So I think my job problems are over. Today I got an e-mail about a job and I'm hella psyched because I think it's perfect. Randall Lakefish for Progressive Choices found my resume on "ZillionResumes" (I guess he didn't have to include the ".com" part since ZillionResumes is such a famous Web site) and e-mailed saying I would be a perfect fit. Among other things, it's "... a management level position. The average hourly wage works out to around $45.00 to $60.00 an hour depending on your level of activity."

Does it get any better than that? Apparently, I'll work on trying to sell "Project 21," which Mr. Lakefish tells me is a "leading reference guide for home-based businesses"

All of my problems have been solved!

You know, if you're gonna try and scam me, you can at least come up with a better name than Randall Lakefish.

And then there's the classics.

I want to go to Mt. Splashmore,
Take me, take me, take me, take me now!
Now! Now! Now! Now! Now!
Mt. Splashmore, take me there right now!

Typing away, running through form after form, when I notice I was in the middle of processing a form for some boy with the first name of Osama.

Poor kid.

There he was, merrily going through life, without a care in the world (go with me here), and then -wham- now he's stuck with a first name that makes Adolf seem as nice and innocent as Joe or Bob.

And all this when he's just about to hit adolesence. Great timing. There is no chance in hell he won't have to hear it at some point. He might as well just put a big, huge target on his chest cause if he makes it through High School without getting his ass kicked at least three times, he should consider himself lucky.

Imagine him too, trying to go on a date. Just imagine his date's reaction when she tells them, "mom, dad, meet my date, Osama."

And then there's the poor parents. They probably spent months and months agonizing over a name, debating names back and forth, until they settled upon what they felt was the best possible name. They were probably really proud of that name too, thinking they had come up with a perfectly fine name, only to find out that they had unwittingly doomed their offspring to a life of misery.

This is a true story…..

My brother was turned down for a job with the FBI. He was turned down for admitting that he smoked pot. Not for being a stoner or being an occasional midnight toker, but for admitting that he smoked just once in the past three years, at a party two years ago. And no, he's not lying about it or exaggerating. He is not a partier and definitely not a pot-smoker. I have friends in college who smoked more dope in a week than my brother has his entire life.

My brother has, however, gotten an undergraduate degree at Stanford, followed by a Doctorate at Yale. Not too shabby. He is also fluent in three or four languages, including Hebrew and a little Russian, and has lived overseas for huge parts of his life. In other words, a pretty bright guy. The kind of guy who would probably be a pretty good person for the FBI to have working for them, what with the whole war on terrorism and world falling apart thing.

But no. Can't hire him. Can't have any dopers working for the FBI.

What are they afraid of? That he'd be easily bribed for information by an Al Queda operative offering him an eighth of kind, Humbold Green? That he'd be at a party and in the middle of a stoner rap, give up some confidential information ("so dude, I was like at work today, and like I saw this like memo that said something like we were gonna invade Iraq in like a month or so. Whoa")? That in a national emergency, he'd have get flashbacks and be unable to move because he was too busy staring at the walls breathing?

The even sillier part is how the FBI found out. He knew they were going to ask the question and he also knew that not only were they gonna give him a drug test, but that they were gonna give him a lie-detector test. He was now faced with one of those ethical dilemna type thingies. To sum up, should he say a little white lie and take a chance with the lie detector test or tell the truth and hope they're cool with it? Considering he only smoked once over the past three years, he told the truth. And lost the job. Which means that if he would of lied to get a job with the FBI, he would have been hired. He was basically disqualified for telling the truth.

But why should he have to lie? We're talking once. Once. We're not talking about admitting to taking acid at Disneyland, or smoking crack with some bitches and ho's. And it's not like the FBI was just taken to the tool-shed for huge intelligence failures. Or that everyone acknowledges that National Security is of utmost importance. Or that it's not like the President of the United States hasn't been busted for driving under the influence or probably horked up eight-balls like Liza at Studio 54 in his younger days.

Pretty fucked. God only knows what would have happened if he admitted to watching some porn. Ashcroft would have arrested his ass before he could say "but it was only Skinemax....."

Another great moment in Job Hunting-

Today or tomorrow is supposed to be the day I hear back from Super-Mondo Corporation about the job I interviewed for. I'm not that hopeful, but the interview went well and I'm at least expecting some sort of call-back. It's not too much to ask, after all. Anyways, checked out the job boards over the weekend and saw that the job got posted.

Now, when you don't get a job, at least you can rationalize it and say "that's alright, they just found somebody better." When the job gets reposted again after the place interviewed people over a two week span, there's no rationalization. Because what the company is basically saying that not only were you not a good fit, but you were such a bad fit that they're gonna go through the hassle of posting the job again and having to wade through a hundred to two hundred resumes.

Some things are just unconscious knowledge:

1)The left side of the escalator is for people who want to walk up the escalators, the right side is for people who don't want to walk up them. This mans that if you're on the left, you should not stand there and gossip with your friend about the what happened the previous weekend, read the latest issue of Cosmo, or stand there in thought mulling over J-Lo's divorce. This means that you are supposed to walk up them.

2)If you are at a lap-pool and you see a lane that has four people in it and another one, one that's at the same speed as the one your looking at, that has two people in it, go to the one with less people in it. Do not get in and make it five people. Do the math, people.

3)If you are doing laps in the lap pool, do not stop 1/4 of the way to the end and use that spot as the place to rest up. Swim, walk, doggy-paddle, drown, whatever. Just do not stand there and look surprised when people keep on bumping into you or giving you looks when you have to stop mid-swim to swim around them.

Sadly, my last Real World as another season has come to it's merciful conclusion and now I have one less thing I have to look forward to during the week. I'm so addicted to MTV reality TV show crack that I've given in and started watching The Road Rules . I didn't mean to, it's just that I started to get into Sarah on the show- the one whose not pretty, athletic, and apparently not hooking up with everyone else and is probably gonna get booted for not being one of the Beautiful People. My kind of person.

Oh, so off topic. Anyways, here's my last Real World bit.


Awhile ago somebody on the Real World boards posted this article from the local Walla Walla newspaper. Tonya is, as we all know, from Walla Walla and this is a story about her appearance on the show.

Walla Walla woman hits big time

"In the beginning, she wondered if she had made the right decision.

When the camera was 2 inches from her face and the microphone's battery pack felt like a tumor hatching out of her back. When a techie in the control room had sovereignty over her bedroom light. When others living in the bubble with her - the lesbian, the Jew, the pastor's son, the recovering alcoholic - had nothing in common with a foster kid from Walla Walla."

The Jew? The Jew? Yes, besides the obvious subtle anti-semitism of it all, it's just so funny for so many reasons. Is that a Real World type- you know the gay male, the angry black male, the ho, and now, the Jew? And they didn't even mention the fact that the pastor's son (Theo) is black or that the recovering alcoholic (Chris) is gay. Which, I guess is either an attempt to be politically correct and not point out someone's minority status (except, for the Jew, of course) or they didn't think that Theo's being black or Chris's being gay isn't that big of a deal, while Cara being Jewish is. Which makes you wonder just how backwater Walla Wall is and whether or not Tonya was surprised Cara didn't have horns coming out of her head.

And it's funny too that while Cara is Jewish, it's not like she was an observant Jew or even made a big deal out of it other than mentioning it on the first night they all met and everyone was trying to figure out what role they were on the show. It's not like they showed her going to Temple over the High Holidays or anything like that. She wasn 't even Jewish enough to pull something as dumb as the all-time classic RW/RR moment when Amaya begged out of a pig-feet bobbing contest because it was against her religion yet didn't understand why it was a big deal that she ate a sausage sandwhich that morning for breakfast.

Somehow it makes me think of the great scene in "Annie Hall," where Woody Allen sat for dinner at the Hall family dinner, the Jew in the Super-Wasp house. As he sat there and got more and more paranoid while being drowned in a sea of Waspdom, he pictures himself as he thinks they see him, a Hassidic Rabbi sitting there with the black hat and pius. Is that how they imagined Tonya saw it, with Cara as some Hasidim woman in wig and dress?

On the other other hand, wouldn't it be kind of fun if they had an Observant Jew on the Real World? They've had an alcoholic lesbian, damnit, why not an Observant Jew. Wouldn't it be great if they had one? And I'm not even talking about a semi-religious one, I'm thinking how great it would be if they got a Hassidic one. Just imagine the beginning, the opening credits, you know, the whole "this is a story of seven people…." And as they introduce the typical group of self-absorbed frat boys, attention starved media whores and wanna-be models, they'd cut to Shmueley in pius and yarmulke?

Just imagine the drama too. You can just see Shmuley there, in confessional, quoting from the Talmud or Maimodes to describe the latest doings of the house. Like "oy, that Kyle can be such a shmuck and oh, those lips on Keri. What a shiksa. But as Rabbi Ben-Nachman said, he who can't decide between the past and future is stuck somewhere in between." Or he'd do what most rabbis do and be the one who comes between people and settle an argument. Like for the traditional fight over dishes, he'd sit there between Aneesa and Cara, nod his head, twirl his beard, and then finally come up with a solution.

Comedy gold, I's tell ya.

And how could I forget this?

Desperation has Jackson crying racism: Because the Man so has Michael Jackson down. And because if there's anyone out there who knows about racism, it's a billionare African-American whose spent the past fifteen years of his life trying to look like a white woman. And who doesn't realize nobody buys his CD's because the only reason why people are interested in him is because he's a walking Freak Show.

Quick Takes on Today's News-

Scandals plunge stocks to new low for year 'Confidence has been completely destroyed' : Looks like W.'s speech really worked.

Speaking of which...

Bush raps loan practice that aided him President's anti-fraud crusade asks companies to halt the sort of stock purchase he made in 1980s

and

Video of Cheney extolling virtues of Arthur Andersen surfaces : How much are you willing to bet there'll be a "terrorist warning" soon.

Two Israeli's fired in boycott of (European) Universities
Okay, so the Web story has a different headline, but this is was the headline in the Chron today. I read a couple of months ago a story about why European's tend to be pro-Palestinian. The article said that one of the reasons is because most Europeans don't know many Jews. The reason, of course, is because they killed most of them. Oh yeah, technically the Germans did, but it's not like most Europeans didn't go to the Nazi's and point the Jews out to them (I'm looking at you France, Poland, Russia and the Vatican).

2 Teams Faced Close Call on Payroll: Typical baseball. The day after it completely embarassed itself at the All-Star game, Selig goes out and drops this load of crap, that two teams were gonna go bankrupt any day now. Brilliant PR move, there, Bud. While everyone is talking about how lame you are, you go and drop some more bad news on everyone. And it's not like anyone believes you because you've cried that wolf a hundred times before. I think the only people who believe Bud are the same people who believe there's value in Ted William's frozen dead body.

By the way, supposedly one of the team's was the Tigers. Didn't they just build some brand new, tax supported stadium?

Finally, a great article by Maureen Dowd on the Smugness of King George. I so love the line that Bush is someone who is "born on third base" but thinks "he hit a triple."

Bush talks like a populist but . . .

Man, living in SF turns you into a huge weather wuss. Three straight days in the 90's and I was going all Wicked Witch of the West. This is kind of twisted, but as I'm looking out my window and seeing a big, huge wall of fog come rumbling down Twin Peaks, I couldn't help but smile

Anyways, here we go Temp Job: Day 2 (and no, this isn't gonna be a daily thing).

After all that stuff I said yesterday about being kind of dicky and anti-social, it happened. One of the most dreaded days a Temp has to face- the Office Birthday Cake Party.

Here's the thing about temping. Yeah, you're in an office with other people, sometimes even nice people, but you're not really part of the office. You're a Temp. Basically some person whose being paid chump change to do remedial work that nobody else who works there would want to do. Plus, you're never really there for that long so it's not really worth that much to be social. When you Temp, you kind of have the attitude that people in the Army have, don't get close to anyone cause you'll never when they might go kaboom.

This makes me not the most shiny, happy social worker. My Temping style falls along the "get in, get out, nobody gets hurt" lines. I like to go in, quickly get my coffee, then hook up to my CD Walkman and type away. No muss, no fuss, no messy small-talk. When it comes down to it, as nice as some of the people there are (and they are really nice) and as tight a shirt as some of them wear, I really don't care if I get to know them. Yeah, I'm a crank, what can I say?

Which brings us to today. It was someone's birthday today, someone who wasn't there the last time I worked there, and everyone was being gathered for some Happy Birthday Singing. Even us temps. Ugh.

Now, believe it or not, I am not an Office Birthday Cake Party Person (unless, of course, it's really yummy birthday cake, like ice cream cake from Ben & Jerry's). I am Elaine on Seinfeld. This is even true for place's where I'm not a Temp. But today, I am a Temp and I'm being told to stop what I'm doing and get ready for a big Birthday/Cake/singing thing.

Since the office is kind of small-ish and my computer is in the center of it, everyone can kind of see what I'm doing. I have a choice to make. I could either do what I'd prefer to do and ignore the whole thing and look like an anti-social jerk, or I could go join everyone else and pretend that I care that it's somebody I've never even walked past in the hallway's birthday.


And people think Temping's easy…..

Man, what a beautiful day outside. It's hot but not too hot and you can see clear cross the bay. On a day like today, there's nothing I can think of that would be a better way to start the day than by biking into work.

Oh wait, my bike was stolen.

May whoever stole my bike get Malachi Crunched by two Land-Rovers while riding it. Bastards.

Here we go sports fans, the moment you've all been waiting for- First Day Temping- Episode Two: Attack of the Clones

Got up before the alarm, totally exhausted and drenched in sweat. Felt sick and broken down, the result of it being too fucking hot lately and insomnia taking my sleep. Haven't averaged more than four hours of sleep in three days and I can't say I'm looking forward at the thought of having to spend all day typing away. Woke up a bit after showering and headed out of the apartment. On my way to work. For the first time since May.

Despite it all, I actually felt kind of good to be going to work. Commuting even.

When you're not working it's like your invisible person- a shadow. You have no job, no place to be or nothing to do and so you're constantly in a state of suspended animation. Your life is pretty much waiting for a job and fending off boredom/insanity. When you've been out for as long as I have, it's even harder. Sometimes I think about that short story I read in like Elementary School, about the kid who never left his bedroom and slowly, bit by bit, had the real world fade away from him.

Last night, I took a walk around 7. It was the first time I had really gotten out of my place all day and as I watched all the hustle and bustle of the Mission at that time, I felt really weird. Like there's this whole world going on around me- people meeting other people at bars, people going out to dinner, exercising- and I had forgotten about all about it. I had the same feeling this morning- that I had forgotten what it was like to actually have a place to go, to be part of the crowd. Yeah, it's only for a Temp Assignment, but for awhile, I could play worker bee. I was one of them.

There are benefits of working at a place you've temped before. Already had done the dress up for a good first impression thing, so I didn't have to worry about getting all gussied up. I also knew that the boss always came in late, so I knew I could be late. Knew where to go and where the closest deli's were. And when I got there, I didn't have to do the usual first day on a Temp job schpiel. No being sent around the office being shown where everything is and being introduced to everyone ("hi, this is our new unemployed loser who can't find a job and he's gonna be temping with us at the dreary job we can't get anyone else to do."). Also didn't have to spend half the morning reading through instructional manual after instruction manual on the Meaning of It All and the proper method of entering data when I knew I already knew how to do it.

Then there's the bad side of working at a place where I've already worked at. The whole Deja Vuness of it all. Everything was the same. Same people, same job, same set up. Some people had gotten new hair-cuts, the Chippies had been moved to the back of the office, the Receptionist/Office Manager had lost a lot of weight and the Blonde who always wore her shirt way too tight had gained a few more pounds and wasn't wearing a shirt way too tight. Other than that, it was all the same. Like I never left. Like the past four months never happened. Or like I had escaped, only to be brought back. I'm Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape" once again, being thrown my glove and baseball as I go back to Solitary Confinement. It was such deja vu that my computer station was two computers down from where it was before and whenever I went back to my computer, I started off going to my old one, then had to remind myself I'm not there. It was so bad I got flustered in the morning because while my favorite coffee mug was there, my favorite drinking glass was gone. And I never even had to worry about if people recognized me because right off the bat, the Receptionist/Office Manager saw me coming up the stairs and greeted me with a "howdy stranger." Not to mention the only Temp who I was friendly with saw me and said "hey, so you came back."

Then there's other things I remembered too. The dreariness of typing the same stuff minute after minute, hour after hour. The totally exhausting struggle to make it from one hour to another hour and the constant struggle not to just get up and go spend an hour online or taking a walk. And the weirdness of working at a place you're not quite working at, yet being there day after day, not wanting to really be that social but also feeling kind of left out when people were being social.

That's another thing about temping, the whole socializing aspect. Take the receptionist for instance. Her saying hi to me made me feel better, eased my anxiety about walking back into the place. Yet, I also felt guilty because the last time I worked there, she was really nice to me and would talk to me in the kitchen or outside when she was taking a smoke break and I was out taking my twelfth walk of the day. But because I was temping there and knew I was gonna be out of there soon, I was kind of dicky to her. Not because I didn't like her (I mean like her, not like like her), but simply because I didn't really see the point in it.

Oh wait, I'm rambling. Plus this whole piece is neither funny, snarky, poignant or any good. I'm basically feeling feeling like crud right now. Need to find a nice, cool place and sleep this all off. Or a nice beach and pitchers full of margaritas. Lots of margarita's.

Sorry this is in late in coming, but I've been spending all day prepping for the ESPY awards. I know your excited.

Remember what I said about this season of baseball having that Arch-Duke Ferdinand going to Sarajevo feeling? Think the Arch-Duke just got shot.

After reading all the hoopla about it, all I have to say is crikey, that was a debacle. The only thing that would of made it an even bigger one is if they would have wheeled out the cyrogenically frozen body of Ted Williams (and I'm sure if MasterCard was willing to sponsor it, they would have). There is, however, some beauty to it all going down in Bud's All-Star game, the one he set up because he's the Commissioner and he's from there and he kind of owns it and his fellow Wisconsin tax-payers helped foot the bill for it. And he sucks. Still, it's gotta be bad when even the Commissioner of the MLS is going "geez, Thank God, I'm not that guy."

So, I'm sure you're all wondering what would I do to fix the Mid-Summer Classic-baseball loving, super-genius that I am. Easy, let the stars play and keep them in.

The NL starting outfield last night was Bonds, Sosa, and Guerrero- two definite Hall of Famers and somebody who could someday be right up there. That's who the fans want to see and you can't argue that they're not the best representatives. So, keep them in for at least five or six innings. That's what an All-Star game is about, seeing the stars and that's what we, the humble paying baseball fan wants to see in our (that's right, our) All-Star game. Who really wants to see a bunch of guys from the Marlins? I'm pretty sure even the people in Miami don't really care if they play or not.

If that doesn't work out, like say the Union is upset or the stars get all hissy about it (not that a baseball star would ever, ever get hissy about something), then keep all the guys from the lame teams til late in the game.

The big concern was the pitchers and not injuring them. Torre has a valid reason why he shouldn't overuse Garcia because the Mariners are a great team and in the middle of a Pennant Race. Overusing him could be bad for the Mariners. On the other hand, Jose Padilla is playing for the Phils. The Phils suck so what difference does it make if Padilla pitches till his arm drops.

Failing that, as I said before, penalty kicks.

A tie? A tie? That's it, a tie? At the All-Star game?

Man, baseball can't buy a break this year.

If baseball was a person, they'd be someone who was unemployed and broke and then found themself not only just dumped, but their bike stolen.

Two words: Penalty kicks.

Was gonna take some time out of my busy day and talk about the current news. Lot of fun stuff in the papers today- the Smugness of King George(I watched his press conference yesterday- God what an arrogant bastard), the Archduke Ferdinand about to go to Sarajevo feel of tonight's All-Star game (not talking about it), some stupid Israeli's doing stupid things(ugh), and even a great story about how swinging's going upscale (ba-bow!).

But not today. Instead, I think Laurel Wellman's column in today's Chron sums up how I feel about things-

"….almost anything would tax my tiny attention span right now. Reign of Fire opens Friday and, having been in a state of near- hysterical anticipation for several weeks already, I fear these final few days may be almost more than I can bear. Look, we're this close to seeing a flying- dragon-versus-helicopter-gunship battle, so just leave me alone, OK?"

Yeah I'm Temping,
Temping again

More data entry and my mad typing skills. It's where I worked before and didn't mind working at, so I'm kind of okay with going back there. It's the place that does data processing for medicare cases, the one with all the young chippies- all naïve and innocent as they start there way up the career ladder, never considering the possibility that their life might somehow take a strange turn somewhere and they'll wind up thirty-four and temping. And the place with the blonde with the way too tight shirts and really big…

Oh wait, back on subject.

As far as temp jobs go, it's not a bad place to work as it's got all the important things to help pass the temp job away:

1) It's easy and brainless. Maybe too easy and brainless.
2) Lots of free coffee and tea
3) Available phone and computer to check messages
4) Scenery
5) And most importantly, a boss who either doesn't care or doesn't know that I occasionally take more than a half hour lunch, more and longer breaks than I'm supposed to, leave early and come in late, and spend enough time on the computer to read ESPN.com section through section. Not to mention the NY Times.

I'm also kind of glad I'll be temping so when I quit in a month, I'll go back to being really, really happy I'm not working. Sometimes, it's easy to take not doing anything all day for granted. And right now I'm basing my day around a TV show (Pardon the Interruption) and it's never a good sign when you base your entire day around a TV show. Nights, however.

On the other hand, it does mean I'll have to do the always fun Walk of Shame back into the place. Nothing like the love of life you feel when going back to a job that you had already left, vowing silently never to return, and leaving them with the vague "oh, I'm working on a few things" (which was true), only to be walking through those doors four months later.


Woo to the fucking hoo?

Last night they showed one of my fave Seinfeld episodes, the one where George figures out that he can not only get away with not doing any work but be left alone if he constantly walks around looking stressed out. It's brilliant 'cause it's true.

Way back when, when I was working at that lame-ass dot.com that will remain nameless (speaking of which, hi Jessica and thanks for reading!), there was a guy there who was supposedly in charge of "business opportunities" for our no- way-in-hell-will-we-get-business-opportunities-department. Besides come up with ideas himself, he was supposed to take ideas from us, the people in the department, and then help us put it together. Supposedly.

As far as anybody could tell, he never actually did anything he was supposed to do. He never responded to our proposals, never made any deals, never did a damn thing. Instead, he just ran around the office all day, cell phone glued to his ear, barking something out to someone on the other line. Even better, on the times he did actually respond to a proposal, he never actually was able to work on it because he was constantly "too busy" to schedule a meeting. I once saw him walk over to my pod-mates desk, ask where she was because they had a 10:00 meeting and when told that she had gone to the bathroom for just a second, he just shook his head and said, "damnit, I just don't have time to wait. We’ll just have to reschedule." With that, he turned and walked away.

Despite the fact he never actually accomplished anything, despite the fact he never made the company any money, and despite the fact that everyone in the department- or at least the underlings- made jokes behind his back about how useless he was, Management loved him. Thought he was great.

I'm completely positive it was because he was pulling a Costanza. It's not like he was doing anything- in fact somebody told me that he was usually on the phone with realtors trying to buy a house- it looked like he was doing something. All he was doing by running around- cell phone in hand, with that look of extreme pain on his face- was just him working it. And worked it he did. Didn't get laid off, bought a house, and eventually got another, better paying job somewhere else.

And people wonder why the dot.com bubble burst?

Watched The Shipping News over the weekend. It was actually recommended to me by my head-shrink who saw a similarity between the somnambultistic Kevin Spacey character and my currentsomnambulistic state. And while it is a beautiful movie and makes me want to go hang out in some beautiful, remote village (prefer Ireland, though to Canada- no offense to whatever Canucks maybe reading this), I'm not quite sure what message I was supposed to get out of it.

As usual, the whole theme of the movie is that a guy finds redemption through love. Which, first of all, isn't exactly the kind of message you like to hear when you're single (does anyone in a movie who is in a bad way ever find redemption when they're single? Other than through a kindly but wise African-American character usually played by Morgan Freeman or Will Smith?). Also, it's easy to find redemption through love when the person you fall in love with is Julianna Moore.

It reminded me, in a way, of one of my least favorite movies of all time, As Good as It Gets, another movie in which people find redemption through love. I hated it and when I saw it but when my mother dismissed my disgust at the movie with the usual line "oh, you just aren't a romantic." No mom, that's not it. While I do believe that it is possible that a cranky, asocial, manic-obsessive freak would actually find love, I just don't believe it would be with someone who looks like Helen Hunt.

A couple of weeks ago, the Chron asked for their reader's input about what makes them cry. I would link it, but it wasn't very exciting and kind of dumb. In response, the "Dog Bites" column in the SF Weekly, a column which has kind of sucked since since Laurel Wellman left, actually ran a pretty funny column in which they listed things that they hear that makes them cry.

In spirit of that column, here is my List of Things That Upon Hearing, Make Me Cry"

"Starring Academy Award Winner Nicholas Cage."
"The Yankees today traded for….."
"Attorney General John Ashcroft."
"And now, here's George Will's commentary."
"Coming up after the break, Commissioner Bud Selig on the current state of baseball."
"Tonight's episode of Angel will not be shown so we may bring you a very special two-hour episode of 7th Heaven."
"On tonight's Behind the Music, the Shania Twain story."
"Catch a glimpse of the new Britney Spears Pepsi commercial, tonight on….."
"And now for a Boneyard block of Yes!"
"Free Mumia!"
as the phone's being handed to me.... "It's your mother….."
"You're one of the coolest, nicest guys I ever met, but….."
"Yesterday, Al Gore gave another speech indicating he might run for President in 2004."
"Tonight, a special NBC Dateline report that no parent should miss."
"The FBI today announced warnings of a possible terrorist threat…."
"…looks like they're gonna intentionally walk Barry Bonds."

Okay, I admit it. I rented Not Another Teen Movie. What can I say? Even laughed a few times.

I didn't mean to. I swear, I wanted to rent something else, something better. I wanted to rent The Bad News Bears. For some reason, I had a craving to see it. It's a great movie (a classic even) and I haven't seen it in years. But when I went to the video place, not only was it rented, but so was The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training. The only Bad News Bears movie there was The Bad News Bears Go To Japan and there was no way in hell I was gonna rent that. So I rented what I did.

I hate when that happens. I mean, what are the chances that the night I had a strange craving to see The Bad News Bears, some movie over fifteen years old, somebody had the same craving and rented it too? And the not nearly as good sequel too.

Dang nabbit.

Anyways, a few more quick things-
1)Noticed CNN Headline News is now occasionally going to commercial by having some band/artist play live. Man, has CNN sunk low. And how stoked would you be if you were some artist and your management couldn't get you on MTV or VH-1, but got you a fifteen second outro as CNN Headline News goes to fade.

2)Whatever happened to DJ Jazzy Jeff? Do you think he's a little bitter that his partner is now like one of the hugest stars in the world? Do you think he keeps on calling up Will Smith and begging for work? Do you think Will Smith has his security guards kick DJ Jazzy Jeff out everytime he shows up near Will's out?