Snidely Tweeting 3

On Eric D. Snider’s Twitter feed, he has written what you see below in Twitter blue. But the words in red have actually been ghost-written by me, T. Buckingham Thomas, filling in the gaps. Got that? Red is me being Eric, and blue is Eric being Eric.

Hello out there, all ye who think outside this box! Happy holidays!

And welcome to the third edition of “Snidely Tweeting.” I’m your host, Eric D. Snider.

My family is from Lake Elsinore, California. I graduated from Brigham Young University. Now I live in Portland, Oregon, where I review movies on a freelance bases. I’m a member of OFCS, the Online Film Critics Society.

From 1997 to 2013, I wrote 692 editions of a humor column that I called “Snide Remarks.” Now I make my jokes on Twitter (@EricDSnider).

T. Buckingham Thomas has been trying to extend my earlier Snide-itude by preserving and arranging my lighthearted tweets. Over the last year he’s added some of them to this website of his.

You know how "keep it under your hat" means keeping a secret? That's what my Twitter hat is for. It's a Secret Hat. And it’s getting full.

I have to tell you something that will alarm and upset you. Please try to remember that everything will be OK.

The nice thing about personal details is that when, where & with whom to share them is entirely up to the person whose details they are. :-)

OK, I don't want to make this a Thing, and I probably won't talk about it very much beyond this. Details, obviously, are nunya bizness. And neither of these things is exactly a secret. But for the record: yes, I'm a faithful Mormon, and also a gay.

I contain multitudes.

If you know me and you didn't know one or both of those things, I'm sorry. We probably met at a time when I was not open about it/them. Obviously, you can interact with me quite a bit without such things coming up. I'm not very flamboyant, either as a Mormon or a gay. But I have nothing to be ashamed of on either count. Both are big parts of who I am, but neither one is The Defining Characteristic of me. (My defining characteristic, obviously, is my pioneering work in the field of hip-hop dance choreography.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Twitter.

Guys, if you want to avoid any potential problems in how you approach women, just do what I do and be gay. Meet unstable, idiosyncratic singles in your area with my new dating app, Snidr.

Proof that I was a Mormon missionary (and so was this other guy).

My journal says I weighed 172 lbs in April '95, up from 148 when I left on my LDS mission 18 months earlier. Right this minute I weigh 194. How is it possible that I am not even very fat yet I weigh 50 pounds more than I did when I was 19? Bodies be wacky.

Speaking of tasteless things that one should think twice about before posting online, here's my senior prom photo.

Holly in Utah observes, “You have the immaculate posture of a joyless Soviet ballerina.”

“But wait,” someone objects. “You’re gay, Eric, yet you had a girlfriend and took her to the prom?”

Well, we broke up not long after that. Click the photo for the story.

When I sit down and really count my blessings, I find there are millions of them, especially if I count each Frosted Mini-Wheat separately.

25% of the way through reading Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, having a hard time getting into it. This is a flaw in myself, no? I should say, I loved Slaughterhouse 5 and the Vonnegut short stories I've read. Just having a hard time w/ this one. I not read good.

Whole lotta Facebook moms pretty sure they'd be totally Zen about it if it had been their son in Ferguson. Look at this Facebook comment: “I understand that I would feel devastated if that were my child but I also ... hope that my kids aren’t stupid enough to attack a police officer. ... I would get over being mad (part of the grieving process), but again it would be the natural consequence of his actions.” It's a complete failure of empathy, which really means a failure of imagination. They can't picture themselves in someone else's shoes.

Man waves knife at cops, says to shoot him, so they do. It's about time cops started obeying the will of the people! How do you justify 2 cops shooting a guy 3-4 feet away whose only weapon is a knife? No Tasers or batons? Only guns? I guess the point is, don't bring a knife to a gunfight. Oh, and "gunfight" is "any interaction with police."

I would be sincerely interested in reading an article about the good, beneficial things that fraternities do.

If you hear amazing things about a movie, it's up to you not to let your expectations become un-meetably high. "Overhyped" is meaningless. If something is so "overhyped" that it can't possibly measure up, that's on you. Not the film, and not the people who said it was great.

"We demand objectivity in reviews!" usually means "Any review that draws a different conclusion from my own opinion has got to be biased!" Here's why I don't like arguing about movies: it usually just boils down to, "You should like this movie the same amount that I did."

Sure, my NY friends are the first ones to see new movies that I'm looking forward to. But they're also the first ones to get Ebola, so.

Ebola, terrorists, women — it's human nature to make jokes about things we're afraid of.

I know people joke about how bad NYC cab drivers smell, but holy mother of damn! It's like someone microwaved a wet hobo. Molly Kats agrees: “NYC smells like old soup and farts married and had an onion baby.”

Why are deployed airbags in movies always thin and balloony? It's not like it's some unknowable mystery what they're actually like. I was in an airbag accident once. My face was numb after slamming into it, and it broke my glasses. But movies are like, "Ooh, a soft pillow!"

(Disclaimer: This picture is actually from a different mishap, in which I discovered an allergy to eyebrow wax.)

Thing that came up as a joke that we realized should be a real thing: "I'm sorry your husband turned out to be gay" sympathy cards.

Please link me to the best, most expensive can opener on the market. Mine is a vexing abomination that infuriates me every melonfarming day!

New idea for getting a dog even though landlady doesn't allow them: "emotional support animal." I just need, like, a doctor's note, right?

I just walked to the library and back — total distance: 1 mile — without my phone. So yeah, I think I know how the pioneers felt.

"When it rains, I wear a poncho but carry people's mail unprotected in my bare hands so it gets soaking wet." — my mailman, apparently.

Waiting for FedEx. Put off showering as long as I could. Now I must shower. Doorbell to ring in 3... 2...

So FedEx officially lost a package! They have no idea where it is. It's a screener, and I bet I'm who gets in trouble if it ends up online.

Screeners, of course, are DVDs of not-yet-released movies. We’re supposed to guard them with our lives, lest they fall into the clutches of pirates. They’re among the publicity packages that studios send to reviewers and those who vote for awards. Using them, we can form our opinions, hopefully favorably.

This is my facial expression for most of awards season. I pay attention to the Oscars. I'm interested. But I have zero interest in any other movie awards, even ironically. None. It's just noise to me.

Yet when they announce the nominees a month before the year has even ended, I somehow become even less interested. Less than zero!

Wish critics' groups would give awards to less obvious films? Good news! OFCS won't have seen most of them before we have to vote.

Bought bad Goldfish, whined on Twitter, Pepperidge Farm sent coupons. The system works! The system where you complain and then get things.

@FedExHelp offered FedEx help for my missing screener: “Hello, this is FedExDolores. I'm sorry for the situation. Would you like for me to look into this for you?” I replied: No, I talked to someone. It's being addressed. I just wanted to tell Twitter. Nevertheless, Brandon Rowher couldn’t help tweeting, “What kind of cruel parent names their child FedExDolores???”

You guys, telling me what reality-TV-show people said defeats the purpose of my not watching reality TV.

There's an actor on “AHS: Freakshow” named Finn Wittrock, which sounds like a name from MST3K's “Space Mutiny.”

Every show I watch can be watched online, and I never watch live sports, so it was ridoink to pay $70 a month for satellite. The one (1) thing I miss about satellite after cutting the cord is having TCM and a DVR to record it with. If there were a Turner Classic Movies channel on Roku or Apple TV, I would totally pay $10 a month for it.

According to Simpsons canon, Homer is either 36 or 38 years old. Either way, it is sobering to realize you are older than Homer Simpson.

I didn't realize Stephen Hawking is who invented the Big Bang. Does he get royalties from the show? That's gotta be sweet.

This is a credit from the 1979-85 TV series Dukes of Hazzard.

It always bothered me — as someone who is also pedantic about his middle initial — that it doesn't say Rosco P. Coltrane.

Mike Ryan says, “Well, yeah, that's what he preferred. But it's not like there was another Rosco Coltrane in Hazzard.”

I like to think there was, and that's why he insisted on the P. The other Rosco Coltrane (played by James Best in a goatee) was a scoundrel.

No, wait! The evil Rosco Coltrane was played by James Worst! (I seriously just made myself lol. I'm an idiot.)

Wisconsin man beats up two men for speaking Hebrew because he thought it was Spanish. What do people who want to make English the official language think that would achieve? They'll never have to hear or see Spanish again?

I worked for my grandfather my whole teenage life. The one habit I picked up from him is keeping a bottle of Tums on my desk.

Also, grumbling "I didn't get paid that much when I worked for minimum wage!" is not a valid reason to oppose a raise in the minimum wage. That's spite.

Also, it seems weird how the only people who ever witness lobster being bought with food stamps are people who hate welfare anyway.

For something that's illegal and immoral, "embezzlement" sure has a playful ring to it. Say it out loud. Embezzlement! Embezzlement! Whatcha doin', CEO? Oh, just embezzlin'.

Please enter your account number so you can be annoyed later when the customer service rep asks for your account number.

I admire CenturyLink's dedication to diversity by putting the people with the most impenetrable accents on technical support.

"The server couldn't handle our apps." A complaint about iOS bugs, or a recent experience at TGI Friday's?

I thought: "I didn't bother reading that before I hit ‘send’ because I'm careless." But I said: "Stupid autocorrect."

It shouldn't be possible for a member of a professional organization to accidentally send an email to the entire membership, right? Meaning, there should be technological limitations preventing that. Basic email list stuff, really. Seriously, why don’t email applications have a feature that asks "Are you sure?" before they let you send a Reply All message?

year ane kept osing track of the stories; I’ m going to fo better next tim aroun,=d Whyn yesm amben has sarted to reaololy get e relaxed so I can go to sleep if I effef make it upstairs!

Momma Snider when she’s not under
the influence of a sleeping sedative

Middle-of-the-night text msgs: OK because the person probably isn't sleeping next to their phone? Or not OK because they probably are?

Big, public marriage proposals are a way of letting strangers know that you're not mature enough to get married. Until someone tracks marriages that began w/ public proposals to see if they end in divorce more than the usual rate, I'll just assume they do.

I do not understand the interest in celebrity weddings. I don't even care about the weddings of people I know! I mean, I'm glad you got married, I wish you happiness, etc. But the wedding itself? Not interested. And if you're a stranger?? Ugh.

America : veterans :: Britney Spears : children — good at producing them, bad at taking care of them.

I saw a 6-month-old baby with pierced ears. What threw me was that somehow her parents still had custody of her. It's a baby, not your little dress-up doll. On the one hand, there's no reason for it and it will hurt her. But on the other hand, “Look how cute my newborn is with earrings!!!! It's very important that she have pierced ears, so let's take care of this vital medical procedure now, when she's a newborn.”

Robb Badlam adds, “How else you think Imma git her ready for pageant season?! It's what she's wanted her whole life!”

Home-schooled kids tend to be social misfits and weirdos who don’t know how to relate to regular people. And many of them have been indoctrinated with whatever peculiar beliefs their teacher-parents chose to emphasize, at the expense of the child’s well-roundedness and social well-being. There are exceptions, of course — and my experience is that every home-schooled person I’ve encountered, while acknowledging the tendency, believes he or she is just such an exception.

Seeing kids at recess lose their minds with joy this morning as the drizzle turned into snow was delightful. (Also great: it didn't stick.)

Some companies hire extra help for the busy season, but I admire the post office for sticking to its one-clerk-working-at-a-time policy. I mean, if you don't stick to your principles when the going gets tough, your principles hardly matter, do they?

Have arrived in California for a snow-free Christmas, the way God intended it.

Family Christmas gathering enters fourth grueling hour. Nephew's Woody doll keeps saying "You're my favorite deputy," but how many other kids has this toy even met? Such a brown-noser.

But let us be merry. It's Christmastime, and we're seeing Anchorman 2 tonight, and we are not currently on fire. My heart goes out to those who are currently on fire. (For as much as it was beaten into my head as a kid, I'm kind of disappointed I've never had occasion to use "stop, drop, and roll." I just thought I'd have been on fire at least once by now, that's all.)

We’re in the movie theater. Told lady to put phone away as Anchorman 2 started. The second that the closing credits began, she whipped it out, went straight to Facebook. Facebook! That's what was so urgent she couldn't wait one more second.

Literary trivia (thanks, Tyler Pruett):
Later in life, Sherlock filed a restraining order against Watson, who had stalk-Holmes syndrome.

Holmes had alluded to it before, but people misinterpreted his references to “my dear stalker.”

Merry Christmas, friends. I hope you're snuggled in bed with Sugar Plums, the escort I hired for you. Good night.

I had a wonderful Christmas with my huge family — my parents, 5 siblings, 2 sisters-in-law, 5 niecephews, and me. We are indeed a merry lot.

Have to get up in 4 hours to go to the airport. Expect some real high-quality tweets around that time.

Not a lot of support for my Mongolian throat singing on this 5 a.m. train to the airport.

It's kind of weird that with all our globalization and modern technology, China still doesn't get the new year until a month after us.

Quaint superstitions to ward off evil: knocking on wood; hanging up a horseshoe; turning off your Kindle during takeoff and descent ...

What’s my favorite seat on an airplane? Window forever. I pee before I get on the plane, then curl up by the window, put my earplugs in, and interact with no one.

It’s 5:49 a.m. PST. unnngh why so early is flight airport dead bad sleepy bye bye