Botox, Botoxer, Botoxest

I guess that sometimes when you see stuff go on in your own family for a while, you don't recognize it as being weird or out of the ordinary? Is that what happens? Is that why I was perfectly resigned to the fact that my brother would painstakingly remove and then subsequently line up and categorize all of the marshmallows from his bowl of Lucky Charms? Only to pop the appropriate number or marshmallows in his mouth before adding a bite of cereal with milk. (I still, to this day, do not know what the formula was for calculating the marshmallow to toasty oat goodness ratio was.) To me, that wasn't weird. That was breakfast.

If that peculiarity of childhood can be explained away by other family members simply becoming desensitized to the whole 7am Marshmallow Segregation Ritual of the 1970s (the MSR), then I guess it would award me some peace of mind here. It certainly beats my going crazy from racking my brain so hard in search of a yet unanswered question to the point that my skull actually bursts, rendering me incapable of human interaction and devoid of all feelings. (Yet since I'm practically that way already, can I be rendered further? More stories like this one and time will tell, my friends. Time will tell.)

Side note: Totally off topic, but have you ever noticed how the 'charms' in the Lucky Charms sort of resemble the pieces in the game 'Operation'? They totally do!

The question being: Why in the hell would this seemingly normal teenage girl willingly accept a present from her mother when the present is Botox injections and when the mother looks like this. Behold!

OH, what the hell is that?

That would be a one Jodie King and her mother, a one Margaret King, according to The Daily Mail. I think someone must have switched up the pictures though, because that is clearly Marcia Brady and The Joker. Where's the picture of the Kings?!

What? Oh. Really? Oh. Whoops. Annnny-wayyyyy....so...Botox!

Yep. Again, according to The Daily Mail Mrs. King has spent £45,000 for her own plastic surgery. I know! Can you believe that she's had some work done?! Me neither! and so when Jodie's 18th birthday rolled around, Mrs. King"bought her £160 Botox injections" because "Jodie's forehead is like mine - she gets pronounced lines when she makes a facial expression. I knew Botox would solve the problem.'"

Um, ma'am? Yeah, you see, EVERYONE gets lines when they MAKE a facial expression! It's not UNUSUAL for your face to CHANGE when you're actually MOVING it! The odd part is when you move you face and NOTHING MOVES!! Or if your forehead is so smooth, you could be the screen at a drive-in movie, that's not normal!

But it must be normal for Jodie because she is almost 20 and "...earns £800 a month as a model, using the money to pay for Botox jabs." A model? For what? "Before They Were Freaks" magazine?

Jodie claims that her mother who "...is separated from Jodie's father (probably because he didn't think that any woman should have a forehead that is smooth enough to ice skate on), has been under the knife for a nose job, two breast enlargements, a tummy tuck and a mini-facelift." TWO breast enlargements? What? Did they do them one at a time or something? Why two? (Because she's crazy, that is correct.)

Jodie will not fare much better than The Joker her mother if this statement is any indication: "So what if I'm a teenage Botox addict? I can't think of anything worse than looking old. I'll always find a way to pay for Botox. Now I've started I can't stop." See the connection? Acorn? Tree?

This will not end well. Then again, if this chick thinks that her mother looks fabulous, then maybe it will end well for her. She'll end up looking just like the spawn of a Marvel Comics character and if she is truly that admiring of her mother's looks, then she will be thrilled. The parents of small children who have to run after said children when they flee in horror upon seeing her for the first time, those folks will not be so thrilled.

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Your Elected Officials Hard At Work

Not that this will come as any huge shock to anyone, but from what I can tell, the daily powwows of the House of Representatives and of the Senate are just a big, fat waste of time, not to mention an atmosphere that (literally) is bursting with hot air which fuels an environment of the extremely self satisfied. Stuff that's important seems to take a backseat to stuff that just feels good. (And I realize that I just mentioned how both the House and the Senate were full of those who were "self satisfied", so I just wanted to clarify that it's not that kind of self satisfaction. Just so we're clear.) And sometimes stuff that just feels good takes a back seat to incoherent babbling.

The House of Representatives spend waaayyyyy more time than is necessary to honor, recognize, congratulation and commend. Do you really feel like you've received anything all so special after you've realized that it doesn't take much to get a nod from the House? Not having been honored, recognized, congratulated or commended by the House or the Senate, I can't say for sure, but I'm thinking it would lose a little bit of any luster that it may have had to start with. I know that for me, from now on whenever I see some sort of certificate or whatever in someone's house or shop or classroom or office that says they were given the ol' thumbs up by a bunch of Representatives, I'm probably going to think, "Yeah, you and everyone else. What else ya got for me?"

Not much. Let me show you what I mean. Let's pick a random day in the House and the Senate to look at. How about April 1st? April Fool's Day seems appropriate for this little exercise. Let's see what we have....

Well, the House met at 10am and adjourned for the day at 12:30pm, so we're only getting a whopping 2 1/2 hours here, but hopefully they won't disappoint us and continue to display complete ineptness even with the shortened time frame.

On April 1st, the House:

Honored:

• Nowruz (Yes, the holiday that marks the traditional Iranian new year, that is correct.)

Paid tribute to:

• Cesar Chavez,

Welcomed:

• Former Speaker Jim Wright

Had a moment of silence in remembrance of:

• The armed forces and their families

Announced:

• 'Cover the Uninsured Week' (Like with a blanket?)

And congratulated:

• Harry N. Mixon Elementary School,

• A one Sheriff Bill Pribil, (who, as far as I can tell, is just a friend of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Representative from Arizona)

• And (wait for it) the on-premise sign industry.

Wait. What? The on-premi....huh?

Correct. The on-premise sign industry. The sign guys. The guys who make signs. Have you ever seen a sign? Was it on a premise? That's it! That's their sign!

In the Senate on the very same April Fool's Day, the Senators:

Congratulated:

• The University of Louisville Lady Cards,

• The Las Vegas Convention Center's 50th Year,

• The Kamehameha Schools--Hawaii Athletic Department

Paid tribute to:

Tessa Shumway (who seems to be a Red Cross coordinator in Montana)



Patrick J. Finneran, Jr. (who seems to be a VP at Boeing)

Remembered:

• Ron Silver (the actor)

Honored:

• Enchantment Wedding Services (wedding planners in Maine, that is correct),

Commemorated:

• 90 years of US-Poland diplomatic relations,

Celebrated:

• 60 years of NATO

Designated:

• June 1, 2009, as ``Collector Car Appreciation Day''

And urged:

• The government of Moldova to ensure a democratic election process.

They also agreed to allow the Rotunda to be used for a ceremony for commemoration of the days of remembrance of victims of the Holocaust.

Now, I'm sure you have a few questions about some of these, so I'm just going to start with the most obvious. OK, so...where the hell is Moldova?

We're so doomed. We have the Speaker of the House claiming out loud and to the media and public that the CIA regularly lied and does regularly lie to her and to members of Congress. If the CIA is lying, that's a huge problem, wouldn't you agree? You wouldn't agree if you were a member of Congress, apparently, as no one seems to give a fat rat's ass about it. You know why? Because they all think/know that Nancy Pelosi was lying when she said that! Well, if the Speaker of the House of lying, that too is a huge problem! And what are the House and the Senate doing about it? Commemorating sports teams, honoring the new year in Iran, and trying to convince folks in Moldova to vote on things! And you know what else?! I still don't know where in the hell Moldova is!

After about an extra minute of thought, I've come up with this: If I thought for one second that these Reps actually believed in whatever cause, building, holiday or person that they were praising, then it would be different. But they're just saying stuff because they think it makes them look good. There's no feeling, no substance behind what they spit out. Sometimes, they don't even know what they're talking about. Take this screed from a one Rep. Jackson-Lee of Texas. She was trying to find some way to acknowledge the Houston Rockets (yes, of the NBA), but I'm not even sure that she knew what sport they played.
"There comes a time when you need to acknowledge the hometown team and thank them for their best effort (Not really. There might be a time to do that if they win something! Coming kinda close? Not so much really.). The Rockets wanted to win. They put their heart in it. They came back in game 6. They came back in other games. They were down 20 points or more in other games. (You're not really making them sound all that great by talking about the other games that they were down 20 or more points. You do realize that, don't you?) They lost by a large amount, but they came back. (Came back for what? To turn off the lights? You don't come back from losing by "a large amount". It's over. You lost!) And boy, did they give us a game in game 6." Wait! There's more!

"So you can see the faces of the Houston Rockets. And I'm cheering them on. Congratulations for getting into this part of the NBA, getting into what they have not done before, which is the playoffs. (Um, they've been to playoffs before. Many times before!) So I am grateful for the young team that they are. Some that don't have height, we are aware of the injuries of some of our teammates (Is not having height an injury? Did they lop someone's lower legs off mid-thigh or something?), but Houston is very proud. And we celebrated our Houston Rockets because they did a darn good job. (If all it takes these days to get commended on the floor of the House is to do "a darn good job", then we have really gone over the edge. I did "a darn good job" finishing off half of a pizza last night. Where's my commendation?) It is a good lesson for young people to know in the face of adversity, to keep on keeping on (What was their choice? It was a basketball game! You have to keep playing until the game is over, adversity or not!). That is what sports is all about. And that is what the message is when we tell our children to play, play fair, have good judgment, have integrity and keep on keeping on, and some day, you will be a winner. (Not today, but maybe someday.)
Winners never quit, and quitters never win."

And politicians never do anything.

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American's Idle

So did you see the American Idol finale on Wednesday? Wow. The finale of AI is always like a 1970s variety show. A whole bunch of different acts doing their thing with a fair number of them from years and years ago. The only real difference between the AI finale and the 1970s variety show is that AI was relatively entertaining.

Can we just start with KISS? What are these guys? 80? 90? They've been doing "Rock and Roll All Night" for like 40 years! But that's the good thing about performing with all of that face makeup on, I guess. That part of being old, the whole looking old thing, doesn't show. I was amazed that they could all still stand on those 12-inch platform boots/shoes things that they wear. They're old enough, you'd think that they'd be having the vertigo or something. But hey, for those of us who never got to see KISS perform live, well, consider that performance seeing them sort of live. Still alive! There we go.

But really, the most surprising part of the evening for me was when Barbara Walters came out to sing "Do You Think I'm Sexy". Wait. What? That wasn't Barbara Walters? That was Rod Stewart?! Good Lord. (And sporting a lovely plaid sportscoat as well!) They had all of the failed Idols doing a group number of 'Do You Think I'm Sexy', a huge hit for Rod back in the days when he could legitimately ask that question (and could sing without shouting or sounding like he needed to hack a phlegm boulder out of his esophagus). But on American Idol, he looked like he should have been singing 'Do You Think I'm Elderly'. He's aged a bit, that's all I'm sayin'. So much that if question is posed "Do You Think I'm Sexy" the answer could be a variety of things, but none of them would be 'Yes". Even the lyrics "If you want my body and you think I'm sexy" would seem to be aptly followed by "...you were likely born during the Hoover administration." Or even "...then you're going to need to adjust your horizontal hold."

And he shouted sang my favorite Rod Stewart song, Maggie May, which starts out "Wake up, Maggie. I think I've got something to say to you." But watching Rod Stewart, the apparent octogenarian, sing those lyrics, I felt like it should have been, "Wake up, Maggie. It's time to take our pills." Perhaps "Wake up, Maggie. Where's my robe? When's lunch? Did you steal my hat?" Rod probably could have used some of the left over face paint from KISS. Oh, wait. That's right. There wasn't any left over. My mistake.

He stumbled a couple of times. I was worried he might fall and break a hip. He just didn't look all that great, I'm just saying. And when you're old and you look old and you're kind of stumbling old, it's just not right. Odd Stewart was more like it.

And if you think I'm being too hard on ol' Odd there, I'm not. After Idol had aired, do you know what Google Trends showed as the Number 10 most searched for item that day? I'll give you a hint: It's the same as the Number ONE searched for item during the 6pm hour (after Idol aired on the east coast)! That's right. "How old is Rod Stewart?" Followed closely by "How old is Gene Simmons?" (He'll be 60 this August.) "How old is Lionel Ritchie?" (He'll be 60 in June.) And "How old is Cyndi Lauper?" (She will be 56 in June.) I couldn't make that funnier if I tried! Behold! The graph!

Hil-arious. (By the way, Rod is 64 and will be 65 next January 10. That's way too old to be strutting around on stage with your plaid-itude and pretending to look like Barbara Walters, if you ask me.) Then there was Bikini Girl, a one dim bulbed Katrina Darrell, there for her encore performance. Best line of the night goes to Ryan Seacrest when he said to a newly 'enhanced' Bikini Girl, "I was going to ask you 'What's new?', but I think I know!" Women who think they're hot always feel the need for the after market accessories. And not like there's anything wrong with that, but you don't want it to be obvious that you've added on, you know? They really need to blend with the original model. But I blissfully digress.

Bikini Girl, I think, was seriously shocked when Kara Dio Guardi began singing and came out on stage behind her as she sang. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't going to get to bask in four minutes of solitary glory. Maybe it had been planned from the beginning, but Bikini Girl doesn't seem like the brightest bulb on the tree, so I doubt she could have acted that well.

I, personally, found the whole Bikini Girl segment very strange. Here's a chick (who if you said her real name to people, I'd guess 95-98% would not know who you were talking about) standing on a stage in front of thousands of people, wearing nothing but a bikini and a smile, and just singing as if it's perfectly normal! Totally natural! See it every day! NO! You don't. But she had no problem with it. None. And that's why I'm going to offer this bit of advice: Bikini Girl, if someone is reading this to you right now, please listen when I say that if you did not cash in on your 15 minutes of fame within an hour of stepping off that stage, it's over for you, baby. People will not care about you or your hot body a month from now or even a week from now, so if you were planning on using this to launch you toward some fabulous money making opportunity, if you haven't signed a deal by now, I'd start looking for other work. (And by 'other work' I mean what you're probably going to end up doing anyway. Porn.)

I'm not a fan of the re-trotting out of all of the failed and delusional Idol tryout folks. That whole act has really gotten old for me. Not as old as Rod Stewart, but old. It's starting to feel like poking fun at the intellectually disadvantaged and the borderline mentally retarded. It's definitely poking fun at the mentally ill if nothing else. But the one girl, whose name is escaping me at the moment, who had the parents who were just as delusional as she was that she was going to be the next American Idol? Um, acorn? Tree? You can make the connection, right? There was no way in hell that she was going to win American Idol, yet both her parents and her were convinced that she was! They kept saying so. Out loud! And while I'm not making any claims to being able to predict the outcomes of events, I can tell you this with 100% certainty, that girl will win a Cy Young award or a Nobel Prize before she will become the next American Idol and that will occur right about never!

Even with all of the glitz and the glamour and the bikinis and the delusions, the strangest act of the evening, on the show which searches across America for the next greatest vocalist, was Carlos Santana playing a guitar solo. Go figure.

One of my personal highlights was when I realized that it was quite possibly the very last time that we will have to sit through four judges ever again. With any luck, those who have the power over these sorts of things will get rid of Kara LaGuardiaDio Guardi so that it can go back to being just incoherent Paula Abdul and the two gents, Randy Jackson and the be-tee-shirted Brit, Simon Cowell. It just took too long to get through all of their comments and that meant that we likely missed out on some spectacularly incoherent moments from Paula! We can't have that! She needs to babble speak!

Low light of the evening: It was when the kicked-off-after-three-shows-contestant Jorge (and his eyebrows which appear to be two dueling caterpillars going head to head) would not leave the side of Kris Allen after Kris was named the new American Idol! This guy was hanging all over him like they had been dating or something. It was simply to get his face in every single camera shot that there was. Nothing but a camera whore, that Jorge! It was so obvious to the point where if he didn't think his face was on camera, you would see him craning his neck to get his face closer to Kris's face. It was pathetic.

I don't know how far I can delve into the fake-roversy (again, "fake controversy") over whether or not Adam should have won, but I'll try to keep it plain and simple. Adam should not have won. Do you know why? Because the result was based upon votes. Viewer votes. The viewers voted. They voted for Kris. Therefore, Kris should have won because that is what, and stick with me here, the majority of people wanted. Why did they want Kris instead of Adam? It's simple. When Danny got booted (after being given a horrible song to sing by the incoherent Paula Abdul) all of the folks who still cared enough to vote were more likely to vote for Kris than they were for Adam. Was Adam a better singer? I don't know. It depends on how often you can listen to the same sound with different words over and over and over again. Every week was superb for Adam, but it was always the same. Hit the high note that we're all impressed you can do. Wag your tongue a little. Wink too often. Leer a bit. And scream at the end. Same act, different lyrics. Every. Week. But that's why Kris won. People liked him better. (A complex theory, I admit, but one I believe to be factual none the less.)

So that's it. Until January, we are American Idol-less. It wasn't a great season. I couldn't tell you one thing that Kris Allen sang except for the horrific 'coronation song' which was wrote for the eventual winner to record as their first single. The finale was by far the best show of the season. But just wait. Come about December, maybe even November, I'll be looking forward to the airing of the tryouts again and trying to remember Kris Allen's name. Aahh...good times. Good times.

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Be Glad That Cars Are Not Like Computers

The following is a rather amusing bit of humor that has been circling the pipes and tubes of the Internet for a while now, but somehow found its way into my inbox yet again. Didn't matter. It's still pretty funny. (And I'm not attributing the quote that is supposedly said by Bill Gates to Bill Gates. I don't know if he really said that or if it was just a lead-in to the part that's funny. Full disclosure, that's all. Oh, and while I'm at it, I haven't seen this particular bit attributed to anyone as being the individual who first made these these ingenious observations. And I'm too tired to look right now, so again, just full disclosure there.)

At a recent computer exposition, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If General Motors had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, GM issued a press release stating: "If General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

• For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
  
  
• Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
  
  
• Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.
• Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
• Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but would run on only five percent of the roads.
  
  
• The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
  
  
• The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
  
  
• Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
  
  
• Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
  
  
• And, for some inexplicable reason, you'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
  

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Tuts My What?

I've been working on what should amount to a fairly decent post-American Idol post. This isn't it, but I am working on it. No, this post would entail merely a video that could be described as the anti-American Idol. The Bizarro-World American Idol. Lots of words come to mind, but none of them are "American Idol". I must give credit to whomever it is behind a little blog called what makes me... as I shamelessly lifted (without malice, nor permission) the video from over there.

I think it's the captions that give it the majority of its hilarity. Whatever it is, it amuses me. Greatly.

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If A Starbucks Falls In The Forest...

I'm hesitant to call this one of the stupidest articles I've ever read, but only because it's in The Wall Street Journal and because I've been known to miss the point from time to time. (Yes, the alpaca incident...again.) But I've read this one twice and it still seems utterly ridiculous and completely baseless. It's what led me to say "Et tu, Wall Street Journal? Et tu?"

The article is about a man named Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr who prefers to go by an alternate name, Winter. He changed his name because he didn't want his credit history confused with his father's even though Winter says that his "...dad's credit history is fine." Uh-huh. Yeah, at this point, I'm not so much concerned about your father as I am about you there, Moonbeam. Your father and your mother both seem to be perfectly normal people. I base that on the fact that they refuse to call him "Winter." (Because if someone is going to change their given name to something that is absolutely ridiculous, especially when it has nothing to do with their given name, don't expect family members to go along with the little quirk! We don't like it! And we will call you John the name you were given!) As far as his "quest", which I will describe below, goes, his mother Georgia Lozano states, "My husband and I feel it's a waste of time." I'm inclined to agree with her. At the very least, I'm perfectly willing to state that I think it's misguided at best.

What's the guy's time waster? Well, the guy likes coffee and the guy likes Starbucks. Back in 1997, when there were only 1,400 stores (that means there was just a Starbucks on every other corner), Winter decided that he was going to visit every Starbucks in the world. Aim high. I'm sure both Georgia and Rafael Sr. were just beaming with pride when you made that announcement. Probably even moreso by 2004 when there were over 8,500 Starbucks stores out there.

Now I expected the article to be about this quest and about the different Starbucks that he had already visited and how many were left on his list. But no. That's not it. Here's what the article summarizes as his problem: "A man on a mission to visit every Starbucks in the world has a problem: Starbucks Corp. is closing scores of stores he has yet to visit." ::: blink ::: ::: blink ::: Are you with me?

Starbucks is closing stores that he hasn't visited yet?! SO WHAT?! It's not like he's missing out on anything! If his "goal" is to visit "every Starbucks in the world" and a particular Starbucks is closed, well then, it's no longer a Starbucks now, is it? NO! It isn't! So if he learns that a particular Starbucks is going to be closing it's doors forever, he should just cross that one off of his list, right?! Yes! He SHOULD. He DOESN'T, but he should! No, instead he seems to freak out and buy a plane ticket to wherever it is that he has to get to before it closes! Which seems completely pointless to me.

Look, I know there's supposed to be a recession going on, but it seems to be a poorly organized recession run by people unclear on the concept. I'm not saying that Starbucks isn't needing to close some stores, but I would have said that BEFORE the alleged recession was in full swing. There was (and in most places, still IS) a Starbucks on every damned corner. (Here, not too far from my walled off compound where I've stockpiled food and ammunition after seeking refuge from the rest of society, there's a Starbucks next to a grocery store. And inside the grocery store? That's right! A Starbucks. They are literally not more than 50 yards from each other and that's stretching it.) And even during the midst of alleged recession, I'm still WAITING IN LINE for the coffee I ordered. But I digress.

According to the Coffee Crusader, "If the store closed before I visited, I would lose another piece of my soul." Really? Your soul? How big is your soul, sir? They've announced over 900 closures. That's a big ass soul you must have there. What are some other fascinating facts about you and your personal life? Anything else as odd as a human soul that is dependent upon the sustenance of Starbucks locations in order to not crumble bit by little, soulful bit?

Depends on what we're considering "odd" to be. "Winter is single and has no kids. When he's not on the road working on software contract jobs, playing in Scrabble tournaments or visiting Starbucks, he lives with his parents in Houston, where he stores his collection of 10,000 super-hero comic books." Huh. Yeah, that sounds about right. That bit of information from the Water is Wet Department. So! Who here is shocked that he's not married and has no children? Show of hands. Anyone? No one? OK, then. Moving on!....

So what am I missing? Not the Starbucks that have already closed, that's for sure! However, I am realizing that I might be more bothered by the fact that Snowflake said that he loses part of his soul when a Starbucks closes before he gets there than I am bothered by the fact that the article completely ignores that when a Starbucks closes and ceases to be a Starbucks forever more, it's not a Starbucks and he DOESN'T have to visit it to fulfill some notion that he came up with almost 12 years ago in an effort to cement himself into Americana lore as 'Quirky Starbucks Guy'! (Whew! Would have had to take another breath if that screed went much longer.)

Dude, it's either time for you to get back to your parents basement and your stacks of Marvel comics or it's time for you to get out of your parents basement and try going somewhere other than a Starbucks. Look around. Live a little. Venture out beyond the world of the coffee bean and the drinks with made up names for the various sizes! Flap your wings and fly, boy! Fly! Fly! Flap those wings! I said FLAP 'EM!

And could the editors over there at the ol' WSJ please try and refrain from publishing articles which take a pointless topic and attempt to make it appear as if it has a point to it? Newspapers have enough problems right now as it is trying to keep revenue flowing in from advertisers. Don't compound the matter and make it worse by giving the green light for stories about nothing.

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