Probably Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You...

Jenny Jerkface sent me a link to this movie trailer last week and I was all what the WHAT?!!! So wrong it's right...

Note: if you are highly opposed to gratuitous violence in your movies, this might not be your cup of tea... If you are a fan of Bobcat Goldthwait (and dark, dark, daaaark comedy) please hit "play" and watch the trailer for "God Bless America" (but not in your office or around your kids unless everyone is cool with stuff like this...) -



Tell me you have never wanted to go a little (or a lot) further over a parking space dispute than Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes and I will call you a #$&*^%! LIAR or the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. One of those.

P.S. This might not be Bel Ami, but it is available for your pre-theatrical movie watching pleasure On Demand! Consider it a practice round - it definitely took some effort to track down this movie so that JJ and I could watch it last weekend, but it was totally worth it (and when Bel Ami comes to On Demand next month, I am READY).

If I Covet a Sloth am I Sinning Twice?

I have a new obsession. Well, it's not entirely new. I've kind of always had an affection for this thing, but it's recently turned into a full-blown, slightly out of control, obsession. What are we talking about? (This is probably the most frequently asked question on this blog.)

The Sloth

Wrong Sloth. 

 That's the one. Ohmahgawd it's so cute and I just want to hold him and squeeze him and love him and never put him down! He's so adorable he deserves a second look. 

 Adlhdlkjfdklhadjfhkfhksajdlkj!!!

I don't know what it is about them, but I love sloths—particularly baby sloths.  They're just so cute and cuddly. I was seriously trying to retrofit my closet so I could have a pair of them move in and hang from the racks. I'm not even kidding. I need sloths like a fat kid needs the pope to go in the woods. (I might be mixing up phrases there.) Did you know it's illegal to own them as pets? How much bullshit is that?

Gah! Come live next to my shoe rack! 

 You need to sleep in my cocktail dresses.

I thought I was a bit of a freak [No comments!] until I saw the following video with Kristen Bell. She has the same obsession and reacts to meeting a sloth exactly the same way I would. We could totally be twins. You know, if I were a hot blond who was rich and famous.

Why do you have all the cuteness? ALL. THE. CUTENESS.

Then when they reach adulthood they look like they might be the serial killers of the animal kingdom. This one looks like he is thinking about ripping out your spine and using it for a walking stick. In a cute way. Awww!

Look at the baby taking a bath! Squeeeee!

How can you resist that face?

He's got a frog baby. A FROG BABY FOR CHRISSAKE!

Animal Planet had a documentary on the only sloth rescue in the world. I missed it, but I've practically been watching the YouTube videos on a loop. Here are a couple of them.

Now is your chance to mock me in the comments. Be forewarned—I will sick a sloth on you if you do. Odds are you'll die of natural causes before they ever lumber over to you, but it's the thought that counts. Or something.

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

A certain snarky valedictorian once said, in what could be called the most brilliant graduation speech ever:

"When we were five, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our answers were things like astronaut, president, or in my case… princess.

When we were ten, they asked again and we answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist. But now that we've grown up, they want a serious answer. Well, how about this: who the hell knows?!

This isn't the time to make hard and fast decisions, it's time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy because there's no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again, because nothing is permanent.

So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be… we won't have to guess. We'll know."

My hero gold medal princess.

When I was in high school I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to work with the fucking kick ass dolphins at Sea World. I even did a senior research project on the symbiotic relationship between the sea anemone and the clown fish. Thrilling stuff I tell you. This seems weird to me now because I'm deathly afraid of the water. And isn't that the whole point of marine biology?

Somewhere along the way I realized sitting in a fucking four hour lab on a Friday afternoon when all my friends had already started drinking, was not my cup of tea (or shot of whiskey, which makes more sense in this case.) So I changed majors. I have a degree in English. That's sort of like Biology, right?  

So now I work in advertising... which I've mentioned before and I'm sure you're quite sick of hearing about. Why am I telling you this again? Probably because I realized that once I got over the fact that I would not be the next Jacques Cousteau, I never had any desire to actually be something when I grew up.

Just the mere thought of scuba equipment makes me claustrophobic.

Frankly, I didn't want to grow up. For me, coming to an office every day where I don't have to dress up and I'm not limited by the confines of punching a time clock or having a supervisor peering over my shoulder all day was the perfect place for me. It must be... I'll be celebrating 15 years here next month. Maybe it's because I'm not in a cubicle farm. I have my own office that I can decorate as I please. Right now it's a blank slate because we just renovated but I have a stack of television show posters waiting to be plastered on the walls.

I'm 41 and I'm not sure I could ever be hired at some sort of corporate-type job. Advertising has made me virtually un-hireable. I would be immediately fired from any job other than my current one. There aren't many companies where you can bellow out a string of curse words that would make George Carlin blush and not be fired, but commended for your creativity. Or bosses that will threaten termination if you refuse to get drunk with them. No seriously, it happens. I actually got so shitfaced and high with my boss one night, I could barely find my way home. And I was right around the corner from my apartment.

RIP George... you made swearing fun.

I know that I will never again work for a company where I'm actually encouraged to call my boss a douchebag. My special ringtone for him is a sing-songy tune that says, "Douchebag, douchebag calling... douchebag...etc." He thinks it's hysterical and will often (inappropriately) tell new clients about it. That, and the fact that I enjoy firearms. Not something you want a brand new client to know. It scares them.

Yeah... I haven't grown up and I don't ever plan to. I truly hope this agency stays in business long enough for me to retire from it. (Even though at times I want to burn it to the ground and kill everyone here firing squad style, I mostly don't dread coming to work.)

I want to hear from you guys in the comments... are you doing now what you said you'd be doing as a senior in high school? As a senior in college? Did you set out to go to medical school and you're now a teacher? Or did you actually become a doctor? Does your job make you feel like a grown up? If so, what does that feel like? Inquiring minds want to know!

Beware the Icy Speculum

So, today I had to go to the dreaded vagina doctor. Admittedly, it had been a long time since I brought the lady bits in for a tune-up, so it was long over due.

 This looks like it belongs in a medieval torture chamber.

There are a few things I wish guys could experience. Periods, jogging without a sports bra and having a freezing cold speculum shoved up their orifice, just to name a few. Seriously, why the hell is that thing always so goddamn cold? Do they have a special speculum freezer in the back or something? It's uncomfortable enough to have your stocking feet wedged in stirrups, the least they could do is warm the speculum before they invade your vagina with it.

At least my new doctor doesn't have a poster on the ceiling. I'm not sure why they think staring at a poster of a cute kitten while someone kneads your breasts looking for cancer is going to make everything okay. I've never once thought, "by golly, that kitty is right!! I AM going to hang in there!"

Oh shut the fuck up, Kitty. 

Generally, the only thoughts running through my mind when I'm being examined is a) hurry the fuck up and b) holy Jesus on a pogo-stick is this awkward. 

Speaking of awkward, my new gyno looked like she graduated medical school twelve minutes ago and apparently had a huge hard on for testing for STD's. Within the first five minutes of meeting her, she's asking me if I want an HIV test along with my pap smear, kind of like super-sizing my gyno experience.

Ten minutes after that, I'm laying on my back and she's poking around down below and asks, "do you want to test for Gonorrhea, Chlamydia or Syphilis?"

For a minute, I panicked. I mean, there she was, eye to labia, and she was asking about more STD tests. Then I got kind of offended. Syphilis? What the fuck do I look like, a prostitute from the 1850's?

 Scandalous! I can see their kneecaps. I see more skin at the super market.

While I do believe getting tested for STD's is extremely important, especially if you have multiple partners, I didn't think there was a very big chance that I was going to come into contact with a syphilitic penis any time soon, since ML's is the only one I play with these days. Part of me wondered if she would ask me that sort of thing if I was married. I suspect not. 

In the end, my nether region is in good working order and I don't have to endure freezing cold speculum and heaps of embarrassment for another whole year.

Hopefully by then, someone will have invented a speculum warmer.

Dear Regular Movie Theaters: We're Through!

Ladies and random occasional gentleman readers of this blog, I have a new love. I found it when I went to see The Hunger Games last month. I thought the movie was pretty damn good, but what I really couldn't shut up about was the the theater. People would ask me how I liked the movie and I would spend two minutes ranting about how they messed up Buttercup (seriously, were there NO yellow cats available, casting people???) before launching into my thirty-minute ode to Cinema Suites.

This cat is to The Hunger Games what that black Volvo was to New Moon.

I've always been jealous of the people who live in areas where they have "grown-up" movie theaters with bars and real food and stuff. Frankly, smuggling in my own snacks and a flask is getting a little old. Especially when I forget to take said flask out of my purse and find myself at the office the next day with it. But since the AMC theater near me opened a Cinema Suites recently, I can cross "coveting" off the list of my sins. Well, for that, anyway. And I will never go see a movie in a regular theater ever again if I can help it. I may not have won the lottery last week so the chances of me moving to a mansion with a huge home-theater any time soon are slim, but Cinema Suites is the next best thing.

For starters, you get to select your seat in advance. As someone who is chronically running five minutes late and always ends up getting crappy seats in the theater, reserving a seat from an online chart (like when you buy a plane ticket!) is a god-send. Almost every single seat was sold out for The Hunger Games opening weekend, but I managed to find two seats in the very back row for Mr. Snarky and me. The last aisle in the theater is Row H, which according to my mad math skills means there are only eight rows of seats in the place. Not a bad seat in the house!

The aisles separating each row are ginormous, which is awesome since I hate how in regular theaters everyone has to stand up and get trod upon when the person sitting in the center seat who bought a 164-ounce Uber-Mega-Soda realizes their bladder is about to explode. The aisles at Cinema Suites have to be wide to accommodate the over-sized pleather recliners. Recliners! That go so far out you're almost horizontal! And unless someone seven feet tall comes along, the chances of anyone sitting in front of you blocking your view are almost nil.

They serve alcoholic beverages! And they aren't ridiculously overpriced! Plus the servers will get your sodas (with free refills) candy and popcorn (served in an actual bowl) and it doesn't cost anything extra. In fact, the tickets are only a couple of bucks more than a regular movie ticket, and you aren't required to buy anything once you are there. If they somehow worked some sort of a bedpan into the deal, I might never leave.

 Movie theater, civilized.

The little amenities really did me in, too - there were cloth napkins holding the silverware, they gave us hot towels after our meal, and when we were exiting the theater, instead of passing a surly, scowling teen employee who was waiting to go clean up, we had a cheerful lady proffering a tray of Godiva chocolates. Speaking of surly teenagers, Cinema Suites is 21+ only, so NO KIDS. Wheeee!!! If someone said to me "hey for an extra $2 you don't have to wait in line, you're guaranteed no whippersnappers, and someone will cater to your every need for the next two hours," I'd be a fool to turn them down!

For the sake of full disclosure, the low-light was the food... the chicken tenders I ordered, billed as "beer battered" were more like cafeteria-quality drumstick-shaped McNuggets and may or may not have been cooked in an Easy-Bake oven (perhaps along with the mini-cupcakes I spied on the desert menu but did not try). Next time I'll stick to popcorn. Extra butter-flavored grease on the side, please!

Walking Dead Mad Men!

Happy Friday, everyone - you made it! Here's a little funny to help you slide into the weekend...

Now That's 'A Whole Nother' Debate

I promise if you sit through my grammar lecture, I have a delicious treat for you at the end!

I have a degree in English. It's not like I actually use this degree in my daily work life. Quite the opposite actually. I work at an ad agency, but not the fun creative, copywriting, artistic side of advertising. Nope. I'm the boring media buyer who deals in rates and circulations and cost per points and gross rating points. I'm surrounded by numbers all day. I hate numbers. I'm more of a word girl.

I found this picture here. It made me laugh.

So I guess that's why I love it here. I get to write and it helps keep my relatively unused English degree from getting moldy. I might not always be the most grammatically correct person in the world -- I'm often in desperate need of a proofreader to fix my butchering of punctuation. And I'm unconditionally and irrevocably in love with the dot-dot-dot. Love... It... (I also recently realized that my mother is also a big fan of the ellipsis. I wonder if writing styles are hereditary...)

But alas, I didn't intend on giving you the fucking history of my writing life. There seems to be a debate brewing and I want to get your feelings on it. It's a phrase we've most likely all used at one time or another and never gave it a second thought.

A whole nother.

What the mother fuck is a "nother"?

It even looks weird. Like someone misspelled "mother."

I've done a bit of research on the subject. Some of these new fangled websites, like Wiktionary defines it as: (informal, proscribed) An entirely different; an itensified version of another. And dictionary.com also lists it as an actual word: Informal. a whole nother, an entirely different; a whole other. But then again, dictionary.com lists "bootylicious" as a real word. The day it was decided this word could be listed in the dictionary, my IQ dropped a few points.

A grammar guidelines blog I recently came across says this:

"Nother" is not a word. To correct this error, you could use "another," "a whole other," "a completely different," "an entirely different," etc.

And then I hear some real grammar-nazi types use it, or a local radio talk show host, or myself and it makes me want to stab someone. With a nother. I often feel it coming and try to head it off at the pass. My goal is to eradicate the "nother". I have nothing against making up new words when there's no other word that can express what your trying to say. Google, for instance, is an acceptable new word for me.

This is where you guys come in? What are your thoughts? Do you use it? Do you despise it? Does it make you want to jam a sharp stick into your eardrum so you never have to hear it again? I needz help, yo!

And now for your treat... a new Bel Ami trailer... if you haven't already watched is 843 times. Pay close attention at 1:55 -- I had to pause, stare and drool. I can't wait to see that boy in action. You're welcome.