Suck it, Science.

I've had a long, hot day today. Like most of my weekends, I coordinated a wedding today at the Villa Del Sol D'Oro, our facility in Sierra Madre. It's a BEAUTIFUL place, and I feel so fortunate to be a part of so many truly gorgeous events, but in the summer months, the lack of air-conditioning makes life fairly uncomfortable. In fact, the heat today was UNHOLY. It was up over 100 degrees. At one point this afternoon, it felt like I was about to just stop living. I joked with my staff that if I died from heat exhaustion today, to just let me lay where I fell and not bother dealing with my dead, lifeless body. Which leads me to this:

I was cruising the blogs this evening when I got home, and I came upon an awesomely morbid post on this blog I've started reading recently. She posted about a website that calculates what your body is worth if you donate your dead body to science. Much as death and cadavers creep me out to no end, I was dying (no pun intended) to know my worth. Well, science seems to think I'm worth $5225. That's it?! Insulting. Apparently, I'm worth what is about equal to a used 2000 Dodge Stratus. Actually, the Stratus Blue Books for slightly more. Thanks, Science. No...no, really. Thanks.


$5225.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

Hey Science, I've got your donation right here.

25 Worst Sitcoms of all Time...

On my way to work this morning, I was listening to Kevin and Bean, and they were listing off the 25 worst sitcoms of all time, as compiled by some website they found. Some of the shows deserved to make the list, but I was frankly horrified at some of the shows that were named, as they were staples of my childhood. I would like to meet this soulless, list making person that was deprived of a decent 80's/90's childhood of quality TV watching. At 10 years old, some of these shows were as natural to me as taking Flintstone vitamins and riding around on my mint green scooter. They were part of who I was as a freckled kid with knobby knees and a boyish haircut. Which might actually explain why some of the shows nearest to my heart are ranked among the worst EVER. Hmm....

I haven't heard of all these shows, but here's the list, with my sporadic commentary in parentheses....

-VERONICA’S CLOSET (I don't really love or hate this show. So I don't think it deserves a spot on the 25 worst sitcoms of ALL TIME.)

-CHARLES IN CHARGE (Scott Baio and Buddy Lembeck? SERIOUSLY?! How can you not love that show?)

-THE NANNY (Fran Drescher's voice IS like nails on a chalkboard, but I actually enjoyed this show overall.)

-WEBSTER (Why do they have to hate on the midgets?)

-THE ALL-AMERICAN GIRL (Margaret Cho's short running sitcom)

-BABES

-MR. BELVEDERE (Are you kidding me? British butler and a family from Pittsburgh...hilarity ensues.)

-FAMILY MATTERS (WTF?! Urkel? I'm saying it...the list makers were racist.)

-THE ROPERS (Spinoffs...they're a crapshoot. And this one fell flat. How about a spinoff starring Ralph Firley? Now THERE'S a quality program.)

-LIFE ON A STICK

-IT’S A LIVING (I LOVED this show...it made me want a career in cocktail waitressing)

-SHASTA MCNASTY (Never heard of it, but it sounds like a porn star, not a sitcom.)

-GEORGE (Foreman...not Lopez)

-HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS

-WE’VE GOT IT MADE

-DOUBLE TROUBLE

-PERFECT STRANGERS (I call shenanigans on this one. I DEMAND a recount. Balki Bartokomus and Cousin Larry Appleton were perfection.)

-MY TWO DADS (Great theme song. Therefore it doesn't belong on the list. And how hot was Greg Evigan in his acid washed jeans? Point made. Discussion closed.)

-BABY BOB

-MAMA’S FAMILY (Vicki Lawrence in a bad wig? I might be able to get on board with this one.)
-CAVEMAN

-WOOPS!

-YES DEAR (I agree with this choice. There's nothing that grabs me about this show. It's what to watch when nothing is on, and you're staring at the TV, searching for entertainment. And the fact that this ran for SIX seasons is beyond me.)

-HOMEBOYS IN OUTER SPACE (Ok, a show with a name like that belongs on this list. No argument here.)

-SMALL WONDER Initially, I was incensed by this choice. I loved watching Jamie, Vicki, and that zany ginger, Harriet every week. Then I hopped onto YouTube and saw this. Yeah, I take it back...this show probably deserved a spot on the list.

I think I'm the most upset about Perfect Strangers making this lineup(it should be noted that their theme song is currently playing in my head on repeat). Off the top of my head, there are plenty of shows that should have been shoo-in's for the list. I've broken them into 2 categories: "Awesomely bad" (shows I LOVED that critics would turn their noses up at), and "just plain BAD" (shows that are, in my opinion, total crap).

AWESOMELY bad sitcoms:

Just the 10 of us

Full House....or ANY of the TGIF lineup shows. Family Matters was the only one to actually make the list, and I've already called racism on that one. :)

Hey Dude

Out of This World

Golden Girls

Empty Nest (That spin-off of Golden Girls with Kristi McNichol and "Joe Isuzu")

Benson

Bosom Buddies

Gimme a Break!

The Torkelsons

Night Court

Punky Brewster (HEN-REEEEE!)

Saved By the Bell

Step by Step


Just plain BAD sitcoms:

The Jamie Foxx Show

Joey (I'm a die hard Friends fan, but this show sucked. And I really wanted it to be good.)

My Boys (TBS sitcom...this one tries too hard. I'm just not sold on it. Lame.)

Saved By the Bell: The College Years

Saved By the Bell: The New Class

California Dreams

Joanie Loves Chachi (Spinoff syndrome strikes again)

Now, there are some people out there that would argue that all sitcoms are victims of uncreative writing and shallow plots. Yeah, they probably are, but they entertain the hell out of me. But I want to know...what do you think? What have I missed? What other awesomely bad/just plain bad sitcoms should have made the cut? However, if ANYONE says "Alf" or "Diff'rent Strokes" are anything short of genius, I'm going to start throwing things.

One plus one equals...THREE?! Huh?

When I moved into my apartment, I was moving in with what I thought was ONE person. I should have been suspicious when my potential roommate wanted her boyfriend to meet me before she would fully agree to rent the room to me. I just figured, "Ok, that's a little weird. So he's an overprotective meathead. But he seems fairly tolerable, and it's not MY boyfriend. At least I don't have to live with him." WRONG. Turns out I DO live with him. He spends the night here EVERY night. When I first moved in, it started out as a few nights a week. But that increased slowly, and for the past year or so, he's been living here. Using our utilities. Monopolizing our living room/Tivo. I've complained about this before, I know. PLEASE bear with me.

After my previous entry about this, I mustered up my courage to sit my roommate down and tell her that it's not fair that he doesn't help out with the living expenses in the apartment. She was really very receptive, and I tried to be accommodating...I said if he can't afford to chip in for the place, then they should go back to the previous setup of spending a few nights here, and a few nights at his house. She said she was glad I was comfortable coming to her about it, and they talked about it. I came out of the conversation feeling positive about the future. He chose to chip in $100/month. I know, I know...it should be a LOT more. But it was something, and it did cushion the blow when utility bills came. For two months. TWO. And he actually tried to get out of chipping in on the second month just one week before rent was due, but I put the kibash on that. But after that, he decided he couldn't afford to chip in any more (he who has a full time job, and lives with Mommy and Daddy), so come June 1, my assumption was that they would choose the other option of splitting the time between here and his place.

NOPE.

Today is June 17, and he has been here every G.D. night. Without chipping in a dime, or even the slight mention of it. Knowing that it's not ok with me. Now it's gone from them being oblivious and stupid to just outright disrespectful and rude. They KNOW it bothers me, they KNOW he should chip in, yet nothing. And now it's summer, and since he's a big sweaty boy, they pump on the air conditioner at night when a window would easily do. But who pays the electricity bill? I can tell you who ISN'T, and that's Captain High Body Temperature. My favorite thing to say to people when I'm trying to see the bright side of this living situation is, "Well, it's not like she's selling crack off our balcony." Yeah, it's not that bad, and it won't ever be that bad. But, you know what...I'm too annoyed to care about that any more. It still sucks. I would never be that disrespectful to someone I shared a home with.

I'm putting it out there. If anyone that lives in the Pasadena area knows of a great potential roommate or place to live, I'm begging you, PLEASE let me know. I've already started looking, but I'm exploring every avenue, and trying to get the word out. I'm at the end of a rapidly fraying rope. I'm going to have to talk to her again, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm always too nice with this stuff, and I need to be assertive, and stand up for myself. Please pray I choose the right words to get my point across to her. Even though I'm not fluent in Idiot.

What the Meme?!

If someone asked me yesterday, "Jen, what is a meme?", I'd say "Why, it's a female mime, of course." Apparently that's not correct. A meme is the shorter, blogosphere version of those email surveys that you get every so often from your friends, and I would ALWAYS get sucked into doing them. They're fun, and I take FAR too much time crafting my answers. Yesterday, my friend Cindy tagged me on one of these memes, so of COURSE I'm in. I still don't know why it's called a meme...does "meme" stand for something? Can't we call it something cooler, like Striker? Or Derek? Oh well...let's just meme....


What was I doing ten years ago?

1998...I had just finished my sophomore year at Loyola Marymount University as a music major. I was looking at a bitchin' summer of office work/filing for an escrow company in Glendora, and spending the rest of my time hanging out with my boyfriend at the time, Joey. Not be confused from this Joey of the 90's:

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today? (This question is hard, since in three hours I'm about to put in a 12 hour workday coordinating a wedding, so that really IS my entire day, but I'll give it a try...)
1. Attempt to Zicam/Vitamin C my way out of a cold that I think I caught on the flight home Wednesday.
2. Go look at a possible guest house to rent in Altadena so I can move out and leave my lame roommate (and her boyfriend) behind! Woo-hoo!
3. Obsess about what I'm going to wear on my date tomorrow afternoon (new guy...Match.com, fingers eternally crossed)
4. Think about what to cook for my Dad tomorrow night for Father's Day.
5. Find the source of where those stupid June bugs are coming from in my apartment. Found 2 MORE this morning. Blech.

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. Cheese
2. Chips and salsa (Cindy, I stole your answer...but given the option, I would LIVE off chips and salsa.)
3. Pirate's Booty
4. Reese's Pieces
5. Sabor de Soledad (any 30 Rock fans out there?)

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. No more student loans! HOLLA!
2. Buy a house that my roommate (and her boyfriend) would NOT be living in.
3. Buy houses for 4 friends from high school(we made a pact in a hot tub 15 years ago that if any of us struck it rich, we would buy houses for the rest of the group. If you weren't in the hot tub that night, you're missing out on free real estate. Sorry, pals.)
4. Take my friends traveling, and hire a buff, foreign man named Joaquin to carry our bags.
5. Donate $ to charities.

Places I’ve lived:
1. Glendora, CA
2. LMU student housing, Westchester, CA
3. Los Angeles, CA (as Mario Lopez' neighbor)
4. Brookline, MA
5. Pasadena, CA

Jobs I’ve had:
1. Escrow office general assistant/bitch/gopher
2. Wedding Coordinator
3. Administrative Assistant, Berklee College of Music, Admissions Office
4. Recruiter, OFL
5. Phone book proofreader (I WISH I was making this up...it was an actual job I had for 4 months)

TAG! You’re it...
1. Debi
2. John Mayer (he'll totally do this, I'm sure of it. I keep reading about how he and I are dating. I just don't know why they keep saying my last name is Aniston. It's just irresponsible journalism.)
3. Laura (she's busy saving the world as a missionary in South Africa, so I'm sure she has TONS of time for stuff like this)
4. Ro
5. That's it...most of my friends don't blog, and I'm new to the blogosphere as it is. I'm lame.

Hey. Go meme yourself.

Ew.

I keep finding june bugs buzzing around my apartment. There were two on my floor this morning when I woke up, and I just found another one buzzing around. All I can think of is them crawling on me while I'm sleeping. I know this just makes me a whiny girl that thinks bugs are icky, but I'm sorry...bugs are icky. I'm completely grossed out right now.
Good night. *shudder*

Know this going in: None of the topics in this post are going to flow nicely....

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately...there hasn't been much inspiration to come in the last week or so. Nothing that has moved me to ranting. But there have been random observances/things I'd like to share with you, and I'm hoping it will spark a latent rant that I didn't know I had in me. Here goes....

1. Fluffernutters
For anyone that hasn't had the privilege of indulging in one of these morsels of unlikely goodness, allow me to share with you the glory that is a FlufferNutter. Essentially, it's a peanut butter sandwich with a layer of marshmallow cream (which on the east coast, goes by the popular brand name of "Fluff"...hence the name Fluffernutter). Kelly and I tried our first Fluffernutters this past weekend while we were visiting our cousin in Washington DC. We were hungry, and the pantry yielded the necessary ingredients, so we decided to go balls to the wall, and try it. It was pure deliciousness. It reminded me of a sandwich of mushed up Reese's Pieces (which as you may not know, RP are my favorite candy, especially when they've been mushed up). You might be asking yourself how this could possibly maintain the "tasty factor" when put between two slices of Wonder bread. Don't question the nectar of the gods. It's just amazing.
2. Childhood trick that works as an adult
Ah, pushing your food around on your plate to make it look like you ate more than you did. Instead of it being a dinner of liver and peas, Jeff and I tried this technique with his free birthday dessert at Damon's, and it worked like a charm. It was this horrifically sweet orange cakey thing, and it looked like we powered that bad boy down, even though we each had one bite. The 5 year old thought process was hard at work. Check it out:
Could we have just left it alone and said we didn't like it? Most people could, but I can safely say that BOTH Jeff and I have this complex about not wanting to hurt people's feelings, especially this waitress that was thoughtful enough to bring him dessert and a cheap plastic lei, all the while singing him "Happy Birthday" all by herself (and off key).

3. Basketball
If I'm ever watching a sport, you can usually bet your life savings that it's baseball. I've never been a huge basketball fan, but I have to say that this year's NBA playoffs have been very cool to watch unfold. Or at least read about the next day. The Boston Celtics are currently rendering the Lakers speechless, and I couldn't be happier. I know I'm from LA, and I should be rooting for the home team, but I really want to see the Celtics win it all. Maybe it's a combination of the Irish heritage that draws me to the green uniforms, a loyalty to my old temporary home of Beantown, the fact that I see the Lakers as the Yankees of basketball, a permanent soft spot in my heart for any underdog, or just my strong dislike of Kobe Bryant, but whatever it is, I love watching the Lakers get trounced. And last night, by all accounts, the Celtics should have lost, up until the last quarter. Those Lakers were beat on their home court by a team that came back from a 24 point deficit. If there ever was a decade to be a fan of Boston sports teams, this is definitely it. Go Celtics.

4. Airplane bathrooms
Is any one else out there terrified to flush a toilet on an airplane for fear they will be sucked in? I mean, that is some seriously VIOLENT suction that happens. I'll hit that flush button and stand back...well, as far back as one can in a tiny bathroom of 2 square feet.

I realized this is the second bathroom related blog I've written in the last 6 weeks. Where is my brain? In the crapper, evidently.

Keeping it light....

As promised yesterday...a lighter, kinder post for you all. Now with an easy to swallow, gelatin coating! Mmm, mmm, good!

Last Friday, I went to see Flight of the Conchords at the Orpheum in Downtown LA with Ro and Sara. If you haven't had the pleasure of hearing or watching these two lovable Kiwis perform, allow me to introduce you. They are a musical/comedy duo from New Zealand, and the world (or maybe just their fan base) is currently awaiting the arrival of the 2nd season of their HBO show. To give you all a little sample, this is one of my favorite songs of theirs. They are clearly VERY serious musicians.


And you know what? They ARE right...there ain't no party like my Nana's tea party. After the show, we waited out by the back door for the guys to come out, in the hopes of getting a couple pictures with them. We waited FOREVER, all the while being berated by a TOOL of a security guard that actually threatened to shoot us if we crossed his imaginary line of death. I think everyone pretty much laughed at him, which I'm sure just made him madder. Is a group of 30 laid back(mostly female) FOTC fans really that much of a threat to warrant GUNFIRE? I thought this was Los Angeles, not Baghdad. We decided we needed to take a break from verbal abuse of the gestapo security guard. It was freezing, and we were starving (and a cold, hungry Jen is NEVER a good thing), so we made a trek down to a taco stand to kill some time, avoid getting shot, and fill our bellies. But we still waited a while after we returned...it was about 1:30 by the time Bret emerged to say hi to everyone. No sign of Jemaine, but that's ok...it was still definitely worth the wait in a dark alley with our lives being lamely threatened. Here's a couple pictures from when we got to meet Bret.


Holy crap, it's Bret! He's totally adorable. After meeting him, I'm officially a Bretrosexual.


It was so nice of him to stand out there that late at night to sign autographs and take pictures with EVERY person out there. He really IS the mutha flippin'....

This was Ro, Sara, and I waiting in the back alley in Downtown LA at 1am. Yeah, totally safe.

I've got your hot button issues right HERE.

I filled up my gas tank in Pasadena yesterday for SIXTY effing dollars. WHAT. THE. CRAP. I can no longer afford this. I can't see my friends as much as I used to. I miss my fun weekends of driving all over the place to experience new things. But I can't, because my already tight budget has a gasoline stranglehold on it. For those of you with trucks and SUV's, I know you have it much worse than I do. People are paying 100 bucks for a weekly fill up on their large cars. Over four hundred dollars a month...on liquified dinosaur guts refined into fuel. I was thinking about the possibility of a 100 dollar tank last night, and it actually creates real anxiety for me. What would I do if I was faced with putting a HUNDRED dollars a week into my gas tank? The thing is, that's not too far off for me and my average sized car. It's already a reality for many. And it's only supposed to get worse.

Hold on to your hats. Political tangent....

I guess we could blame the president, because that's what everyone does nowadays. It's what we do as Americans, right? I could write a whole separate rant on how our president is a convenient scape goat for much more than he needs to be in our country, but I'll just give you a condensed version of what I think on this....

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blind to our economic woes or the mismanagement of Iraq, but I think people need a reason, or something/someone to blame for when their lives end up crappy. Then it's not their fault. I'm not saying that people aren't genuinely falling on bad times caused by factors NOT created by them, because there are plenty of those stories out there in this economic climate. But it's the people that whine about trivial crap and blame it on our President without finding the real root of the problem, and it's those types of people that make me absolutely crazy.

examples:

"The pothole in our street hasn't been fixed in 3 months." Blame Bush.

"It's been raining for 5 days straight." God hates Bush, and is punishing America. And clearly it's time to build an ark.

These are extreme examples for the sake of getting my point across. The bottom line is that it's not Bush making their lives crappy, it's THEM. Decide to be happy. Decide to drive around the stupid pothole, and make a call to the city about fixing it. Decide to bring an umbrella, and be grateful for the free plant watering from mother nature. If they're going to blame someone, at least have the facts to back it up.

And maybe the whole gas thing IS Bush's mess...I don't know. What I'm trying to say is that Bush shouldn't be people's automatic answer to everything. We live in a world that is NOT black and white. It's all grey. So stop treating it like it's not. There are VERY few absolutes in this world...two sides to every story, and a different perspective on everything, and I wish people would take the time to see both sides. And if this has come off as a political rant, I didn't mean it to be. This isn't a Democrat or Republican issue. It's an issue of people being stupid. When they reduce a complicated problem down to a black and white answer, and decide to blame it on the big guy in the Oval Office, it is merely the tip of the stupid people iceberg. But, in terms of the oil crisis, you SHOULD take a look at what the president is doing about it, but then also look at the oil companies, look at the U.S. Congress, and then look at YOURSELF. Each of us have contributed to this, and I'm not immune to it either. We are an oil-addicted society. Once we've looked at all the players in this fiasco, and we still come up with Dubya as the culprit, then blame the hell out of him. What do I care? But I would bet that once you look at all the factors and players, each of them are part of the bigger problem. Again, it's not my irritation with people blaming Bush for stuff. It's more my irritation with people being stupid. That's really the problem I'm having.

So, to summarize...I hate gas and stupid people.

Back to the gas thing...today I decided that I'm going take a leap, and test the waters of the LA public transit system by taking the bus to work. I will try it for one week, and if it makes a difference, then I'm going to stick with it. Heck, I spent two years in Boston without a car, depending on public transportation to get me around...I could do it again, right? I'm going to D.C. this weekend for a few days to see family (I know, flying across the country is a huge use of oil...I told you I wasn't immune!), but when I return, the great public transportation experiment will commence. I'm sure it will create a few blog-worthy stories.

I don't know what the answer is, and I don't pretend to have a comprehensive knowledge on how to answer to such a complicated problem as the worldwide oil crisis in my silly blog. I'm just annoyed, and I want to be able to bitch about it. Gun to my head, I wouldn't be able to tell you what OPEC even stands for. I'd probably tell you that it stood for Old People Eating Cheese. Of course, if I actually had a GUN to my head, I wouldn't think of much...I would opt for crapping my pants instead.

Please don't give up on me. I promise future posts will be more lighthearted, and this won't turn into a socio-political blog. I just had to get this out. And a good day to you all.

Eye kan spel.

Question: Is my name really that hard? Really? C'mon, Starbucks personnel...look alive!



What if my name was Svetlana or Penelope? What would have happened to the chick behind the counter if I gave her names like that? Would she have completely lost it, or maybe spontaneously combusted? The world will never know.