December 21, 2007

Going To The Tundra

Cookies have been baked. Presents have been bought and wrapped. House has been decorated, tree is up. Christmas cheer has been spread. I don't know about you all, but I'm pretty much set. All I have left to do is wrap one singing, talking, obnoxious stuffed "Learning Puppy" for my niece.

Tomorrow, I shall be making the great, yearly sojourn to the frozen hinterlands of Toledo, OH. Always a fun and pleasant drive. I'm looking forward to the holidays, and I'm hoping it will be a great time. I'll probably come back with many crazy stories to share. Until then, the best of the season to everyone.

And a special shout out to Pisco for watching the furbeasts! Little does he know, but they'll bring him hours of fun-filled excitement.

December 7, 2007

Juvenile Humor

I am not a morning person. I pretty much hate everything about getting up, getting ready and going to work. It's probably because I don't get enough sleep, or maybe I'm just hardwired to be happier at night. However, there is one part of the morning that I look forward to. E-mail.

I love looking at all the spam e-mail. I never open any of them (I'm not that stupid!), but the titles alone provide hours of entertainment. Things had been getting a little boring: Cialis, Hoodia, Megadick, Megadik, Small Cap Stock, Ciali$, Pharmacy. I'm always amazed at all the inventive ways spammers come up with misspelling words to get around spam filters. But even that's getting a little boring.

My spammers came through for me this morning. The must have known I was bored with all the e-mail inquiring about my penis. So they started sending me spam asking about my coworkers' penii. You know, stuff like "Betty, worried about your tiny dik? Don't be ...." or "Josie, this'll give you a large JohnSon!" Apparently, I work in an office full of trannies.

Finally, if anyone can tell me what exactly "Natural Male Enhancement" means, I'd be very appreciative. I've seen billions of Enzyte commercials, but I have no idea what that product actually does. I do know if you order now it comes with a free pack of Vazomyne. So call now, operators are standing by.

Lard-HO!

I've long had this theory about the intersection between junkfood, healthly living, the economically disadvantaged, and the general fat-assery in the US. The general premise behind my super-scientific idea was that it's cheaper to buy crap than it is to buy things that are good for you.

Anywho, the wonderful folks over at the NYT posted this. They conducted a much more thorough investigation and actually used methodology and whatnot. You know, things that I just can't be bothered with. Turns out, they agree.

There's something really wrong when 1 red bell pepper costs as much as a family size bag of Doritos. Or what about $8.00 for 2 chicken breasts? $8.00 will also get 2 frozen pizzas at Target. Marginal utility says the pizzas are a better deal. Am I the only one that thinks it's ridiculous that you have to be "rich" to eat healthy?

December 6, 2007

More Mayhem

While Pisco contemplates the finer points of theology and religion this morning, I'll take a more mundane approach to life. (I don't think or write as eloquently as Pisco does, so I'll try to corner the market on banalities and let the grown-ups handle things that are actually important.)

Walking to the bus stop this morning, I watched a car bobsled down the ice covered hill and sideswipe another car. Bonus: The car that got hit had just been involved in a different and unrelated accident. So it was like a 2 for 1 special. It made for a interesting change of scenery from the frozen crow sticking up like a lawn dart, hub cap, belt and dog poop I usually pass to the bus stop. Fortunately, no one appeared to be seriously injured. VDOT seriously needs to get to plowing or salting or something because the entire street was a 4 lane-downhill sheet of ice. I digress.

Of course, I missed the bus by that much, and the next bus was late. But what really has me intrigued is what was going on with Metro this a.m. They were single tracking trains through the 3 busiest stations on the Red Line due to a "sick" customer. Metro took great pains to make sure no one stood on the platforms on the 'closed' sides. Every 30 seconds or so they announced loudly that everyone needs to be on the opposite platform. I didn't feel like wading into the mosh pit, so I took a slight detour on the Green Line. Finally, 2 hours after I left my house, I make it to work. At the price of $4.00, that's like seeing a matinee show at the discount theater! Thanks WMATA!

As a side note to metro, if your "sick" customer forces single tracking in 3 stations, "sick" isn't the appropriate term anymore. Critically injured, awaiting medivac, or radioactive are all better descriptors for what's going on. Passengers don't need to know everything, but a little more information might keep everyone calmer and more collected. Otherwise, we're going to be thinking "Unless the "sick" person hosed 3 stations down with toxic waste, there's no need for this."

December 5, 2007

Snow? Snow!!! SNOW (#*$^#$!!!!

It's snowing in the greater DC-toilet-bowl area today. It's the first snow of the season, so I'm pretty happy about this. I'm happier than I was last night, because the weather forecast called just for snow showers. We're now supposed to get 1 to 3 inches.

My happiness has been pretty short lived though. I forgot to factor in what snow does to the commute. It's so bad that if people hear that it's going to snow -- it doesn't have to actually be snowing -- traffic gets all snarled up. Seriously. Traffic was at a standstill on parts of 395 this morning and there was no snow in sight. Metro placed speed restrictions on all their trains. I bet there's going to be a run on bread, milk and toilet paper at all the grocery stores tonight as well.

I love snow. I love living in DC. I don't love the 2 of them together. It's like the difference between online stats and real-world reality. Where it might take 12 inches of snow to shut down Columbus, Ohio or Igloo-Sur-La-Lac, Montana, the mention of a possible 1 inch will do the trick in DC. You'd think it's a blizzard outside.

This was the requisite moan and whine about wintertime in DC post. We all do it every year. Because we've had 9 months to forget about how heinous it is.