Smoke and Crook

That phantom cigarette smoke smell.  It's been gone for forever, since I've been on the same dose of Topamax for several weeks - but yesterday it came back and I can smell it again today.  I'm unimpressed.

But I really came here to show you this:

Before Hammersmark goes, "Who the hell is Mackenzie Crook?"  I'm going to preemptively grumble, "God!  He's Gareth, from the original British version of The Office.  Fuck, Hammersmark.  Google."

Though I can't adequately explain what's happening here, who cares - he's wearing your grandmother's glasses and glittery eyeshadow with pirattitude.  This doesn't happen every day, enjoy it without question.

Yarr.

Grievance letters

Okay, I want to talk about frozen foods, and you have to read it because this is my blog. I'm the first person to have ever said that.

Because I'm a marginal wife and mother, sometimes we eat tv dinners instead of homemade food.  My husband favors Hungry Man, while I like a Marie Callender's, which almost gives the illusion of eating real food.  But at some point, many moons ago, their packaging announced a recipe improvement.  I don't like change, so I was predictably skeptical and grumpy as I microwaved my dinner that day.  There was no discernible difference, except for the vegetables, which tasted like chemicals. 

Every single Marie Callender's tv dinner meal that I've had since that recipe "improvement" has contained vegetables which taste like chemicals.  I can't even eat the vegetables anymore, and I love vegetables.  I have to microwave separate vegetables, which defeats the whole purpose of buying tv dinners in the first place: abject laziness.  Finally, I reached my limit - I had to write a grievance letter.

Which is exactly what I did - I sent an e-mail to ConAgra, a name which sounds like the beginning of aggravation.  Perhaps.  A representative - Teri - replied promptly, and explained that all they'd done to the vegetables was to reduce the sodium in the seasoning of the vegetables.  I don't think so, dear.  If that were the issue, the application of salt would solve the problem.  If lack of salt were the root of all strange flavor, then everything that didn't have salt would taste like robot food, which is how your vegetables taste, Teri.  We both know that lower sodium, like the cake, is a lie.

So, just between you and me - what did you really do to the vegetables?  Leave a comment, sweetie.

___________________________________________________________________

While we're here, I'd also like to talk about Toaster Strudel.  Specifically, the cherry variety.  For those of you unfamiliar with the product, also found in your grocer's freezer, here's a visual aid:

Okay, so it's been quite awhile since I've had these, and maybe my memory's not so great, but when I took the pastry out of my toaster oven, carefully applied the icing and took my first bite, I was definitely not prepared for what I saw.  I hadn't really thought about it before I bit into the pastry, but I did have a certain expectation for how the filling would appear.  I had the picture on the box to go by, after all.  What I didn't expect was this:

Hot pink filling.  My camera doesn't even do it justice, it was practically neon in person.  Now, I'm well aware that I'm eating a product that I took out of my freezer, which was essentially made by a machine, but a visual cue such as this wildly unnaturally colored cherry filling really drives the point home that I'm eating artificial junk.  Don't these people want to do everything possible to help me keep my illusions that I'm not slowly destroying my spaghetti house every time I eat one of their delicious desserts?

So again I took finger to keyboard - this time to Pillsbury, a company whose name sounds like where you'd find a nice stash of Xanax, to see if I could solve the mystery of the unreal filling.  As of this posting, I haven't heard back yet.   

I play Sims (part11)

When last we left Rachel Zoe, she'd just made her first successful - albeit unconventionally constructed -cheesesteak sandwich.  After preparing a hot and tasty platter of them, at the request of her impossible to please supervisor, she decided to strike while the cutting board was still crusty, and hops right into her car to make the delivery.  She didn't even change out of her work clothes first.

Rachel's boss just happens to be standing at his mailbox when she pulls up, and immediately recognizes her as one of his employees from the office.

It's impossible to know exactly what Rachel says after she hands him the cheesesteaks, but if I had to guess, it looks a lot like, "Can I ask you something ... is there a chef's hat on my head?  I'm just curious because I was under the impression that I'm a divisional manager at that big office building downtown - yet I find myself here, delivering home made cheesesteaks.  I'm not having a psychotic break here, am I?

But she mustn't have said any of that, because her boss - for once - seems pleased.

Finally on good terms with her boss, Rachel decides that while she's here, she might as well schmooze.  She doesn't know anything about him, so she goes the very standard - and very safe - "nice house" route.

Rachel talks about her home life.

They exchange silly faces.

They even discuss their careers in the industry of business and how working in a nondescript office building segues naturally and smoothly into the subject of space shuttles.

The conversation is going so well, Rachel's boss even favors her with a graph-inspired interpretive dance.

Rachel chooses this moment to ask for a promotion, using what looks like facial expressions taken straight from a phonics instructions workbook.

Her boss answered with his own set of facial expressions.

So.

"Have I mentioned my daughter's head is completely devoid of hair?"

"It's as creepy as you'd think."

"I, uh ... at home - I left a ... thing on.  In the oven."









I Play Sims (part12)

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Insomniblargh Sunday

Before I get started, I just wanted to reassure my whole and fractional Sims enthusiasts that I am indeed working on an update.

So let's begin where the sleeping didn't.  Last night I got into one of those arguments you've had so many times, you start to think you're actually watching a rerun of Bullshit's Greatest Hits, when it actually does hit you that there's a new element to the same old argument that's been blooming below the surface so long, you can't believe it hasn't started writing its own blog that almost no one reads.  Without going too far off into a detail ditch regarding the aforementioned torture method, suffice it to say that it presented my brain with a problem so convoluted, so unsolvable, so circuitous that I was powerless to stop the continuous loop of failed attempts to de-problemate.

I tossed around for a few hours, took a hopeful dose of Benadryl and after awhile started to finally drift off  just before some lazy fuck decided to loudly honk their horn right outside of my bedroom window, rather than waste one of their precious minutes hauling their fat ass out of their car to knock on a door, or God forbid, lift a finger to push a button on their phone to alert their passenger of their presence - an act which probably would have required less pressure than laying on their horn.  But why be logical or considerate of others before 10am on a Sunday morning, when you can behave like an entitled buttface.  It's your world, you just allow me to live in it.

Once the adrenaline shock from that interruption wore off, it was time for our upstairs neighbors to start their day - which, for reasons I'll never understand, seems to involve master bedroom races.  Today's festivities also included something rattling at irregular - yet never ending - intervals against their bathroom floor.  All events that are ultimately not blocked out by the application of earplugs and a white noise machine. 

I gave up on sleep, hard.  The rest of my family eventually got up, and not soon after, wakefulness gave up on me.  I zombie shuffled back to bed and did my best to ignore the continuing 2nd floor Olympics while my husband took the kids to the park.  Once they all returned, I was forced to give up on sleep once again due to the blood curdling tones of an epic, hour-long meltdown. 

Nothing left to do at that point but sit on the couch with my face in my hands praying either for death, or for a cheeseburger so delicious it would almost be impossible to believe it ever really existed to materialize in my hands.  Neither came.  I did, however, manage to miraculously short circuit the toddler meltdown by using my primitive brain to suggest, "Give snack, even if he screams like he doesn't want snack." and then later offering him a plastic cup and a magazine.  Which really seems like a solution to a completely different problem, but when you're desperate, you go with whatever works.

Again, I attempted sleep.  I managed to wrestle a full 30 minutes from those asshole gods of sleep, where I had a quick dream in which an old male high school classmate of mine sat down near me in a restaurant, and said, apropos of nothing, "I only write comic books to pick up chicks." before shooting me a shit-eating grin.  Next, the server collected my plate of potatoes before I was done, right before a stranger stuck his finger in my mouth. 

I woke, noted the time, pin-balled myself against a few walls and pieces of furniture to use the toilet, and stumbled to the livingroom couch where I sat with an empty expression - quite expertly, I might add - until my husband returned from the wild with a hard-won Sonic crispy chicken salad for me.  They'd forgotten the dressing, made him wait 15 minutes for his food, and tried to keep a $7 tip on a $13 bill (and in the end, still shorted him $1 in change) so I'm not entirely certain the building still exists.  He did say we'd never be eating there again.

So how was your Sunday?

Size Matters (but not how you think)

When you find yourself thinking, "My kid dumped almost his entire sippy cup of milk on his face, head, back and our couch this morning - he's got to be thirsty at this point.  There's no way he'd do the same thing again this afternoon.  I can stand in the kitchen for five minutes to have a snack."

You are wrong.  Very fucking wrong.  Not only that, but he'll decide to dump the milk where you sit this time, and it will all happen on the day you finally, finally get the steroid injections in your knees.

Now that experience was a big party all by itself.  You get up an hour and a half early, and arrive on time for your appointment.  The doctor is over an hour late - without explanation, or apology.  When she does finally see you, she pulls out a needle the size of a god damned coffee straw.  Right.  She puts that needle in each knee three times: two on the top, one on the inside, under the kneecap.  Actually, it was twice in the right kneecap, because she didn't quite hit it right the first time. 

She tells you that you have a high tolerance for pain, probably because you didn't scream curse words at her.  Yet.  Then, like some kind of over-caffeinated cheerleader, she starts asking you how you feel.  How does it feel when you stand?  How does it feel when you sit?  Does it feel any better?  How does it feel when you move your leg?  How does it feel when you walk?  How about now? 

How about you just chill the french toast out, lady - you didn't sprinkle me with fairy dust, or wave a magic wand ... you just jabbed my knees several times with a needle the size of terrifying.  That didn't feel too great, and I'm still kinda sore from that - how am I supposed to tell the difference between the old pain and the new pain?  If I could get rid of headaches by punching you in the face, would you want me peeping in your ear immediately, "how ya feelin'!? feelin' better yet?!"

At this point, you realize you've been dicking around the doctor's office so long that you've got just enough time to get home so your husband can make it to work, but as you're walking out the doctor says - with no further explanation, "Take a seat out there."  At first you think she's just testing your ability to sit again, but when she walks away, you think, "fuck?" 

You question the receptionist, who informs you that they expect you to sit there for an additional 15 minutes, just to make sure you don't pass out.  This is the first you've heard of this waiting period.  You try to explain that you're already late because you didn't get in until an hour past your appointment, but no one really cares that your husband's job is looking for any excuse to fire people before they have to give them the severance package in a few months.  So you slump grudgingly into a chair, glaring at their stupid magazines, making a list of everything you hate, including pointless rule following, until the receptionist takes mercy on you and lets you go early.

Now you're sitting on a towel, so your butt doesn't get soaked with milk, your knees kinda hurt in a different way, and the day isn't even half over.  The only thing left to do is sigh, wait for the steroid migraines to start, and hope your husband doesn't have to work tomorrow.    

It might just be time ...

to generate some buzz about my blog - a la Tobias Funke in Arrested Development.  So I'm going to need you to stand around your water coolers (even if it's just the one in your kitchen) making off-hand comments about how fricking hilarious my blog is, and how many times you shook your fist at the heavens, demanding that I owed you a new keyboard for the countless times I forced milk through your nostrils.  When people ask you questions, you could answer with "Nico Morley." and a sage nod.  Don't give me that look, I do it all the time.

Conversely, if you've read my blog and you hate it, feel free to spread the word far and wide.  Get yourself an "I Hates Nico Morley" t-shirt.  Or you could tweet "nicomorley.blogspot.com?  feh.  I'd rather suck a fish head."  Change your Facebook status update to "What do I hate about Nico Morley's stupid blog?  Just the words and pictures."

In other news, the internet is trying to torture me:

Hand to God, all I was trying to look up was the phrase "good news, it's Monday".  If a suppository is the good news, I sure as fuck don't want to hear the bad news. 

I demand to know why

While I'm not going to explain to you why I was doing a Google image search for the word clam, I would appreciate an explanation for why Stephanie Pratt showed up on page 5, thank you very much.