Not quite reality TV

Now don't get all excited, I'm not talking about Survivor, Celebrity Apprentice or Keeping up with the Kardashian's; I'm talking more along the lines of slightly less scripted shows.  If it's supposed to be reality TV, why the heck do all of the logos and product names get blurred out?

Extreme Couponing is an example - why when they are showing the crazy-ass rooms full of products that the people have do they have to face all of the labels away? I don't know if it's more because the producers of the shows don't want to give free advertising to the companies or if the companies are worried about their product being shown in a less than flattering light. The world is filled with logos, children can recognize hundreds of them by the time they enter elementary school, why do we blur them out exactly?

There are renovation shows that blur out the word Tyvek from the house wrap - it just makes the show hard to watch. Or the DeWalt is blurred on the side of the power tools. Seriously, what is real about any of these programs.

Okay, end rant.

Stereotype? What stereotype?

Went to the supermarket tonight. Yes, it's Friday. Don't judge, the store was empty - I made really good use of time, no line-ups.  Bought some Weight Watchers frozen dinners. What? I like how they taste.  I also had a rain check and some coupons. Hey, these are tough times, it's good to be thrifty.  I bought some ice cream too. As a woman it's very important to get my calcium. The thing that might have pushed me over the edge might, and I say might, have been the cat food.

Thank goodness I know I'm not ugly and that this is all mostly by choice.

I have never had a manicure. Or a pedicure for that matter.

Nope. Never had one of either. I've wanted to have one, but now I just feel awkward because I never got to learn any of the etiquette associated with it.  Why have I never had one you ask? Probably mostly because I'm cheap, I mean frugal, hmmm, how about practical? Yeah, lets go with that.

I've hinted on numerous occasions to those in my life that buy me gifts (which reminds me, remind me to write a post on my philosophy of gifts) that I would like to have one, that it would be a special treat, but nope, no luck.  I don't know why I feel silly just outright asking for one, I mean, they're pretty common. Probably because my friends are a pretty practical bunch as well and don't generally have them either.

While we're on the subject of me depriving myself, I've never had a massage or a facial either. Hmmm, I might fail at being a girl. Oh wait, I have lots of shoes! Hopefully 'they' won't throw me to the wolves after all.

Don't judge a book by its cover

First of all, why the hell not? If you write a book, and you want people to read it, you need to make it look bloody well interesting. There is a reason that the Twilight books sell better than the complete works of Shakespeare. That being said, I don't think you could pay me to read either of those.

The other day I was out for dinner, at a restaurant that was probably at least a notch or two above my social standing.  The type of place where you don't really understand what it is that's being offered to eat but you feel a bit too self-conscious to ask. Or at least I do. How am I supposed to maintain my air of middle-class if I have a trailer park palate.

No such worry for the middle-aged guy sitting at the table next to us, which was close in that cozy "aren't we such a great restaurant, look how many tables we have to squeeze in here to feed our adoring fans" sort of way.  He also felt he was in a little over his head, but wasn't afraid to admit it. He joked with his guests (a younger, hip looking couple in their late 20's) that he was probably breaking some sort of unwritten dress code. Initially I was a little embarrassed for the couple and this louder than a whisper (the average tone of the restaurant) gent and his failure to adhere to social norms. I may not actually BE upper middle class, but at least I can fake it.

Part way through the meal we ended up talking to him, probably in big part because he pointed at something we ordered and said, "well, what's that?". Ultimately, we ended up sharing a few nibbles with these folks at the table next to us (it was a tapas place, which is meant for sharing after all!) and our dinner was probably better for it. I think my favorite comment was his take on some sort of snooty pork belly thing - "it's like fancy bacon".  In the end, we had a great night and I realized that he is probably a "better" (if not at least happier) person than I am; he was happy with who he was and not ashamed of it. He certainly was a nicer person than the appropriately dressed snotty woman sitting to the other side of me who had her belongings strewn over my seat when I sat down and didn't even make an effort to move them out of my way.

Charlie Sheen

Okay, so this is a blatant fishing expedition for googlers to end up here. I figure between a post titled "Charlie Sheen" and my post titled "Hookers and Blow" I'm a shoo in for anybody wanting to know a bit more about Charlie boy. Badum dum ching!

So my post isn't really about Charlie Sheen, it's more about people in the entertainment industry with jobs (zing!) and more specifically that part of their job is to be attractive. In today's day and age we are all far too lazy busy to go to the gym to get those bodies that we all dream of, but I think the perfect solution is to become a celebrity - then being attractive and fit is your job. If you fail at it, you're even given a second chance and your own workout video/weight watchers sponsorship/cookbook/tv show to show the world how you got thin again.

Now how does one become a celebrity you ask? Well that is the hard part, because lets face it, if it was easy I'd have done it already. I suggest moving to the United Kingdom. My experience when visiting there is that their daily newspapers and all of their gossip rags spend their entire budgets covering the stories of people who are any number of degrees removed from celebrity. It's like "six degrees of anyone famous". If you play your cards right you will also end up with a record deal over there, they seem to give those out like candy launch many promising music careers.

If it was MY JOB to be attractive, could I do it? Don't get me wrong, I've got a pretty good foundation to work with but how do I figure out the formula? Everyone knows that more attractive people generally get farther in life (unless they're uber mega smart) so should I invest some serious time and effort into going to the gym and reading Cosmo so that I can do the perfect smoky eye?

I think celebrities are maybe all uber mega smart, because not only do they earn way more than I do, but they essentially get paid to go to the gym. They aren't allowed to come up with the same excuses we do because they might lose their job if they turn into slobs like the rest of us. What about people saving up for weight loss surgery like liposuction as a "quick-fix" - would they maybe be better off working less and just going to they gym? Quite possibly, but human nature would probably just cause them to fill those non-working hours with other activities that still wouldn't leave them time for the gym (in their minds).

The solution? Become a celebrity so it's your job. Now that I have solved how to become thin and get paid for it I will work on world peace.

Oh, and Charlie Sheen doesn't need to be a celebrity anymore because he has Adonis DNA and tiger blood.

I should rob you.

Sorry for being away for a bit, I'm doing a spot of traveling at the moment and I am not up on technology nearly enough to have any sort of smart phone (most of those are probably smarter than me) or nice travel sized laptop to put my thoughts down. I've had a lot of good thoughts, but since I am usually in my bathing suit I don't have a place to even keep a pen and paper to write them down (see Soapy shower thoughts to learn more about my perpetual dilemma).

Anywhoo, while traveling, I've been reminded of some things I hate don't like (I heard it's bad to hate things) about other travelers.

1. People who wear their money belt/passport neck thingy on the outside of their clothes. The whole point of those horrible uncomfortable contraptions is to hide them. Otherwise use things like wallets, bags or pockets.
2. People who wear their day pack on the front. Now, don't get me wrong, I've done this - mostly when my main pack is strapped to my back and getting things out of my little bag will be easier when it's within reach. I may have even done it once or twice when in a very crowded area when a deft pickpocket might have been able to get into the bag on my back without me noticing (how I figured that they wouldn't be able to get in if my arms were busy holding it in front I'm not sure). However, when you do this say, at the airport or on a hiking trail, you just look dumb. You also look uncomfortable as you may have noticed that it is not called a front pack, it is called a back pack.

This is all for now. If you participate in these traits and you get robbed by an otherwise fairly innocent looking traveler, it might be me expressing my rage.

I'm a bitch

Office politics. I've never been very good at them.

I am a little different than most people. I generally fully understand social norms and can act quite easily within them, but am definitely not a follower and I over analyze things possibly to a fault.

Which brings me to my point. One of my lazy lazy co-workers who is constantly on facebook (I refer to her as facebook girl) has a phone that every time it goes off, it makes my computer speakers go haywire. No idea why. It's a network thing. My phone/network doesn't have that effect (thank god!). So every single freaking time she gets a call or a text my speakers alert the entire office that she's got a personal call/text. This is assuming she's actually in the office and not on some mysterious out of office business; but that is a story for another day.

Now, calling her facebook girl (FBG) is actually a bit of a misnomer, as she is around 36 years old. Yet there she is on facebook, hours a day, chatting while at work and when she's not doing that she's on personal phone calls rehashing things that she's posted on facebook. Thankfully, she's never added me to facebook because I'm sure I would have to block out millions of things from my newsfeed about farms, mafias and horoscopes. I can make this presumption because she is actually apparently only 13 years old mentally and one day giggled about how she had changed her last name on facebook to Mathers. Like in honor of Eminem. Seriously.

Let the record show, I absolutely go on facebook while at work. Who doesn't? Well who doesn't that doesn't have it blocked? I like facebook for number of reasons, also none of which I'll bother to get into right now. In fact, I'm writing this blog post while at work. I'm such a rebel. My complaint more so is that she's too dumb to be embarrassed by her actions. It's a game that we all play, management knows that we don't work 100% of the time (who does?) but in an act of courtesy, when someone walks by, act like you are working for gods sake. Of course, I'm pretty lucky, my computer screen faces a corner so no one can see what I'm not doing unless they swing around the cubicle wall.

Further to my annoyance, she is a verbalizer. Lucky me, I get a play by play of EVERYTHING that she bothers to do in a day. "Oh good, so-and-so just emailed me back!" "I just printed 25 copies of a document" "Why don't I read this news release word for word even though all the information was already in the paper and I'm days behind on reading these things?" Hmm, okay, she might not verbalize that last one exactly like that, but you get the idea.

On the bright side, since she's not my facebook friend when she really makes me mad I can put snarky status' about her :)