Mesothelioma and the Talking Heads

So, there's this commercial that plays on one of the cable stations pretty much constantly.  It's an advertisement for (I think) some kind of medication for Mesothelioma.  Or maybe it's a law firm's ad for clients affected by Mesothelioma.  I'm not really sure.

But ANYWAY, it's just this guy talking, and he starts out, "People who have been diagnosed with Mesothelioma have many questions. ‘How did I GET this disease?’”

And every time, EVERY TIME this commercial plays, my mind goes straight to the Talking Heads song, "Once in a Lifetime".

"And you may find yourself in a beautiful house

With a beautiful wife

And you may ask yourself, well,

How did I GET here?"

  

and that damn song, straight outta my high school days, just keeps going on and on in my head,

"THIS is not my beautiful house!

THIS is not my beautiful wife!"

Anybody else? Anybody else see that commercial and go immediately to the Talking Heads?  No?  Just me?  Yeah, I was afraid of that. :)

 

More painting with Bob Ross

(Please note Sodapop, who SNORED throughout this entire painting lesson.)

With Bob Ross, you get to a point, about halfway in, where you're all, "yeah, this looks like sh*t".  And then he KEEPS GOING, and tells you to do this and this and THIS, and pretty soon it's looking like an actual ... painting.

Voila!

Old and Random

Does anyone besides me remember typing correspondence on a typewriter?  Remember when fax machines first became available, and they seemed like a flippin' MIRACLE?  "Waaaaait a minute, you mean I just feed the document in here, dial a number, and it SHOWS UP SOMEPLACE ELSE?!"  Remember when printers used tractor feed paper?  Yes, I am old.

There's an old City DPW garage around the corner from where I work which is about to be demolished.  I wanted to get a picture of the Sign Shop door before it's gone, because it makes me smile:

Two reality TV shows I can highly recommend:  "Alone" just started its second season, Thursdays on the History channel.  This show takes a bunch of outdoorsy people and drops them, one by one, into remote Alaska locations where they have to survive on their own.  They are equipped with video cameras and have to transmit videos every day to the people running the show.  Some of the people crack and give up right away, some last for a few weeks, and last season's winner lasted for something like sixty-three days before he was the last one standing.  Watching the people start their downhill slides is absolutely fascinating; I probably shouldn't like this show as much as I do, but man, it's some pretty compelling watching.

On that same track, "The Last Alaskans" has started a new season, Tuesdays on the Discovery channel.  I've written about this show before; it chronicles the last people allowed to homestead on a remote Alaskan wildlife refuge.  Very, very good.

Riverdance is apparently coming to this area, because ads for it have been all over local media.  Riverdance is one of those events that I can say with confidence I would not attend even if it were free.  See also:  Any type of Renaissance Festival.  *shudder*

I've had a sore thumb joint for a few days, and I couldn't figure out what I'd done to it, until I went to take my Celexa this morning.  The package the pills come in is this funky thing where you have to press down on one end and then pull the pill card out from the other end, except I always get it wrong and have to wrestle with it (relaxing!  not at all stressful!), and this morning I realized that the reason my thumb was sore was from struggling with pulling the pills out of the package.  I have a brand-new medical condition, heretofore unknown to science!  "Celexa Thumb".  Ha.

There was a panhandler in front of the Dollar Store where I went on my lunch break this morning, and I always tell those dudes "nope, sorry", and then I feel bad about it.  I mean, I KNOW they're just going to use the money for drugs and/or alcohol, so I don't know WHY exactly I feel bad, just that I don't feel bad enough to give them any drug money.

I dropped a makeup pencil down the bathroom sink this morning.  I guess I'm going to learn how to take a sink trap apart tonight. *sigh*

 And finally, a ticklish kitten:

What's old and/or random with you?

Pop question: Getting Lost

I was watching Still Alice the other night, with Julianne Moore as a woman who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.

And of course, I got to thinking about my mom, who passed away from the regular type of Alzheimer's in 2013, so the movie was ... not easy for me to watch.

In the movie, one of the first outward signs of Julianne Moore's character's disease is when she can't find the bathroom in her house, and ends up wetting her pants.  And I remembered how, a few years before my mom was actually diagnosed, I knew that there was something wrong.  She was forgetting things, and losing things, and then, one day, she was relating an anecdote to a few of us about how she had gotten lost in Walmart, how she had been doing her regular shopping, and then got turned around somehow, and realized that she didn't know where the front of the store was or how to find the exit.

And everybody laughed, talking about how big the big-box stores were, and how disorienting, and how everybody gets lost in one from time to time.

And I was, well, nonplussed.  Because I can't even imagine getting lost inside a store.  How could you possibly get so confused that you couldn't find your way to the exits?  And I still remember how worried I felt about my mom when she told that story, and how baffled I was that other people were relating to it, because WHO GETS LOST INSIDE A STORE?!

So:  Here's my question:  Have you ever gotten lost inside a store?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Right up the wall

The first time I saw this University of Phoenix commercial, I was hooked.  The woman's voice is distinctive, and the melody, from The Wizard of Oz, is instantly recognizable.  The visuals and storyline are interesting; people doing what it takes to get a college degree.

But then I started listening to the lyrics.  "A degree is a degree"?  Um, no, considering that if you buy a degree from the University of Phoenix, you're paying many times more than what the same degree would cost at your local community college.  "You're gonna want someone like me, but only if YOU have a brain"?  Again, no, if I were an employer, I would cast a long side-eye at a University of Phoenix degree, mainly because they've got a bad reputation for price gouging.

Sadly, the only people likely to be taken in by this commercial are the same ones portrayed in it; low-income workers looking for the quickest way to a degree and vulnerable to high-pressure recruiting tactics.

I googled "University of Phoenix scam" and up popped story after story of people ripped off by the school.  The most heartbreaking were ones like these:

“I was former student of UOP or Appallo and I went to get a anther copy of my tarnscript for my current school I have been at for over year and they will no release my transcripts. I ask them why. They say that I owe them 2800.00 dallors. I said how could that be when you collected well over 7500.00 and I drop classes and come to find out after I withdrew they still collect money and still saying I owe them money. So I contacted a attorney they will be hearing from them.
They also sent me to collection and the school I am going to know will not grant Finical Aid untill i get those transcipts. One semister from getting my LPN.”

Oh. My. God.  This illiterate person was one "semister" from getting an LPN.  Holy.  SH*T.  I'm sorry, but that is f*cking FRIGHTENING.

Now when I see the commercial it makes my blood pressure rise.  Hmmm, maybe the University of Phoenix should consider a tie-in with a high blood pressure medication manufacturer ...

Random

Okay, first and most important, many thanks to Laura, who sent a fine donation for the kitties of Little Mews!

Laura, your gift is very much appreciated.  I'm sorry I'm not better at sign-making. :)

Now, some random:

I finally, FINALLY got around to canceling my Netflix account the other day.  I was on the DVD plan, and seeing as how the last time I sat down and watched an entire movie was ... a long, looooong time ago, it was time to pull the plug.  Phew.  (and no, I'm not saying that I'm *better* than anyone else by not watching movies.  Lord knows I watch enough crap TV.  I just do not have the time OR the attention span to sit still for two hours these days. *sigh*)

and OH MY GOD CRAP TV YOU GUYS!  AMAZING RACE!  LAST WEEK!  I thought the Green Team was finally gonna bite it, and I was CHEERING for that other girl to GET THAT DAMN FISH DAMN YOU! GOOOOOOOO!  And then Green Team guy started to CRY, and I was kind of GLAD because he's sort of jerk-ish, but then I felt BAD for feeling GLAD because he really IS a student of the game, and ... yeah, can you tell I get way too invested in this stuff?

I managed to put the outside lights up without incident over the weekend.  Yay! A friend and I have decided to become "peril pals" on facebook; if one of us is about to do something potentially life-threatening (which, for me, includes anything at all involving a ladder, ha), we PM the other before we start and once we finish.  If one of us gets the FIRST message and not the SECOND, well, it's time sound the alarm.  Hopefully it'll never be necessary.

I actually almost said screw it with the lights this year and bought one of those star-shooter things.  But I wasn't sure how bright the lights from that would actually be, and I didn't want to cough up forty bucks for something I wasn't happy with.  The main problem with my regular lights, which I lay along the garden edging out front, is that if we get a year with a lot of snow (LIKE LAST YEAR I'M LOOKING AT YOU, YOU MISERABLE, ENDLESS WINTER), I'm out there digging the lights out a few times a week and it's a pain in the butt.  So I dunno; maybe next year I'll try the star-shooter.  Does anybody you know have one?  Do they like it?

I never realized how many people around here are actually from Jersey until I started doing the events at the Tractor Supply nearest to the rescue.  I swear, every other person is a Jersey transplant.  Most of them came up here after they retired.  When *I* retire, I ain't sticking around here, I'll tell you what.  I'm heading SOUTH.

I was pawing through a bathroom cabinet this morning, looking for ... something, I forget what, and I found SEVERAL make-up items that I never use.  Some old hair gel, a half-full tube of foundation that I didn't like, and some old eye make-up.  And I actually had a hard time throwing it out! I have to watch myself, there ... evidently the hoarding instinct is strong in me.  Anybody else have a hard time chucking stuff that they *might* use some day?

I've discovered a great website for cheap me:  Gasbuddy.com.  You just type in your address, and it gives you the gas prices at nearby stations.  The stations around here can be as much as twelve cents a gallon apart, so it's nice to know who's got the cheap stuff.

So that's it!  My random for today. Got any random yourself?

Things I learned this weekend.

Okay, first off, did you know that Jewel the singer is related to the Kilcher family featured on the TV show "Alaska:  The Last Frontier"?  I did not know this until this past weekend, and it kind of  blows my mind a little.  Mainly because the TV show Kilchers seem so ... earthy, and Jewel does not.  Evidently, there is one family in Alaska, and their last name is Kilcher.

Now.  Other stuff I learned.

Cattails are soft.  Like, really, REALLY soft.  Holding a puffed-out cattail is like holding a big wad of cotton.

Ice stays on the beaver swamp even after the temps have been in the fifties for a couple of days:

X marks the spot!  The spot where ... something happens, or happened, or will happen, at some point.

When the opportunity arises to swing on swings, you've got to take it.  Okay, I already KNEW that one, but still.:

When left to themselves, picnic tables will do an interpretive dance:

Patience is a virtue.  Waaaay back in August, when I was at the State Fair, I bought an awesome wooden frog table.  I tucked it away, to be a birthday gift to myself, and since yesterday was the big day - TA-DA!

I love that frog.  Look at the side-eye on that dude!  He's giving us all a giant EFF YOU.

And finally, the last thing I learned this weekend:  When you find a giant metal mermaid at an insanely great price, you must buy it.  It's the law.  I just learned that this weekend.  And that is why I'll be spending NEXT weekend trying to find a place in the house for this beauty.

My weekend.  I learned so much!

Random

I know, I know, pickings have been slim around here lately - I apologize.  I've just been so dang BUSY.


Checking the mailbox and getting a letter from the local Probation Department makes your day more interesting in a hurry.  Sometimes I wonder if my mailman is judging me based on my mail. Thanks to the drunk driver hit-and-running me last fall, I've received several letters from the District Attorney and now the Probation Department.  I feel like running out to the mailman and yelling, "It's not me!  It's the dude that ran into me!"  Ha.


Somebody I know posted on Facebook about "my granddaughter, Alyvia", and I was thinking, okay, how do you even pronounce that?  Is it allie ... allie-via ..." and then the light bulb went on.
Olivia.
Jesus Christ.
If you want to name your kid Olivia, SPELL IT F*CKING "OLIVIA".
Gah.


Awesome Halloween costume idea:  Dress plus gold medals from Dollar Store = Caitlyn Jenner.  You're welcome!


I'm STILL trying to figure out the Maserati I saw parked at the local WalMart not long ago.  I'm pretty sure that if I owned a Maserati, the LAST place I'd be shopping would be WalMart.  Just on general principle.


Saw this little dude in the driveway the other night:

I posted it on Craigslist and Facebook, but nobody replied - guess somebody got tired of their Easter present.  Hopefully he'll find a home in one of the barns in the area.


I know I'm not alone in this, but I detest it when someone uses "lol" on line.  I just ... feel like asking, "Really?  You really laughed out loud at that?"  Because I doubt it.  I mean, I *do* laugh out loud, I did it just last night while watching old John Belushi SNL skits, but there is NO WAY everybody is lol-ing as much as they claim to be.  Bah.


The Cake Boss makes ugly cakes.  There, I said it.


That's my random for now!  How about you - got any random?

In my little town

What happened in Charleston last week is terrible.  Innocent people gunned down in a place that should have been a safe haven. It's a tragedy.

And it made some bad memories come back, because a few years ago, it happened here.

I remember listening to the radio that day, and hearing the first confusing reports of something happening downtown, and hearing the sirens and seeing the police helicopters overhead from my office, across town from the Civic Association.

And I remember that it made the national news that night, and briefly the night after, and then my little town was left to pick up the pieces, and hold the church services, and plan the memorials.

So while I think the ongoing coverage in Charleston is certainly somberly appropriate to such a tragedy, I guess I just don't understand why the coverage is so overwhelming, in every branch of the media.

Is it because Charleston is a big city, as opposed to my little town?

Is it because the murderer is a white supremacist, and the victims are black, and it occurred in a place with a history of racism?

Is it because the murderer in my little town was Asian, and most of the victims were recent immigrants, and thus ... I don't even know ... somehow less "deserving" of media coverage?

I don't know.  Personally, I'm glad that the media didn't converge on my little town back then, at least not for more than the first day.  I think there's something to letting towns grieve on their own.

But as I leaf through page after page of coverage in the newspaper, and see story after story after story on TV and on line, and listen to continuing radio coverage, I have to wonder where all the media were back then.

Back in 2009. In my little town.

Killer

I swear, if I hadn't already quit smoking, this commercial would have made me do it:

Random

- Why is it that every single time I get my car back from the shop, everything, included the seat, the mirrors, and the steering wheel angle, has been CHANGED?  Dude had to drive it thirty feet from the parking lot to the garage, not thirty miles.  Jeez.

- So as you may or may not know, I am a HUGE fan of the Duggar show, i.e., Nineteen Kids and Totally Insane.  Yes, I know they belong to a weird religious cult (Quiverfull Movement), and blah blah blah, but that show is so damn RELAXING.  Nothing much ever happens, and nobody yells at anybody, and nobody learns anything, and it's just about PERFECT.  Except last night, there was an episode where one of the daughters who just got married (I can't tell them apart) and her new husband went on a European honeymoon, and it became painfully obvious as the episode wore on that they're pretty ... dumb.  Oh, they're both amiable enough, but really ... to freak out over escargot?  In this day and age?  Errrr ... I don't think homeschooling has served them right, frankly.  (UPDATED TO ADD:  I just read online that the happy couple is 22 and 19.  That explains a lot:  I, too, was dumb as a box of rocks at that age.  I forgot that Duggars marry young.)

- But!  I did not get to watch the entire episode, because there was more Rescue! Drama! happening on Facebook, so I was busy getting my snark on from the sidelines, which is the best way to enjoy Rescue! Drama!.  In my opinion.

- and Oh!  In other tacky reality TV news, is anybody else watching Married at First Sight on A&E?  Oh my GOD I love that show.  I really need to get a Tivo, because last night a new episode of that went up against a new episode of the Duggars, and I was TORN.  TORN.  Of course, in the end, I didn't get to watch much of either thanks to Rescue!  Drama!, so it's a good thing that both A&E and TLC will rerun the episodes approximately nine billion times.  Whew.

- Today is Administrative Professionals' Day.  I am an administrative professional.  The chances of anyone in my office acknowledging this in any way are zero.  Screw it, I'm taking MYSELF out to lunch.
 
- The daffodils are up!  And the hyacinths!  The lilacs are leafing out!  And it's supposed to snow tonight.  *sob*

And of course, there continues to be plenty of THIS going on:

 They'll be four weeks old tomorrow.  Where DOES the time go?!

Because what life situation DOESN'T mirror a scene in "The Homecoming"?

Back in the seventies, there was a made-for-TV movie called "The Homecoming".  It featured the Walton family and spawned the series 'The Waltons".

In the movie, set in the Depression, the dad has had to take a job out of town and the family is waiting for him to come home for Christmas.  At one point in the movie, the mother, Olivia, goes into the root cellar to get some potatoes or something, and comes back with a blooming Christmas cactus she had put away the previous winter and forgotten about.

"Would you look at that?!", she marvels to the children.  "Blooming in the deaaaaaaad of winter!"

This morning, at my house:

Not to be outdone, the hibiscus decided to put its two cents in:

Blooming in the deaaaaaaaad of winter.

My Six Hundred Pound Life

Do any of you watch that show?  On TLC?  I find it fascinating.  The amount of food those people can eat, for one thing.  And the way they do it.  They'll take, like, a normal bite of a burger, but then, instead of putting it back on the plate, they take another bite, and then they start, like, working their jaw around the side of the burger, and all of a sudden the WHOLE DAMN THING is in their mouth, like watching a snake swallow a rat or something.  They have to WORK to get that friggin' burger all in their mouth at once, but dammit, they're gonna DO IT.

It's like watching a competitive eating contest, except with only one competitor, and the contest never ends.

And their family members.  OH MY GOD, their family members, who are running out to Burger King at eleven at night to get another sack of burgers to feed a person who is already so fat they can barely get out of bed.  It's the definition of enabling, right there.

I'm not making fun of these people.  Everybody's got something.  It's just ... really, really interesting to watch, is all.

This is the time of year when I start to put on weight.  Every year, right on schedule, after months of being inside and not nearly enough working out, the pants start to feel a little tighter.  I'm probably up about ten pounds from where I was in the fall, but I know that come spring, when I'm coming home from work and changing into jeans and heading right back outside again, the weight will come off.

And honestly?  When I'm thin, in the summer, I start to think that maybe I could stand to GAIN a few pounds.  Maybe it wouldn't hurt as much to sit on a hard chair if I had a little padding back there.  Maybe ... my face wouldn't look quite as gaunt if I weighed a little more, although I think that gauntness may be more a product of age than weight.

But then comes February, and I actually DO start to gain some weight, and I panic.  Oh my GOD my face feels ... full!  My stomach feels flabby, despite ninety billion flipping Jillian crunches!  I can't get FAT!

And then I feel like an a** hole for even fretting about it, when there are real problems in the world and people out there who weigh FIVE TIMES what I do.  Nobody cares about your ten pounds, Rocky.

I just wish I could gain some weight and not have to worry about it, is all.  Maybe someday I'll get there.

Quote of the Day

"You wash those like they're gonna go to the prom".

- Dr. Pol's son Charles, describing the scrubbing-up procedure for castrating a horse on "The Incredible Dr. Pol."

hahahahaha I love that show.

Random

Lots of random in my life lately.

Okay, so, first off, this post mentions a spider, so if that will squick you out, please to avoid. I will mention it when I get to the spider part so you can avert your eyes if necessary.


I bought a dress at Kohl's the other weekend that cost me ... zero.  Originally forty-eight bucks, marked down to $9.60, and I had a ten dollar gift postcard from Kohl's, so ... zero.

I have a couple of thoughts on this (because God knows I have thoughts on everything):

1.  Does anybody actually ever buy anything at full retail?  Especially at stores like Kohl's, where everything is on sale all the damn time?  Was that dress EVER offered at forty-eight bucks?  Somehow I doubt it.

2.  I have no idea why Kohl's keeps sending me these ten-dollar gift cards.  I mean, I'm not complaining or anything, but every few weeks, they send me a card (there was another one in my mailbox yesterday), I take it to the store, I pick out something that costs less than ten bucks, and I'm good.  They must have figured out by now that I'm not a typical shopper, and I'm not going to take that card and go spend, like, fifty bucks or something.  (and yes, you can absolutely find stuff for less than ten bucks at Kohl's.  Like the dress I just bought.  Clearance jewelry is also a sure thing, as is hosiery (early this spring I set myself up with tights for life by combining an 80% off sale with ten-dollar gift cards).  Towels are also on sale for less than ten bucks all the time.  I will never need to buy a beach towel again.  Thanks, Kohl's!  I don't know why you keep sending me these cards, but don't stop!

Okay, moving on.  Do you ever dream about bloggers?  Like, dream that you're a relative to a blogger or a neighbor or something?  Do you ever feel kind of ... creepy, afterward?  Like you've somehow invaded their personal life or something?  No?  Just me?  Okay, then , forget I asked.

I've been trying to eat fewer processed foods lately, just because it seems like a good idea, so I bought some real sliced cheese, as opposed to the processed cheese product pre-wrapped slices I usually buy.  And ... I like the fake stuff better.  Like, a LOT better.  Who let me out of the trailer park?

Is anybody besides me watching "Chrisley Knows Best"?  It's this reality TV show about a guy who is as gay as the day is long, his wife (a female)(!), and their five kids.  They're really, really rich, but he's really involved in his kids' lives, and it's pretty interesting to watch him keep his teen kids in line as they try to work around him.  He says he's spent over a million bucks on drug rehab for his oldest son, who has an out-of-wedlock daughter, and he and his wife are open about all the plastic surgery they've had, and it's just ... interesting. 

Utopia?  Anyone watching that one?  I haven't, yet, because it looks too much like Big Brother to me, but I was just wondering if it was any good.


Okay, here comes the spider part.  YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.  I was cleaning the foster room the other weekend, moving things from side to side so I could vacuum underneath everything, when I turned around and saw ... the biggest goddam spider I've ever seen in my LIFE, outside of a tarantula.  Thank GOD it was dead, because I think *I* would be dead of fright right now if it wasn't.  Thing was HUGE.  aaaggggh. The gigantic corpse was where a throw rug had been, before I picked it up to clean.  I must have picked up the rug and turned around with it before I saw the spider.  It must have crawled under there and died.  I'm surprised I didn't hear its DEATH THROES, it was so flippin' big.  Before I could even let myself process the fact that a spider that big was in MY F*CKING HOUSE, I just vacuumed up the corpse.  And now I'm trying to forget that the whole thing ever happened.  Maybe it was just ... a big wad of yarn or something.  Black yarn. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Spider?  What spider?  *shudder*

And in other TV news ...

... you may remember that I bought a new TV a couple of months ago.  Woot!  And I, cheap me, actually PAID the cable company to come out and hook it up, because I'm hopeless with that stuff.  Wires and cables and diagrams ...  time to pick up the phone and hire somebody.

And they came out and hooked it up and all was well until the first time I went to play a DVD and ... nope.  Oh, the DVD would play, you could see the timer-thingy clicking away on the player, but the show wasn't playing on the TV.  The system was not reading that there was a DVD/VCR attached.

Well.  I called the cable company, explained that they must have goofed something up when they hooked up the new TV, and requested that they send someone back out.  Which they did.  And I'll tell you what, that poor bastid worked and worked and worked, and finally got the system so it would acknowledge the DVD.  Success!

Until the first time I went to record a program, and ... nope.  The system would recognize either the DVD/VCR player or the TV, but not both at the same time, making it impossible to record a program.

Oh for the love of ...

I was NOT going to get the cable company back out there.  And I WAS going to be able to record my beloved, batsh*t crazy Duggars. (When there's nothing on TV, which is most of the time in the summer, there's nothing like a healthy dose of Duggars to fill the void.) Surely, surely, there must be a way to figure this out.  And last night it was time.

I got out all the manuals.  I got out all of the extra bits of coaxial cable wiring I had laying around.  (what?  you don't?)  I got out the flipping wrenches and pliers when I discovered that the last cable guy had evidently used vise-grips to tighten down all of the connections.

And I went to town.  Let's see ... cable in to cable box, out to RF modulator, then to TV, plug TV into cable box ... SH*T!  TV plug is three-pronged.  Grab a converter plug ... CRAP!  It still won't fit!

Okay,  Deep breath.  Cable in to cable box, let's skip the RF mod because that's probably not strictly necessary, audio/video wires from box to DVD and from DVD to TV ... F*CK!  There's no "video in" plug on the TV.  Okay, back to the manual ... hmmm ... I think I can plug the video wire in here ...

And then it was time for a test recording.  First try ... not so much.  Okay, let's see ... maybe I need to change the input on the TV to AV ...  Second try ... oh  the angels sang IT RECORDED!  IT RECORDED!

and I did a little happy hula dance around my living room.  F*CK YEAH!

It's the little things that'll make your day.  I swear.  And I sat and watched two hours of Duggars last night, happy as a damn clam.

Not the sharpest tool in the shed

So, I'm scrolling through the TV listings tonight, and I see a listing called "How the Universe Works", with the sub-heading "Saturn is spotlighted".

Except I read it as, "Satan is spotlighted", and I'm all, like, whoa, they're really going to introduce good and evil into a science show?


hahahahahaha yeah, I could do with some more sleep right about now.

The Onion's behind this, right? It's gotta be The Onion

So, after The Voice last night, I'm reading a book, with the TV still on, when an ad for a trade school comes on.

And I'm really, really not paying attention, except I kept hearing "UTI!" "UTI!" 

Okay, they got me.  I looked up to watch the ad.  and found that there's a trade school called UTI.  No, I'm not kidding.

I ... I don't know what to say.  Except .... HAAAAAAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA

"UTI gives real-world, hands-on training."

"The best brands in the industry partner with UTI."

"UTI grads get jobs in their field of study."



FINALLY.  A laughable UTI.

It ain't what you know ...

Okay, so,  I'm watching The Voice tonight, and two things strike me about this competition.

a.  Already, this early on, some really talented singers are getting eliminated.  Unlike on American Idol, where most of the season is spent weeding out the chaff,  The Voice has an advantage , talent-wise, because the show allows in the pros.

b.  It really is "who you know".  Why some of these contestants, who are spectacularly talented, toil in the shadows while auto-tuned dipsh*ts like Miley Cyrus rake in the bucks, is proof that the world is not fair.

Gotta go - They're about to do "Cold as Ice", which is evoking MASSIVE teenage memories.  (you know that you are ... cold ... as ... ice... AS COLD AS ICE TO MEEEEEEEEEE)

Th'ufferin' Th'uccotash!

Okay, first off, when I left the house this morning, it was five below.  Tuesday?  Seven below.

Dear Mother Nature:  CUT THE SH*T.  It's March, for Pete's sake.

You know, I consider myself tough, but this weather is going to break me.  I didn't sign up for this.

Oh, and speaking of tough, is anybody else watching that Nat Geo show, "Life Below Zero"?  There's this woman on there, Sue, who lives, like, two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle.  Alone.  She once lay injured after a grizzly attack for ten days before somebody found her.  She swears like a sailor and drinks scotch and smokes cigars and I'm pretty sure I want to marry her, except then I'd have to move north of the Arctic Circle, so f*ck that sh*t.


Anyway! When I was grocery shopping last weekend, I saw bags of succotash in the frozen veggie section.  The pic on the package showed lima beans and corn.

Really?  I thought.  I'd never actually given succotash much thought, but I thought it was like ... grits?  Or hash browns made of vegetables?

Yeah, I don't get out much.

Anyway, I bought a package of succotash, took it home, opened it up, and

yep.

Lima beans and corn.

Tasty enough, but somehow not as exotic as I'd always pictured it.

If you guys know of any foods that I may have missed and should give a try, please let me know.  I'll consider it my Endless Winter of 2014 Culinary Enlightenment Project.