Meet "Friday Laurie"

I'm a pretty easy going kind of gal. Some might say too much so, but eh. I'm a Sagittarius. We're like that. I do not handle stress well. I tend to lose sleep and become non-nonsense girl, instead of the fun-loving quipster you all know and love.

This morning, after only a few hours of restless sleep last night, I arrived at work tired, cranky, and hardly my prettiest. So, when an additional project crossed my desk this morning, I responded thusly:

"Balls! I'm gonna need some coffee to deal with this shit."

Poor Sergio. He didn't know what to make of me. He looked at me, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline and said timidly, "Balls?"
To which I replied, "Meet Friday Laurie. You'd do well to stay away."

Then I got lost in Tarzana, but that's a story for another time.

I'm tired and very busy

Sorry Folks. I'll try to entertain you this weekend. I'll be doing laundry again, so I'm sure to have fodder. Right now I've got too many things going on at work to think.
(sigh)
Bear with me. I'll be the same buxom babe with the bawdy banter you've come to know and love in no time--or I'll eat my gingham.

Shun the non-believer!

You need sound for this, but its so worth it.

Equal time to keep the balance

It's all about balance. Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark, Dick York vs. Dick Sergeant. So, in keeping with the balance of nature, here's a list of commercials I hate. Also, I may have nothing to say again.

Heartburn, Nausea, Indigestion--Dear Pepto-Bismol: Everyone knows what your product does. No one needs to see people pinching their ass to keep from pooping--especially a very scary Paul Bunyon or giant Amazon woman. I cannot change channels fast enough. And why didn't the ballerina's mention diarrhea? Don't pink ballerina's get the runs?

Talking diseases--Mucus is not cute. Nail infections are not cute. Please stop trying to make them cute.

Tom Tom--Annoying Annoying.

The Grillmaster--El Pollo Loco's suave Latin stud disturbs me for some reason. I think he reminds me of Roberto Lopez, a self-described Latin stud I used to work with.

Head On--No, not the original ones in which they kept repeating the tag line. I'm talking about the new ones in which some fan of the product interrupts the commercial to say how much they hate the commercial but love the product. The woman with the crazy eyes is scary hideous. Lady, brush your hair!! (this is for you, Tower folk) She looks like Marc Arata's sister.

Earthlink couples--Aren't they cute, with all their zipping and yapping? (puke) When the wife with the stopwatch says "Should have bought 60 seconds," I want her husband to reply, "Well maybe if you shut yer yap..."

Country Crock--Speaking of couples that make me vomit, can we ditch this ad campaign? They have been using this headless couple for over ten years. At least they've finally given them a child--who has a head. To think it all started with James Garner and Mariette Hartley.
[I stand corrected. James Garner and Mariette Hartley hawked Polaroid. Thanks to Ellen Bloom, the maven of all things TV, for setting me straight. For the record, I love James Garner...but I still hate the Country Crock ads.]

Lavalife--Sure, hot women are staying home on the weekends making calls and leaving messages to hook up. And what the hell is "coffee dinner"?

Closet World--They have tried in vain to upgrade these commercials, but until they get rid of that stupid ass dancing robot thing I will hate them. Hate, hate, hate.

I'm sure there are more, but I'm sleepy. I invite you to share your most hated commercials.

Tina, Gary and the whirlwind birthday celebration

Last night was the annual Tina's Birthday Extravaganza!! Since Gary's birthday is next week, it was Gary's birthday extravaganza too. (oh, who are we kidding...it was all about Tina)
First off, we had a lovely intimate dinner for 25 at Claim Jumper in Northridge. mmm, Claim Jumper with steaks as big as your head. I started with a Milky Way Martini (chocolate + alcohol = yum) and an appetizer of Tomatoes and Mozzarella. For dinner I had the Parmesan Encrusted Chicken with mashed potatoes (which were really just kind of smooshed up, not mashed). They stuck a sprig of Pine Tree (way to recycle those Christmas trees) in the potatoes. I'm allergic to Pine, but I survived.

The scene was pure chaos and our waiters, Russell and Furb (I swear), were terrific, especially Russell who was patient and adorable. After we managed to figure out who's meal was on which check and who paid what, the entourage headed to Hollywood for the 10:00 show at the Laugh Factory.

Fortunately, Tina had the foresight to order our tickets online. We stood in line forever only to find by the time we got in there that the VIPs (who got seated first) took all the seats. We were ushered upstairs where you could either sit and not see the comedians or stand. It was hot. People were grumpy. One particularly obnoxious guy refused to buy his two drink minimums unless they found him a seat. Several waitresses threatened to bring up a security guard, but one never materialized, which was good because this asshole was already ruining my fun by getting louder and louder; having him thrown out would have totally killed my buzz.

Our first comedian was Ian Edwards. He writes for the Comedy Central cartoon of The Boondocks (not the comic strip). He was pretty funny, did some racial humor. If you follow the link you can see some of the material he did last night.

Somewhere in this portion of the evening, Tina fainted. It was really hot and she may have locked her legs, we don't know. I was all the way across the room and the next thing we knew, Tina was going down and her sister-in-law was motioning for Gary to come over. Poor Tina was escorted out to the lobby area, where she was given some water, and had her picture taken with our next comedian...

Paul Rodriguez. I didn't link him because I'm sure you all know who he is. Paul looked like he was sitting at home in his La-Z-boy when they called him and said, "Ese, you're supposed to be on stage in five minutes." He was funny, but he looked tired.

The best part of the evening was Jeremy Hotz. This guy had me laughing so hard I think I peed a little. Check out some of the clips on his site, all of which he performed last night and more. He was very, very funny and worth the price of admission, the two drinks, and the standing for two hours.
[edited] Tina, Gary and her sisters stayed afterwards for the Midnight show. At 2:00am, just as they were about to leave, the host said they had a surprise comic--Dane Cook!! I am suitably jealous, but happy that Tina and Gary had a great birthday (and got their picture taken with him, too).

Today's the Super Bowl. I'd better get my laundry done so I can get home in time. I was going to do the non-football thing at Unwind and take advantage of their 50% off sale, but I slept too late. Oh well.

GO BEARS!

[edited] By now we know the Bears let it slip through their fingers, literally and figuratively.

So Angry...Must Not Kill...Arrrggghh!!!!

Last night when I came home, I was ambushed by Frau Piss-me-off and Latina Gladys Kravitz the second I parked my car. The drippy bathroom faucet was worse than I thought and was leaking inside the cabinet, through the floor, and eventually into Gladys's kitchen. Frau told me she would call a plumber and hope to get one out today. If not, maybe she could look at it; it might just need a washer.
Today, after a bad day and even worse traffic, I came home to the sure signs that someone had been in my apartment. And this:
THAT'S MY TOWEL!!!
My formerly-clean, pretty pink towel that was hanging here when I finshed drying my hair this morning:

Note the empty hook where my towel used to be.

Now, one would assume that a plumber would anticipate a large amount of water as part of his regular work day and therefore come prepared for it. A plumber, unless he was hired this morning outside of the Home Depot, should NOT use the tenants clean towel to mop up water and then leave it in a filthy wet heap in the tub. THAT'S UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!
Even if the Frau was the one who fixed the sink , it's still unacceptable. Now my towel smells and it's so dirty I don't want to touch it.

And guess what? There's still a leak.

On a happy note, I have four bottles of wine to choose from and the trees are gone. See?I'm think Chardonnay.

You may call me Diana Prince...or

WONDER WOMAN!!
No, I didn't do anything fantastic and deserving of this title. I do, however, apparently possess an invisible mode of transportation. How else can I explain that no less that three times this week, some jackass has merged into my lane and nearly into my car. Fortunately, I have lightning quick reflexes and neatly avoided impact. Tuesday's incident was pretty hairy. I think I actually felt a whisper of contact between my front bumper and her rear bumper as I braked hard to avoid her.
Today's dipwad simply unapologetically merged into my lane, causing me to quickly swerve into the parking lane (no parking before 9:00am, thankfully) I beeped as her and she had the nerve to FLIP ME OFF!!!! She nearly wipes out my front end and then gives me the salute?? Oh, hell no.
A block or two later, she cut off a truck who not only laid on the horn, he got right up to her bumper (I'm talking a hair's width between them) and mouthed (I read his lips) "Get off the road, you Frakkin' Stunt. "(or something that started with an F and another word that rhymed with stunt.)