Wherein I continue to not do drugs

I've never used crack.

I never thought that would bother me, but now I have strong feelings about a thing called Trivia Crack and I wish I knew just how closely the two are related.

My guess is that, aside from the superficial, market-y, tongue-in-cheek type comparisons (so addictive! fun to share with friends, but then you get mad at each other for weird reasons!) the two actually have very little in common. Trivia Crack may waste some of your time and strain your eyeballs, but it has not been decimating impoverished communities for the last three decades.

This is where my strong feelings come in: Trivia Crack is dumb. The name is dumb, the questions are dumb, and if my victorious record against strangers can be believed, most of the people playing it are dumb (because seriously, y'all, I don't even know where I am most of the time). And yet, I have played maybe fifteen games since downloading it on Saturday. I've seen and heard of many other people playing it. There are t-shirts featuring "Trivia Crack characters".

I don't get it, but it's a thing in America, and so I care (see also: most politicians, the VMAs, Sex and the City reruns).

Dearest America, why are we getting all excited about something named Crack? Why do we not think it is wack? Would you play a game called Trivia Booze or Trivia Endemic Community Problems?

Actually...America has a strange, long, presumably proud history of naming things in a way that one sincerely hopes never turns out to be literal: Death by Chocolate, the surprisingly web-savvy Slap Ya Momma hot sauce, Kahlua Mudslide, Sex on the Beach (think of the sand, people -- it's not worth it!). Hell, we have a long tradition of just calling things "crack" when what we really mean is "it's really good". I've seen crack pie, crack cookies, crack brownies -- almost all sweets, although I'm sure that there's a bacon crack somewhere - the pinnacle of "add this word to anything to make it sound good" mania.

And I guess the "mania" bit is what's really tying me in knots about this game. I don't know much about crack, but I've been led to believe that it makes you feel PHENOMENAL. And then it makes your life EXCRUCIATING. It's a substance of extremes, of power - it gets hold of you, and then your life cannot be separated from it. Naming the best pie or brownies or bacon in the world pie/brownie/bacon crack is still extreme, but it makes sense. I have been transported by pie! I have felt like I might be willing to shiv someone over some really great bacon! I understand the highs and lows, the agony and the ecstasy of America's relationship with food.

Life-changing pie, however, Trivia Crack is not. I've been, at turns, mildly annoyed and slightly smirky about it, just as I've been about a lunchbox-clammy RingDing. Calling it "crack" goes way beyond normal salesman-like braggadocio. It's utter nonsense that tears at the fabric of our shared language and, thus, our culture.

We all know marketers are lying to us, but the lie is supposed to have some hope of truth in it. If we don't stop this fast-rolling boulder of misnaming now, grocery stores will start labeling day-old bread "loaf o' crack"; my terrible mailman will earn the title "bacon mail crack"; TMZ will be "the crack of television journalism"....and then, all of  a sudden, crack will mean bad...and then it will all make sense...

Disregard all of the above, Trivia Crack, and godspeed!

Wherein I Use Summer for Lesson Planning

I'm afraid I've become mature.

Well, mature-er.

My friends and loved ones have been noticing the disturbing signs of change for a while. "You're always working," they say. "I know Friday nights are tough for you, but..." they wheedle. "You've mellowed," they point out.

Mellowed. Like some sort of food product left in the cellar too long; I've probably also gotten stinkier, but that's for another post. This mellow, thing, though - I don't like it. I used to have an edge! I was so angry about ridiculous things! I used to hurt my throat yelling when we went out at night, and then, to rest my voice, I would go climb a tree or run around the block. For years, Gerard was sure that his death would be directly related to me yelling at some burly stranger and him having to defend me.

Lately, though, I've given up on aggressively stating my opinions about where large strangers should be sitting (not on the subway steps!) or standing (not in the doorway, fool!). Maybe it was becoming a teacher, or maybe it was just me getting older (although, no matter how many times I tell my students that I am astonishingly, creakingly old, I am not really in the vicinity even of middle-agedness), but my attempts to correct people's unacceptable behaviors have become much more didactic, and less rageful and insane. Because I have not entirely given up on having OPINIONS, Gerard still slightly fears the wrath of strangers, but he no longer believes that I am going to get him beaten with clubs.

Because LeBron needs one more person to write about him

I don't know anything about basketball. Nor do I care anything about Cleveland, but still, something  - perhaps the collective rage-gasm that is shaking all of non-Miami America, rattling their bones and forcing them to extreme quotation marks usage? - makes me want to understand this whole LeBron James thingamajig (and by that, I mean, garble out a ridiculous metaphor that I thought up in the shower).

So it's like this: LeBron might be good at basketball or whatever, but I don't think people are really all that mad about that. Other people are good at basketball too -- but those other people are not from Cleveland.

It's like if the Empire State Building suddenly said, "You know, New York has been great and all, but I think I can be on more postcards if I move to St. Louis, with the Arch. Archie and I have known each other for a while, and I think, together, we can get into more tourist photos and movie backgrounds than I can by myself here in the Big Apple."

New Yorkers would be all, "Hellllll no!" And not because the Empire State Building is the freakin' awesomest building around  (we don't even have a giant gorilla hanging off the top, as so often happened in the good old days), but just because it's OURS.  We built it, it got famous here; we even trained it to light up in appropriate colors for different city events. What did St. Louis ever do?

And where do they get off luring it away when they already have the Arch? Is old Empy going to light up in Cardinals colors now? CARDINALS? UGH.

St. Louis will get theirs in the end, though. In a Team Edward/Team Jacob-style schism, the city will be rent asunder by the dueling preferences of its fans:
"Put the ESB on its OWN postcard!"
"Put the Arch on top of the ESB!"
"No, put the ESB under the Arch!"
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Whatever! We're angry, midwestern townsfolk!"

Bitterness will develop between Empy and Archie, as each wonders who is truly better loved by his home city.  ESB will consider returning home - only to discover that a new, combination PinkBerry/statue of Jay-Z and Mike Bloomberg shaking hands has been built in its old space. ESB will become despondent, sinking a good 10 or 20 stories into the damp mud of the Mississippi River. St. Louis will be blamed for the demise of a once-promising young building. New York will sell a whole mess of PinkBerry in commemorative Jay-Z cups. The world will turn black for three days and three nights, and then everyone will forget this ever happened.

Thankful this story is not about me

A friend of mine is in the middle of training for his job. It's one of those training dealies where they make you go to a particular branch of the business - always in some godforsaken place where you would never actually go if you weren't being paid to do so - and they put you in a hotel - the only one for miles in said godforsaken place - until you truly learn what it is that you are supposed to be doing for them. Because they have cut you off from everything that could possibly be important to you - your real home, your family, friends and civilization - learning the job only takes about 6 or 7 weeks. So it's a good deal for them.

For my friend, it's slightly less of a good deal. Sure, he's getting some serious training to make him good at his job, and I'm sure his Hampton Inn Junior Executive Suite is very nice, only...he has to share it. He's a 29 year0old man, training for a management-level job, and he has a roommate. In a single.

Fortunately, my friend is a pretty happy dude, so this situation didn't really bother him much, until the day he was chatting with said roommate and his new boss, and they started discussing hobbies. The boss says,"You know, I like reading." Oh, that's nice. What do you like to read, mr. boss man? "You know, just stuff about serial killers."

[ROOMMATE]: "Wow - ME TOO!"

BOSS: "Oh yeah? Remember that time that John Wayne Gacy did such-and-such?"

ROOMMATE: "Classic."

...

And thus is my friend Chris doomed to sleeping with one eye open for the rest of his training period.

Rooming with someone is a lot like dating - if you are a normal human being, you know to hide certain things from the other person until they become more comfortable around you. Your complete knowledge of famed and lesser-known serial killers throughout history is one of those things.

Now, in the interest of Christopher's personal safety we are on a mission to find him something equally as creepy. The hope is that he can drive away the Dahmer-phile before something truly horrific happens.

So far, we've suggested that he start rabidly tearing through the Twilight series - not so much for the horror factor but because I would never trust a 29-year-old gentleman who reads softcore porn that magically hones in on some secret pleasure center in the tiny brains of adolescent girls.

Our other idea was to set him up with an "Adventures of Teletubbies" or some other 12-pager that only the very young or very simple would enjoy. We figure if just sits in a darkened corner, reading it over and over , and occasionally giggling to himself, "Not again, Tinky-winky!" he'll either scare the creepy roommate into submission or earn himself a lifelong weird-o friend.

Scared

I've always hated "scary" things. Haunted houses, slasher films, ghost stories - all seemed like a horrible way to waste time and lose sleep. For weeks.

At sleepovers, a supposed friend would invariably suggest telling scary stories. "Wouldn't you rather talk about puppies and candy?"

The other girls would laugh, and because, like most 9-year-olds, they were twisted little gremlins, they would choose to discuss gore and shrieks over cuteness and joy. The ghost stories would start, and I would have to find increasingly creative ways to not listen.

"The girl heard another scream coming form beneath the house and - "

"Man! I'm hungry - sorry guys, but does anyone want cookies? No? Oh, you can keep going, don't wait - I'll just be in the kitchen."

I would then play dumb with myself about where the cookies were. (In the garage? No? Weird!) and spend a good 15 minutes architecting a still-life-ready platter of assorted snacks. Bathrooms were also good places to hide out, and I'm sure I got a reputation as the sleepover invitee you need to buy extra toilet paper for.

When I ask other people why on earth I would ever intentionally get scared, they almost always answer, "Because it's fun!" This is a lie. Being unable to go anywhere in the dark for fear of a chainsaw wielding maniac is not fun to me. Suffering crushing paranoia every time I look away from a mirror and look back - with the expectation that a ghouly face will be there - is not fun. Crawling into bed with my parents when I was in HIGH SCHOOL because I actually feared a Signs-like alien invasion? Ask my parents - it was not fun.

I've almost swerved off the road coming back from a showing of Night of the Living Dead because I thought I saw a freaky zombie man standing on the shoulder of the highway. It turned out it was a speed limit sign and that I seriously needed glasses for night driving, but still, not fun.

Being old enough to pay rent and feed a dog does not make me any less terrified of stupid things. Having someone else in my bed every night kind of does, although, considering my boyfriend doesn't wake up when I repeatedly punch him for snoring, I'm not sure how much I trust his reflexes in the case of a zombie attack. So when he suggested last night that we visit "The Field of Terror" - a haunted corn maze and hayride, I was not particularly excited.

"That means we go outside? At night?"

"Yes, and then people scare us!"

"How is this fun again?"

I tried to explain to him that humans are not supposed to be outside at night in the dark. -"That's why early man moved into caves and started building fires," I told him. "To willingly go into the field of terror is just MOCKING EVOLUTION. Why would I do that?"

He laughed, and then he bought me a haunted corn maze token.

I had never been in a haunted corn maze before, but I had serious doubts as to its enjoyability for me. Haunted-ness aside, I don't like mazes. Getting lost, like getting scared, falls squarely in the "not any fun at all" column. If I am going into any kind of labyrinth, David Bowie and some muppets had better be in there, too, otherwise, I see no need for wandering around aimlessly in an enclosed space. That is what they do to lab rats. Do you think lab rats have a fun life?

We entered the corn maze through a giant flaming devil-head. At least, I think that was the effect they were going for. It was definitely giant, and devil-looking. The "flaming" part, though, consisted of two red lights shining through holes in the eyes, and tiki torches placed on either side of the top.

Corn at night is scary, even with no one in it. In fact, it might be even scarier with no one in it. With screaming groups of teenagers everywhere, it kind of loses its edge. I found solace that night in the idea that, if there was a monster attack, the monsters, like lions of the Serengeti, would probably pick off the weak (i.e. the children and the very many TOTALLY HIGH people) first.

Every 20 yards or so, a structure would loom up out of the corn, and we would be forced by creepy clowns or grinning goblins to walk through places like "The Meat Locker" or a bus inhabited by multiple Freddy Kruegers. These people were scary, but probably not in the ways they intended.

Because I hate scary movies, I have never seen any of the Freddy Krueger oeuvre. How can I be scared of someone that I've never seen in action? For all I know, he brings children candy and then frolics off to help the elderly (though I have doubts). The other creepy-crawlies - the clowns and the chainsaw men - I also don't understand. My dad uses a chainsaw. He's weird, but he's not super-terrifying. And clowns are stupid. I worked with a clown once, at a summer camp. He was frequently too sad to come into work - which was eerily ironic, but not scary.

The scary part was that there were enough people in this middle-of-nowhere town in New Jersey who were willing to be Freddy Kruegers and scary clowns in a corn field every night for a month. It's not hard work, but I'm sure it's must be mentally taxing - the constant screaming, the darkness, the smart-alecks who harass you in your own place of business. And the strobe lights, oh, the strobe lights.

I don't know when strobe lights became the official lighting of scariness, but a good 50% of the buildings we were forced through were lit up like a zombie rave. In fact, one of them was a zombie rave - instead of trying to scare us they simply waved us through a flashing hallway where a number of their black robed buddies were jumping up and down to a weird techno beat.

Where do these people come from? And why do they do what they do? I imagine the actors are all a) really into Halloween; b) really into scaring people; or c) super-excited drama geeks. I have seen all three types of person in action, and yes, they are much scarier than clowns or skeletons or corpsey-looking-whatever-they-ares (It looked like the costume department had gotten kind of picked over by the end. Plaid shirts are not the height of fashion, it's true, but they do not particularly give me the willies.). I fear them because they do not understand that fear is bad, that humans should not enjoy seeing blood and hanging out in the dark, unprotected from the elements. Also, I hate fun.

thelaurenbell's List of Things that should Just Stop Trying...

...because they are so painfully bad:

2) The Rite-Aid (Rite-aid? RITE-AID?) on the corner of 5th St. and 7th Ave.

You all thought I had forgotten this thread, didn't you? You thought the heading on the first go-around was just a clever ploy for bashing the NYT, and, well, it was. BUT no matter how mind-numbingly awful the Times is; no matter how far ahead on the list it lies; no matter how much like the sun the badness of the Times is, in comparison to the other, wee, inconsequential celestial bodies in our scale-model-of-the-universe metaphor for awfulness, there are some other things that manage to similarly melt my face off by force of sheer incompetence and wtf-osity. 

One of these things is the neighborhood Rite-Aid.

Even disregarding, momentarily, the stacks upon stacks of never-unpacked/shelved random items (a pile of Heineken mini-kegs once prevented me from getting in the door -- a good situation to stumble upon in my apartment, a bad one when I really need new deodorant), the Rite-Aid stands out as a blackened pit of retail despair. 

There is only ever one person manning the 4-register counter. Yes, other people do work there, but they manage to stay far away from any place where they might actually be needed by the customers. There is one particularly charming young lad who sees it as his duty to hide -- freakin' HIDE -- in the lipstick/ladies' hair products aisle. I have been leered at more times than I can remember by this little turd, and still, every time I turn the corner, he manages to freak me out. 

What is he doing back there? Does he have an undying passion for categorizing each color of lipstick by a different strategy every morning -- alphabetically, by color family, by the stereotype of womanhood for which they are named (flowers here, shades of sunlight/sunset here)? If that's the case, than he has my utmost sympathy for his lipstick affliction (coincidentally the name of my grrrl rock band), and I beseech the RITE-AID, to bequeath at least one "employee of the month" plaque to him each and every 30-day period, without fail, for his unswerving dedication. 

As a matter of fact, the lipstick man is so focused on the incredible task set before him each morning that he can't be bothered to help me when I moved beyond the narrow scope of his interests and into the razor section. This is unfortunate because the razors happen to be locked up -- a situation that forces me, again, to ask the RITE-AID some serious questions, as though it is a sentient being. These questions are along the lines of, "RITE-AID, what sort of rasorial crime could be so horrible as to merit imprisonment in your dank and dusty aisles?" 

There are a great number of expensive products in a RITE-AID: fancy face lotions infused with diamonds and the blood of lambs, various barely-legal medications, giant vats of Flintstones vitamins, etc. -- which I can understand wanting to protect against thieving little hands, but a $12 pack of disposable Schicks? Really? Asking Lips mcGee for help in getting those out is just asking to be inched closer to "please get the KY Jelly behind the counter" in the leering spectrum. I don't need that.

Foiled in my attempt to get razors on my last, hellish visit to the RITE-AID (and, yeah, I keep wanting to make a WRONG-AID joke, but that would be embarrassing for everyone involved), I went for the simplest of products: a band-aid. Feeling cheap and surly, I went for the basic RITE-AID brand of "sheer bandages." Upon getting these "sheer bandages" home and attempting to put one on my skin, I discovered that "sheer" in RITE-AID language, means "kinda darkish-tannish and DEFINITELY OPAQUE." Interesting. I don't really mind non-sheer bandages (though they do make it hard to discreetly cover the disgusting random infection that my elbow is currently cultivating), but it's the lying, RITE-AID, that really disappoints me.

thelaurenbell's List of Things that should Just Stop Trying...

...because they are so painfully bad.

1) the New York Times:

I was perusing the New York Times this afternoon (read: trying desperately to burn time at work. Why is a work day 8 hours long? Doesn't that seem excessive to anyone else?), and an article about the latest Starbucks opening -- in Jackson Heights, Queens -- caught my eye.

I know it's a stupid topic. That's why I wanted to read it. You don't spend your futzing-around-at-work time reading about the latest breakthroughs in applied physics, as they relate to the economies of third-world countries with lengthy and confusing histories, do you?

My choice of reading material doesn't matter. What matters here is the Times' choice of writing material. 

Now presenting New York Times: The Blog: A Very Special Episode in Phraseology:

From the "City Room" NYT blog: "the debate has been debated on the local blogs like Jacksonheightslife.com and JH Families.com."

Really? The debate has been debated? Not, i don't know, raging, highlighted, represented, or anything that makes sense without using the same freaking word, Mr. NYT? Or, how about an interesting verb -- why can't the debate be gargled or bamboozled or passionately ravished, if we're not really thinking through this whole verb-usage thing? I demand answers.

And another thing (I will never tire of arguing the argument that the times is shite...[see what I did there?]): "the local blogs like Jacksonheights.com..." Is it me, or is something about this little journalistic nugget just terribly, incredibly awkward -- like elderly Uncle Jack showing up at your 14th birthday party...in a speedo? 

Hey! Hey! NYT, have you heard about what all these kids are doing? These Web Logs? They're somewhere on the internets! You believe that?

Why can't they just be "local blogs like J.." or "the local blogs, J...?" There are too many words here, no? We live in the age of speed and concision, NYT; now stop hurting my brain with your inferiority.

News Update, corrected

So I may have been a little hasty in my last posting. Eliot Spitzer (who, among other character flaws, doesn't believe in the wonders of extraneous first-name consonants) may ruin a hell of a lot of things: people's faith in elected officials, his marriage, Lauren Bell's personal time with Alex Trebec, etc. etc., BUT a single man, no matter how rich or powerful or stupid cannot possibly ruin everything. That would be ridiculous. It would take at least 5 of ESpitz and a smattering of other people with similarly ridiculous nicknames (Speidi anyone?) to truly bring about the end of civilization as we know it. 

There are, however, some other unsavory characters vying for the title of "everything-ruiner" -- much to the collective relief of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (let's face it, the waiting game must be getting pretty old for them by now).

One of these responsible and hard-working souls is someone with whom you may be familiar. His name is Chef Bobby Flay. I believe he had the "Chef" legally added as insurance after Rachel Ray beat him on an Iron Chef showdown (thank you, Wikipedia, for that priceless nugget). There's nothing more damaging to your chef reputation that being shown up by the Triscuit Queen.

Everything about this man rubs me the wrong way. And, as if offending me by his very being weren't enough, he manages to smear his personal brand of horrendousness on approximately 19 different Food Network shows, thus making himself inescapable to those of you who, like me, insist on watching only the FN if Jeopardy is not on. 

An illustrative example: "Throw Down."

Are you aware of this atrocity? "Throw Down" is a television program in which Flay, bored with annoying just me, tricks people -- tricks them -- into thinking they are being showcased on the FN (yeah, I'm going to keep calling it that) for their personal recipes: Edna's Texas Chili, etc.

Then, he sits around in the Food Network test kitchen and demands that his soulless minions concoct a better recipe of the same ilk. He shows up to a party full of poor, unsuspecting Edna's family and friends and tells her, "No, I'm not here to honor you. I'm here to potentially humiliate you...THROW DOWN!" He might also say things like "BOO-YAH" and "Oh SNAP" -- he's that awful.

The minions, bearing the specially-prepared recipe, descend upon Edna's party like a plague of locusts. Snooty guest judges sweep in from secret side doors. Giant Mao-esque banners featuring Flay's all-mocking mug unfurl across the kitchen.

Bobby Flay (which I first typed as "Booby Fly." And then I laughed. Because I'm nine years old.), trying to figure out why you do this every week makes my head hurt. Edna has been making her Texas Chili for 97 years, and everyone has already agreed that it is the best. Why must you rob her of her hard-earned mantle of good-cookery? Is it because Rachel Ray stole yours?

Well, I don't care, Flay. What you're doing is just wrong. Write Rachel a nice letter asking for your mantle back. Release your minions from their miserable bondage and stop surprising people. Please, start putting your time towards something productive, and not encouraging the destruction of all goodness. You are upsetting me. You are upsetting Edna. And somehow, I'm sure, Trebek has heard about this and is shedding a single, phoenix-like tear. 

News Update: Eliot Spitzer Ruins Everything

So Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York, was busted today for taking part in a "high-class" prostitution ring. 

Note #1: Honey, just because they're actually women and you pay them a lot doesn't make them classy. Nice try there, though. Imagine if he had been busted for taking part in a "skanky-ass, chlamydia-ridden, reality-TV-ready prostitution ring." Someone give his press people a bonus. 

Note #2: When I first saw the headline for this story, I read it to mean that Eliot Spitzer was a high-class prostitute. (insert hackneyed 'politics is full of prostitutes' joke...[wait for it]...here). Wasn't he once known as the Sheriff of Wall Street or some such boondoggle? God, what a great stripper theme -- money and assless chaps. I can see where he would be tempted to try it.

And #3, the real tragedy: Because I am an ignorant, apolitical fool, I didn't really care about his little shenanigans (especially when I could no longer picture our once-esteemed governor showing up at someone's hotel room wearing something sassy). 

What I did care about was coming home from my horrible job and winding down with some Jeopardy at 7:00. I fed my fish, removed my shoes and plopped down, only to find Eliot Spitzer's face where Alex Trebek's should be! Coverage of that philandering phool (Spitzer, not Trebek) had superseded all my Daily Doubles and questions posed as answers! Yelling at the face of a stupid politician on TV is simply not as soothing as yelling out answers to esoteric questions. Watching Spitzer apologize for getting caught doesn't make me feel smug -- I still don't know if I am smarter than him, and I certainly haven't won more money -- it just makes me feel shocked a disappointed. 

Minor note, 3a: The worst part about the "breaking news" that totally destroyed my evening: it was mostly the News Team talking to "New York Voters" out on the street. The problem: all of their men on the street were people grabbed straight from Times Square. At 7 at night. How many of those people do you think are from New York at all? I don't need to hear that some Ohio tourist is surprised to hear the news about our governor (and no shit you won't vote for him, lady -- we all know you are here to see Spamalot). What I need to hear right now is the name of the second-highest mountain range in the 27th latitude. 

Moral: Spitzer ruins lives.