He'll rip through us like tin foil!

So, how was your day?

We got into an accident this morning.

Thankfully, all parties involved are fine, but hearing your car crinkle like tin foil at 8:00 a.m.? There are better ways to start the morning.

It happened really quickly and the only thing I remember is thinking, "Oh my God. We're not stopping."

Damn you, forward momentum.

Thinking about it messes me up a little because I'm a big fan of playing the What-If game. The game in which you torment yourself by asking what if -- what if we hasn't been wearing our seatbelts and had flown through the windshield? What if the airbag had deployed and injured us? What if we'd been going faster? What if Dan was seriously hurt? What if it was worse?

That last one messes me up the most. That's the one that brews a tempest in my stomach, causes my heart to clench and stings my eyes with salty tears.

We were lucky. Nothing happened that can't be fixed. But the security of that knowledge doesn't stop me from playing the game.

I'm trying to laugh to keep from crying, though. For example -- this morning, Dan and I were dropped off to work in a police car and the entire ride to the office, people kept ogling us, wondering what two young professionals had done so early in the morning as to be stuck in the back of a cruiser. It was pretty amusing. Also, police cars? Not nearly as comfortable as I expected. Instead of cushioned seat, it's hard plastic that you slide around on whenever you make a turn. I imagine it's probably the least fun ever if you're drunk.

Here's to hoping your day was better than ours and that ours gets a little better.

Drive safe.

You fail at the internet. See also: Life.

For the past few months, this woman has been cc'ing me about this trip to Russia -- some student program out of Massachusetts involving presentations and meetings and all sorts of mundane stuff I really don't care about.

It's obviously a case of mistaken identity, so I've emailed her a few times stating that I'm not the intended recipient of this email chain and I'd really appreciate it if she take me off this list.

I get another email from her yesterday and within the hour, five more people had hit 'reply all', flooding my inbox with information I do not need, do not want and do not care about.

My response: "Please please please please please take me off this list."

Lots of pleases because I'm English and all about minding my Ps and Qs.

I get an email back from her today saying, "I don’t think you got this information. We really do need to meet this other Jaime, but boy does she seem like a bi...."

Genius that she is (keep in mind she's an educational program director) - she sent this to the Other Jaime . I.E. -- Me.

Awesome! Nothing like being roundly insulted by a stranger to get your weekend off to a good start!

Firstly, I'm shocked that there's someone else out there with the same name as me. Google only brings back hits that relate to me.

Secondly, if you're going to insult someone over email -- shouldn't you double-check the address? I mean, seriously.

This women is the director of a higher-level education program. I weep for the future...

I can't stop drinking the coffee, I stop drinking the coffee, I stop doing the standing and walking and the words putting into sentence doing.

Every summer, I designate a cocktail for the season. Summer 2008, it was Absolut Pears and Sprite and this year, I'm kicking it old-school by ordering Tom Collins' at pretty much every bar I hit. Yes, I am an old man.

However, my non-alcoholic sponsor for summer since 2004 has been iced coffee. I got addicted to it in London where I'd slug down iced mochas and then, spend the day running around the city with my sister and my best friend. It was awesome.

My iced coffee needs are simple -- I don't need Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts (I'm not really a fan of either, anyway). Nothing cold-dripped or made Vietnamese style (although that does sound delicious), just regular coffee brewed up and dropped in the fridge overnight to chill.

So, last Thursday, I made myself a tumbler to take into work. It was perfect - rich and strong with a little sugar and vanilla. Add a couple of ice cubes and some half-and-half and I'm in love.

I drank about half the tumbler and left the rest in the fridge, figuring I could grab some when I came into the office on Tuesday.

I get in this morning, looking forward to my jolt of caffeine and sugar. I fling open the fridge door, reach in and grab....nothing.

My coffee is gone. Tumbler and all. Dub tee eff.

The GD Scale: Office Edition

1. Using tired cliches like, "Working hard or hardly working?" Really, dude? Really?
2. Using the last of the paper in the copier/fax machine and not replacing it. It takes all of three seconds and makes life easier for the next five people who use the machine.
3. Not using the Outlook calendar. It makes your life so easy. Why wouldn't you use it?
4. Making stinky food in the communal microwave and having the entire office reek of substandard beef lo mein for hours afterwards. I'm not judging. I love stinky food -- onions, garlic, gorgonzola... -- but there's a time and a place. And that place is not the office.
5. Swiping the cute assistant's coffee from the fridge. The cute assistant needs her iced coffee. It keeps her cheerful and perky and totally able to deal with people who call and ask point blank, "Is she there yet?" (Ummm, who?)

Sp tonight, I'm making a new batch and if it gets swiped this time, heads will roll...and by heads will roll, I mean I'll gripe to anyone who will listen, make that crinkly nose face I make and close the book on the thing by blogging.

I'm not very hardcore.

One Reason To Inhale A Bottle of Xanax

Dan just emailed me this thoroughly depressing though:

"Neither Brooke Hogan, nor her friend who is “really smart”, know who the Vice President is.

And they both have way more money than us.

We fail at life."

When Temporary Hearing Loss is Worth It...

I get to the gym and notice the place is pretty busy.

Damn it.

Then, I notice both TVs are tuned to Fox News.

Damn it squared.

Glenn Beck is prattling on idiotically about how monogamous gay marriages will eventually lead to people marrying cupcakes or beavers or some other ridiculous, baseless shit (weren't arguments like this considered null and void with Loving vs. Virginia?)

Luckily, I have my trusty iPod, headphones and a collection of B.S. Reports featuring both Bill Simmons and Adam Carolla.

I switch it on at a pretty low volume and hit the treadmill.

Beck's still blathering on and I hear the following conversation:

Scary Buff Dude Who Doesn't Seem To Have A Home As He's Always At The Gym: (referring to Beck) Oh, I love this guy! He's great!
Exercise Bike Woman: He is! And he's right -- soon, it'll be three women marrying one man! It's all wrong!

Damn it cubed.

ClickclickclickclickCLICK!

That's the sound of my iPod hitting the highest volume and Adam Carolla blowing out my eardrums by bellowing about how he'd remove Talia Shire from every movie ever.

However compared to the fact that people actually buy into Beck's insipidity idiocy, it was a dulcet lullabye.

I'm down with Voltaire and believe that while I may not agree with what you say, you still have the right to say it....but when you're nodding emphatically at anything that comes out of Glenn Beck's mouth? Yeah....it's probably a better idea to just keep your mouth shut.

You could put that fancy mustard on a shoe and it would taste pretty good to me.

Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh are criticizing a man for his choice of burger condiment.

Let me reiterate.

These three schmucks dedicated airtime to admonishing President Obama for his condiment choice.

The Republican party is imploding and this is what matters -- what the president puts on his burger.

Kudos. Way to hit him where it hurts.

Shouldn't you assholes be figuring out a way to make yourselves look a little less like exclusionary buffoons and more like capable leaders?

Oh and a helpful hint -- if you want to be the party of the future, try not to reference a commercial that came out twenty years ago

An Open Letter To SPF

Dear SPF:

Listen, I think it's awesome how to help prevent cancer in people and all, but when you sneak into my moisturizer? Yeah, that shit ain't cute.

My face is now itchy, red and angry in that Old Testament/Wrath of God kinda way.

I'll be spending the day being cripplingly self-conscious and hiding behind my bangs.

Thanks, asshole.

Love:

Jaime xx

Lord, Beer Little Miss Sunshine Strength

For the most part, I am Little Miss Sunshine.



No, not Abigail Breslin. I'm not nearly that adorable or that good a dancer.

I am, however, chipper, cheerful and always quick with a smile. So much so that the construction workers at my office actually call me, 'The Girl With The Smile' (highly, highly creative bunch).

However, every now and then -- the sheer asininity of her fellow man makes Little Miss Sunshine want to eat her own eyeballs out of frustration.

So, for no other reason than to help me feel better, permit me to rant a little via a series of open letters:

Dear Sir:

Calling every day is slightly excessive. Calling four times before 12:00 p.m. on the same day? Behavior worthy of a restraining order. Besides, I do not have the ability to make jobs magically appear. If I did, I would create some gloriously overpaid position for myself as pop culture blogger.

Thanks!

Jaime

_______________

Dear Ma'am:

If you can't figure out how to apply for one of our jobs, you're probably not qualified for the job itself. Oh and for the record, going to the correct website makes applying for the position that much easier.

Thanks!

Jaime

____________

Dear Sir:

If you are 17-years-old, you've basically grown up with internet access. You should be able to navigate a website and shouldn't need someone to hold your hand throughout the whole process. You could probably find internet porn blindfolded with a hand behind your back. Let's try to apply some of those skills to the job-hunting process, shall we?

Thanks!

Jaime

______________

Dear Ma'am:

Applying for every job means you're probably as qualified for them as Sarah Palin is to be vice president of the country. I.E. -- Not at all.

Stop applying.

Thanks!

________________

Lord, Beer Me Strength. No. Strike that. Lord, silo-sized margarita me strength.

They should call it FuckDonalds.

I hate McDonalds for a litany of reasons:

- Their mascot is a clown. Clowns are terrifying. John Wayne Gacy used to dress up as a clown. He was a serial killer. Think about it.

- Their food is terrible -- the fries don't taste anything like potatoes and don't disintegrate like real food should, they have a staggering lack of vegetarian options (even Burger King offers a thoroughly mediocre veggie burger) and their McFlurries end up giving you the McFlurries. Disgusting, but true.

- Breakfast stops at 10:30 a.m. as opposed to 11:00 a.m (Thank you, Big Daddy). Trying to order breakfast after 10:30 a.m. is like trying to get George W. Bush to pronounce the word 'Nuclear' correctly -- a damn near impossible and thoroughly futile task.

I rarely, if ever, patronize this franchise but Dan wanted a chicken sandwich and since Chik-Fil-A is closed on Sundays, we decided to hit up the McDonalds' Drive Thru.

It's 10:33 a.m.
Breakfast is over.
Has been for three minutes.

If you try and order an Egg McMuffin, I'm fairly sure that red and yellow stormtroopers will come out and attempt to drown you in a vat of secret sauce.

Luckily for us -- the chicken sandwich is on the lunch menu. The number eight. A lucky number in some culture. Not for us, though.

I pull up to the drive-thru and place my order, speaking loudly and clearly so nothing will get lost in translation:

Jaime: Hi! Can I get the number eight chicken sandwich and a Coke, please?
Drive-Thru Dude: (garble garble) Numba eight? (garble garble)
Jaime: Yeah -- the number eight chicken sandwich and a Coke.
Drive Thru Dude: (garble garble) $5.40 (garble, garble).

I pull up to the cash window, fork over my money and proceed to the pick-up window.

I pick up my food and am about to drive off when Dan realize that instead of a chicken sandwich, the bag contains a Sausage McGriddle.

Dan: This is wrong.
Jaime: The entire concept of McDonalds is wrong.
Dan: No, this isn't a chicken sandwich. This is a Sausage McGriddle.

The guy behind us blares his horn. Calm down, asshole. You'll get your artery-clogging garbage in a minute.

I tell Window Guy that the order is wrong.

Jaime: Hi! Sorry, but this isn't what we ordered.
Window Guy: What did you order?
Jaime: The number eight -- a chicken sandwich.
Window Guy: The number eight is a Sausage McGriddle.
Jaime: But it's past 10:30 and the board outside says "Number 8 -- Southern Style Chicken Sandwich."
Window Guy: Board's broken. Number eight's a Sausage McGriddle.
Jaime: But I said chicken sandwich and breakfast is over.
Window Guy: Number eight's a Sausage McGriddle.

Goddamn it.

We're going round in circles and the guy behind me is practically apoplectic, so I admit defeat and drive off, sans sandwich.

Dan bites into his sandwich and discovers that a McGriddle tastes like a syrup-and-grease coated hockey puck while I remember that my ex used to work at McDonalds and is now in the military. I am suddenly very, very scared for the future of our country.

I abide by the rules of McDonalds' facist breakfast regime and still manage to get screwed.

I'm not lovin' it.

Welcome to the Terrordome

(courtesy of Popsugar)

America is the only society in the world where effete morons like Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt not only survive past adolescence but actually thrive and prosper.
The only society where being talentless, blonde and pumped full of plastic is an EZ-Pass to celebrity -- a status that's getting easier and easier to attain with each passing day.
The only society where you can take two people whose collective IQ doesn't equal the amount of calories in a cup of cabbage and hand them lethal weaponry.

The ever-elusive "they" don't hate us for our freedom as George W. Bush has tried to convince us many times over.
"They" hate us because of things like this.


(courtesy of Popsugar)

Looking at these pictures is the only time in my life I have wished Dick Cheney was around.


On the list of things I hate about us:

- Anything even remotely related to Tila Tequila and the very concept of an Internet celebrity. Having a million friends on MySpace does not make you worthy of anything other than derision.
- Easy Mac and Crustables. Seriously, how effing hard is it to make a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich?
- NASCAR. Gas costs $4.15/gallon and these assholes just use it to go around a track for hours.
- The fact that Yahoo! Mail is now blocked by the company firewall. In the company's defense, though -- Yahoo! was littered with a ton of ads. Looks like I'll be making the switch to Gmail permanent.
- Karl Rove. I thought nefarious super villains only existed in comic books. Sadly for America -- I was very, very wrong.

However, it's the weekend and I don't want to start things off on a salty note, so here's a list of things I'm currently throughly enamored with:

- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Spare, evocative, heart-breaking and compelling. I read the entire book in one day and loved it. I picked up Hosseini's second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns and I can't wait to read it.

- Mangoes. Ate a sliver and then, went out and bought an entire box of them. Nothing tastes more like summer time.

- The Public Library. Thousands upon thousands of books all for free. It's an amazing and seriously underappreciated institution.

- The Dark Knight. Dan and I tried to get tickets for the 12:01 IMAX showing but they were sold out. Stupid fanboys. So instead, we'll be catching the 9:00 a.m. showing on July 18. I don't think I've ever been this excited for a movie before. Ever. Not only do I have the utmost faith in Nolan, but I am completely mesmerized with both Christian Bale and Gary Oldman. Particularly the latter.



Gary Oldman is an actor in the purest sense of the word. He's a chameleon who really bites his teeth into every role he takes on and really has the audience believing that he is Sid Vicious, Sirius Black, Beethoven, Lee Harvey Oswald, Dracula, Pontius Pilate or a lazy-eyed pimp named Drexl Spivey. The fact that Oldman has never won an Oscar is a glaring oversight on the part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.The man is undeniably brilliant and I can't wait to see him play Lt. James Gordon again.

Technology bests me again...

Dan's been on an X-Files kick lately. He's watching all the episodes in the 'mytharc' (the story arc of the show's mythology. Yes, I am currently researching how much it costs to get 'Nerd' tattooed on my forehead) so we can watch the first movie so we can see the second movie. Movies are serious business at Casa Walsh (Casa Walsh is just a placeholder until I actually come up with a name for our place).

[SIDEBAR: Name my apartment! I used to live in Lush Manor -- a glorious HUD-approved apartment complete with black mold and two of the best damn roommates a girl could ever ask for. Now, I live in a pretty sweet apartment with a huge TV, a Wii and the cutest roommate/fiance a girl could ask for. So, any suggestions?]

I've been watching too in a half-assed sort of way, but it's this half-assery that gets me in trouble. Well, that coupled with my on-going battle with technology and complete inability to separate real life from fiction.

Case in point: Last Night.

I woke up at around 2:00 a.m. because I noticed there were flashes of light emanating from the living room. In a sleep-addled state, I stumbled to the living room to investigate.

The Wii's disc drive was glowing bright blue 'causing the light show.

So, what's the first thing I think of? No, it's not to unplug the Wii or check the power button. The first thing I think of is:

"Aliens are using our Wii to communicate! What if this is like Poltergeist? What if I get sucked into some otherworldly alien vortex dimension?"

This is my first response, ladies and gentlemen. Completely devoid of logic. I skip right over sane rationality and crash land at ludicrous.

This morning, I woke up and noticed the Wii's disc drive was still bright blue.

Jaime: Honey! There's something wrong with the Wii.
Dan: What is it?
Jaime: The disc drive is glowing blue.
Dan: Take the disc out.

The glowing stops.

Right.

So, to recap:

Technology: 46764318976436516413545677

Jaime: 0