Friday, May 1, 2009
Even the most perfect relstionships have their faults...
People who are rude to strangers boggle my mind. I know everyone doesn’t have friends like this, but at points in my life I have had friends who are outright mean all the time. One false move from a stranger and my friend is yelling at them in the middle of a bar. The music screeches to a halt and the entire bar watches as said friend tells off random girl she’s never met because that random girl accidentally touched her while trying to squeeze by her in a crowded bar. Incidents like that make me want to crawl into bed and never have social human contact again.
And so Facebook, along with all of my truly loved ones, falls in the category of “I know you well enough to be mean to you.” And here is my issue with Facebook today: What in the hell are these bizarre things you can become a “fan” of now. I had friends who were trying to start a magazine, so I became a fan of their magazine only later to find out that the magazine was a glorified nudey mag. I’m not talking about Maxim here, I’m talking about straight nudity. Of college students. But whatever, I’m a supportive friend/acquaintance, and if that’s how you want to make your money (or lose your money and ruin your reputation) then good for you. I’d be way less judgmental if I wasn’t an avid fan of Girls Next Door and cried EVERY episode. I don’t know why I cry every episode. I just know that I do. But I think it has something to do with the American dream and a bunch of trashy nobodies who are actually really nice people end up being famous and rich. Love IS actually all around us!!!!!! But my point here is that I became a fan of a "business" or a "website", not an abstract concept or general activity, that's what you're supposed to put under "Interests" in your profile.
I’ve gone to and fro my Facebook homepage twice while writing this so far. First I saw “4 of your friends have become a fan of Cuddling”… Really? What’s the opposite of interesting that sounds cooler and angrier than “uninteresting”, because that’s how I feel. The phrase “DON’T CARE” comes to mind. Everyone likes cuddling, that’s why dogs were invented, duh. And I’m pretty sure that’s why people are in relationships. I mean, I think the only reason I actually want a boyfriend is so that I have someone to cuddle with while I watch TV… Whatever. So I guess, technically, in life, I am indeed a fan of cuddling, am I going to add it to my Facebook page? NO. Because that would be pointless/stupid/dumb.
Then I clicked on something on my Newsfeed, and when I returned back to the homepage I see that “3 of your friends became fans of Not Being On Fire”… WHAT? Ok, great. Now I know that out of my 842 friends, 3 of them don’t like being on fire. This is soooooo stupid.
Sometimes I lay in bed at night and yearn for the days when Facebook was only open to college students and my best friend from when I was 5’s babysitter didn’t constantly harass me via wall posts and messages asking me what I’m up to these days and to send pictures of my parents. Uhhh… do you even know how to use Facebook, lady? Obviously not. Because if you simply clicked the “Info” tab on my profile you could see where I’m working. And if you looked at some of my tagged pictures, or looked through my albums, you would probably find my parents somewhere. Learn how to stalk me without bothering me to help you to stalk me. That is what Facebook is all about, and if you don’t realize that, then get the hell off.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sticking it to the man.
Taking the subway to JFK – Taking the subway to JFK is the best feeling in the world. Oh, you want me to pay $60 for a cab ride to JFK to catch my JetBlue flight that only cost $52? GO FUCK YOURSELF. I don’t know who thought it would OK to charge such a ridiculously exorbitant amount to get to the airport, but it’s rude. So I catch the E train and I ride it long and I ride it hard (that’s what she said) and I switch over to the AirTrain at Jamaica Station and I pay a total of $7 for this ride. And it doesn’t even take that long. Maybe it’s the Jew in me, but I am more than willing to add 20 minutes to my trip in order to save $53. Saving money is a high and I am addicted to it. The Recession is my playground. But sometimes I get a tinge of guilt because am I really sticking it to the man by doing this? It’s more like sticking it to the foreign cab driver that may or may not have been a doctor, judge or priest in his country of origin. Oh well, welcome to America.
Sample Sale / Regular Sales – Oh hey J.Crew, you want to charge me $60 for a pair of shorts that go on sale on your website a week later for $30? Thanks but no thanks. Paying full price for clothes is for amateurs. ESPECIALLY at my favorite place in the world, J.Crew. Obviously if we’re talking about F21 or H&M, yes, full price at those places is the equivalent to a sale somewhere else and “sale” at those places is like the dirtiest grossest discarded clothes ever. But at places like Saks, Bloomingdales, J.Crew and wherever else people shop, full price is sooooooooo over priced that I scoff at every price tag and point and laugh at the people who pay full price. Full price is ONLY acceptable if you fall head-over-heels in love with something – like boots you are going to wear EVERY DAY for the rest of your life, like that kind of purchase. Sample sales are also as good as heroin in my book. I will go hog-wild in a sample sale. Picking up EVERY SINGLE piece of clothing that I find in my size and trying it on and possibly even buying it even though I don’t like it but it’s just SOOOO cheap, how could I not?!?
Stealing Splenda/Ketchup – I’m not going to lie, I do this all the time, I especially love places that make it easier for me to do this. A prime example being Dunkin Donuts, even though I don’t really want to steal from them, because they do God’s work. But they are a massive chain and they probably have more money than I do, so when I take a handful of Splenda and a handful of ketchup and throw it in my purse, just go with it. The best feeling ever is being in a situation where you desperately need ketchup and being able to say “Oh, I think I might have some in my bag…” And then actually having ketchup packets in your bag… Ok, this only happened to me once and it was at the Kip’s Bay movie theater the first and only time I’ve ever gotten French fries there when my roommate and I went to see “P.S. I Love You”. It was a trip to the movies will (and does) live in infamy. Also, where Splenda is concerned, if your product is going to give me cancer, I’m not going to pay for it. I’m still going to use it, but it’s going to be free. K thanks.
Not paying for postage – My roommate’s company does not let this fly. She used to try to send our bills in through her work and they started sending them back to her. This is an anomaly, but this is something I am able to do because I work at a small company, aka in an apartment with a man, instead of for a conglomerate. But I stick our bills in the postage meter here and send them along with the rest of the work-related bills I send out. It’s great. This instance is more like sticking it to "small business" which is like the opposite of sticking it to the man. Oops.
Bringing a flask – I know. I know. This is so dirty and cheap and gross and something that makes me think of people from Long Island/New Jersey. And I’ve only done it a few times, and it wasn’t even to save money, honestly, it was to avoid waiting in a horde or drunk annoying people in order to get a drink. Why should the bartender decide when I get to drink? I’ll refill my drink when I want and where I want (and by “where I want” I mean under a table so no one sees). The fact that you’re screwing over the bar, which is most definitely over charging you for watered down drinks, is really just a plus in this scenario.
20% off coupons for Bed, Bath and Beyond - If you’re buying anything that costs more than $20 from Bed, Bath and Beyond you HAVE to use the 20% off coupon. I think both my grandma and my mom have drawers full of these things. They really come in handy when you’re going for a pricier item. And they say they expire… but they don’t.
First Aid Cabinet – At my old job we had a LOADED first aid cabinet. I’m talking eye drops, pepto, band aids, q-tips, advil, cough drops. You name it, we had it. I didn’t buy band-aids for a year. It was awesome.
This post ended up being kind of weird. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
No One Else Can Feel It For You

I'm sorry. I just don't think I gave The Hills as much attention as it deserves in my post the other week. Maybe I should start doing a weekly review of The Hills because I really could talk about it all day long. Without passing Go or collecting $200. But I would prefer collecting $200. Thanks. AND YOU MUST BE THE MONOPOLY GUYYYYY. I have tourette's, esp when I type. Don't worry about it, it's fine.
So on The Hills episode this Monday, if only I had written this in a more timely manner so that I could have posted a nice "day-after" review. But no. Lets start this off by saying I just chugged a beer because I have to work until 10 tonight so I can answer phones for a radio show called "Talking Metal", interviews and music that are all strictly heavy metal... The phone calls are all pre-planned. And it's one phone. One line, on one phone. AWESOME. This is totally the same setup as z100 and Hot 97. But they did give me free pizza and beer. So I guess they are forgiven. If someone brutally murdered my family and friends and then bought me pizza and beer I'd probably forgive them. And I don't even like beer.
And I'm basically getting paid to eat pizza, drink beer, blog, listen to heavy metal (that's a con, but whatever) and answer the phone approximately 5 times over a 3-hour period. Maybe I'm living the dream. Maybe this is it!. If I was high and in my bed AND watching my DVR while doing all of this it really would be living the dream. So close, yet so far.
But back to the most genius show on television. The Hills. This week Spencer's flesh colored beard was in full force. If Spencer changed the style of his flesh colored mustache (pronounced moo-stash and in a French accent, of course) to a handle-bar mustache I might have to switch from hating him to liking him. But a Hitler-esq toothbrush mustache would be the most appropriate for everything Spencer Pratt stands for. Soooooooo, Spencer met and hung out with Heidi's ex-boyfriend, Colby, who was visiting LA with his girlfriend and is a bible thumper. I understand that Spencer, a 24 year old in LA with no job who drives a BMW has never met such religious freaks. As someone who went to school in the capital of the confederacy I have definitely met and known people who are highly religious, especially in comparison to how people rock it in the blue states.
Spencer was being his usual douchey self, and instead of being really interested and intrigued at how Colby and his girlfriend live their lives (separate hotel rooms), he was seriously appalled. I mean, he could have been ruder about it, but it was still pretty awkward, as all of Spencer-Pratt-to-actual-human interactions are. Making comments left and right about how he doesn't understand how they could wait until marriage until they have sex. The fact that Spencer Pratt has ever had sex in his life is really a testament to how pathetic the human race is. There are zero redeeming qualities to Spencer Pratt. Zee-RO. It would be one thing if he was an attractive douche. But he is not.
The big news on this week's episode is that Brody and Audrina hooked up. THIS. IS. HUGE. But The Hills, aka Adam Divello, managed to pull this one off in like the most awkward way possible. I'm sorry, but in real life if you hook up with Brody Jenner you: A. Talk about it non-stop for the rest of your life 2. Never leave his bed and C. Fake a pregnancy and make him marry you. DUH. But the post-Brody hookup was SOOOOO awkward to talk about in the girl's hotel room in Hawaii. Audrina was like "yeah, I slept in Brody's room" awkward glance here, awkward glance there, staring into space, weird mouth movement, and scene. LIke... no. The first question is "Did you have sex?" and the answer is obviously YES, so I guess it is understandable that that one wasn't asked. But come on. I need details. Dear Audrina, How big is Brody's penis? Love, Brady. That isn't even the one question I would ask if given the chance, but it seems the most appropriate. But it is my theory that no one ever outright talks about hookups because these hookups don’t actually ever happen…. Because the show is downright fake.
Furthermore, who crashes boy's weekend? That is inexcusable unless you bring girls with you who with fuck every boy on boy's weekend, no questions asked. But the only one who got laid was Brody, and that's pretty much a given for everywhere Brody goes, so nothing new there. But when Lauren wore her jean shorts and flannel shirt as she arrived in Hawaii to crash the party I screamed, "I WANT TO BE HER!" like 7 times. I'm sorry, but other than her wet-blanket personality, her bizzarely tan upper-lip/mustache area, her awful flop of a clothing line and the fact that she's famous because of a reality TV show, Lauren Conrad is my idol.
But WHAT is up with Lauren and Brody? Like when they were hooking up we never really knew if they were hooking up or not. And was she mad or annoyed at Audrina? And when Lauren and Brody go out to dinner together, does Brody pay? Or does MTV pay? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Facebook We Go Hard. We Go Hard.

I don't know why I'm like this about certain things, but sometimes I have an annoying/unstoppable amount of brand loyalty, somewhat similar to abused-wife syndrome.
When I was an intern at MSNBC I hated all other news stations. I didn't even like watching news TV in general, but while I was there I thought it was the best thing around. I thought Fox was too conservative (even though I didn't watch it), CNN was too liberal (even though I didn't watch it), and MSNBC was right in the middle- neutral and perfect.
We even filmed a promo while I was there, which I don't think ever made it to air because it was actually the stupidest idea EVER, that had like someone installing a new TV, tuning in to Fox News and having the TV tilt to the right, changing the channel to CNN and having the TV tilt to the left, and then tune into MSNBC and the TV would settle in the middle. STUPID. My fellow interns and I read this script with bewilderment as we helped to make flight and catering arrangements for the HEAD OF OUR DEPARTMENT to fly to LA to supervise the shoot. You need to go to LA to film something I could easily film with the web cam on my MacBook? Get a life.
Anyway, even after seeing genius ideas like that bite the dust, I was still blindly loyal to MSNBC, shleping my way to and fro Secaucus, New Jersey every day. But I kind of think I was brainwashed there. I had two TV's on my desk (having a job without a TV on your desk is not worth having) and one was always tuned in to MSNBC. When Mel Gibson got arrested that summer and spewed his anti-Semitic nonsense I watched (unwillingly) nonstop coverage of that incident for three days straight. It was too much to handle. But once I was done with my internship and back at school, MSNBC and all news television were forever knocked off of radar.
So the other brand that I am tirelessly loyal to is Verizon. I'm not really sure why. But I think I've had the Verizon vs. Cingular/AT&T fight more times than any other argument that has ever been had on this planet. But Verizon and I have a special relationship, and I don't cheat on my loved ones. Although, there is a new Sprint commercial for the new Sprint 4g network that made me seriously consider switching. I've never felt a feeling like that before. It was like something sparked inside me, it was exciting and new. A passion I have never known. I've managed to stifle it thus far and forget about this life-changing commercial and remember all the good times Verizon has been there for me and for those close to me.

My latest issue is with Twitter. Maybe some of you don't understand my very deep bond with Facebook, but as Grace Adler says in the series finale of Will & Grace about the bond between Jews and chicken, "It's deep and it's real". Facebook has seen me through some crazy times. Since I did not go to an Ivy League school, I had to get Facebook sometime during sophomore year, with the rest of the Facebook runner-up schools. But once I was in, there was no turning back. I can't even remember now what the old Facebook looked like.
Recently I was talking with friends about how Facebook has changed through the years and my friend Evan said, "Remember the old sign-in screen?" I can't remember what my boss asked me to do 5 seconds ago, so no, I do not remember the old sign-in screen. And that is when I came up with the million-dollar-idea (still to-be executed): A montage of Facebook lay-outs. Once I do this I am going to: A. Be a millionaire B. Go on millionaire matchmaker and 3. Be so transfixed on this montage and my own genius that I'm going to fall into a daze, staring at the montage for months on end, completely mesmerized, and like Narcissus before me, fall into my computer screen and drown.
One time when I was studying for finals, senior year of college, I obviously started procrastinating by going on Facebook. Well I started just clicking on random people that showed up and on their friends and on their friends and looking at people’s pictures. I was in a total trance. And when I finally looked up, it was 6 hours later. I wish I was kidding. I was nauseous and confused and disoriented. It’s like when people fall in love/lust and lock themselves in a bedroom together for 24 hours… but I prefer to have my love affairs with a social networking website, thanks.
But a new website has made it's way into the game, and it's called Twitter. As of this moment, I have never been to the Twitter homepage. I know what it is. I get the concept. But really? I don't read Perez or follow celebrity gossip (even though I know all of it anyway because my friend makes sure to e-mail all stories I might be interested in), I don't enjoy reading other people's statuses on Facebook (even though I do it anyway, thanks to the redesigned homepage, UGH), and lastly, this point should be an obvious one if you know me at all: DON'T CARE. If I wanted to see what other people were doing, or tell other people what I was doing, I would have signed into AIM or ichat in the last year, but I don't and I haven't. Or I would put up a Facebook status. But I never have and I never will. Or I go on Gchat to talk to the precious few (or twenty) people who are blessed enough to be in my inner-circle.
I'm actually excited to see how long I can hold out on Twitter-mania. I'm sure Tina Fey does have a very funny Twitter, as I've heard. But I guess I'll just have to get my fill of Tine Fey via SNL repeats and 30 Rock... and through our telepathic/mental bond, I know she feels it too.
Another thing that bothers me about Twitter- Why is the action of Twittering now called "Tweeting" or "Tweet" or "Tweeted"? No. Just... No. It's Twittering. Lets do some word play here…
Do - Doing
Make - Making
Shop - Shopping
Read - Reading
Fuck - Fucking
And now with proper nouns (is that even right?)…
E-mail - Emailing
G-chat - Gchatting
IM - IMing
Google - Googling
Facebook - Facebooking
TWITTER - TWITTERING
Get off your high horse, Twitter. Just because you're the website du jour doesn't mean you're going to last forever. Something new will come and wipe you out in due time, you just wait.
But I'll probably end up joining Twitter like tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Green Is The New Black / Nalgene’s Are So 1998.

The hottest water bottle style around this season, (and last season) for sure is Sigg bottles. At first I didn’t get this trend. I’m all for being green, but these canteens kind of weirded me out for a while. I even wanted my parents to trade cars with me because they had a hybrid and I wanted to be green. And then when they offered to get me a new car I obviously took full advantage of it and got my dream car instead of a hybrid. I’m sure you feel REALLY bad for me right now. HA. If it’s any consolation, which I’m sure it’s not, I only had my “dream car” for a year AND I still regret not getting a Prius. Sometimes I am tempted to move to a city where cars or necessary (or at the very least, acceptable/affordable) so that I can get a Prius and right my wrong. Walk backwards in my carbon footprints, if you will.

Anyway, the reviews are in and I have decided I looooove my Sigg water bottle. It took me a while to get one because I wanted the perfect color. This is not a decision to go about willy-nilly, the color of a water bottle that you’re going to be toting around with you EVERY day is a big one. It’s basically like a second purse- an accessory to be viewed and judged by your peers and the other random people who see you with it... And gay men. When I saw the perfect shade of blue/green one day at Whole Foods, I knew it was time for me to just got for it. And when I found out it was like $20, although annoyed, I still went for it.
My main issue with the Sigg bottle, which deterred me from re-entering the world of no-waste water packaging, is that I was convinced there would be a metallic taste involved. If you didn’t think there was a weird/distinct taste with a Nalgene bottle (no matter how many times you washed it) then I think you should get your taste buds examined. But I took a sip from my roommate’s Sigg bottle at the gym and was seriously shocked when there was no metallic taste involved. My other issue is that the mouth isn’t really big enough to fit ice cubes into. And I love me some chilled agua. There’s nothing better. But, the Sigg has some magical powers…
Yesterday was my first day using mine. I seriously think I drank, at the very least, a total of 3 liters of water while at work yesterday. That’s some serious fucking water drinking right there. The water was delicious. I’m usually fine with drinking tap water as long as it’s cold. When it warms up to somewhere between cold and room temperature it usually tastes a little icky. But yesterday my Sigg water was delicious. I couldn’t stop drinking it. I didn’t want to stop drinking it. Ever.
It’s hard for me to get used to carrying around water, which is strange because I love water and am always thirsty. But, and maybe this is a totally Kings-Highway-Elementary-School-specific thing, I was never in a class where people had water bottles on their desks. I remember walking by other classrooms and seeing every single desk having a water bottle on it.
Not like a Poland Spring water bottle, but like a water bottle from home that you brought every day, or maybe you left it there? Who knows! What a mystery! My mind is and was boggled by these classrooms (shout out to anyone who had Mrs. Cirino, because that’s the main one I remember as being water-bottle land). And apparently I either never socialized outside of the people who were in my classes OR just never asked any of my friends in those classes, but it mystifies me to this day. If you have any answers, your comments would be greatly appreciated.
But even after a day full of Sigg-loving/writing/drinking, I somehow managed to leave it in my fridge this morning and forget to bring it to work. So typical of me on so many levels. Awesome.
And finally: HAPPY EARTH DAY! What a time-appropriate/relevant post!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Spotted...

And here's a side note for everyone/anyone who has ever said a bad thing about 30 Rock and/or Tina Fey - Telling me you don't like Tina Fey is like telling me you think George Bush was a good President. A. You're just wrong. B. I like you significantly less than I did the second before you said that to me, regardless of how much i liked or disliked you before. and C. Get a life and/or sense of humor.
But back to Dean Winters. The mental scavenger hunt I had to go on to find Dean Winter's name on imdb was a good time. The first thing I remembered him from when I saw him was Sex and the City. I said that to the group of people I was with, who responded with blank stares. That's like one of the worst feelings ever. Not really the worst feeling as much as just the exact opposite of the feeling of extreme joy I get when someone else knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about. I clarified to the group by saying, "He plays Carrie's fuck buddy in the episode he's in...?" (the "...?" denotes my voice going up at the end of the sentence and my brows raising in hope that someone is going to catch on here!) More blank stares and also one fake gasp regarding my using the word "fuck" in front of Julie's parents. Trust me, I know which parents I can swear in front of and which ones I can't. I was fine with Marty and Joan.
First I thought my poor description was the reason no one else knew who he was -- no one else had seen him walk by because they were all faced towards me to greet me as I approached them on the street and he was walking towards me, so their backs were to him (all eyes on me in the center of a ring just like a ciirrrrcus?). But after I imdb-ed Sex and the City and realized (more like re-realized, since this has happened to me at least 4 times in the history of my life) that finding a random man that was a love-interest of one of the ladies on Sex an the City is WAY harder than finding a needle in a hay stack. There are just too many. Even if you know the title of the episode, which in this case, was in fact, "The Fuck Buddy", it's not easy enough to navigate imdb on a blackberry. And getting an iphone is certainly not an option, so on went the scavenger hunt...
I switched over to the next show I recognized him from: Law and Order: SVU (it should have been 30 Rock but I was thinking in terms of older shows and I didn't even remember he has been on 30 Rock multiple times until I read it on imdb). We're not talking about Benson and Stabler here people (although everyone everywhere should ALWAYS be talking about Benson and Stabler because they're the best detective tag-team-duo EVERRRRRR) we're talking the second-rate actors who played second-rate detectives that are in older eps. (Like a poor-man's Munch and Finn- a reference for the avid SVU watchers) Dean Winters was "Detective Cassidy" on SVU in the 1999-2000 season, which I believe was the inaugural season of SVU. Obviously finding the name "Dean Winters" only confused the people I was with even more, because they still had no clue who I was talking about and putting a name to the face when the name doesn't ring a bell was just a step backwards on this journey.
I then scrolled through Dean Winter's filmography on imdb, saying "Oh my god, I'm so stupid. You guys watch 30 Rock right?" More. Blank. Stares. He's also in "P.S. I Love You" which I didn't bring up to them because I still can't really remember who he was in that movie, maybe that's because when I saw that movie in theaters I spent it curled up in a ball in my movie chair, rocking back and forth and hysterically crying. What? Don't act like you've never done it. Very therapeutic and far less expensive than a therapist. The thing about crying in a movie is that once you're done, you cant just look back and be like, oh it's just a movie. I love crying in movies because of that and always prefer crying at the fake awful events of someone else's life as opposed to the hideous ones in my own. It would be too depressing. And even though the movie people's lives aren't real, the stuff that happens in them is usually way worse than what's gone down in mine so far. But it is a good reminder to be thankful for what you have because it could be worse... WHOA. TOOOOO SERIOUS!
Back to Dean Winters. At this point I had showed Julie, her sister, her boyfriend, her mom and her dad the picture of Dean Winters on my phone and still no one knew who he was. I had given up on them and decided I needed to share this with someone who would appreciate it as much as I did A-SAP. Step 1: bbm my roommate even though at this point I'm sitting at a dinner table (I'm rude). It took her a little while, I said "Detective Cassidy from old school SVU" to which she responded "The girl?" Easy mistake, she was obviously thinking of Detective Jefferies, the black female detective who was also a second rate back-up detective in old school SVU and was only on for the first two seasons. I responded "NO! The guy!!!!!!!!" and then she knew what I was talking about.
But then Saturday, when I was taking a leisurely walk with my good friend Dickie, I said "OMG! Did I tell you who I saw last night? Detective Cassidy from old school SVU... Tina Fey's ex-boyfriend on 30 Rock..." her response: "Oh! The guy from Sex and the City?" YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So THAT'S why we're best friends??!!

