I will never amount to anything because I’m not Will Smith’s kid

This is a potentially dangerous post because my mom has recently joined in on the fun of my blog. Here’s my disclaimer, Mom: I’m very happy being your daughter. In reality, I would never trade parents for you and Dad, ever. I’m just saying, in this hypothetical blog world that I exist in, maybe my life would be better off if you had married Will Smith.

Will Smith, you are amazing. I loved you as Will in Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and your career has just exploded into awesomeness since then. You are a tremendous actor and with the exclusion of I Am Legend, I really enjoy your movies. You’re an remarkable husband to your mega-hot wife, Jada. Will Smith, you seem like an all-around cool guy. Why shouldn’t your coolness transfer to your kids? Oh right, because they’re not that cool.

You all know Will Smith’s kids. We first got exposed to Jaden, or at least I first did, in his role with Will in The Pursuit of Happyness. He was adorable and it makes up for the fact that The Karate Kid looked terrible. Listen, the kid isn’t a bad actor but he gets exposure because he’s Will Smith’s son. He’s cute and we love him because Will will stop making movies if we protest. We’d like to think that Jaden will replace Will Smith when Will no longer acts. I know Will has to stop sometime because I envision a huge war between America and Will Smith for total dominance over July 4th. As much as I love Will’s movie premieres that time of the year, I think America’s birthday is more important. Anyways, after we bomb Will in an effort to spread democracy, I’m sure we’d all like Jaden to replace him and make movies about aliens and overcoming poverty. And because he’s Will Smith’s son, we’ll have to let him.

Onto Willow Smith. To the best of my knowledge and because I’m too lazy to IMDB her, I don’t think she’s appeared in any movies. However, she assaults my ear drums at least a couple of times a week for her single, Whip My Hair. This song at best gives irreversible whiplash. She’s not a particularly terrible singer but she’s not a particularly good one either. I don’t think if she were anybody else’s kid that she’d be on the radio. The song is about throwing your hair all over the place. I do that all the time. Granted it clogs the shower and I have to Drano the tumbleweeds of my hair twice a month but what I mean to say is, Willow, you’re not special. The song is irritating and you shouldn’t be on the radio except that you’re Will’s daughter. And now we all have to suffer.

I hate the sense of entitlement that Will Smith’s kids are enjoying because of who their Dad is. My dad is cool too, but I don’t just barge into the Supreme Court because he’s an awesome patent attorney. If Will Smith were my father, I could just amble in there and demand to be a Supreme Court Judge without having to go to law school. Listen, Will, I love you, I really do. Just stop foisting your kids on us because they’re not that great. They’re not bad people but they are going to use your celebrity status to poison the entertainment industry more. Is Miley Cyrus really that talented or did her father just push her into the spotlight, using his own status? As if Billy Joel’s daughter is any good either.

Again, let me stress how much I hate entitlement based on celebrity genetics. Get famous for your own reason and stop using the excuse of famous parents. I blame you here a little too Will for encouraging your children to follow dreams they’re terrible at. Just let them grow up and work hard for those dreams they probably still wouldn’t accomplish on their own. Then again, if I were Will Smith’s daughter, I’d probably live it up and have three published novels right now. But since I’m not, I have a blog. Sorry guys. 

Brett Favre is single-handedly ruining America

The title for this post is a direct quote from my roommate Clyde. He’s the one that fixed my car, so I trust pretty much whatever he says or does. We were discussing football this morning and this naturally led to talk of Brett Favre’s antics. I should probably just have Clyde come in and do a celebrity post but instead I’ll recap what we talked about and infuse my own feelings. The second he said that Brett is ruining America, I knew I had to defend our country in the best way possible—with a blog that at best, a dozen people read.

I never had a problem with Brett until the past year or two. He was such a fixture when he was with the Packers that I actually respected the man. Sure he was an ego maniac and inflated his accomplishments but he was a great quarterback for the Packers. He’s a legend. I thought he was going to retire. I gave him a nod of approval then and hoped he’d start an awesome charity or ribs restaurant, like all retired football players do. I mean he did that during the regular season—I just figured now that he retired, he’d make a chain. Sadly, this wouldn’t be the last we heard of Brett and everything else after just got worse and pissed me off more.

Brett isn’t the first man to leave something and come back. I remember when Roger Clemens said he was retiring from the Yankees, I went through the same emotions. I was sad he was leaving but gave him a nod because he served the team so well. I’d miss him but wait—just kidding! Clemens came back and played for another team! He lied to me and make a mockery of my Yankees. Just retire when you say you will so people can trust you. But Clemens didn’t make an ass out of himself the way Favre is now.

Brett played for the Jets for a year in 2008 and started off really well. By week 12, the Jets had compiled an 8–3 record.Yet, like the Jets usually do after midseason (sorry Dad and Karen), collapsed in on themselves like a star in a black hole. The Jets lost four of the last five games of the season. This part is the worst, they lost their final game against the Miami Dolphins, who had acquired Chad Pennington after he was released from the Jets to make room for Favre. In those five games, Favre threw eight interceptions and only two touchdown passes, bringing his season total to twenty-two of each. Ouch. Favre, you dashed the hopes of my Dad for another year and I’ll never forgive you. Don’t jerk my Dad around like that. Favre said he was going to retire this time, but then in September 2009, the NFL learned that the Jets were aware that Favre injured his arm, and fined the Jets for not reporting the injury in any of the Jets' five final games. Fuck you Favre. But it just gets worse. He didn’t retire. We’re still stuck with him.

As I’m sure you all know, Favre has been mediocre at best for the Vikings in 2009 and is playing this year. He’s gets hurt more than a hemophiliac thrown into a glass window. He had a ton of consecutive starts and then folds like a cheap table when he’s hurt and ruins the streak. . I’m sick and tired of seeing doctors on MSNBC and CNN show his injuries, like he’s some war victim. He does not merit breaking news status on my news home page. Also, Brett, we all sext. Just don’t get caught. Just in the news today, you allegedly asked this chick, Jenny Sterger for a masturbation video. Ew. You have a wife and kids. Don’t throw it away on some reporter. I can forgive you sucking at football but I can’t forgive you for being a bad husband. Just ask John Edwards. That man could have been President. We all know how this story goes.

Brett, you’re making a mockery of football and by extension, America, because football is America’s game. Stop being news all the time because your look ridiculous. I’m glad Cameron Diaz chose Ben Stiller in ‘There’s Something About Mary’ because you’re a douchebag. Just retire gracefully so I can be done with you. In the words of Clyde, you can go kick rocks. Or pound sand. I forget which one is worse.  

A list of things that pissed me off this week, or a list of things you didn’t ask to hear about but I told you anyways

I bet you see what I did there. I tied Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell into the title of this post. I bet you thought my titles were just pure fluff. The kind of fluff that you turn into adorable stuffed animals and then give to me so I can love them forever and name them. It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die! Anyways, on to more important things that actually have grounding, like the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely thrilled and ecstatic that this stupid law was repealed. I’m just pissed it took so long. I know what a lot of your are thinking that I should just be happy it got repealed at all. But I’m tired of being Pollyannaish. I’m not going to play the glad game when it comes to our country, its armed services and its safety. Instead, I’m going to rant about something that got fixed, or at least will be fixed, only many years too late.

I’m sorry if you all came here to laugh and expected me to post a picture of two female soldiers making out. A) Sometimes I’m serious about the things I care about and B) I couldn't find one on Google’s image search that I liked, even with my parental filter off (you'll understand why I chose the picture I did in a bit). The truth is, I’m upset that idiots like John McCain out there think our country is in danger if we allow openly gay individuals into our military. He picked Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. You think he’s capable of good decisions? And furthermore, you know what puts our country in more danger, John McCain? Not having an army that feels backed and supported by its country.

I couldn’t imagine committing myself to a cause that would let me commit to it, but only if I hid a huge part of my person. Let’s say I could join the army but only if I didn’t tell people I have hypoglycemia. Sure, I could hide the fact I got shafted by my pancreas and have low blood sugar all the time. I could just make up an excuse that I eat all the time because my boyfriend broke up with me and eating heals the open wound that is my heart but that’d be lying about who I am. I’m not ashamed of my condition.  And being gay is no different than my hypoglycemia. I was born that way and quite frankly, having low blood sugar is probably more dangerous than being gay (not that being gay is dangerous) because I pass out if I don’t eat like every fifteen minutes. Seriously. And now I’m out of the blood sugar closet. Man, that feels good to get off my chest. 

Oh right, the reason for my picture. I did Google the phrase "sexy+hypoglycemia" and this piece of eye candy showed up, even though I did search through six pages of results. I know there's a pun in there somewhere with hypoglycemia and candy, just figure it out. Hypoglycemia can be sexy and its sufferers should be treated as human beings. They are not people who just lie there during, um, adult times because they don't have energy to be on top. They're teetering on the brink of a sugar deficient coma. Learn the warning signs and give them a snack, for crying out loud. Didn't George Costanza teach us that a sandwich during sex is erotic? I find the pastrami to be the most sensual of all the salted cured meats.

Back to more important things besides comas and sandwich sex. I hope that anyone who loves this country as much as I do can serve it in the way America deserves to be served. I’m pretty sure our founding fathers didn’t care who was in our armies as long as they hated the Red Coats. As Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided cannot stand” or something to that effect. If we’re too busy bickering about who can be in our military, we miss the larger threat of people who already want to weaken our army…let’s call these people terrorists. I’m pretty sure the leaders of Al Quaeda don’t care if they kill a straight solider or a gay soldier. We’re all Americans in the end and that’s what people need to remember. America may not be perfect but we’re making good albeit slow strides. Plus, if you ladies out there like to make out with girls drunk at a party (and who doesn’t), you should be entitled to serve this country with pride. Just take pictures first.

Anyways, I did promise you a list of grievances, so here is a list of things that do piss me off that didn’t merit a whole blog post: the games of pedestrian Frogger I play when I drive on University/193, the ineptitude of the State of Maryland to deal with a small snow shower, capers on fish and people who cut me in line at CVS when they have triple the items I do. I figured Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was more important. And so is a picture of Ali Larter. She's so misunderstood. 

Now with 500% more Stu! I’m talking about Auto-STUning

I want some sort of catchy title to address my readership. Steven Colbert calls his audience ‘nation’ and I’ll admit, I’m kind of jealous. I don’t think I have anything close to his command on people, although I’d like to think we both make people laugh at our general ridiculousness. I’m going to give it some time and think over a suitable word or phrase that summarizes you all up without using the word friends or readership. Then I kind of feel like a cult leader. Or Mister Rodgers, and I don’t want to even pretend I’m as cool as him.

Anyways compadres, my friend Stu recently called out some love to the blog. Now, I don’t like to mention everyone who says they love my blog because I’m all about promoting me, not you. However, Stu gets an exception. Maybe I love him more than you. That’s entirely possible, since, duh, it’s Stu-bear and he’s adorable. Maybe it’s because Stu is in Israel and far away and I haven’t seen him in forever and I’m getting choked up and DAMNIT CAN YOU GIVE ME A MINUTE AND LET A GROWN WOMAN CRY?

Now that that’s done, thinking about Stu got me thinking about one of our favorite activities—watching ridiculous videos on YouTube. A favorite of Stu’s was AutoTune the News, which I’m sure you might remember from the last presidential primaries and election. Katie Couric repeatedly told us we were on ‘very thin ice’. I personally believe you’re nothing until you’ve been auto-tuned and that’s how you know you’re an official celebrity. It’s like getting your star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Until we heard Antoine Dodson tell us to ‘Hide your kids, Hide your wife’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw) in glorious auto-tune, he was just a small town advocate. Now, you can buy his insightful message on iTunes. Even that double rainbow stoner was auto-tuned. I didn’t take him seriously, due to the drugs, but now that it’s auto-tuned, this guy is my guru.

Auto-tune has been around for a while, but it seems like it’s only been the last couple of years it’s been used to its full potential. A long, comprehensive research project has informed me that Cher was the first person to use Auto-tune, in her 1998 song ‘Believe’. Don’t believe me? It’s all on Wikipedia. There’s also some debate over whether auto-tune ruins the integrity of music but I’m not going to get into Christina Aguilera’s shirt that reads ‘Auto Tune is for Pussies”, however mature her argument might be. Whoever told her Genie in a Bottle would be a good song clearly did it on a dare. That being said, anyone want to see Burlesque? That way I can wrap up these two mentions into a convenient movie of song and dance.

The scope of this post is escaping me as I get bogged down in Wikipedia and movies I want to see. The truth is, chaverim, that auto-tune is popular. Thus, if you’re auto-tuned, you’re popular. T-Pain is a god among mere mortals for creating the renaissance of this technology. He’s the Michelangelo to the music industry. Thus, I compel you, brothers and sisters of the State of Sharon—don’t trust any news you read until it’s been auto-tuned. Don’t listen to anything unless they address you by the word ‘Shawty!’. Seriously—if I lived in New York, I would have voted for Palladino and his Rent is Too Damn High party after his gubernatorial debate speech was auto-tuned. No offense Cuomo, your liberal politics had nothing on his auto-tuned tax cut message. Or that facial hair. Damn.

rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub, yay god!

I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a fatass. I’m kind of like a fat girl trapped inside a skinny girl’s body. Even as I write this, I’m surrounded by a bag of Sun Chips and cheese bourekas. At least I have a diet coke, which pretty much negates anything I’ll eat today. Let’s go back to the Sun Chips, which are the impetus for this blog post.

As many of you may know, some Sun Chips bags are made out of plant based materials. Consequently, they are compostable. I’m an advocate for any measure that saves the planet. I recycle like a fiend, even to the point where I’ll bring home bottles from restaurants that don’t recycle to recycle them on my own. I print on both sides of paper. Heck, I even conserve beer during those epic games of beer pong. But this blog isn’t about glorifying me. I like be conservative and efficient with my resources, as I’m sure many of you remember from my post about bathrooms that do all the work for you. Anyways, the Sun Chips got me thinking about all the foods I love that leave no waste.

One of my favorite restaurants to eat out at is Panera. I enjoy Panera because I am a self proclaimed carb-ivore and everything on their menu is made from bread. Even the bowls. That’s right fellow readers that live under rocks, you can eat soup in a bread bowl. This made me think, which is always dangerous—why can’t we make more things out of bread? Do you know happy I am when I can literally eat everything on my plate? (Aaron Katz will never know this joy, as he is an extreme waster of food).  Bread is the staple food. Suck it, rest of the food pyramid, we all know who makes up 6-11 our servings a day.  It is about time we gave bread some more responsibilities. Maybe we can have bread plates, or cups. Bread frying pans would only leave toast as a byproduct. Delicious.  But bread can’t do it alone.  Why can’t we make more things that are previous inedible, edible? If they can make edible underwear, I don’t understand why we can’t have edible everything else.

As a dangerous solution to this problem, I go back to the Sun Chips. A lot of things, such as those bags, are compostable. I’ve learned the hard way that compostable does not mean edible unless you try hard enough. Those of you who worked with me at Hillel during Sustainability Shabbat will remember me drunkenly trying to eat a compostable fork with little success. Dare I be radical and say all packaging should be edible or at the very least, compostable? I’m fine with my proclamation. There’d be much less waste if everyone could just eat everything. Imagine, if you will, a world where plastic does not exist but everything is wrapped in the same substance that a Fruit Roll-up is made out of. Paper towels could be pitas. Waste would be negligible, as people would just eat everything. The only waste generated is that human waste byproduct of eating too much, i.e. poop.

Do your part, blog readers. Think about your carbon footprint and buy food that you can eat at least 90% of, wrapper and all. If Charlie Kelly can eat stickers all the time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BClZx2W1Hsg) , I don’t see why we can’t eat cellophane.

[and this logic is why I sucked on my LSATs]

Start Me Up? I’ve been started for years…giggity



Last week, I discovered that the bass in my car was on the lowest setting. Since I’m a pretty down and dirty person, I decided to crank it up to the max. Now, my car is downright gangster in sound. A thumping bass is the optimal setting for all these new songs that come out, especially by one of my favorite groups, the Black Eyed Peas. I’m not sure if you’ve heard one of their newer songs, The Time (Dirty Bit) but that song combines two of my favorite things: lyrics from the movie Dirty Dancing and downright dirty lyrics.

Closer scrutiny of the song in my rocking commute today led me to find the following lyric: “All these girls they like my swagger/ They call me Mick Jagger”. Interesting rhyme, and for those of you who don’t listen to HOT99.5 24/7 like I do, Ke$ha’s made the same rhyme in her timeless song TikTok: “Now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger/ But we kick 'em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger”. This makes me wonder—is Mick Jagger aware that he’s suddenly being name dropped in hit music? Does he care? Does he know he has swagger? Does he even know what that is? But more importantly, did he know I wanted him before all these poser pop musicians did?

That’s right, I liked Mick Jagger in that way before it was acceptable to in Top 40 songs. I know that he looks like a crack addicted scarecrow but there’s something about him that makes me weak in the knees. I’ve had a thing for Mick ever since I hit my teens and I didn’t know why until now—I was the first to understand and fall in lust with his swagger.

What exactly is swagger, anyways? I decided to consult my two top reference dictionaries: The Oxford English Dictionary and Urban Dictionary. The former defines swagger as: “The action of swaggering [way to go OED, using the word you're defining in the defintion] ; external conduct or personal behaviour marked by an air of superiority or defiant or insolent disregard of others” The most thumbs-upped definition on Urban Dictionary proclaims that swagger is: “How one presents him or her self to the world. Swagger is shown from how the person handles a situation. It can also be shown in the person's walk”. Interestingly, swagger has turned into something to admire, to emulate, but to ultimately respect. In this day and age, I guess you’re supposed to party with anyone with swagger (or who can provide free booze, which probably is part of the swagger anyways).

You hear the word swagger dropped in a lot of songs now. People throw it in their speech to describer some baller at a club. It went from a word used in a piece of Swift’s literature (A New Song on Wood’s Halfpence) to a T.I. rap song (Swagger Like Us). Do I have a point with this? I guess it’s just to say, move bitch, get out the way to Ke$ha and GTFO to the Black Eyed Peas. I liked Mick Jagger’s swagger before it was a compelling rhyme and a topical phrase. I like him for the rocker he is. Plus, I hear he’s single.

NO TOUCHING!

Hi all. Sorry I haven't updated in a week. I bet you all missed my drivel on notaries and feminism. I was out having this thing called a life, which included being on site for a big work deal with the government and, ::gasp:: getting sick. But wait...doesn't Sharon not believe in germs? On numerous occasions, I have proclaimed my disbelief in germs. I still maintain that. I believe my sickness was similar to that of a phoenix's rebirth. My fever was just me shedding my feathers to be reborn from my ashes...I mean the bed I stayed in for two days watching reruns of Frasier.

Back on to life. Let's face it, I spend a lot of time talking about things I don't like--women, children, basically anyone who would have been saved on the Titanic. However, I want to talk about something I do like--efficient public bathrooms. I still don't believe in germs but I like bathrooms where I don't come in contact with anything a human touches. Quite simply, I like a bathroom where it does all the work for me, besides you know, actually going to the bathroom for me.

When it comes to using the bathroom, I like when the experience opens doors for me. Literally. I love bathrooms that have automatic doors where I don't touch door handles. I'm not savvy with this push or pull door phenomenon. Also, I like toilets that have automatic flushers.  So what if it flushes before I'm done? It's courtesy. I don't want to look at my pee any more than the toilet wants it in there. You know what I really love? I love the hands-free handwashing experience. Nothing gives me a bigger thrill than when I can hit the big trifecta--automatic sinks with faucets, automatic soap dispensers and the automatic paper towel dispenser or those high tech Dyson hand dryers. How great is it when your hands are just washed for you, and all you have to do is wave your hands by sensors like some game of hygienic chicken to get what you need. In Soviet Russia, hands wash you! Nope, not anymore Yaakov Smirnoff. Today, I hit the trifecta with my on-site visit for work. In American government bathrooms, hands wash you. (Michael Kowalchuk, please don't use this as a springboard to compare/contrast our government to Soviet Russia)

I don't want to come across as lazy. I mean, I am but I don't want to be called it in a nasty Facebook comment. I probably will. I guess it just gives me a little feeling of joy when something mundane is done for me. How great would it be if we could apply the same technology into picking out an outfit or taking out the garbage? It's the little things in life.

PS-sorry there is not hot girl on this post. For one reason, I decided I want people to read for my ideas, not my sexy eye candy. Also, as much as some people might want it, I'm not posting a picture of a hot girl taking a dump. Girls don't poop anyways. It's science.