many feelings that I needed to sit down and work them out somewhere. I probably should have done it THAT DAY, because such is the relevance and shelf life of these things but, as always...we do what we want.
Variety posted, “Diversity Done Wrong: How SNL Mishandled Casting a Black Woman.” For those of you who are unaware, SNL received a great deal of criticism in the fall when it introduced half a dozen new featured players, nearly all of whom were white men.
Variety posted, “Diversity Done Wrong: How SNL Mishandled Casting a Black Woman.” For those of you who are unaware, SNL received a great deal of criticism in the fall when it introduced half a dozen new featured players, nearly all of whom were white men.
Why yes, we are starting another insane new thing. It's a new year, which means it's time for us to reflect on all the exciting and traumatizing events of the previous year. That's sort of what we did in yesterday's TMYK, but as we mentioned then, Traumaland is a community and we want you all to be a part of this process. As Traumaland expands, we have an ever-growing cast of characters to recognize for all the ways they either got us to feel all the feelings or simply ruined us for life. For that I give you: The Traumaland Awards
How it works: We came up with a handful of categories and nominees. (All chosen from things that happened -- on the blog -- in 2013) You have about to weeks to make your decision, campaign for your favorites, rig the vote - whatever. We'll be posting the official ballot link on Tuesday, January 14th.
How it works: We came up with a handful of categories and nominees. (All chosen from things that happened -- on the blog -- in 2013) You have about to weeks to make your decision, campaign for your favorites, rig the vote - whatever. We'll be posting the official ballot link on Tuesday, January 14th.
Our final The More You Know post for 2012 was titled, "So, we had a year." That seems fitting. In 2012 we fell into a hiatus, lost a few Snark Ladies, but then decided to reinvent the website. We did a lot of great things, but it was a celebration in and of itself that we'd even had a year. Sweeney and I pulled it together and soldiered on, despite all the craziness and a multitude of changes.
Sweeney: It's weird to think about that time, then. That brief period when we wondered how/if this blog would continue to exist. By "weird" I mean "impossible" because this thing has come to be so damn important to us both.
Sweeney: It's weird to think about that time, then. That brief period when we wondered how/if this blog would continue to exist. By "weird" I mean "impossible" because this thing has come to be so damn important to us both.
DECEMBER. It's already December. You know, we've been doing TMYK for over a year now. I just had a vague flash of writing the December 2012 TMYK so I went to check and was way surprised to discover that we actually did the first one (when we asked all of you to help us name it!) in September 2012. WEIRD. I'm sure I'll say this again when we do this again next month and add all the requisite NEW YEARS goodness, but this blog has come to occupy this strange space where I am equal parts confused by how long it's been and how it hasn't been longer because it's come to occupy such a big space in my life.
Just today, I was wasting time on Twitter, talking about how I would recap ALL THE THINGS if I could, when a Twitter friend joked with me not to forget to recap my recaps. BUT IT ISN'T A JOKE, FRIENDS, as dear Willie quickly reminded me. We are a couple of days into November, meaning it is indeed time to recap our recaps.
Sweeney: We're so meta like that.
Lor: Happy November! Happy NaNoWriMo to those brave souls who are participating this year (leave your profiles! Let's be friends!) and Happy No Shave November to those of you doing that. Never forget that Stalker Boyfriend came to us by way of a Movember ad. I mean that in the most encouraging way.
Sweeney: We're so meta like that.
Lor: Happy November! Happy NaNoWriMo to those brave souls who are participating this year (leave your profiles! Let's be friends!) and Happy No Shave November to those of you doing that. Never forget that Stalker Boyfriend came to us by way of a Movember ad. I mean that in the most encouraging way.
THE END! We obviously spent some time brainstorming the best way to do this whole finale week thing, and we decided that vlogs would be a good way to get some of our "final thoughts" off of our chests. It's also a solid way for us to revive the Segue Magic feature that sort of fizzled and died. (Stay tuned to see if this revival works out.)
We're not operating on a particularly concrete prompt. This is just sort of "closing thoughts," with Lorraine's video on Friday being the final word on our Fifty Shades series. It seems fitting, since she started this treacherous journey on her lonesome.
We're not operating on a particularly concrete prompt. This is just sort of "closing thoughts," with Lorraine's video on Friday being the final word on our Fifty Shades series. It seems fitting, since she started this treacherous journey on her lonesome.