You're All Invited to a Wake

What: A happenin' funeral party
When: Friday, February 10, 2006
Where: My place
Why: To mourn the loss and celebrate the life of our beloved friend, Arrested Development.

Those cornballers over at FOX are giving AD one final, farewell "screw you" by dumping the four remaining episodes all at once... at a time when they know their precious ratings won't take a hit because nobody would have been watching them anyway, as most of the world will be tuned in to NBC for the friggin' lighting of the Olympic torch. (Call me heartless, but I promise you I wouldn't have been watching the torch thing anyway. Booooorrrrriiiingggg. But I digress.)

For those of us who will always remember 2003-2006 as "the golden years," let's get arrested one last time, and celebrate...

The times we laughed.

The times we cried.

The times we scratched our heads.

(Seriously, what WAS that about??)

The times we hootled with glee.

The times we made huge mistakes.

The times we wished we could be that classy.

And the times we shed one fat, hot tear for poor George Michael, who never had a chance.

PS. Don't forget to catch Miss Liza's upcoming appearance on Inside the Actor's Studio! It's about effing time, Lipton!

Delightfully Crazy-Pants British News Item of the Day

"Officer, er... Maybe I'm hallucinating, but...I think I just saw a whale swimming up the Thames."

Something new

I know I haven't posted anything in a while... I've been a little busy--studying for my GRE (this SATURDAY, oh my goodness!!!), getting my application materials together, looking for jobs, and doing some freelance grant writing. Cool word, freelance. From the German frei lanz, which translates roughly into "no benefits."

I don't really have anything to post about right now. I just felt a little ashamed about not having posted in a week. And I also wanted to establish that I'm alive, because if there's one thing I've learned from crimelibrary.com, it's that the first thing that happens if you turn up missing or dead is that detectives comb the blogosphere for clues. Not that I'm planning on turning up missing or dead. Just want to cover my bases.

See, if you read as many mystery stories as I do, you begin to get a little paranoid about the little details of your life that super-sleuths might comb through to find clues. I can just see it now...

Medical examiner, speaking into tape recorder: Cause of death, subdural hematoma and vitreous hemorrhaging resulting from blunt force trauma. Blood alcohol content is zero, but tox screen shows extremely high levels of naproxen sodium. Probably would have destroyed the liver eventually. Let's see, stomach contents... hmmm, this is odd. Victim's dinner apparently consisted of a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a Little Debbie oatmeal snack cake and a Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr Pepper. Sad.

Or this...

Stabler: So, she's just gone, huh? Have you searched the car?

Bensen: All we found was a Queen Greatest Hits album. Oh, and these. We thought they were a little strange.

Stabler: Why, there must be... seven hundred napkins here.

Bensen: Yeah, she was hoarding them. I guess she just couldn't throw them away.

Stabler (nodding, he's seen this before): Because you just never know when you're going to dribble Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr Pepper all over your shirt. (shudders.) Let's go, Olivia. There's nothing else we can do here.

So, anyway. 8:26 PM and all is well!

E-MAN-CI-PA-TION!

I just realized it's Friday the 13th, which makes this all the weirder...

I have done something totally wild, crazy, and unexpected--totally out of character for me.

I quit my job.

Two weeks' notice? Nope. Excuses about "pursuing opportunities?" Nope. Cushy back-up job waiting in the wings? Nope.

Yesterday afternoon, I came home, cried and bawled for about an hour about how effing miserable I was every minute of every day at work, and had a conversation with N.O. in which we both agreed that life's too short to be that miserable. Then I wrote a strongly worded letter (using only natural light!) and N.O. and I went to the office. It was around 9 PM, but there were still plenty of poor bastards in the building--though none in my suite, thank goodness. We carted out all my personal belongings (down to my last two bottles of water in the fridge and my Lean Cuisine in the freezer, which made me feel a bit like the Grinch taking that tiny morsel from the fireplace, but was kinda fun nonetheless), left the letter, keys, last assignment I was working on, and last week's time sheet (HA!) on the boss's desk, and cleaned all my personal stuff off the computer.

Then we walked out dramatically, never to return. For a horrible second, I thought I had locked my car keys inside. I hadn't, but it did spoil the drama just a touch.

This morning at about 7:30, I just lay awake in bed, thinking about how the boss would come in to work this morning, find the letter and stuff on his desk, see my cleaned-out office, and totally flip out. It didn't make me feel as bad as you might think it would. All in all, it was kind of a jerk move, and the type of thing I would never normally do...but I don't care. They absolutely deserved it. And it feels, I gotta tell you, pretty good.

It won't be feeling so good in a couple of weeks when the money stops coming in.

Anybody know of any good jobs? Preferably temporary ones...

A little reminder of who we're dealing with here.

Here's another reason why Iran is part of the "Axis of Evil." A 17-year-old girl accidentally killed a man while trying to save herself and her niece from three rapists. She has been sentenced to death by hanging.

These people are also developing nuclear weapons. It's so important not to lose our gumption--Iran must be democratized as soon as possible.

What an amazing world God made for us.

A new study indicates that dogs can, after brief training sessions, use their extra-sensitive olfactory systems to detect early-stage cancer with an amazing 90% accuracy rate. Fascinating potential there, no?

I have a confession to make.

I'm listening to Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" on my Mobiblu (which I got for Christmas and highly recommend, by the way). I have it on repeat. I've listened to it three times now. It's just really, really good. I love it. Okay? So sue me. I also really liked that Cranberries album that was such a big deal around ten years ago. So maybe it's just weird Irish people in general...

People are so gross.

If you ever find yourself in the lobby of American Accounting Associates (a pseudonym), which occupies the other office space on this floor, do NOT pass the time by flipping through their magazines! Whilst walking to our shared restroom area this afternoon, I observed one of the men from A.A.A. walking out of the men's room holding a magazine, which he then slipped back into the lobby magazine rack. If that weren't gross enough, it's not like he was flipping through Sports Illustrated in there. Nope. He was checking out the new Lindsay Lohan issue of Vanity Fair.

If you ain't eatin' Wham, you ain't eatin' ham

Here's a fun article about the days when movies used to make up fake products rather than constantly pitch real ones at the audience. You know, pre-You've Got Mail (AKA Two-Hour America Online Commercial), and the otherwise-pretty-good In Good Company, which had me jonesin' for Starbucks--which I don't even like. I think I've seen most of the movies mentioned in the article. They're all pretty schmaltzy, but really fun.

And, just because it's fascinating, here's a link to a site about product placement in the movies.

Stuff that annoys me, Part XII

Because nothing's more fun than reading about annoying stuff. Am I right, people?!

1. People who say "asterix." It's asterisk. Learn it, love it, live it.

2. People who misuse the word "myriad," which is about 92% of the people who use the word "myriad." And the thing is, it's soooo easy to get right. Here are the rules: "myriad" is an ADJECTIVE, not a noun. You use it exactly the way you would use its workaday synonym, "many."
Correct: There are myriad opportunities for cultural enrichment in Everycity.
Incorrect: There is a myriad of opportunities for cultural enrichment in Everycity. (This is exactly the same as saying, "There is a many of opportunities," which just makes the speaker sound like a monkey, or at best, a foreigner.)

3. The song "Jingle Bells." Although to say that "Jingle Bells" annoys me is a vast understatement. It makes me want to claw my eyes out, then set myself on fire, dashing my sightless head against a brick wall as the life force escapes my tortured carcass.

4. The dastardly non-words that have crept into our spoken language. Supposively for supposedly, anyways for anyway, and the most atrocious of all, "laters." All of the above were once the domain of note-passing junior high girls with big, bubbly cursive handwriting replete with heart-dotted-i's. As in, "Dylan totally tried to make out with me at the game even though he is supposively going out with Becca!!!! But whatever cuz he's ugly anyways. Laters... dAkOtA. ps Did you bring your lunch. pps LYLAS!!!!!" Sadly, they have somehow made their way into common usage, branding their unwitting users as ignorant dolts wherever they are spoken. Nothing sounds sillier than a 45-year-old businesswoman ending a cell phone call to a colleage with, "Laters, babe."

5. Unnecessary paperwork. Back in my day (ah, aught-two... I remember it well), salaried employees didn't have to fill out time sheets. Why should they? They're salaried. There's never going to be any variance in their bi-weekly paychecks. Yet, here at the American Institute for Political Study (a pseudonym), I have to fill out a time sheet complete with project name, project code, allocation code, and percentage of time I have spent on each project in the last two weeks. Annoying, but I finally figured out what all the codes meant and got used to it. Until today, when we got a new time sheet, which is to be turned in at the end of every week. This one is broken up by each day, and requires not only all the above codes and numbers, but also an hourly accounting of our location and how many individual hours of each day are spent on which individual project (mind you, I usually have about eight discrete projects going on at any time). But, I've got a feeling I'm going to be stuck, because there isn't a project code for "Trying to figure out how to fill out this stupid sheet."

*For a handy-dandy list of commonly misused words--and simple tips for remembering how to use them correctly--go here.

What the FOX?!?!

Okay, maybe I'm a little behind, but I just noticed that Arrested Development is not on the lineup for tonight. Those !#$%^&-heads!!! Tonight was supposed to be the Justine Bateman episode. If they pull that show without airing the final episodes, I SWEAR I will go down there and $%^& their $%^-^&* !@###@ off! (Imagine long, loud Buster-style bleep, with my hand strategically placed in front of my mouth.) #$!#$!@#$!!

Former Bonds with Mustaches

Who does Pierce Brosnan think he is?

Sean Connery?

('Cause, man. He's no Sean Connery. More like Timothy Dalton.)

See what I mean?

Who will be next to grow a mustache? Daniel Craig? George Lazenby? Perhaps even Ursula Andress? All I know is, I'm done posting about the mustache thing. Seriously.

My boldest prediction yet!

2006 will mark the subtle, but sure, Return of the Mustache!

Okay, maybe it's all the Hercule Poirot I've been watching lately, or the recent World Mustache Championships, but there seems to be some kind of mustache meme going around. I think the world's most reviled form of facial hair might be on the verge of a comeback! First, adorable George Eads of CSI sported one (if only for a short time, before succumbing to fan outrage).

Then there's Jack Black, with a snappy 'stache at the premieres of King Kong.

Not just for porn stars anymore.

I know I've seen a recent picture of Val Kilmer with one, but I can't find a picture of it anywhere online.

Even Earl is getting in on the act! (I know, I know. His is scraggly and mainly for white-trash value. But still, the earlstache adds a little zest to Jason Lee's otherwise unremarkable face.)

I hear New York hipsters are sporting mustaches, if only for irony's sake. Their king, American Apparel founder Dov Charney, has a righteous Jewstache.

I heart Jews!

Of course, mustaches only really work on very confident, really manly men. For such a man, the mustache will never go out of style. Cases in point: Tom Selleck and my dad, who both actually look weird without a mustache.

And where would Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, or the aforementioned M. Poirot be without their iconic mustaches?

I'm not saying I'm just dying for N.O. to start growing a mustache or anything... I'm just saying maybe it's time the world gave it another look. And maybe it's time we all got a freaking break from scraggly goatees and hideous soul patches.

Don't you wish you had a pencil-thin mustache? Then you could solve some mysteries, too.

I dare you

... to say the words "Bob Loblaw Law Blog" without going absolutely giddy.
Bob Loblaw Law Blog
Bob Loblaw Law Blog
Bob Loblaw Law Blog
WHEEEEE!!!!

Today's Wacky Fact

If your great-great-grandmother found herself troubled with a pesky cough, she may have been prescribed heroin. The drug's fascinating origins can be found here.