desperate housewives

because of my recent move, i had to start over with a new dvr box. i lost the 15+ movies i had recorded and several shows i didn't get to see since i was working crazy hours that last week in ny. usually when i have nothing to do, i'll watch whatever saved shows or movies i have. i rarely watched live tv. i don't really know what to do when i have to sit through commercial breaks. i never really used the hundreds of channels i had because i always had something prerecorded to get by on. however, the new dvr put an end to that.

not only was i starting with a clean slate, i had also recently begun a new way of life in which i don't waste time on things i don't really care about. i cut the amount of tv shows i tried to watch weekly by a pretty good percentage. now the only shows i watch are the ones i can't wait to see. because of this, usually everything i record nightly gets watched that night. sometimes i'll save a show or two to get me through the next day, but no longer will i have a backup of 60+ shows. literally that will no longer happen because my current dvr has about 25% capacity that my last did. so that also keeps me in check.

anyway, all of this preface is to get to this show i recently discovered since i have been forced to watch tv live these days. i remember someone once mentioning it in passing (christine maybe?), so when i was bored and flipping through the guide a while ago, i decided to give it a shot. The show, called "Snapped", is about normal, everyday women that one day SNAP and KILL...usually their husbands. it's kind of fascinating, if unnecessarily graphic at times, to watch these stories. especially when you take into consideration the yarns these women spin to make it seem like the death was "an accident" or "a surprise".

that first night i discovered it, i think they played three episodes in a row (some are half an hour, others are an hour long). whenever i found myself searching through the guide, i found that i would usually put it on Snapped if it was on. and it was on a lot. then, about a week ago, they had a snapped marathon. all day, all snapped. i thought to myself "damn, where'd they find all these killer womenz?" again today, i find myself watching a mini marathon of snapped episodes and what comes on but a commercial for the new year's eve Snappedfest -- another full day marathon of Snapped episodes. this started to concern me when i realized that this show isn't on the True Crime channel or A&E like i thought, but actually on Oxygen. is it a little disconcerting to anyone else that the channel that caters mostly to housewives is CONSTANTLY playing a show about how women killed their husbands and almost got away with it?

greetings from the wasteland

in my thorough investigation of the internets, i have left many an abandoned site username in my wake. usually i really don't sign up for accounts for things unless i know i'm going to use it (or unless it seems like it's something i have to do for whatever i'm trying to get accomplished in that minute). recently, i've realized just how long and random that trail is. various websites like knockknock (which i signed up for to buy my brother an awesome set of novelty cards that were never delivered), world of pop (when i was really into entertainment weekly/vh1's pop culture trivia contests), and emode (we all did those quizzes to pass the time) all have logins attributed to one of my emails even though i haven't been to those sites in years. then there are the sites i used to be on religiously, like friendster, that i should really just close out instead of leaving loose web ends.

one such site is of course myspace. i used to be a strong myspace defender (over facebook) until facebook finally won me over. the sparkly holiday banners and random gifs would almost result in epileptic seizures if i didn't close the window quick enough. but the account is still there because there are some people (...musicians...) who insist on continuing to use it, so i keep it open just in case. i usually hate signing on even just to reject friend requests because in the five minutes you are signed on, you get five more random friend requests. but alas, one of those aforementioned musician friends recently sent me a message telling me he misses me, so i had to sign on in to respond.

i was able to make a quick getaway once the message was responded to, but not before seeing another message. this message was not from anyone i've ever known. the contents of the message were thus:

"we should makeout. lol."


i think...first of all...if you are going to be so bold as to message a random stranger proposing a makeout, you should own it completely and not second guess yourself with an lol. second of all, people need to stop just putting lol after sentences. i went to the store lol! i bought some milk lol! the expiration date is in a week and a half lol!! and third of all...whaaaaatt?

santas all around

can you imagine being an old white man whose personal preference is the full-bodied beard? this look -- old man with beard -- is a pretty basic non-fancy look to sport, but if you are fat and your hair is white, you are automatically santa. even if you are just trying to live your life, you are santa. so, are these guys that choose to rock a full, snowy white beard in their twilight years doing so with full knowledge and not a care in the world that they are rocking the santa look? does it even cross their minds? do they know that i grew up in hawaii, so even if it is not wintertime and i see an old red-faced man with white hair and a white beard wearing a flower print shirt and some khaki shorts it makes me think "HAWAIIAN SANTA!!!"?

phone conversations with my mother

me: today is bianca's birthday.
mom: how old is she?
me: um...let's see, i'm 27--
mom: --YOU'RE 27?! i thought you were--- someone just asked me how old you were and i told them 26 but then i was like 'maybe she's 25'.
me: ...
mom: i can't believe you're 27. you're old!
me: ...and ricky's 30, so that means bianca is 29.




is this endearing or should i worry that my mother is losing it?

wtf?

Box of Doom

I'm watching arrested development as I unpack and it may be one of the best ideas I've ever had. The episode that's playing while I tackle the kitchen is the one in which Lucille crashed the car, but put Michael in the driver's seat to make it look like it was his fault. And they keep mentioning that a bump in the back of the head causes short-term memory loss.

This reminds me (but vaguely and fuzzily) about a tidbit from that car accident I was in several years ago. I remember trying to deduce what caused my head injury. And since I was wading through some pretty severe short term memory loss of my own, this was like a fun game of Clue.

The evidence I had were my busted sunglasses, bent on one side (but not the side the window was on), the book en espanol I was reading on the journey, cover now torn, and the lunchbox. Ah, the lunchbox. One of those harmless 80's plastic boxes that came with matching thermos. That lunchbox was residing on the space over the shoulders of the backseat. And since my seatmate got the force of the rear windshield in her back upon impact, I'm assuming that I got the force of the 'box nailed into the back of my noggin. The lunchbox contained our first aid kit. Between that and how the seatbelt-wearing may have screwed my back up for life, I'm beginning to lose my trust in safety.


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I promise I'm not a threat

This week I drove about 2,500 miles around the country with my bestie without incident (well...one very very minor incident). No speeding tickets, no crashes, no murdered animals (though an idiot possum nearly lost his life to our front left tire), no gas station abductions in Mississippi. Then David headed on his way back to New York and I on my 500 mile solo journey from oklahoma back to Austin. And on my first full day with my brand new car, I got pulled over by a texas state trooper.

Now before you have a heart attack, I wasn't speeding. However, in my twelve years of driving, I have never been pulled over. Not in Hawaii, not when I was manhandling fifteen passenger vans in New York...never. So I was cursing myself out even though I knew that I wasn't speeding. Well, as it turns out, I better brush up on my Texas state driving handbook before getting a Texas license because I was pulled over for a rule I didn't know about -- not moving to the left lane when passing a cop who has pulled over somebody else. I even ALMOST did this. I considered moving to the left as I laughed at the guy who was probably pulled over for speeding, but I was in an area littered with signs saying the left lane was for passing only and didn't want the patrolman to get me for being in the wrong lane. Dummy.

The patrolman was very nice, he explained why he pulled me over and I very innocently told him I had just moved here and was unfamiliar with that particular law. He asked where I moved from and I told him New York. "New York? Not Oklahoma?" he says. My plates that I had just gotten earlier in the day were Oklahoma plates. "Well, my dad lives in oklahoma, and he got me this car." He asked where I was headed and I told him austin. He asked if I was a student and I said no. He then asked for my insurance card and license. This is when I hand over my Hawaii driver's license, to which he exclaims "Hawaii?!". Great, I have now given this guy four different places where I am supposedly from. I'm surprised he didn't cuff me right there for being shifty. We make more conversation about how my life journey has taken me these places and then he tells me he's going to let me off with a warning. Luv him.

So, for my first cop experience, I think it was as painless as it could have been. However, it was pretty much the least bad ass thing I could've been pulled over for, and may ruin my street cred. Also, I really think the only reason he was able to catch up with me was because the car my dad bought me is fire engine red which just screams "I dare you to find me again, oh wait I'm right here."

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Jitters

I'm two-thirds of the way through
my transition from New York to Austin and it's weirding me out how eerily calm I am about this. The day I left my college after graduation I cried the whole half hour drive to the hotel, then continued to cry in my mother's lap the rest of the night, falling asleep there like a big pussy. I was expecting probably something similar or a little more mature this time. After all, everything I know and love - aside from my family and my homestate - is in New York. To be honest, there was one night I had a soft cry and I'll leave you all to think it was the night I hung out with you that that happened (but really it was the night I hung out with you). Other than that, I'm aware that I'm sad about leaving a list of things, but it's been pretty okay. Every once in a while when I'm the one driving I kind of realize I'm not going back to New York and I panic a little. I'm still expecting it to sink in more eventually, but I also feel like all signs point to me making the right decision here.

Weird. Sorry. I'll try not to do more serious times here.

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I'll treat you right

I know I've been super absent recently. I'm in the middle of moving my entire life halfway across the country and working full-time and trying to say goodbyes and clear my dvr but gah! there's not enough time. I did get this handy blogger app for my phone, which I didn't know existed until recently, so I'll try to be better. I'll treat you right babies. Just wait for me.



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my chariot awaits

Meet my new car! Ain't she (or he) kyeut?



this baby is currently chilling in Oklahoma waiting to carry me the last leg of my NY to Austin road trip and she is sitting there without a name.

I always figured I'd probably want to name a car, but never actually thought I'd have to do it. I've never been good at naming. I was a joint contributor for beagle Ben and cat Einstein, but other animals were named by others. Beyond that, I've named a few iPods-- two of which have the same name (albeit separated by a II) and I have one name prepared for a daughter (I'm screwed beyond that).

I considered not naming it because, well...you know it doesn't really need one...but it wouldn't be polite to get inside this lady without knowing her name first. ifyouknowwhatimean.

SO I thought I'd get someone else to name it in our first ever Car Naming Contest!!!!! Enter by submitting your suggestion in the comments (duh). Enter as many names as you want. If somebody else doesn't pick this car's name, I'll probably end up calling it Putt Putt. Whoever wins gets the first makeout with me in the backseat, (unless we are related..then i will select a different prize) but your trip to Texas is at your own expense.

paper bag chronicles

alright guys. here's the deal. this is the 700th post (wee!) and sadly, i think it's been at least a hundy since we've seen becca around these parts. i had this big plan for the 700th post, but it might take a little more time than i originally thought. and sometimes i can't say all i need to say in a 140 character tweet. and shit, i got stories to tell. so whenever the original 700th post ends up happening, we'll make a big deal of it. cool?

even though i'm not as hardcore as some of the other earth lovers out there, i do my best to cut my waste down. i recycle and reuse stuff as much as i can. whenever i go to the grocery store, i take a plastic bag full of plastic bags to deposit in their handy little plastic bag recycler. my point is, i make an effort.

this job that i started two and a half weeks ago (and any production job, really) gives me enough financial comfort where i feel i can do things like, say, eat breakfast. so on my way in, i get a fried egg and cheese (and turkey bacon, bitches!!) or a lil yogurt/granoley, or some sort of cream cheese doohicky, and every time they give me a bag. they are too quick for me to turn it down. the same thing happens at lunch. so i'm getting all these bags, and i don't want to throw them away. they're perfectly good bags. i can save them for when i have kids that are old enough that i need to pack their lunches in brown bags. (you think i'm kidding. you don't know how much stuff i save 'just in case' my future kids need it.) so i started saving these brown bags on the corner of my desk.

before i go on, let me drop some info bombs on y'all. i sit on the farthest side of the office, with a luxury bathroom view. every time someone needs to use the toilet, they need to pass me. (and everytime they need to drop a deuce, i get the first air freshener whiff.) also, every time they pass my computer, there's a good chance they get a glimpse of something i'm researching for work, which in these past few weeks have included photos of lynchings. add to this loner skinhead status that belch that i forgot to put the silencer on for, plus my corner stack of paper bags and i'm probably quite the weirdo.

my original goal in saving the first 5 or so bags was to take them out with me and just offer them to reuse instead of being given a new one. this method was problematic for several reasons. number one -- bags on the corner of my desk don't help when i'm getting breakfast on my way into the office. number two - when i would go out for lunch, i would take only my phone and my wallet, and would constantly forget to bring a bag with me. ONCE. once i remembered and i felt like the greatest little earth saver.

this brings us to today. today i felt like i wanted to make extra effort to make my bag dreams come true. i had even remembered to put a handful (i probably have about twenty at this point) in my bag so that i would have something for the way in. well, missed my shot at breakfast time because i skipped that meal today. as i'm leaving to get lunch, i surprise myself and remember to take my shoulder bag with me, knowing that i just put brown bags in it the night before. i head out and pick up a sandwich. the lady offers me a bag and i say 'no thank you! i came packing'. i grab my shit and turn around to pull out a little bag and see that my bag is empty. in all my wisdom, i took the handful of bags out at my apartment last night (i guess to put them in the Future Children's Belongings pile). so i just shove the sandwich in my shoulder bag and head to a bodega to get a beverage.
as i'm pulling change out of my pocket to pay for the chicka cherry cola, the too fast for me bodega lady has already slid my bottle into a bag and moved on to the next. why i didn't just give the bag back, we'll never know. but i took it. so on a journey that i should've had negative bags, i STILL ended up with one extra.

oh also, another time i had gotten some turkey chili and the girl offered a bag. i said no and she was all 'it's really hot. you're gonna need a bag'. why is the world against me saving it?!?!

Twitter Me This

Well now I've gone and done it. I finally caved to the pressures of society and this ever-changing internet universe and gotten myself a twitter account. i have spent weeks agonizing with this decision, and i figured i was going to do it at some point, might as well just git 'er done. so, i've rationalized it in as many ways as i can think of. i am approaching it not as a way to tell everyone about every aspect of my personal business, but more as an outlet for things i don't feel like writing an entire 140+ character blog about. also, next week i'm going to try an experiment of sorts. Instead of the Reality Corner recaps, I'm going to instead try live "twittering" ("tweeting"? i don't know the lingo yet. call me an old lady, but i actually watched their how-to video. i didn't want to come off as "uncool" to the "twittering masses"). Next week's Top Model will be the guinea pig. so if you're on and interested, you can follow me @pudepaw. there's also a little box on the right side of this blog with recent tweets if you don't feel like signing up.

also, a side note. there might be a little bit of a delay in posting for a little while. i'm trying to coordinate something to happen, i just don't know exactly when it will. so, if you need your fix, twitter will probably be your best bet for now.

the next tom selleck

do you know how our moms would always ooh and aah over tom selleck and 'oh that mustache' and 'he's so handsome' and 'mmm chest hair' about him? and like, growing up, we kind of got it, but not totally because he was old and hairy? or sean connery for the moms before that? man, i think george clooney is totally going to be that for our kids. because we all know he's so hot and dashing, but i saw some pictures of him today where he looked kind of older than he is in a couple of them (especially with that busted up hand), and i could foresee children of the future thinking "hmm, maybe i get it, but he's kind of old and silvery."

picture story!!!

once upon a time, i payed my gas bill. a couple weeks later, i got this in the mail:





Suspicious by the handwritten address, I hastily opened up the letter. Inside, I found the following pieces:




The letter thanked me for my recent payment, but expressed regret that they could not cash my check because of... and the (check here) that was marked was "Damaged by Post Office". Sure enough, there was what looked like my mailing nestled inside a larger US Post Office Envelope. I pulled out the contents:




and found what the gas company had received:



don't you wonder what the post office did that devoured three-quarters of my check? also, national grid is the only one of my bills that requires no postage when mailing it in, but the replacement envelope they sent DOES require postage. DAMMIT!!! i should sue the post office for 44 cents. Is that what it is these days?

Tales of Brooklyn Wooing: Gyro King

i know this is something i've pondered before, but i really do wonder about certain dudes' methods of trying to pick someone up. if you need me to get into specifics, i did so here. catch up if you need to and come back to me.

i went into my fave kensington 24 hr gyro place since i worked late today and had nothing defrosted to cook. as soon as i walk in, a male customer lets out an excited yell. i figure he was as thrilled as i was about the gyros. i walk up to the counter and greet the two friendly workers that are always there (any day, any hour...when do they sleep!?) the one worker that i normally converse with was all "the usual?" and i was all 'Oh Roger*, you know me so well'. (Note: his name isn't roger and really i just said "yes"). then some guy who i had heard yelling in the bathroom comes lumbering out. the first yelling guy scurries up to him, says something to him and gestures to me, to which the lumberer responds with "WHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! how are YOU doing?!" so now i'm uncomfortable because two random dudes are screaming at the sight of me. between the two of them, they are saying random things about how good i look blah blah blah, at which point my dear friend, roger** (**again, not his name) asks them to stop because i am a very good customer. i kind of fell in love with roger for defending my honor here. then i kind of just ignore this guy and watch the other worker put together my gyro. Lumberer responds to this as "man, why you gotta do that? it's not like the ghetto. it's not like i was all 'yo ma, looking good baby.'

ok, seriously? number one - seriously? number two - i don't know where this kid lives, but ghetto or no, anywhere i go in the city there is a good chance someone will say "yo ma, looking good baby" and third...wouldn't you say screaming "WHOOOOOOOOO!!!! how are YOU doing?!" is pretty equivalent to this "ghetto" example? i mean, seriously. then this lumberer is still rambling on about this and is finally like 'i'm just a guy, wanting to say hi, see how you're doing. i may be a little drunk, but...' at this point i was like 'yes, i can tell you are drunk.' i paid for my sandwich, and in my haste to grab my free soda ($4.00 meal deal!) and get the eff outta there i FORGOT to tip roger!! i ALWAYS tip him, and out of all the times to forget to tip him, it had to be the time that he was my hero! i considered going back to give him the tip, but i was worried the two drunkos would take that as a sign that i wanted to see them again.

the sad thing is that i bet mr. lumberer gets more action than i do. i guess i'm just picky.

the girl with the face

the other day, i was asking a fellow boxing class member about the whereabouts of a third class member. i asked for the third by name, and the girl i was asking had a confused look on her face and asked who i was talking about. i started to say something descriptive, when the girl i was conversing with cut in with "oh! is she the one with the..." and then made a general hand gesture around her face. my response was "yes, her", even though i don't really know what she meant by that.

protect the eyes!!

Nothing like shards of glass flying towards your face to let you know you're back in new york. I was headed to my local Vietnamese sandwich place for some delicious lunch and refreshing lychee boba tea when I was nearly split into chunks by flying pieces of a broken snapple bottle. Someone had descended the stairs into the subway and for some reason tossed this already shattered bottle back up the stairs with excessive force. I had been just turning the corner approaching this stairway (the sandwich place is just past the subway entrance) when I was greeted with these flying shards. There was no warning, just near death/blindness. Gotta love NYC.

flirting and cleavage

tips in the shoppe have been a little lower than norm in the past month or so. i blame it on summer break -- we have no after school rush. it's great to be mostly kid-free, but it also slows down the tip jar. i have recently come up with a master plan; a double attack strategy to coax out the dollars (or cents. i'll take cents. they add up.)

step one - cut a hole in a box. oh wait. no not that plan. step one - maximum cleavage. before i leave the house, i do the bend check. since i do a lot of leaning over and bending in the shop, i try to make sure that you can't see my belly button through my neckline when i do so. anything else goes. i also try and factor in other people's height, so it doesn't get too scandalous for the work place, but that's kind of difficult seeing as 86%* of the world is taller than i.

step two - flirt city. i used to think that i never flirted with anybody. then one day i realized that it was kind of more like i flirted with everybody. so, to a certain extent, i use this in Operation Tip Jar. and by "to a certain extent" i mean "mainly with hot people". not that i think hot people will tip me more, i just hate writing checks i'd rather not cash ifyouknowwhatimean. and also, i have a tendency to pick up stalkers just by being friendly. who knows what trouble i could get myself into†.

anyway, on that rather superficial note-- a short anecdote from the day's cookie hustle:

i received a call at the shoppe, and answered with my standard greeting, "Ye Olde Shoppe, this is Sara"^. the voice on the other end said "Hi, Sara", proceeded to ask me to put aside some whoopie pies under the name Keri, and said that she'd be by in about 20 minutes to pick them up. I put the cookies aside for her and then kind of forgot about it. I started in on my closing duties, occasionally interrupted by a customer or two, but nobody i could be super friendly with because i'm getting only older or underaged, gay and/or married. as i'm finishing up with a man and his two (not underaged, but probably not old enough) kids, the front entrance bell rings. i quickly glance over, notice what seems to be a very pretty lady, and then turn back to the man. as i'm saying my standard "thanks" and "have a good one", my brain is like 'umm...pretty sure that pretty lady is keri russell'. so then i turn to the lady that just entered, and it is indeed her. she says "hi, i'm keri." and my mind says "i know this, but why are you telling me?" she then proceeds to say that she called a little while ago about the whoopie pies. oh! it all comes together.

anyway, the whole point of this story is that now i can totally tell everyone that i've had a phone conversation with keri russell.






*rough estimate
†this implies that no hot people are stalkers. i like to believe this is true, even though i know from experience that it isn't
^may vary slightly from my standard greeting

latte art

no matter how hard i try-- how many times i practice, how many videos i watch, how many times i watch someone else do it -- i cannot for the life of me make a damn leaf in a cup of coffee. my shoppe doesn't require that we are arteests with our steamed milk...it's not like i'm going to get fired for not ever being able to produce a leaf...but i think it would be a neat skill to break out at parties. coffee parties.

even though i know i can't make a leaf, every time i make a latte, i try. i do exactly what those videos and the real people told me to do, hoping the leaf will one day show up. since this never happens, i kind of just get creative at the end of the milk pour and freehand a design. it's edgier than a leaf. so there. once i accidentally made a happy face. usually, i like to guess what i've made. a rabbit on the run, a duck, a cloud. one time, my freehand design looked like a vag painting. so i joked to my coworker that it was the georgia o'keefe special.

unfortunately, all my freehand modern art latte designs are one of a kind, and can't be recreated. this was most unfortunate later in the day, when christine marinoni came into the shop (presumably to buy a nice treat for her lady). as was pointed out by the aforementioned coworker, had i been able to do it again, i could've confidently (and appropriately) (or...inappropriately) offered her the GO'K spesh.

the robots will destroy us

guys, something crazy just happened to me. but let me take you back a few weeks to when i was just a girl with a regular ol' flip phone talking to her mother. my mom's friend had just been showing her iphone off to my mother, and all the fancy new york specific apps she had gotten for her recent trip here. i, of course, had always wanted one, but the truth was, i liked my phone, there was nothing wrong with it, and i don't really have expendable income. but when my mom brought it up, i took it a step further and researched it. it turns out i was due for an upgrade, so i went for it and joined the world of smartphone users.

i can already tell having this thing is making me a more efficient person. i have train timetables and i can access my schedule really quickly. I am used to keeping a sole wall calendar in my bedroom where i write in all my doings, so whenever someone wanted to hang out, i'd have to be all "i'll get back to you after i check my calendar. which i have to go home to do." i have never been able to keep up with the electronic updating required of iCal or my gmail calendar. but now...it all syncs! anyway, this isn't a smartphone commercial, i'm just trying to paint a picture here. i can check my email on my phone, and this prompted me to finally marry my hotmail and gmail accounts. before, i would spend an hour after work checking my reader and email, but now i can do it all...when the fuck ever!

so yes, with this extra efficiency and large amount of free time i now have, i have been inspired plow through my to do lists. plural. because i can't keep just one. i start one in one room, another on my desk, another in my mind. so then i got this great idea to add these all to one Epic To-Do list using the Notes function of my phone. (what a difference a qwerty keyboard makes. Eff you T9!!) i loaded it up for the first time, and started a new note. whence i finished, i noticed there was another note there from april of like 2008. i was all, maybe this is a factory installed note example. but weird that it's from so long ago. then, i click on the note.

this note was a note that i had indeed authored in april of 2008. it was from back when i was still doing the weekly roundups here on the blog (back when there were enough weekly posts to do this). it was just a draft of a roundup. a sentence and a link, a sentence and a link. BUT HOW DID MY PHONE GET IT?!?!

i do remember writing one note once in my email program. i use gmail, but i check it through Mail on my computer. So i was like, oh maybe it just synced. That's cool. But when i checked the notes folder on Mail, IT WASN'T THERE! i had, in fact, deleted it a while ago, as i thought i had. OMG HOW DID MY PHONE GET IT BIG BROTHER BIG BROTHER ARJIWAO;FJINAEO;AWEOWR;MJEW

Birthday times!!

Happy 30th to my big brother!! by now we should all know that if I make a birthday video, expect whatever is coming in the mail to be tardy!! hooray!!



and now i've officially wished my brother a happy birthday every place that i could. yay, ricky!!

fun with voicemail

when i record my outgoing voicemail message, i usually try to make it clever or entertaining in some way that will also get me a message that is clever or entertaining. i started doing this a couple phones ago (it's weird to me that i'm on my fifth phone, fourth if you don't count the tracfone that was my first cellular device once i upgraded from a beeper) because even though i would say my name in my outgoing message, i would still get all sorts of wrong numbers that would leave messages anyway. i once got a message that was like "Carol! I'm downstairs waiting for you!" if you hear a voicemail that's all "this is sara, leave a message"...would you go on to leave a message for carol? this guy did. and many others did for many others.

thus, one of my first non-standard outgoing greetings went something like "this is sara, leave a message. if you are not calling for sara, don't leave a message, because i don't know who you are and i won't call you back." that actually worked, and i don't think i got any misdirected voicemails. but then, that phone lived its life and i had to get a new one. i attempted to recreate the outgoing message, but it felt forced, and i had to go back to the drawing board.

another of my favorite outgoing messages was the one challenging callers to leave the best voicemail, and stating that only the caller who left the best voicemail would get a call back. (it was a bluff, i called everyone back) i got a lot of hilarious voicemails and songs out of that one, and i also got a lot of people getting nervous at the challenge and just rambling about how they couldn't think of something awesome to say but please call them back.

so this brings me now to the new phone i got just a couple weeks ago. sadly, i had to say goodbye to the Best Voicemail Competition (with fears that recreation would again feel forced). i think what i have now just very basically asks people calling me to leave a pleasant or hilarious message, since i love being entertained and/or pleased. i just got a phone call from a number i didn't recognize (aka a phone call that goes straight to voicemail). here is a transcript of the message i got:

"umm, hello, i think i've called the wrong number. i don't know if that's pleasant or hilarious, but...there it is. (laughs) ok. bye."

everyone wins!! he left a message, so i'm not left wondering who the eff in the catskills just called me. he was aware that i was not the intended party, but he abided by my voicemail rules! and i DID find it hilarious! should i call him back and ask him to marry me?

the alarm who cried wolf

does anyone ever really pay attention to alarms anymore? i'm not talking about alarms you wake up to, i'm talking about fire alarms, car alarms, etc. i feel like we're all so used to false alarms, that our immediate reaction is to do nothing. a fire alarm has gone off in my building a few times since i've lived here. i react in this order:

1) hear the alarm, think about how annoying it is.
2) if the alarm has gone on for more than a few minutes, look out the peephole to see if anyone else is fleeing
3) if no one is fleeing, continue as i was

one time, about a month after i moved to this building, i smelled smoke. it was strong enough that i did about three thorough checks in my apartment to make sure it was nothing of mine that had burst into flames. i looked out the peephole, and things looked foggy, like maybe my peephole was dirty, but no one seemed to be fleeing. a few minutes later, the firetruck came. when i opened the door, the "dirty peephole" actually turned out to be smoke filled halls. the firemen were giving the all clear, so i went back into my abode. i later found out that the people in the apartment directly below me had fallen asleep after putting boiling water on the stove. the alarm never went off in this situation.

anyway, i was reminded of this because i was changing me clothes at the gym today and an alarm went off in the girls' locker room. there were three others in the locker room with me and i heard someone in one of the showers. no one flinched or made any effort to vacate. not even i. and when you think about how often car alarms go off at the slam of a door, or when a motorcycle drives past...does anybody actually react when a car is actually being stolen? are these alarms, for the most part useless...or should we all start reacting like it's the real thing every time?

letters to the world

dear newspaper seller on the sidewalk --

i understand you are tired from sitting around all day on a sidewalk trying to sell that big stack of newspapers in front of you, but might i suggest that you not fall asleep sitting over the newspapers with a lit cigarette hanging out of your hand.

sincerely,
sara




dear subway cat --

you are very cute and it breaks my heart everytime i see you wandering around my subway station. at the same time, my heart leaps when i see you, knowing you haven't been flattened by the F. you are supposed to be white and grey, but you are dirty grey and grey. please be careful out there. you are looking thin.

love,
sara

let's talk about sex...ual harassment

i have had quite the evening. i guess there are three different phases to this story, so i will start off with the first and least offensive. (and trust, this train goes to offensive city and beyond.)

i was walking from my place of part-time employment to a friend's birthday gathering. i'm walking with an umbrella because it is raining (though as i walk it's slowly letting up) and i am walking, as always, with my headphones firmly planted in my ears. (***complete side note -- i was looking for a past post to reference here, because i could've sworn i wrote something in the "tales of wooing" series about how i make a point to wear headphones always [even if my battery has died] so as to send the message that i am not interested in talking to you. so i did a half-assed blog search for "ipod" and then "woo me". alas, i didn't find the post i was looking for, but in both of those searches there were posts that i'd forgotten i'd written and giggled at. that's right. i laughed at my own jokes.***)

so ok, i'm walking, headphones, umbrella. out of the corner of my eye, i see a shady looking dude in a grey hoodie cross the street towards me and start walking right next to me at my pace. i speed up to get ahead of him, and he speeds up to keep up. then he starts talking. i have not acknowledged him at all at this point. he says hi. throws his best lines out. reads off the patch on my jacket arm that says "for successful living" and then follows up with "what the fuck is that?". i continue walking without acknowledging him because i'm trying to send the message to all the lowlifes in the world that if a girl has headphones in her ear, she doesn't want to be talked to nor can she 'hear' you. so then he's all "it's not even raining anymore." he then changes tactic and starts speaking spanish. he says "my family has lived here thirty years, how about you?" i keep walking. he is still next to me, though i've been speeding up and slowing down. then he says "are you muslim? you can't talk to guys or something?' LIKE FUCKING TAKE A HINT DUDE. i find an opportunity to break into a fast walk and leave him in my dust.

i hang out at my friend's gathering. everything is wonderful. i head out because i'm already at my pumpkin time and must head to the train. i stand on the side of the platform that my exit will be at, and prepare for a lengthy wait. after about a minute i see a guy probably in his 20's approaching. he's making some motion with his hand and i don't think anything of it. then he is much closer. and his penis is in his hand. and he is fucking. masturbating. whilst walking toward me on the subway platform. so i immediately look straight ahead and walk closer to the center of the platform where there are some other people. the whole time i'm waiting for the train (which actually wasn't that bad considering the time) i'm looking left for the train, right to make sure masturbating manny isn't headed back my way (he walked right past me initially, so it wasn't like he was coming towards me. [no pun intended. i didn't catch that piece of genius until i was rereading through this]). a train starts to come. and OF COURSE it's the fucking G train. UGH! the g train. my nemesis. ruins everything! then out of my right side, i see a guy in a cap and jacket heading back toward me. i'm pretty sure it's masturbating manny, but i didn't really look at him too clearly initially, so it could be a different guy in a cap and jacket. he seems to look at me, so i move a couple columns closer to the center. he follows. i'm like fucking great. i move closer to some bigger, friendly looking dudes and then lucky for me the train comes.

i make a point to be far enough away from this guy that i'm in a completely different car and he can't see where i get off. i walk onto the subway car making sure no eyes are following me and the first thing i see is a fucking pile of shit-looking vomit on the seat in front of me. awesome. i take a sharp left and find a seat.

when the train pulls in to my stop and i get out, i'm in the middle of the platform. i always ride at the front of the train, since that's next to my exit, so i now have to walk back toward the front. i notice an asian man probably in his 40's or 50's get out of the same car as i. he's walking ahead of me, but i pass him with a swift walk because i just want to get home. and here it starts again. i don't know if somebody sprayed me with pheromones today or something -- and might i just take this moment to point out that on the Sara Hotness Scale (the hottest i can look is a 10, the homeliest a 1), i was probably rockin' a five or six today. nothing special. yeah, i had on a boob shirt, but i also had my jacket zipped up literally to my chin. i'm wearing jeans and pumas. my hair is in a ponytail, my bangs are clipped back, and i have a fuzzy hair halo that the humidity has been so lovely as to gift me with...so let's just keep this in mind here.

so this guy pulls the same thing as the first guy, nicely bookending my night. he picks up his pace to walk near me. i hear him saying words, but i don't know what he's saying. then he starts speaking in his language, but again, even though my ipod has died at this point, i am ignoring him. headphones on, sara closed. then he starts whistling. he rotates these three things -- random english words, something in his language, whistles -- as though he were doing reps in a gym. i have picked up my pace and am walking a good distance in front of him. i take this opportunity to grasp my umbrella in my right hand. i can deliver a stronger umbrella blow with this arm, and it also leaves me free to break out my killer left hook. seriously. i am waiting to punch someone and this guy i think is asking for it. you'll see.

he somehow catches up to me (i think i slowed again once i thought i'd lost him). he crosses in front of me so that i have no choice but to acknowledge his presence. he gives me a big smile and a big thumbs up. i kind of laugh at him and nod, like, 'great'. then i keep walking. he motions at me again, and gives more thumbs up. a double this time. and i just look away this time. he motions for me to take my headphones off and i put on my bitch face, take off one earphone and say "what." he asks me how old i am. i have hit stairs at this point and jog up them ahead of him. he jogs up behind me and then says the following fucking words to me:

"Two hundred? Two hundred dollar??"

i give him the meanest bitch face i can muster, tell him "i don't know what the fuck you're talking about" and leave him in my dust.

guys. seriously this actually happened to me. !

potato in my pocket

i think i just had my first "potato in my pocket" moment. a friend of mine once told me her father's harrowing tale of having to walk miles to school in the snow with only a baked potato in his pocket to keep him warm. or something.

anywho, that microsoft commercial came on where a boy and his mother are told that if they find any laptop they like under $1500, that computer is theirs (plus maybe any leftover cash? i don't know, i ff through commercials usually). after much ballyhoo, the boy chooses PC over Mac and then he's all "I'm a PC and I'm 11" and his mom is all "I'm not".

it was here i thought "Yeah, right. My kid isn't getting his own laptop at age 11. When I was a kid, we had one shared desktop (Apple all the way) that was kept in a public space (living room). IM-ing was IRC chatting, which, with dial-up modems, would only hook up about 38% of the time." then i realized what a geezer i was being and decided to be a cool parent and go with the technology flow. and then i realized that i'm single and by the time i decide i'm ready to mate, i will probably have already created a perfect little robot child.

diner hours

i'm a big fan of the neighborhood i live in. my one complaint would be that there are not a lot of places to order food from (that i know of). i've got my standard three asian places (thai, japanese, chinese), and a pretty great pizza place. also, if i feel like going for a little bit of a walk (and if i'm in the rare mood for fast food), there's a kfc and a burger king that could satisfy those needs. but the one thing i've really wanted these past two years is a good burger. i know where i can get good burgers, but they are all a subway ride away...and i usually like to eat in the comfort of my own home, where i can forego pants.

so finally, a couple weeks ago, i see a menu for a diner at my door. aha! well, it might not be a great burger, but it will probably be a decent cheap one. i file the menu away for later experimentation. (also, side note -- it turns out this diner is just two blocks from me. i don't know if it's new, or if i'm only noticing it because now i have a menu).

so i'm in my bare fridge days. and i went straight from boxing to work today (meaning i had a fruit smoothie thing for lunch instead of real food), so i was pretty hungry when i got home. all day long, i was dreaming of what i might eat and i thought "hey! maybe i'll try a burger from that diner!" i check out the menu, and they have what they call a "mexican burger" which has cheddar, mushrooms, and avocado. in name and in ingredients, this burger was made for me. i salivate at the thought of this, and call the diner up at approximately 8pm. a lady answers the phone and i ask if i can make an order for delivery. "Oh, I'm sorry...We're closed" is the response i get. so A) why answer the phone?!? and B) now all i want is a mexican burger and i can't have it.

i flip to the front of the menu to check out their hours, and this is what it says:

Monday - Sunday
6am to Closing

i mean...what am i supposed to do with that? WHAT TIME IS CLOSING?!

SRC: ANTM12 - wanna teyon(a) top

previously: celia was all old and shit. three bitches remain. na na na na na na.

side note -- as y'all know, i hand write my recaps, and i watched this episode last weekend after i had messed my wrist up in boxing. so i wrote it all with my left hand, and i'd just like to say that my left-hand writing is not bad. i'd say it's equivelent to the penmanship of a thirteen year old boy.

the girls get their scripts for their covergirl commercials and photo shoots. allison looks scared and lonely. aminat does a decent job. allison fucks up, but eventually comes through. teyona's nerves get to her and it seems like she might be crashing and burning. she cries, but she looks pretty crying. she does seem to recover a little, though.

panel! man, i forget how quickly the last episode moves. especially in a season that lasts forever. as soon as the top 2 are chosen, they will go to their seventeen cover try. teyona gets called out for her nerves, but her photo is gorge. allison's commerical was decent -- almost there and her voice was expressive. tyra was impressed with allison's photo shoot. aminat probably has the best commercial, though again, her photos fall short.

wouldn't it be funny if the runway show these my life as a covergirls were leading up to for mckey was just the finale show??

a decision has been reached. first called is allison (!). teyona and aminat are called down. i mean this is pretty obvious, right? right. teyona is still in it. farewell aminat, you were a stunning bitch.

allison and teyona are whisked away to (ugh) effing shoket. she stupidly says some stupid lines, the girls take some photos, and then we are sent to the rosa cha fashion show. has allison had a chance to practice her walk?

the girls are wearing tiny, shiny top hats. it's adorbs. mckey still walks lopsided. allison apparently has been practicing. these brazilian chicks are hottt. this show is crazy...there are feathers and headdresses and black oil and sexual floor sliding. teyona loses her weave. allison loses her innocence.

final panel. do you think tyra tries to look like the evil witches and queens from disney movies? since the show was bikinis, these poor girls must have their final judgment whilst wearing those bikinis. allison surprised everyone by showing improvement in her walk. teyona pleased the judges as expected. photos are compared. the two seem to get equal praise. so, who's it gonna be? (are we still pretending we haven't know this since episode 2?)

the judges deliberate. allison exceeded expectations. teyona only just met hers. other pros and cons are listed. a decision has been reached. tyra says they are the two strongest in the competition, but one has a little more. and that person is teyona. we all saw this coming, but i ain't mad at it. i probably would've been okay with either winning. though maybe allison would've found a way to make her my life as a covergirls interesting and weird.

letter to american idol

dear ryan seacrest, you idiot --

you can't address those of us that watch your show dvr'd -- telling us to prepare for the show to run long and to schedule our recordings accordingly -- during the effing broadcast of the show. do you know why, twinkleberry? because we won't see that warning until we are watching the show after we get home from work, at 11:00, when it's too late to adjust our effing recording accordingly.

love,

smm

[update: Dear Ryan Seacrest, you smart and handsome man --

Upon reflection, I've realized that you, in your infinite wisdom, were probably giving us a warning for tomorrow night's show, in which case, your warning during tonight's telecast was not only warranted, but also very kind. Thank you kind sir.

love,

smm]

lost question

wouldn't it be funny if for season 6 of lost they just replayed the episodes from season 1?

shoppe rant

there are a lot of customers at the shoppe that are ridiculous. the things they do or say give a coworker and i plenty of material for a web series we dream about writing. i've tried to refrain from talking about any of that stuff here, because, well...i try to be considerate. when a lady came in and directed her entire order and ensuing conversation to herself in the mirror over my shoulder, i refrained. when i got a call for an order and was given attitude by a lady who actually said the following sentence to me: "What kind of child would want a cake without cookies on it?!", i refrained. when a lady had me put together 8 boxes of various items, topping them each off with a hand-tied ribbon, but opted to leave no tip (not even change!), i refrained. but at this point, all i have are recaps on this blog and that just won't do.

if anyone asked me who my least favorite customer was, i would have an answer without hesitation. without fail, this person comes in 15 minutes before closing to order a cappuccino and takes his sweet time drinking it, sometimes ordering a second even after we've closed (and preventing me from breaking down the espresso machine). there are a bunch of other things he does that i won't get into, lest he somehow make it to this blog and get revenge by throwing a cappuccino in my face, but just know that seeing him immediately puts me in a bad mood.

as i was sweeping the shoppe today, trying to get ahead of my closing duties, i thought to myself "Self, I bet you anything ****** will come in today. things are going too smoothly." sure enough, he walks in. he was waiting for his girlfriend (who i have no problem with), and even though i tried to get him to order so we could get the ball rolling with this, he insisted on waiting for her. after about ten minutes, he decided that he would get his cappuccino and a few snacks while he was waiting. at this point, three other customers had come in. i was helping the first when he told me he was ready to order, so i went to him while the other two waited in line. he told me what he wanted, and i went into speed mode, so my line guys wouldn't be waiting too long.

i grab my milk pitcher, saucer and cup before pulling the shot so that this drink will be quickly made and i can move on to the awaiting people. then he tells me this: "Umm, excuse me, your fingernail touched my cup, can you give me another one?" i couldn't mask my disgust for this man any longer. my response, in my most sarcastic, disbelieving voice was this: "My fingernail? Touched your cup?" He proceeded to show me exactly how my fingernail had touched the inside of his cup, so i laughed (and not in a "you're funny" way but more in a "you're an idiot" way), put his cup back at the top of the machine, did some overexaggerating pulling down the next cup, being sure to keep my fingers and nails off all parts of the inside, and got to shot pulling. usually at this point, i swallow everything and forget about it. but this time i could not. i say to him "my hands are clean" as i'm rushing through his order, still thinking of the awaiting people.

(*Side note - whenever i have a line at the shoppe, all i can think of is when i would play Sim Tower and my people would be waiting for an elevator and they would turn pink then red with anger at the amount of time they were waiting. in my mind, if anyone is waiting, they are inevitably pink or red.)

so then he starts trying to mumble justify this. "Don't take offense" I tell him that i wasn't offended. "It's not you, it's other people. What they bring in. When you touch something, or touch the ground..." Well, okay, now i am offended that you think I would do cartwheels all over the shoppe and not wash my hands. what baffles me is that this guy thinks i'm rubbing my hands on dirt and touching cups and plates, when we are all really good about washing our hands multiple times throughout the day. he says "most people wouldn't have noticed it" as part of his justification and like...what the fuck? how is that supposed to make anything better? THEN he says "i worked in the restaurant business, i know how it is." i remained silent through all this mumbling, but what i wanted to say was "do you know how it is? do you know how ANNOYING it is when you WASTE my time like this when i've got a line of RED PEOPLE?!" how is that a justification?!? how is "i worked in the restaurant business, i know how it is" a justification for asking for a new cup because my FINGERNAIL GRAZED the inside of his cup?! ARGH!!

while i was helping the red people, his girlfriend came in. after everything quieted down, i started feeling bad for kind of showing that i was a little miffed. so i overcompensated by being super nice. then i felt even worse when they actually left before closing (for once) and the girlfriend acknowledged that they usually stay late, so they were going to cut it short this time so i could get to closing. this is why i could never be a full time asshole, i'd feel bad about it most of the time.

SRC: ANTM12 - Celia later!

Previously: Fo was short for Felicia, but too short for modeling.

the top four meet paulina for samba lessons. doing her best nigel impersonation, paulina tells the girls to be aware of their face while dancing and look at her as though she were nigel/the camera. celia starts off by i think trying to seduce paulina. we do know she thinks of sex while modeling. paulina then insults celia, calling her desperate. aminat does well. allison is as bad as she promised. teyona is also not great.

the girls meet paulina on the rooftop. they will dance -- whoever fakes it the best gets to pick a friend to share jewelry with. it looks like it'll be between aminat and celia. celia pulls a surprise win and chooses her cracker-in-crime to share her precious jewels with. paulina is shocked at this decision and aminat projects, saying that paulina thought the prize should've been shared with the runner up, who happens to be aminat. i'm sure, aminat, that if you would've won and celia was the runner up, you would've shared with her and not teyona. shut up. aminat interviews that she's always second runner up...but wouldn't that mean third place? let's hope.

omygod. stupid skit STARRING tyra. why can't she just tell the girls she's their photographer. why does there have to be a whole scene about it?!? photo shoot - the girls are birds. allison is a "birdie owl slash pterodactyl". aminat kinda looks like jocelyn wildenstein. celia seems to do well. teyona does well despite some things working against her. tyra is still annoying.

panel. argh! shoket!! sneak attack. allison's picture is praised (though i still think she always makes the same face.) teyona also turns out a good picture, though it's not her best. celia's picture is pretty good, though her face is the weakest part of it. aminat's picture is also liked. did tyra make them all say good things about her pictures? it always seems like when she's the photographer, all the pictures get high praise.

best pic goes to allison. teyona is runner up. perma bottom two-ers aminat and celia are this week's bottom 2. aminat still doesn't know how to use what she got (and i think by this point isn't going to figure it out. CUT HER LOOSE!) celia is still old. so, who's the last in the final three, aka the second runner up? aminat stays but i think tyra is kidding herself at this point. yeah, celia's not getting any younger, but aminat keeps getting the same damn critique. celia makes a gracious exit, and as she leaves i'd like to apologize for calling her the fugliest of the fugs at the beginning of the season. i'm not taking it back, because she was busted...but the haircut works for her and she has great style, so i no longer believe that she is a fug.

baby fever

has anyone else noticed how pregnant women are everywhere right now?! i don't know if it's because i work in a cookie shoppe, or because of the boom in teen pregnancy pacts or what, but everywhere i look, there's a large belly with a smaller belly button bump staring me down. and don't even mention my biological clock because i was on the train today and some baby started crying and it was one of the worst sounds that has ever met my ears. it made me reconsider procreation. then i spent the rest of the train ride in a brain rant about how babies are so selfish, coming out of the womb only knowing how to cry...and using that skill to get whatever they want, whenever they want. ugh. babies.

SRC: ANTM12 - Fo long!

Previously: Natalie got too bitch for her britches

Go sees! Same rules apply. Four hours, up to five designers, be on time, don't embarrass tyra. Everyone sets off to see the brazilian designers, and it basically comes down to this: Celia is old. Allison can't walk. Fo is short. Teyona and Aminat both seem well liked for their runway abilities.

teyona has three go sees and makes it to a fourth with twenty minutes remaining. Celia is already there, so Teyona wisely decides to head back. She is the first there with ten minutes to spare. Fo stupidly decides to see all five designers and ends up with only 7 minutes to make a 15 minute trip (this will sting even more later, when she finds out she booked 0 of the 5). Aminat makes it on time, as does allison (with a minute to spare.) Celia arrives at 3:31, followed several minutes later by Fo. the girls all head to a helicopter on the roof to meet some guy, but since celia and fo were late, they must watch their competitors lift off as they get blown off the roof by the wind force and into a cab. if i were on this helicopter with aminat, she would get tossed out in a second. she is SCREAMING into those headsets everyone on board has to wear. if the scream is this loud and annoying through my tv, imagine if it were funneled directly into my earhole via large headphones. winner gets a piece from each of the designers, and that prize goes to.....Teyona! hooray! the girls are all jealous nellies as teyona greedily bathes in her prize.

photo shoot on the beach with nigel as the photographer (again). aminat looks smokin'. fo falters. allison turns it out. jay throws out some vaguely technical terms. teyona gets all sand rolly. nigel says he likey. celia stumbles and nigel jumps his sexy self in and shows her how to Model. fo should refrain from using words like 'wee'.

celia's picture isn't great, but teyona's is. aminat is told she has a slammin' body and needs to use it better, like tyra's archnemesis naomi campbell. fo's picture is forrible. and she kind of looks like a monchichi. allison gets high praise from nigel and the other judges.

best picture goes to teyona, winning me points all around. allison is called second. aminat is third and we're down to oldy and shorty. imagine how it makes me feel when oldy is 25 and shorty is 5'8. basically they both need to be confident enough to make everyone forget about those "negative" things. but only one gets one more chance, and that's celia. fo forry, felicia!

SRC: RoLB - all hail the prom queen

bret takes mindy and taya to the dominican republic. mindy is all "crazy crazy crazy". taya is all "boring boring crazy fake fake". mindy and bret learn to tango and then tango behind closed doors (ifyaknowwhatimean). taya and bret go ziplining but she's too much of a "lady" to stay the night with him. there are flashbacks from the whole season and damn this season has taken forever. bret makes the girls each choose an engagement ring. and then he chooses taya. but he decides not to give her the ring just yet. because i mean...taya? really?

SRC: ANTM12 - more like NOTalie

oops...did it again with the lateness. sorries.

previously: London was fat. the final six are off to brazil!!

some tall brazilian supermodel named fernanda welcomes the girls to Sao Paulo. turns out she hosts brazil's next top model. i wonder if tyra only takes girls abroad to countries that have a version of top model. because it IS in over 100 countries. according to tyra.

the girls compete in their own version of the amazing race. natalie and fo win but fernanda has beaten them there! mystical. they meet the girl from ipanema as she comes out dancing to her tune. she gives them the keys to their new abode. natalie and fo win flip flops as a prize. natalie is all sour and unimpressed about brazil.

the girls are taken to a capoeira demonstration. woah, i totally spelled that right! i'm awesome. should've been in my high school capoeira club. the girls are taught some moves and celia accidentally kicks aminat in the face. the girls change into capoeira uniforms and have a photo shoot challenge. winner gets 50% more frames, taking them from the girl of her choice. she of course just couldn't get extra frames because we're in a recession, so those frames have to come from somewhere. fo wins! she takes her frames from teyona, because she's still holding a grudge from when teyona shared her prize with her model celia instead of fo. teyona confronts fo and they exchange words.

photo shoot. the girls will be dressed like carmen miranda. aminat and teyona talk about how they don't like fo anymore. ah, young drama. alright, i've defended natalie in the past, but she really is kind of an insufferable stuck up bitch. fo takes the carmen miranda thing a bit too literally.

i can't stop saying this, especially after that panel intro, but i cannot stand tyra. natalie throws mr. jay under the bus when she gets negative commentary. questionable. the judges praise allison's picture, but to me it looks like the same face she always gives. paulina either got way too much sun, is wearing way too much bronzer, or a mix of both.

allison is called first. runner up is teyona. then fo and celia and my team is safe. we're down to aminat and natalie. aminat still can't put it all together and natalie is actually kind of boring. aminat looks really pretty. maybe that's what saved her. natalie is out.

SRC: RoLB - zzzzzzzzzzzz

ohmygod rock of love ended WEEKS ago and i just can't get through this. bret chose the LAMEST top three in the history of all reality shows which translates to boring recaps. so let's just breeze through this, shall we?

previously: bret booted the last interesting trainwreck person he had and we're stuck with a top three of jamie, taya and mindy. when mindy is your best option...you have a problem.

this winning trio ditch the pink bus and head to miami. bret gifts skimpy carnival outfits and mindy throws a fit about it for the entire night. bret is sporting his vacation weave braids. mindy eventually gets over the outfit fiasco by mounting bret and making out with him. this upsets taya.

taya and mindy's friendship continues to implode. meanwhile, how the hell did jamie slip into the top 3?

there are various dates with various combinations of duos. at one point, on a swamp boat gator date (!), jamie gets all question question about bret's intentions. she says she is looking to date, not get married after the show. he says he's looking for love. yeah, right. says the man forcing both of his swamp boat gator dates to make out with him one after the other.

there's an awkward dinner with all four. everyone's sowah. bret leads them all to the bar and scolds them for being downers. he takes jamie aside. she again says she wants to date, but not marry right away. bret, i think misunderstands her and thinks she's saying she just wants to party, while she's just saying she doesn't want a ring at the end of the show. he can't understand/believe that everybody in the world doesn't want to marry him.

eliminations. bret thinks jamie's just there to party, he wants to wrap his gut around taya, and mindy is a psychopath. first pass to mindy. jamie is called down...only to be rejected! taya is in the top 2 with mindy. all together now! LAME!

SRC: ANTM12 - bigger than ben

d'oh! i wrote this a full week ago but forgot to type it up. sorry!!

previously: everyone sucked in the commercials, but tahlia was the best at sucking, so she was sent packing.

celia finally brings up london's street preaching. i'm really surprised they didn't wear that shit out from the beginning. they probably knew she'd be around for a while and it would grow tiresome. based on the first five minutes of the show, i'm guessing aminat and london will be our bottoms. and based on the amount of jesus praising the editors are now choosing to show us, i bet london is going home.

argh! fucking shoket!! the challenge -- each girl will be the creative director for a shoot. winner gets something. i tune out whenever shoket is on screen. london's weight comes up again. she's apparently gained 10 - 15 lbs since week one. aminat sabotages herself because she got natalie as her model. aminat had some potential, but i'm soo over her. teyona surprises jay by actually being good.

the winner is the girl who came up with the strongest creative vision. ugh. shoket tries to make a sexy winky face and it's so wrong. all wrong. ugh. teyona wins and gets to appear in a seventeen magazine with two friends. she picks celia and aminat. fo is jealous she wasn't chosen. fo-sen.

seventeen shoot: sorry, because i'm starting to actually like her, but celia looks like a 30 year old trying to be 16 here. like the mom in mean girls.

jay shows up at the house at 5:30am. they get hair and makeup done there and then, randomly (but still not quite as random as clay aiken) ciara shows up. she'll be posing as herself in the photo shoot while the girls portray her best stalker whilst wrapped up in a mic cord. aminat is practically drooling on ciara. woah, and these bitches are practically nekkid.

what -- i don't understand where this weight is that london has gained? apparently it's really obvious to everyone. (Update: ok so now that i've seen side by sides, i get it. but i don't think it's something i would've noticed had it not been talked about so much) teyona does really well. aminat struggles...jay calls her the worst of the day.

london is doing a lot of God Talking. has this just been edited out previously? methinks, yes.

these tyra documentaries are getting dumber and dumber and more and more random. a naked guy comes out. there's a stupid skit. blah, blah, they're going to brazil. only six of the seven, that is. aminat and london get the worst criticism, with teyona excelling. allison starts to say that this was her favorite shoot, but then nigel's ego gets bruised and tyra threatens to give her the boot for that "slip up". the whole thing is rather disgusting.

seven beauties, six of which are brazil bound. teyona is called first. second is fo. they are followed by natalie, celia, and allison. this leaves aminat and london. (ding!) luckily, i just traded out aminat from my team. unluckily, i traded her for london. aminat has all the elements but can't make it work for pictures. london has gained weight. so who goes to brazil? aminat. no room for fatties.

picture it: hello kitty

i just went out in the rain to get my lunch, and as i was walking to my chosen eatery, i passed Hello Kitty. i mean, of course, a person in a Hello Kitty costume. i'm not too sure what she was promoting -- she was standing outside of one of those general electronic stores times square has plenty of -- but she was vigilantly standing out in the rain (with a little cover from an awning) bouncing around and waving. things were different on my return trip.

i headed back to the building with my sack of food in hand approximately 7 minutes later, excited to pass by this random Hello Kitty again. no longer was she bouncing around and enthusiastically waving, but rather she was slowly, depressingly swaying, holding her paw up. no wave, just a salute. if it took that short amount of time for her to get all depressed about the rain, i hope that a) her shift had just started and b) its only a half hour shift.

SRC: RoLB - and then there were three. lameoids.

taya talks too much. mindy starts to crack wondering if this is all a joke and if she'll actually get hurt now that she's starting to fall. i thought she was starting to fall weeks ago. then, through the tears she says "i have never even been ENGAGED!!!" is that something we all should've done by now?

big john gives the lameoids their clue -- which tells the girls to write a song to record with bret. winner gets to jet off somewhere. jet blue probs. coach. mindy stresses some more because songwriting eludes her and singing, apparently, is literally impossible for her.

beverly is up first and i think bret is pretending to play guitar along with them and the backing track. beverly has a decent voice. jamie is next and...at least has fun. taya, surprisingly -- or not considering the accusations of her being there for self promotion -- had the best voice out of all of them. mindy agrees with me on both counts. mindy practices her song with bret first and acts like a whiny baby. she then does her performance and she wasn't kidding about not being able to sing. she does a twangy talky sing song performance, then laughs and sabotages herself by saying she got lost.

mindy starts trubbies by implying that taya's penthouse promotion was a red herring of sorts, with her real goal to promote a music career. taya wins and there is dead silence and eye rolling when bret announces it. he chooses a second place winner to also go on the "jet". it's the ol' ringback tone trick to determine the winner/promote his single. beverly wins.

taya and mindy's BFFness is starting to crumble.

jamie gets the brilliant idea to pose with mindy for slutty photos for bret. "not slutty, but classy slutty" as jamie describes. too bad that brilliant idea was already had in season 1.

taya further annoys everyone and me with her nonstop nonsense yapping. bret pulls mindy aside to talk some stuff out. jamie interrupts because she barely gets bret time. mindy is pissed.

first pass goes to taya, obvs. i don't think bret realizes what he's getting with that one. jamie is next. it's between mindy and beverly. but beverly was the one who tackily asked bret to sign some teddy bears for her daughters. mindy is saved, but only after she swears to bret that her heart is in it.

god, what an awful top three.

what are they feeding you

wow it's been a while since i posted anything that wasn't a recap, huh? i'll throw you this bone --

today as i was returning home from a work fakeout (don't get me started, i might start breaking things), i easily found a seat on the subway. since it was midday, there weren't too many train riders, so a girl that was sitting on the two seater perpendicular to my seat stretched out with her legs up. it should be noted that she was wearing pajamas. pajama pants, a coat, and house slippers. and because her feet were raised on the seat, THAT'S ALL I COULD SMELL. and it wasn't just foot smell, it was nasty, gaggy foot smell. how was she not aware of it? or maybe she was and she wanted everyone to suffer with her.

SRC: ANTM12 - your issue is up

Previously: Aminat lost me (and her position on my team) by acting like a total asshole. Sandra finally proved that she was utterly useless and was sent home.

aminat continues to act like an asshole to natalie. and from what we're being shown, it looks undeserved. paulina meets the girls for this cycle's acting teach. as usual, most of the girls blow, but also as usual, tahlia blows the hardest. then paulina pulls out clay aiken, who apparently is a close friend of tyra's, to ACT with the girls. this is who you got for you acting teach? in all of new york? because he was in spamalot? furrealz? the girls scream like, yeah that would happen. this isn't america's next top mom.

omygod you guys. Tahlia is TERRIBLE!!! i hope she's at least good at volleyball. winner of the challenge gets $5,000 worth of joe's jeans merchandise. and that goes to london. she acts excited about it and i'm convinced. apparently, though, london has gained weight and cannot fit into her prize.

mckey is there hawking covergirl foundation and to signal that it's CG commercial time!! time to separate the bad from the worse. teyona, aminat, celia, and allison are in one group, with fo, natalie, tahlia, and london in the second. aminat, allison, and tahlia do badly. london, head inflated with the earlier win, overacts. tahlia looks like her group's mom. do you think tahlia will want to go home since she's doing badly this week? she may not have a choice. spoiler alert.

damn, she can't even convincingly read tyra mail.

panel: clay aiken is the guest judge and tyra talks about how much his first album sold. what does that have to do with anything?

allison gets picked on for wearing the same dress she wore in week 1. then they tell her to switch clothes with teyona during the deliberations. then they pick on her bad commercial. poor thang. aminat gets teased for talking like she does. london gets it for being "hard", then her shorts are banished. natalie is told to work on her flirtiness. fo gets made fun of for maybe having a speech impediment. tahlia gets called old. like i said. tyra tells tahlia she looks most like a covergirl out of everyone. i beg to differ.

models in action. heather! she's working and becoming a videogame designer. double awesome. that is one thing i would've liked to discuss had i recapped last week's episode. how can they highlight whitney in the models in action segment? she won. shouldn't that be... oh nevermind. just nevermind.

tyra brags about how she did not once use a teleprompter in her five covergirl years. yeah, cuz they weren't invented yet. burn! speaking of burn, let's go to elimination.. for those of you kept in suspense, allison and teyona did actually switch clothing. celia is called first. next is natalie, and then teyona, fo, london, and aminat. this leaves allison and tahlia. let's hope tahlia is out. am i right?! allison isn't versatile, tahlia sucks. so.....sweet! allison stays. see ya tahlia!

SRC: ANTM12 - taking a pass

so i think i'm gonna skip last week's top model recap. in the interest of staying up to date with this show, since it's my #1 recap priority, and not falling three weeks behind like rock of love bus, i think it's the best thing to do. i watched this episode with the same friend and on the same night i watched that last rock of love episode, and i actually remembered to save the ep for later recapping. but since i'm currently enjoying my first day off after a 26 day work streak, my dvr list has piled high. instead of rewatching the ep to recap it, i'm just going to cut my losses, and refer you again to rich at four four and potes at twop.

my apologies. one day i will be back to my routine. though i'm starting to feel like my routine is actually being behind. what would i do with my life if i weren't busy catching up all the time? maybe we'll never know.

SRC: ROLB - and down goes the blondtourage

so i accidentally erased this episode after watching it with a friend, forgetting that i still needed to take notes on it. woopsiedoodles. it's a shame too, because it really was an awesome episode. bret again brought the exes back to spill secrets. taya's ex "jaz" was literally a crazy man..who probably enjoys hitting women. ashley's ex burst out with the one thing that's made ashley visibly nervous and freaked out --- the truth bitches! apparently he's her baby daddy and they live together and eff all the time! brittanya's ex was a booty call that got her so riled up in her interrogation with heather and ambre (!) that she took a swipe at the former and spit on the latter. mindy's ex kind of showed that mindy is maybe a cool person and should save herself from bret's clutches, since she is kind of a frontrunner now. jamie -- you know i can't even remember much of what happened with jamie except that she wore a shimmery gold scarf on her head the entire episode. and beverly flipped out way more than necessary about the fact that her ex didn't have enough respect for her to show up to be interrogated. or maybe he just didn't want it all to go down on a trashy vh1 show. she seriously brought this up about 12 times, always drunk and crying about it. i don't believe she did anything besides that in the episode. anyway, bret was pissed that brittanya treated his friends heather and ambre like shit, so he dumped her. and because of the fishy situation with ashley's "ex", bret lost all faith in her and left her ass too. which really shocked me. but she also was acting completely different with bff farrah gone. oh, and also hilariously, during heather and ambre's interrogation, heather was super wasted. and she still blocked brittanya's first punch. awesome. also notable, there are only brunettes left. surprise surprise.

anywho, i suggest y'all head to rich at vh1 or potes subber sara m at twop (who unfortunately is not me) for some good recaps on the actual episode, since i was silly and erased the it.

SRC: ANTM12 - old man in an eliminated body

Previously: Nijah? Who's Nijah?

Toccara shows up possibly drunk. she brings pjs to the girls to have a sleepover and talk about personality. i don't think toccara is too much of a plus anymore. she brings up sandra's winning picture (which has already ballooned sandra's ego) and some of the girls say they think Fo should have gotten best picture.

the girls go to marquee and ugh, benny ninja. sky neller the dj model comes out to assist benny with teaching the girls to pose to music by playing some songs for them on the runway. or as she says, "drop some tracks." london, celia, and aminat did well, while the rest not so much. uh...so the girls go home and allison tells celia that she hated the challenge because she's shy. she was scared to pose in front of benny and she hates being in the spotlight. i mean...does she know what this is?

challenge time. the girls must use the music in order to inform how they model the clothes of the Blonds. I don't know these Blonds, but phillipe is one interesting person. the bitches get blonded up and again allison says she's scared of posing in front of people. again, i say 'whaa?' also again, most of the girls do badly. celia and teyona do well in their heat, but celia takes it. the second heat has natalie and fo doing well, with natalie (of course) taking it. natalie stumbles in the final round and celia takes the challenge, even getting some finger wagging from the queens in the audience.

the girls go into hair and makeup without knowing what they're shooting. tahlia repeats her desire to go home, this time in front of sutan and christian. in honor of the statue of liberty, the girls will get shot ol' timey style with an old fashioned box camera that you have to hold a pose still for an extended period of time. i think they're actually just using a digital camera and pretending with the box camera to make the girls hold their poses. in other unbelievable news, benny will be playing the role of the husband. there is also a united colors of benetton ad playing their children.

the girls discuss their irritation with tahlia's behavior. when she's doing poorly she wants to quit, when she does well she's excited to stay. they might mob up and attack her with torches if someone else who actually wants to be there full time goes home.

teyona does well with the photo shoot. sandra, london, fo, kortnie, and celia all disappointed. allison, aminat, natalie, and tahlia all get good marks, with tahlia seemingly gettng the most praise. i bet the other girls are pissed. i wonder what will happen.

a decision has been reached. tahlia is called first. next is teyona, then allison, natalie, london, aminat, celia and fo. this leaves kortnie and sandra. they're both clueless and neither is going to win, so who goes first? kortnie does. you can hear the disappointment.

but...ah, shit. celia comes through on her word and speaks up to tyra about tahlia's behavior. she throws that bitch under the bus, like fucking hurls her, but you don't mess with tyra's Issue Girl, so Tyra puts celia in her place. awkward. like, soooo awkward.

Fun with Signs

a few days ago, there was a sign in the elevator of the building i was working in. it said:

SPACE
AVAILABLE
FOR WEB
DESIGNER
CALL
212-555-4878*

(*obviously not the real number) later that day when i went out to lunch, someone had written in a few of their own additions, leaving the sign to read:

NO SPACE
AVAILABLE
FOR WEB
DESIGNER
DON'T CALL
212-555-487*

(*they had also ripped off the last digit of the phone number.) when i was on my way home, i noticed that someone else had scratched out the added in words and wrote the 8 back in at the end of the phone number.

the next day, there was a brand new copy of the same sign. at lunch, the last digit again had been ripped off. when i went home, it was written in again. the next day, the sign was completely gone. i wonder if the person who was posting the sign gave up, or if the person who was vandalizing the sign won. they both seemed stubborn enough to keep that back and forth going for days.

do you think hannah's involved? who's hannah? a new sign the next day by the elevator in the lobby:

Here for Hannah's tupperware party on the 3rd floor? do the environment a favor and walk up the stairs.
thanks bunches,
"Hannah Banana"
[picture of a wheelbarrow]

i can find four things wrong with that sign. anyone else?

SRC: RoLBus - Oh, piss

Previously: Kelsey suddenly was awesome but was then eliminated.

the girls head to panama city. florida. it's time to consolidate, so everyone is herded to the pink bus. both the blondes and the brunettes are offended at this. mindy says goodbye to the brunette's safe haven and the blue bus says bye to mindy. really. it talks and flashes its headlights. big john brings the girls bikinis and they attack him like a pack of lions on a helpless zebra. the girls meet bret at a kiddie pool. he tells them he's giving some army ladies a day off while the girls take care of their kids. we learn that brittanya has a kid. lord help that child. isn't it weird that a total dumbhead slut like brittanya can have a child but perfectly well adjusted gay couples can't in some states. we learn that actually most of these skanks have at least one kid. but what's actually surprising is that ashley is great with kids and seems like she's probably a good mom. the children vote and it's between ashley and taya. bret ultimately makes the final decision and ashley wins the big solo date. her first, which is another surprise.

beverly downs a lot of vodka and then the whole group goes out to a bar. beverly gets kind of passive aggressive with bret. he tells her she has anger issues. bret then wonders if farrah is just there to party and make out with ashley. they head back on the bus where bret is all handsy and mouthsy with everyone and beverly sits furious in a corner. they all go to a beach bonfire, leaving bev on the bus. mindy and taya are disgusted by bret making out with brittanya and ashley at the same time. they go to the bathroom and then the hot tub. topless. beverly eventually joins the party, gets disgusted with bret, yells some shit and leaves again. ashley, brittanya, and farrah run to pee, and thus bret is left alone with jamie. they of course make out. isn't anybody worried about the herp?

mindy and taya shower together and gossip about someone. farrah assumes its her, pulls the shower curtain on them, and then bitches them out. then ashley pours salsa in mindy's suitcase (over the line and so uncalled for). then brittanya joins them in pouring shampoo/mousse/other bathroom products on them. mindy and taya get their own new hotel room for their troubles.

ashley meets up with bret, who says she looks "all kind of awesome." hmm. they go ATVing (RIP leroi moore) through the dunes to a lunch table. he talks about some people being there for the wrong reasons and ashley knows he's totally talking about farrah and is upset about it. look at that, a true friendship.

bret has a couple one on ones whilst at the hotel gym, pretending to lift weights. farrah and beverly both have a chat with him as he tries to suss out their intentions.

eliminations. ashley, of course, gets the first pass because she's totally winning this. jamie is called second for that beach makeout session. mindy is third, followed by brittanya and beverly. this leaves farrah and taya. he is dubious of both of their intentions and commitment to him, wondering if they are just there for the party and the air time, respectively. in the end, he calls farrah down and dumps her ass. sad for ashley.

WRC: ANTM12 - the pretty curse

previously: jessica thought she was the prettiest girl in all the land, so tyra sent her home. also, makeovers and sweet sweet nigel as photographer.

uh oh. nijah is talking about how she does have a personality and she's not boring or dead inside. i bet this is the week the girl with no personality goes home and i bet that girl is nijah.

natalie the perfect pro offers some runway advice before the girls get real runway lessons from miss jay. ugh. why does everything have to be a skit with these people. ok, y'all listen. tahlia is not that cute. she has an awkward walk and is in that dreaded in between model and plus zone with her size. what this means is that she is just your average girl with no reason to be here. the burns are not a reason to be there. the burns are just the way she got there. bianca (!) and chantal come out. let's hope for some sort of catfight! oh, all they do is show the girls how two models walk past each other, and then they peace. hum. pointless.

teyona gets her hair fixed. it looks better and she's a great sport about the whole thing. team teyona!!!

the girls go to their runway challenge -- a jill stuart fashion show. i guess i'm starting to get celia a little...i mean, the hair works. she's still.....mergh. some do well, some don't. the challenge comes down to natalie and celia and perfect natalie with a modeling past wins. free clothes! ugh, tahlia shut. up. she has said "i'm not myself" like 12 times in the past 5 minutes.

photo shot: famous areas around manhattan. like queens? jersey? staten island? i wish they did a shoot like that. they also must tell a story with their characters. mikey rosenthal is back to shoot them.

aminat and fo are wall street brokers. they look great and seem to do well.

down to soho with nijah and kortnie as artists. nijah falters but kortnie eventually helps her get into character.

celia and sandra are (upper east side i'm guessing) nannies.

london and allison are upper east side snobs. jenny humphrey and chuck bass. london doesn't look like chuck bass at the shoot, but she certainly will at panel. london excels and allison doesn't.

tahlia goes to times square to be a tourist with natalie and teyona. here's another reason to dislike tahlia-- she now hates natalie because, when given a truth or dare question about whose pic besides jessica was the worst last week, natalie told the damn truth and said tahlia. that's not bitchiness tahlia, that's honesty. surprisingly though, tahlia does well this week, even better than perfect natalie.

panel: tyra's short film project continues. knowning her she'll probably put them all together at the end of the season and submit it for a documentary short oscar. then she will lobby to have the oscars renamed the tyras. tyra does her intro and finishes it with this: "Hopefully, this judging is as festive as my colorful shirt!" she is like a child. kortnie and nijah both get bad marks, though nijah gets the worst of it. fo and aminat effin rocked it. that's my team! celia and sandra also get high marks even though they don't really come across as nannies. sandra gets the better comments. the times square group have a fun picture, with natalie called out as the weakest. london and allison could've done better, though london was superior to allison. tyra's reached a "deciszhum".

sandra is called first (!) followed by aminat, tahlia, fo, celia, kortnie, london, teyona, and natalie. this leaves nijah and allison. what did i say at the beginning? allison lacked something special in her photo, nijah has gone downhill from week 1. allison's eyes are too big for tyra to let go just yet, though, and down goes nijah...yet another victim of just another pretty girl syndrome.

Happy St. Patty's Day '09sies!!

In what seems to be turning into a annual irishy tradition (aka i'm making it one), I will link my pinching tale/survey in case any new people want to weigh in:

Pinch me, it can't be true!

so go ahead and read that and then come back, because i've got more.

...


ok. so now that you know about my fear of getting pinched, and my need to wear green on this most drunken of holidays, let me continue. usually i'll just wear something green to get in the spirit, but as i was looking through my (3) options, i was reminded of a fairly new addition to my tshirt army: a green shirt with that carebear with the clover on his belly on it and the word "Lucky" under him. i guess his name is lucky bear. so i immediately reached for that and then immediately recoiled. would that be going too far? getting too into the spirit? after all, i did just start a new job yesterday and there are only five other people in the office i'm working in. is that the kind of impression i wanted to make? i looked at the other two green shirts i have but then just decided "eff it and go all the way." so yeah, i nerded it up this year with a green tshirt with a clover on it. i was self conscious about it, but i did it anyway. when i walked into the office, only one other person was wearing green, and it was a rather classy green dress that faded into white. as a matter of fact, in the union square area (where the office is) i barely saw any green that didn't just happen to be the color of the article of clothing. i mean, i'm sure it was worn for the occasion, but it was more like clothes that were green instead of st. patrick's day clothes. i shrugged it off because honestly, it didn't matter. i wasn't getting pinched and i didn't look like a fool. then, i was sent on a run to the viacom building...which we all know is in times square.

if manhattan were gosford park, then the union square area (just in this example) would be the upstairs, while times square would be like, the less classier servants quarters. i walked out of the subway and it was definitely st. patrick's day there. there were giant green hats and clover glasses/scarves/ties/etc everywhere. people were not just wearing green, but they were wearing the green st. patrick's version of the i <3 ny shirt (i clover ny), jackets that proudly proclaimed "IRISH" and there was even a guy with a green bowler hat and a box of lucky charms around his neck. it immediately made me feel better about the degree in which i participated in the holiday as well as how much better working further downtown is.

did anyone else have any fun/crazy st. patty's day experiences?