Caller ID bites me yet again

Today has not been my best day. First, I went to the break room to buy a carton of milk for my cereal, only to find that when I returned to my desk there was a big hole in the carton. Then my computer started making hideous beeping noises and, after wrestling with it for a while, I picked up my phone to call the Help Desk. Imagine my shock when the Director answered the phone. I looked down at the caller ID screen in abject horror to see that I had dialed his number accidentally (and don’t ask me how, because it’s not all that similar to the Help Desk line). I seriously considered just hanging up on him until I remembered that he has a caller ID screen too. Blast! There was no getting out of this one. I apologized for the incorrect number and considered just going home and going to bed since I doubt this day can be salvaged.

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight at the Copa Cabana..."

Do you ever go to sleep listening to your iPod? I like to put it on shuffle and fall asleep to it. Then, I check out the Recently Played list to see what I was listening to during the night. The other night it was "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung, a song from the Chocolat soundtrack, some Death Cab For Cutie, a little Barry Manilow, and Winston Churchill's Never Surrender speech that he delivered to the House of Commons during WWII. I wonder what strange dreams that combo caused.

Apparently, I can be a bit much.

So, the other day I was in the King of Prussia Mall, waiting for our Cheesecake Factory buzzer to go off and I was perusing the goods in Urban Outfitters, when I happened upon some pint glasses with the signs of the Zodiac printed on them. I don’t believe in that horoscope crap, but I picked up the Taurus glass for fun and read the back. After abusing me mightily and telling me how pushy and disagreeable I am, the text’s advice ended with this line: “Hang out with a Cancer. They’re too passive to tell you off.”

Amanda! No wonder I love hanging out with you so much!

When people in the UN can't agree, they should just start a mother-in-law conversation.

So I'm in Philly visiting Aunt Linda and Uncle Giz this week, and yesterday Melis, Kris, Lex, Mom, and I took a side trip to Manhattan. It was fabulous. I saw two shows that I've been dying to see, got some John's pizza, and saw a used-to-be-famous person on the street. (It was Greg Germann, who played the quirky Richard Fish on Ally MacBeal.)

In the morning Kris used her student ID to obtain a ticket for Gypsy for me while everyone else got tickets for Legally Blonde. We had lunch at Junior's and then rushed off to our shows. Gypsy is amazing and Patty Lupone must be on steroids for the amount of energy and emotion she puts into that show. She is a Broadway legend and it was such a thrill to see her in that amazing role. Go see it!

We met up for dinner at John's and then split again. The others saw Xanadu and sat in the on-stage seats. Whoopie Goldberg was guesting in one of the roles and she touched Lex and my Mom during the "Strange Magic" number. That squeal of jealousy you just heard came from Harrisburg, PA, from the mouth of my friend Chris.

While all this was going on, I was uptown having the theater experience of my life. I got a second row, dead center seat for The 39 Steps and I cannot even come up with an adjective powerful enough to describe how fabulous this show is. Every once in a while you see something on stage that you know is special and amazing and could never be recreated by someone else, and that is what I saw on the stage of the Cort Theater. Go see this show, go see it now, get in your car and drive to New York, but first stop in Johnstown to pick me up because I need to see it again.

Even my restroom experience in the Cort Theater was entertaining. There was a woman in the Ladies' Lounge complaining about her mother-in-law, and this must be the topic that crosses all cultural divides because total strangers started joining in, and here's what I heard:

"I hated my mother-in-law. My word, she was vicious."

"I hated my mother. Now, she was vicious."

"My first mother-in-law opened all my wedding gifts!"

"No wonder she was your first mother-in-law."

"I always referred to my son's first wife as 'my son's first wife,' even when they were still married."

I just love it when women get catty in the Ladies' Room!

Right now, my Olympic spirit is about as existent as Australia's ability to judge gymnastics.

So, I have just about had it with Olympic gymnastics. Someone call the police because Nastia Liukin was robbed.

Could someone explain to me how the Australian judge scored He Kexin three tenths of a point higher than Nastia? Three tenths! Ladies and gentlemen, in a sport where the winners are decided by hundredths of a point, a three tenth difference is the Australian judge effectively saying, “You and your routine can head straight to the ninth circle of Hades, mate!” Between this and the improperly lowered height of the vault table at the Sydney Olympics, hasn’t Australia done enough to screw up gymnastics? Is it wrong to think that perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed near the sport?

Oh, and! And! This crap tie-breaking system! The whole point of gymnastics scoring is that the results are not determined by a single judge (who may or may not be incompetent--I'm looking right at you, Australia), but by a whole panel. So why would you take two performances so comparable in their execution, and apply to them a tie-breaking rule that does rely on only a single score, on a single judge’s opinion? That makes the opposite of sense.

Please tell me why two gold-medal-worthy performances can’t just be rewarded as such? Is it so necessary to crush the hopes of a young athlete like that? Boo, gymnastics! Boo!

And I still think you shouldn't get a medal when you fall on your face.

We wear tiaras instead of helmets

So, I decided to join a Fantasy Football team. Now stop that. Stop laughing. Really, if you can’t behave yourself I’m going to have to ask you to leave.

Now, about my new hobby, yes, there is a cousin Fantasy Football league and I just had to get in on it. My fellow players (Melis, Brian, Jen, Josh, Jamie, Jonas, Aaron, Scott, Mark) and I will be drafting at Uncle Denny’s picnic next weekend. Alas, I am dead last in the draw, but at least Tom Brady will surely be gone by then so I won’t be forced to take him, because he and his beady eyes creep me out. I swear, when he’s on TV it’s like he’s looking through the screen at me, getting an idea of the layout of my living room, all the better to hide behind the sofa and jump out and murder me. It’s the eyes. He’s got the dead, cold eyes of a sociopath. But on to more pleasant things: my team name!

After much debate (Team Brown Eyed Girl, Team Clueless, Team I’m Gonna Beat You So Badly I’ll Make You Cry And Then I’ll Tell Your Mama, etc…), I named my team “Quarterback Princess,” after a subpar 1983 TV movie starring Helen Hunt, Tim Robbins (in a small role), and John Stockwell, who you’ll best remember as Cougar in Top Gun, which also starred Tim Robbins in a small role (see how it all comes full circle?) I’m trying to get spun up on the ins and outs of Fantasy Football, but so far the most fun I’ve had was designing my team logo (a pretty, pink scripted “A” on a background of green stripes—I think I’m making my cousins mortified to be in the same league with me.)

I’ll keep you updated on my progress. Now I have to ponder the risks of waiting too long to nab a quality QB.

No, that's no problem if you fall on your face. We'll still give you a medal. Because you're Chinese.

Oh honestly, what is going on here, people? I know it's really important to stick your landing when vaulting in gymnastics, but I was under the impression that it was even more important to actually land your landing.

I'm just going to have a Bela Karolyi-type outburst here and say that I'm about sick of the favoritism being shown to the young ladies and pre-pubescent 12 year-olds that make up the Chinese gymnastics team. You can talk about start values all you want. The girl FELL ON HER FACE.

Whatever!

Gold and silver, baby!

Oh my gosh, I love the Olympics, and I love gymnastics, and I love Nastia and Shawn, and I love being American, and I've had a lot of caffeine, and I love caffeine, and I totally love the Olympics!

It's 1AM and we just took the gold and silver in the Ladies' All-around and I can't think of anything more delightful than that. Olympics, baby!

I expect to get my senior citizen's discount any day now.

I am sitting here watching the women's gymnastic team final, and it has to be said: if those Chinese girls are sixteen, then I'm forty-nine.

Oh, please.

I suppose it had to end eventually...

Well, I finished Breaking Dawn and I am now prepared to rejoin the ranks those who live in society instead of shunning people like a book-obsessed hermit. Apparently I haven't been fit to be lived with lately. I'm going to have so much free time on my hands now that I don't have to hurry home every night to read for six hours at a clip. How will I fill my time? By chatting incessantly via email and Facebook with Liz in order to deconstruct every element of Breaking Dawn, obviously. I'll also be waiting for the crushing post-book depression to set in. I wonder if a vigorous re-watching of Buffy could stave that off...

Beck! Lex! Read faster so we can chat. Liz, email me!

Holy cow, China

Those were the most spectacular Opening Ceremonies I've ever seen.

Bravo.

These books are like crack. Totally addictive and about ten bucks each.

If you haven't heard from me in a while, it's because I've been shunning the company of humans in order to sequester myself in my apartment and read about vampires. So, those books that Liz recommended to me that I started reading last Monday? I'm on the fourth and final book now, and I have seriously been entertaining thoughts of taking off work so I could read all day. But I don't have that many vacation days left and I really would like to spend time with my family this Christmas. I hope they appreciate my restraint.

Becky is now reading them, too, and I think I've got Amanda interested. Join us! Join our obsession! Capitulate now!

The Dark Knight = Membership in the Kennedy Family?

First Heath Ledger ODs. Then a Dark Knight stuntman is killed testing the Bat equipment. Then Christian Bale is arrested, for what may or may not be a Russell Crowe-like incident. Now poor Morgan Freeman is in a car accident. Is it possible that working on the most recent Batman flick is akin to running for president when people want to kill you, or being president when people want to kill you, or piloting a plane in the dark when you’re really not that fabulous a pilot?

One thing’s for certain. Michael Caine needs to watch his back.

What is obsession?

Taking your book with you on a run through the McDonald’s drive thru just in case you’re sitting there for a minute or two and can squeeze in some reading.

And you know what? It’s a good thing I did!

I love Scottish people and I love drag queens and I can tell them apart.

Okay, I saw something weird today as I was driving out of Westmont. I was coming down Bucknell Street and there were two men walking down the street, each wearing a hiking pack on their backs. This was not unusual. There are lots of trails in the woods around there. But one of the men was wearing a skirt. Now before you get all, "Ali, that's something we like to call a kilt, and you should be more tolerant of Scottish heritage," let me explain that this was not a kilt. This was a skirt. And I am very tolerant of Scottish heritage, so stop judging me! This was a short, pleated skirt, similar to something a Catholic school girl would wear. Except made of camouflage material. And he was just hiking down the street as though he wasn't making his first small step toward transvestitism. Can someone explain that to me? His friend seemed fine with it, but I don't know, now I'm wondering if he didn't have on some ladies' underthings under those hiking shorts.

Quotations from a Phase 10 game…

This week Uncle John and Aunt Vicki are visiting from Dallas and they brought Zach with them. So last night Zach, Melis, Alexa, and I were playing Phase 10, and perhaps you can tell how the game went from some of the quotes that were tossed around:

“How could you skip me? I’m a whole phase behind all of you! A whole phase behind! You have no respect for logic!”

“You’re skipping me? Well, I have a long memory.”

“Whoa Zach, you’ve got two 11s there. And you need a 5. And an 8. Did anybody scrutinize the last run he laid down?”

“Alexa! That’s the second time I’ve been one card away from the most hideous phase of the game that I hate the most!”

“See that face? That’s her face of non-remorse.”

“How many skips do you have? Are you slipping him skip cards under the table?”

“I don’t want to hear it, Texas!”

“I can’t stand Allison.”