My adoration for Top Chef knows no bounds. To be truthful, I just love me some Bravo TV. Between Project Runway and Top Chef, for reality TV, Bravo is where it’s at, yo. 😀

Chop and I did watch Top Design and Shear Genius, and save for a couple of shining moments, those two couldn’t hold a candle to the others. And really, I’m not entirely sure why. I think it’s a combination of weird judges (hi, did you see what that crazy Kelly wore on TD every week? and her hair too? wtf?), pretty-but-useless-and-hard-to-understand hosts (SG guy is Dutch? And has no qualifications save for being pretty? See, even this guy is checking him out! Granted, he’s posing, but seriously, wtf?) and weirdly uninspired challenges (particularly TD..also, Goil got shafted. SG had a few funny ones). It’s also possible that most of the people on those two are sorta forgettable, while hearing the name Stephen from season one of Top Chef still raises my hackles and makes me say, “why? why? why?” and “where?”

Anyway, my point is.. Top Chef is coming back! And even more fun… Season 1 and 2 are having a throwdown. The last four contestants from each season are having a cooking “grudge match” (their words, not mine).

Fun, fun, fun.

Recent article I came across.. Attention Shoppers! Student probes schism between Target, Wal-Mart

Yup, a college kid in Colorado wrote a paper on it for a class.

And let me tell you, it’s the exact. same. conclusion. that we all came to in November of ’05.

Target.. woohoo!
Walmart… gaaaaah.

Saturday began as a rather typical weekend day. Reggie woke us up around 9ish (rather, 7 first, then 9ish, and to be true, she woke up the Porkchop, then I wandered out about an hour later), we lazed about on the couch, debating which errands we had to run first and wondering if it was really going to get insanely hot again (it did, 89).

Then I spotted something on Reggie’s eyelid.. a tick. Woohoo, we though we’d gotten rid of those, she’s had her tick treatment, etc., but apparently the eyelid didn’t take much of the repellent.

Therefor the next thirty minutes or so involved wrestling a dog so that we could aim tweezers at her eyeball to pull off the tick and hope we got the head. Loads. of. fun. for. everyone.

After this joyous occasion, the Chop and I jumped in the car to go to the grocery store, and whilst backing out, he managed to hit a tree. Fortunately, this broke the tension of the tick situation and we busted out laughing. Unfortunately, his bumper is a little bit fucked up, lol.

Once we got home and unloaded groceries, we piled the mongrel in the car and headed to Petco… where she got her demon claws, aka nails, clipped. She stayed relatively calm through the process, despite the fact that the employee assigned to distract her took a personal call on her cell while holding the dog. Amazingly, the nails got clipped and she didn’t nip the idiot.

Reggie goes through rawhides like a competitive eater, so we started heading down aisles, picking up food, a new toy (which, despite it’s “for tough chewers.. won’t rip!” slogan, she managed to yank the stuffing out of in ten minutes) and rawhides when lo and behold, a freaking Rottweiler blocked the aisle. I, being (understandably) petrified, promptly dropped some cat food and debated fleeing. Reggie, being freakishly calm, sniffed the Rotty, who sniffed back, and made friends. Chop, being Chop, was just very pleased I didn’t bolt the other way.

Can I just say, though, that if a mother fucking huge ass dog, with a reputation for attacking, suddenly comes upon you and stands literally five feet away sniffing your dog who is half their size and whose head can fit in his massive jaws it’s scary? So scary, in fact, that you freeze in place and sincerely hope his owner and your boyfriend will save your dog because you have become a puddle of inability in five seconds?

Saturday was a long, long day.

It’s 90 degrees right now.

That’s hot. It’s so hot the cats and the dog are completely mellow… lying about, as close to the A/C as possible… oddly similar to what the Chop and I are doing.

Also, playing Civilization 4, which will probably turn out to be the end of both of us, as we’re a touch addicted, lol.

NPR did a piece yesterday on All Things Considered about improving customer service calls… they also did one on advertising, which actually was my favorite piece, but that’s not the point. Anyway, the one on customer service calls caught my attention.

They ran a clip of a (simulated) actual customer service call (they do always warn you that it’s being taped) and what struck me was that you heard the customer talk while the music was playing. In other words, the CSR put her on hold, the music was playing, and you could HEAR her fuming about the situation.

Now this might not surprise most of you, but personally, I was shocked. They still tape you when they put you on hold?

First thought: my god, they must have acres of tape.

Second thought: oh my god, what the hell have I said when I thought I was on hold!

So any customer service call takers out there, tell me, is it true? Do all customers really tape us when we’re on hold?

Esquire magazine sent blank napkins to authors large and small and asked for a story.

Quite the study in writing fiction.

I almost wish my creative writing prof had made us do this.

The best (and possibly worst) part about where we live is that I’m beginning to feel as if I’m constantly on vacation.

Don’t get me wrong. We get up early.. the dog has a small bladder.. and we work all day during the week, but it just doesn’t seem as if this is a real place to live. I just walked the dog on the beach (for the second time today). She chased seagulls, I had a chat with a swan (don’t ask). Our neighbors are either active retirees or couples with young children.. they’re sweet, they say hi every day, we chat about boats and the weather and ticks (Reggie had one) and lice (her daughter, and son, and other daughter.. who all three are now sporting uneven pageboys, lol) while we get the mail. It’s nice here.

We don’t even lock the door.

As I sit here I see boaters coming back to dock, Reggie hears seagulls she’d love to pin down and I can smell the ocean.

Part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop… lol.

I’ve been to 10 funerals.

I figured that out last week, as I went to King’s dad’s wake.

10. Three grandparents, three pseudo grandparents, a friend’s mom when we were in high school, someone who eventually would’ve been family… old age, heart attack, cancer, suicide. Myriad reasons that all lead to one conclusion.

10 seems like an awful lot to me, especially considering I’m not even out of my early twenties.

I don’t like funerals very much. I think perhaps I’ll not have one. I’d like to be cremated, so whoever’s in charge of mine, just cremate me and scatter me in the ocean. Then use the funeral money to take a vacation. Tahiti or someplace. 😀

Also, the Porkchop ditched me to go work in NYC for the day and Reggie and I are really bored. 🙁

My laptop has died.. we have no real idea what the fuck happened, except that a four-legged, wagging creature knocked it off the couch to the floor when I was in bed. It won’t turn on. That’s it’s only flaw. No damage apparent, it just won’t turn on.

I took it to Apple store yesterday and signed off on a $1400 Tier 4 Damage repair job.

Aside from my side hurts, I’m nauseated, I keep getting tension headaches that I can’t take meds for, I can’t drink liquor or caffeine, I just had to pay $750 to have all of my brake pads and rotors replaced (my mother and her dealership are positive I got swindled so they are looking into it.. expect to hear more later) and I may or may not be paying $1400 for my laptop to be fixed, I’m doing dandy.

How’re y’all?

My friend King’s dad died this weekend. He’d had a heart attack a few weeks ago, but according to King had been doing just fine.

It always sucks when someone you know, someone who is relatively close in age to yourself, loses a parent. Particularly for someone like him, who lost his mom years ago. Now he and his brother are all that’s left of his family unit.

I also know that this means he’s really going to quit (this is my friend from work) and move down South, because now he really has nothing at all keeping him up here. That’s sad. 🙁

The wake is on Wednesday. He really hates this job, and only likes three of us who work there, but my boss sent an email that said, “I asked him if he was open to having some office visitors at the wake and he said we were welcome, but shouldn’t feel obligated,” and I really don’t know what to do.

On one hand, I hate it when people go to those things just for show, and I swear that is what half of these people would be doing. And also, he hates this job, why, on such a day, would he want to be reminded of these people, this job?

I really am not super close to him.. at what level of knowing someone do you go to a funeral? I don’t want to be one of those people who goes there for show.

What do y’all think?