This week's Bay Guardian Wank of the Week is a little different this time. Instead of going with a "I've studied lots and lots of post-modernist theory. I'm smart!" snippet, I'm instead going with a "I'm so hip I need to be bitch-slapped" snippet.

From the opening paragraph about the story on this week's Ladyfest 2004-

"THE DAY I left Olympia, Wash., in early August 2000 at the end of Ladyfest, a five-day celebration of women's work in arts and activism, I had a lot on my mind. The long list of agenda items included such diverse topics as what I might contribute to my new friend P.J.'s zine, how I would find time to teach myself to play bass guitar, whether it was true you could use soy milk instead of wheat paste to put up flyers, and what it would take to get the Gossip to come play in my town."


Which reminds me of this thing I wrote a long, long time ago after returning from a friend's bachelor party in Vegas:

"The day I left Vegas, in spring 1997 at the end of Tony's Bachelor Party, a three day celebration of boozing, babes, and black jack, I had a lot on my mind. The long list of agenda items included such diverse topics as when to double-down and when not to, does blacking out and waking up right underneath the Roller Coaster at New York, New York a sign I had too many Gin n' Tonics , where not to put my hands during a lap-dance, and what it would take to go wash the puke off my Hawaiian shirt. "

Another interview today, this time with Super-Mondo Corporation somewhere in the Peninsula. I know it's a job and things are looking pretty bleak for yours truly these days, but I really do hate job interviews in the Peninsula. I don't have a car so I have to take pub trans and since none of the places are right by pub trans, it's always an ordeal to get there. It's either train/train/bus or train/train/walk or train/bus/cab or some sort of variation on those listed. It usually takes pretty much half a day to go down there and they can get kind of pricey, whether it be for cab fare, things to entertain myself for the hour-long train ride, or lunch. Considering how many of these interviews I've done and considering how well they've all gone, I'm really loathe to have to do it again. Still, it's a job and Super Mondo Corporation wants to throw gobs of money at me, so I'm off.

On my way there, I go to get a ticket for the CalTrain portion of the trip when just as I get to the machine, the train comes. I have a decision to make- buy the ticket and possibly miss the train or not buy a ticket and make the train but risk getting busted. CalTrain has one of those Honor System type systems wherein you're supposed to buy a ticket and nobody checks to see if you have a ticket, but occasionally they'll have the Ticket Police on board checking. If you don't have a ticket, you get sited. I've done CalTrain with both a ticket and without a ticket and in all the times I've taken the train, I've never been asked to show them my ticket. In fact, I can't even remember seeing any sort of guy checking tickets. I also know I have a pretty good excuse, I'm willing to throw down and give the guy money if need be, and I'm only about four stops away. So I risk it. There's no chance of getting busted, right?

I got busted.

I was sitting there, one stop away from the stop that I have to get off when the squirelly bald short guy with a bad moustache and obvious Napoleonic small-guy issues asked for my ticket. I told him I didn't have one and that I had to run from BART to CalTrain straight without getting a ticket because I needed to make the train. He didn't buy it. He tells me basically that whatever the next stop is, I need to get off and buy myself a ticket. As my stop was the next one, I said okay, fine by me, and thought that was the end of it. Phew.

The guy takes about four steps away from me, then turns around and asks me what stop I'm getting off at. Now we have another decision to make. I could lie and tell him I'm getting off at like San Jose so that getting off at the next stop to buy a ticket then waiting for the next train wouldn't be that big of a deal. Or I could tell him the truth and hope he'll be cool and let me go considering I've only been on the thing for about ten minutes. Turns out short, bald, badly moustached guy with Napoleon Complex isn't cool. He radios someone else on the train and tells me that I'm gonna get sited.

My stop comes and we get off. Another Ticket Cop meets him and they stand there, radio in the information to Ticket Cop HQ and write me up. Now this is taking awhile to figure out and since both of the Ticket Checking Cops are riding the train, the train can't start until they finish up. Which basically means the train is now held up because they're busy writing me a ticket. Not to mention that everyone is now staring at me wondering why I'm holding the train up. I get the ticket, they hop on the train, and that ends that.

The end result of all of this? I have to friggin go to court next month. In San Mateo.

Dear Teresa Heniz Kerry- We love ya. We really do. You gave an interview with Christopher Mathews on MSNBC and it turned into one of the most interesting political discussions we've ever seen on TV. And, we love the fact that you look like the type of person who likes nothing better than to come home after a hard day of whatever you spend a hard day of doing and drink a (really, really expensive) glass of wine or three. We got a feeling you like to get loopy, if you know what I mean and I think you do, and we love "opiniated" women who like to get loopy. But we got this really, really bad feeling you're about to get chewed up and spit out alive. Luckily, you're probably strong enough to handle most of it, but it's gonna come fast and it's gonna come hard (ummm, maybe I should rephrase that). After your speech, the guys At Fox almost pulled muscles competing with each other one who could say the most negative thing possible.

Good luck. You'll need it.

PS- Afterwards, on all the Pundit type shows, I couldn't but help notice that whenever one of the male-type pundits would say something bad about her "opinionated" line, the token female-like pundit would jump all over their ass. The Double-Token lady on Fox (Double-Token because she's both the token woman and the token woman) was almost so pissed off by what she was hearing she could barely speak. Have a feeling she's probably downing some vino with Teresa right now.

PPS- During somebody's speech, the camera was panning around for crowd reaction shots and lo and behold, in the back of one of the shots, was Frank Costanza. Well, Jerry Stiller, but he'll always be Frank Costanza to the rest of us. Would the Republicans have Frank Costanza at their Convention?

PPPS- We got a fever right now, Obama Fever!

I hate it when you're in a public place, like a store or somewhere, and somebody next to you starts talking and when you start paying attention to what they're saying, thinking the whole while that they're trying to engage you in small talk, you realize that they're actually crazy and they're talking to themselves.

There's a new Organic/Raw Foods restaurant that opened up across the street from me. Wonder what the reaction would be if I walked in with a leather jacket?

I'm kind of enjoying watching the Democratic Convention right now, even if I'm a little huffy that somehow, I wasn't one of the thirty or so bloggers invited to cover the thing. Or, like Wonkette, who I do love and whose job I want, given a gig to go hang out with Gideon and Sway on MTV and get to do the whole Voice of the Generation thing. I like watching it because it's like watching the pre-game game show for a playoff game and they're in the part of the program where all the analysts and commentators are sitting around talking how great your favorite team is and how much butt they could possibly kick. Plus, it's so nice to actually watch-for large uninterrupted portions- people making sense. Like people going up there and making reference to how the 2000 election was stolen and there not coming a lot of harumphing and "what, George Bush didn't really win the election?" from the usual sources. It was fricking stolen.

Sadly, I'm also noticing that somehow, Teresa Heinz Kerry's little "shove off" comment is gaining some sort of traction, especially on Fox News which is all over it like Ricky Williams on Thai stick . One has to wonder why it's gaining such traction considering the President's Underling (or is the President really the Vice Presidents Underling?) just told another Senator what he could go do with himself. Is it just another case of the Liberal Media striking again or only because Teresa had the misfortune of saying what she did while being videotaped? And if it does become a major story, could the political press be more lame?

As happy as I am with the way things are going and content with the nomination of ole horse-head himself (is it me or is the best approximation of John Kerry's face the guy screaming in the Edward Much painting, "The Scream?"), I still can't wish somebody will bitch-slap some sense in him when he can't even answer a sports question without hemming and hawing and not answering the damn question. One does have a feeling that it must take John Kerry about ten minutes to order a sandwich.

I do not have a DVD player. I'm okay with it.

Obviously, I can't really afford one right now. I'm also not fully convinced that DVD's aren't just some other scam that'll get people to plunk down hundreds of bucks on DVD's and Special Edition DVD collections only to find themselves having to purchase some new gadget and that new gadets' Special Edition collection years later. We are consumer bitches, after all.

Still, I can't but help feel a little verklempt about the fact that everytime I go to the video store, there's less and less room taken up for videos and more and more room given to DVDs. After all, if I wanted to go to a DVD store, I'd go to one. I'm going to a Video store. It's not only harder to find movies these days but I'm guessing there's also less and less titles available to make up for the influx of things like the Director's Cut of the 15th Anniversary Special Edition of Uncle Buck. I also kind of feel that in some way, I am being discriminated against. I am now a lesser being, a less wanted being. I am a luddite. I am not with it, I am not hip, and I am definitely not what to whom they want to sell.

I am a home-theater loser.

We here at Hooray For Anything are thoroughly enjoying the great Britney Implosion of 2004. In fact, we are, and we are loathe to admit it, looking forward to Britney having a long career of being nothing but Tabloid fodder for our bemused amusement. After all, somebody has to be our sacrifical gossip goats. We do not, however, have anything to say about these photos. They're a little, umm, too hard to swallow.

Attention everyone! Attention everyone!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast of Hooray For Anything to give you this very important announcement:

A WHITE GIRL IS MISSING! I REPEAT A WHITE GIRL IS MISSING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DROP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING AND WATCH MSNBC/FOX/CNN BECAUSE A WHITE GIRL IS MISSING!

We know return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

This Kabbalah Kraze is getting out of hand. Recent purported converts are that guy who plays Fez on "That '70's Show" and current girlfriend, nipple bearing, ex-jailbait hottie Lindsey Lohan. Yes, it's even truer than it's ever been- we Jews are hot.

As a member of the Tribe, I welcome the sudden trendiness of going Jewish. After all, the numbers of the Tribe are rapidly decreasing due to intermarriage, an annoying habit of getting massacred, and a commendable belief in minding one's own business and, unlike certain religions I could mention, not trying to convert anyone. Which doesn't necessarily mean that we don't like to convert, we just don't actively go out of our way to do it (who needs to, we're chosen!). Still, as the numbers of Jews who for whatever reason have given up the faith are increasing, it's nice to get some back as it were.

Now we here at Hooray for Anything do love our Jewish women and find a lot of them pretty damn hot. However, now that the ranks of Jewish women are being filled with hot female celebrities, we think it's time to start attending Jewish Singles Events again.

And between the guy who plays Fez and his Ashtonness, that's two members of the cast of "the 70's Show" who have now gone Jewish. Oh please, can Laura Prepon be next?

I was stuffing envelopes at this week's crazy temp job (more about that later-maybe) and I noticed that one of the envelopes was going to an unfortunate sole with the name of "Richard Putz."

How much are you willing to bet that he never goes by "Dick?"

And this week's Bay Guardian Wank of the Week-

This one's actually a tough one because I couldn't decide between two parts from the same article (actually, the entire column is one big huge wank-off). I could have gone with the 78 letter opening- hell the entire opening paragraph- but instead, I chose this tiny bit.

It's from a review of some obscure (natch) Japanese movie. In this segment, the author somehow starts discussing the "Carol Burnett Show."

Don't ask

"As anyone who grew up on a steady diet of The Carol Burnett Show might have recognized, such temptations toward inappropriately demolishing the ostensible intent of a given dramatic moment were one of the show's performative mainstays. Time and again, costars Harvey Korman and Tim Conway would go ham-to-ham with one another during a tepid send-up or straight-faced bit of satire, only to surrender themselves to chaos as their scowls began to melt into trembling sneers, shatter into seismic smirks, and finally collapse into all-out hilarity, destroying any potential narrative momentum that might have accrued, even as they managed to double the audience's in-on-the-gag sense of delight."

All that for The folks who gave us Dorf and Hedley Lamarr.

There's nothing more heartwarming, more life-affirming then Smackheads in love. There they were, all dirty and scabby, basking in the glow of their love, a hugging and a kissing right in front of the DeCroix toilet as it was being deloused. As I rushed by on the way to BART, the man, a Smackhead of Color, sang to the heavens of his love of his White Chick Smackhead of a girlfriend "White Chicks are Fine/And this one is mine/White Chicks are Fine/And this one is Mine."

I know, brings a tear to the eye just picturing it.

There's this whacky story in the paper today about some Republican Headquarters in Kentucky displaying bumper stickers that have as it's slogan `Kerry is bin Laden's Man. Bush is Mine.'' Obviously a little bit over the top and not very uniter, not a divider. For some reason, I was kind of intrigued about how they'd handle this over at the ole "Fair and Balanced" news station, Fox News. Why you may ask? Because whenever a Democrat even looks at Bush funny, all the yap dogs over at Fox, especially Sean Hannity goes into full hyperventilation mode, blasting the Dems for the usual sins of being hateful, sodomizing, Bin Laden loving, Frenchies. With the tables finally turned, I wanted to see if they'd deal with it. Hell, I wanted to see if Allan Colmes would even be allowed to bring it up.

They didn't and he wasn't.

Of course, it is a rather funky news day today, what with the whole Sandy Berger Stealing State Secrets thing. Yeah, Fox is all over it, but it is kind of serious and it does look kind of bad right now. Not to mention kind of funny when you think about it. I can just see Sandy Berger there, sitting at some table, looking nervously around to make sure nobody's watching and when he feels confident nobody is, makes that fake coughing sound as he scrunches up some papers. When that's done, he then fake drops his pencil so he can then stuff it down his socks. To discuss the story, they brough int Anne Coulter to discuss the Berger affair so we could have her usual insightful, enlightened, and sane commentary. They also did a bit about Linda Rondstad getting kicked out of Vegas for praising Michael Moore. Because that's hateful, not at all like the Kerry/Bin Laden bumper sticker.

Why oh why do I watch "Hannity and Comes"? Why do it do it to myself? The show gets my blood pressure rising like nothing else. I think I finally figured it out.

One of these days, Colmes is going to snap. Hannity will finally break the proverbial last straw and Colmes is going to go postal. He can do it too. He's the type. You know, small, meek and quiet-like. He's definitely the type of person who his neighbors will later say "he was a nice quiet guy." Those types are always the one who snaps.

So that's why I watch the show. Because one day I'm going to flip on it and see Colmes standing over a cowering Sean Hannity, looking a little bit like the famous shot of Cassius Clay standing over Sonny Liston, screaming "say my name, bitch say my name!" and I want to see it.

Another day, another crazy interview….

Person who I'm supposed to talk to calls from a cell phone. While driving. Okay, I can deal. I've done this before. Person who I'm supposed to talk to talks to me while parking. Badly.

I guess her car was parked a little too much to one side because in the middle of the conversation, the person driving the car next to her got in the car and wound up slamming her door into the side of her. Then drove off as if nothing happened. And lucky me got to hear the whole thing go down

When do you know you're One Day Only Temp Assignment as Towel Picker-Upper is becoming the never-ending Temp Assignment?

-When everyone knows who you are and even notice when you get a haircut
-When other employees think you're a regular employee and asks you questions about things like Orientation meetings or time cards
-When everyone assumes that you've worked there more than the five days that you have and gets slightly huffy when you don't know the little things. Things like how to clean hair brushes or fold robes
-You become confused on how to do things because four different people have told you four different things
-You start figuring out which things you should do as opposed to others based on your reading of office politics (ie, the crazy Chinese women with painted on eyebrows and a wig is even crazier than you thought and not well liked by the extremely anal retentive German lesbian who manages the place).
-Everyone expects you to know enough to know what to do, but not enough to get it right so whenever something goes wrong or somebody does something wrong, it is automatically assumed that it is you who did it.

And finally….

-When you start thinking you could turn semi-regular One Day Only Temp job into a steady part-time gig because you know they're shorthanded but become kind of disappointed when you look at this week's schedule and notice that they found somebody to take the open spot.

Oh, and there's a sign in the break room that essentially says this: "If asked, please do not say that we 'raised' prices. Instead, tell them that we 'revised' the menu."

Iran. It was Iran. Turns out Iran was the country that had connections to Al Queda, not Iraq.

Go figure that one, huh?

Crazy little thing about it, actually. Turns out that what happened is that the guy at the CIA who was typing up all the reports that the President read concerning Al Queda screwed up while doing spell-check. See, spell check asked whether he should change "Iran" to "Iraq" and because it looked so close together and because he was in a rush, he hit the "change all" button by accident. Next thing you know, we invaded Iraq.

Oopsie.

OH MY GOD! I totally had the coolest job on Friday. I got to work at Nordstrom's at the Mall! I've been totally dying to work at the mall since like forever but never had. Now I can say that I did!

My job was to spend the day taking clothes from the women's fitting room and putting them back on the rack. For eight hours! And the best part? It was like in the women's boutique section! I know! All day I got to hang up totally expensive name-brand clothes that were all totally fabulous. I mean, what else could you say about t-shirts that cost fifty bucks!

Well, I thought they were totally fabulous, but this guy Jon who worked with me said they were fugly. He said that they were the kind of clothes that botoxed asexual career women purchased in their mid 40's when they realized that they had nothing left to do but spend wads of money on expensive name-brand clothes to fill the empty spaces of their lives. But he was just a bitter old meany. He was like really old, in his mid 30's or something and even though we totally thought he was in charge of everything and kept on asking him what to do all day, it turns out he was just a temp too. God, imagine being in your 30's and having to temp at Nordstrom's for a day. What a loser. I'd like totally shoot myself if I was like that. He like told me that after lunch he'd go to the men's room every half an hour and sit on the toilet because it was the only place he could sit and not get in trouble. And then he spent most of the day being totally upset because some guy named Brew was leaving. Like what-ever.

Anyways, the job was like totally fun but hard. Like, you had to remember which kind of hanger went with each type of clothes. The outer wear had a curved hangar but the non-outer wear had a straight hanger and a specific brand had a wood hanger but all the others just had a metal one. I know, it's like so confusing. I was putting some clothes back on the rack and the mean old lady who wasn't even the manager told me I was doing it wrong and made me go back and put the clothes back on the correct hanger. What a beyatch.

The weird thing about the job is that even though it was the women's boutique, I was the only girl working there. I mean, it was like all women's clothes and we like spent most of our day hanging out in the women's changing room. There was one guy, though, who was really excited to be there. He would like totally sing along to every song played over the store stereo system. Everbody loved him because he'd tell all the women who were trying on clothes how great they looked and called everyone sweety or honey. I bet he'd be like this totally awesome guy to date! Jon wanted to deck him late in the day for what he said was excessive caring, but I talked him out of it. I think he got back at the guy though when he told the manager as he was leaving that he didn't know where the other guy was and hadn't seen him in awhile when we all knew that he totally ditched out of work two hours before his shift was up.

Oh wait. This is the best part! There was like this totally cute guy who worked in the "Encore" section which is what Nordstrom's calls the section for fat chicks. He like totally asked me out for pizza afterwards! Between that and the new Hillary Duff movie, this is like the best week eva!!!!!!!

"I Love the 90's?" Not doing it for me. Not doing it for me at all. Besides, how can they do Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and Quantam Leap (Quantam Leap!) but no "Buffy"? Hel-lo?

From this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian":

An article on the new movie "The Hunting of the President" about the vast right wing conspiracy that actually did exist starts off thusly-

"I'm not sure I completely understood what that loony Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz said to me way back in the spring of 1997:

"The paradigm of many stories exist[s] by conceit. Sometimes concrete stories hide abstract events, abstract situations – like the construction of roots by Charlemagne. It is called – in a literal translation – a 'galley net.' A system of roots, built by Charlemagne and his men, become a woman.... Let's say Clinton tried to build a system to go to a different planet. This system will become the Clinton mistress, in the future. So this is a variation on what could be called the immortal story paradigm."

Jovial, semiopaque, the description can't help but apply to every appearance of Clinton I've seen since then"

Say what?

I guess the big political news is that somehow Bush's approval rating for his "War on Terror" went up by 5% over the past week. This despite the fact that in the past week, the Senate issued a report that basically states that the CIA's Iraqi WMD report was a total my bad. Not to mention the news that came with it that out of a 93 page intelligence report detailing all the supposed WMD programs and all the caveats and possible maybe-not's, Bush only read a one page summation of the report. Which is kind of like doing a book report on "Moby Dick" by only reading the Amazon.com review, getting it wrong, then claiming that it doesn't matter anyways because Herman Melville is an evil-doer. All of which proves the point that if you repeat the phrase "America is safer" over and over again, ad nauseum with a big, huge ugly backdrop that says "Protecting America" with a big bald Eagle on it, people are gonna be banged over the head with so much that they'll start thinking it. Even if the very-same White House issued a report a few months back saying essentially, well whadda ya know, there has been more terrorism over the past couple of years. Or even if the President's very own Homeland Security Department recently announced that there's a sort-of, maybe, slight, we're not exactly sure, chance that there might be a big terrorist attack around election time. Apparently America's sense of irony isn't as finely tuned as we thought. But maybe the point is, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, to make everyone scared enough to forget about the Edwards nomination, but not so scared enough that we'll punish Bush for not protecting us.

Then there's Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post who has an interesting look at the way things are going:

I have no quarrel with folks who are trying to make up their minds between Bush and Kerry. What drives me crazy is voters who are not undecided but willfully ignorant. That is, they can't make up their minds because they pay so little attention to politics.

I thought about this after reading a Washington Post interview with Charlotte McFarland, an Arkansas woman who has lost a number of jobs. She said she's definitely not voting for Bush. Fine. But then she said:

"I don't know about Mr. Kerry. I just don't know where he stands on the issues."

Excuse me, but it's not all that hard to find out. Pick up a newspaper, grab a magazine, turn on the television, listen to the radio. Kerry's positions are out there. He repeats them every day.

As Randall Carver, the Imperial Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan would say on the Howard Stern show, "Wake up White People!"

I will have to say this about the President, though, his drunken floozy of a daughter, Jenna, is pretty damn hot.

Written on Sunday
From my computer, I can look straight ahead out the window towards Twin Peaks. Right now, the fog is rolling in, from over the hills like an avalanche. It's thick and white and massive, obscuring everything in it's way. I can't see the top of the hill, I can't see the slope of the hill that leads into the Castro. It's almost surreal, like somebody took a shot of hill, then super-imposed a whole other background behind it. As I stare at it, I wonder when it'll come flowing towards me, enveloping me in the fog. It never comes.

I worked at the spa again today, further continuing along my lifelong ambition of picking up people's towels. What can I say? It's money. And, as a friend pointed out, a great place to meet 40 year old divorcee's looking for a young or not so young buck to be their kept man. I can do that.

Sometime during the morning, two women who were eating called me over to them. One of them told me that while it looked like they were done, they still wanted to finish up, or at least finish off their coffee. They were both going to run to the bathroom but wanted to make sure that room service didn't take their food away. It being a five-star hotel and a first-rate spa, I am, of course, their service bitch. I told them it would be no problem and that I'd guard their coffee with my life.

They both take off and I start to wonder just what it is that I should do to make sure their tray wasn't taken. Normally the room service guy just randomly appears out of nowhere for no rhyme or reason and as a result, we, the spa attendants, have to put it away. Still, I knew it would be just my luck that I'd leave the tray there and it would get taken away. So I stood around it, thinking the whole time that I was going way, way, over and above the call of duty. Did I really need to stand there, guarding the tray like a bodyguard? I'm supposed to keep moving, keep picking things up. How would I explain my just standing there, watching over a half-finished tray of breakfast?

I started to clean up the stuff around the area, making sure the tray was always in my sight. Noticing the water needed to be refilled, I grabbed a pitcher, opened the door into the labyrinth of hallways that made up the belly of the hotel where an ice chest stood, only to stumble upon the room service guy. He was on his way in. Here was my chance.

I told him what was up with the tray, even followed him to the table where the tray was, explaining to him that the women weren't finished yet and that they were in the bathroom. If he wanted to, I told him, he could take the food but had to absolutely positively leave the coffee. He nodded his head in acknowledgement and thinking my job was done, I headed off for my break. I did what I said I'd do, I told him what to do and he had heard me. I could stand over him to make sure he did the right thing, but that would be dicky and I didn't want to be dicky. How could he not do what I told him?

Fifteen minutes later I got back from my break and was doing rounds by the pool and was called over yet again by one of the woman. In a polite, yet pissed off tone of voice, she told me that when she and her friend got back from the bathroom, everything was gone. The food, the coffee, even the table. I apologized, told her I did everything I could. She said it was no big deal, but in that way that let me know it wasn't really alright.

I'm doing a service job. Which means my main goal is to provide service (ie- pamper their rich, spoiled massaged asses, and yes, I'm jealous much). This woman basically gave me one little request, one simple little thing, and I did it. Except for the fact that the pimply faced teenage kid playing waiter fucked it all up. I followed him out the door, told him exactly what to do, and yet he didn't do it. Any of it. And I'm the one who has to get bitched at. While it's no big deal and it's not like I got in trouble or it's not even like I care that much if I got in trouble, it's the principal of the matter.

One more thing about today, it was Birthday day at the spa and the place was full of twenty-something women, all celebrating someone's birthday, girl's day out style. Out on the patio, there was a gaggle of them, all blonde and overly-skinny, drinking champagne. Mid-way through the raised champagne glass, "Happy Birthday" toast, I poked my head into the patio to make my patio round. I thus ensured that said birthday toast was completely ruined when every single one of the women turned their heads to see who had just poked their head through the door. I then proceeded to drag my ego down further notches than it's already down when, as part of my job, 36 year old unemployed me asked about seven blonde woman in bikini's if there was anything they needed me to pick up for them.

The Chron's movie critic had a column in today's paper in which he describes his favorite scenes from his favorite movies. It's a pretty fun article as it's a pretty fun question. So I thought about it. I love movies and I've seen thousands of movies so what is my favorite scene from a movie? After thinking upon all the movies I've seen- the arty ones and the hits ones and the dumb ones and the classic ones, I finally realized what my favorite scene from a movie is.

My favorite scene from a movie is when what had been a completely stunned and quiet crowd suddenly erupts into applause and Farmer Hogget to turn to Babe and tells him "that'll do, pig ."

That scene gets me every time.

So, according to Liquid Generation, If I were a Movie Villian, I'd be:



Great, I'm even bumbling on some stupid internet quiz.

But, if I were a John Hughes Movie Character, I'd be-



Considering all the Anthony Michael Hall options, I'd say that's not so bad.

And, finally, if I were a Tennis Hottie, I'd be-


Although, to paraphrase Steve Martin, If I were Anna Kournikova, I'd never leave the house.

Friday's Headline in the New York Times:

Bin Laden Is Said to Be Organizing for a U.S. Attack

Now there's a suprise.

Here's my question- do newspapers actually write this story everytime it appears, or do they have some sort of template in which they just drop all the particulars in it? Or maybe the editor looks at a calendar (or polling data) and just tells the reporter to go ahead and start writing the story for every major upcoming event.

By the way, I'm sure Fox News will be all over this story:

PAKISTAN FOR BUSH. July Surprise?

Here's the money quote:

"But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs (High Value Targets) by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections." Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations--according to a recently departed intelligence official, "no timetable[s]" were discussed in 2002 or 2003--but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt.

Dear Interviewers,

If you haven't read my resume before I go in there for an interview, could you at least pretend you did? Asking if I have experience doing a certain thing when it's pretty much line 1 of my resume or saying "Oh good" when I mention something that is an entire section of my resume doesn't really cut it. I know, I know, resumes don't really mean anything and that any sort of hiring decision comes down to personality, chemistry, being a "good fit", blah, blah, blahcakes, but still, it would be nice to know that my resume means something. I did spend a lot of time on it. it's got bullet points and a nice design. Plus, it would be nice to know that you, how shall I say it, actually care.

Had my first Cool Ass Celebrity Sighting in a long time today. While walking through downtown SF, I saw Geddy Lee and his kids. Geddy, of course, is the base player in Rush (duh). I know, not quite up there with pissing in the urinal next to James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins (my best celebrity sighting), but still kind of cool. Especially since I saw them twice as a youngster, my first full-blown dry ice, laser, and drum solo show. Not to mention songs about Trees.

Well, I thought it was pretty cool.

This morning my supervisor came up to me and told me he wanted to have a meeting to talk about "an opportunity." Considering he started off at the bank as a temp, making the leap from temp to manager within six months (!), and that he's got a bunch of other employees who are temps, could "opportunity" mean long-term to possible full-time temp job? The Holy Grail of Temping? Sure, being an accountant at a bank hasn't exactly been my life-long dream but if you're gonna have to take a crappy-ass job to pay the rent, there's worst places to be. There's free coffee, internet access, a subsidized cafeteria, freedom to listen to music, and the all important Office Infatuation. Then again, "opportunity' could also mean taking a break from entering data and filing by doing something else. Which my like is probably what it means.

Naturally, he didn't have time to talk about it today so I don't know whether or not I can go on a spending binge this weekend. Or stop sending in resumes for Admin positions. Or turn down another day long gig at the Health Spa. Hell, by the time it was apparent our meeting wasn't going to happen, I had already moved, bought a cell phone, and organized a camping trip. Maybe tomorrow.

Please, readers, give back to the community, sponsor a starving celebrity today.

I gave.

There's nothing I love better than when a friend calls up and says that he's got tickets to a Giants game and wants to know if I want to go. Even if the Giants still somehow blow a 6-1 lead. While there, I asked him the big question- that being, of course, what would his at-bat song be (the at-bat song being the song a baseball player asks the PA to play when he goes up to bat). All of this led to a lengthy discussion of just what the ultimate at-bat song would be.

The following is a list of songs that would make awesome at-bat songs so if any baseball players need suggestions as to what their at-bat song should be, we suggest these….

(To make this work, you have to picture the scene- the crowd is rocking, the game is tight, and the batter comes up to the plate too…..)

"Girlfriend in a Coma" the Smiths
"Dancing Queen" Abba
"Express Yourself" (you know the crowd will go nuts the moment these words come over the loudspeaker-"Come on girls/Do you believe in love? cause I got something to say about it")
"Lovecats" the Cure
" Chains of Love" Erasure
"Pretty Vacant" Sex Pistols
"Lively Up Yourself" Marley (and actually I like this one)
"Personal Jesus" Depeche Mode
"Wouldn't it be Nice" the Beach Boys
"Cocaine" Clapton
"Unchained" Van Halen (okay, not funny, but the opening riff frickin' rocks)

And if you want to make some sort of statement-

As poet guy:
"Like a Rolling Stone" Dylan (duh)

As inspirational, "can't everybody get along?" guy-
"One" U2
"One Heart" Marley
"Imagine" (nothing says baseball like "Imagine")

As "political statement" guy-
"Fight the Power" PE
"Killing in the Name Of" Rage Against the Machine (nothing works better after a hearty round of "God Bless America" like a chorus of "They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells")
"I'm so bored of the U.S.A." the Clash

As "ladies, I'll see you after the game guy"-
O.P.P
Sex Machine- James Brown
Whole Lotta Love- Zep

As "my uniform is made out of natural hemp" guy-
"Truckin"-the Dead
"Three Little Birds"-Marley
"Tomorrow Never Knows"-the Beatles

And finally, what we deemed as the best, greatest possible at bat song
Hall & Oates "Maneater"

(picture it in your head. Trust me, it's funny)

Hmmm…maybe I could start a whole bloggie meme here and have everyone come up with their suggestions. Of course, that would mean somebody actually reads this thing. Traffic's gone way done ever since Christina gave up the ho look.

We here at Hooray For Anything are thrilled by the selection of John Edwards as he already seems to have made John Kerry to be less of a pill just by being associated with him. We are also greatly looking forward to the VP debate when Smilin' John Edwards gets to take on the cuddly as a cactus Dick "go fuck yourself" Cheney.

I guess by now the time everybody's reading this, John Kerry has picked his Vice-President. Maybe that'll mean the press will actually start covering what he says as opposed to speculating out of their asses about stuff they had no idea about. First of all, please let it not be Gephardt. Second of all, even though I know he's going to make the announcement, wouldn't it be funny if he got up on that podium and with the entire political press corp baiting their breath to see who he announces, he says "psyche!" or tells everyone that his big announcement is that he thinks Nomar should be traded? Maybe have Ashton Kutcher come out and tell everyone they've been "Punk'd." Or maybe he'll go up there and pull a "Tootsie" and tell everyone he's really a woman. I love too how the press is saying how important it is to have a Vice President with experience because 9/11 showed the importance of one because of how the President was "unable to communicate" with Washington to take command that fateful morning. Which we all know now was merely because he was too busy reading "Happy Little Goat." As for who I want to be VP? Whatever. He could nominate Paris Hilton and I'd still vote for him.

I saw "Spiderman II" today. It's good, really good. I mean, it's really, really good. It totally and completely lived up to the hype and that's coming from somebody who was kind of meh on the first one. It was so good that I didn't even mind the fact that the theater we went to was so close to the airport that occasionally the theater shook from planes flying overhead. It was so good that I didn't mind the little kid behind me spilling coke all over the seats and spent most of the movie shuffling around and crying for his dad. Hell, it was so good that despite the fact that the theater seats were making my back feel like it was being thrown into a vise I didn't care. I wanted to get up and go for a walk to get out of all the pain I was in, but I didn't want to miss any part of the movie. It's just that good.

Seriously, but then I'm a sucker for super-heroes leaving a double life type stories (see "Buffy/Charmed" infatuation). There's also a sequence involving a train in there that is one for the books.

So on July4th, the birthday of the nation, I did the Spa Boy thing at the five star hotel again, picking up towels and cleaning the men's room. Insert your own political/social/economic commentary on the state of the Union here if you want ....

Why is it on those nights that you absolutely, positively can't get any sleep, it seems like you're finally able to hit that deep, sweet sleep that you've been craving all night about an hour before you have to wake up?