If I Only Had These Balls…

I’m having client problems again.  Well, not really again – it’s always the same fucking client with the same fucking idiotic problems.  Sometimes I really feel if I were to give myself a lobotomy it may be better, as then at least this client and I would be on a level playing field.   When I am feeling this way, I sometimes turn to this chap’s website, as his copies of emails and stories regarding his graphic design business always makes me laugh.  I wish I had his balls.

Here is a link to my favorite of his hilarious posts – although they are all pretty funny.  Also, check out “Missing Missy” and “Overdue Account”.

Taking a deep breath, and back to work…

Old Favorites that Suck – Part II

The Breakfast Club (1985): I know this is probably sacrilege with my peers, but this movie doesn’t stand the test of time to me like Ferris Beuller. Oh, I loved this movie as much as anyone when I first saw it in high school and wanted so badly to be a Claire when I was probably more like a Brian.  (I remember when Claire pulled out her bento box sushi lunch, I had no idea what it was…) But when I watch it now it just seems so… contrived.  The characters are supposed to be representations of all the clichés in high school – I get that – but, they are all so one-dimensional, even in the end when they are supposed to have “grown.”  The plot is a little ham-handed and the dialogue seems so unnaturally dramatic at times – it just doesn’t do it for me any more. ( I do still give it five stars for music, and the fade to black ending with “Don’t You Forget About Me” is a total classic.)

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Revenge of the Nerds (1984): How this stinker managed to spawn three sequels over 10 years is quite the mystery to me.  I used to think this was the funniest movie ever and now I can’t even watch it when it’s on TV.  I should have figured out that this was destined to not age well when I realized Ted McGinley was in it.  See Happy Days, The Love Boat, Married with Children, et al.

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Children of a Lesser God (1986):  This used to be my favorite movie for a long time… I don’t know what happened!  The last time I watched it I was cringing with the clunky dramatic plot points and total overacting done by Mr. Bill Hurt.  The crappy score didn’t help – it’s way too dated now with the screechy 80s synthesizer muzak and saxophones.  Well, okay – there really were no saxophones, but you get the idea.  I don’t know if it had something to do with the fact that I met William Hurt once while traveling in Austria and he was a total condescending asshat.  But, he wasn’t such an asshat as to make me hate the movie until much later, so who knows…  The sex scenes are still pretty hot, though!

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Bachelor Party (1984): I have to be upfront and disclose that I had a major crush on Tom Hanks back in the day.  It started with Bosom Buddies (yes, I liked that show – but c’mon – I was 12)  and continued on for a few years.  Sadly, like this movie, my crush on Tom Hanks petered out some time in the 90s.  Go figure – I didn’t like him once he started making award-winning movies.  (I like losers, dammit!)  Anyway, I used to think this movie was Hi-larious, but a recent viewing made me realize that not only is this movie lame and not funny, but basically filmed on the worst set ever built for a so-called Hollywood movie.  Seriously – what hotel room looks like that? I think my rose-colored Tom Hanks glasses made me see something that wasn’t there.  Go rent The Hangover if you’re hankering for bachelor party fun and go rent Splash if you’re hankering for cutie-pie Tom Hanks before he got all actor-y on us.

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Strange Brew (1983): Oh, how I loved Bob & Doug McKenzie.  I had their Great White North album,  wore a Great White North t-shirt to school when my mom wasn’t looking, and I saw this movie more than once when it came out thinking it was brilliance on celluloid!  Further viewings prove that once again, it is difficult at best to turn a funny 5-minute sketch on a TV show into a full-length feature.  Something that MacGruber, A Night at the Roxbury, Coneheads, Stuart Saves His Family, Superstar, It’s Pat and The Ladies Man could have thought about before wasting their money.  (The standouts when they are good, are really good: Wayne’s World and The Blues Brothers are classics, but obviously this is not the rule.)  Anyway, this movie is snoresville – go listen to the album instead.

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Titanic (1997): Yes, I know it’s the second-highest grossing film of all time.  Yes, I know that people went and saw this movie 10-15 times in a row.  Yes, I actually went out and bought the soundtrack.  Yes, I used to secretly like that Celine Dion song.  You know what?  It’s really not that good.  It’s too long, too overly dramatic, and too… well, just too contrived.  The heartbreaking love story I thought it was about before now seems engineered and shallow. I think that people at the time were just overwhelmed with the experience of the movie’s special effects and didn’t notice the secondary fact that the plot is sub-par. (And the fact that I was also in a doomed romance at the time has nothing to do with it… really!)  Wanna cry your eyes out?  Go rent Bridges of Madison County.

When Your Old Favorites Suck… (and when they don’t)

Did you ever get excited to see a movie again that you hadn’t seen in a long time and you used to love, and then you watch it and you realize it totally sucks?  Did it always suck and you just realized it now?  Did you “grow” out of it?  Is it just too dated?

I recently caught a showing of St. Elmo’s Fire on TV.  Oh, how I remember how I loved that movie when it came out.  The excitement of seeing the Brat Pack in a grown-up world with such worldly, grown up problems!  Affairs, drugs, drinking, unrequited love – St. Elmos’ Fire had it all!  ( I even had the movie poster in my dorm room my freshman year in college.)

Now watching it, I realize this movie totally sucks balls!  It has it all, all right: bad writing, bad acting, cliché plot points, bad music.  (Well, maybe not the music – that was just an unfortunate byproduct of the times. The saxophone was quite popular in the 80’s – can someone explain to me why?)  It makes me kind of sad: realizing that I am no longer so gullible as to like drivel like this.

But, there is hope…

Caddyshack (1980): Anyone who knows me knows this always has been (and always will be) my all-time favorite movie.  If you don’t laugh about 25 times out loud while watching the slobs vs. the snobs, well… then there is something wrong with you.  (Love it so much, hosted a Caddyshack costume party last year.  Now, that’s dedication.)

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Airplane  (1980): I wasn’t allowed to see this movie in the theater when it first came out (I was 12) because it was deemed too risqué, but I did see it later on some friend’s massive Beta tape player.  This makes me laugh as much now as it did then.  How can jokes be corny and brilliant at the same time?  Only though the magic of the Zucker/Abrhams/Zucker team –  imitators need not apply.

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Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1985): One of my all-time favorites.  I was a high school senior the year Ferris Bueller came out, so basically Ferris was me – or at least who I wanted to be.  Captures what I felt like at that age absolutely perfectly with not one iota of phoniness or contrivance.  When they talk of John Hughes speaking for a generation, this is the movie I think of and not 16 Candles or The Breakfast Club.

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Grease (1978): I completely understand how 10 year old girls go crazy over High School Musical or Glee – it’s just their version of Grease.  No, I didn’t understand what it meant when Rizzo was “knocked up” or that really the movie was telling me to change who I am to get the guy – but with all those great songs, what did it matter?  I played the album so much, I wore it out – and I can still sing every word to every song.  Grease still is the word – just ask any 10 year old girl.

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This is Spinal Tap (1984): I admit, I didn’t see this for a few years until I was in college, but it was a history-changing moment for me.  It was funny, yes – but it was dry – very dry –  and I loved it.   The mockumentary had been around before this, but this one was the best of the genre – and it still is.   (I have probably seen this move 50 times and I still see something new every time that I didn’t see before.) This one is definitely an 11.

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Animal House (1978): I didn’t see this one until college either, but since I was in college, it made total sense.  This movie is timeless, whether you are in college in 1963 or 2003.  Toga parties, cheating on tests, road trips, getting drunk: That pretty much sums it up.  (Although, I was in a sorority in college, and I have to break it to you that not once did we have topless pillow fights – – sorry.)

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Raising Arizona (1987): My first contact with the genius of Ethan & Joel Cohen.  Here we are 20 years later and the minds behind Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou etc. etc. and this one is still one of my favorties. I think I saw it at our discount college theater about 10 times and seen it about 30 since then.  It’s still hilarious.  Well, maybe only if you find round funny.

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About Last Night (1986): You may have noticed that the rest of my list is basically comedies.  It’s not that I’m not a sentimental person – I think it’s just that you’re not as sentimental about the same things at 16 as you are at 40 – chalk it up to experience.  But, there’s something about this movie…  I loved this movie in high school, I loved this movie in college, I really loved this movie as a 20-something living in Chicago, and I love this movie now.  Yes, the clothes, the bar scene and the music are dated, but watching Rob Lowe and Demi Moore fall in love, move in together, and then have the most gut-wrenching break up ever breaks me up every time.

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Tomorrow:  More old favorites that now suck ass.

Where Do I Get the Toaster Car?

I don’t know why I love this commercial so much.  Frankly, I’d rather have the Toaster car.  Good jamz, though.

Tattoo Follies

Another good tattoo:  Camel Toe.

Someone asked me after the Blago Tatto post if I had any tattoos.  Yes, I do – three, actually.  Let’s go through them one by one:

1. Sorority letters on my ankle – chalk that one up to “Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.”
2. Small flower on my calf – got it in Miami when my husband was getting Chilly Willy on his calf.  Yes, Chilly Willy.  My favorite because I designed it myself.
3. Tiny green star on my other ankle.  Got it in Chicago when my husband was adding ice cube tears to Chilly Willy.  Got infected = my last tattoo.

I’m kind of ambivalent about the tattoos now that I am older.  They are so small that you don’t really notice them, but were they really needed?  I guess the best part about them are the memories of having them done.

Chilly Willy is awesome, BTW.  One of my good friends designed it for him and it gets lots of attention wherever we go.  Why Chilly Willy?  Well, as he always says, “Why not?”

Why not, indeed.

Random Memories from a Generation Xer

Man, I am getting old….

• Parachute Pants and Jelly Shoes
• Orange Crush (Broncos ’77!)
• Dilly Bars
• Casa Bonita
• Wearing Two Izods
• Elitches (before it was downtown)
• My First Car (1976 Chevette – wrecked it two weeks later)
• Love Boat & Fantasy Island every Saturday Night!
• The Breakfast Club
• Fat Albert
• TV before Remotes
• Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
• The Amazing VCR
• Buckingham Square Mall
• Musicland
• Smoking Allowed in Theaters
• Smoking Allowed on Planes
• Smoking my First and  Last Cigarette in the Same Week
• Dynamite Magazine
• Orange Julius
• Ocean Pacific shorts
• Pancakes for Dinner
• Shaun Cassidy
• Grease
• CB Radios
• BJ and the Bear
• 45s
• K-Tel Records
• Miles Kimball

My Love for the Chicken

Can I please tell you that I love this stuff so much, I just slather it on bread and eat it?  I love hot sauce in general, but this stuff is the bomb.  Where have you been all my life, Huy Fong?

The first time I ever had this was when I was doing a week-long river rafting tour down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho a few years ago.  We had these awesome guides that would set up our tents each night and cook us three incredible meals a day while we fished , hiked and rafted all day.  The first morning at breakfast, the main guide was putting out the spread and was worried because he couldn’t find ‘the chicken sauce.”  I was getting worried because the last thing I’m eating for breakfast is eggs with chicken sauce as I  have a serious problem with eggs and chicken in the same meal – it seems wrong on many levels.  Turns out “the chicken sauce” was Huy Fong brand Siriacha chili sauce.  He found it, I tried it, and I’ve probably consumed 10 gallons of it since then.

The sauce is a Vietnamese-inspired sauce made from red jalapeño peppers, garlic, sugar, salt and vinegar invented by Huy Fong Food’s founder, David Tran.  He took the sauce one step further by making it his own concoction and marketed it a “sauce for everyone” instead of just for the Asian community.   There have been many imitators over the years, but no one beats Huy Fong brand.

I eat it on everything: soups, sandwiches, pizza, potatoes, sushi – you name it.  But, for some reason (must be the rooster on the label) it goes the best with eggs in any form.  Now, if they make a cocktail out of this, I may have to give up the rum.

Just kidding.

( If you’re interested, here’s an interesting article about the sauce, from the New York Times from last year._

There’s No “P” in USA

Just an observation:  When did we become a nation of problem urinators?  All I hear on the radio or see on TV are ads for drugs that either make you pee more or make you pee less.  The names sound fake if you didn’t know they were real:

PEE LESS:
Vesicare
Enablex
Detrol
Toviaz

PEE MORE:
Avodart
Flomax
Urimax
Rapiflo (I want to meet the marketeer that came up with that one)

It seems that it’s the women that pee too much and the men that can’t pee enough. What happened to peeing just right?

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, what the hell is going on with that Charmin Bear family?  What do they do, eat nothing but fiber sandwiches all day long?

Chili’s and the Menu from Hell

So I was at Chili’s the other day.  I know, I know… but we had to bowl for our fun league and that’s the only restaurant that’s near by – and if I have to eat there or at the bowling alley… well, I think Chili’s eeks out a win by a smidgen or so.  (Although the bowling alley does have fried pickles, which sounds strangely good, but I have yet to have them.)

The first thing I notice is that it is almost impossible to get anything even remotely good for you on this menu.  Oh, sure, they have their “Guiltless” section – but that only claims that the meal is 750 calories or less.  750 calories is “guiltless?”  WTF is the rest of it, then?  The thought scares me.

Second, a certain salad catches my eye:  The Quesadilla Explosion.  Now, again – I’m no marketing genius, but putting the words “quesadilla” and “explosion” in the same sentence seems like a bad idea.  Also, since it’s obviously not “guiltless” – I pass.

So, I ended up getting the basic Old Timer burger but had them sub the burger for a black bean burger.  Then, I get home and look it up and even that has 650 calories!  WTF?

No wonder we are a nation of fat-asses.

Bitch

I thought you were talented….

BTW – the real talent is Bob Fosse’s wife – in 1969.  Google: Mexican Breakfast.