|
 |
How can you tell when a cookie is getting old?When the first bite you take tastes vaguely like Play-Doh. With chocolate chips in it. Just thought you all should know. And yes, as a matter of fact I have tasted Play-Doh. Without the chocolate.
It's time for American Idol, finally.I finally got around to watching the American Idol auditions the other day… for the first time ever! Let me just say, wow. It utterly amazes me the vast quantities of people, the thousands upon thousands, who are so completely delusional with inflated senses of self importance and ability. “I know I can make it, I just need to be given a chance!” Uh… no you can’t. Not while you’re singing through your nose like that. Go back to karaoke please.
Do these people listen to themselves? They think they are it. I mean seriously, they really believe they are up there with Whitney Houston. I think the stupidest ones are the dolts who decided to pick a Paula Abdul song and then proceeded to shred it to pieces in front of her. Let’s think about this. If you perform it badly, you are offending her by insulting the song with your screeching. If you do really well, maybe even better than the original, you run the risk of her not liking the fact that you can sing her song better. Either way you lose. But that’s okay because it makes for some rollicking good laughs.
I'm going to get reamed, I just know it.This is what happens when a masochist with limited creativity and even fewer artistic skills gets her paws on her own blog. She goes to a site like I Talk Too Much where their sole content is cutting other blogs down to size, deservedly… and then she decides she wants to be a part of it. Okay, she is me, and I am in for it now because I submitted by blog for review. Now, all that would be well and good… if I could get my act together and make my blog more presentable, or at least different.
Trouble is, I, well, I kinda like how it looks now. It’s a Blogger template and for some reason I’ve grown attached to the colors, the rounded corners, even the font. What on earth is wrong with me? I ran into another blog just yesterday that was using the same template as mine. I was like, “Hmm, this looks familiar. This is bad. But mine is so much better.” They had changed the colors to some ugly combination of pinks and mauves.
Right, like mine is so much better. Okay, I need get rid of this fixation. I am better than a Blogger template. I build websites for a living for heaven’s sake! Problem is I’m not a graphics geek. I’m a code geek. I need to find something cool. All right, so off I go onto my quest. Maybe I’m actually just lazy. I mean, my blog works doesn’t it? Do I need to fix it?
Okay okay, yes it needs fixing, fine. I’m going. If I’m not back in a couple days please come feed my doggies. Thank you.
Oh crap, how could I forget?Perhaps the single most fascinating part of my date last night wasn’t the movie (which was really good) or even the hog slop they called food. It was the completely weirdo freakazoid sitting just one seat away from me with the Rapunzel hair. Now, I’m not the judgemental type who goes around calling people who are a little different freakazoids. But you just had to see this guy. I really wanted to take a picture of him to share it with you guys, but I there’s just no way to do that without being obvious. Plus it was too dark for a cell phone camera.
I’ll try to paint a picture of him with words, try to imagine this. This mid-twenties guy shows up, tall and really skinny, and sits just one seat away from you. He’s all alone. At first glance you immediately think he’s wearing some kind of Lion King wig. He’s got this reddish-blondish hair, and lots of it. It is LONG long hair. But he’s got it sort of trimmed so the front part is down to his shoulders, while the back part reaches all the way to his knees. I kid you not. From the side it had the effect of a poofy lion’s mane. From the back it was “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” ...all the way down to his knees.
Now that alone isn’t enough for me to call him freaky. Odd, definitely. But whatever floats your boat, right? What makes this guy totally creepy is the fact that he spent the entire movie brushing it. He sat there with the tail end of his knee-length hair in his lap, and he was just combing it. It didn’t really look like grooming, that would mean brushing different parts of your head. He just kept combing and combing the same place, compulsively it would seem. Now if he had started rocking back and forth like an insane asylum refugee I probably would have changed seats right then.
After getting a good look at this guy (as discreetly as possible without staring), my sweety and I have this whispered conversation (starting with her):
"Do you want to change seats?"
"I don’t know, do you think he’ll stalk us after the movie?"
"I don’t think so."
"He seems harmless."
"I guess, but he is creepy."
"Yeah I know, but let’s stay here."
The Good, The Bad, and Food Not Fit for Human ConsumptionWe chose to drive a little farther to the theater with fewer high school brats in it, plus we went to the 5:30 showing of the movie, so there were hardly any brats at all. Our original plan was to go to a restaurant (like you would with most dates) and then to the movie. But we decided to sacrifice food quality to go see an ealier showing, and then sneak into another movie for a double feature.
You probably already know this, but movie theater food is awful. I mean, how much can you expect from pretzels and popcorn, but this particular theater was just gross. My hot dog was burned on one side, the bun was stale, the relish smelled vaguely of chemicals, the popcorn had hardly any flavor and was also somewhat stale. They were also selling, for SIX friggin dollars, a tiny box of nachos with tiny cup of cheese. Talk about your rip-offs! I’ll bet the chips would have been stale too.
Okay so eating movie theater food was a mistake, but we got our double feature! The main attraction was, of course, Underworld: Evolution. I loved it. Kate Beckinsale is hot in this. I won’t go into details, but you can read my full movie review here. My “reviews” tend to be more like rants with lots of plot spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, wait until after you do before reading.
After this awesome movie ended it was only 7:30, so we snuck into Rumor Has It, starring Jennifer Anniston and Mark Ruffalo. We like them both and thought maybe it was a romantic comedy. (We love those.) Well it wasn’t. It’s one of those “finding out who you are” kind of movies. The acting is very good and Shirly McClain provides the best comedy in the film. Overall it was okay. It wasn’t terrible, but I would never have paid money to watch it. At least we got to hold hands and cuddle up to each other a little longer.
Well, the cuddling would have been nicer if the seats weren’t so uncomfortable! Who designed these things anyway? They curve all wrong so you back is never comfortable. When you lean back your head is pushed forward by the stupid headrest. And they weren’t very soft either. I had to keep shifting and leaning in different directions to get from getting sore. They wouldn’t even lean back at all, which would have been helpful. Who sits so damn upright when watching a movie in a theater anyway? Are they afraid of people falling asleep or what?
When we got out of that it was about 9:50. We thought about sneaking in to see something else, but to tell you the truth we were sleepy. One of the downfalls of having an early schedule is you get sleepy early. So, like an old couple, we scampered home just as the piles of kids were starting to show up. Overall it was a very nice evening. Except for the food. And the seats designed for people with no spines.
I've got a date!I’m so excited, I have a date tonight! It’s been ages since I’ve been to the movie theater. Like ice ages. Your social life is one of the first things sacrificed when you take on an elephantine, bank account rending, holy-shit-that-thing-is-due-again mortage for the first time. Restaurants and movie theaters turn into grilled cheese and cable. Actually, I don’t have cable. It’s frickin expensive! $50 a month and that doesn’t even include HBO? (Actually, given a choice, I would pick Showtime, no question.) Sometimes we splurge and rent a video.
But anyway, back to my date! I won two movie tickets at work and we’ve been waiting for a movie worth using them on. My sweetie says Underworld Evolution is coming out today, so we’re going! You just gotta love watching girls kick ass.
Casual FridayThe creative director in my department has on a T-shirt today that says,
Lip-smacking goodWhen I first start reading a new blog, I like to go back to their humble beginnings and read their first several posts to get a feel for their personality. Then it’s interesting to see how their posts change over time. At first when I read about OneLazyLesbian’s longing for a smack, I was confused. What the hell was she talking about? Was she longing for an abusive relationship? Then I clicked on the link that explained everything.
Like an old fluorescent light that just flickered on in my mind, it all made sense. As I read one harsh blog review after another, I was fascinated. These ladies are irreverent, brutally honest and funny as hell. (Funny expression that is… is hell really all that funny? Isn’t it full of really bad comedians?) Their wits are so biting they could make a grown man cry… I love it!
I want to be a part of it! It really makes me want to strive to get smacked as well. Which means I have to spruce up my template a little. I want to get smacked by them, not bitch-slapped. I have some work to do!
I'm sorry I don't have a bubble buttMy sweetie has been complaining that I’m losing too much weight. Now, I haven’t been doing this on purpose. She’s accusing me like I’ve been dieting or something. She says I don’t eat ice cream anymore. I still do, I just haven’t felt like eating it much lately because it’s so damn COLD! She says I used to have a nice ass, and now it’s flabby and mushy due to less cushioning. Well thank you, I love you too.
I’m not expecting sympathy from all this. I know there tons of people out there who are struggling with their weight, and people like me probably make them sick. I’ve been blessed with a fast metabolism, but I believe my weight loss has been due to the following life changes:
One of my greatest fears in life is becoming old and decrepit. There’s no avoiding the “old” part, but I can circumvent the “decrepit” part. I am completely determined to still be able to walk around on my own when I’m 104 years old. My dad cut his life short with cigarettes and alcohol. My sweetie’s mom suffered from Type II diabetes (completely avoidable), which gradually eats away at your quality of life. I have seen numerous elderly men and women barely able to shuffle one foot in front of the other, stooped over and in obvious discomfort. I refuse to become one of them. I have read that when you are at optimal health, even in old age you will be able to function like a normal human being. When it’s your time to go, your decline in health will be quick, not the slow, agonizing degeneration that I see everywhere.
Can you see where my paranoia and commitment to health comes from? I am scared to death of losing self-reliance. So if it means losing my near-perfect ass, then that’s the way it has to be. It’s going to disappear anyway. Maybe I can get one of those fake butt inserts to put into my pants. In the meantime, me and my flabby, mushy ass are getting back to work.
How do you say "fuck you" in Los Angeles?A coworker and I were talking about my past housewarming party. Of all the people who said they would show, only half actually did. I learned that this seems to be a west coast phenomenon, that no one likes to decline an invitation to your face, so they just use passive aggression and don’t bother showing up. I grew up on the west coast here, and I think that’s just rude. If you aren’t planning to go, don’t say you are! And if you can’t go after accepting, there’s this thing called a telephone—tell me! It’s not impolite to say “no I’m not going”. How hard is it to say that?
Anyway, she then cracks the following joke:
How do you say “fuck you” in Los Angeles?
"I’ll meet you there!"
It’s so true! I love L.A. and yet I hate it sometimes!
Whoops.... did I just give away my location?
What a rip-offThe corporation I work for likes to take care of its employees (or at least give an impression that it does). From time to time they’ll have special programs or activities for us to participate in. The last one they had was health and fitness related, called “10K a Day”. The premise was that, in order to maintain optimal health, you needed to walked about 10,000 steps a day. For a nominal fee of $5 they were going to provide participants with a pedometer, a tracking spreadsheet, inspiring articles and incentive prizes.
I thought to myself, “That seems like a good deal. I’ll get a pedometer (to measure our steps) and some prizes too. Oh and some exercise as well.” So I sent in my five bucks to the third party company that is running it. The program starts and I find out that, of the 300 employees that work in my building, only 5 are participating. Perhaps that should have been a warning to me. I also find out that we are supposed to self-monitor ourselves and write down how many steps we take every day. Right, like that’s going to happen.
The basic pedometer we recieve is totally cheap. I saw pedometers on Amazon.com with more features for only $2.50. The first few days I write down the numbers. After that I’m just making them up. They don’t care. I get a prize for turning in my spreadsheet at the halfway point and at the end. Well the halfway point comes and goes and there are no prizes. *grumble* Fine. We’ll get them at the end. The articles they send are useless common sense that anybody could have come up with. There is nothing inspirational or helpful about them.
Finally the program ends and I turn in my final spreadsheet. Weeks later the receptionist buzzes me and tells me to come pick up my prize for participating. Finally! I love prizes and gifts, even if I did pay for it myself. I go over to her desk and she hands me this hand towel. No, not even a hand towel, it’s smaller, like a face towel. It has “10K a Day” printed on it. WTF? All that effort and their idea of “prizes” (and yes, they did pluralize it) is a frickin face towel??
What a scam. Yes I missed the whole point of the program, but I was already going for walks. I thought it was a company-subsidized program with cool prizes (the other activities they sponsored included prizes like $25 gift certificates and movie tickets and stuff). Little did I know it was actually a money-making ploy by the third party company. Stupid me. Lesson learned: steer clear of programs that require an entry fee!
(Oh yeah, you know what I did with that stupid little towel? I immediately used it to scrub off that yogurt stain that’s been on my office chair for the past several months. It now sits carelessly discarded in one corner of my desk, having served its purpose in life.)
Cold Feet, Warm HeartOr is that “Cold hands, warm heart?” I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s more like “Cold hands, cold feet” when adapted to me. Does it mean you have poor circulation when your extremities turn into popsicles when the temperature drops? I had just gone to bed last night and my hands and feet were freezing. After laying there 15 minutes my hands were warmed up since I was able to hold them against my body, but my feet were still icy.
I could have worn socks, but they usually end up lost under the blankets somewhere. Plus my feet have this annoying tendency to overheat once they do get warmed up. Weird huh? Anyway, my predicament was solved when I jammed my feet under the pile of clothes at the corner of my bed. Within five minutes they were warm. I knew there was a reason why I maintained that rotating pile of clothing there! Next time my sweetie complains about it I’ll tell her how they saved my feet from frostbite. (She’ll just tell me to wear socks next time.)
So how does one improve their circulation anyway? Well exercising is one, but that’s not very convenient. Oh well, I’ll just continue to wear my gloves at the office. (Why do they keep it so damn cold?) I’ve been told that they make me look like a thug since they’re black with no fingers. Maybe I’ll start busting some skulls around here in a quest to find the thermostat!
Attempting to get focusedEver see the movie Swordfish? John Travolta, Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry are all really good in this. There’s a scene in there that often comes to mind when I’m at work and I can’t get myself to focus on my duties. It’s where Travolta orders Jackman to hack into a network in under a minute… while receiving a blowjob. At one point you can tell he can’t concentrate, so he claps his hands together and closes his eyes in an attempt to focus.
I’m easily distracted, so it won’t take much for me to lose my focus. Lucky for me there’s no one here trying to go down on me at the office (some of you may disagree, but believe me it would NOT be good for the home life). I know I’ve already established I wouldn’t feel guilty for blogging during office hours. That’s not the problem. The problem is one of my team has had the nerve to go on a week-long vacation, so the rest of us have to pick up the slack. So it’s more work to be done in the same amount of time, and here I am still thinking about blog material.
So anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest. Time for me to clap my hands together, plug myself into some trance music and focus on getting a little work done. As soon as I finish coughing up the water I just tried to inhale.
Party-time BehaviorThe birthday party yesterday was okay. In crowded social settings like this my innate anti-social nature tends to sneak out and take over. I’m perfectly content to sit in the corner and observe everyone else. As with all parties, my favorite part was the food. It was quite tasty, including the mashed potatoes we brought (which I didn’t have to carry by the way). Not only does the food at parties calm my inner pig, it also makes it socially acceptable for me not to speak.
Now, on to a peeve of mine. We were told that the party was to start at 3pm. For this family (and I believe all of my sweetie’s family is like this) it means that the party is really going to start at 4pm. For a particular branch of the family this will mean 5pm. What time did WE get there? Well, normally it would have been at 4, but yesterday it was… 6! Oh how embarrassing and rude we were the last people to show up, three hours late.
I’m an on-time kind of gal. I try, and usually succeed, at being there at the designated time, give or take 10 minutes. My first peeve is how everyone is always late, to the point where organizers have to set an earlier time in order to start when they really want. But the bigger peeve is how my sweetie consistently makes me late all the time. Pardon me while I look over my shoulder...
Okay she’s not looking, allow me to continue. In my mind I used to figure that an on-time person, when mixed with a late person, would combine to form a slightly-late couple. Not true. Apparently you cannot rush beauty, and me trying to convince her that she’s already beautiful never works. Even though what I say is true (she really is beautiful) it doesn’t matter. Perfection must be achieved before entering the Real World.
Uh oh, here she comes… What? What do you mean it was my fault we were late yesterday? I was waiting for you! Oh I see. Okay, I guess it was my fault. I should have been getting dressed instead of playing video games. Yes I know you had to wait for me to get dressed, I forgot I had my grubbies on (but I’ll have you know I was saving the world). I apologize for making you wait the five whole minutes it took me to change into nicer clothes. Are we good now? Hey, where are you going? Uh oh, um, I’ll be right back.
The Joys of Costco (and the not-so-joyful)I went to Costco today because my sweetie needed a giant bag of potatoes in order to make a giant tub of mashed potatoes for a nephew’s birthday party we are going to. Costco is a popular place, evidenced by the crowds that throng to it on the weekends. There’s a lot to like about this place… as well as a lot of annoyances.
Likes