LaurieWrites

Buttons

I found a ceramic mug tonight in my basement that says "Blah, Blah, Blah" on the outside. You might have seen them at craft shows or flea markets...They say stupid things like, "Ashes of Dead Husbands" and "Retirement Fund" and "My Children's Inheritance" on them. They're horrible, really...more of a stein - a hefty ceramic thing. I don't remember where I got it, but I know I brought it home from Ohio. It was sitting on a shelf for years, until I picked it up tonight and found several of those little snarky buttons inside that you can buy at head shops and Hot Topic. I remember picking them up at Dark Star Comics in Yellow Springs. This is what mine said:

"I still read books"

"Even your therapist doesn't care"

"I will not obsess. I will not obsess. I will not obsess."

"I'm sorry. Was I screaming again?"

"Careful, or we shall banish you to the Midwest."

I'm so weird sometimes.

I'm going for 8 posts, because it's...the 8th.

Lauren linked this, and I have to share it too. So funny. I'm really enjoying "The Onion" this week, which means I'm working much more mightily at procrastinating than usual. Please give me a hand.

BLAM BLAM

Welcome to my favorite concert t-shirt ever. Actually, no. That's a lie. It's my second favorite to the one I bought in the parking lot at the 1992 Lollapalooza that I wore for twelve years until it died.

Somehow this camouflage ironically makes my chest look bigger. See? the Y and the T can't even meet in the middle to spell "DAYTON" anymore. It's crazy times around here, courtesy of the BLAM shirt. I will now be wearing camouflage every day, so no one will actually see me, but I'll still think my boobs look bigger.

Not that I've ever cared about that.

But can you steal their flair?

This post is standing between me and brunch, but I care enough to bring you, via Tracey, Disaffected!

If you've worked in a retail establishment anytime in the past ten years, in particular, you may want to check this out. The time I've done in a couple big-box bookstores (that start with "B", coincidentally...) has given me a certain level of compassion for the slack-jawed service I've grown accustomed to in recent years...because I've read the training manual, as it were, and it is not compelling. (Let's not even discuss the videos. I'd rather be stuck in front of the acid trip that is Boobah for 48 hours with Yanni in the background than watch one more single Borders training video. Fuckers.) I've also been subject to the bag checks upon leaving the store, and the soul-deadening "team meetings", wherein you are threatened with demerits if you don't ask people for their email addresses, and none of this, by the way, impacts your seven bucks an hour at all.

But all that's behind me now, thank God. Now I can drink my coffee anywhere in the store I damned well please, and also read for free in the cafe when I feel like it, and don't think I don't. They owe me a lifetime Oprah subscription, at least. But I still straighten books compulsively, while repressing my need to alphabetize, and correct crooked sales stickers. It's been a long road, that's for sure - but it's a much better view from this side of the counter, I have to admit.

(And just go to her links, people - they're always awesome, and just like what I'd try to share with you if I wasn't so damned lazy lately!)

Ready for some football

So I went to trivia night tonight, and we lost, horribly. PEOPLE: it was MALARIA. Always go with the first answer, especially when it's MINE. And when it's malaria (which, by the way, IS a parasitic disease. Hello!)

Really, I didn't pull for it - and wasn't really at the top of my game tonight. However, two awesome things happened.

Awesome thing One: I answered my first ever sports trivia question right, all by myself, with two men sitting at the table, no less. "Name one of the two quarterbacks playing in the NFL whose names can be typed using only one hand (in the traditional two-handed formation, not hunting and pecking) on the QWERTY keyboard. And I'm all "BRETT FAVRE? RIGHT? BRETT...Faavvv-re? FARVE?????" And I was right! The other two were Bart Somebody and Burt Free or Ben Free or some other B names.

Look, he's all touched by it too. I'm totally watching football this year.

Awesome Thing Two: Singing my very favorite song "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealer's Wheel with my sister when it came over the loudspeaker on the break between questions...It was fun to know that I'd kind of stuck it in her head as a great song even though it probably isn't, but damn, it's fun. And it's kind of a metaphor for life, as well, so that works out. She feels the same way about Kenny Loggins's "I'm Alright", (which is a staple on road trips as well) as I do about this song.

"Clowns to the left of me/ jokers to the right

Here I am/ stuck in the middle with you."

Good times.

Funny Stuff to Start Your Week Off Right

Working really puts a crimp in several of my favorite activities, including my flickr problem habit. Just knowing that the photobooth clusters exist is reason enough to dedicate more time I don't have to looking at pictures of people I don't know. I need money to finance these little hobbies, though, so that should help me focus. A little.

Matthew's at it again over at Defective Yeti, and like I said the other day (I at least waited a couple of days, really...) he's just a funny guy. His recent audiovisual report on the overfriendliness of bank machines was just the laugh I needed after the Emmy's tonight. No Jason Bateman? Are they kidding me? Kiefer Sutherland beating Martin Sheen? What?  The West Wing was one of the best shows ever, and although I know better than to expect anything (and really, why would I?) from a Hollywood awards show, still...Lisa Moraes from the Washington Post blogged the show, and caught some of the funnier and more compelling quotes from the sidelines (sounds like she's in California.) This is my favorite:

"Female reporter to Barry Manilow: "They say music is the soundtrack of your life. What song.. do you look back at to remind you of tonight?"

Manilow: "Don't Give Up" by Peter Gabriel. (Answer: "Don't Give Up" by Peter Gabriel).

Earlier, a female reporter to Jeremy Irons: "What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?"

Irons: "Soldier on."

Irons looks at female reporter who somehow looks even more vacant than usual.

Irons: "Do you understand what I mean?"

Reporter: "Not at all."

I try to stay away from Perez Hilton, because it makes me feel like I need a shower after I read it, but I have to admit that this comment about the newest Britney Spears photo made me smile:

"SE VE BONITAAA AUNQUE PARESE DE BABY DOLL SU VESTIDITO, PERO EN SI ESTA BONITA, YA LA VEO MAS SONRIENTE, ALTO TRAMA ESTA MUCHACHITA, ME GUSTA SU SOMBRERO"

He loves her cowboy hat, people! Leave her the hell alone!

And lastly, another theft from Tracey. They've taken down the Steven Seagall page that she links to in the middle (he's got a new cd out, don'tcha know) but the Armor of God pjs are just what every good little soldier should have to start out the school year, and bacon bars - well, there you have those.

Take the T-Bird

Last weekend was designated for fun, and now it's almost next weekend, so there's little currency or interest in retreading, but just to catch us up, and to get ready for Friday, I'll note some things that have been going on lately that are kind of...fun.

*Befriending my friends who are also too old for MySpace but do not care.

*Resurrecting a recurring, too oft-neglected, and extremely entertaining hobby of flirting with math geeks. It could work as an exhibition Olympic sport. Of course "flirting" when I do it could be considered too darkly ironic of an enterprise to be real, Love American Style flirting, so maybe it's something else, I don't know. But somehow the math and science guys, they dig it.

*Watching "Little Miss Sunshine", one of the best movies in recent memory, with one of my very best friends, and sitting down close to the front, and laughing til we choked. Choking, in this instance, can  be considered ancillary fun, in spite of the hazards. I also finally saw "The Devil Wears Prada" which I thought was just a mess of a film. And it kind of depressed me because Meryl Streep is such a great actress (and hot, too. I think she's hot. She was exceptionally classy and attractive and beautifully bitchy in this film.) but she appears in these substandard films and it turns into a bad movie with Meryl Streep as a genius at the center. I mean, sure, it's nice to have some real talent around, but when it's surrounded by just okay people, it's noticeable. Anne Hathaway, while very attractive herself, is one-dimensional, as was that dude who played her boyfriend - very nice as he is on the eyes....Anyway, no harm no foul. There were some good previews and I can't wait for some of the films that are coming up soon. 

*Continuing to satisfy my Steve Carell jones with reruns of "The Office". I'm kind of stuck on it, at this point. I'm pretty much down with anything that he's in. Plus, John Krasinski is a doll, and Rainn Wilson is psychotically beautiful. Love this show. I'm such a dork about it, I write quotes down from it.  Sad. I'd put some here but it's such a nonverbally hilarious show that the lines miss something when you just see them on the page. At least I think so, anyway.

*Posting and giggling at "I'm so bershon" photos on flickr.

*Taking photos of random things while shopping.

First, these shots from Michael's that I sent to my Beantown girls from the scene of the crime...Yes, teddy bear sweaters. What bear doesn't deserve a fine pumpkin or turkey sweater? Hell, for that matter, get both. 

And this outstanding garment will work just great for the urban poodle fashionista.

Organic Rainbow Rings, because ripoff cereal names make me laugh...likr "Fruity Os" and "Smack 'em Sugars" and "Candy Oats." Add organic to the mix and it just gets wild. 

Primp Your Daddy. Ulta frightens me every time I go inside, and yet, I return. Why? These candy "ice cream cones" should come with a blazing neon warning from the Surgeon General, or at least from someone's mom. Blockbuster candy sucks.

The maternity store was another fresh circle of hell this past weekend. My mother dragged me there to get a present for one of our gaggle of procreating friends, and I really wasn't interested, but still, there was fun to be had.

Along with some of the most unattractive clothing I've ever seen for a pregnant or any other sort of woman, Mimi Maternity stocks all kinds of tacky and useless "sideline items for the mom to be." First of all, "Preggie Pops" just sounds wrong. I don't know what's in them and I don't care, but it's supposed to get rid of morning sickness. The parent company is "Three Lollies", from whence you can also score "Queasy Pops" and "Preggie Pop Drops" as well. And then you can shoot yourself because you got a Preggie Pop from the "Wellness Spot" at Mimi Maternity.   

Lastly there is the "Tummy Tube", because MIMI MATERNITY seems to have the market cornered on corny alliteration. I couldn't believe how expensive the clothes were, for a store that seemed to stock the equivalent of merchandise from that hellhole Rave, with the addition of a yard more of fabric or maybe just some stretchy panels for your troubles. The woman working there totally didn't like the looks of me and my phone, and was oh so bershon herself about the whole enterprise of working at Mimi Maternity and "waiting on" my mother and me. I didn't care. It was a train wreck of a photo op, and therefore...still fun.

*END OF SHOPPING PHOTOS*

*Carne asada and maragaritas = fun

*Chatting with Lauren. Case in point: "I'm gonna gut this burrito and eat it like a crazed zombie."

*I'll post photos of the Sugarland show soon. That was definitely fun, and encouraging to see such real talent making it big for a change.

*Tickets for this. Yay! 

*Two words: "My Humps"

And it's the weekend all over again...Thank God.

They SNAKES. And THEY ON A PLANE.

I got a call from Sam today. It was the funniest thing I've heard in a long time, and not even because my standards are slipping. There's just something about Samuel L. Jackson telling me to "leave that PO' excuse for an eduCAtional instiTUtion," to put down my "DAMNED CAMERA AND GET IN MY TIN CAN OF A CAR" to go see a movie. I mean, I don't know what that something IS about, exactly, but it's something.

I'm really glad someone thought to do this for me today and you should do it for someone who has a sense of humor also. My GOD please could more people make me laugh? I mean, I hate to be so demanding, but it is so magical and wonderful when that happens. So in that vein, herewith and within, begins "Humor Weekend," (humour, of course, if you're Canadian. Or British, yes.) where if it ain't funny, don't bring it around me. Take it outside.

Speaking of Canadians, one of the oddest things anyone said to me this week (and this is a close race, folks. The oddities were legion and raging 'round these parts the past seven days or so) was, "Speaking of cultural diversity and stereotypes, would you by any chance be Canadian? Because you, um, say some Canadian things."

This was of course right after I said, "The Mounties were playing that new Barenaked Ladies joint on the way to Niagara Falls, when they got a call from Toronto aboot the Nova Scotia situation at the Maple Leafs game. Eh?" But since I didn't really say that at all, I had to say "No, no, what you're hearing that you think is Canadian is actually the lilt of my Maryland hick-ese," to which he said, "Right. And I'm not sure Canadians say y'all." To which I said again, "THEY snakes. On the PLANE. RIGHT ABOOT NOW."

Visual candy

(Edit: I totally updated this to include Celtic Spring...because they really need to be included.)

I'm eating old Starburst jelly beans from the bottom of my office drawer, which I believe speaks for itself. This means that I'm completely fried, so it's back to the "rogue helicopter pilot" guy I go. I know I've posted this before, and I'm surpassing my usual threshold of weakness for repeating it, but it simply must be done.

(Another edit, aka "why I am the way I am." I show this to my mother. She says, "Oh, poor guy. I would be scared too, if a rogue helicopter pilot came near this house. Wouldn't YOU be, Punkin (the dog, of course.) If he entered our air space? (ME: WTF? WTF?) He was so scared, he was shaking!")

I am so not cut from the same mental cloth.

This is also a good day to watch Ok Go on treadmills again. And the trailer for 30 Rock. If Tina Fey is in a show and also writes for it, and Rachel Dratch is in it too, my hopes for it are probably too high. And also, my friend Lauren's friend will show you how to do the Hustle here.

And excuse me, although I despise the whole concept of Regis's new meal ticket, "America's Got Talent," this family freaking plays the FIDDLE and Irish step dances at the SAME TIME. I can't do either, but I've watched a lot of both, and I have to give props where props are due. This show is currently on in my house - not of my choosing, mind you, but a girl's gotta eat, so when it's on near the food, you watch. And David "I cut myself with a chandelier that jumped off the wall and attacked me in my hotel room but I was so high on crack I kinda liked it" Hasselhoff, who is one of the judges, says something like how he just wasn't really FEELING it this week, because they didn't have the SYNERGY and the rhythm cause they went for their INDIVIDUALITY instead. And I'm all, David. Honey. We're lucky you're sitting upright, and you're searching for issues with six totally physically fit Irish kids who can dance and play the fiddle and probably mash potatoes WHILE they're kicking your ass? Kit would be exceedingly proud of your moxie, my friend. 

I'm sorry. It's been that kind of day.

One more reason why NYC is cool

I totally want to steal this idea for the Metro.