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 This probably seems pretty
stupid and high-schooley to you, but there are a few people in this world who neglect to
be ignorant assholes and have come to receive the honor it is to be called My Friend.
I'm being sarcastic of course, I pay these people monthly to pretend like they've heard of
me, and it makes me feel like a real person.
Except for my robot friends, who I pay to
make me feel like a robot, but that's another story for another day.
Hmm, well
there's a lot of space next to this picture, so I shall fill it up.
I met myself on a warm July day back in 1980, and I knew immediately that I was a girl.
I have had trouble convincing people of this ever since.
Throughout the years I have watched myself grow into the upstanding girl you see before
you grabbing her breast with some sort of rockstar expression on her face.
I always get a good
chuckle when I see the sorts of guys I fall for, and when it inevitably doesn't work out, I
tell myself that I told me so, and follow it with a playful punch, and I tell my
friends that the black eye is from when I walked into a door.
I keep telling myself that I'm doomed
to a life of lonliness and solitude, eating soup in a log cabin in Alaska with a husky named
Sargeant Barkles as my only compainion, but I just won't listen, because I am a stubborn bastard.
And now: A parade of my favorite friends!!!
 Kameron has been
my best friend for seventeen and a half years now. Do you have any idea how old you have to
be to have been best friends with someone for seventeen and a half years?
Let me tell you,
pretty old.
We've been through some rough times. Like the time she remained my friend in
second grade, even after I ran through the soccer field with my skirt over my head screaming
"Interference!!"
Or the time I consoled her because her biggest fear in life was that
she would meet Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains and he would fall in love with her and marry
her and her name would be Kameron Cameron.
(I secretly had a similar fear about Ralph Lauren)
This girl knows more about me than probably anyone,
including myself.
Wait, that doesn't make sense.
What's amazing is that we are able to be apart for months or years at a time, but when
we get back together, it's as if nothing has changed.
I love her more than it is socially acceptable for one heterosexual to love another, and
I will be happy to be her partner-in-crime for many years to come.
 Ryan is my wacky
fun-loving brother. He attends a University in Colorado, where he expects to get a degree in journalism
despite his blatant disregard for things such as apostrophes.
He really should
be getting a degree in Drinking Beer!!! Ha ha ha!!
Seriously, though, my brother has a
drinking problem.
This problem being the ability to drink alcohol in mysterious quantities
called "fifths" without having so much as a hangnail the next day, whilst all his poor sister
has to do is walk past Rum Raisin Ice Cream in the supermarket and she has a hangover for the
next three weeks.
Okay, perhaps I exaggerate, but this boy got all the Irish and American
Indian in our shared heritage, and I guess I got the Space Alien part that mom said we weren't supposed to talk about.
Ryan is a large jockish type boy who likes to play hockey, and sometimes pretends he's
on the ice when we pass in the hall and he sends me flailing into the bathroom with his hip-check.
Despite his ability to drink alcohol and his love of sports, he does all sorts of fruity things like teach himself
piano and sing tenor better than Ben Folds.
He's also an idiot savant about Egyptology, and when he visited Cairo, he was constantly
correcting the native tour guide and translating heiroglyphics and setting ancient love curses
on the girls that were part of the tour group.
I love my brother, and I will be forever
grateful for his allowing me to be the favorite child of the family.
 Sometimes I look at
Jordan and start singing the Patty Duke theme song about Identical Cousins.
Then I get
to laughing so hard, I nearly rouse myself from my sleep.
Seriously, this girl is hot.
And, even better, she thinks I'm funny. I don't even have to pay her to hang out with me,
although I think my mom secretly slips her a couple twenties after a long day of shopping
with me and talking about boys.
But, come on, what else could you want in a cousin? A
funny girl who listens to Eminem and loves kitties and laughs at your jokes and grabs her breasts almost as
much as you do! AND AND she likes to play video games! HAH!
It's win-win.
She comes to live with my family every summer to attend
the Theatre Camp where my mom and I work, and it's endless amounts of fun, because for some
reason her friends think I'm funny, too.
We've dreamt of living the crazy bachelorette life
some day in sunny California, and maybe some day that will become a reality.
Sorry boys, she's not legal quite yet, so roochie roochie roo.
 I met Melissa
freshman year in college when I was driving a bunch of mooching assholes around Nashville
because I was the Chump With The Car.
At one point, we rolled up alongside a limousine, and
while the rest of the sorority bitches in the car were talking about when they were going to
make themselves puke next or what frat-boy they were about to get date-raped by, Melissa
nearly leapt to the front seat and urged me to roll down the window and ask for some Grey
Poupon.
And the jokes never really got much funnier than that.
No, no, I kid, I kid.
We too have been through a lot.
Like for the three years she had half the campus
convinced that she was Heather Graham's sister.
She speaks fluent Russian, and I am sure
she is completely insane.
She has a small homepage
which she refuses to maintain, and when I try to erase it, she says we're not friends anymore.
I miss her a lot.
 Hsiu is sort of
like a green puppy that's been chasing after parked cars. It doesn't quite make sense, but
it's so cute and loyal that you pet it and tell it your problems, then it makes fun of them.
I've probably kept best in touch with Hsiu of all my college friends.
He actually
is the cause for my love of anime.
When I had mono sophomore year, he brought over a stack
of tapes and said "You watch. You'll like."
He has a comical accent that I make fun of
all the time, because everytime he calls me, he informs me who it is, as if I have thousands
of Taiwanese people calling me everyday.
Anyway, watch I did, and like I did, because it
reminded me of the Anime Fairy Tales Nickelodeon used to play everyday at noon when I was
little.
Hsiu has the amazing desire to learn absolutely everything he can about his
surroundings and takes advantage of everything offered to him. You used to be able to call
him at any time of day at school, and he could tell you where a club was serving free food
to anyone who showed up.
Whenever Martin Scorsese or Lewis Black was coming to do a
quiet, secret talk to small groups of students, or if some hippie candle makers were in town
with free candles for all, Hsiu knew about it and was there already.
He sees life very
differently.
If you ask him what it means when guys have big feet, he'll answer that they
run real fast. You'll chuckle at his seeming insanity until he chimes in with "Why you think
they never catch Big Foot?" and suddenly, the world makes a little more sense.
 For the first three years
of college, I was terrified of Jean because I thought she was a bitch who hated me.
Senior year, however I got to know her really well and I learned that she was indeed a bitch,
but one that had almost the exact same sense of humor as I did.
She loves kitties, but
doesn't care for video games, and thinks I'm the hugest loser in the entire world for knowing
anything about computers.
Jean's in the Navy, and she could kick your ass so hard, your
dog would get a black eye.
So yes, I've technically been friends with her for a very short
while, but nearly the entire duration has been spent with us taking turns lamenting that we
hadn't met each other earlier.
She's in med school right now, and has no qualms about
taking apart cadavers and identifying their parts.
She's sort of a hippie, although not a
dirty one, more like one that thinks the world would be better off if there were no cars or
electricity and we lived in teepees made of buffalo skin and ate buffalo and rode buffalo
around and lived in this utopia named Buffalopia.
I love her to death, and I'm
going to Nashville to visit her as soon as I get a car.
Of course, if she ever got to
meet David Cross, I'd kill her and steal him with no problems.
She also has self proclaimed
perfect breasts, and I'm not one to disagree.
 When
I first met Sam, I was terrified of him as well.
He was the smart kid everyone in
every class hated because he knew all the answers, but they secretly also loved him, because
he covered for their neglecting to do the class readings.
To the naked eye, and with a
name like Elbridge Samuel Chase IV, one tends to be intimidated.
But when I got to know
him and realize that he laughs at fart jokes and loves an adventure and actually never really
studies, just sort of knows everything that's going on around him, he became a valuable friend.
Especially one to sit next to in class.
No, we quickly became very close and he's the sort
of guy that does everything he can to make sure everyone around him is taking full advantage
of any fun that can be had in the immediate vicinity.
Of course, I've always been
viciously jealous of his ability to play Grand Theft Auto all night, retire to his room
in the amount of time it takes most people to go to the bathroom, and emerge with an essay / series of
sketches / thesis that is better than anything I can ever dream of creating.
He was
Valedictorian of our school and I don't think I've been more proud of anyone in my life.
He's going to make it far, and when he does, he'd better hook me up with some celebrities
or ELSE.
 Chris is a guy's guy.
We met freshman year, and I hit on him, and he rejected me, and I've pretty much been bitter towards him ever since.
Senior year he, Sam, Sean, and I
rented the nicest townhouse I will probably ever live in.
Chris liked to keep me
in check by sitting on top of me for 5 minutes every time I said something that wasn't funny,
which was pretty much every 5 minutes or so.
Saying that Chris likes sports is sort of
like saying Kevin Smith once saw Star Wars.
Chris is so obsessed with sports, he used to
set FIFA on scrimage mode, and sit and watch the computer play itself.
If I came downstairs
and asked if I could watch the television I bought, or use the PlayStation I brought from home, he
punched me and then sat on me for the duration of the game.
Chris likes the alcohol, and
especially likes hugging people and passing out on them when he is drunk.
I miss Chris
because of his carefree attitude towards life.
Sam got summa cum laude, Sean got
magna cum laude, and I got regular cum laude, and Chris got diesel.
Ladies, he's available. Fans of Simpsons and Tom Petty are encouraged.
Oh also, he's
pictured to the left in a dress I put on him while he was passed out, and he woke up just in time
for me to grab my camera.
 Sean and I dated
for three years, because I tricked him into thinking he liked me. Once he caught onto my
wily ruse, he quickly dumped me, and I've been pretty bitter towards him ever since.
Hence
using the picture of him that he hates.
We remain friends to this day, although I don't understand why because
I just pretty much make fun of him 24/7.
I tend to hang around people with similar senses
of humor, but Sean is the first person I've met whose sense of humor is so similar to mine, it's
almost scary.
It probably offends him to hear me say that, because he's told me repeatedly that I could lose
a comedy contest to a dried leaf, but it'll be a bit of time before I find someone else as funny as
he is.
He likes pups a whole lot, but we were able to work past that in our relationship, and
I even started to like them myself.
Ladies, he too is available, but don't date him, because
you'll soon learn he plays for the other team.
He really likes the cock.
I mean, why else would anyone dump me?
SEE?! Things like that.
Sean, why do you even talk to me?
 Nathan
is the most loyal friend you can have.
So long as you don't piss him off.
Get on his
good side, and he will verbally reduce your enemies to quiverring piles of goo.
He's
exorbitantly poetic, and introduced me to the wonerful cynical works of Dorothy Parker.
He coined the term "lurve" which is how Celene Dion says "love" and he watches his Jesus
show every morning while draped backwards over his bed.
I can't get enough of his
opinions and outlook on life, and my favorite thing about him is how he so unabashedly asks
everyone what their favorite thing about him is.
I don't talk to him much anymore, as
distance makes awkward IM conversations pale in comparison to the passionate discussions
we once had, but I think about me and him and baby carriages in the park and his beloved
Penelope a lot and it makes me smile.
I can't remember when I first met Ryan, but I'm pretty sure it had been after talking
to him on the internet for a really long time.
He was friends with Sean back in the day, and
something made us start IMing each other.
A few Simpsons references and Kevin Smith quotes later, with
mixed with a dash of hatred for most of the idiotic humanity that surrounds us each day, Ryan and I
became friends.
Ryan may have been the first person I actually knew in real life to
frequent my website, and for that I am eternally grateful, because he is an O.G.
He owns
a diaryland account where he posts stories of
drunken jewish frat boys, IM conversations with retarded teeny-boppers, and movies that suck.
He's the cutest jew in town, and even though I've seen him maybe 4 times in real life, I
do believe I miss him.
 Shooter is like
that ray of sunshine that brightens up the thunderstorm of everyday occupational monotony.
He's like the nummy cheesy potatoes that fill up your empty Pikey tummy.
He's like the
25 year old cook who grabs your ass whenever he walks by, and it's cool, because you're
friends and you think it's sort of funny, but you worry that the four-foot-tall, balding,
forty year old dishwasher is starting to get ideas about your seeming consent of the ass-grabbing.
Shooter knows what's funny, and he's a hoot to hang out with, even though he's told me point
blank multiple times that I'm not as funny as I seem to think I am.
MY FRIENDS ARE SO SUPPORTIVE OF MY COMEDY CAREER!
MY PARENTS, TOO!!
He's going to own an
exotic pet store someday, and if you want to know all about snakes and things like that, he's
the guy to ask.
Anyway, he comes up with some kick ass nicknames, and anyone who calls me Laurie-Loo gets a
gold star in my book of coolness.
 When I first met
Amanda she was a Mormon.
Eight months of hanging out with me, listening to a few choice Eminem songs, and she is
completely corrupted and a (*cough* happier, better-off) wonderful person and I hope I don't
go to hell for my bad influence.
Now I believe we have similar religious beliefs, which
is good news for me, but probably bad news for her in the eyes of her parents.
She is eternally happy, and even when she dramatically
drapes her head folded in her arms onto my shoulder begging for me to shoot her in the
face with a shotgun, or at least take out a few choice customers, it's still in a cute little squeak-voice and with a smile on her face.
I know I'm happiest when I'm at work, which is a really sad thing to say, but I think Amanda
is, too, and that makes me happy.
Also, regardless of what people say, she thinks I'm funny.
Which makes her a genius.
Ever seen Half-Baked? Or Premium Blend? Adam is Jim Brewer.
No, he is not like
Jim Brewer, he is Jim Brewer.
He likes the alcohol, and spends his free time doing
a couple other choice recreational things.
Get it, like he always comes into work looking
sleepy?
And he smells like Otto's jacket?
And he "likes" to "smoke" the "ganja".
Other than all that, he likes to meow as much as I do, and spends most of his time in the
pantry of our restaurant shouting out incoherent phrases in jibberish.
He makes life interesting, and
if he ever gets fired, I will quit my job and light the restaurant on fire.
I could put... I could put strychnine in the guacamole! There was salt on the glass... BIG grains of salt!
Ooh, and if Adam ever waits on you, uh... don't send your food back.
Yeeaaahhh...
 I first started talking
to Joe just about two and a half years ago, when I stumbled onto his site off of HotButteredFunk.
At first, he sort of frightened me, because the rivet types like him that went to my high-school
and wore all black and liked the skulls sort of wanted to kill me, and I'm fairly sure put a good
number of hexes on me in their time.
Fast forward about half a year later, and suddenly
one night Joe and I started talking about the Moogle I keep hidden in my closet and only let out
to do my bidding, and the friendship began.
He's got me interested in a lot of cool things
and I'd like to feel at least partly responsible for his seeming growing love for Eminem.
I finally got a chance to meet him last October, and let me tell you, the Fun didn't stop for one second
while I was there.
A generous host, a skilled milkshake maker, and a hilarious rivet mutterer of death threats
to two-year old girls... You can't go wrong with that.
Despite having nearly opposite upbringings and having opposing religious beliefs, our social and
humor beliefs are basically in tune on all levels, and I find myself a little too often having freaky karma
similarities in our lives across the board.
Also he likes saying fuck a lot.
LIKE ME!
Like basically every other person in the entire internet, I met Pork as a result of
many bored clicks around the Penny Arcade website.
Before Pork, I never knew what an
elusive "Cam Portal" was, but suddenly I had to be on one. The idea of my face having the
privalege to be graced on the webpage of an internet celebrity meant more to me than say,
having full use of my arms.
Luckily, though, all my bodily parts stayed intact, and I
emailed Pork, asking to be a part of his camportal.
For some crazy reason, we started
talking extensively about video games and life and God and all sorts of cool things, and
for some reason, he felt the need to take me under his wing and he's been my big brother
ever since.
I go to him with problems I don't easily tell any old shmuck on the internet,
and he usually tells me the right thing to do, even if it's not what I like to hear.
We also got the chance to meet last October, and it was nothing less than magical.
I strongly believe there is a reason that we came to meet each other over the internet and then
in real life, and the impact he's made in my life is indescribable.
Also, he likes Guinness.
My first impression of Valrik was that he was a magical master of Photoshoppery.
I
remember seeing one campic and thinking, "Huh. I always thought Harrison Ford was cast in
the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, but I guess George Lucas went with this guy from Porkfry's
camportals for the remake."
I received my first ever inter-present from Valrik, and
ever since then, he's a valuable person to IM at random times throughout the night to talk
about everything from people who piss me off in the HBF forums to how to work
wacky cascading style sheets.
He left HBF at the same time as I did (although I return
to it every now and again out of sheer morbid curiosity, and if I feel the need to make fun
of someone in order to feel better about myself), and for about the same reasons.
He now
maintains his very own website, and although he's a silly bike-riding liberal, I still gots
much love for him.
Also, he hosts and is an admin in my forums, because he is just that awesome.
I am always proud to call myself an OG, because when I first started talking with Carlos,
he maintained a diminutive website with a large cartoon of his Puerto Rican mug across the top.
Yes, you crazy HBF-addicts, there was a time in his life when he actually sought out people
and begged them to join his crappy pop-up ad laden forums, and I reluctantly did, although
his close Real Life friends didn't take kindly to my calling them morons.
Odd how that
works, huh?
I was a moderator for him at one point, but it didn't last long.
Anyway,
when Butah and Valrik joined forces, they quickly shot through the ranks
into super-stardom, and not unlike the United States, apparantly as a result of inbreeding,
there arose a large region of idiots whose posts actually caused flames to leap out the
sides of my face.
Anyway, I am glad to hand him my largest Hittin' Stick whenever things
get out of hand, and I envy his ability to remain so calm and collected trying to keep a
tight ship over there.
Three cheers for Butah P!
 Kast and I have
an odd relationship.
Some days, we mistakenly get to talking about politics, and we
go at it for a good thirty minutes, hitting below the belt (well, it's usually me who opts
to go for the insults, as Drew often points out, but that's because it's just so easy).
Then other times, we're closer than Jay and Silent Bob, and we're keepin' it real with the
homies.
I also used to work for him on his website, but he got fed up with my lack of...
well saying things on other websites than my own.
Anyway, he's my boy, and even though he sometimes help turn life into a dramatic scene from
the early nineties Nickelodeon sitcom Fifteen, I'll have his back until the next time
he pointlessly disses Republicans.
 Tu is the quirkiest little Asian named after one of the major numbers that you'll ever meet.
He's more than just a
pile of love for pirates.
When you peel back the many layers of this onion/ogre, you'll
find a carefree love for the non-sequitur not unlike my own, and I have to give that due
props.
He always makes me chuckle, regardless of forum, irc channel, or IM window, and sometimes
even telepathic messages.
Yes Tu, I'll bet you thought I wasn't getting them...
I was.
Anyway,
pirates could totally kick ninjas', zombies', and robots' asses because they have cannons
on their ship.
That is all.
I believe he's running for political office, but don't bother checking his website, because it's
updated less than my comic.
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