Do You Tag?

My employer forced me to take an HTML coding class recently. Don't get me wrong, I know my way around a computer pretty well: when I first learned the shortcut key for switching between screens (Alt + Tab) to make it look like I was working on my AP Bio lab when really I was searching for free music (it was the age of Napster and I was in love with Portishead) I knew it was something that would aid all my future ambitions as an employee in an office atmosphere. Other than that, I check my e-mail obsessively and can make a mean PowerPoint presentation.

After 5 weeks of classes (2.5 hours each Wednesday from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.) at a local University I can now write a p-tag. That's "paragraph" for all you technically unsavvy types. And that's about it. The rest of the class was spent listening to the instructor ramble about websites that help teach HTML code.

Beth: a woman about 20 pounds overweight, disheveled hair under a Yankees cap, loose-fitting sun dresses made out of what appeared to be the same material as long johns, covered by an enormous sweater with wooden toggles, an old pair of ratty Asics and to top the whole ensemble off, a fluorescent orange hunting vest. No, this isn't some vagabond. It was my instructor. The poster-child for all that is nerdy. The Queen of Dweebs. And despite her keen misunderstanding of the sartorial term "mix and match", I couldn't help but be fascinated by her. Almost like a zoo animal.

"And on your left you will see the North Atlantic Computer-Weevil. Delicate and shy, they must be kept in a quiet environment, lit only with 17-inch or higher flat-panel LCD screens. Watch, as she darts out of her hole to grab a pop-tart our staff has given her. Majestic!"

Is This A Date?

I walk in from a lunch meeting to see flowers and a box of chocolates on my desk. It's not my birthday, and I certainly didn't give any reason for my boss to dote upon me. Then I see the note: Happy Administrative Assistant's Day.

My first response is to throw the chocolates and flowers in the nearest garbage bin (although the flowers do smell quite wonderful); have I been demoted? Did my title and position get taken away from me because I've been taking a lot of lunch meetings lately? I peek out of my office and notice the same chocolates and flowers on the receptionist's desk. I've been clumped. With the secretary.

Instead of being upset, instead of thinking I wasted my time as a Marketing major in college and commuting to and from Manhattan to take clients out for drinks, I try to tell myself it's because I work in an entire office of men, in a man's industry, and I am one of four (five if you count the sea cow) people within the company that has *breasts.

Is this a stereotypical, yet harmless, oversight by men or am I going to be asked to start answering the phones?

*Not to be confused with man-boobs, moobs or manly milk-bags.

Crazy Charlie and Distraught Denise

I really thought these two crazy kids would work it all out. I mean, what's a little philandering with a porn star who winds up dead a couple of weeks later? This was love, man. But alas, it was not meant to be.

Denise is currently shacking up with Richie Sambora, and Charlie is leaving voicemails for his ex-wife wherein he calls her a (rhymes with bucking) (rhymes with punt).

Pure Genius

For his album release party, Cletus performed a set at Pure in Las Vegas. Britney Spears apparently accompanied McDouch-bag, however wasn't seen at the show. Seems she was too busy letting her infant son fall on his head and crying herself to sleep after having a fight with her continuously-more-plump-every-time-I-see-him husband.

Mr. Elvis Duran from the New York City radio station, Z100, mentioned on Monday that he knew people who attended the event. According to said friends, the highlight of the evening was when the entire crowd booed Cletus.

I would sell my soul to have seen that. Except that I already did when I wished that untalented hacks that belong in Pensacola trailer parks made more money than me by spreading their semen and ruining the careers of young celebrities.

Ghost Rider

As the train barrels by tree after tree, warm sunlight shines through the branches, the sparse Spring buds making speckled patterns across my lap. I glance up at an apartment window at 125th St. in Harlem to see a young Hispanic woman hanging out past her sill, talking on a cordless phone.

I make a point to remember her. She'll never know me, and she'll never know I saw her. Two strangers living parallel lives; the only difference being I made a decision to notice her.

People on the platform weave and bob through pedestrian traffic, briefly obstructing my view. The train punches to a start, and just like that, she's gone.

Xenu's Second Coming

So if you haven't already heard, Katie Holmes gave birth to her first child after a one-year gestation period. I would have posted it sooner, had I not been out to lunch with Puffins (Bryant Park Grill Veggie Sandwich on toasted Multigrain bread - the only thing I could have eaten due to their animal-flesh-heavy menu - yeah...not so good).

The baby's name is Suri, after it's mother Surrogate. Get it?! HA! Anyway, apparently it's not deformed and there's no word yet on it being able to move things with its mind.

In other news, Tom Cruise's arch nemesis, Brooke Shields, also gave birth to her second child. No word yet on whether she is contemplating suicide, but psychiatrists are standing by.

Since You've Been Fat

I've tried to like Kelly Clarkson. Really, I have. But then pictures of her in ill-fitting bikinis like this show up and I can't help but grit my teeth and think: bikini + pear shape = disaster.

If I was a man, my penis would be depressed.

Step Away From The Girl And No One Gets Hurt

Look, LiLo...your kid sister is adorable. Stop dressing her in your leggings and sweater-dresses. I can't believe I just used those words in the same sentence. But I digress; you really don't want her to grow up like you, do you? I mean, she's all freckles and young and unspoiled by Wilmer Valderrama's semen. Please. Please. I beg of you...don't lead her down that road.

G'Day

This post isn't necessarily dedicated to Wombat over on Kiss & Blog, however, it is something I've noticed because of him. Therefore, he should be given credit.

Mr. Wombat is Australian. Australians have amazingly hot accents. Most people, therefore, would equate Mr. W as amazingly hot, despite the fact that they've never seen even a picture of him. I occasionally go through the comments on his posts specifically to note how many chicks a) post a comment, b) invite him over for dinner and implied shag-fest and c) outright confess their love for him.

Mr. W is far from stupid, and what little I know of him, I'm certain he basks in the gloriousness of having so many...ah hem...willing prospects, yet still maintains a composed sense of humility. Which perhaps lends to the appeal. Funny, intelligent, witty and completely open about the one aspect of people's lives they tend to keep private: sex.

So my question is...what if Mr. W truly did resemble a wombat? Would housewives and underpaid admin assistants still relish his every word? Would they bother posting painfully obvious double entendre-packed responses to his blog? It just takes some elementary logic. If all Australians are hot, and Mr. W is Australian, then Mr. W is hot.

The point here isn't even to speculate what Wombat looks like, because it is irrelevant. What is relevant is the answer to his question: Do chicks dig the brain, or the rock star?

Answer: every woman will say the brain, but still lust after the rocker.

I Like Your Balls

"We should go bowling" my friend says to me after the gym and subsequent apple strudel French toast brunch.

A high school friend was in town for the hat trick of Jesus rising from the dead, commonly referred to as "Easter".

I didn't particularly feel up for the task of being hungover in front of my entire family for the holiday, so Bowling sounded like a good idea. And call me crazy, I've always thought the ugly bowling shoes were kind of cool. You know...minus the Athlete's Foot and gangrene.

We walk into the bowling alley and I subconsciously feel guilty: What Would Puffins Say? I warn my compatriots that in the event they play country music, I'm out. We are directed to our lanes and I spot it out of the corner of my eye. Big. Buck. Hunter. I'm not sure if it was that, or the obese Hawaiian girl who lobbed the ball down the lane like a softball, but I tell you, boy howdy! That was some darn good tootin fun.

Happy Easter

It’s that time of year again; a time when children dance gleefully in the new spring weather, looking for colorful eggs left by the Easter Bunny. Just one more example of how parents fool their stupid children. Eggs don’t come from rabbits, dummy!

Besides the whole “Jesus rising from the dead” miracle thing, what does Easter mean to me? A whole frickin’ month of seeing those damned Peeps confections on the shelves of every supermarket and drugstore across the world.

Just what are Peeps? And who the hell is the brainchild of these abhorrent pastel creations? Min investigates…

Where do they come from?
Just Born, Inc., “candy” plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: site for the manufacturing of Peeps, and secret Biological Warfare Chemicals Plant for Osama Bin Laden.

Just how are they made?
A mixture of marshmallow, sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, and crack are whipped into a marshmallowy goo that will become the shaped “candy” figures. Apparently a few years ago the plant ran into some trouble when the Professor accidentally added a secret ingredient – CHEMICAL X – into the vat and the “candy” became possessed with mystical flying-fire-from-the-eyes super powers. (Don’t you people watch The Powerpuff Girls?)

What colors the crystallized coating of Peeps?
All crack starts out white. Food coloring is added through a little arm outside the barrel belonging to Clay, the magical Easter gnome. The barrel rotates like a cement mixer to color all the crack.

Spreading the crack
Crack is loaded into a spreader by hand. The spreader distributes the crack all across the conveyor belt that the “candy” will ride during production.

Fun Fact
Just Born, Inc., produces 1.2 billion marshmallow goodies each year for all occasions at which parents want to introduce narcotics to their youngsters. The plant’s amoeba-shaped “candy” doesn’t sell quite as well as the ever-popular bunnies and chicks.

Are Peeps handmade or machine-made?
Human hands would simply melt off if they touched the uncoated “candy”, so it’s assumed that Peeps are made by machines. However, no photos are allowed of the machinery that actually pumps the marshmallow into the right shape. That's top secret. So it’s safe to also assume that the machinery is made out of illegal aliens and Cuban refugees.

Recycling the Crack
The crack-coated "candies" slide off a solid conveyor belt on to a grated one that lets extra crack fall through. That crack will be reused because the factory pays off the FDA to “look the other way”.

What are those creepy little beads on the “candy’s” heads?
Tiny dots of edible wax. Seriously.

Where are Peeps shipped?
The packaged “candy” is placed in cardboard boxes for shipping. The crack “candies” are smuggled into 30 countries around the world.

Fun Fact
Just Born is named for Sam Born, who grew up in Russia and came to America in 1910. He started his business with a small “candy” shop in New York City, and soon became the drug overlord for the Russian mafia until his retirement to Bethlehem, PA in 1946.

*This information was grossly modified from the following link:
http://att.bhg.com/bhg/printableStory.jhtml;jsessionid=QOIYMRFSY3AN3QFIBQSCCZQ?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/Howmarshmallowpeepsareborn_02252004.xml&catref=HK225

My article is completely false, but much funnier than the original. Aslo, yeah, I know...this is re-hashed from last year, but I think highly of myself and my new fans deserve it.

Hunting In NYC

Puffins and I went to a Japanese fusion restaurant in SoHo on Saturday. There we witnessed an Asian call girl in leopard print leggings, paired with a white, crocheted bolero. Not to be outdone was the older woman in a silk, teal colored Chinese print shirt sitting at the table beside us, who, after dessert, took out tarot cards to awe her friend in the little black dress with red pleather hooker-thigh-high boots.

The miso soup was delicious, the warm sake smooth and aromatic. I wasn't too happy with my Japanese pancake (okonomiyaki), nor the grilled squid appetizer Puffins ordered. The sweet red bean soup for dessert was particularly well received. But I wasn't really there for the food. I was there for the company.

After dinner conversation (which was occasionally interrupted by a loud *CLANG* and "HEYYYY" from several celebrators), we headed to a birthday party at a chic, little, one-room beer bar. We were in the midst of an Urban Outfitter's Frat House party, it seemed. Twenty-one year old boys, donned in cheap cotton blazers and jeans, desperately trying to find a drunk girl to take back to his dorm, swarmed the place. But what was particularly attention-grabbing was the 5'11" Brooklyn woman, looking very out of her element, in a zebra-striped, wrap dress. She claimed she worked at Ralph Lauren. I excused myself to find my hunting rifle.

As the night dwindled, I found Puffins speaking to two homely wallflowers in the corner of the bar haphazardly designated as the "coat room". I could hear his inflection rise and fall, and the subsequent laughter of the girls mingled through the crowded room; lost somewhere between shouted orders for Red Stripe and the serpentine queue for the bathroom. His gay charm pervaded as he griped about what women were wearing, what men were wearing, what they were saying when they weren't saying anything. He ascribed it all to being gay. It struck me as false advertising, because what defines Puffins as a person is not his homosexuality. It's not his aspiration for the AMEX Black card, or his funky metro-casual attire. Puffins is one of the most genuinely wonderful people to be around that I know. His complexity in character, his humor, intelligence, the way he lives and the people he loves...they all have nothing to do with him being gay.

I wish I could have told the wallflowers this, but out of the corner of my eye I saw zebra-woman slowly plodding to the bathroom line, trying ever so hard not to get her stilettos stuck in the groove between the wooden floor planks. Were this National Geographic, African drums would be pounding in the background; I slowly raise my arms and look down the barrel of my imaginary .22, following my prey. Pow. I pegged ya', honey.

Free Parking

After attending a meeting at a new construction site for a luxury high-rise, residential tower for which I parked in a public garage and could receive a validated ticket for the bargain price of $5 for a three hours...I realized I left the ticket in my car. Which made the whole "validation" thing moot. I had no cash. I never carry cash with me when plastic works so much better and in the event that someone steals my purse, they'll feel bad that they've ripped off an impossibly poor person, and most likely will return said bag with a $20 bill as an apology.

I find an atm and insert my card. I grumble at the $2.00 "convenience fee" for using a bank other than my own. To make myself feel better, I break the twenty at the nearest Starbucks (Shaken Passion Fruit Tea sweetened with Splenda...it's Spring, I felt girly).

As I pull up to the security booth to pay, I have my $15 dollars ready to hand to the dude. Aparently seeing the hardhat on my passenger's seat, he asks if I attended the building's meeting. Telling him that I did, but didn't have a validated ticket, he said it was no problem.

"What's your name?" he asks, referring to a sheet.

"Min."

"Do you have a business card?" I hand one over.

"Great, thanks. You're all set."

"Umm...do you want the $5?"

"Naw, I couldn't charge a pretty little thing like you to park."

I stare at him, then ask, "Is my name on that clipboard you're holding?"

"Naw, ma'am. That was just my way of getting your number. Also, you have a great rack."

That last part I added, but the way he was staring at my cleavage, we'll just assume. All I could think was...I paid a $2 convenience fee for nothing.

Dear Ho-Bag (Part IV)

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I believe the last time we spoke had something to do with you leaving used condoms in the building parking lot. How I've missed you...

That's why I was pleasantly surprised when I awoke to your siren-like screams at 3:30 a.m. and subsequent car doors slamming, ignition-turning and squealing tires. I gather from your loud phone conversation at approximately 4:20 a.m. that you made it clear to "Brian", in no uncertain terms, that he was not welcome back at your apartment.

You proceeded to cry for at least 20 minutes longer, which I'll admit kept me awake. It wasn't so much the sobbing, but the occasional outbursts of "FUCKER!" that jolted me away from the cusp of REM.

I also couldn't help noticing as I walked to my car to head to work for the day that all of Brian's belongings seemed to be haphazardly strewn over the apartment grounds. Was the sock I found on my trunk meant as a gift? A memento of all the fond memories we share?

In closing, I would just like to thank you - again - for including me in your life. After all, if it weren't for you, who would I blame for my lack of focus and black under-eye circles?

Hey...That's Pretty Gross

A sculpture held at Brooklyn's Capla Kesting Fine Art Gallery depicting Britney Spears lying on a bearskin rug giving birth to her first child was unveiled a couple of weeks ago. Entitled "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston", I merely saw a fat naked chick on her hands and knees, not Britney, when I looked at the photos from the gallery. Hence, I made no notice of it on this blog. However, now this alternate view of the sculpture is available, thanks to gawker.com.

What's amazing about this piece of art is not the utter grotesqueness of it, but instead that it bears no resemblance to said former pop star, and that she had a C-section, not a vaginal birth.

Is That Xenu Up Your Shirt Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

It's as I feared, faithful readers: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have spawned an entire Scientology Army in the test tube that is Katie's uterus.

Either that, or by some Xenu-magic trick, the baby is going to come out as a full-grown, 42 year old clone of Mr. Cruise.

Kelly Pickler Sets Prom Trend

Meet Kelly Pickler, from this season's American Idol. I know nothing about her, but from this picture taken two years ago on the night of her prom, I'll say that she's from a small town, maybe in the South (that's some mighty fine wheat field in the background). I would have said Midwest, but I'm pretty sure the Bible belt bans prom dresses that display newly waxed nether-regions of the female form. I also get from the photo, that she probably is a whore. But that's just conjecture.

Anyway, this photo got me thinking: do parents really let their children wear this stuff? I set off at once to discover the most heinous and/or revealing evening wear being touted as "Prom Dresses". Results below.

Off to a good start. This little lady is clearly apprenticing to become a pole dancer, as evidenced by her training-tassels. Not quite on the nipple, but give her a few jello shots and she'll be whirring those things just to see if they can break the sound barrier.

Ok, guys, like, I totally have an awesome idea for a theme for this year's prom! Two words: Stone. Age. Like, my dress totally screams "club me over the head and drag me back to your cave" but is classy enough to say "and you better pick me up in your dad's Escalade".

For the girl who always wanted to be offered money for sex by her high school principal.

Belly showing evening wear = great dress. Belly showing evening wear that will show your growing fetus = better dress. Make note, teen readers.

Despite the fact that this model is 34, she still models clothing designed specifically with prom-goers in mind.

Avril And The Duff: BFF

After previously lashing out at Hillary Duff for being a "pop-tart" after the equine teen "singer/actress" told magazines that Avril needed to appreciate her fans more, it appears the two have buried the hatchet. Which is a shame, because I'd really like Avril to hack off that stupid look on The Duff's face with said hatchet, just to prove to people that she is the embodiment of rock, despite the fact that she is only played on Top 40 stations.

The guy on the right is La Duff's boyfriend, Joel from Sum 41, and the guy on the left is Avril's fiance whose name I neither know, nor care about. I'll I know is he looks Irish: drunk and stupid. Oh, c'mon! It was funny!

Eminem Divorces...Again

The Associated Press (read: Big Brother) is claiming that less than three months after marrying his ex-wife, Marshall Mathers has filed for divorce from his high school sweet heart for the second time. If this doesn't flair up her drug habit again, I don't know what will.

Then again, this could all be a publicity stunt geared towards Eminem's career revival, seeing as though his newest album totally sucked ass, not unlike every other previous album Mr. Slim Shady has subjected us to.

Also, they look very much alike, and it's kinda creeping me out.

Zeeeeeee

I can't believe I haven't linked my sexy hero, ZeFrank before. Be a friend and visit his page. It's ecclectic, but I go because he dances really well.