When I deactivated (YES!)  my Facebook account yesterday, Facebook tried to guilt me into staying by displaying a page of pictures of me and my friends and saying, “So-and-so will MISS YOU!”  Yeah well, if they’re going to miss me that much…then they likely are on Twitter or have my email address.  I’m not dying after all…I’m just removing myself from a social networking site.  Sheesh.

Now, had Facebook told me that if I deactivated my account six inches of snow would fall in the DFW metroplex the next day…then I might have taken heed.

BTW…still hobbling around. More pain this week than last, which is weird. Trying to deal with my lack of mobility…it’s hard, and I don’t always succeed with the grace (“grace” being a relative term right now) and humor I’d like. Working on it, though.

When I was up in NYC last week, I was drinking some coffee and flipping through the January ‘10 issue of Runner’s World when I stopped to read an article by John “The Penguin” Bingham.  Our subscription to RW just started a few weeks ago, so this was my introduction to John Bingham. Imagine my displeasure when I found out the guy wasn’t going to be writing any more columns for RW, as he was jumping ship to write for The Man over at Competitor.com.

I’ve been looking for a link to the article, because it literally almost brought me to tears. Sure, he’s been running 17 years longer than me…BUT, this has not been an easy road so far for me. First off, I started running just as the Texas heat was rearing its ugly head. I was slow…very slow. I was 37 and probably a good 20 lbs. overweight. I twisted my ankle four weeks into the Couch to 5K program, which sidelined me for a month.  I couldn’t find the right shoes to handle my over-pronation and flat feet, and what I thought were the “right” shoes wound up giving me problems elsewhere; i.e., shin and ancillary leg pain. I experienced the return of exercise-induced asthma, something I thought I’d sloughed off 15 years ago.

But, I also ran four 5Ks.  My doctor introduced me to this miracle drug (LOL) called Symbicort, which allowed me to run four consecutive miles last month.  I made it a third of the way through the training program for my first half-marathon (which included a long run of six miles) before my left hip began giving me significant problems.  At first I thought it was a bad groin pull, but now I know that isn’t it. Now I’m trying to find a doctor I trust, one that will help me to diagnose why I can’t walk without a cane at this point. I have an appointment on Friday, and hopefully that will set me on the road to recovery…whatever the prognosis.

So after all of this…and after having my hopes raised and dashed about a half-dozen times over the last eight months, John Bingham’s words were both encouraging and bittersweet. I’m at a weird crossroads in my fledgling running career, where I’m wondering if I’ll ever be able to run again…much less break that elusive 11:00 min/mile marker.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that as soon as I overcome something that seems to be The Reason why I’m having problems running…something else takes its place. It’s frustrating as Hell.

Since I can’t find the article online, I’m retyping it and posting it here. I think every runner who’s wanted to just pack it in should read it, as should anyone else who has ever just wanted to give up on something…even though you know the overall rewards will always outweigh the penalties (real or perceived).

I ripped the page out of the magazine, folded it up, and am carrying it around with me. I’m not done, yet. As I’ve said before…I’m slow, and I don’t care. I enjoy running, and want to be able to do it for the long haul.  If I have to start back over in two months walking five minutes and then running for a minute…rinsing and repeating, that’s what I’ll do.

On the Road Again

As my eighteenth year as a runner comes to a close, I find myself reflecting back on what I’m most proud of.  Given that I’ve spent my running career in the back of the pack, you might not think there’s much to brag about. But there is.  I placed second in my age group once, at a small duathlon in Indiana. Never mind there were only two competitors in my age group and the first place guy finished an hour ahead of me – a trophy is a trophy.

I’m also proud I’ve completed 43 of 45 marathons I’ve started. Not a bad finishing percentage. I walked off the course in Huntsville, Alabama, because it was cold and windy and with nine miles to go, I just didn’t have the heart to finish. And I limped off the course at mile 20 in Tucson after it became clear my IT band was not going to cooperate for those last six.

I’ve set PRs along the way. A 4:35 marathon in Dallas. A 1:51 half in Nashville. A 24-minute 5K in Kentucky. As special as those were, it’s not the PRs or awards that make me most proud. I take the greatest pride in the fact that I’ve kept coming back to running even when it would’ve been easier to give it up.  And for someone like me with limited talent, there have been lots of opportunities to quit.

I could have quit before I got the third cortisone shot in my hip, or the second in my knee.  I could have told myself I just didn’t have a runner’s body, or that it was too late for someone like me to become a runner. I could have. But I didn’t.

Every time I had to start over (which was always because I pushed too far or too fast), I started over. I’d open up a blank page in my log and begin from scratch.

I knew, at some level, that running was both creating my life and saving it.  After 25 years of smoking, drinking, and eating more than my share, I realized that running was the only path that would lead to a new and better me. and I never wanted to stray from that path again.

Eventually, though, I realized the cycle of starting over, training hard, getting injured, recovering, and beginning again couldn’t last forever.  I feared there would come a time when I couldn’t start over. I had to recognize that while running was a healthy activity, my obsession with it was just as unhealthy as every other obsession had been. It wasn’t as obvious as smoking, or abusing drugs or alcohol, but the damage I was doing to myself by not listening to my body was similar.

The great lesson that I learned from running – because I wanted to run for the rest of my life – was that I had to accept the limits of my body. I had to adjust my goals to match the reality of my abilities. I had to understand that if I wanted to run forever, I might have to not run today. Taking a day, a week, or a month off, if necessary, might be hard, but it wouldn’t mean giving up.

For someone who has quit jobs, left relationships, forgotten dreams, and often quit when the going got tough, running has been the exception. I haven’t quit. I’m not going to quit, even if I take a break. And in that I take enormous pride.

Waddle on, friends.

Written by John Bingham, originally printed in the January 2010 issue of Runner’s World

Day 11 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

The pond at the entrance to our neighborhood…half of it froze over! I liked the reflections, and although it isn’t the greatest photo technically…I still think it’s pretty. Plus, it’s rather symbolic of what the last week has been like around here.

Day 10 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

Killer schnoozer…or yawning schnoozer?

Day 9 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

Current knitting project ~ afghan with supa-ginormous needles.

Day 8 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

I follow former Top Chef finalist (I refuse to call anyone on that show a “cheftestant” unless I am saying it in a mocking tone, which this is not) Richard Blais on Twitter, and this morning he published a link to a recent posting of his over on Creative Loafing.

In a nutshell, he talks about his for-naught efforts at one Atlanta eatery on New Year’s Eve to transform it from Amateur Night to, well, Not Amateur Night. Suffice it to say his efforts failed as no one appreciated his inventive menu, his progressive service attitude, or anything else.  People wanted to watch the game.  No one wanted to eat caviar. Why?  Because folks who go out to dinner on holidays such as Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, etc. are amateurs. They don’t “get it”.

Amateur night could be any Friday or Saturday night, when people who don’t usually dine out head out on the town to blow a paycheck. But the serious amateur nights are New Year’s Eve, Valentines Day, and Mother’s Day brunch. These are reserved for that special brand of customer, many of whom haven’t ventured into a restaurant since the previous holiday. It’s a night that shiesty restaurateurs gouge prices. A night when guests ask for ketchup with their aged rib eye. And also a night when burned out chefs retreat into ubiquitous schlock, and overly ambitious young chefs mistakenly puff their chests out…

At this point, you’re probably thinking I’m about to start in on a rant about how I most certainly am not an amateur and how dare that Richard Blais and his third-place finish judge me! Quite the contrary. I agree with the guy.

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Day 7 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

After this morning’s roast chicken success (merci, Julia Child), I decided to take the fruits of my efforts and add them to this Chicken Tamale Casserole. I’ve been looking for new, lower-fat “Wintertime” dishes and this one was pretty good.

The only “complaints” at the recipe’s site were that the corn muffin mix is a little on the sweet side (I used Jiffy too…it was all Target had in that size), and it is. But…I didn’t really mind. I’m used to more savory Mexican dishes and the sweetness was a nice change of pace.

I also added chopped olives, but I don’t think they really added anything special or distinctive to the recipe. Will likely skip those next time.

All in all, thumbs up!

Clearly I’m not a food blogger…not yet. Maybe I should change my name to Julie.

Day 6 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

Beaujolais Vieux…about three weeks past it’s prime. Cheers!

Day 5 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

Daisy, in Seth’s spot on the couch. She misses her daddy.

Day 4 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

The one in the middle was multi-tasking: listening to music, yapping on the phone, and chomping his gum.

Day 3 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

You know that phrase, “Why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer”? I thought it would be really cute to take a picture of the opening title for It’s Complicated for Project 365…original.  After all, this project is supposed to be my photographic account of 2010.

By the time we got to the closing credits I started thinking, “Dear God, now that I’ve committed this photo to The Project, I’m always going to be reminded we went and saw this movie.”

Yes folks, it was that bad.  I suppose the argument could be made that I wasn’t the target demographic for this movie.  I am not Catholic, nor did I live in the Bronx in the 60s, but I still liked Doubt (another Streep flick, by the by). I’m not new to the Nancy Meyers schtick…I saw Something’s Gotta Give along with the rest of the world, and enjoyed it. What Women Want is one of my favorite movies.  The Holiday, though?  Terrible. AWFUL. Bad casting, bad script, and a gross under-utilization of Jack Black.

But, I like Meryl Streep. I like Alec Baldwin. I like romantic comedies. However, I don’t like movies that downplay adultery just because the two people involved were married for twenty years before divorcing ten years ago. I don’t like movies that make it look like the marriage crumbling was entirely the man’s fault until three minutes before the movie ends, when the ex-wife sheepishly admits to maybe, perhaps playing an itty bitty role herself.  I don’t like movies that have useless characters…like Jake’s 5-year old stepson (hmm…Modern Family much?) who served no purpose whatsoever except to make me happy Jake won’t have to pay child support post-divorce.

And the laughing.  You know those scenes where people laugh…just because?  Whatever is going on isn’t terrible funny, or clever…yet people laugh that “knowing” laugh. There were a couple of scenes like that in Sex and The City, and It’s Complicated was overflowing with them. Everything is sooooooo funny.

Plus, Jane lives in a perfect Santa Barbara compound (I lived there, housing like that ain’t cheap) with the perfect bakery boutique, the perfect backyard, the perfect garden (which is enormous, by the by), and the perfect grown adult children (well, except for the fact that they all behave as if they’re nine). Jane had no flaws…none. Tell me again, what exactly is complicated about her life…hmm?  Hmm?

Ohhh…that’s right. She’s been in therapy for eight years, and clearly hadn’t learned a damn thing since she got drunk and had sex with her married ex. It’s not her fault, though. She’s lonely. She has unfinished business. She wants revenge. It’s the wine’s fault. And Tom Petty’s.

Maybe that’s why I liked Diane Keaton’s Erica in Something’s Gotta Give…girlfriend had plenty of flaws, which made her endearing.  You can’t help but root for a character who is totally neurotic and seems to be one book deal away from a nervous breakdown.

Anyhoo, I didn’t like It’s Complicated and Seth liked it even less. Plus I think Steve Martin’s had some, ahem, work done.

We did enjoy coming up with titles for future Nancy Meyers movies, though. Please feel free to add your own ideas in the comments.

• It Is What It Is
• Que Sera, Sera
• It’s Not What You Think
• Whaddya Do?
• I Feel Like We’re Two Characters In a Nancy Meyers Film
• It Just Felt Right
• It’s Always Something
• It’s Another Iteration of It’s
• It’s the Wine’s Fault…and Tom Petty’s
• Well Don’t That Just Beat All!

Day 2 – Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

Day 1 ~ Project 365

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

So I’ve decided to do the Project 365 thing this year…a photo a day. A photo is like a thousand words, right? I didn’t manage to make it through NanoblogmojoJLo or whatever it was I tried a couple years ago, when the goal was to blog every day. Besides, ya’ll don’t want to hear from me every day and I don’t want to write every day.

But…it seems my iPhone fills up with at least 365 nonsensical photos a year, so this could be fun.

And of course, I start off the year by forgetting to blog my inaugural photo. Way to kick off the project. BUT…I did take the photo on the correct day, and who cares if I posted it a day late. You’re a forgiving bunch.

Happy New Year…cheers to 2010!

From Jeff Galloway’s blog today:

Be Positive

As your long ones are getting longer, have a list of statements that you can repeat as necessary to yourself. You’re going to have discouraging thoughts slipping out from the left brain so we’ll work on a way to bypass them and move into the world of the positive.

• I have no pressure on myself.
• I’m going to enjoy this.
• I’ll start very slowly.
• The people I’m with (or are thinking about) are great.
• Because I started slowly, I’m finishing strong.
• The satisfaction of doing this is unequaled.

I”m trying very hard to re-record the tapes in my head, to say things like “Just because my feet hurt, that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying this or I can’t do this” instead of, “My feet really hurt. I can’t do this. Maybe I’m just not cut out for running.”

On my four-mile loop, there’s a really pretty pond around the 2.5-mile mark. I had to nearly force myself to notice the positive of how beautiful the pond looked yesterday (brilliant sky blue reflection…it was a super-clear, crisp morning) instead of my usual, “GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE ANOTHER MILE AND A HALF TO GO. UGH.”  Why can’t I maximize the positive and not necessarily eliminate (I’m not delusional), but lessen the negative?  I’m working on it.

Enough stalling. I have a date with a recumbent bike and Dr. Frasier Crane.

So I’m sitting here on my couch with a bag of frozen veggies between my legs (yay! groin injury!) after a 4-mile trek through the neighborhood, and I decide to update my Facebook status.

Stacy Lynch: rather than beat myself up any further, in 2010 I’m going to celebrate the fact that I am 38 years old and if I get my ass off the couch and out into 30-degree weather to run…regardless of my speed, I’m doing better than 90% of the general population. SO THERE.

Do you run?  More importantly, do you run slowly?  When you read asinine articles about plodders being the running world’s equivalent of pond scum do you think, “HEY JACKASS, believe me if I could blow through 26.2 miles in three hours I would“?  If you do, I’m your girl.

Is your body rebelling, almost mocking you for approaching 40 and trying to do what you couldn’t even do when you were 16?  Did you think that groin injuries were reserved exclusively for sprinters and newlyweds?  If it is or if you do, I’m really your girl.

I mentioned in my last blog post that I wanted to write more about running in general and my running, and how it seems to be slowly but surely changing my life…if you’ll excuse the cliché. I know, I sort-of rolled my eyes when I wrote it.  A lot of people out there don’t “get” why I started to run or how on Earth I’ve managed to stick with it, and I’ve heard all the jokes so far…”I’ll only run if something’s on fire”…etc.

I’m not running to lose weight, although I’ve managed to lose the ten pounds I’ve put back on over the last year. I’m running because it’s a challenge, and if there’s nothing I like more in life…it’s a challenge. Problem is, no one can ever set the bar high enough for me. That’s been my chief complaint about life for the past 15 years…not enough challenge.  I haven’t had a manager or a job challenge me in 12 years.  Getting my MBA was distressingly easy. Collectively, all of that frustrates the crap out of me.

But if there’s one thing I can do…I can run, and I can make myself run farther. There are limits to how fast I can go, but no limit to how far I can go.  Wow. That was beautiful. LOL.

Yeah so as you can see, I don’t update this thing much anymore.

I was talking to my good friend Ali (who, incidentally, I met through blogging five years ago) during our 6th Annual Holiday Lunch yesterday, and the topic of blogging came up.  She abandoned her blog years ago because she just didn’t have anything to write about, and I realized I’d abandoned this blog because I had nothing of interest to say.  I suppose “of interest” is a relative term and loads of folks would like to hear about my life’s exploits in detail (or not), but…I kind of got tired of hearing myself “talk”, so to speak.

Most everyone I socialize with online or off has migrated to Twitter and Facebook, and there’s definitely more of an “in the moment” component to our relationships.  There’s both good and bad with that, but I also have more control over how much good and/or bad I want to be involved in.

At the risk of pissing off other bloggers, most personal blogs I’ve been reading lately have been really…annoying. They’re play-by-play accounts of what people did during the day, and the minutiae can be excruciating. I can tell you right now, no one gives a shit if I went to the dentist…unless there’s some awesome story that goes along with it. I’m rarely that lucky at the dentist. The allergy doctor, maybe.

I also told Ali that back when I was blogging all the time…I was also still employed.  You see, when I was working…I was an angry person.  If you’re new around here, I hated my job.  HATED it. It sucked the life out of me, out of my husband, and out of my marriage.  In all honesty, I’d hated every job I’ve had since 1999.  That’s really hard to write, but ’tis what ’tis.  There are people I’ve just met in the last year and they’d probably be pretty spooked if they knew how cynical and negative I used to be.

My concern was that once the anger went away…so would the snarkiness.  I’m still a smart-ass, but I no longer knock people over with my hostility.  This is good, but with that inner zen and peace comes less of a need to complain and gripe to the Internets and anyone who will read my blog.

So, there you have it.  I’ve knocked around the idea of writing more about my running, because it’s become such a huge part of my life.  In the last seven months I’ve had more than a few hiccups in my base-building and training, and have had to come to terms with the fact that…sigh…I am no longer very young.  I’m enjoying the process, though.  I’ve been able to conquer any intellectual challenge that’s come my way…physical challenges have proved tougher to master.

I told Capt. UberHusband after I left my job (13 months! Crazy!) that this was the start of a rebuilding season for me.  Turns out it’s taking more than one season.  Phase One was letting go of the anger.  Phase Two is rebuilding my personal confidence. 10 years of shitty jobs took a pretty serious toll on my psyche, and I’m starting to get back the “DON’T YOU TELL ME WHAT I CAN’T DO” attitude.

Only this time, I actually believe it.

Wow. That wasn’t so hard…this writing thing.

I’ve been scaling back my Facebook presence as of late, else I probably would have truncated this blog post and added it in as a status update.  A mere status update however, wouldn’t have done it justice.

I went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up a few things for dinners this week.  Market Street is known for its customer service, and its baggers often try to strike up conversation.  I’m not sure if MS hires generally friendly and chatty people, or if an attempt to bond with its customers is a specific marketing tactic (ding!).  Regardless, it usually gets some interesting exchanges started.

My bagger yesterday asked if we’d watched the Cowboys game the previous night because, honestly, that seems to be the only question anyone around here asks on a Monday.  I said we’d flipped back and forth between the game and the Emmys.  My bagger commented on what a great player Eli Manning had become, and we made smalltalk about Eli and Peyton, and how they were chips off the proverbial old block…great football family, yadda yadda yadda.

I also mentioned that what I liked about the Manning Boys was that they were so down to Earth.  By this time, the bagger had become my carry-outer, and we were at the Jeep.  He said – I kid you not – “Yeah, the white boys are always well-behaved.  It’s the black ones who get into trouble.”

*blink*

Did I mention my bagger/carry-outer was an older black gentleman?

A million things started racing through my mind.  Do I say, “True dat!” and attempt a fist-bump?  Do I grab the bags out of the cart, throw them in the back of the Jeep myself, then speed away…wheels screeching as I make my panicked, “SILENCE DOES NOT EQUAL AGREEMENT! I AM NOT A RACIST!” escape?

Of course not.  I stood there and listened.  He followed up, “The first thing they do is find themselves a white woman.  Then they get a Hummer, and then they get into all sorts of trouble”.

*blink*

So, I did what any good white woman would do…I said, “Nah, usually it’s an Escalade.”  The guy busted out laughing, and racial tensions were relieved in Collin County.

In related news, Lease Cutbacks Leave Cadillac Idling.

Backstory: During last year’s jaunt to Hawaii, some service snafus resulted in Seth’s sending of a rather pointed email to the Turtle Bay Resort’s general manager. We weren’t looking for anything in return, but we’re of the opinion that management wants to know when their product/service/hotel is falling short of expectations. We’re frequent visitors, after all…and don’t want to see the place totally fall into a state of disarray.  A couple of weeks later, we got a certificate in the mail for a free dinner (excluding alcohol, but including gratuity) on our next visit at 21 Degrees North. We’ve stayed at the TBR many, many times over the years – both as registered guests at the hotel and at the privately-owned villas. We’ve avoided 21 Degrees North because, frankly, the reviews on both TripAdvisor and Yelp were mixed. But hey, a free meal on our next visit is still a free meal, right?

A couple of months ago as we were gearing up for this year’s trip, we started looking for the gift certificate. With all the furniture switch-outs last Fall and the total makeover of the office, it seemed to have developed legs and walked away. Couldn’t find it. Seth and I aren’t exactly candidates for Hoarders, so I knew it had to be around somewhere. After a solid couple days of looking everywhere, I finally found the certificate…bookmarking my place in one of my old textbooks.

In retrospect, we’re sort of wishing we hadn’t found it.

So far on this trip, my tummy has been very happy. VERY. We’ve enjoyed Round Table Pizza, ahi poke, miso soup for breakfast (!), delicious ramen from a local Waikiki hole-in-the-wall, and the night before last Seth grilled up some fantabulous locally-caught ono (or wahoo, depending on your inclination). Happy tummy = happy Stacy.

Last night we decided to take advantage of our free dinner at 21 Degrees North. We went in with incredibly low expectations, which made the actual meal even more of a disaster. You’d think with low expectations the bar for disappointment would be at an appropriate level, but no. The restaurant itself is actually really nice…a beautiful space. But, the food was terrible. Awful.

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Twitter’s down…Facebook’s down (or at least for me it is…), so I guess in times of technological turmoil you go back to the basics; in this case, my blog. I’m too insignificant to have anyone come at me with a denial of service attack.

So. Whatcha all doing? I just finished watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and am enjoying some banana bread. Just ordered a poodledrug refill…and trying to decide if I want to go to the gym when Seth gets home, or beforehand.

Twitter was back up for about ten seconds…and when I tried to log in I was told my username and/or password was incorrect. Fabulous.

Every morning in my email, I get a Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Publishing. Usually it’s something from the No Shit, Sherlock department like, “To bring out the best in your employees, put your trust in them” or “How to write an email that will escape the Outlook rule your employees have set up to automatically delete anything from you”. Today’s topic though, revolved around the concept of lean production-by-way-of-minimizing-desktop-clutter, which just also happens to tie into an article in the Wall Street Journal today about how to make Starbucks operate more like Toyota (subscription required).

Before we get started, I’d like to point out that I had a cube full of tchotchkes for many years…and I fully believe they increase inefficiency. Why? If you need to throw something at someone, you’ve got items at the ready.

Anyway, the gist of the WSJ article is this: Starbucks is looking for ways to improve efficiency, get people coming back in the door, economic downturn, cash for clunkers, Brangelina, etcetera etcetera etcetera. My eyes and ears perk up when I read articles about Starbucks, because I spent twelve weeks this past Spring working on a strategic plan for Starbucks. So, Starbucks assigns a “lean team” to a “VP of lean thinking” and sends them out on a round-the-country tour of Starbucks stores playing Mr. Potato Head with managers to get them to understand the concept of efficiency and how it relates to plastic, faux-starchy vegetables. Sort of The Apprentice meets The Amazing Race.

I don’t dispute the idea, nor do I criticize it. What I want to know though, is…where did this particular idea originate?

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Yesterday’s mommyhood-as-a-gateway-career-to-executive-barista blog post got me thinking, with all of the discussion floating around about how parenting skills can oh so easily translate to the business world…could the inverse also be true? Could everything I learned in business school and out in the working world over the last fifteen years translate into a happier – or at the very least – more efficiently run household?

Let’s ponder. Every corporation needs a CEO, so let’s take a look at a sample job description:

Function:

· To implement the strategic goals and objectives of the organization
· With the chair, enable the Board to fulfill its governance function
· To give direction and leadership toward the achievement of the organization’s philosophy, mission, strategy, and its annual goals and objectives

Reports to: Board of Directors

Major Functions/Accountabilities:

1. Board Administration and Support — Supports operations and administration of Board by advising and informing Board members, interfacing between Board and staff, and supporting Board’s evaluation of chief executive
2. Program, Product and Service Delivery — Oversees design, marketing, promotion, delivery and quality of programs, products and services
3. Financial, Tax, Risk and Facilities Management — Recommends yearly budget for Board approval and prudently manages organization’s resources within those budget guidelines according to current laws and regulations
4. Human Resource Management — Effectively manages the human resources of the organization according to authorized personnel policies and procedures that fully conform to current laws and regulations
5. Community and Public Relations — Assures the organization and its mission, programs, products and services are consistently presented in strong, positive image to relevant stakeholders
6. Fundraising (nonprofit-specific) — Oversees fundraising planning and implementation, including identifying resource requirements, researching funding sources, establishing strategies to approach funders, submitting proposals and administrating fundraising records and documentation

Okay…so, as the CEO of my household, I’m not autonomous. I am accountable to the Board of Directors and by extension, all of my household’s stakeholders. I need to implement the strategic goals and objectives of my household.

I suppose it’s time to pull out my strategic management textbook. We’ll see what it has to say.

From the Amazon.com website, here’s what the publisher of Motherhood Is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to Be a Better Boss would like you to know:

When it comes to being a good leader, we’ve read the sports analogies, we’ve read the war analogies. But how about hitting a little closer to home?

As a mother, the following rules and tactics probably sound familiar to you:

Never Underestimate the Power of Kiss-It-Make-It-Better
Hold the Line on Tantrums
Remember the Magic Word
Count to Three Before Giving a Time-Out

These are good, solid rules for how to raise children. But can these same rules make you a better boss? Absolutely.

In her impressive first book, Shari Storm takes the lessons attributed to parenting and shows how they can be directly applied in the workplace, making you a more effective manager and giving you the confidence to lead and shape your staff into the employees you want them to be. Shari gathers a wonderful collection of funny and inspirational stories from a wide range of executive mothers—TV producers, firefighters, accountants, teachers, baristas, corporate leaders, pilots—for an engaging, easy-to-absorb read.

These pages will provide both laughs and enlightenment. For the woman who wants to excel in her business, this goes beyond your average management book.

Oh my. Barista as executive? Really?

Any book, blog, newspaper article, or bunco game conversation about how mommies make better managers and parenting skills are easily transferred to the business world always pisses me off. Why? Because children aren’t adults and parenting children isn’t the same as managing employees.

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I read an article last week (wish I could find the link) about revamping your online presence. It was clearly geared towards recent college grads who perhaps had blogs, Facebook profiles, and Twitter accounts filled with unsavory photos or other items which might be frowned upon out in The Real World.

But, the idea did get me thinking…is it time to kill off Snarkwife? I mean, it’s been five years. Well, okay…four. Can’t forget the House of Snark year.

Rebranding yourself on the Internettywebs involves more than just a catchy new domain, though. Case in point: Stratechick. Boy was THAT a valuable real-life marketing lesson. I launched a brand (if you will) before determining exactly what it was and what it was going to offer. And then I totally blew it by picking a name I had to explain to people: No, no…stratechick…like strategic. Not like straight chick.

The problem now? Some other Stacy Lynch has already taken the most obvious domain choice. And, she’d like to sell you a house in the Chesapeake Bay area. Since I am a marketing department of one, I consider my readers and friends to be a pretty good staff when it comes to the management of a little product called…me. Help me brainstorm. Domains? Monikers?

My MBA program finishes up today. This is great news. Why, you ask?

First off, despite recent evidence to the contrary, it shows that if you publicly declare a goal…you’re more likely to keep it. Secondly though…and more importantly…I’ll finally have time to…

*Blog my way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I have been waiting years to finally…what? {whispering in ear}. Oh. What about The Joy of Sex? Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook? The Huffington Post’s Guide to Blogging?

*Travel around the country to Starbucks stores which used to be open, but are now closed.

*Write a tell-all novel about my two years as an IT professional in the free-wheeling subprime mortgage industry circa 2003. You’d be amazed how easy it is to approve borrowers who have no business being approved with just a tiny, well-placed snippet of code.

*Work on getting 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. Shouldn’t be tough, once I get the porn spammers, network marketers, and Lost nerds on board.

*Plan and execute a violent coup against my HOA newsletter’s editor. She’s had it coming for nearly eight years.

*Become the 1950s-era housewife Capt. UberHusband never realized he never wanted. Our washing machine’s already on the blink, so the technology hurdle is partially crossed.

*Work on integrating my not-yet-patented “Cash for Clunkers” early retirement program into Fortune 500 businesses. If your manager gets less than 18 MPG and has been around for at least 25 years, he or she is eligible!

Oh, and the federal minimum wage goes up today…ka-ching! Just in time!

Holy moly, I am loving this article on the old-school art of salesmanship; more specifically…selling high-end watches to a high-end market. In These Trying Economic Times, apparently, the wives totally get in the way of selling the experiential benefits of pricey timepieces. Heh. Husbands, you know you love us.

The worst declines for Swiss watches are in the U.S., where sales fell 42% in May from a year earlier, according to the Swiss Watch Federation. The slowdown is visible at watch-collecting events. A lavishly catered party in Los Angeles for Breitling, another watch maker, recently drew fans who dined and sipped champagne, but the table displaying Breitling’s latest models was the loneliest in the place. Breitling, too, is getting creative, experimenting with holding sales events to which wives aren’t invited. “We’re finding they buy more when their wives aren’t there,” says Marie Bodman, chief executive of Breitling USA.

If the salesperson can’t manage to shake the old ball-and-chain though…here’s another tactic:

Because guilt over spending is playing a big role in the sales downturn, he teaches salespeople to suggest a “sorry gift”—of another timepiece—for a wife who might be disappointed that her husband just dropped a sizable sum on his own wrist.

Haaaa…”I’m sorry I just dropped $70k on a watch for myself, but here…I got one for you, too!” Cue the Mad Men theme song…I feel a Betty Draper pout coming on! Forget the watch, I’d rather be hooked up with one of those swank Nespresso systems.

I’ve quit a few jobs, and at least for the ones I’ve quit in the Internet age, I’ve gone online looking for advice armed with keyword-laden search phrases like, “How do I tell my douchebag boss to kiss my ass, and oh by the way I’m quitting” and “Resignation letter templates”. Generally, my journey steered me to articles like this one, which give the oft-incorrect impression that if you just follow these guidelines…you’ll have a professional reference for life and your LinkedIn account will be filled with puppies and rainbows.

Not true. Ohhhhh…so not true. Despite my snark and “damn ‘em all” attitude, I’ve actually been a rule-follower my entire life. I blame my mom. Love her, but like it or not…our initial professional personality is a hybrid of those of our parents. Also (until fairly recently) I’ve been quite fearful of those in positions of professional authority. After all, they have hire and fire capability. Piss ‘em off and you might find yourself on the unemployment line with 9% of the population. My point? I’m not one of those people who, after a particularly tough day at work, will walk into my boss’s office, rip my employee badge off from around my neck, throw it at said boss and yell, “TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT!”

Not that I haven’t thought of it. But, I think most people are professional when they resign…and most people don’t want to be “that guy” or “that girl”…I’m sure you know a few. I know I do. Interestingly, most of them wind up being hired back as contractors or consultants. Go figure.

I understand that in the world, blah blah, you can’t control anyone’s behavior but your own, blah blah…but in my experience the bridges haven’t been burned by the person quitting. Oh no…the manager is the one who burns the bridges. Ten years ago, I quit a job after six years with the company. I did everything on “the list”…know what happened? My manager thought it would be hilarious to walk around calling me STD (short for “short timer’s disease”) for two weeks. I still have fantasies about bumping into him at the mall and kicking him in the nads.

At my last job, my manager completely ignored me after I gave my notice. Wait, I take that back…first he asked me if there was anything he could do to get me to stay, then the silent treatment began. Not even a “goodbye and good luck” on my last day. Worked for the guy for nearly 5 years.

These behaviors sent a powerful message to me…managers can make just as many mistakes as employees during the resignation process. I mean, it’s pretty obvious what was going on in these two scenarios…the managers were insecure and frustrated and didn’t know how else to behave. Well, I still think the first guy was raised by wolves…but you get my point. You’re still the manager. Put on your Executive Panties and set not just a good, but an appropriate example.

I realize in this day and age not many folks are voluntarily quitting jobs, but things will turn around. So managers, here’s my advice on How to Allow Employees to Leave Their Job Without Burning Bridges:

Don’t be a jerk. Granted, most folks leave their jobs because they don’t like their manager, but don’t let this manifest itself negatively. You may not care what the employee leaving thinks about you, but you might reconsider your actions if you knew how it impacts the ones who are still around.

Don’t make a counteroffer. It’s just insulting…if you really cared (or had the resources), you would have made the offer before the resignation letter landed on your desk. Savvy employees will respect you more if you just don’t bother with a counter.

Don’t cut the employee out of team communication. They’re leaving…that doesn’t mean they’re already gone. Give them the opportunity to truly wind things up and close things out, since that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.

Skip the offer to take everyone out for a “final” team lunch. No one wants to go.

On the employee’s last day, say goodbye. If you can’t muster up the courage to shake his/her hand, then at least send an email. It’s incredibly awkward to be the employee departing, and let’s face it…you never know when you yourself might need this person as a reference. The world’s getting mighty small these days.

Forgive me blogosphere, for I have sinned…it’s been three months since my last blog update. Yeah, I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter…but that’s not blogging. You remember blogging…that thing we all used to do five years ago, back when our thoughts frequently exceeded the 140-character barrier.

I’ve been thinking lately about why I stopped blogging, and it’s pretty obvious…I was bitter and angry and had absolutely nothing to say that likely wouldn’t make me (a) want to bust a fist through a window and (b) alienate my friends and family. Bitterness and anger are terrible, terrible things. If you have the means, I highly suggest you unload these horribly toxic emotions. You’ll be amazed. Okay. Zen moment complete.

Clearly, I wasn’t blogging due to a lack of subject matter…just ask Capt. UberHusband. I held the poor guy captive for two hours on Sunday explaining why redesigning a logo isn’t the same thing as redesigning a brand, and cursing any business owner who thinks it is.

During the last three months I’ve been finishing up the last semester of my MBA program (which ends FRIDAY, by the way), reading here and there (thanks Malcolm Gladwell, for making me realize my writing was getting pretty good around the 10,000 hour point…until I stopped), traveling with Capt. UberHusband, and doing my damndest not to become one of those 37-year old burnouts who hates everyone and everything. I think I’m doing pretty well. Capt. UberHusband only has to avoid me for one day out of the month now, instead of 23 or 24. I’d say that’s progress.

But, I’m just throwing this out there to pop the proverbial cherry. Apparently, if you want to be some sort of a writer…you have to actually write. Who knew? I’m sure my fits-and-starts blogging style (plus the theme…) will be a bit annoying at first, but hey…can’t be any worse than my old Joe Schmo 2 recaps.

And here I thought I’d have nothing to blog today. I went out to the mailbox this afternoon and lo and behold, this month’s homeowner’s association tabloid had been delivered. Oh boy. Ya’ll know how much I love getting the Desperate Housewife Gazette. Every month there’s some completely useless local business review or other seasonal nonsense, and every month I talk a big game about staging a hostile takeover and throwing our editor/publisher/woman about town out on her Mom jean-covered ass.

This month, on page 3…to the left of a photo of the Yard of the Month and directly above a half-page ad for a mortgage company (yes, really)…we have this:

PURPLE PANSY EATERS!

I planted some great looking pansies last Fall – 12 flats in fact (12 X 18 = 216 flowers). They got big and beautiful with a little water and some miracle grow. I admired them every day when I went out to fetch my mail. Suddenly one day I headed out to the mail box, looked over to admire my flowers and…….half of them were gone! AWOL! Perplexed, because I do not know exactly where the pansies went or what could have possibly happened to them, I do nothing.

The next day as I drive up to my house, there he was…Peter Rabbit! He was happily munching on the remainder of my flowers right in front of me. If you do the math he should have gained substantial weight after eating the blooms from 108 of my purple flowers!!!

Although Peter Rabbit is fuzzy, brown and cute, I am now mad as a hornet over my lost flowers! So I called the City of Allen Animal Control who loaned me a cage and caught Peter Rabbit (who I then relocated in a field some miles away – so his diet of purple pansies has come to an abrupt halt – I imagine he is now enjoying wild sunflowers from the field instead.)

The following day I go out to get the mail and there’s another Peter Rabbit having dinner…..yes on my pansies again! I’ve already returned the City’s cage, so I went down to Home Depot and bought my own in an effort to rid myself of the little Purple Pansy eaters!!

The traps I found at Home Depot were Model #1089 for “RACCOONS” (the smaller trap for squirrels and rabbits from Lowes for $30 weren’t big enough for OUR RABBITS who have been dinning on purple pansies). The cost of the cage is $44.99 and worth every penny!! It’s also collapsible, so you can put the cage away until the next round attacks us! After all Spring is also breeding time for rabbits, so I think they’ll be a new bunch back for the Purple Petunia buffet in my yard later this summer!

First off, I thought this article was incredibly sexist. Why did she assume the pansy muncher was a boy? It could have just as easily been Taylor, Britney, or Morgan Rabbit. Was the rabbit bald, with a goatee and a big, paunchy belly? If so, then I’d suspect it was a male from Texas. Secondly, if something is eaten…can it be considered AWOL? If the pansies had asked permission before being eaten, would that have been a case for an honorable discharge?

Even better, on page 8 we have this:

SAFETY REMINDER!!! Per THE POLICE DEPARTMENT OF ALLEN
Garage Doors Open & Unattended!

It has been reported and sighted that there are homeowners leaving their home garage doors open and unattended. When you allow this to happen, your property is left wide open for CRIME to occur. Please remember to always keep your garage door closed during the day or night if you are not in the garage or outside the door, so you are able to keep a watchful eye on your belongings!

That’s right…keep those garage doors shut or Peter Rabbit will come by and commit CRIME and EAT your vehicles!!!

While on my walk this morning, I encountered some Earth Day propaganda in the form of sidewalk-chalk pleas that I (and for that matter, anyone who walked in front of that house) reduce, reuse, and recycle. I also was advised to “b green” and “b aware”.

O-kay.

I enjoy Earth Day…it’s kind of like Easter and Memorial Day. On Easter, Christians who normally wouldn’t go to church oftentimes go to church. Memorial Day is one of very few days a year when everyone supports the troops, which is interesting…since the holiday actually honors the dead. On Earth Day, everyone is eco-relevant and enviro-savvy. If for just one day, we can all hold hands and float so high on the fluffiness of our own eco-egos that we leave no footprints whatsoever…carbon or otherwise.

While I understand that children are our future, and we’re supposed to teach them well and let them lead the way…it took a lot of restraint for me to not go up to the front door of the house and ask Mom what kind of chalk her kids used to spread their eco-gospel. I have a funny feeling said chalk wouldn’t be very enviro-friendly to our area’s flora and fauna once mixed with water and disposed down the City of Allen’s drainage system.

But, I didn’t want to get all wound up because that involves inhaling and exhaling and I wasn’t in the mood to destroy the environment on Earth Day. Instead, I hopped into my Jeep Grand Cherokee (14 MPG!) and drove to three different Targets looking for a very specific fitness bra.

In taking a look around the EPA’s Earth Day web page, I saw where I was supposed to pick five things I could commit to to help the environment. Let’s see…

1. Use less water! “Take baths instead of showers.” Turns out, there’s nothing between our bathtub and the foundation…so bath water stays warm for about fifteen seconds. I think I’ve only taken half a dozen baths in our house in the nearly eight years we’ve lived here. DONE.

2. Commute without polluting! I’ll do you one better…I just won’t commute, period. DONE…five years ago.

3. Save electricity! I don’t need both TVs and both computers on during the day, do I? DONE.

4. Use chemicals safely. I’ve totally cut back on just cavalierly pouring Drano down the drain. DONE.

5. Spread the word! DONE.

Capt. UberHusband lost our Kindle yesterday. Oh, the irony.

At this rate, we’re going to be back to listening to old-timey serials on the radio by week’s end.

An odd chain of events has unfolded over the last week or so. First a study was released which alluded to a vague relationship between Facebook and college students having less than 3.5 GPAs. Then I read another article about how Twitter has the propensity to ruin relationships, because gee…if you’re busy tweeting (twittering?) and for that matter – Facebooking – then clearly you’re not actively engaging in a relationship. Ironic note…I had to log into Facebook to get the link to the article, but I immediately logged back out. Just wanted to make that clear…ahem.

Then, there was this bullshit “race” between CNN and Ashton Kutcher over who could get to a million Twitter sheep followers first. As if that weren’t bad enough, Oprah Winfrey STARTED TWITTERYELLING ON FRIDAY and as the proverbial cherry on the sundae, Barbara Walters posted her first Twitter update today. Turn out the lights, folks…I think the party’s over.

I told Adelle (who hasn’t blogged in three months) on Friday (on Twitter, see aforementioned blog comment) that I thought Oprah was about a year behind the curve, and her presence was a clear indication we early adopters needed to jump ship and find something else interesting to do. Then I stopped and thought about how much time I spend every day on the Internet. In my defense, for 4 1/2 years I had a job which required that I be connected to the Internet constantly. If I didn’t have to be on constant alert for URGENT!!11!!!!! emails or instant messages, I had to monitor some operational crap to ensure our customers maintained their marginal-to-poor levels of satisfaction. That sense of perma-urgency has kept me chained to the Internet for the last six months even though I quit the job six months ago. Sure, I had school…but that was for only 12 weeks.

The most embarrassing moment though, was when I realized on Saturday how often lately I have been saying, “Sorry honey, can you say that again?” to Capt. UberHusband – generally while I was staring at my iPhone performing some inane task which clearly had no business trumping whatever he was trying to communicate to me. Seriously, it was embarrassing. I felt like I was becoming an episode of Dr. Phil…Wives Who Can’t Unplug!

Clearly, the Internet is a wonderful tool and like anything else, is beneficial in moderation. But I personally reached that point where enough was enough. I had an e-breakdown over the weekend, and called it quits with both Twitter and Facebook. Is it permanent? Probably not, but I did need to seriously re-evaluate how I spend my time. While it was great to get reacquainted with folks from high school and college…honestly, do any of them actually like me enough to come over here and read my blog…or are they only interested in little snippets of information I toss their direction on Facebook four times a day? Do they want to “socialize” with me, or with micro-me?

The truly ironic thing…for all of the education I’ve been acquiring over the past two years, I sure have been doing a good job of truncating my thoughts. Maybe that post I wrote the other day was ongoing evidence of my distaste for what I will call the Executive Summarizing of America. Why drill down to the details if you don’t have to? Because…that’s where the meaningful information is.

So…let it be known that today, April 20, 2009…five years and one day after starting this blog, I vow to expand my horizons. Join me and retreat from the land of 140-character status updates and quizzes about Which OPI Nail Polish You Are and come back to the blogosphere. I dare you.

Make “blog” the new black.

**Normally I’d post this sort of thing over at stratechick dot com…but I’m waiting for iLife ‘09 to show up so I can spruce the place up a bit. Until then…here you go.**

A few weeks ago, I and several of my Strategic Management teammates received an email from our instructor. He had bumped into a VP of something or other for Starbucks, and as we were all working on Strategic Planning Notebooks for Starbucks, he inquired as to whether or not she’d be interested in taking a look-see at our final deliverables. She agreed, and he passed on her contact information to us to set up meetings with her. This would all be done independent of our actual class, and wouldn’t have any impact on our grades. Totally optional.

One of my teammates forwarded me the email and asked me if I’d be interested. “Depends on how our final SPN looks,” I replied. I’ll admit though, I was intrigued. I lust (and no, that isn’t a dramatic overstatement) for honest, intelligent, and informed feedback on my work…both professional and academic. I’m not looking simply for an “atta girl” though, I want to hear true constructive feedback.

A couple of weeks after that initial email, the Starbucks teams received an update on the meeting requirements…if we wanted to take the meeting. Basically, the VP had indicated she was very busy and didn’t have time to read our strategic planning notebooks, so we’d need to arrive with an Executive Overview and she’d review them all during the same meeting.

Hmm.

I was really disappointed by this, and let me tell you why. You see, I think one of the fundamental problems in business today is that everything is an Executive Overview. Managers and employees can talk about the Big Picture and think Outside the Box all they like, but at the end of the day…it’s the details that determine whether a project or a business fails. My team had spent twelve weeks performing several different strategic planning activities and had produced a rather comprehensive document. I was proud of it. To take it and whittle it down to an Executive Overview (really – what does that even mean?) was an insult both to my team and to the hard work we’d done. If she couldn’t take twenty minutes to read our SPN, then clearly she’s too busy to provide us with any truly meaningful feedback. Not everything should be scanned at the 35,000-foot level.

I was also disappointed because I think the woman (and Starbucks) missed a great opportunity to mentor some enthusiastic business students. Also of note, she did a fantastic job of actually demotivating said business students by minimizing their efforts to make her day easier. If she didn’t want to truly engage herself in this process, why on Earth did she say yes?

When I grow up, I won’t be that kind of manager…or executive. If I don’t have time, I won’t do something. If I say I will though…I will follow through.

Facebook, YouTube at work make better employees

“Those who behave with Internet addiction tendencies will have a lower productivity than those without…”

Indeed. By the same token, those who behave with addiction tendencies in general will have a lower productivity than those without. Case in point: a job I had 8 years ago, where fully 2/3 of my department took 10-15 minute smoke breaks every 45 minutes. Yes, I kept track. They weren’t very productive…it’s tough to program software applications outside, with no laptop.

To quote Jon, I WANT GRANT MONEY!

So you see, there’s this doctoral student in education at Ohio State University who surveyed 219 of her own school’s students and determined that “those who used Facebook achieved lower grades”. The humor of that story being tagged as “entertainment news” did not elude me, by the way. Oh wait, that’s not right…what she actually said was:

“We can’t say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying – but we did find a relationship there…There’s a disconnect between students’ claim that Facebook use doesn’t impact their studies, and our finding showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying.”

So what you’re saying is…if people are doing something other than studying, then they’re spending less time studying? Wow. Insightful. Thanks to WebProNews for actually providing the details of the study, as I had a humdinger of a time finding them on my own:

On average, Facebook users in the study had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, while non-users had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0. In addition, users said they averaged one to five hours a week studying, while non- users studied 11 to 15 hours per week.

The study surveyed 219 students at Ohio State, including 102 undergraduate students and 117 graduate students. Of the participants, 148 said they had a Facebook account.

The study found that 85 percent of undergraduates were Facebook users, while only 52 percent of graduate students had accounts.

Findings indicated that 79 percent of Facebook users claimed it did not have an impact on their academic performance. In open-ended questions, users said they were not on Facebook enough to notice an impact, and stressed that academics were a priority for them.

Karpinski emphasized that the results don’t necessarily mean that Facebook use leads to lower grades.

“There may be other factors involved, such as personality traits, that link Facebook use and lower grades,” she said.

“It may be that if it wasn’t for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades. But perhaps the lower GPAs could actually be because students are spending too much time socializing online.”

Now, I don’t claim to be an academic, but I am a research study junkie. One of my favorite things to do is to pick apart research studies because, truly, you can make them sound however you want in order to push your own agenda or prove your own hypothesis. I could write another six paragraphs about that, but will spare you all the gory details. Trust me. But, the fact that the researcher specifically mentions other factors may be influencing the reduction in GPA completely negates the “outcome” of the study.

I do not claim to be a 20-year old college student either, but I once was. I didn’t have a Facebook account but believe me, back then if I wanted to waste time and not study and procrastinate and watch my GPA suffer, I was going to do it. And, I did. It was called Sega Genesis Golf. The folks who are on Facebook nine hours a day clearly have a different set of priorities than people who don’t have a Facebook account or who use it in moderation. Is that a bad thing? I would argue it isn’t. Facebook isn’t some evil overlord who chains you to your desk and forces you to fill out quizzes about which Nebraska town you should live in.

You see Bob, it’s not that they’re lazy…they just don’t care. I suppose a fantastic companion piece to this study could be titled, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy with a great GPA, but no social skills…virtual or otherwise.” I could argue that young men and women who are in dating relationships in college also get worse grades than their single counterparts, or college students who eat ramen five times a week use proportionately more water than students who only eat it three times a week.

On a macro level, I suppose the “outcome” of this “study” really doesn’t matter much. People are always going to find more interesting things to do when the task in front of them seems uninteresting. Classmates in my MBA program blow off project meetings and deliverables all the time in favor of more interesting things, but when you grow up and get out into the real world, that sort of activity is given the politically correct moniker of Maintaining a Work/Life Balance.

Maybe I’ll have to try that next term…”Sorry folks, I’d love to go to that client meeting…but I need to see if I can find some pieces of art in Mafia Wars.” Better yet, maybe it’s time to start looking at Ph.D. programs.

I was cleaning up the reading room (AKA bedroom #4) and decided to flip through some of the old issues of my high school newspaper, the Eagle Examiner. Oy. I was fired up in the winter of 1989. Let’s crank up the Wayback Machine and see what Snarkwife was whining snarking about her senior year of high school.

Redding isn’t the hippest hang-out for teenagers
January 27, 1989

Being a teenager is tough.

We’re torn between being a child and an adult, and the teenager years of our generation have been reported to be more stressful than generations before.

After an excruciating week of tests, homework, jobs, extra-curricular activities, and parents…what’s a distraught teenager to do when the weekend rolls around?

In the Redding/Anderson/Cottonwood area? Not much.

The era of teenage designed activities are all but gone (the one exception being an occasional “Just Say No” dance at the Veteran’s Hall in Redding). Drive-in’s (D’oh! Did I really make that plural word possessive? Impossible. I will blame the typist.) don’t have the same mystique they held in the movie Grease, and roller-skating went out in old episodes of Laverne and Shirley.

When the meager supply is depleted, what’s left? Pizza and a movie? Let’s add up the cost: $10 for an average medium-sized pizza with pepperoni and $2 for drinks. After our tummies are full, we cruise to the neighborhood multi-mondom movieplex (36 theaters under one roof!), fork over $11 to get in ($5.50 each), $2.50 for popcorn, $5 for two large Sprites and $1.50 for Gummi-Bears. Drop in at Baskin Robbins after the movie, spend $3 on chocolate chip ice cream cones and you’re left feeling like an American Express gold card at the end of the Christmas shopping season.

Grand total? $36 (approximate) for a date that probably clocked in at around four hours.

Aside from this bank-breaking venture, there isn’t much else to do. Okay, with the new Cinemark Theaters 8, admission prices and refreshments are less expensive, but that still leaves three other theaters who charge an arm and a leg for admission, unless you were fortunate enough to have been born after 1978 for those oh-so-cheaper 11 and under child rates.

There’s always the time-worn classic activity called “cruising”, where bored teens find themselves driving around in circles for hours on end. Cruising has its advantages: it doesn’t cost much, and it’s a pretty decent way to meet people. Unfortunately, it’s also a prime place for accidents, turning into a possibly dangerous situation except for those die-hards who never leave the Wendy’s parking lot.

Bowling anyone? Bowling began as a garden sport for English nobility, increased in popularity until the late 1960s, then plummeted to almost non-existent teenage popularity. Redding now can boast of a new bowling alley with lower student rates and electronic computerized scoring, for the Future of America that can’t understand how to add up a bowling score. It still remains to be seen, though, (double comma?) if Redding teens can be turned on by a bowling ball, ten pins, and a full-service snack bar.

Well, that took a lot of energy to list all that Redding has to offer, now didn’t it?

How about a teen dance club? The Redding Planning Commission has supposedly okayed (????) the site for a new no-alcohol dance club, The Fifth Dimension, but one can only hope for its survival. After the shutdowns of its predecessors the Kasbah and the Pound, Redding teens had better utilize this needed resource.

Oh, help us, concerned parents and adults! You have your bars, your lounges, and your nightclubs, many on Hilltop Drive. What are panic-stricken 13-19 year olds supposed to do when Friday and Saturday nights roll around – watch Frank Sinatra croon in a commercial while adults paint the town red? We need things to do! After all, life isn’t just one large pizza parlor and a movie theater…

Oh my God, that was unbearable to read again. Listen to me. Of course, now that I’m roughly the age my parents were when I originally wrote this “editorial” I’m a little embarrassed because in retrospect the adults in my hometown didn’t have a hell of a lot of things to do, either. At the time there was what…The Rusty Nail? CR Gibbs? I don’t even know if Doc’s Skylounge was still open back then. Clearly I thought Adult Fun was way more interesting than Teenage Fun. What can I say, I was young…and the Internet hadn’t reared its ugly head yet to squash the innocence of the 17-year olds who came after me.

But, I’m not sure which is funnier after taking a trip on the Wayback Machine…this editorial, or my rather cranky Letter to the Editor which was published just to the right of the editorial. By the way, I was the Editor-in-Chief. Why on Earth was I writing a letter to myself?

Graph courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. Please don’t sue.

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, consumers are working very hard every month to get same-store sales indices to look like words and retail sales in February didn’t totally flatline thanks to Wal-Mart. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the graph is in the shape of a GIGANTIC W.

Or maybe, we can credit this upswing to George “GIGANTIC W” Bush?

Hmm…what else could the W represent? It has to be a sign. I’m hoping that sooner rather than later, it eventually will look like “we’re sorry”.

As you no doubt have noticed, I have abandoned Stratechick like that art history class in college I mistakenly signed up for, not fully realizing how it ultimately wouldn’t interest me at all. If only that kind of foresight had materialized more rapidly in my last three jobs…wakka wakka wakka.

When I launched Stratechick, I was amped about the possibilities since I’d been planning the launch for five months. Literally DOZENS of blog post topics had already been sketched out in my head, and a few on paper. Excited and ready to totally tear up the blogosphere with stories of Uncle Bill, Uncle Don, and Uncle Craig…I set out on my journey towards personal and professional growth.

But then, a funny thing happened…I realized that blog wasn’t the path to personal and professional growth and even worse…I just flat-out didn’t want to write about the last fifteen years of work experience. I know, it was a rather jarring relevation to me as well. You see, sometime between the day I quit my job and the day I launched Stratechick…I was healed. I’m sure it was the combination of the holidays and being out of school, but all the anger I had…just…went away. But, the Stratechick Experience was a moving train. I had been talking for two months about how I was going to write and be the Chick Dilbert…etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I couldn’t not produce, right?

For those of you who have had blogs for awhile, you develop a “voice”. It takes awhile sometimes, but eventually you fall into it and people expect certain things when they read your posts. Unfortunately, I had trouble figuring out what I wanted my voice to be at Stratechick. Stratechick wasn’t simply Snarkwife in a power suit, you know?

So, I will come back to my blog home of nearly five years. I’ve missed it, and I will make a concerted effort to be more attentive to it. My blog has served me so well all these years, the least I can do is show it the respect it deserves.

Oh, remind me to tell you about the happy hour two weeks ago when I was quasi-recruited by a tipsy marketing director. Good times.

I had to work during college, and I have a pretty strong set of emotional shoulders to show for it. Back then, it wasn’t terribly in vogue to take out student loans. You got grants and scholarships and worked, or your parents paid…or a combination of the two. I don’t think I knew anyone in college who totally had a free ride. Usually Mom and Dad would kick in some funds for the first couple of years, and then once we realized we needed more money to get by and the scholarships and grants ran out…we went to work. I read articles about college students who have financed literally their entire college experience and I think to myself – holy shit – that’s a lot of debt.

Anyway, because most of us had to work…that pretty much collectively shut us out of any “summer internship” programs. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal last week titled, “Do You Want an Internship? It’ll Cost You”. The article talks about how today’s Helicopter Parents are going so far as to – no joke – pay companies to hire their precious snowflakes for…unpaid jobs. That’s right. We’re talking about internships.

But, that wasn’t the part of the article that got me…oh no. Here’s the part that made me emit a strange sound, still unidentifiable to me today:

Critics of the programs say they deepen the divide between the haves and have-nots by giving students from more affluent families an advantage. But parents say the fees are a small price for giving their children a toehold in a treacherous job market. And operators of the programs claim they actually broaden access to internships by opening them to students who lack personal or political connections to big employers.

Um…news flash, folks. The divide between the haves and the have-nots is not measured by whether or not you pay for your child’s internship. It is measured by whether or not your child can even afford to not work. Given the staggering levels of student loan debt floating about, I have to ask…since the article mentions most of the folks seeking assistance with securing internships for their kids are “middle class”…who is financing the expenses for these kids? Who is paying for their housing, food, and insurance? Mom and Dad? I imagine if you can afford to buy your kid a job, you can afford to support them while they work for free.

I suppose my point would be that this article in and of itself is offensive. Granted, the WSJ markets to a different demographic than the one I grew up in – but in this landscape of “economic distress” and allegedly trying to act like you’re destitute, even if you’re not – isn’t the very thought of “pay for no-pay” pretty distasteful?

Then again…any money poured into the American economy is good, right? Right?

I think I’d be more curious to know where all these kids are in ten years, before announcing the programs and perceived benefits of organizations like University of Dreams as “successful.” Clearly, parents want to provide their children with every available opportunity…but when does that “help” stop? Does it ever? If your kid graduates from college and can’t find a job (or better yet, finds one but it requires that he – gasp! – find a roommate), do you push your baby bird out of the nest and hope for the best…or do you hire a life coach and a career coach and a headhunter for them?

These companies have actually done a damn good job of not necessarily finding an untapped market…but creating their own market. These days, it’s hip to pander to paranoid parents and with that comes a lot of promotional BS. Actually, that sounds like a pretty “shovel ready” situation to me.

Get married, that is.

What, were you expecting a photo of Barack Obama? His inauguration isn’t the only historic occasion taking place today!

Capt. UberHusband and I have defied statistics, and are celebrating eight years of marriage.  For richer or poorer, better or worse, in Iraq or at home…we’re definitely better off now than we were eight years ago.

We went and saw Revolutionary Road yesterday.  To say it was a downer of a movie would be an understatement…but then again, it wasn’t supposed to be Bride Wars – or even The War of the Roses - for that matter.  Have you read the book?  I highly suggest you do that first.

The movie was just as beautifully filmed and directed as the book was written.  But, it didn’t flow.  Entire sequences seemed disjointed to me (and to CU, who incidentally hasn’t read the book) and  some scenes just flat-out didn’t make sense.  Frank and April’s first nearly-knock down/drag out fight on the side of the road seemed to come out of nowhere on the screen, but had an appropriate lead-in and build-up in the book.  Things like that.

Kate Winslet was fantastic, and her ranking on my Favorite Actresses List continues to go up.  Have you seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?  Rent it….now.  Jim Carrey’s finest film…IMO.  Sadly, I was a little lukewarm on Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Wheeler.  His highly dramatic scenes were indeed powerful, and his more tender scenes were equally affecting…but it was the stuff in the middle that seemed weird to me.

I find it interesting that with Mad Men and now Revolutionary Road, there has been a renewed interest in what used to seem like a fairly inocuous period of time.  The war was over…shouldn’t everyone be happy?  Kind of makes you look at Marion Cunningham a little differently now, wondering if she wasn’t knocking back martinis and boffing Big Al while Richie and Joanie were at school.

On Monday I finally launched my new blog…Stratechick. Like “strategic”, only…not.

Capt. UberHusband and I came up with The Stratechick Project over beers at Cheesecake Factory back in August. We would have used cocktail napkins and everything to make it All Official, except ours were wet from sloppy beer pouring and I didn’t feel like reaching for dry ones. Anyway, I’ve hung out my shingle and am getting my blogfeet wet again.

You probably noticed that I never talked about work in this blog, and that was a specific choice for a few reasons. One, I just think it’s tacky. The Internets aren’t private and the last thing I needed was for someone at work to discover just how much I hated it there some days. I know we all hate our jobs at some points but…it was really bad.

Two, I got to the point where I think complaining just wound up breeding more frustration. Believe it or not, there is a point where you just get sick of bitching about your job. I hit that point…last August, in fact. While drinking beer at Cheesecake Factory.

Stratechick isn’t about me just getting out five years’ (ten? fifteen?) work of pent-up frustration, but I’ll definitely be sharing some stories. I wouldn’t be where I was today without the fine men and women who ripped my self-confidence to shreds. My goal is to hit all topics business-related, and I’ll see which ones stick better than others. Work in progress, you know.

So, I invite you to mosey on over and take a look. Add me to your RSS feed. Follow me on Twitter. Things are definitely heating up in the business world (in terms of blog fodder, anyway)…and don’t you want to hear the story about the time I got laid off?

Here…let me link to it one more time.

I know that when I was on Match.com back in 1999, not only was the convenience of being able to see which men weren’t interested in me at any time day or night (provided I hadn’t gone over my AOL usage limit) a valuable feature, but having such a significant pool of emotionally unavailable, immature, and irresponsible men from which to choose – all in one place! – also saved me considerable time and effort!

It’s all about the efficiency, yo.

Online Dating Helping Pathetic Women Get Their Hopes Crushed More Efficiently

It’s a sad day for Snarkwife. Today folks, I am truly embarrassed to be a housewife in Collin County. The Dallas Morning News saw it fit to print an article on the front page titled, “Real Housewives of Collin County shop, shock and mock suburbia”.

You can read the article yourself. I couldn’t reprint any of it here without throwing up a little in my mouth. I kid, I kid.

It was one thing to read the article and roll my eyes at the DMN’s obvious desperation for something “irreverent” and “sassy” to kick off the new year, but God almighty…could they have picked a worse blog? In reading the article and scanning a few posts, it only takes about ten seconds to see the blog for what it is – a crass outlet for some obviously angry, hate-mongering women who have a significant ax to grind. Just read the comments. I don’t even have to say anything, because what they write speaks for itself. They seem to dislike just about everyone, and I am rather mystified by their fascination with bitches and Glocks….and shanks and shivs. Maybe they know the lady down the street from me who killed her husband a couple of weeks ago.

Oh wait, I’m a “hater” if I say that. And in retrospect, maybe “ax to grind” wasn’t the right phrase to use. Oopsie.

The blogosphere is full of opinions and personalities, and that’s what makes it so wonderful. But, when I see an actual representative of the “legitimate” media give print space to such obvious crap…it makes me rather sad. I get the concept of satire. Believe me, I do. I guess my issue is with how these ladies are reacting to the reactions they’re getting since thrusting themselves into the spotlight. I don’t care what they write, but when they start telling women they’d be happier if they gave their husbands more blowjobs…eh. Really? That all you got? Is blowjobs one word? Two? A hyphenate?

I would imagine there are at least a hundred blogs written by real women in Collin County that could give the DFW metroplex a better view of what life is like north of 635. Instead, we’re directed to a blog where men are rewarded and punished with sex and vulgarities fly like the American flag in front of my home.

And…for the record, I had my fifteen minutes of fame in the Dallas Morning News three years ago. Front page, to boot. No one knew about it though, because I chose not to whore myself out for hits to my blog. In retrospect, maybe that was a bad move. Hmm.

Way to go, Dallas Morning News. First you destroy the innocence of children, and now this. For the life of me I can’t believe this is what you chose to give me, after you sent me a readers survey and I indicated I’d like to hear more about my community.

I’d cancel my subscription but Lord…I sure seem to be getting my money’s worth out of it lately in blog fodder.

*If you’re running Firefox on a PC, I know this theme is rendering rather…fugily. If anyone knows how to fix it (CSS appears to be fine), I’d be very appreciative to know how…and for the time being, you’d be serving yourself well to view this in IE. Or, you can just switch to a Mac. Heh.*

I love the New Year. To quote the fine film Forrest Gump, “You get to start all over.”

The critical difference between this year and years past however, is that I’m looking forward to what’s to come rather than looking away from what has already happened. I seem to be happy for years to be over, yet rarely happy to see a new one come. It doesn’t sound like you can really have one with out the other, but just because you’re glad 2005 is over…that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re looking to 2006.

The good news is, I’ve got enough years under my belt to know that really…you have no idea where the upcoming year is going to take you. You could be laid off. You and your job could be relocated to another state. You could meet the man of your dreams. You could get married. You could revisit getting that advanced degree. You could watch your husband be deployed to Iraq. You could finally figure out after fifteen years, that what you need is a total career overhaul. All of these things have happened to me in the past ten years, and I had no idea each new year what I was in for. You take the bad with the good, plan for the worst but hope for the best.

On that note, I do have a few resolutions…ones that I might actually keep. We’ll see. If not, we’ll erase the board and try again.

• Launch my new blog over at stratechick.com. My new blog will be different from this one, in that it will have a more defined focus around the workplace, management, and the business world in general. It will also include personal anecdotes from my last 20 years (good God) in the workforce. Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, blog…right?
• This is more of a correlary to the preceding resolution, but I resolve to blog every weekday. If I don’t write, I won’t become a better writer. Isn’t that after all, why I quit my job? Weekends and holidays are optional, but recommended.
• Clean out my iTunes library of all songs I immediately skip as soon as they start playing. If I don’t want to hear it, why is it just hogging up space?
• Ease up on myself during my last two semesters of school. It’s one thing to give 100% of yourself to a class or a project…but it’s just silly to give 300%.

May all of you have an adventurous upcoming year!

Oh, you know it’s good if I immediately stop reading the paper and run in to the office to blog.

While reading the Dallas Morning News this morning, I took one pass on this letter to the editor and immediately flew into Snarkwife Outrage Mode…level 3. I really did fly…the newspaper floated up into the air and everything.

Re: “This movie is rated ‘Arf’,” Friday GuideDaily.

We made the mistake of taking our 7-year-old daughter to see Marley and Me, a PG-rated movie we thought would be an innocent story about a family’s connection to its dog. Unfortunately, what we saw was a movie that contained a stabbing, a miscarriage, skinny dipping and other sexual connotations, vulgar language and a scene that shows a dog being put to sleep by a veterinarian.

This is a very good movie for adults. Shouldn’t this type of subject matter be limited to PG-13 movies? If not, at least parents should be able to have confidence in their local news sources to give us enough information to make educated decisions about our children’s attendance. Joy Tipping’s movie review failed to give this kind of information.

Oh my God. You’re kidding, right?

Let’s take a look at the MPAA’s website and see what it has to say about the PG rating:

A PG-rated motion picture should be investigated by parents before they let their younger children attend. The PG rating indicates, in the view of the Rating Board, that parents may consider some material unsuitable for their children, and parents should make that decision.

The more mature themes in some PG-rated motion pictures may call for parental guidance. There may be some profanity and some depictions of violence or brief nudity. But these elements are not deemed so intense as to require that parents be strongly cautioned beyond the suggestion of parental guidance. There is no drug use content in a PG-rated motion picture.

And now, the PG-13 rating:

A PG-13 rating is a sterner warning by the Rating Board to parents to determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture, as some material might not be suited for them. A PG-13 motion picture may go beyond the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category. The theme of the motion picture by itself will not result in a rating greater than PG-13, although depictions of activities related to a mature theme may result in a restricted rating for the motion picture. Any drug use will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. More than brief nudity will require at least a PG-13 rating, but such nudity in a PG-13 rated motion picture generally will not be sexually oriented. There may be depictions of violence in a PG-13 movie, but generally not both realistic and extreme or persistent violence. A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context. The Rating Board nevertheless may rate such a motion picture PG-13 if, based on a special vote by a two-thirds majority, the Raters feel that most American parents would believe that a PG-13 rating is appropriate because of the context or manner in which the words are used or because the use of those words in the motion picture is inconspicuous.

And finally…let’s take a look at the actual MPAA rating for the film Marley & Me, as displayed on the official film website:

See that? It says, “Thematic material, some suggestive content and language”.

Last time I checked, it wasn’t the responsibility of movie critics to outline every nook and cranny of a film’s plot so lazy parents don’t have to perform their own due diligence. I have to assume the writer of this letter is new to our planet, since he obviously didn’t read the book and clearly wasn’t aware of the “outcome” – although he did a damn good job of telling the entire DFW metroplex the overall plot of the film. I suppose he did this so other parents wouldn’t be caught off guard and have to actually explain anything uncomfortable to children like, “I know you heard that word in the film Austin, but we don’t use it in our household. Now, off you go.”

I suppose I could go a whole other way with this, too. Marley & Me is also the story of a loving, growing family and all of the associated ups and downs therein. It’s a story about love, life, and the loss of a treasured family member. All of the good points of the film completely disintegrated because a movie reviewer from the Dallas Morning News failed to tell them…in very explicit terms using small words, that it wasn’t just a live-action version of Clifford the Big, Red Dog.

In case you don’t know, if a dog is a character central to the plot of a book, film, or TV show…it is probably going to die. That’s a big reason I’m not hot on going to see the movie…I have a dog who has been in my life for 12 years, and I don’t need the sadness. Fortunately, I read the book three years ago or else I probably would have been mesmerized by Shiny, Cute Puppies and Owen Wilson to the point where I could no longer Google the actual movie. I would have been sideswiped and bamboozled like this poor letter writer!

I just find it really, really, really hard to believe that in this day and age someone can write a letter like this in an attempt to absolve himself of any culpability in the situation. Parents want the media, the government, and the community to stay out of the business of parenting their children yet as soon as said parents screw up…they whine that the media, the government, and the community should have done something…anything…to prevent them from being embarrassed or having to do the unspeakable like discuss an uncomfortable topic at a non-prearranged moment in time.

Sorry, pal. Sometimes you just have to wipe the egg off your face and move on, without misplacing blame or guilting others into taking responsibility for your oversight. It’s okay to not be perfect, and it’s okay to be vulnerable. That’s what makes us human. Marley & Me should have taught you that.

Facebook is an interesting place. Since joining last February, I’ve “friended” several former high school and college classmates and even an old college boyfriend. I’ve kicked more than a few asses in Scramble, and cried out in outrage with everyone else (baa!) when Old Facebook became New Facebook. At first, I “friended” a lot of people…most of whom were casual Internet acquaintances at best.

But, over the months…I’ve trimmed my Facebook friends list. If you were one of those downsized, you probably don’t even know it…because we weren’t that close to begin with. Apparently though, this is considered poor form according to a recent Wall Street Journal article:

JoAna Swan recently purged her profile on social-networking site Facebook Inc. of friends she hadn’t spoken to for a while. A week later, Ms. Swan, a 21-year-old student at Pace University in Manhattan, ran into a woman she had dropped.

Crammed next to Ms. Swan in an elevator on the way to class, the woman, an acquaintance from freshman year, called her out for “unfriending” her and asked what she had done to deserve it. Ms. Swan considered saying it was an accident, but then opted to be honest. “It’s nothing personal,” she recalls saying. “I just delete people I no longer talk to.”

A week later, she ran into the woman again, and decided to refriend her because, says Ms. Swan, “she seemed very offended by the whole thing.” She declined to name the woman, noting that it would “make things more awkward and turn into another whole drama-fest.”

Naturally, I’m keeping this specific instance in its proper context…as the woman involved is a college student and probably doesn’t understand the difference between Facebook Friends and Real World Friends. For me though, scaling down my Facebook friends list (and my Twitter “following” list, for that matter) was just part of my ongoing and continuous effort to eliminate unwanted “noise” in my life. If people with whom I don’t regularly engage in dialogue find that offensive…oh well.

There is one “friend” in particular on Facebook, with whom I thought I could reconnect. After all, she accepted my friend request…wasn’t that a reasonable assumption? After repeated attempts to make contact with no response whatsoever…I’m now contemplating dropping her from my friends list. I’m not thinking about it as a retaliatory move…but I can also take a hint. Maybe she’s just not that into me anymore, or didn’t want to be rude by ignoring my friend request. Regardless, it is what it is. Bottom line…I suppose I’m just not that into the whole voyeuristic environment of Facebook that comes with having 300+ friends. If you enjoy it – great. For me though, not my bag.

Now, I remember back in 2004 when I first started blogging and everyone’s #1 goal at the time was to get other bloggers to put you on their blogroll. Remember that? Reciprocal link fever…catch it! People would comment on my blog, and then expect me to add them because they asked me to or they wrote, “Great post…love your blog! Come stop by and visit me sometime!” Um, no. I linked to people I found interesting…not people who begged for it. Same for Facebook and Twitter. I was never one of those people who found a weird sense of pride in watching his/her Twitter “followers” count shoot up…primarily because the vast majority of most of my followers were either spam accounts or people who didn’t really care what I had to say.

Bottom line…if we used to be Facebook Friends but aren’t anymore, or if I used to follow you on Twitter but don’t anymore…there’s no reason to get angry or offended. Likewise, if my friends list drops from 66 to 5 in the next couple of days…then I’ll know there’s some truth to what I’ve just written…unless one of those folks who “de-friends” me is Capt. UberHusband. Then I’ll be kinda pissed.

Yeah, so…Capt. UberHusband and I have made a Old Year’s Resolution to go and see everything nominated for a Golden Globe this year…and ideally, the Oscars as well. I’m rather tired of sitting here in my living room, drinking my champagne on Oscar Night and feeling all hoity toity, and then realizing I’ve never seen half of the movies referenced. That whole “I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE” thing? Totally lost on me. Didn’t get it.

We’ve gone to see Slumdog Millionaire (awesome!) and Milk (awesome!), and today saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In a sort-of word…meh. I had a really, really hard time with this movie. There were some aspects I loved, and other aspects I hated. I loved the love story between Benjamin and Daisy, once they got into the right sync in terms of places in their respective lives. Actually, now that I think about it…that was the only part I loved, and that likely had more to do with watching Brad Pitt than anything else.

What did I hate? I hated the subtle yet totally in-your-face supporting role of Katrina, the Hurricane That Ate N’awlins in 2005. Forget the fact that in the news reports at the end of the movie, they had the levees breaking before the hurricane even made landfall…it just seemed so…pointless. Capt. UberHusband thought maybe it was being used as a time reference (God knows the movie needed them, just to keep up with who was how old and when), but personally…I just saw it as a Hollywood/Brad Pitt propaganda opportunity. Besides, Brad doesn’t get a say anymore regarding N’awlins…since he and Angie moved out of the city about six weeks after moving in.

Plus…the similarities between Forrest Gump and Benjamin Button are just too numerous to mention. Sadly, we didn’t get to see John Lennon or JFK, but Lieutenant Dan/Cap’n Mike (“But you ain’t got no legs, Cap’n Mike!”), Jenny/Daisy, shrimp boat/tugboat, awesome non-biological mom/awesome biological mom, and Mom works in a boarding house/Mom works in a nursing home are just a few of the crossover features. I mean really, it’s a damn good thing Julia Ormond doesn’t look more like Haley Joel Osment. Although, their names are kind of the same.

Speaking of which…how is it that a makeup crew that could transform Cate Blanchett from a 23-year old ballerina muse to a 70-ish old woman and Brad Pitt from a 70-ish old man to a teenage boy not be able to make Julia Ormond’s character look 37? Her character was born in ‘68, the movie takes place in 2005 (Could you tell? There were Katrina references left and right!)…and she looked 45 years old. Either I look amazing for my age, or someone used up all the Age Line Eraser on Benjamin.

So I guess when all is written and done…I didn’t like the movie that much after all. Curiosity satisfied.

Next on the list…Frost/Nixon and Revolutionary Road.

If you don’t live in the DFW area, we’re experiencing our first “ice event” of the season, which was preceded by a 78-degree day and will be followed up by another 70-degree day on Saturday.  Such is wintertime in Texas, and after nearly eleven years here my eyes still nearly pop out of my head when I see the manic 7-day forecasts.

CU left for the airport at 5:15 this morning, so he could go to Philadelphia for a day.  A day.  I think his drive to the airport, combined with the wait time for the flight and then the additional wait time so the flight could be de-iced prior to takeoff…will likely exceed the total time of his meeting this afternoon.  But, he made it out there without incident.  I made him take a blanket in case he wound up in a ditch…and a bag of holiday cookies.  That’s the kind of wife I am.  The Crackberry can only keep you so warm, you know?

But, I wanted to take this opportunity to give everyone a primer on how to drive in icy conditions.  Ideally this is information we all learned when we were 15 and studying for our driver’s license exam, but who remembers that far back?

1.  Avoid all level surfaces and instead use as many bridges and overpasses as possible!  This one’s a no-brainer.  You want to drive where you’re least likely to encounter other cars.  While everyone is moving along at a snail’s pace on the streets below you, inertia will be your best friend and will carry you to your destination quickly and efficiently.  Plus, since you’re not likely to put your foot on the gas pedal much…driving on bridges and overpasses is good for the environment, and helps reduce your personal dependence on foreign oil.  I believe this is especially relevant advice for thrill-seeking teenagers, as it will no doubt also engage their brains and fine motor skills while they try to text their friends and navigate the road.

2.  If for some reason all of the bridges and overpasses are blocked by pesky sand trucks and you are forced to ground level, use the freeways as opposed to the surface streets.  There’s greater overall space for when your car spins out, and you’re more likely to make the morning, noon, and evening news reports.  Instant fame and celebrity!

3.  If for some reason all of the freeways are blocked by other fame-seekers or otherwise impassible and you find yourself sitting at an intersection, take the opportunity to entertain yourself by spraying windshield cleaner all over the front windshield and then seeing if your wipers can get the job done before the cleaner either freezes or you have to continue moving forward.  It’s a better plan than waiting impatiently for the XM Sirius weather/traffic channel to loop back around to your particular area of the metroplex.

4.  Tailgate.  This is generally good advice no matter the weather, because we’re living in tough economic times and we need to take advantage of every opportunity we can to get closer to the people in our community.  Nothing says, “We’re all in this together” like someone who literally…has your back.

In other news, a woman two streets over stabbed her husband to death.  Kind of makes you look at all of your neighbors a little differently.  Plus, she was smiling in her mugshot photo (photo unavailable, but we saw it on the news last night)…what’s up with that?  I don’t want to hear that was “just how” the camera caught her.  My husband can’t seem to actually catch me smiling in photos…and I doubt the Collin County Jail shutterbug is Annie Liebovitz.

Imagine Wayne and Garth doing that {doodle-dee-do, doodle-dee-do} thing with their hands as we journey into alterna-reality mode…

When out on the TV there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.

Away to the remote I flew like a flash,
turned up the volume, with speed and panache.

The glow on the screen of our LCD Sanyo,
gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but Barry Manilow and his many teeth of veneer.

That’s right kids…Barry Manilow has a new CD out, just in time for the 2008 Christmas season! Take your kids back to a simpler time of new wave music, Growing Pains, shoulder pads and corporate greed (oh, wait…) with Barry Manilow – Greatest Songs of the 80s!

You’ll be treated to hit (?) songs by some of the decade’s preeminent musical artists such as…Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers! Journey! Stevie Wonder! And…Christopher Cross, among many, many others!.

Buy now…quantities…well, not so limited.

And remember kids, per Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s website, “If you are under 18 years old, remember that you need your parents permission to buy online. Remember, always check with your parents before you give information online and never give out your full name, phone number or address on the internet.”

…especially if someone is trying to sell you a Barry Manilow CD.

As I mentioned in my last post, I found myself (yes, I accepted the job offers and yes, I take responsibility) in jobs which sort of depleted my internal Snarkwife Account. Over the years, the rate of depletion accelerated to the point where dadgummit…I just didn’t feel like myself anymore. That zip, that zest, that how-do-you-say “enthusiasm” for life. I used to be pretty outspoken. I questioned authority. I wasn’t ever rude, but I’d speak what was on my mind. I’d lost those attributes, and oh how I missed them.

Capt. UberHusband and I got into a rather heated discussion last week about the rules of social propriety, and what role passive-aggressive types play in digging their (our?) own holes. Our “discussions” are always great fun, since the voices usually raise (okay, mine does) and we generally wind up arguing with each other over who agrees with the other more. It’s weird. Anyway, I read him that day’s Dear Abby letter which, to paraphrase, dealt with a woman and her passive aggressiveness with a family member. Instead of just addressing the issue head-on, she pussyfooted around it, “dropping hints” and hoping somehow this clueless person would get a clue and voila! – instant harmony without all of that pesky and irrelevant confrontation or communication. Abby basically said what I would have, which was for her to put her big girl panties on and voice her dissatisfaction.

Why don’t we do that anymore? Honestly, I’d like to know. At what point did we voluntarily become hostages to the folks in the world who steamroll over most generally accepted social norms? And why do we hostages believe that venting and fuming to everyone besides the actual offender…will offer any relief? Sure, we can “all be in it together”, but then we’re just a big, collective group of wusses.

And to a lesser extent…what if you’re unhappy with someone’s actions, but they don’t know those actions are negatively impacting you? Several years ago, our next-door neighbor had outdoor lights which would shine right into our bedroom. We still had the white blinds at the time, and our room practically lit up like Times Square when the lights were on. After a couple of nights of this, figuring they had no idea what was going on since their room faced a different direction, I had CU go over and ask about unscrewing the bulb so we could sleep. Yeah, I know…why didn’t I go do it myself? Because, he’s my husband and I get to delegate tasks like that to him. Heh. Know what? They removed the bulb and…problem solved!

No one…and I mean no one…”takes a hint”. If you want something, ask for it. If you’re upset, say so. If someone is infringing on your personal space or your personal beliefs (tangible or intangible), renegotiate the boundaries. I think most people take the passive-aggressive route because they’re either insecure about the rationale for their own desires (“Is it wrong of me to want to reduce their lighting? After all, half of the area is their yard, too…”) or are just flat-out fearful the other person will get mad or not like them. If that’s the case…fine. By the same token though, you sort of relinquish your ability to bitch on your blog or to your co-workers or to your friends if you haven’t tried to resolve the issue directly…and clearly.

This is just one of the many, many lessons I’ve learned over the past five weeks. Don’t fear being assertive…fear who you become when you don’t value yourself enough to ask for what you want or need.  If someone gets mad at you, oh well.  They’ll get over it.  Unless of course, you tell them that you want/need them to burn down someone’s house or something.  I’d probably get mad if someone asked me to do that, but it would be less mad than I’d be if you came up to me and said, “That house could really stand to be burned down. The owners have a really bright light that shines directly into my bedroom at night.  Someone should do something about that.”

One of my dirty little workplace secrets is that I had a tendency to call in sick…well, when I wasn’t really all that sick. I was never counseled or reprimanded (other than one time, when I was in college…but all my friends were going skiing!) and truth be told, I probably was more affected by it than anyone else. Nevertheless, with that confession I almost feel hypocritical for proudly waving my Employee Work Ethic flag as I have for so many years. Hear me out, though – because I believe my dirty little secret is really just a symptom of an even Dirtier Little Secret.

An article in yesterday’s Dallas Morning News discussed the impact of employee absenteeism, and the financial cost to employers. We’re provided an unsurprising mathematical formula of: annual salary/workdays * number of unexcused absences = Bad Employee Product. The more you’re out, the less productive you are therefore more of a liability to the company. To go a step further, you’re also a liability to overall employee morale because the number of absences is directly proportional to the anger and resentment of your coworkers. Not because they have to pick up your slack, but because they didn’t have the presence of mind to call in sick that morning.

Without a doubt, there are rogue employees in the workplace. These leeches suck the life out of everyone around them, provide absolutely no valuable input to projects, and always seem to have this excuse or that reason to be unavailable for the weekly staff meeting. I won’t argue that. What I am willing to argue though, is that employee absenteeism – and the astronomical costs associated – in the vast majority of instances have less to do with the employee, and significantly more to do with the employer.

Reading the article reminded me of the chief complaint I’d had about my last, oh, four or five jobs – they weren’t challenging. At all. That’s probably why I am able to refer to them as “my last four or five jobs”. It’s likely I’m the exception to the rule, since my issues with finding challenging work go clear back to elementary school. I skipped the third grade because I’d blown through the 3rd grade curriculum in the 2nd grade, 2nd in the 1st, etc. I never met a challenge I couldn’t conquer…provided I wanted to or it was interesting enough to me. In the workplace, managers are much less willing or eager to help you to skip a grade. But you know, I tend to think most people want to feel as though the work they’re doing is meaningful. That’s certainly been the case in my experience with coworkers who floundered in organizations, turning into “that guy” or “that girl” – the one with the lousy attitude who mentally checks out until that doesn’t get the job done anymore. Then, they physically check out.

Bottom line: satisfied employees aren’t excessively absent.

Clearly, I am not the first person to publicize the concept of meaningful work yielding employee satisfaction. That honor goes to Frederick Herzberger who, back in the 50s, devised the Motivation-Hygiene Theory. His theory hypothesized that satisfaction was the result of the presence of (or positive) motivator factors and dissatisfaction was the result of a lack of (or negative) hygiene factors.

To get an idea of what we’re dealing with, here are examples of what is considered a motivator factor or a hygiene factor:

Motivator Factors

• Achievement
• Recognition
• Work Itself
• Responsibility
• Autonomy
• Opportunities for Advancement
• Professional Growth
• Challenge

Hygiene Factors

• Salary, Benefits
• Company Policies & Culture
• Intra-office Relationships
• Physical Working Environment
• Job Status
• Job Security

The kicker Herzberg identified though, was that hygiene factors had little to no effect on satisfaction – only dissatisfaction. That can’t be though…right? Wouldn’t a pay increase naturally increase employee satisfaction? Not really. Once that initial adrenaline rush passes and you get used to that extra 2.5% in your paycheck every week, it is no longer relevant to your satisfaction and you go back to bitching about your low-walled cube. Aha! Dissatisfaction!

In one job, I was so bored I used to go to the bathroom three times an hour and just sit there because that was more socially and professionally acceptable than sitting at my desk and staring at my monitor. I had asked my manager for more work, and more responsibility. She didn’t know what to do with me, and I eventually left. In another job, I was given menial tasks which took up a lot of time, but required minimal brain power. Eventually I figured out how to automate those tasks, and was once again back at square one.

I’ve also gone through the last fifteen years in the workforce with the misguided notion that supervisors and managers will always want you to have challenging and meaningful work. I’m now of the fairly educated opinion that is true, but only at the most entry of levels. Things change as you rise up the ranks. Whereas at the beginning of your career you are someone to be guided and mentored, eventually the student is at the same level as the teacher and the waters get muddied.

What? What’s that you say? There’s nothing people can do about a bad manager or an unsatisfying workplace, and if they don’t like it they can just leave? Fine…and, they do. Every day. But at the end of the day, wouldn’t we all be better off my addressing the underlying issues associated with the problem rather than slapping a band-aid on the situation by creating Task Forces and Corporate Initiatives to combat employee absenteeism?

Seems to me this problem could be more effectively addressed by telling managers to step up! Do what you’re being paid to do. Lead by example…by being productive and proactive and looking for solutions to problems rather than identifying the easier targets of blame. Talk to your employees and find out what they want, and what they believe will make them satisfied, productive, and valued members of your organization. Believe me, that’s what we want.

For nearly the entire 4 1/2 years I was at my last job, I was involved in some aspect of customer and technical support. We had a small operation, and resolving escalated issues and “re-engineering” our internal processes were the brims of my many hats. Bless my heart, I tried…but most of it was for naught. Within my organization, “ensuring customer satisfaction” was not a component of our corporate philosophy so much as a perceived trendy buzzword thrown out when some truly dissatisfied customer ran an issue up the organizational flagpole. Once the crisis passed, so did the emphasis on satisfaction. Sadly, we were not unique.

In this world of soft launches, beta (i.e., not tested) rollouts, and near-daily version updates there are bound to be bugs in functionality or features. I get that. What I don’t get is the increasing prevalence of crappy customer service, especially on the part of organizations who offer us – the user – free products like Twitter or Facebook.

A few months ago, I set up a Twitter account to accompany my forthcoming non-personal blog launch (it’s coming…I swear) and then in a panicked moment of self-doubt a couple of months later, I cancelled the account. You’d think it would be fairly easy to reinstate a Twitter account…especially mine, because it had all of one posting and zero followers. Several people posted on Twitter’s support site they were unable to reinstate deactivated accounts. About a month ago, Twitter responded by proudly announcing the feature was available again. Happy to be able to undo my momentary lapse in judgment, I tried to reinstate my account…no luck. So, I submitted a ticket to Twittersupport:

Stacy · November 30 2008, 02:42 PM
This is what I DID:
I tried to restore my account per the following link: http://twitter.com/account/restore

This is what I EXPECTED to happen:
That I could restore my account.

This is what ACTUALLY happened:
I received a message telling me this feature was disabled. I need to know how to get this account back online again.

I feel: Frustrated!

This morning…here’s the response I received:

The restore feature is temporarily disabled. Thanks for your patience while we work to restore it.

Really. It took Twitter five days to tell me what I originally pointed out? How about answering my question? That would be super. Even a “We don’t know when the feature will be re-enabled” would suffice. Lame-ass canned responses by support personnel drove me insane in my last job, and they still drive me insane now. Not only was it a canned response, it was a word-for-word reiteration of the page I already saw. Now, Twitter sort of holds us hostage…by the short & curlies, as Capt. UberHusband would put it. They know we’re not going anywhere, and will continue to use the service…because it’s free. We can’t vote with our wallets and walk away. I’m glad Twitter appreciates my patience, but at what point does Twitter believe I am justified in becoming…well, impatient? Of course, I could set up another Twitter account – but that’s not the point here. The point is the lack of meaningful response and feedback.

I had a similar issue with Facebook and my privacy settings a few months back. I had set everything to “Friends Only” yet each time I went back into the app settings, it was set to “My Networks and Friends”. I didn’t want everyone in the Dallas/Ft. Worth network to see that a friend had just passed me a drink. In response to my technical support query, Facebook sent me a link telling me how to update my privacy settings. Hello, McFly! Safeguarding my privacy is a big deal to me, and a violation of that is tantamount to treason! Maybe that’s a little extreme but still, privacy is a big deal even if I don’t post racy pictures of myself or show off my tramp stamp in my profile picture.

I guess the big question is, at what point would you walk away from a free service? Or truly, are we getting what we pay for?

I’ve started watching movie channels during the day, because I can’t handle the knee-jerk, manic reactions of Joe the Investor to every Fox Breaking News Alert, CNN News Alert, Dallas Morning News Alert, and WSJ Breaking News Alert. Right now, I have A Walk in the Woods on. Yes, at this point I view Keanu Reeves as being a beacon of light in a dark, foggy sea.

What’s that you say, the economy has been in a recession for nearly a year? SELL, SELL, SELL! Totally ignore any strengths or financial stability of the companies involved in the DJIA (of which you may not even own any shares)…and sell, sell, sell! This is great news for American brokers, who are taking all of the shares YOU sold yesterday…and selling them to intelligent institutional investors today at a discount, so we individual investors can see a spike in the DJIA. Yay! Oh, wait…

Really though, I shouldn’t be surprised by how The Markets have been reacting since September. Any armchair economist, Dr. Phil fan, or person with a brain understands the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Researchers have proven for several decades that if you tell children (or your boyfriend, or your wife) they’re dumb, or ugly, or not talented…eventually they’ll start believing it about themselves. Sure, once in a while you can pepper the negativity with a morsel of good news (You’re really good at coloring! You didn’t burn dinner last night! Gas is under $2.00 a gallon!)…but does anyone care? At that point, the bad news is the only news that counts. You hear it enough, you believe it…even if you know you have more promise, talent, and resiliency than you’re given credit for. It is a difficult belief system to overcome, once firmly in place.

I see no reason why this same concept can’t be applied to American investors. If every news media outlet in the United States (and honestly, this is happening abroad as well) insists on running tickers and crawlers maximizing the bad news and minimizing any possible ray of light…and we react as expected…is that helping us? No, it isn’t.

At one point this past summer, my 401k was valued at nearly $70,000. I’m not afraid to throw out actual numbers, since I’ve been contributing since I was 21. At last check, it was sitting right around $38,000. I do understand that max $70k number was never real money – my 401k isn’t “worth” anything unless I sell and actually realize (ideally) the gains. Am I concerned that the value of my 401k is $5,000 less than it was five years ago? You betcha. But, I’m a maverick. I went rogue and am not selling anything in my portfolio.

I have faith, because I look beyond the literally minute-by-minute reactions of the media and our government and focus on the long-term viability of the companies within the mutual funds I own. This doesn’t help the value of my 401k…again, that isn’t real money until I cash out…and I don’t plan on cashing out for a good 25 years, but I can feel better knowing I’m invested in good, solid companies with continuous potential for long-term growth. Believe me though, it has taken a lot of resistance to not bail out of the market with everyone else.

In the last six months or so, I really have begun to view going back to get my MBA as both a blessing and a cruel, cruel curse. While Joe the MBA Student (yes, I will beat that to death in this post) may not generally take his studies to the next level and immerse himself in the news of the day, I do. I’m just inquisitive like that…and I’m trying to squeeze every cent of additional value I can out of grad school. I’ve immersed myself with such gusto that ironically, I am to the point now where I’m not depressed about the economy, I’m depressed about how everyone else is reacting to it. That’s even worse for me…because I can’t do a damn thing about what other people choose to do or think.

Bear in mind…I’m not addressing the very real issues of auto industry bailouts, the subprime mortgage meltdown, the credit crunch, or sketchy financial institutions. Those are issues of individual industries, and individual companies within those industries which were already on the path to destruction. I worked for a sub-prime mortgage company…I get that.

I’m also not advocating that the media quit reporting the news. After all, that’s the media’s job. But, there is something to be said about scaling back the transparency…and redefining what is considered truly newsworthy. Back in the olden days, news distribution was limited. You had your radio and eventually, television. There were no 24-hour cable news channels with a heightened level of presence until the 80s, and then it was only CNN…for the most part. Information distribution via the Internet is a fairly recent phenomenon. I would wager to guess this recession is made worse and will be dragged out by the fact that we as individuals know everything that is going on…at the split second it happens. Our “news channels” have transformed themselves into “information channels” which now demand significantly more analysis on our part.

In my opinion, not everyone in America is savvy enough to know the best way to process and react to the information being given. Receive information, jerk knee. That’s what we do. We listen to those in perceived positions of authority and automatically assume they’re right, that they have all the answers. Clearly, history would tell you that isn’t necessarily the case.

Who knows, maybe we all just enjoy being miserable. After all, economic downturns are also perceived as the Great Equalizer. The “haves” suddenly have less, and that has to be a good thing…right? We’re finally knocking the wealthy down a peg…or nine! Granted that may be the case, but those folks now are opting not to have their houses cleaned, their lawns mowed, or their hair highlighted every three weeks. They aren’t eating out as much. They’re scaling back on music or dance lessons for their children, where applicable. They aren’t vacationing as much, or enjoying as many leisure activities. Do you know who suffers for that? The folks who work in those service industries. Suddenly the “have nots” have less, too. Funny how that works.

And that is why I’d rather watch festive holiday fare like The Departed.

Always End On an Upnote: I did scoop the Dallas Morning News …getting the word on senior discounts out yesterday before it did today. Nanny nanny boo boo.

These are tough times for America. Expenses are going up, investment values have plummeted, real income values are decreasing, and Knight Rider has yet to be cancelled. American retailers are hoping to boost both the sagging economy and their sagging corporate bottom lines by offering every possible sale, promotion, and purchasing scheme on Earth to get their hands into your wallets this holiday season.

But really, why should all the discounts come to a screeching halt December 24? Earn the discount you (or your loved ones) deserve year-around with the “Don’t Forget My Senior Discount” ball cap and/or visor. Envision the knowing smiles you (or your loved ones) will receive when asking the nice Best Buy salesperson in February for a discount on a 52″ LCD television, right before being told “No.” Imagine the chuckles of surprise you’ll hear when asking your pharmacist or primary care physician for a discount on your prescription meds and mammogram or prostate exam. You know, those aren’t experiences you can’t get with just any old hat.

Don’t have any old people to shop for this year? The “Don’t Forget My Senior Discount” ball cap and/or visor also makes a great gift for the high school or college senior in your life! Watch the cafeteria workers at your high school furrow their brows while you ask them for a discount. Wear the ball cap to your college registrar’s office and demand your tuition discount. Sport the sexy visor at the local watering hole, and see if you can get a discount on that Long Island Iced Tea.

There are no guarantees in life, which is why as a consumer you need to be vigilant and proactive in getting not only what you have earned…but deserve as a senior. Pick up your Senior Discount ball cap or visor today.

{begin finger snapping}

“When you’re a doorbuster, you’re a doorbuster all the way…from your first in-store deal to your half-off display…”

Think I’m kidding? It was downright dangerous out there yesterday, folks. Some poor WalMart employee died after being trampled by a bunch of Doorbusters. Shots were fired at a store in California between two men who were defending the honor of their doorbusting female companions.

Seriously people…WTF?

Fortunately, CU and I did not encounter anything quite that dramatic when we ventured out. But, we still found ourselves enveloped by the comforting warmth of bitchy salespeople (at 10 AM!), passive-aggressive holiday shoppers, and Macy’s patrons who should be permanently banned from using 15%-Off All Day Shopping Passes (excludes everything in the store) and/or “$10 Off Your $25 Purchase (excludes everything in the store)” coupons.

Our shopping goals yesterday were really quite elementary – I wanted to go to Michaels to pick up some yarn, and we needed to get CU a coat. That was it. We weren’t looking for a TV, a GPS system, or world peace.

We stopped first at Michaels and honestly, shopper volume was light.  We headed to the back corner to get the yarn, and got in a relatively short line. I handed the cashier my 25% Off Your Entire Purchase coupon, he scanned it and…well, the discount was only applied to one item. While he was ringing everything up, he was also bitching quite loudly to someone who was either a co-worker or his supervisor (really, you can’t tell anymore)…and then he started complaining to me. Like I give a crap about his bad day. I really don’t need to be burdened by the management issues this guy was having. I said to him, “It’s way too early to be that grumpy already.” He replied, “Who? Me or him?” “Both,” I said…sort of surprised that he thought there might be justification for a distinction. 

Back to the coupon, though. After questioning him about the final total and being admonished for even suggesting The System didn’t appropriately apply my discount, I looked at my receipt and sure enough – no discount. Now, this wouldn’t be a big deal if I was buying something for $1.99, but we’re talking about $60 worth of yarn. After I pushed a bit more, the cashier said – and I quote – “I don’t know anything about how the coupons work.” He then advised me to go over to Customer Service. Seriously? Short story long, we wound up having to return all ten skeins of yarn, process a refund, then run the purchase through again.

At Macy’s, we were 1-fer-3 on purchases…success being measured by not wanting to either stab ourselves or stab someone else.  We did manage to find CU a coat, and that line wasn’t bad.  It was long, but other than one father who was SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS TRYING TO GET HIS CHILD TO BE QUIET (irony much?), pretty uneventful.  One really nice lady was standing behind us and we talked to her for the 15 minutes we waited and joked about how we never wanted to be “that person” – you know, the one who either is so clueless once they get to the register or just a jerk in general that they don’t understand the impact of their actions.  Or, they understand them just fine and well…but don’t give a damn.

I didn’t fully appreciate the irony of that conversation until we ventured downstairs and I fell in love with a Fossil hat/gloves/scarf set.  Falling in love hasn’t set off such a disastrous chain of events since meeting the guy I dated before Capt. UberHusband.  Nevertheless, fall in love I did.  And I have to tell you…going to New York relieved me of my fear of hats. Plus, my hair now is more hat-friendly than it was a few years back…so the winter hat industry now has that going for it.  To add lust to love, we had two “$10 Off Your $25 Purchase” coupons. Feeling thrifty and fiscally randy, I left CU in one line with my scarf and I went to another register to pay for the hat and gloves. I figured that would take less time.

And then I encountered…the line straddler. You know this person. He/she is there with a shopping partner…and there are two lines. They divide and conquer, thinking that whoever winds up in the longer line can just hop out of his/her line and as such, save time.  CU and I do this once in awhile, but I would never dare to do it on Black Friday with thirty people tapping their feet and huffing and puffing around me. Scroll back up to the top, and you’ll find that you never know who might be carrying heat.

So this one woman was in front of me, and her husband in the other line immediately to our left. When it looked like his line was going to be moving faster, she got our of our line and stood with him. I quickly moved up. No way was she coming back over. Of course, as is law, her line immediately became the bottleneck with the customers in front of her trying to split their items into multiple purchases so they could use multiple coupons.

That was when she decided to start slowly moving back over into my line. My line. It was no longer her line. She gave up all rights to my line when she relinquished allegiance and defected to her husband’s line.  As such, she is no longer eligible for the benefits associated with my line. I was scanning through Google Reader on my iPhone and trying to look like I didn’t notice what she was doing, but I could see it out of the corner of my eye. When she started sliding in front of me and gave me a sideways glance I said, very loudly, “I’M SORRY, WHAT LINE ARE YOU IN?” She stammered that she was in the other line and then scooted back over. Heh. “OH, OKAY. I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT I WASN’T CUTTING IN FRONT OF YOU OR ANYTHING.” Heh. Imagine my exuberant glee when, after finishing my purchase, I saw her and her husband still in line…now behind someone opening up a Macy’s charge account. Heh.

Unfortunately, Capt. UberHusband wasn’t as lucky. After all of that time, when we met back up he was pretty much in the same position he was when I left. A family of four adults and one baby in front of him had a strollerful of clothes and were trying to check out in the accessories department. And, they had coupons. Lots and lots of coupons. I believe they split everything out into six or seven different transactions, and every time had to question the purchase and why the coupon wasn’t applicable to at least one item in that specific purchase. For one coupon, the guy had to use his Macy’s card…but he didn’t seem to understand that until the fourth or fifth time the saleslady (bless her heart) told him that he had to use his Macy’s card. He just kept scanning his MasterCard. Imagine this going on for thirty minutes. But at that point, you’re stuck. What are you going to do…get in another line?  The mom at one point moved her head back in our direction and said, “Sorry” but avoided direct eye contact.  Why do people do that…say they’re sorry when clearly, they aren’t?

But, we saved twenty bucks on my kick-ass cold weather accessories.  Now I just need it to get cold…and stay that way for more than a day.

First off, this is the only reason I would get up early and go to Rooms To Go (or anywhere, truthfully) tomorrow morning:

So, we’ve had a busy morning so far…perusing the Black Friday ads (tires are on sale…look out family and friends, guess what Santa’s bringing you!), trying to remember where the meat thermometer is, and deciding when it is socially acceptable to start drinking if it’s just the two of us. CU says 10 AM.

Before we mix up the inaugural chocolate peppermintinis however, I graciously present to you a list of what I am thankful for this year. Everyone’s thankful for their family (the ones they like) and friends (ditto), and I have to assume that if you have a job and like or want to keep said job, gratitude for that is universal. But, what about the little things? You know, those seemingly trivial people, places, or things which deserve some distinguished recognition? These are their stories.

A Roof Over My Head: Literally.

Wal-Act: This allergy medication…nay…miracle drug, is so special and so important that Walgreens keeps it behind the counter and I have to show them my driver’s license to get it. Between that and the $1,500 spent on allergy immunotherapy over the last two years, this past ragweed allergy season was was the least traumatic for me…ever. I think that’s worth a bit of gratitude.

The Pharmaceutical Industry: We live in a remarkable world when research, testing, and old-fashioned ingenuity can formulate drugs that manage both my grandpa’s Alzheimer’s and Cookie’s heart failure. Oh, and my disturbingly violent ragweed allergy.

Gossip Girl: This show has single-handedly renewed my faith in teenagers, with their apparently trademark martini-drinking, Bendel’s-shopping, headband-wearing manners. It also filled the void in my heart left by the cancellation of The O.C. XOXO.

Pantene Conditioner: Seriously. It’s the only conditioner which can keep my long, flowy locks from becoming a nasty, knotted bird’s nest.

Malcolm Gladwell: It sounds trite, but Blink changed my life. I’ve been thin-slicing for years, and have been right about my judgments 99.9% of the time…I just wasn’t confident in them. Now I am.

My Magic 8-Ball: I’ve consulted it for 21 years now, posing questions about life’s biggest mysteries and decisions including, “Should I break up with my boyfriend?”, “Is Cookie going to be OK after her eye surgery?”, and “Should we just elope instead of having an actual wedding?” Surprisingly, the responses are generally pretty spot-on.

President George W. Bush: I am grateful to Dubya for inspiring me to name former The Amazing Race contestants like PODubya, and for sending Capt. UberHusband to Iraq. Wait, hear me out. If CU had never gone to Iraq, I wouldn’t be able to hug him every holiday and tell him how happy I am to have him at home.

My Last Four…Wait, Make That Five Jobs: You know that saying, “Everything happens for a reason?” I’ve been saying it for ten years…and am finally starting to believe it.

Have a fantastic holiday, everyone!

So. We’re back home and can I just say, it’s downright HOT here in Dallas compared to that sub-zero BS up in New York this week.

My prediction that taking in a Wednesday afternoon matinee of Speed the Plow was, indeed, far too ambitious…came to fruition at about 11:30 that morning when I realized there was no way I was going to get all the other things done I wanted to do…like go to Serendipity and Bloomingdales. Those were the priorities. Mmmm…Bloomingdales. I remember before I moved to Dallas, people would tell me that Dallas has “the most amazing shopping.” Now, I suppose back in the day when I wasn’t particularly well-traveled and my high-end shopping experiences were pretty limited this would be true but now I’d like to amend that statement and add, “…unless you’ve been to Chicago or New York City.” Of course, I didn’t buy anything…but that doesn’t mean I can’t browse through Agent Provocateur or stop in front of Manolo Blahnik and say, “Hello, lover.”

We managed to snag an earlier flight back yesterday, and the biggest benefit to that was picking up Poodle and Schnoozer last night rather than this morning. One of the funniest things about our current kennel is half the people who work there have worked at other places we’d previously patronized…so they all know the deal with Cookie. Allegedly, Cookie and Daisy are Paw Beach Resort’s “favorite clients” (yeah, I bet you say that to all the owners…) and then everyone marvels at how well Cookie gets around. I suppose I’m used to it, because she’s been blind for 11 out of the 12 years I’ve had her…but I imagine even the most simple-minded of human folk would be able to sniff their way to a food bowl after that amount of time. Anyhoo…we also got a compliment that Daisy was well-behaved. Guess the UPS guy didn’t make a trip to the kennel this week.

But, we’re home now and it’s back to the business of Normal Life and the usual Capt. UberHusband/Snarkwife activities of watching TV and…well, that’s about it. Speaking of TV…HOLY CRAP did ya’ll see Survivor last night? Best tribal council ever. We recorded it last night, and I watched it about half a dozen extra times this morning. Some folks just really need to have their asses served to them on an empty cookie platter, you know?

Good morning!  I have to make this quick since Capt. UberHusband has to take his laptop with him today which will render me…well, laptopless. A significantly more descriptive post of all the glory that is Stephen Colbert will follow in the next couple of days. We watched the show online this morning and sure enough, you can see us as Colbert is running to the other side of the studio for his interview with special guest Paul Simon. I’m in the white sweater, jumping up and down like a dork and CU is next to me, somewhat more controlled.

In a nutshell…The Colbert Show taping was AWESOME. I hate the word “awesome” because it is so woefully overused for people, places, and events which frankly aren’t really all that awesome. But the word is 100% appropriate for our experience last night. Now, after standing outside for two hours in sub-freezing temperatures I wasn’t yelling “AWESOME!” but once we made it into the studio and my toes started to thaw…yeah, “awesome” does the trick.

Stephen Colbert fielded a question from me during the pre-show meet ‘n greet. He is as perfect and dreamy in real life as he is on the show. At one point, Paul Simon walked about a foot in front of me. A foot. Speaking of feet, he’s shorter in real life. Once the taping completed, the studio audience was treated to a duet between the two of “Sounds of Silence.” Very cool. I told CU about a dozen times how fortunate we were that we had an amazing guest on the show and not some unknown yahoo who just released a book but has no sense of humor. Those guests are the worst.

Anyhoo, CU is commandeering the laptop so I will sign off for now. On today’s agenda…hopefully…Bloomingdale’s, Bendel’s, Serendipity, and…if I can swing it, perhaps a discounted matinee to Speed the Plow. I’m always so ambitious first thing in the morning. We’ll see what I can actually swing.

“It’s great to meet you too, Bobby Flay. And, I am honored and humbled by your request for a spaghetti sauce throwdown.”

I mentally rehearsed that line in my head all yesterday afternoon, just in case I happened to meet B-Flay himself last night at dinner.  Alas, we had to make do with a waiter who kind of looked like him.  Dinner was awesome. We practically shut the place down…it was nearly empty when we poured ourselves out around 10:45 PM.  If you can believe it, we didn’t get a single picture. But I swear, we did eat there.

So, New York has officially attained Most Favored City status for me.  As a matter of fact, it is so wonderful that I’ve spent all morning in my hotel room because the last two days have literally kicked my ass, to the point where I will likely need another week to recover once we get back to Dallas.

Having said that…what else did we do yesterday?

After I finished up yesterday’s blog post, I began my Grand Walking Tour.  I took 54th over to Sixth, then walked down to 49th so I could take in the wonder of Rockefeller Center and Rockefeller Plaza.  The tree’s up and everything. From what I understand, they’re putting the star on today…so hopefully I’ll get to see that when I head back over early this afternoon.  Plus, I saw a fantastic-looking wine shop I wanted to poke around in a bit.

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That’s What She Said, That’s What She Said, That’s What She Said!

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

Alternate title: We’ve seen everything good. We’ve seen the whole city! We went to a museum, we saw priceless works of art! We ate pancreas!

Capt. UberHusband is off to his conference team rah-rah meeting, so I have been left to my own devices for a few hours. First item on my agenda? Starbucks, of course. Sorry, Dunkin Donuts…I don’t really run on you. Maybe tomorrow I’ll walk out of the hotel, turn left instead of right and go visit Dunkin Donuts. We’ll see.

Anyhoo, holy schmoley…what a day we had yesterday. Being Sunday things got going a little later, but that gave us some time to hang out in the room, admire the view, and watch Open House NY. Fun show…made us feel very poor, not to mention shabbily dressed. Although the homes they featured were indeed beautiful…I did get rather queasy seeing homes about the size of ours selling for eight times as much. {gulp}

After that, we headed over to the Museum of Modern Art to view aforementioned priceless works of art. We also took the obligatory photo in front of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans, observed the rather distressing works of Jackson Pollock, and admired more modernly provocative art…like a gray flannel suit hanging on a wall. Yeah.

After getting our fill of culture for the day, we headed up to Central Park and walked around for a bit. Me being me, I kept looking for a dead body. Sorry…like I keep saying…I watch a lot of Law & Order and again, it’s also generally some unsuspecting Boy Scout in pursuit of his Urban Mountaineering badge who stumbles across a naked woman buried beneath some leaves. But alas, there was to be nothing like that for us. Good thing, because it probably would have spooked the throngs of other walkers and ice skaters. Then again, maybe not. Manhattanites, you know.

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Well, we’ve made it into Manhattan. I’ve always had a fear of New York City – rational or not – and I blame the Law & Order television franchise for that. After all, it always seemed like at least once a season some tourist newbie would be marvelling at all the city has to offer…and the next thing you knew, they were mowed down in the middle of the street by a “late model blue car”. Plus, Carrie Bradshaw was mugged for her Manolos, if I do recall.

But come on…I’m a grown-up now and it’s time to don my big girl panties and brave the Big Apple, right?

Originally we had reservations at the Waldorf Astoria but a couple of days ago, CU switched us to The London. On the way into the city, we hear over the radio in the car that there was a shooting at the Waldorf Astoria. Really? Dodged that bullet, literally.

So now we’re waiting for the storm to pass (and boy, the folks around here get all twitchy with their tornado watches…amateurs) and then we’ll venture out for dinner. Once we figure out where to go.

Like the new digs? I need to email the designer as to why the widgets in the sidebar aren’t displaying quite right (i.e., below all of that non-widgety nonsense I don’t want), so yes…I know it looks a little odd. Hopefully that will be worked out quickly!

Capt. UberHusband and I are off to the home of non-Pace picante sauce, so he can participate in a conference and I can wander around asking people if they know where Chuck, Blair, and Serena hang out. I was also going to head over to Rockefeller Center and shock Today show anchors by pulling up my shirt. I was even thinking of rigging up a sign and taking it with me on Tuesday…maybe something that says, “Today’s my 37th birthday and my husband ditched me! HI MOM.”

Anyhoo, once we’re back from the Big Apple and I have nearly a full three weeks of rejuvenation under my belt…it might be time to get back to blogging. For real. After all, there’s really only so much puppy cam, The Waltons, and Little House on the Prairie that I can realistically be expected to watch.

But, now I must go get in the shower and break the news to Cookie and Daisy that they’re going to doggie jail for a week. That should be fun.

I just noticed the text displays differently in Firefox than it does in IE or Safari…it’s bold, and not nearly as pretty.  For me, anyway.  Anyone else notice that?

Scorpio (10/23-11/21)

You should spend at least some of your day today trying to stimulate your mind with innovative ideas or new philosophical concepts. You might get confused and even a little bit frustrated, but you will also learn a lot — and that is what is important. That is what creates new paths for you to pursue in your life. Stop by a modern art museum, go to an arty foreign film, or just listen to a radio station you’ve never heard before. Be open to new ideas — it’s the best way to improve yourself.

I watched The Jerk today…for the first time. Does that count?

So, Capt. UberHusband and I went and voted this morning. We spent ten minutes walking to our local elementary school/polling location (beautiful, sunny day here…by the by), and exactly zero seconds in line. I swear, it took longer for me to brush my teeth this morning than it did to vote. I kind of feel bad for those early voters here in Texas who stood in line for an hour last week, figuring lines would be six hours long today. Oh well.

Like the sign? Our next-door neighbor was womanning the Democractic Party table outside the school and her blood definitely runs blue, not that there’s anything wrong with that. What I did find funny though, was her saying she’d been called a “nemesis” already this morning…and then following it up with a snide comment about being surprised the naysayer was able to come up with a word that big. If someone says something snarky to you and you say something snarky about that person, doesn’t one pretty much cancel the other out? Anyhoo, she gave us a “gift” for voting and I immediately came home, modified it, took a picture with it, then stuck it in our yard. Go me.

And remember, whatever the outcome…keep it together and don’t be an ass tomorrow. After all, none of us knows what the next four years could bring. I went and dug through the 2004 Snarkives and found my post from the last presidential election. It’s slightly unsettling to see how we thought we might actually be moving to Seattle. It’s even more unsettling to see we theoretically could have been moving back here from Seattle about now…well, had CU not unexpectedly been deployed to Iraq. Like I said, you never know.

With that, I’m off to get my free coffee at Starbucks, and then I think I’ll do some schoolwork. On tap for later on…guacamole and champagne. Hey, any excuse to bring out the bubbly.

As a side note, if you live in Collin County…don’t vote for Kenneth Maun for tax assessor. I mean…seriously, if you want change…change the name of the person you have to make your car registration payment check out to every year. 10 iterations are enough for me, thank you very much.

This week in Consumer Behavior we discussed customer privacy, and whether or not we feel privacy policies go too far or not far enough (both from a consumer’s and manager’s perspective).  Rather than paraphrase, I’ll just copy and paste a snippet of my response:

I’ve always found the battleground topic of customer privacy to be very interesting, because in my experience…people are generally inconsistent with their beliefs. Consumers demand that their personal information submitted online to retailers not be shared with third-party vendors (to avoid the dreaded flood of email spam), yet these same individuals are completely willing to share all but the most intimate of details online via blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or a host of other social networking sites.

I’ve sat next to people in doctor’s offices who hand out their credit card numbers over their cell phone, completely oblivious to the fact that people might be listening in. People who live in my neighborhood proudly display signs in their front yard indicating Caitlyn and Austin are in cheerleading or football at the local high school, probably not even considering how easy it would be to find out the last name of the home’s owner and do who-knows-what.

With that, I started thinking about Facebook pages and how I know what my “friends” are interested in – to a startling degree in some cases.  Privacy doesn’t really come into play when you’re talking about television shows you like, or brands of soda you enjoy.  Unless you’re weird.

But, while we’re so openly sharing…wouldn’t it be great if you knew what your Best Facebook Friends Forever were truly fans of? I mean, sure I’m a fan of red wine, and Freebirds, and How I Met Your Mother…but wouldn’t you rather read “Snarkwife is a fan of ending sentences with prepositions” in your live feed?

How about…

• Jane Doe is a fan of unemployment.
• John Doe is a fan of passive-aggressive behavior.
• Judy Doe is a fan of parking so crookedly in parking spots that others can’t park in the adjacent spots.
• Jim Doe is a fan of calling in sick to work on Fridays and/or Mondays.
• Jane Doe is a fan of pouring the last cup of coffee at work, and not making a new pot.

And so on, and so forth. I mean really, the options are limitless.

Rumors of His Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Jeffrey Dean Morgan AKA Grey’s Anatomy’s Denny Duquette, will be back at Seattle Grace just in time for November sweeps. Told you…they’re stuck in a loop. In a loop. In a loop. Not only are they stuck in a loop, but like me they apparently have a soft spot for Season Two. Cue Snow Patrol and Addison’s salmon scrubs.

Is It Too Late To Get a Winfrey/Kindle ‘08 Sign For My Yard? Oprah Winfrey has declared the Amazon Kindle her “new favorite thing in the world.” In response, crazy McCain supporter Ashley Todd commented, “No! I meant the B was for Barnes & Noble!”

Hey Gaydyyyyyyyyy! Jerry Lewis is making all kinds of friends in Australia by implying cricket is a game for the allegedly limp of wrist. Want to know why he’s down under? He’s promoting his latest stage show, which is “a retrospective of his career that includes show tunes with a 24-piece band.” You read that right. Stage show. Show tunes. 24-piece band. I’d mention something about pot and a kettle and the word black, but I don’t need Australia’s Network Ten people distributing this blog post worldwide.

Okilie Dokilie: Ned Flanders from The Simpsons is alive and well, living in Ennis, TX and admonishing Wal-Mart for selling a “naughty nun” Halloween costume. What else could they do? All of the “naughty Ned Flanders” costumes sold out a week ago. Hey, you all remember that episode.

Good morning! So, here’s a little good news/bad news for your Friday:

Iraqis take over security duties in Babel

The good news? The Iraqis are taking over security duties in Babel. Capt. UberHusband spent a good chunk of his time in Iraq in this very area, and completely understands the significance of this event.

The bad news? The Dallas Morning News buried this story somewhere towards the back of the first section of today’s paper, in a tiny 1/2-column news blip. Because of that, most people probably skimmed right past it. To be fair, I generally skim past the stories of security in Iraq being turned over to the Iraqis…but that’s because I know it’s going on. On this particular day though, it was personal.

The really bad news? There are still so many people out there saying we’re not getting anywhere in Iraq. Really? Not getting anywhere?

You know, this isn’t an issue of supporting the war versus not supporting it. This is an issue of how facts get lost within partisan rhetoric, and how anything positive which might come out of all of this can conveniently be swept under the rug by the media or really, anyone else who decides that progress or some semblance of positive news is counter-productive to his/her agenda.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Judy McGuire over at The Frisky has listed the four types of TV guys to avoid and while the list is pretty spot-on (Chuck Bass, Don Draper), I think the list is rather obvious…and woefully incomplete. Sure, ladies should avoid the guys with sex and alcohol addictions…and in general women should steer clear of 17-year old boys. What about the types that fly a little more under the radar, though? Where’s the lack of love for them?

Alan Harper (Two and a Half Men): Forget the chronically drunk, virus-hosting Charlie Harper, it’s his brother I think women need to worry about more. He’s marginally unemployed, and is still pussy-whipped by his ex even though the alimony has stopped. He also has far too many matching pajama-and-robe sets.

Roman Grant (Big Love): Roman tends to traffic more in quantity and not necessarily quality. Plus, he has way too many family obligations to ever make you feel like you’re #1…or #32, for that matter.

Ryan Howard (The Office): From temp to Corporate to receptionist in just a few short years. While I admire his Behind the Music-esque rise to stardom and subsequent attempt to rebuild after shamelessly falling from grace, he still hasn’t fully processed 9/11. Besides, he prefers women who look like Survivor contestants.

Elliot Stabler (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit): In love with a colleague for the past ten years. Enough said. Give it up…you’ll never be able to compete with his Workplace Wife. Just ask his actual wife.

Alan Shore (Boston Legal): I never thought I’d say this about a man, but Alan is in love with being in love. He’s not what I would consider old, yet he has deeply fallen in love with…and shared a rather special connection with…literally half of the female attorneys in Boston. And all Andrews Sisters jokes aside, he holds too big of a torch (that’s what she said?) for Denny. See “Elliot Stabler” above.

Who knew?

Last night, I pitched an idea to Capt. UberHusband which would surely make us the Internet sensation of the year. Hell, we could even wind up on The Soup!

The concept? He and I would do our own interpretations of the weekly dances on Dancing With the Stars, and put ‘em on the web. After watching Susan Lucci “do the Hustle” like one of those 4-inch tall plastic music box ballerinas, and Cloris Leachman “do the Salsa” like a samba (Corky! Quit grabbing her ass and boobs!), I realized CU and I couldn’t do much worse. We practiced a few “moves”, and then I remembered why we don’t dance.

When CU and I were engaged we got it into our oogly, googly heads (“Aw shucks, ain’t being engaged grand?“) that we should learn how to “dance” for the “first dance” at our wedding reception. None of that “And I’m climbing the staiiiiiiirwayyyyyy…to Heavennnnn” swaying back and forth nonsense, no sirree bob. We were going to really dance, the high-falootin’ kind of dancing where you count in your head instead of look at your partner.

So, we signed up for lessons. What a disaster. The instructor got frustrated that I wouldn’t let CU lead, and I got frustrated because CU wasn’t leading. What’s a girl to do? I can tell you what we didn’t do – we didn’t go back. Now that I think about it, our instructor might have been a young (and male) Cheryl Burke. After all, we were just lazy…and not trying. Why should he invest any time in us if we clearly weren’t there for the right reasons and had no interest in taking home the disco ball trophy? I mean, really now!

After a few minutes I realized there was no way CU and I could be as entertaining as Julianne & Cody or Kym & Warren, so I poured another glass of wine and watched Bruno tell Lacey she needed to pound Lance more. Really, Bruno?

I’m a big fan of cross-referencing TV shows. Some are just made to be compared, although you don’t quite realize it until you watch one right after the other.

I am speaking of course, about The Amazing Race and Mad Men. Just think how awesome it would be if the folks from MM decided to go on vaycay with Phil Keoghan, work on their personal issues, and pursue a cool million in the process?

Here are the teams:

Don & Betty Draper: Married parents from Ossining, NY. Married nearly a decade, the Drapers have what appears to be a picture perfect life. However, their marriage is crumbling under the weight of infidelity, Heineken, red wine, the horsey set, and distressingly plaid capri pants. Don & Betty view TAR as their last chance to save their marriage, or at the very least another excuse to further exempt themselves from parenting their two kids.

Dick Whitman & Annie Draper: Friends, sort-of spouses, and holiday companions from San Pedro and…I have no idea where Dick Whitman is from originally. In a first for The Amazing Race, one man will participate on two teams simultaneously. How DickDon tackles the sensitive nature of his multiple teams’ dynamics is sure to be an inspiration to other men afflicted by dual lifestyles.

Peggy Olsen & Father Gill: Catholics from Brooklyn. Unfortunately, Peggy is in for a bit of a shock, as she thought she was being escorted by Father Gill to pitch another Young Person’s Dance to her church’s auxiliary guild. Instead, she found herself surrounded by large backpacks, a priest, and Phil Keoghan. Oh, and her babydaddy…Pete.

Pete & Trudy Campbell: Newlyweds, from New York City. As is de rigeur for each season of TAR, one woman’s biological clock has to tick out of control. At press time, Trudy’s father and Pete were arm-wrestling to determine who would get to go on any Travelocity Roaming Gnome “You are TEAM NUMBER ONE!” trips with Trudy. Special consideration has been made to avoid traveling to countries where Trudy could secretly adopt a child and bring it home with her. Keep an eye on her…especially for challenges which do not specifically call for a Roaming Gnome.

Joan Holloway & Roger Sterling – Man about town and woman about town from Manhattan. After Joan dumps her domineering ass of a fiance and Roger dumps his 20-year old whatchamacallit, they realize the next logical step in their relationship is to “take it to the next level” by appearing on a reality television show. Be on the lookout for Joan’s “ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY BOOBS?” t-shirts and “ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY ASS?” shorts.

Ken Cosgrove & Salvatore Romano: “Co-workers” from New York City. Chip & Reichen, or Oswald & Danny? You make the call.

I’ll pretend she tagged me…

Seven random things about me:

• I once was chasing a boy around the blacktop playground, fell and ripped all the skin off the palm of my right hand. I can’t help but think if that happened today, parents would band together for the immediate removal of said blacktop in favor of a softer, more boy chasing-friendly surface…like grass. Or cotton candy.
• I failed my driver’s test the first time around. Drove too fast in a residential area. In my defense, I lived in the sticks…where the speed limit in our “residential” area was 40 MPH.
• I’ve never really enjoyed living in Texas…or at least, the two cities I’ve lived in here.
• I have no arches in my feet. The world may be flattening, but it hasn’t yet caught up to my feet.
• I’ve worked for seven companies in my adult life.
• I love Target’s boxed wine. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.
• I’ve been contributing to a retirement account since I got my first full-time job at 21. As of last week, the value is about the same as it was when I was 21.

Doing My Part to Recycle When Possible

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

So, today I quit my job. I’ve never been the type to bitch and moan on my blog because truly, it’s unprofessional…and you never know who out in the virtual world will read your rants and take swift and punitive action. I wasn’t about to be stupid and do anything to jeopardize my job.

But, my close friends and family knew the deal. And quite honestly, I hated the person I had become over the past two years. That’s no way to live, and it’s no way for Capt. UberHusband to live.

Having said that…YAY! I QUIT MY JOB!

There is something rather unnerving about quitting your job when you work at home. Believe it or not, it’s actually easier to do it in person. You know when your boss is in his/her office and when you can deliver your resignation. My boss wasn’t at his desk the first time I called him, which totally took the wind out of my sails.

On the upside…I don’t have co-workers coming into my cube and asking me all those questions that really make you feel like taking the rest of the day off. On the downside, thanks to the wonder of technology my entire team knew I was leaving in about ninety seconds.

Anyhoo, that is over and done.

On that note, here are the FAQs:

Do you have another fantabulous job waiting in the wings? Nope.

What are going to do? I don’t know. Finish school. Maybe get back to writing because at one point, I think was pretty damn good at it. Stop and smell the roses.

What about money? We’re fine.

Didn’t you just re-do the home office? Yes, we did. But, we also designed it around my still being in school…and how wonderful and functional it would still be even if we both worked outside the home.

What did your boss say? He said he wasn’t surprised, and that he figured it was coming.

When’s your last day? October 31st.

Come on, be honest. Why are you leaving? Because I want to pursue other opportunities. And that’s the line I’m sticking with.

For the first time in my life, I have absolutely no plan. Of course I have school but other than that, I’m winging it. Looking forward to the journey.

I’ll be back. Promise.

Anyone out there? If you’re dying to hear my mini-posts in the meantime, come visit me at Twitter.

Back in college, I was suckered in by one of those “Make $9/hour working for the UCSB Alumni Fund!” flyers.  It was your standard telemarketing job…call college alumni and ask for money to fund all sorts of capital improvement projects like building new engineering buildings and updating the Clinique counters in the UCen.

What I didn’t know when I started was that the newbies – until they proved their sales acumen – got to call the most resistant group of potential donors…the parents of brand-new freshmen.  Of course I had a script, and I called parents in the evening saying all sorts of annoying things to develop rapport (“I’m a chemistry major, too!” “I’m a history major, too!“  “I live in Francisco Torres, too!“), because I knew everything about their kid from the index card in front of me.  I mean, these were tactics straight out of Influence.

One of my favorite memories of my one day on the job revolved around calling a family with a Hispanic surname in central California, only to find out none of them spoke English.  All I could think of was that this family was probably already sacrificing enough to send one of their children to college, who in the Hell did I think I was…asking them to give even more?  I think Mom said something similar in Spanish.

That same night, I called another family and asked to speak to the presumed father, because his name was on my handy dandy index card.  I was told he had died.  Ugh.  That was the nail in the coffin.  Sorry.  I didn’t go back the next day.  Telemarketing was not my thing.  I found I was much better suited to making money in college by sitting in an inocuous bank office, performing an inocuous bank job, making an inocuous bank wage.

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Oh, sorry. Wrong blog.

So…what’s up with all of you? Forgive me readers, for I have sinned…it’s been, well, a while since I last blogged. Truth be told, I’ve been contemplating a post for several days but just haven’t had the wherewithall to put finger to keyboard.

Nevertheless…here’s what has been going on with me…

Vacation – Oh my, we had the best time. I did have school to contend with but all in all, it wasn’t too much of a distraction. We ate, drank, swam, snorkled, and generally had a fantastic time. It’s always so hard “returning to reality” though. Next year, school won’t be an issue. I love saying that – this time next year, I’ll be done with school. I do have to say, the jet lag’s worse coming back versus going out. For me, anyway. It’s far easier to force yourself to stay awake than go to sleep. I think we were on Hawaii time by the third night, and I’m still struggling to get fully back on Texas time after nearly a week back. Fortunately, we’re headed to NYC in November…otherwise I’d probably be more depressed that vacation is over.

School – Midterms are next week. Next week. Already. I think I’ve taken for granted the last few weeks, as they’ve been relatively stress-free. What I have to keep in mind is that I have four marketing projects still to do, and one for my global business class. They’re not huge…but they’re sizeable. Global Business has been a great class, as basically it’s a study of the free market system and…well, I won’t get into the specifics of it. But, I look at a lot of things differently now – from a pragmatic standpoint rather than an emotional one.

Capt. UberHusband – He’s headed back to his old company. New job wasn’t quite what he’d envisioned. Between you, me, and the blogosphere…I’m glad he’s leaving. Still, it has been fun having him working from home for the past couple of months. Looks like he’ll still be able to do that once in awhile, so that’s good.

Television – Wooooo…premiere week next week! Forget all the shows premiering though, what about all the ones that are winding down? Weeds! Nancy’s pregnant with the lovechild of a Mexican mafioso, er, mayor! Army Wives! Claudia Joy, I know you’ve got strong knees, nail your would-be rapist where it counts! The Closer! Nooo! Sanchez can’t die! Both CU and I are excited Entourage is back, although the amount of airtime being given to E’s new clients is already starting to wear thin. And, I can’t help it…I drank the Gossip Girl kool-aid. Then, I gave it to Capt. UberHusband and told him to just take a sip…that it wouldn’t hurt him. If he didn’t like it, he’d never have to get near it again. Heh.

Doggies – They’re getting older and grumpier by the week. As am I.

I’m trying to decide if I should even bother trying to recap The Amazing Race this season, or if the novelty of that wore off for me and everyone else three years ago.

My LifeStream is starting to look like my actual life…where I seem to just do the same things, over and over.

I’ve submitted a support ticket to the guy who developed the LifeStream plugin I’m using. Ah, if only I could do the same for my life.

UPDATE: Looks like the most recent plugin update seems to have solved the LifeStream issue. Now I just need to post 47 other things to clear out the backlog.

And son of a gun, here we are.

CU and I were talking yesterday, about how this time last year we were sort of in a rushed frenzy. You see, we seem to be in this routine now of going on vacation after Labor Day; more specifically, two days after Labor Day. It really is fantastic to have a three day weekend and then just a couple days of work before heading to…wherever. For us, it has been Hawaii.

This time last year though, things were rather chaotic. Work was in a state of…transition, shall we say…and entirely out of control. I had just started my second semester back into my MBA program and was still experiencing growing pains with that, as well. Now though…work is still work, but school is an entirely different matter. I am not on a single group project this semester, and have already completed all of this week’s required work for both of my classes. It’s amazing how quickly I can power through this school thing when I set my mind to it instead of, oh, procrastinating.

Anyway, things around here don’t seem frenzied at all. Is it possible that I might actually experience the relaxed vacation I’ve been building up in my head for the last six months? Is it possible that once the work day ends tomorrow, I might actually…wind down?

You never know when your horoscope will say something along the lines of, “Quit your job, as you will be offered your dream position tomorrow…guaranteed” or, “Buy a lottery ticket today and you will be $386 million dollars richer this time tomorrow…guaranteed.” This is why I read my horoscope every day…because you just never know.

Do I ever get that level of feedback? Oh no, here’s a sample of what my horoscope generally looks like:

You’re incredibly lucky now, if you don’t lend money to friends. You probably stopped doing that many years ago. If not, stop now.

Of course, we all know that horoscopes…much like fortune cookies…aren’t really designed to help you map out your day. Instead, they tell you things you already know such as, “Fortune cookie say eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner means you will eat in the morning, afternoon, and evening.” That sort of thing. So I’m thinking, in the same vein as today’s horoscope, what sort of wisdom could I share with you which really, you already know?

• You’re incredibly lucky now, if you don’t drink bleach out of Hard Rock Cafe shot glasses. You probably stopped doing that many years ago. If not, stop now.
• You’re incredibly lucky now, if you don’t carry a Samurai sword into an elementary school cafeteria during lunch on a Tuesday. You probably stopped doing that many years ago. If not, stop now.
• You’re incredibly lucky now, if you don’t cut your own hair with a weed eater. You probably stopped doing that many years ago. If not, stop now.
• You’re incredibly lucky now, if you don’t continue to cry over the breakup of Yang and Burke on Grey’s Anatomy. You probably stopped doing that many years ago. If not, stop now.

I mean really now, the possibilities are endless. Go on, give it a shot in the comments.

CU and I went to see Tropic Thunder yesterday. Oh my God…so funny. I knew it was going to be great, but I had no idea just how funny it would end up being. The entire audience was laughing hysterically the whole time, and I even had a wadded-up napkin which was nearly soaked from drying my tear-soaked eyes. I did come to the realization though, that if we were to take every movie studio head and every entertainment agent and just ship ‘em over to Iraq, we’d be done with that whole business in quick form.

Robert Downey, Jr. – awesome…and I don’t throw that word around lightly. Tom Cruise…well, he’s damn funny. And yeah, his scenes are pretty filthy but if you’ve ever seen Entourage, it isn’t too far from how I suspect Ari Gold would behave if he were in charge of a studio.

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Some things just beg to be blogged. From the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit:

frustrated: The state of being pissed off, and doing everything within one’s power not to leap across the table and throttle the human source of frustration; when used by a boss describing himself or herself to a subordinate, may mean “Are you a complete and total moron or just aggressively insolent? We’ve talked about this seven times.”

Once of my coworkers said, “I’d heard frustration defined as ‘controlling the urge to strangle the life out of someone who desperately deserves it.’ Fewer fluffy words.” To which I replied, “By the sheer definition of corporate bullshit, it must be longwinded and lacking in brevity.”

I couldn’t believe I’d pulled a big word like “brevity” out of my hat. Must be getting close to the beginning of the next semester. It’s around now that I start using words with more than one syllable.

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It’s a busy morning here at Casa de Snark. We have Professional Painters coming in today to paint all of our interior doors and trim, the ceiling, and the accent wall we painted blue right before we moved in. They’re old (the doors) and starting to discolor…and the Amateur Painters who actually live here (ahem) are too lazy to paint all seventeen of them. We have more important things to do…like design the new Snarkwife/Capt. UberHusband dual home office. Oh yeah. That’s so much fun it gave me a headache and what I thought were the beginnings of flu symptoms yesterday. But hey, it’s cheaper than the projects we keep putting off…like renovating the bathrooms.

It’s strange…I don’t think we’ve had this many people in our house since our housewarming party. Seven years ago. Obviously we don’t entertain much. Son of a gun…we’ve lived here for seven years. Well technically, our mortgage began seven years ago last week. We didn’t move in until a couple of weeks later, though. Have I ever told you that story? Oh, it’s a doozy.

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This past weekend was really weird. I had my SIE initiation on Saturday night and fortunately, waterboarding was not in the program. Apparently, it wasn’t that kind of initiation. Instead, we had a buffet and mid-priced wine…and I got to meet my arch-nemesis from my online Applied Research Methods class. This guy drove me insane. I always manage to find the second-smartest person in the class (behind me, of course) and fixate on him for twelve weeks. I say “him” because generally, it has been a guy. For someone who considers herself to not be terribly competitive, I seem to be…terribly competitive. Anyway, Arch-Nemesis and I had a good time bagging on the professor and our insane workload in the class.

Where was I going with this?
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During my RSS travels yesterday…I came upon this article, which linked to this article about the 21-day complaint free marriage experiment, which linked to the official A Complaint Free World website.

Finding these posts reminded me of my own personal journey towards complaining less. Funny, I know.  Two months after ordering my bracelet…having not yet received it, I sent an email to the fine folks at A Complaint Free World Dot Org and inquired as to my order.  I received a polite response back that, due to the mention on Oprah, the little mom-and-pop grassroots effort was so totally overwhelmed by requests that they were running about two months behind on fulfillment.  If I didn’t get my bracelet in a couple more months, I should contact them.

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Oh my goodness, Capt. UberHusband and I had the best weekend.  Spent a lot of time at the pool, ran up exhorbitant bar/food bills at said pool…and we slept in.  Well, we didn’t really sleep in…but we were able to wake up without being forced out of bed by the dogs to tend to their increasingly growing needs.  That was nice. Sometimes it’s nice to send the dogs to doggie camp.  Don’t tell Cookie I said that, though.

Tragically however, all good things must come to an end…and I had to go back to work this morning.  What a downer.  I mean, seriously.  I’ll just leave it at that.

This was one of those days when I stop at random intervals and say, “Is there a full moon tonight?  Everyone is acting so completely insane.”  It was so completely insane of a day, that the high point was successfully creating a new Twitter avatar.  That’s setting sights pretty low, folks.  I shouldn’t find this surprising, though.  Things like this seem to happen between semesters for me.  It’s like as soon as one high-stress part of my life goes on hiatus…fifteen more are in the wings ready and waiting for their close-ups.

Here’s an insanity example, though…one that won’t get me into trouble with anyone.  Last week, I called the guy we’re renting our villa from in September.  I gave him our credit card number so he could finish billing the charge, and our address so he could mail us the keys.  Then I emailed him the address, too.  He called on Thursday and left a voice mail confirming he had all our info, and we were paid in full and ready to go.  Mahalo.

At about 4:30 this afternoon while I was on the phone with CU, Villa Guy called and left a message asking me to call him back.  I did…about twenty minutes later.  Keep this in mind.  Twenty minutes later.  When he answers, I tell him who I am, and that I’m returning his call.  He says, “Ah, yes.  Give me a minute to remember why I called you.” Twenty. Minutes.

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Sometimes, the actions of people completely baffle me. Now, I expect a certain level of stupidity and moronicity (like that?) out of the Average Person, me included; but, oh my God, have I got a whopper of a story. And this time, it wasn’t What Would Snarkwife Do? It was, What Did Stacy Actually Do?

Ya’ll know I’m a stickler for service. I praise the good, but I will also let the complaints flow if I’ve received lousy service. I’m particularly astute to the art of customer service management since I finished my services marketing class…two hours ago. Heh.

So. I needed a pedicure. The last one I got was about a month ago, and with everything…well, that just fell off the list of Things To Do. I’ve been going to the same place down in Plano for ten years (and had the same pedicure chick for nine), but didn’t feel like making the 20-minute drive. Now of course, I’m kicking myself…but…coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Around here, you can’t turn around without bumping into at least three nail salons. They’re in every strip mall at every intersection, and I can think of…six nail places that are within a five-minute drive of my house. So, I take an early lunch and swing by one for a pedicure. I walk in and the place seems nice enough, except they don’t have their A/C turned on…just lots of fans running. Well, I need a pedicure, and don’t have time to go interviewing every nearby nail establishment today.

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So, check this out. Turns out we here in the DFW area are being paid back for last year’s mild (well, by comparison) summer. Our big plans of hanging out by the pool this weekend have now been modified to hanging out by the pool just long enough to get a cocktail delivered, then I guess we’ll hide someplace air-conditioned the rest of the time.

Before we can get to the fun weekend though, I need to take my Financial Management final. Since I woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM (anxious much, Stacy?), it would behoove me to just take the durn thing so I can get on with my life.

More later.

Update: Got an A on my final (19/20 – score!), and I can now hold my own in a conversation about target capital structures, why NPV is superior to IRR, and the difference between the stable and residual dividend policies. That is of course, if I fail to shift these conversations to the topic of television.

Turns out, the Dallas Morning News is good for more than simply providing space for parents to blatantly dodge responsibility, yessireebob.  It will also provide a primer on how to call in sick!

My favorite?

Don’t give your supervisor all the gory details of your illness, pain and suffering. It smacks of exaggeration. Make the call short and to the point.

The only exception to this rule is if your name happens to be Ferris Bueller. The epilogue to this one is the story someone will tell you when he/she comes back after aforementioned illness. If they go into great detail about how they threw up all day, slept for nine hours, couldn’t eat anything except chicken broth…yadda, yadda, yadda…you can be pretty sure they were sitting at home, happy as a lark, watching The Price is Right.

One good thing about working from home is…I never get sick anymore. In the last 4+ years, I think I’ve only called in sick (as in, too sick to even sit upright to at least type)…maybe…twice? The job I had before this one though, we had that great thing called PTO time. Or rather, it’s great for HR and payroll administrators because without “sick time,” that’s one less thing to take care of and/or manage.

The other side of that though, is people won’t ever call in sick. I know I didn’t. I wanted to use my precious PTO time for fun things…like vacation. So, I’d go into work…sick as a dog. So did everyone else. I think that’s the only time your average “drug-free workplace” becomes a “drug haven.” You’re either hopped up on amphetamines decongestants or in an antihistimine-fueled fog. Ah, those were good days.

Back in college, a group of my friends decided to go up to Lake Tahoe for a few days over New Year’s. I was bad…I called in sick, even though I wasn’t sick. I was also a fan of the “leave a voicemail for your boss at 7 AM, so he/she knows you at least got up and tried to pull it together” tactic. You don’t call when he/she is actually in the office…that would be just…silly!

And…I have to mention this…Capt. UberHusband has never called in sick to work. Ever.

What about ya’ll? Any good “calling in sick” stories?

Well, I have been up for a whopping six minutes, and have already downloaded the WordPress for iPhone app from the iTunes store.

Just think of the possibilities…rather than needing to wait to get home to talk about the weird things I see while out and about, now I can create posts on the fly. Take yesterday, for example…I was at the Girl Part Doctor, and there was a limo out front. Huh?

Or, I could tell you about the conversation I had with a woman (started when she saw my financial management text) which ended with her saying, “I had an MBA, and then I became a mom.” I’m sorry, that befuddles me. Did you have to give it back?

So you see, I am now officially mobile. I also am now officially in need of a remedial iPhone keyboard typing class. This post took way longer to tap out than it needed to.

Here’s my horoscope for today:

They say if you do what you love, the money will follow.  They don’t say how long it will take to get here.  It could be awhile.  Do what you love anyway.

Well…if my horoscope says to do it, then I guess I should.

CU and I have this routine in the morning.  The alarm goes off, we roll around and grumble a bit, scratch the dogs, and take the dogs outside.  Then, depending on who is more awake (and has more front yard-appropriate clothing on), one of us will go out and grab the paper while the other gives Cookie her morning meds.

I’ll fix a cup of coffee, then sit down to read all of the advice columns and of course, Dilbert.  CU got to the “Collin County Opinions” page in the Metro section before I did today.  Here’s the thing about the Collin County Opinions section – generally the “editorials” are written by average folk…presumably like you and me, assuming you live in Collin County and are an unappreciated stay-at-home-mom, an overworked and underpaid teacher, a self-employed “telecom executive” who was laid off during the Telecom Bust of ‘01, or a local high school student who wants to get a jump-start on his/her journalism career. 

These “opinion” pieces are supposedly also written with a decidedly “folksy” spin so that average folk…presumably like you and me, can engage in watercooler talk about how our lives are just like theirs.  We’re all in this crazy wacky life together, you know?

But.  This is what we read this morning, and then…well…I got angry.  I know, it’s tough to believe someone can get angry when they’ve only been awake for fifteen minutes, but I managed to do it.  I got angry about one-quarter of the way into the story, and then CU calmly told me to read the rest of it, so I could put it all into its proper disturbing context.  I’ll wait while you read the whole thing.  Don’t want anyone Google-ing themselves this morning to claim I took anything out of context.

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From an email just sent to me by a colleague:

Due to recent budget cuts and the spiraling cost of energy, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

There was this running joke I proliferated throughout Twitterville last month, about how it seemed to unexpectedly pour down rain here shortly after we’d run a round of the sprinklers.  While it was merely annoying at the time, it only took one look at our $130 City of Allen bill yesterday and the fact that our water consumption increased three hundred percent from the month of May to the month of June…to know something was up.

I called the City of Allen utility billing department and after saying, “Our bill is really, really high…there’s no way two people go through 800 gallons of water a day,” the very cordial customer service rep immediately went to page 3 of The Script and replied, “Have you been using your irrigation system more?”  Well, her slight Texas drawl led me to believe she was asking me if we had been using our air conditioning system more.  Uh, yeah.  It’s freaking hot outside.  Of course we have.  And, what does that have to do with our water usage?  Oh…irrigation.  Got it.  No, not using that any more than we did three months ago.  If anything we’ve been using it less since now that we’ve stopped running it so much…and funny thing, the rain has stopped, too.  Go figure.

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Well, CU and I went to see George Michael last night, which was a replacement concert for the Obnoxious Billy Joel Birthday Fiasco of ‘07.

The tickets said the show would begin promptly at 8 PM. Wow, cool. That would be a first! And, it would have been a first had it actually happened. GM didn’t manage to make it on stage until close to 9 PM, and I suspect that only happened because once the crowd started doing the wave (10,000 strong), it’s only a short hop to rushing the stage and riots at the concession stands…and who wants to be responsible for that?

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram seemed to have better overall things to say about the show than the Dallas Morning News did, which I found interesting since GM became Dallas’s Darling after he moved here (part-time, anyway) to live with partner Kenny Goss awhile back. Last week I also perused the internets checking out reviews of other concerts and the reviews were not very good. The light show was tacky, there wasn’t anyone at the concert…past his prime, blah blah blah. I was a little worried we’d get there and would be two of about a hundred people in attendance. I was so blessedly wrong.

I’ve never done a concert review…not sure where to start.

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Fast & Fresh!

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

And we thought $2.89 was expensive last July.

Alright…time for my weekly round-up on the topics and issues which are important to…me.  And, maybe Capt. UberHusband:

Movies

CU and I went to see Wanted yesterday.  Holy schnikes, was that a thrill ride.  Plus, I think it was the most violent movie I’ve seen since Gladiator.  Different crowd than when we went to see Sex and the City, which is good.

Politics

CU got a letter from Barack Obama last week.  Did I tell you that?  I’m sure he got CU’s name and address off some “IRR soldiers who are bound to be pissed they were sent to the sandbox for a year and, therefore, want Change” mailing list.  Well, CU’s planning on emailing the pledge card back with all of the Iraqi dinars he has left over from his year in the sandbox.  That should send a message.

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Back in her blogging days, my friend Ali was known as Lady Mac.  Long-time readers remember her.  That was actually how we met…through blogging.  She’d stumbled across my blog somehow back in the Fall of ‘04 and thought I’d be the perfect person to help her with some of the special technical nuances of Wordpress.  We became fast friends and although we don’t see each other as much as I’d like anymore…because, well…she’s managed to find a life…I consider her to be a close friend.

How close?  Well, she helped me down more than one bottle of wine while Capt. UberHusband was in Iraq.  She loves my doggies.  More important, they love her.  Cookie adores her Aunt Ali.  She’s like the big sister I never had.  We’re so close that after lunch at PF Chang’s today, she came home and promptly locked herself, me, and the dogs out of the house.  For forty minutes.  In the 98-degree heat.

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{click to play}

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It sounds sort of stupid, but every time I pour myself a cup of coffee in the morning (or brew a fresh one, as the case may be) I think of the lyric from the Cowboy Mouth song which inspired this blog post’s title.

CU turned me on to Cowboy Mouth, which is a favorite band of his from back in his N’Awlins days at Tulane. I in turn, introduced him to the wonder that is (or, was…or wait, still is?) Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Every college town has its signature college band…who was yours? If you have a link to a website…share it. I’m always up for new music.

In the meantime, I’m going to go fire up iTunes and think about maybe heading back to my old stomping grounds one of these days. I may have left, but apparently Spencer the Gardener hasn’t..

Wow…thirteen days without a blog update. I told you, once the 140-character limit over at Twitter took hold of me, I ceased to be able to communicate in larger quantities of words. Actually…that’s not entirely true. We had word limits on my marketing midterm, and I struggled with that. 250 words to describe how Starbucks became successful, why it floundered, and how I think it should change its atmospherics to get back to its heyday? Um, sure. No problemo.

Anyway, here I am. So, how are you? I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. I just haven’t had a whole lot to discuss “in depth,” and the Twitter-esque microblog “drive-bys” just don’t seem appropriate here. Plus, a lot of the things I have to say…are no longer appropriate for distribution to the Internets at large.

So, the things I can tell you about…without having to kill you are, in no particular order:
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A couple of days ago, CU and I took a tour of the Cooper Aerobics Center up at Craig Ranch. It’s been open for two years, but we’ve been “content” in our exercise rut since CU got back from Iraq…and we always figured the associated costs would be pretty prohibitive, so we never bothered to make the trip to check it out.

In the past couple of weeks though, I’ve just flat-out not wanted to go to the Natatorium to work out. We joined the Natatorium nearly five years ago, when I began my first weight loss quest. The price was right and at the time, there weren’t a ton of members. Now though, the price is still right but there are so many more members, and the facility honestly can’t support them all. CU is a bit more tolerant, but I hate feeling like I’m wedged onto machines in between other sweaty people. Ick.

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Free AT&T WiFi now at Starbucks – Engadget

CU and I went to see Sex and the City on Friday afternoon…and it was a packed house, even though the movie is playing on about 50 screens in the DFW metroplex.

I’ve been looking forward to this movie for so long, as I was a huge fan of the show. HUGE. I still cry when watching the finale…that scene when all the girls are at the coffee shop with Big and Miranda leans in and says, “Go get our girl.” Sigh.

But, I wasn’t one of those fans who wore those stupid “I’m a Carrie” or “I’m a Samantha” t-shirts (“No one is a Samantha.” - Capt. UberHusband). I wasn’t one of those fans who viewed the Fearsome Foursome as representative of all single women because really, they’re not. I didn’t get that much action when I was single (then again, I didn’t make it to my 30s single so…who knows), and I didn’t own fabulous clothes or have a sophisticated career…but I still wanted love. I loved the characters and the storylines (past the first season, that is) – but didn’t necessarily view the show as the monumental social commentary that others did.

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Lifted from him.

You Are Jan Brady

Brainy and a little introverted, you tend to think life is a lot worse than it actually is. And while you may think you’re a little goofy looking, most people consider you to be a major babe.

Oooooh…just found a super-cool new plug-in: WPtouch.

For all the folks out there who may be accessing my blog via an iPhone or iPod Touch…my blog now looks clean and surprisingly minty-fresh.

Heck, I might even start reading my own blog when I’m on-the-go now.

I believe this post completes either the Triple Crown or Holy Trinity of blogging…depending on which way you swing.

First I blog about a home improvement project which really, isn’t of that much interest other than to me, CU and my mom…then I post an “interesting” quiz along with my un-inflated results, and then I cap it all off with a funny graphic I found courtesy of other bloggers. It even spills over to the sidebar, indicating I don’t know how to modify the size of the graphic. Heh.

more graph humor and song chart memes

You about ready for this week to be over? Yeah, me too.

Well, our new refrigerator showed up last night…Phase One of our four-phase appliance replacement endeavor. I know it sounds corny, but it was rather bittersweet to watch the Lowe’s guys haul away our old refrigerator. There wasn’t anything really wrong with it…other than it clashed with our new floor and the freezer compartment wasn’t terribly functional.

I decided as the old fridge was being taken away that I’m in no position yet to move. If I get that sentimental about the loss of the first appliance CU and I bought together (sniff)…how on Earth would I be able to part with 2,157 square feet of house that we’ve turned into our home? That decides it, then. We’re staying put for awhile.

Phases two and three are the microwave/oven combo with SupaDupa Sexy Convection (and cheaper than Electrolux – suck it, Kelly Ripa!) and the new cooktop which, although it can’t boil water in 90 seconds, can clean up in about 10% of the time it takes to clean our current cooktop.

And then sometime after CU starts his new job, the Bosch dishwasher will arrive. Apparently, it’s quieter than our current dishwasher…which sounds like a series of Navy jets taking off from an aircraft carrier.

I just realized I wrote an entire post about how cool new appliances are. That’s just not right. I need to go play Guitar Hero or something and immaturitize myself again.

At the risk of starting to sound like Lifehacker or The Happiness Project, I was sniffing around the Weight Watchers website and found an article about “anchoring” – and how you can use memories of a time when you were struggling and eventually triumphed to help get you through the times when…well…you’re struggling and don’t feel particularly triumphant. Weight Watchers obviously uses the idea in the context of weight loss but really, it can be used for any challenging situation.

I’m in between challenges right now (they’ll be back…they always come back…), but one of my “anchors” is a mix CD I made when CU was deployed…no big deal, just my favorite songs at the time from iTunes so I could listen to them in the car. Funny thing…it’s still in the Jeep’s CD player…not because I listen to it all the time, but because I just haven’t taken it out. I had forgotten it was in there until last week when, sick of XM (for once) I thought I’d see what else I had to listen to.

Immediately, all of the songs took me back to the time when he was gone. Initially, the emotions I felt were ones of sadness…I think that’s what I always go back to at first, the loneliness and the sadness. But, then the memories of empowerment, and how I made it through that year (fairly) intact came around. That truly was a bittersweet experience, one that I didn’t realize at the time had changed me forever…but I definitely see it now in retrospect, a couple of years removed.

So…if you don’t have an anchor, I highly recommend one. (more…)

That’s our new phrase du jour…”nucking futs.” Capt. UberHusband and I have used it several times in the past two days. The first time was Saturday, when we went down to Lowe’s to take advantage of (a) the sales tax discount on dishwashers and refrigerators, (b) the 10% sale on all major appliances and, (c) the 10% military discount.

Lucky us…we got to work with Diane and Glenn again. I don’t believe I mentioned Glenn when we were buying our countertop. He was the guy who hosed up our paperwork three times and made what should have been a half-hour task a 90-minute chore. Glenn did not disappoint us this time, either…as he seemed to still have no clue as to how to work the Lowe’s in-house order system. Although, he only had to re-do the paperwork once and we only had to ask him to speak to a manager once. Oy.

But…tomorrow evening we’ll have a new refrigerator and in just 4-6 short months, we’ll have our new dishiewasher. Okay, it won’t be that long…only three weeks. We bought the sexy dishwasher though…a Bosch. Ooooooooooooo.

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I downloaded Blogo, thinking maybe if I had something on my laptop which made blogging as easy as Twittering, then I might blog more often.

I have 21 days to try it out, so we’ll see.

With the adminstrata out of the way, I said I would announce the big news that would be changing my life and CU’s life earlier this week, and here we are.

No…I’m not pregnant. Come on. You people should know by now that ain’t gonna happen.

BUT.

My wonderful, awesome, fantastically superduperiffic husband is leaving his job of nine years…and going to work somewhere else. He managed to snag the COO position of an up-and-coming telecom company. I about choked when he gave me the details. I’ve thought for years that he was underemployed and drastically underpaid, and am thrilled that someone else has finally seen all the potential and brilliance that is Capt. UberHusband.

Of course, the first thing I asked him after he presented the opportunity to me was whether or not I could quit my job. Heh. Turns out, I could…if I wanted to. Or I can keep my job and all of the wonderful insanity that goes along with it. For now, I’m keeping it…but I’ve already started pestering him for the Chief Marketing Officer slot at his new company once I finish school.

I mean really, what’s the point of knowing people in high places if you can’t pimp yourself out to them?

Ah yes…last night I felt like Penny Lane to CU’s Russell Hammond. The friendly UPS lady brought Guitar Hero III for us yesterday, just in time because the TV season is about to end and we need something to do while waiting for Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List, The Mole, Bridezillas, Army Wives and The Closer.

After going through the tutorial, CU immediately began his quest for Rock God status. His efforts were admirable, and if I may say so…he has a long career ahead of him as a simulated rock star. My first attempt at “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” effectively had me booed off the stage…as did my second. The third time I got a bit better, making it through 88% of “Story of my Life” before missing about six in a row…I was getting tired. After that, it was all over and we decided to fix dinner.

After dinner…we watched Grey’s Anatomy. I haven’t been the huge fan this season that I was say – in season two, when everyone loved the show. Last night was good, though. I have a problem with Callie and Erica…not because of the girl-on-girl factor, but because I’m just getting tired of everyone hooking up with everyone else. I’d reached that point during the (thankfully) aborted George/Izzie pairing, so anything after that generally makes me want to encase myself in several hundred pounds of cement.

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Before we get to the main point of this post, let me just say that although David “Weighing in at 100 lbs. soaking wet” Archuleta has a great voice, I want/need David Cook to win American Idol. He’s clearly the more commercial artist, and has a greater chance of surviving the rocky road of pop stardom than “Archie” (God Seacrest, really?), whose fan base will outgrow him in about three months.

Alrighty.

So as I mentioned yesterday, CU and I bought a Wii over the weekend. For all the hullaballoo about zero inventory and people not being able to find one, there were four of them at our local Target on Sunday afternoon. The paper that morning had ads for Circuit City, Best Buy and Target…all advertising the Wii, along with the “quantities limited” disclaimer. Circuit City was handing out wristbands an hour ahead of store opening. Yeah…didn’t want one that badly.

But as we were out and about Sunday afternoon, we thought we’d swing by Target and see if they had any left. They did. We’re now addicts in need of Wiihab. Heh. I remember when I got my iPhone, everything was iThis and iThat…now it’s all Wii, all the time. I suffered my first Wiinjury over the weekend, pulling a muscle in my left hip due to an overly exuberant bowling style.

Don’t worry, the Wiinsanity will stop soon…but for now, I’ll run it into the ground.

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Wow, obviously The Bachelor last week had an impact on me…as I haven’t been able to put fingers to keyboard since.

Or maybe, I just don’t have a whole lot to report?

Or maybe, I can now only write in 140-character spurts, because I’ve taken to the Twittersphere (code name: snarkwife) for my hourly updates?

But…here are some highlights of what has been going on in the past week or so…

• There are some big changes afoot in the Snarkwife/UberHusband household. I can’t divulge them yet, but they’re big. Huge, actually…changes which will definitely create new challenges and opportunities for us.
• We bought a Wii this weekend. I’m not sure where the shortage is…there were three left at the Target in Allen last night. By the by, I kicked CU’s ass bowling last night. Of course, my left hip is killing me this morning.
• School is actually going well this semester. No complaints whatsoever. I have a great team for my financial management projects and…that’s about it. Time’s moving by at an acceptable pace.
• I am down 6.6 lbs. since starting Weight Watchers four weeks ago. My “skinny” (read: size 10) Lucky jeans actually fit. Well, they’re still a little snug…but I can button them up without needing to remove a couple of ribs. 11.4 more pounds to go. That will actually put me at a lower weight than I was when CU came home from Iraq, but a little extra wiggle room is a good idea for me.
• Did ya’ll watch The Office on Thursday night? Thoughts? I’ve thought the post-strike episodes have sucked on a variety of levels, although the last half of the season finale sure did pick up. So much for Dunder Mifflin Infinity Two-Point-Oh.
• Finally…it is going to be a blistering 97 degrees here today. I may be forced to head out to the pool around lunchtime, if for no other reason than I can.

It’s almost Mother’s Day, and we know what that means…time to pander to all the moms out there by pointing out how much they “should” be getting paid.

I hate these articles, studies, analyses, whatever you want to call them. Want to know why? Because motherhood is a lifestyle choice. It is not a job.

As a comparison, I have two dogs…and have had them for 9 and 11 years, respectively. They are living creatures which require that I tend to their needs or they will die. Getting these dogs was a lifestyle choice. While I realize Poodle and Schnoozer will not be contributing to society, it is my responsibility to make sure I have raised them so they don’t annoy the crap out of everyone with their barking, or run around loose and bite people or defecate on other people’s lawns. Sadly, I wish more parents would raise their children with the same basic level of respect for others.

Having said that, I do not raise my fist in solidarity with other pet owners, demanding that some entity appreciate my sacrifices and pay me for my many pet owner-associated jobs which include pet food nutritionist, veterinarian, groomer, personal trainer, and behaviorist.

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• AT&T WiFi access now listed as “included” with iPhone – Engadget
• Fewer new shows on slate for fall TV in wake of writers’ strike – USATODAY.com
• Bkkeepr: Twitter What You Read at Twitterholics
• Meet ‘The Bachelorette’s’ Suitors – Pro athletes, teachers vie for DeAnna Pappas’ heart – Zap2it

I was at physical therapist’s office last night waiting for my pilates class to start, and when I was in the waiting room, two 70-ish men sat down on the couch across from me.

The first man said, “So, which do you think is the lesser of three evils in the Presidential race?” The second replied with, “I dunno. I guess I’ll vote for McCain. What about you?” The first followed up with, “McCain, too. I guess. Although I don’t really want to.”

Can’t you just feel the energy? The excitement? The unbridled emotion?

I think that speaks for the vast majority of Republicans around here, based on what my ears have absorbed over the past few months. It’s even worse for moderates like me. Personally, I’m not a fan of either side this election. Although, I did like John McCain’s choice of Dwight Schrute as his running mate. The beet could become the national vegetable.

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• Hahlo 3: now out of beta – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
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Ah yes, the tide-turning words Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery Ghandi spoke to Izzie last night on Grey’s Anatomy…so true. Yes. So true.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m about to embark on a new semester tomorrow, or because I’m going through my bi-annual Work at Home Funk…but that quote really hit a nerve with me. I so desperately want to be the change I wish to see in the world, especially on a professional level. I keep thinking that if I lead by example…good things might happen, and some sort of positive change will be effected.

But, kinda like Izzie, I keep losing the lion fights. I keep jumping in – I suppose – because I am hard-wired biologically to do so. Either that or I’m that gazelle on National Geographic who simply does a good job of hiding and running between safe spot and safe spot, thinking she’s in the fight when she’s really not.

Gah. Listen to me. As excited as I am when each semester ends because really, I need the break…I actually do look forward to school starting up again. It sounds rather pathetic, but during those twelve consecutive weeks, three times a year…I feel smart. I feel like I can do more than quote Grey’s Anatomy, tell you in what country Mariah Carey picked up a marriage license this week, and explain to our technical support folks for the eighty bajillionth time that Windows XP is not a browser.

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• 20 Things You Can Use Twice Before Tossing » TipNut.com
• AT&T WiFi hotspots free to iPhone owners, anyone with a brain – Engadget

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• Web Worker Daily » Archive Projjex: A New Player in Project Management «
• Web Utilities: K7 Offers Free Fax/Voicemail Lines
• Teen finalist John Stevens stays cool and heads back to school – USATODAY.com

• Grey’s Anatomy: Grey Matter
• The Seven Deadly Sins of a Relationship | Zen Habits
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• TUAW previews Hahlo 3: the Legendary Edition – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Student ‘Twitters’ his way out of Egyptian jail – CNN.com
• Gary Coleman brings marital woes to ‘Divorce Court’ – USATODAY.com

Bush: Tax rebate checks are on their way – USA Today

What are you doing with yours, assuming you’re getting one? We’re getting a rebate check…but barely.

Our plan is to cash it (or rather, withdraw it since it will be directly deposited to our bank account), stick it into the Fun Fund and then do something really sexy with it for our Hawaii trip in September…like use it to pay for doggie boarding.

• The Happiness Project: This Wednesday: 9 tips to make TV-watching a source of happiness.
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• Web Worker Daily » Archive Why Your Boss Doesn’t Want You to Telework «
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• Simple Manifesto: Break Free from the Tyranny of the Clock | Zen Habits
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Could you go without your computer for a day?

Man, that’s like asking me to go without air…or water…or Twitter.

I was very proud of myself on Tuesday. CU and I were on a brisk 30-minute walk when I declared, “I think we can leave the laptop at home when we go to Chicago this weekend.”

The scary thing though, was CU countered with all sorts of if/then statements like, “Well, if we do need to print something out, then there’s a business center.” When was the last time we ever printed anything on vacation? Um…never. “Well, if we need directions to someplace…then I guess we could call and ask.” It was a weird conversation.

But leaving the computer completely off on May 3? Sadly, I cannot turn my computer off for the whole day. The Summer semester starts on May 3. What if I turn the computer on, print out my syllabi and then immediately turn it back off? Would that count?

Well. I’d like to say it was a big surprise that it was Carly Smithson who went home last night on American Idol, but isn’t that sort of how it goes with this show now?

It happens every season. Ryan stands there with the Bottom Two and you’re thinking, “Well Syesha, you’ll do well on Broadway” and then…wha? Huh? Did Seacrest just say Carly Smithson’s going home?

All I can say is, kudos to the AI producers for finally getting its head out of its collective ass and having the bottom two perform before someone was sent home. I’ve always thought it was exceptionally cruel to have the singer going home sing the song that made them lose. Again.

Hey! Grey’s Anatomy returns tonight! Does anyone care?

• Saving Money: Web Site Free Shipping Makes Shopping Online Cheaper
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• Stories From the Files of the Isla Vista Foot Patrol – Daily Nexus
• Facebook Chat finally live to all users | The Social – CNET News.com

• 100 Ways to Cut 100 Calories | Women’s Health Magazine

I saw jelly shoes at DSW Shoes over the weekend. I was perusing the aisles looking for some kicky new Spring sandals and found…a fashion fad from my high school years.

I didn’t know whether to be excited that everything which is old is becoming new (except me), or horrified that Steve Madden has the gall to charge $30 a pair.

• Featured Mac Download: Cyberduck FTP Updates with Quick Look and More Goodies
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• Official Gmail Blog: 9 reasons to archive
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• Food Network names new host of ‘Dinner: Impossible’ – USATODAY.com

We snuck out of work early on Friday and went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Figured that was a safe bet, as we’d be able to dodge the Teenage Brigade…they weren’t out of school yet. Ha!

Seriously though, both CU and I thought the movie was great. Perfect casting. Everyone is great…everyone is funny…there’s nothing I enjoy more now than a great adult comedy. This one wasn’t even a gross-out comedy. There are a few references, but it’s nothing that made me blush. And I’ve seen a naked man before, so the vision of Jason Segal in all his nakeditude wasn’t all that shocking.

I’m not really one for detail-by-detail movie reviews, especially when they usually sound like reviews the pros have already written. It’s funny. Me like. You go see. You like, too.

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• 33 backyard projects – Sunset
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• Marooned pup rescued by cruise ship – USATODAY.com

Today is my fourth blogiversary.

I’m celebrating by getting my hair highlighted and reading old recaps of The Amazing Race and one-hit wonders like North Shore, Celebrity Poker Showdown and LAX.

I can’t believe it’s been four years. This also means it’s only seven days until my fourth anniversary with my company, at which time I acquire a coveted extra PTO day. Go me.

• AT&T WiFi portal for iPhone users shows up at Starbucks – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Gherkin’s Bucket: Cotton Dish Sponges
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• Clinton plays Ms. Fix-It on ‘Colbert Report’ – USATODAY.com
• Trading up to a new iPhone – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Putin denies report that he’s marrying 24-year-old gymnast – On Deadline – USATODAY.com
• Writing: Avoid Ten Typos (Almost) Everybody Makes

Any big plans for the weekend? We’re going to check out Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Ever since we witnessed the media onslaught over Easter weekend in Chicago, we’ve been intrigued.

Funny thing, when we were checking out room rates at the Turtle Bay Resort around this time last year, we remembered a big alert on their website indicating filming of a major motion picture would be taking place…FYI. You know, so your bikini bottom doesn’t get in a wad when you go there for your honeymoon and find out the place is well, the site of major motion picture filming.

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• IBM considering Macs for employees? – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Mac OS X: Free Alternatives to the MacHeist Bundle
• SideDish » Blog Archive » Valet For a $5 Sammich?
• Celebrity ‘Feud’ set for summer – Variety

Is There Room for Emotions in the Workplace? – Knowledge@Emory

I’d like to get some opinions on this article…because I think that even though women have made great strides in the workplace in the last thirty years, we still have an uphill battle. Sadly, I’ve seen this in my current job and in past jobs…and I expect to encounter it to an even greater degree after I finish…well, my degree.

It has been very easy for me not to take on the “mom” role on the job, because I’m not a mom. Of course, when the author is advising women not take on the “mom” role at work, they’re referring to the nurturing aspect of motherhood.

I was involved in an inter-departmental scuffle one time, and our boss actually told us we were all like her children and we needed to learn how to get along. That would be great, except I couldn’t kick the offending co-worker in the nuts like I could have if he were actually my sibling. Although I have viewed co-workers as petulant children, that’s from the perspective of a responsibility-taking adult, not a mom.

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• Kraft Macaroni & Cheese boxes – that “push in and pull back to open” directive never seems to work the way it is intended.
• Jon & Kate Plus Eight – Why on Earth are they letting their 7-year old daughter get her ears pierced, when she still can’t manage to get her teeth brushed? Gross!
• The writer of the op/ed letter, “Dallas minors raising babies” in the Dallas Morning News. Seriously, if you actually think these situations aren’t apples and…forget oranges, let’s try apples and staplers, then your head isn’t screwed on straight. Right. It’s because those kids are white. Sheesh. This level of ignorance frightens me.
• The fact that Daisy seems to love going for a walk…for about ten minutes. Then she decides the sky is falling and does everything within her power (and resistance of her leash) to get back home. Then once we’re back inside, she’s dying to go out again.
• How Kristy Lee Cook managed to stick around on American Idol until last night.
• Why I can’t play Mesmo’s TV Squares on my PC. Doesn’t work in Firefox, doesn’t work in IE.
• The price of used textbooks. It was nuts nearly twenty years ago, and it still is today. Thank God for Half.com.
• Why my neighbors across the street haven’t cleaned up the dead bird on the sidewalk in front of their house. I see them walk past it at least half a dozen times a day.
• Bloggers who pander to their audiences, and try to sound way cooler than they really are. Why not just be yourself?
• How some of the folks in my MBA program are managing to pass their classes. Please tell me I won’t have to compete with these people for jobs.
• Why one of the neighborhood kids can’t get up five minutes earlier. I’ve watched him literally run for the bus every day this week. He just passed my house.
• Why when I single-click a .csv file on my Mac, 50% of the time it lets me change the file name (which is what I want to do), and the other 50% of the time it launches Excel. That isn’t what I want to do.
• Why I can’t manage to blog more during school. Maybe I need to schedule it in…like a root canal.

• Jennie Garth Reprising 90210 Role in Spinoff? – PEOPLE TV Watch
• Angry wife tries divorce-by-YouTube tactic – Dallas Morning News
• 32 Household Tips – A Collection Of Timeless Wisdom » TipNut.com
• 168 Frugal Tips to Make Your Dollar Stretch + More » TipNut.com
• 30 Second Wine Advisor: Recession buster – Vinho Verde – wineloverspage.com

When I used to go in for allergy shots twice a week, I used to encounter the most interesting people, with the most interesting stories.

Now that I’ve graduated to the point where I only go in once every three weeks, and Nurse Brandi is kind enough to schedule me when no one else is scheduled (being a long-time patient has its advantages), the stories have become less and less. The last time I went in, I had a “medically significant” reaction which led to a couple of rounds with the nebulizer and my doctor hovering around me like a bee. The point is…now instead of sticking around for 20 minutes after my shots, I have to stay for 30.

What this means is…more opportunity to observe weirdos, especially since it was busy there this morning. Take this woman sitting next to me…we’ll call her Susan because, that’s her name. The TV in the waiting room was on the Today show and the topic was the polygamy raid here in Texas.

Well. She was tsk-ing and making all sorts of screechy and gutteral sounds which pleaded, “Please, someone engage in conversation with me…I don’t want to just say something out loud, but I’ll make just enough noise to where someone will hopefully say something in agreement.”

Of course, I didn’t bite. She did the same thing during the story on Today about last night’s Biggest Loser finale. I wanted to close my book, turn to her, and ask if she was having a reaction to her allergy shot.

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You all know CU spent a year in Iraq. Prior to that Jim, one of his best friends, was “reactivated” but was fortunate enough to spend his tour someplace in Missouri – which in some circles is a fate worse than Iraq. Literally, about three days after Jim’s “tour” ended, Seth got his letter in the mail.

We used to joke that Jim was forced to hand over the names and addresses of known accomplices to keep the ranks strong. Then, we joked that his other Army buddy Leo was safe because so much time had passed since CU had gotten back. No way they could still be calling IRR guys up, right?

Well, this morning I found out Leo was called back up to active duty and has to report to Fort Jackson in May. Then he’s off to…who knows. Likely Iraq. To add insult to injury, he got the letter the day before he went to Maui with his girlfriend for a week. At least we found out on the back-end of a fun trip.

The really weird thing…Leo got out of the Army about the same time CU did, so he’s been off active duty…nine years? He’s got a gun-toting job with the US Government now though, so it isn’t like he hasn’t held a firearm in a decade. Odd thing though, we thought he’d had to resign his commission when he took his gun-toting job. Guess not.

I also guess it’s time for me to ask Leo what his favorite TV shows are, and to fire up the DVD ripper. That’s always my contribution to deployment…television shows.

• Starbucks offers free iTunes “Pick of the Week” – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2, Beta 3 – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Sign Up for an Intimate Look at the Dallas Farmers Market – SideDish

• Ausiello Scoop: Albert Brooks Joins Weeds – Ausiello Report | TVGuide.com
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• What’s Inside: Don’t Let the Algae Sour You on Hostess’s Lemon Pie
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• Bucko’s New Releases – wineloverspage.com
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• Feature: Analyze Your Email Usage with Mail Trends
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• Colbert: ‘I don’t need to be president’ – CNN.com
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• Latest iPhone beta firmware does full screen captures, saves web images – Engadget
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• The Paper chronicles lives of high school journalists | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle

• Information Overload: Get More from Your RSS Reader by Oversubscribing
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• Ausiello Scoop: Lost/Grey’s Expand Seasons! – Ausiello Report | TVGuide.com
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• Nina Garcia OUT at Elle – WWD.com
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• 35 Reusable Grocery Bags You Can Make – Free Patterns » TipNut.com
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• Cantine Riondo “Pink” Prosecco Raboso – Wine Tasting Note
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• MacHeist retail bundle now available – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
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So, Ben’s over at his site posting prom pictures (Hee! Check out the facial hair!) and imploring the rest of us to do so.

So…I went looking for my prom picture. If I do recall, I threw away every “official” prom picture I had, because my boyfriend and I had a very tumultuous relationship. Think Michael and Jan, only without the violence…or the video camera. Anyhoo, I dug through three boxes of pictures and found this little gem.

I also found pictures of what our breakfast nook looked like before we gave it a lobotomy, Daisy in her younger (although just as strange) years, a pic of the day I got my drivers license, and her prom picture.

Now…there’s an interesting story…Sheri and I double-dated on prom night, and it was one of the more uncomfortable meals I’d had. Think Michael and Jan, only without the osso bucco.

Now it’s your turn. Put up the prom pictures. It can’t be any worse than mine…I’m wearing a polka-dotted dress for cripes sake, and my date is wearing a fuschia cummerbund and bowtie.

• The Business of Business Education – SternBusiness
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• Motivation: Commit a Habit to Paper to Break It
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• 1Password: same great taste, new price – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
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• MacRabbit – CSSEdit – Web 2.0 in Style
  (tags: apple application CSS Design web webdesign)

While I liked the theme I’ve been using the past week or so, I’m not a fan of how it fubars my de.licio.us Daily Links post and how it isn’t really optimal for days when I have multiple posts.

So, we’ll try this one…and I’ll be off fixing the CSS since as you can see…well, you can’t see a lot of things.

I’ll also try to figure out why I”m getting all sorts of “headers already sent” errors since activating this theme. Cripes, if it’s not one thing…it’s another.

Aha…there’s an extra line in the functions.php file. Now let’s see if I can clear the error in the RSS feed by updating this post…

First off, thanks to everyone who commented and emailed me about yesterday’s storm. I appreciate it, and am incredibly grateful that we have power…and that bits and pieces of our house didn’t wind up in our pool (if we had one), in other people’s yards, or down the street.

Things are starting to look better around here. What I have always found rather amusing about destructive storms is the joke nature plays by ordering up beautiful weather the next day. Once the haze burned off yesterday morning, it was warm and sunny. Perfect damage-assessing weather.

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No…that’s not our house. It’s our next-door neighbor’s house. Thankfully.

So let’s back up a few hours. I went to bed last night, expecting to be woken up (for the second night in a row) by overnight storms. What I didn’t expect was to be woken up by our local tornado siren at 3:58 AM. Now here’s what gets me – the stupid thing didn’t sound anything like the siren I hear during the “testing” that takes place the first Wednesday of every month at noon. To be honest, it sounded like that humming noise you hear from live power lines…only really loud.

I didn’t hear any wind or thunder, and I didn’t see any lightning…so I opened up the back door to hear where the sound was coming from. It was coming from the back of the house…and about 1/4 mile down the street is where the siren is. I was 45% awake at this point, so I put two and two together…got 3.5…and then went to grab Cookie and my iPhone, and yell for Daisy to follow me into the Panic Room (aka, the guest bathroom). I got the dogs in there and then went for pillows and blankets and just as soon as I shut the door, the wind started.

Total time elapsed: 90 seconds

There’s nothing quite like sitting in your Panic Room with the world swirling around you outside…I’ve now experienced this twice in the 6 1/2 years we’ve lived in this house. The first time was last year. Ironically, CU has been gone both times. I’m beginning to think he knows something I don’t.

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I have all sorts of interesting stories from previous jobs, most of which I have filed away in the “Don’t be ‘that’ boss when you grow up” mental folder.

Now that I’m approaching four years removed from my last job, I think it’s probably safe for me to tell that interesting tale. I had worked at the company for about a year and a half, and had just come back from a wonderful week off at Christmas. I was immediately summoned to my boss’s office, where she introduced me to a man I’ll call Pointy Haired Non-Boss and told me she had a great opportunity for me if I was up for the challenge. But, she said it in that, “It doesn’t really matter if you’re up for it, you’re going to do it anyway” tone of voice. I was being promoted to Project Manager and was tasked with rolling out a rather significant new product…in six weeks.

I had been in that position before – in the job I left three years before that. I’m not one to back down from a challenge, but when I’m backed into a corner and fight really isn’t an option anymore, your only other option is flight – and I said as much to my boss. “You know, the last time I was put in this sort of position, I wound up quitting the job.”

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• Travelers avoid hassles with luggage delivery services – CNN.com
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• You Can’t Learn Management in a Classroom – BusinessWeek
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• Are you a good boss or bad boss? – CNN.com
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• Sharpening the Soft Skills (Which Aren’t Really Touchy-Feely) – New York Times
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• iScramble
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I wish I knew why that first link was wigging out…I left a comment for the blog theme designer but so far, no word. Everything looks fine in the other themes. As much as I really like this theme, I’ll need to switch to something else if I don’t hear back soon!

At lunch today I was watching The Hills (yeah, I know…hence the blog title) and realized how dramatically different my life was at 22 than Lauren’s life. For example…

• Lauren drives a brand spankin’ new BMW…I drove a highly oxidized 1985 Nissan 200SX with only three hubcaps.
• Lauren hung out at S Bar on her 22nd birthday. I think my friends and I went to TGI Friday’s.
• Lauren has a “sort of boyfriend, sort of friend” in Brody and they can’t seem to just call off the flirtation and move on. Okay, I kind of had that going on with me, too.
• When Lauren wants to talk to one of her friends from work, she can either text or call on her cell phone. I had to hide in a conference room on my break and use the phone in there.
• I bought most of my clothes at Ross. I don’t think that’s where Lauren shops.
• Lauren lives in the oh-so-sexy “Hillside Villas” (okay, they don’t really live there…), and I lived in the hood – which apparently, has been completely renovated. For the record, back in ‘95 when I lived there – I paid $480 a month with all the move-in specials.
• Lauren goes to sexy restaurants for dinner with friends. We usually went and got Taco Bell, then went back to someone’s house to watch The X Files.
• Lauren has to deal with an immature, whiny, pain-in-the-ass freak spreading rumors about her. I dodged that bullet. My guy friends had more class than that…and spent most of their time playing Doom, anyway.
• My sunglasses weren’t as big.

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When I was in high school, a group of my friends decided to go see George Michael at Arco Arena in Sacramento. I was invited but had to decline, because Mom said no. I was too young, too far to go, blah, blah, blah. I was crushed. I was a huge George Michael fan and wanted to go sooooo badly. But nooooo…Mom wouldn’t let me go. Didn’t matter that I’d be going with the Student Body President, the answer was no.

Pout.

Now though…it seems as though I am getting my second chance, as CU and I have tickets to see him in July. This is sort of an extremely belated birthday present, since the tickets CU got for us to go see Billy Joel back in December never showed up. After fighting with PayPal for three months we did finally get our money back but nevertheless, I never got to see the concert.

It’s really sort of tragic in retrospect, that my first concert wound up being Bell Biv Devoe instead of George Michael.

Alrighty. Now that the pesky Spring semester is out of the way, I can get back to blogging.

So what’s going on with all of you? All six of you who have the sticktuitiveness to still swing by here from time to time to see if I’m ever coming back out of the cave, that is. Any big plans for the weekend? CU and I are going to Roy’s tonight so I can get drunk off Hawaiian martinis and then…get this…I have no other plans for the weekend.

Let me say that again…I have no other plans for the weekend. Ooooh, I could just squeal with glee at the happiness saying that brings me. CU muttered something about doing yard work, since it’s the first truly nice weekend of the season…but I guess that’s his idea of how to relax after reading my research proposal fifteen times.

Although I haven’t been blogging all that much, I have been Twittering and Facebooking (thanks, Adelle) a lot. There’s nothing like a good game of Scramble to clear all that nonsense about null hypotheses and literature reviews out of your head, you know? By the by, if you’re on Facebook…drop me an email at snarkwifedotcomATgmail.com and let me know. If I know who you are, we can “socially network.” Isn’t that what the kids are calling it these days?

(more…)

I faithfully followed the flock, and successfully upgraded (well, except for my Compact Archives plug-in) my blog to WordPress 2.5.

If you don’t have this handy dandy little plug-in, I highly recommend it. For someone who’s petrified of doing anything to her blog..this really helps me stay up-to-date.

I’m going to be making some updates (it’s Spring…out with the old, in with the new), so if things look a little strange, you’ll know why.

In other news…want to know why ATA went out of business? Sure, they lost their military charter contract but gee…how about a little false advertising to go along with it?

Yeah, I’m actually writing a blog post…can you believe it? So much for Blog 365! Eh, it was probably a lofty goal to begin with but when school (or more specifically, my Applied Research Methods class) began to sprout fangs and take on a life of its own…there was little I could do except roll over and submit.

Until today.

Today I finished my research proposal and I kid you not, when I declared it 100% complete I looked out the window of my office and the clouds began to part. I actually snickered out loud at this realization.

Anyhoo, it has been an ugly semester but I am just a couple of days away from completion. Sure, I still have my Strategic Marketing final to take but it’s only worth 15% of my final grade, and I have until Friday to take it.

But, I am still here. I briefly thought about putting up a photo of my 36-year old paunchy tummy and letting everyone in on the big secret as to why I’ve been gone for so long since I guess, flowing clothes = baby bump and not bloating, as I’ve been leading myself to believe all these years. Go figure.

Seriously though, I have a ton of things to talk about…Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, The Bachelor: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious…and what about all those NBC shows we have starting back up this Thursday?

Best of all…did ya’ll hear about the Robin Sparkles b-side ballad? Word.

Sorry to blog and run, but I need to go get my head re-wrapped around the ideas of strategic planning versus strategic thinking. Back soon!

By the by…any advice on the big WordPress 2.5 upgrade? Hey, just because I’ve been living under a rock doesn’t mean my Google Reader feeds don’t work.

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it’s not brain surgery/rocket science:

Tired and obvious statement used to convey the simple nature of a task that is in reality daunting; can be employed to intentionally mislead someone, like a new trainee, who is being given a near-impossible task that many who have gone before have failed to accomplish.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

I never went the intern route…I actually had to make money to pay my bills…but I had a couple of college roommates who were fortunate enough to be able to take unpaid jobs which at least sort-of related to their career aspirations. But hey, at least I developed some kick-ass data entry skills.

intern:

A person, most often of college age, who works for no or low wages and who is referred to by hardened staffers as a “slave” and subject to humiliation and lascivious comments by said staffers; instantly identifiable by their palpable and oppressively inappropriate excitement regarding any task; a grim reminder of you in your youth, when you had hope, energy, promise, and a physique reasonably attractive to potential suitors.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

invisible:

The condition of being unable to be seen; what you become when someone you know is around you but does not want to be associated with you, usually because he or she is kissing the ass of someone more important nearby; also, a mutual invisibility that occurs when two parties make an unspoken agreement to not see each other, such as when you still run into someone you briefly dealt with three years before and neither of you can muster the energy to say hi to each other anymore.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

So it seems rather odd to say this in light of having snow on the ground four out of five days this week (Texas is so odd…we get snow in March)…but Daylight Saving Time begins this weekend.

I’m a big fan of Daylight Saving Time because it generally keeps me from putting on my pajamas at 5:15 in the afternoon, but the downside of kicking over to it this early is it will be dark outside until about 8:30 in the morning. I’m not nuts about that.

Nevertheless, don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend if you’re like CU and me, who bought one of those slick “auto-change” clock radios a year before the Daylight Saving Time dates changed and still have to manually do it anyway.

That actually brings up an interesting question. Inevitably, there’s one clock in our collective lives which doesn’t get changed for about a month, if even then. For us, it’s the wall clock in the dining room. Shows you how much we use that room, doesn’t it? It usually also takes me about a week to remember to change the clock in the Jeep. I’ll remember to do it this weekend though, because I also have to change out the registration sticker.

What about you? Which clock never seems to get updated?

For the record, even though CU left work early yesterday (snowflakes! big snowflakes!)…he did go in on time today.

commute:

The journey to and from work, which, sadly, may be the best part of your day because you don’t have to deal with your coworkers; may also be an extremely excruciating experience because you must sit in your car for an hour in traffic, stand next to a foul-smelling person on public transportation, or carpool with people you hate; at the slightest indication of inclement weather, employees who travel from the suburbs, no matter how close, will use their commute as an excuse to not come in, to work from home, or to leave early.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

Yeah, so when the tile guys finished busting up all the old tile around the fireplace and pulled out the sheet rock and the wood backing…guess what we found?

Two styrofoam cups…left over from someone’s lunch…14 years ago. They were just sitting there on top of the fireplace insert…stacked nicely.

Can’t wait to see what we find when we bust up the master bathroom. I’m thinking maybe an invitation to Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s wedding…or…an old picture of Helen Keller…or…IBM stock. Nah, that kind of thing only happens on Flip That House…and there’s usually a rabid family of rats guarding the stock.

institutional knowledge:

Information about a company, usually gained through being there way too long; awareness of where the bodies are buried and how they got there, or the names of computer files containing essential information that may be a factor in obtaining job security.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

coming along:
A casual assessment of the status of a project, designed to conceal the fact that “It hasn’t been started yet, but after this conversation I’m going back to my desk to find that file/email I’m pretty sure I tossed/deleted and try to remember what you wanted so I don’t bust myself by having to ask you about a project I’m claiming to have almost finished.”

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

Appetizer

Who was the last person you hugged?

Capt. UberHusband. 99% of the time, he’s the “last person I…whatevered.” Exceptions include, “Who was the last person you called, ‘Mom’?” That would be…my mom.

Soup

Share a beauty or grooming trick or tip with us.

Get your dogs groomed every five weeks because at six weeks, they’re generally shaggy and out of control. Oh wait, was this supposed to be a personal grooming tip?

Salad

What does the color yellow make you think of?

Mustard

Main Course

If you were to make your living as a photographer, what subject would your pictures revolve around?

Doggies…or Hawaiian sunsets

Dessert

What was the longest book you ever read?

My constitutitional law book at UCSB. We used it for three terms, and it was about a bazillion pages long.

Sorry kids…no Thursday Thirteen this week and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, incredibly limited blogging as well.

It’s just been one of those semesters. Between school and work and doctors and physical therapy and putting our house back together after the Great Water Leak of 2008…I’m just plum tuckered out. The good news is, my new physical therapist gave me some additional exercises today. For one of them…once I’m able to do it 10 times without falling over, I’m allowed to get on the treadmill for 15 minutes.

Kinda sad how excited I got when I heard that. Now that I think about it though, I don’t think she actually gave me the go-ahead to walk on the treadmill. Maybe I just stand there, you know, to get the feel of it again.

I do have one other goal, though…to blog about Lost in the morning. That’s my one bright, shining start of Thursday…Lost. Ahhhhh…

While I’m here…today’s Dictionary of Corporate BS entry:

colleague:

Fancy way of saying “someone I work with”; usually implies a person sharing the same rung of the corporate ladder with the person employing the term, because otherwise the speaker would just say “my supervisor” or “my assistant”; a little too formal for the typical 9-to-5er pull off; therefore, essentially, only erudite professors and Nobel Prize winners should use this term.

cold shoulder:

The blatant, punitive, and often unfathomable disregard shown by a previously friendly and affable boss or colleague; may inspire the feeling that you are “in trouble” — and in eighth grade.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

Considering a guy in our Florida office has been sending emails to the “office@” email address for the last week or so, letting all of us know the coffee is ready…today’s calendar entry is pretty timely.

However, these emails provide no benefit whatsoever to those of us not in Florida, although one of my Texas colleagues recommended I send out my own mass email telling everyone the coffee was ready at my office, too.

Sadly, I suspect the humor and sarcasm would be lost on those Sunshine Staters.

coffee:

A bitter, often tepid, and sometimes disgusting beverage that often serves, if unconsumed, as a scapegoat for people who say really stupid things prior to 10 AM.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

You know…the Sarah Silverman song was better IMO, but this one had better cameo appearances!

I read them, roll my eyes, and think, “Oh yeah. Totally.”

sense of urgency:

Feeling of panic that may or may not be legitimate, as many employees will affect a harried demeanor to give the impression that they are working hard; often contributes to increased inefficiency and additional mistakes born out of an atmosphere of chaos.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

self-starter:

Someone who is deemed to need no supervision, guidance, external motivation, or training in order to do the job and is brought into an irrevocably damaged situation and will vainly attempt to fix it; a gung-ho person who it is great fun for crusty vets to watch as he or she slowly self-destructs.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

Because even when I go in with him on the weekend to pick something up (which is like, twice a year)…even though there isn’t a soul there, the guy still makes me fill out the visitors form. Really?

security guard:

Wanna-be cops who take their jobs way too seriously and won’t let you in the building without your ID even though they see you every day; after 9/11, these individuals became increasingly fascist and they are not even subject to flirtation or assertion of one’s status, but will still give superhot chicks a pass.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

Friday Afternoon

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

Must be nice, huh?

According to my handy-dandy countdown calendar over there in the right sidebar, I am now officially 50% done with the Spring semester!

I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me, but it’s nice to be on the downslope.

For all those days you hate your job…at least you don’t work where this poor guy did. Methinks they needed to fire the manager, and not the employee.

Great segue into today’s Dictionary of Corporate BS word o’ the day, though…!

noncompete clause:

The part of a contract that prevents disemployed (in most cases) high-level execs from working for the competition for a stipulated length of time; its message can be summed up as “We don’t find you useful anymore, but don’t go trying to make yourself feel better by finding someone at our competition who does. Do us a favor and be professionally paralyzed/feel bad about yourself for a few months. Thanks!”

Thirteen of the Most Annoying TV Characters Ever

• Rosalind Shays – L.A. Law: I loved this show in high school and college even though, in retrospect, it was probably way too adult for me. There’s a reason everyone in American cheered when she fell down that elevator shaft!
• Oliver Trask – The O.C.: Up until this point, the award for “Most Annoying Oliver” went to Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch. I still never quite understood why the producers of one of my favorite shows ever decided to go there with Oliver and Olivehis (hee) stupid neuroses and pathological lies.
• Ray Romano – Everybody Loves Raymond: I’m not sure which was the better scene on this show…Romano’s arm getting cut off (and Neela’s reaction) by the helicopter, or the helicopter falling out of the sky and squishing him. Oh wait, wrong Romano. Well, could still work for both.
• Carlton Banks – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Maybe it was the dancing. Maybe it was his oddly-shapen body. Maybe it was because this show was on when I was in college, when I was just annoyed in general.
• Lyla Garrity – Friday Night Lights: I loved Lyla the first season of FNL, but can’t stand her now. It is unclear to me why the producers decided to take her all Jesus-freak and high-and-mighty this season, but she’s just dull as dirt. When the tent revival she has sold her soul to packs up and leaves town, she could go with ‘em and I wouldn’t mind a bit, Itellyouwhut.
• Rhonda Volmer – Big Love: Ohhhhhhh this girl drives me completely insane! She’s troubled! She’s psychotic! She’s a child of the Lord! She’s a narcissist! She deserves whatever she gets!
• Harriet Hayes – Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Take the Lyla Garrity argument, and flip it. I didn’t like Harriet’s character because I felt like Aaron Sorkin kept beating me over the head with the idea that Christians can be witty and funny and…gasp…tolerant! And then…Harriet had to talk about it…every flipping episode. Um, really? Then, as soon as Sorkin et. al. realized that wasn’t working for them and started to make Harriet more normal, Jordan had her baby and the show was cancelled. Sigh.
• Matt Fielding – Melrose Place: There’s a reason poor Doug Savant is still referred to as “Big Gay Matt” – ten years after Melrose Place ended. Melrose Place premiered back in the day when it was considered edgy to have a gay character on TV. The problem was, this was the wrong kind of gay. Matt was the kind of gay who couldn’t handle a steady relationship of his own, because he was too busy trying to marry and get green cards for Russian immigrants and their cute daughters. And of course, Matt was a social worker. Really? That’s all they had?
• Kelly Taylor – Beverly Hills, 90210: Rape victim (date and stranger), drug addict, cult member, shooting target, diet pill-popper, sexual harrassee, amnesiac, successful boutique owner and cute Alpha girl! You name it, it happened to her. I think the only thing someone didn’t do to Kelly was strap her to a circle, spin her around and throw knives at her. Then again, I think Dylan may have done that during one of his weird benders toward the end.
• Serena Southerlyn – Law & Order: {heavy sigh} Yes Serena, they fired you because you’re a lesbian.
• Merle “The Pearl” Stockwell – Eight is Enough: Yeah, this is a bit old school – but for a show I absolutely loved, I couldn’t stand Merle. Maybe it was because Sacramento didn’t really have a major league baseball team, and I just didn’t buy that he drove to San Francisco or Oakland for games. I didn’t get what Susan saw in him, and thought he was an idiot for agreeing to that silly double wedding with Steve and Janet.
• George Williams – Desperate Housewives: You have to admit…if you were Bree you would have just sat there and watched him die, too.

Most of the sales folks I’ve come into contact with are the exact opposite – they’re whiny belly-achers who can’t handle adversity…well, internally, that is. Who knows…they might have the cajones of gorillas when they leave the building.

sales:

The department that ultimately pays your salary, and therefore the one it’s in your best interest to make happy, consisting of people who, like stand-up comedians, have a very high tolerance for rejection and, unlike basically everyone else in the workforce, actually thrive on it.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

Except…there’s generally no fanfare, and I find out about it when I’m blind-copied on an unrelated email that makes vague mention of it. And, I can’t inquire further at that point because, well, I was blind-copied on the email.

roll out:

To introduce a new product or service to the public with much fanfare through costly advertising and marketing campaigns in a desperate attempt to generate sales and press, which, should it go poorly, will be blamed by management on innocent employees whom they will then fire.

Courtesy of the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit page-a-day calendar…

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The 30-Day Sex Challenge

Do you just keeping doing it until you’ve been together for thirty consecutive days?

Seriously…it’s not that silly of a question.

This is an actual email thread between my debate teammates…guess which one I am!

On Feb 18, 2008 3:50 PM, Student #1 wrote:

Looks like we have 4 points to refute this week.

Some of these are going to be hard to disprove. Shall we just split them up & each post individually sometime before end of day tomorrow? The first two are sort of the same, so I think that can be lumped in as one. #3 seems hardest & 4 seems easiest, but I will take any of them – let me know how you want to divide.

On Feb 18, 2008 5:00 PM, Student #2 wrote:

I’ll take #3 – it actually doesn’t seem too bad if you look at it in context to the actual debate resolution, which states the cameras would be used in a systematic random sampling schedule. Their argument assumes you’d be able to pull up a video for anyone, at any time, in any situation. That’s not quite how it would be