This might be my favorite movie review ever

On Meet the Spartans:

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

Oh. Shit.

So, Kyle has what I had earlier in the month -- the "death flu," as he's taken to calling it. Last night, I stayed up with him 'till 4 a.m., rubbing his shoulders and listening to him moan about achy bones and such. It was no biggie, after all, I worked 13.5 hours that day and was still revved up from a late-night council meeting. That, and wide awake after looking up scary nutritional info on some of my fast-food choices. Like, those small onion rings at Burger King? They're a relatively not-so-terrible 140 calories. That "zesty sauce" offered by the employee at the window to go with said onion rings? Uh, that was 150 calories. Shit. But I digress.

Anyway, my plan after that late night was to sleep late today. That didn't quite work out as planned. I woke up around 9 a.m., rolled over, and ... sniffed. I smelled something that smelled suspiciously like cat poop. And then I turned my head a little bit more and saw it. It looked like a Twix bar. But it was not a delicious chocolatey treat. The cat had shat on our white, 700-thread-count sheets just inches from my face. Shit. Shit. Shit.

So, I hauled myself out of the bed, pried the (thankfully) solid poo off the fabric, stripped the bed, remade it and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I lazed around after that and stayed in bed until past noon. I needed to haul my carcass out of bed for a scheduled lunch meeting, and just as I was about to leave, I noticed it. The cat had vomited -- twice! -- on my nice vintage couch. SHIT. And we were out of paper towels. And all but a drizzle of pet stain remover. I sprayed what I could and used some Jersey Mike's napkins stashed in a kitchen drawer to do what I could before I left for the lunch. Lunch was good -- happily, it involved no shit- or vomit-related incidents.

Later, there was a meeting, more Kyle-related care-taking, some cabbage soup-eating, TV-watching and internet-surfing. Happily, there was no more shitting.

Oh, and an update: I just discovered that I destroyed my favorite brown pants yesterday when I accidentally left a permanent marker uncapped in my pocket. Sheeeeit.

Hillary Clinton = Tracy Flick?

The evidence is pretty damning, huh?

Quirky? I'll give ya quirky

Maybe. I have a hard time distinguishing what is quirky from what is regular. But here goes (I hope you're happy, Teet). Here are six of my quirks:

1.) I like to sort of disassemble Twix and Three Musketeers bars as I eat them. Namely, with a Twix, I like to peel off the chocolatey layers before then gnawing off the caramel layer and, finally the cookie. It's similar with a Three Musketeers bar: first goes the chocolate outside, then the cloud-like nougaty innards.

2.) I won an NFL alumni scholarship for scholar-athletes for my freshman year of college, thanks to my high school academic prowess and my time on the tennis courts. This had nothing to do with my beloved guidance counselor being married to an ex-NFL player, obviously.

3.) Home keys? What are they? I cannot type properly. I never took typing, home ec or shop in middle school because I was allowed to take art instead, and and I never took it in high school because the teacher was a heinous biznatch. This may have been a mistake.

4.) My highest-paying job per-hour remains my time tutoring kids for the SAT. Who knew a test I took on a Saturday morning my junior year of high school would have a more beneficial impact on my career than would my college diploma?

5.) In middle school, my music of choice was gangsta rap. I owned two Oakland Raiders shirts. And an ankh necklace. They were rad. West Coast for life!

6.) When my hands are cold at home, I will stick them in the dog or cat's legpits to warm them. I am not proud of this. Nor are the animals.

Oh, and since I'm not convinced that more than two people read this, I will forgo the tagging. Unless you are indeed reading this and have not yet replied, in which case

Tag. You're it.

Oh, and there's this

Ahem.

103.3

That was my temperature Sunday night after I woozily dragged myself out of the steaming hot bathtub. Said bathtub had been the only thing stopping me from being overcome with violent shivers, but perhaps poaching myself in the tub wasn't the best idea, ever. Once my core temperature had settled down, it registered a less hospital emergency-room worthy 102 degrees, according to my semi-reliable Kroger brand thermometer. I shivered and shook and tossed and turned Sunday, and by Monday, it was irrefutable: my seven-month not-getting-sick streak was over. And then Tuesday, it got worse. My voice was little more than a strained whisper. I couldn't breathe properly when I tried -- and failed -- to sleep, and when I gazed in the mirror, thinking that perhaps I'd spot a swollen tonsil, I noticed that my uvula was resting on my tongue. Troubling.

So, yeah, I went to the doctor's office the next day. A strep test came up negative, but my temperature was still strong at 102, so it was time for drugs. Nothing fun, just some antibiotics in case I actually *do* have strep, and some Tamiflu to hopefully shorten the course of my treatment if it was indeed flu I was afflicted with. So far, so good: I slept better last night (although the double dose of Tylenol PM didn't hurt, either) and my uvula seems to have returned to its normal size. I'm still hacking up globby, gelatinous pieces of goo from my lungs, but sometimes I can almost talk like a normal person, so, yeah, things seem to be improving. My dad brought me soup and Orangina (oooh, and some cough syrup with codeine) earlier tonight, and the plan is to veg out to some Law & Order and let the healing begin. I guess I'll truly know that everything is back to normal when Kyle and I can share the same bed (he's been sleeping in the guest room to stay away from my cooties, and so I can toss and turn at will). Someday.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I'm pretty sure the kitty has asthma. Do they make cat-sized CPAPs? In any regard, the sound of her wheezing snore is loud enough to be heard over the whir of the laptop and the television.

In other cat-related news, Rosa (when she's not snoring into the couch cushions) has discovered that the laptop is the lurve of her life. Whenever I'm tip-tapping away on it while reclined on the couch, Rosa will do her damnedest to make her way from a perch on my stomach to a seat directly on the keyboard. It's annoying, but it has honed my ability to touch-type. Anyhoodle, today I was, as the kids call it, "surfing the 'net" when I noticed Miss Kitty, who was pressed up against my side, staring at the screen. And then I tried an experiment. Rosa loves chasing the light of a laser pointer. Would she do the same for the cursor?

Oh, yes. Yes she would. So, I spent a goodly chunk of my afternoon moving the cursor around the screen and watching Rosa periodically attempting to smash it under her paw. Good times.

In other news ... I, uh, am totally satisfied with my life, my finances, my job? HAHAHA! Early April Fool's!

Um, probably the highlights of this week were, on Thursday, getting a tour of the outer reaches of our office's warehouse area, where we saw vats of ink, towering stacks of rolled newsprint and the Rube Goldberg-esque contraption that prints our publications. Pretty neat-o. Oh, and the coffee vending machine was giving out free drinks for some reason, so I got a tongue-searing cup of hot chocolate. Yum. Yesterday (also known as Friday), I went out with coworkers, a former coworker and a soon-to-be-former coworker. We drank, ate Mexican fusion food and played a rousing game of "Would you rather ... ?" The less said about that, the better.

Oh, and I did some wedding stuff last weekend. After I finish this o-so-exciting entry, I will head over here for an update.

I swear, original content's a comin'

But until then, I again must raid the Gawker media empire (this time for my favorite, Jezebel) with this.

May all of 2008 be like this

Today started off rough -- I slipped and fell on the snow, my engagement ring flew off my finger, hit the cement and rolled into the white, white snow -- but has steadily improved. After just over an hour of searching and sifting snow in the kitchen sink, I found the ring, and then I came to work and discovered this on The Internets. Things are starting to look up.

Hmmm ... and today is Wednesday. I'm not sure what's up with that time stamp.

And now I fixed it! (But I'm still just talking to myself.)