Sick

Today's post was going to be about how to survive corporate functions like annual company dinners. That has to wait cause I have a new, fun topic called being sick.

1) Taking sick days from work sounds really fun while you are at work. But when you are at home and sick, it's not so fun. I bet that if you have children, it gets even less fun. What's really funny is that you are tired of staring at this at work (yes, I have two monitors):

And instead spend time at home staring at this:

And yes that is my actual TV that I went to Samsung's website to get a picture of cause I couldn't have a stand in I told you I'm feeling better.

2) Cooking meals for yourself is fun until you can't breathe from the amount of snot in your nose and it feels like the razor blades you should use to shave your hairy legs have lodged themselves in your throat in protest. Then you end up wasting $12 worth of flank steak, $5 worth of shitake mushrooms, $2 worth of green beans and other $ worth of other ingredients and spend countless number of dollars getting delivery. But because the cruel, cruel world wants to punish you for being sick, single, and having a thing about left overs from restaurants, you have to spend 5x more money than you need to in order to get them to bring you anything. And then you have two salads, two drinks, two cookies and one order of raspberry lemondae and you don't like restaurant leftovers.

3) Having a diabetic cat never sounds fun. And it isn't. Especially when he gets blood all over your clean sheets and you have to wash them and make the bed by yourself. And you have a cold. And 1/3 of the reason you have a housekeeper is to make the bed for you. Cause you don't understand how, no matter how long you live, or how much you understand statistics, you can ALWAYS pick the wrong side of the fitted sheet.

4) Sleeping a lot sounds fun until you are so congested that all you can do is cough and turn from side to side. You people who believe in inelligent design explain to me which part of the intelligence was it to make my left and right sinuses connected cause I'd sleep a hell of a lot better if I didn't have to keep emptying one out.

5) Playing video games is fun. Except when you are too sick to pay attention to them.

6) Having your period is never fun unless you are 16, didn't use a condom and don't have to have that talk with your mom. It's especially not fun during the 2008 cold of death.

And so dear virus, we part. My highly evolved badass immune system kicked you out but not before you kicked my ass for the better part of a week. I'm sure you slipped in while I was vomiting from the company dinner... the survival of which is the topic of my next post.

Candidate of Change

This year, change is really important to the Presidential candidates of both parties. I have no idea why all the sudden everyone’s all worried about change. As a result, in this post, I will examine the dynamics of change and why it is so important in the coming election.

Making Change

Most candidates want to make change. Most candidates think they are better at making change than the other candidates. I think there’s a simple way to test this: make them spend 2 hours working a cash register. You get thrown all kinds of change combinations at a cash register.

Here are a few examples:

Example 1:

Total: $2.16
Cash: $5.00
Change:

Example 2:

Total: $6.66
Cash: $10.06
Change:


Example 3:

Total: $12.55
Cash: $22.55
Change:


Or, if the cashier is annoying (like Ron Paul), they'll give you this.

To which you say, "I didn't give you that clever amount of cash so you could fuck it up with all those ones."

Anyway, making change is really important in a President ause you don’t want some doofus who can’t tell if the cashier at McDonald’s is ripping him off. Or her. Whatever. But right, imagine if she’s at the Saudi Latte Store and the dude gives her incorrect change and the Saudi President’s all "WAHAHAHAHA you are so dumb that you can’t even get correct change." I get it. So vote for the person who can best make change.

Embodying Change

So some candidates say they embody change. According to the dictionary, embody means to give a body to. So these people want to give a body to change. One wonders if Hillary wants to give her body to change. Or if she wants to give our bodies to change. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare: pockets full of change.

Or if it’s going to be invasion of the body snatchers and we will all be taken over by change. Personally, if I were taken over by change, I’d want it to be something cool like the Sacagawea dollar. Why? Cause Sacagawea is a cool fucking name and dollars are worth more than quarters, duh.

Why Change is Important

So, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’ve realized why change is so important. It’s because for years, decades even, people have been abusing change. My very own dad just used to just put it in jars and let it sit, ignored and neglected for years! In fact, I used to go and take quarters from his change jar just to liberate them. Change is such an important part of our society. It helps build muscles when I have too much of it in my purse. It makes you feel good when you find it on the street. It's almost as though change is what America is all about.

Container Store Prayer

Dear Lord,

Please help me do the following while in the Container Store:

1. Help me remember that I have a budget. Help me remember that I want to save my money to go here (that's Montreal):

Rather than here:

2. Please help me remember that I do not need a new, cute coat rack for my house as I live in Houston and never wear a coat even when I should.

3. Give me the strength to resist purchasing a magenetic fly swatter even though it looks really cool cause I know that having a fly swatter magenetically attached to my oven or fridge is just gross.

4. Let me keep in mind that no matter how cool the shoe rack I buy is, I will always keep my shoes in a pile by the door.

5. Please, please, help me remember the elfa is not a design aesthetic no matter how enticing they make it seem in the store and no matter how good the sale is. Even though they say it's "fun and games when you're organized with elfa(r)", remember that it is not fun and games to have my living room look like this until I have 3-4 children which will be never:

I Want Mine

Dear Santa,

Thank you for buying me a used Wii off of eBay with four games and a controller. I know it was hard to find given all the Wiis on eBay.

Thank you, Kristen
_____________________________________________

Dear Person Who Santa Bought My Wii From,

It's called a post office. Go there with my Wii and fucking mail it. Now.

Thank you, Kristen
____________________________________________

Dear Nintendo, You have a fundamental supply/demand problem with your Wii (I know a lot of boys have that problem too). If it weren't sold out from now to eternity, I could buy a Wii for $249.99. Prior to Christmas, one could only get a Wii on eBay for $400 to $450. Here's what's going on:

Makin me feel dum

Let's be honest: no one actually reads Pitchfork except people who write for Pitchfork (and UVA graduates). I like Pitchfork cause they listen to a whole hell of a lot more music than I do and they boil things down to simple numbers that assist me in making my music purchases. But really, why they gotta write such esoteric prose? I doubt I'm the only music fan who wasn't an english major.

Aside: Blogs are fun cause even if no one reads them you can be way funnier than in a diary. like way. who's fucked up dairy sounds like this post? not my diary. my diary says: Dear diary, Today I went out with OOMA, and he laughed at my joke. In a blog you're all: Whatever motherfuckers everyone laughs at my jokes.

Ok, but let's briefly examine the impact of reading Pitchfork on the brain of a person who graduated from a polytechnic institute (me).

From this about Panda Bear's Person Pitch: "When it came out this spring, Person Pitch seemed like a soundtrack to the thaw. Coming two-and-a-half years after Young Prayer, Panda Bear (Noah Lennox)'s spare and quietly devastating predecessor, the new album brought with it the vague expectation of that first warm breeze. [...] The music's oranges and reds and golds were perfect for the fall, and now that the days are short and the ground icy, Person Pitch sounds like something we'll be curling up with in hibernation. It remains a fixture. "

My brain (doctors are currently looking into the presence of all those numbers on my brain):

My brain on pitchfork:

Do you know what that paragraph is saying? The writer is basically saying that he's liked the fucking album all year. He liked it in the spring. He still likes it in the winter. Here's how I review Person Pitch: "It's fucking good. Go buy it. If you don't like it, you are stupid and have no taste."

Oh, and here's something else that is so upsetting:

At least Pitchfork has good taste. Ick. You can stream that shit online. Click Audio.

Why?

Why is there a boat store and repair center here?


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Favorite Albums of 2007

First a confession. I am not classy. Like at all. That part of the title is what those of us peering into the writing business call irony. Ask Alanis Morisette for clarifiaction. I am a bitch, but that's for later. What I also am is a COMPLETE DORK.

Enter complete dork...