Quite the day today

Today, Michelangelo Antonioni went to the big sound stage in the sky. He was an amazing director who made Blow Up, one of my favorite films. I was first turned onto this movie by someone for whom I will have an eternal soft-spot, so I'm wondering if I love the movie because it reminds me of him, or if it's really a brilliant film. Chances are, it's a little bit of both-- it's set in the 60s, when I should've lived so I could've gone to Beatles concerts and Carnaby Street in whirl of mod-ness.

As I said, Antonioni went to the big sound stage in the sky today. Why do we have to sugar-coat the phrase, "he died" or "he's dead" or "he's taking a dirt nap?" Something I've learned all too quickly is when someone's gone, they're gone, and they're not coming back no matter how you spin it. Reality can be quite a bitch.

Before this post becomes too morbid, let's switch gears...

Karma wants me to be a crazy cat lady. For the last week, Random Kitty has been living on my doorstep. I have told Random Kitty to go home, I have called the number on Random Kitty's tag to try and get them to take Random Kitty back. I have offered to take Random Kitty back to its owner. To no avail, Random Kitty was sitting in the passenger side of my Jeep this morning. Random Kitty has even started coming to me when I call out, "Raaaandooom Kittyyy?"

What's a girl to do when they're single and a cat shows up at the doorstep? Accept the possibility of becoming a crazy cat lady, and embrace it? Start shopping for my old-lady red hat? Or do I resist taking in Random Kitty no matter how much it lets me scratch its chin?

Reality Show Pondering

The other week I gave in to my addiction of reality television and actually watched Simple Life Goes to Camp because I felt like watching a train wreck. This particular episode featured a boot camp-like instructor who tried to break people of being high-maintenance. Attending camp was a particularly annoying Hollywood woman named Yoi who eventually ended up leaving early because they wanted her to eat crickets. Paris and Nicole said, "Good riddance" to Yoi, which made me think, "Wow, you must be really annoying if Paris and Nicole are bidding you 'good riddance.'"

Tonight, I was watching a bit of "More Swimsuit Secrets Revealed" on the WE channel, and wouldn't you know it? Good ol' Yoi was one of the featured women in search of a new bathing suit. Apparently Yoi is a media whore hopping from reality show to reality show. Damn, dirty Yoi!

What's worse? Giving more reality show rides than Greyhound OR watching enough stupid reality shows to actually realize the same chick is hopping from reality show to reality show?

So Healthy!

Vitamin Water is a sham. I'll just start right out with that and get it off my chest. Vitamin Water is a sham. I used to like Vitamin Water, and up until this afternoon, I used to love drinking a bottle of it after working out. But no more. I will swear off Vitamin Water as a lame excuse for being healthy, and consider it a diet gimmick.

I went to the gym this afternoon for a couple of hours (for real, I'm not trying to sound hard-core. I also drank three beers last night.) and when I was finished, I decided to drag myself to the grocery store for a few things. You know, healthy things one only thinks about after attending the gym for a couple of hours: Bananas. Salad-in-a-bag. Diet Dr. Pepper. And I decided I'd grab a bottle of Vitamin Water to drink on the way home, because come on, how could something called "Dragonfruit" not be healthy?

After reading the label, I threw down the Vitamin Water with utter disgust and I think I actually said, "What the hell?" under my breath. A bottle of very "healthy" Vitamin Water contains 50 calories per serving, with two-point-five servings in each bottle. Now, I'm no math major or anything, in fact, math nearly cost me my Bachelor's degree, but that totals to 125 calories a bottle. That's only 15 calories less than in regular Coke (which I would never drink because I've never been able to stand the aftertaste). That is the same amount of calories one would find in a can of Guinness. Healthy Vitamin Water, my ass!

In fact, straight to one's ass is where the Vitamin Water will go when you read more of the nutritional information and learn that your 125 calorie health drink also contains 13 grams of sugar per serving, or (again, me trying to do math) about eight teaspoons of sugar per bottle. Seems to me plain ol' water and a good multivitamin might just save those calories I worked so hard to lose! Leave the Vitamin Water alone, unless maybe you've got a raging hangover and need some electrolytes.

Once a Geek, Always a Geek

Darn you glasses! I started wearing you in first grade when I could no longer read the blackboard, even from the front row. I remember a classmate of mine, Jason Kelly, who dressed up like a robot for Halloween and I developed a crush on him until we went to different Jr. High schools, said, "You need glasses!" And my fate was sealed.

Wearing glasses wasn't ever a big deal in elementary school, then I got braces in fifth grade. Then I was forced to wear headgear to school in seventh grade and started playing in the band. Enough said.

Now, I embrace my geeky past, and was thrilled today when I saw that Comic-Con was happening in San Diego this week. Sigh, to one day be around fellow blog geeks, gazing into the eyes of Batman or Superman or Kevin Smith. So I present reasons why I want to go to Comic-Con next year:

5. My white pleather dress is wasting away on a hanger.
4. I am a pop culture whore who would clean up on Jeopardy!
3. Stan Lee, Kevin Smith and Yoda, oh my!
2. Spandex really is a right.
1. The force would be with me.

Until I try to go next time, I'm submitting to my glasses-and-headgear-ness and throwing myself head-first into my geeky past-- band practice. I've agreed to play the saxophone in a live-concert version of The Rocky Horror Show this Halloween. Not only does it satisfy my geek-ness, but also my previous Gothic-ness, complete with a dog collar, corset and fishnets. Hell, maybe I'll even wear lingerie one night.

Nowadays, who knew glasses could be so hot?

Nails on a Chalkboard

I never really minded when first-grade classmates would scratch their nails down the chalkboard. I never understood the "eeew" factor in chewing tin foil.

But if I ever see another Sharpie commercial again, I will go postal.

Have you seen them? You know, where the narrator of the commercial is writing a letter to "someone," presumably, their significant other, their kid's teacher, and then they get fed up with the wordiness of it all and whip out a Sharpie which spells out the real message of the thing? But there's the sort of squeaky markery sound that happens with the commercial, making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

Sharpie commercials are also extremely painful. For instance, as I was watching "Who Wants to be a Superhero" this afternoon, my new favorite TV show, I had the Sharpie commercial forced on me. Frantic, I lunged for the remote to change the channel before the squeaky markery sound happened, ending up sprawled out on my ottoman screaming in pain from a stubbed toe. And I still caught wind of the squeaky markery sound.

Just when you thought there wasn't anything worse than "Who Wants to be a Superhero," there is; the Sharpie commercial.

So That's Why!

After Lindsay Blohan's latest run-in with the law, I wanted to know what she was thinking driving herself around while (allegedly) "under the influence." Like tens of Americans, I asked the same question as Harvey Levin (filling in for Larry King on CNN).

Harvey Levin: Why don't they get drivers? They can afford it. Why don't they get somebody to drive them around?
Billy Bush: They have them, but they let them go about ten... As soon as eleven or twelve [o'clock] roll around, they're gone. At night, they [the stars] don't want the drivers to see what's going on.

To which I say, "WHO CARES?!?" The drivers are their drivers, and it's not like they've never seen their client coked up during the day! What, just because it's dark outside, it makes their addictions that much worse? So, some star would rather risk losing their career and bank account just because they don't want their driver to "see what's going on?"

My respect for Billy Bush has hit rock bottom. No wonder he asks the questions, rather than giving the answers. Lame, Billy, laaaaame!

In Search of SLC "Bear Guy"

I feel like I'm hunting Yeti.

For the second time this month, I have spotted the "Bear Guy" and have yet to photograph him in his natural environment.

"But who, or what, is 'Bear Guy?'" you ask? The first time I spotted "Bear Guy," I caught sight of him in my rear view window as I was headed East on 1700 South. First I saw his horrible grey 1950s truck, what caught my attention were the peeling flame stickers emblazoned on the side. What furthered my staring was the fact that the old guy driving looked exactly like "Blue" from Old School. Exactly. You're my boy, Blue! It's true folks, Patrick Crenshaw did not die last January, he's driving a weird-looking truck around the streets of Salt Lake.

Finally, the thing more disturbing than Blue driving a truck around Salt Lake? The passenger. Strapped in next to Blue was a human-sized teddy bear, wearing a polo shirt! I rubbed my eyes, but it was true, Blue is trafficking stuffed animals through the Wasatch Front. At that time, he continued Eastbound on 1700 south.

Sunday afternoon, it happened again. Only this time I was behind Blue and his truck, and the sight of it all was even more ghastly! Not only was there a human-sized passenger bear, but there were also two riding without seat-belts backward-facing in the bed of the truck. One wore a sombrero, Hawiian shirt and khaki shorts, the other was wearing a green polo shirt and jeans.

Frantic, I followed him through several lights... then Blue caught onto me. He actually pulled over to let me by. I turned the corner to try and get behind him once again, and he was gone, in a flash, without warning.

Who is this mysterious Bear Guy? Where does he go? And just why does he take his furry friends with him? I'm in search, and never leaving the house without my camera again.

The Trifecta is Complete

In possibly one of the most brilliant moves of this week, this morning LA police have arrested Lindsay Lohan for another DUI, this time topped off with cocaine possession.

Now, dontcha' think if you had millions of Disney dollars in your savings account you'd spring for a cab after a hard night of partying? Not only would you save the $25,000 bail money, but you might also save yourself from facing a possible six-years in jail for felony drug possession.

Here's this girl who just turned 21 this month, who has already been in and out of rehab and is now facing hard time. Sweetheart, you've got many more years ahead of you to smoke and drink your way to the grave, why blow it all right now?

My World is Infested

With so much going on in my world right now, the title of this posting has far too many meanings. I'd love to go into the inner-workings of creepiness crawling into my brain right now, but it's impossible when there is creepiness crawling all over my apartment.

In droves by the hundreds of millions.

Literally dying in piles both upstairs and down.

Box elder bugs; and they're sucking my will to live.

When I first found my disco-fabulous apartment last March, I was thrilled at the prospect of a funky place with a loft. It's in a great area, and there's actually room for my boatloads of kitsch I can't seem to live without. When I found the apartment, it was snowing outside, and the whole place looked pest-free.

Then it warmed up, and I realized that box elder bugs lived inside my apartment's every nook and cranny. I had to vacuum several times a week to keep up with the piles that would die on all the windowsills and corners. It was a nuisance, but for some reason last summer it wasn't that bad. Last summer I had a few other things to worry about-- big things like the air conditioner that conked out for the whole month of July.

Fast forward to this summer where the box elder bug piles are so high, I'm four-wheeling over them with my vacuum on a twice-daily basis. And the keep flying at my head. As I sit in bed, they're flying toward the lit computer screen and every few minutes I feel that familiar tickle on my arm. Ever see the cockroach guy in Creepshow? Pales in comparison to the pets I've inherited.

Besides wash them down the drain, vacuum them up and light them on fire, what's a girl to do with box elder bugs? Tonight after flicking one so hard across the room I nearly broke my pinky finger when I misjudged the placement of my dresser and smashed into it, I finally turned to my old friend Google. Okay, first step is to learn about my adopted pests, Hemiptera: Rhopalidae, Leptocoris trivittatus, the box elder bug. Description, yep, got that... can see the black and red thorax because it's currently crawling down my leg... yeah, definitely box elder bug which can "number into the thousands." You think?

"They are primarily a nuisance as they crawl or fly about the room." This is an understatement, I consider it more than just a "nuisance" when you get them caught in your hair and fall down the stairs while flailing one's arms screaming, "Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!" Having to go to the grocery store is something I consider a "nuisance" seeing the crawling silhouettes of several freaky-looking bugs all over your laptop screen while you sit in bed is a major freak-out.

"The box elder bug becomes a pest in many houses each year in fall and spring." And we'll just go ahead and throw in Winter and Summer right here. "They do no damage by feeding, but their excrement spots on draperies are difficult to remove." It's true. Just like Alli on a good pair of khaki pants, the box elder bugs have actually left spots on my 900 thread-count sheets. "The bugs cause little damage to trees." Oh good, because the trees are paying rent to live in this shithole. Great. Maybe the trees could pay my car payment, take out the trash and float me a loan while they're at it.

What this article doesn't mention is you will also find bits of legs and antennae laying around on every counter and smooth surface after you have tried vacuuming up the carcasses.

What's a girl to do? According to doyourownpestcontrol.com, not a damn thing. Not that I put much faith in a "Do your own pest control" Web site, but according to them, " Once boxelder bugs have become established in the home, there aren't a lot of treatment options. There are not a lot of recommended chemical measures at this point." You're screwed. Pack your bags. Head for the hills. Make sure you don't bring the suckers with you because they'll infest your next place and you won't be rid of them until they drive you to a nice padded cell where you sleep in your slippers.

It's time to call in the big guns-- a product called "Buggslayer." I will be Buggslayer! But after reading further, this stuff is like Satan in a jug and will apparently burn my nose, eyes and skin. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

After reading Beware of Box Elder Bugs, I'm going to sleep.

In a hotel.

In Guam.

Bod by Zod

Thanks to Joost, I've been really catching up on my Robot Chicken. If you'd like to check out Joost, just leave me your email addy for an invite.

British Invasion

As I sit here watching Victoria Beckham: Coming to America, I am ashamed that I am not only starting to like her, but that I am actually sitting here watching Victoria Beckham: Coming to America.

For some reason, it's not nearly the trainwreck that Hey Paula has turned out to be, and I think I'll actually tune in next week.

For a little bit.

If I'm house-bound.

Posh Spice actually has a bit of a personality, which one would never know by the pouty-faced paparazzi look. Dare I even add that she might also actually have a sense of humor? I'm slightly sick, but that has more to do with eating three hours' worth of kettle corn this morning than Victoria Beckham: Coming to America.

Who knew? At least I'm off to dance.