Do you know any male chauvinist pigs?

Ladies – which means all of my readers except for maybe 2? – do you know a male chauvinist pig? Are you often surprised when you encounter one? You know what I mean right? A guy who never *says* anything really wrong, but just makes your skin crawl and delivers the message through body language and facial expressions and tone of voice that you just don’t matter because you are a girl. They know The Lines they shouldn’t cross, but at the same time it is pretty clear they do NOT consider you an equal. In some ways they cover this by being TOO nice – too polite – too complimentary. Stopping mid sentence to say “Oh, you know you look very nice today” with a smile that is just too bright and a squeeze of your arm – coming from someone who really doesn’t know you well enough to be making that gesture. Then completely cutting off the conversation as one of his buddies walks up and turning away from you with nary an apology, or maybe a very muffled one thrown over his shoulder. No guilt over that since he gave you a compliment right? Acting impatient when you ask for a favor quizzing you about why you need to do that, then 5 minutes later going out of his way to help out another fellow board member who is male without question. Never truly giving you his full attention (something you realize after running the tapes of every conversation you’ve had with him through your mind after the latest cut off/distracted discussion). Yet he gives a dad on his team his undivided attention as you stand by dutifully waiting for him even though he knows you have to leave. I’m no raging feminist but I can also tell when I am being dismissed due to my gender.

Oddly – I know two guys like this. Both my age too. I think in some ways I could understand if it was someone from an older generation. But now? C’mon! It’s 2009! Really?

And there’s nothing I can do about it since they *dont* do anything overtly wrong. Instead I just smile real pretty and count down the days until I don’t have to deal with them anymore.

Concert etiquette and how do you make those videos?

As I slowly return to reality post-concert, it occurred to me that I need to rant a bit about something I kind of glossed over in my long concert review. This concerns concert etiquette. Here are some things that are sure to set me off if you are around me at a concert:

• Drinking
• Eating smelly/loud foods
• Talking
• Moving up and down the aisles 85000 times due to said drinking.

Seriously, why pay those exhorbinant ticket prices if you are not even going to pay attention? Oh sure, plunk down $75 for the crappiest seats, then go buy $12 nachos and $15 beers and sit there and munch out as if you were at a ball game, then go back for more beer (or wine as the women in front of me were doing), and garlic fries. Then get up and go to the bathroom, then get more to drink.  Oh, maybe have some candy which you break into very loudly. Meanwhile other than the 10 minute intermission they had during the concert, you’ve missed like 1/4-1/3 of the very fast paced show and probably at least one person’s entire SET in order to eat and drink. Of course, after 3-4 drinks it gets harder and harder to navigate those stairs doesn’t it? So on that last beer run you spill. The WHOLE container. Down the steps. So that anyone going up or down after you gets to slip and slide in it. But hey! Don’t alert anyone! Just kick that now empty cup under a seat and scurry on down for a refill (sure hope you hit the bathroom while you were out). Oh, and don’t forget to start one of those LOUD drunk voiced conversations with your neighbor just as the feature act comes out and slows things down into one of his mellow, haunting tunes. Make SURE your voices can be heard for three rows down AND up over the singer! Niiiiiice. Then get up to dance to the next fast song. Fall down! Get up and realize that you cannot really navigate sitting in your seat anymore so just sit on the step in the aisle.

You stay classy San Diego!

I have just never understood doing *anything* at a concert other than singing and dancing and *listening* to the music. I might have a water with me but the last thing I want to do is get drunk so that I cannot remember what I’ve seen, or end up in the bathroom so much that I miss a ton. I just DONT GET IT!

Go ahead and call me the cranky old lady now

As to videos from these shows – can someone explain to me how this was done – really, is it a cell phone? A camera with a video function? And do you stand there holding it up the whole time or are you watching the performance through the view finder (somethine else that would diminish the experience for me). Not that I mind the result. I mean – wowza – check out how good this is and the sound quality and, well..those moves!

more about “Adam Lambert, Bowie Medley, Glendale …“, posted with vodpod

Let’s talk about SPAM

OK, not that kind, this kind:

Also the kind you get as comments on your blog if you have one. So here’s the discussion – why in the blazes do they spend ungodly amounts of time and money sending out these things? Have you ever really looked at them? Who would EVER bite on these things? Even when they do get through my spam filters, they are so random and poorly written and attempting to sell products I would never buy under any cirucmstances. Often they are not in English as you can tell my tonight’s Gmail account spam bucket. I just think it must be a huge waste to send these out and I knew someone who made a damn good living as a spammer for awhile! I wonder what the minimum number of ‘hits’ needs to be to justify that expense and do they *really* attain those goals?  And I am certainly not sending MYSELF messages? Really, because an email comes from ‘me’ I am suddenly going to read it and purchase the product? Because I really send those messages to myself?? Because seriously, I don’t need viagra. Or collection software. Or to enlarge a certain organ that I don’t even have.

Just one of life’s mysteries that I really Do Not Get.

Hello..hello..hello……..?

I tell ya, if not for blog stats showing me that more peeps than ever are clicking in, over the past month or so I would think that I am largely talking to myself

Now, I could start stomping my feet throwing a hissy fit and such and order you all to “COMMENT dammit!” but that would not be very accomodating. Plus, it would also be hypocritical ’cause I don’t comment very much around town either. And while I write in here mostly to get stuff outta my head and not really for attention..well…a little comment love now and then does not hurt. But you gotta give to get and I realize that I truly need to cut down on the items in my Google Reader. I skim way too much which is just not fair to some really wonderful friends. So this weekend I shall be marginally brutal and cut out some Reader items and also vow to drop at least a comment a day around bloggy land – heck maybe even 2 or 3!

So, here’s a few questions to spark some conversation (hey, if you are on WordPress, have you noticed that we can Reply to specific comments now? Totally cool)

Are you watching American Idol? If so, dare I ask what you think of Adam? I’ve been playing on another site where they discuss Idol and I am floored a bit by the Adam hate and blase opinions about him. I keep joking that you might as well call me Paula because I absolutely melt when he sings. I’ve bought all his Idol songs and listen to them at least once a day. Mad World and Tracks of My Tears are my favorites and I suspect that If I Can’t Have You will move up to the top. Yes, I do prefer his slower stuff as Simon predicted – that man is always right! I figured out this week why I love Adam so much though – he reminds me of Steve Perry. Same vocal range and same ability to get into a song inside out and pour his soul into it.

I described the last 5 contestants like this: 3 boring white guys who can sing, but otherwise are a dime a dozen (Danny, Kris, Matt with Kris as the best of that group), 1 gay glam rocker who is one of the best entertainers ever on the show (Adam) and one Latina teen rocker who is a firecracker of vocal ability (Allison). Can you tell I want it to come down to A vs A? What do you think of the Top Five?

Are you a sports fan at all? I love this time of year when baseball is getting started and hockey and basketball are in their playoffs. Tons of fun to watch. I’m rooting for the west coast hockey teams (Sharks & Ducks). I will root against the Lakers as long as Kobe is on the team so, I’ll root for the young MVP who has proved to be a stand up guy – Go Cavs! And of course, my baseball team is the Padres who are off to a rather miraculous start. We are going Saturday night with a group from work to get ourselves an old school 1969 jersey. The Padres are celebrating their 40th season all year with some really nice give aways.

Can you even believe I am going to work out with a personal trainer on Saturday?!! I go to an old friend’s 40th b-day party last weekend and end up with a damn trainer! Heads may have to roll It’s actually a group session and the trainer *assures* me she can handle a total work out wimp who should best be described as ‘couch potato’ at this point. Have you ever worked out with a trainer? Do you love it? Hate it? Why?  And will you give me mouth to mouth when I pass out? ;->>

The media – GAH! Or, maybe it’s the people watching?

*Note – my own life is rather incredibly routine at the moment so putting the spotlight on others is just way more interesting *

I saw this tag line on Politico today during lunch: “Going gray’s just fine, man” and I immediately knew it was a write up on Howard Fineman.

Why? Because while watching him yesterday on Hardball I noticed that he has been letting himself go gray.  This picture shows him before – I searched and could not find a recent one with the gray more prominent. Actually I noticed it a few days ago on Countdown when he and Keith were side by side and it kinda looked like Keith’s natural gray (which I love) was bleeding over onto Howard. And I like it. I wrote once about how I love gray hair and will not be coloring over mine. So when I see TV stars/personalities letting their gray show I tend to notice. But, it was just something I *noticed* – not something I freaked out about which prompted me to start emailing or blogging about the hair color change.

Freaked out about you say? Blogging about it you say? Emailing the man himself over it? Yeah – check out this part of the posting from Politico:

Perfect strangers, we hear, go up and talk to him about it. If you Google “Howard Fineman” and “hair,” 30,500 hits pop up.

Fineman told Shenanigans, “I’m letting my hair go gray — duh — but it grows slowly. I attribute [last week’s] particularly disconcerting look on ‘Hardball’ to two factors: I drove around town with the top down on my old convertible, and I read the hair-raising details of the stimulus package. By the way, nothing I’ve ever said, reported or written over the years has generated as much comment as the Hair Transition, which says a lot about the power of television and, I guess, the importance of what I have said, reported and written.”

(emphasis mine)

Agree or disagree with him, this is a very well respected political correspondent. The Chief Political Correspondent for Newsweek magazine and someone who has interviewed every President since 1984. And it’s his HAIR COLOR that has people talking about him?????

I would love to blame this on what is an easy to pick on shallow media, but from that Google stat and the feedback he is getting from what must be much more than just reporters, I now have to just put it out there – perhaps the media is shallow because the VIEWERS are shallow?? Maybe that’s all they really want? Is this a which came first question? Did American dumb down the media by only demanding and responding to fluff? Or did the media dumb us down by only feeding us fluff?

Well?

And yes I realize that I will be adding to the Google stats with this post.

Patience & curves

The day has not gone as planned. There have been some…curves Which required a lot of patience. Which I don’t tend to have tons of on hand most of the time. It all started Thursday night when sometimes during the last 30 mins of Gray’s Anatomy, the internet went gablooe. It had been going along fine all night, then was just done. Music Man has the modem and router in his room and he tried resetting everything with no success. I went to bed and asked him to just try again while I was at work on Friday. Well, no luck. So once dinner was done last night I got on the phone with tech support for the cable company. Which has always been quite good here (knock wood, but really it has!). I’ve had this same cable modem service for nearly 12 years and it’s been very very reliable. Anyway, an hour on tech support trying multiple things (thank gawd for blue tooth so that I had both hands free to tackle it!) pretty much resulted in confirmation that the signal was fine, it was the modem and/or the ethernet cable that had fritzed. Thankfully they have Saturday in store hours and would be open at 9am so I could get over there and switch it out and hopefully get back online before leaving for Sports Boy’s baseball tournament in LA. Meanwhile though, I felt so out of sorts!! Here it was the night before a tournament with rain already messing things up for sure and my only connection (and thank gawd for that) was my Blackberry. Which also was not acting normal! Messages and my phone log were wiping themselves clear as soon as I hung up or read them. It was so frustrating!! I finally traced *that* problem back to when I had downloaded the Twitterberry app earlier this week so I deleted it and got my phone back to normal (phew!) Then around 10:45pm I get the message that there will be no games today. We’ve been pushed off to Sun/Mon instead. Which means that today opened up for me to deal with these technical difficulties. For some reason my brain took that to me today was kind of a ‘free day’. Unplanned time had opened up. And I felt like being productive. So I did all those chores that build up that are kind one offs which are annoying but not necessary.

Got the new modem (ok, THAT was necessary to get my heart beating back in rhythm!)

Went to the tailor – I’ve had clothes that needed hemming/mending piling in my room for 6 months. With a tailor right next to the dang grocery store and dry cleaners! Oh, went to the dry cleaners too

Laundry (ok, that’s not a one off..but I am doing it earlier than usual for a weekend)

Cleaned out a corner of the garage and dropped off electronic waste to a new e-cycle center than opened up just 5 mins away.

Took SB in for a buzz.

Went to AT&T store to change account settings for MM’s phone and SB’s. Looked at iPhone again…naah, not my style…drooled over Blackberry Bold. Drooled. Wanted. Badly. But we have this bad habit in my family of *needing* replacement phones before the plan is due for a free upgrade. And it just so happens that my mom lost hers this month and already had it replaced. So I would have had to pay out the *nose* for the Bold today. I asked the guy when my plan would reset so that I could get the cheaper price…Aug 3. Aug 3 huh? Less than 6 months. I can wait. I just need some….

Oh yeah, and apparently everyone is having pizza for Valentines Day so again, with the day changed around rather than being out with the baseball team, tonight I will order in some pizza. Because clearly I am a slave to the power of suggestion when it comes to food this week!

Is there some holiday this weekend?

Ohhhhhhhhhh!

OK, I kid a little. My Sweet Prince has done an excellent job over the years with this holiday. Roses (both live plants and the cut flowers), jewelry, teddy bears – all very lovely things. But by and large I do tend to look at this as a huge gretting card industry endeavor. Because couples should do thoughtful things for each more frequently than once a year for sure.

The real pressure though, is the dinner out. No matter what day of the week it falls on, finding a restaurant to celebrate is something you better have though of in January. Otherwise you wont be having dinner until after 9pm – I know this from experience But this year it is a Sat night. Prime dinner out night as it is. Since I am really not all that wrapped up in this particular holiday, I was happy to give SP a rain check on the dinner scene. I would much rather spend a quiet, slow dinner at a nice restaurant two weeks from now than the rushed affair that will be tomorrow night as every place tries to maximize seating and turn around. Thank you, no. And if you have kids, how the devil do you find a babysitter for a Sat night V-day?

So what will I really be doing tomorrow night? Well, weather permitting, SportsBoy and I will be up in LA for a baseball tournament. His last game of the day should end around 6:30 or so. Meaning that 12 families will be heading out at prime dinner time to find a place to eat. On a Sat night. Which is Valentines Day. I’m thinking that the fast food craving I had earlier this week will be satisfied! I mean, where else are we all going to go?

And I do have to say that if I cannot have a nice, quiet, romantic dinner with SP, then spending it with SB and the baseball families is probably the next best thing right now

So what are all of you doing? Will it meet the standards of romance that everyone thinks it will be? Or will your night be a little more reality based like mine?

Oh, and lest you think I am too cynical to enjoy the holiday – this was delivered to me earlier as a bit of a bribe for some work that was dropped off with it . Heck yeah,  I am always happy to partake in the special treat part of the day!

Can insomnia be in the air?

I had the oddest insomnia Sunday night. Yeah, Sunday night – right before going back to work after 12 days off. Figures eh? You don’t have sleep interruptions when you can actually sleep in or take a nap. No, you get it the night you finally have to get back to work! Of course. Now, some would suggest that may have been the reason right? But honestly, I don’t think it’s happened to me before. And also quite honestly while I did wail about the enc of the break with everyone else, deep down I am a creature of routine and being back on the more typical schedule was fine with me. No way there would be a subconsious issue with returning to work. I’m weird that way – would lose more sleep over a lack of routine than not

But it was an odd insomnia. Definately not stress related. I’ve had that kind. Something on your mind that just wont settle. For me, I can get to sleep, but then I sleep lightly and when something wakes me up (usually older son coming home), I can’t fall back. It also wasn’t caffiene. That can do a number on me if I have too much over several days or have something like a soda after 5pm. Yeah, very sensitive to it! But then, I would have been tossing and turning with my heart racing. It wasn’t like that at all. No, it was that after MM woke me up around 2:30, I was just..awake. Not restlessly at all. I just was lying there as if asleep, but not. And I could focus on slowing down my breathing and emptying my mind..but it didn’t make anything happen! It was so odd. I didn’t feel like actually getting up and reading or surfing the ‘net or watching tv. It was almost a limbo state. Just lay there, eyes closed, but not asleep. Very odd. Of course I fell into a deep sleep at 4:45 or so with the alarm going off at 6! Argh.

I would have thought nothing of it (slept totally fine from 9:30-6:00 last night!), except that I noticed a local friend twitter about insomnia. Then another. Then this morning the radio show I listen to talked about not sleeping in the last couple of nights. All of them mentioned something like I had. Just an odd state of being awake for no good reason! Hmmm…so it made me wonder, can there be something in the air in San Diego keeping us from sleeping? Just like a high pollen count causes sinus issues and allergies? Did someone throw a lightly caffienated powder in the air? What would impact and entire city’s circadian rythym like that?

Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm.

When did I develop ADD?

These musings stem from a conversation that started in Austin with my sweet roommate MissMusicNerd. She opined that these days everyone has some form of ADD. That the world has become so fast paced it is the only way we can keep up. So I started paying attention (hah, get it?) to how my days unfold to see what is preventing me from focusing on one task as completely as I would like. Because I really do struggle with that now, which is so opposite of how I have been historically. I was a good student in school. I could read assignemnts and take notes and write papers in one sitting. Sure, I would muddle around getting started sometimes. Look for something else to *keep* me from doing the school work – you know, such as scrubbing the oven because that seemed easier! But once I got my butt in place, the work got done. My focus was right on. Shoot, I went into accounting because I do did have the patience to tick and tie lines and lines of data. Now? Hah!

Of course the obvious answer is the internet right? Seems like it, but we’ve had it here at work for over 12 years and it is really only in the past 3 years or so that I feel I am utterly unable to focus. No, for me it is Firefox that began my downfall. Firefox and tabbed browsing. Oh, those magical little tabs. Calling me constantly. DailyKos! CNN! MotherTalkers! Facebook! Twitter! My blog! All of YOUR blogs on the Google Reader! Click me click me click me! ARGH! Oh yeah, then there is that one over there that says “Peoplesoft”. BORING. All it takes is a few *seconds* of down time – a page taking long to load, a process running, a report running and I am GONE. 15 mins later I remember that I was running that budget report and oh yeah, it’s probably done now!  Now, it’s not like I read a full article in that 15 mins. Oh no. I probably clicked 5-10. Because I could not possibly read through more than one or two paragraphs! Not online anyway. I can still sit and read papers or magazines or books without problems. Wait, not true. I do find myself going back and re-reading things a lot because I didn’t absorb it the first time through when I read non-fiction. Because when I am reading paper stuff, my brain still wants to drift over to what else I *should* be doing or planning for or making sure everything is on my schedule. Ack!

When things are really demanding at work, I can shut it off. I can ignore the tabs and the blinking red light on my blackberry and get to it. Tune out the emails, let the phone go to voice mail. I really can. But then, when I do? Like this afternoon from about 1:00-3:30 when I really bore down and got through a bunch of reconciliations and reports? Then I finally click over to one of the sites and find out that I am LATE in hearing some Really Big News of some kind. Today it was Keith Olbermann on DailyKos announcing that Rachel Maddow is getting her own tv show on MSNBC. By the time I clicked into that diary there were over 700 comments. Crap!!! Now, was work more important? Of course. I know that. But when you do have so much information at your fingertips all the time, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve missed out if you are not responding within the first hour.

OTOH, I think I needed to be more ADD I needed to learn how to multitask without freaking out. Know that it is OK to stop and do a quick task to help someone out without getting irritated. And those little tabs can be productive too. Like this morning when no less than 5 people did some Really Stupid Things that I had to fix immediately or The World Would End (or some such drama) and I was able to bang out my irritation on Twitter and send it out to my sympathetic friends and then handle The Stupids with a smile on my face.

Oh, and on the subject of distractions – Mr Obama, could you please just announce your VP already so that I can stop obsessively checking every single time my phone buzzes with a text message? kthxbye.

To do To do To do To do To do*

While sitting at my parent’s desk doing their taxes last week, I noticed that my dad keeps a classic To Do list for each day. He has a notepad with a list of numbered lines with the title “To do for today” or something similar. A great organizational tool to be sure. I know SweetPrince keeps lists like that particularly for his manic weekends of chores. For some reason I have never consistently had a task list. Neither at work or home. Sometimes, if I am feeling particularly overwhelmed with too many things smashing together into one looming deadline, I might parse it all out with a numbered list to feel better about everything. I have a very basic to do list at work for monthly deadlines and some tax filings. Of course I have all the major, ongoing events set up in my google calendar which I can view on my phone, but I am not talking about LL games and such. I am talking about tasks that are purely mine such as “backing up all digital photos to Flickr” or “plant seeds” or “watch Netflix movies” or “clip cats nails” or….well, aren’t those just so darn exciting? But you know what I mean, they are not typical routine chores, but just stuff that you know you should DO. And yes, sometimes I will put something fun like the movie watching thing on my mental list because really they do need to be watched because they are simply gathering dust in the tv cabinet while the monthly Netflix fee goes ca-ching ca-ching out of my account. Yet somehow the list never gets DONE! And it is that list whether in your head or on paper that prevents you from truly relaxing and allowing yourself to just read a book all day. And adding “read a book” does not work either. Now I have “play the piano” on my mental list of relaxing things I should be DOING.

I guess it beats the alternative really. Or maybe this musing is just an indication that I really #$%^ing need a vacation. Where I can relax. And do only the fun things on my list

*This post dedicated to Calvin, owner of the blog name for all obsessive list makers. Hey, with a post like this, I had to give you a shout out!