I lied.

Happy Saturday

Come on down

This is going to be one of those posts that is truly about nothing because I. Am. Fucking. Tired.
I didn't post here yesterday because it was a crazy day and, plus, I used my personal blog time to fill out a really stupid survey on Facebook. I do have a love/hate relationship with that damn thing.

Today I was almost going to write an open letter to Ashton Kutcher for being such a douchebag but I decided it would take too much effort. He's all in a tizzy because his next door neighbor has been building a house for several months, and they start early in the morning, waking him from his beauty rest. Listen. If you're being woken at 7:30 in the morning on a Wednesday by construction in your rich ass neighborhood, you should either A) get down on your rich, spoiled ass knees and thank SWEET JESUS that you didn't have to get up at 6:30 and go to your desk job and have your soul sucked out little by little every day. B) buy some fucking earplugs. C) opt to stay in a hotel for a while. It's not exactly going to break the bank. D) Take a vacation. A little time on the French Riviera and I'm sure you'll be right as rain.

So yeah.

I thought about writing about how I am a Wheel of Fortune CHAMP. I am so good at Wheel of Fortune, it's not even funny. But that's all there really is to say about that.

So.

It is Friday. What a glorious thing, Friday. I plan to go home, put on a pair of really comfortable socks, and slip into a coma. Happy Friday to you. Have a lovely weekend. See you Monday.

FurCon 2009

Yesterday while driving to lunch, I braked at a crosswalk while about 50 of the biggest nerds I have ever seen crossed the road. I do not say this lightly -- they were right up there with the nerdiest of the nerds, nerdier even than the high tech geeks who work in my building.
I noticed more nerds swamping some of my local lunch haunts and even recall thinking to myself, "Damn, some of these nerd chicks make me look smokin' hot."
I figured there was some kind of giant nerd convention at the nearby DoubleTree, and as it happens, I was not far off the mark.

Somehow, though, my observant reporter skills failed me and I did not notice there were a number of nerds who were dressed as animals, which my Starbucks barista mentioned in passing this morning, and a coworker also commented on today. I decided to investigate immediately.

As it happens, there was a Furry convention in town.
What, you may be asking, is a furry? Well, allow me to explain!

Originally, my limited understanding of what furries are came from that asanine HBO program, "Entourage," which once featured an episode in which one of the characters, Drama, pleasures a woman from behind whilst they are both dressed as giant pink bunny rabbits. Hence my belief that furries are sick human beings who like to have sex while dressed as animals. I am still unsure if this is part of the furry lifestyle, but there is apparently a little more to it.

According to Further Confusion, an international & annual convention of furries, furries are anthropomorphic creatures that have both human and animal characteristics, whether mental or physical. The true definition of anthropomorphism has more to do with assigning human characteristics to animals (like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny), but it never hurts to change definitions when it suits your needs.

A definition on Wikipedia states that while some furries are furry fans as a route to socializing with others, others view themselves as "other than human," or desiring to be more like certain furry characters they identify with. About 6% do not consider themselves human at all.

Aaaaand then there's the sexual aspect, this particular Wikipedia article notes. While some furries feel "furverts" give the rest of them a bad name, there is certainly a high tolerance for a range of sexual proclivities. As many as 25% of furries report being homosexual, up to 48% are bisexual, between 3 and 8% report having "alternative" sexual lifestyles, 2% have an interest in zoophilia and just under 1% are plushophiles.

So there you have it. Furries descended on San Jose and all I noticed was that they were the hugest nerds I'd ever seen.

Relate to this

Today I read that Prince Harry's girlfriend announced their breakup by changing her relationship status on Facebook to "not in a relationship."

Which reminds me: Facebook is stressing me out.

I am having trouble keeping up with the constant updates on Facebook. And I am contributing to the madness. This morning I commented that I am in disbelief that it is Monday. Who cares that I am in disbelief that it is Monday? No one. Why am I commenting? I have no idea.

I had a nasty cold over the weekend, and before I knew it, it was breaking news on Facebook. Everyone knew and some had comments.

Friends are constantly having birthdays. They are constantly posting photos from events. Sometimes you receive an alert that you have been "tagged" in a photo, only to find out it's a photo of you, drunk as a skunk at a college journalism conference, ponytail askew while you tie someone's shoelaces together and leer embarrassingly at the camera as your classmates laugh at you in the background.
Sometimes it's a photo of you, drunk again, lying on the floor of your friend's apartment after a bachelorette party, while friends squirt whipped cream into your mouth.
Sometimes it's simply an unflattering photo of you looking fat, sweaty, and uncomfortable. When I see that I've been tagged in these types of photos, I choose to delete them, hoping none of my other friends has had a chance to look at them. Ugh.

Friends are often sending me "Lil' Patch" invitations, or invitations to join their mob or become a pirate or a ninja or invitations to accept their martini, after which the application wants me to send martinis to everyone else, which I am not in the mood to do. Ever. Recently a new application emerged, the "I hate Facebook applications" application.

And friends are constantly announcing major life events: pregnancies, births, engagements, weddings, and now, breakups, a la Prince Harry.

Has Facebook killed the telephone star? The e-mail star?

Congratolitions

A few years ago Hubs and I bought a wedding gift for some friends and had it shipped with instructions for a congratulatory message to be sent along. All it was supposed to say was "Congratulations!"
We happened to be visiting these friends when they received the package, and upon opening it, the message read, "Congradalations!"
I mean... I spelled it for you. I gave you type-written instructions and this is what you come up with?
So I was amused to see this much, much worse transgression, which occurred yesterday in my office for our boss' baby shower. It's supposed to say, "Congratulations, Jami, on your bundle of joy!"
Instead it said, "Congratolitions, Jami, on your blandle of doy!"
The ladies in the office managed to fix "doy" but the rest was obviously hopeless.

DudududududuhYou.Talk.Too.Much.

My mom used to sing a song that was very short, sweet, and to the point. It went something like this:

You talk too much.
You talk too much.
Duhduhduhduhduhduhduh,
You talk too much.

I realized later she'd abbreviated Joe Jones' "You Talk Too Much," which has other words in it that she probably didn't remember, hence the "duhduhduhduhduhduhduh."

In searching for that song on youtube, I noticed several artists have created their own songs about people who talk too much, so prevalent is the problem. Run DMC and George Thorogood both have songs about people who talk too much and how much it drives them crazy.

Ah. What to do about this problem of people who talk too much? Certain people talk too much and are close talkers, which is utterly unforgivable, particularly when their breath is offensive in odor.

These people never seem to notice others running in the opposite direction in order to avoid a half hour conversation about how to properly change a tire or what they ate for breakfast. These people have no qualms about talking when someone else is already speaking, which is almost worse than the talking-too-much part because the person seems to be thinking, No matter what you have to say, it can't be nearly as interesting or important as what I am saying right now.

These people are so enchanted with the sounds of their own voices that they simply cannot stop themselves from having a one-sided discussion about how their friend Sally slept with their boyfriend in high school for the ninetieth time while some poor person is literally trapped, desperately hoping for some escape.

Have you tried competing with these people when it comes to loudly interrupting one another? You will be speaking, the talker will interrupt and speak a decibel louder. You may try to continue speaking, a decibel louder than they, but it is a never-ending cycle, I'm afraid. The conversation becomes louder and more unintelligible with each agonizing second and the madness can't end until you throw in the towel. They certainly are not going to.

It's difficult to interrupt someone when they won't shut the hell up. I give up after a few seconds and stare in horror.

Hubs yesterday relayed to me a tale of victory against a long talker/interrupter whom he has admittedly had fantasies of punching in the head. This particular interrupter interrupted someone (imagine that!) who was already speaking, and my husband managed to assertively stop the interrupter from speaking and tell him to wait his turn to speak. One participant in the conversation was so overjoyed at this turn of events that he later sent Hubs an email of gratitude.

So that appears to be the solution. Do not befriend the long talkers/interrupters. Assertively put them in their place, if you can stomach it. I, unfortunately, cannot.

Asshat

I just felt like saying that.

Asshat.

It'd be hard to call someone an asshat if you were verbally speaking to them.

"You asshat."

It's much better written.

So yeah. I am a little bitter that lots of the blogs I read are written by people in their 20s, and they're all in a titter over being nominated for some kind of 20-something blogger award, whatever the hell that is.

First of all, why are 40 people commenting on a post about how Elisha Cuthbert should have been vice president? And what is so scintillating about a post regarding one's customers at one's waitressing job?

I already know the answer.

Nothing.

Everything.

We're an Internet community of voyeurs who pleasure in reading about how Nancy spent 50 minutes on the elliptical trainer this afternoon while watching "The Biggest Loser." Bizarrely, we love reading about the most mundane shit.

Secondly, why is there an award for 20-somethings but not 30-somethings?

Unfortunately I think I already know the answer to that, as well. Once you are 30, you are automatically less interesting. You are of marriageable and child-bearing age. You are likely blogging about how you just had your floors refinished. You don't get drunk on Thursday nights anymore.

What to do, what to do...

Dirty Laundry

First, have you noticed anything? Hmmm?

You've been redirected to my own, personal website, zeromusings.com. Oh, glory be. And gosh, aren't I creative with my website names? Allow me to briefly explain: When I created zeromusings.blogspot.com, I didn't really know that I was creating my web address (this is because I am a retard, in case you are wondering). I was impatiently trying to think of a phrase that wasn't already taken, and because I was pretty sure this would be a blog about nothing, I chose "zero," and because I would be musing about nothing, "musings."

So, welcome to it. I don't exactly have enough readers to be creating my own site but am I going to let that stop me? Certainly not. Aside from which, this is really my husband's doing, and as it affects little to nothing when it comes to this blog, I thought, why the hell not?

My husband had another idea that I pretty much put the kibosh on immediately, seeing as how I still need to function as a human on a day to day basis and am not allowed to hide under the sheets for at least 20 hours a day. You see, he thinks I should blog about trying to lose weight and that I should track my actual weight on it. Without lying.

I do not discuss my weight openly with people who are not health professionals without subtracting at least 30 pounds. That's all there is to it. And there are, perhaps, four people who regularly read this blog, one of whom is my husband. The others are close friends who certainly do not need to be knowing about my godawful weight. Egads!

Now if I had, say, a few thousand readers, I might consider it. Nothing better than humiliating yourself in front of complete strangers, I've always felt. I was a reporter, after all.

A landing on the Hudson - after the fact

So why is it that there are 20 videos of Oscar Grant's shooting at the Fruitvale BART station floating around, but no video of Airbus 320 landing in the Hudson? Isn't NY teeming with tourists?

I sense a cover-up.

No Meow Meows for Me

My husband will not let me get a cat.

The agreement was, we get a house, we get a cat, end of story. I have a name picked out, and a hole in my heart for a little meow-meow to fill, but alas. We have lived in our home since October, and to date, there are no kitties roaming our halls.
His reason for bringing the hammer down on the adoption of a cat? The house isn't clean enough.

I mean... before I ever married this man, he was well aware that I was no neat freak. And I was well aware of his hoarding habits and ability to shed massive amounts of body hair over short periods of time. He accepted my severe hatred of mornings and awful breath and I accepted the head cheese smell that emanated from his pillow.
I've cleaned what I reasonably could without sacrificing well-deserved free time but we're still working on sifting through a growing collection of boxes -- growing, unfortunately, due to our ongoing work at Hubs' grandma's house.

I'm not sure where the fighting cock wall ornaments are going to go. I couldn't tell you where I'm going to find space for the largest photo album collection I've ever seen. I'm not allowed to tackle the collection of transformers that are still in their original packaging. I have no idea what to do with the jumbled mess of electronic gizmos and cords.

This is a task for someone with a lot more time on their hands. I can go a box at a time, but for every box I empty, it seems three more magically appear. And Hubs doesn't seem eager to empty a single one. Which shows me he really doesn't want a little meow meow to love.

How could you, Hubs? How could you promise me my furry little love and then so callously snatch it away? Do you not really want a kitty? Are you worried about taking on the responsibility? Are you wary of loving a creature who will only die on you, eventually?

Your Blog is Good

Too often I start reading a blog I've just found, only to become disappointed when it peters out. The writers' material seems to dry up (what? You can't find something inane to talk about EVERY SINGLE DAY the way I do? This is a blog about nothing. Deal with it.) or they become disenchanted with writing a blog for the approximately 8 visitors they receive on a daily basis (doesn't seem to bother me).

So I'm on a constant mission to find blogs that:
A) Entertain me.
B) Are consistently updated.

I've been lucky enough over the past few weeks to find a few that seem to fit the bill, and thought I'd share them with any of you lucky peeps who might be looking for some entertaining blogs to read.

Your Beard is Good is hella funny. It's written by an Indian dude in L.A. with a twisted sense of humor. Today's entry included a bit about Kenny Loggins music in 80s movies that was pretty damn hilarious. His writing is reliably sarcastic and fresh. I love that he also seems to blog each work day, Monday through Friday.

Shallow & Very, Very Single is a San Francisco professional gal in her 20s who drinks like a fish and often blogs about exploits in the dating world, outings with her friends and her struggle for happiness. She blogs less reliably -- perhaps once every few days -- but reliably enough that I'm still reading.

I found Bacon is My Enemy today via a news article Hubs emailed to me. CNN contacted her for an interview about how she quit her job and is now blogging about her weight loss goals. I like her writing style and, of course, the topic is near and dear to my heart. She appears to blog every day.

Dooce frankly doesn't need the help when it comes to blog traffic -- she gets something like 200 comments within half an hour of posting a blurb about how she took her daughter to the grocery store. But I like her a lot -- she's brutally honest and damn funny, too. She blogs three or four times a week.

I hope you enjoy!

Me? Grouchy? Never!

So yeah I am totally grouchy today. Why, you ask? Well, thanks so much for asking. You know, people ask how you are all the time but do they really mean it? I mean, it's become part of our salutation: Hi, how are you? Great, thanks. Who answers that honestly anyway? Yeah actually I suck today. Traffic blows and my hair is awful. Thanks for asking.

Ahem.

So I am grouchy because:

A) "Breaking Dawn," the fourth book in the Twilight series, has taken a bit of a ridiculous turn. What, you say? Vampires and werewolves are ridiculous to begin with, you say? True, perhaps. But we've entered new, somewhat irritating territory.

B) Actually attempting to sleep in the same bed with another person continues to be me not sleeping in the same bed with another person who is maybe having dreams about being an acrobat, judging by all the action going on on the other side of the bed.

C) That person and I may have had a small tiff before bedtime.

D) Work stuff. Much of "D" has been deleted to protect myself and others. Sorry if you're reading the archives, yo.

Golly, writing on my blog is cathartic.

If I were Oprah

A lunchtime conversation between myself and my work buddy:

Her: Hmmm. Have you heard about Oprah? She's depressed.
Me: And why would that be?
Her: Well. You know, she's almost 200 pounds now.
Me: So what's the deal with that? The woman has a personal chef, does she not?
Her: Well sure. But she's probably like, "I want macaroni and cheese, NOW!"
Me: True.
Her: Plus her dog died. In an accident.
Me: How?
Her: Choked on a ball. It was the wrong kind of ball, apparently.
Me: That sucks. So she's depressed about the dog?
Her: Well I don't know. Can you imagine though? I bet her dog walker was, like, banished to an island somewhere. People are probably like, "Ooh, didn't Oprah fire you?"
Me: Hahaha... Yeah. She probably had him killed.
Her: Yeah. He's probably buried in the backyard.
Me: Yeah. And no one cares because she paid them off.
Her: Hahaha...
Me: So why is she 200 pounds? Doesn't she have a personal trainer?
Her: Yeah, but she probably fired them. "Fuck you, I'm not working out!"
Me: Dude. She so has no excuse. I mean, I have no excuse, but she really has no excuse.
Her: Seriously. She probably has a whole gym and a pool and everything. The trainer probably comes to her house.
Me: Totally. If I were Oprah, I'd be working out every day. I mean, you're on TV like every day.
Her: Yup.
Me: And personal chefs can make healthy food that tastes good. If I were Oprah, I'd just have him make me some healthy shit that tastes good.
Her: Mmmhmmm. If I were Oprah, I'd have a Starbucks barista in my house.
Me: Sure, why not? Dude there's nowhere to park.
Her: Just park right there.
Me: You can't park there.
Her: Sure you can. Just act like you own the place. I'll tell them we're with the management.
Me: All right.
Her: Stop turning red.
Me: Argh.
Her: Grande decaf soy vanilla latte please!

Un-Resolutions

As expected, almost all of the women in my office are on a diet today, it being the first Monday of the New Year. Normally, I'd be fully entrenched by now, a plastic container of salad in one hand and my running shoes in the other. I'd dutifully punish myself for two weeks, starve, argue with my husband, limp out of the gym pathetically, and then there would be some reason to eat pizza and the whole damn thing would go down in an ugly ball of flames.
Something's been gnawing at the edge of my mind over the last week on this topic, and I think this simple news story I just read made it click into place for me.
The woman being interviewed in the article suggests that we eat what is delicious and when we are moderately hungry rather than starving. Which, yes, I know. We are not stupid and we've been told how to eat sensibly repeatedly and we're quite well aware of exactly how it's done and how to lose weight. Hell, we have lost and gained many, many pounds. We are nothing if not experts on the subject of weight loss & gain.
Buuuuuut, we are kind of dumb. Because, as I have read, and as many of us have experienced, every diet has an equal and opposite un-diet, and in fact, the un-diet most frequently results in even more weight gain. So, we keep dieting and we keep gaining the weight back. Sure, some people live like monks and eat soybeans for lunch and practice yoga for two hours everyday after work and they seem perfectly happy with this lifestyle, but (and pardon me to all of the soybean-eating yoga practitioners out there) those people are fucking freaks of nature and should not be allowed to mingle with the rest of us, making us insane.
So I've been watching myself for a while, observing the way I eat and how much I move (or rather, do not move. Reaching for the remote control can hardly be considered exercise). I certainly eat too much, and move too little, but if I could be trained to simply eat when I start to get hungry, without worrying about whether the food I am eating is altogether healthy, and to stop when I start to feel satisfied, I might be able to accomplish some weight loss.
I realized this year that I am not, as I previously believed, a complete black hole when it comes to food. I thought I would probably gain weight this year but what I found was that I did not. I somehow have leveled off and appear to be consuming the perfect amount of calories every day to maintain my continuously undesirable weight.
So anyway, what I am getting at is that I am still compiling my list of New Year's resolutions, but upon that list will most certainly be a resolution not to diet. It pains me, almost, to say that, because part of me doesn't believe that not dieting could possibly be the only diet that works for me. But, I think it's worth a shot.

A Cat In A Jacket

Driving home

The sunset as seen on Interstate 5, through a grimy windshield.

Aquarium trip

This photo was taken at Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco. It's a school of anchovies.