My Own Planet

What’s more annoying than the loud, annoying woman with the high-pitched voice who sits behind me at work? The loud, annoying woman with the high-pitched voice who sits behind me at work doing an impression of Keith from American Idol. Only she’s not doing an impression of Keith. She’s just singing “Like a Virgin” and sounding uncannily like him.

You say it's your birthday...
A very happy birthday to Mr. Al Gore. And to me, of course. I voted for Gore in the last election mostly because I harbored the secret hope that he would do something really great and they would make his (and my) birthday a national holiday. Alas, this did not happen. I have not given up hope yet, though.

I also still have hope that my National Hibernation Plan may some day catch on. The National Hibernation Plan allows us to catch up on sleep while skipping the worst months of the year. The Official Going-to-Sleep Day would be on Oct. 31 (which is Diana's birthday and also Halloween), and then the entire country would sleep through the cold and dreary months of November, December, January, February and March. Official Waking-Up Day would be on my birthday, March 31. Some critics of this plan have pointed out that you would miss several major holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Valentine's Day. But what they don't realize is that Official Going-to-Sleep Day and Official Waking-Up Day would usurp the beloved traditions of these holidays, such as gift-giving and mass consumption of food and alcohol. And we would be awake for all the great beer-related holidays, such as Fourth of July and Memorial Day.

Mark my words, once I take over the world, we'll all be hibernating through the winter!

Ridding the world of stupidity, one reality show at a time
I am happy to report that Operation Down With Julia was an overwhelming success. Thanks to the millions of Americans who wisely voted for people other than Julia DeMato. It seems that Paula has also heeded my warning, as she turned up last night in a very tasteful black turtleneck. (We won't mention Tuesday night's rodeo attire.) Since it has now been proven that my blog can control events on reality TV, I issue the following warnings to other reality-TV participants:

American Idol
Ryan Seacrest: Please, for the love of God, get a personality transplant and a new wardrobe, stat. No one cares to hear any more of your thinly veiled sexual innuendoes, and as for the wardrobe...well, you look like something 'N Sync threw up. If it were possible to vote you off the show, I probably would, if not for the gripping fear that they might bring back Dunkleman to take your place.

Kimberly C.: It's called waterproof mascara. Look into it. Also, look into getting a new wardrobe before you meet the same fate as your fashion-victim buddy Julia DeMato.

Corey: Mesh shirt? No. Sorry, dude, your time is up.

The Bachelor
The girls on this or any season of The Bachelor: If I hear one more 30-something woman say how she wants to meet "the perfect man" or "Prince Charming" and then wonder aloud why she's still single, I'm going to scream. It's not that I think any woman over the age of 30 should give up the hope of finding true love and having a happy marriage -- quite the contrary, since I myself have declared that I won't even begin to think about getting married until I'm at least 28. But if you're turning away suitors right and left just because they don't have the dimples that you always dreamed your "perfect man" would have or because they don't currently earn a six-figure salary, you've got no right to complain about your marital status.

Sorority Life
Maggie: Please move out of the pledge house and take your ghetto-fabulous best friend Julia with you. Let Melissa or Sarah or Brittany -- pledges whom we don't get to see that often but who are bound to be less annoying than you by sheer probability -- live in the house instead. I do have to say, though, that you'll make a perfect DZO sister. You're bitchy, annoying, have a borderline-psychotic obsession of the concept of "sisterhood" and manage to make the smallest incident into a Miniseries of the Week.

Brooke: You rock. Don't let the psycho sisters of DZO suck you in. Do stick around for most of the pledge period (because the show completely unbearable otherwise), but pull a Mara-and-Jordan and de-pledge at the end.

Nicole: Choose a side. Do you want to be on Maggie's side or Brooke's side? Do you want to be with Tim or the psycho sisters? Do you want your hair to be curly or straight? (Hint: The correct choices have nothing to do with Maggie, the psycho sisters or your precious ringlets.)

Fraternity Life
Alex: Good decision, dumping your girlfriend. Remember, psycho girlfriend will pretty much always be psycho, but psycho fraternity brothers have given some indication that they will be slightly less psycho once pledging is over. Just don't go back to the girlfriend. (I know you're going to, anyway.)

Earl: Start dating Maggie. Perhaps if you're both getting laid, you'd both be a little less annoying. We can only hope.

How cool is this? My friend Sallie's dad is in Maxim. Her dad is in Maxim. OK, actually it's Maxim Fashion, but still. Since I know you're all going to want to run out to the newsstand and look for Sallie's dad in Maxim, here's how to find it. It's the issue of Maxim Fashion with Samuel L. Jackson (who is not Sallie's dad, by the way) on the cover. He's in the Spring/Summer 2003 fashion spread--he's the bald guy in the Tommy Hilfiger vest fishing off the pier in Pensacola. He's quoted as saying that he's glad he doesn't have to wear suits every day now that he's retired, but according to Sallie, he never actually said this, and it is in fact totally inaccurate because he never actually wore suits to work.

Quote of the Day
"This is a trailer with Cattitude." --from a press release on the EZ-Dumper Big Cat trailer

Happy birthday, Barcelona baby
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The air was warm, we were carefree, we danced the night away. We ate Italian food -- I, seafood ravioli out of a huge shell that was sitting on its own little chair; she, something that was a little less memorable. We drank cheap tequila and beer. We went to sleep 3 hours before we had to catch a bus to the airport and somehow managed to not throw up. I was an evil bitch on the plane home, but somehow she forgave me. And I hope she can forgive me again.

Heather Janes turned 23 last Wednesday, and once again, I forgot all about it. How? I don't know. The strange thing is, I think about Heather's birthday all the time. We celebrated her 20th birthday in the aforementioned fashion in Barcelona. Our Barcelona trip was the best trip I've ever been on, yet somehow it manages to escape my mind every March 19th. It took me less than a week to remember it this time (and just for the record, I remembered as I was on my walk yesterday, not when I read it on her blog this morning). Last year, my birthday had already passed before I remembered Heather's. If anything, my memory is getting better with age. Perhaps next year I'll remember it on the actual day.

Until then, please forgive me, my little watermelon seed. Happy belated birthday.

A modest proposal
I just realized that, in the past week or so, I have proposed marriage not once, but twice on my blog. (For last week's proposal to Clay Aiken, see my March 19 entry; for this morning's proposal to Doug, click on the March 21 comments.) I've decided that I need to get all of my marriage proposals out on the blog in one week, so...

George Clooney, Rob Sheffield, Jon Stewart, Bill Zehme, Chris Isaak, Ryan Adams, Ralph Fiennes, Colin Firth, David Sedaris, Bob from the Bachelor and Hugh Grant, will you marry me?

Before you say anything, I realize that some of the people on this list are a) married or b) gay. But so what? They all also c) do not know me.

Doug, of course you're still my first choice, as you are my ticket to the free dinner. Although come to think of it, almost all of the people on the list are famous writers, actors, musicians or comedians and are therefore likely very rich and can buy me more free dinners than the Royer. OK, Doug, you're my first choice in the event that any of these people turn me down.

George Clooney, Rob Sheffield, Jon Stewart, Bill Zehme, Chris Isaak, Ryan Adams, Ralph Fiennes, Colin Firth, David Sedaris, Bob from the Bachelor and Hugh Grant, if your answer is "no," please leave me a shout out below. Otherwise, I'll just assume your answer is yes and commence with picking out a dress.

Tickled
I don't know what it is, but lately it seems that nearly everything I read or hear strikes me as incredibly funny. Perhaps it's because I've suddenly become more adept at seeking out the type of humor that appeals to me. Perhaps God felt I did not currently have enough humor in my life and has therefore chosen to bombard me with it all at once. Whatever the case, I feel the need to share my sudden wealth of humor with the rest of you. If you deem that these things are in fact not funny, then that will be all the proof I need that you're all delusional.

1. The Cynical Tyrant. This mysterious Tyrant left a message on this blog a few days ago, agreeing with my views on Julia DeMato. I always love people who agree with me, so I decided to check out her blog. I was hooked immediately. At times, I even found myself laughing out loud at work, which probably was not good since I sit within earshot of several people who know I probably should not be doing anything at work that would cause me to laugh out loud. I highly recommend reading this blog in an area where your loud cackles will go unnoticed.

2. David Schwimmer. I have always been incredibly annoyed by David Schwimmer, particularly for the last 5 or so seasons of Friends. However, approximately once a season, he says or does something that is actually really funny. (Unfortunately, for the rest of the season, he does approximately 2,000 things that are just obnoxious or annoying.) Anyway, last night, for some inexplicable reason, last season's Halloween episode was on. In it, Chandler (dressed as a large pink rabbit) challenges Ross (dressed as a potato with a colander and TV antenna on his head) to a fight. Ross says he thinks he can kick Chandler's ass, to which Chandler says, "Prove it!" Ross responds with, "Oh, I'll prove it! I'll prove it like a theorem!" I plan to use this phrase the next time someone issues such a challenge to me.

3. Ed Page's story in Ready Made on how to make a kitten. Unfortunately, there is no link to this story on their Web site, so you'll all have to go out and buy the magazine. Trust me, you won't be sorry you did, because this is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever read, with the exception of Dave Barry's graduation address. In the article, Ed offers several tips for making your own kit, including but not limited to the following:

"1) Obtain a full-grown cat.
2) Reverse the flow of time.
3) Wait."

I'm afraid that's all the humor for today, as I am off to get my hair cut and highlighted at a very swank salon. I'm sure when I see my bill, I will laugh harder than I have all week.

Hate...
Those of you who have pledged your support for Operation Down With Julia might be interested in this. Apparently you can buy stock in Julia's imminent failure, as well as the failure or success of some other Idol contestants.

I don't know much about futures trading, but it seems to me that it's really not worth it since shares of Julia's failure are currently selling at $99, and the maximum payoff is only $100. Unless you have tons of money to throw away, the payoff is not likely to be very big. Of course, the fact that the futures market is so certain of Julia's downfall makes me even more convinced that her days of bad singing and even worse fashion are numbered, even if by some miracle Operation Down With Julia is not a success.

...and Marriage
Doug and Holly: Will you two please just get married? Before you kill me for saying that, let me just say that I know how you feel, as people used to say the same thing to me and the gay ex-boyfriend all the time. However, that situation was quite different. For one thing, neither of you are gay. And for another, there is much more at stake here. I am referring, of course, to Kate's bet with the Royer that two FIG members will marry each other within 10 years. If Kate wins the bet, the Royer has to buy her (and a friend, i.e. me) dinner. With all the FIG members getting married to non-FIG members lately (Kristen, Adrian, Krithika), our chances of winning are severely dwindling.

As a last resort, Kate and I are prepared to drive to Vermont, where we can legally marry each other, but I feel that this option really isn't necessary. You two have both admitted that marriage wouldn't be half bad (and in doing so, proved yourselves to be far more mature people than me), and besides, you get along better than most actual couples that I know. I mean, Doug has offered to give up his dream of buying a Resident Evil movie poster (and during Milla Month, no less) simply because Holly is inexplicably and incredibly frightened by zombies. There have been marriages built on less.

So come on. Are you really going to drive Kate and me to lesbianism? Do us, and all of the lesbians worldwide who probably would not look kindly on us for becoming lesbians just to get a free dinner out of the Royer, a favor. Get married, if only so you can register for gifts.

OK, feel free to kill me now.

Time to Strike
I realize that the full 48 hours I gave Julia DeMato to comply with my ultimatum have not yet passed. However, the time has come for us to strike. Our action must be swift and immediate. (And besides, if Bush can be lenient with his timetables, so can I.) This is why I am launching Operation Down With Julia (which, by the way is a quite menacing and offending war name). My chief stragegist (and good friend and fellow reality-TV junkie) Bri Oakley has come up with the following plan:

It is pretty much a given that Ruben, Clay, probably Rickey, Trenyce, Kimberley Locke, and Josh the Marine are going to be not the bottom three this next week. They are either too talented or have a major fan base already.

We DO know that Corey Clark and Carmen Rasmusen are pretty dang close to the bottom--Corey because he was in the bottom three last night and Carmen because she just plain stinks.

I say we pool all of the voting power we can to vote for Corey Clark. Carmen obviously has a bunch of people already voting for her. If we work at keeping Corey Clark in the show, no matter if we like him or not, it will increase the chances that the ill-clothed, unentertaining Julia will GO HOME!!! I believe this is the closest thing to taking away her votes that we can get.

Hopefully, since so many people (mysteriously) find Corey attractive (he looks like a love child between Snoop Dogg and some random squeaky-voiced white woman), his fans will rally and give him more votes because of how close he came to going home. We can only hope.

The date of our attack will be next Tuesday, immediately following the show. As with any operation of this nature, we do face the risk of casualties--inadvertently sending a good singer home by pooling our votes for Corey. However, I think I speak for all of us when I say that our expected outcome would indeed justify these risks.

Nomenclature
Dude, who has been naming our wars lately? "Operation Iraqui Freedom"? "Operation Liberty Shield"? "Operation Ultimate Peace" or whatever that thing in Afghanistan was called? (I seem to remember it being called something incredibly dumb that Diana and I spent a good while making fun of.) Seriously, these are some sissy war names. Whatever happened to the days of "Operation Desert Storm"? Now that was a kick-ass war name. The way I see it, the rest of the world pretty much hates us anyway. So why the need to make our war names so purposely and incredibly non-offending?

If we're supposedly such a technologically advanced nation, why aren't there vending machines that sell cheesecake? Honestly.

State of the Reality TV
My fellow Americans, I come to you today to speak about a grave threat that is facing our nation. This is a threat that could pose serious danger to every American if it is not immediately dealt with. The threat of which I speak is, naturally, Julia DeMato's wardrobe on American Idol.

Julia DeMato has consistently demonstrated that she not only harbors but also uses outfits of mass annoyance to assault the American public. It is my fear that if Julia is allowed to continue this behavior, such horrendous outfits as a torn sweatshirt, tight jeans, high heels and a wallet chain could catch on as national trends and destroy all the fashion ideals our great nation holds dear. With that in mind, I issue the following ultimatum to Julia DeMato: You have 48 hours to peacefully surrender your outfits of mass annoyance before I deploy my troops to invade your wardrobe and remove them forcibly.

Furthermore, a slightly less urgent but no less real threat is present in the form of Paula Abdul, who has aided and abetted known fashion victim Julia DeMato in her assault on the American people. We also have reports from our fashion inspectors that Paula, too, is harboring outfits of mass annoyance, such as the one she was wearing last night. We are prepared to grant some leniency to Paula, as we feel she may have become confused by the impending war with Iraq and mistaken 2003 for 1991, which was the last year that outfit was even remotely in fashion. Paula Abdul, this is your warning: If you do not cooperate with our fashion inspectors and disarm of all outfits of mass annoyance, you will meet with the same fate as your conspirator, Julia DeMato.

You, the American people, can help us to contain these threats. Excercise your power to vote! Vote for contestants such as Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken who, while they pretty much wear the same thing every show, have never so flagrantly violated fashion resolutions as Julia DeMato and Paula Abdul have. I only regret that you cannot vote against people, as my votes alone would have seen an end to this threat long ago. All that we can do now is pray that Julia DeMato will heed this warning and end her fashion tyranny over this great nation of ours.

Thank you and good afternoon.

Note: This is what happens if you both listen to too much NPR and watch too much American Idol. Also, if in fact we are going to war in a matter of hours, I just want to say this: Clay Aiken, will you marry me?

OAD (Obsessive Acronym Disorder)
So I just put an article up on the Web about text messaging shorthand, which offers such useful acronyms as AAMOF (as a matter of fact) and FWIW (for what it's worth). It was all I could do not to add IAF (intense and freaky), TC (too cool) and IBATTME (it brings a tear to my eye) to the list. By far the worst shorthand offered by this list was WEN (when). That's a difference of one letter! Is WEN vs. when really going to have that much impact on your text message? The only text message I ever tried to send (to my friend Jeff) started something like "So, darling, I was watching The Price Is Right yesterday..." For some reason, it didn't send. Eventually, I gave up on ever actually sending text messages and instead used the text messaging function on my phone to record the Quote of the Day. ("With position and thrusting, you can arise." -Sandy Davidson, March 12, 2001) Anyway, for more fun yet ridiculous text messaging acronyms, click here.

Don't analyze this
So you know that dream where you're riding down a two-lane road in the back of a pickup truck with your sister, some friends from high school and Billy Bob Thornton, and everyone is wearing clothes except for you? And then your sister feels so sorry for you that she gives you that sweatshirt she stole from you four years ago when you went off to college?

Yeah, that dream sucks.

Stress level: extreme
Doing HTML coding stresses me out. The three women who sit near my desk at work and spend the entire day gabbing loudly on the phone and to each other about what might well be the most insipid things in the world also stress me out. Trying to do HTML with these women gabbing loudly in the background is so stressful that even the prospect of the weekend officially starting in 45 minutes is not enough to comfort me.

WTF?
Often, there are things in life that are so incredibly ridiculous that I just have to stop and stare in stupefied amazement for a period of several seconds. It seems as if, in the last 24 hours, there have been several such instances.

Example: last night's Fraternity Life
Earl: "My mom just said, 'Why is someone saying the fucking f-word?'"

George: "Why is your shirt torn?"
Pledge who does not get enough screen time, therefore I don't know his name: "I don't know, sir."
George: "You don't know?"
Tim: "It was my fault, sir."
George: "How is it your fault?"
Tim: "My grandmother messed up, sir."
George: "Don't ever blame your grandmother again!"

Another example: My boss is out of town for a couple of days, and I have been given the hugely gratifying task of sending out rejections to all the people who applied for my job. Of course, I thoroughly review each person's resume, cover letter and writing samples before sending out the rejection. So far, I have witnessed a) a blatant typo in the cover letter of a guy who, two paragraphs down, said he had learned the importance of proofing from one of his jobs, b) a woman who was an editorial assistant for 13 years, c) three writing samples about a woman's pet birds, including but not limited to, how they gave birth (a tale related with many exclamation points), how one had to have its leg amputated, how one seized and died in her hands (and how she made that one a promise to take care of its babies when it died, which struck me as a very Titanic-esque plot twist), d) another writing sample that was a 10-page short story about a Civil War bride, and e) a writing sample in which the applicant said she points out teenage mothers in the park to teach her daughter about sex. And that's only about half of the stack.

Yet another example: Last night, I read the following phrase in the book I am currently reading: "It was as difficult as kicking your way through several miles of wet chiffon."

In conclusion, I would just like to say: WTF?

What really sucks is getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, only to realize you have to actually wake up in approximately an hour.

Clarification from Sunday's post: My hands smelled like an old lady's because I mistakenly put on some Jasmine Vanilla lotion at Bath and Body Works. Because I like jasmine and vanilla, and because the whole thing was packaged in a dark-red translucent glass bottle, I thought this would be a good idea. It was not, not only because I smelled like an old lady, but also because every time my hand got near my eyes, they started to sting and water uncontrollably. Warning: STAY AWAY FROM JASMINE VANILLA LOTION. PLEASE KEEP ALL YOUR JASMINE AND VANILLA SEPARATED.

Excitement
So I now have "Shout Out" capabilities. Not crazy about the phrase "Shout Out," but I am way too lazy/incompetent to change it to something less mid-90s MTV.

Oh, that Cosmo!
I bought the March issue of Cosmo the other day because I felt that it was time for a good trashy magazine. And in the March issue of Cosmo, I discovered that they actually used the phrase "Jill off" as a euphamism for female masturbation. That makes one more reason I'm glad my name is not Jill. And one more reason why I'm glad I don't subscribe to Cosmo.

Fuck it.
I just spent a good 30 minutes writing the aforementioned super-sized blog entry, only to have it mysteriously deleted by some computer glitch. Of course, it was the one time I didn't copy my text before hitting "post" in case of some computer glitch. I'm not about to go through all that again, so here's the abbreviated version: my hands smell like an old lady, I dreamed I was house-sitting for Eminem and he had a really big bathtub, the guy who lives next door to me laughs like an evil villian and plays really loud techno music on Friday and Saturday nights even though he's just hanging out alone in his apartment, I think Married by America is disgusting but can't wait for the premiere of Single in L.A. tonight on WE, Carmen Rasmusen probably slept with Simon Cowell, and I have a crush on Clay Aiken, who somehow reminds me of Johnathon Woodward (note: this should not be taken to mean I have a crush on Mr. Woodward himself, although I can see why others would find him quite crushworthy).

Coming soon!
A special super-sized blog entry all about my new life of actually having to get up in the mornings, my thoughts on American Idol, and how I beat my reality-TV addiction (American Idol notwithstanding, of course). I promise.