Fury of the Day - Comedians Who Do Impressions

by Liz Heather in

I'm not talking about your Uncle Bob here (though I silently doubt that his Walken is amazing). I'm talking about comedians who do impressions. Oh, and also the people WHO LOVE HEARING THESE IMPRESSIONS - you're a big part of this problem. 

Before I go on, let me state that I absolutely can admit when I hear a great impression of someone. Bill Hader's version of Alan Alda? Get out of here. I will be the first one to stand and say, "Hey! That was great! Good on you." I cannot, however, encourage comedians on a stage who do them in excess. If you have more than five seconds of impressions in a set? Walk slowly into the ocean. 

I wish I could shake every comedian alive and beg them not to do them - for three main reasons.

  1. Impressions are never funny. A "funny impression" of a person does not exist. If it's a good one, then it's just accurate. And if it's accurate - then cool, you have the ability to sound like that other guy. Wicked. And if it's a bad impression? Oh man, I couldn't hate you more. You're not even good at the thing that you think I want to see?! Fuck.
  2. The thought of someone sitting in their room, practicing some other person's voice or mannerisms makes me very sad. I apologize if that sounds condescending, but it's really fucking depressing to me. (Unless you're considering yourself an impressionist who ONLY does impressions, that is. But that's never the case.) They could be using that time to fucking think up original or personal insights to offer people, maybe.
  3. Jokes and stories are memorable - your fucking DeNiro is not. I will likely vomit if I'm subjected to it. It's come to a point now that when I see someone even slightly attempt any kind of impression on stage, my eyes close gently as my mind shuts down in a furious rage. It's at that moment that I'll definitely think this person is awful to the core and also sort of dumb, for some reason. And I don't want to hold that prejudice! Years of witnessing impressions has forced me into this, unfortunately.

I understand why people want to get good at impressions - it's because almost everyone fucking loves hearing them. Why the hell is this? I wish I could fucking tell you, but I have no idea.

Oh hey, you know that guy in that movie you loved? Well, we don't have him. Yeah, he's crazy busy. But we got this other guy... and you're gonna be blown away by how much they sound alike. Like, it's eerie. AND IT WILL MAKE YOU LOSE YOUR MIND IN EXCITEMENT.

And I know that I can't stop them. At this very moment, somewhere out there someone is perfecting the hell out of their goddam Seinfeld and there's nothing I can do about it. Makes me so mad. 

People To Follow - The Mindy Project Cast

by Liz Heather in

This was going to be a post encouraging you to follow Ike Barinholtz, but upon closer inspection - almost everyone I follow on The Mindy Project appears to be pretty great.

Maximizing Your Instagram Photos

by Liz Heather in

Apparently, there are dozens of places on the internet where you can turn your Instagram photos into other things. Things like:

I would probably get the magnets done at some point, too. Such a sweet little idea. What these sites should really have is a way to purchase these as gifts to give to other people. As of right now, you need an Instagram password and login to choose what you want to print, but it's such a good gift idea for another person since receiving one's own photos as magnets would be such a welcome surprise since we all think we're individually such great photographers. (We are... right?)

Mako Hair Architects & Spa - Brampton, ON

by Liz Heather in ,

Let me start this by saying that I am not very loyal to any hairdresser. I like to shop around, and I get my hair cut maybe once every two years so it isn't a high priority for me since I've had the same hairstyle since grade three. Let us casually move past how abnormal that fact is, though, yes?

When I do force myself to get a trim, it's always too expensive. That's why I tend to go for Groupon hair deals instead. And this was the first actually amazing Groupon experience I've had. (Why were past Groupon deals bad? I don't know, just added on fees, a lot of attitudes when I present my coupon, silent judgement, etc.) I feel like I'm almost definitely going to make this place my go-to salon now. Why?

  • Every single woman in there was RIDICULOUSLY nice and talkative, but not in that boring "How's the weather? What do you do?" type way. That's probably what I loved most. Most hair places are all about chit chat, and that's fine if you're into that, but usually I find it boring, awkward and nobody's really that interested in anything the other is saying. Am I alone in thinking this? 
  • The hair stylist I had trimmed it exactly the way I wanted, WHICH IS RARE. Most of the ones I've had in the past do whatever they think would look good and it's usually always garbage. 
  • Somehow we started talking about some of the superstitions that my mom has passed on to me and she had totally heard of some of them before and GAVE ME MORE NEW ONES! So, obviously, lot of love for that. 
  • They also do coffee readings. And I think you already know that I'd be really into that. 

Just such a good experience. Definitely go here if you're looking for a new place that's actually good. It's near Main Street and Queen Street in Brampton. Also, the Groupon is still available here. 

Exact Address: 

20 Queen E, Brampton, ON

L6V 1A2, Canada

(905) 460 - 0500

Gary & Amanda's Baby Shower

by Liz Heather in ,

At some point in your life, you're going to throw someone a baby shower. Here's how I did it!

Sample invitation

Sample invitation

In my opinion, the best invitations are available on Etsy. I went with Olive Berry Paper and they came out adorable. To be accurate, the shower was supposed to be based on a woodland theme, but came out much more owl-y (but WHO minded? No one!) (I know, booooo, I'm sorry about that.) Honestly, my main goal for the event was to have it not be lame. I hate baby games. I hate large groups of adults playing games. No one needs any of it. I just wanted to have a simple time, with edible food, based around things that that the couple (my brother and sister-in-law) would enjoy.

Bread basket

This was the bread basket - the bread was from Cobs Bread and you need to eat some of this bread if you live anywhere near Toronto or Mississauga. This stuff tastes nuts. I'm forever thankful to Marla for turning me onto it. The little mushrooms are just mozzarella sticks with grape tomato halves on top in a sea of arugula. I would've wanted to spread that all over the table, but arugula is pricey. 

Owl cheese

This is the owl cheese that I made with my patient and loving niece Tianna. There's an instructional blog post about how to make one here. 

Poutine cups

I wish I'd taken proper photos of these guys, but this is the only one that exists. These are the mini poutine cups I assembled. These were not difficult at all - I just got the jars from the dollar store (three for a dollar), bought the Wendy's fries and gravy individually that morning (no way was I gonna make that myself, plus it was the couple's favourite fast food poutine) and got the cheese curds from the grocery store. Easy peasy. I got the idea for this when I saw this site while I was searching for baby shower ideas. And fries are always better than vegetables. 

Caesar Salad Bites

Caesar Salad Bites

I love the idea of cleanly eating a Caesar salad, so obviously I really wanted to do these.  You can find the recipe here. And I don't have a photo of it, but the world's best spinach and artichoke dip exists here and needs to be eaten by everyone alive. Some other things that were served that I, unfortunately, don't have photos of are the wraps that I ordered from Whole Foods (which were surprisingly really good - the blackened chicken salad one especially), my sister-in-law Cindy's amazing stuffed mushrooms, this pasta salad (just add pasta to the recipe) and lychees that came in a can (Who the hell knew they came in cans?! That's amazing.) - and now here are the desserts:

Acorn Cookies

Again, not the greatest photo, but here's what they sort of looked like. 

Strawberries w/ Cool Whip and Nutella

Owl Sugar Cookies

Owl Sugar Cookies

And of course I didn't make these owl cookies - look at them! They're perfect! I bought them off Etsy. 

Cake!

Cake!

And this gorgeous cake was made by the beautiful Laurie. Look at this cake! YOU can't make a cake like this! Obviously it was delicious. 

All in all, not very stressful to plan. Party Pail had pretty much all the decorations I needed, with numerous dollar store runs as well. These owl frames were in the favor boxes, alongside a small satchel of cookies and cream Hershey's kisses. 

And while it's too time consuming to list every song that I had on the playlist that I had on in the background, here's one that's just perfect for a baby shower.

(I apologize that some of the photographs aren't better, my focus was elsewhere. Won't happen again.)