Black Friday Aftermath

Sitting here on a Saturday night after Black Friday all I can say is I think I may be almost rested up enough from not only about 2 weeks straight of working, but the madness that is the after Thanksgiving shopping experience.

Toys R Us at midnight was quite the experience and one that I'm more than certain I'll be repeating for easily the next 10-12 years. However, here's hoping that my experiences for the next decade aren't filled with stores opening an hour late as a result of a brawl taking place outside the front door. Word of advice to anyone looking to get to any store with only about 10 minutes to opening...DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CUT IN LINE OF THE GUYS AT THE FRONT OF THE LINE. You'd think this was commone sense, but well sometimes it ain't so common huh? Oh yeah and also don't punch a kid in the mouth once you've cleared the line and are about ready to pay. Granted, it's just wrong for adults to punch kids, but even more wrong to do so and hold up the line of other people who are so close to the checkout line they can almost hear the ding of the registers.

Today was a bit calmer I must say, and I even went back to Toys R Us. No, I'm not a masochist I had to exchange something and pick up a few more things in the process. Even Target and Babies R Us were pretty mild compared to the craziness of the previous day. Although unlike yesterday there was no really nice guy at the Target register giving me $20 off instead of $10, but hey Black Friday good karma only goes so far I suppose.

So to all you fellow shoppers out there, hope you had as fruitful a shopping day(s) as I did. And to those of you who didn't venture out from fear of sheer insanity, your day is coming. After all, I'm sure you're the people who wait until Dec 24 to shop. Now THAT'S insanity.

Bring On The Grub!

I'm posting this a day early because let's face it from Thursday to about Saturday evening this week, we're all going to be busy and that's as it should be.

Like many, we're about to enter my absolute favorite time of the year. Decorations, parties, family, friends...I can't even begin to express how much I look forward to this season all year long. Let's not forget the shopping, I'm also counting down the minutes to Black Friday, literally, 12am I'm going to be one of the masses storming into Toys R Us to fight over severely reduced prices that most recipients will proceed to play with for only a combined 10 minutes before the next Christmas. But it's all worth it for that look of happy when the paper is ripped off.

And with that I just want to give thanks for all the wonderful things in my life from my incredible other half to my increasingly adorable nephew to you, my readers, who take the time out to read my ramblings and make me feel that I'm not just typing into the ether.

However, after my attempt at the detox diet last week I'm mostly thankful for the feast that will be put before me tomorrow. Now bring on the grub cuz we all know Thanksgiving's also the start of the eating season and that's a time of year I can ALWAYS get behind.

Towel, Consider Yourself Thrown

Oh day 3 I am officially considering you my final day.

Go ahead, call me a quitter and the like. I just can't take anymore of this cabbage only thing. I'm in the middle of a pitch at work, my cold is still lingering and quite frankly today I almost tore someone's head off and it wouldn't have mattered who because I was ready to place it on a stick and use it as a warning to others.

I can see how it would deliver results and the like but at the end of the day the only true way to lose weight of any kind is a balanced diet and excercise, not eating the same soup for 7 days to lose a few pounds and possibly find yourself on the receiving end of a restraining order.

The worst part is that tonight I worked at least 8 hours at the office and when they came around with pizza I turned it down despite my extreme hunger. I turned down pizza. Seeing as how I have about 4 days left of working like mad I can't continue depriving myself of what I want and what I want has cheese, meat, sauce, everything.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go devour the first thing I find in my kitchen.

Veggies, Oh How I Hate You

As day 2 winds to a close I can honestly say that I absolutely detest vegetables. Aside from the jumbo soup, all I could eat today was vegetables. Let me repeat that, breakfast lunch and dinner all I could eat were vegetables. Not exactly the best way to start a day, especially since my body has decided to start making all sorts of odd gas shifting noises.

But oh the potato.

See Day 2 allows me one baked potato with butter. And I have just eaten it and I must say I have never loved starch anywhere near as much as I did tonight. Unlike before I literally savored each and every bite as I chewed it enough times to actually feel full.

As day 3 rears its head I've had to make some more of the soup. Granted I'm cheating a bit by adding more of, oh, every vegetable but cabbage. Yet it now actually tastes good again as opposed to over processed dishwater.

Eh, at least day 3 lets me add fruit into the mix again. Will Friday and its beef allowance ever get here?

Day 1: I'm Pretty Sure Diets Create Homicides

As day 1 of my cabbage diet winds down I am left with only one thought....OH MY WORD I AM ABSOLUTELY OVERWHELMINGLY HUNGRY!

I've eaten several bowls of that soup thing and inhaled more fruit in one day than Elton John during his drug fueled orgy days (go on, stop and think it over....there you go). Granted I'm used to eating whatever I want until I feel overly full and satisfactorily rotund, but talk about a difficult first day.

See, there were meetings all day today which of course meant that there was breakfast provided. And by breakfast I mean delicious muffins, fluffy bagels and some of what appeared to be the best whipped cream cheese on earth. Now, that's not bad enough right? Oh no, let's follow it up with sandwiches that are at least 6 inches tall, potato salad that has the right ratio of shape to smush and cookies that I swear started off life as giant boulders to drop on the Coyote. I barely made it through the first day.

Although I have to say the hunger is almost preferable to the endless trips to the bathroom. I have never peed so much in my life. I swear that I have officially urinated more times than my grandmother on an average day and her visits to my parents' house alone sees her go at least 4 times per hour.

So I sit here chugging water in the hopes that it'll sate my hunger. I'm fairly certain it won't so maybe I'll just sit here on the couch and sniff the bowl of chocolates. Can't wait for day 2, soup and vegetables, yum. I've never yearned for a baked potato this much.

Cabbage, Cabbage Everywhere and Not a Drop To Eat

Every now and again we all look down and think "OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME?! DID I EAT A FAMILY OF ORANGUTANS WHO THEN PROCEEDED TO KEEP PROCREATING IN MY STOMACH?!"

Well I have recently had such an experience. And yes, I understand that weight loss in your 30's doesn't happen merely by waking up and existing like it does through the age of 23. At that age, you can devour a meal the size of the Millenium Falcon and still slide on your size 32 jeans. So given my currently uber-busy work schedule preventing me from going to the gym (despite my continued payment of monthly fees), I've decided to do one of those week-ling cleansing diets.

I know, I know the only real solution to weight loss is physical activity and a good diet, I get it. With that said, I like to look at this diet as a clean start, detox sort of thing. I'll do this cabbage diet for a week and use it to jumpstart my better way of life. True, I'm a bit of a crazy person to even attempt this with Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner and you'd be right. But I do like to challenge myself and the Monday of Thanksgiving week does see my schedule opening up a bit for a gym routine to start up again.

I'll try to blog about this throughout the week, not so much to be all inspirational, but rather because I think it'll be easier to blog than think about eating. Just keep that in mind if my update blogs resemble something along the lines of a Food Network version of "The Shining."

JUSTICE LEAGUE: NOW WITH MORE CHOREOGRAPHY!

Saying Germans are odd is like saying the peanut butter is sticky, it's just understood to be true. Even so, I couldn't be ready for what I saw on a comic website (comics101.com) yesterday. While in Germany, the writer visited a comic-con. Granted, dressing up to meet artists and scrounge for over-priced toys and yellowing back issues, is left of normal, but I think the Germans have yet again found a way to niche the hell out of even this.

Below are videos taken from something called a "Strawberry Heroes" show where women dress as super heroes & dance around while intermixing songs. For example, the following shows Booster Gold & Aquaman apparently being schooled by Supergirl on bettering themselves. So naturally, the German Girl of Steel busts out into "Popular" from Wicked. To review, superheroes, German, modern Broadway standard. Enjoy.



Now what hero show would be complete without Spider-Man? One that doesn't put him in a sparsely decorated Benny Hill sketch.



After all that fighting and dancing, of course the Justice League would be tired and just ready to beam back up to the satelite right? Wrong, that's the perfect time for a gospel moment. Testify Booster Gold!



Even still, they're not tired, I mean they're German and if Mike Myers taught us anything about Germans while on SNL is that after all is said and done, IT'S TIME TO DANCE!



My only regret is that there aren't more of these clips online or in a continuous narrative. Not that I speak German or anything, but who can resist the evolution of a dance evolution? Here's hoping Bono & The Edge saw this, after all who wouldn't want to see Spidey running around the theatre chasing Mary Jane in lingerie? Oh, a boy can dream can't he?

For The Love of Amanda

To know me is to know of my love of Melrose Place. The sexy, the over-the-top, the explosions. Most of all however, whatI love is the Amanda. So you can imagine how excited I am with her return (Tuesday, November 17 check your local listings!) to the complex she oversaw with her mini-skirted iron fist.

Let me just make this clear, in some weird way the character of Amanda Woodward is the reason I now work in advertising. That alone should probably make me hunt down Heather Locklear & exec producer Darren Starr for revenge, but it's true. She made the industry seem really enticing & let's face it, my only other advertising role models were a man whose witch wife did everything for him & Angela Bower with her big hair and shoulder pads (love you Judith Light!). So of course Amanda had that right blend of humor & blood lust that I would gravitate towars. Although it wasn't easy, let's review shall we?

She bought a building out of love & spite. She clawed her way up the ranks of apparently the only agency in LA based on the amount of new pitches they'd handle on a weekly basis. Not only did she consistently berate (Allison totally deserved it for existing) & sleep with her colleagues without once incurring the wrath of HR, but when the company president died, she just moved one step to the left to assume her rightful place at the top. Oh yeah & did I mention surviving cancer, destruction of her investment (does All State cover homicidal redheads?), & more black mailing than practically anyone on an 80's prime time soap. All that & she always managed to look good with an active sex life. Who wouldn't idolize her?

As November 17 draws near I think I'll take a new approach in my career and ask myself "What Would Amanda Do?" Oh sure, it might mean running from the mob or being put on trial, but 20 years later everyone will still remember me right? Now if you'll excuse me I have to figure out which of my co-workers to insult into alcoholism.

Rhianna, Revealing Victim or Calculated Saleswoman?

So last night was the Rhianna interview with Diane Sawyer in which she divulged all her innermost feelings about her beating and how it made her feel. Now I didn't watch the interview, honestly I forgot it was even on, but I have read up on her "revealing" interviews and have only one thing to say.

Rhianna is one of the most calculated people on the planet and frankly I have now asserted why I don't like her.

In no way am I condoning domestic violence. I fully understand that it's not something of which to make light and that there are some cases where the victim doesn't get the opportunity to come back, get another horrific haircut and still be honored as a Cosmo woman of the year. However, for this pop star to say she realizes how she is an influence and can do good to bring attention to this while she has 2 new singles to promote and an album less than a month away, is insulting to anyone who's ever been in a similar situation.

Celebrities using their personal struggles as fodder for the front page is nothing new, but what makes me sick is how we all fall over backward trying to place her on a pedestal for doing this. She had almost a year to go out and do public service announcements, visit shelters, set up charitable events and yet what did she do? Record an album. I know that art can be healing, but if you think that Rhianna is actually an artist and not a Caribbean Barbie doll that everyone is obsessed with for whatever reason, you're clearly deluded.

Before my feelings toward this woman where that she had a few catchy songs that she couldn't really sing because she had no voice or apparent dance moves, but ok who am I to begrudge anyone success? But to use your own vicious experience as a press release in which to drop the name of your upcoming projects? Sorry, even a blank android being propped up for profit can recognize that's just plain wrong. Disturbia indeed.

Halloween, a Hat and a Bathroom

As you know this past Saturday was Halloween and I had a rather odd experience while at my friend Melissa's house for her Halloween party. Upon arriving I noticed an odd witch hat perched atop a skull on the buffet table. I say odd cuz most witches aren't into day-glo motifs.

I didn't think much of it until I also saw it perched atop the toilet in the guest bathroom. Now usually seeing a hat on a toilet isn't the worst thing I've seen going on in a bathroom in my 30 years on this earth. Having to pee around said hat wasn't anywhere near as simple as you'd think, I mean it's felt for frak's sake, can't just be wiped off with a moist towelette.

Don't know why, maybe I'd drank too much or maybe it was the calling of the neo-fluroescent green but I decided to pick the hat up and see what would happen when placed atop the guests at the party! Suddenly the atheletes look dazed and only Sookie Stackhouse appeared unfazed. Although the way everyone keeps saying she's not quite human, well it's not exactly a surprise.

Kitties were affected all around! Although they appeared to like it, which kinda fits in with their whole not needing people motif. That and they most likely were happy to bat around the soft material between their paws.



Not all was so benign though. Neither the gladiator nor the fairy took well to the hat, although one was having stomach problems and the other was hormonal. Up to you to guess which is which!

Then the hat made its way to our hostess' head. Not sure how she went from serving cupcakes to looking like next year's Halloween Horror Nights theme, but I definitely wound up side-stepping the ginormous knife. Let's just say that aside from my usual aversion to humongoid pointy things, "Paranormal Activity" hasn't exactly helped assuage those feelings.

And then I popped it on my own noggin. And oddly enough after all the gamut of weird that it caused on everyone else, it just seemed to fit and make me feel like striking a Peter Pan pose. And I did. So all in all a fun Halloween, although maybe next year we'll steer clear of any hats the randomly show up in the bathroom.