Pictionary Words 3/25

1. Atrophy
2. Synapse
3. Calligraphy
4. Treason
5. Chicken Dance
6. Writer's Block
7. Time Share
8. Triple Axle
9. Thesaurus
10. Indigo

Good Friday = Filet-o-Fish

What a nice Friday for a crazy week. I pulled a bunch of all nighters (how the hell did I constantly pull this off in college?!) to finish a 17-minute manually-synched Flash demo. My boss did the voiceover and I'm happy that he's on vacation starting today, because I don't want to hear his voice for a while! I have to say, it was really funny hearing him mess up a line on one of the WAV files and hearing his "F**K ME!" in the background. So the demo is done and now I'm winding down for the weekend.

I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago and it isn't quite better yet. I've been missing bball and kickboxing and snowboarding in favor of Netflix rentals and working all night. The NJB season is over. Coaching was rewarding, yet exhausting. Predictably, the girls got blown out in the first round of the post-season tournament.

I hung out with two of my college roommates last weekend. M and her fiance Tom are here for a wedding and Nafa and her fiance James drove down from the North Bay. It was great to see em all again.

Played Rock da mic (or whatever it's called) with Chris and Mike - it's a rapping karaoke game, similar to Karaoke Revolution for PS2. Terrible interface and the game was so wack, we kept on playing. Music selection definitely favored Dre and his West Coast crew.

Today is Good Friday, and it's been a while since I've been religious, but my sisters and I associate this day with 3 hours (seemingly) of mass and Stations of the Cross and the passion read-a-long ("Crucify Him! We want Barabbas!") on the old side of a not air-conditioned Holy Spirit, followed by eating Filet o Fish at the McDonalds on Thornton. That was a long sentence. Ohh and watching Jesus of Nazareth all week at school. So WHY was this movie aired on the History Channel during Thanksgiving and NOT this week?

Websmurfing and Other Smurfy Sites

List of all the smurfs' names - Props for remembering that dreamy smurf, astronaut smurf and sailor smurf were all the same one

Outcast Smurfs - the ones that didn't pass the audition. Dingleberry smurf...Sexual chocolate smurf...

Websmurfing - Converts your web page to smurf language

Blue Buddies - I swear I owned half of these "collectibles" when I was young. Be sure to check our the All Your Smurf animation.

Smurf Name Generator - Punch in your real name and shows you your smurf name

Official Smurf Site - I want a Smurf head hot air balloon

Socio-Political Themes Essay - The Smurf Village is a Marxist Utopia. It is so difficult to watch this cartoon without analyzing something. There's a 50:1 male to female smurf gender ratio. How can this Not make one ask questions?

Another "The Smurfs are Commies" Essay - Gargomel is the greedy capitalist.

I hate Ryan Seacrest

Funny Website: http://ihateryanseacrest.tribe.net

American Idol really sucks. The part that sucks most is that sometimes I can't stop watching it! I think the singing and judging parts are fine, but the long, drawn-out eliminations (30-minute shows dedicated solely towards eliminating 2-4 contestants...) are just bad! Ryan Seacrest brings 2 contestants up. Says "Which one will stay and which one will go?"...dramatic, suspenseful music...Constantine?...or Bo?...Contantine sang a Sting song...Bo sang I'll Be...both were great...but WHICH one will stay?...it comes down to This...and you'll find out...after our commercial break!...(commercial break)...and now we return to Idol blah blah...will it be Constantine who sang Sting?...or Bo who sang I'll Be?...Bo, how do you feel?...You Should feel excited...cuz you're Not the lowest vote getter!!!...(yay, hugs, excitement)...let's give it up for Bo...and let's give it up for Constantine...Constantine, you made it this far...and you should be so proud of yourself for what you've accomplished...because...you're not the lowest vote getter Either!!!....

Keep in mind that we're many shows away from the finals and that instead of just saying who's staying, he does this dramatic, suspenseful process like 5 times for every show. C'mon, Ryan. You either get a rose or you don't. Oh, and the people who were not voted, got to sing. This was lame, because they were already choked up and sad and teary, so their performances suck, then you have no choice but to think, geez, no matter he/she was just voted off.

This is what prime time television has become. Addictive, substance-less crap. For more entertaining substance-less crap, watch America's Next Top Model. Watching the trivial drama of aspiring models (o-mi-God, these shoes are half a size too small!...we're eliminating so and so for Complaining that her shoes were half a size too small. A Real model would have to shut up and bear it.) might make you appreciate your own life. It will also make you feel fat. Of course the 5'9", 135 pound girl was kicked off first.

Pictionary Words

My family says I bully them into playing board games with me. Our Pictionary set is so old that now we just make up our own words and get some sick satisfaction from stumping each other. There's nothing like watching my sister Barb trying to draw "antidisestablishmentarianism" (unhappy stick figures and flags) or my cousin Ray fumbling with "Sugar Plum Fairy" and resorting to a sugar molecule diagram when the ballet route failed. My family is geeky like that, but I'd never include a word I wasn't confident I could draw.

Here are today's words:

1. filibuster
2. Greenland
3. hostage
4. absentee ballot
5. addiction
6. remainder
7. momentum
8. whisper
9. shopping spree
10. good samaritan law

Rave and Bitch 3/4

RAVE

Food
French Toast flavored Pop-Tarts

DVD
I Heart Huckabees - yay for the Open Spaces coalition

TV
I discovered the new On-Demand channel on Comcast. Just what I needed -- another thing to encourage laziness.

Book
The Gangster of Love, by Jessica Hagedorn. Well-done story with multi-layered theme.

BITCH

TV
The Bachelorette - After the Rose or whatever. After Jen strings us along thru a whole season of her journey (and after being chosen by the Bachelor on a prior season and then becoming single again), she picks the final guy, tells him hesitantly to hold onto the ring and then rejects him months later. Boo! Yeah, yeah, that's what I get for watching all this awful crap.

Book
Naked, by David Sedaris. I raved about this one before but the second half of the book was tiresome and I lost sympathy and patience for the character (happens to be the author. the book is sort of a collection of autobiographical accounts) and wanted him to get his life together already. Who ever thought that hitchhiking can get you into trouble or that joining a nudist colony would be uncomfortable? I began to feel burdened by his issues and wanted to slap him. I lose tolerance for those who go into extremes, while on some deliberate, almost self-righteous journey to "find themselves." Why don't people just stick to what they are good at? Why do people have problems realizing the value of everything and everyone right in front of them? I guess people by nature like to make things hard on themselves.

Why do men (and lesbians) like ________ ?

The following females are not hot! Just famous, or related to someone famous. Or talented, but just not pretty. Or so untalented that they are famous, which somehow translates into the perception of beauty (notice how VH-1 or People magazine like to have lists of "hotties" or beautiful people. If these people were truly the most beautiful, why do they need to be replaced by next year's hot list? Since when did "beautiful" mean "ubiquitous"?). Or beautiful, but have a wack personality. Or not beautiful, not talented, wack personality, but well-marketed to brainwash the public.

Here's the top 16, in random order. Multiples of 5 and 10 are overrated....

1. Jennifer Garner - she's everywhere, but not beautiful
2. Janet Jackson - before/after plastic surgery, not beautiful, nor talented
3. Jennifer Lopez - very beautiful, but does anyone else find her relationship drama a massive turnoff?
4. Angelina Jolie - very talented, seems like a really cool person...not pretty at all
5. Jessica Simpson - not pretty, certainly not talented, dumb = famous = beautiful? or is she just famous for being married? is it worse to be famous for being dumb or married?
6. Shannon Elizabeth - i don't get it. someone, please explain. a lot of males and females think she's That hot, but i just don't see it
7. Ashanti - watch her videos on Mute and...she's still ugly and annoying. since when did heavy breathing = talented?
8. Tia Carrera - flat face. loved when Jamie Lee Curtis smacked her on True Lies
9. Uma Thurman - my cousin once said Uma Thurman reminds her of "cauliflower" and sadly, I Get it.
10. Mariah Carey - her voice was once great and powerful, but now her only selling point is which producer or rapper backs her up or collaborates. Ok, she's not ugly, the same way that horses aren't ugly. But watch her on CRIBS and then tell me you think she's hot.
11. Penelope Cruz - maybe she's really nice
12. Kirsten Dunst - maybe kind of cute, and sweet in her roles. but not hot.
13. Gabrielle Union - wasn't she Urkel's love interest or does she just look like she belonged there?
14. Tyra Banks - ok she's a model and an ok actress and runs an addictive reality show, but she makes a good case for the model = alien theory
15. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen - on Full House they looked like baby trolls. now they look like legal-aged trolls
16. Trishelle from the Real World - face not beautiful, personality definitely not beautiful

The following women are beautiful, or at least cute, and most are talented. Men (and lesbians), consider replacing the women from the above list with the following (again in random order):

1. Jessica Alba
2. Natalie Portman
3. Portia de Rossi
4. Keira Knightley
5. Alicia Keys
6. Charlize Theron
7. Eva Mendez
8. Jennifer Aniston
9. Salma Hayek
10. Kate Winslett
11. Christina Applegate
12. Katherine Zeta Jones
13. Rachel Leigh Cook
14. Katie Holmes
15. Zhang Ziyi
16. Gwen Stefani

Oh, my friend told me it wasn't right to generalize with men and lesbians, as lesbians tend to be attracted to different features. Maybe that explains the Hilary Swank thing....

Another friend just told me that for guys, a women's ugly face + wack personality + lack of talent can be overriden by a hot body, something I've totally overlooked.

Rave and Bitch 03/02

RAVE

My rec bball team finally won one last night after a rough 0-3 start. I had my best game since joining the league a couple years ago. 16 points, some fast breaks, scrappy steals and boards. More importantly, we pulled it together with only 5 people there, and finally worked as a team with a more patient offense. My new team isn't as solid as my old team, but they're a fun group. I don't believe they think Jennifer Garner and Hillary Swank are so pretty.

BITCH

My company laid off some people this week and remaining salary employees were asked to take a temporary pay cut. Working in Silicon Valley startups since '99, I'd been thru this before, and although never a true shock, it always leaves that sick feeling in deep my stomach.