Tonight I went out for pizza and then I watched some mixed martial arts cage match-a-palooza dealie. This event, to be specific. Not my usual fare, but I actually got pretty into it. I didn't catch the chick fight, only Smith vs. Lawler & Slice vs. Thompson. It's astounding that these fighters don't wind up brain damaged. OK, well I suppose some of them do, but it really seems to me that ALL of them would. If not with brain damage, then with some paralyzing neck injury.
I guess I'm just warning my beloved readership that if any of 'em are considering the glamorous world of mixed martial arts (mma) then they need to contemplate that career change thoroughly and at great length. Because mma is not just scary, it's mucho DANGERMOUSE! Not to mention ouchy.
I was watching Scott Smith being interviewed post-fight and I was saying...there's something off about that left ear...isn't there? I never got a good look so I couldn't quite tell if he had some sort of deformity or just one run-of-the-mill floppy Dumbo ear. But with James "the Colossus" Thompson there was no uncertainty...dude had a ginormous cauliflower ear. I'd heard the term "cauliflower ear " before but had never actually beheld one before. It's not as charmingly whimsical as it sounds, lemme tell youse. It's GRODY. There you go--there you have a specific reason to pass on that career in mma, amigos. You could severely fuck up one or both of your ears. . .get a real unattractive Elephant Man sort of makeover to the aural region of your head.
And with James Thompson, it was really a shame. He gave this pre-fight interview, not a full-fledged interview, really, just a little schpiel about how he weren't afraid o' no Kimbo Slice (yes, that's right: KIMBO SLICE. Where will you be ranking that on your list of most wackadoo names ever? C'mon now, it's gotta be somewhere in the top 10...) and he was going to wreck him. It was a real quick little snippet, too quick for me to spot his fucked up ear but long enough for me to notice that Thompson has a thuggy UK accent that I find maaad hot. Well, he is from Manchester (Manchester, England, England...across the Atlantic Seeeeeaa..) And foxy accent aside, he is a handsome guy. But that ear. UGH! I was kinda fixated on it. It was especially repugnant when transmitted widescreen LCD hi-def splendor.
And guess how the fight ended? With Kimbo punching him in the cauliflower ear causing it to POP and gush blood. Apparently that counts as a TKO. I don't quite get why. Even with his ear all 'sploded and bloody, Thompson still had some fight in him. Hell, he lunged at the ref when the ref interceded to stop the fight.
I was bummed about the outcome. I wanted Colossus to win. I mean, man if he got that flesh gourd on the side of his head reconstructed to resemble a human ear again, well then, I would totally be his groupie. I could find nary a scrap of info about Thompson online. Kimbo Slice, on the other hand, is apparently a big fat overhyped deal. Tonight's fight was only his 3rd professional mma fight and yet he's easily the best known fighter in the sport. Doesn't seem fair, y'know? What the hell kind of name is that? It's sounds like a kooky tropical twist on my favorite lemon-lime soft drink (except that Slice would not be my favorite lemon-lime soft drink...I suspect that Fresca would. Generally, I tend to be more of a cola girl anyways. Hey, do they even sell Slice anymore??) This dude's real name (sez Wikipedia) is Kevin Ferguson, and sadly, his eccentric taste in names has been applied not just to his nom de guerre but also to his poor kids. Dude has 3 sons and 3 daughters. Shades of George Foreman-- 2 of his sons are named Kevin. You might guess his other son counts himself lucky but nooo,he probably dreams of being Kevin #3. Instead, he is named Kevlar. Yep. Like the vests. Oh, and one of his daughters is named Kevina. That's just horrid.
And don't even get me started on his hair....
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
DROUGHT RELIEF!!
Hey hey hey..sorry I've been so damned delinquent.
So..lemme see...what's new avec moi?? Hmmm...
Am wrapping up week 2 at my new job at the Visiting Nurses office .I am an "office specialist"...got me a badge that sez so. And uhh, basically, "specialist" is a tactful euphemism for "wench". My primary gig is receptionist, fielding the incoming calls, doing the mail, but I pretty much am the go-to wench for all things clerical for the whole office-- y'know, beaucoup filing and data entry, crap like that. I don't mind the work. I mean, in my ideal universe, there is no ideal work, as my massive independent wealthiness makes a career unnecessary. So if I must work, than this work is fine. The only shitty thing is the fact that I have quite a bit more work to do than I did in my last gig but I get paid around 12% less. I either have to do some belt tightening or find a 2nd job. UGH. I say "phooey" to both options.
But back to the "pros" of the situation -- everybody has been super nice. Of course, I have yet to determine if everybody is for real super nice or if I'm just getting the super nice treatment during a sort of rookie grace period. Oh, and let's not forget bennies..I tell ya--it's IMMENSELY reassuring to have health insurance again. My new hours are 8-4:30 (vs the 8:30-5:30 shift I used to have). No more hour lunches, but it seems like I get out super early. Of course, if I have to take on a 2nd job, all that extra evening time would be a moot "pro".
Alright, enough blathering about my job...onto the more fascinating world of trivial minutiae..
Because my folks are suddenly getting the Turner Classic Movies channel (I heart TCM. I get AMC..which is a-okay... but ultimately inferior) and because May has been Frank Sinatra appreciation month for some reason (possibly because sometime this May it will be 10 yr anniversary of his death?? That's nice, but sort of morbid. Why not comemorate his birthday?) I've been on a bit of a Frankie kick. Sure, he's been getting a good deal o' play on my iPod, but mostly I've just been wanting to catch his movies. The early stuff...prior to his From Here to Eternity comeback. He was a handsome fellah. I stayed up super late (3am) to watch Guys & Dolls when TCM aired it (even though I own the DVD) and also tuned into On the Town (even though I have that DVD too) And then I picked up Take Me Out to the Ballgame whilest shopping at BJ's (I'm a new member!) last week. And I'm intending to get my hands on Anchors Aweigh at sometime in the near future too.
Other movies I've watched lately... I rented Dan In Real Life off iTunes and really dug it. The central love story was decent enough, but it was really Steve Carell's character/acting that made the movie for me. I think he does funny-sad even better than Jim Carrey does. Don't get me wrong... I'm looking forward to seeing him in Get Smart, but I still think it would behoove him to do more "dramedies". At the same time I rented that I also rented Southland Tales. Now, THAT movie is the ideal movie to rent if you enjoy continually uttering "whaaaat tha FUCK?" to yourself (I know, seems kinda like an odd hobby, but is it ? there's a world of wackadoo fetishes out there, and a "WTF mantra fetish" certainly wouldn't be the oddest of 'em.) The only thing I really enjoyed about the movie was how ginormous and varied the ensemble cast was, you know,having someone like Revenge of the Nerds' Booger surprisingly popping onscreen and you have that warm fuzzy moment of "Awww, it's great to see he's still getting work, that dude!" There were a lot of those moments in Southland Tales. Also, it's always nice to ogle Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ( I tried- I really tried-- to extricate the "The Rock" from the middle of his name but I couldn't do it...I felt like if I gushed "it's always nice to ogle Dwayne Johnson" you could SO easily think I was ogling some anonymous dweeb just 'cause the name DWAYNE JOHNSON so reeks of anonymous dweebishness, y'know?) Otherwise the movie was a total migraine-inducer.
I'm really terribly, shamefully lax about picking up my mail but I did on Monday night (this is mostly because I knew I had new auto insurance cards coming to me) and I got this Victorian Trading Co. catalog that is chock full of stuff I dig. I don't love *all* things Victorian, I mean, some of the stuff was overly rose-adorned for my liking and I'd pass on any of the angel paraphenalia, also, seriously, dolls from that era gimme the heebie jeebies. If there was a flag for Creepytown, there would be some sort of emblem on it that featured a porcelain doll. ( As I'm sure you know Creepytown is merely an unincorporated hamlet at this point in time...so no flag needed. But heeey, if your town ever becomes in need of a flag, Mayor Freakshow, have I got a design pitch for you!) But rosy, angelic, doll-related crap aside, there really is a lot of primo merchandise in the Victorian Trading Co. catalog. Really, I spent 2 lunch breaks poring over it and marking little stars next to my faves. (Check here if you don't believe me. Like,how dope would it be to have this hammock, for instance? Also I was showing my parents this set that I enjoy. It's in the exact same rustic/ sorta Adirondack-ish style that I want their gazebo to be. The gazebo I'm going to build this summer...ha ha haa. Just watch...)
I really don't need a damn thing but I want so much...my capacity for materialism is ASTOUNDING.
Okay...brief culinary reviews and then I must wrap it up.
Last night at the co-op I bought some really delish apricot-glazed salmon for dinner and an icky samosa (which might have been an OK samosa, had I bothered to heat it up but I didn't) and then I bought Peanut Butter Puffins cereal (YUM- I highly recommend) and Ritter chocolate with CORNFLAKES in it (BRRRRRILLIANT!! I love me a bit of texture with my choco-fix and the flakey crunch avec milk chocolate is perfect)
Also getting my thumbs up is the Southern style chicken sami new @ McDonalds. It's so good that I don't even mind that it's totally sans condiments. Is that what makes it southern style I wonder? An old timey recipe from the deep South where it's too damn hot to keep mayo...even in the fridge... Anyways, even with lack of mayo it's good. But DO NOT try the sweet tea at Mc Ds... I don't know if it's faithful to the quaff that southerners refer to when they rave about their fabled, beloved "sweet tea" but I do know that it was totally vile. Just using the modifier "sweet" is a gross understatement. I would compare it to sugar water except the sugar isn't watered down in the slightest. Liquified sucrose is more like it. BLECCCCH!
I also tried some Cabot Greek style yogurt that was really excellent. I belatedly checked the nutrition facts (why check at all? No need! Yogurt's just innately good for ya, active cultures and all that happy [healthy] horseshit) ,when I was about 3/4 of the way through with my cup. 14 grams of fat!! No wonder it was so damn tasty! As much as I liked it, I do NOT intend to get any more. ('cause, like, how nightmarish would it be for my new willow chairs to snap under my weight! NOOO!)
So..lemme see...what's new avec moi?? Hmmm...
Am wrapping up week 2 at my new job at the Visiting Nurses office .I am an "office specialist"...got me a badge that sez so. And uhh, basically, "specialist" is a tactful euphemism for "wench". My primary gig is receptionist, fielding the incoming calls, doing the mail, but I pretty much am the go-to wench for all things clerical for the whole office-- y'know, beaucoup filing and data entry, crap like that. I don't mind the work. I mean, in my ideal universe, there is no ideal work, as my massive independent wealthiness makes a career unnecessary. So if I must work, than this work is fine. The only shitty thing is the fact that I have quite a bit more work to do than I did in my last gig but I get paid around 12% less. I either have to do some belt tightening or find a 2nd job. UGH. I say "phooey" to both options.
But back to the "pros" of the situation -- everybody has been super nice. Of course, I have yet to determine if everybody is for real super nice or if I'm just getting the super nice treatment during a sort of rookie grace period. Oh, and let's not forget bennies..I tell ya--it's IMMENSELY reassuring to have health insurance again. My new hours are 8-4:30 (vs the 8:30-5:30 shift I used to have). No more hour lunches, but it seems like I get out super early. Of course, if I have to take on a 2nd job, all that extra evening time would be a moot "pro".
Alright, enough blathering about my job...onto the more fascinating world of trivial minutiae..
Because my folks are suddenly getting the Turner Classic Movies channel (I heart TCM. I get AMC..which is a-okay... but ultimately inferior) and because May has been Frank Sinatra appreciation month for some reason (possibly because sometime this May it will be 10 yr anniversary of his death?? That's nice, but sort of morbid. Why not comemorate his birthday?) I've been on a bit of a Frankie kick. Sure, he's been getting a good deal o' play on my iPod, but mostly I've just been wanting to catch his movies. The early stuff...prior to his From Here to Eternity comeback. He was a handsome fellah. I stayed up super late (3am) to watch Guys & Dolls when TCM aired it (even though I own the DVD) and also tuned into On the Town (even though I have that DVD too) And then I picked up Take Me Out to the Ballgame whilest shopping at BJ's (I'm a new member!) last week. And I'm intending to get my hands on Anchors Aweigh at sometime in the near future too.
Other movies I've watched lately... I rented Dan In Real Life off iTunes and really dug it. The central love story was decent enough, but it was really Steve Carell's character/acting that made the movie for me. I think he does funny-sad even better than Jim Carrey does. Don't get me wrong... I'm looking forward to seeing him in Get Smart, but I still think it would behoove him to do more "dramedies". At the same time I rented that I also rented Southland Tales. Now, THAT movie is the ideal movie to rent if you enjoy continually uttering "whaaaat tha FUCK?" to yourself (I know, seems kinda like an odd hobby, but is it ? there's a world of wackadoo fetishes out there, and a "WTF mantra fetish" certainly wouldn't be the oddest of 'em.) The only thing I really enjoyed about the movie was how ginormous and varied the ensemble cast was, you know,having someone like Revenge of the Nerds' Booger surprisingly popping onscreen and you have that warm fuzzy moment of "Awww, it's great to see he's still getting work, that dude!" There were a lot of those moments in Southland Tales. Also, it's always nice to ogle Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ( I tried- I really tried-- to extricate the "The Rock" from the middle of his name but I couldn't do it...I felt like if I gushed "it's always nice to ogle Dwayne Johnson" you could SO easily think I was ogling some anonymous dweeb just 'cause the name DWAYNE JOHNSON so reeks of anonymous dweebishness, y'know?) Otherwise the movie was a total migraine-inducer.
I'm really terribly, shamefully lax about picking up my mail but I did on Monday night (this is mostly because I knew I had new auto insurance cards coming to me) and I got this Victorian Trading Co. catalog that is chock full of stuff I dig. I don't love *all* things Victorian, I mean, some of the stuff was overly rose-adorned for my liking and I'd pass on any of the angel paraphenalia, also, seriously, dolls from that era gimme the heebie jeebies. If there was a flag for Creepytown, there would be some sort of emblem on it that featured a porcelain doll. ( As I'm sure you know Creepytown is merely an unincorporated hamlet at this point in time...so no flag needed. But heeey, if your town ever becomes in need of a flag, Mayor Freakshow, have I got a design pitch for you!) But rosy, angelic, doll-related crap aside, there really is a lot of primo merchandise in the Victorian Trading Co. catalog. Really, I spent 2 lunch breaks poring over it and marking little stars next to my faves. (Check here if you don't believe me. Like,how dope would it be to have this hammock, for instance? Also I was showing my parents this set that I enjoy. It's in the exact same rustic/ sorta Adirondack-ish style that I want their gazebo to be. The gazebo I'm going to build this summer...ha ha haa. Just watch...)
I really don't need a damn thing but I want so much...my capacity for materialism is ASTOUNDING.
Okay...brief culinary reviews and then I must wrap it up.
Last night at the co-op I bought some really delish apricot-glazed salmon for dinner and an icky samosa (which might have been an OK samosa, had I bothered to heat it up but I didn't) and then I bought Peanut Butter Puffins cereal (YUM- I highly recommend) and Ritter chocolate with CORNFLAKES in it (BRRRRRILLIANT!! I love me a bit of texture with my choco-fix and the flakey crunch avec milk chocolate is perfect)
Also getting my thumbs up is the Southern style chicken sami new @ McDonalds. It's so good that I don't even mind that it's totally sans condiments. Is that what makes it southern style I wonder? An old timey recipe from the deep South where it's too damn hot to keep mayo...even in the fridge... Anyways, even with lack of mayo it's good. But DO NOT try the sweet tea at Mc Ds... I don't know if it's faithful to the quaff that southerners refer to when they rave about their fabled, beloved "sweet tea" but I do know that it was totally vile. Just using the modifier "sweet" is a gross understatement. I would compare it to sugar water except the sugar isn't watered down in the slightest. Liquified sucrose is more like it. BLECCCCH!
I also tried some Cabot Greek style yogurt that was really excellent. I belatedly checked the nutrition facts (why check at all? No need! Yogurt's just innately good for ya, active cultures and all that happy [healthy] horseshit) ,when I was about 3/4 of the way through with my cup. 14 grams of fat!! No wonder it was so damn tasty! As much as I liked it, I do NOT intend to get any more. ('cause, like, how nightmarish would it be for my new willow chairs to snap under my weight! NOOO!)
Thursday, May 15, 2008
speaking of vacations...
Britney Spears is vacationing with the Gibson clan. It's a tough call, but I think the numero uno wackadoo in this situation is MRS. Gibson. Not only did she marry Mel Gibson ( okay, so I concur that, in his day, Mel was some primo eye candy...but you'd think she might have bailed on the union, oh I dunno, anytime post-Braveheart would've been good) but she bore him SEVEN children. Yeah ..that's right...SEVEN. And now it looks like she and the hubby are gearing up to adopt one more and--BONUS-- it's not just any poor waif of an orphan but Britney "perennial trainwreck" Spears. What the HELL ails you Mrs. Mel?
Well, just the same...have a happy vaca... I guess. Um, send me a postcard, a'ight?
Well, just the same...have a happy vaca... I guess. Um, send me a postcard, a'ight?
in the summertime, when all the trees and leaves are green
Lately , I have been on a few evening walks (all my time is *^%$#ing leisure time nowadays, y'know) and the balmy night air and the smells of the flowering trees in bloom have left me in a very-stoked-for-summer kinda mood.
Don't know if I've mentioned it before (odds are good, considering how prone to repeating myself I am) but I've always thought that the ideal summer vaca just might be at a place like Kellerman's in Dirty Dancing. I say might be, as I really haven't been on such a vacation, but it always looked pretty idyllic. Yeah, I KNOW what you're thinking, and it's SOO not the horizontal pachanga with the inimitable Johnny Castle that appealed to me. And I wasn't brainwashed by the song into believing it would be "the time of my life". It's just the whole setting that seems ideal to me. I love the communing with nature part of camping,but, for an extended period of time that can get to be deadly dull. After 2 or 3 days you can't deny the fact that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO. But at this type of resort, I think (if I am not mistaken) you have your beautiful lake and your lovely forests, but also there are ceramics classes to be taken or ,I dunno, horseshoe tournaments on the east lawn. Fabulous, no? So, in addition to planned activities (which I think could be invaluable to a vaca...I mean, how GREAT-- to be spared the mental exhaustion of that "what am I gonna do to entertain myself ??" debate-- which is such a bitch ,especially when on vaca) in addition to that, you also have a social aspect to the whole thing. And gee, *I* think it's swell to meet new people. Overall, I am a people-person--really, I am!-- even if I don't always act like I am. So yeah, at the very least it's nice to meet new people. Or at the very best (case scenario) you just might end up doing the horizontal pachanga with someone. Wooot wooo!
Some of the Dirty Dancing scenes were shot at this resort in VA. Whaddya think,gang?? Should I save up me sheckles and go there? Who's with me?
Don't know if I've mentioned it before (odds are good, considering how prone to repeating myself I am) but I've always thought that the ideal summer vaca just might be at a place like Kellerman's in Dirty Dancing. I say might be, as I really haven't been on such a vacation, but it always looked pretty idyllic. Yeah, I KNOW what you're thinking, and it's SOO not the horizontal pachanga with the inimitable Johnny Castle that appealed to me. And I wasn't brainwashed by the song into believing it would be "the time of my life". It's just the whole setting that seems ideal to me. I love the communing with nature part of camping,but, for an extended period of time that can get to be deadly dull. After 2 or 3 days you can't deny the fact that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO. But at this type of resort, I think (if I am not mistaken) you have your beautiful lake and your lovely forests, but also there are ceramics classes to be taken or ,I dunno, horseshoe tournaments on the east lawn. Fabulous, no? So, in addition to planned activities (which I think could be invaluable to a vaca...I mean, how GREAT-- to be spared the mental exhaustion of that "what am I gonna do to entertain myself ??" debate-- which is such a bitch ,especially when on vaca) in addition to that, you also have a social aspect to the whole thing. And gee, *I* think it's swell to meet new people. Overall, I am a people-person--really, I am!-- even if I don't always act like I am. So yeah, at the very least it's nice to meet new people. Or at the very best (case scenario) you just might end up doing the horizontal pachanga with someone. Wooot wooo!
Some of the Dirty Dancing scenes were shot at this resort in VA. Whaddya think,gang?? Should I save up me sheckles and go there? Who's with me?
I hopped online to check my email (nada extraordinary) but then got sidetracked by my sometimes fixation of seeking out info on LUMS restaurants. Can't say exactly why I have such a thing for Lums...probably it breaks down to 45% nostalgia and 55% my enjoying the sound of the word. Lums.. LUMS ...say it with me: LUMMMMS. Don't deny it...there's some delightful euphony in that one li'l syllable.
I remember...waaay waay back in the day, there was a Lums in every sizeable VT city. And then, in the late 80s or thereabouts they just died out. And I had presumed the franchise had just vanished off the face of the earth entirely (or, if I may borrow a Lucy-ism, I thought they had "mist-appeared" entirely) But I've since learned that, even though the franchise did go belly-up, there are still a few independent Lums restaurants out there...a fact that fascinates me inordinately. There's one in Davie, FL , another in Plattsburgh, NY (I saw this one when I journeyed to Plattsburgh around 1999...but I was there for work and didn't get to stop for eats), and possibly one in Horseheads NY (wherever that may be). One o' these days I'm going to do a road trip solely for the purpose of going to Lums again. I suppose Plattsburgh would be the most prudent destination... Maybe I'll try to find a White Castle while I'm at it....
Monday, May 12, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
what the HELL???
This is just utterly bizarro...
The article says "An insider told Latina magazine the wedding was "very impulsive.""
Name of this anonymous insider? CAPTAIN OBVIOUS. C'mon..they just met in late March. Part of me thinks this is some made up hoax story. but if it's for real, then I expect a divorce announcement to be made..hmmm..lemme see... sometime around late July to mid August.
The article says "An insider told Latina magazine the wedding was "very impulsive.""
Name of this anonymous insider? CAPTAIN OBVIOUS. C'mon..they just met in late March. Part of me thinks this is some made up hoax story. but if it's for real, then I expect a divorce announcement to be made..hmmm..lemme see... sometime around late July to mid August.
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