Pet Peeve #33

Fantasy baseball draft.

The boys that I work with (including my boss) have gotten absolutely no work done today and have greatly annoyed me with their draft drama. Why is this a past time that I seem incapable of understanding?

Insomniac Easter Bunnies

Did all you Western Christians survive the weekend with your families? I still have a nice month-long wait till I participate in the ritual eating of lamb and chocolate bunnies, but I did spend a strange weekend with my boyfriend's family, an ex-nun and Marcia Gay Hardin's mother. Sounds like a joke, but sadly, this is my life.

Also, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy National Sleep Awareness Week and in particular a Happy National Insomnia Awareness Day. During this time I'd like to encourage you to embrace sleeping and begin a dialogue on what sleeping means to you? To me it means not being at work...something that always makes me a happier person.

Below is an amusing Email I received at work today regarding this topic:

As you may know, it's National Sleep Awareness Week and today is the first-ever National Insomnia Awareness Day.
Timely, as the National Sleep Foundation released its annual sleep poll results yesterday finding that 127 million, or more than half of all Americans experience insomnia a few times a week. Because of this alarming number, the National Sleep Foundation assembled the Save Our Sleep (S.O.S.) Forum -- a panel of experts charged with discussing these shocking poll results and issuing a call to action to raise awareness among Americans about the serious health consequences associated with insomnia.

Below is information about the Forum, whose members are available along with other leading national and local sleep doctors and experts to discuss how important it is to talk to your doctor if you think you may be suffering from insomnia.

I will give you a call later this week to chat and gauge your interest in setting up an interview. Should you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to contact me at the information below!

Best,
Lauren

Lauren Magnetti
Senior Account Executive
Zeno Group (formerly PR21)

Update to Pet Peeve #206, also known as Pet Peeve #207

The coffee shop in the afore posted peeve, this morning mysterious began offering ONLY one size. I asked for "regular" this time, only to be told: "We only have one size now." I am trapped in a really bad sitcom, aren't I? I should change the name of this blog to, "Why I hate my local coffee shop" and update it with daily reports on the new and novel ways they've managed to piss me off.

This leads me to Pet Peeve #207: One size fits all.

Pet Peeve #206

People who refuse to acknowledge that medium and regular are really the same thing.

Yesterday I went to a local (meaning non-Starbucks) coffee shop and ordered a medium coffee. The guy behind the county, with no irony, says, "The only sizes we have are small, regular and large." That pisses me off worse than the tall, grande, venti sizes at Starbucks - where, by the way, they apparently have a higher intellect because they can always deduce that by medium, I mean the size in the middle.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, I

This weekend I spent about two and half hours driving to Jackson, Mississippi, and about two and half hours sitting right outside of Jackson in an endless sea of parked cars. I was one of the lucky I-55 travelers who experienced Mississippi emergency personnel at their finest when a tractor trailer rig bound for Baton Rouge caught on fire in one lane of interstate traffic, thereby causing the afore mentioned personnel to block off the navigable lane and shoulders for the next five hours.

I managed to finally inch up to where people were cutting across the median, head back north and work my way over the U.S. 51, which winds its way into Jackson. I understand by that evening they finally got a lane of traffic open.

This experience did give me some nice bonding time with the guy behind me who had binoculars and with my dogs, who experienced the joy of peeing on the Interstate for the first time. Also I learned a good deal of Spanish (¿Tienes dollares? No, tengo un peso.) with my Pimsleurs tapes, borrowed from the company human resources department last month. (I have yet to figure out WHY human resources has these tapes when they have no other such learning aids, but they do. You might think that the company's library would be a more appropriate place for such items, but then you'd be as wrong as I was.)

It was a glorious weekend otherwise, filled with mucho café and beautiful weather. I even washed my truck at long last, which ensured that it would then rain Sunday evening. And it did...although rain would be too kind a term for the weather I encountered on my trip back north. Perhaps monsoon with a side of hail would be the most accurate description. Nonetheless, despite I-55's attempt to kill me, first with boredom and then with weather, I survived to type another story. (For those keeping up at home the restaurant story count is: no closings this week, one 35th anniversary, and one 30th anniversary. But it's only Tuesday. Give it time.)

My War and Mr. Bush

I don't know why the President hates me so much. I have a sneaking suspicion that it goes back to the time when I embarrassed him on the all powerful Jackson local news back in '99. But if that's the case then he must hate a lot of people because he's looked the fool on TV a lot.

The last time he got a crazy hair and wanted to prove how much he hated me, he decided, "Oh. I'm very interested in the Mississippi governor's race, so I'll go to the town where Bucky works and give a stump speech on the days she has off, ruining about two weeks of her life and the mini-holiday her friend was in town on. Yes, then I'll let a crazy woman almost kill me with her car."

I had only just recovered from that 2003 visit when he decided last week to come to the Bluff city. He just left an hour ago. I know this, not because I had to write endless news stories...that thankfully fell to someone else this visit...I know because for the last two days his motorcade had been mocking me by driving back and forth in front of my office and making my trips from work to home, which "coincidently" coincides with the motorcade route, a living hell.

Last night, for example, I got stuck at Walgreen's for two hours so he could make it from the airport to the Peabody where he shacked up with the ducks. I think they should have taken him up Airport Road to Lamar, let him see all the people who could care less about Social Security because they're more concerned about little things like food. But then again I was also the one subjected to two hours of the 80s greatest soul hits in Muzak format while memorizing the many flavors of toothpaste last night. So I may be a little bias on that front.

Anyway, he's gone now and I hope to have a long nap when I get home but I suspect there will be some President-created drama for me to deal with when I attempt to get there. I doubt he's done fucking with me just yet.

You'd think as Leader of The Once Free World he'd have better things to do with his time.

But you'd be wrong.

We are Friggin' Idiots

U.S. Forces Kill Italian Agent After Reporter Freed

ROME (Reuters) - U.S. forces fired at a car carrying Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena shortly after her liberation, killing an Italian secret service agent and lightly wounding the journalist, her newspaper said on Friday.

Gabriele Polo, the editor of Il Manifesto newspaper, said Sgrena's car was fired on as it made its way to Baghdad airport.

"This news which should have be a moment of celebration, has been ruined by this fire fight," Polo told Sky Italia television.

"An Italian agent has been killed by an American bullet. A tragic demonstration which we never wanted that everything that's happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad," he added, struggling to fight back his tears.

The Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi sent his condolences to the family of the dead agent, who was named by Il Manifesto's Polo as Nicola Calipari.

Sgrena was seized in the Iraqi capital on Feb. 4 as she conducted interviews on the street near Baghdad University.

Restaurant City

If another restaurant in this damned city closes I'm going to lose it. I'm averaging about one restaurant closing a week and maybe one restaurant opening a month, even though I'd say the number of openings and closings are about the same. When people say we focus on the negative, they're right. Because of overstretched resources (thank you penny pinchers downstairs), the quality of daily news I write blows.

Meanwhile over on Metro they have a wealth of people with nothing better to do than spend three weeks writing one story about bad drivers. And they are given all the time and resources they need to do stories on what I'm supposed to be covering if only they'd stop making me write about restaurant closings.

A friend of mine at work has been collecting bits of Emails I've sent him over the three+ years I've worked here and sent them to me today. I'm not sure how funny they are if you don't know these people or the crazy stuff people come in expecting us to write about it, but I've listed them below so you can get an idea of the Dilbert-like existence here. Before you begin, keep in mind that Elway is a dog. His name is real, everyone else's is made up.



This is the moment you've been waiting for...


1.
*Do you think Elway would be interested in switching jobs with me? It wouldn't be so bad to hang out in the kitchen all day with yummy treats and nothing to do but chew on my paw.


2.
*Hello, Mr. Lantile,

I am the coach for a girl's 10 years and under competitive lawn bowling team and I've noticed the lack of coverage that your paper gives such an exciting and well-attended sport! I would like to speak to you at your earliest convenience about the sport and invite you to attend one of our matches. The DeSoto Ballbusters will be facing the Pike County Pinpushes this weekend. We'd be glad to have you there!

Sincerely;

Margo H. Sunshine

3.
*You're awfully quiet today. Did Elway beat you at poker last night and take all your bling-bling?


4.
(tie) *Listen, I hope you weren't expecting a window seat at the new office because due to his meritorious service and selfless dedication to the paper, bart will be receiving all FOUR desks along that wall and you and I will have to actually work from one desk with two chairs and one computer in the distribution warehouse potion of the new building. There is no heat in there but the company has been gracious enough to install an electrical plug near our desk that we can use to plug in our computer AND a little electric space heater should we choose to provide ourselves with that.


5.
*Look. I see from our budget that we have nothing for tomorrow. Since kc is busy writing her opus on the magnolia school and bart is busy with dominos and jenny is busy doing...something...i'm going to need you to write a 30-inch story on the new donut shop opening in lakeville for the cover. thanks.


6.
*I have no copy for tomorrow's paper and am thinking about drawing a huge ass and scanning it in and running that on the front page of tomorrow's paper. Whadda think?


7.
*I think your problem is that you are not a team player. I mean look at Bart. He is always working himself to death. You could learn a few tips from him. And think the best way for you to do that is to start working with him on the city beat, in addition to the sports and hotel beats.

8.
*Oh right. I forgot I had reassigned you to hotels. Well perhaps you could go ahead and have some nice columns on hotels ready for the world series in case Madison's run begins before the games end. I'd especially like one on what the hotels are doing to appeal to clients who might want to watch the games during their stay. Thanks in advance for your hard work on this one, Tiger.


9.
*She'll (his girlfriend) probably just get you some crisco and a bag of dough and tell you to go to town. I think that's what relationships become after you've been dating for a while.

Hacked

I hate to tell you all like this but unfortunately hackers have also posted MY (un)star studded T-Mobile address book online. In a strange twist, my friends report not one phone call from fans. I guess you all just aren't as important as Vin Diesel. Sorry to be the one to tell you.

Deadline, Literally

I'm helping to put together a new Code of Conduct and Ethics policy where I work and I got distracted by this article that was linked to the site where I'm researching other similar policies. Allow me to just preview a little bit of the article below:

Consider the events of April 8, 2003. Early that morning, Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayyoub was reporting from the network's Baghdad bureau. He was providing an eyewitness account of a fierce battle between US and Iraqi forces along the banks of the Tigris. As he stood on the roof of the building, a US warplane swooped in and fired a rocket at Al Jazeera's office. Ayyoub was killed instantly. US Central Command released a statement claiming, "Coalition forces came under significant enemy fire from the building where the Al-Jazeera journalists were working." No evidence was ever produced to bolster this claim. Al Jazeera, which gave the US military its coordinates weeks before the invasion began, says it received assurances a day before Ayyoub's death that the network would not be attacked.

Just when I think things can't get more unbelievable, they do.

Oh how I love thee, Crème Brule

Here I am on Thursday night with nothing better to do. I had some humorous stories to tell but I wonder if maybe they haven't grown stale with the time that has passed them by. I've been busy at work with [gasp] work and after hours taking care of a boyfriend with stomach flu.

There was, for example, Friday night when apparently this city was out of fast food...or at least beef. I went to two Taco Bells (out of beef and tacos) and a Krystal (out of the signature Krystal burger). I briefly flirted with the idea of going to the Sonic or Wendy's but then thought the better of it and took my bad luck as a sign from God that I shouldn't be eating fast food in a city that's so grossly obese. (And now we know WHY. I mean, they ate the friggin' town out of fast food!) I was, however, able to procure a chicken sandwich from Burger King for lunch today and a Wendy's Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe for dinner last night, so all must be right with the local fast food world. (We have a food shortage at my house right now and I'm just not mentally up to the challenge of facing my ghetto supermarket right now.)

There was also a delightful Valentine's Day double dinner date with China Girl and her German BF at the conclusion of which a plate of gelato milk came out as one of our deserts. The French chef was so mortified he bought us a round of cognac in the hopes, I guess, that we'd become so drunk (we'd already had cocktails, a bottle of champagne and a bottle of red wine) that we'd forget it happened. It wasn't my desert so I wasn't too broken up about it. I was sad, however, that they were out of the cappuccino Crème Brule I ordered. But they did at least have a replacement Crème Brule that was so good that I wanted to stick my face in the bowl and lick out the bits of cream stuck in waves of the dish. But I thought maybe that wasn't the last imagine I wanted China Girl and the German BF to have of me. They left the next morning for China. And I as I predicted in my last entry, my life has returned to the category of "rather boring."

Not to worry, though. I may soon have the stomach flu myself and then I'll have lots of disgusting vomit and diarrhea stories to tell.

Girl in the City

So I actually find myself with a little time today to write - my work for the day completed and it being after the hour that anyone will conceivably call me back. I've had quite the social life here recently, due entirely to several of my friend visiting from their wildly exciting lives in Asia. Also, a third friend has returned from her brief experiment of living in Oregon where, shockingly, she learned to love the South. Tuesday we went to our local (meaning fake) Pat O'Brien's to celebrate the Mardi Gras. That meant drinking too many hurricane but miraculously not passing out in our own vomit. Then last night it was a dinner for seven, followed by some very bad math and more drinking. However, after the weekend slush fest and Tuesday's excess, I stuck with water.
I was so busy this week that I totally missed The Gilmore Girls AND The West Wing. I don't know what's come over me. But I have been distracted by real life and TV just can't compare to the exciting drama that is the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert White House saga.

Don't worry though, soon this will all be over - the Thailand-based Peace Corps friend (heretofore referred to as "Thai Girl") has already returned home and her China-based twin (who, in an homage to David Bowie, will now be known as China Girl) leaves Tuesday - and I'll return to my normally scheduled home-bound life and resume my whine-o-blog, complaining about local drivers, television, food, work and anything else I can dream up while sitting at my semi-cubicle.

Rwanda

I'm glad to report that the bloggers have returned. The migration back to their computers and winter homes has been completed and I have plenty to read once more.

As for me, life remains quite slow. Two friends have returned for two weeks each from Asia and we are spending as much time listening to their stories of bug eating and toilet etiquette as possible.

I can, however, now recommend "Hotel Rwanda," which I saw this weekend. It's a great movie, but you might want to pack some extra tissues when you go. It is well done and well acted, if perhaps not exactly what happened. But it is a movie and thus a little condensing of events had to occur. For more on the 1994 Rwandan massacre I'd recommend reading "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" by Philip Gourevitch. It's an incredible book and includes the story of Paul Rusesabagina, but gives a more complete picture of what happened there and how the world ignored it. You will read it with your mouth open.

Watch out for flying bugs.

A quick wrap up

Since last I wrote I have been witness to the largest private display of fireworks ever set off on a city street; finished my creativity class; seen "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" twice and also "Blade Trinity," "In Good Company," and "Kinsey" (once each); finished "The Best of Times" by Haynes Johnson (competing for the world's longest book); typed the word "biotech" 212 times; and finally today had a woman ask me if I'd seen a chicken on Main Street.

It's been a strange beginning to 2005.

Where, oh where, have all my blog buddies gone?

MARION, Ark. - In the wake of massive holiday food comas and two-week drunks, much of the world's blog production has ground to a halt with content providers eschewing the virtual world for the distractions of the actual world.

"This is almost unheard of. Bloggers are notorious social outcasts and so even holidays, weddings and birthdays will find them in front of their computers, typing out entries in the vain belief someone is reading," industry analyst Roger Elliot said.

News operations, politicians, Geraldo Rivera and others who rely on blogs for the majority of their research are worried about how long the dry spell will last.

"Unless we have another major snow storm or some local folks get caught up in some international tragedies, I'm not sure where we're supposed to get our news without the bloggers," said Steven Mann, station director for WFXY, the local FOX affiliate.

"Actually, if we had some local people caught up in international tragedies we probably wouldn't be able to find out about it without the bloggers."

Although the holidays are being blamed for at least some of the missing entries, industry watchers are hesitant to lay the entire drought at the feet of Christmas cheer.

"The truth is no one knows what's happened to the bloggers," said Mindy Yin, spokeswoman for the Organization for Internet Cooperation and Development. "Sure, some of them maybe have had one too many pieces of fruit cake or are having their stomach pumped after ingesting too many pumpkin soy lattes, but that doesn't explain all of it. After all the holidays come every year."

Alyssa Buck, who blogs as Rey-Ray on the World Piano Monkey Pizza Donut site, says she hasn't posted an entry in "like, days or something."

A die hard blogger, Buck, 16, said she isn't sure what's come over her recently but after spending a year of her life blogging at about 100 hours a week she is feeling burned out and disillusioned.

"I started out to like change the world, I guess. I had all these great ideas and I knew, I just KNEW that if I could get them out there then things would get better. But after a whole year, nothing is different. You could say things are worse. So I just haven't felt like logging in recently. I don't even know what people are discussing on my blog. And I don't even care."

She hopes after the new year she'll be able to return to her blog.

Trading of video game and Hot Pocket stocks were down Thursday on the news of the unofficial blog blackout.

Compiled from our wire services

A Quickie on Wednesday Morning

The ice is finally melting. It is now safe to return to the streets, well as safe as driving and walking in this city can be. After all the idiots are still out there, still running red lights and crossing against the light. But at least they aren't doing it with the added bonus of ice. That's something to be thankful for as we waltz into the new year. Ah, 2006, what joys of global warming will you bring us?

That's all for now. I'll return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Snow = End of the World

It snowed yesterday while I was at work. Well, really it was more of a slushy rain, which hardened overnight and then had a dusting of snow. It's white out there now, but soon the depressing dirt black ice will begin to develop. Anyway, idiots here on the radio were urging everyone to stay home because to leave their homes "they endanger their lives." The police announced that they would only come to accidents if someone was seriously injured or killed or possibly if one person involved was driving drunk because THEY DON'T WANT TO DRIVE IN THIS WEATHER. Emergency personnel do not want to drive in this weather. What is that about? I mean there's probably not even an inch out there. It's snow, people. Snow. Some ice. It's not the friggin' end of the world. Don't drive like idiots and stop freaking out. I'll be really pissed if this keeps me from finishing my Christmas shopping.

Life in a Three Panel World

Despite waking up this morning and coughing up half my lungs, I came to work today thinking, "I'll just finish the two things I'm working on and then I can stay home tomorrow, rest and get better without feeling the guilt of not finishing my work."

Now here we are at the very end of my work day. Let us take stock of what I've accomplished today: I still haven't gotten to the two things I came to work to finish because I had to do a local insert on a national shopping story and I had follow up on an attorney general's lawsuit. I've been assigned another story (potentially an entire package of stories), asked to "flesh out" a second one and then there's a story assigned a few weeks ago that I haven't yet started on. (It was technically due today).

So instead of staying home in bed tomorrow, where I SHOULD be, I'll be dragging my sick ass into work where I'm sure to infect the few sad souls who bothered to come in on Christmas week and where once again I am sure to get many new assignments before even beginning the ones that I've already been given. I fully expect to come in tomorrow and see Catbert sitting on my desk.

I may soon be in need of a lung transplant.

Ba, Blogbug!

For the last few days I have dutifully been ignoring my blog in the hopes it would go away. It would not. It's still here reminding me of how woefully underexciting my life is. Tis the slow season for blogging, I guess, as none of the blogs I visit have been updated in a while. People are too busy doing their holiday shopping and stuffing themselves on pumpkin spice bread and eggnog lattes to write down their adventures. We probably won't get an update until Christmas Day when, driven to madness by their families, the bloggers lock themselves in bedrooms en masse and begin recounting the adventures of the last six weeks. Also, probably our younger bloggers are busy finishing papers and taking tests and all that school business that goes on around this time.

Recently saw a very amusing local "band" called Automusik. We still have nasty, uncooked, sausage at my home that was handed out at the end of the show. I think the boyfriend is waiting for an appropriate dare before frying them up and eating them. He has very questionable food habits.

The holiday party season is upon us, as you well know, and I've been busy dodging the emailed invites from people whose parties I do not want to attend and hoping for invites to the parties I do want to attend. It's a torturous season for me, what with having to fast and being around massive piles of food at the same time. This country is not set up to cater to my dietary needs, you freakish meat eaters! Parties should begin on the holiday and continue for the days following, instead of beginning weeks before the holiday and then having the holiday be a massive emotional let-down after all the weeks of partying. Of course this would do nothing to rid us of the invites to parties we don't want to attend. I'll have to devote myself to solving that problem over the next few weeks.

Meatless Woes

Well it's been pretty quiet around these parts lately. There was an exciting altercation between W* the cat and AB* the dog, but that was short lived and ultimately not as exciting to retell as it was to watch.

It's so sad I can't think of anything going on so I guess I'll just complain about food. There is a serious lack of good vegan options in this town and even the health food stores don't carry milkless chocolate chips. I would also complain that there is a serious lack of vegan recipes/cookbooks and that I have grown extremely weary of rice. I can't believe people eat like this every day. Meat I can live without but cheese and ice cream...soysicle is just not the same.

That said, there are some great no-animals-killed-in-the-making-of-these-desert recipes. I, myself, stick to the cookies and banana bread in my two vegan cookbooks, How It All Vegan and its follow up In The Garden of Vegan. I find the brownies and cakes too dense and they suck all the liquid out of your mouth. But perhaps that's just my cooking skills at play.

But seriously rice is nice but we gotta find something else to fill out our vegan meals. Also, before I go, I have to make my annual comment on the changeling known as the soy bean. It is the most amazing bean ever. How you can create so much from something that grows in the Mississippi Delta is beyond me! If I could a prize to most underrated grown item, it would be the soy bean.

*Names have been initialized to protect the innocent.