Diet and Exercise: Sucks.

Lately I have been dieting and getting back into my ol’ fitness routine and I must say it is exhausting. I have no spare time between working out and actually cooking my food instead of picking something up from taco bell. I have no time and get nothing accomplished other than sweating for the most g-rated and boring reasons ever.

Upon getting back into the gym I noticed:
1) People work out in their street clothes. This is annoying. When I look over and there is a guy on the treadmill next to me wearing khakis, a sweater and drinking an energy drink while running, I can only assume he doesn’t speak english. Just seems like a foreigner thing to do, no?
2) Women like to walk around aimlessly doing super light sets while their husbands/boyfriends workout. I wonder if these women are just there to keep an eye on their mates or if they just really are clueless as to how to exercise.

The drive to and from the gym is lined with temptations. There is a Burger King, McDonalds, Taco Bell, KFC, Checkers, Wendy’s, Little Ceasars and Dunkin Donuts. This fucking gym is only a 5 minute drive from my house and all of those things happen to be on the way. Worst place to build a gym. After going and working up an appetite I have to drive past all of these places and go home to make myself cottage cheese and oats pancakes with turkey bacon. Booooooooooo!

I am good and I eat clean and healthy but for fucks sake, I want a cookie. I want to lose 20 pounds by the new year though so I resist and power through. Blahblahblahinspiration. The fat die happy…

Hip Hop Artists: Stealing Rockstardom from Rock Music

I’ve always enjoyed hip hop music, much to most people’s surprise. I have an extremely eclectic taste in music. But the last thing people ever seem to expect I’d like would be hip hop. For the longest time I only was into underground hip hop stuff from the likes of Non Phixion, Cage and so on. A few years ago when I started belly dancing, I found myself appreciate even mainstream hip hop for it’s dance-ability, which is sort of embarrassing to admit.

Dude already looked creepy...

The other day I was listening to the song “Wasted” by Gucci Mane. I sing along to it in my car, probably looking the whitest I’ve ever looked in my life, and I started thinking about his face tattoo he got a while back. For those who don’t know, he got a face tattoo of an ice cream cone that says “Brrr”. When asked why he got it, he said he wanted something that was “rock n roll”. Yeah. That ice cream shit is fuckin’ heavy, man. But then I started thinking, a lot of these rappers really are embracing old school rock n roll life styles, especially Gucci Mane. They are the new rock stars and good old fashion rock stars don’t really seem to exist anymore.

When you think of rock stars, you think of drugs, alcohol, groupies, partying and openness about all of it. Or at least just being wild and crazy on stage and having fun with it. I honestly can’t think of any rock musicians who embrace this sort of persona or lifestyle, although Juliette Lewis does kind of come to mind. There may be a few here or there, but hip hop artists are embracing this with a vengeance. They’ve even released songs like Party Like A Rock Star and Prom Queen, obviously inspired by rock n roll lifestyles or music. Party Like A Rock Star is so cheesy and it’s obvious their idea of a “rock star” comes from 1980′s fictitious cartoon rock stars. Here are some lyrics from Party Like A Rock Star:

Me & my band man/ on the yacht wit Marilyn Manson / Gettin a tan man!

Marilyn Manson…getting a tan on a yacht. I can only assume they have never seen the man if they could even imagine him tanning.

You know me / Wit a skull belt & wallet chain / Shop Boyz rockstars / Yeah we bout to change the game

This song is from 2007, not 1997, so there is no excuse for them thinking people still wear wallet chains. As far as the skull belt goes, Hot Topic has ruined black peoples idea of white people fashion, officially. Old school, real rock stars, never wore skulls. Hot Topic, nu metal guys probably do. Because they suck.

Then the next verse is something mentioning The Osbournes and Travis Barkers reality tv show. Travis Barker is who all hip hop people seem to think is a “rock star”. He is in a band, plays an instrument, and has tattoos but as far as I can tell he is far from living a rock n roll lifestyle. I hate Travis Barker, mostly because back in a High School art class, I was drawing a picture of Robert Dinero in Taxi Driver, my favorite movie, and everyone thought it was Travis Barker. That wasn’t cool.

Anyways!

The last verse of the song goes something like this:

white bitches wanna marry me /they see me they just might panic / my ice make em go down quick / like the titanic / yeah i’m wit da shop boyz / you know what we do / i’m surfin screamin kowabonga / TOTALLY DUDE!

At this point they just turn into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But we did get a history lesson, so that’s what counts.

Lil Wayne has put out several songs featuring different styles inspired by rock or pop-punk(ugh) and has apparently taken up Skateboarding. Listening to his music, he doesn’t talk about drugs or drinking as much as he does sex and he doesn’t talk about any of those topics nearly as much as some other rappers do. But he is still very big on portraying the rock star image in his videos and performances. I enjoy watching him play one chord on a guitar for 5 seconds during a live performance and then putting the guitar down to run around head banging. A+ for effort, Wayne.

And then there are the likes of Tyler The Creator, who is a hip hop artist who has made a name for himself and, while still not having completely broken into the mainstream, has managed to win an MTV music award(probably the easiest award to ever get, but still). He brings a much more punk rock mentality to his persona. He doesn’t go with the norms of the hip hop community, as far as I can tell. I have only heard a few songs by him but none mentioned large abundances of money or his own name multiple times or anything like that. I’ve seen a few interviews with him and he seems to like getting a rise out of people by being a brat in general, which is pretty punk rock. He is far from sir Iggy Pop, though.

This isn't a rock star.

All in all, I think we need more real rock stars. Our generation will not be looking back at amazing rock legends. People with instruments and drug problems with memoirs of stories with other legends. We are lacking in fucked up people entertaining us, out side of the box of reality tv or the occasional bum fight downtown. Give your kids guitars and glue to sniff and make the next generation count!

Meat Eater Guilt: Vegetarian Envy

This is just sort of a rant that started in my head when I was checking some products I bought recently to see if they were cruelty free, just out of curiosity.

I envy vegetarians and vegans. Such discipline and dedication. It seems like common sense to not want to murder and eat and wear dead animals. When you really think about, it just seems like the right thing to do. I don’t consider myself an animal lover by any means. I have 2 cats and I had a dog once but that’s it. I still think possums and ferrets are totally disgusting to look at and I think if we didn’t eat chickens or their eggs or cows and their milk, as vegans would wish, then they would probably be extinct. They aren’t cute enough to survive.

I will probably never understand people who hunt animals though. Why? The grocery store has what you’re looking for, without all the work. In this hillbilly town you do see alot of people at the grocery store in camouflage though so maybe they are catching on.

I eat meat. I feel guilty about it, but not enough to stop on account of all the animals I eat aren’t cute and cuddly enough to tug my hearts strings. I know, I know. I’ve actually tried being vegetarian before. On multiple occasions. Each occasion only lasts for a week or so. I like vegetables and fruit and so on but I could never eat enough it seemed and it got sort of expensive. I do eat alot of raw foods though. I never cook my vegetables because I find cooked vegetables, for lack of a better word, yucky.

I go days without eating meat. It’s not a big deal. I probably only eat meat really like 4 days a week or so. But to go on forever with none? I don’t know. Has anyone out there ever tried the fake vegetarian meat alternative things? I didn’t expect them to taste totally like the real thing but they never tasted like anything that should be consumed by human beings.

I also call bullshit on people who point out that people have been eating meat since forever. Alot of shit has changed since forever ago. People also use to shit wherever and kill their children if they were born female. We are more civilized now, are we not? People know about nutrition now and we have stores full of options upon options of food. We don’t need meat. We are accustomed to it. To act as if it is anything more than just being something we are use to eating is bullshit and nothing more.

I wish I could be vegetarian though. I am sure I will make more attempts at it in the future, and maybe one day it will stick, but in the mean time I will enjoy bacon.

(P.S. I wrote this on my phone from work, so pardon the all over the place nature of my rant and any mistakes.)

Microwaves: The Magic Machine of Infinite Wonder

I love the microwave. This has to be the greatest invention in the history of man kind. To think, I can simply throw something into this electric box, walk away, and have it be cooked in just two minutes? That’s called a miracle, people. And there are some people who just don’t appreciate it.

Now, I don’t cook. I actually don’t know that I have ever cooked something that 1)isn’t microwavable or 2)frozen and just need thrown in the oven. That’s how I roll. My boyfriend on the other hand enjoys cooking. He shuns the microwave. He hates when I use it and wishes we didn’t even have one. Before I met him, I had never even thought of the idea of a can of chili or spaghetti-o’s being cooked in a pot on the stove top. It had just never crossed my mind at all. Those things are microwavable. Why wait 10 mins or so when it can be done in 2? It just seems so logical in my mind. I don’t generally taste a difference in chili or spaghetti-o’s or anything like that when it comes to microwave vs oven. Some things like pizza bites, I can tell a difference, but not enough to bother me.

Microwaves, I love you. You make my popcorn, my soup, my hot pockets and occasionally you heat up muffins and left overs in a way no other counter top device can. You will always be a part of my lift and my kitchen. Together till the end.

Anyone who doesn’t appreciate such a crazy amazing machine is obviously a nazi or 1950′s high school comic book bully.

Things I Don’t Get: Concerts

I go to a decent amount of concerts. Usually for bands I like. But honestly, I just don’t care about seeing bands play live. My boyfriend loves going to shows so usually we go because of him. I don’t get the appeal. It is merely a band playing songs live…the same songs I can listen to in my car on the drive to the show.

Is it a starstruck-seeing-famous/semifamous/notfamousbutjustliveinanotherstate-people thing? I don’t get it! I go to shows, and I have an ok enough time but I think I’m too old in my 24 years of life. I just think in my brain “Ugh, parking.” “Oh great, the opening band is _____, wonderful” “Do I seriously have to stand behind this 7ft tall guy?!” “Why is this drunk girl dancing to undanceable music?” “Oh great, an encore…now I have to stand even longer”. I never verbalize this and I’ll chill like I’ve been chillin’ my whole life so as to not spoil anyone’s fun, but in my mind I’m just waiting for it to be over. At this point in my old age, if I’m not hanging on the barricade at the front of the stage with no one in front of me but security, I’m gonna chill in the back, out of the sweaty, drunk, uncomfortable crowd.

One time when I was at a show in L.A. seeing a band that is too embarrassing to mention, I grabbed the setlist and instantly this old slut hag who was their with her junior slut hag grabbed it out of my hand and took off. Already I had to deal with being in L.A., where dreams are crushed and the air is dirt, but then I had to deal with this lady too? Not on my agenda, so I took after her and swung and missed, she hit me with a shoe, which resulted in a fat lip, and then I got a good hit right to her face. We were pulled apart. Then some other uninvolved drunk girl was yelling at me about how fucked up it was of me to do that while her boyfriend did the “sorry about my sloppy drunk annoying girlfriend” shrug. Then upon exiting the facility, without setlist, we see the woman running around looking for me. Never realizing I’m in the middle of the circle she was running in. My company escorted me out of the area for fear of police action since they were driving around at the time.

I probably just need to punch old wannabe groupies when I go to shows just to feel like I’m doing something while I’m there instead of just standing while other people simultaneously stand while all staring in one direction.

GWAR always puts on a good show. They are probably the only band that I make an effort of going to see and probably the only time I don’t mind an alien from planet Scumdogia spraying blood and sperm all over me.

Last time I saw Danzig, I was on the barricade right up front, no one to block my view, no sweaty gross person who’s fumes I’d have to inhale. It was going good. There was some white trash woman, with her tits almost out, with her husband right next to me. Throughout the show, there was this guy behind us some, who’s hand was reaching up toward the stage. In this action he kept hitting our faces. Her husband told him to stop touching his wife and blahblah. Guy keeps doing it, the woman turns around and clocks him. Ok, whatever. His hand reappears. I look over and she is gnawing on his hand like an animal. As soon as my eyes hit this site I hear my boyfriend yell with glee “She’s fucking biting him!”

These are people that go to concerts. While watching a woman violently gnaw on a man while see Danzig frogdance with his nipples poking out of a fishnet shirt makes for a great memory, I can’t help but want to avoid these sorts of people at all costs.

Memories: I Was A Grade School Asshole

The other day I was recalling some memories. These particular memories were about my friends and I’s actions toward a certain girl who went to school with us in grade school. We didn’t torture her and we weren’t necessarily cruel to her. But looking back we were just assholes.

This girl, Mary, was in the same grade as us and went to school with us from kindergarten to graduation day. It all started in elementary school. My mom was friends with her mom so her and her siblings would come over to our house sometimes to visit. I wouldn’t allow her in my room and I wouldn’t play with her. She was nerdy and awkward and her mom was a bitch so I didn’t want to be associated with her. I was a chubby little girl who loved history and architecture so I wasn’t very cool either but being friends with her certainly wouldn’t help my case. So I avoided this girl like the plague.

At one point a few friends and I decided to put an end to her constant attempts to befriend us. We all gathered near the swing sets and came up with a plan. We would simply tell her that we didn’t want to be her friend because she was weird and twiddled her thumbs and had weird hand twitches. So we all walked up to her at our 2nd recess and said “Mary, we just want you to know that we don’t want to be your friends. You’re nice, but you are weird and you twiddle your thumbs and have weird hand twitches.” She put her head down and just said “Ok” and we thought it was over. We had just done her a favor and she wouldn’t continue to waste her valuable time attempting to spark friendships with us. We all walked away looking at one another with very accomplished grins. We were so proud of ourselves for putting an end to the problem.

A year later, we were in fifth grade. The class had a little project, to find a partner and make friendship bracelets for each other. I was absent the day they picked partners. So was Mary. So the next day when I got to class they started continuing their project. My teacher then came over to me and said “Since you weren’t here yesterday, you can be partners with Mary because she doesn’t have a partner either.” I looked across the room at the girl with the horrible mom-did-it hair cut, mousy face and thick coke bottle glasses and then looked back at my teacher and said “I just won’t do the project” The teacher couldn’t believe me. She got more stern with me. “Jessica, you need to do this project for a grade. Don’t be rude!” and I said “I will not be Mary’s partner! She isn’t my friend so why would I make her a friendship bracelet?!?” as I crossed my arms. Mary definitely heard me. She had to make a friendship bracelet for herself that day.

Flash forward to 11th grade. I ended up getting assigned to sit right next to Mary. By this time I didn’t hold the same attitude towards people, but I was sure she probably hated me. Nope. She was still awkward and nerdy(in a reaaaally not cool way) and weird, but she talked to me like I had never said a mean thing in my life. I found myself constantly telling her about all these embarrassing things that have happened to me. I think that was my way of dealing with my guilt over being so mean to her.

I’ve seen her since high school once. She had a baby and got married to another kid we grew up with who was even weirder than her. Good for her.

Greg Kinnear: Why Does He Exist?

Today I was talking about Talk Soup with someone and we were talking about how it was so much better when it was about smutty talk shows. Then we got to talking about all the hosts the show has had. One of us mentioned that Greg Kinnear had hosted before. The whole way home I was thinking about Greg Kinnear and his career. Has the man ever made a movie that has you walking away from it like “Greg Kinnear, man. That guy is good!”??? You never really walk away hating him either. You never catch yourself saying “Man, I can’t stand Greg Kinnear. That guy sucks!”

Obviously these are just my own opinions, but this is weird. I pulled up his IMDB page to take a look at all of the movies he’s been in. I can’t say that anything really stood out to me. I mean, there are some good movies in there, but none where I would of even remembered he was in. Plus I think it’s weird that his face is in a constant state of:

One of three faces Greg Kinnear can make.

He never really seems to play a character. He usually plays just a guy who does stuff and knows people and has stuff to say sometimes. Sometimes he’ll use some subtle sarcasm and place a smirk on his face and then the credits roll. He has 46 roles to his name, including his tv spots, and the guy hasn’t had a real stand out roll. This whole thing freaks me out. This picture of him also freaks me out:

Ladies?

Maybe if he had a beard…

If he never became an actor, would the world of film be different? There are other actors like this. First that came to mind was Bill Pullman, but now that I think of it, he was in Casper the movie and that movie was AWESOME and he was a ghost in it at one point, which pretty sweet.

I don’t know that it looks much like him but as a kid I totally knew it was Bill Pullman’s ghost. Can you imagine if Bill Pullman was a ghost that haunted you? Better than Devan Sawa or whatever the hell that kids name was. I suggest that M. Night Shamalamadingdong should write a movie where Bill Pullman’s ghost haunts Greg Kinnear and the twist ending is that Bill Pullman isn’t really a ghost, he just got sucked into Greg Kinnears mind via some sort of vortex like in Being John Malkovich. Then Greg Kinnear goes into his own vortex and experiences the same outcome as when John Malkovich did it.

Malkovich Malkovich? Malkovich.

Except they will all be legit male Greg Kinnear’s but they will be in a constant state of arousal. And in this world where only Greg Kinnear’s live, they have no option but to have sex with one another. All sorts of Greg Kinnear sex. Then when he wakes out of this vortex, he is gay for Bill Pullman and they get married.

And boom! Hollyweird will be knocking at my door some day. Where did this all start? Oh yeah, Greg Kinnear. Weird guy.

Tupac Sextape: Just Die Already

I just heard on the radio something about a Tupac sextape that is going to be released. In the video he allegedly is receiving oral while listening to his own music and singing along in a living room, with other people present, with a drink in hand. Ugh. Douchery.

I never understood why people worshipped this guy so much. He seemed like a phony to me. He was a persona. He wanted to be the deep poet and the thug and it all just came across like a fraud on both ends. And now if this sex tape scenario is legit, he will earn the title douchbag in my book as well. You can’t win with me Shakur!

If this sex tape comes out and is set in present day, this is a different story. Then I would take back all I have said and call this man a genius.

Memories: Drunk Girls take on Engagement Ring Financing

I was supposed to be going to Indiana for a mustached themed wedding this weekend. Plans changed and I won’t be able to make it. No big deal, just a friend of my little brother. One of my supervisors at work is on their honeymoon right now and in January, I’m flying back out to the Bay Area for a different wedding in which my boyfriend is best man. For some reason, all these weddings occurring has had people asking me when I will get married. I’m not even engaged so I have no clue why they keep asking.

I’ve been with my boyfriend, Brian, for three years and we’ve talked about it but we’re in no rush. “In no rush” isn’t a good enough answer for most people, I’ve learned.

When we were out visiting the Bay Area in July, visiting Brian’s family and friends, we met his best friends new wife. We were all hanging out at some bar, that another friend is the manager of, every night we were there. I’m not a bar person. I don’t really drink and I don’t usually socialize so I feel like I have no reason to be in a bar. This didn’t stop people from involving me in their rounds of shots all night. Flash forward, and I’m with his friends wife waiting outside the bathrooms in line. This was my first experience with a bar bathroom line…not a fan. Anyways, this drunk girl is standing behind us and asks if we’re going into the bathroom together, because lots of girls do this apparently. I told her I was just keeping her company so she only had to wait for one person to get out. She is sipping a drink and suddenly looks down at it with a bitch face on her bitchface and says “…this isn’t my drink…uhhh” as she puts it down.

Then this drunk girl gets to talking to the wife about marriage and then gets nosy and asks if I’m getting married. “No”, I say. “We’ve talked about it, but we’re in no rush. I don’t think he could afford a ring right now even if we wanted to get married.” I was a little buzzed…and he couldn’t. This chick then says “Well if he could get a good payment plan. I mean, girls like us, we only expect maybe what? An $8-9,000 ring? He could pay it off at at, like, $3-400 a month.” and I just nodded and said “Oh yeah, that’s reasonable.” All while thinking “She has got to be kidding me.” Louis CK does a great impression of girls like this.

Later that night, while my boyfriend was drunkenly puking out of the passenger side of our rental car I told him about this girl and we just laughed. We were in a rich area, but still this girl was ridiculous.

There were a lot of weird experiences with drunk people on that trip. A guy pushed me into the bathroom with my boyfriend saying we needed to make something happen or something like that. Then a different drunk girl, two minutes after meeting her, was telling me about how her uncle molested her and called me a bitch for not drinking, and then she tried hitting on a married guy.

I easily managed to not get drunk, as I never have been, but everyone else apparently needed to be wasted to tolerate my presence. That is my theory.

Zombies Gone Mainstream: Oh the horror!!

I’m pretty much over horror themed characters. Zombies, vampires, werewolves….they’ve all lost their appeal for me. Over the past few years these characters, with the success of Twilight and True Blood and the overblown integration of zombies into all entertainment outlets, has severely dampened their original purpose to scare people. Given I’ve never really found any of these monster movies frightening, I know plenty have and I enjoyed viewing them as things to fear.

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Snoop Dogg can count to 10!

Vampires have always been sort of cheesy, right? Always over romanticized and under focused on the fact that they must drink blood to live. If a vampire were really standing before you today (hopefully not sparkling like a twink) I doubt they would really try to lure you to their grasp and slowly stroke your neck with their fingers, then hiss as they pause momentarily to show teeth. then sink in as you moan like the bike seat in your spin class just made an honest woman out of you. My guess is you would be running for your life with pieces of shit flopping out of the back of your pants and it would all be in vein because he would just turn himself into a bat and fly to catch up with you, land above your head just as you think you lost him, and then he’d leap down and suck blood out of the first part of your body he could get his hands on. Ooooh or he would Ice Truck Killer you ala Dexter and just take you home and drain you of all your blood, throw away the meat. Then he’d just sit home drinking Bloody Mary’s and watching Bravo.

Zombies descent into the mainstream has been the most disappointing for me. I love zombie movies. So many great ones! The original Night of The Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Stacy, Evil Dead, Cemetery Man, My Boyfriends Back and so on. So much win. Zombies were always good for a serious horror film, a fun horror film, an occasional comedy…zombies were just fun. Now, like a good song that you can’t stop playing, they are just played out. We need to stop. There are zombies in my video games, zombies vs vampire episodes of Deadliest Warrior, zombie plush toys, zombie tv shows, Rob Zombie thinks he should be allowed to direct movies. Too many zombies! Give it a rest. There has to be a limit to the madness. Yes “Moar Braaiiiinnnzzz” is splendid and fun to say but why now? Why not all this zombie appreciation since the stories of them existed in voodoo mythology? Or when they first started making movies of them in the early days of film? Why now? Because there is a band wagon and it must be jumped on, that is why. This band wagon needs to stop picking people up and start running them over, the let it’s passengers jump out and eat their brains.

Sidebar: I wish they would re-release Weekend at Bernie’s back into theaters, but this time market it as a zombie movie.

I get it. It’s being fed to you and thus you are eating it up. I don’t want to hate zombies, I’ve loved them since I was a very very young child sneaking out of bed, after my parents were asleep, to watch Tales From The Crypt and random late night horror movies on Showtime and HBO. You people are taking my dear, dear, disturbed childhood away from me and turning it into an extra expansion of your favorite video game.

End movie snob rant.