Bullet Train to the New Year!

We don’t have bullet trains in America, it seems we like the speed in which we travel and having some TSA agent person handle us to get on a plane that has small seats, crappy food and costs a boat load of money.  We also must like sitting on the freeway in bumper to bumper traffic trying to have a get-a-way weekend somewhere.  Talk about fun. No, the only bullet train America has is the one that takes us from Thanksgiving right to the New Year in a blink of an eye. Sure, we have a stop at Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza but we are so busy shopping for them we never really stop and enjoy.  This Thanksgiving many cooks spent hours and hours preparing the big family Thanksgiving dinner only to have it eaten in less than 20 minutes.   We are in a rush all the time but we don’t seem to be getting anywhere constructive. Before you know it 2011 is here. Time to remember to write 2011 on checks, for those people who still write checks.  I don’t remember the last time I had to order checks from my bank, do you?  Oh well, January 2011 will be the start of the new diet, more or some exercising.   Most of America is confused as to what to do; eat or diet and other than Jared from The Subway most people haven’t figured how to do both successfully. Life is so full of inconsistencies   For those of us who still get monthly magazines notice how on one page is a recipe with a billion carbs and on the other is the latest celebrity diet.  We have been receiving this mixed message for all of our lives and people wonder why there is so much obesity in America today. I think you can’t be successful if you eat anything, you need to stop cold turkey, food is a drug. We need to stop eating all together.  One morsel and it’s a slippery slope back to two fisted mashed potatoes.  We of the… clean your plate because of the starving children in China… generation will never be successful at dieting.  We have been programmed to fail.  So this new year I am going to try the smoke cigarettes and drink coffee diet.  No solid food.  I’ve tried all the others and they don’t work, but people who smoke and drink lots of coffee seem to be thinner, sure, they have hacking coughs and their clothes smell like a trash dump but they can still fit into last year’s jeans.  Let’s try it, it will give us the energy we need and make us as pissed off as if we were dieting.  A win – win.

Everyone is always talking about what to give as gifts every holiday season, yet on Black Friday people lined up at 3 in the morning to buy stuff.  I have a theory, these people are not buying these things to give as gifts they are buying them for themselves, it’s just an excuse. They think they will throw us off by waiting in line with tents, really, tents?  I am on to them, how much can they really save on the latest game platform that everyone must have or flat screen TV. I don’t get it, there is supposed to be a recession but I can bet you a lot families with kids have a Playstaion a Xbox and… the make you look stupid as you use.. thing called the Wii.  The Wii people are so clever they even market it as a tool to exercise!   Nope, ciggie butts and massive cups of Joe for me. That’s what’s in my future.

Mall shopping is a joke, service stinks, they often don’t have what you are looking for and if you should find it you have to carry all those shopping bags up and down the mall.  Two separate people who waited on me, when I could get someone to wait on me, asked me if I would like some water?  I asked if I looked thirsty.  They just looked at me and laughed.  I couldn’t have taken a bottle of water from them even if I was thirsty because my hands were full of shopping bags. That was the worst 3 hours of my life.  Never again. Think Amazon, people, you can still shop at 3AM but it’s in your snuggie not outside a Target waiting to get trampled by people who should not but buying electronics but should be investing in dentistry.

I will not be sorry to see this year go; a year in which Keith Richards and Jay Z have both written books and Patti Smith won the 2010 National Book award.  I am sure they are all talented people, but books?  Also glad this is Oprah’s last year! I am tired of Oprah and her favorite things.  Those hysterical audience members you see are not happy they were lucky enough to be on the giveaway show, they are thinking, oh sh$t, how am I going to pay the huge gift tax on that stupid diamond encrusted watch she’s giving everyone!   Yay, Oprah, now leave and take Gayle, Stedman, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and your hairdresser with you.

This year I have decided to take all the money I would have spent on gifts… and food… think how much I will save with just coffee (it will be Folgers not Starbucks) and packs of Virginia Slims diet, and donate it to a worthy cause.  This worthy cause will be for humans in America not some endangered tree or guppy in the hinterlands. I am sure those are worthy causes, but we have a lot of needs in our own country.  Our economy is so bad people with jobs often have to decide how much food they can put on the family table or which utility bill to pay.  This year I am going to donate to a food bank here in Los Angeles, I want to give back.    Many people in this county do go hungry and while those in our government try to figure out how not to screw it up more, they all need a time out, in my opinion.  I am going to do what little I can to help those less fortunate.   We can all give back something; there are many choices, why don’t you find of one that works for you.

Happy Holidays!

All I Need To Know I Learned From Google

There was a book on the NY Times best sellers list a few years ago entitled, All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten … I don’t know about you but I don’t remember much about kindergarten except that horrible game… musical chairs. I am not kidding, what exactly is the point of that game other than fear and rejection? The creator of this little gem of a game must have had a side business in psychotherapy.  I was deathly afraid of that game.  I didn’t want to be the last little five year old who couldn’t find a place to “place” my fanny when the music stopped and there was one less chair.  The author of this book seems to think we learned all the important things in life while in kindergarten; look both ways… swim with a buddy… share everything and play fair, clearly my kindergarten didn’t ascribe to this play fair policy, and this was way before Child Protective Services, so I was out of luck.  Anyway, I could be wrong but I think I learned most of those things from my mom and dad, and they always had enough chairs for everyone!

Now that we are all out of kindergarten we still have a thirst for knowledge.  Where can we go to get this thirst quenched?  Twenty-four hour news channels, nope… they all have their own agendas.  The network nightly news, nope…If you want to find out who was expelled from Survivor watch CBS News, or if Bristol Palin was escorted off Dancing with the Stars, watch ABC News and if you want to know if The Biggest Loser fainted last week because of LACK OF FOOD, watch NBC News.  To learn anything substantial you have to do it yourself.  Read the paper you say, sure I could read the paper but that is so 1999.  We have technology now that is supposed to make our lives easier.  The internet is the information highway.  If you want to know the whole story you need to search the internet. Needless to say I spend a lot of time on the internet.  When I first started working there were no cell phones, fax machines or blackberries. It was not that long ago, trust me. The Internet consisted basically of AOL, Prodigy and Porn; there has always been porn on the internet.   Now where do we go looking for the knowledge that clearly we never got in kindergarten because we were all too busy looking for that last chair?   GOOGLE!  Google is our friend.  I Google everything.

Google was started as a research project by two guys at Stanford. Remember when research was a key, a kite, some string and lightning?  Thanks to them when I need to know if Reservoir Dogs was before or after Pulp fiction I can Google it. I do think those Stanford boys were motivated to find porn quicker, but it’s just a theory… but if I want to know how Warren Buffett made all his money, and if he is related to Jimmy, I can a Google it… If I want to know how old Justin Bieber is, I can Google it (actually, I really don’t need Google for this, I can just look at him and guess he’s 12)… If I need scores for games, weather, directions, you name it, I Google it. I can type in a question press enter and just like that, I’m smarter. Google is even on our phones.  If you’re having an argument with someone, no more dueling at day break.   Nope, Google can be the final authority.  How cool is that?!  This is really helpful if you’re married. You can be sitting having dinner in a restaurant and someone will ask a question, and three out of four people will pull out their phones and Google the answer.  Rude, sure, but hey, inquiring minds.

For many years my mother would call me and ask, “Franny, who is that guy we liked who used to have that show we watched?” I was her Google as long as I knew the answer.  I always knew that answer.

In full disclosure I don’t own a single share of Google stock, darn it.  I wish I could, but a single share of Google stock is around $590.00!  Yep, I Googled it.   Google can be a noun and a verb and be worth almost $600.00 all at the same time. Those Stanford guys really know how to get the most out of one word. Google is also one of the most desired places to work; they even let you bring your dog to work to lie down under your feet in your cubicle.  Sure, you’re workspace is a cubicle but wow, you get to bring your dog with you. You can’t bring your dog to work at Goldman Sachs.

Thank God for Google.  Without it  I would never know the current time in Istanbul. How long to cook a turkey (Martha says cook it until done, what does that mean?).  It’s done when the internal temperature reads 165 degrees on a thermometer.  Does a raw egg and Tabasco really cure a hangover?  I am going to let you Google that one yourself.

I just remembered something else I learned in kindergarten, the color yellow, but somehow I think I would have figured it out the first time I saw a let’s say a… BANANA!

By the way, the answer was always James Garner.

WHY SOCCER WILL NEVER CATCH ON IN THE U.S.

I have tried, I really have, to get into and possibly liking soccer, or as everyone outside of the United States call it football. That is problem number one. Everyone has to call it soccer. Do they call them football moms in England? Is it really the most popular sport in the world? I think they should revise that statement to read “excluding the United States”. I know, I know, ESPN reports the ratings for soccer are through the roof. I bet if soccer were available every week it would be a snooze fest. I am a huge fan of baseball, you don’t see us trying to jam baseball down other countries throats, do you? Japan adopted it all by themselves. It’s a game everyone can understand. Critics may say it’s a slow game but you always know what the hell is going on. It doesn’t require the announcer to yell GOOOAAAAALLL every time a home run is hit. It appears loud and annoying sounds are crucial to the game of soccer/football.

Right now it’s hard to avoid the World Cup, everyone is talking about it; Jay, Dave, Jon and my God, even my own beloved Charlie Rose. You would think with all this exposure we’d understand how the game is played. No, no one really does understand how this game is played. It’s no wonder people drink so heavily when watching a soccer match, they don’t know any more than we do, they are all just posers looking for an excuse to drink warm beer.

Most kids in the U.S. played soccer in grade school but I think the World Cup rules have been ginned up. I always thought the warning card system was devised to keep the parents in line here in the U.S. A system that should be implemented in Little League I might add! The rules for the world cup soccer I am watching make no sense. The game is supposed to have two half times, forty-five minutes each, but this is totally up to the discretion of the referees. The clock never stops so if something stops the game on the field, the clock keeps going, and the referee decides how much more time is added to play. When the referees decide it’s time for the game to end they hold up a card. I guess fans in the stands just have to guess when the game is about to end and hope they are not in mid hot-dog-bite. Another reason why it won’t work here, how would we know when to start heading to the parking lot to get into our cars to avoid the rush? …that is true sport in America…

The scoring is just wacky. Nil means zero. And if it’s a tie, hey its okay they still all move on to the next level. Let the next referee figure it out. On the ever powerful ESPN I heard them say… Italy beat New Zealand one to one. Huh? To confuse us even more the goalies don’t even wear the same uniform as their team… Is it just me or do the goalie gloves look like Mickey Mouse gloves? This is a game in desperate need of a telestrator, but since they haven’t figured out how to stop the clock, a telestrator seems out of the question!

Okay, so I am watching PBS the other night…yeah, I know… yet another program about soccer comes on titled A Time For Champions. Do you know what this program said? Yogi Berra played soccer as a child…Yogi Berra? These people will stop at nothing to get the one last holdout country to their dark side. This is a cult, I am warning you. I am just glad they didn’t have some sort of Yogisum like; there is no team in team.

I know the U.S. has a star player Landon Donovan, I am sure the girls all think of him as McSoccer but he is no Beckham! Beckham couldn’t even get the U.S. to care about soccer/football. He can sell a lot of tabloids but not tickets to games. The only person to have a recognizable name before Beckham was Pele. Has anyone seen Pele lately?He’s not aging well…hear that California and New York….This is not Polo.

Everyone can play soccer, is the pitch…baseball reference here…all you need is a ball and the mind numbing ability to control yourself not to use your hands on the ball! It’s counter intuitive to every other ball game we are taught as children! Then there is the running, I once overheard a kid tell his mom he didn’t want to play soccer anymore because there is too much running. Here in the U.S. we have that lazy, over weight reputation to uphold, yet another strike against soccer taking off in America.

So I say keep your soccer/football to yourselves Rest of the World and for heaven’s sake take those stupid, annoying Vuvusela noise makers with you. We already have the Kazoo and if Pink Floyd couldn’t make that kind of noise work no one can!

I really can’t think about this anymore. I, of course, wish the U.S. soccer team well.

Now, where is my Advil?

First One

First One

Everyone tells me I should write a blog, not sure why. Who would want to read anything I have to say? It seems a lot of people have a blog these days so I thought I’d give it a try. I do read Twitter, rarely tweet, I have Facebook but for some reason everyone else can see it but me; it keeps telling me I have the incorrect password. Glad they have that security thing worked out.

A note before going forward …one of my early bosses once told me I had…and I quote “the punctuation of a goat” it has been many years and he might be dead but my punctuation is probably still goat-like, either too many commas or not enough. Not proficient in grammar either, along with not remembering my passwords it appears I am also fond of “fragment, consider revising” non sentences. If this iPad didn’t have spell check I’d have three strikes. So read on at your own risk. You are forewarned.

Here goes:

People are saying they can’t watch or read the news anymore, it’s too depressing. I don’t believe them, because when someone mentions in a conversation that former Vice-President Al Gore and his wife Tipper are divorcing (and after forty years for god’s sake), Rush Limbaugh just got married for the 4th time; I guess he sees how well serial marriages are working out for Larry King, or the fact that Meg Whitman, who is running for governor in California, did not register to vote until 2002… It appears Meg was too busy helping me buy all those shoes I didn’t need on EBay… Thanks, Meg, I promise to leave you positive feedback. That news they get. I guess depressing news is in the eye of the beholder.

Finally, more and more people outside of Louisiana are grasping the fact of how horrible the oil spill in the Gulf is, although they don’t seem to notice that this BP spill is leaking 40,000 barrels of oil a day! And that’s just what BP is telling us, it could be more. What the heck do we need the Saudis for if we can get this much oil out of one well? Oh and by the way, I much prefer the Puppy Cam to the Oil Leak Cam.

I know all of you are watching the news but just don’t want to cop to it so you don’t have to do anything. Everyone wants to complain, complain about big government in our lives or complaining government not doing enough in the Gulf. I am so confused which is it? Drill, don’t drill, bank reform, no bank reform or government paid health insurance equals socialized medicine. I thought to be socialized was a good thing, I guess just in some cases or with dogs (that dog whisperer guy can’t seem to keep a marriage together either). Meanwhile people are voting less and less and expecting more and more (I’m talking to you too Meg!). I am not going to tell you who to vote for I just want you to vote. Vote in your next election. They make it so easy; you can even vote by absentee ballots. The word absentee couldn’t be more right.

I think we should pay as much attention to our country as we do to the marriages of Al Gore, Rush Limbaugh and Larry King and don’t get me started on that Lindsay Lohan and her SCRAM bracelet …huh? They can tell when Lindsay has a drink but they can’t make it so AT&T’s service is better. That is just wrong.

Enough of my ramblings, I am sure the people who suggested I write a blog are now changing their email addresses. I understand. Remember you were forewarned; Sister Patrenalla tried to teach me English to no avail, of course, that was when she wasn’t throwing chalkboard erasers at students. She wasn’t good at that either.