WORD TO UR MOM

2008-08-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Flossy-Flossaaaay!

So I've decided that there are areas of my life that I can excel, dare I say over achieve in. Flossing is one of them. I decided to take my dentist's perpetually ignored advice and start flossing. I figured, this is one simple area that I can master. I have a cleaning on Wednesday that I'm actually looking forward to. For once, I'll be on the 'Good' list.

2008-06-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

SWF and Thick to boot!

I think online dating sites should have a page where it explains what is exactly meant by the proposed body types they give on their profile pages. I'd like to see some diagrams. They can even get hip and do them Apple style with a colorful background and silhouette. So then they can also offer prefab responses to those who lie about their body type: 'Thanks for your interest in my profile but unfortunately, you're lying about your body type, which has vast social implications and reflects on your morals. Good luck!'

2008-04-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn

So I was coming up with one of my baffling yet brilliant pyramid schemes when I needed to do the math to find out how many hours there are in a year. There's only 8,760 hours. I thought there'd be more...

2008-04-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Oh New England...

The great part about New England is that we embrace our 4 seasons...just not while we're in each respective season. Example: I still get iced coffees and have ice cream outside in the winter. Usually thought of as a summer treat, New Englanders know no calendar. To further this point, I was walking to work today, which happens to be a nice spring day of about 60 degrees, and there's a guy outside his apartment smoking a butt with no shirt on. Okay, yes, it's warmer but it's not shirt off weather yet. Doesn't matter. We're in New England. Our spiritual calendar is slightly askew from the Farmer's Almanac.

2008-04-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

Gym Etiquette - or Lack thereof...

So I've been working out to fit into my favorite spring break outfit...

3 weeks ago: I was walking into the gym and when I scanned my tag and walked by, the woman at the desk started calling after me. 'Excuse me, Alison!?' For some reason I ignored her (I like to pretend I'm alone at the gym) so she chased me down and right in front of the manager, she asks me if I'm Alison. I say yes, to which she responds, 'Oh, sorry, you just don't look like your picture.' Okay, you either have to be super made up or look like total a$$ to not look like your gym picture and you can guess which one applied.

2 weeks ago: I was walking by a guy at the gym and I didn't notice his water next to him on the floor and I kicked it across the gym...and then ran after it and brought it back. It was awkward. He had a lot of tattoos.

1 week ago: There's a sign up sheet at the front desk for spin class since there's a limited amount of bikes. I notice the manager behind the front desk as I'm signing up for class. As I take my spin pass, the manager asks me how I'm doing and I realize that I've just written 'Spin' for my name on the sign up sheet. So I say 'Ha, I wrote 'Spin' for my name.'

Yesterday: For some reason, after spin class, I forgot to return my spin pass and took it home..and they're numbered! They're these big laminated pieces of neon blue and orange paper and I walked out with one. I have Spin 6 in my car. I can just imagine returning it. 'Ummm...I took this home yesterday be accident. Can I keep it as a bookmark?'

On a completely unrelated note (and by unrelated, I mean got this result in a search for 'leotard' on Google images):

Is this child abuse?

2008-04-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck...?

So I've discovered a new measure for health. Before we used the old standbys of weight, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, etc. But I've discovered a far superior, more scientifically accurate method. How many lint roller sheets does it take you to de-lint? Think about it. We're talking surface area. What is the size of your land mass? Get a true measure of how much space you're taking up in the world and whether you're hogging a little too much real estate.

The lint roller test can also diagnose another, possibly related health issue. If you have a high sheet count, and it's only partially due to weight, how many cats do you have? There are several extended details that would need to be collected to get a full diagnosis of this secondary health issue. Do you live alone? Do you live with your parents? Do you talk to the cats? Do you take them on walks wearing cat harnesses? Do you push them in a baby carriage?

2007-12-26T12:16:00.000-08:00

PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE ADVERTISING
It's worse than you think

Okay, so it just hit me the other day that certain products have to be advertised so passive aggressively because of their purpose. Example: Cialis and Viagara. You can't actually show what it's for, so instead they show you unrealistically good looking people for their age running around like teenagers. Gee, we know what they just did.

Or take a toilet paper commercial. You can't show someone wiping their filthy ass so instead they pour mysterious blue liquid onto the TP and then show a figure of a hand that didn't get wet with the leading brand. Ummm...so that's blue piss? Same goes for diaper ads and don't even get me going on feminine hygiene products.

Preparation H anyone? Or how about Herpes medication (Valtrex kayaking and Mayan Riviera outbreaks? Why are the people on Valtrex ads always on some sort of happy adventure vacation? Look what being adventurous got them!) Or what about K-Y? It always has these read the paper on Sunday mornings with our matching sweatsuits on type couples that all of a sudden get randy faces on them at the sight of the lube bottle. WTF is up with that angle?

There's my long awaited commentary for you.

2007-10-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Immigrants!

I just want to take some time and give a shout out to all immigrants who have learned the English language. Because the more I learn about the intricacies of my native tongue, the more I realize what a pain in the ass it has to be to learn it.

Example: Take the word 'rewind.' When used in the present tense, it is rewind as in 'I need to rewind that VHS tape.' (And if you're in the present and rewinding a VHS tape, you probably live in your grandparents' basement.) However, take the past tense and you have a totally different word, 'rewound,' as in 'I already rewound the tape back in 1994.'

Now, contrast this to 'remind.' In the present, the word appears as remind, as in 'I'd like to remind you that you have to take your Valtrex in 10 minutes.' However, the past tense just involves a little addendum to the end. 'Oh, honey, you already reminded me to take my pill this morning with my Fibercon.' It's not 'remound' like the past of rewind, 'rewound'?

Go figure! Hats off to you, people of the world, who attempt to speaka the English.

2007-09-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

I just got flowers...from my parents. Ummm...now everyone's going to come by and say 'ohhh, who sent you flowers??" with that playground 5 year-old tone. And I'll reply 'my parents.' They'll pause, think and then say something to the effect of 'oh...that's, er.. nice...'

MY COWORKERS ARE GOING TO THINK I'M HOME SCHOOLED!

Next step is getting 2 cats and a subscription to a quilting magazine.

2007-06-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

Wait a minute...

So some of us 'creatives' like to put a spin on our email fonts and signatures so people know we're 'creatives.' A girl in my office decided to adopt the same font style as me so whenever she emailed me, I got really confused because I'm the only one who uses that font. So I emailed her back and told her I'm changing my fonts because every time she emails me, I think it's me emailing from the future. I haven't heard back from her yet...

2007-06-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

Bang! Bang! Bang!

No, it's not a drive by. That's me smacking my face off my keyboard 'til I lose consciousness. You know it's a bad day when you contemplate paying a coworker to push you down a set of cement stairs or ponder the actual taste of your hand sanitizer.

2007-05-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

Who's the boss?

My roommate and I were having an email exchange about plans for the weekend and she congratulated me on my decisiveness. I in return responded 'who da boss? me da boss.'

I then went into a meeting in my manager's office. As she finished up what she was reading on her screen, I vaguely heard her mumble in a confused voice, 'who da boss? me da boss?' followed up with 'was this for me?'

ha ha, errr, no.

2007-05-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

Well I Feel Sheepish

I was a little disappointed when I found out that my free stock image download of the week was this. There aren't too many situations at work that call for sheep imagery (management meetings?) and let's not even try to apply this image to my personal life. Then I noticed the title of the image is Mother Sheep and Her Two Lambs. Lambs? I think not. They're the equivalent of those 30-something children that can't keep a job, won't move out, and have left permanent wide ass marks on your sofa. She probably still does their laundry. They look like they're taking a brave stance in the face of impending discontinuation of welfare benefits.

2007-05-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

Please Enter Your Password

A tip to myself going forward: as cute as you think it is to have inappropriate passwords at work, there will come a time when it will backfire. Example, your boss is logging you onto an alternate computer for a special project and when she looks at you for your login information you panic, grab the keyboard, and squeal 'I'll do it.' That's because your password is 'booze.' Learn from this, future self.

2007-04-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

Return to Sender

Please be advised: The phrase 'Think Outside the Box' has experienced a change of address. It is now located inside the box. Please be so kind as to update all mailing lists. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Have a pleasant day.

2007-03-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

Celebrity Death Match II

Skinny bald guy vs. Skinny bald guy

Phil Stacey vs. Nosferatu

(Technically, I don't think Phil can win since there's no wooden stakes allowed in the ring. It's a win-win for Mr. Nosferatu. It's like wrestling your dinner.)

2007-03-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

Celebrity Death Match

I'd like to see a match up between Scott Stapp of Creed and Chad Kroeger of Nickleback. Marketing to go as follows:

Jesus Wannabe vs. Jesus Look-a-Like
Fight to the Death...

and see who rises again on Easter Sunday!

VS.

(I'd like to see Chad win, I prefer his music, but I think

Scott knows someone who knows someone)

2007-03-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

Question: What is Singles Pub Trivia Night?

Answer: A psychological experiment involving alcohol and 80s flashbacks.

So Lynn, Kate and I attended a singles event last night at Felt (Downtown Crossing) in which you are put on teams to do trivia. In theory, the teams are made up of 2 guys and 2 girls and the guys switch tables after each round of 10 questions.

So the three amigos enter and realize the area for the event is on a raised platform and the rest of the bar/restaurant inhabitants are already curious as to what's going on up there. We register and are each assigned to 3 different tables. At this point, there's only girls there so we look extra pathetic sitting there waiting. Slowly, the rest of the people (all guys) for the event trickle in and they are each assigned to a table. The first guy, a bitterly witty commuter (Devin?) is assigned to Kate's table. Kate already has made friends with the other woman waiting at the table with her. Lynn and I are still seated alone. Now another guy, Jim arrives and is assigned to table 2 where our new friend Dawn is seated (we were chatting while waiting so we weren't seated sadly alone for a half hour). Next enters Adam. He was probably the oldest attendee and he is all mine for the next 15 minutes. I start chatting away with Adam, a special education teacher who reminds me uncomfortably of my friend's dad, while I notice the next entrant, the most jacked Indian named Chuck I've ever seen. First of all, Chuck is not his name and I forgot to accuse him of that since he's totally of the boat. So Chuck is assigned to Lynn. Still with me?

So here's where it gets good. They realize no one else is coming so they ask myself and Adam to join Lynn and Chuck's team. As we walk over, Lynn grabs my arm and squeals, 'Oh my god, I'm so glad you're here!' Luckily, Chuck is a man of very few words and doesn't respond to this. In fact, he was rather fish-like, eyes wide open with an occasional blink. I have to say, throughout the night, Chuck made comments and they were in English but I couldn't figure out half of them. I just kept smiling and saying 'that works!' or 'sounds good!' His answer to all the trivia questions is 'I was in India during the 80s.' At one point, one of the questions was 'What 80s game was reproduced illegally in the Far East and accounted for half the game's sales?' and I said 'Far East? Chuck, this is all you.' He still didn't know. It was the Rubix cube.

We proceed through the night, meeting the rest of the bachelors, who were all nice but it became very apparent through our 80s trivia that we were WAY younger. We kept trying to avoid saying things like 'Wow! I was 4 when that happened!' They asked who hosted the Oscars in '81 and I thought, how would I know who hosted the Oscars when I was 1? Some of the guys were re-enacting movies like Airplane and Platoon and Lynn and I were like 'uhhh...' Kate, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of her life at her table. We found out later she was a few glasses of wine deep.

So trivia ends and Kate's team wins. Lynn and I get consolation Easter Eggs full of M&Ms and peanut butter cups (which we totally forgot at the table during our speedy exit! You know it's bad when we leave chocolate behind.) We push the tables together and the people who don't rush off after taking pizza from our table (Devin) are left chatting. Gradually we inch towards our coats. We say our 'nice to meet you's and run to the bathroom where Kate tells us she gave her email to the girl at her table. I have no idea if that's considered a success. Some guys upstairs at the billiards where the bathrooms are ask us how trivia went and who won. They were the gawkers from downstairs. One had a leather sport coat on. He should not be making fun of anyone.

So end result? Kate's a lezbot, we found out how much we suck at trivia, and we miss our eggs.

(Note: Names have been changed to protect the desperate.)

2007-02-21T13:53:00.000-08:00

"Why are there three grown men in my bedroom?" asked the little girl.

Because you're going to hell.

Just kidding. They're in your bedroom, Little Miss, because you're on a horribly produced and misconceived children's furniture ad. Last night, while eagerly awaiting the beginning of one of my guilty pleasures, Dateline's series, 'To Catch a Predator,' a commercial aired for Cardi's furniture featuring children playing in a smattering of cheaply made, horribly tacky bunk bed jungles known as children's rooms. However, at the end of the commercial, the three Cardi's men are standing in a child's room with a little girl and appear to be bribing her with a board game. Now, I know I'm no advertising executive, but placing an ad for children's furniture with 3 men alone in a room with a 7 year old girl seconds before 'To Catch A Predator' begins is slightly risky ad placement.

I thought the Snickers Superbowl ad was risky but I think the Cardi Boys take the cake!

2007-02-20T11:25:00.000-08:00

Duran Duran said it best...

My coworker is indeed, 'Hungry Like the Wolf.'

2007-02-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

Large poodles remind me of a few things, one of them being drag queens. Large poodles look too big for their hairdo. They're like the RuPaul of the dog world.

They also remind me of the fat man out. You know what I mean. You're out somewhere like a bar or restaurant and there's a group of guys or girls and there's that one in the group who's trying to dress like the rest only they're about 10 sizes too big to be dressing like the rest.

Hence the Labradoodle. A heroic yet in some ways grotesque attempt at giving the Large Poodle a chance at acceptance. If the dog's lucky it'll be more Labra than Doodle.

2007-02-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

Ask yourself...

Why does the refrain in Katherine McPhee's single 'Over It' sound oddly like little Billy Gillman? (iTunes - listen to a snippet of McPhee's song and then Gillman's 'One Voice.') It's worth the effort. It's freakin' weird.

2007-02-05T11:49:00.000-08:00

Match.com: Volume II

2007-02-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

Long Walks on the Beach

I can just see the brains in the art department of match.com: 'Hey, I found this disk of stock photography in the archives. If we use this, we'll save on our budget this year and we can afford to pay Dr. Phil for another year of his horse shit.'

2007-01-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

Closed Captioning

While at the gym this morning (yes, I went to the gym) and watching the news on mute (yes, I watched the news) I realized that deaf people growing up with closed captioning haven't a hope of spelling or grammatical success and god help them if they're dyslexic. At one point, you could actually see the person typing the captioning hit the backspace a few times and retype a local town's name. On top of that, the captioning is on a slight delay. So the words almost never match the picture. At one point, the news went to commercial and the caption left was 'The state issued a warning that residents of Worcester should...'. Should what? Should WHAT? They never finished. If I was deaf, dyslexic and watching the news in Worcester I'd have a headache about then.