Springtime

03.30.05

Song of the Day: Angel City - Love Me Right

It's spring in Chicago, which means that Chicagoans are still walking around in gloves, hats, and scarves despite it being close to 70 degrees out.

It's also the start of tourist season. Tourists are very easy to spot. When you're on the bus, they are the ones who ask the bus driver five hundred questions before getting on the bus. Next, they spend ten mintues paying for two parents and ten kids, and then they shove all their kids into the handicap/elderly priority seats and don't budge when a little old lady teeters on with her cane and needs to sit down close to the door.

When you're walking to the bus stop at the Sears Tower, tourists are the ones trying to fit the entire building into their camera's viewfinder. Let me assure you that you can't do it, so give up now before you bump into me while walking backwards, eye in the camera, without any consideration of the crowds of people around you.

02:03 PM [link]

What was that?

03.29.05

Song of the Day: Divine Inspiration - The Way

According to the Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly is comparing Mariah Carey's new album cover to Beyonce's and is suggesting that Mariah is copying her and can only hope to sell as many copies of her new CD as Beyonce did.

Uh, what?

Mariah's been selling millions of records since before Beyonce was out of elementary school. According to Wikipidia.com:

"She is the best selling female recording artist of all time...She is also the only female artist to have a #1 song on the US charts in every year of the 1990s, the most Hot 100 #1's of any female artist in history, and also lays claim to the second song in history ("Fantasy") to ever debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100...With 61 cumulative weeks at #1, she is also the artist with the second-most weeks spent at #1, beating the Beatles by two weeks and falling only behind Elvis Presley."

So, why would Mariah concern herself with a pipsqueak like Beyonce? People who fawn over the top 40 flash-in-the-pan hip hop acts of today, which seems to include writers at Entertainment Weekly, need to get their heads out of their asses.

12:53 PM [link]

Concert review

03.28.05

Song of the Day: Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet's Back)

Tonight was the Backstreet Boys concert. The House of Blues was a gorgeous venue, and it was a lot more fun seeing a concert there than in an arena. We were so close to the stage that it was unbelievable. And there was booze!

Some things haven't changed - Kevin still can't dance and fans still screamed during the entire show. My darling sister spent the entire 2 hours we waited in line saying that all screaming fans should be banished to an island, and then proceeded to scream herself quite a bit.

Their new material definitely has more of a rock-ish sound to it, and their choreographed dances were confined to their older hits and kept out of their new songs. I can't wait until June so I can hear their new album without all the screaming fans cluttering the sound.

And now the darling little sister would like to comment on the concert:

Lindsay's two cents: OMG BSB ROCKED, PERIOD. Any of you who DONT LIKE THEM can bite my ASS. The show was freaking SWEET! I cant wait to see them 7 days from now in Columbus, and I PROMISE YOU this time I wont be nice and let people who cant see infront and around me! THERE WILL BE BLOODSHED! PS: AJ was hot. Kthxbye.

(Anyone who actually bites my little sister's ass will be blocked from this site. Thanks.)

10:44 PM [link]

Filthy slob

03.27.05

Song of the Day: Ultra Nate - Free

Another apartment building drama tale:

This morning when I left to go pick up my sister at the airport, I noticed a sign on the door that leads to my floor's trash chute and recycle bin area:

"To the filthy slob: if you're going to leave your trash on the ground, go live in a filthy slob building! Management - do something!"

I really don't think the people in our management office go around the building reading notes on the trash room doors, but the note writer seemed so earnest that I hated to spoil their fun. Whatever the filthy slob left was already cleaned up when I peeked in the trash room, so I didn't get to see the extent of the damage.

Maybe it's another way of saying, "Happy Easter!"

05:18 PM [link]

Put the lime in the Coke, you nut

03.26.05

Song of the Day: Lina Santiago - Feels So Good

Am I the hugest dork for thinking that the "Put the lime in the Coke, you nut" commercial is the cleverest thing ever?

09:19 PM [link]

The Axe

03.24.05

Song of the Day: Groove Coverage - God Is A Girl

In the span of five minutes, I discovered that two shows I watch were just cancelled. Ouch.

Third Watch will be ending its six year run this season. While I can definitely see how it's gone downhill (Faith's promotion to detective showed the show was scrambling to compete with CSI, Law & Order, and the like, and the complete disappearance of firefighters made it a show about cops and paramedics - quite a strange combo), I'm going to be annoyed if they aren't able to tie up all the loose ends or give hawt guy Jason Wiles more acting jobs so I can continue drooling over him.

Point Pleasant was suddenly axed in the middle of its first season. I don't know why no one watched it, because it came on right after The O.C. and it was simply The O.C. Supernatural Version. Now I'm suddenly left wondering what happens; any chance of Fox pulling a Firefly or Wonderfalls and giving us the full season on DVD? Please? The biggest kicker is that Fox actually approved of and is airing that Life On A Stick show. If I can tell just from the commercials that it's about a -10 on the quality scale, who the hell is making the decisions at that network?

Just my luck, both Scrubs and Arrested Development will be kicked out the door next.

01:13 PM [link]

Tabloid fodder

03.23.05

Song of the Day: Novaspace - Time After Time

Is there anyone out there who isn't sick of the Terri Schiavo case by now? What annoys me the most is that this could have been an honest look at the current state of right-to-die laws and of addressing how to decrease the painful choices that family members have to make when living wills and other health care documents don't exist.

Instead, it's turned into tabloid fodder, with people shrieking that doctors are murdering Terri and that her husband denied her treatment (a false statement) and is evil for having another family after his wife has been brain dead for fifteen years. I've heard so many different stories about how her heart stopped (ranging from bulemia to her husband beating her) that I doubt anyone out there honestly knows any facts about this case.

A year ago, I wrote a paper where I was required to take the position that euthanasia should not be allowed. There are so many levels of issues in the right-to-die arena that no newspaper or blog has touched on. Anyone who sees and agrees with only one side or the other isn't appreciating how complex the issue really is.

05:29 PM [link]

Yay for an easy week

03.21.05

Song of the Day: Groove Theory - Tell Me

There's nothing like coming back from spring break and discovering that Friday is Good Friday (my Jewish school is giving us a Catholic holiday off! Amazing!) and that Property is cancelled tomorrow for unknown reasons. Talk about easing us back into class.

I am flat out drunk from ONE margarita right now. I don't know what the hell they put in it, but it gave me a delicious buzz. I won't type any more in fear of revealing juicy secrets.

10:39 PM [link]

Gotta be kidding me...

03.17.05

I went to Victoria's Secret today with the mission of replacing one or two of my oldest bras (I bought the oldest ones when I was in high school!), and was told by the "bra specialist" that I'm a size 32D.

All I could do was gawk for a few minutes; I've always been pretty sure that I'm a 34C - but D cup breasts? Yow.

And people always wonder why I roll my eyes at women who get breast implants - I have big 'uns naturally, and they annoy me about 80% of the time. When I go jogging, I just about have to duct tape my chest to keep from bouncing (bouncing = muscle ripping). When I go clothes shopping, I find myself stuck in a limbo between shirt sizes because the smaller size is too tiny for my chest and the larger size is too big for the tiny rest of me. My cousin went up two bra sizes when she got pregnant - what the hell would happen to me? I'd be incapacitated. I don't get how Pamela Anderson and her type function. Whatever floats their boat, I guess, but I still think it's whack.

10:51 PM [link]

Half of a whole?

03.14.05

Since I've been back home in Ohio for spring break, my day has had less to do with the internet and more to do with trying to nap while a chihuaua chews my hair.

My blog entries rarely venture into the philosophical, thought-provoking arena, but I've been thinking about people in my life - friends, family, people I don't know who decide to tell me their life story - and I don't think I like what I see. So many people seem to have this notion that until we are part of a relationship with a Special Someone, we are floundering in this meaningless existence because we don't have someone to share everything with. There seems to be this universal idea that once we find a person who does this Magical Thing, such as being willing to commit, we will suddenly be happy when we weren't before.

The thing is, this is bullshit. We are not half of some whole. We are not missing a part of ourselves when we are single. You are YOU, and you have every little piece and bit of you no matter what your relationship status is, or how well your relationship is going. Instead of desperately looking for that Other Person to make you happy, or to make your day more meaningful, everyone needs to wake up and realize that each one of us has the power to make our own days meaningful, and the power to make ourselves happy. Chances are, if you're unhappy, simply finding some guy who says, "I'll be your boyfriend" isn't going to make you happy in the long run. If you're miserable because you feel like you're floundering in singledom and life just isn't fulfilling, chances are life isn't going to be fulfilling with someone either. In each of those "meaningless" single days, there is someone there to appreciate the day - yourself. Your entire self, not some half of a whole. If you're looking for That One Person to be with who will Make You Happy, chances are, until you look for him or her in the mirror, you're not going to find That Person.

Society and those goddamn chick flick movies perpetuate the idea that we must look for happiness in other people. I was so satisfied when the final episode of Sex and the City carried (no pun intended) the message that your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship in your life, and that once you've found yourself and learned to love you, then you can worry about other people loving you. So join me saying, "Screw this 'he's my other half' bullshit!" Recognize that you're YOU, and not some jigsaw puzzle piece. Each relationship is built with two, whole people who are fully responsible for making their own happiness and for making the most of their life. At the end of the day, when you emerge from the bank vault and find that the world has been destroyed by nuclear bombs, the only person you have left is yourself, and you need to be able to be happy with that.

Unless your glasses break just as you find the library. Then you have my permission to be miserable.

(Wondering how many people will get that pop culture reference)

10:49 PM [link]

Ugly babies

03.10.05

Song of the Day: Kate Ryan - We Belong Together

From the buzz around the internet, it seems like the latest Star Wars movie is supposed to be out in theaters sometime in the near future. I've seen them all and don't consider them anything special, but I do have one pressing question:

How do two people as hawt as Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen have a baby that looks as hideous as Mark Hamill?

I demand a remastering of the original movies with a hawt guy inserted in Mark Hamill's place. They've already edited some dialogue to make the old movies more consistent with the new ones, can't they edit the actors as well? I simply cannot suspend my disbelief and watch Mark Hamill run around as the son of Natalie and Hayden. It ruins the (already underwhelming) experience for me.

I think I might start a petition. The People for Hawt Men in Star Wars! Anyone with me?

07:07 PM [link]

Does price matter?

03.08.05

Song of the Day: Candee Jay - If I Were You

Today as I was lacing up my $14 running shoes from Target, I started wondering if I was killing my body by not wearing $80 name brand running shoes. I started off by thinking, Nike has high maintenance celebrity spokespersons to pay, so I'm quite sure that not all of the $80 is an indication of quality. But is any of it? I'm pretty much assuming that some 7-year-old Chinese kid put together the Nike sneakers I passed by at the store. Now, maybe Chinese kids are running shoe experts because Nike has been exploiting them ever since their little "swoop" became a sign of status. However, I'm gonna bet that none of them ever advanced to Nike's R&D department.

So you take away the celebrity athletes. You take away the swoop and all the status it carries. What's left to differentiate the $80 Nikes from my $14 Target shoes? Very little, I'm guessing. And really, I'd be glad to buy swoop-less Nikes that don't get advertised by Michael Jordan if the quality is really there. But until Nike comes out with its discount line, I'm gonna be sticking with my Target shoes.

11:01 PM [link]

Go comment!

03.07.05

Song of the Day: Paris Avenue feat. Robin One - I Want You

I'm very sad to report that James Franco is simply not hot in Spiderman 2. Somewhere between the first movie and now, he grew a mullet and started squinting a lot. That's tragic.

Monday only: visit The Dog's Breakfast and comment on today's entry. For each of the first 100 comments, the webmistress will donate $2 to Greyhound Rescue and Rehab, and for each comment over the first 100, she will donate $1. Go now, because we all like dogs and this requires very little effort on your part!

02:43 PM [link]

Backstreet's Back

03.05.05

Song of the Day: Above & Beyond - Far From In Love

I feel like I'm a teenager again: I'm going to a Backstreet Boys concert in a few weeks.

They're playing the House of Blues here in Chicago, and when I told my sister I'd take her if she got the tickets and her plane ticket, I didn't actually expect her to do it. It should be fun; HOB is a really small venue and the pictures of the music hall look really awesome. I'm hoping they play a lot of stuff off their new album that comes out in June, especially since I've seen them in concert three times already and have already heard them perform all their old songs. I'm also hoping that their fans have grown out of their screaming thing during the past few years -- my ears already don't work very well, please help me preserve what I have left!

Speaking of ears not working well, I was very pleased to read on ATF's website that they not only accept but encourage physically disabled applicants. Take that, DEA.

06:30 PM [link]

Weird neighbors

03.03.05

Song of the Day: Delta Goodrem - A Little Too Late

Weird people live in my apartment building. Some may remember The Grinch from Christmas time. The Grinch has struck again, only this time, it's a cooking Grinch.

The other day, I got a letter from the management office saying that someone in the building complained about "pungent odors" from someone cooking coming through their kitchen vents. According to the management office, the maintenance staff looked at the layout of the building and determined that the smells must have come from my floor, but they were unable to pinpoint the exact apartment. The management office then asked us to remember that we live in a highrise with many, many other people and to please keep out kitchen fans on when we cook with "pungent spices" so that we don't bother anyone else.

Can I say, what the hell? Nothing would make me happier than to have my apartment smelling like homemade food without me having to do all the work. I can't believe someone is complaining about it. I'm making Cincinnati chili right now, which has every spice known to mankind in it, and I have the kitchen fan on against my wishes. I'm debating whether I really care if some Grinch doesn't like "pungent spices" or if I should just make myself happy by letting my apartment smell like cinnamon and cloves. I don't even know if my apartment is one of the potential offenders. To hell with it, my food smells heavenly.

07:59 PM [link]

Career fair

03.02.05

Song of the Day: Deborah Cox - Something Happened on the Way to Heaven

I'm going to a career fair this weekend that's geared towards legal careers in the government. There will be representatives from the FBI and ATF there to answer questions, as well as other federal agencies. Cross your fingers for me that the FBI and ATF reps say a law degree is good enough for them and that I don't have to take the bar exam if I don't plan on actually practicing law. Logic says that a federal law enforcement agency won't care about a state's bar exam if I don't plan on being an attorney, but luck tends to run in the opposite direction when it sees me coming.

I have a few options regarding the bar exam right now: pay $100 to sign up before May 1 of this year, and possibly never take it, or pay $450 to sign up after May 1 of this year should I realize two years from now that I need to take it. Why they require such early notice is beyond me, but from what I hear, the application process is even more complex than the application process to get into law school.

Law school: where you go to learn logic in the most illogical way ever.

11:57 PM [link]

Kill Bill! Now!

03.01.05

Song of the Day: Take That - Back For Good

Will informed me on Sunday that a ring I bought at a hippie festival a few years ago in Ohio is a gang sign for a Chicago gang.

I begged and pleaded with him to tell me it's not true, since it's such a pretty ring, and goddammit, hippies sold it to me. I'm sure hippies in Columbus, Ohio have no idea what symbols Chicago gang members are claiming for themselves. Life is unfair, man.

I totally slacked off schoolwork tonight and watched both parts of Kill Bill. I didn't intend to, but the cliffhanger at the end of the first movie was so intriguing that I had to watch it NOW. I didn't have anything that has to be done specifically for tomorrow, so I didn't feel too guilty.

I'm really tempted to cut off someone's head now to see if their blood REALLY erupts like a volcano and soaks the room.

11:36 PM [link]