88 Miles Per Hour!

It's NaBloPoMo this month, and as much as I am loathe to participate in any "joiner" type of activity on principle, I realize that I am a terrible terrible blogger lo these last few years (which is lame as I've only been doing it about 4 years) and anything that gets me to actually write blog posts is worth a try. Although in keeping with my traditional complete laziness, I am backdating this post and the next one to cover the Saturday and Sunday in which I did not bother to post anything.

Time travel: now available on the Bizzybiz Blog.

Brilliant Ideas That Occurred To Me During the Blackhawks Game

• Ice Crew home driveway shoveling service
• UFC Fight Night on Ice
• Zamboni bumper cars

Mixed Reactions

I've had a number of differing responses to my post about how I fear marriage.



BrownsFan, proponent of marriage and 20 year veteran of same is continually dismayed by my opinion. Upon reading the post, she looked at me sadly and argued, "Yeah, but it's a nice Death Star."



MrSteve was a bit more supportive and also a bit more true to Star Wars canon (because seriously, a nice Death Star?), sending along this lovely motivational poster:



The agent and I discussed the post and the reaction of BrownsFan over coffee. He said something funny which I did not write down and promptly forgot. When I called him this morning to find out what he had said, he didn't even remember having the conversation, thus proving that in fact we are pretty much already married as we clearly do not bother to listen to each other anymore.

Amberance: Good at Star Wars, Bad at Relationships

H-town: how's the agent? is he as dreamy as ever?
me: pretty good. except for that part where he thinks he wants to marry me. yeah
H-town: oooh COMMITMENT!! echo*echo*echo
me: no one can marry me! i am not marriable
H-town: oh, you are certainly long-term relationship/commonlaw marriage/regular marriage/gay marriage - able
me: i am none of those! i am the textbook committment phobe
H-town: aw, man i like the agent!
me: i know, i suck.
H-town: and there's no way you'll ever become into commitment, huh?
me: not that i'm aware of. i think i can and then when the moment comes i panic and run
me: with the words of admiral ackbar running through my head. "It's a trap!"
H-town: haha
me: marriage is a secretly fully armed and operational Death Star

Presenting Dumbassity For Your Listening Pleasure

After much editing, episode 3 of my super awesome podcast Dumbassity is available for download. It is our drunkest podcast yet. So drunk that MrSteve almost couldn't find any useful audio to work with. He managed to make it work though, and everyone but me sounds mostly coherent. This is not due to biased editing, it is due to the fact that I do not make sense when drunk. Less sense than I usually make, and much less sense than your average alcohol impaired individual. Be sure to check out the part where I explain my aversion to the Viagra commercials over and over again. Like FIVE TIMES in two minutes. Oh yeah, I'm awesome.

Our guest was the agent, so if you've ever wondered about what kind of self-loathing masochist would date me, download the show and wonder no more (instead you can wonder why. That's what I do). Besides the agent, the main topics were a debate about who has the worst musical taste and the world of male porn stars.

You can download this timeless masterpiece here. As always, there is absolutely no way that this is safe for work. Which is why I listened to it and wrote the show notes at work (whatever, it was lunch and there's barely anyone here today).

Amberance Gives Questionable Advice

Mrs. Sizemore: i don't want to run the marathon
me: but gene will be there!
Mrs. Sizemore: i know but i didn't train. at all.
me: can you just run part of it?
Mrs. Sizemore: um it doesn't count
me: hmm. can you disguise someone else to look like you and then secretly switch places?
Mrs. Sizemore: i wish i'm just afraid i'm going to hurt myself and for no good reason
me: well obviously if it hurts just stop running and get a taco instead
Mrs. Sizemore: haha not like sore i mean like tearing an ACL because i didn't train
me: oh yeah, that would be bad
Mrs. Sizemore: i do like tacos

Non-Update

There has been a lack of posting for the following reasons:

• My football team stinks
• My baseball teams didn't make the playoffs and got swept in the first round, respectively
• I don't have a cat doing anything funny (unless dead is funny)
• My current job description could effectively be "watching money disappear into thin air"
• I hate and do not blog about politics
• Episode 3 of Dumbassity was so drunken that MrSteve could barely edit it into something useful, and it has not been posted yet

I do have two stories coming up, I just need to find the time to write them down. In the meantime, please enjoy this picture of a murderous jack-o-lantern man:

Conversations

I know what I like.

Mrs. Sizemore: how do you feel about pugs?
Me: The dogs?
I'm not into dogs, in general.
They are too not a cat.

It was fun while it lasted Browns Fans.

H-town: so, have you approached my brother's feelings on football?
per him: "I hate the Browns."
Me: that it is a heartbreaking exercise in futility designed to sap my will to live and leave me a
soulless husk? yes

*****

H-town: so you think romeo's going to get the boot soon?
me: I think he's made poor decisions all year so far. And I think starting Quinn is not the answer
so something else has to be
H-town: how about starting you?
you could do well
me: sure, aside from that can't throw a football to save my life thing
H-town: i'm sure you could take a hit from a 300lb lineman.
you're pretty tough
me: there's a sex joke in there somewhere, but i can't quite grasp it

Oversharing.

The bartender (watching football, needs one more score for the over): If they run this kickoff
back for a touchdown, I will whack off.
Me: Yeah. Wait, what?

No Habla Español

A text message conversation with MrSteve in Spanish. Difficulty: neither of us speak Spanish.

MrSteve: Out tonight?
Me: Si.
MrSteve: Que?
Me: To eres una legumbre. (You are a vegetable)
MrSteve: Que?
Me: I'm running out of Spanish words! Ocho cinco. (I'm running out of Spanish words! Chad Johnson.)
MrSteve: Chili con queso de amore chalupa de puta. (bunch of food. Whore.)
Me: No me gusta! (I don't like it!)
MrSteve: Heuvos y chicharron con patata con salsa. (more food)
MrSteve: Tequila! Bap-bap-ba-de-da-bop-bop-Tequila! (that annoying Pee-Wee song)

(At this point my friend Manny who is from Mexico stepped in to help me. Google stepped in to help Steve.)

Me: Tengo una araña sancona que esta peluda y sedienta. Y te que tienes? (I have a big hairy spider that is hungry and thirsty. What do you have?)
MrSteve: Tengo derecho a su araña. (Right. I'll give you a spider.)
Me: Me gustavia verte pronto pero no hay tiempo. Quizas despues por ahora solo te esenvo recados. (I would like to see you soon, but I don't have time. Perhaps later, but for now I can only send you text messages.)
MrSteve: Que el caballo y su madre viajaban en el. (Your mother and the horse she rode in on.)
Me: Mis manos sucias estan tocando el pollo. Y tus manos estan socias? Y el pollo donde esta? (My hands are dirty from touching the chicken. Where are your hands? Where is your chicken?*)
MrSteve: Pollo? Lo que la cogida? (Chicken? What the fuck?)
Me: La policia busca una persona con apariencia como la tuqa argumentando que anda un violador de gullinas suel to por la ciudad. (The police are looking for someone who looks like you. They say someone is walking around the city raping hens.)
MrSteve: Traductor Google dice que usted no sabe espanol. (Google Translator says that you do not know Spanish.)


*Manny explained this. "English is very straighforward. Mexican Spanish is not. Here, chicken means vagina. So this says that you are playing with your vagina and implying that he is playing with his vagina."

Tis The Season To Be Yelling

At the TV that is. For it is now that greatest of all seasons: the Season of Football. My comments thus far:

• The Browns are going to have to play better than they did this week if the don't want to be embarrassed by the Steelers on Sunday Night Football next week. Still, we've definitely seen worse.
• "Football amberance is scaring me," said the agent as I watched the Browns on Sunday. As a general rule, I simply don't yell. There are precious few things that cause me to feel a need to raise my voice. Actually, only one thing. Football games. As such the agent had never heard me yell before, let alone scream out a string of curses at a bunch of enormous men who couldn't actually hear me. He has no idea how light he got off. Wait until he sees me when my team is winning.
• I just love Dan Patrick and my boyfriend Keith Olbermann together again on NBC doing highlights, but I have to say I'm a little bit concerned about Bob Costas. Have you guys seen his face? He looks like he growing younger. I suspect he's either been having work done or drinking Dick Clark's blood. Seriously, it's disturbing.
• Is it just me, or does Tony Kornheiser get more irritating every year? This weeks "let's suck off Brett Favre fest" was the worst yet. When Mike Tirico has to tell you ON THE AIR to stop saying Favre every six seconds, it's time to shut the eff up. New rule: every time someone says Favre during a Packers broadcast, Aaron Rodgers gets to kick them in the groin.
• Da Bears! Were awesome.
• Buckeye football: I think it's safe to say this team is heaps better with Beanie Wells on the field. Also, Terrell Pryor is going to be awesome. Also, I hope USC doesn't hand them their ass on Saturday.
• Questions for the newly crowned Chad Ocho Cinco: When you retire from football do you change your name back to Johnson? What about if you get traded and the number 85 isn't available?

Amberance: Keeping The World Safe From Douchebag Pickup Artists

Amberance is sitting at the bar conversing with two other girls. Two drunk fans arrive direct from the Cubs game and come sidling up to us.

Drunk #1 (putting his arms around the other two girls and staring at me): Hello, ladies. I see you're having a delicious beer. We were at the game.
Me: I gathered.
Drunk #2: It was an awesome game.
Me: Yeah grand slam, I saw that.
Drunk #2: You were watching it?
Me: We were watching that and the Bears game. Oh and a couple college football games.
Drunk #2: Really? We love girls that can talk about sports, right Aaron?
Drunk #1 (Aaron, apparently): We do. That's super hot.
Me: Wait, your name is Aaron?
Drunk #1: Yeah.
Me (overly excitedly and clapping hands): That's my boyfriends name too!
Drunk #1 and #2 mumble something inaudible and walk away.

Amberance and Jenny: LOLdorks

Mrs. Sizemore: ummmmm genius: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/snuznluz.shtml
me: wow
Mrs. Sizemore: O HAI, PETA. u can has dollarz because i sleep too much?
me: kthxsnuz

Squirrelarity Ensued

A while back, I cleaned out some junk from my apartment to make room for new junk that the bartender inherited from his mom. Among the things I discarded were an old beat up TV stand and a penguin cookie jar that was merely taking up space on my kitchen counter. The TV stand went out on the deck to serve as a table we won't use to go with the chairs we don't sit in. The cookie jar got put on the bottom shelf of the TV stand and forgotten about.

This morning the bartender was watching a little TV when he got home from work, but kept getting distracted by a loud ruckus coming from the deck. Eventually he got annoyed and went outside to see if perhaps Crazy Next Door had passed out without bringing her animals again, or possibly a hobo had climbed three flights of stairs to ransack our sparsely furnished deck.

He did not find a dog, a cat or a hobo. What he did find was two squirrels. One squirrel panicked and jumped into a nearby tree. The second squirrel stood on the railing staring defiantly at my roommate - with an enormous cookie in his mouth. Apparently I had baked some cookies, put them in the penguin and immediately forgotten about them, and then never checked inside to see if there were any actual cookies in it before I dumped the cookie jar outside. Where it sat for about four months before the two enterprising squirrels figured out something was inside it, pried the plastic seal from around the mouth of the jar, knocked the penguin's head to the ground and made off with the tasty loot.

I want a squirrel.

Inner City Living Can Be Demanding

One thing you can do that's REALLY douchey is to slam into someone's parked car so hard you leave a dent that I can fit my whole head in, and then just drive off. Fair warning to whoever did exactly that to Alistair: my roommate is livid and a very vindictive person. I would suggest not parking within a half mile radius of the place you hit my car if you plan on being able to drive yours.

Dreams Can Come True With Science

While I am not nearly finished grieving for my kitty angel Kristen, fate has stepped in to unite me with my next pet.



Behold: the minicow. (scroll down a bit for video)



It is too bad that there would be no practical reason to adapt this breeding technology to give us whales that can fit in the palm of your hand. But no matter. I love cows.

Klingon Clock

There is an episode of Star Trek: TNG ("Ethics", season 5) in which Worf undergoes an experimental and dangerous surgery to replace his entire spine, which had been damaged in an accident leaving him paralyzed, with a brand new replica spine created in the lab. Unfortunately, removing a spine and sticking in a new one is no walk in the park and he dies on the table. But shortly thereafter, when the counselor goes to inform his young son of his death, Worf miraculously comes back to life. This is because Worf is a Klingon, and his physiology has built in redundancies that back up all his systems, including neural function. Klingons need this because as warriors and a generally angry race, they have a tendency to get stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, impaled, etc. on a pretty frequent basis. Without it, they would probably all die in their youth and have no ability to propagate the species. But that's not really my point.

My point is that I think my alarm clock may be a Klingon. Now I realize this may seem far fetched. My clock is not prepared for battle, in fact it is quite peace loving. There is also the somewhat minor point that alarm clocks are inanimate which may disqualify them from being considered a part of a humanoid alien species. But Klingons are down with meditation, much like my clock, and it is also capable of spontaneous regeneration.

Much like Worf, my clock was recently faced with a catastrophic injury. While I was away in Baltimore, the storm of the century hit Chicago, sending down as many bolts of lightning in a couple of hours as the area normally receives over 6 months. Seriously. Lance Berkman actually ran off the field in the middle of a play during the Cubs/Astros game amid almost constant lighting. My alarm clock, being plugged into the wall, got hit with a huge power surge and promptly died. Also like Worf, my clock underwent experimental "surgery" when I attempted to get it to run on batteries in the hope that it was just the electrical cord that was damaged. No luck. My dead clock sat on my night table, not chiming and not telling me the time.

For three days.

Until two days ago around midnight when I heard from inside the closed lid the sound of a chime tuned to E. I quickly opened the lid to discover that my alarm clock was on and flashing 12:00, having apparently regenerated itself from its redundant Klingon anatomy. It is obvious that there can be no other logical explanation. From now on I will try to always show honor and courage in front of my clock and try very hard not to piss it off.

QAPLA'!

Perils of the All Ages Show

The bartender: I've got 14 year old boobs in my back.
Me: That's ok, I have 14 year old elbow in my boobs.

Airport Entertainment - Boobs

waiting to board a flight at O'Hare

Me: Want to play "I Spy"?
The agent: Ok.
Me: Can I go first?
The agent: Yes.
Me. Ok. I spy giant cans.
The agent: You can't do that!
Me: What?
The agent: You just told me the answer!
Me: No, you tell me what color they are. I spy giant cans.
The agent: Are they in a green shirt?
Me: Yes!

We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

Episode 2 of Dumbassity was posted a couple of weeks ago, in which we discuss food, gaming and torturing Barbie.

You can download it here.

R.I.P. Kristen Ann

Sorry about the lack of posting. I spent the last two months or so focusing on Kristen the angel cat. Caring for a kitty in end stage renal failure takes a great deal of time and effort. It is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Posting was not a priority. In the end we couldn't stop her decline, and so my pretty princess died on July 30. I'll get back to regular posting as soon as I can.

Mommy misses you, Kiki. I'll see you at the Rainbow Bridge baby girl.

Levity

Not funny: Learning that your beloved kitty is in kidney failure. Also: stabbing her with a needle every day to administer vital fluids that are keeping her alive.

Funny: The process of explaining this to your boyfriend.

Me: I have to give her subcutaneous injections every day.
The agent: What?
Me: Subcutaneous. It means under the skin.
The agent. Under the what?
Me: Skin.
The agent: Oh! I thought you said "ceiling".
Me: No. Cats don't have ceilings.

Should Have Called It Leningrad

Following a conversation about Billy Joel's "Vienna"

Me (trying to be romantic): I want to go to Vienna with you.
The agent: For the crossroads?
Me: Yes. And I want to go to Amsterdam with you.
The agent: Oh yeah?
Me: Yeah. And I want to go to Venice with you. And I want to go to Paris with you. And I want to go to St. Petersberg with you.
The agent: Ooo! For Spring Training?

Word I Laughed At The Most This Weekend

Douchetastic.

A.D.D. Storytime (or Amberance Would Make a Crappy Mother)

I like bedtime stories. A lot. And I have a habit of asking for them from the agent and occasionally the bartender. This never goes over well, I suspect because I am 30 years old.

"Tell me a story," I demanded of the agent Saturday night. "Tell me the three little pigs." He balked at this.

"I don't want to. You tell a story."

I didn't want to tell a story either. I wanted to be told a story. So to teach him a lesson I told the three little pigs. Badly. "Once there were three pigs and a wolf wanted to eat them. So he knocked over the first pig's house and they ran away. Then he knocked over the second house and they ran away. Then he tried to knock over the third house but it didn't fall down, so the pigs were safe. The end."

This turned out far less annoying than I had planned. He actually thought this was hilarious and made me tell more abbreviated stories.


Cinderella

Cinderella was a girl that lived with her step family. Her stepmother and stepsisters hated her. One day she wanted to go to a ball, but her stepmother wouldn't let her. She went anyway, but when she left her shoe fell off. The prince found it and married her. The end.

The Godfather

The Godfather is about a guy named Michael who is born into an Italian crime family, but doesn't want to join the family business. Later someone shoots his dad, so he joins the family business anyway and becomes a bad person. The end.

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty was an egg. He fell off the wall he was sitting on and broke. No one knew how to fix him. The end.

The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk is about a scientist named Bruce Banner who gets radiation poisoning. When he gets mad he grows huge, turns green and breaks stuff. The end.

The Little Mermaid

A mermaid goes to a witch and trades her voice in for legs, but the man she loves really likes her voice. Latter she gets her voice back and they live happily ever after. The end.

Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel are a brother and sister that go wandering in the woods until they find a candy house. When they go inside there is a witch and she eats them. The end.

Death of a Salesman

A salesman dies. The end.

The Tiramisu Story

Of the whole anniversary dinner, the highlight was always meant to be the tiramisu. I knew I was making tiramisu before anything else because it is the agent's favorite dessert. I also knew that I wanted to use a specific recipe of a friend of his because he had said it was the best tiramisu ever.

I did not have his friend's phone number and I couldn't ask for it without arousing suspicion. Fortunately for me, she does have a MySpace page. Unfortunately for me, she does not allow messages from people who are not her MySpace friends. So I sent her a friend request and hoped she would would get it in time for the dinner. And luckily she did, so I got the recipe in plenty of time. She also sent notes about the specific coffee and rum she used, so problem #1 solved.

Tiramisu requires one to brew coffee. As neither the bartender nor I are coffee drinkers, I do not own a coffee maker or a coffee grinder. On top of this, the coffee his friend used to make this was espresso from Intelligentsia. Intelligentsia is the agent's favorite coffee and the only one I know is right next door to where he works. He is therefore there all the time. So first I had to get into Intelligentsia undetected somehow, and then I had to get some coffee. My options were to buy beans and then grind them and brew it at home which would require buying a coffee maker AND a coffee grinder, or order it already brewed. I needed almost two cups of coffee, and with espresso being sold an ounce or two at a time, I would have had to order a dozen or so. This seemed excessive to me in both time and expense, so in the end I decided to buy the equipment to brew it myself, figuring I can use it for holidays or something. So then all I had to do was figure out how to get to the beans.

How to get the beans was what I was pondering as I wandered around Whole Foods getting other items and talking to a stranger about what sort of wine to buy. In so doing I wandered right into a display of...bags of Intelligentsia coffee beans! And what do you know, they even had the espresso. I was gleeful as I put the beans into my basket. I had been on the verge of deciding to try to sneak into the coffee shop on Friday afternoon and now I didn't have to. Hooray! More time to prepare. Or so I thought.

Tiramisu also requires the purchase of lady fingers (of which I am not actually aware of any other use). I did not find them at Whole Foods like I thought I would. No matter, I figured I would get them at Jewel.

Except Jewel didn't have them.

Trader Joe's didn't either.

Fuck.

On Friday morning I raced to work in a panic and explained to BrownsFan that I needed to find lady fingers. I CANNOT MAKE TIRAMISU WITHOUT LADY FINGERS. I needed to find an Italian grocery, figure out how to get to it, go there and then get home to make the tiramisu before the agent got to my house for Friday night dinner (tiramisu needs to set overnight). Luckily for me, BrownsFan is a Googling master. Instead of finding me an Italian specialty store, she found me a forum in which people were discussing their trouble with finding lady fingers, to which someone had posted "You can get them at World Market". This was great news as I knew where to find a World Market and what the procedure would be when I got there. What I could not be sure of was whether they had them in stock. So I did the unthinkable: I called the store on the phone and spoke to someone. Unbelievable, I know right? Hey, I was desperate at that point. The conversation went like this:

Me: PLEASE tell me you sell lady fingers.
World Market lady: Yes, we sell them.
Me: PLEASE tell me you have some in stock, like, RIGHT NOW.
World Market lady: (laughing, I can only presume at me) We do. Would you like me to set some aside for you.
Me: Holy crap, yes. I'll be there in an hour.

W-O-R-L-D-M-A-R-K-E-T spells relief.

So now I had everything I needed and I'm at home. It was 2:00. The first step was to brew the coffee, but now I had another problem. Coffee makes the whole house smell, the agent would be over for dinner at 7:00 and he knows that the bartender and I don't drink coffee. I attempted to solve this problem in the obvious way: by brewing the coffee on the floor of my bedroom with the door shut to keep as much coffee smell out of the house as possible. For the most part that worked, but being totally paranoid, I ran around the house opening windows and turning on fans, all the while concocting a story to explain what the big baking dish covered in foil in the refrigerator was in case I was asked (the bartender was making lasagna for...work...and we were not supposed to touch it on pain of death).

With all of that done, I finally sat down to watch some tv for a while, but my phone rang immediately. It was the agent telling me he was done with work early so he was coming over right now! This sent me running outside so I could come back in and see if the house still smelled like coffee.

The next day, when I went over to prepare the surprise dinner, I took the coffee beans with me because I certainly had no other use for them and they had a much better chance of being used by the agent, a known coffee fiend. What I didn't plan for was the agent to be there while I was cooking, so I was unprepared when he looked in the cabinet and said "Oh, you bought more coffee!" Fearing he would see it was espresso and guess what I had made for dessert, I turned the bag around with the label facing in, hoping he wouldn't look at it.

At dessert time I unthinkingly told the agent he should brew some coffee. "The coffee you brought over, right?" he asked. No!

Me: No!
The agent: No?
Me: No. Brew your own coffee.
The agent: So you don't want me to brew the coffee you brought?
Me: No.
The agent: But then why did you buy coffee?
Me: STOP ASKING QUESTIONS! Just brew your own coffee.

In light of the messed up dinner surprise, he did stop asking questions and brewed his own coffee, which we drank with the tiramisu while I regaled him with my very first telling of The Tiramisu Story, and which, after reading this long long post, I have realized I tell much better live, but it is what it is.

(The tiramisu was good. Especially for breakfast.)

The Anniversary Dinner Story

A couple weeks ago marked the first anniversary of my first date with the agent and because I am either an awesome girlfriend or friggin' psychotic (depending on how you look at it), to me this meant an elaborate surprise needed to be prepared entirely by me in the form of dinner. The menu:

Pear pistachio salad with raspberry walnut vinaigrette
Blue cheese crusted Fillet Mignon with port wine reduction sauce
Alaskan King Crab legs with garlic butter
Garlic mashed potatoes (strictly for the agent obviously)
Tiramisu

Preparations for this included, but were not limited to: buying a cast iron skillet, discussing and selecting a bottle of wine for dinner with a TOTAL STRANGER, shiny new black linens for the table, a dozen red roses, a long black evening gown which gives the illusion of my having breasts and the soon to be infamous making of the tiramisu.

The key to any good surprise is the ability to keep it a secret, so to that end, I told the agent that I had made dinner reservations somewhere and it was a huge secret he would not learn until I gave him directions. In the meantime, I waited until he left for work on Saturday and snuck over to his apartment to prepare. I cleaned the kitchen and set the table, prepped everything that could be prepped, and laid out everything I would need for cooking later. Then I got in my car and went home because a) the bartender needed the car to go to work later and b) my car being at the agents house would be very suspicious. Very. After that I hopped on a bus to head back over and finish getting ready.

In my head I was imagining a very specific scenario where the agent calls me when he was leaving work. "I'm on my way to pick you up!" he says (in my head), and I reply, "Actually I think you should just come home." Then he drives home in confusion and arrives to find the table elegantly set and candles lit and Vivaldi playing softly in the background and me all dressed up smiling and handing him a glass of delicious Portuguese wine. At this point he variously starts crying or declares me the greatest woman who ever lived or immediately takes off his pants (fantasies vary).

This is what I was picturing right up until I got of the bus and walked toward his backdoor... which is when I saw his car parked behind the house. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't really his car, just some other car of the exact make, model and color that happened to be parked in his spot.

"Why are you home?" I shouted when he answered the door in his underwear. The one thing I hadn't counted on was my ability to tell a believable lie. The agent was so excited about the fancy restaurant that we weren't going to that he decided to come home early to change and get cleaned up. He managed to arrive in the 45 minutes that I was gone and figured it out when he saw the table all set.

The best laid plans....

Anyway. Dinner was fine and the agent was suitably impressed and everybody wins! and then it was time for dessert, which I was excited about not so much to eat the dessert but to tell the story of it. And that story is next.

The Grand Announcement - For Real This Time Version

With as much fanfare as I can muster having gotten only a few hours sleep, I am proud to (finally) present Episode 1 of Dumbassity. You can download it here or subscribe to it here.

A brief warning: Unless your boss is Larry Flint or you are a porn foley, there is absolutely no way this podcast is even remotely safe for work. It is also not safe for children, the sexually repressed or the vast majority of my family. I'd like to reiterate that last part: if you are related to me but are not part of my generation or named Rick, my advice is to skip this podcast and put on a nice quiet Michael W. Smith record instead.

For everyone else, please realize that a) this is our first podcast b) we lost a solid 20 minutes of BRILLIANT material because we weren't actually recording and c) MrSteve and I are on a learning curve with the new editing software we've each acquired. We will get funnier with time. I swear. We welcome comments and suggestions (provided they are not "This is the WORST fucking podcast I have ever heard in my life! You should all jump off a bridge and end your miserable existence."). You can make them here.

Thank You Captain Obvious, For Clarifying That

Joe Morgan on Sunday Night Baseball: The slower the pitch, the longer the batter has to recognize what it is.
Me: This just in: the ball is round and the bats are wooden.

Where is Wendy the Snapple Lady When You Need Her?

Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc. began trading on the New York Stock Exchange today. Shares of the third largest soft drink manufacturer in the U.S. which was recently spun-off from Cadbury Plc. opened lower than expected, showing that investors are reluctant to invest in a company that makes and markets Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, despite the fact that normal Diet Dr. Pepper really does taste more like regular Dr. Pepper.

Mr. Pibb declined to comment for this story.

The View From The Cheap Seats Is Good

A mainstay of televised baseball is the gratuitous crowd shot which, more often than not, is of some busty blond in a tiny tank top or a general assortment of really hot chicks. Of course these are not the only fans in attendance, but a fat guy eating a brat just is not good television. The bartender summed this up succinctly:

"You want to see the nipples! I'm sorry, but that's baseball."

Amberance Gives Accurate Descriptions

Gene: I'm not familiar with The Devil's Rain.
Me: Oh, dude, it is terrible, but the cast is ridiculous. It's got Ernest Borgnine, Tom Skerritt...
MrSteve: Joan Prather, Ida Lupino...
Me: William Shatner, and also a very young...um...who is the scientologist that isn't Tom Cruise?
MrSteve: John Travolta?
Me: That's the one.

The Grand Announcement - Premature Version

Did you guys see that in the comments? Pronto yelled at me! Yelling frightens me and makes me nervous, so here is the reason for the lack of posting:

I, along with Melle and MrSteve, have started a podcast. You can't listen to it because we're not done editing, and you can't visit the website because it has nothing on it. You CAN however know that it is called Dumbassity and that it is the reason why there has been no posting here. Also I am quite with the busy at work here for a few more weeks. My ability to multi-task is small and my creativity is finite.

I'll post a much better and informative announcement here when there is an actual website/file, and I will post better blog posts the moment I get a life.

Lunchbox Full of Crazy

In the course of one 5 minute conversation with BrownsFan I said:

• I had $1.68 to spend on lunch and didn't know what to get. (I actually had another $40 but that is bar money and not lunch money.)
• I need lunch today, as opposed to other days when I don't eat any lunch, because on Thursdays I go grocery shopping before I go to Tai's and the last three weeks in a row I grabbed a box of croutons (despite no plans for a salad of any kind) and proceeded to EAT THE ENTIRE BOX before going to the bar. Today I was eating lunch in an attempt to avoid this.
• I couldn't go to a little grocery store around the corner because I hadn't been there before and I needed a "guide" the first time so I could learn the "proper procedure". Therefore I had no choice but to get some Doritos from Walgreen's.
• Despite the fact that I drink enough milk to warrant a cow of my own, I don't like it in my cereal.
• I hate Oreos.

Kitty Kitty, Here

Did this happen two blocks away from my apartment? Yes. Yes it did.

I No Has Gud Flavor?

Me: I'm hungry. But I get to eat a pineapple ring when I get home, so that will be good.

BrownsFan: Oh yeah, that will be good.

Me: Oh! You know what? I have pickles at home! I can have...

BrownsFan: No. Do not eat pickles with a pineapple ring.

Me: Why not? They're sweet pickles.

BrownsFan: DO NOT eat pickles with pineapple. Don't do it. Do not do it.

Me: But they're both sweet...

BrownsFan: No.

Me: OK, what if I eat the pineapple ring and then waited 10 minutes and then ate the pickles?

BrownsFan: (considering) What are you going to drink in between?

Me: Milk.

BrownsFan and Co-worker make wretching noises and run away from me.

Me: What?

The Glorious Interweb

It happens to be that I have a very good reason why I haven't blogged in two weeks. It is because I have been spending my time working on a super secret project (or super annoying, sick of hearing me talk about it project if you happen to work with me or are my friend on Facebook or are Gene Honda) and I can't blog about it until it's finished. At which time there will be a grand unveiling n' shit. But currently I do not have the time or creativity for original blog content.

Fear not, my friends from a series of tubes!* For the World Wide Net is vast, and has much fabulous content which I shall tell you about starting.....now.

For those who weren't in the know during the early-mid 90's, the most hilarious show ever to air on MTV was the brilliant sketch comedy show The State. It's been off the air lo these many years, but the bigger travesty is MTV's inexplicable refusal to release the show on DVD. So it was with great surprise and overwhelming joy that I stumbled across the first season of The State for sale at the iTunes Music Store. If you are a fan of The State and you have i Tunes, I highly recommend you shell out less than $10 and download the shows so you can finally explain to your friends who missed it the first time around just what the hell you're talking about when you yell out "I wanna dip my balls in it!"

In the short space of three months, my brother's girlfriend has managed to get her blog named one Chicago's best by the Tribune, be chosen as blogger of the week, also by the Tribune and perhaps most difficult, become my favorite blog on the web. Realize, she is in direct competition with Jennie Smash and The Sneeze for this title. She is The Reckless Chef, and she is extraordinarily gifted at creative cooking, photography, writing and setting herself on fire. From her recipe for Pineapple Upside-Down Pork:

"If you’re using a 13×9 pan and a standard can of pineapple rings, you should have exactly one left over. Eat it. It’s tasty."

For a good time, call The Fail Blog. At it's best it will get you caught not working at work because of all the laughing. At the very least it will make The Reckless Chef's ability to set herself aflame seem perfectly reasonable.


*The Internet is not a truck.

Tip #329 On How To Avoid Becoming The Crazy Cat Lady

Do not Google Image search "pile of kittens".

Viva Vibrator

You've all seen the Viagra commercials I assume? Bunch of middle-aged dudes sitting around with their guitars, jamming in someone's garage, singing a parody of "Viva Las Vegas"? In the newer one, they've doubled in number and moved into a recording studio, ostensibly to lay down tracks for "Viva Viagra". In all of them they are smiling smiles of great joyness. I ask you, who is the advertising genius who thought this up?

REAL MEN DON'T ACT LIKE THIS. And I don't mean that as in "No macho guy's guy would behave in such a manner", I mean it as in "Human males regardless of their relative masculinity or effeminateness don't sit around singing to each other about erectile dysfunction". It's just not something you discuss with an entire roomful of people. Nor is it something you write songs about. It is especially not something you record songs about. Regardless of the quality of instrumentation, no such song will ever be aired on Casey's Top 40, I promise.

And another thing, I would not sleep with any of those people. It's not because they need Viagra and it's not because of their age relative to mine. It is because sitting around merrily singing about Viagra makes them look like a bunch of goofball idiots, and goofball idiots are not attractive (think Tom Greene. See?). It's also likely to end any such budding musical career through cause and effect:

Sing asinine song about Viagra --->Look ridiculous--->Become completely unattractive--->No one will sleep with you--->No need for Viagra--->Nothing to sing about

Just a little feedback from someone in the secondary target group for this product.

Even Mr. Rogers Would Be Aggravated

The occupants of my six flat building are as follows: Nice couple with annoying dog, nice lady with cat, nice girls who take a lot of baths in the jacuzzi tub, nice couple with no dog, the bartender and me, and Crazy Next Door. It's a miracle, really, that I've managed to get this far into my lease without blogging about Crazy Next Door.

Crazy Next Door is a petite, probably alcoholic (based on the case of Old Style she hauls up three flights of stairs daily), apparently independently wealthy (based on the food she has delivered daily, also the fact that no one has ever seen her go to a job) woman who smells like a walking ashtray and vacillates between creepy and weird, mean and weird, and drunken psycho. In the summer she enjoys browning her already crispy leather skin on the back porch, to the bartender's horror. In the winter, she tends to favor passing out drunk while forgetting to let her animals inside. All year round she entertains a handful of questionable friends.

A while back I had ordered a shirt and a bracelet from the internets because they were on sale and I hate all my clothes. I tracked my shipment with my handy FedEx tracking number, and on March 5th my package was deemed delivered. Except when I got home there was nothing there. I called FedEx, who again told me I had it even though I didn't have it. FedEx did their best to look for it on their end but couldn't find it. A week passed. Deeming the package lost I filed a claim with FedEx and waited. This past Tuesday I came home from work to find a Macy's bag hanging on my doorknob. It contained the skirt and bracelet I had ordered, which were without their original packaging and now reeked of smoke. While I went around lamenting the incompetence of FedEx, here Crazy had stolen my package, opened it, kept it for THREE WEEKS and then attempted to anonymously return it without bothering to try to mask her scent. And most disturbing of all, no one in the building was surprised.

No one was surprised, of course, because previous to this she had:

• left a bag of dog shit at couple with annoying dog's back door. The shit was from her dog not theirs;
• gotten caught by the building engineer throwing her garbage into the yard from her third floor porch;
• deliberately or accidentally poured a bottle of whiskey out on the porch, which ran down to the two proches below it and cause our entire backyard to smell like Maker's Mark for a week;
• yelled at couple with no dog when one of HER friends wandered into THEIR apartment because they'd forgotten to lock the door;
• accused the agent and me of spying on her when I opened the door so he could leave and she happened to be standing in the hallway;
• etc. etc.

I look forward to wearing my new clothes once they've been fumigated and disinfected.

Amberance Is Not A Nice Person

Greenpeace volunteer soliciting people on the street: It will only take 60 seconds to help save the trees.
Me (without breaking stride): I hate trees.

Tiny Tiny Update

Ladies and germs, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Jonah, my new tiny tiny (stuffed) whale:

This is, I think, the closest I will ever get to my dream of a real tiny tiny whale. As you can see, he fits perfectly in my hand, and he even has his tail turned up just the way I like it. I do wonder why Ty, Inc. didn't find it important to sew a dorsal fin on him, but I suppose since he won't actually be doing any swimming he'll be fine without it. I am filled with near-joy.

It's the Little Things In Life...

Sea World is fucking with me.

You know how I said I will suddenly declare that I want something I can't have, either because it's not at all practical or (more likely) doesn't exist? Yeah. Well. I am driving the agent crazy, but it is not my fault this time.

Sea World has this new commercial out (which I can't seem to find anywhere on the intertubes otherwise I would link to it so you could see exactly what I'm talking about) in which, I've concluded, they are deliberately fucking with me. What it does is to play around with reality, like you see dolphins swimming through the loops of a roller coaster and the sizes of things are all out of proportion and what not. It's the disproportion thing that's doing it to me. Right about the middle of the commercial, there is a shot of a little girl. She holding out her hand palm up in front of her and sitting on her hand is a tiny, tiny killer whale. As if this is not cute enough, the whale then proceeds to cheerfully lift its little tail up in the air behind it to the delight of the little girl (and more importantly me) before the commercial moves on to the next shot.

I WANT ONE.

And I have not shut up about it since I first saw it. It's a huge conundrum. I can't have one because they don't exist, but it is obvious that I can't live without one. At first I wanted a whole menagerie of tiny tiny animals. "Animals are so much cuter in miniature," I told the agent. "If they existed, I would get a tiny tiny elephant, the size of a medium dog and it would follow me around the house and make little trumpet sounds with its trunk when I came home...oh! And also a tiny tiny rhino, like a cat sized rhino. Yeah, a cat sized rhino would be a perfect rhino. But I would love my tiny tiny whale the best."

I elaborated on my plans for the whale. "See, cause they're mammals you know. And they breathe air. So as long as I kept him wet I could take him out of his tank and carry him around. We could watch tv together, or I could carry him into the kitchen and feed him...what do whales eat? Tiny tiny fish I guess. I could feed him tiny tiny fish and ooo you know what else? If they made miniature seals I could feed him those too! Killer whales love to eat seals. Who is that guy that the whale ate in the bible? Jonah. That's what I would name him. Jonah." I frequently demonstrate how his little tail would flip up when I held him in my hand.

Last night, right in the middle of Die Hard, I turned to the agent with a pressing question. "Do you think, if I did have a tiny tiny whale, (here he rolled his eyes) I would be disappointed if he didn't do the tail thing?"


The agent says he dates me because I am always entertaining*. Hmm.


*Just think how much more entertaining I could be if I had a tiny tiny whale!

Meat and More Meat

Today is the long awaited Steak and Blow Job Day. Treat your man to some filetio.



P.S. I am extremely pleased with myself for coming up with filetio. No one else I've checked with thinks this is even remotely funny.

Cookie Proofs

The agent: I don't know what I should have for dinner.
Me: Cookies! You should have Girl Scout Cookies!
The agent: Cookies are not dinner.
Me: Cookies are too dinner!
The agent: No.
Me: Listen. Tagalongs are made with peanut butter. And peanut butter comes from peanuts. Peanuts have tons of protein, just like meat. Therefore, Girl Scout cookies count as meat. Girl Scout cookies are dinner.
The agent: Girl Scout cookies do not count as meat.
Me: They do! Girl Scout cookies are meat!
The agent: Maybe Girl Scout cookies are made of soylent green, which would mean they are really made out of people.
Me: People are also filled with protein. So they would still count as meat.

The whole thing seemed perfectly obvious to me.

The Cookie Follies

It's that time of year again. The time that causes me much anxiety as well as the time that makes me both broke and fat. The little green demons are at it again. Yep, you guessed it: it's Girl Scout Cookie time.

It is clear to me that the Girl Scouts are secretly adding MSG or cocaine or some other highly addictive substance to their cookies, as evidenced by the fact that I can't stop eating them. Regular Bizzybiz readers will recall that I've encountered this problem before. When I mentioned my complete lack of self control in regards to Girl Scout cookies to MrSteve, he told me about a thing called drunkorexia, by which people (I'm assuming mostly the vagina kind) starve themselves in order that they can "afford" the calories in alcohol. He jokingly (I think) suggested I might adapt this unhealthy, malnourishing behavior to my Girl Scout cookie problem, ergo Cookierexia. I, of course, thought this was brilliant.

As it turned out I almost didn't have to. Last year, I discovered a website which listed the places and times Girl Scout cookies would be for sale in and around the city of Chicago. It's a great idea except for one small problem: Girl Scouts are apparently enormous fucking liars. On Saturday I wrote down four places near my home that the list claimed had my precious cookie treasure for sale and went to all of them to find ABSOLUTELY NO GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. I was heartbroken. The next day the agent and I tried again. I did find a little Scout sitting on the side walk outside of Trader Joe's, who told me the cookies she had available were: Trefoils and some shit lemony things (ok, she didn't say "shit lemony things" but honestly, ew). No Tagalongs, no Samoas, not even any Thin Mints. Just as I was about to throw myself off a cliff into the pit of despair, the agent found some Girl Scouts selling the appropriate cookies at a school near his office and I was saved.

My cookies will finally arrive tonight. I can't wait to get home and fix. I really and truly NEED the cookies now, as I'm pretty sure I'm now hypoglycemic from the cookierexia. It is obvious that they are now a nutritional necessity.

I Am Only Slightly More Hip Than MrSteve

Some strangers in Tai's are playing horrible horrible pop/dance music on the jukebox. MrSteve and I eye each other, dismayed.

MrSteve: I feel like I should break a move, but I'm not sure how it would go over.

Me: (confused) Do you mean...."bust a move?"

MrSteve: Oh yeah! That's it!

Poetry Corner

A little something I penned while writing a shopping list this morning, for which I am entirely too pleased with myself to justify:


Roses are red
Violets are blue
In Soviet Russia
Flower grows YOU!

You've Got Crap!

Either word has gone around that I am in dire need of some kind of existential help, or the grown ups in my life are deliberately trying to make me crazy.

There has recently been a spate of annoying e-mail forwards hitting my inbox from what are otherwise normal, intelligent adults in their 50s and 60s. You remember these - you used to get them about 10-15 years ago when e-mail was, you know, new. They contain things like "Hey look! I made you a picture of an angel out of ampersands! Aren't I clever? Don't you think everyone you know should have one too? If you send this to your entire address book, Ampersand Angel will send you blessings for the rest of your life! But if you delete it you will ROT IN ETERNAL HELLFIRE!" Some are more specific: "One time some anonymous, unverifiable person didn't forward this e-mail full of pictures of puppies dress up in snowsuits, and later that same day they were dismembered alive by a pack of homicidal gypsies. Don't let this happen to you."

Stop it. I mean it. Stopstopstopstopstop. I thought we had collectively outgrown this annoying habit. Even accounting for the possibility that maybe these people have just now discovered this cutting edge technology that is electronic mail there is still no excuse. These are GROWN PEOPLE, old enough to realize that failing to send out horribly stupid chain mail is not going to cause a catastrophic outcome somewhere else in your life. As far as the little angels that want to shower me with celestial blessings, I think this would be entirely negated by the principle of "Do Unto Others". If you wouldn't want your inbox cluttered with crap, it would behoove you to refrain from sending it to others. No soup blessings for you.

R.I.P. Todd Kawaguchi

Hey, dumbass. We miss you already. Tai's won't be the same without you.

Eleven Degrees Farenheit = ....

... not nearly enough degrees.

I can't feel my face.

Only One Month Until SBJ Day!

"Why are you here?" seemed to be the $64,000 question at Tai's on Thursday night. Because it was Valentine's Day, see, and I have a boyfriend this year. I attempted to justify myself to MrSteve. "You know how much energy it takes for you to spend four hours with me?" I asked. "[The agent] just spent four entire days with me in Florida. He could use the break."

This seemed to appease him (he agreed that four hours in my company is draining indeed) but the truth is that this has nothing to do with it. The real reason is that I hate Valentine's Day and I fail to see why having a boyfriend should affect my overall opinion. OK, hate may be a strong word. It's just that I can't bring myself to believe that there should be one magic day on which your love must be declared in embarrassingly florid terms lest you sign yourself up for Certain Doom. If I fail to show my love an overwhelming majority of the time, I doubt some dead plants and a cardboard box filled with heart-shaped confections will be the magic relationship fixing elixir. (Except for chocolate covered strawberries from Malley's in Cleveland. Those can fix anything.) I find it more satisfying to celebrate the St. Valentine's Day Massacre because a) that's how Valentine's Day tends to make the lonely single people feel and b) that really was a pretty badass piece of trickery.

Having said that, I did dye the rice pink when the agent came over for dinner on Friday night.

Two Girls, One Chat

me: i wish i was a muppet
H-town: doesn't that really just mean you want a hand in your ass?
me: *hangs head in shame* yes
H-town: Ah, now I know what that tingling is - it's the knowledge that this is going to be blogged
me: i said the same thing to MrSteve last week and he said "My dear, you ARE a muppet"
H-town: Really, I just like making "hand in the ass" references
me: who doesn't?
H-town: proctologists?
H-town: zing!
me: hand in the ass is a masterpiece of comedy
H-town: *rimshot*
H-town: hahaha, rimshot
H-town: I AM ON A ROLL
me: i am on a bagel
H-town: zing!
H-town: oh yeah, folks, we'll be here all week
me: try the veal

My Tonton Will Die Before I Reach the First Marker

"You're going to have a rough commute today," announced the bartender this morning. I blew this off and attempted to roll over and go back to sleep. (It turns out I couldn't move, because Kristen was sitting on top of me like a conquering explorer with a look on her face like she was going to yell "I claim this mountain for the United States!" and plant a flag in my hip.) It had snowed all night overnight and was still snowing. I wasn't concerned. After all, I take the train to work like a sane person so how bad could it be? It is this kind of thinking that causes one to fail at life.

In fact, it could be very bad. My four block walk to the train took me 20 minutes. This is because there was a foot of snow on the ground and it was too early for anyone to have shoveled. Also when I got to the train I was exhausted and sweating from the effort. I figure, who needs an exercise plan when you can just walk in feet of snow with a backpack? I reasoned that if I had to do this every day I'd be as skinny as Twiggy. Except for my thighs which would be more like Barbaro (pre glue factory).

I hate snow.

My Hair is Sometimes Misleading

Co-worker: So what's happening?
me: Very little. I lead a boring life.
Co-worker: Yeah right.
me: No, I'm serious! I don't do anything, ever.
Co-worker: Yeah, but you don't do it with flair.

It's Still 'Happy Birthday' To Me

So I have been 30 for nearly two weeks now. I am now officially too old to be trusted. I'm both old enough to know better and too old for this shit.

I was having trouble finding inspiration for my 30th birthday recap post. "You know why?" said my co-worker, BrownsFan. "It's because if you blog about it, then it must be over. You can't blog about it because you'd have to admit that it wasn't your birthday anymore. You can't write about it. You'll never be able to. You'll never blog again."

"Hmm. Well," I replied, "I'm certainly blogging that."

Amberance: Dead Sexy

MrSteve: Oh! Vampira died!
Me: Who?
MrSteve: Maila Nurmi.
Me: [blank stare]
MrSteve: Did you see 'Ed Wood'?
Me: No.
MrSteve: Oh. She was one of his favorite actresses. She played a vampire. A vampire with an outfit cut down the front to her waist.
Me: Well if I was a vampire, I'd wear an outfit cut down to my waist. Because, realistically, once you're the undead, who do you have to be modest for?

Wow, I AM a Huge Geek

The agent (attempting to quote from The Empire Strikes Back): No, that one goes here and this one goes there.
Me (accompanied by pointing in the appropriate directions): No no no, THIS one goes THERE, THAT one goes THERE.
The agent (shaking his head at me); Who am I to say?

Mr. Smith Steve Goes to Washington School

MrSteve finally made good on the threats he's been making for as long as I've known him and quit his job. So for a number of weeks now Melle, the bartender and I have been experiencing "No Rant Steve". Where once we could count on our Thursday nights being filled with vitriolic anti-Bush, anti-sports or anti-traffic discourses peppered with lists of reasons why everyone he works with should kindly perish, we are now subject to mock-ignorance of the daily grind ("Work? I don't understand this word you are using.") and cheerful recollections of his free time experiments ("I made my cat yawn!"). He's very happy now. It is oddly disconcerting.

This confusing change of disposition may or may not continue. MrSteve has decided to use his break from gainful employment to obtain a Masters degree. He's been very excited about this, whereas I've been very excited about the prospect of his being assigned homework. For some reason I'm quite amused by the whole going back to school thing.

Today MrSteve came downtown to have lunch with me before heading over to the library in hot scholarly pursuit. "Have fun at school," I quipped. "Do you have your backpack? Do you have your sack lunch? You don't want to miss your bus!" I started skipping in place, pretending to be Steve on the way to school with his lunch bag.

He glared at me. "I was bringing lunch in a bag and taking the bus before you were even BORN!" he retorted. This is 100% true.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Is that supposed to be insulting to...me?" I am, after all, about to turn 30 in five days.

He paused to think. "Damn it!"

It's good to have you back, MrSteve.

Update From Yesterday

While admiring an artists rendering of a court case with my co-worker just now, I announced "I want a drawing made of my head in court!"

Yeah.

I Wish I Had Something To Post

One of the many odd quirks of my personality is to wish or declare that I want things that are either completely ridiculous or downright impossible for me to have or be. This becomes more noticeable as one spends greater amounts of time around me. Such as the agent, poor thing. I am lucky in that he finds this amusing and keeps threatening to start a list of the Most Ridiculous Things I have ever wished for. Some recent examples:

• I wished I had an Oompa Loompa.
• I wished I was an Oompa Loompa.
• I wished I had a beard.
• I wished I was a cartoon.
• I want to play the calliope.
• I want a tiny light saber to use for carving roasts.

I should probably add to this list that I want to be taken seriously.
In other MUCH more important news, I will be turning 30 on Saturday with much fanfare and abundant celebration. I expect you all to wear your virtual party hats.

2007 In Review

I have resolved to make no New Years resolutions for 2008. So therefore, if I accomplish anything this year, it would actually make me a failure. And who wants to be a failure, right? Exactly.



I did, however, accomplish quite a bit this year. To recap:

• I learned how to make a french silk pie from scratch. Prior to this, I though french silk pie was a proprietary pie of Baker's Square and that the recipe was a closely guarded secret, like the formula for Coke, or the inner workings of the Daley administration. It's not though. Plus mine is better.
• I moved. Into an apartment with its very own jacuzzi tub, which is great, a crazy drunken next door neighbor, which is not great, and across the street from a candy store, which can only be described as dangerous.
• I read 48 books. This is a mere two more books than Heather read, as she nearly caught me at the end. Among my favorites: a re-read of The Count of Monte Cristo, The Kite Runner (trendy novel readers of the world, unite!), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and The Great Gatsby, which I somehow managed to miss reading in high school. Heather has invited me to "taunt her a second time", so let Reading Challenge 2008 begin! I am about to begin book #2.
• I got myself a boyfriend. The agent is responsible for such things as finding my apartment, pointing out that I am a HUGE geek after I recited Star Wars: A New Hope for him in its entirety, 10 extra pounds, my first visit to New Mexico, learning how to meditate, trips to go get pie halfway across town at 11:30 at night (he will tell you I am actually the one responsible for this. Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.), my addictions to The Office and Flight of the Conchords, a great deal of singing in harmony, much childish giggling and a general sense of happiness and well being. Why didn't I think of this before?
• The Browns finished the season 10-6, and beat the Ravens twice. While this probably doesn't count as a personal accomplishment of mine, I did relearn how wonderful it feels to root for a football team that is actually adept at, you know, playing football.
• I hosted my first Thanksgiving. This involved another accomplishment of mine which is roasting my first turkey. The event got rave reviews. My inner Martha Stewart stills glows with pride.

I plan to have many weird adventures to blog about in 2008. Stay tuned.

What Happens in Vegas Gets Blogged on the Internets

I've just come back from Las Vegas and I have to say, I am more than a little bit shell shocked. Now, I've been to Vegas before, a number of times actually, and other than the propensity for middle-aged women to don velour pant suits for the duration of their trip (Seriously, what is the deal with this?) I have a pretty good understanding of the place. This ain't my first rodeo. But I saw more strange things in one day than most people see in a year. Snow notwithstanding, I was relieved to come home.

The purpose of the trip was to see Social Distortion and Mitch Fatel. Mitch Fatel didn't happen due to his not showing up, but despite the illness of Mike Mess, Social D performed at the House of Blues as scheduled. Let me just say that HOB Vegas is lame. The bartender and I were forced to surrender our studded belts because they weren't allowed. I am not certain what damage security thought we were planning to cause, but I can assure you, our only goal with them was to hold up our pants. I found it interesting that we couldn't wear our belts inside, but that a kid with a broken leg on crutches was allowed, not just into the show, but into the pit. Sure enough, we later saw him being carried out by security screaming in agony because he'd gotten hurt in the pit. After paying $7 each (!) for a freakin' Coors Light, we got into a conversation with a couple of girls (who were wearing the same kind of studded belts that we were told to check). It was during this conversation that a kid came stumbling by us in a gigantic parka. He was obviously impaired as evidenced by his erratic gait, but as he passed on his way to the pit we were left in no doubt. We all watched in horror as Parka barfed into his beer cup....and then drank from it.

This was merely the icing (or vomit I guess) on the cake for the day. We happened to arrive on the day of the Las Vegas Marathon. As such there were myriads of people wandering around with what appeared to be giant pieces of aluminum foil. I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, like that it reflects the sun away from you keeping you cool, or possibly gives you super powers. But anywhore, as the bartender and I sat in traffic with our guide after a lovely lunch at Fatburger, we saw a bum laying underneath one of the giant foil thingies in the middle of the sidewalk. At first glance he appeared to be sleeping. On closer inspection, however, there seemed to be some movement occurring underneath his shiny blanket. I also noticed that his left hand seemed to be jammed pretty far down his pants. A gust of wind blew the blanket up and that's when we all simultaneously realized that the guy was masturbating right there on the sidewalk. From the backseat, I was the only one who had a clear shot of his head, and let me say he was sporting quite the impressive "O" face. The bartender immediately began calling everyone he knew. For my part I fired off a text message: "Ah Las Vegas...where you can watch a bum jerk off right in the middle of the street. Which I just did." I finished just as he did, I assume based on him extracting his hand from his pants and rolling over on his side for a nice post-monkey spankin nap.

Later in the trip I drank some ass juice at Double Down and bought a Christmas CD there featuring songs like "Santa Was a Cross Dressing Nazi", "Imo Shoot Me a Reindeer" and "Santa Blow Me".

But the masturbating bum...yeah. Just....yeah.

Necessity is the Mother of Plausible Deniability

H-town: any recommendations for what movie i should rent tonight?
amy's not around, so it can be violent.


me: i recommend pornography. or the Lion King. either way


H-town: they're so similar, though
*vomits*


me: you know what might be good? put on the Lion King with the sound off, and then play the sound from a porno. you know, like The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon. Only, you know, way more funny.

H-town: wow
i'd love to have amy come home and see that
"What...are...you... DOING?!"


me: "research on animal husbandry" - there, you're covered

I Have Watched Questionable Things

I saw Blade Runner at the Music Box Theater with the agent and MrSteve this week, and boy golly, is that movie an interesting piece of strange. Also? Having your eyes smushed into your head until they turn to jelly and blood seeps out of the sockets does not seem like a particularly good way to die. But I digress.

Blade Runner was released for the first time in 1982 and was set in the future. I love movies that are set in the future because I like to know ahead of time about things that are going to happen, as evidenced by my annoying habit of firing a barrage of questions at people who are trying to enjoy a film in peace. The great thing about Blade Runner though is that the future it is set in happens to be Los Angeles in 2019, a mere 2000 miles and 12 years away*. Here is what I have learned is in store for us:

• Los Angeles will be overcast and rainy 100% of the time. MrSteve attributes this climate change to global warming, I think the weather just decided to become more appropriate. The weather is no fool.
• Additionally, the skyline of Los Angeles will be completely unrecognizable from what it looks like now and will be dominated by a pair of gigantic buildings shaped like Aztec pyramids, but that look like the Death Star or a Borg cube close up. I have to question the aesthetic tastes of today's architecture students.
• Almost everyone in Los Angeles will be of Asian descent, and apparently poor street merchants selling noodles (or information).
• Good news! We are, at most, only 12 years away from flying cars. It appears though that law enforcement will have the first crack at them.

There is one other thing I've learned from sci-fi movies, not really about the future per se but more of a life lesson. Themes from Blade Runner, the Terminator movies, Transformers, the occasional Futurama episode and Steel Magnolias** all seem to be trying to teach us the same thing: DO NOT BUILD SENTIENT ROBOTS. Even Star Trek, where we have a fine example of android perfection in Data, teaches us this lesson in his evil brother Lore who is constantly trying to kill people. I think there is little hope that if we give robots consciousness that they are going to like us and agree to be our slaves. If you give a Roomba a sense of individuality and then tell it to suck up the dirt you tracked in on your filthy shoes, you run the risk of having it choose to suck up your face instead. We've been warned.
*Mileage may vary depending on where you live.
**This is not mine. The credit for this hilarious joke belongs entirely to Heather. Thanks :-)

At Least I Know Where I Stand

The bartender and I are watching a rerun of the Top Chef reunion/viewer's choice show, which he has already seen.

Bartender: So who do you think wins? It should be obvious.
Me: Should it? I have no idea.
Bartender: Come on, who do you think people will vote for? Which one would people choose?
Me: Well, I would vote for whoever I thought was funnies-
Bartender (interrupting): No, not you. People!

Happy Halloween

Here is a pumpkin that I've carved for you (well, for my roommate and also my own self-gratification, but the nice thing about jack-o-lanterns is that they can be enjoyed by everyone):

For those of you not obsessed with Mike Ness, he's supposed to be this guy:
I think we can all agree I'm very talented at this, even if I've become an extremely lazy/terrible blogger.

Football

Suck it, Ravens.

Everyone Needs Loving Friendships

E-mail to the intern this morning: [Coworker] says, "Speaking of douches, how's [the intern]?"

E-mail from the intern: I would say that is probably one of the top ten worst ways to strike up a friendly conversation.



Anyone have suggestions for the other nine?

If That's Moving Up Than I'm Moving Out

My boyfriend, the agent, is getting ready to move next week, and I'm not sure I like the change in neighbors. Right now he lives next door to a guy I call American Idol. American Idol amuses the hell out of me. I've never seen the guy. I have heard him though, because he sings very loudly, very badly and very often. He really means it too. He sings huge epic Celine Dion type songs in a wobbly vibrato that is only slightly off key. His music is best enjoyed from the bathroom which seems to be directly opposite his bedroom. He will be missed.

On the other side, there is La Casa Fiesta. They always have something to celebrate, which they do by encouraging the kids to run around half the night to the sounds of pre-recorded mariachis. I frequently have inexplicable urges to go out and buy maracas.

Directly above the agent live the Lead People. At first I assumed giants must be living up there, based on the heavy sound of their walking. Then I saw them coming up the back stairs and they appear to be normal sized. This is how I surmised they must be made of lead, because their outside appearance couldn't account for the extreme loudness of their footfalls. I told the agent about it and urged him not to lick them; understandably he balked at this comment, as he's not in the habit of licking his neighbors.

Though all these people can be slightly annoying at times, such as when I'm trying to sleep, they are all quite charming compared to the new neighbor I encountered on my first visit to see the new place. After the agent took me on the tour we went out the back door. I looked up and saw The Biggest Spider I Have Ever Seen In My Life*. "Ok," I said, "THAT has to go or I am never ever coming back here again." Even the agent, friend of all living creatures, agreed that it was exceptionally huge. I ran from the porch like it was on fire and stood by the car watching it spin its GIANT web. The agent came to check on me, but I had already crossed the threshold into full on crazy: "Look at it! It's as big as my fist!" The next time we went over it was gone, but I don't know. You can't trust those monsters.

All in all, though I'll miss the vocal stylings of American Idol and head shattering percussion of the Lead People, as long as the spiders stay away, I'm very excited about the new place. Stay away from me spiders.

*Live. Thanks to Eric for the e-mail containing a photo of a camel spider from Iraq. That thing was like a freaking lobster and the sight prevented me from eating for an entire day.

Avast, Land Lubbers!

Today be Talk Like A Pirate Day. Go out and get some grog me hearties.

Slide, Slide, Slippity-Slide

Apparently Coolio has been doing what he does just to survive, because today is his birthday. He is 44. I find this amusing because I sincerely thought he was younger, and also because I feel like he shouldn't even have a birthday at all because he doesn't seem like a real person.

I learned this startling piece of information on the Captivate Network, which for the non modern high rise working set, is a news service that appears on tiny screens inside of elevators. It struck me funny that Coolio's birthday was included as a piece of news today: Is today a slow birthday day and that's the only celebrity they could find, or is the programmer stuck in a time warp, still listening to Coolio albums unironically more than halfway through 2007? It's a mystery.

As usual, the best part is the thing that is happening in my head. Because I keep imagining people coming up to Coolio yelling "Happy Birthday!" and reaching to give him a nice birthday hug...but his hair keeps poking everyone in the eye.

Happy birthday, Coolio. I hope you are still having a fantastic voyage through gangster's paradise.

Amberance Is Losing Her Touch

H-Town: yo
me: word
H-Town: what up?
me: just work. you?
H-Town: the same
bored
me: that should have been "just work. et tu?"
H-Town: heh
me: it would have been funnier
H-Town: you failed
way to go, loser
me: NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
H-Town: *ends friendship*

Moderation In All Things...

Except Cheddar Chex Mix, where I am apparently compelled to eat the entire bag.

99 Pink Balloons

I am sick and heavily medicated. Don't judge me.

me: so what was the clown car thing before? is someone having quadruplets or something?
H-town: friends and i were just discussing women who have a lot of babies
it's a vagina, not a clown car
so we laughed at that
me: i love that phrase
H-town: me too
me: i don't want lots of babies. clowns are scary
H-town: true dat
clowns are weird
weird = able to stab people at any time
me: i don't really understand clowns. the only thing is i like the ones that are good at making balloon animals. but i think maybe you don't have to be a clown to learn that
H-town: you don't
me: if i knew how to do that i'd make a bunch of obscene things probably. that's how i roll
H-town: balloon wangs would be easy to make, i'd want to see you make balloon cootchies
that's a challenge
complete with different colored balloons
me: i was thinking a balloon vagina with a bunch of balloon clowns coming out of it
H-town: hahaha
i'd pay you money to make that
me: if i ever learn this craft, that will be my goal

The 2nd Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Today is my half birthday! What is that? It's the day that is exactly 6 months after my last birthday and 6 months before my next one. A sort of birthday equinox if you will. And mine is today.

This may seem silly to you but think about it: am I not a completely silly person? Exactly. Also until recently I was not into my birthday. All through my early 20s I dreaded it. I took to laying in bed all day in a funk, being overly dramatic and complaining: (huge affected sigh) "I don't know WHAT I'm going to do. My life is slipping away, slipping away...." Clearly this was entirely the wrong attitude, so really I NEED to celebrate all my half birthdays to make up for all the ones I missed while I was busy being a miserable person.

Much like on my actual birthday, I am making a huge deal out of it. I sent the following text to a half dozen of my friends just now:

It's my half birthday! Come to Tai's later and watch me bounce off of stuff!

My friends can best be described as tolerant.

I think when I get older I'll start celebrating quarter birthdays as well. If people complain I can look at them gravely and say "You never know when you're going to go." Maybe a bit of a downer, but I'm guessing they will all end up buying me a drink.

Rainbow Brite Revisited

I have received several angry messages from friends due to my sucky posting habits asking for pictures of my new hair, so without further ado I give you...me:





Please note my posed posture and come hither look. This is because Melle secretly wants to be a fashion photographer, also evidenced here:



Descriptions thus far have ranged from "Rainbow Brite had sex with you hair!" to "A gay pride parade threw up on your head":


Personally I enjoy it. Commence with comments from the peanut gallery...now.