Last night’s episode of Lost didn’t disappoint. At first I thought it would lose some of its luster, as many shows tend to do with the second episode, but then I had to remind myself that it was actually the 2nd half of the original 2-hour pilot. Guess the folks over at ABC didn’t think the viewing public could handle that much distress for 120 minutes straight unless the words “Official Presidential Debate” were mentioned somewhere in the title.

Yep. Still stranded.

The episode began with another flashback to the fateful moments before the crash, where we are shown that Charlie the Rock Star is not only a drug addict, but a rude and belligerent one, as well. Cute Dog isn’t technically The Devil, he belongs to the young boy, Walt. We learn Walt lived in Australia with his mother, who died two weeks ago after a long illness and is now en route back to the U.S. with dad Michael. Dad apparently doesn’t know his son very well because the guy can’t remember at first if his son is 9 or 10 when asked. Locke, who looks far too much like Jean-Luc Picard for me, sums it up pretty well, “You’re really having a bad month.”

Bitchy Blonde is really named Shannon, and her whipping-boy is actually her brother Boone, which explains the snottiness a little better. I’d like to smack her around though, as she’s sunbathing in her orange bikini, completely unaffected, while people lie around her…well, dead. Must be the shock, because eventually she breaks down, pulls her head out of her butt and realizes “they” aren’t coming to rescue her and take her to a day spa anytime soon.

Sayid manages to repair the transceiver, but can’t get a signal so he, St. Kate, Charlie, Boone, Shannon and Tough Guy Sawyer all trek to the top of the mountain to get a better signal. As you would imagine, “something” comes after them, and it’s a big cuddly wuddly polar bear! In the South Pacific. Now see, I saw this as a good sign that big game was around the island so no one would starve. No one else thought of that, all they could think about was the fact that a polar bear shouldn’t be on a tropical island. Yeah well, there he is. Tough Guy Sawyer shoots about half a dozen rounds into the Coca Cola Bear and seriously wounds it.

The poor thing just lies there as our Survivor castaways try to figure out how a gun got on board the airplane. Turns out it was strapped to the leg of a U.S. Marshal, which also explains the handcuffs Michael’s son found at the beginning of the episode. Everyone thinks Sawyer is the criminal being transported because he’s all scraggly and arrogant and shoots a gun rather well and that’s how all criminals look and act. Flashback. Ah ha…turns out St. Kate is the transported criminal. Wonder what she did. Since she’s asking for assistance in how to dismantle the gun, I’m guessing she ran her husband over a couple times with her Mercedes. Maybe not. She can’t be that big of a monster because (a) there’s not room enough on the island for two and (b) she did put the air mask on her jailer (”Secure the mask of those around you who may need help, before securing your own.”) as they made their rapid descent.

Through the flashback we realize that Shrapnel Guy is the U.S. Marshal., which explains why St. Kate is so concerned as to whether he’s going to live or die. Right now, he’s alive. Dr. Jack manages to get the shrapnel out of the U.S. Marshal, who then regains consciousness, grabs Dr. Jack and wants to know where St. Kate is…right now. Gulp.

Back on Mt. Creepiness, the gang is excited to have a bar (no, not that kind…but that would be cool, too) because now they can transmit a signal. But wait…what’s that you say? Something is already being transmitted? Its something in French, with a number spoken in English after each iteration, and its increasing incrementally. Shannon, who in addition to being the weepy, unstable blonde (shouldn’t she have been on an hour later on The Bachelor?) also speaks high school French and can translate for us. I don’t know about anyone else, but I wasn’t learning how to translate distress calls in my four years of high school Spanish. Maybe the Spanish are never in distress. Who knows. Anyway, it’s a woman’s sad, desperate plea for someone to come get her. She’s all alone…everyone else is dead. Now, movies and television shows don’t creep me out. Ever. This scene did and it was a little unnerving because it was dark outside and my husband hadn’t made it home from the airport yet. The dogs were providing no solace whatsoever so I was on my own. Sayid calculates that the distress call has been playing for 16 years. Shudder.

In other beach news, Claire (the pregnant one) hasn’t felt her baby kick since yesterday. However, once she eats some sort of sea delicacy served up to her by Jin (the Korean guy), the baby starts kicking up a storm. When did he get so nice? He demands his wife’s shirt be buttoned all the way up (although you can tell she’s getting sick of him ordering her around) and wants to isolate him and his wife, but now he’s serving food? Hmm. I detect a Richard Hatch move.

Regardless…on next week’s show I anticipate we will have more blood, more crying and more weird things happening. Yay. Wednesday nights are good again.

God, I am really embarrasssed to be a woman after last night’s episode of The Apprentice 2. Carolyn agrees with me. Unless you yourself are Trump-certifiably “crazy,” you’ve caught on to the fact that no project manager on this show is ever going to have anyone sing his/her praises. Seriously. And for all you people who are distressed about Stacie J’s termination due to aforementioned craziness, don’t judge until you’ve had a project fall flat on its face because your company couldn’t do anything about the crazy loose cannon on your team. Yes. Crazy. Doctor’s note and everything.

In Apprenticeland, you have to break down those with whom you’re competing if you yourself want to get ahead. In a nutshell, this means all of the project managers are going to “lack leadership,” “not walk the talk” or “point fingers.” I’m all for a team dynamic, but if I’m competing against my project manager you’d better believe I’m going to accentuate my positivity and accentuate her…um…areas for improvement.

Oh wait…I get it now…the only point of having a project manager at all in this “game” (sorry Buddy Bill, its a game) is to create drama. Ohhhhhhhhh. Geez. Can’t believe I didn’t catch on to that sooner.

And from that, comes my embarrassment. To be fair, Jenn C. was trying not to emulate the namby-pampy Ghost of Project Managers Past, but from the word “Zagat!” she was off base. Way off base. But did you see the decor? It is amazing! Forget the fact that she’s an annoying leader, she put some chi chi restaurant in a not chi chi area and then has the audacity to criticize her patrons. Uh uh sweetie, it don’t work that way here in da city. And she’s from New York City. This isn’t Sex and the City, sweetpea. Put away the black clothing, tone down the lipstick and keep it real.

Anyway, what grinds my coffee is how these women make everything personal. Everything. And today’s women actually are baffled by the fact that they don’t get promoted and no one wants to work with them? It’s one thing to desire equality but its a whole different thing when you shoot right past equality into some Postequal Superior world where men are deemed flat-out stupid and all competing women are mentally ill if they don’t agree with you. Yeah, this gets me fired up.

Stacy’s Project Management Rule of the Week:

“Don’t be an obnoxious Project Manager. You won’t get buy-in, no one will help you out, the task will fail and eventually you will be fired.”

I’m liking Raj more and more every day, but could have done without him in the white backwaiter jacket. Everyone else sort of blended in last night except for Stacy R. (to think I thought she was flying under the radar), Customer Service Jackass Manager Chris talking about being “on” for the customers (how much did you make in tips back in the day?) and Carolyn. I love Carolyn…more so with each new episode. I know she already works for Trump, but can’t we have her win on this show too?

As far as Buddy Bill Rancic goes, the uber-husband informed me after his trip to Chicago last week that there is most definitely not a Trump building going up in Chicago at this time. Leaves more time for Buddy Bill to fill in for Curious George, I suppose.

Wow, I have seen self-destruction of biblical proportions before, but nothing like what Elizabeth experienced on last night’s Apprentice. The task was to create an ad campaign to entice young men (and women, but no one even addressed that demographic) to join the NYPD. I think my idea was great…use the intro to Law & Order and instead of “these are their stories” at the end, say, “Be part of the stories.” Bom-BOM! Took about ten seconds to come up with…use a little “ripped from the headlines” action…badda boom, badda bing! Keep Dennis Farina away from the camera, though. Please.

I’ll grudgingly give Andy a small, itty bitty, teensy tiny prop for doing an okay job…BUT…let me follow that statement up with the fact that they had a good idea and the team fell into place on what needed to be done. I just have a hard time supporting Andy because he’s a snot-nosed 22-year old who may have good ideas but he hasn’t been kicked around enough in the corporate world (who? me?) to be able to handle a team. In debates you go up against one person…not a team. But I digress…his team moves along and comes up with an ad campaign that’s actually quite good. “What have you done lately…?” They used real members of the NYPD to pull at the heartstrings. I did wonder though, where exactly Maria was going in her desperate attempts to inject a little more sex appeal?

I Googled “John Kerry George Bush Atkins” last night (no more The Amazing Race, what else do you do?) to see if I could find something somewhere that disclosed the Official Platform Opinions and stumbled upon this article in the San Francisco Independent. Now, I didn’t put much stock into the article, except for Mr. Caen’s statement at the end:

“There is one endorsement that is still up for grabs, one that is proven to motivate the American public more than the AFL-CIO or the Sierra Club. John Kerry should spend the next five weeks lining this up. If he gets it, the country is his.

John Kerry needs to become the first candidate endorsed by the Atkins diet.”

I’d like to expand on this because…think about it…it isn’t a half-bad idea. The majority of this election’s hot spots center around rather faddish issues anyway…education, tax cuts for the rich, the conflict in Iraq, media responsibility…etc. If Kerry could somehow successfully and believably reconcile the whole french-fries-are-bad/my-wife-makes-ketchup conflict, he just might have something. This is assuming, of course, that he can weather the inevitable controversy surrounding the upstart grassroots organization Bacon & Eggs For Truth revealing how Kerry says he eats eggs but they’re really EggBeaters.

Having said that, let’s list out what else Partisan Low-Carb Researchers for Truth have sauteed up in butter for us:

And finally…

Gives a whole new meaning to the term “waffle,” now doesn’t it?

Dear Jon Stewart,

We here at Outwit, Outblog, Outsnark beg of you…please don’t endorse a political candidate. I agree with Dana Stevens in that part of your universal likeability is your unwavering ability to be…well, unwavering. You rip on Bush and Kerry with equal vigor and to deviate from that would be pandering into the hands of those who salivate to find yet “another liberal” or “another conservative” news anchor/celebrity chef/comedian to dig their steely claws into.

I’ve been watching your show since you took over for Craig What’s-his-face. Don’t go to the dark side now. In spite of what the pundits may say, you can’t endorse a political candidate and still remain objective. I suppose you could, but then everyone will look for the liberal/conservative slant in everything you say. It’s much more fun being in the dark on who floats your political boat.

Sincerely,
Stacy

Invite your friends over Thursday night, slap on a half dozen campaign buttons and drink up. Your choice…Lone Star beer or Veuve-Clicquot. Serve Bush’s baked beans and Heinz ketchup (or catsup, for you tomato snobs).

Personally, I’ll be going for the diet A & W root beer with Absolut vanilla vodka. Middle of the road, unpretentious and zero carbs.

Cheers!

Comedy Central wasn’t about to be one-upped by Bill O’Reilly, The O’Reilly Factor producers and the Fox News Channel in the “let’s be funny, politically correct, educational and borderline vague, yet fair and balanced” department so they did a little research of their own.

And just what exactly were those results? Just as I suspected. Totally inconclusive and non-committal and that my friends…is exactly how we college-educated, unverifiably stoned slackers operate. Kill ‘em with confusion. Hey! Look at what Arnie’s done now! Did you hear Britney Spears is launching a new perfume? And…Rocco still can’t get into his restaurant! Hey…is that The Amazing Race filming over there? What’s that you say? They’re bringing back more Iron Chef America? Sweet!

See? You don’t even remember the original topic of this post, do you? Exccccccccccccccccccccelent. {wink}

At first they kind of made it a dramedy. Then they tested it, and people were like, we don’t want a dramedy at the airport.”

— Heather Locklear, New York Times, September 19 2004

So Heather, explain to me what the difference is between a dramedy and what I’m actually watching every Monday night now?

There’s something about LAX that transcends drama and dramedy and probably most forms of comedy into that campiness that has been missing for awhile on television. The fact that the show uses ELO’s frolicky “Mr. Blue Sky” as its theme song should be a pretty hefty indicator that you won’t be watching anything that could be termed “gripping drama.”

I hate to fly, so you’d think I’d avoid a television show that seems to center around airplane angst as its primary plot generator but if anything, it has restored my faith in the Friendly Skies. For all I know, an ex-Navy flight engineer might be on my next flight to Hawaii…and he will most definitely have the sage wisdom to call Ground Control Barbie at the nearest airport from my husband’s Blackberry, then talk down the rattled Captain with a Snoopy vs. the Red Baron flight formation technique. Hell, we’ll even get the actual Red Baron up there with us!

Let’s not forget about the ground crew now, because their role is just as important. In a customer-service based industry such as airline travel, it is important to ensure your hot Australian airline supervisor is at all times in a terminal bar drinking a tall, frosty beer in a tank top. I don’t know why more airports don’t do that. Perhaps LAX is ahead of its time.

Although, I have yet to see LAX introduce a wacky TSA employee who has people do the Macarena while he/she performs a hand-wand inspection. “Ehhhhhh Continental!” Maybe next week.

In the five months (as of yesterday) since I’ve joined the ranks of the work-from-home brigade, I have developed a new appreciation for my two dogs. Sure, being at home with 2 dogs has its challenges, but come on, does anyone in the standard brick-and-mortar corporate environment come up to you while you’re tapping away on your keyboard and lick your leg? In a non-litigious manner, of course.

Daisy, my schnauzer mix, is an amazing mood barometer for me. If I am getting particularly tense…or cranky…or my voice gets a little too loud on the phone, she runs up to my chair with a droopy tail, jumps in my lap and gives me Big Daisy Eyes. I’m not sure if she’s afraid of me or if she’s trying to calm me down but either way, it works. If dogs can smell cancer, I don’t see why they couldn’t detect a significant increase in the blood flow to my brain. I definitely could have used Daisy at the beginning of the year at my old job.

A lot of the benefits of having pets when you’re working from home sound so simplistic…needing to take them outside a few times a day gets you out of your chair and outside as well. You don’t quite realize the magnitude of this until one day, you look up from your laptop and realize the 5 o’clock news is on and you’re still sitting in your pajamas.

I don’t think it would be quite as easy if Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were still puppies who demanded 500% of my time, but now that they’re getting older, I get all of the perks and benefits. They come over and socialize when they want to and nap the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day. If I have a bad conference call, I can scratch Cookie’s tummy and put everything back into its proper perspective.

Neither Cookie nor Daisy is particularly motivated or equipped to provide any concrete service to me during the workday. The lack of opposable thumbs precludes performing any standard clerical duties such as filing, answering the phone or dropping off uber-husband’s dry cleaning. Cookie is blind, so picking up lunch for me at Jason’s Deli is out of the question. But, they both do a very effective job of protecting my workplace from immediate security threats such as the neighborhood stay-at-home-moms, the UPS driver and the ChemLawn guy. Can’t buy that kind of loyalty.

Oh my. Is this for real?

I don’t doubt that conservatives need love too…after all, we all crave that special someone with whom to share our Blogs for Bush wearables, but after clicking around a bit the site started to feel like something JibJab would crank out post-debate so all the conservatives could heterosexually marry and bear many conservative babies. Awwwwwww.

Official Poll from ConservativeMatch.com:

Which activity makes the best date for conservatives?

Attending a Hannitzation Tour Event

Shooting at a gun range with Assault Weapons

Protesting outside Michael Moore’s house

Driving around in an SUV

Watching Ronald Reagan Speeches on DVD

Walking on the beach in your new John Kerry Flip Flops

I’m guessing the strong, virile, able-bodied men who are lurking over at ConservativeMatch.com haven’t the slightest clue what they’re up against when it comes to wooing the ladies this election year.

Props to Lisa by way of Grub for raising my awareness by bringing these significant issues to light. I didn’t verify that the source was accurate, but what the Hell, they seem trustworthy enough. {wink}

I made a vague reference to Most Extreme Elimination Challenge back at the beginning of July and actually watched it for the first time this morning, courtesy of Tivo.

You see, uber-husband and I were having lunch with visiting-from-out-of-town uber-girlfriend and her uber-husband yesterday when the conversation flowed to television. First we bantered about the idiocy that is Trading Spouses, then I think I made an Amazing Race joke that kind of flopped, then there was some talk about Britney, her bridesmaids and their pink Tacky Couture tracksuits. After that though, conversation turned to girlfriend’s uber-husband discussing this show he watched called Most Extreme Elimination Challenge and how hilarious it was…if you muted it.

This reminded me of yesteryear, when I would play Pitfall! on my Atari 2600 with the TV sound turned all the way down (no mute button back in the day), because the auditory wrath of Harry Pitfall swinging across the alligator pit became rather bothersome after playing the game 456,887 times. With no sound, I would play either my cassette tape of Hall and Oates or my cassette player-recorded episode of Solid Gold in the background. You know what I’m talking about. You held the recorder up to the television speaker so you’d be able to catch Andy Gibb and this week’s Top Ten countdown? Uh huh…you know of which I speak.

But I digress. I had forgotten MXC (that’s what the Spike TV hipsters call it, I guess) was on Spike TV but fortunately, his reminding me what channel it was on gave way to me practically begging them to rent the first season of Joe Schmo if they thought MXC was funny.

Anyway, uber-husband and I fast-forwarded through most of MXC because (a), we needed to hurry up and get to the mall to buy uber-husband some uber-ties for his uber-meetings in uber-Seattle this week and (b), it was even funnier sped up. It reminded me of that now-defunct Fox show called Banzai!, which aired about four times before we hypersensitive Americans deemed it “offensive” and forced Fox to pull it off the air. Subsequent attempts to revive that dying show on Comedy Central were unsuccessful. Personally, I find the thought of trout ice cream to be more objectionable, but I have a hunch I am not the target demographic for any of these programs.

Nevertheless, here I am. And, MXC was funny. But, it was funny in that “I’ve had WAY too much beer” Mystery Science Theater 3000 kind of way. Don’t sit down and watch this after Meet the Press. Do sit down and watch it after The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Sake and wasabi are optional.

Also, as I was watching MXC I couldn’t help but constantly think about the Simpsons and their appearance on The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show. Do I find these “game shows” funny because they take advantage of the Japanese/Korean/Insert Other Asian Group Here good nature? Heck no, I find them funny because we Americans have too much ego to do those shows ourselves. But Stacy, what about Fear Factor? Please. Fear Factor is an excellent example of how Americans take themselves far too seriously, even when they’re mocking themselves by acting in such an insanely “Look at me! Look at me!” manner. At least the folks on MXC have the confidence to laugh at themselves.

I really shouldn’t be surprised by Stacie J.’s straitjacket-worthy meltdowns over the past couple of weeks on The Apprentice 2 because to be totally honest, that’s how the employees at Subway have behaved the last two times I’ve asked them to fix me an Atkins wrap. They get confused, not quite sure where the low-carb tortilla wraps are, they don’t know the price, and they don’t know that they can put 4 oz. of turkey on the damn thing instead of the usual 3 oz. for a regular sandwich. Subway…eat fresh!Uber-husband came up with the apt moniker of “Sideshow Bob” for her last night and now I won’t be able to use it. The great thing is that I’m already set for this year’s Halloween costume. Two years ago, I actually dressed up as Justin Guarini so now I’ll just rename the ‘fro wig the Stacie J. wig and I’m good to go. Pop a couple decongestants to get that manic wild-eyed look and badda boom, badda bing…costume gold!

Anyway, last night’s task was to create “buzz” about Crest’s new vanilla mint flavored toothpaste. Let me just get this out of the way right now…yuck. But anyway, Team No More Bradford decides to go the celebrity route and somehow gets Mike Piazza to brush his teeth in Union Square for $20,000. $20,000! I don’t live in New York so I don’t get the Mad About Mike bit, but when he showed up I thought he looked like kind of a pain in the ass, and that he couldn’t believe he was hawking toothpaste. It was just the expressions on his face. Anyway, he brushes his teeth, gives the new Crest Sloppy Joe flavor the inevitable thumbs-up, then starts signing the backs of the Way Overpriced Flyers and toothpaste boxes. Yay. Buzz achieved.

The problem? Maria, in charge of those flyers and toothpaste boxes (of which I can’t believe a single one isn’t on eBay right now), had some half-witted negotiated price with the printer. To her, simply saying, “We only have $1,800 in the budget” is enough for a vendor to understand that’s all they’re going to spend, despite the fact that what they want costs $6,900. That’s not the way it works, Detective Benson (another one of uber-husband’s new names). The way it works is (let’s play the Remedial Procurement Game)…you get a Fixed Firm Price on how much it will take to do all your printing, including the Middle of the Friggin’ Night surcharges and anything else. Then you decide if you want to go with them. You don’t tell them you have a certain amount of money and then expect them to produce what you want, no matter how elaborate. At first I was rooting for Maria and thought the vendor was screwing with them, until I realized how vague her “terms” were and how easily they could have been misunderstood which of course, they were.

This lack of clarity put the ladies $5,000 over their $50,000 budget or, 10% over budget. In case you don’t understand the gravity of that, The Donald puts it a way so we independently wealthy folks can grasp it a little better. “If I had a $500 million project, that would mean I was $50 million over budget.” Oh…okay. I get it now. Fire Maria and her Sassy Short Hair…and don’t make it pretty.

In the Boredroom, we have nasty girlfights and whining and bickering and The Donald actually calls the rest of the women back in to substantiate certain claims made. In the end, The Donald decides he just can’t have a loose cannon running around until he owns the Barnum, Bailey & Trump Circus franchise. And with that…Stacie…you’re fired.

I’m really not too concerned about Team Mosaic except for Andy…he just gets too excited. The way he was ruffling his feathers about how he was the one who came up with the $1 million giveaway was just funny. Great idea? Sure, if you’ve got a week. This is a great lesson in scope management.

Stacy’s Project Management Lesson of the Week:

With a certain budget and a certain timeframe, generally you can’t have the entire world. Thusly, you either modify your world or adjust your definition of what “the entire world” means. In their case, $1 million turned into three separate cash prizes of $5,000, for which they didn’t need the approval of 36 attorneys and Ed McMahon.

RajSam is starting to grow on me. Yes, I will admit it when I jump to conclusions early and modify my position on something. Still like Ivana, but disappointed that the Three Blondes Who Look Exactly Like Each Other thought their team was doomed because The Bradford was gone. Geez ladies, have a little faith in your own abilities, why dontcha? Maybe next week you can pitch a sexually-charged campaign to Tide detergent and get your asses back in the game.

A little tip for all the single ladies out there…don’t ever wear your Tina Fey glasses with an evening gown on a first date with 2 guys and 24 other women…unless of course, you’re Tina Fey. Or perhaps, my avatar up in the left corner of the page. Seriously. That’s just dating suicide, IMO. Either spring for the LASIK (which I’m sure you want anyway) or get thyself to fair optometrist to procure a wee set of disposable contacts. Or, did the Bachelor producers steer you in the wrong direction and tell you the specs made you look…um…intellectual?Now, I speak from the experience of a 30-something woman who managed to make it out of her 20s without going on a single reality dating show. I admit to having done the online dating thing (that’s how I met uber-husband), but I’ve never really thought any man was worth competing with 24 other women. No offense intended it’s just, well, there are lots of fish in the sea and not all of them are married, gay or otherwise unappealing. I’m so glad they didn’t pick the guy whose last name sounds alarmingly like overbite. This is good, because then I would have had to make all sorts of TMJ jokes the entire season.

In case you’ve never seen the show before, here are some quotable quotes, spoken by the Frisky Fisherman and his lovely mermaids:

And…my personal favorite…

Gag. Cough. Hack. Blech. Nothing makes a 40-year old man hotter than hearing a woman he’s just met force him to have a impromptu group date with her and her biological clock. Tick, tick, tick.

I swore I would not let The Almighty Bachelor franchise entice me in for another disappointing season. At some point, I can’t blame ABC for subjecting me to the show when no one is holding a gun to my head. Regardless, after a solid hour and a half of the world’s most boring episodes of Law & Order (Dennis…dude, you’re boring! Bring back Lenny!) I needed to cleanse my palate and switched over. By the time I got to the show, they’d already evicted the Jovial Jay, which left us with Frisky Fisherman Byron. I’m not impressed. On a scale of Bob to Andrew, I’d have to give Byron a solid Aaron in terms of irritating eye-rollability.

The 10-minute montage of “Coming up this season on…The Bachelor” was absolutely unbearable. Silly string? What are you guys, nine? Frisky Fisherman also moves into the Mermaids’ Villa, providing fodder for lots of hookups, lots of drama and lots of marginally attractive women clawing at each other for a man whose actual marriageability is in question just by him being on the show in the first place.

0-for-5, kids. 0-for-5.

Surprise! Why the F-Word is OK to Say“Swearwords, especially the f-word, must only be said in the appropriate context.”

Yay! I am released from my verbal shackles in the workplace! One question though…what the f*&k is considered the appropriate context in a business setting?

Would that be:

OR…

Fodder to bat around like a happy-go-lucky kitten.

Okay, how amazing was it last night to see Chip & Kim win? And even more amazing, how did they get their crew in and out of the DFW area without being noticed? Granted, it was more FW than D (anyone else never hear of Trammel Crow Park…er…field…until last night?), but I figured someone would have blabbed to someone and they would have told someone and so on until it wound up on Channel 11. We’re just that kind of metroplex. They must have had every driver on I-20 that day sign an Official Legal Document stating they saw…nothing.I’ll post my full star-studded post-game recap later today or tomorrow to TVTome.com and I’ll put a link up here for y’all.

I’m glad they’re not starting season six this Saturday. I’m tired. Need to rephil my energy tanks.

Despite my hard-earned degree in political science from a liberal, secular university, I have turned into a conservative, secular adult for whom curiously, politics ain’t my bag. Nevertheless, I got the same look on my face my dog Daisy does when she doesn’t understand something when I read this sociopolitical, anthropological mumbo jumbo. You know the look…ears straight up, head cocked to the side and a glassy expression? Yep, that’s the one.

All of a sudden my “I LOVE…THIS…WOMAN!” comment in my recap didn’t sound so far off base. I can’t believe Colin proposed. That’s so Bahston Rahb of him.Copycat. I can’t believe I missed The Big Moment…and I’m at home in the mornings. Now these two and the Federlines can go on Trading Spouses.

So, what happens when your jumbo jet crash-lands into Jurassic Park? Why, you develop a television show, cast Charlie Salinger as protagonist Dr. Jack and call it Lost. Holy tribal council, I don’t think a show has sucked me in so fast since my introduction to The Amazing Race in season 2. My fourteenth indicator that this wasn’t going to be the most upbeat show was when, during the opening credits, someone was actually titled as “guest starring.” You have a group of people stranded, with no way off the island. No one new can arrive on the island (unless Ricardo Montalban is involved or they stumble across Paradise Hotel), so that can mean one of two things…either you die…or…you die.Here’s what we’re dealing with: a plane experiences “turbulence” of some sort 6 hours into the flight, then breaks apart and crashes on a desert island. 48 people survive and those people are a varied blend…Dr. Jack (who displays amazing grace under fire, literally), an 8-month pregnant woman (thought they weren’t supposed to fly in the third trimester?), a Korean couple who doesn’t speak English, Charlie (the bass player for a fictional rock band), a father and his son…and a potpourri of others, including a yellow lab we see twice during the movie. Can’t tell yet if the dog represents Satan or if he was down in the cargo bay and crashed like everyone else.

Dr. Jack performs the best triage care he can, but supplies are limited, save an random sewing kit and some plastic silverware. As night falls, the Creepiness begins. High pitched squeals and tribal screams emanate from the center of the island. One woman says it sounds familiar, as she’s from the Bronx. This whole situation reminded me of that scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind when Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr and all the other disciples stood in front of the UFO, completely mesmerized by it. I remember the movie…I’m not that old.

My vote for First To Be Eaten By Whatever’s Out There is the bitchy blonde girl who snits at her boyfriend/husband and then says that “they” will come find them because a black box was on the plane. What she doesn’t know though, is that the plane was 1,000 miles off course when it crashed so the black box beacon has a Castaway’s chance in Hell of providing any assistance.

How do we know this? Dr. Jack, his new trusty sidekick Kate and Charlie go looking for the cockpit, hoping to find some sort of transmission device to get word out…since everyone is shocked to find out they have no cell phone coverage. Sorry, didn’t work for Anne Heche, won’t work for you, either. Anyway, they find the front of the plane and its in a rather precarious position so they have to climb up to the cockpit. Once inside, they realize the pilot is still alive. He explains what happened…their radio went out and they lost contact with the non-airborne world. By the time they hit the turbulence, they were 1,000 miles off course so basically, any rescue effort will never be able to find them. Ever. All of a sudden, Creepiness surrounds the plane, shakes it around, roars and wails and pulls the captain out of his seat, leaving him bloodied and charred and hanging from a tree. Aha…there’s our “guest star.” Okay then…I want Bitchy Blonde Girl to go next.

My uber-husband commented that Lost seems like it would be a great show to go a season…and then end. Kind of like what 24 was supposed to be, yet that Jack keeps coming back with more and more days of angst and woe. I’m anxious to see how this show plays out because as wonderful and gripping and electrifying as it was, I can’t really see it going more than a season. To the untrained eye, it would seem that the plotlines could be a little on the limited side. I don’t know. But, based on preview’s for next week’s second half of the pilot (the first half is hanging from the tree…snicker, snicker)…the pilot episode that is, panic continues to set in and we have a hint of a hookup. Nah, too early. You’ve just crashed into an island. Wait a little while before picking up chicks.

Time to carve up a volleyball, name it Wilson and settle in. I could have done without the graphic plane crash sequence because it punctuates why I hate flying and why I especially hate doing it over water. But, the scenery sure is sweet. If you’re looking for beautiful Hawaiian landscape, skip Hawaii, skip North Shore…and go for Lost. Don’t mind all the fuselage and dead bodies, I’m sure “they” will be by soon to clean up.

As October approaches, I realized that I was closing out my fifth month of working from home. For the most part, it’s been a very enjoyable experience. I wondered for awhile if I could hack the solitude or if I’d get cabin fever and do laps around the block in an Ann Taylor suit, begging the neighborhood stay-at-home-moms to PLEASE TALK TO ME. Alas, that has not been the case, for I have recognized that I am more of an introvert than an extrovert.I prefer to commune only with those closest to me and relish in the fact that I can think about something in my home office without listening to the nitwit next to me snap his gum or talk to her gynecologist about her sexual problems. Well, I do have to listen to Cookie bark, but I’ve grown more tolerant of that. Despite the stress of the my current job, my overall stress level has plummeted from Terror Alert Level Red to a more soothing…mauve…yes, mauve is good. The result? I’m a lot more fun to be around when my face isn’t all screwed up in a cranky frown and my shoulders aren’t hiked clear up to my earlobes.

I’ve drafted up yet another T-chart, this time of Work From Home hits and misses. Of course, this isn’t all-inclusive but I think I’ve captured the highlights.

Hits:

My work schedule is completely flexible, as long as I get my work done sometime between 7 a.m. and midnight, allowing more time to run errands, go to the doctor, drop a load of laundry in, relandscape the front yard, etc.

I get to be a stay-at-home-doggie-mom to the furmonsters. Since Cookie’s getting older, this is a plus, even if she does ignore me all day.

I can do my job from anywhere…literally. If we move to Seattle, all I have to do is take my laptop with me and voila! - I’ve relocated.

No real sick days to have to take off since I can work with a cold and not irritate otherwise healthy co-workers. No more “mental health days.”

Mondays aren’t so bad anymore.

I have the best boss. I’d worked with him in the past and we “get” each other and he trusts me, which makes any job that much more enjoyable.

I have my home office organized and decorated in a way that is pleasing to me, not to the Corporate Facilities department.

It’s actually less expensive to have me here. Commute costs pretty much disappear (gas alone was $130 a month), and all those other ancillary costs such as lunches out, dry cleaning, etc. also go down. The flip side though, costs for office supplies, extra phone line & increased overall utility costs from having someone home all day. All in all, I think it’s a wash so we’ll call it a Hit.

Misses:

Managing virtual work teams is tough. Not everyone who works from home has the right work ethic and they usually require more supervision. That’s extremely tough to do via email, instant messaging or telephone.

No department birthday parties. Wait, that’s a good thing.

Because my office is in my home, on occasion it’s difficult to “leave work for the day.” I suppose I could get in my car each day at 4:30 p.m. and drive around the block to signal the end of the day, but that’s not very practical.

I miss not physically being with a team to collaborate together or bounce ideas around. We can go days without talking to each other.

It also helps that, to replace the time I used to spent ranting and raving and generally being pissed off about my job, I started this blog to fill in the gaps and provide me with a little one-sided social interaction.

Enough of that. We now return you to your regularly scheduled snark.

I can breathe easier at night now, knowing these think-tankers are protecting the Land of the Free and the Home of the Whopper.

The snark flowed so freely for about three months…on my blog, that is. It’s been flowing in my life for about 32 years. Then, as soon as I switched over to this new blog template and new domain and new host, I feel like I’ve lost my edge. I’ve spent more time customizing my template than actually reading up on things or writing, so maybe that’s the problem. I’m so caught up in the science that I forgot about the art? If that’s the case, fortunately it’s a temporary distraction.Maybe it’s the uncontrollable ragweed allergy I’ve been battling for the last two weeks…and by the way, I’m not winning. Maybe it’s all in my head (literally) and I’m still blogging with the same spirit and spunk but I just can’t see it or read it because my head is so damn plugged up and the Zyrtec is affecting my brain function.

Maybe it’s that horrific malady called blog burnout. Could I be suffering from that so soon? Maybe I’m just in a slump. Maybe I’m just PMS-ing. No, that was last week. Does anyone else go through this? Do you have days where you write a post, then go through about five drafts then decide it just sounds really lame and delete the whole thing? Multiple times?

Sigh.

How blatant can you get? For about the first ten minutes of tonight’s episode of Jack & Bobby, I was forced to watch our Future President walk around his house with not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, but seven Kerry/Edwards election buttons on his shirt. You knew Mom had to be a Democrat and that she’d be an “activist” of sorts but that just turned me right off of the show. Be political…have a storyline about getting young adults to get out and vote…cool. I’m all for that. When you start advertising one of the candidates though…on a fictional television show…that just ain’t right.Last week after the pilot, I was rather ambivalent about the show but figured what the hell, I’ll give it a couple episodes and we’ll go from there. I think the whole ongoing subplot of Mom’s Drug Issue doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of point, other than to give Mom, Jack & Bobby something to discuss every week and come to some sort of half-hearted “resolution.” And, unless this show runs for an unprecedented 37 seasons, we won’t really know what Mom’s pot-pourri fascination will do to son Bobby’s presidential aspirations.

The friendship between Bobby & Courtney? While sweet, what 16-year old girl is interested in 13-year old boys, even as just a friend? Sure, Jack’s an insensitive jerk but those two can’t possibly be the only boys in school. From what I can gather from the documentary snippets though, I guess for her they were the only boys…ever. Mom’s constant pre-fab tension with Dean Money-Grubbing Whore has all the spark and chemistry of a partial set of Legos.

I kept waiting for someone to come on screen with seven Bush/Cheney campaign buttons but that didn’t happen. Equal time my friends, equal time.

That’s right kids, The Amazing Race isn’t just another flash in the reality TV pan. The super-fantabulous show took home it’s second consecutive Emmy for Best Reality Show at last night’s award broadcast. My husband commented that it would have been really cool to have the Emmy awards as the last pit stop in this…the final leg of a race around the world. You know, do the finale live, a ‘la Survivor. Colin & Christie run up to the stage and Phil stands there with his Emmy and a check for a million dollars? (copyright pending)Other items of note:

Yes, I got teary-eyed when they showed scenes from the final episodes of Sex and the City and Frasier. I also got teary-eyed when I saw William Peterson in a tuxedo jacket with a black t-shirt underneath. I burst out laughing when James Gandolfini was cut off during the Best Drama acceptance speech for The Sopranos so the Emmys could end at 10 on the dot. Good times.

The AP is now reporting that the Bushgate Military Documents are…say it isn’t so…inauthentic. I knew this was coming. My husband knew this was coming. When these “documents” first appeared, he immediately went to his old Army files and pulled out several Authentic Documents, none of which were typed with Microsoft Word. Tragically, no spell checker, either. I detect they were also copied via mimeograph, or perhaps carbon paper was used.