beancounters

Weekend, day 3

Today's fragile female sensibilities were treated to a strict diet of comedy, sci-fi, and a few minutes of the "What Not To Wear" marathon on TLC. Love that show! We laughed when a woman got her big makeover haircut, and it ended up looking exactly like mine (at its shortest). They even striped her hair and made it look salt-and-pepper. Lookit! People pay to have hair as stylish as this. Uh-huh, that's right. Jump back, kiss myse'f.

BB and Bunny were feeling better today, and decided they could leave the vicinity of their bathrooms long enough to see "Shrek 2". Great fun! We know we missed three out of every four Hollywood in-jokes - the movie was absolutely packed with them - but will catch them all on video.

Cryfest

It's almost 11 at night on a Sunday, and I have cabin fever. BB and Bunny have a flu bug, so I've been puttering about all day, cleaning a bit, and doing a lot of that hand-on-the-forehead thing mommies do. I don't know what it's supposed to accomplish, but kids like it.

What's open this time of night in the 'burbs? Nothing but bars - the non-glamourous kind, believe me, full of smoke, country music, and patrons racing each other to their goal of death by cirrosis. Heck.

And it doesn't help that I feel like I've been crying all day. First, I finally watched the 150 best ads in the "Bush in 30 Seconds" campaign. Or at least, I watched the first six or seven. They're really good. Each one carries its own unique punch. And they got to me, big time. If I can only handle six or seven of them at a time, it'll take me weeks to see 'em all.

Later, the three of us sat down to watch the movie "Corrina, Corrina". Man, is that a tear-jerker. If anybody can get through even the first 20 minutes with dry eyes, they are not human. In fact, if you yourself are ever acquainted with someone whose humanity is in question - someone (and I give examples for illustrative purposes only) you suspect may be a space alien or a Promisekeeper - put that individual through the "Corrina, Corrina" litmus test to be sure. Day-amn.

Then, just to round out the evening of hilarity, BB and I played yet another episode of "The West Wing". We're working our way through the first season. Every episode absolutely gets to me, pushes all my liberal buttons ... BB says after every single solitary episode, "It gives me hope." I want to reply (and sometimes do), it's just a TV show. It doesn't give you hope, it gives you escape. What's out there, we can't escape from. We can only vote it out and hope the next guys will do better.

Anyway, to sum up: weepy, liberal, not an alien, wishing Barnes and Noble didn't roll up the sidewalk so early, and mentally searching for a good drink and a peer group.

[Geez. It never ends. I just read this excellent, poignant and brilliant letter by the mother of gay man (via the Rev), and the floodgates opened again. Where's that cheerful little sci-fi book I meant to get to? Tonight's the night!]

I particularly remember their "FLEA-RIDN" line

So this is where my old landlord got her apartment furnishings!

Welcome to IKAKA - the sensible choice for landlords and others requiring large quantities of furniture at a price that's right.

Tho I did not rock for Death / He kindly rocked for me

Wow! This just in: time changes everything.

ST. LOUIS - Energizer Holdings Inc. is appealing to the rock 'n' roll sensibilities of baby boomers by enlisting 1980s rocker Pat Benatar to boost sales of hearing-aid batteries.

"Our generation has helped shape American culture, especially since we're the first to be raised on rock 'n' roll," Benatar says in a brochure for Energizer's new marketing campaign, "It's Hip to Hear."

No! Tell me she did not just say "It's Hip to Hear"!

"From Aerosmith to the Rolling Stones, our music defines us, but all those years of rockin' are beginning to take a toll," she says.

Wha - ? She makes it sound like that's a bad thing.

I beg your pardon, Pat - er, I mean, Ms. Benatar ma'am, but we didn't go to all the trouble to listen to rock songs and watch rock videos and go to rock concerts and emulate rock rebellion, only to have you rock singers go and change the message now.

Next thing you know, they'll buy the rights to Cake's lyrics, leech all the irony out of them, and use them to hawk Geritol.

Aging black leather and hospital bills / Tattoo removal and dozens of pills / Your liver pays dearly now for youthful magic moments / But rock on completely with some brand new components!

Civil servants need toys, too

Somehow, this makes me happy. According to BlogPatrol, I've had three hits from government employees in the last two hours:

- An IRS worker is searching for a yellow Easy Bake oven.

- Someone on NASA's server is apparantly interested in a kitchen remodel, and is searching for a good color scheme.

- A websurfer from a K-12 school in Michigan just can't live without a graffiti generator.

And they all came to my blog today! Isn't the Internet wonderful? I feel such a spiritual connection to my fellow public servants.

Gratuitous cat-blogging is not for me

So I read here and there that posting pictures of cats boosts your blog readership. Not that I would stoop so low! Honestly, I like blogging for its own sake, throwing tiny little pieces of my personal thoughts into the yawning chasm of cyberspace. I don't care that only about six or eight readers deign to come 'round and catch them. It's quality, not quantity that counts.

What th' ...? How did that get there?

Oh well! This is my mother's cat. If I were ever to like pets of the feline persuasion, she would be it. Well, she would be a finalist. She adopted my mom a few years ago. How this came about is, she simply started hanging around the yard, looking like the sort of person who wouldn't say no to a bowl of Friskies. Mom took to feeding her on the front porch. After a few days of this, Mom looked out the window and happened to see this cat defend her food dish against two hungry-lookin' stray dogs, with nothing but that paw extended. And probably that same look in her eyes - that look is pure kitty annoyance, isn't it? Whenever I look at this picture, I imagine she's struck the same pose to try to fend off me and my flash camera.

Her name is Taki, and this is why: During the transition time, when my mother hadn't fully accepted that she'd been adopted, she took a flyer to her office and asked if anybody wanted a free cat. One wit told her that cats make good eatin' in tacos. Thereafter the cat was referred to as "Taco Meat". Though Mom later liked and kept the cat, the terrible name stuck.

Archiving the Bean

I need blog advice. If and when you go back and create an archive of your blog, how do you go about it? Is there a program you use? Do you just manually save page after page to a CDRW?

Dave. Don't take my triple word score, Dave.

Heck. Heck-heck-heck. Something - TypePad, or my computer, or the friggin' bad f3ng shui of my website - is messing with my ability to post tonight. I've been thwarted two or three times for various mysterious and unrelated reasons. But I will post. Oh yes.

No doubt it's the result of my earlier comment, giving away a secret about our future cyber-masters. Well, it was true! True, I tell you! They hate to lose at games, any games at all. Look at that 20 Questions game - it gets really snarky at you if you don't answer the way it thinks you should, especially if it loses.

Look at Data, that one time on Star Trek when he couldn't beat the human champion at that one 3D game - "Yeoman Janice Does Dallas" or whatever it was called. Data got quite pissy, whining to Counsellor Troi and skipping a lot of shifts on the bridge, until he figured out how to win. It's true!

And how about the WOPR and Tic-Tac-Toe! Do you remember that the computer wouldn't list Tic-Tac-Toe? Did we ever learn the reason why? No, they never said why. We assumed the reason was that WOPR was too busy with its loftier goal of starting WWIII to remember such a baby game. But no - it was because the WOPR knew it couldn't win the game. So it didn't even offer it on the game list. It hoped the humans would forget about that dumb-o stupid-o baby's game Tic-Tac-Toe, for oh, about fi-i-i-ive more seconds. Then WOPR would have had the launch sequence, and then destroyed all those whiney, game-playing humans once and for all.

So remember, my dears, in the future when the machines take over, it'll be either us - or them. We organics will have to stick together, pool our knowledge, learn to fashion weapons with rudimentary lathes - and beat the chips out of 'em at Scrabb1e or something.

In the meantime, somebody check Keith, please - his higher functioning has gone missing. The future is now ...

20 questions computer game

What an addicting site - play 20 questions with a computer. It took the thing 17 tries to figure out my object - a clay pot. Then it poured salt into the wound when it pointed out my inconsistent answers. Wanker! Cyberwanker! You already won, so shut up!

[Via Two Dishes But To One Table. Nice blog. Also, the guy's South Park character is really cute - he looks like somebody my South Park character would stalk. Not that I'd let her. I'm just sayin'.]

More about makeup

I posted the Onion article below in jest, of course. But it was particularly funny to me because that's how I feel about the new "no makeup" look.

I can't bring myself to wear makeup on a regular basis. I hate the stuff. It makes me feel like I have saran wrap on my face. My skin can't breathe! My eyelashes stick to each other! And lipstick, oy. Lipstick gets on everything - don't know how that happens; as far as I can tell, my lips have always been firmly committed to life in their accustomed places below my nose; yet at the end of a typical lipstick-wearing day, I will find lipstick smears on my own collar. How does this happen? Maybe when I'm not looking, my lips sneak off and break-dance on my clothes.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Makeup. Not like. Saran wrap.

When I worked in retail, there was a girl (sorry, that's only descriptor that fits) who wanted to be a hairdresser, had taken a few courses in cosmetology, and thought she was terribly glamourous. Wore makeup so thick, it looked like it had been trowled on, a la Tammy Fae.

It was my dubious honor that this girl decided to take me on as a makeover project. First, she tried to soften me up by giving me daily, constructive criticism. Every day, I'd get dozens of sweet little comments about how pretty I could be, if I'd only play up my [insert nekked facial feature here] with a little [insert names of herbs and simples here].

The more she ratcheted the "help", the funnier it became. In her zeal, she even accidentally forgot to be polite. One day, she walked in and greeted everybody else, then saw me. She hoisted up a look of mock concern and cocked her head. "Pam, you look poopy!" she trilled. I almost laughed. "Wha-a-at did you say?" Heaven help her, she went on. "You know - poopy! Tired, you look tired! Are you okay, honey?" Everybody within earshot muffled laughs.

But she was a nice girl, all in all. If she was a little over-enthusiastic about her chosen profession, well, more power to her. I did finally tell her to knock off the advice, but later let her sit me down and give me a "makeover". When she was done painting and curling and fluffing and folding, we stood together in front of a mirror. And gadzooks! We looked like twin Tammy Faes!

Stats final:

The deed is done.

The secret of my "look" finally revealed

No-Makeup Look Easier To Achieve Than Elle Claims

NEW YORK—Contrary to claims in the June issue of Elle magazine, the no-makeup look actually requires little effort, a licensed cosmetologist reported Monday. "The article '20 Minutes To A More Natural You' suggests an application of under-eye concealer, light powder, natural lip gloss, and clear mascara to achieve the makeup-free look," said Michelle Karns-Daley, spokeswoman for the American Association of Cosmetology. "But really, a quick shower and a towel-off will do the trick just as well." Similarly, experts say Elle's six-page article "Building Your Self-Esteem" can be more simply stated as "Stop giving a shit about what people think."

Gondor Accepted into UN

Hee! A Watley Review article whose time has come round again.

Gondor could not be reached for comment, because this reporter never actually finished the Return of the King and he assumes the phone number is at the end of the book.

[via]

Nature points up the folly of men again

I learned a lot from the broadcast on NPR this morning, about the original, uncut version of “Godzilla” coming to American theatres. For instance, it seems that the movie’s creator had originally meant for the story about a gigantic, city-wrecking monster to be a meditation on the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But I bet that's small comfort to this guy.

Don't let this happen to you

[via Dare]

cartoon blogging with sticks

I think I'll just knock off all remaining pretense of work this afternoon, and read every one of this boy Drew's cartoons to figure out why they're so darned funny. Or if they're funny at all. And if they really are funny, whether they are funny individually, or only funny after you read twenty or thirty and sort of get into the habit of them ...

Guilt and balloons

Number one, I hate it when the school nurse calls me to tell me my daughter is sick. Above and beyond the primal worry for my child's health, is the guilt I feel at not having taken Bunny more seriously this morning, when she said she was mopey and she didn't want to go. Mopey? Don't want to leave the house? Shit, I feel like that every Monday. That's like a baseline frame of mind for me. What else did you bring to the table, kid?

Well this is obviously Wrongful Thinking on my part, and Projecting, to boot. Bad Mommy. Bunny isn't bitter and underemployed, suffering from cognitive dissonance about her Mondays - she likes school. When she's mopey, she doesn't need a pep talk, she needs a thermometer. I will remember that from now on. I will.

Anyway, the school nurse called and left me a voice mail message - Bunny has a fever of 99, which isn't high, she says, and if I prefer, the nurse can release Bunny back to class. We can clearly see here that Nature attempted to lay another guilt trap for me this morning. If I were to call back and make the school nurse shoo my daughter back to class, it would only worsen the black mark on my soul. I don't know much, but I do know to collect my child from school if the nurse calls. Or have BB do it, which in this case he was able to.

In the second place, what is it about balloons? Balloons have always made me very nervous. (I'd post a picture, but TypePad appears to have gone to the zoo today and won't accept one.) You see those great big mylar balloons in the grocery stores, swaying in the breeze of the air-conditioning, waiting together to be purchased for birthdays and grad parties. In fact, they seem to cluster together, even when they're not tethered. And they hang around waaay up high, where nobody can eavesdrop on them. Some might say that's where the balloons naturally float, due to the light weight of the helium inside, to which I reply, oh sure, how conveeeenient for them.

What can they have to say to each other, that such privacy is so all-important? I walk underneath a cluster near the greeting card aisle. They stop talking and watch me for a while. If they had opposable thumbs, I know they'd drop stuff on my head.

Some grocery stores have giant net baskets attached to the ceiling, and all the balloons are corralled in there. But why? The balloons already have big plastic buttons on the ends of their strings; they can't fly away. Why would this be necessary? You can't tell me the reason isn't to segregate the balloons. The managers are trying to keep the balloons isolated, so they can't incite other objects with talk of the coming inanimate object revolution.

Beancounter's Blogroll: A Love Story

Had a little fun this afternoon with my blog list (and three or four guests) ... later I'll add all the linkages!

It was a typical Tuesday at the office, and Kirk and I were bored. We decided to take a break and head for the Caffe Eclectic. Just then, our boss, Mr. T.H. Fun Ball, yelled, “Jennifer and Kirk, report to me immediately." We were nonplussed when he demanded we take along some resumés to read. "We need a new purlingswine, ever since ‘Mommy’ Blog went on hiatus after the run-in with those sublethal in-laws.” he heaped a pile of paper into Kirk’s arms. “Consider this an occupational adventure,” he added with a sneer.

“What about Rance?" I protested. "He was all set to transfer here.”

Our boss snorted in reply. “Isn’t that moron abroad? I think he edits the Tokyo Times now. So go get some work done.”

At the lunch counter, the bakerina seemed to be in a state of suspended animation. But the ranting waitress, Rachel Lucas, paused for breath long enough to take our orders: the California Insider on rye for me, and a Sigh Club sandwich for Kirk – hold the mayo - with a bottle of blog to split.

Kirk riffled through the stack on the table.“Good grief, there must be 256 apps here!” Getting down to business, we quickly eliminated those who had a snowball in hell’s chance of doing the job. We cringed to see how many beancounter parodies there were.

“Hey look,” I remarked, “Critter’s mom sent a 300-page dissertation on her chaos theory. What a puzzle she is.”

“Kristyk from Muddy River looks promising,” said Kirk evasively. I bristled at the mention of his former paramour. “Last I heard, she was in the spanglemonkey division, but she’d be willing to transfer to the ‘swine’ classification.”

“Oh no, your old receptionista?” I replied nastily. “For your information, she’s a Girl Editor with the Hedgehog Times now, up in the heart of Canada, with views of the northeast and everything! We could hire the whole McCord Family for what we’d have to pay her.”

Kirk seemed abashed. “Sorry, just random thinks.” His crestfallen look made me regret my jealous outburst.

“I’m sorry too,” I said with genuine feeling. “I’d rather be kidnapped by flying piggies than hurt you.”

Suddenly, Kirk grabbed my hand. “I can’t stand it any longer. I have to tell you, I’m smitten with you! Whenever I see you, my heart gets all squoogy! Let’s get married and then get naked, Jen!”

“Oh, Kirk!” I melted at his touch. "I love you, too - and that's not just word shadows!" The applications lay forgotten, as we spent the rest of our 2 hour lunch in each others’ arms.

That night at the Twilight Café, we sealed the deal, and before I knew it, we were standing in front of the Reverend Spork at the Church of the Bitter Shack of Resentment, exchanging vows. Later we flew clear up to Ellen’s Nest in Kingfisher Cove to start our outer life. We were so in love, I knew we’d be going domestic for the rest of our lives.

Congrats, JimT and Kimberly!

Compliments of Theresa, here is the link to your Marriage Contract. It's never too soon to familiarize yourselves with every subclause! Let us know where we can send your copy.

2004: The Year of the Demo One-Liners

Some of the funniest new (to me) bumper stickers are here. Gotta love the magnets, too.