skip to main |
skip to sidebar
I don’t know about the other states but it feels like McCain and Obama have moved here to Michigan. Every time you open a newspaper you read about a visit from one of the Presidential contenders. They’ve each appeared in our state twice a month since May and Obama is expected back tomorrow.
Is Michigan the hot cheerleader state that everyone wants to date?
No, Michigan is the homely, orphan, blue-collar girl in a teen movie starring Freddie Prinze Jr., and she disdains the snobby rich boys who have nothing better to do but bet on who can make her fall in love with them first. Then, of course, he will dump her. Along the way she gets a makeover and I’m just hoping that when the election is over that Michigan gets to keep the lip gloss and new hairstyle that either Obama or McCain have supplied. Because we could really use it.
Of course now we have another character – the popular prom queen who conspires with one of the rich boys to make the homely duckling into a beautiful swan, laughing behind her back the entire time.
Just put your big glasses back on, Michigan, and give the prom queen back the miniskirt she loaned you. You may have better “natural resources” but she is part of the in crowd and no matter how much they might make you think you are in on the joke, the joke is still on you. And when November is over and they don’t need you anymore they won’t even acknowledge you when you pass by in the hall.
I don’t know how these people caught sight of my abs as I usually hide them under several layers of clothing but this morning there was an email waiting for me all about the Flex Belt – “a truly awesome breakthrough in technology!”
This thing must truly be awesome because that very word is used at least 12 times in the email, and probably hundreds more times on the website that I didn’t visit, being predisposed to hand over cold, hard cash to anything that promises to “do the work for me.”
According to the very tempting email (don’t click on the website, DON’T click on the website) the Flex Belt has achieved 100% results in a clinical trial. Another nice thing about the Flex Belt is that the company doesn’t discriminate – they don’t want just the flabby and lazy to buy their product, they promise even MORE definition to the toned and defined. At last! A way for the fitness industry to get even more money – don’t limit yourself to marketing towards the unfit, make EVERYONE feel inferior for not having a Flex Belt. And I know it will work because as I’m sitting here pretending I have abs of steel I am thinking to myself “I EARNED these abs, and if those lazy SOB’s are just gonna buy a Flex Belt and get toned abs then I’M going to buy one too and get even MORE toned and they will NEVER catch up! Bwahahahahahaha!”
And I have to give kudos to the copywriter who – in one email – came up with several new and varied ways to stick the word ‘awesome” in. One of my favorites:
We don’t think an awesome athlete and legend like Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers would back the product and use it himself if it didn’t work.
Really? Like Leeza Gibbons really uses that crappy mineral makeup or Daisy Fuentes pops in her Winsor Pilates DVD every day or Jessica Simpson is still using ProActive. I think, if given enough money, even an “awesome athlete and legend” would pimp for the Flex Belt, or even Sansabelt.
Another “awesome” feature of the Flex Belt is the 2-year extended warranty so you can get your belt replaced should anything happen to it…no questions asked. The “no questions asked” part makes me a tad nervous and I can’t help but wonder in what kind of condition Flex Belts have been returned. Usually when a company asks no questions they don’t want you to ask any questions either – especially about the burns on your back.
Further down I am tempted once again to check out the website because of this statement:
The official website it awesome! It is visually stunning and leaves nothing to the imagination which is helpful when purchasing a $199 item.
First, note another creative use of “awesome;” and then the tease of leaving nothing to the imagination - because I can imagine all kinds of people doing all kinds of stupid things with a Flex Belt and can’t help but wonder if the website really shows them all. Especially after they point out that “a lot of people order an additional belt for their spouse so they can wear them together.” I’m guessing that part of the site has an R rating.
It makes me dream of a world where everyone has a Flex Belt and wears it for the required 30 minutes a day five days a week and everyone has toned abs so they are no longer special and the hot new look is flabby abs and muffin tops are back in fashion. And I am considered a goddess!
J. Lo never disappoints, does she? First there was the comment overheard on the set of Good Morning America in August along the lines of “Why is everyone talking about that swimmer? I’M doing a triathlon six months after giving birth; I’m the real athlete here.” THAT SWIMMER being Michael Phelps, of course, who one wishes would slap her around with one of his giant fin-like feet.
Her latest is from an interview in Elle Magazine. She is discussing her pregnancy (didn’t you hear? Jennifer Lopez is the FIRST WOMAN to ever give birth to twins!).
"We came off tour and I said 'I did the Superwoman thing, I finished the tour—now I need you to take care of me. I love doing things for you; if I'm not cooking, then I'm picking out a shirt. But this is the first time in my life where I'm just going to be a little bit selfish.’”
One would hope that she’s speaking to her husband here and not one of her many assistants, though I find it difficult to imagine her picking out her assistants’ clothing. Wait. I actually don’t have a hard time imagining that at all, I’m sure there’s some sort of uniform involved in working for Ms. Lopez. Perhaps her old costume from Maid in Manhattan. But the thing that really gets me is the line:
But this is the first time in my life where I’m going to be a little bit selfish.
I guess that’s compared to the ASTRONOMICALLY SELFISH state she usually resides in. That many rumors about food demands and making hotel staff cry can’t all be fiction or jealousy.
And here’s another thing. I came across a video with some guy interviewing Jen and the trainer from Self Magazine who helped her whip herself into shape (6 months after giving birth!! Don’t forget!) and the guy asked about her babies and she said, “I hated to leave them this morning.”
Is she taking those twins along on training swims, runs and bike rides? ‘Cuz if she’s not then she’s leaving them EVERY FRICKIN’ DAY. And we all know that she fired her nanny so who is watching those kids (who surely must be starting to crawl by now) while she’s out on her 2 to 3 hour training sessions? Is Marc Anthony sitting in a La-Z-Boy wearing headphones turned up to 11 to drown out the wailing sound from the two babes stuck in the playpen?
I think she needs to hire one more assistant whose job is to simply help Jen keep her stories straight. Or not say stupid stuff to reporters.
I can’t believe it’s over.
There was no use pretending to get anything done this morning as I sat glued to my television watching – first – a packed courtroom that had absolutely NOTHING going on except a bunch of people squirming and trying to act like they were NOT trying to be seen on television – then – Christine Beatty catching a minor break and not having to appear back in court until 9/11 (I would have asked for another date, myself) – and FINALLY – Kwame Kilpatrick admitting what we knew all along that HE DID IT (both physically and verbally) and resigning office and getting a sentencing date.
And as glad as I am that it’s over there is one thing I am even more glad about – that I have never pissed off Kym Worthy. She has to be the prettiest pit bull in the metro Detroit area, if not all of Michigan. In her interview after the courtroom scene she started out calmly enough, giving the typical “I’m not going to say anything” statement, but then boy did she start saying stuff! And when some stupid reporter finally asked her “Why a million dollars?” I could see her trying to decide between biting the reporter's head off and spitting it out right there in front of everyone or just putting the reporter on HER LIST.
I would have chosen having my head spewed all over a crowd of reporters then to end up on Kym’s list.
Today is a frenzy of distractions – those Republicans at their convention and the Mayor’s streaming-video-play-along-at-home removal hearing - I hardly know where to begin. But there is something I can’t get out of my head – of course. It’s a quote from Mitt Romney, the President wannabe then Vice President wannabe who apparently thinks that Sarah Palin’s past as an “outdoorswoman” will help the McCain campaign here in Michigan.
Romney said “Anyone who has hunted moose will attract a lot of good hunters.”
Perhaps Mitt Romney HAS been hunting and perhaps the hunters he hung out with were the kind that ENJOYED sitting in the woods and farting with women instead of making them stay back at the cabin and whip up a big meal from the previous day’s bounty but I am the daughter of a hunter and every hunter I have ever met or been related to has insisted that women aren’t allowed in the woods because they talk too much.
And Sarah looks chatty.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she chats about VERY IMPORTANT THINGS but I really can’t see her sitting silently in the woods until a moose gets within range and then slowly and carefully taking aim and firing. I imagine it goes a little like this:
Sarah: Gabe, about that proposal, I am not at all happy with ….
Gabe: Sarah, uh, moose.
Sarah: We have got to get rid of that last section or it’s never going to get passed and I think…
Gabe: SARAH! MOOSE!
Then she whips up her gun, quickly fires – dangerously close to Gabe’s head – and the moose falls and she resumes her conversation.
I love infomercials. I love the bad acting, the over-enthusiastic clapping, the professionals who SWEAR this is JUST LIKE the appliance they use, the dramatic awe…I could watch them for hours. I think I’ve seen them all, so when I caught a new one for a product I hadn’t seen before – Tobi – I was thrilled.
But what a let down.
Basically, Tobi is a clothing steamer and we are supposed to believe that it is the same quality that the clothing retailers and people in the fashion industry use right before they send their clothes down the runway. It’s even portable! Just flip a switch and you can carry that gallon of water around by a strap on your shoulder!! (If you think your purse is heavy, try loading it up with a gallon of water and carting that around the house).
First is the female host, who of course does not believe that there is ANYTHING out there that can save her from the drudgery of ironing. Then comes the footage of women ironing and they are all disheveled like they were in a cat fight while the iron was heating up. Then out bounds the Tobi guy (and bounds is really the only way to describe his entrance) who shows her that with ONE EASY PASS wrinkles just FALL OUT.
He repeated ONE EASY PASS and FALL OUT about 10 times each in the first two minutes before he got the female host to repeat it after him (with the appropriate amount of awe in her voice) and then they proceeded to Tobi all kinds of fabrics and even Tobi’d a square of a plastic garbage bag to show how gentle Tobi is. Why anyone would want to iron their garbage bags is beyond me, but I guess really rich people have to keep their household staff busy somehow.
Then came another benefit – it removes odors! Less dry-cleaning! And I couldn’t help but wonder how much they had to pay the little old lady in the pink lipstick to say “I sniffed it and I really believe I could wear my sweater more than once.” Because while her lips said yes-yes her eyes said NO-NO. It was during this section that I really got distracted because they pulled out a suit jacket that looked like it had been crumpled up in the corner of a frat boy’s room for about a semester and while they Tobi’d it back to life I couldn’t help but wonder if frat boys who have suddenly realized that they have a job interview in an hour and finally find their one suit jacket under a pile of dirty magazines and beer cans in a corner are really Tobi’s target audience. Tobi seems more like a gadget for someone who plans ahead.
Of course I was enticed but I have learned (the hard way) that before I whip out my credit card and start dialing and ordering I should go online and do some checking. So I typed in “Tobi reviews” and about 12 of the 15 I read mentioned BURNS. There were several bits of advice about how to avoid the burns that involved oven mitts or those giant gloves that people who train eagles wear, but unless they are included WITH my Tobi I don’t think I’ll be ordering one soon.
A few days ago I got home from meeting a friend for coffee and my 13-year old daughter, who had been babysitting, asked if she could go to a movie with some of her BFF’s. I said yes because, well, she had been babysitting and school starts next week and I was trying to score Good Mom points. (I believe this is the first time that Daughter has been dropped off at the theater to hang with some friends, but I’ll have to check the records.)
She runs upstairs to call her friends and say she can go and when she comes back down I ask “Which movie?” YES, I realize that this is the FIRST question a GOOD mother would have asked. Especially after Daughter informs me that they are going to see House Bunny.
Yikes. I haven’t done my parental research on House Bunny. It looks pretty harmless – smart girls learn how to wear lip gloss and dumb girl learns how to use a sentence with a noun AND a verb – but it does start out at the Playboy Mansion. My only consolation is that one of the attending BFF’s has a mother who is even stricter than I am and if her kid is going then I’m not going to backtrack and be the Movie Nazi.
I really haven’t thought too much about it until I was flipping through Entertainment Weekly this morning and came to a one-page story on the styling of the girls in House Bunny and saw that Katharine McPhee and Rumer Willis are two of the “stars” of the movie.
Dammit.
I have to be honest. We live in a fairly affluent area; my daughter has an iPod, and a cell phone, and a laptop. And because my husband works in the media our children have been exposed to some pretty decent perks – suites at sporting events, the occasional front row seat at a Disney musical. They are fairly spoiled. But I am NOT ready for the why-can’t-you-get-me-a-part-in-a-movie-or-let-me-audition-for-a-reality-show-so-I-can-have-a-career-in-Hollywood onslaught that movies like House Bunny are sure to elicit.
Why, oh why, do you have to do this, filmmakers? Are there not enough cute Midwestern girls who have quit school and moved to L.A. to work the second shift at Denny’s so they can audition all day to fill your casting requirements? And I can’t even imagine the tension when the actresses are all sitting around between takes, smoking their cigarettes to stay skinny, and one of them asks Rumer how many times SHE had to sleep with the producer to get the role and Rumer says “Uh, none.” At least she had to wear the back brace, which only seems fair.
Posts
