Friday Sunday Five
1. Pumped: This week The Smoking Gun brings us this fabulous case of a small-town judge apparently lacking in certain areas under the robe. But he is working on that, literally, and often during such unimportant occurrences as murder trials, in front of witnesses. What is the worst instance you’ve ever witnessed of someone doing something other than his/her job while supposedly working? Note: the writers of the Friday Five believe surfing the Internet does not constitute inappropriate workplace activity.
Nothing THAT bad! But I was looking at my performance appraisal from last year, and my boss had noted how she wanted to see me interact with my colleagues more. Jesus Christ, if that means being cornered by her secretary, who takes a half hour to tell a five-minute story, then that’s as inappropriate a way to spend time at work as I can think of. And then there’s this woman, Popcorn Bandit, who naps in her office between raiding our candy jars. And yet people like ME are viewed as bad for the company!
2. Go cat go! It seems some lucky crack dealer escaped charges when stray cats distracted a drug sniffing dog. What most commonly distracts you from doing your job? And what is your favorite Stray Cats song? (Again, the writers of the Friday Five are imposing the ban on bloggers born after 1980 from answering Part 2 of this question).
Let me just say that I am not a huge fan of rockabilly music. But I did like “Sexy and 17” (if, in fact, I am remembering correctly that the Stray Cats performed it, so there’s that answer). I vaguely remember bopping around to it in a jazz dance class I took with my cousin.
But what distracts me from my job? Real life. I don’t really surf the Internet unless it’s to catch a couple of blogs that show up in Sanskrit when I’m at home (due to unresolved font issues) and to read Slate and Yahoo! News, but I classify that as work, even when I’m reading about how Britney Spears and J-Lo’s competition to become the next Liz Taylor with all their damn marriages.
But seriously, I love catching up with my staff/friends about what they did over the weekend, what’s going on in their lives, etc. And we all vent and brainstorm and vent and smoke and vent and smoke some more and run out for food and bitch and smoke some more. Yeah, that’s a typical day. Then we run out for cigarettes and caffeine. 🙂
3. Colorful language from white Republicans: A criticism over the current administration’s ties to Halliburton ended with Vice President Cheney doling out sage advice to Democratic Senator Leahy: “Fuck yourself.” Technically, there is no rule preventing the veep from cussing on the senate floor. If you could publicly give someone the f-bomb, who would it be? Have you ever surrendered to such an outburst? How did the receiver react?
I don’t think ANYBODY would be or has ever been surprised to hear me drop the f-bomb. In fact, if I’m not cursing up a storm, someone would stage an intervention and ask what the fuck is wrong with me!
4. Score one for the feminist movement: First Lady Laura Bush and Theresa Heinz Kerry are competing in a cook-off for the ever-modern and edgy Family Circle magazine. Bush’s oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies are up against Kerry’s pumpkin spice cookies in the contest. Who do you think will win? Which of the two is most likely to cheat by tainting the other’s cookie dough with ex-lax and damaging the judge’s gastrointestinal tracts? And who reads Family Circle?
My money’s on Theresa — she does, after all, have that Heinz blood in her. Although, I did work at the Heinz factory circa 1998, and let me tell you, nothing smells worse than hot, brewing ketchup, mustard and relish at 7:30 a.m. on a Monday. Sheesh. It reeked faintly of boiling turds and hot sauce. I don’t know what the fuck they put in their products, but they sure come out tasting great, so Theresa’s pumpkin spice cookies may eat a hole in your stomach, but they’ll taste the best going down.
Family Circle is still around?
5. Canadian Trash: Toronto politicians are exploring ways to rid their beautiful city of “tonnes” of garbage, including “sending it to the sun on a rocket ship.” What item would you blast to the sun via rocket ship, so you never have to endure it on our green planet again?
Animal, mineral or vegetable? If we’re allowed to ship trashy humans up there, then give me a few days to finalize my list. 😉
I am sick of diet pills, especially those fucking Trim Spa ads with Anna Nicole Smith. How can she say she owes her weight loss to those crappy $17-a-box pills? How is she posing naked now? That bitch should have a New York City subway map of stretch marks from dropping that much tonnage — “I owe it all to Trim Spa, baby. … and about 60 grand in plastic surgery and another million in airbrushing.” Ship that bitch up into outerspace with her goddamned diet pills, please!!!
On iTunes: Janice Ian, “At Seventeen”