So That Happened...

Dear Cancer,

SUCK IT.

This week you took the mother of my dear friend, a woman who dealt with your pancreatic ilk for TWO YEARS.  A woman who will not witness the birth of her first grandchild (a girl due in October).  A woman who was kind, smart, funny, open, and had just about the most amazing relationship with her daughter I have ever seen.  

You are also the most unwelcome tenant of my friend, Frank, a man who has, with his partner, adopted the most beautiful baby boy in all the world.  This is a family that has been a long time in the making, and Frank (along with everyone else) will make damn sure you don't get in their way.

I'm done.  For now.  But just know that you are ON NOTICE.

Commercials That Annoy Me

I've been really busy lately and haven't watched as much TV as I normally do (shocking!), but even in my limited TV-watching I've come across some ads that set my teeth on edge.  Here are just a few:

• The Cadillac Escalade "Cupholders" commercial featuring Sofia Vergara.  I've read some reviews in which people complained about her accent; that isn't what bothers me.  What gets under my skin is her fake driving: she's "steering" the vehicle as if she is on the Bumpiest Road Ever and has next to no control over her GIANT SUV.  Yeah, that's the person I want behind the wheel of a massive vehicle.  Way to sell it.  Has she ever driven a car before?  No one drives like that on a regular basis.  I know she's not known for being the greatest thespian, but come ON.  Someone should have told her to make it look like she was driving in a straight line and not on Autopia at Disneyland.
• The Nutrisystem "Pretty" commercial featuring Jillian Reynolds.  I want to shoot the writer who thought of the words "I'm not your average gal - I love sports.  Football!  How many girls can do that?"  SHUT UP.  What?  There are woman who like sports?!  INCONCEIVABLE!  Excuse me while I clutch my pearls.  I have girlfriends who live and breathe sports: it's not a foreign concept.  I'd also like to know how many takes were shot for the one of Jillian actually catching the ball since she is totally not the sporty type.  Also?  I hate Nutrisystem's (and any other weight loss program's) before and after shots: in her "before" she's wearing her maternity dress even though she's already given birth and is in flip-flops and under bad lighting, but in her "after" she's got the bikini and heels on with makeup and good lighting.  Whatever, Big Fat Lying Company.  Finally, I hate that the website promoted in the ad (which you don't see in the Youtube clip) is actually www.nutrisystem.com/pretty.  PRETTY.  Really?  My God.  Shut up, commercial.

Okay, so this isn't a long list.  What about you?  Which commercials make you want to punch someone?

Shut Up, Flickr

The message I received when I logged onto my account this morning:

O HAI my username!

Now you know how to greet people in Lolspeak!

BAH.

If I Was Really Anti-Social, I Wouldn't Be There to Begin With

A conversation that took place this week at the local LYS:

Woman: Why are you so anti-social?

Me (looking up from my knitting and mentally picking my jaw up off the floor): Excuse me?

Woman: Why are you so anti-social?

Me (wondering if my expression clearly shows how taken aback I am by her inquiry): I'm not. I'm just a quiet person.

Woman (trying to laugh it off): Oh, I'm just giving you a hard time.

Me (to myself): YEAH RIGHT.

I will say that I can be a little subdued whenever I am in a large group (I'm much better when dealing with people in a one-on-one or small group situation), so this woman is not entirely wrong. I admit to being quieter than normal when I go to the LYS because I like listening to all the conversations taking place while doing my own thing in the corner. HOWEVER, why one would even ask that question of someone else is beyond me. I mean, really.

Some People Shouldn't Be Parents

And now, a conversation I had over the weekend:

Me (at work): Hello?

Woman: Hi. I want you to do a story on Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Me: What kind of story? We're not affiliated with the studio, and I don't have any contact inf-

Woman (annoyed): I'm not ASKING for contact information! I want you to do a story on how Forgetting Sarah Marshall should be rated X instead of R! It's promoted for kids but it should be rated X!

Me (knowing what she is going to say but wanting to hear it anyway): Well, why do you think it should be rated X?

Woman (loudly): BECAUSE I took my kids to see this movie [emphasis mine] and in it you see a full naked male penis at least SIX TIMES! I don't know how I'm going to get that image out of my kids' heads!

Me (calmly): But, ma'am, the movie is rated R. It's not being promoted to children. It's for adults. What are your children doing seeing a rated-R movie?

Woman (even more shouty): I NEED YOU TO DO A STORY ON THIS! IT SHOULD BE RATED X! I'm trying to SAVE THE COUNTRY!!

Me (trying not to laugh): Ma'am, it's rated R. It's not FOR KIDS.

Woman (huffily): Oh, you're for it, you're for it. She's for it (directed to someone in the room).

Me: CLICK! (hangs up)

I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS

I think you all know how I feel about It's A Small World, so it won't surprise you that I am livid over Disney's plans to add ACTUAL DISNEY CHARACTERS to the ride.  Livid, I say, LIVID!  Just WHY?!  Why fix what isn't broken?  It's one of the few rides that doesn't have built-in Disney branding! 

Excuse me while I go protest on Harbor Boulevard.  (Okay, not really, but I am there IN SPIRIT.)  Who's with me?

Everything About This Photo Is Just Wrong

EW.

I am SO OFFENDED by this. The breakfast side order that is hash browns is one of the best things EVER. Prepared properly, it is a dish of wonderfully crunchy, starchy perfection (and with a dash of salt and pepper, of course - sigh), so to see it prepackaged like this makes my stomach turn. Is it that hard to shred potatoes? Does one really have to resort to buying whatever this is and adding WATER to make something that dares to call itself hash browns? Can you imagine what this must taste like? Why bother?! My heart, it aches.

Or maybe that is just the oil from the browns talking.

Dear Parking Valets,

LOOK.  I try to avoid you at all costs, and not just because I don't want to fork over the five dollars or more it would cost to park my car in the space that I could do BY MYSELF, but also because I don't like the idea of people I don't know handling my car.  Oh, and this - that kind of ruined me when it comes to valets, too, although I don't drive a gorgeous classic Ferrari like Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago.  But sometimes street parking is nowhere to be found and I am forced to hand over the keys.

THAT SAID, I'll get out of the car when I'm DAMN GOOD AND READY, so stop jiggling the door handle the second I pull up in the queue.  I HATE it when you do that.  I have to get my things together and turn things off and your incessant efforts to open my door only make me want to take my time EVEN MORE.  I know, I know - you're just doing your job.  I GET IT.  But seriously, you can see through the side window that I'M NOT READY TO GET OUT YET, so stop fiddling with the handle (my door's locked anyway) and just WAIT UNTIL I GET OUT ON MY OWN.  GOD.

Can You Hear Me Now? NO, NO I CAN'T.

My cell phone is a Samsung Juke. I got it last fall when my contract with Verizon Wireless was up for renewal, and at the beginning I loved it. LOVED IT. It's red (!) and wee and cute and is often mistaken for a USB card. I personally think it looks like a sexy case of lipstick but that's just me. I also harbor a tiny fear of opening the phone in public in the dark because someone will think it's a switchblade and that I'm about to cut them and they end up shooting me. What? Stop looking at me like that.

ANYWAY. Fast forward to today and I still love my Juke but we're definitely out of the honeymoon phase. Why? Because nearly each and every call drops an average of three to four times. I'm not exaggerating: EACH AND EVERY CALL. THREE TO FOUR TIMES. Ask anyone with whom I've tried to hold conversations on my phone and they'll tell you the same thing: Yeah, Catherine's phone reception really blows. I did not have this problem at all with my previous phone; sure, calls would drop, but not nearly with the frequency they do now. It is SO ANNOYING.

I know, I know: the problem could be caused by many things. It could be an issue of the cell phone towers. It could be the Bluetooth connection between my phone and my car (in case you didn't know, Priuses - Prii? - come with an automatic Bluetooth connection so that you can drive and talk at the same time and be hands-free, and I'm sure I look kind of crazy from the outside as I'm talking and laughing and there's no one else in the car). I've read the manual and it says in order to maintain the optimum connection to keep the phone charged, which I do. I make sure to keep the part of the phone with the internal antenna (which, curiously, is at the base of the phone where one would hold it) exposed when I'm in the car. I've checked online for other complaints about calls dropping on the Juke and haven't found any, so my only conclusion is this: I LIVE IN A COMPLETE AND TOTAL VACUUM OF CELL PHONE SUCKAGE.

So I ask you, dear readers, what should I do next? Does anyone out there have a Juke and is having the same problem? I haven't yet brought my complaint to Verizon because I wanted to exhaust every method of correcting the situation my own first, but right now I'm so over calling people back after a call drops and apologizing profusely that I'm thisclose to throwing the phone out the window. Argh.

It's Raining On Project Runway's Prom Night

OH MY GOD, RICKY, STOP CRYING. AND STOP WEARING THOSE STUPID-ASS MESH HATS.

JESUS.