Some things I am excited about:
1. Cody's three-day weekends for the summer
2. Going to see Get Smart tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.
3. Going up north afterwards. Well, we hope so anyway.
4. Banana Chip Cookies. OH. MY. WORD.
On another note, I would like to know who decided that automatic toilets are a good idea. Automatic soap dispensers? Spectacular. Automatic sinks? Fantabulous. I am a HUGE fan of the automatic towel dispensers- those alleviate the need to go through the whole sanitary process of dispensing the towel by hand first, letting it hang there vulnerable to being stolen while I wash my hands, drying my hands with it if it doesn't get stolen first, THEN turning off the water using the towel and hanging on to the towel so I don't have to touch the door handle on my way out. I hate going through that whole process because I'm trying to get better about my water consumption, but honestly, there is nothing more disgusting than the things you have to touch in a public bathroom. And don't even get me started on the fact that no one can figure out to put the handle on the OUTSIDE of the bathroom door... at least many places have figured out to put a trash can near the door for the anal retentive.
But back to the automatic toilets. They never fail to flush before you are ready, or sometimes before you even start. In fact, the other day when I was at the movie theater, I walked into a stall and the toilet flushed before I even closed the door, in a lovely greeting of bacteria-filled potty mist- which, by the way, is sprayed with such outrageous force that it can reach as far as 20 feet away. You can bet I flush and run when I'm not faced with The Automatic Toilet; if I am and it flushes before my pants are fully pulled up and secured and I can make my escape, I cower in the corner and cover my face as if I were being doused with raw sewage (which, actually, is not too far off). It's no surprise that the toilet managed to flush three times in the span of the two minutes I was in there. It's not like a motion censor is going to be able to distinguish the difference between someone pulling up their pants or doing the Irish Jig. And if you happen to still be sitting on the toilet, you can basically count on an involuntary bidet before you leave your stall.
God forbid, if you did something naughty in the potty, it is inevitable that in an act of outrageous defiance most automatic toilets WILL NOT FLUSH no matter how many strip teases you do.
As far as I am concerned, with the exception of geriatric germophobes who can't lift their leg to the handle to flush, no one likes automatic toilets.
Perhaps if Obama wins the presidency, we can ask him to take action to ban the use of automatic flushers in public arenas. Because he might actually do it.
If you haven't checked out the hysterical site Stuff White People Like, I highly recommend that you do. If not for the things listed that call out many white people in this country, do it for the heated comments that people leave who have no sense of humor/wouldn't get it to save their lives.
It blows me away that the author started this site in JANUARY OF THIS YEAR, and already he has a book coming out in July in addition to the nearly 30 million hits to his site to date. If only we could all be so lucky.
I was going through the list and started to wonder how truly white I am. And if I don't fall into the category of "white," what exactly does that make me then? Let's analyze:
Very me:
1. Coffee
5. Farmer's markets
6. Organic food
23. Microbrews
24. Wine
32. Vegan/Vegetarianism
36. Breakfast places
40. Apple products
42. Sushi
48. Whole Foods and grocery co-ops
49. Vintage
53. Dogs
54. Kitchen gadgets
59. Natural medicine
63. Expensive sandwiches
77. Musical comedy
86. Shorts
87. Outdoor performance clothes
90. Dinner parties
92. Book deals (I wish!)
93. Music piracy (in the form of checking out CDs at the library, anyway)
96. New Balance shoes
99. Grammar
On the fence about:
9. Making you feel bad about going outside
19. Traveling
21. Writer's workshops
37. Renovations
44. Public radio (I only like it when they play jazz- any other time it makes me want to gouge my eyes out with hot pitchforks.)
Things white people like that I definitely don't like/irritate the crap out of me:
8. Barack Obama
15. Yoga
18. Awareness
25. David Sedaris
33. Marijuana
35. The Daily Show/Colbert Report
52. Sarah Silverman
55. Apologies (I laughed so hard at this one... I heard a lady in Kohl's the other day say, "I'm sorry, those are mine," to an employee who was trying to organize the area and I wondered why in the world she felt the need to apologize for that fact.)
56. Lawyers (Oops... did I say that out loud?)
62. Knowing what's best for poor people
66. Divorce
67. Standing still at concerts (why bother going?)
75. Threatening to move to Canada (JUST GO ALREADY!)
94. Free healthcare
101. Being offended (Three words: Get. Over. Yourself.)
Everything else I'm indifferent on.
So, if I we average one point for everything I agree with, half a point for everything I'm on the fence about, a quarter of a point for everything I'm indifferent about, and minus one for everything I don't like, my analysis tells me that I am only 25% white.
And 75%... white trash?
These commercials.
And pretty much anything by these guys:
This brilliant campaign throws some serious punches on a monthly-or-so basis, and with that in mind, this guy has his work cut out for him. (Make Microsoft COOL?!! Ummm... OK. No pressure. Really.) Irritating agency name aside (Crispin- ew), I'm sitting on the edge of my seat to see what he has up his sleeve to counter this blatant (and accurate) attack on the Microsoft brand. I was stuck using a brand new Vista PC at my former work place and I hated that thing with a white-hot passion. Now that I'm at home and use our Apple every day, I love it so much that I kind of want to kick the dog out of the bed at night and snuggle up to my trusty, loyal iMac instead.
Cody playing his guitar and making up a song about THOR, and THOR and I dancing along to it.
"Oh, THORbear. You are my dog. You're not Mama's dog."
(HEY! ...OK so it's totally true. Just wait until Hanalei comes along. I will dress her up in cute outfits and bling and squeeze her and hug her and call her George and she will love me forever.)
All the while I'm sure THOR was wondering how he ever got stuck with us two weirdos. I wouldn't change it for the world.
I love my precious little bear.
Any chance Triumph the Insult Dog will come do our weather report this summer? I'd like to see what he has to say about the "dry heat"... that is, if it doesn't kill him first.
Given that libraries have a history dating back to ancient Egypt, the idea of the public library should not be some sort of newfound, glorious light-bulb moment, but in this day and age of mega-bookstores and building up your own personal home book collection, it apparently is. I hadn't set foot in a library for the sole purpose of checking out books since my elementary school days, much less CDs or DVDs that weren't even available at the time. Granted, much of the media available at the library has suffered the abuse and neglect that comes with the territory when people don't actually own it so they don't care if they run it over in the driveway fifteen times; however, I must say that if you are lucky enough to find a CD in good shape, it is a spectacular way to check out music or movies you don't know enough about to justify spending the money.
For example: Flight of the Conchords. OH. MY. GOODNESS. I realize that I am probably a bit late hopping on this bandwagon and consequently they could be a little played out by now (a la Dane Cook), but when I saw their EP "The Distant Future" I remembered my brilliant friend Stacy being a huge fan of the show, so I picked it up figuring that she must be on to something because the girl has got some TASTE. On our way to Orange County this weekend, while almost getting blown away by the wind in Indio, I put on my most recent Scottsdale Public Library find and we pretty much haven't stopped laughing for three days, mostly because of this song:
"BINARY SOLO." Ha ha ha ha ha!
In addition to this CD, I was finally able to check out (no pun intended, but it works so there you go) Mindy Smith, Amy Winehouse, Jimmy Eat World, and since I can't find my Jeff Buckley CD, I get to upload that one too. And if any of the songs don't work, I can just download the individual songs for $1 a song, and end up paying a fraction of what it could have cost had I downloaded the full albums. Score. Cody and I watched "Babel" last week courtesy of the library. And while the selection isn't nearly what it is at the mega-bookstores, at least you have to read your latest selection in a timely fashion because sometimes you are forced against your will to return it because other people are waiting on the hold list (the only downfall I have encountered).
Current library reading selection: "Outrage" by Dick Morris. If our government's blatant mishandling of our tax dollars doesn't send you into fits as the title suggests, and if you think that the government can be trusted to put our money to correct and effective use in every program, if you think that they should be given more of our hard-earned money to dribble away into oblivion, then it's time for a reality check.
