Sunday, March 15, 2015
The Luck Of the Irish
It is St. Patrick's Day. Or, rather, it is the weekend prior to St. Patrick's Day, which has been designated by bar owners as unofficial St. Pat's so that people can spend lots of money getting wasted at their establishments and then stumble out to block my access to the Taco Bell drive through and vomit on my front lawn. When I was heading out the gym at 8:30 yesterday morning I already saw clumps of butterfaces and buthishairgreases dressed head to toe in Kelly green headed for the revelry. Now, I am all for day drinking, but drinking before the last hour of the Today show has even finished somehow seems wrong. Unless you're Kathie Lee, of course. That shit has been grandfathered in.
Anyway, all of this fills me with righteous rage. It should not take me half an hour to drive the ten blocks from my mother's place to my own simply because booze buses and trolleys are blocking the intersections. People should not return to their homes at 1 AM and blast Three Doors Down's Kryptonite at a volume level more appropriate for the rapture. Also, there should not be public fingerbanging. I just consider these to be basic aspects of living in a society.
Of course, there was a time when I was part of the fingerbanging masses. But it never involved actual fingerbanging so much as getting drunk on green beer and playing Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" so as to blow people's minds. I never even wore a shirt announcing that my dick was Dublin. Has my entire life been a waste? I guess we'll leave it to the scholars to decide.
It is St. Patrick's Day. Or, rather, it is the weekend prior to St. Patrick's Day, which has been designated by bar owners as unofficial St. Pat's so that people can spend lots of money getting wasted at their establishments and then stumble out to block my access to the Taco Bell drive through and vomit on my front lawn. When I was heading out the gym at 8:30 yesterday morning I already saw clumps of butterfaces and buthishairgreases dressed head to toe in Kelly green headed for the revelry. Now, I am all for day drinking, but drinking before the last hour of the Today show has even finished somehow seems wrong. Unless you're Kathie Lee, of course. That shit has been grandfathered in.
Anyway, all of this fills me with righteous rage. It should not take me half an hour to drive the ten blocks from my mother's place to my own simply because booze buses and trolleys are blocking the intersections. People should not return to their homes at 1 AM and blast Three Doors Down's Kryptonite at a volume level more appropriate for the rapture. Also, there should not be public fingerbanging. I just consider these to be basic aspects of living in a society.
Of course, there was a time when I was part of the fingerbanging masses. But it never involved actual fingerbanging so much as getting drunk on green beer and playing Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" so as to blow people's minds. I never even wore a shirt announcing that my dick was Dublin. Has my entire life been a waste? I guess we'll leave it to the scholars to decide.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
I Have Some Things To Say About Murder, She Wrote
Sorry to be so cutting edge and contemporary on you all, but the fact of the matter is that I have some things to say about Murder, She Wrote.
I've been watching the shit out of it lately, largely thanks to the largesse of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and it seems designed almost entirely to fuel the fantasy lives of nosy old women. J.B. Fletcher sticks her nose into just about every place it doesn't belong, and people just tell her how delightful she is. Sure, every once in a while some big city cop doesn't cotton to her tampering with evidence or badgering a witness, but even those sticks in the mud always come around when she has one of her trademark random epiphanies induced by someone's offhand comment about boxcars or the price of peanuts. It's porn for the elderly.
And the guest stars, oh the guest stars! Courtney Cox makes an appearance, I believe as one of Jessica's nieces. She has like ten thousand nieces and nephews, including the recurring character of Grady, an adult man so naïve and ridiculous that it's surprising he hasn't managed to accidentally strangle himself with his pants or something. She finally gets him married off, though, and to money to boot.
Oh, but I was talking about guest stars. Bryan Cranston is there, in a tennis-themed episode entitled "Menace, Anyone?" no less. Neil Patrick Harris has a touching role as a spunky teen who wants to be a writer like Jessica but naturally ends up being accused of murder. This must have been the moment when he knew he was gay. Julianna Margulies plays a stone cold bitch, as usual, and Cynthia Nixon plays someone with weird mouse teeth. Tom Selleck also appears, but that was the Magnum, P.I. crossover, so it doesn't really count.
A lot of times when Jessica confronts someone about being the real killer they try to kill her. She's always ready for them, though, with the local constabulary eavesdropping from the next room. She doesn't really even seem phased by it, at this point.
It's really tragic that they only made about ten thousand episodes of it. Though I'm glad the proposed Octavia Spencer reboot didn't pan out. I just don't think she can pull off the appropriate amount of bitchface.
Sorry to be so cutting edge and contemporary on you all, but the fact of the matter is that I have some things to say about Murder, She Wrote.
I've been watching the shit out of it lately, largely thanks to the largesse of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and it seems designed almost entirely to fuel the fantasy lives of nosy old women. J.B. Fletcher sticks her nose into just about every place it doesn't belong, and people just tell her how delightful she is. Sure, every once in a while some big city cop doesn't cotton to her tampering with evidence or badgering a witness, but even those sticks in the mud always come around when she has one of her trademark random epiphanies induced by someone's offhand comment about boxcars or the price of peanuts. It's porn for the elderly.
And the guest stars, oh the guest stars! Courtney Cox makes an appearance, I believe as one of Jessica's nieces. She has like ten thousand nieces and nephews, including the recurring character of Grady, an adult man so naïve and ridiculous that it's surprising he hasn't managed to accidentally strangle himself with his pants or something. She finally gets him married off, though, and to money to boot.
Oh, but I was talking about guest stars. Bryan Cranston is there, in a tennis-themed episode entitled "Menace, Anyone?" no less. Neil Patrick Harris has a touching role as a spunky teen who wants to be a writer like Jessica but naturally ends up being accused of murder. This must have been the moment when he knew he was gay. Julianna Margulies plays a stone cold bitch, as usual, and Cynthia Nixon plays someone with weird mouse teeth. Tom Selleck also appears, but that was the Magnum, P.I. crossover, so it doesn't really count.
A lot of times when Jessica confronts someone about being the real killer they try to kill her. She's always ready for them, though, with the local constabulary eavesdropping from the next room. She doesn't really even seem phased by it, at this point.
It's really tragic that they only made about ten thousand episodes of it. Though I'm glad the proposed Octavia Spencer reboot didn't pan out. I just don't think she can pull off the appropriate amount of bitchface.
Friday, March 06, 2015
Sigh
February is a wonderful month to be a state employee, because we get not only President's Day but also Lincoln's birthday off. Combine that with the snow day we got the first week of the month and the sick day I took last week, and you have four straight weeks where I only worked four days.
Which brings us to March. I worked every day this week and I am out of practice. It probably didn't help that I spent a good portion of that week trying to transcribe a video interview of a four-year-old child abuse victim, but still. And we have a total of no days off coming up this month. This is where the city employees really shine -- Casimir Pulaski is, pardon the expression, the tits!
Oh, and the weather in March? Fucking terrible. Slightly better than February, but twice as dispiriting because you feel like winter should just fucking be over already. I know this because I've heard many highly informative and entertaining conversations about the weather in the elevator at work.
So I guess it's a good thing that I've planned my vacation for March. We're going to Spain for a week later this month. (Prospective robbers: please note that we've got a crack housesitter lined up and the alarm will be fully armed.) We've never been, it looks amazing, and it's supposed to be sixty degrees there. I see very few drawbacks.
February is a wonderful month to be a state employee, because we get not only President's Day but also Lincoln's birthday off. Combine that with the snow day we got the first week of the month and the sick day I took last week, and you have four straight weeks where I only worked four days.
Which brings us to March. I worked every day this week and I am out of practice. It probably didn't help that I spent a good portion of that week trying to transcribe a video interview of a four-year-old child abuse victim, but still. And we have a total of no days off coming up this month. This is where the city employees really shine -- Casimir Pulaski is, pardon the expression, the tits!
Oh, and the weather in March? Fucking terrible. Slightly better than February, but twice as dispiriting because you feel like winter should just fucking be over already. I know this because I've heard many highly informative and entertaining conversations about the weather in the elevator at work.
So I guess it's a good thing that I've planned my vacation for March. We're going to Spain for a week later this month. (Prospective robbers: please note that we've got a crack housesitter lined up and the alarm will be fully armed.) We've never been, it looks amazing, and it's supposed to be sixty degrees there. I see very few drawbacks.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Current Events
Some stuff has happened.
The Oscars, for instance. Wealthy white people sat in a room and gave each other little gold statues. Lady Gaga sang The Sound of Music for some reason, and there was extended business involving Octavia Spencer. People screamed "who are you wearing?" at strangers without being jailed. Neil Patrick Harris took his inoffensive blandness all the way to eleven.
Former Roommate Liz skyped in from Maine for the occasion. Fun fact: they do have television in Maine. But not God. Jokes were made about people's apparel. Oddly enough, Maine's version of the Oscars seemed to be a few seconds ahead of ours. Which of course makes one wonder if they faked the whole thing on a soundstage somewhere. I refuse to believe that Eddie Redmayne is an actual person.
I also had election duty. Precincts were visited, votes were cast. (Not votes plural by me, thank you very much. I limit myself to one.) The far north side was very lucky to have me. Bonus? We found a shopping plaza with a Five Guys and a Chipotle. And an Olive Garden, if we want to get crazy. Democracy has never seemed so plausible.
Some stuff has happened.
The Oscars, for instance. Wealthy white people sat in a room and gave each other little gold statues. Lady Gaga sang The Sound of Music for some reason, and there was extended business involving Octavia Spencer. People screamed "who are you wearing?" at strangers without being jailed. Neil Patrick Harris took his inoffensive blandness all the way to eleven.
Former Roommate Liz skyped in from Maine for the occasion. Fun fact: they do have television in Maine. But not God. Jokes were made about people's apparel. Oddly enough, Maine's version of the Oscars seemed to be a few seconds ahead of ours. Which of course makes one wonder if they faked the whole thing on a soundstage somewhere. I refuse to believe that Eddie Redmayne is an actual person.
I also had election duty. Precincts were visited, votes were cast. (Not votes plural by me, thank you very much. I limit myself to one.) The far north side was very lucky to have me. Bonus? We found a shopping plaza with a Five Guys and a Chipotle. And an Olive Garden, if we want to get crazy. Democracy has never seemed so plausible.
