Redskins

The best part about the Redskins losing their trademark is not that they are forced to change their name (because they're not), but that now we can ALL use the name Redskins without infringing on the trademark.

Since it's indisputably the best name around, smart sports teams better jump on this while it's hot. The Denver Redskins. The Cincinnati Redskins. The New England Redskins. There should just be an entire league of Redskins teams! Plus, once every team is doing it, no one can whine that it's "offensive."

I'm going to open up a cupcake business and name it Redskins Cupcakes just because I can.

Where Have I Been?

Ohmguh, where have I been?

Not blogging. Well, not blogging here anyway.

I just needed a break. I didn't even realize I needed a break until I was in the middle of taking said break. It felt good to check out for a prolonged period of time.

If I'm being honest, since hitting my 30s last year, blogging has become less appealing. I'm less inclined to overshare or just share details of my life in general. I wouldn't necessarily call it maturity (sorry, parents), just age.

Writing for a living doesn't help matters, either. I have other outlets for expressing myself that get way more of an audience (and, more importantly, get me paid). In between doing my jobs, I rarely feel like writing more, even "for fun."

That said, I'm not ready to pull the plug on this blog. I doubt it will ever return to the heydays when I'd post every single day, but I've got still got some Babbling left in me.

But real content will have to start again tomorrow. Somehow I got talked into seeing a Tom Cruise movie...

Happy

I helped my mom download her first song ever the other week. She wanted to listen to "Happy" by Pharrell (well, she actually thought his name was "Feral" like a wild cat, but that's cute so she gets a pass) on her iPad. Who can blame her? The song is infectious. So infectious that my parents couldn't help but dance - which was also cute - each time it played. (It played a lot because when you only have one song on your iTunes, there's nothing else to shuffle to.)

My mom also played the song for my cousins, who weren't familiar with it. I understand that they're country music fans, but it floors me that they weren't familiar with a song that ubiquitous.

One of these cousins is a professional masseuse, and I bought my mom a session with her as a gift. As they discussed the particulars, my mom wanted to know if she should bring her own music. My cousin said that she had music prepared, but that she could accommodate my mom's request if she had one.

There was one song my mom wanted to hear: "Happy," obviously. Thinking the song too upbeat for a relaxing atmosphere, my cousin suggested that she play the song before the massage started instead. "Or after," she offered. "I could definitely play the song after."

It's pathetic that I couldn't stop myself from ruining a nice moment with an inappropriate comment, but I had to ask: "You're going to give my mom a 'Happy' ending?!" My cousin did not appreciate the implication.

The Camel

This is my cousin’s rendition of a camel.

You’re probably envisioning a young kid, but no, he’s of drinking age (though we sadly can’t blame booze for this monstrosity) and obviously not an artist.

We were playing a sort of Pictionary-esque game, and he genuinely didn’t seem to notice how phallic his “camel” was when he sketched it quickly. He handed the picture to his sister to guess what it was and she abruptly tried to quit the game. ”You’re gross! This is obscene! I’m not playing this game anymore!”

The rest of us - unable to see the picture - were confused. What in the hell could be so disturbing that she’s threatening to quit?

She ultimately guessed watering can. I guess that’s one way to try to make it family-friendly again.

Dick Is A Dick

Surprise: Dick is still a dick.

I didn't include this anecdote in that article 'cause I have to pretend to be at least somewhat professional, but I was on a hike a few years ago when Lexi got a Google Alert on her cell phone that she misinterpreted.

"Guys, I think Dick Cheney is dead!" she said. I swear, you've never seen four grown adults so enthusiastic about someone dying in your life. The bad news came only after we learned that, no, Dick Cheney was not in fact dead. I don't know that I've ever felt more disappointed in my life than when I found out this man was still alive to spread evil around the world.

Paper Mashie

So my friend teaches at a charter school. She's certified to teach Science, but because of the way the school is structured, she winds up teaching some English, too. The district eventually learned that kids were receiving instruction from a non-certified English teacher, so they arranged for an "English specialist" to show up part-time at the school to supplement lessons. Though my friend studied English in college and has been teaching reading and writing for years now, she understands the law that forced the change; it just kind of sucks because the money to pay the supplemental instructor must be taken from the charter school's already limited budget.

Here's the kicker, though: the English specialist the district has provided is only questionably literate herself. Here is the honest-to-gosh assignment she gave to my friend's students to do in conjunction with the Holocaust memoir Night:

What kind of English teacher doesn't use punctuation? What kind of English teacher doesn't write out the word "you"? What kind of English teacher uses the wrong type of "there" incorrectly twice in one sentence?

As much as I am laughing at things like "arty project", "paper mashie", and her botched cut and paste job that repeats part of the assignment a second time, this is actually tragic. In what world is my friend not qualified to teach English while this woman (who has had her job for over 15 years, mind you) is considered a "specialist"? I like her claim that she will take "of" [sic] points for spelling and grammar errors, as if she has any idea what those are.

Granted, when I was a high school English teacher, the essay I assigned in conjunction with the book Night resulted in at least one epically awful student paper. That's still not a good excuse for someone brought in specifically to teach writing to arbitrarily assign an art project rather than an essay. The public education system is fucked. It is so so so so fucked.

Ridiculous Songs from Eurovision 2014

There's just ONE MONTH until Eurovision 2014 and I'm stoked. Per tradition at this blog, I've compiled my favorite ridiculous entries that will compete this year. They're total WTF videos, but who said awesome and awful were mutually exclusive?

Some additional commentary:
15. Sir-Shakes-A-Lot sure whistles better than he sings.
14. Poor man's Bruno Mars is "all about party time."
13. This is this woman's third consecutive attempt (San Marino's small, y'all) at Eurovision, and thus far she hasn't made it past the semifinals. I doubt that spoken word and nipples are going to be enough to do the trick.
12. I'm not following that lady anywhere.
11. She's (quite confidently) "pretty", but she's not naive or easy. Got it?! Also, hot dance moves, baldy.
10. I'd be more down with tolerance if it didn't look so gay.
9. I've just been screaming, "I'm not an animal in captivity!" at random lately.
8. Starting a song with a screech, sexy writhing, and the lyric "We belong to each other/Like a sister to a brother" -- gotta love that incest.
7. All right, stop shaving your upper-lip, then.
6. These out-there folks are way further than three minutes from earth. 
5. Hideous costumes, over-enthusiastic background dancers and singers… and then the giant flags come out. The more elements they add, the tackier it gets.
4. Tits! That's one way to try to get votes, I guess.
3. What's not to love about a bearded lady in a tub of rose petals singing a James Bond-esque anthem? 2. The Belorussian Robin Thicke is not as smooth as he hopes. Nice "Google Maps" reference, though.
1. They've got a cake to bake, what more do you need to know? The songwriter actually said he penned this song to encourage men to ask for directions, and I have to imagine that men are now getting that message loud and clear!

Foolish Wedding

I didn't fall for anything on April Fools' Day this year. It's kind of like how I can't get scared in a haunted house - I just have my guard up too much. I might have had my guard up too much, though.

I have a pair of friends who, for the past couple of April 1sts, have pretended to get married on Facebook to dupe their loved ones. Though it worked two years consecutively, this year, their friends were ready… so they did a double reverse and actually got married on April Fools' Day.

Hilariously, no one believed them. I didn't either initially. By the end of the day, however, I sensed the sincerity in their comments to each other and I realized, wow, they found out a way to announce on social media that they got married and instead of getting many "congratulations", they got a bunch of "liars!" and "you guys are dicks!" As the bride points out, normally a post like that gets 100 likes within an hour, but no one was biting this time.

Who cares about their lifelong commitment… I'm more impressed with their commitment to the joke!

Zac Efron Beaten Up by a Hobo

Hahahaha. I shouldn't laugh at a guy I once had fun with at Six Flags (not really, well sorta, but I am definitely misrepresenting the situation), but this headline is too much.

The #1 reason you know something's being left out of this story is that the cops didn't arrest Zac Efron's hobo assailant. Have you ever met a Los Angeles police officer? They love any excuse to throw a homeless person in jail. Something tells me that this supposed "mutual combat" law suddenly wouldn't apply as soon as a homeless person even lifted a finger in self defense while the cops beat him senseless for sleeping in the wrong part of the city. Oops, this just turned into another Fuck the Police post like it always does.

Did You Just Get Your Hair Done?

I had foreign friends I haven't seen since high school come to LA for a visit today. I was nervous about meeting them, honestly, because I wasn't sure whether we'd be able to pick up where we left off so many years later, but apparently I found it remarkably easy.

Greeting one of them, I said, "Hi! [Hug] Did you just get your hair done? It looks nice."

The other friend immediately began cracking up hysterically. "You haven't seen her in fifteen years and the first thing you say is, 'Did you just get your hair done?'"

Admittedly, it was strange smalltalk. Over the past decade and a half, there have probably been dozens of iterations of her hair I haven't been privy to, but here I was talking like I hadn't missed a beat.

For the record, her hair had just been done. I guess I had seen a recent Facebook photo and she had mentioned previously that she might try to hit up a salon while in town, so I made an educated guess without giving it much thought. I'll stand by it: the best way to bridge a 15 year gap is to just act as if you have seen the person yesterday.

Three Men in a Tub

We're planning a trip to Las Vegas soon, and it's taken a lot of coordination to figure out the accommodations. I kind of miss the days when we'd secretly cram 10-20 of us into a single room. Vegas isn't for sleeping anyway. You need the room for like a 2 hour power nap and then it's time to make that hungover drive home. So why pay for a room? If Vegas wants our money, it can get it the old-fashioned way: enabling us to gamble irresponsibly.

I remember one time we had well over 15 people in a room. A couple of friends and I were the last back in and even the floorspace was monopolized by that point. One of our drunk asses suggested that we try sleeping in the bathtub, so we gave it a shot. Remember that nursery rhyme - rub a dub dub, three men in a tub? It was just like that. I couldn't tell you which of us was the candlestick maker, though.

We slept head to feet to head. I was in the center and my head was directly under the faucet. As if the tub wasn't uncomfortable enough, it leaked ever so slightly. About once a minute, a drop would fall out of the faucet and plunk onto my forehead. I kept telling myself to ignore it and that I'd eventually pass out, but I could not fall asleep like that. Given my intoxicated state, it took me far too long to recognize that I was literally subjecting myself to Chinese water torture. Suddenly it made sense why the slow dripping of water on my face was driving me crazy.

It turned out that three men in a tub was not a comfortable way to sleep, so we abandoned the shower and just cuddled up with others on the floor. Look at how cute we were!

 

enlgish I nto godo

Bless YouTube commenter Jena Camila for responding to a clearly joke comment in a helpful manner.

Somebody's got a future in teaching English abroad!

Coffee Ad

Being from LA, it's not uncommon to see acquaintances who are "in the biz" on commercials and stuff, but I did a double take when I thought I saw a high school teacher I knew in a coffee commercial a couple of weeks ago.

Since it was an internet ad, I wasn't able to rewind it. I hadn't paid enough attention to catch the name of the product or get a good look at the star. I even tried to reload the video a bunch of times, but it played other advertisements instead. Oh well, I figured, I'm sure I was just mistaken.

I finally saw the advertisement again, though, and wouldn't you know, it was that woman I used to throw balls with. (That's not a euphemism, she was a sports teammate of mine.) Even the normal-seeming teachers in this town are shilling for companies now!

The best part is that the spot's slogan is "Someone you know loves Keurig." Ironically enough they're right: I do know Catherine. But I have my doubts are her love for the machine since it also identifies her as a "paid endorser of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc."

DARE

I went from being a kid who won the DARE essay contest to being an adult who said “no fucking way” to a solicitor who asked me to make a donation to the DARE program. If only Officer Bob could see me now!





(… he would see that I don’t do hard drugs, or really any drugs for that matter, but that I am wise to a whack criminal justice system aided in part by a youth-oriented propaganda campaign.)

A Really Important Thing Just Happened on Twitter

Then I got a follow back from a party icon, and now I feel unworthy. I've really got to up my party game so I don't disappoint him.