I'm using my powers for good. I think.

There are many things you need to know. And who better to supply them to you than me, right?
First, when Fernando and I escape on our Costa Rican holiday, we'll be staying in this hotel:

For several reasons.

1. It's a plane
2. Your neighbors are monkeys
3. It's in Costa Rica
4. It's a plane

Second, Apple is releasing its newest operating system, Snow Leopard, sometime soon. What I want to know is when are they releasing the upgrade to the kick-ass operating system, Def Leppard?

Third, I'm awfully fond of a very geeky, computer-related comic called xkcd. Occasionally it's too geeky, even for me, but the following comic had us rolling in the hallway recently:

Fourth: What's the last thing you think to hear a bike messenger saying into his phone? For me, it was easily, "Dude, 'polemical' is just another word for 'controversial.'"

Fifth, I love Mimi Smartypants. Because she loves Smashed Rats:

"If I have lunchtime errands, the route I take involves crossing the same street twice (which is totally possible, fuck you Heraclitus). This is because of crazy construction activity and blocked-off sidewalks. This could be kind of a drag, but now I look forward to it because of SMASHED RAT!

"A smashed squirrel is a pretty standard thing in Chicago. You know the kind—completely devoid of organs or guck (where did that go? stuck to the car tires? spread and diffused and soaked into the pavement?), flush with the street, basically just a flat gray strip of matted fur. But a smashed rat is something special! Rats are usually more wily and less interested in crossing streets, so they do not become smashed as often. Plus, that tail! The State Street Smashed Rat is really perfectly smashed, too: you can see the outline of his little face and body and the tail is still long and pinkish despite being smashed.

"Obviously, when I pass Smashed Rat I need to say “SMASHED RAT!” Smashed rat is the new dead bird. Yesterday as I was waiting for the light to change I said, “smashed rat” and a fellow pedestrian heard and gave me a strange look. So I pointed down and showed him the smashed rat so he could SHARE THE JOY."

Sixth, did you ever wonder what it looked like when trucks filled with various things tipped over? Then you need to go to http://www.truckspills.com/ and see images like when the truck full of chickens tipped over:

May I recommend the whale guts? (Just slightly too disgusting to post here!)

Ah... technology!

I was shopping online today for, um, personal items, and discovered hilarity waiting for me:


(if you can't see what's funny, click on the photo to make it bigger.)

Also, if you've ever wondered what I do for my living, click here. Just don't die of excitement.

Also, it's proof positive that Time Warner is raping and pillaging its customers when you call them to tell them you want to pay less and they offer you a better package, with more goodies, for less money. Oh yeah, now I've got the "All the Best" triple play for $13 less a month than my old "Nothing Good" package.

By the way, it's really difficult to post this entry under the category of "important stuff you need to know."

it's a miracle there's any space in my brain at all

You are very lucky readers, folks. Not everyone gets to reap the fruits of a diligent soul scouring the world for useful knowledge and then compiling it all together for you.

(Ok, that's not true. This is a public blog. Everyone could read it. Just not everyone does.)

The Booger Affair
Apparently, wall-booger-wiping is something of a pandemic.

(And here I thought you were supposed to wipe your boogers under the couch.)

Did you know?
Remember the Monkees? There was Davey Jones (the cute one), Mickey Dolenz (the crazy one), Peter Tork (the red headed one), and Mike Nesmith (the other one). Well, turns out that Mike Nesmith's mom, Bette, created Liquid Paper.

Bet you didn't (need to) know that one.

Audio Illusion
If you sit very, very quietly in the pantry at my office, you might think you were scuba diving. Because the ice maker makes this weird gurbley sound that really shouldn't be coming from an ice maker.

Also, if you sit very, very quietly in the pantry at my office, you're weird.

Optical Illusion
While we're on the topic of mistakes (not that I make them), I saw a link the other night for what I thought was Do Rito Slate Night.

Go ahead and check it out: www.doritoslatenight.com

Updates on Jesus and the Tiger
The beau came up with a fabulous idea for a new piece of artwork in my apartment building hallway -- just a picture of the tiger with a scrap of Jesus-colored robe dangling from the corner of his mouth.

Take that, multinational deity!

On the way to work
I love my commute. This week I heard a dad saying, as he dropped his little girl off at nursery school, "She's so excited to see you! God knows she's sick of us!"

Also, there was a pair of fat man pants left on the windshield of a car. I chuckled to myself as I imagined this was due to a recreation of the Whitesnake video gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Fashion Basic
I have a skirt that I love to wear in the summer -- it's linen and lightweight and in my world it stands in for shorts, which are a kind of clothing I don't believe in. It recently developed two holes in it and was destined for the rag heap. UNTIL... I realized that if I cut the tags off of it, I could wear it inside out!

Yeah, I'm sexy.

Hilarity and Vitriol, Rolled Into One


(if the embedding doesn't work for you, go here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/860-Call-of-Juarez-Bound-in-Blood)

why I'll never fly Evil Spirit Airlines again

I'm cheap. I'll admit it. But there are some things that just aren't worth saving the hundred bucks it would have cost me to fly Jet Blue. To wit:

1. I showed up 75 minutes early for my flight (my fault) which was then delayed 90 minutes (theirs). This gave me the opportunity to sit next to a lovely woman who, I'm not kidding, said "fuck" every other word. I texted this my friend Christina, who told me that in response, I should just start randomly saying "poop" to no one. I considered this, but didn't want to poop -- I mean, stoop -- to their level.

(poop.)

2. Evil Spirit Airlines will book your seat for you, but if you want to sit somewhere other than in the bathroom, you have to pay anywhere from $12 to $20 on top of your ticket price. Needless to say, I sat in the bathroom. Where I didn't have any snacks, drinks, or luggage.

3. Something about this airline breeds children. I've never seen so many of them in my life. I swear there were more when we landed than there were when we took off. And they. Were. All. Crying.

4. Ever been on a plane with creaky arm rests and lots of children? Yeah, don't.

5. On the flight down to Florida, we hit some of the worst turbulence I've ever seen in my life. It's sad when the thought of your own death provokes whimpers of "but I haven't DONE anything yet!!"

6. We flew on an Airbus that "was only two years old!" (hooray!) However, Airbuses are made in France, and apparently, in the last two years, there has been such a dramatic decline in the number of French people who pee that the designers thought two toilets would amply serve 156 people. In horrible turbulence. And we were told repeatedly that we should really use the one in the back, since NOBODY can linger near the cockpit door. NOBODY! EVER!

7. Also, French people must be very, very, short, as I am a mere 5'8" and my knees were jammed into the seat in front of me. Even nicer, the seat in front of me reclined while mine was frozen in place, because it was broken. So I read my book like the nerdy kid in high school (which I was anyway), a mere six inches from my face. I considered crying (which I also did in high school).

8. I'm barfophobic. We've discussed this at length. So when turbulence gets really bad on a plane, I don't think "OH MY GOD WE'RE GOING DOWN!" I think "OH MY GOD WHO'S GONNA BARF?!?!" And perhaps this is well warranted:

8A: On the way home, two rows behind me, before we even took off, a flight attendant arrived on the scene with a bag.
"Here," she said. "Wipe that up, and throw it in here. And then this bag's for later."
For me, hearing this was like seeing an accident up ahead and resisting the urge to find out if the motorcyclist lost his head in the collision with the semi. But resisted I did!
When I walked by later (to pee in the one bathroom), the offending guy was covered in napkins, so it was hard to tell. But I'm still convinced he barfed. Because, hell, it's Evil Spirit Airlines!

8B: The landing was extended for some reason, and we ended up flying over Queens, Long Island, up into the Bronx, to the Canadian border, back around via Arizona, and landed at LGA. It was a little bumpy, but nothing like the turbulence we suffered earlier. Nonetheless, I saw a flight attendant waggling a barf bag at a passenger during landing, which is a rare sight. (Luckily I stealthily kept my ipod on under my hair so I didn't have to hear what was going on.)
Anyway, as we were deplaning, she got on the radio and said the regular "welcome to LaGuardia, the local time is blah blah blah" crap, but added the ever so lovely "we know there were lots of upset stomachs during this flight, so if any of you have any bags... full of... sickness, please feel free to deposit them in the garbage as you leave the plane."

Oh Jet Blue, why was I so foolishly led astray??

(poop!)

when the hell did it become august?

I'm just saying, time is going by too quickly. I'm getting old.

In an effort to delay the inevitable, I bring the following things to your attention:

1. Tuesdays with Nando
Just like the best selling book, Tuesdays with Morrie, (which my mother and I detest and call "Wednesdays with Dipshit"), this tome is full of charming, heartwarming episodes. Like the time I said to Fernando, "I have a weird patch of skin falling off my finger. I think it's leprosy," and he responded by shouting "UNCLEAN!" and pointing me out of our office. Other winning chapters involve Fernando's salads smelling of egg farts (and driving my boss out of the office) and the old acting headshot postcard of me that we've taped to the mailbox so that when I'm out of the office, Fernando has someone to talk to.

Stay tuned... Mondays with Kate will be out soon.

2. Ye Olde Oral Fixations
Remember Freshen Up Gum? The gum that squirted green goo into your mouth when you bit the center of it? Why was that ever popular? It was easily one of the most disgusting things not actually marketed to kids.

I was thinking of that the other day because Fernando gave me spearmint gum (and I don't eat spearmint gum, but figured I'd try it again, just to see if I was missing out on anything -- and I'm not) and it tasted just as I remember Freshen Up tasting. This, of course, led me down a slippery slope, recalling Chewels and Velamints, too.

Crap, I'm old.

3. Pearls before Swine Flatulation
The beau said something absolutely lovely recently. "I knew I was going to have fun with you," he said, "but I didn't think I would like you this much."

I smiled, and accidentally kicked him under the table.

"I'd say you're like a ray of sunshine, but you're more like..."

"A funny looking cloud?" I offered.

"No, if you were sunshine, that would imply it was all dark and gloomy before you came along. You're more like... You know what you're like? You're like a pig's fart in a candlelit room."

Take that, Shakespeare!

4. Two for the price of one
My mother was recently diagnosed with a liver cyst, which you can really only get by talking nasty to your children. (I told her to "fucking cut that shit out" years ago, but does she listen? Goddamnit, of course not!) She went in to have it removed yesterday, and apparently, it wasn't one monster cyst, it was two.

One for me and one for my cyster.

5. Watch Out!