TFGIF

This has been a nasty week all around. We lost Domino magazine. OK magazine. Starbuck's is even closing up a load of shops (if you mess with my neighborhood one I'll come after you, Starbuck's execs). Even more friends losing jobs. Tonight is about lots of tequila shots to numb it all and ring in the weekend. Those of you without vices, you scare me. I don't trust you. I generally don't trust people who don't drink - I don't know why, it just bothers me.

And while we're on it, you know what else bothers the hell out of me? Ashley Madison. I just read that this Ashley Madison TV spot will run in several cities during the Superbowl. This, readerettes, is apparently what our country and our culture has come to. Bad stock market decisions, unemployment, exploding gas and food prices, a dying economy, but just know, through all the hardship, you can cheat on your spouse through a "reputable" dating service.

Happy Fridays.

Eight kids - at once?!

Enough already people. I am so over this having multiples bullshit. Everyone is doing it. I take partial responsibility because I love Jon & Kate + 8 so much and write about it here. Suddenly it’s a trend and everyone’s like, well Ette 1 thinks it’s cool, maybe I’ll do that too. Well knock it off.

The thing that gets me is that it’s those religious freaks that end up having 15 at once. They are too moral to cut down the litter at the early stages, something about it being god’s will that have a baseball team. But for some reason they weren’t so trusting of god’s will back when they were barren, before they decided to go for in vitro.

The problem is J&K made it look too good, tv show, all-expenses-paid trips, free plastic surgery, etc. But heellllooooo don’t they see the difference? Adorable Asian babies! I hope this new family of 10 is Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean or even Pilipino or something. They make cute babies. And people want to watch them on tv. They better not be a regular, loser white family, you can forget about it.

And Pants and I are out of luck too. If the “Gene Machine” from Dave & Busters is any indication, our kid is going to look something like that old guy from Nothing But Trouble. Remember that movie with Demi Moore – good stuff.

Snow days should apply to everyone.

What's with this 'snow days for school kids' crap? F that. If the government, or the school district, or God, or whoever makes the decision that the weather is too inclement for kiddies to get to school and spend 8 hours bettering themselves by learning and becoming productive members of society, than why should I go to work?? I mean, I've already proven that I'm a productive member of society. I donated money to Barack the Vote. I wince when I see a dead animal in the road, and I hold a little memorial service for it in my head (unless it's a rat or something, then I'm like, 'Ah! Good riddance rat!') I pay my taxes, even if I squirm while doing it. I once helped a very old person get to his apartment, from like 6 blocks away. So why should I risk my life to go out into the environs on a snowy, slick, maybe icy, maybe just too cold for my liking, maybe poor visibility kind of day? Shouldn't I be protecting my welfare? Staying off the treacherous roads?

Screw that, that's what I say. I'm working from home today. I didn't have the chram to call in sick and actually not work at all, so I'm "working from home." In my jammies. Haven't brushed the teeth yet, even. Staring out at the snow, which is now raindrops, which would have been perfectly acceptable (albeit messy) get-to-work weather.

Oh well.

Creative ways to make money in a crap economy

I think now is a good time to get creative about money making ideas. The economy is in the crapper. Unemployment rates are spiking. Milk even costs more money. I'm quite frankly starting to feel a little down about it, because I don't particularly like being on a major budget restriction. Mama needs a manicure. So, here are my ideas for making a quick buck.

1. Reality web cam - people love reality shows. I could set up a website and charge users ten bucks to watch H-ette and I in our home environment..just living. Nothing dirty, so all you dirty birds will have to find another website for that - I certainly wouldn't give that up for ten dollars, that's for sure. I'm talking, you can watch us cook, watch TV, be lazy and slovenly, fart, make the bed, play tug-of-war with the doggie and her canine sauvignon toy (b/c she's secretly a wino too). C'mon...you can't even tell me that isn't better than the Hills. Or The City.

2. Turn our house into a B&B. We've got this separate caretaker's apartment...we could totally rent that sucker out nightly. Or hourly, even. Who cares if it's not technically "zoned" for that? It's also not zoned for my neighbor's dog to come prancing onto my yard whenever he feels like and drop a deuce, but he does that...so apparently the neighbors around here don't follow all the rules. Why shouldn't I capitalize on it?

3. Sell H-ette's contracting services out. He doesn't know it yet, but I've been doing some math about what his work is worth, and I am convinced this is the most lucrative idea to date. A little sheetrock here, an electrical outlet there...before you know it, the dollars will be rolling in.

4. Sell stuff on ebay. I have way too much stuff for a 24 year old. (shut up, everyone). I am going to sell some of my wares on the internets. I have lots of CD's. And books. I don't use CD's anymore and I read most of the books, so why not get rid of them. They are just a fire hazard anyway.

5. Rent out the dog to senior homes. I know a lot of people volunteer their dogs for such things, but times are tough...and Leia the Wunderdog is pretty amazing. She does tons of tricks. She high fives. She snuggles. She's adorable. Her breath stinks, but I bet most of the old people's breath stinks too, so they won't mind. Little old ladies will love her. And it will boost their morale. Wouldn't you pay for that?

That's a good start. Let me know if you have any great ideas for me to pursue. I'm game for anything that doesn't involve my boobs.

Do you know what time it is?

It's girl scout cookie time. And that means Samoas. The most underrated girl scout cookie. It's so delicious, I want to take a bite out of my freaking screen right now. But no one ever talks about the Samoa. It's all Thin Mints and Tagalongs. Yes, peanut butter is tasty, but it's all infected with salmonella or ecolli or some shit. And if I want a mint taste I will brush my teeth - mint is not a desert item. It's all about the Samoa. Chewy caramel. Toasted coconut. Crisp cookie. Drizzled with chocolate. I love them, I would marry them if I wasn't already engaged. Speaking of engagements - Samoas make an excellent gift.

I'm Lost

Brace yourself...Lost is back. For those of you not into this show, I have one thing to say to you - foolish.

This show is crazy, like in a Tracy Morgan-as-Brian-Fellows "Yo, why that bird talkin, that bird is crazy, get that bird outta here" kind of way. Like, basically, it's bananas.

What am I hoping for this season?

1. I'm hoping that Jack never grows his hair back out - he looks way hot with it shaved short, and he should stay away from the molester beard look and the pill popping. It doesn't work for him.
   
2. I'm hoping that Kate kills the lawyers who want to take her blood sample. She should blow up their house, like she did her dad. She's so badass.
3. Locke is SO not dead. Yeah, he was in a casket, dead, and then he ended up being stored in his casket in a meat locker, sure, but anyone who's anyone knows that doesn't mean you're dead. Just in the wrong time.
4. Hurley stops eating, for like one hour. He manages to lose a few lbs from doing so...because I get that he's like the "real" character us fat American's relate to, but his man boobs are really starting to distract me from the more important tasks at hand.

Your drapes need work

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the drapes hangin above them need some pressing. I have to admit that sometimes when my brain hurts too much to think about making sentences, I just steal from other sites. Enjoy eyebrows from Dlisted.

I'm glad everyone is having fun...

Nice to see the big O's having fun and all. But maybe a little less dancing and celebrating in our looks-just-like-a-wedding-dress outfit and let's focus on the country. Who has a ball when we're at war, my 401k equals nothing and it's freezing outside?! This isn't Gossip Girl. To celebrate, they should have done a spin around an ice rink, had some hot chocolate and called it a day. Obama if you are the president of change, then why not change up some stupid spending practices. How much does a ball cost anyway and who pays for that? I'm just saying. I know 2 and all of you are all hopeful and happy, and that's great, blah blah. But let's get to work everyone.

You know what the best part of today was?

Watching Dubya and his lil lady board that helicopter...and fly far, far, FAR away from Washington DC and from that fateful button. I'm sure he's got big Texas plans that involve big cowboy hats, big guns, big dinners, and probably not so many big words. I'm just guessing...

Good riddance, Bush Man, and Mazel Tov and Shalom, Obama. We've waited a long time for you. Do us proud...

My special alone time - is no longer

Got some good news this weekend. Pants has been moved from night schedule (3pm -11pm) to day (8pm-5pm). Finally I can now enjoy a dinner with my fiancé, maybe even see a weekday movie, the options are endless. I spent all yesterday feeling extremely happy about the news and making plans for the wonderful dinners I’ll make now that I have someone other than a 3-pound dog to cook for.

Then I thought about it more. If Pants is around that kind of puts a kink into my normal weekday activities.

For instance Monday nights alone:

• 7-8: Eat Nutella out of the jar while flipping through entertainment shows and wedding magazines, thinking about when I’m going to start my wedding diet
• 8-9: Gossip Girl wrapped in slanket
• 9-10 Jon & Kate + 8
• 10-10:30: The Hills
• 10:30-11:15: Catch up on Oprah
• 11:15: relaxing bath
• 11:40: listen to music I like while picking out clothes for next day
• 11:45: chillax with Pants till bed time.

I’m pretty much set in that schedule. Can’t deviate too much or it’ll mess up my whole system. But there’s no way Pants is letting me have that much couch time for my shows. I’m sure there is some Monday night sporting game he’s going to insist on watching. “It’s the field hockey championships in Dublin!”

What about Thursday beauty night, when I move the coffee table and spread out all my mani / pedi products on the floor for a complete hand and foot makeover. He going to make room for that?

How about when I want to have loud conversations with girlfriends gossiping about Pants and all his friends. How will I accomplish that with him around every night?

Don’t tell him, but the whole schedule change is starting to stress me out.

Some great wedding planning tips for Ette1

H-ette and I discovered our new favorite show the other day, and I thought Ette1 would benefit from some tips we gathered from watching a couple episodes. It's just the kind of friend I am, 1 I hope you appreciate me...

Credit goes to My Big Redneck Wedding, on CMT. Okay, here goes:

1. Why buy a wedding dress when you can Sharpie the silhouette of one on to a wife beater? Same goes for hubbie. A Sharpie'd bowtie and buttons really takes the old Penguin Suit up a creative notch. A true one-of-a-kind for a special day.

2. If canned beer was an acceptable party beverage during college, you can bet your guests will appreciate it at your wedding. It really has a nostalgic quality - pull out the beer bong and gain extra credit with the younger 'kids' who will think you are super cool. You'll be too drunk to care about grandma's horror.

3. Wedding cake is totally a budget waster. By the time you cut into that sucker, half your guests have their coats on and want to leave, and the other half are dancing and don't care. Save your money and instead go for chocolate pudding diapers. Swear to you, One, last night's episode the bride and groom had a Eat Shit contest for dessert - they served pudding inside baby diapers and the first person to eat it (no hands allowed) had to put the diaper on their head and yell 'done!' and they got a free can of beer. It was total class, and super fun to boot. Games at your wedding?! So original.

4. Speaking of games...I kid not - this couple greased up a baby pig and let the kids run around and chase it. Now THAT is what I call a great Pants/Ette1 wedding game - really breaks the ice with Abba Ette - he might reconsider pork.

5. Who needs a chuppah when you have the bed of a pick up truck? THAT is class, people. Anyone who tries to tell you different probably also thinks that hot dogs don't make good wedding dinner entrees, and, well - that is just plain foolish.

Well there you have it. I will update this list when I am next inspired to do so. I hope this advice is helpful, and I can't WAIT to see which of these tips you choose to incorporate into your very own fete.

Dirty Count

Where was YouTube when we were kids?

I should sue ABC - I can't get that hour of my life back

Last night I embarked on what can only be described as a torturous television experience. I decided, upon lying in bed exhausted, flipping through the channels, to give a chance to True Beauty - ABC's new reality show about stupid, brain dead, ethically empty pretty people. I know, that was mistake number one. But whatev, there was nothing else on, I had already watched Gossip Girl, caught up on all of the Chuck Bass drama...so I gave it a go. The sole reason I tortured myself through the ENTIRE hour of programming? For my art, people - so I could kvetch about it.

Here are my admissible-in-a-court-of-law reasons why there should be a class action lawsuit against ABC to repay people for their time spent watching this show:

1. The premise is retarded. Let's have a show with beautiful people who think they are there to win a prize for being the most beautiful person in America, but really it's about inside beauty, which they try to uncover by placing fake charity workers on sidewalks with buckets asking for money - who's gonna give to charity? Hmmm. New Yorker's basically come across 72 of these people each day on their way to and from the office...if we were to be judged on our "inner beauty" and goodness by whether we stop and drop a Washington in the jar, we'd all be broke, homeless and considered fiscally retarded.

2. The format of the show is retarded..."So-and-so, you get a value of $500,000 for how beautiful you are." WTF does that even mean to the common consumer? Just f-ing rate them on a scale of 1-10 and call it a day. AmIHotOrNot.com style. This dollar bit is bananas. I can't add, these pretty people can't add, they don't know which one is the winner, they each are holding their dollar signs with perplexed looks on their faces.

3. Vanessa Minnillo hosts. This was the dumbest mistake to date. She's lame. She's D-list, she has a raspy voice that she thinks sounds sexy but is so last year trashy, and she's dating Nick Lachey which makes it all worse. She laughs at the dumbest stuff, she thinks the stupidest of the bunch are "cute," it's just the blind leading the blind.

4. Vanessa's sidekicks, dumb and dumber. To the left, Cheryl Tiegs, who should have retired 60 years ago, with her legwarmers and pride in tact. She spends the whole show with this glazed over look, and very limited, slow responses, as if she's thinking 'I think maybe this is just a nightmare that my life has come to this - if I think real hard, I might wake up and be in Cabo.' To the right is Nole Marrin, whose claim to fame is being the stylist for the Tyra Banks show. Good god, if that's your claim to fame, you ought to not be making claims...this guy is gayer than a Triscuit and he praises the worst of the worst of the contestant's fashion choices...basically, he is interested in a hot tranny mess winning this show.

5. The porn-star worthy bottle blonde contestant who doesn't understand the different between S and Z. Everything iz drawn out and zhe zort of talkzz az if zhe haz a peniz in her mouz. Itz really the mozt annoying thing EVER.

That's enough, I have more to say but honestly, if that's not a lawsuit, I don't know what is.

Regular Everyday Normal Funny

Can't take credit, this was Big Al's find... but it's extra good stuff.

I'm baaaack

First let's commend 2 for that kick-ass movie she created. If you missed me last week, then you could have just gone back every day to watch that again and laugh as much I freaking did. Brizziliant.

So you'll have to forgive me for my absence, I was called away to LA for important business dealings. Among those is giving celebrities free things - sounds fun, actually isn't. I'll explain later. But before I do, I'll recap some findings from my trip.

• Everyone in LA weighs five pounds, young and old alike. They are all strung out looking, no butt-having, hungry-ass toothpicks. Vanessa Hudgens is the size of an ant.

• Women over the age of30 don't have a mirror. Because if they did, they would notice that they've gone overboard on the plastic surgery. Their eyes are little slits, their mouths stretch all the way to their ears, and their cheekbones touch their lashes. And they wear way too much lip gloss. They have giant fake knockers. Their hair is highlighted and long, so from the back you think you are looking at a hooters waitress, but when they turn around, its more like the crypt keeper.

• The teenagers in LA all dress like Lauren Conrad and they all look like they are 30, and then the plastic surgery starts.
  

• The weather is really good all the time. They get all upset and think there is some weird weather pattern happening when it tops out at 60 degrees.

• No one works around lunchtime, they all pack all the restaurants.

• Despite the ridiculously freezing cold bs we deal with NY is way better, any day, any time

• 

A cry to Ette1 for help

Two Truths and a Lie

I have been wondering about something...like, I know it's not right to tell lies. I get that, and I subscribe to that notion, don't get me wrong. But I need to know something. If someone contacts you on facebook, or myspace, or email, say, and compliments your dog (b/c you don't have kids) and you log on to their profile and attempt to reciprocate the good karma by complimenting them on their bird, or their dog or their kid, but their bird/dog/kid is butt ugly, is it better to lie and tell them how amazing their bird/dog/kid is, or to not say anything at all...

Not that I've been through this personally, I am just curious. I happen to be very lucky and have friends who have extremely cute dogs, birds, kids and such. But for future reference I'm curious what's appropriate. Nothing personal to anyone I know. Help me out...

I'm Back

and better than ever - 2009 is going to be the best. year. ever. How do you like that for a positive attitude? It doesn't happen often, so eat it up.

So in other news...I think I'm going to start a new business. As a lead-in to this, I'll share with you what led me to this grand plan. I happen to have a good eye for antiques and such. I have managed to acquire many a fabulous piece in my day, including a lot of six convex mirrors, various sizes, each in a unique frame. Fabulous, right? Yeah, I paid $25 for the sextet. That's right. 25 buckaroos. I like to call it funhouse chic.

Today I happened across a special-looking antique shop, and had to take a peek. This place was full of gorgeous stuff, wall to wall finds, lots of one-of-a-kind pieces. And the walls? All adorned with hundreds of convex mirrors. Now just for shits and giggles I turned over one of the price tags to reveal...$910. I had to ask the shopgirl if it was missing a decimal. Or a zero and a decimal. Now I need to know. How the F is this woman staying in business in a shiteous economy where people are losing their jobs left and right, and she's selling thousand dollar CONVEX MIRRORS?? I mean they're not even useful mirrors!! You can't do your makeup in them, and you can't really get an accurate read on how you look in those new jeans from one. They're really purely decorative. And not even artwork. Like, I get it if someone takes four months to paint a painting. All their blood, sweat and creativity poured onto a canvas, sure, go ahead and charge me $1200 for it, or $12000, I suppose it's all relative. But we're talkin' about a mirror. There's no artwork, the frame isn't even that special. And it's small! It's only taking up about one square foot worth of wall space. That won't help your decorating future.

So I'm starting a new business. A great business, actually. You can now commission me to find you spectacular things for your home. Wonderful things, really. Whatever you're looking for, I can find it for you, cheaper than some fancy-pants antique store that'll rip you off in a bad economy. Actually, I'm expanding on my own idea here. I can find you just about anything you need in life. How's that for ambition?

I charge a 20% markup finder's fee. So what are you looking for? Try me.

The best part of my New Years eve

New Year's started out slow for me, sadly 2 was too ill to partay so I had to make alternate plans.
And in all it turned out well.

Great din with sisette and bro-in-law and good friends.
Held six-week-old adorableness
Had a NY kiss and first dance in '09 with the love of my life
Watched fireworks on the rooftop

But the best part was my girl Kathy on CNN. And I'm not just talking about the nightlong banter with Andy. The freaking best part of 2008 came when there was just about 15 minutes left to the broadcast. They were about to head to commercial, one more segment to show the celebration in Chicago before we say goodnight. The whole show was pretty tame, no major controversy, no big gaffs. Until...

Kathy is heckled by a random Times Square reveler and she responds. Let me say, thank you to YouTube, for allowing us to relive this moment together.


Notice how they cut her mike immediately after. After a super-long commercial break, they cut to a performance by some lame-o band, then Andy wraps it up. This, sadly, may have been our last CNN NY's with the lady. Thank goodness our blog will live on so that we may enjoy this year after year - or until we basically get too busy or bored to deal with it.

Happy 2009 Bitches!!!!!