The House Always Wins

While watching a very intellectually stimulating episode of “Samantha Who?” on my DVR yesterday (I never said I liked good sitcoms, just ALL sitcoms) I was reminded of the phrase “The House Always Wins”. For those of you who have not seen this Christina Applegate/Barry Watson critically acclaimed show, it’s a show about a woman who is a horrible person until she gets amnesia and becomes a good person and forgets about all the horrible things she’s done in the past.

So on last week’s episode Sam went to Vegas, where she had a flashback that she used to be a regular in this casino and had won and lost a bunch of money there but also had a romantic relationship with the owner, who also owned the company she used to work for. I started thinking about the phrase “The House Always Wins” and how I use that phrase in my day-to-day life in non-gambling-related instances. I think my main usage of it pertains to the MTA and the constant battle/struggle in my life that I like to call “The Limited vs. The Local”.

This phenomenon is somewhat similar to “The Road Less Traveled” but more applicable to ANY situation in which you have two route choices to get to a given destination. I have an uncanny ability to ALWAYS choose the one that ends up taking longer. For example, the subway platform at 57th street that I stand on to go from my day job to my night job: On one side of the track there is the Q, 57th street is the last stop for the Q so it sits there idly after it arrives and then leaves and goes straight to 42nd street, which is where I need to go. But across the way we have the local track, which houses the N-R-W, which are the local trains.

When I get to the platform, the Q is almost always sitting there with it’s doors open, and the opposite N-R-W track is empty. But an N-R-W almost always comes through while I’m waiting for the Q to leave and I almost always get up off the idle Q, and walk over to the N-R-W so that instead of sitting still I’m on a moving train, even though the moving train has one extra stop in the short ride I’m taking it.

Side note: people who take the subway one stop used to boggle my mind, actually they still do. If you use the subway to travel 10 blocks or less you BETTER be either an elderly person or have some sort of foot condition which does not allow you to walk more than a couple of blocks, because if you’re too lazy to walk 10 blocks, get a fucking life.

Anyway, my issue with taking the local N-R-W is that while the train is making it’s one stop at 49th street, I almost ALWAYS see the Q go zooming by on it’s express path to 42nd street. This makes me start sweating with anger and the probably 5 seconds I have lost on my inferior route choice. What does that 5 seconds mean in the grand scheme of things? Nothing. But what if it did. I mean, who hasn’t seen the movie “Sliding Doors” starring Gwyneth Paltrow (who, in my opinion, is long over-due for a return to the big screen… “Great Expectations” anyone? Best movie ever.)

So some days I decide, “I’m going to sit and wait on the Q for it to leave even if an N-R-W comes by on the other track”. I kid you not, about 95% of the time that I decide to do this, I am sitting on the Q train for 10 minutes while 3, count ‘em, THREE, N-R-W (probably one of each) trains come by and stop across the platform from me. And I sit there in anger, “Why, Brady, WHYYYYY” but I have already made my decision and I stick with it, no matter how much my body is shaking with rage as I sit and listen to my ipod and wear my sunglasses so no one can see me staring at them… even though my lenses aren’t dark enough to hide my eyes so they can totally see me staring that them.

I don’t know who exactly is “winning” in this scenario, or why the MTA is out to steal my precious 5 seconds, but with technology today there should definitely be a system that tells me which train will get me where faster. That’s it. It’s been decided. I’m taking this idea to that guy who wears the green suit with question marks and dollar signs and screams about patenting you invention, or whatever the hell he says, I don’t pay attention. But we’re going into business together and making millions. Done. But the fact remains, I do sit on the Q train and think as I watch the local trains come and go, “The House Always Wins”.

I also have this uncanny ability to make the wrong decision when driving, specifically, on my drive out of the city to Connecticut. There is a time-saving route that I use that cuts off of 95 and onto the Hutch for like 5 min and then cuts back over to 95, saving you the drive through Co-op City, which is sometimes/often trafficky (word I made up, go with it). When this short cut works, it is golden. But somehow, the times I decide to take it, it is also trafficky. And when this happens I am convinced that the other route is clear. But as one of my friends pointed out to me last summer, if the short cut is trafficky that probably means the long way is trafficky too. Valid point.

But. But but but, When I am the driver and I choose the trafficky route, I am always convinced that the alternative is clear and I made the wrong choice. It’s just how my life goes. And I’ve realized it, and accepted it. Or haven’t I? If I had accepted it I might make the attempt to pad my scheduled journeys with the time allotments for these holdups that I foresee, but instead, I always leave later than planned and arrive doubly later than planned because of these funnnnn detours and traffic jams. So have I learned anything? Is there anything to learn from these trials and tribulations with public transportation and public roads? You decide. Either way I choose to go, the house always wins.

And your 15 minutes of fame has been extended until... forever.

Ok, so keeping with Tuesday’s theme of reality TV, I’ve been thinking a lot about The Bachelor lately. As I said on Tuesday, I only like fake scripted reality. I’m not that into competition/dating shows (excluding Project Runway, which I am convinced is going to be totally ruined by moving to California, but only time will tell). I have only seen The Bachelor a handful of times in my life. And I get it. I get the attraction to shows like that. They’re addictive. Once you know the characters you just can’t wait to see the drama and who wins and who loses and blah blah blah. I just don’t have the time in my very busy TV-watching schedule to add in shows like that. I don’t like them enough and they are not worth my time.

But lets get something straight about Reality TV and it’s stars – these people are hungry for fame. This isn’t fucking 1998 where struggling actors go on Real World because they think it’s going to help their acting career. For the most part, I’m going to say about 98% of Reality TV stars never make it outside of the realm of Reality TV. And going further, 95% of them never appear on television again. And it always comes as some big surprise on these dating shows when the main person finds out their potential love interest has been on another dating show. GASP! You’re all fame hungry fools who will do anything to get on camera.

When people bring up everything that happened on The Bachelor this year my standard response is “DON’T CARE” but since I’m writing about it now, I guess I care a little. For those of you who have been living under a rock the past few months, let me fill you in with a Spewing-Nonsense-abridged version: The Bachelor was down to his final 2 girls. He chose Melissa. He proposed to Melissa On the reunion show, he decided to dump his fiancé and choose the girl who he had previously discarded in the final elimination. Aaaaaaand scene. If you watch the show and I got something in there wrong, please feel free to correct me, because I only know any of this because someone felt it necessary to take the time to explain it to me, and every major/minor gossip/news show talked about it non-stop for about a month.

So this girl who got dumped, does anyone else realize she got what she wanted? Even my beloved Chelsea Handler went off on a tirade a few weeks ago saying “good for her” about Melissa, because apparently she has recovered from this heinous tragedy and is now going to be on Dancing With the Stars. It may not have been her master plan to be dumped on national television, but she did go on one reality show and now she is going to be on another one. This is how people make money. This is now her career. Do you people think Ryan and Trista had their wedding televised for their health? I don’t think so. ABC paid them $1 million for that shit.

There is no question that getting dumped was definitely the best plausible scenario for Melissa’s career. If she really gave a shit she’d pull a Zora (of Joe Millionaire, best dating show in the history of dating shows). Pulling a “Zora” entails being really awkward on camera because you’re not used to a camera following you around all the time and you don’t really like it and also realizing you don’t want your life to be televised. Zora and Joe Millionaire (who I lovingly refer to as Joey Mills), aka Evan Marriot, did not stay together. It was perfect. It’s not like they admitted the show was fake but they just didn’t end up liking each other. It was a bizarrely honest ending to a show that was all about lying. Whatever, it happens. They split half a million dollars at the end so it’s not like anyone walked away empty-handed. Zora went on to a life of semi-normalcy, and became the spokeswoman for NutriSystem at some point. Who knows where Evan Marriot went, probably back to the construction site the Fox producers plucked him out of in the first place. Zora and Evan were the last of their kind in the world of Reality Television.

So when someone brings up The Bachelor, which they inevitably will in the not-so-distant future, do not shed a tear over poor Melissa being dumped on TV, give that girl a mental high five for making buckets of money and extending her 15 minutes of fame to two nights a week in YOUR living room BECAUSE she got dumped on TV. It’s a trade-off, yes, but I think she’ll be OK.

Feel the rain on your skin!

I prefer the fakest of all reality TV. Because when it’s real it’s just not as funny. I need someone in there intricately setting the scenes and feeding every “character” his/her exact line. A puppet-master, if you will. And though all “reality” shows are fake, I prefer for mine to be as much like a soap-opera as possible (even though I hate soap-operas). Hence, my favorite reality show of all time is The Hills. I may or may not sing along to the entire theme song every time I watch. Every single time.

Let’s be honest. MTV basically invented the concept of Reality TV as far as I’m concerned. With the gem like the Real World (which I probably haven’t watched since the 90’s… blatant lie…)  to kick off a genre of TV that has basically taken over the world. It’s like Reality TV shows are Godzilla and every other type of TV show the world has to offer are the fleeing Japanese. It’s too much for me to handle, as I’m an avid supporter of the Sitcom. Situational. Comedy. What could be better? It’s like life, but funny.

But within the macrocosm of Reality TV we have the microcosm of the Laguna Beach series. MTV really hit that jackpot with that one. Because after however many seasons of Laguna Beach were spun out to The Hills and then The City. There was also one season of Newport Harbor, which should really make a come back. And along the way we just meet an endless cast of characters that could have their own shows. And half the time there’s not even an introduction needed. A new character appears and we, as the viewers just accept them as part of the cast.

I’m excited to see what direction MTV goes once Lauren is done with The Hills. But why would Lauren ever leave The Hills. Bad career move on her part, because her life is so typecast at this point she should really just accept it before she becomes Mischa Barton (Who?? Exactly.)

So last night’s episode of The Hills just made me fall more and more in love with it. Most episodes have that effect on me.

Lets start it off with Stephanie Pratt’s interview with Kelly Cutrone (aka perhaps the most unfortunate looking person to ever walk this earth). Wow. Just… Wow. I thought I was the worst interviewee in the history of job interviews. But this was so bad that my entire body was clenched in some sort of full-body wince for the ENTIRE scene. Seriously though, on one interview I was asked what my strengths and weaknesses were and I think I just laughed and smiled and waited for the next question. The only good interview I’ve ever been on is for the job (“job”) I have now. And it’s my second “real” job since I graduated college. Don’t ask me how I got the first one, although they could have gotten either an intern or anyone with as much as a 4^th grade education to do it. Oh, I guess that’s why I got it.

Anyway, the sheer heinousness and awkwardness of Stephanie’s interview scenario was just genius. Who wrote that? I wish the credits for The Hills included titles like “head writer” and horde of other names for “writers” because that is way funnier (and more truthful) than calling them all “Producers”.

Allow me to jump back to the season premiere, which contains my two favorite parts of scripted conversation:

1. When Lauren asks Lo and Steph who invited Heidi to her party. Steph replies “Lo?” and Lauren looks at her and goes “I know it wasn’t Lo, I was just like being nice.”  That was priceless. But who can think of lines like that on the spot?

2. When Lauren decides to have a conversation with Steph about the fact that she invited Heidi to the party. There one point in this argument where Steph is just like begging Lauren to be friends with Heidi again, Lauren asks why Steph thought it would be a good idea to bring Heidi to her birthday party. “Why wouldn’t you just ask me to go out to dinner with her or something?” asks Lauren. Steph: “Because you would have never done that.” Lauren: “Well if I wouldn’t go out to dinner with her than don’t you think I wouldn’t want her at my birthday party either?”

The maze of circular logic Lauren (read: MTV producers) introduced here absolutely blew my mind. I was screaming “GENIUS” at the top of my lungs the second Lauren dropped that amazing line. 

So back to Steph’s interview. Even after Kelly told Lauren it was by far the worst interview she’s ever been a part of Lauren continued to defend Steph and say that she thinks Steph would be a good addition to People’s Revolution. Um… Lauren… If Steph isn’t smart enough to realize letting Heidi tag along to your birthday party isn’t a good idea, you probably don’t want to take responsibility for her actions in the work place.

And yet, I’m beyond excited to see exactly how Steph is going to fuck everything up. That is why this plot line is just so great. It opens up so many doors. Because obviously Steph is going to fuck shit up. There is not a doubt in my mind. But will Lauren get fake fired when Steph fake fucks up? It’s all a journey. 

When I have more time, in the near future, I’m going to devise a list of possible ways Steph is going to fuck up at People’s Revolution.

Anyway, as bad as the acting is on this show sometimes, other times it’s just great. And I really couldn’t ask for more out of a reality TV show. It’s got everything: drama, humor, girls I want to look like, guys I want to slip roofies to. The Hills is the cherry on top of a fabulous night of Monday night television (better known as CBS comedy Mondays- If you don’t watch How I Met Your Mother you should probably just stop watching TV all together, you’re not worth it). 

Dear Delta, I hate you.

This is the story. Of two strangers. Who took a 3-hour road trip together. Because their flight was canceled.

Hopefully someone actually caught that Real World reference. I don't even know why I made it. I haven’t watched Real World since “the slap heard round the world”. Good times.

Let's talk about how awful airlines are. First of all, I hate flying on any airline other than American Airlines or Jet Blue. I have like some legitimate reasons for why I feel this way, but mostly it's just because I’m crazy. I mean obviously Jet Blue is superior to all other airlines because it has personal TVs on every flight. I mean, what could beat that? Free alcohol? Touché. I will put all the airlines out of business when I launch my airline, Party On Air… Wasted Air? Sounds like an 90s band.

I'm a nervous flier, and for some reason I feel WAYYYYYYYYY safer on AA or JB as opposed to ohhh... I dont know... let's kick this off with my experience with Delta two weekends ago: I was flying on Delta to DC for the weekend (out of Laguardia, which I HATE with a passion and will never fly out of again) but I did it because the tickets were cheap on priceline.com... and I'm Jewish. So it was a match made in heaven... Until....


I arrive to the airport for my Friday evening flight. I like to think of myself as a seasoned traveler. I try to arrive at the last minute possible for my flights so that I don’t have to sit and wait in the airport, because I hate it there. And I have never missed a flight. True story. So I obviously printed out my boarding pass from work (because if you wait until you get to the airport to check in you should probably just stop reading this because I want nothing to do with you) and I notice there is no assigned seat on my boarding pass. I was like hm, priceline is pretty ghetto (although their William Shatner commercials are lol material), maybe they just save like the last seats for the poor people / idiots who decide to book their tickets through a third party vendor (Booking through third-party vendor is just stupid). So I let it slide. I get to the gate and to my dismay the flight isn’t boarding yet. So I take a seat and wait, get up at one point to get a $4.50 Fiji water from Starbucks, such a bargain.

So they announce boarding for my flight and I go to get on. The gate agent informs me to stand to the side with the other rejects who also don't have assigned seats. The gate agent looked like a bizarro/chonga version of Ellen Barkin but young and Latina and I couldn’t stop staring at her. I'm pretty sure she was wearing a wig. So I'm just standing infront of the gate staring into this freakshow's eyes, waiting for her to clear us for boarding. I think I asked her like 3 separate times if I could board. Maybe 4.

At one point this genius asks her co-gate agent "Yo, how do you check how many bags are on board again?" Um... isn't this something you should know!?!?!?! I mean I don’t know what I’m doing at work half the time either, but seriously, get your act together lady. Then finally, FINALLY, she looks at the 4 rejects and goes "Ok, OK, your seats have been assigned.” And as she’s printing out our seat assignments she says: “Hurry, hurry! The plane is leaving!" ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I was the first person to attempt to board the plane, and now you're telling me to hurry? You have got to be out of your mind. In the world of human-to-human interaction this is just unacceptable. I was so angry at her I thought my heart was going to spontaneously combust in my chest. I’m still mad I didn’t at least say “Are you serious?” to her.

Not to mention that on the flight that left the gate before mine, this same fake/latina Ellen Barkin somehow let someone from the later flight to Wilmington board on the early flight to Wilmington. And there was all this hubbub and calling back and forth to tell this woman to get off the plane and to get her bags out of checked baggage, and then when she comes up the runway/gateway or WHATEVER it's called, Ellen Barkin looks at her and goes "You're back on the flight! Run! Run! Run!" Really? REALLY???? When I saw that happen I knew I was in for an adventure. Their infrastructure is less organized than a 5-year old’s lemonade stand business.

So the weekend goes by and Sunday rolls around. Everyone else that I’m with leaves to take the bus back to NYC and I head to the Metro to go to the airport. As I’m on the Metro I get a call from a 1-800 number. I pick it up and it’s DELTA with an automated message that my 2:10 pm flight has been delayed until 5:00pm. I get off the Metro and go to my friend’s house to hang. I would rather gauge my eyes out with a hot spoon (Slumdog-style) than sit in an airport for an extra 3 hours. So 3:20 rolls around and I’m starting to entertain the idea of taking the Metro back to the airport when Delta calls me again. I put the call on speaker-phone for my friends to listen to… and the automated voice announces the flight is departing at 4:20.

My heart drops because I had JUST been bragging about how I’ve never missed a flight and I thought it was way later than 3:20. So my friend drove me to the airport and when I get to the terminal my flight number is not on the TV screen of information… I started freaking out… until I realized I was looking at Arrivals instead of Departures. I start to calm down as I walk over to the Departures screen… where my flight is still not listed, at which point I pick my freak out right back up, aka my heart is pounding, I am sweating uncontrollably and my eyes are darting nervously around the terminal as I try to figure out my next move. I find some bootleg Delta ticket counter that says it’s for DC-Laguardia shuttle only (I’m flying into JFK) and wait in line and ask them what gate I’m at. Luckily the flight has not left yet and is at Gate 22. Phew.

My heart continues to pound and I continue to drip sweat as I wait in line behind 3 people, for an inordinately long amount of time, to go through security. I speed walk to the mysterious Gate 22, which is, of course, the last gate in the terminal, and when I get there the screen has no information about my flight. The gate agent informs me that my flight will now be leaving at 4:50. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

At that point my body was actually exhausted from the amount of panicking I had just done and from the amount of water I had lost from sweating. So I decided taking a Xanax was my best option. It was. I calmed down, boarded my flight (they gave me a seat this time and I was literally the first person on the plane, it was a great feeling… but don’t worry, it didn’t last too long.) and settled in for a nap.

The one thing I enjoyed about this flight was how informed the pilot kept us. I like to have as much information as possible so I can decide for myself if the plane is about to plummet out of the sky and we’re all going to die. But the pilot would say “we’ll be off the ground in 3 minutes” and then get back on a minute later and say, “New York has just advised us to stay on the ground for another 30 minutes”. It was really bizarre. But I hate when pilots lie, and they lie a lot. Why are you lying? Just hit me with the truth. I can’t yell at you or physically assault you or anything, the cockpit (haha, cockpit) door is locked for your safety.

We take off around 5:30, fly for 20 minutes, and then the pilot announces we’ve entered a holding pattern that is supposed to last for 30 minutes because New York now has zero visibility. And he goes “But I doubt it will last the whole 30 minutes”. An hour later he tells us we need to fly up to Albany to refuel. We land in Albany and he comes out of the cockpit to address a plane of about 42 empty seats and 8 passengers. He apologizes for everything that’s happened (it was so nice of him, I wanted to hug him) and says we should take our stuff off of the plane and stretch our legs.

As soon as we get into the terminal he announces that air traffic control has cancelled our flight into New York. Awesome. It’s 7:30 on Sunday night and I am now in Albany. This is when I hear one of my co-passengers say that he has to be at work tomorrow morning and he’s going to rent a car. I don’t know what got into me, because this is sooooooo not me, but I went up to him and asked, “Would you mind if I came along?” I just didn’t have the energy or the patience to deal with arranging a hotel and waking up at 5am for a 6am flight and feeling like shit all day. And I’m a night person, so I figured might as well get the traveling out of the way ASAP. We stop for a bite to eat at Mo’s (Welcome to Mo’s!!!!!) and I got a Margarita. I thought maybe getting some tequila flowing through my veins would calm me down. It kind of did, until we start driving through a torrential downpour and the windshield wipers on the passenger’s side barely worked. So instead of being able to watch where we’re going and attempt to monitor the driving abilities of this stranger, I stared out a blurry window that I could see nothing out of.

At first we didn’t talk that much. Then as the rain eased up we had some conversations. He’s married with 4 kids, all in their 20s and he lives on Long Island and is a Radiologist. Definitely a Jew. And his nephew wrote the book that Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was based on. I had just seen that movie the week before so I was really excited about that little tid-bit of information. For the final 45 minutes we were mostly silent because we were both dying to get out of the car. Don’t worry, there’s a final twist in this story that makes my journey ever more unbearable. From the beginning my “driver” informed me he wasn’t driving into the city, he was driving to JFK because that’s where his car is parked. That’s fine, I’ll just take a cab. But as we approach the airport he says “I still have to drive another hour home, so I’m just going to drive straight to the Hertz lot”. So you’re going to leave a girl in her 20s at the Hertz rental car lot at midnight on a Sunday? How exactly would you feel, sir, if someone did that to your daughter? I imagine not too good.

So I got on the AirTrain, which is seriously my favorite mode of transportation, and take it on over to Terminal 1. Well it’s almost 12:30 and Terminal 1 is almost empty, so there are no cabs there. Instead of going back to the AirTrain I decide to just walk to Terminals 2/3. There isn’t exactly a sidewalk to do that on. So I was walking through the street and at one point had to run so I wasn’t hit by an available cab, which wouldn’t let me get in because I had to go wait in the taxi line. And so we reach the end of my weekend, a $55 cab ride that got me home at 1pm. From DC. To New York.

Wait for it…

I had to fly out of Laguardia on US Air to Richmond a mere 4 days later. Thank God I was at least with friends this time. Our flight got cancelled. I decide our only viable option is to rent a car. We drive to Richmond on Thursday night from Laguardia and arrived at 4:30am Friday. THE END!

On a scale of one to Jesus, how blasphemous was that?

For those of you who DON’T know the story of Passover (you should be ashamed of yourself) I’m about to give you the Spewing-Nonsense version of it. The Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians. The Pharaoh was mean. Someone found baby Moses in a basket in the river. God decided to punish the Egyptians with the plagues. The Jews escaped and ran away through the desert and had to eat matzo because there wasn’t time for the bread to rise. The end! That is how long my ideal Seder lasts. Plus a few fun songs and lots of wine. 

Last night we had a Seder at my cousin’s apartment on the Upper West Side. I warned them that I would arrive late because I couldn’t leave work early. And also told them not to wait for me for anything. Which ended up being beyond perfect because I walked in the door just as the Jew-speak was ending and the matzo-ball soup was being served.

So after a couple of glasses of wine I obviously started screaming across the table (if you’ve ever had a meal with me you already know I will scream across the dinner table even if there isn’t any wine involved… but as the amount of wine intake increases, so does the VOLUME OF MY VOICE). And because I am not religious at all, and we had some non-Jews at the dinner table, I decided to start being semi-blasphemous.

And let me kick off my blaspheming by saying I am currently eating an English muffin- The first of many not Kosher for Passover foods I will be consuming this week.  But I found these seasonal Maple French Toast flavored English Muffins, so I’m sorry Jews who were enslaved thousands of years ago, but as you can see, my hands are tied here.  

We were talking about who was keeping Kosher for Passover (which means basically eating matzo in place of bread for the next week) and I decided to respond with “I’ll go home and eat pizza after this meal. That is how Kosher for Passover I am.” For the record, I did not go home and eat pizza as I was bursting at the seams with brisket and chicken and stuffing. Mmmmmm. But that comment was just to let everyone at the table know where I stand with being observant, just in case there was any confusion. 

Here is my issue with people who keep kosher for Passover: I understand that it’s a nod to our ancestors and what they went through thousands of years ago. But really. Taking hours to cook these intricate dishes without yeast so that they are “Kosher for Passover” is totally hypocritical to the original concept of keeping Kosher for Passover. Matzo only exists because of a time constraint. 

And if there was a ripple in the time-space continuum and our ancestors saw us with our paved roads and our airplanes and our blue-tooth head sets and saw that for 8 days we were cutting out bread to acknowledge them don’t you think they would laugh? Don't you think they would say, "Take the Matzo you bought for Passover and give it to someone who is can't afford a meal." Or, "Take the energy you're using to cut out bread (gasp!) and help someone in need." I'm not saying I'm doing either of those things, but I'm also not pretending like I give two shits about staying Kosher for Passover. It’s just sooooooo insignificant. And  also, don’t complain to me about how you have to eat matzo all week. Because A. it’s your choice and B. if you’ve never taken the Atkins diet out for a test drive this is your chance. Screw Matzo.  Just cut out carbs for a week. Big whoop.

Side note: It has always bothered me that matzo isn’t spelled matzah. I’m all about being phonetic when translating.

Back to Seder:  After my grandma spilled a glass of wine and my aunt spilled two, the red wine supply was running pretty low. I’m not sure if we actually ran out or not – it’s one of those things that no one wanted to bring up because everyone was pretty drunk and no one was sure how inappropriate it would be if we kept asking for more bottles. I guess it’s proper etiquette to let the hosts decide how much wine should be served. So part of the Seder involves pouring a glass of wine for the phantom ghost of Elijah (pronounced el-lee-ah-hoo in Hebrew). I don’t know what the significance of this is at all. I just know that you close your eyes and sing a song and then Elijah is supposed to come and drink some of the wine out of his special silver goblet. As I’m typing this I’m realizing more than ever how bizarre religion is.

With the red wine supply running low and no one really caring about following the proper Seder directions, I decided to dump the wine from Elijah’s silver goblet wine glass into my grandma’s empty wine glass (I think this was directly after she spilled her wine, but the series of events are blurred in my wined-up memory). This managed to get a nice chuckle out of most of the table, except for my Great Aunt Charlotte, whose daughter is orthodox, and insisted we pour the wine back into Elijah’s goblet as I was screaming “She needs it more than he does, he’s not even here!” So my grandma poured like half of it back and kept the rest for herself. I’ve never been prouder.

That was when I realized that if anyone was truly serious about this Seder I would have (and should have) been thrown out. But everyone was too wined-up to care and I was also informed shortly after I first asked, “On a scale of one to Jesus, how blasphemous was that?” that the hostess had said that since many of the old people have died out (literally) that no one knows what to do at the Seder anymore.  So I took that as a cue to go hog-wild.

Next I decided to sing/yell the weird prayer we sang before breakfast at my summer camp. The lyrics are as follows (feel free to sing along!):

OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH 

The Lord is good to me!

 And so I thank the Lord

 For giving me the things I need

 The sun and the rain and the apple trees

 The Lord is good to me!

 YEEEE HAWWW!!! (with accompanying fist pump)

Aunt Charlotte responded with, “That doesn’t sound Jewish”. Astute observation, Aunt Charlotte. Although my camp was jam-packed with Jews, the owners were not only Christian, but their last name was literally “Christian”… So yeah… Although if we want to get technical the Jewish God and the Christian God are the same entity (right?), I pretty much felt like I was praising Jesus in the middle of Passover Seder. Whoops. Don’t. Care.

Who wants to be... a mill-a-nare?

FINALLY it is relevant for me to whine about Slumdog Millionaire, the most overrated movie of all time, again. I wrote most of this about a month ago, when I was so filled with anger towards Slumdog I just needed to vent.

Today is the DVD and blu-ray release of the film that won Best Picture at the Oscars this year. And I’m pretty sure it’s still playing in many movie theaters. Don’t ask me how that works, but if you know please feel free to educate me.

Has a more mediocre film ever won Best Picture? The answer is most likely yes, but this one really stuck in my craw. People scoff at me when I refer to Slumdog as the worst movie ever, but it is simply an equal and opposite reactionary exaggeration to calling it the “Best Picture of the Year”. Although when I looked back on the list of Best Picture winners for the past 10 years, I’ve only seen half of them, so I’m probably not the most informed critic. Don’t care.

The Slumdog effect is very similar to the Little Miss Sunshine effect. Yeah, it was a good film. Yeah, it was entertaining enough. Yeah, it was different than the movies we usually see. But Best Picture? Are you mad? Do NOT call me the second you get out of the theater saying Slumdog the best movie you’ve ever seen and everyone you know has to go see it immediately, because that’s retarded. And I got no less than three of those phone calls. But at least Little Miss Sunshine didn’t win Best Picture.

The only time I’ve chosen the correct winner for Best Picture was for The Departed. But seriously, if you didn’t like the departed you should probably question your status as a human being. Because that movie was absolutely mind blowing.

I like a good underdog story as much as, if not more than, anyone/everyone. And although the content of Slumdog was a seriously mediocre underdog story with such unrealistic twists and turns, paired with a completely underdeveloped romantic relationship, the actual movie, because of it’s non-mainstream content, is also an underdog in itself. But to really be an underdog you have to at least be better than the competition to win. And Slumdog just wasn’t.

Both Milk and Benjamin Button were FAR superior to Slumdog. I didn’t even like The Wrestler that much but if I was on the Acadamy, and for some reason there were only two films nominated for Best Pitcure, and they were The Wrestler and Slumdog, I would have chosen The Wrestler, just to stick it to Slumdog.

Seriously though. Lets do a quick recap of the general plot. Jamal won a million dollars on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire because he coincidentally knew the answer to every question because of an event in his interesting/tough/slummy life. And then he was in love with this girl, who he basically hasn’t known or had any communication with since he was like six years old. Nothing chaps my ass like an underdeveloped romantic relationship in a film. Nothing (this second “Nothing” is for you, Notting Hill). Half of the meaningful shit he experienced he didn’t even go through with her. And now she’s one in a band of skanks that belong to some drug lord or gangster or whatever. I did like how she finally escaped, but please. I’m just not buying it (and I’ll buy some pretty cheesy shit when it comes to movies).

Something I do, when I watch movies and TV, is constantly predict what is going to happen next. When I’m right I get really excited, and when I’m not, the surprise of what happens instead is how I decide if I like something or not. Slumdog was completely off of my prediction path and the surprise of what happened instead was disappointment after disappointment. First of all, with all of those kids running around in the beginning, I was sure there was going to be some sort of sexual molestation going on. But no — just gauging out some eyes with a hot spoon. I usually expect/look forward to sexual molestation in the plot of a movie because I watch A LOT of Law & Order: SVU. A. Lot.

The other main thing I saw happening, which did not, was an in depth look at the corrupt government in India in which the POLICE were torturing Jamal to find out how he was cheating on a fucking television game show. COME ON! Slumdog is a poor man’s Quiz Show — another far superior film, but this one is from the 90’s, directed by Robert Redford, also nominated for Best Picture, and about the TV game show scandals of the 1950s. I’ve seen it about 30 times, no biggie. And coincidentally Quiz Show hinges on a contestant taking a dive on an easy question about which film won Best Picture that year! Feels good to come full circle, doesn’t it?

And my final gripe about Slumdog — if the Oscar winning song had been played at all before they rolled the freaking end credits, that would have been nice. Don’t save a gem like that ‘til the end. I knew the song before I saw the movie and was waiting for it patiently (or not patiently at all) the entire time. Introduce it at some point during the film and then bring it back for the end credits! Jai ho, bitches.

Reasons I don’t watch videos that people send me online

When I worked in an office that had actual people in it, I didn’t like watching videos that people sent me because when your computer is making noise, it’s pretty blatant to everyone around you that you’re not doing work. And I liked to keep a low profile about how much time I spent not doing work, because it was a shit load. But that excuse was also just very convenient since most of the stuff I did end up watching didn’t come close to approximating what I consider to be funny or interesting (and that is a super low bar, since I laugh at almost anything).

I don’t know though, it’s something about videos that don’t capture me or entertain me, which is weird because I watch more TV than most people I know. But I usually watch episodes of Seinfeld or Will & Grace that I’ve already seen 10 times, or a show I already know I like. Something like a youtube video is usually pretty risky. There are some old-school youtube videos that I look back on fondly, like “Shoes” and “Let me borrow that top”. And then there was like that really serene rocking chair that you stare at and then something loud and scary happens and everyone who is huddled around the computer screen together gasps and twitches in reactionary terror. That’s a classic.

But that was in college, when everything was light-hearted and fun and I had more free time (did I, though?) to fuck around. If you work in a cube, even if you have facebook and gchat up all day everyday (which I always did/do and used to get scolded about it every once in a while) I still think playing a video is taking things a little too far. And that is coming from someone who had a TV on their desk and would shamelessly watch tennis during major tournaments. But for some reason I think videos on the computer are slap in the face to the higher ups (who do usually deserve a slap in the face, but let’s be cordial), “Yeah, I don’t care that you pay me to do something here, I’m going to spend 3 minutes watching a clip from the today show about a man that hasn’t left his house in 8 years because he’s too fat. So HA! "

I’m trying to think of the last video link I clicked that I was really upset about. I have a feeling it was like a clip from a spelling bee or something. Not interested. If I was the kind of person who watched Spelling Bee’s on ESPN2 or something, maybe I’d like it, but I don’t. And I didn’t. Either way I remember going off on my friend for sending me the link, “Why the fuck would I ever want to watch that. Never send me anything this stupid or uninteresting ever again. I can not believe you dared to waste my time like this.” Obviously from my reaction, you can tell I have a very high-powered position and cannot be wasted with such trivial nonsense. Psych. It just rubbed me the wrong way, as mediocre online videos always do.

Don’t even get me started on how I treated my friend who sent me some sort of puppy cam. Which I clicked on when all of the puppies were fast asleep and not even moving. Really? That’s what you’re doing to procrastinate the work you have to do? You must actually hate your job more than I do, because that is seriously depressing. Speaking of dogs, I don’t hate the video of that dog speed running in his sleep, because it’s mildly amusing and it’s only like 38 seconds long. But if you send me a video and I get past the one-minute mark and I haven’t laughed out loud, prepare to receive a totally unwarranted wrath of hatred that is lousy with expletives.