Thanksgiving is great. It's not just the family gathering or football or the parade, it's also the ignorant amount of food that everyone stuffs into themselves. When I think of all the bloated people sitting around like beached whales in a stupor after consuming endless loads of food, I can't help laughing. My beached whale-self will also be taking up a couch after the big meal.

I think it's okay to do this a few times each year, so eat up all that turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, pie, etc...

Yet, with all that rampant consumption of various edibles, I get worried when I see things like this.

Turducken. I heard of this Turducken from my friends this past weekend, but I didn't believe it. It took only a quick Google search to discover this monstrosity does exist, and people are spreading recipes on how to do it.

Are we really at a point in today's society where we need to consume every type of poultry not only in one sitting, but also in one dish? Who the hell thought of jamming a chicken into a duck into a turkey? How much does that person weigh? Can they feel their arteries clogging?

So, as another sign of total American excess, I salute you, mighty Turducken and your creator. You have hit new heights in the world of fatty fat fat McFat-ass American fatties and their food.

The Cat in the Hat

I have no urge to see the new movie "The Cat in the Hat." I wish Hollywood would stop making these cartoon-to-live-action movies, because 99% of them are crap. One can also tell how horrible a movie will be based on how many advertising tie-ins the movie has before it opens. I think Cat in the Hat has about 400.

Yet the fun part in all of these craptacular live-action movies are the reviews. Today I've read some reviews of Cat in the Hat and I would like to share some of the more creative quotes these folks are throwing out.

From the Boston Globe:
"At one point in ''The Cat in the Hat,'' the Cat, played by Mike Myers, is mistaken for a pinata by a group of children at a birthday party. One by one, they line up to smack him, and the scene culminates with a husky lad swinging a baseball bat directly into the unfortunate feline's cojones.

That's a remarkably precise metaphor for what this movie does to the memory of Dr. Seuss. If the producers had dug up Ted Geisel's body and hung it from a tree, they couldn't have desecrated the man more."

From FilmCritic.com:
"Judging from this humorless monstrosity, the Cat team spent 10 years working on their film’s decorative appearance and a combined 10 minutes writing sleazy jokes and a catastrophic script that I wouldn’t use to line a litter box....

Never before has a title character sucked the energy and humor out of a project the way Myers does when he prances across the screen. His black cat is a Roach Motel of comedy. Jokes go in, but the laughs don’t come out."

From the Village Voice:
"The Cat in the Hat comes scarily close to being the most unendurable Hollywood creation of the last dozen years."

From the NY Times:
"Hollywood has turned Dr. Seuss' whimsical story into a vulgar, uninspired lump of poisoned eye candy."

I think you get the idea. It must be fun to be a film critic when you get the rip apart a movie like this.

Oh, Michael Jackson, just what are you doing?

Come on, we were all fans of yours for so long! I had the "Thriller" record when I was a kid. I wished I could have a tiger cub and cool outfits. I watched the "Thriller" video and got scared, but I also wanted to learn the cool zombie dance moves.

My impression of you made me popular amongst my friends all through elementary school and up to college. They'd yell, "Quick, do the Michael Jackson thing!" And then I'd quickly do a moonwalk, spin, grab ABOVE my crotch (you don't expect a kid to do that kind of impression now, do you? Wait, don't answer that...), and then finish it off with a high-pitched "A-Hey-Hee! Ow!"

I was able to shrug off your going through massive physical changes over the years -- I knew I loved your music. I thought as long as you made good music, then you could do whatever the hell you wanted. Then you started hanging out with a chimp named Bubbles. Then you made a greatest hits CD that was good, but come on, MJ, the album art work showed a huge statue of you set up in some anonymous city square with people cheering and worshipping all around it.

You started wearing masks, marrying and then divorcing random celebrity women, sleeping in the same bed as Macaulay Caulkin, hanging your baby off balconies, etc... The list goes on, man.

And now look at what's going on.

Why didn't you just stop after you built an amusement park at your ranch? Who the hell needs more than that?! Seriously! If I wake up at 3am and have the urge to ride a roller coaster or take a nice calming ride on a merry-go-round, I'd have to drive 3 hours out to Six Flags, then wait til they opened, and I'd STILL have to wait in a hour-long line.

You can just walk out to your backyard. WHY WOULD YOU RUIN THAT?!

What a waste.

"MASS SJC RULES GAY MARRIAGE BAN UNCONSTITUTIONAL"

Well, it's about time. Amy and I can only live in sin for so long before it just starts getting weird.

Go Bengals, Go!



Holy geez! Look at my Bengals! They beat an undefeated team yesterday!

I've been a Bengals fan since I was a wee child. I've been to some of their games (though none in their new over-priced stadium), I used to have all their players memorized, I had a poster of Ickey Woods, I still have the collector's set of Bengals glasses with Tim Krumrie on them from the local Shell stations, I thought Boomer Esiason was the coolest, etc....

I've even been able to admit all during the past horrid decade of the Bengals that I was still a fan. I thought Jeff Blake would help bring them back, and then watched them lose tons of games in a row and draft promising players that then suck and/or are constantly injured.

And now look at the boys, 5-5! Holy crap, we're at .500!

I hate (but understand) how their games are never televised up here in Boston, so I always have to watch their games via the little scores ticker at the bottom of the screen during other games. And yesterday, I watched the ticker tell me they beat the Kansas City Chiefs.

So, go Bengals, go!

Skippy Might be Right

In response to Skippy's comment about my license plate post, I say, "Skippy, you might be right." Maybe I am too negative about the world and those people around me.

I use this blog as a way to just comment on silly or weird or pointless things that happen in my life. And I'm a bit of a cynic about things. Not all who read my blog may know that I'm a pretty cheerful person who just enjoys making people laugh.

Skippy thinks that I seem "evil" and that I'm "trying to set someone up." It seems to me that Skippy is afraid that I'm not getting the best out of life because I'm not putting my best out there to everyone. I appreciate Skippy's concern.

There are some who may think that I shouldn't take advice from a person who's named after a brand of peanut butter, but to those people I say, "We all know Peter Pan peanut butter sucks."

So to Skippy, and everyone else out there, have some sunshine from me. It's up to you whether or not you decide to have it blown up your ass.

And now, here are pictures of puppies and kittens.

Just saw this license plate on this ugly "tricked out" Honda outside:

FSHIZL

I can't decide if it's funny or stupid.

The Onion

This is just hysterical. And now I'm writing about it on my blog. Which my mom reads occasionally.

What is the best vegetable out there?

I'm really tired of turkey sandwiches.

A Story

Once upon a time there was a girl who worked as an office manager for a PR firm. This was not what she had been trained to do. No, her training was in broadcast journalism. Yet she was unemployed for a while and even though she freelanced for a journalism website during that time, that didn't pay all the bills or have healthcare. So, she swallowed her pride and took a job that was kind of remotely related, but was not near as much fun or as challenging. But wait, the author is digressing.

Anyway, this lowly office manager missed the fun of production work. She longed for something to keep that desire satisfied. Over the course of several months, she became addicted to Craigslist. One day she found a posting on there from a independent film company. They were looking for a cinematographer and other crew members for an upcoming film shoot.

How rad! thought the office manager, a chance to hone my skills and learn more about making a film! So she emailed, and soon learned that even though she told them she had no prior film production experience, she would be the "Boom Operator."

How romantic, she thought as the smooth sounds of Sade's "Smooth Operator" entered her head.

Soon, the first day of film production arrived, and the office manager could hardly contain her glee. She would be working on a film. Sure, the script was kind of stupid and she had no film production experience, but she thought, Who cares? I will be helping to craft a piece of art. The office manager grinned in private when she thought of the film's screening night sometime in the future. The credits would roll at the end of it all, and there would be her name up on the big screen:

Sound Recording/Boom Operator: The Office Manager

So the office manager arrived 15 minutes early to the shoot on the first day. She met the whole cast and crew and thought they were all so friendly and helpful. She felt the rush of being part of something cool -- there she was holding the boom mic over the scene, capturing the voices of the actors.

Five hours into the shoot, her arms were tired but she was still filled with a feeling of accomplishment and triumph. She had never done sound before, but here she was doing a fantastic job of holding the mic in just the right place and doing her part. The office manager smiled with satisfaction in between shots on scene 37A.

Then, she flicked the mic just to hear the crackle in her headphones.

Nothing.

She flicked it again. Still no sound in her headphones. Confusion crept in, how could she hear what was going on in the room but not hear a huge flick to the microphone?

The camera operator noticed the confusion on the office manager's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Um, I'm not getting any sound in the mic," the office manager sheepishly replied.

Both of them fumbled around with the mic, changing cords, flicking the mic, changing the cords back, flicking the mic. Still there was nothing.

Then they both looked at the camera. The office manager suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

"We've been getting all the sound from the mic on the camera," they both said in unison.

The room had gone quiet by then. Everyone was wondering why the cameraman and the boom operator were frantically moving cords on the boom. Now they knew.

"So she's been standing there for five hours now holding a boom over her head that's not been picking up any sound?" said the director, pointing at the office manager.

The cameraman nodded. The office manager smiled a sick smile. The director shook his head. Everyone else shuffled their feet or their script or looked away or did whatever they needed to do so as to not have to look at the office manager. She blinked.

Some time went by. There was discussion. Everyone was reassured to an extent that the camera had at least been picking up the sound. It wasn't as perfect as the sound from the boom, but it was still good sound. Most everyone had come up to the office manager and said supportive things like "Man, that sucks" or "Sorry about all that."

Still, she remained quiet and to herself for the rest of the shoot. After the initial discovery of the soundless boom, with everyone taking down the indoor set so they could move the shoot outside for the next scenes, she sat by herself outside along the fence. The boom sat next to her. She was trying to just stay out of the way for a little while.

The office manager watched the small crew move about with extension cords and lights and boxes and other film-making what-not. She watched her breath in the cool air, clutching the boom in the crook of her folded arm, rubbing her hands together.

The director walked over to her. "Alright, let's see if we can get this silly thing working," he said.

"I'm really sorry," the office manager said. "I was hearing sound in my headphones, and everything sounded fine. You know if it didn't sound fine I would've have said something so we could reshoot the scene with the correct sound."

The director nodded. He told her the cameraman just realized he hadn't switched a certain button on his camera to override that mic with the boom. They both sighed. The filming went on.

Even with that button finally switched for the final four hours of the shoot, the cords weren't the correct ones needed so that the boom could pick up both channels of the sound. So really the sound problem wasn't even her fault. Yet the office manager still wasn't finding much solace in that statement.

She still held the boom for the final four hours, picking up its one channel of sound. The day's shoot ended. Everyone cheered and shook hands and started tearing down the set. The office manager set the boom down and stood there silently for a second.

She smiled and then took it apart, laughing quietly as she put it away in its case.

That Queasy Love Feeling

I have a good friend who is currently courting her first-ever girlfriend. I've tried to offer some good advice to her as they both flirt via email (they're coworkers). The following is some advice I sent her:

-------------------------------
Now you just need to figure out if (the crush) has a steady gal herself. You should just start dropping huge hints around her, like one or more of the following sentences:

"Wow, I went to Provincetown this weekend -- there sure are a lot of HOMOS out there!!"
"Isn't Ellen DeGeneres great?"
"Last night I watched the movie 'If These Walls Could Talk 2' like 15 times....I love lesbians and all that they stand for."
"Oops, my clothes fell off!"
"Hey, anyone else need a make-out buddy for the weekend?"
"I went to Wellesley, so really I'm open to and ready for anything you can throw at me -- or spank me with."
"Anyone up for earning a toaster oven?"
"Hi, you're invited to a naked party at my house. Oh, and you're the only other person, besides me, who will be there."

I think if you toss a few of those into your conversations with and around her, you'll be able to find out if she's into you.

And if you can't get this gal to notice you with those wicked good pick-up lines -- or if she tries to get away from you as soon as you start chatting with her -- then you must have some other plan of attack.

I say set up a trap. From what I've heard, lesbians are drawn to certain things. Here's a list I came up with:

1- forest green SUVs or Subaru Outbacks
2- cats
3- something I've heard referred to as "nature"
4- granola
5- unshaven legs
6- human rights
7- the Indigo Girls
8- softball
9- drumming circles
10- Mother Earth (whatever the fuck that is!)

So, to setup this trap, put one or more of the previous listed items in the middle of the hallway. Try mixing thing that are related, like SUVs and "nature" or a drumming circle and Mother Earth. Anywho, put those in an open place in the hallway. Above said "lesbian-loved things," put a net or a cage. Whenever your prey starts sniffing or rooting around the softball or the unshaven legs or whatever, pull the cord and down comes the cage/net. Now you've captured her! Then you can do whatever you want. Oh, and you might want to attach a leash to her, I've heard lesbians are fast.

end email
---------------------------------


I don't know if my friend used any of those tactics to nab the crush, but today this friend of mine got a very encouraging email from the crush. It looks like they'll be going out on a pseudo-date soon, and the crush's email to her noticed little things about my friend -- like my friend's new work chair. My friend was so excited about this positive email, that she forwarded it to me. It's wonderful, I would say things are moving along well with them. So I sent back the following email to her:

---------------------------
Oh yeah, it's on now!

(Friend), I'll bet it's taking you forever to reply because you'll type something, then you'll think it sounds dumb, so you retype it. Then it sounds like you're too interested in her, so you retype it. Then it sounds like you don't care, so you retype it. Then it sounds like you're way too cheerful, so you retype it. And by then you've rewritten it so many damn times that you just type something and send it.

Two seconds later, you freak out because you just sent her an email that you didn't proof-read and WHAT IF YOU SPELLED SOMETHING WRONG?!?!?! What if your use of the silly phrase "haha!" in that one line sounds really hokey to her? What if she decides to not go yarn-shopping with you because you did look too gleeful about a friggin' chair, and your mere mention of "Yeah, thanks for noticing me being all happy in my new chair" sounds to her like you'd rather date the new chair than hang out with her and her cats? HOLY SHIT!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW?!?!

....Or maybe that was just my experience when I used to email Amy and try to get her to go out with me....

end email
----------------------------

It's true, though, right? I think we've all gone through that phase of being anal about each thing we say to our love interests or what stupid little things mean (Shit! She's wearing a gray sweater today! It means she hates me!).

That phase of relationships was fun, but I'm happy with being way past that now. Now Amy and I can belch in front of each other and joke about farts and write emails wrought with typos to each other without freaking out and having to breathe into a bag.

That's right, the magic is still there between the two of us!

Before you judge someone, try walking a mile in their shoes. Then when you do judge them, you'll be a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

If you ever wondered what a velociraptor's day job might be:



But do not piss off the vicious office manager.



Yeah, vicious. That's the word.