Classic case of Shut the Fuck Up (STFU)

Hey, everybody, John "The Bush Administration's Bitch, and Don't You Ever Get a Notion Otherwise No Matter How 'Straight' He Talks" McCain would prefer a Christian President!

This crazy fucktard -- for whom, even before this, I had absolutely nil respect -- thinks a professed belief in Christianity is "an important part of our qualifications to lead." Goddamn, if it ain't just like a Baptist, saying something like that. And I know he's not alone, not by a looooong long shot.

People in this country who haven't darkened a church doorway in decades still have "Christian" as one of the many unexamined items on their mental "President" checklist. It's like they think that no matter what they themselves do or say or believe, no matter how righteous and moral a life they themselves may in fact lead, regardless of church attendance or Bible Study group participay or whateverthefuck, we've for some reason got to have a Christian in the White House -- like an atheist or a Muslim or a Jew could have no moral compass, would be weak at the knees in some fundamental way, would necessarily endanger us somehow, without the Holy Bible close to hand (never mind whether the professed Christian President had ever actually read a SINGLE FLIPPIN WORD of the bible, or lived a single day in a Christlike way, or had any idea what any of it meant -- see: Current Occupant, who constantly runs his miserable cake-hole about his alleged "faith" but is about as far from Christlike as any person in human history).

So you know what? Shut the fuck up, John McCain. Just shut the fuck up. You're embarrassing yourself, AGAIN, and you're making the rest of us as crazy as you are.

Douchebaggery, Ivy-League Style

Mr. Gleemonex and I got our alumni magazine the other day, as we do every two months, and it was the usual collection of self-congratulatory silliness, historical interest, and legit college news. The best part, as always, was the "Class Notes" section, in which one looks up one's own class and the classes within three years of it in both directions, and busts on whatever these intellectual luminaries are up to. The section is, of course, self-reported -- you're supposed to send news to your class's representative, who writes it all up like the chatty motherfucker he or she undoubtedly is, bolds the names, and turns it in to the editors.

The funniest thing is how predictable it all is.

The most recent two or three classes are always chock-full of reports, almost entirely from this or that happy asshole who's one of the 70 percent of the class that's going to med school, B-school, L-school, or some sort of too-too international graduate program, plus global travelogues and the many immediately post-grad weddings of the Orthodox Jewish set.

At five or six years out, you get a few more weddings, coupla babies (usually the people who have those, like, made-up jobs you see in the NYT Sunday Styles wedding pages, whose own families are FILTHY rich so that's how they can afford to have babies at this age), and some silly-ass fantasy careers like "documentary filmmaking" and "private art gallery curator."

And by 11 or 12 years out -- i.e. my and Mr. G's classes -- you get lots more weddings and babies, plus things like tenured professors, persons of some seniority in various US Embassies around the world, the guy who is "an attending oculoplastic surgeon" and the Tooly Mc O'Tooligan fucktard of enormous familial wealth from your floor freshman year who's now living in London and has somehow managed to convince some woman to bear his child, despite his total lack of sexual or personal allure. These are the same people who've been reporting to the mag for all these years, so you're kind of familiar with their stories, and they are the main reasons why you skipped your 5- and 10-year reunions -- you already keep up with your actual friends, aka the other (relative) slackers and the networking-averse, so why go to hang out with a bunch of gladhanding numbnuts you barely even remember?

Ahh, the hate ... feel it, know it, live it, and fuckin blog about it.

TiVo le hero

[Still here, still no Kid Gleemonex -- will post when that changes!]

So hey, Internets, guess what? It's a whole new TV season, and my TiVo is ready to record ...

NOTE: Later premieres, such as LOST, Battlestar Galactica, and probably 24, will be covered at a later time. Smallville (I know, I know, shut UP) will have to wait till summer reruns because of Survivor. I'm assuming you'll assume the daily recording of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

NOTE: any or all of the following will be pre-empted by post-season baseball wherever necessary -- even with a brand-new baby in the house, I still have my goddamned priorities. LET'S GO, YANKEES!

Show: The Office
Reason: Incurable addiction (in a good way), total hilarity.

Show: Friday Night Lights
Reason: Best show on network television, bar none.

Show: Mad Men
Reason: Best New Show on TV, dark, regularly astonishing, completely captivating.

Show: 30 Rock
Reason: 22 incredibly tight, hilarious minutes; girlcrush on Tina Fey; awe of the comic majesty of Alec Baldwin

Show: Reaper
Reason: The guy from Invasion, the kid from Grounded for Life, Ray Mothafuckin Wise; and so far, good, tight, hilarious writing

Show: Bionic Woman
Reason: Katee Sackhoff

Show: Saturday Night Live
Reason: Unbreakable habit of exactly 25 years' standing (and thank Shatner for TiVo, cause otherwise, this would be UNBEARABLE)

Show:Survivor: China
Reason: Incurable addiction (in a less-good way), nonstop verbal ragging on people I consider my moral and intellectual inferiors, always something new to hold the attention.

Show: The Henry Rollins Show
Reason: Great interviews, great music, great variety of rants and other HR monologues

Show: At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper
Reason: The most reliable reviews of new movies (between Roeper and whatever chuckleheaded guest is standing in for the probably-never-gonna-come-back Ebert [moment of silence], I can usually suss out what I'd like to see)

Show: King of the Hill
Reason: Still deadly perfect after all this time, and keeps getting funnier

Show: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations
Reason: Have all his books, love the places he goes, love the dickishness mixed with self-deprecation

Show: South Park
Reason: So funny it hurts, so gross it makes me sick, such sharply & viciously pointed satire and political commentary that you sometimes wonder how these guys aren't in Gitmo, Shatner bless 'em

Show:Numb3rs
Reason: Goddamned David Krumholtz (loved him since Slums of Beverly Hills, will watch almost anything with him in it); Diane Farr; frequent unintentional hilarity (e.g. the idea that anyone -- ANYONE -- has sexual chemistry with Rob "I Don't Need No 'Northern Exposure,' I'm'a Be A Big Movie Star" Morrow)

D-Day

OK, so Kid Gleemonex’s due date is here – it’s today – and as far as I can tell, nothin’s doin. I have seen to all my maternity leave paperwork, stocked the pantry and the freezer, packed the hospital bag, bought a cute-ass lil’ outfit for bringing KG home, vacuumed and mopped the floors, gotten the photo album ready, kept the road warm between my house and Target, gotten Mr. Gleemonex to install the carseat, run down a million little details, gone to the gym nearly every day, unnerved Safeway checkers by carrying my own stuff out … and finally, I’m just waiting. Verrrry tedious, this.

It was pretty funny yesterday, though, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped by – I wouldn’t have answered the door, but the blinds were open in the living-room window and they totally saw me in there, so I kind of had to. They asked if my husband was home (I considered saying something like, “Which one?” but I’m not courageous like that), then they gave me their literature and started angling for an invite, and then one of them asked all conversational-like when my baby is due, and I said “Ah, tomorrow actually.” And he goes, “Oh! Ha! Um … okgoodluckwiththatbyenow!” and dragged the other one off like they had a Rapture Bus to catch.

Misanthropy and an unwillingness to kiss Probst's ass

OK, still on the Survivor topic, but not on the current season per se – just on the concept in general. Having watched every episode since Episode One, Season One, I’ve always wondered how I would do if someone forced me (and it would have to be at gunpoint) to be on the show.

I think I would probably suck at it, in a possibly epic way. Here’s why;

1) I. Don’t. Camp. I mean, I do not indulge in the camping arts, at all. So much aggro and hassle and dirt, and for what payoff? I’m not so in love with sleeping on the ground and dragging a bunch of equipment across Nature’s hostile bosom (while actually feeling my armpit hairs grow) that I’ll risk getting mauled by bears, bugs, Satan’s eight-legged buddies, shotgun-toting murderers or, of course, Sasquatch (who’s probably only looking for a fwend, but I’m not up for that in the middle of a lightless night, chief). And this is with people I like, presumably – forget trying it with 15 strangers, some of whom I’d undoubtedly like to whack to death with a ballpeen hammer by Minute Four.

2.) I hate people. Well, not you guys, of course – but people in general. And I can only hold it together for so long without that becoming apparent, you know? I’d spend a good 75% of my time ranting to the cameras about what princesses/divas/assholes/blowhards/jackoffs my teammates were, and how I’d like to whack them to death with ballpeen hammers … while back at camp, the rest of them plotted against the Rilly Mean Bitch (aka me).

3.) I am kind of a wimp. I just flat ain’t doing the Gross Eating Challenge, I’d rather not stand on a post the size of a pub coaster for four hours to win immunity, I can’t do puzzles of any kind under pressure – about the only kind of challenge I’d be any good at would involve shooting or maybe balance. Or, hey – spelling! I can spell like a motherfucker. Let me know when THAT wins the million bucks, eh?

4.) I’m bossy. Now, I’d try to go with the flow, especially if I sussed out that that was necessary for social reasons, but laziness and incompetence light fires of fiery flame back behind my eyesockets and to avoid total brain incineration I’d eventually have to, as they say, “take the leadership role,” which is almost always fatal in the game, no matter how gently done (sole exception: Yul Kwon).

5.) I’ve already been to junior high once. It sucked great big hairy donkey balls, and I’m not going to do it again.

Very Loose, Neurotic Confederacy of Dunces

OK, so, Survivor: China looks like it might be a good ‘un. Couple of quick questions, though:

1) Why were these idiots surprised when Probst told them they’d leave for their camps in the clothes they were wearing? Have they never SEEN this show? This is like the 19th iteration, GOD! And why would they be wearing the clothes that they WERE wearing, for international travel in the first place? You want to cart your luggage around, wearing a dress and platform espadrilles? You take a thousand-mile train journey without a bra on? How about some Keens, some comfortable trousers, a functional set of underwear? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

2) Why did the Xtian Broadcaster lady have to get so upset during the welcome/whatever ceremony? If it makes you uncomfortable (you xenophobic twat), why not just say “ehh, this makes me uncomfortable, I’m gonna skip it”? Why start bawling and whining to Probst? He don’t give a flying fuck, lady, and neither do we.

3) Who chooses to self-apply the name “Frosti”? I think I like the guy, but … seriously, “Frosti”?

4) Less of a question, more of a rant: Listen, Miss New York Waitress – first of all, maybe you live in NY, but I call bullshit on you “being from” NY – you look like you mighta been there about a year, maybe six months – you’re trying waaay too hard. Secondly, don’t try to blame your cracked-out irritability and social maladjustment on “being from New York” – you’re just a crabby, lazy bitch, no matter where you were born.

As for favorites at this early date, I’m liking the poker player and the grave digger, and possibly the “gay Mormon flight attendant,” for the long stretch … but don’t go putting money on that because I have historically been TERRIBLE at actually picking the winner. Stupid gutless things always happen to upset my predixx.

Welcome to Halfassburg, Population ... Ehh, We Dunno, Whatever

I may have spoken here about the town where I live, which is just over the hill south of San Francheesy, but light-years away in so many ways ... it's this half-assed little surfer/dropout town, where half-assery has been refined to a new and exciting art form. Charming in some ways, but kind of frustrating in others, especially for people who still carry a fair amount of New York City around in their psychic make-up, know what I mean?

So, latest example: The Coffee Shop at the End of the Universe, this janky little local coffeehouse a block from our place, sits on a cliff about 100 feet from the edge of the Pacific Ocean -- million-dollar views you can savor for the price of a latte. They posted a notice recently that they were applying for a license to sell beer & wine, which I thought was fantastic -- especially since after Kid Gleemonex makes his or her appearance, me and Mr. Gleemonex can shuffle over there w/the baby and have ourselves a beer, without involving the car or babysitters and whatnot, right? So yesterday I stopped in for a coffee and I asked the guy on duty whether they'd gotten the license, and he said yeah, so I asked when they'd start selling. He replies, a couple of months -- cause they have to get the whole building re-wired so it can handle powering the coolers and kegerators and whatnot. Jeeeezus. The kind of thing you think they might've thought of a little earlier, no? Not here, not in this town, baby!

Oh well, better late than never. And meanwhile [sorry, Guinness]: ONE AND A HALF GAMES BEHIND! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Yeah, yeah, Piggy's got the conch shell

So hey, anybody going to watch Kid Nation tonight? I'm not, and not just because of the massive advertising push. It's just that, well, I can't muster up any care -- you know, I don't need to start watching the antics of the model/bartenders of tomorrow, today.

Besides, Survivor: China premieres the next night, and really, my commitment there has long been made. I don't watch any of the other endless iterations of the task-plus-voter-elimination formula either, from Big Brother to Top Model to American Jesus-CHRIST-Aren't-We-Done-With-This-Yet Idol. To me, they're all pale copies of ol' granddad, and for my own sanity, I'm stickin with it.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

Three and a half games back, with 12 to play. Remember when it was 14.5 games back? Twice?

Holy mother of Shatner, we got us a playoff race goin' here.

Sewer Rats’ Useless Cousins, Repped by Satan’s PR Agency

Internets, I want to talk to you today about the fuzzy little fucks known as hamsters – the World’s Worst Pet, and a creature that will bring you nothing but fiery, fiery agita, should you choose to let one or more inhabit your domicile. My roommate in college wanted to get one; I was like, if you do that, Mick, I’m gonna put the goddamn thing on the windowsill, take your field hockey stick, and smack it out over the Quad and into merciful oblivion.

See, I had hamsters, as a kid. Got a pair of the little cretins on, I think, my 10th birthday, after months of ceaseless begging and large promises to take care of them. I thought they were cute. Cute, Jesus. Cute like a hemorrhoid, as it turned out.

We had a big cage, and some fuckin habitrails for these wads of pestilence to run around in. Cage was layered with that wood-chip stuff, there was a wheel, there was plenty of food and drink – I was BEYOND THRILLED to actually get my cutesy-wutesy little fuckin hamsters.

People, I think that thrill lasted about sixteen seconds. Maybe less. It was about until the first time one of them pissed, rendering all that nice wood-chip smell moot, or maybe till the other one bit me in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger – crunched right the fuck through the skin, and I bled all over the place. And things went from bad to worse. The pissing and shitting proceeded at epic levels 24/7, necessitating total cage cleanout every ten minutes (or that’s how I remember it – no 10-year-old can keep up with it, is what I’m saying, and WOE unto you who neglect the cleaning – the smell fills the house, and smacks you in the face from about a mile away). We added more habitrails, hoping to spread the cleaning out some – but that just netted us more acreage to clean. I started not worrying so very awfully much when one of the cats would sit on top of the cage, eyes hyper-alert and tail switching back and forth, for hours at a stretch; I started being a little lax on shutting the escape gate, or fastening the habitrails so very tightly together. But the smell and the eternal cleaning and the fact that you couldn’t even PET the little shit-machines without getting bit or pissed on – well, that was topped by the Babies Incident. The pair … well, they had a litter of babies. Half a dozen tiny, transparent fava beans. And then they ATE THEM. The hamster parents ATE their own babies. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I don’t even remember what happened after that. Maybe the cats got ‘em (go, CATS!!), or they escaped, or a merciful god released us from our penance by rapturing them up, but either way, they disappeared and we sold their cage and whatnot in a garage sale, thank Shatner.

And ever since then, I’ve been the Anti-Hamstervangelist. For example, Saturday, in the pet store, Mr. Gleemonex and I were picking up some fish for our 240-gallon tank, and there was this 9-year-old skater kid with awesome hair (I’m talking long, flowing, white-blonde baby-Bones-Brigade hair, not buzz-cut “got my own reality show on VH1, already support my whole fam w/my corp sponsorship buxx” hair) who was happily choosing stuff to go in … a hamster cage. I started in, kind of loudly, protesting in his and his mom’s general direction – “Oh, man, no. Don’t do it. It’s the worst decision you’ll ever make. You’ll never have a moment’s peace, once you do this. They are the Worst Pet Ever, I guarantee you. BIG mistake. Don’t do it, I’m warning you both.”

Internets, I don’t think they got the message. Even now, they’re probably living in a hell of their own making, wondering where it all went wrong. But it isn’t too late for you. Heed my warning, ye Internets, and SAVE YOURSELVES FROM THE HAMSTER PLAGUE.

This and tumbleweeds ...

Friday Fives: Five lists of five things tumbling around the vacant windswept parking lot that is my mind today.

Five shows I’ve seen more than once:
--Pixies (x3)
--Tenacious D (x6)
--Radiohead (x3)
--Sloan (x3)
--Matthew Sweet (x3)

Five 45s I owned as a yute:
--Like a Surgeon, Weird Al Yankovic
--Sunglasses at Night, Corey Hart
--Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Cyndi Lauper
--The Power of Love, Huey Lewis and the News
--Billie Jean, Michael Jackson

Five things that used to depress the living shit out of me as a yute:
--The color palette of the 70s
--The Hill Street Blues theme song
--Puff, the Magic Motherfucking Goddamned Dragon (and by association, everything those assholes Peter, Paul and Mary ever sang or thought about singing, damn all three of those fucks to hell)
--Waiting to get picked up from a sleepover (SO ready to go home by that point)
--My friend’s dad’s house (divorced, whole house smelled of cat pee)

Five chick lit books I have read, which represent several hours of my life I’ll never get back, and thank Shatner I never actually PURCHASED any of them:
--Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing
--The Nanny Diaries
--The Devil Wears Prada
--Bridget Jones’ Diary
--Singletini (actually have only read bits, in dramatic form, when it was my turn to read aloud in “homeroom” at work – hola, Sneed!)

Five people I’d very much like to punch in the throat:
--Scott the engineer (on Stern)
--Dane Cook
--Farhad Manjoo
--Scarlett Johanssen
--Zach Braff

I don't think I could even play one on TV

Ma Gleemonex, bless her heart, maintains to this day that I could have been a doctor if I'd wanted to. Now, as I've said before, there are many reasons this is not the case, but -- well, I guess if I wanted to live my life in dread of the daytime, and never have a moment's peace (see preceding re: dread), technically she could be right -- I'm not a Science Person (hoooo boy, am I not), nor a Mechanical Person (I had to call Mr. Gleemonex today to tell me how to get the Prius out of Park, SHUT UP it's a NEW CAR OK?), nor a Math Person (I got a whole other post brewing on that one), but I did always get top grades in classes of those subjects. It cost me dearly, and I lived in dread of them, mostly, but I pulled the fucking grades.

As a matter of fact, in my single hardest and most dreaded class of high school -- Honors Chemistry -- I not only ended up with something ridiculous like a 96 for the year, but also I won the gold medal in this fuckin competition our nutjob chem teacher made the whole class participate in. Yeah, I beat Y'all-Know-Who (our eventual valedictorian), who was considered a shoo-in to win.

But the thing is, I was TERRIFIED of chem class. I distrusted the chemicals, I HATED all the complicated fuckin math we had to do, I never for a moment believed I was in the right on any task I was made to perform. In English, in History, in Government, even occasionally in goddamned TRIG for chrissake (which I hated with the fire of a thousand suns), I knew what I was doing, but never, ever did I feel that way in H.Chem.

And people, you shoulda seen me and my lab partner -- my good friend, eventual bridesmaid, and boon fuckin companion, AF -- in action. We -- we were no help to each other, she and I. Among the major Chem Sins we committed (the minor being too numerous to list):

1) Shrieking Bunsen burner pyromania. Neither of us wanted to light the fucker, so it'd sit there, gas flowing, for an eternity before we got it lit -- at which point it'd shoot flames toward the ceiling and we'd sort of dance and shriek around it like only teenage girls can, and then see what we could light on fire without getting caught (e.g. a single hair, a gum wrapper, etc.). We were a danger to ourselves and to others, some days.

2) We were supposed to be making soap, via a very fucking complicated series of equations and whatnot. Ours didn't jell, despite the fact that we were sure we had the math right. So we STOLE SOME from Y'all-Know-Who, and also a little from Mister Smartypants (whose girlfriend, a year younger than us, hated our whole entire class of girls cause she thought our lives consisted of trying to steal him from her). Ta-da! Soap, bitches.

3) We broke a beakerfull of ... something or other, something kind of toxic, right on our lab table. Teech was busy on the other side of the room, and didn't hear the glass breaking. Thinking fast, before we became the subject of a big hullaballoo and dash to the chem shower and that big range hood air-sucking thing and also a lecture on lab safety and an automatic letter downgrade for the experiment, AF and I casually swept up the breakage and the goo inside it with paper towels, tossed them in the garbage (well, in Mister Smartypants' garbage, heh), and started over.

AF, if you're reading this, all I can say is -- I hope you didn't dread that class as much as I did, and hey -- thanks for not, like, burning me or ratting me out to the Teech. Heh.

I know he can GET the job, but can he DO the job?

Well, Internets, today was my last day of work for a few months -- I am now officially on leave. And I gotta tellya, this is one bizarre feeling.

Now, granted, I'm about to start a fully 24/7 gig, but you know what I mean. I've worked out of the home for pay since ... I guess you could start counting at my babysitting jobs when I was nine. I've been on at least one official payroll (and up to three) at a time pretty much continuously since I was sixteen -- the longest jobless stretch of my adult life was about seven weeks, between the Nanny Agency and the Internet Startup/Spinoff in 1999. (Back then, that's how long it took to quit your job, find several more in fields in which you had zero experience, play them off each other, pick the one you liked best, and tell 'em you'd start in a couple weeks or so -- ahh, the boom was fun, wadn't it?)

Back then, I occupied my time with such things as daytime drinking, lengthy gym visits and the cooking of increasingly elaborate meals -- Mr. Gleemonex has never said anything about that time in our lives, but I bet it scared him a little. Heh.

This time, I can't drink, can't do more than 30 minutes on an elliptical machine, and can't be arsed to roast my own spices for garam masala, so I imagine I'll do a lot of baby-prep type stuff, and/or sleeping (which I hear gets a little scarce after Agent Entropy shows up, no?).

But my point is, I, like, don't have to go to work tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Until JANUARY. Weeeeird.

BTW, this post's title is courtesy of the brilliant first half-hour of Joe vs. The Volcano -- don't bother with the rest of the movie, it's stoopid, but that first half hour is GOLDEN.

Living Your Faith

Sunday morning. Gleemonex reads her New York Times and keeps an eye on the Yankees game Mr. Gleemonex has going on TV. A story mentions the big support for Barack Obama amongst "latte liberals."

Gleemonex: "Heh. 'Latte liberals.'"
Mr. Gleemonex: "What's that supposed to be?"
Gleemonex: "Um ... white, 30s, college-educated, relatively affluent ... "
Mr. Gleemonex: "Prius owners ... "
[Guffaws from both, glancing out the window at their 36-hour-old Prius parked in the driveway.]
[A moment passes in silence.]
Mr. Gleemonex: "I don't drink lattes, bitches."

You fed a baby chili?

Thirty-seven weeks and change here, people, and I’m officially Uncomfortable. The belly enters a room before I do, I can’t find a position for sitting in a chair that doesn’t hurt my back or crunch de baby or both, and I’m sick of my four black tank tops, four black Ts and two pairs of pants. So I’m thinking ahead, past this neverending pregnancy, and I’ve come up with a list of:

A few of the things I really, sincerely hope my kid doesn’t end up getting into:

—Cuddle parties.
—The 14-years-from-now equivalent of Korn.
—Veganism.
—Martial arts.
—Phish.
—“Body art.”
—Designer handbags.
—Youth ministry.
—Dorky choral groups and/or musical theater.
—The Greek system.
—World of Warcraft.
—The Republican party.
—The sci-fi/fantasy equivalent of Harlequin romances.
—Growing a douchebaggy professor beard (or having a boyfriend who sports one).
—“I Love Lucy.”
—Motocross racing, X-treme or otherwise.
—graphic novels.
—reptiles or vermin (e.g. ferrets) as pets.
—graduate film school
—trivia or “fun fact” memorization and spouting.
—Wicca.
—camping.

Huh. I thought the phrase was ‘sucking balls.’

Every once in awhile, the low steady Bunsen burner of hate ever flaming in my soul for the Evil Fucktard-In-Chief blooms into a fourteen-foot-high ceiling-scorcher of an inferno that torches the whole fucking chem lab and quickly engulfs the entire rest of the middle school.

Today is one of those days.

This foul beast masquerading as our President goes to Australia to visit with their Prime Minister, whose deputy asks how that whole Iraq thing is going, and our walking advertisement for abortion says: “We’re kickin ass.”