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State Rep. Richard Floyd, the latest winner in the “Make Tennessee Look Like Assholes” contest

by on January 13, 2012, in news/politics, stupid assholes, WTF?

There are a few things that immediately jumped out at me regarding what Tennessee State Rep. Richard Floyd said, besides the obvious fact that it’s so unabashedly discriminatory I had to check my calendar to make sure we hadn’t been transported back to the pre-civil-rights era in this country.

1. For someone claiming to be concerned about the welfare of women, why is he creeping on the women’s dressing room? As a woman, I would not be worried by someone, regardless of gender, bringing a pile of clothes into a fitting room area where I’m also trying on clothes (in a private stall, for fuck’s sake, so NOBODY can see me try to jam myself into skinny jeans). However, I would be unnerved by an old man loitering outside, taking note of who goes in and out. That’s a call to mall security waiting to happen.

2. He’s an old guy, so I’m going to assume that his wife and daughters are adults. Why is he even accompanying them to the dressing room? Does he not think they can handle shopping for clothes on their own? That they need his protection? This whole “I am man, I must protect my womanly property” shtick is so tired. I feel sorry for his wife and daughters that they have to deal with someone in their life who obviously thinks so little of their ability to perform regular adult activities, like go to the store and try on clothes, without needing him present to hold their hands.

3. Why the violence? There’s a huge difference between “I am made uncomfortable by this” and “I WILL FUCKING MURDER YOU UNLESS THERE IS A LAW THAT STOPS YOU FROM DOING SOMETHING THAT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE.” The fact that this isn’t just some random weirdo ranting on an Internet forum but an actual elected official, chosen to represent the views of people in this state, is beyond scary.

From STFU, Conservatives:

[TRIGGER WARNING: Transphobic Violence]

I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.

Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts. Now if somebody thinks he’s a woman and he’s a man and wants to try on women’s clothes, let him take them into the men’s bathroom or dressing room.

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Maybe The Universe is trying to ready me for Bonnaroo

by on June 6, 2011, in jump aboard the crazy train, WTF?

When I got into work today, I was greeted in the hallway by what I first thought was some kind of evil spider from hell on steroids. Turns out it was something called a Cave Cricket, and a co-worker kindly deposited it outside as I tried not to squeal and make myself more of a feminine stereotype.

Then, while waiting in line for lunch at The Grilled Cheeserie, a cicada flew into my hair. I pulled it out and threw it on the ground, noticing that only about half of it was intact. I have no idea where the rest of it went, and my co-worker who was waiting in line with me searched my hair for any remains but came up empty.

Strange day with the bugs around here.

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Thanks for littering my neighborhood, Molly Short!

by on April 26, 2011, in around town, photography, stupid assholes, WTF?

Thanks for littering my neighborhood, Molly Short!

On Friday—EARTH DAY, FOR CHRISSAKES—Ian and I discovered an Avon rep had littered our subdivision with her pamphlets. And I don’t mean left them on our doorsteps. I mean threw them anywhere in the general vicinity of what might be considered near the door if you were a completely oblivious asshole: On the sidewalk, in the mulch, in the grassy common areas. The pamphlet above was half in the mulch, half on the sidewalk at the end of someone’s walkway. Nowhere near their front door.

I called the number listed and left a message, asking her if she was going to come back and pick up her mess, but of course I never heard back.

People, is it really that difficult to not throw your shit, whether it’s garbage or promotional material, all over the goddamn ground?!

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How to give me a heart attack

by on January 12, 2011, in jump aboard the crazy train, WTF?

Call me at work and tell me that I’m 60 days late on my student loan payments and I owe $200 immediately without considering that maybe, just maybe, there is more than one Megan Morris in the entire state of Tennessee.

And when I tell you that my student loans are not through your company and that I pay the company that does own them automatically every month so I know you’ve got the wrong person, don’t ask for my social security number to verify. If that doesn’t scream IDENTITY THEFT! I don’t know what does. Also, the town the person you’re looking for lives in is pronounced “ann-tea-ock” not “ann-eh-tosh.”

(As I suspected, the collection agency rep just Googled “Megan Morris + TN” and my bio page on my company’s website was one of the first results. She said the location was the closest to Antioch she could find so she assumed it was me. Right, because Megan Morris isn’t a common name at all. Oh, and the kicker? My student loan account is still in my maiden name.)

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Nov. 16 | Ladies, eh?

by on November 17, 2010, in around town, photography, Project365, technology/yes I am a geek, WTF?

Nov. 16 | Ladies, eh?

Let’s count the offenses in this flyer, seen at Nashville State Community College outside of my programming class:

1. LADIES? Really? Nothing says “We take you seriously” like “ladies.” How about for your next flyer you say “gals” or “women folk.”

2. WTF does Flint have to do with technology?

3. “Future ladies”? Is this aimed at babies? Or fetuses? Or maybe females who are in finishing school learning how to be ladies in the future, but they just aren’t quite there yet?

4. How can you expect anyone to take you seriously, flyer-maker, if you were only able to fit four fonts onto this thing? Come on, you can do better.

Maybe instead of naming your group after some shitty town in Michigan where technology, in the form of the auto industry, made its mass exodus years ago, you could have focused your efforts on making a flyer that doesn’t vomit random fonts all over the page and actually explains what your group does and why anyone should attend without marginalizing these future women and their role in technology.

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How to get to China, Google-style

by on September 1, 2010, in hahahahaha, jump aboard the crazy train, photography, technology/yes I am a geek, WTF?

How to get to China, Google style

I saw a post about this on Lamebook and decided to try it out for myself. Apparently getting from Nashville to China involves driving my car across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, where I then ditch the water-car and kayak my ass over to China.

Thanks for the tips, Google!

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What can brown do for me? Apparently nothing since they don’t think my house exists.

by on August 13, 2010, in jump aboard the crazy train, stupid assholes, WTF?

Dear UPS:

When someone comes into one of your stores with a package to mail to her sister, someone who she more than likely knows the address of, it is neither correct nor helpful to refer to an old, tattered book and then tell her that not only is she using the wrong ZIP code because her sister’s town only has one (FYI: It has seven), but that she has the entire address wrong because her sister’s street DOESN’T EVEN EXIST. Not only does that insult my sister’s intelligence, it makes me feel homeless. And unless you’re going to recoup the past six years of my mortgage payments from Suntrust for me, that is NOT COOL.

I’m going to go ahead and assume that the UPS clerk my sister had the unfortunate luck of dealing with that day was recovering from a brain aneurysm, because I don’t see how a major shipping company can instruct their clerks to fact-check addresses in a tome that was most likely printed during the height of the Pony Express.

Now, I’ve visited UPS stores before and never had anyone question my recipient’s address, so I’m also going to assume that it is just this particular suburban Chicago location that, for whatever reason, refuses to acknowledge the continued rapid growth of cities across the nation. Growth that yields new neighborhoods, streets and houses—all of which would render this dust-covered address-finding relic unusable and cost-prohibitive to update on any semblence of a regular basis.

All of this, UPS, to say that if my goddamn camera cord doesn’t make it to my house because you forced my sister to put the wrong ZIP code on the package and then tried to shame her into believing that the house she’s visited me in several times doesn’t actually exist, you’re going to have a seriously pissed-off woman on your hands.

Who, according to you, lives on a made-up street in a ZIP code that doesn’t exist. So good luck finding me after I egg your car, fuckface.


UPDATE: The package made it to my house. Consider yourself lucky, UPS.

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Adventures in hair-drying

by on July 20, 2010, in jump aboard the crazy train, shopping, WTF?

About two or three years ago I figured out my hair actually looked decent if I wore it left down, as long as I used a diffuser on the hair dryer and finished it off with some Aveda Air Control hair spray. This was a great discovery for me, someone who had worn her hair pulled back in some form or fashion since high school, but it also meant I had to get a decent hair dryer.

I had been using the same Revlon dryer for probably 10 years, and it just wasn’t really cutting it anymore. It took forever to dry my hair, the diffuser was crap, and it was just… old. So I set out trying to find the perfect hair dryer for under $50.

After trying and returning one or two, I finally found one that I considered perfect: The Infiniti Nano Silver by Conair, a ceramic dryer that was $49.99—just within my budget.

This dryer is amazing. No matter the length of my hair it allows me to dry it in about 10 minutes, and the diffuser is the best I have ever encountered (and I have been around the diffuser block, my friends). It sends enough air through the diffuser so that my hair is dried without becoming limp (a problem often encountered with diffusers that don’t have vented fingers or enough holes in them), and it cuts down on the frizz that is the curse of the curly-haired. The length of the fingers also lets me add lift to my roots, which is a huge plus with my fine-but-not-thin hair.

I was in love. For about a year and a half. Then one day (in February 2009, if I remember correctly), the motor started making strange sputtering noises and I smelled smoke. I thought maybe it just overheated, but the next day it would barely blow any air at all.

I was heartbroken, but figured it was such a great dryer I would buy another one, hoping mine had just been defective.

That one was great, too, lasting almost another year, until the same thing happened in January of this year. Sputtering, refusing to blow air, smelling like something was burning on the inside.

Confused, I removed the back panel thinking maybe I just wasn’t cleaning the lint trap often enough. But nope, it was clean.

Now I was pissed. I emailed Conair explaining that one hair dryer going bad I could understand, but two was odd. I received an email back saying someone would contact me within three days to resolve the issue, but I never heard back.

I set out again to try to find a different dryer, one that hopefully wouldn’t crap out on me in a year’s time, but again I came up empty handed. It really all came down to the diffuser, and none that I found—even the ridiculously expensive ones I looked at—had the amazingly vented diffuser with the long, vented fingers I knew held the key to my hair’s success. So begrudgingly, I bought another one. Although this time I wised up and ordered it off Amazon, which at least meant I got the dryer for $40 instead of $50, with free shipping.

But still. It was MY THIRD GODDAMN HAIR DRYER in two years. I felt like a fool. Well, actually I felt like an addict.

So imagine how pissed off I was this weekend when, just a mere seven months after purchasing it, the thing shit the bed. Again. In the exact same way.

Am I doing it wrong? Is it possible that despite making it through life as a pretty intelligent person, you know, making mostly As in school, getting a bachelor’s degree after having been a double major—even completing some post-graduate work!—and possessing what I like to think is probably more common sense and problem-solving ability than the average bear… I have lost the ability to use a fucking hair dryer correctly?

Maybe using it on low heat for 10 minutes or less once a day is abuse. Maybe I’m supposed to sing some kind of hair-dryer hymn before I use it and then when I’m done, bathe it in the tears of children and set it to rest in a box made of solid gold that’s lined with only the finest French silk.

I guess we’ll find out. In a fit of anger Saturday I dashed off a complaint on Conair’s Facebook fan page, and yesterday I received a message from Susan Bloch in Conair customer service asking me to call her so that she can “assist [me] with my hair dryers.” Apparently she’s not in today, though, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what her solution is.

In the meantime, like the goddamned punching bag that I am, I’ve ordered another Infiniti Nano Silver. It’s only $30 on Amazon now. Fingers crossed!

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Seriously?

by on March 24, 2010, in but in our house we never get bored, health, or something like it, WTF?

Ian and I both have the flu. At the same time. Which, on one hand, is nice because we don’t have to worry about passing it back and forth for a few weeks. But on the other hand there’s nobody here to take care of us. We just lay on the couch alternating between sleeping and bitching about how awful we feel.

There’s no point in going to the doctor because flu-specific drugs have to be taken pretty much as soon as the flu sets in, and now they’d just tell us to treat our symptoms, which we can do from home with Gatorade and ibuprofen.

I just hope we’re well enough for when my mom comes to visit this weekend.

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Betty Crocker is messing with me

by on December 20, 2009, in food and/or beverage, photography, quandaries, WTF?

Betty Crocker is messing with me

For a year now I’ve been searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. Wait, I take that back. Not a perfect one, just one that yields cookies I’m not embarrassed to give people other than myself or Ian to eat.

The first recipe I tried was from a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook I have, and those cookies were nasty. They were very, very bland, which I’m attributing to the lack of salt and the addition of Crisco.

The second recipe I tried last year was the same one I tried today, except the first time I made it I used salted butter (that’s all we had). The cookies came out too salty—you could see the salt crystals in them after they were baked.

So this year I double checked with Twitter, got confirmation to use unsalted butter and light brown sugar, and made the recipe again. I followed it to the letter. I measured twice, I mixed thoroughly, I read everything 10 times.

And they’re just… not that good. Ian describes the texture as being more like a biscuit. They’re not very chewy, and I guess I would say they taste almost… grainy? I wonder if it’s too much flour—the recipe calls for 2 and 1/4 cup, which is a lot to mix in, even a bit at a time. I even used the exact brand of flour that the recipe calls for.

Or maybe I packed the brown sugar too tightly? I made sure there were no pockets of emptiness in the measuring cup since the brown sugar was kind of clumpy, but I didn’t pack it so tight that I felt it was more than what I actually needed.

Anyway, here’s the recipe I’m using. I’m at a loss.

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I used Domino brand)
1 cup butter or margarine, softened (I used unsalted butter)
1 egg
2 1/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I left these out)
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

1. Heat oven to 375ºF.
2. Mix sugars, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Any ideas on what would be causing these to not turn out right? Or do you have a tried and true and tasty recipe for chocolate chip cookies you’d like to share with me?

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