Saturday, September 29, 2007

Disappointment Makes for Bad Blogging

Dating, for me, has always been a spectator sport and one I don't understand well at that. It's kind of like watching Cricket on TV: I can kind of tell what's going on- you know someone's doing well because the crowd gets excited- but the rules and the strategy and really the essence of what's going on is lost on me.

And so when on one of those rare occasions that I enter the field, it's like being in one of those fish-out-of-water bad dreams. Everyone else knows the rules, knows how to play, and they're cheering me on. But I'm clueless, trying to pretend like I know what to do, and then there's somebody yelling something about a sticky wickets.

So at long last, I had a good date. A really good date. The guy was polite, and nice, and funny and cute, and considerate. He planned! He paid! We seemed to have great chemistry. He had ideas and was interesting, he seemed to be interested in me. We emailed each other to the point of ridiculousness, talking about pretty much everything.

And then, unexpectedly, nothing. No more contact. No phone call, no email, no second date.

*Sigh* I know I know. Hey, he's just not that into you. Or better to find out now than sometime down the road. [Insert appropriate aphorism here].

I tried to think if there was anything specific that I did, to put him off: Did I talk too much about myself and didn't show enough interest? Was I too reserved or too friendly? Was I inadvertently a jerk? But I think that's the road to insanity.

I think that ultimately, a person either gets you or you don't, and therefore it wouldn't be any one action that puts them off. Or at least they get you enough to know that this one (or several) crazy thing(s) you do, doesn't outweigh all the good aspects of your personality.
Maybe in a way that's worse, because that means that the rejection isn't about something isolated you can fix, its about the whole.

So in short, I haven't felt much like writing lately. Being unemployed (though trying), waiting anxiously for my bar results AND continually coming up short in the dating world? That seems a tad unfair. I also have an ingrown toenail - let's add that to the crap tally as well.

Some people would say to be all John Wayne about it and get back up on the horse. Those people will also probably tell me to go to the doctor and get my toe fixed. They're right about the toe.

As for the horse - to mix my metaphors - I think I'm just going to sit on the cricket bench for a while.



Labels: , , , , ,

Monday, September 24, 2007

Immature People Borrow; Mature People Steal

I have been inspired by both Pistols at Dawn and The Idea of Progress to write about actors that I've been told I resemble. The only problem with this amazingly great idea is that, I've never been told I resemble an actor or actress. People tell me all the time that I remind them of someone they know, but that's not quite the same thing now is it?

After racking my brain, the only celebrity I even slightly resemble would have to be Anna Nicole Smith (RIP). Sure, not from the neck up. But from the neck down during the chili-cheese fries years, not the trim-spa years, I'm a dead ringer.

I also do a mean squeal/giggle that sounds like it could emanate from an Anna Nicole-like creature. However, as a brunette, I use this power sparingly.

Since Anna Nicole was all I could come up with, I turned next to professional help with a MyHeritage celebrity collage. I, like Pistols at Dawn, genuinely don't look like a celebrity. Unlike PAD, I do however, have a great rack. Behold my profile!



I appreciate how MyHeritage uses the term "celebrity" very, very loosely. Maybe it's because I've turned thirty, but I only recognize 4 out of the 8 "celebrities" I "resemble". Who in gods name is Enid Blyton? Brody Dalle? Yamashita Tomohisa? Regardless of whoever they are, please notice how I am not more than 64% like any of them.

I am however stoked that 3/8 people I resemble are Asian. As a very tall, obviously-American, Caucasian lady, I am psyched that I can pass for another ethnicity! It's like being part of the Dave Chappelle's racial draft. Look out Tiny, you're not the only Asian in the house these days! In truth the software thinks I'm Asian because I have tiny, beady, polecat eyes, but I'm excited nevertheless.

As I stare more at the page, I think that really what everyone has in common is hair that swoops down over their eyes. In the picture I used to create this profile, my hair sweeps over the my eye on the left side of the picture, just like every celebrity I'm matched with. Really, I think this software says more about who your stylist is than who you resemble.

Still, I'm kind of digging the idea that software thinks I'm an Asian Anna Nicole Smith with a law degree. Maybe I need to redesign my icon image....


Labels: , , , , , ,

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Hypothetical Questions in the Afternoon

Recently a friend of mine posed the following hypothetical questions:

1) If you could have a magical tree in your backyard that would grow some favorite item of yours, what would it grow? (So this item has to be small enough to hang from the limbs of a tree, it can't grow brand new Mercedes)

2) If you could travel 20 years into the future to see how the world had changed, what possible change would you be most interested in seeing?

Answering these questions is no easy task as I always grapple with a serious answer and a completely ridiculous answer. So do you go with what your id wants or what your ego wants? Personally, I have assigned the different aspects of my personality to different characters, greek chorus style. Sure, there's Laawyuhr up there, but there's also someone I like to call Thag.

Thag looks like a cromagnon man from the Far Side Cartoons. Thag hits electronic devices when they break. Thag breaks plastic CD cases
instead of patiently peeling off all the shrink rap and stickers off the new CD to open it. Thag shoves things in drawers without folding them. You get the idea. So I've decided to let each character answer a question.

So what sort of Magical Tree do I want?


Laawyuhr:
Ruling out anything noble, I would like a tree that sprouts CDs and books. A Barnes and Noble tree if you will. I always seem to want these things, and never spend money on them. I have CD's that I've had since the 7th grade, which I still listen to.





Thag:
Thag want ice cream sandwich tree. When Thag was little, I would bury a
little bit of my ice cream sandwiches in the sandbox in hopes that an ice cream sandwich tree would sprout. True story. Thag not very smart.





What do I want to see 20 years in THE FUTURE?


Laawyuhr:
I'm curious to see where we'll be with global warming. Will we have developed super cool, fuel efficient cars and homes? I'm also curious to see who will be the dominant world force. Will it be China? What language will have become predominant?





Thag:

Thag want to see robots. Thag most excited by idea of robot body. Thag want brain put in hot robot body.

Thag also want to have continual internets hooked up to brain. That way when Thag have question or arguments, internet can be accessed immediately to solve. Thag like interwebs.


If you read this, you are tagged. You must either answer the questions on your own blog and link or answer in the comments section.

Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Things That Are A Bad Idea

Sorry I haven't had the chance to post much recently, I had to go to a wedding last weekend, I actually got a short term job this week and then our internet crapped out, so in short, I've been busy. However, I did see some amazing things while I was at my friend's wedding.

First, I saw a guy actually wearing these 4 colored pants. In case it's not clear from the picture, each leg is actually two colors. On the left (of the pictire) the leg is baby blue and preppie green and on the right there's khaki and salmon pink. Just when I thought east coast style couldn't get any worse than the critter pants, the east coast has given us the four colored pant.

But let's back up for a moment, because I realize everyone may not be familiar with the critter pant. Critter pants are khaki pants or shorts with a repeating patterns of small embroidered animals. The horrible, like grown up grrranimals. Check out this example from J.Crew. If you consider yourself an adult, then you cannot own critter pants.

Not to mention, the critter pants are so a few years ago. The four colored pant is cutting edge fashion for the Martha's Vineyard set. Before, east coast yuppies couldn't wear all the preppy colors at the same time -- now the four colored pant has come along to solve this dilemma. It's preppie! It's court jestery! No, it's the four colored pant.

Thank god I was completely wasted when I saw the guy at the wedding wearing them. Because I feel sure the alcohol helped to cover the surprise at his fashion choice. Had I been sober, no doubt the shock would have registered on my face. Thanks to alcohol my brain was saying "Wow, that's a really bad idea" while my face was saying "derrrrrrrrrr".

And hey, four colored pants aren't just for spring and summer anymore. Someone has gone and created a version for fall. Hallelujah.

I also saw the most amazing SUV in Jersey. Stencilled on the back window in enormous white letters were the words "MISTER 420". And that immediately cracked me up. It's like advertising to the cops "The Drugs are in Hizzere!" If that doesn't create probable cause for a car search, I don't know what will. So you, Mister 420, either have cojones of steel or your are a complete moron.

I'm going with the latter.



Labels: , , , , , , ,

Monday, September 03, 2007

Look On These Works Ye Mediocre and Despair: Random Things That Are Annoying Me Today

CSI Miami

This CSI is clearly the most useless branch of the CSI arsenal and seems to exist only to give David Caruso new ground for his read-headed useless glowering. At least if he were doing CSI New York it would be a nod t
o his former success on NYPD Blue - as in The Caruso can only exist in a fake New York Universe. Putting him in Miami is hilarious since only an albino would stay as far from the sunshine as pasty David Caruso.

This may also partially explain why the show always looks like it's being filmed at sunset. In our household we refer to the show merely as "6:30" because that's what time it looks like the show takes place. I know the colors are supposed to be all super-saturated-bienvenidos -a-miami and shit, but it just looks silly. The "lab" is also rather hilarious as it looks like they are housed in a huge I.M. Pei glass building. Because all that glass, you know, it's good for the science. Must be one hell of an A.C. bill.


I also think this would be pretty much the easiest show in the universe to write for. If I were a paid writer and just wanted to collect my check I would say sign me up for this show. For example: Show begins with murder, ok easy enough. Then, I'd throw in some science that I learned from the fingerprint kit that I got in the fourth grade or that I learned from watching one of the other CSI programs. At least ten minutes of the show is one of the characters doing something sciencey, you know standing in the glass lab boiling something or shining a flashlight on something or whatever. The hardest part would be flicking through my ipod to decide what song to play in the background during all this "science". That's 20 minutes down right there with no more effort than is put into a music video.

After the "science", there would also be some sort of arrest carried out by one of the lab techs because all the lab techs are also cops. Or maybe just armed techs. It's a bit unclear. It's clear though that if all they did was the science music video part sans arrest, people would not be duped into watching the show.

Then another 10 minutes would go to David Caruso's longing, distant stares and crappy one liners. The other writers can pick up the rest of the slack at that point, because my feet would be up on the desk and I'd be thinking about where I'd be going for my after work drink.

Girl Scout Cookies

Now, I love the taste of the girl scout cookies as much as the next person, it's what they've come to represent that distresses me. What brought up this particular axe to grind? Some random Jehovah's witness knocking on our door today brought back memories of being a Girl Scout. Since we lived in the middle of nowhere with something like 7 other houses nearby, I was always a dismal failure at the cookie sale. My father straight up refused to sell them at work like every other kid's parents. Instead he would generally just buy enough so that so that I met the minimum "requirement".

Also distressing, I never learned a single, useful skill in Girl Scouts. My dad was an Eagle Scout (Boy Scout) and I remember him talking about all these merit badges he got, and how they taught him to make things like a bow and how to build a fire with twigs, and other cool stuff. I thought that that's what we'd be doing. But all we did was sell those damn cookies, dress in the little uniform, and have a few meetings. If that was supposed to give us some sort of inner feminine confidence, well they completely missed the boat. However, if we were training to be stewardesses, I'd be all set.

And the fact that the we seem to exist primarily to sell cookies -- it's all just a little misogynistic in retrospect.
And what did all these cookie sales benefit? Fuck if I know. Actually, it's kind of galling. Shouldn't I know to what purpose was put all the money we raised? Yeah. Fuck yeah. I feel like it's basically just a pyramid scheme using young girls as hapless cookie selling pawns.

I'm sure somebody out there has some heartwarming girl scout story. To you I say "suck it". Go write your own blog.

Killing Off A Character

What brought this to mind? Pirates of the Carribean 3: 3 Hours in the Theater and Rush Hour 3: Chris Tucker Is A Shrill Motherfucker. For some reason, I seem to have taken on a Samuel L. Jackson persona while writing this post, but you know what? I'm gonna go with it. Just picture Samuel narrating this post.

God bless Asian film. One thing you can say about it as a whole is that they will kill a character off. Even in a crappy Charlie's Angels type of movie like So Close, they will kill a bitch off and that is just so ballsy that I love it. There's also this Chow Yun Fat movie where he and his best friend die in the end. I can't remember what's its called, the point is, the motherfucker died.

That creates in the movie going audience the slightest bit of excitement because even in this crappy action movie things might not turn out all right. How exciting would it be to go into Lethal Weapon 42 and think that Mel Gibson might actually get his ass blown off on the toilet? Exactly.

For those of you who've seen Michael Moore's Sicko, he has an interesting theory that people (i.e. Americans) are so crushed by debt that they are afraid to stand up to the government or do anything that could jeopardize their jobs. If true, that could be trickling down to other aspects of our culture. If people are generally crushed by debt, they don't want to see a character lose and die, even in a complete piece of crap. They want simple escapism, and movie studios want money.

But I for one want to see Mel Gibson's ass get blown off.


Labels: , , , , , ,