Friday, May 25, 2007

Pestillence and paper products.

On Tuesday, a fly infestation was discovered in the kitchen of my office.

On Wednesday, I arrive at work to find our kitchen has been quarantined for bug extermination. The place had been "bug bombed" the previous evening.

On Thursday, the power goes out twice after I have left for class. In addition, the source of the fly infestation was unveiled upon the discovery of a rat carcass in the kitchen.

The carcass cost $150 to remove and our Managing Editor had to sign for the removal of said carcass.

I miss all the fun.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Because dishes don't just clean themselves, you know.

I once wrote a note to some rude playgoers and gave it to them after the performance. (I wrote about it once, but I don't feel like going through my archives to find it. If you're curious, I'm pretty sure it happened in Spring 2004. Possibly April.)

This was the beginning of my journey into writing and leaving passive-aggressive notes.

Because Cassie knows that all of my notes left around this house have always only pertained to one particular roommate, she recently directed me to a blog called Passive-Aggressive Notes.

I only wish that some of my notes were as creative as these, especially this dude, who really went all out in terms of theme and typographic style:



And I only long to do this with the dirty dishes and other items that creep their way into everyone's living space and were clearly the remnants of a certain roommates' irresponsible freedom trail, which is amazingly devoid of people who are not, in fact, said roommate:



Unfortunately, I don't think said roommate quite got the picture the last time I left a dirty, cinnamon-encrusted dish on her bed. The next day, that dish had magically migrated to the kitchen table. And stayed there. Thus, I clearly should have left an accompanying note.

I know that technically its a lot easier to just tell people when they suck, but leaving angry notes in a variety of Sharpie colors is a lot more rewarding for some reason. It's like the life equivalent of a detention slip. Or the non-legally binding equivalent of getting a parking ticket.

I feel like I should submit the notes about cottage cheese that are on the office refrigerator.

Or perhaps the passive-aggressive notes from the fish asking us to clean their bowl . . .

Monday, May 21, 2007

For the apparel doth oft proclaim the man.

I have a Denmark sweatshirt that I made when I costumed Hamlet on the Moon. It's just a thing. When you are involved with Hamlet, you can own a Denmark sweatshirt even if you aren't Danish or haven't been there. And when you costume an entire production by yourself, you definitely are allowed to own an item of clothing commemorating it. I wore this to work last week, for some reason.

Today, I have this conversation with one of our ad reps.

Ad Rep: When did you go to denmark?
Me: Oh, I haven't been.
Ad Rep: Where'd you get the sweatshirt, then?
Me: I made it.
Ad Rep looks puzzled.
Me: I costumed a production of Hamlet once.
Ad Rep: I grew up in Denmark.
Me: Oh. Uh, well.
Ad Rep: Hamlet takes place there.
Me: Uh, yes.
Ad Rep: I grew up next to Castle Elsinore.

And my only response to this exchange is: "I don't think I ever would have known that about you."

But obviously, if we follow his logic, its because he doesn't own a Denmark sweatshirt. So, you know, Polonius wasn't that off-base, I guess.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Yeah, about that whole saying "no" to rehab thing . . .

I love listening to Amy Winehouse. Her soulful doo-wop inspired sound is something I haven't heard in the past decade or so in pop music. Not since Lauren Hill's reinvention of doo-wop for "That Thing." But man, this girl is not fun to look at. I try to believe that every woman has the potential to be beautiful, and somehow the makeup and hair gods managed to make Amy look presentable for her album cover and music video, but I'm not totally sure how that's possible. They clearly had a lot of crazy genetics and refusual to go to rehab working against them:

Yikes.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Cooking South Beach Style

Ted Allen, of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame and an occasional judge on Iron Chef America, will be joining Padma, Tom and Gail as a fourth judge for the third season of Top Chef, which I will be watching religiously when it starts up again on Bravo on June 13. (The rest of the cast is up on the website, as well, but I only see the judges via this link.)

The show will be moving to Miami for this season, which is a good movie because it will keep a lot of variety in the food challenges. It's not that LA's food scene isn't vibrant and full of wonder on its own, but I'd like to see Top Chef move to different food hot spots for each season. After Miami, they could move on to New York, Portland (Ore.), San Francisco (!), Atlanta, Seattle, Denver . . . well, maybe Denver is a bit of a stretch. But I like the idea that Top Chef could keep a bit of variety by moving around the world of American cuisine.

Also, with Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen returning for a third season on June 4 to its Los Angeles location, perhaps the cooking competition scene is a little too crowed in the City of Angels. We all know Tom Collichio is great at crafting steaks . . . but Gordon Ramsay hunts his own deer.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Photographic DNA evidence.

From Meg, via Will.



I'd say that the program's analysis of the images is pretty accurate. It was very difficult to choose my form of art, however. There were so many good choices. And I missed the vice section entirely, yet the program seemed to know that I have an absurd number of shoes, among them several pairs of Chucks . . .

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Baba kreslo.

Marcus: "According to 'The Amazing Race,' Polish people hate dwarves."
Stevi: "It's cuz dwarves steal their peroghis."
. . .
Marcus: "Clearly, my eyes aren't in as much pain because I'm making jokes about dwarves."
--discussing the exploits of Charla on the current season of The Amazing Race

This discussion was later followed by my explanation of what peroghis were called in various Salvic languages, which was met with the following from my loving fiance:
"In Russian you suck!"