is it just me?

so, the White Sox won the World Series. whoopee. I always find it a little anti-climactic. Especially when they win on the road so there are only like 5 people cheering for them and everyone else is headed for the parking lot. And for some reason they all feel compelled to jump on the mound. It is really impossible to look cool doing this. I think for next year the winning team should come up with something more creative. Like a dance routine or something. Or maybe just a really complicated set of high fives. Did you see the giant closer Bobby Jenks (who is nothing short of 6'3", 270lbs) trying to jump around? You could tell he didn't really want to. He was thinking: I am a big man, and I was not made for jumping around like a school girl. But then he thought - everyone else is doing it, and I don't want it to seem like I'm not excited. Comical, really.

I was watching CSI: Miami on Monday, and I have decided that David Caruso has officially become a caricature of himself. That whole "1. serious face first half of the sentence with the sunglasses on 2. dramatic pause, 3. sunglasses off 4. last half of the sentence" routine is getting very tired. If you watch the show, look for it. Guaranteed at least once per episode. I am glad to see, however, that he is the latest in the line of fake cops to take over in the proud tradition of Office Poncharello as the cop who loves kids. It's so heartwarming. (I'm kidding.) Man I loved C.H.iP.s. What a great show.

The other day I was out for lunch with my friend and we had the unfortunate experience of arriving at a restaurant just after a busload of high school kids who had the day off. Watching high school kids is so entertaining. They all try so hard to look like they're not trying. There was one girl who had meticulously sprayed her ponytail to make it look disheveled. I can't really remember having that kind of time to invest in my appearance, but I am sure I did. Now I am lucky if I actually shower in the morning. The other night I was talking to a friend of mine from high school, and the great thing about doing that is now that we are more than 10 years removed from graduation, almost anything you remember from high school is pretty freakin hilarious. It all takes on such a comic flair once you realize the pointlessness of it all. If you need a good laugh just call some old friend of yours and mention someone really random from highschool and I promise you will both start laughing immediately. I also guarantee that you will come up with at least one person that you feel compelled to google but you won't find them. alas.

Yesterday my boss was talking to me and asked me to walk downstairs with him because he had to go to a 'thing'. I asked him what it was and he said 'just come with me'. So I walk in and on one side of the room there are all these well dressed people and on the other side there are some poorly dressed, confused looking academics. Then all of a sudden they start making a presentation to this guy thanking him for his contribution to Wisconsin agriculture. What? What is going on? Why am I here? SO it turns out that all the dressed up people were his family ("That's my son Travis, and his fried Amy") and the rest of the people just came down because the boss said they had to and had no earthly idea why they were putting a medal (no kidding! a medal!) around this guy's neck. It was truly surreal. So as I was sitting there thinking "how did I get here" I started wondering if the honoree was thinking "how did my life come to this?" Standing there in a sparsely populated conference room filled mostly with people you don't know and your family, with a cheese platter and some punch, talking about your life's work. If that's where I'm headed, kill me now.

I have been watching the World Series, which means I get to see the same commercials about 90 skillion times. At some point I actually pay attention (though I am still yet to see the lead up to the ad that ends with a truck peeing - very very strange). Anyway, I find the 'siren' with the stupid Prison Break graphic very tiresome. Though, my friend did remind me that a couple of years ago we were watching an ad for the Bernie Mac show every five seconds. I think this is an improvement. Anyway, the Series is somehow sponsored by the sleep medicine Lunesta. So, in the ad they list the side effects (it certainly is unfortunate for drug companies that they make them do that - it really takes the bloom off the rose). But for Lunesta they say "it may cause drowsiness". Um...isn't that the point? I mean, it's sleeping medicine. That's just bad advertising. It had darn well better cause something more than drowsiness. Dummies.

I was surfing around today and I saw a banner ad for an online dating site. It said in the ad "We screen for marrieds." Ha ha. Of course I had to find out HOW they screened for marrieds, so I clicked on it. Right there at the top it has a little exclamation point in a triangle (you know the one) and it says "WARNING: Married People Need Not Apply". How funny is that? Apparently this is a big problem in internet dating, though I had not heard that before. It goes on to say that you can be found guilty of fraud and have to pay a fine and maybe go to jail. But if you are willing to portray yourself as married on an internet dating site, you probably don't have the greatest morals. Do you think people will care that it is illegal? Does anyone know if it is illegal if you are in a bar and you just lie to someone about it? (I'm not interested in trying it, I'm just curious.) I mean, reprehensible, a bad idea, sure. But is it illegal? I never thought about that. Very interesting.

And while we're on the subject of warnings, how long do you think some government office discussed putting the words "this is not a toy" on all plastic bags anywhere ever? Boy, that was worth it.

Along the lines of advertising prescription drugs (which I think is a bad idea) on the World Series they do an injury report sponsored by WebMD and then tell you to go there and "check your symptoms". Who needs doctors? You can self-diagnose and decide on appropriate treatment all from the comfort of your recliner while watching baseball.

So, it is now well documented about how annoying it is that people talk loudly on their cell phones anywhere and everywhere. But I often wonder - is it that they think we can't hear them or that they don't care? It's not a big deal if you're just talking about homework, or weekend plans, or whatever other drivel you decide to use your anytime minutes on. But every once in a while something like this happens:

I walked in to the locker room of the gym last night, and as soon as I entered I can hear someone on the phone. This is actually kind of unusual. I don't know if it's the naked old ladies or what, but not many people talk on their phones there. Which is good, because since it has cinderblock walls and is filled with metal boxes it is quite an echo chamber. Anyway, within a few seconds it becomes clear that we are listening to what could very possibly be the beginning of a breakup conversation. As I walk to my locker far in the back, I see the talker. She is sitting there on a wooden bench in her underwear, having a serious conversation. But then it becomes clear that she is not breaking up with her boyfriend, she is breaking up with her friend. She says "You guys aren't the kind of friends I need you to be. I mean, my boyfriend beats me up and none of you even want to talk about it. You're not my real friends, they are all in California" or something like that. Wow. Now you're sitting there in your underwear breaking up with your friends and I know WAY more about you than I ever wanted to. She goes on to tell them how unhappy she is here (which offends the person on the other line) and was still shouting about something or another 10 minutes later when I left for my class. Now, does she really not care that now we all know this stuff? Was she planning to have that conversation in the locker room? I will assume that her friend called her, but if you were that pissed off and half naked in a public place, would YOU answer the phone? I think I'd let that one wait a little bit.

On the subject of friend break ups, I had a friend break up with me in college. I wondered how I could ever be friends with someone who thought a face to face friend breakup (you never call me, I don't feel like you're putting any effort into this relationship) was a necessary occurrence. I mean, at that point I had sort of let things go because said friend did way too many drugs and had habit of totally humiliating herself and others and was needy and crazy. So, you can imagine I didn't lose too much sleep over the breakup. But I hate confrontation, and I just don't need that kind of closure. Once I knew a guy was going to break up with me, and I was talking to him on the phone and knew he didn't want to do it on the phone. No, instead he wanted me to drag myself over to his house so he could do it in person. What a waste of time. Let's just be done with it. And for friends? Can't you just come to some sort of unspoken agreement, after a certain number of unfortunate incidents where it's sort of 'I know that you know that I know that you know that we are no longer friends'. Not in a now-I'm-going-to-slash-your-tires kind of way, more in a now-we-don't-have-to-waste-our-time-on-this-bullshit-but-we-can-still say-hi- in-the-hall way. Maybe that's just me. I have issues with both commitment and confrontation making relationships and their ends truly horrendous.

Also in the locker room I was walking out behind a girl who was wearing pants that said "I Just Farted" across the ass. I have no idea what to say about that. You?

This week is going to go down as the longest week ever.

I would like to say that I am happy that the Houston Astros won. I think the Cardinals are boring. The end.

In the bathroom here at work, people sometimes stink it up. For some reason, there is this really nasty super strong air freshener that people think will make it smell better. It doesn't. It still smells like poop with some horrid faux floral scent over it. It's much much worse than just smelling like poop. I tried hiding the air freshener but they found it again. I could be an adult and talk to people about it and tell them the scent of the air freshener makes me nauseous, but then I would have to talk to people at work about poop and I really, really don't want to do that.

So periodically all the staff here goes out for lunch. A bunch of people had birthdays. So we go out and pretend we're friends. There are 9 of us. Seven ladies 0ver forty, one 25 year old guy (the computer guy of course) and wiscolizard. The lunches are awful. None of us have much to say to each other. And a lot of them don't even like each other. It's so boring. And today we went to a place with bad food and worse service. Great. I think they think it is some sort of thing to build morale. And the other staff ladies think it's great because they get to be gone for more than 45 minutes since they are with their supervisor. Meanwhile I am always gone more than 45 minutes because I have a different (and mostly better) kind of job. I am hoping no one will find out it's my birthday next month. I don't want to have to go out for lunch. Maybe I could tell them that their gift to me could be to spare me the lunch. Just give me $5 and I'll go get a sandwich and tell them all about it when I get back. At least someone brought in cake...

There are few things as funny as listening to snippets of college students' cell phone conversations. The amount of unnecessary communication that goes on each day thanks to cell phones is truly mind boggling. I heard the subject of this post not once but TWICE today in a ten minute walk across campus. I think parents must secretly love cell phones though because kids call home a lot more just because they are bored and walking and have a phone handy. So I guess it's good for something.

tight
I was walking behind a girl today wearing a sweathshirt that said "Our game is as tight as our spandex". I guessed (correctly) that this was a high school volleyball team item. Of course, once you are in college the days of silly team slogans are done. Now you're cool because you are a college athlete. But in high school, apparently, this is still popular. Now, I went to high school in the days of 'co-ed naked' whatever. So the swim team had one that said "The harder we stroke it the faster we come." Classy. Just what you want your 17 year old wearing to school. But I must admit the one I saw today did make me a bit nostalgic. And while you may wish that your game was tighter than your spandex, at least your spandex isn't tighter than your game. Whatever that means.

ogling
So, I think all women know that men spend a lot of time checking out women. But we must give credit to men since many of them have learned to do this without being hopelessly obvious. Now, more of them have learned to do it without the oglee noticing, and fewer can actually do it without anyone noticing. But just in case we forgot how much men do this, occasionally you will come across one who makes absolutely no attempt to hide it whatsoever. And then you remember. Somewhere, there is a man doing that all the time. Yesteday I saw a guy who was more than a few cards shy of a full deck. And he was just sitting by the sidewalk, watching the ladies go by. No shame. A once over, a twice over if your skirt was short enough. I think I even saw him drool. A while ago in a mall I saw a guy pretend to throw something away three separate times just so he could try to get a bird's eye view of a piece of jailbait's thong/low rise pant combination. I could give guys the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are not all oglers, but instead I will go with the "ogling-but-good-at-hiding-it" theory. Just remember that, ladies, the next time you bend over to tie your shoe and think no one's watching.

First I would like to acknowledge that Friday was the six month anniversary of this blog. This means I have gained approximately one reader per month. Outstanding.

I was just reading an article about beer pong in the New York Times. Why the Times was talking about beer pong was a little unclear. Anyway, Budweiser has started marketing a game called Bud Pong which they give to bars in college campuses. (Apparently now there are many different kinds of beer pong tables, I always thought you could use any table and some cups.) Anyway, they are getting all the usual criticism about how this promotes binge drinking. My response, if I were the Bud spokesperson, would be that they are going to binge drink anyway, so at least we can encourage the simultaneous development of some eye-hand coordination. But the Bud Lady said "Well, the rules say that you're supposed to play with water." Yeah, we know it's called Bud Pong, and it's played just like beer pong, but really! All the kids play with water. We swear. I mean, honestly. Where do they find people who can say things like "As far as we know, Bud Pong is always played with water" and keep a straight face? I really think that publicists or press secretaries or spokesmen or whatever you want to call them are really a special breed. I mean, they always have to say things that other people tell them, and they have to stay on message at all times or risk being fired. And the fact that they can say some of this stuff with a straight face is really kind of creepy. Maybe they're all robots.

match made in heaven

I laughed harder on Friday night then I have laughed in a long long time. I just tried to tell the story of why twice on here, and it doesn't work. I think you have to know at least one of the people involved. But just so I don't feel like I failed entirely, the gist of it goes like this: a young crazy japanese graduate student declared his love for the middle aged department secretary, his friend confirmed that he thought she was glamorous, which we figured out translates from japanese as 'curvy' with one of them asserting she had "big booboos" and the other one referring to them as "sizeable tits" (not bad for a non-native speaker). Anyway, this led the crazy student to report that he has not had any action in a long time, and the last time he did he was in japan and he had to pay for it. wow. I laughed so much I cried.

on Wisconsin

People here love the badgers. They really, really love them. A lot. 70,000 people go to home football games, and they all wear red. The ladies have badger earrings. The kids wear cheerleading costumes and mini football jerseys. It's quite remarkable. I watched the Wisconsin-Minnesota game in a bar on Saturday. After the game, the bar has the music that they play at the actual game all cued up. People danced. Then they played a song everyone sings along with. I mean, why wouldn't you sit there, linked arm in arm, singing with people you hardly know in a bar at 2 in the afternoon. This is Wisconsin. Today I saw the Bucky Truck. This is an old fire truck that they ride around campus for special occasions (I think the special occasion is that Homecoming is this weekend, but for those keeping score at home it is, for the record, still Monday). Anyway, the cheerleaders and mascot (Bucky) ride around on the back of the truck and wave. It has a horn that plays the school song. When I saw it it drove by an actual fire truck. The real fire truck honked its horn and played its siren. Cars got confused. Pedestrians cheered for the Bucky Truck. Much fun was had by all. Go Bucky.

So yesterday I read on ESPN.com that someone had put together a system where they rank every player in the NBA from best to worst. In the article, they listed the ten best which is, if you pay any attention to the NBA and maybe even if you don't, all people you have heard of and would expect. They also listed the ten worst players. So, I guess you're happy to be playing basketball for money even if you suck, but it's still gotta sting a little to see your name at the top of the list of the ten worst players in the NBA. And it's not just guys who never play. These are guys who played at least 500 minutes, and basically did about as well as you or I would expect to (unless of course YOU are actually good at basketball). Is it better to be the worst player in the NBA or the best player not in the NBA? Hard to say.

I read today in E Online that Blossom had a baby. She's one of those people that I sort of forget has a real name, though unfortunately for her it is Mayim Bialik. Anyway, I haven't seen her since that show went off the air. She's 29 now and has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. I am not even kidding. Maybe she and Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) from The Wonder Years could form a club of former child actresses who now have Ph.D.s in something hard and will probably always be known for their one character. If you know of any other potential members for the club please let me know. Anyway, I totally wanted to be Winnie but unfortunately for me I look more like Blossom. In fact in college some fraternity had a TV party and you were supposed to go as a tv character. I went as Blossom. Everyone got it. Unfortunately, there I was dressed as a dork and everyone else came as "an extra" because they were too cool to actually wear a costume. Except for this one guy who looked exactly like David Silver. excellent.

On that same topic, that is why I hate Halloween. People want to dress up so but they still want to look cool. In college this usually means (for girls) you just dress slutty. The Onion had a great graphic on this a few years ago where the top three costumes were 1. slutty nurse 2. slutty witch 3. slutty cat (or something like that). But I don't really think it's fun to dress slutty. I can't really pull it off. So then I don't wear a costume but everyone says "why no costume?" so then I wear a costume but it's a real costume and everyone else is basically just wearing different kinds of clothes. I hate it. My friend has a funny jumpsuit that was her grandma's. It's a one piece outfit (which is automatically funny) and it's blue. She wears it every Halloween. But it's not a costume. It's just clothes. Maybe I just need a jumpsuit. That way I don't have to feel like a dork. Maybe I just need to stay home and wait for the cute kids in their costumes. Halloween is for kids. Just like Trix.

Do people really say things like "you are the best governor ever!" Who is this woman? And how can they possibly put her on the Supreme Court. "Well, uh, I mean, I know she's never been, like, an ACTUAL judge, but we think she'd be really good at it." Just because you watched that video on perfecting your pitching doesn't mean you're ready to start Game 2. Though, I guess the President is assuming that since he got a super important job even though he really wasn't qualified, someone else should, too. I mean - look at how well things are working out for him! It's fantastic. He's so cool.

So, I am shopping for a new mattress. This is one of life's more frustrating activities because it is basically impossible to get good information. But that's not particularly interesting. However, we have found out that there is a huge variety in price for identical products, which means there is great value in shopping around. So I found (on the internet of course) a place called "Midwest Mattress Discounters". Sounds big, right? Sounds like they would have a big ole showroom filled with cheap mattresses. I was happy when I found out it was in Madison. So on Monday after work my husband and I decide to go check it out. When we get there, we see a little sign that says "Mattress Discounters OPEN" but it appears that we are entering in to a glorified storage area. Several of the areas appear to be businesses, but it's super sketchy. Then we see the mattress place. We walk in and there are maybe 50 mattresses, dusty, stacked up all akimbo in there. There's a desk with a young guy sitting there messing with his cell phone. He asks what we're looking for and we name a mattress we saw on their website. He's never heard of it. He doesn't think they have it. Apparently they are trying to sell down their inventory in preparation for a new semi load of mattresses arriving next month. Super. We ask what kind of discount they offer. He tells us his boss goes to other mattress stores and tries the mattresses out. He doesn't seem to notice that this information does not answer our question. He suggests we call his boss. Meanwhile, you absolutely could not pay me to buy a mattress from this place as I am now convinced they are all the returns from real mattress stores who enacted their 90 night guarantee. He gives us a business card and dutifully writes his name on the back. We leave it on the table at the restaurant where we have dinner. They definitely do not merit a regional name like "Midwest". Honestly. That makes it seem like a serious operation. It's not. Don't go there.

Then we went to PetSmart. Our dog needs a new bed. They don't have the one we want, though it takes us 20 minutes to find a salesperson who can give us that information. She checks with the manager. He suggests we look on the internet. Thanks for all your help. On the way out my dog attacks a puppy who's there for training class. Super.

As we are leaving the shopping area we see a Pizza Hut. But apparently it's not any Pizza Hut, it's a Pizza Hut Italian Bistro. What? I mean, do they actually have a larger menu than most pizza huts, or are they just trying to seem fancy? Are there rules about this? Can any Pizza Hut call itself an Italian Bistro? Does Pizza Hut sell anything but pizza? If so, why? Italian Bistro my toe. Don't fall for it. Go eat somewhere better.

On the way home from our disastrous shopping adventure we stopped for burgers at a great place downtown. It was good except for the waitress managed to not make eye contact with us a single time throughout the entire meal. If you want a tip, you might want to look at me. And try not to act annoyed. The proliferation of 20 year old waitresses in Madison does not make for great service. Case in point: last night, after the final game of my illustrious softball season, we went to this dive bar that sponsored fee for the league. We felt we should patronize their establishment. There are about 10 of us, and we ask if we can order food. She gives us the menu, but then informs us we can't order anything that gets cooked on the grill. This is more than half the menu. Apparently she is the only one working and it is too much for her to cook and tend bar. So we can have pizza (frozen of course) or fried food. That's it. Now, I would accept this argument but for two things: 1) she cooked food on the grill when where there two weeks ago and the place was way busier, and 2) while she's waiting for our pizzas to cook she is leaning on the bar talking to patrons, smoking and drinking soda. I mean, with all that free time she couldn't keep an eye on a couple of burgers? Lazy. I mean, it is kind of crazy to only have one employee in the whole place, but maybe they should've thought of that. We wanted to call the management and tell them to take the Food part of Food and Spirits off their sign. At least they had spirits. And we won our game 5-3. I was in right field for seven innings and the ball never came within an outfielder of me. It's pretty boring, but low stress.

The Yankees lost. This takes some of the sting out of the Red Sox losing in the first round. Now I don't know who to cheer for though. Usually I cheer for the Red Sox or whoever is playing the Yankees. oh well. better luck next year.

those two items aren't related. I don't think.

Last week I received via email this month's copy of Badger Beat, which is a newsletter from the police. I am not sure how I feel about the police spending their time writing a newsletter, but whatever. What caught my eye (and you know I read these things just in case there is something worth of mocking) was the front page feature "Crime of the Month". This strikes me as an odd award. I think usually it is crime that has not yet been solved on campus. In this case it was someone who had stolen about $5000 worth of computer equipment. How would you feel if your crime was 'crime of the month'? Proud? Worried? Inspired to achieve even greater crime heights? Your happiness might be tempered by the fact that along with a description of your crime they have a surveillance video picture of you. But truthfully I don't think I could ever make an i.d. from the grainy, odd angle shot of some random person. I mean, they do it on Law and Order all the time, but still. And have you noticed that on CSI they can blow a picture up to about a million times it's normal size with zero pixilation and perfect resolution? Do they think we don't know that's not really how it works? And did you know that the computer matching of fingerprints is completely fake? Apparently there is no such machine and almost all matching has to be done by hand. That would make for a very boring hour of television so they should probably keep it the way it is.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. There is one store here that is cheaper than most of the others. However, it is always more crowded with stupid people. At the grocery store near my house there are some university students who are annoying to shop with, but at least you can get a laugh out of what they put in their cart. But for the most part it is people like me, who don't bring their ten kids and don't scream at their boyfriends down the aisle and generally are just nice quiet people who need food. Not so with the cheap place. But often after I spend a lot of money at the nice grocery I say "next time I will go to the cheap place". So yesterday I did. It was awful. Kids. Screaming. And just stupidity. I think there are few places where people go as autistic as grocery stores and airports. Somehow we manage to drive our cars around all the time and not hit people. But give those drivers a grocery cart and let the demolition derby begin. I mean, why would you look where you were going? You're trying to find cereal! Why not leave your cart smack in the middle of the aisle. I mean, no one else needs access to the shelves. You need soup! And it takes three of you to find it. The other thing about this grocery store (home of the jerky section which I believe I mentioned in an earlier post) is the randomness of the items listed for the aisles. Usually they use broad categories, right? Like "Cereal" or "Soft Drinks". This place actually says "Pop Tarts". And you know what? They have a LOT of pop tarts there. There is an ethnic foods aisle, which is common (and a slight improvement on the store closer to my house which still boasts an Oriental Foods section which is really just rice and soy sauce) but they also have and Ethnic Beverages aisle. (It's mostly mexican soft drinks, but there's some other interesting stuff there including Inka Kola which is rarely seen outside Peru.) Anyway, I am not really sure who decides on these things. I suspect they have a sense of humor. And just to prove to you that I was not lying about the proliferation of cool whip in "salads" in Wisconsin, the Cool Whip section at the grocery store requires a refrigerated section with five access doors. Five. That's a lot of cool whip.

On Friday we went to two birthday parties. At the first party the birthday boy's wife had a bunch of people over to their house, there were a ton of kids there and she cooked a boatload of delicious Mexican food. It was fun, though conversations focused on home improvement, what a good burper someone's new baby is, how much fun someone had volunteering at recess for her kid's kindergarten class, and dogs. Everyone had a beer or two, not much more, and people went home around 9. This is what happens if it is your birthday and you have three kids. Our other friends went out to a pizza place, ate tons of mediocre food, drank martinis, and when they were done there went over to a wine bar for more wine and martinis. Talk centered around volleyball, so and so's new boyfriend, and some discussion of the Yankees game which was playing in the background. I will allow you to choose your own adventure. If you prefer party A, you need to get married and procreate in the suburbs soon. If you prefer B surround yourself with actively dating/newly married people without kids. I am not sure which is better, truthfully.

I hate the Yankees and I hope they lose tonight.
the end.

Here in Wisconsin, and it is not just myth, people love dairy. A lot. If you can add a dairy product, you had better bet any self-respecting Wisconsin cook'll do it. Why have hash browns when you can have cheesy hashbrowns? Why not accompany every meal with milk? Many 'salads' here are made with copious amounts of mayonnaise. Fruit salad usually includes cool whip, jello, or both. For the most part, I'll admit, I am on board with this whole dairy thing. I mean, fried cheese curds are deeeeeeelicious. But often they go overboard. I think this is particularly true when combining vegetables and dairy. I sort of like the vegetables to counteract all the other stuff. But today I was in a campus deli, and I saw something truly frightening. Now, before I tell you what it was, I should say that this particular deli really does not make me feel like eating. It has one of the worst cafeteria smells you have ever encountered. There is always a selection of hot meals, none of which I have ever eaten, with perhaps the exception of the occasional grilled sandwich. It involves a lot of stuff that reminds me of airplane food. The overall cleanliness of the facility leaves something to be desired. So, I just go there for pre-packaged food and beverages. You know, some chips or something. Anything where the contents were never exposed inside of this place. So in addition to hot food there are pre-prepared sandwiches and salads. And that's where it gets ugly. The sandwiches look a little dry, but if you were starving you'd eat one. But then today, I saw something that was never meant to exist. I saw it from the side. It looked like peas....and something milky...and...could it be? cheddar cheese? So I cautiously peered at the lid where it proudly proclaimed "Pea and Cheese Salad". I am not kidding. I felt utterly revolted and left as soon as possible, having lost my appetite even for some chocolate milk or a baked cheeto. Pea and cheese salad? What's delicious about that? Not melted cheese. Just a big chunk of cheese, floating in there with the peas and the milk? or was it mayo? does it matter? Oh lord. I still feel traumatized. I may not ever go there again.

On another note about that deli. There are four women that work there. One of them has, quite possibly, the nastiest finger nails I have ever seen. They only cover about half the amount of area as a normal finger nail, and they are filthy, rough and corroded. She certainly has a fungus. (This does not make me want to eat their food.) But for some reason, she insists on keeping a partial, chipped, worn out coat of pink metallic nail polish on her nasty little nail stubs. Why? It doesn't help. I can still tell what they really look like. In fact, it almost makes it worse. Like she didn't bother to actually try and get them clean, or to grow in. She just slaps a coat of paint on there and hopes we won't notice. I notice. And I bet I'm not the only one.

handicapped access

yesterday I walked over to pick up a new printer for my office. To do this I dragged one of those dolly/hand cart things. This gave me the opportunity to experience the handicapped accessibility of the surrounding buildings. It's awful. One door where I tried pressing the button it didn't work at all. Apparently if you can't open a door that's just your tough luck. But at least that's something that can be fixed. On my building, however, it's even worse. If you press the button for the door at the top of the ramp, it just de-energizes the door (making it easier to open) but you still have to pull it open by hand. That doesn't make any sense at all. If you can't open a regular door because you are in wheelchair, you can open a de-energized door either. Especially since the door opens out, which means that even if you are strong enough the physics of it are all wrong. Now, I understand they are complying with the law that says it they have to have the access, but this particular enactment of the law is pretty half assed. The other thing is that they recently moved the center for students with disabilites over to this side of campus. Instead of being in its old location which was right on a busy corner in the middle of campus, and quite easy to get to, they have moved it into an old library, which is probably the least accessible place on campus. It has stair access to all doors on all sides. I am not kidding. I mean, what kind of cruel joke is that? How mean. Now the center is not only in a building no one has ever heard of and knows how to find, but if you are in a wheelchair you can't get there. So, apparenlty about a month after they moved it they figured it out, and put in a ramp across the road which allows one to get down to a level where you can then go down a steep driveway and across to the building. Very accessible. Genius.

okay, despite my post yesterday I have decided to come out of retirement. Yesterday at the gym I saw a notice for Intramural Dodgeball. So, although I swore off competitive sports I have decided dodgeball is worth a comeback.


I am totally kidding. I would rather eat my own eyes than play dodgeball. Why would anyone want to play dodgeball? It's awful. People throw things at you and you are supposed to throw them back. My last memory of dodgeball was in the fifth grade staring in to the mean eyes of the tallest kid in my class, Charles Howard. You really felt like that kid would throw it as hard as he could right at your head completely on purpose without feeling a single second of remorse. I wonder what happened to Charles. Maybe he's still in fifth grade tormenting young kids. In any case, dodgeball seems really un-fun. I am not quite sure why it's so popular in elementary school gym. Kickball, that I understand. Madison has a thriving kickball league (I am totally serious) and that makes sense. It's like baseball but easier. It is not filled with malice. But dodgeball? Pure evil. Needless to say I will not be signing up. [Side note: when spell checking I accidentally replaced all incidences of dodgeball with the word deducible. Ha. I think I got them all back, but now you know just in case.]

So, it's funny that I just saw this posting about deducible because just this weekend I was watching the movie Dodgeball with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughan on HBO. It's not that great of a movie, though it has it's funny moments. But my question is, when did Ben Stiller decide that he can only play totally ridiculous characters in movies that aren't as funny as they're supposed to be? I mean, really. Zoolander? Maybe he's decided that's his niche market, but I really feel like we might be able to expect something better out of Ben Stiller. Somehow I feel like his character in Something About Mary is who Ben Stiller is, but maybe I'm wrong. But I feel as though he's really heading in to Rob Schneider territory, and that's not anywhere that someone with ambition wants to be. So, Ben, if you're reading start doing better movies before you become the butt of your own joke.

deep in the heart of Texas

so, for years and years my friend Chad has been talking about moving to Texas. But it has always been all talk no action. But then he finally moved there. To some tiny, shit kicker town called Wimberley which is (I think) about 45 minutes from Austin. Now he has a blog to tell the stories of his adventures in Texas. Since he was kind enough to send his five readers over here, and since we have been friends for a long long time, I thought it was only fair that I send my five readers back at him. So if you want to read his Texas Adventures, head on over to his new blog. Now the main part may not be that interesting (what, you don't care what wiscolizard's friend Chad ate for lunch?) but for music fans there is a whole section of concert reviews. Basically he moved to Texas to a) see as many shows as possible and b) work as little as possible and still support a). So if you like the kind of music I quote here, or any music that might play in Austin perhaps you will enjoy.

Yesterday afternoon I went to a step aerobics class. Call me Jane Fonda, but I rather like step. Anyway, I was afraid that it would be full of 18 year olds because this particular gym is right next to a bunch of freshman dorms. I decided that if that was the case I would just leave. But I get there and it's not like that at all. But something seems strange. The teacher is talking and I feel as though something is not right. And then I realize - the teacher is a guy. Now, you may not think this is all that strange. But I have been to a LOT of aerobics classes over the years, and I have never ever had a boy step teacher. Sometimes they teach group weightlifting. And lots of boys teach spinning. And maybe cardio kickboxing, or the "boot camp" which is really a class and which I am totally afraid of. But not step. It's just so...girly. Usually there aren't even boys in the class, though oddly enough yesterday there were two (out of about 15 total people).

So, the truth is, this boy step teachers was pretty effeminate. In a very musical theatre sort of way. In fact, I missed the part where he introduced himself so I decided to call him Pippen. I don't really know anything about Pippen but somehow it suited him. Unfortunately he was a little too peppy. "You come here to have fun! You come here to be motivated! Let's see you smIIIIIle. " Oh for pete's sake. I come here to burn off the calories I drank last night. And those of you who are long term readers may remember a post where I said aerobics teachers like to ask how you are and you are supposed to woo. Well, last night he asked us how we were. No response. And then he says (and I swear I am not making this up) "Come on you guys, you have to WOO!" And there is something kind of awful about hearing a 20-something guy say "Over the top!" in his best Jim J. Bullock impersonation. I mean, the peppy girls are bad but at least you can imagine that they were former cheerleaders and just need an outlet for all that positive energy. The other bad thing was that this was the first time the guy had ever taught step. He was not all that good at it. It was too easy, which meant there was a lot of repetition which is bad because it gives you time to think about how awful it is that you are stepping up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down. Oh well, he tried.

The other funny thing was I moved my step a couple minutes into class because I realized I was craning my neck to see the teacher. I put it behind one of the guys in the class who was kind of a slick looking gentleman (as in slicked back hair). So apparently in his mind I had moved to be closer to him, which meant he wanted to keep checking me out to see if I was checking him out (which I was not). Funnier still was that every time he tried to turn around and check me out he would get confused and mess up, which didn't make that great of an impression.

sports

I love sports. Much more than your average girl. I particularly favor baseball and college basketball (as in I take time off for March Madness) but I will watch almost anything. I like to watch golf. I don't especially care for football, though I will cheer for the Packers and the Badgers. Anyway, I know a lot about sports. But I have decided that I really should never, ever play sports. Ever again.

So, in high school I played sports. I wasn't that good, but it was high school. I played four years of softball one one of the most consistently god awful teams ever put together. We sucked. Big time. Then, for one year I played volleyball. Truthfully, it is a shame I didn't play more volleyball because it was one of the only sports that I think I have a small amount of natural talent for. Anyway, I played and I enjoyed it. Sort of. I am really not a very competitive person, so the whole competition thing mostly gave me stomachaches. I even played softball in college for our club team, but really I wasn't that good. So then once I left school I mostly stopped playing sports. I played a season or two on a couple of softball teams, but I hadn't really played in years. Then I made some friends with some sports players, and all of a sudden thought I could play. I joined a co-ed volleyball team last winter. It was okay - I mean, I'm no Karch Kiraly but I didn't totally humiliate myself. Then I started playing racquetball. I had played in college but not really at all since. I'm not that good. At all. I entered a tournament. I lost to a thirteen year old. I retired from racquetball. I remembered how much I hate competitive sports. Then, for some reason, when a friend asked me to play on a co-ed softball team I said yes. I don't know why. I shouldn't have done it. But I did. The season is almost over. I have done very little to redeem myself. A handful of RBIs. A couple of runs scored. That's about it. And they make me play outfield. It is worth mentioning here that I have no depth perception. Well, not none but so little that I failed that part of the eye exam at the dmv. So outfield, not so much. What makes it worse is that my husband is extremely athletic. Everyone wants him on their team. He's good at everything. It doesn't matter if he's never played before. So he always tries to get me to play sports. No more. I am not falling for it. I will stick to my little aerobics classes. Yoga. Anything where you can't cause other people to lose. Because although I don't care about losing, usually other people on my team do. And frankly, I don't need that kind of pressure. So I will sit on my butt and cheer for the red sox and eagerly await the college basketball season and sell all my sports equipment at my next yard sale just so I don't get tempted. I am officially retiring from everything. the end.