Saturday, May 31, 2008

The 18 Hour Bra

"Stylish"

Maybe it's because I watch Bridezillas, Say Yes to the Dress, What Not to Wear, Groomer Has It and Rich Bride, Poor Bride, but recently Playtex has been running a ton of commercials for the 18 hour bra. Based on the models that they have in the commercials, the 18 hour bras are for women that have ginormous breastaculars who want to wear exceedingly hideous grandma nursing bras and are interested in losing their husbands and boyfriends ASAP. Obviously somebody at Playtex decided that because they made decent tampons, that automatically qualified them to make all things related to women, like bras, "cleansing wipes" (HAHAHA), suntan lotion, sport tampons for sporty vaginas, and dishwashing gloves because all women do dishes.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like Playtex IS actually qualified to make bras, because apparently their bras only work for 18 hours. Like if you have to be at work late and you have the bra on for 18 hours and 1 minute, all bets are off. Your boobs will immediately hit your knees, the seams will unravel, the straps will break, the cups will shrivel up and fall off, and your coach will turn into a pumpkin and you will once again be dressed in rags. Even if all this stuff doesn't happen at the stroke of 18 hours, calling the bra "18 hours" begs the question of what happens after, and if they were just meaning that this is a bra you can wear all day, they should have called it the 24 hour bra with an explanation in small print that you actually don't have to wear it for 24 hours, you can wear it for less and nothing will happen to you, or they should have called it the All Day Bra with an asterisk that you can also wear it at night too if need be but that they wouldn't recommend it because if you make out with someone and they see it they might be scared off due to its monstrous nature.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Bye Bye Bye

Um, what's going on here

So yesterday was my last day at work and they had a very nice little cake and champagne send off for me in the same room in which a counsel, who was also leaving the firm, had his cake/champagne send off earlier in the day. At my party there was soda, cheese, fruit and crackers and a strawberry shortcake that said "Good Luck Marin" which was key, and everything was going great until a partner that I work with casually pointed out that the counsel's leftover cake was bigger then my cake. Upon closer inspection this appeared to be true and to say that I was completely devastated is putting it mildly. Basically this cake slight could mean any or all of the following: a) the firm was wishing MORE luck to the counsel than to me = not acceptable, b) the firm assumed that because I was an associate and he was a counsel he probably had more friends and would therefore need a larger cake which is false because I have MANY friends or c) the people baking the cake in the cafeteria realized that the parties would be in the same room and were afraid that the counsel would become enraged if we had the same sized cakes.

As the wound is still so raw, it is impossible for me to analyze the situation objectively, but since my co-workers have discovered my blog (hi guys), I invite them to offer their theories on Cakegate 2008-2009.

P.S. On the subway I saw a guy wearing a sweatshirt that said Eddie Blauer - HAHAHAHHA

Crane Drops, Keeps Falling On My Head


Aliza gchatted me this morning that ANOTHER crane fell on an apartment building on the Upper East Side, and sadly one person died. First of all, last time I checked, a crane was a bird and a brand of corny paisley stationary. Second of all, if a crane is in fact a piece of machinery that lifts things, I'm not sure what all of these "cranes" are doing in NYC but it seems like maybe somebody should get in there and fix them so things don't keep falling on buildings and people, because apparently we're actually living in the Tower of Babel where people just drop bricks on other peoples' heads all day long and no one speaks the same language.

I propose that we actually get rid of these cranes because any corny safety measures that the city will implement will be 100% lame and ineffective and that we investigate betters ways to lift things onto other things. My main ideas on this point include powerful hot air balloons, catapults and very strong men. I think the bottom line here is that the pyramids didn't just build themselves and there were no Skanska cranes 80 million years ago, so in order to get shit built the Jews had to be enslaved for 200 years, so I know for a fact there are other ways of lifting things and maybe people should start "thinking outside the box" for solutions to this lifting problem instead of just being obsessed with cranes.

Bloomingdales Usury

Only shop here if you are telepathic

Because I wear VERY expensive and luxxxurious clothing, several months ago I was shopping in Bloomingdales and bought approximately $700 worth of clothing because I am very rich. They asked if I wanted to open a Bloomingdales card and I said no, but then they said I could save 30% so then I said yes, and the entire amount was put on the card. Several months later when the spirit moved me to pay the bill, I logged into Bloomingdales online and saw that my account balance was $0, which was glorious news because that meant that the clothing had paid for itself.

Every few months or so I would log in to confirm that my balance was still $0 and that I had gotten all my clothing for free, until one day I received a mysterious call from a collections agency telling me that I owed approximately $900 with interest and that I needed to pay it immediately. Since the man was extremely scary and I had previously seen Dog the Bounty Hunter, I paid the full balance to the collections agency man and then called Bloomingdales to figure out what happened. The customer service rep explained to me that for some reason my online account had been registered as a "Platinum" account, but the actual charges were made to a regular "Gold" account, the (erroneous) idea being that platinum is better than gold, so that the charges never showed up online. I then asked the customer service rep whether I was supposed to use my extreme telepathic powers to intuit that Bloomingdales had made this mistake, or whether I should just in the future be fine with all my charges going to the wrong account and then paying 5000% in interest every time and have my credit score go from 10000 to 0 and have to live in constant fear that a man with a mullet and a leather vest will come to my apartment, scare the children and take back all the dresses I bought.

While I initially suspected that this "mixup" was no mistake but actually a usurious scheme by Bloomingdales to get more interest and ruin peoples credit, this was 100% confirmed last week when I was shopping with Megan at Bloomingdales and she was buying a very important dress and the cashier swiped her Bloomingdales card and said it was declined. Megan then asked to speak with a customer service rep on the phone and then she informed the rep that she was EXCEEDINGLY wealthy and just paid off her Bloomingdales card and that her card being declined was embarrassing her in front of her friends and other shoppers and making her look poor which was humiliating due to her extreme wealth. Unsurprisingly, they pulled the same pyramid scheme with her, billing one account, making up a new magical account with a $0 balance and then charging her 10,000% interest for not using her powers of telepathy and realizing what was going on. Frankly this is ridiculous and we need to get John Stossel in here to do some swab tests and investigate this shit because something is going on and I'm onto it.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Deed to the Moon


For Sale by Century 21

So apparently people are actually selling and buying land on the moon. My initial thought was that whomever is selling it is a genius and whomever is buying it is an idiot, but then I realized that this is actually the greatest birthday gift idea of all time. Um, who wouldn't want a piece of the moon? If you go to MoonEstates you can choose from a wide variety of other ridiculous places to own property, including Mars and Venus, or, if the decision is too difficult and all three planets seem amazing, why not get land in all three in order to receive three times the bragging rights. When you're done buying your land, you should celebrate by proceeding directly to the nearest bathroom, taking out $100 and flushing it down the toilet.

Luckily there is no question as to authenticity and legitimacy of title, because MoonEstates prints the deed on high quality parchment paper with a GOLD heading, prints your name specially on it with the finest laser printer in the land, and encases it in a luxxxurious high quality frame, which are tell tale signs of rightful ownership. But just in case this whole Mars business turns out to be a hoax, with every purchase of Mars property they will include two real saints bones, a feather from the Dodo bird, a treasure map to El Dorado and the true identity of Jack the Ripper along with a complimentary package of magical elixirs and smelling salts.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Scientology v. Mormonism: Ridiculousness Assessed

Cruiseazy


One of my favorite conversations to have is, More Ridiculous - Mormonism or Scientology. While I find all religions fairly ridiculous, these two are pretty much out of control. Below I set out the salient points of both arguments.

LDS - Ridiculous
1. Um, invented 150 years ago
2. Believes Utah is Zion - nice try
3. Wear magical underwear
4. Believe that if you convert to Mormonism, all your relatives who were rotting in purgatory also get converted and are sprung from the dungeons of hell
5. Miraculously decided to finally let in black people in 1978 after God gave a revelation saying that they were allowed in, which mysteriously coincided with the IRS threatening to revoke LDS' tax exempt status as a religion
6. Miraculously decided to revoke the plural marriage doctrine given to Joseph Smith after God decided in 1850 that Utah should be a part of the U.S.

LDS - Shamazing
1. Donnie Osmond
2. Wear magical underwear

Scientology - Ridiculous
1. Invented 40 years ago
2. Invented 40 years ago by science fiction writer
3. Involves galactic wars
4. Character named Xenu
5. Special egg determines your level of operating Thetan
6. Can only ascend through levels of religion if you pay ten cagrillion dollars
7. You have to be kidding me

Scientology - Shamazing
1. Tom Cruise
2. Cool to say you're a Scientologist and not be kidding

Farewell Emails


I googled "fond farewell" and this is what I got - HAHAHA

So Friday is my last day at my job, and everyone always sends out an email to all the partners and associates telling them what a great experience it was, what great people they worked with. I will write a similar one because I genuinely enjoyed my job and working with my co-workers, but I wanted to end the email with a quote. Top contenders are:

1. "I can't go on. I must go on. I will go on." - Samuel Beckett
2. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost
3. Hyperlinking my cell phone contact information with this
4. "Honey, you're a goodlooking girl and that's the most important thing in life." - Howard Stern
5. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Lord Tennyson
6. "And my poor fool is hanged. No, no life? Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more, never, never, never. Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir." - Shakespeare, King Lear
7. "You complete me." - Jerry Maguire
8. "You are...NOT the father" - Maury Povich


Cast your votes!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Things I Will Do When I'm Disgustingly Rich


Since I apparently talk about gold and riches so much, someone recently asked me what I would actually do if and WHEN I get my hands on such money. Below I have included a list of things I will do when I am repulsively wealthy:

1. Quit my job - any one that I am working at the moment
2. Commission an oil painting of Perry from the finest painter in the land
3. Furnish a room entirely of gold
4. Buy an estate next door to Bono so I can watch him with binoculars
5. Free all the animals in captivity everywhere
6. Take out a full page ad in my hometown's local newspaper and write "I am very rich and you live in Hoboken - hahaha" and address it to high school tormentors
7. Hire someone to work out for me while I eat gummy worms on a chaise lounge
8. Punish the wicked
9. Pay off Megan's student loans
10. Get a secondary rhinoplasty from Dr. Raj Kanodia on Dr. 90210 who, according to his receptionist, doesn't do secondary rhinoplasties, but that is a lie because he did Jennifer Aniston's and Cameron Diaz's
11. Make them do a Rock of Love 3
12. Pay rent on my apartment for the next 25 years so they stop kicking me out
13. Purchase a mausoleum for myself and Perry to be maintained in perpetuity
14. Devote 100% of my time to looking for the fountain of youth
15. Pay someone who will reveal to me the secrets of the Vatican
16. Create a town devoted to Bedlingtons, which will be a sanctuary for underprivileged or homeless Bedlingtons

Memorial Day Bragging

I was definitely here all weekend

Every year, everybody always asks everybody else what they're doing for New Years, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day and other made up holidays. And you know what, I actually can't take it anymore. Because you could be the coolest person in the world but if you don't have SHAMAZING plans on all of these days your life is pretty much worthless and you look like a giant nerd. It's ridiculous because I could have plans 364 days a year and then somehow, on New Years, everybody disappears and somehow is always booked up going to South Beach, or going to a black tie party somewhere in a loft or on vacation to Paris or some other crap, and I never have amazing plans so then I look like an idiot when people ask me what I'm doing for New Years, when in fact they are only asking the question so that they can braggg about their own amazing plans. I mean, am I supposed to book Labor Day 30 years in advance? Let's get real here.

So yesterday as I'm sitting in Central Park with the thousands of other losers without Memorial Day plans, I decided that when 30 people call me or email me at work today to fake ask me about my weekend and nonchalantly tell me about their time down the shore, at a barbeque or how drunk they got a deck party, I will just tell them that my weekend was nothing special, I just went down the shore, to the SHAMptons, and to Fire Island where we had 3 barbeques, 4 rooftop parties, 7 bonfires on the beach and 17 luaus so if they could just calm down and stop bragging to me that would be great.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Bloodline is Key


"Madonna Enthroned" by Giotto, a painting featured in at least 34,908 of my Renaissance Art exams in college

Apparently I live directly across from a Christian group that rents space in a Byzantine church and has Christian rock concerts/services on Friday night and Sunday. It's actually ridiculous because when I'm trying to sleep on Sunday morning at like 9am they blast corny Creed-like music into my apartment with annoying lyrics like "Lay me down, all around the world, they're singing lay me down, and raise me uuuuuuuuuuuppppppp."

Anyway, everyone is always cheering in there and singing along to the music because it's a well known fact that Jesus enjoys soft rock, and it occurred to me that obviously none of these people has seen the documentary Bloodline which basically proves conclusively that Mary Magdalene removed Jesus' body after he was on the cross because he actually wasn't dead and the disciples were tricked and thought he ascended into heaven when really Mary put him on a canoe, paddled out to southwestern France and when they got there the two of them lived for 30 more years, had tons of children and the children eventually married into the Merovingian line of kings in France where his descendants are still living today, running cheese shops and Vespa dealerships. Everyone makes fun of me for seeing these Jesus documentaries but seeing these things is essential because now instead of spending the 1.5 hours I alot every day to worrying about whether I have chosen the wrong religion and how I will explain that to god when I die, I can spend my time doing other things like investigating careers in Bedlington terrier breeding or picking out new duvet covers.

Where Am I Supposed to Send Things


One of the many things that I neglected to consider prior to giving notice at my job was where in the hell I will now get my packages sent. When I quit my job, my co-workers were like, "How are you going to have money to live?" because they were obviously unaware of my VERY large ING nest egg, so I told them that I planned to live off the fat of the land and subsistence farm and can fruit for the long winter ahead.

And frankly who cares about food - the real problem here is the following: a) I will no longer have a confirmed shipping address on ebay so I will no longer be able to buy shoes so I'll have to wear the ones I already have which is unacceptable, b) I will no longer be able to buy clothes online so I'll have to wear the horrible rags that are already in my closet which is unacceptable, c) I will not be able to order things from Amazon so I won't be able to read books for the next few months and my sharp wit, vocabulary and cocktail party knowledge will go into decline and my charm and womanly wiles will diminish, d) I will no longer be able to order all my medication 3 months at a time in advance so when I finish up this vial of Lexapro and can't get anymore there may or may not be a disaster, and e) I will no longer be able to put items in my shopping cart on various sites and then email people my "wish list" and tell them that I wish they'd be a good friend for once and buy it for me or else. I mean, this isn't a COMPLETE disaster because it's not like I'm getting deliveries of ProActiv every 8 weeks in order to keep my pizza face at bay, but still.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Taxation in Narnia


So this morning I get my mail and get one of those ominous "official documentation from the State of New Jersey" letters. I open it and it tells me that I owe New Jersey $64.32 as interest on unpaid installments on taxes in 2007. Alrighty. Too bad the last time I checked, which was 4 years ago, I was living in New York and was a resident here and have absolutely no connection to New Jersey other than I went there on Mother's Day to vist my mom and the dogs Lambo and Hailey. So unless my dad's EZ Pass wasn't working and my dad became bankrupt unbeknownst to me and EZ Pass decided to go after his heirs for unpaid tolls on various bridges and tunnels, I am now being forced to pay New Jersey taxes despite the fact that I don't live there whatsoever.

I'm not sure whose idea this was to just start randomly taxing people, but this is a genius idea and I think every state that I've ever been to should just send me a bill for a random amount. I went to Florida to visit my grandmother in February - looks I should be getting a $174 bill from there for walking on their beach! En route to Florida I flew over Georgia - best return that latest ebay purchase in order to pay them $37 for using their air! And why stop at income taxes, why not just charge me capital gains for peeing in a toilet in Chicago or property tax on Waterworks and St. Charles Place which I owned last time I played Monopoly. How about instead of just paying me any money to work my job, why don't they just direct deposit my entire check into New Jersey's treasury and when that's not enough just send me a letter letting me know that I should report to Newark on Monday to begin a life of indentured servitude working making license plates to pay off taxes in a state I don't live in.

To Fight the Unbeatable Foe

"Never say that you have reached the very end
When leaden skies a bitter future may portend"
- from the song of the Warsaw Ghetto Martyrs

So I ordered a bunch of GRE books from Amazon and you're not done yet, because I MAY go to graduate school and so I figured I'd find out more about the test whose ass I will ultimately kick. One of the books was a Kaplan GRE "math refresher" book and I was just browsing it on the subway hoping someone would ask me what I was reading or where I was going to school and as I'm looking at the shit in there I realize there is no way I will pass this test. Um, have you SEEN the math they put on there? Everyone says that it's high school level easy math but I have news for you, high school math is easy only if you are a math JEANIUS, and the GRE math reminded me of this supposedly "gut" course at college "Knots and Ropes" that was the math class for football players that was actually impossible being that you had to calculate "vectors" and other things, and I dropped that shit ASAP. Look, the entire POINT of graduating high school is that you never have to do math again or be tormented by jerks who better regret it now or else, and I have not come this far in life to spend my time doing equations.

Here is an example of the kind of astrophysics they are putting on the GRE. There was a practice question on what would the tip be on a $18 check if you want to leave a tip of 15%. How am I supposed to answer this if a) I don't have my cell phone EZ Tip calculator with me and b) I never pay for my own meals? Are they really trying to judge how amazing I will be in graduate school based on isosceles triangles? And how I can calculate the interest on something when the interest is always zero because it's 100% boring.

This test is VERY biased because last time I checked people are supposed to get their dads to do this stuff or get their boyfriends to take care of this shit and I believe that is the entire point in having those people around. They say it tests your analytical and quantitative skills, but I am VERY good at analyzing things (see supra, this entire blog) and I know for a fact that more riches are better than less riches but somehow those are not the analytical and quantitative skills they are testing, they are just testing math. This reminds me of the time when I was like 12 when my mom was paying me allowance and had a bunch of coins on the table and she asked me to choose the one I wanted, the golden penny or the small silver dime and I obviously said the penny because it was bigger and who wouldn't want gold and my mom said "are you sure?" and I said "yes I'm sure, everyone knows gold is better than silver" and she could not argue with this airtight logic.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Busy for the Next 13 Days


Recently I was trying to make plans with a friend, and she told me that she was busy for the next 13 days. It was May 7 when I tried to make the plans, and she told me that the next time she was free to meet was May 20. Let me just clarify that she wasn't going on vacation anywhere, she was just otherwise busy for the next 312 hours. Personally, I find it hard to believe that for 13 days she ran around without having showered or brushing her teeth and wearing a diaper because there was not a single minute to spare.

Look, I understand being occupied at work or watching auctions on ebay or having to watch certain shows on tv at certain times, but I'm sorry because no one is busy for 13 days straight and it just makes you look ridiculous to even claim that you are 100% booked during that time. Basically that means that you would get up in the morning, eat breakfast for an hour, commute to work, work for 12 hours, immediately go home, work on work at home and fall directly into bed where you do more work and then get up and do it again for 12 more days. Um, this makes no sense and if anyone has done this it would probably set the Guiness Book of World Records for most ridiculous thing ever, along with those fat twins on scooters.

The Bachelorette is Ridiculous


In general I am a giant fan of the show The Bachelor, because you can really see how these women who have careers as hot dog stand vendors, church fundraisers and medical assistants are eliminated are losing their one and only chance to marry a millionaire (Brad Womack), an officer and a gentleman (Lt. Andy Baldwin), a doctor (Lt. Andy Baldwin), or a prince (Prince Lorenzo Borghese), so it makes sense to me that these women would throw themselves at these chumps, catfight over them and cry hysterically when they are eliminated. I can't really say the same thing about The Bachelorette, where they have 25 moderately decently employed guys vying for the attention of one average girl who, this season, is a kindergarten teacher. Not that there's anything wrong with being a kindergarten teacher, but it makes no sense that these guys would sob into the camera saying that their dreams of marrying an kindergarten teacher are crushed forever when they could pretty easily put up a post on Craigslist or go on Match.com and get one of them ASAP.

In any event, this season the Bachelorette is a reject from a prior show, DeAnna Pappas, whom they brought back because, according to the announcer, "America fell in love with her." Apparently I missed the boat on this, because I can certify that I did NOT fall in love with her because she came off as needy and demanding and unlike Trista or the other bachelorettes with smoking bodies, the producers were always mysteriously filming around the lower half of her body - like they'd shoot her about to take off her clothes and jump into the pool and then cut to her already IN the pool because they were trying to hide from America her giant ass and obviously cellulitic butt, but I was onto it, and I once paused it before the camera cut out and you can DEFINITELY see her cellulite.

Anyway, when I saw The Bachelorette premiere last night, it was apparent that DeAnna has gone to the collagen factory, because in general when people get elected Bachelorette, they are immediately sequestered into Bachelorette Bootcamp, where they provide you with a Nazi personal trainer to get your ass in gear, liposocution as needed, collagen for your flimsy lips, unlimited spray tanning, DaVinci veneers and reasonable sized implants. Sadly for DeAnna, bootcamp was not enough and they are still refusing to film her lower body and always have her in pants, full length sarongs and other ridiculous items that cover her up and make it seem completely normal. This is exactly why I need to be elected as the next Bachelorette - not only because of the free plastic surgery, but also because America is tired of whiney people who talk about their feelings, how in love they are with people on the show and their amazing connections with other people, and want someone who will just tell people the truth. Like I would tell the martial arts master guy that he was eliminated based on his thinning hair/mullet combination and tell the guy who jumped in the pool with a giant cross necklace that I have a strict policy on man jewelry in that it is unacceptable.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Shopbop Usury


Um, not to alarm anybody, but today I can't find my watch. I either left it on my night table or lost it somewhere in my office and I'm having approximately 20349809348 heart attacks because I love that watch and if I lose it, I will probably open up a window and throw myself out of it. Anyway, in order to calm my anxiety until my dogwalker Greg can check if I left it at my apartment or not I decided to go to Shopbop which sent me an email saying that they are having a sale on certain items, 30-70% off. By way of background, Shopbop is a bunch of jerks as far as online shopping sites go, because they never have coupons, all the shit is ridiculously expensive,but they have the best selection of all de$igner clothes that I need to enhance my beauty. So I just went to the site figuring that now that they cut down the prices I could by some things in an effort to counteract the sadness and anxiety I feel over my watch with beautiful new items that I can brag about and that people will be jealous of, but I discovered what I had secretly known all along, that their original prices are totally jacked up and their sales are complete jokes.

Take, for instance, these shoes - I mean, they're alright, but Shopbop is actually living in Narnia if they think anyone is going to pay $495 because while Jean-Michel Cazabat is a decent designer, let's not go crazy because he's not that great and you will still have to explain to some people who he is and exactly how much you paid so that people will know you are very rich and important. It's not like Louboutins where you just wear them and people crap their pants when they see them on, like what happened to me during my birthday dinner where a stranger complimented me on my "gorgeous shoes." I'd also like to point out that other sites list these shoes for around $360, so I have no idea who Shopbop thinks it is, but if they think they can mark it down to $346.50, that is really an insult and they need to stop wasting everyone's time with these "Sale! Sale! Sale!" emails. I won't even get into all the other stuff that is "marked down" from wildly outrageous to moderately outrageous prices, but the people there need to get in touch with reality ASAP because it's literally cramping my style.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Bar Usury

Apparently we were served with the Holy Grail


So after the apartment party we had at Milan's house, we all went to China 1 to continue the party. So we roll up and the bouncer is like, sorry folks, no more room, at which point I tell him that we are VERY goodlooking and so we should be let in, and then Milan pulls out his credit card and says we'll buy a bottle, which seemed to be more effective. Anyway, so I tell Milan whatever it costs I'll split the price with him due to my exceeding wealth, so he gets the bill back today from the bar and it is $345 for a single bottle of Grey Goose. This means that they are attempting to charge me $300 for someone to walk over to the liquor store, buy a $45 bottle of Grey Goose, walk back to the bar, chill it in a freezer, open a can of generic brand cranberry juice, pour it into a carafe so it looks official, and serve it to us on a tin tray.

As Megan said about the same shit that happened two years ago when they tried charge $500 for two bottles and a "private" back room at a ghetto bar that is now closed, unless they went into the fields, picked the wheat themselves and distilled it in a diamond encrusted vat there is no reason for these ridiculous markups. I may be a mediocre lawyer, but I'm positive that this qualifies as either robbery, and if not robbery I know for a fact that this may fall under one of the usury laws, in particular the one that says that you can't charge more than 70,000% of something's true value, and after I leave my job I will be looking into this issue full time.

The Race for Vice President



Obviously I don't follow the "Race for the White House" or whatever people are calling it these days, because it's boring and it's not much of a race so much as a slow walk since it has been going on for 3 years now and people need to calm down. Anyway, so I just learned that John McCain is 72 which would make him the oldest person ever to hold office if he was President. When I heard this, my first question was who is going to be his Vice President and I was told that they haven't figured that stuff out yet. Um, maybe I am living in Narnia, but I would think that if you have a candidate that is 72 who never appears in public without bandaids on his face which are obviously there to make sure that it doesn't fall off because Michael Jackson uses the same trick to keep his face on, America should not be giving a rats ass about who is running for President, we should be caring about the Vice President who will inevitably take over after McCain dies in two days.

By my calculations, McCain will be 76 after the first term, and if he is still not dead then which is unlikely, he will be 80 which means he will have already been deceased for 5 years, which makes sense as to why McCain made that Nostradamus speech about what the world will be like in 8 years because nobody will be able to call him out on it. At my firm and at most other firms and in the police force and other places, they have mandatory retirement ages of like 65 because everybody knows that once you turn 66 you stop being able to feed yourself and must move into an assisted living facility, so I'm not sure who agreed to let a 72 year old run, but people should probably start thinking about picking a Vice President soon because McCain may actually already be dead.

P.S. Speaking of cancer, I just went to the corner store and the Mexican cashier with an angry mole on his face told me "you are beautiful" when I bought a yogurt and I wasn't even wearing any makeup (except for concealer and I drew in my eyebrows). YESSSSSSSS

"A School in Boston"

"I went to school in Boston"

So on Saturday night at my shamazing birthday party, a random dude in the bar starts talking to me and asks me where I went to school. I told him the names of my prestigious and VERY high caliber institutions, and then I asked him where he went. "I went to school in Massachusetts" he said. I then told him that I didn't ask for the state in which he went to school, I was asking for the name of the particular Ivy League school that he went to whose color was crimson and was located in Cambridge and if he could just supply that name rather than dicking around with these faux modest "school in Massachusetts" lines that would be great and we could all move on. He then said, "I went to Harvard, but I don't like talking about it, because I'm not like that." I told him that I didn't understand what he meant by "not like that" because if he actually went to Harvard, then he was EXACTLY like everybody else who went to there, who, instead of just coming right out and saying "I went to Harvard, biatch - ZOINKS" gives me the state, area code and diocese of their school in a ludicrous effort to appear humble or embarrassed by their wildly "amazing" education. Um, if they are so embarrassed by the fact that they went to such a magnificent school, then that explains perfectly how they accidently applied to, gained admission to, accepted admission to, took classes at, not transferred out of and graduated from the number 1 through 3 school (depending on the year and the U.S. News and World Report).

What's really insulting here is not just the ridiculous faux modesty but the fact that they think that the people to whom they tell that they went to a "school in Boston" would automatically feel inferior if they heard the name "Harvard" or would feel bad about their own comparatively piece of shit education. Like if he said the word "Harvard" I would just immediately drop my drink, crap my pants and politely excuse myself from the conversation, because if he went to Harvard there was just no way that a genius like him and a moron like myself could hold any meaningful conversation, because if I didn't go to Harvard I obviously went to Chubb Institute.

In any event, if people in the future could just say that they went Harvard and not waste everyone's time with this humility and ridiculous attempts to "spare" other peoples' feelings about their own mediocre eductions, that would be great. Also, people also need to stop thinking that Harvard is the greatest school on earth and is worth these retarded shenanigans, because I have news for you, I didn't even apply there because the people are nerds and also because I didn't want to give Harvard the satisfaction of rejecting me on some bullshit reason like I didn't play violin with my toes or speak Mandarin or am not an Olympic fencer.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Faust

Some people live here

Normally I don't blog about people I date or have dated because it's bad karma, but this story is a CLASSIC tale of someone living in Narnia. In October right after I had my chin Botoxed to remove the prune from it so my smile was all fucked up, I was supposed to go on a date with this guy Randy. Normally I would not agree to go out with anybody named Randy or Pat or Toby or any gender neutral name, but at this point Megan was running my dating life so I had to go out with him. We agreed that we'd go out on a Sunday, but it turned out I had to work at my magnificent job and so the date got pushed off and when I got back from the office the last thing I wanted to do was blow dry my hair and shelaque on my makeup. Anyway, so he and I were gchatting and I asked if we could reschedule and he got really offended, so I said he could come over and we'd just order food and watch tv.

So this guy comes over, he's doused in Adidas cologne, talks about himself incessantly and uses Elevator Captive Network words of the day like "vitriol" and "solipsistic" and "vituperation" on me and actually used the phrase "le sigh" in conversation while telling me that he reads over 300 news articles a day. He went to Bucknell and hated it because it was too white but he himself was white and also told me he sang in a Medieval/Renaissance choir and explained to me he sings "monophonic music, not polyphony like you're used to hearing, Marin" despite the fact that I hold a degree in medieval studies from a VERY prestigious institution. He converted to Judaism from Quakerism because his former girlfriend was studying to be a rabbi and we ordered Thai food which I paid for (not acceptable). Afterwards, he said to me "Do you want me to leave?" and I said "I don't really care if you go or stay" which was a lie because I wanted him to leave so I could call 10 people and make fun of him, and then without a word he gets up, bends down to pet Perry, says "take care of your mom" and walks out. I then call up the 10 people and tell them that I've just met a highly arrogant jerk who obviously studied the Microsoft Word thesaurus in an effort to make other people feel like garbage which didn't work on me being that I memorized the Princeton Review Hit Parade word list so I'm on top of that shit. However, two days later I receive this hilarious email from him:

Marin-

It was nice to meet you the other night. I just wanted to let you know that I wasn't interested in pursuing anything with you. I wish you the best of luck trying to find a more suitable job or career and taking care of your pup.

Best regards,


Randy


HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. I had a bunch of responses I wanted to send, including "This is devastating news - I thought we had something," "Get help ASAP," and "That's odd, I am interested in pursuing something with you" but under Risa's wise supervision I have a rigid 24 hour waiting policy on all hostile email communications so I never ended up sending it because he would probably think I was just hurt and actually wanted to date him which is FALSE.

Summer with Ivanka

Yeah right

I was just in the dog park and ran into an old friend of mine, Katie, who was on the same French language summer abroad program in Nice, France that I was on when we were both around 16. Normally I'm too cool to remember people from summer programs, but being that this was the worst 6 weeks of my life and Katie was only one of two friends on this program, obviously I remembered her and besides, everybody's on Facebook. In any event, when I was 16, I had clear braces and was theretofore unfamiliar with a "blowdryer" or "flat iron" and also my mom insisted that we religiously follow the recommended packing list, so I showed up with 5 shirts, 3 pairs of shorts, 10 pairs of underwear, watershoes and sneakers. This was a tragic mistake, as everybody on the program was from NYC private schools, showed up with 30 pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage, suede Hush Puppy shoes and fake IDs, and in fact Ivanka Trump was on the program but at the time did not have the nosejob, chin implant or breast implants that she now currently has, and let me assure you that her getting into Wharton was a giant sham.

In any event, the girls on the programs were huge bitches (with our primary torturer being Gillian, who had two nose jobs, big ears and a sidekick monster friend whom we called Baboon who would say things to Gillian like "he is COMPLETELY obsessed with you") and they generally pissed and shit on me, Katie and our other friend Danielle, who in turn, pissed and shit on the REAL dorks of the trip, the "Dork Brigade." The two "hunks" of the trip were Jeremy who wore Polo Teddy Bear sweaters and had Polo Teddy Bear sheets, and his dorkus lorkus friend who was tall with a small head and receding chin. Katie confirmed for me today that they have both subsequently gotten manly nosejobs which they BOTH blamed on Tai Kwon Do accidents HAHAHAHHAHAHA. Normally I don't mention by name in this blog but these people were jerks and the 20 people reading this blog need to know that.

It pretty much was the worst summer of my life and once a week when my parents would let me call them collect for 5 minutes I would beg them to let me come home, but since I'm generally the boy who cried wolf it didn't work and I spent the entire summer trying to explain to the counselors why I needed to go home because I had no clothes and I was trapped as a moderate loser in the rigid hierarchical social system of the cool kids, the moderate losers and the Dork Brigade. Luckily I have become exceedingly goodlooking and written articles about the time Katie, Danielle and me spent cooped up with these jerks and let me assure you revenge is very sweet and if you think it's sad that I'm still talking about shit that happened 12 years ago you're wrong.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Bloodline

My favorite painting (well, it's a fresco) of all time: The Lamentation by Giotto


The other day I walked by the East Village Cinemas and I saw a poster for a movie called Bloodline that was a picture of stained glass window with Jesus and Mary Magdalene in it which meant that I would be seeing it ASAP. I very rarely see movies because a) on an episode of 20/20 they did swab tests of movie theatre seats and they came back with fecal matter on them, b) I can't stand to sit in a dark room for 3 hours and I get bored and want to leave, and c) movie theatres are generally disgusting. In any event, I make exceptions for epic battle movies like 300 and 10,000 B.C. and also for documentaries, especially documentaries about Jesus, whom I love for no good reason being that I am Jewish.



If you check out the trailer, it pretty much seems like the best movie of all time because it says point blank that the greatest secret in the world that has been hidden for centuries will be revealed and that everything told to me previously was a lie, and this is EXACTLY the sort of thing I need to know about in order to keep on top of the secrets of the universe. I have been watching the trailer all day long today and calling up people and reading the printed lines from the trailer's intro in a very haunting voice in order to get people to come with me, but it is not working because other people apparently don't want to find out the shocking truths of history and discover that Jesus and Mary Magdalene have a bloodline and that their great-great-great-great (x 20) grandkids are working in the duplicating department at their law firms.

Play Review: Spring Awakening

Do not see this piece of shit


A few months ago, someone had free tickets to see Spring Awakening on Broadway and invited me to go see it. I had heard amazing things about this play from everyone who went to see it, and I was really excited because Broadway rules, and although Les Miserables rules the hardest, other things can rule on Broadway too, such as The Secret Garden. So as my mom Rusty would say, I "went in with a good attitude" and was hoping to love it and braggg about my front row seats to others.

Unfortunately, the play was the worst piece of shit I have ever seen in my entire life. If you don't know the plot, it's essentially German school children in the late 1800s who have no idea about sex because everyone is repressed and they think about it and talk about it all day long and eventually two of them bone, one of them gets pregnant and I'm sure you can figure out the cornbag "tragic" ending. First of all, the entire cast was people who have literally just gone through puberty, so my first reaction was how do these people get to be in plays when I have to go to work. Second of all, it was "rock concert" style in that they'd whip out individual, hand held microphones from their 1800s nightgown rags and sing into them, and would often sit on the edge of the stage so I was literally sitting a foot away from an obese 13 year old boy who was in the play and I had to stare at my program and think of my grandmother dying in order to not burst out laughing.

In any event, the highlight of the show is that right before intermission, the sexification occurs, and the girl and the guy are suspended on giant flat swing, he rips open her shirt and you can see her miniscule boobs and the he pulls down his pants, so you can see his butt, and they pretend to have sex. At this point I nearly died of embarrassment, but my main question was if her boobs grow in real life will she kicked out of the play because she's supposed to be like 13. The girl who plays her is like 19 in real life, and I don't envy her because while I'm sure she's pumped that she gets to keep the part because she's completely flatchested, it sucks that she has to be flatchested in every day life, because while the play is temporary, breastaculars are forever.
Also, I just want to alert people to a new musical In the Heights which looks exactly like Rent 2: More AIDS and my advice would be to stay away from this musical because it will be ridiculous.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Nostradamus - Appendix A

Nice try but I know where McCain got his "predictions" from

It occurred to me that John McCain's ridiculous speech was actually stolen from the musical Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat when Joseph interprets Pharoah's dreams:

Seven years of bumper crops are on their way
Years of plenty, endless wheat and tons of hay
Your farms will bloom, there won't be room
To store the surplus food you grow
After that, the future doesn't look so bright
Egypt's luck will change completely overnight
Famine's hand will starve the land
With food an all-time low

Nostradamus

Jeff van Vonderon sent me a martini glass with fake fruit

Rusty & Sam's signature balloons


So today I accidentally went to CNN.com when I was trying to get to cafeastrology.com to find out my predictions for the next year but apparently I should have just originally gone to CNN.com because John McCain who always has bandaids on his face for some reason has predicted that the war in Iraq will be over in 2013. In other news, in 2047, there will be a war somewhere and in 2075 we will wear silver space oufits. Look, I believe in psychics and 8-balls etc., but McCain's prediction is absolutely 100% ridiculous and based on absolutely nothing. He basically just picked a number out of a hat that was far enough away that people would be like "he could be right!" and when it turns out he's wrong everybody will have forgotten this ridiculous prediction.

If you read the CNN article, you can actually see the exact moment when McCain loses his mind, steps through the wardrobe and enters Narnia. After predicting that all the military people will come home, and new completely not corrupt judges will be elected to things and that Russia will lay down its arms and beg for mercy, he becomes Nostradamus when he predicts that the "world food crisis will end" after his first term in office, followed by peace of earth and the return of the messiah to judge the wicked. My first thought when I read this was that he needs to fire his speechwriters because while they were at it making absurd predictions they left out a bunch of other key things that will happen such as that America will enter into a golden age of guild systems and art patronage ruled by the ruthless Medici family and the pied piper of Hamlin will drive out all the rats but lead all of America's children away during the night.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Tomorrow Being My Birthday

I will be "27"

Tomorrow is the greatest day of the year as it is my birthday. Megan calls me the Birthday Nazi because on my birthday, anyone who is friends with me and wants to continue being friends with me must a) call me, b) send me flowers and c) compliment me on something.

Beyond tomorrow just being the most amazing day of the year because it was the day I was born, I also have very exxxciting news that I will reveal tomorrow. I have never kept a secret for so long and I'm like shitting myself over here but I assure you the news is glorious.

The Infallibility of My Taste



General shoe collection, circa 2006 and today's luxxxurious acquisition


Let's get one thing straight. I may have some debateable clothes, my jeans my look spray painted on, my fashion sense (blazers and wifebeaters) may be two years ago because I refuse to wear "tunics" and "leggings" and voluminous shirts that make me look pregnant AND homeless, but there is one thing I ALWAYS get right and that is shoes. My friend Emily who also happens to be a fashion guru admits she is jealous of my shoe collection and this is conclusive proof of what I always suspected - that I have a rare and precious gift for select shamazing shoes and that every pair I buy is an instant masterpiece.

I actually cannot describe how much I love shoes, but on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being I hate shoes and 10 being I literally sit at my comptuer at night drooling over Louboutins and wondering if it's normal that my heart beats faster when I look at shoes or if it means I'm sexually attracted to them, I am a 11.5. I have about 60 pairs, which may not be"alot" but each pair is so disgustingly gorgeous and expen$$$ive because it's not like I roll up to Payless and buy Dolce & Fontana or Mucci, I am buying the REAL SHIT on Ebay. Maybe the reason I like shoes so much is because you can never look fat in them (except for bunions, but I'm aware of that problem and am dealing with it accordingly) and everyone feels compelled to compliment them when you're wearing a hottt pair.

Anyway, so I woke up today and I was overwhelmed by the urge to buy repulsively beautiful shoes to add to my beautiferous collection so I went to Century 21 during lunch and bought a pair. People ask my when I have so many pairs of shoes but nothing to wear ever and it's because I am certain that if I build my shoe collection pair by pair, one day I will grow increasingly happy until the day my happiness is out of control and I achieve nirvana and am able to wean myself off of Lexapro.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Unfaithful


So as I was walking into the subway today, some young construction worker who had been walking ahead of me on the street said "goodbye, beautiful" which ruled because even when I get no sleep and feel like a sack of doody I'm still rocking shit like a champ. Anyway, so I get onto the subway and in my car there is a woman in a cheap ill fitting Jones NY suit with some rolling luggage and a U-balding pattern guy standing exxxtremely close to her wearing some Jos.A Banks khakis and a french blue shirt. They were both in the mid 40s and it seemed like they were going to some work convention or something. They both had wedding rings but it was clear from their conversation that they were 100% having an affair, like he was touching her waist under her shitty suit and she was laughing and running her fingers through her frizzy hair and then touching his Alfani shirt. It was like a bad version of Unfaithful, except no one was sexy and I made sure to look extremely disgusted at them.

The most alarming part was that it occured to me that this sort of shit can happen to anybody if you're not careful. One day you're getting cat called by construction workers, the next day you're married, buying clothes at Macy's and Dress Barn, falling in love with your cubicle mate Gary or Susan, going to pharmaceutical conventions together, having an affair in Marriott Courtyard hotels and planning secret dates at Dave & Busters. It is a slipperly slope, and this is EXACTY why I'm not married because I'd rather die alone than go Dave & Busters under any circumstances.

Weather Conditions in Narnia


So obviously I spend all my day at my desk spying on the Sitemeter seeing who's on my site and how they go there, and the most ridiculous and amazing referral popped up. Someone googled "weather conditions in Narnia" and got my blog. Sadly, there is actually IS a real Narnia, located in Michigan, AND a website that updates the weather conditions in Narnia every 19 minutes. The greatest part is that the website says click here to return to Narnia. HAHAHHAHAHAHA

Give me a break, I pulled an all nighter at work and I'm like dying here but I have a funny post coming later about some ridiculous shit I saw on the subway and I mean RIDICULOUS.


Sunday, May 11, 2008

Tax "Refunds"


So everyone has been telling me about all these refunds that people are supposed to be getting from their taxes this year, and people are throwing around numbers like $600 or like thousands of dollars and then describing past amazing refunds that funded vacations, downpayments on apartments and other key things. Since I forward my taxes to the offices of Daddykins Feldman for processing, I never see a dime of any of these refunds which I am fairly certain my Dad just pockets and who can blame him really since he paid for me for about 25 years of my life and I'm not about to start a fight over $2,000. In any event, the concept of refunds seems ridiculous to me in general, like why not just charge me less upfront and then not send a check that I might throw out by accident as junk mail and will probably never cash because going to the bank is a pain in the ass.

So I've been fantasizing about this refund check and planning all the shoes I will bid on on ebay and all the things I will squander my money on like massages and eye creams, and then on Saturday, I get a check in the mail from New York State so I rip open the envelope, tell Perry to grab his mink coat because we're moving into Trump Tower and then I look at the check and it is for $34. Is that a fucking joke? Are they really wasting my time with raising my hopes and then sending me a check for cab fare. I was so angry when I saw that check that I am very seriously considering just sending it back with a note saying "This is insulting" or "New York needs this more than I do" because what am I supposed to do with a measly $34. If this is any indication of my federal tax refund there will be big problems because I am certain that I paid a buttload in taxes to SOMEBODY and I better be getting some of that back because I need it to buy things.

P.S. I asked my mom yesterday if she had heard that war in Bosnia was over and she said no, it's hard to keep track of those things, which bolsters my point that maybe they should do a segment on 20/20 just announcing that this war is over so everyone can finally know for sure.

Greatest Movie Ever Made

Yes please


So on Friday night I decided to stay in and watch Braveheart because it is the greatest movie ever made and I feel like I'm at the point where I can publicly admit that I stay in on the weekend sometimes BY CHOICE and not be considered a giant loser. I'm sorry, but the formula of rugged hero who will stop at nothing to avenge the brutal death of his innocent lady + likeable secondary characters that die + battle scenes = gold. As long as they keep on making movies like this such as Gladiator, The Patriot (which rules), 300, Kingdom of Heaven etc. I will continue to patronize the movie industry once every 3 years when shit like that comes out. I hadn't watched Braveheart in a while, so I start the movie and I don't know if I need to up my dosage or it's because William's wife's name is Murron and so I pretend it's me, but seriously from the beginning scene when William's father and brother die until the scene where Murron appears to him in a dream I was crying hysterically because this shit was so touching and beautiful.

When I'm watching Braveheart, for a brief moment in time, I don't care that Mel Gibson is a rabid anti-semite or that his father denies the Holocaust or that he stole $12.50 from me when I went to see The Passion of the Christ in a theatre in West Philadelphia and was 100% sure that people were suspiciously eyeing my nose and preparing to lynch me after the movie. Mel Gibson is fucking hot in that movie and you know what, instead of crying over Murron, reading self-help books, making a sappy webpage devoted to her or doing something else annoying, he fucking honors her memory by kicking asses and taking names. Um, why aren't people fighting for my honor. Somebody needs to get on that.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Feed the World


An hour ago I was in the shower singing one of my favorite songs, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which is fine and perfectly acceptable because it's a free country, and it reminded me how last year I scowered Amazon for this song (not on itunes) and eventually my friend Abdallah found it on Now That's What I Call Christmas Vol 1. and bought me the CD. So I was looking up the lyrics in order to accurately sing along and not look like an idiot, and I was completely horrified to discover that this seemingly innocuous Christmas classic is the most outrageously bigoted and politically incorrect song ever made. It basically assumes that everyone in Africa lives outside, is scortched by the sun, has absolutely no water, has never even HEARD of Christmas and needs us to tell them about it. The main sentiment of the song is that while you're unrwapping your Nintentdo and tooling around in your power wheels, remember to raise a glass to the people in Africa and thank God they're starving instead of you. Um, you might want to read the below lyrics and then curl up into a ball and die of embarrassment. I have italicized and bolded to indicate the different levels of horrifyingness:


It's Christmastime
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmastime
We let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty
we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime

But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the clanging chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
(Oooh)
Where nothing ever grows
No rain nor rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

(Here's to you) raise a glass for everyone
(Here's to them) underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmastime again


P.S. Bono call me immediately

Friday, May 9, 2008

The Most Ridiculous Place on Earth

Hell


Several months ago, somebody asked me on a date to Max Brenner's: Chocolate by the Bald Man, which I declined due to the fact that he suggested Max Brenner's. For those of you that don't know about this place, it's a chain of ridiculous chocolate-themed dessert cafe/stores that serve regular chocolate shit but also disgusting things like chocolate pizza, chocolate sandwiches and other gross items apparently made by someone who's bald. Max Brenner's also has an Epcot Center portion of the store devoted to large brass cauldrons filled with chocolate and rusty looking fountains which were used by cavemen to make dessert, fake olde tyme photoes of Civil War soldiers standing in front of crumbling nougat shops that have signs that say "1 cent," and tarnished old license plates hanging from the walls that say things like ChocoLvr and ChocAddix. When it first opened up in Union Square there was a line out the door so I got in line figuring that they were giving out chocolate covered diamonds or something worthwhile, but when I got in there it was just a bunch of people drooling over cookies and taking pictures of fudge and pointing at the chocolate and exclaiming like maniacs as if Max Brenner has finally captured the elusive unicorn and caged it in his chocolate store for the world to see.

Needless to say this place is too ridiculous for words, but people seem to lose their shit over the chance to pay $7 for one truffle when they could just go to the deli across the street and buy 10 Snickers bars for the same price. This is exactly like the Hershey's store in Times Square where you can buy normal Hershey bars for $2.35, or you could walk across the street to the Duane Read where they sell them for $1. It's like you're paying a premium to be immersed in this "wonderland" of chocolate, but the Mr. Goodbars at the Hershey store taste exactly like the ones at Rite Aid.

As a side note, I would like to report that today I am wearing my hottt Burberry rainboots and I was just in the elevator and another associate that I don't really know told me that I had the "best footwear of anyone at this firm" which is the greatest honor ever bestowed upon me and I would just like to say in your face to everyone who made fun of me in high school.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Amazon and You're Not Done Yet



Yesterday I remembered that I had ordered a buttload of shit on Amazon like 5 days ago, and so every day since then I have been asking my secretary "Any packages?" and then I look like an idiot when she says no. So I finally go on Amazon to see what the problem is, and apparently they are HOLDING UP MY SHIPMENT UNTIL JUNE 11, which is the date ONE of the SEVEN books I ordered will be ready to ship. Is this a joke. Fine, I selected the option to put all my books in one shipment to cut costs because I'm actually not made of money despite my extremely expen$$$ive clothing and ridiculously polished appearance, but if someone had told me beforehand that this one book would be shipping out in 20 years for Rip Van Winkle I would have selected two shippings.

So I had to go on there and redo all the shippings, pay $30 more just to have the 6 other books shipped together and the June 11 book shipped separately and got 8 annoying confirmation emails confirming my confirmation of my confirmed shipping change and I'm pretty certain that at the end of this all I will receive none of these books but will still have paid $192. I mean, it's like Amazon doesn't have any common sense; if one thing is available to ship in 2074 and the others are ready to ship today, they should advise me of this so that everyone's time is not wasted and I'm not asking my secretary for a month and a half if my package has arrived. My friend (or, more appropriately, Megan's friend) Sean asked me who orders 7 books at a time, which is an excellent point but still.

Sudoku is Math Homework

I would rather die


A few years ago I went to the Dominican Republic with my friend Victoria, and while I spent my time reading non-fiction biographies of Presidents and the history of the Mormon church (chances of Utah actually being the holy land are around 0% by my estimation), because that's how I roll with reading material, Victoria was doing this "Sudoku" crap. I had seen some nerds on the subway doing this Sudoku garbage a few times and it always looked very suspicious because it involved numbers, but Victoria sat down with me and explained that Sudoku is actually a numbers puzzle where you have to add numbers together to equal other numbers and everything has to add up to the same number in the puzzle, and then she told me to try one and I'd become "addicted." I asked if this involved math and she said no, you just have to make sure everything adds up to 21 or 26 or whatever that number was.

So I'm sitting there at the pool with a pencil doing addition and it occurs to me that the makers of Sudoku have tricked me and millions of others into doing math in my SPARE TIME. I have spent a lifetime going to the bathroom twice during math class in middle school, trying to get my high school math tutor to just give me the answers to my math homework, crying in the office of my Statistics 101 professor during office hours begging him to let me do extra credit book reports or dioramas, and practically shitting myself on the LSAT "logic" (aka math) games section.

I have not come this far or struggled for so long in order to do math for fun on a vacation, and unless Sudoku is made of Swedish Fish, I would not be addicted to this shit unless I magically transformed into Russell Crowe from A Beautiful Mind. I cannot believe that people are buying books filled with piles of Sudoku math games and then spend time that they could otherwise spend watching tv, being on the internet or reading celebrity magazines doing this crap, but you can count me out because I hate math plus Sudoku is very nerdy and bad for my image.

Candle in the Wind

Lame

So apparently they are insisting on going through with these "Olympics" despite the fact that nobody cares, and yesterday the Elevator Captive Network informed me that they had to delay the Olympic torch's climb of Mt. Everest due to weather conditions. Below, I cut and paste for you my immediate reactions to this ridiculous news from a gchat conversation with Megan:

1. That is the least Olympic thing I've ever heard - can't climb a mountain because of weather. Boo hoo
2. Does anybody care
3. What is the point
4. Seems like it's pretty dangerous to climb a mountain with one hand with the other one holding a torch
5. If they climb the mountain with both hands and put the torch in their backpack, it's one false move and they light their heads on fire
6. Does anybody use torches anymore for anything except on Survivor
7. They need to knock it off with this Olympics crap already, they're canceling my shows
8. I heard at the Olympics in Barcelona they ran out of condoms because all the athletes were boning each other - HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Implants at the Gym: I'm Watching

Au Natural


So the other day I was slaving away at the gymnasio and this jacked woman who had been doing the rowing machine in front of me finally gets off and turns around and, in addition to having ripped diesel arms, she had these luxxxurious bodacious breastaculars that were being contained by a sportsbra tanktop contraption. Later, after I had wrapped up my inten$e workout, I headed to the locker room and the jacked woman is blow drying her hair topless in front of a mirror pretty much right next to my locker, so I pretend to fake look around my locker for something and in order to assess her breasts and I can confirm to you that they were 100% fake.

First of all, let me just say that the only place that you should be openly naked in the locker room is in the shower, but apparently a large segment of the population disagrees with me and thinks it's perfectly fine to be naked and do the following things: fill up water bottles, weigh themselves, start conversations with me about where I got my bag, make phone calls, and blow dry hair and apply makeup. I would just like to clarify that this is actually not acceptable. I would also like to clarify that it is doubly unacceptable to have breast implants AND do things naked, because this has the effect of forcing everyone else to a) stare at the fake breasts and b) feel bad about their own saggy less luxxxurious breastaculars. I just wish people who are jacked with implants would admit that they got the implants because they became jacked and their boobs disappeared (see post below on "Sophie's Choice" for further discussion of this affliction) because when people just walk around with implants it is unfair and incites extreme jealousy and there is no need to rub it in innocent peoples' faces in the locker room.

Vote or Die


So the Elevator Captive Network yesterday had something about how Hillary and Obama are encouraging people everywhere to get out and vote. A few years ago, Diddy told me to either vote or die. My main question is, while it's all great to tell everyone to vote, they always forget to tell you how in the hell you register to do the actual voting. I would be 100% happy to start voting if someone could tell me: a) how to register b) when the elections are, c) where I'm supposed to go to do this "voting," d) that I didn't have to use a vacation day in order to do this shit.

I mean, every election I feel like all the political people on CNN talk about how little of the population turns out and they always blame it on apathy, tv, the internet or junk food and somehow no one ever thinks it's because registering to vote involves knowing people that know about these things who also remind you about this and tell you exactly how to do it. It's like when they made people take literacy tests in order to vote, these days it's actually worse because you have to have at least a PhD to figure this shit out. Trust me, I have a pretty shamazing education from very exceedingly high caliber schools, and if I don't know how to vote I'm pretty confident no one does.

I think the last time I voted was for school treasurer in 5th grade, against the popular kid and for the Russian immigrant Dima who didn't have a chance but I wanted to encourage the American Dream. Let me also just say I don't really care about voting in the primaries because I took an online quiz to see who I should vote for because I obviously don't have time to read up on what candidates stand for, and it told me Dennis Kucinich, but then someone told me he was out of the race so now there would be no point.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The War in Bosnia is Over, Apparently

Club Med Bosnia


So this Sunday I was having brunchtastic with my friend Milan and he invited me to go this summer to his family's house in Croatia. Obviously I said yes immediately due to the free accomodations but then I remembered something about there being a civil war going on somewhere over there, so I retracted my acceptance of this vacation idea on the grounds that the last time I checked there was some ethnic cleansing going on over there, at which point Milan informed me that the war has been over since 1995. Um, did anybody else know about this. Since nobody sent me an email about this and apparently they don't broadcast the "ends of wars" on tv anymore, I was unaware that these countries that have been fighting for like 70 years magically came to some agreement 13 years ago that it was time to just stop fighting and live peacefully like nothing happened.



Also, if someone could locate Croatia on a map for me that would be helpful because the last time I checked it was definitely not on there or at least hidden. Milan said the family house is on the Dalmation coast but when quizzed he admitted he had not seen any Dalmations there.

The Legitimacy of Spanx - Amendment

Um, just to clarify on the previous post, you don't necessarily have to be naked in order for people to see your Spanx. This girl in my practice group was sitting down at a lunch the other day and I saw them, and neither of us were naked, but I couldn't say anything because we aren't that close and she might have gotten offended.

The Legitimacy of Spanx


About a year ago, I was shopping with my friend Jen in Bloomingdales and she said had to pick up some "Spanx." I had no idea what Spanx were, but she promised me I would swear by them once I tried. So we rolled up to the lingere section and she picked up this neon box with a cartoon of some savy single lady on it, and she pulled out a pair of nude biker shorts that resemble the control top of pantyhose. Wear these under dresses, she enticed me, and you will instantly look 5 pounds thinner. At this point I would like to point out that Spanx, however cleverly marketed or cool sounding the name, are pretty much girdles. You wear them under clothes to look less obese and to fool people into thinking you're thinner than you are.

For a long time I was opposed to Spanx, the theory being that if you're too fat to wear a skirt, time to hit the gymnasio instead of sclathing yourself into fat compressing undergarments. However, as my desk job took its toll on my ass which is still 100% slamming FYI, I foolishly decided what could be the harm in trying these "cool" girdles if they would take me from a 10 to a 10.5. After all, it's just another layer of trickery in my bag of deception - makeup, nosejob, pushup bra, teeth whitening, etc., so what's the harm in another lie.

Unfortunately, the main problem with Spanx is that when I've historically gotten drunk and made out with someone, I've been too drunk to remove the Spanx prior to said makeout session, so if the Spanx are discovered, I have to launch into the whole story of how Spanx are just modified girdles, and that I was technically supposed to take them off prior to the makeout but I forgot so if all parties could just move on and pretend that I was in fact not wearing a girdle it would be greatly appreciated.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Group Classes = No


Ugh, so yesterday I had to trick myself into going to the gym by going to one of these corny Equinox fitness classes. I normally never go to group classes because, among other things, they are held in a glass room where everyone on the actual equipment watches you and secretly mocks you sweating to the oldies, but mostly because they also have ridiculous names like PowerStruggle or Booty Camp or Powerflow Sculpting. So anyway, I roll up to this class and I immediately regret it when the instructor on one of those 1-800-Dentists headsets tells us to get "bodybars" and step aerobic steps which are pretty much the lamest and most embarrassing equipment possible, except for the "bosu ball." So I got all the most hardcore equipment (the 10 lb weights, the 18 lb body bar and seven cagrillion "lifts" for the step) due to the fact that I'm a hardcore player with 100% game.

So the instructor blasts some remix of C+C Music Factory song, and pretty much within 10 minutes sweat is pouring off my face and I'm dying and then I remember exactly why I never take group classes, which is because essentially you are a prisoner there for 1 hour. The instructor always says that we should drink as much water and take as many breaks as we need, but if you walk out the class early everyone judges you and sometimes the instructor COMES UP TO YOU and asks you if you're feeling ok and then you have to explain that you're actually just a fatass and you can't do five minutes of jazzercise without having a heart attack.

So pretty much these group classes just end up being an internal debate between what is more painful - doing this class for one hour or leaving early and dealing with the humiliation of people staring and then talking about it after. My tentative solution to this, which I once pulled in a Spinning class 3 years ago, was that I made a big scene like I was straining to see the clock, acted horrified and confused like I was late for something and immediately jumped off the bike and ran out of there, glancing at my watch the entire time, thereby getting myself out of the class early without incurring the mockery of my fellow classmates. This excuse is actually genius and I remember bragging about it for at least a week.

I Repulse Myself, Again

The Defense rests

So on Friday Megan and I went to our favorite disgusting Mexican food restaurant, Amanecer, which is the perfect place to go if you want to eat delicious but gross cheese enchilladas served by the same waitress who never smiles and ignores repeated requests for water, and to drink the most lethal margaritas known to mankind. Seriously - you drink one, and you are crawling home. So we're drinking our first round of margaritas and I'm already drunk as a skunk and then I decide it would be a great idea to have another one immediately. So I drink the second margarita and I am showing all the classic signs of drunkenness: a) constantly denying I'm drunk, b) repeating stories 30 times, c) bitching about my nosejob and d) declaring my love for Perry and how, if he ever dies which he luckily never will, I will drive to the nearest graveyard, dig myself a grave and jump in.

Megan is historically familiar with the signs of my drunkenness, but instead of being a good friend and telling me it was a bad idea to go into the convenience store across the street from Amanecer to buy chocolate, she accompanied in there and acted like it was completely normal when I rolled up to the counter with NUTELLA AND VANILLA WAFERS. Um, are you KIDDING ME? Why don't people stop me? Why, every time when I'm drunk, do I always end up eating something disgusting that I would never eat in normal life - like last weekend it was garlic knots, Haribo gummy bears and a HEATH BAR, and the weekend before it was yogurt covered raisins and Cool Whip. It is other peoples' job to stop me from doing this shit, and if people don't start doing their job, there are going to be some changes around here very soon.