Perhaps you’ve heard of a little, genius, and at times, ridiculously funny Internet and print publishing venture known as McSweeney’s? If you haven’t, for shame, Internets, really.  Please click the following links to increase your knowledge of “actual post-modernism at its finest” and let’s not let this sort of thing happen again, hmm?

The McSweeney’s Wikipedia page

The Official McSweeney’s site

A page about LOLcats

Anyway, McSweeney’s, love.  I’m no expert on English literature or literary journals, but McSweeney’s is the sort of literary journal a girl like me can really get behind, you know?  It has amazing writing, great art, interesting topics and guests, and it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously….which is like the literary equivalent of turning lead into gold…because it’s so hard…since they’re always so serious and stuff.

I think I first heard of the site around 2004.  This is one of the first things I read…

…and it still makes me laugh, every time.  They’re all good, but I think the last one is my favorite…apery!

The other day, I decided that I want to become a published by McSweeney’s author, either by the Internet site or the journal.  I’m funny…ok, amusing, at least…and the writing on the site is exactly the sort of writing I’m interested in.  I studied the website submission guidelines (small steps, y’all) and had a look at Blog, Sweet Blog’s back catalog.  You know what?  I do not write like a person who writes for McSweeney’s, at all!  Nope, not even a little bit.  I think I could, maybe, but I’m going to have to start from scratch.  Besides, I have it on good authority that they will not accept “previously published” works, and that includes anything I’ve posted to my blog.  Nevermind.

So, I guess I’m trying to say I’m working on some pieces to submit to McSweeney’s.  The website doesn’t pay anything and I’m not really doing this so I can lord it over all of you (just watch though, I’m totally going to lord it over all of you if I get a book published).  No, this goes back to something someone said to me some time.  I can’t recall any of the details, but I do remember this quote:

“If you want people to see/love your work, you should submit it to places and show it to people.”

Those are wise words, Anonymous Stranger and I’m trying to follow your advice.  As usual, I’ll let you all know if something happens.

Happy Holidays!

p.s. yes, that’s supposed to be falling snow on the site.  It’s not an eye seizure.

100% Hits – Best of 2009

Disc 1

David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland – When Love Takes Over
Flo Rida – Right Round [feat. Ke$ha]
Lily Allen – Not Fair
3OH!3 – Don’t Trust Me
Jet – She’s A Genius
Eskimo Joe – Foreign Land
Green Day – Know Your Enemy
Nickelback – If Today Was Your Last Day
Evermore – Hey Boys And Girls (Truth Of The World Pt.2)
Shinedown – Second Chance
T.I. – Dead And Gone [feat. Justin Timberlake]
Alesha Dixon – The Boy Does Nothing
Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)
Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden – Bonkers
Sidney Samson – Riverside
Agnes – Release Me
Carolina Liar – I’m Not Over
Saving Abel – Addicted
September – Can’t Get Over
Wiley – Wearing My Rolex
deadmau5 & Kaskade – I Remember
Coldplay – Lovers In Japan

Disc 2

Katy Perry – Hot N Cold
Empire Of The Sun – We Are The People
The Ian Carey Project – Get Shaky – Radio Edit
Lady Sovereign – So Human
Ricki-Lee – Don’t Miss You
Tommy Trash – Need Me To Stay
Eric Hutchinson – Rock & Roll
Lisa Mitchell – Coin Laundry
Jamie T – Sticks ‘n’ Stones
Kaiser Chiefs – Never Miss A Beat
The Sundance Kids – Drive Away
Paul Dempsey – Ramona Was A Waitress
Secondhand Serenade – Fall For You
Jason Mraz – Make It Mine
The Galvatrons – Cassandra
Biffy Clyro – Mountains
The Kooks – Sway
The Potbelleez - Trouble Trouble
Steve Angello & Laidback Luke Ft Robin S – Show Me Love
Royksopp – The Girl And The Robot
Sneaky Sound System – 16
The Veronicas – Popular
Pet Shop Boys – Love etc.

Evidently the above listing makes up 100% of the hits of 2009. I have done the math and I think “0.3% Hits, 99.7% Liquid Browns” is slightly more accurate. Now don’t get me wrong, there are bursts of sweetness on this album in Lisa Mitchell, Kaiser Chiefs and Jamie-T. But don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. We all know The Man put those artists on there not for our benefit but to reach the target “alternative” market. You know the ones, they buy the “Vote For Pedro” t-shirts. Who’s the listener out there that’s an avid Ricky Lee fan and is partial to some Jamie-T and Pet Shop Boys? I would love to meet this person, maybe get him/her to pose next to Santa and put that photo in the “Historical Yet Fictional Figures Yearbook”.

But this whole thing is like a game of ‘Spot The Odd One Out’. And I found it: Coldplay. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they release that La Vida Loca album back when hypercolour tees were all the rage? Yet a track off said album makes an appearance on a 2009 compilation CD. Sounds to me like someone had some space to fill. If it was a choice between ‘Lovers In Japan’ (??) or Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead Or Alive’, well they picked the wrong track. I would be happy to fiscally support any compilation CD that uses any track off the great Slippery When Wet album.

Oh and good on them for sneaking in that ‘Rock & Roll’ track. I was like “Hmm, don’t know that one. Better YouTube it”. Turns out that’s exactly what they wanted me to do. It’s a song that I’ve heard on the radio on the hour every hour since early this year and had managed to avoid identifying. Until now. So hey, thanks 100% Hits and Ashton Kutcher. I got Punk’d.

You may say “It’s all well and good to identify a bunch of non-existent problems like a whiny-molefaced mole, but what would you do in their situation?” First off, calm down. You’re getting too worked up. Secondly, the solution is simple: I would limit the release of all compilation albums titled ‘100%  ANYTHING’ to cassette as surveys show that the only people who still by these things have access to an AKAI boombox. This same study has shown that they may have slight ’tard tendencies as if they have access to the aforementioned boombox, a blank cassette, SA FM and some spare time they could turn on the radio at any given point and recreate their own “100% Hits” almost to a T. All from the comfort of their trailer. See what I did there? Trailer joke. Subtle. Go back for the re-read.

If that idea failed I would then launch a “Name And Shame” campaign similar to the online sexual predator list but no where near as deviant. This would involve the cooperation of major retailers whereby when the purchase of a compilation CD occurs they would get the names and addresses of buyers and post the details online. Then concerned citizens could be alerted to the fact that Steve, the butt-pirate from next door, is an endorser of ear rape.

Kind people of the internet, we do not want these freaks near our kids. We want the children of tomorrow to grow up in a society free from unwarranted compilation CDs. “Are there warranted compilation CDs?” you may ask. Gee I don’t know, does 101 Greatest Beer Songs Of All Time fit into that category? You tell me. At least we know cold, hard, long necked research went into that project.

CAUTION: WATCH ME TAKE OUT TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE
Nickelback are so bad, they make me appreciate the fine art that is Shinedown. And vice versa.
Amazing folks. How did I do that?

If you don’t know these characters yet, where have you been? You can find out who they are here. Anyway, on with our story….. Ashtonisis woke up at 7pm with a devil may care attitude and his ne’er-do-well spirit soaring. He adroitly petted his cougar right where his cougar liked to be petted and having fulfilled his only daily responsibility in life, sought out to create a little ungodly mischief. He twittered, ‘Somegod’s about to get Punk’d. hehe. Stay tuned!’ 

What is the plural of ho?

He then sent Westicus a text complaining that Dane Cook was getting ready to receive a lifetime achievement award in comedy and had beaten out both Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor for the honor. The event was to take place at the Biltmore hotel in less than an hour. As expected, this was more than Westicus could take. Honestly, Dane Fucking Cook? So Westicus immediately bolted out of his studio, leaving his ghetto-fabulous herd of ho’s unguarded.    

Wasting no time, Ashtonisis swept into the studio and told the hos (or is it hoes, or maybe ho’s? No one in the elite grammar community can decide) that he’d make them all stars in Lifetime original movies. Or failing that, at least get them a gig or two doing soft-porn on Cinimax if only they’d come with him immediately. He then had them switch their swap meet footwear for shoes that he had specially made which displayed the tread backwards. This was so that when Westicus found their trail, he would head off in the wrong direction. After getting them safely tucked away in a place he knew that no one would ever find them, in one of his movies, he began to play with them the way that he was never allowed to play with his cougar.  

A perfect hiding place

As their weaves came out one by one and began to pile up on the floor, he had an idea. He took all of the weaves and strung them together with his used condoms to make a musical instrument that sounded more angelic than anything ever heard before. He decided to call it the Dreamweaver. Ashtonisis saw what he had done and Ashtonisis was pleased.  

He then rushed off back to the studio to meet Westicus as he was furiously entering. Ashtonisis then exuberantly exclaimed, “You just got Punk’d!” Westicus then shot him in the face and retorted, “You just got shot in the face, and I ain’t no punk.” As Ashtonisis immediately healed and began to pout, Westicus grabbed him by his luxurious brown locks and drug him across town to put the matter before Barackus.    

Barackus was annoyed and showed it with a slight frown and a subtle voice inflection which no one noticed. Westicus ranted, “Yo B, this little bitch stoled my bitches. Then the bitch called ME a bitch.” Ashtonisis said, “No, I did not. I said You Got Punk’d. And you did!” Westicus then casually shot Ashtonisis in the face again. “Ow. Fuck that hurts. Fuck. Ow. Don’t do it again” whined Ashtonisis. Barackus interjected, “Now wait just a minute gentlemen, what we have here is a failure to communicate…” Westicus interrupted, “Don’t keep quoting old movies, everyone hates when you do that.” “Sorry,” replied Barackus, “Ashtonisis here has…well actually had, a show called Punk’d, he wasn’t calling you a punk.”  

As Westicus struggled to grasp this new information, Ashtonisis began playing his Dreamweaver, which immediately entranced Westicus with its sibilant sounds. The music even evoked and enchanted Tyras who emerged from Barackus’ Oval Office beaming and almost chanting, “Fierce, oh that’s so fierce!” Westicus began gesturing effusively for the new instrument. “Oh, this shit is tight right here.” He said. “I’ll tell you what punk’d boy; Ima let you keep my hos, if you give up this instrument. Deal?” “Sold” agreed Ashtonisis, “just don’t shoot me in the face again.”  

Barackus slipped back into his office with Tyras in tow. At that point it slowly dawned on Ashtonisis that Westicus could use the instrument to make millions, influence hordes of mortals, and probably even get an endorsement deal out of Trojan condoms. And all he got in exchange were a couple of really bad cases of VD. He became uncharacteristically sullen and twittered, ‘I just got Punk’d.’

Summer Heights High: set over the course of a school term this eight episode mockumentary follows three characters; a camp drama teacher, private-school girl on exchange and disruptive Polynesian kid. Not for the P.C crowd, the series constantly throws up jokes about disabilities, gingers, suicide, molestation, drugs, rape… basically, nothing is taboo. There’s some great running gags through the episodes and the characters are all solid, well-resreached / acted & genuinely humorous. Not without is faults the series does start to drag around he 5th/6th episode, some dialogue gets lost in scenes with several people talking or arguing (particularly with the girls) and the majority of the laugh-out-loud parts are crude, relying more on shock. Between the believable way that it’s shot and the harsh content it wouldn’t be too obvious that it was a comedy if you found this channel surfing. The breakdancing ‘Polly’ character (Jonah) and Mr G’s play at the end were my highlights of the show. What ‘Neighbours’ should be like!

Score: 7/10

[Flickr/jacketseason]

Have you ever received an accidental SMS text from someone with the wrong number? While most people would ignore it or kindly let that person know that they’ve texted you by mistake, here is what happens when the text recipient is a tech reporter with a penchant for pranks and a huge Twitter following to egg him on.

Premise: This morning, Brian X. Chen over at Wired’s  Gadget Lab tweeted about a random text message that he got from a would-be “Romeo” who had the wrong number. At the suggestion of Macworld’s Roman Loyola via Twitter, Brian then proceeded to prank the poor guy by pretending to be “Juliet” and make a startling confession that “she” got knocked up. Hilarity ensues…

[Flickr/jacketseason/SMS prank set]

I wonder if “Romeo” ever figured out if he got punk’d or if Brian decided to put the guy out of his misery and say, “just kidding…tee-hee.” Either way, I was very entertained this morning and I hope you are too </3

Film care te poate relaxa în cele mai tensionante momente. Nu chiar un film genial dar este o comedie drăguţă cu scenariu în care se implică multe lucruri care i-ar plăcea oricărui bărbat. Multe scene cu fete sexy, cam porno de altfel, nişte petreceri şi ceva maşini tari. Cam tot ce emană sexuliatate.

Toate astea puse cap la cap, fac o comedie sexy care trebuie văzută de orice bărbat. În fine, Ashton Kutcher prestează un serviciu pe care fiecare din noi şi l-ar dori să-l facă. Pentru că face sex, primeşte în schimb haine scumpe, o maşină şi locuieşte într-o vilă luxoasă alături de o bogătaşă sexy. Păcat că Nikki(Ashton Kutcher) încearcă să pară mai matur şi îşi ia o atitudine mai versată dar din păcate tot nu-şi poate face uitate rolurile semi-retardate din Punk’d.

Ashton Kutcher joacă rolul unei curve masculine, venit cu un bagaj de vise în Los Angeles ajunge să trăiască de pe o zi pe alta din corpul său închiriat sau vândut doamnelor trecute de 35 de ani, divorţate şi cu averi mari. Samantha, una din ţintele lui ajunge să vrea mai mult de la el, iar el nu vrea sa strice şi una dintre ultimele lui şanse de a rămâne in stilul lui de viaţă exclusivist, cu toate cele intamplate Nikky ajunge să se indragosteasca de o tipă care are exact aceeaşi meserie ca şi el, trăieşte de pe urma altor bărbaţi celebri. În final rămâne.. să-l vedeţi voi.

Nota mea pentru această comedie este 8.5. Aş vrea să ştiu fetele ce părere au despre el..

(Because the audio is hard to hear, I put a transcript of the speech here for you).

Hi, my name is Robert Erickson and I’m really excited to be here. Its people like all of you, and events like this that make our country great! Give yourselves a round of applause!

I just want to talk about a couple themes this afternoon because I love this country and I want to see America be the best place it can be.

Mr. Gutierrez is getting ready to propose an immigration bill in just a few short days, and we have to make sure he knows that we want a bill that’s tough on immigration. Now is the time for us to stand up and make our voices heard!

In Minneapolis, where I’m from, we have a huge immigrant population that’s been causing a number of problems. With the economy in recession, and so many people getting laid off, and unable to find work, immigrants should not be competing for the few jobs that are out there. It’s just not fair to the folks who have a claim to this land and the right to be here. All across America, they are contributing to the flooding of our job markets making it hard for Americans to find jobs. Well, I’m fed up, and it’s time to let our politicians know that enough is enough, and we’re not gonna take it any more!

We need to secure our borders to protect our country. We need to restore order and put an end to the anarchy that’s sweeping the nation. We need tougher immigration laws to make sure that we send these people back where they came from. We need to protect the sovereignty of the real Americans. We need to hold our politicians accountable.

It’s no secret that with an invasion of immigrants comes waves of crime. We see them involved in massive theft, in murder, and bringing diseases like smallpox, which is responsible for the death of millions of Americans. These aren’t new problems, though — they have been going on for hundreds of years, and continue to this day.

I say it’s time for us to say enough is enough! Are you with me? Are you with me? Let’s send these European immigrants back where they came from! I don’t care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinous crimes in the history of the world, including genocide and slavery! It’s time to restore the sovereignty of people native to this land!

I want more workplace raids, starting with the big banks downtown. There are thousands of illegals working in those buildings, hiding in their offices, and taking Dakota jobs. Let’s round them up and ship them out. Then we need to hit them at home where they sleep. I don’t care if we separate families, they should have known better when they came here illegally!

If we aren’t able to stand up to these European immigrants, who can we stand up to? We need to send every one of them back home, right now.

Thank you very much, and we’ll see you in the streets!

Columbus Go Home! Columbus Go Home! Columbus Go Home!

Content borrowed from – http://godhatesprotesters.wordpress.com/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091115161847AAbWBsq&cp=3

Insiden di tengah2 pertunjukan dance+psikusi psikologi UI di piastro 2009

terluka!

itu jari saya lho.

Setelah membuat beberapa orang bertanya-tanya di twitter (foto ini disebar ke twitter),

wujud si paku yang menancap

wujud aslinya

itu adalah hasil temuan saya waktu nemenin Hario Iman Setyo, alias Pijo muter-muter Blok M Plaza

Harganya Rp.6000,00 saja di toko semacam valus2 gitu.

Barang yang ini tinggal satu-satunya, jadi saya merasa harus membelinya.

Maaf ya Silmy, Bila, Himsky, Shanna, Davin, Sistha, dan yang lain-lain.

ini semua adalah keisengan semata.

- D! -

]]> http://ethicsalarms.com/2009/11/14/the-worst-ethics-exam-ever/ Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:30:19 +0000 Jack Marshall http://ethicsalarms.com/2009/11/14/the-worst-ethics-exam-ever/ http://allenhuang.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/dandruff/ Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:54:20 +0000 Allen Huang http://allenhuang.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/dandruff/

Another boring day due to the continuation of my Final (Matric) Examinations.
Today, I rose at 9:45am.

I planned to do some Afrikaans studying for tomorrow’s Afrikaans Taal (Language) Paper. There was even an extra (pre-exam) revision lesson scheduled today at school.

Windows 7 Upgrade Option

In the morning though, I didn’t do much, I upgraded my notebook from Vista Business to 7 Professional. It took around about 3hours to complete (there have been reports that the upgrades can take 20 hours or more!).
One advise to those considering getting Microsoft’s new OS for their beloved machines, DO NOT choose the upgrade option!

After upgrading, my notebook was still sluggish, just like when I had Vista. The boot-up applications didn’t boot faster either. It was like having Vista’s performance but with a new GUI. (of course I’m exaggerating) It’s NO WHERE near a clean installation. -sigh-
I’ll do a reformat on that laptop before going to Taiwan in December.

You’ve been Punk’d?

So, I wanted to attend the extra revision class that Adrian told me about. So I go to school (after school) since Adrian said that it starts at: “two thirty”.
I arrive at school and travel to [one of, not my] Afrikaans teacher. I ask her about the extra lesson and she looks at me as if I had made it up.
I asked: “Didn’t you say that there’s extra lessons on Thursday? Or was it Wednesday?”
She replied: “Yes, we did have lessons today, at 9:00, I didn’t say it was after school”

Haha! She ended up giving me the notes and telling me what to study anyways

Adrian didn’t go (in the morning either) because he thought it was after school, and since his mother works at our school, he didn’t want to arrive at 8am and sit around the whole day being bored [and lonely] waiting for the 2:30pm extra lesson.

Was I punk’d? or was ADRIAN punk’d?

Afrikaans

In case you didn’t know what Afrikaans is, this is what it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans

Afrikaans is an Indo-European language derived from Dutch and thus classified as Low Franconian West Germanic. It is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller numbers of speakers living in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Taiwan and Argentina.

Wait! I wasn’t expecting people in  TAIWAN to be speaking AFRIKAANS?! :|
I seriously hope they’re not Pacific Asian… because if they are, I’m a bloody… *censored*

Photos

I took some crazy macro photos of a *surprise object* today!
Will upload to my photography blog: http://allenphoto.wordpress.com sometime during the weekend! (or maybe later). So watch that space!

Thanks for reading guys, I really appreciate it.
Wish me luck vir my eksamens môre… (Wish me luck for my exams tomorow)

Peace,
Allen

PS: I’m getting Dandruff again… weird… Probably the Stress

In order to market its then-new Matrix model, Saatchi & Saatchi proposed and Toyota OK’d a campaign whereby people who “opted-in” would get “e-mails for five days from a fictitious man called Sebastian Bowler, from England, who said he was on the run from the law, knew [the person] and where [he/she lived] and was coming to [his/her] home to hide from the police.” And oh, by the way, the participants were entered into the event by people who wanted to set up friends to be "punked."

What could possibly go wrong with that?

Plenty. So much that Amber Duick of LA has filed suit against the carmaker over emotional distress caused by being on the receiving end of the stunt.

Although Bowler did not have Duick’s current address, he sent her links to his My Space page as well as links to video clips of him causing trouble all over the country on his way to her former house in Los Angeles, according to the lawsuit.  "Amber mate! Coming 2 Los Angeles. Gonna lay low at your place for a bit till it all blows over," the man wrote in one e-mail.

You may not have thought it possible, but it gets even stupider.

Duick’s attorney said the marketing company went so far as to send Duick a bill for damages the fictitious man supposedly made to a hotel room. "Amber, ran into a little problem at the hotel," a note with the invoice stated. "After I’m done visiting you, I’m going to go back and sort out that front desk Muppet."

The company’s defense? “Well, she did agree to the opt-in.” Said opt-in was buried in an emailed “personality test” which contained a link to a web page allegedly explaining what was going to happen. Duick’s lawyer characterizes the explanatory note as “indecipherable.” This point seems reasonable as you could hardly expect to punk someone who knows what’s coming.

The entire thing begs two questions:

• WTF was someone smoking when he/she OK’d this?
• What the hell was the campaign supposed to accomplish?

Saatchi & Saatchi told the marketing magazine OMMA last year that it had developed the campaign to target men under 35 who hate advertising. The prank campaign, Saatchi creative director Alex Flint told the magazine, should gain the appreciation from "even the most cynical, anti-advertising guy.

HUH? How the hell does this actually sell the product? It sure as hell isn’t going to make anyone less cynical or anti-advertising. I want to ask did it ever once occur to anyone that even “men under 35” have been known to have problematic people in their lives – but we already know the answer.

Sadly this campaign is excluded for this year’s list of Top 10 (or so) marketing blunders as it took place in 2008. However, I suspect it may receive a special citation from a certain special interest group.

Compliments of Babies Weinberg

Over my 30-odd years on this planet, I have amassed a wondrous pile of stories that I love to retell over and over. And I have a whole arsenal that is waiting in the wings for me to spit out on to this blog.  However, the old stories will have to wait as I record for you a brand-spanking-new story delivered to me on a platter yesterday, courtesy of the HR geniuses at my esteemed company and the crazy-ass woman they hired to help mold me into the next top model corporate leader of the future.

GAH! That is the only logical place to start.

Okay, so I wouldn’t consider myself the best employee in the world. I’m kind of a smart ass and I checked out mentally months ago, but if I learned anything from Office Space, it is that as soon as you just don’t care anymore, your career will take off in ways you never knew possible.

So I get an email on Monday from my manager that says that the powers that be had identified me as a woman with high management potential and, as a reward, they wanted to send me to a “professional development seminar series for business women”.  I was kind of shocked and surprised by the distinction since I thought that I had pissed enough people off that they would not want to give me any kind of reward for what they would call my bad attitude and general disregard for the B.S. they hand out in large, inedible chunks each day.

However, on paper I am a wet dream for the The Man because I went to top schools, earned top grades and impressive degrees and I sell a lot of shit, which is my official job. Somehow I manage to help my clients spend millions on the company’s crap stuff — and not just because I’m their walking, talking “hot librarian” fantasy. (I’m actually not lying about this – you wouldn’t believe how much my glasses, coupled with a quick and dirty wit,  turn old dudes on. I mean, its enough to make them completely not notice I don’t have boobs).

But day-to-day, I’m the antithesis of a corporate citizen, since I generally make it my other job to counsel coworkers I like to leave the company. I send them job postings all the time.  Because I think they could do better. We all could.  This recession has brought out the worst in corporate America, or at least in my corporate ghetto, and most days I just want to puke that I’m part of it. They kind of treat their employees like beaten dogs, but I don’t quit because I like going to Banana Republic and having Leonardo, my gay BR sales associate, dress me up in today’s latest fashions. Because I can’t dress myself and if I were unemployed, I’d be a big hot mess. I make a pretty good living for someone who mostly just sarcastically mocks all of the corporate drone bullshit while protecting my customers from my company and making my coworkers laugh.

So anyway, I should have surmised that this “opportunity” to go to this “professional development” seminar for “high potential” women was a boondoggle when I got invited on a Monday and it took place on a Thursday. I mean, shouldn’t high potential leaders have stuff on their calendars a few days out that would stop them from spending the morning at this thing? Well, I didn’t. Not really, because I was able to use my powers of persuasion to extricate myself from yet another fruitless corporate exercise scheduled for that day so I was free to learn how to develop my leadership potential.

I’m not really sure how to explain what happened when I showed up to this thing.  It was SO. BAD. that it will be hard to convince anyone on the planet that this actually happened. I am physically wracked with convulsions as I recall this Thursday.  I can usually laugh at anything, but this one was so totally fucking unbelievable that the fetal position is really the only safe, appropriate response. But – I have a blog, and for my own sake — my own truth — I must tell the story of what happened to me and the other inmates high potential talent held captive in a room for four hours while some random woman gave us her take on what “leadership” is.  Please have patience as take off the straight jacket and collect my thoughts.

Okay, so the only information I had on this seminar was that we have to meet four times a year for four hours each time. We have to read books and network and do all kinds of stuff that corporate people value.  And we’re going to meet all these other beaten dogs women from other big corporate goliaths that we can get to know and just network the hell out of each other and steal away talent when necessary. I guess. I’m an introvert, so I’m not really into meeting random people and talking about meaningless subjects, and you already know I don’t like other women that much either, but for all I knew, one of Oprah’s producers may be at one of these things and then I could give her my “elevator pitch” – another darling of corporate training programs – about how Oprah and I are soul mates and she could hook me up.   And I don’t hate all women – I love the smart sarcastic ones, so I was thinking maybe some of them may have been included in this thing too? I would be able to figure out who they were because when they inevitably play those stupid “ice breaker” games, we would probably collide in our desperate dash for the door and we could hide in the bathroom together swapping 30 Rock quotes.

So I show up and find myself in a smallish conference room with a very big table, that apparently we’re all going to sit around.  There was seating for 15, but barely enough room to walk since the table filled the room. There was a woman at the head of the table that kind of looked like Cruella DeVille. Except she wasn’t wearing a Dalmatian stole, thank god. I think it was fox. And she wasn’t smoking a cigarette through one of those long plastic things either. Probably because it was a no smoking zone,  but I was sure she’d bust one out at break time.  I guessed she was our “facilitator” and the founder of this company that was going to be professionally developing me for the next year.  AWESOME.

Okay, so we were told to show up at 8am. It’s about 8:15 and most people seem to be there, because it STARTED AT 8, and then she says “the seminar actually starts at 8:30, but you can’t tell people who or else they’ll be late. So I always tell people to come a half hour earlier than they are needed – and look! It worked!” Oh! So I busted my ass to get there on time and didn’t feed my children that morning because I had to be somewhere so damn early when really, I wasn’t “needed” for an extra half hour. Thanks, bitch.  I started wondering if I could take her in a cage match (and I totally could). She proceeded to say that as leaders we have to anticipate that people can’t follow directions and work around it, just as she had just done. So in other words, we’re fucking idiots that can’t follow directions. Hmm.

Okay, so 8:25 rolls around and she wants everyone to introduce themselves.  Say our name and who we work for and what our job is.  Easy enough. But then she tells us that many women have trouble with this.  We need to speak slowly and clearly and loudly enough so everyone can hear us.  Really? Because as top talent at our companies, this never would have occurred to us and we’ve never done such a unique and bizarre activity before, like introducing ourselves.

With that hurdle behind us, she starts to rattle off the “rules” about our seminar. We are expected to listen to others. To participate. We have to do our homework. We must conduct ourselves professionally. We have to go to these networking events her company does. No exceptions. She gave us a book, but we don’t have to read it.  She wants us to read another one she wants us to buy for the next class. She will hold phone calls every month from 8 to 8:30 where we will “talk about whatever is relevant”. They may last 5 minutes or 30. It just depends on what people want to share.  Whaaaat?! It kind of sounds like I just got brought to the orphanage with a locket around my neck from my company and Miss Hannigan was laying down the law. I did not see an impromptu performance of Hard-Knock Life coming, but I thought I would begin humming it, just to see if I had any comrades in the room.  Not so much.

Okay, so then she gets to the heart of the matter – women as leaders:

“As women, its very hard for us to be leaders in business because we are so much more emotional than men.  One thing you absolutely cannot do – that I do not recommend – is crying at work.  We’ve ALL been there. We’ve ALL cried at work before. Raise your hands if you’ve cried at work.” None of the ashen faces of women around the room raise their hands. “Well, I know its embarrassing to admit, but if you want to get ahead, you have to stop crying at work.” Ummmmm…. “Have any of you ever seen a MAN cry at work? If you have, raise your hand. Exactly.  His career would be over. But you can get away with it because you’re female, but people will stop taking you seriously.”  Ummm….Whaaaaat?!  Okay. There has been a mistake. This woman was supposed to be heading up the red table in my son’s kindergarten class. Yeah, I’m pretty sure there is a mix-up. But nobody gets up to leave. And neither do I. Maybe this will get better…?

“You know why we as women are disadvantaged? It was because as little girls we were raised to be in the home with our mothers — cooking, sewing, taking care of our siblings — while the boys were doing things outside the home like playing sports and making decisions on their own.  So when women get to work outside the home, it’s often hard for us to speak up and make our own decisions and realize that the corporate world is a game that we need to play because we just never learned that when we were little. Only the boys did, so they know more than we do and we have to work harder to learn that stuff.”  GAH! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? I think Cruella may be a little two-thousand-and-late. 1572 called and they want their school marm back.

“Along these lines, you have to learn to stay neutral at all times at work. Don’t be one of those women who is always happy. And don’t be someone who is always crying. Don’t let your emotion show. Because you know what? People don’t care about all of your drama. They care about themselves. And if you’re always talking about yourself and your problems, nobody wants to hear it.  But the people who get ahead in this world –and as women, we’re good at this — are people who ask other people questions about themselves. If you do that, people will think you care about them. And nobody at work does this. You can really stand out if you do.  I mean, think about it. When is the last time someone at work asked you a question about yourself?”

One participant looks around baffled and says, “Yesterday…?” and everyone murmurs and nods. Cruella isn’t convinced. She says, “Well, that is very rare. You must have some very nice working conditions with companies that are ahead of the times. Most people don’t care about you and don’t want to know what is happening in your life.  But that’s really what people want, so you have to be the one person in your company who does that.  I know we have some sales people here. They are probably much farther along at doing this than the rest of you. But we’re going to practice now.  We’re going to go around in a circle and you’re going to turn to the person on your right, shake her hand, introduce yourself and ask her a question.  The other person isn’t going to answer, because the answer doesn’t really matter.  We’re just trying to get you used to knowing how to ask another person a question.”  Someone asks if we all have to come up with a different question and if the question has to be business related.  “No. You can use the same question as someone else. I just want to teach you how to ask a question about someone when you meet them.   After this, we’re going to go around again and then the person can answer with a short answer and then that person has to ask a question back.”  By golly! This kind of strenuous mental activity was really wearing me and the other ladies down. I mean, however could I think of a question so quickly to ask the person next to me? And then answer a question and ask one too? All together!?  Gee, was she asking us to start a conversation with another person? Isn’t this more Level 2 training? I mean, it’s only our first day of training.

Even though I was sweating bullets along with all of the other MBAs and lawyers and executives in the class, we all somehow managed to ask the person next to us a question without anyone bursting into tears. Amazingly. Cruella was delighted and so pleased. She sees why we were hand selected for her seminar and she decided we could move on to the next exercise.

She asked us to name leaders we admire and she was going to write them on the board. I was first. And you know who I said. Cruella:  “Oprah… Yes… Some think she is a leader.” Some, mother fucker?! I almost jumped across the table and strangled her wrinkly throat. SOME?! More like EVERYONE. Don’t talk smack about Oprah or you’re going to get jacked. So she writes Oprah on the board, correctly, and then says “Did I spell that right?”  Yes. “Oh, because it looks so funny written down like that.” For fuck’s sake.  “Anybody else?” Someone asks if they have to be famous. “No. They can be people at your company if you want”. So somebody is like, “Debbie Smith.” and then someone says “Eric Johnson” or whatever the hell and nobody else in the room knows these people, but I’m sure they are probably the people who hired this demented woman from 1572 to teach us about leadership.  So then somebody suggests the mayor of Chicago. (This took place the day before the IOC bitch slapped Chicago for the 2016 games). Cruella writes, “Mayer Daily” on the board. Ummm….

Okay, I need to just put this out there – I cannot tolerate when people misspell stuff. It’s a mammoth pet peeve. I’m a nerd and I expect that if you’re going to get up to a board in front of people and write something, it sure as hell better be spelled right.  I mean, maybe she is dyslexic or something, but then don’t fucking write on the board. Delegate, bitch. Seriously.  But I digress.

MAYER DAILY?

If this seminar took place in Alabama, I might be able to let this slide. But we live in fucking Chicago. He has been mayor for 21 years. He and his shenanigans are detailed in the paper every. single. day. I had to hold myself back from running up to the board, punching her in the teeth and spelling it right. I don’t know if she spelled all the other people’s names right since I don’t have any clue who the fuck they are, but I guess it was really a miracle she got Oprah right, so I just started my deep breathing exercises, so I didn’t lose my shit in front of my new band of brothers sisters.

So then she says, “now that we have our list of leaders, lets talk about the traits that we admire in them.” People suggested traits, and she recorded them on the white board. Here is a partial list of what she wrote:

• influncial
• motavated
• intigrity
• smart
• compasion
• power
• love to what do

You get the gist. I feel a panic attack coming on. How did I get here? When is Ashton going to come in and tell me I’ve been Punk’d? Because if it isn’t soon, I’m going to have a fucking heart attack.  And if this thing has the power to kill our company’s burgeoning woman leaders, preventing us from becoming the future Commander and Chief, you can bet HR, OSHA  and the ACLU are going to hear about it from me. I take workplace safety and discrimination very seriously.

It is at this point in the seminar that I blacked out. I really can’t remember anything except floating above my body and kind of watching the horror show unfold. I saw lips moving, but I couldn’t make out the words. I think I may have split into several different personalities at that point as a coping mechanism.  But the young 5 year old girl personality named Cassie that was born told me later that Cruella asked if anyone in the room ever read the New York Times because she thought it was a really “neat” paper because it had stories from all over the world in it!  She said we might want to look into it one day so we would have more to talk about with our male colleagues, because chances are that they read it, and it would make us sound very smart. Apparently you can read it even on the Internet.

At some point, I saw my body walk out of the room. And go into the bathroom and light myself on fire wet my face. And get in my car. And drive away. On auto-pilot. I woke up at McDonalds. Only an Extra Value Meal #2 could begin to bring me back into my own body again. And then I went back to my office and told my boss what took place, trying not to hyperventilate.  She thought I was shitting her. No. I am dead serious. Serious as cancer, something both she and I probably have and don’t even know it right now.  Louise Hay (one of Oprah’s esteemed guests, of course) says that if you get cancer it’s because you have some resentment you haven’t let go of, which is why I probably only have a few months to live.  But the bright side is that if I die next month then I wouldn’t have to go back there again. I told her I couldn’t live another minute if I have to complete the program and that I quit.  NO WAY I was going back there.  I was already recognizing the signs of PTSD.

And, God love my manager, she got me out of it. She made me tell HR about the whole ordeal. It was at that point they revealed that we got this leadership series “free” with our corporate sponsorship of Cruella’s company. So I was fucking Punk’d.

HR – 1. Love – 0.

I am a leadership school dropout.  But now I need a fifth of vodka and some major therapy.

Cruella has her own damn business and is the biggest fucking idiot on the planet. And I’m a “high potential” corporate drone working for The Man and getting Punk’d by HR. I’m the fucking idiot. FUCK.

Dear Mr. West,

I’m not sure if you realize this but there are a lot of people who really don’t like you.  I’m not telling you this because I am one of them but rather as a person who is concerned with what is going on with you.  You emerge from a terrible car crash to show the world your musical talents, but while experiencing the ride of success you lost touch with the world.  I know that you have an “I don’t care what people think” type of attitude, but sometimes you gotta keep some things to yourself.

I really wonder what you’re thinking at times. How can the same person who created such hits as Jesus Walks, Stronger, Champion and  Heartless (just to name a few) do something so absolutely selfish.  You are not only dis-liked by so many but also an easy character to make fun of.

It’s okay, we get it, You’re Talented but at some point you have to step outside yourself and realize that it’s not all about you. So please just get back to the music.

Your Fan

I think I have a crazy professor.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s a smart guy and I’m learning plenty of things.  He’s an old Southern guy who’s that over friendly kind of Southern, with a slight but never ill-intended lean towards racism.  You know, the kind where he really doesn’t hate them at all but still sees them as slightly different.  I can’t tell if it’s an oversensitivity or what, but I can’t be offended.  But on to our story.

This girl in our class yesterday morning had her cellphone ringer on.  Okay, common mistake, she stops it.  20 minutes later it goes off again, and for a while.  Professor walks over to her.  “What are you doing?” “Texting.” “Mind if I read that?” “It’s in Russian.  You wouldn’t understand.” “Can I see it anyway?”  She hands it to him.  He wanders back up between the desks, mumbles something about how he doesn’t appreciate cellphones ringing, and throws the phone in the garbage.

Oh snap.

I literally write down in my notes after a time, DO NOT LEAVE CELLPHONE RINGER ON!!!! with a couple lines under it.  I don’t want my phone in someone’s leftover breakfast!  On one hand, yes, it’s annoying.  Rude.  Disruptive.  On another, that could be landing in a nice pool of cold coffee.  And you never know when you’ll have an emergency during class.

10 minutes later, she has her head on the desk.  The professor walks over and asks her to leave.  She says he can’t make her, but he asks her again, informing her she’s being quite rude and he won’t tolerate it, and she huffs across the front of the classroom and busts out the door with a bang.  The lecture continues oddly almost effortlessly without more than a whisper, but I exchange wide-eyed looks with a girl a couple of desks over.  Everyone starts taking notes feverishly, fighting through the air of danger and uncertainty.

She bursts back in and stops a couple feet from the professor.  He finishes his sentence quietly and turns toward her.

“I want my cellphone back.”

“Well, you are free to get it after class is over–”

“No.  YOU will get it for me.  You threw it away.  I want it back right now.”  Her chin starts quivering.  I size her up.  She could be a freshman.  This stuff is hard on some of them.   “I’m not coming back.  I’m dropping your class.  So I’m not going to come back.”

“Can’t we just discuss this after class?”  He, being a Southern man of fewer boundaries than us in the pole-up-our-asses North, puts his hand on her upper arm in a pleading sort of way.

She rips away from him.  “Don’t touch me, I don’t want you to touch me.  Get my cell–”

Here, I decide, in my wonderful, studious naivete, to throw in my two cents, possibly earning a  reputation I thought I’d moved past in middle school.  “I’m sorry, but can you please wait until after class to do this?  It’s not too long, and some of us would like to finish class.”  The class drops silent.  The professor and the girl both stare at me.  I have thrown a match.  The room is still for a while, and I think it was the awkwardness of the silence or the uncertainty of what would happen next, but either way, I’m a bit of an idiot, because I continue, albeit cautiously.  “So…just please wait until after class.”

That’s when she and the professor begin to laugh.

No one knows what to do.

The professor speaks up.  “This is your TA.”  WHAT?!?!? the class screams in unison.

That’s right.

We got punked.  By our professor and his TA.  But that’s not the most shocking part.

After they explain why–to teach us about how disruptive cellphones can be (which, and I’m going on a tangent here, I don’t think is near enough explanation for that whole thing.  Because let’s be honest, the cellphone going in the garbage was plenty to achieve that.  Yes, we were all shocked.  I guess this was more memorable, but good god.  We thought there was going to be a showdown.)–the more shocking part comes out.  She introduces herself as a Russian international student, and then tells us that he really did know Russian.  Where the hell did that come from?

I now see him in a completely different light.  I guess he’s not the only one who can be judgmental.

Surprising day.

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The Real Wedding Crashers
Regular Airtime: Mondays, 10 p.m. ET (NBC)
US Release date: 23 April 2007
By James A. Brown
F

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
- Fred Allen

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Ten years ago, in the last throws of Seinfeld, this would have been unthinkable. Even just five years ago, in the halcyon days of super-sized Friends episodes and an aging Frasier this would have been a stretch. But there they were on The Today Show, the producers of NBC’s new Reality/Comedy hybrid, The Real Wedding Crashers. Boy network TV has changed.

If there’s any axiom that holds true about network television, its that evolution only comes from desperation. And NBC is desperate. The Peacock network’s ratings woes have been no secret. NBC has been on a downward spiral over the last decade and the current drought in seems like the culprit. This drought has hurt NBC like no other network and has dropped them to fourth place. So in a sign of desperation, the network of Cheers and Cosby has turned Ashton Kutcher, and a one note Owen Wilson movie.

Unlike Survivor, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars, Crashers’ premise is something out of Bravo’s rejection heap. In its premiere, we’re introduced to Jonnie and Derek, an engaged couple who have decided to have their wedding “crashed” unbeknownst to the rest of their family and friends. The crashers are a band of improv comics and actors that take positions such as the wedding planner, waiters, and the minister. The show centers around a narrator named Gareth who specializes in sniping smarmy sarcastic snide lines, straining for laughs. He also plays a rude waiter who eats off the plates of the guests.

Gareth is the tour guide for this grand con. While the wedding day unfolds, he leads the viewer through a Lost-like labyrinth of flashbacks from the previous three days. Each episode is split between the ceremony, the previous days’ setups and bride and groom’s commentary. The gags are pretty standard. The church was being fumigated just days before the wedding, the priest’s cell phone went off during the vows, the wedding planner Kat is incompetent, the best man and the groom were nearly arrested for possessing Cuban cigars and of course the cake is ruined.

Crashers grew more and more predicable as Gareth constantly foreshadowed every potentially funny moment as if he was from the Stuart Scott school of narration. The self centered nature of the narration was distracting, insufferable and begins to wear before the second commercial break, and gets worse from there. But Gareth was least of the problems; its greater issues are systemic.

The show suffers from equally irritating debilitating disorders which will likely lead to this show’s failure; it has a weak concept and is poorly executed.

Despite notable exceptions like this years NBC drama Friday Night Lights and the classic series M*A*S*H, it’s normally a bad idea to turn a film into a television series, let alone breeding the concept with an MTV reality show. So Crashers was at a deficit from its inception. But its execution exasperates the flaws in its premise. Chief among those is the greatest crime any comedy can commit: lack of funny.

Unlike Kutcher’s previous concoction Punk’d, Crashers drags. Punk’d was by no means a brilliant comedy, but each episode was a lighting quick sugar rush, much like Candid Camera. Punk’d had simple gags that felt spontaneous and lasted just long enough for a viewer to sympathize with each mark before the gag was over. The Real Wedding Crashers is laboring, clumsy, boring and about forty minutes too long.

Another missing ingredient was caring about the marks. Punk’d was successful because it picked on celebrities. Candid Camera worked because it picked on everyone. In each case there’s a universal, albeit loose, connection between the viewer and those being picked on. Crashers creates no such connection. The only people we get know in the hour are the Bride, the Groom and the narrator, and all three know what’s going on. So when a waiter takes a crab cake off a random guest’s plate, I found myself shrugging my shoulders and wondering why should I care? I also felt awful.

With all this said, it doesn’t seem like stretch to think The Real Wedding Crashers won’t isn’t the answer to NBC’s comedy conundrum. It’s a chance you take in desperate times. Desperate maneuvers provide the room for creative evolution but those same maneuvers can be self destructive like New Coke or the Friends spin-off Joey. This is certainly the case with comedy/reality concept.  The genre is stillborn, has failed repeatedly, and seems to get worse with every attempt. And with half baked results like Crashers, maybe this idea should be thrown on the scrap heap of TV history, next to UPN’s Home-boys in Outer Space and whatever David Spade is working on next.

The only nursing program I applied to but was not accepted was “Sage of Monticello University” (you’ll notice that at least for now I use a lot of codenames; but if you read between the lines—or do a bit of googling—they’re fairly easy to figure out). It wasn’t that I wasn’t qualified or anything (I mean I have a 4.0 GPA what else could they have wanted from me—blood?), but the program is so competitive that the class was full by Christmas and so I was waitlisted. And on the waiting list I stayed from January until…today— August 25, 2009. For months the waiting list candidates received monthly emails stating that no, no one had come off the waiting list…if a spot becomes available they will call you (don’t bother calling them)…if you still have prerequisites to finish—they suggest you finish them…and they still encourage you to complete the pre-matriculation requirements such as their $77.00 background check even though you may not be offered a spot and of course none of these expenses are refundable…etc., etc. Every month, I would open one of these templated emails with one eye shut and the other squinted open hoping that this time I would glimpse some good news—and always nothing. I just received one of these emails as recently as August 11^th.

After months and months of this routine, I had accepted the fact that I just wasn’t going to SMU. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t have plenty of other options—with my grades I could go anywhere (else) I wanted to. I had just about forgotten about SMU and their maddening monthly emails. So imagine my surprise when I came home to find a message on my answering machine from their Assistant Director of Admissions. Why else would she be calling unless a spot had opened up?

At first I hesitated before I called her back—I needed time to think. In the program I currently plan to attend I will be working AND going to school—I have a mortgage to pay. But of course I would LOVE to be able to just go to school (you’re not “allowed” to work during SMU’s program and so they certify your financial aid to include a “living expense loan”). I would LOVE to be able to abandon the daily grind as a gofer and to not have to go to work an hour early just to get a damn parking spot. Sounds great!—where do I sign?? …But wait a minute! It’s frickin’ August! The end of August at that! School starts in a week! You want me to just quit my job and pull some miracle financial aid package out of my ass a hat in a week?!? I don’t have some long lost relative who recently died and left me a stockpile of cash or a trust fund. And last time I checked it was still illegal to sell your organs on eBay—and my blood type is O, so I’m sure I’d get a nice amount of bids. Wasn’t the kidney that was posted on eBay back in 1999 going for about 5.7 million before eBay yanked the auction down?  Man, what I wouldn’t give for that kind of cash right about now…

So basically that woman got me all excited for nothing—trying to sell me a pipe dream. I think I just got Punk’d…

Needless to say, the economy sucks and the financial aid situation is bungled around here. To add insult to injury, we’re not getting any PHEAA grant money until the PA state budget is passed. And these colleges and universities want us to apply for (like we’ll actually get approved for) these insane amounts of student loans—it’s ludicrous!  I’m about to have to set up a lemonade stand or sell plasma just to pay for books.

And I don’t know if Ashton Kutcher was behind that phone call I got today but as Sagat would say…”Man…funk dat!”

lol This is hilarious. )

I like Sophia & she’s kinda calm for that kind of situation.

- “i can’t tell ya but we’re trying to save your fish here.” )

- “ï don’t even eat lobster! i eat shrimp!…

She has a cute smile by the way.

man: “That’s fine, girls night out in town, you have a couple of glases, one gets knocked over”

Sophia: “Obviously it got knocked ON me, I didn’t drink anything” ) lol

She looks so beautiful & Brittany Snow too.

I suggest, you should watch John Tucker Must Die it’s so funny.

Here’s the trailer of the movie:

Though it’s an old movie, still it’s entertaining & not boring.