Random Access Babble

My Biological Clock has Cold Feet

2008-08-14T15:45:00.001-04:00

Despite my acute fear of getting knocked up I have always loved kids and though I was never one of those girls who listed "Mom" as my life's ambition (in fact I spent a good year mocking my brother because his pat 5 year old answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was "A dad!" which, while cute was also ripe for 8 year old sister ridicule.) I did always think that I eventually wanted to reproduce if only because taking myself out of the gene pool could be considered an unfair attack on the future of the human race. You gotta respect the need of Darwinian evolution but as the expiration date on my ovaries looms I find myself more and more interested in selfishly spending all of what might have been diaper money on lavish vacations and booze (Ok, fine, we're not expiring over here. I'm 30, I know I have time but at most I have what? 7 years? 8? Honestly I think I need at least 10 just to mentally prepare for routinely having to get up before 8am on a Saturday).

Throughout high school and college I had reoccurring paranoid dreams about finding out I was 6 months pregnant the dreams appropriately ended with some serious freaking out and/or crying an/or getting grounded. My faith in birth control must have increased over the past few years because my dreams have ceased to resemble a surreal after school special despite a welcome upturn in activity likely to invite babies to my womb. But Monday night, deep in REM, my subconscious dreamed up a new version on the surprise bundle of horror craziness. In the dream I was happily going about my life when I suddenly remembered "Oh shit! I told Kajal I'd have twin babies for her and now I'm 4 months preggers!" Dream Brianna was deservedly annoyed with her expanding belly but in a striking bout of optimism decided that "at least I can go off birth control, it's probably bad for the babies anyway." Sadly, in the world of nightmares it turns out the you can get EXTRA PREGNANT and I quickly found out that in addition to Kajal's 6 month old twin fetuses my body was also home to a 3 month old fetus of my very own meaning I would be pregnant for an extra 3 months AND have to be a mom. Total bummer.

I never went through the all too common liberal college student "maybe I won't procreate at all!" stage. When friends would cringe at the possibility of crying and diapering and overpopulation I would counter with adorable baby shoes and reminders that babies grow up to be kids who will totally do chores for much less than minimum wage. I have always been the first person to volunteer for babysitting gigs or hanging out at the kids table and even today I can't help but dote on my niece to the point where my boyfriend occasionally feels a certain amount of present neglect come birthday season (things might improve if he'd just warm up to the concept of frilly dresses...). My deep desire to (someday) have kids has often made me super stressed out about my proverbially single status. I once even had a long phone conversation with my mother about how I would probably have to adopt a baby on my own since my poor sad pathetic whiny ass would never ever ever find a boy to lover her. I was 24 so you can understand my concern (I believe this was the same year that my EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD cousin commented that she thought it was sad that I would never have kids. You know, because I was a dried up old hag).

These days I know a lot of new mommies all of whom, unlike the mommies I knew in high school, are having bundles of joy under socially acceptable circumstances and their babies are cute and not on food stamps and very rarely annoying. My baby love has not waned and I love spending an hour or so eating their bellies and making monster faces until they giggle, but, unlike all of the babies I've thought about in my years of paranoia and day dreaming... these babies are REAL. Watching close friends of mine go through pregnancy and birth and motherhood has made the idea of babies suddenly very daunting. There came a point 7 months or so into one friend's pregnancy when I suddenly realized "Oh! She's going to have a baby! And it's going to be around all of the time. FUCK." This is when the new and improved freaking out started.

It's not that I no longer peer into my future and smile at the idea of a little blond haired terror of my own, it's that the future is coming at me at warp speed. The irony of waiting for babies until you're financially and emotionally ready is that when one really starts to think seriously about the reality of babies it becomes clear that no one in their right mind is EVER ready for this insanity. I'm convinced that almost all babies are born out of ignorance or denial. As far as I can tell the "Where to babies come from?" monologue should be edited so that it reflects reality:

When two people love each other very much and they pray really hard they slowly lose their minds and then they decide to go off of birth control and bring a child into the world. This child will make them stay home every night and spend all of their money on tiny spit up rags and environmentally conscious diapers and breast pumps and these two people will never again have a good excuse to spend $150 on one sushi dinner.

Finding the Land of the Lost

2008-08-07T09:39:00.001-04:00

Last Thursday I went on the best date ever. Assuming that your idea of best date ever involves puppets and growling and big hunks of meat, but really if it doesn't you're lame and might as well stop reading now. The date activity and location were a surprise. I was just told to meet in front of the the Manhattan Mall at 6:30. While being guided out of the hubbub of Herald square I was told we'd be seeing "a little theater" right as we approached "Peep World" so my eyes were all prepped for the rolling when out of the Taxi clogged lanes of 7th avenue emerged Madison Square Garden's huge blinking sign announcing "Walking with Dinosaurs Live."

Walking with Dinosaurs, for those of you who manage to keep your Tivo off of the Discovery Channel (for shame!), is a BBC program staring Computer Generated dinosaurs engaging in everyday dinosaur things like snacking on the flesh of other dinosaurs and fleeing forest fires all while being fucking huge. The live version replaces CG with robots and puppets and the TV with 6000 screaming 6 year old boys.

It was very romantic.

My boyfriend may be a dinosaur loving fool, but he's not crazy enough to spend $100 for top shelf viewing, especially since he knows I'll give it up for midrange. Luckily our not-quite-nosebleeds were located directly behind the sound board so we were instantly upgraded to seats only a few rows back from the stage where the kids whose parents really love them get to sit. Pursuing the program preshow, I learned that the puppets were made with "muscles bags" and "voodoo kits." How could this be anything other than awesome?

The show started with a huge raptor-like beast chowing down on some cute widdle baby dinosaurs -- way to pave the road for the chorus of bawling children to come! Actually, for a show about creatures who regularly sucked the marrow out of eachother's bones, there was surprisingly little violence on stage. The dinos mostly meander around sniffing each other's butts and grunting. Save the hatchlings, there is no blood shed and the one meal of the 90 minute program shows up already dead and half eaten at the opening of Act 2. They never even charge the annoying guy playing the paleontologist time traveler even though everyone in the audience, even those under 5, spend the whole show dreaming of seeing him decapitated before he can utter another inane joke. This level of peace amongst giant lizards seems like a dangerous precedent to set. I can't help but think about what will happen when a time machine goes wacky sending a bus load of elementary school kids into the Jurassic where, based on the lessons learned in this play (and from Barney), the kids will stream from the bus hoping for some big friendly dinosaur hugs only to be greeted as tasty hor'dourves. As a society we should work harder at teaching all kids to cower in fear.

Sometimes the boyfriend refers to me as an amateur botanist because I'm constantly making him stop on street corners to ooh and ahh over foilage. The plants of Walking With Dinosaurs were each individual little windsocks that popped up proudly out of the edge of the stage and when a volcano spewed ash into the air withered up in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of a penis. While Variety's review of the show specifically mentioned being disappointed in the plants I loved them and am hugely grateful to the poor little stagehand who has to slump around stuffing each and every one back into it's little condom like holder between the acts.

Overall, the dinosaur puppets were amazing. Most were a robot/puppet hybrid. All were GIGANTIC. You're sitting there thinking, "yeah, i know, big, whatever," but seriously they were BIG -- their necks stretched out over the audience, their teeth were roughly 7 feet long, I believe the head of at least one creature extended well outside of the earth's orbit. The puppets were also impressively realistic, however many of the large motorized beasts looked like they were perpetually standing in a presquat crouch that seemed like it could lead to a dinosaur sized number 2 at any moment. The show eventually made the dreams of the entire audience come true when a stegosaurus rumbled and growled and shook until a compact and surprisingly clean looking 1 foot in diameter poo rolled out onto the stage. The six year olds went wild -- nothing pleases the savage elementary schooler like a good poo joke.

I give the dinosaurs, the penis plants, the poo and even the paleontologist at big thumbs up, even though AM New York (the trashy free daily for those you not living the NYC) found it lacking (2 stars? Am I to assume we're rating in binary these days?). My boyfriend is a lucky man to have found the only girl in New York who puts out for dinosaur puppets.

Our date ended at Dinosaur BBQ, because I appreciate nothing more than a good theme. And meat. All in all way better than dating a TRex.

This post is cross posted at Burt Reynold's Mustache

A Short Play About Being Almost 3

2008-08-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

Cast
Kurt: Father (despite being Brianna's baby brother -- How did this happen?), turning 28 in 8 months (see? A BABY I TELL YOU)
Delanie: Cutest Little Girl in the World (despite being a bit of a diva in this particular play), turning 3 in 2 weeks.
Brianna: Doting Aunt (despite being treated like crap), encroaching on 31...

Scene: bicostal phone call/The evil domain of Verizon

Kurt: Did you want to talk to the bug?
Brianna: Why else would I ever call you?
K: Hey Delanie, wanna talk to Brianna on the phone?
Delanie: (yelling from the background) NO!
K: Ha, she said no.
B: I heard, I guess someone doesn't really want any birthday presents.
K: Hey Delanie, Brianna says that if you don't want to talk to her she might not buy you any birthday presents!
D: I. DON'T. CARE!

Brianna and Kurt chit chat for five minutes about the weather, family drama and if their mom will be openly mean to Brianna's boyfriend at an upcoming family event (probably not....). Delanie continues her coloring trying to concentrate while quietly pondering the possibility of no birthday presents....

D (Tugging on her dad's arm): I want to talk now.
B: Hi! How are you?
D: I was doing some coloring. I wanted you to talk to my dad.
B: I did talk to your dad -- what are you coloring?
D: I'm using blue.
B: cool! What kind of things are blue?
D: I like pink. And I like purple
B (laughing) ok...
D: BYE!

Is everyone feeling the love?

I Hear They're Making Nicer and Nicer Wigs....

2008-07-30T14:45:00.002-04:00

In my life, in addition to the requisite heartache and pain, there have been girls who didn't invite me to their birthday parties, boys who said I smelled bad, bosses who didn't pay me anywhere near enough and at least two people who refuse to recognize the brilliance of my writing but I have had only one true enemy and that is my hair.

I wrote the above sentence months ago and have struggled with a post about my hair ever since -- how could I let such a fabulous intro go to waste? What's more -- How could I deny my readers paragraphs of me whining about HAIR? What could be more thrilling? If any post will get me on the front page of Digg it will be this (Q: what do geeks love more than long diatribes on physical appearance?) (A: Jokes about the Linux kernel).

Living with my hair is like waking up each morning to the task of appeasing a rogue dictator. The official words that I used to describe the beast that rests tauntingly just above my forehead (and which proudly takes credit for most of the forehead wrinkles) are "blond" and "wavy" but I'm not actually comfortable saying either of these things because neither is absolutely true. My hair is only blondish and wavish. I constantly feel like my hair is making a liar out of me -- like people are whispering behind my back about how I'm mouse-y brown and stringy and in deep deep denial.

There are 2 options for my hair post shower -- apply a defuser enabled blow dryer it in hopes that the curls/waves decide to play nice and evenly distribute like a romantic frame around my face (15% success rate) or give up all hope and straightening it which will look exactly the same every time I do it but which will also be kind of boring (95% success rate).

Evil hair stylists are always claiming that if I'd just purchase this $50 bottle of goop I could look so beautiful every single day that people would stop me on the street and offer me free ice cream and wouldn't even care when I got super fat. It is possible that I am just way too lazy and oblivious to judge hair products but I can't say for certain that I notice any discernible difference between say Marc Anthony Curl Lotion or Loreal Springing Curls Mouse or just rubbing excess sunscreen on the ends of my hair. All might lead to a comfortably curly frizz free day and all might cause my head to explode.

"Get a better hair cut!" You naively scream. ("Perhaps one that costs more than $20" you might add as a snotty aside. You're kind of a bitch.). The sad truth is that hair styling as a profession is only one step above televangelism or spray on hair in terms of delivering results (though at $13.95 it might be worth it to just shave my head and start from scratch). Hair stylists are incapable of doing anything to improve the state of affairs north of my eyebrows. I've tried to tell every single one about the elusive wave and temperamental frizz and the results are always the same. They claim I should scrunch it more and use some magic product sold only at their salon and I might even be willing to try such foolishness (despite years of failure) if they had any ability to get me out of the salon looking anywhere near presentable, but every appointment ends with some ridiculous take on prom hair. I also hate getting my hair cut because going to the beauty salon means that I have to have at least one conversation with a beautician.

"So what are you up to tonight? Perhaps we can give you a special do!"

"I have 2 episodes of Baby Borrowers buring a hole in the Tivo... Can you do something that will compliment a tub of Chunky Monkey?").

Dear Pandora Part 2 (Now You're Just Being Stupid)

2008-07-24T15:54:00.004-04:00

I'm sitting at my desk, grooving on some Hold Steady (and by grooving I mean occasionally bobbing my head and perhaps biting my lip and nodding a bit when they play Chips Ahoy but not ever actually doing anything that might be categorized as dancing) when what should I see but this:

(outraged pink commentary by yours truly)

Look Pandora -- I thought we settled this shit. I agreed not to shame you by having a torrid affair with your mortal enemy and you agreed to stop acting like all of my favorite bands are Blowfish clones. Personally I've enjoyed this extended period of peace (thanks for recommending The Kamikaze Hearts!) but don't think I won't turn on the bitch face and cut you if I hear so much as one note of some stupid song about a dude crying over a football game (save that baby act for when I kick your ass at Mario Kart).

On the Installation of Automatic Toilet Paper Dispensers

2008-07-17T17:58:00.002-04:00

They just installed automatic toilet paper dispensers in the work bathroom (I can only assume they are somehow wired through the deck). My first thoughts was "Really? Who is this lazy?" but then I realized that this probably has more to do with woman being crazy germaphobes in the bathroom.

Other thoughts:

How did they determine the amount of toilet paper to to dispense? Was a study on average butt wiping needs done? The amount delivered seems more than substantial to me and I can hardly imagine going in for seconds. If this is average I feel that one of the main causes of global warming is over wiping. Perhaps this is commentary on the size of my ass (small).
When I stood up my butt caused the dispenser to redeploy. Perhaps this is commentary on the size of my ass (big).

Temptation

2008-07-16T09:25:00.003-04:00

My office has a deck that serves as a fabulous cafeteria during the months when it's not covered in snow. Sadly, yesterday the door to the deck bore the following message:

Please do not step onto the deck. The [building management company] is having electrical work done on the deck. Please. for your own safety, we encourage you not to open this door until further notice.

When I told G about this sign his response was, "don't do it, babe . . . even if you think opening the door would make a good blog post."

So far so good...

Insert Trite Pot Joke Here

2008-07-09T22:54:00.003-04:00

Before we begin I feel obligated to warn my readers that this post is about D-R-U-G-S. Or... it's probably about D-R-U-G-S. It could also be about O-R-E-G-A-N-O because since the DARE Program in my elementary school was almost as effective as the "Sex = Babies" lectures I don't know that much about pot.

This evening after work I decided to make a quick stop in the Union Square Whole Foods. This is hilarious because no one has ever got in an out of that store in less than four lifetimes. But I needed fancy plums and some nice cheese and given the paltry food shopping options offered in New York City I had no choice but to swim through the sea of yuppies. Eons later as I waited sweaty and bored for the N train to show itself in the subway station I happened to glance down at my feet (cute shoes!) and notice a tini tiny little ziplock baggie stuffed full of some mystery substance. Now as we all know the only things that come in tini tiny ziplock baggies are jewelry that's purchased at a flea market or on a street corner from an "artist" too cheap to invest in classy gift boxes for his wares and DRUGS.

My thought process went something like this:

OH MY GOD DRUGS! IN THE SUBWAY!

Man, I really wanna pick them up -- could it really be real live DRUGS?

What if my 6th grade teacher is hiding in the subway? What if she sees me touching DRUGS. She will be so disappointed. Must resist picking up DRUGS.

What if a cop sees me and can tell it's DRUGS and thinks the DRUGS are mine and arrests me on the spot? Must resist picking up DRUGS.

What if this is a STING? Must resist picking up DRUGS.

Man I could totally blog about this.

So of course I picked the DRUGS up and cleverly hid them in my shopping bag right between the crimini mushrooms and the organic pluots. One might argue that posting on the internet about the DRUGS you just acquired is not the best way to go about avoiding being arrested however, the marijuana now sitting on my kitchen table seems to exist in a legal gray area. Am I breaking the law by possessing these DRUGS that I found? What is the proper thing to do when you spot a baggie of DRUGS on the subway platform? I suppose the right answer is "alert the authorities" but calling in the troops for a sting on enough pot for 5 or so joints seems like a bit of a waste of tax payer resources. Also, calling the cops could have led to missing my train and like any self respecting New Yorker I'm not risking that even to report a murder.

I realized on the subway ride home that I was living the dream of some Phish fan (minus the lack of shower but plus a pungent wedge of Gorgonzola so really it all evens out). Sadly, this dream is going to be crushed, because in addition to the fact that drugs are bad and might turn your brain and/or testicles into a fried and/or smashed egg anything one finds on the subway is 100% FOR SURE smothered in a tangy sauce of rat piss, cockroach droppings and the dried tears of washed up mariachi players/break dancers and ingesting such a combo will kill you. So this pot's future is going to be spent in the NY sewer system which, I'm next to positive, won't seem much different than the floor of the Union Square Subway Station.

When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best Song From 1979

2008-07-07T16:42:00.002-04:00

I used to love greeting cards. This was back in Junior High when I didn't have a very firm grasp on things that were cool versus things that will ensure that I keep my virginity well into college (this sentence seems to imply that nowadays, my grip around "cool" is steady and tight, this is a lie.). Back in the day I could spend a few hours in a Hallmark store giggling a Maxine jokes (that old lady is a cad!) and envying my Aunt Karen's box of cards that allowed her to send everyone in the family at least two cards for every birthday (she probably had TONS of boyfriends!).

Has anyone been to a Hallmark store lately? Since the internet now allows me to forget friends' birthdays up until the very last minute and then greet them with a "happy brithday! wooohooo!... we're old." on facebook it had probably been at least 6 months since I set foot in a card store. On Saturday I had to dive into the bowels of Disney themed ornaments to search out a "congratz on spreading your seed!" card. Unfortunately Hallmark not longer offers actual cards (unless you're willing to purchase one of the no irony "little girls are love and kisses and farts of sugar" tragedies).

Let's suppose for some reason (perhaps the card recipient is deaf?) you don't want your card to play a popular song at maximum volume. You should probably go to another store because, as you can see from the picture at left, at Hallmark it's all annoying jingles and quotes from not so funny movies into infinity. There also seems to be an overabundance of country music themed cards including a birthday card that plays 'Live Like You Were Dying" which I only recommend for birthday boys who are under age 30 unless you want to ruin the special day with the implied "because you are, really soon".

There is one way to avoid the din of sound cards and that's to go green. At Hallmark caring for the environment means having no sense of humor. It also means taking every single opportunity to note your superior recycling skills. Every card in this section is a parody of how people in Alabama picture "those liberal Env-I-Ron-Mentals." There were pictures of vegetables on more than one card. There were repeated chants to the earth goddess. I believe one card included a coupon for tofu. Apparently Hallmark has identified the market for "green" cards as "strictly people who have full time jobs protesting for PETA."

Lest you think Hallmark has completely failed to join the 21st century let me assure you that on their web site in addition to demos of how to wrap packages and recipes for strawberry jam (cause if anyone knows cooking it's the stationary store!) they also offer premium ecards.... for $1.99 each. Frankly this seems like a smoking deal for an video of an orange couch with clip art of dogs haphazardly crossing the frame to the dulcet tones of Jungle Boogie. It appears that Hallmark has only been able to legally source a few songs for the ecards so most the cards feature either "Jungle Boogie" or "Hot Stuff." Really what more could anyone need?

This entry is cross-posted at Burt Reynolds' Mustache

A Little Protein in my Salad

2008-07-03T10:27:00.005-04:00

So. It's Tuesday morning. In an effort to not be wasteful or 400lbs I'm dutifully working my way through the mounds of lettuce that the CSA forces upon me by making a salad for lunch (seriously, I hear there are food shortages in other parts of the world, this is likely due to the mass lettuce hording done by the hippies in my neighborhood.). Brianna cannot live by lettuce alone and since I'm nearing the end of the veggie supply I'm forced to scrounge through the fridge for fixins'. On to the island of lettuce go some grape tomatoes and some tuna fish and some canned beets when out of the crisper should pop one spring onion. Let me rewind to last Thursday as I chopped some other veggie and thought to myself, "my oh my these knives are dull. I should sharpen them." And so I did. I think you see where this is going. The onion is poised on the cutting board preparing to be bisected, dissected and consumed but this onion has bite, this onion has teeth, this onion is the little veggie that could and he's ready to stand up and fight for root vegetable rights. The cut through the onion was swift and clean right up until it hit my finger. Then it was bloody.

BEWARE: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW.

I AM NOT KIDDING.

AVERT YE EYES OH WEAK OF STOMACH MASSES!

As you can see things did not look good for Mr. Left Index. As I stared at the waterfall of blood that poured into my sink as I bravely submitted to washing the wound I thought about slapping on a couple of band aides and ignoring the throbbing. I thought about how if I were in the same house as my mother her ER nurse skills could probably magically sterri strip the flaps of skin together for the tiny price of listening to her lecture me on knife skills. And then I called Amy and asked her to drive me to the hospital. I felt a bit bad getting her out of bed (Oh to be a teacher on summer break *sigh*) since I probably could have called a Taxi or walked (you know, assuming I knew where the nearest hospital was which.... I did not) but then I remembered that due to her little bout with cancer Amy owes me a debt of roughly 400 hours of hospital time -- this 8am trip to Mt Sinai is no where near pay back.

My last trip to an ER for stitches took place in 1993 when I got kicked in the mouth by a wild lamb who was none to keen on putting on some shoe polish and showing off her shapely legs in the country fair. The hoof I took to the mouth resulted in me actually hiding from my parents in an effort to avoid the trip to the emergency room and thus reduce the likelihood that I'd end up with a needle shoved into my lips 5 or 6 times (though really my mother would not have blinked at the idea of stitching her wimpy daughter up in our kitchen so placing all of the risk in the hospital was incredibly short sighted). I was eventually herded into the family car, given a long lecture called "Do you want to have a huge scar on your pretty pretty face cause I can give you one with my fist young lady." numbed up and subjected to some fancy facial embroidery. I am proud to say that I was much braver this time around.

The only time when I considered jumping from the gurney and running far away from the nice Physician's Assistant and the man in the bed next to me with the truly gruesome puss-filled tale of stepping on glass a few weeks ago only to be alarmed by the oozing 14 days later was when, after my finger was numbed up with 5 or 6 shots of anesthetic, I thought "hmm my hand feels weird, is that just the numbing? Perhaps I should turn my head and actually look at the hand..." only to be greeted with a scene from SAW IX: Decapitation Isn't Just For Heads. There was so much blood. It was running down the table, it was puddling between my fingers, it was like a side of finger french fries with extra ketchup. But I again averted my eyes and managed to get through the stitchery and the tetanus shot ("Was the knife clean?" "Well, I assume it had some onion juice on it.").

I left my hospital ID on all day in an effort to court sympathy at work, this was mostly in vain. And so I am forced to court sympathy on the internet.

Chances of Being Disappointed by a Game of Chance: 99/100

2008-06-27T12:28:00.007-04:00

I am not much of a gambler so when more than one person suggested that I fritter away my hard earned blog paycheck on a minuscule chance to win millions you could feel the breeze caused by my eye roll blowing 3000 miles away in Vegas. I could not be talked into letting it all ride on black or twenty one or a full house and no one suggested gambling on a heart attack at night after night of buffets (though I could easily be talked into any activity that involves unlimited access to king crab legs) but when the suggestion to review scratch offs was raised (credit to G -- don't bother going to his blog, he never writes anything) I thought "Hey! those are cheap and available within 200 feet of my front door and they come in shiny shiny colors!" And so I begin a series of posts reviewing lottery scratch offs.

I am really not at all tempted by the lottery. I have purchased probably 5 scratch offs in my life and ALL of them have been Christmas gifts (perfect for secret santas, stocking stuffers and saying "I trust you to share half of this with me if you win."), in fact before Tuesday I think I was almost a scratch off virgin (like anal, scratching off someone else's card is God's secret loophole, all of the fun of putting penny to cardboard with none of the risk of a screaming baby). For my first official chance at throwing hard earned money down the drain (the drain being the NY State School system) I went all out and bought a $5 card -- Even though I have heard of the existence of $10 cards I consider spending $5 on a piece of cardboard and a very unlikely dream of millions (actually, in this case, just million) crazily extravagant and expect that individual school children will be sending me personal thank you notes for my kind donation ("Dear Brianna, Thank you for purchasing a lottery card, our school has used the money to buy graph paper for Math class where they will hopefully do a better job of teaching statistics than your teachers did -- Love Bobby Sue"). The $1,000,000 prize would be paid out in $50,000 increments over 20 years which sounds kind of lame but then i realized that this would be plenty of money to allow me to quit my job and travel around Thailand like a queen for as long as I liked (or until the global economy made $50,000 chump change in all countries everywhere... so... 2025).

This below review of my first scratch off pretty much takes all of the fun out of gambling. I'm like a kid with the flu on the merry go round. A golden shower in the pool. A pooper at a party. Enjoy.

Bedazzled

Scratch Off Theme: Ripping off Casual Video Games From 2002
Cost: $5
Maximum Prize: $1,000,000
Odds of Winning Max Prize: 1 in 3,175,200.00
Odds of Winning Minimum Prize:($5, aka even money): 1 in 20
Level of Fun: (1-10):2
Winnings: $0

This scratch off is a bit confusing since it implies you'll be revealing gems when you scratch off the silver crayon coating but in reality you mostly reveal a bunch of numbers which (far as I can tell) mean absolutely nothing. If the numbers mean nothing why use them at all? Why not just label all of the nongem spots with "you lose!" or a picture of someone having their house foreclosed on? Unsurprisingly the lottery also does a lot of work to obscure the reality that you will almost for sure not be winning any money from this card. For example, the card says I have 12 chances to win -- I assume this is because there are 12 places to scratch off. I supposed that I *technically* have 12 chances because there is an instant win option if I reveal a $ symbol ($25 1/100 odds) but since the other wins are all combos you actually have more than 12 chances to win, not that it matters, the odds are still crap. Of course I'm likely the only nerd to ever even visit the odds page.

I really wanted this card to incorporate a true game element so that winning didn't feel completely dependent on chance. I expect that, like with slot machines, the law dictates that lottery games be completely chance based but I'd like to see some effort at masking this reality. When I worked on slot machines we employed a whole mess of smoke and mirrors to make it feel like the player was influencing the outcome of the game when in reality the math decided their winnings ages ago. I admit that this is much easier to accomplish when you have a visual display, a computer and the promise that all of your customers will be swimming in free booze but I'd still like to see the lottery try a little harder to fool me. If anyone knows of a well designed scratch off send the name my way -- I'm committed to reviewing roughly $35 worth of these so if some are more promising then others I'd rather at least throw my money away on creativity.

How We Roll In Software Development

2008-06-25T15:05:00.006-04:00

While brainstorming team building activities with a coworker the idea of a paper airplane making contest came up which was soon followed by an egg drop and then by this conversation.

Brianna: we should perhaps consider making people carry around a flour baby
Giselle: o yes!
Brianna: so we can all develop sympathy for our coworkers who made the questionable decision to breed.
Brianna: "This week for fun we'll all make dioramas of scenes from books we recently read"
Brianna: and they'll all be like snipets of code
Brianna: all propped up in a shoe box
Giselle: this red string represents ruby on rails
Giselle: and it's heading into the cotton balls
Giselle: they represent the 'web'

Brianna Vs. Some Huge Rocks

2008-06-23T15:55:00.007-04:00

I know that way too many of my recent post have followed to formula of "software developers + athletic activity = explosion of tomfoolery" so before I begin this post in which my coworkers and I go white water rafting I want to say that only 2 of the 5 people who accompanied me on this little adventure have any geek cred -- the other 3 have no knowledge of programming languages, probably don't understand 75% of the xkcd comics and rarely, if ever, bring up how much the love math and/or graphs. Shockingly I like them anyway.

This trip was organized by, Zogsports, the same people that brought you blogs posts on Dodgeball and Kickball. Zog is a nice little organization that managed to turn activities usually associated with intramurals and recess into profitable charity endeavors. They are also obsessed with drinking. Ever single sports game is followed by the ref pleading with the players to hang out at the bar afterwards, they give "best drinking team" awards right after MVP. So I wasn't super surprised to receive the following information in my pretrip email:

There is absolutely no drinking of alcoholic beverages permitted before or during rafting. If you’d like to drink on the return trip home, please bring along your beverage of choice and we can keep them on or under the bus while you’re rafting.

Translation? Look, the losers at the rafting place won't let us turn rapids into a drinking game but we know that most of our customers have such a serious drinking problem that there is no way they'll ever make it 12 hours without ingesting two or three bottles of Everclear so we managed to bribe the bus driver to allow y'all to party it up. Don't forget to bring the flip cup.

While the Hudson and the East rivers offer many treacherous challenges (sewage, bloated bodies, oil slicks, etc) they have yet to develop rapids so our white water rafting took place in Pennsylvania on the Lehigh river. When we arrived after a 2 hours bus ride our leader, a guy last seen playing his tummy like a drum at a local dive bar, was a little crazed about our need for wet suits. "THE WATER WILL BE 60 DEGREES, THAT IS SUPER COLD." he bellowed over and over again as we stood around the dusty parking lot sweating in the 85 degree humidity. All but three or four people resisted the call of a personal rubber sauna. We waiting around for at least 1.5 hours before being shuttled 7 by 7 into red plastic rafts. During the wait we received very minimal instruction on how not to end up as the human equivalent of ground beef -- there was something about how fast the water was going (an analogy to 800 cases of beer flying past us each second) and how if we got caught on a rock we should bounce around like idiots in hopes of knocking ourselves free, they spent the remaining 80 minutes explaining the acceptable ways to splash other boats.

Let me describe how the first 20 minutes of rafting went. "Ok guys, paddle right! I mean left side of the boat paddle! I mean go LEFT! FUCK." But somehow by the first set of rapids we had it together enough to cruise through as if the river were a particularly vigorous massage chair (and with my toes resting in 5 inches of water at the bottom of the boat if I closed my eyes I could almost convince myself that I'd spent $100+ on a very nice pedicure.). One of our new friends that we adopted to fill our boat was suddenly so confident in our abilities that she asked if we could paddle more quickly so that we'd be going faster when we hit the rapids -- God would soon smite her for being so cocksure. As we approached the second rapid set we saw another red boat thrashing against a large rock as its occupants bounced up and down trying to dislodge themselves, it was almost comical until we realized that our feeble urban arms were never going to paddle fast enough (never mind in sync enough) to avoid crashing into the boat, the people and the rock. After a comfortable little rubber on rubber bounce I thought for a moment that everything would be fine, and then I saw the opposite edge of the boat lift over my head. The good news: the water wasn't that cold.

In retrospect we choose the best place on the river for a short swim. The water was deep and mostly free of jagged man hunting rock. I lifted my feet and leaned back in my life jacket and was soon rolling on the river sans boat. Eventually the guide most likely to join a roaming band of skin heads got my friend Jeremy and I to hang from the front of his kayak so he could steer us over to another boat while giving us a lengthy lecture entitled "You Retards Should Not Have Tipped Your Boat Over, I Hope You've Learned Your Lesson." He dropped me off next to a boat filled with fresh faced Midwesterners whose 20 year old son easily plucked me (and, even more impressively, Jeremy) from the river. Our new family were vacationing from Iowa (where, presumably they hadn't had their fill of water ) and was made up of a mom, a dad, a set of 20ish twin boys and an older (25ish) brother. Not more than 10 minutes after being adopted Jeremy and I's bad rafting karma had mom and son #1 tumbling from the boat, arms flailing while Dad yelled instructions along the lines of "don't die!" I'm sure Mom and the older brother were super nice people but as far as Jeremy and I were concerned their departure freed up a couple of nice spaces in the Wayne family that we were happy to fill. Riding in their boat was like a luxury cruise -- twin son #1 stood in the back acting as a rutter that steered us safely away from evil rocks while twin #2 and dad used their farm built muscles to navigate us quickly down the river. The only painful part was my constant fear that I would accidentally curse or exclaim my love for high taxes and abortions and that (like any good Midwestern family) they'd tossed me back into the Lehigh where liberal scum belongs (One less Obama voter to worry about!).

Zog promised that the Rafting organization would provide us with lunch on the river and since I also (correctly) suspected that any food I had on my person would quickly become too soggy to eat I didn't have any way of feeding the fast growing hole in my tummy until we stopped on the shore at 3:30pm -- it had been 6.5 hours and 7.5 miles of paddling/fearing for my life since I'd eaten anything and I was fast considering how tasty riverweed spiced plastic oar might be. I had ordered a PB&J for lunch on the theory that they are the best food ever and also because I knew that this sandwich was meant for the under 10 set which meant there was an 80% chance that it would involve Wonder Bread and Jiffy -- two things I secretly love but would never allow myself to purchase in the store because I am a snobby hippie/foodie. Some might think that a $100+ rafting trip should include a fancier meal but I actually think that this was a smart cost saving measure on the part of the rafting company -- by the time lunch rolled around I was so hungry that a raw pack of ramen noodles would have been greeted with lip smacking so there is no reason to waste money on truly tasty food.

Post lunch we decided to let the Iowans get back to their family vacation so we were once again banished to the retard boat for the remaining 7.5 miles of rafting. It was hell and I quickly found myself thinking that I needed to birth 3 strapping young boys to row me around as soon as possible.

Somewhat unsurprisingly the most well organized portion of the trip was the beer distribution on the bus ride home. On a trip where head counts were estimated, novices were tossed into rock filled rivers and no one could be bothered to bring enough water for rehydration at lunch our leader had devised a system for signaling your need for a beer, designating your beer type of choice and notifying your need to dispose of an empty can all without speaking.

I arrived home exhausted, starving and reeking of river. As I stripped down at the door I told the boyfriend to make me some food and not even think about starting the sex because seriously I JUST PADDLED 13 MILES. Then I passed out on the couch.

Taking my sports participation from The school yard to The X Games was partially inspired by the huge cash influx from this blog. A small chunk of riches remain, look for this being frittered away on gambling in the coming weeks.

Update: Jeremy (the geekiest of all attendees by far) found the rock that God threw down into the river to smite us for the evil sin of pride on Google Maps.

The "a" On The End Keeps Me Classy

2008-06-20T10:28:00.002-04:00

As I'm sure most of you have heard Jaimie Lynn Spears has (sort of) named her baby after me. Obviously I felt overwhelmingly honored when I heard this news yesterday afternoon but I also felt a certain amount of shock in Jaimie Lynn's choice to bunk the family tradition that dictates naming her daughter Casey Jaime. Perhaps (like her own parents) she's saving that special name for baby number two though it seems presumptive to assume that Casey will be around for subsequent babies and I'm sad to see her let such a nice gender neutral first name go to waste -- we'd all hate to see a little girl cursed with some less female friendly name like "Rocko Jaimie" or "Benedict Jaime" but I'm sure that mother knows what she's doing, after all how can one doubt any decision made by a 16 year old baby mama from Louisiana especially with an older sister who serves as such a shining example of the perfect mother? Congratz Jaime Lynn and welcome to the world little miss Maddie Briann -- may you also kick family tradition in the face and find some way to keep yourself out of cheetos stained hotpants.

Musings Aboard Continental Flight 632

2008-06-19T09:56:00.003-04:00

I am writing this aloft on a plane suspended somewhere between Houston Texas and New York City. It is much later than I had hoped this journey would take place due to an unscheduled 2 hours on the runway listening to unreliable accounts of the awful thunderstorms plaguing the LaGuardia airport and how this may or may not result in my permanent residency in the Lone Star State (good thing I have lots of rodeo experience). My flight was eventually returned to the gate which has to be the saddest thing that can happen to one at an airport save finding out that ye old internet is reporting to your somewhat bemused boyfriend that your plane has arrived in New York City (When did LaGuardia get a BBQ joint?).

I was eventually herded back on the flight and seated 2 rows behind a family of roughly 35 over dressed folks half of whom were under age 7 and all of whom seem to have never so much as seen a plane before. The father figure has repeatedly yelled at the stewardess to bring him some water RIGHT NOW and the children (the hordes and hordes of cackling little goobers) will not stop crying, whining, screeching and generally poking each other into a frenzy.

I, possibly more than most, know how disappointing, frustrating and baffling the airline industry can be but I find the general moaning of those around me substantially harder to endure than the cramped seat, the linger smell of vinegar, the absence of Diet Pepsi and the fact that an additional hour in the Houston airport forced me to break down and eat French fries and a burger both of which will likely be the final layer of fat that forces me out of my svelte size fours and into a muumuu. Worse yet the stewardess has just brought me more food – I applaud Continental Airlines for holding out against the $5 Snack Pack in favor of free damp cheeseburgers and iceberg lettuce but also curse them for bringing more calories to my tray when I have nothing but a DS Crossword that’s kicking my ass and three days of work email to act as ammo against boredom eating.

I somehow managed to resist the temptations of fast food only to realize 15 minutes after pushing my uneaten slop towards the Miss America-like heavily made up stewardess that buried beneath the ketchup packet and wet wipe was a fun sized Hershey bar which I very much would like to have in my mouth. Sure, asking them to dig this morsel from the garbage would be uncivilized but what other place in modern society so heartily supports incivility? Shouldn’t I embrace this opportunity? Isn't a subpar milk chocolate bar and civil disobedience in the form of dumpster diving at 30,000 feet exactly what I’ve earned? I don’t even like milk chocolate.

The Only Thing I'm Good at Kicking is Ass

2008-06-13T17:34:00.002-04:00

Ever the glutton for punishment (and more than ever in need of something to write about) on Wednesday I (and my software development compatriots) kicked off sports league number 2: Kickball. I wasn't actually considering blogging about this experience since I already wrote a sports themed post a couple of months ago and unlike topics such as trashy tv and bad dates I didn't see any need to revisit the topic lest people get the wrong impression about the priorities of this site. But then during our first game one of opposing players (a gigantic man with a red bandana tied around his massive skull) started doing a bull imitation at home plate. As he pawed at the ground and held horns over his ears while zerberting the air to make a sort of growling bull-like noise I yelled across the outfield to my friend Jeremy, "GREAT. Now I have to blog this."

Despite my membership over the past few month on two different sports teams I am no Sporty Spice. When Lisa and I joke about being the same person I almost always say, "except you like sports" in a tone of voice usually reserved for inefficiency and the scent of summer in the subway. As a kid I despised sports primarily because I wasn't good at them (also because I was lazy) and in an effort to preserve my fragile sense of superiority I religiously avoided anything that I might not excel at. I was forced through the cruel Physical Education requirement at my high school to join the tennis team which resulting in me getting hit in the eye with a ball at 75miles per hour which I might have been more upsetting if it hadn't gotten me out of at least 2 days of onerous practice. I've since gotten much better at being bad at things. I'm perfectly comfortable listing huge numbers of things that I suck at (like remembering to put on deodorant in the morning so I don't have to sneak it onto my armpits while sitting at my desk) of which "sports" is a nice little category. But I no longer equate poor performance with hatred -- I can have fun and suck AT THE SAME TIME! Kickball was likely in the top three most fun things I did this week (number 1 being "watched R. Kelly's Rap Opera Trapped in the Closet)

Pregame on Wednesday when the subject of positions came up I quickly regressed back to junior high PE and immediately jumped on the oft coveted by 12 year old members of the math team far far far left field. This was a mistake. In junior high one could be relatively assured that no player would exert enough effort to drive a big rubber ball more than 15 feet from home plate but in the uber competitive world of casual kickball for 30 year old real estate traders and software developers the balls were much more likely to come hurling into the outfield at 300 miles per hour. When this happens people will expect you to try to catch the ball or at least run after it while simultaneously suppressing your urges to do a couple of cartwheels and make crowns and jewelry out of clover flower chains. Since I cannot catch or run or even effectively gauge where a ball is apt to land even when I am STARING RIGHT AT IT this position was a lot of hard work.

One of the things I love most about working in Software is that developers and their QA and PM brethren are shockingly socialist. Everyone gets a turn regardless of ability. Everyone is encouraged to try new things. We all wait in line together for bread. All of these values follow us to the field where I was twice offered a position guarding a base despite the fact that I kept calling "runs" "points". When a teammate ran all the way to third base before figuring out that he'd kicked a foul ball we all encouraged him with cheers of "good practice run!" The competition at Kickball was much more serious about winning. As we stood around the field pregame one of my teammates assessed the surrounding teams thusly: "They seem good. They have like wrist guards and shit." Our opening night opponents were not software developers. In addition to their literal bullying (see paragraph 1) they did everything short of organizing an elaborate all dude naked spankfest while simultaneously chugging Keystones to prove that the organization that brought them together was fraternal in origin. They challenged us to a post game round of flip cup. They affectionately and without irony called each other bro. They beat us 14-6.

Covert Ops

2008-06-02T13:37:00.002-04:00

I’m now going to reveal a secret about myself that I may regret exposing. When I need something from someone whom I do not know, especially if getting this something may require a lie, and double especially if this someone is a dude I do two things.

I make a self effacing comment usually about how stupid I am.
I speak with a slight southern accent

Neither of these acts is particularly conscious but I suspect that deep down in my manipulative little heart some part of me thinks (rightly) that the most unscary person least likely to pull one over on anyone is a nice young southern girl.

Today in route back to the east coast I had to return a rental car that my cousin Adam had picked up but could not return – a car which I had no claim to but had driven 200 miles ACROSS STATE LINES anyway which likely violates 75 or so laws. Seriously, I am such a bad ass. When I got to the car rental return parking lot at the Reno airport, stopping briefly in the middle of the damn road to twice reread a sign claiming I should drive on the left side of the street and shake my head in confusion, I hopped out and smiled sweetly at the aged Asian gentleman manning the return station. And then I launching into my schpeel. “You confused me there with driving on the left side of the road! My little head nearly exploded!” “Oh no!” he laughed (already caught in my trap). He checked the car (yes I put $50 of gas in the damn thing, and yes I am super fucking glad to live in NY and have next to no knowledge about just how expensive gasoline is.) and as he printed out my receipt glanced down and said, “Hey, this isn’t you…” (apparently he isn’t open to the kind of progressive naming that results in a girl named Adam). “Oh no, That’s my huuuuuuusband, he checked with the company and they said it’d be just fine if I returned the car,” I drawled. “Of course it is! You have a great trip honey!”

CIA ain't got nothing on me y'all.

Mawwage is what bwings us togevah today

2008-05-30T18:02:00.002-04:00

Below is my toast for the wedding tomorrow afternoon -- I could use some last minute feedback in the comments!

As many of you already know I can be a bit of a cynic which can make things a bit challenging when wedding season rolls around but I'm feeling pretty confident about the union of Kurt and Stacie. By the way, are we going with Kurcie or Sturt? The tabloids are going to need something to call you in duo form -- and by tabloids I mean my blog. Kurt and Stacies’s relationship has already suffered through a challenge that should have destroyed it. No, I'm not speaking of a secret illness that none of you were told about. Or the rigors of parenthood. I speak of the day last year when Stacie CRASHED KURT'S TRUCK. For those of you that haven't known Kurt for more than a couple of years let me assure you that preStacie he only had room in his heart for one lady and her name was Ford F250 (though personally I suspect he has many pet names for her on the side). Not only did he refuse to let anyone else drive Truck-y-kins but he made her all but inaccessible by lifting her roughly 75 feet in the air and removing the running boards. When I heard that Stacie had backed his baby into a pole I was sure that this would be the end of things -- certainly Kurt would break up with her after he murdered her. Shockingly Stacie not only lived but a big dent in his bumper somehow inspired matrimony. And so, even this cynic has to admit that what we have here is true love and if I’m going to admit it I might as well go all the way to toasting it. To Kurt, to Stacie, to Kurcie, to True Love.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2008-05-28T21:15:00.003-04:00

My day was supposed to be full to the brim with babysitting but at the last minute Miss D's grandma (not my mom, the other one) pulled rank and stole her away for the day so I was left with a huge expanse of empty hours and no plans to fill them. And so, never one to spend a day lolling around, I immediately went into project mode and descending upon and empty patch of dirt in my parent's backyard. My dad had recently torn down the shed that stood in this spot for my entire childhood and this barren plot was in serious need of greenery.

After a trip to the nursery and roping dad into putting a nice border around the plot we were ready to garden! Or rather... to rototill. Despite all posted warnings I choose to operate this heavy machinery in a skirt and flip flops cause I'm super hardcore (also known as stupid hardcore). In addition to around 75 tons of rocks and a disturbing amount of broken glass I dug up a dead squirrel and in further testament to my hardcoredness I picked it up and threw it into the trash without so much as a whimper. Perhaps I haven't converted to 100% city girl just yet.

After erecting the overly snazzy border dad announced that he was done with the project and that it was ALL me from there on out. This was Dad's biggest lie ever because what followed was me asking him questions like "Ok, is this enough dirt or should I add that other bag?" To which he'd respond, "I don't know! This is your project!" but as soon as I'd move forward without the extra dirt he'd begin to mutter things like "hmmm seems a little sparse, might need more dirt." Somehow we managed to finish without me throwing any dead squirrels at his head.

This Blog Entry is AWESOME! Good Job Brianna!

2008-05-28T01:07:00.003-04:00

In my impressionable formative years my aunt Karen took me to a play that was... I think... about adults being really boring and probably something about love being complicated but that was mostly ok because being SUPER INTO theatre was how I was currently defining my entire personality and the play took place in a car on the stage. A real live car! Just like the ones I saw on the street everyday! CRAZY. Anyway, short of the car and the general theme of love/heartache/divorce the only thing I really remember about the play was a speech given by one of the characters (the dude, I think) about how he was a great cheerleader and he loved cheering people on and how that was really hard to do when the cheer receiver was constantly going on about how much they suck. This struck me as very profound at age 15ish and may have even spared my mother a few long whiny bouts of "woe is me no one wants to take me to prom because I am the ugliest duckling to ever waddle" (though she'll certainly be shocked to hear that there could have been EVEN MORE such outbursts). This post is not about love or cars or my adolescence (well, no more so than everything I've ever written is about my adolescence), it's about cheerleading. Sort of.

Like the lovelorn boy in that play, I am an awesome cheerleader -- not the most awesome, that title likely belongs to Gillian who I’m pretty sure once did a cartwheel when I won Settlers -- but I got a lot of rah rahs in my sis-boom-ba if you know what I mean (ew. no.). In high school almost all of my close girlfriends were actual cheerleaders of the pep rallies, booty shaking and sleeping with the football team variety but I was too busy with math team and the angst to get into a pleated skirt and tennis shoes. But today I find myself often the cheerleader at parties, at family events, hell, even Project management is at least 30% cheering people on (“two, four, six, eight your code is really great!”).

Thursday night was my team’s final dodgeball game because despite not sucking quite as much as I had anticipated (I think we're 3rd to the last otherwise known as SIXTH PLACE!) we still will not be attending anything like a playoff game... unless they start giving prizes for cheering. The nerds kick ass at cheering! A childhood of being picked last has left all of us sensitive and supportive to a fault -- all of our games are decorated with shrieks of "You are doing so good!" "Awesome job!" "Eeeeeeeeeeeek!" and "Hey guys! Don’t suck!" By our 2^nd or 3^rd game the Zogsports’ designated ref had taken to slowly telling us the score while backing out of decibel range because regardless of just how dismal the final results his announcement would be followed by the kind of hooting and hollering last heard at a moonshine fueled hoedown. Never has “You guys lost 16 to 4.” Been greeted with such enthusiasm! Cause seriously dudes that means we got FOUR WHOLE POINTS.

Over the past couple of months my personal dodgeball playing has shown noticeable improvement moving up from laughable to pitying. When the season began I was a one skill player – all dodging all the time. I couldn’t throw without resulting in a subsequent catch (and subsequent out, followed by “Good Job Bri! It’s Ok!!”) and I didn’t dare even try to catch. But boy oh boy could I run away from a ball and since dodging is, literally, the name of the game I considered myself a team asset anyway. But on the second to last game I managed to up my ball delivery from “toss” to a tightly wound up pitch that on occasion even got an opponent out. And on the last game through some miracle I caught THREE balls! There was much cheering – even from the ref and the other team! The key to succeeding at sports is to set the bar as low as possible so everything short of killing yourself is seen as a celebration worthy success.

Kickball starts in 2 weeks and I suspect I am not more gifted at kicking than throwing but I may need to invest in a pair of pompoms.

God Bless the Mule

2008-05-27T11:52:00.005-04:00

I'm home for the week proceeding the Family Wedding Extravaganza (which will hopefully not serve as a catalyst for the Older Daughter Bloody Rampage Fueled by Lack of Organization Extravaganza) but before the fun of running errands to the florist, setting up chairs and telling mom that seriously those shoes look fine for the 75th time can begin we have to get through Memorial Day weekend in Bishop California, better known as Mule Days. As I have mentioned before, this is cowboy country and Mule Days is ostensibly a cowboy party to celebrate all that the mule has done for us (no, not glue.) but in my experience it's mostly an excuse to buy cowboy themed dishtowels and eat Indian tacos. But this year, in honor of my first Mule Days in 7 years I was determined to attend a show. My first choice was the Tracey Lawrence concert because we all know I'm a slut for the twang but sadly the concert was Thursday night and I wasn't going to hit town until Saturday so the next best option was the coyly named, "Sunday Night Show." And so after 2 margaritas and a plate full of very cheesy Mexican food my brother, future sister, favorite little girl ever and my friend Sky went to The Sunday Night Show. Turns out The Sunday Night Show is like a rodeo on laughing gas and includes all of the following events peppered by a announcer's pleas to "Thank lord Jesus for the fun we've had here tonight!", "Buy this beautiful Dodge pickup truck," and cheers that various cowboy participants disrobe.

Bed Roll Race

In this ode to a less than restful night a mule drags a bedroll across the arena where a cowboy/person of less than complete intelligence launches themselves onto the bedroll as the mule races back to the starting line. He who survives the subsequent roads burn wins!

Musical Tires

Ingredients
Arena full of Mules
Guy inexplicably dressed in a mule mascot-like suit which, even more inexplicably, has a mustache.
Pack of people with no shame
Record playing "The Wheels on the Bus"
Guy in mule outfit with cap gun that he periodically shoots off in an obvious attempt at suicide via mule kick to the head.

This is exactly like musical chairs except you know, with tires, and angry mules and a more acute possibility of death.

Guy Riding Huge Horses Roman Style

Since "Riding Huge Horses Roman Style" clearly sounds like a new fangled sexual position I'm sure all of you are happy to see that this is just some crazy dude standing on the backs of two horses as they and their horse team buddies race around the track laughing about how hilarious it would be if this fool fell on his ass. Shockingly his ass remained in air.

The Packer's Scramble

Each of four pack trains are given a collection of items deemed "hard to pack on a mule" (though my suggestion of "another mule?" was not seriously considered so clearly no one was trying too hard) and while the clock ticks are forced to pack up their train of mules and race around the fairgrounds without losing any of the haul.

Rise

2008-05-20T18:16:00.007-04:00

FAQ

No I do not snooze
No I do not shampoo
No I do not make coffee

I'm Rich Bitches!

2008-05-15T13:06:00.003-04:00

A week or so ago I was approached via email by a marketing company about placing a few test ads on a few of the posts on this very blog in exchange for MONEY! Obviously I was intrigued. And by intrigued I mean "My sell out dream has finally come true! Where do I sign? I can only hope that my blood makes good ink!" Finally the capitalist system is recognizing my genius by paying me $.67/post!

About that selling out thing. I suppose that as a arteeeeest I should be unbuy-offable, unwilling to compromise my writing for the sake of a few measly bucks, etc. Certainly just like all rock stars I expect all of my paramoures to read and adore every word I've ever written but, again like a rock star, I would like very much to get some paychecks and radio play (and, most importantly, some groupies). I have no shame because I know that secretly everyone wants to be a sell out ("I want ads. I'm jealous" -- Lisa (aka one smart cookie)), selling out your art is the new dotcom, the new pyramid scheme, the new cam girl, the new prostitution. And like all fools before me armed with only greed and laziness I am here to pimp myself out. After all, I sell out my project management skills everyday and I'm a much better (or at least more consistent) project manager than writer. I should probably consider excel spread sheets comparing actual hours to estimated hours and well crafted emails about exactly how bad things will be if I'm forced to build an entire web application by myself my real Art. Luckily, no one, save myself, considers being super anal a form of artistic expression and so no one judges me for going into the office everyday. The point is, mama has to pay the JCrew bills somehow and since my blogging is typically done from my bed while sipping a vodka gimlet I'll happily choose it over this building software racket. Moral of the story? Send me money and/or a new cashmere cardigan and I will happily do your bidding.

In addition to making me $175 closer to living on a yacht in the Caribbean this advertising adventure affords me the opportunity to link back to a number of old posts. This is fortuitous because I fear that many of my newer readers do not take the proper amount of time to thoroughly read and comment on every single post in my archives. Such an oversight could lead to people thinking that I'm not the most awesome and hilarious writer ever just because most everything I've written in say, the last 4 months, has been crap. Obviously this would be a disaster. Please, for your own good, take some time to peruse the writing (and the somewhat hilarious "Third Party Resources") that I give to you for free even though random marketing companies totally think it is worth money.

Now, there is the question of how best to blow my $175 in advertising revenue. Ideally the money would go to something frivolous that also somehow manages to benefit the blog thus easily masking the frivolity. My only idea so far is a class which I could somehow parlay into at least one (or possibly 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) blog post. Or I could just buy $175 worth of liquor and live blog my slow decent into drunken stooper. But in the spirit of community (and in homage to my never ending laziness) I'm open to suggestions from the peanut gallery -- How do you think I should spend my loot?