3 for the price of 1!

Today is a "3-topics-for-the-price-of-one" day.

The best $2.99 I have spent in the last month was to add Tetris to my phone. Because my brain is not awake during the morning commute to read my book and I don't have the hand-eye coordination to wrangling the Red Eye paper into a readable origami shape without giving 4 people around me paper cuts and because during the evening commute my brain is hungover from staring at spreadsheets on the computer all day, I play Tetris to and from work. I thought I was a genius for reintroducing this game back into my life to pass the time on the train. Until one day, as I was ogling over the junior analyst broker next to me's new LG voyager phone, I noticed that he was playing Tetris too! And the advertising chick a row over was playing Pacman. And..... is that Frogger?? We are bringing sexy back into these games. Because of the popular obsession with everything at the palm of our hands, it has created a gateway back into the early 80's when these games ruled the fledging gaming industry. They are convenient to play on the go, easy to win during the half hour commute, and with simple programming they don't take up much space, leaving ample room to fill up our iPhones and Blackberry's with the new

I'm all about small talk. It gets me through many long afternoons at my boss's desk, and sitting at the bar at Jake Melnick's before the happy hour rush. But I always knew that when a conversation was veering towards the weather, you were getting dangerously close to the awkward silence before you start talking about American Idol, which you don't even watch. But lately, the weather has been as exciting as the primaries, and just as yo-yo-esque as well. It has become a serious topic of discussion as we all turn into meteorologists with our theories on why the 10 inches of snow melted before we woke up the next morning and lament a simpler time when winter was distinguishable from spring, when there were no 50 degree days at the beginning of the new year to tease you into believe that global warming had kicked mother earth into early menopause.

And I have to do this just because I have to. My Super Bowl ad picks:

Bridgestone Tire Super Bowl Commercial: Squirrel vs Car




eTrade Super Bowl Commercial: Talking Baby Rents a Clown




Coca Cola Super BOwl Commercial: Parade Balloon




Tide-to-Go Superbowl Commercial, My Talking Stain Ad




Pepsi Stuff Super Bowl Commercial: Justin Timberlake

I was there

I couldn't help but share this.

Surely They are Witches

I have a very unhealthy relationship with Jon Stewart, according to any credible news source, because I take everything he says to heart as my own and none of it with a grain of salt. I giggle like a school girl when he laughs at his own jokes and mirror his dumbfounded looks as Bush tells us that Kazakhstan is a threat to world peace. At this new job I have actual work to do (not pleasant, not my first choice, not worth it - I don't want to come across as pretentious.) so I don't have as much time to peruse the NY Times headlines as I used to in OH-IO. I still need to have some idea of current events if I wish to continue to bash them. So I need it quick and I need it to maintain my attention away from Friends reruns and Janice Dickerson's Modeling Agency. So I have become completely obsessed with The Daily Show (A Daily Show until the writers strike ends). I've always tried to catch a bit here and there but now I have to get home by 7pm everyday to see Jon scribbling all over his note cards. This has also made it hard to keep my mad crush on him under wraps when I have a smile slapped on my face for the whole half hour. (I have watched this clip ten times already and still laugh at the idea of CNN broadcasting from Circuit City)

I know in the back of my head that there is controversy around reckless Gen Yers like me getting our news from a self proclaimed "nightly half-hour series unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity or even accuracy." But I can't pull myself away from the brutally honest humor in it.

I just started reading The Emperor's Children (Ok that was the first time I've read that review and it pretty much gave away half the book. Awesome.) and within the first 50 pages it mentions a character doing a documentary on "the current wave of satirical press and its role in shaping opinion...the blurring of left and right politics in contrarianism. People who aren't for anything, just against everything."

So I looked deep inside my cynical self to understand why I see Jon Stewart as my generation's Tom Brokaw. Due to the fact that Jon bashes both conservatives and liberals, I see this as a subjective view on the news. And why can't my news have some humor? Doesn't it make fact that we can no longer say we are the "greatest nation in the world" without some ignorance just a little bit more bearable? It does for me. I'm not using any type of official statistics here but it seem that as things spiral downward for G.Bush, the popularity of shows like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report seem to rise. People are looking for the silver lining in the political turmoil that we are becoming accustomed to. The most literal reason I watch his show is because politics are, in reality, one big joke. I can't help but feel more fulfilled by my own life when I listen to politicians rambling on about nonsense world peace and "change". When Jon Stewart is running a spoof on Lobbyist reforms, I feel like me and 1.4 million other viewers are in on a joke that Congress just can't go deep enough to see. Campaigns are more staged than a Britney headline. And more red ties and pant suits than a meeting of the Brooks Brothers board of directors. How can American's relate to whats going on on top of the hill, how The Suits are running things around here, when most politicians are starting to look like Pinocchio. Maybe Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert bring out the real boy in them...

I believe you have my stapler

There are only so many ways to spice up the benign décor of an office cube. I work for an office furniture dealer. Our business is making offices looks welcoming and trendy and colorful and yet still I stare at sand colored panels and granite colored desk tops all day. I want the people around me to know that I won’t settle for bland; I am not a bland person. I want color, I want humor, I want life. But even though my apartment is straight out of the clearance section of Urban Outfitters apartment dept, I have trouble reconstructing that cozy colorful chic in my corporate cave. While most of the women in the office have no trouble letting everyone know that their children and grand children are the apples of their eye as they use all available thumb tacks to plaster their cubes with baby pictures and wedding announcements and Anne Geddes calendars, I (HAPPILY) cannot use the same theme. So instead I’ve got a tasteful array of pictures. One of the fam, one of Zoey, one of the Ann St conquistadors, one of Doc and I at Lollapalooza (to show that no, I am not a directionless downtown spinster, yet I am still young and carefree and love music festivals more than a ring on my finger). But its just not enough. It still looks like any other employee cube trying to prove that they have a life outside of the office.

But since I am not going to spend $10 on a “Drab to Fab!” DIY office cube decorating book (Who IS buying this book? What office would let an employee decorate their cube in animal fur and bamboo?? I’m going to say probably not PETA) I still have to resort to pieces of me (and Ashlee Simpson) around my area. So I’ve taken to going to great lengths to find an appropriate yet thought provoking and eye catching background for my computer. No standard Windows XP “bliss” rolling green hills for me.

First was a painting made by a 4 year old "prodigy/fraud" named Marla Olmstead. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to exploit the simple, superficial view of abstract art. The idea behind the documentary was that these parents are trying to sell their 4 year old daughter's finger painting as masterpieces from the prodigy of Picasso. I am slightly torn with this argument. On one hand, I have always been a supporter of "everything is art" and anyone can create beauty in their own eyes and who are we to disagree? But this story seems to teeter on parents trying to cash in on the gray area of abstract art. Personally, I love exploring the Contemporary Art Museum, not for the art itself, but for what is behind the art, what the artist saw in it. And something tells me this cute little Marla was not thinking about starting a revolution or a new dimension of the mind with her paintbrush and cute little bob haircut. So even though I have to agree with the skeptics on this one, the art is still colorful and fun and has a cool and controversial story behind it so I used her as the splash of color and creativity my cube needed.

So now its time to mix things up for the next honored piece of art to be showcased in my 8x8 number-crunching platform. Erin showed me this awesome toolbar feature called Stumble Upon. Its a button that gets added to your toolbar that takes to you any thousands of random websites to explore. When you download it, it asks what your interested in and tunes into what you want to read about. I chose art and photography as one of my interests so when i click my little "stumble upon" button during a slow Friday afternoon at work, I usually find myself at photographers websites. I would spend too much of company time staring at photos of commonplace items brought to the forefront of your attention because of the colors and sharp focus of them. And the way photographers can make you want to land in middle of exquisite nature. So when I thought photography might be just the thing my computer needed, who better to look to for a shot than Annie Lebowitz, the legendary photographer in the inner circle of Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Vogue. I love her work for the same reason I love abstract art. The stories behind them. Her book is story after story of photo shoots with celebrities all over the world. I love nothing more than to hear about how the Vanity Fair July cover project came to be and her Alice in Couture feature in Vogue and, of course, the infamous and sobering photo of J. Lennon and Yoko the day of his assassination. Chills.

So after clicking through hundreds of shots that she has done, I found one of Pete Seeger's banjo with a saying that stuck with me. "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." What more is there to say?

The Product of A Christmas Cookie Sugar Buzz

I have turned into a sweatpants-wearing, green-and-red-cookie-eating, The Santa Claus-watching, couch-potatoing, christmas-vacationing (with Chevy Chase), cheap-champagne-binge-drinking, ugly-sweater-party-attending, none-yogaing-or-running lazy SoB this month. And I blame every last chocolate truffle on the season of joy and snowflakes that stay on my nose and eye lashes. So once again I have all kinds of stuff that I see and want to write about but have no motivation to tear myself away from my two new lovers; DVR and Tila Tequila's Shot at Love.

1. Just because babies are the new Uggs and your name is Spears does not mean you can be 16, knocked up, and proud. You are not Katherine Heigl.

2. I realized that with finicky consumer desires media has to reach into their bag of tricks and treats to keep an overstimulated society interested. Webisodes, podcast exclusives, and Super-sized primetime dramas that’s running time are longer than a psych course lecture on ADHD (also amazing that most Americans don’t have the brain calm to sit through a 2 hour college lecture yet can plant themselves in front of the TV for 2 hours of McDoctors-are-never-that-hot-in-real-life-trust-me-I’ve-looked.) But I think MTV may have taken that cutting-edge-think-outside-the-TV-box EXCLUSIVE CANNOT MISS EVEN IF YOUR DOG HAS SHIT ON THE COATS a little too far. Last week I was mentally prepared for the finale of The Hills. Would the Spidi wedding fall in a disaster of immaturity and blonde hair? Would Brody and LC stop beating around the bush already? (If for no other reason than so I can stop throwing Famous Amos cookies at the TV) Would Lauren have a chance to go to Paris after her first pass on the visit to be with Jason? (Lowest point in me and LCs fictional relationship…) All the hype during the show and (totally unnecessary) red carpet preshow talked about some BIG announcement Lauren was going to announce during the (also unnecessary) post show. Excellent! She was finally going to admit to brainwashing America into big headbands and tights. So of course I had to tune in (addiction is a disease people, I know.) The big announcement? That this wasn’t REALLY the finale…………………………………All the hype, all the hair, all the glitter, all the leggings, all the viewers ($$$$$) and that was just another episode. There are no words. As excited as I am that I get to follow Lauren and Whitney to Paris and see Heidi come crawling back to Lauren for forgiveness post-Spencer breakup, I am peeved that MTV used us at our most vulnerable (no Hills for 6 months) to wrangle in a few million viewers for NOTHING. Crazy. Yet the business side of me can’t help but be totally impressed…

3. All I want for Christmas is an apartment hallway that doesnt smell like my grandmas house wallpapered in air fresheners.

4. Nothing can put me in the holiday spirit more than Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney singing "Count my blessings" God I just melted a little inside just watching that clip

5. Ok MABYBE white christmas is tied with a made-for-TV Christmas special from 1987 that my parents taped on Beta for me and I have watched every year since. The Muppet Family Christmas. Last year my dad found some guy that hasnt left his electronics store since it opened in 1970 that had a Beta-DVD converter. He burned this for me so I can continue watching it in my little apartment without having to haul the beta player all the way across the midwest just to discover that they no longer make the kind of cables needed to hook it up to anything besides a Zenith B&W 12" tube.

5. On the El last night I was sitting across from a Christmas pie of a little girl bundled up like Randy Parker (“I can't put my arms down!”). She was singing to herself. “Dradle, dradle, dradle, I made it out of clay, Dradle, dradle, dradle, and with it I will play!” Next moment she’s singing “Santa Claus is coming to town” Merry happy Christmas Holidays.

It means no worries, for the rest of your days!

Every person has that one school subject that they continue to have nightmares about. For some it is Math (obviously not me considering my career choices so far…), for others it is English (Sentence diagramming, anyone?), for me it is science. The only science class I could ever force myself not to doodle my way through was chemistry and that was only because it was mostly math-related chemical equations. So bare with me now as I attempt to write an educated essay on biology.

I’m working hard to open myself up to more educational entertainment outside the realm of Johnny Depps new movie and where I can get a cheap massage (New School for Massage). Since I moved into my new apartment and no longer have to live like a caveman without cable or Internet, I watch more Discovery channel (this is mostly due to Doc’s aggressive claim to the remote most nights to watch Survivorman) and check out the National Geographic’s website (amazing photography). In this month’s Vanity Fair (lots of awesome articles in December’s issue as you can tell by now) I decided to try reading an article about some bamboo plant that plagues an area of India every 50 years (“Waiting for the Plague” by Alex Shoumatoff). When after 15 min my attention had not yet been seduced by the glossy ads for Bottega Venetta and Prada, I knew I was going to have to share this event with you. So lets take a moment to acknowledge the fact that Jen actually has some substance to her beyond her desire to live in a high-rise loft downtown and becoming a close and personal friend of Ashley Olsen…….Thank you. Now back to the bamboo (PS – did you know Big Boi from Outkast named his kid Bamboo? Reason #12,634,757 Outkast is wicked cool)

So there is a region in India called Mizoram where their main material for sustaining their lifestyle is the bamboo that grows in droves in the area. Once ever 48-50 years the bamboo flowers and grows fruit, after the fruit is picked the bamboo dies and regrows over the next few years. But the people of the area are plagued by rats during the time that the bamboo flowers, as the rats feed on the fruit. The people call this plague “mautam”. This puts the people in a battle for food, and consequently life, with rats. It also spawns the population of the rats. This is because normally adult rats eat their young. Sounds traumatic but it’s for survival due to the lack of what it is rats usually eat in the area. This keeps the rat population low and under control. But when the bamboo flowers and produces the fruit, the rats no longer have to have a feast of babies, but of fruit. This leaves the people of Mizoram in a state of desperation, with the bamboo dead and the rats attacking the fruit, they have no food to survive the following years until the new bamboo grows again. The people of Mizoram are in constant contest with the rats. Even when the bamboo is dormant (not producing the fruit), they spend most of their time learning about rats and planning for the next war to rage. Adding to this amazing and unbelievable account of what really happens in the world outside the urban jungle, in the real jungle, is the fact that the area Mizoram is one of the most secluded and hardest to reach corners of the world. They are a group far from the domestication and westernization of most of the world. I’m not exaggerating when I say their lives are sustained on bamboo. The author lists tables, barrels, houses, toys, all created from bamboo. They use the edible part (unscientific and I don’t have the article in front of me right now. Deal with it.) for the main portion of their diets. I feel like there is hope that the modernization and destruction of the environment will not overwhelm the whole planet when I hear about places like this that still survive without all the hoo haa of developed countries and Tyra Banks. The article notes that this circle of destruction that the bamboo goes through is probably to be reborn anew, to start over, start fresh. That maybe the whole planet will be ready to brush off all the oil and gas we create someday and destroy itself to start anew. Circle of Life. Hakuna Matata.

Its far fetched I know, to say the world is going to just dissolve into dust, giving a big “ef you” to humans. But I promise the article said it much more articulately, much more realistically, much more frightening. Like I finished the article and had a sudden need to go to the botanical gardens and give them a “Thanks for everything!” card

…..I should probably make Doc do a fact check on this entry before I make a foul out of myself with this Green Love protest…..

Footnotes

Ok I have 10,000 things I want to write about but don't know how to start or end them (like any good tortured writer) so I'm just going to jot down what I've got, simply to share what I learn each week with you. I have these little nuggets of info that I absorb throughout the week, reading magazines, websites, newspapers, and I hate having all these fun facts about the world and not sharing them with people. Whether they are intellectual, gossipy, meaningful, helpful, or just something to make you laugh, I go crazy if I can't tell you about it. So instead of trying to piece together an essay of nonsensical catch phrases (like that one) I'm just gunna list. So now I give you: Lessons learned this week, during the first snow fall of the year......

1. Uggs have no traction. Regardless of the style status of the boots, I still believe in the functionality of them. But mine have been wore so many times in the last 6 winters that I might as well have just wrapped my feet in saran wrap and lather some butter on them before stepping out into the Chicago ice storm.

2. CTA buses have no traction.

3. Because my same roommates that couldn’t afford the internet also couldn’t afford cable TV, I didn’t think the writers strike would affect me at all. (Don’t think it hasn’t affected me emotionally, knowing that I have missed half a season of Top Model with Heather and having to watch the Office over a testy streaming video connection is blackening my soul.) But I was having a hard time swallowing the halting season finale of Weeds and have a hunch the Writers Guild of America may be to blame (huge SPOILER ALERT for the show’s ending). The season finale ends with Nancy’s Mexican Muscle torching the rival growers crop, subsequently developing into a wild fire, destroying the entire suburb. Nancy then decides to move her family across the country to start anew. Let me rephrase that for people that don't know the show. The writers dropped every plot twist and character formation in the last 20 min of the finale. They got rid of the main story line by setting the city on fire. They made the main characters run away from any problems or relationships that were forming. Literally run away. To Pittsburg. There were lose ends all over the place. It seemed like a huge cop out. So as I struggled to dissect the meaning of it all, it dawned on me. The writers had to get something down on paper before they grabbed their sign and joined the picket line. For god sake, give the people what they want so more of my shows don't commit network suicide like Weeds did!

4. The 22 Clark bus is more entertaining than an episode of True Life: I have Tourettes. The guy next to me, with his 21-year-old beard, fedora, and trench coat, was finger painting on the steamy window. Apparently my inner freak was dying to know what master piece this prodigy was creating that we were all fortunate enough to be in the presence of, because before I could process my motor skills, I asked this dude what he was drawing. A sheep shaking hands with a monk. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. After he got off, I continued to stare at the window, trying to decipher the thought process that went into this kids drawing, when I was pulled away by some loud dude ranting about drama drama drama. But as I listened (along with 90% of the bus) and he's dropping terms like "She was afraid he was going to murder her personal footprint on the world" or "the bond they shared was insatiable, it was destroying them as they failed to quench each others needs." and something about a Roman emperor that gained the thrown by tricking everyone around him to kill themselves and playing dumb to the power over the empire and that "Ben" uses that technique to gain their friendship and they can't let him take over them. The real life Dawson Leery is standing behind me.

God I just reread my "list" and realize I cannot escape the adjectives that attack everything I write. so much for a quick and to the point list of fun facts.....

Every man wants to be part of a heist

A wise man once said "There are a few things men want more than sex. Every man wants to be part of a heist." That wise man was Dane Cook.

I always though that parents blaming the media and video games for corrupting their children was a load of psych crap finger-pointing (not directed at you Erin). Take responsibility for your children. And get your pets spayed or neutered. But four college kids from Kentucky are behind bars for basing an artifact heist on tricks of the trade they saw in classic 21st century heist movies like the Oceans and Snatch. My opinion was counteracted. 4 friends blind sided a librarian at the University of Kentucky library and attempted to steal something like $12 million worth of 1st edition breakthrough science textbooks that included Darwin's The Origin of Species. John Falk turned Vanity Fair into a literary Bourne Ultimatum with his article "Majoring in Crime" (The Vanity Fair print was not posted on the website. This is a summary of the feature from the local paper where the heist took place.) He went to the prison where the guys are serving their 7 year sentences. Since the law has already caught up with them, there was no reason to hold back on the plan.

The article goes into detail about how the idea came about (a smoke down in a dorm room), how they planned it (talks with "our guy", watching Snatch, Oceans 11/12/13, Reservoir dogs, jetting over to NYC and Amsterdam to plan the black market sale of the books with characters worthy of villain parts in the next Italian Job), how they tried to execute it the first time (failed because their timing interfered with one of the guys final exams.), how it finally went down (taser the old librarian and stuff as many books as possible into a bedsheet), the loop hole (they didn't know where the emergency exit was), the chase (four 20 year olds vs four librarians and an escape van borrowed from someones mom), and the escape (in time for one dudes tennis final exam). The suspenseful part was post-capture. The guys had to travel to NYC to get the books appraised at Christie's (the black market buyer would only accept the books with a proper appraisal of the value) but the clock was ticking because within a week the news of the stolen books would be public and they would be caught with their hand in the cookie jar if they waltzed into the famous auction house with the books. They made it to NYC but the appraiser hesitated to give them the value because of their age (20 years old) manor (20 years old) and lack of knowledge of the history of the books. The plan came to a halt as they waited to hear back from Christie's. Within that time, investigators in Kentucky pieced together the crime. The guys knew the plan had come unraveled and in the following weeks they went about their business as usual and waited for their arrests, which came shortly after. Gen Y 0 Librarians 1

Sounds like a cop out ending at first, but the articles ends with the big question "WHY?" The guys explained that they basically had nothing to lose. College wasn't for them. Their small town didn't fit them. They didn't want to end up pigeonholed in a dead end job in a dead end city. They wanted more. So when they plans were coming together for the heist, they had to ask "what if?" What if they got away with it? They would each have millions to their name. They would flee the country and live in the Mediterranean with yachts and women and booze, like another James Bond or Max Burdett. And what if they get caught? They go to jail for a few years, and after they come out, they will be forced to start over. They will have to move out of the small town to preserve their dignity and start fresh, start over. Win win.

To imagine the lengths these people went through to rid themselves of their past, to move forward and create a better life for themselves, one they believe they deserve, seemed so out of touch with reality. But the big picture of that, that giant risky move to get what you want out of life, happens every day. Especially to Gen Yer that are now being forced out of school and into real life, force to decide what to make of their life. I made the jump a few months back when I decided to uproot from Cleveland and try out a taste of this big city life (which is working out pretty damn well) I guess we all have our own ways of finding what fits for us. To each his own.

It's too Late to Apologize

I don't have an apology for my lack of material lately. Only excuses. Excuse #1 www.jezebel.com they have taken any and all topics that I could criticize and criticizes it with double the witty and bitch-slapping humor that I could ever hope to have. Excuse #2 is moving to Chicago, starting a new job, and temporarily having roommates that couldn't afford to pay for the internet. So there. But lucky for both of us, I had a bit of inspiration to start writing again (and we got the internet). This blog is my best effort at showing my talent to the world. Or my friends, who are the only ones who read this. Thanks for making me feel special guys.

So what to write about now? I need a good topic to reinstate my place in the Blog-o-sphere. Living in this city is still a novelty to me so I will share a story, saturated with my editorial.

I was on the train yesterday, heading downtown to watch the lighting of the Christmas lights down Michigan Ave. At some Lincoln Park stop, five mid-50's women clamber on with their fur coats and Botox-inated smiles, smelling like too much hairspray and too many glasses of White Zinfandel. They settled stiffly into seats around me and some Columbia students and a club rep (we all got free passes to some party sponsored by Camel with free boxes of cigarettes. I could almost hear the raspy-voiced hipster next to me singing "I'VE GOT A GOLDEN TICKET") We could tell these women had not been on the Red Line since 1980. Conversation ensued. There was talk of cute servers at the wine bar with a hint of potential mid-life crisis and divorce. One women was harassed shamelessly for putting lipstick on. "Are you planning on making out with someone tonight??" the heckler spat. I couldn't take my mind off their hair. The amount of product used in their hair collectively would give Al Gore no other reason for the break down of the ozone. Stiff and big; proving my theory that they hadn't been out of their suburban boxes since the 80's for a Duran Duran concert. Their conversation veered towards the rumored relationship between Ashley Olsen and Lance Armstrong. "She's a baby!" "Ugh makes me sick. what do they have in common?" "He fought cancer! He is a champion athlete and what has she done? Coke?" The underlying hostility towards Gen Y is hard to miss (I wake up every morning hoping that a higher power has turned me into an Olsen.) After the train hits their stop and they stumble off. The Golden Ticket holder next to me can hold it in no longer "Sweet Jesus I hope I never talk that much when I'm old" "Did you see that woman's face? She looking like a parrot with all the make up" I threw in my observation "Did you see how much shit was in their hair??" We group of random 20 somethings laughed to the next stop over the desperation of those women. I got off the train with yet another reason to love being young and wild and relentless and having no reason to NOT believe that Gen Y is the shit.

I've got a crush on Obama

Political tendencies aside, there's some girl that vowed her undying love to Barack as only a Gen Y new yorker hottie can - a homemade youtube music video of course!

But that's not the best part. This 3 year old yelling "CRUSH ON OBAMA!" is.