Apocalypse Not.

If you’re reading this, you didn’t get raptured yesterday. Again. Me neither. Actually, I don’t know anybody who did, which probably says something about the people I hang out with.

You may remember not getting raptured in May as well. It's like getting picked last in gym class all over again, but instead of playing right field in kickball, you have to fight zombies and live in that Metallica song.

If you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook (or if you didn't in May), you missed what was probably one of my most active social media days in quite a while. I’ll graciously recap to make it look like I put some effort into this post.

No traffic on my way to work this morning. Could have been due to Rapture. Was actually because it was 8AM on a Saturday.

Although, I saw exactly zero cars with Jesus fish in 40 miles in a Bible Belt state, so maybe.

Maybe the Rapture happened, but we’re all such assholes that everyone’s still here.

Seriously, how did Tim LaHaye write like 15 books about this? This is the most boring Rapture ever.

Just after midnight:

...From that, I conclude that God Almighty is not heavily into Numerology.

The last one is from the next morning:

I have a strong suspicion that if you turned on MTV today, you’d see Harold Camping pull off a mask to reveal that he’s Ashton Kutcher.

He did admit a couple days later that mistakes were made, but thank you for donating your entire life savings to my retirement fund this righteous cause and no you can't have it back because the real Rapture is actually October 21st, so I totally still need it. But in a fantastic cosmic coincidence, May 21st was still significant to the Apocalypse. Apparently it wasn't the Rapture, just Judgment Day. It was also completely invisible, which is why you didn't see Arnold Schwarzenegger or Robert Patrick. God just quietly called Santa and asked to borrow his naughty and nice lists so he would know who to save when he destroyed the universe yesterday.

I really wish I could track down all those people in high school who had all that crap that said “In case of Rapture, you can have my shirt/car/other material possessions” and put in a claim for it. I’d be like “dude, you’re still here? What happened?” And they’d be all embarrassed because they realized that their shirt probably should have said “Arrogant Fuck” or something. I’d also point out that they probably didn’t get picked just because they were wearing that shirt, because if you need to wear a t-shirt to prove something about yourself, it's probably not true anyway.

On a related note, Jesus has mutated from a tasteful fish icon into a giant, crappy, Photoshopped murder shark. I'm pretty sure this is exactly how the Apocalypse was supposed to happen.

You're gonna need a bigger crucifix.

UPDATED: You're welcome, Internet.

So, I warned you the other day that I had been planning to do this, and today I did it. I know. I'm surprised, too.

I've been quietly claiming little bits of the interwebs for myself lately, and now I'm forcing them upon sharing them with you! I'd meant to do this last week, but didn't. If you've stopped by since last Saturday, you already know that story.

Here's what you've been missing:

I have a Pinterest now. I've been collecting awesome stuff. You're welcome.
http://pinterest.com/snark/this-stuff-is-made-of-awesome/

Also, Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/causticsnark/

And stuff that has nothing to do with me, but that you should check out anyway.
The Rejection of Anne Frank. This is exactly how it would happen today.
Reasoning with Vampires. It's really hard to go wrong when you're making fun of Twilight.
Vampire Moths. It's moderately terrifying until you realize they're basically just giant mosquitoes.

In case you haven't heard, the Rapturepocalypsequake happens again today, so you can probably expect to see more of this. Also, lots of recycled dinosaur jokes and REM lyrics. In case of Rapture, you can have this blog. Not because I expect to go, but because if it does happen, I'll be too busy dealing with the zombies and figuring out how to find food to update it. Plus, it probably wouldn't exist anymore anyway because if God really wanted to destroy the world, He'd probably start by shutting down the Internet. In the event that doesn't happen, I'll be back tomorrow.

Where everybody knows your name. Because it's probably Olson.

So, I had intended to do some kind of wrap-up for the week (read: collection of shit I found on the Internet while I was probably supposed to be doing something important) last weekend, but then my 96-year-old grandma's heart stopped while she was already in the hospital for something (surprisingly not heart-related), so instead I flew to Fargo, North Dakota. She's fine, BTW, because she's a total badass. When I called her hospital room that day, she referred to the fact that she was technically dead an hour earlier as "a little scare," and then proceeded to ask me how the weather was and congratulate me and my wife on our Master's degrees and new jobs, which is exactly the format of every conversation I've had with her in 30 years because all she cares about is how you're doing. (You can do your own "big heart" joke here if you want). They gave her a pacemaker, so she's part robot now. And part zombie, I guess, except instead of killing you, she just feeds you and tells stories about when you were four. I have the coolest grandma ever.

There are a few things you should know about flying to Fargo. First of all, if you're not already in Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, or Winnipeg, you have to go to one of those cities, because noone else knows where it is. Then you and eight other people get into a Mini Cooper that's been painted to look like an airplane. If you're over 5'6", you'll need to duck your head to get in. As long as your carry-on is smaller than a paperback book, you can put it in the overhead bin; otherwise you'll have to check it at the gate. On the plus side, though, two-thirds of the seats are window seats, so you're pretty much guaranteed a great view of a wheat field.

Or just a million clouds.

Once you get off the plane in Fargo, all of the events and dialogue for the duration of your visit will be written by Garrison Keillor. Be prepared to have a lot of conversations about the weather and who wasn't in church that week. Also, farm equipment. One day while I was there, a radio station devoted an entire morning to discussing an important piece of legislation called the Church Lady Bill. I can't even make this shit up.

You may also discover that, improbably, Fargo is now filling up with hipsters. My guess is that it's obscure, so they can say "yeah, I live in Fargo. You've probably never heard of it. It's not mainstream."

When it's finally time to leave, here's what you'll need: the city you're flying to (from the previous list) and your last name. The end. No fucking ID required–but they'll confiscate a jar of salsa, because in North Dakota, that shit is dangerous. Next time I go, I'm seriously only paying for a one-way ticket, because there's got to be a Smith or a Johnson going to one of those cities.

This is why we don't buy flashy shit we don't understand.

So, my work week started with the following phone conversation:

Her: I need click-by-click help doing something annoyingly simple on a computer I have no fucking business owning.
Me: Do you have this specific program, which is the only one you could possibly use to do this?
Her: Oh, yes, of course. Probably. I don't know. Did I download that already? Yes.
Me: *twitch* OK, first you'll need to open that. *twitch*
Her: How do I do that?
Me: *violent seizure*
Her: Oh, I should tell you, I'm completely computer illiterate.
Me: Lovely. In that case, you need to promise to do exactly what I tell you to do, and absolutely nothing that I don't tell you to do.
Her: OK!
Me: You'll just need to find the icon for the program and double-click it.
Her: OK. Where's that?
Me: *sighseizurefacepalm* Look on your desktop–that's the main screen with all the little pictures that let you open things.
Her: It's not there. Where is it?
Me: Open up your Start Menu–that's the button in the lower-left-hand corner. It might say "Start" on it, or else have a picture of a rectangle that's red, green, blue, and yellow. If you have a Mac, I will punch you in the face.
Her: OK. So where do I find it on there?
Me: You have to read so you can find the name...you know what? Just find the box that says "search" and type in the name.
Her: It says "no results."
Me: Do you know how to spell? Did you actually do this before?
Her: I guess I must not've.
Me: *deep breath* OK...on the website you're already at, click on this link. Then keep clicking "Install," "Yes,"  and "OK" until it stops asking.
Her: Oh, it just opened the program that I actually did have already!
Me: *murderous rage zen meditation* Good. Now turn on your device and plug it into your computer. It should show up on the left side of the window.
Her: It's not there.
Me: OK, unplug it and try it again.
Her: It's still not there. Oh wait, is this it where it says exactly the name of my device?
Me: *mouth agape* I, um...yeah, you're doing it right. Just drag and dro...just click on the little picture and move it to your device and let go.
Her: I don't have the little picture because I did like eight things you didn't tell me to.
Me: Look on the left and click on "All." Then try it again.
Her: Oh, that was easy!
Me: *aneurysm*

Whoever started the myth that technology was going to make life easier is probably going to get bludgeoned someday by a tech support mob wielding iPads.

Naked pictures of our old apartment.

So, we moved last weekend. (Not yesterday. A week ago). Then, this week, we went back and cleaned and everything, and then back again to turn in the keys, and now we don't live there anymore. It's all very surreal, because so much of Life happened there.

This is how it feels right now:



</waxingsentimental>

As with any trying experience, we discovered that we'd learned some things afterward. Here are the ones you care about:

• We own a surprising amount of stuff. Most of it seems to have been hewn from boulders. I'm fairly certain the Colossus of Rhodes was in there somewhere. Also, Maine.
• I think I may have grown several new muscles. I didn't actually become any stronger from it; I just developed more places that could hurt. I'm pretty sure that, when this happened, I was supposed to get wings or claws or telekinesis. Evolution is an asshole.
• Despite weighing eight million pounds, U-Hauls are unnaturally fragile. If you even look at the same spot for more than four seconds, you'll scratch the paint off. Ten and the whole fucking thing will explode. They're like the TIE fighters of moving trucks. Except they have the turning radius of a small planet.

As I've said several times before, we are never moving again. Except we don't plan on living in Texas forever, which means that, barring some wicked map-altering earthquake that noone could possible survive anyway, we'll have to. When that does happen, we're not fucking around with Planet U-Haul. We're hiring Superman, The Thing, and Dr. Bruce Banner. And Bruce doesn't get any pizza.

This is where we used to live.