The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week

Actually, it was probably closer to two weeks ago, but whatever. There's this reality/dating show on MTV called "Room Raiders," and it has the silliest premise for choosing a date ever: three girls are kidnapped, and forced to watch as a random guy searches their rooms and picks one to go on a date with based on what he finds. I was flipping channels and happened on a "special" episode, in which the girls were kidnapped by the female rock group The Donnas. That in and of itself was awesome, because I couldn't believe The Donnas would do something like that. But they did. The second awesome thing about this particular episode was that it took place at UGA, which is about an hour from my house. It's also where Chris goes to Law School and where I spend roughly half of my weekends. I missed the first half of the episode, but I tuned in just in time to hear the guy talking about the fact that he was a virgin, but that he wouldn't mind giving it up on the silk sheets he found in bedroom #2. Klassy! He also found a butcher knife (she claimed it was for protection) in the nightstand. Ooookay. Bedroom #3 was the most interesting, I think. The chick had a compost bin by her bed (?!) because she was, in her own words, "a hippie." The guy opened it up and took a bite out of a half-eaten apple that was inside. Gross. Then he went over to the computer desk and found a pack of cigars. Because I know SOOOO many hippies that smoke cigars. Cloves, maybe; weed, definitely. Cigars? Not so much. But anyway...

So at the end of the episode, the girls go into the guy's room to snoop. He "catches" them, and eliminates them one by one. The first one to go was #3, the "hippie," because of the compost bin thing. Which, granted, was pretty weird. I mean, if you're gonna do that, at least keep it in the kitchen, you know? But the best part was that hippie chick went psycho! She started swearing and stomped out of the room. On her way out, she grabbed an Uga bobble-head doll off the dresser, broke it, and threw it on the floor! The other chicks were like, WTF?! It was awesome. Then the guy eliminated bedroom #1. She was just like, "Ok, whatever," and left. Boring. So he ended up going on a date with girl #2, with the satin sheets and butcher knife by the bed. During the credits, they were doing wrap-up interviews. Psycho tried to explain her craziness, #1 just kinda blew the guy off, and the "winner" said: "I don't like taking things from people, so I don't think I'm going to take his virginity." I almost fell off the bed when she said that, I was laughing so hard.

Then this past weekend, when I was visiting Chris at UGA, I mentioned the show to him. Turns out, the guy works at a gas station just down the street from Chris's apartment, and girls are constantly coming in and asking about him. Hee.

Buster Meets Four Mommies

Yesterday at work, we had two girls trying to shoplift a whole bunch of stuff. Luckily, they realized we were on to them and dropped the merchandise (about $900 worth) just before they left the store. The best part? As they were walking out, The Rolling Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" started playing.

And apparently, the PBS cartoon "Arthur" is getting in trouble because the character Buster the Bunny goes to Vermont to learn about maple syrup and ends up meeting two sets of lesbian mothers. I think it's great PBS is willing to show something like that, but it may not air because so many conservatives are making such a fuss. I'm sorry, but this is one of those cases where I believe you should just turn it off if it offends you. There's a homosexual couple in that T-Mobile commercial ("Why is my cell phone bill so high?" "Who have you been talking to?" "YOU!") but no one's protesting them. I think it's great that PBS is trying to teach kids about different kinds of families and encouraging tolerance at an early age. "Arthur" can be the Heather Has Two Mommies for the new generation.

Raise some hell, y'all!

So this past Saturday, Chris took De and me to the Drive By Truckers concert in Athens. Southern Bitch and Centro-matic were the opening bands, and if those names don't give you an idea of the (sold-out) crowd that we were a part of, here's a little haiku to help you out:

Hold your cheap beer high.
Even the girls have mullets.
Where's my trucker hat?
The music was good - much better than I expected, actually - but the crowd was way too obnoxious. And hella drunk. So, that was my weekend.

I finished my first book of the new year: The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks (son of Mel, so you know it's funny). I've now moved on to Anonymous Rex, by Eric Garcia, which Stella loaned me last week when I stayed at her house for inventory. I'm already halfway through, which tells me that I read fiction much quicker than non-fiction, for some reason. Either that, or I'm just in a hurry to finish so I can return it and move on to my next book.

Also, I made a new resolution. I'm still working on my grad school thing, but I decided I wanted to be healthier. Not a diet, per se (though I could probably use one), just cutting out unnecessary stuff. First casualty? No more soda. Specifically, Diet Coke. Apparently, it's one of the 10 worst snack foods. I just figure I don't need the extra sugar, caffeine, or chemicals. Plus, The Zombie Survival Guide recommends weaning yourself off luxury items, so you don't feel deprived when you have to leave them behind during your great escape from the zombie menace.

Just kidding.

Score!

This has been the crappiest week. We had inventory Tuesday and Wednesday, which meant that I got no sleep. I worked 3 pm - midnight:30 on Tuesday, then 7 am - 4-ish on Wednesday. Luckily, Stella let me crash in her guest room so I didn't have to worry about driving the hour or so home and back the next morning. I also got to hang out with cute Jarod, our regional Loss Prevention manager (who, sadly, is very much engaged) and managed to talk some of my friends into helping out with inventory, at least for the first night.

Driving home Wednesday evening, I got into a slight accident. I was trying to pass a car next to me, when the lady in front of me slammed on her brakes, causing me to slam on mine. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to completely stop in time and I bumped her. There wasn't any damage done to either car, but she immediately called the cops - like, as we were pulling over to check it out. That was kind of annoying. When the hottie police officer finally showed up (over an hour later, due to the rush hour traffic), he inspected the cars, gave me this hilarious WTF? look, then spent five minutes trying to tell her that she didn't need to file a report because it wouldn't do anything except cause both of our insurance rates to go up, as there was ABSOLUTELY NO DAMAGE done to her car. She, however, was "adamant." I think that's cop-speak for "heinously bitchy." So, he ended up writing me a ticket for following too closely. And asking for my number. Is that standard procedure? :) I figure I'll show up in court to protest the ticket, and if neither of them come it'll just be thrown out. The insurance thing will kill me, though. Luckily, Liz came by and brought me a camera, so I was able to take a couple of pictures of her pristine bumper, just in case she tries to pull something later.

Wednesday night, as you can imagine, was spent playing trivia and drinking. Roger played Mojo Nixon's "Elvis is Everywhere" to cheer me up, and Fran and I did a terrible karaoke version of "Come on Eileen." Good times.

Go van Gogh

"I often think that the night is more alive and
more richly colored than the day."
~ Vincent van Gogh

Spent all day in Atl yesterday. Chris and I met up with my lj friend tardis_chan and her boyfriend, blackwolfga at the Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch. De also joined us, and showed us where to find the half-price ticket booth at Underground, which was very helpful. For us, at least, as we bought the last of the half-price tickets for the High Museum for the day, and De and her mom had to pay full price (well, adult and student) at the door. Sorry about that. :)

The exhibit currently at the High is Van Gogh to Mondrian, and it was amazing. I've seen a few van Gogh pieces at different museums, and tried to get into the van Gogh/Gauguin exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago (I forget why we didn't see it, but I'm sure time, scheduling, or money were a factor), but I've never seen a large collection of his works all at the same time. Seeing as van Gogh is my favorite artist - I even sat through this awesomely bad movie called Starry Night because it was about him being resurrected at the Pasadena Rose Bowl parade - I was in heaven. They only had a few of his more well-known paintings: Café Terrace of Night, Olive Grove, and Self-Portrait (1887), so I still didn't get to see Starry Night. But the High was selling prints of it, along with the other paintings. So...yeah, that makes sense. Of course, they were also selling stuffed Vincent van Gogh dolls, along with Monet and Dali. And they had a box of fingerpuppet artists (van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Monet, and Dali; you could also buy Kahlo's husband, Diego Rivera, separately), which was awesome.

Back to the art: Piet Mondrian was way too abstract for my taste - his Composition 10 in Black and White was supposed to be a pier and some ships on the ocean, but it really looks like a series of black lines. But I am totally in love with this painting, Odilon Redon's The Cyclops. And I really liked The Bride by Johan Thorn Prikker. There was another painting that caught my eye, The Harvest, but I didn't write down the artist's name and I can't find it on the HMA website. I think it might have been by Maurice Denis. If anyone knows, please comment.

We also checked out the permanent collection. I was disappointed, because Monet's Houses of Parliament in the Fog seems to have been moved. I always look forward to seeing it when I go to the High. This painting of peaches was so amazing, it almost looked like photorealism. I was also blown away by the marble statues, especially Medea Mediating the Death of her Children and the bust of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I can't imagine how someone could take a block of stone and chip away at it to make something so life-like. I had to do it once (with plaster) for a 3D art class, and it didn't turn out that well. My mom still proudly displayed it on the mantel, though, because she's nothing if not encouraging.

So...that was my day. We ended up spending a few hours at the museum, what with the lines and everything. Chris and I also went to dinner at Gordon Biersch (which was probably a little too expensive for us), and our kick-ass waiter, Ben, let me walk out with the mug my beer came in. Their Winterbock brew is excellent, by the way, and has the highest alcohol content of all their current beers. And you gotta love a beer company that uses slogans like, "Sure we could make a strawberry beer. We could put a little paper umbrella in it, too."

Rage Diary 1

I had a friend that really pissed me off last night. She didn't do anything to me personally, but she said some things that I thought were really stupid. I just had to vent, 'cause I really don't want to bring it up to her again.

We were watching Veronica Mars, and I mentioned this article that I had found a few days ago. She said something along the lines of, "Well, atheists don't know anything." I asked her to explain, and she said that the literal meaning of the word "atheist" is "a person who knows nothing." I told her that she was wrong, completely forgetting that she can't stand to be told she is, in fact, mistaken. About anything. She immediately raised her voice and told that she was not, and that was the word's actual definition. [I should probably mention that the last time we had a discussion like this was in the waiting room of her doctor's office, when she got mad at me for disagreeing with her opinion that having Whistler come back for Blade 3 was, in her own words, "retarded."] I didn't want to argue, because the show was coming back on, so I just told her to drop it. I realized at work this morning that she was probably thinking of "agnostic," but like I said, I don't want to bring it back up.

Anyway, after the show, the news came on and one of the first stories was that some musicians are talking about remaking "We Are The World" to help the tsunami victims. I groaned, because I don't think it should be remade - if anything, we should have a group of musicians get together and write a totally new song. She misinterpreted my groan, however, and said, "Yeah, I know. I wish they'd stop talking about it, too. I mean, the people are dead. Big deal. Move on."

?!

I think I was actually dumbstruck by that. I gaped at her, then said, "I can't believe you said that."
"Well, it's not like it affected me."
"Thousands of people have died. A friend of mine at work had an uncle in Thailand and up until yesterday she didn't know if he was alive [which he is] or dead."

There was a bit more to it than that, but she kind of shrugged and (again) I dropped it. But jeez! Then, I told her about finding the dead chipmunk at work and she said, "Aww." How the fuck are you going to be upset about one dead rodent, but brush off thousand of innocent lives? Especially now, with the new reports that the orphans are being kidnapped or claimed by people who sell them into slavery. Or that there are people still going to Thailand for vacations, and stepping over dead bodies on the beach. This world is so messed up.

This has been bugging me all day. My friends are such idiots sometimes.