A Real Fork Job

Quizzno's is advertising their new line of chopped salads that are so darn special, they are served with "real forks."
1. Why the hell do they call it a 'chopped salad'? Is that opposed to a hand-torn salad? Who cares?
2. If you order one to-go, do you still get a real fork, or are you relegated to a plastic fork, or even worse, a spork?
If their ad agency made more than $100 on these crappy ad concepts, Quizzno's got hosed.
You want to eat a chopped salad with a real fork, go buy a bag of the stuff, take it home and eat it, like all normal people do.
I am not putting on shoes and a bra and burning $8 worth of gas in 100 degree weather to go to Quizzno's so I can sit down and eat chopped lettuce off a Styrofoam plate with a 'genuine' metal fork.
I wish I was a Quizzno's customer so I could boycott them based on this ad campaign.
It's crazy hot outside, I'm just over food poisoning and my sinuses are draining.
Don't fork with me, Quizzno's.

Mary Cheney's book sells fewer than 6,000 copies since release

Despite saturation media coverage when it was published a month ago, Mary Cheney's book Now It's My Turn has tanked at bookstores. Published by a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster, the memoir has sold fewer than 6,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen Bookscan.

The book's sales have declined in each of the four weeks since its release, to only 574 copies sold for the week ending June 3. That's 77% fewer than its first-week sales of 2,445.

At this rate, it will be virtually impossible for Simon & Schuster to recoup the reported $1 million advance it paid Cheney for the book, which describes her life as the gay daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. (The Advocate)


(from The Advocate.com)

Mary better save that money. Methinks her second booklet won't be such a great seller.

This is my first try at posting a photo.
The puppy in question is Polly, my friend's retarded pit bull.
Isn't she cute...in a retarded kinda way?

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Okay, there's been no actual blood, but I have a stomach virus that hit yesterday like Hurricane Katrina.
Thank God for friends who squirrel away their RX drugs. Compazine and Lomotil are my friends.
I lost 5 pounds yesterday.
'Nuff said.

The Dog Whisperer

I am hooked on this National Geographic Channel show about a guy who tames unruly dogs.
I don't even have a dog, yet I can't wait to watch host Cesar Millan settle down the roughest Rottweiler to the most petulant Pomeranian.
In fact, a friend of mine's son is between houses and I am seriously considering letting him board his dog Pug, a Labrador/German Shepherd mix, in my back yard so I can go out there and say, "Chhhh" while I am nipping his side with my fingertips.
My niece Dixi, a large Boston terrier, had a little problem with authority when she was a tiny puppy. My big sister was horrified when Dixi was kicked out of puppy Pre-K for trying to bust moves on baby Labs and Shepherds who towered over her.
Through sheer will and a doctoral degree in arguing (lawyer) my big sister has managed to tame Dixi pretty much, but she still tries to dominate by jumping up on visitors as they enter the front door. And she petulantly stares at my sister for hours after being sent to her little bed.
My friend Katie has a retarded (I'm being literal here) Pit Bull named Polly Wolly Doodle.
Polly is sweet, but she'll eat a rock, chew up a TV cable, destroy a potted plant or dig a pit whenever the urge strikes her.
After weeks of obedience school, all Polly managed to learn was,"Look at me."
If I had the money, I'd fly Cesar Millan to San Antonio and set him loose on the little retard to see just how good he is.
Now all I need is for National Geographic Channel to launch a new show called, "The Cat Whisperer."
I have two boy cats who could benefit from a little obedience training.
Lesson one would be, James, stop licking my face to wake me up.
Lesson two would be, Nick, get down. Nick, get outta there. Nick, put that down. Nick, stop it. Nick, be quiet.

Big Fucking Deal

The GOP and Bush are trumpeting victory because Abu Musag al-Zarqawi was killed when his safehouse was destroyed by a couple of 500-pound bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes.
Did you notice I spelled his middle name "Musag" instead of "Musab"?
Nah, I didn't think you would. I had to look up the spelling of his entire name. He's no Osama bin Laden, after all.

Bush will become energized and start publicly bragging about bagging the number two man in Iraq. His cockiness will only fan the flames, and we all know that by now.
Seems to me there have been several number two men in Iraq who've been killed.
Al Qaida is like a roach colony, though.
If you kill a large cockroach in your kitchen, do you feel like the rest of them will see his remains and run for their lives to the house next door?
Clyde, who needs no introduction, sent me a smug e-mail this morning, saying, "it was a mighty fine day." He didn't mention why, presumably because he thought the news was so big it needed no specific mention.
I wonder if the tens of thousands of American people who've lost their loved ones in Iraq are rejoicing because a major cockroach has been killed? Are they singing, "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead?"
I doubt it.
You can take people named Abu, Mohammed, Osama, bin- this or al- this and kill all of them and it won't matter.
Iraq is a festering, infected wound that smears its pus and blood and germs all over everyone who gets close to it.
The only way to avoid exposure is to get the fuck away from it.

P.S. Where's bin Laden?

Senate Rejects Ban on Gay Marriage

Yesterday the Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, dealing a defeat to Bush and Republicans who hoped to use the measure to energize conservative voters on Election Day.
Up yours, Bush.
Your one hot button issue has gone cold.
Heh. I guess the conservative voters won't have to be be wasting gas in their Impalas to get to the polls come November.

Is He at it Again?

Hrummph.
Bush's poll ratings are swirling around the toilet and he's become a liability to the GOP during an election year, so what does he do?

He trots out his secret weapon again: the anti-gay marriage amendment.

Doesn't the Senate have better things to do than toying with the Constitution with an issue that most of the red states have already banned?
Bush already has referred to the Constitution as, "a goddamned piece of paper," so why should he care what's in it when he's never shown any interest in it before?
"Sadly, President Bush is playing election-year politics with this divisive issue," the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Friday. "He is shamelessly using this ploy to energize his right-wing base. We should never rewrite the Constitution to enshrine intolerance."
Amen, brother.

Make It Stop!!

I find lately when I'm doing yardwork, a playlist of really bad songs pops into my head and one will etch a groove into my brain, repeating itself again and again.
It might not even be the whole song- it might just be the intro.
Yesterday, it was the beginning notes of the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You."
Over and over, my mind played, "Bah, bah BAH bah, bumpa, pa pa..."
Which brings me to my favorite game.
If you could duct tape anyone to a chair and force them to listen to one song over and over, who would it be, and what song would it be?

I've Had It

As a writer, my clients usually like it when I spell everything correctly.
As an Internet addict, I run across frequent instances of bad spelling, and it drives me to distraction.
I too make common mistakes on some of the words below, and rely on spell check to keep me sounding semi-literate.
Here's a handy list of common words we Internetistas frequently spell wrong.
Let's clean things up, shall we?



a lot
absence
acceptable
accidentally
accommodate
acquire
acquit
all right
amateur
analyze
apparent
argument
believe
business
calendar
camouflage
category
cemetery
changeable
chief
collectible
colonel
column
committed
conscience
conscious
definite(ly)
description
dilemma
disappear
discipline
eighth
embarrass(ment)
encouragement
equipment
especially
existence
experience
February
foreign
forfeit
forty
fourth
fulfill
gauge
government
grateful
guarantee
happily
height
heroes
hierarchy
humorous
hygiene
ignorance
immediate
independent
intelligence
island
its/it's (Where is its dog bowl? It's in the yard.)
jewelry
judgment
knowledge
leisure
liaison
library
license
lightning
maintain
manageable
maneuver
mathematics
medieval
memento
miniature
millennium
miscellaneous
mischievous
misspell
muscle
necessary
neighbor
noticeable
obedience
occasion/ally
occur/occurrence
opinion
parallel
permanent
perseverance
personal
personnel
possession
potato/potatoes
precede
preferred
principal/principle (pal is the elementary school boss)
privilege (no d)
pronunciation
questionnaire
receive
receipt
recognize
recommend
referred
reference
relevant
religious
restaurant
rhyme
rhythm
schedule
scissors
separate
special
subtle
supersede
technique
temperature
their/they're/there
thorough
to/too/two
truly
twelfth
until
vacuum
weather
Wednesday
weird
you're/your (you're= you are, your = is that your house?)

Which one(s) do you often misspell?
I am bad with words that end in 'ence' versus 'ance.'

Class dismissed!