What am I??

I found this in a drawer at work and no one knows what it is. I've received the following guesses from various coworkers and ruled them all out: 1. seam ripper; 2. tweezers; 3. staple remover; 4. poker; 5. dentist's tool. Someone give me a guess that makes sense. I hate when I can't google something and figure it out. Note: The pen is next to it for size perspective.

Riddle of the day

Here is your riddle:
How do you get a girl to go out with you after she's already said no and claimed to be a lesbian?
What a guy last night thought was the answer:
Steal her cell phone.

I LOVE people.

Chitty chitty bang bang WHISTLE

I was in New York this weekend, and Obesity Girl and I met up Saturday night in our spot, which is in front of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang theater in Times Square. Well, we were screeching and flailing our arms about in traditional Obesity Girl fashion, when all of a sudden we heard a whistle.

Both scared it was a cop and we were about to be arrested for public drunkeness or the like — which, incidentally would have been very impressive given that we were both 100 percent sober — we halted our antics and turned toward the sound of the whistle. Finally, looking down, I saw an old, old man, leaning crooked over a cane and wearing an oversized bright orange T-shirt. He was blowing a little plastic whistle at us.

When he got our attention, I was silent, dumbfounded, and Obesity Girl was laughing hysterically (I soon followed). Then, in a voice that sounded like drunken rambling (although I don't think he was drunk), he screamed "WHAT'S WRONNNNGGGG?" Shaking his finger at us, he continued, "WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOOING?"

At this point I was keeled over in hysterical laughter and he was not pleased. He trudged away with his plastic whistle still hanging from his neck, muttering incoherently as he limped along.

Regrets, regrets

I was standing outside a bar talking to a friend from work around 2 a.m. last night, when a guy I've never seen before in my life approached us. He looked at me with a weird look, said, "Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt," then stepped directly in front of me (facing away) and addressed my friend, Mike.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said to Mike. "But she looks, like, 12."

Really I wanted to kick him, or at least come up with some intelligent thing to say and make him feel like the moron he is. Instead, all I did was explain to him you're not supposed to talk about someone in the third person when they're standing right next to you. Then I walked away and kicked myself instead for being so completely unoriginal.

If I was going to be unoriginal anyway, maybe I should have just punched him in the nose.

Optimism

So I'm getting worse and worse at updating this thing. But also, I'm not sure anyone's reading it anymore so we're even.

Anyway I've decided to compile a short list of things I dislike (and, for your benefit and for purposes of space, I'll leave out all things political).

1) Creepy guys who hit on me at the gas station.
2) Cute guys who don't hit on me at the animal shelter.
3) Track coaches who are forced into resignation and tell me with a straight face that they want to spend more time with their family.
4) Having a cold, even though it's 100+ degrees outside.
5) The fact that it's 100+ degrees outside.

And I'll leave it at that. And if you'll note, the "things I dislike" list is 100 percent shorter than the "things I like" list. That must make me an optimist.

Oh I forgot one more:
6) Being asked at every high school sporting event I cover if I wrote for the school paper. Or "Do you go to West High?" Once when I said no, very emphatically, the guy thought he got the idea and apologized: "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "You go to Tracy?"

Bitter like a cookie

I was recently told by one of my loyal readers (haha) that if someone never spoke to me and only read this blog, they would likely assume that I am a bitter person. As that is not the impression I want to give off, I intend to make a list of happy things, things that I like, starting... now:
1. Cats.
2. Kittens.
3. Monkeys.
4. Looking at pretty men (but not talking to them because that generally ruins the illusion).
5. Multiples of 5.
6. Kicking Republicans in the shins.
7. Cookies.
8. When dumb people (namely Republicans, but there are dumb members of other political parties as well) inadvertently damage themselves, whether it's stubbing their toe or accidentally shooting themselves in the kneecap.
9. Spaghetti.
10. Poking.

If you still haven't gotten your fill of happiness for the day, take a gander at www.happynews.com. It's like the current administration likes to say -- you always hear about cars exploding in Iraq, but you never hear the good news about the cars that don't explode. Now you can.

Gizmo for president!

Go here: http://www.judysworld.net/kittens/ratethis/vote.php?tag=42da13de33ba5
and rate how cute Gizmo is on a scale of 1-10. (He's a 10). If he doesn't win the cute cat contest than I blame all of you. I'll know who didn't vote. And I'll deck you.

Oh and don't bother voting more than once — I voted 20 times before I realized it only registered once.

HARK. VOTE. 10.

Circle of life

The good news: Kibbles got adopted (Four more kittens and one Momma-cat to go).
The bad news: I'm gonna SOCK the mean lady at the shelter. I got there 15 minutes before closing time and she wouldn't let me go in and say hi to the kittens. I wonder if the kitten euthanasia drug she loves so much works on people?

Fuck guys. I'm going to marry a cookie.

I was at the mall today because I took my car in to Sears to get the tires rotated. They told me it would take four hours and I should bring it back the next day, but since I was already there at the mall, I decided to stay a little while to spend some leftover gift certificates from Christmas (this Christmas and last Christmas... I'm really bad at spending those things). Anyway after I settled on a bunch of underwear (did I mention I'm really bad at spending those things?), I went to Mrs. Fields to buy a cookie.

And I would just like to put it on the record that the little mini cinnamon-sugar cookies at Mrs. Fields are the best food in the ENTIRE world. In fact, I think I had an orgasm.

Kitties!

Look it's Fiver (left) and Eyes Wide Shut! This ran in the paper on Saturday — if they still don't get adopted then it's official: People are MORONS. Look how cute! Yay!

My Pulitzer Prize

Today I went to a pool hall to write a story about a 9-ball tournament, and not enough people showed up to have a 9-ball tournament, so instead I had to vomit out 650 words about the pool hall not having a 9-ball tournament.

Jockstrap memories

So have you ever had one of those random memories kick in for no good reason at all? You have? Me too!

I was at a Little League practice the other day and they were talking about how one of the kids needed to buy a jockstrap. Well that triggered the following memory from my City Sports days:

I was working at the register when a guy came up with an exchange. Now, since I had a very solid personal policy about not paying attention to customers, I didn't pay him much mind at first when he set two jockstraps down on the counter.
-"Umm... I need to exchange these," he said.
-OK.
-"Not for me. It's for my son... my... friend... I mean... it's not for me. For someone else I mean... I need to exchange these."

Now he had my attention. I looked at the two jockstraps.

He was exchanging an XL for a Small.

Crap and stuff...

So I brought back the last three kittens to the shelter yesterday. Fiver hit two pounds a couple of days ago, and I couldn't put it off any longer. Anyway I figured the smaller and cuter he is, the more likely he is to get adopted. But I miss him (and Jumper and Aunt Sister) anyway — it's weird only having two cats in the house again. Nice cause there's less to clean, but weird.

Anyway I miss my kittens, I'm annoyed that no one's adopting them, I'm annoyed that Sandra Day O'Connor resigned and I'm terrified that Bush will somehow slip a hardcore conservative in there to replace her ('specially in the light of the conservative groups protesting Alberto Gonzales, although in reality, Gonzales probably had some evil up his sleeve as well). Oh, and all I've been writing about is geriatric yoga, dumb little kids doing somersaults, little league, more little league and also little league.

And I'm sitting here eating croutons because that's pretty much all I have in my apartment and I'm broke till Tuesday.

All in all, a great week.

Pants and stomachaches

So I covered a Sacramento Monarchs game tonight, and about five minutes into the SECOND half, the Sacramento Bee writer walks in, sits next to me and says, "What'd I miss?"

He then proceeded to type everything I said to him.
-Wait, so Yolanda Griffith scored her 3,000th point? he asked.
-Yeah.
-Did she get a standing ovation?
-Yeah.
-You sure it was a standing one?
-Yep.
-How many other players in the WNBA have scored 3,000 points?
-Eight.
-You sure that's right?

I seriously should have started making things up:
Not only did she get a standing ovation, dude — her fan club all ran onto the court with no pants! Then they all started dancing the Macarena and Griffith took off her pants and joined in! You shoulda seen it, man — it was GREAT.

On another note, the media room had cookies, rice krispie treats and cake. My stomach hurts.

For better or for worse...

Geriatric yoga story:
http://www.tracypress.com/sports/2005-06-23-yoga.html

The Secret Code

So my phone service got cut off for some reason, and after going through at least eight different automated operators asking me to press at least 50,763 different buttons, I got frustrated and started pressing O and saying "operator." The automated people kept telling me that I wasn't entering a valid command, and in my anger and frustration, I screamed "FUCKERS!" into the phone.

I was immediately transferred to an operator.

Geezer yoga

People often ask me why I would go into a profession where I'm inevitably going to make very little money. They ask me why I'd go through four years of college — and accumulate cubicles full of debt — to work in a job that pays less than... just about anything I could have gotten out of high school. Here's my answer: It's honorable. I'm doing good things for the world, informing the public about important issues and trends surfacing in society today.

For example, on Wednesday I am going to be covering geriatric yoga.

Here goes...

Well I've decided to finally join the whole blogging craze, although I can't guarantee that it'll stick. Mostly I am just bored waiting for the last sports page to come my way at work so I can proof it and go home to play with kittens. In fact, I don't think I'd be doing this at all if Sara had actually update her blog because I would be reading hers instead of writing my own.

In any case, ooooh the last page is done!

PEACE OUT!