Rats

A few days ago I was walking back to my apartment at night looking forward to annoying Perry for a half hour and then going to sleep when I saw some rats scurrying around the sidewalk. Um, that must be a joke because I SPECIFICALLY moved to this block because I had asked people on it whether there were rats at night on it and they said no. By way of background, my first apartment in the East Village was apparently located on the exact corner where NYC rats hold their Mardi Gras festival and every day after 10,000 hours at work I would come home and have to stand on the street, psych myself up to confront the rats, drop my keys 3 times, yell "I'm coming - move out of the way!" and then run to the door and open it as fast as possible because if a single rat ever attempted to touch me I would take 10 glass bottles and break them over my head.

In any event, I wouldn't have minded seeing rats on the street if they were the kind of rats from An American Tail, like Russian Jewish immigrant rats who were trying to do something positive with their lives, and contribute to this country by doing stuff like singing beautiful songs like "Somewhere Out There." Unfortunately, the rats on my block are not hardworking emigrant rats, they're of the greedy Templeton the Rat variety and all they care about is eating crap out of the garbage and as a result, next time I see them I'm going to tell Perry to do the shit that he was BRED for and start kicking their asses and taking names.

Not Acceptable - Chase Bank $3 ATM Fees

I'm not sure who Chase Bank thinks it is, but I hit up a Chase ATM on Saturday, was going about my business attempting to withdraw $100 from my luxxxurious checking account because that's the way I roll, when the ATM attempted to charge me $3 to proceed with the transaction. That means that for the luxury of withdrawing my OWN hard earned cash from a machine that dispenses cash automatically, Chase wanted to punish me for not having an account with them by charging me the price of two Gatorades. This is absolutely 100% not acceptable, and I have some news for Chase, because unless it magically transforms itself into Commerce Bank and becomes number one in customer service 3 YEARS IN A ROW, I will never leave Commerce and will continue to spite Chase by paying $3 each time I withdraw cash because I refuse to succumb to their strong arm tactics.

The View from Narnia

The View from Narnia

[View Images via Hamptonroads]

High Alert: Discontinuation of Sephora Liner #209

Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor,
that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
an ever aching need.
I say love, it is a flower
and you, its only seed.
-"The Rose" by Bette Midler

A few days ago I lost my Sephora #209 pencil liner after a drunken night out, so I headed to the Sephora in Soho to get a new one. Well, turns out that the entire 209 row was cleared out, including the tester which I thought was weird but figured maybe it was featured in Lucky magazine or something as the number one most shamazing liner of all time for green eyes which I have used EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE PAST 4 YEARS. So today I go to the Sephora in Union Square and AGAIN the liner is completely sold out, so I asked the sales person what the hell was going on. She looked in the computer and saw that they were still available online, so she called two other Sephoras in the city and they too, were sold out and at this point I was pretty much having a goddamn heart attack, so the sales person calls the Sephora Emergency Hotline and puts me on the phone with the emergency technician.

I asked the technician what the deal was with the 209 liner, and she revealed that because Sephora has such a wide variety of liners, this one was being "discontinued" in order to "streamline" the collection and package it differently. I asked her if this meant that the exact 209 color, i.e., this exact blend of pebbles and kohl, would be coming back but with different packaging and a new name like Dusty Road and would be $3 more, and or if it was just being eradicated from the face of the earth for all time and she said it was being discontinued and couldn't tell me whether it would ever reappear. I then told her that I had tried to find this liner at no less than 4 Sephoras and they were SOLD OUT because obviously people NEED this liner to go on living and Sephora was making a grave and rookie error by eliminating this and I would call my Senator and tell him what was going on.

She then said that there were 150 209s left in the Sephora factory and that I could place a special order, so I ordered 20 for immediate delivery, and then hung up the phone and had a panic attack that I should have ordered more, so I called Megan to ask if she thought that 20 was too few for the rest of my life, and by her calculations 20 will last me ten years, but "hopefully I would find a replacement by then." I then asked Megan whether, if she walked into a Duane Reade one day and they were out of Physicians Formula Gentle Cover Stick (682 Light) and then called the company and found out that they were shutting down production on this product, she would just say "oh well" and then just start using some orange clown paint from MAC or Lorac and pretend everything was normal, or whether she would immediately rent a u-haul, drive down to Louisiana, buy however many cases of 682 lights they had left and then call it a day. She confirmed it was the latter.

Bedbugs

Picture of bed bugs too alarming to post

Um, I just ran into a guy who lives on my block and he said that his building was being fumigated for bed bugs so obviously now I am sitting at my computer scratching myself every second and checking all the dirt of my floor to make sure it's not a bed bug because the guy could have tracked the bed bugs into the deli where I saw him and given me one. Let me just clarify that my two greatest fears in life are bed bugs and lice and if I ever get either one of them I will proceed directly to the gun store, buy a gun and shoot myself.

Last August I woke up with a bunch of red itchy marks on my foot which increased by the day and I became convinced it was bed bugs so had approximately 7,000 heart attacks, cried hysterically, blamed Perry and then sent him away, fumigated my apartment 4 times, wrapped my mattress in plastic, lit cintronella candles every 3 hours, sprayed Off on myself religiously, slept on top of my couch in a hat, tights and gloves, wrapped myself in sheets like a mummy and kept the light on at night because it is a known fact that bed bugs are very evil and only reveal themselves when they think you're sleeping. One night I laid in wait and caught one of them and then called my mom who told me to put it in a plastic bag with rubbing alcohol but I told her only had vodka and she said that was ok too, and then I made an emergency appointment with my dermatologist Dr. Alan Greenspan (real name - HAHAH) who identified it as a flea and not a bed bug which was basically the most glorious news I ever heard because if I had bed bugs that would mean that my entire luxxxurious wardrobe and $hoe collection would have to be thrown in the garbage, and if they were going in the garbage I was coming with them.

The View from Narnia

Baby Names

Tonight I am having dinner with a friend of mine, Ariel, who is pregnant and almost due. In my opinion, even more important than deciding whether to have a child is what to name it. So I've been pestering Ariel to reveal the names of the kid, but she has sworn herself to secrecy and instead sent me a link to the most popular U.S. baby names according to the census or birth certificates or whatever. She told me that the baby girl name was on that list, and that, if I applied myself, I could figure it out. I was expecting the top 100 names on the list to be the usual suspects - Jennifer, Emily, Rachel, Christine, etc. but apparently people in the U.S. have become illiterate and traveled to Narnia because you would not believe some of the crap on there.

The name Brooklyn is more popular than Jennifer, and Nevaeh (Heaven backwards) is more popular than Rachel. Time to jump off the nearest cliff, because Jazmin, Julissa and Kaydence are apparently superior to Marin, which made the list for the first time in 2007. The boy names are even more ridiculous if you can believe that. If you're a giant chemistry nerd, Kelvin is available, but if your son seems like he'd enjoy sitting on the stoop with a smooth 40, best to name him Colt. Or, if your baby happens to be born with a tight short sleeve mock turtleneck and a jar of protein powder, the name Armani is available.

In any event, my final guesses for Ariel's girl baby name was Makayla Destinee or Breanna Genesis because I felt out of all the names on that list, those two combinations spoke to me and commanded the most respect. Though my guesses were incorrect, I confirmed with Ariel that she wasn't planning on stealing the name Charybdis, which I will be naming my daughter, or my future sons' names, which are La Strada, Bret Michaels and Lamb Choppe.

Happy Birthday, Sam, Esq.

Daddykins with baby Perry

Today is my dad's birthday, because apparently everyone was born during the last week of June. My dad is the most generous and funniest man I've ever met and a brilliant lawyer. He loves his dogs, his wife, golf, his daughters and Trading Places, though not necessarily in that order. Happy birthday, daddy. I love you.

The View from Narnia

Victoria's Secret Bra Sale

Yesterday Aliza gchatted me that Victoria's Secret is having its semi-annual bra sale. Well, the secret is out - their bras suck. I might have been interested in this information approximately 5 years ago when VS made decent low-rise lace boy short contraptions that were really cute and of decent quality, but over the last 4 years VS has gone from acceptable last minute place to buy underwear and/or sexytime explosion apparel to skankville lingere U.S.A., where everything comes in colors such as teal, purple and magenta and the underwear is bedazzled with crystals and says ridiculous shit on it like "devilish" and "sexy," the idea being that you would not ordinarily be able to tell that the underwear is devilish or sexy, so it just spells it out to remove all doubt.

The new VS also sells the same three bras over and over again, and just switches the bra name according to the latest marketing campaign. I have tried on bras from the Ipex collection, the Body by Victoria scam, the (not) Very Sexy line, the Pink collection featuring polka dots and cartoon dogs, and the BioFit (aka Barely Fit) line, and I can assure you that all of these bras fit equally crappy and not once did I put on any of that shit and look remotely like Heidi Klum. Another thing about the bras is that they come with either 2 pounds, 5 pounds or 60 pounds of padding, which means that these bras can only be worn during the day because it someone feels 10 elbowpads on your boobs, embarrassment is maximized and the jig is up.

The View from Narnia

[National Photo Group via TMZ]

Happy Birthday, Igsy

Would you like fries with that?

Sunday was my sister Jenna's birthday. I didn't forget it - I called her AND I posted on her wall in Facebook, but I forgot to do a post on it. In any event - happy belated birthday, Igsy. I love you. Your nose is better than mine, your hair is luxxxurious, and you never needed braces. But unfortunately for you - today is BUM DAY.

New Weekly Column - Not Acceptable

My friend Lawrence had the jeanious idea that I start a weekly column on the blog entitled Not Acceptable, wherein every week I discuss something that is highly illegitimate and in no way acceptable. Since practically everything is not acceptable, I could actually post this column every day but since I googled "how to get more readers blog" and they said one way was to "build anticipation" I will only be posting Not Acceptable once a week in order to keep my 10 readers salivating. In exchange for Lawrence's shamazing idea, I have promised him that I will send him a Christmas bonus of $5 and have assured him that I will remember him when I am repulsively rich and powerful.

In any event, this week's Not Acceptable installment is splitting the bill on dates 1-5. I'm not sure what else to say on that tip other than it's actually outrageous. I once went on a date to Starbucks, and when I ordered a tea, the cashier said "$1.73" and I did the classic fake reach/bag rummage which turned into a REAL reach because the guy did not offer to pay. After the date, he sent me an email saying he wanted to see me again and I replied that unfortunately I saw his failure to pay $1.73 as a harbinger of macaroni necklaces on my birthday and sand art on our anniversaries and this was in no way legitimate.

The Most Glorious Product Ever Known: Rider A

This just in, Jen has located an online site which sells the Stridex face wash. I will be buying all of it, so no one use the link until I give the ok. Many thanks and warm regards.

The Most Glorious Product Ever Known

Running dangerously low

As anyone who knows me likely knows, I am constantly in search of the magical cream, potion or elixir that will enhance my beauty to the point where I look in the mirror and literally cannot take it anymore because my beauty is off the charts. To this end, I have spent countless hours dog-earing pages in Us and In Touch and taking notes on Fabulous Life Presents: The High Price of Celebrity Hotness to keep abreast of the most expensive and therefore best ointments and lasers that I will need to get immediately in order to keep shit in high gear. As a result, my makeup cabinet is a graveyard of expensive and quasi-ineffective products that can divided into the following three categories:

1) products that were made or sponsored by a famous dermatologist (Dr. Brandt Cleansing Face Wash, Perricone Under Eye Lift Serum, Dr. Michelle Copeland Daily Cleanser, Dr. Wexler Intense Hydrating Cream), the idea being that if a doctor was in any way associated with the product, it represents the latest advances in zit technology;

2) products in luxxxurious packaging featuring gold and/or ridiculously small amounts of the product due to the scarcity and expen$$iveness of the ingredients from the ocean floor and Siam (La Mer The Cream, La Mer Face Wash, La Mer Toner, Guerlain Issima Success Eye, Shiseido Benefiance); and

3) "incredible claim" products with mystical ingredients (Du Wop Lip Plumper with chili oil, which will make my lips EXACTLY like Angelina Jolie's after a single application, TNS Recovery Complex made of baby foreskin which immediately regenerates the skin underneath my eyes, making me look 20 years younger, and therefore 8 years old, and Silk Protein Anti-Aging Cream, whereby powerful proteins infuse themselves into my skin and halt all melanin production).

Unfortunately for me, the only face cleanser product that has EVER worked for me on my very oily and occasionally zitty skin is Stridex Foaming Wash. Besides the fact that people seeing Stridex in my bathroom is bad for my image, you would think that this would be amazing, because I could just roll up to any Duane Reade and buy 30 of them and not break the bank, but this particular product is only sold at a store called Harmon in East Hanover, NJ, so every time I'm running low (as I am now) it becomes an epic production where I have to take the train out to NJ, take my parents' car to Harmon, buy all of the Stridexes they have in stock and look like a giant nerd at the cashier. If anybody knows of a place in NYC or online that sells this glorious product, this would be a great time to let me know so I don't waste a weekend making a pilgrimage to Harmon.

Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse

Not acceptable

A few days ago I was in Salon Seven and I picked up a copy of Us magazine, where I get all my news. Well, it appears I spoke too soon about the Rapture being ridiculous or the presidential candidates appearing on WWE Raw being the final sign of the apocalypse because the cover of Us features Obama and his wife with the lead article entitled "Why Barack Loves Her" and now it is 100% clear that I should proceed with my plans to immediately build an ark because the Great Flood will be arriving shortly. Besides the fact that they need to stop ruining my celebrity magazines by including boring politics, one of two things is happening here:

1) Obama is trying to get the vote of Us magazine readers (women bored at work, waiting for pedicures to dry, sitting at a salon for 10 hours getting highlights) by being "real" and revealing that his wife is Just Like Us! because she shops at Target, and LOVES Sex and the City and is addicted to Fergie's summer beach body butt blasting routine of 75 lunges and no food. While it's great that he's not wasting my time talking about oil prices, the war somewhere or other snooze alert topics, the problem with this tactic is that Obama is barking up the wrong tree because no one who reads Us votes or cares.

2) The other, more alarming possibility is that Birnam Wood has come to Dunsinane, the world has finally stepped through the wardrobe and Us, In Touch, and the Enquirer will now be reporting on politics. Jessica's Secret Pain will be reported alongside the presidential elections, the debates will be held on Cartoon Express, we will cast our votes via text messages to Ryan Seacrest where standard rates apply, and the world will end shortly thereafter because no one will be able to go on living where everything is completely unacceptable.

The Mighty Brought Low

So yesterday, Megan and I had agreed to meet at the Botkier sample sale in Soho at 10am, exactly when the sale started. Apparently there was some miscommunication between Megan and I where I had thought she HAD a doctor's appointment at 9:45am, but instead she had predicted she would be getting OUT OF the doctor's appointment at 9:45, so in any event I receive an irate call from her at 9:57am asking where the hell I am because she was going to be at the sale in 5 seconds and I better be there or else. I had just come back from my morning constitutional with Perry and I had zero makeup on my face but Megan's fury is not something to be trifled with, so I put on my sunglasses, grab my gym bag, get a cab and generally act like a loser speeding down to a sale.

For those of you unfamiliar with Botkier, it is a brand of very EXPEN$$IVE and luxxxurious leather bags that only the best looking, richest and coolest people wear, and when you wear them all your wildest fantasies come true. The bags normally go for around $550, so when there's a sale, people such as myself lose their shit to stand in line for 45 minutes, rummage through two-season-old bags, buy ten of them and act like I bought them full price and then sneer at the poor people on street who wear bags by Mark Jacobsen and Praba. A few months ago, Botkier had a sample sale and Megan and I went during work for 3 hours and nearly lost our jobs, but it was worth it because we got some good shit and bragged about it for a few days. Anyway, so I roll up to the sale and Megan's already inside and there's a line out the door like it's the Tomb of the Holy Selpulchre and obviously as I'm standing there waiting in a line to buy discount bags looking like an idiot in gym clothes and no makeup, some jerk from Racked decides it would be a great idea to take a picture of me looking like a monster and posts it on their website. Um, this is not ok.

R.I.P. Tim Russert, But Let's Get Ahold of Ourselves

Well, Tim Russert died. Apparently he was on some boring news show that I never watched, and either millions of Americans were watching it or people just get really corny and become unreasonably upset when quasi-celebrities die. Like I'm sad that Tim died, he seemed like a nice guy and I was also sad when Peter Jennings died, because he seemed like he was attractive during his youth. But things are slightly out of control when they're having 3 days of prime-time television tributes to Tim for getting paid to sit in a chair and asking people questions. One montage is enough of Tim in the field, Tim in a trenchcoat reporting live, fatter Tim sitting behind a desk, Tim pointing his pen at someone, Tim cracking up after fumbling some words on air, Tim moderating some sort of debate and Tim at a gala with his trophy wife, no need to switch Wife Swap to a different night to continue the coverage of Tim Russert: The People's Princess.

It's actually ridiculous - he had like 10 days of funeral so people could pay their respects. George Clooney sent flowers with a card that said "There are no words" because he had obviously never met Tim and had nothing to say about him. Bruce Springsteen SANG at the memorial service (unfortunately not "Born in the U.S.A." - HAHA) via satellite because apparently Tim Russert was a giant fan. The bottom line here is that people are acting like Jesus Christ himself was on Meet the Press and while I'm sure Tim was a decent guy, I can think of at least 7 other people who were awesome that didn't get 30 day funerals and 75 memorial montages, namely both of my grandfathers, my grandmother, my friends grandparents' and some other people, so people need to calm down with the Tim Russert memorialization because he'll be on reruns and you won't even know he's dead. And just FYI, if the Counting Crows don't perform at my funeral there are going to be some serious problems.

Email Response Times

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent an email to a guy that she was dating. She sent the email at 10:14am, and by 10:45am she was starting to freak out. Why had he not responded? Was he in a meeting? Was he not interested anymore? Where was he? Was he dating someone else? Did he see her Spanx? WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON HERE? This friend obviously called me so that I would calm her down, perform my world renowned Occam's Razor analysis on the situation and assure her that the simplest possible explanation here was that he was busy at work and would get back to her later. Unfortunately, I don't actually believe that crap because everybody is on their computers refreshing their browsers 24/7, and if they're not in front of their computers, they have blackberries, cellphones, text messages, fax machines, pagers, scanners, beepers and Facebook updates, and if someone doesn't respond to an email within 10 minutes of your sending it, it basically means that they are playing a game and ignoring you in order to look cool. If my friend sent an email at 10:14am, the guy obviously read it at 10:15, and there is no reason on god's green earth for him to wait 4 hours to respond because the jig is up and everyone checks their email every minute and no one believes the "hey, just saw this" or "busy day at work" lines because everyone is bored and no one is busy at work. Unless a tornado ripped through your office, I'm sorry but you're sitting at your computer and you got the frigging email so just respond so people can stop having goddamn heart attacks.

Another friend of mine got an email from a girl 3 weeks after he had sent an email to her, and in it she said "Hey - sorry for the delay. I am spending the day today going through old emails that have piled up" because apparently the girl expected my friend to be living in Narnia and believe that she had been so busy she hadn't even remembered that she EVEN HAD email accounts to check, and by the time she had remembered her gmail account, so many emails had accumulated that she had to cancel all her appointments, order in food and explain to her friends who called "sorry, can't do anything today - reviewing old emails." Frankly, these lies are just insulting and if people could just respond in a timely fashion instead of conjuring up ludicrous stories of meetings and busyness that would be great thanks.

Ed Hardy: No Understand

Among the things that make absolutely 0% sense to me, including dog haters, skinny jeans and coal miners, Ed Hardy clothing ranks in the top five. I was first saw this Ed Hardy garbage on Rock of Love II. In season one, Bret typically wore snake skin trenchcoats, bandanas and cowboy hats, but in season two, he and everybody else on the show changed their tune and rolled up wearing what appeared to be bedazzled rags with pictures of skulls, hearts and spray painted words and sequined trucker hats with roses encircled with serpents and flames. In fact, in one episode, two girls who won a challenge got to go to the Ed Hardy store, pick out clothing there and have it PERSONALLY RIPPED by the Ed Hardy "designer." Maybe I'm old and crotchety (don't answer that), but can someone explain why people are paying for $100+ forthis shit because I'm not exactly sure what is going on here.

You know, I let it slide when people wore leggings and medieval tunics and I kept my mouth shut when people stole Uggs from the Eskimo exhibit at the Natural History Museum but when strippers and cocktail waitresses people scrimp and save their hard earned money to buy $187 t-shirts with pictures of skulls wearing sailor hats and tigers with daggers in their eyes, it appears that the Ed Hardy people are mocking everybody. Like they really didn't expect anyone to actually buy this crap and when Bret Michaels was doing laundry and ran out of clothing and put on the free t-shirt they sent him, people lost their shit and couldn't wait to blow all their money on jeans with sequined crosses. In other news, apparently Michael Jackson is collaborating on a forthcoming Ed Hardy line, and if this is the case, kindly disregard this blog post because I will be immediately proceeding to the nearest Ed Hardy store and buying each and every item made for, inspired by, or in any way related to Michael Jackson.

Happy Anniversary, Rusty & Sam

Typical explanatory family cakes

Today is my parents' 35th wedding anniversary. I asked my dad what gift the 35th anniversary was supposed to be - like diamonds, gold or paper, and my mom said "tinfoil" and my dad said "shit." So happy anniversary, mommy and daddy. May you guys continue to be hilarious, both separately and together, for the next 35 years.

In honor of their special day, I have made a blog mix tape of beautiful love songs. Look, I just bought a Father's Day gift and my dad's birthday is next week and I'm not a present machine so this will have to do.

1. 8th World Wonder - Kimberley Locke
2. You're Still The One - Shania Twain
3. Summer Girls - LFO
4. I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys
5. Dirty Diana - Michael Jackson
6. Step in the Name of Love - R. Kelly
7. Hotel - R. Kelly
8. Pimp Juice - Nelly

P.S. On Father's Day, my dad was driving us back into the city and we hit traffic and he became angry and dropped us off in the middle of Jersey City and told us to put Perry in a bag and take the PATH.

P.P.S. I saw an obese man spill a frapuccino with whipped cream all over himself yesterday. HAHAHA

Cab Driver Insight into World Religions

So yesterday I ordered a car from Dial 7 (212-777-77777777-777-7777-77777) to take me, Aliza and Perry home to New Jersey for Father's Day. On the phone, I told them that we have a medium sized but VERY goodlooking dog, so they didn't need to charge us extra for it if they were thinking about it. Fifteen minutes later, a sedan rolls up, the driver takes one look at Perry, rolls down his window and wags his finger at us and says "I no take dogs, no no" and drives away, so I call up Dial 7 tell them that the driver that they sent has apparently refused to drive us. The dispatcher explains that some of their drivers are religious and won't take dogs, so I explain to her that we weren't taking a dog to New Jersey in order to sacrifice him, but rather we were taking a treasured family pet home to visit family. She then said that while she personally understood that we weren't going to sacrifice him, some of their drivers just refused to take dogs for religious reasons. I then asked her if she was actually expecting me to believe that there was a scripture somewhere that said "If thou ist a limousine drive, thou shall not drivest dogests" and she said she didn't know but could put her manager on the phone.

In any event, she sent another car with a Hindu driver and so I asked him what religion were these people who were refusing to take dogs and he said they were Muslim, because all Muslims thinks dogs are dirty even though, according to the driver, Muslims married their sisters and first cousins and "pissed in their panties and wore them." Since the driver seemed to be very knowledgeable about world religions, I asked him what the deal was with Sikhs and he told me that they were ok but very foolish. I then told him that I was Jewish and wanted his thoughts on that and he then turned around this sign that said "Dial 7" on it to reveal that Dial 7 was also known as Tel Aviv car service, and said that his boss was a Jew and that his boss and other Jews wear little round hats on their heads in order to prevent others from knowing what they are thinking and discovering their business secrets. I told him that Jews typically wear yarmulkes to separate themselves from god and not to harbor secret business plans, but he told me that I had my ideas and he had his, and that we were both entitled to our opinions.

Emergency Edition: NKOTB

They're BAAAaaaaaaaccck

I was just gchatting with my friend Jon and he asked me what I thought about the new New Kids on the Block song, "Summertime." I hadn't heard it before, but I told him that if it rigidly adhered to the A-B-Chorus-A-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus structure, it was going to be amazing. Well, needless to say, the song rules, but the video rules even harder.

The best part of the video is that it starts off with a hilarious snapshot of the everyday lives of the New Kids on June 21, the first day of summer. Apparently, they are expecting people to believe that on June 21, none of the NKOTB were in their mortgaged condos in Boston because Donnie was getting into a helicopter, Joey was scuba diving in the French Riviera, Danny was going for a jog in a tropical location and Jordan and Jon were tooling around in their luxxxuriou$ cars. I think the bottom line here is that if you're doing Dancing on the Stars, (Joey) or the Surreal Life (Jordan) and you are forced to come out of retirement and do a corny boy band song even though boy bands are out, it's safe to say that Lou Perelman stole all your money and that you need cash stat. My friend Jon disagrees and says they still have all their money from the 90s, but if that's the case, why didn't they hire a better choreographer for the dance sequence in the video or at least not wear Men's Warehouse suits. Seriously, if they're so rich, why couldn't they hire someone to cure Jon of his panic attacks so they didn't have to cornily film the group dance sequences in silhouette and all blurry to pretend that they didn't have a stunt double doing all of Jon's shit while he cried offstage.

R. Kelly Acquitted

"Put that body in motion, motion
And watch it wave like an ocean, ocean
Now break it down and worm it, worm it
Now bring it up and shake it, shake it"
- from "Playas Only" by R. Kelly

Friends, glorious news - R. Kelly has just been acquitted of making child pornography. While child pornography is no joke and R. Kelly appears to be 100% guilty, sometimes society needs people more than jail does, and this is certainly true in the case of R. Kelly. Just as I cannot believe in my heart that the man who brought the world "Thriller" and "Beat It" could have molested children, so too can I not believe that "Playas Only" and "I Wish (Remix)" were made by a man who peed on minors. If in fact the Pied Piper of R&B needs to make disgusting tapes in order to produce songs such as "Ignition (Remix)" "Trapped in the Closet: 1-20" and "Step in the Name of Love," that is the price we as a society must pay in order to ensure that our children and our children's children have songs like "I Believe I Can Fly" from Shaquille O'Neal's Space Jam movie.

Apparently when the verdict was read, R. Kelly dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and hugged each of his four attorneys. If this isn't innocence, frankly I don't know what is.

Taxation in Narnia: Part Infinity

Well, today the spirit moved me to pay the $64.32 cents that I owe to the State of New Jersey for no apparent reason other than using the Holland tunnel ONCE to visit my parents on Mother's Day. So I'm writing out the check and then I realize I could call 1-800-2PAYTAX to pay the amount. So I dial the number and the operator directs me as follows:

"Hello, and welcome to 800-2PAYTAX, America's automated tax payment service. To pay federal income tax, press 1. To pay a state income tax, press 2." So I press 2, and it says "Please say the name of the state to which you'd like to make a payment" so I say "New Jersey" and the operator says "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. Please say the name of the state." So I say "NEW JERSEY" and the operator says "Thanks, please hold. In order to pay by credit card, there will be a convenience charge of 2.4% of the total amount of your payment."

Um, IS THIS A JOKE?? Obviously I hung up the phone immediately because while it may be convenient for New Jersey to charge me more money while they have me on the phone, it isn't convenient for me to pay $35 extra dollars just for the privilege of paying taxes that I don't even owe via credit card over the phone. I am already doing them a giant favor by paying them an "installment interest" payment of $64 dollars and now they're sneakily trying to get me to do math in my head and calculate how much 2.4% is of $64 in the 3 seconds before they connect me with the automated machine. What if I wanted to pay my entire federal income tax by phone - that would basically mean I'd be paying 2.4% of my annual income, which would be approximately $3.4 million dollars. What's really ridiculous here is that I was just in the dog park and saw a bunch of bums and I can guarantee you that they're not paying taxes in NY, NJ or anywhere for the matter, but instead of going after those people, NJ figures it's more "convenient" to levy new taxes on honest, god fearing patriots like myself when they're lucky I'm paying my taxes at all.

Myths of Dog Ownership

Perry hanged himself

A year ago when I was threatening to get a dog, people asked me why I was obsessed with getting one. So I told her the truth - a) that I was tired of coming home from the gym, watching Wife swap on DVR doing situps on the floor and going to bed alone, b) that I am incapable of loving humans adequately and despise affection and I need to practice my caring skills on a dog who will never judge or leave me, c) that I was certain that if I got a dog I would make a whole new amazing group of friends at the dog park, and d) that I was certain that I would meet someone out while walking the dog instead of having to go on JDate or Match.com and meet annoying losers.

In any event, I'd just like to report that in the one year since I've gotten Perry, I have made no friends in the dog park and not a single guy has approached me while walking Perry other than to say "cool mohawk" (Perry's, not mine). At first I thought this was due to the fact that I live in the East Village and there are no guys here who are qualified to approach and/or date me, but my friend Josh who lives on the UES just got a chocolate lab puppy and I had promised him that the second he walked down the street with Owen women would be ripping off their clothes and lining up to give him blow jobs, but unfortunately this has proven not to be the case and so I had to buy him this tshirt instead. The bottom line here is that I have spent thousands of dollars on Perry, feeding him, picking up his crap with lavender scented doody bags and getting him groomed by a senior stylist, and he has repaid me by getting me no dates, learning one trick and forcing me to worry about what will happen IF he ever dies, because if he does I will calmly pack a suitcase, open up a window and jump out.

The Price of Romance

So on the latest episode of The Bachelorette, DeAnna goes on a 2 on 1 date with Rob the chubby chef with anger management problems and Fred the "lawyer." In any event, because DeAnna is a cornbag, she asked the two guys what was the most romantic thing they had done for a girl in the past was. Rob tells DeAnna that he bought 6 dozen roses, ripped the flowers apart, and scattered the petals somewhere, which apparently was very thoughtful and impressed DeAnna for reasons that completely mystify me. DeAnna then asks Fred what he did to romanticize a girl, and he said that he planned a surprise weekend excursion with a girl to a cabin on a lake in the woods about a 2 hours drive from Chicago, where he lived. Normally this is acceptably corny romantical behavior, but unfortunately for Fred, Above the Law has revealed that Fred is actually NOT a lawyer, but a gym teacher at a Catholic school who happens to have a law degree from a school ranked just below the University of Phoenix Online.

My main question here is what kind of romantical excursion could he really plan on a gym teacher's salary of $28,000 a year, since cabins or bed and breakfasts are at least $150 a night, cost of rental cars are ridiculous, etc. But then I realized that Fred said that he planned a surprise weekend, which may mean that he planned it all online using The Sims and added a bunch of stuff to his shopping cart like picnic supplies and then showed his girlfriend what he would have done IF he had the the money, thereby getting all of the bragging credit but spending none of the cash. However, Megan proposed the genius alternate theory that Fred likely did go on the trip, but it was to a cabin IN the lake rather than ON the lake, and therefore extremely discounted.

Cellulite Reduction Shoes

While walking around recently, I've been seeing a lot of women wearing these bizarre and hideous sneakers that look like a cross between Frankenstein shoes and shoes worn by people who are legitimately retarded. After some internet digging, I discovered that these monstrosities are actually supposed to reduce cellulite - i.e., you are supposed to strap on this clown boots, walk around in them like it's completely normal, and after a month of that shit your cellulite will miraculously be gone. Aside from the humiliation of wearing these things in public and thereby announcing to the world that you have cellulite that is severe and repulsive enough to merit spending $234 and that you are actively working on the problem, I've bought enough cellulite creams and related products for VERY good friends of mine to know that unless these sneakers come with a free pair of somebody else's legs, you are essentially taking $234 and throwing it out the window.

If you think that putting on sneakers will reduce cellulite, may I also recommend buying an amazing technicolor dreamcoat which assists with interpreting dreams, a pair of ruby encrusted slippers which will transport you to Kansas and a golden fleece which will allow you to defeat the Argonauts. Look, I am all for miracle potions, magical seer stones and 3-D glasses, but when a product exceeds $100, frankly there is no reason to purchase it until Us and In Touch magazines report that celebrities use it at which point it you can be assured that it is 100% scientifically proven and will make your wildest dreams come true because it is a fact that celebrities don't waste time on products that don't work.

Multiphasic Online Login Assessment Scale

A friend of mine called me with a code red Jdate login alert situation. Through the use of her anonymous spy anonymous profile, she had discovered that her ex-boyfriend has not logged into Jdate in 10 days and she called me up to analyze whether he had found his soulmate so that she should proceed to the nearest cliff and jump off. I told my friend that before she started jumping to conclusions, protocol required me to administer the Multiphasic Online Login Assessment Scale (MOLA) to her in order to accurately assess the reasons for ex-boyfriend non-login. Set forth below is the standard MOLA and recommendations based on MOLA score outcome.

1. Number of days of non-login on dating site: ___
2. Duration of membership on dating site: ___
3. Describe historical login patterns of individual based on evidence gained through spy profile: Hourly__ Daily__ Less than Daily__. If less than daily, proceed directly to question 6.
4. Has individual historically "tired" of online dating and taken "breaks": Yes/No
5. Has individual ever gotten "busy" at "work" and historically "forgotten" to login to dating site: Yes/No
6. Has individual ever, or would he ever, take 10 day vacations to places with less than ideal internet access: Yes/No
7. Has this individual recently logged in or updated any of the following (check all that apply): Gchat away status__ Facebook___ Friendster ___ Personal blog ___ Posted comments on any site to which he subscribes ___

Unfortunately, if the answer to question 7 is affirmative, we are usually dealing with a soulmate or "found someone" situation. If this the case, I kindly request that the friend provide me with her spy profile information so that I can monitor the ex-boyfriend's profile and make a brief and unbiased report regarding cellulite levels of new girl, ways in which the new girl is inferior to my friend (to and including education level, nose, hair and number of friends on the site), general attractiveness level of the new girl, and degree of seriousness of relationship based on body language in pictures. If, however the ex-boyfriend has NOT logged in to other sites, we may be dealing with a vacation or tired of dating situation, in which case I institute a 15 day waiting period panic policy coupled with drinking heavily, daily horoscope assessment and depending on the severity of the situation, psychic evaluations.

"Beat the Heat"

On the Taxi Cab Network, which is basically the Elevator Captive Network for people without jobs, they had a corny segment on ways to "beat the heat" this summer. While this report may seem timely because the sun has relocated to 1 mile from the earth these days, they have this same annoying segment every year (along with the hilarious shark attack segment) and I never have any idea what they're talking about. Like do they mean that I should beat the heat by not succumbing to it and dying, or beat it in the Michael Jackson sense by rumbling in a parking garage and then running away when people start singing, or should I should open my door, walk outside and physically punch the heat out.

Apparently the newscasters themselves don't actually know what they're talking about because instead of telling people to do obvious things to keep themselves cool like turn off their heaters and stop pouring KY warming liquid all over themselves, they come up with the most worst ideas I've ever heard in order to "keep cool." For instance, during a heat wave, they suggest that senior citizens should contact their relatives and friends at least twice a day, because calling people and pestering them lowers temperatures by at least 30 degrees. People should also check on neighbors who live alone, ostensibly to make sure they are sweating just as much as the rest of us and aren't secretly harboring an industrial size A/C. My recommendation here is that they should just can it with these beat the heat segments and until they install an air conditioned dome over NYC which was my idea all along they need to stop wasting everyone's time with lame ways to not be hot when it's actually 10,000 degrees out.

An Open Letter To Life

Dear Life,

Upon hearing the news that You Don't Mess with the Zohan took in $40 million at the box office this past weekend, I hereby officially tender my resignation, effective immediately.

As you know, I bet my friend Sean $1 that there was absolutely no way that Zohan would break $40 million because I had faith in the American people. I had a dream that no reasonable person would pay $10 of their hard earned money to see a movie that appears to be a piece of shit directly out of my ass and has a plot involving Israeli intelligence and a hair salon. I had a dream that people would not continue to let Adam Sandler destroy this country by patronizing the man who made such garbage as I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Click and Reign over Me, the latter being one in which he plays a dentist who loses his family in 9/11, wears a bizarre wig and is friends with Don Cheadle. I had a dream that people would realize that the last time Adam Sandler made a joke that was in any way humorous was in the early '90s at best. And finally, I had a dream that people would grow up and stop pretending that Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore were hilarious because they were objectively awful. I had a dream.

Apparently America has made a decision to continue supporting Adam Sandler despite the fact that he was purposely trying to mock Americans by making Zohan and seeing if anyone actually showed up. Well, the joke's on us, and, like all Adam Sandler jokes, it's not so much funny as it is alarming and tragic. Unfortunately, I cannot go on living under these circumstances. Please confirm that you will be sending me my COBRA forms in the intraoffice mail.

Adieu.

Marin

Wedding Registries

"Gifts"

I was gchatting with Liza about our recent class reunion and we were discussing a member of the class who was a no-show and had gotten married recently, so I Wedding Channeled that shit ASAP to see what went on at the wedding I was so rudely not invited to and I came across their registry. Let me just say that I find wedding registries 100% ridiculous because what they're essentially doing is picking out presents in advance and telling people "buy me this'" and then sending people thank you notes thanking them for simply following instructions and buying the things that they basically had no choice to buy or else.

Well, this wedding registry was no different from any other one in that the couple had registered for the usual piles of crap like bedding, towels and dishes, the idea being that before anybody gets married they are apparently homeless and live in a cardboard box, eat food using branches and sticks and dry themselves off with paper towels, thereby necessitating that people buy for them the essentials of daily life that they had never owned before. While I'm happy to help out a friend in need by buying them 10,000 thread count sheets made of the finest silks from Cathay while I sleep on hay, I draw the line when people start registering for ludicrous crap just to make sure that there are enough presents for the guests to buy that were actually only invented because people historically ran out of things to register for and people needed gifts to give. Lemon zesters, melon ballers, olive dishes, crystal vases - are these all jokes.

People have said to me that maybe one day I'll want alabaster dishes and 30 horsepower blenders when I have children and lavish dinner parties but I have news for you, this will never be happening because takeout is delicious and I will never stop ordering it and if I were ever getting married I would register for cash, animal charities and shoes. Maybe this post is a faux pas but you know what, for those of us who are unmarried and want to go to the weddings for the open bar, time to take a stand and oppose this forced registry present buying slavery because no one needs slotted spoons, $99 wine openers and golden butter dishes and if you do, time to reevaluate.

Greetings from the Rapture

You might not notice what is going on so an email reminder might be useful

Megan sent me an amazing site the other day, You've Been Left Behind. This is a convenient service for Christians, by Christians with the idea being that when the Rapture happens, people will want to notify their non-Christian friends and relatives via email that they will be temporarily out of the office for eternity and that if the non-Christians somehow hadn't already noticed, millions of Christians had gone missing because they were being given new bodies and transported to meet Jesus, so now might be a good time to convert. These Rapture emails are automatically sent to non-Christians, bosses and whomever else won't be participating in the Rapture when 3 out of 5 YBLB employees don't log in for a three day period. This is key because there is absolutely no possibility that 3 out of 5 YBLB employees will be on vacation at the same time and it is a known fact that Christians will somehow lose all internet access when the Rapture is going on. Unfortunately these days there are internet cafes everywhere and I'm actually not buying that there aren't internet cafes in heaven or that when Jesus returns to earth immediately all Blackberry signals will die or that everyone will be so obsessed with what's going that nobody will be able to spare a single second to text someone "rapture FYI" so that everybody else can know what's happening.

The most amazing part of all of this is that Christians' last and most urgent plea to loved ones to get on board with Jesus ASAP because things are going on is via email. So basically this means that if you turned off your Blackberry because you were at "The Lion King" or they send it to an old email address or it by accident goes to your spam folder and you somehow miss the email, it won't really be that big of a deal except that you'll be rotting in hell for all of eternity and there may be other serious problems.

Ugh, I asked around and apparently I don't have any friends that subscribe to this service or obviously care enough about their non-Christian friends that they would want to at least shoot me an email notifying me that they're in the Rapture so I don't freak out and think they've been kidnapped or whatever and call the police. In any event, I would imagine that the Rapture email that I WON'T be receiving because I have selfish friends says something like:

"Hi Marin - this email has been electronically generated from You've Been Left Behind. I'm in the Rapture now and can't talk for long but I wanted to invite you to join me here but in order to do so, you have to accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. If you'd like to join me and meet Jesus, please click 'accept meeting request' and it will automatically be entered in your Outlook calendar."

My main question here is what happens if there is a glitch in the system and these 1-800-Rapture Now emails are sent out erroneously - will I be receiving a follow-up email that says "False alarm - no Rapture yet" because if so, I need to be monitoring my inbox for this email as well.

Budgeting: Schedule A

Graph shows richness on y axis and time on x axis

Megan helpfully reminded me that I left out the following expenses:

1. Psychic predictions/tarot card readings/crystals, etc. for myself and Perry - critical
2. Tailoring new clothes purchased to enhance beauty - critical
3. Magical creams, potions and topical beauty enhancers - critical
4. Botox in chin for deprunization - critical
5. Phone bill - optional

Budgeting

Apparently I've been working here all along

Prior to my quitting, my dad told me about a mysterious concept called "budgeting" and that instead of spending my money "wildly and irresponsibly" (as was revealed in family therapy to which I was not invited, information courtesy of Jenna) I should make a list of my monthly expenses so I can see what I've been spending my money on and then trim the fat. So below I have set forth a list of monthly expenses and classified them as either critical, mandatory or optional, and based on this list I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had actually been "budgeting" all along and pretty much only spending money on essentials.

1. Manicures and pedicures (4x per month) - critical
2. Waxing ($80) - critical
3. Haircut and highlights ($300) - critical
4. Health insurance - optional
5. Cleaning lady ($80) - mandatory
6. Dog walker ($600) - critical
7. Perry's grooming appointment with senior stylist ($100) - critical
8. Food - optional
9. Gym membership at Equinox - critical
10. Rent - optional
11. New clothing to enhance my image - critical
12. Bottles of alcohol for personal consumption - critical
13. Cabs when drunk- critical

GRE Verbal

No point in taking this anymore

So today I finally open my Princeton Review Cracking the GRE book and didn't feel like crying 35 times, so I decided to skip the math and look at the verbal section. The book starts off with a section that tells you to follow a particular pace for the exam depending on what your realistic goal score is in verbal, so I circle 800 because English is my native language and then take a look at the analogy section. Um - HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHIT? Apparently I've been reading Mary Higgins Clark books for 27 years, because I have never heard or seen half these words before in my life and they actually may not even be English. Tyro? Pusillanimous? Jejune? Stygian? Is this a joke. Last time I checked, Jejune was a club in NYC but apparently that's not the "dictionary" definition that will get you any credit on the exam, so basically if you are a giant nerd and know the real definition because you refresh the Merriam-Webster site every two seconds, that's better than if you actually have a life and have stood in line for the club once but it was closed for a private party.

I don't understand why someone doesn't institute a policy whereby if certain words haven't been used in two centuries except by the ETS people on annoying standardized tests, they need to be thrown out of the dictionary. I mean, these people are acting like I sit around all day reading the NY Post, watching cartoons and playing hangman and that I didn't go to VERY prestigious institutions and read all the Cliff Notes for my classes. Apparently they are expecting me to stop whatever I'm doing and just ride the elevator at my former job up and down waiting for the ridiculous "word of the day" to pop up on the Elevator Captive Network, immediately writing it down and making flash cards out of it. Look, I know this blog may not be copyedited and proofed within an inch of its life but the last person to use these words in actual sentences was Robinson Crusoe and frankly if I used "cavil" in any of my very important papers at work, people would have told me to stop being a jerk and starting being real because nobody knows what cavil is and all it's doing is making people feel bad.

Celebrity Charities

On Memorial Day, as I was sitting in Central Park with a few of my friends who also were giant losers and didn't have plans, Risa mentioned my amazing Christopher Reeve impression and we started talking about celebrities and their pet charities. I actually don't buy it when celebrities become crusaders for charities that benefit themselves, like Michael J. Fox being obsessed with Parkinsons and Christopher Reeve pestering everyone to do stem cell research. Like I buy into these causes in general, but when these celebrities become spokespeople of the causes after they themselves are afflicted with it, it's not really altruistic because it DIRECTLY BENEFITS THEM, and what they're essentially asking you to do is forget whatever charities you were into before, time to fork over your money directly to them so that they can get better soon and continue to wear ruby encrusted bathrobes and live in giant compounds.

I mean, if Christopher Reeve hadn't fell off a horse and broken his back, do you really think he would care that much about stem cell research. Or if Lance Armstrong hadn't had testicular cancer, would he really be obsessed with plastic bracelets and living strong. The only way celebrities can legitimately support charities is if they pick a cause in advance like heart disease or whatever and then hope that they later have a heart attack so that they will have picked the right one. Like Sarah MacLachlan supports the ASPCA (because the ASPCA rules), and as far as I know, no one has has skinned her for her fur or done cosmetic testing in her eyes so people can know for sure that her support of this cause is legitimate and not because she was trampled by a bear.

"Pale and Critical"

Me in the Dominican Republic

About a year ago I was in the Dominican Republic with Jen and Victoria and it was like the fourth day that we were there and I was minding my own business walking by the pool and some random red faced Canadian guy who fat and burned to a crisp yelled out from his lounge chair "Do you have a skin condition?" For a moment I was horrified that he was referring to my SLIGHT dry scalp problem (which I'm WORKING ON), but my hair was under a hat. I asked him what the hell he was talking about, and he said I looked like I was on my "death bed" or had "painted whiteout" all over myself. It didn't matter that he looked like a sunburned manatee or that the resort was full of topless old hags smoking on the beach in wheelchairs, because the most alarming thing on the beach was my extreme paleness. Jen and Victoria can tell you the ridiculous amount of people at the resort who "helpfully" suggested to me that I might want to start sitting in the sun or try putting down the 50 SPF because while saggy singed teats or ten sets of asses on a single person is perfectly acceptable, you have to draw the line somewhere and frankly pallor is crossing it.

Unbeknowst to me, paleness went out of fashion approximately 100 years ago and these days it's cool to go to tanning salons and sit outside for hours hoping to look like you soaked in a vat of Nestea for 10 days so you can braggg to your friends that you went on vacation without the hassle of having to get your hair beaded. Too bad that in 10 years all these tan people are going to look like leather couches and will be wearing bandaids on their faces and my shit is still going to be in high gear because paleness rules and I have a strong feeling it will be making a comeback very soon. My friend Grant once called me "pale and critical" and if this is not the highest compliment ever given I don't know what is.

Class Reunions

This Saturday night is my quasi-high school class reunion (fine, I only went to that school for middle school but I still know all the people there and I was invited anyway so calm down), and it appears that this was a bad time to quit my job because now I'm going to look like an unemployed loser. When I was in high school, I remember talking to my friends about how at the10 year reunion I would roll up on my yacht with my husband and 37 children in tow, be dripping in riches and diamonds and be the CEO of 30 companies as well as a famous writer and devoted patron of the arts and international supermodel. Luckily the part about being rich, a famous writer and a supermodel is 100% true, but unfortunately I don't have a yacht (YET) nor do I have a husband or any kids to speak of, unless you count my dog, but it may look suspicious when people whip out their childrens' bronzed baby shoes and I show them Perry's professional Hanukkah pictures.

In any event, this weekend's reunion is actually just a practice reunion for my real 10 year high school reunion this Thanksgiving, which will likely be the most important day of my life. A day when phoenixes rise from the ashes, the mighty are brought low and the meek inherit the earth. Below, I have outlined my tentative schedule of critical preparation:

1. August 15, 2008 - give up all carbohydrates
2. August 16 - begin Master Cleanse
3. August 17 - hire celebrity personal trainer for workouts 4x daily, 8 times a week until reunion
4. August 18 - schedule secondary rhinoplasty
5. August 19 - get secondary rhinoplasty
6. August 20 - acquire steady and goodlooking boyfriend who is r$ch
7. August 21 - become exceedingly r$ch
8. November 27 - end Master Cleanse
9. November 28- attend reunion

Goodbye, English Rose

Not ideal

This morning as I was looking at CNN.com for more pictures of the cruiseazy FLDS Oregon Trail people, I came across an article discussing how Brigitte Bardot was convicted of racism for writing that Muslims were destroying France. While I fully support jailing people for expressing their opinions and exercising their freedom of speech, the more alarming thing here is that no one was convicted of destroying Brigitte's face. It looks like a skunk died on her head and her face was hit with a frying pan and then steamrolled by a tractor, and if it is the ultimate fate of a sex symbol to end up as a withered old hag writing nutbag letters to the French President, I think Marilyn Monroe had the right idea by dying young and beautiful.

I think the bottom line here is that if Liz Taylor ends up looking like a clown in a wheelchair, and Brigitte Bardot ends up looking like this, there is no hope for the rest of us and time to throw in the towel, put down the Guerlain Issima Success Eye, call Equinox and revoke my membership and then calmly head to the nearest tar pit and jump in.

The Lenscrafters Trail of Tears

The clock shows the percentage of your life that will be wasted

Last November, I decided that all the squinting I was doing at my computer screen was annoying me, so I asked a bunch of people where they got their eyes checked and of course either no one knew where to go, people went to places out of state, or they had LASIK. So finally Megan provides me with the name of her optometrist, Dr. Gilmer at Lenscrafters, so I call them to book an appointment and they said that Gilmer wasn't in on Thursdays, but Dr. Hernandez could see me. So I leave work slightly early and go to the store where a technician makes me look into 4 machines that essentially replace the role of the optometrist by blowing air into my eyes which magically gives the correct prescription. When Dr. Hernandez sees me, she yells at me for not having seen an optometrist in 10 years, tells me that the contacts that I'm wearing are gradually making me go blind and spends approximately 5 minutes figuring out my new prescription and giving me cheap trial contacts. A few days later when it is revealed that I still can't see, I come back to the store, Dr. Hernandez tests my eyes again, tells me that my prescription has mysteriously changed within the course of 4 days and that this is a tell-tale sign of Diabeetus and is in no way connected to her giving me the wrong prescription the first time around.

In any event, this wrong prescription/leave work early/return to store happens four more times because I have nothing better to do than wear contact lenses that make me see halos around everything and I enjoy spending my free time arguing with the people there about whether I am purposely trying to get the wrong prescription because I enjoy being blind. Finally, Dr. Gilmer gave me a decent prescription that allows me to see somewhat out of both eyes, so I took the trial pair and RAN. For six months they've been calling me every other week for a follow-up to "confirm" the prescription, but frankly if I don't have time to avoid cancer by getting my follow-up cervical cancer vaccine, I don't have time to see correctly.

So today I get an extremely angry voicemail from the Lenscrafters manager saying that if I don't call them back, they will re-charge me for an optometrist visit when I return to get more contacts. As I'm preparing my excuse for why I haven't called them back in six months (out of the country, death in the family, changed my number, sequestered for reality show), I realized that it is actually completely ridiculous for her to be threatening me because if I want to be blind, that's my prerogative and she should butt out. I made an appointment for next Friday, and honestly if they even try and yell at me I will open up a world of pain on their glasses.

To Install a Printer

"Easy Installation"

Since I have no job and now can't use my firm's printer to print out my concert tickets and gchat conversations, I decided it would be a wise investment to purchase one for myself this past weekend. So I went to PC Richards, went to the printer section, decided that I needed an LCD screen for my extreme printing needs and bought the most expensive printer in the land along with a pile of paper. I specifically asked the guy at the store if the printer came with all the necessary parts and he replied, "Yes, this printer comes with everything you want" because apparently included with printers these days are the secrets to eternal youth, the Heart of the Ocean, a winning lottery ticket and your family genealogical tree. Anyway, so I go home, ignore the printer for two days and then last night I attempted to install it using the "Easy Installation" instructions that appear in the form of a treasure map. So I spent two hours trying to jam the ink cartridges into the machine and eventually determined that apparently I will just have to throw out this printer and get a new one because there is no way these ink cartridges are fitting.

This morning my dogwalker Greg comes in and I ask him if he can install this printer. So he looks at the ink cartridges and says that Ihave to remove this orange nozzle at the bottom of them and then I tell him that that is false because I have read the instructions ten bazillion times and I didn't see anything about removing orange nozzles but then I re-read the instructions and he was right. The bottom line here is that despite the fact that they have 30 pages of instructions devoted to all the other amazing Canon products that I can buy and warranties protecting the double secret probation warranties, nowhere in the instructions does it say not to install the printer when drunk and had I known that I would not wasted my time and just started installing it today.

In any event, after four hours of Easy Installation this morning, I eventually get to a screen that says something to the effect of the computer does not recognize the printer and that I need something called a "USB" cord. So I spend 45 minutes going through the printer box, throwing over couch cushions and accusing Perry of hiding it and then I re-read the instructions and in very fine print they reveal that the PC Richards guy was lying and that the USB cord is not included with the printer and that I should probably just use one of the 30 that I have lying around my apartment because people who choose the Easy Installation are always working on robots and computer projects and have bags full of USB cords just ready to be used for things that come up. Ultimately I got a USB cord and the printer is working, but if the people at PC Richards could stop lying to me and just tell me upfront that I will need to devote an entire day to installing it and that it may or may not include all the parts I will need, that would be great so at least I can know in advance to call up other people and get them to install it for me or get a head start on making tin foil antennas.

World Premiere Exclusive

Gross

Since I quit my job and am now less rich than I was before but am still exceedingly rich, I decided that yesterday when I was hungry I would do something known as "cook." I have done this once before in Philadelphia when I spent an entire day trying to make tofu lasagna to impress the person I was dating at the time in order to make it appear that I would make a good wife and mother, but the tofu liquefied because apparently I bought the "wrong" tofu. Anyway, after this guy ate the tofu, he didn't immediately compliment my cooking and I became enraged and vowed never to cook again because there's no point in cooking for other people unless they tell you it was the greatest meal of their lives. But the general idea with cooking is that you're supposed to buy the groceries, bring them back to your apartment, put them away, take them out, figure out ways to cook them, cook them, eat them, and then clean up afterwards and do dishes and then brag to everyone that you are "cooking for yourself" these days because you "enjoy it." Frankly, god would not have invented restaurants if he wanted people to cook.

Anyway, so yesterday I cooked eggs that may or may not have expired in January, and they were disgusting and now the pan is sitting in the sink and I am hopeful that it will either wash itself or Megan or Jen will come over and be disgusted by it and wash it for me because there is basically no way I am spending time washing that shit when I have other things to be doing like monitoring my credit score. I have an idea - instead of me doing all the heavy lifting with this intricate egg cooking, why can't Perry to do the dishes and make himself useful for once and start contributing to this household instead of just taking my money, mooching off my apartment and running up my electricity bills.