Your NOT welcome!

What's wrong with the subject title of this post? That's right, I incorrectly used a modifier as a second-person verb-phrase.
Except that I did it on purpose as a joke to prove a point, and every day I see people making this error multiple times without knowing they're doing it. Today in fact, a co-worker made this error in emails sent to me, not once, not twice, but four times! "Your welcome Kat". ARggghhh... It took all of my willpower not to go running down the hall to her office to throttle her.

"You're" is a verb phrase that is a contraction of "you are". "Your" is a modifier adjective. Easy!
Do not use "you're" to modify nouns. "Your keys."
Do not use "your" as a second-person verb phrase. "You're up early." Here's a phrase with both: "You're moving your car, right?" In other words, you are moving the car that belongs to you.

I know I am a grammar snob. I can't help it. I also know that everyone makes mistakes like this once in awhile. I do it too! It pains me to admit it, but it's true. So I'm not about to bust out the Word Police grammar error citation cards but please people just think about what you're typing (See? Not hard at all) before you hit that send button.

See also: They're/Their

Obama-mania

Over the past several weeks/months, I have been cautiously optimistic about Barack Obama's chances of becoming our next President. But last night I've got to tell you that for the first time I finally got super excited about this election and potential outcome.

The Obama-mercial was the most well produced piece of I-don't-know-what that I've ever seen. I actually got chills CHILLS at least 5 times during the 30 minute piece. And then afterword his interview on "The Daily Show" was equally brilliant. So here I am, the world's worst cynic actually feeling hope. It's strange.

On the other hand, as Obama himself has said, Democrats have an uncanny ability of "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory", so I'm not going to feel completely fine until November 5.

You annoy me!

Today, I encountered a bunch of things that bug me to no end. My list of pet peeves continues:

• Short-sleeved dress shirts on men - I suppose occasionally it's okay for a guy to wear one of these (without a tie please!) on a casual Friday at work, but for the most part short-sleeve dress shirts are totally fugly. And wearing a tie with one like my co-worker sported today is unforgivable. You end up looking like Andy Sipowicz from "NYPD Blue". That's not a look you should be striving for.

• Yellow cars - I'm sorry. No matter what the model, yellow cars look ridiculous. They just do.

• Tasseled loafers on men - eh, I don't want to keep excluding the ladies; these are bad on anybody. Loafers with tassels make people's feet look weird and twee. And I've never seen a pair that wasn't horribly unfashionable looking. Just gross. Guess who was wearing a pair of these today at work? Yep, you guessed it - the fashion plate above in the short sleeves and tie! He's special.

• Made-up words in Business - In the past 10 years the professional sector seems to have gone crazy making up words and phrases; changing verbs into nouns and vice versa. It's really annoying how so many of these have been adopted into everyday usage. A harmless example is a word like "networking". But others send me right off the ledge. The one I saw in an email sent from our executive director today was "on-boarding". The hell? Stop it right now.

Pet Peeves List cont'd

• The click-click sound of nail clippers - I hate the sound of clipping nails. I don't even like clipping my own nails. I file them down instead or save the clipping for the beauty salon where I can try to drown the sound out with the whirlpool jets that my feet are soaking in. That metallic clicking goes right through me and sends me into irrational fits of rage if someone is clipping their nails around me. Like what's happening right this minute in the office cubicle across from mine where my coworker is clipping her fingernails while she talks on the phone! I just yelled "STOP IT!" and then quickly looked down and away hoping that she doesn't know it was me. That's the thing - I get super angry about stuff like this but I find a hard time actually approaching people in a constructive way to get them to stop. Grrr...she's still doing it! How many fingers does she f*cking have anyway? Wait, I hope she hasn't moved on to her toenails...am I going to have to do another post here about inappropriate grooming in public? Sigh...

• Magazine subscription postcards - Seriously, has anyone ever actually taken one of these from their US Weekly or Vanity Fair, filled it out and mailed it in? I hate these damn wastes of paper! It's hard enough to find the article I'm looking for without these things getting in my way and falling out all over the place. And why so many of them? I'm not kidding, I was looking through my TV Guide last night and no less than 6, SIX, of these cards fell out as I was trying to figure out what I needed to Tivo for the week. F*ck you TV Guide. And that leads me to another annoying aspect - when they're in magazines that I already have subscriptions for. I don't need these stupid cards! I already got a subscription to your damn magazine using a more efficient method. But you're starting to make me regret this decision, so I'm definitely not going to pass one of these lame cards onto a friend or loved one. I can't imagine that these companies make enough money in subscription sales to offset the production of these cards each month/week etc.

Kat's Pet Peeves

It's time to once again publish my list (my LOOOONNNNGG list) of pet peeves. I'll be doing it a little at a time and adding to it frequently I'm sure. There are other people out there that have done similar lists, and done them better I'm sure, but putting the things that annoy me on here makes me feel better, and is a form of anger management! Here we go...

• People who talk on their cell phones in the bathroom - And I mean any bathroom; public or the one in your bedroom. But of course it's horrifying public restroom cell phone talkers who are the worst! First of all, public restrooms in general have strange acoustics; they are tinny and echoey and people are usually self-conciously trying to pee or poop etc as quietly as possible, so when someone is talking on the phone in there the conversation seems really loud. Second, people (cell phone talker included) are PEEING AND POOPING ETC.! Do you know how uncomfortable it is to be taking care of business while someone in the stall next to you is having a conversation about what they did over the weekend or about the problems they're having with their child's daycare provider? And there's the flushing! Flushing toilets are loud things; especially public toilets. Inevitably the bathroom cellphone talker just ends up yelling over the flush and making things worse. And what must it be like for the person on the other end of the phone? Can you imagine talking to one of your friends hearing maybe the faint sound of urine streaming but ignoring it and then hearing the tell-tale flush sound and knowing - you've been talking to someone who's been using the toilet! YUCK! You gross motherf*cker! People of the world I beg of you - stop doing this!

Monday, Monday

I have had a headache all day and am feeling super nauseous. Uggh
I think I'm staying home tomorrow nestled in my bed with the 12 library books I currently have out (the pend status on my library holds isn't working!).

Just finished watching that movie that Jodie Foster did last year called "The Brave One". It was very disturbing. And not very good.
Must be my Jodie week - watched the classic "The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane" a few days ago. Loved it just as much as I did when I was a teen.

Brolin sandwich!

I've loved Josh Brolin since his Goonies and "Young Riders"days. I've stuck with him all this time - through the lean "Bed of Roses" and "Mod Squad" years, and it's great to see him getting the recognition he deserves recently with his performances in No Country For Old Men and now "W".
I also love his dad James - I think I'm the only person who's seen all 27 episodes of the show "Pensacola: Wings of Gold".
I've loved Jim Brolin since the man was rockin the Barry Gibb hair and the beard in the Amityville Horror and then was the true essence of hot during the run of the awesome series "Hotel". I mean seriously was there anything hotter in the 80s than Peter McDermott on "Hotel"? The stuff of dreams people! And now he fawkin' married to Barbra freakin' Streisand! That rules! It's a little disheartening to realize that Jim is pushing 70 though.

Anyway, Josh was totally brilliant on SNL tonight. Sign me up for a Brolin manwich!

Random Reality TV Thoughts

Just finished watching the season finale of Rachel Zoe's reality show. It was "baaahnanaaahs". I didn't watch the entire season but one thing that bugged me every time I did was Rachel's husband Rodger's hair. It's ridiculous. Seriously. I can't even describe it. So I'll link a picture of it. He's the douche in the zip up jacket a few pictures down. Fugly!

One of my guilty pleasures is "The Girls Next Door". Hef is an old dottering weirdo shuffling around in his pjs; Holly's the desperate bitch; Kendra's a dumb lovable-ish retard; and Bridget, my fave is the well-meaning "eater". Anyway, season after season of this show has been like cotton candy - fluffy, airy and sometimes grossly sweet. But what is up with this season's timline and the episodes that have aired so far?
First ep of the season? Celebrating Hef's 870th birthday in April. Next ep? Superbowl party! Wait, huh? That was January. Next week's ep? Halloween party! Which is appropriate for this time of year but why aren't they showing these fucking things in any kind of order?! It's weird.

My sweet little southern big boobed Natalie got kicked off "Top Design" this week. Boo. But sexy sexington Preston won a challenge finally - yay! Suck on that Eddie!

Finally, thank you Lord for not letting fucking Kenley win Project Runway. I'm already this close to giving up on this show because of it's move to Lifetime, and if she had won I would have flipped out.

Minnesota!

Some things that happened in Minnesota -

• I got harrassed/stalked/propositioned by this dude named Kevin the first night I stayed in my hotel in Sartell, MN. While it was completely terrifying at the time, it's now a very funny anecdote that I can tell people at parties.
• Got to go to a St. Cloud State Univ hockey game, their first of the season. They played against University of Bristish Columbia and lost but it was great to watch some Division 1 college hockey.
• Got to drive north into Mille Lac county to the Ojibwe Indian reservation. The lake was so beautiful.

Some things I saw in Minnesota -

• Snowmobile crossing signs on the highway. Random!
• You haven't seen a hockey mom until you've seen a SCSU hockey mom. Scary.
• A bumbersticker that said "Deer Hunters for Obama". Hee!

Bay Area trip 2008

Just returned from a nice trip down in San Francisco with my friend Robert. A little taste of what we did:

Friday -

• Rented a car and did a day trip north into Marin county. Our first stop was the Muir Woods. Really cool. I know that I was there when I was 10 but I didn't remember or appreciate it like I do now. Those are some f*cking cool ass trees!
• After a stop at the "nut man" on the side of the road, we decided to head to Bodega Bay but got a little turned around and ended up driving through Marin county and into Sonoma before getting back west.
• On our detour we stopped in a little quaint (read RICH) Marin town called Larkspur and had lunch at a tres chic French restaurant. Yummy food. I had the richest truffled egg salad sandwich on buttered toasted brioche slices. Decadent!
• Finally got to Bodega Bay which was kind of disappointing actually. I mean "The Birds" was filmed there for crissakes! I expected to feel at least a little creeped out. But the real winner was the little town on Route 1 on the way back south that we drove through called Stinson Beach. It was so adorable - I could totally live there or at least have a vacation home there.

Saturday -

• We decided to do another day-trip, this time South. It was so damn foggy that morning that it was a little frustrating on our way down the PCH towards Santa Cruz.
• By the time we got to Santa Cruz the fog had burned away and it was actually hot. We saw cute beach volleyball boys and cuter sea lions which was our goal.
• We then headed back north but went inland to San Jose to go to the Winchester House! Let me tell you, it was not as good as I thought it was back when I was 13. We had the cheesiest tour guide named Chris whose voice had such an annoying CAdence and WEIRD inFLECtions that it was hard to not laugh out loud numerous times during the very scripted 65 min tour. I was glad that we went but I certainly never have to go there again.
• Ended the day by driving through Berkeley and hitting horrific traffic over the Bay Bridge back into the city. Do people have to deal with that shit all the time? uggh
• Finished the evening by having Italian in North Beach and then some kick-ass gelato.

Sunday -

• This was the day that we'd really come down to SF for in the first place. The 25th annual Folsom Street Fair. All of the fetishes and freaks in the world represented in one 5 block square space. The "community festival" was definitely SENSORY OVERLOAD. I'm a very open-minded and non-judgemental person, but even I had to draw the line at the dude that was the Human Urinal. No. Just no. I saw a lot of penises and boobs. I spanked someone for charity. I got to watch gay porn live in the Titan video tent. I saw enough to say that I saw too much. There was awesome music though - The English Beat (squee!), Berlin, Shiny Toy Guns...awesome.
• Before the fair, I met up with Kate and her boyfriend who were in town for a wedding the night before. We had breakfast at Cafe Mason and got to catch up. It was a great way to start the day.

By Monday, Robert and I were both kind of ready to go home. We had the car for another day so drove to places in the city that we couldn't really get to on MUNI like Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Park, and the Castro. We also went to the Haight-Ashbury district and walked by the old apt that Kate and Sarah used to live in. Happy memories.

I got to have lunch with JK (Janice) who came in from Oakland to see me. It was great catching up. She suggested that Robert and I go to the bar that she and her partner Irene own in the Mission because it was karaoke night. We happily went that night after a mediterranean dinner across the street. They had big, strong, and cheap drinks (good) but no karaoke because the guy was sick (bad). It was a little hipster local hangout bar that reminded me of Seattle like the Tin Hat.

I was craving gelato again so we tried to find a place in the Mission and thanks to the wonder of phones with internet we discovered a place in the nearby neighborhood of Bernell Heights. I have to say, I was totally unfamiliar with this section of the city and WOW was it the cutest damn neighborhood I've ever seen! I can't believe I've never been there or heard of it before. I loved it. If I lived in San Francisco I would want to live there. Sure, it's a little far away from stuff but who cares when the area is so cool.

Tuesday brought migraines and sickness for me. What a way to make my way home to the Emerald City. I've had a headache ever since. Shit.