Sexist Commercial Alert

Both of the sexist commercials are for pizza. What's the deal? Disclaimer: I don't remember the exact wording of the dialogue in the commercials, but believe me when I say it is true to the spirit.
Sexist Commercial #1 is for DiGiorno. A man and his buddies are sitting out on his lawn in chairs watching "the game" on a TV out there. His wife pulls up in a minivan and walks by carrying the groceries. The man sees the pizza sticking out of the top. "Hey, let's order a pizza," he says to his buddies. He pulls out his cell phone and calls his wife in the kitchen.
"Yes, I'd like to order a pizza."
"Bob, is that you?"
"Of course. Put everything on it!" His buddies smile at his aggressive and manly tone.
"But, Bob--"
"And make it snappy!" he barks and hangs up.
The woman gasps in disbelief.
Cut to the men EATING THEIR PIZZA! She brought it to them! I hope she put arsenic on it. She then turns on the sprinklers to get back at them, but they sit there calmly eating their pizza, cuz dang it's so good. She throws up her hands and goes back inside the kitchen (where she belongs, of course).
Perhaps she is going to file for divorce.
Sexist Commercial #2 is for Pizza Hut. A woman wearing pearls sits primly at a nice dining room table.
"My husband loves to eat Pizza Hut Pizza. Of course, I just sit there, eating a small salad." She pauses and looks around furtively. "Well, sometimes I have a piece, but just a small one." She pulls a piece of pizza out from under the table. "See how small it is?" She takes a bite. "It's veggie, I swear."
AHHHH! So now, not only are we supposed to cook pizza and serve it to our man, but we're not even supposed to be eating it?
I suffer.

Packin' Up

Last night I packed all the books I am keeping into one small box. We are hoping that this General Delivery business works out and we can ship all our heavy stuff pretty cheaply to San Francisco.
Joe went through his bookshelf too. It is four times the size of mine, plus a few random pils throughout the house. It took him until 1 a.m., but I'm glad it's done. Now we have YES piles that need to be packed into boxes, MAYBE piles that we will have to go through again, and NO piles. I'm going to take a bag of the most decent looking NO books to try to sell to the Strand. Everything else will be first picked over by our friends and then donated to the library around the corner.
The rental car is reserved and we got the whole insurance business figured out. Plans are in motion.

New Journal

So I've decided to start up a Live Journal. It's basically the same thing as a blog, but the Live Journal Community is much more active. Some of the posts will be the same, some will not. I am going to try to focus more on reading and writing in the Live Journal posts, but it will be about random stuff too. Some day I will probably quit one or the other. Here's the link if you want to check it out: http://jasminesmith.livejournal.com/

Midgets & Balloons

My brain is gone. Fried. Zip. Running around NYC in 90 degree weather will do that to you.
Saturday we went to Chinatown and ate Dim Sum, which is WAY fun and I can't believe I've never done it before. It's this huge echoing room, swarming with Chinese families. Women push carts of food around and you wave and point to get some. She doesn't usually speak English, so you don't know what you're getting, but it doesn't matter because it's all delicious.
Later we went to a concert in Central Park. It's sort of an odd set-up. You can sit on metal bleachers in back, or park yourself in the sun on the green-rug-covered cement ground in front of the stage. Which is probably perfect if you're going to see the Flaming Lips or something, but for chill concerts like this it's mildly uncomfortable. Still, I loved Ollabelle, the middle band. Bluegrassy, twangy, gospel with strong vocals.
That night we ate at Big Nick's. I exhausted my parents by making them walk there, but it was all worth it because those burgers are the king of all ground meat--huge, messy and delicious. Even my mom was talking about it for days.
The next day we saw a photography exhibit, which was nice if a bit skimpy. But luckily outside was a street fair that filled 6th Avenue from 34th street all the way up to 59th. I bought a giant yellow starlet-on-the-beach hat, which still did not prevent me from almost stroking out. I was not made for warm weather. My mom bought more jewelery and my dad, after all three of us were accosted by a band of Chinese masseuse-ninjas, got a ten-minute massage for Father's Day. We ate food on the street and then headed for Cirque Du Soleil. Some ups and downs, but overall pretty neat. Highlight: a midget in a harness hung from 5 giant ballons. The main character flung her into the audience and she bounced around. Whenever she started to come down, the audience would push her back up and she would float around the ceiling for a minute. Ah, surrealism.

Parental Unit Plans

What to do with my parents this weekend? I don't even know what time they get in Thursday night, but some sushi eating or, at the very least, wine-tasting at Vintage will be in order.
Friday: Put them on a Grayline Bus, those red double-decker monsters that cruise NYC. They can do an All-Loops tour, or just Brooklyn, or just Uptown (cuz they've pretty much seen all of Downtown) or one of the specialty tours. I have to work all day, but the earliest bus leaves at 8 am, and there's even a night tour that leaves at 5:45 pm, so they're covered.
On Saturday, there is the Renegade Craft Fair. It could be interesting, but I've never been to it, and it's in sort of an odd part of Brooklyn. Later in Prospect Park, Laurie Anderson and the Tuvan throat singers of CHIRGILCHIN are performing for FREE at 7:30pm. You know you wanna hear the throat singers.
The rest of Saturday is pretty wide open for now.
Sunday, of course, is Cirque du Soleil at 5 pm. We'll probably have brunch at Barney Greengrass (the Sturgeon King) and find some other relaxing afternoon activity.
Monday might be a museum day, including the Cloisters if they didn't get to see it on their bus tour. Other ideas for Monday will pop up over the weekend, I'm sure. Most Broadway shows do not play on Mondays, so if we want to see a show, Saturday would be the day to do it.
That's all for now. More ideas to come.

I ate half a pig

The Big Apple BBQ was this weekend, and I can't believe I ate the whole thing. We got there at 11 a.m. and they don't even start serving until noon. That's not the amazing thing. The amazing thing is that we weren't anywhere near first in line. I tried four different sandwiches (I swear I shared them all with my friend, though the boy didn't). My favorite was Ed Mitchell's Whole Hog. We watched them haul entire hogs into the tent, tear them apart, mix the meat with salt, cider vinegar and mysterious spices, all while Ed Mitchell himself had his hands in it up to his elbows (he was wearing wicked black rubber gloves) and mixed like crazy. Later there was a sausage-and-brisket sandwich, ribs, and pulled pork.
It's not up yet, but I'm sure Joe will write a more extensive account of the BBQ soon.
I got exactly zero writing done this weekend. BBQ+cleaning because my parents coming next weekend and the landlord is showing our apartment this week+planning a move to the other side of the country in 6 weeks+a pity dinner with the gang because Iran lost to Mexico in the world cup=zero writing.

Cop Rock

As I was walking home yesterday, I saw a cop standing next to a taxi and screaming at the driver.
Cop: You cut me off!
Driver: But (incomprehensible argument here)
Cop: No! You don't understand! Traffic does not make it okay for you to cut me off!
A crowd was gathering around to watch the spectacle this cop was making of himself. Aren't Police Officers supposed to set an example for the rest of us? What good does getting angry do, especially when you have the upper-hand of power anyways? This cop didn't realize that by arguing, he was undercutting his own authority. By allowing the driver to argue with him, he was suggesting that the driver even had an arguement to make. Here is how it should have gone:
Cop: You cut me off, sir. Here's your ticket. Have a great day.
Driver: (Gives him incomprehensible lip)
Cop: Here's another ticket, sir, for giving me lip. Give me any more, and I'll have to double your fine and/or arrest you. Again, have a great day.
It's the same with kids (so my mom tells me). When you say something is a law--uh, I mean, rule--it just is. Let them argue with you, and you are suggesting that their arguement is valid. Kids only whine when they think they have a shot at winning. I wasn't much of a whiner, for a very good reason. I never won.
I'm pretty sure God works the same way too, in case you were wondering. You can beg and whine, but all you'll get is what you deserve. He doesn't make deals. He doesn't take your arguement into consideration, no matter how well you defend your side. It would undercut his authority.

Six Years of My Life for this Purpose

I've done it! It's done! My novel is finally done! I just finished typing the last chapter. It's all there and it's glorious.
Of course, I haven't quite figured out how they defeat the trolls in the mountains just yet. I just kinda summarized parts of that chapter. And the beginning is too choppy, and there are all kinds of inconsistencies throughout the whole thing. Plus it's WAY too long. Right now it tops out at about 91,800 words. Unless you're J.K. Rowling, editors won't even consider anything over 80,000, preferably 60,000 for YA novels, like mine. But cutting is easier than adding, and heck, it's done!
Well...so I guess I'll go get drunk now.