Way to Hit Your Target Audience.

This guy's hawking Bowflex weight machines.

I hate him.

And that means I sure as hell don't want to buy a Bowflex because of him.

What's the worst part of him? Check him out at 1:44.

"I gave all my fat clothes to my fat friends."

Okay, you know what? It's great you lost that weight. But you're an asshole. If losing weight means you get an automatic entitlement to look down on your friends who aren't so hot and thin, then I don't want to be hot-like-you. Fuck you.

And then there's that other commercial (which I can't find on youtube) where the guy thinks he's hot shit because he's an older guy and he's finally in a rock band. No, really, that's his big thing. I just have to say, when you're 40 and your life's ambition is still to have girls throwing their panties at you because you're in a rock band and you have a rock band body, then you've got issues that giving yourself rock hard abs won't cure.

All I'm saying is, the spokespeople these guys pick really don't make me want to buy the product. At all.

Oh Yeah, Baby, Just Like That.

Okay, a friend of mine posted this on my Facebook page recently.



I'll let you watch it before I dissect it.

Okay, you with me? Seriously, if the guy thought she was a girl, did he seriously think it would turn her on to lick his popsicle like that? Is that really a turn-on for women? "Oh yeah, man, you're so hot simulating oral sex on a guy. Now come have sex with me." Really, unless you're into guys who suck dick (as I am), I don't think that particular tack works very well.



And just for fun.



Still hot. And finally:





I need a towel now.

DVR Was Ruining My Life, Then the Writers Went on Strike

In a way, I'm glad the Hollywood writers have gone on strike.

DVR was ruining my life. I was recording everything I was remotely interested in. And because many of those things were reruns that I couldn't filter out, I was recording a lot. For example, I've become addicted to Food Network, but most of their shows are old. They're new to me, but they're old. I can't tell the filter to not record stuff I've seen (the only options are "First run only" or "First run and repeats"), so I end up scheduling hours upon hours upon hours of shows.

With the DVR on as my constant standby, television programming was no longer a reason not to go out. Even though I had no "can't miss" shows in the pre-DVR days, there was always, in the back of my mind, the knowledge that if I attended a particular happy hour, it would be to the sacrifice of watching a particular show. No longer.

Indeed, I stopped watching live television altogether even when I was at home for it. Why watch live TV when you can watch the recording later and skip through the commercials? So now even if I'm home during a good television show, I'll delay watching it, instead watching something from my recorded list (43 minutes instead of an hour), and returning to the "live" show later.

It seriously got to the point where my Netflix queue was stagnant for about two months. I used to have a system where I'd watch all three of my Netflix DVDs every weekend, because they'd get replenished by the time the next weekend came around. Now, though, the sheer number of DVR'd shows I have to catch up on makes it difficult to make time to watch three DVDs on top of that. (Worse, these three DVDs are of television shows (Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls to be exact), so each of those DVDs has run times of about 3 hours (4 episodes), as opposed to the usual 90 to 120 minutes.

So in a way, the writer's strike is kind of good. For me. It means fewer new shows are being recorded, which means substantially less for me to have to catch up on every week. (Unlike Paula Deen shows, for example, I had safely set my DVR to record only first-runs of Bionic Woman and Pushing Daisies.)

A part of me wonders, however, whether the strike is a bit self-defeating.

It's already been noted that the networks are turning to reality shows to fill the void of scripted shows. American Gladiators is returning, and an impromptu new season of Big Brother is starting, to name a few examples. And let's face it, a lot of the American public eats up all that crap with a silver spoon. (I'll readily admit that I was hooked on BB as well -- until it was clear that the Donatos would do really well, at which point my hatred for them both caused me to stop watching.) Game shows like Deal or No Deal and Power of 10 are also stepping up to fill the void, along with some new ones.

Because the American public seems more than content to watch "reality" shows, are the writers really making much of an impact by keeping new scripted television off the air? Or will America eventually become so content to watch "reality" shows that they won't care about the death of some of their favorite scripted shows? And when all the dust has cleared, might networks decide that the reality-to-scripted ratio is better when the scripted shows are limited, thus resulting in fewer opportunities for writers?

Just some thoughts that fleetingly pass through my mind. Just to prove that the Idiot Box hasn't completely dumbed me down yet.

... Or has it?

I am Officially Changing My Name to Rodney. Dangerfield.

So last night was the first night of free bar poker in 2008. I anticipated going with a small mix of anticipation and dread, since (1) I had not been to a free poker night in weeks and I was starting feel some withdrawal; and (2) I did play poker at the Harrah's in New Orleans (did I ever blog about that?) and, well, that was disastrous.

Here's where I start getting technical. If you don't know Texas Hold 'Em, this may mean less to you than it would otherwise, but I'll try to keep it accessible.

I had managed to amass a decent amount of chips by getting a King-high flush within the first few hands that I played. Not a whole lot, but more than usual, and I was happy. But I had to make sure I was still being cautious, because I have this terrible tendency to think that because I have a lot of chips, I can do stupid things and get away with it.

No. Last night my bigger concern was with really bad cards, and a fucktard at my table who, while being perfectly amiable the entire time, seemed to have it out for me.

I got into another hand with decent pocket cards. I think they pocket 9's or something. I raised into the pot, hoping to drive my fellow players out. Instead, Fucktard, who had amassed a large number of chips already as well, called me.

The flop was pretty much crap: 2-5-7 or something. Nothing to help much, but I had the top pair, and basically I figured that this flop wouldn't help anything except really crappy pockets that no one would really care to keep. So I bet heavily into the pot, pretty much thinking that it would scare away anyone with a really crappy hand.

Fucktard was the only one who called me.

Here's something you need to realize in Texas Hold 'Em: when someone calls your sizable raise, they're trying to signal to you that they think they have a better hand than you do. At least informally at the games I've been playing at (I don't know if it's a poker-wide term), it's called respecting the bet when you beg off of a hand by folding to another player without having to run through the entire deal.

At the end of the hand, Fucktard won, showing his hole cards to be... 5-7 off suit.

Who the hell calls a raise when all you have is a 5-7 off suit?

In this case, the guy got extremely lucky to have hit two pair. I even called him on why he would stay in with a 5-7 off suit. His response: "I figured I had the chips, so why not?"

At that point I was still laughing it off, because hey, I can kind of see the logic to that. Still, I was wounded from the hand, but I was still doing decently enough to shrug that off.

A few deals later, the short stack at the table goes all in. In a round where the big blind is some $200, he bet $850. Given the play we'd already seen earlier, this is not a hugely substantial raise. Fucktard had already previously called the $200, now his choice was whether nor not to call the $650 it would take to play through this hand.

Fucktard folded. And this where I went ballistic.

"Woah woah, you'll call my raises with a 5-7 off suit, but you'll fold to this guy? What could you possibly have that was worse than that, and what happened to 'Why not, I have the chips?'"

Clearly, it was personal. Then I even called him a motherfucker. While laughing, of course, but still, the joke was, basically, "oh, so clearly you're just calling me, mothafucka." He laughed; I was less than 100% amused.

By this point I'm on tilt, but I don't care, because (a) it's free poker, and (b) I'd kinda rather play with people who are playing the game than with people who are treating it as, well, free poker. So the next chance I get, I'm determined to go for broke.

I get a A-Q unsuited. I raise into the pot, and Fucktard, explicitly announcing that since I've called it personal, he's calling.

The flop, again, has crap in it -- 4-7-9 or something, and I pushed all-in with my last $4,000. (That's a huge move at this point, but again, I no longer care.) Normally, a show of strength here would be sufficient to drive an opponent out, and my friends who have played with me before would probably have caved because I have a reputation for not doing that lightly.

Fucktard, of course, calls. No respect, I tell ya. None. He's AGS (I just made that up (I think); it stands for "ain't got shit"), but he'll call me just because he can, even if that reasoning is inapplicable to the other guys on the table.

What does he have? A 5-6.

Like, what the hell.

And, of course, he hits his 8 on the river, giving him a straight.

And I take my leave.

No respect, I tell ya. I don't know why I keep playing this damned game. I love it, but holy canoli, it treats me like a beaten mistress.

I'll be back there again next week. And odds are very, very good that I will avoid as much as humanly possible being on the same table with Fucktard again.

Pee.

My office bathrooms are a shared set on the floor. At least three different offices are on my floor, each of which, apparently, has its fair share of men.

Men who have never learned to urinate properly.

Our lone urinal (in addition to the two stalls) is a manual flusher. Both stalls, as well as the sinks, are automatic. The urinal used to be automatic too, but for some reason they replaced that with a manual over a year ago. I guess it was either flushing too much, or not enough. I forget which.

Not that it helped, because apparently people simply aren't flushing the urinal as often as they should.

The other day I walked in there and found the a nicely laser-printed sign over the urinal:

"If you flush at home, please flush here too. THANK YOU"

The sign was gone the next day, which is sad, because I really wanted to write in an addendum after it that would have read: "Also, if you could work a little harder on your aim, that would be really cool too." Because, really, it was kinda gross that day I went.

***

So in composing this entry I googled "urinal." Here are some of the cooler shots that come up on the first page.







I would never have thought of urinals as a way to express such creativity....

Apathy

I can't seem to get myself even remotely roused about the primaries. I can't be the only one.

It's been all over the news lately, and I can't seem to get myself to read the articles and listen to the pundits. Obama won the Iowa caucuses? Eh. Huckabee? Well, a little worrisome, but not something I feel like investing a huge amount of stress over.

In terms of Democrats, I'm inclined to just let other people pick the nominee. I've mentioned before that I don't think Senator Clinton would be a smart choice -- and I haven't changed my mind that that effect -- but she does seem to be someone whom enough Democrats love that perhaps they'll make it to the polls in enough numbers to overcome far-right opposition. And another part of me is ready to just believe that eight years of idiocracy has left a large portion of the electorate very, very ready to change vote for a Democratic White House.

Likewise, I can't bring myself to consider the Republican field to figure out who's more/most scary. With the exception of Ron Paul, they all seem to doing a pretty poor job of walking the delicate line between appealing to the mainstream and satisfying their base. I guess with the tide of gay marriage having ebbed a bit, there's less red meat to feed to the rabid right.

But then in the end, I kinda no longer care.

Could it be W. fatigue? That de-sensitization that comes from eight years of complete ineptitude such that one really thinks it's just impossible to get worse? I'm thinking I might just want any new White House occupant now, Republican or Democrat -- when even Republicans start distancing themselves from the positions espoused by the incumbent, well, there's no way to go but up. Right?

Or maybe I'm just in a prolonged bad mood.

Deja Vu: Deductibles

The worst thing about a new year is the fact that prescription medication deductibles get reset. I could almost verbatim repost this entry from this time last year here today, because almost the exact same thing happened to me just now.

Some minor changes to the script:

-- GBTC became Lady Behind the Counter, and she's not all that attractive.

-- I picked up three prescriptions, instead of two.

-- The cost was $130, rather than $120.

-- LBTC pointed out that I had $3 in ExtraCare Bucks, rather than $2.50.

Why is it that when I spend over $100 at the CVS, the checkout person seems compelled to point out that I have received a rebate of about 3%? Really, is that supposed to make me feel better? If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I'd really much prefer to spend it on, say, a WII, or a nice spa treatment, or perhaps anyone one of the wonderful toys in the amazon.com wishlist, posted in my right-side sidebar here (which readers are encouraged to peruse and, well, use for its intended purpose).

I kinda miss the cute GBTC. Strange, no?

I suppose I should take some solace in the fact that three medicines only cost me $10 more than the two I got last year. I think it's because I quite possibly paid the entire deductible off just now within the first 48 hours of the new year.

But I think not.

Welcome to my new year.

Sugar Bowl: Ouch.

I am not a sports fan.

I like live sporting events pretty much only when someone can score me free tickets, or cheap ones (usually in nosebleed seats). I watch games on television when I'm with friends who know better, so they can explain to me not only what's going on, but the history of the team(s). I watch March Madness, but usually only after it gets to the Round of 16.

The weekend before Christmas, I took a last-minute trip to New Orleans, just for fun. It turns out we were there during the New Orleans Bowl. My friend and I were wondering about all these people wearing their Memphis clothes everywhere. We soon found out why. Of course, they lost to Florida Atlantic.

More importantly, though, I noticed a few flags for the University of Hawai'i flying on Bourbon Street. Why?, I wondered, since you don't usually seem much of good ol' UH down in New Orleans.



I soon found out. Hawai'i faced the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl this year.

Had I known, I might have considered staying in the city for the holiday just to check out the game.

My cousin (at school in New Orleans) texted me to tell me that there were tons of Hawai'i fans who had made the trek to New Orleans just to see their team in action. Hawai'i sports fans are an enthusiastic bunch, that's for sure. I kinda miss the whole "aloha spirit" thing; immersing myself in a sea of people with Hawaiian accents might have been fun.

I texted my cousin back: "Go Bows!" Of course I had forgotten that the team name changed from the Rainbow Warriors to just the Warriors back in 2001. I seem to recall that I had visited Hawai'i at around that time, and part of the controversy was that the "rainbow" in "Rainbow Warriors" was a little too gay for the coach. This, of course, strikes me as completely retarded. But oh well.

Anyway, it's unfortunate that the game isn't anywhere near as competitive as it could be. I always like to see my home state do well. I wish they had managed to pull it together better for this game.

But it's cool that they made it there at all. And I'm glad so many Hawai'i residents made the trek to support their team.

Oh, and I have to do it. Colt Brennan is a cutie.

Happy New Year!

Controlled Spontaneity, and This is Why My Family Hates Me.

Two, two, two posts in one!

<><><>

Picture it, Christmas party, December 9. December 9, people. That's like 12 days ago.

Random conversations abound, and I'm flitting back and forth between a few of them. Eventually, I approach my friends Ann and some other friends. Without having to say a word, Ann turns to me and says, "So, want to go to Mexico for Christmas?"

I stop for second.

"Sure," I tell her.

Turns out the conversation before I arrived was along the lines of Ann saying "I want to get away for a little bit for the holiday. Just a quick trip." And then I showed up.

For my part, I haven't left this city since my Provincetown vacation last July. I'm itching for a vaca. And given the season, well, I had the time. And my credit cards will hurt, but oh well.

We did about three days of research before we ruled out any destination in Mexico. No to Acapulco, Cancun, and any of those other cool (warm) touristy cities. We opted instead for either New Orleans or Miami.

Almost without trying, we settled on New Orleans. Cajun food, casinos, non-stop drinking... in the bag. We found hotels rooms for under $100 and airfare for a reasoanble price.

I swear this is the first time I've ever booked a flight less than 14 days before the departure date.

The feeling of spontaneity was exhilirating. I've always said I wanted to wake up one day and say, "I'm doing something big," but this is so far the closest I've come. Let's just call it a controlled spontaneity. Not quite 24-hour spur-of-the-moment, but definitely less advanced notice than one is used to having to plan for.

I leave this morning. I'm horribly excited.

<><><>

I'm also unacceptably bad with my own familial relations. I'm an awful person and I hate myself for that.

Quick background: My mother is one of a dozen children, which means my generation of cousins is tremendous. We range in age from 45 to something like 9. It takes me about 5 minutes to go through each aunt/uncle to count up the number of children each of them has. It's crazy.

Of course, this also means it's a little difficult to keep track of all of them. Many of them were born well after I reached adulthood, meaning I've really never met them. When I went to college I moved quite far from home -- and thus pretty far from all of my family -- which somewhat further disconnects me from my family.

So how does this relate to this post? I had this trip to New Orleans planned for about nine days... and had completely forgotten that my cousin Jay lives in New Orleans now. He's finishing up medical school at Tualne. He's freaking 25 years old. He makes me feel totally old.

Of course I love my family. But it's so hard for me to keep up with them. And I feel like a total tool for being excited about this New Orleans trip for over a week without it ever even crossing my mind that I have kin down there and that it would be criminal for me to go there without having drinks or dinner with him.

Thankfully, I found his number and texted him my travel plans and asked him if he'd be available. He said he would, and I now totally look forward to catching up with him.

New Orleans here I come!

Why Not?

I walked by a homeless person on my way to the grocery store tonight. She asked me for some change. As I usually do, I politely refused by shaking my head and holding open an empty palm.

I passed by her again on the way home.

She: Spare some change?
Me: No, sorry. [Shaking head and holding out open palm]
She: Why not?

Huh? Did she really say "Why not?" I hate to break it to you, lady, but I owe you positively no excuses for my decision not to do something that's wholly my choice to make. There are probably millions of reasons I could have chosen not to give you any of my money. Let's list some of them, just for fun:

- I don't have much money of my own
- I don't like panhandlers
- I give "at the office"
- I don't give to street panhandlers
- I don't like you
- I prefer to give directly to charities
- I think you're probably some lazy ass who should get a real job
- I just spent my money
- I am a Scrooge, and proud of it
- What the hell have you done for me to deserve any of money at all?
- I don't give money to people wearing blue hats
- The little green martians told me not to, and I obey their every suggestion
- A homeless person once bit my leg, so now I avoid them at all costs

What do all of the items on that list have in common? No, not "it's the truth," because I don't actually subscribe to all of the reasons listed there. The one characteristic shared by every single item on that list is that each one is perfectly valid reason for me to have chosen not to give you any money, lady.

"Why not?" I have my reasons.

My Language, or I Just Had a Margaret Cho Moment

This conversation actually occurred at my local Whole Foods earlier tonight. Really, I don't make these things up.

I approached the cashier with my purchases and loaded them onto her platform. She started ringing up my purchases, and then:

She: How are you?
Me: Fine, thanks. You?
She: Fine.

[Wait for it.]

She: Paper or plastic? Hey, how do you say 'paper or plastic' in your language?

[And there it is. I momentarily lost the power of speech.]

Me (internal): Did she...?
Me (external): Wha...?
She: How do you say 'paper or plastic' in your language?

[Oh no she di'n't! Except that, well, yes, she did. She actually repeated it.]

Me (internal): Are people actually still like this?
Me (external): Uh, you mean, in English?

[I didn't see the need to go through a long explanation that, despite my facial features, "my language" is English. Shamefully, my Chinese skills have deteriorated dramatically in the past ten years. Sadly, I'm better at French and Spanish -- hell, even Italian -- than I am in Chinese.]

She: Oh. I thought... no, I really thought you were from...
Me (internal): Please don't. You'll only hang yourself.
She: I don't even know where.
Me (internal): That's a pretty good dial-back. I'm glad you didn't actually try to guess what Asian country I'm from.
Me (external): [nervous laughter]

I was immediately taken back to Margaret Cho's routine I'm The One That I Want. Part of her routine talked about an exchange during the run of her (short-lived) show All-American Girl. A local television station (I forget where) had just switched over to an ABC affiliate, and she was talking to a reporter.

Reporter: Why don't you tell our viewers, in your native language, that we're switching over to an ABC affiliate?
Margaret Cho: [looks into camera] They're switching to an ABC affiliate.

That's me. Know how I say "paper or plastic" in my native language? "Paper or plastic."

Zzzz....

Am I the only one who is seriously disturbed by this little caveat calmly thrown into a commercial for Lunesta, a sleep aid drug?

"Call your doctor right away if after taking Lunesta you walk, drive, eat, or engage in other activities while asleep."

Seriously, what the hell? Sleep-driving? That scares the crap out of me.

Virtual Networking

It seems like only yesterday that my friends insisted that I get a myspace page. "It's so much fun!" they told me.

"I'm not 16 and in high school!" I protested.

"No, seriously," my 25-and-over friends repeated. "It's fun, you should join."

So join I did. And I quickly linked up with the friends whom I knew were there. Then I branched out and found more friends of my own, people who I didn't even know had myspace accounts.

At first I vowed only to have "friends" as myspace friends and not clutter up my page with all kinds of random, stupid friends. That resolution quickly got tossed, and I started linking up with random bands, just to keep up with their tour dates. Then other more indie people would find me by noticing who I was friends with, and they'd ask me to friend them (it's a verb, you see) too. That's kind of how I got turned on to Ryan Huston (great voice, doesn't hurt that he's very easy on the eyes) and Royal American. Then I just started friending my favorite bands just to be able to keep track of their tour dates, in case I was ever actually able to go.

Then slowly, my closest friends started getting too busy to log on to myspace with any frequency. So where posting random silly comments was one of the most fun things you do on myspace, such frivolity rapidly curtailed itself. I started to bore of myspace.

Then some people (not myspace people) told me I'd have to sign on to Facebook.

"Uh, I'm not some 20 year old college student," I protested.

"No, seriously," my 25-and-over friends repeated. "It's fun, you should join."

And the cycle begins anew.

Most of my myspace friends are not on facebook. But facebook has all these mini-feeds and stuff on them that makes it so much more dynamic. You can see all kinds of things that other people doing. Most of them goofy, but some of them pretty fun. I happened to find a high school classmate on there -- who knows two of my close friends. What a small world.

Oh, and you can play a Scrabble-ish game on there, as well as poker. And some stupid cute little game called Diverman.

Strangely, given that these are "social networking sites," I haven't actually met anyone off of these sites that I didn't know already.

Me to Gift Horse: Say Aaah.

I got an early holiday gift from a girlfriend of mine recently. (I say "holiday" gift because she's Jewish. This means that technically I was late in giving her a holiday gift. But then she went out of town, so it's all good.)

Anyway, so I got this gift. I don't have a tree, so I really have no place to store unopened gifts, so... well, I just open my gifts as I receive them. It's much simpler that way.

So anyway, what she got me was awesome! Great gift, perfect, timely, definitely something I'll read and use. I was totally excited when I tore open the wrapping.

Inside the front cover: a receipt. At first, I figured it was a gift receipt. But it wasn't. It was an actual receipt.

And the book was $4.99.

I'm torn. On one hand, it really is a pretty cool book and I like it. On the other, it cost five frigging dollars! I know it's the thought that counts, but wow.

Worse yet, I have no idea what I'm going to get for her now knowing that she didn't spend all that much on my gift.

"Bad Financial Choices," They Say

WaPo today reports that the government has brokered an agreement to freeze interest rates for those homeowners who risk foreclosure under the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Proponents argue that this is a great idea, and would stave off tons of foreclosures. Critics -- labeled "conservative" by WaPo -- say the plan "amounts to a bailout of people who made bad financial decisions."

On some level, I can understand the criticism: people bought their houses knowing their payments would balloon after a certain amount of time; they took that risk; it's tough cookies that they can't now afford it. It's not much different from getting a fixed-rate mortgage knowing that your income stream was going to severely plummet a few years down the road.

But where I hit a philosophical problem is this: these people are in trouble, and these conservative critics would just as soon toss these people out on their butts than do anything to help them. Where are these people supposed to live? Do you really think apartments will be willing to rent to them if their credit history reflects a foreclosure?

More importantly, the critics here cite "bad financial decisions" on the part of the owners and would just as soon leave them to their own devices. But then I end up asking the same question I'd ask of conservatives who advocate for privatizing Social Security: what happens to those among us who make bad decisions?

Social Security was meant to be a safety net, allowing people at least some amount of money upon retirement (admittedly, not a whole lot). Privatizing Social Security -- under this whole "it's my money, dammit!" rubric -- means that instead of people putting into the system and getting back something come retirement time, people would keep their money and "invest" it.

But what of people who "invest" the money unwisely? Sounds like we'd find conservatives saying to their 68-year-old grandparents, "hey, you stopped contributing to SS taxes long ago. That money didn't grow for you? Too damn bad."

You know we as a society would never do that. We'd have to provide them with assistance. So again, really, we'd be "bailing out people who made bad financial choices."

And if the solution to this apparent conflict is pointing to the fact that even privatizing Social Security provides a floor so that seniors can't squander all their money, then... well, why is that any different from Social Security in the first place?

Rav-i-no-li

I tried to make some ravioli tonight. It was a dry run of something I was planning to take to a party this weekend. I thought I was becoming some master cook or something, adept at the ways of food.

I was wrong.

And just because I am a glutton for idiocy, I will tell you just how stupid I was, so that real master chefs out there can tell me just how big of an idiot I am.

I had some egg pasta sheets in my fridge and I needed to make an appetizer for this party. So I had this thought that I would cut the sheets up into the right shapes and fill them with fruit flavors like raspberry jam or something. Then I thought that instead of boiling the ravioli (like one normally would), I would fry them. Breaded.

Does that sound good? It sounded good in my head. The execution was a whole different matter.

First failed attempt: I cut the sheets into square for purposes of folding them into triangles with filling. It didn't even make it to the breading stations. The pasta was so brittle that it kept cracking whenever I tried to fold it.

Second failed attempt: Perhaps if I boiled the pasta first before filling it then frying it, it would come out better. That failed because (1) the pasta started breaking before I even removed it from the water, or (2) if I got it out of the water intact, it broke as I tried to stuff it -- this time because it was just too soft.

Third failed attempt: In a stroke of genius, I broke out the little round cookie cutters I had just purchased from the Whole Foods a few weeks ago on a whim. I would cut the pasta sheets into little rounds, I figured, then layer one on top of the other. This would prevent anything from breaking prematurely. Finally, I managed to assemble the ravioli and get them through the egg-wash-and-breading process. I heated some canola oil in a frying pan and started tossing the breaded ravioli in.

That was strike number three. Oh, and by the way, I used a cookie shape that was just too large. I couldn't taste the fruit filling at all. The ravioli was terrible. (Perhaps some confectioner's sugar sprinkled on top would have helped, but I seriously doubt it.)

In short, it tasted like crap. I will not be making this for this party this weekend.

Thankfully, I formulated a backup plan while I was grocery shopping, and picked up a few tins of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. Now instead of little mini-ravioli filled with a fruit flavor of some sort, I will be bringing crescent rolls dressed with fruit filling (and raisins).

Well, I'm taking that, and some lemon bars and creamy onion canapes. I love Paula Deen.

I need a better kitchen. And some actual skills.

Geek Love

I have a whole new wonderful celebrity crush.

I'd been avoiding Iron Chef America for a while now. It never really interested me, frankly, because speed-cooking is not something I cared about. As of a few months ago, cooking was something I barely cared about, let alone speed cooking.

Then I got addicted to Giada de Laurentiis and Paula Deen, and, well, Food Network in general. The fact that I can even speak competently about some of these television personalities, comparing and contrasting their cooking styles and kitchen demeanor, speaks volumes about that particular change with me.

So how could I resist when I found out that Giada de Laurentiis was going to be on Iron Chef (working against Rachel Ray, whom I'm far less excited about). On top of that, on another episode, Paula Deen competed as well. I love those two women -- how could I not watch those episodes.

You know how they say you show up for one thing and fall in love with another.

My new celebrity food crush is Alton Brown.

Alton is not what I could generally call "hot." Sometimes he's kinda cute on his show, but in general, I'm not at all sure he'd turn my head if I walked past him on the street. At least in terms of physical appearance.

But listening to him serve as the primary host/commentator on Iron Chef truly takes the cake (no food pun intended). What makes him sexy is not the way he looks, though it doesn't hurt. What makes him super-sexy is the fact that he's so freaking smart. The fact that he's able to pull from such a vast array of food knowledge from nowhere so he can provide such rapid-fire -- and if you haven't seen the show, I really do mean rapid-fire -- during the show is incredible. Without saying a word, the chefs just launch into their work. They start cutting and chopping and frying and mixing almost without a word, and all it takes is Alton watching them, observing what they're putting into their pots, and coming up with precisely what these chefs are doing. Being able to pull from the top of his head the "classic" elements of certain dishes just from the very beginning of the chef's work.

His comments are truly amazing.

(If someone comments that he's really being fed this information from Google during the show, I will never speak to you again.)

And they're intoxicatingly sexy. He's like the Tim Gunn of food. They're both smart and articulate and able to command such a vast degree of specialized knowledge off the tops of their heads.

Knowledge is power, y'all. I'd carry their children.

Karma-22

I often find myself wishing and hoping that someone, somewhere, of whatever deific persuasion, is keeping tabs on me for the many times I find myself generously resisting my baser impulses.

I casually mentioned (over GoogleTalk, 'natch) to a friend of mine just now the fact that GoogleTalk now offer GroupTalk -- kinda like a conference call on IM. His response: "Yeah. So what. Who actually uses that anyway?" I refrained from telling him that he dragged me into several group IM conversations several years ago, albeit back on MSN messenger.

Similarly, remember my friend who chastized me for not sending timely thank you notes three hours after I received a birthday gift? I totally bit my tongue with him too.

This past weekend I had dinner with a friend Lisa. She tends to blab a lot, monopolizing conversation, even to the point of interrupting my thoughts as they come out of my mouth. (I don't think she means to, but she does.) She's done this for years. I have never called her on it.

My brother is annoyed at the fact that I have Answer Call on my cell phone (the caller hears a song rather than the sound of my line ringing). The last message he left me was "Dude, you really need to change that feature. It's annoying." I want to tell him to suck it. I know that I won't.

These are relatively petty things, and things I know one really shouldn't score karmic points for, but I kinda hope they're building up somewhere. I hope they're sitting there alongside holding the elevator door open for bitches who don't even acknowledge the effort and telling the hot-dog guy that he gave me too much change. Small stuff that adds up, you know?

The problem, of course, is that once you sit there and hope that your good acts are going to pay you back somehow, you've removed yourself from the realm of pure altruism and relegated yourself to the selfish standard: doing good because you hope it comes back to you. Booma-booma-boomarang.

But I can't help it: I do still hope that those times I've volunteered at a soup kitchen help make up for the fact that I never give panhandlers money. I hope that my being the designated driver at a party helps make up for the times I've been an obnoxious boor to random strangers at a bar. And I hope that for all the times I overlook over people's faults because I want to give them the benefit of my good graces, I hope others are willingly granting me that same leeway.

They tell me the energy you send out to the universe is what you get back, in spades.

Here's hoping only the positive vibes I send are susceptible to magnification.

Lawyering on Demand

I've decided that I want to shoot the guy who first came up with whole "If you have a phone, you have a lawyer" tagline.* Because it's stupid shit like that that makes my life just that much more annoying.

I work in a very small law office. There are not many lawyers here and therefore we can't justify a huge support staff. And that means that, from time to time, we lawyers have to answer the phone, like when the receptionist is busy on another call.

Trust me, when I'm busy doing other work -- billable work -- talking to a random person who thinks they "might" have a claim is the last thing I want to do.

First of all, far too often there's an expectation that I'll dispense free legal advice over the phone. Once they spill out the facts of their situation -- usually a long a drawn out process -- they'll demand that I immediately tell them that they have a case. Guess what: that's not my call. And even if it were, why would I tell you? If I tell you that you've got a case, nothing prevents you from then running to another firm and hiring them. And seeing as you haven't paid me for the time I spent listening to you and telling you that you have a case... well that pretty screws me and my firm.

I simply do not understand how it is that people feel like they have the right to pick up a phone and get immediate access to free legal advice from private firms like mine. I have to earn my keep here; that means working on client projects that actually generate money. The time I spend listening to you blather on, as well as the time I spend thinking about your case to come to a reasoned conclusion about the merits of your situation, is time I could spend doing other paid work. It's a simple function of economics: the time I spend listening to you is likely to generate no return whatsoever. That's why I usually refer you to an assistant who will listen patiently to you, take down notes about your situation, then bring them back to the attorneys for later evaluation.

Now, just because this is a small firm ("Law Offices of Joe Schmo"), why do you think you can pick up the phone and say "I'd like to talk to Mr. Schmo, please."? Really, do you think Mr. Schmo does nothing with his time but sit around and wait to dump free advice onto random callers? He's busy. The lawyers are busy. That's why they have support staff to answer the phones. It would be pretty silly to have them there answering phones if they then really only had to push them over to the Big Guy, now wouldn't it? Think of it this way: Sullivan and Cromwell is a rather large firm in DC. I'm pretty sure that no one ever picks up phone and demands to speak with Mr. Sullivan or Mr. Cromwell unless and until they've established a prior working relationship with them (or unless they're personal acquaintances).

Plus, let's face it, more often than not your case isn't anywhere near as strong as you think it is. I once had someone call and tell me she knew "for a fact" that she had a case. Not knowing anything about her matter, I was ready to lay odds that she was full of shit. Another person called this morning demanding to speak to a lawyer because she had an urgent need for one. Sorry, but I can't drop everything for you right now -- kinda busy. Talk to the hand.

So stop with this whole "entitlement to a lawyer" thing. You don't have one (at least not in a civil case). Just because you have a phone does NOT mean you have a lawyer. This society is too damn over-litigious anyway.

* DISCLAIMER: I do not literally want to shoot him. I just want to inflict serious bodily harm upon him.**

** FURTHER DISCLAIMER: This, too, is not true. But I think you get my point by now.***

*** STILL FURTHER DISCLAIMER: Just in case any lawyers out there get any stupid ideas, no, I am not encouraging or forecasting unlawful or illegal action against this person. I'm just writing a damn blog post expressing some frustration. Seriously, get over it.