the morning awesome
Conan + Jeggings. ‘Nuff Said.
Dec 3rd
Seriously. I don’t even need to say anything else…
But I will because, obviously, I can’t shut my big blonde flapping head like, ever.
Coan O’Brien injeggings is the greatest thing since kitties in yarmukles.
On that note, the team here at laurenoutloud.com (read: Lauren and her two cats) would like to wish all of our Jewish (and Jewish-Feline) friends a happy Hanukkah.
Now please enjoy this video of Conan O’Brien in ridiculously tight pants. I know whoever crocheted this did.
Doesn’t the word “crocheted” look like it’s pronounced “crotch-ah-tid”? It’s pronounced “crochayed” but I like the phonetic version better. Just so you know.
<3L
Breakfast Bloggage: Dell’s party and the giggly little camel
Sep 3rd
Kix and keyboards, Wheaties and WordPress, Corn pops and coding – Is there any finer a combination than cereal and computers?
If you look at my be-crumbed workspace , you will see that I think NOT.
Another fine combo? Tunes and Toys (in so many ways).
Music and technology go together like peanut butter and jelly. Like movies and popcorn. Like Lauren O’Neil and literary triptychs.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Dell brought Down with Webster on board to perform for fans at their sick “Ultimate End of Summer Party“.
Last night, it all went down without a hitch.
I was lucky enough to score a VIP pass to the party (Did I mention that I love Dell lately? ‘Cause I do.) but unfortunately, I got caught up at work in the busy city and couldn’t make it to St. Cats in time for the band’s performance.
Woe is me 
I’m so woe.
Fortunately, my homegirl sent me some pics of all the contest winners rocking out so I didn’t feel completely disconnected.
I was bummed that I couldn’t be there, but I’ve got to admit that even just seeing pictures of the fans going wild made me smile.
There’s something so purely positive about fandom in general. Whether it’s sports, music, comedy, gadgets – whenever I see people getting fanatical I feel a little bit fanatical too.
Then again, I’m a bit of a fangirl by nature. My head explodes on the daily.
Last night I absolutely lost my marbles over this font and, I don’t know if you can really be a bona fide fan of laughing camels, but I’ve been LOLing over this all morning.
I may even compulsively scour the internet for advice on how to buy a camel in Canada today. Maybe.
Our love is like water, ticklish camel.
I’ve got to go blowdry my hair and get to work now. Tonight I’m getting it CHOPPED! (my hair, not my work.)
I still have no idea what I’m going to do with it. Hopefully the stylists at this trendy salon everybody’s been telling me to hit up will be able to help out with that.
I’m leaning towards a long bob, like the 2008 Nicole Richie cut I’ve been loving on for years:
But I also like the sort of messy platinum look Gwen’s been rocking lately, since it’s pretty much exactly what I have right now (complete with the long uneven bangs) except shorter.
What do y’all think?
<3 L
Wal-Mart Dancing Granny = Role Model
Aug 17th
Oh. Snap.
That’s the sound of my hip breaking, 68 years in the future when I try to bust out a split jump at 92. It will be THAT loud because my bones are THAT strong. Drink your milk, kids.
I’ve been saying for years that my life goal is to become a hilarious old lady – perhaps of the rapping variety – so when I logged onto Buzzfeed this morning as per yooje and saw this, I was stoked.
Girls like me need more positive role models, wouldn’t you say?
Behold – MY FUTURE (minute 0:49 is where it really starts to get good):
I joke about how one day I will be that woman, but the truth is I kind of already am – minus 60 some-odd years, of course.
I don’t chill out in front of the CD listening box at Wal-Mart (things must be different where homegirl lives… in my neck of the woods, those stations are all crappy flute-laced lullaby mixes and puppets who sing about sharing) but I AM that girl who dances around the aisles of the supermarket like she’s Britney 1.0 when some good tunes are blaring over the PA.
If nobody’s around to see, I’ll practice pirouettes in the produce section – and I’m not just saying that for alliteration’s sake.
I bump and grind my way down the frozen food corridors, doing my little turn on the catwalk, even going so far as to slide across a particularly shiny floor like Tom Cruise in risky business when I feel like it.
I’d prove this with a video if I could find a friend who wasn’t too embarrassed to be seen with me when I get like this.
I’m not actually bff with that lil’ nugget, but I found that picture in my Mexico album when I was looking for the sunhat one above and I had to work it into this post somehow. Too scary good.
But back to our new friend.
Remember Grandpa Gaga? Well this is where I would have said he’s got some competition if I didn’t first think of a loooove connection.
What can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic. This is a match made in heaven. Almost a little bit too literally…
eek.
Before this post gets any weirder, I think I should get to bed. It’s been a long, productive day! Big things popping once again my friends… big big things 
Night night, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite! (seriously.)
Love always,
- Grandma Gaga.
The Goat Symposium: Why wasn’t I there?
Aug 13th
On Wednesday, the brand new Centre of Excellence for Goat Research and Innovation was announced at the 2010 International Goat Symposium in Stratford.
Goat Centre. Goat Symposium. GOAT GOAT GOAT.
I found out about all of this great goaty goodness Thursday morning as I was leaving Chatham, headed back to my new big city life where grass grazing quadrupeds are few and far between.
My car radio was tuned to some local country station when the farmy news came on.
Now, I love me some farm – a heck of a lot more than most girls of my age and profession, that’s for sure – but I was not in the mood to hear about price swings on the wheat market, as I was running late (surpise) and sleepy as a Snorlax on Sudafed PM.
My hand was juuuust creeping toward the dial, getting ready for seat bumpin’ Detroit beats when I heard the magic word: goat
I. effing. love. goats. They’re cuter than kittens and puppies put together, even when they’re eating my shirt at Cedar Point. Anyone who begs to differ needs to Google cute baby goats right now or, better yet, get thyself to a petting Zoo – STAT.
Vintage goat pic. Colasanti‘s circa 2007, I believe. I need some new goatypics.
Maybe I can take some next year at the International Goat Symposium. I had no idea that such a wonderful thing even existed until yesterday! You should see the picture in my head right now… it sort of looks like this:
Can you say cutest symposium EVER? I may not be a goat farmer, but I AM a journalist – or so says the paper on my wall and the paycheque in my cubby hole – and journalists cover things. Things like goat symposiums in Stratford. INTERNATIONAL goat symposiums.
Maybe I’ll pitch it as a freelance piece to some Canadian farm magazine… or maybe I’ll pitch it as a video segment to a hilarious television show. Yes, that would be more fun. Holler at me if you’re a producer looking for a farm reporter. I don’t know a lot about farms except for the fact that I love them.
Plus, the smell of cow manure doesn’t bother me one bit. Come on, admit you love it too.
Oh Oh Oh, Google Images I love you. Behold – Goats Dressed like Hipsters. Soul mate, much?
This is what I’m wearing to the Goat Symposium, btw:
They’re from a shop called Billie Goat Vintage, so it works – sans the stupid fedora and stupid red lipstick and stupid animal print bodysuit. Friggin’ hipster. The shades are cool though.
It’s like two totally different outfits, separated at the waist – one half cool, the other half laaaame. Sort of like a centaur – except with centaurs, both halves are cool. Humans = cool. Horses = also cool.
How the heck did I get onto centaurs again?
Have a great day, goamies!
(see what I did there? I fused the word goat with the word homies. Two different words, melded into one word… sort of like a centaur.)
cows and cows and cows and CYRIAK HARRIS.
Aug 4th
Don’t watch this if you’re high. Seriously. A lot of kids freaked out on me after I posted this on Facebook.
Woah…Cyriak Harris just blew your FRICKING MIND!!!
I had to wiki this dude after stumbling upon his website. His awesome, awesome website. According to interweb authoritahs, Harris is a freelance animator guy from England known for his surreal short web animations.
“Cyriak displays a surreal and often disturbing animation style with a distinct British theme. Many of his animations are based on Z-List celebrities, television shows and his hometown of Brighton.”
Remind me never to go to Brighton… issss what I would say if I were a square, like yer MAHM (ayoooooh!).
If Brighton is anything like this, I’m going RIGHT MEOW and I’ll live there forever and ever amen like a character in some unfortunate hippy’s epic neverending acid trip.
meweirdyoulongtime.
Oooh oooooh – and guess who has the best freaky animated gif section on his website like, ever? It’s totally CYRIAK.
Allow me to share a few of my favourites – because blondespaz insomniacs shouldn’t have all the fun.
(warning: if you HAVE been smoking the drugs, you should probably navigate away from the page at this point, lest you trip the fachk out and make me feel bad for ruining your happy.)
How’s that for the morning awesome?
One more. This one’s even better than cows and cows and cows.
<3
internet turns awful into awesome
Jul 16th
Haih freannnds.
I’m not gunna lie – it’s been a rough night and I’m a sad panda. Rough like a porcupine wrapped in cat tongues grinding on a bed of gravel rough. Panda like the charming dichromatic Chinese mammal (not marsupial) of the family Ursidae.
Wait just a minute… that’s not a panda, THAT’S A DOG!
crevel, crevel, canine-ity trickstahboy!
I’m feeling better already. Long live internet power.
No no no, I said INTERNET power, not Turtle Power! Jeez, brain. NARF!
I couldn’t resist posting Teenage Mutant Ninja Poodle right smack there in that spot. It was too perfect.
Ummm like I was starting to say before I forgot how much I’ve hated the past 24 hours of my life, these night shifts I’ve been working have been taking a toll on my “happy”. The staying awake all night part isn’t nearly as hard as the whole “sleep during the day” thing.
Now don’t get me wrong – I love the work I do – but it’s so darn frustrating to leave the building at 8:00am, passing all of my freshly showered colleagues on the way out to get onto a steamy subway filled with coffee-sipping people who (for the most part) haven’t been awake all night. I envy their jam packed agendas, their business lunches to come, their post-work yoga class…
I struggle to stay awake by running my tired eyes over the newspaper crossword puzzle.
By the time I get home around 9:00 am, my hood is bustling with action and my BB is lighting up with new emails and pings every other minute.
I lie in bed, nervously watching the clock and feeling like a chump with the sun streaming through my budget venetians.
I can hear people in the flower shop below me – in the coffee shop across from my bedroom window. I want to be out there too, getting things done.
But sleep is essential, right? It’s something we’ve all got to do, whether we like to do it or not – because once you stop sleeping, you start to fall off your rocker just a little bit… and lohdy knows I don’t need to be any more sleep deprived than I already am.
Does anybody else out there do the shift work thing? How do you deal with things like this? I need some tips!
I never expected it to be so difficult. I mean, my mom’s been doing it my entire life (emergency rooms never close) and she’s on the ball… so why do I go through a bottle of Pepto every time I work past 4 a.m.?
I’m not the only one either. A strapping young reporter who used to work the very same job that I do now once told me in the elevator that he got mad heartburn every night when he was in the box too.
Is this the body’s way of telling us not to eff around with it’s Circadian rythym?
I’m not complaining, I’m just saying. Sometimes, it’s therapeutic to say. I know – I should be grateful that I’m not still working late nights in a noisy nightclub slingin’ beers till 5 am and waking up for morning classes (though my WORD do I miss that bar scene somethin’ fierce when I’m in the mood to get loud). And I am grateful. I DO love my job – I’m just being a kindergarten baby. Wash my face in gravy.
ew.
Long story short, here’s why I’m pissy:
yesterday, I get home from work around 9:00 a.m. and watch Regis & Kelly in PEI while willing myself to drift off. I Drift in and out of sleep all day in a sweat-boxy room having nightmares about catching diseases that don’t even exist until I’m woken up around 6:00 p.m.
Confused as to whether I should eat breakfast or dinner (?) I whip up some oatmeal with a side salad and tofu cubes. I return some of the bajillion emails and calls I’ve missed during the day and then I go to Wal-Mart. I’ve slept through yoga class and my knee is sore as heck for some reason so I go for a long walk. When I get home, I’m feeling sleepy and disoriented so I try to nap for an hour but can’t so I wake up and pack my bag for the day/night. It’s heavy.
I set out on my bike into the most humid, smoggy weather I’ve experienced in years and when I’m about 10 minutes into a 45 minute long ride, my nerdy asthmatic ass has to pull over for a puffer break. But I forgot my puffer at home because I’m brilliant like that.
So, I continue on feelin’ weezy and light-headed until I have to stop again because the chain falls off of my bike.
I sit down next to the bike and let myself get wet for a bit – because it’s raining now, you see – and then I attempt to fix the chain. It takes me a good 10 minutes to yank it back into place and now my hands and black with grease. nbd.
I hop back on and continue my ride. When I get to the variety store with 6 minutes to spare before my shift and see that there’s no coffee left, I buy a redbull and apologize to the clerk for getting grease all over his counter.
Then, it’s into the office to wash up and work. I wash up. I work. I keep working long after I’m supposed to be leaving because I have to stay late (early? lol) and then I ride my bike back home, starving and exhausted yet too wired to even consider sleeping so I eat some eggs and a popsicle (i dunno) and I BLAWG. Hi.
/complaining
Enough of this negativity. That’s not what I am all aboot. I just needed to vent a little bit.
Now, I need to LAUGH a little bit and so do you – even if you’re already having a fantsmashulous day. Humour me and enjoy the following artifacts of webawesomess:
Rhett and Link’s Epic Rap Battle:
Monkey raping a frog (*disclaimer: laurenoutloud.com does not condone interspecial sex crime – unless it’s hilarious*):
25 creatively painted gaming consoles:
Hug a hipster:
My Little D’ohny and Bart Delarge:
Okay, that’s enough for now. Gotta save something for my wedding day.
Thanks for listening to me gripe – even if you just skimmed over the whiny bits. You rule at life.
Who needs a therapist when you’ve got a blog?
HIGH FIVE!
Love, LaurenOneiL
The morning AWESOME : JoonDaTerrdTooFowZindenTen.
Jun 3rd
Morning baby
It’s time for your oh-so-sporadic (yet aspiringly regular!) morning dose of WHAT’S GOOD.
The trendy, the hot, the offbeat, the hilar.
Always decamerous, never didascalic <- a little bit pretentious ~ a lotta bit AWESOME ->
1. The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra: They turn VEGETABLES into MUSIC with their MAD CARVING SKILLZ – just like I turn INNOCENT PICTURES into FILTHY PRONO with my SICK TWISTED SKULL GUNK!
Oh who are we kidding? There is not a darn thing innocent about that picture – unless you’re like, all pure of heart and untainted or something… Dweeb.
Seriously…
2. Dutch World cup t-shirts : Now, I’m no futbal fan per se (I was scarred by a way-too-rowdy-to-be-cool crowd of soccer fans in Italy. And Ireland. And France. Euros take this shiz way too seriously) but I do dig these shirts all the way to Hong Kong and beyond. Imagine how much fun you could have spooking people out…
I think I’m going to make myself a Dick Cheney version. That would be spooky.
3. THE ONION FACE:
It’s a freaking FACE. In an ONION!!! *logs onto ebay*
4. The Grandpa bandit: I don’t know why I think this is so great. It’s not great. Some old dude is robbing banks all up over the United States… but when I read about the “Grandpa Bandit” at 5:00 a.m. this morning at work while I was cruising the wires for breaking news and stuff, I lost it.
Sleep induced grandpa-lovin’ hysteria. Happens to the best of us.
I’d rock these in a heartbeat, obvs.
6. Ghostbusters Proton Backpack: This one, I wouldn’t rock. Not feminine enough for my tastes (you know how I like my backpacks classy) but I can appreciate how cool it is and possibly buy one for my life sized Dan Aykroyd action figure uh… brother.
7. Conan O’Brien. Stephen Colbert. Jon Stewart.
Dance Off.
‘Nuff said.
8. The “BP Public Relations” Tweetstream – a fake Twitter account for BP Global (you know, the company responsible for that little oil sitch in the gulf right meow…). Some seriously hilarious Tweets coming from this account:
9. It’s a blackberry! It’s a cake! It’s a BLACKBERRY CAKE!!! (and 11 other awesome geeky cakes, if you follow that link):
NES Cake = also mange-worthy.
10. Nothing like finishing off the morning awesome with a little bit of Cat-i-tude:
Fierce!
Love,
Lau-so-lovin’-it-always O’Neily
The morning awesome – March 8, 2010
Mar 8th
What am I lovin’ on this morning while I eat my pimp oats?
1. Mitosis Cookies:
(via boingboing)
see also: Helvetica Cookies:
2. Hollywood blondes winning at Oscar fashion:
Big ups to Demi Moore, Rachel McAdams, Charlize Theron and Hannah Montana Cyrus – who all looked fabulous. Big DOWNS to Maggie Gyllenhall and Nicole Richie. Eeeeeewww!
Honorable mention to Zoë Saldana, who also rocked a super hot frock (Don’t you dare hate. She took a risk and it worked – I don’t care what anybody says):
3. Weird Chatroulette Screenshots:
(via buzzfeed)
4. International Women’s Day, Huzzah!
5. The Toast Wallet:
6. The A++ Answer:
(via 9gag)
7. Oliver Peoples’ 2010 Campaign film – ‘Les enfants sennuient le dimanche’. So good.
8. This sikkkk spiral maze clock:
(via geekologie)
9. This “Growth of the Internet” Infographic (and all infographics, really. I just love infographics.):
(via mashable)
10. FatAwesome comics:
Bwahahahaha….
That is all.
<3 Laulau
Senior Citizen Hip Hop Choir = as hilarious as it sounds.
Feb 1st
This is the greatest thing I’ve seen all month, if not all freaking YEAR. Actually, it would be the same dang thing as it’s only February the 1st today. MYAW!
I LOLed so hard that my roomates’ ears are probably bleeding. I don’t even care, as long as they don’t leave crusty blood all over the kitchen floor again.
Something about the conviction in this woman’s face when she’s singing “riding dirty” just makes me howl uncontrollably.
You too? Good. Let’s get married.
Love,
laurenelizabethoneil
Christian call-in TV show gets pranked…
Jan 29th
If this doesn’t make you laugh and laugh and laugh, you are NO friend of mine good sir!
“started making trouble in my living area” bwahaha…
When I was in grade 4, I tried to enter my elementary school talent show by rapping the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
My friend Janelle and I put on our most colourful Northern Getaway T-Shirts and hot orange clip-on earings (I remember this explicitly because I didn’t want to wear the clip-ons. I thought that they would fall off when I busted out my running man. They didn’t.)
At the time, I still wore different coloured socks every single day (unless I was dragged to something fancy-ish by my parents):
Needless to say, we looked pretty fly; and for two 9 year old white girls, we could rap pretty well too.
Well, we got up there on that little platform in the gym to audition for Mrs. Wellington (the bespectacled fifth grade music teacher) and we were FIERCE, if I do say so myself!
We had energy and we had style. We had cute side ponytails, monsterous pink scrunchies, and plastic neon bangles for DAYS, son!
But Mrs. Wellington was not impressed.
“Well, your dancing is quite… interesting” she said. (I had a wide range of influences – from after school ballet classes to Paula Abdul videos to a steady diet of “In Living Colour“. Yeah, I was totally that four year old who danced along with the Fly-Girls every night.)
“But,” continued the notoriously stodgy and saggy-chested Mrs. W., (jeez, I really hope she never reads this. Like, if she’s still alive that is.) “That type of music isn’t appropriate for the talent show.”
Now, mind you, this WAS the mid 90′s, so educational institutions weren’t quite as obsessed ablout being all ‘P.C.’ like they are now. But still… it was the freaking theme song for a TV show about a rich black Bel-Air family and their mischevious yet kind-hearted rapscallion of a nephew who ultimately wins the affections of even the most curmudgeonly yet kind-hearted man in the house, Judge Philip Banks!
It’s not like we were up there spittin’ lines from The Chronic or something, come on meow!
Whatevs… I’m angry now. What got me onto this tangent? Ah, yes… morning hilarity.
It’s lunch time for this kid! Off to Starbucks for a much deserved java injection.
After lunch, I get to write an AWESOME story for the 6pm newscast about a Conference Board of Canada Report on near-time employment prospects and the Help-Wanted Index or something.
Now, I need to figure out what the heck all of that that means and try to make it sound more interesting than Ned Flanders’ bachelor party.
Thank goodness coffee solves all problems. You know what else solves problems? Voting Lauren for AXE
<3 Always…
