Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

Are people serious? I can’t even get over what has transpired in life in the past 24 hours. And by life, I obviously mean pop culture and other people’s lives. From my mental “BBMs from last night” folder I will share this: “This is the most drama filled night of my life”. Have truer words ever been typed?

First of all, Serena Williams. Seriously? In case you didn’t know, she flipped out on a lines judge for calling a foot fault on her at the US Open Semi-Finals yesterday. She yelled at the lines judge saying she would shove the fucking ball down her fucking throat. I mean, think that in your head. But don’t say it out loud. She got a point penalty for it, and it happened to be match point. So she lost. Good.



In her press conference she was talking about how she’d never been in a fight before. Please. Back when she was a newcomer she practically shoved her opponent to the ground once while switching sides. And then blamed her opponent for not moving out of her way and called her a racist. I’m pretty sure all of that happened. I’ve never been a fan of Serena, and I don’t think any of that is going to help her fan base or burgeoning fashion career. I can only hope that she has completely wrecked herself.

Next, Madonna. Get the fuck off of your high horse. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t really care that Michael Jackson Died. Yeah his old music was great, but his greatness was dead long ago. But for Madonna to take the stage at the VMAs to open it with a tribute to Michael Jackson, and to talk about herself the entire time, was reprehensible. Seriously made me feel awkward in my own skin. I don't even have the energy to talk about the content of her bizarre speach, but here is a link since Youtube is not allowing me to embed it. Rude.

The only thing that could have potentially made it even more awkward would be if Madonna had been up there in some scantily clad outfit showing of her man body and oddly taught and muscular old-lady skin in some sort of leotard. Madonna, check yourself.

Onward. I have to say, I saw Kanye at the Jay-Z concert on Friday night and he was acting totally fine (if you didn’t pick that up, that’s me pretending to be friends with Kanye instead of seeing him on a stage from hundreds of yards away). But I don’t know what happened in between then and last night, but that man went crazy. Kanye always pulls moves like this, and it really doesn’t surprise me. Because I happen to know that he’s so obsessed with himself that he actually doesn’t care how ridiculous he gets.

Yeah, talk shit about George Bush in public. Like I care. That obviously made me like him more. And like anyone who likes George Bush listens to Kanye. I’m pretty confident that that Venn Diagram does not have any over lap. He’s done other stupid shit, but this was ridiculous.

You all better appreciate the amazingness of me making my own Kanye/George Bush Venn Diagram. God, if Miss Mirto, my 4th grade teacher and Facebook friend, could see me now... Oh wait, I guess she can...

Poor Taylor Swift. Just a little newcomer who has taken the music scene by storm and she gets booted off the stage by crazy Kanye. Whatever, shit happens. Beyonce obviously handled it gracefully. My favorite part was when Kanye first got on stage and started talking, the camera cut to Beyonce and you could see her mouth, “Oh my God, Kanye” as she was visibly mortified at what was going down. And then when she won in the end, for her groundbreaking, amazing, life changing video, “Single Ladies” (after her mind blowing performance of it), she let Taylor take the stage to finish her acceptance.

I’m actually kind of tearing up thinking about it. How Beyonce said how excited and nervous she was when she was first nominated for a VMA with Destiny’s Child. I was but a wee middle schooler, in love with the song “Say My Name”. Good times. Here is a poor quality video of Beyonce's amazing performance last night.



God. I want to be her. Side note to Beyonce, thanks for feeling so comfortable with me, but I really did not need to see your vagina during your performance of “Single Ladies” last night. Check yourself.

What I did not approve of was that Taylor didn’t emphasize her thanks to Beyonce or compliment Beyonce’s video, which seriously took the world by storm. If you haven’t seen the Single Ladies video I recommend you emerge from the rock you’re living under and take a gander. And I’m kind of pissed this wasn’t talked about more in an appropriate fashion, instead of how Kanye decided to bring it up. Because he had a valid point, he just presented it in the stupidest most horrible way possible.

The thing about Kanye though, is that he’s not going anywhere. He was probably drunk or something and that’s why he did that, but I don’t really think this is going to majorly affect his career. I’m sure he’ll make some sort of public apology. But even if he doesn’t, it really doesn’t matter. Kanye is seriously talented. I’m not a fan of every song he comes out with, but the good ones are really good. A mix of actually seriously artistically good and also really poppy and great. So although Kanye did not check himself, I do not believe he has totally wrecked himself, but that’s just me.

Lady Gaga. What? Like… What? She is apparently at the point where her art is so artsy that it doesn’t make any sense and is really weird and creepy. Like what she did was totally creative, but like you have the chance to be creative in almost any way possible and that’s what you choose to do? To mime your own death on national television via hanging by your arm? That shit was creepy. Seriously seriously creepy.



Lady Gaga seriously needs to check herself.

In closing, I will leave you with the best video/song you will watch/listen to ever.

J. Hova, ya heard?

Men like you are the reason I left Finland.

I can’t deal with cell phone ringing anymore. Come on people. This is fucking 2009. Get with it. It’s not 1999. Get the fuck out of here with your Nokia ring tone. Or any ring tone at all.

In my mind it is completely barbaric to have your phone on anything but vibrate in most situations.

Par example- Yesterday I was waiting in line at the Post Office. It actually wasn’t that bad, maybe I was just in a good mood or something, but I saw that line snake around the ropes three times and I was like “Good.” I saddled up, whipped out my Blackberry and starting BBM-ing nonsense to anyone and everyone. It’s really a phenomenal way to pass time.

In front of me was a strangely sporty man. I somehow didn’t ever see his face, but he was wearing board shorts, a t-shirt, a white hat, shower-sandal-type sandals (like athletes wear), and had one of those like nylon athlete backpack things with the strings as straps (to the right, to the right, everything you own in the sackpack to the right). But was completely bald. Literally not a hair poked out from his hat anywhere. And a hat only covers like the top half of the back of your head, so I could see half of his hairless head. I assume he shaved it. Maybe he was a swimmer, I don’t know.

So his phone starts ringing. Fine. That’s fine. Everyone has cell phones, they ring, that’s life. His ring tone was annoying as shit. I was listening to it thinking about how I couldn’t wait to write about it and just wishing I could memorize the ring tone so I could find it online somewhere so you all could hear it too. Alas, I forgot the sound the second I exited the Post Office. But it was one of those high-pitched ones. Not like crazy-annoying-dog-whistle high pitch, just higher than normal and more annoying than normal.

Instead of keeping his phone in his front pocket, like a normal man (breast pocket would also be acceptable, but that does not apply in this situation), this guy had it in like a back/side cargo pocket of his bizarre red board shorts. So he waits a couple of seconds once the phone starts ringing, then he reaches down to his low-side-back-cargo-pocket, pulls the Velcro apart to open the pocket, takes the phone out, looks at who’s calling him, opens the phone, keeps looking at it, seemingly confused and astounded that anyone is even calling him, then presses the button to answer. I think the phone rang for, no joke, at least 20 seconds.

This is completely inexcusable and socially unacceptable. It’s one thing if you’re a woman and you have a huge Mary-Kate-Olsen bag so that you can hold it in front of your stomach or to project an image of general smallness of yourself in contrast to your giant oversized bag, and you’re rummaging through it while your face turns bright red because everyone is staring at you and you’re sooooo embarrassed that your phone’s been ringing for more than 5 seconds. I identify greatly with that situation. But for men, your phone is always in your pocket. If it ring, just reach in there and get it. This process should take approximately 3 seconds if at least one of your hands is free.

But then this guy’s phone rings again. And this time it happens when the line is moving forward a little bit. And he’s reading a book and his backpack is on the floor a little behind him. So it’s ringing, he flips the page of his book, it’s ringing, he looks down for his back pack, it’s ringing, reaches back with his foot and pushes it forward so it can be in front of him in line, more ringing, he moves up in line a little bit, ringing, THEN he reaches back to the Velcro side back freakish drug-stash pocket to get the phone out.

At this point it must have been ringing for 40 seconds. I think there was steam blowing out of my ears in the manner of an angry cartoon character, because he kept moving in slow motion and fumbling in the tiny pocket for the phone before finally extracting it and answering it.

And that’s when I decided I had to take a stance. Yes, I have a ring tone, and Yes, it’s the song Paper Planes by MIA. But I haven’t used it in public in forevs. Because it’s rude. It’s inappropriate. It’s bothersome to others. I’ve started putting my ring tone on recently but only when I’m in my apartment because the doorman calls up to me on my cell phone, because apparently I moved apartments and now I live in the future.

Moral of the story: If your phone makes any sort of noise it should either be pleasurable to my ears or make me laugh. If it doesn't meet that criteria, put your phone on vibrate and shut the fuck up.

I Die.

I know. Legit everyone in the blogosphere (gay) has posted this video this week. But I just have to do it too because I can't stop watching it and laughing hysterically. Finally an internet video I can get behind.




On an unrelated note, True or False: I passed out drunk around midnight, woke up at 2:30, had 2 BBM conversations that each lasted for more than half an hour, fell back asleep at 5:30 after watching 4 episodes of 30 Rock on my computer and then had a sex dream about Bill Paxton.

What is this? Wine opener. I'll take it.

Bargain shopping is an activity I hold near and dear to my heart. I think I just realized how intense that love is when I moved last week and saw how much shit (read: clothes, accessories… and anything else you buy in stores… or on the street…) I have. The reason I have so much shit is because if something is cheap I will buy it.

I can’t help it though, it’s in my blood. My heart races at the prospect of a good bargain or for paying less than others for something. And my problem is that it doesn’t always have to be something I love. Yes, it is way better when you’re really into something and then find a way to pay less for it. But if something’s really cheap and I think that there is any possibility that maybe one day I might need that thing, I’m going to buy it.

Us Jews do love a good bargain. Have you ever seen a non-Jew in Loehmann’s? Exactly. But Loehmann’s was where I did my high school bargain shopping. My college bargain shopping was mostly in the BP section of Nordstrom, and my current bargain shopping is mostly from the J.Crew sale website, and the occasional sample sale. When J.Crew reformatted their sale website last year I almost had a panic attack. I think actual tears formed in my eyes and I might have gasped and then yelped, “What’s happening!?!” in an office full of people. Whatevs.

So a couple of weeks ago I went to Staples to buy some stuff for work and they had, I shit you not, Staples brand spiral notebooks for 1 cent a pop. ONE. CENT. WHAT!?!??!!? I think I called 3 people from Staples screaming about the 1 cent spiral notebook special. I obviously bought 5 for my office, even though I only needed one. I’m sorry, that offer was just too good to pass up. And now my “company” is 4 cents deeper into the “red” or the “black” or whatever it’s called, but it was worth it. If you tell me something costs 1 cent, you can bet your ass you will have a fistful of pennies within seconds.

Buying things for a crazy bargain price is also my main way of sticking it to the man. That was the one thing I forgot to mention in my sticking it to the man post oh so many months ago.

Another bargain I’m really into right now is ordering from discounted restaurants on Seamless. For those of you who have been living under a rock, aka don’t live in New York, SeamlessWeb is an online food ordering website that restaurants subscribe to. And there a bunch of restaurants on the list that have 10-25% off discounts on your total order, but the discounted restaurants change each day. Sometimes I just browse Seamless to see if anyplace I like has a discount that day, NBD. But when I go to order something and my restaurant has a discount that day, it’s a damn good feeling.