A Shoddy Sort of Recap

1) Do you think Reese is still surprised about her Academy Award nomination after winning yet another major award? Ok, it's just a BAFTA but that's something.

2) One more Evil Bitch story: A group, including Evil Bitch, went out to lunch, they all ordered, no drinks (or at least no real drinks) though, since this was a work lunch. When the bill came, they thought it prudent, easy, and expedient to just divide it amongst themselves. EB would have none of that, she told secretary A that she owed 90 cents more, and that co-worker B's sandwich was an extra dollar, and it devolved from there. Once the actual pennies were accounted for, EB decided that the waitress should have no tip because she was "snotty." When the rest chimed in about "not having a reservation" and the service being ok, EB again, would have none of that. She refused to contribute to any sort of tip. This only demonstrates that she is one of the cheapest people I know.

3) [deleted]

4) No word from MamaWeight for three days. This is not good.

It's a Blog Eat Blog World

On my first ever blog posting, I lamented the fact that I was late to the blogging game and I jokingly added that probably everyone in the world had a blog. After exploring the blog universe for a few weeks, I firmly believe that this is true.

By using the "Next Blog" button, I've been able to see a variety of blogs. There are the truly funny: like The Company Bitch and Mom-101 that are interesting and well-written. I have been an avid reader of The Company Bitch for several weeks, ever since my friend Tom referenced it in his blog. Mom-101 was a recent find by my intrepid assistant. I was going to refer to her as Lazy Assistant but she has taken offense at that so I have to come up with something else.

There are those blogs helmed by bored housewives who use the stream of consciousness approach to writing. They usually include pointless recitations of conversations and events in excruciating detail like My Life As I Live It. If it wasn't all that exciting when it actually happened, chances are good that a written narrative of the event won't be either.

Crazy about Scrapbooking? Head on over to Just Me!

Jonesing for some bad art institute student poety, read The Forgotten Land.

There is one blog where these family members write letters to their dead mother. It's horribly creepy and sad at the same time. Out of respect, I'm not going to link to it. Just so we're clear, railing on bored housewives and obsessive scrapbookers is okay. Exploiting someone's grieving process isn't (although they are putting it out there, right? Does that make it fair game?)

There is Chief-Ten-Bear who loves bears more than they will ever know. She also makes these dysmorphic looking bear carvings and offers them for sale. All is not lost as sprinkled throughout the blog are fabulous little humor gifts. First, the space underneath the title has these changing quotations of conversations overheard including "This place looks so different when you're not drunk" and "Boy, you better be sharin' them Skittles with yo mama, otherwise you ain't never gonna taste the rainbow again." After Tiffany & Co presents, she proclaims alcohol to be a close second for a Valentine's Day present. Finally, the brightest ray of sunshine amidst this panda-monium is her photo caption that involves Bai Ling's mother. Absolutely brilliant!

One blog that I'm sure to keep checking out is an on-line food journal/weight loss blog. At Losing the Mama Weight, a new mother is going to lose the baby weight. How she intends to do that when her meals consist of things like popcorn chicken, broccoli cheese pasta, double cheeseburger with fries, three flautas, and the ever healthy Marshmallow Peeps is beyond me. This could be fun to watch.

Finally, there is a blog devoted to pictures of the Fupa at Fupa Hunter. I ashamedly admit that I did a blog search for camel toe. If someone can devote a webpage to the Fupa, there must be a similar one devoted to the Camel Toe. If there is, I couldn't find it. So if anyone has some free time, a computer and a digital camera, have I got a job for you.

I imagine there is someone out there making fun of my blog. Do I care though? Not at all.

I'm a Garda Belt Man

That's my friend Scot on the left and Tom on the right. More on Tom later.

Don decided that we needed a boys' night out, so our group set about trying to find something exciting to do. Don hit upon the idea of attending a double header of the MN Rollergirls, Minnesota's women's roller derby league.

My only memories of roller derby were from the late 80s, watching a short-lived tv show called Rollergames. I can't remember much about it other than there were several co-ed teams and it combined roller derby with elements of professional wrestling.

We all met at my house: Josh, Don, Brad, Sean, Steve, Vincent, and me. We caravaned to St. Cloud, MN. Never having been to St. Cloud, my sense is that a "nice" dinner there probably constitutes either Red Lobster or the Olive Garden. We find "Skatin' Place," the venue for tonight's event. I believe that this is play on Grace Metalious's "Peyton Place." This being St. Cloud, I can't be certain. Can't you just imagine a juicy soap opera based on the lives and times of rollerskaters and rink concession workers. Speaking of concessions, the snack bar had heatlamped hotdogs, heatlamped pizza, chicken nuggets with chedder cheese sauce, and something called a Slush-a-roo, which I believe was a drink. The walls of the rink had an illustrated story about a rollerskating kangaroo named Roo. I fail to see the relevance of kangaroos to rollerskating, let alone icey beverages.

The first match featured The Atomic Bombshells v. The Rockits. The Rockits skated away with it in a very lop-sided match. TAB's Buffy the Vampire Skater spent more time sprawled out on her back than actual time racking up jammer points. TR featured the powerhouse Jawbreaker who probably scored about 50 points or so. I can totally see why Jawbreaker was voted most valuable rollergirl and crowd favorite. Fabulous names involved in this match included: Kitty Whompass, Pain Gretzky, Sayonara Pussy, and Cleosplatra.

The second match features The Dagger Dolls v. The Garda Belts. This was a close match although the minute the Garda Belts began to skate, I knew I had found the team for me. Most of the time, their Pivot was Cupcake, a sweet name for such a nasty woman. She trash talked, threw a mean block, and by the second half had been expelled from the game. She joined Flogging Molly on the sidelines, as FM had been kicked out in the first half. I sort of know Dee Dee Monic, in a six degrees sort of way and she was a great pivot and blocker. She did recognize me at the snack bar though so everything's cool in skateland. SINderella and Pattywack brought the game home as point scoring jammers extraordinaire. As an aside, shouldn't Pattywack have an "h" in there? I don't want to argue since I've seen her throw elbows ... and, well, I bruise easily. Fabulous names involved in this match include: Honeydew Felon, Marilyn Monrogue, Roxanne Rolls, and Ji Spot.

Unlike the other teams, the Garda Belts have a mascot of sorts. It's a tiny little man named Tom, if you can believe the chant, "Tom, Tom, the Leprechaun" as he ran around the rink waving his shillelah. It is believed that Tom has three daughters on the Garda Belts: Flogging Molly, Head Trauma, and Rolls Wilder. Roller Derby is a family affair.

I can't wait until March 24 when I get to see them all again in St. Paul. I'm going to get an emerald green jersey and on the back will be my self-designated skating name: Betty Rumble.

Folks, if you have roller derby near you, please check it out. It's a whole lot of fun.

It's All in The Name, Baby

I've been asked where exactly the name "Happy Chicken Swing Set" came from.

My friend Don and I took a vacation to Buenos Aires last fall. It's getting toward lunch time so Don and I decide to sample some South American pizza. We find a pizzeria and stumble around trying to decipher the menu. After a bit of stumbling, mostly by trying to figure out what faina is and what exactly its role is in pizza eating (faina is a baked chickpea flour wedge that is intended to be placed over the slice of pizza and eaten together (we skipped the faina)), we looked around in preparation for our favorite game: make fun of everyone you see. There were the other usual and obvious tourists about and then we spied this table of three young Argentinean guys, rather unremarkable except that this one guy was wearing a plain brown t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "My Turtle Escaped." It used those slightly fuzzy 1970s iron-on letters and looked homemade.

Don and I talked about his t-shirt and tried to figure out exactly what, if anything, it meant. We decided that "My Turtle Escaped" meant nothing, either in English or as translated Spanish. We chalked it up to the Japanese trend of placing random English phrases on t-shirt where the major concern was a modern trendy look, rather than correct grammar or actual meaning. A great site to explore this phenomenon is Engrish.com. There you will find such exciting clothing choices as "Hurry Up the Cakes," "Hello! Lovely Silly," and "War is Homo." Don and I began throwing random words and phrases around and bingo, Don hit upon Happy Chicken Swing Set. It was love at first sight.

On a related note, here is a story including the phrase "my turtle escaped." Google is an amazing and frightening tool. On a further note and possibly related one, Google also brought up a fotolog that is run by someone who goes by "myturtleescaped" and when you click on that name to get more info, it brings you to a blog hosted by a guy from Buenos Aires. I haven't been able to Nancy Drew it all together but there must be a connection.

That's the story of Happy Chicken Swing Set, thank you for listening.

I Think I Was Being Punished

I arrived at the airport this morning for a quick trip to Green Bay to attend and participate in a motions hearing. Quick flight out, kick some ass, grab a quick return home. The flight is only about 50 minutes of airtime each way so time in the air would be minimal. So I'm sitting in my tiny seat smushed in next to the window. The plane had two seats on each side and about 14 rows so basically everyone was separated by about ten inches of seat space.

As we are waiting to taxi, these two women behind me start talking. Not with quiet talk amongst ourselves voices but with I want everyone to hear our conversation voices - the problem exacerbated by the fact that the two women were on different sides of the aisle. The entire conversation consisted of middle management speak and employed such terms as "organic," "functionality," "rolling out," and "training packages." For fifty minutes I had to listen to this and couldn't for the life of me figure out what exactly they did. I was so distracted by their conversation that I had to secretly cheat on my Sudoku puzzle long before I usually do.

As I "deplaned," I got a look at the offenders. Let's call them Mary Kay and Miss Texas. They were peroxided and lip glossed to within an inch of their lives and were wearing their best St. John knitwear suits to boot.

After a long day, I make my way back to the airport. Who should show up for the return flight this evening? Yup, Mary Kay and Miss Texas. I boarded before them and waited to see where they would land. As luck or bad luck would have it, they ended up behind me again. Miss Texas needed her notepad, just in case she and Mary Kay came up with brilliant ideas while on the plane. Again they discussed today's presentation and again, it remained unclear as to what exactly they were presenting. This evening's buzz words were "training opportunities." Soon Mary Kay and Miss Texas grew bored with constantly talking about "business" and the apparent rigors of being career business women and began to generally talk and talk and talk. Did you know Mary Kay has a 3 year old daughter who is really advanced? Apparently she separated her stickers into these different piles although it was unclear if there was a discernable pattern to the piles. Miss Texas wants to take time off this summer to spend more time boating with her husband Derek and her daughter.

I guess my question, beyond what exactly these women do for a living, is why do people lack the ability to converse in a quiet voice so as not to disturb others? Was it for my benefit? Did they find themselves so fascinating that they felt compelled to share their lives' work with the entire plane? I'm just afraid when I fly back out to Green Bay in two weeks that I'll run into them again. If that happens, I'll know that I'm being punished.

Who Needs a Gold Medal? Feh!

I was extremely saddened to hear that Michelle Kwan withdrew from the Olympics. She brought an air of grace and incredible elegance to both figure skating and sportsmanship. Sadly, the lack of Gold will always be a shadow on her brilliant and dominant career.

I remember watching Michelle at the National Figure Skating Championship in 1994, amidst the Nancy/Tonya ordeal. She was as gangly and awkward as any 14 year old growing into her body could be - but there was undeniable talent. Throughout her career, Michelle accumulated 43 Championships, including a record tying 5 World Championships and 9 U.S. National Championships. She was always poised and undeniably elegant.

The Gold eluded her first with Tara Lipinski (1998) and then with Sarah Hughes (2002). Michelle, the front runner both times, ended up second and third respectively. She received a bye this year due to injury, an interesting bookend to the fact that she was kept off the Olympic team in 1994 due to Nancy Kerrigan's inability to skate at Nationals.

Given Tonya's problems, Oksana's problems, and Surya's attitude problems, it was always refreshing to watch a performer who truly loved what she did and did it without scandal or being a diva. Last night, Michelle did the classiest thing ever ... she cut short her Olympic dream because she wasn't ready. She sacrificed her spot to ensure the best U.S. team possible, knowing full well that history will remember her as the "greatest skater ever, but ..." But history will also remember that after winning Gold in 1994, Oksana went to hell. After winning Gold in 1998, Tara all but dropped off the map. After winning the Gold in 2002, Sarah retired and went to college (ok, a noble thing but still ...).

Even without a Gold Medal, Michelle will always embody grace, elegance, and humility long after the Taras, Sarahs, Nancys, and Tonyas are forgotten. I wish I had 1/8th of her class.

I Swear to God, She'd Eat Her Own Young

I'm sure everyone has had a boss that defies description in acts of horribleness. My new firm recently became involved in a dispute in which my former firm was involved - you might say I switched sides. In trying to avoid any potential conflict of interest, I've been forced to revisit my days under Evil Boss's regime. Evil Boss had many nicknames: Scream Queen, Miss Hannigan, Head Dementor, and What A Complete Absolute Fucking Bitch. Here are a few fond memories:

1. Evil Boss had an adopted son, who is now an adult, with whom she had a rocky relationship (a prevalent theme in all of her relationships). Her son suffered from pretty severe Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and was developmentally disabled. Anyway, one day, I saw some flowers on EB's desk. Being polite, I inquired about where she got them. She said that they were from FAS because they got into an argument and he stopped by to apoligize. She then gets this slack-jawed affected expression on her face and began imitating her disabled son's speech while repeating his apology. When she was done, she just laughed about the whole thing. For once, I was speechless.

2. It's was my birthday and I had dinner plans with my then boyfriend. It was my first birthday in a new city and we had planned a special night out. I tried to explain this to EB but she didn't seem to understand. You see, someone had to drive four hours that evening to attend a Board Meeting of one of our clients, then drive four hours home. EB couldn't do it as she forgot that she had plans to be a participant in a holiday themed parade that night and that she and her husband were appearing as "Sparkly Elves." I had to cancel dinner and drive a total of 8 hours, just so she and her not gay husband could be fucking Smurfs in a stupid parade.

3. In appreciation for all our hard work and helping her have a receivable of over $1 million dollars that year, EB hosted a holiday party for our practice group ... at which we all had to bring the food. She provided three bottles of wine (which were actually left over from a different event that the firm paid for). We also thought it would be nice to buy gifts for a needy family and assigned each family member to a couple of people ... her contribution ... a thermal throw that she bought at Target for $6. Not only evil but extremely cheap.

4. Evil Boss made an associate appear at her daughter's arraignment on drug charges because she was "too busy." This is the same associate that she made help clean out her garage for a lawn sale.

5. While there are too many horror stories to recount, she was evil, cheap, and racist. At this point, it's just gilding the lily. She referred to a client in a meeting as a "Pollack," her adoped Korean daughter as "Gooky," and although she was of one-quarter Mexican descent, she wasn't really Mexican because "she could read."

I hope the next time I see her she's lying down, arms folded across her chest, and there are a lot of lillies and floral sprays about.

So Much Hate, So Many People ...

Is it possible to hate 950,074 people in the span of only two hours? Yes, yes it is. Join me as we take a trip to ... the airport.

It starts at the security checkpoint: I can't read, what does take you laptop out mean? (1 person). Keep my boarding pass out? (2 people). Have identification ready? (1 person). Remove outerwear? (no one this trip but you know they are out there). Once you get past the people who don't understand the complicated directives listed three times and conveyed in pictographs, you get the people who lack any common sense or understanding whatsoever. Will this belt buckle the size of a child's head set off the metal detector? (1 person). Whoops, I still have my cell phone on my belt (1 person). Should I start getting ready while waiting in line or wait until the very last minute to check my pockets? (3 people).

After the minefield of security you get to maneuver the concourse: Hey, right here at the end of the moving walkway looks like a great place for the six of us to stop and chat a bit. (6 people). Hey, sorry I'm dragging a giant piece of luggage (which I should have checked, more on that later) behind me and am unaware that I should account for that when I walk right in front of you. (3 people).

You finally get to the gate then encounter even more idiocy: If you are not in first class, an exit row, or have small children, and your ticket reads Row 7, please, immediately run to the boarding door and stand there like a retarded puppy anticipating a treat. (15 people). Oh, and a small child isn't a hyperactive 7 year old. (1 person, well 2 if you count the child). If you don't feel like standing there, please try to board before you should. (2 people).

Ahhh, finally on board: I'm never going to get into my rollerbag and have other checked luggage anyway, but I thought it looks cool to wheel one of these things around. (27 people). I'm too old/weak/gimpy/lazy to put my own carry-on in the overhead, can you help me? (3 people). Oh, when you announced three times that all cell phones had to be turned off, you meant me? (2 people). I'll just talk for two more minutes. (1 person). I love music so much, I want you to hear it too even though I'm wearing headphones. (1 person). Even though my tray table is attached to your seat, you wouldn't mind if I bang, pull, and nervously tap on it? (1 person). Now that we are getting ready to land and should remain in our seats, I should probably bolt to the bathroom right now. (1 person (granted she probably was one of the rollerbag people)).

Landing: My bag (which I should have checked) is 7 rows back. You don't mind if: 1) I ask you to firebucket brigade it to me (1 person); or 2) push my way back to get it and the push my way forward with bag in tow (1 person).

Then you find yourself in Detroit. (950,000 people).

Modern Technology

I'll be the first to admit that I am not that technologically savvy. I've been on the road for the past five days and didn't have internet access. At least no discernable internet access I could find. I almost died. No email, no checking my bank balance, nothing. What sort of 4 diamond Triple A facility doesn't have broadband?

I have a few things in the hopper: hating every one of my fellow airline travelers; the whole Bush/Coretta Scott King thing (hypocrite). In fact, I wrote a whole diatribe about my fellow airline passengers but by exercising my ineptitude, I lost it when I tried to post it.

There will be a rash of posting, once I regain my senses and figure this whole blog thing out.

Reese, Please

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a long time Reese Witherspoon fan. She’s always come across as gracious, elegant, tasteful, and a refreshing juxtaposition to the Tara Reids of Hollywood. That’s why writing this causes me so much pain. Sometimes, however, someone says something so ridiculously disingenuous that they need to be called out on it. To wit, after receiving her well-deserved Academy Award nomination, Ms. Witherspoon claims, “I was completely surprised.”

Really? Completely surprised? I guess the nomination would have come as a complete shock as you’ve only won the Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the National Society of Film Critics Award, and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for this role. Given this, how out of character would it be for the Academy to ignore the most consistent award winner since Hilary Swank? Unprecedented.

Granted, Reese did not win the Chicago Film Critics Award (although nominated) - that having gone to Joan Allen for The Upside of Anger. Not to take away from Joan’s award as I think she is supremely talented but Joan was born in Illinois, attended Northern Illinois University, and has her acting roots in Chicago as an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ... you see where this is going.

As a first time nominee, I understand Reese didn’t want to appear glib and comment that she knew a nomination was a fait accompli. By the same token, however, she shouldn’t try to tell America that despite winning almost every major and minor acting award this year, she was genuinely surprised by a nomination. There’s a fine line to walk between honest humility and bravado masquerading as false humility.