Kitchen Bitchin'

As I type this, there are a multitude of people in our workspace kitchen preparing their lunches. Several of them are busily preparing healthful salads; chopping a variety of fresh, heart-healthy produce just as they do several timea a week. Yet, most of the people I see in our workspace kitchen preparing these supposedly low-calorie, whole food meals are incredibly fat...which leads me to wonder, is it all for show? In other words, are they making a big deal of their healthy lifestyle in public, ie, at work, but in their private lives, at home, are gorging out on Frito Pies, Lil' Debby snack cakes and gallons of Fanta? Or, is their rotundity due to a lack of exercise despite their seemingly smart eating habits? Are they happy looking like hippopotamuses as long as they make a pretense of eating right? And why can't they do all their produce chopping, mincing and serrating at home instead of taking up all the counterspace with their food prep, not to mention hogging all the space in the refrigerators with enough roughage to keep Whole Foods stocked for a week?

Who are they trying to kid?

On a similar theme, people should not be allowed to heat up bacon based meals in public kitchens unless they bring enough bacon for everyone to enjoy. The smell of bacon is maddening, especially to those of us with hideously bad cholesterol who shouldn't be eating it. If I ran an office, I would ban bacon based products, (along with malodorous, usually burnt, microwave popcorn), from the work place kitchen out of consideration for those of us who aren't allowed to indulge in this savory delight.

And, to my kosher friends who've never eaten pork, is the smell of well-cooked bacon a mouth watering olfactory delight, or an exercise in sheer torture, or just a benign odor of unknown quality?

Inquiring minds do want to know...

Worth Repeating

Savage and various hipster snobs are on the anti-shopping/tv is bad bandwagon over on SLOG...I had to point this out:

I've noticed that people who say they hate to shop or claim that they don't shop, frequently have the latest tech gadgets, shelves full of books and cds and dvds and a closet or garage full of sports equipment. Many of them spend hours wandering around Best Buy or Bailey/Coy or Silver Platters or REI looking/drooling/buying their favorite shit. People who claim they hate/don't shop, really mean that they hate to shop for boring stuff/necessities and disdain people who like to shop for the stuff they aren't interested in. The whole, "I'm a better person because I don't like to shop for so called frivolous things" is just a lot of elitist, hipster bullshit. The notion that it's cool to spend two hours in Powell's or a Virgin Records because you're a book/music lover but it's not cool to spend your time looking for a cute bargain outfit or some discount art or knick-knacks is hypocritical.

And, I won't even get started on the whole, "I feel superior because I don't own/watch television, yet I spend 4 hours a day on the Internet watching the same media in a different format" defense of many a hipster...

I want to add that I don't consider myself a frivolous shopper...I HATE paying full price and I'm not one of those, "if it's more expensive, it's better" people. I'm also not a chronic or compulsive shopper. My favorite kind of shopping is finding a flea market/antique mall and wandering around and looking for cute, funky bargains.

I do freely admit to watching too much tv and I'd like to watch less, but I'm not a snob about it. There's no difference between sitting on your ass watching prime time tv for three hours everynight and sitting around on your ass cruising the Internet for three hours and watching shit on YouTube.

And why is it always WOMEN who are portrayed as shopaholics in cartoons and ads? It's really sexist; plenty of men, both gay and straight, like to buy shit. Apparently, a guy constantly going to Home Depot to buy tools and DIY stuff and hang out with his buddies isn't the same as a woman frivolously spending time at the mall buying clothes and household goods...

So MOVE to Canada, already! What the fuck are you waiting for?

The Dems are a little lagging in the polls after the RNC, (which is perfectly natural and normal) but of course the Negative Nancy's and Henny Penny's are emerging from the Democratic closet to start their whining and squeeling and keening and hand-wringing and their lemming-like declarations that they'll move to Canada or New Zealand or the Netherlands if Obama loses and the Evil Ones win...Every motherfucking election year, it's the same old story and every motherfucking election year none of the pussies actually go through with it. It's so tired. (And, if the worst DOES happen, and Obama loses, I expect all you fuckers to go through with it and get the fuck out of the US. I'll even come help some of you pack up and move if it means I don't have to listen to your goddamned whining every four years.)

Please get a new bit, people. Or grow a backbone, or get out and do something about the situation by donating your time and money...just shut up and do something besides whine in so unoriginal manner.

And, do some research before you begin kvetching. Despite McCain's gains in the national polls and even in some state polls, Obama is still leading nicely in enough states to comfortably have around 217 electoral votes; 243 if you think Pennsylvania is a sure thing, (which I do). We've got a long way to go, but things are STILL looking good at this point, as long as people don't freak out, give up and stop fighting to take back the White House.

Also, quit obsessing over Palin. It helps fuel the Rovian fires of Hell.

Image is from here: http://www.bruteprop.com/v1/core.html

Bob Costas is kind of a douche...

I used to kind of like Bob Costas, perennial host of NBC's Olympics coverage for the last 45 years, but I'm afraid our love affair is over...he's so pompously bland. And the little filler segments, in between events when they're trying to kill time so Michael Phelps can get his glutes massaged before competing, are inane and derivative. Of course we had to have a "let's send a reporter out to do a puff piece on that wacky Chinese food!" segment, the other night. It's so much fun to watch aging girl reporter make crazy faces as she samples duck feet, tripe and deep fried scorpion! Oh, the kooky things those Chinese folks eat! And of course, she had to bring Costas back a fried scorpion on a stick, which the big pussy refused to try...fuckin' puss.

It's the laziest form of reporting and a stunt that was probably done by Nellie Bly back in the 1908 Olympics. Oh, and there's the whole culturally insensitive thing as well. But, I'm guessing that when Chinese and French and Somalian reporters came to the US for the Salt Lake games, they probably filed similar dumbass stories for their hometown journalistic outlets: "ooooh; look at the weird, crazy shit American capitalistic pigs eat! Jello! Pork Rinds! Funyans! Ding-Dongs! Kraft "Cheese"!

Note: I haven't the slightest idea what the fuck animal that is in the photo...flattened Shar Pei, maybe?

I will never, ever see this upcoming film,

it has absolutely NOTHING I look for in a film. Out of the four headlined actors, I like Alec Baldwin, dislike Jason Biggs and Kate Hudson, and LOATHE Dane Cook. Howard Deutch is the hack director. It's apparently some sort of rom/com. It looks, sounds and smells horrible, yet here I am posting about it because I'm irritated beyond belief that Dane Cook gets top billing over Kate Hudson! Like I said earlier, I'm no fan of her work, or her trampy private life but the little 'ho has made a hit or two over the last few years and plays LEAD roles in all her films. Dane Cook is a shitty comedian who apparently is beloved by certain 30something, ex-jock/frat boy movie executive types who keep casting him in movies despite the fact that he SUCKS and has never been in a very successful movie. AND, he's only been the lead in two films, Good Luck Chuck and Employee of the Month, which both sucked and bombed.

Living proof that Hollywood is sexist and Kate Hudson needs to fire her agent/manager/lawyer for the shitty billing AND for putting her in this piece of crap movie in the first place...

A Public Apology...

to the Rocker/Hipster who boarded the #8 bus the other morning and who I silently berated for his apparent nasty, foul body odor. It was about 8:45am and somewhere around John and Broadway a number of people boarded the bus and headed for the back where I was seated. Tragic Rocker/Hipster guy with shaggy hair, excessive piercings and be-chained wallet sits next to me and I'm overwhelmed by a wave of body funk. I curse him, sotto voce, and wince and begin breathing through my mouth for the next 15 blocks when I can escape from his barrage of crotch odor at my designated stop on Dexter. I curse not so sotto when he, too, gets off at that stop and boards the #26 with me for a journey to Fremont, but I do not sit anywhere next to him. I pray that I never see, or smell him again.

Today, I'm sitting in nearly the same spot at the same stop where Stinky Rocker boarded the other day, when a number of people board the bus and file past me on their way to seats at the very back. All of sudden, I'm hit with a Proustian reminder of the previous malodorous trip, but it's not the scent of Madeleines that I smell. Only, this time, my Rock Nemesis is not anywhere in sight but there IS a familiar face from the previous journey: a middle aged man, neatly groomed in a trench coat and carrying a briefcase and a professorial air about him. He had been seated across from me on the previous journey, and today he was standing directly behind me and the stench of unwashed genitalia was wafting from the confines of his knock-off Burberry. It hadn't been the seemingly obvious culprit, Rockstar McHipster with the nasty hair and ratty denim jacket, but the well-combed, Professor Stinky McGaypants who had odorifically raped me with his manstench.

So, I apologize to my Linda's/ChaCha/Comet hanging out friend and instead will focus my hate and loathing to the old Grampa guy who can remember to comb his hair but can't seem to get the hang of using a little Axe bodywash to clean the cooties off his cooter.

NOTE: when you type in "Stinky" to Google Images, you will get some truly horrifying results...