greasy lunches

images4.jpg I just want to say to the people in my office who order things like burgers or tuna wraps with a large order of fries, SCREW YOU! That’s what I want to eat! Instead, I’m stuck with my sad salads. I’m chewing on lettuce leaves to fit in my pants, and while it does help, my love of all things fried is still with me, and dude, like an ex-boyfriend, you might forget about it for a while but then a certain song, or smell in this case, brings it all back. Aaargh. What am I supposed to do? Just keep posting pictures of what I’d rather be eating? So not fair.

cellphone novels

recycling_cellphone.jpg Japan is weird. The Times keeps running random stories on their culture–like how when platform boots were in, the kids would wear one-foot high boots and their shoes became wedged in the accelerators, leading to major car accidents. Or how the thumb-dextrous teens can text on cell phones at lightning speed. And now this trend has actually led to a new movement called cellphone literature. In Japan, their top ten bestsellers of 2007 include an actual novel composed on the cell. These novels have like four word sentences with the lexicon of 🙂 etc. included, weak character development, no description, and fragmentary sentences. And they’re riotiously popular. They’re downloaded like crazy and when published in book form, fly off the shelf in a way only Oprah could otherwise produce.

“Indeed, many cellphone novelists had never written fiction before, and many of their readers had never read novels before, according to publishers.”

What the hell. That made me laugh outloud. But now I’m moving to Japan. I see gold there people.

Here’s the article:

how she move

how-she-move-poster-0.jpg I dunno. I kinda want to see it. African-American girl who wants to go to med school, but doesn’t have the cash — so she’s going to dance it off to win prize money. What’s not to like?

IT disease

images2.jpg It’s stupid of me to post anything negative about IT people, since so far, this web site is like the only one I can actually get to without seeing the words in gigantic blue letters ACCESS BLOCKED!!!! But let me make a small point while I can. Having worked with a variety of IT people over the years, there is something called IT disease — where the IT person is convinced they are utterly the smartest people in the room and are so rigid/inflexible, new ideas shut their systems down. For example, we once had a discussion about possibly purchasing a Mac for a staff designer. Macs are designed for designers. As a co-worker says, any designer worth their salt prefers Macs. Upon hearing our request, the head of the meeting began to melt and started screaming “the only reason why designers use MACs is because they are too lazy to learn how to use a PC!” which signaled to us that the conversation was no longer productive.

Let me just say that this is not maybe the most productive approach to working with others. Oh, and ALL designers must be lazy because they all use Macs. That makes a lot of sense. Just saying.

the church of Oprah

images1.jpg I don’t have an organized theory about Oprah, just that she wants to rule and wants us to worship her and will be pretty nice to her if we play nice. And I’m not saying that this is a bad thing. I mean, you can go on Oprah and win a Chevrolet. That’s pretty cool. She can say which books do well, which movies tanks, maybe who will be president, and all that jazz, but I’m most intrigued by the more spiritual, more woo-woo side of her that has come out of her empire. Like there’s Dr. Phil, whom I’ve never listened to but I understand Howard Stern considers him a mortal enemy — but he’s hired to perform a fairly intimate duty of couseling on love lives. And then there’s a plethora of columnists on her web sites on eating well, striving to be your best, how to beat the blues, which I’m like, why Oprah? And maybe, if I were being really cynical, it’s b/c that’s like the best way to dominate a people is to get a hold of their spirit and their beliefs. If I’m being positive, I’d say she’s just trying to lessen people’s misery and that in itself is not a bad thing. And hell, I’d take Oprah’s advice. Just look at her. She looks like the goddess of corn or something in every photo.

Control in itself doesn’t flip me out. After all, it’s not like she’s preaching have kids, drop out of high school, do drugs, show the paparazzi your intimates, etc. But it just, I guess, I just find it interesting.

And my other random thought is that I think Madonna wants to be Oprah. After the acting thing bombed several times, with her whole Kabbalah/children’s book series, I think she’s going to go for spiritual domination, so look out for her talk show.

crying at the movies

unleashed.jpgjuno.jpg…is one of my all-time activities. I love getting swept up into a story and enjoy being moved by whatever pain/coming of age moment the character experiences b/c IT’S NOT MY LIFE. My friend Becca was surprised that I didn’t get weepy at the ending of “Juno” (great script; a bit too stylized dialogue-wise at first for my taste, but then has really cool plot treatments and terrific characters), which is understandable as I’m known to tear up at commericals.

I experienced body-wracking sobs during “Dancer in the Dark” (Actually, that story was excruciating and me and my friend Joslyn were like wrecks after that film. That was too much and not a fun “cry at the movies” situation.) I cried when Michelle Kwan lost the gold medal on TV, I cried during “The Nutty Professor” when skinny Eddie Murphy makes fun of fat Eddie Murphy (very meta), and I cried at the ending of Jet Li’s “Unleashed.”

The ending of “Unleashed” is where this killing machine (Jet Li) flashes back to a time when he was happy as a kid with his mom b/c his friend plays the Mozart piece she used to play, and his character is very moved, and the movie is very cheesy. I saw it movie with my friend Alex J. and other fellas, and when we exited the theater, he was like “well, that was stupid!” “Oh yeah, pretty stupid,” I said, trying to smile through the fact that I was overclempt. So why Jet Li and not Juno? Dude, not a clue.

And as an aside, is it me? Or does the 2/3 Times Square platform consistently smell like barf?

CVS

images.jpg Oh god, I’m addicted to CVS. There’s no way around it. They send me coupons, and I keep going back to spend the $20 to save the $4 for stuff I don’t need. My home has a stock pile of toilet paper, but so does my office. If I ever get snowed in, I have like four months’ worth of almonds, cotton balls, night creme, and floor cleaner. Ay caramba I am exactly like my mother. YAY