Thing of the Day: Other People

Several of my wonderful followers (bored friends whose Safari won't let them download StumbleUpon) have furiously g-chatted me inquiring as to why I haven't been blogging (hi, KR, roomates, my ginger goddess, and fratstars who drunkenly revealed that you read my blog). The truth is, as I have repeatedly told them, that life was very interesting when I was frolicking around Europe in the spring, and moderately interesting when I was eating and drinking my way through Manhattan this summer, but now that I have returned to the dirty south, considerably less blogworthy things have happened to me. Not that I haven't been having fun--daytime drinking, eating on the meal plan, costumed frat parties and going to the same 4 bars every night have kept me wonderfully content and entertained, they just provide poor content.

So, since I am doing nothing worth reporting (short of attending the Tennessee State Fair on Sunday and consuming thousands of calories of white trash, funnel cake, hush puppy, and cheese fries. It's hard being a vegetarian at southern state fairs. Also, Tennessee is the 6th fattest state in the country. Also also, this weekend's television was phenomenal. 100 OH-MY-GOD points for Mad Men. 75 I-think-I-am-really-going-to-like-this points for Bored To Death. About 25 of those because it's filmed in Park Slope (!)) I will focus on the wonderfully reportable things happening to the 6billion + people who are not me. Because sometimes its' nice to pay attention to other people. Courtesy of Twitter.

1. Marilyn Manson has swine flu. Hahahahahaha.

2. Instead of curing cancer, preventing the spread of HIV, or at least swine flu , the world has engineered a smoke-less cigarette. Said cigarette is now being given to passengers on Ryanair flights. For a fee, of course, since Ryanair flights legitimately charge passengers to go to the bathroom. My own experience with Ryanair has been limited and considerably unpleasant--8am flight from Copenhagen to Prague, meeting a friend without a Blackberry arriving from Italy, full bladder, 4 Euro charge for water--however, I think it would definitely have been augmented if I could buy smokeless cigarettes and "smoke" them aboard.....NO. Ryanair. World. Wtf. This invention might be more useless than Kindles. The whole fun of cigarettes is SMOKING them. This is like inventing a macaroni and cheese pill or something. "All the calories, none of the taste!" I think I might start a stupid inventions feature on this blog. Thus far: Kindle, smokeless cigarettes, Blackberry Bold, Katherine Heigl. Stay tuned. But speaking of Katherine Heigl, Grey's Anatomy THIS THURSDAY (Sneak peek first five minutes)! Will I sit through an hour of you pouting and being a poor actress to watch hot doctors eye f*ck? Yes.

3. This one actually very much relates to things that are happening to people who are me. My best friend, in addition to writing an artsy and witty and wonderful blog, has published the following article in our campus lifestyles magazine. (For much less exciting but obviously food-related articles by yours truly, click here). For those non-Commodores wondering about my post Europe/New York life, do read. It's very accurate.

4. Since I have no shame about creepily reading complete strangers' blogs, this girl (a DIS Copenhagen study abroad student this semester who I have never met and probably have absolutely nothing/no-one in common with except for Dane Worthington (swoon). This chick is currently blogging for DIS, which is how I found her page, but before that she blogged about her 4 THOUSAND kilometer bike ride from Baltimore to San Francisco for 4K For Cancer. Her description of her journey is amazing--this stranger makes me want to do something considerably more productive than eating food, watching tv, and writing about it. I have been looking for a project and this has further inspired me to really do something. Reports when I actually do.

Hmm. Two of those four things were actually directly related to me. Surprise surprise. On that note,

Things I am looking forward to this week: Girl Talk AND Super Mash Brothers at Vanderbilt, birthday dinners, Girl Scout philanthropy events (little girls + cookies. EEEE), and drinking on boats.

Thing of the Day: Taylor vs. Kanye

Okaaaaaaaay, let's talk Taylor vs. Kanye 2009.

But first, let's talk Sunday night television. Namely, Mad Men GOOD and True Blood BAD. Mad Men. Awesome. Loving Betty Draper's Demerol-induced hallucinations (but really, AMC, Demerol is alledgedly the drug that caused the King of Pop's untimely death...couldn't you have just given her morphine?), loving aggressive/slutty Peggy, loving obnoxious ice-cream sundae eating Roger. Done and done. True Blood--I've got to say I'm a little disappointed in HBO. Not "oh-my-god you forgot to bring the alcohol" flat out shocked but "oh boo, did you forget chasers again?" dull disappointment. The second to last episode before the season finale was amazing. The last scene with Tara and Lafayette dancing around the pulsating evil egg (trying to recap an episode of True Blood to non-watchers is even wierder than trying to recap an episode of LOST) really had potential--but come on, season finale. The egg didn't even hatch! It was just supposed to be licked. And in the end I found myself feeling almost bad for Maryann, black heart and all. But the good news is that Bill Compton looks fairly out of the picture, which opens up all sorts of Sookie/Eric sexual storylines. Yessss.

Moving on. T.Swift vs. K.West: The Ultimate Showdown. Let's discuss the VMAs in general. First of all...Russell Brand as a VMA host? Could you be more obnoxious? Rhetorical question. You could not. Russell Brand was funny for 10 minutes in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and really should have taken the opportunity to quit while he was ahead. Penis jokes aren't funny anymore, young chap.

Second of all...Lady GaGa. I take back everything I said about you being too bizarre to be awesome. Unfazable NewYorker that I am, I am rarely shocked by anything that happens onstage--but Miss GaGa's performance on Sunday night was fabulous. True, she looked like she was possessed and may have lost a considerable amount of the sex appeal she had left, but she was phenomenal. Who else can put on a show like that?

Third of all...the Janet Jackson Michael Jackson tribute dance. It must be said that JJ was about .25 seconds behind all of MJ's screened moves, but the tribute was touching and she looked great.

And finally--Tahlor and Kanye. Upon first watching Kanye's antics, I felt horrible for Taylor Swift. Truly Carrie-blood-at-prom awful. The poor girl looked like she was going to cry. But then several things happened:

1)Her performance in the subway cars/on an NYC taxi. I know for a fact that Taylor Swift filming in a subway must have caused terrible subway traffic and subsequent delays. As an avid subway rider, I also know that this certaintly ruined several thousand of New Yorkers transit plans for a considerable period of time. Taylor--WTF. And furthermore, what are you doing standing on a New York City taxi? How did you get up there? I'd like to achieve that feat of acrobatics while "singing live." And do you know how many streets you were blocking with your antics? Woman, the city is gridlocked, couldn't you have used a damn set?

2)Her acceptance speech. When Beyonce won video of the year and pulled Taylor on stage to give her speech, the astonished teenaged, instead of thanking her parents, her friends, her label, God (cmon girl, you're a country singer), chose to thank all of her fans on Twitter and Myspace. Tayloooorr. Your fans on Twitter and Myspace? You're certaintly pretty enough to have real friends outside of the internet realm. Why not thank them? Get off the internet, chica.

3)It has to be said...Beyonce's video was significantly better than T.Swift's. As someone who spent a considerable amount of her Friday morning hangover sitting in the dark, eating cheez-its, and watching "You Belong With Me" on repeat, I can say this with no guilty feelings--that video is just not that good. First of all, there is no romantic development. How does this dude end up at senior prom all of a sudden in love with nerd-Taylor? And how did he think of bringing the "I Love You" card? Second, Brunnette-cool-Taylor isn't portrayed as nearly evil enough. Why would she be left for nerd-Taylor at prom of all places? And third, come on, it's 2009, the "I Love You" cards are entirely superflous, these three hornball teenagers would have been BBMing for the entirety of the video if it had any intentions of actually resembling real life. I do like the line "She's cheer captain and I'm in the bleachers" though.

4)I can't believe there isn't more of this idea out there, but has anyone considered the possibility that this is all just one huge publicity stunt? After all has been said and done, Taylor's booking The View, Kanye's booking Leno, Queen Beyonce reigns supreme, everyone feels bad for poor little teenager, and hell, K. West can be as big a jackass as he wants, as long as he keeps making music, people will keep buying it. This is the man who accused President Bush of hating black people. He can clearly do no wrong by his fans. Meanwhile, the VMA ratings are up 17%, and MTV is racking in reruns galore. Can we say conspiracy theory? I for one wouldn't count it out.

Not much on the schedule for this week except for phone interviews, on campus interviews, career fairs, interest meetings, a whole lotta business casual and attempts to get a real-person job for next year. Come on, major TV networks...please purchase The Daily Bogo for a reality TV show? I promise to out-LC LC, out-Whitney Whitney and out-Kristin Cavallari that biatch. I can't say anything about being as obnoxious as Heidi, but show me the contract and chances are, the morals will fly right out the door.

Thing of the Day: Taxis

Things I dislike: cab drivers who do not have change for really small bills. What the f? How can a cab driver, a person who by profession picks you up, drives you to a location, accepts your payment, and does virtually nothing else (except perhaps the rare breed of excellent cab driver friend--that which consoles you when you are intoxicated and sad, tells you stories of their homeland, blasts pop music and allows you to smoke out the window while encouraging you to find Jesus), not have change for a FIVE dollar bill? This morning, I hopped into my usual Allied Cab, prepared with Starbucks and cab cash (for those of you who do not go to Vanderbilt--cab cash: a genius Vanderbilt University invention that allows you to charge multi-colored Monopoly money to your student account and then pay cabs with this "money") to go to my internship. $6.90 later, I arrive at my destination, hand the driver two cab cash fives, and ask for two dollars back. To which he responds, "Oh, no, I do not have change." SIR. Are you joking. How is it possible for you not to have TWO DOLLARS in change? I may be gullible and impatient, but I was not about to let the scheming no-change driver keep my ten dollars. So I sat at the corner for at least a full minute, scooping dollar bills, quarters, and even dimes out of my purse. I would have considered this a low point had I not found a twenty dollar bill neatly stuffed behind my ID card in my Blackberry case (on this note, I think I am going to start hiding monetary surprises in all of my belongings for such low-point situations). I paid the man, got out, and am now left with a sense of disappointment in Nashville cabbies, impressment (word?) with the amount of money I found in my purse/pockets/Blackberry case, and reminiscent of cab rides past.

So, despite the fact that I love and miss my subway commute and will always be a huge and devoted fan of public transportation, a list of my favorite cab experiences to date. In no particular order.

-Last week, on my way back to campus from my internship, an Allied Cab driver asked me if my weekend plans included church. When I explained to him that I was Jewish, he enquired politely whether Jewish people a)go to church, and b)believe in Jesus Christ our Saviour. My answer of "no" really didn't strike a pleasant chord with this man, who then turned abruptly and demanded I explain how I think we all came to be in the first place and do I believe in anything and don't Jews go to "Jew Church?" After five minutes of explaining/arguing the Big Bang theory in broken English, he accepted my cab cash, hugged me, and encouraged me to find God as soon as possible. Then he gave me his card.

-This summer, en route to meet a friend for cheese fries at 3am, I got into a yellow cab and explained to him that I had no money and really high heels, so if there was any way he could just drop me off at Pomme Frites and call it a night, I would really appreciate it and be sure to send good Karma wishes his way. He did. And waited outside while I entered the glorious french fry establishment to make sure that I was okay.

-Last spring in Rome, when my friend Geneva and I took a cab from the airport to our hotel in Campo di Fiori, the cab driver used the hour-long ride as a guided tour to the city, taking us past all the major monuments in the city and explaining their origins, history, and key details. He then dropped us off at our hotel and recommended a restaurant on the corner that served giant glasses of boxed wine with massive portions of pasta for 8Euro per pasta/wine dish. I believe we got two each. And then free tequila shots which Geneva's friends requested in Spanish, because "they don't really care what language you speak if you're pretty."

-Not a single experience but does anyone remember the Disco Cab? It used to drive around campus freshman and sophomore year decked out in strobe lights, Mardi Gras beads, and surround sound blasting the lastest hits and allowing you to cram as many people as you wish into it's comfy leather seats. I believe our record was 14 girls in two rows of seats, with two crammed into the front, loudly singing/screaming "I'm bossyyyyyyy" while en route to Bar Car. Ugh, on that note, does anyone remember Bar Car?!

-Last winter in Copenhagen, when a cab driver allowed me to not only stop for a gyro (oh, the pre-vegetarianism days of smoked meats, assorted sausages, prosciutto by the slice, greasy fried chicken and onion-ring smothered steaks...despite almost taking a bite out of a tailgate hotdog this weekend, I have held out for almost four months now and feel great about it), but proceeded to let me eat said gyro in the front seat while discussing the Danish system of socialism, universal healthcare, and free education and its' many benefits over the American system. He was a really young and attractive cab driver (due to the Danish system of socialism, 20-somethings often hold jobs they never would in the United States), and I gave him my Danish phone number. I'd like to think that I gave him the wrong number, or perhaps he was just playing me like a fool, but I never heard from Sven(?) again.

-The time in high school where my best friend Rachel and I sat in the backseat and dangled our feet out of opposite windows while our driver stopped at every red light to pray over the wheel--upon third or fourth prayer we realized that in addition to being a religious fanatic, our cabbie had NO FINGERS on one hand. I miss high school.

Off to a delicious lunch at Cantina Laredo with the roommate. We will be driving ourselves, thank you very much.