Blogcritics Author: Chelsea Smith

You Would've Loved Me Eight Months Ago

Chelsea Smith — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:39:02 EST

We used to be cool. We were totally into each other and ourselves. Now we�re about to be �Mom� and �Dad.�
“I wasn’t always this way,” I tell The New Girl at my job, the girl who, though it hasn’t been directly stated, will be taking over my job when I leave for maternity leave in two weeks. “I used to be cool.”We share a laugh. After all, I pulled it off like I was joking, and I like The New Girl, but I look at the...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Satire: If I Told People I Killed JonBenet Ramsey...

Chelsea Smith — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:04:31 EDT

As John Mark Karr emerges as the alleged killer of JonBenet Ramsey, TV exclusives like The Insider are interpreting relics from his past as they attempt to create and understand the profile of a potential killer. This has included pictures of him in marching band (you know what they say about those band kids ... they're up to no good!) and things he wrote in high school yearbooks.This leads me to wonder: If I go crazy and kill someone famous or something like that, how will people interpret my high school yearbook? And so we turn to my senior high school yearbook, Hicksville High School Hixonian 2003, Volume 88, to get a glimpse of the killer profile that is Chelsea Louise Snyder.Page 16, Senior directory. Chelsea Snyder was involved in many, many student organizations and assumed leadership in many. She also received many awards. What does this mean? Chelsea Snyder kept herself busy so as to prevent others from suspecting that she had the mind of a killer and a thirst for blood.Page 16G – Snyder's senior portrait shows a "come hither" stare and a peak of cleavage. Clearly a provacative Lolita, Snyder must have satisfied her bloodthirst in these young developmental years by utilizing her Basic Instinct-like skills to lure and kill unsuspecting suitors.Page 28 – Snyder is featured with other senior girls at Homecoming. She is in the back row, third from the left. This position signifies that Snyder is a loner and likes to be behind the scenes so as to better prepare herself to claim her victims.Page 32 – A quote blurb is featured by Snyder in response to the question, "What was your best memory of the senior trip?" to which she responded, "The many interesting events in the hotel at night." Clearly, she killed someone that night and is alluding to it so as to taunt authorities.Page 34 – Snyder is pictured as the "Most Artistic" member of her graduating class in the group of senior superlatives. Artistic and dangerous.Page 37 – Snyder is featured as a flying monkey in the school production of The Wizard of Oz. This public humiliation obviously fueled her sadistic thirst for human blood.Page 56 – A member of the varsity volleyball team, Snyder was able to hone her physical prowess and use this in the future to stalk, tackle, and smack people at a very rapid pace. The team also lost a lot, adding to her cynical outlook on life.Page 72 – Toni Pocratsky is incorrectly identified as Chelsea Snyder in the track team picture. Chelsea Snyder would have been furious to have been misidentified, as Chelsea Snyder did not enjoy track and quit after her freshman year. (See 1999 yearbook.)Page 85 – Chelsea Snyder is featured with other senior members of the marching band, who are wearing shirts, each shirt featuring a letter, that, together spell out "CLASS OF 2003." Snyder is the letter L. L is also the first letter of lust. Lust for blood.Page 90 – A list of student awards and scholarships. Snyder's name is frequently noted. She obviously killed the original recipients of these awards and collected them for herself.Page 94 – Snyder is featured as a member of the academic team, National Honor Society, and Science Club. Many serial killers have been noted members of such organizations, but not nearly as many as....Page 101 – Marching band. Snyder was band president.Page 106 – An eighth grader by the name of Chelsey Sinclair. It is not Chelsea Snyder, but it is interesting to note they have similar names.Provided by a source, we are able to see what Chelsea Snyder signed in a classmate's yearbook: "Thanks for the laughs over the years. Good luck in all you do! Shine on, you crazy diamond!" If you unscramble some of the letters and add a P, within this decoded message one can distinctly see: "Paul is dead." Chelsea Snyder killed Paul McCartney.There you have it. An in-depth analysis of a cold-blooded killer. I'd hang onto this article or print it out, if I were you.

Chelsea Smith is a freelance writer unfortunately stuck in Indiana, with a deep and tragic longing for her home state of Ohio. She is an alumna of Purdue University and holds dual degrees in journalism and anthropology. Her parents' neighbors think she is a nice girl, and would gladly let her water their plants.

Tuesdays with Bodhi: The 3 a.m. Fireworks

Chelsea Smith — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:03:13 EDT

Scene: A quiet, placid night on July 6, ca. 3 a.m. Chelsea and her trusty canine, Bodhi, are nestled quietly in bed, as our heroine must rise at 6 a.m. to be at work on this impending morning ...Bodhi: BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK!!!!Chelsea: *still groggy from sleep* Bodhi, what are you barking at?Bodhi: The white trash in the government-subsidized housing down the road is shooting off fireworks again.Chelsea: What the hell...?Bodhi: Because now that it's after the 4th of July, they can buy their fireworks for cheap. And unlike you, they aren't working in the morning.Chelsea: Why do I sense that you're a Republican?Bodhi: Because I think I'm better than you and love to lick my own balls?Chelsea: That would probably be why.*fireworks in the distance*Bodhi: BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK!!!Chelsea: Damnit Bodhi, you know what it is, why are you barking at it?Bodhi: I just wanted to alert you to the fact so that you can feel bad about being a liberal and promoting people such as our pyrotechnically-inclined, orthodontically challenged friends down the road.Chelsea: Well, you're going to wake up the neighbors. So stop it.Bodhi: Actually, no, your neighbors are having sex right now. The fat slovenly ones on the other side of your bedroom wall, actually.Chelsea: Why do you tell me these things?Bodhi: If I have the unfortunate gift of sonar hearing and have to hear them, you at least have to be as miserable just knowing the fact.Chelsea: Yeah ... I'm going to go make myself a stiff drink.Bodhi: Welcome to my private hell.

Discovery Zone: Darwin's Law for Kids

Chelsea Smith — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:44:14 EDT

Every year in America, an average of 7.2 million children are born. In 1985, the year I was born, I was just one of 6,438,239 fertilized embryos. Of those six million plus, there are currently 5,166,952 of us. So what happened to the missing 1,271,287 that knocked off between 1985 and 2006?* Two words, my friends: Discovery Zone.Don't be fooled. These are the gates of hell. Some children had Chuck E. Cheese (or Showbiz Pizza, for you old schoolers). Some children had the local playground. Some had Parcheesi. But for many of us, particularly in the greater Fort Wayne, Indiana area that I grew up in, there was Discovery Zone, which, according to Wikipedia, can best be described as having been “a chain of entertainment facilities featuring games, elaborate indoor mazes designed for young children, including slides, climbing play structures and ball pits.”But for laymen, Discovery Zone was more accurately, Darwin’s Law for Kids.A fun-filled afternoon for the family! Ask the scarred, crippled 20-somethings of today about it and many will shudder in terror at the simple memory of the horrors of Discovery Zone. It was impossible to leave the large building of tubes, ball pits, slides, and arcade games without some form of head and/or internal injury. My brother has a considerable crook in his nose that I can’t help but credit to the time I kicked him in the face somewhere within the tubes.Within the tubes, the social hierarchy was similar to Lord of the Flies. It wasn’t uncommon to find corpses littering the tubes. And naturally, if you were an especially agile child, you could move through the tubes with considerable ease -- until you came up behind the notorious Fat Kid who never moved at the speed you wanted him to, especially in a rousing game of tag, at which point you would either A) trample him, B) maneuver around him and then kick him in the face, or C) push him to speed him up until he kicked you in the face.Children can climb through the tubes with relative ease, but parents could not, which was especially to my 11-year-old advantage when it was time to go home and I knew damn well my 6'8" father couldn’t possibly come in after us. I was lucky, though. Usually you’d see one or two especially irate and lost parents screaming for their children and these children could usually be identified as the ones pushing/trampling Fat Kid out of the way. Or, there was a worse fate… The ball pit.Missing since 1994. To this day, I still remember the feel of young, nimble, rigamortic bodies under my feet in the ball pit. There was always that special breed of children who didn’t really like to play and instead thought it a good plan to lounge in the ball pit. (Often this was Fat Kid, crying after having his nose broken for the fifth time that day.) Physics is but a cruel mistress in the ball pit. Ball Pit Kid eventually sifted to the bottom where he was either trampled to death and never seen again or simply suffocated.There was another breed of child within the depths of the ball pit -- Scary Kid. This was usually someone on the outer cusp of the acceptable age for Discovery Zone, probably 13 or 14, and utilized his age and size against the other merry children enjoying their time. He did this by hiding in the balls and then jumping out and scaring people. This was also usually the kid that peed in the ball pit -- the weird kid your parents wouldn’t invite to your birthday party because he might poop his pants or pee in the pool. That kid.Injuries were Discovery Zone’s beloved concubine. It was to be expected that you would return home with third degree burns on your elbows and knees (because nobody wore the optionally provided knee and elbow pads unless you were the Hypochondriac Child, who was also usually Fat Kid). Broken noses and concussions were common, too, especially if you were Idiot Kid who would go into the obstacle course and try to do it backwards. I for one remember the rolly-slide -– a horrible torture device that consisted of rollers, which was great unless you were a kid like me, a little bit bigger than most kids. My skin would get caught in the rollers.He's only alive today because I allowed him to be. Discovery Zone, or at the very least the concept of it, is simply the corporate way of executing nature’s will. Because Fat Kid, Scary Kid, Lazy Kid…let’s face it, it was probably for the best that they were trampled to death or died of asphyxiation or massive head injuries. It's that kind of people who grow into our president of the idiots of society. I survived multiple trips to Discovery Zone and I am an intelligent, productive member of society. And my brother, well, I was forced to keep an eye on him once lost in the maze of tubes, so he slid by, by default. Discovery Zone went bankrupt in 1996 with debts raking up to $366 million, which, when you consider the assumedly gargantuan amount of liability lawsuits, makes sense. Our grandparents survived the Great Depression. Our parents, well, they made it through the 60’s and 70’s with enough brain cells left over to reproduce us. But for the 20-somethings of today, we survived Discovery Zone. * I completely made these figures up.

Confessions of a Spelling Bee Queen Bee

Chelsea Smith — Fri, 2 Jun 2006 16:18:19 EDT

It’s that time of year again. Time for the most awkward and unpopular of the lower social tiers of junior high to shine: it’s time for the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. How I remembered this is inconsequential. (I was paying patronage the strip club with my friends and realized it was on ESPN. Define irony.) But seeing the future Bill Gateses of the world duel it out for the right to be called “Nation’s Top Loser” reminded me of my own horrible, awkward, yet wonderful experiences as my school's top speller.I was awkward at best through my junior high years. I was made fun of mercilessly, called “Stinky Tuna” because I sat with my legs open (I was a tomboy, lay off) and wore baggy clothes to hide the fact that I had boobs because when I wore things that showed them off I was accused of stuffing my bra. The only time I ever felt like I fitted in was when those aluminum chairs were lined up, the microphone on the stand was hot, and I could out-spell even Hicksville Middle School’s brightest. I was the Spelling Bee girl. It was my niche. It’s what I did.I remember my first taste of spelling bee victory. Fifth grade. I beat out Tyler Turnbull, the teacher’s son, with the word “soothsayer.” He cried. I gloated. And I got a cool trophy that immediately made me the object of mockery on the bus ride home. But hey, the bus driver said I did a good job and that’s all that mattered.Subsequent bees were inconsequential. I spelled. I won. I gloated. I was reminded I didn’t have boobs and wasn’t pretty and didn’t wear clothes from American Eagle. Time passed and I continued to be the most mocked female in the class, but on spelling bee day, God have mercy on all of them. I wasn’t invited to your birthday party. I was shunned from your sleepover. You asked me to be your girlfriend just so I would accept and you and your friends could laugh at me. But dammit. I was going to out-spell all those little shits. And I did. Pretty kids don’t win the spelling bee. The quarterback who will eventually get a bigger scholarship than you goes out in the first round. The weird stinky kids are usually in the top 10, but rarely win. The spelling bee isn’t made for the winners of the world like those who joined a sorority or became a CEO. (Okay, I became a sorority girl but that was a completely different story.) The spelling bee is awkward. The spelling bee is braces, bad acne, scoliosis and coke-bottle glasses. The spelling bee is the kids who get paper wads thrown at them and get tripped in the hall.For two or three hours, we were better than them. We were the cool kids, if just for a little bit.Some of my best friends I maintained through junior high and high school were weird kids I met at the county spelling bees. Kids who were made fun of and tortured like me. If the spelling bee is good for one thing, it’s a place where all those weird kids could be weird together. Then it turned into a complete bloodshed once those stage lights were on. But it was glorious geek blood, and it just made us into an ordained blood order of nerds.The popular kids had their slumber parties and sports practices. They had their intimidating cliques in the hallway. They had their gaggle of hyenas in the backs of classrooms. But us? We had the spelling bee. It was ours. And last night, I remembered being one of them. Being as tortured and awkward and misunderstood. And knowing that while on stage, those weirdos and dweebs and nerds felt like they mattered, felt like they had something special that was just theirs.The other kids had plenty of opportunities in life to feel superior. But for us, the geeks and dweebs and mockeries of junior high, we have the spelling bee.

Tuesdays with Bodhi: The Bra Incident

Chelsea Smith — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:49:22 EDT

Chelsea: Bodhi, what are you chewing on? Bodhi: Your bra. Chelsea: How did you get ahold of it? Bodhi: You left it on the floor. Fair game. Chelsea: Well, stop it. That's Victoria's Secret. It's expensive. Bodhi: Why? You sleep alone every night as a result of your fear of commitment, watching Family Guy, and eating ice cream out of the carton. I highly doubt you're going to need to impress anyone with this high caliber lingerie. Chelsea: You never know. That guy at the other end of the hall is cute. Bodhi: He's gay. Chelsea: How do you know? Bodhi: His toy poodle told me. Chelsea: Good point. I probably should've seen that one coming. Bodhi: Probably, but in the meantime I'm going to drag the bra around the apartment at a speed faster than you can catch me and then hide it in some obscure corner for your mother to find the next time she's in town. Chelsea: Well, as long as you don't take a liking to my thongs. Bodhi

Tuesdays with Bodhi: The Morning After

Chelsea Smith — Tue, 23 May 2006 13:08:31 EDT

The morning after my 21st birthday...Bodhi: Wake up, I have to go potty.Chelsea: Unnngggghhhh...Bodhi: I have to go right now. You have to take me outside.Chelsea: Arrrnnnnyyyuuggghhh...Bodhi: Come on. You owe me. I said nothing when your drunk friends picked me up and played "Airplane" with me. I said nothing when you nearly passed out on me. I said nothing when your idiot friend fed me beer and laughed about it. You owe me. I have to potty and I have to potty now.Chelsea: Okay, today, you have a "poop on the rug free" card.Bodhi: But that isn't how it works.Chelsea: Why? You always poop on the carpet anyway, even if I do take you outside.Bodhi: I know but I've always been a fan of formality.Chelsea: Why don't you get me some Tylenol? Lassie would've gotten Tylenol for Timmy.Bodhi: Yeah, but I doubt Timmy was a raging alcoholic like you are. Even Lassie had her limits.Chelsea: Bodhi, seriously, I feel like crap. Just go piss in the same corner you always go in when you think you're being so sly, and I'll pretend I didn't see it, and we'll go on as always.Bodhi: Well, I suppose I'll find some solace in knowing I wasn't the only one to urinate in my sleeping quarters today.Chelsea: What?Bodhi: Yeah, there's a reason I didn't sleep with you in your bed last night. I have standards.Chelsea: So is that why the last time we went to my parents' you humped their mutt - I mean, designer dog - Gracie?Bodhi: The little cock tease was begging for it.Chelsea: Just go piss in the corner, Bodhi. I'm not getting up.Bodhi: Fine. But when you find it you still have to act thoroughly annoyed and unamused.Chelsea: Fine.

Tuesdays with Bodhi

Chelsea Smith — Wed, 17 May 2006 00:54:27 EDT

A little over a month ago, I adopted a three-month-old Papillon puppy from my workplace. I decided to name the little bugger Bodhi (BO-dee), short for Bodhisattva, the Buddhist deity of Zen, hoping it would rub off on him. A month later, I realized the precocious little pup could talk. Or it's that damn LSD again...And so I present, the touching story of a girl on her own in the big city with nobody but a dog to keep her company, Tuesdays with Bodhi...Bodhi: Let me sit on your lap. Chelsea: I can't right now. I'm trying to type up an article and I'm on a deadline. Bodhi: So why can't I sit on your lap? Chelsea: Because I said. Bodhi: Let me sit on your lap or I'm going to continue to claw into your thigh. Chelsea: Fine. Sit on my lap. Bodhi: Thank you. Now I'm going to put my paws on your keyboard. Chelsea: You can't do that. I'm typing up a story. Bodhi: I'll add flavor to it. Your news stories always suck anyway. Chelsea: This from an animal who eats his own shit? Bodhi: If your poop looked like tootsie rolls, you'd eat it too. Chelsea: Good point. Bodhi: I always have good points. I'm a Papillon. We're very smart. Chelsea: You're getting awful ballsy. Bodhi: Please, have you seen me? I'm all balls. Chelsea: Actually, isn't it about time I call Dr. Reinholt and schedule your neutering? Bodhi: Damn you.

An Open Letter to the Hooligans Who Broke Into My Car

Chelsea Smith — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:41:56 EST

Dear Random Mischievous Rapscallions,Thank you for taking the time to break into my car last night. I cannot tell you how much it spruced up an otherwise gloomy Monday morning. I was so excited to come out to my car this morning, dreading the idea of going to work, and finding my door ajar. How kind of you to leave it open so as to air it out with the fresh spring air!I hope you enjoy the CD/MP3 player. I was also attracted to its shininess and blue backlight and like you I also did not pay for it (an anniversary present thanks to dear Matt Sussman). Please also enjoy the musical talents of Weezer, as my favorite CD of theirs was in the CD player, and also my multi-faceted musical preferences found in the 200-disc CD wallet you borrowed. I ask that you please return the CDs after you upload them to your iTunes. Thank you!Also, thank you so much for emptying out the entire contents of my glove box. I have been meaning to clean it out for quite some time now and, thanks to you, the entire contents were strewn across the front seat for me to prioritize and reorganize back into the glove box - including the condoms I had managed to hide from my parents since I was 16. I do hope you have some other form of contraception, as you did not take the condoms.I am glad you realized my driver's side door lock was ineffective and, as a favor to me, ripped it out, leaving a gaping hole in the door. It was also kind of you to leave the lock on my driver's seat, but the mechanic said that the lock is worthless. But thanks for the thought. He also said that to repair the door would cost almost $600. So if you would be so kind as to leave that on my windshield the next time you're in the neighborhood, that would be great.I'm sorry my bag of clothes for Goodwill did not meet your expectations. Thank you for also strewing these across my backseat so as to allow me to re-evaluate whether or not I really wanted to donate these things or if I wanted to stick them back in my closet for another year.Also, thank you for leaving the pink polo shirts belonging to my dogs Maggie and Gracie. They also thank you for your consideration as they do enjoy these polo shirts quite a lot.Again, I am grateful for your time and consideration in ravaging my car and my belongings and violating my personal property. And again, since you did not take the condoms, please be safe. Safe sex first!Sincerely, Chelsea

Movie Review: The Hills Have Eyes

Chelsea Smith — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 06:25:33 EST

According to the movie tagline, "the lucky ones die first." Apparently this also applies to the audience.The Hills Have Eyes,, the remake of Wes Craven's 1977 movie, is a 107-minute, dragged-out, overdrawn monstrosity of a movie (no pun intended). A family of six (plus a baby) is stranded in the middle of the New Mexico desert. The the premise is that the U.S. government was testing nuclear weapons in the desert of the American southwest and many families and mining communities refused to move, thus becoming victims to the radiation fall-out.What results is a small town of people that look very similar to Photoshop pranks I used to pull when I was editor of my high school yearbook.The plot starts out simple enough. Like most horror movies, our wholesome Midwest family is stranded in the desert after wrecking their car. It's Mom and Dad's silver wedding anniversary and they are accompanied by their three children, as well as their eldest daughter's husband and baby. Dad is an ex-cop and all-American, red-white-and-blue dad, mom is the typical witless housewife, followed by housewife daughter #1, her Democrat husband, self-absorbed middle daughter, and fiery teenage son. How cute.The number one rule of "family" horror flicks - don't get too attached to Mom and Pop. May as well say good-bye to them right now.An hour later, we're still lost in the desert. Dad gets tied to a tree and set on fire (it was at this point in the movie I realized, hey, today is my dad's birthday); Mom gets shot, a brutal and needless rape scene ensues (proving that Sloth from The Goonies actually has a sex drive); and someone gets shot in the head, violating some pretty considerable horror movie rules: people aren't shot for no feasible reason. At this point, I'm beginning to realize this movie is a waste of time and $7.50.Family German Shepherd #1 is eaten by one of the nuclear freaks, while German Shepherd #2 is missing. What a surprise. All this for a breed of dog known for being able to kick ass. Of course, the idiot child must chase after the dog. Gee. Wonder what'll happen next.Ultimately, we find the "test village" used by the government where the freaks still live. This is the only reason I even wanted to see this movie - that is, if I can actually remember the reason any more - and it only took an hour and a half to get to this point. We never really figure out what the freaks want; it's not the family's fault that the miner families refused to move after the government ordered them to, nor is it fair to assume that the wholesome Midwest family had anything to do with what happened. But then again, we're dealing with freaks, so they have no discernible logic. Neither does the plot.At this point in the movie, I became enthralled with seeking out split ends in my hair.Kid Brother and Democrat, beatnik son-in-law ultimately save the day. Lots of blood has been shed, the American flag is desecrated at one point, we find that Sloth from The Goonies can have another paycheck, and we realize what the ultimate moral of the movie is: don't mess with Democrats.I'll say it - I like Wes Craven. I have enjoyed a number of his movies in the past (Red Eye, the Scream trilogy, The People Under the Stairs), so I held out hope. I was apparently mistaken. The plot takes entirely too long to unfold, despite the fact that the idea had great potential. We don't know why the freaks are so brutal to the outside world, nor do we understand what benefit a crotchety old gas station employee at the beginning of the movie serves to them. (He ultimately shoots his brains out, for which I actually envied him.) If you like gory horror movies with no plot and no logic, enjoy this movie with gusto. For those who like to employ brain cells, don't bother.The plot has absolutely no depth, nor do the characters. The violence is gratuitous at best. (Not that I'd expect much else from a horror movie.) The teenagers sitting next to me were dry-humping. And I decided that I need a haircut. The most entertaining part of this movie was the long bathroom break I took in the middle of it. I doubt I missed anything anyway.Don't waste your time or money on this movie. Rather, go do something more beneficial, like drink toxic waste. Maybe then you'll understand what the freaks' point was, because I sure as hell didn't.