FINALLY.

Coming soon - the reviews of Fifty Shades Darker. For real this time. The hold up was due to the post office. As some of my older readers will recall, this is not the first time I've had issues with the U.S. Postal Service. A couple of weeks ago I finally found a used copy of the book for H-Town, and since I have left you all for so long without any new swears, I went with expedited shipping to get it to her. Which I paid extra for. Expedited shipping from USPS is advertised as taking 2-6 business days. So I was not particularly amused when I got an e-mail on Sunday night from H-Town saying she still didn't have the book I'd had shipped to her a full week prior to that. I checked the shipping confirmation and found that the "expedited" package was estimate to arrive on the 19th. The book was shipping from Georgia to Baltimore - I could have WALKED to Baltimore from Georgia faster than that. Unhappily, I relayed this information to H-Town: "I did [ship the book], but apparently when I said 'expedited shipping', the post office decided that meant 'on a mule'. It's in New Jersey, and expected to get to you, not even kidding, THURSDAY. WTF." She took it in stride: "Express Mule, when you absolutely positively need it to be there at some point in the next few months or so." Luckily for everyone, USPS is just as bad at estimating things as they are at shipping them (or geography for that matter - New Jersey isn't on the way to Maryland if you're coming from Georgia) and the book finally got to her yesterday. We discussed logistics over e-mail this afternoon and have decided to schedule IM chats, although, per H-Town "It's just easier to email back and forth about the book. Until they invent some sort of "online" "chat" or something crazy futuristic like that. Eagerly awaiting the "ding!" on your next email on my 70tb supercomputer iPhone Audi." You guys are going to love her.

Anywhore, while the whole "oh wait, you wanted us to actually send this book somewhere?" crap was going on, I managed to once again be a guest on the world's most brilliant podcast, Total Talk Nonsense. I called in for Episode 256 and chatted with the boys for half an hour or so about getting drunk by soaking gummy bears in alcohol and eating them, clearing up an assumption Scott made about just who it was I met at the airport in naught but a raincoat, a letter H-Town mailed to my office about boobs (which also contained an excellent drawing of several dinosaur strippers), the new Spider-Man movie, the student show from a couple weeks ago where I took all my clothes off in front of strangers, marketing and Bizzybiz, why I'd be a fucking terrible wife, my upcoming UK trip (Hey UK readers! I'm coming back over to visit my friends in Hertfordshire in September! Who's down for a tweet up? I won't even make you come to Hitchin!), NATO and the Olympics, and why you should always be VERY SPECIFIC when leaving someone a voicemail about the results of a mammogram. I show up at about the 39th minute, which I tell you because the vast majority of my new readers don't listen to the show and may not be ready or willing to sit through 40 minutes of two guys drinking and talking shit (though I do absolutely recommend it).

I will get the first two chapters of Fifty Shades Darker read tomorrow morning so that the fun can begin. For you, obviously. H-Town and I will be fucking miserable.

Got Three Hours To Kill?

I'm sure you're all sick of me telling you every time I'm on Total Talk Nonsense by now, seeing as I've been on it a lot lately, but this time is different. This week on Episode 234, I am in studio for the second time in order to respond to a listener request that I sing something on the show. So that happens. Additionally we discuss Scott's weekend trip, Riot Fest, the worst songs of the 80's, running, science, an upcoming contest for the listeners, a contest to be judged by the listeners, and when it's ok to go full Marty. But most importantly, to reiterate, I sing live on the show. So, you know, check that out maybe.

Training Day (Or, I Must Be Fucking Crazy)

You remember that movie Training Day with Denzel Washington, where he's a crooked narcotics officer training Ethan Hawk and all kinds of horrible shit happens? Yeah well my first training day for this 5K I'm running was a lot like that, except with less forcing people to smoke PCP and no one got shot. Though, given the way my legs feel right now, if I were a horse and not a person I would have been taken out back and shot this morning. It's possible I'm being a little over dramatic. It's also possible that I'm not, and that running really does suck as much as I'm telling you it does.

I'm using the highly touted Couch to 5K program, which a number of my friends have done and insist that it works and that they love to run now. I got up yesterday at the ass crack of dawn, slightly wary but also fairly excited. I was going to run! Like those people that I see running! That was going to be me! Day one of the program starts you off slowly: 5 minutes of brisk walking followed by alternating 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking for 8 reps, totaling 20 minutes. This seemed like a no brainer. I can run for 60 seconds at a stretch, right? I'm in excellent shape overall - I lift weights and I shadow box. Piece of cake.

After the first 60 seconds of running I was ready to kill myself. What was I thinking with this whole running bullshit? Am I some kind of idiot? I spent the 90 seconds of my break sifting through my iPod until I found The Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up and put it on repeat. It was the only song I had that was angry enough to match my complete hatred of this incredibly stupid form of exercise.

By the time I had finished I'd calmed down a bit, mainly because I knew I was going to get to spend the rest of the day telling people how bad it was and have them pat me on the back and tell me I am awesome sauce. And I did - I bitched and complained about it the entire day to everyone, including Jon and Scott of the incredibly awesome podcast Total Talk Nonsense while I was at their worldwide headquarters recording episode 228 as an in studio guest and being all famous 'n shit. In reality I felt pretty good. I had made it through the whole first workout without giving up, I was energized, confident, proud of myself. I could picture in my mind running the whole 3.1 miles while dodging zombies left and right. I set my alarm for 5 a.m. this morning so I could get up and run the same thing again.

When the alarm went off I was ready. I fucking OWNED that horrible workout yesterday and today would be even easier because I'd already done it! I got out of bed and...

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CRAP ON A CRACKER. Mentally, I was totes prepared to go out and run. Physically, however, my legs were saying, "Like fuck you are, stupid ass. We're not falling for that shit again. Go away and come back tomorrow." The pain, which originally seemed to be mostly confined to my shins, was tremendous. Then I sat down on the edge of the bed and realized the pain in my upper thighs was even worse than the pain in my shins. Then I stood up again to go wash my face and to my utter astonishment noticed that my ass was actually on fire. Really? My ASS hurts from this? Because, as I said before, I lift weights frequently and there's squatting down and lunging types of things I do that work those muscles and I KNOW that my ass is in shape and what the fuck? H-town's brother, who started out on the same couch to 5K program and now can run like the wind, told me that the reason my ass hurts is because running works the muscles in a different way than weight lifting does. By "different way" I assume he means "the way of the devil". I was obviously not running anywhere today. As a matter of fact, the little bit of walking I did between the train and the places I needed to go saw me stumbling around downtown Chicago like Lurch and frightening all the children and several adults.

If it wasn't for the fact that I love H-town and really want to do something cool with her and also the part about the zombies I would just give up this very minute. I am right now sat on my couch and plotting out my plans for the evening based around doing the bare minimum of moving possible. Because my legs...oh lord, my legs. The Run For Your Lives zombie 5K is October 22nd. Beginning October 23rd I am NEVER RUNNING AGAIN.

Amberance: TTN Mega-Guest

I got a Facebook message over the weekend from Max, host of the podcast Countless Screaming Argonauts and friend of my ONE AND ONLY favorite podcast on the whole earth, Total Talk Nonsense. Max writes that he wants to be my Facebook friend because he feels like he knows me. In fact, several people who are TTN listeners have expressed new feelings of familiarity toward me, which I think can be traced back to a couple of events: my hour long appearance on TTN episode 2T4 and my subsequent many hours long appearance on episode 2T5, which for those keeping score at home is the VERY NEXT EPISODE. Yes, for two weeks in a row I was a phone in guest on the greatest podcast going and those conversations appear to have been well received by all (bar one). This can only mean one thing - it is all downhill from here. I have achieved all that I have set out to achieve. Short of someday being an actual in studio, Glenlivet or Jameson or Red Stag drinking live guest, there is nothing else I can think of that would top this moment. If you think of anything, please let me know, because I definitely want to try that something. But I'm not holding my breath.

CHECK ME OUT!

Episode 2T4 (or 224 for those unfamiliar with Scott's inability to speak clearly when drunk) where we discuss two major recent events in my life, neither of which have as yet been detailed here on Bizzybiz, the bartender's brush with death and a challenging game of Shit or Shinola that only ended because avocados are fucking gross. I also do a brief impression of Scott.

Episode 2T5 where I am on for basically the entire show except for the news portion. I would get carpal tunnel listing everything we discussed here, but a random sample of topics we touched on include a vitriolic reaction to my conversation on the previous episode by a person who hadn't actually listened to it, Scott's questionable romantic advice, a discussion of a movie I haven't actually seen, disturbing search terms that have led people to Bizzybiz, tet-anus, the gorgeous but reticent Gene Marteen and what precisely constitutes an "average" American house.

By the time you all listen to both episodes you'll know almost everything worth knowing about me other than what I look like naked and how many grapes I can fit in mouth at the same time. It occurs to me maybe this is a bad idea, as one could argue there would be no reason for anyone to read Bizzybiz again, but I would counter that I am certain to have new terrifying encounters with spiders, new bruises from running into things I know are there and new misadventures that only I could manage to get myself into. There is always more stupidity I can manufacture and you can get that right here.

Breaking News: Amberance Went Somewhere

There have been no updates to the blog lately, mainly because there is nothing at all of substance going on in my life. I go to work, I come home, I watch Tosh.0 and imagine having rough sex with the host (I don't know, the guy just looks dirty to me), I go to bed. Sometimes I work out or try to cross-stitch (which is made difficult by a cat who thinks any and all thread in the home must be attacked and destroyed), but for the most part there simply hasn't been anything to write about. Over the weekend I attempted to rectify six week's worth of lameness by cramming my entire social life into three days.

On Friday, the great Jon from Total Talk Nonsense, the greatest podcast anywhere, was playing a gig out in the suburbs with his new band, The Toxic Crayons. I had originally planned on attending as a participant - the lead singer had been asking me to sing with their various bands for years, and we'd finally nailed down some actual songs to work on rather than just the vague idea that "you should sing with us". Side note: I find the request for me to sing with the band completely hilarious, given that none of them, including Jon, have ever actually heard me sing. They're basing this decision solely on the fact that I told them I could sing, which they've taken at face value and assumed that I'm brilliant. Which I am, but they have no way of actually knowing that. For all they know I could just be saying I can sing when I really sound like Roseanne Barr. Anywhore, the plans fell through when I never went to band practice because various members may or may not have learned the songs. For my own part, I would have been nervous anyway - I know I am capable of singing "Heartbreaker", I just don't think I'm nearly cool enough to pull off getting on stage and looking like I have any business singing Pat Benatar. Besides, boy who doesn't call was supposed to be there and despite the fact that I want to lick him, singing in front of him gives me pause. It didn't matter, because he wasn't there and I didn't sing anyway. I knew I was in the suburbs when I walked into the bar and was immediately surrounded by children. Not college kids on a binge, actual children. Because in the suburbs, you can take your kids to the pub for dinner and not worry that they might see someone getting fingerbanged in full view of the public. The show went pretty well for the most part, despite half the band being sick and one song that completely disintegrated. They made up for it by playing some Stray Cats. In the meantime, I got a round of applause from the band wives and other fans sitting near me for getting carded, which I attributed to my green hair but Mrs. Jon insisted had more to do with my "young face".

I left there and drove Alistair back to the city to leave at the bar for the bartender to run errands after work ("I want you to promise me you'll be very careful," said the Crayon's bass player while bear hugging me goodbye, "because it is snowing and everyone else on the road is drunk, and you're adorable."). Then I went into the bar to let the bartender know where the car was. Mistake. There were too many friends there to just walk in and walk back out again, and I wound up hanging around for an hour and a half, listening to 90's hip hop (yes, I still know all the words to "The Humpy Dance" AND "Poison" by Bel Biv DeVoe, thanks for asking) and chatting with Hellbilly about various concerts and, unfortunately, UFC fighting. By chatting I mean nodding, Hellbilly needs no partner to carry on a conversation because he never ever ever shuts up.

I eventually got home from Tai's some time after 3 a.m. and spend another 45 minutes stalking people on Facebook and eating pretzels before I went to bed. My plans for Saturday had involved a lot of errand running and some weight lifting, all of which fell apart when I didn't get out of bed until 5 in the afternoon (this was not all my fault - I woke up at 3, but was immediately trapped under a cuddly cat who growled and hissed every time I tried to ease her off of me). Instead I spent the evening watching Chicago and deciding that Velma Kelly is the roll for me and that Queen Latifa is actually pretty fucking sexy.

On Sunday, the bartender and I headed over to the Congress to see Against Me! and the Dropkick Murphys. The Congress is one of my favorite venues to see music in Chicago. Unfortunately it is run by idiots. We had bought tickets online, or thought we had. After standing in line to get in for five minutes, we were told that anyone with paper tickets had to go stand in line at Will Call and trade them in for real tickets, which if I have to stand in line for them, it largely defeats the point of buying them online. While standing in the cold and rain waiting in line and shivering, we saw a group of girls who were not exactly dressed for the weather much at all which happily has inspired the name of my new all girl band - Daddy Issues. Our first single will be called "Get In Line" and is about running a train (Google it if you don't know, just don't watch the videos. Or watch them, I don't know your preferences). The line moved more slowly than it needed to - Will Call has but one door for both ingress and egress because clearly these people are geniuses. Once we got to the front of the line, they took our pieces of paper and issued us our tickets: basically little red tickets you would use for a raffle that I could have bought a roll of 1000 of for $5 at the party store. Then we got back in the first line, where they didn't even bother to take my little raffle ticket anyway, so I'm mystified why they made me stand in line to get one. Once inside we met up with the loquacious Hellbilly and a friend of his and settled in to the side of the main crowd because we are old people and also it's closer to the beer.

The Dropkick Murphys draw an interesting crowd. It's a mix of punks and people who think they're Irish, and everyone is drunk before they even get there. One girl was clearly on Ecstasy and had no idea she was not at a rave. The Dropkick Murphys were brilliant as always, one of their roadies proposed to his girlfriend on stage (she said "HOLY SHIT" which the crowd took as a yes) and they brought Chris Pisani on stage during "I'm Shipping Up To Boston", who Blackhawks fans will know as "That guy who dances to the Dropkick Murphys song at every Blackhawks game". All the while, Hellbilly was trying to kill us with Jameson, which I eventually had to start discreetly setting on the floor and knocking over to avoid a trip to the ER. The show had started very late due to Against Me! getting stuck in traffic driving up from Houston and the Dropkick Murphys having attended the Blackhawks game which went to shootouts. Consequently, there were many disappointed 12 year olds who didn't get flashed during "Kiss me I'm Shitfaced" (which my friend Tanyas participated in at the Saturday night show and then stole a set list) because they left before the encore, and I didn't get home until after 1 a.m. on a school night and paid for dearly the next day.

I am a party animal.

Well, I Can Die Now.

It has finally happened: I have managed to call in on the appropriate day at the appropriate time in order to be live on the most inappropriate and brilliant podcast ever recorded*. Check out episode 202 of Total Talk Nonsense with Jon and Scott and you can hear me chat with them about the blog, football, the Blackhawks, my amazing pants, catholic school, conspiracy theories, Scooby Doo, vacation, boys who only call when drunk and boys who don't call at all. Unfortunately, I forgot to talk about Scientology, my Super Secret Project and to use the phrase "want to ride that like I stole it" in regards to the boy who doesn't call. I'll just have to get myself invited on the show again at some point. While you're at it, why not just subscribe to Total Talk Nonsense so you can download and listen to all the episodes? It's the only place you're going to find the original tet-anus.


*In suburban Chicago, Illinois.

Bizzybiz Makes The Grade

There are three podcasts that I listen to which are each my favorite podcast assuming you are allowed to pick one per country, and they are also all somewhat related given that they are all friends with each other.

Punky! Radio you have heard of before because I simply cannot shut up about it. And if you thought I loved it before, you should see how much I love it now since going to England, where I got to be the mystery assistant on not one but two episodes during my visit. You could say I now have an intimate knowledge of the show.

Air Out My Shorts is a show by two loony Canadians (I am laughing at my own stupid joke there) where they read short stories sent in by listeners. The reading is usually butchered and the plot eviscerated by the two of them and it is really really funny.

Finally from right here in Chicago comes Total Talk Nonsense with Jon and Scott, a brilliant piece of talk show lunacy that is a great way to pass the hours at work, if you work at a company that is very very lenient about you listening to content that is not at all safe for work. It is both funny and intelligent, except for when it is hilariously stupid: I have convinced a dozen or so people to start listening to this show based on one infamous clip where Scott demonstrates his inability to read aloud (click on the clip called "Total Talk Nonsense Promo") and inadvertently invents a new word. Scott has also recently started a very well written blog that I have been enjoying for a few months.

These three podcasts are the gold standard by which I judge all other podcasts, including my own (assuming we ever do another one STEVE). So I was very surprised and happy when TTN's latest episode mentioned that I'd gone out to see their band at The Beacon Tap a couple of months ago. But even better than that was Jon's mention of this very blog and how much he likes it! Jon, thanks so much for the shout out and the compliment! And keep me in the loop because I would still love to Skype in to the show.