The Smart Sweater
I was sick last week, and a friend came over to bring me some tea. He rang the doorbell and I when I opened the door, he was completely floored. Not because I looked bad, which I probably didn't, since I was suffering from limited vocal ability due to a cold, but because I looked smart. Seriously. That's what he said.
I was wearing a huge black turtleneck, some comfy jeans, and my glasses, since I rarely wear my contacts when I'm at home. He kept exclaiming how smart I looked, and how much more serious I seemed when I looked like that.
It just made me laugh that he'd say this, because of all the people I know, I think he's the one who is most likely to take me seriously. I'm not a dumb person at all, but people have the tendency to overlook the fact that I'm not a complete moron. I think it's because I often smile for no apparent reason. And wear pink.
While I don't play to these expectations, people will believe what they want to believe, and nothing short of whipping out my transcripts is going to change their minds. That's fine with me; the people who need to know that I'm smart do.
And for everyone else....well, now I have the smart sweater.
Back
Yesterday, my flight to LaGuardia was canceled. When I found this out, I was sitting in Chicago's Midway Airport, looking forward to getting on a plane and catching some serious zzzzs to augment the mere two hours of rest that I'd gotten. I had to wait almost three hours to leave, which totally threw me off schedule. I'm still tired.
Gah.
Mini Vacay
I'm off to Milwaukee for about 13 hours. To see a concert. It feels smarter than it sounds, let me tell you.
Really
It's always difficult to have a good day when you're sick and you have to work and it's all rainy outside, but it's awesome when someone can turn your day around 180 degrees just by being present.
Thanks, D.
Hee. Oh, alright. HEE!
Wow. I can't mention the
utter collapse of the Yankee machine without saying something that sounds excessively gleeful and mean, so I won't say anything at all. Nope, not a word.
There is such a thing as being too well informed...
Today, while we were driving in the car, my mom busts out with, "Little Bow Wow gets $6,000 a month in allowance." I have no idea how my mother knows this, and I'm still too afraid to ask. Ever since she's been at home recuperating from her surgery, my mother has surprised us all with what she knows. Like last week, when she explained to my father what a TiVo is and how it works, or a few weeks before that when she explained how Vivica Fox is (was?) dating Fifty Cent. It's truly amazing what you can learn from daytime television and an unlimited amount of time to read the newspaper.
Question:
For those people who kind of lived it up when they were younger and said things like, "I'll sleep when I'm 30/40/dead," have you found yourself regretting that?
Just wondering.
Thanks.
No self control
I need a job with regular hours, so I don't find myself in the mall, buying things out of boredom. You can only read so many books before you need to find something else to do, and when you're in Jersey, your options are pretty limited: we've got the movies, bars, and ...
...
Three-day bender?
What combination of drugs is responsible for Shelby Lynn? Cause girlfriend looked, as my friend C would say, like she'd been rode hard and put away wet. If I was going to be on television for a national appearance AND I was a singer, I'd make sure that my looks and my voice were both in top form.
Oh...Carl Pavano's pretty hot, too. Can't swing worth a damn, though.
He's famous, too
Since it's glaringly obvious that I am watching the World Series, I will take this second to introduce Timbaland, who the announcers keep overlooking when they fawn over L. L. Cool J. Yay!
Duh
Why is there a "calls simulated" message on those RadioShack/Nextel commercials? It's as if we as viewers don't understand instinctively that we are not being allowed to witness private moments of Vanessa Williams' and Rick Fox's marriage. If we were interested in seeing the "behind-the-scenes" lives of a C-list celebrity couple, we'd watch
The Newlyweds. I guess RadioShack's just doing their part to contribute to the dumbing down of America.
Shut up, Roger.
I don't care how great of a baseball player Roger Clemens is, he's an ass. I don't begrudge him his talent, but I wish he wouldn't talk. Somehow I don't think I need to hear anything more from a man who wouldn't know the truth if it walked up to him and smacked him in his face, which, incidentally, is exactly what some person (much taller and stronger than myself) needs to do. Wake up, Roger. When you're honest, it's easier for us almost to imagine what it would be like to respect you.
This is completely beside the point
And not that I was trying to make a point, but the mayor of Miami-Dade County is pretty cute. I used to hang out at my mayor's house, which was a nice piece of property, but still just a regular house, since mayors in northern Jersey don't get mansions. Or bodyguards. Or entire counties to lord over.
That's true, too
Last week, I emailed the good folks over at
Enemyster to ask them to update my blog's name. I thought that "Spoiled for Choice" was a more accurate description of my life. So when I went there today, I noticed that they had updated my site's name to "Spoiled
by Choice."
That rocks, yo.
The (No) Career (For You) Fair
The only person who seemed excited to see me was the lady from Rent-A-Center. She told me that they promote from within the company, and that 95% of their management started out working in a store. I hate retail.
Man, my majors are proving to be even less useful than I thought they'd be. C'mon. I'm smart, I have bachelor degrees in French Literture and Psychology, and I am fun!
Hire me. Please.
At this rate, I will be living at home with my parents until we're all so old that the differences in our ages are practically negligible.
Busted!
I just totally got caught using the internet. Yay!
Just don't take my job
Unemployed (or underemployed) women of the NY metro area, there's a career fair tomorrow, October 21, from 10 am - 4 pm. If you're interested,
here's a link.
If you go, look for me. I'll be the brown chick in the black suit and blue shirt.
Duh.
Yay for tv
I often end up talking to, pleading with, or yelling whatever television program I am watching. My mom has told me that she loves to be near me when I'm watching tv, because I crack her up. I never knew what she meant until I had the chance to listen to her watching tv. It's hilarious when she is trying to advise the people on The Price is Right, as if 1) the show wasn't taped ages ago and 2) they'd be able to hear her, anyway. I particularly enjoy the scathing tone that she uses with those people she's sure are going to lose (and she's pretty much always right, too). Nobody says "You fool!" quite like my mother.
Extremes
It's been a week and a half, and I still haven't heard from the company I thought had the best chance of hiring me. It would help just to know, one way or the other.
In other news, I found a store that sells strawberry-flavored Mentos!
Neither half empty nor half full, my glass is instead filled three-quarters of the way and slowly leaking liquid.
Gotta love a cheap laugh
My coworkers and I get bored during our 12-hour long weekend shifts. Each week we pick a book and the following Saturday we discuss it. This week's book was
The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. I finished it last night because I suspected (okay, knew) that the end was going to be depressing, and I didn't want to start bawling my eyes out in front of my coworkers.
I wasn't really sure that we'd end up discussing the book anyway, since we've had trouble coordinating our reading habits, which is pretty sad, considering the fact that there are only three of us involved in this. So when I got into work, I spoke to H, my supervisor, to see how much she had left to read. She was about 40 pages from the end of the book, which was fine. She would read a page every now and then, but wasn't in a rush, since O, the third member of our little group, is always an hour to an hour and a half late.
Once O got here, H started reading faster. And then..."Oh. My. G-D!!!!!" H neared the end of the book and just started crying her eyes out. She turned red, then purple, then went back to red, and was sobbing so hard that she couldn't breathe. Then a few minutes later, when her tears had subsided a bit, she had to answer the phone and talk to a client like nothing was wrong.
Funniest thing I've seen in a while.
This ought to be pleasant
Congratulations the the Yankees. Congratulations to Aaron Boone, who has gotten the New York press and baseball public off his case at least until...next spring. Maybe.
But enough about them. Today, I get to go to work and have everybody, especially those fair-weather, post season only baseball fans, gloat at me...this should be pleasant. I do have friends who have always been Yankee fans, but most people I know caught Yankee fever somewhere around 1996. I haven't known anybody in my office for that long, but it makes me feel good to question their loyalty, and to imagine how quickly their devotion will turn to indifference when Steinbrenner inevitably fires Torre & Co. and destroys yet another terrific Yankee dynasty.
Calling all fame whores!
If you'd like to pit your drinking skills against those of some
current losers and former cast members from The Real World and Road Rules* check out
this entry in
GiggleChick's blog. The details are all explained there.
*No italics because they ruined the line of my paragraph.
Aww
That commercial with the married couple sending text messages back and forth is too cute. Still, if I was fighting with my boyfriend and he sent me a text message instead of trying to patch things up in person, he would be referred to as "the immature jackass who thinks that sending me a bloody ten cent text message will rescue him from a week of sleeping on the couch."
I'm just saying...
Make up your damn mind.
The announcer on Fox is condemning all of the television and radio people who have practically stalked Steve Bartman since yesterday. For those of you who don't give a crap about baseball and/or don't live in Chicago, Bartman is the a Cub fan who reached out and tried to catch a foul ball that Moises Alou, the Cub right fielder, was going after. Bartman missed it, Alou missed it, and after that the inning degenerated for the Cubs. By the time it was over, the Marlins had scored 8 runs. I don't see how Mr. Bartman could be held responsible for any of that, since he wasn't pitching or hitting, but still...
I think that Bartman was the easiest target for the Cub fans' frustration, and obviously the media agreed. They staked out his home, called him to the point where he had to disconnect his telephone, and published his name when it would have been better, and safer, for him to remain anonymous. The only reason that I am using his name is that Mr. Bartman released a statement expressing his genuine regrets over possibly interfereing in a play. I feel bad that he even had to do such a thing.
But I digress. I started this entry because when I listened to the Fox announcer talk about how the media had harassed Mr. Bartman, I wondered how many of those television crews waiting outside that poor man's home were from Fox affiliates. I'm sure that Fox, which is often trashier than UPN and TheWB combined, would not have passed up the opportunity to exploit the public's newest scapegoat. Even if someone with a sense of compassion were running things, would a Fox affiliate even be able to afford not to keep up with everyone else's coverage? I think not.
In conclusion: shut the hell up announcer. You can be on the moral high road, or you can be in the Fox broadcasting booth, but you can't be both.
Somewhere in hell, my fourth grade teacher is sharpening the blades of his ice skates
ALCS Game 6 is over, and the possibility of a Cubs/Red Sox World Series still exists.
Wow
They said that Yankee and Red Sox fans would never be able to come to an understanding, to sit down in agreement. I challenge that statement. I think that we can all agree that Angel Hernandez is one craptacular umpire.
Edited to add:I think that Cub fans would agree, too. I remember that incident earlier this season, where Hernandez made a terrible call, and whoever was doing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" mentioned it, so upsetting Hernandez that the singer was escorted from Wrigley Field. Angel Hernandez, if you were a better umpire, people would say fewer bad things about you.
Sweet
I've been wanting an iPod for ages. A little over a week ago, I told this to my mother. Immediately following this revelation was my explanation of what an iPod is (I was going to post a picture, but I figured that you guys already know what an iPod looks like). Once told, my mother went back to her own little world, in which it is still 1977. Or so it seemed. This morning, my mom called out to me:
Mom: Have you seen that iPod commercial?
Me: Nope. Why?
Mom: Well, if you haven't seen it, then I don't think I should tell you about it. It would just make you want to buy one. Still, I will tell you that it features people dancing.
Me: Umm...okay. Thanks, Mom.
Later in the day, sometime during our second power outage of the day (damn wind!), my mom brought up the iPod again. I asked her why she kept talking about it, and she said that it just seemed to her like everywhere she went, she heard about iPods, and maybe it was a sign. Okay, kids. Listen up: my mother has never in the 22 years that I've known her attributed anything to "signs." I didn't even know that she believed in them. She has her weird bits of superstition, such as the belief that celebrities die in threes, but still...
So anyway, she believes so strongly in me getting an iPod that when I said that I was trying to save money and didn't want to buy one, she told me that she'd pay for half.
I love my Mom.
Thank goodness for the mute button
I successfully avoided commercials for most of this year, but now that it's time for postseason baseball, I've seen entirely too many televised advertisements. I get angry whenever I see that woman in the Bank One ads. She's annoying, and reminds me of all the nosy, pushy salespeople I've encountered in my life. I just want to hurt her or something.
Okay, I am PMS-ing, but I didn't like her any better two weeks ago when I wasn't.
Time to move
I feel like it's time to travel. What's a good job to have that 1) pays relatively decently and 2) is interesting? I'm sick of being bored by my work, although I guess that if I do have to be bored by my occupation, it could at least be somewhere other than here.
If you can think of any possible jobs, please let me know*.
*Please be advised that I will not any job where I have to:
1) Wear skimpy/indecent outfits.
2) ...
I'm drawing a blank. That's my only criterion.
And even that may be negotiable.
The post where she shills someone else's work
I, like many of my compatriots, went to see
"Kill Bill, Volume 1" this weekend. I wasn't expecting anything in particular, but I really enjoyed the movie. Going in, the only thing I knew about it was that it was quite possibly the bloodiest American movie ever made (at least, according to
the Voice). The thing is, I've never seen any Tarantino movie, so I couldn't even look to "Pulp Fiction" or "Jackie Brown" for clues (I might get around to seeing either or both of those films at some point in my life).
I laughed more than I thought I would, and I salute Tarantino on his ability to show violence as both cartoonish and utterly serious, often within the same scene. I would rate this movie as quite enjoyable. Much less enjoyable was the overwhelming odor of pot that emanated from the loser sitting next to me. And the ringing of his hopelessly outdated cellular phone. I just wanted to hurt him. That might have been the result of watching all of that onscreen violence...
Anyway, partly out of concern for those of you who haven't yet seen the movie but intend to, but mostly due to laziness, I will elaborate no further up "Kill Bill." But I do suggest that if you find yourself with an extra two hours and 7 bucks (10 in the city), you see this movie.
Feels like old times...
Of all the things I miss about college, what I miss the most is watching television with my friends. We'd all get together in one of our rooms, have bowls of butter-saturated microwave popcorn, and then watch. Of course, half of the fun was silently consuming the action on the screen just as steadily as we did the popcorn, so that we could dissect and discuss what had happened during the commercials. I miss having two to five other people in the room when I am watching my favorite television shows, because I feel like I'm only getting part of the tv-watching experience.
My friend/twin J, one of my primary tv-watching friends, and I share a love/hate relationship with the show
Alias. We find that our disbelief, which was comfortably suspended for most (or at least much) of
Buffy's seven-year run, just won't cooperate when we're watching
Alias. During last night's show, J and I sent each other text messages back and forth. At first, we sent messages during the commercials, but soon we were sending them pretty much as fast as we could type. I often ignored the action on the screen to focus on what J was saying to me, and what I was saying back to her.
Then, as soon as the show was over, I called her anyway, and we spent another half hour further dissecting everything from Lauren's accent (the actress is Australian, why are they pretending that it's even possible that the character is from Virginia) to Sydney's red dress (Jennifer Garner is one scarily in shape woman, yet the wardrobe department managed to find a dress that made her look quite chubby), to which actors on the show have chemistry (hint: not Michael Vartan and Melissa George).
It felt good to have a tv-buddy again, even if we are separated by a time zone and a thousand miles.
Tossed Salad Man was my favorite part of that HBO prison documentary
As if you couldn't tell by all the times that I posted today (and this only counts the things that actually got published for you to see), I didn't have nearly enough to do today. We're guessing that it's because of the holiday season, but today we had our slowest Sunday since the dead of summer. Not that I'm complaining, exactly, because it never pays to be too busy, but I could easily have had double my call load without even blinking. Still, the downtime did give us an opportunity to have conversations, play games, and of course, afford my supervisor the chance to raid my makeup bag and give me a makeover. Not that I didn't like having eye makeup that shouted "42 St, here I come," but I'm sure it must have looked at least mildly unprofessional to the random tech guy who had been singled out to come and install the new server. Well, that and the hour-long cell phone conversation I had with my friend, even going so far as to transfer all of my incoming calls to other people...
In addition to the other ways we spent all that free time, we also managed 1) to take a discussion of cooking skills (or lack thereof) and turn it into that Chris Rock joke of
"tossing [my] salad" and 2) to explain this term to a conservative Muslim woman and a 50-something man.
Anyway, I have just recently taken off my makeup, but I keep finding myself staring in the mirror, looking at my eyes. I no longer remember how dark my eyelashes are naturally, so I can't tell whether I've gotten off all of the mascara. I used the eye makeup remover stuff and stopped cleaning at my lashes only when I didn't see any trace of dye, but I'm still not sure I got everything. This disturbs me.
Lady (beatbox) in red
For the last few years, I been unable to listen to Chris DeBurgh's "Lady in Red" without laughing. It's a nice enough song, in its own cheesy 80s soft-rock kind of way, but I once had a dream that about it. Chris DeBurgh (who I don't think I've ever seen), was a New Edition-era man in tight tight jeans and a young leather jacket, trolling a tennis tournament for the woman in red. He was an anaemic looking thin black (!) guy with a pencil mustache and a really bad part in his hair. He might have been
Ralph Tresvant circa 1986. Anyway, while everyone else in the audience had on similarly tight, neutral-colored clothing and horrible hair, there was one woman in a red spandex minidress. She was sitting in the aisle seat, and Chris/Ralph went up to her, got down on one knee, and started rapping this song to her. It was hilarious. Seriously. I wish that I could record some of my good dreams, and program them to play at specific times.
I have no idea what kind of food I had before I went to be on this particular night, but ever time I hear this song, I am reminded of this dream.
Here, there, everywhere...
Today, I'm going to blog-hop. I'm going to start with a blog that I've read before, follow one of her links, and then keep it going from there. I have another ten and a half hours of work ahead of me (work being the noun for where I am, and not for what I have to do), so I should be able to find lots of cool new blogs to read.
Great
I was just settling down into hour one of my twelve hour shift when I realized that my left contact lens was torn. I took it out, because the sensation of torn plastic on my eye was not the greatest, but now I will be partially blind for the rest of my time here. Thank goodness that my left eye isn't the worse of the two, or else I'd be screwed.
Oh, wait...that's exactly the case.
This just in: My father dropped off another contact lens for me, so I won't spend the rest of the day squinting and developing a headache.
Oh yeah
I'm writing a
novel.
I understand that language, too
The guy who sits behind me at work just told his 17-year-old girlfriend, who is visiting him this weekend, to go buy some condoms. He did so in Spanish, like maybe 1) I don't understand a fair amount of Spanish, and 2) I wouldn't have recognized the word "lubricated," anyway. If he's that ashamed to be sleeping with a minor, maybe he should reconsider the whole relationship.
Shameless advertising ploys
Regardless of your personal feelings about Christopher Columbus, I think that you'll agree that he is not the yucky little action figure featured in those new Toyota commercials. I am so sure that a fifteenth-century Italian man would have a generic borough accent. Don't New York children have enough difficulties getting a decent education, without having their beloved television misguide them so? Jeez.
No foolin'
I was waiting at the bus stop yesterday afternoon, watching my bus as it approached, when a man who was walking down the street suddenly stopped in front of me. He looked at me with a knowing glace and said: "Don't let that brother fool you, sweetheart." I had no idea what we was talking about, as I was on my way to the mall, but just in case, I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and spoke only to female salespersons.
Ugh
I can't stand the women of The View. All two times that I've seen that show, I've just come away disgusted - the hosts are not interesting, they're loud, and for all of their "diverse viepoints," they seem to be the best example yet of hive mentality. When one expresses an opinion, they'll all discuss it to death until they've manage to assimilate the errant woman back into the fold.
I turned on the tv today to watch them, because Jason Mraz was going to perform on their show. By minute two, I knew that there was no way I could stomach another fifty minutes of their inane chatter, so I muted them until I saw Mraz come on. And then I had to listen to them talk to him. Poor guy. That couldn't have been much fun.
The valuable lesson that I learned from this: View musical guests start at 11:50. If any of my other favorite musicians dare to venture on this show, at least I'll know what time to start taping.
Dirrty
The guy in those new Gap commercials is seriously gorgeous. He's got just the kind of look that I go for: he's tall (I think) with dark eyes and features. I love it. But his hygiene? It goes beyond questionable, right to nonexistent. What's up with sleeping in the same pair of pants every night, and then just putting on a shirt and booking it the next morning? Um...shower? Besides, I don't care what any marketing person would try to have you believe, I'm telling you that sleeping all night in a pair of jeans does not feel good. I have a favorite pair of jeans, too, but I take them off at night! I don't have a problem with putting on the same pair of pants two days in a row, nor do I think that you have to wash your jeans every time you wear them, but please...let them air out a little.
If you look at the apartment set in the commercial, Dirrty man, like pretty much everybody on television, is not hurting for money, despite doing nothing except being gross both at home by himself (surprise, surprise) and in public with unsuspecting people. Does this man work? Is he currently unemployed? If I were an employer, I wouldn't want to hire someone with such dodgy personal hygiene, either.
I'm reasonably sure that the actor who plays Dirrty man actually showers, which is already more than I can say for his character, but I'm still not satisfied. This commercial leaves me feeling in the dark, like there's something that I'm not being told; I feel like there should have been an explanation for Dirrty man's dirtyness.
This is going to bother me.
I got it, thanks.
I love to watch sports, but there's one trend that I find disgusting: the way that networks continually show accident, over and over again, from every conceivable angle. I'm all for being thorough, but how many different ways do I have to see Damion Jackson's head smash into Johnny Damon's before I realize that something really bad happened? Thanks, Fox, but I get it. Colliding heads. Ensuing unconsciousness. Not good at all.
It was the same on Friday night, when Atlanta outfielder Gary Sheffield was hit on the hand with a pitch. Immediately after, they showed a replay. And then another replay, from another angle. And then they showed it again, from the original angle. All told, they replayed it eight times. It was still Sheffield, it was still the same hand. Nothing had changed. We're not Leonard Shelby or Sammy Jankis. We are capable of making new memories, and don't constant refreshers.
I swear, if they thought that it would increase ratings, the powers that be at Fox Sports would shoot their own mothers and run the footage on permanent loop.
I'm such a girl
I saw an old couple walking down the street today. They were holding hands and chatting away. It was nice to see. They had to be in their 70s, but they were walking briskly and looking cool and fit in their sunglasses and (unmatched, thank the Lord) jogging suits.
They looked like they could have been one of the professional twenty- and thirty-something couples who live in my town, like maybe they didn't know that they were supposed to be old. A lot of the older people who I see are slow to get around and look as though each day is another burden. Not these two.
I know that this is mushy, but I hope that in fifty years, when I'm their age, I can walk down the street holding someone's hand, looking like life is a pleasure and not a trial.
Babies are people, too
The great thing about public transportation is that there are always interesting posters to read. Yesterday, while on my way to work, I was looking at a poster that promoted awareness of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Obviously, I'm all for informing people of how to lay their infants to minimize risk of SIDS, but I sort of froze when I read the tagline that said something about "lay[ing] your baby on its back." Why say "its?" That just makes a baby sound like an inanimate object. That's not good. Granted, "its" is grammatically correct and beats the standard American "their" for singular subjects, but still...Couldn't they have just gone a step further and said "his or her back?" Honestly.
I spend valuable time thinking about this stuff.
Who knew?
I work with a bunch of smart alecs, and we joke back and forth pretty frequently. Today, one of the guys from the back office (our corporate "division") was in our area when my supervisor and I were joking with each other. Ernie, our visitor, listened to us and then remarked to my supervisor that I was pretty sharp. I found it funny that he'd say that right in front of me, as if the television rule that people can't hear conversations that take place more than two feet away from them somehow applied to real life.
More than that, though, I realized that I've been trying to get the corporate people here to take notice of me for the length of my employment, and apparently all I had to do was play the dozens with my boss.
Why didn't anyone tell me this two months ago?
Randomness...
I am getting some responses to my job inquiries, so that could be good. I am going to keep my fingers crossed.
Okay, so I'm watching the Red Sox lose, and lose badly, to the A's. Why must Boston suck so early and so badly?
Jeez.
Hmmm...
I have an interview with a guy today. Or else he's just been hitting on me and isn't at all serious about a job. Perhaps it's a bit of both.
Right now it's just too close to call.
