keeping busy

a sampling of the madness of facebook, starring joanne elaine, melissa leigh and myself [backstory: we had chinese food last nite along with another good friend...also named melissa. joanne elaine's trannie dog was also present. joanne elaine regaled us with a story about fozzie that included the phrase 'poop string'. i think that's all you need to know. and, i'm sorry.]

dear impala

dear impala,
you have got to be out of your ever-loving mind.

go to hell.

not your friend,
the foci

the stuff that dreams are made of

as my brother-in-law pointed out last nite: "you wouldn't even care if they matched."
so true. so, so true.

sweet letterman of justice

regardless of your political viewpoint, you cannot argue [well, you could. but you would be wrong.] with letterman's overall message. sort of frightening that neither mccain nor palin know the ACTUAL role the vice-president should play.

dear aura

dear driver,
congratulations on purchasing a saturn aura! the accolades for this vehicle have been unending -- a panel of journalists even picked it as the north american car of the year! -- so kudos to you for doing your research and shopping so smartly. you are no doubt an intelligent person, and your car choice certainly reflects that. i'm sure, during your exhaustive comparison shopping, you noticed that car and driver magazine classifies the aura as a "mid-size sedan." MID-SIZE. SEDAN. a person of your intelligence would surely realize that this classification precludes the saturn aura from qualifiying as a COMPACT CAR -- thus rendering the COMPACT ONLY parking spots off limits. perhaps you let someone else drive the aura to work today? perhaps your screening process, which you so diligently applied to your car selection, should extend to members of the family, neighbors, friends -- to make sure they can read and comprehend words? just a suggestion.

all the best,
the foci

p.s.
dear lexus,
you officially suck.

-f.

dear lexus

dear driver,

your lexus is not a compact car. if it was a compact car, once parked, three feet of trunk space would not be interrupting the flow of traffic in the parking garage. you would know this if you took a look at your parked vehicle before heading off to work. you would also realize that backing into said COMPACT ONLY parking spot is obnoxious because, inevitably, your tire[s] will stray from within the yellow confines of the spot and obscure an even greater portion of the driveable space. please realize you are incurring the hatred of everyone who drives past your car.

not so fondly,
the foci

dear station wagon

dear driver:

i regret to inform you that your station wagon is not, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, a compact car. so please stop parking your rust-addled, gargantuan automobile in the COMPACT ONLY spot so that those of us with actual compact cars can (a) park there and (b) stop making ridiculous maneuvers when turning the corner to avoid hitting your protruding bumper.

sincerely,
the foci

showtune 'em up

i love showtunes more than is probably wise to acknowledge.
i did shows in elementary school, middle school, high school and college -- as encouraged by my mother, i've always been deeply ensconced in the world of musical theater. road trips with my mom always featured lengthy sing-a-longs to tapes [and, later, cds] from movie and broadway musicals. phantom, evita, music man, hello dolly! -- you name it, we knew every word. it was grand. [i'm not sure why i'm talking in the past tense. we still do this. in fact, my niece has memorized lyrics to songs from both wicked and the sound of music; it's ridiculously cute. and hilarious.] so. i'm a broadway baby. i have friends [brad, kendall...i'm talking about you] who are equally fanatical [brad moreso than anyone i've ever met. ever. ever.] i have no problem admitting it, which is why when i see clips like this one:


my heart soars. i remember watching this when it was first posted to youtube, a year or so ago. i stumbled back onto it today, after reading this excellent interview with neil patrick harris on the onion av club site, and have been laughing about it for hours. tres hilarious.

he knows how to use them

saw this guy in starbucks this morning. he was at least 65 -- possibly older -- but trapped in the body of a 30-year old. and he was wearing a shirt from this weekend's rochester marathon, which would account for these:



his legs are defying the laws of aging. this man KNOWS things.
if john mccain had legs like this, i think we'd be less worried about his choice for vice-president.

word.

from rosie, in response to an email i sent concerning a project we're working on:

Never have I met someone who can say 'I'm right and everyone else is wrong' so eloquently.

[it's nice to work with people who get you.]

matt damon: &*%$^# yeah!

for those of you who don't already know this: i heart matt damon.
a few years back [before he was married, i'll have you know] i harbored a deep, meaningful celebrity crush on him, to the point of near delusion [not really, but close.] i went to new york for my birthday with some friends, and to visit my sister who was living downstate at the time, and woke up on my birthday to see that matt damon was in new york, appearing on regis & kelly that very morning. coincidence? i thought not. also: i am silly.

anyway. as i find it gross to lust after married people, celebrities included, my outright affection for matt damon has waned in recent years.

but the following video does make my heart tingle a wee bit:

big moves

my dear friend katie is moving to turkey on sunday.

in her honor, i'm wearing the shoes she bought me when non-date moved to florida [in perfect response to the shoes i bought her when ben initially moved back to turkey.]


these are my: "i'm sorry your boyfriend is moving to florida" shoes. love them. love her. can't believe she's leaving, but am excited to hear about her upcoming adventures with ben, with her new job, with her shopping excursions. the move to rejoin ben has been a long time coming, and i've no doubt that it will be every possible form of wonderful.

food! glorious food!

in recent years, i've developed an extreme interest and love for food.
how it's prepared, interesting dishes, ingredients i wouldn't normally want to place anywhere near my mouth...i don't know if i'd qualify as a "foodie", per se, but i'm definitely paying more attention to what i eat: how it looks, how it tastes, trying new dishes and recipes, etc.

i visit seriouseats.com with regularity, and it tipped me onto this site and it's post, the omnivore's 100. what a great idea! the list is highly varied, from pb&j to black truffle to pho. the post suggests pasting the list into your own space and highlighting which foods you've had and perhaps drawing attention to the foods you have zero interest in ever trying. like sweetbreads/#62...the thought of which sort of makes me want to vomit, no matter how many pages of anthony bourdain's writing i read that tries to convince me otherwise. [the wikipedia links to the more obscure items were provided by VGT in the original post.]

so, here it is. my omnivore's 100. the items i've consumed are in yellow. items that i have no intention of ever eating are in red.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (jennifer and i eat way too many of these when in nyc)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns (in fact, i had these for lunch on tuesday)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (i'm not saying i wouldn't try it...but after hearing how it's made i don't think i could choke it down without crying)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu (i prefer my food without the ability to kill me)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (i loathe the thought of a big mac; am wary of special sauce)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (see introduction)
63. Kaolin (yeah, no.)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian (according to wikipedia, the smell of this, "evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust." so, no.)
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis (again, no. i watched a special on the food network about how it's made.)
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (no to intestines)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (one of my favorite not-so-secret junk foods)
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (the best of which, in Rochester -- in my opinion -- is found at Jines)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta (my mom and i always talk about how we're going to make polenta, even though neither of us really care for it. but then we make pasta instead because we're hungry.)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake